This little nonsense is from now on property of my lovely beta and friend, ~Vicodin-addict117! But I think she's not that jealous and selfish type, so she doesn't mind others to see it. ;)
Thank you for everything, have a wonderful birthday!!!
Things to know:
1. Story not beta read. Cos it's a surprise for my beta! Geddit? :D
2. I know it's fluffy. I meant it to be fluffy!!! OKAY??!!!! :DDD
Past and Presents
The rain was pouring down the pile of Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. It still held the ambiance of sad late winter drizzles that actually had to be snow, but it wasn't far from lukewarm early summer rain either, still without the forces of nature raging in thunderbolts. So on the whole, it was on people's choice whether to consider it depressing or relaxing.
There was someone behind one of the large windowpanes who usually had been gifted with the ability of finding beauty in normally sad scenes; and in fact, these moments had been those that could touch her heart the most. Yet now, she was helplessly washed over by the unhappiest mood that such weather could ever cause
She pressed a finger against the cold glass, following a single raindrop's path down, while the pounding on the windowsill gave the rhythm to her heart. She was mentally scolding herself for her moodiness. She could have gotten used to this throughout the years, yet she still felt miserable for feeling miserable when she had the less reason to be that.
Moreover, work doesn't adapt to her mood swing. She sighed and tore her gaze off the wet sidewalks outside, reflecting the orange light of street lamps. Just a few more hours and she can forget about this day for another year. She sat back to her desk and decided to bury herself back in paperwork.
*
Just one or two windows further, another young doctor was occupied with administration. He only had his desk lamp on and even protected his tired eyes with a hand from that weak light. He jumped when his office door sprang open without any warning knocking sound. But this time, he almost felt relieved about a temporary distraction from this grind. How much temporary it would be, depended only on his best friend's reasons for his routine visit.
"Still here? Cuddy threatened you with getting your bike attached if you don't catch up with this month's...year's...paperwork?" – he asked his intruder in a tired but teasing voice.
The lanky, middle-aged man took a handful of the candies from a pot on the other's desk, popping half of them into his mouth at once, before answering.
"Cameron's doing that."
"Oh." – he followed him with his eyes as he absently started placing small hits on the legs of the furniture with the rubber tip of his cane. After a few seconds, he got bored and threw himself onto the leather sofa, helping one leg up with a hand. He started twirling the cane between his fingers.
"Er..." – Dr. Wilson tried – "Bored?"
"Yup!" – the answer came in a nonchalant voice.
"And... Sorry for asking the obvious, but... didn't you by chance think about... I don't know... helping her? Win-win..."
His reward was a reproachful look.
"Slavery means always a lose for me."
"Then why don't you just go home?"
There was a moment of silence before the answer to his own question came to him.
"Oh. You're...waiting for her! How..." – cute, he almost said, but rather swallowed the derisive ending. You never know what you trod into in case of such a fragile and untraditional relationship (and couple).
"I've brought her in. I knew I had to drop her at hers to get her car." – he grunted – "I've always said playing a lone hand was much less trouble."
Wilson rolled his eyes, but noticed that his tone wasn't as convincing as it would have been earlier.
"Well, your own hand surely doesn't wait for you with a hot coffee each morning, not to mention other tasks that »it can do but not the same«..." – he said with a boyish smirk and as much as he could tell in the semidarkness, he saw the corner his friend's mouth twitch a little at his joke – "So then, I suppose, you're not here to help me either... In fact, you could equally be with her as well! Why are you here instead?"
He just shrugged a shoulder, barely noticeable. Wilson gave up concentrating and laid his pen down in front of himself. He eyed his friend suspiciously.
"Is everything okay?"
He just mumbled something and kept his eyes on the ceiling.
"What?"
"I said SURE!"
"House... I already wanted to ask. Cameron doesn't look quite fine today, to say the least of it. What did you do again?!"
"NOTHING!" – House snapped indignantly. – "Why everybody thinks it always has to be me?" – Then he continued in a much lower voice. – "It's her birthday."
Wilson's eyes widened a bit. This really wasn't what he expected the big secret to be.
"And...have you forgotten to get her something? It's still not too late to..."
"No it's not about that at all. I just..." – he sat up and started rubbing his face with both hands. – "I mean, she has always... been the same. Ever since I know her."
