A/N: Moreee... Enjoy, and please please please review, it really makes my day! :)
"Seriously?"
"Dead serious."
"You told her you were a doctor and she said she didn't want any of your details, even though you scratched the paint?"
"Well, I told her I was in a hurry to get to surgery and see to a young patient..."
"I bet you did."
"Might have flipped my hair a bit, too..."
"Unbelievable."
Cameron laughs as she rolls her eyes; studying Chase over the rim of a large glass of wine.
"Oh, come on, how is that any worse than the time you scored a free meal in Darnelli's?!"
"I didn't score a free meal, I stopped an eighty-year-old woman from choking!"
"Mhhmm, and did this or did it not lead to the manager offering to wave the check?"
"You're complaining awful hard for a guy that got a free steak..."
"I'm not complaining, I'm making a point! You used your doctorly wiles to get free stuff; you're just as corrupt as the rest of us!"
"Well, I could have just left her to suffocate, but the thought kind of put me off my food..."
"Yeah, well, the thought of paying out a shitload of insurance for a car that barely starts put me off, too!"
Shaking her head, the blonde spears a long stem of broccoli onto her fork and nibbles at it with a grin as Chase saws his way through a rather bloody rump steak.
"To be honest, I think it's time to admit defeat and get rid of that piece of scrap anyway."
He laments through a mouthful of meat; the car in question having belonged to his dorm-mate back in pre-med, and passed down to him once its original owner relocated back to Germany; the car loved and abused accordingly.
"You can't get rid of the Beemer!"
Cameron cries, leaning forward in a way that sends her curls dangerously close to dipping into her wine.
"Too many good memories in the back seat?"
Chase quips with a smirk, before holding up his hands in mock surrender in response to the death-glare such bold wit garners him. Chuckling as the blonde takes a sip from her wine without lowering her cold glower, he goes back to his meal without a care; not missing the pull to the corners of her mouth, and knowing her well enough to understand that when not in the workplace, she will allow such snide comments with good humour unless expressly fashioned to hurt her.
Which she knows he wouldn't purposefully do.
Leave that to House.
Not that he imagines Cameron and House will ever have any need to spend much time on neutral territory.
"Speaking of cars, did you hear they're thinking of charging staff an annual-"
But she breaks off as Chase's attention suddenly averts from her to the back of the restaurant, and he adopts a welcoming smile and beckons with his hand. Twisting in her seat, she mimics the action upon spotting Foreman shaking out his coat in the doorway before handing it to the maître d.
She tells herself she in no way feels her face fall when a pretty brunette slips in behind the neurologist and murmurs something to him while shedding her own jacket.
After all, from what little conversation we've had, she seems perfectly nice...
Perfectly nice, yes.
But then her issue has little to do with Thirteen herself.
Reapplying her smile as Foreman and Hadley make their way over- a waiter nodding pleasantly and placing a set of menus out on the adjacent table- she parrots Chase's greetings and offers to help when Foreman pulls at the table and shuffles his chair so that he sits directly beside her.
"Well, look who came crawling in!"
Chase offers with a smirk, before adopting a slightly more subdued tone of voice as he takes in the others' morose expressions.
"Uh oh, what's happened?"
"Lost the patient..."
Thirteen sighs, running a contemplative finger over the menu but paying its content no mind.
"Shit..."
Chase commiserates, and Cameron pulls a similar expression of pity as they sit in silence for a moment; each of them understanding the dull sense of loss that accompanies this ultimate hazard of the profession. She offers Hadley a kind smile as the latter sighs and looks back up; imagining the brunette's death-toll must still be relatively low and raw.
"Shit is right."
Foreman sighs as he picks up his menu and signals at the waiter to bring over a couple of beers; switching two fingers to four upon noting his ex-colleagues' fast dwindling bottle of wine.
"It was quick in the end, but it was messy. And House was, well, House about it... Though, the last time I remember him acting out this badly, was during that whole incident with Vogler."
He shrugs awkwardly at the brief surge of tension the name sparks between the two older doctors to his side
"I mean, he came storming upstairs demanding answers, questioned the work done so far, and kept saying he had it on 'good authority' that we knew what we were doing, and that we best come through and prove it... Said there was 'no point' looking over the samples taken as they had been deemed useless, and told Hadley... Well..."
He trails off, sighing, as the brunette lowers her chin into her hand and purses her lips irritably before she elaborates.
"He wanted to know why I didn't have all the answers... Like it was my fault we'd found nothing."
"Well... It's House... House likes to have a scapegoat handy."
Chase offers gently, and Thirteen shakes her head and throws her hands up in defeat.
"I checked over everything we had! I checked it all! I can't just-"
"-Of course you did... It's not you... He just... The puzzle wasn't solved, and he hoped that you would solve it. Sometimes time runs out... Just, for House, it maybe doesn't happen as often as it might for others in his profession..."
Cameron interjects; regretting her words the second they leave her lips. The long-suffering sigh both men share lets her know she's coming across as taking the wrong side- House's side- while the look Hadley offers her simply serves to make her feel uncomfortable. Shrugging, she finishes the last of the wine and allows the others to take over the conversation; responding to Foreman's challenging glances towards her as he chats with the pretty brunette with smirks that seem decidedly half-hearted.
Sitting at his desk with his head in his hands, House stares down at their late patient's files without really seeing them.
They won't do him any good now, anyway.
It had all come down to some sort of reaction.
What kind of reaction, they're still none the wiser...
But it had been a reaction.
An allergic reaction?
Maybe.
Some sort of reaction though.
That much is certain.
Black and white.
"And if she'd taken the time to look at the damn samples properly, she might have seen it..."