House Fic: that minute alone (2/6)
that minute alone
house md; cameron-centric (house/cameron, house/cuddy) ; 3,573 words
some secrets aren’t meant to be kept, it’s who you decide to tell.
notes: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.”
-
and all the while that you would burn
your tongue was working overtime
love foregone and life's so good
oh aren't you darling
(Isobell Campbell & Mark Lanegan - The False Husband)
The card drops into her bag when she isn’t looking. This is an accident.
There is only so many times she can read thinking of you.
The door is open. Somehow this is familiar: Cameron hears the slight shuffle of sneakers, very aware of the possibility. There may or may not be a split second, but there are always habits, and some habits are harder to break. She doesn’t look up.
“You weren’t at the airport,” his voice hits her expectantly. She hears the zipper of a bag. There’s the strange hint of smoke. It’s odd to her, but there is always something new to him. It’s like a game, as usual.
The door closes. She reaches for a pen.
She still doesn’t look up. “I wasn’t coming to get you,” she says. The corners of her mouth quirk, but just slightly; it’s almost an afterthought, but not quite there. “Didn’t even think you’d come,” she says too. He scoffs. When she does look up, she shrugs. “You have a habit of saying things and leaving nothing for expectation.”
“Whatever.”
They stare at each other. He is heavy-handed with his gaze. She watches, instead, as he tucks his wallet into a pocket. There is a bag at his feet and she wonders how long he’s really going to stay.
“So this is it,” he states, looking around.
Her gaze follows too. The lights are too low, she thinks. There are a few books out of place, next to an empty coffee mug that rests against the shelves. The bookshelf is new too and he won’t care, but she can still tell. She can still tell that she is piecing her life back together, slowly, maybe always, and coming back here makes that no different.
Cameron clears her throat. She shakes her head as she studies him. “What’s it?”
“Your office,” he says like it’s obvious. And maybe it is, she thinks. She leans back in her chair and watches him as he shuffles around awkwardly. He comes to her desk and picks up one of her pictures. “I mean, I didn’t think that this would be it. This is small. Where’s the sunlight? The birds singing and filing your paperwork away?”
She snorts. “Really?”
“Do you sing? That would even more appropriate.”
“You’re giving me a headache.”
He smirks, or maybe she catches a smile. The corners of his mouth twist and it’s steady, waiting. She leans closer, over her desk, resting her chin in her hands as she stares at him. The smile seems to be challenging her.
She’s looking for change, she thinks. He still holds one of her pictures in his hand, then between two hands. He holds the frame steady and then watches her still, dropping it into his lap.
Over his shoulder, she watches a few people pass by behind the windows. She doesn’t get up to turn the shades.
“Why are you even here?” she asks, and she means it, quietly, thoughtfully. She doesn’t look at him and she wonders if there’s a point to this here. Long distance; she wouldn’t put it past him.
He clears his throat. “You’re interesting.”
“That’s bullshit,” she says. Then she covers her mouth with her hand, surprised. He looks at her and his mouth slips open. “You really came out here,” she calms down, “to talk to me and then throw out the you’re interesting card? I mean, come on.”
“Are you getting angry at me?”
“No.” She rolls her eyes. “Not at all.”
He shifts. The picture slips from his lap. It hits the floor with a muffled crash and the sound of the glass scarping into the carpet. The office stills and when she meets his gaze, he shrugs.
“A little more effort,” he mutters.
“What do you want me to say?” That hasn’t been already, she doesn’t finish. It’s like her ability to function in a relationship depends on circles. With House though, there’s change and chance and dynamic. She’s come to peace with him and that; she tries to think so.
“I don’t know.” He leans forward. He pushes his cane to hook around the arm of the chair. His elbows rest against his knees. “Hello, maybe.”
“If only it worked like that,” she murmurs.
“Cuddy knows I’m here.”
They stare at each other. That’s a lie, she thinks. Her hair brushes over her eyes and she reaches back, running her fingers through the strands. She picks them up into a fist, turning her gaze and checking a clock by her bookshelves. Her rounds in the emergency room start again soon, but she doesn’t mention it, and returns her gaze to his.
Slowly, she starts to braid her hair. Her fingers work a few strands, loose and impossible, into something stiff. She keeps herself focused, cautious, and catches House as he straightens. He can tell.
