Fic: so remember now (2/2)
so remember now
house md ; house/cameron ; 4,815 words.
we can play a thousand street scenes. you give secrets a bad name. spoilers for lockdown and some for the finale. PG.
notes: Fifth in a series following check your facts, you could be more understanding, when writing distance, chicago the windy city, and so remember now: one. For the wonderful, ever-so supportive blueheronz, as my love affair with this series wouldn’t be possible without you. Some notes at the end.
-
PREVIOUS.
There is something different about this time. Wilson doesn’t smile.
“You’re here,” he says slowly. He clears his throat and she turns, just as he shifts closer to the counter. She shakes her head and listens to Wilson’s sigh.
“Do you want some coffee?” she asks. She’s not surprised. It was going to happen sooner or later; there’s no secret, she thinks, but it was personal and like everything else, her compulsion is protect her privacy. What surprises her that Wilson is surprised and that she can’t remember the last time she talked to him.
There’s another sigh. The coffee pot beeps and she reaches for a mug. She turns and brings it to Wilson, holding it still over the island.
He studies her. “Where’s House?”
“Asleep,” she says.
It’s her own fault, she thinks. It’s the one thing about having House in your life; everything outside of him ceases to exist, from responsibilities to decisions. Chase used to joke, back when they were young and it was the two of them, the first to work for him, that it was like having a child.
This is still different, she maintains. She doesn’t know why or how and the way Wilson seems to be watching her solidifies her guess.
“I didn’t know you’d be here,” he apologizes finally.
“Here,” she says, and she slides the mug over the counter to him. “I’ll get a hotel,” she says too, studying him.
“Is Chase okay?”
She blinks. She shakes her head too.
“I’m not here for Chase.”
“You’re divorced,” he says.
“I’m divorced,” she echoes.
He nods. There’s a smile between them. She used to talk to Wilson, to trust herself when she talked to him; things changed too, and somehow, she became more of a temporary confident.
It’s then that she really looks around the kitchen, and then briefly out to the living room, picking out more of Wilson than of House. There’s books and art, things straightened into place and tucked into the right corner. It shouldn’t surprise her, she thinks again.
“I thought you were over him.”
It was coming too. Her mouth curls.
“It’s none of your business,” she says quietly, simply.
“He’s my friend.”
She looks back at him, when he says it, and there’s less force behind it. It’s absent, almost distracted. She frowns and cocks her head to the side.
“And she’s right,” House says. Cameron and Wilson look to the kitchen entrance where he stands, leaning against the wall. “It’s none of your business,” he says.
Wilson stares at them. House moves away from the wall, fidgeting and comes to stand against the island, leaning against the counter between both Cameron and Wilson. He looks at her, then at Wilson.
The tension is small and it rises in House, faster than she expects it to. It’s in the slight, sharp edge of his mouth and in the way that Wilson looks away quickly, almost ignoring it.
He clears his throat too. “You’re sleeping with him,” he says.
House rolls his eyes. Cameron looks down, shaking her head. She’s calmer than she expects to be, her fingers brushing against the rim of her mug.
“It’s none of your business,” she says again, and keeps her gaze steady, serious. She takes a moment and then looks up at House. “I’ll get a hotel room,” she says.
“No need,” he says.
She doesn’t know what that means. She doesn’t ask. Wilson sighs, reaching for his coffee. She turns her gaze back to him. She didn’t expect this, she thinks. She should’ve though.
She turns and reaches for the cabinets, pulling two more mugs out. She leaves one on the counter for House and picks up another one, pouring herself coffee.
She brings the milk back to the island. “I came because I wanted to,” she says.
House leans against the counter next to her. He reaches for her coffee before she pours anything into it. “He thinks I’m sleeping with you because Cuddy told me that she loved me, couldn’t be with me, and so, instead of hookers, I’m compensating.”
She blinks. “Cuddy told you that she’s in love with you?”
“It’s complicated,” Wilson mutters.
House holds her coffee. He’s waiting her, maybe even waiting for a reaction from her. She studies him. It’s as if there’s something missing, it’s as if she was supposed to see something and didn’t, and it’s starting to scare her, more than anything else has in a very long time.
It doesn’t completely hit her and maybe, maybe that’s better. But she can feel herself start to tense. She doesn’t want to flee but this isn’t a conversation she needs to stand in. It isn’t for her.
She reaches forward and brushes her fingers against the coffee mug in House’s hand. Her fingers graze his knuckles instead and then her hand drops back, swinging into her side. Her heart starts to race.
“I’m going to go for a run,” she says finally.
House nods. She lets him keep her coffee, stepping around him. She stops next to Wilson and forces some kind of smile.
“It’s good to see you,” she says too. She kisses his cheek. She feels his hand drop to her hip and pat it lightly. We’ll talk later, she almost says. She doesn’t. She doesn’t want to go there unless she has reason too.
When she leaves the kitchen, the hushed conversation starts behind her. She’s not surprised.
Coming back, Cameron runs the longer route. There are houses along the park that she hasn’t seen.
She doesn’t focus. Her mind is everywhere, trying to pin down the odd comment and moment that she may of missed. It was in his voice, she thinks. It was the way he somehow, out of the blue, asked her to come.
She guesses and guesses, running faster and harder. Sweat starts to slide against her skin, along the back of her neck and pressing into her skin. She stops, breathing hard, just at the end of the block; she’s somewhere between the park and the apartment building, and when she looks up, she can see the apartment building standing closer, taller in front of her.
Her eyes close. Reaching up, she pulls hard at her headphones. She takes a moment and then breathes, her eyes opening slowly as she reaches for the headphones and loops them around her neck. She starts to walk.
House sits outside the apartment building. She stops at the bottom of the stairs when she sees him.
