When she was done with the tests Allison tidied the lab quickly, trying to keep herself distracted. Chase and Foreman had teased her about volunteering to stay, so she'd fallen back on telling them reproachfully that Janet was her patient, not just House's. They'd given her tolerant looks--there's Cameron, caring again--but had at least stopped teasing. Allison smiled a little as her hands went about their work; she wasn't entirely unaware of how the others saw her and wasn't above playing it up on occasion when it suited her purposes.

The truth was, she didn't want to go home. At home there wouldn't be anything to keep her busy and keep her from thinking about the patient. Keep her from thinking about the patient in a non-medical way, she amended, because of course she was supposed to be thinking about her seizures and what might be causing them. And not about anything else. Like how on earth she'd known about the centrifuge...

Allison caught herself paused in the middle of rearranging a rack of chemicals and gave herself a mental shake. This was not helpful. She finished what she was doing, picked up her folder, and left the lab.

It was late; visiting hours were long over and the halls were quiet. Allison kept her mind busy with medicine and the sound of her heels tapping on the floor until she got back to House's office. She opened the door and was already drawing breath to speak when her train of thought jarred to a halt; House wasn't in there. Neither was his iPod, which ruled out a trip to the men's room, and there was still rice left which meant he wasn't in the cafeteria. So either he was walking to help himself think, or he was in the patient's room.

Allison didn't feel like wandering the halls trying to guess his path, so she put her money on Janet's room (Allison wasn't certain when the transition to given name had happened, but she was obscurely grateful; even in her head "Janet" was easier to say). She took a second to scribble a Post-It--Tests back negative, went to room Cam--in case he was just out walking and stuck it to his computer screen. Then she detoured back through the conference room to grab her book.


The nurses stopped talking when they saw Allison coming, which meant they'd been discussing her, House, or both. The gossip network was well-developed in every hospital she'd ever been associated with, but the PPTH rumor mill was close to being a wonder of the world; for a few weeks there it had seemed like everyone she talked to knew that she'd had a date with House.

The thought of that night was still painful, but she couldn't always stop herself prodding it. In hindsight it was so clear that she'd gone about everything the wrong way. Trotting out Freudian theory, for heaven's sake! As if any real person, let alone House, were that simple. It was no wonder he'd gone on the attack, and after that she'd hardly been able to speak, let alone tell him he was wrong.

If she hadn't loved Brian at first sight, at least she'd wanted him by the end of their first date. And then he'd been diagnosed, and somehow she'd known she couldn't save him, couldn't fix him, but she could make his last months better. So she did. And along the way she'd gotten as much of him as she could. Allison had always thought it was a fair trade.

None of which was terribly relevant right now, so Allison pushed it to the back of her mind with practiced ease as she slid the door to Janet's room open. House was sitting in the visitor's chair, iPod firmly in place. But his eyes were open, and he glanced in her direction and reached into his pocket to turn the device off as she stepped towards him.

"I tested for AIP as well," she said softly. "They were both negative."

House shrugged and took the folder from her, flipped it open and glanced at the results. "It's never lupus anyway," he said, trying to sound casual. But Allison could see that his gaze had already slipped back to their sleeping patient.

"I can take over here, if you want to go back to your office," Allison said.

"I want to talk to her when she wakes up," House said. "Go get yourself another chair, we'll have a sleepover."

"As long as you don't freeze my bra," Allison said.

"Can I at least braid your hair?" he whined. Allison shot him an amused glance as she walked to the door and caught a nurse's attention. Negotiations for a second chair took only a moment.

"It's not like I can braid yours," she said, leaning against the wall.

House feigned being mortally wounded, though she could tell his heart was only half in it. "You can paint my toenails instead," he said.

"Done," Allison said promptly. House gave her a small smile before he turned his attention back to Janet. That look fell over him, the one that said he wouldn't hear a passing brass band even if it were playing the 1812 Overture complete with cannons; Allison smiled herself and opened her book while she waited for the nurse to get there with a chair.


It was maybe an hour later when House finally stirred in his seat. "Cameron," he said.

Allison looked up from her book to find that House was staring at her. He looked uncharacteristically serious. She tucked her bookmark in and set the book back down in her lap. Truth be told she hadn't been doing a great job of reading anyway.

Once he had her attention House seemed to lose momentum. He looked away and reached for his cane so he could tap it restlessly on the floor. After a moment he said, "The things she told me...all of them were true. They were all things she couldn't have known."

Allison thought that over for a second. As scary as it was, she couldn't come up with anything short of the lab being bugged that would have allowed Janet to know about Brian and the uncalibrated centrifuge. So either the lab was bugged...

"I don't even know how she knew about the HIV scare," Allison confessed.

"But you feel better, don't you?" House asked. He met her eyes again. "You believe her when she says you don't have it."

Allison nodded slowly. "I guess I do," she said.

