"She's a lot like you... the dangerous type..."
Cameron/Cuddy for femslash100’s around the clock challenge. I stayed up til 2 a.m Monday with the Grey’s Anatomy soundtrack (vol. 2) finishing this off. One day, I’m going to learn how to write girlslash without being fundamentally bitchy. Is that actually possible?
01:00 Prehistoric (185)
[Not one of my better drabbles, but I really struggled with this particular prompt. Anyway. They get better from here down.]
In the beginning, there was House. The be-all and end all. Cruel blue eyes, scalpel-sharp sense of humour that stung like nothing else. Cameron can’t remember why she fell for him except that she did, so hard and fast it bruised her. And then he kicked her while she was down, and that was it for dreams of kink with that cane and fixing all his issues.
Then came Stacy. God, did she have issues. Cameron was barely picking herself up from House and then in came his ex, crueller eyes, sharper smile, a husband she’d crippled and then lost interest in, needing something, anything. Cameron is good at anything, found herself tied in little knots by the older woman, and dumped just as swiftly when the world imploded.
And she doesn’t even think about Chase any more. The meth that made him seem like a viable option. Oops.
But they’re all ancient history now, so far away they no longer hurt. The blue eyes and edgy little smile that tear Cameron to pieces have been biding their time, and belong to someone else entirely.
03:00 Generational (175)
[Without any editing. My word count powers are getting so super!]
It’s easy to fall in hate with her, even though you know that you shouldn’t. That it isn’t her fault. It’s easy easy easy.
House, in one of those occasional gentlemanly acts that seems completely out of character for him and is breathtaking whenever it happens, has managed to keep his mouth shut about your desperate and rather tired search for a father to your child, to the endless, endless complications and set-backs you’ve suffered.
So Cameron can’t understand - and God forbid you’d ever tell her - why your eyes narrow when she walks down a corridor. Three months. Just starting to show. That space you just can’t seem to reach.
And it isn’t fair to resent her, glare at her, give her more clinic duty, refuse to meet her eye; but she’s so happy, hand running across the bump that should, by rights, be yours. You’ve tried so much harder for it.
So Cameron blushes and avoids you and you know that you’re overreacting but you just can’t bring yourself to be glad for her.
05:00 Contemporary (210)
“I’ve never liked you,” Cuddy says at around eleven p.m, after one-too-many of whatever it is they’re drinking (the alcohol is an alarming shade of pink that matches the polish on Cameron’s toenails and the fact she knows this is enough to make Cuddy order another pitcher of this stuff, regardless of the taste).
They are at a medical conference on the modern way to do things or something, and Cuddy wasn’t going to take Chase because he’s an ass and she wasn’t going to take Foreman because she suspected that he’d be a gentleman and that would ruin everything, and so she took Cameron, because a) it pissed House off, and b) she had an itch that sort of needed scratching and damn if Cameron isn’t good at the whole scratching thing.
Cameron just rolls her eyes, taking another sip, the pink colour is staining her lips and Cuddy is going to enjoy licking that off, later. It’s strange, because this whole thing should be complicated, and… it really isn’t.
Cuddy sucks the juice from a slice of lemon and watches Cameron smirk through narrowed eyes - she’s getting far too cocky about this - and mentally thanks God for open bars and the fact they’re going home in two days.
07:00 Awakened (140)
She doesn’t realise it for a fortnight, then, one day, they’re kissing, impossibly deeply, Cameron has her fingers embedded in Cuddy’s glossy hair, blinds drawn tight, rain against the windowpanes, the moment is somewhere close to being perfect.
Then she pulls back and sees something she wasn’t expecting in Cuddy’s blue, blue eyes. There’s a look in them, something dangerous, something terrifying in its incongruity. It’s a look House has given her on too many occasions.
“Oh, God,” she says, pulling away, and Cuddy doesn’t even seem surprised, she just smirks a little, and that smirk is House’s too. Cameron stares. “What’s the difference between you and him, really?” she asks, feeling suddenly helpless.
Cuddy shrugs.
