31Disclaimer: Nope
A/N: I had taken a temporary hiatus from fanfic, mainly due to my lack of inspiration. Hate the lack of Hameron on House - well just the lack of Cameron! Anyways, hope you enjoy this chap and understand House and Cameron's feelings/ thoughts. Starts off during Ugly and then switches to You Don't Want to Know.
Wilson left the recording room leaving a very worried House behind. House rubbed his hands over his face, his mind racing. There was no way that he had succumbed to the average man's way of being rendered dumbfounded before a gorgeous female. He was Gregory House – he was above the average.
Wrapped in his own thoughts which begged him to find a loophole in the scenario, he absent mindedly took to playing with the dial, rewinding and forwarding the tape. When he liked someone, he became wittier and even more charming. His pick up lines came out creative and original and always worked – Stacy was proof of that: hadn't she moved in within a week? Instead of freezing, his brain worked in overdrive willing him to get his prize.
Like the tape, his mind went reeling to before Stacy, back to college. He remembered eagerly the couple of girls he had been attracted to in his first year. Mixed with the anticipation of freedom and the reassurance that he would finally be staying in one place, he had started college on high spirits. Medicine, booze, and girls – the horizon had stretched out in front of him. He flashed back to scenes from his years studying and an image of him in an arched classroom, sitting a couple of rows from the front regained clarity in his mind. The professor had just asked him a question and having actually done his work the night before, he knew the answer. Just as he was about to reply, one of his classmates – who also happened to be drop a dead gorgeous, perfectly shaped brunette – turned to face him and shot him a smile. A smile that House to this day was convinced was a flirtatious grin, while his roommate back then insisted was a mocking smirk. Whatever category they smile registered under; it had succeeded to cause House to lose his train of thought, his mouth agape, and eyes glazed over as he gave up control of his brain.
The image went out of focus as House sat up triumphantly, an explanation for his insanity at hand. He was only stupid around girls he knew he didn't want, but instead found extremely enticing. As for the girls he did have feelings for, he was his normal self – just a couple of times more appealing. It explained everything: why he was an blubbering fool around Thirteen and his typical self around Stacy and…
"Cameron!" House exclaimed as straightened, staring at Cameron's frozen face on the screen, unknowingly completing his thoughts while letting out his surprise. He didn't know that she had been interviewed. He thought the documentary was about this kid, not the past of the doctor treating him.
Still, he pushed his annoyance with the TV crew aside as he looked at her face, her eyebrows drawn together. A look, he deduced from three years with her, that she had just snapped back to reality, just taken in her surroundings.
Weeks of not hearing her voice, and sheer curiosity made him rewind to the beginning of her scene and press play. Her voice rang out, definitely distracted; yet, so enjoyable. He watched in silence as the tiresome lady pestered her with questions on working with him, clearly distracting her from doing her job, while an even more annoying patient tried to not swear. A slow smile spread across his face as she rambled semi praises for him: they had picked the wrong person if they wanted any dirt on him. It was her next line that caused him to do a double take.
"I love doctor House."
Rewinding the part and playing it again to ensure he had heard correctly, he left the scene on pause to let the words sink in. He had known that she initially had had feelings for him, but her relationship with Chase and her adamant denial of harboring feelings for him had made him think that maybe, just maybe, she had moved on. Leaning forward to continue the scene he hoped to get a clearer meaning of the context of the word 'love.'
He let out a bark of laughter at her next couple of lines, "he was always stimulating… not - in - an - erotic sense of the word." He couldn't help but find it hilarious that a beautiful, smart, witty, young woman like her would fall for a misanthrope, old grouch like him. And as the already known truth brightened within, emotions coursed through like never before: His respect for her gained tenfold for sticking with him and actually maintaining feelings. The same point brought around insulting names for such as 'idiot,' or 'stupid.' Then there was the one that made the blood rush north as he though of Cameron dreaming about him erotically stimulating her. It also made him nervous to know that she still loved him, because his excuses that they would never last, he would hurt her, and she only wanted to change him, were all gone, leaving him with no wall to hide behind. And lastly, an emotion so strong that it warmed every inch of his body, burned hot, that he dared not give it a name, because then - he would have to admit that he loved her too.
Knowing that if a relationship with him and Cameron was to work, now would be the perfect timing, caused him to do what he did best – avoid it. And with that, he stopped the tape and decided to focus on medicine and firing someone.
House entered his office staring at a solitude card, examining its surface, trying to figure out how it ever got onto the other side of the glass window. He would find out how to do that trick if it was the last thing he did.
Tossing the card aside, concluding that it wasn't going to tell him anything, he looked up at his desk, longing to lounge in his chair, feet up, music blaring into his ears; but the sight that greeted him, did not cooperate with his fantasy. Cameron was sitting in his chair, watching him with a gaze so intense, it could have passed for his own. In her hands was a single envelope that she was fingering, turning it in her hands every so often.
