Title: And Unto Him She Shall Return (14/?)
 Characters: Cameron/House
 Spoilers: None
 Summary: She would always return.
 

 

  It was not enough; this happy, useful, well-ordered life was not enough.
It did not satisfy, it was not even real. No, the other things, the
shadows - they were the realities.
 "The Garden Lodge" - Willa Cather  

 It was the smell her mind registered, before anything else. Foreign and
musty, and was that a hint of cigar? She wasn't in her apartment. Where
was she? In a second it all came back to her and she stilled, trying to
control her breathing. The unfamiliar pillow her head rested on felt
surprisingly cool and soft. Wiggling in what she hoped as a nearly
imperceptive way - though she truly wondered if there was imperceptive
when it came to House - she realized she was wearing a t-shirt. She
strained her ears to hear anything - his breathing, his blinking. 

 Now or never, she reasoned, unable to stop a wry smile from spreading
across her face as she opened her eyes, expecting to see him across from
her, fully awake and staring at her with a smirk. But the bed was vacant
next to her, rumpled and abandoned. She shifted a little, turning toward
the bedroom door. She couldn't hear the shower - but how the hell should
she know what his shower sounded like? 

 She took a deep breath in through her nose, searching for the smell of
food - any kind of food. Perhaps he'd gone out for something. Coffee, at
least. Stop, her mind blared sharply. She draped her legs over the side of
the bed, searching the floor for the pants she'd been wearing the night
before. Pulling them on quickly, she soundlessly tiptoed out into the
hall. Nothing. 

 She could feel her pulse quickening as she neared the kitchen, where it
had begun and ended all at once. Gently she massaged the back of her neck
as she searched the counters, the table, any and every surface for a sign.
A note. Proof that he'd been here, that she hadn't imagined it all. 

 Glancing at the clock, she realized it was far too early for him to be at
work - not that he'd even be expected in today. And then the reality of
what was going on hit her like a cold-handed slap. She brought her hand to
her lips for a moment, paralyzed. The next moment found her frantically
discarding all that she was wearing - his - and furiously collecting her
things. 

 She slammed the door behind her on her way out, not knowing or caring if
it was locked. Her car was in the same place she'd left it, however it was
now covered in a few inches of snow. She bit back a frustrated moan of
despair. She would not throw a tantrum; she was not a child. She would
just get something to brush the snow off and then be on her way. 

 As she stiffly swept the light snow off her windows, she felt a hot
determination building inside of her. You finally got to decide, his voice
rang out in her head. She pushed it back, but not too far. 

 Yes, she had decided. But she wasn't finished yet. 

 * * * 

 House's eyes followed the ball on its path up into the air, then back
down again, safely into his hands. It was rhythmic, soothing. He needed to
come up with some new challenge. What was it Wilson was always saying? A
new "skill to master." He frowned, realizing that Wilson had entered his
thoughts. 

 That was the problem with having friends. Or, in his case, a friend. When
they finally did something stupid enough to make them completely
undeserving of friendship - as all people inevitably did - odds are you
would have to take them back if only because of the myriad ways their life
had fused with your own. 

 He had always found pride in the fact that he knew he could live without
Wilson. He didn't need people. It was a wonderful feeling - freeing, even.
But he had also always been faced with the small but very real truth that
a part of him (most likely, in the grand scheme of things, a very small
part, he liked to think) would just as soon not live without Wilson. A
part of him, in fact, was a little fond of the guy. 

 He'd accepted this (as he saw it) "human weakness" as another
disappointing piece of evidence in his lack of deity status. He made
himself feel better by promising to never look into it too deeply, to roll
where the wind took their friendship without too much thought or effort.
This attitude had thus served him well for years. 

 He gripped the ball lightly, holding it still for a moment, as he watched
Wilson's unmistakable form pass his door. Was he holding his breath? God,
one night with Cameron and he'd turned into some kind of freak. He watched
as Wilson paused, dipping his head down in his trademark "wait just a
minute" pose. Spinning on his heel, Wilson walked back to the door of
House's office, pausing for another moment of thought before suddenly
turning to face his friend. 

 There was a look of confusion on Wilson's face as he opened the door,
letting himself inside. House sighed and resumed tossing his ball. This
was already boring. 

