With the holiday comes another Steve McQueen story... Because, like the good china, Steve only comes around for special occassions. I hope you all enjoy this! I should have the rest posted by the end of the weekend.

My Fuzzy Valentine

It was snowing again. There had been a blizzard all up the east coast over the weekend and now weightless little flakes drifted lazily through the air outside the window beside Cameron's desk. It didn't look like it would amount to much, just flurries being blown around by the wind, but it was pretty to look at and Cameron remembered the last time she'd enjoyed the snow had been New Year's Day. She'd been hopeful then, with the feel of House's mouth still a memory on her lips.

The next snowfall had trapped House and Stacy Warner in Baltimore, and after that her optimism had faded. Stacy was gone now, but House was still distant most of the time, and he hadn't invited her over to help with Steve. Cameron felt slightly ridiculous about the fact that the loss of her status as Steve's back-up owner hurt almost as much as the knowledge that House had kissed his ex-girlfriend less than two weeks after kissing her. Maybe it was because Steve had been the bridge between them, and having it pulled away left her lonelier and feeling bereft. Hope removed was worse than hope denied to begin with.

House was in his office and she could hear his music through the glass walls. She wanted to go in there and ask him what was going on. She wished she had the courage to face his answer, whatever it was. Instead she sat at her desk and read the mass-email Valentine that the hospital had sent to all the employees. She was still staring at it when Foreman and Chase walked in.

The two of them walked over to the coat rack and as Foreman took off his overcoat Chase looked him up and down with a raised eyebrow.

"Nice suit. You interviewing somewhere?" he asked, half joking and half serious. The serious half sounded just a little bit jealous.

Foreman rolled his eyes. "No," he drawled as if the answer should be obvious. "I have a date tonight. Valentine's Day. Sound familiar?"

"Ah, that explains it." Chase pulled off his own coat and hung it up. "That hot drug rep? Larissa? Carissa?"

"Vanessa," Cameron interjected, looking away from the computer for the first time since their arrival.

Foreman nodded towards her. "Right. Vanessa. And I'd appreciate it if you not call her 'hot'. We've been dating for almost a year. A little respect would be nice." His expression said that a little respect would also keep Chase from having to visit the dentist for a few new teeth.

"Sure. Right. Sorry."

"You gotta date?"

"Nah," he replied and if his eyes strayed to Cameron's slim form, Foreman pretended not to notice. It was the unspoken rule that no one would ever mention that one-night stand again.

"What about you, Cameron?" Chase asked. The rule didn't require that he stop being nosy.

"No. It's a made up holiday anyway," she declared.

Chase laughed. "This, coming from little Miss Hopeless Romantic?" He ignored the fact that her mouth had flattened into a tight line.

"Knock it off, man," Foreman said, nudging him with his elbow. "She said no."

A sound of exasperation tripped out of Chase's mouth and he turned to go get a cup of coffee. Foreman watched Cameron's expression relax slightly before she sighed and swiveled back to face her computer. He knew that she probably didn't appreciate his macho protective act, but he was tired, more than tired, of watching her get hurt.

He hadn't meant to find out about him.

Her husband.

He'd just been down in the clinic collecting a chart when he'd seen Cameron and Wilson standing toe to toe. Gossip wasn't his thing, but when the two nicest people in the hospital appeared ready to shout at each other, it got his attention. He wondered if House knew, and he wondered if the miserable bastard had come to the same conclusions he had, or if he had learned 'dead husband' and let that be the defining foundation of Cameron's personality in his mind.

At first the knowledge that Cameron was a widow had shocked him. Then he had thought that it explained a lot about her and then, days later, he had begun to think that while it explained some things, she was too complex for that to be the only thing that influenced her life. Still, he figured Valentine's Day was one in a long string of painful reminders of her husband.

He couldn't know that this year her painful introspection was caused by a completely different man.

"Any new patients," he asked, thinking to get Cameron's mind off of the previous conversation.

She jerked her head towards House's office and the pounding bass that rattled the glass. "Rolling Stones this early in the morning means he's bored," she said. "No new patient."

"Well I hope it stays that way. I'd like to stay under the radar for a while until he forgets about last month," he said, referring to his brief stint as department head. He figured that if they had a slow week or two, House wouldn't have the opportunity to abuse him by making him do the grunt work.

"I think he's got a pretty long memory," Cameron said with a wry little smile.

"Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of," Foreman replied and then he headed to the coffee maker.

It was after two o'clock and House was still holed up in his office. Wilson had long since expected him to come begging him for lunch money. A hungry House was a grumpy House… although lately it had become difficult to tell the difference between grumpy and normal.

Armed with a Reuben sandwich, a bag of chips and a carton of milk, he approached House's office door. It was closed, which was expected, and he balanced all the food in one hand and opened the door with the other. Knocking would give House the opportunity to tell him to get lost, so he didn't bother.

