The Downside of Happy Pills

"Addie's kidneys shut down."

Cameron stayed close to him as she watched an almost pleased look spread across his face. Which was completely disconcerting and only added to the number of times she had seen him smile recently.

He had been acting odd all week.

Not good or bad (or anymore bad than usual at least) but certainly odd and distinctly un-House-like.

But she kept these observations to herself; Forman was still flustering over his resignation, things with Chase were still awkward and Wilson was acting a little strange too.

And if any of them noticed House's odd behaviour they didn't show it.

She was worried about him; worried about that wry smile on his lips and the glazed look in his eyes.

But the look was gone in an instant as his eyes narrowed and became furious at her presence.

"How the hell did you get in here?!" he roared.

"You taught me how to break into houses!" she shouted back.

"Yeah, patients houses not mine!"

"I didn't break in. Anyway, who the hell "hides" their spare key over the door?!" she argued.

His entire body language changed and the anger and rage fell away from him replaced with a sly look.

"Well, I wanted to be easily accessible in case you decided you needed that sperm sample." he said with an evil smile.

"Urgh." she said disgusted turning from him but still not moving from the bed.

"Is that why you're really here?" he asked with a leering smirk, sliding a hand teasingly across her back.

For the smallest on instances she lent into that warm hand, even he felt it too. But then she stood, his fingers catching a single divine touch of her ass before she was out of reach.

She stood with her back to him, trying to compose herself. Her whole body was shivering from that single touch. From being in his bedroom, from sitting on his bed as he practically asked her if she wanted to have sex with him.

God, yes!

When she turned around she was surprised to see him smiling again.

Something very odd was going on and she wondered if it had anything to do with the way his eyes reacted to the light.

She would have said he was on something but she believed him and he seemed lucid.

At least lucid enough.

"Do you fancy a quickie?" she asked challengingly.

His smile grew wider.

"Sure," he replied with dark glistening eyes before he suddenly frowned, his eyes staring into the distance as he thought long and deep.

"House? Are you okay?" she said drawing tentatively nearer.

House was entirely confused; here was a woman who was utterly beautiful, a woman he'd lusted after and fantasized about for years and she was offering herself to him and yet... there was no fire in his belly, there was no stirring in his loins.

He just wasn't in the mood.

His mind was willing, taunting him with naked images of his young co-worker, her face contorted in various degrees of pleasure and lust but his body was completely unresponsive.

Strange.

He shook his head and threw off the blanket then grabbed his cane and stood feeling exhausted and old.

"Get outta here while I get changed," he snapped, frustrated.

He had to stop this before he embarrassed himself.

"Kinky. What are you going to wear?" she shot back.

"Get out, wait in the living room and then drive me to the hospital like you were going to. That won't require you to speak, will it?" his voice rumbled dangerous and low.

Cameron frowned slightly, entirely disappointed. She nodded once and then left the room closing the door behind her, even more confused and despondent at his behaviour.

House sat back down on his bed and sighed.

What the hell was wrong with him?

"What the hell did you think you were doing putting me on anti-depressants?!" House roared as he barged into Wilson's office the door slamming shut behind him.

"You've been happy." Wilson argued meekly.

"I haven't been happy!" House shouted. "If it weren't for those god-damned drugged coffees I'd have had something happy! For a few hours amongst six years of pain I would have been completely and utterly blissfully happy! You stole that from me! You and your libido stealing pills!"

"House, what...?" Wilson was entirely confused.

"I could have been happy." he said sadly falling into the leather couch, and pressed his head to his hands "I would have been happy."

"So, you're not going to have sex with your new favourite hooker, big deal." Wilson scoffed.

House stood slowly and made his way over to Wilson.

He had swung for his face before either of them realised it was happening and his blood was dripping on the carpet seconds later.

"Cameron, you idiot. I had a shot with Cameron and your stupid happy pills blew it!" House sighed and continued in a thoroughly serious tone. "Don't ever try to help me again."

"House. House, I'm sorry!" Wilson mumbled as House moved from the room.

He retreated to his darkened office and sunk into his desk chair and took a bottle of scotch from the bottom drawer and filling a glass to the brim.

He drained the glass in one go.

Ironic, he thought staring into the depths of the crystal-like glass, now he felt depressed.

Cameron walked down the corridor towards the diagnostics office but was distracted by Wilson stumbling out of his office with his bloody nose in the air with a bunch of tissues at his nostrils and blood on his tie.

