There's nothing like a major spring snowstorm to keep a writer chained to her computer to knock out the next chapter, is there? Snow has turned to rain here in Denver, but I hear tell that tree branches are breaking and roofs are collapsing all over town under the weight of this snow. We need the moisture, but really!

Thanks for all the reviews and feedback of the last chapter. It's always so exciting to read them. Please, please, please keep them coming. In large part, they are what feed my desire to keep writing this tale.

I hope that you all enjoy this installment.

~ Sarah


Chapter Eight: Making the House Payment


"You're sure you're going to be all right here alone?" Foreman asked. He took another glance around Cameron's airy apartment, looking for some excuse he might use to convince her to let him stay for awhile. A scheduling screw up with her home health care provider meant that she would be alone until late tomorrow morning, and while Eric didn't relish the thought of cancelling the romantic evening he had planned with Remy to spend a night in Cameron's guest room, he disliked the idea of leaving her by herself even more.

"I'll be fine," Cameron said firmly. She sat in her favorite chair with her feet propped up on an ottoman. Smoothing an errant wrinkle from the ruby chenille throw Foreman had draped over her legs, she pointed to the array of books, remote controls, and pain medications on the table at her side. "I have everything I need. I'm a big girl. I can take care of myself until the nurse arrives tomorrow. Thank you for bringing me home, but you need to leave if you are going to make your dinner reservation."

Foreman glanced at his watch. She was right, but he was still torn.

"Look. If anything goes wrong, I promise to call you or Wilson."

This he could accept. It wasn't perfect, but it would suffice. "If you get so much as a blister on your thumb from channel surfing, you use that phone." His voice and expression were emphatic.

"I promise."

"Okay. I'll talk with you later. I'll lock up behind me so you don't have to get up," Foreman said, indicating the key on the fob she had given him a year ago when she and Chase had gone on vacation, and Eric had offered to keep an eye on the place.

"You two have fun," she called after him as he shut the door. She heard the lock twist home, and with a sigh she closed her eyes and settled back into the chair.

It had been a long day. Wilson, on rounds, woke her up early. Though she had kept her attention on the TV's morning news program while he inspected her incisions and surgical drains, he had been pleased enough with her progress to approve her discharge. "Just don't go throwing yourself on the floor again, please," he had said, only half-joking about her accident in the atrium two days earlier.

The nurse then helped her wash up before changing her dressings. "I'll take care of it at home," had been Cameron's response to the nurse's query about whether she wanted to look at the incision herself.

A visit from the physical therapist who guided Cameron through her arm stretches was then followed by one from the occupational therapist who instructed her on the use of the various tools she had been provided to help make her recuperation at home go smoothly. "Don't forget to use the reaching tool to grab the things you can't get to easily. Don't risk straining yourself," she was cautioned. Those appointments were followed by more forms to sign – which proved to be difficult considering she still couldn't effectively raise her right arm high enough to write on anything solid – and visits from Cuddy, Thirteen, and Chase. It was late afternoon before Foreman arrived, wheelchair in hand, to escort her to his car and drive her home.

She hadn't seen House since he had left her room two nights ago with little more than a nod and a portentous promise.

A warm breeze fluttered the curtains of the open window beside her, carrying with it the fresh scent of lilac from the bushes outside. Lilacs were her favorite scent of spring – fresh, clean, and full of promise. Breathing deeply, letting their perfume suffuse her senses, Cameron opened her eyes and looked out the window at the community garden below.

Would there be lilacs for her next spring?

The sun had started to set, and the diffused glow of twilight filled the apartment. She was glad to be home; she liked being back among her things, her memories. Four days in the hospital had been enough for her to appreciate the comforts of home, but something about it made her strangely ill at ease. Looking around the room, Cameron noticed that the bookcase needed to be organized, and that the area rug beneath the sofa was in need of a serious beating. She could only imagine the size of the dust bunny warren underneath her bed. It wasn't the physical condition of the apartment that had set her on edge, however. It was the emotional one.

She was alone.

Granted, the time that Chase had been in her home hadn't been extensive – when they spent time together, they had usually stayed at his place – but he had been there often enough that he left behind an echo of his presence even when he wasn't physically there. They had broken up almost five weeks ago, but those five weeks had been so hectic for her that Cameron had not had time to reflect on the silence of the emptiness.

The echo of companionship had faded and then died away completely without her even noticing it – until now.

Cameron sighed and swung her legs off of the ottoman, ignoring the throw as it fell to the wooden floor at her feet. Scooting to the edge of the chair as she had been taught, she pushed herself out of the seat with her left hand. She should have used her right one, too, but she just didn't feel like dealing with the discomfort right now. She walked to the kitchen, carefully placing one foot in front of the other to avoid tripping on the edge of the area rug or on the transition line from wood to ceramic tile.

