Author's Note: Just a bit of Chameron fluff that I was craving. Read and enjoy. Review if you like. :)
Disclaimer: I don't own House, M.D. If I did, Cameron and Chase would be married by now, and I wouldn't be so worried about a potential break-up, seriously.
There was a knock on the door, and Cameron jolted awake. Several pictures fell off the couch onto the floor as she jerked upright, and she leaned over to pick them up. The knock came again.
"Hold on," Cameron called out, setting the pictures beside her on the couch and standing up. When she opened the door, she wasn't really all that surprised to see Chase outside. After all, who else would show up at this hour?
"Forget your key?" she asked, an amused smirk playing across her lips.
Chase looked at the ground sheepishly. "Yeah."
Cameron just grinned. "Why am I not surprised?" She stepped back to let Chase in, headed back toward the couch.
Chase followed her after shutting the door and, glancing at all the pictures strewn across the floor, asked, "What's all this for?"
Cameron didn't look up. "Just pictures. I was getting out the ones of us and putting the old ones away."
Chase glanced at her. "Putting the old ones away?"
"Yeah."
"Like of you and your husband?"
"Yeah." There was some unspoken, unacknowledged tension behind the word.
"You know you don't have to put those away if you don't want. Just because we're getting married now doesn't mean you have to purge yourself of your old life," he said gently.
"I know," Cameron murmured, sinking onto the couch beside Chase. "I think it would be weird to have both sets out, but I loved him so much, you know, even now that he's gone."
Chase nodded slightly, reaching out to take Cameron's hand and squeezing it gently. "I know, and it can be difficult. You said so yourself, so I'm just letting you know that you don't have to completely cut him out yet, not if you don't want to."
Cameron thought a moment, looking at the pictures on the floor, then gave Chase a look out of the corners of her eyes. "I love you, you know?"
Chase smiled and leaned over to kiss her temple gently. "I know, and I love you. Now, let's get this stuff cleaned up and go to bed."
He bent over to start picking pictures up, and Cameron moved to help him. When the very last one had been stacked neatly, Cameron set up the picture frame she'd been working with earlier. In it, there was a picture of the two of them at the Christmas party, smiling and happy.
Chase smiled at the sight, wrapped an arm around Cameron, and the two moved off to bed.