Part 4
On his flight back to New Jersey all Chase could think about was House, it didn't feel real that he had died so suddenly. Foreman had told him he died in a fire, the last way Chase ever thought he would go out, he assumed that he would have died from a drug overdose or maybe murdered by a disgruntled patient. But to die in a fire, apparently leaving Wilson to face cancer alone, with no goodbyes to anyone? It was hard to accept.
He had talked to Foreman briefly as he still had other people to inform, but their conversation had been one of sorrow and bitter regret about not being able to do anything to stop what had happened. Chase was going to call Cameron but with the pressure to get his flight and Foreman telling him that she had taken the news pretty hard and hadn't been answering his calls since, he figured that he would just catch up with her in Princeton at the funeral.
He sat back in his chair, thinking about the impact that House had on his life, unintentionally he had led him to his marriage and divorce, he had supported him and mentored him more than his own father had, even if House hadn't wanted to be that figure for him at first. Whether or not he liked House's teaching methods he knew he had made him a better doctor, a better man even. With the news of House's death, he had been thinking more about his future and running a diagnostics department himself, he felt like that would be the best way to honor House, although he'd probably call him an idiot for thinking like that.
Before he knew it, he was back in New Jersey. It simultaneously felt like he had never left but also that everything had changed. He wondered if Cameron was there yet and how Wilson was coping, and Foreman for that matter. Although he supposed that Foreman would keep his emotions to himself, as he always did. When he reached his apartment, he felt lost, not knowing what to do now that he had reached the city, it had seemed like the natural thing to do when he had heard the news, not even stopping to think about it. But now he was here alone, in an empty, barely decorated apartment, not knowing who to call or what to do. So, he just sat and waited.
When Foreman had called to tell her the news she had only just woken up and when their conversation ended, she could hear the distant sound of Matthew talking to their son as he fed him but it all felt so far away and her mind is flooded with memories. From when she had an unrequited crush on House fueled by her need to save him, to the time she had kissed him to distract him while she took did a blood sample. Then she remembered telling him that he had poisoned Chase before leaving to save herself from being poisoned, even though she knew the process had already started. Her morality was something she both loved and hated about herself, it meant that she often connected with patients but also that she faced dilemmas working with House. She knew that she had grown as a doctor and as a person from working with House but at what cost? Sometimes she would see the face of Ezra Powell and wonder how she had become the person who would willingly end the life of another, even if it had been what he had wanted.
She had loved House (not in a romantic way, she had later realized) but loving him had hurt her when he continued to self-destruct and push away those who cared about him. She realized they were the same in that way, she had pushed away the one man who she had loved with pure intent. There was nothing to save about Chase, nothing to feel sorry for and yet she had still fallen for him, reluctantly, and she had been terrified at the time because there was no ending in sight for them and she couldn't control their future the way she had been able to with her first husband.
Cameron thought about House, Princeton and Chase constantly over the next few days, ignoring calls from everyone who tried to reach out and when the date of the funeral was given to her she ignored it, because how could she even begin to say goodbye to the man who had caused her so much joy yet so much pain? How could she face her former colleagues and sit with them to discuss the man who most of the time seemed to tolerate them at best?
But as the calls kept coming the realization hit her that she was again falling into the trap of abandoning the ones who cared about her, just as House had and if she was going to do one thing to honor House's legacy it would be to not live that way, because she knew that he wouldn't want that for any of the doctors he had mentored over the years. So, she kissed Matthew and Oliver goodbye and set off to Princeton for what she assumed would be one final time.
The funeral was hard for everyone there, from people sugar coating him to the endless people who wanted to pay tribute to him. Chase had prepared a speech but once he had started talking, he couldn't talk about anything other than how he had been as a boss. He had wanted to acknowledge the way that House had changed him as a person, had helped him grow as a man and made him a better doctor, but he couldn't let himself be vulnerable in front of everyone.
He had watched in silence as Cameron had talked about House and love. It was hard to watch her talk about House in that way, knowing the context of her previous infatuation with their boss but he knew that she hadn't really loved House in a romantic way, she had loved him in the same way that she loved patients. But he knew she was telling the truth when she said that he knew how to love, because he'd seen it in the way he had loved Cuddy, his friendship with Wilson, even the way House had cared for him after he had been stabbed.
