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Title: Uniforming (Made to Seem) (1/5)
Title: Uniforming (Made to Seem)
Author: Hannah Orlove
Fandom: House, MD
Pairing: Cameron/OFC, Cameron/OMC
Rating: NC-17
Notes: Thanks to many people for listening to me talk while I wrote this, and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
perspi and ayalesca for beta-reading. Written in part for both ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
house_bigbang and wtf27.
She still couldn’t recognize the face in the mirror. She knew it was hers – when she smiled, the face smiled, and when she winked, it winked back at her – but it was still so new, and so fresh, it didn’t feel like it belonged to her yet. No matter how long she looked at it, or how much she touched it, it didn’t feel like it ought to.
Turning her head to get a good look at her chin and jaw, she ran her thumb down over her lips before pulling it away. She shook her head, sighed, and then reached for the elastics. One at the base of the queue, the other around her fingers while she pleated her hair until she needed it to tie off the end. Then the scissor’s blades went snicker-snack, and she shook her head, feeling that much lighter.
The face in the mirror looked even less like she thought it should, but that helped, like having less to recognize made her see who she was now even more.
-
There were two weeks left out of the eight she’d gotten for emergency medical leave, and first things first. She’d grabbed plenty of scrubs from the hospital, one-size-fits-all-men’s, so she wouldn’t be reduced to a bed sheet toga before heading out to get some stuff that actually fit so she’d be able to head into work without embarrassing herself. After almost five weeks of bed-ridden nausea and pain, being able to walk into a store – even if she was decked out head to toe in pink, down to the slippers – was more satisfying than it had any right to be. It was easy enough to find what she was looking for, and after she went home and put on something decent she went right back out to a barber’s shop for a real haircut.
There was grocery shopping to do, and catching up with the mail and the bills, getting new photos for her passport and driver’s license, getting new shoes, finally getting her place cleaned up, scheduling physiotherapy appointments, visiting the dentist, going clothes shopping again to get stuff for work, going grocery shopping again, getting new reading glasses, catching up on sleep, finally getting out to exercise, getting used to shaving in the morning, bagging up everything that didn’t fit anymore and sending all her jewelry off to her sister. Clearing her closets and medicine cabinet and finding everything that wouldn’t fit or she wouldn’t use anymore took most of one day, and phone tag with the HR department took most of another.
Some things she knew wouldn’t be fixed or done right away. Her hair was the same color and she still needed corrective lenses, but most of her scars and freckles had disappeared while she’d been too far gone to notice, and there was no way she ready to pee standing up. Gaining back all the weight she lost would take time – she’d look ghastly for a while, and probably single-handedly triple the New Jersey demand for red meat until she was back at a healthy weight for her height. A five-five woman at a hundred-forty pounds was fine, but most of that had melted away when she’d grown five inches in three weeks.
Her hands didn’t hurt anymore, but she still had to watch them whenever she reached for something to pick it up. Nothing fit or felt the way it ought to: she felt like she was drunk or hungover all the time, depending on how much she ached in the morning.
Finally walking back into work, hearing the quiet shunt of the doors and the regular bustle of the hospital, was more of a relief than she’d thought. No way was she up to the locker room just yet; that she’d tackle next week. She took a deep breath, straightened her tie, and made her way over to the elevator, somehow glad nobody was glancing at her to check her out – if she couldn’t recognize herself, no way they could. That was…kind of nice, actually. If she screwed up now, there was a good chance nobody would think it was her. She had the elevator all to herself, thankfully, and she held her head high as she stepped off, glancing at House in his office before pushing the door open. The conference room was almost empty-handed, the way it usually was during downtime. “Morning, Foreman.” He glanced up from the paper, did a double-take, then looked at her. She just smiled and waved.
He smiled back at her. “Good to see you back.”
“Thanks.” She put her briefcase down on the table before heading over to pour herself a cuppa. Not looking up from ripping open the packet or pouring the water, “So did I miss anything?”
“Well, House almost got shot.”
“Almost? How’d that happen?”
“Someone was angry over finding out his wife cheated on him –”
“Now there’s a big surprise.” It took two tries to grab the milk; she flexed her hands and hoped Foreman hadn’t noticed.
“So he thought revenge on the man who uncovered that would settle his life. Shultze managed to grab him in the hallway. House framed the clippings, they’re over his desk.” She glanced through the wall – so they were. “Wehmeyer is still waiting on her patent application, and Marshall had her baby so DeFries is filling in for her for the next couple of months.”
“Any interesting cases?”
“Not since you left.”
She put the mug on the table before pulling out the chair to sit. “And Chase?” His fellowship was about to end right when she’d started shifting – she’d tried calling him to apologize for not being able to see him but ended up leaving a message where her voice kept breaking.
“Yeah, about Chase, I’m sorry you had to miss the party.”
“There was a party?”
“With balloons and cake and everything.” He didn’t crack a smile or move a muscle. “House made me save you a piece.”
They stared for a moment before Cameron broke into a grin. “You almost had me there. Has he hired anyone new yet?”
“I haven’t seen anyone interview. You’re sure you’re okay to be back and working?”
“Yeah.”
“You seem a bit –”
“I’m fine. I’m happy to be working again.”
He raised an eyebrow, and took a careful sip of his tea. She pulled out her new glasses and the last issue of Journal of Immunology and started to read.
-
It took the rest of the week to finish all the HR paperwork, get her new locker, and for House’s new fellow to show up. She’d come in early and was catching up on her reading when a curly-haired woman walked in. She glanced around the room, not really looking at Cameron while she dropped her bag on the table and went over for some tea. Cameron waited, but by the time the water was boiling she still hadn’t gotten any eye contact.
“Hello.”
“Oh, hello,” she tossed over her shoulder while she tipped the kettle. Cameron waited, but that was all she got.
“Are you new here?” She asked when the new woman sat down.
“Yeah, starting today.”
“And you’re House’s new fellow?”
“This is the Diagnostics department.” Reaching into her bag, she pulled out a journal of her own and began to read.
Cameron waited and didn’t get anything else. She wasn’t happy with how the conversation was going, but she knew how men were supposed to act from watching them, so she smiled at the top of the woman’s head and went back to her own article. Foreman showed up almost twenty minutes later and didn’t seem to suffer any internal awkwardness; all he did was greet the new woman and introduce himself – why hadn’t she remembered to do that? Now it was too late in the conversation for her to do it without being weird. She’d have to keep waiting while her stomach kept knotting up.
House didn’t show up until almost twenty to eleven, grinning over what Cameron assumed was his regular perverted joy over any woman in a tight top. Miller started to get up. “Doctor House, it’s –”
“Thank you.” She stopped. “For ensuring perfect continuity of art in the lobby.” He tossed a smirk at Cameron while the new fellow stayed in the half-standing position, looking around the table before focusing on the woman. “Foreman, Cameron, meet Michelle Miller. Classically trained hepatologist, top of her class, donates blood religiously every eight weeks, and divorced from her high school sweetheart as of three months ago. Now, remember, play nice with the new kid.” He fished out his bottle and tossed back a pill before turning around and heading back to his own office.
Miller watched him go before sinking back down. “Is he always like that?”
Cameron smiled, remembering her adjustment period. “You get used to it.”
With the most perplexed expression, Miller nodded slowly before going back to her reading. Cameron waited, and then turned away as well. It was like that for rest of the week: no matter what Cameron did to try to be friendly there was that same perplexity and coldness. The worst part was that through it all there wasn’t any indication she was doing anything wrong, insulting, or offensive, just nothing Miller thought of as polite or acceptable or worth her attention. Even bringing in muffins hadn’t helped.
Cameron waited for to Foreman leave on Friday before staring right at Miller and asking point-blank, “What am I doing wrong?”
“I’m sorry?”
“You’ve been here for a week and the most you’ve said to me is ‘no thank you.’ Is there something I’m doing wrong that’s bothering you?”
She huffed, putting her journal down. “Look, I don’t know why you need me to like you –”
“I’m not trying to get you to like me.”
