Missing

„Are you hdiding from me?" she quivered, hearing his voice somewhere near to her. Her inner, radar catching the sarcasm of her former employer, put her in the combat readiness condition. She cluthced up but she didn't look at him.
„I'm working" she answered. „It's just in case if you hadn't noticed".
„Yeah" he said scornfully.
„I have to take care of the whole ward and this patient here. Can I get you anything?
„I need a patient. My lackeys have nothing to do".
„Let them try to make up for your clinic hours. Maybe they'll finish before the next millennium.
She still didn't look at him. She didn't want to. Fixing the deep wound required precision and gentleness. Altough patient had got the anaesthetic, he was still squirming like five"year"old with ADHD and she wanted to tie him to the bed with the what was left of the bandage which she had in her gown's pocket.
„When exactly had you become the Snow Queen? Are you wrapping Chase with ice?"
She couldn't stand it anymore. She lifted her head and met his inquisitive eyes.
„Since I had let you to play Kay in this fairy-tale" she retorted. „ I like this moment of supremacy over you".
He sighed.
"You really don't have anything for me?"
„Are you seriously so desperate? I thought you're damaged, not needy".
She hit home.
„Ok. Where do you have patients' files? I'll find something myself".
Now she gave up. A quiet sigh skimmed through her throat.
„The files go to Cuddy's office. I describe the case, symptoms, I suggest the possible doctor but she decides who'll get the patient".
Slight amazement mixed with the disbelief ran through his face. Indeed, Cuddy was regularly appearing with patients' files. He knew Cameron's handwriting and he knew which ones were from her. Last month he was able to drag in only two patients. The rest was from the ER.
„How many patients were you planning to toss to me?"
„You should have had eight last month".
And he had eight. The first riddle seemed to be opening for him. He was staring at her and several thoughts ran through his mind. Shouldn't she be doing something else instead of what she was doing? Her horizonts are so wide, yet she's here with cracked skulls, broken fingers, beaten up boozers and a lot of minor cases which even a second-rate doctor could diagnose.
„You can stare at me like that for even a month. Your sight won't make me a gentle, warmer breeze".
„Brr..." he pretended to shiver with cold. „I hope that you keep more heat for your kangaroo... "
„House!" she stopped him suddenly. „I'm tired and at the end of my tether. It's my second day at work. I had slept for four hours and my level of unhappiness grows with every minute. I dream about jacuzzi, jet douches and drinks with small palms served by half-naked musclemen. Go to Cuddy. Maybe she'll take the patient's file that I brought her yesterday out of her sleeve".
„Which one?" he wasn't going to give it up.
Her hands somewhere dropped. He noticed the resignation emerging on her face. She was balancing on the thin line between the tiredness and, now drifting away, patience.
„Go to Cuddy" she was assertive. „We both work for her and I don't want to trespass her authority".
„Which one?" he repeated with emphasis. „I want to see it with my own eyes".
She gave up for the second time this day. She glanced at the big clock on the wall.
„Cuddy's office" she repeated. He wanted to protest but she spoke before he could even open his mouth. „She should be doing the morning round. If you hurry, you'll be able to see it yourself".
He smiled roguishly. My girl - he thought.
„For what should I be looking for?" he asked perversely.
„Damian Rose" she answered. „I hope you'll be able to remember it before you get to Cuddy's office".

He was leaving with a big happy smile on his face. He's going to kill two birds with one stone and with a little bit of luck he'll fool both Wilson and Cuddy.

There was a thermal cup with ambiguous inscription "Hot for you" waiting for her in her room. She smiled. She opened the cup's cover and the smelled the wonderful scent of the genuine coffee. It was just as she liked it. It wasn't from the machine standing in the corridor. She realised that it was a really long time since she had drank the top quality coffee. She sipped it with pleasure. The strength of the aroma matched up to the taste. She drank such a good coffee only a few times. At House's, who made them the coffee "his way" when he was in a good mood. She hesitated. Is it possible...? She didn't have time to finish her thought because she saw the card nearby. "Don't get used to this" „ she read. She would have recognised those letters even at the end of the world. House.

