Beautiful Lies

Summary: My name is Kiera Cameron, and I came here from the year 2067. She lied herself into his heart and refused to leave again. OneShot- Carlos, Kiera.

Warning: Angst. No explicit pairings.

Set: post-02x06, spoilers for 3x02.

Disclaimer: Standards apply.

Kiera Cameron was by no means a tall woman.

In fact, Carlos towered over her whenever he stood next to her. She was of average height, her dark hair falling onto her shoulders softly, her strong features heart-stopping and her dark eyes intense. She wasn't exactly his type but he was objective – and heterosexual – enough to say that she was beautiful. She still was smaller than him, though. It was stupid, thinking of her as tall.

But when she glowered at him like that, he felt like she was looking down on him.

It wasn't only him. She gained height when she fought Gardiner, too, when her dark eyes darkened even more and her voice took on an edge as sharp as a scalpel. When she was angry, or wanted something, or tried to intimidate someone. It made her so much taller Carlos felt like he had to look up to meet her eyes; and it was frightening every time she did it. At the same time, it was… elevating. She was his partner, she was so strong. He had come to admire her dedication and her fire, even when it drove him crazy not being able to see what she saw. She seemed to solve cases by looking at crime scenes and staring at photographs and records. She was strong – he'd seen her fight – she was tough, she was one hundred percent dedicated and she was smart. Her eyes narrowed in a way that was already familiar to him whenever she seemed to draft those crazy theories of hers and the pounding of his heart was proof that he enjoyed finding himself waiting for her conclusions. They always seemed to turn them towards the right direction. Kiera shone like a beacon, bright even in the dimmed atmosphere of the precinct which had been poisoned by Dillan's forced retirement, the search for the Liber8 mole and Gardiner's constant nagging.

Sometimes, Carlos caught himself drawing his strength from hers.

And then she'd come with her craziest idea so far. Being a time traveler and all that stuff – it was so ridiculous he couldn't even laugh it off. It was so obviously a lie he felt like she had cut him open to tear out his intestines. Didn't she trust him one little bit? He'd trusted her, dammit. He'd gone along with her gut feelings and her actions that had demanded explanations she'd never given. He'd trusted her again and again and she threw it into his face just like that. A cop from the future? Hell, yeah. And pigs could fly.

And it explained so much so much and it was entirely crazy and stupid and impossible – and Carlos had turned away from her, dead determined to finally put an end to her endless lies – but not before he saw the way her shoulders sank. She'd still walked out of the bullpen like the strong woman she was. He'd watched her, hidden behind a crowd of others. She'd left and he'd wondered whether he'd see her again. He wouldn't have put it past her to simply disappear but really, what did she expect? Coming to him with such a ridiculous story, how else could he react but by getting angry? She'd been lying to him since they had met. First he had been suspicious and then he'd come to believe her. And then he'd tried to ignore it – she was his partner, she had her secrets and who was he to question her – but now she'd gone too far. Lying to him was one thing. Taking him to be stupid enough to actually believe her twisted tales was something else. And then his conscience had plagued him and he had looked into the matter more closely. Betty had tipped him off and he had followed a lead – good, honest police work without a touch of futurama tittletattle – and there she was. To see Kiera like that, after her near-death encounter with a mad killer, was shocking.

She was so small.

So Section Six actually was an eighteen-year old genius who would change the world. Mysterious contacts actually were one future terrorist and con artist. An old friend actually was a future partner – or past, depending on which direction one looked, Carlos sometimes lost his orientation when he tried to think about it too much – and a string of apparently random theories and suspicions actually were hard facts and proven data. And Kiera Cameron wasn't only a special agent from a government agency so secret nobody knew of it but actually a cop from the future, equipped with pretty mind-blowing tech and knowledge of things that were yet to happen (that had already happened?). Not a too big leap when he thought of it. She still was mysterious and strong and bad-ass and intelligent and beautiful, that hadn't changed. She still had saved his ass a few times – had hers saved by him, too – and she still was a woman who missed her son more than anything. She still talked to herself, disappeared at random intervals to unknown destinations and drew conclusions nobody had even thought of. In that regard, nothing had changed. But Carlos now was able to see the woman behind her façade. Not merely the mother, or the cop, but the core of what she was. And right now she was a scared, exhausted woman who had just survived an encounter with a mad killer and was pleading for him to believe her. It was the simplest thing in the world to wrap her in his jacket and then into an embrace. He felt her tremble in his arms – her frame so small and delicate and wracked with sobs.