“Sorry,” he calls, and she stops, watching him. Sweat slides along the column of her throat, stretching over the cotton of her t-shirt. She brushes her bangs away from her eyes and shakes her head.
She doesn’t know what to think. In sense, nothing’s changed.
It starts to build again, outside of what she was feeling earlier. She’s angry, then she’s sad, then she’s tired and disappointed. It hits her together and then separately, folding into a range of feelings that she hasn’t felt this heavily in a very long time. It takes her back, too far back, and she looks at him, really looks at him, as a lump grows in the back of her throat.
It’s different with nothing to hide. Her hands brush over her hips.
“Why did you ask me to come?” she asks softly. Her eyes close, then open, and she wants to say something else. But she tries to stay leveled.
“Why did you come?” he asks. He sighs too.
“No,” she says. “You don’t get to have that question. Why did you ask me to come? Why not be honest with me from the get-go?” She stops and her voice is trembling. “I’m - I’m not going to be like everyone else. I’m not going to tell you either, over and over again. We’re past that.”
He looks away. “I know,” he says.
House shifts and he knocks himself into his cane. It falls and clatters at his feet, scattering between them as she stares. She shifts from foot to foot, fidgeting as she feels herself start to twist. Her mind is spinning.
Say something, she wants to tell him. And maybe that’s it, maybe this is why they’re here; he wants her to yell and scream, to tell him that she’s like everyone else and that this happened and she never wants to see him again. Maybe he wants to fold, or maybe it’s that it’s not him or her or whatever’s missing, it’s that this was never meant to get this far.
Maybe she should be angry. This happened for a reason.
“Wilson wants me to move out.”
He says it finally. She turns away, looking out into the street. She sees people start to appear at the odd end of the park, across the street. Someone walks by them too and a few cars turn onto the block.
“Okay,” she says.
“He’s going to move in with his ex-wife,” he says.
She says nothing.
“I had the weekend to finish. Then I figured - well, I wanted to see you. I moved back into my old place and - ”
She holds up a hand. “I don’t want to know,” Cameron says quietly. “I don’t understand what - ” she stops, catching herself. Her eyes are wide.
It hits her again, then again, and when she turns, meeting his gaze, it dawns on her. It dawns on her in a way that feels too sudden and too heavy. He’s staring at her, as he expected this, as if he knew that she was going to find out and this is what would happen. It disappoints her. It makes her furious and the anger is building almost like a panic. She can’t look at him. She doesn’t want to know why.
Turning around again, Cameron rubs her eyes. She’s quiet, exhausted, and she can feel him watching her. Her heart is pounding against her chest. There’s a lump in her throat and she can feel herself take a step back.
“You wanted to make sure,” she says softly, almost in disbelief.
“No,” he counters.
“You used me because you wanted to make sure. You wanted to make sure that somebody thought you were good enough, that I’d somehow decide to take my words back and make it okay. Jesus, House.”
Her hands press against her face. Her jaw is locked. She breathes. She breathes again, trying to make sure. But she’s shaky.
“I can’t believe I’m so stupid. I can’t believe that I’d think that something is happening and that I’d be okay with something happening, about trusting you. I don’t want to be in the middle of this. I don’t care about -”
But then House is standing, and his hand closes around her wrists, pulling her hands from her face. His grip is awkward and too hard. She doesn’t look at him. She can’t. She can’t even decide between being angry and sad, or sad and angry; there’s a part of her that should’ve known, just known that he’s still this cruel.
“I told you - ” he keeps his hand around her wrists, “ - I told you, you’re different.”
She shakes her head. Her eyes burn and she’s mortified; there’s almost nothing left that she can protect.
“It doesn’t work like that,” she breathes.
“Cameron.”
“I don’t want to know.”
“Cameron,” he repeats. He forces her name out. “Look at me.”
“I don’t want to know,” she breathes, shutting her eyes. She doesn’t pull back. There’s nowhere to go.
“You need listen to me.”
“How can I? I don’t have anything else to give. There’s nothing left, House. I - just - I can’t believe you. I came here. I came here.”
She hears him and then hears herself. The back and forth is unlike them, maybe even too exposed. There’s nothing careful, nothing kind, and she’s about ready to snap. It’s another breaking point. He wanted another breaking point, she tells herself. This is why he didn’t think she’d come.
It’s why he didn’t tell her either. She tries to pull back again, but his grip tightens.
“I want you to trust me,” he says quietly.
She laughs, shaking her head. The hard sound burns through her throat, pulling at the roof of her mouth. She trembles again. She bites her lip. “You want me to trust you,” she breathes. “How - I - listen to yourself. Just listen.”
“Stop talking,” he growls.
It startles her and he drops her hand. His eyes are wide and they’re both breathing heavily as if the words mean so much more than either of them really understand.
His body twists slightly, just as his neck cranes back and he looks into the street. Her gaze follows, almost out of habit, and it takes her moment to realize that he’s still holding her other hand.
“I’m in this place. I know. Then I don’t know. I’m in this place.”
He drops her other hand. Her arms immediately fold against her chest. His voice is distant and she pulls herself to stand straighter.
“Were you going to tell me?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know,” she repeats.
Her voice drops and she stares at him. It’s not about who hears her. It doesn’t even matter anymore. She doesn’t work for him. She’s not married. And even if that was the case, she’s never been one to hide or play this game with him. It was never about these games between the two of them.
“I’m in this place,” he says. He stops then.
She has to turn around. She can’t look at him too long. She doesn’t even know how to gather herself together again.
And it’s not anger, maybe it wasn’t even anger to begin with. It’s the swell of disappointment, however, the way it weighs and stands over her head. It’s nothing like she’s ever felt before, not with him in mind. Because she’s been angry at House, sad because of House, and these are the things that she’s gotten over, maybe with little or no change in mind.
