A/N- I apologize but I needed to end this chapter with her feelings so I added a bit to this one.
Disclaimer- I own House. And Cameron. Basically, I can do whatever I want with them. IN MY STORIES! Fox might have thought of them, but I twist them the way I want to, right here, right now. Blah blah and more blah.
CHAPTER 8 (revised)
The next day finally arrives. He gets up after a sleepless night, both legs aching, his head in a turmoil, his eyes baggy and his mouth dry. He brushes his teeth in a rush, tears his shirt off, puts on another, and claims to be ready. For the dreaded day. To face whatever there is to face. To face her. Himself.
The rain all but dissuades him from going to work at all. Monochrome streets and grey skies speed by as he turns left and right on his motorcycle. He presses his lips tight, defying the cold and the pain that's becoming stronger as he approaches the hospital. Both feet on the ground, he cannot make himself look up, lest he should see her at the entrance. Then he grinds his teeth in sheer disgust, and taking his cane, hobbles in.
His office is a mess, really. Did he leave it like that the previous night? Details slip his memory, except those luscious details that will probably stay with him for the rest of his days. And which have changed at least two human lives. He drops his leather jacket, as he turns the computer on. He looks up, sees no one. Biting his lip, he erases all seventeen emails from his inbox. He awaits Chase or Foreman, but they are not coming. No Cuddy either? No case? He slumps down and exhales. He hangs by a thin thread, and it's getting worse as time goes by. Every moment, every minute takes him further from that precious scene, and as time drags on, his resolution gets smaller. The certainty that he has to tell her thins out, rain clouds pour onto him and soak up his willpower. He dreads the moment he will finally see her, because he has no idea how he will react. Will it be a stupid joke this time? Will he get all weak and soapy? There is no good way to tell her. He will make a complete idiot of himself, or she will hate him forever. Or both.
-Early start, House? –Chase blurts out as he comes in all fresh and impertinent.
-Rain kept me up –House pulls a face, as he grabs his yoyo and starts playing.
Chase says nothing as he goes to the coffee machine. House follows his every move, listens to his every whisper. Does he know anything? Did she make him her confidante? Does he try to set a trap? But Chase makes his coffee as nothing was out of the ordinary. When he finishes and is ready to leave, he turns to House.
-Do you want any?
-Cameron will make mine. Your coffee sucks –House grimaces.
-Yeah. But she's not in.
-I guess you weren't her hot date this time, or you would've called in sick too –House mumbles, a little less sarcastic than planned. Chase draws his eyebrows and exits without a word.
As the young idiot's steps fade away, the silence starts eating at Gregory House. His hand, tight on the yoyo, is not conscious of its movements. The man sits in his chair as the raindrops trickle down his office windows. The office, silent and empty, is the last place he wants to be in. He starts thinking, tries to arrange his thoughts into some kind of order, but most of his half-thought ideas end up to one thing: she knows. Or at least, she is aware that something happened in the night. That someone else was there. She probably thinks that someone else tore off her underwear, and raped her. She probably hasn't told anyone, or else Chase would have slipped some information. That boy just can't keep a secret, especially if it's about his beloved Cameron.
He turns in his chair, swirls around randomly, struggles to keep her face out of his head, but fails miserably. He knows her so much that he knows with a painful sureness what she looks like right now: probably curled up in her bed, all alone, weeping, not knowing what to do, who to tell, who to ask for help. The thought of her teary face makes him so restless, he feels like getting up and riding all the way to her apartment, tearing her door down and hugging her. Right. Like hugging her would make everything alright. Wake up, idiot.
And then, the old House takes over. He keeps sitting in his chair, biting his lip, swallowing some of his pills. He knows what he did, but he also knows that he can escape all responsibility. Furthermore, he remembers her face in her sleep. She was having the time of her life in her dream. As in reality, he wants to chuckle, but somehow the smirky atmospere is lost in the drenched afternoon. He is miserable, but his struggle to preserve his integrity is successful. His lonely figure is one motionless shape in the early morning gloom; his cane rests faithfully on his desk, his jacket drips rain and tears from its sleeves, his yoyo squeezed into a slight, helpless ball of withheld emotions between his fingers.
He will not tell her. She doesn't need to know. It would all be very, very awkward. And hurtful for both of them, he decides.
Afternoon is her friend, Cameron thinks, as she gets up drowsily and steps to the washing machine to stop it. She takes the clothes out, but instead of hanging them, she just lets them lie in the plastic basket. She slowly walks back to the bedroom, switches the lamp on. Her book awaits her patiently, even though Cameron has not read a single word since… well, it was a long time she last read from that book. She just keeps it at the bedside for safety, in case sleep is not ready to come.
Like tonight, as she lies awake, wide-eyed and mentally exhausted. The fact keeps repeating itself in her head, you were raped, you were raped, you were raped. You should tell someone. That person might still be there. Or, worse, might work there. It could be someone you know. She scans her brain for her acquaintances, her colleagues, but the conjecture that anyone might have done it simply makes her stomach turn in fear and disgust.
Night crawls in slowly, unnoticed, muffling the sharpness of objects and humans. Her tiny form lies motionless on her bed, her book on her stomach, her hand on her book. She is so still she could dissolve into the covers like a chameleon, and become unseen to all but herself, aware of something, something that drags her back into reality the moment she is ready to step off into blissful nothingness. Unbothered by sounds or visions, she merely feels touched, caressed, fondled, dived into, used, but gently used, made into a vessel for purging some kind of sins that someone must have committed. Twisting reality into some strangely mystical revelation makes it easier for her to think about it. Abstraction always helps, because then she is flesh and bone no more, a female entity violated no longer, only something handy at a certain point in time. One tiny circle in the long chain of never ending happenings.
Shades of pale grey and blue chase each other on her ceiling as her eyes blink unconsciously. Forcing herself to think about it is the only plausible solution that present itself to her right now. What is she so afraid of? She is not harmed physically. Even if that someone used her, they used her gently. She is alive, she is, well, hopefully still healthy. A quick flush covers her cheeks in the night as she thinks about possible consequences: syphilis, chlamydia, AIDS, herpes genitalis, gonorrhoea. She might even get pregnant. She has not been on the pill for almost two years now. Why poison her body when there is no one?
Night covers her senses as she lies in the dark. She drifts into a long sleep, the sleep that is the privilege of the emotionally exhausted. Rhythmical breathing is the only sound the room contains, and that of the human subconscious, grazing against the human will, preparing for the big fight that it will undoubtedly win. As usual.