bek (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} aliora) wrote,@ 2006-10-18 01:27:00 |
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| Entry tags: | cyclical, fic, house, house/cameron, incomplete |
[FIC] Cyclical 6/11 - House, M.D. - House/Cameron
Yayyyyyyyy! Over halfway there! I'm probably celebrating prematurely, because I had planned to be at a completely different part of the story by now, which I guess means I'll have to add some chapters to the total count. But, meh. We'll see how I go.
This chapter's a little bit more introspective than the last couple, and it's basically just House and Cameron. I'm not sure why that was such a problem to write, since the story is supposed to be a romance between them, but without the rest of the cast to play off, it was harder to craft dialogue and stuff.
Oh well. Hopefully Wilson will be back again next chapter.
Title: Cyclical
Series: House M.D.
Length: 3768 words
Pairing: House/Cameron
Rating/warnings: Safe at M. No swearing...not much bad stuff at all, actually.
Author's note: Less exciting than I'd hoped it to be, but at least I finally got them both on the bike. The show seriously needs to do that again. Muchos gracias to darkenedsakura, as always. I'd be lost without you~!
Summary: A moment changes everything. Not all change is bad.
The elevator ride was edging on awkward and Cameron had the feeling House was already regretting his offer to take her home. He eyed the floor, she stared at the wall, and the seconds seemed to take an eternity to pass. By the time the doors parted to reveal the bustling clinic, she'd made up her mind to gratefully decline the unexpected lift and just take a taxi back to...wherever she lived. She opened her mouth to verbalise her plan.
“Dr. Cameron!”
The both turned to discover Fiona thundering down the stairs, a cardboard carton wedged under one meaty arm. She huffed across the floor and reached them, panting, her cheeks flushed from exertion and her hair coming out of its bun.
“Fiona.” Cameron gave the woman a quizzical smile. “Is there a problem? Dr. House was about to take me home.”
The other woman's eyes bugged slightly and the box slipped a bit in her hands. “Uh, he's what?”
A beat of awkward silence. House tapped his cane against his thigh.
“Sure!” Fiona swallowed and looked fixedly at Cameron, holding out the carton and jerking at it with her chin. “I meant to give you these earlier, but it's been a busy morning, so I completely forgot.”
Cameron accepted the box and peered inside. There wasn't much in it, just a purse, a phone and a set of keys. She looked up, confused. “What are these?”
“I believe,” drawled House, leaning over her shoulder and poking through the contents, “that these are your personal effects.”
Oh. Well, that would explain why she didn't recognise them.
Fiona nodded helpfully. “We'd been keeping them at the nurses' station. I'm just glad I caught you before you, uh, went home.” She appeared to find a spot above House's head extremely interesting. Cameron had half-turned to follow the direction of her gaze before it dawned on her that Fiona was avoiding, and Fiona was avoiding because she was scared.
Of House.
The realisation was a surprising one, because for all his deliberate asshatery, he was just an intense, insensitive, insufferable prick. He was...House. Not much to like, really, but nothing to fear, either. Not from what she'd seen so far, anyway.
She attempted a calming smile and picked up her things, balancing them awkwardly in her hands and cursing her pocketless scrubs. “Thank you, Fiona,” she said, glancing around for somewhere to leave the box. “It's good to have my stuff back.”
“And fortunate,” House added, “since it probably would have been quite a challenge getting in without your keys. Unless you thought I might have a set squirreled away?”
Fiona's eyes bugged again and Cameron knew they had to leave before they gave the poor nurse an aneurysm. “Actually, I was hoping that Foreman would have a copy,” she said sweetly. “He's the most level-headed out of all of you and my dreams were shattered when I heard he'd never been around.” She nodded at Fiona. “Thanks again. You've been very supportive.”
The nurse gulped, braving one last frightened look at House before edging away as stealthily as her bulk would allow. Cameron watched her ascend the stairs, before letting the smile slip from her face and rounding on House. “Would it kill you to be nice?” she hissed at him, gesturing irritably with her laden hands. “You didn't have to scare the poor girl!”
“That was a girl?” House looked horrified. “I had no idea! If I'd known I would have most certainly not changed a thing! Shall we be off?” He switched tacks effortlessly and set off for the doors without waiting for a response.
Gritting her teeth, Cameron trailed after him. She was beginning to understand that being around House was very draining - exhausting, really. He was almost like a force of nature, and everyone else in his sphere of influence was powerless to do anything but be dragged along in his wake.
He wasn't sure what vehicle she'd mentally attributed to him (although it would have been an interesting experiment, to see what she thought he might drive) but the expression she wore upon seeing his bike was priceless, to say the least. It really drove home what he loved about shock tactics – the looks on people's faces made everything worthwhile.
