A HUGE thank you to everyone who has been reading and responding! I'm very pleased that you all like how the story is going so far.

Chapter 5

It was six-thirty in the morning and the sun had been up for an hour, but not much else was except for the resident doctor of misanthropy who was limping down the hall to his office looking even more rumpled than usual. He entered his office and shut the door, then released the blinds, giving a satisfied almost-grin as they covered the walls. Damn cleaning people always insisted on raising them up at night.

His chair let out a squeaking groan of protest as he fell into it, without even bothering to take off his jacket. He slipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out his ipod and his gameboy. He'd stopped at the store and bought a new game after visiting Cameron. He was already up to level nineteen and was fairly sure that was some sort of record.

He put the game on the desk and opted for music instead. What he really needed was coffee. Coffee with four and a half sugars, made perfectly by only one person other than himself. Damn it. He was thinking about her again. His head lolled against the back of his chair and he closed his eyes, letting the soothing sounds of Frank Sinatra wash over him. Except that they weren't relaxing. They were pithy and smart and romantic and damnit he was thinking about her again. He turned the music off. Coffee. That was all he needed. Coffee and about four more hours of sleep.

He managed to get two of them sitting in his chair before the sound of his office door opening woke him up. Wilson. Naturally. He was wearing the expectant look of a schoolboy and House suddenly wanted to throttle him. He settled for shaking his head like an irritated teacher faced with an overly enthusiastic apple-bringer.

"So?"

"Sew buttons?"

Wilson rolled his eyes at the childish joke. "So, you went over there. What happened?"

"You know, Wilson, if you get this much joy living vicariously through me you'd really have a ball watching the soaps. I advise starting off with All My Children and moving up to General Hospital."

"Done with the witty comebacks yet?"

"No, I'm fairly certain I have an unlimited supply."

Wilson sat down and held out a cup of coffee. "If you can manage to answer my question I'll give you this perfect cup of coffee, straight from our very own cafeteria."

It was House's turn to roll his eyes. "Four and a half sugars?"

"Four. Who's counting?"

House was. But he stretched out an arm and grabbed the coffee anyway. Definitely better than nothing.

"How did it go?"

"God, you sound like we're making plans for the prom," House said with exasperation. "It went fine. She has some wacky notion that we should try to have a relationship like normal adults."

"What a concept."

"Yes, I thought so," House replied, taking a long sip of coffee and wincing as he burned his tongue.

"And you said?" Damn, getting a straight answer out of him was like pulling teeth with rusty tweezers even after twenty-years of friendship.

"I said I couldn't promise her anything."

Wilson threw back his head, utterly exasperated. "Well don't go getting the poor girl's hopes up! What a fall that will be! Jesus, Greg, I know you're not exactly a glass-half-full kinda guy, but trust me, there are still a few drops in there if you look real close. You don't have to toss the whole damn glass away already."

He was going to go on but stopped when he saw the look on House's face. The man had an expression that wavered between fear, desperation and yearning. He'd seen something similar to it years earlier, right around the time House's doctors had told him he wasn't going to die, but he was never going to recover either.

"She's got enough hope for the both of us," House said quietly. "A regular Pollyanna."

"And that bothers you?"

House nailed him with a look. "Damn right, it bothers me. I'm not a complete asshole. You think I really want to be the one to crush her into dust under the weight of all my shit? You think I really want to be the first one on the scene when that optimistic light in her eyes goes out for the last time?" He propelled himself out of his chair, needing to move and rid himself of the sudden urge to put his fist through the window.

Wilson, ever the calming influence, stayed seated and followed House with his eyes. "First of all, I think you're underestimating her, and second, why don't you try following her lead. God knows yours hasn't gotten you very far."

House turned and leaned heavily on his cane, his eyes piercing into Wilson's. "So you actually think there's a chance in hell that this could end up as something other than a tragic movie-of-the week," it was a statement, not a question.

"That depends on whether or not you can stop being completely absorbed with self-pity and self-flagellation for more than twenty-four hours at a stretch."

"Yeah. That's what I was afraid of."

"Afraid that you can or afraid that you can't?"

House shrugged. "Both."