“That’s good, I guess,” she offers.
“I’m not here for her,” he says too. “If that’s where your head’s going, because your head will go there, since that’s what you do. You assume.”
“I’m not fighting with you.”
“I’m not here to fight.”
She scoffs. He holds up his hands, leaning back in the chair. It swings back lightly and he seems to be balancing on his heels. There’s nothing steady about the gesture and she catches his teeth as they skim his lip and the slight, sudden gesture of pain as he grimaces.
“I’m not. There’s something -” There’s a smirk too, as he continues, and this irrational pull to anger. She can hear him talking, see his mouth moving, and she moves farther and farther away from paying any attention to the way people move to from opposite ends of the hallway outside her office. She should go, she thinks. She has work. They are the same thought.
“So,” he says. “You agree?”
“What?” she blinks.
“You’re not paying any attention,” he mutters. He rolls his eyes. “Seriously. No wonder you’re like this and you’re back here.” He waves his hands around. “If anything,” he says too. “I thought you’d be the one to go the furthest.”
“Don’t,” she snarls, cutting him off. “Don’t even -”
She stops. She stops because she catches herself; she is standing and her hands have wrapped themselves into fists. There’s a tightness that starts to build: slowly first, then thickens, drawing itself against the roof of her mouth. She tries to breathe but House is here, sitting still, watching and waiting. Is this why you’re here, she wants to ask.
But this hasn’t been about that in a long time. “I have to go,” she says quickly. She grabs a few files and shakes her head. “I have to go.”
Leaving, she doesn’t look back to see if he stays.
When she was first married, Jack bought them a small apartment near a theater. “To have goals, you know?” he would says to her; this is back when they were in bed together, where she would curl her legs around his, and somehow, somehow things were all about making absolute sense.
“Goals are good,” she would say back too, and mean it. Even then, it’s what she would let herself hear.
The light is on when she comes back to her office. House is sitting in the chair behind her desk, legs stretched out over the corner. He smirks when he sees her and she stops herself from leaning against the door; there is something too ironic about all of this.
He chuckles too when her shoulders slump. She catches herself before she drops her files. She’s wearing a t-shirt over the pants of her scrubs. That other shirt lost a battle early on in the emergency room.
“Man shot his wife,” she says. “Wife shot him back and the two of them are down, together in the emergency room. Handcuffed and holding hands … or something,” she sighs.
He snorts. He reaches for her coffee mug. When he sniffs the top, he wrinkles his nose and shakes his head.
“Waste,” he says.
“At least,” she mutters, “go back to your hotel.”
“You have a late night,” he says. “Your nurse told me. You have nurses. I don’t have nurses. I don’t know if I should be jealous.”
She rolls her eyes.
There are all sorts of things she could say: I’m good, I’m that good, and I would’ve never had a chance had I not worked for you. These are the things that people expect her to say even though coming out of Jersey and House on her resume is worn like some kind of battle scar and medal.
Moving into the office, she tosses her files onto her desk. Her hands drop too, over the corners and then move as she pushes his legs off. He chuckles again and his legs drops, scuffling over the carpet. She shakes her head and catches another wince. He’s hiding again, she thinks. It’s none of her business.
Cameron slides herself to sit on her desk. He bites his lip. She watches his teeth catch the skin and then slide back.
“We’re going to talk,” he announces. It’s abrupt and awkward. He leans back in her chair and wrinkles his nose.
“Really?” she says slowly.
“I mean I’m on your turf. Don’t you want closure? I’m pretty sure whatever it is that you did the last time was just nothing more than a stupid idea.”
“That was closure,” she murmurs.
“Lame.”
“What do you want me to say? You haven’t exactly answered that question. In fact, I’m pretty sure that the question comes up at least twice every time you and I talk. So. Talk.”
“You should listen to yourself.” He says and rolls his eyes. For a moment, she picks up on his gestures. It’s always more than the smaller things, she thinks. His hands. The slight, odd smile; it’s half a smirk, not quite a smile. She remembers the smoke from early and her stomach twists.
“I do,” she mutters.
“What’s going on?”
