Work Text:
It would not go as planned.
-
When House shows up, a pipe has already burst in the bathroom. The plumber leaves her apartment for the second time. There is mud on her hardwood floors. House still lets himself in.
They stand in her bathroom.
“I hear Hopkins is sniffing around,” he says, and Cameron is too preoccupied by the state of the orange in her hand. She picks at the skin with her nails. She will not ask about Vogler. “I hear you haven’t given them an answer.”
She shrugs. “I don’t really like oranges either. And yet here we are.”
There is water all over the tiles. Her downstairs neighbor has called twice already. She has apologized once and slipped into the new rain boots she bought last time she was in Chicago.
“I think this is a sign,” she tells House.
“You would.”
She breaks the orange in half finally. Her fingers pull a piece of the orange off and she pops into her mouth. The plumber’s tools lean against the wall.
House steals a piece. “You could stay at a hotel.”
“That’s counterproductive,” she replies.
“You don’t look too stressed,” he throws back, and she shrugs again. She isn’t, she could tell him. Or maybe she’s stressed enough to not be stressed. Maybe working with House has finally gotten to her.
The Hopkins phone call went like this: you work with House, you can work anywhere you want.
But he doesn’t need to know that either.
“I could fix it,” she says with a sigh. “The pipes are old. I just need a couple of parts.”
House snorts. “What’s the plumber for?”
“The building sent him.” She takes another slice of the orange. The next one, she offers to House. He takes it with his mouth. She flushes and clears her throat. “That’s what they do.”
House takes the rest of her orange then.
It doesn’t bother her.
This isn’t the first day either. He will not say this:
I am going to get you back.
-
You should know that she already reached that point – the point, the one where all her self-loathing unraveled and spilled out of a bottle of wine as she thought about all those choices she’d have to make.
Choices like:
I have to go back to Chicago.
Mayo will take me. I don’t want to go back there though; failure is strangely subjective. There are too many memories.
There is Boston.
Harvard is nice.
Hopkins.
This is only the first week. The truth is that she has been ready to leave House for months. They all are. Outside of Princeton, paper is paper and working for House buys you into an exclusive club of self-pitying gratification. All of which she does not want. All of which he knows that she does not want.
It makes her uncomfortable.
Sin of omission.
-
“So Hopkins,” he says to her the next time.
This is the park. Sweat curls at the nape of her neck. She sighs and tugs at her t-shirt, pulling it up and dragging it across her face.
“Is Hopkins,” her voice is muffled into the fabric. “It’s still Hopkins. It hasn’t changed since the first time you asked me.”
“I’m possessive.” He’s offended.
“You’re a spoiled child.”
He is more than aware that she doesn’t want to talk about her sudden foray into being the sacrificial lamb. He called her that the first time, and then the second time, and maybe even the third or fourth time; neither of them want to talk about Chase and neither of them want to talk about how finally, for real this time, how she is so pissed off at what’s happened. He leaves it alone.
She lets him too. Her hands press into her hips. She squints in the sun. This early, the park is full of young mothers and children. A stroller passes them for the swing set around the corner. It’s still about the right play date.
“So you’re coming back?” House asks. Her eyes study the line of his jaw. Her fingers curl in her shirt. He steps closer. “I don’t see what else you can do.”
“I don’t want to talk about Hopkins,” she answers.
“Is it money?”
“You need a new angle.”
“So a little bit of it is money.”
Her brow furrows. “What does that even mean? A little bit of money? Also I don’t want to talk about Hopkins.”
“Whatever,” he says.
Then it’s simple: he steps into her space, his cane rests against her sneakers, and he picks his fingers into an angle, flicking them into her forehead. She blinks. Then her nose wrinkles. Then she is so aware of House she doesn’t know where to begin; it’s angles and his face, it’s the sharp and angry lines of his body, it’s how his fingers move from her forehead and then trickle into her jaw. They linger. She feels his nail. She feels the pad of his thumb. She breathes and they both catch the bottom of her lip.
Maybe he lingers. Maybe she lingers. Maybe it’s her shifting closer, her mouth parting again as the rest of his fingers sweep over her skin. Her teeth bite. He makes a low sound. And the only thing she can think of is nothing at all.
Her lips are wet. She is flushed. Her hair is in her eyes and she cannot look away.
She would rather say this isn’t new.
She runs an extra mile after.
-
There was a previous conversation that went something like this:
“We’ll pay you more,” he says.
She pauses.
“Does Cuddy know?” This is the smart thing to ask. Not: “What if I don’t want to come back then? What will you do?”
Anticipating, he drags her into the ice cream parlor. He buys her a cone. Or she buys herself a cone. She buys him one too. She eventually trades it in for ice cream in a cup.
“Does it matter?” House asks. There are chocolate chips around his mouth.
Cameron snorts, picking at her ice cream.
“So she doesn’t know,” she says.
“Oh she knows,” he says lazily. He takes her spoon. And she gives it to him. He bites into her ice cream. “Lame,” he says, after.
She’s pointed though.
“You don’t have to take it,” she tells him.
-
Cooking her dinner is not a date.
