seven letter word for liar - 18/19
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, doing Cuddy and Foreman a favor until I come back,” he remarks animatedly. “Save the lies for your husband.”
She purses her lips. “I was going to say that I’m only hanging around there to make sure no one writes on your board.”
He snickers. “They’re just not ready,” he teases, recalling an old joke. house. post-finale. shipping: house/cameron. 18/19.
xxx
Her eyes scan listlessly through the wide windows, phone pressed tightly into the palm of her hand. She chuckles outright at her nervousness, knee shaking anxiously as she mentally prepares for what she’s about to do.
She crinkles her nose. The living room is too open, too spacious, too appropriate. She could ease onto the couch, lay back and relax, but then she knows, she’ll never go through with it. She can’t speak to him with her guard down. Too much could go wrong.
She latches the front door, laughing inwardly this time, at her overly cautious efforts. Chase won’t be home for hours, and besides, it’s just a phone call. She’s overreacting again.
Her feet scamper lightly across the wooden floors, making a sharp left followed by a soft right into the bedroom, where she closes and locks the door in one swift motion. Her palms are sweaty now and she’s still hung up on the details of this phone call, unable to stand and dial.
The bed seems far too awkward a place to call him from, as if somehow he’ll be able to see through the line and her shaky voice, like he can still read her as well as he once did.
Sighing slightly she creeps over to her walk in closet, smirking at how young she feels. She’s hiding in the dark of her closet to make a phone call to a boy. Suddenly she’s fourteen and terrified, but she’s just dialed the number and now there’s no turning back.
The receptionist answers with fake enthusiasm and Cameron stumbles over her words, barely uttering his name correctly, let alone her request. If she’s a total basket case, the secretary doesn’t show she’s amused, but merely puts her on hold, elevator music sounding in her ear.
This is when the true paranoia sets in and she digs her free hand into her thigh, eyes slammed shut as if waiting for a bad dream to end.
He doesn’t say hello, but the music ends.
Her eyes widen and her heart flares to live.
She remembers to breathe.
“I always knew you’d find a way out of coming to my wedding,” she manages at last, wincing at the sheer lunacy of her words.
She throws her head back, sinking to the ground in humiliation. She could have said anything, anything at all. Hell, even just saying his name would have been better. But now she’s created tension with her terrible joke and failed attempt at light conversation, and she’s sure there will be ramifications to her mishap. She’s cringing at the silence on the other end now, scolding herself for being so rash. She can’t even see him and she’s a mess.
“Well, I heard there was no open bar,” he answers after a long bout of silence, and she relaxes a bit.
Now it’s her turn and she’s already messed up her first attempt. She has no doubt he’s ready to hang up the phone and part of her almost wishes he would so that she could put an end to this embarrassing display of idiocy.
“How...”
“Oh, come on,” he snaps, though there’s not very much anger in his voice. “That’s the best you have for me? You make a crack about your wedding? Have you been practicing this for...what’s it been...a month now?”
Old anger surges quickly within her and she opens her mouth to slam him with a retort, but catches herself before she says a word. She’s not sure how to handle him like this, broken and vulnerable, and she’s not sure what the ground rules are. Can she tease him? Can they talk the way they used to? Hell, can she even make herself talk at all?
“You sound good,” she says dumbly, eyes rolling into the back of her head. Now she sounds like a former acquaintance, an old high school friend, or his damn mother. She could scream.
“Don’t go getting all nice on me, Allison,” he mutters. “Not now when I only just managed to break you of that habit.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it,” she jokes, smiling in spite of herself. “So have you managed to drive any of the nurses to quit yet?”
She can almost feel the weight of his grin. “There’s one,” he remarks. “She hasn’t left yet, but I’m breaking her down. Her name’s Edna. You can imagine what she looks like.”
She laughs quietly, hair tickling her neck as she turns onto her side, knees curling up to her chest. “How’s the food?”
“Crap,” he replies bitterly. “Better than the crap we serve at the hospital though, I’ll give them that much.”
“Yeah, because you ate so well before.”
