Week Seven: Pieces

In the course of a half a sandwich from Wawa and an order of Jalapeno poppers, Cameron decided in favor of calling House ten times and decided against it six and a half times.

She figured that majority ruled.

If she was going to go through with this – and now that it was seven weeks in, she figured she ought to be – she needed to at least know where he stood. Whether or not he'd be willing to be on board at all.

Not to mention, what exactly she was going to do if he weren't on board.

Cameron had always wanted children, after all. Not in the same way that she'd seen Cuddy want them, with a kind of sense of something having passed her by in the wind of her success at her career, having to abandon one life to obsess over another, but she had wanted them nonetheless.

This hadn't been how she's pictured it all those years, however. First, with her husband. She had held on to the belief that somehow, she could keep him alive through the idea of passing on his DNA to a child, albeit one with a rather unusual method of conception.

Then, there had been Chase. She had wanted a life with him, but she hadn't been able to leave the old one behind; not without a push. That risk hadn't really paid off, had it?

Or maybe it had. She held the cell phone in her hands, turned it over, even took out the battery and put it back in to better stall for time.

Did she love House?

It was one of those big questions. A keynote question. Too hard a question, and one she probably should have asked before coming up with this ridiculous plan, before sleeping with the man.

She used to know, after all, didn't she?

She used to know.

But back then she had known a lot of things. Or thought she knew.

She let herself dial the number. He answered on the third ring.

"Cameron," was how he answered, and it was all that was said for a long while. She thought that he had hung up, or maybe lost the connection. Or maybe he was hoping that she would hang up, that this would all go away – this plan, the leukemia, what he'd done to Cuddy, everything.

She didn't know.

There was a lot she didn't know these days.

"I want to see you," she breathed, blurted into the phone before she could think better of it.

There was a longer pause. She was again afraid that he'd hung up, that he couldn't be bothered to hear this. After all, why would a dying man want to hear this?

Another dying man she'd fallen in love with.

"When?" he asked instead, but she could tell the real question was "why?"

"Tonight. At eight. We need to talk."

He hung up, then, and she wasn't sure whether that signaled agreement, or that he was just done with the whole thing.

She wasn't sure of anything that had to do with House.

When House appeared at her door, she couldn't help but take stock. He looked so pale, so… some kind of dead inside. It shook her to the core.

There was a buried hope, a desperate hope inside her that wanted to believe that she – and maybe this child – could relight something inside of him that had been snuffed out long ago, embers that were only vaguely smoldering these days.

She just had to figure out the right words. The right words in a perfect order. An impossible Rubix cube.

A puzzle House would enjoy.

But there weren't the right words. Not really. Only the right actions.

She lifted her hand to his cheek and cupped it, stared at him and said something – even if she wasn't quite sure what, with her eyes. Her chin tilted up and she pressed their lips together, her mind screaming after her that she would be rebuffed, no doubt be rebuffed.

But House said nothing. He didn't kiss back, not at first, but he didn't break the embrace, either. Slowly he eased into it, his arms moving to her waist.

It didn't last nearly long enough. If they'd fallen back into bed, if they'd stayed like that all night, then, hell, they'd never have to talk about this from a practical, logical standpoint.

Cameron realized how much she enjoyed just kissing House. It was a strangely chaste preference from a woman who had slept with him, but maybe that was why she liked it so much. It was safe.

When they had split apart, she looked at him.

"I'm going to do this whether you like it or not," she told him, and he glared.

"What gives you the right?"

Cameron locked eyes with him.

"You're being an idiot."

"You may want to check in the mirror," his voice was low, and it sounded as if he'd tried to inject it with as much fury as he could muster, but the energy just wasn't there.

"This is a second chance."

"Does it look like I want one?"

Cameron glared.

"Self-pity doesn't suit you, House. If anyone else did it, you'd call them an idiot."

"Self-righteous pontificating doesn't suit you… Oh, wait, yes it does."

Cameron glared at him again. She tried to figure out what to do next. She wanted to scream, to throw things, to tell him to climb out of his own ass and listen to her for once. She wanted to tell him she was done with him, didn't know why she'd ever gotten started with him in the first place.

This had all been a mistake, after all, so she would be completely within her rights to do any of those things. Maybe go back to Chase, or maybe leave without a forwarding address.

She didn't do any of those things. Instead, she tilted up her head and kissed him again.

And he kissed back.