Disclaimer: Written out of fan-appreciation I do neither own House m.d. nor any other characters that appear on that show, I just borrowed them to play around with, so don't sue, please?

He opened the door with so much gusto it hit the opposite wall with a loud bang. His entrance was worthy of a soap opera or one of those badly cast sitcoms, but it seemed out of place in real life for some reason. She was startled, looking at him with wide eyes, as if she was expecting him to say something big, possibly unexpected, but the words that came out of his mouth turned out to be rather predictable.

"So you've finally did it, eh? But on the same day? That's a bit tasteless don't you think?" The nurse who had shared the break room with her suddenly felt the urge to leave faced with an unusually belligerent Doctor Chase.

Only after the door had closed behind her, Cameron started to speak. "It's nice of you to drop by, but would you kindly explain what you mean by 'it'?" She looked at Chase pointedly.

"Oh, don't play dense! You bloody well know what I meant. You went out with House the other week. I'm not so naïve as to assume you went your separate ways after that," he spat out accusatory.

"I don't think it is any of your business anymore." Cameron looked at him with narrowed eyes, trying to muster something aching to real spite for him, but failed miserably. She could only understand his jealousy all too well. As a matter of fact she did not only understand it, she also felt slightly guilty. Admittedly in her heart of hearts she felt more than only slightly guilty.

Despite him glaring at her like he wanted to kill her by sheer willpower, she actually managed to get out a credible apology. It meant admitting ultimate defeat, but she was willing to go to those lengths, because she knew she had hurt him. "Look, Robert, I'm sorry. Nothing happened. We had some burgers and talked. That's it. Nothing spectacular," Cameron finally admitted, running her fingers through her hair.

"Yeah. Sure." Chase rolled his eyes. She had never been a good liar. She might have picked up a few things from House, for example that sarcasm bit, she was quite good at that, but lying sure wasn't her thing.

"Honest. I swear to God. It's the truth," she pleaded with him. She got up from her chair, taking a few feeble steps towards him, which only caused him to retreat.

"Yeah, the truth…it's a nifty little thing, isn't it? I'd very much like you to be honest with me." He was leaning against the door frame, his arms crossed over his chest, trying to appear nonchalant. Just like her he had changed a lot in the last year. He had become more self-assertive and when he felt insecure he was very well able to hide it behind a façade. She supposed now was one of those moments.

She sighed. "I don't know if I can explain properly…"

"Try…You at least owe me as much."

"Yeah, you're probably right about that."

"So?" he was tapping his foot impatiently. "I haven't got all day, you know."

"This isn't easy for me. Okay?"

"Oh, please, Allison, everybody in this hospital knows that you practically worshipped the ground House walked on from the day you've met him."

"I'm afraid it's not as simple as that."

"Then go ahead and explain. I'm all ears."

"Alright…" She took a deep breath. Actually she wasn't sure how to answer Chase's question in the first place, but she felt like she was for some reason obliged to do so. The idea of him being mad at her was intolerable to her, although they weren't together anymore. She wasn't as dependent on the opinion of others as she had been when she had first started out working as a doctor, but Chase's opinion still mattered a lot to her.

"Yes," she smiled sadly, "I did have a crush on him. But that stopped last year."

"You mean when you quit?"

"Yes."

"So why go out with him now?"

"Because it's time. Because if I don't do, it I will regret it later." She looked down at her hands which she was nervously kneading as she tried to think of the right words to say. It was hard explaining her feelings to Chase of all people. Especially now, after they had broken up. The situation was already tense and uncomfortable and she could make even more tense and uncomfortable by choosing the wrong words. "Look," she finally said, "it's nice to fantasize about something, but in a way you're only lying to yourself. And what is worse you spend your time obsessing over things that probably aren't worth obsessing about. I can't keep going on like that. I need closure. One way or the other."

"If it's real, if it's not just in my head, I have to give it a try. See what happens. If it doesn't work out…well, at least I can't say I haven't tried. The point is to take that chance and not make excuses anymore. Not just because I'd be disappointed in myself if I didn't, but also because I want to move on. I don't want to keep hurting other people unintentionally."

After she had finished talking, an awkward silence settled inside that little room. Cameron tried to appear calm and unfazed by Chase's unreadable facial expression, but she couldn't help but feel immensely relieved when he finally decided to speak.

"Thank you," he finally said. It sounded surprisingly sincere.

She looked at him in shock.

"Hey, don't look at me like that." He was smiling, despite the uncomfortable situation they currently found themselves in. "What did you expect me to do? Spit fire and rip your head off for being the most honest with me you've ever been all year?" The smile slowly faded from his face. "I just wish we had this conversation a little earlier."

"Yeah, me too," Cameron smiled sadly.

Their eyes met for the briefest of moment and there was no anger between them, no unspoken accusations lingering in the air. The moment passed.

"So," Chase cleared his throat, shuffling his feet uncomfortably, "let's get to the professional part, shall we? You've asked for a consult."

She smiled. "Yes, I did. I've actually got a treat for you. This is something you don't come across every day." She grabbed a patient's file from her desk her desk and handed it to Chase. He flipped through the first couple of pages nonchalantly, then his eyes fell on the x-ray scans.

"You've got to be kidding me!" He looked at her in surprise.

"I'm definitely not kidding you," she assured him.