“What,” she said, her voice dripping with disbelief, “is that?”
He eyed the Honda with mock surprise. “It's...a bike. Is there something wrong with your memory?”
She narrowed her eyes.
“Whoops!” He held up a placating hand. “I meant, apart from the obvious. I thought you had basic retention of names and objects, but we can run some tests if you like. There's a hospital close by.”
Cameron put her hands on her hips, looking deliberately across to the clinic entrance. “Gee, thanks for that information. What would I possibly do without you?”
He considered. “I'm not sure, but I'm betting it would be dull.”
She let out an angry sigh. “I meant, is that really what you plan on driving? Don't I have a car somewhere that we could take instead?”
He leaned on the handlebars, watching her face. “You don't trust me.” It wasn't a question; he shouldn't have felt surprised. And yet he did, somehow. Things really had changed.
She shook her head. “No, I don't trust myself. You may recall that I've been bedridden for the last three days. Am I going to be okay on a motorbike? The last thing I need is to go flying off when you go around a corner.” A small smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “What if I hit my head? All sorts of bad things might happen.”
He blinked. So, she did trust him? Did it even matter? Straightening, he unhooked the helmet from the bike and dropped it down beside his feet, unzipping his backpack and reaching across for her things. “You're the designated bag lady,” he said, zipping it back up and handing it over.
She studied it for a moment before shrugging and threading her arms through the straps, looking resigned. “If I fall off...” she trailed off half-heartedly.
He bent to pick up the helmet, tossing it across to her before slipping his sunglasses on. “It's possible we'll get lucky,” he said, sliding his cane into place and throwing one leg over the machine. He rested his weight on his good leg and steadied the bike, waiting for her to get on. “If you do fall and hit your head, maybe when you wake up you'll be back in Kansas.”
He watched her in the sideview mirror, biting down on his amusement as she wrestled with the too-long pants of her billowing scrubs. She pulled the hems up to her knees and waddled across, straddling the bike with difficulty before scooting down on the seat. She wriggled against his back for a moment, settling in to place, and he waited for the tentative touch against his shoulders, the awkwardness she'd had with him the last time she'd ridden behind.
The tentative touch never came.
Instead, her arms slid straight and sure around his chest, her hands locking together around his waist in one fluid, certain movement. She pressed close, her torso fitting flush to his shoulder blades, and for the first time ever it occurred to him that with a bung leg and prescription drugs raging through his system, maybe a motorbike hadn't been the soundest of ideas.
And then Cameron leaned over his shoulder. “Are we going?” she shouted, the sound almost swallowed by the thick padding of the helmet.
He pushed the strange thoughts from his mind and nodded, reaching over and twisting the ignition key. The engine roared to life below them and he concentrated on guiding the bike out of the parking spot, refusing to dwell on or even think about how good it felt to have someone – Cameron – fitting neatly to his back, arms wrapped around his sides.
The ride seemed to take forever, and yet it was over before he wanted it to be. House was addicted to his bike for the same reason he'd never quite managed to kick the Vicodin; it was an escape. Driving a car was easy; a bike, now that took concentration. Precision. Effort. It was almost like one of the puzzles he lived for; he could throw himself right into it and not emerge until he was on the other side.
Or, more literally, outside Cameron's apartment.
She lived a fair distance from the hospital, in an attractive, family-oriented neighbourhood. Her apartment complex was nestled between a Cape Cod number and a small, quaint-looking cottage-thing. There was a school down the road and a park at the end of the street. It was domesticated. It was homey.
He wondered, for the first time, why she would pick a place like this.
He angled the bike until it was flush with the kerb, and then killed the engine, waiting for the whir to fade to nothing and for Cameron to unlatch herself from his waist. When she still hadn't moved after a few seconds, he stretched an arm around her and slapped at her back. “The carriage ride is over, Your Highness,” he informed her. “Get off.”
She started and let go immediately, tilting dangerously and almost falling off. Snatching at his jacket to steady herself, she eased off the bike and pulled the helmet off, taking a deep breath and shaking out her hair. “I assume you're the pumpkin?” she asked with a hint of a smile, her cheeks flushed from the ride and her eyes looking bright. “No offense, but I can't really see you as the Prince Charming type.”
He took off his sunglasses and slipped them into his pocket, getting stiffly off the bike and biting back a wince. “In my experience,” he replied, stretching as inconspicuously as he could, “when people say 'no offence', what they're really doing is apologising for the truth.”
“Oh, really?” She tucked the helmet under her arm and gave him an inscrutable look. “Do you think that people should apologise for telling the truth?”
He shrugged and unclipped his cane, starting up the drive. “The truth is such a rarity in the world. People are afraid of what it can do.”