The question is so simple. This is different from the last time she ways in Jersey, in Princeton, she thinks. Their goodbye, her goodbye was callous and short. She knew she had things to say, more than what she said at that point. But it wasn’t about him and it wasn’t about just him in that moment. Their timing is never right.
It’s not right here either. She knows that. The corners of his mouth start to quirk again, just before she says anything.
Cameron manages to sigh. “It’s like you want me to trust you.”
“You do,” he says, and she laughs, right there. The sound is strange against the corner of her office, the way it echoes and it how it doesn’t. Somehow, the space manages to feel like a tight fit.
“I’m serious,” he says too. “You do. If you didn’t, I wouldn’t be here. There would be nothing to talk about.”
“I wouldn’t be interesting,” she finishes.
He arches an eyebrow. She shrugs.
“Following your line of conversation.”
“You were always a quick study.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Backhanded comment, really?”
There is a pause. He looks at her and his eyes are bright. Her stomach sways into some kind of knot, heavy and still. She doesn’t like it. It’s old and familiar and when he leans forward, his elbows slide over the corners of her desk.
Her mouth opens and closes. There is a strange sense of self-awareness. He sighs loudly and she pulls back from the desk, standing and moving to grab her coffee mug. But he stops her, grabbing her by the wrist.
“I’m in love,” he mutters. The room seems to open again. “And I’m rusty,” he says. One of these things is not like the other.
His fingers are tight.
Everything seems to move backwards these days. In her head, there’s some kind of rendition, some kind of explanation for the choices that have been made. They pull at her, they continue to pull at her, wave and spin around and around in her head, like memories, but not quite memories; there’s no such thing anymore.
But sometimes, her brother says to her: “Do you think about it? I mean, do you really think about it? Would be here, would we be the way we are, two extremes - I mean, goddamn it. We’re fucked up. I’m tired of surrounding myself with people who think it’s okay to fix me.”
They deal with it in different ways too. Danny joined the army. Cameron married once, then twice, and all six hundred miles apart.
“Want to take a walk?”
When she comes back, he is finishing her coffee. She has a new shirt on and her jeans. He studies her and the mug is too close to his mouth.
“Want to take a walk?” she asks again. “I have time,” she says, but she’s not really leaving him any options. This is how it works: you take away his options and just maybe, maybe he’ll listen to you. She knows at the very least, this hasn’t and will not change.
“Do I have to?” he asks, and it’s all so sudden. Her mind slowly rounds itself in a panic. Where should she start? Why should she start? She has never had any sort of expectations when it comes to House. They come, they go, they manifest in ways that feel too new and too simple; this is not the same.
But she pushes him. “Yeah,” she says. “You do. You want your answers?”
He stands. He hands her coat to her first.
This is less about the hospital. But they leave her office and she closes the door, locks it too; habits are habits and all of this, despite being home, it makes her careful. She thinks that’s what’s changed again. She is more careful than she should be.
But Cameron takes him down the hall, away from the direction of the emergency room and a secondary elevator near the nurses’ desk. No one pays attention. No one whispers. A nurse says hello as she passes and Cameron manages a polite smile, even with House next to her.
When they step onto the elevator, her eyes close. She rubs them slowly and she shakes her head.
“This isn’t a tour,” she tells him. “I’m not going to point out things and tell you why and how they make me feel things. We’re going to get food because the cafeteria food makes me tired and I still have a few hours left on my shift. You can get that, right?”
“Whatever,” he says.
Her eyes stay closed. She listens instead; his sneakers shuffle against the elevator floor and he seems to lean closer to her. She can picture him too, the way he kind of leans in, but doesn’t; it’s the sway of his body, the off-chance and change of his posture. His arm touches his shoulder and her mouth slips into somewhat of a smile. It feels odd.
The doors open quickly.
She steps outside, ahead of him, and her pace stays steady as he follows. They trudge through the lobby and she has the slightest of a flashback, earlier, later - it doesn’t matter. Maybe she was laughing, maybe she wasn’t; she remembers a holiday stop at his apartment and how she had to bandage his hand.
It’s like this anyway: how is it really that change works?
The card is still in her bag. An old college roommate, maybe?
Cameron will find the card later, if she lets herself, after House, after talking - somehow there is that - and sit with a glass of wine resting against her knee; her fingers will brush against the envelope, but they won’t open it.
