Fic: Lingering To and Fro (House/Cameron)
Title. Lingering To and Fro
Author. trisana_mcgraw
Pairing. House/Cameron
Rating. PG-13
Word count. 2900
Spoilers. 3x24 "Human Error"
Author’s note. Written for the inaugural fraternizing challenge, with the following prompt: "We live as we dream, alone." -Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness. Title from Elizabeth Barret Browning's poem "Change Upon Change."
-- --- --
an’ as i’ve taken you for someone who cares
then there’s a dream i know we both have shared
beth orton, “live as you dream”
---
A large, familiar hand grabs the can she’s holding, tilting it to the side. “Axe Body Spray - Voodoo,” a low, even more familiar, voice reads, warm breath curling over her neck, and she almost jumps; her fingers tighten on the can. “Sounds a little creepy, if you ask me. All I need to do to get the ladies is pop some opiates; seems to do the trick better than some artificial musk. What do you think, Dr. Cameron? Is Voodoo what flies your personal freak flag? I wonder if there’s a Meth scent…”
Cameron opens her mouth, but no sound emerges. She must be dreaming, because they’re standing in the hygiene section of the Princeton Duane Reade and House is still giving her the same look as when she would champion the lupus diagnosis.
Finally she snatches back the can, pretending to read the tongue-in-cheek warning label. When she looks up again, House is still absently browsing through the shelves of deodorants, seeming not to notice that the man behind him is futilely trying to reach for some Degree. Cameron takes a moment to drink him in; she can’t pretend that she hasn’t noticed how much time has passed, and besides, she’s always wondered what he looks like over the summer. He’s wearing a t-shirt - no surprise - and shorts (long ones that fall to his knees, but still), hair shorter but stubble thicker, and generally looking like someone who doesn’t care at all that a month ago he lost all three of his employees.
House straightens up, dissatisfied with his search. “Funny running into you here,” he says in a falsely bright voice. “Picking up goodies for your annual garden party with the animals from the Hundred Acre Wood? You must have forgotten to send my invitation.”
“As if you’d even sort through your own mail now.” The retort is delivered over her shoulder; she’s turned and started walking toward another aisle, knowing that she should put as much distance between them as she can. He hobbles after her - she feels an inexplicable flash of excitement - and it almost resembles the constant back-and-forth games they play.
Played, she reminds herself firmly. She wasn’t supposed to see him again, at least not this soon.
“Haven’t you heard? I hired my very own mail-sorter - she reads all my annoying consult requests and signs the responses with hearts and flowers, and at the end of the day she lets me bend her over the table and-“
She’s finally found her second wind; she cuts in, “Would you like to get a drink?”
The irony of her words is not lost on him; his lips curl. “Still clinging to that fantasy of seducing your boss?”
She lifts her chin. “Now that you’re no longer my boss, that daydream’s lost most of its appeal.”
He regards her with the slightly appraising half-smile, tongue pressed to his teeth, that he often wears after a verbal spar with Cuddy; it gives her a little thrill to know that she’s managed to elicit a similar reaction from him. “So what’s the point, then? To further mess with Chase’s pristinely groomed hair?”
“How did you…”
He inclines his chin toward the can still clutched in her hand.
She smiles and shakes her head. “I’d just like to hear how you’ve been.”
He spreads his arms wide. “This is it. Haven’t changed anything, except for my Thursday TV line-up; I have to distract myself from wondering if Betty and Henry will ever bump tragically awkward uglies.” His arms drop. “Whatever you’re looking for isn’t here,” he says, and she could swear that the pendulum of his emotions has swung from joking to dead serious in a heartbeat.
Undeterred, Cameron fixes him with her best no-nonsense stare and calmly replies, “It’s up to you. I’ll be at Carmelita’s at nine. Hopefully you will too.” Without another look at him, she turns and walks away. There’s no thump of a cane or sarcastic catcall, and she crosses the fingers of the hand holding Chase’s spray.
