Function (R)
Posted on housefic
Title: Function
Author: Dee Laundry
Pairing: Gen (brief mentions/implications of past pairings)
Rating: R
Summary: Some things have changed; some haven't. Cameron takes on a new position.
Notes: Future fic. Deviates completely from canon after Season Three. (I wouldn’t have written Cameron this way before seeing S3. Warning for character death.) Going into acceptance-speech mode, but I want to extend profuse and sincere thanks to stephbass, savemoony, bironic, nightdog-barks, perspi, and purridot for outstanding insights, critique, and encouragement, and simultaneously want to absolve them from any responsibility whatsoever for the final product.
Three months after what House called The Great Peon Uprising, Cameron is working at a private allergy practice outside Cincinnati. She has firmly refused to maintain any contact with her former colleagues or Princeton and keeps away from any news or gossip related to them at all. Her patients love her, her colleagues respect her, her boss values her, and she is bored to tears.
She ignored the calls from Cuddy in her first few weeks here and the cryptic “Call me”s a month ago, and she is ignoring the message that came through yesterday. “Need you back. Don’t make me beg. Lisa Cuddy,” the note read, and the receptionist raised a well-groomed eyebrow as he handed it over.
“Some friends and I are hitting a club Friday if you want to come,” he asked.
“Thanks, but no, Kyle,” she replied, and crumpled the note in her fist. As she turned back toward her office, he sighed, rather melodramatically, but hey, she thinks on reflection, his Harlequin fantasies are his own business.
She is ignoring the message. It is in her wastebasket, out of sight, when the headhunter calls. He won’t tell her the hospital just yet, but the job sounds fantastic. It’s challenging work, tenure track, with the perfect structure of responsibilities and authority - great in and of itself and a great stepping stone to future positions. The salary, bonus, and benefits package are everything she could hope for.
“And here’s the kicker,” the headhunter says. She waits with a tingling sense of anticipation through the next two seconds. “I heard through the grapevine that they only want you. Just you. It’s a negotiating dream.”
She’s not listening any more and almost drops the phone. She should have known Cuddy would be this sneaky.
She refuses to talk to Cuddy or anyone else from the hospital, but she does take the job. Tenure track position in the Immunology department, no Clinic duty, low grant target in the first year, and bonuses for all consultations with Diagnostics. It’s just too good a career opportunity to pass up, and had she mentioned she was bored?
When she walks (back) into the hospital lobby the first day, her new boss, Dr. Fu, is waiting to greet her. She matches his smile with one of her own and does her best not to look around for House. Over coffee in the cafeteria, he gives her the rundown on the staff she’ll be working with - Immunology believes nurses and technicians are a valuable part of the patient care team - and the grants and research projects she might be interested in.
“And of course,” Dr. Fu says, after draining the last few drops of coffee from his cup, “Dr. House will want you occasionally.”
“Of course,” she replies with a quiet smile.
Her first case with House (this time around) starts four hours later, when he bursts into her office on the second floor with two wild-eyed, baby-faced doctors trailing behind him. “Inform Golden Delicious that this is autoimmune,” he demands, as she stretches to catch the patient file skittering across her desk.
Glaring, the female doctor shouts, “McIntosh! My name is McIntosh! And all the symptoms point to cancer!”
As House responds, “One of those apples, what do I care?” Cameron buries her face deeper in the patient notes to hide her smile. She must have been that naïve to House’s tactics once, but she’s having a hard time remembering.
“On first review, cancer does seem to be indicated,” she says with a reassuring smile, holding up a hand to forestall House’s protests. “But if you look a little deeper, you’ll see it really is autoimmune.” She points to the relevant results and shows the folder to the male doctor, who’s moved closer and is craning his neck to see.
“Singh, get your nose out of Cameron’s cleavage. It’s not that great, anyway.”
“I wasn’t,” Singh stammers. He ducks his head and then turns to her, his eyes ridiculously wide, saying, “I swear I wasn’t, Dr. Cameron.”
She fights off the urge to roll her eyes and very carefully controls her lips so they don’t match the smirk that is plastered on House’s face. “I know you weren’t, Singh,” she says more gently than she really wants. “House does like his jokes.”
“Hup two, hup two,” House huffs impatiently, and herds his fellows out the door. “Off to the lab with you. Cameron, come on; I’ve got three months of unread mail for you.”
“Doing your mail’s not in my contract any more,” she replies easily, but when she looks up at him, the look in his eyes intrigues her. There’s something he wants to say, something he can only say in the familiar, safe surroundings of his own office.
She gestures him out the door and then follows. “Any of your new team members make decent coffee? I could use a cup.” They’re walking down the hall side by side, she with the patient’s folder and he with his cane. He’s walking an inch or so closer to her than he used to, but it feels natural, easy. She doesn’t question it.
“No,” House replies sullenly. “It makes me miss Chase.”
“Where is he now?” she asks as the elevator doors close.
“Supposedly back in Australia, but I suspect he’s secretly go-go dancing on Castro Street. I always thought he spent a little too much time on his hair to be completely straight. Plus there was the whole sleeping with you thing. Bet you’ve turned many a man to the dark side.”
Now Cameron does roll her eyes. Either her skin thickened in the Midwest, or not reporting to him solves a world of problems, because the barbs bounce off with barely a scratch. “I thought that was Cuddy.”
House leers in an overexaggerated way that would earn any other man a playful swat. “More than one Dark Lord, there can be,” he hisses, and it takes all her energy to keep from voicing a giggle. She has to look away, and is still looking away when they get off the elevator, when the smooth expanse of letter-free wooden door shocks her.
Stock still, she stares for a moment, until House looks back from three steps further down the hall and snaps his fingers. “Come on,” he fusses.
She shakes her head, and looks at him curiously, her feet moving to follow without her even directing them. “Where’s Wilson?”
“Sloan-Kettering,” House snaps, and the mood is broken. “Come to think of it, why don’t you go and babysit the kiddies in the lab? Make sure they don’t un-calibrate the centrifuge.”
“I don’t really -” is as far as she gets before House has stomped into his office, leaving her alone in the hallway. He moves fast when he wants to.
Her second case with House is the very next day, and it looks like it might be paraneoplastic syndrome, but House refuses to get a consult from Oncology. “Singh’s an oncologist,” he says, and Cameron again smiles at Singh more gently than she wants, because he might have specialized in oncology but he’s quite clearly twelve years old.
She escorts House into his office and informs him of this fact. “Seriously, House, where did you get this guy? Didn’t you have Wilson help you at all with interviews?”
“Singh’s brand new; Wilson was gone by then,” House replies. “Yes, he’s a little green, but so were you. He’s smart, underneath all that ‘girls fluster me’ exterior, and he’s interesting. And -”
House breaks off with a sudden look of consternation. “Since when do I justify hires to you? God, I’ve gone soft. Get out; I’ve figured out what it is; I don’t need you any more.”
She snorts and turns to leave, and is astonished when he calls her back. “Want to have lunch?”
“It’s nine-thirty in the morning,” she points out.
“At lunch time, ding-a-ling. Come back and get me.”
Walking out the door, she waves over her shoulder. A quick glance back and House has a small, private smirk on his face, as he shuffles a few papers on his desk.
When she comes back at noon, he’s missing. At quarter-past, she finds him chasing his fellows around the lab. At half-past, he’s in with the patient, and by the nurses’ station McIntosh looks like she might cry. Cameron speaks consolingly to her for a few minutes, and then leaves her to Singh when it becomes clear House is not going to emerge from the room.
At one-fifteen, starving, Cameron gives up and goes to the cafeteria by herself. She’s about to take her lunch back to her desk when Cuddy waves her over.
“How’s it feel to be back?” Cuddy asks as Cameron takes a seat.
“Good. Fu’s supportive; department seems good; House is as big a pain in the butt as ever.”
They share a smile, and Cameron takes a bite of her sandwich. She feels strong, actually. Being recruited back did wonders for her ego, and House treating her like a colleague instead of a minion is gratifying. He’s still an ass, but a more respectful ass.
“Like this latest case,” Cameron continues. “It looks like it might be one of the paraneoplastic syndromes, but House refuses to call in Oncology.”
Cuddy’s sigh is for some reason almost wistful. “He had a, let’s say, conflict with Wilson’s replacement the day she got here, and she instituted a new policy that all consult requests go through her. It slows response time to his pages down to thirty whole minutes sometimes, so now he’s boycotting and just using Singh.”
“But this is a complicated case!” At Cuddy’s shrug, Cameron shakes her head. “Fine, if he doesn’t want to use anyone here, I don’t see why he doesn’t just call up Wilson and get him to take a look.”