“Thinking of you,” she will say out loud. “We should get together soon.”
The hospital waits for them outside a coffee shop. Cameron heads out first, even after paying, and squints, picking it out in the distance. When she turns her gaze, she can see the apartment building looming in the distance.
She brings her coffee to her lips. She remembers saying something about food. She isn’t hungry anymore. Behind her, the bells on the door ring open.
“I have a brother,” she says out loud, just as House comes to step next to her. Inside the coffee shop, his phone was ringing. He didn’t answer, but he looked. She didn’t say anything and there was this look, this odd look of disappointment that amused her and made her tired.
“I heard.”
She looks up at him. There is nothing kind about the way he looks at her. His gaze darkens and she steps back, turning towards the building. The neighborhood is slowly becoming less of a mix of apartments and businesses. If they had turned the other way, they would’ve seen the old school.
Cameron tries to think of her next words. House’s phone rings again and she looks at him, watching as he picks it up and silences it. She blinks and he shrugs, a glance passing between them.
“I was the youngest of four,” she says. It comes out steady but not quiet. She surprises herself. “The only girl,” she says. “I wasn’t supposed to happen. My parents were in another one of those makeup cycles, at the part where it’s the aftermath but not quite. I don’t know. My mom explains it better.”
They take a turn and she swallows. It starts to prick at her throat. The easiest thing to do, she thinks, would be take to take him home. Let him guess. For whatever reason, he wants to hear this from her. This is an odd show respect, she guesses.
“Dad doesn’t talk about it,” she says. “Most dads don’t,” he says too. He’s short with her and she looks at him in surprise.
They come to a stop and he shrugs. They’ve walked too far and she turns, right around him. Her gaze lands on the park across the street. She looks back and House comes to stand in front of her.
Oh, she thinks. The building is behind him. It looms harder than she remembers. It’s gray and weather-ridden. There is more graffiti than last year, or last month; you have to wait for the right admission. But there’s something eerie about the building this way. It’s later in the day and she’s somehow now aware of it: the signs are lit by the dimming of the sun and traffic, the horns that crawl and change somewhere, around them, and in the city.
“You’re taking too long,” he mutters. He’s watching her intently. Over his shoulder, she finds herself staring at the building again. She can pick out the condemned sign, signs really, scattered across the building and most in her line of sight.
“This usually does.”
She rubs her eyes. The words slow and hard taste funny.
“I was three at the time. There was a shopping trip. I don’t know because the story always seems to change.”
“Except the facts,” he says.
“Yeah.”
She nods to the building behind him.
“It was an apartment building first. If you do your research, it’ll tell you something about the building being a bar in the sixties. There’s something about pipes and - I don’t even know.”
“I read your file,” he says.
She laughs softly. Skimmed it, she wants to say. Barely glanced at it. She was the one that read the files. The comment is for show.
“You didn’t,” she says, and her response is tight, amused. “It’s in there. You didn’t read my file when you hired me. You didn’t read it when I worked for you, when I left and when I came back. I guess was some weird way of you trusting me, huh?”
“You’re avoiding the story.”
She laughs and the sound is a harsh, tight even. She rubs her eyes.
“Yeah. I am.”
The story doesn’t finish. It’s a jumble, in her head, and she’s tired, almost too tired to say anything to him. Her mouth feels heavy and she looks away.
There’s a breeze that picks up too and she tries and thinks about the things that she won’t tell him, that she’s never really told anyone else. How her parents expect different children; her brother, his weight and the difference between them; her inability to stay still is more than half of this, enough of this, and stems from all this history.
But she listens to him step forward. Her mouth opens. “Sorry,” she manages, but she isn’t. He leans into her, but says nothing. She feels his fingers around her wrist, circling and then pulling away. There is nothing soft about how he touches her, it’s the certainty; she wonders if it’s how this is supposed to fell right now.
House says something but she misses it. His hand slides around her hand. She tries and clears her throat. His fingers are loose around hers. His palm feels too warm pressing over her own; he’s not really touching her, not really holding her, and there’s nothing steady in her mind to really assume or pull away.
“There was a fire,” she says, and tries not to pause, “and there were four of us. And then there was two.”
Her eyes close. House’s fingers tighten. It’s getting late, she thinks.
