House Fic: that minute alone 4/6
that minute alone
house md; cameron-centric (house/cameron, house/cuddy) ; 3,231 words
some secrets aren’t meant to be kept, it’s who you decide to tell.
notes: This is for mathhhh and for her birthday and inspired by that infamous tumblr quote:
“Cameron finds a sense of identity in her quest to be a good person. David Shore and I spoke a lot about how Cameron has a history heavily impacted by loss… The real woman that David based Cameron on lost three siblings in a fire at a young age and then lost her husband to cancer within the first year of marriage. I have always considered all of this to be a part of Cameron’s past.”
-
The hallway is empty. It takes a minute for her to realize that she's been standing outside House's door, just waiting.
Her hand makes a fist at her side.
"You're an idiot," she tells herself, but it's not what she means to say; she knows why she's here. Down the hall, a door opens and closes. She sees a man peek at her, down at the opposite end, passing into a nook that leads to the elevators. Cameron sighs and knocks slowly.
"Something happened to you," House said to her once. This is a long time ago, and there's a patient, there's always a patient, that's just knocked her into glass. But this is after; this is a guess and a moment you don't see.
Her mouth had pursed and she had been twisting tape around her wrist. They were in the clinic. The back of her chair was sticking to her legs and she had looked up at him, completely serious as she breathes.
“It’s complicated,” she said.
“Been waiting for this moment,” he says, and smirks, dropping back down to his bed. The television is on. He stretches out while she moves to sit on the couch, studying him as he settles. Her hands slide into her coat and she makes no motion to take it off. A minute ago, she thinks, she thought she knew what she wanted to say.
House clears his throat. She shrugs and watches as he grabs the remote. The television shifts to mute and her gaze catches the news as it moves into a commercial. She’s tired, she thinks too. Maybe it’s clear, like this, around him; there are so many things, so many ways she could explain this to him.
“Have something to say?”
She snorts. “Not that easy,” she says. She pauses, biting her lip. “I feel like I’ve over exhausted it at this point. It’s that time of year.”
“Not an excuse,” he yawns. His mouth widens in exaggeration.
“I’m not making one.”
“Right.”
She looks back at him. “I’m not,” she says. “I just don’t know how to talk about it. I don’t know how to really say something beyond there was a fire, my family doesn’t know how to cope with it still, years after the fact. What do you say to that?”
“Getting institutionalized,” he smirks.
Her eyes roll. Because that helped you, she wants to say. He’s daring her. She reaches back instead, letting her fingers spread against her neck. She tugs her ponytail lightly, letting her hair spill over her shoulders. It feels heavy against her skin, as it catches her throat, and for a moment, she swears he’s staring.
She tries not to think about it. It doesn’t help her, him, and there’s a whole list of reasons why this isn’t good for either of them. She can picture it here, somehow, when he goes back, what he might say to Cuddy or to Chase even. It’s predictable at best.
“Are you going to tell her?” she stretches back and sits up, edging to the end of the couch. She kicks her shoes off, but slowly, and studies them as they hit the floor. It’s oddly comfortable. “Cuddy,” she says, “since you’re so totally and completely head over heels - or what was it that you said?”
“Sarcasm,” he mutters.
“Sure.”
“I don’t know what’s going on. And no, before you go on one of those tangents about me loving myself and horizons -”
She snorts. “Stop.”
House stops. The corners of his mouth tug. It’s amusement, maybe. She looks away and doesn’t try to linger.
“I don’t know,” he answers slowly. “Sometimes I don’t even think it’s real, that it’s something that happened, that I let happened because I needed to feel it, to keep feeling it -” he pauses too, as if he were waiting for her to fill in the rest. She doesn’t. Her mouth tightens and she slides off the couch, moving to the bed and sitting by his side. She’s impulsive, but careful. He continues as if it doesn’t happen, “She was there. She was there for a lot of things. It’s not about options. I don’t know.”
She nods. Cameron brings her hands to her face. She presses her palms into her eyes and her head feels heavy for a moment.
