Disclaimer: I do not own House M.D. or any of the characters from the series.

Chapter 12: Empty

A car. A faceless driver. A dark interior. Six dark windows and an even darker reason for the silence.

Lights on the dash and lights falling away in the background. Flashing red and blue lights burned in the back of your retina. Don't look back. Don't remember. Don't acknowledge the pain. Leave the image of a squad of cop cars to plague someone else in the morning.

Dark trees and dark houses drifting by on the right. Don't look at Cameron. There's nothing you can do. It's over. It's in the past. Though the past two hours will shadow you for the rest of your life. 'Til you're thrown in the grave and a solemn, grey tombstone is the only shadow left.

A cage of metal before you, like you're some kind of murderous criminal. You look at your hands. They're free. Something tells you they shouldn't be. No handcuffs, no metal. No cold, hard punishment for your deeds. Just the backseat of a cop car and Cameron's nervous breathing beside you.

It's eerie how you know this will haunt you. It's funny how you don't really care.

The car stops moving and Cameron gets out. Never looking back. Never giving you that one simple glance that'll make this all okay. You shouldn't leave her alone tonight, but you're forced to watch her walk away. Her figure disappears and you're moving once again. Moving toward a lonely haven. A sanctuary most unholy.

House opened his eyes with a startle as a shudder coursed its way through his body. That night was never far from his dreams; that girl - never far from his thoughts. They simultaneously attacked his existence every time he let down his guard.

In his sleep. Always in his sleep.

Cameron. Never again would he watch her walk away. In real life or in his dreams. Next time he'd walk away with her. They'd escape together into nothingness, and live there forever and always. He wouldn't have to pretend anymore. He wouldn't have to hide behind the beautiful blue in his eyes.

House was ever aware of the fact that Cameron was in bed beside him. He hadn't forgotten her presence. And it gave him a certain comfort, as well as a certain fear. He refrained from turning over and gracing her face with his eyes; forbid she should be looking at him. So he lay as still as he could, pretending to be asleep, listening for a sign of peacefulness that only a new day could bring Cameron.

But he didn't hear one. He didn't even hear her breathing. All he heard was his own inner turmoil in the form of his own shaky breathing.

Rolling over as quietly as possible, he focused his eyes on the warm spot where he'd tucked Cameron in last night. It was empty - and in more than one sense of the word. An empty feeling arose from the imprints that Cameron's warm body had hollowed. No longer a beautiful, sleeping woman; just a pillow, a sheet, and blankets. They had lost their magic quality.

House assumed she had just gone to pee, but when she didn't come back in the next few minutes, he began to think she'd returned to the guest room. Glancing at the clock on his night table, he noticed it was early morning. 5:43. Much too early for Saturday, and even earlier for House to be getting out of bed and conducting a search for Cameron.

He reached across the bed and latched onto the edge of the mattress, pulling himself to the other side. It wasn't as warm as he'd expected. It was actually rather cold. Peering down to the carpet, he noticed Cameron's jeans were gone. He had dumped them on top of his own jeans last night, and now only his jeans were left. Maybe Cameron got mad when she woke to find her pants on the floor? Great.

Setting a foot on the carpet and dragging his other leg with him, House pulled the warm covers aside and griped when he stood to his feet. Vicodin. It could wait. He needed to see if Cameron was safe. Girl fist; then pills. It was way too early for this.

Approaching Cameron's bedroom - huh, Cameron's bedroom - House prepared himself to face her, and found he was feeling slightly nervous. He hoped - with everything in him - that Cameron had been asleep last night during his momentary lapse of judgement.

The door was wide open and he peeked his head inside, only to realize that the word empty was all-encompassing. Just a pillow, a sheet, and blankets. And no magic quality in the air.

He stepped back into the hallway. "Cameron?" No answer. His feet were getting chilly. He was too old for hide-and-seek. Never a dull moment with that girl. "Cameron!" Limping back to his bedroom, his eye caught the top of his night table, and it wasn't the clock this time.

At once, his thigh began burning, and he reached to the floor for his pants. After downing a couple of Vicodin, he placed the pill bottle on top of the night stand and brought his attention back to Cameron.

His pill bottle. It wasn't there. "Oh . . . Shit . . ." He rushed with an accentuated hobble to the floor in front of his night stand, hoping the bottle had simply fallen off and rolled up under the bed. When he didn't find it there, he scrambled through the pockets of his jeans and came up with the same results.

He was suddenly struck with a bolt of red lightening that tore his insides to shreds. Cameron was gone. His pills were gone. And who knows where the hell they went.

"Cameron!" he ran through the house - like he hadn't done in years - yelling the name of a woman and hearing the godforsaken echo bouncing off of every wall. Slapping him hard in the face. Laughing again at his slippery fingers - at his fickle stone of a heart.