Wilson took a long breath while he waited for House to move back to his chair and sit down; his shoulders slumped. "She's not Stacy. She's already seen you at your worst and she hasn't run away screaming yet."

"Oh? What would you call quitting?"

"Self-preservation. She quit because she felt too much, not the other way around. I thought we'd already covered that."

"Yeah, well I'm a slow learner," House sniped.

Wilson stood up and stared down at his friend. It was something he didn't get the chance to do very often. "I forgot to mention the one other thing that's going to have to happen if this is going to have a chance in hell of working out. You're going to have to trust her. If you don't think you can at least do that much, then for God's sake, stop fucking with her emotions, because your trust is probably the one thing she wants more than anything else."

House wasn't sure if that was completely accurate, but it was probably close. Wilson was getting much to smart in his old age.

"Are you done yelling at me?" he asked.

Wilson seemed to ponder the question for a second. "Yes. I think so."

"Good. I usually do enough… how did you put it? self-flagellation… for the both of us."

With a brief nod, Wilson agreed. He headed for the door but stopped as he was turning the handle. "You deserve more than you've allowed yourself lately," he said, over his shoulder, "try to remember that when you're with her. You can be a real bastard sometimes, but you're a good man." Another nod and he was gone, shutting the door on the way.


"I'm telling you man, he came to visit her at her apartment. You think he does that for just anyone?"

"So what? He used to be her boss. He saved her life for God's sake."

"He's saved a lot of people's lives, Chase, and I don't see him going door to door to check in on them. Look. You didn't see the looks that were flying. Something is going on there. We already know Cam had some sort of weird-ass feelings for him for some strange reason. Now we've got him going over to her place, and you know she's gonna feel all indebted to him for saving her life.

"Well he did save it."

"Yeah, and if he's not careful he's gonna ruin it. I swear if he hurts her I'm gonna kick his ass."

"I don't think that would go over very well with the hospital review board," Chase replied sarcastically.

"Screw them. Now hand me that slide. Damn, this is supposed to be Cameron's job."

House leaned against the wall outside the lab, listening. He'd heard enough. Shit. Well, he'd expected Foreman to spill the beans. Hell, he'd also expected him to act the role of protector. He walked slowly back to his office. His leg was killing him from the trip up and down Cameron's stairs and the fact that he'd spent most of the night in his leather chair trying to beat miniature ninjas to death. He popped two vicodin as soon as he got to his door, and limped to his chair.

He leaned back, cane twirling idly in his fingers. Damn, he hoped Cameron didn't have any brothers. Between Foreman and Wilson she had enough substitutes. It wasn't surprising really. She was exactly the kind of woman who engendered that kind of protectiveness. She was good and sweet and kind and probably helped little old ladies across the street and volunteered at the local soup kitchen. She also left her heart lying around in the open. Apparently no one had ever told her that was a good way for it to get trodden upon. He hoped he wouldn't be the one to do that. He abruptly stopped twirling his cane and pulled the shade up, realizing that he was actually considering the possibilities.

Following the rather stark realization that he was seriously contemplating Cameron's suggestion, House expected to be either immediately struck by lightning or compelled into a fit of dangerous introspection and contrition. Surprisingly, neither happened. He blamed that on exhaustion and too many video games. Obviously if he was in his right mind he would be shooting the idea down with a flurry of snide and sarcastic remarks.

He was just about to go and find Wilson and have a conversation about ties when his door slammed open and the Incredible Hulk stalked in. Only somewhere along the line the Incredible Hulk had taken on the semi-human form of Edward Vogler.

House merely looked at him with bored detachment and waited for the other man to make the first move. It was obviously what he'd come barging in to do. House didn't have long to wait as Vogler walked forward and tossed a newspaper onto the desk. House looked at it, eyebrows knitting together as he tried to decide why Vogler had thrown it at him rather than hitting him about the head with it.

"The only reason I didn't call for your immediate dismissal after your complete insubordination at the press dinner was because the media lapped it up. Oh yes, a doctor with a heart. A doctor with principles. Obviously none of them had ever visited the clinic. It bought you a temporary reprieve, but if you think this is going to save your job, you'd better think again," Vogler said, not quite shouting, but voice harsh and angry.

