Fic: What Remains
Title: What Remains
Fandom: House
Characters: Foreman, Cameron
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Euphoria 1 & 2
Summary: This was his punishment...
Author's notes: No spoilers, this is all au. Hope you enjoy.
She stayed.
Stayed through the tests, the many visits to the MRI room, the neurological consults, the needles, on his arms, his back, his hands. She stayed even when the smell of his father's cologne had faded from the hospital room, when his family stopped calling again, when the few friends he had, convinced that he would be okay, stopped dropping by with flowers and boring magazines. She stayed, and each time that he opened his eyes and saw her there he felt nothing but gratitude and pure agony.
He hated her.
Hated the confident smile on her face each time that she announced good news about his condition, hated her long, thin fingers comforting, hanging on to his arm whenever a painful test needed to be performed. Hated her visits, hated her telling him what House and Chase were up to, hated her talking about the latest patient scribbled on House's white board as if nothing between them had happened.
But he hated her even more when she left, when he woke in the middle of the night and instead of finding her, sitting next to his bed, he found nothing but empty space. He hated the graveyard nurse, because even though her words were warm each time she had to drive a needle into his skin, her words were nowhere near as comforting as the thin, long fingers he'd grown so dependent on.
He hated himself.
Hate each time Chase showed up and he found himself asking for her, how she was doing, and has she said anything?
Chase would look at him and smirk slightly, condescendingly. "No, she hasn't."
He'd watch as blood was drained out of his body, trying not to think, trying to think too much, trying to erase the look on her face from his memory but as fate would have it, the damaged part of his brain held no memories of her, and so she stayed in his mind even when self-control didn't.
Most days he told himself to forget. Most days it seemed plausible. She said she forgave him. She said it while he drifted into a coma, and said it again a few days later. She said it, but he didn't believe it. Even Cameron, whose faith in humanity surpassed her greatest expectations, couldn't forgive that easily. She'd said the words, he'd drag them out of her, but the words were insipid. What he'd done warranted no forgiveness. He knew that. He hoped she didn't.
As a doctor, he'd found people reacted to near death experiences in a myriad of ways. Most, as everyone knew, embraced life fiercely. Others embraced caution, were enveloped by fear, lived each day in a bubble, praying it would not burst.
Foreman couldn't figure out which category he fell into.
He was certainly glad to be alive, and he found a certain type of happiness each day he realized he really might make it to old age. He found nature beautiful, relished in the soft caress of the wind every time he walked out on the street. He found tears swelling in his eyes whenever his mother called, on her lucid days, when his brother showed up out of the blue, when he met his 2-year-old niece for the first time, when he thought that some day, maybe, he would be able to hold his own child...
And yet...
He supposed it had something to do with her, with her smile, with her empty words, with his hatred, with his dependence on her, and her presence, and her long, thin fingers.
Which would grip onto the steering wheel as she drove him to the hospital every other day. The doctors weren't sure yet that he could drive on his own, and she'd taken upon escorting him to all his physical therapy sessions, despite his protests, despite his anger, and her anger, she'd show up, and once there, she'd stay.
He hated her when she stayed.
He hated her more when she didn't.
He hated her when his physical therapist ignored him and went straight to her when he needed to update someone on his condition. He hated that she would stand there, as if she had the right to stand there, following up on the latest instructions and writing down all the exercises he had to do at home and promising the doctor he would do them. As if she knew he would. Some days, he wondered how she knew so much.
He'd plummet to the passenger seat, exhausted, barely able to see straight and through the blinding headache that always appeared after a therapy session. She'd turn the radio off and drive him home in silence, and he'd drift in and out of sleep, each time aware of the long, thin fingers and his own, tingling to reach out and hating himself for it. The headache always intensified then, increase when she parked in front of his building and she'd begin to unbuckle her seatbelt.
But he'd stop her. And every time, they parted the same way.
"You don't have to do this."
"I know."
"You shouldn't have to do this."
"I know."
"It's not a game, Allison."
"I know."
"So stop."
And he'd walk out of her car and head to his apartment, struggling to remember which was his right leg and which was his left, and two days later, on his way to the next therapy session she was there, with his mat tucked under her armpit and the regrettable look of reliance and patience upon her face.
