Title: Who They Are

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: House isn't mine. Sorry.

Greg House wasn't an emotional man. He didn't consider himself romantic or caring and he highly doubted that the women in his life would argue with that. He was a stubborn, misanthropic, Vicodin-addicted, crippled bastard. He'd heard that more than once in his life. He was somewhat used to hearing it.

But he wasn't completely emotionally detached. There had been a time in his life when he'd had feelings, he'd had a heart, but that had been before Stacy. Before the infarction he had been in love with her, and if he was honest with himself, a part of him still loved her. They'd lived together for more than a year and they'd been happy, as happy as any normal couple could be. Hell, he'd even been thinking about marriage. But then the infarction had happened and his life had changed so quickly that he'd barely had time to come down off his high and figure out what the hell was going on. By the time he'd sobered up, Stacy had left, stomping on his heart with her perfect stilettos and leaving him to die alone. All he had left was a bottle of Vicodin. He was lucky he wasn't dead.

Unfortunately, he'd survived the brutal beating to his heart and his ego. Just barely if you asked anyone who knew him before the infarction, but he'd lived through it. He'd come out on a lower pedestal with some use of his leg and a tiny scrap of his heart. That piece of his heart, however, was locked away deep in his chest, surrounded by steel bars and bulletproof glass, protected by a security alarm he liked to call snark.

He'd been damn good at protecting himself since Stacy's departure, more than five years ago, and just because his pretty young colleague was nosing around did not mean that he would let his guard down. She was beautiful and brilliant and damn it, if he didn't think that she could hurt him, he would've loved her by now. But being crushed again was not something he was willing to risk. He tormented and teased and tortured her because he could. Because it was protection. He had to protect himself.

But she saw right through him. No matter how much sarcasm he threw in her face, she was still there, putting up with him. He couldn't get rid of her. He couldn't make her see that she wasn't getting in. He couldn't let her in. Some small part of him, a part of him he didn't listen to often, was telling him that maybe he should let her in, maybe she wouldn't hurt him. Bullshit. This was Allison Cameron. Five-foot-five, one hundred and fifteen pounds, brunette, gray eyes that could burn a hole through him. She was beautiful, there was no denying that, but she was also twenty years younger than him and slightly too naïve for his taste. Doctor Allison Cameron with her medical degree and infinite knowledge of immunology, supermodel looks and brains, one hell of a combination in his book.

But he was an angry older man with a cane. He wasn't a nice person, he didn't know how to be, but she seemed to find something good in him, she seemed to think that he was worth the risk. She needed to talk to Stacy. They should have a woman to woman conversation so that Allison Cameron would know the real Greg House. She would hate the real him.

Little did he know, Cameron and Stacy had had more than one conversation about him. Of course, Cameron had been somewhat discreet, not asking any overtly personal questions, but she had asked questions. First and foremost being, what had House been like before the infarction? Stacy had simply said that he was pretty much the same. That hadn't helped Cameron any. She was certain that he couldn't have been this miserable before the infarction and, if he had, she wanted to know why.

Allison Cameron was not naïve. As much as she knew House, Chase and Foreman believed her to be, it was simply a defense mechanism for her. House was an asshole, and she was shy and quiet. She wasn't like him. She didn't have a desire to make people cry, or run away every time he walked into a room. She took her anger out in more productive ways, like exercising, and working in the lab. She worked best when she was angry. And exercise was her way of taking out all of her pent up emotions, no matter what that emotion was. Take, for instance, Foreman making fun of her attraction to House. That had pissed her off. They had been in the lab, discussing House, when he suddenly appeared, and managed to stand within an inch of her to look over her shoulder. The minute he'd left, Foreman had mocked her with "How's your stomach now?" To which she quickly replied, "Flat and taught". She'd gone home that night to do an hour's worth of sit-ups and five miles on her treadmill.

She wasn't shy either. If she didn't have anything to say, or if she simply didn't feel like having House mock her, she wouldn't say anything. She put in her opinion when necessary, but other than that, she didn't much care. Just like she didn't give a damn what they said about her. She was pretty. She knew that. She'd worked hard to be pretty. She liked being pretty. But she was a doctor for Christ's sake. She'd gone to med school just like the rest of them and sometimes, she had a feeling that she was smarter than the three of them combined.

