Letters from Home, Chapter 2
Wanting nothing more than a few minutes of peace, the doctor ignores his underlings' demands for attention. He enters his office, locks the door, and yanks the blinds shut. He's in pain, but that's nothing new and isn't the reason he's seeking solitude. If pressed for a reason he's not sure he could provide one but fortunately for him, he's reached a stage in life where he no longer has to account for his whims. Not that he ever really did to begin with. He walks over to his desk, intent on plugging himself into his iPod and forgetting about his so-called life for awhile. His cane slips and he clumsily bangs into the corner of his desk on his way by. He curses at the jolt of pain that runs through his bad leg.
Fuck fuck fuck.
He drops into his chair, yanks open a drawer and rummages around until he finds a bottle of pills. He flips the cover off, quickly swallows more than he should and throws them back in the drawer. Leaning back in his chair, he closes his eyes and waits for the pain to revert to a tolerable level. When he finally opens his eyes again, the first thing he sees is a mess of envelopes, journals and other papers on the floor. They must have fallen off his desk when he bumped into it. He contemplates leaving them for the janitorial staff to clean up, but if he does that he knows they'll just end up back on his desk. He rolls his chair towards the wastebasket, grabs it, and rolls over to the mess on the carpet. Leaning over, he seizes random handfuls of paper and stuffs them in the wastebasket without even looking at them. Because of his inattention, he almost misses it: the sunny yellow envelope addressed to him in a familiar loopy handwriting. He rescues it from the wastebasket and rolls back over to his desk, abandoning his clean-up efforts. He's surprised that she'd answered him. Even when he was dropping the note he'd written her in the mailbox, he was almost certain she wouldn't respond. After the night she'd quit he was pretty sure she hated him, and of course she had no idea he'd tried to make it right…
Months ago…
He struggles as he climbs the stairs of her apartment building. It's just his luck she lives in a building with no elevator; maybe he should have just called. No, he thinks, he owes her this much effort at least. And probably then some. Reaching her door, he raps on it with his cane. Nothing. He bangs a few more times, getting increasingly louder, before losing patience completely and shouting, "Cameron, open the damned door."
He hears a door open behind him and whirls around ready to take his frustration out on whatever poor soul has the misfortune to be nearby. He opens his mouth to demand information on Cameron's whereabouts but catches himself when the neighbour turns out to be a tiny, silver-haired, elderly woman. He can't yell at her; she looks like his grandmother. Damn it.
"If you're looking for Allison," the neighbour says, "She doesn't live there anymore. She moved out a few days ago." She cocks her head to one side and looks up him. "You're Allison's boss, aren't you? She told me all about you; that you were tall and handsome and had beautiful blue eyes. I see she wasn't exaggerating."
"Ah, right. I am. Her boss, that is. Though I suspect it was this that gave me away..." he says, waving his cane, "...more so than my eyes."
"Nooo, I don't think so. I don't remember her ever mentioning you were disabled," the woman responds after appearing to give the matter some consideration. "I'm surprised she didn't tell you she was moving. She thinks very highly of you. And..." She looks up and down the hallway, ensuring they're alone. "...I suspect she may have a bit of a crush on you," she finishes, her voice dropping to a whisper.
He chuckles. "You don't say. You don't happen to know where she moved to, do you?" He's positive she can't have gone far. Probably just decided to downsize a bit since she thinks she's unemployed.
"No, I'm afraid not. All she said was that she thought she'd go someplace warmer. I'm not sure she even knew where she was going. She did tell you she was leaving her job, didn't she? She seemed like such a responsible girl."
He feels as though he's been punched in the stomach. She's gone? Didn't she trust him to fix this mess? A voice in his head answers: Why would she? The whole thing was your fault to start with. The voice sounds suspiciously like his best friend. He mentally tells it to shut its trap.
"Yeah. Yeah, she did. Thanks for your help." He turns and heads back the way he came. He hears the neighbour's door close as he begins his arduous descent down the stairs.
A few days later he breaks into his boss's office and goes through her files looking for a forwarding address. As he scribbles the address he finds on a piece of paper, he tells himself he only needs it in case he ever has a question for her about a previous case. She was good at remembering the details that didn't make the chart. The human interest stuff.
He'd put her address away and carried on. After a few weeks of being a dysfunctional team of three, he allowed himself to be coerced into hiring a replacement. He chose someone nothing at all like her: a short, balding plastic surgeon named Taub who was nearly has old as he was. Cuddy had half-heartedly pushed him to hire another woman but gave in easily when he accused her of reverse sexism. He knew she thought he was too attached to the memory of his lost immunologist to replace her with anyone remotely similar. He didn't try to convince her otherwise; she could think whatever she wanted if it got him his own way. Actually, he wanted a man because he thought life would be easier without another overly emotional female on his team.
Looking back, however, that may have been a mistake. It's a sad state of affairs indeed, when he is the only one left who'll advocate for the patient. It was after one such instance that he inadvertently came across the little piece of paper bearing her address. He wondered if she'd forgotten all about him; wondered if he still had any hold on her at all. He had to know.
He looks down at the letter in his hands, rubbing it between his thumb and forefinger. So, she'd responded. Interesting. Leave it to her to have stationery the colour of sunflowers. He lifts the envelope to his nose and sniffs the paper. It smells like…paper. He snorts. "Idiot. What did you expect it to smell like?" he mumbles half aloud. Her, his mind whispers back. He shakes his head to clear that unwelcome thought, rips the edge off the envelope and pulls out the paper inside. After unfolding it, he reads:
Dr. House,
I took it with me. Too much sugar is bad for you.
Best regards,
Allison Cameron, MD
PS I miss you too.
She misses him too?! What the fuck? He doesn't miss her; he'd just been testing her. To see if she'd answer. To see if she still cared. That's all. No missing. No missing at all. He crumples the page up and draws back his arm, about to throw it in the waste basket. But he doesn't; he pauses and lowers his arm. He pulls out the drawer of his desk, the one where he keeps his scotch and his Game Boy, and tosses the crumpled ball of paper in there instead. After closing the drawer, he gets up and leaves his office. He's already directing derisive comments at his team before he's even fully out the door.