House Fic: visitation rights

[fated_addiction]

Not dead, just really stressed and crazy busy trying not to lose my mind before November because ... that would be bad. Which is probably why I wrote House fic? Weirdly therapeutic, ha. Like the wine I'm about to open.

visitation rights
house md; house (house/cameron, house/cuddy) ; 4,189 words.
we are selfish with our expectations. the problem is when our expectations are selfish back.

-

Cameron does not stop in to see him. House knows that she is here. This is late in the day, when Chase stumbles into the office, unaware of the tension that has written itself into his shoulders - there is Cuddy in his office too, next to him, as he watches the team reassemble themselves around the table in the conference room.

“It’s a favor,” Cuddy tells him. “To Dr. Harper,” she adds, “the replacement - had she stayed, I would’ve definitely put her back in the ER. If there was a place made for her, that was it.”

“Whatever,” he mutters, and he keeps his gaze peeled on Chase, the other man stumbling into the counter. He slams a coffee mug onto the counter. Behind him, Foreman looks up from his papers and the new girl kind of shrinks behind hers.

House turns to Cuddy, and she looks away. “You’re angry,” she says, “that I didn’t tell you. I don’t have to tell you.”

“I’m not angry. I just don’t care.”

He stops, leaning into the door. He pushes it open with his cane. He shrugs too. Chase is talking to Foreman. Foreman seems to pay no attention. Somewhere in here House thinks of Thirteen, or Hadley, and even though there isn’t a purpose, he remembers he doesn’t really keep a team.

“I have a team,” he says still, and Cuddy sighs, but does not look interested in the why. “I have a team,” he says again.

This is a luxury.

At best, one assumes that he’d go and he’d talk to her, that the way Cameron left (left him) he’d go and finish it on his terms. Chicago is problem in his head: he thinks distance; he thinks miles; he thinks of names, addresses, and phone numbers; he thinks of the bottom drawer in his office, the desk and right under his whiskey, the couple of articles, all new, that he has and she’s written. This is before.

Cameron is not Lisa Cuddy. She has eliminated herself from being an obvious constant.

This, he thinks. “This,” he tells Dr. Nolan, “is one of the reasons why I think I respect her, because she’s gone and she’s made that decision to be gone, that I didn’t make her leave - I’m jealous. I’m angry.”

And this is what you would tell your therapist, what he tells his therapist in that awful, cushy office of his, much like House’s own, with the diplomas and the accommodations, the list of post-modern criticism that everybody likes to say they read. House has it. House uses it. House even writes it.

“It’s called keeping up appearances,” he tells Nolan too.

“And Cuddy?”

House is quiet. There is a number in his pocket for a new Nanny. There is a baby in crib that looks at him wary and confused. He’s never liked kids, he wants to say; he had a father too. But underneath all of this, he remembers Cameron and he remembers himself.

“I have a team,” he says.

“You’re in a dress,” he tells her too, and when he’s finally in the ER, Cameron is standing off to the side, wrapped in some kind of silk. It’s black and he thinks funeral because there is no other reason why he can’t think of her coming back to Princeton.

Her hands flatten against the counter. He catches her sigh and then steps up, next to her, watching a nurse scurry away from the desk. There is a file in front of her, and it’s open, but he cares less about the why than he should.

“I’m in a dress,” she says back. Instead of looking up, her hand presses against her shoulder. She rubs idly. “I heard you lead a nine to five kind of life, these days,” she says. Her voice is dry and sharp and he can’t help but let his mouth twist. He steps forward and turns, leaning back against the counter.

Her gaze stays on the file.

“What’s with the dress?”

“Are you fishing for cases?” Cameron counters.

“You’re not here,” he says. He leans over the counter and then into the file. His elbow swipes into the corner of the file. The paper wrinkles; she reaches for his arm and gently she pushes it off. He sighs loudly.

“I don’t know what that means,” she tells him. Her eyes dart over him briefly, and he can’t decide if she’s studying him, or trying to study him, careful and unsuspicious. The strange thing is that he cannot feel any sense of unease from her.

