She carefully made her way over to his office, slowly pressed the door handle down and slipped inside. "House?" she said into the bluish twilight of the room. No answer. Despite of having kissed him twice, she still felt inhibited to use his first name. She crept closer to him and softly nudged his crossed leg, carefully avoiding touching the bad one. He made a smacking noise with his lips and shifted around, but didn't wake up. She bent over him, taking in his relaxed face and his tousled hair. It had to be the first time she actually considered applying the word 'cute' to his person. "House?" Cameron said in a louder voice, softly squeezing his shoulder to wake him.
He opened his eyes, searching the room and quickly talking in his surroundings, until his gaze finally settled on her. The ghost of a gentle smile was briefly visible on his lips, a slip in the daze between waking and sleeping. His voice sounded more gravelly than usual, thanks to lack of use. He ran his hand over his face tiredly, "What? Is it time for school already? Where's the black kid and the one with the funny accent? You know the British nancyboy."
"Gone home about two hours ago," she answered gently.
"And you let me sleep in my office?!" he sat up straight in his chair, frowning at her.
"I assumed you'd gone home as well," she shrugged her shoulders
"Well, I didn't. Great, now I've got an aching back because of you!"
She knew better than to say she was sorry, but she still wasn't sure what to make of his comment. The expression on her face could best be described as doubting. It was hard to tell whether he was being serious or just trying to find out how'd she react. Though he had made unmistakably clear that he liked her by his actions, not by his words, mind, she was still treading carefully around him. It was remotely possible that he had really been waiting up for her, but she wasn't as naïve as to lose herself in that fantasy.
He got out of his chair, stretching his stiff limbs. "Just so you know,you're giving me a ride home."
"Oh, really?!" She cocked her head at him and watched him, her eyes sparkling in the twilight. "Why are you not taking your motorbike?"
"Don't you know anything?! Because motorbikes and stiff backs don't mesh. That's why."
She let out a mock sigh, "Since you're asking so nicely…"
"Come to think of it, how about one for the road? You're paying," he casually shrugged on his jacket and put on his peaked cap.
"Now?!" Cameron asked incredulously.
"No, tomorrow morning. Of course, now. Don't be such a bore."
She took a deep breath, feeling slightly annoyed with him. What kept her from saying anything was the fact that this was his own twisted way of inviting her…no, of inviting himself to a drink. "Alright."
"Excellent," he stuck out his chin at her, smiling smugly from underneath the rim of his cap. "Can we go now?"
"Just a second," she said and hurried to get her things from the conference room.
"Women," he rolled his eyes, tapping his cane to further emphasize his annoyance.
"Two scotches," House told the bartender brusquely, not that this was the kind of place it mattered in. It was a typical sports bar - the place practically smelling of testosterone. Cold smoke hung in the air, peanut shells lay on the floor, the large TV above the bar showed a re-run of an old football game.
"I don't drink scotch," she told him.
"Okay, what do you drink then?" he asked with a surprising lack of sarcasm.
"I'd rather have a beer."
He raised an eyebrow at her, but ordered the requested beverage as soon as the bartender returned. He had had her down one of those Strawberry Daiquiri and Cosmo drinking girls who had watched Sex in the City one too many times. Her drinking beer made her appear more down to earth. He'd even go as far as to say that she had just scored a view extra points for that.
They took their drinks and went to settle in the nearest booth. Apart from the two guys who were sitting at the bar, drinking and talking about the game on the TV, they were alone. Thankfully the music was up, so they didn't have to attempt to make unnecessary conversation, which made the situation a little less awkward.
"Here, take a sip," he slid one of his two glasses in her direction. The ice cubes clanged against its side of the glass as he moved it.
"Thanks, I actually do know what it tastes like," she informed him curtly.
"Could have fooled me," he grinned at her and took a swing of the glass in front of him. She mirrored his move and brought the bottle of beer to her lips as well.
House grimaced, savouring the bitter taste of the liquor on his lips. "Ever got drunk?" he asked out of the blue.
"Why? Do you want to find out about my alcohol tolerance, to get me drunk and bed me later?" she answered coolly, taking another swing from the bottle.
Her comment caught him off-guard, but after the astonishment wore off he was clearly amused. A devilish smile spread on his face. "We both know I wouldn't even have to get you drunk. No-one can resist my charms."
"Umum," she snorted, "That's why you keep them so well hidden. They must be your secret weapon."
"Touché," he raised his glass at her and she clanged her bottle against it. Their banter had taken a more amiable turn in the last couple of day, another point that indicated the subtle shift in dynamics that had taken place. It was not talked about just accepted as the current status quo.
