Hello! =) New story, hope you will appreciate it =)
As always, thanks to MaRtA H&Conly for authorizing me to translate her Italian fanfiction =)
Chapter 1
"If you have made mistakes, there is always another chance for you.
You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call 'failure' is not the falling down, but the staying down."
- Mary Pickford -
He snorted, annoyed by that attitude, by their arrogance to snoop in his life...Stupid little idealistic kids...
Entering the living room, he heard an insistent fumbling at his door and raised an eyebrow...There were two possibilities: or it was an idiot thief or he was having another allucination.
He went to the door leaning against the wall, the small table near the door, practically everything that was on his way, while the noises outside increased. With a last little embarrassing jump, he leaned against the door.
"I'll give you fifty dollars If you stop trying to break my door open and let me sleep in peace!" he yelled through the door.
A moment of silence passed, which was curious...The little devil on his left shoulder was telling him to open the door...And so he did. He opened the door abruptly, hoping to catch some kind of thief struggling with the door of his neighbor (not that he'd have stopped him, but he wanted to see If it was true that he kept a shotgun under his bed).
"Oh..." he wasn't very enthusiastic when he found that outside his door there was a thief in her thirties with a perfect body, salaried by him "Hit me quickly, release all your anger on me, but do it quickly, I want to sleep" he said annoyed.
Cameron stared at him impassively, her expression was the same as before and he wondered If she was doing it on purpose. He stared at her, waiting for her to say or do something.
'It shouldn't be hard to stop her If she hit me' he thought and blinked, smiling bitterly with his head down.
"You are an idiot" she said it in the most transparent way possible, colorless and inexpressive, leaving him puzzled "The point is that you are an idiot and you know it, otherwise it doesn't explain your behavior this week".
"You've probably got the wrong door, the kangaroo lives across town".
She moved closer to him, forcing him to take some steps back "Don't you dare to change the subject again!".
He nodded, still puzzled.
She moved closer to him again, smiling nervously "Do you realize that we've spent the whole night trying to figure out If you had cancer? Do you understand that House! ?".
"Stop yelling! No one had asked you to do it, I told you to stay away from me, from my case and from my office. It's been three years now!" he looked down, sighing, uncomfortable for everything, for the world that didn't stop to watch him...'You are an idiot'...He swallowed without looking at her "You have to stop making me a case, I'm not interesting!" he tried to close the door but too slowly and reluctantly to look like he'd actually do it; almost waiting for her to block the door.
"For three times this year I've thought I would never see you again" she saw him smiling bitterly.
He snorted.
"And the other times I found myself praying that you'd not die, you idiot!".
House shook his head, shrugging "Do as you like...I'm going to bed" he turned around and looked for the first thing to use for the back journey, but he was interrupted by the sound of her heels on the floor. He proceeded slowly, sighing several times, thinking of what implicit part of his speech she had missed.
'If she has nothing to say, she will go away. If she has something to say, she'll go after a few minutes...'.
"You had a chance and you haven't used it" bitter and defeated. She turned and closed the door.
When they say 'to arouse someone's suspicions'!.
He laughed hysterically, gripping the cane and returning quickly to the door. He opened it like a fury and then the main door. A quick look around the street and he saw her on the sidewalk, car keys in hand...
"You're so naive and pathetic!".
She turned exasperated, mentally preparing for the second round. She had thought, and hoped, that it'd have waited 'till next morning.
He approached her quickly and looked in her eyes in hopes of making it as easy and painless as possible.
"So?".
"So what?" his voice was less calm than Cameron's.
"I'm naive and pathetic, other than that?" she saw him incrisis at her nonchalance "Don't tell me that you have run in the street in the middle of February, with seven degrees, wearing a T-shirt and pajamas, just to tell me what you tell me everyday with your gestures and attitude?".
The diagnostician shook his head as If to recover from that clear and straightforward analysis of the situation, and it bothered him that she could describe in that way, with so few and inadequate words, what was 'their kind of relationship'. He made a move to walk to her when he realized that he was barefoot, and that his attitude was pathetic.
Cameron went to him, making things easier for him, smiling and waiting at the same time "House, what else?".
"I don't think you are pathetic and naive three hundred sixty-five days per year".
She shrugged, amused "Ah, thank you".
He rolled his eyes, snorting "I think you are now for what you said".