 "You're here," Wilson said. House looked up at him in disdain. "Why are
you here? Something must be wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong." Wilson's
gaze scanned the room, as though he were looking for clues. "I know you
don't have a patient," Wilson continued. "What did you do?" 

 House looked away from his ball long enough to shrug and say, "I work
here." 

 "That," Wilson said slowly, "is debatable." The silence carried on as
Wilson's less-developed sense of mystery-solving worked overtime. "Okay,"
Wilson slowly drew out the two syllables, his focused yet uncertain gaze
never leaving House. Reluctantly, he headed back towards the door. 

 "Sleep well last night?" House's anger mixed with an unwonted pang of
bitterness. He didn't care. He didn't care. 

 "I - yes." Wilson's stilted reply, non-evidence though it was, only
served to heighten House's irritability. 

 "I bet," House said contemplatively, continuing his sharp scrutiny of
Wilson. Wilson always seemed to be so attuned to House. The freak could
discern House's motives, predict his actions - hell, Jimmy could even stop
him from acting, on occasion. The man had power - more than he realized. 

 So why the hell, House wondered, had Wilson and Cuddy not anticipated
being discovered? How could he not see now that House knew? It was too
much - this was too much. All this thinking, thinking about "feelings." It
tired him. It agitated him. The puzzle was solved, the question answered.
He needed to focus on the problem at hand. 

 "Well. I'm going to go actually do my job," Wilson said, finally filling
in the silence. He shuffled toward the door, a perplexed look on his face.
Right before leaving, he turned back saying, "You're sure nothing's
wrong?" 

 House gazed at a point somewhere just past Wilson's head for a long,
drawn out moment before tipping his head upward in the slightest of nods.
He hoped it would be enough. Looking less than convinced, Wilson finally
retreated. A feeling of liberation coursed through House for the briefest
of moments. Finally! Now he could go back to - 

 He looked down at the ball in his hands as if seeing it for the first
time. He watched as his arm suddenly flung it across the office, satisfied
at the thump it made against the glass, disappointed when the window
failed to shatter. (Shattering glass - that could be a new skill.) Wilson,
Cuddy - he didn't want any of them, when he really thought about it. So
why did he keep them? Why did he follow her? 

 He had wanted her in that moment the previous night. He'd wanted her and
he'd acted on it and look at the mess he was going to be cleaning up now.
He had to solve this puzzle, had to figure out what to do. But he couldn't
think about it anymore, not when the thinking was so close to feeling.
Sighing, he picked up a glass paperweight from his desk, shifting it from
palm to palm. He eyed the door to his office thoughtfully. 

 * * * 

 She sat in her scrubs - pink, what a stupid color - knees drawn up to her
chest, forehead pressed against the cool window as she looked out at the
snow from her fourth floor office. The sun was already out in that way it
always comes after a freak snowstorm: blindingly bright and insistent
against a striking blue sky. Snow? What snow?, it seems to say. 

 For all its happy glaring, though, it wouldn't melt the perfect, velvet
blanket of snow before her - this she knew from experience. Such heat,
such intensity, powerless against the frigid winter temperature. A
paradox, she thought wryly, shifting her head to a cooler spot on the
window. 

 She had allowed herself 15 minutes of crying as she showered in the
locker room, but that was all. She hadn't even been sure what or whom the
tears were for. Perhaps, she thought, she was trying to wash away the
night before, to erase its memory; but it wasn't erasure that she wanted.
She wanted to cleanse herself of all the powerful, passionate feelings
where he was concerned. 

 If she was going to do what she was going to do, she needed to know that
she'd be okay, no matter what the outcome. She needed to know that she
would be able to survive without him - a fact her head understood, but one
that her heart, fresh from a night with House, was having trouble
comprehending let alone believing. 

 "Cameron?" The voice, so full of concern, jarred her out of her reverie.
When she turned, revealing her bare face (still red around the eyes) to
Wilson, she noted his widening eyes, his sharp intake of breath. God, she
hadn't thought she'd looked that bad. "Oh my God," he breathed softly, and
she knew that he'd figured it out. Somehow, some way, he knew. 

 "Did House...?" 

 "Oh my God," he repeated again, sinking into a chair. His head was turned
down, his eyes focused on the floor in disbelief. 

