Chapter Text
The surprise, Cameron thinks, is how many people showed up for House’s funeral.
Perhaps that’s cynical of her. Perhaps she has become a cynical person. But the rows are packed with the grieving and familiar, the list of speakers endless. She’d expected House would have some mourners. She’s pleased, and heartbroken, to see how many.
After Wilson rushes out, the service comes to an awkward end. There’s a reception, and people filter out in small, hushed groups to continue reminiscing over canapés and wine. Cameron helps herself to a plate and realizes abruptly how out of place she feels.
Princeton is no longer her life.
House, for his misanthropy and unpleasantness, had a way of drawing people to him, of inspiring extreme loyalty. It has been almost three years since Cameron left Princeton, and she realizes it acutely. House had new fellows she’d never met. People she’d once considered her friends offer her polite hellos before drifting to comfort and talk to one another. Cameron is the outsider, the stranger, never mind that she wasn’t, that these people, this world, had once been her entire life, and —
She feels lost.
She’d wanted this when she’d left. It was good that she’d left.
She hates it now that she’s here.
“Hey,” says Foreman, excusing himself from a conversation. “I’m glad you made it. Your speech was great.”
“Thanks,” Cameron says, grateful. She returns his polite hug before sitting at one of the scattered chairs, her food balanced awkwardly on one knee. She huffs. “I’m glad you’re here, too. Thanks for making the time to say hello,” she adds, teasing: “I saw you making the rounds.”
“Turns out you don’t get much of a learning curve for this stuff.” Foreman chuckles as he sits beside her. “You either learn to kiss some ass, or you’re out of a job.”
“I’m sorry this is what it took to get me back to Princeton,” Cameron says. Foreman’s smile is rigid. “It’s… awful, but I think a part of me expected this is what it would take. Not now. Not like this.” But House. But a funeral.
“Yeah.” Foreman tries not to grimace. “How have you been?” They keep sporadic contact. Another surprise. She’d always respected Foreman, liked him as a colleague. A friend, despite it all. But for him to be her only lifeline to her old life, the one person she still keeps up with…
“Nothing new.” Now it’s her turn not to grimace. He knows the gist, and it feels wrong to talk about here and now.
“Your boyfriend didn’t come?”
“It didn’t seem… I don’t know, appropriate? I didn’t want to take attention away from House at his own funeral.” Cameron’s smile is forced. She wonders, suddenly, if that is self-centered. If anyone really would have cared. She’d imagined questions, introductions, friendly prodding. They’d all spent years so tightly entwined, so wrapped up in one another’s business and gossip, it had felt inevitable that bringing Scott would be the start of a whole lot of conversations. But House is dead. She’s the outsider here.
She looks idly about the reception hall, turning in her seat. The crowd has thinned out, and she recognizes more faces. Old colleagues. Hospital employees being polite. She sees Taub, talking to the two women who’d been introduced as House’s current fellows… and finally her eyes land on Chase. He’d seemed exhausted and miserable earlier, but now he’s chatting amiably with Thirteen across the room.
No. Doctor Hadley. Cameron probably shouldn’t think of her by nickname anymore. “How’s Chase?” she asks softly. They’d exchanged brief — polite — hellos when she’d arrived, but it had been obvious he hadn’t wanted to talk for long. She understood. Awkwardness of chatting with one’s ex-wife aside, all bad blood and bad memories aside… it was House’s funeral.
“Being his usual charming self,” Foreman says dryly, before remember who he’s talking to. “He’s taking it hard, and so of course he refuses to talk about it.”
She turns back around. Chase’s back is to them, so Cameron watches Dr. Hadley instead. She has a drawn look to her but she’s smiling, some of her usual detached irony fallen away. “Are those two…? I mean, she’s your ex, and my ex — I guess — but…”
“Oh, no, it’s much weirder than that,” Foreman says with some humor. “They’re good friends. They text. Don’t ask me, I keep out of it.” She chuckles. It’s a bittersweet feeling, but not a bad one.
“I’m going to offer him the diagnostics department,” Foreman adds.
“Really?” That’s news. Cameron blinks, turning her attention back to him.
“Well, it was that or swoop in and take it for myself,” Foreman says dryly. Cameron’s eyebrows quirk. “I’m kidding. That ship sailed years ago.”
“It’s never too late,” she says diplomatically.
“For some things, yeah, it is.” He shrugs. “I like being Dean. And Chase…”
“He’ll be great at it,” she says. She means it.
“We’ll see if I can talk him into it.”
“He’ll take the job.” Cameron has long since abandoned any dreams of being a diagnostician she may have once held, without bitterness or remorse. House taught her so much, and that training has helped tremendously with emergency medicine, but she was never really in it for the mystery and problem-solving. Still… she feels a pang of something like jealousy. Remorse. She laughs under her breath. “Remember when Cuddy put you in charge of House for a while? The first time. I was so mad. I thought she was being sexist by not picking me, the obvious best candidate.”