Disappointment is different. Disappointment changes the face of how she looks at him, how she looks at this and what this may have meant to the two of them. And for the first time, since she’s arrived and this become more than small moment, she gets that. She lets herself get it.
“I can talk to you.”
House starts again, absent. She’s quiet.
“I can talk to you - not like anyone else, not that I care about talking to anyone else … but you’re here, and then you’re there, and it hasn’t changed, this wanting to talk to you, this wanting to see you. I didn’t think you’d come.”
It’s awkward and stiff, his reply, and it doesn’t make any of this better. Her shoulders drop. She tries focusing for a moment, but can’t. She only knows how to hear him. She doesn’t know what to say back.
She listens as House steps closer. His feet shuffle into the ground. There’s a pause and something scrapes against the ground. She turns slightly and he’s picked up his cane, balancing it against his palm; then, he stops again. It’s followed by the sound of cane tapping too, that feels familiar, and she lets herself breathe.
“There was an accident,” he tells her. “You told me to figure it out when we talked, way back. I don’t know. I don’t care. You told me and I guess I listened. I’ve been talking to my shrink. You told me to figure it out too. So.”
Her eyes open. She feels his hand curl in the back of her shirt, making a fist in the fabric. He seems to drag himself closer, not to press against her but to hover, if anything else, as if he could see her too.
“I want you to trust me,” he continues. “That changed, you know, when you left this time around - in my goddamn office. That’s what was different. That’s what I figured out. Everybody else has this goddamn need to trust me to get something.”
“I’m not going to do this,” she says quietly. She shakes her head. “I’m not going to be the one that’s there when you -”
“There was an accident.”
He’s shaking. It takes her a minute to realize; from the change in the way his hand digs into the fabric of her shirt and how his knuckles against the small of her back seem unsteady. There’s something personal about the gesture, and something childish, and when she turns, she meets his gaze with a soft sigh.
They stare at each other. There’s something dark in his gaze, something that she knows as familiar. She’s in it too, a long time ago, when it was him and her and she was wrapping a bandage around his hand. It’s something that doesn’t go, something that can’t be changed, and she wonders if that’s all a part of this, a part of his inability to accept himself and the kind of change that’s being forced.
Slowly, she twists and pries his fingers away from her shirt. He stares at her hard and she tries not to think about it, shifting closer her and then letting his hand drop. She meets his gaze again but doesn’t smile. She shakes her head.
“I -” she stops and then sighs, leaning in and brushing her fingers against his chest. She tries to start again.
“It’s fine,” he tells her.
He then looks away. He doesn’t pull back and she makes the decision there.
“This is not okay,” she says, and says it softly, against his ear as she wraps her arms around him. She’s furious, so furious with him, but her fingers brush through his hair and then lightly against the back of his neck.
He breathes into her shoulder. She feels his body sag into hers.
“I know,” he says.
For a moment, she lets him stay close.
Wilson knocks on the bedroom door. House has gone back to the hospital because of a page.
She’s not okay. She knows she’s not okay and when Wilson knocks again, she’s running a towel through her wet hair. It spills over her shoulder when she straightens and he offers an awkward smile.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
She forces a slight smile. “It had nothing to do with you,” she murmurs.
“I feel like I did something though.”
She shrugs. She doesn’t reassure him. This doesn’t involve and ironically, it’s back to boundaries again. She’s always been clear about where she stands and how things stand with her. Wilson, somehow, always knew this too.
When she turns, she hears him sigh. She moves to her suitcase on the floor and kneels, searching through her clothes.
“How’s Chicago?” he asks then.
She doesn’t answer, standing. There’s nothing else to say, she thinks. She’s neither here nor there with her thoughts, and Wilson seems to understand that, stepping into the room as she pulls her suitcase to the bed.
She stares at it and then opens the flap, brushing her fingers against the few clothes that she did bring again. She picks up a sweater. It folds over her hands, covering her fingers. She blinks and then drops it back over her clothes.
“I’ll be out of your way soon,” she says finally.
It takes too much of her energy to convince herself to stay, at least for the rest of the day, and until she had originally planned to leave. Sitting outside the apartment building, she waits for House on the steps, much like she found him when she was coming back from her run.
For the first time she’s been here, she thinks about calling someone else. She still has friends here. Jack’s sister - but she can’t remember if they’re still on their honeymoon or not, and if that’s something she really wants to walk into.
She doesn’t want to explain House either. She brushes her hands over her jeans and looks out into the street. There’s more traffic, more people walking in and out of the park, more people walking to their cars. She gets a few stares when someone passes her to walk into the building but she pays no attention.
House’s motorcycle rounds the corner finally. She doesn’t know how long she’s been sitting outside, but Wilson’s long since left. She watches him as he parks in between two cars, a tiny space, but he seems unfazed and pulls off his helmet as if he’s done this many times before.
When he sees her, he says nothing. He moves to the stairs and sits carefully, gripping his thigh as his eyes close. She listens to him grunt and keeps her gaze straight and steady into the street. They haven’t talked about earlier since he’s left.
“Thirteen’s gone,” he says slowly.
“Everything okay?” she asks politely.
He looks over at her. “Don’t.”
She rubs her eyes. She makes the decision then. It’s not House’s place, she reasons, and knowing, knowing now that she’s stepped into the middle of something, where there are other players and other players that she knows, leaves little to want or need.
She looks back up at House. “I’m checking into a hotel room.”
“Okay,” he murmurs. He’s disappointed and she almost says something. But she’s angry and not spiteful; it’s the kind of thing that she doesn’t have in her, and even if she did say something, it’s just would be right.
Instead she nods in kind. Her fingers brush her hair out of her eyes. He carefully puts his cane between them and then drops his elbows over his knees.
“I don’t know what to say,” she says quietly.
“This isn’t what I wanted.”
Her mouth curls. It’s a habit and the smile isn’t even a real smile, tired at best.
