Author's Note: Slight tweak in the storyline. Now Let the awkwardness begin!

Chapter 2: Getting Personal

As far as Remy knew, the both of them were simply colleagues going out for dinner after a long day of work. But the fact that it was Christmas Eve automatically made their outing seem to mean more than they really wanted it to. Having agreed to take Thirteen's car to save fuel, they drove out of the hospital, thinking of a place to eat.

"Well...there's this really good italian restaurant near my place..." The brunette suggested as they exited the parking lot.

"Sounds good," her companion replied with a nod.

The rest of the car ride didn't hold much conversation for the two of them. Unable to bring up an appropriate topic, they simply let the Christmas music from the radio fill the gap. But even the cheerful tune of "Walking in a Winter Wonderland" fell short in easing the awkwardness as they stopped at a red light. Against her better judgement, Cameron turned away from the window to take a short glance at the driver of the car, only to find Thirteen watching her intently in return. Their eyes met for a brief moment. Neither of them turned away nor said anything.

The younger doctor was actually thinking of speaking up after a while, when a horn from behind broke their gaze. Chewing out the inside of her cheek, Remy looked up to confirm that the light had already turned green. Stepping on the gas pedal, she silently decided to divert her full attention to the road, after that embarrassing mistake. Because of this, in combination with the darkness of the night, and the fact that her companion had now turned her face back to the window, she failed to notice exactly how pink Cameron's cheeks became.

Boy, this evening was going to be something.

When they arrived, Remy deftly parked the car and the two of them made their way into the restaurant. As soon as they entered, one of the waiters greeted them. "Remy! How's it goin'?" As he approached though, his eyes settled on the blonde, making him pause in his steps. "What's this? Table for two?" he asked with a suggestive wiggle of his eyebrows. The two women blushed profusely at this. Thirteen rolled her eyes and cleared her throat. "Yes, please." With a grin, he waved an arm to direct them to a table. The brunette let Cameron through first, and as she walked past her waiter friend, she held out a chiding finger at him and muttered, "Behave. She's just a friend."

The way he nodded "sure, sure," was not entirely as convincing as she wished, but she settled on glaring at him one last time before she took the seat opposite of her coworker. They spent a few moments deciding what they wanted from the menu, then placed their orders. Thirteen was more than happy to watch her friend leave for the kitchen before he said anything else that would embarrass them even more. Biting her lip, she looked up at Cameron to catch her eyes wandering around the restaurant, apparently admiring the festive decorations adorning the walls and window panes. They gave a pleasantly homey aura, and seemed to relax the two doctors a little despite still feeling a little flustered due to the previous events. Subconsciously, they kept in their minds that this was merely the beginning of their evening together, and mentally prepared themselves for what's to come.

"I hope you'll excuse my friend. He likes to tease me every opportunity he gets," Remy spoke up as an attempt to break the ice. Fortunately, her comment earned a smile from the older doctor. Their eyes trailed off to the aforementioned subject, whose arms were flailing about dramatically as he was giving orders to the cook. Cameron then looked back up at Thirteen, with countless thoughts flooding her head. After a moment of internal debate, she decided to start off with addressing only one of them first.

"So... How's diagnostics lately?"

She watched with amusement the way Remy pursed her lips at her question. "Things are alright. House is House. And the cases are as strange as ever."

The ER attending smiled as she recalled her previous years working as a duckling and all the work it entailed – not to mention the ceaseless string of slurs, insults and criticisms from her narcissistic boss that she had to listen to on a daily basis.

"Do you miss it?" Thirteen's deep voice interrupted her brief reminiscing.

The blonde met her icy blue eyes and parted her lips to speak, but paused for a second as she gave her answer a second thought. "Well..." she began. "Sometimes I do. A lot of times I do... But I just can't work with him forever. I... If he's not going to change, I don't want to get any more corrupted than I already am."

Remy nodded in understanding. But her mind picked up on something else, and without hesitation, decided to bring it up indirectly. "I'm assuming you mean it's House that you can't work with. Not Chase." She obviously knew that Cameron was talking about House, but at the same time, she was curious about what she felt about the Aussie doctor now that it's been half a year since they've broke off the engagement.

The bluntness of her statement and unasked question caught Allison off guard a little. For the second time that night, she opened her mouth to speak but no words came out. Fortunately for her, Remy's waiter friend decided to jump in at that moment to ask if they wanted drinks for the evening, buying her a little more time to form a coherent response.

"Wine?" he chirped, enthusiastically raising a bottle of white, and another red. "First glass is on the house."

After considering it for what seemed like a millisecond, Thirteen nodded. "Two glasses of red wine please."

As he poured them their drinks, the brunette couldn't help but notice that smirk on his face. With a sigh, she decided to chew him out on that another time.

"Enjoy your evening, ladies," the man said with a final bow. Remy couldn't be more relieved to watch him skip off to attend to other customers.

Now that this little episode of interruption was over, Remy looked back up at her companion, obviously still waiting to continue their conversation. Cameron was gently swishing the wine in her glass around, seemingly captivated by the swirl of the transparent red liquid. But the piercing gaze that the younger doctor sent her was definitely hard to ignore. With a bit of reluctance, she looked up to meet her eyes.

"Yes, I meant House. But at the same time, I'm not sure I can work with Chase either." She looked down at the table and heaved a weary sigh. "I don't know what to think of him anymore. It's just... I didn't want our relationship to go that far...but he did. I...I couldn't deal with marrying him. It's probably what I should've done – I'd probably be happy with him – but it's not what I wanted."

