Baby Blues
Title: Baby Blues
Author: hallie2985
Warnings: Mild language and seriously bizarre scenarios.
Rating:: 15 UK, I guess.
Summary: The difference between happiness and heartbreak lies in a two letter word.
Disclaimer: I wish I had dreamed House up. I wish I could do a lot of things with House, come to think of it. Sadly it's not mine...
Baby Blues
He wasn’t sure how he’d ended up in this situation. Sure, he was familiar with the OB/GYN lounge - hell, he’d practically lived there during the epidemic before Christmas - but this was completely unexpected. Oh, the room was pleasant enough; they even had a TV in there, so he wouldn’t be forced to miss General Hospital. It wasn’t even the OB/GYN people, although they seriously pissed him off. No, what made this situation truly awfully horrifically bizarre - and not to mention wrong - was the patient.
Cameron. Cameron was on the bed, looking for all the world like she’d ingested one of those inflatable beach balls touted on the sea front. More to the point, Cameron was looking at him with her expressive baby blue eyes, and he just knew that he was going to crack. God alone knew why they were here together - and as Cameron was an atheist House didn’t set too much store on divine interpretation. No, this was entirely his fault.
Which is exactly what Cameron was saying, in between pained puffs and grimaces.
“Greg, you’re a doctor. You know how babies are made. Why the fuck didn’t you use a fucking condom?”
Woah. Back track… The kid was his. He had had sex. With Cameron. He and Cameron had made a baby. Why couldn’t he remember this? More to the point - had she just called him ‘Greg’? Cameron never called him Greg, just as he never called her Allison. It was just wrong. They didn’t go there. Theirs was a professional relationship.
Key word there being ‘was’.
He changed his mind. He’d had sex with Cameron. They had made a baby. Cameron, who was half his age, too damn pretty to be true, and most definitely damaged, had somehow wormed her way into his bed. And, presumably, his heart. Gregory House was no fool. If Cameron was pregnant - and the setting seemed to prove that beyond a doubt - and if he was the father - then at some point they must have made the decision to have a family together. And that was just plain weird. Because Greg House did not believe in families, or rather, he did not believe in creating one of his own. He was quite happy wallowing in Vicodin shrouded pain and bitterness, thank you very much.
“I have bipolar disorder,” he muttered, idly tapping his cane. “Or maybe multiple personalities… There is no way I would let myself get into this mess. Especially not with Cameron.”
“House, are you talking to yourself?” Cameron demanded. Evidently the she-devil had rescinded for now, leaving the sweet, caring and oh-so-naïve girl he knew (and apparently loved).
“Of course not,” he snapped. “I was talking to this!” he brandished his cane.
“You were talking to your cane?”
“Sure, why not?” he asked, wondering if the situation could get any more ridiculous than it already was. “Canes have feelings too, you know!”
Cameron shrugged and returned to the all consuming business of huffing and puffing. Maybe she-wolf was a more appropriate description… House thought of the three little pigs and shuddered. If she was the wolf three guesses as to who the pigs were. Foreman had the house of bricks - he’d never shown any kind of suceptability to Cameron’s feminine wiles - Chase…Chase was the pig with the house of sticks; there’d been a moment when they were treating the boy - what was his name? Bradley? Brian? - when House had been convinced that Chase was going to proposition the pretty doctor. And that left him the house of straw. Clearly Cameron’s huffing and puffing had been eminently successful in his case.
Pushing aside obscure fairy tale comparisons, what bothered House the most was that he could not actually remember doing any huffing and puffing himself. And if he and Cameron had really had sex - which was a given, bearing in mind she was now in labour - then there must have been some heavy breathing going on.
