Fic: you wrote your myths

[fated_addiction]

you wrote your myths
house md ; house/cameron ; 4,000 words, PG
and then there’s this: when we grow up. spoilers for lockdown and the finale.

notes: Eighth 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, what makes a line. For the wonderful, ever-so supportive blueheronz, as my love affair with this series wouldn’t be possible without you.

Oh, god. I feel like I’m eternally behind in everything. But there’s one more part left! *laughs* And as always, I’m really thrilled that you guys are enjoying this.

-

In August, there is Princeton. They don’t even think about it.

She says to him: “We’re not hiding.”

The apartment is deceptively neat; and there are things that haven’t moved, the high bookshelves and the small kitchen, the television that balances itself in the middle of the room as if it were only meant to open the room.

She looks around, still confused. Her suitcase is in the bedroom. She listens to him behind her, as he stops and sits on the couch. Her hands move to her hips and she sighs softly. It’s hard, she thinks, not to think about why she’s here.

“It hasn’t changed,” he mutters, and she bites back a laugh, shaking her head. It doesn’t help that she’s thinking about time, from June to July, and now, the middle of August. They’ve been quiet, private, and she sort of likes the idea of the two of them being just the two of them.

It’s different too: they fight, she pushes and he pushes back, he makes her dizzy and angry and there are moments where she nearly loses it. At the same time, she finds herself happy and happy that she’s never really been able to feel or be okay with feeling since the last couple of years happened.

“I didn’t say anything,” she says and turns around. She stands in front of him. “I was just taking it all in.”

“But you will say something,” he counters.

She laughs. He pulls his keys from his pocket. The drive here from the airport was interesting. He didn’t have to come, but he did.

There is a part of her that is still worried about this, about them, about herself in this relationship. It’s a relationship and neither of them have declared that in the tradition sense of the word, and she’s okay with that, she’s patient, but he seems curiously uncomfortable with the idea that she is.

He stands then. He drops his coat on the couch next to him. The keys drop over it as well. His mouth curls slightly as he walks into her and then around her, heading to the piano. His fingers press a key, then another one.

“Sorry,” he mutters.

Cameron shakes her head. He stayed in Chicago too more days. He tried not to answer the phone too, she remembers. There is no worry of who knows.

“That’s not why I’m looking around,” she says, and moves to sit next to him at the piano. He brushes his fingers against the keys. “This is the longest I’ve been here,” she murmurs, shrugging.

“I know,” he says.

There is a cramp in her leg. Her hand drops over it and she rubs it briefly. In the back of her mind, she wonders if they’re moving fast.

“You’re regretting this,” he says. He starts to play slowly. “It’s in your face, you know. You get that look, I guess.”

She scoffs.

“I’m not trying to be an ass.”

“You’re not?” she asks dryly. Her hair brushes over her eyes.

He shakes his head.

“I’m just saying. The majority of our back and forth are these conversations -” he stops and then stops playing. She watches as he tenses. “And then you come back. I guess I don’t get it yet.”

She rubs her eyes. She reaches forward and presses a key. It makes a tiny sound, low. Next to her, House snorts.

“There’s nothing to get.” Her nose wrinkles. “You’re just going to have to trust me.”

He bats her hands away from the piano. She lets out a small laugh and he smirks, looking at her briefly.

When his hands fall over the keys, there is a small hesitation. She blinks but remembers. House begins to hum too, softly, absently, and in the back of her mind, she wonders if she’s ever sat with him before. They’ve talked. She remembers coming here too, wrapping his hand and telling him something like you need to stop, not to admonish him, but to tell him.

You’re different, he always says to her, reminds her, and in someway, she’s always falling back into analyzing that. It’s not because she needs to, but that he’s made it so that she wants to understand. He knows this too.

Leaning forward, she rests her head against his shoulder. She listens to the song. She doesn’t recognize it. There is no bating, no teasing. For a moment, the apartment seems too dark. It’s not uncomfortable though.

Her lips press against his shoulder. He drops a hand from the piano.

“I made an appointment - ” he stops, catching himself; and then he sighs, turning his head to rest against hers, “Early,” he adds, “You’re coming?”

“Yeah,” she says, and tries not to act surprised. She knows that he’s still seeing the doctor. Occasionally, he’ll talk about it as well. There are bits of frustration and regret mixed in it when he does too.

Here, his mouth turns. “Good,” he says.

He starts to play again, absently again, and she’ll pick out notes and pretend that she’ll recognize the song. She knows classical from classic rock, like everyone else, but music is eternally House’s thing.

What she enjoys is watching him play. There is the ease of his hands over his keys. His fingers are careful, not lazy, and sometimes, she can pick out bits of humor and adoration when he’s not looking.

