Alright, I know it's been a while since I updated this one, but a certain friend (glares at Essy) pestered me and poked me until I finally updated. So here we go! Enjoy, and please remember to review!

Disclaimer: Not mine. But oh the fun I'd have if they were...

Thanks go out to everyone who reviewed and added this story to their favorites and alerts lists. Thanks!

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

It was nearly midnight, and the waiting room was brightly lit. After spending a few hours in their prospective fields, Cuddy and Wilson were sitting side by side on one couch, and Chase and Foreman each occupied different chairs.

But House was standing up, limping anxiously around the waiting room as he had for the past six hours, only stopping when he needed another cup of coffee for energy.

Wilson and Cuddy could see the pain and conflict in his stormy eyes, but neither of them attempted to console him. He simply refused to accept any of their words. And they all knew that the only person he would listen to was the one person who couldn't talk to him.

Cuddy felt a large, warm hand slide into hers, and she exhaled slowly, squeezing Wilson's fingers gently.

"She's in good hands," Wilson murmured into her ear, and she swiped at her eyes and nodded slowly.

Finally, after another excruciatingly slow hour had passed, Dr. Patterson appeared in the room, and House looked up from the worn piece of carpet he had been staring intently at. He examined the other doctor's face, and from the expression that the man wore, House knew that the news he carried was not what he wanted to hear.

Wilson rose to his feet and shook Patterson's hand. "Dave," he greeted the man cordially, informally. "How is she?"

Patterson, knowing the reputation of the infamous House, spoke warily. "Dr. Cameron… is alive. And that in itself is saying a lot."

The rest was lost on House, who had closed his eyes and was leaning heavily on a cold wall. His ears pricked up when Patterson finally said, "Someone can go in there with her."

No one was really surprised when House followed Patterson to her room, and they were even less surprised when he sat down in the chair beside her bed and made himself comfortable.

He watched with possessive eyes as Cuddy, Wilson, and each of the remaining ducklings came into the room and briefly spoke to Cameron's unconscious form.

When they had all left, and only when they had left, did he let his guard down. Looking around the room, he sighed and shifted in the chair, producing two Vicodin and popping them into his mouth.

"You're a moron," he muttered to Cameron's unconscious form. "Taking a bullet for me? What were you thinking?"

She didn't respond.

He sighed quietly, and, in a moment of rare weakness, he reached out and trailed his fingers along the soft skin of her arm.

"You shouldn't have done it," he continued in a slightly softer tone. "He was trying to hurt me. Why did you have to be so damn protective?"

"Because she's Cameron," someone quietly stated, and House tensed and unconsciously closed his hand over her arm.

Wilson closed the door behind himself and walked over to the foot of Cameron's bed.

"What do you want, Wonder Boy?" House demanded, and it didn't escape Wilson that the blue eyed doctor's hand was closed protectively over the female duckling's arm.

"She took the bullet because for some reason, she cares about you and she wanted to protect you," Wilson stated, checking her vitals.

House didn't say a word.

"Fine, don't believe me. Ask her yourself when she wakes up," he stated with a shrug. "She'll tell you the same exact thing."

"Of course she would," House muttered. "She's in love with me, remember?"

Wilson didn't hear a shred of sarcasm or venom in that statement. All he heard was pain, and it sent him reeling. He finished checking Cameron's vitals, then walked to the door. But before he walked through it, he turned his head and watched them for a moment.

House was sitting in the chair by Cameron's bed, but he wasn't House. He wasn't the bitter, sarcastic, angry, cynical man he had known for years. All of that was gone, replaced by something he couldn't quite identify. And maybe he wasn't supposed to. Maybe this had happened for a reason, a reason that was beyond even Cameron's understanding.

Had she done it out of instinct? Or had it been something deeper, something stronger? Was it just a reaction? Or was it an act of self sacrifice? Had she done it out of some misplaced sense of duty? Or had she simply done it to protect the man that, for some unknown reason, she had fallen in love with?

He couldn't answer any of these questions. Only Cameron could. And he knew that House needed those answers, too.

Gett better, Cameron, he thought, glancing at her prone form one more time before he left the room. For his sake.

House heard Wilson leave, and once again, he was alone with the female duckling. As he ran his hand over his face, he realized too late that he had his hand closed around her arm, and he just knew that Wilson had seen it. Great.

He looked at the watch on his wrist. Two in the morning. He had been in there for twenty minutes, and somehow he knew he wasn't going to leave. He didn't understand the need he had to stay there, but for some strange reason, he didn't feel the need to question it. She had saved his life. For whatever reasons she had in her overly do good mind, she had taken two bullets that were meant to kill him.

And then it hit him. She could have died. When the gun was going off, one of the bullets could have struck her heart, or any of her other major organs, killing her instantly. Or she could have bled out, right there in the meeting room.

Then again, there were no guarantees that she wouldn't die. He looked at her upper body, her bare shoulders and the bandages that were wrapped tightly around her chest. Almost unconsciously, he reached out and pulled the blanket up, covering the bandages.

Then, in a move that he almost didn't recognize as his own, he reached out and brushed his fingers lightly against her cheek, then rested his large hand over her smaller one. The warmth that radiated from her body reassured him, even if he didn't think he deserved it.

"I'll make you a deal," he finally whispered in a voice he didn't know. "You wake up and be okay… And I'll take you to another monster truck rally, okay?"

His question was met with complete silence.

TBC...

A/N: Well, there ya'll have it. I already have the next chapter written, so review and I'll update again soon! Thanks for reading!