“You sound like me.”
He makes a low sound. Her hands drop and he’s rolling his eyes. His fingers are in the sheets too, picking at the blankets. It’s the first time she notices the wrinkles, how half the sheets are twisted and the rest seem to disappear underneath him.
“I’m serious,” she finds herself saying. Her voice stays even. It surprises her. It feels strange, for a moment, but there are other things that she remembers, smaller memories, the ones that hold passing conversations between the two of them. This is how it’s supposed to feel.
“Are you?” He reaches for her hand, and his fingers graze over her knuckles. They linger and then inch forward, over her knuckles. She watches, waiting. It doesn’t make her nervous, but it’s something that makes her careful; no one ever really knows how to read these gestures.
“Don’t mock me,” she murmurs.
“Why? Because you came here to talk?” His fingers stop over the back of her hand. She manages to swallow. “You don’t want to talk to me,” he finishes. “You already know what I’m going to say. I know that much - with you is true, whether you want to believe it or not.”
“You don’t do ultimatums well.”
He chuckles, shaking his head. His hand pulls back and he joins it with the other, over his chest.
“Says you,” he dares her.
“You haven’t told me why you’re really here.”
“So that’s it then?”
“There’s no grand mystery,” she says dryly. Her jaw locks and she looks away, swallowing for a moment.
“I didn’t say there was.”
Underneath her, she feels the sheets as they pull underneath her legs. He’s moving, almost carefully, and her thought is to get up and just go. But she can’t do that now, she thinks.
The room is quiet.
Her mother keeps the articles.
She found them once, seventeen or eighteen, just before she moved off for college, into the city and far away where she didn’t have to be part of that family, the family where nothing but sad things happened to. The articles were in a box in the attic, tucked behind baby clothes and old albums from various family milestones.
When Cameron had asked her mother, the other woman had merely sighed and shook her head. “I can’t forget,” she had said. “It’s just the way I’ve decided to carry all of this.”
Like mother, like daughter.
“You’re not telling me to leave,” House says to her, and sits up, against the headboard. They are only comfortable, she thinks, because there is no one to see them. House shifts slightly, his leg pressing into her side. It rests there and she waits for it to move.
“This is your room,” she mutters.
They stare at each other. Her fingers curl around her arm and she begins to stroke her skin. She watches him bite his lip. He leans forward too, reaching then, next to him and pulling the remote from somewhere in the covers. He turns the volume back on.
When she turns to see the screen, she catches the news. There’s the weather and the headlines, flashing under and into the bottom corners of the screen. She watches it and sighs, her breath evening out. She should go home. But there’s nothing in her pushing or willing to move. She shifts slowly then, turning towards the television. Her legs curl underneath her and she settles next to him, studying the screen.
“Do you want me to leave?”
He scoffs. “Passive much?”
“I’m being serious,” she says. “I could go back to work, pick up another shift, and then finish it, sleeping in for most of the afternoon. By then I assume you’re going to give up and forget and move on -”
“And let you wallow,” he interrupts.
“I wasn’t finished,” she chides. She looks at him and he smirks, leaning closer. Instead, he reaches for the remote again. He only tosses it off to the side. This isn’t about catching up either, she decides.
“Then?”
“I don’t know what to say anymore,” she says.
“I know.”
He sighs. “Maybe you shouldn’t say anything for awhile,” he says, and yawns, leaning back again. “Maybe you should just let yourself do - what ever it is that you do now. Waste your talents. See your mother. Find a nice boyfriend to divorce in a couple of years. I don’t know. Live your life.”
“Is that advice?” She says it like a confession, and her fingers drop to the blankets. They twist and she starts picking at the fabric, her nails scraping lightly. She wants a drink.
“It’s what you want it to be,” House says.
She looks up at him.
“That’s a cop-out,” she says. “That’s you telling me that you’re going to leave tomorrow night because you’ve found whatever answer you’re looking for.”
