House MD Anniversary

https://www.tumblr.com/wilson-is-a-slut/769782838290776064/house-holiday-gift-exchange

https://www.tumblr.com/wilson-is-a-slut/769782838290776064/house-holiday-gift-exchange

At the end of Foreman’s first week on the job, Cameron totals her car. Rather, someone else totals it for her; she gets in to work at a time that even House would class as dangerously late with an angry high-flush on her cheeks and rumpled hair. “Some jerk crashed into my car while I was asleep last night,” she complains while she hangs up her coat. “I had to get the bus. Didn’t leave me any info, obviously. And I have no time to figure out a new car until the weekend.”

“That’s rough,” Foreman says cautiously; he does not know her well enough yet to gauge how she reacts to words of comfort. “Sorry to hear it.”

“It’s not your fault,” Cameron says with a little sigh. She drops into her usual seat beside Chase, and rests her chin in her hands. “Where’s House?”

“Cuddy spirited him off to the clinic again,” Chase reports. He makes no effort to include Foreman in the conversation; they are sitting opposite each other, were both here to see House dragged off with a series of loud protests, but his body is angled entirely towards Cameron. “She really is serious about getting him to do clinic hours this time. We’ve got to make up his paperwork.”

“She was really serious about it last time, too,” Cameron complains, an inside joke that Foreman isn’t privy to yet. But at least it doesn’t feel like she does it on purpose. “At least I’ll be able to call my insurance company.”

Foreman sees the exact moment Chase decides to make the offer: the squaring of his shoulders, the way he raises his chin. “Hey, if you need a ride home tonight,” he says, “I’m sure I can drop you off. You’re not far out of my way.”

It’s asserting dominance, obviously: Chase is reminding Foreman that he’s the new kid on the block, that he and Cameron have worked together long enough to be familiar with each other’s home addresses. But it is also, maybe, a little bit more than that. Chase looks vaguely…hopeful. Like he genuinely wants the chance to drive Cameron home tonight. Like he’s willing to put himself out there in front of Foreman, a near-stranger—and one he clearly dislikes at that—just in case he gets the prize of an extra twenty minutes with her.

The twisted thing is, she isn’t even feeling that unwell. Just a tickle in her throat, a slightly blocked nose. It’ll be days before she hits the worst of it. Still, for all that she is willing to do anything, everything, whatever it takes to reach the top, Amber still respects the laws of infection control. Don’t go to work with a fever. Cough into your elbow. Stay at home until 48 hours after your last round of vomiting. You have to know the rules if you want to break them, and there’s no honour in accidentally killing an immuno-compromised patient with an untreated cold. She’s especially cautious if it now that she’s with James, who spends all day holding hands and lingering by weakened cancer patients—maybe Amber could forgive herself for it, accidentally passing on a bug to one of them, but she knows James never would. He’s riddled with guilt as it is. She’s trying to get him to let go of it, not pile more of it on.

Tomorrow, she thinks as she reaches for her scarf, she ought to take the day off work. She’ll swap her on-call shift and spend the day on her sofa writing up case notes and she’ll see how she feels. Her own cautiousness surprises her, but she doesn’t resent it. Things are looking up against all odds; sure, she didn’t get the job she wanted; sure, she’s a cutthroat bitch; sure, she has to share her boyfriend with the manchild she’s on her way to take home. But she is, begrudgingly, happy. Her relationship is good. Her second-choice position is no House fellowship, but it’s respectable. Amber is going to have it all. She can suck it up and deal with her fear of missing out.

The bottle of flu pills sits heavily in her pocket. It’s an over-precaution. There’s no way she’ll be at the bar long enough to need another dose. She’s not a weakling; she can survive her damned runny nose. She feels like a hypochondriac—like soft Dr Cameron, who always kept tissues tucked into her pockets and forever smelled of preventative vapour-rub during the winter. Amber has nothing against Cameron, but it’s certainly not how she wants the world to see her. And yet—

It was always going to happen, Foreman knows. It was the very first thing he braced himself for, when they first got his mom’s diagnosis back when he was in medical school: she’s going to forget me, eventually. And it was a comfort, sometimes. She wouldn’t remember his mistakes. She wouldn’t remember why only one of her sons could come to visit.

