Hello! So I'm thinking of making this story 11 chapters long, I like 11, it's a good number. 11 will be an epilogue though so technically it will be 10 chapters.
Chapter 8.
"I've booked a flight home." Chase announced when he entered Cameron's room the next day.
"What?!" She asked, sitting up quickly, a worried look on her face.
"Oh no!" Chase said quickly, realising his mistake, "I just meant to pick up my stuff and everything!"
"Oh..." Cameron breathed out a sigh of relief.
"I figured it would be best to do it while you're in hospital and someone will be here to look after you and where you can't get into too much trouble." Chase smiled, picking up his things, "I don't know if all my things will fit in your apartment."
"I'm sure we'll manage." Cameron smiled slightly sheepishly.
"I've called Foreman and Thirteen and they're going to help me pack it all up so it shouldn't take too long. I should be back in about four days, but we'll be driving out here. I'll call you and text you and think of you." Chase grinned and walked over to her bed. "I love you, don't go anywhere." He told her, pulling her into a warm hug, "I'll miss you."
"I'll miss you too." She whispered, holding onto him tighter, "And I love you."
Chase pulled away slightly to capture her lips in his, slowly and tenderly kissing her, "Now I've defiantly missed that."
"Me too." She whispered back.
"I better go, I don't want to miss my flight." Chase whispered.
Cameron didn't say anything, just pulled him back into a tight hug, breathing in his scent, the feeling of his arms around her, everything that she'd miss.
"See you later." Chase grinned before leaving the hospital room.
"To say Chase is supposedly rich he doesn't have a lot of stuff." Thirteen mused as she boxed up a few of his possessions.
"He's not rich, he was rich growing up but when his loaded dad died he cut him out of his will." Foreman told Thirteen, "I remember this." He laughed at the huge stuffed kangaroo toy he'd given him at his bachelor party.
"Ahh..." She muttered.
"Hello?" A familiar Australian voice called from the door.
"In the bathroom." Foreman called back, "On that note, what the hell is the kangaroo doing in the bathroom?"
"Marvin?" Chase asked, walking into the bathroom and picking up the kangaroo, "Oh, I spilt whiskey on him last time I was here so he needed a bath."
"Right." Foreman said, looking at Chase with an odd look on his face, "That makes perfect sense."
"Bathrooms done." Thirteen announced, placing the last bath oil into the box and taping it up.
"Thanks for doing this guys, it would have taken me ages." Chase smiled at them thankfully, "And I really don't want to leave Allie for too long with the way that Kevin guys circling." Chase scowled slightly, squeezing Marvin a little bit too hard.
"Kevin?" Foreman asked, his eyebrows rising slightly, "And when did you change Bruce to Marvin?"
"Marvin is so much cooler than Bruce!" Chase said indignantly, "And yes Kevin, this hot-shot perfect looking orthopaedic surgeon that likes Cameron."
Foreman snorted, "He's an orthopaedic surgeon, he's got nothing on a general surgeon who specialises in intensive care."
"I'm pretty sure he didn't murder an African dictator either." Chase said before realising Thirteen was in the room and faulting.
"Oh, I know." She said, "He explained everything." She had an oddly slightly disapproving look on her face as she carefully wrapped the pictures in the living room in bubble wrap.
"Yeah well, did I mention he's perfect." Chase muttered.
"Chase, you've got another shot, don't screw it up." Foreman said simply, "Jealousy only makes things worse. Besides if he was a neurosurgeon then you'd have something to worry about."
"Shut up." Chase scowled at Foreman.
"I'm sorry, do you want to drive all your crap up Chicago on your own?" Foreman asked.
"How the hell did you get House to give you time off to help me move to Chicago?" Chase asked them.
"We're currently on about a case a month." Foreman rolled his eyes, "It's his new way to screw with Cuddy and I think it's actually working."
"You guys replaced me yet?" Chase asked.
"House is refusing to replace you." Thirteen told him, ignoring the look she got from Foreman.
"Why's that?" Chase asked curiously.
"I think he still thinks you'll come back." Foreman sighed.
"I'm not." Chase said decisively. "I want Cameron and she won't move back here now."
"Why?" Thirteen asked.
"She's always missed her family, her parents always disagreed with her decision to marry Liam, saying it would ruin her and maybe they were right but since she moved back there she's fixed whatever was broken between them and she loves Owen and Lily so much and now she knows what it's like to be close to them again I doubt she'll leave." Chase shrugged.
"What about you though? Princeton's your home." Foreman asked.