"If she's right about that," House said, and seemed to consider it a complete statement.

"Yeah," Allison said. Silence fell between them for a moment, broken only by the steady beeping of the heart monitor and the tapping of House's cane, making a rhythm Allison almost recognized.

"She told you 'when Foreman gets sick'," House said. "Sounds like a prediction to me."

"Yeah," Allison said again.

"And she's right about the things in the past." House sounded almost resigned. He leaned back in his chair and started twirling his cane between his fingers like a baton. The extra weight of the handle forced him to hold it a little off-center. Allison waited to see where he was going with this.

He executed a particularly fancy twirl and caught the cane. He seemed to have come to some sort of decision, but Allison couldn't tell what about.

House set the cane down again and rested his hands on it. Looking steadily at the opposite wall, he said, "She told me...Stacy would leave Mark for me if I pushed it." Allison blinked at him, unsure what shocked her more: that Janet had said such a thing, that House appeared to believe it, or that he was telling her. "The problem is, Stacy knew me before." Allison didn't bother asking before what; with House there was only one "before" that mattered. "And even then. She told me she was lonely with me, that with Mark there was room for her."

Allison stared at House's profile, utterly at sea. "Why...why are you telling me this?"

"If I got Stacy back," he said. Words seemed to fail him for a moment, then he gathered his composure. "I wouldn't change for her. If she couldn't be happy with me the way I am...I don't change for people, Cameron. You have to understand that." His lips quirked in a tiny smile. "I yam what I yam."

Allison hesitated, torn. Because if he was saying what she thought he was saying, this was probably the only chance she'd ever get. But if he wasn't...the possibilities for torment were endless, and this was House; if he was playing with her and she fell into his trap, he'd be utterly merciless. But he wasn't looking at her, and if it were a joke or a ploy he'd want to watch to see how she was reacting...

The moment stretched, and just as it was on the verge of slipping away entirely Allison said, "No one's asking you to change."

At last House turned to look at her again, with that peculiarly diagnostic stare. She sat still for it as well as she could, feeling like he was reading her thoughts. At last he seemed to find what he was looking for and he nodded.

"Don't scare me like that, Cameron," House said. "I thought I was gonna have to spell it out." Allison laughed a little. Something dug into her side and she realized she was leaning over the arm of her chair, which might have embarrassed her had House not been leaning over the arm of his.

Their faces were only inches apart when House's pager went off.


House stumped for the elevators as fast as he could go. He had to keep adjusting his expression, because a gleeful (and relieved) grin wasn't going to do much for his rep as a heartless bastard if anyone happened to see it.

He'd been so close to not saying anything at all, and then that awful pause while Cameron tried to figure out whether he was serious...he had to admit he'd given her plenty of reason to believe he could be trying to trick her into something.

But he didn't have time to think about Cameron right now. Right now there was something more pressing to ponder, because the patient's boyfriend had finally arrived and, visiting hours being over, needed an escort to her room. Cameron had offered to go, but House wanted a few minutes alone with the boyfriend.

The elevator seemed to take longer than usual to move between floors. House tapped his fingers on the wall, trying to match the drum riff from "Time Stand Still" that was playing over his earbuds. He lost it at the same place he always did and sighed. He was a pianist, damnit, not a drummer. Before the riff could come around again, the elevator doors slid open. House left the car before they were fully retracted, pulling out the earbuds as he went.

The tall man standing by the reception desk heard him coming and turned around. House realized the other man was almost his own height; it was a fraction of an inch one way or the other. Built like a Viking, though, and blond as one. All he needed was a big axe and a horned helmet. House's brain presented him with a picture that also included a bearskin and a very wide belt, and he had to fight down the grin again.

"Mr. Cutler, I presume!" he said, trying not to sound inappropriately cheerful. He watched as the man's eyes flicked over him and took in the cane.

"You're Dr. House?" Cutler replied. And then he did something very few people did, unless they knew what to expect before meeting House: he extended his left hand to shake. Simultaneously impressed and a little suspicious, House shook hands briefly.

"In the flesh," he said. "You made good time."

"I think I was under the speed limit for at least a few minutes," Cutler said wryly. "I--this is--" He stumbled over the words.

House felt an unexpected pang of sympathy. "Well, let's make sure I haven't dragged you all the way here for no reason," he said to cover. "Walk this way." He waved and started for the elevator.

"I don't think I can walk that way," Cutler said, catching up to him. "No cane."

House gave the man a sidelong look and discovered a perfectly straight face. Too straight to be real, so House quirked an eyebrow at him. Cutler shrugged. "Dunno. You don't seem like the type who takes it too seriously," he said.

"Only when it hurts," House said, which reminded him that it was coming up on time for his midnight pill anyway, so he fished the Vicodin bottle out of his pocket. "That's what this is for." Cutler's eyebrows went up when House shook the pill into his palm.

