Chapter 10
They sat in silence in the car. The rain was pouring down on the windshield, and the sky was so dark that it looked like it was night. Tobias was driving, his whole body was tense, and turned to her several times to say something, but turned back to the road quickly. She was staring out of the window, avoiding him as good as she could in the confined space they were stuck in for now.
"You need to stop." Tobias said after a while of unbearable silence.
"Stop what?" she asked clueless, and turned so that she was facing him, and raised her eyebrows as she waited for the answer.
"What you've been doing for the past four days; moping." he looked at her quickly before returning to the road.
"Can he drive any slower?" he muttered, and sighed annoyed.
"I'm not-" Cameron was getting ready to reply before she was cut off.
"Yes you are, you haven't eaten for the past four days, you haven't slept, and you've just sat on that couch looking through photos! It's a miracle I got you out of the apartment." she glared at him.
"Maybe I should've stayed there." she crossed her arms across her chest, and looked out of the window again.
"And when are you going to stop acting so childish?" he almost yelled, getting fed up with her.
"I- Can't you just let me be sad and deal with this!?" Cameron said frustrated.
"You're not dealing with it, you're avoiding It." she took a deep breathe, and chose not to answer. "I think he was right."
"What? Who?" Cameron asked slightly confused.
"That House guy, when he said you run away from everything, every time it gets difficult!" He said annoyingly.
"I do not!" she screamed "Say one time!"
"When you were raped you tried to kill yourself, when your husband died you ran to the first guy who showed interest in you, when you got pregnant you ran home to your parents, and now when he found out about it, you want to move to another city!" He was getting angry at the way she was acting.
"I was fired!" she yelled back "And you have no right to judge me for trying to kill myself, you have no idea how I felt! I had no one!"
"You are not the only one who has been raped." he glared at her "What the fuck is wrong with this guy!? It's only rain for god sake!" he started to overtake him.
"Tobias! What are you doing?" she asked scared, she hated the rain.
"I'm trying to get home." he tried to cut the car in front of them again, but failed.
"You are trying to get us killed!" she yelled back.
"Shut up!" he pulled the car into the other lane, and within seconds a car was driving towards them.
"Look out!" Tobias tried to drive into the lane they had been in before, but there was no space there left. "Oh my god." she muttered seconds before the impact.
"Allison!" she heard him shout, but didn't have the time to react before pain shot through both of their bodies, and they got slung forwards, and then back. The world turned black for both of them.
-
He opened his eyes slowly, and groaned at the pain that filled his whole body. He looked at the windshield, and saw that it was broken, he groaned when he thought what that would cost. Then he noticed that it was still raining, and that gave him some sort of comfort while it scared him at the same time. He wondered how long time he had been there. He looked to the side to see if Allison was ok, and he saw that she had a big gash on her forehead, probably from a piece of glass, he shuddered. She had to be ok; he couldn't live with himself if she was hurt.
He heard a siren in the distance, and closed his eyes because the pain was too much, and he drifted off.
-
"33 year old Allison Cameron, was in a car accident, suffered a blow to her head, went into cardiac arrest on the scene." a paramedic told the doctors in the ER as they brought her in. The doctors took over quickly, and rushed her away so they could start working on her.
"34 year old Tobias Carlsson, was in the same car accident, suffered a hard hit to chest and stomach, has been unstable all the way here." he was gone within seconds too.
Two nurses stood a few feet away from where they had been brought in and looked at each other, a worried expression on their faces.
"Did they say Allison Cameron?" the blond nurse asked the brunette nurse.
"I think so..." they looked at each other.
"Wasn't she the one that worked under Dr. House, but was fired because..." her voice trailed off, and the brunette nodded, the blond let out a breath "God..." the brunette nodded, and picked up a file and looked over it, and walked away from the blond.
-
"House!" Wilson ran into the conference room, and saw House in the middle of mocking Chase because of something; he then noticed the symptoms scribbled on the white board.
"What's wrong Jimmy Boy? Have you run out of nurses to flirt with?" he pouted mockingly, but Wilson didn't even roll his eyes, or react any other way, he remained serious.
"House." his voice was low "It's Cameron."
"What about her?" his jaw clenched, only thinking of Cameron made his mood change to anger.
"She was in a car accident, she arrived down in the ER ten minutes ago." he said quickly.
"What?" House said, not really believing what he was hearing.
"They're not sure she will make it." House quickly picked his cane up from where he had put it on the table, and limped in record speed towards the elevators that would take him closest to the ER.
