House Fic: that minute alone (1/6)
that minute alone
house md; cameron-centric (house/cameron, house/cuddy) ; 3,038 words
some secrets aren’t meant to be kept, it’s who you decide to tell.
notes: Series? Me? Right? Anyways. This is for mathhhh and for her birthday and inspired by that infamous tumblr quote:
“Cameron finds a sense of identity in her quest to be a good person. David Shore and I spoke a lot about how Cameron has a history heavily impacted by loss… The real woman that David based Cameron on lost three siblings in a fire at a young age and then lost her husband to cancer within the first year of marriage. I have always considered all of this to be a part of Cameron’s past.”
-
elephant girl
it was an accident unfortunate
(blonde redhead - elephant woman)
The apartment is at the end of the block.
There’s a school nearby too, on the other side; that’s important later. Of course, if you ask someone about it, passing-by, a neighbor - perhaps, you’re a tourist even. So you’ll say, “what happened?” And they’ll say, “it’s a story, you know …” and it’ll be a variation on something that nobody has any real facts on. This is the part where you’ll wonder: have they all moved away? Only some of that is true.
Cameron is different. She remembers her anniversaries.
House calls it the honeymoon period when she sees him, half-caught in his own cruel twist for a smile. He is in Los Angeles when she is. There is a conference on ethical practices and he sits across the aisle from her, staring when she decides not to. Coffee is next.
“You going to ask?”
His fingers drum against the table. Cameron’s gaze is glued to the television behind the counter. There is a waitress making more coffee.
“Why?” He clears his throat, finishing. When Cameron’s eyes narrow, she catches the end of the headline: house-fire kills five. “You know - why I stopped you,” he continues on. “Why you and I are sitting here having coffee. Why I’m even at this conference.”
“What?” she asks, and her fingers tap against the rim of her mug. She studies him briefly and then shrugs. “I heard,” she says calmly. “Wilson told me, Foreman told me, and Chase might’ve mentioned it once or twice. Congratulations? I don’t know. What would you like me to say?”
“What’s wrong with you?” he asks too.
“I’m tired,” she says.
They stare at each other. He looks different, she thinks. Or the same, she thinks too. She can’t decide. What she does know is that she didn’t leave him like this; there is color in his skin, the smirk carried on his mouth is deeper, firm, and there’s a strange romance to the thought. She wants to say things like congratulations or exactly how you’re supposed to say it: congratulations. She cannot muster anything up.
“I’m tired,” she says again. She glances quickly to the television. There’s a caption of date and time, but all she’s seeing is the house, flames rolling right off the roof and stretching into the sky. She shudders and pulls her coffee closer. She tries to think about why she’s here. This is a conference. There is a focus on ethics. On Friday, she’s presenting a paper.
House snorts loudly. “I don’t buy it.”
“I don’t expect you to.”
Their waitress passes their table. House pushes his mug to the side, but the woman ignores it and moves back to the other side of the restaurant. Cameron’s mouth twists in amusement.
“I’m trying to figure out if you’re sad, or just sad,” he says. “Kind of like the way you left. Was that a goodbye?”
She shrugs. “I had things to say.”
“So it wasn’t a goodbye,” he says. He leans forward, smirking. “I knew it,” he says. “You’re still predictable.”
It’s like a script. She leans forward too. Her hair falls into her eyes and she waits, watching as he counts his own pause.
“I’m not coming back,” she tells him. “But I think you know that. I think you’re here because you’re bored and figure what the hell, I’ll try and see if I can rehash old wounds. You want me to tell you that I’m still a mess, Chase was my fault, and above all, you were right. You want to flaunt how happy you are - how am I doing so far?”
He doesn’t blink. There is this strange pause. He studies her and she waits, waits for him to say something. Instead, it’s his eyes walking over her. She doesn’t wonder what he thinks. She can guess: hair too blonde, eyes too dark, and maybe, maybe it’s one of those weird thoughts that he quickly picks up on how she’s been working too many hours.
But he clears his throat. He draws back and turns to look over her. She wonders if more tables live on the other side.
“I expected more,” he says absently.
“What?”
“I expected more,” he repeats.
This was coming, she thinks. He picks up a fork and studies it. He tries to spin it between his fingers, but it slips and drops onto the side of the table. The fork hits the corner and scatters onto the floor.
“Seriously,” he says, unfazed. “I really did expect more from you.”