She opened the refrigerator and poked around for something to eat. She wasn't overly hungry but knew she should have something. The eggs, mixed fruit, and bagel she had eaten for breakfast hadn't set well in her stomach, so she had only picked at her lunch – just enough to keep the nurses from contacting Wilson. She hadn't wanted anything to postpone her discharge.

Finding nothing but a jar of olives, a half-empty bottle of chardonnay, an old wedge of brie cheese, and a carton of eggs in the fridge – when was the last time I shopped, anyway? – Cameron moved next to the pantry and searched its shelves. Unfortunately, it didn't seem that she had anything remotely appetizing in the house. She wanted soup. Something brothy sounded heavenly, but there wasn't so much as a bouillon cube to be found.

Cameron was considering whether or not she could risk a jaunt down the stairs to her neighbor's apartment – Mrs. Moody probably had a can of chicken noodle lying about – when there was a knock at the door.

Foreman. She rolled her eyes. Why wouldn't the man realize that she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself? "Go home, Eric. I promise I will call if I need anything. Go – go be with Remy!" she shouted through the apartment, hoping he would hear her through the heavy wooden door.

Another knock sounded, followed quickly by another and another until it had turned into a rapid tapping that sounded oddly hollow. Abruptly, she recognized the sound. It was the thump of wood knocking against wood.

House.

The time for her reckoning had come.

With a sigh and a shake of her head, Cameron walked gingerly across the living room, turned the lock, and opened the door.

"Took you long enough," House grumbled, limping past her and through the living room into the kitchen. "I was wondering if I needed to call in the cadaver dogs, but it would've been too soon. The smell wouldn't have made it to the doorway for a couple of weeks yet."

"Please come in, House," she muttered with a superfluous welcoming gesture. She heard the sound of drawers opening and shutting. What was he doing in her kitchen?

"Where in the hell are your bowls?" he demanded, poking his head out of the kitchen amidst the sound of rustling bags. "I'm starving!" It was then that she realized he had brought dinner. She followed the smell of Chinese food that filled the apartment; oddly enough, it didn't make her nauseous.

"What do you need a bowl for? It's Chinese. You eat it out of the carton." She opened a cabinet and lifted her arm to pull out a white ceramic cereal bowl. House stopped her hand with his and reached over her head to grab it himself.

"I don't. You do." Turning back to the counter, House pulled a large Styrofoam container out of the bag. He opened the lid and held it under her nose. "Hard to eat soup with chopsticks; bowl and spoon are kinda mandatory."

Wonton soup. He had brought her wonton soup.

Brothy. Hot. Heavenly.

How had he known?

"You didn't eat all of your breakfast and barely picked at your lunch," using the spoon that he had found while searching for the bowls, House scooped several of the dumplings into the bowl and poured the broth in after them, "which means that your stomach still hasn't rebounded enough from the surgery for you to completely tolerate solid foods."

"You're spying on me now?" Cameron demanded, taking the bowl he thrust into her hands. She carefully settled herself at the dining table. She was offended, but the soup smelled too good to pass up.

"Technically, others were doing the spying. I was evaluating the fruits of their labor," House corrected around a mouthful of Pork Lo Mein. "That's what doctors do – observe and evaluate."

"You're not my doctor."

"Have you always been this caught up with the minor details? Wait! Don't answer that. Of course you have. You're Cameron," he said mock-disgust. "Anyway, until you're able to stomach more than liquids, it's soup for you, but if you're really good and eat all of your soup … I might let you eat my egg rolls."

Cameron nearly shot broth out of her nose at his double entendre. Coughing painfully, she struggled for breath. "You wish."

After that they ate in companionable silence. House joined her at the table and propped the foot of his bad leg against the foot rest of her chair. She finished her soup, right down to the last wonton. Thankfully, he hadn't given her much more than a cupful, but it was enough. She declined the egg roll he had speared with a chopstick for her, and laughed as he bit down on it enthusiastically. She made a flippant comment about the use of teeth on so tender a roll, and House groaned in mock pain.

Other than the monster truck rally, Cameron couldn't remember a time when she had been this at ease around the man. When she had worked for House, she had often struggled to control her own physical reaction whenever he came too close. When she had moved to the ER, she cloaked that desire in professional courtesy and in her "relationship" with Chase. She would have been lying to herself if she said that his nearness now didn't affect her, it did, but it was in the background. It didn't dominate her senses as it so often had in the past.

It was comfortable.

Washing down the egg roll's crunchy remains with a large sip of the cold beer he had brought along with the Chinese, House turned to Cameron. "Now. My demands."

So much for comfortable.

