Archive of Our Own ^beta

Autumn 2002

Chase’s expectations for the job were high.

Gregory House fulfilled the two criteria that Chase was looking for: renowned doctor, and a twenty-plus hour plane journey from his father.

His first day was a shock to the system – Dr. House didn’t say a word in greeting, not even a simple ‘hello’, then proceeded to rip through every single one of the other, older, team member’s suggestions, before pointing at Chase and ordering him to do a full round of tests – but Chase reassessed his expectations and came back the next day as eager as before.

Dr. House was a supposed genius, and geniuses could be eccentric. In fact, they almost always were.

The guy knew what he was doing, that much was clear, and if he was a good doctor, then that was good enough for Chase.

On his second day, Dr. House didn’t show up for work at all.

Chase asked his teammate, who hadn’t offered a name yet despite Chase introducing himself to him, who scoffed and called Dr. House a lazy bastard.

Chase hadn’t known how to react to that, so he’d just blinked, taken aback, and when his teammate strode out of the room, Chase trailed after him.

They ran through all of the tests that Dr. House ordered. They took the patient’s blood and urine and stool, and a dozen other things that seemed unnecessary for a preliminary exam – but Chase wasn’t going to question his new boss. Not on his second day.

His third day, Chase poked his head into Dr. House’s office with the hope that the genius would actually be in, but both rooms were empty. Disappointed, Chase headed for the labs and continued with the tests he’d started the day before.

Just before lunchtime, his pager went off: the patient’s stable condition had worsened drastically, and the old lady had gone into cardiac arrest.

Chase rushed to the room, but his teammate had already fixed the problem. Apparently, he was there when the woman crashed.

His teammate jerked his thumb towards Chase. “We need to tell House. Now.” He started down the corridor at great speed, coat billowing behind him.

“Won’t his pager have gone off?” Chase said, hurrying to catch up. “He should be on his way—”

“The day House answers his pager is the day this job becomes worth it.” His teammate glanced back, shooting him a look. “Seriously: it’s not worth it. Quit while you’re ahead.”

Chase was not expecting to be told to quit on his third day of in the fellowship. Even less so by his teammate whose name he still didn’t know, instead of his capricious boss. “Uh…”

“Sunk cost fallacy,” his teammate went on. “Ever heard of it?”

Wordlessly, Chase nodded.

“Good,” his teammate said.

They came to a stop in the hall outside House’s office.

Chase’s teammate took his shoulder, squeezing a little too tight to be comfortable, and used his grip to force Chase to meet his gaze. The intensity is even less comfortable. “I told you: quit.”

“I’m not going to quit,” Chase protested. “I—I only just got this job!”

“Oh yeah?” Chase’s teammate scoffed. “How’s your time here been so far?”

Not great. “It’s… It’s just a slight adjustment period.”

When his teammate shot him a capital-L Look, Chase bristled.

“This is only my third day.”

“Don’t leave it any longer,” his teammate said. “You do, you’ll let yourself get sucked into the insanity.”

Then he released Chase’s shoulder, and Chase quickly pulled back, rearranging his coat and clearing his throat as he tried to make it look like he hadn’t been manhandled by a colleague in the middle of the hospital corridor. On his third day.

“Come on,” his teammate said. “Patient’s dying.”

“That’s not—” Chase started to argue, but his teammate was already slipping into the conference room and out of earshot. “—my fault,” Chase finished, quiet, and let out a sigh.

It was going to get better. It had to.

He followed his teammate in.

“—patient crashed,” his teammate was already explaining as he took a seat at the table.

Chase took the opposite seat, settling down for another DDX and running over the options for conditions. This time, he was actually going to say something; there was no use being here if he never said a word. “BP’s back in range now, but her heart stopped for just over a minute. There could be some damage.”

Dr. House, stood by the whiteboard with his back to them, grunted.

Chase was sat right opposite his teammate, so he got to see the man’s eyes roll.

Straightening, he hesitantly said, “Are we sure she isn’t just…old?”

Then, Dr. House turned. His gaze went to Chase, eyes narrowing, as some expression that Chase didn’t understand crossed his face.

Chase shifted in his seat uncomfortably, trying to project confidence.

Without saying a word, Dr. House reached for his pocket and pulled out a cell phone. He flipped it open and dialed in a number button-by-button, and not once did he break eye contact with Chase.

The phone’s ring just about reached Chase where he was sat, but that’s not what he was worried about. Dr. House was probably calling someone with expertise in…old people? Chase didn’t know, but that’s why he was here: to learn. Dr. House was the genius, not him – not yet, at least.

What he was worried about was the way that Dr. House was staring at him.

The cell rang, again and again, before finally a voice came through.

Chase couldn’t hear a word of what this mysterious caller said, but he could hear Dr. House’s response.

“Hey there, honeybuns,” Dr. House said in a mockingly cheerful tone, without a single change to his facial expression. He maintained the intense eye contact with Chase, and Chase didn’t think he could break it off even if he wanted to. It felt like Dr. House was staring right through him, into his very soul. “How’s your day going?”

Indistinguishable noises from the other end of the line.

“That’s great to hear, sweet cheeks.”

More noises.

Dr. House’s voice took a turn for the fake-sympathetic. “I know, I know, snookums. Life can be so tough sometimes.”

The stare was getting weirder and weirder with each second that passed, made even worse by the sickeningly sweet things that Dr. House was saying without a trace of affection showing on his face.

“Um…” Chase finally said, an attempt to ask what was going on, but no more sounds made their way out of his throat.

Opposite him, his teammate put his head in his hands.

“Me? Well, that’s so kind of you to ask…” In his first sign of hesitation, Dr. House paused for a moment, like he was struggling to come up with another ridiculous nickname. Then, he clicked his fingers in sudden realization, lighting up. “Hot stuff!”

“Jesus Christ,” Chase’s teammate murmured, muffled by his hands.

“My new hire,” Dr. House went on, leaning in a little now, eyes narrowing further, “is an idiot.”

Chase reeled back, feeling like he’s been slapped, and Dr. House ended the call by decisively snapping his phone shut.

“If she was just old, do you really think I’d take her on as my patient?”

Chase blinked.

“Anyone in there?” Dr. House moved up to Chase and clicked his fingers in front of his face. The mocking, and the closeness, and everything else… Chase couldn’t help but flinch. He was normally okay at controlling himself, but the entire interaction had been hit after hit of weirdness, and he was off-balance.

“Yes,” Chase managed to get out, if only so Dr. House would move away.

The doctor did step back, and Chase relaxed a fraction with him out of his personal space, but he immediately gestured towards the door. “Good. I’d hate to be paying a braindead moron to work for me. Cuddy would never get off my ass about the expense. Just a moron, though? She’s used to that.” Dr. House cast a dismissive gaze across Chase’s teammate. “It’s cancer. Do a CT-scan to check for tumors, anomalies, and any other masses.”

“Her last doctor already checked for cancer,” Chase’s teammate said, but he sounded too tired to really care.

“Do I look like her last doctor?”

Chase’s teammate didn’t bother arguing. “…I’ll do the scan.”

“Take fresh meat with you too,” Dr. House adds, gesturing vaguely to Chase.

At that, Chase straightened again – maybe Dr. House didn’t think he was a moron after all – but already, House was turning away from him, stroking his chin in thought.

It was only once they were in the booth, their patient in the CT-scan and images starting to come through, that Chase dared to ask the question on his mind: “Is there really someone who’d date…him?”

His teammate didn’t bother looking away from the screens as he scoffed. “Of course not. It was a power play – it’s always a power play with him. You may not know how, and you definitely won’t know why, but every fucked-up thing he does is in the name of some game that only he’s playing.” Chase’s teammate leant forward, pressing the microphone to tell their patient to lay still.

“But—he’s a good doctor,” Chase said. “Right?”

As Chase’s teammate leant back in his chair again, microphone now off, he finally glanced over at Chase. “He thinks he is, and that’s all that matters to him.”

The next day, after the patient stroked out and nearly died twice more, Chase had front-row seats to Dr. House’s realization that it wasn’t actually cancer after all.

Within an hour of getting onto the antibiotics, their patient was sitting up in bed with a rosy flush to her cheeks, gushing about her grandchildren to everyone who’ll listen and many who wouldn’t. A week later, she went home, as healthy as any eighty-three-year-old could ever be.

Chase knew that House was a good doctor. No one else could have made the catch that he did, and no one else would have saved their patient’s life. It didn’t matter what his teammate said or thought; this was the best place for Chase to be.

Winter 2003

Two weeks into Chase’s time at Princeton-Plainsboro, his nameless teammate finally had enough of working for a man he clearly hated, and quit.

Three months on, House still hadn’t hired a replacement.

The workload had been a lot for two people to handle. For just one, it was back-breaking. When they had a case, Chase would spend days at the hospital, barely sleeping and surviving on cafeteria food and the vending machines alone. He quickly learnt which lounge had the best coffee maker, and that he could get away with napping in House’s armchair if the man was in a good mood, but would have to retreat to another couch when House was grumpier than usual.

But the bone-deep exhaustion that settled into him made him more prone to mistakes.

Mistakes like—

“How can you be such morons!”

—forgetting to ask a young patient’s parents if they made any trips out of the country without their son.

“You went on a nice little trip to the Congo three years ago, and you didn’t think to mention it?”

The parents – white, middle-class, more interested in getting their son out of the hospital quickly than getting him fully better, and wholly too much like Chase’s dad – both looked offended. “Mikey was only a month old. He didn’t come with us. There’s no way—”

House snorted. “Remind where you studied medicine?”

The dad, puffed up with reddened cheeks, stepped forward, fists balled at his sides. “It was three years ago. I didn’t study medicine, but I’m no—”

“—idiot?” House finished for him. “Wrong on that count too, actually.”

Chase glanced between House and the parents. After having to deal with their snide comments for the last week, watching them get wrung out by House was very satisfying.

“You think you can just come in here and yell at us?” the dad returned, getting up in House’s face. He was half a foot shorter than House, but double the muscle mass and not crippled. But he wasn’t going to punch House, even someone as horrible as him wouldn’t punch the guy trying to save his kid’s life. Right? “We’re very generous donors to this hospital, Dr. Cuddy said—”

House laughed. “I don’t care what she said.”

“You—” the dad started, jabbing a finger right up in House’s face.

It was at that moment that House’s phone started to sing the very inappropriately timed opening notes of ‘It’s Raining Men’.

The dad froze, a contorted kind of horror passing across his face. The break in the tension probably drove home exactly how out of line his behavior was.

House didn’t drop eye contact for even a second as he pried his ringing cell out of his jeans pocket and tossed it over to Chase. “Tell him I’m not dead, then get the kid started on the treatment.”

“Uh.” Chase caught the phone reflexively, but once it was in his hand, he just stared down at it, unsure what do next. “Do I—”

But House was already returning to his rant, and as soon as he was back, so was the dad, so Chase gingerly opened the phone and raised it to his ear.

“Hello?” he said, cautiously. Anyone calling House had to either love him or hate him. “This is—um.” He cleared his throat, and jammed a finger in his other ear to block out some of the noise. “This is Dr. House’s phone?”

“Is he there?” It was a man’s voice, but not one that Chase knew. In fact, he didn’t know that House even had any friends.

Chase glanced up, to where House and the dad are yelling at each other. “Not really.”

A heavy, heavy sigh vibrated the speakers. “Of course.”

Abruptly, Chase remembered what House had told him to say. “He’s not dead, though.”

“Well, that’s something at least,” the person on the other end of the line muttered.

The shouting rose another pitch in volume, and Chase looked back over his shoulder just in time to see the dad punch House square in the jaw.

House staggered back, cane dropping out under him, and his leg buckled without it, sending him crashing to the tiled floor.

“Oh god,” Chase said, and snapped the phone shut.

The dad moved back, a smug smile forming on his face.

House tried to use the waiting crash cart, which they’d to resuscitate the kid only twenty minutes before, to heave himself up, but half of the contents are still spread out across the hospital room, and without the added weight, the crash cart is pulled down onto House.

“Oh god.”

Chase grabbed the crash cart, shoving it off his boss, even as he yelled for hospital security, and hoped he hadn’t been lying to whoever House’s friend was when he said that House wasn’t dead.

Cuddy tried to pull House from the case after that, with the very reasonable argument that the patient’s father had violently attacked him in the middle of the hospital and shown no remorse after the fact, but House refused.

They’d already solved the case by that point: the mom had contracted Ebola while in the Congo, and passed it onto her young baby via her breastmilk. It was dormant in her, but not the toddler. If House had been taken off it, he wouldn’t have gotten to watch the parents faces when he revealed the answer to them.

Later, when the kid was on the right meds and looking like he was going to make it through, Chase sat across from House in his office while House rubbed his jaw thoughtfully.

“Did you have to get in his face like that?” Chase asked, curious.

“Hey, he punched me,” House said, mock-offended. He found the spot that a dark bruise was already starting to form, and grimaced. “It’s not my fault that Cuddy let a violent criminal into the hospital.”

“He’s not a criminal,” Chase pointed out.

“Should be.” House again pressed on the bruise, this time hissing out a pained breath, but his expression stayed thoughtful. “So, what did he say?”

“The dad?” Chase shook his head. “He wasn’t sorry, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“No, no, not the case,” House said, like this should have been obvious. “The phone call you took. What did he say?”

The phone call felt like it happened days before. It had been weird, but with the chaos that immediately followed it, Chase all but forgot his short conversation with the stranger. It took him a moment to dredge up the memory after House asked. “He didn’t say much. He seemed pleased you weren’t dead, though.”

House grinned. “Good.” For a third time, he pressed on the purpling bruise, but his smile didn’t wane.

The curiosity got the better of Chase. “Is he a friend of yours?”

The thoughtful, distant look vanished from House’s eyes as he gaze snapped up to Chase. That intensity always came right before mocking, so Chase braced himself for it.

“Oh, yeah, we’re BFFs,” House drawled, drawing out each of the letters of ‘BFF’ sarcastically. “Want to see our matching necklaces?”

Chase shut his mouth, flushing, and tried to not look too embarrassed.

“Get the paperwork written up,” House said, moving onto bored as he grabbed a file from his desk and tossed it at Chase. “Cuddy wants it on her desk by Monday.”

Chase caught the file against his chest, and frowned down at it. “But it’s Wednesday today.”

“I know,” House said slowly, like he thought Chase was an idiot. By that point, it was the usual way he talked to Chase. He reached for the Vicodin bottle balanced on the edge of his desk and rolled it around in his hand. “The parents were stupid to not tell us about that trip, but you didn’t ask them either. I need you to be at least a little competent to do this job. For that, you need sleep.”

“I’m—”

“—fine?” House snorted. “Yeah, right.” He shook his head, and popped the lid off the bottle; tossed two pills back. “Go home, Chase. Take a long weekend. When you come back, don’t make a mistake like that again, or you won’t have a job to come back to.”

Chase nodded.

“Now beat it.”

Chase hightailed it out of House’s office.

Summer 2003

Dr. House was a genius in the world of medicine. It was in everything else that he fell short.

Cameron had worked that fact out in just the first few weeks of her fellowship with him. He’d greeted her very enthusiastically – the other fellow, Dr. Chase, had seemed disgruntled by this – and proceeded to nod just as enthusiastically to every idea she suggested in their first DDX.

Leaving the meeting, Cameron hadn’t been able to stop smiling.

Then, an hour after she started the treatment that she’d suggested, the patient went into a coma.

After she’d tried everything she could think of and was left just staring at the man’s unconscious body, House’s voice floated over from the door.

“I guess we’ve learned why I don’t trust fellows on their first day.”

Cameron stiffened, shoulders hunching up, as she whipped around to look at her new boss. “I didn’t know—”

“You didn’t,” House agreed in a measured tone. Both hands resting casually on his cane, expression neutral, he looked like he couldn’t care less about the patient. “I did.”

Cameron couldn’t do anything but gape at him. “You—knew that this would happen?”

The patient was at a nine on the Glasgow coma scale, less than two hours after Cameron started treating him.

“You let me harm the patient?”

Dr. Chase, who Cameron had vaguely seen stood behind Dr. House, scoffed faintly.

Cameron bristled on instinct. “Is this some kind of joke to you?”

Immediately, Dr. Chase threw his hands up in surrender, eyes widening. “I didn’t mean anything by it!”

“Wimp,” Dr. House said to Dr. Chase, then: “Start the guy on broad-spectrum antibiotics.”

This was said to the room as a whole, but Cameron felt like he was addressing her anyway. “He’s got an infection?”

“No, I wanted to spice things up a little,” House mocked. “Things are getting too boring around here.”

Then he turned around and limped away.

Cameron was left standing in the middle of the patient’s room, embarrassed and angry and so unsure what to do next.

This was supposed to be a great job. Sure, there were rumors that House’s attitude and personality were lacking, but half the doctors in the hospital had probably had something nasty said about them at some point. House was renowned for his diagnostic skills. He cured the patients everyone else had given up all hope on. But with this—

“Don’t beat yourself up.”

Cameron was startled out of her spiraling thoughts by Dr. Chase’s out-of-place accent, and she glanced up just in time to see him move into the patient’s room.

“Trust me, that could have gone a lot worse,” he confided in her, even as he headed for the patient’s bedside.

Cameron let out a nervous laugh. “Really?” she said, doubtful.

“You don’t want to hear about my first week,” Chase said. “You definitely don’t want to hear about the guy who you’re replacing. He didn’t last the day.”

“Dr. House fired him on his first day?”

Chase nodded, even as he held out a hand and asked Cameron to pass him the Penicillin. When she did, he hung the bag up and started the patient on an IV. “Dr. House,” he said, “fired him before lunch.”

“Jesus,” Cameron said. “What did he do?”

The question made Chase pause. “You know, I never actually found out.”

“Couldn’t you ask the guy?”

Chase said, “When someone comes up with a way to speak to the dead, then sure.” He must have seen the shock on Cameron’s face, because he laughed. “Kidding. He’s fine. Alive and well.”

“You’re an ass,” Cameron told him.

