Well, I have lost you; and I lost you fairly;

In my own way, and with my full consent.

Say what you will, kings in a tumbrel rarely

Went to their deaths more proud than this one went.

- Edna St. Vincent Millay

------

House sat in his office, lick-haired and yawning.

Unfinished piles of paperwork lay on both corners of his desk, and a thick file was opened before him, an exhausted pen resting in the middle of it. He ignored both these tedious things, as he was clearing out his drawers. Well – less clearing them out than handling through them, looking for some cool old game he had abandoned.

He found some fake dog shit in a can; didn't know what he was going to do with that. Put it in Cuddy's spare hankies, perhaps. He found travel Monopoly. Funny it was 'mono', when it needed more than one player. No wonder he had abandoned it. He found an old Kirby Game Boy cartridge that he thought he had stolen from a kid patient on clinic duty. In his mind, it was justified. Mother had sat there describing all his symptoms while the kid beeped and buzzed and immersed himself in pixels. House had spent half his time trying to get a straight answer from him.

Besides, it wasn't as though the kid was going to miss one game. He had brought enough cartridges and batteries in a little striped case to last about a year, and spent more time packing his crap away than House had diagnosing him.

"Hate when that happens," House said to himself as he shoved in the old game, soon busying himself with controlling a walking marshmellow. The music sounded like the tinnitus he sometimes got when he took too much Vicodin, but more tuneful, so it had a double familiarity to him.

He scrunched down in the chair, ignoring posture, positioning the game so light hit the screen.

Someone knocked on his office door, and was ignored, so they entered. It was Cameron in her neat little pants with the ironed creases. Professional pants, thought House. And of course she wears a matching waistcoat.

"Good morning, House," said Cameron, her tone between dryness and patience. She eyed the open file on his desk. "Have you looked at that?" No reply. "I'll leave you alone, but can you just give me a yes or no?"

"Skittish this morning, aren't you?" House noted, mostly to himself. Then he gave her a single glance; a flick of eyes up from the game, the beep of a pause – then down again. Kirby's little vacuum sound played several times in succession, in the silence. "No need to tiptoe around me. I won't bite if you stay, I'll just ignore you. Probably."

Cameron sighed, taking care not to open her mouth too widely, or he would notice. Behind her back, her hands stretched and balled.

"I hate this guy with the hammer," House said to the screen, giving the machine a little shake as he lost a life. "I can't even tell whether he's a duck or a badger. He might be a badger with a beak. At least he's not as bad as those little bomiknocker guys that you can't suck up."

"And the relevance of this is?" Cameron said in the tone she only used around House. "If you're going to talk me about your game, I'm going to go back to work."

"I looked at the file, by the way," House waited to say this to her back as she strode out, forcing her to turn clumsily on her heel to come back. "Well, sort of. Tee el, dee arr. Kirby calls"
"I understood most of that," Cameron said, wanting very much – and it would be so easy – to reach out and flick that irritating machine from his hands, "but you lapsed into gibberish in the middle. I assume you've just taken your pills?"

"No, I didn't," House leaned down in a sort of gesture, then came up again, his thumbs working. "Tee el, dee arr. Too long, didn't read. Internet lingo. Keep up with the times."

"I thought acronyms were meant to be written," Cameron said, "that's the point of them; it's much easier to just say the whole thing. It's less recognisable if you…"

"Well, now I wish I'd just said it," said House, "I wish I'd said tongue twisters in succession rather than start you on about acronyms."

Cameron shut her mouth tight, and her brows contracted. Without another word, she came straight up to the desk and turned the case file around violently, to see where he was up to. She read as the game over music of Kirby played. Though the game was finished, House furrowed his face over the screen, determined not to acknowledge her sudden boldness. Like hell he'd even observe her trying to be brave. Not that she was. Triumph! Doctor Cameron approaches the desk of a crush that may or may not be. He chuckled. As though professionalism veiled the blatancy of cool things like crushes.

"You need to read a bit more," Cameron said. "I included her family's medical history for a reason. Look at it. It's full of physical and mental illness. Her father was autistic; her mother was a suicide. Grandparents were full of genetic diseases. I think it's relevant. Especially since her GP is trying to make her look unlucky." She paused, looked up. House was exchanging Kirby for Donkey Kong.

"So, what's her name again?" he said, switching on the Game Boy.

"House," Cameron's voice was sharp, but she reached out only tentatively toward the machine. He pulled it away. She touched his arm instead, gave it a weak tug. He raised one eyebrow and looked up at her. She pulled her hand away like a crack of lightning at the eyebrow, and cradled it between her other arm and breast. Looked at him as neutrally as her warmed face could manage.

House opened his mouth, but let the silence linger before he spoke. Cameron endured it; she deserved to be needled with discomfort for attempting that. Her nails dug into her arm.

"I don't work with names," he said. "I work with symptoms, etcetera. All that silly stuff that doesn't mean anything." He stood up, tossed the dead Game Boy aside, and adjusted his cane. "Will you muster the troops, or shall I?"

"I think I'll do it. The mustering," Cameron said, and waded from the stagnant office; the air in there was as thick as soup now.