Disclaimer: Do we really have to do this every time? Anyway, I don't own House. If I did, I think I'd have Stephen Fry guest star. Wouldn't that be a hoot?

A/N: Thank you for the reviews. I'm sure you all know how great it is to read them. I do hope to get this done before the end of the week because once school starts, my free time is pretty much nonexistent. Thanks for sticking with it.

OOOO

Despite Lisa Cuddy's warnings, Greg House had not shaved, combed his hair, or ironed his shirt. In fact, he did not look at all like a well-rested man, and he could've stood to use some of Cameron's eye drops. He hadn't slept well and when he did sleep, he dreamed that Cuddy and Cameron were prancing around a big cauldron of bubbling vegetable oil. Cuddy had looked like one of the witches from Macbeth, and Cameron had looked like, well, like someone who belonged on that bloody tropical island lying next to him under an umbrella.

He made a disgusted noise and rubbed his hands over his face. He looked at his desk and noticed, again, that there was only a pile of mail that definitely had not been sorted. There was no coffee. The coffee pot was not even perking or dripping or whatever the hell it was supposed to be doing at this time of the morning. She was here; he had seen her car in the garage. Clearly she was acting out her anger in the most juvenile way possible.

He picked up his tennis ball and whiffed it at the office window. He was aiming for that very tiny, annoyingly reasonable voice in his head that had been reminding him that he was the one acting like a juvenile. This was the same voice that thought he should give Cuddy a break. It had started in on him yesterday by laughingly telling him that tropical island-themed daydreams were very trite and overdone. It had followed him to the bar and had bitched at him and agreed with Wilson. Then it had kept him up most of the night whispering that Cameron was right, that he had no logical argument for keeping her out of this meeting, that he was only doing this to piss her off. He had tried to remind that little voice that if he pissed her off enough, she would stay away from him and he wouldn't have to deal with her. It seemed logical to him and her absence would stop the trite and overdone daydreams – maybe. Greg House did not generally second guess himself; it was not a feeling he liked at all.

He threw the ball one more time, trying harder to bean the little voice. Chase had just walked in the conference room unfortunately, and if it hadn't been for the window, the young doctor would have been beaned himself. The look Chase shot at House bordered on "I'll be calling the call the psych floor now," but then he scrambled out as he saw the ball fly toward the window again.

House snorted in contempt and suddenly the logical voice was replaced by the much louder, unshaven, uncombed, unironed, and misanthropic voice that he was more comfortable with. Cameron needed to toughen up. She needed some backbone. She needed to learn how to fight against egotistical bastards. Doctors who were at the tops of their fields were not known for being willing to step aside politely and let someone else take the glory. They were rude and proud and arrogant (a fact that he could personally attest to). She was talented and had the potential to climb up to their level, but she would get knocked on her pretty ass if she couldn't knock them down first. If she wanted to be in on this meeting then she should damn well figure out how to do that.

So, basically, he was doing her two favors, the grumpy voice told him. He was teaching her a lesson and keeping her mad at him and, therefore, away from him. The reasonable voice gasped for air once more and said, in a voice that sounded remarkably like Cameron's, "That's pathetic."

He allowed the bullying voice to punch on the other one for a moment as he looked back on the mess he had made. Originally, he had had no intention of keeping Cameron out of the meeting. He knew her worth, even when she didn't. He had only signed her up for the clinic to see her get steamed. She was an easy target. Chase would have run to Cuddy about the clinic hours first, which would have ended the fun too soon. Foreman would have argued just like House would have argued when he was young and fighting older, arrogant doctors. That would have been too much like looking into a fifteen year-old mirror. Definitely no fun. That left, as usual, Cameron, who seemed to beg for him to pick on her. He had planned to egg her on about the hours for a while, then admit in his best nasty tone that he was only yanking her chain. He hadn't lied to Cuddy when he told her that he had no intention of sabotaging the meeting. Hell, he had even thought about wearing his lab coat.

The problem was that he got a little too caught up in the fun of baiting Cameron to pay attention to his mouth. And it wasn't until he was driving home from the bar the night before that he started paying attention to what he had done. Now he was stuck. The little voice said, "maybe you could go find her and fix this." Yeah, right. What could he possibly do? Say, "I'm sorry. I was being an ass. You were right. I was wrong. Please be ready in an hour and thirty-two minutes to wow the billionaire?" And then, "By the way, I'll be taking your clinic hours first thing Monday morning." Not a tempting option. He was stubborn, arrogant, and proud, and he was just going to have to hope that he and Foreman and Chase could schmooze Donald O'Bryan without Cameron's help. If they didn't get the money… Well, God help him if Cuddy ever found out about this bet. She'd haul him down to the cafeteria and stuff him in the fryer before anyone could save him. Not that anyone would want to save him since, as Wilson had pointed out the night before, the whole hospital would be affected by his actions.

He popped a couple of Vicodin and thought that maybe he should dig out that lab coat.

OOOO

All he really needed to do was admit that he had been an ass, Cameron thought as she reached for the large band-aid on the leg in front of her. She would gloat, no doubt about that, but she would go to the meeting and try her best to get Mr. O'Bryan to hand over some money. As soon as the meeting was over, she would run to the clinic and exchange her name for his in her time slots. She grinned.

