After reading so many awesome stories about Cameron and Thirteen by so many awesome authors, I decided to write one of my own. So, here it is!

Disclaimer: I do not own House M.D. and that includes its characters and plots. This is story is purely an outlet.

"32 year-old male with chronic pain all over." Cameron stated, getting straight down to business. The patient's been in butt loads of pain and was sent to the ER a couple days ago after a failed suicide attempt. She spent the whole day yesterday doing up House's departmental budgets so that he would owe her a favour and help the guy.

"This is the favour?" House mocked, "I was expecting something involving whipped cream and tongue depressors." And as always, finishing off with an inappropriate and unnecessary comment.

"He's seen seven different specialists over three years. No diagnosis and no relief." Cameron continued, remaining impassive. She wanted nothing more than to get House to take the case and get the hell out of the office, which she reasoned to be tiredness resulting from doing his budgets the previous day and not because of a certain brunette doctor being in that same office.

"Oh, I am fascinated already. It's like I'm treating myself. He gets cured; and I get to learn a valuable lesson about milk of human kindness." replied House, cleverly seeing through Cameron's intention.

"If I thought you learned lessons, I never would've quit." Cameron retorted, not going to let House get the satisfaction of reading her so easily. She was unconsciously glad for the annoyance that's building up within her, distracting her from something else. Or someone else, in this case.

"So you're wasting a favour because?" House questioned. "I think you can help this guy." Cameron replied honestly. This was her initial intention before she figured that it could help House too. "Drug-seeking patients-"

"Don't attempt suicide with medicine cabinets full of narcotics." Cameron cutting House off before he could finish his sentence.

The team, sitting in the same room, was listening in on the conversation while reading the file. "Sounds like fibromyalgia." Thirteen suggested.

The idea presented by the internist accidentally pushed Cameron's annoyance over the edge. "Sounds like you don't work for House." As soon as that comment came out, Cameron winced internally, knowing fully how convincingly bitchy she sounded. She hadn't meant for that to happen, let alone be directed at Thirteen of all people. But by the way House was going on and on without actually flat out accepting the case, was really getting on her nerves.

Thirteen, on the other hand, not expecting that sudden small outburst from the oh-so-nice Cameron, raised a slightly indignant eyebrow and turned her head towards Cameron.

"A diagnosis that provides neither an explanation nor a cure is by definition not a diagnosis." Cameron continued on, trying to justify her previous snarky comment or more on a subconscious level, to redeem herself in the eyes of Thirteen, who was now looking at her which not at all helped the situation.

"The American College of Rheumatology would disagree. There are specific diagnostic criteria-"

"Which this guy doesn't meet. Putting pressure on his pain helps, doesn't make it worse. He's got abdominal pain, severe headaches, muscle cramps that come and go." Before Foreman could even finish standing up for Thirteen, he was interrupted by a rather exasperated Cameron. Cameron, realizing that herself, began slowing her words and lowering her tone down as her explanation went on.

Her heart rate had been going up rapidly since that encounter with Thirteen less than a minute ago. Cameron knew she needed to calm down, she would hyperventilate otherwise. So, she slowly walked over to the team and leaned against the back of an empty chair for support. The presence of the brunette doctor next to the seat, ironically, was helping her soothed her nerves.

"And he tried to off himself. He's obviously mentally ill. Pain's probably psychological." Taub said, chipping in to the differential.

"It is not a sign of mental illness to want to be pain-free." Cameron snapped back, narrowing her eyes at Taub. Though still feeling a little overwhelmed, she was relieved that they were now in the diagnosing part of the process.

House, after concluding the patient's previous doctors being idiots, gave his team member an assignment each and then irritatingly pointed out to Cameron to go home. With that, Cameron and the team shuffled out of the diagnostics room. He casted a suspicious eye towards Foreman when he volunteered to help with searching the patient's house, an assignment he assigned to Thirteen. Interesting.


Thirteen was pressing the close button in the elevator when she saw Cameron running towards her. She instinctively held out one hand to stop the elevator door from closing, earning herself a mumbled "Thanks" from Cameron and the two doctors proceeded to exchange awkward smiles with each other.

The elevator door was already more than halfway closed and Foreman, knowing exactly who was in it, practically sprinted towards it. But as luck would have it, the door closed fully just as he reached the entrance. The fact that he was sure Cameron saw him running towards the elevator but did nothing to stop the door from closing, baffled him. He scrunched up his face in annoyance as he punched the elevator button and waited for the next lift to arrive.

Cameron's heart was racing. She could feel the fast-paced thumping of her heart against her chest. The thumping almost seemed to drown out the silence that filled the elevator, but she was all too aware of it. Wracking her brain for something to say, the only thought running through her head though, was she's in a small, confined area with the object of her obsession for the past couple of months. Alone.

Not quite sure what to do with her hands, Cameron started to fiddle with the helm of her scrubs while Thirteen patiently watched the lighting of the floor numbers change.

"Erm, sorry about before. Kinda snapped at you." Finally, Cameron was able to force the words out of her mouth.