This was his punishment, he realized a week later. That look, that smile, knowing that he'd betrayed her, again and again, done her wrong, made her suffer, hurt her. He realized then she hadn't forgiven him, and wouldn't forgive him, not until she achieved peace of mind, not until she allowed herself to forget.
He had to commend her for it. Most people would simply resort to violence as a form of revenge. Cameron was different, and this was much more agonizing than pain.
Time moved on. He didn't. She moved on, as well, but there was something about her demeanor, or his perception of her, he couldn't trust. He realized some time later he wanted her to hate him, wanted her to betray him, wanted her to hurt him, in any way. An eye for an eye. But she wouldn't, it wasn't in her nature, and so he waited.
But little changed.
He found himself unable to keep up with House on his first day back to work. He found himself trying to re-master the art of diagnosing, recognizing symptoms, reaching conclusions. What used to come so easily now left him with a painful headache. He was forced to stay behind each time they needed to visit the patient, because, as House put it, people felt better when their doctors weren't crippled, and Cuddy wasn't about to deal with a malpractice suit.
House wasn't one to make things easier. The black jokes were replaced by crippled jokes. A rational part of him would remind him this is just the way House deals with things, but it wasn't easy. The therapy was slowly helping, but there was a chance, a big chance, that he would stay like this forever. There was a chance he'd never be able to master the simple task of picking up his keys and unlocking his front door. There was a chance he'd end up like House, bitter, angry, alone.
He should hate her for breaking him like this. He didn't.
But the tension was there. It wasn't easy when the subject of his physical therapy was brought up, or his days in that hospital bed, or worse, Cameron's involvement in the whole thing.
"You screwed her, she screwed you. Looks like you're Even Steven," House would say, and Cameron would smirk, and he would try to smirk, too, but there was too much guilt and too much resentment (at himself) and too much pain.
Chase was always caught in the middle, not knowing how to react; he'd nervously chew on his pen.
"Think maybe some day we're gonna look back on this and laugh?"
"Yeah, I'm sure," said House cynically, sitting next to Foreman and being way too direct, way too calloused, but he'd come to expect nothing less from Gregory House.
"Which one is laughter again, Foreman? The one with the tears? I don't know."
Some days, dealing with House was the easy part.
Things normalized at work. He was able to participate more in their sessions. Slowly, he began to see patients again, but little changed in his personal life. She continued to treat him as if nothing had happened, and he continued to wallow in the whirlwind of emotions that appeared whenever she walked into a room.
He used to be able to read her, and understand her, and empathize with her. Now, he could barely recognize her most innocent of intentions.
"Isn't it obvious?" House said one day, when Cameron was being too nice, making his headache intensify in turn. "She's killing you with kindness."
This was his punishment.
Knowing he'd hurt her, physically and emotionally, knowing he'd betrayed her, betrayed their friendship, stepped over her to advance his career, and yet... she was willing to be civil, to move on, to pick up the pieces of their shattered friendship and attempt to put it back together. He hated her for being too good for him, even when her intentions were shadowy, he hated that she was the better man.
And she remained the better man through the slow passing of time.
And then, one day, he reached into his pocket to retrieve his pen, only he found he was reaching for the wrong side of his lab coat. His patient, a 5-year-old boy with swollen tonsils, thought it was a funny game, and Foreman excused himself with a smile and walked out, and he found her, and upon seeing the look on his face she understood, and she took the chart and cleared all his patients.
She found him in one of the exam rooms later on, with the lights off, and when she attempted to flick on the switch he stopped her. He wasn't sure it was a migraine, or merely the effects of the biopsy. Most days, he was able to make it through with the faintest dull of a headache. Today, the pain took him back to those days he lay there helpless in that hospital bed.
She performed a simple neurological exam, and though her smile was warm it was also tense, fake. She'd never been a good liar.
"It's nothing, I'm sure. We'll call the doc in the morning."
But it was something. It was regression. It was a huge leap back in his treatment. The thought of it not working, the fear, the anger, only served to intensify the pain. Paranoia reared its ugly head immediately. What if his medical license was revoked? What if he regressed even more? What if he ended up in a home, sharing a bedroom with his mother, unrecognizable, alone?
