Disclaimer: I do not own House M.D. or any of the characters from the series.

A/N: Isis915: Your review made me very happy. I am so glad you're enjoying the story.

Chapter 10: Monster

House lay staring at the ceiling, tracing patterns across the darkness with an imagination that wouldn't be still. He traced scenarios; he traced ideas - daydreams that came to life on the boring walls of his loneliness. Slide shows of what might have been. Sheep to help lull him to sleep. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. Tonight would be no different.

He did it to escape the world with a picture as pretty as his pillow is soft - comfort the fall into oblivion and ignore that the comfort is false. Because a sleeping man doesn't care. Once in that perfect world - the world that lies just beyond sleep - mortality is nothing and these burdens are even less. It was getting there that was the trouble.

If he could get there tonight, he could stay there. Possibly longer than usual.

But tonight he was trying too hard. Pushing thoughts of the phone call aside, he focused his everything on the girl down the hallway. He hoped she was sleeping. He had hung the phone up to find her still on the couch, but she was shaking and shivering and curled against the blanket around her. House was keeping the temperature low to accommodate to Cameron's earlier sweating, but apparently now he was freezing her.

He'd thrown a clean T-shirt at her and pointed her toward the bathroom, telling her to take a hot shower. As she'd stalked off in that direction, he'd stalked off toward his room, and he hadn't seen her since. He knew he should probably check on her, but he didn't want to be too obsessive. After all, she was a grown woman. She could take her own shower and put herself to bed; possibly even tuck herself in. What was left for House?

Sentimentality. That's what. He would end up sitting on the edge of her mattress while wiping stray tears from her cheeks. And as much as he loved those cheeks, he would be in trouble if he touched them again. The first time was painful enough.

And her stomach . . . Damn, damn, damn, he shook his head. House couldn't help but groan at the remembrance of how her belly button felt against his jaw. If that phone hadn't rang . . . Damn. The image was too much to handle. But that's all it was - an image. Cameron wasn't well; he was taking care of her. End of fucking story.

Yeah right. Nothing was that cut and dried.

A knuckle tapping twice to his bedroom door pried House slowly away from his trance. Like the shattering of something precious and costly, his imagination broke apart and scampered away to hide. Forbid it should be exposed, especially to her.

When he didn't respond to the knocking, Cameron cracked the door open and timidly poked her head inside. "You awake?" she whispered, so quietly that House didn't think she was actually expecting an answer.

"No," he whispered back with his eyes closed.

"Oh," Cameron responded dejectedly. She leaned her head out and began to close the door.

So, she thought she was funny . . . "Get back in here," House quickly amended before she could fully retreat.

Stepping into his bedroom, Cameron closed the door softly behind her. She didn't mean to insinuate anything by it, but House probably took it that way. She thought about reopening the door, just to air out the aura of intimacy that lives in dark, tiny places. But instead she stepped closer to House. "There's a monster under my bed," Cameron finally explained.

House almost smiled at the adorably childish remark, but he fought to compose himself. "Why didn't you kick him in the nose?"

She contemplated his question. "He doesn't have a face." She was telling him something, and it wasn't about a big, purple ogre.

House temporarily froze. That one comment revealed more about what she was feeling than she'd offered to share thus far. Cameron was afraid of something, and she couldn't defeat it, because she couldn't face it. Now how was he to respond to that? "Then kick him in the gonads. I hear that hurts."

A short huff of breath - either a smirk or a sigh; it was too dark to decipher which one. "I don't think monsters have reproductive organs."

"You think too much." It was a bizarre thing for Dr. Gregory House to be saying to somebody else. A ruffling sound came from the bed as House slid over and made room beside him for Cameron. "Lay down."

"No thanks."

A game. He just loved games. "Why did you tell me your problem if you didn't want me to fix it?"

"Just . . . wanted to inform you." She stood undecided for a moment, then turned away to leave. She was just close enough for House's arm to reach her, and he swiftly rolled over and caught her wrist in his hand. His large fingers fit all the way around it, and he held on like he wasn't mesmerized by the fact.

Settling back on the bed, still holding her wrist, he closed his eyes and subliminally breathed in unison with the blood pulsing through her veins. They don't sell this drug on the market. He knew, too; he had looked. Surprisingly, Cameron didn't fight him. She had probably learned her lesson when she fought him outside the locker room.

After a long time of hearing no response from Cameron, House mumbled, "I'm not letting go. Sleep standing up if you like."

"I don't lie in bed with strange men."

"I could be normal if that's what you want."

This time it was definitely a sigh. She didn't feel much like bantering. "No . . ."