The clatter of Cuddy’s fork skidding roughly across her plate startles Cameron. “What?” Cameron asks. “Did they have a fight? Is that why Wilson left?”
“You don’t know?” Cuddy asks, her eyebrows high. “How do you not know?”
“Know what?” Cameron asks, confused by Cuddy’s confusion.
“That’s right; you never called me back. Wilson is -” Cuddy presses a finger to the outside of her eye, and then quickly brings it down. A tremor passes just once through her hands, but her voice is rock steady as she says, “James died. A month and a half ago, hit by a car as he was changing a flat tire.”
Tears prickle Cameron’s eyes and throat immediately. Everyone must have been devastated: his patients, his colleagues, House - Oh. “I need to go.”
Cuddy nods, but Cameron’s already moving, stuffing the bag of chips in her pocket, juggling sandwich and drink. Her heart is aching with empathy for House, how much he must have suffered, must be suffering still. Wilson, for all his faults, was important to House, and she knows how losing someone close feels.
She’s considering whether it’s worse when the person lingers or is suddenly taken when she finds herself in the Diagnostics conference room, having made it there on auto-pilot. She sets her drink down and frowns at the conference table, finishing a thought, and is startled when something wet splats onto her forehead. “What the hell?”
“Spitball,” House says cheerfully from the corner of the room. He’s alone, so she shoves aside her annoyance and turns toward him with sad, sympathetic eyes.
He snorts and rocks back in the chair. “I didn’t kill your puppy, Cameron; it’s just paper and saliva. Wipe it right off and you’ll be the prettiest gal in all of Plainsboro again.”
Dabbing carefully, trying to keep the mess out of her hair, she replies, “Don’t you mean Princeton Plainsboro?”
“Have you been to the campus lately?” He rocks forward in the chair and the legs thump. “Some of those Princeton coeds are smokin’. Plainsboro, on the other hand, totally deserves its name, which is why you have a shot. Did you come in here for a reason, or did you just intuitively sense that I needed a target?”
She’s reminded of her reason, and the tender concern for House’s grief is back. She extends a hand toward him and begins, “House, I just -”
“Lunch, sweet!” he cries, and lunges for the sandwich she had forgotten was in her hand. “Chicken salad, gross,” he comments before taking a huge bite.
“Meat, Cameron,” he continues, trying to enunciate around the food in his mouth. “You’ve got to remember I like the meat.”
At the sound of a loud scoff, Cameron jumps and turns back toward the table. McIntosh and Singh are seated there, having slipped in at some point. Singh’s flushing and ducking; McIntosh is smirking. “I always suspected, House,” she says, and House rolls his eyes in response.
“Ha, ha, Granny Smith. I so admire those grade-school puns.”
Annoyed, Cameron frowns at Singh and McIntosh. House won’t open up to her about his sorrow with these newcomers around. “Would you two mind giving us a minute? I’ve just learned some news I need to discuss with House.”
“I’m not paying child support without a DNA test,” House mumbles around the last of her sandwich. She ignores him and gazes pointedly at the other two.
Singh scrambles to leave, but McIntosh stays planted and raises an eyebrow. Between that expression and the lavender silk button-down shirt, Cameron is reminded of Foreman, and is a little surprised at the higher, more melodic voice that comes out of McIntosh’s mouth. “If it’s about our patient, then we should hear too.”
“It’s not about a patient. It’s -” Cameron glances at House, then lowers her eyes. She’s not looking forward to this conversation, but it needs to happen. House is obviously not dealing well with his grief. “It’s private,” she finishes.
McIntosh cocks her head, and the eyebrow raises higher. “Personal, not good news, that you learned from Cuddy. We saw you two in the cafeteria, and you looked fine until you didn’t.”
Realization dawns clearly across McIntosh’s face. “Oh, you just learned -” As House passes by her on his way to the coffeemaker, she lowers her voice to a whisper. “About Dr. Wilson.”
“I’m in on the secret,” House whispers, shaking a sugar packet.
“Are you sure?” Cameron asks. “Because you told me he was at Sloan-Kettering.”
“It was a joke.” House stirs his coffee, takes a sip, and makes a face at the mug. “Sloan-Kettering is cancer heaven. Get it?”
“House.” He’s clearly deflecting, repressing how he truly feels.
“Cameron,” he replies sarcastically, and heads into his office. She sighs and follows.
When the door is firmly shut, she takes a seat in front of his desk and leans toward him. “House, I didn’t know about Wilson. I’m sorry. How do you feel?”
“I feel fine.” He’s twirling a pen in his fingers. “Don’t suppose you brought me a brownie, too?”
She remembers the chips in her pocket and hands them over with a small sigh. “Denial is a normal reaction to this kind of loss.”
“I’m not in denial. I really feel fine.” He digs into the chips with gusto.
“You don’t want to dwell on it, I understand.” She watches his jaw go up and down, sees how his eyes are focused on the chips and not her, and her heart aches for him again. “I know what it’s like, the desire to imagine that special person is still alive. But it’s been a month, and pretending Wilson’s simply working at a different hospital is not going to help you move -”
Rolling his eyes, he cuts her off. “I know he’s dead, Cameron.”
She leans a few inches across his desk, bracing herself with a hand against the edge. He’s got to be made to see. “It’s hard to accept. I know that.”
“Maybe it’s hard for you to accept, but I’ve got it down.” He’s playing with the chip bag, pinching it closed and opening it back up. “He’s dead. Deceased, expired, shuffled off his mortal coil. He is an ex-Wilson.”
“Joking might make you feel better for a moment, but -”
House slaps the bag on his desk and leans toward her. He’s mere inches away from her face, and his stern eyes are bluer than she remembered. “Cameron, I am not in denial. James Wilson is dead. Do you want to know how I know? Want me to imitate Cuddy calling me down to the ER? Want to know how many of his internal organs I saw through the gaping hole in his abdomen? How long the crack in his skull was? How high we set the voltage on the defibrillator before we gave up?
“I watched him die. I called his time of death.”
Snatching up the chips, House flops back in his chair. “So, yeah, I am well aware that he is no longer with us. You’re the one who needs to catch up.”
Her breath is failing her. “House -”
With a dismissive wave, he turns toward his computer. “Grieve somewhere else; I’m busy.”
She watches him for a moment, and then gets up. Now is not the time to push him. After she processes her own feelings, she’ll be better able to give him the right encouragement to open up.
“Cameron.”
She stops halfway to the door and looks back. House’s gaze is direct, intense.
“The next time you bring me lunch, don’t forget the dessert.”
Cameron thinks about James Wilson that night. She looks through her photo box and finds two pictures that he’s in. She traces a finger along his hairline, rubs the side of her thumb across his distinctive bushy eyebrows. She thinks about the bad times, and the good, and the way she’d seen House laugh around him sometimes. She cries for lost opportunities and a life cut short so tragically.
In the morning, she puts the photos away and has Corn Flakes for breakfast. There’s an Immunology department meeting at eight o’clock sharp, then rounds, and then she should probably check in and see how House’s patients are doing. He doesn’t often have two at once.
Flipping through her calendar one day, trying to re-schedule a patient she’d had to cancel on due to an “emergency” with Steve McQueen the Fourth - who knew rats could be allergic to pine shaving bedding? - Cameron realizes that she’s been back at Princeton Plainsboro for six weeks. It’s gone by in a flash; she’s been incredibly busy.
Her patients, research projects, grant applications, and consultations on Diagnostics cases keep her running, not to mention the “consultations” House keeps paging her for that are no more than poorly disguised pleas for her to entertain him. At the beginning, she would roll her eyes and walk out immediately, but over time, she’s come to appreciate the occasional break in her day. House always makes it interesting, at least.
What really throws her off her schedule, though, are all the questions and complaints she fields from people too wary (too smart) to approach House. Nurses, technicians, social workers, patients’ families, Singh and McIntosh - she smiles at them all, gives her diplomacy skills a workout, and then takes the core issues back to House. Not that he listens, nine times out of ten, but still someone’s got to do it.
She’s thinking about the latest question (Deborah Fields from Accounting: “I’m trying to process this expense report from Dr. Singh. Now I know what the common definition of ‘lock picks’ is, but what does the term mean medically?”) when it hits her: Someone’s got to do it, but why is it always her? And how do people know it’s her? They’ve been coming to her in a steady stream since her first day back.
She stalks past Cuddy’s new assistant and into the Dean of Medicine’s office. “Why me?” she asks.
“Good morning, Dr. Cameron,” Cuddy replies, looking up from the file on her desk. “Is that an existential question? I don’t hear despair in your tone, so I’ll assume it’s not about House.”
