A/N: Thank you everyone for the awesome reviews. I tried to answer some of them but was being weird again so sorry if you didn't hear back from me. Hopefully it's okay now.
Chapter 7
House leaned back in his chair and looked up at her. "You rather adamantly said no medical puzzles when you hired me." he reminded her.
She rolled her eyes. "I was angry and confused. Do you want to help me with this or not? Because I can get one of the other doctors to help me diagnose this."
House stood and tossed his pen on the pile of charts on his desk. "No way. Where's the patient?"
Cameron led him to the woman she was examining when he came back from lunch. House picked up her chart and read over her symptoms.
"Could be any of the chronic muscular diseases," he mused. "She has muscle weakness in her trunk and lower extremities. She tripped on the stairs. She has trouble breathing when she's lying down." He looked around. "Where's a whiteboard when you need one?"
"I have a disease?" the woman asked. She tried to sit up in the bed but fell back against the pillows.
"That's what we're going to figure out," House told her as he continued to look over her chart.
"I'm not going to die, am I?"
"Not if I can help it," House replied.
Cameron took the chart from him. "There's a whiteboard in my office," she reminded him. She turned and smiled at the patient. "Don't worry, Mrs. Collins. Just try to rest. That sedative I gave you should kick in soon."
Mrs. Collins nodded.
"I'm going to make a copy of her chart," House told Cameron as they walked away. "I'll meet you in your office."
Cameron had most of the symptoms written on the whiteboard when House entered. He put the copy of Mrs. Collins' file on the desk and looked over the symptoms.
"How much leeway do we have for testing?" he asked as he moved around her desk and sat on it. He patted the space beside him and Cameron sat next to him.
"Very little," she told him as she handed him the marker. "I always send the puzzles up to Medicine."
"Did you just refer to living, breathing patients as puzzles?" he smirked.
She folded her arms across her chest and frowned as she looked over the symptoms.
House leaned forward and peered at her. He knew he hit a nerve but didn't want to antagonize her further. "Could be MS," he told her.
"No, she's not experiencing any vision loss or tremors."
"Yet. We should do an MRI."
"We can't," she told him.
"Why not?" he asked then rolled his head back. "You'd have to send her upstairs."
"Exactly. We have to go off her symptoms. We can do lab work on her but that's pretty much it. And we have to figure it out fast. We can't keep her down here too long."
For the next two hours, they tossed ideas back and forth. Now they sat quietly side by side staring at the symptoms.
"Pompe disease," House said. "I was just reading about it. All the symptoms fit and we can do a blood test to check for GAA enzyme activity. I'll go draw some blood. Once we confirm, we'll have to send her upstairs so they can complete the tests for a diagnosis."
"There's no cure," Cameron reminded him.
House slid off the desk. "But she can get help managing the disease. I think you caught it early enough that she will still have a few good years."
"Get the blood and do the test," she sighed as she slumped slightly.
Without thinking, House wrapped his arms around her. She leaned into him as he stroked her back. He felt her arms encircle him and he held her tighter. Desire sparked between them and he pulled back to look into her eyes. Slowly he lowered his head and touched his lips to hers. For a split second she responded then she jerked away and released him.
"We shouldn't do this. We can't do this. I'm married, House."
He dropped his arms and moved away from her.
"I'll go run the test," he breathed.
Cameron nodded and watched him go. Then she sat back down at her desk to collect herself. "I'm in so much trouble," she muttered aloud as she rubbed her temples.
When the test came back positive, House sent Mrs. Collins upstairs to Medicine for further testing. He looked around and saw Cameron on the other side of the room. She glanced at him then looked away.
He didn't understand her at all. Why was she playing these games? One minute she was letting him touch her and the next she avoided him like the plague. He couldn't figure her out and it was driving him insane.
House came home and tossed his helmet on the side table.
"Rough day?" Wilson inquired from the couch as he watched TV. "You're not usually home this late."
"Had a patient."
Wilson cocked his head to one side and grinned. "You're doing consults on the sly?"
"No, but nobody else seemed to know what was going on, except Cameron. She asked my opinion and I told her what tests to order," House said with a shrug as he went to the kitchen and got a beer and a bag of pretzels.
"So did you figure it out?"
"Yeah. Pompe Disease."
Wilson blinked. "Wow. Looks like you two are back into the swing of things."
House shrugged again, which made Wilson become suspicious. "What aren't you telling me?"
"It's complicated."
"Of course it is. What happened?"
"I kissed her," House muttered before taking a long sip of beer, then shoved a pretzel into his mouth.
"You what!? House, are you crazy?"
"Clearly."
"What do you think is going to happen if you two carry on the way you are? Someone's going to get hurt. Love triangles are messy and rarely work out in the end. Haven't you seen those John Hughes movies?"
House chuckled, "I was around in the eighties, so yes, I have."
"What happened, exactly?"
