First I want to thank EVERYONE for your very, very kind messages to me! They made me feel so much better as I waited to find out what the story is with this health crisis of mine. After numerous bloodtests, x-rays and doctor's visits, I've been diagnosed with lupus which is an auto-immune disorder. Right up Cameron's alley! I'm currently on my first round of medication, with more bloodwork in a few weeks and a second opinion with another doctor in the near future as well. I've felt terrible about not working on this story, but I was just so exhausted from my rather stressful job, that I just didn't have the energy to devote to writing it and writing it well. Chapters will probably continue to come out a bit slower, but strangely, the diagnosis alone has put me in a clearer frame of mind so I think I'll be able to write much faster now! Again, THANK YOU ALL!

Chapter 25

"I love you and I'm not letting you go."

It was one little sentence, and she had replied in kind and after half an hour they'd gone to the kitchen to start dinner and the five minutes of emotional sincerity might just as easily have been imagined. Except it hadn't been.

Some women might have pushed. They might have wanted more. Cameron wasn't one of them. What was there to say, really? Do you really love me? Really, really? How much do you love me? Are you just telling me that because you know it's what I want to hear? The questions ranged from childish, to needy, to cynically insecure. She knew that he'd meant what he'd said.

Everybody lied, including him, but not about that. He might lie and say that he didn't care, but admitting to love… There wasn't the slightest possibility that he would do that if he weren't serious. Yes, she had already been relatively certain of his feelings, but hearing the words said out loud had been not so much a shock as a validation. She'd trusted her feelings about him, from the moment she'd met him, and she'd been right.

In any one else's mouth, his short admission would have sounded like a casual, almost off-handed line, but most people didn't suffer from the near-deadly allergy to sentiment that afflicted Gregory House. Cameron had been prepared to go a long time, possibly forever, without hearing the word 'love' from him. It hadn't even bothered her because she'd known how he felt, but in the days since, a spark of confidence had flared to life somewhere just below her heart and she hadn't even known it had been missing.

When she thought about it too much it embarrassed her a little. She'd told herself that she didn't need words from him, and she had thought that was the truth but it seemed that it had only been half a truth. She likened it to her senior year at medical school, when she'd been waiting for her final grades and class standing. She'd been trading top honors with a couple of other students since year one and she hadn't really expected to end up first. Either way, she'd still be a doctor, and she didn't need some little list to tell her that she'd worked her ass off to get there. She wasn't even sure why she bothered to trudge from her apartment across town to the campus to see the final marks. She did know that she had felt weightless on the trip home, and that weightlessness had returned about ten seconds after House told her he loved her.

House, for his part, wasn't one to repeat himself, and declarations of love were not exceptions to that rule. He said it. He meant it. That was enough. Her warm weight in his arms, and the smell of her skin, inches from his nose had him wondering why it had taken him so long to say something he'd felt for a month but devolving into an insipid, harlequin romance, flowery-love spouting hero was still not on his agenda. He held her close until he heard her stomach rumble, and then moved on to more practical matters. Dinner was followed by bedroom activities, which was followed by sleep and then another day at work. If House guessed at the subtle widening of her smiles or the increase in her natural feistiness, he never questioned it.

It was Friday before House got up the nerve to ask Cameron how the doctor's appointment had gone. She'd told him she was going to go and see what her choices were, but she hadn't mentioned it since. It went against the grain not to just ask her the minute she walked through the door Wednesday night, but he had held off, waiting for her to say something.

Wednesday night had slipped away and on Thursday he'd kept himself busy enough that his questions were only at the front of his brain every ten minutes or so. He'd stifled them with other thoughts, mostly the kind that repeated the reasons why he didn't really care what the doctor had told her. The real reason for his hesitancy, of course, was that he wasn't anxious to see a repeat performance of her pissed-off routine. He'd already interfered once, and while that normally wouldn't stop him from plowing right ahead once more, this time he held himself in check. At least until Friday night.

"So tell me, what did Dr. Botox have to say?"

House said it casually, while his long fingers stroked along Cameron's naked back, easing her back to earth after a particularly exuberant dance between the sheets. His reasons for asking at that particular moment were two-fold. First, she was probably still so content that she wouldn't get upset and second, if she did get upset, she was probably too limp to either hit him or storm out.

She did neither.