“Oh, it’s definitely about House.” She paces back and forth in front of Cuddy’s new desk - teak, pretty - and wonders where the twinge in her neck came from. “But it’s more about me, and you. You developed my dream job to get me specifically back in this hospital. Why?”
Cuddy is calmly watching her walk. “We needed your unique qualifications.”
“You hired me to be a House-wrangler!”
“And an immunologist and a diagnostician. You’re doing well at all three.”
Cameron is growing more frustrated by the minute. The gleam of triumph in Cuddy’s eye isn’t helping. “Handling House and all his issues wasn’t part of the job description.”
“No, I didn’t think it was wise to put that in a legal document. But it’s what we needed the most, and as I said, you were uniquely qualified. I think everyone’s very satisfied with how it’s turned out.”
“You can’t just use me like that!”
“And how exactly am I using you? You are paid to do your job; any extra activities or responsibilities you take on are your own concern.”
“Now you’re saying you didn’t hire me to handle House?”
“I’m saying -” Cuddy stops, sighs, and then comes around the desk. She gestures Cameron to the couch and then sits with her.
“Cameron, you don’t know what he was like, what this hospital was like, right after we lost Wilson. House was… himself, only moreso. Abrasive, in everyone’s face, upsetting patients, families, and staff alike. I first thought it was just grief pushing him hard, but it turned out that Wilson did more filtering, more managing, more damage control than any of us, including House, had realized.”
Cuddy reaches out and touches Cameron’s shoulder. “You know that House can do things no one else can. You also know that there’s a spectrum of things House can’t do. We needed someone to do them for him, so everyone can benefit.”
“And my benefit is?” She doesn’t want to sound sullen, but she feels duped, suckered into taking all this on.
With a smile and a nod, Cuddy replies, “Your salary’s in the ninety-fifth percentile for immunologists with your level of experience. Given House’s projected caseload, your bonus will set the standard for hundredth percentile. You’re garnering the respect of everyone in this hospital, and of people - influential people you’ve never even met - throughout the medical field. And House likes you.”
She opens her mouth to protest, but Cuddy holds up a hand. “I know you got over that schoolgirl crush on him, but you can’t deny that you still wanted him to like you, to respect you as a colleague and seek you out as a friend. And now he does.”
When Cuddy stands up, Cameron follows automatically.
“It’s working out very nicely, Dr. Cameron. You have my sincere appreciation.”
Cameron nods, still thinking, and walks out of the office. She is almost immediately waylaid by House. “Allie, my girl! Got a case for you in Exam Two.”
“I’m not doing your rectal exams for you, House.”
“Oh, but when you get a load of the pecs on Mr. Tall, Dark and Handsome Priapism Sufferer, you might just change your mind. Back me up here, Previn.”
Nurse Previn glares at House, looks around briefly, and then nods.
“See,” House whispers, “and she hasn’t even seen his bare dick.”
Hiding a smile, Cameron takes the file. “I happen to have a few minutes.”
“Thought so,” House replies. “Previn, Dr. House is signing out from Clinic duty.”
“You owe me one!” Cameron calls after him.
He smirks as he pushes the Clinic door open. “It’ll be fun watching you try to collect.”
Cameron stares glumly at House’s home laptop as it grinds and whirrs. Whatever this weird search engine is that House has installed, it’s slow as molasses.
“Hey!” she yells down the hall. “How did you lose your speech on your hard drive, and why am I the one looking for it?”
The bathroom door opens a crack, and House sticks his head out. The lather covering the bottom half of his face is ridiculously foamy, reminding Cameron of childhood bubble baths when she and her sister would give each other Santa beards and faux Mohawks.
“You,” House says, as he tries to catch a bit of foam that’s falling from his chin, “are the one who wanted me to shave for this stupid event.”
“You’re winning an award, House. They’re going to take your picture, it’ll probably go in the paper -” The bathroom door slams closed again, so she raises her voice to slightly beyond polite. “And it’d be better for everyone involved if you didn’t look like a homeless derelict!”
She hates picking him up. He’s worse than the worst stereotype of a woman about being ready on time. After a quick glance at her watch, she turns back to the screen to see the search has finally finished.
“Vicodin” and “genius” - the only words House could remember from his acceptance speech - were found in three files. She moves to click on “Awards Suck Cameron Sucks.doc,” but slips and accidentally opens the one below: “Bad Things.”
She’s moving the cursor to close the file when the title catches her eye, and she gasps, a hand flying to her mouth.
Bad Things About James Wilson Being Dead
Next Vicodin source not likely to be as much of a pushover
Delay on Oncology consults
No more good home cooking
Loss of income
No one to give me rides to work when I need them
No one to laugh at my jokes
No one who’ll listen when I call to talk at 3 am
No one to fully appreciate my genius
Tears well in her eyes as she reads the list. It’s so like House to want to write it all down.
She startles when his hand clamps on her shoulder. “Got the speech?”
“I -” she begins, but truthfully she doesn’t know where to go next. This is obviously something private, but on the other hand, she’s never found the right way to get him to open up about his loss. She swallows while she thinks of what to say.
“Huh,” House says, squinting at the screen, his bow tie dangling open across her shoulder. “That’s an old version of that file. If you’re curious, you might want to pull up the newer version.” He’s gone back down the hallway before she can say a thing.
Looking back at the search results, she sees he’s right. The third file is also labeled “Bad Things” but dated later, almost two months after Wilson’s death.
Bad Things About James Wilson Being Dead
Next Vicodin source not likely to be as much of a pushover - Cuddy quite pliant
Delay on Oncology consults - Singh
Lack of good home cooking
Loss of income - Annoying that the inheritance is in trust, but checks steady
No one to give me rides to work when I need them - Neighbor Lady desperate for company, gas money
No one to laugh at my jokes - Singh a total kiss-ass
No one who’ll listen when I call to talk at 3 am - McIntosh apparently nocturnal
No one to fully appreciate my genius - potential in Cameron
When he emerges from his bedroom again a few minutes later, she looks at him sternly. “We should talk about this.”
“No time, gonna be late. Print my speech, and let’s go.”
“House.”
“Cameron.” He reaches over her and presses keys to start the printer up.
She looks at him firmly. She knows him, and shouldn’t be surprised that he doesn’t want to talk, but she is.
After grabbing the speech from the printer, he finally looks at her. “Oh, good lord, stop with the puppy-dog eyes.”
She crosses her arms, and he snorts in clear exasperation. “Fine, fine,” he says. “We’ll stay up late after the event, paint each other’s toenails, and bond. But now, we need to go.”
They are running late, and this is a very important event for the hospital, so she lets it go for now and follows him out the door.
Three hours, two tantrums, and a brilliant donor-retaining maneuver by Cameron later, they are back outside House’s place. “Yeah, okay, bye,” House says, and tries to shut the door in Cameron’s face.
His astonished look when Cameron straight-arms the door open (she’ll have to remember to thank her kickboxing instructor) almost makes her laugh, but she’s there for a serious reason.
“You said we’d talk.”
“I lied to get you to drop it.” He’s pushing the door closed, but she throws a hip against it and manages to slip into the apartment.
When she looks up at him, he’s wincing. “My leg is killing me, and I’m exhausted.” He leans against the couch, his shoulders slumped. “I think I should go straight to bed.”
Oh, please. Like she’s going to fall for that. There’s no tension around his eyes, he’s not rubbing his leg, and he’s not holding himself stiffly. Her face seems to get that point across, because he drops the act. “I think I need a drink for this,” he says and moves close to her on his way to the kitchen.
She’s surprised when he stops inches away from her. “Unless…” he breathes, and strokes his left hand through her hair.
His eyes are warm and probing, and she feels her lips part.
“Oh, yes,” she says, and he bends toward her ear. “Because my favorite thing to do after I orgasm is talk.”
House immediately pulls back and drops his hand. “Fine. Scotch?”
“That’d be nice,” she replies and sits on the couch, tucking her feet under her.
He brings back a bottle and two glasses; she pours for both of them as he settles into an armchair. The scotch is beautiful to look at, almost glowing, and burns pleasantly on the way down.
Cameron doesn’t bother to wait for House to speak; he’d be content to let the silence linger until she fell asleep. “Cuddy says Wilson’s family is having a kind of one-year commemoration next month.”
“Unveiling his tombstone. I’m not going.” He reads the why not? on her face and continues before she can voice it. “No reason to go, and I’d rather be watching Norm Abram, anyway.”
She takes another sip and tells him firmly, “You should go. All this time, and I’m not sure you’ve processed your grief.”
