Ghosts of the Past
A/N: Hi all! I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who is reading, reviewing, or alerting/putting this story on favorites…it really keeps me writing! Sorry for the delay. With grad school, moving to a new place, and interning, things got a bit insane. Also, I just wanted to be clear; I'm not killing Chase, this is not a death-fic…mostly because I don't have the heart to actually kill any characters, I just tend to bring them rather close. Breathe easy.
Chapter 7: The Past Creeps in Slowly…
Cameron stood stock still outside Chase's room, the same position she'd been in for a good thirty minutes.
Foreman had wanted to give her a few minutes alone with Chase, as they hadn't had the time to talk before the biopsy, and House, upon hearing that Wilson hadn't looked pleased at the end of the biopsy, had shooed them out of his office with an order to keep him updated, then he'd stalked off to Cuddy's office. House didn't deal well with this type of situation; he'd shouted at everyone in the vicinity when Foreman had nearly died several years ago, but Cameron didn't know if she'd ever seen him this twisted up in knots. But then, Chase and House had always had an odd sort of kinship that Cameron had never fully understood; she only knew that although Chase wouldn't always own to it, he had a very strong affection for his boss.
"You can come in you know," Chase said gruffly from inside the darkened room. "No need to stand in the doorway."
Cameron looked up, startled, but entered.
"May I sit?" she asked, gesturing to the chair House had occupied the night before.
He nodded, but she noticed he wasn't really looking at her. His eyes were tinged with red, always a sign that he'd been crying, but she knew she wouldn't ask. When they'd been together she'd always been careful to wait a bit to see if he would mention if something was bothering him, and only pushed it if he didn't eventually bring it up; he'd spilled many a heartfelt secret to her. Now however, things were obviously very different.
"How are you feeling?" she asked, eyes running over the bandages peeking out from under his hospital gown, as well as the splint around his wrist and the bandage on his head where it had made contact with the roof of his now totaled car.
"Like hell," he said. "Stupid New York drivers…" His words were cut off by a raspy cough that shook his entire body. Upon seeing blood trickling out of the corner of his mouth, another coughing spell taking over seconds after the last one had stopped, Cameron leapt from her chair and grabbed tissues from the restroom, watching in horror as he coughed up more blood. As cliché as it sounded, everything moved in slow motion, and even though she knew it was more than a little premature, Cameron was struck with an insurmountable fear that Chase would die…it was a concept she couldn't handle.
"Should I call…"
Chase shook his head with vigor, the coughing finally dying off, breath rattling in his chest.
"There's nothing they can really do until they have the diagnosis," he protested. "I can still breathe, so I don't need to be intubated. And I'd really rather not having anyone poking at me right now. Thanks for the tissue."
"You're welcome," she answered, wishing she could wipe the terrified look off her face, but finding that it was frozen in place.
"Please don't look at me like that," he said, the smallest hint of a smile on his face. "I haven't accepted it fully yet, but I'm trying."
"Robert you don't know…"
"Allison," he said, frustration edging into his voice. "I know that's what it is. I've been feeling fatigued, I've had joint pain, a cough, but I didn't think anything of it until yesterday. It runs in my genes."
"But you're so young for it," Cameron argued, furrowing her eyebrows. "It could be something else. You're jumping to conclusions."
"You really don't have to be here," he said, finally really looking at her. His voice softened, losing a bit of the uncharacteristic harshness he'd injected into it, reminding her of the endlessly romantic man she'd so loved. "I know it must bring back terrible memories for you."
Cameron knew he was sincere with those words, but she also felt the first surge of irritation flood her veins; this was a typical Chase tactic, pushing her away because he was angry. It was so very like House. But she also saw the pain in his ever expressive eyes, which were always vulnerable to showcasing his emotion. They'd said their goodbyes during the lockdown, had parted amiably, but there had still been a desperation within both of them, as though neither truly wanted to walk away from the other. Perhaps he was more hurt than she'd bargained for. Perhaps she was more hurt that she was willing to admit, even to herself.
"You can't just push me away," she said, crossing her arms over her chest. "I came for a reason."
"Because you were on the emergency contact forms," he stated, fervently keeping the emotion out of his voice. "But don't feel obligated."
"I didn't come because I was on the emergency contact forms and you know it," she said, voice rising slightly.
"I appreciate you coming, but now that you see I'm fine, you don't have to stay," he said, stoic, although his hands were trembling.
"You are not fine," she said, trying to keep her voice down. "You could have…"
"Lung Cancer?" he shot back. "Yeah, I know."
Before Cameron could respond there was a light knock on the glass, revealing Melinda, IV pole and all.
"Am I interrupting anything?" she asked, smiling at the pair of them before looking with worry at Chase's red-tinged lips.
"No," Chase said, trying to smile at her in return. "Come in."
