Author's Note: Sorry for the wait in updates. This is a tough story to write because of its poetic nature. I can't guarantee when the next update will be and I'm sorry Cuddy's appearance at the ends is abrupt. Thanks to all the reviewers and Marti, my beta.
He looks around, around
He sees angels in the architecture
Spinning in infinity
He says Amen! and Hallelujah!
--Paul Simon, You Can Call Me Al
She leaves the taxi groping for money, but ultimately leaving him to pay.
He shakes his head as he stumbles out of the car behind her. He throws some bills at the taxi driver, interspersing the bill throwing with adamant recitations of I don't want to damn receipt.
"Damn it, Cameron, slow down. Remember, I walk with a cane."
She turns on him and glares for a moment with sympathy. He avoids her glance and he knows she uses sympathy as a weapon. She knows he hates it and she uses it as her sugarcoated weapon of mass destruction.
She walks to the path that winds through the park. There is a bench to her left and the river to her right, but she refuses to sit down. Sitting down will show that they are on a level playing field. She doesn't know if it's time yet to equal their stances.
Pain, though, does not wait for equality. It strives and infiltrates with vigor. House collapses on the bench.
"Sit down."
"I'm fine standing."
She's standing too close to him and he's able to quickly stick out his cane and whack the back of her ankles with it. She yelps in pain and stares at him—he promises not to crush her, but he's hurt her.
"Jesus Christ. That was not necessary."
"I used 'please' and that didn't work. Oh, and even if you're an atheist, don't use the Lord's son's name in vain," he smirks as she collapses next to him (although they both know 'please' never fell from his lips).
Pain, it should be noted, is also the great equalizer.
He faces the river and lets his hands fall on one another and rest on the cane's head. She keeps her hands folded between her thighs.
"It's pretty," she murmurs.
"Anything's pretty to you."
She turns to look at his face and all she sees is his profile and a calculated bob of his Adam's apple.
"And are you so bad that you think you don't deserve something beautiful?"
She includes herself in the description of all things 'beautiful.' He knows that.
"I had something beautiful. And now I don't. Shit happens."
The shit hits the fan. Always does and always will. No vaccine is available for that particular problem.
"Yeah, but shit happens and people move on. Big deal," she shrugs her shoulders because she has certainly seen a lot of 'shit'.
He snorts before replying. (He snorts more than a pig, she notices. He tries to be derisive, but tends to end up sounding more and more like the farm animal.)
"Dr. Cameron, you curse? Don't dirty that pretty little mouth of yours with such language."
She's angry at his avoidance on a direct question (she pities the lawyer who has to cross-examine him for a court case, but they're professionals and she isn't—perhaps that's why a lawyer was the woman for him.)
"I have a differential diagnosis, Dr. House. Are you sure you don't have some form of ADD? You jump from topic to topic awfully quickly," she infuses her voice with enough sarcasm to make the quip hurt. He turns his head towards her and she turns her head towards the river.
"Don't play a game at which you're not skilled, Dr. Cameron. You'll always lose."
"Perhaps I'll have beginner's luck," she replies a little too cheerily.
He stands up painfully and starts walking down the path. He can't stand it anymore. He's not sure he can handle her practicing her sarcasm on him.
She stands up and continues to walk next to him. They pass a happy family (and as they do, House wants to make some snide remark about facades and illusions and a play he once saw. Cameron wants to reach for the smallest child and hold him until she convinces herself that the child is hers.)
"Sentimental, Cameron?" He chirps instead.
"I've always wanted a family," she replies.
He shifts uncomfortably. Silence falls.
They continue their walk down the winding path. A bicyclist careens haphazardly past them. House barely has time to jump out of the way of the oncoming cyclist. Cameron leaps to the side. When the biker finally zooms past (without a glance backward to see the separated pair), House and Cameron converge back on the path.
"Stupid Lance Armstrong-wannabes," House mutters.
"At least she's doing something," she retorts.
"I thought you were on my side in this battle," he throws a glance at her. She smirks.
"Didn't you ever dream of being something…fantastic?" She asks even though she anticipates a derisive answer.
"Oh yes, I dreamed of growing up and running cripples over on my new, thousand dollar bike. Yes, those were the days," he enthuses the sentiment with his usual sarcasm.
"But didn't you ever want to be, like, something so utterly unreasonable, but it seemed at one point, like it could come true?" She asks, staring ahead towards the moving river.
He purses his lips.
"I wanted to be a jazz pianist once. Actually, I kind of fashioned myself more like Ray Charles. Except for the blind part," he hobbles along on his cane. She watches his fingers twitch from anxiety and Vicodin need.
"You know what I wanted to be?"
"Lemme guess. You wanted to work in a veterinarian's office and heal sick puppies and kitties," he grimaces at the thought.
"I wanted to be president."
"President of what? The local girl scout brigade?"
"Of the United States."
He snorts.
"You in politics? That's more ridiculous than me saying I wanted to be a puppy- and kitty-saving vet."
"That's why they're called dreams."
He doesn't say anything and continues to walk alongside of her. Her hand twitches in the air (not out of need for Vicodin or anxiety, but out of desire.) She molds the air into the shape of his hand and clings to the particles of oxygen hoping that they might bond and become solid. But they don't and he doesn't offer his hand. He makes sure his cane is firmly entrenched in the one nearest to her.
"Why are you scared of me?" She asks when they reach the river's edge. He doesn't look at her, but instead watches the crew teams from the university and the fishermen out in the middle of the water.
"Why aren't you scared of me?" He asks. She looks at him and contemplates his profile. What is he thinking? She cannot tell, but perhaps he's thinking about her.
"I asked first."
"Doesn't matter."
"Yes it does."
"No, it doesn't."
Neither of them notice as a woman sprints down a path that is parallel to the one on which they argue. The woman's black hair bounces happily in its ponytail. She turns her head towards the two and almost trips over her own feet. House and Cameron?
"I'm not afraid of you," he whispers.
"Wilson told me not to hurt you."
The woman dashes to hide behind the nearest tree. She ducks and keeps watching the couple (and listens to their conversation.)
He turns around and starts walking away from her. No matter how fast and far he walks, he'll never be able to separate himself from her. He'll never be able to separate himself from Stacy. The women in his life take a part of him (leg, heart) and keep them for herself. He can do without one leg and perhaps his heart, but he fears the woman who steals his mind.
She knows that he's not too far away to hear her repentant sigh. She murmurs into the air (and hopes he will hear.)
"You're everything I can never be."
He stops and turns. Cuddy gasps behind the tree. A fisherman reels in a fish.
"That's why I could never fear you," she finishes and stares out in the distance.
He stares at her back. Cuddy grabs her cell phone.
"James?" Cuddy whispers in the phone's mouthpiece as she watches the two people stand gazing at the river (House figuring he can take in Cameron with the excuse of the river and Cameron thinking she can gain strength from the water).
"Yes?" Wilson responds quizzically.
"We have a problem."