Chapter 7 - Old Faithful
*****
After House's remark, a silence had fallen over the two doctors. Cameron had sat back down on the desk but wasn't touching House this time. Instead she was looking at her hands in her lap while she swung her legs absently under the desk. House had sat up properly in his chair and begun scanning through the chart Cuddy had tossed. When he'd read it completely through twice, the silence still remained. With a rather mischievous grin on his face, he stuck his index finger into his mouth and pushed himself up in his chair with his other hand. Before Cameron could react, he'd stuck his saliva covered finger into her ear.
"House!" She shrieked, slapping his arm as he pulled it away. She couldn't help the laughter that followed even as she rubbed her ear furiously trying to dry it. "You're a jerk sometimes." She stuck her tongue out at him.
"And you need to stop blaming yourself for the patient dying." House had settled back into the chair and was currently tossing his super sized tennis ball between his hands. "It wasn't your fault and you know it." Cameron had opened her mouth to protest when suddenly the phone in her jacket pocket began to chirp. Settling for a rather annoyed look at her boyfriend, she flipped open her phone and pressed it to her ear.
"Hello?" House watched her shoulders suddenly drop.
"Ah, hi Kathryn."
"Yeah, I'm sorry about last week."
"No, it didn't come out of my paycheck."
"I know." She looked up at house and rolled her eyes at whatever her sister was saying.
"Actually I'm rather busy right, I really can't come down to-"
Before she could finish brushing her sister off, House snatched the phone from her hands. "Hey Miss Cameron-Not Cameron."
"Yeah, this is Dr. House, we met last week."
"Uh huh. Actually your sister isn't too busy."
"Sure, we'll be down in a few minutes."
"Okay. Buh bye now." He snapped the phone closed and offered it back to a furious Cameron.
"What the hell are you doing!?" She had leapt off the table when he'd interrupted the phone call and was now punching him in the shoulder and chest. House let the phone fall from his hand in order to block her assault. In a flash he had both her wrists in his hands and was using her as leverage to pull himself out of his chair. Once he was upright, she yanked her arms away forcefully and stormed around the desk towards the office door. "I can't deal with this House, one minute you're being playful, the next you're ruining my life."
House followed behind her into the hallway. He could feel his right leg aching as he put more pressure on it than he usually did. Cameron was a fast walker when she was pissed. "Stop." He called at her retreating back. When she didn't he sped up so that he was nearly right behind her. "Cameron, stop!" Again she ignored him. Unable to keep up his current speed, he tossed all his weight to his good leg and stuck his cane out in front of him, directly between Cameron's legs. He yanked it back, causing the doctor's legs to follow suit. In a rather cruel display, she fell face forward to the floor. She hadn't had enough time to break her fall with her arms.
"House!" Wilson had been walking up the other end of the hall when he saw what had just happened. Breaking into a run, he dropped his files and quickly knelt down next to the stunned doctor. A small pool of blood was slowly beginning to collect beneath her face and as she lifted it up to look at Wilson he saw that her nose had begun to bleed. Actually, gush would have been a more appropriate description. "What the hell did you do?!" He gripped Cameron under the armpits and helped her up off the floor. Once she was standing on her own he clasped his thumb and forefingers on her nose and tilted her head back. She seemed too shocked to do anything about the bleeding herself.
"I didn't think she'd land on her face." House explained, as if that excused his actions entirely. He pushed Wilson out of the way and went to replace his own hand on her nose but she was one step ahead of him and gripped it herself, nudging his arm away with her elbow.
"I got it." She spat at him as she started towards the elevator again.
House looked briefly at Wilson's still vehement face before following his duckling again. "Don't worry, I'll uh, clean this up." He heard Wilson call behind him as he rounded the corner after Cameron's retreating back.
"Where are you going?" He nearly missed the elevator Cameron had escaped into, but his cane had come in handy for the second time and blocked the doors from closing before he could get in himself. The few other passengers tried not to stare at the bloody doctor or the man who was now trying to talk to her.
"Thanks to you I have a nephew to examine." She stepped out of the elevator when it reached the clinic, House quickly on her tail.
"You are going to change first, right?" Cameron, with her hand still clasped tightly to her nose, threw House a nasty look over her shoulder as she stormed into the woman's locker room. Knowing she wasn't safe even in the gender specific changing room, she kept going until she reached the sinks towards the back. Just as she'd expected, House followed her right in.
Cameron grabbed a paper towel from the dispenser, crumpled it up and exchanged her blood covered hand with it. "I could sue you for that, House." She turned on the tap and with a few more paper towels began to clean up the blood still covering her face and neck. House left her to it and went off to find clean scrubs. Returning with them he saw that the bleeding had stopped and Cameron had already pulled her ruined blouse off to toss it into the bin. He handed her the scrub top and after a moments tense hesitation she grabbed it and pulled it over her now clean face.
"I asked you to stop." He shrugged and brought a hand to her face to wipe away some of the water still remaining. She didn't give him the opportunity, slapping it away from her before he made contact. Frowning, House finished, "I didn't mean for you to break your nose."
"It's not broken." Cameron retorted, wiping away the dampness on her forehead herself. "I just get nosebleeds real easily." As angry she was at House for intentionally tripping her, she could see in his face he was sincere when he said he hadn't meant for her to get hurt. "Why did you tell my sister I'd examine her? After all I told you, you still felt like this would be a good idea? You've hurt me once today, do you really want to keep that streak up?"
House tapped his cane on the floor. "That's wasn't my intention, Duck. I'm going with you and I thought that whatever it is that is currently going on between you would be best solved now before she actually has the kid and expects you to be there to help babysit." Cameron sighed and pulled a rubber band off her wrist in order to pull her hair into a ponytail.
"You only know the tip of the iceberg, House." She responded, this time visibly calmer than before. She really couldn't stay angry at him when his intentions were genuine. How he went about implementing them was something she was going to make him work on. "You know what, there's no point discussing this. She already knows we're coming." She checked herself in the mirror one more time and then followed House out.