"So?" he asked again refusing to let go his question before, "Did little Cameron ever get completely sloshed?"
"I don't think so. No."
"Boohooring," he said, stifling a fake yawn.
"Just because I was a responsible young…" she began, trying to vindicate her point of view.
"Oh, Cameron, don't offend me!" he cut her off. "That's just some crap you picked up somewhere. The point is that you're just afraid to cut loose."
"Well, alright, but I'm not the only one," she looked at him pointedly. The double meaning in her words didn't escape his notice.
He fell silent for awhile, looking at her darkly. After taking another sip off his scotch he finally said, "You first."
"I'm not going to get drunk just to impress you!"
"Desperate times call for desperate measures…For the sake of fairness I'm not going to let you get drunk on your own."
"Do you think that's a good idea? What if we do something we'll regret later?" she asked, cautiously paraphrasing the word sex.
"Something we'll regret...," he snorted mirthlessly, "It's when we are drunk that we act the most like ourselves. No-one's able to pretend from a certain BAL on, if you know what I mean."
"Alright," she said hesitantly, still uncertain whether this was a good idea. "But how will we get home?"
"Cab?" he said, getting to his feet.
"Wait. What are you doing?" she asked in astonishment.
"Getting another round. Isn't that obvious?"
After her third bottle of beer she felt bold. Bold and a little tipsy. "Do you mind if I call you Greg?"
"Nope, knock yourself out." Four empty glasses stood in front of him. His finger constantly toyed with the one closest to him. Apart from his pronunciation being a little less accurate, there was no indication of him being drunk. "Allison," he tried her first name out. "Nah, just doesn't feel right."
"Nor does calling you Greg" she sighed. "And just think it only took me three bottles of beer to sum up to courage to ask. Pathetic, isn't it?"
"Afraid I was going to bite you?" he joked.
"I actually like biting,"she said, causing him to give her a wide-eyed look. She clapped her hands over her mouth, looking at him with big eyes, "Wow! I just said that out loud, didn't I? Embarrassing!"
"No, hot," he said truthfully. He still looked a little perplexed - perplexed, but fascinated. With less alcohol in his system he would have lied or made a sarcastic comment - or possibly both.
She swatted him lightly on the arm, laughing, "Men think everything's hot."
"A feminist at heart, huh?! If you decide to burn your bra, let me know. I'm not opposed to watching you take it off. Hell, I might even provide a lighter," he threw her a dirty grin.
"I bet you would," she laughed.
"So anything else I should know of? Do you have a whip and chains stored away in your closet?"
"No, do you?" Cameron grinned at him broadly and again catching him off guard. She wasn't entirely as predictable as he had thought she was. Apparently there was some truth to the saying 'quiet waters run deep'. He suspected she was a little bit like those naughty Catholic school girls - innocent on the outside, a dirty mind on the inside.
"What do you think?" he waggled his eyebrows at her suggestively. She giggled. "Just in case Cuddy wants to double clinic hours…That'll be the day she mysteriously disappears," he let out a creepy laugh.
"Since I'm usually the one doing your clinic hours, I'll cover you," she winked at him conspiratorially. She was actually having a good time - something she had not believed to be possible when he was involved.
"This is fun," Cameron said cautiously.
"Yes, it is," he admitted. The timid smile on her face developed into a full-fledged genuine one.
"You're really a bit drunk, aren't you?" she giggled.
"Why?" he looked at her with squinted eyes, trying to make his vision less blurry. He was out of practise. Strangely enough they didn't allow any alcohol in rehab.
"Because normally you'd never admit to something like that."
"What? That I'm drunk or that I'm having a good time?" he asked.
"Both," she smiled at him. Their eyes locked. For a moment neither of them said something. She busied herself with taking another sip of her drink. He followed her example.
"You know what…?" she said after a while. The smile was still on her face. "I feel like I'm sixteen again. I want to do something completely stupid and unreasonable."
"Like sleeping with your boss?" he suggested enthusiastically.
She laughed hysterical at his proposal, nevertheless blushing profusely. "No," she swatted his arm. "I'd want to be able to remember that. Since half of what I'm saying now will probably be…whoosh," she made a gesture with her hand, "…gone by tomorrow, that's probably not a good idea," she looked him deeply in the eye with the kind of dead seriousness only someone drunk could muster.
"Pity," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "I'll try again later. You know if at first you don't succeed…"
"The second time won't be the charm either. I never had drunken sex. I doubt it's any fun," she wrinkled her nose sceptically.
"For you? Probably not. You'd be eaten up by remorse afterwards."
