Chapter 8
It was a normal day. No actually it wasn't, but she didn't care. She was going to make it as normal as possible. She walked up to the coffeepot as soon as she arrived into the conference room. She had been back for so long she had almost forgot how it was back at her mother's house, and she was afraid to return there, afraid of all the memory's that would resurface when she got there. That was why she was at the hospital, and not at home celebrating thanksgiving.
She turned when she heard the door open, and in the door way stood House, leaning on his cane heavily; he looked tired. She wanted to ask what was bothering him, but he would only turn it to a question about her that she probably wouldn't be able to answer.
"Good morning." she said as happily as she could, she was also tired. She couldn't sleep. She could only think of thanksgiving the year before, when she stayed up all night with her dad talking, telling jokes, and when the morning finally came, they slept till dinner, just like they always did. An unusual tradition that Danny would join in on when she lived at home, she couldn't do that any more, she couldn't see her father any more.
"Good..." he muttered, and walked up to her, and held his hand out for the coffee cup.
"Soon." she said, and he dropped his hand, groaned as he ran a hand through his hair, and scratched his cheek, waiting. When he finally got his coffee, he sighed in content, and looked at her strangely before walking up to a chair to sit down.
"What are you doing here on thanksgiving?" he asked, taking another sip of his coffee.
"Someone ought to work." she shrugged, and House arched an eyebrow, not believing a word she said.
"Truth please." Now it was her turn to arch her eyebrows. "C'mon!" he exclaimed, staring at her, before shaking his head.
"Everybody lies." he grumbled under his breath and smirked, and she rolled her eyes.
"And maybe they don't lie all the time." she said, but that was a lie too, well for her. She lied almost every day now. It seemed as they got more curious about where she'd been for a year as the time went by, so long the whole 'helping her dad and mom' still worked, cause that was what she was doing too. It was good that she made the person that had access to her file promise that he/she wouldn't give House her file (there was some money in the picture too).
"You expect me to believe that?" he shook his head and looked at the clock.
"Where are Chase and Foreman?" He asked changing the subject right away.
"Chase is stuck in traffic and Foreman has the day off celebrating thanksgiving." she explained, and looked out of the window, down the hallway expecting Chase to come any minute.
"How do you know all this?" House asked. He almost envied her for knowing all that, well almost.
"Foreman has talked about it for days, saying it's his son's first thanksgiving, it's probably big in his family and Chase called 5 minutes ago." She replied.
"And I thought you had this sixth sense... bummer." he shook his head. A cell phone sounded suddenly, interrupting House from saying anything more, and Cameron hurried to get her cell phone from her jacket that was thrown over the chair, having a difficult time finding it since she looked in the wrong pocket. But when she got it up she read it with a smile.
Thought I could give you an untraditional thanksgiving dinner tonight? What do you think? – Tobias
She quickly pressed to response to it, feeling like a school girl again. It took time for her to type the answer since she was in such hurry to answer that she pressed the wrong button time after time. She laughed in relief when she finally sent it, and looked up to see both Chase and House looking at her. House looked amused and Chase looked bothered.
"So how's the lover boy?" House asked, smirking.
"His name is Tobias, and he is fine." she said, and sat down, cell phone in front of her.
"So in which way is he damaged? Incompetent?" House asked smiling devilishly. Cameron glared at him.
"He's not damaged he's actually nice, friendly, caring and most of all not you." Cameron spat at him. Chase looked at her shocked.
"Wow, Cameron's going back to her old ways?" House said, meaning earlier that year when she got back from Chicago.
"No, just a better version of it." Cameron smiled, and left the room as quickly as she could, without looking to desperate to get away.
"Is it just me or is she... weird?" House asked Chase and he nodded.
"She's weird alright." Chase said as he looked at door where she left.
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House was sitting in is office, playing on his PSP, but there was something outside his office that had made him lose this game 5 times in a row, and he was getting annoyed by it. It was a woman he recognized but couldn't place. He knew he'd met her once or twice, but after searching his memory he still couldn't figure out who the woman was, and she looked like she was about to knock on his door- and she did. He tried to ignore her, but she wouldn't give up, she was like a small child, after a minute he couldn't stand the knocking anymore and went to open the door. The woman smiled a victorious smile.
"I'm looking for All-Dr. Cameron." The woman smiled.
"Good, tell her to get here when you find her." he started to close the door, but the woman's foot was in the way.
"Can you tell me where to find her?" The woman smiled, slightly irritated by this man.