His hands tighten around his glass, and he looks away, at a random spot on the floor. “I’m pretty sure I never had any grief to begin with.”
Astonishment begets indignation. “Of course you did! He was your best friend!”
Still not looking at her, House takes a lingering sip of scotch. “He was,” he says quietly. “But here, I’ll show you.” He looks up with solemn eyes. “Define grief.”
“Intense sadness over the loss of a loved one.” She can’t imagine why he’s saying these things.
“Nope.” A single shake of his head. “Never had that.”
Her heart is starting to beat faster. “Grief manifests differently in everyone.”
He’s smirking now; she wants to slap him senseless. He says, “It never manifested itself at all in me.”
“You’re not sorry he died?”
“I’m not happy he died. I would have preferred it if he didn’t. But he did.” He sips again from his drink, and his larynx bobs in his long smooth neck. “I sat shiva with his family - did you know that? Seven days, sitting around doing nothing. They let me sit on the couch because of my leg, which was good of them. Wilson’s mother would weep, and Wilson’s brother and father would sigh, and I was just really fucking bored. I tried to think about Wilson, but my mind kept drifting to old cases, and journal articles, and TV show plotlines.”
Blinking back tears, she turns away. He seems to catch the expression on her face.
“I’m not proud of it, Cameron. I wanted to feel sad, but I didn’t. Because deep down, underneath it all, I’m an asshole.”
“You’re not!” The denial is immediate and vehement.
“Oh, but I am. I didn’t figure it out until I was sitting around doing nothing during shiva, and it was a shock, let me tell you.” He traces a finger around the rim of his glass. She imagines the ringing sound, but there’s no moisture, so it’s not really there.
“I’d always thought I was a sensitive soul underneath, but nope.” He shrugs. “Wilson knew, though. He told me I was an ass, but I didn’t believe him at the time.”
She has absolutely no frame of reference for this conversation; she’s wandering lost through a shrouded forest. “Everybody tells you you’re an ass.”
“But I don’t pay attention because that’s just the surface ass they see. Wilson dug all the way down to my inner ass.” He snorts a soft laugh. “That’s not a homo joke, by the way.” He takes another sip, and closes his eyes. “Wilson was the only one who took the time to excavate through all the layers. Some of those layers are pretty decent, but the core’s heartless.”
His eyes open again. “Hmph,” he says. “Heartless core. Would you count that as an oxymoron?”
Struggling for normality, she tries a counter-argument. “House, I’m sure Wilson didn’t really think that. He stood by you through everything, thick and thin. Why would he do that if you weren’t a decent person?”
“He was a masochist. Plus I give great head.” His grin, wider than it has any right to be, makes her sick to her stomach. “That was a homo joke.”
“It’s just - You can’t think that way about yourself.”
“Aw, Cameron, you still believe every single person has a good heart?”
“I believe you have a good heart!”
He smirks and swallows the last of his scotch. “You watch too much Hallmark Channel crap. I’m going to bed. You can stay on the couch or go home; I don’t care.”
She watches him rise, but that can’t be it. The conversation can’t end there. “Maybe it’s - Maybe you’re not sad because there was nothing to be sad over.”
He turns back, and she’s surprised by the anger on his face. “You’re going to blame Wilson? I know you didn’t like him, but come on. He was never a saint, but he was -” House stops and drops his eyes to the floor. “He deserved better than a best friend who couldn’t mourn him.”
“I -”
“Good night, Cameron.” He disappears before she can collect her thoughts.
She spends the night on House’s couch, staring at the ceiling. Denial is a powerful thing.
As Cameron’s fortieth birthday approaches, House tells her the day will have an “artistic expression” theme. She hopes for a Pissarro or Cezanne print for her office, or just a lunchtime trip to the campus gallery. She’s resigned, however, to a movie poster for Caged Heat, the flick he’d recently conned her into watching. Jonathan Demme is an Oscar-winning director. How was she to know his first film was a women in prison exploitation movie?
Of course, that turns out to be a complete underestimation of House.
She discovers on her birthday that he was referring to her own “artistic expression,” in the form of a series of love poems she wrote to Donny Jacobi in the seventh grade. House, having obtained the poems through whatever black magic, has thoughtfully scanned them all in, re-printed them double size, and plastered them all over the hospital. Even Brenda Previn, who’s always been perfectly polite to Cameron, is snickering.
After pressing three med students into service to locate and destroy all copies, Cameron stomps to House’s office. He is nowhere to be found, and she suspects he’ll remain absent until it’s time for her to buy him dinner.
She flings herself into his office chair and logs into his computer. The search for files with any form of her name in it turns up the poems, performance reviews from her fellowship that House never gave her, the journal articles they’ve co-authored, and a very old file named “Good Things.” Curious, and wanting to be as reckless with his privacy as he’s been with hers, she opens the document.
Good Things About James Wilson Being Dead
Nagging about Vicodin significantly reduced
Nagging about misery/depression significantly reduced
Nagging about hookers/sex eliminated
Huffy sighing eliminated
Secret drugging eliminated or significantly reduced (Cuddy?)
Secret attempts to make me a better person eliminated
Overt attempts to make me a better person significantly reduced
No more sappy shows on the TiVo
Ton of leftover food from hospital’s memorial service
Sympathy fuck from Cuddy (saggier breasts, better technique compared to last time)
DVD player now mine for all eternity
Attempts to guilt me into anything significantly reduced
Attempts to improve my bedside manner significantly reduced
Weepy calls from distraught women asking how James could do this eliminated significantly reduced
Sympathy makeout session with Wilson Wife 1
Neck strain from having to look up at high horse/high moral ground/soapbox significantly reduced
Sympathy (?) blowjob from Neighbor Lady
Money arrives without rolling of eyes or huffy sighing
New excuse to disregard others’ feelings
Potential for sympathy fuck from Cameron
She’s scanning the list a second time when House walks in.
“You’re a complete bastard,” she tells him coldly.
He grins and keeps moving toward the chair she’s sitting in. “I just wanted to share your beautiful creations with the world, especially the one about the flowers. It took all my willpower not to cross out the ‘o’ and the second ‘e’ in ‘peonies’ but I resisted as my birthday present to you.”
Cameron’s turning towards him, opening her mouth to reply, when House notices the computer screen.
“What are you looking at?” he demands, and draws his reading glasses out of a pocket.
“This!” she says, surprised to find herself yelling. “He was your friend! How could you - Normal people don’t do things like this!”
His hand is strong as it wraps around her bicep. “I’m an ass. I told you that years ago. Now get the fuck away from my computer.”
She allows him to pull her up, then stalks to the door. “You are,” she says, and then can’t figure out how to finish the sentence.
Outside his office, she looks back in. He’s tracing a thumb down the computer screen, face twisted in a way she’s never seen. Then he hits the remote on the corner of his desk and the blinds slap shut.
Over dinner they deliberately don’t talk about it.
Three months after what House called Vicodin’s Last Hurrah and everyone else called fatal liver failure, Cameron is leading the newly opened Princeton Plainsboro Center for Genetic and Rare Disorders. Of course diagnosis is a key component, but research and treatment make it a complete patient care center (and far more profitable, if the financial projections meet even the worst-case scenario).
Her patients (those lucky, high-profile few) love her, her team looks up to her (except Fu, but he’ll get over it), and her boss values her, as her seat on the Board shows. Cameron hasn’t been bored for years.
“How did you do it?” Foreman is asking over the phone. He’s got a successful private practice in Los Angeles, but she knows he’d love to come back. Ever since her new position was announced, they’ve been dancing around each other, waiting for the other to ask. Cameron’s betting he’ll break first.
“How did you put up with House all those years?” he asks incredulously. “What did you get out of it?”
“A Lamborghini.”
Foreman laughs, the way everyone always does when she says it. She smiles while he’s laughing and looks out the window at her parking space, where the deep blue Gallardo sits. Mills washes it for her twice a week, for the pleasure of getting his hands on it - and because he’s more of a suck-up than Chase ever was. Fortunately, he’s also an excellent doctor, just as Chase was until he wandered into the bush or wherever it is he’s gone to these days. She’d found him at one point, grayer but just as taut and robust as ever, but he slipped away again.
She makes a politely appreciative noise at Foreman’s follow-up comment and leans back in her chair. She’s listening to Foreman with half her brain, and thinking about the past few months with the other half. She’s always been an excellent multi-tasker.
She had been mildly surprised to be the sole beneficiary of House’s will, but was stunned by just how high the assets were. All due to Wilson’s pre-planning, of course. House tried for years to break Wilson’s trust but never could - huh, a double entendre with no sexual undertones, interesting. The Lamborghini’s almost a tribute to him.
