House Fic: i wonder where arrows go
i wonder where arrows go house/cameron, pg13
it’s a charade then, believing one thing and hiding in another. there things that she’s good at, and things that they’re good at in the same way. general spoiler liberties. 1,900 words.
note: for mathhhh, who is awesome and wonderful and i am continually inspired by her. sorry this took forever and a day, bb. i hope you enjoy it all the same! ♥
-
There are already rumors.
Nearly a year, and she meets him at the nurses’ station in the emergency room. He is standing against the desk. His hands are folded over his cane. He doesn’t smile, and she only cocks her head in curiosity.
“You’re here,” she greets. Her voice is calm. He doesn’t meet her gaze, and shifts his weight from foot to foot. He looks different, she thinks. There is that expectation and she doesn’t linger, turning her gaze away. She brushes her fingers against the counter.
“I guess,” he says. She looks up again.
He shrugs, turning to her. It is an early summer, and the cuffs of his sleeves are rolled back to his elbows. He straightens himself. Her eyes follow the shift in his posture.
They are silent. She doesn’t know what to think, or assume. She remembers something Cuddy had said about transitions and sighs. She runs a hand through her hair and leans against the desk instead. She turns her gaze to him again.
“Can I -” she pauses, studying him. “Do you need something?”
He shakes his head. “No,” he says.
He looks the same, she thinks.
Later they share a table in the cafeteria.
She is here first and reading, before he sits. The hospital is still in the late afternoon, and she offers him her coffee before he steals it. He just doesn’t touch it.
“I still find this a stupid decision,” he tells her. The chair groans under his weight as he shifts closer. She watches as he peers over the work she has brought upstairs with her.
Her fingers are picking at a staple. “Okay,” she shrugs.
She has an idea of what he wants to talk about. Chase, earlier, warned her about House’s visits to all of them; a round of non-apologies, he had said. It amuses her, and she doesn’t know why.
“It doesn’t bother you?” he prompts.
He sighs loudly. She blinks.
“Bother me?” she asks.
“Yeah,” he says.
His voice is sharp. For a moment, she thinks they are talking about two different things.
“Why shouldn’t it?”
“Because it bothers me,” he digs.
He looks up at her. The intensity of his gaze is heavier than she is used to. She is surprised that it is still between them, even now, the knowledge that she was the one that left first and left willingly. It translates into a number of things, very few that she can put in front of a significant explanation.
It’s what he wants too, she has to think. She knows better to give it to him though, like she knows better to ask about how he’s doing. They both know that he would never tell her. She could guess and would be lucky to get something near an acknowledgment.
Or she could be wrong, completely wrong. This she knows is possible too.
Her chin drops onto her hand.
“It does?” she asks then. Her hair frames the corners of her jaw, and she runs her fingers against the ends. Her back is straight in her chair. She turns her chin up then, in late defiance.
“Sometimes,” he shrugs. His voice stretches on sometimes and she almost laughs. It isn’t funny, and he doesn’t let it be, continuing, “A lot of things still bother me, actually. And this happens to be one of those. Can’t do anything about it, but it’s still here.”
“What is?”
He pauses, looking away. He reaches into one of his pockets. There is a rattle, and he puts a small bottle on the table. Her gaze lingers on his hands then, and he pops the cap off the top. He drops his hands.
“This,” he frowns like she should just know.
She waits for him to pick up the bottle but he doesn’t. The coffee too remains untouched. This, she thinks. It could mean a number of things, she thinks again. She could speculate, but she hates that. She’s doing it anyway. It makes her feel nervous.
She is nervous.
Instead, she looks down to her hands. They are bare and still, resting over a file. She has brought work to do but hasn’t touched it. He hasn’t asked about her ring. She doesn’t show him the chain around her neck.
“It bothers me.”
He pushes again, or doesn’t. She feels like he is pushing.
“This -” she shrugs, and corrects herself, “You can’t predict everything, House. I can’t predict everything either. I happen to like where I am. And I’m pretty sure we’ve had this conversation before.”
“No, we haven’t.”
She frowns. She doesn’t know what he is looking for now. She imagines the same conversations with Chase, and then with Foreman and the others. She imagines Cuddy and Wilson. She tries to imagine some sense of an apology. She can’t, and she doesn’t know how to take his sudden interest in reconnecting, if that’s what this is.
“Does that bother you too?” she asks finally.
He says nothing. Between them, the air is awkward. She is more than aware of things standing unclear; it’s never far from the back of her mind, and maybe this is one of her regrets. Moving on, she thinks, and then not.
His fingers curl around the pill bottle. She reaches for her necklace, her fingers curling around the chain. She tugs it out and his mouth turns, almost expectantly. There is a ghost of a smirk. She scoffs, and she shakes her head.
