Author's Note: Well, I got plenty of reviews asking for more, so here you go! I hope it lives up to the potential some of you say it has…
Disclaimer: I don't own anything here, except Jilli.
Chapter 2: Getting Advice
Chase waved to Jilli as she entered. She managed to find him within the large crowd in the café. He smiled at her as she sat down.
"So," she said, "You had a fight or something with Dr. Cameron?"
Chase choked on the coffee he had been drinking. He hadn't seen Jilli in person for years, and had forgotten about her incredible ability to tell exactly what's wrong by looking at your face. "May I ask how you figured that one out?" he asked. Even after knowing her for ages, he could never quite grasp her tactics. She always had to explain everything.
Jilli smiled, happy to be getting back into old routines with Chase. "I could tell just by looking at your eyes. You may have been smiling, but the eyes never lie. And they told me that, although you're happy now, you've been stewing about something bad for a while now. And they had that sort of happy-sad look you get when you're in love. Love plus bad event always equals fight with someone you love… in this case, Allison Cameron."
Chase sat in awe for a few seconds. He had forgotten how good she was at analyzing people in person. "All that just from looking at my eyes for two seconds?"
"Yep." She said, looking very pleased with herself. "But let's not talk about that quite yet. We just saw each other for the first time in ages, and we didn't even greet each other properly."
Chase laughed. He was feeling more at home than he had in a very long time. "Ok, should we start over? Do you want to go outside and come back in so we can say hello like we should've right away?"
Jilli rolled her eyes slightly. "It really is good to see you again, Robert." She said. "It's been way too long."
"Great to see you too." Chase still found it odd to be addressed as "Robert." She had always called him "Robert" in e-mails, but somehow that wasn't the same. Whenever anyone spoke his name, he was always "Chase."
"So, how's the malicious boss been?" she asked.
"No worse than usual." He said. "Actually, he just got back from a trip, so we got to go a few days without him. What do you think of the U.S.?"
"It's cold." She responded. "I don't know how you stand it."
Chase laughed. "You get used to it eventually. It'll be getting warmer soon, although I guess you won't be here for that." Jilli was going back to Australia in a week.
There was a pause. "Ok, you can go back to analyzing me now." Chase said. "I know you're going to explode soon if you don't."
Jilli smiled, and then got right down to business. "So you've been in love with Cameron since basically day one. You didn't want to admit it at first, but you're e-mails gave it away easily." Chase nodded. He had come to accept it after about a year. "You asked her out once, and she said no. You left her alone for a while after that… Then there was the night she was high. You felt guilty afterwards because you thought you had taken advantage of her, so you told her it shouldn't happen again." All Chase cold do was nod as Jilli recounted all the past events of him and Cameron. Then she got into the territory of the past few weeks. "She wanted to start having sex with you, and you said yes. It started going a bit out of control, but you couldn't bring yourself to stop her. You started to become suspicious that she was using you to make House jealous. Then House found out and told Foreman and Cuddy. House asked Cameron if she loved you, and she avoided the question." Chase simply continued to nod when she finished listing events as if reciting the moments before a crime scene to a judge. He had, of course, told her about all this in his e-mails. Some people had notebooks or diaries. He had Jilli. And she was better than a notebook because she offered advice.
"Then," she said, "I had to leave for my trip here and was cut of from all contact with you. Something big obviously happened. What was it?"
Chase sighed. "We had just solved the case and I was walking out with Cameron…" he paused, the memory still painful to think about. He decided to just say it quickly. "I… I told her I wanted more."
"What did she say?" asked Jilli; although he had a feeling she already knew the answer.
"She broke it off." Chase sighed again. "It wasn't supposed to mean anything. I broke the rules, so she left."
Jilli paused for a moment. "What type of girl is she?"
Chase was slightly surprised by the question, but answered simply "perfect."
Jilli rolled her eyes. "That's not what I meant. I don't care about how you see her. You're in love with her, which makes you biased. I want to know about her personality traits. You've described her in e-mails, but you were never objective. Try to see her through the eyes of just a coworker."
Chase thought for a moment. "Well," he said, "she's nice. Really overly kind and caring. It's usually a good thing, but it makes her a pushover sometimes, and it makes it difficult for her to give patients bad news. She usually tends to put other people before her… like the time she married someone who was dying of cancer."
"So she's nice." Said Jilli. "She's sometimes a pushover. Then why is it that throughout the entire sexual relationship you had with her, she was always pushing you around, and was even completely emotionless at times?"
"You think she had a reason?" asked Chase, now intrigued.
"I think she was scared." Replied Jilli.
"Scared of what?"
"Scared of getting her heart broken." Answered Jilli.
"You think she was in love with me?" said Chase. "There's no way. She obviously loved House and –"
Jilli cut him off. "No, she didn't love with you. I think she was afraid that she might start loving you. She insisted on being in charge because she didn't want you charming her. She stayed emotionless because she was afraid that, if she wore her heart on her sleeve, it could get broken, like it did with House."
There was a moment of silence while Chase took in everything Jilli had said. "But that can't be true." He said. "When I wanted an actual relationship, she left." In truth, Chase was afraid to get his hopes up that Cameron might like him, because he was scared they would come crashing down.
"That's because her feelings for you hadn't –and haven't- really developed." Said Jilli. "And she was afraid to let them. Cameron probably thought that even though you liked her then, it would end eventually. She's had a tough relationship history… Her husband died, she had to force herself to stop loving her husband's friend, and then House. Her heart can't really take another thrashing. Right now, she's afraid of any potential relationships."
"She's afraid of me ending it?" asked Chase, not quite believing it.
"She's afraid you'll hurt her." Responded Jilli. "You'll just have to prove that you won't."
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This one was shorter than the first, but the next should be longer.
12/29/07 update: OK, before I said that I would update quicker if I got more reviews… apparently that was a lie because the story is on hiatus right now. Sorry. But if you like it, you should still review… maybe you'll inspire me:) And constructive criticism is always appreciated, of course.