“So sorry to disappoint you.” Her mouth sighs into a yawn. Cameron covers her mouth with a hand, watching their waitress bustle around a few tables in the back of the restaurant. “It’s been a long day. I’ve been listening to lectures since nine.”
There are other doctors here. She recognizes a few. It’s an interesting world, outside of House. This is not about possibility or workability. There is supposed to be a sense of value and understanding, but that’s for other people. It was the one thing the three of them could agree on: Foreman and Chase and when they were all just it.
“Huh.” She blinks. House’s mouth turns and she looks at him curiously. She watches his gaze as it focuses. He lingers too long too and there is a flush that seems to crawl against her skin.
“What?” Cameron manages. She croaks and it startles her, her hand coming to cover her mouth. She takes a deep breath. “What’s wrong?”
He leans forward, over the table, pressing his palms against it. “You’re pissed,” he says. “You’re pissed that we’re here.”
Her eyes roll. “Really?”
“You’re still interesting,” he says, grins even. There’s something different about him now, good or bad and knowing that it’s not hers makes it strange and disarming. It’s not even about being with him, or the lack of a prospect. That realization isn’t new, but the feeling of it, the weight and how it holds itself over her; she knows they haven’t changed.
She draws back. Her fingers push her coffee towards him. The liquid slaps against the rim, catching her hand and rolling over her palm.
“Don’t do this,” she says. She stares at the coffee as it waivers over her skin. Pulling the napkin off of her lap, she dabs at it lightly. “Not today,” she adds. “I’m tired and I go back tomorrow.”
She looks up at him. His hand drops to his watch. She tries not to watch him fiddle with the clasp.
“First time in awhile and this is what you say to me - don’t do this.” He arches an eyebrow at her. “I expected more, I guess,” he says, and she knows, knows that he’s trying to catch her. There is no reassurance in knowing that she’s aware that he can’t pull much; it’s the slip-ups that count. “You know,” he adds, “since you’re a grownup and flew the coop. It’s something to get used to.”
“Growing up?” she asks dryly.
House smirks. She shrugs and drops for her napkin back over her lap. It tugs at her knees and the slips off.
“It’s insightful really,” he continues, as if he hadn’t heard her. It’s almost as if he’s taunting her; she remembers the talk. He looked first and she caught him, like it made sense. She can’t remember if she was thinking of him though, like usual, like that afterthought that she finds herself giving into from time to time. He’s still talking though and she’s watching, pretending to listen. Her head feels like it’s starting to spin and maybe, maybe that’s what he’s waiting for. She hasn’t asked about Cuddy yet.
“Except not,” she finishes. She shifts uncomfortably. She’s tired and it’s clear. He doesn’t back away. “Look, it’s -”
“I don’t know why you argue with me,” he cuts her off.
She shakes her head. He stares still and she manages to look away. She wonders what they look like.
She can’t help it: her elbows press into the table, her chin rests into her palm, and it’s like they’ve been doing this for awhile, the two of them, the back and forth and the lunches, the small conversations that nobody ever seems to think that the two of them have.
“I’m glad we talked,” she says, and she tries, half-heartedly, to cut the conversation off. A part of her curious - will he let her go?
He raises an eyebrow.
“Already?” he asks. He shakes his head. “I’m disappointed.”
She checks her watch. “I have to get back,” she says calmly.
“Well, let me put it this way.”
Cameron groans.
“I’m serious,” he says, and picks up his fork again. His elbows rest against the top. For the first time, she wonders if she should ask if Cuddy. “We’re talking. Like adults - isn’t that what you wanted?”
“Apparently.”
“Your lack of any effort is appalling.”
“So come to Chicago,” she says and she’s not thinking; there’s nothing about him that doesn’t make her angry or uncomfortable, but the words seem to fall too easily, “If you really want to talk. Come, spend an entire damn week, and ask me. Like a normal person.”
“That a dare?” he asks, smirking. That fades when she say nothing back; she could, and it could be quick. Instead, she leans closer. She shows promise of getting into his space. “You going to kiss me again?” he pushes. “You do like the unattainable. It wouldn’t be out of your realm.”
Picture this: it may or may not be the way he’s looking at her, it may or may not be the way she wants to push back. She knows that this is a bad idea, that he’s a bad idea, and the only reason that she agrees to this is the fact that she can face it here and then it’s over when she leaves. But he’s reaching for her before she realizes it, and then it’s his fingers, lightly, too lightly, sweeping against her forehead and pushing her hair back and out of her eyes.