With Wilson's dramatic speech and exit the funeral came to an abrupt end. They went for drinks with the other former members of House's team. They spent more of their time talking about House and reminiscing the past eight years than they did drinking, but Masters, Park and Adams left quickly, not really fitting in with the rest of the crowd and then Taub wanted to go home to be with his daughters, Thirteen left to see her girlfriend and then it was just the three of them, the original team.
"It's going to be strange at work now," Foreman commented. "No House, no Wilson, no Cuddy, neither of you two."
"People move on I guess," Chase muttered.
Cameron glanced at Chase quickly, noting that way he was looking down at the table and was fidgeting with a plastic straw from his drink.
"Who's going to be the new head of oncology?" Cameron asked.
"Dr O'Connell," Foreman replied reluctantly. "Wilson seems to think he'll do a good job so I'm trusting that."
"What about the diagnostics department?" she asked, almost hesitantly and she watched Chase again but this time for a different reason. "Are you going to close it?"
"Not sure yet," Foreman said and if Cameron wasn't paying as much attention, then she would have missed the way his eyes briefly landed on Chase, who was still moodily staring at the table.
"Listen, I'm going home," Foreman said as he downed his drink and stood from the table. "I'll see you guys later."
Cameron watched Foreman leave before looking back at Chase.
"It's late," she stated.
"Yeah," Chase agreed. "I'm just not sure I can go home and sit in silence like I have the past few days."
"I'm sorry for ignoring your calls," she apologized. "This all just brought up a lot of memories and I wasn't even sure I was going to come today."
Chase looked up at her for the first time in an hour and she had to take a deep breath when she saw how his eyes were widened, almost childlike.
"I'm glad you decided to come," he said, his hand resting on the table and if she didn't know better Cameron would have thought he was going to reach across and hold her hand. "I needed someone here who understood."
"We had different relationships with House," Cameron disagreed. "For a start he and I ended on bad terms whereas he actually cared about you, he wanted the best for you."
"He cared about both of us," Chase said decisively.
Chase sounded confident in that statement and she wondered whether it really was true. All these years later it felt like Chase had won House in the divorce, he was the one who had been truly mentored by him, in hindsight it was probably the best decision, she couldn't have dealt with House's way of working any more than she already had.
"We should probably go too," Chase sighed, downing his drink.
"You want some company?" Cameron asked impulsively before realizing how it might sound. "Just with you saying you didn't want to be alone, I thought maybe we could have some coffee and watch a movie or something?"
After getting over the initial shock of her offering, he agreed.
Then, they were settled on Chase's couch, on opposite sides with enough room for another person between them.
"Do you think Wilson's okay?" Cameron asked softly, sipping on the glass of wine that Chase had poured for her.
"Probably not," he responded. "He's facing the last months of his life and he's going to have to do it alone."
"I'll try and call him tomorrow," she stated. "No one should be alone when they're dying."
Chase stayed silent but nodded - some things never changed. He knew that she just wanted to help but he couldn't help but feel that if House wasn't there then Wilson wouldn't want anyone who reminded him of House around him.
"The whole thing doesn't feel fair," Chase said. "Knowing how much good Wilson has done for people in his life and then he gets to die in this way?"
"I know," she responded. "Things like this shouldn't happen to people like him."
Chase paused for a second before speaking again.
"Do you ever…" he stuttered. "I think about the bad things that I've done, the people I've hurt, and I wonder will I end up with some sort of punishment, like cancer or dying alone?"
Cameron put her glass down on the coffee table and shuffled closer to him, his eyes glistening with vulnerability.
"People aren't punished for the mistakes they make," she insisted, and when he turned away from her, she brought his face back so that he was forced to look at her. "Hey, you have made mistakes, but so have I and so has everyone else."
"Not all of them were mistakes," Chase says, knowing that she would understand he was talking about Dibala. Because whether it was right or wrong it certainly hadn't been a mistake, it had been purposeful.
"I know," she replied softly, her hold on his cheek turning into a caress out of instinct. "But that one decision doesn't make you a bad person, even if I don't agree with it, you were trying to do the right thing and God or whoever decides our fate, they'll understand that."
Chase leaned into her hand and put his hand on hers, the familiar, soft texture of her skin was comforting in a familial way.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I shouldn't have left after…"
"Don't," Chase stopped her before she could finish her sentence.
