Thank you all for your kind reviews, they make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. I think I'm turning into a teddy bear! Here's yet another chapter that I hope you'll enjoy.
"Mrs... Dr. Stanley," a doctor in his mid thirties stuttered out, embarrassed by his mistake, looking over his glasses and straight at her.
"It's still Cameron," Dana informed him briskly, her arms crossed in front of her, keeping her eyes fixed on her sister-in-law as she lay curled up in the hospital bed.
"Uh, ok, Dr. Cameron, we have your test results back now," he waited for some kind of response from the woman lying under the covers, but she continued to stare straight ahead at the wall above his head. "Uh, the tests show that you are pregnant." The only reactions in the room came from her brother and his wife, but she stayed quiet.
It wasn't like she didn't care, the fact that she was pregnant bothered her a lot. She just didn't know a way to react, there was no way to display all these emotions she was feeling at that moment.
---
He stood in the hallway, looking towards her room, drawn to the answer to why he could understand her so clearly. Behind the blinds he saw shadows moving in quick and restless patterns, back and forth, back and forth. Three shadows moved, one was completely still, and he knew whose. News, disturbing news, probably.
Tapping his cane against the floor, slowly, he waited for her brother and his wife to leave the room so that he could talk to her, make her answer.
Next to her room was the room his patient had died in earlier that morning. He shook his head in frustration. How stupid could his team be after working with him for over two years? A part of him had believed they'd learned the rules already, but no one really did.
It had been a while since he'd seen Allison Cameron last, but he hadn't forgotten her. After she'd left he could hear her trying to make him rethink his seemingly rash decisions, but, of course, he never listened to that part of his mind. No one else had this impact on his life so long after they'd left him, not since Stacy.
The last time he'd seen her she had been busy in the ER, walking between patients with a frown etched on her face. The contrast between then and now seemed too obvious to ignore, as he recalled the memory of her curled up on a chair.
The doctor left the room, a young inexperienced doctor, he thought with distaste. Her brother and his wife stayed, keeping the restless shadows moving.
---
Desperately she tried to find her voice, find a way to let the tears fall, but she was stuck in her own cage. To her, her own body was her prison now.
Dana paced the room while John watched her, his face anxious. Both of them were trying to come up with ways to get her to talk, they needed her to say what she wanted to do now. Neither of them thought it would be good for her to have the baby, not now when she was trying to cope with leaving her husband.
Dana stopped and watched Allison who was still staring at the wall, trying to understand what she was thinking, but her expression was blank, nothing indicating that she was even aware of where she was. She looked as dead as she always did.
In her ribcage she was fighting to get out, her heart pounding, palms sweating. There inside she was fighting against herself to get out, to use her voice to tell them that this was not what she wanted, this was not what should happen. This was not the way her life was supposed to turn out.
Prison -that was the only word to describe it.
------
Two hours later he came back, then the restless shadows had stilled and there were only one shadow left. This time he stood outside the door, looking inside at her who was sleeping. It was still odd, seeing her after all this time.
Thinking back to what happened earlier that day, he frowned, and wondered how something so quiet could be so loud. Was it possible what had happened? Afterwards it seemed like the most ludicrous thing, like it was taken straight out of a sci-fi movie, but he knew that he had been so convinced of that she was truly speaking to him that it was impossible to not believe it afterwards.
There was only one way to get an answer to answer these questions, and that was by making her answer him, surely it couldn't be that hard to make her talk to him, he has succeeded several times in the past.
Just because the shadows were still now he moved towards the room, finding himself nervous of what he would find.
The door was too loud when it opened, sliding narrowly against the floor, and would've alerted her of his presence if she had been awake. There on the bed she lay, small and frail, she hadn't been this thin when she was working here at the hospital; and even then she had been thin, but not this unhealthy thin. It was scary to see her like this, even when sleeping she was curled up in a ball, her arms hugging her legs to her.
To quiet her down had seemed impossible when he knew her, to see all the emotions flicker across her face and colour her words that made her who she was; her thoughts were words spoken so loud they could not be ignored. Now he couldn't see her anymore, he couldn't understand who she could be now.
He sat down, the chair was too stiff, but the bed was soft underneath his feet as he put them up on the bed. She looked peaceful, even though she tried to take up as little space as possible. What could've made this happen, he wondered for the millionth time that day, and all the possibilities that popped up in his head were quickly dismissed. This was Allison Cameron, there wasn't time for guessing; now he needed to be sure, because he was only going to get one chance in this matter and he knew that.
