A/N: Sorry for the delay. My ISP has been giving me hell lately. Once again, I wish to acknowledge all the people who favourited/commented on the story. It was really touching to go into my email every day and find another person had added my story to their watching list. :)

If the news of Foreman, Hadley and Chase's departure disturbed House, it was nothing compared to the knife in the gut that came several days later.

The hospital staff threw a farewell party for the three doctors, and House decided to come, not because he gave a rat's ass about his peers, but because the party featured free booze. He had just settled into a dimly lit corner with his Scotch and soda when Cuddy stepped into the center of the room, waxing poetically about Foreman, Thirteen and the Wombat. The partygoers laughed and applauded appreciatively as she told a cutesy little anecdote about each of the doctors. House rolled his eyes at the banality and took a swig.

He surveyed the room: Chase looked either bored or cross—he couldn't tell what the Aussie's frown indicated. Foreman had his arm around Hadley, and they were both blushing from false modesty. Wilson stood near Cuddy, clutching three small packages. Judging from the size and shape, House guessed the packages were plaques featuring some inane inscription on them like "World's Best Doctor."

Cuddy motioned to Wilson to distribute the gifts. "A token of our appreciation," she said, her eyes misting.

House spit out his drink. When had Cuddy become so attached to these cretins? Scowling, he turned away from the emotional scene, and his eyes rested on Cameron's lithe form. Her dark plum sweater hugged her body, accenting all the right places, and her black slacks were far too tight for the office. House wholeheartedly approved. She caught his gaze, and the wistful smile on her lips grew. House quickly looked back at his drink.

Cameron self-consciously brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. She listened to Cuddy ramble awkwardly about Chase's merits—she heard the words, but she couldn't comprehend them. They floated around the space in her mind before disappearing into the void. All she could hear in her head were Chase's last words to her: "He doesn't love you. Get over it. Get over him." Seconds after yelling this at her in the doctors' lounge, the security guards had strongly suggested he leave. It had been moments later that he had trotted into Cuddy's office and resigned. Apparently while Cameron and he were still a couple, Chase had accepted a job at the Australian clinic at which his father had worked. So much for including her in his life—though, if she was totally honest, she would realize that she had never fully let him into her life either.

As Cuddy heaped her praise on Foreman, Cameron stole a look at Chase. She nodded encouragingly at him, but he glanced away without acknowledging the look. She didn't begrudge him anything. She was happy he was turning over a new leaf, facing his demons head on. It would be good for him. He'd forget her, hopefully—although she suspected she was his female House: the one love that never fully died.

After the tedious formalities were finished, Cameron enveloped each of the doctors in a tight hug. Even Chase relaxed a little in her grasp. "I'll miss you," she told them, and she honestly meant it.

Thirteen opened her gift, and House was actually impressed that it wasn't a plaque but a candid photo of her with a patient tastefully framed in sterling silver. Obviously Cuddy had put some thought into the presents. House was going to approach Wilson and make a derogatory comment about the party, but his friend was amiably chatting with Foreman. House turned his attention to Cuddy but it was evident that she was listening intently to everything Wilson was saying and ignoring the rest of the world. This didn't faze him too much. They always were attached at the hip, usually conspiring against him.

With his two friends preoccupied, House had three choices available: 1. He could wait until Wilson finished, meantime standing alone in the middle of the room looking like a loser. 2. He could leave the party, or 3. He could talk to Cameron as he waited. He had been doing the latter option a lot lately, but he didn't mind. Cameron had turned into quite the verbal opponent.

He approached her and noticed how her posture straightened and her green eyes gleamed. She was on the alert, ready for the first round of sparring.

"I'm surprised you came to this party, considering your history with Chase."

Cameron smirked. "I'm surprised you're here, considering you don't like any of these people."

"Touche'." House clinked glasses with her. "So why are you here anyway?"

"Why are you?"

"You didn't answer my question."

"Neither did you." She took a composed sip of her punch.

"I like to drink," he said simply. "What about you? You here to beg Chase to stay?" As he mentioned the Australian's name, his stomach clenched. Damn heartburn.