Seeing her there threw him off guard. He hadn't managed to forget about her, or the fact that she loved him, but if he worked hard enough, he could at least push it to the back of his head. Her sitting before him brought those thoughts rushing forward, leaving his palms sweatier than normal and his heart beat a tad faster than usual.
"My seat," he said, rooted to the spot. After talking a closer look at the envelope in her hand he added, "And my garbage."
She just stared at him, her face blank, when she finally laid the envelope on his desk and pushed it towards him till it rested at the edge.
Ignoring her movement he took a seat on his couch, hanging his cane on the arm rest. House then proceeded to fish into his back pocket until he found his iPod and stuck the headphones into his ears: clearly he wasn't going to pay attention to her.
Before he had a chance to pick out a song, she spoke, "You could have died."
He looked at her strangely trying to size up her exact thoughts, but she had learnt too well, and her eyes had heavy curtains drawn over.
"I knew I wasn't going to."
"What if it was infectious? What if you had made a mistake? You're not perfect? Why didn't anyone stop you? Wilson, Foreman or," she touched the envelope briefly before pulling her hands away, "Remy."
"Who?"
"Thirteen," she said exasperated, the first real emotion she had let out.
"Well?"
"Well what?"
"Why didn't they stop you?"
"Why are you asking me?" he shot back. The iPod lay still in his lap. He was now curious to see where she was going with this.
Shaking off the topic, Cameron picked up the envelope and tossed it at him, Frisbee style. The object landed in his lap, and the only sign that showed he was aware of what just happened were his eyes flicking to the piece of paper and back to her.
"You never opened it," she accused, "What's so different?"
There was a note of nervousness in her voice that House detected and he could guess where it was coming from. Cameron was not a baby, or a lovesick fool, but her recent realization that she still loved House had made her take action. She wasn't getting any younger, and it was either now or never. She had to find out if he felt the same way about her, because if not, she had convinced herself every night for the past week, she would move on. And despite all that, she couldn't help but think that she would never truly be able to give him up.
When the news came through the office grape vine that House had tested Thirteen for something, Cameron had gone straight to Thirteen herself. She could sympathize having been in the same boat years ago, and thought that though the new girl appeared to be strong, she must be feeling betrayed and confused at what House had done. When Thirteen told Cameron that even though she was shaken up, she admired House for not revealing the results, Cameron had been shocked. Mumbling something about being paged to the ER, she walked away in a daze, thoughts of House liking this new girl better than her, swarming in her head.
And now Cameron decided she needed the truth, because contemplating this any further resulted in only one thing: her being hurt.
"Well?" she asked, impatience mixed with anxiousness.
"It had nothing to do with me," he said lamely.
Cameron stared at him disbelievingly, "What does anything you do have to do with you? How did my results have anything to do with you?"
"What if you had had AIDS? It affected me because you were working with me."
"Well, it's not contagious and somehow I don't think we'd have had sex," she stated icily, hating the way he was skirting around the issue.
"Look," he said, hating this conversation, hating anything with him as the subject, "the situations were different, the people were different. She made a good case, and I respected that."
A heavy silence descended upon them, and House closed his eyes desperately trying to sort his feelings. Having Cameron mere feet away from him, did not do any help, instead increased his body's uncooperation. He needed to know for sure why he was having this conversation with her, convinced it was related to her confession of loving him. He had an idea, but his stupid body wouldn't let him think.
Cameron meanwhile, sat still, staring at House, watching him intently making full use of this now rare opportunity. She admitted, that the only reason she was here was because she was jealous: jealous of Thirteen who had managed to gain House's respect a lot quicker than she had, and jealous that Thirteen would replace her. Pushing the chair back, she got up swiftly and made her way to House, stopping before him, her face above his.
Feeling a shadow, House opened one eye drinking in the intensity of the green above him. Her eyes were no longer shielded but open for him to look into, and he was falling fast, as he was quickly able to decipher all that she was feeling.
"Has she replaced me?" Cameron asked, not moving, waiting for him to answer, now vulnerable before her the man she loved.
He never replied but opened the other eye, her question confirming that jealousy was the reason she was here. When she looked into them she stepped back, hit with a ton of bricks.
"You know," she whispered.
"I saw the tape," he said softly, a pain unrelated to his leg flew through him, scaring him as he saw her squeeze her eyes shut, and breath shakily.
His head followed Cameron out the door, as she fought to keep the tears back. House had known all this time that she loved him, known when he saw her in his chair, known throughout the entire conversation and hadn't acted upon it. And though she knew it was his character to do so, the tears fell fast as she left the hospital, because his eyes had told her that any sort of relationship with him wouldn't work because he wouldn't let it work.
He had rejected her. Reality did not coincide with her heart.
A/N: Before you hate me, I decided that for the long break, I'll make this part of a multi chap arc; however it won't affect the any other chaps.
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fishyfin1