ONE | TWO | THREE | FOUR | FIVE | SIX |
house md; cameron-centric (house/cameron, house/cuddy) ; 3,573 words
some secrets aren’t meant to be kept, it’s who you decide to tell.
notes: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.”
-
and all the while that you would burn
your tongue was working overtime
love foregone and life's so good
oh aren't you darling
(Isobell Campbell & Mark Lanegan - The False Husband)
The card drops into her bag when she isn’t looking. This is an accident.
There is only so many times she can read thinking of you.
The door is open. Somehow this is familiar: Cameron hears the slight shuffle of sneakers, very aware of the possibility. There may or may not be a split second, but there are always habits, and some habits are harder to break. She doesn’t look up.
“You weren’t at the airport,” his voice hits her expectantly. She hears the zipper of a bag. There’s the strange hint of smoke. It’s odd to her, but there is always something new to him. It’s like a game, as usual.
The door closes. She reaches for a pen.
She still doesn’t look up. “I wasn’t coming to get you,” she says. The corners of her mouth quirk, but just slightly; it’s almost an afterthought, but not quite there. “Didn’t even think you’d come,” she says too. He scoffs. When she does look up, she shrugs. “You have a habit of saying things and leaving nothing for expectation.”
“Whatever.”
They stare at each other. He is heavy-handed with his gaze. She watches, instead, as he tucks his wallet into a pocket. There is a bag at his feet and she wonders how long he’s really going to stay.
“So this is it,” he states, looking around.
Her gaze follows too. The lights are too low, she thinks. There are a few books out of place, next to an empty coffee mug that rests against the shelves. The bookshelf is new too and he won’t care, but she can still tell. She can still tell that she is piecing her life back together, slowly, maybe always, and coming back here makes that no different.
Cameron clears her throat. She shakes her head as she studies him. “What’s it?”
“Your office,” he says like it’s obvious. And maybe it is, she thinks. She leans back in her chair and watches him as he shuffles around awkwardly. He comes to her desk and picks up one of her pictures. “I mean, I didn’t think that this would be it. This is small. Where’s the sunlight? The birds singing and filing your paperwork away?”
She snorts. “Really?”
“Do you sing? That would even more appropriate.”
“You’re giving me a headache.”
He smirks, or maybe she catches a smile. The corners of his mouth twist and it’s steady, waiting. She leans closer, over her desk, resting her chin in her hands as she stares at him. The smile seems to be challenging her.
She’s looking for change, she thinks. He still holds one of her pictures in his hand, then between two hands. He holds the frame steady and then watches her still, dropping it into his lap.
Over his shoulder, she watches a few people pass by behind the windows. She doesn’t get up to turn the shades.
“Why are you even here?” she asks, and she means it, quietly, thoughtfully. She doesn’t look at him and she wonders if there’s a point to this here. Long distance; she wouldn’t put it past him.
He clears his throat. “You’re interesting.”
“That’s bullshit,” she says. Then she covers her mouth with her hand, surprised. He looks at her and his mouth slips open. “You really came out here,” she calms down, “to talk to me and then throw out the you’re interesting card? I mean, come on.”
“Are you getting angry at me?”
“No.” She rolls her eyes. “Not at all.”
He shifts. The picture slips from his lap. It hits the floor with a muffled crash and the sound of the glass scarping into the carpet. The office stills and when she meets his gaze, he shrugs.
“A little more effort,” he mutters.
“What do you want me to say?” That hasn’t been already, she doesn’t finish. It’s like her ability to function in a relationship depends on circles. With House though, there’s change and chance and dynamic. She’s come to peace with him and that; she tries to think so.
“I don’t know.” He leans forward. He pushes his cane to hook around the arm of the chair. His elbows rest against his knees. “Hello, maybe.”
“If only it worked like that,” she murmurs.
“Cuddy knows I’m here.”
They stare at each other. That’s a lie, she thinks. Her hair brushes over her eyes and she reaches back, running her fingers through the strands. She picks them up into a fist, turning her gaze and checking a clock by her bookshelves. Her rounds in the emergency room start again soon, but she doesn’t mention it, and returns her gaze to his.
Slowly, she starts to braid her hair. Her fingers work a few strands, loose and impossible, into something stiff. She keeps herself focused, cautious, and catches House as he straightens. He can tell.
