Fic: what makes a line

[fated_addiction]

what makes a line
house md ; house/cameron ; 4,251 words, PG
we write our own definitions for boundaries. spoilers for lockdown and the finale.

notes: Seventh in a series following check your facts, you could be more understanding, when writing distance, chicago the windy city, so remember now: one and two, and neighborhoods. For the wonderful, ever-so supportive blueheronz, as my love affair with this series wouldn’t be possible without you.

There are definitely two more parts left in this. I’m catching up on comments - it’s been pretty crazy as of late - but I really appreciate everybody sticking with the series and my crazy, unexpected rebirth of love for stuff. *laughs* I hope you enjoy!

-

He starts cooking in her kitchen the next night but they haven’t talk. She stands in the doorway, watching him. Her arms fold against her chest. She tries not to think about the familiarity of the moment.

“Why are you really here?” she asks, and she hasn’t bothered changing from the hospital. She’s left her bag at the door and when he looks up, his hand stops moving the knife over the cutting board. The truth is, she feels like she’s only really been home for a few minutes.

“I told you,” he says.

“Not really,” she shoots back. She moves into her kitchen. There are empty grocery bags on the counter. She starts gathering them, folding them inside each other. “You said you’re doing something about it, you said you want to be here, and you said that -”

“I know what I said,” he cuts her off.

They stare at each other. House puts the knife down, wiping his hands against his jeans. She hasn’t asked about Cuddy, about what’s happening back in Princeton; she doesn’t want to, and it’s selfish, but at the same time, it’s something that he needs to tell her too. She can’t continue to push by herself.

Rubbing her eyes, she steps over to the counter. She stands next to him, picking up a piece of carrot and popping it into her mouth. She smiles a little, then looks back up at House. He’s too serious.

That’s what she wanted, she thinks. “This is hard to believe,” she murmurs. By no means, it’s an admission. “You have to give me that,” she says.

“I know.”

He reaches for the knife again and then a cucumber. There’s an array of vegetables on the counter. There’s color and the idea that he’s cooking, for her, brings a kind of warmth to her place that she hasn’t given herself the luxury of having yet.

“I didn’t say you had to. But I know,” he adds and she turns, moving to the sink to wash her hands. The water is startled over her palms, running between her fingers, and then to the drain.

It’s silly, she thinks. She hopes that the hospital smell has sort of faded away; it’s more distinct now, or maybe she’s noticing more, but it’s something that she brings home. It’s something completely different when there’s no one else understanding what it’s like to bring this home.

But she’s distracted too. The city is written into the backdrop of her window, high lights and dark clouds. If she wanted to, she could make out few bits of buildings; in her head, the names change from time to time.

“No,” she says. “You don’t know. You don’t know that it’s really great for you to be here, to say these things, and then, then I have to remind myself that if you’re here, it means - it could mean that you want something more, you need something from me or someone else didn’t give it to you. I don’t want to be used, House. I don’t want to leave. I’m trying to be okay.”

“Is that why you married Chase?” he asks, and he’s curious, his brow furrowed and his mouth set into a frown. It’s almost childlike, genuine, how he’s suddenly looking at her and she’s taken aback, trying to place this for herself.

She looks away. “No.”

He says nothing in response. Cameron reaches for a nearby drawer, pulling her gaze away from the window. She finds a knife and then starts to cut as well. She doesn’t ask what he’s cooking, but assumes her place for the moment. It’s what he’s done, at the very least, by coming here.

The scene is this then: they stand side by side, different vegetable piles scatter on and off the cutting board, and House seems comfortable like this. She resists the urge to sneak a glance. It’s easier to avoid questions though.

House clears his throat. He grabs a bowl from his side. “We all want nice things,” he says then. His hands move calmly, pulling all the vegetables into the bowl.

“I know.”

“Sometimes the nice things that we want are the nice things that we shouldn’t have, or could’ve had we been other people - when we don’t want it, I - damn it,” he mutters. “Look, I’m not going to give you a speech.”

“I didn’t ask for a speech.”