"Don't attack. I brought food," he said as he entered and House looked up with a distinct scowl.

"Gimme. And there had better not be pickles."

Wilson let out a weary but ever-accepting sigh and tossed the wrapped sandwich onto House's desk. He lobbed the milk and chips next and House caught them easily.

"Aww, such a good friend," House said, tone sarcastic although the truth of his words could not be so easily masked.

The chair in the corner beckoned and Wilson dropped down into it. House looked mildly annoyed that he was not being left to eat in peace.

"So, planning on staying isolated in here for the foreseeable future?"

"Possibly," House muttered around a mouth full of pastrami.

"So let's recap," Wilson had his elbows planted on the chair arms, his fingers steepled in front of him. "You spend a month obsessing over Stacy. Then you engage in some sort of slow motion, rat-induced courtship with Cameron. You kiss Cameron on New Year's Eve, and then you kiss Stacy in Baltimore and send her away. And now, a week later, you're refusing patients and OD'ing on classic rock music. I miss anything?"

"Yeah, the part where you mind your own business," House snapped, irritated with himself for the fact that he'd been unable to keep from kissing and telling.

"Well your team is getting bored, the hospital is going to start wondering why they pay your salary, and frankly, Allison deserves better than to be jerked around by you."

House scowled again at the easy way Wilson said her name when he couldn't get beyond calling her Cameron, even in his thoughts.

"She's a big girl, and last I remember I didn't make any promises to her."

"Oh c'mon, House. You want her to pine after you the way you pined after Stacy?"

"I didn't pine," he retorted.

Wilson just gave him a look and didn't bother to argue. "I'm just telling you that it would be nice if you went back to being semi-human again. It's exhausting trying to keep up with your mood swings. I'll have to start calling you Sybil."

"So sorry," House said in a tone which meant the opposite.

Another sigh and Wilson shook his head feeling that he hadn't accomplished anything.

"You don't have to be this miserable, House. It's not getting you anywhere," he tried one more time to get something other than a snide comeback.

"Flattered as I am by the attention, let's try talking about something other than me, for a change. What're you getting for Julie to keep her from kicking you out?"

Wilson's exasperation kicked up a notch but he couldn't say he wasn't expecting House's response.

"We're going out for dinner. And for your information, we've been doing better, not that you ever ask."

"Of course I don't ask. I'm not a big ol' girl," House scoffed. "I have more important things to think about."

"Right, like the next monster truck rally and who's screwing who on "The O.C."

"Exactly," House replied, popping the last chip into his mouth.

"Fine. But I'm telling you now, that you'd better fish or cut bait. Because if Julie ever does kick me out, I can't guarantee I won't start looking for a brunette immunologist to ease my broken heart. Maybe if I get a pet rat, she'll take an interest in me."

And there. That look. That half-murderous glare. That was what made Wilson sure that there was still something of the old House cloaked under a new layer of bitterness. He smirked and House rolled his eyes, knowing that he'd been had.

"Happy Valentine's Day, House," Wilson said as he stood up and headed to the door. "Try to stop being an ass for five minutes if it's not too much trouble."

He left before House could reply, and walked to the elevator with a smug smile on his face.

Wilson wasn't used to playing matchmaker, but he would be lying to himself if he said he wasn't extremely used to giving advice. It was part of his job, and it was part of his personality. He knew that House rarely took it, but he knew someone who would be slightly more receptive.

He hadn't actually intended to say anything to her, but when he was paged to the clinic for a consult, he saw that she was on duty. From the hallway, he watched her usher out a mother and son, handing over a prescription and giving the boy's shoulder a little squeeze. She was on her way to the nurses' station to grab another chart when she spotted him.

"Dr. Wilson," she greeted him with a small smile. "Who paged you?"

"Dr. Klein," he answered, "but I just finished looking at his patient and I think it's just a benign cyst. Apparently she was dressing up for her husband when she felt a lump. A needle biopsy will tell us more, but I sent the woman home to enjoy her evening."

Cameron visibly relaxed at the news that the woman was most likely healthy. She hadn't even seen her, but that didn't make her any less sympathetic. Wilson noticed, and wondered if she would ever be able to completely divorce herself from her patients emotionally. Probably not, but he knew he would be hypocritical to blame her for it, since it was something he still struggled with at times.

"House have you down here doing his hours?" he asked, knowingly.

"Actually, no," she replied. "He wasn't on the schedule. I think Dr. Cuddy knew better than to bother." She indicated the bright red and white decorations along with the general air of cutesiness that pervaded the area, with nurses wearing heart-shaped pins and flowers overflowing the desk. "She probably figured he'd either find a way to avoid it or make everyone miserable."