“That’s good, I guess,” she offers.
“I’m not here for her,” he says too. “If that’s where your head’s going, because your head will go there, since that’s what you do. You assume.”
“I’m not fighting with you.”
“I’m not here to fight.”
She scoffs. He holds up his hands, leaning back in the chair. It swings back lightly and he seems to be balancing on his heels. There’s nothing steady about the gesture and she catches his teeth as they skim his lip and the slight, sudden gesture of pain as he grimaces.
“I’m not. There’s something -” There’s a smirk too, as he continues, and this irrational pull to anger. She can hear him talking, see his mouth moving, and she moves farther and farther away from paying any attention to the way people move to from opposite ends of the hallway outside her office. She should go, she thinks. She has work. They are the same thought.
“So,” he says. “You agree?”
“What?” she blinks.
“You’re not paying any attention,” he mutters. He rolls his eyes. “Seriously. No wonder you’re like this and you’re back here.” He waves his hands around. “If anything,” he says too. “I thought you’d be the one to go the furthest.”
“Don’t,” she snarls, cutting him off. “Don’t even -”
She stops. She stops because she catches herself; she is standing and her hands have wrapped themselves into fists. There’s a tightness that starts to build: slowly first, then thickens, drawing itself against the roof of her mouth. She tries to breathe but House is here, sitting still, watching and waiting. Is this why you’re here, she wants to ask.
But this hasn’t been about that in a long time. “I have to go,” she says quickly. She grabs a few files and shakes her head. “I have to go.”
Leaving, she doesn’t look back to see if he stays.
When she was first married, Jack bought them a small apartment near a theater. “To have goals, you know?” he would says to her; this is back when they were in bed together, where she would curl her legs around his, and somehow, somehow things were all about making absolute sense.
“Goals are good,” she would say back too, and mean it. Even then, it’s what she would let herself hear.
The light is on when she comes back to her office. House is sitting in the chair behind her desk, legs stretched out over the corner. He smirks when he sees her and she stops herself from leaning against the door; there is something too ironic about all of this.
He chuckles too when her shoulders slump. She catches herself before she drops her files. She’s wearing a t-shirt over the pants of her scrubs. That other shirt lost a battle early on in the emergency room.
“Man shot his wife,” she says. “Wife shot him back and the two of them are down, together in the emergency room. Handcuffed and holding hands … or something,” she sighs.
He snorts. He reaches for her coffee mug. When he sniffs the top, he wrinkles his nose and shakes his head.
“Waste,” he says.
“At least,” she mutters, “go back to your hotel.”
“You have a late night,” he says. “Your nurse told me. You have nurses. I don’t have nurses. I don’t know if I should be jealous.”
She rolls her eyes.
There are all sorts of things she could say: I’m good, I’m that good, and I would’ve never had a chance had I not worked for you. These are the things that people expect her to say even though coming out of Jersey and House on her resume is worn like some kind of battle scar and medal.
Moving into the office, she tosses her files onto her desk. Her hands drop too, over the corners and then move as she pushes his legs off. He chuckles again and his legs drops, scuffling over the carpet. She shakes her head and catches another wince. He’s hiding again, she thinks. It’s none of her business.
Cameron slides herself to sit on her desk. He bites his lip. She watches his teeth catch the skin and then slide back.
“We’re going to talk,” he announces. It’s abrupt and awkward. He leans back in her chair and wrinkles his nose.
“Really?” she says slowly.
“I mean I’m on your turf. Don’t you want closure? I’m pretty sure whatever it is that you did the last time was just nothing more than a stupid idea.”
“That was closure,” she murmurs.
“Lame.”
“What do you want me to say? You haven’t exactly answered that question. In fact, I’m pretty sure that the question comes up at least twice every time you and I talk. So. Talk.”
“You should listen to yourself.” He says and rolls his eyes. For a moment, she picks up on his gestures. It’s always more than the smaller things, she thinks. His hands. The slight, odd smile; it’s half a smirk, not quite a smile. She remembers the smoke from early and her stomach twists.
“I do,” she mutters.
“What’s going on?”