His gaze is heavy. His hands still over the bowl. She waits for him to say something, but he doesn’t. The silence is awkward and tense, and she reaches forward, pulling bits of vegetables off of his hand. Her fingers linger.

“There’s a lot of things about you that -” he stops and shakes his head, “I don’t know where the hell I should put you. I know you know. There’s no need to give me that stupid face you usually give me - ”

His hands drop. Her hands move to her sides. “House,” she says.

“I’m here,” he continues, and it’s as if he didn’t hear her, or doesn’t want to hear her, “and I want to see what this means, if this means something. You’ve made it into something. For me, it was easier to leave it alone.”

She stares at him. His eyes dart around the room. He straightens, tensing, and it’s as if he were almost panicking. But for House to panic, it’s to remember that it’s a different kind of panic, something darker and manic; something that affects everyone else around him.

“Just - just tell me this time,” she says.

She tries not to look away. His mouth shifts, as if he were setting himself up to smile, and she finds herself tensing again.

“I’m screwed up,” he says simply.

“You think I’m any better?” she asks, shaking her head.

There’s so much that she’s already said, that she’s given to him and hasn’t even thought about it twice. There’s something different about standing here with him, as if she were waiting for him to catch up. It’s as if he knows now.

He takes a step forward, closer. His fingers brush against her hip. She remembers she’s still wearing her scrubs. The green counters the red, wet flush of his skin. She swallows, watching his hand, and when she shifts, his fingers grasp her wrist. The grip is tight, then it loosens, and when his hand drops, they stay close.

“Yes,” he says then.

She looks away, her eyes closing. “Don’t say things you can’t mean,” she says quietly.

Early morning she’s called back for an accident. When she leaves, House is on her couch, stretched on his back with his chin tucked slightly onto his shoulder.

The television is on. She remembers this with an odd kind of certainty.

On her way back from work House meets her halfway. There is a restaurant outside the hospital. He gives her his jacket before they walk inside.

“Your hands are shaking,” he says.

“My hands are shaking,” she says.

Her mind is everywhere else: patients crying, patients screaming, the taste of yelling directions to staff and the reassurances that placate themselves in waiting rooms. It’s been that kind of day and he seems to get that.

“I’m good at what I do,” she says then, and they sit in a booth, tucked away from view. There’s a waitress behind the counter. Cameron continues to focus on her hands. “I forget, sometimes.”

There are no names in her head. House makes a soft sound next to her. He grabs a menu and pushes it over the table. It scatters away from them.

“But sometimes I have a bad day,” she says too.

There’s this memory of medical school, quick and brief, around the same time the first or second anniversary of her husband dying hit her. Her hands used to shake badly then, before blood and families, before panicked nurses and endless chaos. She just remembers sitting and counting to ten, over and over again.

“There’s nothing wrong with a bad day.”

He nods. “Happens,” he says. She scoffs.

There is no one in the restaurant, she realizes too. There is some kind of diner setting, cooks peaking out from behind the counter. A cluster of waiters watch the news next to the soda machines.

Cameron waits to feel ashamed. She’s tired first. Her mouth opens and then closes. House shifts to sit closer to her.

“That’s -” he stops and takes one of her hands, curling his fingers into her palm. “This is why I don’t like what you do,” he says.

She laughs, but the sound is hard. There’s something inexplicably amusing about the way he says it. Maybe she’s missing the point, maybe all of this is catching up to her. She’s trying so hard to be the bigger person, to do that right thing; she has a divorce and new job under her belt after all.

“You don’t even like what you do,” she says.

“This is true.”

His fingers move over the lines in her palm. She feels his nail over her skin, picking at them as if they were scabs. Her skin flushes too, a pale pink color, and then he stops picking.

She watches his thumb smooth over her skin. Watching her, he slowly brings her hand to his mouth and presses it against her skin. The gesture is familiar. She forgets sometimes too. Sometimes she can see herself sitting there; palm to her shoulder, his mouth to her hand when there’s some kind of goodbye in tact.