What she did do was huff out a little breath of air, tilt her face towards his and twitch her mouth into an approximation of an exasperated grin.

"You've really got the pillow talk down-pat," she told him with no little amount of humor.

"Well yeah, of course. Why d'you think I've got the women lined up around the block?"

"Actually, I would have put my money on another skill you have with your mouth," she replied, reaching up a lazy hand to trace the mouth in question.

"There is that, too," he said smugly, "although I admit that I've never been so… inspired."

Cameron's eyebrows rose in a pleased expression the also betrayed a bit of surprise.

"Oh c'mon, don't tell me no one's ever given you a compliment on your considerable coital skills," he said with a chuckle, wrapping an arm around her waist and leaving his hand resting on the feminine curve of her belly.

"A lot fewer than you probably think," she said, "I think I may have mentioned that before." She stroked her hand along his jaw and kissed his chin.

House's chest rumbled with a laugh that didn't make its way out of his throat. "Right. You were waiting for the cranky sonofabitch of your dreams."

With a coy look in her eyes, Cameron rose up on her elbow and peered down at him. "Don't make me reconsider my choice."

"No promises," House intoned gravely, though his expression said something radically different. "That's the cranky sonofabitch trademark line."

She smirked playfully and lay her head back on his chest. "Point noted."

They were silent for a few minutes and then House spoke again.

"So, are you going to answer my question? What'd the great doctor have to say?"

His impatience made his tone almost snide, but Cameron found it endearing. She could hear the concern underneath the snideness.

"It was pretty much what I expected," she answered, keeping her body still as House's thumb brushed over the bottom edge of her scar. "He doesn't advise surgery for another four months at least. Even then he thinks there will probably always be some scarring. He thinks he can minimize it so it won't be too noticeable, especially higher on my chest."

House glanced down at the chest in question. She was half on top of him, but he could see the pink line just visible between her breasts. "Did you schedule it?"

"Not yet." She covered his hand with her own. "I made another appointment. We'll see how it looks in four months and schedule the surgery then."

"Don't do that just because you think it's something I want," House said gruffly, not sure why he was feeling emotional all of a sudden.

"No. I thought a lot about it. I want it gone. Any good that came from it… well, I've got other ways of remembering." She slid her arm across his chest and leaned up to capture his mouth.

His lips vibrated beneath hers as he hummed in gratification. She pulled away, looking self- satisfied.

House allowed a slow smile to stretch the corners of his mouth. "I'll be happy to keep your memory refreshed."

Playful touches and kisses didn't turn into anything else that night. It was wonderful to just fall asleep with the sensation of a kiss still lingering on lips while hands stroked delicately and wholly without their owner's knowledge over sensitive skin. House's fingers twined into Cameron's hair long after he drifted off, and she sighed and kissed his shoulder in her sleep.

They woke up feeling rested and content, and lay there quietly as House waited for his vicodin to kick in. It was a newly acquired routine that they had fallen into naturally. After the pain subsided to a dull ache, House made a pithy comment, rose from the bed, and made his way to the bathroom. Cameron, reading from the same script, got up, pulled her robe from the foot of the bed and padded into the kitchen to start coffee.

Bringing the robe, or any semi-permanent fixture to House's place had been a big deal in her mind, but House had pulled the rug of anxiety out from under her and left her lying on the feather bed of surprise. He was the one who had dragged a gym bag out of her closet when she was in the shower Thursday morning, and proceeded to toss in her robe, her favorite pajamas and a pair of slippers he'd found hiding under the bag. When he'd shouldered the bag on their way out the door, she'd questioned him and he'd replied that he was tired of her stealing his t-shirts and getting her cooties all over them.

Now, as the smell of coffee rose into the air, and she tightened the sash of her robe and grinned, she reflected that he hadn't seemed to mind her cooties that night. The familiar sound of him limping down the hallway echoed dully through the apartment. Cameron pulled two mugs from the cupboard and started pouring the coffee.

"You leave me any hot water?" she asked as she passed him in the doorway, coffee steam obscuring her vision while she sipped and walked.

"A few drops. You want toast?"

"With jam?" she called out hopefully.

"Oh fine, I'll give you the last of the jam," he muttered. "I should have known this was a bad idea." He was still muttered as he opened the refrigerator. "Now what the hell is that?" He reached in and pulled out the jam and the papers that rested on top of the jar.