His mouth opens and closes. He breathes and she hears it.
“That’s your unfortunate habit,” she says. Her voice is husky and she swallows. House smirks. “I’m not getting involved.”
“But you will,” he says.
This is it, she thinks. She pushes back and slides out, from behind the table. She reaches for her jacket and slides it on, all while he watches. He leans back against his seat and his arms stretch over the top of the extra chair on his side of the table. It rocks and she sighs.
She doesn’t really say goodbye, and it comes out as a half-awkward mumble. When she turns, she almost lingers.
It takes a few steps. “We’ll see each other again,” he calls.
Wilson calls her after. There was an emergency at the hospital, and she does not have any time to be home.
“You okay?” he asks, and it’s one of those things, a strange play on fishing for information. When she throws her ticket stub into the trash, she studies the way los angeles is scrawled against the top. Her fingers tuck back inside her pocket and she leans against the door.
“You’re not calling me to ask,” she says.
This is the truth. But she’s home, and she doesn’t want to be home; it’s a cryptic sort of mess in her head. Her apartment is dark too and her suitcases stay resting at the door.
“We’re still friends.” He clears his throat. She imagines him in his office, hiding. It seems like something Wilson would do, hide when House is seemingly involved in some kind of relationship. He’s fishing. “Although, I mean, it - it’s kind of unbelievable, this whole thing with him.”
“You want to know if anything happened.” She says it, but doesn’t finish. There is a laundry list of things to say: you want to know if he’s for real, if he’s happy and there’s a chance, a chance that he can change and everything that you wanted him to be was right. “That’s why you’re calling,” she finishes.
There is a pause. “Did there?”
“Goodbye Wilson,” she says.
The apartment is at the end of the block. There is an old sign, dusty. It’s pinned to the building by a fence, hanging low when it’s more than just a windy day. This is Chicago, after all.
Her office is dark when she gets back from rounds. It’s late and she forgets that she has another two hours to go on her shift.
When the phone rings, her hand stops over the light switch. Her fingers hover as it rings. No, she thinks. Her mind wanders and she catches herself, stopping and then moving to sit at her desk.
She catches the phone on the last ring. It’s House’s voice. “So I’m coming,” he says. “This week. I feel like we didn’t have enough time, you know?"
She cracks a smile. “Just like that?” she asks. “You see me for an hour at a conference and we’ve graduated to visiting rights, huh?”
“I’m curious.”
“You have a life.” You’re bating me, she doesn’t say. She remembers Wilson’s phone, but that was earlier in the week. There’s the entire timeline too. It’s the time of year; everything seems like an endless day.
He doesn’t answer though, and she finds it curious. She reaches over and turns on her desk lamp. She listens to the other line. There’s a voice, softer, and the assumption is there. She hears things like are you coming to bed? and don’t be too long. She’s not jealous, and somehow, she feels - a little sad. She shakes her head.
“But I appreciate the call,” she says dryly. “Late, at night, when normal people who have lives are in bed.”
“I do have one,” he says. “And I’m all about the new things, closing old doors, and moving on. I like moving on. Moving to where I’m supposed to be. My therapist says it’s a good, healthy outlook.”
She scoffs.
“And I don’t know, you get this look every time - it’s that time of year, I guess, for you, or whatever.”
“You can say it,” she says quietly.
“Husband?” he asks, and it’s implied: anniversary. There is a taste in her mouth and she’s quiet, moving to sit at her desk. She drops her face in her hand and exhales, clutching the phone to her ear.
“That’s in January,” she says. “The fourteenth. It’s a Friday this year. It’ll be - I don’t know. After ten years, you’re supposed to stop counting or something.”
“Or something,” he echoes.
If you were really that curious, she almost starts. But doesn’t. The story is simple. There is an apartment in the city somewhere, sentenced to be unusable. It’s just not a story she’s ready to tell.
Chase doesn’t even know. Her parents don’t talk. Her brother. Some days, the whole thing is one of those surreal memories, there but not there, present and then not. She was a little girl.
“There’s - ” her eyes close. “There’s an apartment building -”
She stops herself.
“It’s in my file, you know.”
“What is?”
“Or Google,” she says dryly. She leans back in her seat. The chair starts to sway slowly as she struggles to get comfortable. “I’m surprised you haven’t bastardized the Internet trying to find it.”
“Thought we were friends.”
