A/N: Hey guys, sorry it's been so long. I've been working on getting my non-fanfic piece finished off and edited (eek!) which has FINALLY been completed- pending feedback- so, I should have a little more time :) Thanks for being patient, and for some really nice comments recently, and I hope you enjoy this chapter. Reviews would be awesome!
Opting for white wine when the waiter brings over the two bottles, Cameron pours herself a glass with her eyes lowered to the task at hand, but she can feel the others watching her intently. Swirling her glass and taking a sip, she places it next to her half-full beer bottle before letting out a defeated sigh and lowering her jaw into her hands.
"So?"
Chase prompts, frowning when the blonde descends into silence, and she glances at him wearily before going back to studying the cooling remains of Foreman's pasta.
"What's going on with you?"
Foreman repeats their previous query, and Cameron wrinkles her nose and confides only
"I can't tell you."
"What?"
"But then-"
The others start, and she massages her temples with a shake of her head before pushing herself back up with her arms crossed defensively over her chest.
"I can't tell you exactly what happened, but I can tell you some of it... Most of it."
She appeases, and as the boys appear temporarily placated, she takes another gulp of wine.
"Go on, then."
Chase grins- recognising the blonde's stalling techniques better than any, and Cameron sighs as she gives in and complies with their demands.
"You guys know House did my stitches after what happened in the ER."
"The first set."
Foreman chips in with a disapproving frown, and she rolls her eyes but agrees dutifully
"Yes. The first set... Good to know you're never going to let that little incident go."
"It wasn't a little incident."
Chase scolds her, and she opens her mouth to tell him to shut up, but thinks better of it as she catches a hardness in his eyes and remembers the look he'd given her when helping her out of the tub. She'd scared him, she knows this, and so she resigns to simply breeze past the subject as smoothly as possible.
"Anyway, House came by my place while I was getting my moderately-sized incident seen to, and I guess he's not one to be deterred by a lack of greeting so he invited himself in and played sleuth. He wound up in the bathroom and saw the state I'd left it in and that somehow ended up in him throwing his phone at the wall... I don't know."
She shrugs a little uncomfortably. She would rather not talk about her bath-time surgical endeavours at all, but it's where the confusion that has been plaguing her recently originated, and so she tries to make light of a situation she's slowly realising the others fail to find all that funny. She bristles inwardly at this a little- wondering if it's because they still see her as their token girl; their princess- before Chase lays out the bare bones of the matter once and for all.
"Allie, I spent that ambulance ride with you torn between wanting to throttle you and finding some sort of receptacle to throw up in. I couldn't believe you'd done that to yourself, and I couldn't figure out if I was furious, or just quite seriously concerned about the state you were in- mental as well as physical- for you to have done something like that. You know my feelings about you wanting to keep any trouble from House's radar, but that idiocy aside; I saw what he saw in that tub, Cam... I could have thrown a few things myself."
Chase finishes bitterly, and a small twitch of Foreman's brow lets Cameron know that he's not going to be taking her side on this one any time soon, and she sags back against the black leather of the booth and appeals quietly
"Alright... I'm sorry. I'm sorry you had to walk in on that, and I'm sorry I haven't made much of an effort to clear the air about it. I know it was a stupid thing to do, okay? I know... But we were talking about my other stupid decisions, so can we let it go for now?"
"Certainly."
Chase smirks, sipping at his beer, and she can tell from the pull of his lips that he hasn't wholly forgiven her, but she's honestly too exhausted to spare this fact the irritation and guilt she usually might.
"Carry on with your tale of foolery."
Foreman encourages in a purposefully thespian tone, and she flashes him a withering glower but obeys between indulgent sips of her wine.
"Well, after that-which-we-shall-not-speak-of, I came home and almost suffered a coronary when House came bursting out of my bedroom, yelling at me. He told me a lot of the stuff you guys were reprising just now, but in the end... He stayed and helped me make dinner."
"House?"
"Yes."
"Dr Gregory House?"
Chase frowns, and Cameron sighs and confirms with a more irritable hiss
"Yes!"
"... Huh."
Foreman and Chase exchange a glance, and the blonde jumps in and shuts them down immediately
"I asked him to help because I was sore, and he obliged. That's all. Nothing happened."
"Not true, House made you dinner, that's definitely something."
