How did you get this number?
I can't get my head around you
Of course you're not coming over
Snap out of it, you're not making any sense...
Psychobabble, Frou Frou

Post 'It's a Wonderful Lie'

Thank you to Brandie for the beta.

It was always like that wasn't it? A few chirps of the cell phone, just enough to wake her up before he disconnected, leaving her to stare at the LCD screen with bleary eyes. Confusion, a state she was constantly struggling around as far as he was concerned.

3:43 a.m. and Chase was in bed, having stolen all of the sheets-she was sure-and her, on the couch, medical journal forgotten in her lap as she watched the rerun of the American Idol she had missed that evening. The cell phone, wedged between her thighs and the sofa cushions and she fished for it, the corner of her ring snagging on a loop of tightly-woven fabric, pulling it loose, like evidence.

Cameron's fingers moved of their own accord, her brain not bothering to keep her from flicking the device open and muttering a tight, "Hello?"

For a moment there was nothing but easy silence, the electronic sound of void in her ear and just as she was about to hang up, "You weren't supposed to pick up."

With all her might, she wanted to sigh, wipe out the books on the shelves, ruffle the curtains, but Cameron managed to contain her shock and resignation. "What was I supposed to do?"

It was strange, funny how they fell into their old pattern, she, pretending to be put out by his antics. He, well, he just a jackass trying to get a rise out of her for the hell of it. Cameron knew, beneath it all, that he had his reasons-more complicated ones-for doing what he did with her, but she wasn't sure she would ever understand them.

So, with a roll of her neck, she pulled the phone in closer to her ear, like a schoolchild about to spill a secret. "What do you want?"

"You weren't supposed to pick up," he spat this time, as though it was somehow the fault of hers that he'd dialed her number. A bite of her tongue, a terse swallow prevented her thumb from slamming down on the 'end' button. And she could end it, Cameron could end this entire charade with ease, but she didn't...

And she didn't know why. In truth, she never really knew why she did the things she did when it came to him.

Supplying the much needed concern, and acting as though a friend, "Well, where are you then? You sound..."

'Wasted,' she thought and was shocked to her him offer, "Wasted? Yeah, eggnog will do that." The static nothing filled her ear again as she registered the shock at him completing her sentence; surely, it wasn't absurd that he would think that she had been thinking that, though she was more shocked to find how very much it thrilled her, House completing her banalities.

He coughed, sputtered, vomited possibly, but she didn't want to think about that, and thus she repeated, "Where are you," stopping short before she offered her support.

"I'm... on Wilson's stoop..." House trailed off, almost helplessly and a smile spared her mouth to turn upward. "I'm uh..."

Cameron tucked her legs beneath her and sank back into the sofa (that Chase had bought for her even though he claimed he hated it). "Why don't you go inside? It's December, you know."

"I have checked a calendar," came his immediate bark, but it didn't register in her nerves. "Bastard switched out his key."

"Excuse me?" the clock read 3:48.

Another sputter, most certainly vomit that time, "He took his key, the one hegave me and switched it out for a false one."

Quite perceptibly, she asked, "Are you sure you're trying the right key, I mean--"

"I'm not drunk!" his voice shook in her ear, rang in her head, and it straightened her spine, forced the remote to clatter to the floor, shutting off the television and plunging the room into darkness.

It was as though his words had knocked the wind out of her, the confidence, "So why aren't you in your car, on the way home... it's nearly four in the morning."

"I know it may surprise you, but aside from a calendar, I also have a watch." Silence. "I'm well aware of the time."

The ball that had begun forming in the put of her stomach lurched itself forward and as she squeezed her eyes shut, unobstructed ear angled in the direction of her bedroom (their bedroom, not just hers anymore) Cameron swallowed the last of her sanity. "I'll be there in... fifteen."

House disconnected and she was joined once again with confusion silence.

Keys, coat, wallet and Cameron managed to slink out the door as though someone escaping for an affair.

Thoughtless minutes passed before her, along with street signs and sleeping buildings. There were ways she could describe herself at that moment; insane perhaps, disgusted, excited, desperately sorrowful, but still, her foot pressed against the accelerator with purpose and, as though a coda had been placed somewhere in her journey, she found herself across from Wilson's building with nearly no real recollection of how she had managed to get there.

Clammy hands pulled themselves off of the steering wheel as she hurdled her body into the chilled New Jersey evening with purpose. "You should have a heavier jacket on," she scolded, her voice even and calm, as much for the neighbors as for him.