She drove him home that night, and halfway there she thought it might be a good idea to pick up some Chinese food, but he was tired, physically and mentally, and when he said good bye and made it up the front steps, and kept reaching for the wrong pocket whenever he tried to retrieve his keys, she put her hand on his back and he was breathless until moments later she helped him climb into bed.
He felt her long, thin fingers on his hand, dropping two little pills on his palm. Without opening his eyes, he popped them into his mouth and swallowed, without any water, and the ease with which this came troubled him.
"I'll leave your cell phone on the night table," she whispered. "If the pain gets worse, call 911."
Her words were loud, her breathing ragged, her heels clicking on the hardwood floors thunderous. With his eyes closed he could see her turning around, heading out, and in a flash he reached for her.
Long, thin fingers curled up around his own. Warm and comforting and confident, and his own, shaking, begging for her. He needed her. He hated her. He hated himself. He needed her.
"Stay."
And she did.
She stayed and dealt with the aftermath of the appointment. More physical therapy. No work. More monitoring. His anger flared, quickly turned into depression, reclusion, hatred.
Fear.
"Why are you doing this?"
Her voice was soft, strong, guilt-ridden, conflicted, and he saw her true intentions for the first time. "I need to."
He squeezed her hand, hard, trying by sheer force to rid himself of the pain, trying by sheer force to stop himself from needing her. "I don't blame you. I couldn't blame you. Please go."
But she stayed.
And for every second that he struggled she fought back, forced him to push himself harder, even when he deteriorated, even when he progressed. And every day that she showed up he told himself he hated her, and every day that she didn't he found he couldn't make it past the door.
--
"I hate you," she told him one afternoon, just after a session, when they were both feeling tired and cynical.
He looked at her, wondering, for the first time since he met her, how often she'd wanted to say those words to her husband but couldn't.
She reached for his hand and this time he curled his fingers through hers, and they stayed there, watching the afternoon rush by and pretending there was nothing more to this dependency than hate and bad memories.
It occurred to him, as she let her temple rest on his shoulder so desperately, that there was a certain air of need in her actions, and he smiled, receiving her in his embrace and letting her breathe in her hatred for him for a while.
At that moment he felt his punishment dissolve.
The End
Fandom: House
Characters: Foreman, Cameron
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Euphoria 1 & 2
Summary: This was his punishment...
Author's notes: No spoilers, this is all au. Hope you enjoy.
She stayed.
Stayed through the tests, the many visits to the MRI room, the neurological consults, the needles, on his arms, his back, his hands. She stayed even when the smell of his father's cologne had faded from the hospital room, when his family stopped calling again, when the few friends he had, convinced that he would be okay, stopped dropping by with flowers and boring magazines. She stayed, and each time that he opened his eyes and saw her there he felt nothing but gratitude and pure agony.
He hated her.
Hated the confident smile on her face each time that she announced good news about his condition, hated her long, thin fingers comforting, hanging on to his arm whenever a painful test needed to be performed. Hated her visits, hated her telling him what House and Chase were up to, hated her talking about the latest patient scribbled on House's white board as if nothing between them had happened.
But he hated her even more when she left, when he woke in the middle of the night and instead of finding her, sitting next to his bed, he found nothing but empty space. He hated the graveyard nurse, because even though her words were warm each time she had to drive a needle into his skin, her words were nowhere near as comforting as the thin, long fingers he'd grown so dependent on.
He hated himself.
Hate each time Chase showed up and he found himself asking for her, how she was doing, and has she said anything?
Chase would look at him and smirk slightly, condescendingly. "No, she hasn't."
He'd watch as blood was drained out of his body, trying not to think, trying to think too much, trying to erase the look on her face from his memory but as fate would have it, the damaged part of his brain held no memories of her, and so she stayed in his mind even when self-control didn't.
Most days he told himself to forget. Most days it seemed plausible. She said she forgave him. She said it while he drifted into a coma, and said it again a few days later. She said it, but he didn't believe it. Even Cameron, whose faith in humanity surpassed her greatest expectations, couldn't forgive that easily. She'd said the words, he'd drag them out of her, but the words were insipid. What he'd done warranted no forgiveness. He knew that. He hoped she didn't.
