DISCLAIMER: I don't own House. But I do watch it religiously.

My thanks to all the reviewers; keep 'em coming!

A.N. Just to let people know, there is no sexual content in this chapter, contrary to popular belief. But there will be a lot of touchy-feely stuff (not in the perverted way!) considering Chase and Cam are stuck in a pitch black elevator and can't see anything. I really hope it's not too OOC (and I'm really sorry if it is). Well, here it is…

Q is for Quarantine

Chapter Ten: Behind Closed Doors

"Chase?" she called out to him, coming closer once more. Chase smelt the mixed scents of her hair – fruity and sweet, with a touch of the good old hospital smell, typical for a doctor who had been stuck in PPTH for the past three days – enter his nostrils as her hands caught hold of his arm and touched upon his torso. He flushed.

"I think we're gonna be trapped in here for a long time."

Chase navigated himself over to where the emergency button was allocated and pressed it. He waited in the dark, listening for the buzzing tone that indicated that the intercom was connecting to the security mainframe. But there was only silence. He tried again, to no avail. He turned around.

"I think you're right; intercom's down," Chase reported, and he heard Cameron turn round to face him as well.

"That can't be good," said Cameron worriedly.

"Understatement of the week," said Chase, scratching the back of his head, trying to formulate a plan as to how they were going to get out of the pitch black confines of the lift. "Got any ideas about what to do next?"

Cameron was silent for a moment, and Chase wondered if she had heard him. He was about to repeat his question when the immunologist opened her mouth and belted out, "HELP! WE'RE STUCK INSIDE THE ELEVATOR! HELP! CAN ANYBODY HEAR US! HELP!"

Chase recoiled and clamped his hands over his ears as Cameron's shouts reverberated loudly around the small space of the compartment. The spot where Patterson had clobbered him started to whine at the raised amount of noise. "Woah, Cameron, a little more warning next time, please."

The other doctor ignored him and began pounding on where the lift doors were. "HELP! CAN ANYBODY HEAR US! WE NEED HELP; WE'RE STUCK INSIDE THE ELEVATOR!"

Chase felt forward blindly and caught hold of what he hoped were Cameron's shoulders. "I think you can stop now. Actually, no; please stop now."

Chase's grasp on her arm meant that she couldn't bang on the doors any more. "How else are we supposed to get out?"

"Bursting my eardrums is not going to get us anywhere," said Chase.

Cameron smirked, forgetting that he couldn't see her. "Oh, come on, I wasn't that loud."

"Explain that to my headache," Chase moaned.

Cameron heaved a sigh. "You are so sensitive," she stated, shrugging his hands off her shoulders and preparing to scream again. Chase rolled his eyes and reached out to her face, intent on clamping his palm on her mouth before she was able to utter one syllable. This would have worked if he had caught her mouth, but as it were…

"Chase, it's bad enough there's no light. I don't need you putting your hands over my eyes as well," said Cameron, sounding a little amused. He pulled his hands away warily.

"Don't start making all that noise ag-" Chase began, but Cameron was already bashing her fists against the doors and shouting at the top of her lungs. Chase groaned and grabbed hold of her, flinging her away from the door. She struggled, making little muffled and irritated sounds as he restrained her. It was like they were little kids, unconcerned about the proximity of their bodies, fighting against each other like it was all part of a game; of course, when Chase thought of this, he became extremely aware of their closeness, and a strong blush built at the base of his neck. He was usually very strict about personal space, so his decision to – effectively – hug Cameron was surprising, and if she felt the same way, she was doing well to mask it.

She stamped on his toes rather painfully a second later and Chase had let her go suddenly, mid-struggle, and she staggered forward with a surprised 'oh,' not noticing the files that littered the floor around her. An involuntary gasp escaped the immunologist's mouth as she tripped over, flailing, falling forward blindly.

Chase heard the impact and winced as the sound bounced around the small compartment. "Cameron! Are you ok?" He felt forward sightlessly, getting on his hands and knees and crawling, so that he didn't have the same accident as her.