She does not ask for a date still, yet, or even maybe –
she thinks about it, she thinks about how perfectly stupid and easy blurting out the words are, “here are my requirements, take me to dinner, wine and dine because I can’t ask you the questions I really want to know –” because that is giving too much, and not giving the right too much, and she is trying to remain incredibly objective as it is
– but he is in her apartment and in her kitchen. There are vegetables. There is steak. She is making use of her knives. He still won’t tell her what he’s making.
“Your fridge sucks.”
She snorts. “Been a little busy.”
“That’s stupid,” he says. He points a spoon at her. “You could use a little more protein in your life. Don’t tell me you’re trying to supplement.”
Cameron rolls her eyes.
“Vegan? You? Really?”
She shakes her head, settling at the counter. “I had a hamburger for lunch. I was dealing with my plumber. We can’t all be you.”
“That’s true,” he says. “You can’t.”
She remains completely confused as to why this is happen. Or why it keeps happening. She knows the following: Volger is really gone, they are really asking her to take her job back, and she is still seriously thinking about not staying in Princeton. There are opportunities. There is never harm in knowing and understanding that.
“Are you going to poison me into coming back?” she asks, half-serious, half-not, and somehow it gets him to snort and laugh, somewhat of a suspicious sound. Her mouth curls and finally she drifts into somewhat of a smile.
They are quiet. It seems easy. She moves into cutting the vegetables. He is doing something with the rest of the dinner and her mind keeps wandering back and forth. The knife slips this way.
“Damn it,” she mutters.
The blade drops and skids across the counter. She picks up her fingers into her mouth and sucks lightly.
“Shit,” she says again. Next to her, House pauses. There is a sharp chuckle. “Shut up,” she mutters.
“Here,” he says.
He grabs her hand. Or her wrist. It’s sort of halfway in between. His fingers are around her wrist. They move to her palm, sliding her hand away from her mouth.
“You’re ridiculous,” he tells her. Then, slowly, his fingers pull hers to his mouth. Her breath catches. The pads of her fingers slide between his lips. She feels him suck. The tip of her tongue presses against her teeth as she follows the way her fingers stay steady in his mouth.
It’s in her mouth too: what are you doing. Instead, a sigh slights her lips.
“You’re an idiot,” his voice is muffled into her skin. It’s a low sound.
“You said that already,” she murmurs.
“You need to hear it twice.”
“And a third time?”
His eyes narrow. He pulls her fingers from his mouth. “You’re not cute.”
“But I’m lobby art,” she says dryly, and it’s that feeling, the stupid, low one that rolls around and bottoms in her stomach.
He makes another noise. He’s half-lidded. His mouth curves. He still hasn’t let go of her hand either; she isn’t sure what’s happening, or if she likes it, or if it’s just in her head, just like usual. It’s easy to have at the tip of her mouth. To almost say what she wants to say.
She still pulls away first. Her hand sinks to the side. He stares hard at her, still with that strange, strange smile that she doesn’t understand.
It’s not even real, she thinks.
They have dinner.
He moves them to the couch, the coffee table, and her television.
She picks at the steak.
House changes the channel first.
-
He wears her down.
You knew he was going to wear her down; she was going to wear herself down.
Cameron is a pragmatic doctor.
She understands this is the best experience. She knows that she still will be able to get an even better job two years down the line, three years even. These are the only reassurances that she has.
But she doesn’t want to give him that.
It will remain true, after.
-
Foreman buys her coffee.
Saturday they run. Or rather, Cameron runs the treadmill. Foreman stares at himself in the mirrors of the weight section of the gym.
It’s almost nice.
“He –”
Cameron holds the cup with two hands. “Don’t want to talk about it,” she warns. “Tell him that too, okay?”
“Because he’ll listen to me,” Foreman shoots back.
“You’ll be surprised.”
They pick a table. The gym is a block away. She’s just thrown a sweatshirt on. He may or may not go back to work. She thinks she misses the hospital, finally.
“What does that even mean?”
Cameron leans back. “Who knows?” she lies. Then she stops herself: “Sometimes you’ve got to pay attention, I guess.”
“Now, you sound like him,” he mutters.
She rolls her eyes.
“You do,” he insists.
“I don’t,” she says, and it’s even stranger, thinking about him. Her mouth twists and then, off-handedly, she says: “He’d hate that.”
“Then you’d be boring,” Foreman says.
Her fingers flick the lid of her coffee off. It hits the top of their table, scattering just over the corner. The coffee shop is a small space. There are no doctors, no lawyers, and no students that cut across the campus. The music is a little low and Foreman picks up her lid between his fingers.
“He isn’t a mess,” he says. There is nothing behind that. She looks at Foreman, confused. His mouth opens and closes. “House likes keeping his pieces in a row. You’re a piece. We’re all pieces. Take that away from him and he gets upset – like a child, you know.”
Her mouth twists. “I’m still not going to tell him.”
“He probably already knows.”
Cameron can’t help it. She laughs. She laughs and the sound sharpens in her mouth. Her coffee sits on the table and she looks outside, watching what passes. Traffic. Shoppers. At this point, she expects it. Whether he comes during the day, or after, she expects it.
