Notes: The pairing here is Cuddy/Cameron, but the story is all House.
Transference
by Ijemanja
The first thing he noticed was Cameron's clothes.
They were the same she'd been wearing all day, which wouldn't be unusual except that she had left work around nine, and it was now just after two in the morning. They were also wrinkled.
He just wouldn't have felt right if he didn't point this out - their patient was only near death, after all, and no doubt had better things to worry about than whether one of his doctors took a moment to pry into a co-worker's personal life.
In response to his questioning, Cameron didn't get flustered or blush - rather stubbornly, he thought - but simply raised an eyebrow. "Your page said 'code red: death imminent', followed by about seven exclamation points and a frowny face," she said dryly. "I grabbed the nearest clothes, which were the ones I took off right before collapsing in bed."
"Or," he countered, "They weren't the nearest clothes, so much as they were the only clothes. Because wherever you were, you weren't at home." He let her think about that for a moment. "We should also note that it took you twelve minutes to get here, when your average urgent-page response time is eighteen."
"You're right. Shall we talk about the wild sex I was having when I got the urgent page, or shall we talk about the reason for the urgent page, which I'm assuming is the imminent death of our patient?"
He looked over at Chase and Foreman, who'd been witnessing this exchange, and thought his face probably matched their torn expressions.
"That's hardly a fair question," he said, then dropped into the chair next to hers and propped his chin on his hands. "Oh, fine. We'll talk about the sex."
*
Of course, he'd just been joking about that. He liked a good puzzle and the dying guy had proved enough of one that he could shelve the question of Cameron's sexcapades for the time being.
He returned to it a few days later when he was provided with a second clue: she smelled different.
Now, heavy perfumes weren't Cameron's thing but she was still a girl. And like any girl she tended to use things like shampoo and shower gel and hand cream that, combined, created a fruit-bowl effect he had gotten used to when sharing an elevator or standing next to her at the coffee machine.
Sometimes she switched products or used a heavy duty, sporty deodorant on hot days, but the overall effect didn't change much - until now. Now, the fruit bowl was decidedly less fruity, and rather more floral, with a hint of spice that made him instantly hungry for something with cinnamon.
It was intriguing, but he didn't call her on it straight away, instead heading next door to make Wilson take him out for apple pie and ice cream while he gave the matter some much needed further thought.
*
The third thing only involved Cameron indirectly, but was all the more significant for her absence.
Cuddy had cornered him as he tried to escape for the day, which might have had something to do with the fact that it was three in the afternoon and he was supposed to be working in the clinic, but he wasn't sure because he wasn't actually listening to what she was saying. He was much more interested in what he had just spotted clinging to the shoulder of her suit jacket. After staring at it for a moment, he reached out and plucked it off.
Cuddy, meanwhile, stopped talking and looked at him questioningly instead.
"Hair," he explained, and did not add that it was too long, too straight, and a few shades too light in colour to be her own. Just let it go, and watched as it drifted to the floor.
Then he leaned forward and breathed in.
Cuddy took an alarmed step back.
"What are you doing?" she demanded.
"Smelling you," he said, and smiled, not just at the disturbed look his answer prompted, but at what his olfactory senses had just encountered. Then, satisfied, he turned and walked away.
"House!"
He looked back to see her pointing firmly in the opposite direction. Rolling his eyes, he made his way, suddenly far less satisfied, into the clinic.
A crowded elevator, he thought as he went about the challenging task of removing a splinter from a hefty construction worker's foot, could possibly explain the hair.
But then there was also the fact that Cuddy lived a good five minutes closer to the hospital than Cameron did. And that it was Cuddy who preferred flowery-scented things, from the dried lavender pouches she kept in her underwear drawer, to the primrose-and-chamomile soap in her bathroom.
It was also Cuddy who, on occasion, spritzed herself with something that left him craving pie when he caught a whiff of it.
All of these things together painted a very interesting picture in his mind - one he was going to have to spend a lot of time pondering - but even though he didn't believe in coincidences it was still mostly circumstantial evidence.
He was therefore going to need one more thing to close the case: confirmation.
*
He wasn't stalking them. He didn't actually have anything against stalking, in general, and especially having had some experience in that area himself, but no, he wasn't stalking them, he was following them. Out of the hospital. Which was where he was going, anyway.
The fact that he waited around till after eight for no reason, other than that Cameron was hanging around for no reason, was hardly the point. The point was, he made sure to give them enough of a lead so they didn't know he wasn't stalking them. By the time he arrived in the parking garage they were standing by Cuddy's car talking, forcing him to lurk behind a support column and try to hear what they were saying.
Sound travelled well in the echoing expanse of the multi-level garage but he didn't get more than a few disjointed syllables - their conversation too low, too intimate, and too brief. When he peered around surreptitiously at them they were already parting, Cuddy opening the car door and leaning in to slide her laptop case and purse across the seat.
It was so quick then he would have missed it if he hadn't been watching like a fourteen-year-old watches porn - intently and with a tendency not to blink - but when Cuddy straightened up and looked back, saying something he couldn't hear but which he imagined was along the lines of: "Why don't you come back to my place for a few hours of naked pillow-fighting?" Cameron took a step closer, hands moving to Cuddy's waist and then they kissed in a way that - apart from being incredibly hot, though that should have been a given - was far too casual and comfortable to be a first.
Then Cameron said something he chose to interpret as: "I've got a can of whipped cream with your name on it." Before heading off to her own car - parking spaces near the entrance being reserved only for department heads, board members, administrative bigwigs and cripples.
He'd seen enough - enough to confirm his suspicions, more than enough to keep the porn theatre playbill in his head running nightly double features for a long, long time.
There was nothing for it now but to get on his bike, rev the engine nice and loud, and wave to Cuddy in her car as he passed by. And to wonder whether picking up some popcorn and claiming a front row seat outside Cuddy's bedroom window later that night would count as stalking or not.
It almost certainly would, he decided, but then, it wasn't as if he had anything in particular against stalking.