"Shit!" Cameron touched the spot on her forehead that had made contact with the lift wall. Her head was screeching with a painful wailing voice that was almost as torturous as the initial collision with the wall; she was exhausted and running purely on energy reserves she had no idea she had, and that, coupled with dehydration, had given her a killer headache. Cameron had been able to ignore it for a while, but getting smashed on the skull just amplified the pain to the point of blindingly unbearable. She grimaced when she realised that this was exactly how Chase must have felt when she was calling for help. She made a mental note to apologise to him later, once she was able to string together coherent thoughts.

"Cameron?" The Australian crawled towards her slowly and reaching out with one hand, caught hold of (what he thought – hoped) was her trouser leg. Trying to guess as accurately as possible as to where she was sitting, he spoke to vaguely where he head should have been. "Are you ok?" he repeated, concerned by the fact that this was one of the few times that he had heard her swear.

Cameron groaned in response, clutching her temples, slumping against the wall she had previously smashed her skull into. "I think my head's cracked in two."

"I think you dented the wall, actually," said Chase dryly. He considered threatening to scream like she had done earlier, just to make a point, but instead opted to stay serious. "That was a really loud bang."

"Eurgh, yeah, I heard," said Cameron, hands clasping the sides of her head, trying to keep some brain cells inside of her brain. It was hard to judge whether her vision was going woozy or not - because it was so dark - but she was ready to bet that even if there was sufficient lighting and Chase was right up in front of her, she wouldn't have been able to see him. But then, the thought of Chase so close to her made her feel even more light-headed, so she just urged herself to concentrate on something else. Not so easy when the subject that she was trying to ignore had his hands running up and down her stomach and close to her chest.

"Uh, Chase, could you stop trying to feel me up?" said Cameron, telling herself that she did not regret the loss of warmth that his hands provided when he suddenly jerked them back. She remembered his arms around her earlier on, and resisted the temptation to start pounding on the walls again, just to get him to catch hold of her. Besides, now both of them had a headache, and she wasn't willing to make it worse.

"Uh, sorry, I was just, uh –" said Chase, making amends and sounding very flustered.

Cameron smiled slightly. "I was joking. It was just kinda weird that you kept stroking my stomach up and down…"

Chase flushed. He sent a silent prayer up to any God who was listening – and probably laughing – that there was no light and Cameron could not see him turn the colour equivalent to a very sunburnt beetroot.

He cleared his throat. "I, uh, thought that was your leg… Um, sorry about that –"

Cameron chuckled a little through her pain, which was, thankfully, beginning to ebb away. "Oh, so it's ok to run your hands along my legs, but not my stomach?" She laughed inwardly when she pictured Chase's facial expression at her comment – a mixture of embarrassment and that touch of mischief and cheek that sometimes played in the light of his eyes.

"I was trying to see if you were ok," said Chase, making a blatant attempt at sounding dignified – and falling, somewhat, far off the mark.

"Using excuses to touch a co-worker?" Cameron said shrewdly. "Is that a sneaky come-on?"

Chase smiled, but his voice came out as flat and tired as he felt. "I think I remember you coming onto me first," he said dryly, making his first referral to them sleeping together all those weeks ago. He thought he heard Cameron smother a groan, but whether that was in relation to her pain or to their wild night of sex, he didn't know. He hoped it was the former.

"Well," said Cameron lightly, "I was under the influence of drugs…"

"Using excuses for having sex with a co-worker?" Chase said frankly.

"Would it upset you if I said yes?" Cameron said cheekily. "You know, bruise your whole male ego about how good you guys are in bed and all?"

Chase wished there was enough light for her to see him roll his eyes. "I'm not House," he told her. "Besides, you didn't seem to have any complaints at the time," he added pointedly.

Cameron also rolled her eyes. "I was high."

Chase laughed. "Hey, you said it, not me."

Cameron smiled and whacked him lightly – or whacked the space where he should have been – her hand slapping into what she hoped was his arm.