"Nope, Cameron's my home." Chase looked down with slight embarrassment, "I know how sappy that sounds but she'd the only family I've got. My parents are dead, my step-families in Australia and we're not exactly close. I'll miss all my friends but she's worth more to me."
"Take hints." Thirteen whispered to Foreman, "I'm glad you're happy, the two of you deserve it."
"Thanks." Chase smiled, "Just got to pack up this place."
"What are you going to do with it?" Foreman asked, looking around the apartment.
"Sell it furnished." Chase shrugged, "I'll go around to the real estate place tomorrow and put it up there or something."
"When are they thinking of letting Cameron out of hospital?" Thirteen asked.
"When I get back I think, depending on how her final scans go and everything." Chase told them, "The internal bleeding was pretty bad but she was really lucky she didn't rupture her spleen."
"God, I can't even imagine it happening." Thirteen whispered.
"I wish I couldn't." Chase muttered darkly, "I said I'd ring Allie around now." He stood up, pulling out his phone and dialling the familiar number.
"Heya." He could hear her smiling on the other end.
"Hey, how are you feeling?" Chase asked.
"Lonely, which is pathetic." Cameron laughed slightly.
"It's not pathetic if I'm lonely too." Chase chuckled dryly, "We've packed up the bathroom and kitchen, just got the living room and bedrooms left and then I've got to see the real estate guy but I should be back in a few days. The doctors say anything new?"
"Nope, just got to keep resting, what else do they think I can do in a hospital!?" She asked in exasperation.
"I'm sure I can think of a few things." Chase said dryly, a smile playing on his lips.
"While there's nothing to do while my husband's out of town." She replied.
"I'm glad to hear it!" Chase laughed.
"I have to go for some tests or something." Cameron told him.
"Which tests?" Chase asked, the slight protective and worried edge returning to his voice.
"They're just checking on my internal organs to make sure they're healing ok and then I'm having an x-ray on my wrist." Cameron said.
"OK, I'll ring you later." Chase smiled, "Look after yourself."
"You too." Cameron hung up the phone.
"Everything ok?" Foreman asked when Chase returned into the main room.
"Yeah, they were taking her for some tests so we're going to talk some more later." Chase told them, sitting back down and pulling towards the box that they were packing with carefully wrapped photos.
"How's she doing the loss?" Thirteen asked softly, "How are you doing with everything?"
"We don't talk about it that much. We did but I guess we ran out of ways of saying how much we'd miss him. How sorry we were. I think she's thinking of seeing a therapist, I'm not sure." Chase said very softly, "I don't want to push it and she knows I'm there for her but sometimes it's easier to talk to someone who doesn't know you in that way."
"That's true." Thirteen nodded.
"I still feel guilty because I'm so glad it wasn't her." Chase let out, "We can still try for another baby but if I'd have lost her I don't know what I'd have done."
"Have you told her that?" Foreman asked.
"No, I really don't think she'd take it well." Chase said.
"Not about the being glad bit, about how you can try again when you're both ready." Foreman rolled his eyes.
"Since when did you guys become that couple?" Chase asked, laughing slightly.
"...What couple...?" Thirteen asked slowly.
"The one with all the advice and answers, the functional couple." Chase laughed at the fact he was associating the word functional with the two of them.
They chuckled lightly as they continued on their task, slowly wrapping and boxing up Chase and Cameron's old life...
The halls of Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital were unchanged to how Chase had left them. He saw nurses and doctors he'd seen everyday watch him curiously as he entered the locker room and cleared out his locker. He felt their eyes follow him as he walked down the corridor towards the diagnostics department. Taub was sat at the desk, seemingly doing an endless pile of paperwork while House was sat at his desk, throwing his red ball against the wall and catching it again using his cane.
"Ah, the prodigal son returns." House mocked, watching Chase enter the office.
"I came to say goodbye and thank you." Chase told him, walking over to the older man he'd viewed as a sort of father figure and placing the box down on the desk.
"So you're really leaving?" He asked the same indifference in his tone, "Because you've tried a number of times and it's never worked. You belong here."
"Maybe, maybe not, I belong where Cameron is, so if that means following her to Chicago then I'll follow her to Chicago. A job is a job, at the end of the day, when I come home from that it's her I want to see, and in the morning when I wake up it's her I want to wake up next to. You made sure that she'd never come back here and now I won't either." Chase said in a soft voice, he wasn't causing House, merely stating the facts.
"If that's what you believe, but being in Chicago won't make your problems disappear."
"But it removes you from the equation." Chase told him, "And all the other problems are fixable."
"You always were a little naive." House muttered.
