Title: Variations on a Theme
Author: Faith V
Rating: T
Summary: This is Cameron, though, and things never turn out the way she hopes.
AN: For the housecameron ficathon, written for liam22.

When Allison was five years old, her mother left for parts unknown. She left behind a note, a necklace Daddy had bought her in Guatemala and a pair of earrings Allison had always loved. A month later, a lawyer showed up with some papers. Her mom was signing away any form of parental rights over her daughter and was presenting her Dad with divorce papers.

It was then that she learned sometimes people leave without a reason.

When Allison was 20, she fell in love. Daniel was a sweet man. He loved her, worshipped her even, and elevated her to the state of saint when she stayed with him all through his last round of chemotherapy. They got married in a church, in front of a priest, and Allison wore a white dress. It was a lovely ceremony and Dan’s best friend from high school was the best man.

Six months later she discovered that when people leave, they take a piece of you with them.

When Allison was 30, she handed out a resignation letter and she realized that sometimes leaving was the only thing you could do.

They exchange emails, sporadically, thus proving that House does in fact know how to log into his account, but she misses him, sometimes, physically. Misses having him around, his presence, the way he took up so much space.

It’s twisted and screwed up, because why would she miss the man who reveled in making her miserable? And yet, it’s the only explanation she can find – or the only one she will allow herself – for ordering something she positively hates for lunch. Reuben, cold, no pickles. She likes pickles, eats them with mustard, sometimes, when she feels like it. But it wouldn’t be the same, and she needs it to be just like his, the way it used to be. It’s almost as if eating this thing that she doesn’t really like will make the miles and miles in between them disappear; as if he was just a couple of floors away instead of on the other side of the country.

It’s just like her to do this too, to cling on to something that’s long gone. It’s been a year, she shouldn’t miss him. It’s not normal, it’s not right and it’s making her go nuts, but she eats up to the last bite and then feels her stomach turning. Like those times she wore her mother’s jewelry, always regretting it later, never understanding why she had the need to keep her close when Mom obviously hadn’t wanted to.

After she finishes lunch, she sits in the cafeteria for a while. She’s got time, the patient is stable and she truly believes they’re on the right path to figure out what’s wrong with him. It’s an interesting job, and it doesn’t differ all that much from her previous position, but there’s always something that doesn’t quite fit. She suspects it’s her.

She’s a loner, always has been. She was the little girl with no mom and the young girl with no fun. There’s always something missing with her, in her, and she wishes she could fill in the space but she doesn’t know how and she doesn’t know what. She can hide things from the world, she’s an expert actually, but these days, she can’t pretend to be happy when she’s blue and she can’t cover the whole with a smile.

The doctors she works with now, they remind her of her old fellowship, except they get each other in ways she never got anyone, not back in Princeton, not before that and definitely not now. They’re close knitted and she’s the odd one out. It’s high school all over again; she’s in the “group”, gets invited to all the right parties and dates the popular boys, she’s co-captain of the cheer squad and everybody says they like her, but she’s so far removed from it all and she doesn’t understand how nobody can tell. She finished twelfth grade, hung her pom-poms and never saw those people again. It’s going to be the same here. One day, a while from now, she’ll get everything she can out of this job and she’ll leave.

As she kills time [read: avoids going upstairs where the rest of the team is, she watches people pass by, all of them caught up on their own issues. Family members, tired and lonely, medical personnel, a few patients in wheelchairs… almost the same crowd she’s seen in every other hospital she’s ever set foot on. Out of them all, she’s the only one who’s paying attention to the rest of them.

She feels better now that she’s alone in a crowd, more at ease with herself, than when she runs for the rooftop and hides from the world. She’s a loner who hates being alone, and somehow, the irony doesn’t amuse her all that much.

It’s alluring, to disconnect like this, letting herself be the little five year-old who hid beneath the stairs again. A lifetime of trying didn’t manage to extract that girl, that little girl who hid when crying and didn’t know how to talk about what was going on inside. Twenty-five years later she still doesn’t know how, but it’s okay because she can live with not saying a thing. She will laugh and she will smile and she will mean it too, because she’s not unhappy or miserable, really, but no one is there at dawn, with her wounded animal awakenings and the blankets over her head, trying to block out the world.

Her pager goes off; she stands up and walks away, leaving the loneliness behind.

“I say we call it a night,” says Dohl. He’s a good doctor but he gives up easily and is prone to blame over-exhaustion for his lack of ideas regarding diagnosis.

“Right, let’s ask Mr. Foster if he thinks a few hours of sleep will make it all better,” says Cameron, “I’m sure he’ll really appreciate it, what with his kidneys collapsing and his liver going to hell.”

The other doctors look at her. They’re all tired and they all want to home.

“Whatever,” she sighs. “Go home, I wanted to run some tests anyway. I’ll stay.” They all look at her some more.

“I said I’d stay. Seriously.”

