Disclaimer: I do not own House M.D. or any of the characters from the series.
Warning: Faint of heart - beware. Faint of stomach - grab a bucket..
A/N: Thank you for the reviews. Checking my e-mail isn't so bad anymore.
Chapter 5: Stained
House swallowed. He worried his voice would fail him. Even if it did, it wouldn't matter. Nothing at this point could matter. The trees stood still for a moment, and the sky sent a hush through the atmosphere. Memory stood still: haunting him one moment, irrelevant the next. Everything he'd held so important was suddenly so insignificant.
Well, almost everything. Cameron was still beside him, and he knew it more now than ever. Uncanny how a soiled and battered car could put things in such perspective.
"Yeah," his tone was low and unearthly. "That's my car."
He stared. Cameron stared. The policeman - though he'd seen it all before - stared. It was all they knew to do. It was all they had power to do.
"You're absolutely sure?" the cop probed.
House nodded a response just as absently. It was definitely his car. Red, '65 Corvette. Red - through and through. It was red in places it shouldn't be. It was red from the inside out.
A road-dusty hue sprinkled the body of the car. The outside had been slightly mistreated, but nothing too damaged to fix. It was the inside that couldn't be fixed. Blood - the seats, the doors, the floorboards. It wasn't a puddle or a pool. It was splashed and splattered - a fingerprint here and there, telltale hints of a struggle, a desperate hand print on the doorhandle. Imprinted in the juice of life. Forever stained in death.
That night came back to House in a sudden, punishing rush, then fled from his mind just as quickly. It flushed back and forth though his system, like water through a permeable membrane. But it was toxic. It was ruthless. It left his insides rocking and gasping for the very strength to stand. House clenched his cane tighter, and forgot about Cameron beside him. All he could see was her tear-dripped face before him - in a hazy image of a darkened sky and a fast-fading memory of the rain –
Cameron dropped her arms to her sides. She suddenly refused to be comforted. Just like that - she didn't want to be held. She didn't want to be touched. So House dropped his own arms and looked to the ground for support.
If he collapsed right now, would it hurt? If he just let his muscles fail and his limbs fold in on themselves, could he melt and be lost in the pavement? Seep beneath a weathered crack and be buried in this fallow soil forever . . .
He limped back to the court and found the abandoned basketball. He didn't pick it up. It was sacred, and he was defiled. But he stood over the lonely sphere - now huddled in a corner of the court - and delivered the dreadful news. He had no one else to tell.
That's when he turned to find Dr. Cameron on the other side of the court, holding a flimsy, plastic x-ray sheet between damp and trembling fingers. Perhaps now she realized - Rachel was a hopeless cause.
Somehow, he didn't think she'd see it that way.
The x-ray floated back to the ground, and Cameron went with it. She sat slumped against the chain-linked fence, sweaty knuckles on the ground and an upturned face to the raindrops –
The rain. It didn't wash away the sin. It wouldn't wash away the blood. They stood staring and cringing on the inside, hoping this was all a dream. House tore his gaze from the backseat of his battered car and slowly turned his head to Cameron.
She was in shock. No tears. Only gaping eyes and a slightly opened mouth. In all actuality, she looked like she was going to throw up. House lifted a hand to awkwardly comfort her shoulder, but immediately, Cameron pulled away from his touch.
His fingers had only graced her, and that was enough to send Cameron into an upheaval. She ran across the road and reached a drainage ditch just in time. Her body went spiraling and her stomach constricted, sending what little food she had eaten to the falsely green grass below. One wave after another squeezed against her organs and demanded her body be emptied.
House watched as she fought with her body, as she begged to be freed of feeling. He wished he could do something for her. That's when he decided he could. And he would.
A week. A whole fucking week. He couldn't watch anymore. He had to do something for her. He had to try, at the very least. Cameron couldn't live like this.
He nodded to the policeman, who nodded to the tow truck driver, and both were sent on their way. House was left standing in the street with Cameron - once again - and dusk was left hovering in a dismal cloud of hopelessness. For the seventh night in a row, he would watch the sun set; she would watch the earth hide. The sky would turn black and the grass would turn blue. And they'd think of Rachel again. Simultaneously. Ritualistically. Like a morbid tradition that brought them together by linking their unspoken pain.
Though Cameron was always with him - the ache in his leg, the emptiness at night, the shallow keys of his piano (they all bore the name of Cameron) - this would be the first night since Friday that House could be with her when the world went away to hide. He was determined to make the most of it.
He limped across the road to where she knelt in the grass, still heaving in a drainage ditch. "Cameron . . ."
Her body went stiff at the sound of his voice. She cautiously breathed, willing away the taste in her mouth, and didn't look up from the grass. "I'm sick."
"I see that," he said. "You're coming home with me."
"No."
"Yes." House bent over slowly and dangled his car keys a distance from her face. He was saying, I drove you here; I'm currently in control.
Cameron was too exhausted to put up a fight, and she cursed him out loud to the air. She could feel her stomach cringing again, but there was nothing left to surrender. She had thrown-up all she could.
House was careful not to touch her as she balanced herself and stood. He knew she didn't like it. Now that he wanted to care for her - to do something gentle and kind - she didn't want to let him. One day she would. But tonight he would give what he could.
A/N: Do not worry. All is not dark and dreary . . .