“This is strange,” he says and for the two of them, this isn’t anything new. Either he says it, or she does, or it’s a little bit of them both. There is nothing perfect about this and there’s nothing that she expects; although, she’s had a suspicion that between the two of them, before he decided to stay and she decided to go, the first or second time, something happened between them, something that neither she nor House can really explain or express.

He hasn’t told her anything. She has said love you for a total of three times, and she remembers, because they were moments when it was needed. She’s not expecting anything and she wonders if that’s it, if he’s pushing himself in a way that he thinks she may need or want.

“I know.” She laughs softly, rubbing her eyes. “I still think - I don’t know what I think anymore. It is what it is, right?”

“Right,” he says.

He stops playing again. She shifts back, away, but doesn’t stand. He closes the piano cover over the keys then.

“How can this be so easy for you?”

She tilts her head to the side. “Easy?”

“Yeah,” he says. He frowns too. “I don’t - honestly, I keep expecting you to wake up and decide that I’m an asshole and you’ve been drinking the kool aid long enough. Wouldn’t blame you. Wouldn’t be surprised either.”

“Because you’re an asshole,” she quips.

He smirks. She bites back a laugh. She thought it would be weird being in Princeton this time, in this way. She knows that there are just some things that can’t be controlled. And that scares her, scares her so much.

She’s here, she tells herself.

“This isn’t easy for me.”

“Liar,” he says. And when she doesn’t look at him, he stands. His cane falls from somewhere next to him. He pushes some papers across the top of the piano.

She shakes her head. “It isn’t,” she insists. “I keep wondering what the hell I’m doing, why it’s easier for me to open up to you than it’s been with - everyone else. It isn’t easy for me to give you everything.”

“But you are,” he says.

“I am,” she says.

He looks at her and then away. She almost catches his smile.

Dr. Nolan watches them. House fidgets. There is a strange sense of habit in the small office. Cameron tries not to let her mind wander.

“I didn’t expect you to bring anyone,” Dr. Nolan says carefully.

House shrugs. “I like to be unexpected,” he says dryly.

Cameron hides a smile. She sits next to House in front of the doctor. Her hands are folded in her lap. They walked here. Nolan has a secondary office in the city, away from the hospital. The man said something about luxury and other patients that made House roll his eyes too.

They both watch the man stand. He moves to his desk. There is a pitcher of water and he pours some into a mug. He doesn’t offer any to House, but when he turns, his gaze meets hers again.

“Thirsty?” he asks, politely too, and she straightens, shaking her head. This is one of those times where familiarity is almost necessary. Even with House next to her, she knows she’s being observed and analyzed.

“No, no thank you,” she says.

House makes a sound next to her. He pulls his cane off the floor. It hits her in the leg and she looks at him, but he looks away quickly.

“Last time we talked you were in a different place,” the other man still says. He’s watching Cameron again and she studies him in return, curious. “It’s interesting to see your different place, Dr. House.”

“That was to you,” House says to her.

She snorts. “Thanks, I think.”

“It was a compliment.” House smirks. The corners of her mouth twitch. “In case you needed to know that too,” he adds.

“I gather,” she says.

Dr. Nolan clears his throat. They both turn to look at him. He raises an eyebrow and moves back to sit in the chair in front of them.

It’s predictable like this: Nolan puts his cup down on the coffee table between their seats, only to pick it up and drink. Cameron catches his eyes over the rim of his mug. Next to her, House starts to fidget.

“Chicago is far.”

She blinks. House looks up at her. Then he turns, meeting Nolan’s gaze. Cameron swallows back with caution.

“Far?” Nolan asks. He looks at House curiously. “The distance is bothering you?”

“This isn’t about her,” House answers. He jerks a hand towards her and Cameron blinks. This makes her uneasy, she thinks. Confused, even. “It’s about me,” he says. “My problems are mine to solve,” he mutters.

He says it and she stills. We’re back here, she thinks. She can’t help it. Nolan leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees. He starts to talk too, but she’s not listening. We’re back here, she thinks again.

It’s a strange moment of panic, a strange moment of wondering if this is all she is to him, if this is what he needs, someone there, some fixated. She’s just as scared as he is because House represents something completely and utterly different in her life, although he had been a constant for so long. This isn’t about the secrets. This is about how she cares for someone this intensely.

“- have you talked about it?” Nolan asks, and Cameron merely catches the tail end of what he’s saying to her. “Chicago,” he adds.

House says nothing. His hands are curled over his legs, threaded into tight fists. Nolan is waiting for answers but he says nothing. Cameron doesn’t interject.

It’s then that she notices the cane on the floor, by his feet. It lays, half-buried in carpet and peeking underneath his jacket. It feel somewhere in the beginning, after the introductions, and maybe it’s here, where everything starts to dawn.

“It’s why you’re staying here,” she murmurs, and she’s always known that he’s a creature of habit. The why has never occurred to her. She’s always been preoccupied with knowing that he’d never offer and if she asked, it would lead elsewhere. House is as good as her at turning the subject.