Nobody will ever know I existed.

It felt like years had passed since he'd gotten to know the real Kiera Cameron when, in reality, it had only been a few months.

Carlos still remembered the scene so vividly. He could recall it in perfect detail as he stood in the rainy September night now, staring at her cold, white face. This can't be happening. No joke, just pure, cruel reality: she was dead. He was a cop – he'd seen enough lifeless bodies to know how they looked. He could feel her twin's gaze on him: a scorching, dark flame trying to burn him from the inside out. Kiera had called him, asked him to meet her. She was his partner, of course he'd gotten into the car immediately. Drip. Drip. Drip. Rain was falling from the skies, blackening the asphalt, bouncing of the car's hide. Rain was running down, from his hair onto his forehead and into his eyes and still he didn't blink. He felt his partner's gaze on him while looking at the face of a person he knew so well and who would never talk to him again. Kiera's eyes were open, dark ponds in her deathly pale face. She would never look at him again. God, her eyes. They had been grey or blue and every shade in between, depending on her mood. Storm eyes. She would never look at him again, talk to him again, and yet she stood next to him, gazing down at herself with a hardness he'd never witnessed on her before. With a sickening sense of growing dread Carlos realized he already knew what had happened.

He knew who the dead woman was.

"I brought her to you because it is easier to explain."

What was there to explain, Carlos thought numbly. Kiera Cameron was dead. The woman was talking to him has his dead partner's eyes, his dead partner's face. Her voice had the same pitch and intonation his partner's voice had had. Everything was the same in her. But she was alive and his partner wasn't.

"I know you as well as she knew you."

This couldn't be happening. It couldn't. It was too much. Trust me. It was too much she asked for - how could he ever trust her again? Too much. Maybe Kiera could face this two-Alexes-two-Kieras-mess without getting confused. Maybe it was because she had travelled through time already. Maybe it was because she was a cop from the future, or because she was from the future, or maybe because she was simply Kiera Cameron. But Carlos was just a man. Just a human being. For him, time was linear not twisted; a constant, not a variable. For him, partners protected each other and friends did not lie to each other. What he saw that night was proof that he had failed in protecting her, and that she had lied to him again. It felt like she was lying to him even now, even when he knew she was telling the truth. For Carlos, the world had changed with her words – I am from the future – but only now he felt anger. And sorrow. And grief so thick he couldn't even move. His partner had been a strong, wonderful woman who had had her weak moments. But that had only made her more human in his eyes. This new Kiera Cameron seemed more brittle, so much colder. Maybe that was because she had been killed, or something. Maybe that was the way she was. How would he know? He'd only known her for a few days and he hadn't even suspected something. He should know her by now. She'd never tell him the whole truth.

(He refuses to accept that maybe he wouldn't believe her if she did, or that maybe he doesn't believe her even though she has.)

It was too much for a simple human being to bear. The bar was almost deserted at this time of the day. The ice in his glass tinkled softly. Carlos stared at the mirrors behind the bar, not seeing anything. Seeing Kiera in the trunk, so white, so still. Dead. The alcohol was unable to chase away the coldness in his insides; the soothing effects of inebriation did not set in. Instead he felt like he was being torn apart. It was a familiar feeling. He'd already felt it once, when he had thought Kiera had betrayed him again by lying to him. Before she had told him the truth about her. One should have think the pain would have been dulled over time. Strange how pain always managed to reach new levels when you thought you had gotten used to it.

When the bartender informed him that the bar was closing, he wordlessly reached for his wallet and found he was clutching his phone in his left hand. He had been holding it so tightly his fingers were completely and painfully cramped.

Although he continued to hold it in his hand for the rest of the night, she didn't call.