“You like what it means,” she says.

He says nothing. He doesn’t disagree either. He takes their hands and presses them back into the table. Hers rests at the bottom. His hand just feels heavy.

“There was this woman,” he says, starts. His fingers press into her skin again. In her head, she sees a row of patients and their families sitting just like them. There’s no coffee but there will be. Some smells stay the same.

“There was this woman,” he tells again, and it sounds familiar, as if they have had this conversation before. She watches his mouth open and close. She listens. She doesn’t push. When he looks down at her, his mouth wrinkles with a slight smirk.

“House.”

She leans into him. He rubs his eyes.

“Wait.”

“House, I just -”

He makes a sound that seems like a laugh. He leans back into her.

“You know how I am,” he says too and he looks at her, gripping her hand still. She’s forced to turn towards him, or turns towards him without thinking, sitting pressed knee to knee, watching him hold her hand. “There’s always one,” he adds. “She was another one and I was tired, really tired. I’ve been tired all year, ever since I walked out of the crazy house. I’m just tired.”

She shakes her head. “There’s always going to be one woman, one man, one family - there’s always going to be a time where you’re supposed to be human and you sort of have to find - ”

She stops. It feels contrived, talking this way. She’s not that person. He’s not that person either. These are things that they know how to respect. She understands lines and boundaries more than he allows himself to understand. But there’s no need to talk to each other this way, she thinks.

She lowers her gaze too. The waitress walks around the counter and catches Cameron’s gaze. She starts towards them but then stops.

“You’re good at what you do,” she murmurs as the waitress turns around, and somewhere in there, there’s an apology, “You don’t need reassurances.”

“I’m only good at what I do.”

He means it. His knee presses harder into her leg, as it slips. She shifts forward too as he moves his arm to rest behind her. It’s awkward and it’s almost funny; she’s too tired to laugh and drops her head, resting it lightly against the crook of his neck. She presses a kiss against his throat. It feels shy and she lingers, if only to be selfish.

“I didn’t run,” he murmurs, his fingers brushing lightly against her hair. He doesn’t add, she doesn’t push, and it seems to be established that they’ve stepped away from that kind of game. She doesn’t think about her last visit.

This is the start of something else: there’s no waiting, no talking, but acting. He touches her more, slowly, thoughtfully, and in such a way that it feels like the two of them have been with each other for years. She feels the irony and maybe, when it’s time, she’ll be able to laugh about this too.

“I know,” she says.

She looks up at him, drawing back. His gaze holds hers.

“Will you go back?” she asks.

“Probably,” he says. “I don’t know. I’m not done there.”

She doesn’t reply. There’s no memory of how this really started and it’s at the point where things like that have stopped mattering. They’ve moved on. It’s about the decisions to be made.

She rubs her eyes. “I’m not going to turn you away,” she says and shifts, pulling her legs onto the seat. She looks over to the counter again. The waitress nods at her and Cameron nods back. She doesn’t feel hungry. It doesn’t matter anyway.

They have lived other lives. She knows that he’s loved other people and for her, for her there had been one, just one, that she can really, genuinely say that he might’ve, could’ve been it. But she feels older now, and wiser even, and it’s such a strange point to come to.

When the waitress stops in front of their table, his fingers touch her hair briefly, then his lips against her jaw. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs against her ear.

This is something she should’ve expected. Later the day happens to catch up.

Her mother is a small woman. She stands in the doorway, facing the two of them, impeccably pressed. It was sometime after the restaurant, that House bought beer for her place. There is a movie on the television and this is how Cameron finally remembers lunch.

“I’m sorry,” she starts, but her mother doesn’t hear her, or pay attention, watching as House walks to the both of them. He eyes her mother and the way she grips her bag. Cameron steps closer to House, watching. “Mom,” she says again.

“So you worked for him,” her mother interrupts, almost absently, as if she were ready to talk to Cameron about forgetting lunch, twice even. She fixates on the sudden addition in her apartment. Cameron nearly laughs though as the older woman stares House down.

