as_damaged | ☤ twenty-five

Entry tags:

☤ twenty-five

[Video for the hell of it]

Considering what I've heard about past years, I guess this isn't so bad.

Happy Halloween.

[ooc; do whatever, preferably no other Camerons, she can forget anything she has to |D ON A SIDE NOTE, regarding icons-- she has not been updated, never fear. She just dyed her hair for lulz & torment. TROLL THE NICE DOCTOR LADY]

[EDIT: out for a paaarty, troll boldly in my absence & I will get back to you <3]

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Can't talk about it.

[His voice wavers, but doesn't crack.]

[Even being behind the times, it's obviously something big and something bad. And she's worried.]

Oh, god. Chase...

He doesn't want to know either. I asked. I asked Him...

[There's the crack, someone isn't keeping things together as well as he meant to. There's a sharp intake of breath over the line.]

Chase... I don't know what to...

[After all, she can't tell him it'll all be okay, because she doesn't even understand what's wrong.]

[Another steadying intake of breath]

I'm sorry. I made a mistake talking to you.

No, Chase... [No point in hiding her compassion from him. Four months, and he sounds like he's falling apart.]

You sound like you need to talk to someone.

You wouldn't remember.

[He's arguing with himself.]

But you'd remember here.

But here you haven't done anything.

[Paaause. Picture her with a hand on her hip, mulling this over, considering this. As if life here wasn't complicated already.]

Don't tell me. Here. But don't keep secrets from me.

[Maybe she doesn't want to know then, either. But if she thinks he's cheating...]

I don't want to. But I don't want to know what you'll think of me.

[And he's drinking. Alone, there isn't any bar noise.]

I haven't been able to sleep in our bed for a week.

[Which means he hasn't been able to sleep.]

If what I think of you now is that you're being unfaithful...

[There's a little desperation in her voice. Cameron is going straight from being convinced she's lost him to being convinced she's losing him, without even getting her honeymoon. And this time there's no questionable consolation of back in the real world...]

That's not healthy for either of us.

You'll think one terrible thing of me and then find out it's worse.

[He laughs, breathing into the glass.]

I'm trying to protect you.

[Very quietly]

It doesn't sound like it's working.

It will. I just have to... get back on track.

Can I come in?

In?

[This noise isn't a knock, but something bouncing off her door. Audible both in person and on the recording.]

[The sigh might register over the line, distant as she sets the device down to answer the door. She does want to see him; though she can't quite shake the feeling that she shouldn't, that she's glimpsed too much of her own future already. For an uncertain second she lingers, fingertips on the knob of the top lock, before undoing them all in short succession, letting out a deep breath she wasn't conscious of holding and pulling the door open.]

[He's hunched against the door opposite, tennis ball in hand, a seat he might have taken up hours ago or in the last ten minutes. By the time the light from her apartment spills out into the hall he's already stumbling to his feet, trying to smooth down his crumpled shirt, if there's nothing else he can do to make himself presentable. The bottle's empty now, discarded.]

Allison.

[It's an almost physical shock, in person, to see how little she's changed.]

[Not as much of a shock as seeing how much he has, and in spite of herself she takes a halting step towards him. The door creaks and she stops herself. Locking herself out now would be perfect.]

Chase...

[The flat tone and the little crease in her brow speak volumes, even as she bites back her words. You look awful. Hurriedly she pushes the door back open, standing framed by light, leaving him enough space to pass her.]

Come in.

[He doesn't quite make it past, stopping opposite her, outlined in the doorframe he searches her face a moment and then looks down.]

I know you're not the same person.

[It's a reminder as much as an assurance. Pushing the hair back from his face, the ring on his wedding finger looks bright enough to have been polished that morning.]

[She nods, voice still catching in her throat. She believes that he hasn't slept in a week; it shows in the darkness around his eyes, the trace of stubble. The ring's gleam is incongruous, and it draws her eye for more than one reason. Maybe she's just practiced at this, separating the face from the man; maybe it's easier to remember he isn't who he is because he's falling apart. If she hadn't changed her hair, perhaps it would be easier for him.

But he is still who he is, and if anything one learns in the City can be believed, he's her husband. Or will be; and to an extent there isn't a great difference. It still hurts, now, to see him this way, and she leans forward slowly, cautiously, to embrace him if he'll let her. He looks like he needs a shoulder to lean on. She'd offer his younger self the same, even now.]

[He needs more than a shoulder, he needs someone to take the weight off his own. It wasn't Foreman, won't be House, and he can't let it be Cameron. She's the one person who still looks at him without seeing someone else's blood on his hands. Worse, he made her part of it. She can't ever know, not if he has to fight his way through a wave of nausea every time they have a patient in the ICU.

He flinches at the touch - last time he reached for her she pulled away, and he hasn't had the bravery to try again - then pulls her close, pressing his face against her shoulder and the smell of her hair. His shoulders shake but his eyes sting with stubbornly unshed tears. If he can spare her that one thing.]

It's going to get better. I promise, I'm going to get back.

[She'd desperately like to believe him, but really, he isn't making it easy. Cameron has never found it easy to believe in happy endings; she fell in love with a dying man, with a dying man's best friend-- with people she can't have, or at best, can't keep. But she wanted to believe they had a chance at happiness. It seems less likely every day.

She tightens her grasp, face turned away from his, lips still quirked in a frown. Chase is an absolute mess-- rumpled shirt, half drunk and trembling under her hands. Cameron can't conceive of what he could have done, torn between a certainty that nothing could be that awful to reduce him to this, and a terror that reality is worse than the worst thing she can imagine. After a moment--]

Come on. Sit down, I'll make you a coffee.

[She loosens her grasp a little, enough to turn to him. It might be good if he sobers up a bit.]

[Chase knows too well about her lack of faith in ever-afters. That fight's only four months old, and not quite forgotten, although a few weeks in the sun did their fair share to blot it out. He finds himself keeping hold of her sleeve as she moves him away from the door, letting himself be lead. Before he can be made to sit, however, his hand comes up to grasp her shoulder with sudden vehemence.]

We're going to be okay. [She has to know.] I did the right thing.

[He's not sacred, he's not clean, he's not forgiveable. But he was right.]

[She stiffens, not afraid but startled by the suddenness, the urgency of what he says. Meeting his eyes, she raises her hands to grasp his wrist, taking his hand between her own and lowering it slowly, never breaking the gaze.]

I trust you.

[And she means it, or at least she would like to. Cameron squeezes his fingers, trying to reassure him.]

[He nods, not finding the word for thank you, and takes his hand back after a moment, holding it against himself. When he sits, he sits unnaturally straight, hands folded across his lap like a small child newly dedicated to obedience after a scolding.

It's a few moments before he starts to look around, take in vague memories that might not be his at all, of three years ago and being stuck here for an age that ended up being an instant.]

You still live alone.

[Private; and also Audio since forever IDK]

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[once fate put us in the same room, when you knew not of me nor I of you]

[once fate put us in the same room, when you knew not of me nor I of you]

[once fate put us in the same room, when you knew not of me nor I of you]

[once fate put us in the same room, when you knew not of me nor I of you]

[once fate put us in the same room, when you knew not of me nor I of you]

[once fate put us in the same room, when you knew not of me nor I of you]

[once fate put us in the same room, when you knew not of me nor I of you]

[once fate put us in the same room, when you knew not of me nor I of you]

[once fate put us in the same room, when you knew not of me nor I of you]

[once fate put us in the same room, when you knew not of me nor I of you]