Title:When the Dust Settles

Author:Little-Starling

Rating:PG (M in later chapters)

Spoilers:None

Authors Notes:I'm not really sure where I plan to go with this fic. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Reviews are considered most kind; constructive criticisms are welcomed but please, no flames. This is my first House fic. Thanks.

Cameron became partially aware of two things almost simultaneously. One was the slow, deep sound of her breath entering then escaping her body. An almost melodic sound, the low tone of rushing air held her attention for an indeterminate amount of time. The second thing was the darkness her current world was made of. On some level beyond her reach she knew that her eyes were closed, but for now her mind could only accept that there was blackness and the sound of her breath. She floated in that state for seconds, minutes, perhaps hours, with consciousness creeping, sliding towards her in degrees. She very slowly became aware of the world outside her mind. Her body, faraway noises and words, touches and pressure entered her consciousness without her knowledge, without her permission, and for a moment she felt the skin on her face pull with what she wouldn't know was a grimace. The hypnotic sound and feeling of clean, oxygen rich air being pulled and pushed from her body began to fade pushed into banality by the sounds of an a-typical hospital room.

It surprised her how quickly the world shifted into focus. Like a movie reel accidentally knocked onto the wrong speed, her consciousness rushed into the present with a stomach sickening speed and clarity. She attempted to roll her tongue around her mouth and stopped when it stuck dryly to the floor of her mouth, her chapped lips pulling from the slight movement. The familiar smells of antiseptic disinfectant, dry warm air and clean linen assaulted her nose as she concentrated on taking deep even breaths, and she was thankful to whoever had been considerate enough to lower the lights when she attempted to open her eyes. Only one eye seemed willing to co-operate and she blinked repeatedly in an attempt to clear the blurriness and bring the fuzzy shapes into focus. One heavy hand moved of its own violation towards her other eye and she stopped dead when a lancing pain, a shock to her heavily drugged body, stabbed below her elbow. She wasn't aware of making any sound, but the whimper must have been loud enough to draw the attention of the person in the room she didn't realise was there until she felt a cool hand lightly grasp her upper arm. Eye haven given up the fight to stay open, she relied on other instincts to identify the caregiver. The touch was unfamiliar…

" Stop wriggling, you'll pull your stitches and as keen as you seem to be, I'm not sure Dr Remeres is up for a second date. Not entirely sure why, that's usually when all the good stuff happens."

But the voice, the low, gravely tones laced with a dry wit and sarcasm, that voice she knew as well as her own. The hand that had been gently holding her in place disappeared and she tried once more to open her eyes. The same eyelid opened with less strain and she silently stared at the blurry figure of Dr Gregory House as he lifted a hospital issue plastic cup to her mouth and slipped the hospital issue plastic straw between her lips. With more effort than she cared to admit she slurped messily, confused when her skin tightened un-naturally in doing so. The cup was taken away from her and she rolled her now damp tongue around her mouth, swallowing several times to moisten her parched throat. Her first attempt at speech was embarrassing. A slight squeak followed by a rush of air roughly formed into words. Before she had a chance to try again his gruff voice interrupted, his tone indicating annoyance.

" Stop. You sound like a dying chipmunk. I'll tell you what you want to know if you promise not to attempt movement or speech again."

Her eyesight was clearing slightly and she could now focus on the bright blue of his eyes rather than the dull blue of his shirt. His face was tight and scowling and she fought through the drug-induced mist to remember what she had done to piss him off.

" Three days ago your overly nosy and sickeningly sweet neighbour called the police after she heard a disturbance at your house. The cops found you beaten unconscious on your ruined living room rug and brought you here. The cops picked up your EX boyfriend some four blocks away and after taking a look at his knuckles, charged him with assault and battery. Differential diagnosis was a broken wrist, fractured cheekbone, two fractured ribs, an inconvenient and allusive internal bleed and the worst taste in boyfriends ever to have graced the whiteboard. There's some bruising of course from where Calvin, affectionately nicknamed Asshole around these parts, pummelled your back and face when breaking bones didn't do it for him."

Cameron felt the salt from her tear sting a cut she didn't know she had on her lip. Flashbacks from the night it had supposedly happened flickered across the back of her eyelids like a disjointed movie, too fleeting to hold on to, too painful to want to. New pains let themselves be known as she struggled to control herself, her chest and back warring over who could shock her more as she worked to swallow the rising sob lodged painfully in her throat and stop the subtle shaking beneath the light blue sheets covering her but not comforting. She hadn't even realised that she had closed her eye during his rant, and started slightly when she felt a large, cool hand press gently against the side of her face not mottled in shades of brown, black and blue. A thumb swept the moisture from her cheek before it had a chance to go any further and she leaned into the touch when his voice broke the silence she so desperately wanted broken. His voice was deeper than it had been just moments ago, closer, and the sarcasm that he was never without was absent from his first words.

" Your injuries will heal just fine. Three months from now you'll be completely normal, well, as normal as you were before which isn't saying much."

A smile tugged warily at her lips and she opened her eye as his hand slipped away. She could focus relatively easy now and took a moment to cast her eyes around the room before turning to study the bright white cast adorning her right arm.

"I hear they're all the rage this season. Go with everything"

She ignored his comment and continued her self examination, turning her eyes to her left arm and noticing not the needle bruising her flesh on the back of her hand, but the brown finger mark bruises around her wrist and upper arm. Well spaced and spanning a considerable part of her arm she knew whose hands had made them; she didn't need fingerprints or House to tell her. Movement caught her eye and she glanced upwards in time to see House closing the plastic cover of her morphine regulator.

" House, stop"

His voice and the morphine assaulted her system at the same time and any argument she may have had in regards to her meds faded away on a wave of numbness.

" Stop? Do you have any idea what some people would do to get their hands on this stuff? It's primo gear man! And I think I remember telling you not to speak, Alvin may no longer be dying but he's definitely in the process of a sex change. Get some sleep, I'll come up later."

She nodded her head as much as she could and watched as he cast a cursory check on her readouts. A myriad of questions dreamily floated across her mind as she watched him. Why did this happen? How long had he been here? Where were Chase and Foreman? Did her parents know? How long would she be a patient? When did….

"Closing your eyes, or eye in this case is usually conducive to sleep"

Her focus turned outwards once more to settle on the features she knew so well. Morphine was making the fight to stay awake more difficult with each passing second but she struggled against it, her mind duelling its need to know with its need to rest. Her inner conflict must have been easily read. When he spoke his voice was strangely calming and gentle, a far cry from what she was accustomed to.

"Your questions will still be there when you wake up"

She held eye contact for as long as she could before a lump formed in her throat and she cast her gaze down. Perhaps it was the drugs currently pumping through her system, perhaps it was a reaction to the abuse her body had suffered or perhaps it was the look in his eye as he gazed down at her. Possibly it was all three. Her thoughts were blending into each other and she felt disconnected in a good way to the pain in her body. Her eye flickered once, twice, snapshots of blue, blue shirt, ice blue eyes, black jacket, and blackness………

Continue?