Missing
Diclaimer: I don't own House or anything related to it. The story ideas, however, are another matter altogether. But seeing as how I'm not seeking any sort of monetary gain for this story, why should anyone seek it from this story?
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"Resembling the blue of the sky, eight letters," Chase muttered, rolling his pencil between his thumb and index finger. Foreman made no reply, apparently engrossed in the medical journal laying open before him on the conference room table. Cameron leaned back slightly in her own chair. Silently she counted off how many letters were in House's eyes, discovered there were two too many, and then cursed the blush she felt staining her cheeks. She was over him, on the bandwagon of haters, and moving on to . . . moving on to what, exactly? She frowned, casting a glance at Chase who was now tapping his pencil against his head.
Why not him? He was smart, cute, and had been the one she had called while high on meth and stupidity (without holding anything against her or over her). Cameron had smiled, almost smiled a full, teeth-baring smile when he had told her she was good – a compliment which had left her somewhere between giddy and guilty. And Allison Chase seemed to roll more smoothly off the tongue than Allison Cameron. But something was missing, something –
"Cerulean." Cameron's head spun in the direction of House's voice so quickly she was sure she had given herself whiplash. "Girls used to write poetry about my peepers in school all the time," House continued as he casually made his way into the conference room, tossing his over-sized tennis ball in the air as he spoke.
"You're, you're back," Cameron stammered. Without your cane, your limp, she wanted to say; without your Vicodin she hoped.
"In the flesh," House replied. He gaze dipped down briefly to the floor as he paused by the white board. It was the same spot everyone else had studiously tried to avoid when they came in. It still baffled Cameron that the cleaning staff in a hospital couldn't get blood out of a carpet. Or that Cuddy wouldn't replace it. Cameron shook her head again – House was saying something about the clinic and General Hospital; if she wasn't careful she would be masquerading as him in the former while he watched the latter.
"-- and seeing as how Foreman is already scheduled, Chase can cover for me."
Whew.
"What about Cameron?" Chase said.
"What about her?"
"Can't she do it?"
"I don't know." House looked over at Cameron. "Can you?"
Cameron rolled her eyes, glaring briefly at Chase. "Yes."
House nodded his head. "Good." He tossed his tennis ball in the air once more before throwing it at Chase, who reflexively reached up to grab it before it whacked him on the head. "Chase, you're due in the clinic."
Foreman snickered as Chase opened his mouth as if to protest. "C'mon," the neurologist said as he pushed his chair back. "I'll buy you lunch." Foreman looked at House as if to say This could have been you before he left. Chase tossed the tennis ball to House before he, too, left.
Cameron's gaze locked onto the conference table as she felt House's gaze lock onto her. "Um, yeah," she said as she stood up. "I think I'll go --"
"Recalibrate the centrifuges?"
Cameron nodded her head, making her way to the door. Before she opened it, she looked back over her shoulder. "Welcome back," she said with a small smile. House only gave her a curt nod in return, averting his gaze. At that moment Cameron knew what was missing with Chase.
Cerulean blue.
