as_damaged | ☎ voicemail

[It might be easier on both of them if she were out, but she isn't. As softly as she tries to walk, the sound of her coming to the door, the telltale scrape of the peephole opening, gives her away; and though she pauses a long moment, considering not answering him, one by one the line of locks is unbolted.

The scene is too familiar for her comfort, an echo of any number of tourist weekends... but without the safe promise that he'll be gone in the morning, or the easy, uncertain secrecy of those visits. She ought to be on better terms with him-- this him-- than with him when he left, but it's not so easy to forget, even if he has.]

I thought you'd call first.

[She's standing in the doorway still, not opening it to let him in.]

I missed you.

[It's as simple as that, although there's the odd deja-vu of the date, there's the worry that he's somehow hurt her in ways he doesn't fully know about, as well as in all the ways he knows, inevitably, that he will. It's simple and it's too complex to ever explain, so he tucks his hands into his back pockets and just stands there, half shy.]

I meant to... call, but I was around and I thought I could just. Call. I'll—I can go if it's a bad time—

[Her long, measuring look is as much a gauge of her own reaction as his state, but finally she pulls the door a little farther open, stepping aside.]

No. It's all right,

[she says softly, not quite able to shake the weirdness, but striving to keep it under wraps. It's funny; she's always liked having the advantage, but knowing too much now-- about his future, his past-- is a thankless burden.]

Coffee?

[That runs the risk of him hanging around longer than she wants, but it will give her something to occupy her hands and her attention.]

[He takes up the offer of the open doorway almost too quickly, though there's nothing pushy about the way he passes her and still somehow manages to hang back a few steps. The coffee inspires slightly more of a pause.]

I'd love one. [But...] Have you got any of the black walnut stuff?

[Some things are an acquired taste.]

[In spite of her uncertainty, that brings the trace of a curl to one corner of her mouth. All the comfort of an old in-joke. But the dissonance is fading, or maybe she's just getting used to the change in the distance between them.]

I'll see what's left.

[She doesn't invite him to follow her into the kitchen, but half expects it, glancing surreptitiously behind her as she opens a cabinet.]

[He doesn't go after her immediately, taking advantage of the chance not to be caught in the act of looking around the main room of her apartment and seeing what memory it stirs. Very little, except for what's already familiar from her old place, and the condo they share(d). Her tastes don't change.

After a couple of minutes his attention turns to what's new rather than what's old, pictures, things from the city itself, and it's then that he feels like he's snooping. Rather than dwell, he puts his head around the kitchen door.]

So I got a job. Two, actually.

[The only notable thing is the pencil drawing hanging inconspicuously on the wall, in a plain, tasteful frame, of a man Chase has never met; otherwise it might as well be her old home. She glances up at him when he speaks.]

Oh? [That seems quick.] Where?

[Setting up the coffeemaker doesn't take as long as she'd like, but she's calm enough that it doesn't show. Cameron leans back, palms resting on the counter top.]

Chief patty flipper at Burgerland. Where do you think?

[Yes, it's probably unfair to tease, having admitted spending a month performing extractions for the things that live in the underground, but still. Really?]

Only stopped by the hospital to see if they had a vacancy for an attending surgeon. Turns out their head of intensive care recently left them in the lurch.

[By, you know, forgetting he had the job.

And oh, that's right, he's a surgeon, now.]

[At this point a drastic career change would hardly surprise her, and the look she shoots him says as much. It isn't cruel, though; as uncomfortable as this might be she'd rather see him around than have to wonder where he was, what might happen underground.]

I'm glad things are working out so well.

[She shifts her weight from one foot to the other, the only betrayal of her discomfort. Having him back at the Hospital is an inevitability she's put off thinking about.]

They're... starting to get better. It's been a long time coming.

[If he looks too long at her as he concedes this, it's tempered by an immediate, embarrassed need to look anywhere but.]

House offered me a job back, too. I haven't taken him up on that.

[Yet.]

I assumed he would.

[She keeps her eyes on him even when he turns away, if only because it would be too telling to react the same way. She wonders wildly, idly, if he's got his wedding ring, or if it's in her drawer still; whether he wears it. How they're supposed to work together with all that between them.]