The question is so simple. This is different from the last time she ways in Jersey, in Princeton, she thinks. Their goodbye, her goodbye was callous and short. She knew she had things to say, more than what she said at that point. But it wasn’t about him and it wasn’t about just him in that moment. Their timing is never right.
It’s not right here either. She knows that. The corners of his mouth start to quirk again, just before she says anything.
Cameron manages to sigh. “It’s like you want me to trust you.”
“You do,” he says, and she laughs, right there. The sound is strange against the corner of her office, the way it echoes and it how it doesn’t. Somehow, the space manages to feel like a tight fit.
“I’m serious,” he says too. “You do. If you didn’t, I wouldn’t be here. There would be nothing to talk about.”
“I wouldn’t be interesting,” she finishes.
He arches an eyebrow. She shrugs.
“Following your line of conversation.”
“You were always a quick study.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Backhanded comment, really?”
There is a pause. He looks at her and his eyes are bright. Her stomach sways into some kind of knot, heavy and still. She doesn’t like it. It’s old and familiar and when he leans forward, his elbows slide over the corners of her desk.
Her mouth opens and closes. There is a strange sense of self-awareness. He sighs loudly and she pulls back from the desk, standing and moving to grab her coffee mug. But he stops her, grabbing her by the wrist.
“I’m in love,” he mutters. The room seems to open again. “And I’m rusty,” he says. One of these things is not like the other.
His fingers are tight.
Everything seems to move backwards these days. In her head, there’s some kind of rendition, some kind of explanation for the choices that have been made. They pull at her, they continue to pull at her, wave and spin around and around in her head, like memories, but not quite memories; there’s no such thing anymore.
But sometimes, her brother says to her: “Do you think about it? I mean, do you really think about it? Would be here, would we be the way we are, two extremes - I mean, goddamn it. We’re fucked up. I’m tired of surrounding myself with people who think it’s okay to fix me.”
They deal with it in different ways too. Danny joined the army. Cameron married once, then twice, and all six hundred miles apart.
“Want to take a walk?”
When she comes back, he is finishing her coffee. She has a new shirt on and her jeans. He studies her and the mug is too close to his mouth.
“Want to take a walk?” she asks again. “I have time,” she says, but she’s not really leaving him any options. This is how it works: you take away his options and just maybe, maybe he’ll listen to you. She knows at the very least, this hasn’t and will not change.
“Do I have to?” he asks, and it’s all so sudden. Her mind slowly rounds itself in a panic. Where should she start? Why should she start? She has never had any sort of expectations when it comes to House. They come, they go, they manifest in ways that feel too new and too simple; this is not the same.
But she pushes him. “Yeah,” she says. “You do. You want your answers?”
He stands. He hands her coat to her first.
This is less about the hospital. But they leave her office and she closes the door, locks it too; habits are habits and all of this, despite being home, it makes her careful. She thinks that’s what’s changed again. She is more careful than she should be.
But Cameron takes him down the hall, away from the direction of the emergency room and a secondary elevator near the nurses’ desk. No one pays attention. No one whispers. A nurse says hello as she passes and Cameron manages a polite smile, even with House next to her.
When they step onto the elevator, her eyes close. She rubs them slowly and she shakes her head.
“This isn’t a tour,” she tells him. “I’m not going to point out things and tell you why and how they make me feel things. We’re going to get food because the cafeteria food makes me tired and I still have a few hours left on my shift. You can get that, right?”
“Whatever,” he says.
Her eyes stay closed. She listens instead; his sneakers shuffle against the elevator floor and he seems to lean closer to her. She can picture him too, the way he kind of leans in, but doesn’t; it’s the sway of his body, the off-chance and change of his posture. His arm touches his shoulder and her mouth slips into somewhat of a smile. It feels odd.
The doors open quickly.
She steps outside, ahead of him, and her pace stays steady as he follows. They trudge through the lobby and she has the slightest of a flashback, earlier, later - it doesn’t matter. Maybe she was laughing, maybe she wasn’t; she remembers a holiday stop at his apartment and how she had to bandage his hand.
It’s like this anyway: how is it really that change works?
The card is still in her bag. An old college roommate, maybe?
Cameron will find the card later, if she lets herself, after House, after talking - somehow there is that - and sit with a glass of wine resting against her knee; her fingers will brush against the envelope, but they won’t open it.
