Here is the next chapter in the seemingly neverending saga... I'm happy that so many of you are willing to tag along for the ride! Your comments keep my fingers typing fast... I hate disappointing you by not having something up every couple of days!

Chapter 17

"Living room, kitchen, bathroom down the hall. I'll be out in fifteen minutes. Why don't you try to set up the tivo to watch our soap."

Our soap. Cameron grinned.

"Don't smoke the cigars or drink the scotch," House snarked, ignoring her expression.

"Don't worry. I won't touch your stuff," Cameron teased, but she actually meant it. The last thing she was going to do was irritate him during her first official visit.

House bent and kissed her quickly on the mouth. She didn't even have time to react before he was pulling away and limping down the hall to his bedroom. Her eyes followed him and she blinked a few times. His random kisses were definitely going to keep her on her toes.

Like every man, House had a coffee table littered with remote controls. Cameron picked up the biggest one and sat down on the sofa. Turning on the television was easy, but understanding the rest of the controls proved slightly more difficult. She ended up stumbling over the news from the previous evening and froze as a horribly familiar face zoomed into the corner of the screen. The anchorwoman was talking in her normal monotone voice about the rapist and murderer and his last aborted attack and the fact that he'd been arraigned the previous morning. Anthony Prentis. A name she was trying hard to forget. She flinched every time the woman mentioned something about her. A doctor at Princeton Plainview…apparently she hadn't done her fact-checking very thoroughly… thirty years old… shot in the chest while fending off her attacker. Cameron knew they weren't allowed to give out her name but she still felt herself petrified that it would be the next piece of information given. One more snippet from the district attorney, and then they were on to the next story, but Cameron's body remained as tense and stiff as steel.


When was the last time a hot shower had felt so good? When was the last time anything had felt so good? Damn. He knew it wouldn't last. Feeling like this never did. Even if he and Cameron suddenly turned into a couple out of a fairy tail, which they wouldn't, eventually the intensity of his current emotions would fade. Nothing to do but enjoy it while it lasted. He was actually able to look at himself in the mirror for a full minute without rolling his eyes or grimacing.

Comfortable, worn-out jeans and a black t-shirt were his usual weekend attire and he slipped them on quickly and limped down the hall towards the living room. He heard the news report as he got closer, and his steps slowed until he was standing in the doorway, watching Cameron as she sat staring at the television. She had one fist against her mouth and the other clutching the remote control.

Fuck. House turned and walked back to his bedroom.

He returned five minutes later, after deciding she'd had enough time to pull herself together if that's what she wanted to do. His own courtesy startled him. Normally, forcing people to talk was what he did best. Now he found himself actually willing to let someone get away with being moodier than him. Not just someone. Cameron.

It looked like she'd managed to figure out the remote control and he moved around the sofa and spared a quick glance at her face. Pale and tense.

"You're looking a little peaked there, doctor," he commented lightly. Maybe he could draw her out without being too obvious. And since when did he care about whether or not he was obvious? "Maybe I tired you out too much this morning."

The sly comment won him a crooked grin. "No… but I have a feeling you could if you put your mind to it."

Well, she wasn't going to talk, but at least she didn't look shell-shocked anymore. House sat down on the sofa and took the remote from her hand. "Mine."

"You said that even when we were at my place."

"The remote is always mine. Location is irrelevant."

"I'll try to remember that."

He pressed the button to start the program and was surprised when Cameron stopped him with a soft touch on his wrist.

"Could we just talk for a minute?"

As if she had to ask. "Please don't tell me you want to redecorate my place already."

Another one of her gentle smiles. "No. I think I like it. It suits you."

"Glad you think so." There was a long pause, and House finally filled it. "So. You wanted to talk."

"I saw part of the news accidentally."

"Anything we should know about? World coming to an end? Pigs flying?" Damn. Why was he still joking? He wanted to hear what she had to say.

"No. Nothing so fascinating," she said slowly. "It was about Anthony Prentis… the man who shot me."

"Someone stick a shiv in him in the prison yard?" The bitterness and anger was easy to hear.

