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She says she hates him but she brings him the tea anyways. He stares at her with suspicion and she stares back with nothing. He continues to watch, Foreman continues to talk, and she sits down.
"What the hell is this?" he spits out later. His suspicion is now directed towards the tea.
A scene replays in his mind. He feigns offense at the presence of candy canes in the office. She is all manners and apologies and panic. He is suitably amused.
He holds the red mug in front of him and waits for her reaction.
"Black walnut and ginger," she finally answers. Long, silky brown hair sweeps a graceful arc before his eyes as she turns to face him.
He looks at her with curiousity and again she looks back with nothing. His face contorts into a reasonable imitation of a smile. "It's nice," he offers. He nods in an attempt to lend power to his words, in an attempt to bring something, anything back into her eyes.
A sharp pang of an unidentifiable emotion stabs at her heart and she pushes it away. She harshly reminds herself that anything other than hate is no longer a viable alternative.
She grabs a stack of papers on her way to the lab. Her haste is not lost on him.
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Her friends talk at lunch but she does not contribute to the conversation.
"Cameron."
The sound of her name abruptly drags her back into reality - a milk carton unopened, a salad barely touched and not a single word spoken. Foreman gives her a quizzical look that barely conceals his worry. Chase is too fascinated by his sandwich to respond to her distant behavior.
"Something wrong?" asks Foreman, in a tone that suggests he already knows the answer.
"Cat got your tongue?" adds Chase helpfully, as he takes an enthusiastic bite of his sandwich.
She shakes her head and rewards their concern with a brilliant smile. The two men are placated and resume their comfortable routine of idle chatter and glib remarks. She watches them, smile intact and nodding at all the right moments. Everything is well as long as she wears the smile.
She does not fault her friends for being unable to read her. She has recently fallen into the habit of confusing even herself.
At a table some distance away, he ignores the excited prattle of his friend and watches her act out her role. He wonders if she pretends out of habit, bravery, fear, or whether she's got him fooled and isn't pretending at all. He wonders if her eyes regain their remarkable expressiveness when she speaks with people other than him.
He cannot quite put a finger on why the entire scene strikes him as tragic.
He decides that he doesn't care.
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The year has seen a marked increase in her interaction with Wilson. When she finally takes the time to reflect on the most harrowing experiences of the year, it will occur to her that Wilson has taken more time to understand her background, motives and character than House ever did.
She likes the man but is nonetheless hesitant to relax and enjoy his company without reservation. He is attractive, intelligent, unassuming and kind, but also vulnerable and weak. She would like to think that she is not so much the martyr and the masochist that her colleagues would believe.
She doesn't know why Wilson always seeks her out after work. Perhaps it is because they are, despite themselves, the only two people who feel a strong connection to House. Perhaps it is because they are the most affected by the recent changes in House's character. Perhaps House pushes them away from himself and closer to each other.
A series of nagging, traitorous thoughts will later drive her to accomplish double the amount of paperwork that she would complete during the course of an ordinary day. Then again, none of her days are ordinary anymore.
Wilson continues to talk, blissfully unaware of the emotions waging war in her mind. Another day, another life, and she would consider his mix of boyish charm, subtle flirtation and gentle conversation to be endearing. As it is, she is barely paying attention when she notices that he is waiting for her response.
She smiles, and he melts. He smiles, and all she can think of is House.
She excuses herself to go check on a patient. He steps out onto the balcony and notices that House is absent-mindedly throwing a tennis ball at his own balcony door.
He shakes his head.
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A barely audible knock and a nudge of the door, and there she stands. He knows who it is before he even looks up. He doesn't dwell on why.
She stays in the doorway for a moment, a stack of files under her left arm and an ominously thick folder in her right hand. His piercing gaze is drawn to her more out of habit than necessity. He already knows exactly how she'll look - uncompromisingly beautiful and painfully tired. He notices a hardness in her demeanor and remembers the bright-eyed and optimistic Cameron of the past. This is her now. Again he doesn't dwell on why.
He tears his eyes away from her and turns sideways in his chair to half-heartedly type a few words into his computer.
A scene replays in his mind. He pretends to be distracted and annoyed. She grants him a gentle smile before leaving his office. He is secretly pleased.
He looks away further and waits for her to speak.