She jogged a few steps to catch up. “So, what you're saying is that nobody tells the truth unless the situation absolutely necessitates it, because...they're afraid?”
“No,” he corrected, moving slowly up the stairs, “what I'm saying is that nobody tells the truth.”
“Oh, come on.” She gave a derisive laugh. “Everybody lies?”
He froze, but it didn't matter. They were already outside her door. “Keys,” he ordered dismissively, holding out his hand. She eyed him for a moment before shrugging his bag off her back. Rummaging around, she withdrew the keys and slapped them into his palm.
“You know,” she said suddenly, watching him sort through the keyring, trying to gauge which one fit the deadbolt and which one was for the lock, “it was really quite nice. The ride over.”
“Mmmhmm,” he said noncommittally, discarding his first choice and moving on to the next.
She pressed on. “You're a good driver...rider. Whatever. Have you had the bike long?”
The key turned in the lock and he pushed open the door. “In the interest of not making small talk, how about you just create an ideal representation of me? You can slip in observations and pretend facts and all the things you want me to be. In return, I'll do my best to fall short. It's always worked in the past; I see no reason to tip the formula now.”
She just looked at him. He tried to rouse some sense of satisfaction at the expression of disappointment his speech had wrought. And then she shrugged and moved past him.
“Come in, I guess,” she said.
He hesitated on the threshold. He'd never been inside before. He kept forgetting that she'd forgotten, because despite her random questions she'd been acting like Cameron, returning his vitriol with a splash of honey and taking it all with a grain of salt. She'd slipped awkwardly back into a mold of herself, and while it didn't quite fit around the edges, the basic shape had started to look the same. This doorway, this tableaux...to him, they had a history, but to her it was nothing. Just another moment in time.
He pushed the recollection from his mind. It had been a weak moment in the first place; he didn't care to relive it now. It was fortunate he was the only one here who remembered the last time he'd been in the same place he was standing now.
Besides, he was curious. She wouldn't be like this - different - forever. It was a perfect opportunity to get some rich dirt on her. He could file it away for later and use it in a moment where it would really count.
Suppressing the ghost of a half-hearted protest, he took a deep breath and stepped inside.
The first thing she noticed was that everything was a shade of white. The carpet was cream, the paint was ivory. There were pale mushroom throw pillows and stucco-coloured lampshades and washed-out pastel landscapes with natural wooden frames. She stepped in and took her bearings, letting the location wash over her and familiarity steep itself into her brain.
The same thing had happened at the hospital. At first, she'd been bewildered and uncertain, with no understanding of her surrounds. But after a while images had swum up from her memory, and she'd remembered offices and corridors and the numbered doors in the fire stairs which climbed right up till they reached the roof. The process was repeating itself even as she stood in her own non-hall. The front door was in the lounge room, which branched out on three sides – the kitchen to the left, the bedroom, straight ahead, and the bathroom off past the couch, to the right. She knew the microwave was on the countertop but the toaster lived under the sink, and there was a water jug that she used for instant soup and coffee that she stashed in the pantry to keep everything neat.
She turned in a half-circle, stopping when she realised that House was analysing the room in much the same way as she was. His eyes (missed nothing) scanned the walls of bookshelves and skimmed over the furnishings before lighting on the couch. He rested his cane against the door and hobbled over to the coffee table, moving something aside before picking up an ornate, gilded book.
Cameron frowned and followed him over. “Yes, please do make yourself at home.” He said nothing and she finally saw what he was holding – an album of photographs. Her photographs. An anthology of herself.
She snatched the book away from him. “Are you quite right?” she snapped. “I appreciate you bringing me back here, but I'd prefer it if you didn't pry.” She closed the album in a fit of – something – and pretended not to notice one of the pictures and a telltale white dress. “You already know more about me than I do,” she continued bitterly. “And yet no one's felt the need to share any of that knowledge around.”
She turned away and blinked back tears, certain that any moment she'd hear the quiet clink of the closing door. And then he surprised her like he always did (always being a blanket term for the last three days) and sank down onto the couch, propping himself up with a pillow and leaning back to rest his head. “Do you suppose you keep liquid in your refrigerator?” he mused, tapping his fingers on his thigh. “I'm quite parched after the journey over.”
Shaking her head slightly, Cameron turned and made her way into the tidy kitchenette. “What do you want?” she asked him, opening the fridge and taking stock of the contents.
“Surprise me,” he replied absently. Smiling humourlessly, she chose the sweetest, fruitiest thing she had. Popping the tab, she dumped the contents into a pair of tumblers, trekking back over the pale carpet and handing one to House.
He took it warily, looking vaguely repulsed. “It's pink,” he pointed out, sniffing it.