“You know my answer to that.”
“Yeah,” he sighs.
He reaches for her hand and takes it. Their fingers don’t lace and she doesn’t ask about Cuddy. Maybe he expects her to, she thinks. But she won’t give him that.
It’s back to what she can and cannot give. He drops her hand. She pulls it back to her knees and then her lap, leaning over them.
He looks at her. “You were right,” he says slowly, “to say what you said. I know it’s not what you’re looking for. But you were.”
“I was -” she shakes her head, “- you broke me, you know? Not that first time, not the next, but that time, you broke me. It wasn’t just you. And I’m not - I’m not putting all the blame on you either. They were my decision. They’ve always been my decision. But I don’t know what I have left anymore.”
“That’s not what I wanted to do.”
She meets his gaze. “Were going to tell me?” she asks and unlike before, she’s not asking out anger. She’s tired and she’s disappointed. She can’t even muster the energy to really face him with a straight face.
“Ever?” she adds. “And I don’t know isn’t - that doesn’t work anymore.”
He sighs. “I know.”
You have to come and get me, she nearly tells him. She’s not going to be the one who comes, who puts herself out there this way. It’s her fault and maybe under the idea of trusting him this way, she forgot that it’s never really that simple.
He sighs loudly. He leans back against the stairs.
“I was waiting to screw up.”
She watches House’s hands against his knees. He begins to rub them over his jeans, curling fingers into fists and then rubbing them raw.
“I don’t know what to do with you,” he says too. “I don’t know where you fit. And you don’t want anything from you other than - you just want me. I don’t know what that means, I guess. I don’t know how to handle that. I don’t know how I’m supposed to handle that. Everything else, everything else outside of you makes sense.”
“I’m not -”
“You don’t let me stick to perceptions,” he cuts her off.
“Why I should I?”
She’s decided that she’s done being angry with him and maybe that was finished long before whatever this is started. She outgrew her anger and that final push might’ve been when she stood in his office that last time.
“That’s not what I learned from you,” she says, and she’s calm. There’s nothing left other than being honest. “It wasn’t about everybody lying or patients doing this or that, or my capabilities as doctor. You were there for that, sure, but those are the things that I had to get through myself.”
She rubs her eyes. He blinks and she catches it as she leans back too.
“I learned to not let myself be comfortable. You’re too used to that.”
“Being comfortable?”
She looks up at him. “Yeah,” she says quietly.
He says nothing. She doesn’t push either. It means what he needs it to mean and maybe going back, getting to Chicago, this may have been what she need to really move on. Then again, this isn’t about moving on either.
There is something familiar about it too, like the first moment when she realized, when she knew that she loved him, loves him, and that was going to be it. She knows he knows and she can speculate: maybe this is to break her down, this could always be a test, and there are always going to be a number of reasons that she can pick and choose from. There’s always something to make sense.
But this is why she’s disappointed and tired, not angry and screaming - she’s done with that, she’s done with giving too much when there are things that she knows he already has. There’s nothing to hide and that, right there, is how she knows that those feelings haven’t changed. She doesn’t want to hide.
“So.”
His voice breaks over her thoughts. Her throat tightens and she shakes her head, her mouth curling slightly. They stood out here earlier, she reminds herself. But then she let that go.
“I’m not going to keep coming back,” she says softly. It means so much now. She’s not going to come when he asks. She’ll talk but because she wants to. She’s clear. She can’t be any clearer.
“I know.”
She shakes her head. “You don’t,” she says.
“I want you to stay.”
Her mouth opens, but then he shakes his head too. He reaches for her hand and she watches quietly as his fingers curl around her wrist. The hold is brief and then his fingers begin to move against her palm, over the lines. She watches as he stares at her hand and then brings it up to his mouth, brushing a kiss over her skin.
She exhales and it’s shaky, and almost out of habit, she finds herself leaning into him. Her eyes close and her head drops against his shoulder.
He needs to know, she thinks. “I’m so angry at you,” she mumbles, and means it not to be cruel, but to honest like everything else.
He laughs but it’s a hard sound, coarse as if it were caught in his throat. But it’s the closest she’s felt to him, she thinks, since she’s been here. It’s almost sensible and necessary, something unexpected but something that she doesn’t touch.
“You’re not staying,” he says.
“I’m not,” she says.
He makes a sound that seems like a laugh again, but she pays no attention. Her fingers curl in his arm and she feels his mouth press into her hair. It’s their moment still and that’s something that stays the same too.
It’s acknowledgment. Somehow, it’s like he’s catching up.
Her gaze is soft but she doesn’t look at him. You need to figure yourself out, she almost says. But she’s done talking.
For now, the two of them sit.
The morning is wet and cold and rain from the night before sticks to the window in the kitchen, spreading against the glass as she waits for her coffee.
There is no Wilson in the kitchen and House is somewhere down the hall, on the phone with the hospital. Cameron rubs her eyes and tries not to think about it. There’s no hotel and she’s not thinking about. There’s an early flight and she hasn’t told him, but she’s sure he knows anyway. She’s going home and in a little while, it’ll be easier to focus.
But behind her, she hears the rustle of papers and then a sigh. She turns slowly and faces House at the counter, closer and watching her. He’s holding mail and his phone again and she waits, picking up her empty mug.
He meets her gaze. “It’s my turn,” he tells her.
-
and there are more notes: I wrestled with the idea of playing with the finale with this series, which is part of the reason why I split this up into two. I wanted to make this timeline friendly with what’s going on and well, secretly, you know me I’m a canon-masochist. But I think it’s important for them to tackle that, and tackle in the right way, to make room for where they’re going.