His acute hearing is granted the gentle sound of a file being placed on the table surface beside him. The tension between them is tangible and unnerving, and he looks up despite his best efforts to seem detached. His eyes meet with the back of her labcoat as she exits as quietly as she had made her entrance.
This is her now. This is them now.
He finds the silence suffocating and is suddenly met with an overwhelming urge to smash something.
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"You don't like me anymore."
His words reverberate in the cold, sterile atmosphere of the lab. Undertones and unspoken accusations follow in their wake, propagating through the resonant cavity in her brain. More than ever, she desperately wants to hate him.
She closes her eyes in an attempt to block out the echoing words and the image of their speaker. For all her self-imposed professionalism and distance, she cannot yet bring herself to despise him. She settles instead for silence, and after a minute he leaves the room.
When the door finally closes, she collapses into a nearby chair and doubles over. Her back spasms and she gasps for air. After the briefest of moments she pulls herself together, reopens her eyes and returns to her work. She smiles at her neatly arranged microscope slides because it seems like the right thing to do.
She does not see him watching her from a vantage point beyond two sets of glass doors. She does not see the look on his face when he dry-swallows two Vicodin and slowly walks away.
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Despite everything that has changed, she is always the last one of his doctors to leave for the night.
He stands in the doorway between his office and the conference room and watches her pack her things. She looks up briefly and continues about her business. When everything is finally arranged to her satisfaction she straightens up, digs through her purse for her keys and politely bids him good night.
Despite everything that has changed, she still has impeccable manners.
An unfortunate stumble and her HIV meds fall onto the ground with a tell-tale rattle. She fumbles awkwardly with her laptop bag as she moves hastily to pick them up. He is hampered by his leg. She is encumbered by her belongings and her embarassment.
His reaction time is quicker than hers, and much quicker than she would have otherwise given him credit for. He hands the rebellious plastic bottles to her without comment and she mutters her thanks. He nods and leans on her desk, watching as she steps out into the deserted hallway and shakily runs a hand over her eyes.
He hasn't said another word to her about the patient, about the HIV, about Chase. She doesn't know his motives and can't decide whether to be grateful or angry.
She tells herself that she doesn't care.
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A chance meeting with a friendly radiologist sets her departure back by twenty minutes. Six minutes past seven finds her walking outside, head down and arms dangling carelessly at her side.
He is standing beside her car with his weight on his good leg, nonchalantly swinging his cane at imaginary baseballs. She notices him when she is too close to turn back, and their gazes momentarily clash. They are both taken aback by the force with which this happens.
"You're in my way." She states the obvious because its the safest thing to do.
He is surprised by the lack of incredulity in her response, something he come to associate with her reactions to his behavior. Not for the first time, he wonders if she is merely a talented actress.
He wonders if he has finally broken her.
She is still watching him, so he responds with a shrug. "At least now you'll have to talk to me." He moves in front of the car door and smirks.
She briefly considers kicking him in the leg and driving away before he has a chance to recover. The idea is appealing on several levels, but she decides that her hate hasn't yet been schooled to the point where she wouldn't feel guilty afterwards. She crosses her arms over her chest and waits for him to speak.
He matches her countenance with one of equal indifference. It takes more effort than he anticipated, and for a moment he is concerned. She doesn't seem to notice.
"You don't like me," he says.
A scene replays in his mind. He makes a similar accusation. She collapses when she thinks he isn't watching. He is unsure of how to feel.
She finds her voice and the words comes out easier than she would had anticipated. "No. I don't."
"You're lying." He is confident, as always. He takes a step towards her.
She smiles mirthlessly, and his confidence wavers slightly. "That's what I assumed when you said it to me." The smile stays on her lips and something inside his chest constricts painfully.
She walks towards him, stopping so that her body is barely a hair's breadth away from his. His breath catches in his throat and she reaches behind him to open the car door. "You're as wrong now as I was then." Her tone is final.
He stands back as she gets into the car, starts the engine and drives away without so much as a backward glance. Wilson finds him standing there half an hour later, staring at the ground. He does not ask, and House does not offer.
There is no need.
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A series of loud knocks on her door shock her out of her stupor. When the frequency of the knocks start to increase she knows that it will only be a matter of time before he starts to yell. In the interests of maintaining a cordial relationship with her neighbours, she relucantly gets off the couch and walks to the door.
It opens without warning and he stands there, his expression one of frustration and his cane hovering mid-air in an almost comical manner.