“Surprise!” she said brightly, sitting down on the couch as well. She kept enough distance between them so they wouldn't touch, even as she angled herself to face him. She wasn't sure why she was bothering, especially considering how close they'd been on the ride over, but there was nothing to distract them now, nothing to hide behind.
He took a chug of the drink and made a face, putting the glass down on the coffee table before giving her a considering, loaded look. “What do you want to know?”
Cameron nearly dropped her tumbler. “You mean, you'll tell me? Anything?”
His look turned vaguely reproachful. “Have you learnt nothing? Of course I won't. But if you have any burning questions I'll hear you out, laugh at you – on the inside – and then proceed to mock you openly for the unnecessary things that you feel you simply must know.”
She rolled her eyes. I should have known. “Fine,” she said, setting her glass down beside his. “I'll bite. Tell me what kind of person I am.”
He raised his eyebrows in a that's it? expression before shrugging and leaning back again. “You are – amazingly enough – like any other human being. You have a set of morals you live by, and you use them to judge other people. You're caring – to be expected, since you're a doctor – but the level of your care is directly proportionate to where the person in question fits into your moral beliefs.” He paused and when he spoke again, he sounded oddly reluctant. “You're...nice. You're a nice person. That makes you naïve. You need to believe there's good in everyone, because your morals tell you there has to be and you think that your morals are always right.” He fell silent.
Cameron blinked. “Um, thanks.” I sound like a hypocrite. “My...family?”
“I have no idea.” He shrugged and looked over at her. “You're not very forthcoming in that regard.”
She nodded, processing. “And that picture..?” She couldn't say it.
“I'm sorry,” he said, and she thought – or maybe, hoped – that he sounded like he meant it. “You were married a long time ago, but your husband died.”
Tears pricked at her eyes again, this time for a man she couldn't remember. Abruptly House pushed himself to his feet and shuffled over to the door. He picked up his cane and reached for the handle.
Cameron surprised herself by blurting, “Is that why you keep me on the team? Because I've got this skewed sense of what's right?”
He turned slowly and she lost her train of thought, pinned under the weight of intense regard. “No,” he said after a moment. “You're kept around because you're a good doctor.”
It was a simple compliment but she could tell, memory or no, that he wasn't one to lavish praise. It was the nicest thing he'd ever (that she could remember) said to her, and she felt her cheeks grow warm again.
“Do you,” she pressed on, suddenly emboldened by the moment and how giving he seemed to be, “do you like me?”
Silence stretched out between them and an age seemed to build, grow and pass. “No,” he said quietly, finally, before turning the handle and letting himself out.
She stared at the door long after he was gone, and wondered why it hurt at all when she absolutely, positively, definitely didn't care.
House eased himself back on to the freeway, half-formed thoughts and fragments whirling madly through his head. He didn't want to believe in a higher power, or things like destiny or fate, but there had to be a deeper meaning to this cyclical path people seemed to take.
Like him and Cameron. They'd had this dance before. They fudged the steps and missed the music, but the dance went on around them and repeated again and again. It was a never-ending cycle and he wasn't quite sure he could escape.
He wondered suddenly what would happen if he lost his memory. Was his identity bound intrinsically to his experiences of the past? Would he come out differently, would he break his House-mold, would he metamorphose into a (better?) changed man?
He quashed the idea ruthlessly. He didn't like it one bit.
But change...change was important. The warning sign for the hospital exit loomed suddenly to his right. Change was a process. It could be gradual or immediate but there was always a reason, a catalyst. Something that set the change off. If he could find that trigger, identify what it was, he could stop the change and turn it back. Everything could return to normal. Back to the way he liked it. Back to the way it always was.
He accelerated past the exit and drove another mile or so, taking a less familiar turnoff. He followed the road signs until he reached the police station, then maneuvered his bike between two cop cars before wasting little time in getting inside.
The officer on duty barely looked up from his crossword as House made his way to the counter and waited to be served. A few seconds later, he'd had enough.
“Excuse me,” he said, thumping his cane against the counter, relishing a flare of perverse satisfaction as the younger man jumped. “I understand there was a robbery at Princeton Mutual earlier in the week?”
The officer scowled and pushed his crossword aside, standing up and giving House an irritated glare. “Yeah, we're working on it. What's it to you?”
House gave what he hoped was a secretive smile. “Well, now, that depends.”
“On what?” the officer scoffed. “There ain't no reward, you know. Either you got something or you don't.”
“It depends,” said House, leaning in closer and enunciating every word, “on whether you have a copy of the security tape. I'd like to have a bit of a look.”
*dons deerstalker hat*
And now I'm quite tired again. Tomorrow, if all goes to plan, I'll be buying season one on dvd. I'm rather excited at the prospect of HQ House on tap.
Thanks for reading, and I hope everyone enjoyed! ♥
