Disclaimer: I tried to buy them... My credit card was declined. :-(

Chapter Eighteen

The next couple of days were hectic at the hospital. One patient would stabilize and the other two would crash. For four days straight, the team worked from nine in the morning to at least midnight, if not later. By the fifth day, nerves were high and tempers were flaring fast.

Cuddy had walked into the diagnostics department to offer her help and had been literally snapped out of the place by House and Foreman. Cameron and Chase had been arguing in the background about a patient's diagnosis. After being tossed out of the department, Cuddy went to Wilson to have him try to cool them down. He'd been thrown out, too.

Things were not looking good.

By five that evening, Cameron had stormed out of the department to grab some dinner and clear her mind. There had to be something completely simple that they were missing with all three of the cases. They were thinking too hard. They had to be. She made her way to the cafeteria, bought a salad, a juice, and a small chicken breast, and sat down at a table. Her mother had called her three times today and left three voicemails. Cameron was certain that they weren't important, but she checked them anyway.

She wasn't disappointed. All three of them were about Christmas. Christmas… It was literally just around the corner. Today was Saturday. Christmas was Tuesday. Cuddy had guaranteed Cameron that she and House would have Christmas day off, but if their patients didn't get better soon, they definitely would not be taking even a day's vacation. It upset her to think that she'd spend a Christmas without seeing her family, but she'd deal with it. It was part of being a doctor.

As she began eating her salad, someone pulled a chair out across from her. "Hope this seat isn't taken."

Cameron looked up to see none other than Stacy. She shook her head, and the older woman took a seat. "I hear you guys are having a hard couple of days."

"It's part of the job," Cameron responded through her salad. "It's been rough, but we're trudging right along." She took a sip of her juice before moving on to her chicken breast. "So I take it Dr. Blake still needs your help?"

Stacy frowned. "He's having issues with a former patient. I'm having trouble hammering out the details. But, like you, I'm trudging right along."

Cameron noticed that the other woman didn't have any food, which told her that Stacy wasn't here for a companionable dinner. "How's your husband doing?" she asked conversationally.

Stacy bristled slightly, but kept her cool. "Mark's fine."

"Glad to hear it," Cameron replied with a smile. "You two seemed good together when I last saw you." And before you cheated on him with my current fiancé, you bitch.

"We're doing just fine," Stacy repeated. "Rumor has it you've got a ring around your finger."

"You sure hear a lot of rumors around this place for someone only doing temp work," she responded coolly, pasting a serene smile on her face. "And this one is true, too. Greg and I are engaged."

"Congratulations." Her reply was strained, and Cameron took great pride in that fact. "When did he ask you?"

"The day you decided to stop in and say hello. He proposed about five minutes after you left." She gave Stacy a smile and took a bite of her chicken. She chewed thoughtfully before asking, quite bluntly, "Do you still have a thing for him?"

Stacy smiled bitterly. "Anyone who's ever been with Greg House will always have a thing for him."

"Hmm."

They sat in silence for a while after that, Cameron eating her dinner and Stacy studying the young woman that Greg was going to marry. She recalled him complaining about her a while back, stating that she was a good doctor, but too sensitive. She should have known that he'd settle down with her eventually.

"So when's the wedding?"

"Sometime in June," Cameron answered. She smiled sweetly at Stacy as she took the last bite of her dinner. "I'll ask him to send you an invitation."

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When Cameron returned to the diagnostics department, her head was a bit clearer. Having a bitch-out with Stacy had provided the kind of distraction she needed. She went straight to the dry-erase board and looked at the symptoms with narrowed eyes.

Chase, Foreman, and House all watched her. They'd long since given up on arguing with each other and had settled for simply ignoring one another.

"Camilla needs BP meds," she said assuredly, circling the symptoms that pointed to the need for the medication. "They'll stabilize her blood pressure, and taking her off of the steroids will help with her nausea and stomach pain." She moved to the second patient on the list. "Joshua needs to be taken off of all treatment and given one day's rest, and then we need to hook him up to a banana bag." Finally, she moved to the third patient. "And Jamie…" She paused, thinking as she studied the symptoms. "I still haven't figured Jamie out." She tossed down the marker and turned to the three men, who were staring at her in awe.

"How did you come up with this?" Foreman asked slowly. "The three of us have been sitting in here for the past hour trying to come up with a solution."

"It's so simple that we've overlooked it. All of it. We keep trying to over-complicate things when all we really have to do is settle for the simple answer." She smiled at him. "Occam's razor, remember?"

"Where the hell did you go to clear your head?" House asked irritably. "Did they install some sort of brain recharger in the clinic and not tell me?"

"I ran into your ex-girlfriend," Cameron snarked back.