"Who's feeling who up now," said Chase, as he felt her hand hit his side. He reached forward and grabbed for it blindly, luckily clasping her hand between his palm and holding on firmly. "I'm just trying to judge where you are," he told her when she instinctively tried to pull out of his grasp. Cameron stopped struggling and kept suitably still. Chase ran his other hand along her arm, and noticed that she was really quite close to him. His fingers brushed skin, and he assumed that he had made contact with her face or neck. Slowly, he crawled to her right, carefully navigating his way by keeping one hand on her and another sweeping the wall and floor.

"Ow! That was my finger…"

"Sorry," murmured Chase, lowering himself directly next to her, into a corner, hoping that he wasn't squashing any more of her limbs in the process. "Is your head alright?"

"Yeah," said Cameron, leaning against the wall, sensing Chase's warmth just beside her, and feeling strangely comforted. "Remind me never to shout around a person who's bashed their head against something hard, ever again."

"Ok," Chase smiled. There was a pregnant pause, and he suddenly became very aware that Cameron's hand was still in his. But he made no move to let go, and nor did she try to get out of his grip.

"Shouldn't we be trying to get out of here?" asked Cameron, a few minutes later.

Chase was starting to dose off, and he stifled a yawn. "There's not much we can do. I'm sure they'll find out we're missing sooner or later and send someone up to get us."

"So we're gonna just sit around and get caught?" Cameron said incredulously.

"Well, to put it simply, yes," Chase answered.

"House is going to kill us," Cameron moaned, sounding horrified at the very thought. "And when we're dead, he's going to kill us again."

"Who cares about House?" said Chase, a touch of irritation entering his voice. House, always House; all she ever thought about was House. "He's not the one who's sneaking out to get the information, and he's not the one who's stuck in a lift. To be honest, I'd rather get caught by the CDC and get told off by House, than spend the rest of my life trapped in this compartment." Chase took his hand off Cameron's. He rubbed his eyelids, feeling old and unbelievably drowsy, and also another alien emotion… was it jealousy? Over House?

Cameron folded her arms, pretending that she didn't feel his hand leave hers. "I guess you're right." She was a little put off by Chase's sudden onset of grouchy behaviour, and no longer felt so at ease by his side. She shuffled away from him.

Chase felt her moving away. Acting without thinking, he reached out a hand and pulled her closer again, ignoring her yelp of protest. She almost landed unceremoniously into his lap, but managed to grab hold of his shoulder and lever herself into an upright position beside him after being dragged closer. She was frowning (but he couldn't see that).

"What are you doing, Chase?"

He didn't answer, just put his arms around her back and pulled her even closer toward him. She stiffly let her head rest on his shoulder, then cautiously began to relax against him. One of her hands was resting on his chest, the other hanging onto his arm and she was sort of snuggling into his side, nestled in the crook of his arm. It was quite an awkward hug-like position to begin with, but Cameron was too stunned about this latest development in their relationship to complain.

"What are you doing?" she repeated in a whisper.

Chase had his eyes closed, satisfied only to have her touching him in this way. "I don't know," he answered her truthfully, envy over House slipping away as Cameron sought out his hand and intertwined her fingers with his. He breathed a sigh and rested his head on top of hers, falling asleep a moment later, the last feelings in his mind having nothing to do with life-threatening diseases, Foreman dying, headaches, information files or CDC doctors. He breathed in her scent again, and thought of nothing else.

"Cameron…" He wasn't sure if he had said this out loud, or if it was just in his head. Either way, he was sure of one thing.

He was content.

A.N. Ok, I was checking up on the next episode of House ('Euphoria'), and it has a few parallels with my story; Foreman catches some deadly disease off a patient and the team races against time to find him a cure before he dies. Similarities end there (I hope) – Note: I DID NOT PLAGIARISE. Right, I just wanted to clear that…

Remember to drop me a review and feel free to tell me anything you thought about the chapter or story in general… unless your thoughts have anything to do with plagiarism.

Daygoner