Closing his eyes, House pictured a naked Cameron - Allison, he reminded himself - in his mind’s eye. She was delectable, from the roots of her hair to the tips of her toes. He could feel himself hardening at the mere thought of her. He imagined allowing himself to trace the womanly contours of her body, embracing the soft flesh of her breasts, cupping them in his own calloused and care worn hands. He could practically feel the silky skin soothing his palms as her nipples hardened beneath them. He allowed himself to taste the sensitive skin beneath her ear, savouring the sweetness of her as his hand travelled south to caress her mound.
He was jerked back to reality by a crippling pain in his hand.
“Sweet Jesus, woman! Are you trying to ruin my hand, as well?” he demanded.
“I’m in pain,” Cameron informed him, the clipped tone of her voice telling him that she was not a happy bunny. “You’re a fucking doctor addicted to Vicodin! Surely pain is a concept you understand!”
Ouch. That was below the belt. He wondered what exactly she was expecting him to do about her pain - it wasn’t like she could pop some Vicodin, and he had a feeling that Ibuprofen wouldn’t do much for her - when he noticed the doctor advancing towards him with a large needle.
Shit. At some point this scenario must have been a good one. Sex with Cameron, for example, was a truly encouraging concept, and it didn’t surprise him that his alter-ego had jumped at the opportunity to…well, jump her. However, when six inch long needles started moving in your direction, reality became a nightmare. Especially when running away from the needle was not an option - the infarction had seen to that.
It was with a great deal of relief that he realised needle-man was not moving towards him, but rather towards Cameron. Epidural. Of course. Well, that was one kick-ass way to get rid of her pain, he’d grant the guy that. Of course, he was also a kick-ass way to paralyse the poor woman. House realised it was his duty to oversee the injection and ensure that Cameron retained full use of her legs. After all, he was hardly in a position to run around after the little tyke.
Gah! Little tyke. Child. Baby. His baby. His baby! Shit-bugger-fuck-crap-bollocks! House did not like babies. Not one bit. Well, he supposed they made good patients: they couldn’t talk, therefore they couldn’t lie. But having a non-lying human entity of his own was definitely not anywhere in his plans for the future. He hoped Cameron was hugely maternal - hell, he already knew Cameron was hugely maternal, to his cost - because paternalism was not his strong suit.
“Uh, Dr House?” one of the ridiculously youthful looking doctors approached him. House glared at him, wondering if he was a student. He’d be damned if his child was going to be delivered by some Young Pretender.
“What?” he snapped.
“We think the baby is coming.”
House continued to stare at the unfortunate youth. He hoped that his feelings were conveyed by the coldly calculating glare, but there was no knowing - students these days were so dense!
“No shit, Sherlock,” he glowered. “Cameron and I had worked that out hours ago!”
“No, we think the baby is coming now,” the youth insisted.
House cottoned on that someone was demanding that Cameron push.
“She is a doctor, you know,” he glared at the offender. “She does know how babies are born.” Honestly, what did you have to do to get decent service these days? Sighing, he pushed the interfering busybody out of the way. “Look, I’ll do it, okay?”
“NO!” Cameron yelled. “There are some things you don’t need to see. This is one of them!”
“But, Allison…” he looked at her hopefully. He was actually rather hoping to get a peek. He didn’t remember the last time he’d seen down there but his imagination was telling him that it must have been good.
“No,” she insisted. “Get out of the way, House, and let these people do their job!”
Damn! With a great deal of reluctance he did as he was told, moving to the non-business end of the bed and doing his best to enact the part of anxious father. Cameron would want that, he decided, hastily recalling all the episodes of General Hospital which had offered this scenario.
“Come on darling, you can do it,” he announced, in what he hoped was an appropriately sincere tone. Cameron looked at him with concern.
“Are you okay, House?”
“Sure, fine, why?” he asked, suspecting he already knew the answer.
“We’ve had sex in just about every position you can imagine, in just about every place that you can imagine, and never once, in all our time together, have you ever called me anything other than Cameron - oh, except for Doctor Cameron when you’re feeling sarcastic or Allison when you want something!”
Okay, so the General Hospital approach wasn’t going to work.
