Fic: when writing distance
when writing distance
house md ; house/cameron ; 4,148 words.
advice from a former bride: something old, something blue. lockdown.
notes: Third in a series, following check your facts and you could be more understanding. For the wonderful, ever-so supportive blueheronz, as my love affair with this series wouldn’t be possible without you.
-
The hotel sits comfortably on the other side of town. Cameron can see it from where she sits at the table. The sun obscures is slightly with a glare, hitting the off corner of a curb that hosts a few cabs.
It’s ironic, she thinks. Nearly a year later, she’s in Princeton for a wedding. Her friend has a stepped out to make a call and she waits with a glass of wine. She reaches for it too, picking it up carefully and then staring down into the glass.
“This is crazy,” she says to herself, out loud, and then, she earns a glance from the couple sitting at the table next to her. It’s not the wedding. Weddings are easily excusable, hurried or too slow; people expect the work excuse, but she promised a long time ago that she’d come to this one.
When her friend returns to the table, she smiles and sits. Cameron smiles back too. Her lips feel dry. She studies the ring on the other woman’s finger. It’s a band and a diamond, simple and calm.
“I thought about inviting Robert,” her friend says kindly, and clears her throat, watching Cameron as she shifts in her seat. The woman picks her napkin and it dangles between her fingertips. “My brother would’ve liked him, you know.”
“Robert?”
The woman nods. Cameron lifts her glass and studies the wine again. Robert, she thinks. It’s still funny hearing Robert and not Chase; names were still an odd habit with them. But she puts her glass down, stealing another glance at the ring on the woman’s finger. It’s beautiful. She almost shakes her head. There’s a lump in her throat.
Instead, she manages to smile. “We haven’t talked in awhile,” she murmurs.
There is a phone call.
She doesn’t even remember what they say.
When she finally walks off the elevator, she spots him by the door, half-in, half-out; as if this weren’t already the strangest idea the two of them seemed to agree on.
He’s in a suit and it takes her a moment to really look at him: the tie is straight and even from a distance, each pieces fits impeccably to his form. She forgets how handsome House is and handsome in a way that not many people know how to understand. She allows herself a tiny smile.
“I didn’t think you’d come,” she calls.
The corners of his mouth shift. He straightens and then walks to her. She never blinks, watching him. She tucks her clutch under her arm. Her hands brush over her dress. She’s picked a navy silk, not black but something that she can almost be comfortable in.
“You said free booze,” he says. He eyes her carefully. She studies him back, amused, and then shrugs as he pokes her leg with his cane. “And I like free booze,” he finishes.
“I remembered.”
It’s fresh in her mind, the last two times that they’ve talked since she’s left, and come back; although the last time she came back wasn’t for him, it wasn’t for herself either. Sort the beginnings and ends is still something that she needs to work through, and work through away from everything else, but this is what no one cares to understand.
She still shakes her head as they start to walk. She exits onto the curb outside first, waving for a cab as it turns the corner. House stops, standing next to her. She wonders if he’s told anyone that she’s here.
“At least, you’re not the one getting married.”
He doesn’t disappoint with the lead-in. She snorts, watching him as he steps off the curb. The cab is caught behind a misplaced crosswalk.
“You’ve been holding that one in,” she murmurs.
“I’m trying to be appreciative,” he says. She laughs and he turns, shaking his head. “I mean, again, free booze. It’s nice to know that you remember the right things about me. It’s nearly impressive.”
Her lips curl.
But she says nothing until the cab finally pulls up next to them. House moves slowly to the other side and she slides into the cab first, murmuring a quick set of directions before he settles into the cab next to her.
When the driver pulls away from the curb, she looks over at House again. His hand wraps around his tie, fidgeting. She looks for some sort of change, some sort of indication that she’s in over her head. It’s not a good idea anyway, but she asked without any expectations. She wonders if that’s why he said yes. It’s always more than curiosity.
“So who’s this friend?” he asks and she tenses, biting her lip and turning to watch the city scene as it passes by. Familiar corners are always odd, and she should recognize places that she used to wander around. But she’s in Chicago now and there’s just more than the university and the city, more than the occasional conference.
“College,” she answers though, slowly, thoughtfully.
He raises an eyebrow. “Oh,” he says.
She’s quiet. She can feel him watching her. The cab slows to a light. Cameron checks her watch, studying the time but not really acknowledging it. She feels tired, suddenly. Maybe it’s the flight here. Maybe it’s the promise of the flight back, tomorrow.
But then she looks at House, really looks at House, open and suddenly too vulnerable to really say anything but. She takes a deep breath, carefully, and then reaches forward to touch his arm.
“It’s Jack’s sister,” she says finally. She doesn’t say my husband. She doesn’t offer a story. She’s not hiding it from him, she thinks, but merely trying to figure out the right way to say it. But she says it again, and says it firmly, as if to reassure herself: “It’s Jack’s sister,” she murmurs. “We’ve kept in touch over the years. She’s always been really wonderful.”