He says nothing too. He catches the strap of her dress as it slides, just slightly, over the arch of her shoulder. The corners of his mouth slip and his teeth grit; there’s this sound, in his ears, a half-ring that tries to catch him off guard.

Across the counter, he spots Chase walking in from outside the hospital. The new hire is fluttering nervously at his side and House glances back up at Cameron. He waits for a reaction. He still does that; when he first met her, there was this eager-eyed need to look at everything to take it in. He looks for it and it’s not there, and maybe, maybe it was never there. The thought is uncomfortable, he tells himself. He doesn’t push.

“I saw him earlier.”

“What?”

Here Cameron looks at him in amusement. Her mouth shifts and she shakes her head. She closes her file. “Chase,” she says and at that, over a few nurses, he watches the two exes share a look. House fidgets and Cameron steps back.

“I should go,” she murmurs. The outside door opens again and there are sirens, fitting quickly into the dull hum of the emergency room. He’s never understood it, he thinks. Patients are immediate numbers. You have to find interest. You have to carry it to someone else. The interest cannot be yours.

“Where?”

He meets Cameron’s gaze. She shrugs. The fabric of her dress rises with the motion. The hospital light rests heavily into it too.

“Have a good night,” she says.

“That’s not an answer,” he says, his tone is indignant. When he straightens, he catches a soft laugh. He only sees the corners of her mouth move again. “You’re being evasive,” he accuses, “and it’s unattractive. You’re here and everything’s okay with the idiot -” pausing, House nods at Chase who is busy talking to the new hire. Learn names, somebody told him today. “When it’s not,” he finishes.

“Of course, it isn’t,” she murmurs, and her heart’s not in it. It’s obvious and that bothers him.

“So why?” he asks, but she doesn’t give him an answer. Instead, her heels skip into the floor and he watches her walk away.

In Cuddy’s office, the weather starts to show. There is rain that starts spread into the windows, over the glass in wide, open drops. They look like mouths, he thinks suddenly.

“So you don’t know,” he says finally. Her eyes are closed. There is no sigh. Her mouth tightens. “I mean, she won’t tell me and Chase - well, I don’t care about him, I have to say. Still. Or his sudden, strange need to overcompensate - smells like lawsuit, remember his father?”

“Why don’t you ask her?” Cuddy asks.

There is a picture of Rachel on her desk. The frame smiles in front of the odd, replaced family photos. He studies them and tries to remember where she fits them in her home. These are the things that he doesn’t care about.

“She won’t tell me,” he says, and Cuddy laughs tightly. “It’s not like it’s a secret or anything.”

“It’s a consult,” Cuddy says.

He snorts. “Well, obviously. There’s a file.”

“Why are you asking me?” she snaps, and her eyes narrow in a way that almost makes her faceless with his choices. In the end, they all look the same, angry and disappointed, betrayed and expectant; he knows it’s sort of sad and predictable to understand this, but he isn’t different. This much is true.

He leans forward and picks up one of the frames on Cuddy’s desk. His fingers curl into the glass.

“Here’s the thing,” he says, “and, you know, I’m always going to tell you what’s necessary - in fact, you’re the one that likes when I lie to you, more so in a professional capacity but tomato, tomat-toe, you know? All the same.”

“There’s a point?”

“I’m not there yet,” he says. She frowns. “You’re impatient,” he chides, “and so am I, I guess.”

Cuddy sighs too. He doesn’t listen though. He puts the frame down, back onto her desk, and knocks the photo of Rachel face down. Cuddy makes this sound with her mouth, a half-whistle, a scoff of disapproval, both familiar but never honest. He decides to stand. Slowly, he reaches for his cane and there’s this pain in his leg, right over his knee. His hand curls tightly around the head of his cane.

When he turns, he faces himself in the glass of her doors. Her assistant scurries away from his desk and House catches the clinic lights lower. He doesn’t remember it being this late.

“You’re worried,” he says slowly.

“No,” she says.

“You’re worried,” he chides again. And by extension, the two of them of them have been here before. In the glass too, he begins to study the lines in her face, under her eyes, and the way she immediately loses any softness.