"Oh, you think so?! Maybe I won't be," she crossed her arms over her chest, shooting him a sulking look rather befitting of a ten year old than of a grown woman.
"I know you," he said simply.
She uncrossed her arms, throwing him a saccharine smile, "See, that's you're mistaken. You think you know me."
"Okay," he stretched out the vowels of this small word and raised his eyebrows. "So you're a born rebel. Impress me!" House looked at her challengingly.
"What do you want me to do? Set this bar on fire?"
"Would you?"
"No! Of course not! Are you out of your mind?"
"No, just drunk as you so cleverly pointed out before." He let a few seconds pass for effect. "So with what were you going to knock me off my socks then if not with your alleged pyromania?"
"A prank," she said after glaring at him for a suitable amount of time.
"A prank," he repeated slowly, weighing the pros and cons of her proposal in his mind. He finally came to a solution. "I'll get us another round."
She woke up with a start, unable to tell where she was and how she had ended up there, wherever that there might have been. Headache! She massaged her temples with clumsy fingers. Her back brushed against something warm and soft. She was too distracted by her mind-numbing headache to wonder what that unknown source of warmth was. She slowly came to, feeling the light weight of the thin covers on her. Her mouth was dry. There was a stale taste and a sudden thirst that was almost insupportable.
Another wave of skull splitting migraine hit her, followed by blurry shreds of memories from last night. She had laughed a lot, even giggled, what she rarely did when sober. The Princeton Plainsboro. House. None of them could walk straight anymore so they had supported each other. They had landed on the floor, laughed, then no more laughter. Kisses…His hands on her skin, what followed after faded into black. The next thing she remembered - a cab. The streetlights outside were gleaming strings of golden light. The only thing she could focus on was his face.
She hesitantly opened one eye afraid of what she might see. Her surroundings were unfamiliar. Not the Princeton Plainsboro, not her apartment. Somewhere else. She was lying in a bed that was not her own. It felt different. It smelled different. Soft sheets caressed her naked legs…Her mind skidded to an abrupt halt. She slightly raised the covers to have a look at herself. She was only dressed in a loosely fitting white t-shirt and her black slip. There was another pair of feet stretched out beside hers. Big feet, quite obviously male. Oh, God! Please, no! As if on cue, her migraine increased in intensity.
She could pretend to be asleep and postpone the inevitable for a little while, but it seemed to be too late for that. The man beside her was already stirring. It was either fight or flight. She decided for the latter one. The situation was simply too much to handle for her at the moment. Dealing with a half-naked, potentially even completely naked man seemed out of question. She quickly and quietly slipped out of bed, her eyes fixed on the ground to keep her from seeing what she did not want to see. She escaped from the room and opened the next best door she could find to lock herself behind it.
Clean, egg-shell coloured, cold tiles. A bathroom. Her fingers wrapped around the rim of the sink for support. She looked at herself in the mirror. The skin around her chin was slightly reddened as if something rough had rubbed up against it. Like sandpaper or the stubble of a beard. She touched her lips cautiously and froze in that pose, when she caught sight of an orange coloured, transparent prescription bottle. The label read 'Vicodin', beneath that the name 'Gregory House m.d.' She shut her eyes tightly. This couldn't be happening! Why did this have to happen to her of all people?
House opened his eyes, blinking. He grimaced at the bright light. Throwing the bedside clock an accusing look, he read it. 8 a.m. It was also too early. Why did she have to have her moral crisis at this ungodly hour? He had been awake long enough to hear her escape from the room. It wasn't like she had been particularly discrete about it. She had scrambled out of bed, struggling momentarily with the covers, then, as soon as she had successfully untangled herself, she had practically run from the room. Not very flattering, but that wasn't anywhere near to being a threat to his huge ego.
She was probably thinking they had had sex. It was possible, but he couldn't say for sure. The pros: he was only clothed in some boxer briefs, apart from that he wore nothing. He slowly sat up in bed. Aha, a black bra on the floor! Hers! He stored that new piece of information away on the pro side.
On to the cons, if there were any after all. He couldn't seem to remember the actual thing, just some serious making out and a bit of groping. A real pity though. He would have loved to know how his pretty immunologist was in the sack, let alone how she looked with her clothes off.
No, this was not him. His expression softened, as he brushed his cynic inner voice aside. It really was a pity he couldn't remember any of it. When he was up late at night, sitting in the loneliness of his room and sipping on a glass of scotch, he had often tried to envision her like that. He had marvelled upon the question of how her soft skin would feel beneath his touch and got lost in this fantasy, where he was allowed to kiss her, caress her, taste her, knowing that he would soon awake to a reality where he was alone again. Alone because he had wanted it this way.