-
In the elevator she tucked her hair behind her ears for the eighth time and glanced again at her watch. The last thing she needed was House berating her for arriving late (“Why are you even showing up?” Chase had asked, curled around her in his bed, that morning. “He doesn’t deserve any more respect from you.”), and of course now that it was down to the two of them he was going to take every shot he could.
But when she fast-walked into the conference room he was nowhere to be seen; she breathed a sigh of relief and automatically moved toward the coffee machine. She was filling up his mug when the door to his office was pushed open and he limped in.
Without speaking, she handed him the mug; he eyed her but took a sip. Swallowing, he said, “You realize this kind of takes the wind out of your dramatic ‘I’ll miss you.’”
She shrugged. “That was probably my only chance to say it without you belittling me, and besides, I owe you a two weeks’ notice like Foreman did.”
“Just don’t stretch it past two weeks. I don’t care how many babies you have to coo good-bye to; I don’t need more attention drawn to my second resignation in a month.”
They spent ten minutes in silence; she piling Marina’s files for disposal - a scene flashed into her mind, of House catching her and Chase in the janitor’s closet, and she didn’t know whether to laugh or bite her lip - he puttering around in his office checking e-mails. When he came back in to erase the whiteboard, she asked, “How was your night?”
His back was to her. “Got a new guitar.”
Her eyes widened. “A change. That’s not very you.”
He looked at her for the first time, and there was something foreign in his eyes. “You can’t always predict what I’ll do.” Her forehead furrowed, and she parted her lips to speak, but he was already striding out of his office, where she didn’t know.
-
He’s changed into dark jeans and a tee the same sky-blue color as the oxford he’d worn on their disastrous date three years ago; and maybe it’s her imagination, but it appears that he’s shaved, if only a little. He looks nice, and almost happy, and it produces a small ache in the pit of her stomach to think that the events of a month ago may have played a part in this alteration.
Even limping to the her table he’s imbued with confidence, and she smiles nervously as he sinks into his seat. They regard their menus in silence - the first time they speak is to order drinks, and it isn’t even directed at one another - and once the waiter leaves House threads his fingers together and stares her down. How does he still have power over her, making her confidence turn tail and flee like that dog he was rumored to have had for a few days?
Cameron fidgets with the meager cloth on the table and strives to make her words come out sounding playful. “So, the third time must have been the charm, right?”
The waiter chooses this moment to bring their drinks; House takes a long sip - she can’t help but watch the pulse of his Adam’s apple - before setting his down and asking, “Hmm?”
Despite herself, she laughs quietly. “The first time I quit, you asked me to come back.”
House holds up a finger. “Correction. I was exploited to fulfill your daddy fantasy.”
She ignores the jibe. “The second time-“
“You threw yourself at me. Really, Dr. Cameron - I bet I could easily close the door on any future employment opportunities with this sexual-harassment case I’ve been building up.”
“I’m trying to make a point,” she protests, and she’s unable to layer the sharpness beneath sarcasm or playfulness, because he tilts his head upward slightly, the look he gets when there’s a dark spot on the MRI. “You’re angry.”
Cameron throws her hands up and lets them settle on the tablecloth. She’s both embarrassed and relieved by the admission. “I am.”
He slides his glass an inch to the left (it’s left a wet ring on the tablecloth) but doesn’t drink. “Good to know I didn’t entirely ruin you,” he rumbles thoughtfully.
“That’s it? You don’t care why I’m angry?”
“No, but of course you’re going to tell me anyway before the night is over. So why don’t we stave off that unpleasantness for just a few minutes and indulge in some meaningless small talk?”
-
“You don’t understand, Chase.” She pressed her fist to her eyes and continued to pace across her carpet, giving the couch, with its haphazardly strewn pillows, a wide berth. She had finally stopped shuddering. “Someone was in my apartment last night, waiting for me.”
“Just be thankful he didn’t steal anything. And, he replaced the key,” Chase’s voice on the other end of the phone reassured her. “He’s not coming back.”
“Unless that’s what he wants me to think - wants me to feel comfortable and secure again until he decides to-“ She clapped her palm over her trembling lips.
“I thought that with all the snooping around we do in people’s houses, you wouldn’t be so spooked by it happening to yours.”