“Look, I’m trying to do the caring father thing here,” he told her. “As you can tell, it’s not part of my default setting. Work with me, will you!”
“I’m having a baby!” Cameron pointed out with exasperation. “Now is not the time to have a personality swap!”
He was right then. Multiple personalities.
Any further time for reflection was cut short by the sudden chatter at the business end of the bed. House, by this time fed up of doing the caring-sharing father act, demanded to know what the problem was.
“No problem,” they assured him. “The baby’s head is just a bit bigger than we’d expected.”
Great. He’d fathered an alien. Wearily he sat down on the chair by the bed and waited. He hated waiting. He was a man of action - albeit limited action. He wished he’d bought his yo-yo with him. Or his ball - a spot of juggling was just what the doctor ordered. Of course, Cameron would undoubtedly suggest that it was his balls that had got him here in the first place.
“It’s a boy!” the obstetrician announced, looking inordinately pleased, as though he had fathered the child himself. Irrationally, House was annoyed. Still, at least the jerk had the sense to give the baby to Cameron. Credit where credit is due and all that.
“Come and see, Greg,” Cameron whispered, smiling at the wriggling bloody mass in her arms. He did as he was told, more because he thought he ought than because he wanted to. Gazing down at the child Cameron was cradling he expected to be filled with fatherly love. He was not prepared for the sight that greeted him.
In Cameron’s arms lay what was, to all intents and purposes, a healthy baby boy. But the child’s head was inordinately large, as the obstetrician had intimated. It was also eminently recognisable.
Gazing at him from Cameron’s arms was the sneering face of Edward Vogler.
House jerked awake with a start. That was one bad-ass nightmare. Of course, at one point it had been a pretty good dream. Hey, he got to have sex with Cameron. There weren’t many men who’d say no to that opportunity - it would have been a bonus if he could actually remember the details, of course, but shit happens. But then, Cameron had been pregnant with his baby. That was bad. Vogler was his baby. That was even worse.
And at some point in this very bizarre dream had been an even more bizarre revelation. On some level, he found Allison Cameron attractive. Not in the lusting hormonal urge way, but as a woman. As someone he could share his life with. As someone he might have the capacity to love.
Also as someone who gave birth to Edward Vogler. Clearly his subconscious was telling him something. Cameron was dangerous. Of course, she didn’t need to be Vogler’s mother for him to work that out - they’d had fun at the Monster Truck Rally, enough fun for him to realise that she was more than just a colleague - and more to the point, Cameron could hurt him. He didn’t want to be hurt. More significantly he didn’t want to hurt her. Cameron deserved better than that. He’d seen her crying over her dead husband, he knew that she had the capacity to love with all her being, and also that her heart was vulnerable. He wasn’t going to abuse her like that.
But damn, he wanted to.
He wasn’t prepared for Cameron to walk into his office, although he should have been. He’d asked her to keep him informed about his patient. He kept any feelings of misgiving off of his face however, and put on his disinterested façade.
“They just stopped Carly’s heart,” she told him. “And your dumb patient -”
“They’re all-” he suddenly realised what she was talking about. “-oh, the guy who can’t talk…”
“Mr Van Der Meer, he scheduled an appointment to see you.”
“Oooh, goody.” Just what he’d always wanted. He pondered for a moment. Could dumb men lie? He supposed that they could; the power of speech was not integral to deception. Still, he preferred not to see patients, Mr Van Der Meer included.
Cameron handed him a ticket and gave him a cautious look, taking a deep breath before continuing the conversation.
“I wanted you to know Chase is worried you’re going to fire him.”
“It’s bad enough that screw-ups cost lives. Now we’ve got Vogler, screw-ups cost jobs. I want Chase scared. I want him doing everything he can to protect his job.” He doubted that Cameron would understand his motivation, in fact he was pretty sure that she’d question it. However, he’d anticipated that the questioning would occur in private. He was therefore surprised when she persevered.
