Title: “It was fun, but that was it. And now it’s over.” alone in a crowd
Author: Faith V.
Rating: T
Summary: Allison doesn’t know, and she’s not sure she wants to know, when she got so broken.
Lenght: around 2 700 words.
AN: Thank you so much to antinickname for beta-ing, you're really wonderful, and to antisocialite for the title idea which set this one into motion.

Her parents weren’t young or confused, they were simply immature and couldn’t deal with each other, or with a child. They broke up (they just lived together, never got married) before she turned one, and her father became this guy who waltzed in and out of her life every now and then, expecting her to love him when she didn’t even knew him. Her oldest memory of him is holding onto his hand as they walked down the street from her house. She was wearing a pink turtleneck and a blue skirt, and her hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She remembers looking back and seeing her mother waving at her from the front door and wanting to run towards her, but she couldn’t because this big man was holding her hand and pulling her away.

On a rainy afternoon when she was ten, her mother told that she’d adored her father when she was a baby, and that she’d cried for days when they had first moved into her grandmother’s house because she couldn’t find him anywhere. She cried herself to sleep that night because she couldn’t imagine what that must have been like, but mostly because she had once liked her father and couldn’t remember it. House would have a field day if he knew. “Daddy issues”, he’d probably say, but it’s not right because she’s not looking for a father figure, and if she were, House would be the last man she’d want for that. She didn’t have a father when it mattered and she had learned not to need one.

It wasn’t easy being her mother’s daughter, either. Brilliant, beautiful, and with a shining personality, she was one of those women who always finds a way of being in the spotlight, so Allison grew up on the sidelines. It wasn’t a bad place to be, just like being an underling to one of the greatest doctors in the East Coast isn’t at all bad. She’s just not meant to be the lead.

Everyone always said she was her mother’s carbon copy, what they didn’t say was that carbon copies were dark and smudgy and never as good as the originals. She was very tall and very beautiful and had the prettiest red-brown hair ever and even prettier deep-brown eyes, and Allison was a little washed-out blonde thing with indefinable eyes. She was the shortest kid in her class, always last in line. Shy and quiet, with huge glasses and long braids other kids loved to pull until they made her cry.

When she was eleven, her mother married. If she focused really hard, Allison could remember the feeling of loss that took over as the priest spoke in the background and her mother stopped being Mom and became Mrs. Emily Gold. Not that she’d been much of a mother but she was the only thing in the world she had. Her family was catholic, but Allison hadn’t been in a church since her First Communion, and she’d already started to doubt there was a God up there. But, she was happy cause Emily was happy. She was also worried; she’d known her mom for her entire life and if there was something she was sure of, it was that housewife was not something her mom was cut out for. She’d been right, but that didn’t make her feel any better when she spent the next seven years of her life watching the marriage break to pieces.

They moved her away from the house she’d lived in for (almost) her entire life without asking, expecting her to be part of this new family she didn’t fit in with. Her stepfather had been nice enough, at first, but Allison was a difficult child, shy and reserved and too much of an adult in a little girl’s body. She was never close to her mother; they hadn’t been best buds and Emily had always been too self-involved to realize her daughter was in desperate need of being noticed. Once she got a husband and a stepson, it got easier and easier to ignore her painfully shy daughter.

Allison did a very stupid thing when she was twelve, but she didn’t know better. She and her cousin had been friends since birth (four months difference between them) and they played tag and jacks, and later on they’d played doctor. One day, at a family gathering, they sneaked into the basement and laughed and kissed and gone “all the way”, and she was so scared for so long because she watched the news and knew that 12 year-old mothers were real. But nothing happened and a very, very small part of herself had been sad because a baby would have meant having someone who loved you just because, and never being alone anymore.

Emily wasn’t a good mother to Allison, but she was one to Tommy, and, when she was born, she was to Elizabeth, too. They were the perfect little family, the four of them. Liz had beautiful black her, just like her father and her mother always said that Tommy reminded her of her father. Alli was the odd one out. And she really hated to be called Alli, not that anyone ever listened to her.