„The great missing came to my office!" he welcomed her, submerging himself in the armchair's back as he usually did.
„Don't get used to this" she answered. „I'm giving you your lost property back".
She put the cup with the ambiguous inscription on his desk.
„I hope that your ice melted a little after overdosing the most genuine coffee that costs me a fortune".
He ran his eyes over her silhouette. She was pulling on her jacket. The intensive grey of her blouse matched the colour of her hair. He realised that, actually, they hadn't seen each other in months. She belittled his deduction.
„How's the patient?" she asked, slinging the bag on her arm.
He shrugged.
„What's your bet?"
„I thought that the first tests would decide in favour of the simple urinary tract inflammation but I quickly ruled that out. I wasn't able to stabilise him. Glucose lever raised enormously but it turned out that it's not the diabetes. I would look for the malfunction of the glands. I bet on adrenal glands."
He smiled. He did appreciate the hit in the bull's eye.
„You know that you can always come back to me".
She shook her head.
„Is the ER your one and only dream?" he asked.
„It's my school of life" she answered. „And the place where I feel good.
„You really fell low" he bored her eyes with his. He didn't notice even the slightest shadow of anger or pugnacity in them, nor the lightenings announcing the storm. She smiled.
„Goodnight, House" she turned around at the door. „You brew really escellent coffee. If you promised me a cup of it every morning... I would reconsider your offer".

Glass door let him watch her until she dissapeared round the corner of the corridor. He almost forgot about her. He almost forgot how does she look. He almost forgot how delightful was making a fool of her, bantering, challenging or waking up the real doctor inside of her. He almost forgot that she was the one who was opening the nooks of his world which he wanted to hide from everyone at all costs. She was the key to his weakness, the debris of which he was revealing to her in the least expected moments. Two, three years ago he didn't want to give up. He made everything to push her away and discourage her.

These last months he was having his personal fights and tried to keep his own, House's balance. He didn't want to sell himself cheap. He was testing Wilson, trying to define the acceptable borders from the scratch. He was playing emotional games with his boss, rearranging the relationship between them. The last months were like one big game in which he was balancing in the thin line between Wilson, Cuddy and himself.

So many things had happened... It costed him a lot of energy but the effects could be seen. He let them think that they can control him and still was doing everything his own way. He had his cake and ate it too. The last revelation about the cases from the ER dotted the "i".
Big wheels of the mutual relations were moving again.

He was going back to his home that evening with the deepest belief of controlling everything and everyone around. But he didn't know why, when he was closing his eyes, he saw Cameron with her cascade of fair hair. While falling asleep, he saw perfectly the curves of her eyebrows, gentle profile of her chin and firm eyes, but he wasn't able, not for love or money, to revoke their colour.

Somewhere in the middle of the next three months, when Chase was drifting away into the cosmic non-existence of her feelings, the same cup of coffee landed up again amid the papers. She drank it up, losing the rest of her remorses connected with the ex-boyfriend. He looked up for it, for her to feel awful after the breake-up. The decision was made quickly, and the reasons for the parting were trivial. Suddenly she saw that she isn't interested in half-measures with which she tried to surround herself or to plug a hole in the place where previosly was the whirl of emotions that House woke up in her. No, she wasn't hoping for the day when they'll end up in each other's arms, that the emotionally imbalanced House will suddenly become a lover of the season. She wasn't hoping for anything. She didn't want anything „ maybe except one thing „ to have a rest from the whirling emotions, to put herself together and define her desires. She didn't want any relationships. For the time being. Then she'll see. And it was rather "then" undefined in time and space.

She brought back the cup. She sighed with relief when she saw his empty office. She didn't want to see him or to talk with him. She didn't want to hear the sarcastic notes about her decision to break up with Chase or the psychoanalysis, which, if conducted by him, would be unbearable today. The next three months bring the certainty that she did the right thing. The stress caused by the weight of the separation is wearing off. She feels the serenity overflowing somewhere inside of her and she feels free. She decides not because of the pressure or the vital necessity to fulfil the dreams about the marriage or the expectations the others have of her but she takes the decisions because that's the way she wants her life to be. She finds satisfaction amongst the patients, helping them in every way she can and she receives the confirmation for herself that this is what she wanted to do: to help people.
She doesn't know that his eyes are watching her from hiding because since that evening when he was falling asleep he couldn't recall the colour of her eyes, he wanted to look into those eyes at all price, but in such a way that she wouldn't know.