House opens his mouth. He closes it slowly. He seems to straighten against his seat. In front of them, the cab driver turns up the radio and almost unconsciously, Cameron leans closer to House.
His eyes are wider than she knows them, brighter even. The corners of his mouth twitch and he shakes his head. “So you bring me,” he drawls.
Her mouth curls. She tries not to think about it anymore.
“So I did.”
The wedding is beautiful, understated in a way that she’s always really hoped for. But she’s done first weddings and rushed weddings, and Cameron’s begun to believe that maybe weddings, the kind of weddings that she’s really hoped for aren’t meant to be hers in the first place.
At the reception, she sits with House. Her legs are crossed and she stares down, into the glass of her champagne, as the bride stands on the dance floor and says a few words to everybody in attendance. It’s funny to say, but she feels like she’s been here too many times before.
“ - and finally, Allison,” she says and Cameron looks up, surprised. Next to her, House is too quiet. “Allison,” the bride says again, “I can’t tell you how much our relationship means to me. First, it was because my brother loved you and you loved my brother - probably in a way that none of us could and to know, to really know that he had that kind of happiness, the kind I have now, it just - you’re incredible to me. You may not think so, but you are.”
There’s this tightness in Cameron’s throat, one that hasn’t been there in a really long time. Her eyes begin to burn and she straightens, meeting the other woman’s gaze with a tiny smile. House still says nothing and her friend continues.
“And now you’re my friend, my best friend - the closest thing I have to a sister, that we have to a sister, and I’m just really glad you’re here. I love you.”
There are applauses. Cameron’s ears ring and she gives another shaky smile to her friend, her gaze soft. She’s uncomfortable, but fights through it, just not to show how much, giving a small wave to Jack’s parents too who sit at the bridal party’s table. They haven’t talked in sometime, but there are other reasons like anything else.
When the music finally starts, and the bride and groom begin to dance, Cameron looks up and catches House as he studies her. There’s nothing cruel or kind about his gaze, nothing she can read, and she gives him a small shrug, as if she were attempting to say that this is what this is.
“Weddings,” he says finally, dryly, and picks up his scotch, finishing off. She watches as his fingers press against the glass.
“Weddings,” she says then too.
They’re quiet. Allison catches her friend’s gaze, only briefly, and they smile at each other. She shakes her head and the bride smiles widely again, burying herself against her husband’s shoulders. I almost had that, she thinks and it feels odd, too odd thinking about this, this way. It’s not her day, but there are always too many memories to count.
House pushes at her shoulder lightly. He stands too, dropping his glass over the table. She shakes her head, but he ignores her.
“Come on.” He offers his hand and she stares at it. “Come on,” he says again, and his fingers sway lightly, in midair, just as the piano begins to pick up in them middle of the song. She blinks and then takes it, takes it because it’s the thing that she should do, that she needs to do.
They are quiet.
He leads them to the dance floor, slowly and in step with a few couples. People walk to the music in patches and Cameron lets House turn her, drawing her close. He looks down at her and she tries to smile, managing only the slight twist of her mouth.
“I didn’t know she was going to do that,” she says, she feels like she has to say it too. She doesn’t question why. The silence merely makes it something different. It’s just another side, another side that she doesn’t know where it belongs or how it belongs.
He dips forward and his mouth grazes her ear. “You weren’t going to tell me,” he says then. It’s not an accusation.
“No,” she agrees. Her eyes close and she leans against his shoulder. “I assumed you’d figure it out at some point.”
“You give me a ton of credit.”
Her mouth curls.
“And you seem surprised,” she murmurs.
“You’re not,” he shoots back.
“No, I guess not.”
His fingers brush over her hair. The gesture is almost shy. She focuses on the song as it ends then, only to pick up and start into another. She pays no attention to the band’s singer or the rise of laughter from the tables next to them, or off to the side.
She feels House’s fingers in her hair again, just as they graze her forehead, then along her jaw. His fingers drift to her neck and run back and forth, over her skin. It forces some kind of sigh from her; something that just feels like a sound.
But then he dips forward again, and his mouth touches the open column of her shoulder, half-exposed by the strap of her dress.
“I hate weddings,” he murmurs over her skin. She laughs softly, hiding a shiver, but he seems to ignore her. “They make less and less sense every time I think about it.”
“You don’t think that much about them.”
He chuckles. “True.”
It doesn’t seem to cross her mind how close he is, and how soon she’s leaving, or that this is House and something between them is starting to stand both as it should and on its own. She doesn’t know if she’s ready for that. She doesn’t know if he’s ready either.
There’s too much, there’s too much that moves around the two of them, separately if anything else. She’s protective of herself, knowing things like history and what has stood over House’s head for the last two years.
“Why this one?”