Silence hung in the air for a few moments, until Remy thought of something to say. "If he hasn't been making you happy, it's hard to tell whether he would in the future." She watched as Cameron thought carefully about her words.

"No... He did make me happy. There were times when things were fine..." Then she furrowed her brows. "But other times he could be so frustrating. And immature. There were days when I couldn't even stand him." The blonde sighed once again, and looked up to meet her colleague's gaze. "But he was safe. He was the right choice. He just..." She broke their eye contact. "...didn't seem like the right choice for me. As cheesy as this sounds, the spark just wasn't there anymore. And I was the one who couldn't live with that... It feels like I'm always the one messing things up when they were perfect the way they were."

Thirteen fell quite for a while, a bit overwhelmed by the amount of personal information she was given, as well as confused by Cameron's willingness to talk about her past relationship. It's common knowledge that she wasn't exactly great friends with her, and they've never really had a full on conversation before. But now, seeing that dejected look on the blonde's face made her heart ache, and she wanted nothing but to make it go away.

"Hey. Don't be so hard on yourself. Sometimes, you just have to go with your gut. And if being with Chase didn't feel right, then I'm glad you two broke it off." When the ER attending looked up at Remy, she noticed a hint of a smirk on her face. "Besides, I always thought you were too good for him and his annoying Aussie accent."

At this comment, Cameron laughed lightly, and Remy smiled even wider now that her frown was finally gone. But soon it was the older doctor's turn to smirk as a train of thought entered her mind. "Speaking of which..." She shot Thirteen a playful look. "I always thought you were too good for Foreman."

At that instant, Remy wanted to bash her head against the table. Allison watched on with amusement as a horrified look spread across her companion's face. "That... I don't see how that is relevant," she answered in denial, folding her arms and looking away. The blush spreading across her cheeks didn't go unnoticed.

"I'm just voicing my opinion," Cameron said, still smiling. "I'm also glad that you're not seeing him anymore."

"Me too."

They grew silent again, but this time, it wasn't as uncomfortable as before. While the older doctor took sips of her wine, Thirteen had a brief internal debate. Since her colleague had shared something highly personal with her, Remy felt more than a little obligated to say something about herself too. In all honesty, having to tell someone else about her personal life panicked her slightly; she never liked opening up to anyone about anything unless it was absolutely necessary. But this was Cameron, PPTH's most loving, caring, and trustworthy doctor. Perhaps it wouldn't be such a terrible thing to let her walls down for just this one evening. It was only fair that she did.

Thirteen sighed in submission. "That was when I hit a weak spot. I needed someone, and he was there. I... You've witnessed firsthand. I was all over the place. All that coping. At that point, I guess I just couldn't take it alone. Back then it seemed like it wouldn't be a bad idea. I mean... he was stable. Someone I could rely on I guess. Well, at least that's what I thought."

Cameron nodded and waited patiently for her to continue. It'd be an understatement to say that she was captivated by the enigma that is Thirteen. And now, listening to her talk, listening to her explanations for her own actions was indeed something quite rare.

"I know there are so many reasons why I shouldn't have dated him – I could go on and on about how extremely boring he is – but at that time, I didn't really have anyone else." She watched with faint fascination the swirling red wine in her glass. "I admit, we had a good run. But to be honest, he never really was my type."

They both smiled. "Everyone thought you could've done better," came Cameron's remark.

"I know. I could've. I try not to think about it anymore though. The mere thought that we used to be in a relationship makes me cringe. It would be best that we move on to another topic before my head explodes from any more embarrassment."

The way Thirteen managed to keep a straight face after that comment made the blonde laugh. Hearing the sound, Remy couldn't help but smile too. She had to admit, that wasn't so bad. Talking to someone about it had somehow managed to take some weight off her shoulders. Their eyes met again, and this time there was something different about it. Curiosity. Intrigue. Every other word that says that they want to get to know each other a little more. Thirteen let her attention draw to the way Cameron's eyes shone in the candlelight. It was ridiculous that she had never really noticed how extremely attractive the ER attending was.

Actually, that wasn't true. The moment she met her, there was no question about her pretty face, regardless of her age. But she met her as Chase's girlfriend, and so that automatically made her off limits. Yet, now that she was single, Remy oddly felt no need to censor her own thoughts anymore. She knew this was sort of inappropriate, but she couldn't control herself as she looked her colleague up and down.

Unfortunately, whether she was aware of it or not, she wasn't as subtle as she had liked. Allison knew what it felt like to be checked out, and this situation was no different. What was tough was having to pretend that she didn't notice. As she took a sip of wine to avoid Remy's eyes, she silently prayed that the blood rushing to her cheeks wouldn't be visible, or would at least be attributed to the intake of alcohol instead. Thankfully, whatever god out there was feeling merciful, and the waiter chose this moment to bring them their food.

"Buon appetito."

The wink that he sent Cameron as he turned to leave really didn't help at all.

That's it for this chapter. Will update as soon as I finish the next.

So. I watched Tron:Legacy yesterday. Just for Olivia Wilde. I thought the movie was kinda cheesy, although aesthetically pleasing with very impressive graphics and stunts and suitable music. There were several parts of it where I was like...OHMAHGOD...cheesy. But Olivia Wilde was in it, so I forgive them.
Can't wait til she comes back to House... I'm sure we all miss her. And I hope Cameron makes a couple of appearances too.

Oh by the way, I like reviews. C: