This Year Will Be Different
Disclaimer: If they were mine, you would be watching this, not reading it.
Summary: It'll take a year's worth of holidays to get Cameron and Thirteen together.
Spoilers: Only up until Last Resort. There is a brief reference to Spencer from Lucky Thirteen as well.
Pairing: Thirteen/Cameron
A/N: Sequel to Ringing in the New Year. Each chapter will be one major holiday.
A/N2: Chase and Cameron aren't together…and neither are Foreman and Thirteen (hate!)
A/N3: I am aware that it is kind of short considering the holiday it's written for. However, since this takes place before there is any relationship between them my hands were kind of tied.
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Chapter One- Valentine's Day
After getting a day's worth of Friday the 13th jokes thrown at her, Thirteen had been more than happy to abandon the rest of the team upstairs for the refuge of the ER. It's not like they were in the middle of a case anyways.
Once she finishes stitching up the hand of a man whose foray into cooking went awry, the brunette takes off her gloves and grabs his chart before making her way back to the Nurse's Station.
"I don't know if it's good luck or bad luck to have you down here on a Friday the 13th," an amused voice muses from behind the young doctor.
Remy rolls her eyes good-naturedly as she turns around. "Dr. Cameron, unless you plan on stitching all of these people up yourself, you should consider it good luck," she smirks, folding her arms across her chest.
"Duly noted," Allison chuckles in response. "So, what brings you down here…aside from the ambiance?" She questions.
"An attempt to escape House and his 'Friday the Thirteenth' jokes," Hadley pointedly answers in response to the other woman's joking greeting.
The blonde laughs at this. "Okay, I can take a hint. I never took you to be the 'subtle' type though. House says that you can be pretty direct with what you want," she states, unconsciously mirroring the words that Spencer had said to House several months ago.
Remy catches the similarity in phrasing and her smile falters slightly. "I better get going. Sick people and all," she waves vaguely at the chaos around them.
"Right, of course," Allison replies, stepping out of the other doctor's way and wondering why the sudden shift in her mood.
The blonde frowns at Thirteen's departure. Ever since their kiss on New Year's, the brunette has certainly been a little more friendly and open with her. There isn't the awkwardness between them that was present when Allison first became involved with Chase. She shakes off the thoughts and turns to tend to the man bleeding from his head that just entered the ER.
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8:10 pm
Having finally finished her paperwork, Allison finds herself in the locker room preparing to leave for the day. She allows her mind to wander towards a certain dark-haired doctor who helped out in the ER today. However, before those thoughts can get too graphic, the locker room door swings open and in steps the object of the blonde's musings.
"Hey," Cameron greets with a smile.
Thirteen appears startled, too lost in thought to have noticed the other woman sitting on the bench. "Oh, hey," she responds in kind as she goes to her locker, conveniently located four lockers down from the ER doctor's.
"Thanks for the help in the ER today," Allison says, more for something to fill the silence than anything else.
"Well, between the ER and the clinic, I prefer the ER," Remy shrugs in response, a smile playing on her lips.
The older doctor seems to ponder this for a moment, her brows furrowing. She struggles to figure out the benefit of working in the stressful chaos of the ER over the relative calm of the clinic. "Why? Because you were taken hostage from the clinic last November?" She wonders.
Remy chuckles and shakes her head slightly. "No. The company in the ER is better," she smiles, giving the other woman a lingering look.
At the sly compliment, Allison averts her eyes and blushes as she tries to form a coherent sentence. "So, what are you doing tomorrow for Valentine's Day?" She finds herself asking.
"The usual: giving stitches to idiots who play with hacksaws, setting broken bones, and convincing hypochondriacs that they have a headache and not a brain tumor," the brunette shrugs easily, seemingly not bothered by the fact that she's spending, what is supposed to be the most romantic day of the year, working in the ER.
"That sounds like a hell of a date," Cameron muses, trying to keep her tone serious.
Thirteen arches an eyebrow at the other woman's tone before seeing the mischievous glint in the other woman's eyes. "Apparently you've never dated me then," she points out earnestly.
"Not that I seem to recall," Allison replies, tilting her head to the side as if in thought. "However, if it involves stitches, broken bones, and brain tumors, well, I have to say that I am more than a little curious," she gamely adds, unsure what even compelled her to do so.
