One
Everybody Lies
One cured patient with a lot of lost blood later, House finds himself sneaking back to his office. He can't deal with weepy mothers and grateful relatives, least of all when it's eleven o' clock at night. He winces with every second step he takes, grousing at nurses he passes if they happen to look all concerned at him. The last thing he needs right now is sympathy. Cursing himself for leaving the Vicodin in a shoe-box on the desk by the window, he's all too grateful when the door to his office, the words House, M.D. engraved elegantly in the glass, comes into view around the corner.
He's not so grateful when Wilson appears in front of him, a cheeky, boyish look in his eyes. House hates that look. Sometimes he likes it and sometimes he plays along with it, but now, he hates it. It's been a long day.
"You're in my way," he says, less curtly than he would like, more so than is necessary.
Wilson raises a teasing eyebrow. "Actually, you're in mine," he quips. "I'm on my way to get these tested out." He holds up some laminated pages, and House grimaces sympathetically.
"Ooh, they look pretty," he jokes gruffly. "Enjoy your tumors. I'm going home."
He begins to make his way around Wilson, who checks his wristwatch. "Early for you," he comments.
"And late for others. Night, Wilson."
"You haven't forgotten about our deal, have you?" Wilson calls after him.
"No," House mutters, as Wilson turns and goes down the corridor, assuming no response. "I just want you to think I have."
As he makes his way over to the shoe-box at the back of the room, glancing briefly to the stack of playing cards on his desk as he does so, he tries to forget all about Wilson's bet and the possible ramifications thereof. It works, nearly, until he succumbs to a game of solitaire and four games later Cameron's at his door.
She knocks, but he already knows it's her; he can see her shoes in his peripheral vision.
"Weren't you going home?" she asks, approaching his desk. He frowns down at the cards in front of him, knowing that he's very close to loss.
"One sec."
He peels the two of clubs off the table, placing it over the three of hearts. Quickly, before he flips the next card, he glances at the card underneath, just to see his chances.
"Cheater," Cameron comments with a smile from above him. He sighs.
"Your point?" he asks, looking up with the deck still in hand. "This is the fourth game I've lost."
She folds her arms and shifts her weight onto one leg. "And that makes cheating all right?"
She's smiling, but he doesn't see the funny side.
"Yes," he all but snarls instead, collecting his cards up into a large pile.
Cameron blinks and he pretends not to see, pretends not to notice how very thick her eyelashes are from mascara.
"Yes?" she quizzes as he shuffles the deck.
He looks up. "Yes," he repeats, like she's five and doesn't understand a thing. "As in, 'Yes, I am supposed to be going home'. But with you standing over me like that, evidently with something to say, it would be rude to leave. Oh, wait." He gets to his feet and fakes a pallid smile. "I don't care."
He reaches for his cane and he feels Cameron's gaze boring into him. It would be so easy to leave and ignore her, but somehow, he knows he's not going to get away without saying another word.
Wilson's bet suddenly pops up into his mind and he rams it right back down, waiting for a different time and a different opportunity, because right now really isn't the one. Not with pain still twitching in his leg, a nice, welcoming bed calling to him from home, and expectant eyes keeping their focus entirely on him.
House straightens, rubs his fingers tiredly across his sore eyes so that they meet at the bridge of his nose. "Okay," he relents, and he looks directly at her, dropping his hand. "What do you want?"
She tilts her head slightly, smiling and lowering her gaze. It's a look he's seen on her many times before, and it usually means she's lying, or about to lie.
"I... wanted to tell you Mr. Stephens is doing just fine." She smiles. He doesn't.
"Great, thanks," he gripes, leaning on his cane and taking a step around the desk. "I've been waiting all day to hear that. Now I can go home and sleep soundly, knowing that Mr Stephens is doing just fine. Excuse me."
"Blood clot guy?" she reminds, as though trying to provoke a reaction.
"I know who Mr. Stephens is," he declares patronizingly, fighting off the urge to roll his eyes then wondering why. "He was, if you recall, my patient. That's why we've been working on him. To make him better. That's what doctors do, isn't it, Cameron? We make people better. I know he's 'just fine', I was the one who gave him his medication. So don't come up here expecting thanks for telling me something I already know."
In all honesty, he really doesn't know why he's being unpleasant – well, more unpleasant than usual. She worked hard, she works hard, she probably deserves some recognition for what she does. And he was right, those couple of weeks ago, when he was standing outside her front door all but on his hands and knees to get her to come back and work for him.
She is a good doctor.
She also has nice breasts.
And he really doesn't know why he's being so acidic. Later he'll blame it on being tired and in pain, of course, but now it just seems the fitting way to be.
Grabbing his bag from beside his desk, he limps past her, towards his door, a mere break for freedom.
"I was lying," she admits quickly from behind him and he stops, tilts his head up to the ceiling in defeat.
"Yeah. Got that."
"We..." He listens to the footfalls on the carpet as she approaches, but he doesn't turn around. If he keeps focused on the door and getting to it, he thinks maybe he'll get out quicker. Then he wonders who he's trying to kid and, shoulders tense, he turns again.