"That's gotta be some pain," he said. "They let you work with Vicodin in your system?"

"What can I say? I'm special," House said. He swallowed his pill and hit the elevator call button. "Good eye, by the way."

"I was an EMT for a while," Cutler said. "OK, so what's up with, uh, Janet?" His voice almost cracked on the name. House had been carefully ignoring the fact that the man's eyes were red. The elevator pinged its arrival and they boarded.

"She walked into the lobby and had a seizure," House said. "Since then she's had two more. She's been awake for a total of maybe an hour since she got here."

"Seizure. Epilepsy?"

"Not according to the EEG," House said. "We've also ruled out fever, diabetes, lupus, porphyria, encephalitis, and all the popular neuropathies--we've ruled out pretty much everything that can cause seizures."

"So you just don't know what's wrong," Cutler said.

"She has a theory," he said. The elevator arrived on their floor.

"She does?"

"Yeah."

"Soooo...are you going to tell me what it is?" Cutler asked, when House didn't elaborate.

House stopped walking and leaned against the wall. "It's nuts."

"She's been having seizures, her brain is messed up."

"I believe her," House said. He fixed a stare on Cutler's eyes. "This is very important. I believe her, because nothing else fits." He'd thought about it from every angle, and in the end that belief was what had let him say what he'd said to Cameron.

Cutler didn't look away, but his brow furrowed. "OK," he said simply.

"She thinks she's from another universe," House said. "She thinks the seizures happen when she's confronted with new evidence of that fact." He watched the man carefully for any sign that he was in on some sort of scam.

Cutler actually closed his eyes for a long second, a reaction House would have bet his Gameboy was genuine. "And you believe this?" he asked. "Why?"

House sighed. "She told me some things about myself that no one but me should know. Things I did when I'd made damn sure there was no one else around."

"How does being from another universe let her know things about you?" Cutler asked.

"She said that the universe she's from has a TV show about me," House said, feeling faintly abashed. Not that he didn't love the idea (now that he'd gotten over not believing it), but in this context it was supremely uncomfortable.

He was watching Cutler closely enough to see a fascinating thing happen. Rather than considering the theory for an instant and immediately dismissing it as obvious nonsense, Cutler thought about it and decided to, for lack of a better phrase, accept it as a working hypothesis.

"OK," he said again.

"You're taking this remarkably well," House said.

"When I was a kid, I used to watch late night TV from a station in Detroit," Cutler said. "Better reception after dark, you know how it is. Anyway. You know how TV stations will show shots of the city they're in, like with the local news?" House nodded. "One of the shots this station would show was across the river into Canada. Showing Ottawa."

House called up a map in his mind. "The city across the river from Detroit is Windsor. I had a girlfriend from there."

Cutler smiled. "So did I, when I was older. But when I was a kid, the capital of Canada was called Windsor, and the city across the river from Detroit was Ottawa."

House thought that over for a second. "You're saying you're from another universe too," he said.

"Not recently," Cutler said. "Now, can I see Janet?"

"Sure," House said. "Not like she's going to make you any crazier."

"You said you believed her," Cutler said.

"Maybe I'm crazy too," House said. He pushed off the wall and started walking again.

"You seem to be the useful kind of crazy," Cutler said.

House debated with himself over how to present the next fact. Given the reaction--or lack thereof--to the whole different-universe thing, maybe straight out was the way to go. "One more thing," he said. "She thinks you're dead."

"If she's from another universe, maybe I am. There," Cutler replied.

"Just...don't be surprised if seeing you sets off another seizure. If she's awake yet." They rounded the corner and had a view down the hall into the patient's room. Cameron was sitting reading her book again, which meant the patient was probably still out.

House slid the door open. "Cameron. This is the boyfriend," he said by way of introduction. Cameron smiled--she had a lovely smile, he thought, and immediately quashed the thought as not fitting his image--and stood up.

"I'm Dr. Cameron," she said.

"Pete Cutler," the man said absently. He was looking past Cameron at the patient, who still seemed to be sleeping. The look on his face was hard to describe; he seemed afraid to believe what he was seeing, though at the same time desperately wanting to. He crossed the short distance to the bedside and stood there, looking down at the sleeping woman. "Janet," he said softly. Tentatively he reached out to her hand, which lay outside the blankets, and touched it as if he expected it to be insubstantial.

About then House realized Cameron was trying to get his attention. He spared her a glance; she was making "let's leave them alone" faces at him. He didn't want to leave; he wanted to stay and watch this, but when he eyebrowed as much at her she set her expression in the Determined Face. House sighed. It was a small enough concession to make, and hey--all the rooms had glass walls anyhow.

They stepped out into the hall as Cutler reached out to stroke the patient's cheek.


Notes: The end is near! And I guess, yeah, the House/Cam thing is happening. Sorry if you hate it. It could have been worse; it could have been Stacy.