“I’m not leaving yet. It’s Saturday,” he says like it’s obvious, like she’s supposed to know and understand, and she doesn’t try to turn away either, holding his gaze and even fitting a small smile straight across her mouth.
The television laughs though. Then at the door, there’s more laughter that walks down that hall. They stare at each other, but she’s listening, waiting, and tensing as if to predict some kind of surprise. She wouldn’t put it past him, she thinks.
“What is this?” she asks quietly.
“What?”
“This, you here, me talking to you - what is this,” she says. She reaches over too, looking at the nightstand and then grabbing the hotel book. She flips through it idly, lingering on the room service. “Should I stay?”
“Do you want to?” House asks.
“I don’t know.”
It’s honest, maybe too honest, and when he pulls the book away from her, she lets him. It drops from her fingers and she turns to him, waiting. There is a hesitation when he looks at her too.
Slowly, his fingers brush against her jaw. “No,” she says softly, tiredly. His fingers spread against her skin and she bites her lip, her eyes widening. She is not surprised; this feels too easy. “This gets messy,” she adds and his fingers move over her mouth. She breathes into the touch and he makes a sound, his tongue darting out and sliding against his lip. “Messy, House,” she says.
He leans forward.
Cuddy stopped her before she left.
It was later and Chase had signed the papers, folded them into her bag before she had stepped out into the clinic. The other woman had stopped her, bright-eyed, and then hugged her.
“You look good,” she said.
Cameron had been careful. She wanted to avoid House. “I’m fine,” she said too. Not: I’m okay, I’m not happy, or I’ve just slept with my ex instead of saying goodbye. It’s the kind of thing you tell a girlfriend, a good friend, or somehow who knows you when you want to be pulled back.
Instead she had tightened her hold on her bag and coat, smiling at the other woman with her teeth. Over Cuddy’s shoulder, Cameron caught Chase as he left the conference room.
“It’s good to see you,” she had said.
And her fingers brush over House’s mouth. He stills and his eyes darken, she lets her thumb run over his lip. She feels him as he breathes in, the sound catching over her skin.
“Stop,” she says again. Her eyes close and she takes a moment, trying to rationalize everything. His hotel room feels ridiculously small; it’s just this time of year, she keeps telling herself, she keeps wanting to tell him - wanting to figure out some way.
Then she shakes her head.
“I’m not going to let you screw yourself up, happy or not, lie to me or not. Not going to be a part of it,” she tells him. “I can’t handle it. I can’t handle being here and knowing that you’re ready to pick me apart, even though I’ve tried, tried to be honest with you -”
“You’ve talked in circles.”
His mouth moves against her fingers. She hasn’t dropped them.
“I don’t know what to say anymore,” she says, and he curls a hand around her wrist, tugging it down. They stare at each other this way. He doesn’t let go and she doesn’t move her hand away.
This isn’t right, she thinks.
He pulls her to him, or she goes, she goes and shifts to her side, on the bed as he moves to lie down again. She’s tucked against his side and she lets him draw her arm around his chest. He keeps his fingers over hers and his hand feels a little too firm for her liking.
“I want to be here,” he says seriously. It’s quiet too, as if she is not supposed to here. She feels his mouth graze his forehead. “It’s like there’s this and I don’t know you or what you are, but you’re here and -”
“Don’t do this to me.”
Her eyes close too. The words dry her mouth and she can picture the room in her head. Her shoes somewhere by the couch, her bag and her ID; she had a plan to go back to the hospital, to work and not think about calling her brother or her mother. House messes the mix even being close by.
House sighs and loudly. Somewhere in the room, a phone rings. It’s not hers and she focuses on the sound of the television. It’s easy to latch onto, maybe too easy, but she doesn’t want to think or feel the guilt that’s waiting for her. For the first time in weeks, she doesn’t think about her family or smoke, or the fact that it’s this time of year. It may be a minute alone, it may not; House’s mouth grazes her temple again.