“Yeah,” he says, “Actually.”
She looks away. “Liar,” she murmurs.
She picks up the coffee.
We are walking on eggshells, a nurse says.
No one knows what to expect of him. If there is anything else to expect, someone else says. There are new doctors, and old doctors. There is Cuddy waiting, Wilson watching, and the rest of them working as if they have already moved on.
Cameron wonders.
There is nothing to be said about his intentions.
This goes on for days.
In nearly a year she makes an effort to find his office.
Standing against the frame of the door, she stares inside. He is sitting at his desk and reading, behind a neat stack of files and books. There is a coat stretched over a chair, and his backpack leans against the desk on the floor. Everything looks familiar and then not. The room is strangely keen to the months of the lack of his presence.
“Aren’t you gonna ask me?” he inquires. He doesn’t look up. The light next to him shadows the angles of his face. His glasses are low on his nose. He is sharper lines and graying hair. He looks a little lost but completely unmoved by the idea.
“No.”
She sighs. She stops herself, and then relents.
“How are you?” she asks then. She moves into the room and takes the seat in front of his desk. There is this tightness in the back of her throat and she pulls herself to sit taller. Her hands rest over her knees. She looks over at him.
He shrugs.
“Clearly, I’m just full of sunshine and kittens, Cameron,” he drawls. “In fact,” he adds. “I’m pretty sure I might even bleed glitter.”
Her nose wrinkles.
“Festive.”
“It’s the special pills,” he says.
He still seems unwilling to look up at her. This is his space. She finds it easier to observe him when he’s like this, when it’s completely unclear whether he wants to engage or is simply humoring her. It’s funny but she finds him much more open than usual. She doesn’t know why.
There is nothing simple about this, and she should know that better than most. She watches him, counting the tiny gestures she knows. His fingers are sloppy against the pages of his book. She notices the way they pick at the corners. He clears his throat. He straightens in the chair.
But she stops herself then from continuing. These are habits, she thinks. Not gestures. There are implications with gestures.
Little things, however, seem unable to change.
“I’m happy,” she murmurs. She looks away, and he scoffs. The corners of her mouth turn and she drops her hand against the desk. She traces circles over the wood and she shrugs.
He snorts then.
“Of course, you are.”
Her eyes roll. “Will you stop?”
“Stop what?”
He is smirking at her too. She meets his gaze, annoyed. There are deep wrinkles in the corners of his mouth. She is almost flustered, bringing her hands to her face to rub away at the rising flush.
She sighs. “I’m happy,” she repeats, “that you’re doing a little better - that’s what I have to assume anyway, considering you’re back and you’re avoiding the simple question of how are you.”
Her voice is heavy. She has lost her intention, and finds herself unwilling to step back and away from where this is going. Somehow, it unnerves her less that she is completely blind to him. It just makes her curious and that is what seems to scare her more.
“Small talk,” he says.
He shrugs too. He abandons the book in front of him, pulling his glasses off and tossing them to the side.
“Bullshit,” she shoots.
“Whatever.”
He nods to her hand. The ring has reappeared. Her shift ends in a couple hours. She looks down, and twists it in between her fingers.
“So how does it feel?”
She tries to shrug. “No different.”
“Liar,” he says.
Maybe, she almost says. The truth is somewhere between the fact that she is still waiting for something to completely unravel and that she is almost tentatively happy. She is unsure of both, and that scares her. There are facts and questions, things that she is still unable to share or want to. She gets that Chase continues to try to understand it. Sometimes, it seems to matter.
“Liar,” he says again. She looks up in surprise, caught in her hesitation. House is smirking again.
“No different at all,” she ignores him. “And you asked.”
“I did.”
He stares at her, and she shies away. Her fingers play at her knee. He closes his book with a loud slam. She doesn’t look up.
“So -”
“You answered,” he replies. “You didn’t have to answer.”
She still doesn’t look at him. She turns her gazes to the hallways and watches as the lights slowly start to dim. Soon, she remembers, there’s going to be shift change. She can still feel House watching her too, waiting. She almost asks about the others. The thing is, she doesn’t do small talk either.
“I stopped lying to you years ago,” she tells him instead.
Her voice is soft and thin. She says stopped and it lingers, crawling over the tip of her tongue. It lingers as the truth.
She curls her hand into a fist.
Her fingers press into her palm and then looks up, watching him as he leans back in his chair. He studies her, and she is unable to look away. His eyes are wide, dark, and the corners of his mouth curl slightly. Her gaze softens and they hold the moment, unintentionally. It shouldn’t belong to them but like everything else, it stands and she takes it.
This is her habit too.
He pulls his gaze away. “That’s the problem,” he says quietly.
