4.) Hate
She didn't know why she'd come back, but she had.
Her fingers traced down the achingly familiar railings, tapered doorframes, walls slightly darker than she remembered. Though the people hadn't changed; so busy and wrapped up in their lives that they didn't even bother with eye contact. Normally that would annoy her, but now...it was a welcome attribute.
She lost herself in the blurring, shifting crowd and shut her eyes, pushing forward until her shoulder hit the cold metal of the elevator door; slipping through the widening gap into the enclosed space beyond.
"What floor?"
I don't have a damn clue.
"Four."
Of course. House's floor. She mentally kicked herself, because now the other people in the elevator were giving her strange looks.
"Hey, are you..."
"I used to be," she cut him off, waiting desperately for the doors to open.
When they did, she bolted out into her old home and started walking. No idea where she was going, or what she was doing, or why she hadn't slept a full night in months.
She only knew that something was crying out for her.
Or someone.
Cameron's chest tightened, and she bit back the tears burning behind her eyes.
She shouldn't have come. Everywhere she turned brought back bittersweet memories; as if wandering aimlessly through the wreck of an old childhood home - your old life, twisted beyond recognition.
And the noise! With House, everything else was silent as they traversed the marble floors discussing cases - as if they were in a bubble. But now the sounds swelled to breaking point around her, a cacophony, an overload of melodious children's laughter and cut-glass arguments on Bluetooth headsets and apologies that meant nothing and a million lives winding intrically around each other, for better or (usually) for worse. She was smart enough to sharply turn her head and squeeze her eyes shut as she passed House's office, but not smart enough to stop listening.
"-can't be lymphoma; no swollen-"
Lymph nodes, she silently added to the stolen snapshot, feeling a knot fasten uncomfortably in her stomach.
As she walked past, the sounds of voices died down to muffled whispers, and a new one caught the air; a juddering current that flew back and forth across the walls. She sharply veered around the corner and the sight filled her with helpless dread.
Chase, sprawled against a glass wall, clutching at his throat.
"CHASE!" She flew towards him, forgetting anything else as he desperately gasped for air that wouldn't come; eyes barely registering she was there.
"Help-"
She tried to find any evidence of a pneumothorax or airway blockage, her ER training kicking her into autopilot, but nothing made sense until she briefly glanced into the room behind him.
A blank, deadened hospital room, like any other except for the faint dark stain on the wall.
Dibala's.
Panic attack.
As she stared, his shallow breaths slowly calmed down to a normal rhythm, and he coughed out something that sounded like her name.
"Chase," she whispered.
"Yes?"
"I don't hate you."
"You - what?"
"I don't hate you. Nobody does. God or anybody."
A weight she hadn't noticed was there fell from her shoulders, as if an anchor had been released.
"I - Cameron -"
"I have to go."
She silently picked herself up, leaving him in Dibala's shadow, the rooms racing past that the ghost of her old life still haunted. But this was now. The past was done.
She clicked the 'down' button frantically, her lips curved into something like a smile.
That was the past.
And she was never going back again.