He never understood her natural need to bring help to the others. Yes, that's true, in many ways he freed her and helped her to move on but a part of her was still the same. The simplicity of her choices was always a surprise and a mystery for him. He still didn't know what is the colour of her eyes because he was carefully chosing the moment to bring a coffee to her room „ she was never there. To tell the truth, he found the pictures of them in the depth of his drawers, made one day by some lady photographer but they were all black and white. Her photo was on the top. When he was opening the drawer he always saw her grey, calm eyes. The photos were made two and a half, almost three years ago. She had changed. She had even changed a lot. In her silhouette, eyes, relations everything was different. He couldn't not notice it. In this struggle and rearrangeing of the world after unattractive experiences he almost missed her. So he has to check if his mind is not tricking him. He watches her. Everything happens without a single word - what's there to say if things are mostly as clear as daylight.
She suprises him because she doesn't look for him, she doesn't try to get his attention, she doesn't intrude upon him, she doesn'ttake an opportunity to meet him in order to give him back this thermal cup in which he brings her coffee. He founds it in his place after he leaves the office. He smiles lightly because now he know that she avoids him. And if she avoids him it means that he isn't completely indifferent to her. Anyway... He acts in the same manner. He always finds a way to plant a coffee cup when she can't see. Is it possible that she isn't indifferrent to him, too?

Maybe that's why before the sleep his mind evokes her face covered with the cascade of fair hair and doesn't let him fall asleep because with all his might he tries to recall the colour of her eyes.

They play the same games with each other, not willing to meet. Does it have any logical explanation? Maybe one: he doesn't want to see her because she has the key to his locked world.

During the next three months he still sits around doing nothing in the clinic, he sneaks into Cuddy's office to read about the patients Cameron sends to him and suprises her with immediate and accurate diagnoses, he steals lunch money from Wilson and occupies himself with bringing the coffee and spying on her, whose colour of the eyes he still can't recall. And this becomes more and more intolerable.

He curses himself with all his might when eventually he gets on his bike and drives up to her flat. He knows that he behaves the most irrationally ever because what he's doing right now can't be explained in any way. He wants to finally see the colour of her eyes, ignorance of which distracts him the most in the world for some time now.

When she opens the door for him he realises that the colour of her eyes was in fact an excuse. He follows her to the kitchen, he sees her embarassment and he knows that again „ as before „ he messes up her organised life. They say some silly words which make no sense and are nothing but close to polite form of saying hello and expressing the surprise caused by his presence.

He sees now that he got in up to the ears because the next truth that gets into his brain is that she strips his sarcasm and self-confidence off. He becomes just a man who suddenly wants to snuggle her and to cover her face with his palms.
For the first time in his life he asks himself what does she want. He remembers only that once he concluded that he's not indifferent for her. He only has to verify and make sure of this.

He looks into here eyes. Yes. Now he knows. The green mixed with the shade of brown. Now when he watches them they suddenly change. Green becomes more deep and brown melts in it. How could he not remember that tint? That was the colour of her eyes when she surprised him with the kiss.

Where were you when you were missing?

His face must have look oddly because he noticed that she becomes the living question mark. She remained silent. He was walking on his emotional verge and he knew that she also struggles with her verge.

He wasn't good at it. One - night stand women were easier, he could wear them off with jiust raising a finger. With her it was different. He knew that after all what had happened he couldn't just blind her with some rubbish. If he doesn't give her a definite sign she won't let him catch her with his vague behaviour and irresponsible words.

But how to say the unspeakable?

For five minutes he won't play. That is, he will play. He will be the usual House sitting next to his piano and saying all the unspeakable with the moves of his fingers. That's why he loves music so much - it can say his unspeakable.

She noticed that his eyes are softening and lips are parting gently as they asked for the tenderest touch. She saw him like that only two times. Once during the detox forced by the bet with Cuddy when he let her into his house, the second time when he came to her to ask her to talk to Wilson when his friend was cleaning his desk after Amber's death.

Suddenly she comes nearer because what she sees in his face can't lie to her. Her pal lands on his cheek. She moves her thumb alongside his lips. He succumbs himself to this caress, answering to her touch with gentle movement.
„You're letting me to do this because...?" she asks.
He sighs. She didn't change. Even now she has to have her answer. But what can he possibly say? So just to clear everything up between them he stutters out:
„I don't want you to be missing again" he says and closes her up in his arms.

THE END