"You're probably right." House firmly kept his grasp in place. "Well, goodnight." And he closed his eyes again, but he wasn't finished talking. "Do you like the name Betsy?"

"What?"

"Betsy. I've always wanted a horse named Betsy."

Cameron was beyond confused. It took her a while, but it finally dawned on her what the hell he was talking about. "I couldn't sleep standing up if I wanted to."

"Probably not. Guess we'll see, though."

She didn't feel like yelling anymore than she felt like arguing, so she gave up and simply stood there. It was the only way to break the man.

The next three minutes were spent in uncomfortable silence as each of them waited for the other to cave. House's arm was starting to tire. Gosh, Cameron could be hardheaded when she wanted to be. "Why did you come in here?" he managed to ask without a single glint of sarcasm.

"The monster . . ." she reminded him.

"No, I know about the monster," he said, his voice getting gradually lower. "What's the other reason you came in here?"

"He was the reason."

House stared at her for a minute. She was lying. She was lying to his face. "Must have been one scary monster," he reconciled.

Cameron didn't answer aloud, but she nodded her head in agreement. She wished House would let her go; her wrist was burning with his touch. But, as long as she was standing there, "Who was the call from?"

"Alright. Get the old man some water and he'll take you back to your room."

"House –"

"Yeah, I guess it is supposed to be the other way around. The taker-to-bed-er is the water-getter. However, I'm a backwards kind of guy."

This received an eyebrow raise from Cameron. For the first time, she jerked her arm in an attempt to get away. "Let –"

"Go." He released Cameron's wrist and she stumbled back a step. When she just stood there, shaken a bit by his sudden compliance, House gave her a disapproving gleam. "I'm serious. Go. I need water." What he needed was a chance to figure out how to tell her. She had asked about the phone call, and he was surprised. He'd thought she would try to avoid it.

"Answer my question first." Great. She was getting a headache again. House had so efficiently massaged it away, leaving the feel of his fingers on her forehead. Now it was back; and this time, House was the cause of it. From pleasure to pain in unparalleled speed. He was the master conductor of a roller coaster she just couldn't seem to get off.

House was abnormally quiet. A soreness radiated from his rib cage as lay there. He looked into her eyes in the dark, and remembered doing the same to Rachel the night he had chosen to kill her. How could he see such aching emotion - such raw purity and passion - and still look away with a justifying hope that right will prevail over wrong? Had it prevailed in this situation?

He had no doubt that it had.

But he still couldn't look at Cameron, knowing that she was a leading advocate for the pain that he felt in his heart. She thought what he did was wrong; she thought what they did was wrong. And her daily pain gave House a misery that he couldn't blame on bitterness. So he had to blame it on devotion.

He couldn't blame it on love. Cameron didn't have his heart; and he would never give it to her.

"Rachel's . . ." he watched Cameron cringe at the mention of the name, ". . . father called." He waited for her to hold up a hand, to halt him before he could continue. But she never did. "Let me tell you in the morning."

"No." Her voice was far away and wispy. She looked up from the carpeted floor. "Just say it," she whispered, because she didn't trust her voice.

So he reluctantly finished. "He said the police station gave him my number. He knows I was there that night . . . with another doctor . . . and he wants to know exactly what happened. Everything we saw, everything Rachel said, everything that happened from the time we got there to the time we walked away."

Cameron was staring at her feet. "The police . . . they didn't," she swallowed, ". . . they didn't tell him all that?"

"They told him what was in the report." House couldn't stand to do this. He wanted to stop. He wanted to tell Cameron to forget it. To tuck her into bed and promise her softly that the morning would sweep this away. "He just wants to hear it from the people who were actually there," House explained.

"Have they . . . I mean . . ." She took a shaky breath to steady her shaking hands. "Any news?"

"They still haven't found her."

Again, Cameron nodded. Absently. Rushing images and rampant regrets flushed through her mind and soul. For the last time today. She couldn't do this anymore. Out of nowhere, she lifted her head and looked into House's face. "You wanted some water?"

He cocked his head in curiosity. Then, tenderly, "No." He had seen something snap in Cameron. And that's when he decided: he couldn't leave her alone tonight. There would be no taking her back to her room. So he pulled the sheets back and sat up in bed, scooting himself toward the headboard. He patted the mattress beside him.

"What?" Cameron looked to the place where his hand was still patting.

"You said you won't lie with strange men. Will you sit with them?" Heck - he would stand all night if that's what it took to keep her there in his bedroom.

She didn't respond, so he gently took her hand and pulled her into his bed. Whether the sun would shine in the morning was still up for debate and yet to discover. But there was one thing House knew already: that Cameron would be asleep when it did.

To be continued . . .