There’s a slight pause, because she had to go and say ‘before’ as if he’s different now, as if something’s changed. This has been the very instance she’d been trying to avoid and now, she’s ruined yet another moment. Strike two.
“Has Foreman been driving my department into the ground?”
A smile escapes her lips. “No,” she says coyly. “Of course, he can’t take all of the credit.”
“Thirteen’s cracking the whip on him?”
She laughs. “No one’s told you?” She finds it difficult to believe that he has no idea that she’s been helping out.
“Please, Wilson talks about patients and me. Cuddy’s busy all of the time. And Foreman and the other ducklings came here once and sat and gawked at me awkwardly. I now officially know what it’s like to be an animal in a zoo.”
Her eyebrow arches in amusement. “Well, I’ve been dropping by every now and then to help Foreman....”
“Aha,” he replies, his voice teasing and light. “So you have missed me. It just took you two years to figure it out.”
She rolls her eyes, hand brushing against her cheek as she switches the phone to her left ear. “Someone told you,” she says knowingly.
“Wilson, Cuddy, and Foreman,” he admits.
“Well don’t start boasting quite yet...I’m only...”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, doing Cuddy and Foreman a favor until I come back,” he remarks animatedly. “Save the lies for your husband.”
She purses her lips. “I was going to say that I’m only hanging around there to make sure no one writes on your board.”
He snickers. “They’re just not ready,” he teases, recalling an old joke.
She grins, smile fading into nothingness as the seconds tick away. She exhales cautiously. “I’ve been meaning to come by,” she adds quietly, not sure what else to say.
There’s a pause, the distinct sound of his breathing, then the slight popping sound of his lips parting. “I know.”
Her eyes widen slightly. “I’m...I’m sorry,” she begins.
He doesn’t respond.
“For not visiting,” she continues. “Or calling sooner.”
Another pause.
“I keep...I keep thinking back to the last conversation we had,” she muses, elbow digging into the carpet. “I’m sorry for harassing you for advice about Chase. If I had known...if...well, what I mean to say is, I hope you know by now that you can tell me if something’s going on. Not that you have to. Just that you can.”
There it is, a small admission, but an admission still. She’s owning up to the guilt she’s felt over not discovering his secret sooner, as well as letting him know that she’s a bit slighted over the fact that he didn’t feel comfortable telling her. It’s a selfish jealousy, but it’s still there nonetheless.
There’s another pause.
“I’ll buy you lunch for a week when you get back if you’ll just say something,” she practically begs.
“Make it a month.”
“Ha, got you to talk,” she smiles, tension fading.
“Bribery is so beneath you Cameron.” Another pause. “Can I still call you that? Cameron?”
“If I told you no, would it make a difference.”
“Not really.”
“Then of course you can still call me that.”
“Do me a favor.”
She sits up. “Yeah. Anything.”
“Anything?”
“House,” she warns.
“Fine,” he replies, amused.
“The favor?” she asks.
“Oh, right. In my second drawer...”
“Your porn drawer?”
“Well that’s not what I call it.”
“What about it?”
“There’s a key.”
“Okay...”
“Take the key and lock the drawer. I don’t want Taub getting his grubby fingers on any of my favorites while I’m gone.”
“Are you...”
But there’s a click and she realizes he’s gone.
She’s still smiling when Chase gets in from work.
xxx
“You’ve been quiet,” Foreman says, looking down at her solemnly. It’s a deja-vu moment. She’s at her old desk, Foreman, the boss, is hovering over her for reasons neither fully understand. But this time, he’s standing in front of her because he’s her friend and because she’s not the same as she was before. She’s not diving into the cases, not taking the lead. She’s eager to pawn tests off on Thirteen and Taub, sitting in the backdrop, hunched over paperwork and charts.
Perhaps it does look a bit suspicious.
She takes her glasses off, looking up at him with a smile. “Quiet, huh?” she quips. “You’ve been rather observant lately.”
There’s an implied comparison to House. It goes unsaid, like so much else within these glass walls.
“Have you seen him?”
Cameron’s mind flickers back to life. “No, but I will. His parents say the trauma first occurred when...”