She barked an incredulous laugh. “I’ve never been okay with that-“
“Except when it was House’s place.”
“And it’s not like I’m dying of some mysterious disease!” she pressed on, aware that her voice was rising in pitch like a petulant child’s but too exhausted to restrain her panic.
Chase blew air into the receiver. “Then why don’t you come over here tonight. Take a bath. Soothe your nerves; your first day after resigning couldn’t have been much better.”
Cameron stood in place, pondering his offer. He’d been the first person she’d called, though her fingers had ghosted over a different set of numbers first. House would have just laughed at her irrational fears, wouldn’t have offered to keep watch for her (not like he’d be much help against a burglar anyway, if she were being realistic)…
And House wasn’t her boyfriend.
So she spent the second night in a row at Chase’s (maybe she should get around to calling him Robert) apartment even as her instincts shouted that things were moving too fast, but maybe she liked being wanted, protected.
-
Cameron licks the salt from the corner of her mouth. “So how did you know that it was Chase I’m…” She waves a hand vaguely.
“Can’t even put it into words; that’s always a great sign.”
“Dating.”
“Bad things always come in threes, remember?” He smirks. “It’s only been a few weeks, and your little irrational, compulsive self would have spent that time looking for new jobs instead of new boytoys. Plus, you were wearing lipstick when you left the hospital but weren’t wearing any when you came back to quit.” He leans forward a fraction of an inch. “Was it his idea? He couldn’t bear not being the tangible buffer between your and my sizzling sexual tension?”
She rolls her eyes. “Of course not. I - I was just tired of stringing myself along for something I knew would never end up the way I wanted - the way I deserved for it to.”
“Are we still talking about your job, or your choice in men?”
-
She shouldn’t have expected anything. One of the male nurses brought her a cupcake, and from the Princeton-Plainsboro staff she received pats on the back and wry congratulations for lasting this long. Even Cuddy, who Cameron suspected had never much liked her except when she was defying House, gave her a warm hug and told her to keep in touch (no offer for her own department, though).
She shouldn’t have expected anything, and yet she did. House wasn’t even lurking in the vicinity of her impromptu goodbye party like he had for Foreman’s farewell; she figured he was probably stealing Jell-O from the newest coma patient and catching up on his General Hospital.
As luck would have it, she found herself walking across the parking lot, cardboard box braced in her arms, at the same time that he was loading up his bike.
His gaze trailed her to her car. “Pretty girl like you shouldn’t be wandering alone in the dark.”
She rolled her eyes. Three years, and she was back where she had started - a nice piece of art to hang in the lobby. “Gee, thanks.”
He fell silent, and she thought maybe he’d given in to reason for once, but suddenly he was beside her, opening her car door. She shoved her box onto the backseat and straightened up. Her head automatically lifted, and she felt a dangerous tingle blossom in her nose and the corners of her eyes. This was what hurt the most - she had finally gained the ability to fearlessly look him in the eye, and all she could see was the absence of what she’d first (foolishly) thought existed there.
“Good-bye, Cameron,” House said, voice gravelly with - with what? Sadness? Regret? Or too many damn pills?
She didn’t kiss him, didn’t hug him - she only ever reached for him when she knew that there was a chance she would see him again. “Good-bye, House,” she whispered. She got into her car and turned on the ignition; he stepped aside and let her drive past him. She stared at his dwindling figure in the rearview mirror until her sight blurred with tears.
-
Of course, she’s never been able to stray too far from center.
“I don’t understand why this has got you so outraged. You resigned.”
“And you didn’t stop me.”
“I’m sorry, are you suffering from early Alzheimer’s? You seem to forget that the last two times you up and quit on me - for no good reason, I might add - I tried to get you to come back.”
“But not this time!” Her voice breaks, and Cameron hastily drops her head, but not before he catches the glint of moisture on her cheek. To his credit, House looks genuinely surprised, but before he can speak, Cameron licks her lips and tries again, her words deliberately slow.
