Disclaimer… I own nothing
Author's Note... I have to say, I'm a little disappointed. I only got three reviews last chapter! Maybe it's because I've been spoiled and have gotten quite a few reviews for the previous chapters or maybe people are losing interest (gulp.) Ok, just please review for this chapter! Thanks! Oh, by the way... Sorry if the procedure (not medical) I describe in this chapter doesn't ring true. It's a fanfic, it's not gospel, it's a minor detail and I feel like exercising my artistic license. Plus, I think it would have been annoying as an author (not really, I don't think I'm that good!) and a reader to delve into it. And last, but not least…loads of thanks to my awesome beta, randomname!
"Night, the beloved. Night, when words fade and things come alive. When the destructive analysis of day is done, and all that is truly important becomes whole and sound again. When man reassembles his fragmentary self and grows with the calm of a tree."
-Antoine de Saint-Exupery, French aviator and author
It is irony in its cruelest form that the things you most want to forget are the things you most clearly remember. Soft baby hair the color of champagne, fuzzy amber-brown eyes, the sweet, sweet smell that lingered on her skin, no matter how hard she tried to scrub it off.
Johanna.
They had chosen that name because it meant G/d's gracious gift.
The definition never said that Johanna also meant unforgettable.
Treasured. Haunting.
But Cameron had long since
learned that nothing was what it was said to be. Spouse, for
instance, is a person to whom you are legally married. But what
is married? Cameron had looked it up once; the dictionary said
it was the legal union between a man and a woman as husband and
wife. Man, woman, husband, wife. They were just
words that someone had made up in a vain effort to grasp countless
dimensions. Maybe the definition should just consist of the
word and. It was simple, yet impossible to decipher.
It was probably that way on purpose.
Maybe when she got home, she would look up the word parent for the thousandth time. The last time she had checked, she had done a web-search. Perhaps it was a sign from the techno-gods that the site had really left a "be back in five minutes" poster when it had said: "We are currently updating our definition for Parent. We hope to have the definition for Parent in a few weeks. Please visit us soon."
XXXxxxXXX
Cameron gently smoothed down her skirt; a paradox of an action considering it was loose and was meant to be imperfect. She had chosen it because it was a deep red that reminded her of burnt cherries. It wasn't the taste that appealed to her; it was the notion that something so damaged could turn out so beautiful.
A door that looked heavier than Cameron opened and a woman who was sporting a bun that was twisted ten times too tight for her head emerged. This was Ms. Harding, Johanna's social worker, her knight in shining armor. As Cameron watched her take a seat opposite her, she wondered when exactly strong metal armor had been exchanged for linen suits.
Ms. Harding crossed her legs and opened up a manila file. "Ms. Cameron. Oh, I see here it says Dr. Cameron. Sorry about that. My name is Adina Harding. I believe we've met before?"
Yes, we have. I was in a hospital
gown. You wore a tweed skirt. You told me someone would
give her a good home, and you would find that someone. When I
handed Johanna to you, she cried. Don't you
remember?
"Umm, yes. A couple days
after Johanna, my daughter, was born."
"I see. And now you would like to use your visitation rights?"
"Yes, I would." Ms. Harding flipped to another page in the file and frowned slightly.
"Dr. Cameron, I have Johanna's best interests in mind here, so please don't be offended when I inquire about your intentions."
"My intentions," Cameron faltered.
"Yes. I need to know what kind of relationship you plan on instituting with your daughter…an informal relationship, a very close relationship, or even if you're considering reinstating your parental rights."
Cameron's eyes widened slightly. "I didn't even know I could do that. Johanna's got a new family; I mean I couldn't take her away from--"
Ms. Harding put up her hand as if to calm Cameron down. "Dr. Cameron, Johanna was never adopted. We had a family, but they balked at the last minute. She's been in the foster care system her whole life—"
The words, like toxic carbon monoxide, sifted through Cameron's brain as a million more neurons than normal popped and fired and exploded and this was not how it was supposed to be. Suddenly, Cameron remembered an incident that happened to her when she was six: Her two older brothers had dared her to climb up the bricks of their neighbor's house. She had been hesitant, until Matt had told her that if Batman could do it, she shouldn't have a problem. Well, she didn't see a fault in this logic, so she closed her eyes and went ahead, feeling around the bricks like they were an ancient code she was trying to interpret. She had made it all the way to the second-story window when her small fingers had slipped from the wet ledge. It wasn't the unbridled feeling in the pit of her stomach that had given her nightmares for two weeks, nor was it the lack of feeling she had experienced for a long minute and a half after the fall. Rather, it was the millisecond sensation of knowing she was going to come toppling down, just like the cradle from the treetop. The miraculous thing about that day was that after her spine had readjusted itself, and Cameron could move her arms and legs again, she realized that she was completely unharmed, save for a few bumps and bruises. Sure, she had a scar on her heel but everybody thought it was adorable; it was in the shape of a heart. At first, she was afraid of it, and then it grew on her, now it completed her.