When her lunch break came along she decided to spend it outside, sitting on a bench in the park, enjoying the first gentle, warming rays of the spring sun. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back trying to forget about the world around her and the fact that she would have to return to the ER all too soon.

The sun warmed her skin, a gentle breeze was playing with her hair, the sound of children playing in the park, their laughter… It was a wonderful day. Then a cloud obscured the sun and the warmth disappeared.

She opened her eyes in irritation. It wasn't a cloud. There was a man standing in front of her. Despite only being able to make out a dark silhouette against the blinding light of the sun, she recognized immediately who it was. Lanky, slender, cane… House.

"Would you mind?" she asked, shielding her eyes from the sun.

"Not exactly the warm welcome I was hoping for…," he started in a mock petulant voice.

"Oh, just shut it and sit down, will you?"

He grinned and complied, placing a pizza box on the bench between them. She eyed it sceptically as if she was half-expecting a jack-in-the-box to pop out of it. Also House offering food to her, in fact offering food to anybody, was highly suspicious.

"It's only pizza. Quite harmless I assure you. Except it will make you fat, but you could afford putting on a few extra pounds if you ask me, Mrs. Almost-Nothing-There," he pointed at her chest. If she hadn't been the butt of his joke, Cameron would have almost been impressed by his talent of simultaneously forwarding an invitation and being insulting.

She ignored his comment and took a slice of pizza from the box. Out of spite she took the largest one and threw him a triumphant grin before she took the first bite. He grinned back saccharinely and took a slice as well.

"God, I forgot how good that tastes," she smiled delightedly, chewing on her pizza enthusiastically.

"Because you're normally on a diet?"

"Nope, I just don't eat pizza."

He nodded wordlessly, obviously too busy eating to enquire any further into her nutrition habits. Or maybe he just didn't find the topic that interesting.

Though the silences with him were never uncomfortable, at least not to her, she felt like making small-talk. She was in a good mood, probably thanks to the sunshine, the pleasant atmosphere of the park in good weather and House's unexpected, but rather welcome appearance.

"You'll love this. We've had this very odd case today…," Cameron started telling him in between taking greedy bites from her pizza. She hadn't been noticed that she had been that hungry. Funny.

"Hope it wasn't Lupus. In that case I wouldn't be interested. In fact I would be utterly bored."

"No." Cameron grinned smugly. "A girl dropped by this morning. She swallowed a fork. Can you imagine?! A real fork. Not one of those plastic things either."

He looked baffled, but recovered from it rather quickly. "I'm sure she has a brilliant career ahead of her in the entertainment industry, being able to swallow all kinds of unusual objects and what not." Now it was his turn to grin. And it was a rather dirty grin. "You know men like that in a girl."

"Yeah, sure they do. Just the way they like to accidentally sit on pens or other phallic objects and then come running to the ER, making up all sorts of pathetic excuses how it happened."

"Ewww. Really, Cameron, I'm trying to eat her."

"Well, you've started it."

"Doesn't matter who started it. I'm more interested in how that fork ended up 'Deep Throat' in the first place." He grinned.

She let out a groan of frustration. One day he was going to be the death of her. "She told me she ate a slice of papaya and it got stuck in her throat, so she took a fork and tried to scratch it out. Unfortunately the fork slipped out of her not too firm two-finger-hold and thanks to the swallowing reflex it ended up stuck somewhere in her oesophagus. Neat, isn't it?"

"Impressive. That has got to be the severest case of dizziness known to mankind."

"Quite."

They continued munching on their pizza in companionable silence for a while. The respective grins on their faces made the whole scene seem rather harmonious.

"Not that I'm complaining about the pizza and the unexpected pleasure of your company, but is there, I don't know, maybe any reason behind this? Was there anything you needed?" She threw him a curious sideway glance.

He looked at her innocently. "Nope, I just wanted to suck up to you. Actually I was hoping you'd put out on our next date."

A smile slowly spread on her face and a mischievous sparkle briefly flashed in her eyes. She motioned him to come closer. He readily complied, quickly disposing of the by now empty pizza box in the process. "Let me tell you a little secret," she said in a conspiratorial voice. "It's going to take a lot more than just pizza if that's what you're after."

He took his chance to sneak his arm around her shoulder. She threw him a disapproving glance, which was rather unconvincing, since she was glaring while smiling. "Oh, I see! Everything can be bought. So what's it going to be, Cameron? Oysters? Lobster? Do you want you old job back or Chase to mysteriously disappear?" He winked at her. "Anything. You just name it."

"I won't have to sign on the dotted line with my blood, will I?" She asked with a raised eyebrow.

He threw back his head and laughed a theatrical deep laugh. "No, no. You can relax. All it's going to take is your immortal soul."

"I figured as much."

"Yeah."

They fell silent again. House didn't even show the slightes inclination to remove his arm from around her shoulders and she certainly wouldn't tell him to. It felt pleasant, even cosy. Would he flinch back if she leaned her head on his shoulder? Why not give it a try? What did she have to lose? The worst could happen that he'd let out a shrill cry, jump to his feet and limp away disgustedly to burn his shirt in an open fire.

She leaned her head on his shoulder. Nothing of the sort happened. He just let it happen without even making a sarcastic comment. She smiled to herself quietly, enjoying the moment while she could, after all she was expected back in the ER in about twenty minutes.

tbc