“And even if you were the one trying to get me to come back, the action was always insincere. The first time you couldn’t give a good enough reason; I had to bargain it out of you. The second time you were faking goddamn cancer - your ‘I’m not dead yet’ bullshit was probably just part of the act. Every time I was the one who had to take the plunge.” She lifts her head again, not caring if he glimpses the red splotches on her cheeks. “Do I really mean that little to you that this time you didn’t do anything to get me back?”
“You made clear your expectations for how I’d react,” he shoots back, voice rougher than she’s ever heard it and eyes quietly blazing.
Recognition of recognition tickles the back of her mind, inducing a puzzled frown but offering no other clues.
House looms over the table, his drink forgotten; the fire in his eyes is spreading through the rest of his body, and she’s truly frightened by the fury that draws his shoulders taut and illuminates the hollows in his face. “And don’t act like you’re Little Miss Victim here. You jerk all of us around - most recently Chase, with your stupid arrangement, and now hooking him yet again, like you haven’t learned where that’ll lead - most of all me. You run away when I don’t love you, when you think I’m going to die. You’re ready to leave m-this job whenever things get tough. You’re not the only one tired of trying.”
She’s stunned, mouth gaping like a fish’s. He sinks back in his chair, massaging his thigh, but his eyes pin hers. “So why did you resign this time?”
“Like I said, I’ve gotten all I can from this job.” (Rehearsed and) spoken in his office, the words had sounded sincere, but here, emitted in a dry croak, they seem puny and artificial.
“Meaning, you couldn’t get me?”
Her lips press into a tight, thin line. “That’s not what this is about. I’m not still pining for you.”
He snorts and stands. “Hiding your key in the same spot I do - yeah, you’re definitely not still hung up on me.” He slaps a twenty on the table and, with no more than a curt nod, makes his way past her.
Her heart scrabbles up her throat like a frightened cat up a tree, and she whirls around and grabs his arm, fingers digging into his warm skin. She frantically searches his face, her eyes wide and flashing with realization-shock-regret, but he grants her no more than a morose glance before shrugging out of her grasp. She watches his retreating back, her chest tight and aching, until the distance between them is too great to bridge - again.
Author. trisana_mcgraw
Pairing. House/Cameron
Rating. PG-13
Word count. 2900
Spoilers. 3x24 "Human Error"
Author’s note. Written for the inaugural fraternizing challenge, with the following prompt: "We live as we dream, alone." -Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness. Title from Elizabeth Barret Browning's poem "Change Upon Change."
-- --- --
an’ as i’ve taken you for someone who cares
then there’s a dream i know we both have shared
beth orton, “live as you dream”
---
A large, familiar hand grabs the can she’s holding, tilting it to the side. “Axe Body Spray - Voodoo,” a low, even more familiar, voice reads, warm breath curling over her neck, and she almost jumps; her fingers tighten on the can. “Sounds a little creepy, if you ask me. All I need to do to get the ladies is pop some opiates; seems to do the trick better than some artificial musk. What do you think, Dr. Cameron? Is Voodoo what flies your personal freak flag? I wonder if there’s a Meth scent…”
Cameron opens her mouth, but no sound emerges. She must be dreaming, because they’re standing in the hygiene section of the Princeton Duane Reade and House is still giving her the same look as when she would champion the lupus diagnosis.
Finally she snatches back the can, pretending to read the tongue-in-cheek warning label. When she looks up again, House is still absently browsing through the shelves of deodorants, seeming not to notice that the man behind him is futilely trying to reach for some Degree. Cameron takes a moment to drink him in; she can’t pretend that she hasn’t noticed how much time has passed, and besides, she’s always wondered what he looks like over the summer. He’s wearing a t-shirt - no surprise - and shorts (long ones that fall to his knees, but still), hair shorter but stubble thicker, and generally looking like someone who doesn’t care at all that a month ago he lost all three of his employees.
House straightens up, dissatisfied with his search. “Funny running into you here,” he says in a falsely bright voice. “Picking up goodies for your annual garden party with the animals from the Hundred Acre Wood? You must have forgotten to send my invitation.”
