Cameron arrived at work late that day. She strolled into the conference room, beamed her good mornings and casually sat down. That was her downfall in House's eyes. If she'd just come in and sat down it would have been one thing. Better yet she could have come in late, looking stressed and worn, with tousled hair and a ladder in her pantyhose. The least she could have done was to wear a short skirt; that would've kept him entertained while he ran the board.

It was the smile that did it. She was happy about something and House had a pretty good idea what that was.

Cameron thought she'd been terribly clever, he was sure. She'd not mentioned the guy she was seeing, he hadn't shown up at the hospital, but House had still been aware of a whole host of little tell-tale markers. Like her actually leaving work on time in almost the first time since she'd been working for him. Like the lingering smell of men's deodorant on her when she showed up for work. Like the marks on her wrists where she had obviously engaged in a little light bondage. Like the changed way that she looked at him now.

That had been the biggest clue.

And he didn't care. Not really.

But when she showed up late, flashing that smile at everyone, he made up his mind to wipe the smile off her face. That display earned her all the really nasty or boring jobs, the ones he normally reserved for Chase.

He started the morning by having her test the stool samples of their three patients, all of whom were currently suffering from violent bouts of diarrhoea. She accepted this without complaint. Later, when he pitted her and Foreman against one another and her diagnosis was wrong, he assigned her Eric's load of clinic duty for the afternoon. It hadn't worked; Cameron's only response to this was to wish them all a good afternoon on the way out of the conference room.

And she was still smiling.

That evening Wilson stopped by his place and in between the Chinese takeaway and the beer he casually asked "what was Cameron doing in the clinic this afternoon?"

House just frowned at him over his bottle.

"I was called down for a consult. The board said Foreman was on," Wilson explained.

"I swapped them. Her diagnosis would've killed our patients."

Wilson leaned forward. "You mean, like the three treatments you tried before you found the right one?"

House took another slug from the bottle, choosing to ignore Wilson's comment and flicked on the TV. He pretended to be totally absorbed in the latest news from Plainsboro; three people had been killed in a car crash on a nearby highway, a suspected serial rapist had struck again, and a local girl who was dying of cancer had broken records in some fundraising endeavour. Nothing but bad news. He hit the mute button and turned his attention back to Wilson again.

House and Wilson had been friends long enough that he could tune him in and out the way he'd tune an old transistor radio. It was reassuring to have that white noise occasionally. But sometimes an odd word or phrase would break through.

"She seems happy with her boyfriend, anyway," Wilson said.

"Huh?"

"Cameron. She seems happy with her boyfriend. Have you met him?"

So she was seeing someone. The thrill at being right was dampened by another sensation which originated somewhere in the pit of his stomach.

"No."

"You didn't know?" Wilson was smiling now, despite House's best assurances that he had no interest in Allison Cameron, he knew. He knew.

"I'd figured it out. Showing up late. Bringing a bag of overnight things to work with her. Smelling like men's cheap deodorant," his tone was casual, the grip on his beer bottle was not.

"You went through her bag?"

House shrugged. The throb of pain in his leg was dull, but he reached into his pocket for a pill all the same. "If people don't tell you things, how else are you going to figure stuff out?" He pulled himself to his feet and thumped towards the kitchen. "Shouldn't you get home to your wife?"

"Since when have you cared about Julie missing me?" Wilson raised his voice so it would carry into the kitchen. When House didn't reply right away he added, "are you jealous?"

Gregory House didn't get jealous. He often wanted things he couldn't have, like the use of his leg back, but he wasn't jealous of the people who had the use of both their legs. And he most definitely wasn't jealous of whoever it was Cameron was sleeping with. It was just that he'd never actually considered the possibility that she would go off and start seeing someone else. Now that he thought about it, he kind of liked the way that she used to look at him. So many of the women he went with looked at him with pity; it was a look she rarely directed at him.

He had assumed that she was pretty much stuck on him and that she would be a constant in his life until he'd had enough and could safely push her away. An unspoken voice in the back of his head added or could draw her near but he ignored it as usual.

All the same, the confirmation that she was seeing someone, someone Wilson had met no less, wasn't a surprise. House knew he shouldn't have any strong feelings about the situation, but he did and it made him angry; angry with Wilson for knowing it, angry with Cameron for flaunting it in front of Wilson, angry with himself. The latter was the source of most of the anger and just cause for another Vicodin before showing Wilson to the door.

James Wilson obviously found the whole thing very amusing. Before he left he pointed out that Cameron had found the perfect way to get House's attention. "It's just like always. You can't resist a puzzle," he told House. "She throws herself at you and you push her away. She moves on and suddenly you start thinking of it as a challenge."

He headed out the door, pulling it to behind him, but clearly couldn't resist getting in a parting shot. "If I'd known the way to attract you was by playing hard to get, I'd have told her a year ago. Could've saved both of you a lot of trouble."

He closed the door before the swiftly flung book House launched at him could hit its target.