TITLE: Someday
RATING: PG13
PAIRING: canon Chase/Cameron
SUMMARY: Post-Unfaithful; “You looked good with a baby in your arms. Happy.”
NOTES: Pure fluff. No, seriously, it’s dangerously saccharine sweet. But, after recent developments, I actually feel as though conversations such as this one happen between them a lot more openly and easily than we’d have previously assumed. Enjoy. Thanks to
enigma731 for insta-beta and moral support.
“Wilson was right,” Chase says suddenly, breaking through the silence that has been peacefully surrounding them since the final cries of ecstasy echoed off the walls of Cameron’s bedroom a little over five minutes ago. Bathed in moonlight and swimming in bed sheets, he lazily toys with the locks of her hair as Cameron rests her head upon his shoulder, absentmindedly entwining and releasing the fingers of their perfectly matched hands.
“Hmm?” Cameron responds half-heartedly, mind still hazy and reluctant to focus on anything more than this overwhelming feeling of pleasure.
Chase breathes in deeply. “Wilson was right,” he repeats slowly. “About you. And Rachel. You looked good with a baby in your arms. Happy.”
“I was.” She nuzzles deeper into the crook of his neck, hoping to get as close to Chase as possible, but also trying to hide from him just how true a statement she’s just made. “She’s a good baby. Cuddy’s lucky to finally have her.”
“Yeah. And now she has you ready to babysit any time,” Chase adds, Cameron smiling gently into his neck and continuing her pointless ministrations with their hands. “I’m just saying, Wilson was right.”
She doesn’t respond but to nod almost imperceptibly, and silence falls around them both once more. Moments pass as masculine fingers run aimlessly through sweat-soaked golden locks and indecisive hands finally come to rest - tightly entwined - atop Chase’s beautifully structured torso.
“Maybe we could babysit her together one night,” Chase speaks up again, and he instantly recognizes the feel of Cameron swallowing hard in the back of her throat. “I mean, it could be fun - ”
“Chase.”
He freezes, hand held less than an inch above Cameron’s head as he silently berates himself for not dropping the subject while he was still ahead. Inhaling another deep, now shaky breath, he prepares himself for the fallout. “Yeah?”
Cameron doesn’t move from her comfortable position against his chest, but begins rubbing her thumb softly along the skin of the hand she holds. “Are we gonna do this all night?”
“Do… what?”
“Lie here and not talk about the thing we’re both thinking about.” She answers clearly and sounds almost somewhat amused, and Chase is caught off guard that he isn’t watching the metaphorical walls of self-preservation build up around her at lightning speed once more.
“You keep saying ‘Wilson was right,’” Cameron continues, “but I don’t think you’re just thinking about how he said I looked good with the baby. I mean, if you are only thinking about that, okay. But he also said the sight of it would be a reality someday. For us. And I think that’s what you’re really lying here thinking about,” she finishes, pushing herself away from his chest and up on the pillows to look into his wistful blue eyes. “Because I’m thinking about it, too.”
Chase stares silently for several moments, as she’s grown accustomed to when she takes him by surprise, and then - also as usual - a brilliant smile of hope and relief begins to slowly spread across his face. “You are?”
“Yeah,” she answers, her smile a result of lovingly laughing at the unsettled nature of her boyfriend after all this time. “So… what exactly are you thinking about it all?”
“That I’d like it. If that ‘someday’ really were our reality. Someday.” He shifts a bit on the mattress, pulling her in close to him once more and resuming the casual habit of playing with her hair. Cameron has better ideas, though, and twists her body as she burrows deeper into the sheets, lying on her stomach beside him and resting her chin in the crook of her elbow upon his abdomen. She eyes him sweetly but curiously, chewing on her lip softly all the while.
“I wasn’t sure if you’d want kids,” Cameron tells him quietly. “I mean, you’re amazing with kids. You always have been. I just - with your childhood and…”
“I didn’t, really. I always thought it was selfish to have a kid when I had pretty lousy examples for parenting, but then - ” He pauses for effect, reaching down to lightly brush a knuckle across one of her rosy cheeks. “Then, you. Us. And I think, if you’re with me, maybe I won’t screw it up so badly after all.”
She leans tenderly into his touch for a brief moment, but never takes her eyes from his. “You’ll be an incredible father, Chase.”