"No. I'm, here for closure."

House quirked an eyebrow.

"This is a chapter of my life that is ending," she explained. "I'm here to see it through."

"They'll be back." He was sincerely confident in his claim. "No other hospital will hire Foreman, so he'll be spending his time trying to find a cure for Huntington's. After Thirteen dies, he'll not only be out of a job, he'll be bored. So where else will he go but back to Cuddy's enabling arms?

"Chase, on the other hand, will quickly tire of working in the same clinic as the father he hated and will come back to Princeton in the hopes that his sweetheart has changed her mind about them."

Cameron vehemently shook he head. "If Chase comes back, it better not be for me."

House felt relief at her statement, but he made sure to keep his expression vapid and vague. "Good for you."

She couldn't tell if he was being serious or sarcastic. "I mean it," he added, as if he could read her mind. "You don't want to waste your time on a second-rate doctor."

"There's more to a man than his career."

"Don't be ridiculous. You can tell everything about a guy from his job. For example, a doctor with lousy bedside manner, who happens to misdiagnose his patients all the time, is either insensitive and stupid or candid and adventurous."

"Or he's a misanthropic son of a bitch who is too brilliant to get along with anyone else and doesn't care how many tests he runs as long as he gets the desired answers."

House blinked rapidly, determining that the insult was directed at him. "Apparently you know everything there is to know about me."

"And yet, you still know very little about me." It was an invitation, but House wasn't sure he wanted to accept it.

His eyes darted back and forth looking for the nearest escape route, and that's when the knife was plunged into his stomach—metaphorically, of course. The jab was swift and sudden and was thrown by his two best friends. The motion was so subtle that no one else noticed it—no one but Cameron. She saw him tense and followed his gaze to Wilson and Cuddy. They had just finished conversing with Foreman and Hadley when Wilson gently put an arm around Cuddy's waist and ushered her away to talk with the other doctors in the oncology department. The gesture lasted five seconds at the most, but to House those seconds were interminable. The motion was just so intimate. The knife twisted deeper, and the pain squeezed the air from his lungs and constricted his heart until he felt sure the muscle would implode from the pressure.

It wasn't just the fact that he resented their new-found happiness, or that he found it rather disturbing that his best friend was shagging (or about to shag) his ex-lover, or that he was peeved and slightly insulted that it had taken Cuddy merely a month to move on from him. No; what bothered him the most and sent this debilitating pain through his body was the discovery that his friends had moved on and had left him standing still, miles behind them. The three of them used to commiserate with each other in their misery, but now he was the only miserable one. And in his twisted mind, friends were supposed to be miserable together.

The pain in his stomach flared to an intolerable level as he watched Wilson lean toward Cuddy and whisper something in her ear that made her beam widely. What right had they to flaunt their relationship in front of him? House involuntarily growled. Cameron placed a consoling hand on his arm, but he shrugged it off and hurried from the room.

He hobbled down the halls blindly. Panic was washing over him. He had felt this pain before—every time Cameron had mentioned Chase—and it was only now, confronted with Wilson and Cuddy's relationship that he realized the discomfort he had been experiencing over the last couple of weeks was not heartburn but jealousy. And it was not the cute variety that every high school girl hopes her boyfriend will feel when she flirts with the captain of the football team. It was the green-eyed, all-consuming kind that Othello probably wished he had never exhibited.

House was accustomed to being a selfish, possessive bastard, but it was the significance of this particular envy that worried him. Why was he jealous of Cameron's relationship with the Wombat? House brushed aside the idea that his jealousy was romantically linked. After all, he was envious of Wilson and Cuddy, but he wasn't in love with them. But this revelation did beg the question: when had Cameron become as important to him as Wilson? A small voice in the corner of his mind whisper, "Since the beginning," but clearly it was irrational and delusional. Surely if she had meant that much to him he would have realized it before now, right?

House fumbled in his pockets until he found his Vicodin. Just grasping the plastic bottle calmed his nerves. He took two pills for the pain.