“She did,” House says. He smirks. He brings the beer to his mouth, wiping some of it off before he passes it to her. “Several times, actually.”

“Stop,” Cameron mutters.

It’s awkward, not strange. There’s a place for her mother and a place for House and it’s something that she doesn’t know how to think about yet.

But when her mother looks back at her, she takes a step forward and grabs Cameron’s arm. It’s simple gesture and House pulls back the beer from her hand. She doesn’t know what to think or to laugh, if that’s what she’s supposed to do.

This is one of those moments, she thinks, that she’s not going to fight.

“She talks about you,” her mother says finally, and looks at House directly, when she says it, with a strange mix of firmness and curiosity. Her mother’s eyes are wide, bright, and serious. Cameron looks for the kindness that she knows, but there’s something different about the way her mother looks at House. It makes her uneasy, the room for a quick understanding.

“And good things, huh?” House replies. His voice is dry.

Her mother doesn’t blink. “Yes.”

It ends quickly. There’s a nod and Cameron feels like she’s missed something, just as House turns and sits down on the couch. The volume of the television gets louder and her mother wraps a hand around her wrist.

When they get to the door again, the older woman sighs. “Be smart,” she says and Cameron shakes her head. It’s one of those moments where her mother sounds like her father and she’s too aware of looking at someone who’s not at all like her.

She loves her parents, she thinks. Her mother leaves and the door shuts in front of Cameron just as sharply as the woman’s arrival came to her. She moves back into the living room and before she sits, House hands her the beer. She shakes her head.

“Good things?”

“You didn’t - don’t worry about it,” she says. Her hands rub over her knees. “She’s my mother,” she says too, almost defensive. She’s trying to remember the things that she’s said about House to her mother, but can’t really piece together anything that seems too important and with heavy weight. This makes her nervous.

“She doesn’t look like you,” House says.

Cameron looks down. There’s a napkin on the coffee table. She picks it up. Her fingers curl around the napkin as a fist.

“I look like my father,” she says.

He stares at her. There’s no hesitation.

What she knows is that he’s here, and that because he’s here, House is going to leave and go back to Princeton. They don’t talk about how he’s a creature of habit. She gets it anyway. There are some things that are just understood.

It’s late Sunday night when she wakes up because she can’t sleep. There is a suitcase tucked in the corner of her living room, by her bookcase. The television is on and she can see House, awake and watching.

She hovers by her bedroom door, peering into the room. The light from the television catches House reflection too, making him longer and somehow more real in the back of her mind. But she knows he catches her when he clears her throat. She still makes no indication that she’s watching.

“Tomorrow morning,” he says. “Early,” he adds.

“I can give you a ride,” she says and she says it gently; she’s not angry that he came and didn’t tell her when he was planning to leave. There’s no reason to be angry with him anymore and she’s never really been able to stay angry with him. There is disappointment. She knows how to be sad. It’s combination of both that holds more weight with him as well.

“Do you want to?”

She shrugs. She tries to read how this feels. There’s no indication that this is a goodbye; there has never really been any indications between them.

“We’re going to keep having phone conversations,” he says and it’s a strange promise, still the right promise, the right thing to say, and something he may thing she wants to hear. Out of habit, she wonders if he’s trying to pull a reaction.

“Probably,” she says.

She moves away from the door. The television light peels away at her skin, coloring it different blues and red. She sees a headline flash past her as she walks around the couch. When he looks up at her, he shifts and the blankets seem to loop over his leg.

“Are you okay with that?”

She laughs huskily. She sits on the coffee table, in front of the television. He looks at her and she shakes her head, merely amused.

“Why do I have to go back?” she asks. “If anything, I have more reasons to stay here. I have family. I have good friends. I’m starting to see myself long-term in the job that I have now. I’m not saying that it’s perfect, but it’s getting easier to.”

“You don’t want to come back,” he says.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

He blinks. Her gaze meets his. “There are strings attached with going back and you know, as well as I do, that going back is never really going back.”

“You don’t need to work for me,” he says and there’s something genuine about the way he says it. She almost smiles too.

