Disclaimer: They still aren't mine, damn it! I've tried talking to people about owning them, but they want MONEY. What is that?

A/N: Thank you to everyone for the reviews! It's always great when people feed the author.

Chapter Three

By six that evening, House had actually met with the patient. Claire. Corey. Carey. Some 'C' name that he couldn't remember. He got a history from her; it was the same that she'd given to the ducklings. Of course, he'd gone one step further and talked to mommy dearest, who claimed that there hadn't been any seizures prior to the one the C-girl managed to have before admittance to the hospital.

And that just didn't seem right. Where was daddy, anyway? He'd have to ask that one the next time he went by. Or he'd have Cameron do it. She was the type to be able to get information that could be potentially destructive. But he needed to think.

So he went back to his office and sat, chin on his fist, as he twirled his cane and looked at the wall with narrowed eyes. He couldn't put the girl on any medications other than phenytoin and wait for the seizures to stop. He'd had Chase put the girl on the meds about a half an hour ago. So far, so good.

But he still didn't know how the hell a girl could just start having seizures. They didn't just fall out of the sky, after all. And once she'd started having them, she couldn't seem to stop. C-girl had managed to pull of at least three more seizures that he knew about. Probably some that he didn't. There was no way for him to tell other than to put her under twenty-four hour surveillance and put her on some fancy equipment to check for absent seizures.

What the hell was going on?

His thoughts were interrupted by a light knocking on his office door. He turned his attention to see Cameron standing there with a carry-out box. With a quirked eyebrow, he took his legs off of his desk.

"You haven't eaten since you got here," Cameron said softly, setting the box down in front of him. "Wilson wanted you to have something, so he asked me to bring this."

House opened the box and saw a nice, cold Ruben. With a small smirk, he lifted the bread. That smirk turned to a frown. "There are pickles…" he complained with a grimace.

Cameron sighed and rolled her eyes. "Wilson ordered it," she informed House. "Not me." When House didn't change his one and only sad puppy look, she rolled her eyes again and took the pickles off of the sandwich, eating them herself. "There. Now there are no pickles."

He looked from the sandwich to Cameron, who was now licking pickle juice off of her fingers. "The excess juice will still be there."

She gave him a bland look. "Well, I'm not licking it off of your sandwich. So deal."

He smirked at her and put the sandwich back together. "Thanks, Mom," he mocked before taking a bite.

"Don't get it all over yourself, now," she returned, making a face. "Because I'm not washing your clothes, either." She sat in the chair across from his desk and leaned back comfortably into it. "Wilson also wants me to relay the message that, even though he bought you dinner, you still aren't staying with him."

House frowned and picked at his chips. "I'm staying with him whether he likes it or not. Tell him that."

Cameron glared. "Tell him yourself," she snapped. "The phone is right there." After a short pause, during which House ate his sandwich and Cameron glared at him for not doing anything, she sighed. "AND Cuddy wants you to know that you can't stay at the hospital tonight, either. The overflow rooms are all taken."

"By who!" he exclaimed angrily. "Those rooms are never taken!"

"I don't know. Maybe a thoracic surgeon or two that could be pissed at you for insinuating that they always screw up." She picked at a non-existent piece of lint on her lab coat. "Anyway. Chase and Foreman are at dinner and they'll be back up soon. Wilson suggested you ask them if you can stay with one of them."

House chewed his sandwich thoughtfully. "And he didn't suggest I ask you?"

"House… You may not think so, but Wilson does have a brain. He knows better than to suggest something like that." She stood and made her way to the door.

"Why wouldn't he suggest it? Because it isn't proper? He wanted our little date to work out, Cameron."

Cameron stopped at the doorway and took a breath in before turning to face House with a small frown marring her features. "Wilson knows that I don't have a spare bed," she stated softly. "He also knows that I would never let you sleep on the couch with your leg." With that tidbit of information, she sped out of his office before he could ask any more questions.