"Oh boy... Please don't tell me you have known when her birthday was, even before... well, from the very beginning..." – Wilson giggled.
"Maybe it's new for you, but I have read her CV."
"Okay, anyway... what the hell can be wrong with her?"
"Now that's exactly what I'd love to figure out." – he groaned, clearly piqued. His cane was tapping a nervous rhythm on the floor. – "She was the one talking a hole into me, trying to persuade me just how it all rainbow and lollypops are, a birthday.
Wilson giggled again.
"Really?"
"Funny, yeah." – House grimaced ironically.
They fell silent again, and Wilson didn't want to push his friend. If there's anything on his mind, he'll tell it anyway. And he was proven right again, not surprising after fifteen years of this odd friendship.
"I screwed up."
Wilson raised his eyebrows and sat somewhat higher in his chair. This wasn't part of his contract, having actually heart to heart conversations with the man he thought he had known. Of course, this went for the times before.
Before this angel had stormed into his empty and bitter life and made a miracle. Or rather before he finally had let her in. It took a while... but at least the genuine, naïve young lady had tasted a bit of what she was applying for, and had learnt to build her panoply up. He had kept pushing her away, yet the fragile looking, silent girl had held on, using gentleness and innocent sturdiness to get to him, instead of a violent attack against the gates of his high walls. And after losing several battles and seemingly getting even more damaged, she had stood up and carried on, until she finally had won the war and his heart.
She hadn't changed him spectacularly. For the outer world, he had remained rude and abrasive and unmannerly, had kept ignoring others' feelings just to achieve his goal, overriding everything in between. But the keen observer could notice that he had started somehow protecting her and maybe even thinking in plural: instead of him against the world, it was them against the world. He now always kept an eye on her and appeared right behind her the moment something threatened her. Not that she had had to face too many conflicts, thanks to her honest, sweet and benevolent nature.
And what's so much more important and stunning: some sparks of undeniable happiness had started appearing in his eyes and behavior. Not to mention the noticeable decreasing in his Vicodin consumption that he had tended to take not only for physical, but also for mental pain. Moreover, when being alone with the two of them, Wilson always had felt some kind of warmth radiating from their direction. And it had nothing to do with the sexual tension from the times of their battles. It felt as if seeing something incomplete finally rejoining its other half and showing up in its real form for the first time. House's sparkling blue eyes, going mild at once every time when looking at her but getting back to ice cold when he had to pull on his (over)protective (and, being still himself, slightly possessing) role again, and her huge blue-green-grey sea colored ones showing pure admiration towards him, that hadn't changed since she first time she had set her eyes on him, and self-confidence and happiness towards the world, that had been all new.
All in all, they made a perfect couple. At least they seemed like one, even though in the first times, Wilson had been worried to madness that one of them would break the other beyond repair. Both of them had gone through so much: House through his infarct and with it, a dramatic end of a dramatic relationship, and Cameron through the dying and death of her staggeringly young husband, at a staggeringly young age. But until now, neither of them had seemed particularly hurt and neither had complained either. Wilson started getting relaxed, but he had remained prepared for anything. That's why he suddenly got a knot in his guts when he suspected a tension.
"House..." – he started slowly – "Nobody expects you to read her mind. Have you tried to talk to her?"
House made a painful grimace. Talking about feelings never had been his greatest asset.
"Well I... I got her a little something. Just a little nothing, but... I don't really know how to give it to her. If she hates thinking about her birthday... should I also remind her? On the other hand, if I pretend to have forgotten... no, it's not a way to do it either. God, women never stop being damned complicated!"
His friend smiled slightly.
"Neither of them would even try to be as difficult as you are yourself. Don't overcomplicate it. We... er, I mean, you just had to reveal the reasons. Then you might could help her, but at least, you won't hurt her even more."
They fell silent, thinking with their brows pulled together, trying to gather all the little pieces about their beloved colleague, now House's girlfriend (even if he would never ever agree with this term).
"Er... Are you sure this ain't the anniversary of anything else...? Like..."
House shook his head distinctly.
"Nah, even her couldn't be that luckless." – He paused for a moment, then added sheepishly – "It's in October anyway."
Wilson gave his friend a mental pat on the back, but he knew they still weren't any closer to the solution.