“House,” she groans. You are, he almost says again, and he knows he’s right; there are certain things he knows now, that he knows and that he doesn’t want, but he’s never been good about managing the sensibility. In the glass, her face blurs too but he doesn’t turn around. Instead, he sees Cameron as she enters the clinic. There is a coat slung over her arm and he cocks his head to the side. He can imagine all sorts of endings: Chicago, he remembers, and it’s been more than half a year. There must be a boyfriend, he assumes. He wonders if she’s picked up habits.

He remembers things, and that’s what he doesn’t share, all the pieces that he likes to carry in the back of his mind. It doesn’t help that he’s never been able to place her, and because of that, she’s always managed to slip by him, her decision and all on her own.

“You’re staring,” Cuddy says from behind him, and there’s no real time to react as Cameron walks to the office and opens the door. She steps in and he catches her perfume. It’s light and unfamiliar and she gives Cuddy not him, a slight smile.

“I’m going to go,” Cameron says. It’s not announcement and he blinks. It’s the perfume, he decides. “I’ll be here tomorrow morning,” she adds, and stepping deeper into the office, she moves away from him and closer to Cuddy’s desk. “Dr. Harper’s going to continue monitoring the patient, but the improvements are there. Slow,” she says.

“What?” he asks.

Cuddy leans forward, over her desk. Her elbow presses by her phone. “Thank you,” she says to Cameron, ignoring him.

“Sure,” Cameron says. She looks between them. There’s the awkwardness, but that’s expected, always, and he watches as she straightens. At her side, her fingers wiggle. It’s Cuddy that slips into silence though and rustles among files on her desk. Cameron looks up at him and they share a quick look.

“Go,” he says, and he shifts forward, grabbing the door. His fingers curl around the handle and he bares his teeth, grinning. “You’re good at that,” he says calmly.

There is no visible reaction. He imagines if he catches her right, he could pick it out, he could pull it out of her.

“Good night,” Cameron says softly. She hesitates at the door, looking up at him. There’s no sense of surprise in her gaze, and he tries to read it, tries to make sense of this. He wonders how low he’d have to go to push another round of reactions. He remembers that she’s not here anymore. It’s hard to forget like this.

“Later,” he says. For the second time that night, he just lets her go. There is no sense of alarm in him. He remembers to sigh.

Behind him, Cuddy stands. He catches her in the glass again.

“You haven’t changed,” she says.

There is a knock on his door. That night, somewhere between one and two, after he realizes that he’s home alone again, for the second night. This isn’t about his problems, or the reality of his problems, the fact that his walls remain the same dark, impossible off-white, his guitars pressed against the base of piano and all back by books that he’s read too many times. This is alone.

He ruins his fingers through his hair, still damp as he settles on the couch. He has no expectations. He grunts, and then calls, “it’s open!” because the effort isn’t there.

The door unlocks carefully. There are no heels and it’s Cameron peeking carefully around the door, wrapped in a coat and a pair of jeans. She closes the door and leans back against it, studying him.

“What?” he asks, goads. He watches her and waits for a reaction. When he doesn’t get it, he leans forward, over his knees, and grabs his scotch. His glass is empty and he frowns.

“I don’t know,” she says. It’s not what he wants her to say, but he doesn’t know what he wants her to say. This is the problem.

“Are you going to stand there?”

She is quiet. He waits for the hesitation, but he doesn’t get it. She seems careful instead; her eyes dart around the apartment and she steps inside, closing the door behind her. It shuts softly and her hands dig into her coat pockets. She moves to sit next to him.

“You have something to say,” she says, and underneath him, the cushions sink under their weight. He straightens without thinking. He does not smell her perfume.

“Why are you here?” he asks.

“Consult.”

“Just a consult,” she says. “A favor,” she says too. He hates that she’s vague and his head turns to wait for a smile. He wants to see it.

“Who?”

She blinks. “Dr. Harper. You were in the office when I said the name.”

There is nothing familiar about this, he decides. The way she sits and is okay with sitting next to him, frustrates and fascinates him. It’s good that she’s not here, he tells himself. The boundaries are different. She doesn’t take her coat off.

