When House raised his red mug for a sip of coffee only to find that it was already long empty, he decided it was finally time to go home. The Cameron Question, as he now thought of it, would have to wait at least until he'd got the bike home, ditched the jacket and shirt, and ordered some takeout food.
His leg was also beginning to play its same sad old song, so it would be best to make the journey sooner rather than later. He could take another Vicodin before leaving, of course, but after the whole Tritter debacle he preferred to ride with as few opiates in his system as reasonably possible.
The hospital was enjoying that quiet lull in the mid-evening of a Friday before the walking wounded from bar fights and domestic incidents started showing up in their droves, and he was out of the building less than 5 minutes later. Three minutes after that, the disabled parking space his bike usually occupied was once again empty.
House frowned for most of the ride home, but for the first time that evening it wasn't due to his own brooding. It was the speed he was traveling, specifically how low it was. Friday night wasn't a night for Bat Out of Hell shenanigans. Too many cops with too little to do, grumpy in anticipation of having too much to do for the next 12 hours. Sticking to the speed limit was the wise choice, and he was in no mood to see the inside of a cop shop again so soon.
Even riding at the posted limit, he made it home in barely ten minutes, parked the bike, and stepped off. He unclipped his cane and steadied himself, but before he could climb the few short steps to his townhouse's front door, he glanced around as he heard a car door open nearby. This new-found habit of reacting to sudden noises was a product of the shooting, no doubt. He grimaced at the memory as the figure stepped out of the shadow of the car.
Cameron. Now that's just a little bit fascinating in this context.
She waved shyly, unsure of herself as she often seemed to be. He noticed that her face was slightly flushed, though - there was an urgency to her gait despite being on the uncertain ground of confronting him at his own home. He had to admit to being not unhappy to see her here, and was frankly instantly burning with curiosity as to why.
"Lost again, Dr. Cameron?" he smirked, noting that she carried no handbag and looked slightly pale despite the twin patches of color on her cheeks.
"I'm sorry to bother you at home," she began, leading House to momentarily marvel at her obsession with politeness regardless of context, "but I've got to ask you something." She glanced downwards for an instant, breaking eye-contact as she saw one of House's eyebrows rise slightly, but she quickly recovered.
"In your office, earlier... you were... I think you were going to tell me something. I think you were going to talk about whatever it was you told Eve." She said this last part almost defiantly, daring him to disagree, but as she continued looking at his eyes she began to lose confidence. As usual. I swear they get more blue when it's dark, she thought, causing an involuntary shiver of complex emotions which she hoped he couldn't see.
His stare was unnerving to say the least. His eyes burned with such intelligence and wit, and they could hold incredible cruelty. But they had also witnessed life's random cruelty, and she was sure that those scars weren't all that lay beneath.
Moments passed as he simply looked at her, looked into her. The points of light from the streetlamps seemed to multiply in his eyes, and she could almost hear his mind whirring and working, an infinitely complex machine which, given time, could strip any puzzle or deceit down to the most basic strands of truth.
"Well... I just wanted to say that, if you want to talk, I'd like to know what it was you were going to tell me," she finished, again glancing briefly downwards.
He looked at her as she made this offer, and noticed her eyes darting away for a moment, as she was surprised by her own directness. It took considerable effort for him to avoid smiling wryly. She was endlessly fascinating.
And beautiful.
He frowned, breaking eye-contact himself for the first time. Where did that come from? He glanced up again, and saw the doubt in her eyes. The doubt, alongside thousands of points of reflected light, which continued down her long hair draped carelessly over her shoulders. He felt a sensation in his chest; something stirring. A noise from within another locked room, this one perhaps more ominous than the last. His frown deepened, even as he suddenly knew what he was about to do.
She saw him frown, first slightly and then more noticeably. Damn. This was stupid.
She smiled weakly, nervously, and half lifted her arm to wave farewell before realizing how bizarre the gesture would seem. She quickly turned away and began walking back to her car, closing her eyes for a moment to stave off the awful feeling of embarrassment which was growing. Driving across town to tell him she'd like to hear what he was maybe, supposedly, perhaps going to tell her? God. This would be fun when it came out on Monday.
"You've not had dinner yet."
It was a statement, not a question, as always. Of course he knew, somehow. She turned around, car keys in her hand. "Not yet, no." Where was he going with this? Was he going to tell her to go home and eat something?
And here I am, hoping he'll ask me to have dinner with him. After how last time went. I must be crazy.
He saw the guarded expectation in her eyes and in the slight tilt of her head, and suddenly the feeling was in his chest again. Her thoughts sprung into his mind with brilliant clarity and brutal force. She had come here because she had realized what had happened in his office. She had dropped everything, even foregoing food, to offer him a second chance to open up to her. She had done all this, and yet even now she kept herself guarded, always wary of a barbed or dismissive comment. In that moment, he hated himself, and he looked away from her, silently ashamed.
His mind worked relentlessly, even though he would rather abort the analysis; the curse of his needle-sharp insight into the human condition. She had come with this offer of a connection, and even if she no longer felt for him what she had surely felt before, that only made her act even more singular - reaching out to someone who had never allowed her to truly count him even as a friend. He would have groaned, if he was capable of showing that weakness in another's presence.
And, of course, there was the matter of his most recent question about whether she'd eaten; it was plain she was now half-hoping for an invitation of some kind. Strangely though, there was no conflict there.
I asked her because I'm going to invite her in anyway.
Yes, that seemed true. The far more dangerous question of whether 'in' meant simply into his townhouse or something far more significant was pushed to the side. He glanced up to meet her eyes, which still betrayed uncertainty.
"You like Chinese food?" he asked as nonchalantly as he could manage, and had to suppress an outright laugh at the comically stunned look which flashed across her face and then vanished just as quickly. it was replaced with a smile of such apparent significance that it struck him harder than another round of gunfire, and for an instant he was sure he would sway on his feet.
Hope. That's hope, he thought, and began to feel a barrier weaken inside him. This was turning into quite a night for personal revelations, and it seemed to have scarcely begun.
Cameron nodded, smiling. She did like Chinese food, but frankly she'd have agreed almost regardless of his culinary choice. She knew she needed to be very careful here, and not read too much into the situation. House opening up, even slightly, was a dangerous event to be involved in, and vanishingly rare. But like all rare things, it was also potentially wonderful for that same reason. She couldn't have brought herself to leave even if she had wanted to.
And what does that tell you? she wondered, but there was no answer for that question yet.
He nodded, moving his gaze to his front door as he began to move towards it. She took a quick, deep breath and pocketed her car keys. By the time House was unlocking the door, she was only a few steps behind him.