“I’ve got better taste in shoes?” she suggests.
Cameron wonders why she ever thought she’d get away from him. It’s pointless to even try.
09:00 Planned (180)
“I thought I could do this,” Cameron says, “I can’t. I had a calendar, I was crossing off days, I took my pills, this window period - it’s like a bubble, I was fine. But I can’t.”
Cameron has broken her HIV crisis down all over Chase. All over everyone in the diagnostics department. Cuddy supposes that now it’s her turn to watch Cameron fall into indelicate little pieces. Because this is Cameron all over. She has plans, rows of plans, all organised and pretty and insubstantial because Cameron forgot to take one thing into account - she is scared. Too scared to keep counting, too scared to act like it’s nothing.
Cuddy sighs.
“If you need time-” she begins. Cameron just looks at her, all wide-eyed misery. She wants comforting. Should’ve gone to Wilson, Cuddy thinks dryly, but she can’t feel entirely detached from Cameron’s panic, as much as she wants to.
“Come on,” she says, slipping off her labcoat. Then, as an afterthought, she adds: “And I’m not going to sleep with you.”
Finally, Cameron just about manages a smile.
10:00 Wristwatch (100)
There’s silence, but for the ticking of Cameron’s watch on the couch. It was a present, years ago, she doesn’t remember who from. It never goes wrong, never wavers. And the second hand screams its path through the world.
They’re not waiting for anything, the blinds shiver, Cameron trembles under Cuddy’s fingers, she can’t stop herself. No one can see, the door is locked, but she still feels disturbingly naked here, Cuddy’s mouth on her skin, warmth, it’s late or maybe it’s early and in her brain she counts the ticks until the world becomes nothing but shameless, blissful white.
11:00 Punctual (200)
[For some reason, now I have season 3, I’ve gone all old-school. So. “Love Hurts”, people.]
Cuddy has a bet with herself, because yes, she is more like House than either of them will ever admit and she can read people almost as astutely as he can. Well, certain people anyway. And she thinks she knows exactly what time Cameron will turn up at her door.
She’s exactly right, which is amusing but also a little depressing. Cuddy considers not answering, but she spent half an hour picking out her nightdress and a further fifteen minutes choosing a sympathetic expression, there’s wine chilling in the refrigerator, and Cameron is stood in a black dress with mascara trickling down her cheeks and what might have been a white corsage clenched in her fist, shedding petals like a blood trail.
“Did you at least get him to buy you dessert?” she asks, stepping back to allow Cameron in. Cameron says nothing, kicking off her pumps, permeated with devastation, and Cuddy only refrains from saying I told you so because that will send Cameron running to someone like Chase, and that will not end at all well.
Instead, she lets Cameron push her against her hallway wall, and reflects that at least something good came out of all this.
12:00 Lunchtime (120)
Cuddy takes Cameron out for lunch, charges the whole thing to miscellaneous expenses, and pretends that she can’t hear everyone whispering. Wilson may raise his eyebrows in that amused way that most people find endearing and just plain irritates Cuddy, and House may grin knowing smiles (but he ruined any chance with Cameron months ago) and Chase and Foreman may maintain tactful silences, but none of it really matters.
If she wants to take Cameron out for overpriced salads, drink a glass too much wine (just a glass; she’s still got a hospital to run), and spend most of the meal flirting, with Cameron’s bare foot making its slow, slow way up her calf, then that is entirely her business.
13:00 Instantaneous (100)
This is either anger or some entirely new kind of affection that Cuddy’s never come across before, but then Cameron is slightly more complicated than they all give her credit for her and her mouth is wet and warm as she pins Cuddy up against the wall. They haven’t said a word to each other and Cuddy hasn’t quite figured out what she’s done to deserve this; but while Cameron is so hot and here and not even attempting to tease, just moving, immediate and lusting and dangerous, she’s hardly going to shatter this tentative equilibrium to ask for clarification.
