Previously….

I woke up in a hospital bed but not in PPTH with Chase holding my hand. He didn't have to tell me, because just like I how I knew I was pregnant with her–she was a girl—I knew I lost her. Even if I hadn't felt it through the pain medication and the haze, I would have known when I looked into Chase's eyes.

I'll never forget his eyes or that feeling…

"Don't try and spin this House…please…" I cover my eyes with my palm. House is silent. He hit the target and knows it. Just like when he pegs a diagnosis. Once he thinks he's right he'll never back down, never let go. Problem for me is not that he thinks he's right but that he is.

…I left the hospital three days later and buried my daughter in a small cemetery with only Chase at my side the next day. I had to call Boston and tell them I couldn't come. There was no way I could relocate now…maybe if I had then I perhaps would have healed.

I held on for eight months…I drove by the cemetery everyday and I cried every night. I was contacted again by the University, only this time if was for their hospital. They wanted me to head up the Pediatric Diagnostic Department. I closed myself up in my all room crying, thinking and soul searching after talking to them…then called in the morning telling them I would accept and that if they were interested I knew a top notch intensevist that was also interested.

I moved and a month later Chase followed…

"What are you doing here? Really, no more of…" House waves his hand in obvious distaste, "this. I can see whatever it is that brought you here—away from your adoring husband," I cringe, "and to an old friend's desk isn't your incessant need to scream at me. Something is killing you Allison Cameron-Chase…what is it?"

My head is pounding from the effort of trying not to cry and my nose is both runny and stuffed up from crying. My eyes are burning and scratchy…he is right, I am dying. I've been dying slowly since I told him goodbye.

"I didn't marry Chase."

I see his shock and him gain back control quickly.

"Your wedding was set for a week ago…I saw the announcement in the New England Medical Journal in between articles on a new cancer treatment and an add for Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream, it was going to be the toast of the town…'Two magnificent doctors making it a family affair' they said, or something else equally tooth achingly sugary," His voice is quiet and harshly imploring, "Why didn't you marry him?"

I bite my lip shrug my shoulders and close my eyes briefly, "Because I hate you…I hate you such. So much, that sometimes I can't sleep and when I do, I wake up with your name on my lips, I hate you so much and that you've infiltrated everything I do! When I think about you, I can't breathe, I get ill and most times, I can't stop crying…I hate you. These are my symptoms…for you are in me like a disease. Tell me Dr. House how do you treat a condition that centers in that undetectable, untouchable part of the human make-up known as the soul? This affliction I have is that I love you…and because I love you so damn much I hate you…"

I cover my mouth with a hand trying to hold in the sobs.

"Contradiction…thy name is woman."

I laugh. I laugh, sob and choke…and I laugh again like some mad woman that has lost her sanity. Maybe I have…

"I couldn't marry Chase because he wasn't you…so I thought that if I could come here, confront you, deal with losing my child that that would heal me of you so maybe I could go back to Boston…go back and try to salvage my life…" I dare to look at him, feeling his stare; being consumed by it is ten times worse then actually meeting it.

"I know you don't love me, you never have and that's okay. I'm not here to lay claim to some section of your heart, I'm not here even for sympathy…I'm not asking anything of you. I am here, as you have made me understand, to get rid of my guilt. I didn't realize I had… because up till now I blamed you. I thought I came here to punish you to make you remorseful…Truth is you didn't do anything that deserves my hatred.
"It was easier to blame you, to believe that you made me leave, that somehow…and I know this asinine and how any rational, stable person could come up with this I don't know…but somehow I thought you caused me to lose her. It was easier to run away thinking you didn't care about the baby. Easier to leave blaming you then to stay and know that I was the guilty one…I thought that I could come here and that you would somehow apologize and everything would magically be better…
"I am sorry House…sorry for not telling you about the baby, for hiding her from you. I am sorry for how I left… and for this. I'd say I shouldn't have come but I would be lying. I am too selfish, I needed this, but I am sorry you had to be a part of it."

I can't bear to look at him. I can't…I push out of my chair and though my legs can't quite seem to carry me steadily, I head to the door.

"Annabelle Rose House…that should have been her name…"

Any chance of leaving of my own power dissolves. My whole body tenses and I snap my eyes closed with the shocking pain that starts in my heart and radiates out. It all but crushes me…his words, his broken voice…his sadness, "I named her Annabelle after my grandmother…and Rose after my Aunt…" I whisper hoarsely turning back around, "but how could I have given her your last name when I hadn't even been able to tell you about her...?"

"She was my child, how could you deny me my right to known until it was too late? How could you deny me my right to her? She was as much me as she was you."