"It's cruel to do this to a cripple," he points out, his attempt to seem less of a jerk, but she doesn't take the bait. In fact, if he thinks about it, she looks quite nervous.
Cameron pauses, fiddling with her hands.
Eyebrows raised, House glances to them, then back up again. "You okay?" he asks slowly, tongue clicking in his mouth.
"Yeah," she answers, far too quickly, and then he can't believe it because she's actually blushing. "We're... we're going for a drink."
His eyebrows rise in further surprise, and he leans on his cane, considering her with interest. "Are we?"
"Foreman and Chase and me. I mean."
"And 'I'," he corrects. She gives him a look like he's just dribbled on his shirt, not saved someone's life, and this time he really does roll his eyes. "'Foreman and Chase and I. You got a medical degree with that grammar? Appalling."
She folds her arm. This is not a good sign. It doesn't compute with his 'getting to the door quick' escape plan, either.
"Me. Foreman. Chase. Drink, after work. We... thought it would be nice if you'd come."
"No, you didn't," he counters almost immediately, a knowing look in his eyes. "Or, rather, no they didn't. They didn't think it would be nice. Neither of them like me that much. You do."
She opens her mouth to say something, and her tongue hovers at her teeth as she tries and fails to think of a witty comeback. He can almost see the cogs working in her mind. No match for him, is Cameron.
"They think you're a good doctor," she tries, and he wonders if she's clever or manipulative for trying to coax him into it with his ego. It doesn't work, whichever.
"And I agree with them," he comments, turning his head to glance longingly at the door.
"Please? Come?"
Looking back, he shakes his head with a tight-lipped smile, standing straight once again. "No." Her expression clearly asks 'why-the-hell-not?', so he answers it before her mouth can ask. "I spend enough time working with all of you during the day. Sometimes during the nights. Anything extra would be just..." He makes a face like he's just taken a bite of raw chicken. "Bleargh. Sorry to disappoint. Goodnight."
He turns and walks off, but she dashes in front of him before he can take many more steps and he holds in an annoyed groan that rises involuntarily in his throat.
"We might talk about you," she confesses invitingly, a youthful playfulness dancing in her eyes and smile. "And if you don't come with us, it'll probably all be..."
He looks at her expectantly, eyes stinging with persistent tiredness. "Yes?"
"You know." She shrugs and looks away again, seemingly losing her nerve. "It'll be better, if you're there."
House takes a step back slightly, taking her in. She's still in her lab coat, complete with two pens sticking out from the coat pocket. Her hair's up and back from the day's shift and she looks a little peaky, but she also looks... nice. Amusement begins to play with his features and demeanor, a child with new toys.
"You really want me," he comments, frowning playfully. "Don't you?"
"It would be good for you," Cameron insists, meeting his eye and apparently ignoring anything else he might have meant in his statement (there was nothing else at all, of course, he tells himself brusquely, aside from his usual House-ness).
"So would sleep," he retorts pointedly, and suddenly the crabbiness is back, with a vengeance and a deep desire to make itself known. He pushes past her once more, promising that if she stops him a third time, he's not responsible for his actions. "Good night, Cameron. Enjoy your drink with the boys. And do try not to have too much sex on your way out, would you? It's... messy."
He saunters out without waiting for a reply, or an insult (probably both), and as he paces towards the lift, he smirks. Working here, it's not so bad. He has a satisfied sort of feeling he'll be sleeping very well tonight.
-I-
As it happens, he doesn't sleep well. He stays up 'til gone one-thirty, watching re-runs of cheesy soaps he has no interest in on the TV. They're not even vaguely medical; just bad acting and worse scripts.
He pours himself a glass of wine (red; he is, on occasion, a red wine man) and falls asleep to the Beatles' Strawberry Fields Forever. He dreams fitfully, about gunshots and not being able to clot, and when he does eventually wake, it's with pillow creases in his sagging cheeks, stabbing pains in his leg, and far too early for comfort. It's not even dawn, but it's still too late to return properly to sleep. So he gets up, dresses, swallows something for the pain and makes a cup of tea. Then he watches the sunrise through stifled yawns, and starts getting ready for day.
He's late to work. When he gets there his eyes are red and his beard unkempt and he barely speaks a word to anyone all day. He ponders throwing a request for drinks at Cameron, but he doesn't do that, either. A whole week goes by before he realizes he still has fifty dollars to make, by which time, the moments for doing so have passed. That is until one Wednesday afternoon an opportunity presents itself so perfectly he can't turn it down.
He asks her for a drink and dinner, perhaps at his if she's lucky, because a case comes up that needs studies done outside clinic hours, and it's work for two.
She says no.
He tries to ignore the deflating balloon of disappointment, convincing himself it's only fifty dollars. He doesn't argue, convince her, or ask why. He just swallows it down and gets on with it. Because he's House and that is what he does.
He doesn't suggest it again.