I think there’s going to be at least four more parts because I have issues and issues gone wild! with what happened this season and how I’m trying to work them out. And secretly, I love the number nine. But I’m super excited that everybody is enjoying it.
house md ; house/cameron ; 4,815 words.
we can play a thousand street scenes. you give secrets a bad name. spoilers for lockdown and some for the finale. PG.
notes: Fifth in a series following check your facts, you could be more understanding, when writing distance, chicago the windy city, and so remember now: one. For the wonderful, ever-so supportive blueheronz, as my love affair with this series wouldn’t be possible without you. Some notes at the end.
-
PREVIOUS.
There is something different about this time. Wilson doesn’t smile.
“You’re here,” he says slowly. He clears his throat and she turns, just as he shifts closer to the counter. She shakes her head and listens to Wilson’s sigh.
“Do you want some coffee?” she asks. She’s not surprised. It was going to happen sooner or later; there’s no secret, she thinks, but it was personal and like everything else, her compulsion is protect her privacy. What surprises her that Wilson is surprised and that she can’t remember the last time she talked to him.
There’s another sigh. The coffee pot beeps and she reaches for a mug. She turns and brings it to Wilson, holding it still over the island.
He studies her. “Where’s House?”
“Asleep,” she says.
It’s her own fault, she thinks. It’s the one thing about having House in your life; everything outside of him ceases to exist, from responsibilities to decisions. Chase used to joke, back when they were young and it was the two of them, the first to work for him, that it was like having a child.
This is still different, she maintains. She doesn’t know why or how and the way Wilson seems to be watching her solidifies her guess.
“I didn’t know you’d be here,” he apologizes finally.
“Here,” she says, and she slides the mug over the counter to him. “I’ll get a hotel,” she says too, studying him.
“Is Chase okay?”
She blinks. She shakes her head too.
“I’m not here for Chase.”
“You’re divorced,” he says.
“I’m divorced,” she echoes.
He nods. There’s a smile between them. She used to talk to Wilson, to trust herself when she talked to him; things changed too, and somehow, she became more of a temporary confident.
It’s then that she really looks around the kitchen, and then briefly out to the living room, picking out more of Wilson than of House. There’s books and art, things straightened into place and tucked into the right corner. It shouldn’t surprise her, she thinks again.
“I thought you were over him.”
It was coming too. Her mouth curls.
“It’s none of your business,” she says quietly, simply.
“He’s my friend.”
She looks back at him, when he says it, and there’s less force behind it. It’s absent, almost distracted. She frowns and cocks her head to the side.
“And she’s right,” House says. Cameron and Wilson look to the kitchen entrance where he stands, leaning against the wall. “It’s none of your business,” he says.
Wilson stares at them. House moves away from the wall, fidgeting and comes to stand against the island, leaning against the counter between both Cameron and Wilson. He looks at her, then at Wilson.
The tension is small and it rises in House, faster than she expects it to. It’s in the slight, sharp edge of his mouth and in the way that Wilson looks away quickly, almost ignoring it.
He clears his throat too. “You’re sleeping with him,” he says.
House rolls his eyes. Cameron looks down, shaking her head. She’s calmer than she expects to be, her fingers brushing against the rim of her mug.
“It’s none of your business,” she says again, and keeps her gaze steady, serious. She takes a moment and then looks up at House. “I’ll get a hotel room,” she says.
“No need,” he says.
She doesn’t know what that means. She doesn’t ask. Wilson sighs, reaching for his coffee. She turns her gaze back to him. She didn’t expect this, she thinks. She should’ve though.
She turns and reaches for the cabinets, pulling two more mugs out. She leaves one on the counter for House and picks up another one, pouring herself coffee.
She brings the milk back to the island. “I came because I wanted to,” she says.
House leans against the counter next to her. He reaches for her coffee before she pours anything into it. “He thinks I’m sleeping with you because Cuddy told me that she loved me, couldn’t be with me, and so, instead of hookers, I’m compensating.”
She blinks. “Cuddy told you that she’s in love with you?”
“It’s complicated,” Wilson mutters.
House holds her coffee. He’s waiting her, maybe even waiting for a reaction from her. She studies him. It’s as if there’s something missing, it’s as if she was supposed to see something and didn’t, and it’s starting to scare her, more than anything else has in a very long time.
It doesn’t completely hit her and maybe, maybe that’s better. But she can feel herself start to tense. She doesn’t want to flee but this isn’t a conversation she needs to stand in. It isn’t for her.
She reaches forward and brushes her fingers against the coffee mug in House’s hand. Her fingers graze his knuckles instead and then her hand drops back, swinging into her side. Her heart starts to race.
“I’m going to go for a run,” she says finally.
House nods. She lets him keep her coffee, stepping around him. She stops next to Wilson and forces some kind of smile.
“It’s good to see you,” she says too. She kisses his cheek. She feels his hand drop to her hip and pat it lightly. We’ll talk later, she almost says. She doesn’t. She doesn’t want to go there unless she has reason too.
When she leaves the kitchen, the hushed conversation starts behind her. She’s not surprised.
Coming back, Cameron runs the longer route. There are houses along the park that she hasn’t seen.
She doesn’t focus. Her mind is everywhere, trying to pin down the odd comment and moment that she may of missed. It was in his voice, she thinks. It was the way he somehow, out of the blue, asked her to come.
She guesses and guesses, running faster and harder. Sweat starts to slide against her skin, along the back of her neck and pressing into her skin. She stops, breathing hard, just at the end of the block; she’s somewhere between the park and the apartment building, and when she looks up, she can see the apartment building standing closer, taller in front of her.
Her eyes close. Reaching up, she pulls hard at her headphones. She takes a moment and then breathes, her eyes opening slowly as she reaches for the headphones and loops them around her neck. She starts to walk.
House sits outside the apartment building. She stops at the bottom of the stairs when she sees him.
“Sorry,” he calls, and she stops, watching him. Sweat slides along the column of her throat, stretching over the cotton of her t-shirt. She brushes her bangs away from her eyes and shakes her head.