He asks and she is still surprised. Her eyes open. She sighs and her fingers finally move from his hand to his chest. They trace over the fabric of his jacket, along the buttons, and then stop.
“I don’t know.” He scoffs, but she’s serious, looking up at him. There’s no point to prove, she wants to say. “I didn’t ask anyone else.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“I’m not finished.”
He looks down at her, frowning.
“I know you,” she says absently. “I know you’ll judge, I know you’ll just assume that you know everything and were right about … what?”
He hasn’t stopped staring. Her throat feels dry and then the room begins to feel as small as it should. She finally forces herself to look away, if only to gather herself. She catches the smile of the bride again, not at her but at her husband and there is that slight pang of regret. Two weddings, she thinks. There was only one of them that she really knew what smiling like that meant.
She meets House’s gaze again. He sighs heavily.
“Nothing,” he says, looking away and suddenly the moment, whatever moment it could’ve been, is over. She isn’t surprised or sad, and had it been a different time, a different place, maybe she might have even pushed him. There is just nothing else to say here.
When the song is over, he lets her pull back first. She stops and sighs. “I want another drink,” she says.
They take a cab back to her hotel. It’s started to rain and the water presses into the window, as the car rolls to a stop at a light.
Her ears rings with things beautiful bride and wonderful ceremony, and her mouth even hurts from the occasional laugh. It didn’t matter that House was there; it wouldn’t have mattered if he wasn’t or even if he had left, because there are pieces of her that can’t change in the way that other people need them to.
“This was strange,” she says finally. Her voice is loud and she startles herself, straightening against her seat. “I mean - well,” she says again. “It was strange.”
He doesn’t smile, but she catches the amusement, the strange display of emotion that washes quickly over his face.
“Figures,” he says too, but she doesn’t know what that means, nor does she try to understand it. It still is pick and choose with House and it’s the kind of thing that she maybe able to find funny.
He brings his hand to his face. His fingers press into his eyes and she almost wants to reach for him, to pull it away from his face. Her hand feels heavy though and she presses her fingers into her knee, over the fabric of her dress. Her fingers curl slowly into a fist and she rubs it lightly against into her skin.
“But it wasn’t boring,” he adds.
She scoffs, shaking her head.
“Good to know.”
“You wanted to know.”
“I didn’t ask.”
He snorts. “And that’s your problem. You don’t ask.”
It’s how he says it. She blinks. Her mouth opens, then closes, and then she turns away, looking out the window as the car starts to move again. She tries to pick out places that she remembers, places that she knows; they are the same thing, and after awhile, she knows that this is supposed to safely feel like it’s been some time. But it doesn’t. It never has.
“Would you give me an answer?” she asks slowly, turning back to meet his gaze. He blinks too. His mouth twists, but he says nothing. She sighs. “I mean - since we’re being honest here. If I asked, would you give me an answer?”
“I don’t know.”
She shakes her head. “Don’t make me carry that alone then.”
His hand covers hers. Over her knee, into the fabric of her dress; she watches as his fingers start to pull at hers, one by one, only to press her hand into her skin. Her throat burns and she tries to look at him.
The cab startles itself into another stop. The red light stretches over the back window and over their skin.
“I always do,” she murmurs. She looks away, absent, and watches as the cab slows into moving forward, inching closer to another car. The hotel is hidden in the next block over and suddenly, she starts to feel restless, as if whatever came next is something she should expect.
House doesn’t move. She stares at their hands again.
“You know what’s funny?” she starts then, and even wills a half-smile, the corners of her mouth feeling like they’re being carved into her skin. “Sometimes I think we’re being looped into having this conversation, variations of this conversation, or some kind of admission where I face you and I’m completely and utterly vulnerable. I’m complaining. I’m not blaming you - it’s just the way I end up being around you. Doesn’t matter where, or when, it’s doesn’t matter how - I’m sorry, it’s just funny. I’m a creature of habit and I only seem to really notice when it’s you … these are the times where I remember and I know that -”
“You’re in love with me,” he finishes, and he’s completely serious, serious in a way that she hasn’t seen in a really long time. He looks at her shyly - or something akin to being shy, and she places him far away from confusion. It feels like a step, a private step, and somehow, she wants to laugh.
She pulls her hand back. His hand wraps around his cane. Something moves between them. Trust, she thinks. It never goes well when it’s only halfway earned. But she’s never lied about these things to him either.
“Yeah,” she says. “I am - it’s not news, and like anyone else, I go back and forth between love and loved, stupid, as - I don’t really think you stop loving someone.”
“I’m not ready.”
It happens quickly, not suddenly. She half-expects herself ready for an answer, or with some kind of answer that might appease him. But her mouth stays closed and she feels almost thoughtful.
The hotel is closer. She watches House look away.