Tears start to roll again, I can't stomach this. I've never seen House this vulnerable…hurt…I never realized that I could hurt him and yet… I have.

"I am sorry…so sorry," I choke on the words. It is the only thing I can think to offer and I know that it isn't nearly enough.

"Don't marry Chase…" he stands pushing back his chair. I am caught off guard by the sudden subject change. He moves slowly with his uneven walk to stand a few feet in front of me.

"He can't make you whole and you know that. He helped you through I'll give him that…but he can't heal you like you want. He doesn't even know your illness, not really…"

"Please just let me go…"

"Sorry I can't. I wish I could but I have this nasty doctor obligation thing. See there is the Hippocratic Oath about doing no harm and helping or some other nonsense…" his wry attempt at a joke; for once, his timing is off.

"I'm not marrying Chase. When we called off the wedding we also decided that our relationship wasn't in our best interests…"

"I know, I could have told you that. But don't you want to know why? Don't you wonder why you can't feel whole, why you can't really heal?"

I could slap that smug smile right off face but his eyes are so bright and his face has lost ten years. I think I would give anything to keep him looking at me like he is.

"It's because you're broken. You can't be complete, you can't be whole and that is a fact…you will never be as you were before being broken. It's like when you break a glass. You can gather all the pieces and carefully glue them back together but inevitably, you won't be able to collect every piece, a small piece will be missing here and there and there will be seams.
"You can still live a happy well adjusted life but you'll never be able to live with someone who will try to fix you, make you perfectly whole because you can't be fixed. Your husband dying, me, your miscarriage…it has all changed you, chipped away at you. It's why you are the way you are. It's why you care so passionately for your patients, hell it's why you went to medical school. Your brokenness fundamentally changed you. You empathize and feel the pain of others because you are broken beyond mend.
"You'll never find happiness, contentment till you find someone who can understand that. Chase adored you and accepted you damaged perhaps, but he doesn't posses the capacity to be broken like you have been. He can't understand that about you. He looked at you and found a project, something he could fix…but you can't be fixed so he gave up didn't he? He got angry didn't he…He wanted to know when you were going to get over it…when you were going to finally be normal, didn't he?"

I want him to stop, I hold up my hands trying to beg him to…but he just goes on.

"He doesn't understand he can't…no one can, but me. I understand because I too am damaged physically and emotionally. It just happens my damage has me as I am…and you as you are. We aren't fixable Allison, we can't be whole like everyone else but I think that like the glue that holds the pieces of the glass together our scars are stronger then the rest of us. We've been bonded together by scar tissue and made tougher by it so we can endure more…We may be broken but we are stronger in ways that can only come from being crippled…"

His words abruptly stop and silence quickly engulfs us. My heart beat is pounding in my ears; the blood rushing is making me dizzy.

"Being broken made me angry, disillusioned, bitter and a bit crazy. It made you caring, eternally good and so subject to hurt. I think Spiderman said it best…what was it… "this is my gift, this is my curse" or something like that," he gives a wane smile.

"Always the diagnostician…Well Doctor what do we do? We're broken…but not in pieces…What can we do?" my voice is raspy and raw.

He steps closer raising a hand almost touching my cheek. He pulls back with his face full of misery and regret, "We accept not defeat, we embrace the wreckage and try not to totally mangle our second chance."

That's it. I all but fall into his arms. He staggers back but catches me, wrapping his free arm around me. I feel him release a long breath, "I'm glad you came back."

I laugh through my tears that I cry into his shoulder, "Me too…but I still hate you," I pull back to look into his face.

He smiles at me, sweetly for once, "I hate you too and have for a while but I didn't want to give you a complex, you being of such an impressionable temperament and all…"

I wipe my nose growing light of heart, "You know when I say I hate you I really mean I'm madly in love with you right?"

"Yeah I know…ditto."

-----------------

…I am so stiff…What am I lying against?

I cautiously open one eye. I see light…and some furniture, I think, it's all kind of blurry at the moment. I slowly open the other eye.

"I thought you were never going to wake up. You can stand to lay off the Krispy Kremes for a while Cupcake, you're killing me!"

I look to the right and scream. Well it was going to be a scream but I lose conviction mid way through so it comes out as more of a strangled 'cry'.

I am in Houses' arms and we're lying half sitting in his lounge chair in his office…it is coming back. And just like that, a wave of drowning love sweeps me up.

Glancing around I see all the curtains in his glass paned office are closed, good thing. I cuddle closer to him.