"I don't know where she is, and if I knew, why should I tell you?" he asked her, and she crossed her arms across her chest, and raised both her eyebrows in amusement
"Danny?" Cameron said behind the woman. "What are you doing here?" Cameron stepped up and hugged the woman.
"I thought if you didn't come to us, we would come to you." The woman shrugged.
"You didn't have to." Cameron half -smiled.
"Oh, right! David and Kathryn told me that they always got their letters back, and I told them you've changed address... so here's the two letters you haven't got." Danny handed her two white envelopes, and Cameron stared at them for a few seconds, before shaking her head.
"I'll take them later." she looked at House, and House wondered what was going on. "So where are the kids?" she changed the subject quickly.
"Oh they're with Trevor." Danny's smile grew big, and she looked at House who was looking at her strangely.
"Who are you?" House had cut in, tired of not knowing what's going on.
"I'm Daniella, Allison's twin sister, you've met me already, but not everyone remembers everyone." She replied.
"Oh right, you were the one who said Cameron here wasn't home when she was hiding in the closet!" House said with a triumphant smirk, and both of the women's mouths fell open.
"You saw me?" Cameron's eyes were big, and she was slightly out of breath.
"I saw your head." House said matter of factually. "You must have lost at hide and seek all the time when you were a child." at this Danny giggled, and Cameron glared at her.
"What? You did lose at it." Danny said it this time matter of factually.
"Shut up..." Cameron rolled her eyes, but couldn't help but smile.
"So what's in the letters you don't want me to see?" House jumped back in the conversation.
"Wh- nothing we're going to tell you." Cameron rolled her eyes again, and turned to her sister. "Let's go and eat lunch." her sister agreed, and they disappeared down the hallway again, (eaving a disgruntled House.
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"He's beautiful." Cameron said out of breath. "It's unbelievable." Cameron switched between the two photos of the child with big blue eyes and thick brown hair.
"I can't believe he's eight months old already." Danny said while taking a bite of her sandwich.
"Do you know that my co-worker Foreman has an eight months old son?"
"You're kidding me? What's his name?" Danny asked, knowing Cameron tried to change subject.
"John." A male voice said behind them, and Cameron quickly put the photos upside down on the table, and looked up to see Foreman standing in front of them "I'm Dr. Eric Foreman, I'm Cameron's co-worker." he reached his hand out for Danny to shake it.
"I'm Daniella- Danny, Allison's sister." she smiled and shook Foreman's hand.
"I can see that" Foreman smiled.
"But... what are you doing here? I thought you had the day off." Cameron asked.
"House found out and called me in, saying it was an emergency, and then he wouldn't let me leave." Foreman annoyingly sighed.
"He's an ass." Cameron looked at Danny who looked like she was going to burst into laughter any second, but she bit her lip before she could. "What's so funny?"
"Oh, wouldn't you like to know." Danny said, and shook her head and then turned to Foreman. "So you're the only one of Allison's co-workers who hasn't slept with her?" Danny was fighting hard to keep a serious face when Foreman's mouth fell open. "Or is there something my sister hasn't told me."
"Danny!" Cameron hissed "Not here, not now... not ever." Cameron glared at her sister. "I hate you." she said, trying to look serious as well, but everyone saw through it.
"If I didn't know better I would tell you, you couldn't lie, but sadly, I do, it's just that you can't hate anyone." Danny ruffled Cameron's hair a little "But it's adorable when you try." Danny pouted, and earned a glare from Cameron.
"This is why I don't invite you here more often." she shook her head and saw that Foreman was getting curious of the photos lying upside down on the table, so she quickly put them down in her lab coat before then.
"Is mom with you?" she asked.
"No, she wanted to rest, it's the first holiday without dad..." Danny smiled sadly. "I remember last year when I found you two sleeping on the couch in the middle of the afternoon." she shook her head in amusement "Every year you've been home for thanksgiving you sleep until dinner."
"Hey, before you went and married that guy of yours you did the same thing!" Cameron defended.
"Well, I still outgrew that childish tradition." Danny replied, looking serious but Cameron knew.
"It was not childish!" Cameron said faking shocked. She turned back to her sandwich and ate it, and saw that Foreman looked at them, amused, trying not to laugh.
"You sound just like my two little sisters." Foreman said and smiled.
"You have little sisters?" Cameron asked. It was strange that she suddenly started to get to know everyone more then before, things she should've known a long time ago.
"Yes, twins... and I didn't know you had a sister." he said in his defense.
"I guess there is a lot we don't know about each other." Cameron replied sadly.