Almost.
Title: Function
Author: Dee Laundry
Pairing: Gen (brief mentions/implications of past pairings)
Rating: R
Summary: Some things have changed; some haven't. Cameron takes on a new position.
Notes: Future fic. Deviates completely from canon after Season Three. (I wouldn’t have written Cameron this way before seeing S3. Warning for character death.) Going into acceptance-speech mode, but I want to extend profuse and sincere thanks to stephbass, savemoony, bironic, nightdog-barks, perspi, and purridot for outstanding insights, critique, and encouragement, and simultaneously want to absolve them from any responsibility whatsoever for the final product.
Three months after what House called The Great Peon Uprising, Cameron is working at a private allergy practice outside Cincinnati. She has firmly refused to maintain any contact with her former colleagues or Princeton and keeps away from any news or gossip related to them at all. Her patients love her, her colleagues respect her, her boss values her, and she is bored to tears.
She ignored the calls from Cuddy in her first few weeks here and the cryptic “Call me”s a month ago, and she is ignoring the message that came through yesterday. “Need you back. Don’t make me beg. Lisa Cuddy,” the note read, and the receptionist raised a well-groomed eyebrow as he handed it over.
“Some friends and I are hitting a club Friday if you want to come,” he asked.
“Thanks, but no, Kyle,” she replied, and crumpled the note in her fist. As she turned back toward her office, he sighed, rather melodramatically, but hey, she thinks on reflection, his Harlequin fantasies are his own business.
She is ignoring the message. It is in her wastebasket, out of sight, when the headhunter calls. He won’t tell her the hospital just yet, but the job sounds fantastic. It’s challenging work, tenure track, with the perfect structure of responsibilities and authority - great in and of itself and a great stepping stone to future positions. The salary, bonus, and benefits package are everything she could hope for.
“And here’s the kicker,” the headhunter says. She waits with a tingling sense of anticipation through the next two seconds. “I heard through the grapevine that they only want you. Just you. It’s a negotiating dream.”
She’s not listening any more and almost drops the phone. She should have known Cuddy would be this sneaky.
She refuses to talk to Cuddy or anyone else from the hospital, but she does take the job. Tenure track position in the Immunology department, no Clinic duty, low grant target in the first year, and bonuses for all consultations with Diagnostics. It’s just too good a career opportunity to pass up, and had she mentioned she was bored?
When she walks (back) into the hospital lobby the first day, her new boss, Dr. Fu, is waiting to greet her. She matches his smile with one of her own and does her best not to look around for House. Over coffee in the cafeteria, he gives her the rundown on the staff she’ll be working with - Immunology believes nurses and technicians are a valuable part of the patient care team - and the grants and research projects she might be interested in.
“And of course,” Dr. Fu says, after draining the last few drops of coffee from his cup, “Dr. House will want you occasionally.”
“Of course,” she replies with a quiet smile.
Her first case with House (this time around) starts four hours later, when he bursts into her office on the second floor with two wild-eyed, baby-faced doctors trailing behind him. “Inform Golden Delicious that this is autoimmune,” he demands, as she stretches to catch the patient file skittering across her desk.
Glaring, the female doctor shouts, “McIntosh! My name is McIntosh! And all the symptoms point to cancer!”
As House responds, “One of those apples, what do I care?” Cameron buries her face deeper in the patient notes to hide her smile. She must have been that naïve to House’s tactics once, but she’s having a hard time remembering.
“On first review, cancer does seem to be indicated,” she says with a reassuring smile, holding up a hand to forestall House’s protests. “But if you look a little deeper, you’ll see it really is autoimmune.” She points to the relevant results and shows the folder to the male doctor, who’s moved closer and is craning his neck to see.
“Singh, get your nose out of Cameron’s cleavage. It’s not that great, anyway.”
“I wasn’t,” Singh stammers. He ducks his head and then turns to her, his eyes ridiculously wide, saying, “I swear I wasn’t, Dr. Cameron.”
She fights off the urge to roll her eyes and very carefully controls her lips so they don’t match the smirk that is plastered on House’s face. “I know you weren’t, Singh,” she says more gently than she really wants. “House does like his jokes.”
“Hup two, hup two,” House huffs impatiently, and herds his fellows out the door. “Off to the lab with you. Cameron, come on; I’ve got three months of unread mail for you.”
“Doing your mail’s not in my contract any more,” she replies easily, but when she looks up at him, the look in his eyes intrigues her. There’s something he wants to say, something he can only say in the familiar, safe surroundings of his own office.
She gestures him out the door and then follows. “Any of your new team members make decent coffee? I could use a cup.” They’re walking down the hall side by side, she with the patient’s folder and he with his cane. He’s walking an inch or so closer to her than he used to, but it feels natural, easy. She doesn’t question it.
“No,” House replies sullenly. “It makes me miss Chase.”
“Where is he now?” she asks as the elevator doors close.
“Supposedly back in Australia, but I suspect he’s secretly go-go dancing on Castro Street. I always thought he spent a little too much time on his hair to be completely straight. Plus there was the whole sleeping with you thing. Bet you’ve turned many a man to the dark side.”
Now Cameron does roll her eyes. Either her skin thickened in the Midwest, or not reporting to him solves a world of problems, because the barbs bounce off with barely a scratch. “I thought that was Cuddy.”
House leers in an overexaggerated way that would earn any other man a playful swat. “More than one Dark Lord, there can be,” he hisses, and it takes all her energy to keep from voicing a giggle. She has to look away, and is still looking away when they get off the elevator, when the smooth expanse of letter-free wooden door shocks her.
Stock still, she stares for a moment, until House looks back from three steps further down the hall and snaps his fingers. “Come on,” he fusses.
She shakes her head, and looks at him curiously, her feet moving to follow without her even directing them. “Where’s Wilson?”
“Sloan-Kettering,” House snaps, and the mood is broken. “Come to think of it, why don’t you go and babysit the kiddies in the lab? Make sure they don’t un-calibrate the centrifuge.”
“I don’t really -” is as far as she gets before House has stomped into his office, leaving her alone in the hallway. He moves fast when he wants to.
Her second case with House is the very next day, and it looks like it might be paraneoplastic syndrome, but House refuses to get a consult from Oncology. “Singh’s an oncologist,” he says, and Cameron again smiles at Singh more gently than she wants, because he might have specialized in oncology but he’s quite clearly twelve years old.
She escorts House into his office and informs him of this fact. “Seriously, House, where did you get this guy? Didn’t you have Wilson help you at all with interviews?”
“Singh’s brand new; Wilson was gone by then,” House replies. “Yes, he’s a little green, but so were you. He’s smart, underneath all that ‘girls fluster me’ exterior, and he’s interesting. And -”
House breaks off with a sudden look of consternation. “Since when do I justify hires to you? God, I’ve gone soft. Get out; I’ve figured out what it is; I don’t need you any more.”
She snorts and turns to leave, and is astonished when he calls her back. “Want to have lunch?”
“It’s nine-thirty in the morning,” she points out.
“At lunch time, ding-a-ling. Come back and get me.”
Walking out the door, she waves over her shoulder. A quick glance back and House has a small, private smirk on his face, as he shuffles a few papers on his desk.
When she comes back at noon, he’s missing. At quarter-past, she finds him chasing his fellows around the lab. At half-past, he’s in with the patient, and by the nurses’ station McIntosh looks like she might cry. Cameron speaks consolingly to her for a few minutes, and then leaves her to Singh when it becomes clear House is not going to emerge from the room.
At one-fifteen, starving, Cameron gives up and goes to the cafeteria by herself. She’s about to take her lunch back to her desk when Cuddy waves her over.
“How’s it feel to be back?” Cuddy asks as Cameron takes a seat.
“Good. Fu’s supportive; department seems good; House is as big a pain in the butt as ever.”
They share a smile, and Cameron takes a bite of her sandwich. She feels strong, actually. Being recruited back did wonders for her ego, and House treating her like a colleague instead of a minion is gratifying. He’s still an ass, but a more respectful ass.
“Like this latest case,” Cameron continues. “It looks like it might be one of the paraneoplastic syndromes, but House refuses to call in Oncology.”
Cuddy’s sigh is for some reason almost wistful. “He had a, let’s say, conflict with Wilson’s replacement the day she got here, and she instituted a new policy that all consult requests go through her. It slows response time to his pages down to thirty whole minutes sometimes, so now he’s boycotting and just using Singh.”
“But this is a complicated case!” At Cuddy’s shrug, Cameron shakes her head. “Fine, if he doesn’t want to use anyone here, I don’t see why he doesn’t just call up Wilson and get him to take a look.”