“I don’t need to like you and you don’t need to like me. I know you don’t like me being here in your little boy’s club but –”
That got a double-take. “Wait, wait. ‘Boy’s club’?”
“Are they calling it something new now?”
“It isn’t…I mean, I’m not a boy.”
That got one from Miller. “I’m sorry?”
“I’m not a boy. I didn’t grow up as one.” Her cheeks were burning, but she said it anyway. “I shifted over the summer.”
“You –” She slowly nodded. “Oh. Oh, that makes sense now.”
“What makes sense?”
“How weird you were acting.” Miller giggled. “I mean, you were acting like a woman.”
“…I am a woman.”
She was still smiling, but now it was more condescending, more knowing. “Cameron, you don’t need to keep clinging. It’s okay.”
She didn’t need this. Grabbing her briefcase, “Allison.”
“Sorry?”
Not looking at Miller while she ran out, “My name’s Allison.”
-
The next Friday, when Wilson poked his head in the door from the hallway only Miller looked surprised. “Cameron, can I borrow you for a minute?”
He’d asked for weirder things and she wanted to get out of here. “Sure.” Walking alongside in the hallway, there was that weird sense of displacement again – she was almost his height now. “Do you need me for anything?”
“No, I just wanted to talk to you in private.” He closed his office’s door behind them and sat down on one of the chairs opposite the sofa, gesturing for her to take it. When she did, he leaned in and asked, “So how are you holding up?”
She leaned back against the cushions, composing her face and throwing her hands over the back before remembering the right behavior and crossing them in her lap. “Not too badly, actually. House is the same, which is pretty helpful – just because I’m using the men’s room now isn’t a good reason to treat me differently.”
“Well, that’s House for you.”
That got her to smile for real. “He still wants me to cover his clinic hours. And I am, and they’re fine.” He stayed leaning in, face open. She went on, “It’s a little hard, though. I know a lot of people don’t expect a male doctor.”
“I know a couple of people who told me they got into medicine just so they wouldn’t have to deal with men.”
“Bet you were a surprise, then.”
“My goodness, what is that penis doing in here? This is a vagina-only area!” She laughed, and he went on smiling, “I used to get asked if I was going to be a nurse. The more socially acceptable branch of the profession.”
“And that’s still mostly women.”
“The Sixties couldn’t change everything.” He stopped, set his mouth, glanced to the side then back at Cameron. “You know if you need anyone to talk to about this, or if you need any advice –”
“Thank you. I – thank you. If I do, and I need to ask you something, I will.”
“There are –” he didn’t look like he knew the right words for what he wanted, “there are a couple of people – I don’t know them all that well, but if you want to talk to someone who’s on the other side of it, I can put you in touch.”
She looked away herself, feeling blood rush to her cheeks without knowing why. “I can’t keep saying thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
-
“In the suggested interest of easing everyone into a new work environment – not that I give a crap, but my best buddy seems to – have a freebie.” House handed the file off to Miller, who begain reading. “Twenty-six-year-old female, paralyzed from the neck down with no evidence of a spinal injury. You’ve got about ninety-six hours before anything goes really wrong with her, so if you figure it out before I need to step in, kudos for everyone.”
Miller didn’t look up from the screen. “The paralysis started in her yoga class yesterday.”
“Any symptoms or problems before then?” Cameron asked.
“Nothing related to this. No symptoms before yesterday means nothing pathological.”
“Could be transverse myelitis, swelling in the disk choking off nerve function,” Foreman suggested.
“The MRI's negative for that.”
Cameron shook her head. “We don’t know where the problem’s coming from. We should do an EMG to see if it’s her spine.”
“And if it’s not?” Miller glanced at Cameron like she didn’t take her seriously. It was a look she’d gotten a lot recently, even after she’d told her.
She took a deep breath to calm down. “Then we see what comes next.”
-
It turned out to be a false alarm for a plural effusion. A clean echiocardiogram didn’t help much – “No structural abnormalities.”
“Could be an infectious process,” Foreman suggested as he sat down to join Cameron at the table. “TB?”
Cameron shrugged. “Vasculitis would also explain the effusion.”
“Not the paralysis,” Miller shook her head. “That’s no good.”
“She moved. Therefore, she could move. She wasn’t paralyzed.” She shook her head.
Miller tapped the pen on the whiteboard. “So we’ve got sixty-seven hours before we have to admit to House we couldn’t manage. I don’t know about you two, but I’m not ready for that on my first day. So, does anyone –”
“We’re asking the wrong questions.” Miller and Foreman turned to look at Cameron. “This isn’t what House would do. He’d ask what’s missing before trying to figure out something else.”
“So what are we missing?” Miller crossed her arms over her chest. “What should we be looking for?”
“I don’t know. That’s the point. We should go talk to her.”
“Since when does House talk to his patients?” Foreman asked.
“Since every time he needs to figure out what they’re not telling him.”
Once they got to Caren’s bedside – House claiming he was only tagging along for the ride – they started to go through her file, cross-checking everything they could, trying to find what they’d missed. Nothing came up until Cameron sighed and asked, “Any major lifestyle changes recently?”
“Of course you’re the one to ask that,” House smirked. Everyone turned to look at him, but he waved them off. “Nothing. Go on. Tell them what they need to know.”
Caren swallowed and looked at Cameron. “I, um…I moved three months ago, and –”
“If it was something from your new home it’d show up already. What else?”
“I’m on this new diet now, to lose weight.”
“What sort of diet?” Miller leaned in.
“Ketosis. High protein, low carb, low starch.”
Cameron glanced at House, who was still smiling, and then thought about the contents of her own kitchen, the last shopping trip – and jerked her head to the side when she remembered how much she’d boggled over the new daily guidelines from her nutritionist. “Does this diet have any room for plants?”
-
“Scurvy.” Miller managed to flop into one of the glass-and-metal chairs and repeated, “scurvy.”
“Hey, last year we had the bubonic plague,” Foreman pointed out.
“So what’s next? Smallpox?”
“Not unless we get a call from the CIA,” he said. Cameron just kept her mouth shut.
-
If she thought of meeting the urologist like meeting a gynecologist, it was easier. She needed her stuff checked out no matter what stuff it was, and this was the last establishing-everything-as-okay check-up of the year – after this, they didn’t need to be as frequent, which was nice. But speculums could at least get warmed up first.
“Are you getting regular erections?” At least this Mathias had waited until she had gotten her pants on.
“I wouldn’t say they’re regular.” Not like she was getting them every quarter moon, not like that, “but I get them pretty often.”
“Good. It’d be something to worry about if you weren’t, you know.”
“I know.” She didn’t mention that sometimes they wouldn’t go away after she peed, or that she’d sometimes wake up with one when she didn’t need to use the bathroom. When that happened and she didn’t want to take a shower, she’d grab an ice pack from the freezer, press it to her groin, and watch TV and wait until everything finally went limp.
Knowing everything was working the way it was supposed to didn’t make her feel any less disgusting when she had to change the sheets three times a week because she hadn’t mastered not wetting the bed with out-of-control dreams she couldn’t remember. Those days, she took blistering-hot showers, scrubbing herself as much and as hard as she could – she couldn’t say why she needed to, except that it helped her feel a little better when she came out of one shaking a little bit from all the heat.
-
On some level it was comforting to know that labwork and caffeine still had the same results, which, when combined, ended in a sprint to the bathroom. Ah, good, there was a stall open – unzip, pull down, turn around, and sit. Bladder control was the same no matter what orifice the urine was leaving from, thankfully, but damn if it didn’t feel weird as all-get-out.
She knew by now to wipe the tip off, holding it gingerly in one hand and looking away while she swiped the toilet paper over it, and didn’t look down until she’d pulled up her underwear. As long as she had clothes on it was okay. Not great, but okay enough she didn’t feel nauseated. She adjusted everything, made sure she hadn’t forgotten her fly, flushed and went out to wash her hands and get back to the bloodwork.
She was washing her hands when the door opened. Cameron looked up and froze when she meet the eyes of Stamets from pathology, hers open with her mouth hanging down too, a perfect cartoon representation of surprise.
