Well, it's been some time since I uploaded the first chapter. But yes, there is finally a second chapter and additional chapters are in preparation. Real life has kept me busy recently but now I have some time off to look after my other little projects.

I would like to thank my betas Melissa, diagnosticmad aka Gina and alterangirl. They did a brilliant job. Their ideas have been very challenging and, I hope, they have improved my writing. Any further mistakes are mine and mine only. Although they all mentioned that I'm using the "wrong" spelling, I'm going to stick with the British English spelling.

Please read and review. I am always open for constructive criticism. But, please, no flames, as one can hardly learn from them.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own House, M.D. nor do I want to profit from this in any way.


Big Sister, Little Favour

Chapter 2

A few days after Allison Cameron's very first trip to the BBBS office, she found herself sitting in the conference room of the Diagnostics Department of Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital trying to focus on the on-going differential diagnosis of their latest patient. Unfortunately, she was having a harder time concentrating than usual. Her thoughts were with her application as a Big Sister. She had contacted her old professor from college who had been a mentor for her in her last year there after everything in her life had gone haywire for a time after her husband's death. He had supported her career, helping her gain her internship at the well-known Mayo Clinic. He was more than willing to write a reference for her. She had tutored some of his students who had been in her first or second semester attending some of his classes. Therefore, he was also able to comment on her ability to mentor.

The second reference was far more tricky.

Anything going before her time at the college seemed to be irrelevant because she had been a teen herself. Her internship at the Mayo Clinic had been successful but it seemed even longer ago than university. Furthermore, she was the one being mentored at the time and not the other way around.

That left only her current job at Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital.

Asking House.

Not an option.

Cameron wasn't stupid. That would have been an imminent ticket to being scrutinized as a new kind of disease. Not that it wasn't a compliment considering House's dedication to solving a puzzle, but Cameron also knew that sometimes even House's patients got worse, even close to dying. And she definitely didn't want to go there. He had hurt her plenty of times already. No need to give him more ammunition.

That left Wilson or Cuddy.

Wilson was soon crossed off Cameron's mental white board. There were just too many potential problems with asking Wilson. Too close to House. Too weak if it came to House's questioning. She might as well ask House instead. It would be just the same.

That led her to the only conclusion: She had to ask Cuddy. Ugh.

Suddenly there was silence in the conference room. That caught Cameron's attention as there had been a lot of discussing going on about the new patient. She blinked a few times and looked around until her gaze met House's who was slightly bent forward and looking straight at her. She jumped involuntarily in her seat as she was surprised by his intense scrutiny.

"Hello! Dr. Cameron! Anybody home?" House mocked her.

"I never left," Cameron argued.

"Really?" House acted surprised, "Weeeell, it could have been an astral projection. You know, like on Charmed. You are here but not really. So where were you?"

Cameron just rolled her eyes at him, "Get on with it, House. What tests should we do on our patient?"

"Why don't you tell us, Cameron. After all, you have been here the whole time." House sat and put his feet up on the conference table while twirling his cane around.

Cameron glanced quickly at the white board and rattled their standards of, "Full blood work, tox, MRI and LP."

"I wonder, Dr. Cameron, do you really think that we should put our patient through the pain of a lumbar puncture at this point of our diagnosis?" House was gloating, she just knew it.

From the corner of her eye she could see Foreman nod his head slightly, which let her to answer with a faint, "Yes."

House stood back up and headed for his office, "Very well, you heard the lady. Tox, MRI and LP. Off you go, my little ducklings."

Once Cameron, Foreman and Chase had left the conference room, the Australian commented on Allison's daze, "Jeez, Cameron, you got off lucky. If it had been me I would have been damned to do House's clinic hours for weeks to come." He said, only mildly whining.

Cameron just sighed at the total predictability of Chase's comment. "Well, it takes more than nice hair to work your charms on House, Chase. You should know that by now."

Chase whooped at the obvious reaction from Cameron. "Wooh, it's not only pretty but also smart."

Cameron's patience was quickly wearing down. "It? What could you ever be talking about?"

Before Chase was able to do more damage, Foreman intervened. "Right. As nice as it is to watch this lovely exchange of pleasantries, let's see who's gonna do what?"

"I'll do the blood work and tox. You two can knock yourselves out with the LP and the MRI. I'll just get a blood sample and then I'm off to the lab," Cameron said, handing out assignments.

Cameron was already heading straight for the patient's room, when Foreman hit Chase with a folder over the head: "Well done... Let's go and get a timeslot for the MRI and then we can get the lumbar puncture done."

MDMDMDMDMD

Cameron had been able to run several tests on the blood when her pager went off. It was House paging a "911 – my office" to her. It actually surprised her that it took him so long to page her. He was House. He solved puzzles. And to no extent could he be satisfied with the answer about her state of mind after she zoned out.

Nevertheless, she was busy in the middle of a test. He had to wait until it was finished.

A little while later, she was alternately looking through a microscope and scribbling down notes. She was so preoccupied that she didn't hear the door to the lab open. But she did hear the familiar sound of a heavy footstep, accompanied by the sound of a cane hitting the floor. House didn't want to wait until she came to him and, obviously, whatever he wanted was even more important than the joy of pestering her with tons of pages.

"I paged you." He grunted at her more than anything else.

"I'm busy" was her short response before she tended to her task again.

She heard how House continued his way through the lab to the other end. She felt how he brushed past her back. As Cameron glanced into the microscope, she saw the all to familiar red blood cells as flying discs.

Once he got comfortable on one of the lab stools, House tapped his cane. Although she still didn't have to turn around, Cameron was able to see his grimace in her mind's eye, almost as if she would have been looking at him.

"That was the second time today that you didn't fulfil your duties with your usual vigour," he said in a gruff tone of voice.