And then there was silence as they locked eyes, seeing the years of regret and separation and love in each other and just wanting to feel comfort for one night.
He leaned across the short distance between them and kissed her. It was soft and gentle, all of the things that their first kiss so many years ago hadn't been, because this kiss had so much history and emotion that one hadn't.
Chase was warm and inviting in a way that she hadn't felt in so long that Cameron couldn't help but to kiss him back, wrapping her arms around him, almost scared that if she didn't then he would slip away from her. She pulled him closer into her, not wanting any space between them and then their tongues were entwining and his hands felt hot on her body, sliding down her and then pulling her onto his lap.
As she straddled him, she saw his blue eyes looking up at her and she smiled, because he was looking at her in a way he never had before, in a way no man had ever looked at her before. It was as though his whole focus was on her and she was everything he wanted in that moment. Since having her son, her sex life had been almost non-existent so to know that Chase still found her attractive and still wanted her in this way made her feel confident and sexy and so she leaned forward and kissed him again.
"Do you want to…?" Chase whispered in her ear in between kisses, his breath hot against her ear and so inviting.
She nodded and stood, pulling him up with her so he could lead her to his bedroom.
What followed was a night of comfort and passion. It was in the way he held her so close that she almost couldn't breathe and the way he moved in her with desire and skill that he hadn't shown her before. It was a slow, sensual experience and when it ended Cameron felt peace for the first time in since the moments after her son's birth when she had held him on her chest and it was like it was just the two of them in the world. Now she was with Chase and again felt like the outside world didn't exist, it was just the two of them in the sanctuary of his bedroom.
He pulled her close to him and smoothed her hair, kissing her neck softly until she fell asleep in his arms.
When she woke up, he wasn't in bed but she could hear the running water of Chase's shower in the bathroom. She laid back on the bed and stared at the ceiling, processing for the first time what she had done the night before. She thought about her son and Matthew who were at home in Chicago, completely unaware of what she had done the night before and how she had betrayed their family. But thinking about that night, she felt conflicted, because there was so much guilt weighing on her mind, but there was also a femininity and aliveness that had awoken in her. Since becoming a mother, she had been struggling to find her identity in something that wasn't motherhood and yesterday she had felt like herself again.
She checked her phone and saw that Matthew had sent her a picture of Oliver sitting in his swing and she felt a tear well up in her eye because Oliver deserved better than a mother who was cheating on his dad while she was away at a funeral. But he also deserved a mother who was happy and confident with herself and this experience had made her realise that wasn't who she was right now.
The shower turned off and Chase re-entered the bedroom with a towel around his waist. He smiled at her, almost nervously, knowing that she would likely have regrets about the night before, but she couldn't help but smile back.
"Morning," she greeted him from the bed, a sheet covering her still naked body.
"Morning," he responded, clearly making the decision to stay away from her on the other side of the room. "We should probably talk about what happened last night."
"It probably wasn't a good idea," she started.
"I think it definitely wasn't a good idea," Chase agreed.
"No," she continued. "But it did mean a lot to me, having you there and being close to you in that way, it's just not something I can regret."
"Me too," he agreed sadly.
"We were always good at that part, right?" he said, trying to bring humor to the situation.
"Oh yeah," she agreed with a smile on her face. "We probably shouldn't let it happen again though."
He nodded in agreement and she felt a lot of relief.
"What we have now is good," he said, running his hand through his wet hair. "I don't want this to change the friendship we've built over the past couple of months."
"I agree," she replied. "Thank you for last night, it was exactly what I needed."
After Cameron had left Chase sat alone in his apartment, contemplating his next move. He could go back to Australia and finish his surfing vacation, he could stay in Princeton, or he could try and find his next job.
The decision was made for him when Foreman arrived at his apartment later that afternoon and he offered him a job at Princeton Plainsboro.
His initial response was no but Foreman told him to think about it so that's what he did. He resisted the temptation to accept the job because when he'd left Princeton it was to get out from under House's shadow and going back to that hospital, sitting in House's office would be a step backwards. It would mean that he would constantly be compared to House and he would work under Foreman, a man who had once been his peer.
But the more he thought about it, the more he thought about the chance to stay in Princeton, the town that he had made his home for almost ten years and the opportunity to mentor Park and Adams in a way that would be different to the way House had mentored him. And he truly loved diagnostics, he missed work already and this was an opportunity that he wouldn't get in many other hospitals, to lead a department.