Cameron didn’t stop to turn off the water or dry her hands to get out of the wrong-gendered bathroom as soon as she could, and didn’t stop going until she got back to the lab and one of its many small dark corners. Fuck. People had seen her leave, they must have seen her going in, shit shit shit. This was embarrassing, this was wrong, this was – well, House would get his hands on the gossip and she’d never hear the end of it, and everyone would know she couldn’t keep track of which bathroom she was supposed to use now, and they’d look at her and know and she couldn’t be anonymous in her new face anymore. Fuck. There were at least a billion things to adjust to, a billion things she had to do to get back up to a reasonable level of health, a billion things she had to pay attention to, and when she thought she had them all down a full bladder tripped her up and put her back right at the beginning.
Hiding in the lab was one move away from hiding in a locked supply closet. At least nobody expected her for another hour so she could budget twenty minutes for a good, healthy spat of quiet raging. When she was done, calmed down and face washed in the lab’s sink, at least she had proof positive for von Willebrand’s disease, and they could work on treating their patient from there.
She hadn’t really calmed down, though, and was still carrying around the anger when she got back home that night – morning, really, which wasn’t helping. It was too late and too early to do a dumbbell workout and she wasn’t in the mood to pace her bedroom anymore so she rummaged through her laundry basket until she found what she’d tossed aside yesterday, the sweatpants, t-shirt, and sweatshirt. No need for a sports bra, just her new barely-broken-in sneakers, and she’d locked the door and was on her way running. The streetlamps were out, yellow-white light making the sidewalks and houses look like old photographs; she sped past them, looking down at her feet slamming the pavement then looking up again.
Her physical therapist liked to explain that exercise and movement was the best way to get to know her new body, to listen to it while she made it work and move to see what it would tell her about what it could do. And that worked well enough when she wanted to learn, but right now all she wanted was to move and get some of the anger out of her before it settled back into depression. Right now she didn’t want to listen to what wasn’t working.
But she didn’t need a sports bra and that wasn’t right, she needed tight underwear instead and that was wrong. Her legs were too long and her lungs felt too big and she didn’t feel solid enough, not solid anymore – running shouldn’t be this easy, she shouldn’t be going this fast. She turned a corner and tried to go faster and found out she could and that was wrong too. She hated this, hated it, but had to live with it and inside of it and didn’t have a way out.
By the time she got back to her apartment, an hour later, her clothes were sticking to her in all the wrong places and ways, and she was too tired to shower, just pulling on fresh pajamas and falling into bed. She could do the laundry on Saturday.
Eventually, she opened up to Cuddy about it. If she hadn’t worked for House, she knew she wouldn’t be getting this sort of attention, but on some level she couldn’t bring herself to mind. And Cuddy had asked, anyway, almost like Wilson, drawing Cameron into her office to keep her privacy. It didn’t feel all that bad, talking and chatting over personal issues like this – it almost felt like old times. About five months ago, give or take a week.
After they’d talked about Foreman and Miller, Cameron found herself describing how she’d fled from the bathroom. Cuddy just smiled. “We’ve all made that mistake.”
“When you’re eight, not when you’re twenty-nine. It’s embarrassing because I should know enough to check which bathroom, and I shouldn’t have to do that. I should know which one to use by now.”
“If you think you need more time off work –”
“No, I just…it’s tiring to be on guard all the time, and I can’t really relax. Once I get better at it, I should be fine.”
Cuddy didn’t say anything and leaned back in her chair. “In my experience people don’t always ask for what they need. If there’s anything you want, please, ask someone about it. See what they can do. It won’t help to try to do this all on your own.”
“I’m not –”
She held up her hand. “If you want me to get angry at you and yell at you for making a stupid mistake, I can do that. You made a stupid mistake over something you don’t have a lot of practice doing. Does that help?”
“A little.” She shrugged, and let herself go on. “I know I shouldn’t be so mad at myself, but it’s a lot easier than getting depressed.”
That just got Cuddy to sigh. “Blame the hormones for that one.”
-
The next few days were tricky – either only Stamets had seen her, or nobody was polite enough to mention it. Big busy hospitals had plenty of distractions, more than enough to keep people from spending time noticing who went into which bathroom if they weren’t under personal supervision. Cameron still took it as a good lesson, making sure to be more careful, even though she still got nauseated when she looked at a urinal, always opting for a stall and waiting for one if she had to. No need to give House more fodder; at least he’d stopped hiding nude spreads in her papers when she left the room for more than two minutes.
One morning, after she’d started on some tea and another article and Miller was in the clinic, she noticed that Foreman was watching her again. But he was looking at her differently this time.
“Is something wrong?”
He let out a breath very slowly, narrowing his eyes, and said, “You’re not drinking right.” He picked up his own mug to demonstrate. “This is how you hold it. See, a guy’s supposed to tip what he’s holding or his hand, not his head.” Turning to the side to mime drinking, she saw what he meant, and when he was done she repeated the movement back to him. “Yeah, like that.”
“What else should I be doing? Do I need to shower more?”
“No, but most men do wear some sort of perfume.”
“I use deodorant.”
“Not exactly the same thing. Find a department store with a decent counter and ask them to get you something good. Also, men make more eye contact with each other, but not with women. Just something to keep in mind.”
“Oh.” She’d wondered about that but hadn’t been able to put it so neatly. One more thing she had to pay attention to in otherwise mindless conversations. “Is this secret guy-code stuff that you don’t want Miller to hear?”
“No, it’s stuff you usually pick up by middle school. Look, I’m only doing this because you need the help. It’s getting a little embarrassing to watch you keep screwing up.”
“So you’re just helping on behalf of the gender.”
“Pretty much.”
“Then on behalf of the gender, I apologize for the embarrassment.”
“And I accept your apology.”
She spent most of her shower that night trying to parse out Foreman’s motivations. Pure altruism wasn’t an option, and neither was concerned friendship – it’s possible she just annoyed him by getting everything wrong all the time, like when she kept making eye contact with clinic patients who were always a bit more nervous, but she’d put that down to her having a penis now. She knew she’d use what he told her every day – that would have make a case for the altruism except for the way he’d ended up telling her what she was doing wrong.
He told her, just like everyone told her, that it’d get easier, but it wasn’t, and she knew it wouldn’t. Keeping track of everything she had to do and what she wasn’t supposed to do and how to hold herself in check was getting harder the more she learned. Going to the perfume counter was easy enough, and for a while she’d liked it, chatting with the salesman about fragrances and scents and skins like she’d learned from her mother – some things were the same, and some things weren’t. When he brought out something she’d liked, she’d felt comfortable enough to spray the dorsum of her hand and sniffed that, and suddenly he looked at her like she’d just pulled a piece of gum out of her mouth and dropped it on his counter. Realizing she couldn’t apologize for not knowing to sniff the back of her hand and explain why, she smiled and tried to go on with the conversation, and he was enough of a professional to move on so he could make the sale.
It’d be a lot simpler if everyone had that sort of clear motivation. Working with House had taught her well enough to know that wouldn’t ever be the case, even in department stores where people were paid on commission.
-
Work kept on going – accidental incest, random small-celled lung cancer, her boss kidnapping a formerly vegetative state patient for a long-distance diagnostic session. Nothing unusual for her line of work, even the week of harassment by an irate police officer that started on Tuesday and Cuddy defused by Friday that left Miller more frazzled than anything else she’d seen yet.
“How often does that sort of thing happen?” She had her chin in her hand, elbow on the table, staring out at nothing at all. Cameron made a mental note to get a more detailed personal history when she could.
“House ticking off clinic patients or getting into legal trouble? Pretty much every time we get a new case or he needs a refill.” Foreman handed Miller a fresh mug of tea, completely at ease with her presence in the room. Some things were easier to adjust to than others. Staying in a situation where he was working with plenty of men had to be pretty nice for him after med school – as much fun as it would’ve been to be able to date anyone he wanted and have the pick of the room, she knew guys were supposed to like hanging around other guys. Going back to something a little more reflective of everyday life had to be nice for him.
These days, for her, a day she didn’t end up crying at home or hiding in the bathroom because she still didn’t know how to say hello to clinic patients or ask a salesman for some help or had to kill her erection with a cold shower was a good one.