“I know,” she murmurs, and she means it to. It leaves her and she watches him, hoping to see him look back at her. There’s this intense need for him to see her, to know that there are pieces of her that she’s showing that, she’s showed him, and that she can’t have back.
But when House looks at her, he’s not really looking at her. She watches as he swallows and she tries not to feel to feel tired. It’s like walking backwards and as they pull up to the curb, she grabs her clutch. It’s something to do with her hands.
House sighs loudly. She ignores him.
“I don’t understand you. You’re supposed to be pissed,” he nearly accuses. “You’re supposed to give me some sort of ultimatum. You’re supposed to tell me things like I’m too late or there’s no room in your life for this kind of thing.”
“I don’t do work that way.”
He’s serious. “I know.”
The cab stops. Cameron pays out of habit, flashing a half-smile at the driver. Instead of staying inside, House follows her out too and they stand outside the hotel.
She expects him to leave. It would be what he’d do and she’d turn, maybe head back inside and wonder why she even made the effort. This isn’t about effort.
He stays standing in front of her too. He shifts his weight, foot to foot, and she tries not to sigh, not to fall into the expectation of being angry with him. It’s easier, so much easier; it would be something that he’d want from her too. But she’s never really been that person for him either.
“I’ll walk,” he says quickly.
“Walk?” she blinks.
“I danced,” he mutters.
She studies him. He steps back and then he steps forward, closer, only to hover over her. There are people that pass them, staring, but Cameron can’t bring herself to look away from him.
What do you want, she almost asks but can’t, won’t, and forces herself to swallow. She reaches up and pushes her hair back from her eyes. She sees that look, the same look from when he kissed her by the cab just before she headed to the airport. She thinks back to the office, where she said goodbye, and then goes further back, to the date and when she sat across from him, not because she had a point to prove because even then, even then she wanted to.
“I can’t,” she says finally. I’m not ready, she doesn’t say. There’s no sense of wanting or not wanting to. It feels different though, intentional even.
But her answer feels right, it feels necessary, and when he says nothing, she nods and then turns. She doesn’t bother with a goodbye. The kind of finality doesn’t belong to either of them. This much she knows.
He clears his throat. “You’re different,” he says and it’s almost as if he’s reached for her to get her to stay.
She stops. She turns too. They stare at each other. House stays standing where he is.
“I thought I knew why. You’re different. I used to want - I wanted to make you feel the same way that everybody seems to feel around me. I wanted to make you want to help, but you didn’t. You don’t. I wanted to make you want to change me, but you accept me. I don’t understand why.”
She’s quiet.
“You’re different, you’ve always been different, and maybe, maybe this is the closest - well, it doesn’t matter right?”
He gives up, or gives the impression of giving up; she doesn’t care to pick out whatever everything means. Maybe it’ll change. Maybe it won’t. She believes him now, in the moment, and maybe more than ever.
She steps forward. She nearly drops her clutch too, fumbling with it as she tucks it under her arm and reaches for House. Her fists wrap around his jacket and she leans up, pressing into him and sliding her mouth over his.
She kisses him selfishly, slowly drawing herself up to his height. Her fingers curl in his shoulders and she lets her mouth open over his. The taste of his mouth is sharp, hot, and she lets her tongue run lightly over his, then draw back to run over his lip. House makes a sound and then his hand is in her hair, his fingers curling deeply into the strands.
When she gasps, he fumbles and draws her closer, wrapping a tight arm around her waist. She drops her clutch, but doesn’t pull back and there is no declaration of control. He lets her kiss him the way she wants to and she lets herself push; he makes another sound and then a sigh, and she lets herself pull her hands to his face, framing his jaw with her palms and then pulling back, only slightly, just to brush her lips against his. She swallows his sigh.
“I can’t,” she breathes. Her forehead presses against his. Her eyes are closed tightly and she tries to forces herself to make some sense. “I can’t,” she says again. “I’m not ready. Not for this.”
He says nothing. Her shoulders sag and somehow, she knows he was expecting that from her. She waits for disappointment too, but that doesn’t come and it’s completely unexpected for her.
Then his lips brush against her forehead. He lingers or she likes to think that he lingers, even just a little bit. She doesn’t let herself look at him and her fingers, almost out of habit, reach up and touch her lips. When she hears him step back, Cameron lets her eyes open. She exhales and he shrugs.
“It’s not your turn,” he says.
Cameron doesn’t call him. She’s a few days behind in emails when she gets back to Chicago and sifting through conference dates is the last thing she wants to do.
Come the middle of the day, she is halfway through a meeting when the nurse comes into her office. Her hand is wrapped around a small vase of flowers; daisies, she realizes, bright and suddenly out of place in the office, so much so that the nurse seems to smile harder. Cameron stares.
“There’s no card,” the woman grins.
It takes her a minute to put the vase down. The glass slides over the wood and settles straight in the corner.
