(no subject)
TITLE: Serenity
AUTHOR: dragynflies
PAIRING: House/Cameron
RATING: PG-13 for now
SUMMARY: Your eyes are open in the dark, head turned away from her and it’s all you can do to not roll over and take her in your arms. Tell her it’s going to be okay, that you know and that you’re just as excited as she is, and just as scared.
DISCLAIMER: Not mine. Don’t sue.
Two in the morning. You watch the numbers change, ticking seconds. Allison is in the bathroom, throwing up, and you are quite sure she thinks you’re asleep. Thinks you haven’t woken up every time she’s carefully crawled out of bed, tucking the covers around you so you don’t feel cold in the empty space where her body aligned with yours.
You wonder when she’s going to tell you. You’ve been together for nearly a year, living together half that, and you know her too well. You’re also a doctor and the signs are painfully obvious.
She is padding back to bed now, her footsteps quiet on the hardwood floor and she crawls back into bed, but she doesn’t tuck herself back into the embrace she’d woken up in. Instead, she curls her knees to her chest, wraps her arms around her legs and you hear a soft sniffle.
Your eyes are open in the dark, head turned away from her and it’s all you can do to not roll over and take her in your arms. Tell her it’s going to be okay, that you know and that you’re just as excited as she is, and just as scared.
Her light sniffles go on several minutes, and you can see the shadow against the wall when she raises her arm to wipe her tears away. You want to know what to do, but there’s nothing in the dating handbook on how to handle this situation.
When her sniffles quiet, you think you’ve made the right choice. She’ll tell you when she’s ready. But then you hear a sob and a cough and you can’t take it anymore. You roll over and open your arms; she turns her head when she feels the bed move and crawls into your arms without hesitation.
There is silence, broken by her sobs, and all you can do is hold her, stroking her hair. You suppose you could whisper something comforting to her, but that’s not like you. You don’t know what to say anyway; you settle for kissing the top of her head and rocking her gently.
When she stops sobbing, you ease her away from you enough to take the hem of your t-shirt and wipe her red cheeks. You place soft kisses on her closed eyelids, and smooth her hair away from her brow. She blinks her eyes open at you. They are bloodshot from crying. You kiss her forehead again and pull her close, tucking her head under your chin.
“I’ve known for three weeks,” you finally say, “How long have you known?”
You smooth your hand over her back, comforting. You’re not mad, not really. Except you know she’s been to at least one doctor’s appointment and you’d have liked to be there.
“Four,” she mumbles into your chest. She doesn’t offer any more explanation, so you shift away from her slightly, lifting her chin with a gentle finger. Now that you’re finally going to talk about it you have no idea what to ask so you simply raise your eyebrow and wait.
She sighs, breaking eye contact and staring at the hollow of your throat, “Nine weeks,” she offers. Your hand moves without conscious effort to her flat stomach, and she winces. You kiss her softly, letting your fingers splay out against her belly. You imagine your baby growing; the doctor in you laughs and tells you that it’s not a baby yet.
You don’t care.
“I want a girl,” you say without thought, and her eyes widen noticeably and meet yours again.
“What?” she asks, as though you’ve spoken in a foreign language.
“A daughter,” you repeat, “I think I’d like a daughter.”
“You…you want the baby?” Allison asks, and tears fill her eyes again.
You wrap your arms around her and your heart breaks as it dawns on you that maybe this was why she didn't tell you - it never occurred to her that you'd want a baby.
You wish you had some amazing response to offer, something that would make everything better and make her never doubt you again. But words are failing you for the first time in your life and all you can do is nod, your chin brushing the top of her head.
She is crying again. Tears slide down her cheeks, but they are tears of relief…even happiness, and not the terrible sobs from before. She pulls away from you and takes her book off the nightstand, turning on the bedside lamp before coming back to you. She opens the book and pulls out a tiny square of paper.
“I saw a doctor last week,” she whispers, “I…I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t think you’d want a baby and I didn’t…” she pauses, looking up at you, “I didn’t know how I was supposed to choose one of you.”
You don’t know how to respond to that, so you say nothing. You feel like a horrible excuse for a person right now, to have made her think that you’d leave her because of this, or worse that you’d tell her you didn’t want it. You had never discussed children with her, and you’d assumed that would happen later. Instead, your silence had told her something completely different. You are used to people fearing you, hating you, because of your words, not the absence of them.
