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Differential of the Heart
by OldHamster
Chapter 1: "Greg, It's Me"
They were on his couch, watching a late-night airing of "The Twilight Zone," Cameron snuggled against House's left side, his arm around her shoulders. Neither of them had been able to get to sleep. Lovemaking did that sometimes. Endorphin rush.
House's phone rang.
"Are you going to get that?" Cameron asked.
"Machine'll get it. Don't want to miss the ending."
Two rings, House's gruff outgoing message, a beep. A woman's voice.
"Greg, it's me."
House tensed and felt Cameron's shoulders do the same. There was no mistaking that voice, and that greeting. Only one other woman would identify herself on the phone that way, and she was sitting beside him.
"I want to see you. It's over. Mark. He left." Cameron could hear the tears in her voice. "I-I want another chance with you. With us. Please call me."
Click.
Overused metaphors about tension and knives flitted absently through both their minds in the ensuing silence, which Cameron finally broke.
"I should go." She was staring straight ahead, her voice shaking.
"You're upset," he said softly.
"Ya THINK?" she snapped, turning angrily to face him. Her cheeks, which had gone stark white when she heard Stacy's voice, were now crimson.
"Oh, Greg, I'm sorry," she cried. "I don't want to go because I'm upset. I want to go because you need to think. You still love her. You never stopped loving her. I've known all along that this might happen, that she might come back. You have a decision to make."
"I don't want you to go."
"But-"
"I can think with you here. And I want you here. Don't go, Ally. Please."
He was the only one outside her family who called her Ally. It was the closest he ever came to a term of endearment. And he used it sparingly. On his lips, "Ally" meant "I'm serious. Captain Sarcastic and Sergeant Smartass have left the building. I'm speaking from the heart here."
She sighed. "All right. But I'll need a drink. Maybe two. Something strong."
Two scotches, and she'd fallen asleep with her head in his lap. "Lightweight," he whispered as he eased himself out from under her, placed a pillow under her head and covered her with a blanket. The two drinks he'd swallowed had done nothing to quiet his mind. He had a feeling he'd be up all night.
He poured himself another scotch -- a double this time -- and settled in his easy chair to run the toughest differential of his career. On his own heart.
Chapter 2: Differential
He started with the easy part. Time. He and Stacy had years together. He and Allison, closing in on one year. Stacy had a bigger balance in that column.
What about his feelings for each of them? So similar, yet so different. Like them. Both beautiful, brilliant women who could easily keep up with him intellectually and hold their own against his quick, often cruel wit. But with Stacy, the byplay always had a serious edge. Allison seemed to know instinctively where the line was between serious and playful.
That was the best his brain could do to put it into words. The question was: Which one did he prefer?
He saw his life with Stacy through the soft focus of nostalgia, his life with Allison in the crystal-clear light of a sunny autumn afternoon. Each beautiful in its own way.
Of course, there was the one Stacy memory that was in sharp focus. The one responsible for the cane that leaned against the table beside him and the little amber vial that sat atop it.
He'd pushed them both away.
With Allison, he hadn't wanted to be her project, a charity case like her late husband. But the Allison he'd hired, the Allison who wanted to fix him, was gone. The woman who lay on his couch tonight loved him just the way he was, damage and all.
With Stacy, she'd broken it off first, then found herself under his spell again years later when he was treating Mark. She'd wanted to come back, he had wanted her back, but he'd sent her away, knowing he could still never be the man she needed.
But maybe I could be ... now, he mused.
Another thought jumped up to answer that one: And whose doing is that?
The two thoughts multiplied until he was hosting what felt like a mental rugby match. Team Stacy versus Team Allison. He shook his head, trying to quiet them.
Consult, he thought. I need a consult.
He rose from the chair, picked up his cane and limped to the bedroom to use the other phone.
Sleep-blurred voice on the other end. "Hello?"
"Wilson, it's me."
"House, it's 3 a.m.! This better be important."
"Stacy called."
"My mother warned me to be careful what I wished for. Damn. OK, talk to me."
Chapter 3: The Verdict
Cameron awoke at dawn, the memory of last night filling her heart with dread.
I could lose him. No, I'm going to prepare for the worst. I AM losing him. Just have to get through it. Grieve. Then move on. Done it before. Just get through it.
Where was he? Asleep, she hoped. She tiptoed into the bedroom. Yes. He'd been so on edge that she feared he wouldn't get any sleep at all. She was glad to see she'd been wrong, even if it took three or more scotches to get him there.
She wanted to crawl in beside him but didn't dare disturb him. She returned to the couch, picked up a magazine, began to read and soon felt her eyelids growing heavy once more.
An hour later, she awoke again and went to check on House. She stopped just short of the bedroom doorway when she heard, instead of his snoring, the soft beeps of telephone buttons.
She stood frozen in place, waiting.
"Hey, got your message. Listen, I ... we ... Sorry. You know I'm no good at this.