She blinks. The nurse is still watching. “It’s not my turn,” she says.
house md ; house/cameron ; 4,148 words.
advice from a former bride: something old, something blue. lockdown.
notes: Third in a series, following check your facts and you could be more understanding. For the wonderful, ever-so supportive blueheronz, as my love affair with this series wouldn’t be possible without you.
-
The hotel sits comfortably on the other side of town. Cameron can see it from where she sits at the table. The sun obscures is slightly with a glare, hitting the off corner of a curb that hosts a few cabs.
It’s ironic, she thinks. Nearly a year later, she’s in Princeton for a wedding. Her friend has a stepped out to make a call and she waits with a glass of wine. She reaches for it too, picking it up carefully and then staring down into the glass.
“This is crazy,” she says to herself, out loud, and then, she earns a glance from the couple sitting at the table next to her. It’s not the wedding. Weddings are easily excusable, hurried or too slow; people expect the work excuse, but she promised a long time ago that she’d come to this one.
When her friend returns to the table, she smiles and sits. Cameron smiles back too. Her lips feel dry. She studies the ring on the other woman’s finger. It’s a band and a diamond, simple and calm.
“I thought about inviting Robert,” her friend says kindly, and clears her throat, watching Cameron as she shifts in her seat. The woman picks her napkin and it dangles between her fingertips. “My brother would’ve liked him, you know.”
“Robert?”
The woman nods. Cameron lifts her glass and studies the wine again. Robert, she thinks. It’s still funny hearing Robert and not Chase; names were still an odd habit with them. But she puts her glass down, stealing another glance at the ring on the woman’s finger. It’s beautiful. She almost shakes her head. There’s a lump in her throat.
Instead, she manages to smile. “We haven’t talked in awhile,” she murmurs.
There is a phone call.
She doesn’t even remember what they say.
When she finally walks off the elevator, she spots him by the door, half-in, half-out; as if this weren’t already the strangest idea the two of them seemed to agree on.
He’s in a suit and it takes her a moment to really look at him: the tie is straight and even from a distance, each pieces fits impeccably to his form. She forgets how handsome House is and handsome in a way that not many people know how to understand. She allows herself a tiny smile.
“I didn’t think you’d come,” she calls.
The corners of his mouth shift. He straightens and then walks to her. She never blinks, watching him. She tucks her clutch under her arm. Her hands brush over her dress. She’s picked a navy silk, not black but something that she can almost be comfortable in.
“You said free booze,” he says. He eyes her carefully. She studies him back, amused, and then shrugs as he pokes her leg with his cane. “And I like free booze,” he finishes.
“I remembered.”
It’s fresh in her mind, the last two times that they’ve talked since she’s left, and come back; although the last time she came back wasn’t for him, it wasn’t for herself either. Sort the beginnings and ends is still something that she needs to work through, and work through away from everything else, but this is what no one cares to understand.
She still shakes her head as they start to walk. She exits onto the curb outside first, waving for a cab as it turns the corner. House stops, standing next to her. She wonders if he’s told anyone that she’s here.
“At least, you’re not the one getting married.”
He doesn’t disappoint with the lead-in. She snorts, watching him as he steps off the curb. The cab is caught behind a misplaced crosswalk.
“You’ve been holding that one in,” she murmurs.
“I’m trying to be appreciative,” he says. She laughs and he turns, shaking his head. “I mean, again, free booze. It’s nice to know that you remember the right things about me. It’s nearly impressive.”
Her lips curl.
But she says nothing until the cab finally pulls up next to them. House moves slowly to the other side and she slides into the cab first, murmuring a quick set of directions before he settles into the cab next to her.
When the driver pulls away from the curb, she looks over at House again. His hand wraps around his tie, fidgeting. She looks for some sort of change, some sort of indication that she’s in over her head. It’s not a good idea anyway, but she asked without any expectations. She wonders if that’s why he said yes. It’s always more than curiosity.
“So who’s this friend?” he asks and she tenses, biting her lip and turning to watch the city scene as it passes by. Familiar corners are always odd, and she should recognize places that she used to wander around. But she’s in Chicago now and there’s just more than the university and the city, more than the occasional conference.
“College,” she answers though, slowly, thoughtfully.
He raises an eyebrow. “Oh,” he says.
She’s quiet. She can feel him watching her. The cab slows to a light. Cameron checks her watch, studying the time but not really acknowledging it. She feels tired, suddenly. Maybe it’s the flight here. Maybe it’s the promise of the flight back, tomorrow.
But then she looks at House, really looks at House, open and suddenly too vulnerable to really say anything but. She takes a deep breath, carefully, and then reaches forward to touch his arm.
“It’s Jack’s sister,” she says finally. She doesn’t say my husband. She doesn’t offer a story. She’s not hiding it from him, she thinks, but merely trying to figure out the right way to say it. But she says it again, and says it firmly, as if to reassure herself: “It’s Jack’s sister,” she murmurs. “We’ve kept in touch over the years. She’s always been really wonderful.”