“Maybe,” Chase said, shrugging a shoulder.

He started to check the patient over for any signs of improvement, and Cameron watched him.

After a while, she said, “So, why didn’t you ask him?”

“Who, your predecessor?”

She nodded.

Chase tossed his head back to get his floppy hair out of his face, and met Cameron’s eyes. “I did. If he knew the reason, he didn’t want to share.”

“Dr. House fired him without even telling him why?” Cameron asked, her earlier shock returning.

“The guy was an idiot,” Chase said. “He probably did something stupid without realizing, like try to write on House’s board or use House’s cup.”

Cameron could feel her eyebrows rising. “Those are fireable offences?”

Chase shrugged. “House is pretty set in his ways.” He offered Cameron a smile. “Don’t worry. You’ll get used to him in no time.”

Surprisingly, Cameron did get used to him.

Not just him, but the whole department, and the way that they worked.

House would arrive at whatever time he felt like, and retreat to his office for vast portions of the day, and skip clinic hours (apparently he’d managed not to do any since he was hired, a fact of which he was obscenely proud), but when it came down to the wire, he’d put in the work and come up with some insane solution, and he’d be right.

Chase was used to working all by himself, and was so relieved to off-load his work onto Cameron that he took her out for celebratory drinks once she made it through her first month without quitting and it had become clear that she was there to stay.

Cameron slotted in and found her own niche, which was caring about the patients in a way that Chase half-assed at best.

Underneath it all, House did care. Cameron could see it shine through sometimes, when he blatantly ignored Cuddy’s orders, or bulldozed over relatives who weren’t thinking straight, and always chose to do what he thought was right. House was good at his job.

Weirdly, she liked him.

It was on a good day, when they’d saved a patient with a (wrong) terminal diagnosis, and Cameron was riding on the high of watching the patient hug her children while House was on the high of solving a tricky puzzle and also the actual high of his Vicodin, that Cameron blurted out the question without thinking:

“Are you married?”

“God, no.” House’s response was fast enough, and visceral enough, that Cameron thought he was telling the complete truth for once. “Who have you been talking to?” he added, fixing Cameron with a horrified look.

“No one,” Cameron said.

House narrowed his eyes. “Likely story.”

“…Is there someone I should have talked to?” Cameron returned, a little pointed. Suddenly, she felt vulnerable and too-exposed, like she’d played her cards too early. The high was vanishing into a growing bubble of awkwardness in her stomach. Her question hadn’t been inappropriate – it was completely normal for coworkers to know about each other’s marital status – but her reason for asking probably was. “What, have you got a girlfriend whose hints you’ve been ignoring?”

House snorted, and his gaze dropped back to his video game. Something relaxed in the stiffened line of his shoulders, and Cameron was struck by the sudden knowledge that he had been worried because he thought she knew more than she actually did.

Which meant there was something to hide.

“A few overly enthusiastic hookers,” House said dismissively. “There was this hot chick in a bar who was all over me – you know how it is.”

Cameron huffed the bare bones of a laugh, shaking her head. “Yeah, right.”

House gasped in mock-offense, clutching an imaginary set of pearls. “You don’t think I’ve got a rocking hot bod, Dr. Cameron?”

“Uh—” Cameron could feel her cheeks heating at the question, and stuffed her hands in her pockets to give herself something to do. “Of course not, Dr. House,” she said, but her voice cracked halfway through.

The look that House gave her made it clear that she’d fallen short of convincing.

But a slight smile appeared on House’s face too, his cheeks crinkling a little with it, and maybe that was a sign that he wasn’t going to punish her for it.

Then House returned to his video game, and the moment ended.

Cameron stood awkwardly in front of his desk, clutching the finished file to her chest defensively, for the full minutes it took Chase to arrive.

The moment that Chase walked in through the door, looking too harried to be bringing anything but bad news, House cut off whatever he was about to say with a loud announcement of—

“Did you know that I’m not married, Dr. Chase?”

Chase said, “No shit. You don’t even wear a ring.”

“I know, right?” House said in a confiding tone.

Cameron felt her flush worsen. “Is there a new case?” she asked Chase, her voice too loud for the size of the room.

“Cameron wanted to know,” House went on. “I figured you might want to too. Given you’ve been working for me for…what, a few weeks now?”

“Ten months,” Chase corrected under his breath, but not loud enough for House to hear – or care.

House ploughed on. “And you’ve never once asked after my marital status. Does that mean you don’t want to do me?” He batted his eyelashes at Chase.

At that, Chase was the one to flush. “The case?”

When House allowed this change of topic with a, “Sure,” there was something very self-satisfied in his smile.

Cameron didn’t even want to know what he was thinking.

But she couldn’t help but be curious about whatever – or whoever – it was that House was trying to hide.

Winter 2003

“—and tell Hourani that if he ever deprioritizes my patients again, he’ll regret it.”

Cameron frowned at House, indignant in the way she always got when she thought there was some kind of injustice. Usually, those injustices were being done by House. “There was an emergency. You deprioritize other patents all of the time!”

Leaning back in his chair, Chase crossed his arms and looked up at the ceiling. “Our patients are usually about to die.”

“That patient was about to die!”

House didn’t look like he’d taken in a single thing that Cameron had been saying; Chase wasn’t sure what else Cameron expected to happen. “Switching his salt and sugar is too small,” House murmured, more to himself than anyone else. “I need something bigger and better.”

There was nothing else to be done for their patient, at least not until her surgery was complete. Once she had her new kidney in place and working to flush out her system, then they could focus on the real problem: her heart.

“You can’t punish him for doing his job,” Cameron said, fixing House with a look.

House didn’t budge. Instead, he widened his eyes in response. “Watch me.”

Challenging House never went well. Chase had only made that mistake once; he needed to stop Cameron before she went too far down the rabbit hole.

Loudly, Chase said, “So, what happens once Sarah’s kidney problems are solved?”

“We won’t be able to get a good look until she’s out of the OR,” Cameron said.

“She’s got a tumor,” House said.

Cameron shook her head. “Can’t be. Anything big enough to cause her problems would have shown up, even with the damage caused by the kidneys.”

“Not if it was somewhere important,” House countered. “The heart’s a delicate beast. Even a small change would upset everything, and explain all the problems that we’re seeing.”

Chase leant forward, letting the front legs of his chair drop back to the carpet, and frowned at House. “We’ve performed four different scans on her heart. If there was something there, we would have found it.”

“Oh, so you two are teaming up now?” House pointed at Cameron, then Chase, then back to Cameron.

“We’re not teaming up,” Cameron said. “We’re agreeing because we’re right.”

“And I’m not?”

“I’m not saying that—”

“That’s exactly what you’re saying,” House countered, eyes narrowing. “We have opposing ideas. If you don’t agree with me, then you disagree.”

Cameron lips pressed into a thin line.

“Ergo,” House went on, “you think that I’m wrong.” One of his eyebrows flicked up. “Or is there a flaw in my logic there, too?”

Cameron looked to Chase, but he did not want to get in the middle of that fight. House was defending this idea vehemently enough that he had to have figured something out that the two of them had missed.

Chase shook his head, just a fraction, to tell Cameron that he wasn’t going to fight this battle for her, and her jaw set angrily.

“You can be wrong, you know,” Cameron burst out, whipping back around to House. “Even you, House.”

“But I’m not wrong on this,” House said. “She has a tumor in his heart, and we need to find out where it is before it kills her.”

A heavy silence hung in the outer office for a long, stretched out moment.

Then the phone in House’s office began to ring.

Both Chase and Cameron turned to look.

It wasn’t often that House’s cell rang, let alone his office phone. The other professionals in the building had long since realized that having to answer the phone made House grumpy, so if they had a reason to contact him, they found other ways.

Whoever was calling must have been either desperate or stupid.

House lifted his cane from where it was balanced against the table, and used it to shove to his feet. The way he stalked over to the phone betrayed his annoyance at being interrupted, and Chase mentally settled in for a long phone argument.

He had to shift his chair to get a proper view around the wall of the office, whereas Cameron’s seat already gave her a perfect eyeline, and they both watched in silence as House grabbed the receiver.

But instead of saying a word, he just stood there, listening to whoever’s on the other of the line.

No berating, no yelling, not even a snide comment.

Minutes passed, and Chase wondered if House hadn’t gone into some kind of dissociative state.

A glance over to Cameron, whose brow was pinched and worried, told him that this was really, actually happening.

Then House spoke.

“I’m dumping you.”

Chase choked on air and air alone.

“Yeah, yeah, you’re heart-broken, blah-blah-blah,” House said, so callous that even Chase – who had seen House be pretty mean to helpless patients and kids alike – was agape. “See you tonight, at seven?”

He waited just a moment longer, presumably for an answer that wasn’t going to come because he had just ended a relationship with the person on the other end of the phone, then slammed the receiver down.

Then he came and sat back down in his seat like nothing had happened, casually propping his cane against his chair and looking expectantly to Chase and Cameron. “So?”

Chase asked, “Did you just…”

Cameron’s mouth opened and closed but no sound came out.

“Did I what?” House asked, hurried and irritable. “Come on, people, we’ve got a diagnosis to make.”

Cameron found her voice. “That was—cruel, even for you House.”

House doesn’t seem at all fazed. “Why?”

“How long had you been dating that girl?” Cameron demanded, her voice jumping up several tones in indignation.

House just shrugged. “Dunno. A few years, maybe.”

Chase’s jaw dropped even further. House had managed to date someone for a few years? Surely that has to be another joke. It couldn’t be true.

“You’re an ass,” Cameron said, a little shakily from the shock. “Call her back.”

Looking her straight in the eye, suddenly as serious as Chase had ever seen him, House plainly said, “No.”

Then he went straight back to the diagnosis, and refused to hear another word about whatever had transpired between him and his mysterious ex-girlfriend.

Spring 2004

Whatever had existed between House and his girlfriend wasn’t mentioned again. Some days, he came in with a spring in his limp and a weird joyful air to him, and Cameron could guess that he’d had some kind of one-night stand. Other days, he was especially grumpy, snapping the moment Chase slipped up, or Cameron said even one thing about ‘ethics’; Cameron liked to think that on those days, he was missing his ex-girlfriend and regretting the horrible way he’d treated her.

He probably didn’t. House was not the horrible person that so many made him out to be, but he never cared about people as much as he should. The jokes about hookers made that clear enough.

Time passed, and the diagnostics department became Cameron’s new normal.

They worked case by case, which meant that some weeks, there would be nothing to do but read through old files, solve whatever puzzles House put in front of them, and put in extra clinic hours. She’d get in for nine, and leave at five, and it felt like maybe it was a normal job.

Other weeks, they’d be elbow deep in someone’s guts – literally – and Cameron would grab two, maybe three, hours of sleep over the course of days, and she was like a corpse walking, but it made her feel fulfilled in a way nothing else ever had.

Most of her friends from med school didn’t get it. They’d survived their residencies and, now that they were out the other side, were getting nice, normal jobs at nice, normal hospitals. The few who lived in New York suggested a meet up every few weeks, and Cameron tried to go, but a case would always get in the way. There were only so many apologies she could make before they stopped inviting her altogether.

Cameron’s life slowly shrunk to Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital.

Chase and her grew close. Spend all your waking hours with someone, and that was what happened.

House remained an enigma.

“Did you hear?” Cameron asked one morning, stirring sugar into her coffee as she waited for it to cool down; she’d been first in that morning, as usual, so she’d emptied out the shriveled leftovers of yesterday’s batch and made a new pot.

Chase, wincing at the bright light filtering through the blinds as he nursed a hangover, turned his grimace towards her. “Hear what?”

Cameron tested her coffee, found it was still too hot, so set it down on the table with a sigh. “Massachusetts. They actually decided to legalize gay marriage.”

Chase squinted at her. “Good for them?”

“Good for lots of people,” Cameron said.

“Gay people,” Chase said.

“Yes.”

Chase just seemed confused. “None of us are gay, though.”

Cameron huffed, opening her mouth to remind Chase that they could appreciate things that didn’t directly benefit them, but then House came striding in.

“Shame,” he said, clicking his tongue. “You would have made an excellent twink.”

Chase choked on his coffee.

“Why are we talking about the gays?” House went on, dropping his backpack down onto the table with a very loud thud. Whatever he had in there was heavy.

Cameron said, “Neither of you read the news, do you.”

“I skip to the sports section,” House assured her. “Much more interesting.” He started to limp over to the kitchen, making a beeline for the nearly full carafe.

“Well, ‘the gays’ can now get married in Massachusetts,” Cameron told his back. “And yes, I’m already expecting the crude joke, so you don’t need to bother.”

She expected House to make the joke anyway. That was just who he was.

But instead, he missed a step.

Not because of his leg, either. It was his healthy leg that stumbled, and his healthy leg that had him gripping his cane for support.

House came to a stop. Even under his jacket, Cameron could see the muscles of his back tightening.

“Two men can get married? To each other?”

Chase peered at House through his fringe, frowning, though it wasn’t clear if that was from his headache and light sensitivity or his confusion. “Are you a secret believer in the sanctity of marriage or some crap like that?”

“No.” House started moving again. He reached the kitchenette and grabbed his red mug, still facing away from them.

Chase glanced at Cameron, a question written across his face, but she didn’t have an answer any more than he did.

Finally, House poured out his coffee, gulped the whole thing down in one go, then poured out another mug, and he turned around to face them. His expression was normal, no shock to show on it. “Did you expect me to jump with joy—” He pointedly wiggled his cane. “—that gay people can now give up their lives in the name of fidelity, same as the straights?”

“You don’t like marriage?” Cameron asked, narrowing her eyes at House.

House snorted derisively. “What’s to like?”

“Marriage,” Cameron said, “is about commitment.”

“Right, because everyone knows that no one can be committed to a relationship without a ring on their finger,” House snarked back.

“Of course you can be committed,” Cameron said. “Marriage just—shows the rest of the world that you are.”

“Married couples are more likely to cheat than non-married couples.”

“I…don’t think that’s true.”

“Look it up,” House said, but Cameron knew he was bluffing. “All marriages do is raise the time it takes to break-up from five seconds to months, or even years. It sticks already miserable people together for the rest of their miserable lives.”

Cameron dug her fingers into table. “Right, because every married person is just miserable.”

“Show me one who’s happy and I’ll show you ten who aren’t.” House flicked his eyebrows up dramatically. “Living in sin is better for the soul.”

“Alright!” Chase cut in, loud and clear. “You’re never going to agree,” he said, fixing Cameron with a look that said ‘really?’. “What’s the point in arguing?”

“Arguing is the point,” House said, and it had the ring of sarcasm to it, but Cameron knew that he means every word.

House was in a terrible mood for the rest of the week.

He barely sat down for even a second, pacing circles around the office until he had to be in agony with every step, but still he kept going.

Any suggestions from Cameron or Chase were met with mockery. Anyone who set foot in his office was yelled at until they went away. Their patient was a sixty-year-old woman being tended to by her devoted husband of forty-four years, and House made a nasty comment every time the husband was even tangentially mentioned.

The weirdest part was that House’s cell kept on ringing.

Once every hour, on the hour, it would go off. And every hour, House would completely refuse to acknowledge that it was even ringing.

He didn’t turn his phone off, though. He wouldn’t leave it behind in his office.

There were moments that Cameron wondered if he liked the phone calls.

It was on the Wednesday of that week that Cameron came in earlier than normal – she had to follow up on a clinic patient who worked the night shift, and so could only do early mornings – to find House dozing in his armchair.

“Are you sleeping here?”

At the noise, House startled, jerking awake with a cry to stare at her with wide eyes, chest heaving.

More restrained, Cameron repeated herself: “Are you actually sleeping here?”

“No, I was conducting a study into how back pain a chair can cause,” House said, closer to bitter than sarcastic. His hand went straight to his pocket, fingers scrabbling with desperation across the material of his jacket until he emerged, triumphant, with a familiar bottle of pills. Without any of his usual ceremony, he pried open the bottle with shaking fingers, and shoved two into his mouth.

As soon as he swallowed, the tension drained out of his body.

Cameron frowned down at him as he very slowly began to sit up properly, moving his leg down from the footstool like it was moments away from breaking. “Who are you trying to avoid?”

“I’m not trying to avoid anyone,” House muttered, but it sounded contrary.

“Then whose calls have you been ducking all week?” Cameron said, crossing her arms.

House’s cane had fallen away from him at some point. House balanced his elbow on the chair as he leant over, trying to reach it. “Insistent telemarketer. I stayed on the call for her sexy voice, and I apparently agreed to purchase a hundred blenders.”

“That’s not true.”

House gasped, even as he tried and failed to get his fingers around the rubber tip of his cane. “I can’t believe you’d say that to me!”

Cameron fixed him with a deeply unimpressed look.

“Come on, pass me my cane,” House said, dropping the act for a moment.

“Not until you tell me who you’re avoiding,” Cameron said. “And why you’ve been sleeping in the office.” Something occurred to her, the conversation at the start of the week, and she gaped. “Is this about the—the gay marriage?”

“It’s the good little Catholic in me,” House said, overwrought. “I can’t stand that the fags are getting to join the rest of us in holy matrimony. We’ll all burn in hell for this”

“You’re an atheist.”

“You’re right – it’s actually that I told this hooker that we couldn’t get married because I’m a tranny. Looks like that excuse has fallen through.”

“So it’s not about the gay marriage, then,” Cameron said. “You could just say that, you know.”

House lifted his head to eye her for a moment, like he was assessing how much she would believe.

Whatever he saw made him grimace.

“God, you’re too good.”

“Don’t try flattering me, either.”

“God, you really are too good,” House said, but the sarcasm was obvious that time. He finally caught the end of his cane, and pulled it towards himself with a triumphant cry.

“I am going to figure out what’s going on with you,” Cameron told him. “Chase and I are both educated doctors. Despite what you say, we aren’t idiots.”

House flicked her a look.

“Fine, Chase is an idiot,” Cameron amended. “I’m not, though.”