“Don’t put me in the middle of anything.” There are too many scenarios in her head. She listens to him sigh. She can see him too. In his apartment, on the couch, staring into the dark; there’s Cuddy in his bedroom, and her daughter - she has no idea.
“What?”
He catches her. She doesn’t lie.
“House,” she warns.
“I didn’t say anything,” he says.
“You usually don’t.”
He chuckles. “Wanna fight?” he asks, and he’s coy. “You wouldn’t have said anything if there was something you didn’t want me to know.”
“I hate anniversaries,” she murmurs.
“You got married in May,” he says.
“I got married in May,” she says, and leans forward, reaching for a photo on her desk. She pulls it over her files and studies it. Christmas, she remembers. Her parents, her brother and his son; her sister-in-law May went home to her parents for the holidays. Track records, it’s something they share.
Cameron sighs. She takes the picture frame and turns it over, face down. Rubbing her eyes, she clears her throat.
“You know,” she starts. Somehow, she’s pushing. “I would’ve probably told you anyway, had you been asking the right question.”
“There’s a right question?”
“There’s a right question,” she says.
It takes her a lot to admit that. The office becomes smaller after that. She feels it as simply as it could be stated. It’s a desk, a chair, and a few photos that might make patients comfortable should they ever wander up here. She works in the Emergency Room for many reasons, and instantaneous and over is without a doubt one of the biggest. She’s sure that House gets that too.
The line is too quiet though. She sighs loudly. Then she hears a low moan. A chair, she thinks. She imagines him standing, pensive and looking at her like he did that last time, that one time where she almost decided to tell him everything.
He has no idea what to do with her.
“Thursday night,” he says finally. “I’ll be there in the morning.”
Her mother says it best. “You’re looking too hard,” she tells her, pushing a plate across the counter. They are in the kitchen of her parent’s home. This isn’t the house she grew up in; that’s a different story, or maybe, it’s the right story and all the same.
“For what?” she still asks.
This is Wednesday morning and there is a cup of coffee in front of her. Cameron’ shift ended hours ago. Her mother bows over her, slowly, sadly, and brushes her fingers over her hair and pushing it over her eyes.
The other woman asks first: “Are your answers really here?”
There was a fire once.
Cameron isn’t ready for House.
house md; cameron-centric (house/cameron, house/cuddy) ; 3,038 words
some secrets aren’t meant to be kept, it’s who you decide to tell.
notes: Series? Me? Right? Anyways. This is for mathhhh and for her birthday and inspired by that infamous tumblr quote:
“Cameron finds a sense of identity in her quest to be a good person. David Shore and I spoke a lot about how Cameron has a history heavily impacted by loss… The real woman that David based Cameron on lost three siblings in a fire at a young age and then lost her husband to cancer within the first year of marriage. I have always considered all of this to be a part of Cameron’s past.”
-
elephant girl
it was an accident unfortunate
(blonde redhead - elephant woman)
The apartment is at the end of the block.
There’s a school nearby too, on the other side; that’s important later. Of course, if you ask someone about it, passing-by, a neighbor - perhaps, you’re a tourist even. So you’ll say, “what happened?” And they’ll say, “it’s a story, you know …” and it’ll be a variation on something that nobody has any real facts on. This is the part where you’ll wonder: have they all moved away? Only some of that is true.
Cameron is different. She remembers her anniversaries.
House calls it the honeymoon period when she sees him, half-caught in his own cruel twist for a smile. He is in Los Angeles when she is. There is a conference on ethical practices and he sits across the aisle from her, staring when she decides not to. Coffee is next.
“You going to ask?”
His fingers drum against the table. Cameron’s gaze is glued to the television behind the counter. There is a waitress making more coffee.
“Why?” He clears his throat, finishing. When Cameron’s eyes narrow, she catches the end of the headline: house-fire kills five. “You know - why I stopped you,” he continues on. “Why you and I are sitting here having coffee. Why I’m even at this conference.”
“What?” she asks, and her fingers tap against the rim of her mug. She studies him briefly and then shrugs. “I heard,” she says calmly. “Wilson told me, Foreman told me, and Chase might’ve mentioned it once or twice. Congratulations? I don’t know. What would you like me to say?”
“What’s wrong with you?” he asks too.
“I’m tired,” she says.