14:00 Season (120)
[What’s my theory as to how everyone spent the summer between seasons 2 and 3? They all spent it shagging their co-workers, of course :D]
The three months that make up the space House leaves behind are hell. It’s impossibly, improbably hot, summer nights spent sweating and brooding. Cameron spends her days arguing with Chase and Foreman in the glass shoebox they work in, throwing whiteboard markers childishly at each other, name-calling and back-stabbing and getting precisely nowhere. She spends her nights in Cuddy’s impossibly pretty home, sipping icy margheritas in the backyard with grass beneath her bare feet, counting beads of sweat on her boss’ skin into the early hours of the morning.
She barely eats, doesn’t sleep well, gets herself sunburn from hours spent on the balcony thinking nothing at all. Waiting. Wishing she knew exactly what it is that she’s waiting for.
16:00 Evolution (155)
[Set during “Merry Little Christmas”, a truly nasty episode that I can’t wait to write all sorts of fallout for, after my exams are over this week.]
Cameron never used to be like this. Cameron was made up of strangely frilly blouses, awkward smiles, dark hair pulled back from her face, caring about everything and everyone.
But, a couple of years later, Princeton/Plainsboro has chipped edges into her, stripped away some things that she wanted to keep, suckerpunched her so hard she’s on her knees discovering that life isn’t the way she thought it was. Princeton/Plainsboro has chewed up Allison Cameron and spat her back out, new, and a little scary.
Cuddy barely recognises the woman who pushes her back against the door, mouth wet and demanding, she doesn’t taste anything like sweetness.
The only thing Cameron says to her is: what you’re doing to House is wrong, and you and Wilson should know better.
Cuddy isn’t sure what to think of this new Cameron, whether she’s an improvement on the old one or not.
All she says is: Merry fucking Christmas.
17:00 Finite (150)
There is only so far they can drag this before the whole thing falls into pieces. They both know this. They both know this is a relationship born of necessity and a little bit of loneliness and maybe something else, but there’s nothing keeping them together.
Cuddy’s manicured nails dig into Cameron’s wrist, stopping her from pulling away, they kiss halfway up the stairs that no one ever uses, a moment of silence.
“This should stop,” Cameron says, she’s trembling, blue eyes irritatingly wide. Cuddy makes an annoyed little noise into her neck, smearing lipstick just below the collar of Cameron’s shirt, blood red, part of her hopes House will see just because it’s nice to get one over on your employees.
“Shut up,” she orders, and Cameron obeys.
But it’s going to break any day now, and neither of them will be all that sorry to watch it go.
18:00 Afterlife (250)
[Set during “Euphoria”. And is very random.]
Foreman is dying and has dumped the task of being his medical proxy on Cameron, much to her horror and endless surprise.
They’re not friends, as he has slammed into her head more than once. Not friends unless he wants her to save him. She has half a mind to let him die just to spite him, except that’s petty and she’d never live with herself afterwards.
The hospital chapel is empty for once, the stained-glass sends crimson-coloured shadows over the floor and it’s a quiet space to think.
Allison stopped believing somewhere around her twenty-second birthday when David wasn’t around to celebrate with her and yet she’s here twisting her fingers and borderline praying.
She counts the clicks of Cuddy’s heels on the chapel floor. But Cameron can’t look up as Cuddy sits beside her, all that guilt around her neck and Chase was supposed to be the one tied down with rosary-beads and all that.
“If he dies-” she begins tremulously, aware now is not the time for a philosophical conversation on the nature of heaven and if a little carjacking will keep Foreman out of paradise, but she’s feeling sick and morbid and Cuddy isn’t discouraging her.
“I don’t believe,” Cuddy tells her simply, “That this is all there is.”
But Cameron, for all her optimism, is scared of that dark space of silence that comes next.
“I-” she begins, helpless, and has to clasp Cuddy’s hand for a good five minutes before she can breathe again.
21:00 Mourned (150)
Three days after House’s shooting, Cuddy is in her office wondering just what the hell happened in her hospital and how exactly she’s supposed to put everything back together now; the aftermath. She finds herself expecting him to come walking through the doors, shooting off five comments about her cleavage before she’s had time to draw breath, with yet another crazy plan and something potentially illegal up his sleeve.
