Title: your rosary beads under the bed
Author: fated_addiction
Pairing: House/Cameron, Chase/Cameron
Rating: PG
Length: 22 935 words
Spoilers: General spoilers for season five.
Summary: The truth is she's had the letter since June. We carry our memories in too many ways.
Excerpt:

House is starting to walk past her.

Her mouth tightens, twists, but he barely glances back at her. There's no sense of acknowledgment and her shoulders relax, lowering as she passes him.

"Hey."

Or not, she thinks.

She stops, turning slightly. She waits for that obnoxious, almost imposing drawl of her name. But he's just standing there, studying her, as if he were waiting for her to push back. She blinks, confused, and shrugs, all the same, as if to say that she doesn't know anything at all.

"Hello," she murmurs.

His mouth curls slightly, his amusement more than obvious. He steps forward again, but she ignores him, still aware of him following her to the soda machine.

"So I met a guy at the bar."

He's teasing her. It's like a joke. She's not exactly sure how she's supposed to respond. Last night, it was the same thing - she's almost beginning to think of these moments as funny, crazy or not, and the way they still seem to walk into each other like this. She doesn't mean to, but it still seems to churn in its own direction. The case, months ago, was nothing more than incidental, and the little minutes that spun out where merely to subdue boredom, all on his end.

She doesn't want to talk what's happened recently, preferring to reengage herself with what she knows and what has stayed faithful to her. Familiarity is comfort at its best.

"What?"

But she can't help but be concerned, the sharpness in his voice making her stop and tense, underwriting any sense of quiet that she had been hoping to get before she heads home. He leans against the wall, watching her, and all she can think about is the locker room and how it's only a few turns in the other direction.

"A guy," he drawls, "at the bar."

Cameron and her brother Jaimie don't really talk. They exchange notes, letters, emails and photos, but they don't talk. At least not about anything of any real importance. But when Jaimie, who joined the army years ago much to their parents' consternation, comes to visit Cameron, all the the unnamed, unspoken tensions between brother and sister start to reveal the cracks and unsaid small faults in Cameron's relationship with Chase. The strain of so many small silences takes its toll on her, and she finds herself inexplicably drawn towards House.

fated_addiction's rich, dense prose creates a moody and atmospheric story. A wealth of everyday detail adds up to an inevitable, oppressive air where the simple act of washing one's hands takes on great significance. This is a great read for anyone inclined towards hints of House/Cameron and introspective character studies.


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