"Oh my god what happened?!" She said bustling forward ready to help him.

"Bouse, bunched me." he mumbled

Cameron stopped a foot from him and lowered her hands.

"What did you do?" she said in a suddenly dark tone.

"Ibe," he sighed and blew his nose then took the tissues from his nose, "I put anti-depressants in his morning coffee."

Cameron closed her eyes and shook her head, rage spreading through her body.

"Cameron, I'm sorry."

…8, 9, 10, she thought.

She was still angry so she punched him too.

"Ahhh! Righb! Okay, debinately broken nowb." He whined bringing the tissues back to his face and screwing his watering eyes shut.

She took him by the arm and led him to the elevator in silence.

She pressed the call button.

"You started 9 days ago didn't you?"

"How-b bid you...?"

"Because he's been acting weird for nine days!" she shouted, "Did you think he was happy?! Smiling those half smiles?"

"I just..."

"You aren't always there to see the affects of your master plan to fix him." she said spitefully, hating that his best friend couldn't accept him for who he is. She never wanted to change him and she was always pushed away. And here was the person that was closest to him, using his position to manipulate him. "He's not been himself, the good and bad parts of himself. It's as if he's been diluted, watered down. Is that what you want? A tame version of House?"

"I just wanted him to be happy."

"House uses pills to stop his pain, to escape. Not to get happy. If that's what he wanted he would have been on them long ago. Being happy is nice but not nearly as important as being yourself, those pills stole his identity for nine days." she said venomously.

"That's not all they stole, apparently." he said cryptically stepping into the elevator and hitting the button for the lobby and the clinic, the he said in a solemn voice, "I'm sorry."

The elevator doors closed.

Wilson heard a very loud "Dammit!" before the elevator started moving.

After his glass of scotch he'd figured out his patient was depressed and had tried to kill herself because he was in a rather similar state of mind. Still hazy he delivered his diagnosis, arranged her surgery and told the parents she was depressed. He even told them to consider meds in the hope the pharmacy would run out and Wilson could never drug him again.

Speaking of which there was half a bottle of scotch in his office calling his name.

He entered his office and was momentarily shocked to see Cameron sitting at his desk swirling scotch around in his glass and taking a drink.

"Nice call." she said catching his eye, before taking another drink.

"I know. She's depressed."

"Are you?"

House sighed and closed his eyes for a moment.

"What did he tell you?" he asked quietly.

"Not much after I punched him."

"Then he must have told you a lot." he said angrily, feeling no sympathy at all for his so-called friend and his broken nose.

"He just that he was slipping you anti-depressants."

"Wow, I'm never again going to tell you want meds I give a patient." he said drawing forward and sitting on his desk, slightly in awe of how she stood up for him even though he'd already done so.

"You're not a patient. And he stole your right to make a decision, he drugged you, he tried to 'fix' you." she said fiercely before draining the glass. Then she muttered darkly, "They stole other things too."

He reached for the bottle and topped up the glass before taking it in his own hand, a spark of electricity shooting through them as their fingers touched.

He took a long drink from the glass and then set it at his hip between them.

"That it did." he admitted in a deep rough voice, the scotch smoothing down his throat.

There was a quiet comfortable lull in conversation.

"Do you want to be happy?" she said as she picked up the glass and sipped the amber liquid.

"What makes you think I'm not?"

She rolled her eyes and waited.

"Sometimes." he answered quietly, looking down at his slightly swinging feet.

"But not at the expense of losing who you are." she ventured.

He looked at her curiously.

"You haven't been yourself, I mean really yourself for about a week and a half."

"Did you miss me?" he said with a genuine smile.

She had missed those rare true smiles.

"Yeah," she admitted readily, "And you missed you too."

"I didn't even realise until I caught myself smiling when I told our patient she was dying."

"You knew something was up this morning." she said helpfully.

"Or not, as the case maybe." he said slightly bitterly taking the glass from her hands once more.

Swallowed the rest of the amber liquid.

Cameron poured another measure without prompting.

Neither were sure how to continue or even if they wanted to continue down this dangerous path of drinking and sexual tension.

"Urgh, I hate Wilson." He groaned.

"He was just trying to help."

"And you agreed with him so much that you punched his already broken nose." he said smartly.

She smiled conspiringly. "He was in a lot of pain."