She was a good daughter. She helped around the house more than any other kid her age, and she took care of the baby when Emily was too tired. Tommy was a couple of years older than she. He played football and was on the swim team, and her parents were so damn proud of him, and most of the time acted as if she didn’t existed. She was awkward around people, didn’t know how to act or what to say. At thirteen, she did the bravest thing in her life and told her mother she had trouble relating to people. Emily’s response was that she had to try harder.

High school started and Allison kept trying because it was better to feel like crap when you had friends than when you were all by yourself. She joined the track team and the drama club, and continued to be a cheerleader out of pure willpower, because doing cartwheels in front of a shouting crowd while wearing a 10 inches long skirt is nothing but terrifying; but, it made no difference. She couldn’t speak out and she wasn’t pushy like her mother or witty like her brother. She was just Allison.

At fourteen, she fell in love with her best friend’s boyfriend. Unrequited love can really damage someone so young.

At fifteen, she dyed her hair, tired of people thinking she was the nanny whenever she was out with her family. People stopped giving her weird looks but it changed nothing. She was vain, her stepfather had said, dying one’s hair was stupid and vain. He was a big fan of constructive criticism. Neither her mother nor her stepfather was big on rules, though, so as long as she kept things running smoothly at home, she could do pretty much anything she wanted.

She met a boy at the library one afternoon. He said he liked her and that was all she needed. It lasted for over a year but it didn’t go public until her junior year. They played Helena and Dimitrius in “A Midsummer’s Night Dream”, and on opening night, Hermia and Oberon found them making out outside the auditorium. The next morning it was common knowledge that goody-two-shoes Allison was a slut.

She never had a boyfriend but it didn’t take much for her to hook up with whatever boy talked her up. She hated that about herself, hated it so much it hurt, but she wanted to be liked more than anything else. Boys liked her body, at least, and it was better than nothing.

Her friends told her she was too nice for her own good and that she was too naive if she kept falling for the same old trick. Truth was, she knew every boy who asked her out wanted something from her, but it made no difference. She always wondered why she had to feel everything. Weren’t people supposed to harden with time? Become tougher?

She graduated second in her class, but since her mother had graduated first, it wasn’t a big deal. She got an academic scholarship and chose pre-med. She wanted to help people, make them better. She also wanted to prove her parents she was smart enough. She moved out with tears in her eyes; in spite of everything, she loved her family very much.

No one beat her up and she wasn’t sexually molested, but House really has no idea of how much nothing can hurt.

College was fun. Teachers weren’t exactly nice but she was so used to the covered-up hostility that she didn’t particularly notice. Classes were easy and she grew more and more confident with her own work. She set impossibly high standards for herself and measured up to every one of them. She had friends but she didn’t date a lot. When she learned that guys thought her to be out of their league, she laughed out loud for a good fifteen minutes while Jackie, her roommate, stared at her as if she’d grown a second head.

Allison loved easily. She was nice, but not an idiot, and knew most people would take advantage of her. She didn’t try to be nice, she just was, and she didn’t even like being that way. Three weeks after college started, she ran into a boy she used to know. He was on Tommy’s football team and had changed a lot since she’d last seen him.

Seth had gotten his heart broken, badly, by his high school sweetheart and no longer believed in relationships. They became best friends and talked about everything from sex to politics to how much of a bitch his ex was. Their first time was fun and sweet and Allison felt like he really cared about her. They were casually together for the better part of a year until her sophomore’s spring break, when a couple of friends from her cheer squad came to stay with her and he fell for one of them. So much for ‘fear of commitment’.

Two months after starting at PPTH she found out they were married and had three children and a dog.

She met her husband on a double date that Jackie forced her into, and she had fun. He was pre-med, too, though they didn’t share any classes, and he wanted to be a pediatrician. He was very sweet and very caring. He asked her out to coffee the next day because he just “couldn’t wait to talk to her again”.

She didn’t think it was a forever thing, but Danny was a good guy and he seemed genuinely interested in her. That was new and exciting, and loving him came naturally.

