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9 1/2	By : lot49 Category: G through L > House Views: 10104 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own House, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1-:1::-::4::
- 2-::5::
- 3-::6::
- 4-7::8::
- 3
- 4
::7::
(There's a before)
His mind occasionally plays tricks on him. That's when she comes. Exactly as she appeared then, snapshots of his last memory. That long elegant stride, cloaked in jazz and shadows. She presses a perfectly manicured finger to his lips, says, 'shhh,' as she takes him in her hands, in her mouth and she makes him sigh, the air astringent, and she does this with a familiar, knowing touch.
"I love you," she says, sliding, wrapping herself around him, encapsulating him in a blanket of ether. And he believes her. And he loves her too.
::::
It was her plea.
Only she, she, Stacy Epstein --no, Warner-- Warner, now, some other guy's wife, can find every fault, all the cracks in his mental blockades and shove a stick of C-4 into every one of them. Only she can make him vivisect himself to a room of lambent-eyed future malpractice suits (and her, the other her) and everyone else who shouldn't be there, watching.
It's her presence. Her flipped-around crucifix. In the light of day where her flaws are glaringly apparent, it's easy to pick out the lines of stress around her mouth and eyes. This is her (still beautiful), aging. Her face a stiff, imperial mask. Weary. Haggard. Drawn.
He memorizes every line, every imperfection, adds every one of them to her catalogue of faults. Pressing pages upon pages to the book of things he'd love to revile her for. And yet he knows, if she crooked a finger. If she'd smiled and touched and said she wanted him, them, back --he'd undoubtedly capitulate.
And he loathes that thought, despises her, hates her, and loves her, and he hates himself for that.
::::
(There's a now)
He's whole, she's whole, and they're together, and it's glorious and perfect. They're perfect. She moves, one fingernail trailing down his chest, and it stings just a little. Colder. Air prickling across nerve endings. Everything a little harsher. A little sharper.
But she says, "Trust me," her whisper curling like smoke down his throat. "Trust me."
How much further can you go?
And the smile turns impossibly wide, the grin slashing her face from ear to ear, as impeccably manicured nails tear off pieces of his thigh like rotten chunks of fruit.
::::
He doesn't sleep much anymore. Hasn't. Not since her arrival.
And now she's here, five days, forty hours a week. Stacy's spectre lurking about his formerly hallowed halls. Exhaustion is melting the remaining muscle off his bones, muddling his mind, as he stumbles through each day burning Vicodin and scotch like high-concentrate octane.
There's a day that she confronts him. Angry. Betrayed. Something about death-row guy. Whatever. All he can think about is how fast he can get away from her. How he wants to crawl to Cuddy, beg her to let her go, make her leave and go far, far away, but he doesn't, because it would be admitting defeat. And he won't. Ever.
::::
(There's an after)
The living room, amidst a knocked-over lamp and a pile of de-shelved books barely acknowledged, hapazardly discarded clothes marking the distance between thirty feet of floor to bed too far. It's like Jericho; chaos, unpredictable variables, puzzles and pieces and hundreds of non-interlocking parts, except for the part where they're interlocking.
The skin of her clavicle tastes different from the skin behind her left knee. She smells warm and female, something intoxicating that makes him want to roll himself around in, sink into her, day and night and all the hours in between.
He knows all this, even as they tumble to the floor, as she sits up and splays her hands across his belly. Oh, how she's young and vibrant, open, even in the guise of night. How she sounds as she moves over him, pulling the oxygen from his lungs, until he's dizzy, spinning, and world recedes to him, her, and how she looks at him, guileless, clear-eyed and loving.
Even as she reaches down and rips his leg off.
::::
When she tells him she hates him, he doesn't believe her. No, not quite yet. But there's always time.
"You should have thought of that before we started fucking."
"Well, we aren't fucking anymore, are we?"
It's been a month they've been fighting for nearly that long, neither saying much of anything at all, really, merely fumbling through an increasingly awkward progression of blind shots.

"I'm not her," Cameron snaps. Another day. Another argument he won't remember, the exchange far too familiar. But it's the first time she's ever brought her up. Her. She doesn't ever say her name, opting instead for the implicit. "Stacy" does not enter into her vocabulary. She. The other woman. Her.
"No, you're not," he agrees.
She doesn't leave any scars at all.

::8::
How much further can you go?
There's always the bottom.
::::
Behind the drawn curtains and locked doors, he hides. In the dark, stinking of sweat and booze, sprawled haphazardly across the chaise, the upended bottle of 151 drooling rum at his feet. The side door opens, spilling unwanted light in as he feels Cameron's disapproving eyes from across the room.
"You're drunk," she sighs. "Again."
"And you have the most perfect ass." Words tumble out, sibilant and slurred. He pauses thoughtfully, lines of a frown etching across his forehead, as she flips open the side pocket of her valise to wrestle out her cell phone. "I said that out loud again, didn't I?"
She doesn't answer, busy stabbing numbers onto the dial pad. Seconds later he hears, "Dr. Wilson," and the rest of it's lost in muttered conversation. But he's wondering why she has his number. Why she's calling him. Do they talk and whisper and plot behind his back? Are they...?
Picking up his cane, he uses it to lever himself upright.
"He's married, you know." Left, right, then left again; the cane swings like a pendulum over the in-steps of his sneakers. "But I don't suppose that's ever stopped him before."
The look she gives him, mostly filled with confusion, transforms into disgust.
"You'd like that wouldn't you?" she finally replies. "If I were sleeping with him. That way, you'd have an excuse for behaving like a complete and utter asshole."
All the invective dripping from her mouth makes him smile.
"I don't need excuses for treating you like a child." He shoves sloppily to his feet, wobbly cane and all. "Not when you act like one." Curses as his left knee knocks against the bookshelf, and for a few precarious seconds he looks like he might pass out right there across the floor. "Did you tell her?"
She turns away, shoving her phone back into her bag. "Yes. I told her. You don't need to--"
"Did she cry?" he interrupts with a heavy, imposing rap. "Did you? Did you hug her and tell her about all the new cures, the new techniques they find every day?" He spits out every piece between each staggering step. A foot. A thump. A word.
"Did you even tell her she had six months at best?" As she takes an unconscious step back, he's there, in her face, anger spilling from his shoulders. "Lies of omission are still lies, Dr. Cameron. Did you give her hope?" She flinches at the harsh liquor on his breath, and it's everywhere, sharp and acrid, in the hidden corners of his mouth when he drowns out the last part against her lips.
"You bas--" And he's on her, mouth, hands, clumsy, pawing, pressing her against the wall. Her valise drops to the floor and she's hissing something, pushing against him. A hard shove at his shoulders sends him stumbling back against his desk, the motion shooting straight into his kidneys.
Stop.
She swipes furiously at her mouth with the back of her hand. "There. I said it. Are you happy now?"
There's six feet of carpet between them. Six feet of him, her, a cane and the clusterfuck spiraling into eternity. He, he's--they're-- what? Misfiring neurons and poorly-constructed sentences. Sex and insinuations and sniping at each other in between the silences.
But he's never been more thankful than at that moment, for Wilson's fake chipperness cutting in from the doorway. She glances up at the greeting, and the look that passes between the two renders him (Would she? Would he? Would they, if they were?), briefly inarticulate.
"I don't hate you." Nearly inaudible. And she's looking at him again, her voice thick, as if she's talking through glass. "But I don't like you sometimes."
Fair enough. Sometimes, he doesn't either.
::::
- 3
- 4
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9 1/2