“Things have changed,” he tells her. “Lots of things have changed. I’m having a lot of sex. Chase is having a lot of sex. It’s all great - change is great, you know. It’s healthy.”

She laughs a little, shaking her head, and he catches her hair as it spills over her eyes. He remembers the last goodbye, and his own, drawn out, private moments of curiosity. He waits for her to come to him. Instead, she was here and it was an accident, him knowing. It makes him think of things, other things, different choices that he could’ve had if he were patient.

“I’m glad you’re doing well,” she says, and tilts her face towards him. The corners of her mouth turn. “Cuddy seems happy too.”

“You’re being genuine,” he says.

She shrugs. “Why shouldn’t I be?”

This is a conversation that he doesn’t want to have, that he isn’t ready to have, and there is too much about this that he doesn’t know. The unknown, he thinks. It’s always about the unknowns; he starts to label things in his head here: his father, Stacy, Wilson, and now Cuddy, relationships that have stood within the guise of predictability for years. It’s known. It’s comfortable.

“I don’t get you,” he says, and shakes his head. His voice is sharp and his mouth slides into a tight smirk. He reaches forward and touches her arm, letting his fingers slide down to the crook of her elbow.

She smiles at him and his fingers tighten, pressing into her coat. Slowly, she lets her hand pull out of her pocket. He doesn’t let himself take it. There are knots in his stomach.

“Are you done?”

“I don’t know.” He pauses. “I’m in therapy for that,” he boasts.

“You’re ridiculous,” she murmurs.

“I have a team,” he says.

They stare at each other. He waits for that look, the familiar look on Cameron’s face, too soft and too kind for someone like him; he’s never known what it means. But it doesn’t come, nor does any inkling of curiosity, instead she stares back and her eyes are too big, too bright, and this isn’t how she’s supposed to look at him. He is supposed to know what it means.

“Do you want to get a drink?” he asks, then he looks away. He sees his jacket over the piano bench. A bar, he thinks. That’ll be easier. A bar and it would like she was never here.

“You’ll always have a team,” she says to him, “and no, I don’t want a drink. It’s too late and I’m tired. I should probably head back to the hotel as it is. Tomorrow’s another long day.”

“You sound so grown-up,” he says.

She laughs, and there’s a hint of caution, finally, something familiar, finally, and he latches onto it. He leans forward, too forward, watching her as she jerks back, wide-eyed, and then stands. She towers over him, straight and with a tight mouth.

“What?” he drawls.

“Don’t,” she warns. “Don’t even,” she says. Her fingers flex and flutter next to her hip and he reaches for them, grabbing them to make them stop. His hand is hot over hers and his fingers squeeze into her palm. “House,” Cameron murmurs. Her voice is low, husky even and he manages to swallow.

“What?”

She shakes her head. “I know you know what you’re doing.”

“It’s not like you’re coming back,” he says to her. A part of it is said with resentment. He brings himself up to stand, slowly, carefully, and towers back over her. The stance is familiar, maybe too ironic, and suddenly, he’s too glad for the separate space.

Her eyes rise to meet his gaze. He shrugs.

“You can’t even say it,” she says quietly.

“What? That I want to sleep with you? Or that I want to screw up what I have right now, because at the end of the day, I go home and there’s no one here. Not the way I want it.”

“I’m not getting involved,” she says.

“You are involved,” he says. “Now,” he adds. It’s all about the semantics. He steps closer too and lets his hand drop over her hip. The coat is still cold from outside and finally, he lets himself think: she hasn’t been back that long.

“No,” she tells him. “I haven’t been involved for awhile, and you know it, you know it be cause you’re the one that said it - you have a team and I don’t want to be a part of that team.” When she pauses, he lets his hand draw back over her arm, to her shoulder, and then, selfishly, he lets his fingers spread over her hair.

She’s stopped, and he realizes it, or tries to let it be. In his head, both make sense. Outside of that, there is nothing else you need to know. What he does see is that there’s no make up on her face, her skin is washed and her lips are flushed and he’s never really wanted to kiss her as much as he does here. It’s obtusely romantic and heavy and just not something he’s prepared for.

“You could’ve stayed,” he says.