I fit perfectly here, I always knew I would. This is where I belong; my head fits perfectly under his chin. I press my face against his neck and catch the fading scent of his soap, his steady pulse and as I kiss my way up to his jaw, I giggle from the feeling his scratchy whiskers give.

"Well good morning to you too…" he looks at me with his eyes alert and sexily devilish, hair wild and smile delightfully crooked.

I grin, if this playfully wicked House is what I can expect every morning…"I'd say good morning," I give what I hope to be a slow, sexy, devastating smile.

Before I can gauge how it worked, he in a quick motion dumps me on the floor! I gasp in surprise.

"I wasn't kidding about the doughnuts, you've made my good leg crippled and I won't go on about the rest of me…I should sue!"

I am too stunned to be on the floor to form a reply. He is smiling cheekily at me as he works his tight limbs and reaches into his pocket palming a couple vicodin and dry swallowing them. No there won't be any sticky, gooey words of an eternal valentine from him. Chase gave me that, Chase was gentle and attentive his words of love stuck like a marshmallow to your shirt…but not House.

It took what happened last night for me to realize I don't want that marshmallow valentine…I want real. That is what I get with House. He is that stark no embellishments reality that grounds me.

House and I create balance. He makes me face my demons; he makes me angry and doesn't try to glorify the ugly or give false hope. He knows all the buttons to push—and pushes them, he makes me irate and indignant but not because he desires to make me miserable but to save me. It brings me back from my trips of fantasy and illusion; he keeps me from falling into the trap of my self pity and wallowing in depression. He keeps me from losing myself in other peoples' hurt and from getting bogged down in my own.

In turn, I keep him from letting his antipathy, narcissism and melancholy consume him. Our faults, our weaknesses become our strengths when we're together. He keeps me from feeling too much, I help him to feel. It took hours of talking and a whole lot of me crying for us fully to understand. But with the rising sun, a dawn of understanding came.

My House may be a little rough on the outside and in need of some renovation but he's mine. As I am his, it's just the way we're made. I'll keep loving him boldly and unconditionally till he gradually grows comfortable with it. I have the strength to do that now because last night he took the first step toward me, I know it wasn't easy. But then again what in life is worth keeping if it's not worth working for?

Last night we fell asleep in each other's arms. He was so different in the night. He was tender, he was compassionate but he did all of that while still keeping what makes him 'House' in tact. It was funny but somehow when we confessed we loved each other I thought I would take to calling him 'Greg'…a show of familiarity, of personal. But I can't, he is still House to me, I hope he won't always be, I hope that that wall will too break but as of yet he isn't willing to give up that guard. To him I am sometimes Allison but always Cameron.

He was different last night but I won't, I can't expect that in the day nevertheless just knowing that there is more underneath makes it worth enduring.

"Put these on, everything will be huge but you can't walk around in that…" his words break my reverie. He produces a pair of blue sweat pants and a white t-shirt.

I nod and suppress a smile; my dinner dress is in such a state a burlap sack would be preferable.

"It's five after nine, I'm supposed to be in the clinic at nine and while I am never on time and while I think everyone has come to accept that, if 'mommy' catches us I'll be grounded for a week she is so turgid about me having women in my office all night…says it gives a bad impression to the patients…ha! Anyway, if you will please, leave," he chides shaking out a wrinkled dress shirt he must have found at the bottom of the orange and black gym bag he got my clothes from. After giving it a sniff he seems to find it passable and takes off his current shirt, he has a worn Queen concert t-shirt underneath, and puts on the…well I am not sure if I can call it clean exactly…shirt then turns to me.

"Well move it," he waves his cane at me. I grin, I could just sit here and listen to him forever… I've missed him.

"Now, I thought it was the guy that had to sneak out…Are you ashamed for me Dr. House?"

"Did I stutter? Get dressed Cameron," he shakes his head trying to sound exasperated at my audacity that I not jump right up to do his command, but I see his restrained smile.

I get up retrieving the clothes from the desk where he had laid them, "Then turn around," I wave at him.

"You've got to be kidding. I've seen you naked and hung over. I'm watching…and I am going to leer. What do you think about that?" he sits, leaning back in his chair raising his eyebrows suggestively, challengingly.

I raise an eyebrow with question, "If you expect me to strip for you, you better have something good to do it to…Got any 'Stones?" I play with the strap of my black dress, "Something along the lines of I Can't Get No Satisfaction…" I grin watching him make a face. I reach for the zipper of my dress.

Not five seconds later he has the Rolling Stones blaring from his stereo, I give him a questioning look.

"I believe in being prepared, I am like a Boy Scout that way…"

Well, there is chapter two...I hope you enjoyed and I hope your review :-) Thanks so much and Merry Christmas :-)