"Sometimes I can have a bad day. I'm sure you know what I am talking about, Dr. House." Cameron responded to his criticism.

"Huh. You're not crying over centrifuges again, are you?" House asked.

That remark actually made her turn around. It was close enough to being a snide remark but still something that showed Cameron concern. She quickly scanned his demeanour before she answered, "No House. I am not crying over centrifuges or anything else. I'm just having a bad day. Please allow me one bad day considering you maybe have one day per month that isn't bad."

House looked at her with his crystal clear blue eyes. They were always so penetrating. No possibility of hiding anything from those eyes. Once he was satisfied with whatever he was looking for, he gave her a sharp nod. "Right. I'll allow you one bad day."

Cameron sighed in relief. That was easier than she thought it would be. It's not like she actually had a bad day. She was just too preoccupied with other things, mainly, finding a suitable person who could write her a reference for the Big Sister programme. She gave House a weak smile before she turned back to the lab equipment.

Once House had reached the door again, he turned around one last time, "Oh, and if you are already having a bad day, you won't mind doing my clinic hours for me. No need to turn my only good day into another bad day. That month would really suck." His voice was dripping with sarcasm.

Cameron knew she had been had. And she also knew that she would suffer for the weakness that she showed today for several days or even weeks to come. Obviously pretty hair and charm weren't enough to deter House from a mission – especially his ever consuming mission to escape clinic hours.

Cameron sighed once more before she finally turned her attention back to the blood tests. Luckily she had already filled in her clinic hours for the week. At least being in the clinic would allow her to avoid Chase, Foreman and House. No need to get into the line of fire if there was a chance to dodge it for some time.

After she had finished the blood work and the tox screen which were both negative and inconclusive for whatever she had tested, she stayed in the lab area. She waited until she knew that House would be off pestering Wilson into buying him lunch and dropped the reports on his desk before leaving to go to the cafeteria to buy her lunch.

In one corner of the cafeteria she saw House eating with Dr. Wilson. House was repeatedly nicking something from his best friend's plate. Wilson, on the other hand, was struggling with himself to look either annoyed or absolutely not bothered by the rudeness of the diagnostician. Luckily House was sitting with his back to her so she might actually be able to get away from here without being spotted by him.

However, she located Foreman and Chase at another table at the opposite side of the canteen, and she hoped her luck would hold out. Unfortunately for her, Chase had seen her and was waving at her to join them. She signalled them that she would head outside which was exactly where she went once she had got her hands on some food.

Outside she reflected about the things that were happening. She couldn't understand how she was suddenly forced as an outsider just because she had been daydreaming this morning. She had to admit to herself that it was partly her fault. She shouldn't have snapped at Chase after his insinuations in regard to House's soft spot for her but she really didn't want anybody to find out what was going on in her life at the moment.

The idea to become a big sister was something that she wanted to keep to herself for as long as possible. The whole year, her second at Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, had been rough. The interlude with Chase, the HIV scare, the fact that Stacy had turned up again and had become House's sole obsession...

She distinctively remembered telling House that she was happy for him. She also distinctively remembered telling House that she would set him free. Everything had been about him and his feelings. But in that moment she had forgotten her own.

Once she had been at home that evening, Cameron hadn't been able to keep the tears anymore. She had cried the better part of that evening. She had to give up her feelings for House otherwise she would break. She had another evening that had been similar to this after finding out that Stacy would stay for some time.

Even now that the ice queen, which was as Cameron came to call her, was gone again, Allison couldn't invest her feelings into House again. She was bound to be disappointed again.

Snapping out of her reverie she basked in the atmosphere of the warm autumn day. The sun was trying to graze the surface of the earth with a few last golden beams. Cameron enjoyed her time outside and took the time to re-charge her batteries. She needed something new to focus on. The idea of tutoring another person appealed to her. Spending time with somebody outside of her work seemed to just as enticing.

She finally settled her mind on who she could ask for her second reference. Although she didn't always agree with Dr. Cuddy's medical opinion, she respected her as the person who was running the hospital efficiently. And, on an even happier note, she was able to stand up to House. Cameron decided that she would ask Dr. Cuddy after she has clocked in her boss's clinic hours.

Before she was able to get up and go back inside to start in the clinic, Chase plopped down on the opposite side of the table and Foreman loomed next to her side. "Sorry," Chase mumbled keeping his head down, "didn't mean to pry this morning."

Cameron just rolled her eyes. "Forget it, Chase, you just like the fact that somebody else was teased by House and not yourself."

Chase bopped his head at that: "Yep. True." Then he made eye contact with Cameron "Truce?" That made Cameron smile and she nodded at his suggestion.

"Sooo, now that we cleared that... Chase and I wanna go for drinks tomorrow after work. Do you want to join us? Complaining about House and all?" Foreman chimed in.

"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea," Cameron admitted.

Once they were all heading back into the hospital, Cameron spoke one last time, "We can talk about House and his latest quirks but you still won't find out what I was thinking about in the morning."

Chase and Foreman stalled behind her. "Come on, Cameron...," she heard Chase whine. She had to smile at herself. If anything she had learned plenty from House in the subtle art of manipulation.

After finishing her or better House's clinic hours, she headed straight for Dr. Lisa Cuddy's office and was immediately allowed to enter. Cuddy was sitting behind her desk doing some kind of paper work.

"I'm sorry to interrupt, Dr. Cuddy," Allison began, "but could you write me a reference, please?"

Cuddy stopped her writing at once and looked at her in surprise: "You want to leave us? Okay... I bite... what has he done this time?"

"No, no, it's nothing like that," Cameron had to smile at the immediate conclusion. "It's in another matter... and rather personal."

Dr. Cuddy seemed to be even more interested in that.