A/N Alright… So this has been sitting on my hard drive for so long while I've been fiddling with it that I don't know whether I love it or hate it at this point, either way, this one was waaaay different for me to write…. BlueHeronz requested Wilson/Cameron a long time ago, a request which was later repeated by Allie House and this is what I came up with…. I don't think this is what either of them initially intended as its not straight Wilson/Cameron, but I'm still working my way up to that… and the shipper in me had to get that House/Cameron in there somehow…
This fic was inspired by the song Good Life by Francis Dunnery and some of the lyrics bookend it... I strongly suggest looking it up and listening to it on youtube or something cause it's a great song and it also sets the mood…. Anyways enough from me and here it is :P
Softly Now,
You owe it to the world
And everyone knows that you're my favourite girl
But there's some things in life that are not meant to be
I'm not meant for you and your not meant for me
Here's to our problems
And here's to our fights
Here's to our achings
And here's to you having a Good life
From Me
Good Life
I.
He never doubted her feelings for him.
Well, that's a lie.
If he was going to be honest with himself, he had to admit that he had originally thought that her affections towards him were some misplaced hero worship. Or some twisted desire to mend his wounded heart and turn him into someone who was warm and fuzzy and enjoyed pina coladas and getting caught in the rain. But the longer he knew her, and as her puzzle slowly unraveled, he came to terms with the fact that she truly was being sincere about her feelings for him.
And his feelings for her were certainly no mystery. At least they were clear in his own mind, even if he would never admit them to anyone else. He had been attracted to her from the moment he first laid eyes on her, he had never made any secret about that. But through the years, as she grew and matured as a doctor and person, he found himself even more captivated by the strong and confident woman she had become.
She wanted him, and he wanted her.
It should have been a simple equation.
However in some cases, A plus B does not equal C and you're left with a broken pencil, completely incapable of solving for X.
II.
It wasn't about what either of them wanted, at least that's what House repeatedly told himself all those lonely nights when he had only his piano and a bottle of twelve year old scotch for company. It was about what she deserved and she deserved so much more than him.
She didn't deserve to be treated the way he would undoubtedly treat her. He was old and bitter and set in his ways. He wouldn't compromise and watch the movies she liked to watch or listen to the music she enjoyed in the car. He would be withdrawn and sullen for no reason and go for midnight bike rides without telling her and as a result she would wake up alone in a cold bed. He would never want to get married, he wouldn't want kids.
He wouldn't be able to give her the love and affection she wanted or needed. He wouldn't tell her he loved her and hold her on cold winter nights. He would never make any effort to take her somewhere nice or plan surprises for her birthday. In fact, he would probably forget her birthday and their anniversary and only remember Valentines Day because of the commercials on TV, but then he would probably just choose to ignore that too.
If he was upset or angry he would turn to pills and alcohol instead of her, snapping at her if she dare try to get him to open up and confide in her. He would continually take advantage of her kind and caring nature, until he hardened her heart to match his.
It would only be a matter of time before she would come to her senses and realize just who she had attached herself to. And until the day she recognized those facts, he could only ever bring her pain.
And then she would leave him and never look back.
He told himself these things over and over until he was truly convinced that it really was in both of their best interests if nothing ever happened in the first place.
So he pushed and he pushed and he pushed.
Until one day she stopped pushing back.
And it killed him inside.
III.
It had started as coffee between colleagues in the cafeteria of the hospital.
That progressed to coffee between friends in the small café a couple blocks away from the hospital.
Which eventually morphed into coffee between lovers in the morning before they both headed to work at the hospital.
He knew something was different about both of them, but for all his pride in his puzzle solving ability, he had failed to put something as simple as two and two together. In fact, he hadn't even see it coming, until one day Wilson was in his office practically asking his permission to date his former employee.
As if it was his permission to give.
As if he had some right to say what happened in her life.
As if he hadn't purposely thrown away his repeated chances with her.
He wanted to say no.
To stay the hell away from her.
That she was and always would be his.
But he didn't.
