Title: And Unto Him She Shall Return (13/?)
 Characters: Cameron/House
 Spoilers: None
 Summary: She would always return.
 

 

  Strange how you know inside me 
 I measure the time and I stand amazed 
 Strange how I know inside you 
 My hand is outstretched toward the damp of the haze
 "Eric's Song" - Vienna Teng  

 17, 18, 19... 

 House silently ticked off the seconds before Cameron would shift for the
millionth time. Her side. Her back. Her other side. Her stomach. This was
going to have to stop, and soon. 

 She turned, this time flipping onto her back. She was upset about
something. The thing with Wilson, maybe. Or something Forman had said? She
sighed audibly, signaling that she was still awake, and he rolled his
eyes. Okay, he so didn't care what the hell was bothering her - at this
point, she was a few turns shy of being kicked out onto the couch - back
pain or not. 

 "Cameron," he said as he sensed her revving up for a shift. His voice was
quiet but sharp. He felt her still and, for a moment, he had to really
concentrate in order to hear her breathing. 

 "We had a fight." Except she said it all together, "Wehadafight." House
scrunched up his face, even though she couldn't see it in the darkness. 

 "So call Loveline. Phone's in the kitchen." 

 "But it wasn't a fight," she continued on as though he hadn't spoken. He
hated that, hated being ignored. "We didn't yell - well, I didn't yell. He
accused me of not caring about him, about his needs - and I said he was
wrong. He accused me of sleeping with you behind his back - and I told him
he was crazy." 

 "Cameron." He drew out her name this time - not quite a whine. He was in
pain. He didn't do well with this...stuff. Crap like this was why Wilson
existed, why he'd gotten married four times. House didn't do hook ups or
break ups or feelings. 

 "I didn't care. And that's - that's how I knew that it was over." 

 "What?" His interest was slightly peaked, but he maintained his tone of
exasperation. 

 "Us. I mean, I can't marry him. He called it off, but I knew, I must have
known." 

 "The Dick is a hot-headed man Cameron. I'm sure it'll blow over." He was
trying to end the conversation, he told himself. So why did he find
himself hoping that she'd say more? 

 "No, it won't. You knew though, didn't you? From the moment you met him.
But not me. Oh no, I had to try once again to regain some kind
of...whatever the hell this is I've been living for the past...for
forever." Her words were rushing out now and House was fearful that her
level of "emotion" filling the room was going to smother him. "And what do
I do? I not only make the wrong choice, I even fuck that up by coming back
here. To this." 

 When finally the silence he sought for returned, he found it ringing
loudly in his ears. Well of course he'd been right. The Dick was a dick.
Her problem was like that of most people: not listening to him when she
should have. Oh no - he hoped she wasn't going to cry. That would
officially make this the worst night of his life. 

 "Why did you come for me, House? It wasn't to save me - you didn't even
know about Richard until you'd gotten there." He saw her bring her arm up
to her forehead in the dim light. "I'm such a fool." There it was again -
that note of desperation, despondence, that was screwing with his mind. He
wanted to stop it, to apply pressure until it could clot on its own, and
that worried him. It angered him. 

 He should have wanted her gone, should have wanted her to drive back to
the hospital in the snow storm and sleep in her office. He should have
wanted her to marry Richard or to practice medicine in some far off,
third-world country. He should have continued to push her away like he'd
been doing all these years. But instead, he'd boarded a plane, wandered a
city, and found her. 

 "A while ago I told Cuddy I was taking a vacation," he began in a low
voice. She completely stilled at his side. "I told her I was taking a
vacation, but really I went to Holland. I met with some doctors. About my
leg. The pain. They'd been doing some research...related to some ketamine
research they'd done years back. It was experimental, dangerous, not quite
legal...but, they accepted cash so..." 

 She was silent, absorbing his words like she always did, looking for
something beneath. Tell me if you find it, he wanted to quip. 

 "So then there was PT, which I actually went to. Six months." 

 "And now?" Her voice was so soft he almost didn't hear it. 

 "Now, I walk." 

 "And the pain?" 

 "Mostly gone. Far less than what it was." He shrugged. At least she
sounded calmer. 

 "And...the vicodin?" 

 "Occasionally," he sighed. This was getting uncomfortable. "But don't
tell Cuddy. She'll start psychoanalyzing my behavior." 

 "I saw you take it though. In Boston. Here." 

 "Not vicodin. Some crap they gave us in rehab. It sucks but..." He wasn't
about to admit to liking the effect his swinging back a pill had on people
- from patients to Cuddy to Cameron. 

 There was more silence for a while, and he assumed that she was taking
some time to absorb his revelation. How much time had it taken him? In
fact, he still woke up most mornings, hand glued to his thigh, prepared
for battle. 

