as_damaged | ☎ voicemail

[Yeah, not so convincing, sir ninja. Cameron steps into his path, blocking the doorway, a skeptical expression on her face as she glances past him, able to see that there is something unfamiliar by her desk.]

You're here late.

Had to drop off a file.

[Please to be ignoring the lack of any files in evidence anywhere in this room. It's been a strange day, and he eyes her carefully - how much truth would she tell, if he asked her for it under the curse? And is it anything he really wants to hear? He frowns, biting down the corner of his lip to keep from asking.]

I didn't realise they had you working security, now. Did the night janitor have to give back his alsatian?

I was finishing up some paperwork. What file?

[The truth is, given her train of thought she's not eager to get home. Not that she's afraid; but there's less to distract herself with there. Here at least there's paperwork to focus on, other lives and other deaths only tangential to her own.]

One of my ICU patients. Had a... thing.

[A thing. Only an idiot would need more clarification than that. He backs up a little, since she's still barring the door. Casts a glance down to the chairs surrounding the diagnostics table before tugging one out and taking a seat.]

You should give yourself a break. The one good thing about everything going to hell every few days is how lax admin get at following paper trails.

[Clearly a thing is a technical term, too technical for her to question its validity. Now that he's sitting, she can move out of the way-- because if he springs out of his seat and runs for it, that's an obvious admission of guilt. What kind of guilt? Who knows. Guilt over something, though.]

I don't mind doing it, and it makes things easier when charts are up to date. What's this?

[She's spotted the bread. Run for it, if you dare.]

[He stays seated, guilty party or not, leaning back to see what she's talking about. Because it's news to him, of course.]

Looks like a box. Makes things easier on who? House barely looks at the files anyway, and the nurses keep notes of their own, when they bother to use them.

We look at the files. It's not impossible to imagine that some of these people might get sick again.

[She leans in to examine the box, already a bit suspicious. Obviously Chase had nothing to do with it.]

Package bomb, maybe?

Edited 2009-09-19 03:51 (UTC)

You could just have gone to secretarial school, you know. All the paperwork with none of this sick people hassle.

[He can't help giving himself away with the slightest edge of a smile to his lips as he watches her study his offering.]

Now you're being irrationally paranoid.

[Have an eyeroll at that as she goes to open the package. Already suspicious of what she might find, because it smells faintly like a bakery in here now. After looking at the contents for a moment, she glances back at Chase. How is one person supposed to eat all this bread, Chase?]

[Almost any protest made at this juncture would have to count as protesting too much. He knows she saw that network post, Eden's revelations about herself and a young Narnian Chase also feels he's been rather too intimate with, rather incongruously laid out alongside some kind of intention to open a bakery. In his apartment.]

We had a surplus. [He grudgingly admits.] You told me to find a way of helping her.

I guess taking this off your hands constitutes doing my part.

[She smiles faintly at that. Well, it isn't so bad-- baking at least is productive rather than destructive, though the compulsion is deeply worrisome. Especially considering today's conversation with Eden-- she wonders how much Chase knows about that. Probably more than she does; overall he knows Eden better, she'd be surprised if he was surprised.]

[He knows about the ongoing fight the girl has with Claire Bennet, yes, which is awkward considering the good relations he keeps with both of them. Which is awkward considering he may have told Claire more about himself than anyone, and the girl is eighteen years old. He hasn't only idly wondered how that might look.

He also knows how Eden dies, though having been told she's in her dotage when it happens, that's less of a concern. Frankly if he gets to ninety then he might rather top himself than sit around wrinkly and ill-functioning in a rocker.

In short, teen angst be damned, his apartment is full of bread.]

Hey, it's a gift. Don't take credit for my charitable urges, I get them rarely enough. [A moment. He bites his lip and casts another glance toward the door. He's free to go now, without a doubt. And yet.]

Why don't we get a drink?

[That's more than Cameron knows about it; all she knows is what Eden believes about her right to die. It's not a conversation she wanted to have. Cameron would like to be an optimist, but the world too often proves her wrong.

She glances up again when he asks her out for a drink, a little wary. Wavering. She's still angry at him; she can't help it. She doesn't lose well, and even if he's not sleeping with Angela anymore-- which she doesn't really know if she believes-- Cameron knows she didn't win, either. But she also knows she's going to marry him, someday; or at least come close enough that he makes it to his party, sloshed and beaming, ready to spend his whole life with her, and that makes it harder to pretend (even to herself) that she hates him.

She doesn't really want to go home. She shifts, breaking the tense stillness of her contemplation with a deep breath and a tight little smile, reserved enough to remind him that things aren't entirely all right between them.]

Sure. Why not.

[One drink in exchange for a month's worth of bread. After all, she can always stop talking to him if she enjoys herself too much.]

[And he's already drawn breath to fight her for the right to a couple of hours casual company. The words it's not a date die on his tongue, though, because if he's not hearing things, she just said yes.

He's living in a giant hallucination, which means there is always the possibility that he's hearing things. But he's still not someone who looks a gift horse in the mouth. That smile might be forced, but she's forcing it on his behalf, and that can't be a bad sign. His, in return, tries not to be as smug as it nontheless looks, as he pushes himself back from the table and to his feet in one movement.]

Great. Blue Light? They've got this cocktail hour thing going on, I've been meaning to check it out. [He looks her up and down, helpless to deny the impulse.] Do you want to change first?

[Throwing him off balance is always a little gratifying; a slow and certain shift towards normality for her. She's been almost exclusively pushing him away, since ending up on his bed that midnight. It's not a date, except in a way it is; the way their relationship wasn't a relationship until it wasn't anymore. For once she can't even regret agreeing, even with his eyes on her; it's been a quietly awful day. It's nice, though she won't admit it.]