“I could’ve done a lot of things,” she says back. She smiles softly, like it’s an explanation, and he leans forward, letting his mouth touch her jaw. He sighs over her skin. “You were different,” he says into it.

Somehow this stays true, whether she’s here or gone, or completely written into the back of his mind. Her fingers come and slide over his chest and for once, he thinks she’s going to push him away and that this will be it for him and he can be okay with that.

“Are you happy?” he asks her.

“I don’t know,” she says. He envies, still, the lack of hesitation. “It’s not that easy,” she says too. “But I’m not hiding.”

She reaches up and rubs her eyes.

“If that’s what you want me to tell you,” she adds.

He imagines them then, had he decided to let it be her, somewhere different, but not here. He imagines it and it feels like longing, the kind of longing that he hasn’t had for awhile, the one that makes sense after a couple scotches and that one case that gets far, far away. Somewhere in there, Cameron fits and he doesn’t like how that feels.

“When are you leaving?”

“Tomorrow night,” she says.

“Going back to Chicago?” he pushes and she laughs softly, shaking her head. “House,” she chides.

“It’s just a question,” he tells her, and watches her lean in. His eyes close and he gets that feeling of familiarity, hopes for an interruption, a brutal interruption, something that changes everything cruelly, just as it was when she left. But his apartment is silent, and he becomes aware of his hand around her arm and her fingers grazing his chest.

It happens then. There is nothing left to say, he decides.

His fingers move to her wrist.

(In the end, there is something else that happens, something that he tries to forget and remember at the same time; she’s bent over him at some point, not to sleep with him or to say goodbye, but to kiss him all the same. Her hair will fall over them and her coat will stay on because she is always leaving. He remembers her hand and how it frames his jaw, how soft her mouth seems to stay and how he kisses back. She gets him to sit or he lets himself sit; somehow, this loses detail, after detail, even if her mouth is wet and warm, and when his tongue presses into her lip, over her teeth, and then against her own, she makes this little sigh that he’s never heard before - This is about mystery. He will think about this for days; in the morning, he still hasn’t moved from the couch.)

“There’s this drawer in my office,” he tells Nolan, after. They are in Nolan’s office. Cuddy is angry with him and Rachel has a cold, hand in hand, the two serve as a ridiculous play for an excuse but House takes it as another step for space. “Do that make me a bad guy?” he asks too. “I keep my whiskey, I keep my scotch, I keep those articles that she’s written, in that goddamn drawer so that I can look at them when I want to look at them.”

Nolan is looking at him from across the desk. The wrinkles in House’s t-shirt are too obvious today and when he fidgets, he drops his cane over his feet. When it rests, House lets himself drop over his knees.

“So you feel guilty?”

“No,” House says.

“You brought it up,” Nolan says. “Much like everything else,” he adds, patiently. His voice is too calm and House cringes.

This has to work, he thinks.

“I have a team,” he says. Over his knees, he brings his hands up and rubs his eyes. “Seems simple enough, I guess.”

The other man is quiet. House studies the carpet in front of him, low blues and grays, practical and thoughtful. Color is the kind of thing that stimulates, that craves and places you at the same time. His heart is steady in his ears too and he brings his hand to his chest, tracing the same lines over a few old scars. They remain under his shirt. He thinks of Cameron again.

Nolan’s chair rolls back from the desk in front of him; old wood, House thinks, or something like that. House hears the noise and the other man sighs. There was a story there too.

“You never had her,” he says. House won’t hear it.

House arrives at the hospital, after. Cameron is leaving the clinic, and presumably Cuddy’s office, jacket in hand and Dr. Harper at her side. The two of them are deep in conversation.

He stops at the desk to watch, leaning against it as one of the nurses passes him a series of messages. In moment, Cuddy might emerge from the clinic and it’ll be business, maybe, if there’s a brief moment about being lucky. Somehow, they are all about these eager ideas.

But his eyes are on Cameron and when she and the other doctor stop at the elevator, she turns around. He meets her gaze and she smiles, just a small smile. He does not know what to do with this.

He looks away.

Somebody’s right. It isn’t him.