"Good." he said taking another drink.

"You can't hate him all that..."

He shot her a dark serious look.

"Why, exactly, are you angry at him?" she asked.

House sighed loudly. "It's not important."

"It made you punch your best friend."

"He's not my friend."

"Well, then it made you disown your best friend." She said with a roll of her eyes.

He paused and sighed.

"I think I could have been happy," He admitted the combination of his depression, the scotch, coming down from the high of solving a hard case, the adrenaline from punching Wilson, the anti-depressants and his Vicodin loosening his tongue, "Even if it was just for a minute or an hour or however long it lasted. And he took that from me."

"I'd have hoped it would last longer than a minute." she said with a wry smile.

He chuckled, "I meant how long..."

"Yes, I get it."

"Do you still...?"

"It'll be a while before these are out of my system." he said in an ambiguous tone.

"Right." she said standing.

She moved in front of him and plucked the glass from his hand and tipped the contents into her mouth before setting the glass back down on the desk.

She was aware of his eyes on her skin, of his hand that was slowly approaching her cheek.

She gasped lightly when his fingers touched her skin, still not daring to look him in the eye.

They moved across her cheek, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear before sliding down to her chin and stroking his thumb across her lips.

A magnetic force seemed to draw her between his knees.

Then she looked in his eyes.

It pained her to see the slightly gazed look still lingered on in his eyes, but right there in the depths of blue and black pools was a bright spark of life, something that made him undoubtedly House.

"You don't want my blood, do you?" she whispered.

"No. I want to be happy."

And with that he pressed his lips to hers; pulling back a moment to see that she was still with him before he kissed her again opening his mouth and welcoming her warm tongue when she began to kiss him back.

He could never forget their first kiss the tentative, exploring, arousing touch had been the focus of many fantasies for the longest time.

And now with her lips pressed once more to his and her arms around his neck it felt just as wonderful if not more so, because his arms were tight around her waist holding her close to him and there was no reason to stop.

He could feel both of their bodies shivering at the intensity of it, despite that it was still relatively slow and deep, both of them could feel the underlying every growing passion in that touch.

They both tasted of scotch but it was the unidentifiable distinct tang of the other that they couldn't get enough of, it was addictive.

"House, I'm..."

Both of them stopped and turned to a shocked Wilson, two small bandages across the bridge of his nose.

Neither of them looked terribly happy to see him there, in fact they looked extremely angry which made Wilson's blood pressure sky rocket and threatened to make his nose start bleeding again without them needing to hit it.

"I... urghm... I'll just go before either of you punch me again."

"I have to go anyway." Cameron said quietly hoping that House would make things up with Wilson.

House kept his arms around her waist and stared at her curiously.

He didn't want to let her go. He had his second chance at this and he wanted to take it.

She leaned her cheek against his and brushed her lips against his ear, "I know where you keep your spare key."

A genuine smile flickered across his lips.

And he surprised both Cameron and Wilson by catching her lips in a deep searing kiss once more, sucking her bottom lip into his mouth a nibbling slightly before letting her go.

Cameron left through the conference door not looking Wilson in the eye nor looking back to see that House was watching her intensely.

Once she was out of sight he slumped into his desk chair and poured another small measure of scotch as Wilson closed the door behind him and made his way further into the room.

"Are you happy?"

"I might be later."

It was 2.23am, House's home was dark and still.

He'd stayed awake until 1am that night waiting for her, but she didn't come.

He was depressed but he was too tired to get drunk and drown his sorrows, so he swallowed two Vicodin and fell into slumber deciding he wouldn't go into work tomorrow; unable to face Cameron and not wanting to see Wilson.

The door opened with a few quiet clicks, and closed even more quietly. The intruder removed their shoes before making their way down the hallway towards the bedroom.

Her hand glided across the wooden edge of the bed.

She sat on the bed at the side of his hips and stared down at its peaceful occupant.

She leaned forward, her hand on his back.

"House," she whispered huskily.

He breathed deeply and woke up to see Cameron hovering alluringly above him.

"Dejavous." He murmured.

"What?"

"Please say it wasn't a dream." He asked pleadingly, wondering if he was dreaming the future again.

"It wasn't a dream." she said before pressing a kiss to his lips.

He hummed gently.

"Are the happy pills gone?" she asked quietly.

"Yeah, something's up." he replied with a grin.