“You should’ve never told me,” he says, “the truth,” he adds, “and then left.”
This is another small change.
In the morning there is coffee on the nightstand. Her phone rests next to it and House is sitting at her side, studying her. Her eyes open and close and then she moans softly, turning to rest on her belly.
“Let me guess,” she says. Her voice is muffled. “You have to go back. To Princeton. To your life or whatever - I don’t know.”
“No,” he says. “Not yet.”
Her fingers curl in the pillow. It’s still warm. She doesn’t know how long he’s been up; she doesn’t ask. The television is off and the curtains are drawn back, the city staring into the room.
“Don’t worry,” he drawls. “I didn’t say a thing. It was more like I had some business to take care of and I’ll be back on Monday and we can be whatever then. It was effortless.”
“You’re a jackass,” she says.
She sits up, slowly drawing herself back into her knees. She twists awkwardly and then sits into him, wobbling and catching her balance by pressing her hand into his shoulder. He leans into her and she makes a soft sound, falling back to rest on her knees.
“You don’t think we’ll work,” he says to her. She assumes he’s talking about Cuddy. He’s too serious and she shrugs. “It’s written all over you,” he says. “That face every time I say home.”
“I don’t have an opinion.”
“You’re a liar.”
She snorts. Her fingers curl deeper into his shoulder as she shifts again. When she settles, he hands her the coffee.
“Do you really want to know?” she asks. He hums and then shrugs. She doesn’t pretend to read him. “I think she’s good for you in a work sense,” she says slowly. “You can do what you do as a result of that.”
“That’s a non-answer.”
Cameron smirks.
“It’s not my business,” she says.
The words are harder than she means them to be, but the weight is the same; she wants no part in this, in whatever is going on with Cuddy and House and the circle of messes that he’s not telling her about.
She brings her mug to her lips. She thinks about saying something about him letting her stay. But then her mind wanders elsewhere to things like how easy it is to be this open with him, away from everyone and everything else. She remembers the odd moments in the middle of the night, swearing that it wasn’t supposed to be this simple to be like this.
No one is watching.
“You’re still here,” he says absently.
“I’m still here,” she agrees.
“We’re not talking about you anymore. We’re talking about - well, I’m sure you know what we’re talking about.”
She snorts. “Circles, House.”
He shrugs. “I don’t have much to say,” he says, and it’s a lie, that kind of necessary lie that makes all of this, him and her, completely different. Maybe it is about what isn’t seen or heard; maybe it’s finally about the assumed. For a moment she just looks at him, just really looks at him, open and curious. There’s no effort to hide himself from her or look away.
His hand curls over hers and then he pulls the coffee cup from her fingers. He puts it down on the table again and then draws back.
Cameron lets herself catch him.
“You do,” she says, but she doesn’t say liar. His gaze meets hers and she pulls him closer, slowly. In the back of her mind, she should be unsettled or at work, wondering and hoping that he’d leave her.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks. Right now, it’s genuine. There’s this softness in his voice that she’s not ready for. When he grows serious, she can feel her heart start to race. She forgets to swallow and her teeth skip over her lip as she tries to gather herself.
“It isn’t that simple.”
He shakes his head. He doesn’t move. “You’re avoiding it.”
“What time is it?” she says, and she turns, looking for a clock.
She almost reaches for the coffee too but House’s hand catches her jaw. He catches a few strands of her hair and pulls gently.
“You never could lie to me,” he says, and it’s thoughtful, maybe too thoughtful. She might look back on this later because between the two of them, there is always a later. She waits though, waits for the slightest of change; a new direction, a new moment, an old habit - just some indication that none of this is real and that when he goes back, she’s going to stay here and it’ll just happen all over again.
Nothing changes. House reaches for the table and picks the coffee up. He takes a sip, watching her over the rim. He swallows loudly, obnoxiously before handing the mug back to her. He wipes his mouth off with his arm and watches her fingers curl around the coffee.
She takes a deep breath and he catches her. This much is true.