A shriek shot out of the sixteen year-old who was sitting on the exam table in front of her. That jerked her back into the moment and she looked at him and then down at his leg, which was just hairy enough to lose hair when an adhesive was ripped off it.

"Sorry about that. The faster the better, though," she said. Then she looked at the wound that had been hidden by the plastic strip. "Tell me again what happened?"

The boy's mother spoke up. "He decided to see what would happen when he touched hot metal to his skin." The poor woman looked like she was going to get good and drunk as soon as her son turned eighteen.

Allison raised her eyebrows and the woman continued, "Yes, he reached sixteen, but he hadn't figured that one out yet." She glared at her son from as far across the room as possible, tapping her foot, with her arms crossed and her fists locked under her elbows, probably for his protection. She looked worn out, like a person who tried really hard to understand the male species but could only get to "Huh?"

Allison grimaced and nodded in understanding. "My four brothers never quite figured out simple things like that until they were well into their twenties. I'm still not sure they get it." She turned to the boy, "That doesn't make it any less stupid though. Looks to me like your metal of choice was a… paperclip?" She sighed. "Tell me what you did. Don't make your mother do it."

"My lab partner dared me. I heated up the paperclip over the burner in chem lab and stuck it to my skin." He had the decency to look embarrassed.

"Hmph. Well, it's not infected, but it is a pretty good burn. He'll need to keep antibacterial ointment on it and keep it covered for a while." She turned to the boy again. "The real fun is that for the rest of your life, you're going to have a lovely paperclip-shaped scar on your leg. No need for a tattoo now." She put more salve on it herself and covered it back up. "Now do your mother a favor and don't take any more dares. She might let you make it to seventeen."

Allison stood up from her stool and led the pair out of the exam room and then headed to the counter to give the nurse the boy's file.

"Why are you here?" A voice demanded from her left.

Allison jumped and looked over at Dr. Cuddy who was approaching very quickly.

"Um, working in the clinic?" Allison's stomach jumped. She was not going to tell Cuddy what was going on.

"Mr. O'Bryan is meeting with your department in just over an hour. You realize that don't you?" Cuddy demanded. She had a slightly wild look in her eyes that Cameron was more than a little afraid of.

"Yes, I do realize that," she replied carefully.

"Ten o'clock." Cuddy said succinctly.

"Ten o'clock." Allison repeated.

"Good." And Cuddy walked away.

"Great," Allison said on a sigh and snatched up the next file. She was going to murder House, but she was going to win this bet first. No, she was going to win the bet, he was going to work her clinic hours next week, and then she would murder him.

OOOO

"Where's Cameron?" Asked Eric Foreman as House walked in the conference room just before ten o'clock. He folded up his newspaper and waited for an answer, which was not quick in coming.

"She's not going to be here," House eventually stated. He went towards the coffee pot – the coffee pot he had finally started up.

"Is she sick?"

House sighed. "If I say yes, will you stop asking questions?" Where was the damned sugar? He hated it when she wasn't around to fix his coffee.

"No, I'd ask you what's wrong with her, but I'm assuming from your answer that she isn't sick." He pushed the paper out of the way and looked at Chase who shrugged.

"I saw her in the clinic a little while ago," said Chase.

"Well, at least you didn't make her quit again." Foreman gave House that look that clearly said that he wasn't backing down without an actual answer.

"First of all, I didn't make her quit. She chose to quit. And secondly, Cameron and I … made an agreement that she would work in the clinic today and that the three of us," he waved his cane around the table, "would handle Mr. O'Bryan."

"You 'made an agreement?'" Eric's eyes were completely disbelieving. He closed them for a second as if to force his boss' response into his head. "What do you mean?"

"Exactly what I said." He looked at both young men who were showing no signs of buying it. "Look, I know what I'm doing here." He punctuated the statement by slamming his cane on the table.

"Obviously," mumbled Chase. It no longer startled any of them when he slammed the cane down or poked them or knocked beakers out of their hands. The funny thing about it was that Chase and his comrades had learned to read the cane's actions and interpret House's moods or intentions. When they were drinking and bitching about work, Foreman would call the cane an "extension of House's language process" and swore that he was going to write a paper on it some day. Cameron swore she was going to paint it pink and superglue it to his hand. Chase swore he was going to burn it.

This particular cane slam had indicated that House was pissed and uncomfortable about something. It had not been violent enough just to be pissed. It had slowed a bit on the downswing and didn't hit the table nearly as hard as it might have. It was very similar to the times that House had made an incorrect diagnosis and didn't want to have to admit it.

Chase looked up at Foreman who nodded in silent acknowledgement that something was wrong. "So what are you doing?"

"Cameron will help if she is needed."

Foreman started to protest, but House loudly interrupted him. "And don't remind me that she is part of this department. I already know that." He cut him off again with another cane slam – still a bit hesitant. "And don't ask me if I am aware of what is at stake here because I am very aware of it." The cane made a half-hearted attempt at slamming but did not serve to make the two younger doctors feel any better about whatever was going on. All three men were silent for just a moment as they looked at the thing lying there on the table.

"Good afternoon, gentleman. Please tell me that this is not the Diagnostics Department."

All three doctors started and turned toward the door. Donald O'Bryan certainly knew how to make an entrance.