-
She still called her parents and sister regularly – not every day but a couple of times a week if she could, and only turned off the video feed some of the time instead of every time. Some days it was easier to talk if she didn’t have to look at their faces.
“I just wish you could come home for Thanksgiving.” Her mother usually left her feeds running when she was in the same room with the justification it was just in case she got a call; she also wouldn’t stop what she was doing in case she ended up getting one. From this angle, all Cameron could see was the door to the pantry, but she could hear the dishes in the sink if she turned the volume up.
“You know I’d like to come home too.” It’d be all right if she left the room, not like her mother would know; still, some obligation of filial piety and the warm blankets kept her in the chair. She still didn’t have a lot of fat back yet, and with the PT and stress-running a lot of the calories went to muscle. Winter was coming early and she’d need a decent pair of gloves, a hat, a scarf – things that hadn’t been so much of a priority back in summer. She pulled the blankets a bit tighter.
Her mother went on, “Amanda’s already reserved her family a coach.”
“She always liked traveling fancy.”
“They put in a new route a few months ago. It should cut the travel ah!” Whatever she was going to say got cut off by glass falling onto the kitchen tile. The sound always made Cameron’s hair stand on end.
“Mom? Are you okay?”
Somehow it was enough to get her mother to come to the phone, to sit down in front of it and reach over to adjust the screen before running a hand over her head; her hair was showing a the roots and her nails were cut down to the quick. “I’m fine, I just dropped a wineglass. I know, I shouldn’t do the dishes when I’m making a phone call. Give me a moment to get the broom.”
“Oh, okay. I mean, it’s okay – I should be going anyway.”
“I only need a moment.”
“No, mom, it’s fine. You need to clean up the mess. I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”
She looked like she wanted to say something negative about that, but she pursed her lips for a moment and then said, “Okay. We’ll talk later, then.”
“Bye, mom.”
“I love you.”
“You too.” She tapped the screen and the image flipped away; another couple of taps and the phone shut off. She folded up the standing legs, reached over, and slid the whole thing into its wall slot before burrowing back into the blankets and turning to look out the window. There were clouds gathering over the city, tumbling over each other to reach the horizon.
Soup. She’d make soup for dinner, something rich and easy to get down without chewing – her teeth and jaws were giving her trouble again – with plenty of meat in it. She had some mutton left over and could chop it up and use that. In a little while. She knew she should get up now to start dinner so she wouldn’t eat too late, but couldn’t push herself to care quite as much as she knew she ought to.
It started to rain while she chopped up the meat, and she knew that it meant yet another unwanted trip to the shoe store in her near future. The rain kept on throughout dinner and followed her all the way to bed, where she lay on her stomach listening to it fall against the window until she fell asleep. When she woke up it’d all turned to ice, the frost curving and feathering out across the glass.
In a few weeks there’d be students ice-skating on Lake Carnegie, and a few weeks after that she’d be out of a fellowship.
Better start on the cover letters, then.
-
By the end of the next week’s case, when Miller came through with congenital erythropoietic porphyria – House hadn’t hired her just to meet HR regulations – Cameron had gotten her references together, applied for six positions, drafted letters for three more, and was trying to take a break from staring at a computer’s screen when her mobile chirped at her. She sighed and reached over for it, half-expecting some inbox spam about cheap tapas delivery, and keyed up the screen.
At seven-fifteen the next day she was formally offered a position at the University of Washington Medical Center. She’d set up the phone interview the previous evening, and spent most of the time in between the calls trying to calm herself down and gussy herself up at the same time. At seven-twenty-five she’d been offered a job as a full-tenured member of the immunology department, and at seven-twenty-eight she accepted.
Of course she wouldn’t be starting right away, or even a few days after her fellowship ended: “I understand you’ll need to travel,” her boss-to-be smiled at her from nearly three thousand miles away, “but if you send over the necessary documents, and I’ll send you the e-mail, we can have everything ready when you are.”
“Thank you.”
“We’re quite eager to have you.”
“Oh?”
“Doctor House recommended you personally. I sent him an e-mail and he called me an hour later, and told me that he never stopped being disappointed in you, but if I didn’t hire you I’d be losing my chance to make a great choice.”
Cameron nodded carefully. “Coming from him, that’s very high praise.”
When she next saw House, he was at his desk, typing away at something or other – maybe an article on the latest case with gratuitous rabbit metaphors, or some particularly scathing remark on a soap opera message board – and he didn’t glance at her when she stepped into his office. She’d gotten used to being ignored in the hospital, and in most of the places she’d used to go, and that had taken just as much getting used to as watching her hands when she reached for the milk in the fridge.
Of course, House hadn’t gotten to where he was by allowing himself to be ignored, and she was in pretty much the same boat. So she went ahead and applied the lessons she’d learned from him. “Why’d you call Panos?”
He looked over to her, almost amused. “You’re on a last-name basis already? Not ‘Doctor Panos’? Not even ‘my new boss’?”
“Just answer the question.”
“Returning a piece of communication is just polite. Don’t they teach girls that in kindergarten?”
“Was she the first one who called you?”
“If I say yes, will that be enough for you?”
“Is it because I’m a man now and you wanted to do a favor for me on behalf of our gender?”
House kept looking at her, his face sharpened. “Being a man takes years of hard work and social conditioning. Don’t think you can cheat the system by growing a penis in a week.” He went back to his typing, tuning her out again.
She nodded, spun around, and left his office smiling to herself.
-
Even though she wouldn’t be on the payroll in a few weeks there wasn’t time for her to worry about her fellowship ending, not when there were still patients to see and clinic hours to fill and House’s ass to cover when he didn’t bother to do it himself. She didn’t pity the next sorry fellow on the roster – then again, maybe Foreman would learn how to be the senior team member when it wasn’t temporary like last year’s stint. It’d do him some good.
If she’d been working in any of a dozen other departments there’d be a party with cake and balloons to see her off to her new position. If she’d been working in any of a dozen other departments she’d have told her coworkers she’d be going to begin with. Foreman and Miller would find out when she didn’t show up at work. House must have told Wilson about it, though, because the alternative was that Wilson spied on House just as much as House spied on Wilson – which was a line of thought she didn’t want to examine any more deeply than that.
She had to admit the pretense of offering a consult was charming, and it did leave the clinic’s exam room to themselves for a private conversation when Mrs. Yeates was out the door with the diagnosis of an aggressive and malicious rhinovirus. He hadn’t bothered to sit down, just propping himself up against the counter with his hands. “You’ve got an apartment lined up?”
“I made appointments to look at a few when I get there.” She finished the notation and looked up at him. “A couple of weeks in a hotel isn’t a big deal.”
That amused him, although she couldn’t say the reason for the faint smile. “No, it really isn’t.” He shook his head and said, “You sound like you’re managing pretty well.”
“Thank you.”
“I mean it. I’ve seen how difficult it can be for people to adjust to major diagnoses, and if there isn’t – without support they don’t get far on their own.” He had the most gentle expression, and she knew well enough by now that none of it was from pity.
“You haven’t been spying on me, have you?”
“No, House just likes to gossip.” They both chuckled at that.
She closed the chart and stood up to look him in the eye, something that was getting easier with practice. “I should…I guess I should thank you.”
“For what?”
“For being there for me. When I was shifting, when it started, I couldn’t even.” She looked down, falling back into old patterns. “If you hadn’t been around to help, bring over food, just everything, then –”
“I didn’t do it as a doctor, Allison.” She forced herself back to his eyes, thinking of the one time, her very last, after she’d cried and he’d been so strong and there with her without anyone else and he’d –
He reached up, took her head in his hands, pulled her in and gently so gently kissed her forehead. She gaped; it wasn’t something anyone had ever been able to do to her before. It was one of the things older brothers were supposed to do to their younger brothers when they were leaving home, going out into the world seeking their fortunes.
After he let go and she opened her eyes, he was smiling. “Take care of yourself.”
Grabbing the folder, hand on the doorknob ready to leave, “I will.”
“Send me a postcard when you get there.”