"Are you keeping secrets Allison?" Danny said in an attempt to lighten up the mood, but Cameron only looked down at her half eaten sandwich.
"I have to go." she quickly stood up, and hurried out of the cafeteria, Danny had no chance to catch up with her, so she stayed at the table with Foreman, and they both looked at each other for a minute or so before Danny spoke.
"She's..." she trailed of, not knowing what she could say, what she had told them "How has she been since she got back?" she chose to ask instead, just to know what she could talk about.
"She's been alright I guess, in the beginning she was... not herself, and around House she can sometimes be almost... bitchy." Foreman tried, he really hadn't paid much attention to it, and everyone doesn't stay the same.
"Okay." Danny said. "We talked a lot when she was home, but when she got back... I'm happy if she returns one out of ten calls." Danny laughed sadly. "She's got too many what ifs right now..."
"What ifs?" A male voice said behind them, and they both looked up to see House standing there, curious. And Danny turned to her food, and started to eat, ignoring the man that was her sister's boss, and so much more that he didn't even know about. "Do I have to repeat myself?" he asked somewhat sarcastic.
"No thank you." Danny replied and earned a smug smile from Foreman. "No need for that, I'm just ignoring the man that so rudely interrupted us, if you had just stayed away and eavesdropped on this conversation you would have known, but sadly, now you won't." House almost looked shocked to meet a family member of Cameron that was... rude, and frankly, funny.
"Now that was a comment from the Cameron family I never thought I'd hear." he shook his head in mock surprise.
"And I never thought a person from... No I never thought you would be shocked by it." Danny replied.
"And you know me?" he asked as he sat down.
"No not really, but from what my sister briefly told me I did not expect it."
"Briefly?" he asked, not believing it at all.
"Yes." she said. "When my sister tells me something, I know what she isn't saying." Danny smiled. "A thing I picked up from when I was little and she hardly told the truth." she raised both her eyebrows just to show off.
"Cameron? Lying? Now why would she do that." he asked, very interested in this conversation now.
"Be-" she stopped, looking at him, glared at him. "Why would you like to know?" she turned to Foreman and cut House off.
"So are you and your girlfriend planning on having more children in the future?" Both Foreman and House were shocked by this change in mood.
"Uh... we're not sure yet... probably." he answered, taken aback.
"They're lovely, but I don't recommend too many, I have four under the age of 6, it's hell at home." she chuckled as she shook her head, she glanced over to House who was looking irritated.
"You just don't leave a topic like that." he said.
"I did." Foreman couldn't believe how a forty year old man, and a thirty year old mother of four, were fighting like small children.
"That doesn't make it right." he replied.
"There are a lot of things that aren't right." she shrugged.
"One of those things is leaving a conversation." he waved wildly with his hands. He was loosing his touch in this.
"You sound like Allison." she smiled, and he opened his mouth.
"I do not sound like goody two shoes who can't hold a straight face or see a baby without crying." he defended himself.
"Cameron? Goody two shoes!?" she quickly put a hand over her mouth when she heard what she had said, and her eyes widened a bit. They both looked at her in surprise.
"You can't believe what a patient..." a man with an Australian accent approached the table, but stopped when he saw a woman looking a lot like Cameron, and that House and Foreman looked at her in shock. And mostly- House was quiet, and his mouth was open, hilarious was Chase's first thought, but then he wondered why he was shocked.
"What's going on?" he hated this, that he didn't know what was going on, sure he never really did most of the time.
"I think... I need to go." the woman who looked like Cameron said, and quickly stood up. "Nice to meet you." she nodded her head, and quickly strode out of the cafeteria, trying to find her sister.
"Who was that?" Chase asked Foreman when he saw that House was on his way to leave.
"Uh that was... Cameron's sister." Foreman said, eating the last of his sandwich.
"And what did she say that made you guy's look so... shocked, even House!" Chase exclaimed.
"Sorry, it was too much. Maybe you can ask her yourself?" Foreman said, and stood up, patted his back and then walked away. Chase didn't think any of this was strange, so he sat down and ate, alone.
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"You said what?" Cameron almost screamed at her sister. "Do you know how hard I've worked to leave all that behind me, to become who I am today? To walk into work and know that no one knows about my past, judging me?"
"I'm sorry." Danny said weakly, she had never seen her sister so angry before. She looked over to the door and saw that no one had come into the bathroom yet.
"I don't care Danny! Now I will never get House off my back, I will have Foreman and Chase on my back too, and then, the whole hospital will know!" she yelled, waving her hands wildly in the air. "I just worked up the courage to tell you after 16 years I told you, doesn't that tell you something?" she asked her sister with teary eyes.