This time he is really speaking to her.
it’s a charade then, believing one thing and hiding in another. there things that she’s good at, and things that they’re good at in the same way. general spoiler liberties. 1,900 words.
note: for mathhhh, who is awesome and wonderful and i am continually inspired by her. sorry this took forever and a day, bb. i hope you enjoy it all the same! ♥
-
There are already rumors.
Nearly a year, and she meets him at the nurses’ station in the emergency room. He is standing against the desk. His hands are folded over his cane. He doesn’t smile, and she only cocks her head in curiosity.
“You’re here,” she greets. Her voice is calm. He doesn’t meet her gaze, and shifts his weight from foot to foot. He looks different, she thinks. There is that expectation and she doesn’t linger, turning her gaze away. She brushes her fingers against the counter.
“I guess,” he says. She looks up again.
He shrugs, turning to her. It is an early summer, and the cuffs of his sleeves are rolled back to his elbows. He straightens himself. Her eyes follow the shift in his posture.
They are silent. She doesn’t know what to think, or assume. She remembers something Cuddy had said about transitions and sighs. She runs a hand through her hair and leans against the desk instead. She turns her gaze to him again.
“Can I -” she pauses, studying him. “Do you need something?”
He shakes his head. “No,” he says.
He looks the same, she thinks.
Later they share a table in the cafeteria.
She is here first and reading, before he sits. The hospital is still in the late afternoon, and she offers him her coffee before he steals it. He just doesn’t touch it.
“I still find this a stupid decision,” he tells her. The chair groans under his weight as he shifts closer. She watches as he peers over the work she has brought upstairs with her.
Her fingers are picking at a staple. “Okay,” she shrugs.
She has an idea of what he wants to talk about. Chase, earlier, warned her about House’s visits to all of them; a round of non-apologies, he had said. It amuses her, and she doesn’t know why.
“It doesn’t bother you?” he prompts.
He sighs loudly. She blinks.
“Bother me?” she asks.
“Yeah,” he says.
His voice is sharp. For a moment, she thinks they are talking about two different things.
“Why shouldn’t it?”
“Because it bothers me,” he digs.
He looks up at her. The intensity of his gaze is heavier than she is used to. She is surprised that it is still between them, even now, the knowledge that she was the one that left first and left willingly. It translates into a number of things, very few that she can put in front of a significant explanation.
It’s what he wants too, she has to think. She knows better to give it to him though, like she knows better to ask about how he’s doing. They both know that he would never tell her. She could guess and would be lucky to get something near an acknowledgment.
Or she could be wrong, completely wrong. This she knows is possible too.
Her chin drops onto her hand.
“It does?” she asks then. Her hair frames the corners of her jaw, and she runs her fingers against the ends. Her back is straight in her chair. She turns her chin up then, in late defiance.
“Sometimes,” he shrugs. His voice stretches on sometimes and she almost laughs. It isn’t funny, and he doesn’t let it be, continuing, “A lot of things still bother me, actually. And this happens to be one of those. Can’t do anything about it, but it’s still here.”
“What is?”
He pauses, looking away. He reaches into one of his pockets. There is a rattle, and he puts a small bottle on the table. Her gaze lingers on his hands then, and he pops the cap off the top. He drops his hands.
“This,” he frowns like she should just know.
She waits for him to pick up the bottle but he doesn’t. The coffee too remains untouched. This, she thinks. It could mean a number of things, she thinks again. She could speculate, but she hates that. She’s doing it anyway. It makes her feel nervous.
She is nervous.
Instead, she looks down to her hands. They are bare and still, resting over a file. She has brought work to do but hasn’t touched it. He hasn’t asked about her ring. She doesn’t show him the chain around her neck.
“It bothers me.”
He pushes again, or doesn’t. She feels like he is pushing.
“This -” she shrugs, and corrects herself, “You can’t predict everything, House. I can’t predict everything either. I happen to like where I am. And I’m pretty sure we’ve had this conversation before.”
“No, we haven’t.”
She frowns. She doesn’t know what he is looking for now. She imagines the same conversations with Chase, and then with Foreman and the others. She imagines Cuddy and Wilson. She tries to imagine some sense of an apology. She can’t, and she doesn’t know how to take his sudden interest in reconnecting, if that’s what this is.
“Does that bother you too?” she asks finally.
He says nothing. Between them, the air is awkward. She is more than aware of things standing unclear; it’s never far from the back of her mind, and maybe this is one of her regrets. Moving on, she thinks, and then not.
His fingers curl around the pill bottle. She reaches for her necklace, her fingers curling around the chain. She tugs it out and his mouth turns, almost expectantly. There is a ghost of a smirk. She scoffs, and she shakes her head.