“Dr. House, if you were in his position wouldn’t you be more likely to perform well if you were reassured and-”
She was channelling that damn book again. He wondered why she was doing it. He liked the real Cameron, the Cameron who stood up for what she believed in, but was nice enough, naïve enough, to allow other people to pursue their own ends, too.
“Oh, will you stop it with the book! Why are you doing this?” He was exasperated enough to snap at her. It wasn’t just her self-help book - although he would be the first to admit that he had no patience for such things - but her bizarre behaviour coupled with his dream was just too much to cope with.
“I’m not doing anything.”
“You’re manipulating everyone.” He held her gaze, determined to get to the root of her problem. She frowned, clearly at a loss. Finally, she spoke.
“People… dismiss me. Because I’m a woman, because I’m pretty, because I’m not aggressive. My opinions shouldn’t be rejected just because people don’t like me.”
He didn’t even have to think about answering. It was such a ridiculous assertion that he almost laughed. If she hadn’t been so earnest he probably would have.
“They like you. Everyone likes you.” He turned to walk away. He’d done his bit to boost morale, the rest was up to Cameron. He wondered how she could imagine that she was disliked. The sky was blue. The grass was green. Allison Cameron was universally liked.
“Do you?” her question caught him unawares. He stopped, but took his time in turning to look at her. He realised that there was much more to her question than the obvious, and he was at a loss at how to reply. It was like being back in high school again, only now he was a middle aged cripple addicted to pain medication and renowned for his bitterness.
“I have to know.”
Why did she have to know? Why couldn’t she just accept that everybody liked her? Why did she have to push him now, when in the past she was content to let things lie? Why did things have to change?
Why didn’t he have the courage to tell her how he felt?
“No.” She deserved better than that, of course. But he was being cruel to be kind. Cameron was worth more than he could offer.
She accepted his statement and turned to walk away. And as she disappeared from view, his heart broke for her and for what might have been.
Author: hallie2985
Warnings: Mild language and seriously bizarre scenarios.
Rating:: 15 UK, I guess.
Summary: The difference between happiness and heartbreak lies in a two letter word.
Disclaimer: I wish I had dreamed House up. I wish I could do a lot of things with House, come to think of it. Sadly it's not mine...
Baby Blues
He wasn’t sure how he’d ended up in this situation. Sure, he was familiar with the OB/GYN lounge - hell, he’d practically lived there during the epidemic before Christmas - but this was completely unexpected. Oh, the room was pleasant enough; they even had a TV in there, so he wouldn’t be forced to miss General Hospital. It wasn’t even the OB/GYN people, although they seriously pissed him off. No, what made this situation truly awfully horrifically bizarre - and not to mention wrong - was the patient.
Cameron. Cameron was on the bed, looking for all the world like she’d ingested one of those inflatable beach balls touted on the sea front. More to the point, Cameron was looking at him with her expressive baby blue eyes, and he just knew that he was going to crack. God alone knew why they were here together - and as Cameron was an atheist House didn’t set too much store on divine interpretation. No, this was entirely his fault.
Which is exactly what Cameron was saying, in between pained puffs and grimaces.
“Greg, you’re a doctor. You know how babies are made. Why the fuck didn’t you use a fucking condom?”
Woah. Back track… The kid was his. He had had sex. With Cameron. He and Cameron had made a baby. Why couldn’t he remember this? More to the point - had she just called him ‘Greg’? Cameron never called him Greg, just as he never called her Allison. It was just wrong. They didn’t go there. Theirs was a professional relationship.
Key word there being ‘was’.
He changed his mind. He’d had sex with Cameron. They had made a baby. Cameron, who was half his age, too damn pretty to be true, and most definitely damaged, had somehow wormed her way into his bed. And, presumably, his heart. Gregory House was no fool. If Cameron was pregnant - and the setting seemed to prove that beyond a doubt - and if he was the father - then at some point they must have made the decision to have a family together. And that was just plain weird. Because Greg House did not believe in families, or rather, he did not believe in creating one of his own. He was quite happy wallowing in Vicodin shrouded pain and bitterness, thank you very much.