She turned around and smiled back. “I will.”
-
Part two.
Author: Hannah Orlove
Fandom: House, MD
Pairing: Cameron/OFC, Cameron/OMC
Rating: NC-17
Notes: Thanks to many people for listening to me talk while I wrote this, and
perspi and ayalesca for beta-reading. Written in part for both house_bigbang and wtf27.She still couldn’t recognize the face in the mirror. She knew it was hers – when she smiled, the face smiled, and when she winked, it winked back at her – but it was still so new, and so fresh, it didn’t feel like it belonged to her yet. No matter how long she looked at it, or how much she touched it, it didn’t feel like it ought to.
Turning her head to get a good look at her chin and jaw, she ran her thumb down over her lips before pulling it away. She shook her head, sighed, and then reached for the elastics. One at the base of the queue, the other around her fingers while she pleated her hair until she needed it to tie off the end. Then the scissor’s blades went snicker-snack, and she shook her head, feeling that much lighter.
The face in the mirror looked even less like she thought it should, but that helped, like having less to recognize made her see who she was now even more.
-
There were two weeks left out of the eight she’d gotten for emergency medical leave, and first things first. She’d grabbed plenty of scrubs from the hospital, one-size-fits-all-men’s, so she wouldn’t be reduced to a bed sheet toga before heading out to get some stuff that actually fit so she’d be able to head into work without embarrassing herself. After almost five weeks of bed-ridden nausea and pain, being able to walk into a store – even if she was decked out head to toe in pink, down to the slippers – was more satisfying than it had any right to be. It was easy enough to find what she was looking for, and after she went home and put on something decent she went right back out to a barber’s shop for a real haircut.
There was grocery shopping to do, and catching up with the mail and the bills, getting new photos for her passport and driver’s license, getting new shoes, finally getting her place cleaned up, scheduling physiotherapy appointments, visiting the dentist, going clothes shopping again to get stuff for work, going grocery shopping again, getting new reading glasses, catching up on sleep, finally getting out to exercise, getting used to shaving in the morning, bagging up everything that didn’t fit anymore and sending all her jewelry off to her sister. Clearing her closets and medicine cabinet and finding everything that wouldn’t fit or she wouldn’t use anymore took most of one day, and phone tag with the HR department took most of another.
Some things she knew wouldn’t be fixed or done right away. Her hair was the same color and she still needed corrective lenses, but most of her scars and freckles had disappeared while she’d been too far gone to notice, and there was no way she ready to pee standing up. Gaining back all the weight she lost would take time – she’d look ghastly for a while, and probably single-handedly triple the New Jersey demand for red meat until she was back at a healthy weight for her height. A five-five woman at a hundred-forty pounds was fine, but most of that had melted away when she’d grown five inches in three weeks.
Her hands didn’t hurt anymore, but she still had to watch them whenever she reached for something to pick it up. Nothing fit or felt the way it ought to: she felt like she was drunk or hungover all the time, depending on how much she ached in the morning.
Finally walking back into work, hearing the quiet shunt of the doors and the regular bustle of the hospital, was more of a relief than she’d thought. No way was she up to the locker room just yet; that she’d tackle next week. She took a deep breath, straightened her tie, and made her way over to the elevator, somehow glad nobody was glancing at her to check her out – if she couldn’t recognize herself, no way they could. That was…kind of nice, actually. If she screwed up now, there was a good chance nobody would think it was her. She had the elevator all to herself, thankfully, and she held her head high as she stepped off, glancing at House in his office before pushing the door open. The conference room was almost empty-handed, the way it usually was during downtime. “Morning, Foreman.” He glanced up from the paper, did a double-take, then looked at her. She just smiled and waved.
He smiled back at her. “Good to see you back.”
“Thanks.” She put her briefcase down on the table before heading over to pour herself a cuppa. Not looking up from ripping open the packet or pouring the water, “So did I miss anything?”
“Well, House almost got shot.”
“Almost? How’d that happen?”
“Someone was angry over finding out his wife cheated on him –”
“Now there’s a big surprise.” It took two tries to grab the milk; she flexed her hands and hoped Foreman hadn’t noticed.
“So he thought revenge on the man who uncovered that would settle his life. Shultze managed to grab him in the hallway. House framed the clippings, they’re over his desk.” She glanced through the wall – so they were. “Wehmeyer is still waiting on her patent application, and Marshall had her baby so DeFries is filling in for her for the next couple of months.”
“Any interesting cases?”
“Not since you left.”
She put the mug on the table before pulling out the chair to sit. “And Chase?” His fellowship was about to end right when she’d started shifting – she’d tried calling him to apologize for not being able to see him but ended up leaving a message where her voice kept breaking.
“Yeah, about Chase, I’m sorry you had to miss the party.”
“There was a party?”
“With balloons and cake and everything.” He didn’t crack a smile or move a muscle. “House made me save you a piece.”
They stared for a moment before Cameron broke into a grin. “You almost had me there. Has he hired anyone new yet?”
“I haven’t seen anyone interview. You’re sure you’re okay to be back and working?”
“Yeah.”
“You seem a bit –”
“I’m fine. I’m happy to be working again.”
He raised an eyebrow, and took a careful sip of his tea. She pulled out her new glasses and the last issue of Journal of Immunology and started to read.
-
It took the rest of the week to finish all the HR paperwork, get her new locker, and for House’s new fellow to show up. She’d come in early and was catching up on her reading when a curly-haired woman walked in. She glanced around the room, not really looking at Cameron while she dropped her bag on the table and went over for some tea. Cameron waited, but by the time the water was boiling she still hadn’t gotten any eye contact.
“Hello.”
“Oh, hello,” she tossed over her shoulder while she tipped the kettle. Cameron waited, but that was all she got.
“Are you new here?” She asked when the new woman sat down.
“Yeah, starting today.”
“And you’re House’s new fellow?”
“This is the Diagnostics department.” Reaching into her bag, she pulled out a journal of her own and began to read.
Cameron waited and didn’t get anything else. She wasn’t happy with how the conversation was going, but she knew how men were supposed to act from watching them, so she smiled at the top of the woman’s head and went back to her own article. Foreman showed up almost twenty minutes later and didn’t seem to suffer any internal awkwardness; all he did was greet the new woman and introduce himself – why hadn’t she remembered to do that? Now it was too late in the conversation for her to do it without being weird. She’d have to keep waiting while her stomach kept knotting up.
House didn’t show up until almost twenty to eleven, grinning over what Cameron assumed was his regular perverted joy over any woman in a tight top. Miller started to get up. “Doctor House, it’s –”
“Thank you.” She stopped. “For ensuring perfect continuity of art in the lobby.” He tossed a smirk at Cameron while the new fellow stayed in the half-standing position, looking around the table before focusing on the woman. “Foreman, Cameron, meet Michelle Miller. Classically trained hepatologist, top of her class, donates blood religiously every eight weeks, and divorced from her high school sweetheart as of three months ago. Now, remember, play nice with the new kid.” He fished out his bottle and tossed back a pill before turning around and heading back to his own office.
Miller watched him go before sinking back down. “Is he always like that?”
Cameron smiled, remembering her adjustment period. “You get used to it.”
With the most perplexed expression, Miller nodded slowly before going back to her reading. Cameron waited, and then turned away as well. It was like that for rest of the week: no matter what Cameron did to try to be friendly there was that same perplexity and coldness. The worst part was that through it all there wasn’t any indication she was doing anything wrong, insulting, or offensive, just nothing Miller thought of as polite or acceptable or worth her attention. Even bringing in muffins hadn’t helped.
Cameron waited for to Foreman leave on Friday before staring right at Miller and asking point-blank, “What am I doing wrong?”
“I’m sorry?”
“You’ve been here for a week and the most you’ve said to me is ‘no thank you.’ Is there something I’m doing wrong that’s bothering you?”
She huffed, putting her journal down. “Look, I don’t know why you need me to like you –”
“I’m not trying to get you to like me.”
“I don’t need to like you and you don’t need to like me. I know you don’t like me being here in your little boy’s club but –”
That got a double-take. “Wait, wait. ‘Boy’s club’?”
