Hello All. My very first one-shot, because I usually write too much to call it a one-shot...
Anyway enjoy some semi-OOC Cameron and some semi-OOC House... :D.

xx Peace-and-war

Ten years Ago

"I'm sorry Ms Cameron." The surgeon let out the dreaded words she hoped she would never hear again.

"No...No..." She was crying uncontrollably, she was standing up and she slid down the wall, her mother tried to comfort her but she was rejecting any comfort. The surgeon looked sympathetic. She wanted to slap him. "WHY COULDN'T YOU SAVE HER? SHE WAS ONLY THREE MONTHS OLD!" Cameron stood up, about to slap him. The surgeon left after giving his condolonces.

"MY BABY! No.. NOT LILY!" She was screaming, her father came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her trying to comfort. She tried resisting, but she went limp letting her father absorb the sobs and hold her.

She stared out of the gallery. Chase stood looking at the surgeon operating. Monitors started beeping, the patient flatlined. They tried restarting the patients heart. They managed to get it beating.

"Find the puzzle." House stated. The team was sitting in the office, Chase was pacing, Foreman resting his feet on an empty chair, and Cameron was nursing her fourth cup of coffee in the past three hours.

"The puzzle? The patient is in the NICU! That's the puzzle!" Chase always had a soft side for infants. He needed to save this patient. But Cameron needed to save the girl even more.

"What causes taccarythmia in a 6 month old?"

Everyone looked at House, and then quickly looked away.

"The question was not supposed to be rhetorical people!"

"No shit." Cameron answered, her voice low from trying to steady it.

"You kiss your mother with that mouth?"

"My mother has no relevance to this case House." Her voice was shaking ever so slightly. House picked up on this.

"Are you able to stay objective Dr Cameron?" Foreman and Chase looked at her. They had 'what the hell' written all over their faces.

"Yes." She had to stay objective. She needed to stay objective to stay on this case.

"Okay then. Chase talk to the parents. Find out anything about the mothers pregnancy. Foreman, go run blood panels again." House threw a medical dictionary in front of him. "Test for anything which fits the bill of taccarythmia." Foreman and Chase got up to leave.

"What about me?" Cameron asked, her voice back to its normal frequency and was steady.

"Follow me." He walked down to the NICU, and stopped outside the infant girls door. The parents were in there, talking to Chase.

House stopped, turned and looked at Cameron.

"I asked you once, did you lose a baby. I think you called me a.."

"Bastard." Cameron gave a look that asked 'Are we going anywhere with this?'

"Yes. Did you lose a baby because it desplayed the same symptoms as the Thompson girl?"

Cameron sighed and looked at the baby girl who had tubes in her and machines beeping around her.

"I..I..," She took a deep breath, "I did have a baby girl." She trailed off. The baby was sleeping, peacefully as far as Cameron could see. The back of her

eyes started prickling with tears. She shut her eyes and continued. "She died at the age of 2 months, 8 months after my husband died. Congenial heart defect.

Hole in her heart. They didn't find it until it was too late. They tried to operate, she died on the table."

House looked at her, he tried to put on a look of empathy, it just came off as a grimace.

"I can't do this. I can't remain objective." Cameron started crying, tears silently running down her cheeks.

House moved closer to her, put his arm over her shoulder. "You can do this. Help save their little girl."

She shook the arm off. "Why should I save theirs, when nobody could save mine?" She spat out.

"Because. The pain I'm guessing you went through, you don't want anybody else to suffer." House stated. He was feeling compassionate.

"People are going to suffer whether I help them or not. The parents are suffering because their daughter is dying. The girl is suffering because she has

multiple symtoms that lead to nothing we can figure out, the whole world is suffering because of hunger, drought and bloody HIV. Nobody is going to stop suffering, and nobody can stop it." Cameron finished her speech and looked in the window of the little girl who was now awake and cooing at her mother.

"Awfully cynical view of the world Dr Cameron."

"Cynical is better than naive. Everyone assumes I'm naive because I'm pretty, smart and nice. I'm bitchy, deceptive and cunning as well. No-one who has dealt with death is naive. Despite what you think."

"You know what I think?" House stood face on to her.

"No. Don't care either."

"I think you can do this. Not to help save their baby girl, but to help put yours to rest."

"You think that it will help? Erase the memories of me holding her in my arms? The fact she had her fathers eyes? The memory of me hearing the surgon telling me there was nothing they could do? Because it didn't help by numbing the pain, or anything else I did could not erase her." Cameron turned and left. House

left staring at her in the hallway, watching her leave.

House walked into the room. "I'm sorry Mrs Thompson, I have to steal Dr Chase."

"Whats this about?" Chase glared at him.

"Cameron."

"Oh goody. A heart to heart about the person I usually have heart to heart talks with." Chase's voice was laden with sarcasm.

"Has she mentioned anything about a child?"

"No. She mentioned her husband, but no child. She was twenty-one. Most people don't think about children at that age."

"Not thinking about them doesn't stop them coming. Using birth control would stop it."

"Look. It's Cameron's issue. She can deal with it."

"If she doesn't deal with this, I will need to remove her from this case, and any other case involving children. That makes her a liability."

"Shouldn't you be fired then?"

"What?"

"You are hopped out on Vicodin all the time, you are reckless, self-destructive, misanthropic, and treat patients like shit. That makes you a liability. I still wonder why Cuddy hasn't fired you yet, except for the fact she can't risk anything happening to her precious hospital outweighs the fact you are going to screw the hospital over."

"She needs me, but Dr Cameron needs this job. I'm trying to help her for once."

"Once for her, or once for your pathetic life?"

"Thats not the issue."

"Never is, is it?"