A/N: This has been sitting around on my hard drive for almost a year and a half, and I finally decided it was time for it to see the light of day. Enjoy!

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Change, House had decided, was hardly ever a good thing.

He'd spent most of his life trying to dodge it. And, when that wasn't possible, he either ignored it until it went away, or tried to bargain his way out of it.

But sometimes, things slipped past his defenses; like Stacey, Wilson, Steve, and on a good day he'd even admit that Cuddy belonged in that group. He hadn't realized it then, but they'd all managed to weasel their way into his heart, however cold and cruel of a place that might be, and by the time he noticed that he cared it was too late to turn back.

So, he'd carry on in his normal grumpy fashion and hope that nothing else would attach itself to him if given the chance, keeping him from all of the betrayal, pain, and heartbreak that he's always been so familiar with.

Lately though, he seemed to find himself in a bit of a position. Stuck between wanting to be his old self, before the shooting, and being a man who could be infinitely happier.

He should have realized that the Ketamine had changed more than just his leg when the first patient thanked him. It was such a foreign concept to him though, that he just chalked it up to him being the first one that they saw in the hallway instead of one of the nurses.

The thing that had really set off his alarms though, was the day he found himself asking Cameron out for drinks. The invitation had slipped out before he'd known what he was doing, and the fact that he didn't regret it was almost more surprising than when she turned him down.

Over the next month his pain had slowly begun to return and so did his miserable disposition. He would never admit it, but the only thing that kept him from slipping into another depression was his fascination with a certain young immunologist. He thought that he'd had her all figured out. A woman with the desire to fix the unfixable; to care for the sick and dying, acting as if they were members of her family. Cameron had changed, though.

There was that word again, change, but this time it was less scary and more of a mystery.

He knew she cared when he was in pain, and could see her cringe in sympathy every time he gripped his cane a little too tightly or tried to rub a cramp out of his thigh. She still obviously had a tendency to get a little too involved with their patients, but for some reason it was happening far less often than it used to.

And that's where his understanding of her seemed to end.

So, he began a little experiment.

At first, it was purely an action and reaction scenario. Hold a door open, hoping to see a smile or any type of reaction, and not even receiving so much as a thank you in return.

Interesting.

Next, he bought her a chocolate bar when he noticed that she hadn't eaten all day. When he'd handed it to her, acting like it was a usual occurrence for him to do so, he'd received not only a confused look from her, but Chase and Foreman as well.

So, he pushed it even further.

Somewhere between making her coffee later that day as she sat alone at her desk nibbling on the last of her candy and the next morning when Cuddy interrogated him about the death of his patient the night before, his respect for her had grown.

She had killed a man.

At first he'd though it'd been Forman or the wombat, but when 10am rolled around and she was nowhere to be found, he knew that she'd done it.

It had been what the patient wanted. Compassion and a dying man's wish to end his pain. And, if there was one thing that would always remain the same about her, something that she could never change no matter how hard she tried, it would always be her need to do what's right. Which was something that he was now realizing wasn't exactly the bad thing that he had first made it out to be.

So, he'd comforted her. At least as much as he knew how to.

She'd been holed up in the PPTH chapel, her face red and wet from what looked like hours of shed tears, guilt radiating from every part of her. He hadn't planned on saying anything to her, he knew his penchant for screwing things up by sticking his foot in his mouth, but as he rubbed her shoulder and felt her sag into the palm of his hand he'd told her that he was proud of her.

He wasn't sure at the time if he'd done the right thing. But a week later, a couple of days before their next case had started, he'd walked into the office to find his red mug sitting on the middle of his desk filled with coffee and fixed just the way he liked it.

He remembers looking through the glass walls studying her as she sat at the table typing something on her computer. She'd stopped, mid-sentence by the look that had been on her face, before peering up at him like she'd sensed him staring at her.

By then, he'd already picked up the coffee and nodded his thanks to her over the rim of the cup. And, to his surprise she had grinned and blushed slightly, holding his gaze for a second longer before returning back to her work.

And the experiment still went on.

Now he knew that she still liked him, which scared him more than he'd ever say. Before he had started all of this it had always been a what-if situation between them.

What if he had pulled her into an empty exam room, pushed her against the door, and kissed her until they both couldn't breath? Would she have pushed him away? What if he'd actually been nice to her on their date years ago? Would they still be together, or would they have given up when his leg had gotten worse?

But, from that day on it wasn't a question of what-if anymore, it was when.

He'd pondered the topic one night sitting in front of his piano over a bottle of scotch, and eventually came to a decision that he'd already known he would choose long before any of this had started.

Wilson had once told him that everyone deserved a little happiness, and at the time he thought it was a bunch of shit, but he'd started to think that just maybe good old Jimmy had been right.

So, he began to court her, in his own fucked up way of course.

He'd cut it down to only three rude comments in her direction a day, made places for her to sit next to him even if there really wasn't enough room, complimented her, and basically treated her like a human being instead of one of the annoying lackeys that he bossed around.

His plan was working.

It had only been in place for a few days when he'd found her standing next to him, both of them watching as his old carpet was being reinstalled. He had felt her arm brush up against his, making his stomach flip in a way that he had only felt back in college, right before she told him something that he knew he wouldn't forget.

"Not all change is bad, you know."

And, he'd believed her.

End.