“Are they calling it something new now?”
“It isn’t…I mean, I’m not a boy.”
That got one from Miller. “I’m sorry?”
“I’m not a boy. I didn’t grow up as one.” Her cheeks were burning, but she said it anyway. “I shifted over the summer.”
“You –” She slowly nodded. “Oh. Oh, that makes sense now.”
“What makes sense?”
“How weird you were acting.” Miller giggled. “I mean, you were acting like a woman.”
“…I am a woman.”
She was still smiling, but now it was more condescending, more knowing. “Cameron, you don’t need to keep clinging. It’s okay.”
She didn’t need this. Grabbing her briefcase, “Allison.”
“Sorry?”
Not looking at Miller while she ran out, “My name’s Allison.”
-
The next Friday, when Wilson poked his head in the door from the hallway only Miller looked surprised. “Cameron, can I borrow you for a minute?”
He’d asked for weirder things and she wanted to get out of here. “Sure.” Walking alongside in the hallway, there was that weird sense of displacement again – she was almost his height now. “Do you need me for anything?”
“No, I just wanted to talk to you in private.” He closed his office’s door behind them and sat down on one of the chairs opposite the sofa, gesturing for her to take it. When she did, he leaned in and asked, “So how are you holding up?”
She leaned back against the cushions, composing her face and throwing her hands over the back before remembering the right behavior and crossing them in her lap. “Not too badly, actually. House is the same, which is pretty helpful – just because I’m using the men’s room now isn’t a good reason to treat me differently.”
“Well, that’s House for you.”
That got her to smile for real. “He still wants me to cover his clinic hours. And I am, and they’re fine.” He stayed leaning in, face open. She went on, “It’s a little hard, though. I know a lot of people don’t expect a male doctor.”
“I know a couple of people who told me they got into medicine just so they wouldn’t have to deal with men.”
“Bet you were a surprise, then.”
“My goodness, what is that penis doing in here? This is a vagina-only area!” She laughed, and he went on smiling, “I used to get asked if I was going to be a nurse. The more socially acceptable branch of the profession.”
“And that’s still mostly women.”
“The Sixties couldn’t change everything.” He stopped, set his mouth, glanced to the side then back at Cameron. “You know if you need anyone to talk to about this, or if you need any advice –”
“Thank you. I – thank you. If I do, and I need to ask you something, I will.”
“There are –” he didn’t look like he knew the right words for what he wanted, “there are a couple of people – I don’t know them all that well, but if you want to talk to someone who’s on the other side of it, I can put you in touch.”
She looked away herself, feeling blood rush to her cheeks without knowing why. “I can’t keep saying thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
-
“In the suggested interest of easing everyone into a new work environment – not that I give a crap, but my best buddy seems to – have a freebie.” House handed the file off to Miller, who begain reading. “Twenty-six-year-old female, paralyzed from the neck down with no evidence of a spinal injury. You’ve got about ninety-six hours before anything goes really wrong with her, so if you figure it out before I need to step in, kudos for everyone.”
Miller didn’t look up from the screen. “The paralysis started in her yoga class yesterday.”
“Any symptoms or problems before then?” Cameron asked.
“Nothing related to this. No symptoms before yesterday means nothing pathological.”
“Could be transverse myelitis, swelling in the disk choking off nerve function,” Foreman suggested.
“The MRI's negative for that.”
Cameron shook her head. “We don’t know where the problem’s coming from. We should do an EMG to see if it’s her spine.”
“And if it’s not?” Miller glanced at Cameron like she didn’t take her seriously. It was a look she’d gotten a lot recently, even after she’d told her.
She took a deep breath to calm down. “Then we see what comes next.”
-
It turned out to be a false alarm for a plural effusion. A clean echiocardiogram didn’t help much – “No structural abnormalities.”
“Could be an infectious process,” Foreman suggested as he sat down to join Cameron at the table. “TB?”
Cameron shrugged. “Vasculitis would also explain the effusion.”
“Not the paralysis,” Miller shook her head. “That’s no good.”
“She moved. Therefore, she could move. She wasn’t paralyzed.” She shook her head.
Miller tapped the pen on the whiteboard. “So we’ve got sixty-seven hours before we have to admit to House we couldn’t manage. I don’t know about you two, but I’m not ready for that on my first day. So, does anyone –”
“We’re asking the wrong questions.” Miller and Foreman turned to look at Cameron. “This isn’t what House would do. He’d ask what’s missing before trying to figure out something else.”
“So what are we missing?” Miller crossed her arms over her chest. “What should we be looking for?”
“I don’t know. That’s the point. We should go talk to her.”
“Since when does House talk to his patients?” Foreman asked.
“Since every time he needs to figure out what they’re not telling him.”
Once they got to Caren’s bedside – House claiming he was only tagging along for the ride – they started to go through her file, cross-checking everything they could, trying to find what they’d missed. Nothing came up until Cameron sighed and asked, “Any major lifestyle changes recently?”
“Of course you’re the one to ask that,” House smirked. Everyone turned to look at him, but he waved them off. “Nothing. Go on. Tell them what they need to know.”
Caren swallowed and looked at Cameron. “I, um…I moved three months ago, and –”
“If it was something from your new home it’d show up already. What else?”
“I’m on this new diet now, to lose weight.”
“What sort of diet?” Miller leaned in.
“Ketosis. High protein, low carb, low starch.”
Cameron glanced at House, who was still smiling, and then thought about the contents of her own kitchen, the last shopping trip – and jerked her head to the side when she remembered how much she’d boggled over the new daily guidelines from her nutritionist. “Does this diet have any room for plants?”
-
“Scurvy.” Miller managed to flop into one of the glass-and-metal chairs and repeated, “scurvy.”
“Hey, last year we had the bubonic plague,” Foreman pointed out.
“So what’s next? Smallpox?”
“Not unless we get a call from the CIA,” he said. Cameron just kept her mouth shut.
-
If she thought of meeting the urologist like meeting a gynecologist, it was easier. She needed her stuff checked out no matter what stuff it was, and this was the last establishing-everything-as-okay check-up of the year – after this, they didn’t need to be as frequent, which was nice. But speculums could at least get warmed up first.
“Are you getting regular erections?” At least this Mathias had waited until she had gotten her pants on.
“I wouldn’t say they’re regular.” Not like she was getting them every quarter moon, not like that, “but I get them pretty often.”
“Good. It’d be something to worry about if you weren’t, you know.”
“I know.” She didn’t mention that sometimes they wouldn’t go away after she peed, or that she’d sometimes wake up with one when she didn’t need to use the bathroom. When that happened and she didn’t want to take a shower, she’d grab an ice pack from the freezer, press it to her groin, and watch TV and wait until everything finally went limp.
Knowing everything was working the way it was supposed to didn’t make her feel any less disgusting when she had to change the sheets three times a week because she hadn’t mastered not wetting the bed with out-of-control dreams she couldn’t remember. Those days, she took blistering-hot showers, scrubbing herself as much and as hard as she could – she couldn’t say why she needed to, except that it helped her feel a little better when she came out of one shaking a little bit from all the heat.
-
On some level it was comforting to know that labwork and caffeine still had the same results, which, when combined, ended in a sprint to the bathroom. Ah, good, there was a stall open – unzip, pull down, turn around, and sit. Bladder control was the same no matter what orifice the urine was leaving from, thankfully, but damn if it didn’t feel weird as all-get-out.
She knew by now to wipe the tip off, holding it gingerly in one hand and looking away while she swiped the toilet paper over it, and didn’t look down until she’d pulled up her underwear. As long as she had clothes on it was okay. Not great, but okay enough she didn’t feel nauseated. She adjusted everything, made sure she hadn’t forgotten her fly, flushed and went out to wash her hands and get back to the bloodwork.
She was washing her hands when the door opened. Cameron looked up and froze when she meet the eyes of Stamets from pathology, hers open with her mouth hanging down too, a perfect cartoon representation of surprise.
