A/N: I'm sorry that I'm so neglectant of this story. Let me know if they are getting OOC or anything. Review!
Cameron sighed and arched her back to stretch out her stiff muscles. She rubbed her eyes and felt the morning sun warm her face through the window. She looked down to see that she was still in her powder blue blouse and pants from the day before.
She laughed 'How out of it was I?' she thought as she got out of the bed, careful not to wake Chase.
She picked out a fresh set of clothes and feeling in a good mood, she kissed Chase's forehead and made her way to the bathroom. She dropped the clothes on the step stool and began to pull the hair tie out of her tangled hair.
Mid-pull she stopped as she turned and saw the familiar bag or meth on the counter. She stared at it, unmoving, refusing to believe what she already knew; he'd found it. Her stomach tightened and a shiver passed through her body.
She knew she should have turned to him after the second time she'd done meth but she only did it when he wasn't there and didn't see the need to tell him and risk loosing him. She should have told him, she knew. She'd seen too many users pass through the hospital, overdoses, and dealers. They were all people she thought she could never have anything in common with. Yet there she was, a secret occasional user staring at her little stash.
She undressed and looked back at her pitiful reflection in the small mirror on the cabinet. She'd never disliked her actions, and possibly herself quite this much.
She managed to pull herself together and get in the shower. As she always did, she let the tears fall where no one could see as she spun out all the what-if's.
'What if he leaves?' she thought as she figured this was likely to happen.
The thought frightened her as she realized how accustomed she'd become to having him there. He was there when she needed him and she refused to think of how she'd react if he really left her.
She mulled that over as she stood there under the hot water and watched the soap suds swirl down the drain. She felt like the control she used to have on her life was going down the drain as well. She shed the last of her tears and shut the water off.
Cameron tapped the pen on the counter as she stared blankly at the white piece of paper.
She wasn't going to work; she couldn't handle other people's pain of any kind.
Chase, she scrawled.
'What am I supposed to write?' she asked herself. 'Sorry, but I gotta go somewhere. No, too rude, he deserves more than that. More than me.'
She couldn't keep her frantic thoughts in order in her head, let alone on paper so she crumpled the sheet and threw it in the garbage.
Her logic and reasoning told her to stay, but her feelings were screaming at her to run as far as she could and hide. Reasoning was out the window as she left the apartment and climbed into her car.
It wasn't like her to up and leave when she faced a problem but the problem she couldn't fix with a medical textbook, a good cry or a cup of hot tea. It was bigger than that. It was different when it involved someone she truly cared about and loved.
Chase woke to a half empty bed and was instantly reminded of what he had found the night before.
He felt so betrayed and angry, not particularly angry at Cameron, just angry in general. Angry that she felt she couldn't have come to him, angry at the patient that initially got her into it, and mostly angry at himself for not being able to help her.
Overwhelmed by all his thoughts and feelings Chase decided to do the one thing that had a chance of at least distracting him: work.
"You're late," Foreman said as Chase walked into the conference room.
Chase just shot him an I really don't care look and sat down at the table.
"Where's Cameron?" House asked in a tone that Chase took as a suggestion that House already knew why she wasn't there, though he really couldn't have known.
"How should I know?" Chase said, beginning to get pissed at their interrogation of him.
"Hmm, trouble in paradise. Interesting," House added.
"Shut up," Chase muttered.
Work went by slowly, and four long hours after he had arrived he shut the book he was supposed to be looking for something in, though he didn't really remember what it was, and sighed. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't stop worrying about Cameron. Was she okay? Was she doing meth right now? Where was she? The questions wouldn't stop.
He couldn't possibly be very useful to anybody as long as he didn't know where she was. And that's basically what he told Foreman as he made his way out of the hospital.
He didn't know exactly where he was driving to, but he decided that he couldn't just go home and wait for her.
Chase drove around town for nearly an hour, occasionally stopping at stores or fast food places they had gone to together. Having no luck he gave up and turned around in a nearby parking lot and headed in the general direction of Cameron's apartment, not knowing if he should just go to his instead.
He was just thinking about moving all his stuff out and not renting that apartment anymore the other day because he never used it and he only went there to pick up his bills, which he still hadn't re-directed to Cameron's apartment.
He pushed thoughts of their progressing relationship out of his head and concentrated on driving. The large wooden sign to his favorite park drew his attention and he made a split second decision to pull in, making his tires screech back at him in protest of the sharp turn. His stomach tightened as he realized this was where she had first told him that she loved him.
He was shocked to see Cameron's royal blue 'chick car', as he once called it, sitting in the parking lot a few spaces away.
He got out of his car and walked, almost in a run to the spot where they had come. He wasn't surprised to see her sitting on the bridge at the bench staring blankly out to the river, arms folded across her waist.
"Cameron?" he said, barely audible above the trickle of the river.
Nevertheless she heard it and turned to him, regret clear in her eyes. She opened her mouth to say something but couldn't decide what she could possibly say.
He ran his hand through his hair, a motion that she associated with him being angry and looking for words that wouldn't be too harsh.
"How could you do this?" He asked, anger creeping into his smooth voice.
"I tried Chase, I tried," Cameron said and looked away from his gaze.
"Tried to what? Tried to hide this from me? Tried to go behind my back? What?" Chase felt all the anger build up inside of him as his voice got increasingly louder.
"I didn't mean it to end like this" she said, not as an answer to him but as a thought that had been with her all day.
"End?" he asked as his anger faded back to the worry that he'd felt all day. "I'm not leaving you," he stated firmly, catching on to what she was talking about.
"Why? I fucked everything up. I kept this from you, I lied," she went on with the list, mumbling.
"Don't you get it?" he asked her rhetorically. "I love you, that's not going to change. I just hate it that you felt you couldn't havecome to me."
She couldn't say anything to that because she knew she should have gone to him, she wasn't going to argue that.
Cameron finally turned to him and looked him in the eyes, semi relieved that he wasn't going to leave.
He sat down next to her. "How do I help you?" he asked, turning the conversation to the drugs.
"You already did," she told him.
"That's what I'm not sure about," he said. "I have to know that you are going to stop."
"Just believe me; I don't want to risk loosing you just for something as stupid as this."
"Okay," he whispered, and smoothed the hair on her shoulders. "Let's go." He got up off the bench.
"I just have to stay a little longer," she said to him. She wanted to sort some more things out before she went back.
"You sure?" he said
"Yeh."
"Promise you'll come home?" he asked, clearly still worried.
She smiled weekly, "I will."
He handed her his coat. "It's getting cold," he explained as she took it from his outstretched hand.
He stepped closer to her and kissed her forehead then turned to leave as Cameron sat back down, wrapping his coat around her.
TBC