So, he called Foreman and then sent Cameron an email.
When she had left Chase's apartment she had gone straight to the airport and back to Chicago. Matthew was in the kitchen, making a cup of coffee. She had greeted him quickly before going to see Oliver who was just waking up in his crib upstairs, she picked him up and held the five month old close to her body, smelling his soft, wispy hair, professing her love for him over and over again.
She spent most of that evening with Oliver as Matthew had sat in front of the TV. She wondered if he sensed something was wrong, if he knew what she had done the night before or whether he just didn't care enough to even suspect something.
The next day she went to work for the first time since giving birth, she had planned to go just for a couple of hours to do some admin work and phase herself back into the emergency department. By the end of the day, she had been enticed by the clinical side of the job and she felt the excitement and adrenaline that she always had when she was at work.
Matthew had sent a text during the day to let her know that he would pick her up from work with Oliver and sure enough they arrived at 5 pm. As they arrived Cameron was just about to turn her computer off when she saw she had an email from Chase, she opened it to see a picture of her old team at Christmas in Princeton. A smile hit her face briefly, she remembered that Christmas, they had spent it with her parents in Chicago, flying there straight after they had left the hospital that evening. That night they had arrived late which had pissed off her dad which led to him yelling at her mum so she had stood up for her, Chase had later told her that she was brave without realizing it.
She hadn't been called brave many times in her life. Sure, after her first husband had died people had called her brave but they were just empty words, if anything she had been a coward in that relationship because she knew it had an expiration date, that the end would come soon enough. But more often than not people saw her as gentle or meek, it was something that had plagued her for most of her life, people assuming that they could walk all over her because she wasn't vindictive or ballsy.
She saw the caption that Chase had put with the photo.
My favorite Christmas.
P.S I'm hoping that as the new head of diagnostics at PPTH I'm going to make a team as great as this one.
She almost laughed when she read the last line, instead of just calling her or texting her like a normal person of course he had to tell her the news in this way.
She shut down the computer and headed over to her family, picking up Oliver and smiling at Matthew, almost sadly because she knew that the evening wasn't going to go how he planned.
They traveled home in relative silence and Cameron put Oliver down for a nap, she walked slowly to the living room where she knew Matthew was, trying to gather the courage to do what she knew was the right thing to do.
"I think I need to leave," she blurted out.
It wasn't the way she had wanted to say it, she knew it was coming out of the blue for him and that wasn't giving him any kind of warning shot, but it was straight to the point.
"What are you talking about?" Matthew asked, more confused than hurt or angry.
"I'm not happy," she admitted, it had been months in the making but finally confessing it was like a weight was being lifted off her. "I don't think this relationship can make me happy, I'm sorry but we can't be together anymore."
Matthew's face contorted in shock and he sat back on the sofa, he put his head in his hands as he thought about what she had just said and the implications of what she had just said.
"You've already made up your mind," he stated. "There's nothing I can do to stop you?"
"I'm sorry but no," she said softly, she wondered why she wasn't crying. "I'm going to stay at my parents' house for a little while, we can work something out with Oliver but at least for now while I'm still phasing back into work, I think he should stay with me most of the time."
"That makes sense," Matthew said, seemingly still in shock. "I can't believe this."
"We were trying to make it work for Oliver but we can still be good parents to him if we're not together," she insisted. "I know it's not what we planned but I need to be happy for Oliver's sake and I just can't be happy in this relationship, I know that now."
"You know that because your old boss died?" he said, the anger starting to come through now.
"Does it matter why I realized it?" she asked him, almost begging him to not make her tell him what had happened when she was in Princeton. Because it hadn't just been sleeping with Chase that had made her understand that she needed to leave him, it was the experience of being somewhere that she had once called home, of being around colleagues and remembering how much purpose her job gave her. It was the memory of Chase calling her brave and realizing that on this occasion the bravest thing to do would be to leave.
She went upstairs and packed some bags for her and Oliver, calling her parents to let them know that she needed somewhere to stay for a little while. She tried to ignore the shame that she was feeling in running back to her parents after her third serious relationship had failed and this time with a son in tow.
But when she closed the door of that house behind her she took a breath of the cool Chicago air, looked down at her sleeping son in her arms and despite and unsure future, she felt like she could be happy again, she had everything she needed in her arms.