You take the tiny piece of paper from her and you look at it in the dim light. You’ve seen hundreds of ultrasounds, but for some reason the tiny white bean shape on this is different. Your finger comes up to touch the picture and you are stunned.
For a moment the only sound in the room is your breathing and all you can hear is the whooshing of air and it feels like you’re falling or flying and you turn your head to look at her. You don’t think you’ve smiled like this ever in your life and you can’t do anything to wipe the grin off your face.
You are utterly amazed at the happiness you are feeling, or maybe it’s the complete absence of hesitation that amazes you. The little white blob on that horribly grainy picture is your child, and you are going to be a father.
Allison is still staring at you, not saying anything, afraid she’ll break the spell that you’re suddenly under. You set the picture carefully on your nightstand and you push her shoulder so that she is lying on her back on the bed. Slowly, you drag the hem of her shirt up, exposing her stomach. She is uncomfortable, shifting under you, unsure what you expect and not used to you stripping her when there is no other focus.
You run your hand over her stomach and you realize it’s not entirely flat anymore and you wonder for a second how you never noticed. It’s not much, just a gentle, barely perceptible curve, but you hold her every night…you should have noticed.
She is still watching you, unsure of what to expect and you surprise her, and yourself, when you lean over and place a gentle kiss right above her navel.
You lower her shirt and lay again next to her, cradling her in your arms. You lay there, together in silence, your brain running a million miles a minute.
You wanted to tell her you were sorry for making her spend four weeks worried she was going to lose you. For making her spend four weeks worried you’d try to back her into an abortion even after she’d made her opinion known to you, worried that this was the worst thing that could happen to the two of you, even after all you had been through together.
You want to tell her you love her, but for some reason those words still stick in your throat, even though she’s told you many times. You usually get away with a “Me too” and she’s never said anything yet.
You glance over at her and realize sometime during your internal monologue Cameron has fallen back to sleep. She looks more peaceful than she has all month and a knot settles in the back of your throat.
You can do this.
TBC?
AUTHOR: dragynflies
PAIRING: House/Cameron
RATING: PG-13 for now
SUMMARY: Your eyes are open in the dark, head turned away from her and it’s all you can do to not roll over and take her in your arms. Tell her it’s going to be okay, that you know and that you’re just as excited as she is, and just as scared.
DISCLAIMER: Not mine. Don’t sue.
Two in the morning. You watch the numbers change, ticking seconds. Allison is in the bathroom, throwing up, and you are quite sure she thinks you’re asleep. Thinks you haven’t woken up every time she’s carefully crawled out of bed, tucking the covers around you so you don’t feel cold in the empty space where her body aligned with yours.
You wonder when she’s going to tell you. You’ve been together for nearly a year, living together half that, and you know her too well. You’re also a doctor and the signs are painfully obvious.
She is padding back to bed now, her footsteps quiet on the hardwood floor and she crawls back into bed, but she doesn’t tuck herself back into the embrace she’d woken up in. Instead, she curls her knees to her chest, wraps her arms around her legs and you hear a soft sniffle.
Your eyes are open in the dark, head turned away from her and it’s all you can do to not roll over and take her in your arms. Tell her it’s going to be okay, that you know and that you’re just as excited as she is, and just as scared.
Her light sniffles go on several minutes, and you can see the shadow against the wall when she raises her arm to wipe her tears away. You want to know what to do, but there’s nothing in the dating handbook on how to handle this situation.
When her sniffles quiet, you think you’ve made the right choice. She’ll tell you when she’s ready. But then you hear a sob and a cough and you can’t take it anymore. You roll over and open your arms; she turns her head when she feels the bed move and crawls into your arms without hesitation.
There is silence, broken by her sobs, and all you can do is hold her, stroking her hair. You suppose you could whisper something comforting to her, but that’s not like you. You don’t know what to say anyway; you settle for kissing the top of her head and rocking her gently.
When she stops sobbing, you ease her away from you enough to take the hem of your t-shirt and wipe her red cheeks. You place soft kisses on her closed eyelids, and smooth her hair away from her brow. She blinks her eyes open at you. They are bloodshot from crying. You kiss her forehead again and pull her close, tucking her head under your chin.