As a doctor, he'd found people reacted to near death experiences in a myriad of ways. Most, as everyone knew, embraced life fiercely. Others embraced caution, were enveloped by fear, lived each day in a bubble, praying it would not burst.
Foreman couldn't figure out which category he fell into.
He was certainly glad to be alive, and he found a certain type of happiness each day he realized he really might make it to old age. He found nature beautiful, relished in the soft caress of the wind every time he walked out on the street. He found tears swelling in his eyes whenever his mother called, on her lucid days, when his brother showed up out of the blue, when he met his 2-year-old niece for the first time, when he thought that some day, maybe, he would be able to hold his own child...
And yet...
He supposed it had something to do with her, with her smile, with her empty words, with his hatred, with his dependence on her, and her presence, and her long, thin fingers.
Which would grip onto the steering wheel as she drove him to the hospital every other day. The doctors weren't sure yet that he could drive on his own, and she'd taken upon escorting him to all his physical therapy sessions, despite his protests, despite his anger, and her anger, she'd show up, and once there, she'd stay.
He hated her when she stayed.
He hated her more when she didn't.
He hated her when his physical therapist ignored him and went straight to her when he needed to update someone on his condition. He hated that she would stand there, as if she had the right to stand there, following up on the latest instructions and writing down all the exercises he had to do at home and promising the doctor he would do them. As if she knew he would. Some days, he wondered how she knew so much.
He'd plummet to the passenger seat, exhausted, barely able to see straight and through the blinding headache that always appeared after a therapy session. She'd turn the radio off and drive him home in silence, and he'd drift in and out of sleep, each time aware of the long, thin fingers and his own, tingling to reach out and hating himself for it. The headache always intensified then, increase when she parked in front of his building and she'd begin to unbuckle her seatbelt.
But he'd stop her. And every time, they parted the same way.
"You don't have to do this."
"I know."
"You shouldn't have to do this."
"I know."
"It's not a game, Allison."
"I know."
"So stop."
And he'd walk out of her car and head to his apartment, struggling to remember which was his right leg and which was his left, and two days later, on his way to the next therapy session she was there, with his mat tucked under her armpit and the regrettable look of reliance and patience upon her face.
This was his punishment, he realized a week later. That look, that smile, knowing that he'd betrayed her, again and again, done her wrong, made her suffer, hurt her. He realized then she hadn't forgiven him, and wouldn't forgive him, not until she achieved peace of mind, not until she allowed herself to forget.
He had to commend her for it. Most people would simply resort to violence as a form of revenge. Cameron was different, and this was much more agonizing than pain.
Time moved on. He didn't. She moved on, as well, but there was something about her demeanor, or his perception of her, he couldn't trust. He realized some time later he wanted her to hate him, wanted her to betray him, wanted her to hurt him, in any way. An eye for an eye. But she wouldn't, it wasn't in her nature, and so he waited.
But little changed.
He found himself unable to keep up with House on his first day back to work. He found himself trying to re-master the art of diagnosing, recognizing symptoms, reaching conclusions. What used to come so easily now left him with a painful headache. He was forced to stay behind each time they needed to visit the patient, because, as House put it, people felt better when their doctors weren't crippled, and Cuddy wasn't about to deal with a malpractice suit.
House wasn't one to make things easier. The black jokes were replaced by crippled jokes. A rational part of him would remind him this is just the way House deals with things, but it wasn't easy. The therapy was slowly helping, but there was a chance, a big chance, that he would stay like this forever. There was a chance he'd never be able to master the simple task of picking up his keys and unlocking his front door. There was a chance he'd end up like House, bitter, angry, alone.
He should hate her for breaking him like this. He didn't.
But the tension was there. It wasn't easy when the subject of his physical therapy was brought up, or his days in that hospital bed, or worse, Cameron's involvement in the whole thing.
"You screwed her, she screwed you. Looks like you're Even Steven," House would say, and Cameron would smirk, and he would try to smirk, too, but there was too much guilt and too much resentment (at himself) and too much pain.
Chase was always caught in the middle, not knowing how to react; he'd nervously chew on his pen.
"Think maybe some day we're gonna look back on this and laugh?"
"Yeah, I'm sure," said House cynically, sitting next to Foreman and being way too direct, way too calloused, but he'd come to expect nothing less from Gregory House.