“I have bipolar disorder,” he muttered, idly tapping his cane. “Or maybe multiple personalities… There is no way I would let myself get into this mess. Especially not with Cameron.”
“House, are you talking to yourself?” Cameron demanded. Evidently the she-devil had rescinded for now, leaving the sweet, caring and oh-so-naïve girl he knew (and apparently loved).
“Of course not,” he snapped. “I was talking to this!” he brandished his cane.
“You were talking to your cane?”
“Sure, why not?” he asked, wondering if the situation could get any more ridiculous than it already was. “Canes have feelings too, you know!”
Cameron shrugged and returned to the all consuming business of huffing and puffing. Maybe she-wolf was a more appropriate description… House thought of the three little pigs and shuddered. If she was the wolf three guesses as to who the pigs were. Foreman had the house of bricks - he’d never shown any kind of suceptability to Cameron’s feminine wiles - Chase…Chase was the pig with the house of sticks; there’d been a moment when they were treating the boy - what was his name? Bradley? Brian? - when House had been convinced that Chase was going to proposition the pretty doctor. And that left him the house of straw. Clearly Cameron’s huffing and puffing had been eminently successful in his case.
Pushing aside obscure fairy tale comparisons, what bothered House the most was that he could not actually remember doing any huffing and puffing himself. And if he and Cameron had really had sex - which was a given, bearing in mind she was now in labour - then there must have been some heavy breathing going on.
Closing his eyes, House pictured a naked Cameron - Allison, he reminded himself - in his mind’s eye. She was delectable, from the roots of her hair to the tips of her toes. He could feel himself hardening at the mere thought of her. He imagined allowing himself to trace the womanly contours of her body, embracing the soft flesh of her breasts, cupping them in his own calloused and care worn hands. He could practically feel the silky skin soothing his palms as her nipples hardened beneath them. He allowed himself to taste the sensitive skin beneath her ear, savouring the sweetness of her as his hand travelled south to caress her mound.
He was jerked back to reality by a crippling pain in his hand.
“Sweet Jesus, woman! Are you trying to ruin my hand, as well?” he demanded.
“I’m in pain,” Cameron informed him, the clipped tone of her voice telling him that she was not a happy bunny. “You’re a fucking doctor addicted to Vicodin! Surely pain is a concept you understand!”
Ouch. That was below the belt. He wondered what exactly she was expecting him to do about her pain - it wasn’t like she could pop some Vicodin, and he had a feeling that Ibuprofen wouldn’t do much for her - when he noticed the doctor advancing towards him with a large needle.
Shit. At some point this scenario must have been a good one. Sex with Cameron, for example, was a truly encouraging concept, and it didn’t surprise him that his alter-ego had jumped at the opportunity to…well, jump her. However, when six inch long needles started moving in your direction, reality became a nightmare. Especially when running away from the needle was not an option - the infarction had seen to that.
It was with a great deal of relief that he realised needle-man was not moving towards him, but rather towards Cameron. Epidural. Of course. Well, that was one kick-ass way to get rid of her pain, he’d grant the guy that. Of course, he was also a kick-ass way to paralyse the poor woman. House realised it was his duty to oversee the injection and ensure that Cameron retained full use of her legs. After all, he was hardly in a position to run around after the little tyke.
Gah! Little tyke. Child. Baby. His baby. His baby! Shit-bugger-fuck-crap-bollocks! House did not like babies. Not one bit. Well, he supposed they made good patients: they couldn’t talk, therefore they couldn’t lie. But having a non-lying human entity of his own was definitely not anywhere in his plans for the future. He hoped Cameron was hugely maternal - hell, he already knew Cameron was hugely maternal, to his cost - because paternalism was not his strong suit.