"It's okay. Don't worry 'bout it." Thirteen replied, flashing Cameron a reassuring smile afterwards.

Cameron's breath caught in her throat. Her mouth hung slightly loose and suddenly all the moisture in it seemed to have evaporated. When the bluish-grey eyes of Thirteen's caught her own blue ones, that tiny twinkle she saw in the depths of those mesmerizing eyes when Thirteen smiled was probably the most beautiful thing. Cameron found herself staring a little too long but was unable to look away. With the questioning look Thirteen was giving her, meant the staring was in fact, too much too long.

The ding of the elevator snapped Cameron out of her trance. A second later, she felt her cheeks flushed. Thirteen turned her head up to confirm that the elevator had reached her destination. "My stop. Guess I'll see you around, Dr. Cameron."

"Yeah, for sure."

Thirteen responded with a slight nod of her head before continuing her way towards the locker room. Huh, that was weird. She smirked ever so slightly to herself and then shook her head to get the thoughts of the elevator incident out of her head because right now, she had a job to do.

As soon as the elevator door closed, Cameron smacked herself on the forehead. That could not have gone any worse. "Idiot!" She whispered harshly to herself. After she had followed the team out of the diagnostics room, Cameron had decided she might as well run some errands on the same floor. However, when she saw a certain brunette doctor stepping into the elevator in the other direction from the corner of her eyes, she quickly changed her trek.

She wished she had just gone through with her original plan, now that she's convinced she had completely embarrassed herself in front of Thirteen. When the elevator dinged again, Cameron stepped out and huffed the whole way to her office in the ER.


Thirteen was in the process of looking through a metal shelf in the patient's garage when Foreman entered, holding a large plastic bag packed with bottles of pills.

"There's nothing in there but a pharmacy's worth of pain meds. This guy makes House looks like a Christian Scientist. He's also more compliant than House. Kept all the inserts, had daily pill dispensers to make sure he didn't mix them up." Foreman said, with a rather disbelieving look plastered on his face before the car in the garage grabbed his attention. "I guess if you're gonna go out in a car, this ain't a bad one to choose."

Thirteen, upon hearing the comment, bent down to inspect the car more closely. Different possible scenarios of suicide flashed through her mind briefly. "If I ever did it, definitely wouldn't be like that."

Seeing Foreman's concerned expression, she realized what she must have sounded. "Don't worry, I'm not making any plans." Thirteen added quickly.

"I certainly wouldn't know. Ever since we kissed, you've been avoiding me."

"No, I haven't. Just been busy. Metal polish could cause nerve damage if he inhaled enough of it. Judging by the shine on that car, he used a fair amount." Thirteen replied, trying to subtly change the subject to avoid continuing that particular conversation.

"Judging by the fact that he owns a body shop and one of these respirators, I'd say he knew not to inhale." Not wanting to let Thirteen off the hook so easily, Foreman decided to try his luck. "Busy tonight? We can get some dinner."

"I don't think so." Thirteen grimaced, annoyed by the fact that Foreman couldn't take the hint and simply let the issue dropped.

"So making out, okay. Meals, too intimate?" Foreman couldn't help feeling somewhat displeased. Thirteen had opened up to him about her bitter past and then, initiated the kiss during Christmas. All these things had made him swollen with pride and he wanted so much more.

"I don't want to kiss you again either." Thirteen looked down, avoiding eye contact.

Hurt by the sudden revelation, Foreman's expression turned sullen and he pressed on. "Why? Because we work together?"

"No. Because I don't like you. Not in that way." Thirteen explained.

"That makes a lot of sense, considering you were the one that initiated the kiss." Foreman's voice raised by several decibels as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

Thirteen was getting intimidated by the way Foreman had changed his stance. The garage seemed to be shrinking all of a sudden, trapping her inside with him. Gathering her courage, she met Foreman's stare unflinchingly, she figured that the best way to salvage the situation was to soothe his mammoth-sized ego. "What doesn't make sense is me getting involved with anyone."

Foreman's appearance softened considerably after hearing Thirteen's response, feeling a small pang of sympathy for the woman in front of him. "I thought you'd gotten past that. That's why you agreed to the drug trial. You can't give up on life because-"

"I'm not giving up on life. I'm just giving up on you. I finally feel like I have a grip on things. I can handle this. What I can't handle is dragging anyone else down with me." Thirteen interrupted, not wanting to carry on with this needless conversation. Turning away from Foreman, she opened the freezer behind her and found numerous packaged meats.

"Does this look like quail to you?"


Cameron was buried deep within piles and piles of paperwork in her office at the ER when her pager went off. She grudgingly pulled out her pager to check the message and was pleasantly surprised to find that Thirteen was the one who had paged her to the diagnostics room. Without second thoughts, Cameron got up from the seat behind her desk and promptly headed towards said location.

The glass walls of the diagnostics room provided Cameron the view of its interior even before she stepped through its door. The first thing she noticed was that Thirteen wasn't in the room which was puzzling, considering she was the one who had paged her. Still, she pushed opened the door to the diagnostics room and stepped in without breaking her stride.

