Thanks to Lori and Mary.
It had never been love with them, never anything like love.
"I think the only thing we have in common," he said to her one evening after running into her at a low key bar twenty miles north of Princeton-Plainsboro (he'd followed her there, stalked her there through heavy rain), "Is that we don't hate each other."
She sipped from her rum and coke, through that tiny straw and ran the opening along her front teeth. "You're right, I've never hated you, I don't hate you." As though she needed to say it, she'd never needed to say it.
It was a simple question and came out of him as though it was the natural order of things, like it needed to be spoken in that particular moment. "Why not?" he asked, voice dipping an octave lower than she was accustomed to hearing. "You should," he watched the ice dissolve in his scotch instead of watching her. If he had been, he would have noticed the soft smile that perked her lips for a quiet moment.
Cameron slipped a hand into her pocket, retrieved her cell phone and placed it on the shiny table top. "Is he going to call you?" House asked her, voice level, smooth as glass, no hint of emotion lacing his words. As though he didn't know. As though he didn't know the answer to that question was yes.
"After shift," she intoned, more confident than usual. "He's supposed to meet me here."
There was silence that was sliced only by the other bar patrons, indulging in low-toned conversations of their own.
House brought his drink to his mouth, swallowed with the practiced ease of a man on-the-verge and set his empty glass back down on the table, close to her. "I think your proper British boy would be pretty pissed if he knew I was here."
No playing games, not now. She could have said one of a million things, corrected him, for one. She could have told him to fuck off, to shut up, it end it. But, "That's exactly what you want," she said easily, running the straw around the edge of the glass before shooting it back into the drink. "That's the only reason you're here now."
House almost smiled, almost. Little Allison Cameron had managed to acquire some balls; confidence had laced every word she had spoken that day and he couldn't pretend to hate it. "Liar, liar, pants on fire." He said back, motioning to the waiter for another round with a stiff wave of his hand.
"Yeah," Cameron answered, sounding rather bored, like she was waiting for him to surprise her. "You should do that, act like an ass when you're the one who followed me here." A sip from her drink and she sat back in the chair, cradling the glass in both of her hands, forearms stretched over the table.
Scoffing, he too leaned back in his chair. "Don't flatter yourself."
It was under her breath, and that's what shocked him. "That's what I'm doing," she sighed and crossed her legs, trying so hard to look uninterested. But the way her lips twitched, the white-tinge of her knuckles, said otherwise.
His second drink came, slid across the veneer easily and into his palm; he tested the weight for a moment before tipping his chin back and swallowing. They sat in silence as the bartender dimmed the lights for the post-work crowd and the shadows that dented his face made him look years and years older. Cameron couldn't pretend to hate that, couldn't pretend that she wasn't treading the cusp of content, just sitting with him, in a bar...
Waiting for her fiancé.
"Do you ever think," he waved two finger in the air and signaled for another round, four. "Ever, do you think about all the mistakes you've ever made?" There was a beat, he cleared his liquid-coated throat and then, "Do you ever? Think about how you've fucked up?"
Cameron blinked over at him for a second and then stared straight ahead into the nothing-crowd in front of her. She wondered for a moment if it was a trick question, she wondered if it was a question at all. "You have to, I think. Every day I think, I think about them every day; you have to so you don't repeat them... I think."
House twisted his mouth into a wry mask, "Think?"
"Yeah," came her slow whisper, as she tinkled her shot nails against her glass. "Yeah, I think." There was a brief moment of silence and then, "And which side of it does this come down on?"
There was malice-for-malice-sake in his voice when he said, "Does what come down on?"
And a smile bloomed across her lips, "This, right now, you being here... mistake?"
If there'd been alcohol in his glass he would have taken it then, slammed down the empty container and trudged off, laden with melancholy. But there was nothing, nothing but her sad smile and a hint of a demand nestled in a question. "Everything with you is a mistake."
Her face didn't fall and her facade didn't crack; Cameron just shrugged and took another tiny sip from her rum and coke. "Sounds about right."
He looked away and she looked away and he stood, brushing his mouth with the back of his rough hand. "Thanks for the drink," he said, hobbling away.
She pulled the fresh bill from her pocket, Benjamin Franklin looking up at her, and smoothed it flat on the table.
And she forgot he'd ever been there.
It had never been anything like anything between them, no sort of anything at all.