Five Times Cameron Lied (Cameron/Cuddy)

[storypaint]

Comm: yuri_challenge
Words: 1976
Title: Five Times Cameron Lied
Author: rhap_chan
Fandom: House
Rating: PG
Warnings: none
Disclaimer: House, M.D. belongs to Fox. This fanfic is a derivative of canon material that is not my property. I do not profit from these writings. The opinions and actions expressed in these stories are not necessarily the views and beliefs of the original author or me.
Request: Lisa Cuddy/Alison Cameron - lie - Can a lie turn into the truth?
Author's Notes: I've always wanted to do the five things meme, though I'm not quite pleased with the ending... A study of the relationship between Cameron and Cuddy.

Excerpt: "I'm sorry?" Cameron said, and House replied, "Wilson told me he saw you and Cuddy looking awfully cozy in the hospital cafeteria yesterday. I was just wondering... how cozy."

1. gossip, like a mint

"So, did she let you touch her boobs?"

Shocked, Cameron looked up from the chart into the rugged, determined face of Gregory House. She shut the folder with a snap.

"No!" she replied instinctively. "What are you talking about?"

"Are you telling me that you haven't noticed Cuddy's two closest friends? Because I'm not buying it," House replied, staring intently. Chase had already turned his head, mouth open as though unaware of it, and even Foreman had spared a glance over his periodical, though his eyes dropped to the page when he saw her look.

"I'm sorry?" Cameron said, and House replied, "Wilson told me he saw you and Cuddy looking awfully cozy in the hospital cafeteria yesterday. I was just wondering... how cozy."

Cameron cussed at Wilson inwardly, promising him a host of mental tortures. Not that dinner had been anything. She'd had to stay late to do some blood work, Cuddy had to meet a late afternoon visitor, and they'd collided in the hall.

And Cameron had in fact ran straight into Cuddy, lifting up a hand in surprise, and well, she had... noticed Cuddy's two best friends. And they were soft. But that wasn't important. The important thing was, Cuddy had been embarrassed and offered to buy her dinner, since she was also famished. And they had sat and talked about the hospital, and about House, and Cuddy gave no indication that she was a lesbian, and neither did Cameron.

But her breast had been soft.

"You're nuts, House," Cameron said, rolling her eyes, and after another long look House let it go. She was smart and didn't breathe a sigh of relief until she was getting into her car and the phone rang.

"Hey, Dr. Cameron."

"Yeah?" Cameron replied, trying very hard not to think about how nice Cuddy's voice sounded after a long day of House's piercing tongue.

"You still here? I heard the patient seized today; figured you'd be up all night again. Up for some coffee?"

"Um, yeah, I'm still here," Cameron said, getting out of the car and unconsciously re-adjusting her skirt. "Cafeteria coffee?"

"Being locked in a room with that man all day has driven you insane," Cuddy replied decisively, and Cameron couldn't help but grin at her wry tone. "No, meet me at Starbucks in ten."

"Sure," Cameron said, and carefully tucked the phone back into her purse. And if Wilson noticed her stupid smile on the way to his own car, this time he at least had the peace of mind not to mention it to House.

*

2. final score, one to zero

The television crowd roared and Cuddy called out, "Six to nothing already!"

"Already?" Cameron said, sounding disappointed as she emerged from the kitchen with two bottles of beer and the crackers. She set everything down carefully on the coffee table and then took a seat next to Cuddy. Next to Lisa, she corrected herself mentally, but she still thought of her friend as Cuddy. It had been too long for the lines to blur easily between boss and friend.

Cuddy reached comfortably for one of the bottles and then pointed at the screen. "Doesn't seem like the Dolphins are a good bet this year."

"I was just guessing," Cameron confessed, settling in with her own bottle.

"Well, it wouldn't be as interesting if we were rooting for the same team, would it?" Cuddy replied, leaning over Cameron's arm to grab a cracker. Her breasts, so carefully encased in a double-D bra and a cream-colored turtleneck, brushed Cameron's bare forearm, and for some reason, her arm hair stood on end. Cameron tried not to think about it, moving her hand casually, playing at this game. Cuddy hadn't made any indictation that she wanted more than friendship from this... friendship. Tacitly they'd agreed not to be any different at work. Neither wanted the extra attention from a certain lame department head.

Cuddy seemed to be thinking about him too. She took another drink of her beer and said, "Ten dollars says that Wilson and House are sitting there on his couch doing this exact thing."

"House likes football?" Cameron replied. "Doesn't seem like him." Though he was good at balancing that ball on his cane, she'd never seen any indiction of athleticism, nor a fondness for sports.

"Give me the phone," Cuddy said, gesturing at her cell. "I'll call him." Noting her flushed face, Cameron wondered if it was a good idea. She had the feeling that House would greatly enjoy toying with Cuddy when she was buzzed.

Reluctantly she handed her friend the phone, but then her own cell began to ring. She turned the volume down a little and answered.

"Told you the Dolphins would lose," a smug voice said as greeting. "Now get down here, we've got a patient."

"But it's Thanksgiving," Cameron tried to protest as the other team scored again and Cuddy laughed victoriously.

"So what? Are you really that busy? Are you sharing this super special day with someone super special?" House said, sarcasm and impatience evident.

Cameron looked over at the other occupant of her couch, blue eyes bright and free for once from shadow, liner, and mascara.

"No," Cameron said reluctantly, and House replied, "Fifteen minutes. Actually, make that five." He hung up abruptly.