He didn't know how he got lost. His thoughts were all over the place. He had walked past the ER without noticing, and had no idea where he was. It was strange because he thought he knew every place in the hospital. He managed to get to the ER ten minutes after he went down, twenty minutes after she was brought in. He walked around the ER for another ten minutes, afraid of what he would meet when he found her.
He saw her not so far away from where he was standing. Her torso jerked off the bed as a shock went through her body. He shook a little, waiting for her heart to start beating. It didn't. The flat line didn't curve. The shrill didn't change to soft beeping. The doctor looked at the nurses. He knew that look. They couldn't give that look when it's her on the table.
"Don't!" he demanded loudly.
"Dr. House.." the doctor looked at him surprised.
"One more time." he demanded them.
"Dr. House she's been down over-" a nurse started to protest.
"Do it!" he said through gritted teeth, the doctors and nurses looked at each other helplessly. "Now!" the doctor looked at one of the nurses and sighed.
"Charge it again." seconds later he called out 'clear', and she once again jerked off the bed, and landed softly on it again. She was so small. He had always noticed that she was small, and young. But she was... petit... not only short but... thin. He looked on her amazed as the shrill continued. She was dead.
The nurse looked at the doctor, and the doctor shook his head.
"Time of death-" he was stopped by a beat. They looked at each other. House fought a smile, and settled for a breath of relief. The beat continued rhythmic. He knew she wasn't safe yet, but that heartbeat assured him. She was gone seconds later, rushed to surgery, why he didn't hear. Her heart was beating. He had never been so happy for something he had taken for granted. Her heart should beat long before he's gone. It shouldn't stop when he still had years left.
-
He sat outside her room. She had been out of surgery for four hours. His shift ended three hours ago. He had decided that he was going to stay. He wouldn't sit by her bed, but outside her room. He didn't remember why he was so mad at her before. She was scared, and he should've understood her. He's scared all the time after all.
She looked pale, almost the shade of the tape that held the tube she had down her throat in place. He face was bruised and cut, her hand was wrapped in a bandage, and the left leg in a cast. He still didn't know why she was in surgery, and he didn't want to. She was still in critical condition, and he knew that he would breathe out when she's been stable for at least a day.
She hadn't flat lined once since when he ordered them to shock her again.
Wilson sat down next to him. He had stayed late another day. It wasn't strange that he had divorced so many times; his first need was the hospital, then women.
"Her condition isn't going to change by sitting here." he told his best friend, but kept his eyes at Cameron. "You should go home and sleep."
"I don't sleep." he told him, and opened his mouth again to say something sarcastic, but his mind blanked, and he continued to watch her sleep... or whatever she was doing.
"Have you forgiven her?" Wilson asked.
"Does the apple forgive the tree for dropping it?" Wilson looked at him strangely.
"That doesn't even make sense."
"Neither does this." at this point he usually would leave, but to leave Wilson would mean to leave Cameron. And that wouldn't do.
"They are going to arrest her boyfriend." Wilson informed him, and that made him turn his head to Wilson.
"What?" that surprised him, a lot, that To... guy seemed quite ok actually, but of course, not everybody are like they appear. Actually very few people are... if any.
"Yeah... the alcohol level in his blood was a bit higher then what they classify as legal... and he was driving, and the witnesses told that he drove out in another lane to overtake a car that was driving a little over the speed limit..." he sighed "But the moment he is a little unstable so the arrest will have to wait a couple of days..." he looked at House's reaction.
"Bastard." he said through gritted teeth.
"House?" Wilson asked after a long silence of watching Cameron through the glass wall. "Are you going to be ok?"
"No." Wilson nodded his head and patted his shoulder.
"I have to go, I'll bring you breakfast and coffee tomorrow." House nodded, but didn't answer or turn his head towards him as he left.
-
Wilson found him there the next morning, pacing in front of her room. Sitting down most of the night wasn't good on his leg. He watched him as he walked away from him, and then when he turned around, and saw him standing with a cup of coffee and a paper bag.
"How is she doing?" he pointed with his head towards the room that she was lying in, the blinds were drawn now.
"She stopped breathing once, but other then that..." he shrugged, took the coffee and the paper bag and sat down.
"Her family is in there now." Wilson nodded, though House's behavior wasn't extremely strange, it was a bit strange, it was so mild, and soft. House dug into the paper bag and took out a Reuben, no pickles, and ate it with great appetite.
"When did they get here?" he asked House, and sat down next to him.
"Twenty minutes ago." he answered shortly.