This time she was the one who didn't understand what he was saying. He smiled, invigorated by her frown "You speak of possibilities, but what possibility Cameron? The only possibility I had to feel good you have taken away from me less than an hour ago. And what do you hope I'll do? That I hold you with tears in my eyes just because you've made me see that it was ethically and morally wrong?" he went closer to her face, feeling anger growing inside "You and your little friends have made me an idiot, there was nothing stupid in what I wanted to do, I've been able to deceive a head physician of Oncology and a medical director who hate me without even knowing me, and you've ruined everything making me look like a...a..."
"A junkie" she finished for him.
They stood there, both angry for what had been said, for what they didn't say and for finding themselves every time at the starting point. She looked down, tired of all that nonstop arguing without ever coming to anything. She smiled bitterly and walked back to the car.
"What possibility?".
She turned puzzled, the curiosity of that man was incredible. She returned to him and wondered If it was the story of her life...going back to him...
"What?" she said with resignation and exasperation.
"You said that I had a possibility, and what was it?".
'Me, at the beginning' she thought.
"Ketamine, you did a reset House, you could start over" she said.
House passed a hand over his beard, amused "And that was a possibility? You call it a possibility? ! Half possibility...If anything...As you can see, I'm still a cripple!".
She smiled, shrugging and going up a step, being at his eye-level, making him nervous "I know. I know that you are a cripple, the problem is that you consider yourself only that, a cripple. To me you are something else: you are a man, a doctor, I suppose a sort of amateur pianist, a music lover and-".
"Not everyone is the good Samaritan Allison Cameron, the other people watch me and see a cripple, talk to me and see a bastard cripple".
She continued to smile and he didn't understand.
"You are the one who let them do it. This is what I meant, you had another possibility and you didn't use it, not because you'd have not been capable, but only because it was hard...".
He looked down uncertainly, backing toward the open front door. She held her finger pointed at him, smiling hysterically, strangely relaxed. He didn't know when, but within ten minutes the roles were reversed, and now more than tired he felt irritated, his hands were itching, and for the first time in ten years he felt the need to smash something.
He ran a hand over his beard, leaning against the wall, keeping his eyes on his feet, remembering that he had only his pajamas on, that he was in the street in February. He saw her shoes just beyond the front door and looked up, confirming his mental idea that she was standing with her hands on the hips. He grimaced.
"We've finished House, for now, can we wait till tomorrow?" she asked, tired.
He looked into her eyes, she was being sarcastic and she was doing it well. Damn! "No! We're not done, you've ruined my evening! You and your eagerness-".
"I can go to get you a movie, If you want".
He was stunned, staring at her as she shrugged.
"Then I'd go" she turned quickly, leaving him dumbfounded, not knowing what to say.
"Good, then go! After all, it's what you do best!".
She turned abruptly, seeing him smirking.
"You come here, you throw me off balance, you ruin my evening, and then you go. Thank you very much, I almost missed it!" he said bitterly.
He felt upset because her look changed, making her depressed for the umpteenth time. He began to rub his pajama pants with his left hand while he thought about the annoying part of his sentence.
"I'm sorry House, I didn't want to. Believe me" she whispered.
He kicked himself mentally while he saw her walking to her car. He moved from the door and put his feet on the doormat "Come on, stop it! It's not your fault, it's nature...It would be...It would be as If Chase suddenly decided to say something meaningful and related to a case; it's a conditioned reflex for you".
She turned again, trying to remain calm. She snorted while looking down.
"Come on, I'll buy you a drink" and he went back into his apartment.
Cameron stood stunned for a moment, then she saw him returning outside with a pair of shoes at his feet, but still with the pajamas.
"Do you really want to go out like that?".
He seemed to think about it and then seemed to realize that she wasn't Wilson. The immunologist smiled amused seeing him looking for an excuse.
He snorted, rolling his eyes "Of course not, silly. I'll offer you a drink here. I've put on my shoes just for...". She waited for his explanation almost laughing.
"Are you going to come in or not?" he said annoyed at her look.
You can win House over a conversation for about twenty seconds, then he starts to deflect the conversation humiliating or offending his partner.
He returned inside, moving toward the kitchen, closing his eyes when he heard the door closing and the sound of her heels.
'Good House, and now?' he thought.
He hadn't thought of it before, for her 'resignations' and her 'blood samples'. He closed his eyes again, breathing slowly, before turning to her who was in the middle of the living room, looking around.
