A/N: My first ever House fic! I couldn't get to sleep until I wrote this little story out. Not sure if I should continue or leave it as a one-shot, so let me know what you all think.
What a shitty day.
House leaned further back in his chair, watching as Cameron slipped out of the nearby room inobtrusively. She had tried to hide the hurt and betrayal in her eyes but had failed miserably. He'd bet $40 she was crying before she got to the elevator. Foreman continued reading his magazine as though nothing had happened, which worried him more than a little. He had heard their discussion, and had chosen not to get involved. Although probably not for the reasons most people would think.
He wasn't a knight in rusty armor, ready to rush to his lady love's side and defend her honor. He wasn't even a moderately professional department head who would step in and lay down the law about intellectual property within academia. There would be no reprimands on his part towards his wayward neurologist's choice of case studies to base his article on.
But it wasn't because he was a heartless bastard who got his kicks watching other people's misery.
Ok, scratch that.
He was a heartless bastard who got his kicks watching other people's misery, but not in this particular situation. He couldn't become involved because he cared too much, not too little.
He had once told Cameron that she needed him because he was damaged. That she wanted to "fix" him, to in essence change who he was. He didn't want her pity or her selfless devotion, and he definitely didn't want to change. Being miserable was his thing. He had lots of experience at it, and if there was ever a need for a professor of Misery 101, he was their man. Between the pain and the pills, his life held a modicum of normalcy. Well, it was normal for him anyways.
So if she thought that he was a misanthrope who hated the world and everyone around him, at least it kept her from getting too close. When that didn't work he always could fall back on the endless mind games, or tossing out insults each time he felt himself slipping. It seemed effortless to those around him, but he struggled with the increasing tension between them. He balanced upon Occam's razor with exquisite care, screaming at the top of his lungs in every way he could that he was a self-absorbed asshole with no compassion for anything or anyone, as long as it distracted from the truth.
Everybody lies. Even himself.
KISS…Occam's razor…de Nile ain't just a river in Egypt.
It all amounted to the same thing. Sometimes the most obvious theory explains even the most complicated of phenomenon. Or men.
He was afraid of what might be, of the possibility of being happy, or the chance that he would love her and then fuck it up like he always did. Better to never take that risk in the first place, and avoid all the hurt and misery of losing her. He was doing her a favor. Really.
Fuck, who the hell was he kidding? Everyday he found himself changing in little ways and they weren't even dating. Her comments and arguments didn't fall on deaf ears, despite the impression he gave. She was a Pollyanna with a disgusting amount of optimism and faith in human kind. She probably even cried over Christian Children Fund commercials late at night and was sponsoring half a dozen orphans in Guatemala. But that insane moral compass of hers was like an unwanted angel on his shoulder who wasn't above using the devil's pitchfork to get her point across.
He had debated the pragmatism of informing the girlfriend, and yet he had felt disgust when he confronted the patient after the transplant. Maybe he shouldn't have sedated her before the surgery, maybe he had robbed her of her selfless act of human grace that Cameron was always claiming people were capable of. It didn't go unnoticed by him that the much argued-over article Cameron had written had been about the ethics of informed consent. The events of the day had him questioning everything from whether his obsession with curing the patient dictated his actions to whether or not he had handled the dispute on his staff appropriately.
It had taken him years to admit that it wasn't an act, that she really was sincerely nice. It felt like a dirty word even now in his private thoughts. And it had taken even longer to admit that it wasn't an infatuation or psychological malfunction on her part when she said she cared about him. He was damaged, but she embraced the shadows in his soul as easily as the rest of him.
That sort of genuine emotion was rare and should be treasured, not stomped on. She was better off with someone like the good Doctor Sebastian Charles. Hypocritical fucker. He almost had convinced her to go back to Africa with him. He wasn't good enough for his Cameron.
House cursed at the tangents his mind was flying off into. The day's events were too significant to pass quietly and he was dealing with a decision that could change his entire life going forward. They were both too deeply tangled in whatever it was going on between them for him to pretend otherwise. He hadn't stepped in like he should of because he wanted any respect she garnered to be earned on her own credentials. He respected her as a doctor too much to act the avenging and slightly-enamored boss every time someone didn't play fair.
Life wasn't fair, but she acted like there was a big scoreboard that listed every time someone cheated. He wished the lesson hadn't been served by someone she was so close to, though. Foreman's betrayal had hurt her far more than the article, and even he was surprised at the harshness in which he had dealt with Cameron. He narrowed his eyes and watched the neurologist pack up his things to leave for the night.
He might have Cameron fooled about how he felt, but not everyone else was so oblivious. House knew Wilson and Cuddy must have a betting pool as to how long it would be before he caved to his pert immunologist. He almost wondered if Foreman had been testing him, to see if he would rush to Cameron's rescue or be equally snarky to both of them. He may have played Foreman's game this time, but he would have to set the little fuck straight about who ran the department. Just because he had abstained from getting involved on principle didn't mean he hadn't wanted to practice his golf swing on various parts of Foreman's anatomy when he had taunted Cameron.
His real dilemma was what Cameron would do after a day like today. She had been strung tighter than a drum when she'd left, and although it pained him to admit it, he was worried about her. If today had been shitty for him, it must have been hell for her. Even someone with her strength of will could break given time. She might be a Pollyanna of medicine, but dammit, she was his Pollyanna. The world didn't need another bitter and broken asshole like him. Should he go after her, or should he stay?
House pulled out his trusty bottle of pharmaceutical goodness and juggled it back and forth in his hands as he debated what to do. Flipping the lid and tossing back two of the bitter pills, he wondered if he could beat rush hour traffic on his bike if he took the crosstown.