She doesn’t know what to think. In sense, nothing’s changed.
It starts to build again, outside of what she was feeling earlier. She’s angry, then she’s sad, then she’s tired and disappointed. It hits her together and then separately, folding into a range of feelings that she hasn’t felt this heavily in a very long time. It takes her back, too far back, and she looks at him, really looks at him, as a lump grows in the back of her throat.
It’s different with nothing to hide. Her hands brush over her hips.
“Why did you ask me to come?” she asks softly. Her eyes close, then open, and she wants to say something else. But she tries to stay leveled.
“Why did you come?” he asks. He sighs too.
“No,” she says. “You don’t get to have that question. Why did you ask me to come? Why not be honest with me from the get-go?” She stops and her voice is trembling. “I’m - I’m not going to be like everyone else. I’m not going to tell you either, over and over again. We’re past that.”
He looks away. “I know,” he says.
House shifts and he knocks himself into his cane. It falls and clatters at his feet, scattering between them as she stares. She shifts from foot to foot, fidgeting as she feels herself start to twist. Her mind is spinning.
Say something, she wants to tell him. And maybe that’s it, maybe this is why they’re here; he wants her to yell and scream, to tell him that she’s like everyone else and that this happened and she never wants to see him again. Maybe he wants to fold, or maybe it’s that it’s not him or her or whatever’s missing, it’s that this was never meant to get this far.
Maybe she should be angry. This happened for a reason.
“Wilson wants me to move out.”
He says it finally. She turns away, looking out into the street. She sees people start to appear at the odd end of the park, across the street. Someone walks by them too and a few cars turn onto the block.
“Okay,” she says.
“He’s going to move in with his ex-wife,” he says.
She says nothing.
“I had the weekend to finish. Then I figured - well, I wanted to see you. I moved back into my old place and - ”
She holds up a hand. “I don’t want to know,” Cameron says quietly. “I don’t understand what - ” she stops, catching herself. Her eyes are wide.
It hits her again, then again, and when she turns, meeting his gaze, it dawns on her. It dawns on her in a way that feels too sudden and too heavy. He’s staring at her, as he expected this, as if he knew that she was going to find out and this is what would happen. It disappoints her. It makes her furious and the anger is building almost like a panic. She can’t look at him. She doesn’t want to know why.
Turning around again, Cameron rubs her eyes. She’s quiet, exhausted, and she can feel him watching her. Her heart is pounding against her chest. There’s a lump in her throat and she can feel herself take a step back.
“You wanted to make sure,” she says softly, almost in disbelief.
“No,” he counters.
“You used me because you wanted to make sure. You wanted to make sure that somebody thought you were good enough, that I’d somehow decide to take my words back and make it okay. Jesus, House.”
Her hands press against her face. Her jaw is locked. She breathes. She breathes again, trying to make sure. But she’s shaky.
“I can’t believe I’m so stupid. I can’t believe that I’d think that something is happening and that I’d be okay with something happening, about trusting you. I don’t want to be in the middle of this. I don’t care about -”
But then House is standing, and his hand closes around her wrists, pulling her hands from her face. His grip is awkward and too hard. She doesn’t look at him. She can’t. She can’t even decide between being angry and sad, or sad and angry; there’s a part of her that should’ve known, just known that he’s still this cruel.
“I told you - ” he keeps his hand around her wrists, “ - I told you, you’re different.”
She shakes her head. Her eyes burn and she’s mortified; there’s almost nothing left that she can protect.
“It doesn’t work like that,” she breathes.
“Cameron.”
“I don’t want to know.”
“Cameron,” he repeats. He forces her name out. “Look at me.”
“I don’t want to know,” she breathes, shutting her eyes. She doesn’t pull back. There’s nowhere to go.
“You need listen to me.”
“How can I? I don’t have anything else to give. There’s nothing left, House. I - just - I can’t believe you. I came here. I came here.”
She hears him and then hears herself. The back and forth is unlike them, maybe even too exposed. There’s nothing careful, nothing kind, and she’s about ready to snap. It’s another breaking point. He wanted another breaking point, she tells herself. This is why he didn’t think she’d come.
It’s why he didn’t tell her either. She tries to pull back again, but his grip tightens.
“I want you to trust me,” he says quietly.
She laughs, shaking her head. The hard sound burns through her throat, pulling at the roof of her mouth. She trembles again. She bites her lip. “You want me to trust you,” she breathes. “How - I - listen to yourself. Just listen.”
“Stop talking,” he growls.
It startles her and he drops her hand. His eyes are wide and they’re both breathing heavily as if the words mean so much more than either of them really understand.
His body twists slightly, just as his neck cranes back and he looks into the street. Her gaze follows, almost out of habit, and it takes her moment to realize that he’s still holding her other hand.
“I’m in this place. I know. Then I don’t know. I’m in this place.”
He drops her other hand. Her arms immediately fold against her chest. His voice is distant and she pulls herself to stand straighter.
“Were you going to tell me?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know,” she repeats.
Her voice drops and she stares at him. It’s not about who hears her. It doesn’t even matter anymore. She doesn’t work for him. She’s not married. And even if that was the case, she’s never been one to hide or play this game with him. It was never about these games between the two of them.
“I’m in this place,” he says. He stops then.
She has to turn around. She can’t look at him too long. She doesn’t even know how to gather herself together again.
And it’s not anger, maybe it wasn’t even anger to begin with. It’s the swell of disappointment, however, the way it weighs and stands over her head. It’s nothing like she’s ever felt before, not with him in mind. Because she’s been angry at House, sad because of House, and these are the things that she’s gotten over, maybe with little or no change in mind.