That was when she opened her eyes. Slowly her eyes opened, for a few seconds they were bright, shining like there was no worry in the world, and she looked at him with the same adoration she had looked at him with years ago, when she was new and so naïve. Then something died in her eyes, the brightness went away as if someone had turned off a switch, and right there in front of his eyes she died, like he suspected she died every morning. This was a process he was familiar with. He had gone through it so many times that he had to look away now, trying not to feel his own pain.
To her, it felt like a blow to the chest, the shock of everything once again washing over her, making her gasp for air, and hugging her knees tighter against her.
No matter how much it hurt to be reminded of his own pain, he could not resist looking at her, to see if it would happen again, if he could hear her speak.
After the pain had quieted down to something they both could cope with, when he could look at her without wincing, the stared at each other.
I don't want this, please stop this, I can't handle this!
He jerked, and she watched him curiously, her eyebrows furrowed as she watched him openly, like no one had watched him before. He wanted her to do it again, to say something so quietly and so loudly.
What he did not know was that she was listening to him speak, hearing how he begged her to say something again, and she was thrilled that he understood her, but at the same time she was terrified. The only other person that understood her had been her husband, and to go back to what she had with him made her consider suicide again.
She shrunk again, looked away for only a moment before looking back at him, taking something from him, because that would be what could save her from him later on. She watched him and saw his uncertainties, saw the hole that his wounded leg made in his soul, and how he let it define him. It was so obvious, but still kept under covers, and she wanted to peel all those covers away, to find him without the words. If she could focus on him, if all her attention could be averted from herself, then maybe the pain would cease just a bit. If it would just ease up a little she would be so grateful, because it hurt too much to breathe.
(
He picked her up in an old Ford outside of her apartment. The clothes she had picked out were too thin to stand the cold, and she shuddered violently before he pulled up, opening the door to quickly let her inside. Inside of her a storm of emotions took over, and she leaned over and gave him a light kiss on the lips, and even though they never had done that before, it seemed so natural that she looked forward to this simple relationship with this quiet and calm man.
Inside the car, it was warm and she smiled as she looked out of the window.
He was quiet the whole ride, but ever the gentleman as he stepped out of the car to hold up the door for her and put his hand on her back as they walked into the restaurant.
Everything about him was amazing, she thought as he smiled over the glasses of wine, his hand holding hers firmly on the table, showing the whole world his love towards her.
With him, no words needed to be spoken, she could be silent and he could just watch. She squeezed his hand before turning to the waiter to order food. The evening was simplistic and amazing.
)
His eyes were as blue as always, big and round, perfectly portraying his curious nature. There was no doubt that she was only there to feed his curiosity now, but the presence of someone so familiar as him, who knew her in a way her brother never would, was what she wanted - needed- now, when everything else was slipping away from her control. Life was not supposed to be like this, she was sure of it, but still it was.
"What do you want?" He whispered so quietly, his voice so low that it was trembling. Fear laced his words but his body was still, only waiting for an answer, curiosity in its purest form.
The question startled her, and she stared at him, questions flying around in her head. What was he talking about, was the main one.
Dana opened the door, talking to John on the phone about something trivial, her voice agitated yet soft in a way that only she could manage to do. House tensed in his chair, but still watched Cameron, waiting for an answer he wouldn't get, and she watched him back, still surprised by his vocalized question.
"You just don't get it?" Dana suddenly shouted, and both of them jerked at the sudden interruption, but House recovered quickly, and smiled lazily, tauntingly at Dana. "Leave, Dr. House."
"I'm a doctor, I'm trying to find out what's wrong with her," he quipped, his eyes only leaving Cameron's for a second to look at Dana.
"We know what's wrong with her!" Dana yelled, anger surging through her body, at this man, at Cameron's husband, at the world for letting this happen, and at God, how he could let something like this happen to someone wonderful.
"She's mute. It's interesting. I can cure it," he told her, still sure that medicine could fix her.
"Dr. House, the only thing wrong with her is that she married a sadistic bastard," she told him, walking up to him and pulled on his arm to get him to get out of the chair. Dana was strong, stronger than he'd expected, so he was quickly jerked out of the chair, still in shock from the revelation. "Now, please, leave her alone."