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Chapter 2

Cuddy was this close. This god damn close to leaving for the evening, with all her work done, but of course, that would be wrong, so the universe had sent the furious doctor in front of her for her to deal with, to stop her from going home on time.

"All I want to know is the why is their a teenager working in the ER, and why the hell am I responsible for her?" Cameron demanded, slamming her hands down on Cuddy's desk and glaring at her expectantly.

She groaned, hoping this wouldn't last too long, then said, "She's working there because she's a genius who graduated Harvard med about a year ago and just completed her residency, and since she's so young, she has no idea that the she could be getting triple the pay I'm offering her. She's your responsibility because you are the ER director, and she's working in the ER. And she's not a kid, she's eighteen."

"Oh, she's not a kid, she's a whopping eighteen years old- come on, Cuddy! She's a god damn kid! She specialized in oncology; have her work with Wilson, where she can't kill someone!"

Cuddy sighed as she glanced impatiently at her watch, shaking her head. So close to escaping work on time, but, once again, foiled by angry doctors. "There's not an opening in oncology. There's one in the ER, which is she is working with you instead of Wilson. Now, if you would please excuse me, I really have to get going-"

"Cuddy!" Cameron exclaimed, exasperated. "Come on! Do you really think the ER is the place for that kid? Put her some place where she can't do any damage, for god's sakes."

She hesitated, then sighed and said, "Look, give it a week. If you still think she can't handle it, I'll try to find a spot for her in Oncology."

"See, that's the point of putting her some place where she can't do any damage- she can't hurt anybody! A week with a novice in the ER could be a disaster! She's just a kid, Cuddy. And I don't want somebody's lawyer to come knocking on my door, suing me because she screwed up a routine procedure! She needs more experience before she works in an ER!"

Cuddy groaned loudly as she sat back down at her desk; this was probably going to take a while. "Cameron, would you be making this much noise about it if the girl was 30?"

"No, but that's beside the point, someone 30 would have more experience than this kid does!"

Shaking her head, Cuddy said quickly, "Yes, yes, that's true, but what if it was a thirty old who had never worked as a doctor before? You telling me you would still be going crazy over it?"

"I'm not going crazy over anything, I just don't want somebody this young and inexperienced working in my ER. Come on, Cuddy, you know Wilson would love to have her. He likes mentoring people."

Could things ever just go her way for once? No, they couldn't. Cuddy rolled her eyes, forcing herself to stay and not just get up and leave. "This is a teaching hospital, Cameron. Teach her. And she's got to get experience from somewhere."

"So why does somewhere have to be my ER?" Cameron exclaimed, crossing her arms and tapping her foot angrily.

"All right, first of all? It's my ER. These are all my departments. And second of all? Sarah is better qualified than most of the doctors working in down there, and she got a perfect score on her tests- like House did, as a matter of fact."

Cameron sat down in front of Cuddy's desk, shaking her head. "Yeah, but House is more than just book smart! And getting a perfect score on a test means nothing if you're a genius! Just read the material once and there you go, perfect score. And I don't want some know-it-all kid trying to pass it off as a doctor when I'm the one responsible for what she does!"

"Oh, so that's what this is all about, covering your ass? Well I can transfer you out of the ER if that's what you want, there you go, your ass is covered."

Cameron just looked at her, shaking her head. "Cuddy, you know that's not what this is about. But the ER is not a playground. I don't want some kid in there screwing things up."

"So, like I said at the beginning of this conversation, give the kid a week. If she hasn't killed someone or messed up very badly, then maybe you won't put up such a fight about keeping her. But, meanwhile, I have somewhere to be, so can we just end this discussion?"

Cameron hesitated, then smiled and got to her feet. "Sure. Where you headed?"

"Home," Cuddy said with a sigh of relief as she headed to the door, flicking out the lights. "I am going home to relax and stop thinking about work every god damn second of every god damn day."

Chuckling, Cameron nodded as she started walking back to the ER. "Lucky you. That's the thing about being the boss; you can go home and nobody yells at you."

HOUSE HOUSE HOUSE

"What the hell are you doing?" Cameron exclaimed, pulling the kid doctor's hands off the patient.

Sarah shrugged. "What? In med school, they told us that if you squeezed the pulse point in someone's wrist, you'd make their fingers twitch. See?"

Cameron swallowed back her anger to stop herself from yelling at the poor kid, then growled, "And you didn't think it was a good idea to get him a head CT for his head injury?"