Instead, he gave his best friend his blessings, after a couple of only half joking threats of castration if he hurt her and figured that if she had to move on with someone he was glad it was with Wilson. It had killed him to watch her with Chase and it had been a long time since he had been as happy as he was when he found out that they had broken up and the wombat was moving back to Australia. At least this way she would never stray too far, even if it meant he had to confront that he had truly lost what could the best thing that might have ever happened to him everyday.
IV.
He would never forget the feeling in the pit of his stomach when Wilson burst into his office one morning, practically two years to the day that she had handed in her resignation, positively ecstatic to tell him that Cameron was pregnant and they were getting married.
He had nothing to say except congratulations and hopes that this one stuck.
And now, six years later, they were the proud parents of two and just as happy together as they were when they first began having coffee together before work.
A part of him had wondered all those years ago just how long the marriage would last considering Wilson's track record, however it seemed like Wilson had finally found a relationship that worked. He needed to be needed and he found that in their children, so even if Cameron was strong enough to stand on her own two feet, Wilson never felt like he needed to look outside of his marriage so that he could rescue a damsel in distress. Cameron completely understood his long hours as she had often worked similar ones, but they got to see each other at work and made a point of getting lunch together whenever they could, so they never felt neglected. Also the fact that he saw his wife throughout the work day was a ready reminder to control his wandering eye, not that he even had a desire to look elsewhere.
Another important factor to the success of their marriage, was the fact that she was the first and only one of his wives that not only understood and condoned, but also encouraged her husband's relationship with his grumpy best friend.
She never minded when he intruded on one of their lunches in the hospital cafeteria and would let him steal as many of her French fries as he wanted, which he had a sneaking suspicion that she got for him anyways, considering she never used to eat fries in the past.
She never complained when he would park on their couch to watch a game with Wilson, in fact she always had his favorite snack foods on hand and would often indulge in a beer herself and join them in screaming at the TV if the children were otherwise preoccupied.
She never once argued with Wilson if he got a call in the middle of the night to pick him up from some random bar because he was too drunk to get himself home. Instead he would come into his office the next morning to find the blinds already drawn with some vitamins and a bottle of water to help with the hangover on his desk. And she didn't need to leave a note for him to know who they were from.
She understood when she married Wilson that he came as part of the package. In fact, she went one step further and made every effort to make him feel like he was apart of their family.
He didn't know if he was grateful or if that just made it that much harder to watch.
V.
"Cameron," he acknowledged when she strolled into the office.
He was the only one to call her Cameron any more. To the rest of the world she was Dr. Allison Wilson, her maiden name long since forgotten. But in his mind she would always be his Cameron.
"Good morning," she greeted cheerfully, shrugging off her jacket and draping it over the back of her chair and then going into the conference room to make some coffee.
She's the Assistant Head of Diagnostics these days. A position he didn't think would actually ever be created, but was now necessary as the Diagnostic Department had grown. One day five years ago, Cuddy decided that as a teaching hospital, they should be doing more teaching. As such, the department was now comprised of three attendings, nine fellows, and three interns who only did two week, strictly observational rotations, which were completely ignored by House, but who's names Cameron would always make a point of knowing by the end of the first day of their two week tour. Depending on how many patients they had - they were no longer allowed to only take the rarest of the rare diseases, although those were still the only ones House personally paid any attention too - the doctors would split into teams, with Cameron and himself bouncing from team to team, overseeing the diagnoses of all patients.
When Cuddy had first informed him of the proposed growth of his department, he had adamantly refused. In fact, he had only given in after Cuddy had revealed that she was going to offer Cameron, who was ready to come back from maternity leave after having David and who everyone felt was wasting her talent in the ER for the three years after she had quit working under him, for the assistant head position.
He glanced up at her when she returned, two mugs in hand. That was when he noticed.
"You're pregnant."
"No, I'm not," Cameron replied, slightly taken aback even as she chuckled shaking her head slightly.
"Yes, you are," he repeated. "Go get a test."
She gave him a long inquisitive glance, before giving him a succinct nod and hurrying out of the office. There was no doubt in his mind that she was headed towards the direction of the clinic to draw some blood from herself.