 "Oh please Wilson," Cameron attempted to shrug off his melodrama. "It was
bound to happen sooner or later, you knew that. I'm-" 

 "You're what?" She hesitated in her answer. 

 "Not okay," she reluctantly relented after a time, resting her head on
her knees. 

 "You want me to-" 

 "No," she said softly. The silence hung on them like a foretold and
accepted burden. Cameron allowed herself to gaze at Wilson, noting with
wry irony that while he would always empathize with her, he would forever
be bound to him. "Wilson." He looked over at her expectantly. "Wilson, I
think he knows about you - and Cuddy." She paused as his facial expression
ran the gamut from shocked to defensive. "And mind you, I'm not claiming
to know any better. But really, at this point I think you'd have to be
blind not to see it." 

 Wilson's face melted into a bittersweet mixture of happiness and earnest
apprehension. "You just...it's just...you never stop wanting to save him,
you know? From himself. From the pain, the past. It seems so easy, in your
mind." 

 "I don't want to save him," she replied. "I just...can't leave him."
Across the darkened office sympathy and empathy mingled in their gazes.
She marveled that one man could hold such a power over otherwise strong,
capable people while at the same time continually and consistently pushing
them away. 

 She was friends with Wilson because of House. He had been the one she'd
kept in touch with, but House was the one to whom she had returned. If
Wilson ultimately failed in his goal of saving House, he would recover,
she felt. He would have Cuddy, his patients, the passion for medicine with
which he had begun. He would forever bemoan his disappointment, his
failure, but he would recover. 

 She would not. 

 "I'm going to go talk to him." 

 "Wilson, you don't have to-" 

 "I should. Someone should. He thinks - he's always thought - he can go
around doing whatever he wants, no consequences. But I don't believe, I
won't believe, that's what he wants. I think he pushes and pushes to see
how far he can go before-" 

 "He didn't push Wilson." Her words stopped him mid-tirade. "He didn't
push. I came back and I decided to take this step and..." She kicked her
feet down from the windowsill, facing Wilson squarely. "He can't figure
out why I'm here and it's pissing him off. It's terrifying him. You always
warned me not to break him, and I've been faithful to you. But...I never
thought...I honestly never thought he would have the power to break me.
And isn't that ridiculous? All those years. Everything I saw. I'm a fool,
Wilson. But I can't help it. It's him." 

 He listened with wide eyes and a serious expression. When she finished,
he nodded slowly. She was unsure whether he was agreeing with her or
merely acknowledging that she had spoken her peace, but it was no matter.
He rose wearily, pausing at the door on his way out. 

 "When you left...he was...I'd never seen him quite like that. It was all
under the surface, nothing big. But I thought, if there is ever to be a
time...I thought he would go after you. I thought something, anything,
might change. And then it didn't. Life turned into something else,
something vaguely new but similar to the old." 

 "Before," she countered, "I didn't give him a choice. He pretty much
didn't give me one either. And this, now...I'm not sure it could have been
a choice, on either of our parts. But what comes next - I'm going to make
it a choice. His choice." She paused, running a hand through her still
damp hair, fatigued. "You kept him alive all this time, you know. He'll
never say thank you, but I will." She gave a small smile, the corners of
her mouth mildly turning up. 

 He bowed his head forward as though both acknowledging and absorbing her
words before continuing on his path out of her office. Wilson would fight
for his friend, she knew. She just hoped that House would fight for
himself as well. 

 * * * 

 It had been a long day. Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum hadn't shown up
despite repeated threatening phone calls. The hospital was nearly empty of
interesting patients and House was nearly empty of potential distractions
from his mess of a life. He'd finally resorted to playing an old video
game when Wilson stormed into the office, glass door banging with a
dangerous pang and him looking more perplexed than usual. 

 "How could you do that to her?" he blurted out. House was still except
for his eyes which darted up to Wilson in sharp annoyance. 

 "So she's been talking, huh? Telling big bad daddy what a horrible date
she had." 

 "Of course not," Wilson spat back, "But you can see it just by looking at
her. You bestow a certain kind of look, House, on people you break." House
narrowed his eyes, trying to refocus on the game. Had she sent Wilson to
berate him? Was she hoping that he would fold and come coo and coddle her?
Fat chance. 

 "It's time you tell me what the hell is going on here," Wilson continued.
The cheerful video game music of loss chimed in response, causing House to
toss the game haphazardly across his desk. 