Hadley is the first to break as she begins to laugh. "Have a good night Dr. Cameron," she says before closing her locker and heading towards the door.
"You too Dr. Hadley," the blonde nods kindly. Remy glances back towards the other woman and smiles at the fact that she referred to her using her real name. Allison returns the smile.
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Valentine's Day, 3:15 pm
Thirteen sighs as she exits an exam room before removing her gloves and throwing them violently into a nearby trashcan. She scowls at whoever dares to give her an odd look. The brunette just finished stitching up some idiot that decided to dress up as Superman in some sexual role-playing game with his girlfriend. He decided to try and 'fly' by holding onto the ceiling fan as it was spinning. The results weren't pretty and one could understand the young doctor's irritation.
"Somebody is having a bad day," a certain blonde ER doctor notes as Hadley walks by.
"You know, I always thought Friday the 13th was supposed to be unlucky and not the day after," the other woman vents.
"I heard about Superman," Cameron winces in sympathy, her eyes being drawn to a fresh, crimson splotch on the younger doctor's light blue shirt.
Remy's gaze follows that of the other woman's and settles on the blood stain on her shirt. "Well, red is the signature color of the Valentine's Day," she grumbles humorlessly.
"You look like you could use a break to change your shirt and scream into a pillow or something," the blonde informs Thirteen, who takes a look around the ER and finds that it has at least settled down some. "It'll be fine," she smiles reassuringly.
"Thanks," the brunette smiles gratefully as she turns to head towards the locker room.
"And Remy…" Allison trails off to get the brunette's attention. "Happy Valentine's Day," she finishes with a sincere smile.
"You too Allison," the younger doctor replies with a smirk and a shake of her head as she exits the ER and makes her way to the locker room.
Opening her locker, Thirteen sighs mournfully at the destruction of another of her shirts due to some kind of bodily fluid at the hospital. As she shrugs off her lab coat and blindly reaches for a spare shirt, her hand hits something foreign in the locker. Now paying attention, she actually looks in and a genuine smile crosses her face.
The dark-haired doctor can't help but smirk at the small card with a picture of a bashful looking Care Bear with the words 'For Someone Beary Special' printed above it. She opens the card and reads the handwritten note inside. Here's to dates that don't include broken bones and stitches. The name written at the bottom doesn't surprise her, but brings another smile to her face.
As she goes to place the card safely back in her locker, she spots a small red cardboard box, no bigger than a deck of cards. At the sight of the familiar heart print, she chuckles and shakes her head, quickly changing her shirt and putting her lab coat back on.
Remy opens the box of the candy 'Sweethearts' and pops a few into her hand, closing the box and putting it in one of her pockets. She looks down into her hand to read the little messages on them as she makes her way back to the ER. The first two she reads simply say 'Puppy Love' and 'Charm Me'.
As if on cue, Hadley glances up as soon as she enters the ER and locks eyes with the blonde who signed the Valentine's Day card and somehow managed to break into her locker earlier today. Thirteen can't suppress the smile that instantly comes to her face. It's a smile that's just as easily returned by Dr. Cameron.
Even from the other side of the ER, Remy is unable to miss the blush creeping up the blonde's face. This only serves to widen her grin and when a new patient manages to tear the blonde woman's attention from her, Remy can't help but feel like maybe today hasn't been such a waste after all. With a thoughtful smile, she pops the candies into her mouth, grabs a new file, and gets back to work.
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Just so you know, I feel like a total sellout for caving and writing a Valentine's Day story at all. Although, the fact that this is intended to be a holiday-themed chapter fic kind of softens the blow. I mostly updated my other two stories today because I like to post chapters to multiple stories at the same time…because I am a lazy bastard.
I actually have all of the chapters for this story mapped out. It looks like there will be ten chapters, each celebrating a different holiday. This is going to be kind of a fun story…minimal angst. That being said, I am on the fence on whether or not to include chapters centered on their birthdays. Let me know what you think.
Don't worry, you won't have to wait until the end of the year for this to be finished. I'll just do them in between other chapters for other stories if I have time. Also, just so you know, some chapters, obviously will be varying in length…some may be kind of short, which is unfortunate because I hate writing short chapters. Other chapters will be medium in length and other may be long. It depends on the holiday. Make sure to check out my profile for story updates and such.