They look at her too. House tilts his head in her direction. His mouth wavers and they study each other. She lets him. He lets her see.

“Sorry,” she says, turning away.

Dr. Nolan shakes his head. “You’re not interrupting.”

“She agrees it’s all about me,” House says.

Nolan snorts. She bites back a laugh.

“I didn’t say that,” she murmurs. She’s careful about what she adds. “I meant that you’re a creature of habit.”

“I’m thinking about taking a sabbatical,” he says.

Her eyes are wide. That stops her. Everything she was thinking about drops, turns, and she’s completely in the dark again. She’s sure she has some kind of look on her face because when House turns to her, he’s just looking at her. She tries to understand what that means.

You love your job, she wants to say, argue. There are certain things that she’s always thought she’s known. Now, when she looks at him, she sees him as tired.

Her lips purse. “A sabbatical?” she asks.

“Going to the crazy house isn’t exactly the place where you get a break from work,” he says and he shrugs. “I think if I’m going to do it, I might as well really do it. Like the big kids.”

“A sabbatical,” she murmurs.

Her head is spinning. She knows what that means and then doesn’t. He’s just as unpredictable in his decisions as he is with what he knows.

In front of Nolan, he takes her hand. “Chicago,” he says.

After, Nolan stops her. They are standing by the door. House goes to grab some papers from the front desk. Her eyes are wide still. Her heart is pounding.

Nolan touches her arm. “He didn’t just start talking about you,” he says.

“Were you going to tell me?” she asks as soon as they arrive at the apartment, just barely as she walks through the door. Her jacket is already in her hands and she’s twisting her fingers over the collar.

It’s an insane though, she thinks. She’s been thinking. They practically headed back to his place in silence.

“Yeah,” he says. “I was,” he says too.

It’s so strange because she knows what it means; he wants to be with her, where she is, and wrapping her head around that is a lot harder than it should be. Or maybe, she thinks, it’s supposed to be that hard.

Cameron is quiet then. She hangs her jacket behind one of the chairs by the couch. Her fingers brush over the wrinkles in the collar. She didn’t expect this to be easy. She was prepared for it not to be.

And maybe easy isn’t the right word for it, maybe, like when he showed up at her door, this is just another way of telling her. It still feels unexpected and strangely so, she finds herself blushing as she moves to sit on the couch.

“I -“

She doesn’t know how to start. House smirks, amused. He moves into the kitchen, disappearing as she stays sitting. Listening, she hears cabinets open and close. There is a rustle of something and she pulls her legs up to her chest. Her arms wrap around her legs too.

“You okay?” he asks and comes back with a beer. He sits on the coffee table in front of her, stretching his legs out. “I’m serious, you know.”

She tilts her head to the side. “You were,” she says and it feels surprised, as she says it, swallowing. It’s news but it’s not news. She doesn’t understand how to take it. “I’m glad,” she says softly, anyway.

She laughs then too.

“I guess - I know how I feel. You know that. I guess hearing it this way is such - it’s hard. I never expected you to tell me.”

He says. “This is hard,” he says, but it’s not for her. He doesn’t finish either. He reaches forward and pulls her hands away from her legs.

As his fingers thread through hers, she asks. “What can I do?” and she bites her lip too, suddenly shy. She can’t help it, she thinks.

He looks at her in surprise. “What?”

Her lips part. They watch each other and she can’t help but soften. She lets him keep her hand, but drops her legs to the floor. She shifts forward and then leans in, brushing her mouth against his.

House nearly drops her hand and her other one, frames his face. Her mouth moves slowly, lazily, and there’s this wonderful sense of ease that she gets from kissing him. It seems so stupid to think about; but the way his tongue runs over her lip, and her teeth as they nip back as his, the taste and the way he seems to swallow her sigh - it’s familiar and needed. It’s something of his that belongs to her.

When she pulls back, she gets to watch him. His eyes are closed. He leans into her hand, her palm, and she allows herself a small smile.

“It’s just - I don’t know,” she murmurs. “I’m not …” she trails off, not knowing how to really tell him. It’s strange; whether she’s ahead or he’s behind or neither of them wants to really face what’s happening, they are both in the same place.

“This is hard for me too,” she says.

“Yeah,” he sighs.

She shakes her head. She laughs too, looking down.

“I’m not - I’m not trying to be obnoxious,” she murmurs.

He rubs his eyes. “I know. I’ve listened, over and over again, to the same kind of crap that people feed to each other, over and over again too - I told myself that I’d never be that guy, the guy that people would recite those stupid reassurances. Then when I went to the hospital, I thought I could be that guy. I’m not that guy.”

“I know.”

They’ve gone here before, in variation. She knows that she’s been here before with Chase, time and time again, in different ways and for different reasons. Here, though, it means something entirely different.