Do you want to come back to it?

[His wedding ring is a small dent in the back pocket of his jeans. He had the sense not to wear it, here.]

Maybe. Eventually. I haven't technically worked for him in a while.

[Only almost true, but a few days doesn't count enough to warrant mention, especially given what that decision wrought.]

He does have a way of sucking people back in. Hard for anyone to get away completely.

[You'd have to move to Chicago, at the least.]

[That earns him a slightly puzzled look, but she lets it lie. Some questions are better unanswered. Piecing her future together was one thing when it had promise; now it's like a bad diagnosis, a confirmation to be avoided as long as possible.]

Do you think we can work together?

[The question is carefully neutral.]

[He glances up at her, not having quite expected that, and again it's clear how much he doesn't know.]

I'm hesitant about working with House. Not you.

[They've worked together through the good and bad times in their relationship - from before it was a relationship. Alright, there have been time she's avoided him in the lounge for a couple of days, but it took a hell of a lot to make her decide she couldn't work with him.

As much as he left that to her decision.]

Can you... work with me?

[Chin lifted, she watches him a moment. Not knowing the details of the years between them, it seemed like a question worth asking, though she didn't expect him to say no.]

I just think we need to remember... that we don't know each other very well, really.

[She says it softly, letting her gaze fall a little so she's not meeting his eyes. Maybe it will be harder for her. Even admitting that stings.]

[He can't disagree, only because of what he isn't telling her. Part of him thinks it would be safer to warn her off, here and now. The other is all too aware of exactly where honesty has gotten him so far.

For all that, he can't agree with the sentiment, either. Six years, near enough for both of them, only split across two different dimensions (and that he can think that without blinking is perhaps testament to a mindset different to the one she knew before).]

Come on. We've got at least a couple of years in common.

[And if he sounds just a little too needy there it's because there has to be some kind of connection, surely? He can't have her back, of course, he shouldn't even think that (though he can't help wondering—) but to pretend she's unfamiliar is too much to ask.]

We know what might have happened. Not what will.

[It's better than nothing, though there's good and bad in that.]

Are you saying you can just put the last few years out of your mind?

[It's an unfair question and she knows it. She turns away, trying to cover her inexplicable embarrassment by taking down mugs for them. She has no right, really, to hold his actions against him, if he doesn't remember them; but it's hard to let go.]

No.

[He pushes his hands into his back pockets and wills himself not to crack here and just tell her. The drink that had seemed like a good idea earlier is less steadying now.]

But the next few don't have to go the same way. Cameron?

[She turns back to him, mugs in hand, expression carefully blank.]

[And he looks so tired.]

If I could go back, to where you are - were - [A faint frown, but working that out isn't what matters right now.] I would. I'd take that like a shot. But I can't get a do-over, even here. I know that. I'm not hoping for anything.

[And that, the lack of hope, has to be at least part of what has him feeling so lost.]

[It's unsettling, seeing him without that air of confidence she'd come to take for granted. Even at their worst, before he left, he was still angling for something, taking a mile for every grudging, cordial inch.]

That isn't what I--

[She breaks off, looking at him critically, lips a thin hard line. The mugs are set on the counter heavily. This is the repayment, no doubt, for every time she wished they could go back to before last Christmas. To a relationship without all the City's complications, for that matter. So much for that.]

I just meant, this will take some getting used to.

[A sharp intake of breath and a nod don't quite manage to stop him looking like a marionette with cut strings, but he straightens a little.]

Of course.

[It's taking him long enough to get used to the hair.]

That's why I had to put some space between me and - everyone else - for a while. Pissed as half the city is at me for it.

[She looks away, only to pour their coffee.]

If you can be patient, then we can work together.

[As she sees it, patience has always been the problem; every time she's started to trust him it's come too late.]

I can go back underground another month, if you like.

[Really, that is just teasing. He takes a couple of steps forward and stops, as if it might be pushing things to get close enough to take a cup.]

I've got a world of patience.

[On better terms she might glare at that. But she'll let him get away with teasing, for now. Rather than step back to give him space, she slides the mug a bit closer to him.]

All right then.

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sob I am sorry about my slooooow

no woooorries

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