Chase argues, and Cameron shakes her head with a small grimace as the room continues to sway once she's stopped. She tries to remember if she's eaten today, and isn't sure. She looks down at her glass and is surprised to see that she's now drinking red and that she must have poured herself more wine while bickering.
She tells herself to slow down, and sips dark merlot anyway.
"He didn't. I made food, he just sat there and ate it after helping me get the plates down from the cupboard."
She shoots down the loaded stares the boys give her, although she's not sure why... After all, isn't this all just leading to the same conclusion?
"It was just a casual dinner, and then he left."
She insists, although his parting words when he'd done so come back to her now and hit her with surprising ferocity.
"Call me if you need to..."
There had been a pregnant pause after that offer; made poignant because he'd actually meant it.
So I thought.
So I really thought.
"Anyway...", the blonde continues hastily, aware that she feels a little like breaking down and banishing the urge with a swift switch to beer, "after that, things have just been a bit weird between us... You know what House can be like; one minute he's alright"- kind, he was kind to me- "and the next he's an asshole. It just feels a little like he's amped it up to ten this last week."
She sighs, knowing she can't elaborate on why that might be, but sure that the others are fabricating their own theories either way. She waits for them to mock her or hound her for details, but to her relief, Foreman steps in with first-hand experience rather than weaving a presumptive story around what she knows is fact.
"The way he was earlier was bad. That was completely uncalled for."
He shakes his head, and Chase frowns as he studies his old colleagues curiously.
"What happened?"
"House was predictably unenthused that Cuddy put Cameron on our case without his say so, so he went for her in front of the others."
"It was stupid."
Cameron sighs, but it would appear that Foreman isn't quite done with relaying earlier events as he concludes
"He was laying into her pretty hard; kind of dancing between calling Cam a prude and a whore."
Chase glowers down at his beer in response to this, missing the shadow that veils ordinarily open features. Foreman is a little more observant, and he frowns as he catches a very abrupt change in the blonde's demeanour as she sits rigidly in her seat with her nails digging into her arms. He wonders if he's offended Cameron with his choice of word, but would find himself a little surprised if that were the case. He's heard her called much worse by any number of outraged, delirious or intoxicated patients in the past, and her usual response is either to ignore the crude term completely or find it faintly amusing, as it could hardly ring any less true.
"Ass."
Chase sermonises with a dismissive shrug of his shoulders, and Cameron offers him a thin smile that ends abruptly at the pull of her lips; leaving her eyes hard and troubled.
"Exactly... Cameron."
Foreman tries to push past the icy exterior she's suddenly put up, and she nods in obedient agreement but seems unwilling to discuss the matter further.
Couldn't even wait for me to fucking unmount.
The words she'd spat at House earlier come back to her as they have done frequently since their altercation in the prayer room, and she tells herself to drop it- to just leave it alone already- but she can't. There is something crass and demeaning in the thought, and while she remains furious at House beneath her much heavier burden of hurt, she knows the implication behind the statement that's been tormenting her for the best part of the evening is unlikely to have been intentional. The implication feels dirty, it feels, well, whorish, and these are not things she ordinarily feels, nor truly believes House thinks of her.
Yet that accusation- those words- continue to play over and over in her mind, because all intentions aside- it's the truth.
He disconnected emotionally, mentally, before even waiting to do so physically; he was still inside and he no longer wanted to know.
She shudders a little as this fact causes her stomach to crawl, and she supposes that what she can absolutely attest to feeling- if not dirty and cheap- is humiliated.
By what happened between them in her apartment.
What happened between them in the DDX room.
By what's been happening between them in the four years that she's known him.
She feels humiliated, and it's not an emotion she has much practice with, as ordinarily, she is able to justify her actions and reasoning regardless of what others might have to say on any given matter.
Not now... I did a stupid, stupid thing; something I'd always known would be a mistake...
True. But she comes back to the fact- yet again- that she wouldn't feel so hurt- so humiliated- in the wake of their mutual idiocy were it not for his plays of kindness towards her in the lead up to what happened.
"Cameron..."
Chase interrupts her glum thoughts, and she acknowledges him with a small nod of her head.
"Are you okay?"
He asks seriously, and she nods again automatically.
"...Only, between slicing yourself open in the bath and drinking almost the entirety of a bottle of wine mixed between red and white, I'm beginning to have some concerns..."