“As if you’d even sort through your own mail now.” The retort is delivered over her shoulder; she’s turned and started walking toward another aisle, knowing that she should put as much distance between them as she can. He hobbles after her - she feels an inexplicable flash of excitement - and it almost resembles the constant back-and-forth games they play.
Played, she reminds herself firmly. She wasn’t supposed to see him again, at least not this soon.
“Haven’t you heard? I hired my very own mail-sorter - she reads all my annoying consult requests and signs the responses with hearts and flowers, and at the end of the day she lets me bend her over the table and-“
She’s finally found her second wind; she cuts in, “Would you like to get a drink?”
The irony of her words is not lost on him; his lips curl. “Still clinging to that fantasy of seducing your boss?”
She lifts her chin. “Now that you’re no longer my boss, that daydream’s lost most of its appeal.”
He regards her with the slightly appraising half-smile, tongue pressed to his teeth, that he often wears after a verbal spar with Cuddy; it gives her a little thrill to know that she’s managed to elicit a similar reaction from him. “So what’s the point, then? To further mess with Chase’s pristinely groomed hair?”
“How did you…”
He inclines his chin toward the can still clutched in her hand.
She smiles and shakes her head. “I’d just like to hear how you’ve been.”
He spreads his arms wide. “This is it. Haven’t changed anything, except for my Thursday TV line-up; I have to distract myself from wondering if Betty and Henry will ever bump tragically awkward uglies.” His arms drop. “Whatever you’re looking for isn’t here,” he says, and she could swear that the pendulum of his emotions has swung from joking to dead serious in a heartbeat.
Undeterred, Cameron fixes him with her best no-nonsense stare and calmly replies, “It’s up to you. I’ll be at Carmelita’s at nine. Hopefully you will too.” Without another look at him, she turns and walks away. There’s no thump of a cane or sarcastic catcall, and she crosses the fingers of the hand holding Chase’s spray.
-
In the elevator she tucked her hair behind her ears for the eighth time and glanced again at her watch. The last thing she needed was House berating her for arriving late (“Why are you even showing up?” Chase had asked, curled around her in his bed, that morning. “He doesn’t deserve any more respect from you.”), and of course now that it was down to the two of them he was going to take every shot he could.
But when she fast-walked into the conference room he was nowhere to be seen; she breathed a sigh of relief and automatically moved toward the coffee machine. She was filling up his mug when the door to his office was pushed open and he limped in.
Without speaking, she handed him the mug; he eyed her but took a sip. Swallowing, he said, “You realize this kind of takes the wind out of your dramatic ‘I’ll miss you.’”
She shrugged. “That was probably my only chance to say it without you belittling me, and besides, I owe you a two weeks’ notice like Foreman did.”
“Just don’t stretch it past two weeks. I don’t care how many babies you have to coo good-bye to; I don’t need more attention drawn to my second resignation in a month.”
They spent ten minutes in silence; she piling Marina’s files for disposal - a scene flashed into her mind, of House catching her and Chase in the janitor’s closet, and she didn’t know whether to laugh or bite her lip - he puttering around in his office checking e-mails. When he came back in to erase the whiteboard, she asked, “How was your night?”
His back was to her. “Got a new guitar.”
Her eyes widened. “A change. That’s not very you.”
He looked at her for the first time, and there was something foreign in his eyes. “You can’t always predict what I’ll do.” Her forehead furrowed, and she parted her lips to speak, but he was already striding out of his office, where she didn’t know.
-
He’s changed into dark jeans and a tee the same sky-blue color as the oxford he’d worn on their disastrous date three years ago; and maybe it’s her imagination, but it appears that he’s shaved, if only a little. He looks nice, and almost happy, and it produces a small ache in the pit of her stomach to think that the events of a month ago may have played a part in this alteration.
Even limping to the her table he’s imbued with confidence, and she smiles nervously as he sinks into his seat. They regard their menus in silence - the first time they speak is to order drinks, and it isn’t even directed at one another - and once the waiter leaves House threads his fingers together and stares her down. How does he still have power over her, making her confidence turn tail and flee like that dog he was rumored to have had for a few days?