Sitting back in his chair, he took a moment to sip the coffee she had made him as he contemplated the soon to be new addition to the Wilson clan.
Their two older children called him Uncle House, a name that he publicly abhorred, but privately loved. Cameron had initially tried to get them to call him Uncle Greg, but children naturally mimic what they hear, and so it was Uncle House that he was christened by a young David, Emily quickly picking it up from her older brother.
Both kids favored their mother in their appearance, including having the same color shifting eyes, although David definitely had the same nose and smile as his father and Emily had his ears. But thankfully, at least in House's opinion, which he of course voiced loudly and often, neither of them were unfortunate enough to inherit their father's eyebrows.
He concluded some time ago that not being unbearable must also be a genetic trait as their parents passed it on to both of their children. As damaging as it was to his reputation, he had to admit, at least to himself, that he really enjoyed, maybe even loved those two kids. And, he thought with a resigned sigh as he stood and made his way to the conference room to begin the work day, he was sure his feelings towards the newest offspring wouldn't be any different.
VI.
"Hello?" she said, answering the phone pleasantly.
"It's me, is Jimmy around?" he responded gruffly.
"Hey House. Sorry, but James isn't here, he was paged about half an hour ago and had to go back to work. But I know he has his cell with him," she offered.
"Oh, okay, I'll call his cell," he replied easily, as if he hadn't seen Wilson enter the hospital just as he was leaving. As if he wasn't using this as an excuse to talk to her instead. "So how did he take the news that you're plagued with another parasite?"
"Oh he was ecstatic," Cameron gushed. "He refused to let me finish making dinner and made me sit down and rest as if I was seven months along instead of seven weeks. He's already talking about getting the nursery set back up."
House wasn't surprised by her answer. Wilson adored his first two children more than life itself and he could tell when he saw him walking across the parking lot that he looked like he might as well have been walking on air, regardless of the fact that he was being paged back to work at ten at night.
"But House, how did you know?" she asked curiously. "We weren't even trying to get pregnant and I didn't even think that I might be until you said something this morning."
The answer was simple. Allison Cameron Wilson glowed when she was pregnant.
"I know all," House replied instead. "You should know that by now."
Cameron laughed freely in response to his quip. He knew that what he said was not that funny, but that hers was a laugh of pure and unrestrained happiness and contentment. After all, she was having another baby with the husband who loved and worshipped her to add to her already picture-perfect family and life. She had everything a girl could ask for, she had gotten the fairy tale ending that she deserved. The sound made House smile along with her, although his gesture was tinged with a melancholy that came from long accepted regrets that he would never dare name.
"You know what this means now, don't you?" she teased cheerfully. "That now you get deal with crazy hormonal Allison for the next couple months. I know you barely survived working with me when I was pregnant with Emily."
"Yes, but this time I'm ahead of the curve," he replied easily as he leaned back in the couch propped his feet up on the coffee table. "I already stopped at the market on my way home to store up on York Peppermint Patties and Hot Cheetos to keep in the office. This time around I already know what to throw at you to distract you when you start going crazy."
Cameron laughed again and this time House couldn't help but chuckle along with her, her joy was infectious even through the phone.
"So," he asked, settling back on his couch as he switched the phone to his other ear and propped his feet up on the coffee table, "when do you plan on telling the munchkins?"
VII.
He was good for her.
She was good for him.
They were actually happy together.
Seeing her happy made him happy.
Some things just weren't meant to be.
If only it didn't have to hurt so god damn much.
Louder Now,
You've lost all your pain
You're married with children and happy again
And now I'm regretting the move that I made
Fatal mistakes are so easily made
Enough of my problems they only cause fights
Forget that I rang you
And promise you'll have such a
Beautifully happy and painlessly romantic
Good life
From Me
Good Life
A/N Sooo cheers or jeers? You'll have to tell me because I have no clue….
And in other news, the new chapter of I Do? I Don't should be up soon… and a million apologies for being MIA for so long, I swear I didn't mean to let that one sit for so long… but in the mean time, let me know what you think about this one!