Cameron rolls her eyes and hates the sound of her own voice. She sighs again, for effect, and they all start moving around her. It’s a different setting than she’s used to, this department is very different from PPTH’s. These doctors are not used to pulling all-nighters, they don’t know how to deal with the emotional stress. It’s strange, having the upper hand. Cameron’s the only one who’s worked in Diagnostics before, the only one with real, first hand experience.

The dean of medicine handpicked them all, they excel in their field of expertise, are more than qualified for this. Cameron’s background, while impressive and filled with “some of the best letters of recommendation I’ve ever read” as the Dean said, was unimportant compared to the fact that she’d worked under the famous Dr. Gregory House for over three years. That was the deciding factor, she’s sure, and it’s okay. She knew, when she started her fellowship, that it would do wonders for her career.

It was a practical matter, at first, that she’d be the one directing differential diagnosis. After all, she had been hired for her experience, and then she’d apparently been so good at it that no one had wanted to take over. Cameron concentrates on the clear board, on her handwriting, white scribbles that say everything they need to know, if only she could figure out how.

She sighs, crosses her arms and decides to take a mini-break while she waits for the latest lab results. She doesn’t expect them to be helpful, they hardly ever are, but she can’t not try. They have cable in the lounge, and she sits on the comfiest sofa, turning on the TV. Friends reruns are on. Good, it always makes her mind go to that place with no rational thoughts, where she’s practically numb and the strains of ideas stop conflicting with each other. And when the credits roll she can maybe have a fresh perspective of things.

She’s startled out of her state of semi catatonia by the flick of a switch and the lounge’s lights, too bright.

“You are made of weird,” says Leslie, the only other female in the team. She’s an endocrinologist with the weirdest speech patterns Cameron’s ever came across.

“What are you doing here? I thought everyone had left.”

“I left, and then I came back. Couldn’t let you crack the case all by your lonesome self.”

“One time,” says Cameron. “It happened one time.”

“Anyway, what is it with you and TV? I highly doubt you get much insight from the ups and downs of the Ross/Rachel relationship.”

“It’s- it helps me think.”

“Right,” says Leslie, smirking. “I told you, you’re made of weird,” she adds as she stands up and leaves for the conference room, throwing amused glances Cameron’s way.

The effect is ruined and Cameron has trouble concentrating on her show. The screen turns black without her remembering what happened and with her head an equal mess than when she first sat down. She’s still frustrated and cranky, and she almost wishes she had a TiVo so that she could do her little ritual again, uninterrupted. She frowns, standing up and walking over to the cupboard on top of the coffee machine. She pulls out her secret stash of Trix cereal [in the back of the cupboard, to the left, behind the box of granola bars no one ever eats and starts munching on it, trying to think of something that hasn’t already been discussed with the group.

It’s not that she wants to crack the case alone, but she does tend to work better when she’s alone, or in limited company. It’s a big team, seven of them, and it gets a little too complicated, at times, to find their pace.

They don’t have a lot of leads, and their patient, while stable again, doesn’t have a lot of time left.

Cameron opens her laptop, hoping to find something, anything, that helps. She logs into her email account, a colleague sent her an interesting article the other day and a voice in the back of her head is telling her that it might be relevant. She’s reading though the first sentence when a message pops up.

You have mail!

She clicks on the little window, curious. It’s about 2 am, people don’t usually send her mail this late at night, especially not to her hospital account.

“The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those who do not have it.” George Bernard Shaw

HA!

- H.

She smiles. It’s just like him to be up right now. She wonders if he’s stuck on a case, just like she is, alone in his office, watching TV or playing with his GameBoy, It’s funny, how she’s doing practically the same right now. She never really pictured herself in this position.

She struggles with herself, a crazy thought just filtered though the chaos that is her mind. It’s a bad idea, really bad and has the potential to turn seriously wrong, but before she can stop herself she takes out her cell phone and starts pushing the buttons. Hopefully his number has changed and this won’t even be a blip on his radar, hopefully no one will ever know about her moment of insanity.

This is Cameron, though, and things never turn out the way she hopes. The phone rings once, twice…

“You’re calling me. Why?”

“Forty year-old male, was diagnosed with appendicitis by an EMT, except he didn’t-”

“He didn’t have an appendix anymore?”

“How did you know?”

“This is new,” he says, jumping to a different thing, just like he always did, does whatever. It is new, and a bit scary too. It’s been a year since she’s heard his voice, but it’s still familiar and it still makes her blush a little to realize that she likes it so much.

“It’s new. It doesn’t have to be bad,” she tells him. She can practically hear her voice shake, and is incredibly annoyed at herself for acting like this. She’s not a kid and he’s not the boy who makes her smile.

“House?” There’s silence on the other end, like he knows exactly how much she’s hanging on his every word and enjoys it. It wouldn’t surprise her if that was the case but there’s something here, something that could, for once, work out.

She waits some more, biting her lips. She steels herself, preparing to hang up when she hears him, loud and clear:

“What are the symptoms?”

When Allison was 31, she made a phone call and learned that sometimes, leaving was the right thing to do.

[the end