ONE | TWO | THREE | FOUR | FIVE | SIX |
house md; cameron-centric (house/cameron, house/cuddy) ; 3,231 words
some secrets aren’t meant to be kept, it’s who you decide to tell.
notes: This is for mathhhh and for her birthday and inspired by that infamous tumblr quote:
“Cameron finds a sense of identity in her quest to be a good person. David Shore and I spoke a lot about how Cameron has a history heavily impacted by loss… The real woman that David based Cameron on lost three siblings in a fire at a young age and then lost her husband to cancer within the first year of marriage. I have always considered all of this to be a part of Cameron’s past.”
-
The hallway is empty. It takes a minute for her to realize that she's been standing outside House's door, just waiting.
Her hand makes a fist at her side.
"You're an idiot," she tells herself, but it's not what she means to say; she knows why she's here. Down the hall, a door opens and closes. She sees a man peek at her, down at the opposite end, passing into a nook that leads to the elevators. Cameron sighs and knocks slowly.
"Something happened to you," House said to her once. This is a long time ago, and there's a patient, there's always a patient, that's just knocked her into glass. But this is after; this is a guess and a moment you don't see.
Her mouth had pursed and she had been twisting tape around her wrist. They were in the clinic. The back of her chair was sticking to her legs and she had looked up at him, completely serious as she breathes.
“It’s complicated,” she said.
“Been waiting for this moment,” he says, and smirks, dropping back down to his bed. The television is on. He stretches out while she moves to sit on the couch, studying him as he settles. Her hands slide into her coat and she makes no motion to take it off. A minute ago, she thinks, she thought she knew what she wanted to say.
House clears his throat. She shrugs and watches as he grabs the remote. The television shifts to mute and her gaze catches the news as it moves into a commercial. She’s tired, she thinks too. Maybe it’s clear, like this, around him; there are so many things, so many ways she could explain this to him.
“Have something to say?”
She snorts. “Not that easy,” she says. She pauses, biting her lip. “I feel like I’ve over exhausted it at this point. It’s that time of year.”
“Not an excuse,” he yawns. His mouth widens in exaggeration.
“I’m not making one.”
“Right.”
She looks back at him. “I’m not,” she says. “I just don’t know how to talk about it. I don’t know how to really say something beyond there was a fire, my family doesn’t know how to cope with it still, years after the fact. What do you say to that?”
“Getting institutionalized,” he smirks.
Her eyes roll. Because that helped you, she wants to say. He’s daring her. She reaches back instead, letting her fingers spread against her neck. She tugs her ponytail lightly, letting her hair spill over her shoulders. It feels heavy against her skin, as it catches her throat, and for a moment, she swears he’s staring.
She tries not to think about it. It doesn’t help her, him, and there’s a whole list of reasons why this isn’t good for either of them. She can picture it here, somehow, when he goes back, what he might say to Cuddy or to Chase even. It’s predictable at best.
“Are you going to tell her?” she stretches back and sits up, edging to the end of the couch. She kicks her shoes off, but slowly, and studies them as they hit the floor. It’s oddly comfortable. “Cuddy,” she says, “since you’re so totally and completely head over heels - or what was it that you said?”
“Sarcasm,” he mutters.
“Sure.”
“I don’t know what’s going on. And no, before you go on one of those tangents about me loving myself and horizons -”
She snorts. “Stop.”
House stops. The corners of his mouth tug. It’s amusement, maybe. She looks away and doesn’t try to linger.
“I don’t know,” he answers slowly. “Sometimes I don’t even think it’s real, that it’s something that happened, that I let happened because I needed to feel it, to keep feeling it -” he pauses too, as if he were waiting for her to fill in the rest. She doesn’t. Her mouth tightens and she slides off the couch, moving to the bed and sitting by his side. She’s impulsive, but careful. He continues as if it doesn’t happen, “She was there. She was there for a lot of things. It’s not about options. I don’t know.”
