Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter :) It means a lot to me! I hope you like this update.

The second that Alison re-entered the office she could tell that House was looking at her suspiciously. She decided not to mention it in hope of him ignoring her momentary disappearance.

No such luck.

"Where did you go?" He asked in an obvious attempt to sound casual.

Cameron sighed. "I went to the restroom, House. It's no mystery." Technically it wasn't a lie. She didn't need to tell him that she never actually used the restroom.

"I don't trust the idiots at the ER to do the tests right. Go and re-do them."

Again, Alison sighed at her boss' lack of tact and manners, but dutifully went out to test the patients nonetheless. As she was walking down the corridor she realised that it was the first time she'd have seen them since they lost Mrs Jenkins. How could she handle the guilt she felt in front of them? She had retreated to the office as soon as the procedure had finished and House had allowed her to. He knew she wasn't good at giving patients' families bad news and was slowly coming to accept the fact that things went a lot more smoothly for him if Chase or Foreman broke the news.

Resisting the urge to give in to her emotions once again, she carried on walking towards the patients' rooms. She greeted them with a sad smile, wanting to be reassuring but not seem insensitive to their recent loss. The sight of the tear stains down the cheeks of the young boys was almost enough to push her over the edge. They'd been through so much and now she could hardly bring herself to cause them any more pain. She knew that the youngest was terrified of needles and the oldest didn't like hospitals in general. Giving her condolences to the father, she set about conducting the tests as calmly and meticulously as possible, as was how she always strived to appear.

By the time it came to having to take blood from the youngest son, Harvey, she had been able to suppress her emotions to a level that allowed her to force a reassuring smile on her face. She chatted animatedly to the boy in hope of distracting him from the needle that she was sure he knew was coming. As soon as she thought that Harvey was distracted enough talking about his favourite television show she brought the needle from behind her back. Unfortunately, Harvey caught sight of the threatening object and panicked, pushing it away from him and causing it to scratch Cameron's arm.

"Harvey!" Mr Jenkins scolded him. "I'm so sorry, doctor." He said to Cameron.

"It's alright." She assured him. Noticing that the scratch had started to bleed, she excused herself. "I'll come back to do the rest of the tests later once he's calmed down." She said, heading to the storage room a couple of doors down to grab a band-aid.

She began her well-practiced ritual of cleaning the wound. It wasn't deep but the scratch ran quite a length of her lower arm and she knew that the bandage would be noticed if she wasn't wearing her lab coat. But then again, she didn't have anything to hide, right? This thought relaxed her slightly. No doubt House had already been paged and was aware of the incident.

While she had access to the bandages she decided to use one to cover up the cuts that she had made earlier. They were no longer bleeding but she couldn't risk knocking them against something and them re-opening. She lifted her shirt and was about to cover them in a band-aid when she hear a knock at the door.

"Cameron?" House called out.

Alison panicked and dropped her shirt back down, hiding the band-aid in her back pocket in case he came in.

"What do you want, House?" She asked, her voice high with nerves at the thought of being caught.

"The nurses said you were in here. You're not with Chase again are you?" He asked, a hint of humour behind his gruff voice. Cameron had hoped that he would have let that go but he was still using it against her months later at every opportunity he had.

"I'm on my own, House. Just give me a second and I'll be out." She told him, trying to stay as calm as possible. She quickly applied the bandage to her side and smoothed her shirt down to that she looked presentable. Taking a deep breath she opened the door and came face to face with her boss.

"I hear the kid went crazy." He commented as she started walking.

"He's scared of needles. That's not a symptom of anything other than childhood."

"I didn't say it was." House pointed out with a smile. "Why are you being so defensive?"

Alison didn't reply, instead picking up her pace slightly so that she was walking at a speed he couldn't keep up with. She knew he wouldn't be happy and would definitely try and over analyse if but she just needed a few seconds away from him to compose herself after almost being caught out.