They stare at each other. He looks different, she thinks. Or the same, she thinks too. She can’t decide. What she does know is that she didn’t leave him like this; there is color in his skin, the smirk carried on his mouth is deeper, firm, and there’s a strange romance to the thought. She wants to say things like congratulations or exactly how you’re supposed to say it: congratulations. She cannot muster anything up.
“I’m tired,” she says again. She glances quickly to the television. There’s a caption of date and time, but all she’s seeing is the house, flames rolling right off the roof and stretching into the sky. She shudders and pulls her coffee closer. She tries to think about why she’s here. This is a conference. There is a focus on ethics. On Friday, she’s presenting a paper.
House snorts loudly. “I don’t buy it.”
“I don’t expect you to.”
Their waitress passes their table. House pushes his mug to the side, but the woman ignores it and moves back to the other side of the restaurant. Cameron’s mouth twists in amusement.
“I’m trying to figure out if you’re sad, or just sad,” he says. “Kind of like the way you left. Was that a goodbye?”
She shrugs. “I had things to say.”
“So it wasn’t a goodbye,” he says. He leans forward, smirking. “I knew it,” he says. “You’re still predictable.”
It’s like a script. She leans forward too. Her hair falls into her eyes and she waits, watching as he counts his own pause.
“I’m not coming back,” she tells him. “But I think you know that. I think you’re here because you’re bored and figure what the hell, I’ll try and see if I can rehash old wounds. You want me to tell you that I’m still a mess, Chase was my fault, and above all, you were right. You want to flaunt how happy you are - how am I doing so far?”
He doesn’t blink. There is this strange pause. He studies her and she waits, waits for him to say something. Instead, it’s his eyes walking over her. She doesn’t wonder what he thinks. She can guess: hair too blonde, eyes too dark, and maybe, maybe it’s one of those weird thoughts that he quickly picks up on how she’s been working too many hours.
But he clears his throat. He draws back and turns to look over her. She wonders if more tables live on the other side.
“I expected more,” he says absently.
“What?”
“I expected more,” he repeats.
This was coming, she thinks. He picks up a fork and studies it. He tries to spin it between his fingers, but it slips and drops onto the side of the table. The fork hits the corner and scatters onto the floor.
“Seriously,” he says, unfazed. “I really did expect more from you.”
“So sorry to disappoint you.” Her mouth sighs into a yawn. Cameron covers her mouth with a hand, watching their waitress bustle around a few tables in the back of the restaurant. “It’s been a long day. I’ve been listening to lectures since nine.”
There are other doctors here. She recognizes a few. It’s an interesting world, outside of House. This is not about possibility or workability. There is supposed to be a sense of value and understanding, but that’s for other people. It was the one thing the three of them could agree on: Foreman and Chase and when they were all just it.
“Huh.” She blinks. House’s mouth turns and she looks at him curiously. She watches his gaze as it focuses. He lingers too long too and there is a flush that seems to crawl against her skin.
“What?” Cameron manages. She croaks and it startles her, her hand coming to cover her mouth. She takes a deep breath. “What’s wrong?”
He leans forward, over the table, pressing his palms against it. “You’re pissed,” he says. “You’re pissed that we’re here.”
Her eyes roll. “Really?”
“You’re still interesting,” he says, grins even. There’s something different about him now, good or bad and knowing that it’s not hers makes it strange and disarming. It’s not even about being with him, or the lack of a prospect. That realization isn’t new, but the feeling of it, the weight and how it holds itself over her; she knows they haven’t changed.
She draws back. Her fingers push her coffee towards him. The liquid slaps against the rim, catching her hand and rolling over her palm.
“Don’t do this,” she says. She stares at the coffee as it waivers over her skin. Pulling the napkin off of her lap, she dabs at it lightly. “Not today,” she adds. “I’m tired and I go back tomorrow.”
She looks up at him. His hand drops to his watch. She tries not to watch him fiddle with the clasp.
“First time in awhile and this is what you say to me - don’t do this.” He arches an eyebrow at her. “I expected more, I guess,” he says, and she knows, knows that he’s trying to catch her. There is no reassurance in knowing that she’s aware that he can’t pull much; it’s the slip-ups that count. “You know,” he adds, “since you’re a grownup and flew the coop. It’s something to get used to.”
“Growing up?” she asks dryly.
House smirks. She shrugs and drops for her napkin back over her lap. It tugs at her knees and the slips off.