House opens his mouth. He closes it slowly. He seems to straighten against his seat. In front of them, the cab driver turns up the radio and almost unconsciously, Cameron leans closer to House.
His eyes are wider than she knows them, brighter even. The corners of his mouth twitch and he shakes his head. “So you bring me,” he drawls.
Her mouth curls. She tries not to think about it anymore.
“So I did.”
The wedding is beautiful, understated in a way that she’s always really hoped for. But she’s done first weddings and rushed weddings, and Cameron’s begun to believe that maybe weddings, the kind of weddings that she’s really hoped for aren’t meant to be hers in the first place.
At the reception, she sits with House. Her legs are crossed and she stares down, into the glass of her champagne, as the bride stands on the dance floor and says a few words to everybody in attendance. It’s funny to say, but she feels like she’s been here too many times before.
“ - and finally, Allison,” she says and Cameron looks up, surprised. Next to her, House is too quiet. “Allison,” the bride says again, “I can’t tell you how much our relationship means to me. First, it was because my brother loved you and you loved my brother - probably in a way that none of us could and to know, to really know that he had that kind of happiness, the kind I have now, it just - you’re incredible to me. You may not think so, but you are.”
There’s this tightness in Cameron’s throat, one that hasn’t been there in a really long time. Her eyes begin to burn and she straightens, meeting the other woman’s gaze with a tiny smile. House still says nothing and her friend continues.
“And now you’re my friend, my best friend - the closest thing I have to a sister, that we have to a sister, and I’m just really glad you’re here. I love you.”
There are applauses. Cameron’s ears ring and she gives another shaky smile to her friend, her gaze soft. She’s uncomfortable, but fights through it, just not to show how much, giving a small wave to Jack’s parents too who sit at the bridal party’s table. They haven’t talked in sometime, but there are other reasons like anything else.
When the music finally starts, and the bride and groom begin to dance, Cameron looks up and catches House as he studies her. There’s nothing cruel or kind about his gaze, nothing she can read, and she gives him a small shrug, as if she were attempting to say that this is what this is.
“Weddings,” he says finally, dryly, and picks up his scotch, finishing off. She watches as his fingers press against the glass.
“Weddings,” she says then too.
They’re quiet. Allison catches her friend’s gaze, only briefly, and they smile at each other. She shakes her head and the bride smiles widely again, burying herself against her husband’s shoulders. I almost had that, she thinks and it feels odd, too odd thinking about this, this way. It’s not her day, but there are always too many memories to count.
House pushes at her shoulder lightly. He stands too, dropping his glass over the table. She shakes her head, but he ignores her.
“Come on.” He offers his hand and she stares at it. “Come on,” he says again, and his fingers sway lightly, in midair, just as the piano begins to pick up in them middle of the song. She blinks and then takes it, takes it because it’s the thing that she should do, that she needs to do.
They are quiet.
He leads them to the dance floor, slowly and in step with a few couples. People walk to the music in patches and Cameron lets House turn her, drawing her close. He looks down at her and she tries to smile, managing only the slight twist of her mouth.
“I didn’t know she was going to do that,” she says, she feels like she has to say it too. She doesn’t question why. The silence merely makes it something different. It’s just another side, another side that she doesn’t know where it belongs or how it belongs.
He dips forward and his mouth grazes her ear. “You weren’t going to tell me,” he says then. It’s not an accusation.
“No,” she agrees. Her eyes close and she leans against his shoulder. “I assumed you’d figure it out at some point.”
“You give me a ton of credit.”
Her mouth curls.
“And you seem surprised,” she murmurs.
“You’re not,” he shoots back.
“No, I guess not.”
His fingers brush over her hair. The gesture is almost shy. She focuses on the song as it ends then, only to pick up and start into another. She pays no attention to the band’s singer or the rise of laughter from the tables next to them, or off to the side.
She feels House’s fingers in her hair again, just as they graze her forehead, then along her jaw. His fingers drift to her neck and run back and forth, over her skin. It forces some kind of sigh from her; something that just feels like a sound.
But then he dips forward again, and his mouth touches the open column of her shoulder, half-exposed by the strap of her dress.
“I hate weddings,” he murmurs over her skin. She laughs softly, hiding a shiver, but he seems to ignore her. “They make less and less sense every time I think about it.”
“You don’t think that much about them.”
He chuckles. “True.”
It doesn’t seem to cross her mind how close he is, and how soon she’s leaving, or that this is House and something between them is starting to stand both as it should and on its own. She doesn’t know if she’s ready for that. She doesn’t know if he’s ready either.
There’s too much, there’s too much that moves around the two of them, separately if anything else. She’s protective of herself, knowing things like history and what has stood over House’s head for the last two years.
“Why this one?”