I think I'm presentable.

[She cocks her head a little, a gesture of subdued vanity. She's no slave to fashion, but she's usually dressed nicely; better to be judged poorly for looking too nice than for being a slob.]

Blue Light's fine.

[He always thinks she's presentable... but he also has a penchant for petty things, and getting Cameron out of the undoubtedly smart pant suits and blouses she wears for work into something a little more comfortable never goes unappreciated.

Which isn't the line of thought he was intending to follow, this evening. But she wants the truth from him, doesn't she? So he's truthful in his reply, quiet as it is.]

You look good. [He checks his watch on the way to get the light she'd flicked on for his earlier interrogation, gesturing to the door.] We should get there in plenty of time, if you're ready. Unless you've got any more near-death experiences you'd like to tell me about on the way.

Something crawled out of my drain, once, and tried to strangle me. [Cameron scowls. She hadn't intended to bring that up, but he'd asked; she can't help answering.] It's how I met Caspian, he came to help.

[Oddly, she brightens a little at that. Take it how you will, Chase; honestly, memories of cooperatively setting something awful on fire are a step up from helplessly choking on blood. She closes up the package of bread-- probably not too unwieldy to handle over an evening out-- and follows his lead.]

Don't worry, though. That's the only other one.

[She gets a few paces ahead of him as he pulls up short at that revelation. Unexpected. Something else Caspian had never mentioned to him, either, though to be honest he's the one more likely to edge off the subject of his purely platonic working relationships whenever they're brought up. He can be grateful that at least someone was there for her.]

Only two? [The nonchalance is studied in it's affectation, nontheless.] That still puts you a fair stretch behind House.

[Lest he forget, he had his own similarly deadly encounter recently. It's different, though. It was only him. He didn't die. He waited long enough before calling for help to make sure harm had gotten out of her way. Maybe these things are just the way of the city, not that he had warning.]

You never mentioned that one, either.

It was right before you got here. [She glances over her shoulder with a small, wry smile.] You wouldn't have believed it at first, and I didn't see a reason to, after.

[Since he seems, more or less, to believe this is happening, now. Or at least not to question it as often, as vocally. Maybe nearly dying had seemed real enough to outweigh the lack of logic here; or maybe he was just tired of arguing. The City had certainly seemed realer to her than ever, paradoxically, at its most impossible, the morning she woke up in an apartment with a shattered window but no blood.]

House hasn't been keeping track of near-deaths, only doubles and people hitting Wilson.

[It's true, he'd have argued her down when it may have been the last thing she needed at the time. While he may not have reconciled this place as being real, the perceived experiences here certainly are. For him, and in his interaction with others. He'd be a lot more lax about his patients if he could really stand back and dismiss their pain. Speaking of.]

You hit Wilson. I can't remember which of you told me that. [The crooked smile he aims sideways as he catches her up implies that the thought hasn't stopped being entertaining.] Poor guy really has lousy luck. What do you make of all the doubles?

[She just laughs; poor Wilson indeed. Compared to everything else she's spilled lately that hardly seems like something to be embarrassed about. She considers his question for a moment; relieved that she's not forced to spill any secrets about her curse-fueled fancy for a man who wore his face.]

I'm not sure. [Easy to be cavalier about it when you don't have your own. Or, at least, none you've met. Being mistaken for a cheesy sci-fi hero's mother was a little strange, but (Cameron imagines) not nearly as bad as running into yourself out on the street.] I can buy having a lookalike, in another universe. Why they all end up in one place... [She trails off for a moment.] This place thrives on confusion.

I still can't figure out why the Pevensie kid isn't identical to me at that age. [Close, undeniably, but not the twin-like confusion he grows to. And, studiously avoiding elephants in the room, Chase should be counting his lucky stars not to be compelled to share Caspian's recent confusion of them. The only think worse than being involved would be being forced to share.

He rubs his mouth, in memoriam, and shrugs, stepping forward to hold the door for her as they emerge out into the night.] Maybe I should have given up trying to make sense of it when the other me turned out to have wings. Now that's weird.

That's harder to account for, [she agrees, remembering his regression. She can tell the difference between Peter and Chase now, but it's more a matter of mannerisms and expressions; their younger selves could be related, but it doesn't take a second glance to tell the difference.]

You should just feel glad that you don't molt. [More than a hint of her old teasing tone colors those words. It's a conscious choice; it's not entirely a joke, she found one of those long, impossible feathers once. Really, she appreciated it, somehow. Having the definite differences, in Chase's absence, eased the eeriness of resemblance.]

I'm thankful every day. [Impossible is right. Between the version of him that looks like a child, and the version that looks like an angel, Chase could take a few swings at what exactly his psyche is trying to dwell on. But, lets save that for when he's a little less sober.

Swinging his bag over his shoulder, he turns them in the direction of the little blue hole-in-the-wall that's been the scene of a few after work drinks before. It's close, it's cheap, as criteria go, those are the big ones. And There's a sign outside advertising pitchers of cocktails at lower prices still, just as planned.] So what are you going to have? Something fruity? Cherries?

[Yes, he's teasing. He took the lead from her tone and watches her now. Is this okay?]

[It's human nature to seek patterns in everything we see. Cameron's been mistaken for someone's mother and Chase's wife; really, isn't it better not to think about that sort of thing?

She glances away for a moment at his joke. It's a brief gesture, but telling. This isn't okay, not yet; but she wants it to be. Wants to be able to speak to him without that guarded edge of anger, which is as much show as anything at this point. Looking back she smiles, hefting the box on her hip for emphasis.] Nothing too sweet. I have half a bakery to eat, after all.

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worksmart.livejournal.com - 2009-09-24 04:08 (UTC) - Expand