"This day could not possibly get any more interesting," he mumbled to his sandwich. Wait a minute… Why would…? He grabbed his cane and darted after Cameron. Once he'd caught her, he grabbed hold of her upper arm. "Why does Wilson know that you don't have a spare bed?" he asked accusingly.

Cameron blinked and put on her best poker face. "Why does it matter?"

"Wilson shouldn't know anything about your bed."

Her eyebrows shot up and she gave House a small, knowing smile. "First, it's none of your business whether he knows anything about my bed or not. Second, he knows because he stayed over one night."

House glowered at her. "You just work your way around the doctors at this place, don't you?"

"Fuck you," she spat at him. "He was sick of sleeping on your lumpy as hell couch and dealing with your rude, hurtful remarks about his failed marriage with Julie. I offered him my bed for the night. I took the couch."

House loosened his grip on Cameron's arm and stared at her intensely. "I thought you-"

"You thought I slept with him," she replied hotly. "I know this may be near impossible for you to believe, House, but not all women are whores. Just the ones you hire."

"I hired you," he pointed out triumphantly.

"I meant the ones you pick up off of the corner," she replied hotly.

"That was low."

"That was true." She wrenched her arm out of his grasp. "Now if you don't mind, I'm going to check on Caitlin."

He was tempted to ask who Caitlin was before he realized that she was C-girl. Damn it all… He let out an angry breath and went back to his office to finish his sandwich and to think some more.

He pulled out one of his many medical tomes and scoured through it, looking for anything that might cause all of … Carey? Camry? Ugh. C-girl. Anything that might cause all of C-girl's symptoms. He was interrupted by Chase and Foreman returning from dinner. Glancing up, he nodded to them. "Cameron's with the patient."

"She said she would be," Chase replied, shoving his hands into the pockets of his lab coat.

"We ran into her in the hallway," Foreman said slowly. "She seemed upset, but she wouldn't tell us what it was."

"She gave me a Ruben with pickles. I made her eat them," House said with a quirked eyebrow. "On to important matters… Which of you two has a spare bed or couch?"

Chase gave a snort of laughter. "Don't look at me," he said, holding up his hands. "My place is furniture-free right now." Foreman knew about Chase's financial troubles, and frowned a bit in pity at his colleague.

"Foreman?"

"No way," he said with a shake of his head. "I've got a live-in girlfriend."

House opened his mouth to make a snide remark about it when Chase cut him off. "What about Cameron?"

Foreman snorted and crossed his arms. "That'll go over well. 'Hey, Cameron, hope you don't mind if House stays with you for a couple of days. Yeah, we know he's always riding your ass at work, but hey! Now he can do it in the comfort of your own home!' I'm sure she'd love that."

"I won't be riding any part of Dr. Cameron," House grumbled angrily, finishing off his sandwich and picking up his cane, striding to the doorway. "I am, however, going to find Wilson and tell him to man up and let me stay with him. Go, ducklings. Make peace with the seizing patient."

Orders given, House made his way up to Wilson. He got into the oncologist's office and stopped. Who the hell was Wilson with? He never took patients this late. House squinted and saw, upon closer inspection, that Cameron was sitting across his desk from him. What was she doing up here?

Frowning, House knocked on Wilson's window. He was met with Wilson's frowning face and was vaguely disappointed when he saw Wilson order Cameron to stay put. He met his friend outside of his office, closing the door behind him.

"You accused Cameron of sleeping with me?" he asked in awe.

"Well … yes," House acquiesced. At Wilson's disapproving look, he shifted and placed both hands on his cane. "You said yourself that you'd put moves on her if you were given the chance!"

"I went to her because I could talk to her about what was happening with Julie. It was something I couldn't do with you, House," Wilson said, his voice soft, but laced with anger and … did House detect a hint of hurt? "You think it's okay to mock people all of the time and it isn't. They won't take it all of the time."

"Thanks for the boy scout tip," House said scathingly. "I needed one. I was over-due for it, really."

Wilson merely shook his head. "You aren't staying with me, House. Besides the fact that my place really is still in shambles and hardly livable enough for me, you keep pissing me off," he finished with a small smile. They were still friends, of course. They always would be. The friendship was just very, very strained sometimes.