Cameron was just piling her sudsy hair on top of her head when House thumped into the bathroom.

"What's this?" he asked bluntly, sweeping aside the shower curtain and holding up a tri-folded computer print out.

"Hotel reservations. Close the curtain; you're letting all the nice steam out."

"I know what they are, Cameron. What do they mean."

"If you know what they are, then why did you ask? And if you know what they are, then you know what they mean."

"I think they mean that you think we're going to Atlantic City today," House said, trying to decide why he didn't feel as annoyed as he thought he should.

"I always knew you were a genius."

"You made reservations for us to go away for the weekend."

Cameron poked her head out from behind the curtain and said brightly, "And to think it only took you five minutes to figure all that out."

She sounded very chipper and confident, and she felt somewhat chipper and confident, but she was also quite prepared to have House flush the reservations down the toilet. After a slow start, House had become the one to lead their relationship, and doing something like plan a weekend getaway was definitely a change in the status quo. If he refused to go, well, she'd get over it, but should knew it would set things on edge. She toyed with the shampoo bottle and wondered if she should have waited.

The sound of wood striking porcelain let her know that House was thinking.

"It says check-in's at three. Were you planning on doing the driving?" he asked with a lilt of sarcasm in his voice. The unspoken words were "since you've done everything else."

Cameron set the shampoo back on the edge of the tub and peeked out again. She had the grace to look slightly sheepish this time. "I thought I'd leave that to you," she said. "Your car is much cooler." Flattery was bound to help.

He narrowed his eyes as he looked at her, clearly reading her tactics. Annoyance was still teasing around the back of his mind, but amusement was racing around the front shouting 'Ocean view! Gambling! Dining! SexSexSex!'.

"I'll pack a bag."

Cameron beamed at him. "Mine's waiting by the front door at my place. We just have to pick it up on the way."

"You're getting too devious for your own good."

"Hmm. I think I'm just about devious enough to match you now," Cameron replied. "And besides, I only use my powers for good, not evil."

House chuckled and shook his head. "Of course. If you started playing villain I'd have to suspect I'd dropped into Bizarro Land."

A delicate eyebrow arched upwards in question.

"Never mind. Finish your shower before the hot water runs out. I don't feel like hearing your girly squeals."

The metal rings clinked along the shower rod as Cameron closed the curtain. "Funny, you never minded them before," she teased.

The sound of the door shutting was the only reply and she stifled her laughter and rinsed the soap out of her hair.

When Cameron emerged from the bathroom House was still tossing things into a small suitcase and trying to look irritated. With her cotton robe sticking to her slightly damp skin and her tousled wet hair dripping down her back, Cameron wasn't exactly feeling formidable but she crossed her arms and stared at his back with an amused expression on her face.

"You aren't fooling me, House. I saw that little gleam in your eye back in the bathroom." She walked up behind him and leaned in close when he bent to zip up his bag. "You're going to have a good time. That's an order," she said, hot breath lightly touching the tip of his ear.

"Oh it is, is it?" he said, turning to her with his best scowl in place.

"Yes it is." She raised her chin defiantly, a grin relaying quite clearly that she wasn't buying his act.

His scowl reached new depths and then five seconds later it vanished, replaced by a cheeky smile. "Fine, but you have to give me a roll of quarters for the slot machines."

Cameron laughed. "I think they take dollars now, but how about if I stand right beside you while you pull the handle and squeal in delight if you win?"

He appeared to think about it for a moment. "That'll do."

For a split-second Cameron hesitated, body jerking slightly as she stopped herself, but then she stood on her toes and kissed House lightly on the cheek. It was strange that he seemed more comfortable with casual touches than she was. Reconciling the gruff, distant Dr. House in her mind with the still gruff, but tactile House in her new reality was taking some time. The fact that he was now looking at her with that beautiful soft light in his eyes made her want to hurry up. He blinked and the moment was gone, but she still felt her fingertips tingling with happiness.

The hardwood floor gleamed with reflected sunlight and Cameron kept her footsteps in the pools of sunshine, avoiding the shadows, as the two of them left the bedroom and headed to the kitchen for their quick breakfast.

"I think that's 'step on a crack, break your mother's back," not "step on the dark," House commented as he followed a step behind her.

Cameron turned her head quickly to look at him, surprised that he had even noticed. She herself had barely realized what she'd been doing.