“Sure you are,” House said, and finally heaved himself to his feet. His leg must have hurt a lot in the mornings, because his limp was far more pronounced than normal. The fist on his cane was bone-white with how tightly he was clutching it for support, and his whole body shook with every uneven step he took.

Cameron watched him, but she couldn’t try to help. House would just shove her away with some misogynistic comment about how she only cares because she’s a woman. He didn’t mean that stuff, Cameron knew, but he used it as a way to get her to stop pitying him. House hated pity.

Almost like it was timed, or there were cameras in the office, House’s office phone began to ring the very second that he collapsed at his desk.

After days of hearing his phones ring near-constantly, Cameron automatically cringed at the harsh noise.

But, unlike every other time, House wrenched the receiver up to his ear, snarling out, “Get lost, Wilson. For once in your life, take a hint, will you?”

The vehemence of the words shouldn’t have surprised Cameron – House had ignored dozens of calls from this person – but it did anyway.

Whatever was said by the mysterious Wilson, Cameron couldn’t hear.

But she could see House’s reaction, and the way that he softened at the words was nothing short of miraculous.

“I’m not dead. You don’t think Cuddy would tell you if I’d kicked the bucket?”

So, this Wilson knew Cuddy, and Cuddy knew this Wilson.

“I know what you’re like, don’t pretend otherwise.” House rolled his eyes, but the gesture was fond. Cameron couldn’t help but stare. “I was there the last two times – why would this be any different?”

Wilson had to be a surname. House called everyone by their surname. And if it was a surname, then that meant it could be…

“You idiot,” House said into the receiver. “And I’m staying away the rest of the week anyway. If I don’t make my point then you’ll never learn.”

Something else was said, and House ducked his head and smiled to himself, a secretive kind of smile that Cameron had never seen on him before.

“You’re a sap,” he told whoever it was he was talking to, and hung up.

The way he stared at the receiver for a long moment after the call had ended, soft-eyed and affectionate, made something twist and ache in Cameron’s chest.

She cleared her throat.

“Was that your girlfriend?”

The question snapped House out of whatever happy place he’d been put in by the phone call, and his eyes flick up to meet Cameron’s gaze intently. “Don’t you have work to be doing?”

“It’s seven thirty in the morning.”

“Medicine waits for no man!”

Cameron didn’t shift an inch.

House grimaced, sagged, then said, “If you leave now, I’ll let you off early today,”

It was as close to begging as Cameron had ever heard him.

She left the room.

It was past midnight when Wilson arrived, and House’s team had all left hours before. Cameron was the last to go, shooting House a pitying look as she pulled her coat on, but House had ignored her.

She could pity him. She could have a crush on him. It didn’t matter as long as it didn’t affect her work, because no matter what House told her sometimes, she was a good doctor. Also, because House didn’t want to deal with that mess.

Wilson hadn’t visited House’s office much, normally too busy with his own work over at Princeton General, but he knew both it and House himself well enough to walk straight in without bothering to gawk at House’s collection of stuff.

He dumped the plastic takeaway bag on House’s desk, on top of House’s files, and ignored House’s protests as he grabbed a few boxes from the top and slouched into one of the chairs with a heavy sigh of relief. “You didn’t come home again.”

“I told you I wouldn’t,” House said, frowning across at Wilson.

Wilson made a huffy little noise, fixing House with an unimpressed look. “Just—eat your dinner.”

“I already had dinner.”

“Then eat your midnight snack,” Wilson retorted. “I don’t care what you call it, just…” He trailed off, waving a hand towards the bag of food. Chinese takeaway, by the look of it.

House shrugged a shoulder, and reached for the remaining boxes. “Okay,” he said, backing down. If all Wilson was here to do was feed him, then there was no issue. It was the other thing that he didn’t want to talk about. He frowned at one of the boxes. “Moo Shu pork?”

With another sigh, Wilson settled back in his seat and opened his own food up. “And orange cashew chicken.”

House made a noise of approval.

“I do know your Chinese order,” Wilson said, annoyance coloring his tone.

“Forgive me for thinking you don’t know what I want,” House bit back, sharp. He stabbed his chopsticks into his food.

Wilson tipped his head back and shut his eyes. “I’ve learned my lesson, House. You don’t need to keep making your point.”

“You’ve been married twice!” House retorted, dropping his box into his lap.

“Don’t act like my second divorce wasn’t your fault.”

“I seem remember a healthy amount of tongue action on your part, too.”

Wilson never failed to smile at that memory, despite the mess with Bonnie that had followed, and a small smile graced his lips then, too.

It didn’t change anything.

“Now that all the queers are—” House shook his head, incredulous. “—flocking to Boston for their spring weddings, you obviously want to go for a hat trick.”

Wilson opened his mouth, smile disappearing as he went to respond, but House pushed on before he could, jabbing a chopstick towards him.

“Don’t pretend you haven’t thought about it.”

“Of course I’ve thought about it,” Wilson said, loud, exasperated. “Of course I want—” He cut himself off abruptly, looking down and to the side. Measured, low, he got out, “I know your feelings on marriage, House. I know there’s no point in asking, because I’ll only be disappointed.”

“Good,” House said, and it was hoarse.

“Good indeed,” Wilson murmured, before rubbing a hand across his face. “Look, I’ve missed you the last two nights, and I know your leg’s hurting from sleeping on that ridiculous chair. If you come home tonight, I—I… I pinky-promise I won’t propose to you.”

House settled back into his seat, grabbing his food again and shoveling some into his mouth as he kicked his feet up onto his desk. Around his full mouth, he said, “I told you, I’m making a point.”

“You’re punishing yourself more than you are me.”

House could see right through that argument: Wilson had dark bags under his eyes, his tie was crooked, and he’d missed a button on his shirt. He hadn’t been sleeping either. “Yeah, right.”

“I’m enjoying having the bed to myself for once,” Wilson said, flat and dry. “I always forget how much of a space-hog you are.”

“You love it,” House tossed at Wilson. He took another bite of his pork. It tasted a little funny – had the Chinese place changed the recipe? Last time the Chinese place did that, he and Wilson had to find a new Chinese place.

“You’re lying to yourself,” Wilson said, but his eyes crinkled in that way they always did when he was feeling fond.

House grunted, but didn’t deny it.

“How’s your team doing?”

“Fine,” House said. “Cameron has a crush. Chase, too.”

Wilson’s unimpressed look returned. “Right, because why wouldn’t they fall in love with you?”

“I’m very distinguished,” House said around another mouthful of pork.

“Of course,” Wilson said sardonically.

“And I said crush, not love,” House added. “Don’t project.”

“You know me.”

House swallowed his food down, then frowned at Wilson. “Did you put something in this?”

Wilson’s eyes widened for a fraction of a second, startled, before a smile grew on his face. “Of course,” he said, far too self-satisfied to do his ego any good. “How else would I get you home?”

“I hate you,” House told him, but his office was already starting to dim at the edges of his vision.

“You can tell me that in the morning, once you’ve actually had a full night’s sleep.”

“I’ll hate you in the…” House blinked, losing his grip on his train of thought. “What was I…”

The last words House heard before he fell unconscious were, “You’re an idiot, House.”

Then everything slipped away into a fuzzy field of dreams.

Autumn 2004

Foreman seemed like a nice enough guy, by Cameron’s estimate. Too rigid to ever truly get along with House, and entering the fellowship with the usual complete lack of awareness of what he was walking into, but nice enough.

Cameron offered him the pot of coffee on his first morning, and as he took it from her, he thanked her. That was more than House ever did.

Chase arrived a few minutes late, because they have no case and House wouldn’t be there on time to check anyway, but upon seeing Foreman, he said, “So, you’re the new guy, huh?”

Foreman put on a polite smile, and held out a hand for Chase to shake. “Eric Foreman. I specialize in neurology. I look forward to working with you.”

Chase returned the greetings, then added, “So, you have met House, right?”

Foreman nodded, the gesture short and sharp. “He interviewed me.”

“…And so you know what he’s like?”

“I do,” Foreman said, but his calm professionalism was fading into something suspicious. He cast an eye across the office. “Will Dr. House be arriving soon?”

Cameron wrapped her hands around her coffee mug, enjoying the warmth. Autumn was on its way out, with Winter drawing in, and the heater in her car had broken. “He’ll get in in a few hours.”

Foreman somehow stiffened further. “Hours?”

Giving him a sympathetic look as she passed him, on the way to her desk, Cameron nodded. “No case right now.”

“House doesn’t like alarms,” Chase added.

“He doesn’t like…” Foreman’s nostrils flared, the only sign of his frustration. Otherwise, he remained perfectly restrained. “That’s—Interesting.”

Chase laughed. “Don’t worry. You’ll get used to it.”

House was in by ten-thirty, which was good by his standards, and loped straight into his office, tossing his bag onto his armchair and yelling through the open door, “Anyone want a salad?”

The moment that House had emerged from the elevators, Cameron had nudged Foreman, who’d straightened in his seat and smoothed his suit jacket and tie back into place, chest puffing up as he readied himself for his first day at a new job.

Chase, too, reacted to House’s approach with his usual enthusiasm, pushing the crossword away and craning his neck to watch House arrive.

When all that came out of House’s mouth was a question about a salad, Cameron grimaced, closing the file she’d been working on. She wanted to say that it was Foreman’s first day, and that House should probably at least give him a simple ‘hello’, but she couldn’t bring herself to. House would react however he wanted to react.

House popped his head back around the door, frowning at the three of them. “Salad going once, going twice…”

“What’s in the salad?” Chase asked, like he actually wanted it.

“Presumably salad,” House answered. Then: “Is that the new boy?”

Cameron could feel Foreman stiffen, even from where she was sitting a foot away.

“Eric Foreman,” Foreman said tightly. “You hired me.”

“I obviously remember,” House said, which meant he didn’t remember at all. “Do you need a salad?”

“No,” Foreman said.

“Oh.” House’s brow furrowed. “And you’re sure about that?”

“I’ll take it,” Chase put in.

House clicked his fingers towards Chase. “Sold, to the over-eager blond.” He moved back to where he’d dumped his backpack, pulled out a clear plastic container with something that look vaguely like a salad crushed inside, and as he moved to join them at the table, he tossed the box to Chase.

Chase caught it, grinning, and then looked down at the box itself. His face fell. “Why does this say that the contents are poisonous?”

“Some idiot’s idea of a joke,” House answered with a shrug. He had another box in his own hands, which he dropped onto the table by his usual seat.

Chase turned the box to show Cameron the lid; sure enough, someone had scrawled across it in black marker, labelling it with symbols indicating a highly toxic substance.

She gave him a sympathetic look, then turned to House, already preparing for some angry pediatrician to storm in at lunchtime upon the realization that their lunch was missing. “Which fridge did you steal it from?”

“I didn’t,” House said, and sat down heavily at the head of the table. “Check for laxatives, though,” he added in an aside to Chase, putting on a mock-grim-look. “You’ll probably be fine, but no one likes to spend a day in the restroom, splattering their insides across the bowl of a toilet.”

Finally, the ridiculousness of his first morning at a job that was supposed to be renowned and not insane caught up to Foreman, and he burst out, “You loaded a salad up with laxatives?”

House shot him a look that said that he considered Foreman to be moronic already, as he opened his own plastic container. The shape, size, and color were all the same, suggesting that the sandwich inside had been stolen from the same person as the salad, but this one was labelled with House’s name. Like it was for him. “I didn’t put the laxatives in. The paranoid guy who made the salad did.”

Cameron didn’t point out that the guy who made the salad, whoever he was, was right to be paranoid. Instead, she said, “You’re in early. Do we have a case?”

“Not yet,” House said. “But it’s been four days. If I don’t do something soon, Cuddy will explode. She’ll bring us something interesting by…” He checked his watch. “…midday.” Then he bit down on his sandwich, and looked to Chase. Around a full mouth of food, he asked, “You solved the crossword yet?”

Cuddy brought them a case by eleven.

Winter 2004

Foreman adjusted to being in the team soon enough, and though there was some tension at times – he clashed with House in ways that Chase never had, especially not just weeks into the job, and questioned Chase and Cameron in ways they hadn’t really thought to do to each other – things soon settled into a rhythm.

Three team members made the division of labor even better, and Chase finally had some time for himself. If he maybe let Foreman and Cameron take on some of his share as well, who could blame him? When he’d started out, it had been just him for months and months.

Foreman didn’t like that attitude, Chase could tell, but he did all the work that he needed to.

Christmas came, but then House found a sick nun in the clinic right before the holidays, so Chase couldn’t get the time off to go back to Australia. Instead of a barbeque with his old uni friends, some surfing, and watching the cricket, he had to endure the miserable, wet, damp snow of New Jersey.

Christmas passed, and the terrible weather remained.

It was on one of those nasty days, where everything was covered in a layer of dirty sludge and Chase had been looking forward to a weekend of relaxing in the warmth of his apartment after a long week at work, that his pager went off.

New patient. A thirty-something woman who was sleeping eighteen-plus hours a day. Cameron had found her, and Cameron was insisting they all go in.

Chase called her. “This is ridiculous.”

“It’s a case.”

“House is never gonna go for it.”

“He will,” Cameron said with misplaced confidence.

“I’m not coming in in this weather just to be sent right back home again, because you thought you could get House to do something he doesn’t want to do.”

“Cuddy said yes.”

“Cuddy,” Chase said, cramming his phone between his shoulder and ear to wedge it in place as he rummaged through his drawers for a clean tie, “isn’t our boss.”

“She’s our boss’ boss,” Cameron countered. “She says yes, and there’s only so much House can do. Why do you think he’s finally started doing his clinic hours?”

“That’s different.” Chase found a tie that looked clean enough, and slung it around his neck. “She actually cared enough to fight on that one.”

“And I care enough to fight for this.” Cameron sighed. “Look, House isn’t answering my page. You live closest to him. It’ll add barely five minutes onto your journey.”

Chase stopped tying his tie. “I am not going to go and bother House on his day off. Do you have any idea how pissed he got last time I tried? Only reason I’m not hung, drawn, and quartered is because the case actually turned out to be interesting.”

“The patient’s life is at risk,” Cameron said. “Do you really want to let her die because you’re afraid to talk to your boss?”

House’s apartment was on the ground floor. He’d been living in the same place since before Chase started working for him, and he’d probably be living there long after Chase moved onto a different job.

For any other doctor, Chase would say that not answering a page meant he was sleeping, drunk, or dead. For House, it could mean anything from an interesting soap to rocking out on his guitar.

Sure enough, when Chase knocked on his door, shifting his weight nervously from foot to foot, it was only a few minutes before House wrenched it open and squinted out at Chase.

The first thing Chase noticed was the brightly colored apron with ‘Kiss the Cook’ printed in cursive across the front. It was stained by dye, and smeared liberally with what looked like brownie mix. Was House actually baking?

The second thing he noticed was that House looked happy. His cheeks were flushed, his eyes bright, and the remnants of a smile was only just fading from his face.

“Not answering my page isn’t an invitation to come over and bother me. If anything, it’s the opposite of that.”

Chase held his hands up in surrender. “I told Cameron, but she insisted.”

House snorted. “One of these days, you’re going to need a backbone, and you’re going to be sad to find that you’ve lost yours. Me, I’ll point and laugh.”

Chase frowned at that, straightening a little. “I have a backbone.”

“No, you don’t.” House wiped a hand off on his already dirty apron, then held it out, wiggling his fingers expectantly. “File?”

“Don’t have it on me,” Chase said, apologetic. “I only just got the page. I came here on my way in.”

“So I’m expected to go into the hospital on the weekend for a patient who probably just fed Cameron some sob story about a nasty case of the runny nose?”

“Sorry,” Chase said with a shrug. “That’s the job.”

House grimaced, glanced back into his apartment like there was something better to stay here for – Chase could see a monster truck roaring across the edge of the TV through the crack in the door – before he said, “Tell Cameron that if this is a waste of my time, she’s taking my clinic hours for the next month.”

“Will do.”

“And that she better have the blood tests started by the time I get in,” House went on. “It’s the weekend, for god’s sake.”

A crash came from deeper inside House’s apartment.

Both Chase and House flinched at the sudden loud noise, but House recovered quicker, whipping around to shout inside.

“Stay away from my stuff!”

A male voice shouted back: “There’s mold, House.”

“Bacterial cultures!”

“It’s mold.” Then, a choked noise. Quieter: “You have a visitor?”

“Employee,” House corrected, and turned back to Chase.

Chase’s eyebrows had shot up against his volition, and he blurted out, “You have a friend over?” before he could think better of it.

“Hooker,” House deadpanned.

“…That was definitely a man’s voice.”

“Male hooker.”

“Right,” Chase said. Whatever was going on with House, Chase wasn’t going to get an answer, not when House had that look on his face. Chase could swear it was boring holes straight into his brain. “Uh, look.” Chase grimaced, scratching along his eyebrow with his thumb. “Cameron wants you in, Cuddy wants you in… Can I tell them that you’ll be there?”

House sighed dramatically. “If I’m not sat in my office in an hour, send out a search party!”

“I’ll let Cameron—” Chase started dryly, only for House to shut the door in face. “—know!” he finished with a shout.

Then he slumped.

That could have gone a lot worse.

Who the hell was that in House’s apartment, though?

When House eventually got in – two hours later, not one – he took Cameron’s case willingly. Apparently, her intense interest sparked an interest in him, or something. If Chase hadn’t experienced firsthand just how terribly the man treated his girlfriends, he might think that House was going after Cameron, but they all knew that Cameron would never put up with behavior like dumping her over the phone.

The case turned out to be their usual flavor of mystery, and everything was quickly swept up in the mad rush to figure out what was wrong with their patient before she died.

It was in some of the downtime, when they had nothing to do but wait for their test results to show, that Chase asked the pathology lab at large, “Do you think House has friends?”

Foreman immediately snorted. “Have you met the man? What do you think?”

“He’s committed to his job,” Cameron said, side-eyeing Foreman. “That’s not a bad thing.”

“There was someone at his place yesterday morning,” Chase said, chewing thoughtfully on the end of his pen.