His head was back against the stone, eyes closed, though head tipped as though he were speculating on what he could possibly say if he ever opened his eyes. "Thanks, mother."

It was unoriginal, coming from him, but Cameron said nothing, knowing her unresponsiveness would spur him to action.

His eyes slid open, tinged at the edges by a fierce red; she almost cringed, but hid it with a rubbing of her nose. "You didn't get drunk at the party, it's not possible."

House managed to stumble to his feet, face contorting in a thousand different ways as he righted his body with gravity. "Wilson and I may have gone out afterwards," there was pain in his voice, something like how an elderly man would sound, relieving himself of a favorite rocking chair, companions with his pain.

Her gloveless hands began to burn, but again, she did nothing but step aside so that he could take a step forward, testing his legs after some time sitting. "May have? Where's Wilson?" The question came out more flippant than she had intended.

"He may have picked someone up," another pace forward he hobbled.

"May have?"

House stopped attempting movement and huffed in annoyance. "I wouldn't know, I left before he did... I didn't... want to be around... people." Begrudgingly, he stole ahead but she was quick to catch up and out pace him. There was a significant part of her that was too tired to care about the game he was trying to play, though there was another fraction of her being that needed to find out where he was going with any of this, why he had called her of all people, why he'd been calling her for the past few months without any explanation or assumption that she would call him out on it.

Cameron shoved a hand into her pocket and sought her keys. He voice was deliberately stony when she said, "Well that was pretty fucking stupid wasn't it? That was just... you can't just call me in the middle of the night and expect me to pick you up, you can't..." And even as she said the words, she knew it wasn't what she wanted to say, and she knew that he knew that she knew that it wasn't about... any of this at all.

House clenched his unoccupied fist at his side, other hand gripping the handle of his cane so tightly that his knuckles nearly burst through skin. "Well, you weren't supposed to pick up!"

"And then you would have slept in his doorway all night?" her voice was tight with anger, agitation and her fingers shook as she tried to locate the correct key for her car. As she did, extracting the black-tipped silver, the rubber of his cane swung up and clamped solidly over the lock, effectively halting her.

Slowly, she turned to him, wanting to wrap her arms into herself though managing to keep them tight at her side. "I would have gone to a hotel."

Did he really want to argue? Dawn was nearly breaking and there they were, standing in the middle of the street, salt crackling intermittently under their feet. "What are you doing?" it came unbidden, though she didn't want to know. Because Cameron knew he didn't want to argue, and he wasn't fucking with her right now, and she was engaged for christsake.

His tongue was pure venom when he spoke, "You think you're saving me? You want to justify this?" And there he went, spiraling into his one-man pity party once more. It'd become all-too common, far too cliché, like

"No, I wanted to be the person that tried for you, and you wanted me to become your version of human," sucking in a quick breath, she steeled her shoulders from slumping. "So, this really has nothing to do with me." The last word rang against the metal and chrome of the cars parked, slithered up and echoed off of the tightly-packet bricks, bounced happily off of the cracked asphalt.

Oh, she'd wished she hadn't said it and she was sure he hadn't wanted to hear that, the way his face fell (just a little) and the way his hand went slack on the smooth curve of his walking device. Turning her head to the side briskly, Cameron bit down hard on the inside of her cheek and cursed him for ever dialing her number in the first place.

The static she heard between her ears was nothing like she'd heard with the phone, but it was just as deafening, but with more weight to it, with more definition and color. Bits of ground-salt and sand scratched beneath his feet as he took one, two strides towards her, stopped and regarded her, amplifying that damn silence.

Eventually, his stare broke and he instead glanced down at his shoes, "You know it does."

Before she knew what she was doing, she's punched the end of his cane, the end bouncing against the metal and sliding down the door. Cameron took the opportunity to stab the key in the lock and yank the door open. "Don't do this now, we're past this," and she wanted to believe it, wanted to ignore how ridiculous it sounded, how juvenile she felt saying it. But what else was there to say besides, 'Shut up and get in the car.'

House shoved past her, nearly shoved her into the car but she sidestepped him and watched as he moved in between the door and car; her watch read 4:21 a.m. "You used to like me, standing this close to you," came his delicate mutter.

Cameron inched back against the cold metal, "I'm engaged." It was a croak, barely real words, but she meant them.

Eyes narrowing to slits, House took a step back and regarded her, watched as he body relaxed and she moved around to the driver's side to open her own door.

Just before she slid into the seat, their gazes met over the car, "But are you?"

It wasn't until she returned home, the sun peaking around the edges of cumulus manifestations that she realized that her watched had stopped; time had stopped.