The Duality of Sound; 2/6

[teenwitch77]

Title: The Duality of Sound - 2/6
Pairing: House, Cameron, House/Cameron
Rating: R 
Summary: Something happens to wrench the hospital apart, and thrusts House and Cameron unexpectedly together.
Note: Part one is here.

#02

[Cameron]

It was becoming hard to concentrate.

She’d dragged herself away from the fallen businessman because she just couldn’t stand the closeness. The silent proximity of death. It was irrational and probably unwise considering her injured leg, and now her energy was sapped. She had her head propped back against the base of the desk, and her eyes closed. Thin beads of sweat coiled at the nape of her neck, sticking to her hair and making her lab coat thick and uncomfortable. She had pulled it off her arms, leaving it wedged under her body because she couldn’t summon the strength to lift herself off completely.

It occured to her that people she knew, people she... cared about, could be in the same state as this man. It was impossible to guess if they had escaped safely - there was no easy way for her to communicate with the outside world, not without risking her position by trying. She would have to wait. And wonder.

The desk was hard as her head lolled back, and she wondered how dangerous it would be to doze off, let sleep numb her pain, just for a second. All she could think about was how to salve it; something else, anything else, to occupy her attention.

A low shuffle came from somewhere behind her, and her eyes flew open.

There was no way one of the gunman could be lurking back there. Logic assured her she would have heard them circle the desk, that the last thing they would care about was stealth or caution. But the part of her that had come to dread pain in ways she could never really imagine seized up in fear, and she breathed out raggedly, wondering if she could fit her body in the small alcove directly under the desk.

The shuffling paused for a long, tense moment, causing goosebumps to prickle on her arms. Then it started again, like a zombie or a mummy from one of those B-grade movies dragging along its unravelled bandages, growing nearer.

Her heart thundered against her ribcage, almost threatening freedom, and she slid her palms awkwardly against the floor, straightening herself up. In readiness for what, it was hard to say.

What she saw had Cameron convinced she was hallucinating. After a mental self-differential, she convinced herself she felt quite lucid. It had to be real. Directly in her line of sight was House.

He didn’t see her immediately, sliding along the wall beside the pharmacy with his cane poised very carefully over the floor. He took in the dead clinic patient with a grim turn of his mouth, but had his eyes fixed firmly on the clinic entrance. There was a hint of determination there she found somewhat worrying, a flash of that familiar old impulsiveness that could prove life-threatening in their current situation.

After a breathless, disbelieving moment, she lifted her hand, and gestured wildly.

She didn’t want to risk slamming her hand against the desk and making any noise, but as a last, desperate bid to get his attention she hissed, “House.”

His eyes darted over, and he stared at her for a long, tense moment. A heady rush of emotion flowed through her during that minute second of eye-contact, but he didn’t move, and he was still out in the open, so she widened her eyes, causing him to snap out of it, slide over, and wince painfully as he dropped down beside her.

Cameron closed her eyes, only temporarily allowing herself to feel relieved.

“Jesus Christ, Cameron.”

When she opened them again he was looking down at her leg, studying it with a doctor’s severe scrutiny. He looked... tired. Older. She hadn't had the opportunity to study him up close for such a long time now, but there were lines around his eyes she didn't remember from before, a smattering of grey in his hair that looked unfamiliar.

His eyes darted up over her again, because she was staring, and she blamed it on the pain. At least she wasn't alone anymore.

She had pressed the arm of her coat over the wound, holding it there tightly, but the blood was still soaking through, staining the white visible beneath her fingers in a thick web of red. House's gaze drifted back over the floor, and she realised there was a long, tell-tale trail of blood from the dead man to her.

“Just couldn’t help yourself, could you?” he said, in a low, gruff voice.

It could have been concern, but it sounded more like an exasperated reprimand.

“I wasn’t sure if he was dead,” she muttered, and then wondered why she was defending herself.

He reached forward, abruptly casting her hand aside and carefully lifting the coat. There was a round tear in her pants, something she hadn’t noticed before, which confirmed her fears that it was not glass. House didn’t say anything, but there was blood obstructing his view, and when he rested his palm against her leg to examine the wound more properly, she whimpered before she could stop herself. He glanced up at her with an unreadable expression, and shrugged off his blazer, winding it around her leg and pulling it taut. The hot flashes of pain made her curl back instinctively, rolling her head against the desk.

“I hope you didn't jump in front of it,” he grunted, shaking his head. “And despite the fact that we are, ironically, in a hospital, I don’t think we're going to get much help with that here.”

She moved her mouth in response, biting down on her lower lip. He reached into his pocket, wordlessly withdrawing a few Vicodin and handing them to her, which she swallowed with extreme difficulty. One lodged in her throat, and she could feel it sitting there, but it gave her something else to focus on so she wasn’t about to complain.

House braced his back against the desk beside her, exhaling wearily.

She considered asking him if he was okay, but it was obviously a moot point. His shoulder was warm beside hers, and his presence was a comfort at least. There was a distance between them now, after her resignation and her return to a different department, but he still... mattered to her. Still caused her a flutter of warmth whenever he was near, which she attributed to an old, lingering crush and nothing more.

“Could you see anything from over there?” she asked slowly.

He shook his head. “No. Looks like we’re on our own down here.”

“There was no one else back there, in the exam rooms?”

“If there was, they’re not coming out. Which is probably for the best, considering there’s a pair of gun toting maniacs in the building.”

