Title: Saying No
Fandom: House
Pairing: House/Cameron.
CD & Song: Say I Am You – Painting by Chagall (The Weepies)
Rating: FRT
Word Count: 636
Disclaimer: Me no own.
Notes: Spoilers for 3. 01, "Meaning."

Saying No

Thunder rumbles in the distance, a quiet intensity
I am willful, your insistence is tugging at the best of me
You're the moon; I'm the water
You're Mars, calling up Neptune's daughter

She had been waiting for this ever since she started working for him. Ever since she really got to know him. And now, now that House had finally asked her out on a date, finally asked her out for drinks (and dinner, we could do that too) she had said no. And maybe he was right; maybe the reason she had said no was because there was nothing in it for her now that he could walk. Maybe she felt that she didn't need to fix him anymore, now that he was healthy. But inside she knew that he wasn't any more healthy than she was; she was just as damaged inside as he was, albeit in different ways.

Cameron thinks that maybe she said no for reasons she still can't understand. Maybe it's like Chase said when he walked her to her car. Maybe she's in love with House but she's afraid for him to love her back. Or maybe it's like Wilson said, that maybe House wants to catch her off guard, to control the situation, whereas before, Cameron's feelings for House threw him off kilter. He didn't know what to do, so he rejected her and pushed her away.

Sometimes rain that's needed falls
We float like two lovers in a painting byChagall
All around is sky and blue town
Holding these flowers for a wedding gown
We live so high above the ground, satellites surround us.

Schrodinger's Cat. Inside a box, there lies a cat that has been theoretically poisoned. We are not sure that the cat has been poisoned, but until such a time that we can open the box and check, the cat is both alive and dead. In other words, a paradox. Something is true and yet untrue at the same time. Sort of like the way Cameron feels about House. She loves him but she doesn't.

And she knows that it's going to bother her for ages that he was smiling when she said no. It was like he knew something she didn't. She doesn't understand how a man can smile when a woman he has an apparent interest in is rejecting him. Unless, of course, that man is Gregory House and he knows something she doesn't about herself. Something along the lines of, after her shift in the clinic she's going to go see him in his office and ask him out to dinner because saying no was a huge mistake.

Cameron, she thinks, you are so in over your head here.

I am humbled in this city
There seems to be an endless sea of people like us
Wakeful dreamers, I pass them on the sunlit streets
In our rooms filled with laughter
We make hope from every small disaster

She knows that House isn't healthy. He never is, and she knows for certain that he stole some prescription slips from Wilson's office – but still, she asks him out on a date and he says yes after a considerable amount of time. She nearly walks out of the office before he calls her back and tells her to wear something beautiful and that he'll pay for the food. It isn't exactly what she expected. In fact, Cameron actually expected House to say no, that asking her out in the first place was some kind of twisted experiment to test her will and the depth of her spirit. But he says yes, and she's too happy to say anything but "Okay. That's…that's good."

He calls after her that he'll pick her up at eight o'clock, and as she walks down the hall she hugs her patient's chart to her chest and smiles softly. She runs into Chase on the way to Cuddy's office, where she's supposed to drop off the finalized chart, and he notices the odd look on her face. He snarks something about her getting laid – maybe it's not too far from the truth, or maybe Chase has been off since their one night stand some time ago. It was never exactly fair for Chase and she feels bad, but not bad enough that she'll let the thoughts bring her down. After all, she's done with work for the night and she has a date with Gregory House.

Nothing can go wrong.

Everybody says "you can't, you can't, you can't, don't try."
Still everybody says that if they had the chance they'd fly like we do.