House stood up and began to pace the length of the living room and dining room, much as he did when conducting a differential diagnosis. "Let's review the facts, shall we? You," he pointed at Cameron who scowled at him, "have been a naughty girl. Now that in and of itself is not necessarily a bad thing. We all have our little indiscretions, after all, but you have the added disadvantage of having a loose tongue."

"I was drugged! I can't be held responsible for what I said."

"If it had been Wilson, or even Foreman, who had enjoyed the recitation of your vivid descriptions, I would agree with you; they would have taken your secrets with them to their graves, but we both know I'm not Wilson or Foreman."

"No, you're a manipulative, blackmailing bastard."

He smiled broadly. "Yes, I am."

"How do I know that you even have anything? You could just be leading me on."

"You want proof?" He hesitated.

"You're damn right I do." If she could have folded her arms across her chest, she would have. She was starting to sense she had the upper hand. House was bluffing. He had nothing. "There's no second-hand collaboration. You were alone in the room, and I was unconscious. Without evidence, this is nothing more than some fantasy you cooked up for your own perverse reasons."

House hooked his cane over the back of the dining room chair and with a slow smile leaned down to her. "You're wrong. The perversions are all yours, and it isn't fantasy – it's reality." He invaded her personal space, and began to whisper his "proof" in her ear, his lips brushing its curve as he spoke. Her breath caught in her throat with the closeness and scent of him, but as he continued his recitation – complete with such vivid descriptions that her hazy memory suddenly sharpened with the clarity of that particular event – she grew breathless with mortification.

He had the proof.

"What do you want?" she conceded. She slumped back into her chair.

He stood up and assessed her for a few moments before he spoke. She was lovely. Her hair was caught up in a haphazard pony tail and her cheeks were still flushed with her embarrassment, but her sadness still hung about her like a dark shroud of despair dulling her normal brilliance. "In your own way, you're an even bigger pain in the ass than I am. You're stubborn, intractable. I turned you into a brilliant diagnostician in your own right, but you refuse to ever look at the big picture when your own life is concerned."

"Are you being deliberately insulting because you find it entertaining, or is there something specific you wanted?" Cameron was rapidly losing her temper.

"You have cancer, not a head cold for crying out loud!" There, he had said it. He had given voice to the disease killing her. "A boring disease, but you're still fighting for your life. You have refused the help of everyone who cares about you. You think you can do it on your own. I'm here to tell you that you can't."

"I can't?" She rose from the chair, her fury palpable as she advanced on him. Her anger brought her a strength she hadn't had in days. "You bastard. You're not the one who's sick. I am. It's my choice how I choose to deal with it. Who in the hell do you think you are to tell me what I can or cannot do where my own life is concerned," she demanded, poking him hard in the chest several times to emphasis her words.

"I'm the one who's going to be taking care of you," he answered smugly, catching her hand in his before her fingers could poke him again.

"Excuse me?" Her anger deflated instantly in her confusion.

"That's my price."

"Taking care of me?" She was incredulous. The man was clearly insane. She had tried to deny it for five years. Geniuses were always a little on the unpredictable side she had explained to anyone who questioned House's mental stability, but clearly the man was just plain nuts. "That's your brilliant idea? You've got me nailed to the wall. You hold in your hand the very thing you've been after for five years, and you're going to throw it away on just 'taking care of me' for a few days?"

"Not a few days -- the duration," he clarified. "Until you get a clean bill of health from Wilson that the cancer is in full remission, you are my responsibility."

"B … but that will be months," she whispered more to herself than to him. Pulling her hand from his, she braced herself again the table. She couldn't believe what he was offering. It made no sense. He didn't even like her, for Pete's sake.

"Twelve to eighteen minimum, I'd think," he said, doing the mental calculation.

She looked up at him in disbelief. Her mouth struggled to find words for the riot of confusing emotions flooding her mind and heart. She had none. "I … I don't have a choice, do I?" were the words she settled for.

"Not unless you want me to post my wealth of information on Facebook for all to see. You'd probably bear up under the weight well enough, even though you are sick, but I'm not quite sure that Chase has the backbone for it."

She didn't need to say it again, 'you bastard' was clear in her heated gaze.

"Fine. You win, House."

He clapped his hands together and rubbed them with glee. Picking up his cane he limped to the living room sofa, plopped down, and propped his legs on the coffee table. "Oh!" he said, snapping his fingers in realization. "There's only one more decision to make."

"What's that?" Her voice was tired, resigned, as she sat down next to him.

"Your place or mine?"

"Excuse me?"

"Well, I'm sure as hell not going to drive over here every single day, so are we going to live here or at my place?"

Cameron pressed the heels of both hands to her eyes and slumped against the back of the sofa. This was a nightmare.


Worth a review, perchance? Please? Hehehe.