House gave him the details before taking another long sip. "It wasn't much of a kiss. She broke it up and looked incredibly guilty, and then avoided me for the rest of the day."
"Wow, well you clearly haven't lost your touch when it comes to screwing things up beyond repair."
"Gee thanks," House responded drily.
"So what now?"
"I'm just gonna keep on as always and pretend nothing happened, like she did all day. It was stupid, I know that but…"
"The chemistry is still there, huh?" Wilson asked, knowingly.
"It never left. In fact it just got more intense over the years."
"Absence makes the heart grow fonder."
"You're such a sap," House groaned.
The next morning, Cameron dealt with an intense round of morning sickness, a cranky five year old who didn't want to go to school and a suspicious husband. By the time she got to work, she was exhausted and crankier than Ben. House was nowhere to be found which made her even crankier. The ER was relatively quiet so she ordered all the staff members not tending to a patient to restock everything and double check all the charts stacked on House's desk. As the morning wore on and House still didn't show, Cameron became more irritable. Patients began to fill up the waiting room and Cameron snapped at the staff to work harder to get the patients worked up and out of the ER.
Finally, at a quarter to two, House walked through the staff entrance with his backpack slung over his shoulder. Cameron made a beeline for him, her face twisted and flushed with anger.
"Where the hell have you been?" she demanded. "You don't get to set your own hours and come waltzing in here whenever you feel like it!"
House took her arm and steered her toward her office. Once inside, he closed the door behind them.
"My shift starts at two o'clock so technically I'm early," he told her. "You write up our schedules, remember?" He looked closely at her. "Have you eaten yet today?" Gently, he placed the back of his hand against her forehead. "No fever. How bad is the morning sickness?"
Suddenly, Cameron began to sob. "It's horrible and Benjamin is suspicious and Ben didn't want to go to school and then you weren't here this morning and I'm so tired and I still love you and it's all just a huge mess!"
House went still as what she said sank in. She was still in love with him. Slowly, he pulled her into his arms and stroked her hair. She buried her face in his chest and held him tightly.
"I shouldn't have come back," he said quietly. "I have my resignation letter in my backpack. You should take it and I should leave. Then things can get back to normal around here."
"No," she sobbed. "Don't leave. I need you here." I just need you, the words sounded in her head.
She looked up at him and he turned away. "Don't look at me like that," he said.
"I'm so screwed up," she sniffled. "I never should have married Benjamin or Chase. I never should have gotten married at all. Every time I got married, I did it for the wrong reasons. I married my first husband because he was sick and needed me. I married my second husband because he loved me and I married the third one because he reminds me of you."
"So you are House," Benjamin said from behind them.
House released Cameron and she looked at her husband. "He is," she replied quietly and turned to House. "Can you give us a minute?"
He nodded and left the office, but he stayed outside the door so he could listen in.
"Are you going to turn him in?" she asked Benjamin.
He laughed mirthlessly and shook his head. "No, but not because I don't want to. I've known you for a long time, Allison. We've been together long enough that I would like to think I know you better than anyone but he...and coming in here and seeing you with him. You've never looked at me like that."
"Benjamin…"
"Shut up…just shut up," he growled as his hands balled into fists. "Did you ever love me, Allison?"
She looked at him with sadness and hurt. "Of course I love you!"
"For me, or who I remind you of?"
She stepped closer and placed her hands on his face.
"All I ever wanted was for you to look at me the way you look at him. Every time I'd catch you looking at this picture on your desk, you'd get this...lovesick...nostalgic expression on your face. The only other time I saw you look like that was the day you gave birth to our son," Benjamin said quietly as he looked into her eyes.
She didn't know what to say. Everything he said was true and she wasn't going to insult him by saying it wasn't.
His voice cut into the silence. "Do you want to be with him?" Then he shook his head. "Never mind, I already know the answer to that." He turned and opened the door, nearly causing House to fall into the room. Cameron rolled her eyes and Benjamin smirked at him for a moment before turning serious again. "Can you make her happy?" he asked.
"I don't know," House answered honestly. "But I want to try."
Benjamin turned back to Cameron. "I'll see you when you get home." He walked over to her desk and placed a thermos on it. "I made you one of those smoothies that settles your stomach. I'll give House the recipe." Then he walked out of Cameron's office, closing the door quietly behind him.
House sighed as he collapsed heavily in the chair across from her desk. "Damnit."
Cameron took the lid off her thermos and drank a large amount of the smoothie. "That is an understatement for what just went down." She took another long sip. "What the hell am I supposed to do now?"
"It sounds like he's left it up to you. What do you want to do?"
"Go home and forget today even happened."
"Yesterday too?" he asked with a satisfied smirk.
"House...this isn't the time to be cute."
"Someone has to be. Come on, Cameron. Lighten up. What's done is done, but I'm not going to apologize for yesterday or today. You were feeling shitty, and you needed something more than just platitudes. And you know how useless I am when it comes to crying females. I had to get you to stop."