After ten minutes of brainstorming, they were still stuck at the same point. House stared at his friend with almost pleading eyes, waiting for him to make any kind of enunciation. Wilson's head was almost spinning from thinking so hard for so long, yet he still couldn't say anything clever to his best friend. At least, more clever than...
"House... you really should talk to her." – He went on quickly when he caught the daggers looked at him by House – "Don't imagine it as something theatric and awkward and official. You just... ask her what wrong is. As far as I know her, she won't start a long and analyzing speech. She knows you better..."
House still seemed to be ill at ease.
"But what if...if she won't tell me? Lie to me? Everybody lies."
Wilson gave him a warm smile. His trustful brown eyes somehow had convinced him.
"She will tell you the truth. Believe me. She also knows you well enough to know that she can..."
House kept staring at him for a while. Then nodded and grabbed his cane to get up. From the door, he turned back, made an innocent face in return of Wilson's questioning look, grabbed another portion of candies, and limped away to pick up his lady.
*
They were both sitting on the piano bench. It was wide enough and they were thin enough: Cameron's tiny butt fitted perfectly between his legs. In fact, he could hardly remember a position he had felt more comfortable in.
He rested his chin on her shoulder, cheek pressed to hers through the curtain of her maroon hair, his breathing in her ears. He was playing and her arms and fingers were on his. She relaxed against him, eyes closed, lost in music and the sensation of his body's warmth on her back.
Once, he stopped, then some seconds later, started to play something else, a simple little theme, slowly, carefully, pause after each note. Still she could easily recognize the international melody at once.
He felt her straining between his arms, yet her lips curled into a small smile.
He let his hands slowly slip off the keys, onto her slender thighs. He pressed his lips onto her bare upper arm, and started eyeing her questioningly over her shoulder.
They stayed like that for a while, then, when waiting in vain for her to speak up, he murmured against her shoulder, tickling her skin:
"I have the impression of having forgotten something... don't you?"
Cameron smiled again, even her midriff tensed for a second in a hint of a tiny laugh.
"Nothing important" – she breathed and snuggled against his chest him even more.
"Wait, this one I know..." – he continued slowly, placing pecks onto her neck – "...some little planet circling the Sun one more time and things."
"Something like that, yeah" – she said in a low voice, a rather sad smile on her face, but eyes closed at the pleasure of her lover's touch.
"So shouldn't I expect you to squeal happily if I said there was a pony behind the door...?"
Cameron turned her head to face him as much as she could, an amused expression on her face.
"Is there one?"
"Um, not sure. Can we count a probably dead cockroach for a teeny-weeny little horse?"
They both chuckled and House tightened his embrace around her waist. Her fingers were playing idly on his forearm. She couldn't help but feeling a bubble emerging in her chest. Him waking her with a trumpet and confetti was surely the last thing she wished, still she had felt more and more down when she couldn't discover the slightest change in his behavior today. She could have easily believed that he had forgotten: chocolate and roses and a sappy 80's hit of their own weren't his style. She scolded herself for being concerned anyway. He had proven his love and devotion in hundreds of other ways, his ways – in fact, he had been proving it all the time. Still she had felt somewhat cheap and a simp. Against her will, she had started thinking with others' head. She's such a loser; even his boyfriend doesn't remember her birthday...
But now, these dark thoughts were miles away. How could she ever have doubted him?
She could feel his rapid heartbeat on her back. She realized that he hadn't said a word for a good while now. Silences always had played a great role in their relationship, yet she always could have told if something had been bothering him. And this time there certainly was something.
"House..." – she whispered.
"Hm?" – he stirred from his thoughts.
"You don't seem jumping off your skin from happiness either..."
He shifted just the slightest, uncomfortable. No way he admits just how unsure he is.
"Don't tell me misery is contagious..." – he grunted sourly. Oops. Great, the worst thing he could do now was to turn the word on himself, when it's all about her today. Himself, again... Relationships were really not his cup of tea, he thought bitterly.
Cameron tried to loosen his embrace to face him, but he held her even tighter. Eye contact really wouldn't help now.
"Hey..." – she said gently, in an indulgent tone. She was searching for words for a while, but she knew she had to find them. Her love needed her and she needed him... a lot.
"You know... You might have heard this several times, but not everything is always about you..."