She nods. Cameron brings her hands to her face. She presses her palms into her eyes and her head feels heavy for a moment.
“You sound like me.”
He makes a low sound. Her hands drop and he’s rolling his eyes. His fingers are in the sheets too, picking at the blankets. It’s the first time she notices the wrinkles, how half the sheets are twisted and the rest seem to disappear underneath him.
“I’m serious,” she finds herself saying. Her voice stays even. It surprises her. It feels strange, for a moment, but there are other things that she remembers, smaller memories, the ones that hold passing conversations between the two of them. This is how it’s supposed to feel.
“Are you?” He reaches for her hand, and his fingers graze over her knuckles. They linger and then inch forward, over her knuckles. She watches, waiting. It doesn’t make her nervous, but it’s something that makes her careful; no one ever really knows how to read these gestures.
“Don’t mock me,” she murmurs.
“Why? Because you came here to talk?” His fingers stop over the back of her hand. She manages to swallow. “You don’t want to talk to me,” he finishes. “You already know what I’m going to say. I know that much - with you is true, whether you want to believe it or not.”
“You don’t do ultimatums well.”
He chuckles, shaking his head. His hand pulls back and he joins it with the other, over his chest.
“Says you,” he dares her.
“You haven’t told me why you’re really here.”
“So that’s it then?”
“There’s no grand mystery,” she says dryly. Her jaw locks and she looks away, swallowing for a moment.
“I didn’t say there was.”
Underneath her, she feels the sheets as they pull underneath her legs. He’s moving, almost carefully, and her thought is to get up and just go. But she can’t do that now, she thinks.
The room is quiet.
Her mother keeps the articles.
She found them once, seventeen or eighteen, just before she moved off for college, into the city and far away where she didn’t have to be part of that family, the family where nothing but sad things happened to. The articles were in a box in the attic, tucked behind baby clothes and old albums from various family milestones.
When Cameron had asked her mother, the other woman had merely sighed and shook her head. “I can’t forget,” she had said. “It’s just the way I’ve decided to carry all of this.”
Like mother, like daughter.
“You’re not telling me to leave,” House says to her, and sits up, against the headboard. They are only comfortable, she thinks, because there is no one to see them. House shifts slightly, his leg pressing into her side. It rests there and she waits for it to move.
“This is your room,” she mutters.
They stare at each other. Her fingers curl around her arm and she begins to stroke her skin. She watches him bite his lip. He leans forward too, reaching then, next to him and pulling the remote from somewhere in the covers. He turns the volume back on.
When she turns to see the screen, she catches the news. There’s the weather and the headlines, flashing under and into the bottom corners of the screen. She watches it and sighs, her breath evening out. She should go home. But there’s nothing in her pushing or willing to move. She shifts slowly then, turning towards the television. Her legs curl underneath her and she settles next to him, studying the screen.
“Do you want me to leave?”
He scoffs. “Passive much?”
“I’m being serious,” she says. “I could go back to work, pick up another shift, and then finish it, sleeping in for most of the afternoon. By then I assume you’re going to give up and forget and move on -”
“And let you wallow,” he interrupts.
“I wasn’t finished,” she chides. She looks at him and he smirks, leaning closer. Instead, he reaches for the remote again. He only tosses it off to the side. This isn’t about catching up either, she decides.
“Then?”
“I don’t know what to say anymore,” she says.
“I know.”
He sighs. “Maybe you shouldn’t say anything for awhile,” he says, and yawns, leaning back again. “Maybe you should just let yourself do - what ever it is that you do now. Waste your talents. See your mother. Find a nice boyfriend to divorce in a couple of years. I don’t know. Live your life.”
“Is that advice?” She says it like a confession, and her fingers drop to the blankets. They twist and she starts picking at the fabric, her nails scraping lightly. She wants a drink.
“It’s what you want it to be,” House says.
She looks up at him.
“That’s a cop-out,” she says. “That’s you telling me that you’re going to leave tomorrow night because you’ve found whatever answer you’re looking for.”