Disappointment is different. Disappointment changes the face of how she looks at him, how she looks at this and what this may have meant to the two of them. And for the first time, since she’s arrived and this become more than small moment, she gets that. She lets herself get it.
“I can talk to you.”
House starts again, absent. She’s quiet.
“I can talk to you - not like anyone else, not that I care about talking to anyone else … but you’re here, and then you’re there, and it hasn’t changed, this wanting to talk to you, this wanting to see you. I didn’t think you’d come.”
It’s awkward and stiff, his reply, and it doesn’t make any of this better. Her shoulders drop. She tries focusing for a moment, but can’t. She only knows how to hear him. She doesn’t know what to say back.
She listens as House steps closer. His feet shuffle into the ground. There’s a pause and something scrapes against the ground. She turns slightly and he’s picked up his cane, balancing it against his palm; then, he stops again. It’s followed by the sound of cane tapping too, that feels familiar, and she lets herself breathe.
“There was an accident,” he tells her. “You told me to figure it out when we talked, way back. I don’t know. I don’t care. You told me and I guess I listened. I’ve been talking to my shrink. You told me to figure it out too. So.”
Her eyes open. She feels his hand curl in the back of her shirt, making a fist in the fabric. He seems to drag himself closer, not to press against her but to hover, if anything else, as if he could see her too.
“I want you to trust me,” he continues. “That changed, you know, when you left this time around - in my goddamn office. That’s what was different. That’s what I figured out. Everybody else has this goddamn need to trust me to get something.”
“I’m not going to do this,” she says quietly. She shakes her head. “I’m not going to be the one that’s there when you -”
“There was an accident.”
He’s shaking. It takes her a minute to realize; from the change in the way his hand digs into the fabric of her shirt and how his knuckles against the small of her back seem unsteady. There’s something personal about the gesture, and something childish, and when she turns, she meets his gaze with a soft sigh.
They stare at each other. There’s something dark in his gaze, something that she knows as familiar. She’s in it too, a long time ago, when it was him and her and she was wrapping a bandage around his hand. It’s something that doesn’t go, something that can’t be changed, and she wonders if that’s all a part of this, a part of his inability to accept himself and the kind of change that’s being forced.
Slowly, she twists and pries his fingers away from her shirt. He stares at her hard and she tries not to think about it, shifting closer her and then letting his hand drop. She meets his gaze again but doesn’t smile. She shakes her head.
“I -” she stops and then sighs, leaning in and brushing her fingers against his chest. She tries to start again.
“It’s fine,” he tells her.
He then looks away. He doesn’t pull back and she makes the decision there.
“This is not okay,” she says, and says it softly, against his ear as she wraps her arms around him. She’s furious, so furious with him, but her fingers brush through his hair and then lightly against the back of his neck.
He breathes into her shoulder. She feels his body sag into hers.
“I know,” he says.
For a moment, she lets him stay close.
Wilson knocks on the bedroom door. House has gone back to the hospital because of a page.
She’s not okay. She knows she’s not okay and when Wilson knocks again, she’s running a towel through her wet hair. It spills over her shoulder when she straightens and he offers an awkward smile.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
She forces a slight smile. “It had nothing to do with you,” she murmurs.
“I feel like I did something though.”
She shrugs. She doesn’t reassure him. This doesn’t involve and ironically, it’s back to boundaries again. She’s always been clear about where she stands and how things stand with her. Wilson, somehow, always knew this too.
When she turns, she hears him sigh. She moves to her suitcase on the floor and kneels, searching through her clothes.
“How’s Chicago?” he asks then.
She doesn’t answer, standing. There’s nothing else to say, she thinks. She’s neither here nor there with her thoughts, and Wilson seems to understand that, stepping into the room as she pulls her suitcase to the bed.
She stares at it and then opens the flap, brushing her fingers against the few clothes that she did bring again. She picks up a sweater. It folds over her hands, covering her fingers. She blinks and then drops it back over her clothes.
“I’ll be out of your way soon,” she says finally.
It takes too much of her energy to convince herself to stay, at least for the rest of the day, and until she had originally planned to leave. Sitting outside the apartment building, she waits for House on the steps, much like she found him when she was coming back from her run.
For the first time she’s been here, she thinks about calling someone else. She still has friends here. Jack’s sister - but she can’t remember if they’re still on their honeymoon or not, and if that’s something she really wants to walk into.
She doesn’t want to explain House either. She brushes her hands over her jeans and looks out into the street. There’s more traffic, more people walking in and out of the park, more people walking to their cars. She gets a few stares when someone passes her to walk into the building but she pays no attention.
House’s motorcycle rounds the corner finally. She doesn’t know how long she’s been sitting outside, but Wilson’s long since left. She watches him as he parks in between two cars, a tiny space, but he seems unfazed and pulls off his helmet as if he’s done this many times before.
When he sees her, he says nothing. He moves to the stairs and sits carefully, gripping his thigh as his eyes close. She listens to him grunt and keeps her gaze straight and steady into the street. They haven’t talked about earlier since he’s left.
“Thirteen’s gone,” he says slowly.
“Everything okay?” she asks politely.
He looks over at her. “Don’t.”
She rubs her eyes. She makes the decision then. It’s not House’s place, she reasons, and knowing, knowing now that she’s stepped into the middle of something, where there are other players and other players that she knows, leaves little to want or need.
She looks back up at House. “I’m checking into a hotel room.”
“Okay,” he murmurs. He’s disappointed and she almost says something. But she’s angry and not spiteful; it’s the kind of thing that she doesn’t have in her, and even if she did say something, it’s just would be right.
Instead she nods in kind. Her fingers brush her hair out of her eyes. He carefully puts his cane between them and then drops his elbows over his knees.
“I don’t know what to say,” she says quietly.
“This isn’t what I wanted.”
Her mouth curls. It’s a habit and the smile isn’t even a real smile, tired at best.