The person who walks in today is Cameron. Her face is pale and drawn, hair pulled back too tightly, she looks like she hasn’t slept in days and her eyes are dark bruises. She sinks into the chair on the other side of Cuddy’s desk, head dropping into her hands.
There’s been a lot between them the last couple of years; apathy and antipathy and everything in-between, but right now, everything’s pure-white and simple.
So they sit in silence, and breathe.
22:00 Heartbeat (130)
The first things Cameron remembers are fingers on her wrist. Manicured nails digging into her skin, shaking, anxiety.
She remembers lights. Movement. A gurney, maybe, blue eyes above her. Not House’s eyes. Other blue eyes.
She remembers a voice, promising that everything would be ok. The same voice barking orders, screaming monitors. Cameron remembers noise and confusion and the feeling of floating.
She remembers a hand clasping hers, telling her that she could do this. Strength in numbers. She doesn’t know how she got there and no one felt inclined to tell her.
She remembers something that might have been sobbing underneath the beeping of the heart monitor. The pulse staying steady and then speeding up into a scream and then calm again.
She remembers. So she opens her eyes.
23:00 Endless (190)
[I really, really like this. But it was 1 a.m when I wrote it. Set somewhere around “Merry Little Christmas”.]
The silence of a night ticking by like all the others except that now it’s dark and late and everyone - everything - is in pieces, and although technically this is nothing new, these are differently shaped pieces and everyone is still getting used to the change.
This might possibly have started out as some kind of drinking game a few hours ago, though God knows what it is now.
Cuddy says: House could never have fixed you.
Cameron considers this, sighing, hair curling around her shoulders and eyes on the sidewalk outside, head leant against the window, refusing to acknowledge whatever it is that they’re not doing.
House is a masterpiece of breakages. Almost beyond saving and they’re both too tired to try. Jaded.
Cameron murmurs: But you can’t save me either.
At least they both know it this time.
But it doesn’t matter, because they’ll both keep slamming things together that don’t want to fit, eternal cycle, trying to paper over all kinds of cracks. Forever. It’s what House does to you.
Cameron moves, and her breath’s left a dark patch of condensation on the glass. Her fingers are cold.
01:00 Prehistoric (185)
[Not one of my better drabbles, but I really struggled with this particular prompt. Anyway. They get better from here down.]
In the beginning, there was House. The be-all and end all. Cruel blue eyes, scalpel-sharp sense of humour that stung like nothing else. Cameron can’t remember why she fell for him except that she did, so hard and fast it bruised her. And then he kicked her while she was down, and that was it for dreams of kink with that cane and fixing all his issues.
Then came Stacy. God, did she have issues. Cameron was barely picking herself up from House and then in came his ex, crueller eyes, sharper smile, a husband she’d crippled and then lost interest in, needing something, anything. Cameron is good at anything, found herself tied in little knots by the older woman, and dumped just as swiftly when the world imploded.
And she doesn’t even think about Chase any more. The meth that made him seem like a viable option. Oops.
But they’re all ancient history now, so far away they no longer hurt. The blue eyes and edgy little smile that tear Cameron to pieces have been biding their time, and belong to someone else entirely.
03:00 Generational (175)
[Without any editing. My word count powers are getting so super!]
It’s easy to fall in hate with her, even though you know that you shouldn’t. That it isn’t her fault. It’s easy easy easy.
House, in one of those occasional gentlemanly acts that seems completely out of character for him and is breathtaking whenever it happens, has managed to keep his mouth shut about your desperate and rather tired search for a father to your child, to the endless, endless complications and set-backs you’ve suffered.
So Cameron can’t understand - and God forbid you’d ever tell her - why your eyes narrow when she walks down a corridor. Three months. Just starting to show. That space you just can’t seem to reach.
And it isn’t fair to resent her, glare at her, give her more clinic duty, refuse to meet her eye; but she’s so happy, hand running across the bump that should, by rights, be yours. You’ve tried so much harder for it.
So Cameron blushes and avoids you and you know that you’re overreacting but you just can’t bring yourself to be glad for her.