“I’m not leaving yet. It’s Saturday,” he says like it’s obvious, like she’s supposed to know and understand, and she doesn’t try to turn away either, holding his gaze and even fitting a small smile straight across her mouth.
The television laughs though. Then at the door, there’s more laughter that walks down that hall. They stare at each other, but she’s listening, waiting, and tensing as if to predict some kind of surprise. She wouldn’t put it past him, she thinks.
“What is this?” she asks quietly.
“What?”
“This, you here, me talking to you - what is this,” she says. She reaches over too, looking at the nightstand and then grabbing the hotel book. She flips through it idly, lingering on the room service. “Should I stay?”
“Do you want to?” House asks.
“I don’t know.”
It’s honest, maybe too honest, and when he pulls the book away from her, she lets him. It drops from her fingers and she turns to him, waiting. There is a hesitation when he looks at her too.
Slowly, his fingers brush against her jaw. “No,” she says softly, tiredly. His fingers spread against her skin and she bites her lip, her eyes widening. She is not surprised; this feels too easy. “This gets messy,” she adds and his fingers move over her mouth. She breathes into the touch and he makes a sound, his tongue darting out and sliding against his lip. “Messy, House,” she says.
He leans forward.
Cuddy stopped her before she left.
It was later and Chase had signed the papers, folded them into her bag before she had stepped out into the clinic. The other woman had stopped her, bright-eyed, and then hugged her.
“You look good,” she said.
Cameron had been careful. She wanted to avoid House. “I’m fine,” she said too. Not: I’m okay, I’m not happy, or I’ve just slept with my ex instead of saying goodbye. It’s the kind of thing you tell a girlfriend, a good friend, or somehow who knows you when you want to be pulled back.
Instead she had tightened her hold on her bag and coat, smiling at the other woman with her teeth. Over Cuddy’s shoulder, Cameron caught Chase as he left the conference room.
“It’s good to see you,” she had said.
And her fingers brush over House’s mouth. He stills and his eyes darken, she lets her thumb run over his lip. She feels him as he breathes in, the sound catching over her skin.
“Stop,” she says again. Her eyes close and she takes a moment, trying to rationalize everything. His hotel room feels ridiculously small; it’s just this time of year, she keeps telling herself, she keeps wanting to tell him - wanting to figure out some way.
Then she shakes her head.
“I’m not going to let you screw yourself up, happy or not, lie to me or not. Not going to be a part of it,” she tells him. “I can’t handle it. I can’t handle being here and knowing that you’re ready to pick me apart, even though I’ve tried, tried to be honest with you -”
“You’ve talked in circles.”
His mouth moves against her fingers. She hasn’t dropped them.
“I don’t know what to say anymore,” she says, and he curls a hand around her wrist, tugging it down. They stare at each other this way. He doesn’t let go and she doesn’t move her hand away.
This isn’t right, she thinks.
He pulls her to him, or she goes, she goes and shifts to her side, on the bed as he moves to lie down again. She’s tucked against his side and she lets him draw her arm around his chest. He keeps his fingers over hers and his hand feels a little too firm for her liking.
“I want to be here,” he says seriously. It’s quiet too, as if she is not supposed to here. She feels his mouth graze his forehead. “It’s like there’s this and I don’t know you or what you are, but you’re here and -”
“Don’t do this to me.”
Her eyes close too. The words dry her mouth and she can picture the room in her head. Her shoes somewhere by the couch, her bag and her ID; she had a plan to go back to the hospital, to work and not think about calling her brother or her mother. House messes the mix even being close by.
House sighs and loudly. Somewhere in the room, a phone rings. It’s not hers and she focuses on the sound of the television. It’s easy to latch onto, maybe too easy, but she doesn’t want to think or feel the guilt that’s waiting for her. For the first time in weeks, she doesn’t think about her family or smoke, or the fact that it’s this time of year. It may be a minute alone, it may not; House’s mouth grazes her temple again.
