Eleven weeks, three days and sixteen hours. That's how long Cameron had been away.
House sat on her sofa eating Chinese take out and thumbing through her mail for anything juicy. His own mail was piled in messy stacks on the desk in the conference room waiting for her attention, but here he was opening hers. The irony of the situation did not escape him.
He skipped through all the bills and credit card applications, sending them sailing across the room like frisbees, and went straight to the Victoria's Secret catalogue. Attached to the back was a little card offering a free pair of panties, which he tossed aside immediately when he realized they were one step away from granny panties. He'd already been through Cameron's drawers and as far as he was concerned, she'd reached her quota of boring underwear. Of course, another inspection wouldn't hurt, just to make sure he hadn't missed anything good. He was nothing if not thorough.
He limped his way back to her bedroom, pulled open the second drawer of her bureau and began rifling through it. On one end she had quite a collection of cotton bikinis in floral prints, stripes, and solid colors. Predictable. And yet the image of her in nothing but those simple garments made his groin twitch with pleasure. Maybe not so boring after all.
In the middle of the drawer she had cotton thongs, and on the other end were satin and lace thongs and boy shorts with matching bras. It was so like her to have her underwear drawer neatly organized. The idea of her folding each piece and placing it neatly in its assigned spot in the drawer was oddly erotic, her slender hands moving over the sensual fabric as if she were filing charts away in the office.
Plucking out a lace thong and rubbing the nubby scrap of material between his fingers, he wondered if she'd ever worn them beneath her modest work apparel. His imagination conjured up an image of her standing in the lab running gels in her fussy vests and trousers, while underneath she was covered in barely-there lace and satin, and he released a low growl of desire at the thought.
Stuffing the garment back in the drawer, he left her bedroom and went back to the couch, flopping across it with his feet resting on the arm. He flipped through the catalogue again, picking out a few things he would buy for Cameron if he were in a position to buy lingerie for her. Then he started imagining her in each piece, and then himself peeling them off her, revealing her perfectly proportioned curves to his eager eyes. But when he started getting too aroused, he tossed the magazine aside and turned his thoughts to something else. He had no qualms about eating in her living room, going through her mail, or rifling through her underwear drawer, but masturbating on her couch was pushing the boundaries even for him.
When she'd given him her spare key to bring in her mail, he'd taken it as implicit permission to snoop. The most interesting things he'd found were her wedding album and her high school yearbooks. It surprised him to find that she was not the homecoming queen he'd imagined, but rather, she looked a bit nerdy in high school, with large round glasses perched on her delicate face and a shadowy smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. Even so, he could see the beauty that she would become behind the bookish looks of her childhood.
Her wedding pictures told a different story. She was breathtaking; young and virginal in her pristine white dress, looking into her husband's face with utter adoration as if she'd found the place where she belonged. From what he could tell, the wedding had been small and simple with only a few friends and immediate family. There were pictures of her with her father, a tall man with cheekbones like Cameron's and those same eyes that reminded him of the Atlantic after a storm. This was the man whose illness had taken her away; a thought that stirred up a strange resentment within him.
The last page was full of more intimate images of the bride and groom; Cameron being dipped and kissed passionately by her husband, the two of them dancing closely, and one where they fed each other cake. Those pictures evoked feelings in him that were better left crammed into the shadowed corners of his psyche, so he closed the album and put it back on the shelf.
Clicking on her TV, he poured himself some bourbon from the bottle he'd brought from home and became engrossed in Shark Week on the Discovery Channel. A few hours later he was fast asleep on her couch, the remains of his dinner strewn across her coffee table.
He dreamed of Cameron. It was just the two of them, dancing on a polished wooden island in the middle of the ocean. One slender hand rested over his heart as he held her close and lowered his head to kiss her. But before he could make contact, she spun away and into the arms of a dead man whose flesh flaked off him in little specks and drifted away like ashes from a fire. She seemed not to notice at first, but then she frantically tried to catch the tiny pieces in her billowing white skirt while the dead man just laughed and laughed. House called out to her, tried to pull her back but the dead man reached her first and shoved her into the sea, grinning maniacally as sharks circled around her. Diving in after her, House had barely made one stroke toward her when the jaws of a great white clamped down on his right thigh and pulled him under the ocean's waves.