The clatter of Cuddy’s fork skidding roughly across her plate startles Cameron. “What?” Cameron asks. “Did they have a fight? Is that why Wilson left?”
“You don’t know?” Cuddy asks, her eyebrows high. “How do you not know?”
“Know what?” Cameron asks, confused by Cuddy’s confusion.
“That’s right; you never called me back. Wilson is -” Cuddy presses a finger to the outside of her eye, and then quickly brings it down. A tremor passes just once through her hands, but her voice is rock steady as she says, “James died. A month and a half ago, hit by a car as he was changing a flat tire.”
Tears prickle Cameron’s eyes and throat immediately. Everyone must have been devastated: his patients, his colleagues, House - Oh. “I need to go.”
Cuddy nods, but Cameron’s already moving, stuffing the bag of chips in her pocket, juggling sandwich and drink. Her heart is aching with empathy for House, how much he must have suffered, must be suffering still. Wilson, for all his faults, was important to House, and she knows how losing someone close feels.
She’s considering whether it’s worse when the person lingers or is suddenly taken when she finds herself in the Diagnostics conference room, having made it there on auto-pilot. She sets her drink down and frowns at the conference table, finishing a thought, and is startled when something wet splats onto her forehead. “What the hell?”
“Spitball,” House says cheerfully from the corner of the room. He’s alone, so she shoves aside her annoyance and turns toward him with sad, sympathetic eyes.
He snorts and rocks back in the chair. “I didn’t kill your puppy, Cameron; it’s just paper and saliva. Wipe it right off and you’ll be the prettiest gal in all of Plainsboro again.”
Dabbing carefully, trying to keep the mess out of her hair, she replies, “Don’t you mean Princeton Plainsboro?”
“Have you been to the campus lately?” He rocks forward in the chair and the legs thump. “Some of those Princeton coeds are smokin’. Plainsboro, on the other hand, totally deserves its name, which is why you have a shot. Did you come in here for a reason, or did you just intuitively sense that I needed a target?”
She’s reminded of her reason, and the tender concern for House’s grief is back. She extends a hand toward him and begins, “House, I just -”
“Lunch, sweet!” he cries, and lunges for the sandwich she had forgotten was in her hand. “Chicken salad, gross,” he comments before taking a huge bite.
“Meat, Cameron,” he continues, trying to enunciate around the food in his mouth. “You’ve got to remember I like the meat.”
At the sound of a loud scoff, Cameron jumps and turns back toward the table. McIntosh and Singh are seated there, having slipped in at some point. Singh’s flushing and ducking; McIntosh is smirking. “I always suspected, House,” she says, and House rolls his eyes in response.
“Ha, ha, Granny Smith. I so admire those grade-school puns.”
Annoyed, Cameron frowns at Singh and McIntosh. House won’t open up to her about his sorrow with these newcomers around. “Would you two mind giving us a minute? I’ve just learned some news I need to discuss with House.”
“I’m not paying child support without a DNA test,” House mumbles around the last of her sandwich. She ignores him and gazes pointedly at the other two.
Singh scrambles to leave, but McIntosh stays planted and raises an eyebrow. Between that expression and the lavender silk button-down shirt, Cameron is reminded of Foreman, and is a little surprised at the higher, more melodic voice that comes out of McIntosh’s mouth. “If it’s about our patient, then we should hear too.”
“It’s not about a patient. It’s -” Cameron glances at House, then lowers her eyes. She’s not looking forward to this conversation, but it needs to happen. House is obviously not dealing well with his grief. “It’s private,” she finishes.
McIntosh cocks her head, and the eyebrow raises higher. “Personal, not good news, that you learned from Cuddy. We saw you two in the cafeteria, and you looked fine until you didn’t.”
Realization dawns clearly across McIntosh’s face. “Oh, you just learned -” As House passes by her on his way to the coffeemaker, she lowers her voice to a whisper. “About Dr. Wilson.”
“I’m in on the secret,” House whispers, shaking a sugar packet.
“Are you sure?” Cameron asks. “Because you told me he was at Sloan-Kettering.”
“It was a joke.” House stirs his coffee, takes a sip, and makes a face at the mug. “Sloan-Kettering is cancer heaven. Get it?”
“House.” He’s clearly deflecting, repressing how he truly feels.
“Cameron,” he replies sarcastically, and heads into his office. She sighs and follows.
When the door is firmly shut, she takes a seat in front of his desk and leans toward him. “House, I didn’t know about Wilson. I’m sorry. How do you feel?”
“I feel fine.” He’s twirling a pen in his fingers. “Don’t suppose you brought me a brownie, too?”
She remembers the chips in her pocket and hands them over with a small sigh. “Denial is a normal reaction to this kind of loss.”
“I’m not in denial. I really feel fine.” He digs into the chips with gusto.
“You don’t want to dwell on it, I understand.” She watches his jaw go up and down, sees how his eyes are focused on the chips and not her, and her heart aches for him again. “I know what it’s like, the desire to imagine that special person is still alive. But it’s been a month, and pretending Wilson’s simply working at a different hospital is not going to help you move -”
Rolling his eyes, he cuts her off. “I know he’s dead, Cameron.”
She leans a few inches across his desk, bracing herself with a hand against the edge. He’s got to be made to see. “It’s hard to accept. I know that.”
“Maybe it’s hard for you to accept, but I’ve got it down.” He’s playing with the chip bag, pinching it closed and opening it back up. “He’s dead. Deceased, expired, shuffled off his mortal coil. He is an ex-Wilson.”
“Joking might make you feel better for a moment, but -”
House slaps the bag on his desk and leans toward her. He’s mere inches away from her face, and his stern eyes are bluer than she remembered. “Cameron, I am not in denial. James Wilson is dead. Do you want to know how I know? Want me to imitate Cuddy calling me down to the ER? Want to know how many of his internal organs I saw through the gaping hole in his abdomen? How long the crack in his skull was? How high we set the voltage on the defibrillator before we gave up?
“I watched him die. I called his time of death.”
Snatching up the chips, House flops back in his chair. “So, yeah, I am well aware that he is no longer with us. You’re the one who needs to catch up.”
Her breath is failing her. “House -”
With a dismissive wave, he turns toward his computer. “Grieve somewhere else; I’m busy.”
She watches him for a moment, and then gets up. Now is not the time to push him. After she processes her own feelings, she’ll be better able to give him the right encouragement to open up.
“Cameron.”
She stops halfway to the door and looks back. House’s gaze is direct, intense.
“The next time you bring me lunch, don’t forget the dessert.”
Cameron thinks about James Wilson that night. She looks through her photo box and finds two pictures that he’s in. She traces a finger along his hairline, rubs the side of her thumb across his distinctive bushy eyebrows. She thinks about the bad times, and the good, and the way she’d seen House laugh around him sometimes. She cries for lost opportunities and a life cut short so tragically.
In the morning, she puts the photos away and has Corn Flakes for breakfast. There’s an Immunology department meeting at eight o’clock sharp, then rounds, and then she should probably check in and see how House’s patients are doing. He doesn’t often have two at once.
Flipping through her calendar one day, trying to re-schedule a patient she’d had to cancel on due to an “emergency” with Steve McQueen the Fourth - who knew rats could be allergic to pine shaving bedding? - Cameron realizes that she’s been back at Princeton Plainsboro for six weeks. It’s gone by in a flash; she’s been incredibly busy.
Her patients, research projects, grant applications, and consultations on Diagnostics cases keep her running, not to mention the “consultations” House keeps paging her for that are no more than poorly disguised pleas for her to entertain him. At the beginning, she would roll her eyes and walk out immediately, but over time, she’s come to appreciate the occasional break in her day. House always makes it interesting, at least.
What really throws her off her schedule, though, are all the questions and complaints she fields from people too wary (too smart) to approach House. Nurses, technicians, social workers, patients’ families, Singh and McIntosh - she smiles at them all, gives her diplomacy skills a workout, and then takes the core issues back to House. Not that he listens, nine times out of ten, but still someone’s got to do it.
She’s thinking about the latest question (Deborah Fields from Accounting: “I’m trying to process this expense report from Dr. Singh. Now I know what the common definition of ‘lock picks’ is, but what does the term mean medically?”) when it hits her: Someone’s got to do it, but why is it always her? And how do people know it’s her? They’ve been coming to her in a steady stream since her first day back.
She stalks past Cuddy’s new assistant and into the Dean of Medicine’s office. “Why me?” she asks.
“Good morning, Dr. Cameron,” Cuddy replies, looking up from the file on her desk. “Is that an existential question? I don’t hear despair in your tone, so I’ll assume it’s not about House.”