“You should’ve never told me,” he says, “the truth,” he adds, “and then left.”
This is another small change.
In the morning there is coffee on the nightstand. Her phone rests next to it and House is sitting at her side, studying her. Her eyes open and close and then she moans softly, turning to rest on her belly.
“Let me guess,” she says. Her voice is muffled. “You have to go back. To Princeton. To your life or whatever - I don’t know.”
“No,” he says. “Not yet.”
Her fingers curl in the pillow. It’s still warm. She doesn’t know how long he’s been up; she doesn’t ask. The television is off and the curtains are drawn back, the city staring into the room.
“Don’t worry,” he drawls. “I didn’t say a thing. It was more like I had some business to take care of and I’ll be back on Monday and we can be whatever then. It was effortless.”
“You’re a jackass,” she says.
She sits up, slowly drawing herself back into her knees. She twists awkwardly and then sits into him, wobbling and catching her balance by pressing her hand into his shoulder. He leans into her and she makes a soft sound, falling back to rest on her knees.
“You don’t think we’ll work,” he says to her. She assumes he’s talking about Cuddy. He’s too serious and she shrugs. “It’s written all over you,” he says. “That face every time I say home.”
“I don’t have an opinion.”
“You’re a liar.”
She snorts. Her fingers curl deeper into his shoulder as she shifts again. When she settles, he hands her the coffee.
“Do you really want to know?” she asks. He hums and then shrugs. She doesn’t pretend to read him. “I think she’s good for you in a work sense,” she says slowly. “You can do what you do as a result of that.”
“That’s a non-answer.”
Cameron smirks.
“It’s not my business,” she says.
The words are harder than she means them to be, but the weight is the same; she wants no part in this, in whatever is going on with Cuddy and House and the circle of messes that he’s not telling her about.
She brings her mug to her lips. She thinks about saying something about him letting her stay. But then her mind wanders elsewhere to things like how easy it is to be this open with him, away from everyone and everything else. She remembers the odd moments in the middle of the night, swearing that it wasn’t supposed to be this simple to be like this.
No one is watching.
“You’re still here,” he says absently.
“I’m still here,” she agrees.
“We’re not talking about you anymore. We’re talking about - well, I’m sure you know what we’re talking about.”
She snorts. “Circles, House.”
He shrugs. “I don’t have much to say,” he says, and it’s a lie, that kind of necessary lie that makes all of this, him and her, completely different. Maybe it is about what isn’t seen or heard; maybe it’s finally about the assumed. For a moment she just looks at him, just really looks at him, open and curious. There’s no effort to hide himself from her or look away.
His hand curls over hers and then he pulls the coffee cup from her fingers. He puts it down on the table again and then draws back.
Cameron lets herself catch him.
“You do,” she says, but she doesn’t say liar. His gaze meets hers and she pulls him closer, slowly. In the back of her mind, she should be unsettled or at work, wondering and hoping that he’d leave her.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks. Right now, it’s genuine. There’s this softness in his voice that she’s not ready for. When he grows serious, she can feel her heart start to race. She forgets to swallow and her teeth skip over her lip as she tries to gather herself.
“It isn’t that simple.”
He shakes his head. He doesn’t move. “You’re avoiding it.”
“What time is it?” she says, and she turns, looking for a clock.
She almost reaches for the coffee too but House’s hand catches her jaw. He catches a few strands of her hair and pulls gently.
“You never could lie to me,” he says, and it’s thoughtful, maybe too thoughtful. She might look back on this later because between the two of them, there is always a later. She waits though, waits for the slightest of change; a new direction, a new moment, an old habit - just some indication that none of this is real and that when he goes back, she’s going to stay here and it’ll just happen all over again.
Nothing changes. House reaches for the table and picks the coffee up. He takes a sip, watching her over the rim. He swallows loudly, obnoxiously before handing the mug back to her. He wipes his mouth off with his arm and watches her fingers curl around the coffee.
She takes a deep breath and he catches her. This much is true.
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