"Don't you have a patient?" House shrugged.
"Meningitis." he answered simply, and let out a long breathe "Foreman figured it out." Wilson looked at his watch.
"I have a meeting, but I'll be back with lunch." House nodded, but didn't even look at Wilson as he walked away towards the elevators that would take him to the floor his office was on.
-
It took six days before she opened her eyes again. She opened her eyes, and it didn't take long for her to see that she was in a hospital, her throat was soar, and her whole body was aching. She looked around confused, and saw that her mother was sitting by a table a bit from the bed reading a magazine, and on the other side her sister was sitting, looking out of the window slightly absentminded.
She groaned slightly when she tried to say something, and realized something was shoved down her throat. This was bad, she realized then. And her mother and sister turned to her in an instant, and rushed to her bedside, and her mother put a hand to the left side of her face, and held it there. She saw the fear that slowly started to fade away in her mothers eyes, and put one of her hands over it. She noticed that it was wrapped in a white bandage. She did this because she knew what had happened was bad, but she didn't really remember what happened. The last thing she remembered was sitting down in the car with Tobias to drive from the grocery store.
A doctor she didn't recognize came in, and took the tube out of her throat, and to stop her coughing he gave her a glass of water. Her throat was so dry so she drank the whole glass almost without taking one breathe. She breathed in and out for a few seconds just to test it, and then she looked at her sister and mother.
"What happened?" she asked them with a raspy voice, and they looked at each other, sharing a worried glanced.
"You don't remember?" she shook her head.
"Just sitting down in the car with Tobias." her mother clenched for a few seconds, and Cameron looked confused.
"What?"
"You were in a car accident." her sister revealed, and her eyes widened.
"Tobias? How is Tobias?" was her first question, she cared so much about him, even though the past two days had been spent fighting... or how long time had it been?
"He's soon released from the hospital..." she closed her eyes and let out a breath of relief "But... he's going to be arrested for driving drunk." her eyes shot open again.
"H-he wasn't drunk!" she protested loudly, but then thought for a second "He was drunk?" Danny nodded, and Cameron felt tears in her eyes, he risked both of their lives? "No..." she started crying, she didn't want to feel the betrayal she felt towards him then, he was the only one he'd had for the past months. The only one that had cared, and he let her down in such way, he risked both of them getting killed. Her ribs started to hurt when she started to cry, and she felt hopeless, helpless and confused. Her life never went the way she wanted it to.
"Honey..." her mother said with a sigh, and he sister took her other hand and held it, they didn't want to risk hurting her by hugging her. The one thing she needed the most.
-
House walked past her room for the second time that day. He had stopped camping outside her room after two days when his leg started to protest loudly, so he started walking past her room every time he had the chance... so every time he was sent to the clinic, every time he hid from Cuddy or a patient, which was... about one every two hours. She woke up two days ago, and had started to realize that he had made it a routine to check up on her, even though he never talked to her. This time though she raised her hand and waved at him and then waved him in. He walked reluctantly to the door to her room, and leaned against the doorframe.
"You care." she stated with a smile, and he didn't appear to be confused, but they both know he was inside. "You walk past here at least five times a day, you only look briefly into my room, the first days when I was brought in you never left that chair outside my room." she pointed at the red plastic chair outside the room. He looked at the chair like it was an alien, and then looked back at her, he had nothing to say. She took a deep breathe "I know you haven't forgiven me, hell, I haven't forgiven myself... but it means a lot that you... care... thank you."
"Can... can you just answer one question?" she nodded her head. "Why didn't you just tell me?" she closed her eyes, and then looked down at her lap.
"Because I hoped that you would figure out anyway... and because I didn't want you to feel forced to raise him..." she sighed. He nodded, and turned, he'd gotten his answer, but she stopped him "House..." he turned around, and she was silent for a few seconds before she spoke again "I'm glad you know now." he nodded.
"Me too." and even though he hadn't forgiven her, he understood that neither of them were ready and prepared for a child, but he guessed that he would've just made himself ready... he wanted a child of his own... but that was his own secret. No one knew about that.
-
Tobias walked into her room two days after House had been in there. He looked sad and regretful as he saw her still bruised face, and the cut across the forehead. She looked at him, expecting him to say something to make it ok, cause he had to, she couldn't go on, they had to be ok again. He sighed and looked down, then started to walk towards her bed, limping slightly.
"I'm-I'm sorry Ally." her nickname on his lips sounded so wrong, and she didn't want him saying it, she wanted him to leave. Nothing was going to be ok.