"Stacy, I'm sorry. There's ... someone else. I'll tell you more in a letter, or an e-mail, if you want. Up to you. If not, then ... take care of yourself."
Cameron nearly collapsed with relief. She found her feet and covered the remaining distance to the bedroom. House was replacing the phone in its cradle.
"You heard?"
"Yes," she said, unable to manage anything but a whisper. It was as if the relief and accompanying emotions had tackled her and knocked the wind out of her. "Greg ..."
"What is it?" His voice had a tenderness she'd never heard before.
"A-are you sure?"
He didn't answer. He beckoned to her. The trip across the room -- a mere four steps -- seemed like miles.
She stood before him, still trembling, afraid to look at him.
He took her chin in his hand and tilted her head upward until their eyes met.
"I'm sure, Ally."
He folded her into his arms. They stood there, silently clinging to each other, for a long time.
"I want to know why you made the choice you made," she said at last. "But not now. Right now I just want to be happy you did."
"Understood. Now, who's up for some makeup sex?" His eyebrows waggled suggestively.
"Makeup sex? Did we have a fight?"
"I've been fighting. With myself. For hours."
"Well, then, maybe you should have makeup sex with yourself," she deadpanned.
"Did ... you ... just tell me to go f-" He stopped when he saw that her serious expression had been replaced by a grin. He burst out laughing. Soon she was laughing with him, and their laughter was washing over them, washing away all the tension, the confusion, the dread.
"Ah, you have learned well, Grasshopper," he said after he'd caught his breath. "Now, as I was saying ... "
Chapter 4: Two Infarctions
Afterward, they lay on their backs, holding hands and waiting for brain cells to regenerate. After a while, she rolled over on her side and propped her head up on her hand, elbow bent.
"Will you tell me? How you decided?"
"Long story," he said. "And complicated. But I'll try.
"I had another infarction."
Her eyes widened. "When ...? How ...?"
"Don't forget 'who,' 'what,' 'where' and 'why,'" he teased. "Slow down, Lois Lane." He took her left hand, which was lying below his rib cage, and pressed it to his heart. "It was here. Happened not long after the first one."
"Your hea-"
"Not the physical one. The other one. The one that gets all those sappy songs written about it. I think they picked the heart to be the metaphorical feeling center because nothing rhymes with 'pancreas.'"
She giggled. "Go on."
"You know Stacy was my medical proxy when I had the infarction in my leg. She was the one who decided to go with removing the damaged tissue instead of amputating the leg. And you know how that turned out. The pain. The cane. The Vicodin.
"I blame her for that, but I don't resent her for it. She knew I didn't want to lose the leg, and she thought she was doing the right thing. Besides, Wilson has enough resentment for both of us."
Cameron remembered a bar called O'Brien's and a long-ago conversation with House's best friend. "His pain isn't a boo-boo you can kiss and make better," he'd said. "It was a woman who inflicted much of that pain in the first place."
"Then, when she left," House continued, "she did to my heart what she'd done to my leg. Tore a piece out, left it damaged and aching. Vicodin? Totally useless on that one. Again, I don't hate her for that. She did what she had to do. And again, Wilson ..."
"Hates enough for both of you?"
House chuckled. "He blames her for making me the man I am today. The boy has selective memory loss. He seems to have forgotten that I was a bastard before the infarction. Losing the thigh muscle and losing Stacy just helped make me a bigger one."
"Greg ... did you call Wilson last night?"
"How'd you know?"
"Just a feeling."
"Intuition Girl strikes again!" he said, earning another giggle from Cameron. "It's not what you're thinking, Allison. He didn't talk me into choosing you because he hates her. He just gave me a sounding board, a place to set my thoughts down and sort them out. Kind of like the whiteboard we use for differentials. That's Wilson's superhero name: 'Whiteboard Boy.'
"I can't put into words all the reasons I chose you. But here's the big one.
"Infarction 2.0." He patted the small hand that was still resting on his heart. "It still hurts, but it's a dull ache now, not a screaming pain. Sometimes I even forget it's there.
"You did that, Ally. And that's why. One of the whys. Maybe I'll tell you about the others one of these days. But right now I've had enough talk about feelings to last me the next few months. Any more, and I won't be able to keep down the breakfast special at Jake's. Which only runs for another hour -- hint, hint."
She took the hint. "Let's go. All-you-can-eat blueberry pancakes are calling."
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Legal Disclaimer: The authors published here make no claims on the ownership of Dr. Gregory House and the other fictional residents of Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. Like the television show House (and quite possibly Dr. Wilson's pocket protector), they are the property of NBC/Universal, David Shore and undoubtedly other individuals of whom I am only peripherally aware. The fan fiction authors published here receive no monetary benefit from their work and intend no copyright infringement nor slight to the actual owners. We love the characters and we love the show, otherwise we wouldn't be here.
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