#camchase

the moment you first know it:

a) there is, in fact, a part of chase's brain that knows: this is fucked up. this isn't right, when she kisses him and she's on meth. it's half drowned out by the roaring in his ears, the rush of all his blood: actually when she first kisses him, he thinks nothing at all, just some impulse of finally, which is something he will later think about a lot. she's high, but not incoherent, and it's wrong, but he wants it desperately — not just to get laid, not just easy sex; he's easy but not that easy, but something about cameron and this is my only shot, and okay, maybe he is that easy. he's never been accused of high standards. but it is a mistake, and he tells her so — he's not interested, he's not getting bogged down in emotions or mess — but he also does research on meth and party drugs and inhibition, impulse control, mental changes, trying to prove not that he did nothing wrong (he does not believe he did) but that she would have acted the same sober and — a mistake. definitely. he has always carefully avoided this kind of thing (he cannot even think the word love); it isn't worth it now to change.

b) she knows that house catching them would cause problems, although chase accusing her of doing it on purpose bothers her for different reasons. mostly, because she thinks he might be right, but isn't sure why she set them up either. to get house jealous? all that does is house starts trying to get them in trouble, tattling to cuddy like a kid, and she's furious, not pleased or flattered or whatever chase thinks: if house forbids them from being involved (he's not their father) or breaks them up (they're not dating), chase won't be pleased either, and it's none of house's business, none of cuddy's for that matter. everyone has opinions, everyone seems to think her and chase are a bad idea, that he's going to hurt her when chase has never stolen an article or mocked her on a date or — chase won't go home with her after the closet, is weird and avoids her the next day at work, and she feels itchy and annoyed. everything is off-kilter. it isn't until she's cleaning up emma sloane's things and sees the photo of him — smiling, glowing, and she's never seen him look like that and burns with a sudden intense jealousy that he could, that she hasn't seen it, that there are parts of chase she doesn't yet know, that — oh.

the moment you know it, but can't say it yet.

a) you're glowing, she says, like an accusation. and for a second he feels cold panic, caught and naked and exposed, but it's clear cameron doesn't know what the picture is really of and maybe he should be — he isn't sure, offended? embarrassed? but it melts into a warmth, a fondness at her outrage. i always glow, he jokes. he wants to tell her. he wants to tell her why. right here in the hospital room, in front of everybody. he's never had that impulse before, this feeling before. someone once said: love is only love if it is returned; otherwise it is infatuation. he is infatuated. he — he's pretty sure, nearly sure, she must feel it too. i have a nice smile, he teases her. he's sure she knows already: she has to.

b) chase says he's been fired, and then he's gone, just like that: not even a goodbye, not even a — it's a punch to the gut, and more importantly it's fixable, cameron is furthermore going to fix it, and when her first attempt (a strike) fails, and her second attempt (house) fails, she goes to plan c, stalking chase's neighborhood until she spots him walking to the diner on the corner and goes in with a plan. she'll tell him things will be okay; they'll come up with a plan for house. he'll invite her back to his and it'll be comfort sex, you-just-got-fired sex, no need for a conversation or — because the thing is, she doesn't have feelings for chase: she can't. not because he isn't funny and sweet and brilliant and annoying, but because he's chase, and that isn't an argument but she needs it to be, because when you fall in love with people they die or reject you or get fired on a random friday afternoon, and when your colleague is fired, you shouldn't want him to comfort you about it, shouldn't be imagining him — so she marches into the diner with a plan, and he says: i'm sorry for saying i still want to be with you, and it's so off-script that cameron stammers some sort of goodbye and stumbles off in a daze and sits in her car for a long while with the knowledge that it's suddenly too late to tell him what she only has just figured out.

the moment you just can't keep it in any longer.

b) it's two months before cameron realizes that chase is waiting for her to say it first. there are moments where he'll pause, start to say something and stop. she'll notice him watching her when he thinks she isn't looking: once or twice he's murmured something in bed — too soft to make out, pressed against her skin or into her hair, only when she's boneless and half asleep. but he doesn't, that's the thing. at first it's a relief, because cameron isn't sure — what if what she feels isn't real, a passing impulse, hormones, infatuation — what if she isn't ready? what if she's wrong? but the days pass, and those worries are replaced with a more pressing anxiety: if she's supposed to say it first, how does she say it?

it takes on the pressure of a proposal, planning a wedding: cameron obsesses over her calendar, looking for occasions (his birthday isn't for months) or anniversaries (labor day?). if he's waiting for her, and she's waiting for him, the only solution (their tenth date?) is to arrange for it to happen perfectly, romantically, in the right moment, but somehow also organic and natural. to make the build up worth it. to make it intentional, not because of her cold feet. she hasn't yet made up her mind when —

"i love you," cameron blurts.