"Which one is laughter again, Foreman? The one with the tears? I don't know."
Some days, dealing with House was the easy part.
Things normalized at work. He was able to participate more in their sessions. Slowly, he began to see patients again, but little changed in his personal life. She continued to treat him as if nothing had happened, and he continued to wallow in the whirlwind of emotions that appeared whenever she walked into a room.
He used to be able to read her, and understand her, and empathize with her. Now, he could barely recognize her most innocent of intentions.
"Isn't it obvious?" House said one day, when Cameron was being too nice, making his headache intensify in turn. "She's killing you with kindness."
This was his punishment.
Knowing he'd hurt her, physically and emotionally, knowing he'd betrayed her, betrayed their friendship, stepped over her to advance his career, and yet... she was willing to be civil, to move on, to pick up the pieces of their shattered friendship and attempt to put it back together. He hated her for being too good for him, even when her intentions were shadowy, he hated that she was the better man.
And she remained the better man through the slow passing of time.
And then, one day, he reached into his pocket to retrieve his pen, only he found he was reaching for the wrong side of his lab coat. His patient, a 5-year-old boy with swollen tonsils, thought it was a funny game, and Foreman excused himself with a smile and walked out, and he found her, and upon seeing the look on his face she understood, and she took the chart and cleared all his patients.
She found him in one of the exam rooms later on, with the lights off, and when she attempted to flick on the switch he stopped her. He wasn't sure it was a migraine, or merely the effects of the biopsy. Most days, he was able to make it through with the faintest dull of a headache. Today, the pain took him back to those days he lay there helpless in that hospital bed.
She performed a simple neurological exam, and though her smile was warm it was also tense, fake. She'd never been a good liar.
"It's nothing, I'm sure. We'll call the doc in the morning."
But it was something. It was regression. It was a huge leap back in his treatment. The thought of it not working, the fear, the anger, only served to intensify the pain. Paranoia reared its ugly head immediately. What if his medical license was revoked? What if he regressed even more? What if he ended up in a home, sharing a bedroom with his mother, unrecognizable, alone?
She drove him home that night, and halfway there she thought it might be a good idea to pick up some Chinese food, but he was tired, physically and mentally, and when he said good bye and made it up the front steps, and kept reaching for the wrong pocket whenever he tried to retrieve his keys, she put her hand on his back and he was breathless until moments later she helped him climb into bed.
He felt her long, thin fingers on his hand, dropping two little pills on his palm. Without opening his eyes, he popped them into his mouth and swallowed, without any water, and the ease with which this came troubled him.
"I'll leave your cell phone on the night table," she whispered. "If the pain gets worse, call 911."
Her words were loud, her breathing ragged, her heels clicking on the hardwood floors thunderous. With his eyes closed he could see her turning around, heading out, and in a flash he reached for her.
Long, thin fingers curled up around his own. Warm and comforting and confident, and his own, shaking, begging for her. He needed her. He hated her. He hated himself. He needed her.
"Stay."
And she did.
She stayed and dealt with the aftermath of the appointment. More physical therapy. No work. More monitoring. His anger flared, quickly turned into depression, reclusion, hatred.
Fear.
"Why are you doing this?"
Her voice was soft, strong, guilt-ridden, conflicted, and he saw her true intentions for the first time. "I need to."
He squeezed her hand, hard, trying by sheer force to rid himself of the pain, trying by sheer force to stop himself from needing her. "I don't blame you. I couldn't blame you. Please go."
But she stayed.
And for every second that he struggled she fought back, forced him to push himself harder, even when he deteriorated, even when he progressed. And every day that she showed up he told himself he hated her, and every day that she didn't he found he couldn't make it past the door.
--
"I hate you," she told him one afternoon, just after a session, when they were both feeling tired and cynical.
He looked at her, wondering, for the first time since he met her, how often she'd wanted to say those words to her husband but couldn't.
She reached for his hand and this time he curled his fingers through hers, and they stayed there, watching the afternoon rush by and pretending there was nothing more to this dependency than hate and bad memories.
It occurred to him, as she let her temple rest on his shoulder so desperately, that there was a certain air of need in her actions, and he smiled, receiving her in his embrace and letting her breathe in her hatred for him for a while.
At that moment he felt his punishment dissolve.
The End