 "'Feelings time' already? Darn it, I'm going to have to sit this one out
today. I brought a note from my mom though." 

 "Your vacation," Wilson was like a scrappy dog guarding a rare bone.
House dreaded what was to come; these inane cycles of human interaction
were why he tried to avoid it at all costs. "Where did you go?" 

 "You know where I went," House said darkly. 

 "I want to hear you say it." Wilson was jutting his chin out in that
self-righteous way of his, hands planted on his hips as though he was
hunkering down for a battle. House decided to see how far inaction would
carry him this time. "How could you not tell me? Why wouldn't you- I mean,
my god, we're not talking about your hookers or the drugs or even Stacy.
We're talking about your leg. How could you not tell me that?" 

 "The same way you failed to mention that you're banging my boss." House
jutted his chin forward mockingly, wincing his eyes in a sarcastic mimicry
of deep thought. Though Wilson didn't seem stunned at House's knowledge -
he probably had Cameron to thank for that - he did seem all at once lost
in their argument. Seeing the slight opportunity, House pounced. "Did you
think I wasn't going to find out? Or were you going to screw her, marry
her, divorce her, and then tell me all about it?" He paused, searching
deep for more ammunition. Finding it, he rose from his chair and walked
toward Wilson - notably, without his cane. 

 "What must you have on her? Or am I getting it wrong and it's the other
way around? Have you been a very naughty doctor? Maybe you've become
morally awakened and sworn yourself off admitted whores. Or maybe you're
just running a little low on cash and needed a place to get it for free." 

 "House," Wilson's voice was uncharacteristically sharp and pleading at
the same time. Bulls-eye. 

 "Because if it is that, I'll tell you, there are a hell of a lot of women
in this hospital alone who require half the effort and are more compliant
without all that incessant whining." 

 "House, shut the hell up!" Wilson boomed, lunging at him a little. They
stood toe to toe for a moment, House calmly deflecting Wilson's
penetrating gaze. Taking a step to the side, House maneuvered around him
in pitying triumph. "You're going to lose her," Wilson intoned quietly,
his head bowed now. He'd reverted back to his original reason for coming,
back to his words of Truth that he was so fond of spurting haphazardly. 

 "Though I don't even know if you care. You must care something. You went
all that way to get her. I've no idea why. This must seem like a game to
you, all these years." He walked toward the door, glancing up at House's
self-standing form with a look of simple happiness for his friend buried
under his anger and their many current realities. 

 "If it is," he said softly, "it's ending, House. You know, change can
come from inaction as well as action." 

 * * * 

 She took a deep, calming breath and peeked around the corner, through a
slit in the blinds, into his glass domain. He was leaning back in his
chair, eyes lightly closed, hands tapping unconsciously against the arm
rests as he listened to his iPod. It was a strangely comforting sight to
her in that moment. 

 The door was unusually propped open in an inviting fashion, and she moved
to its threshold, leaning against the frame as she continued her
observation of him. A minute ticked by, and then, in that languidly
naturalistic way of his that always screamed so annoyingly of awareness,
House opened his eyes which looked as though they'd been focused on her
the entire time. Wordlessly, he switched off his music, removing the ear
buds. The thought that he'd been waiting for her, for this, flitted in her
mind for the briefest of moments. 

 "Why did you come for me?" Her voice sounded stronger than she thought it
would as it carried across the sparse office into his conscious. He
remained motionless - perhaps he thought her words would bounce off him.
She slowly made her way to the chair at the side of his desk, gingerly
placing herself in it as she'd done a million times before. Though his
body remained unmoving, she noted the discomfort in his darting gaze the
nearer she came. 

 "Why did you come back?" he countered, shifting finally in his chair,
edging it away from her slightly. He was studying her now, a hint of
confusion bending the corners of his eyes. She would bet anything that he
had expected her to come in hysterical, or at least sniffling and
desperate. How she relished being his unexpected. A corner of her lips
quirked up. 

 "You asked me," she replied levelly, "And, hard as I try, I can't say
no." His eyes were blazing away once again, betraying his pleasure at
being entangled in a puzzle once again. Was it possible that, over the
years, she'd won some kind of respect for herself by never quite
conforming to the neat boxes he was forever putting her in? 