"Why did you do it?" she asked, and noticed how close to tears she actually was.
"I- I don't know... I was confused and jealous..." he shook his head.
"B-but you risked my life!" she yelled and sobbed at the same time and he looked down in shame.
"I'm sorry." he said again.
"I want it to be ok again, I want to forgive you! But I can't!" she yelled "I died Tobias! They were seconds away from declaring me dead!" her shoulders shook. She didn't know who really saved her, who made them shock her that last time, but what she didn't know, didn't help or hurt her anyway.
"I'm sorry." he repeated, and she looked away in pity, she now understood how House felt.
"Leave..." she said in a low voice. "Just... go" she sounded defeated. She had no one again. Her attempt to get a life again almost took it away... She wondered if being a doctor was all she was going to become.
"Allison..." he tried.
"I don't want to see you again!" she yelled at him, and he hung his head low, and walked out of the room where two police officers were waiting. They cuffed him outside her door, and slowly led him towards the elevators down the hall. She watched this, and felt pity for him. She wondered if that was what House had felt for her.
-
A few hours later Mary, Foreman's girlfriend walked into her room, she looked at Mary confused, and sat up a little higher in her bed.
"Hi, Mary." she greeted with a smile, and Mary smiled wide, flashing her white teeth.
"Hey... how are you feeling?" she asked genuinely concerned as she sat down in the plastic chair next to her bed.
"Still like I've been hit by a truck... but its better then when I woke up." Mary nodded, and put two hands on the bed.
"You really scared Eric... you're almost like a little sister to him." she chuckled at that comment, and looked down at her hands. "He came home the day you were brought in, and he was shaking... he just hugged me, and didn't let go until John walked into the room, and he hugged him... And then he told me that you were brought into the ER." she let out a long breathe "It just hit us how fragile our life was..." she looked up at Cameron with teary eyes "And I just wanted to say I'm really, really glad you're ok..." Cameron took Mary's hand, and just smiled. She was glad something good came out of the bad.
"I'm glad too." Cameron said with a smile, and Mary laughed a little.
"So Eric told me you had a son." Mary said with a smile, and Cameron nodded.
"His name is Christopher... and he was born the same day as John... He's got blue eyes, and dark brown hair..." and she trailed off there, because there wasn't much more she knew. "I gave him up..." she stated then, looking out of the window, and looked a little gone.
"I know." Mary said in a low voice "And I actually respect you for doing that." she confessed.
"You do?" Cameron asked surprised. "Why?"
"Because you could've aborted him... but you decided that he could become somebody else's son, and you could've kept him and let him grow up with a mother who wasn't ready for a child." she shrugged. "You gave him a better future." she hadn't thought about it like that before.
-
The next person that came was Chase, he walked into her room with a bunch of flowers. He smiled and put them down on the table.
"How are you feeling?" he asked her, and looked like he rather wanted to be somewhere else.
"Better." she stated, and he nodded, and there was an awkward silence. It was broken by his pager going off, and he looked up at her.
"I got to go, uh... bye." and with that he rushed out of the room, she never thought that it would get that awkward with Chase.
-
After Chase it was only her family who came and visited her, Foreman never came, but she suspected that Mary came instead of Foreman. And the weeks slowly went by, three weeks after she woke up she was taken outside for the first time after the accident, but she was sitting in a wheelchair. Soon after that she started to work up the muscles in her leg, and arms so she could walk on crushes, and eight weeks after the accident she was going home.
As a nurse wheeled the wheelchair through the lobby, with her mother and sister standing on both sides of her, various nurses and doctors wished her good luck, and told her to get well, and the smile on her face grew because it felt like they didn't judge her. She saw House standing in the distance, watching her and everyone there, she smiled and waved at him, but he didn't move a finger, or even show somehow that he saw her.
When she got back to her apartment with her sister and mother they helped her pack the stuff she needed, and wanted, so she could come back to Chicago with them. She still had a month on her lease, so she couldn't move really move out yet, but she wasn't so sure that she would come back soon again.
After that she sat down in her sister's small blue car, and they drove the long way to Chicago in silence, happy for the fact that something called radio existed.
So uhm... I killed Cameron... But she survived! And the good thing is that it was House that "kind of" saved her :D So next chapter is the last :( Either I will do an epilogue now, or I'll do a longer sequel, a multi chapter fic, but then it's going to take maybe up to 5-7 months before I post it...
But, anyway! Please review, I'm like everyone: I love them!