It's my fault. All my fault.

She says the words aloud, as if to punish herself. She is curled into a ball on the bench that runs down the center of the locker room.

She had insisted they push the Actrinil. Why? Why? It was a long shot at best.

A ten-year old boy was dying. His organs were failing rapidly. They sat together while House stood in front of the white board with a marker, listing the boy's symptoms.

"It's Wakeman-Sinkler Disease." She nodded her head firmly, but even she wasn't sure.

"Are you kidding? Wakeman-Sinkler affects people of Mediterranean descent. This kid is blonde haired and blue-eyed." Chase leaned back in his chair. She might ordinarily have nodded in agreement and looked for some other cause, but it was the way he had said it, so smug, so condescending. She wouldn't give in.

"Usually. But it's also been found to a lesser extent in the Scandinavian population." She looked at Foreman and House for support. "It's Wakeman-Sinkler. It all fits. The seizures, the organ failure. It fits."

"Treatment, Dr. Cameron?"

She hesitated, licked her lips. "Actrinil." Foreman and Chase groaned.

"Actrinil will take care of the siezures..." Foreman started.

"...But if you're wrong..." Chase continued. He stared at her. God, when had he started hating her so much?

"I'm not wrong. And if I'm wrong, he's dead anyway."

She looked up at House. He narrowed his eyes. "All right. Push the Actrinil."

So, they had pushed the Actrinil. And she had been wrong. His organs had continued to fail, and before they could find another cause for the boy's symptoms, he had died.

So, she sits now in the locker room.

She had found Chase so attractive and charming when they first met, with his confident, almost arrogant bearing. She had wondered, hoped, that something might happen between them.

Then, despite all efforts to the contrary, she had developed feelings for Dr. House. Chase had sensed it, and his attitude towards her changed overnight from merely patronizing to contemptuous.

She had been so determined to show him up, to impress Dr. House, that she had let her own ego get in the way, and a boy had died.

The door to the locker room opens then. She stares down at the floor, shielding her eyes with her hands. There is a squeaking on the linoleum of the locker room floor, and House's cane and sneakers slip into her view.

He exhales heavily and bounces the rubber tip of his cane on the floor before he finally speaks. "It was a good call, but it could have gone either way. We can't save them all." There is nothing comforting in his voice. It is cold, flat, matter-of-fact.

She shakes her head. "I shouldn't have pushed so hard. I should have looked for something else."

He stands for a moment, silent. It is a silly, schoolgirl notion, she knows, and she has fought it, but she aches for him to sit beside her and draw her into a comforting embrace.

She waits for him to speak, to leave, something. She stares down at his feet and dabs at her wet face with the sleeve of her lab coat.

Finally, he speaks. "Perhaps your boyfriends find these little boo-hoo sessions appealing, or you're under the impression that they make you look sensitive and vulnerable. But really, it's just self-indulgent and weak. If you want to be a doctor, wipe the snot off your nose and get back to work. I'll see you in my office in ten minutes. Otherwise, go home and play with your Barbies."

He turns, then, and walks out of the locker room. She sits in stunned silence for a moment and wipes away the fresh, stinging tears that have popped into her eyes. After a moment, she rises from the bench, and with a calming breath, she walks into the hallway.

OOOOOOOOO

She hesitates, before she goes in. Her fingertips leave little marks on the glass door as she stands there. This will not go well, it never does. She always says too much; he, not enough.

"You wanted to see me?"

He frowns and throws down his pencil. "Why do people always say that? Did I not make it clear?"

She stands for a moment, wondering if she is supposed to respond. Then, he gestures to the chair in front of his desk. She crosses, her hands tucked nervously in the pockets of her lab coat.

She tries in vain to read his face. It is as if the little scene in the locker room had never happened.

He reaches in his desk and pulls out a bound volume of pages and tosses it in front of her.

"What's this?"

"It's a paper that I wrote on Legionnaire's Disease. It's being presented this weekend at this year's Diagnostic Medicine Conference in Philadelphia. The site of the most famous outbreak of – wait for it – Legionnaire's Disease."

"Oh." She picks up the paper and thumbs through the pages. "And you wanted me to read it?"

"I want you to present it at the conference. Whether or not you actually read it is up to you."

She swallows hard and looks up at him. "Me? Shouldn't you be presenting your own paper?"

"I don't do public speaking."

She stammers helplessly for a moment, weighing the paper in her hand. "But it's two days away. I really don't think…"

He leans back in his chair and gives her a dismissive wave. "No one's going to be paying attention anyway. They're all too soused from hitting the hospitality suites. Cooling towers: bad. Erythromycin: good. That's all you need to know. And wear something low cut. They won't hear a word you say."

"Dr. House…" she protests weakly. "Why me? Why not Foreman or Chase?"

He nods and gives a slight smile. He has expected the question and reaches in his desk, pulls out a file and opens it. She recognizes her curriculum vitae on the top. He picks it up and she can see Chase's and Foreman's underneath.

"'Allison Cameron, M.D.," he reads in a mock-weighty voice. He flips to the last page and his eyes fall to the bottom. "Under 'Interests…" does anyone really list their interests on these things anymore? you have written, tennis, history, and theatre. Tennis to make you seem athletic and outdoorsy, history to make you seem brainy, and theatre to make you seem artistic and maybe a little kooky. And also to make your boss choose you to present a very ponderous and boring paper at a very ponderous and boring conference. You like theatre. Think of it as an acting exercise. You'll be playing a doctor."

She narrows her eyes, wondering if it is an insult, then he reaches back in to his desk and pulls out an envelope. "The agenda, directions to the hotel, and a Metroliner ticket to Philadelphia." He leans forward and wiggles his fingers at her. She has been dismissed. "Have fun."

OOOOOOOOO

He is right. No one is paying attention.

There are maybe ten people in the darkened room. More, if you count the man in the third row who appears to have nodded off.

A man in the front row loosens his tie and stifles a yawn. Someone a few rows back coughs incessantly, and her halting speech is frequently interrupted by the irritating sound of throat lozenges slowly being unwrapped.

The only light in the room is from the overhead projector next to her. Between that and the audience's post-lunch lethargy, her shaking hands will go unnoticed.

The sleeping man lets out a little snore and she continues. Her voice has gone high and squeaky, as it always does when she is nervous. "Increasing awareness among physicians and use of more sensitive, noninvasive tests such as urine antigen testing has led to improved recognition of sporadic cases and outbreaks caused by Legionella pneumophila…"

A cell phone goes off then, and a woman in the back of the room answers it as she rises to her feet and stumbles down the aisle. The door opens, and light from the hallway spills into the darkened room.

It is then that she sees him, but just as soon, he is gone again, slipping through the door before it closes.

She watches him go and the door shuts with a heavy thud. The cougher coughs nervously to break the silence she has left. She goes on. "Rapid detection of travel-related legionellosis is needed to identify potentially preventable disease transmission…"

But she is rattled and thinking only if his unmistakable silhouette against the brightness.