“It’s insightful really,” he continues, as if he hadn’t heard her. It’s almost as if he’s taunting her; she remembers the talk. He looked first and she caught him, like it made sense. She can’t remember if she was thinking of him though, like usual, like that afterthought that she finds herself giving into from time to time. He’s still talking though and she’s watching, pretending to listen. Her head feels like it’s starting to spin and maybe, maybe that’s what he’s waiting for. She hasn’t asked about Cuddy yet.
“Except not,” she finishes. She shifts uncomfortably. She’s tired and it’s clear. He doesn’t back away. “Look, it’s -”
“I don’t know why you argue with me,” he cuts her off.
She shakes her head. He stares still and she manages to look away. She wonders what they look like.
She can’t help it: her elbows press into the table, her chin rests into her palm, and it’s like they’ve been doing this for awhile, the two of them, the back and forth and the lunches, the small conversations that nobody ever seems to think that the two of them have.
“I’m glad we talked,” she says, and she tries, half-heartedly, to cut the conversation off. A part of her curious - will he let her go?
He raises an eyebrow.
“Already?” he asks. He shakes his head. “I’m disappointed.”
She checks her watch. “I have to get back,” she says calmly.
“Well, let me put it this way.”
Cameron groans.
“I’m serious,” he says, and picks up his fork again. His elbows rest against the top. For the first time, she wonders if she should ask if Cuddy. “We’re talking. Like adults - isn’t that what you wanted?”
“Apparently.”
“Your lack of any effort is appalling.”
“So come to Chicago,” she says and she’s not thinking; there’s nothing about him that doesn’t make her angry or uncomfortable, but the words seem to fall too easily, “If you really want to talk. Come, spend an entire damn week, and ask me. Like a normal person.”
“That a dare?” he asks, smirking. That fades when she say nothing back; she could, and it could be quick. Instead, she leans closer. She shows promise of getting into his space. “You going to kiss me again?” he pushes. “You do like the unattainable. It wouldn’t be out of your realm.”
Picture this: it may or may not be the way he’s looking at her, it may or may not be the way she wants to push back. She knows that this is a bad idea, that he’s a bad idea, and the only reason that she agrees to this is the fact that she can face it here and then it’s over when she leaves. But he’s reaching for her before she realizes it, and then it’s his fingers, lightly, too lightly, sweeping against her forehead and pushing her hair back and out of her eyes.
His mouth opens and closes. He breathes and she hears it.
“That’s your unfortunate habit,” she says. Her voice is husky and she swallows. House smirks. “I’m not getting involved.”
“But you will,” he says.
This is it, she thinks. She pushes back and slides out, from behind the table. She reaches for her jacket and slides it on, all while he watches. He leans back against his seat and his arms stretch over the top of the extra chair on his side of the table. It rocks and she sighs.
She doesn’t really say goodbye, and it comes out as a half-awkward mumble. When she turns, she almost lingers.
It takes a few steps. “We’ll see each other again,” he calls.
Wilson calls her after. There was an emergency at the hospital, and she does not have any time to be home.
“You okay?” he asks, and it’s one of those things, a strange play on fishing for information. When she throws her ticket stub into the trash, she studies the way los angeles is scrawled against the top. Her fingers tuck back inside her pocket and she leans against the door.
“You’re not calling me to ask,” she says.
This is the truth. But she’s home, and she doesn’t want to be home; it’s a cryptic sort of mess in her head. Her apartment is dark too and her suitcases stay resting at the door.
“We’re still friends.” He clears his throat. She imagines him in his office, hiding. It seems like something Wilson would do, hide when House is seemingly involved in some kind of relationship. He’s fishing. “Although, I mean, it - it’s kind of unbelievable, this whole thing with him.”
“You want to know if anything happened.” She says it, but doesn’t finish. There is a laundry list of things to say: you want to know if he’s for real, if he’s happy and there’s a chance, a chance that he can change and everything that you wanted him to be was right. “That’s why you’re calling,” she finishes.
There is a pause. “Did there?”
“Goodbye Wilson,” she says.
The apartment is at the end of the block. There is an old sign, dusty. It’s pinned to the building by a fence, hanging low when it’s more than just a windy day. This is Chicago, after all.
Her office is dark when she gets back from rounds. It’s late and she forgets that she has another two hours to go on her shift.
When the phone rings, her hand stops over the light switch. Her fingers hover as it rings. No, she thinks. Her mind wanders and she catches herself, stopping and then moving to sit at her desk.
She catches the phone on the last ring. It’s House’s voice. “So I’m coming,” he says. “This week. I feel like we didn’t have enough time, you know?"
