This is a little ficlet about Cam's HIV scare. I was thinking that although it was a good ep, there were things we didn't see (i.e.,when she got cleaned up, the waiting period for the test results, etc),so Idecided to writethem:) It's from Cam's POV, and does do some scenes that did air, but I couldn't really get around that, nor did I want to.
As always, read and review!
It had happened so fast. Cameron had seen it coming but didn't have time to react. She had just been standing there, taking care of her patient, but then fate decided to deal her yet another bad hand.
Kalvin had coughed infected blood in her eyes and mouth. At first she had just stood there, not moving. He didn't say anything either, he just stared at her, and the room stood still.
Then Chase came in and gasped as he took in the situation. His eyes darted back and forth between Cameron and Kalvin. He was very aware of the blood splashed all over his colleague. Infected blood, he thought.
"Cameron," he had said slowly.
"I know," she said without looking at him, and left the room.
The two men were silent for another few moments, and then Chase spoke up.
"You're bleeding in your lung, let me close the tear," and he had started to get out the necessary equipment, launching straight back into doctor mode, trying to push Allison Cameron out of his mind.
As Cameron had moved through the halls of Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital she had received many stares from her fellow medical practitioners. They all saw the blood on her face and lab coat, and although their mouths stayed closed, their eyes said a thousand words.
She pushed the door to the bathroom open and rushed inside, glad to be away from those stares. Luckily, she was the only one there, and she quickly began running the water, trying to wash away what had just happened to her. She pushed on the soap dispenser and rubbed her hands hard against her face. She didn't stop for five minutes, just adding soap and scrubbing harder. She tore her lab coat off and threw it onto the floor. She looked at the collar of her blouse and noticed some blood there too. She cleaned it off, trying to take deep breaths and not let her tears come to the surface.
When she had finally satisfied herself with the cleaning job, she left the bathroom again, not bothering to pick up her lab coat, and walked towards the Infection Control office. She walked straight in and stared the man in the face. He looked up at her expectantly. She opened her mouth and just managed to get the words out.
"I've been exposed to HIV."
Shock and concern spread across his face as he motioned for her to take a seat. She did so, and he took out a notepad and started talking to her. At first, she was listening. She'd heard the words I'm sorry, and I'm going to do everything I can to help you.
As he'd started to list off the names of the drugs he was going to put her on, she'd stopped listening, and started to replay that moment in Kalvin's hospital room over and over again in her head. Why didn't she move? Why was she standing so close to him? The guy was HIV positive and coughing for Christ's sake! She should have been more careful. She was a doctor, she should have known better. Why wasn't she wearing any protection?
The Infection Control Officer pulled her from her thoughts, asking her if she had any questions. She shook her head and moved to get up. He handed her three prescription papers for those drugs she hadn't been listening to, and she thanked him and exited the office.
Heading back down the hall, she felt the sudden urge to get out of her clothes. She wanted to do everything she could to block out the memory, so she made a sharp turn and headed towards the women's locker room.
Once there, she took her clothes off and jumped into the shower. She stayed there for what seemed like forever, and turned the water up so hot that it burned her skin. When she stepped out, she grabbed a towel, wrapped it around herself, and went in search of scrubs. She found a pair, and quickly changed into them. She unclipped the barrette from her hair, and took out an elastic, pulling her hair back tight. After taking one last look in the mirror, she turned on her heel and headed towards the diagnostics office.
Some of the people she passed in the hall were people that had seen her earlier, when she was all covered in blood. They were whispering as she passed by, and Cameron kept staring straight ahead, trying to ignore them.
She walked into the office in the middle of the discussion, and jumped right in with a contribution, not wanting to give her co-workers, and especially her boss, the chance to say anything.
Chase had found Foreman and House the moment after he had closed the tear in Kalvin's lung. He had a solemn expression on his face as the other two doctors walked in.
"So, anything new with Clayton, or did you pull me away from my intense video game for nothing?" House asked, plopping himself in a chair and putting his feet up.
"What is it?" Foreman asked, noting the look on Chase's face.
"He coughed blood in Cameron's face."