"I'm sorry, it just slipped out." Danny tried again.
"I don't care! I don't care Danny! How am I supposed to trust you with my secrets if they just 'slip out', what if you tell about Chris?" she asked, her voice getting lower and lower until it was a whisper.
"Maybe that wouldn't be so bad." Danny said quietly.
"What?" Cameron looked at her like she was crazy, and waited for an answer. "What do you mean with that?"
"That you were childish, you can't hide something like that! You were not the only one in that situation, you could've handled it!" now Danny was yelling.
"I was scared Danny, I regret it all, but I can't take it back! I can't..." she trailed off.
"That's so typical for you, you never think of the consequences" she stopped suddenly and looked at Cameron closely "That's why you got pregnant in the first place." she said quietly.
"No! I'm not like that anymore!" Cameron yelled.
"You are Allison, and you know it." Cameron shook her head.
"You think of me as a whore don't you, you think all of this is my own fault, that I should blame myself? I'm a slut to you."
"You are not-"
"You can't even admit it!? I go and sleep with Chase, and then with House, and you think I've done it with Foreman too? I have only done one-night stands four times Danny, four times, and all of those times I was drunk, or high as hell, and they only times I've been drunk or high!" she clenched her teeth. "You hate me, just because I didn't stay married, because I never got a child with him, because I went to med school, because I didn't want to be like you."
"I don't hate you." Danny said softly.
"Then what do you!? Cause clearly you don't love me!" tears started to fall from Cameron's eyes.
"I love you more then anything, how can you even say that?" Danny stepped up to her sister to hug her, but Cameron pushed her arms away.
"Fine you love me, but how can I love someone who thinks of me like that?" Danny's eyes darkened when she said that.
"You can't choose to love someone or not, you just do Ally, you can't hate me because I'm your sister, I'm your blood, I'm the only thing besides mom that you got right now." Danny warned.
"Nice to know that you think you are forced to love me." Cameron said with a nod. "You can leave now."
"All-"
"Leave! Don't call me! Don't visit me! Don't... just leave now!" Danny's eyes started to water, and she rushed out of the bathroom. Cameron bolted into a booth, and sat down on the toilet and cried. She didn't know why she tested the waters, why she pushed, and pushed just to see if those around her would handle it, if they would stay even though she pushed them to the breaking point.
"Dr. Cameron?" someone asked, and Cameron looked up to see Cuddy standing in front of her. "What happened?" Cameron shook her head, and when Cuddy tried to hug her she fought her hands away, she wanted to be alone. She didn't want to be alone.
"I need to..." she shook her head, suddenly becoming very aware about the fact that she was crying, and she started to wipe away the tears that were falling down her face.
"If you need to take the rest of the day off, I understand." Cuddy said, even though the hospital was low on staff, she couldn't risk having Cameron here when she was so devastated.
"Okay." she whispered, she really needed sometime off, and she was tired, more then tired.
"Come back tomorrow when you are feeling better, we all need a personal day sometimes." Cuddy put a hand on Cameron's shoulder, and she then walked out of the bathroom. After a while Cameron walked out too, after washing her face, she hurried to the conference room and was happy that no one was there, so she could walk out without confronting someone.
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Tobias came by later, he'd heard about her fight with Danny. He hugged her tightly, placing kisses on her forehead, they'd now been together for 3 weeks, but still there was no one in the world Cameron trusted more then him, even if it was too soon to tell or say. She could see herself loving this man, love his deep dark brown eyes, love the way his brown almost black hair curled in the strangest ways, the way he laughed, smiled, how he knew how to listen, simply everything about him.
"What happened?" he asked softly in her ear, and placed a kiss next to it, waiting patiently for her answer. She tugged his arms closer to her.
"She was so close telling my co-workers my deepest secrets..." she turned her head so that she looked him in his eyes.
"The one that took me over 17 years to tell her..." she felt a tear fall down her face, it tickled her, teasing her, and he wiped it away gently with his thumb.
"Okay." he said softly, he didn't care if she told him this secret of hers, if she wanted to, she would, and if she wouldn't... maybe she needed time, or it was something he would never know about.
"Aren't you curious about what the secret is?" she asked him softly.
"No, cause if you want me to know, you'll tell me, or you don't... It's your secret, and it's a secret for a reason." he smiled at her, glad that she had calmed down from her sobs, they had been so violent that he was afraid that she would faint or something like that.