“You know my answer to that.”
“Yeah,” he sighs.
He reaches for her hand and takes it. Their fingers don’t lace and she doesn’t ask about Cuddy. Maybe he expects her to, she thinks. But she won’t give him that.
It’s back to what she can and cannot give. He drops her hand. She pulls it back to her knees and then her lap, leaning over them.
He looks at her. “You were right,” he says slowly, “to say what you said. I know it’s not what you’re looking for. But you were.”
“I was -” she shakes her head, “- you broke me, you know? Not that first time, not the next, but that time, you broke me. It wasn’t just you. And I’m not - I’m not putting all the blame on you either. They were my decision. They’ve always been my decision. But I don’t know what I have left anymore.”
“That’s not what I wanted to do.”
She meets his gaze. “Were going to tell me?” she asks and unlike before, she’s not asking out anger. She’s tired and she’s disappointed. She can’t even muster the energy to really face him with a straight face.
“Ever?” she adds. “And I don’t know isn’t - that doesn’t work anymore.”
He sighs. “I know.”
You have to come and get me, she nearly tells him. She’s not going to be the one who comes, who puts herself out there this way. It’s her fault and maybe under the idea of trusting him this way, she forgot that it’s never really that simple.
He sighs loudly. He leans back against the stairs.
“I was waiting to screw up.”
She watches House’s hands against his knees. He begins to rub them over his jeans, curling fingers into fists and then rubbing them raw.
“I don’t know what to do with you,” he says too. “I don’t know where you fit. And you don’t want anything from you other than - you just want me. I don’t know what that means, I guess. I don’t know how to handle that. I don’t know how I’m supposed to handle that. Everything else, everything else outside of you makes sense.”
“I’m not -”
“You don’t let me stick to perceptions,” he cuts her off.
“Why I should I?”
She’s decided that she’s done being angry with him and maybe that was finished long before whatever this is started. She outgrew her anger and that final push might’ve been when she stood in his office that last time.
“That’s not what I learned from you,” she says, and she’s calm. There’s nothing left other than being honest. “It wasn’t about everybody lying or patients doing this or that, or my capabilities as doctor. You were there for that, sure, but those are the things that I had to get through myself.”
She rubs her eyes. He blinks and she catches it as she leans back too.
“I learned to not let myself be comfortable. You’re too used to that.”
“Being comfortable?”
She looks up at him. “Yeah,” she says quietly.
He says nothing. She doesn’t push either. It means what he needs it to mean and maybe going back, getting to Chicago, this may have been what she need to really move on. Then again, this isn’t about moving on either.
There is something familiar about it too, like the first moment when she realized, when she knew that she loved him, loves him, and that was going to be it. She knows he knows and she can speculate: maybe this is to break her down, this could always be a test, and there are always going to be a number of reasons that she can pick and choose from. There’s always something to make sense.
But this is why she’s disappointed and tired, not angry and screaming - she’s done with that, she’s done with giving too much when there are things that she knows he already has. There’s nothing to hide and that, right there, is how she knows that those feelings haven’t changed. She doesn’t want to hide.
“So.”
His voice breaks over her thoughts. Her throat tightens and she shakes her head, her mouth curling slightly. They stood out here earlier, she reminds herself. But then she let that go.
“I’m not going to keep coming back,” she says softly. It means so much now. She’s not going to come when he asks. She’ll talk but because she wants to. She’s clear. She can’t be any clearer.
“I know.”
She shakes her head. “You don’t,” she says.
“I want you to stay.”
Her mouth opens, but then he shakes his head too. He reaches for her hand and she watches quietly as his fingers curl around her wrist. The hold is brief and then his fingers begin to move against her palm, over the lines. She watches as he stares at her hand and then brings it up to his mouth, brushing a kiss over her skin.
She exhales and it’s shaky, and almost out of habit, she finds herself leaning into him. Her eyes close and her head drops against his shoulder.
He needs to know, she thinks. “I’m so angry at you,” she mumbles, and means it not to be cruel, but to honest like everything else.
He laughs but it’s a hard sound, coarse as if it were caught in his throat. But it’s the closest she’s felt to him, she thinks, since she’s been here. It’s almost sensible and necessary, something unexpected but something that she doesn’t touch.
“You’re not staying,” he says.
“I’m not,” she says.
He makes a sound that seems like a laugh again, but she pays no attention. Her fingers curl in his arm and she feels his mouth press into her hair. It’s their moment still and that’s something that stays the same too.
It’s acknowledgment. Somehow, it’s like he’s catching up.
Her gaze is soft but she doesn’t look at him. You need to figure yourself out, she almost says. But she’s done talking.
For now, the two of them sit.
The morning is wet and cold and rain from the night before sticks to the window in the kitchen, spreading against the glass as she waits for her coffee.
There is no Wilson in the kitchen and House is somewhere down the hall, on the phone with the hospital. Cameron rubs her eyes and tries not to think about it. There’s no hotel and she’s not thinking about. There’s an early flight and she hasn’t told him, but she’s sure he knows anyway. She’s going home and in a little while, it’ll be easier to focus.
But behind her, she hears the rustle of papers and then a sigh. She turns slowly and faces House at the counter, closer and watching her. He’s holding mail and his phone again and she waits, picking up her empty mug.
He meets her gaze. “It’s my turn,” he tells her.
-
and there are more notes: I wrestled with the idea of playing with the finale with this series, which is part of the reason why I split this up into two. I wanted to make this timeline friendly with what’s going on and well, secretly, you know me I’m a canon-masochist. But I think it’s important for them to tackle that, and tackle in the right way, to make room for where they’re going.
I think there’s going to be at least four more parts because I have issues and issues gone wild! with what happened this season and how I’m trying to work them out. And secretly, I love the number nine. But I’m super excited that everybody is enjoying it.