Foreman chuckles. “And I was so sure I’d been set up to fail, I could barely concentrate on the diagnostics. If only you and House would stop undermining me.” He grins, raises his voice pointedly. “And meanwhile pretty boy couldn’t have cared less.”
“I cared.” Cameron starts: she hadn’t noticed Chase approaching, although Foreman clearly had. She looks guiltily up at him, but he has a wry sort of smile on his face, directed at Foreman. “I just knew what you idiots forgot: that House was still the boss.” His hands are in his pockets, and he looks exhausted.
“All that ass-kissing you used to do, maybe I just wanted a taste for myself,” Foreman says dryly.
“You’d have had to have something I needed for that,” Chase retorts.
“Hey,” Cameron says anxiously. Feeling left out, feeling strange. “How are you doing?”
Chase’s expression is closed off, but his answer is polite enough. “Alright. You?”
“Just reminiscing on the good old days,” Foreman says. The two of them had often been opposed or annoyed with one another over the years, but Cameron notices how relaxed they seem now. She feels a lonely pang. They had once been a group, a trio. Always on the same level, collaborating, bickering, teaming up two against one and having dinner, grabbing drinks after long shifts. She’s been left out and left behind. “Pull up a chair.”
Chase hums and obeys. “What good old days? The time you all lost hundreds betting against a DNA test?”
“The time you made hundreds, betting House wouldn’t fire any of the fellows?” Foreman retorts.
“Hey.” Chase’s expression is mock offended. “Thousands.”
“Kiss ass,” Foreman snorts.
Chase grins. “Can’t get everywhere on looks alone.”
With the ice broken, things are easier, and when Foreman excuses himself to talk to some of the others, Cameron and Chase manage to keep up the conversation alone. Talking about old times. About House. The months before Foreman had been hired, when Cameron was new and adjusting; House’s remaining fellows. Taub and Dr. Hadley.
“You in town just for the weekend?” Chase asks eventually.
“Flying back tomorrow.” she grimaces. “The saddest part is, this is the longest break I’ve had for a while.”
“I get it. I’ve been unemployed a month and I’m sick of it. Thirteen’s trying to talk me into a holiday in Greece…” Chase looks unconvinced.
“Like a…” she feels juvenile. Like they’re middle schoolers talking about crushes. But she can’t seem to form the question. Like a romantic getaway?
He looks amused. “I’d be staying with her and her girlfriend, yeah.”
“Oh.” She’s being ridiculous. She doesn’t even care, not really — only in the sense that she hopes he’s doing well, and is intrigued by the possibility (or not) of this new pairing. And, sure, she cares in the sense that he’s her ex-husband, and it’s probably always weird to think about your ex with someone new… “I’ve been seeing someone,” she blurts.
“Alright.” His tone is neutral, if slightly cool.
“My sister-in-law — I mean, you know, Amanda — set us up. He’s a manager at a paper plate company, if you can believe it…”
“Wow. You’re dating middle management? Now that is impressive,” Chase says dryly.
“I’d almost forgotten what it was like to talk to someone who wasn’t a doctor,” she retorts, amused. He doesn’t seem hurt by her announcement, which is a relief, given how badly she’d made it.
“I’m not sure I’d know either.” He shifts in his seat, restless.
“I didn’t tell you — I mean, I’m not trying to suggest that you should care, or I thought you cared, or anything like that,” she says quickly. “It’s just, you know, we’re catching up. And that’s what’s new with me. Not that new — it’s been a year. But —”
“Cameron. It’s fine.” His eyebrows raised, his tone gently exasperated.
“Right.” She nibbles on a cracker from her half-forgotten plate. She hadn’t wanted him to be upset, and he isn’t. God, they divorced three years ago, she’d be more worried if he did want to get back together. But things used to be so easy. They used to talk. Share hospital gossip, House gossip, joke and tease and… be friends. And now they don’t. Now she doesn’t.
“I should check on Adams and Park,” Chase says after an awkward silence, and she feels a pang — that she doesn’t know House’s fellows, that he does. He softens the excuse to leave with a smile. “I’m glad we got to catch up.”
“Me too.” She means it, and his smile softens at hers. “We should keep in better touch.”
“Yeah, alright.” It’s the sort of thing you say. She doesn’t know if he wants it, if she even really means it. If he does. But in this moment, she’s glad it was said. He gets to his feet, hands going back into his pockets — looking all of twelve again.
She picks up her plate and starts to stand — the conversation is over, and she thinks a friendly hug goodbye would be appropriate, even nice. Show they’re on good terms, show that even with how awkward it is there’s no hard feelings — “Take care of yourself, okay?”