 "I knew." He turned his head to her, even though her form was nearly
impossible to make out in the dark. 

 "What?" 

 "I knew," she said again. He analyzed the tone for any shades of pity or
that horrifically persistent sense of compassion she always exuded, but
found neither. 

 "You saw me. Before. When I walked back to get my cane." 

 "No," she shook her head, "Wilson. House, he knows. He told me earlier
this evening - I think tonight was the first time he'd gotten all the
pieces." House was stunned, and he wasn't an easily confounded man. That
he hadn't sensed Wilson's suspicion was...but then again, he'd apparently
been missing a lot of things where Wilson was concerned. 

 "Bastard," he muttered. 

 "Bastard?" Cameron voiced indignantly. "Oh yeah, Wilson's the bastard.
Not telling your best - hell your only friend that you could walk without
a cane, without pain? Well now that's just normal. I mean, why the hell
are you still walking with it anyway? To put on some sick show? Uphold the
`everybody lies' philosophy?" 

 "No." He felt anger rising in him. "I wanted to make sure that it would
last. That I wouldn't give up the cane and have it end up like - like last
time." She quieted a little at that. Perhaps he was supposed to take her
silence as an apology, an offering. He snorted softly. 

 "Were you ever going to tell me?" He pursed his lips at her question.
"Why do you do this? You always take away my choice. If you would have
told me in Boston I would have-" 

 "You would have come back out of pity. Out of your eternal and misguided
notion of who and what I am." He was becoming irate now. Take away her
choice?! 

 "So, what, you figure you'd lie to me and I'd come back out
of...curiosity? Pity? It turns out I did come back out of a misguided
notion of who and what you are, so I guess that plan didn't work quite as
well as you'd hoped, huh?" 

 "Well I knew you wouldn't dream of coming back unless I was damaged or
dying. Damaged seemed easier to pull off on short notice." He bit down a
little on his tongue with his back teeth after saying that. It wasn't that
it was true - the point with them had never been about truth. It had been
about knowing how they could hurt each other, knowing what was hopelessly
untrue yet suggestive enough to sting. 

 Saying nothing, she slipped out of the bed, feet angrily padding toward
the kitchen. Another one of those moments, he realized, was upon him.
Earlier he'd dipped his toe in the water, allowing himself to have an inch
of her, a moment. He wasn't one to think about tomorrows and "what if's"
and "now what's." But she was, he knew. 

 God, he hated change. He didn't do it well. And yet. Cuddy and Wilson had
seemed normal to him all this time, though they'd obviously changed. He'd
seemed normal all this time - maybe not to Wilson, but to everyone else -
and he'd changed. He paused at that thought. He'd changed. No pain - well,
no physical pain. The old heaviness of his days had been lifted, and while
that had seemed so novel at the beginning, it now seemed...normal. 

 He pushed back the covers and swung his legs over the side of the
mattress. It couldn't hurt, he thought, to walk to the edge and peer down.
Could it? 

 But he knew it would. 

 * * * 

 She leaned against the kitchen sink, feeling the edge push into her
abdomen. Her knuckles turned white as she gripped the counter. There
wasn't even a window over it. How were you supposed to stand at the sink
and contemplate if there wasn't even a damn window to look out of? She
wondered what he thought about while doing dishes, immediately angry with
herself for having the thought. 

 So much of her belonged to him. Her time, her thoughts, her diagnoses.
Her decisions. She thought that she had gotten away from it for a while in
Boston, that she had successfully run away from home as she'd once tried
and failed to do. But looking back she realized that he had always been
there - in the way she saw people, the way she approached a case, even the
way she saw Richard. At least he's not House, she'd always told herself.
Idiot. 

 She felt more than heard him emerge from the bedroom. The silence as he
walked - no more rhythmic limp - was maddening, a reminder of the reality
of this moment they were having. Soon he stood right behind her. She could
feel his breath, warm and steady against the bare back of her neck. Ever
so slowly his long, muscular arms appeared on either side of her, bracing
themselves on the counter top. Still he did not touch her. It was as
though there was an invisible safety cushion of air between them. 

 Then again, that was what they were. Always close, never touching. Two
steps apart. Three steps behind. Haunted by the past. Fearful of the
future. Perpetually alone. He'd taken something from her, that first day
they'd met. He'd taken her ability to live a life without him. All the
"what if's" in the world would never change that, and so she was left with
this inescapable paradox of a life. 

 She tensed suddenly and wondered why for the briefest of moments before
feeling his lips gently graze her neck. The rigidity immediately melted
away, but still she was careful to remain apart from him. Slowly,
languorously he traced a delicate pattern over her skin. It reminded her
of the steady trail she would make with her stethoscope on a patient's
back when she checked their breathing. The stubble on his chin grazed her
neck and she resisted the smirk that arose on her lips. 