"I'm fine."
She reiterates, and when she catches Foreman offering her a similarly unconvinced frown, she reasons with a fair helping of truth
"I am- I'm fine- I'm just tired."
Exhausted.
"Actually, me too."
Foreman sighs as he pulls his phone out to check the time. Wincing as he spies that it's getting on for midnight, he pulls his share of bills from a small clip inside his phone case and slips them under the now empty bottle of merlot.
"We best call it a night... Tomorrow's going to be a long day for you and me, Allie."
Don't I know it...
She groans inwardly, but she agrees as she chips in her share and pulls on her coat; feeling a little tipsy, but no more at ease for it.
"Get some sleep."
Chase advises as he wedges a beanie down over his ears and zips up brown leather. His tone is stern, and his expression remains grave as studies her for a moment before following her towards the door, and Cameron rolls her eyes as she holds the door open so that the others can join her out in the frigid wind and assures amenably
"I will."
The others seem satisfied and bid her goodnight as they each hail down a cab, and she makes a show of walking towards the street corner that will position her best for a ride home, but when she flags down a car and offers the driver a tight smile, she asks him to take her to the hospital. Her mind is too busy- too agitated- to allow for rest, and so she decides to lose herself in the case in a bid to at least shut out the worst of her thoughts rather than sit at home with only her distress for company.
It's a cheaper fare, anyway.
And at least this way she's not stuck looking at the sofa, playing last night's events over in her mind on a loop.
Sipping at his whisky with a deep crease formed between his brows, House hesitates with his pen hovering over twelve down of the crossword puzzle he has balanced on top of a sizeable stack of medical journals. He sits in his office with his back to the window; allowing the glow of the floodlights outside to illuminate the page; the overheads neglected and the blinds between his office and the DDX room down but only partially slanted. A moment ago, there had been only darkness beyond those cheap slats, but now, the lights in the main room flicker to life to bathe the room sterile and white.
His frown grows ever deeper as he'd given each of his team on shift specific duties to keep them out of his way- never mind Foreman's supposed role as boss, which they all know is a farce- and this interruption to his solitude is unwarranted. He takes a moment to consider what barb to shoot at Taub or Kutner- he expects more from Thirteen- for not playing by the rules, when the perpetrator to his displeasure stalks into view, removing her coat.
Oh.
His frown remains but takes on new meaning as he watches Cameron stand for a moment in front of the whiteboard littered with their theories and failures, before the blonde heads over to the coffee machine in the corner and starts it up. She resigns to wait for it to kick into action; standing with her head bent and her palms braced against the counter, casting quite the defeated figure.
You did that.
His mind berates him, and he knocks back the remainder of his whisky as he sees no use in even attempting to deny this ugly truth. Still, he is surprised by Cameron's late-night appearance, and he watches pensively as she pours herself a large mug of coffee; reaching for one of the sugar sachets stashed in a glass beside the machine, before seeming to think twice and putting it back. She walks over to the table and seems to half sit, half collapse into one of the chairs that surround it. There are journals and papers spread out all over the table's surface, and she flicks through the pages of the book nearest to her without appearing to pay much attention.
Before long, she gives up and slumps with her head in her hand, while the other remains curled around the coffee mug for warmth.
Debating the action uncertainly, House finally pushes himself up from his chair- grabbing his cane as he goes- and moves into the doorway between his office and the DDX room. He spies a small jerk from the blonde as the soft sound of the door opening catches her by surprise, but she doesn't turn around or acknowledge him in any other way.
"I'll take one with sugar."
He greets her gruffly, before turning back for his chair, switching on the lights to his office as he goes.
He takes a seat; watching her ignoring him.
Refusing him.
Hating him...?
Leaning his cane against the armrest, he steeples his fingers beneath his chin; waiting to see what Cameron means to do.
Waiting for her to come around.
To let him in.
Too late, too late, too late...
It can't be. He refuses to accept such a hateful idea; the idea that she truly means to end what they've had over the past four years.
No.
That won't do.
A saying occurs to him as he contemplates pale curls and the curious zip-detail of her sweater.
"Life is lethal, but the cure is worse."
And that's kind of like their relationship, he supposes... It can be bad- really bad- and he knows that it is mostly he who makes it so... But to have no relationship with the blonde at all would be infinitely worse.
Please.