Unfortunately for her, the elevator took too long to arrive and House had caught up with her by the time the doors opened. With no one inside and five floors between them and the office, Cameron knew House would start asking questions.

She wasn't disappointed.

House lifted his cane and pressed the button to stop the elevator doors from opening and turned to face the young immunologist.

"You know you can't just run away." He said, a very matter-of-fact tone about his voice.

"I'm not trying to." Alison replied as calmly as possible.

"Really?"

"You're seeing puzzles where there's nothing there, House." She tried to protest, her heart racing as she struggled to keep her emotions under control. Today was turning out to be one of the hardest she'd faced in a while. It had been months, maybe years, since she'd felt the urge to break down so much in the space of a few hours and she had no idea why. Why was this case affecting her so much? Why was she finding House even more irritating than usual? Still, she knew she had to keep on a brave face. She'd been through worse than this and kept her secret. The only difference was that House wasn't around then. If anyone could figure it out it would be him.

It was as if he was following her train of thought when he next spoke. "You're hiding something." He said simply.

"And if I am there's probably a good reason for it." She replied, trying to throw him somewhat off the scent.

House didn't reply, instead allowing the elevator doors to open and walking out in silence. This made Alison even more nervous and she was pretty sure that had been his plan. He wasn't going to give up and she sure as Hell couldn't let him find out the truth. She didn't even want to imagine how he would react, but something told her that she'd be subjected to a lot of ridicule for being so weak. In House's eyes, she should know by now that she can't save everyone and shouldn't get so upset over every patient they lost. Then again, she'd discovered over the years that he could be just as bad at coping. Sure, he'd brush it off as an obsession with finding the answer to the puzzle but Cameron truly believed that there was a part of him that struggled with the emotions faced by every doctor at some point in their career.

By the time House and Cameron reached the office they could see that their colleagues had returned from their patients' house.

"What did you find?" House asked.

Chase and Foreman talked them through the various theories that they had come up with and House sent his fellows off to the lab to analyse the samples that had been collected.

Once he was alone, House took the opportunity to think about the new information Cameron had inadvertently given him over the past half an hour. He knew that she was hiding something from him, no matter how much she tried to throw him off her trail. Of course, it was entirely plausible that her trip to the restroom earlier had been just that, but she'd been acting jumpy all morning so he couldn't say that nothing was wrong. He just had to find out what it was. It wasn't as if she was going to tell him, was it?

Noticing that she'd left her purse on the desk, House got up with the intention of looking through it. He unzipped the top of the expensive designer bag, which he could assume was a relatively infrequent treat for her as she never wore designer anything to work, and was about to look inside when he was interrupted by a cough from behind him.

"What are you doing?" Wilson asked as House turned around to face him.

"Looking for chapstick." He replied, without missing a beat.

"Of course you were." Wilson sighed. "I don't think Cameron would appreciate you going through her purse."

"How do you know it's hers? It could just as easily be Cuddy's." He said, before adding, "Or even Chase's."

"Well whoever it belongs to I doubt they want you snooping around."

"I think something's wrong with her."

Wilson was almost afraid to ask. "Who?"

"Cameron."

"Why?" He asked, playing along as he knew House wanted him to.

"She's hiding something from me."

"And that automatically means something's wrong?"

"She's Cameron." House replied, by way of an argument.

"You're obsessing." Wilson concluded. "You're upset because you lost your patient and you don't know how to treat her family so you're obsessing over a few details of Cameron's life in hope of finding something you can fix when, in all likelihood, she's completely fine."

"There's always an explanation. It's not the right time of the month to be her hormones, unless she's pregnant, but her breasts don't look any bigger which all but rules out that theory." House started until Wilson walked out to continue what he was going to do before he saw House going through Cameron's bag through the glass walls of his office. Despite being alone, House spoke aloud. "I'll find out why she's acting strange." He promised himself, although his own motives were becoming less clear to him with every new piece of information he gained.