Her eyes widened. "Well you certainly did that. And now it's all fucked up."
"It was just a kiss, not a roll in the sack! I don't know what you're getting all worked up about."
"Because these pregnancy hormones are driving me crazy, and every time I look at you I just want to rip your fucking clothes off but I can't, and...oh my God, I can't believe I just said that!" She buried her face in her hands in pure embarrassment.
"Because you're married?"
"Exactly!"
"Well it looks like Benji's giving you an out."
She looked both shocked and offended at the same time. "You think I'm just going to tell him and my son good-bye and run off into the sunset with you while carrying his baby?"
She shook her head. "Get out."
"You're really pissed off about this," he said as he started to get up. She was seeing red. He could tell, and if there's one thing he learned over the years, it was not to piss off a pregnant lady.
"Get out!" she screamed and threw her pencil case at him, narrowly missing his head as the door closed behind him in his escape.
"Jesus," he groaned as he went back to the pit.
Cameron sat in her car in the pickup line at Ben's school. The fact it was her day to pick him up left her feeling relieved. This way she didn't have to avoid House. It shocked her how quickly she got angry. Of course, House's cavalier attitude went a long way toward pushing her over the edge like that. At the moment, she wasn't even sorry she threw her pencil case at him. Breathing deeply, she moved her car slowly through the line. By the time she reached the long covered sidewalk where the children sat, she was calm and even managed a bright smile for the teacher who opened the car door. She and the teacher exchanged pleasantries as the young woman got Ben in his car seat. Before the teacher could close the door, Ben started to tell Cameron all about his day. As she drove and talked to her son, she began to feel buoyant and happy. Her son was the only one who made her feel this happy and relaxed. They stopped at the grocery store and Cameron let her son push the cart.
"Mommy?" he asked as they walked down the Dairy aisle.
"What, honey?" Cameron asked as she put a gallon of milk in the cart.
"I need snacks for school."
She smiled at him. "Thank you for reminding me. What do you want to get this time?"
"Animal crackers."
Cameron stopped for a moment as a memory of House tossing animal crackers in the air and catching them in his mouth flashed through her head. She briefly closed her eyes. "Then that's what we'll get." she told her son with a strained smile. "How about fish sticks for dinner?"
Ben nodded. "And french fries."
Cameron leaned down and kissed the top of his head. "How about green beans instead of french fries?"
"Can we have both? I promise I'll eat all my green beans."
"Okay," she smiled.
"Yay!"
As they finished shopping, she wondered what her son would say if she left his father and they moved in with House. She knew Ben would like House and House was good with children in small doses. But, if she left her husband and started a relationship with House, he would be dealing with two children who were not his own. Was being with House worth all the upheaval it would cause in her children's lives? What if Benjamin sued for full custody of the children? The thought of that made her physically ill. Though she dreaded it, she and Ben were going to have to talk.
Later that night, after they got Ben to bed, Cameron and Benjamin sat down on the couch in the living room. Silence stretched between them as Cameron stared at her hands.
Finally, Benjamin spoke. "When I first met you, I thought you were the most amazing woman I'd ever met. I still feel that way. I am still in love with you. But you're in love with House." It wasn't a question so Cameron remained quiet as tears gathered in her eyes and dripped down onto her clenched hands.
"You married me because I remind you of him. I looked him up online today. He's brilliant and he's saved a lot of people. But did you know he drove his car into his ex-girlfriend's house and went to jail?"
Cameron nodded.
Benjamin sighed. "And we both know he faked his own death. He doesn't strike me as the violent or psychotic type but I can't take any chances with my children. Or you. I won't stop you from being with him if he truly makes you happy. But I'm going to need solid proof that he will never hurt Ben, the baby, or you. You can go date him, sleep with him, whatever. But I won't agree to a divorce and allow you to take our children to live with him until I am absolutely certain you'll all be safe."
"I think you should talk to him." Cameron said softly. "He can explain why he ran his car into Cuddy's house and why he faked his death."
Benjamin nodded. "I will if he's willing. But I don't trust him and until I do….."
"I know," Cameron nodded. "I never meant for this to happen. I honestly thought he was dead." She looked up at him. "I am in love with him but I don't want to hurt you and I don't want to live without my children."
He looked at her in shock. "You think I'd take Ben and this baby from you?"
"You said-"
"I said I won't let you go with him unless I know he won't hurt you. I love you, Ally. And I love our kids. I just couldn't live with myself if he hurt any of you."
"He won't," she said firmly. "But, I can understand your concern. I'd like to know why he did those things, too."
"Maybe we should have him over on Sunday. Then we can all talk and Ben can go spend the weekend with your parents," Ben suggested.
"I'll ask him," Cameron told him.
"I'm going to move into the spare room," he replied. "We'll just tell Ben...something."
"I'm sorry," Cameron told him softly.
"So am I."