“Thinking of you,” she will say out loud. “We should get together soon.”
The hospital waits for them outside a coffee shop. Cameron heads out first, even after paying, and squints, picking it out in the distance. When she turns her gaze, she can see the apartment building looming in the distance.
She brings her coffee to her lips. She remembers saying something about food. She isn’t hungry anymore. Behind her, the bells on the door ring open.
“I have a brother,” she says out loud, just as House comes to step next to her. Inside the coffee shop, his phone was ringing. He didn’t answer, but he looked. She didn’t say anything and there was this look, this odd look of disappointment that amused her and made her tired.
“I heard.”
She looks up at him. There is nothing kind about the way he looks at her. His gaze darkens and she steps back, turning towards the building. The neighborhood is slowly becoming less of a mix of apartments and businesses. If they had turned the other way, they would’ve seen the old school.
Cameron tries to think of her next words. House’s phone rings again and she looks at him, watching as he picks it up and silences it. She blinks and he shrugs, a glance passing between them.
“I was the youngest of four,” she says. It comes out steady but not quiet. She surprises herself. “The only girl,” she says. “I wasn’t supposed to happen. My parents were in another one of those makeup cycles, at the part where it’s the aftermath but not quite. I don’t know. My mom explains it better.”
They take a turn and she swallows. It starts to prick at her throat. The easiest thing to do, she thinks, would be take to take him home. Let him guess. For whatever reason, he wants to hear this from her. This is an odd show respect, she guesses.
“Dad doesn’t talk about it,” she says. “Most dads don’t,” he says too. He’s short with her and she looks at him in surprise.
They come to a stop and he shrugs. They’ve walked too far and she turns, right around him. Her gaze lands on the park across the street. She looks back and House comes to stand in front of her.
Oh, she thinks. The building is behind him. It looms harder than she remembers. It’s gray and weather-ridden. There is more graffiti than last year, or last month; you have to wait for the right admission. But there’s something eerie about the building this way. It’s later in the day and she’s somehow now aware of it: the signs are lit by the dimming of the sun and traffic, the horns that crawl and change somewhere, around them, and in the city.
“You’re taking too long,” he mutters. He’s watching her intently. Over his shoulder, she finds herself staring at the building again. She can pick out the condemned sign, signs really, scattered across the building and most in her line of sight.
“This usually does.”
She rubs her eyes. The words slow and hard taste funny.
“I was three at the time. There was a shopping trip. I don’t know because the story always seems to change.”
“Except the facts,” he says.
“Yeah.”
She nods to the building behind him.
“It was an apartment building first. If you do your research, it’ll tell you something about the building being a bar in the sixties. There’s something about pipes and - I don’t even know.”
“I read your file,” he says.
She laughs softly. Skimmed it, she wants to say. Barely glanced at it. She was the one that read the files. The comment is for show.
“You didn’t,” she says, and her response is tight, amused. “It’s in there. You didn’t read my file when you hired me. You didn’t read it when I worked for you, when I left and when I came back. I guess was some weird way of you trusting me, huh?”
“You’re avoiding the story.”
She laughs and the sound is a harsh, tight even. She rubs her eyes.
“Yeah. I am.”
The story doesn’t finish. It’s a jumble, in her head, and she’s tired, almost too tired to say anything to him. Her mouth feels heavy and she looks away.
There’s a breeze that picks up too and she tries and thinks about the things that she won’t tell him, that she’s never really told anyone else. How her parents expect different children; her brother, his weight and the difference between them; her inability to stay still is more than half of this, enough of this, and stems from all this history.
But she listens to him step forward. Her mouth opens. “Sorry,” she manages, but she isn’t. He leans into her, but says nothing. She feels his fingers around her wrist, circling and then pulling away. There is nothing soft about how he touches her, it’s the certainty; she wonders if it’s how this is supposed to fell right now.
House says something but she misses it. His hand slides around her hand. She tries and clears her throat. His fingers are loose around hers. His palm feels too warm pressing over her own; he’s not really touching her, not really holding her, and there’s nothing steady in her mind to really assume or pull away.
“There was a fire,” she says, and tries not to pause, “and there were four of us. And then there was two.”
Her eyes close. House’s fingers tighten. It’s getting late, she thinks.
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