Week Twenty: 'Round the Bend
When Cameron had been a young girl, she had been like a lot of other little girls – she had had a small family of dolls who she pushed around on strollers and fed bottles to. She had held them up and run around with glee, declaring herself a "mama" to anyone who would listen and some people who wouldn't.
Her parents had thought that it was hilarious.
Cameron had been that little girl once, but not for very long. A few years later she'd found science and bike-riding and all manner of tomboyish activities, and the desire to be a "mama" faded away into some idea of something she might want to do one day when she was… done.
Done doing what, she wasn't exactly sure. Caught up on her career, perhaps? At a place where it felt good to be able to take a breather.
There was also a little voice that said it would be when she was done living.
Now, all that had been pushed to the side. The feminist part of her would scoff and say, after all this, she'd done it for a man no less, and a man like house. She couldn't dress it up in the name nobility that she could when thinking about her late, first husband – it was a selfless act that was drawn over a good deal of selfishness.
But thinking about it wasn't going to help her now. She needed to decide on some courses of action, now rather than later. She was five months ago now and the thing that had been a blip on the screen was quickly developing into a little somebody, to her slight dismay. Because after a certain point, she couldn't wrap this all up in the good deed she had felt compelled to do (and the fact that it had worked at all still through her – a reason to believe in miracles, if she believed in them). This was a life she had created, and all of the excuses and reasons were starting to feel as if they fell a little flat at the end of the day.
Once this was done, however, she could get back to her life – once she figured out what to do about the baby, after all.
It wasn't as if this was a surrogate type deal, after all – even though the actual child had been so far from her mind when she had proposed this crazy scheme, she would have one nonetheless. She would be a mother.
It frustrated her that she hadn't really thought about exactly what that meant until now. Shouldn't she be having existential crises, or at least picking out paint and special colors of curtains? Was it normal to feel so… calm? So numb, about all of it?
She looked around. Somehow, in her thoughts, she had wandered to the grocery store – admittedly, there were many worse places to wander, but she was coming face to face with reminders of the road she was taking, whether she wanted to be on that road or not. There seemed to be babies everywhere; they were slung on backs and stomachs, held in arms and pushes in strollers. They all had always seemed to look the same to Cameron before, but not now – what features would they have of hers, and which of House's?
It was like mixing up some kind of weird concoction and seeing how well it played at a party – except it would have a personality and hopes and dreams.
She wondered what her parents were thinking when they decided to put her on this Earth, and wondered if they realized how complicated it really was.
She remembered the time that House had asked her, "Who did you lose? Was it a baby?" and she had wanted to smack him in the face for being so callous, and at the same time had wanted to applaud that he asked the hard questions that no one else ever would, that he made her work in every possible way, even when she hated it.
"Cameron!"
Cameron whipped her head around at the voice. For a moment, she didn't see anything – maybe it had all been in her head. Maybe she was going crazy from the stress – it wouldn't be unheard of, after all.
But then she heard something else; it was the steady clink of a cane against tile, and she sighed out. She was not ready to deal with House right now, but she seemed to be cornered so she had no choice.
She took a deep breath and told herself that she would not fall into some stereotype; she would not "act emotional" or "make a scene". Oh, how she hated those phrases. Ways to nail women into boxes for reacting to disasters the same way that men did, but if you were pregnant or on your period or whatever else, that was suddenly the full justification and the only reason – you were free to be ignored.
Not that House had ever been able to truly ignore her, at the end of the day.
She smiled and approached. He was tossing oranges into a basket that he was hanging off of his cane. Multi-tasking. That was House, after all.
"Hi, House."
He looked up.
"Hey, Cameron."
It was obviously that he was trying to look anywhere other than at her. That was to be expected, she figured. It was weird to accidentally run into the woman you got pregnant.
"Need any help?" she inquired. He rolled his eyes.
"Yes, please help the cripple. The dying cripple," he shot back.
"You know," Cameron put a hand on her hip and stuck out her stomach a bit, as if reminding House of what she was doing for him – maybe she hadn't figured this out yet, but she didn't need to tell House that. She could act like she had it all together.
"Still knocked up, I see," House commented.
"Is it that obvious?" Cameron rolled her eyes and took an orange out of House's basket.
She smiled at him.
"What was that all about?" House asked her.
"I don't know," she mused, "Guess I'm just a crazy pregnant woman." She tossed the orange up and caught it as she walked away.