"So where the hell am I supposed to stay? Cuddy said the overflow rooms are all full, and Chase and Foreman both have cock-and-bull stories."

"You have a couch in your office."

House grumbled and shifted again, trying to relieve the discomfort in his leg. When he realized it wasn't about to let up, he popped a couple of his pills. "Just thinking about it gives me leg pain."

Wilson sighed and crossed his arms across his chest. "Then … I suggest you do some fancy footwork with Cameron. She's your last choice here. Unless you plan on asking Cuddy."

House shivered. "You kidding me? She'd tie me to her bedposts."

Wilson laughed. "Go grovel," he said, patting House's shoulder. "I'm getting dinner."

He watched as his friend left the office and tapped his cane on the floor in agitation. Grovel? He didn't grovel. He manipulated. There really was a subtle difference… And he really didn't want to stay with Cameron. She might try to … rub her niceness all over him or something.

He eyed the couch in Wilson's office and frowned. It looked even more uncomfortable than the one in his office. So, with an annoyed sigh, he slowly opened the door and cleared his throat.

Cameron sat in the chair in front of Wilson's desk, keeping her back turned to House. "Where did Wilson go?" she asked, not bothering to turn to acknowledge House's presence.

"Dinner," House replied, keeping himself in the door and continuing to drop his cane to make a dull, thudding noise on the ground. "He told me to come grovel. I have no place to stay."

"You have a couch in your office," she replied coldly. "There's also a couch in this office."

"Couches bother my leg," he said simply. "Not enough support."

"Then I suggest you get a futon in there." She stood and turned to face him finally, leaning against the chair. "I can't let you stay with me, House."

House bristled. "Why the hell not? You have a decent-sized apartment. And I'm certainly not going to take advantage of the situation," he mocked with an ironic smirk. "I'm pretty sure you can run faster than I can, so it would be fruitless."

"House…" She took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I don't want you in my apartment. I have personal things there, and I know you. You'll take one step inside, make some snide remark about how sentimental I am, and then take ownership of the place as if it's your apartment and not mine. And I refuse to feel like a guest in my own home."

"That's brutally honest."

"Wilson's been telling me that honesty really is the best policy." She played absently with a paperweight that she'd found on his desk. "I'm serious, House. I don't want you at my place. You mock me enough at work."

House paused and studied Cameron. She hadn't looked him in the eye when she'd said her spiel about not wanting him over. She also hadn't looked at him when she'd said she was serious, which told him that she really was. Cameron was too nice for her own good, which meant that she really couldn't look someone in the eye when she was telling them something they may not want to hear. To this day, he still didn't know whether she'd ever told a patient that they were dying. Why would she become a doctor if she wasn't capable of that?

Allison Cameron was a puzzle, plain and simple. And he liked figuring out puzzles. "What if … I swear that I will not mock you?" he asked.

"You want me to trust that?"

"Smart girl." He frowned, thinking of something he could give her in return. Something to make her trust his promise. Because, honestly, getting into her apartment might solve a bit more of the puzzle about her. AND he'd have a bed to sleep in instead of a thoroughly uncomfortable couch. "All right… If I mock you, I take your clinic hours."

Cameron's mouth fell open and she blinked at House. "You really don't want to sleep on a couch," she muttered to him. She weighed out the consequences and took a moment to think about them.

If House did mock her, she'd get out of clinic duty. Not that she really minded it, but it would give her a small feeling of triumph seeing House take more clinic than he had to. She tapped her foot on the ground and crossed her arms loosely over her chest.

"Fine," she said with a sigh. "But just one mocking remark and you have two weeks of my clinic hours."

"Two weeks it is," House replied, holding his hand out for her to shake on the deal. Cameron crossed to him and took his hand, shaking it briefly.

"I plan on leaving around eight. I'm sure you still know where I live."

"Yeah… It goes with the territory of being your boss. I have to stalk you." That wasn't mocking; it was teasing. There was a thin line … and he'd get as close as possible to crossing it, of course.