"Whiskey or beer?" he asked. She looked at him amused. "I don't know how to do a Cosmopolitan or a Manhattan or whatever contains little umbrellas".
"The Cosmopolitan doesn't have umbrellas, not even the Manhattan, I think...You put yourself into this mess, House".
He leaned heavily against the wall of the kitchen, watching her intently, smiling bitterly "What mess? Where I'm a drug addicted? Where I pretend to have a brain tumor and all the rest...Or are we talking of you here?".
She shrugged, walking to him, sliding her index finger on the back of the couch. She stopped a few feet away from him "I was talking about the offering me a drink without having it here. But now that I think..." she lowered her eyes, returning to look at him immediately in a different and strange way, electric, a way that made fallen a heavy silence in the room. She smiled "I'm still too sober, I'd opt for a beer".
He nodded and disappeared into the dark kitchen while she wondered If being there was not just a hopeless attempt of her romantic and nostalgic part to look for a chance...once again. She looked around, looking for any reason to go and stay.
Ten minutes to retrieve a beer from the fridge would bee too many even for someone with no arms. She closed her eyes...
"Finished".
She turned quickly to him, standing in front of the door, embarrassed, uncomfortable, angry, foreign in his territory, and now run out of excuses and ideas to make her go away "Blame it on Wilson...".
"Ok, maybe next time..." she went to the door, almost relaxed by that escape served on a silver plate. She heard him huffing.
"Yeah, as If we both don't know that there will never be a next time. Unless, of course, I won't pretend another terminal illness, you try again to resign, pretend to kiss me for some test and then you with your band reach the brilliant deduction that there isn't a way to bring my ethics on the right path. I'll see you the next time around Cameron, I'll be sure to let you find a cold beer, same place?".
In that whirlwind of words, only one thing had entered in her head, bothering her. She looked at him after a brief look at his parquet, frowning. Her bag in her hand, almost touching the floor "I haven't finished...".
He was uncomfortable, and he was unsure on what she expected to hear from him. He shrugged, trying to recover "You just wanted my blood, you used your better skill to get it. I know it and that's fine" he was asking a confirmation with his last words.
"I wanted you but I gave up, I wanted you alive and it seemed an accessible goal as a doctor..." she smiled bitterly "I'm accustomed to failures, what doesn't kill us, makes us stronger" she put her hand on the knob "Don't consider me as an example to follow..." she opened the door feeling a pang as she did it.
"I know...But I can't avoid to stop you from making mistakes. I'd be a mistake too great to set right".
She didn't let go the knob as she looked at him passing the couch, stopping a few feet away from her "Go Cameron".
She smiled angrily and hysterically "No, you can't tell me this and hope that I'll go like nothing happened. You can't expect it!".
He widened his eyes "I don't have beers for real!".
"Come on, House! We always get to this point and we don't go any further!".
He rolled his eyes "Well, you kissed me".
Cameron closed the door, going to him "I hate talking like this, not only because it doesn't suit me, but because it just bothers me, but with you there are no alternatives, being clear becomes essential: your tongue was in my mouth, maybe I kissed you but you didn't move a finger to stop me!".
He stared at her and then twisted his mouth, looking away "Yeah but..." he stopped, thinking.
"There are no buts, House. You kissed me, admit it to yourself If nothing else".
A strong grip on her hand, rough fingers around hers, his right hand brushing her t-shirt, feeling the warmth of the skin beneath, and then that strong scent that reached his nostrils, that getting possession of a territory, under these quick and light scratches and then...and then nothing again.
It's just a looking for each other, a crescendo until the highest note, a shilly-shallying, a dividing a territory, a prevailing over the other. So everything was transformed, there are just two mouths that look for each other, it was not like a vicissitude of notes, there were no horses that gallopped together. There were his hands that held her face softly, her hands around his neck, their lips fused together softly, sweetly, as one thing.
A little snap before his hot forehead rested on the cool one of her, there is only a slight and imperceptible breathing in the background before his hands moved away from her cheeks and the head straighted back on the neck, before her small hands slipped away like a sheet. She made half step back, their eyes still focused on their lips...Her lips... Yeah, because he'd not tolerate the thought of anyone else that could have them..."Now, I have kissed you".
Looking into their eyes with less security and boldness, not pride, but with a bit of lust.
TBC...