"Hello Allison dear," Melinda said, taking a seat on the other side of Chase's bed, squeezing Cameron's shoulder on her way. "How are you?"
"I'm fine," Cameron answered. "But how are you? Foreman told me you had Carbon Monoxide Poisoning."
"I do," Melinda replied. "But they say I can be discharged in a couple of days." She looked over at her stepson intently. "But I plan on staying for a bit to make sure Robert here is alright."
"You really don't have to…"
"I do," Melinda interrupted. "There will be no arguing the point. Rowan would want me to look after you," she said, daring to bring up one of the elephants in the room. "And in any case, I want to stay."
Cameron watched as he slumped into his pillows and nodded his assent to Melinda, a whispered "thank you" on his lips, even as they formed a tight line; he was in pain, that much was clear, yet he refused to let them see. A simple memory flashed in her mind…
Cameron jumped from her curled up position on the couch as she heard Chase turn his key in the lock, tossing her weathered copy of The Golden Bowl aside and leaping up. He entered, looking haggard, his hair tousled everywhere. They'd been planning on a Chinese/movie night at her place, but he'd been due four hours ago, had simply sent a text message saying, "surgery went long, be by asap."
"Robert!" she exclaimed, but she wasn't reprimanding him. "What happened?"
"Triple car crash on the interstate," he said, thumbs massaging the back of his neck as he put his set of keys down on the kitchen counter. They'd exchanged keys to each other's apartments when they'd hit the sixth month mark, which had been a month ago now. It had been a formality really, an official step forward, since they'd been spending nearly every night at each other's apartments for quite some time. "One of the injured was a 7-year-old girl with major internal bleeding."
"Did she make it?" Cameron whispered, approaching him. But judging by the broken expression on his face, she already knew the answer.
"No," he said with a shake of his head. "Three hours in surgery and we lost her. Her parents were devastated. You'd think…" he trailed off, unable to finish his sentence.
"That we'd get used to it?" she asked, taking his hand and leading him to the couch, gently pushing him down into a sitting position.
"Yeah," he said, glancing up at her, his left hand now rubbing his right. "But I never do. Especially not when it's a kid. She was so, so young. I tried everything…" his voice shook ever so slightly and he covered his face with his hands for a moment.
"I'm so sorry babe," Cameron whispered softly.
"Me too," he replied, looking up at her again. "I'm sorry I got here so late, I know we had plans…"
"Come here," she said, cutting off his apology as she seized the bottle of lavender lotion she'd been using earlier off the coffee table. She leaned up against the back of the couch. "Take your shirt off."
Chase raised his eyebrows at her, a mildly bewildered look on his countenance. "Are you trying to seduce me to make me feel better?" he asked. "Intriguing tactic."
"No, silly," Cameron said. "Just come here and put your back to me. And take off that shirt!"
"Allison, I'm fine, really, I just need some rest," he protested, shaking his head at her. "A shower maybe. Nothing to worry about."
"You're not fine," she said, pulling his shirt off for him as he lifted his arms in defeat. She squirted the sweet-scented lotion known for its relaxing properties into her hand, starting to massage it into his neck and shoulders, feeling the tension receding as he relaxed his muscles.
"This is what I'm here for you know," she said, squeezing another dollop of lotion into her hands and beginning on the knot that had formed in the center of his neck from leaning over for such an extended period of time.
"To be my masseuse?" he joked.
"To be someone you can talk to when you have a hard day," she said seriously, almost with the tone of a professor giving a lecture. "You should know that by now."
"I do know," he said, all traces of joking gone from his tone. "And I do trust you. I just have a hard time accepting being vulnerable sometimes. I'm not…used to someone trying to take care of me."
"I know," she said, a trace of sadness in her tone, bitter at the mistakes Chase's parents had made. They had loved him in their own ways, but they hadn't done him justice in the slightest, and he'd had to grow up far faster than was fair. She gestured at him to turn around to face her. She slathered her own hands in lotion and then intertwined his fingers with her own, massaging deep into the skin of his sore hands.
It was quiet between them for a moment as Cameron worked, three words swirling around in her mind, three words she'd wanted to say for quite some time but hadn't been able to build up the courage to say. She breathed in, squeezing both his hands.
"Robert?" she asked, feeling her heart beating harder and harder against her chest. She was fearful, she realized, but now seemed like the right moment, even if they were just sitting on her couch at midnight, she in old PJ's and him in jeans and a scrub shirt.
He looked at her, and she could swear she saw the very same words written in his eyes.
"I love you," she breathed, squeezing his hands again.
His eyes widened but a smile overtook his tired features, the twinkle she so adored resting in his blue-green eyes. He kissed her, but softly, as though afraid she might suddenly disappear. Somehow, this kiss meant more to Cameron than all the heated, passionate kisses they'd so often shared.
"I love you too, Allison."