chase is holding a paper bag of chinese takeout in his arms: her hand is suddenly sweaty on the doorknob: she is letting him into her apartment with dinner, it is just past seven on a thursday night, and she had planned — tentatively — for december first, which will be their six month anniversary, more or less, but it's been a long day and they've barely spoken all week, both caught up in a late summer flu outbreak, but when she'd paged him — paged him — asking if he wanted to meet up for dinner he'd replied right away and —

chase gapes at her, the chinese food bag slipping in his grasp: she reaches for it quickly before it can fall and is glad for the excuse to turn away, to set it down safely — "how was traffic?" she asks a bit desperately, turning back towards the door and her confused boyfriend — "you're that happy about dinner?" he interrupts, smiling a little to let her off the hook —

yes, she thinks, relieved he would: "no," she says quietly, and then he's kissing her, and distantly she thinks her neighbors are going to complain again — "i love you," he says, and then again, and let the neighbors complain, let the food get cold, let it all —

a) "i was waiting for our anniversary," cameron frets later, in bed, after, and chase stops nuzzling sleepily, contentedly, at her spine and shoulder blades to do the math. "you were going to wait until next year?" he asks, aghast and yet somehow charmed.

"just until december…" she admits, hiding her face in her pillow as he laughs a little:

"that's four months from now."

"you're the one who wanted me to say it first!" she turns onto her back and shoves him a bit, which means he has to shove her back, which means they make out a little, again, drunk with infatuation, with feeling.

First, Chase feels hurt.

That after months of fooling around and morning showers and carpools and not-quite dates Cameron sees as nothing more than convenient is—it sucks.

When she walks into work the next morning, hair neatly styled, clothes ironed and crisp, he thinks of how he’d woken up and all but stumbled into the shower, bleary and exhausted from a long night of ruminating over every word she’d said the night before.

She, apparently, had slept just fine.

(Years later, when he is alone in the apartment they’d bought together, her rings stacked neatly on the nightstand beside him, he will circle back to this moment, to the feeling of being alone and unwanted, knowing that he is easier to leave than to love.)

Then, Chase feels guilt.

The point here is to make things simpler, not more complicated, she’d told him the night she propositioned him.

Complicated, Chase understands all too well. A lifetime of learning and relearning the same lesson—relapses, he thinks bitterly—has taught him that love can be disappointing, painful. There’s a certain comfort in deciding you don’t need something before it has the chance to leave you, in believing that wanting less means hurting less.

He’d known about Cameron’s marriage, about the months she’d spent watching her husband’s condition worsen until he eventually passed. Her desire for something casual and uncomplicated was entirely reasonable, understandable.

Still, he’d asked for more.

I thought we were clear, she'd said, hurt and anger tightening her voice.

(Later, she will tell him, tense and fighting tears, that she plans to destroy her husband’s sperm for him. He will have wanted exactly that, her choosing him, finally and completely. But the pain and fear in her voice—I don’t want to be homeless—will leave him wishing that he had never asked her to choose.)

Finally, Chase feels embarrassed.

Of course, he’d been nervous to ask her out, but he hadn’t in the slightest anticipated that she’d break things off entirely between them. He’d bought candles, for God’s sake, had planned a romantic dinner for her back at his apartment, thinking it’d be just the sort of thing she’d adore. A breakup hadn’t even been in the realm of possibility, and he feels almost stupid for the fact that it hadn’t crossed his mind.

This shame is not a feeling that lasts.

Because Chase knows Cameron. After years of working 80 hours a week together, a certain level of familiarity is to be expected. Beyond that, too, he knows that she spent a summer volunteering in a flu clinic in Guatemala, that her older brother has just had his third kid, that she loathes her father’s politics but admires his ambition, that her mother phones her nightly and panics when Cameron doesn’t answer, that she is not a natural brunette, that she does not often wear jewelry but prefers silver to gold, that her favourite colours are not purple and pink but lilac and blush. He knows the weight of her body under his hands, the way her breaths deepen and her heart slows as she falls asleep, the little crease that appears between her eyebrows when she is worried, the thin line her mouth forms when she is trying not to laugh.

Which means he knows that she is being elusive, deflective.

Just a few days ago, she’d come over to his apartment, coffees in hand—and carrying it in a paper bag must be an American thing, he muses—and they’d done nothing but talk about their day. He’d woken up, still fully clothed, with her arm draped over his waist and her nose nestled into the back of his neck. For all Cameron's insistence that their relationship was nothing but casual sex, she’d done a terrible job of behaving like that were true.

Cameron has always been the sort to fall head over heels for every patient she meets—and it’s admirable, truly, how much of herself she’s able to, willing to give—but it all serves to make evident the ruse she’s putting it up. Cameron is sweet and passionate and unashamed to care, not icy and withholding.

Chase knows her, and he knows that he’s falling for her.