"Old habit."

She'd stopped walking, and House caught up to her and passed her.

"It's very you," he said vaguely. He was thinking of Pollyanna and little-Mary-sunshine and dead husbands and bullet wounds. Darkness had done more than touch her and she still concentrated on stepping in sunshine.

Not exactly sure what to make of House's remark, Cameron followed him into the kitchen and sat down at what was now 'her' place. She'd brought her coffee back from the bathroom and there was strawberry jam-smothered toast along with a bowl of blueberry yogurt. She cast a glance at the yogurt-hating Dr. House who had lowered himself into his chair and was noisily crunching away at his toast.

"Calcium. Good for your bones," he said. When she looked disinclined to let it go, he rolled his eyes. "I've seen your fridge. I know you like it. Just be quiet and eat it."

Cameron grinned and picked up her spoon.

Less than half an hour later they were in House's car, speeding too fast through the streets of Princeton towards her apartment and then on to the highway. The scenery changed from attractive to unattractive and back again as they traveled down interstate 295 south and then onto route 206.

They'd be on that road for a while and Cameron leaned back and relaxed as the warm air swirled around her. She'd tied her hair back to keep it from whipping her in the face, but her long bangs still fluttered in the wind. She looked over at House who was tapping the wheel in time to the loud song blaring through the stereo. He was relaxed. She was relaxed. Life was good.

She was under no illusions. Life definitely wasn't perfect. The tension-filed week they'd just gone through was proof of that. She didn't want House to change who he was but he did have to learn a few things and so did she. She had to keep him from directing her life, no matter how well-intentioned he seemed, and he had to learn to stop trying. His personality was so strong that it was easy to be swept along believing his words to be sacrosanct. Cameron had spent her first few weeks at PPTH hanging on every one of them. Divorcing herself from that habit hadn't been easy, and now that she finally had what she'd been dreaming about for months, she had to poke herself to keep from falling back into it.

He was still her superior at the hospital, but they needed to be equals everywhere else. The past week had made her doubt that House's nature could ever allow that, but then it had given her hope. He had apologized and meant it. He had told her that he loved her. She wasn't the only one clinging precariously to that limb anymore. He was right there beside her, and she was beginning to think that it was an even greater risk for him.

"Another forty minutes before we get there," House announced as he merged onto the Atlantic City Expressway. "You need to stop for food?"

Cameron shook herself free from her thoughts and looked over at him. "I'm fine, unless you're hungry."

"I'm saving myself for a fried fish sandwich on the Boardwalk," House replied.

"It's good that you don't let your healthy eating habits interfere with having a good time on vacation," Cameron said with a smirk.

"I suppose you'll be sticking to salads?"

"No," Cameron answered, wide smile making her eyes sparkle. "I'm saving myself for the fried clams."

If he had been a laughing sort of person, House would have laughed at this announcement. Instead he allowed a brief grin and then went back to concentrating on the road.

They made better time than he'd anticipated and were pulling up to their hotel within half an hour. The speedy corvette definitely had its advantages when it came to negotiating in traffic. He had barely put the car in park at the front door when a valet came running up. House parted with his keys somewhat reluctantly and the young man hoisted their bags out of the trunk and left them standing under the expansive entryway.

House took in the luxurious surroundings and then looked down at Cameron. She had booked them a small suite at the Taj Mahal, and although the price had not been on the confirmation letter he'd seen that morning, he knew it had to have cost an arm and a leg.

"I guess we're paying you better than I thought," he commented as he extended the handle on his suitcase and started rolling it towards the massive front doors.

"Actually, a certain someone relieved me of a recent financial obligation so I decided to splurge."

"That certain someone must be a very generous soul."

"Well, either that or he was trying to buy his way into my bed," she replied, the corners of her mouth twitched as she kept her expression neutral but just barely. "Of course if that was his reason, he really shouldn't have bothered."

"And why's that?" House rose to the bait.

"I'd have jumped him for free," she answered, sultry look taking possession of her face and turning her eyes smoky as she captured his gaze.

House was no longer surprised that she could make his heart beat in double-time, but he was still appreciative of that fact. He bent down and whispered into her ear.

"For the record, if that had been the reason, it'd have been cheap at five times the cost."

He straightened up again and opened the door, waiting for a blushing Cameron to pass through before following her into the lobby.