“I’ve known for three weeks,” you finally say, “How long have you known?”
You smooth your hand over her back, comforting. You’re not mad, not really. Except you know she’s been to at least one doctor’s appointment and you’d have liked to be there.
“Four,” she mumbles into your chest. She doesn’t offer any more explanation, so you shift away from her slightly, lifting her chin with a gentle finger. Now that you’re finally going to talk about it you have no idea what to ask so you simply raise your eyebrow and wait.
She sighs, breaking eye contact and staring at the hollow of your throat, “Nine weeks,” she offers. Your hand moves without conscious effort to her flat stomach, and she winces. You kiss her softly, letting your fingers splay out against her belly. You imagine your baby growing; the doctor in you laughs and tells you that it’s not a baby yet.
You don’t care.
“I want a girl,” you say without thought, and her eyes widen noticeably and meet yours again.
“What?” she asks, as though you’ve spoken in a foreign language.
“A daughter,” you repeat, “I think I’d like a daughter.”
“You…you want the baby?” Allison asks, and tears fill her eyes again.
You wrap your arms around her and your heart breaks as it dawns on you that maybe this was why she didn't tell you - it never occurred to her that you'd want a baby.
You wish you had some amazing response to offer, something that would make everything better and make her never doubt you again. But words are failing you for the first time in your life and all you can do is nod, your chin brushing the top of her head.
She is crying again. Tears slide down her cheeks, but they are tears of relief…even happiness, and not the terrible sobs from before. She pulls away from you and takes her book off the nightstand, turning on the bedside lamp before coming back to you. She opens the book and pulls out a tiny square of paper.
“I saw a doctor last week,” she whispers, “I…I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t think you’d want a baby and I didn’t…” she pauses, looking up at you, “I didn’t know how I was supposed to choose one of you.”
You don’t know how to respond to that, so you say nothing. You feel like a horrible excuse for a person right now, to have made her think that you’d leave her because of this, or worse that you’d tell her you didn’t want it. You had never discussed children with her, and you’d assumed that would happen later. Instead, your silence had told her something completely different. You are used to people fearing you, hating you, because of your words, not the absence of them.
You take the tiny piece of paper from her and you look at it in the dim light. You’ve seen hundreds of ultrasounds, but for some reason the tiny white bean shape on this is different. Your finger comes up to touch the picture and you are stunned.
For a moment the only sound in the room is your breathing and all you can hear is the whooshing of air and it feels like you’re falling or flying and you turn your head to look at her. You don’t think you’ve smiled like this ever in your life and you can’t do anything to wipe the grin off your face.
You are utterly amazed at the happiness you are feeling, or maybe it’s the complete absence of hesitation that amazes you. The little white blob on that horribly grainy picture is your child, and you are going to be a father.
Allison is still staring at you, not saying anything, afraid she’ll break the spell that you’re suddenly under. You set the picture carefully on your nightstand and you push her shoulder so that she is lying on her back on the bed. Slowly, you drag the hem of her shirt up, exposing her stomach. She is uncomfortable, shifting under you, unsure what you expect and not used to you stripping her when there is no other focus.
You run your hand over her stomach and you realize it’s not entirely flat anymore and you wonder for a second how you never noticed. It’s not much, just a gentle, barely perceptible curve, but you hold her every night…you should have noticed.
She is still watching you, unsure of what to expect and you surprise her, and yourself, when you lean over and place a gentle kiss right above her navel.
You lower her shirt and lay again next to her, cradling her in your arms. You lay there, together in silence, your brain running a million miles a minute.
You wanted to tell her you were sorry for making her spend four weeks worried she was going to lose you. For making her spend four weeks worried you’d try to back her into an abortion even after she’d made her opinion known to you, worried that this was the worst thing that could happen to the two of you, even after all you had been through together.
You want to tell her you love her, but for some reason those words still stick in your throat, even though she’s told you many times. You usually get away with a “Me too” and she’s never said anything yet.
You glance over at her and realize sometime during your internal monologue Cameron has fallen back to sleep. She looks more peaceful than she has all month and a knot settles in the back of your throat.
You can do this.
TBC?