She stands up —
And —
— Cameron stumbles. Her vision dims, head spins — she reaches out awkwardly for the back of her chair to steady herself.
Kutner’s voice is in her ear. She feels a large hand on her shoulder. Light contact, steadying. “Woah! Hey, you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Stood up too quickly.” She blinks rapidly as her vision clears, the dizziness fading just as quick. “Sorry. What were you…”
Kutner draws his hand back, suddenly apologetic. “House wanted to know if you had any interesting neurological cases in the ER you could refer to us today.”
“You mean any interesting cases.” She’s talking on autopilot, staring at Kutner. The dizziness is returning, vertigo creeping behind her eyes. Her fingers feel suddenly cold. Slowly, Cameron sinks back into her chair.
“No, neurological symptoms specifically. He and Foreman are in the middle of this whole thing — Dr. Cameron? Are you sure you’re okay? You’re… pale.”
“I… don’t know,” she says. Kutner blinks. Turns his head slightly. She can’t look away from the way his eyes dart, a slight twitch to his mouth as he waits for her reply. The faintest lift and fall of his shoulders and chest as he breathes, all the tiny, ignorable markers of life you normally don’t notice when you look at someone, but —
She remembers his funeral.
He’s been dead three — four years — he —
Cameron’s pulse is rapid. She feels herself starting to sweat. “What…” She looks around frantically. They’re in the emergency room, and every inch is familiar, except this isn’t Chicago, it’s Princeton, and —
Hallucinations. Delusions. She was at the funeral, House’s funeral — he and Foreman are in the middle of this whole thing —
Her heartrate is rapid. It’s becoming difficult to breathe. Panic attack, she thinks, in a distant, clinical part of her mind.
“Doctor Cameron! Hey! I need some help over here!” Kutner’s voice sounds like it’s coming from far, far away.
“Something is wrong,” she says, as calmly as she is able, her hands cold and clutching desperately at the back of her chair — “I think I’m having a psychotic break —“
As the world goes dark, she can hear Kutner yelling for a nurse.
“When I said I was looking for patients with neurological symptoms, I didn’t mean you had to go ahead and get some for yourself,” House says. “Sweet of you though. Why did I ever fire you?”
Cameron’s head aches, and her slightest movement sends the overly starched hospital sheets crackling. She blinks, her eyes gummy. She’s in one of the recovery rooms, still in her scrubs. Her blood pressure and oxygen are being monitored, and she closes her eyes.
House says —
House.
She opens her eyes and jerks upright — “What the hell —“
“You fainted.” His tone suggests he’s disappointed in her. His tone — she stares at him. He’s at the foot of her bed, unimpressed. Alive. Breathing. Young — no, not exactly, but different than in her memories, less tired, less —
She’s at his funeral…
Dimly, she’s aware her heart rate is spiking.
“How are you feeling?” Foreman asks, approaching the bed. He was in the room as well — Cameron knows, she’d seen him, she smiles politely at him now, but whenever she looks away from House her eyes seem to be dragged back. He’s alive. He’s…
She swallows. “I didn’t hit my head or anything, did I?” Reaching up to touch it, feel herself: her skin, her hair. Real. Physical and real.
“No. Just fainted. But you were slow to come to,” Foreman says gently. “Your blood sugar is low. Otherwise you seem okay.”
“I… guess I skipped breakfast. Lunch. I don’t remember.” She remembers the hotel had a buffet. Overcooked eggs, soft bagels, under-ripe fruit. She’d stared at the warming trays for a while, knowing she ought to eat something before the funeral…
House leans against the plastic rail at the foot of the bed. His gaze is sharp. He blinks. He breathes. This is…
Her heart is pounding. The monitors beep steadily, quicker.
There’s a logical explanation. House must have faked his death. She fainted, and… he came out of hiding to check on her. That doesn’t make sense. Cameron’s head pounds.
“Can you tell me your name?” Foreman asks.
She gives him her most exasperated look. “Really?”
“Humor me.”
“Allison Jane Cameron. I’m in Princeton Plainsboro hospital. One of the first floor recovery rooms.” Her gaze darts back to House, who is watching and tapping the butt of his cane against the floor.
“Today’s date?”
“Why?“ Her voice is strangled.
“Cameron.” Foreman’s tone is gentle, in a way it never is with her. This is his patient voice, his I’m a good doctor voice — her heart is racing. Some corner of Cameron’s mind automatically tracks the rate, calculates her BP on the monitors. Heightened, panicked, indicating stress, indicating…
She stares at House again, frightened.
Foreman moves on with the neurological test. She can do mental math. Can spell world backwards and forwards, and can list a solid half dozen animals that start with the letter A.
She fainted. Foreman doesn’t seem alarmed or surprised to see House. Had he been in on the scam? Unlikely.