She cracks a smile. “Just like that?” she asks. “You see me for an hour at a conference and we’ve graduated to visiting rights, huh?”
“I’m curious.”
“You have a life.” You’re bating me, she doesn’t say. She remembers Wilson’s phone, but that was earlier in the week. There’s the entire timeline too. It’s the time of year; everything seems like an endless day.
He doesn’t answer though, and she finds it curious. She reaches over and turns on her desk lamp. She listens to the other line. There’s a voice, softer, and the assumption is there. She hears things like are you coming to bed? and don’t be too long. She’s not jealous, and somehow, she feels - a little sad. She shakes her head.
“But I appreciate the call,” she says dryly. “Late, at night, when normal people who have lives are in bed.”
“I do have one,” he says. “And I’m all about the new things, closing old doors, and moving on. I like moving on. Moving to where I’m supposed to be. My therapist says it’s a good, healthy outlook.”
She scoffs.
“And I don’t know, you get this look every time - it’s that time of year, I guess, for you, or whatever.”
“You can say it,” she says quietly.
“Husband?” he asks, and it’s implied: anniversary. There is a taste in her mouth and she’s quiet, moving to sit at her desk. She drops her face in her hand and exhales, clutching the phone to her ear.
“That’s in January,” she says. “The fourteenth. It’s a Friday this year. It’ll be - I don’t know. After ten years, you’re supposed to stop counting or something.”
“Or something,” he echoes.
If you were really that curious, she almost starts. But doesn’t. The story is simple. There is an apartment in the city somewhere, sentenced to be unusable. It’s just not a story she’s ready to tell.
Chase doesn’t even know. Her parents don’t talk. Her brother. Some days, the whole thing is one of those surreal memories, there but not there, present and then not. She was a little girl.
“There’s - ” her eyes close. “There’s an apartment building -”
She stops herself.
“It’s in my file, you know.”
“What is?”
“Or Google,” she says dryly. She leans back in her seat. The chair starts to sway slowly as she struggles to get comfortable. “I’m surprised you haven’t bastardized the Internet trying to find it.”
“Thought we were friends.”
“Don’t put me in the middle of anything.” There are too many scenarios in her head. She listens to him sigh. She can see him too. In his apartment, on the couch, staring into the dark; there’s Cuddy in his bedroom, and her daughter - she has no idea.
“What?”
He catches her. She doesn’t lie.
“House,” she warns.
“I didn’t say anything,” he says.
“You usually don’t.”
He chuckles. “Wanna fight?” he asks, and he’s coy. “You wouldn’t have said anything if there was something you didn’t want me to know.”
“I hate anniversaries,” she murmurs.
“You got married in May,” he says.
“I got married in May,” she says, and leans forward, reaching for a photo on her desk. She pulls it over her files and studies it. Christmas, she remembers. Her parents, her brother and his son; her sister-in-law May went home to her parents for the holidays. Track records, it’s something they share.
Cameron sighs. She takes the picture frame and turns it over, face down. Rubbing her eyes, she clears her throat.
“You know,” she starts. Somehow, she’s pushing. “I would’ve probably told you anyway, had you been asking the right question.”
“There’s a right question?”
“There’s a right question,” she says.
It takes her a lot to admit that. The office becomes smaller after that. She feels it as simply as it could be stated. It’s a desk, a chair, and a few photos that might make patients comfortable should they ever wander up here. She works in the Emergency Room for many reasons, and instantaneous and over is without a doubt one of the biggest. She’s sure that House gets that too.
The line is too quiet though. She sighs loudly. Then she hears a low moan. A chair, she thinks. She imagines him standing, pensive and looking at her like he did that last time, that one time where she almost decided to tell him everything.
He has no idea what to do with her.
“Thursday night,” he says finally. “I’ll be there in the morning.”
Her mother says it best. “You’re looking too hard,” she tells her, pushing a plate across the counter. They are in the kitchen of her parent’s home. This isn’t the house she grew up in; that’s a different story, or maybe, it’s the right story and all the same.
“For what?” she still asks.
This is Wednesday morning and there is a cup of coffee in front of her. Cameron’ shift ended hours ago. Her mother bows over her, slowly, sadly, and brushes her fingers over her hair and pushing it over her eyes.
The other woman asks first: “Are your answers really here?”
There was a fire once.
Cameron isn’t ready for House.