A scene replays in his mind. He practically begs her to come back to work. She says that his offer isn't good enough. He refuses to understand.
He looks uncomfortable. Still clutching the remote control, she forces herself not to care.
"Allison."
Her knuckles go white as her grip around the remote tightens. The use of her first name implies a familiarity that they lack. She wants to yell at him, tell him that it's an unfair card to play. Instead, she walks away and tries to think of anything except the hint of desperation in his voice.
The open door is meant as an invitation and he gladly takes it. He locks the door behind him and turns around to see her curled up on the couch. She stares blankly at her television.
He hesitantly walks towards where she is sitting, and without looking up she waves at him to sit down. He complies and promptly begins tapping his cane on the floor.
"People live below me, you know."
He rests the cane on the table and leans back, holding in a smile. He should have known that she would worry about the feelings of complete strangers, even in an awkward situation like this.
An hour passes without another verbal exchange. She is resolutely focused on the television screen and he is composing sentences in his mind. A commercial for hand lotion comes on, and he finally settles on an opening.
"How are the meds? The side effects?"
She recoils as if physically struck, and he winces.
She tells herself to stay silent but it would appear that she is just as bad at following her own advice as she is that of others. "Are you asking how I'm doing?"
He is suddenly overcome with panic. "Yeah," he manages. "I guess so."
It is amazing how hard it is to hate him, and how easy it is to hate herself. She is regretting the entire evening before the words even come out of her mouth. "Are you asking as a doctor?"
He shrugs. "I am a doctor. So that would be yes."
An ironic smile flits across her expression. "Not good enough."
He looks up quickly, but the commercial break is over and she has already turned away. He decides that this has gone on long enough, and hopes that she'll know what he means without having to first explain himself.
"I'm forty-six."
"I know."
Tension blankets the room in a testament to the fact that they both grasp the implications of the conversation. He is temporarily stymied by her cool response, and it is a full minute before he starts again.
"I'm your boss."
"Not for the next month"
He applauds her wit and a ghost of a genuine smile crosses her lips. It evaporates so quickly that he not entirely sure that he saw it at all.
He gives denial one more try.
"You can't fix me."
"I'm in no position to fix anyone."
Her words ring true and it occurs to him that he's never thought of it like that before.
She gets up from the couch and moves into the kitchen. Their eyes meet as she steps over his cane and past where he sits. He stands up to follow and watches as she busies herself with the coffee maker. She rinses out two mugs with swift, precise movements and wipes down the counter with enviable calm. When the machine is happily chugging away, she looks up at him and opens her mouth to speak. He will later swear to Wilson that he heard the words directly in his mind, without his ears as intermediaries.
"You can't fix me," she says. She smiles sadly. "Emotionally. Or medically." She walks into the living room.
He knows the statistics on HIV transmission. So does she. The odds are in her favor. Apparently neither one of them derives much comfort from that knowledge.
He knows their relationship histories. So does she. The odds are stacked against them. He thinks maybe this is a significant cause for worry.
She has gone back to the television, leaving him to his own devices. He wanders into her hallway, peering into rooms as he passes.
He sees a wedding photo album on her bedroom bookshelf. He sees a marked calendar on her bathroom wall. It confirms his knowledge that his next move might destroy them both.
He decides he doesn't care.
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He has been gone for so long that she has almost forgotten that he was there at all.
He rests his cane against the coffee table and slowly makes his way towards her with a full coffee mug in either hand. He winces from the pain of the effort and hands her a cup. She accepts it wordlessly and gives him a genuine look of thanks.
Her eyes have been empty for so long that he has almost forgotten their softness.
He sits down beside her and leans forward with his elbows on his knees. She looks at him, her face expressionless but her eyes clear. He leans back, sighs, and snakes an arm around her shoulders.
She turns her gaze away to look straight ahead, but he feels her lean against him slightly. He takes this as a good sign. A gentle blush crosses her cheeks and he allows himself to be amazed by how beautiful she is.
When he wakes up on her couch later that night, he finds her head on his shoulder and her arms wrapped around him. He gently shakes her awake and asks a question with his eyes. She smiles in response and her eyes close. He smiles when he's sure that she can't see him.
He remembers the way they used to be, the way they were earlier that day, and wonders about the way they will be tomorrow.
He decides that he's too comfortable to worry. He closes his eyes.