Cameron didn’t stop to turn off the water or dry her hands to get out of the wrong-gendered bathroom as soon as she could, and didn’t stop going until she got back to the lab and one of its many small dark corners. Fuck. People had seen her leave, they must have seen her going in, shit shit shit. This was embarrassing, this was wrong, this was – well, House would get his hands on the gossip and she’d never hear the end of it, and everyone would know she couldn’t keep track of which bathroom she was supposed to use now, and they’d look at her and know and she couldn’t be anonymous in her new face anymore. Fuck. There were at least a billion things to adjust to, a billion things she had to do to get back up to a reasonable level of health, a billion things she had to pay attention to, and when she thought she had them all down a full bladder tripped her up and put her back right at the beginning.
Hiding in the lab was one move away from hiding in a locked supply closet. At least nobody expected her for another hour so she could budget twenty minutes for a good, healthy spat of quiet raging. When she was done, calmed down and face washed in the lab’s sink, at least she had proof positive for von Willebrand’s disease, and they could work on treating their patient from there.
She hadn’t really calmed down, though, and was still carrying around the anger when she got back home that night – morning, really, which wasn’t helping. It was too late and too early to do a dumbbell workout and she wasn’t in the mood to pace her bedroom anymore so she rummaged through her laundry basket until she found what she’d tossed aside yesterday, the sweatpants, t-shirt, and sweatshirt. No need for a sports bra, just her new barely-broken-in sneakers, and she’d locked the door and was on her way running. The streetlamps were out, yellow-white light making the sidewalks and houses look like old photographs; she sped past them, looking down at her feet slamming the pavement then looking up again.
Her physical therapist liked to explain that exercise and movement was the best way to get to know her new body, to listen to it while she made it work and move to see what it would tell her about what it could do. And that worked well enough when she wanted to learn, but right now all she wanted was to move and get some of the anger out of her before it settled back into depression. Right now she didn’t want to listen to what wasn’t working.
But she didn’t need a sports bra and that wasn’t right, she needed tight underwear instead and that was wrong. Her legs were too long and her lungs felt too big and she didn’t feel solid enough, not solid anymore – running shouldn’t be this easy, she shouldn’t be going this fast. She turned a corner and tried to go faster and found out she could and that was wrong too. She hated this, hated it, but had to live with it and inside of it and didn’t have a way out.
By the time she got back to her apartment, an hour later, her clothes were sticking to her in all the wrong places and ways, and she was too tired to shower, just pulling on fresh pajamas and falling into bed. She could do the laundry on Saturday.
Eventually, she opened up to Cuddy about it. If she hadn’t worked for House, she knew she wouldn’t be getting this sort of attention, but on some level she couldn’t bring herself to mind. And Cuddy had asked, anyway, almost like Wilson, drawing Cameron into her office to keep her privacy. It didn’t feel all that bad, talking and chatting over personal issues like this – it almost felt like old times. About five months ago, give or take a week.
After they’d talked about Foreman and Miller, Cameron found herself describing how she’d fled from the bathroom. Cuddy just smiled. “We’ve all made that mistake.”
“When you’re eight, not when you’re twenty-nine. It’s embarrassing because I should know enough to check which bathroom, and I shouldn’t have to do that. I should know which one to use by now.”
“If you think you need more time off work –”
“No, I just…it’s tiring to be on guard all the time, and I can’t really relax. Once I get better at it, I should be fine.”
Cuddy didn’t say anything and leaned back in her chair. “In my experience people don’t always ask for what they need. If there’s anything you want, please, ask someone about it. See what they can do. It won’t help to try to do this all on your own.”
“I’m not –”
She held up her hand. “If you want me to get angry at you and yell at you for making a stupid mistake, I can do that. You made a stupid mistake over something you don’t have a lot of practice doing. Does that help?”
“A little.” She shrugged, and let herself go on. “I know I shouldn’t be so mad at myself, but it’s a lot easier than getting depressed.”
That just got Cuddy to sigh. “Blame the hormones for that one.”
-
The next few days were tricky – either only Stamets had seen her, or nobody was polite enough to mention it. Big busy hospitals had plenty of distractions, more than enough to keep people from spending time noticing who went into which bathroom if they weren’t under personal supervision. Cameron still took it as a good lesson, making sure to be more careful, even though she still got nauseated when she looked at a urinal, always opting for a stall and waiting for one if she had to. No need to give House more fodder; at least he’d stopped hiding nude spreads in her papers when she left the room for more than two minutes.
One morning, after she’d started on some tea and another article and Miller was in the clinic, she noticed that Foreman was watching her again. But he was looking at her differently this time.
“Is something wrong?”
He let out a breath very slowly, narrowing his eyes, and said, “You’re not drinking right.” He picked up his own mug to demonstrate. “This is how you hold it. See, a guy’s supposed to tip what he’s holding or his hand, not his head.” Turning to the side to mime drinking, she saw what he meant, and when he was done she repeated the movement back to him. “Yeah, like that.”
“What else should I be doing? Do I need to shower more?”
“No, but most men do wear some sort of perfume.”
“I use deodorant.”
“Not exactly the same thing. Find a department store with a decent counter and ask them to get you something good. Also, men make more eye contact with each other, but not with women. Just something to keep in mind.”
“Oh.” She’d wondered about that but hadn’t been able to put it so neatly. One more thing she had to pay attention to in otherwise mindless conversations. “Is this secret guy-code stuff that you don’t want Miller to hear?”
“No, it’s stuff you usually pick up by middle school. Look, I’m only doing this because you need the help. It’s getting a little embarrassing to watch you keep screwing up.”
“So you’re just helping on behalf of the gender.”
“Pretty much.”
“Then on behalf of the gender, I apologize for the embarrassment.”
“And I accept your apology.”
She spent most of her shower that night trying to parse out Foreman’s motivations. Pure altruism wasn’t an option, and neither was concerned friendship – it’s possible she just annoyed him by getting everything wrong all the time, like when she kept making eye contact with clinic patients who were always a bit more nervous, but she’d put that down to her having a penis now. She knew she’d use what he told her every day – that would have make a case for the altruism except for the way he’d ended up telling her what she was doing wrong.
He told her, just like everyone told her, that it’d get easier, but it wasn’t, and she knew it wouldn’t. Keeping track of everything she had to do and what she wasn’t supposed to do and how to hold herself in check was getting harder the more she learned. Going to the perfume counter was easy enough, and for a while she’d liked it, chatting with the salesman about fragrances and scents and skins like she’d learned from her mother – some things were the same, and some things weren’t. When he brought out something she’d liked, she’d felt comfortable enough to spray the dorsum of her hand and sniffed that, and suddenly he looked at her like she’d just pulled a piece of gum out of her mouth and dropped it on his counter. Realizing she couldn’t apologize for not knowing to sniff the back of her hand and explain why, she smiled and tried to go on with the conversation, and he was enough of a professional to move on so he could make the sale.
It’d be a lot simpler if everyone had that sort of clear motivation. Working with House had taught her well enough to know that wouldn’t ever be the case, even in department stores where people were paid on commission.
-
Work kept on going – accidental incest, random small-celled lung cancer, her boss kidnapping a formerly vegetative state patient for a long-distance diagnostic session. Nothing unusual for her line of work, even the week of harassment by an irate police officer that started on Tuesday and Cuddy defused by Friday that left Miller more frazzled than anything else she’d seen yet.
“How often does that sort of thing happen?” She had her chin in her hand, elbow on the table, staring out at nothing at all. Cameron made a mental note to get a more detailed personal history when she could.
“House ticking off clinic patients or getting into legal trouble? Pretty much every time we get a new case or he needs a refill.” Foreman handed Miller a fresh mug of tea, completely at ease with her presence in the room. Some things were easier to adjust to than others. Staying in a situation where he was working with plenty of men had to be pretty nice for him after med school – as much fun as it would’ve been to be able to date anyone he wanted and have the pick of the room, she knew guys were supposed to like hanging around other guys. Going back to something a little more reflective of everyday life had to be nice for him.
These days, for her, a day she didn’t end up crying at home or hiding in the bathroom because she still didn’t know how to say hello to clinic patients or ask a salesman for some help or had to kill her erection with a cold shower was a good one.