That didn’t explain what he was doing coming out of the room, but he obviously caught onto his own slip and carried on briskly. “Wilson called before. He said they’re still upstairs somewhere. I think they’ve done all the damage they’re going to do down here.”

His 'they' was ominious, and she swallowed back the burning in her throat, nodding silently, because of course they would both like to think that. The shooters would have to escape sometime, and if they planned on doing that alive it was going to be from the ground floor.

The silence was stifling, especially in an environment she usually identified with constant movement and sound, and she waited for the Vicodin to take some kind of effect. The waiting had been excruciating enough already, and she was certain very little time had actually passed since their initial entrance.

“Why is this happening?” she muttered at last, and it was such a ridiculous, hopelessly naive question she was sure House wouldn’t even acknowledge it.

Instead, he sighed. “I don’t know.”

[House]

If there was one thing he was unaccustomed to, it was Cameron’s silence.

He was used to her prattling on, whether it be an attempt to force unwanted personal conversation between them, or argue her moral stance on some random case. Of course, four months without her should have made him a little more accustomed to its absence, but he often heard her in his head, condemning him when he shucked Cuddy or backing him up when he made a last-minute judgement call.

It wasn’t that he’d missed her. Not at all. It was just that he was so used to her being around in his office every day, that her absence took a bit of adjusting to. It was basic human nature.

The heavy silence hanging between them now was almost worse than when he had been alone. It made everything that much more grave, because it reminded him that they were in life-threatening danger, the situation was completely, irrevocably outside his control, and Cameron had a gaping gunshot wound in her leg.

At that particular, sobering thought, he glanced over at her, and realised she was dozing off, head propped awkwardly against her shoulder.

It wasn’t like being shot was such a big deal in their current, modern world. Well okay, it was, but they were all fucking doctors, weren’t they? He’d been shot himself and he’d survived, thanks in large part to the woman currently lying beside him. He hadn’t forgotten that.

But this was different, and they both knew it. There was only so much he could do for her here. She was losing blood, and losing consciousness was the next big dirty no-no.

“Cameron.” It came out harsher than he intended, but he wasn't about to dwell on it. A peaceable bedside manner wasn't going to help anymore now than it ever would.

“Sorry,” she muttered, wincing and straightening up. “I can’t help it. The Vicodin’s making me drowsy.”

“I think the bullet wound in your leg might be making you drowsy, but then I’m not here to quibble.”

It was the first time either of them had acknowledged the truth of her injury, and she looked down. “Yeah.”

“It helping?” he asked, after a pause, just to have something to say. He remembered what it was like to be shot. He hadn’t been conscious for an extended period of time like this, but he could imagine the pain she was going through right now. Vicodin would have done little to help.

“A little.” She shrugged when he continued to stare at her. “Not really.”

He could head into the pharmacy, if it came to that. She wasn’t writhing in pain so he assumed it was still somewhat tolerable. Then again, she could be in shock.

“To think,” she said lowly, nursing a hand against her leg. “I came back for this.”

He snorted, a wry, unexpectedly amused sound, taking her in. Her expression was waxen, blonde hair clumped at her forehead. He’d been surprised, at first, to see her appearance so changed. But it made sense to him; Cameron was exactly the type of woman to alter her hair with a new job or a new home. A new life.

At least she seemed a little more talkative.

“We’re not safe here,” she added, eyeing the dead man under hooded lashes. “We’re too exposed.”

“No kidding. But I can’t exactly carry you out, so it looks we’re stuck here.”

She sighed, shifting slightly. “Great.”

He was silent, again, but it started to edge on his nerves. “Maybe Nurse Brenda has some booze stashed away back here.”

“To still her nerves, naturally.”

“I’m sure she took some off me as contraband a few years ago. It sounds like something she would do. It’s like she was never young.”

“God knows she’d need it.” Cameron paused, shifting her hand over the makeshift bandage. “You brought alcohol into the clinic?”

“A patient did. What am I, some kind of addict?” He gave her a derisive smile, which she obligingly rolled her eyes at. “I confiscated his flask, being the morally upstanding person I am.”

“Of course. And she confiscated it from you.”

“Thus completing the circle.”

Banter came easy to him, when he was nervous or tense. It quietened his thoughts, let him mouth off the words without really considering their significance. All the while mulling over some greater puzzle.

He used to enjoy doing it with Cameron, because he could inevitably raise her hackles over some moral injustice, but unlike Foreman she wouldn’t get infuriated to the point that it just wasn’t fun anymore. And irritating as it could be, when she advocated the patient’s position it could often spark off the solution he needed.

It wasn’t really working right now.

House glanced at Cameron again. Her eyes were half-closed, and she was paying an inordinate amount of attention to the floor, probably in an effort to keep awake. He could see her features paling under the florescent lights. It was difficult to tell what kind of damage might have been done to her leg, but the shot had definitely penetrated her thigh. He refused to consider that irony. Intimately acquainted as he was with that particular area of his own anatomy, he knew it was possible she had acquired tissue damage. Provided she was in surgery in the next few hours, it could be taken care of.

Provided they ever got the hell out of here.

When Foreman had mentioned she'd been in the lobby, he'd inwardly assumed she would have evacuated with everyone else, that she would be fine. He hadn't considered this. Or that he would be the one to find her.

“So,” he muttered, resuming his gruff, grim tone. “Differential diagnosis on lunatics with guns, running around the hospital?”

end #02