"I tried his home phone and he's not answering his cell either." Foreman stated, as soon as Cameron walked in.

Cameron's mind though, was on something else. "Where's-" Just when she was about to ask where Thirteen was, the brunette doctor entered the room with a scan of the patient in her hands.

"VQ scan showed pulmonary embolism." Thirteen told the team, tossing the scan onto the glass conference table.

"Means the pain's not psychosomatic." Taub concluded, finally convinced that the patient's pain was not psychological.

"It also means it's not rhabdomyolysis." Kutner deduced, dismissing the diagnosis that Thirteen had made earlier after she had found packs of quail stuffed in the freezer at the patient's home.

"You paged me?" Cameron, who had been quietly listening, turned towards Thirteen and asked.

Thirteen startled a little at the unexpected voice, having not seen Cameron when she walked in. "Yeah. Since House isn't responding to our calls, we need all the help we can get." She explained, regaining her composure.

"Up till now, his heart and lungs were the only places he didn't have pain." Foreman's statement had his desired effect of grabbing both Cameron's and Thirteen's attention, who he saw were engaged in their own conversation.

"Means it's getting worse." Kutner sighed.

Before anyone could continue on with the differential diagnosis, the phone rang. After Foreman put it on speaker, a familiar voice came through.

"Got to let the phone ring more than four times when you're calling a cripple. Chronic pain and pulmonary embolism, go."

"How'd you know he had-"

"You called after midnight. It's got to be a heart problem." Kutner didn't even get to finish his question when House impatiently interrupted. "Heart would only be consistent with rhabdo, which means Thirteen and Foreman would be singing in the rain, which means it has to be lungs as well."

Cameron's eyebrows turned upwards in puzzlement upon hearing House's remark, unsure of what to make of it. She felt her stomach lurched at the mere thought of Thirteen being even remotely intimate with Foreman, causing her to raise her right hand unconsciously to cover her mouth.

"Hypercoagulable state could cause pain and a PE." Thirteen responded, ignoring the unsubtle comment.

"You think the blood clot was caused by a clotting problem. That's helpful." House retorted, shooting down Thirteen's suggestion sarcastically.

"What if it's a cancer syndrome, like Trousseau's? Explain blood clots, multifocal pain and lack of obvious physical signs." Kutner proposed.

House seemingly agreed with his diagnosis and ordered the team to check the patient's chest, abdomen and pelvis for any tumours.

"Why did he think only you two would be singing in the rain?" Taub asked mockingly, directing his question towards Thirteen and Foreman after House had hung up the phone.

Foreman took on a smug look while Thirteen chose to simply take the patient's and exit the room, impervious to the mocking. She refused to be invested in the ridiculous notion of her and Foreman together. She had regretted kissing Foreman as soon as the kiss had ended, but after going through so much, she needed someone for comfort and Foreman just happened to be in proximity.


Thirteen closed her eyes and rubbed her temple in frustration as she waited for the elevator to arrive, feeling a migraine coming on. Despite hearing hurried footsteps approaching her from behind, Thirteen made no move to turn around, not in the mood for any social contact. When she saw a pink-clad figure stopped beside her from her peripheral vision, she couldn't help but glanced briefly towards its direction. Her tense shoulders relaxed visibly.

"Are you okay?" Cameron asked in a quiet voice, after Thirteen made a brief eye contact with her. She had quickly followed Thirteen out of the diagnostics room once the brunette doctor left, thoroughly annoyed with the team's insensitivity.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Thirteen replied in an equally quiet tone.

"So, why did House think only you and Foreman would be singing in the rain?" The question seemed to have bypassed Cameron's brain and came out of her mouth before she even had a chance to stop it from spilling out.

"What?" Thirteen breathed out harshly, she couldn't believe that she had heard Cameron right. "I understand House's need to mock me and I guess in a lesser extent, Taub's too. But you? We hardly even know each other." Thirteen continued on as she stared incredulously at Cameron, the volume of her voice rising slightly towards the end.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say that. It just-" Cameron apologized, trying desperately to explain herself.

"Whatever it is you meant to say, forget it. I don't have the time nor am I in the mood to hear it. Besides, I have a patient to take care of." Thirteen cut Cameron off before she could finish her explanation and proceeded to step into the elevator that had just arrived, keeping her head down to avoid looking into pleading eyes.

After the elevator door closed, Cameron groaned in frustration. "Why the hell did I say that?" She whispered angrily. She had been so absorbed in her own thoughts about Thirteen and Foreman, she just couldn't stop herself from wondering out loud.

"Say what?"

Cameron snapped her head up towards the source of the question and came face to face with the last person she wanted to see in the world. Foreman was looking at her expectantly with more curiosity than concern. Scowling, Cameron unnecessarily pushed past him and stormed in the direction of the stairway, leaving the perplexed dark-skinned doctor behind and his question unanswered in the process.

This is my first ever published fan fiction! Please read and review, tell me what you think!