He awoke with a jolt, breathing heavily and vowing never to watch Shark Week again. Pain rippled through his thigh like sonar waves, prompting him to grab for his Vicodin while letting loose an agony induced string of obscenities that would probably make a hardened convict blush.
Once the drug began to take affect and he felt himself calming, he grabbed his things and went home to shower and change for another boring day at PPTH.
Sitting at his desk a few hours later, he held his cell phone in his hand and just stared at it. He was running out of excuses to call her, having already used "where's the sugar" and "Foreman can't find the coffee filters" and "where did you put so and so's file." He'd also called her a number of times just to make her participate in the differential of whatever patient they'd had. Currently he was contemplating making up a bunch of symptoms and calling her with a pretend patient.
"Have you thought about just asking her to come back?"
House looked up to see Foreman standing in the doorway, Chase shadowing him.
"Got a new case?"
Foreman shook his head and stepped further in the room.
"Then get the hell out," House scowled, waving his hand in dismissal.
Sighing heavily, Foreman darted a glance at Chase. "Believe me, if we didn't have to be here, we wouldn't. You've been more obnoxious than usual since Cameron left. But Cuddy wants the charting from the last three months done by the end of next week. She sent us up here to tell you, and I quote, he'll be ass deep in rectal exams and crotch swabs for the next six months if he doesn't get it done."
"Fine. Message delivered. Now get out!"
Just because Cameron wasn't there didn't mean he was acting any different than any other time. The idea was ridiculous. He wasn't attached to her, didn't like her and certainly didn't miss her. The only reason he was suddenly struck with the idea of taking a quick trip to Ohio over the weekend was to talk her into coming home. To New Jersey and her job. Not for any other reason. Cuddy was pressuring him to fill her spot, even temporarily, and he was tired of hearing her drone on about the shortage of doctors in the clinic and about how his foul mood was affecting the whole hospital, blah, blah, blah. It was all bullshit as far as he was concerned, but if getting Cameron to come back would shut Cuddy up, it would all be worth it. Yup, he was even willing to take a trip to Butt Crack, USA just to get Cuddy off his back.
Before he could think too much about it, he booked his flight online, and headed out so he could pack and be on his way.
Wilson caught up with him at the elevator, ugly tie like a neon sign hanging around his neck. "Sneaking out early again?"
"Of course not. That would just be irresponsible," he deadpanned, as he silently willed the doors to open.
"You miss Cameron," Wilson said, in the tone of someone stating the obvious. "You know, you could just admit your feelings for her and deal with them like an adult."
"And you could stop cheating on your wife, and then you wouldn't have to wear the ugly ties she buys you simple because you feel too guilty to refuse," House retorted, pressing the button for the elevator impatiently.
Wilson ignored the barb with a roll of his eyes and a sigh, stepping into the car beside House. "Fine, we'll just both keep pretending you feel nothing."
"If I really thought you could do that, I'd be a happy man," House responded, rolling his eyes at his friend.
"No you wouldn't," Wilson said with a knowing smile, before changing the subject. "Sooo, you wanna hang out tonight?"
"Nope. Got plans. Hookers night," he lied, gaze cast upward as the elevator descended.
"Hookers? As in plural?" Wilson asked, a skeptical look on his face.
"Yup. I'm in the mood for a threesome. But if you're a good boy I'll let you watch the video later."
"Ugh!" Wilson replied, shaking his head in disgust, and stepping out of the elevator as it opened to the second floor.
House smiled as the doors slid shut behind him. If he could just avoid Cuddy, he'd be home free. On his way to see Cameron. A thought that made him far happier than he'd felt in eleven weeks, four days, and five hours.