 "I hate myself," she began softly, closing her eyes to better focus on
his motions, "for needing this." He paused, breaking contact. Gradually
she turned, mindful still of the invisible barrier. His eyes glinted in
the glow of the snow coming from the window and she latched onto them with
her own. She needed him to feel the weight of this, the weight she'd
carried for so long now. "For wanting you," she finished. 

 For a beat his expression remained the same: thoughtful, absorbing. She
sucked in a deep breath and was about to plot her next action when his
hands slid off the counter, finally breaking the barrier as they curled
against the side of her hips, fingers splaying across her back. All this
happened in the blink of an eye, him tugging her the final inch closer
before his lips covered her own. 

 Her eyes dropped closed at first, eyebrows raising in surprise. She felt
relieved - thankfully relieved. It was something - this was something. A
path, finally. She didn't know or care where it would lead. He pulled back
for a moment, searching out her eyes. She loved it - for all his arrogance
and deceit, for all his manipulating and calculating, he would give her
this last say, this final decision. Did he know, she wondered, that when
it came to this she had no decision. That neither of them did. 

 She leaned back in, keeping eye contact until her lips were centimeters
from his. "Shut up," she murmured against his lips, satisfyingly feeling
his own curl into a smile in reply. She felt the rational part of her mind
slipping off line, instead concentrating on the feel of House's tongue
sliding over her bottom teeth. They instinctively began to gravitate back
toward the bedroom. Later she would remember it as a drunken dance - him
pushing her backwards toward the door, then a quick turn around and her
pushing him. 

 Eyes open, eyes closed. Sighs and whimpers. Discarded clothes. Fumbling
and amusement. It was their release from the maze they'd built themselves.
For her it was as much about them - for in that moment they were a them -
as it was about herself, about finally letting go and feeling more in
control than she had in a long time. 

 Later, what she would remember most would not be the height of their
passionate and demanding forms coming together. It would instead be the
exact moment following a blinding white ecstasy, the first moment she let
actual thought slip back in. Her eyes meeting his and seeing the same
reflected back at her. The quirk of his lips. A blink. And then, his lips
grazing her forehead one last time. Perhaps he thought she needed
absolution. 

 She would take it as a beginning. 

 * * * 

 17, 18, 19... 

 House counted the seconds before she would once again droopily open her
eyes. She'd begun by closing them for a few seconds - I need to rest them,
her eyebrows seemed to say. But they'd open again, revealing deep pools of
(thankfully) little thought and much contentment. He smirked every time he
remembered that he was the one responsible for that contentment. 

 But then her eyes began to remain closed for longer intervals. They would
pop back open, a little alarmed. As though she were afraid it would all
disappear if she wasn't careful. He almost resented how right she was.
These last few times he'd been monitoring her breathing, checking to see
if she had finally fallen asleep. 

 She lay on her side, facing him - but not touching. He'd been surprised
by that. In all his years of Cameron picturing and contemplating, he'd
always felt that "cuddly" had been a sure bet. Yet her acceptance - almost
as though she understood his reluctance - was intriguing. He counted out
two more minutes before finally sighing a little, allowing himself to gaze
more openly at her. 

 She was young still, despite the fact that she'd had enough grief for
several lives. He'd always liked that about her, though that quality had
usually remained rather elusive where he was concerned. She was young and
he had ruined what was left of her life. He hadn't quite destroyed her -
yet. But he would, he knew. Eventually he would impose a grief on her so
heavy that it would take away that youth. He'd seen it in Stacey. It was
more than a heaviness - it was a permanent albatross on the spirit. 

 She would call him a naysayer. But he knew himself better than even she. 

 Carefully he brought his hand up to her face. It still seemed a little
strange to touch her after all these years of a seemingly unspoken rule
between them. Gently, almost weightlessly, he cupped her jaw in his hand.
Blue eyes flashed open at him, her breathing remaining regular. 

 He was sure he looked like a deer caught in the headlights, and he hated
her for that. He didn't know what to do, how to explain himself. She might
expect this from him now, think that she had changed him in some way. But
he wasn't that guy. He would never be. It was just this once. Just to see.
And, damn it all to hell, she had to go and- 

 Soft and warm, her hand smoothly covered his for a moment, pushing it
firmly against her cheek as her face nestled deeper into his palm. She
sigh almost inaudibly, pressing the side of her lips against the inside of
his wrist. Then, snaking her hand back to her side, her eyes fluttered
closed once again. So. She would give him this. 

 He gazed at her, now unhappily, thumb grazing her impossibly velvet skin.
She'd give him anything, he realized. Everything. She wouldn't be able to
stop herself. 

 But he - he could.