“Uh, Dr House?” one of the ridiculously youthful looking doctors approached him. House glared at him, wondering if he was a student. He’d be damned if his child was going to be delivered by some Young Pretender.
“What?” he snapped.
“We think the baby is coming.”
House continued to stare at the unfortunate youth. He hoped that his feelings were conveyed by the coldly calculating glare, but there was no knowing - students these days were so dense!
“No shit, Sherlock,” he glowered. “Cameron and I had worked that out hours ago!”
“No, we think the baby is coming now,” the youth insisted.
House cottoned on that someone was demanding that Cameron push.
“She is a doctor, you know,” he glared at the offender. “She does know how babies are born.” Honestly, what did you have to do to get decent service these days? Sighing, he pushed the interfering busybody out of the way. “Look, I’ll do it, okay?”
“NO!” Cameron yelled. “There are some things you don’t need to see. This is one of them!”
“But, Allison…” he looked at her hopefully. He was actually rather hoping to get a peek. He didn’t remember the last time he’d seen down there but his imagination was telling him that it must have been good.
“No,” she insisted. “Get out of the way, House, and let these people do their job!”
Damn! With a great deal of reluctance he did as he was told, moving to the non-business end of the bed and doing his best to enact the part of anxious father. Cameron would want that, he decided, hastily recalling all the episodes of General Hospital which had offered this scenario.
“Come on darling, you can do it,” he announced, in what he hoped was an appropriately sincere tone. Cameron looked at him with concern.
“Are you okay, House?”
“Sure, fine, why?” he asked, suspecting he already knew the answer.
“We’ve had sex in just about every position you can imagine, in just about every place that you can imagine, and never once, in all our time together, have you ever called me anything other than Cameron - oh, except for Doctor Cameron when you’re feeling sarcastic or Allison when you want something!”
Okay, so the General Hospital approach wasn’t going to work.
“Look, I’m trying to do the caring father thing here,” he told her. “As you can tell, it’s not part of my default setting. Work with me, will you!”
“I’m having a baby!” Cameron pointed out with exasperation. “Now is not the time to have a personality swap!”
He was right then. Multiple personalities.
Any further time for reflection was cut short by the sudden chatter at the business end of the bed. House, by this time fed up of doing the caring-sharing father act, demanded to know what the problem was.
“No problem,” they assured him. “The baby’s head is just a bit bigger than we’d expected.”
Great. He’d fathered an alien. Wearily he sat down on the chair by the bed and waited. He hated waiting. He was a man of action - albeit limited action. He wished he’d bought his yo-yo with him. Or his ball - a spot of juggling was just what the doctor ordered. Of course, Cameron would undoubtedly suggest that it was his balls that had got him here in the first place.
“It’s a boy!” the obstetrician announced, looking inordinately pleased, as though he had fathered the child himself. Irrationally, House was annoyed. Still, at least the jerk had the sense to give the baby to Cameron. Credit where credit is due and all that.
“Come and see, Greg,” Cameron whispered, smiling at the wriggling bloody mass in her arms. He did as he was told, more because he thought he ought than because he wanted to. Gazing down at the child Cameron was cradling he expected to be filled with fatherly love. He was not prepared for the sight that greeted him.
In Cameron’s arms lay what was, to all intents and purposes, a healthy baby boy. But the child’s head was inordinately large, as the obstetrician had intimated. It was also eminently recognisable.
Gazing at him from Cameron’s arms was the sneering face of Edward Vogler.
House jerked awake with a start. That was one bad-ass nightmare. Of course, at one point it had been a pretty good dream. Hey, he got to have sex with Cameron. There weren’t many men who’d say no to that opportunity - it would have been a bonus if he could actually remember the details, of course, but shit happens. But then, Cameron had been pregnant with his baby. That was bad. Vogler was his baby. That was even worse.