Chase chose to ignore this, instead he held out his hand, "Thank you....for everything."
It took a few moments before House eventually shook it, "I hope everything works out for you." And somewhere, deep down, Chase believed this to be true.
"Thank you." Chase sighed, picking up the box and walking out the diagnostics room for the last time....
"How long do you recon it will take us?" Foreman asked as he, Chase and Thirteen loaded the last of the boxes into the two cars they were taking to Chicago.
"Maybe fourteen hours, are we stopping?" Thirteen asked, closing the boot and squinting in the early morning sun.
"I was just going to drive to whole fourteen hours." Chase shrugged, "It shouldn't be that hard so..." He shrugged, sipping on the coffee that Thirteen had brought them.
"Plus we can swap around." Foreman said, "We'll start, I'll do six hours while you sleep then we'll swap, I'll get a few hours then we can pull over and I'll let Chase get some sleep."
"Alright." Chase nodded, climbing into his own car, "You guys know where the stopping points are?"
"Yeah." Thirteen nodded.
"See you there in about six hours." Chase grinned, closing the down and setting off.
Foreman and Thirteen jumped into Thirteen's trusty four by four and set off after him, it would be a long day...
When Chase had finished high school he and his best friends had taken six months and had driven around the coast of Australia on a surfing and water sports holiday, stopping off at all the best places to surf, dive, swim with sharks and do anything their adrenaline loving bodies wanted. That road trip was over a thousand times more enjoyable that the one he was currently on. It did however give him a chance to reflect back onto his and Cameron's honeymoon that they'd gone to Melbourne for. She'd always wanted to see where he grew up and it was the perfect opportunity.
"Babe! You'll get knocked over in a second flat if you stand like that!" Chase grinned at his new wife as she attempted to stand on the surfboard Chase had picked out for her. "Well maybe I wasn't born to surf!" She said her hands flying to her hips indignantly.
"Not true." Chase grinned, standing up from his current position, lounging back in the sand and laughing as Allison tried to master the foot technique he'd attempted to teach her.
"Maybe you're just distracting me." She whispered, poking his well toned bare chest.
"Excuses!" He grinned, walking behind her and wrapping his arms around her tiny frame, "Put your feet like this." He said, carefully nudging her feet into the correct position.
"Robert Chase?" An incredulous voice asked and they turned to see two people jogging up to them, both wearing wet suits and carrying surfboards, "I told you it was him!" The female speaker said to the male, grinning triumphantly.
"Claire Robinson? Mark Kelly?" Chase asked, "Hi!" he grinned.
"Me either." Mark smiled, hugging the man.
"Hiya!" The girl threw her arms around him happily, "I haven't seen you since that summer."
"Guys, this is my wife, Allison Cameron." Chase said proudly, wrapping his arm around Allison, "Allie, these are two of my friends from high school, I drove around the coasts with them at one point." "It's great to meet you." She smiled at the two of them, shaking their hands and was surprised when Mark pulled her into a hug.
"You guys were betting on me getting married!" Chase asked indignantly.
"Our Chase got married!" Mark grinned, "I believe I owe you fifty dollars."
"Do you blame us?!" Claire asked, turning to Cameron, "When we were in high school he told us all that he'd never get married! I always said he would." "Yeah yeah." Mark rolled his eyes, "What are you two lovebirds doing tonight? I'll make up that bet by buying us dinner." "Sounds great." Allison smiled, leaning into Chase.
"Do you surf?" Claire asked Cameron, looking at the beginners board.
"No." Allison laughed.
"Well done mate." Mark winked at Chase, "She's one fine woman." "Mark!" Chase rolled his eyes, "You're right of course, but she's so much more." "Somebody's lovestruck." Mark teased.
"I'll give you a lesson, let's face it, Rob's always a little over expecting!" She dragged Cameron away, leaving the two guys to fall back into the sand and watch the two girls mess around by the water, seemingly already good friends.
"Oh shut it, seriously, she's the one." Chase told him.
"I'd bloody hope so, you married the girl."
"I know, I'm just saying, there's no one else." Chase told him firmly.
"I'm happy for you." Mark grinned.
Chase had never been as happy as he had been on their Honeymoon. It really had been the perfect two weeks. In a way he'd hoped it would have always been that easy, that reality had never stepped in and ruined everything and that he and Cameron could have gone in their bubble, away from the worlds harm. They couldn't and they'd felt the wrath of reality. Now all they could do was try and try again...
Please review, I love them, they make me happy when reading them!
I thought I'd throw in some happy preDibala Chameron for those fluff lovers! :)
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