-
She still called her parents and sister regularly – not every day but a couple of times a week if she could, and only turned off the video feed some of the time instead of every time. Some days it was easier to talk if she didn’t have to look at their faces.
“I just wish you could come home for Thanksgiving.” Her mother usually left her feeds running when she was in the same room with the justification it was just in case she got a call; she also wouldn’t stop what she was doing in case she ended up getting one. From this angle, all Cameron could see was the door to the pantry, but she could hear the dishes in the sink if she turned the volume up.
“You know I’d like to come home too.” It’d be all right if she left the room, not like her mother would know; still, some obligation of filial piety and the warm blankets kept her in the chair. She still didn’t have a lot of fat back yet, and with the PT and stress-running a lot of the calories went to muscle. Winter was coming early and she’d need a decent pair of gloves, a hat, a scarf – things that hadn’t been so much of a priority back in summer. She pulled the blankets a bit tighter.
Her mother went on, “Amanda’s already reserved her family a coach.”
“She always liked traveling fancy.”
“They put in a new route a few months ago. It should cut the travel ah!” Whatever she was going to say got cut off by glass falling onto the kitchen tile. The sound always made Cameron’s hair stand on end.
“Mom? Are you okay?”
Somehow it was enough to get her mother to come to the phone, to sit down in front of it and reach over to adjust the screen before running a hand over her head; her hair was showing a the roots and her nails were cut down to the quick. “I’m fine, I just dropped a wineglass. I know, I shouldn’t do the dishes when I’m making a phone call. Give me a moment to get the broom.”
“Oh, okay. I mean, it’s okay – I should be going anyway.”
“I only need a moment.”
“No, mom, it’s fine. You need to clean up the mess. I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”
She looked like she wanted to say something negative about that, but she pursed her lips for a moment and then said, “Okay. We’ll talk later, then.”
“Bye, mom.”
“I love you.”
“You too.” She tapped the screen and the image flipped away; another couple of taps and the phone shut off. She folded up the standing legs, reached over, and slid the whole thing into its wall slot before burrowing back into the blankets and turning to look out the window. There were clouds gathering over the city, tumbling over each other to reach the horizon.
Soup. She’d make soup for dinner, something rich and easy to get down without chewing – her teeth and jaws were giving her trouble again – with plenty of meat in it. She had some mutton left over and could chop it up and use that. In a little while. She knew she should get up now to start dinner so she wouldn’t eat too late, but couldn’t push herself to care quite as much as she knew she ought to.
It started to rain while she chopped up the meat, and she knew that it meant yet another unwanted trip to the shoe store in her near future. The rain kept on throughout dinner and followed her all the way to bed, where she lay on her stomach listening to it fall against the window until she fell asleep. When she woke up it’d all turned to ice, the frost curving and feathering out across the glass.
In a few weeks there’d be students ice-skating on Lake Carnegie, and a few weeks after that she’d be out of a fellowship.
Better start on the cover letters, then.
-
By the end of the next week’s case, when Miller came through with congenital erythropoietic porphyria – House hadn’t hired her just to meet HR regulations – Cameron had gotten her references together, applied for six positions, drafted letters for three more, and was trying to take a break from staring at a computer’s screen when her mobile chirped at her. She sighed and reached over for it, half-expecting some inbox spam about cheap tapas delivery, and keyed up the screen.
At seven-fifteen the next day she was formally offered a position at the University of Washington Medical Center. She’d set up the phone interview the previous evening, and spent most of the time in between the calls trying to calm herself down and gussy herself up at the same time. At seven-twenty-five she’d been offered a job as a full-tenured member of the immunology department, and at seven-twenty-eight she accepted.
Of course she wouldn’t be starting right away, or even a few days after her fellowship ended: “I understand you’ll need to travel,” her boss-to-be smiled at her from nearly three thousand miles away, “but if you send over the necessary documents, and I’ll send you the e-mail, we can have everything ready when you are.”
“Thank you.”
“We’re quite eager to have you.”
“Oh?”
“Doctor House recommended you personally. I sent him an e-mail and he called me an hour later, and told me that he never stopped being disappointed in you, but if I didn’t hire you I’d be losing my chance to make a great choice.”
Cameron nodded carefully. “Coming from him, that’s very high praise.”
When she next saw House, he was at his desk, typing away at something or other – maybe an article on the latest case with gratuitous rabbit metaphors, or some particularly scathing remark on a soap opera message board – and he didn’t glance at her when she stepped into his office. She’d gotten used to being ignored in the hospital, and in most of the places she’d used to go, and that had taken just as much getting used to as watching her hands when she reached for the milk in the fridge.
Of course, House hadn’t gotten to where he was by allowing himself to be ignored, and she was in pretty much the same boat. So she went ahead and applied the lessons she’d learned from him. “Why’d you call Panos?”
He looked over to her, almost amused. “You’re on a last-name basis already? Not ‘Doctor Panos’? Not even ‘my new boss’?”
“Just answer the question.”
“Returning a piece of communication is just polite. Don’t they teach girls that in kindergarten?”
“Was she the first one who called you?”
“If I say yes, will that be enough for you?”
“Is it because I’m a man now and you wanted to do a favor for me on behalf of our gender?”
House kept looking at her, his face sharpened. “Being a man takes years of hard work and social conditioning. Don’t think you can cheat the system by growing a penis in a week.” He went back to his typing, tuning her out again.
She nodded, spun around, and left his office smiling to herself.
-
Even though she wouldn’t be on the payroll in a few weeks there wasn’t time for her to worry about her fellowship ending, not when there were still patients to see and clinic hours to fill and House’s ass to cover when he didn’t bother to do it himself. She didn’t pity the next sorry fellow on the roster – then again, maybe Foreman would learn how to be the senior team member when it wasn’t temporary like last year’s stint. It’d do him some good.
If she’d been working in any of a dozen other departments there’d be a party with cake and balloons to see her off to her new position. If she’d been working in any of a dozen other departments she’d have told her coworkers she’d be going to begin with. Foreman and Miller would find out when she didn’t show up at work. House must have told Wilson about it, though, because the alternative was that Wilson spied on House just as much as House spied on Wilson – which was a line of thought she didn’t want to examine any more deeply than that.
She had to admit the pretense of offering a consult was charming, and it did leave the clinic’s exam room to themselves for a private conversation when Mrs. Yeates was out the door with the diagnosis of an aggressive and malicious rhinovirus. He hadn’t bothered to sit down, just propping himself up against the counter with his hands. “You’ve got an apartment lined up?”
“I made appointments to look at a few when I get there.” She finished the notation and looked up at him. “A couple of weeks in a hotel isn’t a big deal.”
That amused him, although she couldn’t say the reason for the faint smile. “No, it really isn’t.” He shook his head and said, “You sound like you’re managing pretty well.”
“Thank you.”
“I mean it. I’ve seen how difficult it can be for people to adjust to major diagnoses, and if there isn’t – without support they don’t get far on their own.” He had the most gentle expression, and she knew well enough by now that none of it was from pity.
“You haven’t been spying on me, have you?”
“No, House just likes to gossip.” They both chuckled at that.
She closed the chart and stood up to look him in the eye, something that was getting easier with practice. “I should…I guess I should thank you.”
“For what?”
“For being there for me. When I was shifting, when it started, I couldn’t even.” She looked down, falling back into old patterns. “If you hadn’t been around to help, bring over food, just everything, then –”
“I didn’t do it as a doctor, Allison.” She forced herself back to his eyes, thinking of the one time, her very last, after she’d cried and he’d been so strong and there with her without anyone else and he’d –
He reached up, took her head in his hands, pulled her in and gently so gently kissed her forehead. She gaped; it wasn’t something anyone had ever been able to do to her before. It was one of the things older brothers were supposed to do to their younger brothers when they were leaving home, going out into the world seeking their fortunes.
After he let go and she opened her eyes, he was smiling. “Take care of yourself.”
Grabbing the folder, hand on the doorknob ready to leave, “I will.”
“Send me a postcard when you get there.”
She turned around and smiled back. “I will.”
-
Part two.