Maybe House wasn’t here at all.
She’s hallucinating. The funeral. The stress. Death on her mind, and she’d imagined Kutner — maybe it had just been a dream. That made sense. She’d already fainted, and it had been a lucid dream, one hell of a lucid dream, and because she’d fainted they’d taken her to the hospital…
(A room full of doctors, and they called an ambulance?)
…And now she was imagining House. At the foot of her hospital bed. Alive. Staring.
Cameron can hardly tear her eyes from House. He watches her impassively. She knows she’s acting obvious, acting weird, but —
“You’re a little disoriented, but you seem fine,” is Foreman’s verdict.
“Not generally a sign of fainting,” House points out.
Foreman glances at him, unimpressed. “Really? I’d say they’re part and parcel.”
She grows cold.
“Sorry, let me rephrase. Disorientation is a classic symptom. Disorientation plus panic attack?”
If she’s hallucinating House, how is Foreman able to interact with him?
“I’m not having a panic attack,” she says cautiously. Shakily. If House isn’t a hallucination, it’s a normal reply. If he is, Foreman should react as if she’d spoken out of nowhere.
She waits, but neither Foreman or House object. “I… it’s just been a long day. A long week. Lots of eighteen hour shifts this week, I’ve been traveling, and I skipped breakfast, and I fainted. That’s all.”
“When,” House asks, tilting his head, “have you traveled anywhere recently?”
She isn’t sure what to say.
“Okay, I’ll try an easier one. You said you’ve done ‘lots’ of eighteen hour shifts this week. It’s Monday —“
“I meant in the past seven days, not literally a calendar week —“
“And you haven’t. You’ve been on regular hours for the past two weeks. Right here in good old Jersey.” For the first time, a flicker of emotion crosses House’s face. He glances at Foreman. “If I know when she’s not at work, I know when it’s safe to visit the E.R without a side of sanctimony. There’s also the little fact that Kutner says you said you were having a psychotic break. Are you calling him a liar?”
Cameron tries to speak, but doesn’t know what to say. “I — was panicking. I was fainting.”
“You were panicking,” House agrees. “Why?”
I was at your funeral. Kutner has been dead for three years. None of this is possible.
“I don’t know,” she lies. She’s delusional. That’s the only explanation. She’s hallucinating. The stress of the funeral, of returning to Princeton, have gotten to her, and she didn’t faint: she freaked out, and her mind created some alternate reality where…
Cameron had avoided returning for such a long time. A clean break. She’d only briefly returned to get her divorce papers signed, sneaking in and out like she was ashamed. Like she was frightened. And maybe she had been.
Her life in Chicago is simple. It’s easy. Princeton had been a drug, House had been a drug, and she was finally clean. And the funeral had set off… some latent PTSD. Some hallucinations. She is imagining being in a hospital bed, being lectured by House, because that would mean he isn’t dead.
It makes sense.
But it feels so real.
She tries to remember if her psych rotation had covered anything like this. How to make the hallucinations stop. She even considers mentioning it — explaining to House and Foreman that she’s dreaming them up.
But…
(What if she isn’t?)
She feels itchy all over. Panicked and jittery and cold.
“I’m fine,” she says, confidently as she can. “Low blood sugar can cause confusion, disorientation, and fainting. And I don’t know that I’ve ever actually fainted before. I panicked.”
House regards her, and a part of her…
He’s dead.
But he’s staring at her the way he always had, like he’s trying to see under her skin, as close as she thinks he’s capable of expressing care. He’s dead. She hadn’t seen or spoken to him in years. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed…
“Drink some ginger ale,” he says after a moment. “Physically, you’re fine. Mentally… eh. Talk to a shrink.” House’s tone is suddenly abrupt: he’s done with this conversation, or has a diagnoses he wants to pursue.
“I’d like to keep you here for observation,” Foreman interjects. “Physically you’re fine, but…”
“I’m fine,” Cameron says again. “I’ll take some aspirin for the headache and eat a proper lunch.”
He disapproves. “I can’t keep you here if you don’t want it, but you should know…”
“I’m a doctor, too,” Cameron points out, trying to keep her voice from shaking. “I think I can keep an eye on myself.”
“You heard the lady,” House says impatiently. “Get her some crackers.” His gaze falls back on Cameron. “Your prettier half is in surgery, but we’ll let him know you’re fine when he’s free.”
For a moment, Cameron has no idea what he’s talking about. And then — her heart sinks. She feels suddenly cold. “Oh.”
“Interesting,” House says.
She grabs for the remote on the end table and turns on the TV as soon as they’ve left the room, skipping channels until she finds the TV Guide. The date is displayed in the corner, and she stares at it unblinking. April 28th, 2008.
Her heart races.
What the hell is going on?