Cameron fidgets with the meager cloth on the table and strives to make her words come out sounding playful. “So, the third time must have been the charm, right?”
The waiter chooses this moment to bring their drinks; House takes a long sip - she can’t help but watch the pulse of his Adam’s apple - before setting his down and asking, “Hmm?”
Despite herself, she laughs quietly. “The first time I quit, you asked me to come back.”
House holds up a finger. “Correction. I was exploited to fulfill your daddy fantasy.”
She ignores the jibe. “The second time-“
“You threw yourself at me. Really, Dr. Cameron - I bet I could easily close the door on any future employment opportunities with this sexual-harassment case I’ve been building up.”
“I’m trying to make a point,” she protests, and she’s unable to layer the sharpness beneath sarcasm or playfulness, because he tilts his head upward slightly, the look he gets when there’s a dark spot on the MRI. “You’re angry.”
Cameron throws her hands up and lets them settle on the tablecloth. She’s both embarrassed and relieved by the admission. “I am.”
He slides his glass an inch to the left (it’s left a wet ring on the tablecloth) but doesn’t drink. “Good to know I didn’t entirely ruin you,” he rumbles thoughtfully.
“That’s it? You don’t care why I’m angry?”
“No, but of course you’re going to tell me anyway before the night is over. So why don’t we stave off that unpleasantness for just a few minutes and indulge in some meaningless small talk?”
-
“You don’t understand, Chase.” She pressed her fist to her eyes and continued to pace across her carpet, giving the couch, with its haphazardly strewn pillows, a wide berth. She had finally stopped shuddering. “Someone was in my apartment last night, waiting for me.”
“Just be thankful he didn’t steal anything. And, he replaced the key,” Chase’s voice on the other end of the phone reassured her. “He’s not coming back.”
“Unless that’s what he wants me to think - wants me to feel comfortable and secure again until he decides to-“ She clapped her palm over her trembling lips.
“I thought that with all the snooping around we do in people’s houses, you wouldn’t be so spooked by it happening to yours.”
She barked an incredulous laugh. “I’ve never been okay with that-“
“Except when it was House’s place.”
“And it’s not like I’m dying of some mysterious disease!” she pressed on, aware that her voice was rising in pitch like a petulant child’s but too exhausted to restrain her panic.
Chase blew air into the receiver. “Then why don’t you come over here tonight. Take a bath. Soothe your nerves; your first day after resigning couldn’t have been much better.”
Cameron stood in place, pondering his offer. He’d been the first person she’d called, though her fingers had ghosted over a different set of numbers first. House would have just laughed at her irrational fears, wouldn’t have offered to keep watch for her (not like he’d be much help against a burglar anyway, if she were being realistic)…
And House wasn’t her boyfriend.
So she spent the second night in a row at Chase’s (maybe she should get around to calling him Robert) apartment even as her instincts shouted that things were moving too fast, but maybe she liked being wanted, protected.
-
Cameron licks the salt from the corner of her mouth. “So how did you know that it was Chase I’m…” She waves a hand vaguely.
“Can’t even put it into words; that’s always a great sign.”
“Dating.”
“Bad things always come in threes, remember?” He smirks. “It’s only been a few weeks, and your little irrational, compulsive self would have spent that time looking for new jobs instead of new boytoys. Plus, you were wearing lipstick when you left the hospital but weren’t wearing any when you came back to quit.” He leans forward a fraction of an inch. “Was it his idea? He couldn’t bear not being the tangible buffer between your and my sizzling sexual tension?”
She rolls her eyes. “Of course not. I - I was just tired of stringing myself along for something I knew would never end up the way I wanted - the way I deserved for it to.”
“Are we still talking about your job, or your choice in men?”
-
She shouldn’t have expected anything. One of the male nurses brought her a cupcake, and from the Princeton-Plainsboro staff she received pats on the back and wry congratulations for lasting this long. Even Cuddy, who Cameron suspected had never much liked her except when she was defying House, gave her a warm hug and told her to keep in touch (no offer for her own department, though).