He had so much time to say goodbye. Better than a car crash, or a blood clot, or a stabbing in the night. Better than what happened to Cameron, a wife and a widow in the space of a year. Children are supposed to outlive their parents. The fact that it comes early shouldn’t make much difference. The fact that she forgets him before he can forget her is a simple order reversal, that’s all. But the knowing, and the rationalising, and the waiting—it doesn’t make it any easier. Foreman might not have needed to quit his job to prove he’s not House after all: this time, logic only stretches so far.

“My mom took a turn for the worse,” Foreman tells Cameron a few days after it happens; he has just handed in his notice, should be focused on securing interviews and a good reference and making the most of the time he has left—because, well, he will miss House and Chase and Cuddy and Cameron, in the same way a hostage learns to miss their kidnapper—and yet he is notably out of sorts enough for Cameron to quietly press him about it in the locker room. She seems constantly eager to avoid being alone with Chase, these days; Foreman has no idea what she plans to do once he’s gone and it’s just the two of them. But for once, he doesn’t mind telling her. Cameron’s desire to make everything personal, touchy-feely, is grating and useless and dull most of the time, but this—Foreman knows she understands this. Watching someone die. Knowing there’s nothing you can do. Holding onto a memory of a person as they waste away in front of you. “She forgot who I was, the other day.”

“I’m sorry,” Cameron says, reflexive and in the same voice she might use to soothe a spooked patient, then blinks. “I’m sorry,” she says again, more raw this time, and he sees her fingers twitch like she wants to hug him. “I wish I could tell you it gets easier.” Her lack of optimism is as heartbreaking as it is refreshing.

“It doesn’t,” Foreman says. He isn’t sure if it’s an agreement or a question. Cameron nods.

“My—he didn’t remember me at the end, either,” she admits. Her voice is low and careful as it bounces off the tiles of the locker room. “When it spread to his brain. And he spent a lot of time sedated on painkillers, anyway. I thought I just wanted it to be over. But it isn’t…you lose people in two steps. You’ll miss who she is now just as much as you miss who she was.”

short and sweet: this doubles as my (very very late) day 1 drabble for the @housemdanniversary fest, with the prompt ‘games’:

@housemdanniversary

"Do I look okay?" Wilson looks away from the mirror for a moment, anxious.

"For your hot date?" House asks, letting the scorn seep into his voice.

"Some of us still hope for human connection without having to pay for it."

"Right. Like you're not footing the bill for dinner. Or getting her flowers." And all that, he thinks, is just a prelude to jewelry, and nice vacations, and an apartment Wilson will eventually delay going home to each night.

Wilson rolls his eyes. "Do I look okay?" he repeats.

House looks at him. He looks how he always looks: handsome, and kind, and too damn kissable. There's a flicker of nerves but also a dollop of impatience; Wilson knows he looks good but wants House to reassure him before he leaves to meet this woman.

"Hideous," House says, and Wilson sighs - not believing him, House knows, just disappointed that he hasn't performed friendship the right way.

"See you tomorrow," Wilson says, slightly weary.

@housemdanniversary

The dream is: she gets the fellowship. She’s one of the chosen few, tough enough to make it in what is a notoriously difficult work environment and yet worth it all the same. Survive Gregory House and you can do anything, after. Leapfrog ahead in your career. 

That dream falls through.

The dream is: she finds a guy. Decent, but not perfect. She doesn’t believe in perfect. Perfect means he’s hiding something. She figures out pretty quickly that James is riddled with neuroses. Every time she discovers something new, he winces like she’s going to immediately walk out the door. He doesn’t realize how much that makes her love him more.

That dream, she gets to keep. For a while.

The dream is: she lives past thirty.

No. Not even a dream. An assumption. A lazy one, she sees now. Immersed in everything that can damage a human body and yet she imagined herself invincible. 

@housemdanniversary

Memory

He was meant to give that speech. He had all the notes ready. What happened?

Wilson wakes in a panic, convinced he's late, or missed the conference entirely, and House soothes him.

That was years ago, he remembers. Important paper. Important things to say, to communicate to others in the profession - he becomes anxious again, worried he's let them down, but House reassures him that they know, they know.

House was the one - yes, his brain clicks in now, House gave the paper. Euthanasia. The thing they're not supposed to talk about.

House didn't want him to put himself at risk. He remembers now.