And at some point in this very bizarre dream had been an even more bizarre revelation. On some level, he found Allison Cameron attractive. Not in the lusting hormonal urge way, but as a woman. As someone he could share his life with. As someone he might have the capacity to love.
Also as someone who gave birth to Edward Vogler. Clearly his subconscious was telling him something. Cameron was dangerous. Of course, she didn’t need to be Vogler’s mother for him to work that out - they’d had fun at the Monster Truck Rally, enough fun for him to realise that she was more than just a colleague - and more to the point, Cameron could hurt him. He didn’t want to be hurt. More significantly he didn’t want to hurt her. Cameron deserved better than that. He’d seen her crying over her dead husband, he knew that she had the capacity to love with all her being, and also that her heart was vulnerable. He wasn’t going to abuse her like that.
But damn, he wanted to.
He wasn’t prepared for Cameron to walk into his office, although he should have been. He’d asked her to keep him informed about his patient. He kept any feelings of misgiving off of his face however, and put on his disinterested façade.
“They just stopped Carly’s heart,” she told him. “And your dumb patient -”
“They’re all-” he suddenly realised what she was talking about. “-oh, the guy who can’t talk…”
“Mr Van Der Meer, he scheduled an appointment to see you.”
“Oooh, goody.” Just what he’d always wanted. He pondered for a moment. Could dumb men lie? He supposed that they could; the power of speech was not integral to deception. Still, he preferred not to see patients, Mr Van Der Meer included.
Cameron handed him a ticket and gave him a cautious look, taking a deep breath before continuing the conversation.
“I wanted you to know Chase is worried you’re going to fire him.”
“It’s bad enough that screw-ups cost lives. Now we’ve got Vogler, screw-ups cost jobs. I want Chase scared. I want him doing everything he can to protect his job.” He doubted that Cameron would understand his motivation, in fact he was pretty sure that she’d question it. However, he’d anticipated that the questioning would occur in private. He was therefore surprised when she persevered.
“Dr. House, if you were in his position wouldn’t you be more likely to perform well if you were reassured and-”
She was channelling that damn book again. He wondered why she was doing it. He liked the real Cameron, the Cameron who stood up for what she believed in, but was nice enough, naïve enough, to allow other people to pursue their own ends, too.
“Oh, will you stop it with the book! Why are you doing this?” He was exasperated enough to snap at her. It wasn’t just her self-help book - although he would be the first to admit that he had no patience for such things - but her bizarre behaviour coupled with his dream was just too much to cope with.
“I’m not doing anything.”
“You’re manipulating everyone.” He held her gaze, determined to get to the root of her problem. She frowned, clearly at a loss. Finally, she spoke.
“People… dismiss me. Because I’m a woman, because I’m pretty, because I’m not aggressive. My opinions shouldn’t be rejected just because people don’t like me.”
He didn’t even have to think about answering. It was such a ridiculous assertion that he almost laughed. If she hadn’t been so earnest he probably would have.
“They like you. Everyone likes you.” He turned to walk away. He’d done his bit to boost morale, the rest was up to Cameron. He wondered how she could imagine that she was disliked. The sky was blue. The grass was green. Allison Cameron was universally liked.
“Do you?” her question caught him unawares. He stopped, but took his time in turning to look at her. He realised that there was much more to her question than the obvious, and he was at a loss at how to reply. It was like being back in high school again, only now he was a middle aged cripple addicted to pain medication and renowned for his bitterness.
“I have to know.”
Why did she have to know? Why couldn’t she just accept that everybody liked her? Why did she have to push him now, when in the past she was content to let things lie? Why did things have to change?
Why didn’t he have the courage to tell her how he felt?
“No.” She deserved better than that, of course. But he was being cruel to be kind. Cameron was worth more than he could offer.
She accepted his statement and turned to walk away. And as she disappeared from view, his heart broke for her and for what might have been.