House fidgets. She studies the blanket, watching as it slowly begins to touch the ground. She believes him, she thinks. She’s never not when the conversation is like this. She just worries too.

“I don’t want to work for you,” she murmurs.

He clears his throat. There’s a point where she stopped thinking about the last visit, about Wilson coming to see him, wanting to protect him. There are people that don’t allow him to live and yet again, she’s almost giving into the curiosity, thinking about what might’ve happened in Princeton.

His hand drops on her leg. “What if I stayed?”

That startles her; her eyes are wide. “Do you want to stay?”

“I don’t know,” he says slowly. He doesn’t finish. His brow furrows. “I don’t know how to start over again,” he says too.

“No one says you have to,” she murmurs.

He barks a laugh. The corners of her mouth twist. She watches his fingers as they begin to move against her knee. He picks carefully at the fabric, playing his thumb along the arch of her calf.

“You scare me,” he says simply. Her hand stills over his, her fingers pressing along his palm. She turns his hand to study it.

“So you’ve told me,” she answers.

His hand curls around hers. He tugs her forward and she moves, following, slowly kneeling by the couch. His hand pulls hers to his chest and they rest together over the blanket. She stares at them.

Her knees begin to hurt though. She doesn’t think about it and leans over him, her mouth brushes against the back of his hand. It’s like the restaurant. It’s like every other time she comes close to him; these are simple gestures, nothing grand or over the top. She likes to think too that he knows, knows to well that she means what she means and that’s what he says back to her when he tells her that she scares him.

“I want - ” he stops. She meets his gaze. Her eyes are wide. “You know what I want,” he finishes. His voice is low.

She sighs softly. “Yeah,” she says, “I think I do.”

This has been a long time coming, she wants to say. It’s neither appropriate nor true. What they are is what they’ve always been. She respects that, needs that, and in very few words, she’s tried to tell herself time and time again that she can’t have that.

His mouth presses against her forehead. Her eyes close.

“I don’t need flowers,” she starts blindly, “ I outgrew them years ago. I don’t need someone who’s going to measure himself against what I do or what I want to do. I know it’s more complicated than asking for someone to come home to. I know I come with a lot of baggage and a lot secrets that I’m not really sure I’m ready to share or may never really be. But then you know that too.”

He makes a sound over her. “She said she loved me.”

“I think she did,” she murmurs. “I think you’re an easy - I think there are a lot of moments that make it easy to be in love with you.”

“But?”

She’s quiet. Her cheeks flush. There has always been their office, maybe a chapel, and a few corners of the hospital that she now forgets. This is personal. This is different and there’s nothing escaping that.

“You can’t love someone because of just moments. It’s not chore. It’s not a competition. It’s not because you want to fix them and make them into something more.” She stops. Her gaze meets his. Studying him, she sighs softly. “You’re not going to get a declaration from me, House, if this why you came - I don’t do declarations. I don’t really know how to.”

“I don’t want a declaration.”

He means it in his way. Her mouth turns into a slight smile. She pulls herself up then, shifting to sit on the couch. There’s not enough space but House wraps his arm around her lap. His fingers press against her hip.

There’s room to say it, she thinks too. She looks down for a moment, her brow furrowed. She feels his fingers slide over her t-shirt, then under, brushing over her skin. His hand is steady and maybe she gets it now, maybe it’s time to let herself say it and not think about the kind of repercussions.

There’s nothing left to hide. “I loved you first,” she says quietly. “I loved you then. I love you now. That won’t change. I don’t need you to say it back.”

His mouth opens. It closes. He turns his hand back over and then, one by one, weaves his fingers through hers. He tugs her forward, over him, and lets his hand slide through her hair.

They tug at the strands and she feels his mouth graze hers, or her mouth graze his - it doesn’t matter. There are details that she’s never really going to hold. But his mouth grazes hers again, then again, as if he were trying to say something to her. She may only feel a smile. Somehow, what she wants is the same thing.

When he kisses her, she lets him.

In the morning he misses his flight.