 "I knew," she began, wanting to give him something, "I knew that Richard
and I weren't going to last. I knew that when you showed up, even if I
hadn't admitted it to myself yet. But then, I don't know that I would have
admitted it if you hadn't shown up. Richard loves me, in his way - he
does. And it was so...refreshing - freeing - to just be wanted. To not be
needed." 

 He had turned his head away from her somewhat and seemed to be gazing off
into another world, but at this he snorted a little and eyed her sideways.
She quirked an eyebrow, as interested in his curiosity as he was indeed
curious. 

 "I know, I know. I'm supposed to need damaged people to fix in order to
feed my own damaged persona and all that," she said tiredly. "I know
that's what you think, what you've always thought. But I had that need in
my life once. David needed me. And it was exhausting, somehow almost
binding. I don't want that. And maybe you were a little right all those
years ago, maybe I used to be a little attracted to the damaged. But if I
was, it was only to find a solution to my own query." 

 "Richard loves me, yes, but more than that, he wants me. He doesn't need
me. He has his work, his precious, prosperous work; he has his big-shot
friends. I always knew I could leave him at any time and he would be
okay." 

 "Oh, please," House muttered, rolling his eyes as he finally broke his
silence. 

 "What?" she protested. "You don't think so? I've done it. I've left him.
And he hasn't even called." 

 "All that crap you just said? You can't have that without need. He can't
want you - can't know what it's like to have you - and then not need you."
House's gaze turned down once again, avoiding her own self-consciously.
"Fifty bucks says the minute he figures that out, he's on a plane, at your
door-" 

 "-coming to get me?" she finished softly. His narrowed eyes darted up
toward her own as he clenched his jaw. Abruptly she rose and paced slowly
in front of his desk. She wasn't nervous about what she was going to say,
but she did need a little distance between them in order to say it. 

 Since she had walked into the room, she'd felt the pull from last night,
though it seemed a little far off and in the background. She'd gotten good
at repression over the years, she realized with a dull sting. Still,
seeing his hands and his lips, knowing that just beneath the collar of his
shirt lay a mark of her making - it was coming at her in waves now,
sweeping her toward an edge over which lie some form of the hysteria that
House had been expecting. But there she would not go. 

 "I'm going to leave, House." His face was filled not with the
disappointment of losing her, but instead with the disappointment of her
tediously fulfilling his predictions. "I'm going to leave and this time
I'm not going to come back. Even if you come. Even when you come." The
smirk was wiped off his face almost, it seemed, before it appeared. He
didn't believe her. "I won't come back because this time it's going to be
your choice if I leave." 

 He looked up at her warily now, and she wondered if he was really so
tired of them, of all this, as he always made himself out to be. He could
have stopped it - truly stopped it - years ago. But he had instead hung
on, at times almost imperceptively. Perhaps in his twisted, logical world
it was the equivalent of hope. 

 "Either ask me to stay or tell me to leave House. At this point I can
still take either, but I won't dance between them anymore. This has to
end, one way or another, and it has to be done by you so that I'll have
the power to not look back." Satisfied that she'd accomplished her small
goal, she walked back to where he sat still, on the opposite side of the
desk. 

 Tentatively, unsure of so much but hopeful of this one thing, she reached
out her hand to the side of his face. He pursed his lips, just short of
wincing at her touch, but he didn't stop her. Gently she bent forward, her
hair brushing his shoulder, and she pressed her lips against his head. "I
leave in two days," she muttered. "If I don't hear from you by then, it
means you want me to leave." 

 The pull of the previous night was now dizzying her a little, and she
fought against the tide in order to draw her hand away from his face. She
walked a straight path to the door, counting the steps until her release,
when his voice called her back. 

 "Cameron." It was reluctant, forced. He was going to hate this, she knew,
but at the same time she felt that it was the only way. "Don't go," he
said grudgingly. He looked as though he were pulling his appendix out
through his throat, saying the words was that difficult and distasteful.
She tried to give him a bittersweet smile, but fell just short. 

 "Not good enough," she breathed softly, the words of the past grounding
them more fully in their seemingly endless cycle. "You've never wanted me
to go," she shrugged. "But then, you've never wanted me to stay either."
She shook her head a little, before turning and escaping quickly into the
cool emptiness of the hallway. 

 Endings were difficult; beginnings more so.