Secondly, I'd really like some more reviews :( I'm not saying I don't love writing this, but ultimately I write it for you guys, and if you don't tell me you like it, I'll think you hate it. And if you hate it, I'd rather you told me outright.
Thirdly, somewhere along the line, with NO ACTION on my part and without me really noticing, this turned into a "No Reason" fic. Please don't ask me how this happened because I swear I am as clueless as you; House truly writes himself.
I had a comment that perhaps the story was moving too fast; but once I get an idea, I can't rest until it's written and published. (Incidentally, I got strange looks on the train when I /had/ to make a notes of the line I'd thought of and ended up writing "I will personally sterilize you with a breadknife" with liquid eyeliner on a tissue.
Also, just warning you, this chapter is longer than all the others.
So, to conclude, I think I might slow down a bit in the future but not yet as I want to get this development down before holibobs, I'll see you in two weeks and I need reviews like House needs Vicodin!!!
"House!" yelled the voice. "Get back here!"
House grumbled as he slammed shut his Gameboy and limped over to where his girlfriend stood. "Yes, my love, my sweet, apple of my eye, light of my life et cetera and other such sickening phrases?"
She swatted him playfully. "You forgot an important bit about laying the table."
"What's that?" he asked, frowning.
"Cutlery," she sighed. "Honestly, now I know where Carly gets her scattiness from..." She paused, stirring the sauce. "She's really like you, you know."
Resisting the urge to reply 'what, attractive, clever and talented?', House instead replied fairly, grabbing some forks, "She's got your inner moral compass, you know. I don't know why she doesn't look like either of us, though..."
"She spent all her time in England, hence the darker skin, and Cameron-hair gets darker in the sun, too..." Cameron paused for thought. "My eyes, your mouth, my nose, your ears, my insane thing for doing right, your sense of humour, my reading obsession, your music thing," she reeled off impressively.
House stared at her.
"So that's what you were thinking about in the differential today," he laughed. Cameron blushed; she had not been thinking so much about Carly as Carly being conceived. "It's quiet with her at music school. I'm almost glad she'll be back tomorrow."
"Soon we'll have to start thinking about her real school," Cameron said, ladling out the pasta. "I'm sure she could get into any school here, wiht a bit of revision," she added, as she carried over the plates.
"Takes after me there then," he smirked, as she hit him with a tea towel.
//--++--\
An hour later, comfortably snuggled on the sofa, the couple began to talk properly.
"Why'd you become a doctor?" he asked.
"My doctor was a huge influence on me," she repled. "I had chronic atopic eczema to the age of fifteen, for a start. But she was always so nice to me. I guess I decided I wanted to help people like she did through my teenage years, when she helped me with embarrassing period stuff... what about you?"
"Same," he deadpanned, and she let out a laugh. "Wasn't your mum there for you?" he frowned.
Cameron's face darkened. "Her! I kept away from my family as much as possible. I went to boarding school through the year and stayed with friends through all the holidays; I'd see her on Christmas, New Year, my birthday, my sister's birthday and her birthday. And I'm glad that's all I saw her for!
"What did your friends get up to all summer in your silky negligees?" he asked, wiggling his eyebrows disgustingly.
"If you ever look at me like that again, I will personally sterilize you with a bread knife"
"Well, you'd get a lovely view. Ow!" he yelped as she punched him in the stomach. "You know, for being so skinny, you're damn strong."
"And for being so mean, you're damn cuddly," she giggled, poking him in the stomach.
"You wound me so."
"You spent months making my love life awful!"
"Can't help being handsome," he shrugged.
She snorted. "It's just lucky for you that I like chubby, crippled, pale and pasty stubbly mean old men. Otherwise, I'd have married Chase a long time ago"
"I think I'm a bad influence on you," he said admiringly. "I knew the annoyingly saint-like doctor thing was just a pretence." He paused, then added, "Chase is much too clingy for you, anyway."
"Yeah, but he's an awesome kisser."
"Thought you were too high to notice," he snarked, waspishly. She giggled in a very un-Cameronlike way, and told him, "you're adorable when you're jealous."
"If you tell anybody I'm adorable, I will kill three rabbits in the lunch hall," he threatened, and she turned her head towards him, noticing his eyes were very, very blue. He looked at her deeply, and she nodded her head very slightly. He lowered his lips to hers, his harsh stubble grazing her cheek, and slipped his hands up the back of her top.
It was just then that Wilson lit himself in.
"Jimmy-boy!" greeted House cheerfully. "You have two options. Either you can help me explore how nice Cameron here looks out of her suit or you can leave right now. Now, I know you'd usually pick the first option but if you do, my cane wil be brought to you in a way that means you will never have children. What say you?"
Wilson turned a funny shade of purple and closed the door.
"Now, where were we?" Houes grinned, but Cameron shook her head "Moment's gone," she said (almost teasingly), "g'night."
House cursed Wilson to oblivion.
//--++--\
"Which one of you is Dr. House?"
Carly chose the wrong moment to walk into the office, cheerily saying that Wilson had given her a lift as camp had finished a day early when one of the leaders got very ill. The doctors grinned and waved at her; except House. Instinct ran in his blood, and he was feeling wary.
"Stay away from my daughter," he warned the intruder.
"Your---" Chase spluttered. "But... Cameron... you.."
"You passed 8th grade biology, do the math," snapped House. "If you dare..."
"Another House," drawled the man. "How unfortunate for her."
There was a crack and Carly fell to the floor, and another that made her scream an awful, piercing scream and grab her leg. In an instant, the intruder vanished. Foreman set off in pursuit, raising the alarm, Chase caught Cameron as her knees buckled and House dived to the teenagers side, turning her neck to reveal a large red stain. He swore loudly, then pulled off his tops and pressed them to the side of the wound, as Cameron sank to her knees. Carly's eyelids were fluttering gently.
"Knew you had a reputation," Carly croaked to House, "but I didn't..."
"Sssh," Cameron told her, smoothing the hair out of her eyes and stepping back as the paramedics stretchered her away.
Chase looked on in horror as the normally calm, collected immunologist screamed at House, threw punches at him, scratched his bare chest with her fingernails and kicked him with all her might until all she could do was collapse onto him, sobbing, as Carly's blood spread across their clothes. How long they stood there, locked together, tears falling in torrents, neither of them knew.
And Chase felt his heart ache; how long he had longed for her to hold him like that, and soon he was crying too, both for the teenager who had teased him and ruffled his hair, and slowly grown to regard him as a brother too and for the pain in his chest, as he sat down heavily in his chair, and could only wonder how heavy the pain was in the couple's hearts. The two of them broke away slowly, and Cameron sank down next to Chase, who held her and wondered if he ever would again, and House leant his head against the sink cupboard and they waited.
Foreman returned; nobody had noticed him leave.
"She's out of surgery, " he told them. "But she's in a come. She..."
House looked down at the blood on his hands and threw up.
A/N: I'm not sure if I'm pleased with that or not, I think on the whole I am, but don't ask me where that came from, heh. Please. But I had to stop the fluff for a bit somewhere. I'll see you all in a fortnight with an update, and nothing'll inspire me more than a couple of reviews... -hinthint-