Daniel Cameron, 1975- 1997. Beloved husband and son.

She called home, said her husband was dead, and she wouldn’t be coming back next Christmas. Emily asked if she wanted them to fly over, but Allison told her they didn’t have to. They didn’t. Years later she’d realized that she’d had her first legal drink at her husband’s wake. She’d never felt more alone in her life.

Med school was crazy, and before she knew it, she was graduating at the top of her class. She was a good doctor, she was a good person, and she “made things better”, just like Danny told her she would. Still, she was too self-conscious not to accept her many flaws and limitations. She was insecure when it came to everything except her work, and she was hypersensitive and emotional. After many years of training, she was very much capable of keeping the tears at bay whenever she felt defeated, hurt, or afraid. But, in the end, she was still the same Allison who had never fit in anywhere.

She was dedicated, caring, and had a tragic air that compelled big strong men to try and protect her, even when that was the last thing she wanted. Allison didn’t need to be protected, she didn’t want to be ogled because of her body, or judged because of the way she looked. She just wanted to be seen for herself.

John Hopkins was wonderful but her internship was over and it was time for new things. It was time to stop being the tragic young widow and become Allison Cameron, MD. She applied for a fellowship, knowing the chances of getting it were very slim. But she was called in for an interview.

She liked House almost immediately. He was fun, if rather crude, and said things she’d never dare saying out loud. And he was very handsome. He called her Cameron and that was ok with her. The first time she stepped out of his office, right after the interview of doom, he’d shouted her name and made her stop mid-step. Then he very calmly told her she’d have to provide her own validation if this was going to work.

She quit because it was easier and because it was the kind of thing she did anyway, and when he asked her back, she really thought he might like her. But that was a disaster that was better left alone.

Allison was loved once, and she’ll always have that, but she’s thirty one years old and she doesn’t want to be alone. She knows that deep down, House doesn’t want that either, but she doesn’t expect him to burst out on Kumbaya’s any time soon, or ever, and so she tries hard not to worry about his emotional state.

She loves easily, and she can’t afford to fall for him. But, when he got shot, she scrubbed in and she kept vigil by his bed, threatening Chase and Foreman with bodily harm if either one of them told anyone. House may not want her but she still likes him, and she wants him to be okay and happy, even if happy may be a stretch.

He asked her out and she said no, because she knows herself and knows that’s a dangerous road. A road she doesn’t want to go down because it leads straight into heartbreak. It takes a lot of effort to mend her heart when it breaks and she doesn’t enjoy it at all. When she was a small child, Charlie Brown made her cry and sometimes she thinks House is her very own Little Red-Haired Girl.

Chase was safe until he wasn’t. Once they reached an understanding Harder! Robert, I’m not gonna break... things were fun and she enjoyed herself, but he went and broke the rules. It may not have been the smartest thing, but she was alone and she really hates that feeling. Deep down she knew it was doomed from the start, but she wanted it so badly, to not be alone, to not be herself, that she thought she could handle it. She set rules because hurt wasn’t supposed to play a part in this thing they had going on, but he broke them and she’s never going to be the one to hurt someone else if she can avoid it--even if she could, even if she wants to--because she’s been hurt one too many times and she knows that you don’t need to get half your thigh cut off to be left with some pretty impressive scars.

She’s sorry for Chase, but she’d hate herself if she made him believe something that’s not true. And House wouldn’t have broken the rules, ever, and that’s why she can’t ever have a casual relationship with him. The rules are there because without them people get hurt, but sometimes you get hurt anyway, and she can’t risk it. Allison doesn’t know, and she’s not sure she wants to know, when she got so broken. It must have been bit by bit, almost without her noticing, and now she’s damaged, yeah, but not beyond repair. That she won’t ever accept.

House will never believe her, but fixing him has never been an issue, because he’s not broken, or at least not as broken as she is. If there’s anyone who’s obsessed with fixing things, it’s him. He may see what he does as solving a puzzle, but she knows he’s fixing people, and maybe he can fix her too.

-------------------x

the end

AN: I am a first time House-writer, what do you think?