Disclaimer: Nope, not mine
A/N: You just saw the episode, you know where this absolute drabble comes from. I love Cameron; writing a ficlet about her has been a long time coming. Enjoy.
"What does a guy do to make you hate him?" But he didn't care for an answer.
Which was good, because she figured she wasn't going to give him one. It wouldn't do any good to admit that there was a small part of her that did hate Foreman, that couldn't help but give into such a petty and insignificant feeling that clouded her eyes and her rational thinking whenever she was around him. It wouldn't do much good to admit that there was a small part of her that was happy to see Foreman stuck behind a wall of glass, unable to hide from the people that came to stop and stare and murmur and make guesses about what was wrong and eventually walk away, thankful that they weren't stuck in that room with a man that couldn't stop screaming. She found it almost ironic that he was in a glass room, unable to hide, when he had made such a show of keeping the fact that he had taken her paper a secret. Again, it was something insignificant and she hated herself for thinking too much on it. Hated herself for hating him. Hated herself for taking joy in the fact that he was sick and he couldn't write a paper to explain away this one.
And, because of that feeling, she figured that people would assume she had gone to the apartment as some sort of repentance, in order to beg for forgiveness when it came to her petty feelings. Of course, no one knew exactly how she felt about Foreman (people could guess, they could speculate but it was last week's water cooler talk), but that didn't stop her from thinking about what people would think. She didn't believe in repentance, especially when she didn't believe that she had done anything wrong. She didn't believe in getting on her knees and asking some Higher Power for forgiveness. Going into that apartment hadn't had anything to do with Foreman. It hadn't even really had anything to do with her.
It had had everything to do with him. He had been right to guess that she didn't fear catching the disease when Foreman had stuck her. He had been right to assume she had been looking for a reason to head into the apartment, which had been sealed up to keep the unsuspecting, innocent public out. For a moment, she had stood outside the door, staring at the blue tap and the words printed in descending stripes across the front, trying to decide if she should really good inside, if it was really worth it. She didn't care about helping Foreman, she didn't care about saving herself from something she didn't even think she had.
But she had cared about him.
He had been right to call her weak. Even if his words had stung, she knew he had hit it right on the head. She was weak, she always had been. It was, well, her weakness. She didn't hate herself for that, at least, not yet, not while she was busy hating herself for other things. But she did resent the fact that she had been programmed with the need to make everyone around her happy. She was like a dog that learned tricks just so their master would pat them on the head. She was waiting for him to pat her and tell her she had done a good job.
She had gone into the apartment for him. She had gone so that she would be the one to find the cure, so that she would be the one to understand exactly what was making everyone sick so that she could drag it back to him and smile and say "look what I did" and hope that he would care. She couldn't help but hope that maybe he would look at her and nod and maybe he would be happy with her, until the next time when Foreman or Chase would be his favorite again.
She was weak for trying to hard to get that approval. She was weak for wanting so badly for him to compliment her, to comment on her, to notice her for more then a few seconds; she was weak for wanting hers to be the paper that was signed and sent off, she was weak wanting to be the one he worried about. She was weak was needing to know that he cared, even though he wasn't the sort of person that cared; she knew it, he knew it, everyone knew it.
But she couldn't seem to help herself. She couldn't stop herself from going into a disease infested apartment with the hopes of getting something to bring back to him. She couldn't stop herself from pushing herself to the limit case after case, time after time, just for him. She couldn't stop herself from doing the things she did, thinking the things she thought, coming to work every day just for him. For the hopes that he would notice one day.
He had called her weak. Maybe she didn't mind so much.