05:00 Contemporary (210)
“I’ve never liked you,” Cuddy says at around eleven p.m, after one-too-many of whatever it is they’re drinking (the alcohol is an alarming shade of pink that matches the polish on Cameron’s toenails and the fact she knows this is enough to make Cuddy order another pitcher of this stuff, regardless of the taste).
They are at a medical conference on the modern way to do things or something, and Cuddy wasn’t going to take Chase because he’s an ass and she wasn’t going to take Foreman because she suspected that he’d be a gentleman and that would ruin everything, and so she took Cameron, because a) it pissed House off, and b) she had an itch that sort of needed scratching and damn if Cameron isn’t good at the whole scratching thing.
Cameron just rolls her eyes, taking another sip, the pink colour is staining her lips and Cuddy is going to enjoy licking that off, later. It’s strange, because this whole thing should be complicated, and… it really isn’t.
Cuddy sucks the juice from a slice of lemon and watches Cameron smirk through narrowed eyes - she’s getting far too cocky about this - and mentally thanks God for open bars and the fact they’re going home in two days.
07:00 Awakened (140)
She doesn’t realise it for a fortnight, then, one day, they’re kissing, impossibly deeply, Cameron has her fingers embedded in Cuddy’s glossy hair, blinds drawn tight, rain against the windowpanes, the moment is somewhere close to being perfect.
Then she pulls back and sees something she wasn’t expecting in Cuddy’s blue, blue eyes. There’s a look in them, something dangerous, something terrifying in its incongruity. It’s a look House has given her on too many occasions.
“Oh, God,” she says, pulling away, and Cuddy doesn’t even seem surprised, she just smirks a little, and that smirk is House’s too. Cameron stares. “What’s the difference between you and him, really?” she asks, feeling suddenly helpless.
Cuddy shrugs.
“I’ve got better taste in shoes?” she suggests.
Cameron wonders why she ever thought she’d get away from him. It’s pointless to even try.
09:00 Planned (180)
“I thought I could do this,” Cameron says, “I can’t. I had a calendar, I was crossing off days, I took my pills, this window period - it’s like a bubble, I was fine. But I can’t.”
Cameron has broken her HIV crisis down all over Chase. All over everyone in the diagnostics department. Cuddy supposes that now it’s her turn to watch Cameron fall into indelicate little pieces. Because this is Cameron all over. She has plans, rows of plans, all organised and pretty and insubstantial because Cameron forgot to take one thing into account - she is scared. Too scared to keep counting, too scared to act like it’s nothing.
Cuddy sighs.
“If you need time-” she begins. Cameron just looks at her, all wide-eyed misery. She wants comforting. Should’ve gone to Wilson, Cuddy thinks dryly, but she can’t feel entirely detached from Cameron’s panic, as much as she wants to.
“Come on,” she says, slipping off her labcoat. Then, as an afterthought, she adds: “And I’m not going to sleep with you.”
Finally, Cameron just about manages a smile.
10:00 Wristwatch (100)
There’s silence, but for the ticking of Cameron’s watch on the couch. It was a present, years ago, she doesn’t remember who from. It never goes wrong, never wavers. And the second hand screams its path through the world.
They’re not waiting for anything, the blinds shiver, Cameron trembles under Cuddy’s fingers, she can’t stop herself. No one can see, the door is locked, but she still feels disturbingly naked here, Cuddy’s mouth on her skin, warmth, it’s late or maybe it’s early and in her brain she counts the ticks until the world becomes nothing but shameless, blissful white.
11:00 Punctual (200)
[For some reason, now I have season 3, I’ve gone all old-school. So. “Love Hurts”, people.]
Cuddy has a bet with herself, because yes, she is more like House than either of them will ever admit and she can read people almost as astutely as he can. Well, certain people anyway. And she thinks she knows exactly what time Cameron will turn up at her door.