He asks and she is still surprised. Her eyes open. She sighs and her fingers finally move from his hand to his chest. They trace over the fabric of his jacket, along the buttons, and then stop.
“I don’t know.” He scoffs, but she’s serious, looking up at him. There’s no point to prove, she wants to say. “I didn’t ask anyone else.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“I’m not finished.”
He looks down at her, frowning.
“I know you,” she says absently. “I know you’ll judge, I know you’ll just assume that you know everything and were right about … what?”
He hasn’t stopped staring. Her throat feels dry and then the room begins to feel as small as it should. She finally forces herself to look away, if only to gather herself. She catches the smile of the bride again, not at her but at her husband and there is that slight pang of regret. Two weddings, she thinks. There was only one of them that she really knew what smiling like that meant.
She meets House’s gaze again. He sighs heavily.
“Nothing,” he says, looking away and suddenly the moment, whatever moment it could’ve been, is over. She isn’t surprised or sad, and had it been a different time, a different place, maybe she might have even pushed him. There is just nothing else to say here.
When the song is over, he lets her pull back first. She stops and sighs. “I want another drink,” she says.
They take a cab back to her hotel. It’s started to rain and the water presses into the window, as the car rolls to a stop at a light.
Her ears rings with things beautiful bride and wonderful ceremony, and her mouth even hurts from the occasional laugh. It didn’t matter that House was there; it wouldn’t have mattered if he wasn’t or even if he had left, because there are pieces of her that can’t change in the way that other people need them to.
“This was strange,” she says finally. Her voice is loud and she startles herself, straightening against her seat. “I mean - well,” she says again. “It was strange.”
He doesn’t smile, but she catches the amusement, the strange display of emotion that washes quickly over his face.
“Figures,” he says too, but she doesn’t know what that means, nor does she try to understand it. It still is pick and choose with House and it’s the kind of thing that she maybe able to find funny.
He brings his hand to his face. His fingers press into his eyes and she almost wants to reach for him, to pull it away from his face. Her hand feels heavy though and she presses her fingers into her knee, over the fabric of her dress. Her fingers curl slowly into a fist and she rubs it lightly against into her skin.
“But it wasn’t boring,” he adds.
She scoffs, shaking her head.
“Good to know.”
“You wanted to know.”
“I didn’t ask.”
He snorts. “And that’s your problem. You don’t ask.”
It’s how he says it. She blinks. Her mouth opens, then closes, and then she turns away, looking out the window as the car starts to move again. She tries to pick out places that she remembers, places that she knows; they are the same thing, and after awhile, she knows that this is supposed to safely feel like it’s been some time. But it doesn’t. It never has.
“Would you give me an answer?” she asks slowly, turning back to meet his gaze. He blinks too. His mouth twists, but he says nothing. She sighs. “I mean - since we’re being honest here. If I asked, would you give me an answer?”
“I don’t know.”
She shakes her head. “Don’t make me carry that alone then.”
His hand covers hers. Over her knee, into the fabric of her dress; she watches as his fingers start to pull at hers, one by one, only to press her hand into her skin. Her throat burns and she tries to look at him.
The cab startles itself into another stop. The red light stretches over the back window and over their skin.
“I always do,” she murmurs. She looks away, absent, and watches as the cab slows into moving forward, inching closer to another car. The hotel is hidden in the next block over and suddenly, she starts to feel restless, as if whatever came next is something she should expect.
House doesn’t move. She stares at their hands again.
“You know what’s funny?” she starts then, and even wills a half-smile, the corners of her mouth feeling like they’re being carved into her skin. “Sometimes I think we’re being looped into having this conversation, variations of this conversation, or some kind of admission where I face you and I’m completely and utterly vulnerable. I’m complaining. I’m not blaming you - it’s just the way I end up being around you. Doesn’t matter where, or when, it’s doesn’t matter how - I’m sorry, it’s just funny. I’m a creature of habit and I only seem to really notice when it’s you … these are the times where I remember and I know that -”
“You’re in love with me,” he finishes, and he’s completely serious, serious in a way that she hasn’t seen in a really long time. He looks at her shyly - or something akin to being shy, and she places him far away from confusion. It feels like a step, a private step, and somehow, she wants to laugh.
She pulls her hand back. His hand wraps around his cane. Something moves between them. Trust, she thinks. It never goes well when it’s only halfway earned. But she’s never lied about these things to him either.
“Yeah,” she says. “I am - it’s not news, and like anyone else, I go back and forth between love and loved, stupid, as - I don’t really think you stop loving someone.”
“I’m not ready.”
It happens quickly, not suddenly. She half-expects herself ready for an answer, or with some kind of answer that might appease him. But her mouth stays closed and she feels almost thoughtful.
The hotel is closer. She watches House look away.