Foreman laughs, shutting her open file gently with one hand. “Not the patient Allison. House.”
She blinks back her surprise. “Oh,” she begins softly. “No.”
He eyes her curiously.
“I called to check on him yesterday,” she says nonchalantly. “So, there’s that.”
“And Chase?”
She shrugs. “If he’s gone he hasn’t told me.”
There’s a moment of hesitation on Foreman’s part and she can read his thoughts easily. He’s debating whether or not to bring up her problem’s with Chase. They’ve steered clear of each other throughout most of the week.
“We’re fine,” she insists, crossing her arms gently. “It’s not easy to work with someone you’re close to. We give each other distance at work. That’s all.”
He nods, but his suspicion is still there. She can sense it.
“Okay,” he replies, ending their discussion and accepting her lie.
They’ve all become such talented actors.
xxx
There’s a note when she gets home the following day. It’s a little after noon, but her eyes swell with the pull of sleep, her night shift in the ER taking its toll on her.
She slips under her covers. She won’t sleep a wink tonight, but she won’t mind. There’s a box of wine in the refrigerator for company once the sun goes down.
The red light from her house phone blinks faintly. She reaches across the bed, snagging the phone with memorized precision.
The voicemail’s quick and there are no words. There’s a silence, the sound of someone thinking about talking, but opting not to. There’s the definitive sound of someone holding back. She knows all of this because she’s made the noise herself many times before. A mute loudness that can pierce through even the deafest of ears.
He’s called her and she’s not sure what that means.
Only that it means something, because everything he does, always means something.
By one fifteen, she realizes she won’t be able to get any rest until she calls him back. She sighs, hitting the redial button. They never use the house phone. She wonders vaguely why they even have one...and how he got this number.
The same receptionist picks up, voice coated with sunshine, and Cameron stutters out the same word she barely uttered the day before. “House.”
She sinks deeper under the covers.
“You’re interrupting my piano time,” he growls.
Cameron’s eyes roll. “You’re the one who called me while I was at work.”
There’s a slight pause before the denial. “No, I....”
“Called ID,” Cameron says quickly. What else can she say? I’d know that silence anywhere?
“I obviously called your house, but I didn’t call for you. I called for Mr. Australian Cameron.”
“O...oh,” Cameron manages, too stunned by his words to even notice his joke. She’s feeling slightly rejected although she can’t put into words why that is.
“Still so gullible,” House sing-songs.
Cameron’s cheeks flush. “I think your time away has made you more annoying,” she retorts.
“No, no. You’re just not used to my witty banter anymore,” he teases. “It’ll take some time to readjust.”
“I don’t have time,” she insists crankily. “I just worked a double.”
“So why’d you call me instead of going to sleep?”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“Without calling me?” he accuses. She can clearly picture the amused gleam in his eyes.
“No,” she protests. “I couldn’t sleep so I called you. They’re two different things.”
“Whatever you have to tell yourself.”
“Is there really a piano there?”
“I’m in a psychiatric hospital, not jail,” he quips. “Me and some of the crazies banned together to form the world’s first medicinally-fueled band.”
Cameron laughs. “How like you.”
“Was that an insult or a compliment?”
“A little bit of both,” she replies, yawning.
“You know,” he replies, a mischievous lilt to his voice. “If I was there, I’d know exactly how to put you to sleep.”
“Box of wine and some Vicodin?” she teases.
“I was going to go with cheap booze, but wine works too. Wouldn’t want to bring a classy girl like you down to my level.”
She laughs.
“Course there are other ways to make someone tired....”
“House.”
“I could teach Chase how to....”
“House!”
“I was going to say, play the piano. Very soothing.” He pauses. “Why, what were you thinking?”
“That you really are insane.”
“Hence the hospital.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Maybe.” There’s another pause and a soft clinking sound. It takes her a moment to realize he’s set the phone down. A few seconds later, she begins to hear the sounds of a piano playing.
She grins widely, in spite of her better judgment.
Because House is serenading her to sleep.
House is serenading her.
Her ring snags at the sheets as slips her hand under the pillow.