“House had someone over at his apartment?” Foreman said, eyebrows shooting up. Then he caught his shock, and chuckled, shaking his head. “Was she a hooker?”

“He wasn’t,” Chase said, emphasizing the fact that it was a man.

“So what?” Cameron said. “House is allowed to have friends.”

“I never said he wasn’t allowed,” Foreman corrected, “just that I don’t believe he’s capable.” His gaze flicked back to Chase, even as he slouched back in his chair, crossing his arms. “You sure it wasn’t a woman with short hair?”

Chase shook his head. “I didn’t see the guy, just heard his voice, but it was definitely a man.”

“I don’t believe it,” Foreman said.

“Believe it.” Chase wrinkled his nose as the memory of the overhead conversation came back to him. “They had a conversation about…mold.”

Cameron fixed him with a look. “You’re making this up.”

“I’m not!” Chase protested. “I swear!”

“Weren’t you the one insisting that handsome old House is definitely nice enough to make friends?” Foreman said to Cameron. “What, now you don’t think he is?”

“I think that Chase wants to waste time,” Cameron answered primly. She took the edge of the table and used it to stand. “I need to check on Elise. Do either of you doctors want to do your job too, or are you just going to sit around, gossiping about our boss?”

Chase and Foreman shared a commiserating look.

“I’ll come with,” Foreman said, pushing to his feet too.

They left together, and Chase rested his feet on the table, leaning his chair onto its back legs as he frowned at the centrifuge.

House had a friend. It wasn’t the first time Chase had caught wind of that fact, but it still hit him with the same amount of shock. There were a million other explanations, of course: a brother, even though House had never mentioned siblings; a boarder, even though House would never let some stranger into his space like that; a parent, even though Chase was sure that no man like House could get on well with his father. He wasn’t sure that anyone in the world could get on well with their father.

Sometimes, he thought he had House pretty much figured out: eccentric genius with no personal life – as he himself had declared to Chase, on more than one occasion – whose only true passion was solving medical mysteries. Other times, like these, he realized there was a hell of a lot he still didn’t know about his boss.

Winter 2005

A strangely sizeable number of their cases came from House disappearing for half a day before calling the office telephone and having all his fellows gather around to hear him announce that they had a new puzzle to solve.

It took months before Foreman finally noticed the trend.

House had returned to the hospital from his wanderings, riding with the patient in the ambulance, and as the paramedics carried the woman over to the ICU, House started towards his office, expecting them to fall into step behind him.

Foreman had read the faxed-over file while waiting for House to arrive, and the case did not seem worth their time. “Runny nose, slight temperature… Why are you even taking this case?”

“Why are we even taking this case?” House corrected. “Don’t you know there’s no ‘I’ in team?”

Foreman exhaled sharply through his nose. “That’s not an answer, House.”

“Isn’t it?”

“It isn’t,” Cameron cut in. “And why are we taking this case?”

House half-turned back, to quirk his mouth at Cameron. “Because it’ll save me from a serious case of blue balls.” He looked back down at the file, brow furrowing in thought, like he hadn’t said something insane.

Foreman stopped and blinked once, twice, before sharing a look with a gaping Cameron. “You took this case with the intention of sleeping with the patient?”

“The fifty-eight-year-old with a history of…” House squinted at the file. “…incontinence? Sure, sounds like my lucky day.”

“Who else would sleep with you because you saved her life?” Cameron said.

“Oh, I don’t know,” House said. “She probably has some pretty young daughter who’ll be ever-so-thankful.”

“Four sons, according to the medical history taken at Princeton General.”

“Looks like I’ll be taking one for the team, then,” House said with a suggestive wiggle of his eyebrows.

They arrived at the elevators, but when House went to call it, Foreman caught his arm. “You transferred this woman from Princeton General just to treat her. There has to be some reason for it.”

The glare that House shot him had Foreman immediately letting go, but House stopped anyway, grimacing. Rubbed a hand across his brow. “Look, I owe another doctor a favor. This is them, calling in on that favor. That’s all.”

Cameron’s expression went from confused to deeply and profoundly exasperated. “We’re taking this case because there’s some woman at Princeton General whose pants you want to get into.”

House broke out in a grin. “Oh, you’ve got me there. Guilty as charged!”

“Wait.” A thought suddenly occurred to Foreman, and he held up a hand. Everyone turned to look at him. “The last case you brought in from another hospital… That was General, too.”

Chase’s eyes widened. “And the case before that too, that kindergarten teacher everyone thought had brain cancer. She was at General before she came to us.”

“Do you actually know someone at Princeton General?” Cameron asked House, giving him a strange look. “Is it—” Her eyes narrowed. “Have you got a girlfriend again?”

“I most definitely do not have a girlfriend,” House said, a little too sharp to be a reasoned response. “And we have a patient who’s going to die unless we save her, so leave your conspiracy theories about my personal life at the door and focus, people.”

Spring 2005

“One-hundred million dollars?”

Cameron nodded.

“That’s insane,” Chase said.

“That’s business,” Foreman said. “We’re small, we’re famous for one thing, we’ve got lots of impressionable young med students around, willing to work for pennies… It had to happen eventually.”

“I never even heard of this guy, and apparently he’s a billionaire?”

Cameron paused in sorting the book on the bookshelf – alphabetical order by first name – to give Chase a look. “That says more about you than him.”

“It says more about Cuddy than Chase,” Foreman said.

“PPTH is only on the map because of her,” Cameron said. “Vogler must really want to work with her, I guess,” she went on, surprised by the thought.

Foreman raised an eyebrow. “Sure. It could be that,” he said, but he was doubtful. “Or it could be that Vogler sees a hospital he can mold into his image.”

Cameron stood, folding her arms across her chest. “Cuddy is not going to let him walk all over her. Not all women are willing to do everything the men in their life tell them to, you know.”

“If someone gave me a hundred mil,” Chase snorted, “I’d do pretty much whatever they wanted me to.”

“Wow. What have I walked into?”

Foreman immediately turned, to find House stood by the door.

Chase whipped around too, but his cheeks were flaming up as he spluttered. “You know I didn’t mean sex.”

“Sure you didn’t,” House said, suggestive in the same way he was sarcastic, staring at Chase with his weird, pale eyes.

Foreman shook his head and tried to shift the focus around to why House would be here. “We have a case?”

House didn’t break eye contact with Chase. “Nope.”

“…We’re going to have a case?” Foreman tried again.

“Nope.”

Foreman sighed, heavy, and waited for House to play out whatever dramatic moment he’d decided that he wanted today.

It didn’t take long: in just a few seconds’ time, House was breaking that eye contact with Chase and brandishing a crumpled piece of paper in the air. “This,” he announced, “is a phone number. Whoever signs it up to the funniest call list wins.”

Chase held his hand out for the paper, but House didn’t move an inch to give it to him.

“Don’t we have cases to solve?” Foreman asked.

“Not right now,” House said, shrugging.

“Work to do?”

“‘I’m your boss’ plus ‘I’m telling you to do this’ equals ‘work’. I know med schools will let anyone graduate these days, but I’d expect you to at least know some basic math, Foreman.”

Foreman grimaced. “I know math, House.”

House made a disbelieving noise.

“Whose phone number is it?” The question came from Cameron as she left her stacks of medical textbooks to wander over to the table. “Another doctor?”

House’s lips pinched together as he thought about that, before he answered, “Whose number it is doesn’t matter.”

“It does,” Cameron said. “How are we going to know what will be most inappropriate for them if we don’t know what they like and dislike?”

“You’re going to have to guess on that one,” House told her. His eyebrows raised, a satisfied look appearing on his face. “And does that mean we have a taker?”

“Are you seriously going along with this?” Foreman asked, frowning at Cameron. He’d expected more from her.

“What else are we going to do?” Cameron gestured back, to the bookshelf. “I’ve just spent the last day organizing a bookshelf. Before that, it was catching up on all of House’s old files. Before that, I pulled a six-hour shift in the clinic.”

House made a face at that last point.

“Point is,” Cameron went on, “there’s nothing better to do with our time.”

“Other than taking a case,” Foreman said.

“If House isn’t going to take a case, he isn’t going to take a case.”

“She’s right, you know,” House said, leaning forward to put his head in the middle of Foreman and Cameron’s eye line. To Foreman, he said, “How about if I put fifty bucks on it?”

Foreman straightened. “Fifty bucks each?”

“Total.”

“Let’s do each.” Foreman cast an eye over Cameron, then Chase. “Unless you’re too pussy to take part?”

Cameron said, “I already agreed.”

Chase said, “Might as well, right?”

House’s grin was nothing short of delighted. “Let the games begin!”

Foreman went with quantity over quality. Two dozen different sites advertising scantily clad women had to be better than just one, and would have a far more tangible impact on the life of whoever’s phone number House had given them. Each site would probably call once every week or two; two dozen sites meant more than twenty calls, every week.

“Who do you think House hates enough to do this to?”

Chase’s question was the first thing said in the office in over an hour, and Foreman and Cameron shared a suspicious look before turning to Chase.

“He said he wouldn’t tell us,” Cameron said, slow and considering.

“Right, and there’s no way to find out who a phone number belongs to,” Chase said. The words were practically dripping with sarcasm.

Foreman pinched the bridge of his nose. “Who is it, then?” That House enlisted them all to make this guy’s life hell said that he must have done something to really piss House off. A little part of Foreman was curious to know what that could have been

Chase squinted at his laptop screen. “It’s some…oncologist, over at Princeton General.”

Immediately, Cameron was on her feet and crossing the room to look over Chase’s shoulder. “The mystery woman?”

“You mean, the one whose pants he’s trying to get into,” Foreman said with a snort.

Cameron shot him an unimpressed look. “We don’t know that.”

“We know that,” Foreman said, indicating himself and Chase. “You’re the only one with a personal investment in House being single.”

“It’s an oncology guy,” Chase said, his nose wrinkling up. “I mean, I guess House could be trying to get into his pants…” He glanced up at Cameron as he trailed off pointedly.

She shoved at his shoulder. “Shut up, Chase.”

Chase laughed, shaking his head. “Well, this isn’t the woman that House is after. Maybe it’s the woman’s boyfriend?”

“That does sound like House,” Foreman had to admit. “Torturing the guy to get him to dump her.”

“I’m sure it’s not that,” Cameron said. “This oncologist probably just stole a patient from him or misdiagnosed someone or something.”

“So have a dozen other doctors,” Foreman said, “yet none of them are having a competition made of their torment.” He glanced at his laptop screen, where a nearly-naked model was caught on film, mid-wink, and sighed heavily, before beginning to type in this random oncologist’s phone number onto the site’s notification list. At that point, he could have recited the number in his sleep. “Whatever this guy’s done, it must be pretty serious.”

Suddenly, Chase tensed, eyes growing huge as he spotted something over Foreman’s shoulder. “Watch out, Cuddy’s here.”

Immediately, Foreman clicked out of the porn site and switched over to the tab he’d kept open on an experimental new cancer treatment for this exact reason.

Cameron whipped away from Chase’s laptop, shooting down to the end of the table and grabbing a sheaf of papers like having something in her hands would make her look less guilty.

Chase just straightened and tried to look pleasant, in that pretty-boy way of his.

The door swung open, and Cuddy stepped into the room; all of them looked to her, Foreman needing to twist around in his chair to do so.

She looked exasperated. “Which one of you has been watching porn on the hospital net?”

Chase’s expression froze on his face.

Cameron launched into a coughing fit.

Foreman said, “You must be mistaken. None of us have—”

“Yeah, yeah, cut the crap.” Cuddy’s gaze moved across the room as she picked her way through Chase, then Cameron, then finally Foreman. “So, what the hell is going on?”

“There must be a mistake,” Foreman said. “We – I—” he amended, glancing at Chase and Cameron too, “would never misuse hospital devices like that.”

The frown Cameron shot him was irritated. “None of us would,” she told Cuddy.

“Well, I’ve got a computer report on my desk that says otherwise.” Cuddy crossed her arms, squaring her shoulders. “Tell House that Vogler’s already on his ass. I really don’t need this right now.”

“It’s got nothing to do with Vogler,” Chase blurted out, and both Foreman and Cameron rounded on him.

But Cuddy had heard it, and there was no going back. She was a bloodhound catching a scent, zeroing in on its prey. “So you are looking up porn in the office?”

Foreman glared daggers at Chase. Two-hundred bucks in the pot, and House would definitely end things if he found out they’d tattled to Cuddy. They’d never hear the end of it.

“It’s just a stupid bet!” Chase said, loud, spreading his arms wide. “There’s some guy over at General who House wants us to screw over.”

At the word ‘General’, Cuddy’s mouth twisted. “Don’t tell me—Princeton General?”

Cameron nodded, brow furrowing. “Yeah. Do you know…”

“I can’t believe this,” Cuddy said. “Wait, no, I can. It’s House, for God’s sake.” Her eyes snapped to Cameron. “And yes, I know the man in question.”

“What did he even do?” Cameron asked with some kind of morbid excitement.

“So many things,” Cuddy groaned. “So many stupid things. If there is a man out there with worse choice in romantic partners… well, I haven’t met one.”

At that, Chase perked up, exchanging a look with Foreman. Sounded like they were right about House being jealous over whatever woman he wanted to sleep with at Princeton General.

“Tell House to cough up whatever money he owes you,” Cuddy said, “and put an end to this nonsense. It’s enough having Vogler in, questioning my every decision. I don’t need more of House’s crap to top that all off.”

The second that she was gone, Chase shot to his feet. “I told you!”

“There are a hundred different interpretations to what Cuddy said,” Cameron scoffed, dropping the random collection of papers she’d picked up at Cuddy’s entrance back onto the table.

“Are there?” Foreman said, giving her a look.

“Yes. There are.”

“Is one of those interpretations ‘I’m so in love with you, Allison, I could just die’?” Chase adopted a ridiculously gravelly voice for his House impression, and it startled a laugh out of Foreman.

“Hilarious,” Cameron deadpanned.

“This is clearly about a woman,” Chase said, gesturing to his screen. “This oncology guy and House must be in some rivalry.”

“Well, rivalry or not, he’s going to be getting some nasty phone calls this week,” Foreman said, shaking his head.

Cameron narrowed her eyes at him, suspicious. “How many places did you sign him up for?”

And, just like that, the competition was back on.

(Also) Spring 2005

If House had been willing to swallow his pride for just one hour, they could have all made it through Vogler’s reign unscathed.

That would have been conceding, though, and of course House refused to lose like that.

Some part of Cameron wanted to hate him, but she couldn’t. In the end, all House had done was refuse to compromise his principles. Rather than force him to choose between her or Foreman, Cameron took the choice into her own hands. Better to leave willingly than find out who House really valued more.

She didn’t want to find out that it wasn’t her.

The two weeks that she wasn’t working were strange. Cameron made plans with friends she’d been too busy to see for months or even years, and started a regular exercise regimen instead of the haphazard way she normally fitted things in between shifts, and even considered cutting her hair.

The friends weren’t as interesting as she’d remembered. The regular exercise couldn’t substitute the hours spent on her feet at work every day. And the haircut was a stupid idea that she backed out of the second the scissors got anywhere near her.

None it was enough anymore.

House came knocking with news that Vogler was gone, and when Cameron looked into his eyes, she knew that she couldn’t go back to the way things had stayed for so long.

She asked him on a date, and he stared at her for a long, long time before he said yes.

“You said she had a crush.”

“She does!”

Wilson fixed House with an unimpressed look, rounding the couch. “A crush is someone getting a little giggly when they think you’re cute. This girl coerced you into dating her.”

House shrugged. The motion was too stiff to be anything but a deflection. “Not dating. One date. One itty-bitty, tiny, little date.”

Wilson moved past him and into the kitchen, heading for the sink. He needed tea or coffee or something stronger. Maybe all three at once. “What’s the plan, you kiss her at the end of the night? Slip a little tongue in?”

“Well, I don’t know, I was planning on seeing where the night takes us,” House snarked back. His cane clicked on the kitchen tiles as he limped after Wilson. “You shouldn’t force these things, you know.”

“You like her?”

“No!”

House came to a stop by the kitchen island, and Wilson half-turned to look back at him.

“No, I don’t—” House cut himself off with a frustrated noise, turning away to rub at his stubble. “I don’t like her, Wilson. You know that. I just…” He sighed and tilted his head back to look up at their ceiling. “I like my team. I like how we work together. I don’t want to hire someone else. If taking Cameron out on some date is what it takes to put things back to the way they were…” He turned back to Wilson, looking at him with a wide, open, vulnerable expression.

Wilson shifted his weight a little. Well, if House was going to look at him like that… “No kissing,” he said, this time the sternness erring closer to a joke than genuine.

The corner of House’s mouth quirked up, but that vulnerability didn’t go away. “What are you gonna do about it?”

“Do I need to chaperone you two crazy kids tonight?”

House barked a laugh at that, but shook his head.

Then, Wilson returned to his frown. “Is Chase’s crush a crush, or is he in love with you too?”

“Neither of them are in love with me.”

“You say that…” Wilson didn’t like not knowing that kind of thing about House. He didn’t like that this had all been going on over at Princeton-Plainsboro without him knowing a thing about it.

“Is this the jealousy talking?” House returned, adopting a shocked expression.

“No,” Wilson immediately said. He dropped his hands, gripping the edge of the sink. “No, it’s not.”

“I’m pre-tty sure it’s jealousy,” House said, drawing out the ‘pretty’ for effect.

“I’m not jealous.”

“Sure you aren’t,” House agreed, too genial. “And I’m the straight, single, unlikeable guy my idiot fellows all think I am. Never had a dick in my ass, no sirree.” He waggled his eyebrows at Wilson.

“They got one out of three right,” Wilson muttered, refusing to rise to House’s suggestion. Not when he was going on a date with another person in just a few hours. “Two out of three, if you’re not home before midnight.”

“Sure thing, mom.”

“Eat your greens,” Wilson said, playing along.

House’s genuine smile returned, and he ducked his head. Wilson let go of the sink; moved up to the island. “I couldn’t get her back any other way.”