She shouldn’t have expected anything, and yet she did. House wasn’t even lurking in the vicinity of her impromptu goodbye party like he had for Foreman’s farewell; she figured he was probably stealing Jell-O from the newest coma patient and catching up on his General Hospital.
As luck would have it, she found herself walking across the parking lot, cardboard box braced in her arms, at the same time that he was loading up his bike.
His gaze trailed her to her car. “Pretty girl like you shouldn’t be wandering alone in the dark.”
She rolled her eyes. Three years, and she was back where she had started - a nice piece of art to hang in the lobby. “Gee, thanks.”
He fell silent, and she thought maybe he’d given in to reason for once, but suddenly he was beside her, opening her car door. She shoved her box onto the backseat and straightened up. Her head automatically lifted, and she felt a dangerous tingle blossom in her nose and the corners of her eyes. This was what hurt the most - she had finally gained the ability to fearlessly look him in the eye, and all she could see was the absence of what she’d first (foolishly) thought existed there.
“Good-bye, Cameron,” House said, voice gravelly with - with what? Sadness? Regret? Or too many damn pills?
She didn’t kiss him, didn’t hug him - she only ever reached for him when she knew that there was a chance she would see him again. “Good-bye, House,” she whispered. She got into her car and turned on the ignition; he stepped aside and let her drive past him. She stared at his dwindling figure in the rearview mirror until her sight blurred with tears.
-
Of course, she’s never been able to stray too far from center.
“I don’t understand why this has got you so outraged. You resigned.”
“And you didn’t stop me.”
“I’m sorry, are you suffering from early Alzheimer’s? You seem to forget that the last two times you up and quit on me - for no good reason, I might add - I tried to get you to come back.”
“But not this time!” Her voice breaks, and Cameron hastily drops her head, but not before he catches the glint of moisture on her cheek. To his credit, House looks genuinely surprised, but before he can speak, Cameron licks her lips and tries again, her words deliberately slow.
“And even if you were the one trying to get me to come back, the action was always insincere. The first time you couldn’t give a good enough reason; I had to bargain it out of you. The second time you were faking goddamn cancer - your ‘I’m not dead yet’ bullshit was probably just part of the act. Every time I was the one who had to take the plunge.” She lifts her head again, not caring if he glimpses the red splotches on her cheeks. “Do I really mean that little to you that this time you didn’t do anything to get me back?”
“You made clear your expectations for how I’d react,” he shoots back, voice rougher than she’s ever heard it and eyes quietly blazing.
Recognition of recognition tickles the back of her mind, inducing a puzzled frown but offering no other clues.
House looms over the table, his drink forgotten; the fire in his eyes is spreading through the rest of his body, and she’s truly frightened by the fury that draws his shoulders taut and illuminates the hollows in his face. “And don’t act like you’re Little Miss Victim here. You jerk all of us around - most recently Chase, with your stupid arrangement, and now hooking him yet again, like you haven’t learned where that’ll lead - most of all me. You run away when I don’t love you, when you think I’m going to die. You’re ready to leave m-this job whenever things get tough. You’re not the only one tired of trying.”
She’s stunned, mouth gaping like a fish’s. He sinks back in his chair, massaging his thigh, but his eyes pin hers. “So why did you resign this time?”
“Like I said, I’ve gotten all I can from this job.” (Rehearsed and) spoken in his office, the words had sounded sincere, but here, emitted in a dry croak, they seem puny and artificial.
“Meaning, you couldn’t get me?”
Her lips press into a tight, thin line. “That’s not what this is about. I’m not still pining for you.”
He snorts and stands. “Hiding your key in the same spot I do - yeah, you’re definitely not still hung up on me.” He slaps a twenty on the table and, with no more than a curt nod, makes his way past her.
Her heart scrabbles up her throat like a frightened cat up a tree, and she whirls around and grabs his arm, fingers digging into his warm skin. She frantically searches his face, her eyes wide and flashing with realization-shock-regret, but he grants her no more than a morose glance before shrugging out of her grasp. She watches his retreating back, her chest tight and aching, until the distance between them is too great to bridge - again.