House and Foreman's mouths dropped open. Neither of them knew what to say, and were still trying to register the news.
"She went to the Infection Control guy," Chase offered, to fill the silence.
"Did she say anything?" Foreman asked, regaining his voice.
"No, not a word."
When Chase had placed his hand on her shoulder, she had immediately become suspicious. Oh, now that she was exposed to a potentially life-threatening disease, now he was gonna be a nice guy? She didn't want his pity, and she didn't want to be reminded of what had happened, so she shrugged his hand off and dismissed his suggestion that she go home. She was not going home to just sit with her thoughts. N-uh. Not going to happen.
She'd been a professional and come up with a good idea as to what might be making the patient sick, and didn't make eye contact with anyone but House, because she knew that he was the only one that wouldn't look at her with sympathetic eyes.
She found herself once again out in the hallway. Was it her or were the halls of PPTH fuller than usual? Didn't anyone use offices anymore? She wasn't alone this time though, Chase was with her, and they were heading out into the parking lot.
"I'll drive," he'd said, and she didn't argue.
She looked out the window for most of the drive, keeping conversation to a minimum. Chase had glanced over at her a few times, and seemed like he wanted to say something, but didn't.
When they got to Kalvin's hotel room she immediately started her search for his drugs. She didn't stop until Chase's drink offer. There it was again. Pity. Hadn't she made it clear she didn't want that from him? It was the first time she had sort of made her fears known. Chase had tired, horribly, to cheer her up, and convince her that she didn't have to worry, but she wasn't buying it.
Her admittance of her thoughts and feelings was cut short when Chase found a photograph. When they headed back to the hospital and found House to share their findings, he had made that remark about not wanting to expose the whole team. Cameron said nothing; she seemed to be doing a lot of that today, and just turned to go complete her assigned task. As she pushed the button for the elevator she could feel Chase's eyes on her back, and so she stood perfectly frozen, not wanting to give anything away. When the elevator arrived and she got in, she was relieved to find it empty. The doors closed and it started its accent to the fourth floor, but then Cameron reached out and pulled the stop button. She leaned back against the wall and sunk down to the floor as tears started to well up in her eyes. She sat there with her head in her hands and just cried. Letting out all that emotion now that she was alone. It wasn't fair. Why did it have to be her? Why was it always her? What did she do to deserve this?
Dealing with Kalvin again wasn't easy, especially so soon after what had happened. She was careful this time, although she wasn't sure why, she had already been exposed, but she wore protective glasses anyways.
He'd asked her how she was. How was she? He may have given her a deadly disease that could cripple the rest of her life, how did he think she was?
He'd told her to get angry, to let loose, to do something. On some level, she thought he was right. He might be an idiot, but he was a carefree idiot, maybe she should consider his words.
She did more than consider them. Her job had been to dispose of the drugs, but right before she did so she heard his voice in her head. They could have done you some good.
She didn't know what she was doing, but she took the drugs and carefully slipped them into her pocket.
Crystal Meth. She hadn't played around with that since she was a teenager. But, just like no time had passed, she'd opened the bag and used the drug.
She was high, she didn't think about who she called. She'd dialled Chase's number because he had been the one to offer to take her out. He had just been the first name that came to mind. She didn't really want to do him.
But he had come, and they had. He tired to stop her, but there was no way that she was going to let him turn her down. Not tonight. She needed this. After all, it was Chase, so it didn't take a lot of coaxing.
She woke up in the morning with a pounding headache. She squinted at the light that was seeping through her bedroom window. She looked down at herself and remembered what had happened the night before.
"Oh crap,"
When she finally worked up enough energy to get out of bed, she walked out of her room and noticed that Chase wasn't there. Good. No running into each other and having to make uncomfortable small talk. She worked with this guy! Now she had to go in and face him? And to make matters worse, she looked like hell.
She decided she needed to cover it up. There was no need to make her co-workers think that she was incompetent. Of course, she didn't really have anything in her wardrobe to hide the fact that she was detoxing. She'd found a beret to cover her face, but she thought that it might have attracted more attention to her than it took away.