“You didn’t try that hard,” Wilson said softly, catching House’s free hand in his own. “But I know.” Then, he raised an eyebrow and sardonically asked, “You want me to dress you nicely for your date, or would you rather keep your extra-marital affairs out of our bedroom?”

“It’s not extra-marital when we’re not married,” House exclaimed, loud and exasperated.

“We’ve been together for seven years, House. That’s longer than most marriages.”

“Longer than any of your marriages.”

Wilson huffed an annoyed breath. “Right, and I’m the one going on a date with someone else here.”

“So you admit it, you’re jealous.”

“I am not jealous!” Wilson went to pull away from House, but the House’s fingers tightened around his own, holding him in place.

House grinned. “You so are.”

“She’s a beautiful, twenty-something doctor who dotes on you, day and night,” Wilson said. “Why would I be jealous?”

“I’m no genius,” House said, his voice taking on a thoughtful tone, “but I think you just made my point, there. And it’s not day and night,” he added with a roll of his eyes. “That’s a—”

“Last month? Four times, you weren’t home until past five in the morning. Two times, you didn’t come home at all.”

“That’s my job,” House complained. “It’s not— I was like that before Cameron ever came along, and you know I’ll be like that after, too.”

“It’s not before or after,” Wilson said. “This is during.”

“What else am I supposed to do?” House asked. “Quit?”

They both knew that House wouldn’t do that in a million years. That job was everything to him. Wilson wouldn’t ask him to give it up, even if he did think House would agree. No other hospital would tolerate House like Princeton-Plainsborough did, and no other hospital administrator would allow him to do the things he did on a daily basis.

On the other hand, Wilson’s job…

He immediately squashed the idea down, and smoothed over his anger. Put a smile on his face that immediately had House on guard.

“Go on your date. Tell her you like her earrings, and her shoes, and talk about her D.H.A. – dreams, hopes, and aspirations,” he clarified before House had to ask. He narrowed his eyes, the only outward sign of his discontent. “Spend one evening with a pretty girl on a nice, normal date, and pretend that you don’t have an angry boyfriend waiting up for you to get home.”

House’s throat bobbed.

“You’ll be charmed by her doe eyes,” Wilson went on, “and she’ll laugh at your jokes, and when you leave the restaurant, she’ll wonder if you’re going to ask her back to yours.”

They were close enough that when House breathed out, his hot breath tickled against Wilson’s cheek.

“She won’t know that this apartment is ours. She won’t know that you’ll never belong to her. She won’t even know that you’re a lecherous old man who only agreed to this date because he’s flattered that someone as young and pretty as her is still so attracted to him that she’s willing to blackmail him for it.”

House made a very faint little wounded noise. If Wilson were any further away, he wouldn’t have heard it. No one else would ever hear that noise from House.

“And if I smell even a hint of perfume on you…” Wilson finally pulled his hand free of House’s now-lax grip, stepping back from the kitchen island. House’s fingers tightened a moment too late, his brain lagging behind, too caught up on Wilson’s words. Just like Wilson knew he would be.

House just stared at him for a long, long moment, before he licked his lips, cleared his throat, and hoarsely asked, “You’ll do what?”

Wilson set his mouth grimly. “Oh, you don’t want to know.” He stepped around House, heading for their bedroom. “Wear one of my ties. All of yours are terrible,” he called back over his shoulder.

The rest of the night, House wouldn’t be able to think about anything but him and his tie and this apartment. Exactly how it should be.

The next day, he emailed Dr. Lisa Cuddy, asking about the open position in Princeton-Plainsboro’s oncology department. It had been too long since he worked in the same building as House.

Summer 2005

Everyone at Princeton-Plainsboro was talking about the hot new Head of Oncology.

Cameron could see it: Dr. Wilson was handsome, with sharp cheekbones and floppy hair and warm eyes. When the nurses in the clinic gossiped about whether Dr. Wilson was available or not, and Chase put in his two cents that he hadn’t seen a ring on Dr. Wilson’s finger, it made them all giggle.

Nurse Cutler had grinned flirtatiously and asked why there wasn’t a ring on his finger yet, and Cameron had cringed.

Dr. Wilson was renowned for his expertise in oncology. Everything Cameron had heard since he’d started at the hospital a week before indicated that he was empathetic and caring towards his dying patients, and just and fair towards his staff. Doctors like him steered well clear of the diagnostics department, and House steered well clear of them.

Unfortunately, no one seemed to have passed that message onto Dr. Wilson, because when Cameron came into work one morning, Dr. Wilson was sat neatly at their table, sipping from House’s red coffee mug and flipping through one of their files.

From the polished French shoes, to the shiny green tie, to the obviously blow-dried hair, Dr. Wilson was put-together and professional. In other words, the exact opposite of House.

Cameron stilled in the doorway, holding the glass door open. “Hi,” she said, trying to be friendly. “You’re Dr. Wilson, right?”

Dr. Wilson closed the file and set it down on the table, looking up and giving her a smile.

Chase was stood in the kitchenette, clinging to the counter for dear life and looking deeply, profoundly confused.

“I am,” Dr. Wilson said. “You must be Allison Cameron.”

“Uh—yes.” Cameron wasn’t expecting Dr. Wilson to know her name, not so early on, but maybe Chase already introduced her, or maybe it was because she was the only woman in the department; that tended to make her stand out. “It’s a pleasure.”

She moved up to the table to hold out her hand, and Dr. Wilson shook it. “The pleasure’s all mine,” he said, in the way that people did when they didn’t mean it but felt they had to say it anyway.

No explanation as to why he was here.

Cameron flicked Chase a look, furrowing her brow slightly in question, and Chase just shook his head wildly.

“Do you need a consult?” Cameron asked.

Dr. Wilson nodded genially. “Yes. I do.”

Cameron shot another look at Chase, who shook his head even more wildly. “Well, what seems to be the problem?”

Dr. Wilson said, “I’ll wait for Dr. House, but thank you for your kind offer,” and Cameron suddenly understood Chase’s desperation.

“Oh, I’m—I’m not so sure that’s necessary,” Cameron said. “You may not know House, but he’s really busy.”

“Really, really busy,” Chase emphasized.

Something flickered across Dr. Wilson’s face, there and gone in a flash, before the polite smile returned once again.

The name had been niggling at Cameron for the last week, but she hadn’t put two and two together until that exact moment and that exact reaction to House.

Oncology doctor. Previously worked at Princeton General. Went by the name ‘Wilson’.

This was the guy House had them prank only weeks before. This was the guy that House hated.

“Is he busy with a case?” Wilson asked.

Cameron said, “Yes,” before she could think any better of it.

There was no case – but they couldn’t have another new department head hating House. Not already.

But for some reason, Wilson simply shook his head. “That’s a shame,” he said, mild, “but I’m sure that Dr. House can spare some time for me anyway.”

Again, Cameron looked to Chase, and again, he just looked panicked. After everything that happened with Vogler – Chase had traded in for his own benefit, and Cameron had traded in for everyone else’s – Cameron wasn’t feeling very sympathetic.

“Chase can refill your mug,” she said, noticing that it was empty and seeing a golden opportunity to give Dr. Wilson any mug but the one that belonged to House and House alone, “and I can—”

“Thank you, but I don’t need a refill,” Wilson said. Then: “Will Dr. House be arriving soon?”

“He’s probably busy with something else,” Chase finally answered instead of leaving it all to Cameron, and released the kitchen counter to gingerly move across the room and join her. “Obviously, he doesn’t spend all of his time in the office. He’s very busy.”

Something weirdly close to amusement flashed in Wilson’s eyes, and the man looked down at his mostly-empty coffee mug. House’s mostly empty coffee mug. “Of course,” he said, and it was dry.

Five seconds later, Chase hissed, “He’s here!” and Cameron whipped around just in time to watch House round the corner and limp into his office, dumping his backpack on his chair and heading straight for his desk.

“We’ve got a visitor,” Cameron called through.

“Tell him to go away!”

Cameron looked to Dr. Wilson, flushing at House’s rudeness – they really didn’t need the new Head of Oncology to hate them before the end of his first week – but he didn’t seem at all disturbed. That calm expression remained on his face.

“I have a case that might interest you, Dr. House.”

House froze at the sound of Wilson’s voice.

Blinked several times.

Pulled back a step, to get a proper look at the man sat at their table.

Wilson met his blank gaze and held it. “Patient with thyroid cancer metastasized to his brain.”

Cameron expected House to declare that to be boring. If the previous Head of Oncology had brought that to him, he would have laughed in the man’s face.

House just kept staring.

Wilson went on: “He’s experiencing Exploding Head Syndrome.”

Cameron frowned. “Regularly?”

“Every night for the past two months,” Wilson said, breaking his intense eye contact with House to turn to Cameron with a grim smile.

“Anything significant happen two months ago?” Chase asked, folding his arms as he furrowed his brow in thought.

“It started the night after his last course of radiation.”

Cameron said, “Well, that’s unusual.”

Wilson huffed a short laugh. “I thought so too.” His focus returned to House. “So, will you take the case, Dr. House?”

House’s mouth opened, closed, then opened again, before he finally got out, “You’re the new Head of Oncology.”

“You didn’t pay attention to the announcement last week?” Wilson said mildly. “That’s a shame.”

“You bastard,” House said, but he sounded more surprised than angry. “You knew I wouldn’t.”

“The case?” Wilson prompted.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” House waved a dismissive hand. “Cancer, loud noises at night— Why are you here?”

“I work here,” Wilson said. Then, he lifted up a file. “Will you take the case or not?”

House gestured for Cameron to take the file; she did so, flipping it open and scanning over the basic details. “Cancer’s in his brain. Obviously, that’s where the exploding head is coming from.”

Wilson shook his head. “No.”

House’s face wrinkled. “Why, because you don’t want it to be?”

Wilson’s gaze cut over to Cameron. “Dr. Cameron?” he prompted.

She’d just reached that part of the file. “They did a sleep study,” she told House, folding the back of the file over to bring the front up to her face. “Abnormal brain activity was nowhere near the tumor.”

“Maybe the exploding head didn’t happen that night,” House said.

“It did,” Wilson said. His eyes narrowed a fraction as he looked at House. “Interested yet?”

House grimaced. He was still stood in the doorway to his office; he still hadn’t come any further into the room. The looks he was giving Wilson were still confused.

But this was an interesting case. Cameron knew it, Chase knew it, and Foreman would too as soon as he got in for the day.

House groaned loudly and burst into sudden motion, striding over to Cameron and holding his hand out for the folder, wiggling his fingers expectantly. As he went, he asked Wilson, “But why do you work here?”

“It’s this strange little thing called a job,” Wilson said, completely deadpan. “Perhaps you’ve heard of it.”

“Shut up,” House complained.

Cameron did not understand what was going on between these two men. They’d all assumed that House hated his Princeton General oncology guy, and he definitely didn’t seem to like him in that moment, but whatever was going there wasn’t hate either. Something else was crackling between them, like lightning carving through a dark sky, leaving the air charged and uncomfortable.

“Get him in for an MRI,” he told Chase and Cameron, frowning down at the file.

Wilson’s brow furrowed at that as he looked unsure for the first time since Cameron had walked in. “I already did an MRI.”

“No, your pretty young nurses did an MRI,” House said. “Very nice, I’m sure, but now my qualified doctors are going to do one.” His eyes flicked up to Cameron, who hadn’t moved and was still staring at House in shock. “I’m sorry, do you have something better to do?”

And, like that, Cameron snapped out of it, closing her mouth and setting it in a flat line. “We’ll get it done.”

“Watch Chase,” House added as they headed for the door. “Wouldn’t want him to trip and fall into betraying us all again.”

The line of Chase’s shoulders tightened, but he left the room without a word. Cameron quickly followed him out, but as she was leaving, allowed herself a last look back at the bizarreness currently occupying their office.

The last thing she heard was an outraged, “Are you using my cup?”

“And you’re sure they knew each other?”

Chase and Cameron nodded in unison.

“Wow,” Foreman said, shaking his head, eyes wide. “I never would have guessed. House always makes us sign guys he doesn’t know up for dozens of porn sites.”

Cameron paused. “Wait, you knew?”

Foreman threw her a look. “You didn’t?” He clicked through the next image of the patient’s brain, made a low unhappy noise, and bent forward to tell the patient to make sure to keep still.

Once the mic was off again, Chase, leaning against the wall behind where Cameron and Foreman were sat, said, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen House like that before.”

“Really?” Foreman sounded doubtful. “In all your years of working for House, you’ve never seen him be an ass to someone?”

“He wasn’t being an arse, though.”

“Yeah, right,” Foreman scoffed.

“You know, I think Chase is right.”

The look Foreman shot her, out of view of Chase, said ‘really?’.

“I can agree with Chase,” Cameron said, shooting a look straight back at Foreman.

“Sure you can,” Foreman said. “If you want to make him think we’ve all forgiven him.”

“Agreeing with him isn’t the same as forgiving him,” Cameron said.

“You know that I’m right here?”

“Shut up,” Foreman said in the same moment that Cameron said, “Of course we do.”

Chase made a huffy noise, crossing his arms and lifting his chin like that meant what they were saying wouldn’t get to him.

Cameron looked back to Foreman. “House wasn’t being an ass. I think he was genuinely shocked that Dr. Wilson was there.”

“He never reads the inter-departmental bulletin,” Foreman said, thoughtful, “and he ignores most of the other doctors. I guess it’s possible he didn’t know that this was coming.”

“House definitely didn’t know,” Cameron said. She frowned at Foreman’s screen. “He’s moving again.”

With a sigh, Foreman again asked the patient to remain still and promised that it wouldn’t be much longer.

“Dr. Wilson was weird, too, though,” Chase said, drawn out of his bad mood by curiosity. “I’m pretty sure he knew that House would react like that.”

Cameron twisted in her seat to look at Chase disbelievingly. “He knew that House would react exactly like that?”

“Okay, so not exactly like that,” Chase conceded, “but he definitely expected something. I offered him another mug, you know,” he added, “but he specifically went for House’s.”

Foreman’s eyebrows skyrocketed. “He used House’s mug? On purpose?”

Cameron and Chase nodded.

Foreman let out a low whistle. “That guy is definitely playing some kind of game with House.”

“Let’s just hope it doesn’t affect the case,” Cameron murmured.

“No way in hell it doesn’t,” Foreman said.

(Also) Summer 2005

It quickly became apparent that House and Dr. Wilson weren’t enemies, or rivals fighting over some woman, or even begrudging coworkers, but friends.

In his three years working under House, Chase had never seen anything like it.

Within a day of House finding out that Dr. Wilson had started at the hospital, he had decided that he’d prefer Wilson to work in the office next door instead of miserable old Dr. Fields.

Instead of asking Dr. Fields if she was willing to switch offices with Dr. Wilson, though, House began a campaign of terror on her.

It started with filling her office with fake spiders. When that didn’t work, House found a real spider. When that didn’t work, he hid a speaker in her office with an hour-long looped recording of himself, moaning lasciviously. It ended up escalating to the point that three hookers, half a dozen firefighters, and Cuddy all had to get involved.

Dr. Fields gave in. She didn’t switch offices with Dr. Wilson, instead taking early retirement, and by the end of the week, Dr. Wilson’s name was on the door and he was unpacking his things in the office next door.

Chase went to visit Dr. Wilson, taking a hot drink as a moving in present, and looked around Wilson’s office as the man gratefully gulped the coffee down.

“So, I know that you know House already, but I don’t know if you’ve ever actually worked with him before.”

“We had a year’s overlap at New York Mercy,” Wilson answered. “That was back in…” He frowned, thinking. “…ninety-four. God, I forgot how long ago that was.”

“So you know what he’s like already?” Chase asked, hopeful.

Wilson’s mouth curled into a smile. “I do.”

“Well, that’s—that’s good.” Chase dropped into one of Wilson’s chairs, sagging with relief. “We won’t have to deal with the fallout of House pissing you off.”

“Glad to be of service,” Wilson said. He finished the coffee, then set the mug to one side. “Look, I appreciate you coming to warn me, but I have an appointment with a patient in three minutes. I’m going to need the office.”

“Oh! Right.” Chase scrambled back to his feet, giving Wilson an awkward smile. “Well, I’ll see you around, I guess.”

“I look forward to working with your department,” Wilson said.

“All of us?” Chase asked, surprised.

Wilson shook his head. “I’ve known House for a long time, Dr. Chase. I know how to deal with him.”

“On your head be it,” Chase said, and backed out of the room.

Autumn 2005

“You do anything for Thanksgiving?”

Chase scoffed as he shrugged his jacket off and went to hang it on the coatrack. “No. You?”

Cameron shrugged. “Saw some friends, ate some turkey. You know, the usual.”

“The proud Aussie over there probably doesn’t see any of that as the usual,” Foreman pointed out without looking up from the file.

Their new patient was Dr. Sebastian Charles, the famous TB specialist. Every few months his people would visit the hospital and give a talk on the impact that even a small donation could have for the poor, suffering souls out there. As soon as Cameron found out who they were, she’d go into hysterics.

“Thanksgiving is just an excuse to meet up with friends and family.”

“Well, my family is in Australia,” Chase said, moving across to the kitchen, “and all of my friends have families of their own that they’d rather see.” He grabbed a mug from the shelf, and turned back to look at Foreman. “How about you? You see family, or spend the weekend emotionally constipated and alone?”

“Ha, ha, ha,” Foreman deadpanned, giving Chase a glare. “Not wanting to celebrate some ridiculous holiday makes me emotionally constipated?”

Chase grinned. “So you didn’t do anything either?”

“You should have told me you didn’t have plans,” Cameron said. “I could have invited you along.”

Foreman and Chase shared a look.

“Right, and subjected myself to an evening of ‘giving thanks’ for all the things in my life?” Chase huffed a laugh, shaking his head. “No thanks.”

Before the discussion could devolve further, Foreman held up the file. “Guess who our patient is.”

Cameron frowned at him, clearly seeing what he was doing, but played along anyway. “What, who?”

“Dr. Sebastian Charles,” Foreman said, emphasizing each word with a shake of the file.

