Top-to-bottom-examination; just like she had learned in medical school all those years ago.
Today she felt like being back in school again, having spent almost 5 hours down at the clinic, examining one patient after another.
Her mood had turned from something one could call okay to something beyond annoyance.
But she had never been a person, who would take out her moods on others. True, she was an emotional person, 'a little whiney schoolgirl', one grumpy doctor might say, but she always tried her best to hide those moods. Some days it was harder than usual, and today was on of those days.
They had just discharged a patient last night and instead of catching up on some paperwork she was in the clinic, doing the 'grumpy' doctor's clinic hours. Frankly, she didn't really mind at all, since that meant she wouldn't be sitting in the conference room watching Chase doing some crossword-puzzle or House snarking at Foreman.
"Take two of those every day, starting tomorrow and come back for a check up in about two weeks," she said handing the patient a script, smiling slightly. Rubbing her neck she decided she could squeeze in another patient before lunch.
The nurse, Susan, if Cameron recalled it right, handed her another file.
"He is already in Exam 2," Susan said
Cameron nodded absently, turning around sharply when someone called her name. Dr Cuddy was just coming out of her office walking towards her, caring a rather huge pile of folders.
"Where is Dr. House?"
"Uh, no idea. I think you could be lucky if you check his office, though," she offered.
Cameron smiled slightly at the dean of medicine and then excused herself to see the next patient. She would try to stay out of this little "thing" that was going on between House and Cuddy. Sometimes it seemed like they were a long-married couple, but had decided, a while ago, to not care about that anymore. She had spent way too much time with having a crush on House anyway.
She took a deep breath, as though she wanted to rid those thoughts out of her head.
"I am Dr.Cameron…uhm, you came here today, because you ….," she said more to herself than to the patient, while closing the door, not looking up from the patients chart, she was studying is symptoms. Closing the file she took the chair from the corner and sat down in front of the patient.
"…fell of a ladder this morning, Mr. … uh …," words stopped coming out of her mouth when her glance fell on the patient's personal information. When she looked up, she saw the man looking at her, a friendly smile all over his face.
"Hey Ally."
House stepped out of the elevator, seeing the clinic being stuffed with snotty nosed, aching limbed patients made him even angrier at Cuddy. But he probably was angrier at himself for letting her find him so easily. Sometimes she was like an executioner, and most of the time he was her victim and her slaughter almost always was about to get him do his clinic duties by himself not by one of his ducklings.
At the nurses-station, he took five folders and skimmed through them, trying to find the least boring, yet least disgusting case. Putting the other folders back on the pile, someone grabbed the designated folder from his hand and handed him another one.
"The patient's already in exam one," Brenda said smiling her special smile that she probably saved only for him.
"Oh goody," he smiled, not even bothering to hide the sarcasm dripping from his voice, limping his way to the examination room.
Something caught his attention as he passed exam two, someone was in there. Peeking into the room, he saw Cameron in there with a patient. She was hugging him. This was definitely taking the whole caring business she had too far. House smirked, either she knew the guy, or he was about to die. He watched them for a few seconds, she turned towards the door and quickly slipped into the other room.
"Uh, hey …. Are you my doctor?" a female voice behind him almost screamed when he closed the door.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah … shhh." House said, moved over to the blinds and peeked outside.
Cameron was talking to Brenda for a moment and then went to get a wheelchair from beside the desk, which she pushed back into the exam room, only to come out again two minutes later with her patient. While she talked to him, House could see something in her face, he wasn't sure what it was, but she most likely hadn't hugged him because he was dying, well, maybe he was, but Cameron also knew this guy.
But what really caught his attention, was the way he looked at her.
When she moved towards the elevator he pulled back and threw the folder for his patient on the table next to them. He left the room without a backward glance, not seeing the confused look of his patient.
"Where did she take him?"
"Who?" Brenda did not even turn around.
"Dr. Cameron," House was getting impatient.
"I don't think …."
House stopped her mid-sentence, "I know you don't. Where?"
She gave him one of her looks, "What about your patient?"
House sighed, "She is an idiot. Give her an aspirin and send her home."
Again, Brenda gave him the look.
"She is wearing new shoes. High-heels, to be exact. She probably wore them all day and now is wondering about her aching feet? I say she's an idiot."
"Dr. Cameron went to Radiology to get an x-ray," Brenda said exhausted.
"See, that was easy," House replied and then huddled over to the elevators.
While waiting for the lift, he smirked. Clinic duty was boring; he was much more intrigued by finding out more about Cameron's mysterious patient.
Cuddy wouldn't probably see it this way, but then again, he would be in radiology, not his usual hiding place. Maybe he could find some place to hang out down there for the rest of the day.
The elevator stopped half way down to radiology, and Wilson entered.
"Where are you heading?" he asked and pushed the button for the second floor.
"Down." House simply stated.
"Radiology? Why? You don't have a patient right now."
"Well, Jimmy I hate to break it to you, but I met someone else. I've been seeing him for almost a month now, and I am soooo in love," House emphasized the last word while winking at him.
The door opened and House started to move, Wilson leaned out after him.
"Did you tell him that he needs to give up his life in order to take care of yours?"
"Jealous much?" House had turned around and wiggled his eyebrows.
House found the nurses-station empty, so he walked around the counter and skimmed through the folders.
"Dr. House, how can I help you today?" a voice behind him appeared so he got up and faced a nurse, Lucifer Lucy.
House cursed himself for not checking before which nurse would be working, since Lucy was a tough one. She knew him too well, he had to handle her with care. He made a mental note, to bribe Cuddy into hiring some new nurses soon, much younger and much more naïve.
"I am looking for the chart of Dr. Cameron's patient." He said turning back to the pile of folders.
"And why is that?" She stemmed her arms on her hips, hoping to show some authority, and if House would care about something like that he probably would have been intimidated by that gesture.
"Don't tell her…" he started lowering his voice, "… but Dr. Cameron is under supervision the next month. We got some pretty bad reports about her unethical and rude behaviour towards the patients lately."
Lucy gave him a suspicious look.
"It is true. I've to supervise every one of her actions at work. Direct order from the man."
"And if I would call Dr. Cuddy she would confirm this?" Lucy said, unsure whether she was asking him or simply paraphrasing.
"Of course, Lucy. Why would I … ha, got it." House held up the manila folder, then hooked his cane on his arm and flipped the chart open.
He slowly skimmed through the medical exam; Cameron had ordered several X-rays with strong suspicion of broken ribs, torn ligaments and a broken wrist. Also he has lots of bruises on his thorax and respiratory distress.
He concluded it was nothing lethal, flipped the page and took a look at the personal information but nothing rang any bells by him. He had never heard her mentioning a Joe Martin.