Title: Language of Assembly

Disclaimers: Joe Macmillan doesn't belong to me. Sigh. Neither do the other characters but do I really care about those?

Genre: Traditional SICKFIC. Revenge fic.

Rating: M

Summary: Cameron gets a phone call she didn't expect that changes everything.

Set: Starting towards the end of season 1 finale, though I mess with the timeline of the episode a bit.

Pairing: Joe/Cameron

Note: I believe any Joe Macmillan stan would've reeled and recoiled at Cameron's betrayal, whether shipper or not. Him a footnote? "Exactly the same as you were on the day your mother let you fall off that roof, just a sad little boy"? What the hell Cameron, using his most guarded secrets against him, the secret he only trusted you with! She couldn't go much crueller than that. She reminded me of Phoebe's betrayal of Cole (from Charmed) and gosh, did I write many revenge fics on Phoebe after that! So here we go.

Warning: Major trigger warnings for suicidal behaviours. Do not try this at home to make people feel guilty! In reality it's a really bad idea, it doesn't work and it's not fair on people! But this is fanfic.

Cameron was already grinning when Lev handed the phone receiver over to her maintaining Gordon was calling. "Hey! No hard feelings over Donna, right?" She teased. "And sorry about working her late at night just now, we're kind of onto something, you know how the creative process goes," the programmer justified.

"Cameron."

There was something in Gordon's tone that made the young woman look away from her screen she was typing at all the while she was speaking, holding the handset to her shoulder. She grabbed it with a hand instead now, startled. "Hallo?" She questioned the silence at the other end of the line.

"…It's Joe." The system builder finally spoke. "They said they don't think..They don't know if he's gonna make it," he corrected himself.

"You need to speak," Cameron mumbled, encouraging him despite herself. She knew she didn't want to hear this, she didn't want to know this, but at the same time she had to.

"There was so much blood, god, I don't understand how he can survive this," came the muffled voice as if Gordon was burying his face into his hands, not very helpfully, "never in my craziest dreams did I predict this. We did it, we built a computer just like he wanted it, we succeeded in entering the market, making profit, making history. Why then."

"What happened. In a way that I can understand," Cameron begged, though the dread in her heart was already telling her the answer.

"I wanted to go through the final list of another round of potential people who we were going to employ for the programmer jobs since you took our people, but I remembered I left it at Joe's office so I took the elevator back up. There was nobody else there and the door was shut and I didn't even know if he was in there so I went in and. He was lying on his couch with the arms cut up, blood spurting everywhere, do you know what it means spurting?" Gordon sounded as if he was hyperventilating. "He didn't cut them up at the wrist, you know horizontally like normal people do when they try to commit suicide, oh no, he cut them up vertically up to his damned rolled up sleeves like someone who means it. So I rip out my belt and his and squeeze them round his arms as hard as I can, screaming the place down for help and for someone to call 911 and shouting at him why why why why. And he cries and gabbles at me 'leave it' and why did I come. He couldn't fight me, he didn't have the strength to do that anymore and I held him. I just held him till he went peaceful. He nodded at me thanks before his eyes closed and I held him some more. I did what I could, I really did," Gordon sounded as if he was trying to convince himself.

"But they are trying to save him, right?" Cameron shook with tension, alerting her workmates that something was very wrong.

"Yes, I think so," Gordon allowed, hesitant and dubious. "They've put him on a ventilator and are in the middle of trying to sew up the damage. He's critical."

"Where are you?" The blonde was suddenly sure she wanted to be there.

"Forest Park Medical Center , at the intensive care unit on the fourth floor."

"Alright. Alright, wait there. I'm coming," Cameron was considering whether she knew the route.

"Hold on," Gordon intercepted her imminent disconnecting the line, "can you get Donna here.." He panted, unable to imagine how he will get through the next few hours without his wife.

"Yes. Yes," the young woman was repeating things as if that would help in some way, "we're coming. We're all coming," she promised brainlessly, hanging up, having no idea why she would even assume that anybody else would be interested in joining them.

"Are you all right?" Yo-yo stared at his motionless, bar trembling boss.

"No," Cameron concluded, still not making eye contact. Joe was trying to take his own life, he wasn't in any fashion unserious about it and she had the nagging suspicion that it had something to do with her.

Tbc