"You're too good for me." she whispered with a smile, and drew a hair lock away from his face, looking slightly amused by his hairs outrageous look. "But I'll tell you... I trust you." she tilted her head so that it was leaning against his shoulder. "When I started school, there was this girl, Theresa, she was two years older then me. She was beautiful, popular, and I was her best friend. And then Hannah came, she was a year older then me, she was so nice, and we had so much fun together. Until I turned 8, that was when Theresa's father died, and her mother didn't even cry, she told everyone she was happy that he was gone, and Theresa was furious at her mother, less then a year later Theresa's mother remarried to an abusive man, he abused Theresa verbally, physically and sexually, when Theresa was 12 she killed herself... Hannah took this hard, her mother had killed herself when she was a baby, her father was an alcoholic... we had often discovered that she cut herself, and after Theresa died, she had no one except me, but she couldn't see me, she only saw that Theresa was gone, a year after Theresa died, on the anniversary of her death, she killed herself too... and I had no one left…"
"Ally." he whispered and kissed her tears that were falling.
"And if that had been it." she almost started to sob again when she said it. "When I turned 12, I was so scared that I would do it too, that I would kill myself, that it was something with the age twelve... I guess that 12 isn't a good age..." she muttered, and looked at Tobias.
"What happened when you where twelve?" he asked, he didn't sound curious, he sounded comforting, that if she told him it all would be okay.
"I was walking home." she whispered, and he heard the slight fear of telling this. "It was dark, and I hated the dark, so I was hurrying home... and I heard a car pull up and I was scared, but then the windshield was pulled down, and there was my math teacher, he smiled at me and asked if I needed a ride home, and I was terrified of the dark so I agreed." she paused a moment to regain the ability to breathe "He told jokes, and I laughed... I rarely laughed then, and I had a good time until I noticed he didn't pull of where he was supposed to, and he told me he was taking a short cut... and I was naïve and believed him" she felt Tobias trace lines in her hand, and it calmed her down slightly, it told her it was over, that she was safe here "He stopped the car somewhere... and he turned to me... and I can't get that smile out of my head... those hard arms... I fought him with all the power I had... he wasn't so strong, and I was, I was an athlete then, and I fought him, ran out of the car, and just then a car passed where we were and stopped to help me"
He hugged her tighter, and waited for her to continue her story, let her talk, kissed her when he felt that she needed support, wiped away the tears to show her he was there for her. He never once interrupted her to ask questions, to say anything, to even try a comfort, actions speak louder then words, that was his philosophy. He was though surprised when she jumped to last year, when she told him that she got pregnant once again, that her boss was the father, and she told him everything.
"I'm so glad I've got you." she said when she finished. "You don't judge me."
"Why should I?" he asked, and she smiled at him.
"See." and she cuddled in his arms again. They did not speak, and he knew, his secrets where her secrets, and her secrets where his secrets.
"I too have secrets." he told her, and she turned to look at him, almost startled by the sound of his voice after almost an half an hour of silence. She did not say anything, only waiting, just like he had done. "I also have a son, he's 18 now... when I was 15 I got a girl pregnant, asked her to marry me, but she didn't want to, my dad was furious, hers too, but they knew that there was nothing they could do. And she had my son, soon 19 years ago, in January. His name is Philip, he's a straight A student." he spoke proudly of him. "But I can't see him, when I was 22 I had a fair share of run ins with the law, and she got sole custody of him..." her eyes brimmed with tears she refused to shed until he was finished. "She thought, still does that I didn't fight for him but I did everything in my power to keep him. I didn't straighten up after this, it got worse, I saw no point in life, I started doing drugs, but no one cared to notice, I got into fights no one cared to report, and I saw crimes that I wish I can erase from my memory." he looked at her "And when I was 25, long after I've been kicked out of college, long after I started to live on the street, I saw my son standing inside a coffee shop, next to his mother, and he turned to me... and he waved, and then he turned back to his mother, he didn't tell her that I was there. That's when I decided that I was going to clean up, I turned up on my parents door step after not seeing them or hearing from them for over 3 years, and they were so happy that I was alive that they didn't care about what I'd done the last years..." he turned to look at her. "That's when I went back to college, and that's why I'm a social worker, after I've seen those crimes... And I've never been the cop type of guy." he finished off smiling, and this time Cameron kissed him.
"We're one hell of a couple." and they both laughed.
Pleaaaseee review!!!! Make my day!
And I hate the title "Ready?", so if anyone has an idea of what this story could be called, please tell me!
(Please no flaming, but constructive critisims is what I like ))