Shaking himself quickly with the ineffective mask of a smile, Chase fights to pull back from the fantasy and refocus their quiet moments on the reality of now before this suddenly goes too far and he finds himself trapped in a maze of wrong turns that he’s not yet prepared to navigate without her assistance. “It’s a little premature to be talking about this stuff at all, anyway, right? I blame Rachel for looking so cute tonight.”
Cameron laughs quietly before sighing happily. “It’s not all that premature, actually. We’ve already covered the marriage topic and agreed it’s just a matter of ‘when,’” she shrugs slightly, but shyly meets his eyes in search of reassurance, forging ahead when he comes through with a confident wink and the tiniest tilt of a nod. “So I guess this kind of feels like the next thing on the list. There’s no harm in seeing where we both stand, right?”
“Of course not,” Chase answers slowly, soaking up the wonder of this newfound realm of openness and exploration that has emerged in their relationship and that brings him one glorious surprise after the next each and every time he thinks he’s crossed a line with her too quickly.
Reaching out again, Chase grabs the arm she’s not resting her face upon and trails his hand down the soft, silky skin, at last finding her hand and pulling it toward him, kissing her fingertips lightly before melding his palm to hers once more.
“What do you think they’ll look like?”
Cameron’s question surprises him still, as if she hasn’t just assured him moments before that this is a subject she’s more than ready to delve into.
“I mean, do you ever think about it?” she continues when he doesn’t immediately respond, and the power of his gaze is suddenly breathtaking.
“Every day. Every time I look at you.”
Blushing deeply and blinking back the sudden sting behind her eyes, Cameron slowly raises her eyebrows to encourage him to fill her in on what he so frequently sees for their future together.
“I always see her having - ”
“Her?” Cameron interrupts teasingly, giving his hand a gentle squeeze.
“Yes, her,” Chase replies. “Obviously, we’d have a girl first.”
“First?” she jumps in again, biting down on her lip to keep from laughing when he shoots her a look of annoyance.
“Do you want to hear this or not?”
“No, I do. I’m sorry. Really. Tell me?” Her thumb strokes his hand once more in a quiet gesture of confidence and sincerity, pushing him to take her deeper into his futuristic imagination.
Chase takes a deep breath, watching her closely and pulling images from the pools of her trusting, emerald eyes. “She’d look like you, mostly. Your hair, the shape of your eyes, but they’d be blue like mine, not green.”
“Well, then she’ll look a lot more like you - blonde hair, blue eyes. That’s you, babe. We may share the hair, but I’ve at least got the green eyes separating me from the cliché.”
Eyes rolling upward, Chase huffs in response. “I said your hair color. She’d be a brunette.”
“Really?” she questions, smiling strong and wide. “You see our daughter with brown hair?”
Chase doesn’t answer right away, choking temporarily on the lump in his throat that jumped up the moment Cameron uttered the phrase ‘our daughter’ with such support and joy in her voice. “Uh - yeah,” he finally manages, “and ringlets. Little brunette ringlets, my striking blue eyes, this perfect nose of yours… She’s beautiful. In my mind, I can see her and she’s - she’s perfect.”
Cameron breathes evenly and doesn’t so much as blink for nearly an entire minute, staring past Chase’s self-proclaimed striking blue eyes and into the depths of his innermost wants.
“Ringlets, huh?” she breaks the silence at last, hoping to relieve the sudden-but-wonderful tension with a soft joke. “Cliché as it is, little girls with ringlets are notoriously blonde. And my shade of blonde, not yours. You’re sure she’s not?”
“My god, woman!” Chase whisper-yells, craning his neck toward the ceiling in mock frustration. “What kind of a doctor are you? You think a monthly dye job will magically pass down blonde mitochondrial DNA instead? She’ll be brunette!”
Cameron smacks him playfully across the chest, their hands still entwined and therefore causing Chase to hit himself in the process, and pouts adorably when he reacts with laughter.
“I hate you,” she tells him, counteracting her words by crawling back up the bed and folding herself into his arms, head resting on his shoulder once more.
“I know. It’s late. Let’s go to sleep. ‘Someday’ can wait ‘til morning.” Chase runs his fingers lazily through her hair a few more times before wrapping the arm around her shoulder and placing a soft kiss upon her forehead.
“Chase?” Cameron ventures through the dark as she feels him settling into the pillows again. “I love you.”
“I know.” He smiles in the moonlight.
“’Someday’ sounds pretty incredible.”