All characters belong to NBC Productions and suchlike. Please see closing credits. Standard disclaimers apply. Please send feedback. Past Tense Luna
Sometimes Wilson can see the mistake before he makes it. The highball glass he sets too close to the edge of the table, the words he wants to bite back before he's finished saying them, the exit sign glimpsed as it recedes into rear-view. Time slows down just enough for that moment of clarity, just enough so he knows he's screwing up. Not enough to stop.
He hears himself say to Cameron, "Well, we still have dinner reservations."
It's strange, being outside the hospital with her. Without the homogenizing effect of the white lab coat, without a patient's chart clasped under her arm, without worry creasing her forehead, she is truly, impossibly young and beautiful. Wilson becomes more aware of it when they arrive at the restaurant: strangers sizing them up, the automatic deference in the way the waiter pulls out her chair and fills her glass. He's out in public with a woman who looks like this and there's no denying the thrill.
"You've met them before, haven't you?" she says, after they've ordered.
He realizes he's been watching and thinking, listening without hearing. "House's parents," he says.
"Yeah."
"Sure. A few times. They're..." He shrugs. "They're like anybody's parents. I get a very carefully nonsectarian holiday card from his mother every year."
Cameron unfolds her napkin and closes her hands around it, her fingers lightly laced. "I'm glad I met them for a second, at least."
"Why?" The word comes out sounding slightly harsh. He drinks a little of the wine and tries to smile at her. "They don't know what's wrong with him any better than we do."
She doesn't say anything, and he leans back against his chair, the smile trapped on his face. At first it's quiet, but gradually the sounds of the restaurant wash in around him: glass and china, murmurs of sympathy and shrieks of laughter. There's a candle in a pewter dish on the table, its light flirting with Cameron's cheekbones as she takes a long sip from her wineglass. He loosens the knot in his tie.
The waiter turns up with the salads, his eyes never leaving Cameron as he places the plates on the table, with fresh cheese and pepper. She thanks him with such a sweet, open face that Wilson knows exactly what she must have looked like, Sunday mornings, as a little girl. "This is good," she says to him, after her first bite. "Thank you."
"Uh, you're welcome. I grew the lettuce myself."
"I meant for asking me to dinner. And for asking House's parents to dinner in the first place." She raises her left hand to smooth her hair behind her neck. "I like that I can talk to you."
"Well, thank you for that." He thinks his voice squeaks a little when he says this. "Sometimes it feels like I go for days without talking to anyone but patients."
"And House," she says, her eyes widening and focusing on his.
And House. Not, and your wife. He holds the gaze. "Yeah."
"We have that in common," she says. She prods her salad with a fork, but doesn't eat any. He isn't really surprised. Women who look like this always pretend to eat in restaurants, and anyway she wants to talk. She wants to ask questions. She eats information up, thrives on it; she can't stand inexplicable illness or unexplained pain. She's more like House than House can imagine, and this makes Wilson grin into his napkin.
"Go ahead," he says.
Her eyebrows lift gracefully and she sets the fork down. "Excuse me?"
"Whatever it is you want to know, go ahead and ask." He drums his fingertips on the table. "A couple weeks ago Cuddy mentioned that you basically interrogated her about how she knows House."
"How do you know Cuddy?" she counters, setting her chin in her hand.
There are a couple of possible answers to that question. He considers them for a moment and says, "The first time I met her was when I interviewed for the job I have. As you can see, I knocked her socks off." He lifts his glass in a sort of toast to himself, and drains it.
"I guess Princeton-Plainsboro can't be as small a world as it seems. Not so..."
"Incestuous?"
"I was going to go with, like, cloistered." She wrinkles her nose, but a smile's beginning to show at the corners of her mouth. "So. You lend House money?"
"Lent," he says. "Past tense. Never again."
"Okay, but--you trust him."
It's not a question. She says it with a solid diagnostic certainty underlying her voice. "Yes," he says, and his tone matches hers exactly.
"He trusts you."
Wilson doesn't like that he freezes at this, doesn't know why, but the tendons in his neck draw tight. Maybe she won't notice. She'll notice. "For House's definition of 'trust,' absolutely."
"And what does that mean?" She shifts forward in her chair, candlelight moving in the pupils of her eyes, her lips parted, her eyes very gentle and yet he's pinned to the spot. "Give me House's definition."
"May I take that for you, sir?"
The waiter steps up to collect Wilson's empty salad plate and Cameron's full one, his arm breaking the eye contact between them. Wilson is almost grateful. He orders another glass of wine. Cameron looks away across the restaurant and doesn't say anything, but the intensity in her posture, in her poise, doesn't diminish. He can feel her wanting to know. But there's no simple answer, no ten-words-or-less explanation for how this thing with House works. How it feels to take what he's willing to give, knowing how quickly he might change his mind, take it back, turn his back. What it costs. Usually Wilson doesn't look for words here, doesn't need them. Or want them.
He's starting to sweat. He drinks half of his freshened wine in one swallow, feels it slide into his bloodstream. "What you're asking is whether House trusts you," he says, meeting Cameron's eyes again. "And I can't answer that."
"Yeah. No." She lets out a sigh and her shoulders drop slightly. "He probably couldn't answer it himself, even if he wanted to. He talked to me for a moment today, about his parents, and I thought--it's just frustrating, that's all."
"You don't have to tell me."
"You're right. I don't." She sounds just a little surprised by this, but then she looks him in the eyes again, her smile coming in full force. It's a great one. "Dr. Wilson," she says, "ask me an invasive personal question so I don't feel like I've been the worst dinner date in history."
He's startled into laughing out loud. "You do realize you're up against some steep competition, right?"
"Yes." She laughs, too, swirling her glass. "Well?"
It strikes him then that she's used the word date. He shakes his head at himself. It's just a word; he's being an adolescent. He makes a couple of fumbly noises under his breath. "I don't need to--"
"Sure you do."
She doesn't let anyone off the hook. He likes that about her. He shuts his eyes briefly, trying to think of something. Anything. Something that isn't--
"Are you still interested in House romantically?"
--That.
He wants to apologize, but it's out there, spoken coldly into the warm air. Cameron's gone pale, pulled back in her chair, and he looks down, wondering what's wrong with himself.
They never should have attempted it, this dinner, this fantasy of sitting and talking and eating and laughing like anybody else. He knew better. He always knows better. The wine sours in his stomach. He wishes he was House so that he wouldn't care about how he sounded, or who he hurt. He wishes he was House so that nothing he'd say could push this woman away, but he's ashamed of the wish so quickly and thoroughly that he feels almost close to tears.
He bites his lip. She takes his hand.
Her fingers curve around his, her nails pink and perfect, her palm dry. "No," she says, as he raises his head. "Not romantically. Past tense."
Somebody nearby giggles, ringing a glass with a fork. The candle flame chases small shadows around between them, but they're both still. He looks into her face and sees that she's not as young as he keeps thinking--she's older, and wiser, and more than skin-deep. He wonders how close to him Cameron's trying to get, how well she's learned to lie, when she's going to let go of his hand.
He has the words for this moment; he's been here before. All he has to say is, we have that in common, too, and watch her smile blossom when she decides it's a joke. Let his toe touch hers under the table. Wait until after the entrée to mention how good she looks. Wait, and see.