"Hmm? Oh, I scheduled that, but he was unconscious, so I wanted to see if it worked in his sleep or not."

After staring at her in shock for a moment, Cameron just shook her head and said, "Oh hell, I'll deal with you tomorrow. Your shift's up, you're free to go- and thank god, so am I."

The teenager smiled and scurried off to the locker room while Cameron groaned and turned to leave. Chase was waiting for her by the door, a small smirk on his face after watching the exchange. "Wow, she certainly looks like she belongs here. 'Make their fingers twitch?' God, how old is she, twelve?"

"Close," Cameron grumbled as she walked over to him. "I'm think we should reschedule our wedding for tomorrow, then take a month long honeymoon. By then, that kid will probably have let someone die because she was too busy making their fingers twitch and been fired, so I'd never have to see her again."

Chase chuckled, smiling slightly. "Well, I'm all for the month long honeymoon! And, speaking of the wedding, I've decided I'm going to help you shop for it."

With a frown, Cameron looked at him, confused. "Why the change of heart? I thought you hated shopping?"

"Oh, I do. It's just that Thirteen gave me some advice that, um... changed my mind, let's just leave it at that." Cameron raised an eyebrow, looking at him suspiciously. When she opened her mouth to ask him a question, he shook his head and said quickly, "Just be happy I'm going shopping with you and don't question my motives, Allison."

She frowned, then decided to follow his advice. "All right, I'll try, but no promises. But if you're going shopping with me now, that means we have so much to do, we have to do silverware and the wedding planner needs us to meet with some caterers tomorrow and taste stuff and..."

Chase just groaned as Cameron continued rattling on, seriously considering if sex was even worth listening to this and actually following through with it.

HOUSE HOUSE HOUSE

"Good god," Cuddy muttered under her breath, glancing down at House's plans for Chase's bachelor party. "You have got to be kidding me."

"What?" he chuckled. "Everybody says my bachelor parties are good."

She sighed, rolling her eyes. "I'll just have to take their word for it, because I have no interest going to one."

House took the plans back and shook his head in disappointment. "Well, you can't blame a man for trying. Thanks for driving me home."

Cuddy smirked. "We both know the only reason you conveniently ran into me right when I was leaving was so I would drive you home, all so you didn't have to drive yourself to work tomorrow, since your motorcycle is still at the hospital."

"All right, all right, you caught me." He leaned over and kissed her cheek. "See you tomorrow morning."

Cuddy waved at him as she drove away, heading back home about an hour later than she would have liked. About a month after Mitchel's trial, House had been bribed into going to Europe to treat an eccentric, rich patient who would settle for nothing but the best and, for some reason, had wanted to see House personally and refused to use a webcam. He had offered to pay House enough to get him to go, which had created a problem for Cuddy- she had been living at House's apartment with him ever since her rape, both because she didn't want to return to the scene of the crime and because she hadn't wanted to be alone. With him gone, though, and a reason for her to return, and she had managed to work up the nerve to finally go to her house and make it inside. Her first venture inside had failed completely, and she had ended up climbing in the back window, too terrified to walk across the place where Eric had raped her. It had taken her over two weeks to be able to walk across her house, over where she had been raped, and not end up turning around to run. By the time House had returned from Europe, she was living at her own house without any problems... well, without any more problems than she'd had at House's place.

When she got home, she went through her usual ritual- locking her door and checking it three times, a longer than necessary shower, and a couple glasses of wine. They were more effective than sleeping pills; the alcohol made her forget what she should be thinking about and instead of lying awake, she would sleep. Of course, she could only sleep if her cell phone was beside her bed- she would push a button to make the screen light up so she could see, then lie down and close her eyes, so she wouldn't see the room in the dark.

She hadn't slept with House since Eric Mitchel- she hadn't brought it up, and neither had he. Sure, they had kissed some- that, she could handle. But she wasn't sure if she would be able to have sex with him without freaking out or having a flashback, which had become quite common. They could be triggered by the smallest things, and she had yet to find any method of dealing with them besides escaping to her office, locking the door, and waiting it out.

Truthfully, she did want to deal with what had happened, but she had no idea how. She had nowhere to start from; everything she had been before that night, Eric had stolen. And if there was no place to start from, then she had no way to actually try and get over what Eric had done.

With another miserable sigh, Cuddy started the shower, prepared to take yet another one about

half an hour longer than necessary. If only she could ask someone for help. Maybe, just maybe, then she would be able to move on.

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