The monumental moment hung between them, and she continued massaging his hands. Mixed with the joy of their exchange, however, apprehension was also in his expression.
"Don't you go doubting yourself," she said, intuitively knowing what his thought process was, difficult as it was to crack through sometimes. "You did everything you could to save that little girl."
"I tried," he said, a solitary tear slipping from his eye that he couldn't swipe away because she had his hands. "I tried everything I could think of."
Words weren't really needed, she realized, and instead she let go of his hands and pulled his head to her shoulder, wrapping her arms around him, knowing full well that this was the first time in years he'd let anyone do such a thing.
Raised voices down the hallway broke through Cameron's reverie. Chase sat up against his pillows at the sound of three pairs of footsteps but only two voices.
"I'm your best friend, so I should know first!"
"Well Chase is the patient, so ethically, he should know first," James Wilson argued, obviously exasperated by House's incessant nagging.
"Always following the rules," House mocked. "Even when it's important."
"It is important," Wilson responded, their voices right outside the door now. "Which is why we're here. Now you can hear at the same time as Chase? Fair?"
The door slid open, revealing Wilson and House along with Foreman, whose expression was oddly drawn. Cameron noticed Chase's hand grip the bed sheets tightly, bracing himself. She felt her own heart start racing, a sick sense of malicious foreboding creeping into her soul.
"Hi everyone," Wilson said in his usual pleasant tone of voice, but Cameron noticed that his knuckles gripped the clipboard he held so tightly that his knuckles were white. He smiled weakly over in her direction, as he'd been busy preparing for the biopsy when she'd arrived. "We got the biopsy results back."
"Wilson," House interrupted, although his tone was oddly soft, only a trace of the usual mocking contained within. "Your usual routine won't exactly work on us…we know it too well."
Wilson ignored him, moving toward Chase's side of the bed, his deep brown eyes locked with Chase's blue-green orbs, which were as turbulent as the raging sea.
"It's lung cancer isn't it?" Chase whispered, as Cameron watched House's eyes dart impossibly fast between his best friend and the doctor who was a good as his protégé.
"It is," Wilson admitted, laying a very gentle hand on Chase's forearm, but it was almost as if Chase couldn't see him.
Cameron was certain her heart leapt out of her chest and ran out the door.
"But it isn't a lost cause," Wilson reassured Chase, still looking into his eyes. "It's a very, very early stage III non-small cell adenocarcinoma…"
"Stage three?" Chase said, his voice hardly audible now. "Stage…" he trailed off, breaking Wilson's gaze and looking to House as though pleading with him to say this was some kind of cruel joke, asking him to smack some sense into his best friend, to come up with a last minute diagnosis that had nothing whatsoever to do with cancer. House could barely meet his eye before looking down at the tiled floor. Melinda's eyes swam with sudden tears, and Cameron felt Foreman's hand resting lightly on her shoulder.
"From the look of it there's a good chance most of it can be removed with surgery," Wilson persisted. It hasn't spread beyond the one lung and the lymph nodes yet. And the fact that it's non-small cell is positive."
"Could I…" Chase stumbled over his words. "Could I lose one of my lungs?"
"It's possible," Wilson said, wincing slightly. "But we might try removing it partially with surgery and partially with chemo to prevent that. You've got a fighting chance, Chase. I wouldn't lie to you about that."
"What he's really trying to say," House said, incapable of stopping himself from injecting his particular brand of sarcastic humor into the situation; it was his ultimate defense mechanism. "Is that you're probably going to lose some of that pretty blonde hair, and that you'll be in a hell of a lot of pain, but you might just stay alive."
"House," Wilson reprimanded.
"But there's always a chance that the treatment…"
"There's always a chance that the treatment won't work," Wilson finished for him, hand squeezing his long-time colleague's arm. "But we can't look into time-spans or anything of that nature until we try. Your percentages are good…but it will be a hard road. We're all here for you."
Silence descended upon them, ringing through the room. Cameron looked up to Foreman, whose eyes had that wide, confused, saddened look she'd only witnessed a few times before, looking as though he was focusing on nothing. She looked to House, who was staring at Chase as though he was willing the Cancer away with the power of his genius. She looked to Melinda, who was focused on her lap, a marked sort of guilt written on her face, undoubtedly thinking about Rowan, and Cameron was sure then that she'd known Chase had been in the dark about his father's own lung cancer. She looked finally to Chase, who pressed his hands hard against his eyes, clearly trying to keep himself in check. She wished he would cry, she wished he would scream, she wished he would do something…but he remained silent. When he did speak up, it wasn't what she wanted to hear.
"Thank you Wilson," he said, eyes scanning the five of them. "Thanks for being here, all of you, but I'd really like to be left alone for a little while."
It was obvious none of them wanted to do any such thing, but they gave into his wish, and Cameron followed them out, fingers softly grazing his bruised cheek before exiting the room.
He didn't even register the contact.