“Oh, it’s definitely about House.” She paces back and forth in front of Cuddy’s new desk - teak, pretty - and wonders where the twinge in her neck came from. “But it’s more about me, and you. You developed my dream job to get me specifically back in this hospital. Why?”
Cuddy is calmly watching her walk. “We needed your unique qualifications.”
“You hired me to be a House-wrangler!”
“And an immunologist and a diagnostician. You’re doing well at all three.”
Cameron is growing more frustrated by the minute. The gleam of triumph in Cuddy’s eye isn’t helping. “Handling House and all his issues wasn’t part of the job description.”
“No, I didn’t think it was wise to put that in a legal document. But it’s what we needed the most, and as I said, you were uniquely qualified. I think everyone’s very satisfied with how it’s turned out.”
“You can’t just use me like that!”
“And how exactly am I using you? You are paid to do your job; any extra activities or responsibilities you take on are your own concern.”
“Now you’re saying you didn’t hire me to handle House?”
“I’m saying -” Cuddy stops, sighs, and then comes around the desk. She gestures Cameron to the couch and then sits with her.
“Cameron, you don’t know what he was like, what this hospital was like, right after we lost Wilson. House was… himself, only moreso. Abrasive, in everyone’s face, upsetting patients, families, and staff alike. I first thought it was just grief pushing him hard, but it turned out that Wilson did more filtering, more managing, more damage control than any of us, including House, had realized.”
Cuddy reaches out and touches Cameron’s shoulder. “You know that House can do things no one else can. You also know that there’s a spectrum of things House can’t do. We needed someone to do them for him, so everyone can benefit.”
“And my benefit is?” She doesn’t want to sound sullen, but she feels duped, suckered into taking all this on.
With a smile and a nod, Cuddy replies, “Your salary’s in the ninety-fifth percentile for immunologists with your level of experience. Given House’s projected caseload, your bonus will set the standard for hundredth percentile. You’re garnering the respect of everyone in this hospital, and of people - influential people you’ve never even met - throughout the medical field. And House likes you.”
She opens her mouth to protest, but Cuddy holds up a hand. “I know you got over that schoolgirl crush on him, but you can’t deny that you still wanted him to like you, to respect you as a colleague and seek you out as a friend. And now he does.”
When Cuddy stands up, Cameron follows automatically.
“It’s working out very nicely, Dr. Cameron. You have my sincere appreciation.”
Cameron nods, still thinking, and walks out of the office. She is almost immediately waylaid by House. “Allie, my girl! Got a case for you in Exam Two.”
“I’m not doing your rectal exams for you, House.”
“Oh, but when you get a load of the pecs on Mr. Tall, Dark and Handsome Priapism Sufferer, you might just change your mind. Back me up here, Previn.”
Nurse Previn glares at House, looks around briefly, and then nods.
“See,” House whispers, “and she hasn’t even seen his bare dick.”
Hiding a smile, Cameron takes the file. “I happen to have a few minutes.”
“Thought so,” House replies. “Previn, Dr. House is signing out from Clinic duty.”
“You owe me one!” Cameron calls after him.
He smirks as he pushes the Clinic door open. “It’ll be fun watching you try to collect.”
Cameron stares glumly at House’s home laptop as it grinds and whirrs. Whatever this weird search engine is that House has installed, it’s slow as molasses.
“Hey!” she yells down the hall. “How did you lose your speech on your hard drive, and why am I the one looking for it?”
The bathroom door opens a crack, and House sticks his head out. The lather covering the bottom half of his face is ridiculously foamy, reminding Cameron of childhood bubble baths when she and her sister would give each other Santa beards and faux Mohawks.
“You,” House says, as he tries to catch a bit of foam that’s falling from his chin, “are the one who wanted me to shave for this stupid event.”
“You’re winning an award, House. They’re going to take your picture, it’ll probably go in the paper -” The bathroom door slams closed again, so she raises her voice to slightly beyond polite. “And it’d be better for everyone involved if you didn’t look like a homeless derelict!”
She hates picking him up. He’s worse than the worst stereotype of a woman about being ready on time. After a quick glance at her watch, she turns back to the screen to see the search has finally finished.
“Vicodin” and “genius” - the only words House could remember from his acceptance speech - were found in three files. She moves to click on “Awards Suck Cameron Sucks.doc,” but slips and accidentally opens the one below: “Bad Things.”
She’s moving the cursor to close the file when the title catches her eye, and she gasps, a hand flying to her mouth.
Bad Things About James Wilson Being Dead
Next Vicodin source not likely to be as much of a pushover
Delay on Oncology consults
No more good home cooking
Loss of income
No one to give me rides to work when I need them
No one to laugh at my jokes
No one who’ll listen when I call to talk at 3 am
No one to fully appreciate my genius
Tears well in her eyes as she reads the list. It’s so like House to want to write it all down.
She startles when his hand clamps on her shoulder. “Got the speech?”
“I -” she begins, but truthfully she doesn’t know where to go next. This is obviously something private, but on the other hand, she’s never found the right way to get him to open up about his loss. She swallows while she thinks of what to say.
“Huh,” House says, squinting at the screen, his bow tie dangling open across her shoulder. “That’s an old version of that file. If you’re curious, you might want to pull up the newer version.” He’s gone back down the hallway before she can say a thing.
Looking back at the search results, she sees he’s right. The third file is also labeled “Bad Things” but dated later, almost two months after Wilson’s death.
Bad Things About James Wilson Being Dead
Next Vicodin source not likely to be as much of a pushover - Cuddy quite pliant
Delay on Oncology consults - Singh
Lack of good home cooking
Loss of income - Annoying that the inheritance is in trust, but checks steady
No one to give me rides to work when I need them - Neighbor Lady desperate for company, gas money
No one to laugh at my jokes - Singh a total kiss-ass
No one who’ll listen when I call to talk at 3 am - McIntosh apparently nocturnal
No one to fully appreciate my genius - potential in Cameron
When he emerges from his bedroom again a few minutes later, she looks at him sternly. “We should talk about this.”
“No time, gonna be late. Print my speech, and let’s go.”
“House.”
“Cameron.” He reaches over her and presses keys to start the printer up.
She looks at him firmly. She knows him, and shouldn’t be surprised that he doesn’t want to talk, but she is.
After grabbing the speech from the printer, he finally looks at her. “Oh, good lord, stop with the puppy-dog eyes.”
She crosses her arms, and he snorts in clear exasperation. “Fine, fine,” he says. “We’ll stay up late after the event, paint each other’s toenails, and bond. But now, we need to go.”
They are running late, and this is a very important event for the hospital, so she lets it go for now and follows him out the door.
Three hours, two tantrums, and a brilliant donor-retaining maneuver by Cameron later, they are back outside House’s place. “Yeah, okay, bye,” House says, and tries to shut the door in Cameron’s face.
His astonished look when Cameron straight-arms the door open (she’ll have to remember to thank her kickboxing instructor) almost makes her laugh, but she’s there for a serious reason.
“You said we’d talk.”
“I lied to get you to drop it.” He’s pushing the door closed, but she throws a hip against it and manages to slip into the apartment.
When she looks up at him, he’s wincing. “My leg is killing me, and I’m exhausted.” He leans against the couch, his shoulders slumped. “I think I should go straight to bed.”
Oh, please. Like she’s going to fall for that. There’s no tension around his eyes, he’s not rubbing his leg, and he’s not holding himself stiffly. Her face seems to get that point across, because he drops the act. “I think I need a drink for this,” he says and moves close to her on his way to the kitchen.
She’s surprised when he stops inches away from her. “Unless…” he breathes, and strokes his left hand through her hair.
His eyes are warm and probing, and she feels her lips part.
“Oh, yes,” she says, and he bends toward her ear. “Because my favorite thing to do after I orgasm is talk.”
House immediately pulls back and drops his hand. “Fine. Scotch?”
“That’d be nice,” she replies and sits on the couch, tucking her feet under her.
He brings back a bottle and two glasses; she pours for both of them as he settles into an armchair. The scotch is beautiful to look at, almost glowing, and burns pleasantly on the way down.
Cameron doesn’t bother to wait for House to speak; he’d be content to let the silence linger until she fell asleep. “Cuddy says Wilson’s family is having a kind of one-year commemoration next month.”
“Unveiling his tombstone. I’m not going.” He reads the why not? on her face and continues before she can voice it. “No reason to go, and I’d rather be watching Norm Abram, anyway.”
She takes another sip and tells him firmly, “You should go. All this time, and I’m not sure you’ve processed your grief.”