Eyes growing wide, back going so straight she might as well have strapped a ruler to it, Cameron exclaimed, “That guy’s amazing!”

“Great, you can tell him that,” Chase said, low, his gaze fixed on something outside the office.

“What do you—” Cameron started to ask, turning to Chase, only for him to cut off.

“Incoming.” Chase turned back to the kitchen, clearing his throat and finishing pouring out his coffee mug.

Foreman glanced over, to where Chase had been looking, to find Dr. Sebastian Charles walking with purpose towards the office.

“O-kay.” Foreman gathered up the file, resolutely closing it, and said to Cameron, “Better get your checkbook ready, he’ll be asking for some big donations.”

“You’re an ass,” Cameron told him out of the side of her mouth, without looking away from the approaching Dr. Charles. Already, she was getting to her feet, plastering a smile on her face, and moving to grab the door for him.

Foreman didn’t react – it was nothing he hadn’t heard before – and went to help Dr. Charles too. The guy probably had TB; if he collapsed in the middle of their office, it wasn’t going to end well for them.

They got him seated, and he started the pitch they’d all heard a dozen times before, and Cameron ate it up, right until—

“Get him out of here.”

Cameron sagged against the table at the sound of House’s voice, head dropping down.

“Hello to you too,” Foreman muttered.

“How was your thanksgiving?”

“Well, unlike some people—” House fixed Cameron with a dramatically pointed look. “—I didn’t take the week off. Get him out,” he said again, flicking his cane dismissively towards Dr. Charles.

“I’m a doctor,” Dr. Charles said. “I’d like to hear the differential.”

“Don’t care,” House said. “Out.”

The conversation devolved from there. Eventually, once House had managed to get Dr. Charles out of the room and heading back to his own, and all of the tests that House had ordered were underway, Foreman sidled up to House and said, “Not a good thanksgiving then, huh?”

House didn’t take his eyes away from the board as he bent over, scribbling the last symptom on at the bottom of the list. “Oven broke,” he said absently. “We got takeaway.”

Chase asked, “‘We’?”

He was turned away, so his face was hidden, but the way that House straightened up and put the cap on his marker spoke volumes: he hadn’t meant to say that. “I figure I’m close enough to a King to use the Royal we – always got my posse with me, doing everything I ask.” He glanced back over his shoulder, widening his eyes pointedly. “That’s you guys.”

It was too late, though. Cameron had picked up on the fact he’d spent thanksgiving with someone other than his internet porn and a bottle of booze, and she wasn’t going to let it slide. “You actually saw people for the holiday?”

“Was it your family?” Chase asked.

Foreman snorted quietly to himself at the suggestion.

“Yeah, I invited all my cousins and aunts and uncles and nephew and nieces over,” House said, adopting such a sincere expression that it couldn’t be anything but fake. “We had a grand old time. No, I spent thanksgiving alone. And we have a sick patient!”

“It’s TB,” Cameron said.

“No, it’s not.” House swung his cane around to point at Foreman and Chase. “Didn’t I tell you to do some tests?”

“The nurses are—”

“Useless!” House jabbed his cane with more force. “Get going, if you don’t want me to sign you up to our patient’s mailing list.”

Foreman and Chase fled.

Winter 2005

“House is seeing someone.”

Wilson’s pen stilled halfway through his signature. He looked up from the paperwork Cameron needed him to sign, and appraised her with something like curiosity. Slow and careful, he asked, “What makes you say that?”

“He spent thanksgiving with someone,” Cameron said. “He wouldn’t tell us who, and I don’t think he wanted us to know about them at all.”

Wilson breathed out through his nose as his face did something complicated, before he leaned back in his desk chair, crossing his arms across his chest. “So House told you that he saw someone for thanksgiving?”

Cameron shook her head. “It was an accident. He slipped – said ‘we’, instead of ‘I’.”

“You’ve deduced that House is dating someone from a slip of the tongue?” Wilson said, dry as a bone.

“Well—no, not just that,” Cameron had to admit. “There was also the phone call he got last week. He smiled.”

“My goodness,” Wilson said. “A smile? Call the cops.”

“He’s been bringing in lunchboxes with his name written on them, and he definitely doesn’t make the food for himself. I don’t think House even knows how to cook.”

“You think he’s incapable of putting together a sandwich?” Wilson laughed dryly, shaking his head. “That’s just an attempt to get you to buy him lunch.”

“It’s not just sandwiches,” Cameron said. “And House wouldn’t bother cooking. He steals everyone else’s food.”

“I thought you said he’s been having lunchboxes.”

“And he’s been stealing too.”

“That’s just House. That’s who he is.”

“None of what you’re saying is convincing me that he isn’t dating someone,” Cameron told Wilson.

He tipped his head from side to side in a so-so gesture. “What else?”

“Well, he used to always bring us cases over from Princeton General. We—”

“‘We’?” Wilson asked.

“Chase, Foreman, and I,” Cameron clarified.

“House’s crack team,” Wilson said. He gestured for her to continue. “Sorry, go on.”

“We figured he was interested in a woman there, and the only reason we were getting cases from General was because he was trying to… I don’t know, woo her? I didn’t agree with the guys at first, but then we went on our date, and it was pretty obvious he wanted to be somewhere else.”

Wilson’s shoulders squared a little at that, a glint of something entering his eye and the slightest hint of a smile appearing on his face. His arms, crossed over his chest, relaxed. “He did?”

“I think the reason we’re no longer getting cases from that other doctor is because House no longer needs to woo her, because they’re actually dating.”

“I see.”

“And then there was the thing I found in his mail this morning,” Cameron said, pulling the letter in question out of her jacket pocket and holding it up for Wilson to see. “A booking confirmation for a couple’s ticket to a spa weekend.”

Wilson held out his hand. “May I?”

Cameron passed it to him.

Wilson opened the envelope and carefully slid the letter out; he unfolded it, read it, then set it down on his desk, where he stared at it. Then his gaze rose to Cameron, and he studied her for a long, long moment, before eventually saying, “Why are you telling me all of this?”

“Because I’m worried.”

“House will be—”

“About whoever his girlfriend is,” Cameron pushed. “I once watched him end a years’ long relationship over the phone.”

Wilson choked, that distanced look vanishing. “You what?”

“It was brutal,” Cameron said, shaking her head at the memory. “He refused to tell us anything more about her, but I can’t imagine having that happen to me.”

“You…watched House…dump someone…over the phone?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s…” Wilson seemed at a loss for words.

“I know,” Cameron said with a heavy sigh.

“…interesting,” Wilson finished. He scratched at his eyebrow. “When was this, uh, terrible thing?”

“Two years ago,” Cameron said. “He was frustrated at me and Chase, and he decided to take it out on his girlfriend. By dumping her.” She shook her head at the memory. “I don’t want someone else to have to go through that.”

“Wow,” Wilson said. He appeared to be in shock.

“I know,” Cameron said again. “Look, House doesn’t talk to us about that kind of thing, but you’re sort of friends, and I was hoping you could check in with him and make sure that he’s treating her well.”

“Right,” Wilson said. “Of course.” He stared at the opposite wall for a long moment, like he could see right through to where House was sat in his office. “I’ll talk to him about it.” His eyes snapped to Cameron, and he gave her a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry, I’ll handle this whole thing.”

“So, I hear that you’re taking me on a romantic spa weekend.”

House groaned. “Cameron?”

“What is it you want me out of the apartment for?” Wilson asked mildly.

“…Nothing.”

“Right. You treat me to romantic getaways all of the time.” Wilson passed one of the steaming hot bowls of spaghetti to House, who dropped it onto his lap, then stepped over House’s outstretched legs to get to his own spot on the couch. “Cameron thinks you’re mistreating me.”

House barked a laugh and shoved a forkful of pasta into his mouth. “Yeah, right,” he said, muffled by the pasta.

“She really does,” Wilson said, mild, and reached for the remote to change the channel on the TV. House could catch up on Days of Our Lives later; Wilson wanted to try a new sitcom that he’d heard good things about.

House swallowed and said, “I don’t believe you.” He reached for the remote, but Wilson moved it out of his range.

“Of course, she thinks that I’m a woman who you’ve been tripping over your own feet to date,” Wilson went on, tinging the words with irony, “but the point still stands.”

House stopped halfway through trying to wrestle the remote out of Wilson’s steel grip. “Wait, Cameron actually said that?”

Wilson kicked his own feet up onto the coffee table, right alongside House’s. “She’s concerned.”

“Ha!” House grinned at Wilson. “Don’t I tell you all the time that my team are morons?”

“I was surprised too.”

“I’m not surprised.” House took another shot at the remote, and Wilson moved it further out of his reach. “This is exactly what I expect from them.”

“She also told me,” Wilson went on, smug now, “that your date with her went so poorly because you clearly wanted to be somewhere else. Dare I say that I know where that mysterious place might be?”

“Oh, shut up,” House said, and finally gave up on the remote. He returned to his spaghetti, now frowning. “Don’t flatter yourself. I just like our apartment. You could be on the other side of the world for all I care.”

“It’s cute that you think you’re fooling anyone.”

“I’m clearly fooling my team if they think I’m dating some woman.”

“Anyone who actually knows you,” Wilson amended.

House pulled a face at Wilson. “You’re the one who moved hospitals because you want to spend more time with me.”

“Oh no, you’ve caught me: I have a crush on you,” Wilson said, entirely deadpan.

House grinned. “So what you’re saying is that you’ve got the hots for me? You want to take a roll in the metaphorical hay? You’re just waiting to jump my bones? You’re in love with my special sausage?”

The last one had Wilson cringing so hard that he couldn’t help but burst out laughing, and House grinned.

The laugh track on the TV went off too, as some actor Wilson didn’t recognize made a crappy joke about a plot Wilson hadn’t been paying attention to, and when House reached for the remote, Wilson let him take it.

House switched back to Days of Our Lives, right in the middle of one character desperately confessing her love to the other.

Wilson was ashamed to admit he actually knew what was going on. He’d watched enough of the show with House to recognize the characters and remember the plot.

“Eat your pasta,” he said, a little gruff.

“Why, is it drugged again?” House snarked in return. “Do you want me pliant and willing for you?”

Wilson rolled his eyes.

A few minutes passed as they both chewed silently and watched the drama play out on the TV.

Then, House said, “How long do you think it’ll take the ducklings to realize you’re getting some of this rocking hot bod?”

“It’s been years,” Wilson said, “and they still don’t have a clue.”

“They didn’t know you before,” House pointed out. “Thanks to your jealous streak, we now work together.”

“It’ll take them years more,” Wilson said, shaking his head. “Your team is qualified and hard-working, but they are remarkably dense when it comes to these matters.”

“Wanna put money on it?” House asked, far too innocently.

Wilson shot House a look. That tone spoke to very bad things happening. “No.”

“Chicken,” House said, widening his eyes pointedly. Holding eye contact with Wilson, he shoved another chunk of spaghetti into his mouth, but he kept the fork there, and once he’d swallowed, he licked the fork clean with broad, exacting sweeps of his tongue.

Wilson shifted a little, suddenly uncomfortable. “House…” he said warningly.

“What?” House asked, still innocent. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m not betting on this,” Wilson told him. He reached out to grab House’s fork from him, setting it down on the furthest point of the coffee table from him.

When he settled back into his seat, he went for his own fork only to find House wiggling it triumphantly.

“Give it back.”

“Do you want me to starve?” House asked with mock-hurt. “Cameron’s out there all worried about you – or, female you, I guess,” he said, going glassy-eyed for a moment as he probably imagined Wilson in a woman’s body. Wilson waited for him to finish. “And she doesn’t even know that I’m the one she should be worried about!”

“You’re ridiculous,” Wilson said, but it came out fond.

“You love it,” House said in return, aiming for biting but reaching fond as well.

Wilson smiled at him, and leaned in to press a soft kiss to House’s lips.

Because House never did anything by halves, he grabbed the back of Wilson’s head, tangling his fingers in the longer strands of Wilson’s hair, and drove his tongue into Wilson’s mouth.

The pasta bowl, still on House’s lap, went flying.

Sauce splattered all over their pants and the couch and the carpet, and Wilson fell back with a groan, pinching the bridge of his nose. There went that plan. If they didn’t clean up the mess quickly, it would never come out. “That was your fault.”

“You’re the one who kissed me!” House immediately protested.

Wilson scoffed, shooting House a look. “Right.”

“Are you really gonna make the cripple clean up this mess?”

Wilson set his own, unsplit, pasta bowl down on the coffee table and inspected the damage to his pants, stretching the material out to get a good look. The sauce was already starting to sink in. With a heavy sigh, Wilson pushed to his feet, knees aching, and looked down at his boyfriend of seven years. Their anniversary was next month, not that House would remember. “Get off your ass, House, else you’re sleeping on this couch tonight.”

“Are you really gonna make the cripple sleep on the couch?” But once Wilson had passed House his cane – at some point, it had fallen to the floor, too far away for House to reach from his seat – House got up too.

He didn’t help clean, instead just leaning against the counter and staring at Wilson’s ass while Wilson did all the work, but it was the thought that counted.

Winter 2006

Chase preferred House being in charge to Foreman, but both House and Cameron would glare daggers at him whenever he complained – technically speaking, he was the one who killed a patient and got Foreman put in charge for a month to begin with, so it was kind of his fault – so he didn’t mention this fact.

It was worse when House left entirely, for a Medicaid meeting in Baltimore with the hospital lawyer.

Halfway through another heated disagreement about the patient’s condition, with all of them picking a different angle and digging their heels in, Wilson finally poked his head into House’s office, halting their argument with a loud clearing of his throat.

“Dr. Wilson?” Foreman said, smoothing down his jacket as he turned to the man. “May we help you?”

“How’s your patient doing?”

Foreman’s smile was practiced. “We’re working on the case right now.”

“Good,” Wilson said. Then, brisk: “House wants to talk to you.”

“How did House find out about it?” Foreman demanded, the fake smile falling away. He viewed this as his big chance, and House was already moving in to take over and ruin it.

Chase couldn’t say he was sorry.

“He gets grumpy when I withhold,” Wilson said.

“You told him?” Cameron exclaimed. “Why would you even call? He’d never find out.”

It was unusual for them to interact with Wilson without House here, especially over anything more than the simply pleasantries exchanged by coworkers, but the man had been working at the hospital for nearly half a year. This had to happen at some point.

“His flight’s delayed,” Wilson said. “He got bored.”

“Of course he did,” Foreman said with a grimace. He went for House’s office phone, but Wilson pulled his flip phone from his pocket and wiggled it.

“House is expecting me to call back.”

Foreman sighed, but took the phone and dialed. It rang once, twice, and then House was on the line, giving instructions and orders and asking a hundred different questions.

Chase hid his smile at watching Foreman being treated exactly the same as him and Cameron once again.

The DDX went quickly, and once House had laid out his instructions, he finished by saying, “While I’m waiting for the airline to buck up their act and put these planes in the air, I could do with someone making me feel all warm and toasty inside. Any volunteers?”

Chase and Foreman both looked straight to Cameron, who glared at each of them in turn before answering, “Not happening, House.”

Wilson had been leaning in the door frame for the entire phone call, listening but not saying a word, but at that, he said, “I think that’s enough for now,” and moved up to House’s desk to join them.

“And there’s my volunteer!”

Sighing heavily, Wilson offered them all a commiserating look, and picked up his cell. “I’m taking you away, House.”

Before House could respond, Wilson turned off the speaker and moved it to his ear, striking up a low conversation with House as he left the room.

Cameron frowned at his back as he went. “Huh.”

Chase glanced up from the test results he’d returned to, to double-check that their patient was viable for an MRI. “Hm? What is it?”

“Nothing,” Cameron said slowly. “I just—never mind.” She shook her head with some force, like she was trying to clear a thought from it, and refocused on Chase. “We better get that MRI going.”

Hours later, after they’d run through a dozen more things and still only heard nonsense out of their aphasiac patient’s mouth, Chase was the one sent to find Wilson when their attempts to call House didn’t work.

Chase barged through the door and into his office, praying that Wilson was still there as he started to say, “Dr. Wilson, we need you to—” only to find Wilson in the middle of a telephone conversation. He stopped short. “You’re still talking to House?”

Wilson said dryly, “He’s needy,” loud enough for House to hear, then asked, “What is it that you need?”

“For you…to call…House.” Chase shook his head. “Our calls weren’t going through.” He frowned as he realized— “Because he was still talking to you.”

Wilson’s cheeks were pink, Chase noticed. It wasn’t hot in his office. Maybe he was running a slight temperature. “I see,” Wilson said, and then into the phone, “House, play nice with your fellows. They don’t care that your flight’s been grounded.”

Chase blinked several times. Too much was going on, and he couldn’t process it all at once. “Uh—House’s flight’s been grounded?”

“Yes,” Wilson said. He held the cell out to Chase. “At least this case will give him something to do.”

Chase took the phone and immediately moved it to his ear, turning away from Wilson. “House, LP says infection.”

“I was busy,” House grouched over the phone. “Give a guy some warning next time.”

“Busy?” Chase said, confused. “Busy with what?”

A groan came from behind him, and Chase glanced back to see Wilson with his head in hands.

“Nothing,” House sing-songed, which was more suspicious than anything else.

A lot had happened, though, and they needed House on the case, so Chase ignored that. “Look, I’m taking you to the others. We need ideas, and fast.”

He started out of the office, leaving Wilson behind at his desk.

Once they were done, and the diagnosis was complete, and they’d figured out what was wrong with the patient but ruined his marriage anyway, Chase picked up the cell as they left the room, taking it with them.

“Okay, House. Our job is done. I’m hanging up now.”

“No!”

Chase stopped with his finger halfway to the button, and both Cameron and Foreman looked confused.

“No?” Chase asked.

“Take me back to Wilson,” House said. “You interrupted our conversation, earlier.”

“Uh.” Chase blinked several times. “I’m pretty sure he’s left by now. It’s five in the morning, House.”

“I know that,” House huffed. “I’m in Baltimore, not Ibiza. But Wilson won’t have left.”