She’s exactly right, which is amusing but also a little depressing. Cuddy considers not answering, but she spent half an hour picking out her nightdress and a further fifteen minutes choosing a sympathetic expression, there’s wine chilling in the refrigerator, and Cameron is stood in a black dress with mascara trickling down her cheeks and what might have been a white corsage clenched in her fist, shedding petals like a blood trail.
“Did you at least get him to buy you dessert?” she asks, stepping back to allow Cameron in. Cameron says nothing, kicking off her pumps, permeated with devastation, and Cuddy only refrains from saying I told you so because that will send Cameron running to someone like Chase, and that will not end at all well.
Instead, she lets Cameron push her against her hallway wall, and reflects that at least something good came out of all this.
12:00 Lunchtime (120)
Cuddy takes Cameron out for lunch, charges the whole thing to miscellaneous expenses, and pretends that she can’t hear everyone whispering. Wilson may raise his eyebrows in that amused way that most people find endearing and just plain irritates Cuddy, and House may grin knowing smiles (but he ruined any chance with Cameron months ago) and Chase and Foreman may maintain tactful silences, but none of it really matters.
If she wants to take Cameron out for overpriced salads, drink a glass too much wine (just a glass; she’s still got a hospital to run), and spend most of the meal flirting, with Cameron’s bare foot making its slow, slow way up her calf, then that is entirely her business.
13:00 Instantaneous (100)
This is either anger or some entirely new kind of affection that Cuddy’s never come across before, but then Cameron is slightly more complicated than they all give her credit for her and her mouth is wet and warm as she pins Cuddy up against the wall. They haven’t said a word to each other and Cuddy hasn’t quite figured out what she’s done to deserve this; but while Cameron is so hot and here and not even attempting to tease, just moving, immediate and lusting and dangerous, she’s hardly going to shatter this tentative equilibrium to ask for clarification.
14:00 Season (120)
[What’s my theory as to how everyone spent the summer between seasons 2 and 3? They all spent it shagging their co-workers, of course :D]
The three months that make up the space House leaves behind are hell. It’s impossibly, improbably hot, summer nights spent sweating and brooding. Cameron spends her days arguing with Chase and Foreman in the glass shoebox they work in, throwing whiteboard markers childishly at each other, name-calling and back-stabbing and getting precisely nowhere. She spends her nights in Cuddy’s impossibly pretty home, sipping icy margheritas in the backyard with grass beneath her bare feet, counting beads of sweat on her boss’ skin into the early hours of the morning.
She barely eats, doesn’t sleep well, gets herself sunburn from hours spent on the balcony thinking nothing at all. Waiting. Wishing she knew exactly what it is that she’s waiting for.
16:00 Evolution (155)
[Set during “Merry Little Christmas”, a truly nasty episode that I can’t wait to write all sorts of fallout for, after my exams are over this week.]
Cameron never used to be like this. Cameron was made up of strangely frilly blouses, awkward smiles, dark hair pulled back from her face, caring about everything and everyone.
But, a couple of years later, Princeton/Plainsboro has chipped edges into her, stripped away some things that she wanted to keep, suckerpunched her so hard she’s on her knees discovering that life isn’t the way she thought it was. Princeton/Plainsboro has chewed up Allison Cameron and spat her back out, new, and a little scary.
Cuddy barely recognises the woman who pushes her back against the door, mouth wet and demanding, she doesn’t taste anything like sweetness.
The only thing Cameron says to her is: what you’re doing to House is wrong, and you and Wilson should know better.
Cuddy isn’t sure what to think of this new Cameron, whether she’s an improvement on the old one or not.
All she says is: Merry fucking Christmas.
17:00 Finite (150)
There is only so far they can drag this before the whole thing falls into pieces. They both know this. They both know this is a relationship born of necessity and a little bit of loneliness and maybe something else, but there’s nothing keeping them together.
Cuddy’s manicured nails dig into Cameron’s wrist, stopping her from pulling away, they kiss halfway up the stairs that no one ever uses, a moment of silence.
“This should stop,” Cameron says, she’s trembling, blue eyes irritatingly wide. Cuddy makes an annoyed little noise into her neck, smearing lipstick just below the collar of Cameron’s shirt, blood red, part of her hopes House will see just because it’s nice to get one over on your employees.