House picked up the newspaper. It was folded to an inside page and the headline read 'Doctor Saves One of His Own'. House couldn't help but smirk. Cuddy. There was a picture of him in the corner, one that had been taken years earlier at one of those benefits Stacy had always dragged him to. He noticed that her image was carefully cropped away.

"Interesting article, and quite a nice shot of me, wouldn't you say? Of course I've always been particularly photogenic."

Vogler stepped closer to the desk, leaning on it and carelessly pushing a stack of mail and files to the floor. "Listen, House, you may think you're some hot shot here, the crippled doctor with the brilliant mind, but all I see is an insolent, contemptuous, bastard who enjoys watching how people react to him."

"So, not very different from you, then?"

The vein on the other man's head was visibly bulging and House wondered idly if he'd be expected to administer care if Vogler stroked out right on top of his desk. An instant later and a smug smile appeared on Vogler's face as he pushed off from the desk and stood up straight again.

"Yeah, that's right, Dr. House. Keep right on going with the petty insults. An arrogant bastard to the end. Well, we're having a little vote here tonight, and if I were you I'd spend less time playing your games and more time cleaning out your office."

House shuddered dramatically "Oooh, I'm shivering in my shoes now."

One corner of Vogler's mouth curled higher and he fixed House with a conquering look. "When I get through with you, you'll be shaking all right, curled up with your tail between your legs and no place to go." He pointed at the newspaper still resting lightly in House's hands. "You think you're the only one who can spin something? You won't be able to find a hospital that'll touch you with a ten foot pole. Did you think I wouldn't find out that your Dr. Cameron quit? You didn't fire her; she got sick of you. Of course we both know why you hired her in the first place and I have to admit she looked damn good walking through the halls. What… did she get tired of you grabbing her ass in the lab?"

Later, House wouldn't be able to recall exactly how he'd ended up on his feet, but the sound of flesh striking flesh would be permanently etched in his memory. He caught Vogler right across the jaw, but the man's head just snapped to the right and he didn't even stumble backwards. Instead he reached into his suit and pulled out a linen handkerchief, using it to dab at the fleck of blood at the corner of his mouth. His smug smile had barely been dented.

House on the other hand was breathing hard, and giving Vogler a look that would have had any other person running for the door.

"Keep it com'n, doctor," he said snidely. "I can always use more ammunition."

House almost took him up on it, his hand tightening on his cane and ready to beat the pompous bastard into the ground, but he managed to pull back some control and just stood watching as Vogler marched into the hallway, leaving the door wide open on his way out.


He had never knocked before and he decided that now wasn't the time to start. No doubt she'd heard him coming anyway, cane thumping against the linoleum floor.

"I have a feeling you might be getting a call from the police," he announced, and watched as Dr. Cuddy rolled her eyes before looking at him over the rims of her dark glasses.

"Oh God, House, what now?"

"Nothing really, just an unfortunate meeting between my fist and Edward Vogler's face."

Cuddy had been merely exasperated before, but House's words caught her attention and her eyes widened. "You HIT him? You hit the chairman of the board. You hit the man who is giving this hospital one hundred million dollars. You hit your boss."

"Oh, I'm not too worried about that last one. There's a rumor going around the playground that there's going to be a super secret meeting at the clubhouse tonight to vote me outta the gang."

Her expression told him everything he needed to know, but she spoke anyway. "Vogler called it, and yes, it's pretty obvious what he's going to demand."

House nodded sharply. "Good. Thanks for not sugar-coating it. You know I'm very good at taking my medicine without." He reached into his pocket and pulled out his credit card. "Since you didn't end up following through after our little conversation, here's my card. Dr. Cameron's bills should fit perfectly. If security won't let me in tomorrow you can mail it back to me," he said with a twisted smile.

"I tried," Cuddy said, sounding more sympathetic than he expected. "Vogler got wind of it."

House let a rough snort of laughter escape. "Amazing isn't it? That he can run a successful business and still have time to make our lives hell," he commented, and then left the office without giving her a chance to disagree.