Cameron shook her head. "No." She took a breath and met his eyes briefly before looking away. "I don't even want to talk about him. I mean, I do… in a way."

"You don't have to do this," House was saying the words before he even realized it, and he meant them too. He didn't need to hear. Not if it was just going to upset her. Not if she was only doing it because she thought she had to. "I told you before that you don't have to tell me anything."

"I know that, but… I think I really need to talk… and you're here… and I want to tell you."

"All right. I won't interrupt."

He watched her eyes close and she started talking with them still closed.

"It had been a really, really bad day," she started. "The bank screwed up my last check from the hospital and I had to fight with them so my rent check wouldn't bounce. I spent most of the afternoon filling out fellowship applications, and then found out I didn't have any stamps left." She gave a little shrug and opened her eyes. "and I was really missing the hospital… and you… I guess I can admit that now."

House managed to keep from interrupting, but just barely. He swallowed hard and just nodded.

"I hate grocery shopping, and that's how I spent the evening. That's what I was doing when he came up behind me." Her words started getting slower and she dropped her eyes again. "I was getting the groceries out of the car. I hadn't even bothered to look around. I was feeling tired and sad and sorry for myself and I really wasn't concentrating on anything else. I'm still not sure if I remember everything. Little bits come back when I'm least expecting it… when I'm not prepared… when I'm dreaming." She looked at him briefly, apologetically. "I guess you know about that. I've woken you up more than a few times now." The sigh she released seemed to come from the bottom of her soul. "His hands were so tight, and when he whispered in my ear his breath almost burned." Her hand instinctively went to her neck, brushing away a long-gone feeling. "I was in such a daze, I still didn't know what was going on. I thought he wanted money, or the car… I wasn't even thinking that he wanted me. I spun around and hit him as hard as I could and that's when I saw the gun. It happened so fast, but sometimes I can feel it and it's like it's happening in slow motion and I can feel the bullet going in, and I can feel myself falling. And I know that I'm dying."

Damnit. House knew that feeling. He knew it well. He remembered lying in bed with pain so bad he was sure that death was only one breath away, and he remembered his heart stopping, and the plain white ceiling being the last thing he saw before blacking out.

"I was so afraid… petrified… I couldn't move, I couldn't help myself, but I knew what was happening to my body. I couldn't even tell my landlord what to do to help me." Cameron stopped talking for a minute and House thought that maybe she was done. Maybe she'd said all she could. Then she looked up and stared right into his eyes. "When I saw you in the ER. That's when I knew I was going to live."

"And you did." The words were out before he could stop them, but she didn't seem to care.

"Yeah. I lived, and I've spent the last three weeks trying to deal with everything and not doing a very good job. I'm alive. I should be kissing the ground, or thanking God, or something! I should be ecstatic… and I am… I really am… but there's so much else inside me." One hand moved to her chest, fingers tightening around her cotton shirt. "I get scared when I hear noises at night. I have horrible nightmares and then have to wake you up to chase them away. I see his face on the news and I think I'm going to throw up. There are thousands of women out there who have gone through a hell of a lot worse than me, and here I am still feeling sorry for myself!"

This time House had to interrupt and he didn't even feel bad about it. "Thousands of women get shot through the heart?"

She shook her head. "You know what I mean. And yes. They probably do. And most of them don't survive. Just like a lot of the people we see in the hospital. I used to see people every day who are suffering and in pain. I'd go up to the cancer ward and see women and kids struggling to survive. Now, here I am, crying my eyes out because of a fucking scar."

The use of his own words struck deep, despite the fact that wasn't Cameron's intention. House waited for her to go on, but this time she really seemed to be done. He had both hands in her lap, and her eyes trained on them. Her throat kept working convulsively as she swallowed and he knew she had to be about two heartbeats away from crying. He didn't know how the hell she was holding herself together, and he feared that by the time he was done, she wouldn't be.

Now it was his turn.