“I know,” she murmurs, and she means it to. It leaves her and she watches him, hoping to see him look back at her. There’s this intense need for him to see her, to know that there are pieces of her that she’s showing that, she’s showed him, and that she can’t have back.
But when House looks at her, he’s not really looking at her. She watches as he swallows and she tries not to feel to feel tired. It’s like walking backwards and as they pull up to the curb, she grabs her clutch. It’s something to do with her hands.
House sighs loudly. She ignores him.
“I don’t understand you. You’re supposed to be pissed,” he nearly accuses. “You’re supposed to give me some sort of ultimatum. You’re supposed to tell me things like I’m too late or there’s no room in your life for this kind of thing.”
“I don’t do work that way.”
He’s serious. “I know.”
The cab stops. Cameron pays out of habit, flashing a half-smile at the driver. Instead of staying inside, House follows her out too and they stand outside the hotel.
She expects him to leave. It would be what he’d do and she’d turn, maybe head back inside and wonder why she even made the effort. This isn’t about effort.
He stays standing in front of her too. He shifts his weight, foot to foot, and she tries not to sigh, not to fall into the expectation of being angry with him. It’s easier, so much easier; it would be something that he’d want from her too. But she’s never really been that person for him either.
“I’ll walk,” he says quickly.
“Walk?” she blinks.
“I danced,” he mutters.
She studies him. He steps back and then he steps forward, closer, only to hover over her. There are people that pass them, staring, but Cameron can’t bring herself to look away from him.
What do you want, she almost asks but can’t, won’t, and forces herself to swallow. She reaches up and pushes her hair back from her eyes. She sees that look, the same look from when he kissed her by the cab just before she headed to the airport. She thinks back to the office, where she said goodbye, and then goes further back, to the date and when she sat across from him, not because she had a point to prove because even then, even then she wanted to.
“I can’t,” she says finally. I’m not ready, she doesn’t say. There’s no sense of wanting or not wanting to. It feels different though, intentional even.
But her answer feels right, it feels necessary, and when he says nothing, she nods and then turns. She doesn’t bother with a goodbye. The kind of finality doesn’t belong to either of them. This much she knows.
He clears his throat. “You’re different,” he says and it’s almost as if he’s reached for her to get her to stay.
She stops. She turns too. They stare at each other. House stays standing where he is.
“I thought I knew why. You’re different. I used to want - I wanted to make you feel the same way that everybody seems to feel around me. I wanted to make you want to help, but you didn’t. You don’t. I wanted to make you want to change me, but you accept me. I don’t understand why.”
She’s quiet.
“You’re different, you’ve always been different, and maybe, maybe this is the closest - well, it doesn’t matter right?”
He gives up, or gives the impression of giving up; she doesn’t care to pick out whatever everything means. Maybe it’ll change. Maybe it won’t. She believes him now, in the moment, and maybe more than ever.
She steps forward. She nearly drops her clutch too, fumbling with it as she tucks it under her arm and reaches for House. Her fists wrap around his jacket and she leans up, pressing into him and sliding her mouth over his.
She kisses him selfishly, slowly drawing herself up to his height. Her fingers curl in his shoulders and she lets her mouth open over his. The taste of his mouth is sharp, hot, and she lets her tongue run lightly over his, then draw back to run over his lip. House makes a sound and then his hand is in her hair, his fingers curling deeply into the strands.
When she gasps, he fumbles and draws her closer, wrapping a tight arm around her waist. She drops her clutch, but doesn’t pull back and there is no declaration of control. He lets her kiss him the way she wants to and she lets herself push; he makes another sound and then a sigh, and she lets herself pull her hands to his face, framing his jaw with her palms and then pulling back, only slightly, just to brush her lips against his. She swallows his sigh.
“I can’t,” she breathes. Her forehead presses against his. Her eyes are closed tightly and she tries to forces herself to make some sense. “I can’t,” she says again. “I’m not ready. Not for this.”
He says nothing. Her shoulders sag and somehow, she knows he was expecting that from her. She waits for disappointment too, but that doesn’t come and it’s completely unexpected for her.
Then his lips brush against her forehead. He lingers or she likes to think that he lingers, even just a little bit. She doesn’t let herself look at him and her fingers, almost out of habit, reach up and touch her lips. When she hears him step back, Cameron lets her eyes open. She exhales and he shrugs.
“It’s not your turn,” he says.
Cameron doesn’t call him. She’s a few days behind in emails when she gets back to Chicago and sifting through conference dates is the last thing she wants to do.
Come the middle of the day, she is halfway through a meeting when the nurse comes into her office. Her hand is wrapped around a small vase of flowers; daisies, she realizes, bright and suddenly out of place in the office, so much so that the nurse seems to smile harder. Cameron stares.
“There’s no card,” the woman grins.
It takes her a minute to put the vase down. The glass slides over the wood and settles straight in the corner.
She blinks. The nurse is still watching. “It’s not my turn,” she says.