His hands tighten around his glass, and he looks away, at a random spot on the floor. “I’m pretty sure I never had any grief to begin with.”
Astonishment begets indignation. “Of course you did! He was your best friend!”
Still not looking at her, House takes a lingering sip of scotch. “He was,” he says quietly. “But here, I’ll show you.” He looks up with solemn eyes. “Define grief.”
“Intense sadness over the loss of a loved one.” She can’t imagine why he’s saying these things.
“Nope.” A single shake of his head. “Never had that.”
Her heart is starting to beat faster. “Grief manifests differently in everyone.”
He’s smirking now; she wants to slap him senseless. He says, “It never manifested itself at all in me.”
“You’re not sorry he died?”
“I’m not happy he died. I would have preferred it if he didn’t. But he did.” He sips again from his drink, and his larynx bobs in his long smooth neck. “I sat shiva with his family - did you know that? Seven days, sitting around doing nothing. They let me sit on the couch because of my leg, which was good of them. Wilson’s mother would weep, and Wilson’s brother and father would sigh, and I was just really fucking bored. I tried to think about Wilson, but my mind kept drifting to old cases, and journal articles, and TV show plotlines.”
Blinking back tears, she turns away. He seems to catch the expression on her face.
“I’m not proud of it, Cameron. I wanted to feel sad, but I didn’t. Because deep down, underneath it all, I’m an asshole.”
“You’re not!” The denial is immediate and vehement.
“Oh, but I am. I didn’t figure it out until I was sitting around doing nothing during shiva, and it was a shock, let me tell you.” He traces a finger around the rim of his glass. She imagines the ringing sound, but there’s no moisture, so it’s not really there.
“I’d always thought I was a sensitive soul underneath, but nope.” He shrugs. “Wilson knew, though. He told me I was an ass, but I didn’t believe him at the time.”
She has absolutely no frame of reference for this conversation; she’s wandering lost through a shrouded forest. “Everybody tells you you’re an ass.”
“But I don’t pay attention because that’s just the surface ass they see. Wilson dug all the way down to my inner ass.” He snorts a soft laugh. “That’s not a homo joke, by the way.” He takes another sip, and closes his eyes. “Wilson was the only one who took the time to excavate through all the layers. Some of those layers are pretty decent, but the core’s heartless.”
His eyes open again. “Hmph,” he says. “Heartless core. Would you count that as an oxymoron?”
Struggling for normality, she tries a counter-argument. “House, I’m sure Wilson didn’t really think that. He stood by you through everything, thick and thin. Why would he do that if you weren’t a decent person?”
“He was a masochist. Plus I give great head.” His grin, wider than it has any right to be, makes her sick to her stomach. “That was a homo joke.”
“It’s just - You can’t think that way about yourself.”
“Aw, Cameron, you still believe every single person has a good heart?”
“I believe you have a good heart!”
He smirks and swallows the last of his scotch. “You watch too much Hallmark Channel crap. I’m going to bed. You can stay on the couch or go home; I don’t care.”
She watches him rise, but that can’t be it. The conversation can’t end there. “Maybe it’s - Maybe you’re not sad because there was nothing to be sad over.”
He turns back, and she’s surprised by the anger on his face. “You’re going to blame Wilson? I know you didn’t like him, but come on. He was never a saint, but he was -” House stops and drops his eyes to the floor. “He deserved better than a best friend who couldn’t mourn him.”
“I -”
“Good night, Cameron.” He disappears before she can collect her thoughts.
She spends the night on House’s couch, staring at the ceiling. Denial is a powerful thing.
As Cameron’s fortieth birthday approaches, House tells her the day will have an “artistic expression” theme. She hopes for a Pissarro or Cezanne print for her office, or just a lunchtime trip to the campus gallery. She’s resigned, however, to a movie poster for Caged Heat, the flick he’d recently conned her into watching. Jonathan Demme is an Oscar-winning director. How was she to know his first film was a women in prison exploitation movie?
Of course, that turns out to be a complete underestimation of House.
She discovers on her birthday that he was referring to her own “artistic expression,” in the form of a series of love poems she wrote to Donny Jacobi in the seventh grade. House, having obtained the poems through whatever black magic, has thoughtfully scanned them all in, re-printed them double size, and plastered them all over the hospital. Even Brenda Previn, who’s always been perfectly polite to Cameron, is snickering.
After pressing three med students into service to locate and destroy all copies, Cameron stomps to House’s office. He is nowhere to be found, and she suspects he’ll remain absent until it’s time for her to buy him dinner.
She flings herself into his office chair and logs into his computer. The search for files with any form of her name in it turns up the poems, performance reviews from her fellowship that House never gave her, the journal articles they’ve co-authored, and a very old file named “Good Things.” Curious, and wanting to be as reckless with his privacy as he’s been with hers, she opens the document.
Good Things About James Wilson Being Dead
Nagging about Vicodin significantly reduced
Nagging about misery/depression significantly reduced
Nagging about hookers/sex eliminated
Huffy sighing eliminated
Secret drugging eliminated or significantly reduced (Cuddy?)
Secret attempts to make me a better person eliminated
Overt attempts to make me a better person significantly reduced
No more sappy shows on the TiVo
Ton of leftover food from hospital’s memorial service
Sympathy fuck from Cuddy (saggier breasts, better technique compared to last time)
DVD player now mine for all eternity
Attempts to guilt me into anything significantly reduced
Attempts to improve my bedside manner significantly reduced
Weepy calls from distraught women asking how James could do this eliminated significantly reduced
Sympathy makeout session with Wilson Wife 1
Neck strain from having to look up at high horse/high moral ground/soapbox significantly reduced
Sympathy (?) blowjob from Neighbor Lady
Money arrives without rolling of eyes or huffy sighing
New excuse to disregard others’ feelings
Potential for sympathy fuck from Cameron
She’s scanning the list a second time when House walks in.
“You’re a complete bastard,” she tells him coldly.
He grins and keeps moving toward the chair she’s sitting in. “I just wanted to share your beautiful creations with the world, especially the one about the flowers. It took all my willpower not to cross out the ‘o’ and the second ‘e’ in ‘peonies’ but I resisted as my birthday present to you.”
Cameron’s turning towards him, opening her mouth to reply, when House notices the computer screen.
“What are you looking at?” he demands, and draws his reading glasses out of a pocket.
“This!” she says, surprised to find herself yelling. “He was your friend! How could you - Normal people don’t do things like this!”
His hand is strong as it wraps around her bicep. “I’m an ass. I told you that years ago. Now get the fuck away from my computer.”
She allows him to pull her up, then stalks to the door. “You are,” she says, and then can’t figure out how to finish the sentence.
Outside his office, she looks back in. He’s tracing a thumb down the computer screen, face twisted in a way she’s never seen. Then he hits the remote on the corner of his desk and the blinds slap shut.
Over dinner they deliberately don’t talk about it.
Three months after what House called Vicodin’s Last Hurrah and everyone else called fatal liver failure, Cameron is leading the newly opened Princeton Plainsboro Center for Genetic and Rare Disorders. Of course diagnosis is a key component, but research and treatment make it a complete patient care center (and far more profitable, if the financial projections meet even the worst-case scenario).
Her patients (those lucky, high-profile few) love her, her team looks up to her (except Fu, but he’ll get over it), and her boss values her, as her seat on the Board shows. Cameron hasn’t been bored for years.
“How did you do it?” Foreman is asking over the phone. He’s got a successful private practice in Los Angeles, but she knows he’d love to come back. Ever since her new position was announced, they’ve been dancing around each other, waiting for the other to ask. Cameron’s betting he’ll break first.
“How did you put up with House all those years?” he asks incredulously. “What did you get out of it?”
“A Lamborghini.”
Foreman laughs, the way everyone always does when she says it. She smiles while he’s laughing and looks out the window at her parking space, where the deep blue Gallardo sits. Mills washes it for her twice a week, for the pleasure of getting his hands on it - and because he’s more of a suck-up than Chase ever was. Fortunately, he’s also an excellent doctor, just as Chase was until he wandered into the bush or wherever it is he’s gone to these days. She’d found him at one point, grayer but just as taut and robust as ever, but he slipped away again.
She makes a politely appreciative noise at Foreman’s follow-up comment and leans back in her chair. She’s listening to Foreman with half her brain, and thinking about the past few months with the other half. She’s always been an excellent multi-tasker.
She had been mildly surprised to be the sole beneficiary of House’s will, but was stunned by just how high the assets were. All due to Wilson’s pre-planning, of course. House tried for years to break Wilson’s trust but never could - huh, a double entendre with no sexual undertones, interesting. The Lamborghini’s almost a tribute to him.
Almost.