“Then I’d be boring,” she echoes finally.
This is the dangerous part.
-
Lunch is just the two of them. Maybe it’s a week after. There is still no date. House steals half her bagel and all her butter instead. It’s stupid.
“I think I’m going to paint my apartment,” she mentions.
“You’ll want something.”
“The kitchen,” she decides, and he pushes her mail of the counter. She catches it enough; his pause is overdramatic and the mail scatters just right.
“You do want something.”
He chews loudly. She frowns and ignores the rest of her bagel. She pushes the plate towards him.
“I want to know why you keep coming here,” she says lightly, and really, it’s the first time, she’s said something outside of not coming back and not talking about this. He stares and she feels it. It seems sort of heavy as it is.
It isn’t at this point the she knows that she’s coming back. She knew she was coming back. Right just then, that moment when he asked him. It wasn’t for him. It would have been so much easier if it were. There would be reason to it all. There is no reason and he won’t ask her straight out – please come back like she wants him to need to say.
But it’s how he’s back into her space again, right over the spot of her couch that he occupies. They are knee to knee. She inhales. He exhales. The food is bated and forgotten just as easily.
House touches her arm. Then her elbow. She relaxes and looks away.
“What do you want?” he asks, this time.
“Who says I want something?” she plays along.
“That’s a stupid question.” He pauses. “That’s not really a question – here’s another one: what if I can’t give you what you want?”
“Or you won’t,” she quips.
He’s almost serious. His fingers settle at the crook of her elbow. “I won’t,” he says.
This is the fastest they’ve agreed, you know.
So it happens.
The date. A day later, another bagel, her at her front door, him awkwardly peering like he hasn’t been in her place over and over again before, trying to pry out all the information he get. She isn’t ready to learn then; she is better than reading him than she thinks. He remains terrible at intentions.
She does blurt it out –
“I want a date,” she says quietly. “Dinner. Small talk. Flowers. The whole thing. You’ll be awkward and impossible. I’ll be awkward and uncomfortable. You’ll hold it over my head. Then we’ll forget.”
He smirks. “But I won’t.”
“I will.”
He actually laughs. Or tries to fake the effort to laugh. She remembers how they move from the door and then to the couch, how he’s sitting: shoulders set back, the television remote back in his hand, the lunch plates by his feet on the coffee table with a bagel hiding under the napkin.
She curls her legs under herself and stares into her kitchen. She thinks about painting again. The news turns on next.
“Aren’t you curious?” she asks too.
“I’ll screw it up,” he says. This might be a warning. “You’ll be angry. I have nothing I really want to say to you – I thought you understood that by now.” The last part is an add-on and it’s useless. “Or do I have to run around Chase and Foreman to subject you to translations.”
Her nose wrinkles. “Please don’t.”
“I’ll offend you,” he adds.
“You will,” she agrees.
Then he’s serious. Mouth, arms set over the back of her couch. “I can’t play pretend. I don’t play pretend.”
It’s both a warning and an admission. She cannot read more than that. She keeps her gaze settled on the television. The picture blurs. Her throat starts to dry. She needs to shower at some point soon.
But her mind wanders too. She knows where her wedding photos are. Away, back and tucked into a box in the closet. They sit, hidden, underneath a row of college friends that are married, divorced, and forgotten in reunions. She has baby pictures and pictures of her nieces and nephews, her parents, and growing up. All the things are right there, the things that he’s already assumed, the things that he seems to need her to wear.
She does not know what’s worse, agreeing to do it or following through.
So she takes the date.
-
It would not go as planned.
He hails her a cab. The flowers pinned to her chest are already starting to fall apart. There are petals in her clutch. There were petals over the table too.
When the cab stops and she opens the door, his hand curls around the door. There will be a box of files in the morning, she assumes.
“I told you,” he says.
“You did,” she says quietly.
He shifts closer. The cab driver turns the radio in the car on. People walk buy and stare. She doesn’t think she cares.
She does wait to think about certain things. Does she want to kiss him? Does she want to sleep with him? What would he do if she decided not to come back after all of that – then again, a deal’s a deal and she already knows the terms to that answer, probably better than the rest.
“You pushed.”
“I pushed.” She says this at the same time he says, “Moron.”
Cameron turns though. She tucks her clutch under her arm. Her keys dig into her dress. This isn’t the best black dress, she thinks. Her hair loops over the rest of her flowers and she is brushing her fingers over the buttons of his shirt.
Her nails skim the fabric. He shifts and his cane leans against the door. The driver is humming loudly.
“Should’ve gone to Hopkins,” he murmurs, and he looks down. He swallows. His mouth is tight and it’s the most uncomfortable thing, watching unfold right in front of her this way.
“Maybe,” she says, and this won’t be the first time it’ll go unsaid.
You would have never let me go.
In the morning, a box of files sits on the conference table.
There is no patient. There is coffee. She touches her mouth with the tips of her fingers. That happens twice. He may watch, the second time around.
But pick one, and that’s for her.