Darkness

Current Title: Darkness

Fandom: House M.D

Story Summary: I can still feel your lips on mine. And, when I close my eyes, I can imagine you're still here. AU-ish Camteen.

Genre: Angst/Tragedy

Focus: In an alternate reality, Cameron has a monologue moment with her dying girlfriend.

Rating: T/PG-13

Author's Starting Notes: There are two versions of this. The first is the one below. Neither of these are beta-ed. This one does not have the line at the top, and I feel like I got the emotion wrong. But, I'm putting on the next one later - if you guys don't hate this version. The other one is pretty different. I guess you could call this a ridiculously short two-shot. I'll actually probably put the second one on this week.

Time Stamp: Posted October 31st, 2008

1:

I often try these days to find a moment to close my eyes and breathe. It doesn't happen all the time, what with the running around to this show and that, and spending all my nights hunched over sideways in the chair by what passes for a bed these days. But, whenever I can, I like to lay back and rest my head. I'll stare at the white dots on the ceiling and then I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and stop.

Stop breathing. Stop thinking. Stop living.

In those times, all it is is darkness, everywhere. It encircles me, wrapping me like a blanket and capturing me in a hold that begs for my form. I wait in that silent recluse for only a little while. Just long enough to step away. I start again though. I always inhale when it comes to that point where my brain starts screaming at me, in a tone that sounds so much like our old boss:

"Hey! We need air, you idiot!"

I breathe then. I can't help it. I may need the chance to hide, but I don't need to do it that way.

The nurse makes to leave the room and I make sure to thank her for coming. I do that every time someone looks in on you. Even if all they come to do is to see if they can drape a sheet over you and carry your lifeless form down to the morgue. I won't let them do that to you. When you do leave, I'm going to drape you in a blanket, and me, Taub, and Kutner are going to carry you down the steps and out the front door. We're going to put you in the casket House picked as a joke, and lay you to rest right by your mother. It's just about the only funeral planning done. But, that's only because Foreman and the guys planned that part out. I refuse to help them, because you aren't dead.

You aren't.

You're still breathing.

You may not be able to talk, or laugh, or even remember who the hell I am. But, your spirit isn't dead. It isn't, because if it was, I wouldn't be sitting here, holding your hand, and looking for the words to say to make you come back to me for even a second.

I would be home, with Becky, trying not to think about how we should make your resting place a secret, to keep up the mysterious charade you've had since you came to Princeton.

No one got to know too much about you. 'Cept for me, I got to know everything. From the day you were born, to the day you forgot who I was for the first time, I knew everything. I know even now, that you've got only a few days left. It's why my breath hitches every time the door opens, and the wind blows, and the machine beeps. It's why the very white lights of the hospital seem to be mocking me. It's why I look for those moments when I can close my eyes and melt away. Because, really, melting would be a great alternative to this. I could just disappear and never return. Yeah, that could work.

© Everything written above belongs to me (FF user, Paint Me a Symphony) if somebody is out there pushing this as their own. They are lying. I may not own House M.D, or its characters, but I do own this.

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