Cameron threw the phone down on the coffee table and went to find her work clothes.

*

3. buzzed, like I'm running

"There's something different about you," House announced during their latest diagnostic. The new guys looked at her like deer caught in headlights. It had been impossible to replace Chase and Foreman when their contracts came up and they moved on to greater things. "Instead," House had said, "I will have minions." And he did. They were useless.

"What?" Cameron said. She hadn't been able to really explain to him the reason she was staying, and she'd been under his piercing watch for weeks now. Even Wilson had been sympathetic enough to pull her aside. ("No matter how well you think you're hiding whatever it is," Wilson had said, his eyebrow raised and his eyes sincere, "he'll find out. It'd be better if you told him now so he didn't jump to conclusions.")

"You, minion number one," House said, pointing to the blonde fellow who resembled Chase (in interest of "diversity," House said dryly, the other one was Asian). "Diagnostic on Cameron. I'm promoting you to white-board status."

The man rose promptly and then looked at her, clearly over his head. She rolled her eyes. House tossed the marker at him and he fumbled to catch it. In poor script, he wrote CAMERON across the top of the white board and underlined it.

"Symptoms," House said, rising to pace, mockingly focused. "Inattention. Smiling stupidly even more than usual. More sardonic remarks-- almost on a Cuddy level. Hmm."

The fellow took the dictation desperately, while the other one stared at her like he really thought she was sick. After all, when Gregory House said someone was sick, usually they grew nasty rashes or passed out or had seizures.

"Diagnosis, Dr. Cameron?"

"Don't you have some circle of Hell to get back to, House? Some poor soul who didn't receive your torment when alive?"

"Animosity, though no more than usual... Don't bother adding it to the board." He waved at the blonde man.

"I have to go," Cameron said, looking at her watch. House turned quickly and pointed his cane at her.

"To where, Dr. Cameron?"

"None of your business," Cameron said, rising and getting her coat. The Asian man was still staring at her. It was starting to tick her off.

"Do you have a hot date?" House said, waggling his eyebrows. She couldn't believe she'd ever found this man attractive.

"No," Cameron lied, shooting out the door. He watched her go without further comment.

She met Lisa half an hour later in their favorite restaurant, all thoughts of Gregory House banished from her mind.

*

4. laundry, warmly folded

Allison was amazed at how well the two of them fit together. She'd always had the unspoken assumption that men and women fit together perfectly because they were meant to be together. She hadn't realized how well two women could work together.

Lisa's breasts pressed against her back, moving slightly with each of her breaths. And Lisa's arm was thrown loosely across her stomach, resting near her belly-button. And Lisa's face was buried in Allison's hair, and...

They fit very well together, indeed.

"Do you love me?" Lisa muttered softly in her sleep, her voice trailing off into a snore.

"No," Allison lied, pulling the freshly laundered sheets up to her waist and shutting her eyes. Lisa didn't remember in the morning.

*

5. time, thick as milk

Time passed on, slick as silk, and when Allison got the invitation to Gregory House's retirement dinner, she lifted her eyes to the mirror and her hands to her head, checking for gray hair.

There was a little. More than she remembered.

"What's this?" Tom said, coming up behind her and putting his arms around her neck familiarly. He read the return address.

"Princeton Plainsboro? How long ago did you work there?"

"Long before I met you," Allison allowed, running a finger over the invitation. It said "Allison Cameron and a friend." But then again, who did she tell at PPTH when she got married? None of them had come to the wedding, that was for sure. It had been a small ceremony only three years ago.

"Are you going to go? This Gregory House... he was that guy you told me about, right? The crazy one with the limp?"

"He was brilliant!" Allison snapped, her finger still running over the name. Tom stepped back, offended.

"Sorry, didn't mean to get under your skin. Did you like this guy or something?"

"No, no," Allison lied (it was still a lie to her, even if that was long past). "Sorry for snapping at you." She turned and buried herself in Tom's arms, letting the letter drop to the floor.

There it would have stayed, but Tom picked it up and put it in the billbox along with all of the other time-specific mail. And after staring at it for a week, she sent in a reservation for Allison Cameron plus one friend.

House was much the same, just a little more hunchbacked, a little more bitter. Wilson had grayed drastically since she'd seen him last, his eyebrows like amusingly silver caterpillars. He hugged her and asked her who she was; her name had slipped his mind.

"Allison Cameron," she said automatically, "or rather, Allison Nichol. This is my husband, Tom."

There were pleasantries and there were speeches and the current head of PPTH stood up and spoke. And Allison scanned the crowd desperately for a beautiful woman with glass-blue eyes-- hating that she did it, and doing it anyway.

Lisa hadn't came, and Allison bit back her disappointment, leaning into Tom's shoulder and sighing just a bit. He mistook her regret for nostalgia and held her tight.

"Love you," she whispered in his ear, feeling it surge up in her blood, that flood of emotion. It was the same thing, the only thing, she'd said to Lisa the day that Lisa left. It hadn't stopped Lisa from going, but after a while Allison had left Princeton, and then there was Tom.

"Love you too," Tom whispered, and then they were standing to applaud the end of the Dean's speech, and that was that.

"I hope you diagnose the devils in hell," she said cheerfully to House as she left, shaking a misshapen, arthritic hand.

"Secretly," House said, leaning in, "I hope I'm diagnosing Cuddy. Hell for her and me."

Cameron laughed along with him, and at that moment, she didn't regret a thing.