“Shut up,” she orders, and Cameron obeys.
But it’s going to break any day now, and neither of them will be all that sorry to watch it go.
18:00 Afterlife (250)
[Set during “Euphoria”. And is very random.]
Foreman is dying and has dumped the task of being his medical proxy on Cameron, much to her horror and endless surprise.
They’re not friends, as he has slammed into her head more than once. Not friends unless he wants her to save him. She has half a mind to let him die just to spite him, except that’s petty and she’d never live with herself afterwards.
The hospital chapel is empty for once, the stained-glass sends crimson-coloured shadows over the floor and it’s a quiet space to think.
Allison stopped believing somewhere around her twenty-second birthday when David wasn’t around to celebrate with her and yet she’s here twisting her fingers and borderline praying.
She counts the clicks of Cuddy’s heels on the chapel floor. But Cameron can’t look up as Cuddy sits beside her, all that guilt around her neck and Chase was supposed to be the one tied down with rosary-beads and all that.
“If he dies-” she begins tremulously, aware now is not the time for a philosophical conversation on the nature of heaven and if a little carjacking will keep Foreman out of paradise, but she’s feeling sick and morbid and Cuddy isn’t discouraging her.
“I don’t believe,” Cuddy tells her simply, “That this is all there is.”
But Cameron, for all her optimism, is scared of that dark space of silence that comes next.
“I-” she begins, helpless, and has to clasp Cuddy’s hand for a good five minutes before she can breathe again.
21:00 Mourned (150)
Three days after House’s shooting, Cuddy is in her office wondering just what the hell happened in her hospital and how exactly she’s supposed to put everything back together now; the aftermath. She finds herself expecting him to come walking through the doors, shooting off five comments about her cleavage before she’s had time to draw breath, with yet another crazy plan and something potentially illegal up his sleeve.
The person who walks in today is Cameron. Her face is pale and drawn, hair pulled back too tightly, she looks like she hasn’t slept in days and her eyes are dark bruises. She sinks into the chair on the other side of Cuddy’s desk, head dropping into her hands.
There’s been a lot between them the last couple of years; apathy and antipathy and everything in-between, but right now, everything’s pure-white and simple.
So they sit in silence, and breathe.
22:00 Heartbeat (130)
The first things Cameron remembers are fingers on her wrist. Manicured nails digging into her skin, shaking, anxiety.
She remembers lights. Movement. A gurney, maybe, blue eyes above her. Not House’s eyes. Other blue eyes.
She remembers a voice, promising that everything would be ok. The same voice barking orders, screaming monitors. Cameron remembers noise and confusion and the feeling of floating.
She remembers a hand clasping hers, telling her that she could do this. Strength in numbers. She doesn’t know how she got there and no one felt inclined to tell her.
She remembers something that might have been sobbing underneath the beeping of the heart monitor. The pulse staying steady and then speeding up into a scream and then calm again.
She remembers. So she opens her eyes.
23:00 Endless (190)
[I really, really like this. But it was 1 a.m when I wrote it. Set somewhere around “Merry Little Christmas”.]
The silence of a night ticking by like all the others except that now it’s dark and late and everyone - everything - is in pieces, and although technically this is nothing new, these are differently shaped pieces and everyone is still getting used to the change.
This might possibly have started out as some kind of drinking game a few hours ago, though God knows what it is now.
Cuddy says: House could never have fixed you.
Cameron considers this, sighing, hair curling around her shoulders and eyes on the sidewalk outside, head leant against the window, refusing to acknowledge whatever it is that they’re not doing.
House is a masterpiece of breakages. Almost beyond saving and they’re both too tired to try. Jaded.
Cameron murmurs: But you can’t save me either.
At least they both know it this time.
But it doesn’t matter, because they’ll both keep slamming things together that don’t want to fit, eternal cycle, trying to paper over all kinds of cracks. Forever. It’s what House does to you.
Cameron moves, and her breath’s left a dark patch of condensation on the glass. Her fingers are cold.