"Well, that does sound like House," he agreed. "Romance is not even close to his middle name." He eyed Cameron carefully, noting that she had her eyes trained on the new chart she'd picked up. "Of course that doesn't mean he's completely without a heart."

"Right," Cameron said quietly. "The one you were afraid I would break." She looked up at him accusingly as she spoke.

Wilson rubbed the back of his neck in that abashed way of his. This wasn't going quite how he had planned. "Yeah. I'm sorry about that, Allison."

Her eyebrows rose very slightly at the rare use of her name and then she waved off his concern. "No, it's all right. I didn't mean to bring it up. Ever," she said meaningfully.

"Not one of his finest hours, I'm sure," Wilson pressed on, seeing an opening. "But he has a tendency to get nasty when he's feeling vulnerable."

"Like a trapped rat?" Cameron said with a little smirk.

"Exactly," Wilson replied, feeling better about the situation. "I know that you two were spending some time together for a little while there."

She shrugged. "Then you probably also know that that stopped around the same time he and Stacy got trapped in Maryland."

Wilson's empathetic gaze landed on Cameron's face and held there. "But Stacy's gone now," he said, "and you're still here." Sometimes voicing the obvious put it in a new perspective.

He glanced at his watch. "I've got a patient coming in ten minutes. Take care of yourself."

Cameron nodded and gave a little wave as he turned away.

"And happy Valentine's Day," he said, over his shoulder, leaving Cameron to wonder what she should do.

Just a few hours earlier she'd been sure that whatever had been developing between she and House was long gone and best forgotten or at least ignored. Wilson's earlier advice to her hadn't exactly panned out, but she almost felt ready to believe him again. This time, however, she would be prepared.

That ill-fated date had made her hesitant to make any kind of move without him initiating it, as he had on New Year's Eve, but she couldn't allow him to run things forever. If there was anything there at all, she needed to have some bit of control over it as well, and it was time she exercised it. If Wilson was wrong and House shot her down again… well, she'd been there before and she'd survived. Life had given her plenty of disappointments. One more wouldn't break her.

Scotch has a wonderful warm color, like the sun breaking over the horizon, or candlelight flickering brightly in an otherwise dark room. That warmth extends to the burning feel of it sliding down a man's throat, and that was what House was taking full advantage of as he sat on his sofa with a glass tumbler in one hand and a nearly-full bottle on the coffee table in front of him. It was only five thirty, but he'd skipped out of work early in order to get a head start on his plans, which included getting both drunk and stoned.

Damn Wilson for trying to get inside his head.

He took another sip and then put the glass down hard, liquid sloshing against the sides. He had been perfectly ready for a good six-month sulk and now he was looking for an excuse to get Cameron over to his place. Of course, the perfect excuse was scrambling around in his cage just five feet away.

House gathered his cane and hoisted himself to his feet. The latch to Steve's cage door was quickly released and he stared at the little rodent, resisting the urge to make clucking noises at him. He headed back to the sofa and sat there, chin resting on cane, staring at Steve and waiting for him to mount an escape. Unfortunately, he was being a lot more stubborn about it than he had been on New Year's Eve.

House grunted in frustration and picked up his glass again. No sense wasting good scotch.

The phone, when it rang, surprised him and he glanced towards the machine intending to let it pick up for him. On the third ring, just before the automated message was set to start, he grabbed the handset and turned it on.

"House," he answered in his usual perfunctory way.

"Hello."

House did a quick audio double-take. He was supposed to be calling her, not the other way around.

"Cameron?"

"Yes," she replied. "I came home and found a message from Steve on my answering machine."

"Oh you did, did you?" he said, staring at the rat in question.

"Yes. He asked me to be his valentine, and I've agreed. Of course since he can't drive, I'll be bringing dinner over."

"His valentine?" House almost scoffed, but held it in check, though his sarcasm could not be contained. "Who knew he was such a romantic. But you're supposed to be his surrogate mother."

"I know," she responded quickly, obviously prepared. "He's got a bit of an Oedipal complex, but I'll straighten him out. Let him down easy."

"I'm sure you will. Telling patients bad news is your specialty after all," the silence that followed made him think he'd pushed too hard and then he was pissed off at himself for caring.

"A little empathy never hurt anyone," she finally replied, sounding composed and stronger than he would have thought. "I'll be there in half an hour."

He was about to make one last comment, but the sound of empty air met his ear. She had already hung up. Setting the phone down, he once more limped over to Steve's cage where he shut and locked the door.

"You've got a date," he muttered. "Wouldn't want you running away now," he continued, and the fact that his words could easily have applied to himself was not lost on him. He shook his head to clear it of such thoughts, and poked a finger through the bars of the cage instead. "Since when did you learn how to use the phone?"