She heard him muttering a few cursing words, tilting his head back. She tried to nestle to him again, but he was tight as a string. She shook her head, smiling, then grabbed his long fingers on her belly with a gentle force, turned his palm upwards and started to caress the lines in it with her fingertips. He finally set his chin back onto her shoulder and sighed.
"You should be at a party, organized by yourself, running around happily amongst colorful balloons and teddy bears, with a paper hat, pickled from champagne, right now, you know... Or who are you and what have you done to my Cameron?!"
"Hasn't anyone told you that thinking in stereotypes is not good, yet?!" – she giggled. But she was only teasing him: she knew well how much it could piss him off, having an unsolved mystery around him. Especially if it's something he thought he had already figured out a long time ago.
She knotted her fingers with his and tilted her head back on his shoulder. She couldn't help but getting overwhelmed with melancholy again.
"You really should exchange me to a young blond pediatrician..." – she felt his voice rumble in his chest.
"And why exactly?" – she asked silently.
"He would bring you those balloons and pony..." – then he added in a barely audible voice, as if just mouthing to himself:
"...and make you smile."
Cameron felt her heart do a backflip from happiness. She brought his hand close to her chest, feeling a sudden urge to embrace something.
"If...there's any man that can make me smile, it's you, Doctor" – she flattered, rubbing her nose to his stubbled cheek.
And cry, he thought.
"Well, seems like your private clown hasn't been around enough today then..."
"House..." – she whishted him – "That I'm not grinning like an idiot all the time, doesn't mean I'm not happy... with you."
House hoped she couldn't feel his heart rate double at once.
"Yeah, but today... any other men..."
She laughed.
"What on Earth do I still have to do to make you understand I don't want any other man?!"
His lips curled into a small smile, just a little.
"Well I don't envy you... but your choice..."
Now that she had to push her own bad mood away for a while to hearten her boyfriend always full of doubts and worries, she suddenly felt able to talk.
"It really is... nothing. A girly silliness...you won't like it."
"Well, there are some girly things about you that I kinda can bear somehow..."
She giggled and continued.
"It's one of those silly ambivalent moods, when nothing satisfies you. When you want to be attended and cherished, of course, but at the same time want to be left alone, because you just feel awkward from attention and presents... just because you're not quite used to them."
"What do you mean..."
"Well you know. Still at home. You already know I've been the smallest one, the »we shouldn't have taken on that last one« child. And my birthday... had always been rather a source of tension than a feast. Another expense... Everybody was trying to smile at me when giving their presents to me, but they rather snarled. I even tried, one year, to give them all presents for my birthday to show them I didn't need anything else but them, but it didn't help either. So... that's it."
They sat in silence. She didn't expect him to answer; telling him about all this was far more than enough.
"See it's not your fault?" – she asked shyly. But his thoughts were somewhere very else.
"And if... what if you got something that's... a greater present for the one you get it from than for you?" – he finished in the same breath.
"Well... that sounds quite a give and take..." – she started to be curious.
House carefully let her go with only one hand and reached backward. His jacket was hanging on the back of a chair, just within arm's reach. What a lucky "coincidence"...
He slipped his hand into one pocket. He was holding the slim box of a small necklace for about a second, but changed his mind and let it go. It will stand in good stead next year; at least he won't have to puzzle what to get her. So he chose the other pocket instead. He took a deep breath. Greg House, time to prove just what a man you are.
Cameron really wondered what he had in stock for her, but she basically liked surprises, so she rather didn't turn around, just waited patiently. She started feel somewhat lightheaded. It was all so surreal. This man, nobody's fool, independent and individual, now actually makes efforts to make her happy, of all people. And hell, he does. Even with his presence. She always wanted to avoid this, but now there was no way back: she couldn't live and breathe without him on her side anymore. If he lets her fall, she'll surely die, but it doesn't matter. He'll never let her fall.
She felt him nuzzle to her back again. His lips brushed over her hair and the same moment, she felt something cold and something hot at the same time. But while the former concentrated on her third finger, the heat spread all over her body and soul.
Allison Cameron never hated her birthday anymore.
*******
A/N: OMG I realized I stole the blond pediatrician with the golden retriever from ~EnchantedApril! God knows I didn't mean to... I'd been sure it was my idea until I re-read "Saints and Saviors" (for the fiftieth time). Gosh I'm so sorry.