“I’m pretty sure—”

“He won’t.”

Chase looked to Foreman, who shrugged and said, “What can you do?” then Cameron, who was still just confused.

“Fine, House,” Chase said at last, rubbing at his heavy eyes. “I’ll—go and find Wilson for you. Whatever.”

“Have fun with that,” Foreman said, patting Chase’s shoulder.

“The overworked boss leaves his employees to finish his business for him,” House said, narrating like it was some kind of nature documentary.

Foreman’s smile dropped from his face. “This isn’t my business, House. It’s yours.”

“As the boss, you’re responsible for the work of everyone on your team,” House said innocently. “Or didn’t you know that?”

“Good night, House,” Foreman said with finality, nodded to Chase and Cameron, and headed out.

Cameron’s eyes narrowed in thought, and she took a step closer to the phone, leaning in. “Why do you want to talk to Wilson, House?” There was an odd tone to her voice, like the question meant more than it sounded like.

“Because his voice is just so sexy,” House said, overwrought. “I can’t stand to go five minutes without him!”

“Ha, ha,” Chase said, scoffing, and looked to Cameron. “That covered everything?”

“I…don’t know,” Cameron said.

“That’s good enough for me.” Chase readjusted his bag on his shoulder, and began to make his way to Wilson’s office. The man would obviously be gone for the night – they all had to be back at work in just a few short hours – but House would probably start some kind of campaign to make his life hell if Chase disobeyed him again, so he didn’t have much of a choice.

House started whistling some tune that Chase vaguely recognized as he went, and Chase sighed heavily but didn’t say a word.

As he pulled up to Wilson’s office, he was surprised to see that Wilson’s light was still on. When he opened the door, intending to just give it a cursory sweep to satisfy House’s demand, he instead found—

“Hm?” Wilson was reclining in his chair, feet up on the desk and tie discarded as he watched something on one of the portable TVs that House liked to ‘borrow’ from other departments. There were big bags under his eyes, and when he looked over, his gaze was bleary, but he was awake and present. “Oh, Chase, it’s you.”

“Is that…” Chase stared at the TV, unsure what to say.

“The golf from yesterday,” Wilson said mildly.

“And why…” ‘Why did you steal the TV?’ is what Chase was going to ask, but the question failed halfway through. Wilson was a world-renowned oncologist, but unlike House, he was a decent and hard-working doctor. Sure, he was friends with House, but it clearly hadn’t impacted him too much. He was just so normal and good.

“I haven’t had a chance to watch that!” House protested, crackly over the long-distance call. “Chase, make him stop!”

“No,” Wilson said, but his sleepy gaze had gone to his cell now, and something softened on his face. He held his hand out. “Give him to me,” he said with a sigh. “You need to sleep, Dr. Chase.”

“You don’t?”

Wilson huffed the barest bones of a laugh. “Oh, I don’t think House cares.”

Chase passed him the phone silently.

As he left the office, the faint sounds of Wilson reporting the golf results to House filtered out from behind him.

House had to hate that. He always hated hearing the sports results of matches he wanted to watch, and he’d made it clear that he wanted to watch that one. Only the Medicaid trip had stopped him.

But for some reason, Wilson’s voice followed Chase out to the elevators. Unless the Head of Oncology had developed a neurological disorder that none of them knew about and was talking to invisible people… House hadn’t hung up.

Chase was never going to understand whatever weird friendship existed between those two men.

Spring 2006

New Jersey winter slowly shifted to New Jersey spring.

The clinic patient numbers, which always spiked over the colder months, began to fall off again. House had patients year-round regardless, but Cameron wasn’t expected to put in so many shifts at the hospital.

They went through cases at their usual rate: non-stop for two days, then a few nights off to catch up on sleep before something else caught House’s interest.

It was at the start of that cycle, right after House had taken on a new case, that Cameron walked into his office to find House hunched over in his desk chair, kneading at his damaged thigh muscle and breathing heavily.

She came to an abrupt stop in the doorway.

“Update?” House asked, and it was through gritted teeth.

“Are you okay?” Cameron asked. “Your leg—”

“—will be fine,” House cut in before she could finish. “Update,” he said again, more forcefully, his fingers digging into his own thigh muscle.

“Donna is fine,” Cameron said, careful. “The meds haven’t taken effect yet, but she’s not worse.”

House snorted. “She’s not ‘fine’. If she were ‘fine’, she’d be getting better. Staying the same tells us nothing.”

“She hasn’t reacted badly.”

“Oh, well if she hasn’t reacted badly,” House said, mocking. Then, serious: “Monitor her. Any changes, any signs that something is about to change, we need to know.”

“Of course,” Cameron said. But she didn’t leave; instead, she just stayed hovering in the doorway. It was clear that House was in pain, and more than usual. He wouldn’t ask for help, but that didn’t mean that Cameron couldn’t offer it. “Can I get you anything?”

“No.”

“You’re hurting,” Cameron went on. “It doesn’t—”

Both of their pagers went off.

House moved to answer his, so Cameron just stayed staring at him. If it was important, he’d tell her.

“Patient’s tachycardic.” House fumbled for his cane. It took a few seconds for him to get his hand securely around the handle – and, once he had and went to stand up, his leg buckled under him.

House’s cry of pain as he went down was one of the most genuine sounds that Cameron had ever heard from him.

“House!” Cameron finally moved from the doorway as she bolted across the room to drop to her knees by to where House was slumped on the floor and clutching at his chair for support. “What’s wrong?”

House grunted, sitting up, and fixed her with a glare that cut right through her. “I’m having a stroke,” he snarled. “What do you think?”

“Sorry,” Cameron said. She went to touch his shoulder, to check him over like she would a patient, but House knocked her hand away, hard enough to hurt.

“Vicodin,” he said. “Get me my—” House went to try and push up, but his entire body shook with the effort of it, and he fell back down with a loud curse. “Vicodin,” he said again, low and angry.

Cameron knew it wasn’t anger. It was embarrassment. “Where is it?” she asked, a little desperate.

“Just get it!”

House was in so much pain that he wasn’t thinking straight. This was bad. And—their patient was still tachycardic. Cameron could only hope that Chase and Foreman were there, else she might die, but House was here, in front of her, and she had a responsibility to help him.

Cameron got to her feet and cast an eye across House’s chaotic desk, but there was no tell-tale orange bottle in sight. She went behind the chair, moving past him and to the drawers, but House spat out that she was an idiot for thinking he had anything in there, so she skipped those, and instead turned to the bookshelf.

“Is it here?” she asked, lifting things up to check under them then putting them back haphazardly when she didn’t find anything.

“Down,” House said.

Cameron dropped to a crouch, and grabbed the first book she saw, flicking through the pages.

“No, not—” A loud groan came from behind her, and Cameron glanced back just in time to watch House shove his chair out of the way and drag himself across the floor. “The lupus one.”

Cameron scanned the shelf for a book on lupus.

There was an immunology book, which fit, but when she reached for it, House said, “If I meant the immunology book, I would have said the damn immunology book.” He brought his cane forward, knocking against a few books at the other end of the shelf. “There.”

Sure enough, one of them was a textbook on lupus.

Cameron pulled it off the shelf, flipped it open, and found a hole cut into the pages – and a Vicodin bottle buried inside.

She pried it out, going to open it herself, but House was making grabby hands for it, so she tossed it to him instead; he flipped the cap off, tossing it to the side, and poured the contents of the bottle out onto his palm.

Four pills.

“That’s too—”

House threw them all back in one go.

“—many,” Cameron finished, wincing.

The line of House’s throat bobbed as he swallowed, already relaxing. “That was all of them?” he asked, a thread calmer than before. The Vicodin shouldn’t be taking effect yet, but Cameron could guess there was as much of a psychological impact as a physical one.

“In that bottle,” Cameron said. “You’re the one who got them out.”

House used his cane to lever himself into a sitting position. “Ugh.”

“Where’s the rest of your stash?”

House’s gaze cut up to her, and there was an element of fear there that Cameron barely recognized. “Not here.”

Cameron felt her eyebrows shoot up against her volition. “You’ve run out? You have run out?”

“No, I was writhing on the floor in pain for the hell of it,” House bit out. “I need a scrip.”

Cameron knew that House had a problem; they all knew. The rate at which he consumed narcotics was a problem. “I’m not sure…” She trailed off, unsure what to say next.

“Come on, I don’t have all day,” House said.

“You want me…to write you a scrip for Vicodin?”

“I actually want you to spend the next hour staring at me in horror,” House said. “I can wait ‘til that’s done, of course. All of the time in the world here.”

“Can’t you go to your usual doctor?” Cameron suggested, hopeful and desperate all in one go. “You just took four pills, they should last you—”

“Our patient isn’t getting better,” House said, “so unless you want me going home in the middle of a case, write me the damn prescription.”

Cameron didn’t want to enable him, but she didn’t really have a choice. Taking out her pad, she began to write out the order.

House readjusted himself, some tension loosing from his chest, but grimaced as his leg shifted with the motion. “Wilson’s out of town at some medical conference,” he said by way of explanation.

Cameron paused before she could sign. “Wilson is the doctor who writes your scrips?”

“And he’s much nicer about it than you’re being, too,” House said, like this was an insult.

“That’s unethical!”

“Right, and what you’re doing right now is so ethical,” House said, rolling his eyes. “Filling me up with drugs to serve your own purposes?” He clicked his tongue. “What would the Hippocratic Oath say?”

“You have a problem, House,” Cameron told him earnestly. “Wilson shouldn’t be enabling you.”

House’s face creased with laughter, and he shook his head. “Right.”

“He shouldn’t,” Cameron said, stronger this time. “If it was a random doctor who didn’t have any personal connection to you, that would be fine, but Wilson knows you. You’re friends.”

“You’re just jealous,” House said, miming flipping his hair back.

“No, I’m not,” Cameron said. “You know that I’m not.” She put her hands on her knees and pushed to her feet.

Standing over the still-seated House, she felt very tall. He was looking up, and she was looking down, and all of House’s usual stature melted away as she became abruptly aware of the fact that he was just a person, in pain.

And without him here, they were never going to solve this case.

She signed the scrip, tore it off the pad, and let go of it; the paper fluttered in the air for a few seconds before House snatched it up, greedily clutching it to his chest. “I’m talking to Wilson when he gets back from his conference,” Cameron told House heavily. “I’m going to put an end to this.”

House didn’t reply.

Wilson returned the next day, and House immediately called him in for a pointless consult. Cameron watched the two of them carefully as they ran through the DDX, and when it was done, she pulled Dr. Wilson aside.

“You can’t write House’s Vicodin prescriptions.”

Wilson startled, clearly not expecting that. “What?”

“House’s prescriptions,” Cameron said again. “You can’t write them. It’s unethical.”

Wilson exhaled sharply through his nose, and put a patient smile on his face. “Dr. Cameron, what goes on between me and House is confidential.”

“He’s not your patient.”

“You said it yourself, I write his prescriptions.”

“And you shouldn’t,” Cameron pushed. “Because he’s not your patient. You aren’t examining him, or doing physicals, or scans, or even checking up on his mental wellbeing. That’s what a good doctor should do for patients on addictive medication.”

Wilson’s eyes narrowed a fraction, and he studied her for a long moment.

“I’m right,” Cameron said, “and you know it.”

“I never pretended to be a good doctor,” Wilson said. “House is…” He sighed, heavy. “He’s something else. Treating him like any other patient won’t do anything to help him. The Vicodin does, but if I don’t give it to him, he’ll go to someone else. And that other doctor won’t be here to monitor him and his ridiculous flights of fancy.” He meets her gaze, serious. “I stop writing his prescriptions, and it’ll end badly.”

Cameron shook her head, crossing her arms. “You’re wrong.”

Wilson shrugged. “Maybe.”

“You know you’re wrong but you’re doing it anyway?” Cameron asked, recoiling a little.

Wilson was supposed to be an excellent doctor. In fact, ‘supposed’ didn’t mean anything, because he was an excellent doctor. Cameron looked up to him; she wanted to be like him one day. Sometimes, she thought she already might be. The way he handled his patients was better than any textbook could teach, his understanding of his field was unparalleled by any other doctor in the hospital, and people liked him. He was respected. He cared.

So why was it different with House?

“You wrote his prescription yesterday,” Wilson said, mild with a hint of reproach. “Whatever you think of me surely applies to you too.”

Cameron gaped at him. “How did you…”

“I’m psychic,” Wilson deadpanned.

Then he walked away.

When had House had the chance to talk to Wilson? The man had only returned from the conference late the night before, and then come straight into their office once he arrived at work that morning. House himself had been at the hospital until two in the morning, went home for a handful hours, then straight back again after he had a revelation. There was no way that House could have told Wilson about what Cameron did for him without Cameron knowing.

Cameron had wondered about the two of them before. The way that they were closer than friends normally were, especially men; the way that they always seemed to know what was going on with the other.

But then, as she watched Wilson follow after House and the others, Cameron realized that she’d moved beyond wondering.

(Also) Spring 2006

Wilson poked his head around the door, looking straight to House. “Need you.”

Foreman, Chase, and Cameron all turned and gaped at the man.

They were in scrubs, washing down as they prepared for a hopefully life-saving op, and Wilson wanted to talk to House?

“We’ve got a case,” Chase said, looking rightfully baffled. “And surgery.”

Foreman stared at Wilson intently. “Surely you know that we don’t—”

House frowned, looking thoughtful. “Is this another cancer kid?”

“No,” Wilson answered shortly.

“—have time for this,” Foreman finished. He turned, full-body, to House. “The patient needs us. She’s going to die if we’re not in there in the next five minutes.”

“Which means she can spare five minutes,” House told him without looking away from Wilson.

That wasn’t what that meant at all. “You know that’s not true,” Foreman said.

“Then get everything a-cooking, and I’ll join you once I’m done. Try not to kill her while I’m gone,” he added, whipping back around to jab a finger at Foreman. “Once is unlucky, but two times, and I might have to start suspecting foul play.”

“I didn’t come anywhere close to killing her,” Foreman protested, but House was already limping at great speed towards the door and following Wilson out into the corridor like they didn’t have dying patient.

Foreman shared a look with Chase, then glanced over at Cameron. “We ready to go?”

“Why would House do that?” Cameron asked, staring at the door that House had left through.

“Because he’s an arse?” Chase suggested.

“I don’t know,” Foreman said. “And don’t care.” He dried his hands off, then went to move into the OR. “I wasn’t joking when I said we’ve got less than five minutes here.”

The patient was already lying on the table, and the anesthesiologist looked at Foreman in askance as he entered. “Dr. House?”

“He’ll be along,” Foreman said. “Put her under.”

The anesthesiologist nodded, and got to work.

The operation was a risky one, which House had to badger Cuddy into approving, but they needed to stop her intestines from bleeding into her stomach anyway, and it was safer to do the preventative kidney removal when they were already elbow deep in her guts than put her under general anesthetic two times in two days.

Foreman checked over the tools, then released a long, hot breath into his mask. House had assigned him this operation, which meant that if it went wrong, then the blame would fall onto House. Only when Foreman had to take over House’s role for a month back in the winter did he realize how much responsibility that actually entailed.

“She’s out,” Cameron reported from by the patient’s head.

“Okay.” Foreman nodded. “Let’s get to work.”

The OR doors banged open, and everyone spun in shock to find House stood there, only half dressed in his scrubs and definitely not having washed down again after leaving to talk to Wilson. “Wait!”

“Out,” Foreman said. “You’re not sterile.”

“You are?” House gasped, eyes growing wide in fake-surprise as he purposefully misinterpreted Foreman’s words. “God, no wonder you can’t keep a girl.”

“You’re going to kill her!” Cameron cried.

“No, you are,” House said. He fixed Foreman with a look. “We’re not doing the operation.”

“She’s bleeding out,” Chase said. “We don’t have a choice.”

Waving a dismissive hand, House said, “Fine, fine, fix her intestines – but don’t touch her kidney.”

“Why are you being careful?” Foreman asked.

House huffed. “Wilson’s in a whiny mood. Says that we’re going to ruin her life. Or something.”

“Wilson convinced you to change your mind?” Cameron said, and there was a strange note to her voice, but too much was going on for Foreman to care.

“Don’t be jealous, I love you all equally,” House mocked. Then, he looked down at the unconscious patient. “Do it.”

Foreman could have argued for longer; he could have tried to convince House to change his mind. Wilson had managed it, so why couldn’t he? But—the patient would lose a kidney, and her problems still wouldn’t be solved. This operation was preventative at best.

He looked across to Chase. “Scalpel.”

As Chase gaped at him, House was already slipping out of the room.

Above them in the viewing gallery, Wilson was watching them. Soon, House joined him.

The surgery was a success, and within hours of the patient waking, House figured out the source of the problem. They saved her, and both of her kidneys.

Summer 2006

It was a perfectly ordinary day right up until the moment that House was shot.

Everything fell to pieces after that.

When they went to help, the gun was pointed at them; they couldn’t do anything as he fired again, and hit again.

Then the guy ran.

Cameron wasn’t paying attention to any of that, because she was desperately trying to stem the bleeding from House’s stomach and neck. Neither looked good. House needed help, and he needed it fast.

One of the other two, or maybe some bystander in the hallway who heard the shots and saw the spray of blood, called for help. It came fast. That was the one good thing about getting shot in the hospital.

House was rushed to an operation room, and all Cameron could do was watch from outside.

Foreman and Chase joined her.

They stood in silence.

The white sleeves of her lab coat were so soaked in House’s blood they might as well have been dyed red. It clung to her skin. Itched.

Cameron tore it off with shaking hands.

“What’s going on? What happened?”

All three of their heads snapped around—

—to find Wilson, framed in the doorway by the bright corridor lights behind, a look of panic on his face and shirt half untucked. He was breathing heavily, face flushed; he must have run to get there. Someone had paged him. Cameron didn’t know who.

“Is it the Vicodin?”

Cameron swallowed, trying to wet her throat, but it didn’t help.

Chase’s mouth opened and closed several times.

Foreman was the one to tell Wilson.