"You've seen people who are sick and dying. You've seen them at the worst points in their lives, and you don't think you measure up because they seemed braver than you feel now, or they suffered more than you and didn't complain," he said harshly. That's bullshit. I know pain and fear. I stared death in the fucking face for a week. Every time I went to sleep I didn't know if I'd wake up. But you know what? I would never compare that to what you went through. In an instant your life hung in the balance because a fucking prick decided you looked like a nice piece of ass and he decided he was going to be the one to take you. The people we see every day are suffering, but at least they don't have to visualize the person who put them in the hospital when they close their eyes. So that's one comparison gone."

"But what-"

"I'm not done yet. You'll know when I am, because my mouth will stop moving," he snapped. "You say you're ashamed because thousands of women have gone through what you went through… and worse… Apparently you think that means you should be able to force yourself not to feel anything about the fact that a violent man attacked you, with the intention of raping and murdering you, and that the only reason you're alive right now is because you managed to force him into shooting you in the damn chest. I'm not claiming to have been to any support group meetings lately, but I think that meets the criteria for joining at least three of them. And I'm guessing that if you started telling them that you felt you didn't feel worthy of sympathy and some self-pity, that you'd have a room full of women jumping on you to tell you the hundred and one reasons why you're wrong."

Cameron said nothing. She just sat on her end of the sofa and stared at him. Damn. Was she even more upset now? Had he been too brutally honest? That tended to be a character flaw of his. Was she not ready to hear all that? Fuck. He should have just pulled her close and hugged her. After a minute even he was beginning to get self-conscious and he pushed up and off so that he could at least distract himself by pacing.

"The lips have stopped now. You're allowed to speak," he finally said after walking back and forth in front of her twice.

"I'm not sure what to say," she admitted, voice sounding slightly choked. He could see how hard she swallowed, and the little twitching at the corners of her eyes. She always tried so damn hard to hold herself together.

He nodded once, sharply and took a few more steps, stopping when she spoke again.

"What you just said… it's all true. I heard the words, and I accepted them as truth, but I still can't stop feeling this…" she struggled to come up with words and clenched her fists, pounding them against her legs in frustration. "This horrible sick feeling, this guilt, this anger and fear. It's all rolled together and when I think too hard about it, it fills me until I feel like I need to scream."

House limped back over to her and sat down, covering one of her hands with his. "Isn't that one of the twelve steps or the five phases or some shit like that? I think that's what you're supposed to be feeling."

"But I don't want to!"

"I think that's what everyone says," he told her, and he was surprised by the sadness he heard in his own voice. "If you don't use me as your role model, I think eventually it gets better." Her hand was convulsively gripping her knee and he eased his fingers between hers, intertwining them, and squeezed. "You can feel as guilty as you want about what happened, but I don't ever want to hear you say you feel guilty just for feeling."

Cameron let out a deep breath and felt some of the tension leave her body with it. She looked up at House and concentrated on his eyes. They told her more than his words, and lately his words had been telling her quite a lot. "You'd better watch it. I could accuse you of getting sentimental."

He raised one eyebrow. "After spending five minutes lecturing you?"

"Yes."

A grunt and a roll of his eyes. "Damn. I'll have to watch myself," he said, but he didn't take his left hand off hers as he used his other to set the credits for General Hospital rolling.

By the time the final theme music started playing, House's arm had migrated across Cameron's shoulders and she was leaning comfortably against his side, feet propped on the coffee table next to his. Two months ago she couldn't even have imagined such a scene. House was a gruff as ever. His earlier speech was clear evidence of that. But he had softened about some things, and physical contact was definitely one of them. It was almost as if he craved it, and maybe he did. With pain an almost constant companion, other, more comforting, sensations had to be a tremendous gift. She shifted slightly and ran one hand lightly over his thigh.

"You hungry?" he asked, looking down at her, momentarily stumped for what to do next.

At her house the choices had been limited due to the fact that she was basically recuperating the entire time. Movies, television, reading and crossword puzzles had been their activities. Now she was a guest at his house and he supposed that he should be thinking of some way to entertain her. Of course there was always the bedroom, but as eager as he was to see her naked again, he did in fact want her for more than her body. If he suddenly limited all of their interaction to the naked variety, she just might get the wrong idea.

He looked down at her again, nudging her slightly. "I asked if you're hungry," he said.

"Hmm? No. I'm fine."

"You're thinking again."

She smirked. "I do that sometimes."