“Yeah,” he says, “Actually.”
She looks away. “Liar,” she murmurs.
She picks up the coffee.
We are walking on eggshells, a nurse says.
No one knows what to expect of him. If there is anything else to expect, someone else says. There are new doctors, and old doctors. There is Cuddy waiting, Wilson watching, and the rest of them working as if they have already moved on.
Cameron wonders.
There is nothing to be said about his intentions.
This goes on for days.
In nearly a year she makes an effort to find his office.
Standing against the frame of the door, she stares inside. He is sitting at his desk and reading, behind a neat stack of files and books. There is a coat stretched over a chair, and his backpack leans against the desk on the floor. Everything looks familiar and then not. The room is strangely keen to the months of the lack of his presence.
“Aren’t you gonna ask me?” he inquires. He doesn’t look up. The light next to him shadows the angles of his face. His glasses are low on his nose. He is sharper lines and graying hair. He looks a little lost but completely unmoved by the idea.
“No.”
She sighs. She stops herself, and then relents.
“How are you?” she asks then. She moves into the room and takes the seat in front of his desk. There is this tightness in the back of her throat and she pulls herself to sit taller. Her hands rest over her knees. She looks over at him.
He shrugs.
“Clearly, I’m just full of sunshine and kittens, Cameron,” he drawls. “In fact,” he adds. “I’m pretty sure I might even bleed glitter.”
Her nose wrinkles.
“Festive.”
“It’s the special pills,” he says.
He still seems unwilling to look up at her. This is his space. She finds it easier to observe him when he’s like this, when it’s completely unclear whether he wants to engage or is simply humoring her. It’s funny but she finds him much more open than usual. She doesn’t know why.
There is nothing simple about this, and she should know that better than most. She watches him, counting the tiny gestures she knows. His fingers are sloppy against the pages of his book. She notices the way they pick at the corners. He clears his throat. He straightens in the chair.
But she stops herself then from continuing. These are habits, she thinks. Not gestures. There are implications with gestures.
Little things, however, seem unable to change.
“I’m happy,” she murmurs. She looks away, and he scoffs. The corners of her mouth turn and she drops her hand against the desk. She traces circles over the wood and she shrugs.
He snorts then.
“Of course, you are.”
Her eyes roll. “Will you stop?”
“Stop what?”
He is smirking at her too. She meets his gaze, annoyed. There are deep wrinkles in the corners of his mouth. She is almost flustered, bringing her hands to her face to rub away at the rising flush.
She sighs. “I’m happy,” she repeats, “that you’re doing a little better - that’s what I have to assume anyway, considering you’re back and you’re avoiding the simple question of how are you.”
Her voice is heavy. She has lost her intention, and finds herself unwilling to step back and away from where this is going. Somehow, it unnerves her less that she is completely blind to him. It just makes her curious and that is what seems to scare her more.
“Small talk,” he says.
He shrugs too. He abandons the book in front of him, pulling his glasses off and tossing them to the side.
“Bullshit,” she shoots.
“Whatever.”
He nods to her hand. The ring has reappeared. Her shift ends in a couple hours. She looks down, and twists it in between her fingers.
“So how does it feel?”
She tries to shrug. “No different.”
“Liar,” he says.
Maybe, she almost says. The truth is somewhere between the fact that she is still waiting for something to completely unravel and that she is almost tentatively happy. She is unsure of both, and that scares her. There are facts and questions, things that she is still unable to share or want to. She gets that Chase continues to try to understand it. Sometimes, it seems to matter.
“Liar,” he says again. She looks up in surprise, caught in her hesitation. House is smirking again.
“No different at all,” she ignores him. “And you asked.”
“I did.”
He stares at her, and she shies away. Her fingers play at her knee. He closes his book with a loud slam. She doesn’t look up.
“So -”
“You answered,” he replies. “You didn’t have to answer.”
She still doesn’t look at him. She turns her gazes to the hallways and watches as the lights slowly start to dim. Soon, she remembers, there’s going to be shift change. She can still feel House watching her too, waiting. She almost asks about the others. The thing is, she doesn’t do small talk either.
“I stopped lying to you years ago,” she tells him instead.
Her voice is soft and thin. She says stopped and it lingers, crawling over the tip of her tongue. It lingers as the truth.
She curls her hand into a fist.
Her fingers press into her palm and then looks up, watching him as he leans back in his chair. He studies her, and she is unable to look away. His eyes are wide, dark, and the corners of his mouth curl slightly. Her gaze softens and they hold the moment, unintentionally. It shouldn’t belong to them but like everything else, it stands and she takes it.
This is her habit too.
He pulls his gaze away. “That’s the problem,” he says quietly.
This time he is really speaking to her.