House had figured it out. He'd caught her in the elevator, while she had been willing the doors to close before he got there, and he'd looked at her carefully. She'd avoided the subject, instead questioning the presence of a rat, a logical question, but he had deferred it too. Then they heard yelling in Kalvin's room. She'd rushed in and when she saw what was happening she was shocked. Kalvin had yelled at her for lying about calling his father, but she found that she didn't really mind that he was suffering. Did that make her a bad person?
In the diagnostics office with the new information forming in her brain, Cameron was pacing back and forth, and she couldn't stop herself from quickly explaining why Kalvin's father hated him.
House had called her on it, and then announced that she and Chase had slept together. She wanted to say something in her defence, but she didn't know what, so she just stayed quiet.
Chase gave her Ativan to settle her down. He'd also picked that moment to talk about the night before. She would have been perfectly fine with not talking about it at all, but he felt the need to spell out the fact that they shouldn't do it again, although it was great. She found it nice to know that he thought it was great. At least she could still retain a shred of dignity.
She'd read Kalvin the riot act. Told him that if he wanted to self-destruct that was fine with her, but he wasn't going to take her down with him.
Then she went to the pharmacy to fulfill the prescriptions. The pharmacist had looked at her strangely, but she'd gotten used to that today, and she realized she hadn't felt this uncomfortable since she was 13 and her mother took her bra shopping for the first time.
By the time she got home she felt like she'd been run over by a truck. She was exhausted, and she was embarrassed. She wanted to go to sleep, to just forget about this day, but unfortunately for her, detoxing meant that you didn't get any sleep.
She tossed and turned all night, as she would do many other nights while she waited for the time to come for her to get tested. The next few weeks she had been sinking into a depression, another side effect of coming off meth, but she'd hid it from her co-workers. Her job was stressful enough, but with this added on she felt like she wanted to scream. She'd been a bitch to some of their patients, like that woman from the racetrack, that had helped, but now matter what she tried she just couldn't shake the feeling of gloom hanging over her head for the day she'd find out if she was positive or negative.
When Stacy had asked her about her one night stand with Chase, it had taken everything in her to keep from screaming. Why did everyone have to keep talking about that? How was it any of their business? Why wasn't she yesterday's news yet? Why couldn't people forget?
She regretted it. She really regretted it. But she couldn't take it back, and she had to deal with it everytime she saw Chase.
Home had always been her oasis, but now it was her hell. Not as bad as work, but still no paradise. She couldn't relax there like she always counted on being able to do after a long day with House, Chase, and Foreman. The three of them really pissed her off, and after being the nice girl all day and keeping quiet about it, she relied on being able to go home and let it all out. Now, she spent endless hours pacing, and when she tried to do something like pick up a book, she wouldn't be able to focus, and would instead sit there and grind her teeth, not really thinking about anything intelligent.
Finally, the time had come to get her test results. And it scared her. She didn't want to let on about it, but Foreman reminded her about it one day when they were searching a woman's home. Why did he have to bring it up? She'd avoided eye contact, a strategy she had perfected, and tried to dodge his questions. When she heard about the bet she was furious. Honestly, how old were they? The least they could do was act a little mature and not place bets on her health.
She didn't want to see those results, and she'd thought she'd made that clear, but House being House, had tricked her into giving him a sample.
"Cameron, I love you,"
How dare he! And why did he have to use that line? There were a million other things he could have said to get her to open her mouth, but he'd picked that one!
When she saw him in his office, head on cane, that uneasy feeling started to creep into her throat again. She pushed it down and headed into the office. He handed her an envelope and she hesitated. The most terrifying moment of her life, and she thought he was being, not sincere, but human about it. Then she had opened the envelope, and found a referral request. Where were her results? She had finally worked up enough courage to see them, and he played a joke on her? He casually handed her the envelope she'd thought she was opening, and told her she was fine, but really, she was fuming. A relieved fuming, but still fuming.
"You won't open your own mail but you'll open mine!"
He'd shrugged it off and she left the office. But when she got home, a smile formed on her lips for the first time since this whole nightmare began. She could finally go back to living her life. A screwed up one at that, but still, it was her life, and nothing was going to get in the way of that. She was free again.