That was who Allison Cameron was. She was a strong, beautiful, and intelligent woman. She didn't need any man to tell her that. All she had to do was look in a mirror or at one of the medical degree's hanging on her living room wall. But deep down, she was still a woman. A single one at that. And she did have a desire to be told she was beautiful, just like any other woman. It just so happened that the one man she wished would tell her she was beautiful (and mean it in a non-sexist way) was the one man who wouldn't even admit that he liked her. Gregory House had the emotional capacity of a cow.

She had, however, managed to con him into their one and only disastrous date. That had not been her finest moment. It hadn't been his either. He had insulted her, accusing her of needing to fix people. Of wanting a relationship with him because he was damaged (as was she according to another conversation they'd had in his office). But then he'd stepped over the line, accusing her of marrying her husband simply because he was dying, because she felt that she owed him something. She had been tempted to slap him. To dump a glass of wine in his lap, or throw it in his face, and tell him that he was a lousy son-of-a-bitch and that he'd better find another immunologist because she was done. But she hadn't. She'd sat through the rest of their meal, avoiding his attempts at making conversation, silently letting him know how angry she really was. Blowing up at people wasn't really her style, so she'd held it in, waiting until she made it home before breaking down. She'd had to replace most of her dishes the next day.

She hadn't married a dying man. Michael Phillips had been her high school sweetheart. They had gone through college together as well, marrying shortly after they graduated. He was planning to go to med school along with her, both of them wanting to help people. It was in their nature. But things never moved past pre-med for Michael. He died a year and a half after they'd been married. His leukemia had come as a complete shock and by the time the doctors found it, it was too late. They'd done a bone marrow transplant but it didn't help. His body had already begun to deteriorate. She lost him to a disease he'd spent most of college researching.

The pain of losing her husband had been unbearable. It was harsh and ever present. But it wasn't the same pain that House had faced when he'd lost Stacy. They were two different cases and although she often compared the two in her head, she knew they were not the same. House had obviously loved Stacy greatly, she had been the only woman he'd ever mentioned. That had to mean something. Still, there pain was not the same. Cameron had loved her husband for years, her entire life practically, because there had never been anyone else. They had been married, extremely happy, and he had died. But he had never given up on her, and she had never given up on him.

Stacy had given up on House. After the infarction she had left him, broken and addicted. She had denied the love that he felt for her and she'd abandoned him. Cameron had never experienced abandonment. She'd never faced anyone giving up on her, especially not someone she loved. House's pain was different. Stacy had made the choice to leave him. Michael hadn't had a choice in dying.

House had come to her, out of sheer desperation she knew, but he'd come to her anyway and that's what mattered. She couldn't hide her surprise when she'd pulled open her apartment door that night to find him standing there, looking as if he would collapse any minute. She couldn't hide her sympathy for him as she helped him inside, letting him drop his body heavily onto her couch. She had stood across from him, watching him fight an internal battle before speaking. She had sunk into a chair as he'd talked, telling her that he didn't want to do it anymore, that he couldn't love someone who obviously didn't love him anymore. He wanted someone to love him. He knew that she loved him. She'd cried when he'd asked her to love him. She fell asleep in his arms that night.

It hadn't taken him long to realize that, after Stacy's departure, he needed someone, something. He wanted someone to love him. He wanted HER to love him. And he'd gotten on his bike and made his way across town. He had found himself outside her apartment door, not sure exactly what he would say, but he had knocked anyway. She'd opened the door, obviously surprised by his presence there. The last time he'd been to her apartment she had conned him into a disastrous date. She had given him a worried look, stepping aside to let him in and following him to the couch. He had needed to sit down. It was taking every effort in him to stay, to stay in her living room, to tell her what he needed. He hadn't meant to make her cry but somehow he knew that the truth would. She had pushed herself into him, face against his chest, arm around his waist. He'd repeated over and over that he wasn't doing this just because Stacy had gone. He didn't want her to think that she was his second choice. And when her breathing had evened out and he had made sure that she was asleep, he had whispered his love to her and closed his own eyes.