Cameron realized that the reason for this memory revival wasn't because she knew she was about to get hurt. It was because she knew she was about to fall. Cameron snapped out of her reverie right before she heard fourteen fateful words leave the chapped lips of Ms. Harding: You can restore your parental rights if you wish and take her home in a few days.
XXXxxxXXX
An exhausted Cameron rushed down the hallways of PPTH in search of her boss. She had never been so harried in her life. After undergoing some psychology something or other to prove she would be a competent mother and was an overall sane person, she had rushed down to the hospital to get some time off. On the way, her car had broken down and she had sat in the repair shop for two hours reading fishing magazines. Some eat their young.
If she had it her way, she would have taken Johanna home that night and wrapped her in her arms and brushed out her hair and never let her go. But Johanna was in a Social Services home for the time-being and wouldn't arrive for a couple of nights. 53 hours, to be exact. For some reason, the Social Services home she was in was all the way in Seattle. Cameron guessed it had something to do with the family that was supposed to adopt her.
Cameron listened to quiet thump of her sneakers against the hospital floor as her running turned into a steady walking pace. She didn't even know if House would be in his office; if they had any new patients, she didn't know of them or their cases. It showed that House was rubbing off on Cameron, and she couldn't decide if that was good or bad. Turning the corner, she stepped into the office and numbly placed her purse on the glass table, not noticing her disheveled reflection.
She glanced at the empty whiteboard, thankful that she hadn't become so careless as to completely miss out on a case, and made her way into the small boxed off section that was House's office.
Where Wilson was.
Great.
The two hadn't noticed her presence yet; maybe she could just turn around and escape. Cameron quietly swiveled around and was almost at the door when House called out her name.
Cameron turned resignedly back to the duo. "Yes?"
"Are you confused? You're the one who came in here, it's your job to offer something to the table," House challenged.
Cameron anxiously looked at Wilson in what she hoped was somewhat of a discreet fashion. "May I speak to you in private?"
"Oh. You want to talk about the thing at the place, don't you?"
Cameron raised her eyebrows, as did Wilson. Finally, something they could agree on. "No."
"Well, I simply can not fathom what is you are talking about. Pray tell?"
Wilson rolled his eyes as an uneasy feeling settled into his stomach. "Ok, how many Vicodin have you had today?"
"Only eight. Is that bad?"
"It's frowned upon."
"So it's not bad, then."
"House! Shut up about the Vicodin and let me talk to you like an adult!" Both men were surprised by Cameron's outburst and turned to the weary woman. Finally, House looked at Wilson. "I bet somebody outside needs a great big Wilson-hug."
Wilson rolled his eyes as he left the room, but not before giving Cameron a very suspicious look. House watched his retreating form then turned towards Cameron. "Wazzup?"
"I need a couple weeks off."
"You just had a couple days off."
"Now I need a couple weeks off."
"That's quite a lot."
"Why are you arguing with me? We both know you'll give them to me."
House eyed her curiously. "Yes, I will, but not until I know what you're doing. And don't try and pull an I can't stand being around Wilson because I know you're both more mature than that."
And I know you're much less mature than that statement shows, but I guess nobody knows anything, now do they? "I lied."
"Why, Cameron, I'm shocked! Are you seriously trying to tell me people lie? Because I just don't believe it. Surely not everyone can lie. It's crazy!"
"You're crazy, but that's irrelevant."
House sighed. Cameron was much more fun when she gave him a wounded look as he poked fun at her. "What did you lie about?"
"I said I never had a kid. I lied. I have a daughter," Cameron said, stressing the use of the present tense.
House's eyes widened slightly. "But in your medical file…it says you never took folic acid."
"Well, looking into someone's medical file when you shouldn't be might raise some complications. House, why would I lie about this? What point would there be? And how would I cover it up?"
House stood up and walked over to Cameron, so he was almost casting a shadow on her. "The question isn't how would you cover the truth up. It's how did you cover that lie up."
Cameron sighed and took a deep breath. "It was Bryan's. My husband's. Johanna was born six months after he died. I-- I couldn't keep her. I was still in school, I had no means of supporting her, and my family wasn't willing to help. You don't really understand…when you have a child, you don't want her to have what you had. You want it to be ten times better, you want to watch her soar, you want to see her do great things, and you want to see her have great things. Things I couldn't give to her that someone else could. I guess I knew it all along, that I wouldn't be able to do it at that time, by myself."
And Bryan- he was
just so excited.. He wanted that baby so bad. He lived a
month longer than he was supposed to, and I just know it was because
he wanted to see her. But he didn't-- he died about three weeks
after we found out it was a girl. He said he was happy knowing
that, because he knew it was all he was going to get. And he
was the one that named her. Johanna. What a pretty name. It fit
her so perfectly.
House sighed; he was struggling to
uphold this conversation. "That's not what I asked.
How did you get away with it?"
Cameron let the tears flow down her face and past her chin, mini ski-divers. "Like I said, I was in school. We had just learned how to differentiate a fake medical record from a real one, what to look for. So I knew exactly what to do and what not to do. I took it off my own medical record."
"But why?"
Cameron looked him in the eye, a hard, unwavering gaze. "So I could forget. So people like you couldn't force me to remember."