"Care to share, or do I have to drag it out of you again?"

Cameron tilted her head up to look in his face and pinned him with her eyes. "I was just wondering what was going through your mind when they brought me into the hospital."

Shit. Okay. This definitely wasn't what he was expecting her to say. He knew that his expression had to be completely poleaxed because Cameron's eyes narrowed as if she had just discovered something interesting and unexpected.

"So… not hungry then."

Her words continued as if he hadn't spoken. "I'm only asking because I was thinking about everything you had to say, and how you said it. It seemed like you had some things you needed to get out too." She gently rubbed one hand on his chest and then pushed herself off the sofa. "It's okay. Forget about it." She turned her back and wandered towards the piano.

Damn her. Telling him he didn't need to open up to her was like laying down a gauntlet. Now he had to talk or he'd feel like a complete emotional coward. It was becoming obvious that he had some competition in the art of manipulation. Cameron was simply much subtler about it. He needed to search her apartment for self-help books.

The leather made a soft scrunching sound as he levered himself to his feet and paced over to the window. Should he give her the full blow-by-blow or should he at least trim out the thousand swearwords that had swept through his mind that night?

"Cuddy was the one who came and got me," he said roughly. "She had to squeeze the words in between my insults and when she finally did, for about half a second I was sure I'd heard wrong. I think it was her expression that convinced me otherwise. We went to meet the ambulance, I saw them bring you in, you talked to me, I went into the ER with you and you know everything else."

Cameron stared at his back, outlined against the sun-filled window. He didn't like to share his emotions. She knew that already, and clearly he wasn't about to start. That was all right. His expressions told her enough. Maybe someday, years from now, they'd be lying in bed together and he'd tell her the story of how he'd felt the night he'd saved her life. She sat down on the piano bench and skimmed her fingers along the smooth keys, not quite pressing them down.

"There was a lot of blood."

Dark blue eyes rose to look at House's stiff back again. She hadn't expected him to speak again.

"Remind me to tell your landlord that he doesn't know shit about stopping bloodflow."

"I think he did the best he could," she replied softly.

"Not fucking good enough," House spat back. "And Nihquist! The man should have his license revoked!"

Looking down again, she concentrated on her fingers. She didn't like seeing him angry. Of course she probably should have thought of that before prodding him, however delicately.

"The fucking moron called your time of death," House spun away from the window and stared at her, "and I was the only one there with the brains to argue with him. If I hadn't been there…"

"I'd be dead." Cameron looked up again and met his gaze.

"You'd be dead." Fuck. He thought he was going to be sick right in the middle of his living room. He couldn't think about that. He couldn't think about the beautiful woman who had lain naked in his arms less than eight hours ago, could instead be lying cold and grey in a pitch-black grave. What if he hadn't been right about the bullet? What if he hadn't known what to do? What if she'd died with his hands wrist deep in her chest. Fuck. He needed to sit down.

"House? House!" Cameron watched him half-stumble to the sofa and sit down with his head between his knees. The piano bench scraped sickeningly along the wood floor as she rushed to his side. "What? What is it?"

"Shut up… Just. Stop. Talking." He bit the words off between breaths.

When he raised his head she was crouched in front of him, looking ashamed and a little scared.

"Okay?" she offered helplessly.

"Let's just say I don't like thinking about that night any more than you do," he said slowly as he leaned back.

She nodded a few times and moved to sit next to him, not surprised when he wrapped both arms around her. "This feels nice," she murmured.

"When I was in that ER, I didn't see you. I saw a body. Something to fix. I didn't know how fucking scared I was until later." He closed his eyes and breathed in the scent of her shampoo. Lime and coconut. "Is that what you wanted to know?"

Warm hands came up to cover his across her belly. "I think it's what you needed to tell me."

Had he? He wasn't sure. He had to admit - now that the nausea was fading, he did feel better… less like he needed to pummel someone which had been a recurrent feeling over the past weeks. Damn. He didn't like that at all. Next thing he knew, Wilson would actually be convincing him to see a shrink about his leg. No. Never gonna happen. He closed his eyes and tightened his grip. Lunch could wait.