He looks at her then, sighing. His words are vulnerable, but it’s the way that he looks at her. His mouth is tight. His gaze almost downcast, as if he were ashamed of what he’s saying. She only knows because she’s looked at him in the same way.

“I know you know,” he says too, and stares at the floor. His feet shuffle forward as he sighs loudly. “I told you. You’re different. And it’s been hard to see that - I saw it. Didn’t want to. I don’t trust people. You know that. I’ve lived that way for - ”

He stops. She waits. Her hands drop to her lap. She’s startled then, but a loud rush of sirens that pass outside. She straightens. There’s a thin smile from House.

“I sound stupid,” he mutters.

She shakes her head.

“So what will you do?” she asks this time. She pushes her hands off her lap. She doesn’t reach for him, but leans back, only to see him better.

He shrugs. There’s no standstill.

So she asks, asks because it seems easier. “Chicago, huh?” She lets herself pause too, trying not to be hopeful. It’s been awhile since she’s been hopefully. This is it what it suddenly means to her.

He looks at her. His hands drop over her knees again. She breathes and he exhales. It’s funny how these things move, she thinks.

She doesn’t look away. Her fingers turns and press into his palms.

“I know people,” he says finally.

The hospital thins in the middle of the day. She sits in the lobby, waiting. She remembers this.

Cameron has come because he asked her to, again and in an odd way, even though being back feels entirely different. But she’s sitting by the entrance, on a set of chairs that keeps her facing the clinic and away from too many people.

This isn’t about people knowing that she’s here. If anything, she expects it. She finds herself watching people too: nurses and doctors, some that she knows, milling around and not stopping. There are corners and crooks that are familiar, that she somehow relives, sitting and watching.

It’s not like the last time she cam back either, she thinks. There were divorce papers in her hand, over her lap. She nearly re-signed her signature, she was so nervous. She remembers leaving as well and feeling like the villain.

When she looks up, Chase is walking to her. He’s frowning.

“You’re here,” Chase says, and he stops, short, just a few feet away from her. When he looks at her, she knows that he sees she’s not here for him. This makes her sad for a moment. There will never a time too, when it doesn’t make her sad.

“I didn’t know you were coming,” he says too. There is a small, stupid part of her that wants to say we don’t talk. It’s what he wants too.

Cameron sighs. “Yes,” she says. “Yeah, I’m here.”

She stands too. When she turns, she realizes that House’s jacket is over hers. Her bag is on the floor. She checks her watch. It’s been almost forty-five minutes since House walked into the clinic.

“Um, why?” Chase asks, and it’s heavy-handed, something that makes her mouth twists. They stare at each other.

“Visiting,” she says.

There’s a look that he gives her - brows furrowed, mouth hard - that makes her think that he gets it too. She remembers standing in their apartment, watching him wander into their place, drunk and guilty and looking at her the same way. He was angry and she didn’t know why.

But here, he doesn’t get to be angry. She knows the argument, how it comes with him being right and how she, yet again, is the one that disappoints him. She’s not totally blameless in the demise of her marriage and she understands that, it’s still taking her awhile to not carry that anymore and not be hurt.

He looks at her though and that habit of apologizing wants to come out.

“For a moment then,” she says too.

Over his shoulder then, she catches House coming out of the clinic. Cuddy is behind him, following slowly, confused and cautious. Cameron walks away from Chase, picking up their jackets and her bag.

House sees her. His mouth shifts and he moves to her, away from Cuddy as she stops and stands close to the clinic. Everybody is watching them. Cameron can feel it. It’s just not theirs to have.

“Dr. Cameron,” Cuddy says, greets, and then seems to push forward, moving to them. She still holds the jackets in her hands and House moves to closer to her. “It’s good to see you,” the other woman says too.

“Dr. Cuddy,” she says in kind. She turns slightly and there is Chase too, still, even as Foreman wanders over to stand by him. There is something so strangely familiar about this, but she lets it go. It’s not supposed to be perfect.

She smiles at Cuddy. House takes his jacket from her hands. He slides into it. Then his hand brushes over her arm. She nods when he steals her gaze.

For the moment, she’s much calmer than she thought she would be. She slides into her jacket as well. Her hands push under her hair and she frees it from the collar.

When she picks up her bag, House nudges her arm. “Ready,” he tells her.

“I know,” she murmurs.

This is not the way she thought this would happen. It doesn’t even matter. She thinks at some point, it’s about learning to let go and move on at the same time, even though both are geared on as the same thing.

“I like that this is a terrible idea,” House says and she laughs softly, as they walk closely and then to the doors. It’s almost lunch, she recalls, and the two of them somehow bypass the lobby area as it begins to fill up. It feels final and somehow she’s okay with that, even if it’s for the moment.

Outside he slides an arm around her shoulder. Her mouth curls.

House buys their tickets back.