He slowly sat up and swung his legs out of bed, letting them dangle over the edge for a second, before slowly getting up. It was in the mornings that his leg caused the most trouble. Then it was always stiff from lack of use and protested against every move he made. He looked around frantically, but the little orange bottle that promised at least minimal release from the excruciating pain he was in was nowhere to be found. Maybe in the bathroom? Where else would it be? The only problem was the hysterical woman who had currently locked herself up there, therefore keeping him from getting to his medication.
House grabbed his cane and hobbled over to the bathroom door. In front of it he briefly paused, listening for any noise from inside. Nothing. He tabbed against the door with his cane. The sound was almost brutal, as it abruptly disrupted the early morning quietness of his apartment. No answer. He rolled his eyes and knocked louder.
Cameron looked at the door with a frown. The knocking became louder and more aggressive any second. "What do you want?" she asked in a slightly croaky voice.
"Guess," he said .
"Your pills?"
"Bingo! Right the first time. What a clever girl you are!" came his sarcastic answer that was fuelled by the by now excruciating pain in his leg.
The door opened and a slender white hand that held his prescription bottle appeared. "This is childish," he commented disdainfully, but taking the pills from her nonetheless.
"You're right," she said regretfully, slowly opening the door. She crossed her arms over her chest protectively, well aware of the fact that she wasn't wearing a bra underneath. The pills rattled in their little container as he shook two of them onto his outstretched palm and immediately dry swallowed them. She watched the whole procedure standing awkwardly in the doorframe.
He wore nothing except for some blue boxer shorts, and she couldn't help but stare. The scars on his leg were something she didn't pay that much attention to. They were there, but reduced to a mere footnote. She was busy with absorbing every detail of him, and compared what she saw to the fantasy she had built of him. The one she indulged in lying alone in her bed or daydreaming whenever her mind drifted off. He caught her gaze, and she blushed and started tugging at the hem of her t-shirt.
"I hate to rub it in your face…Wait, who am I kidding? Actually, I love to…I just have to say it. I told you so," he said, turning his back on her as he hobbled away in the direction of the bedroom.
She followed him. "Told me what?"
"That you'd be eaten up by remorse afterwards," he said collecting his t-shirt from the floor.
"After what?" Was she actually that dense or didn't she remember either? He scrutinized her face for the missing clue. She looked tense, preoccupied and even a bit panicked. The scale tipped to one side.
"After the sex, of course," House said without so much as flinching. Testing people was his way of interacting with them. Hell, the way he saw it, he was actually being nice. This time he wasn't even lying. He just didn't know whether they really had had sex or not.
"I'm on the pill," she said almost automatically. Her first response was an unemotional one and purely pragmatic. She knew that he was uncomfortable with the situation and would sooner or later lash out at her. So strictly speaking, this was only a pre-emptive strike.
On one hand, he was impressed with her and also somewhat thankful for the information. On the other he was disappointed that she could so easily dismiss something major as them sleeping together like this.
He took revenge immediately. "That's a relief."
Cameron gave him a funny look. "Do you…" she started, but changed her mind halfway through. "I'm going to leave," she announced darkly, reaching down to collect her things that were scattered all over the bedroom floor, making sure her shirt didn't slide up.
"If that's what you want…"
She stopped in mid-movement. The piece of clothing she was about to pick up slipped from her fingers. She whipped around her actions suddenly fuelled by an anger she had not known before. "What I want?! Are you seriously asking me what I want?!"
"Well, actually no.." he raised his finger, ready to continue that line of thought, but she did not let him.
"Tough luck! I'm going to tell you anyway. What I want is for you to finally get yourself together. Stop feeling sorry for yourself! Life is hard. Everyone's a little miserable now and then, but most people decide that they don't want to be for the rest of their lives. This here," she gesticulated with her hand between the two of them, "This is a chance. A chance you have right now. You can either take it or leave it."
He looked at her with a frown. Was she going crazy?
The expression on his face only encouraged her to keep talking. "It doesn't matter anymore at this point, does it? It can't possibly get more embarrassing than this so I might as well say it." She took a deep breath and looked him right in the eye. The words died in her throat, instead of what she had initially intended to say, she said something else. "I…really like you. I have liked you for a long time, but I'm sick of this constant back and forth – of you not being able to make up your mind. Do what you want, but I won't wait around forever."
She threw him one last lingering look, before she collected the rest of her clothes and stormed out of the bedroom.
tbc(obviously)