The Head of Oncology, House’s only friend in the world and maybe even something more, just stared at Foreman for a long, long moment.

Then, he said, “Oh, god.”

Wilson moved past Cameron, brushing by her to get to the window and look out on the operating room below, where a surgical team were working on House and trying to minimize any internal damage.

“He, um.” Chase cleared his throat. It was too loud in the small viewing room. “He said something about ketamine. That we should tell Cuddy.”

“Ketamine treatment.” Wilson’s hand jerked, like he was going to reach out and press it to the glass, but he didn’t. “Cuddy— There’s research. It’s worked on pain.”

“And he wants us to do that to him while he’s out.” Chase let out a low whistle. “Well, if there was ever a time and place…”

Wilson closed his eyes.

“Okay,” Foreman said, slow and considered. “We should— We should contact the research group. Get the results.” He looked over to Cameron, and his expression dimmed at the sight of the wet blood coating her skin. “House said he wanted it.”

“We can’t do that without Cuddy’s approval,” Cameron said, and the words felt sticky in her mouth. “His next of kin isn’t here, so Cuddy gets the final say. She gets final say on all treatments.”

“Who would even be his next of kin,” Chase said with a frown. “What, his mom?”

They’d never met House’s parents. His mom had visited once, but Cameron had only seen the woman who birthed and raised House from the other side of the hospital cafeteria. According to House, he didn’t talk to his dad anymore.

“You need to call his mom,” Foreman said to Wilson, then laughed humorlessly to himself. “God, that sounds like he’s a child.”

“No.”

Cameron was startled by the tight word from Wilson’s mouth. “What?”

Wilson’s head turned ninety-degrees, putting him in stark profile against the sharp lights of the operation room where House was getting stitched up. “I’m his healthcare proxy. And I’m saying no.”

“You—are?”

“Since when are you House’s proxy?” Chase asked, astounded.

“Does it matter?” Wilson said. “I am. House is out, so this decision is mine.”

“He wants the ketamine treatment,” Foreman said, a little louder than before. “He asked for it specifically.”

Wilson huffed something that definitely was not a laugh, and looked down at the ground. “He’d been shot. It doesn’t count.”

“None of us brought it up,” Foreman went on. “He did! Out of nowhere!”

“The last time that House nearly died, I wasn’t here.”

Cameron sucked in a sharp breath. Wilson had to be talking about the infarction, and whatever happened that had a beyond-competent doctor on the verge of death and then crippled for life. House didn’t talk about it, ever.

“This time, I am.” Wilson’s mouth pinched, barely visible in the shadow. “If House wants the treatment when he wakes up, he can get it. I won’t stop him. But I’m not going to sign off on something experimental and dangerous because his fellows heard him mutter something moments before he lost consciousness.” He turned back to the glass and run a hand through his floppy hair, staring down at House’s body.

Silence coiled in the room, constricting and tight.

Cameron moved up to the glass, joining Dr. Wilson, and watched as the surgeons worked on House’s limp, pale body. The same blood staining her hands was smeared across House’s skin, bubbling up where the bullets went in.

“He’ll live,” she told Wilson, trying to be reassuring even though she didn’t fully believe it herself.

Wilson shoulders jerked. He said, “Thank you, Dr. Cameron,” and it sounded a lot like don’t lie to me.

“Okay,” Cameron murmured, and didn’t say anything more. Wilson wasn’t a part of their team, but he was still a doctor. He knew House’s chances, and he knew that the best surgeon available on such short notice was working on saving House’s life as they spoke. All they could do was watch and hope.

House survived.

Autumn 2006

“You sure you should be back?”

House said. “Well, you know me. Such a workaholic! I just can’t get enough of it.”

Chase tapped his nails against his coffee mug as he leant back against the kitchen counter, frowning across the room. The last eight weeks without House had been strangely quiet. They’d had no cases, so he, Foreman, and Cameron had all been assigned to cover spaces across the hospital. A rotation in NICU, a few days spent in oncology, another week in surgery… None of it was the same as working for House.

“Your leg?” Cameron asked, shooting his cane a worried look. “Did you do the ketamine?”

“Always say yes to drugs, kids,” House said.

Cameron’s eyebrows shot up. “You did it?”

“It didn’t work?” Foreman questioned, leaning forward on his elbows. “All of the studies I’ve read suggest—”

“Don’t be stupid, it was rhetorical,” House said, and began to limp over to the whiteboard. The movement was slower than before, but the weeks he’d spent on bedrest from the bullet wounds had probably weakened the muscles in his other leg. “Of course I didn’t do the treatment.”

Foreman raised an eyebrow. “Wilson talk you out of it?”

“I’m more than just a piece of meat!” House said, loud, dramatic. “I have thoughts and feelings too, you know!”

“Like you don’t make those obvious,” Chase muttered into his mug.

House banged his cane on the carpet, testing it out, then looked to the reddish-brown stain of his blood from where he’d collapsed. “Huh,” he said.

“Cuddy’s going to replace it,” Cameron offered.

“Why would she do that?”

Cameron blinked.

“Maybe because you bled out on the floor and its unsanitary to keep it there,” Foreman said.

“This is a hospital. If we got rid of everything someone had bled on, we’d be replacing the whole building once a month.” House shook his head. “No wonder Cuddy’s always so defensive: it’s from keeping track of all of these pesky expenses.”

“Most of the time, patients don’t bleed out on carpet,” Cameron pointed out.

“Well, they should.” House moved to the table, brushing through the files waiting there before continuing on with a grimace. He started a lap, circling past Chase, behind Foreman, and along the glass looking out onto the corridor. “Have we got a case?”

And, just like that, everything went back to normal.

House was in pain. A lot more pain than he had been before the shooting. He stayed on his feet as much as he could, pacing in the way he only did when he was in agony. A few times he stumbled even with the cane, his leg giving out under him, but he would always catch himself on the nearest piece of furniture then continue on like nothing had happened.

No matter what, though, House’s brain kept working, and so their case did too.

Once the diagnostic was done, House retreated to his office and slumped into his armchair, inching his bum leg up onto the footstool with both hands holding it for support.

When Chase returned in the afternoon to give House the results of the preliminary testing – all inconclusive – Wilson was sat in one of House’s office chairs, legs up on the stool, feet tangled with House’s. Wilson must have brought food from the cafeteria, because the two men were eating off plates, and there was something more relaxed in the line of House’s shoulders and the wrinkles on his face.

That faded when Chase walked in, going straight to House to give him the sheet of results, even as House frowned at him.

Wilson nodded to Chase in greeting, and continued eating his steak.

“So, is our patient about to keel over and die already, or does he have a few more days left in him?” House asked, glancing over the results.

“No deterioration yet,” Chase reported. “We’ve got time.”

House nodded, once, then grabbed a fry from his plate and shoved it into his mouth. “Good.” He knocked his foot against Wilson’s, drawing the man’s attention, before beginning to slowly and sensuously lick his fingers clean.

Wilson huffed, dropped his feet from the footstool, and pointedly broke eye contact with House to look over at Chase. The smile he gave him was only slightly strained. “Check for any masses in his lungs or heart.”

That gave Chase pause. “You think it could be cancer?”

House scoffed. “He’s an oncologist. He always thinks it’s cancer.”

Wilson ignored him – he was allowed to do that, because he didn’t work under House – and told Chase, “The symptoms fit. If it is cancer, you don’t want to miss that by refusing to do the scan.”

“Sure, okay,” Chase said, then looked to House for permission. “So I can do it?”

“Well, alright, then,” House said, annoyed. “If the oncologist tells you to…”

Chase took that as the permission it would sound like on a court record, and hightailed it out of there.

A final glance back over his shoulder as he waited for the elevators showed that House and Wilson were talking, and laughing.

Winter 2006

“I think there’s something going on between House and Wilson.”

Foreman glanced up from his microscope, saw the determined set to Cameron’s jaw, and looked to the ceiling as he asked for strength. “Is House forcing another prank war on the poor man? Because we really don’t have the time or budget for that right now.”

Cameron said, “Romantically.”

Chase choked on his tea, spitting it out across the neat rows of test tubes in front of him.

Foreman’s hand tightened so hard around his pen that he could swear his bones creaked. “Good one.”

“You must have seen it.”

Chase was still wheezing and hacking up his coffee, so Foreman patted his back sympathetically. “You’re delusional,” he told Cameron.

Cameron fixed him with an unimpressed look, crossing her arms. “Have you ever seen House have friends before?”

“If you’re right, he doesn’t have any friends now either,” Foreman said. “According to you, he’s too busy making kissy-faces at Wilson.”

Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and grimacing down at the mess he’d made, Chase finally got out, “House has had friends.”

“Really?” Cameron pushed. “Who?”

“Well, I never met them,” Chase said. “Doesn’t mean they didn’t exist.”

“Yeah, right.”

“You’re delusional,” Foreman said. “And you’ve ruined our tests,” he added, indicating the samples that Chase’s coughing fit had contaminated. “You think the kid’s mom is going to be happy to hear we need to draw another four vials of blood because Doctor Cameron has some fantasies?”

“They are not—” Cameron glanced back to the door of the pathology lab, like she was worried that House was about to appear.

If Foreman wanted to be fair to Cameron, he’d admit that House often did appear from nowhere, but he wasn’t all that interested in being fair to Cameron in that moment.

“—fantasies,” she hissed under her breath.

“Sure they aren’t,” Foreman said. He pointed to the tray of test tubes again. “You’re the one who gets to tell the mom we need to take more.”

“I’m not imagining things,” Cameron said, but she was already backing towards the door. They needed those samples as soon as they could get them, and Chase spitting his coffee into the previous batch was going to set them back an hour.

It was only after she left that Foreman caught Chase with a strangely contemplative look on his face. “God, not you too.”

“What?” Chase started. “No, I’m not—I was just thinking.”

“About what Cameron said,” Foreman said, pointed. He grabbed the next slide of the few untainted samples, and slotted it into the microscope. “House isn’t gay, Chase. Even if he were, no man would want to go out with him. Scratch that – no sane person would, ever.”

“Yeah,” Chase said. His brow was furrowed in deep thought, though. “Yeah, I—I know.”

A week later, House answered a midnight page with his jeans soaked up to the thigh, grouching about broken pipes. The next day, Wilson took a day off for some kind of personal emergency, and Cameron shot Foreman a look like two men having personal stuff going on at the same time proved everything.

He rolled his eyes and continued with his day. He was not going to be dragged into this crap. He had a job to do.

(Also) Winter 2006

Foreman had been looking for House for the past twenty minutes without any success.

Neither Cameron nor Chase had a clue, and all of the usual spots were empty. Coma guy’s room looked like it hadn’t been disturbed in days, the doctor’s lounges on their floor only had normal doctors in them, and he hadn’t signed in at the clinic in more than two days.

“Try the morgue,” Brenda said without looking up from her paperwork. “The techs are always complaining that he leaves crumbs.”

Foreman thanked her, then hurried to the elevators.

He needed House’s sign-off on a patient that one of his old med school buddies, now working at St. Sebastian’s, wanted him to take. Apparently, none of their doctors could figure out what was wrong with the college kid, and getting House’s team on the case was their last hope. That they’d swallowed their pride and deigned to go to House – or Foreman, who would then take it onto House – said a lot about the situation.

The diagnostics team hadn’t had a case in over a week, and Chase, Cameron, and Foreman were all getting bored.

House was refusing case after case for not meeting his exacting standards, and the cold weather always brought in a wave of cold and flu patients that drowned out anything more interesting, but this one… They could do some real good. And, more importantly to House, he could have a run at a puzzle half a dozen other doctors couldn’t solve.

The elevator dinged as it came to a stop, and the doors slid open.

Foreman stepped out, readjusting the faxed-over file in his grip, and rounded the corner to the morgue.

“House, I’ve got—”

‘A case’ is how he’d been planning to finish that sentence.

Instead, what he saw in the morgue stopped him in his tracks, freezing the words on his tongue.

House was propped on one of the unoccupied slabs of metal. Wilson was stood in between his legs. And they were kissing.

Foreman took in all of the details of the scene in a fraction of a second: House’s cane, discarded to one side; Wilson, cupping House’s cheeks; House, messing up Wilson’s hair; the faint, disgusting noises. The way it looked almost tender.

Then House and Wilson broke apart.

House was facing towards Foreman, and their eyes met over Wilson’s head.

Foreman stared and stared and stared.

The only thought he could manage was that Cameron was going to be so smug.

House didn’t seem to know what to say either. All he did was stare in shock at Foreman.

Wilson just covered his face with his hands.

No one said a word.

Then, Foreman cleared his throat. Said, “We have a case.” And turned around. And left.

(Also, Also) Winter 2006

“House actually took your case?” Chase asked, hurrying to catch up to Foreman’s stride as he emerged from the elevators and found Foreman going past. “That’s why he paged us?”

Foreman made a noise.

Chase had no idea if it was supposed to be agreement or disagreement. “Is that a yes?”

“Yes,” Foreman said, and it was short. Tight.

“…Oh-kay, then.” Chase caught Foreman’s shoulder, but even then Foreman didn’t slow, and Chase pushed himself to keep in step. “Is everything alright?” A thought occurred to him, and he groaned. “The patient hasn’t died already.”

“No.”

“Well, that’s something at least,” Chase muttered.

They came to the office, where House was already waiting inside.

Chase went to open the door, but Foreman got there before him, storming in and going straight for the table, where he threw himself down and promptly buried his head in his file.

Confused and weirded out, Chase stared after Foreman for a long moment, before following him in.

Cameron was already sat at the table, bobbing her teabag in her mug of tea as she flicked through the file Foreman had given them both copies of. When Foreman had entered, she’d frowned at him; when Chase came in soon after, she shot him a concerned look.

Chase spread his hands in a ‘hell if I know’ gesture.

House was stood by Cameron’s desk, facing the table with both hands wrapped around his cane, holding it in front of him.

Oddly enough, Wilson was there too, slumped in one of leather chairs and looking as rumpled as Chase had ever seen him, pinching his brow with a grimace painted across his face.

“Good, you’re finally here,” House said to Chase.

“I didn’t exactly take long,” Chase said.

House pointed to the table. “Sit. I don’t want to responsible for any fainting fits after what I’m about to tell you.”

Wilson made a sound that Chase could only describe as pained. “House…”

“It has come to my attention,” House pushed on, “that some members of this team are aware that Wilson and I are knocking boots.”

It took a long, long moment for the words to register in Chase’s brain.

The room was dead silent.

“Boinking?” House suggested, raising an eyebrow like the time delay for any reactions was from a lack of understanding instead of a lack of understanding. “Bumping uglies?” He sighed heavily and dramatically. “Come on, one of these is going to have to stick. What about getting our freak on?”

All Chase could do was stare and stare and stare.

Wilson’s demeanor made a lot more sense.

“They know what you mean, House,” Wilson finally cut in, and his voice was mostly steady, but Chase found he didn’t really care about that in this moment.

“I’m not sure they do,” House said in an aside, before turning back to the table. “How about making the beast with two backs?”

Cameron finally let out a faint, choking noise.

“We get it,” Foreman said, too-loud and brittle.

“Of course you get it, you’ve seen us in action,” House dismissed, pulling a face. “I need to know that these two morons have.”

Foreman said, “You guys get it, right?”

“Yep,” Chase said.

“Definitely,” Cameron said.

House smile was smug. “Good.” He glanced back, to Wilson. “That pretty much covers it.”

“No, it doesn’t.” Wilson sounded exhausted. He looked exhausted. But he removed his hand from his face anyway, and with a grimace for the history books, said, “House and I are in a long-term relationship. This has been the case since before I started working at this hospital. HR is fully aware, and all of the paperwork has been filled out.”

“Paperwork,” House said. “So sexy.” He made a weird purring noise.

Wilson ignored him. “If any of you have any doubts about our professional relationship, House will be happy to answer your queries.” He shot a sharp look towards House. His boyfriend.

“No, I won’t.”

“Yes,” Wilson said. “You will.”

Somehow, House didn’t protest any further.

That was the most shocking thing of all. Chase had never understood why House reacted so differently to Wilson than he did to everyone else.

Here was his answer.

Chase was shocked out of his thoughts by Cameron loudly exclaiming, “I can’t believe I missed the gay marriage.”

House’s mouth pinched unhappily.

“We’re not married,” Wilson said.

“You never actually asked,” House sniped.

Wilson raised an eyebrow, half-turning to House. “Fine: will you marry me?”

“No,” House answered, just as blunt as the proposal.

Wilson gestured between them. “See?”

“But—you were in a relationship when Massachusetts legalized gay marriage. That’s why House freaked out that week, because of you.” There was a gleam in Cameron’s eye that Chase really didn’t like the look of.

When she had brought up the idea of House and Wilson being together a few weeks before, Chase hadn’t been able to believe it. The whole thing had just seemed so implausible. But in that moment, staring the reality of House and Wilson’s relationship right in the face, Chase had absolutely no choice but to accept it.

“I remember that,” he breathed out. “He—” He looked across, to Wilson. “You called him, about a dozen times.”

“More like a million times,” House said, sounding annoyed.

“Forgive me for worrying when you dropped off the map for three days,” Wilson shot back at him, before looking to Chase. “I did, yes.”

“Other times too,” Chase realized. “You’re the one he dumped. You’re— You’re the bloke who was in his apartment. You’re the guy who he made me answer the phone to, right before he was punched!”

“Almost definitely on all counts,” Wilson said. “House has no other relationships.”

“He’s possessive,” House said confidingly.

“Yeah, right,” Foreman scoffed. “That’s the reason no one wants to be your friend.” He tapped the file in front of him. “Now that we’re done with this, there is a dying girl who needs our help. Anyone care to actually do our jobs?”

“Right,” Cameron said, but she was still off-kilter; blinking too much, shaking her head a little, fumbling over the pages of her file.

Chase stared at House for a while longer.

As they dived into a differential at breakneck speeds, led by a Foreman who was clearly desperate to get away from the personal conversation, Chase thought he was the only one who saw the slight, genuine smile on House’s face.