I haven't written a house fanfic in years, the last one was published about 4 years ago, and was written waaay before that. I hope you forgive me when I say I'm starting to feel old! I was an itty bitty teen then. Anyway, this story was inspired by a re-watch of the first four episodes of House (season 1) and the episode Maternity. Due to the fact that I haven't watched House in years my memory is a bit rusty, and thus there might be some error in facts.

Some pages say that Cameron was born in 1979, which wouldn't work unless she was a genuis. She'd have been done with school in 2009 then, not 2004 or 2003 when she started under House. I'm going with 2004. That means that she was born 1974 at the latest. To become an immunologist you need to go to school for 13 years after HS, and no 25 unless a genuis has done that.

Anyway, the fact nerd I am shall proceed.

Title: 1995
Summary: She knew he would die, but she hoped for a miracle. 21 year old Cameron married and buried her husband in the same year

When she married him, dressed in a white summer dress in the small chapel, without any family present, holding his hand, she knew that she would lose him. Phone calls to her mother assured her that everyone believed she was crazy to love a dying man, but there was something in his eyes, something in the way he talked, that made it impossible for her not to fall. The way he touched her caused her skin to burn, heart rate to calm down, and when he looked at her she felt like he saw her. His clear blue eyes would travel over her face, and his mouth would burst into a big smile.

During his last days he thanked her. She'd kissed his chapped lips and he'd grabbed her hand, and told her how happy she had made him, and how he wished that he could give something back, spend the rest of his life by her side so that she would be happy, too. Neither of them wanted him to leave, much to restless in their young hearts and bodies to resign to death, but death was unavoidable. Each test result, each treatment, brought them closer to the realization that their time together would be cut short, much too short. It started with a naïve hope that somehow a miracle would be born between them, a miracle that would extend his life beyond the year or two he had then, but instead it was just six months after he pulled the white dress off of her in their apartment, just six months after he kissed her shoulder and whispered Mrs Cameron in her ear she buried him in a mahogany coffin in the same chapel that they'd married.

Love is a scary thing. It tears you open, it pulls you apart, it leaves you exposed for everyone to see. In that chapel people stared at her. A young widow, barely twenty-two years old, having lost her first true love so completely. You could take your first love finding someone else, loving someone else, as long as they were alive, but forever losing the chance to see that person's smile again was something different. Forever losing the chance to seeing them happy again?

The hole he left was gaping for long. She stayed awake at night staring at his side of the bed, extending her hand, hoping that she would be met by the clammy skin of his back. He was always so warm, heating up their bed. Whenever they spooned his skin would stick to hers, his breath would be moist in the crook of her neck, his chest warm against her palms. He was never there.

A while after his death she'd be awoken by the dream of him lying next to her, cradling her heavily pregnant stomach, talking about their child. She remembered the things they never got to experience, what they talked about wanting. A child. They'd have a child together, one he'd get to see before he died. But he died before they ever tried. There was even sperm frozen, if treatment made him infertile. Now she couldn't touch it, couldn't betray him. She promised that he would be able to see his child.

She drove herself mad with it. The dreams continued, and she could swear she could feel a stirring in the bottom of her belly. Hope drove her to take a test. Hope that a part of him had taken root in her after all, that he didn't leave her completely alone. That she could have a part of him directly from him, through their love and not a sterile dish. But the test wasn't positive, she took several tests and they were all negative.

During family dinners she sat quietly as her mother said her 'I told you so's and her 'you should've listened', staring at her plate of food unable to eat. At twenty-one she was a bit heavier-set, filling out her wedding dress, but at twenty-two it fell off of her shoulders. Life was easier to escape on the running track, it was hard to find an appetite with the nausea of grief, it was hard to find the reason to enjoy life again. Life was easier to escape as she threw herself into textbooks, into school, into a goal where she convinced herself she could create a purpose that was missing since her husband died. Convinced that there was nothing else left in life but a career and the ever present pursuit of purpose.

She wondered about the child they should've had, the child that they never conceived, she wondered about the life they never got a shot at. She wondered about him, what kind of man he would've been had he not died, what kind of life they would've had. If his touch would've still made her skin burn, if his hugs had the power to always make her feel safe and calm. She wondered if she'd still laugh at his jokes, if he would still refuse her cooking, if he would've stayed with her through it all.

But in the end they were thoughts, empty wonderings. They would lead nowhere but sadness. No one would fill the hole left by the blue-eyed man with a wide smile and comforting hugs. No one could replace him.

Eventually she had to accept the hole, accept its presence in her life, and not let it take over. Not let it rule. Time does not heal, time makes it easier to deal.

So eventually she married a man whom made her laugh, and when that didn't work out she married a man who made her feel safe, loved, content. She married a man who made her wonder about kids again, a life beyond work. Life continued beyond that chapel she married and buried her first husband, eventually.