Not Everybody Lies

Chapter 4 - Lobby Art In Hidden Places

House just stood there, hidden behind the shadows and trees until Cameron said something that made Chase look up, smile, lean down to kiss her cheek and ruffle the baby's hair and then leave. It took him a minute to realize that Adams was waiting at the entrance to the funeral home - an almost terrified look on her face - and another moment to guess that probably that was what Cameron pointed to him, but once he did he couldn't hide his smirk as he watched his former employee leave his other former employee to go to yet another of his former employee.

Jeez, that's enough to give anyone a tongue-tie or at least a headache.

Well, thought House as his eyes shifted back to his first female duckling and he watched Cameron kiss the little bugger's blonde head - definitely not Chase's blonde - and start towards the plot where Wilson's body was destined to spend forever, at least the bugger's not Chase's! And somehow, because of some strange, unknown and unexplored reason - one which he wasn't going to explore or know any time soon if he had anything to say or do about it - that thought seemed oddly comforting.

Yeah, right, he thought, like I care who Cameron swapped fluids to make that bundle of joy.

Yet he continued to stare at her retreating figure for a while, long enough for the service to be over and to hear sad voices getting louder than he was comfortable with. Got to go, and go he did.

Even before the first person from the funeral home stepped foot into the warm autumn day, House was half way towards the place he'd chosen earlier as the closest place to watch his best friend being buried without being seen.

And he almost made it there, before spotting Cameron once more. She was crouching on the ground, holding her son's chubby little hands as he struggled to walk with as little help from his mother as possible. And the plece they were at was no other than the one House picked half an hour before.

"Fucking Lobby Art," House swore under his breath as he made his way towards his former duckling and her baby, though why he was heading that way, risking so much, he had no idea.

No fucking idea whatsoever!

---

Dylan had given her all the signs of a restless mood when Allison found a place, far away from the grave to not disturb anybody if her son should start acting out as she knew he would and still close enough to see the proceedings and pay her final respects to Wilson.

She was holding the toddler up as he tried, for what seemed like the hundred time that day only, to walk on his own. He was getting better, she noticed as his grip on her hands slackened step by step and through the sadness this place brought and the once caused by Wilson and consequently the memory of House, Allison found herself smiling almost against her will at her sweet little boy and his struggle to accomplish the impossible.

"Mammy... Dy, waky…" Dylan cooed happily after a few more steps making her smile grow wider still.

Allison lessened the grip on his hands and before she knew it, Dylan was making his first unaided step, as her hands hovered inches away from his small body ready at any sign to catch him. He then made his second and third and finally his forth step and before she knew it he was walking and in that moment, in that sad moment and even sadder place, Allison couldn't be happier or prouder of her son.

No AST's could top that!

"Yes baby, you're walking!" she said and had to close her eyes for a second as a hot tear squeezed its way through her eyelids and felt onto the dead leaves at their feet. It was a happy tear, the first one since Dylan's first word and in her opinion a tear to treasure.

"Yeah, great work kid," said a voice she heard so many times in her mid over the last year, that for a second Allison was sure it had been only her imagination or maybe the wind, but when she heard it again, "…you'll be chasing you're mum around in no time," she blamed it on sheer madness or God knows what neurological disease. The third time, when the voice that couldn't possibly had been there said her name, her former name, she did the only thing she could do without actually thinking about it: she screamed and grabbed her son, flattening him to her chest and making to rise, ready to flee madness and cemeteries and funerals and life altogether, with a scared, crying baby in her arms.

---

Idiot, he chided himself as he saw the way she tensed at hearing his voice, what the fuck do you think you're doing! She'll have a fucking heart attack or give you away way before you're ready… or both.

"Cameron," he tried again in a much softer voice as if speaking to a scared, wounded animal and for a second he thought he'd done it right. But he didn't even managed to finish gloating before she let out a high pitched shriek, grabbed the baby and without even turning, rose and started to run, only to stumble on her own legs and fall.

He wanted to scream too, scream at her she'd crush the boy, but before he even opened his mouth, Cameron had somehow rolled over only a fraction of a second before hitting the ground and landed not on the baby as he thought she would but on her side.

House cringed at the loud crack of her arm broking and at the shrikes coming from the baby, but most of all at the small sounds coming from Cameron who despite her obvious pain - and he knew first hand pain - was shushing her son, murmuring all sorts of encouragements in his ear. He just stared, dumb folded at the two, unable to say or do anything, until he heard voices and knew he had to act and soon if he wanted to have any chance of seeing Wilson's burial.

He crouched next to Cameron, extended his hands for her or the baby - probably the baby as she wasn't able to get up while carrying something anymore, not with a broken arm - and smiled despite everything when she opened her eyes and stared right into his.

"You're dead," she cried and he cringed once more at just how audible her voice was and how close the other voices where getting. A few more minutes and they'll be able to hear her.

"Yeah, well I got tired of being dead," he said in a voice so low he was sure she had trouble hearing it, but he couldn't take any chances. Not yet… not before - Not before I see Wilson off.

"I've lost it," she said and tears started running down her face. "I knew it. I've lost…"

"Your mind, yeah… probably about the same time you become a mother or came working for me, but who am I to judge."

"But you…"

"Died, killed myself, OD'd, burn to the ground… nope! Not my style, really. And for crying out loud give me the baby and get your not so bonny ass up, before anybody spots me."