"Is she bothering you?" he asked immediately.

Chase took in a deep breath and let it out slowly and Foreman scratched his forehead. Neither of them wanted to be here if there was going to be a House-Cameron explosion.

"She's not now," she said, crossing her arms over her chest. "Can we treat the patient?"

"Chase, Foreman, go start the treatments." The two men hurried out of the room as House rounded on Cameron. "Why did Stacy want to speak with you?"

Cameron sighed and went for the coffee. "Greg, I have no idea. She asked about the engagement. I told her we were getting married in June. I offered to send her an invitation." She grinned. "She didn't seem pleased."

House snorted. "Imagine. How did talking to Stacy help you figure out two cases?"

"My mind switched gears, I guess. I knew it had to be something far simpler than what we were looking for. Thinking about ways to one-up Stacy somehow helped."

"So what you're saying is that all I need to do in order to get you to make prompt and correct diagnoses is piss you off enough to make you want to outdo me?" he asked with a quirked eyebrow.

She frowned at him and sipped at her coffee. "No." Sighing and leaning against the counter behind her, she looked at the floor. "She makes me feel like a child."

"And getting into a pissing contest with her won't make you feel like a child?" he asked pointedly.

"It wasn't a pissing contest!" she exclaimed. "She sat down across from me while I was eating my dinner and struck up a conversation. Was I supposed to get up and leave the table?"

"Yes. Yes, you were."

"Greg, I'm not going to ignore her and I'm not going to avoid her. It's not like she can do anything to me. What'll she do; try to steal my engagement ring? She has her own. She even has a wedding band."

House snorted and stood, pacing the room. "I don't like that she's here," he admitted.

"That's no reason to get pissy with me about talking to her." Cameron set her coffee down and watched him pace. He was so restless… It worried her. "Why don't you go get dinner?" she suggested gently. "Foreman, Chase, and I can hold down the fort."

"I'm not hungry," he responded gruffly.

"Greg…" she started in a soft tone.

"Don't, Allison," he snapped. "I am not hungry right now. I will eat when I am."

She frowned. "I told you not to get pissy with me about this," she told him.

"How am I not supposed to get pissy!" he exclaimed angrily. "She's back here, where I don't want her to be, and she's bothering me by bothering you! And she knows that she is!"

"You're yelling."

"I know I'm fucking yelling!"

"Greg-"

"I was happy, Goddammit-"

"Was?" she asked dangerously. "You're not still?"

"No! Not with her here!"

"Why?" Cameron asked, setting her hands angrily on her hips. "Is it because it bothers you that she's back? Or does it bother you that you do still have something for her and now that she's back, you've realized it? I'd like to know, Greg. I'm not keeping this ring on my finger if someone else is on your mind." It killed her to say it, but she couldn't be with someone who wasn't devoted to her. It wasn't fair to her, and it certainly wasn't fair to him.

House went completely still, staring Cameron down. "I don't have anything left for Stacy," he said heatedly.

"Prove it to me," Cameron responded, fighting back tears. "Prove to me that you don't have feelings for her. Because I'm not going to marry a man who's in love with someone else."

"For the love of… I'm not in love with her, I'm in love with you. And if you didn't figure that one out by now, you're not as smart as I originally gave you credit for." He watched her take in his confession of love. No overtones, no flowers or chocolates or even a happy moment. Just him telling her the truth.

Cameron stood in front of the counter, hand over her mouth and tears in her eyes. I'm not in love with her, I'm in love with you It was so very … House. It was a very House thing to say. To do. It drove her absolutely insane, and made her overwhelmingly happy at the same time. She swallowed, and looked down, clearing her throat. "Greg…"

"Are you sniffling?" he asked suspiciously. He studied her and frowned. "Allison, don't cry…" He rolled his eyes and went to her, pulling her hand away from her mouth and tilting her chin up to be face-to-face with her. "Why are you crying?"

"I don't know," she admitted through her sniffles. "There's so much stress and you're being weird with Stacy here and I keep thinking that you're going to hate me because of what she did to you and she keeps bothering me and-"

"Too many ands for one sentence," he told her with a frown, grabbing a tissue from the box behind her and handing it to her. "You worry about stupid things way too much."

"I know!" she sobbed.

"Christ, Allison… Stop with the waterworks already."

"I can't!" she continued, wiping frantically at her eyes. "This is ridiculous."

"Yeah, it is," he laughed softly. "Allison, if you need a break or a vacation, you need to tell-"

"I don't," she insisted. "It's just been a hard week, that's all. This was coming."

He frowned thoughtfully. He didn't think her tearful condition had all that much to do with stress, but he wasn't going to tell her that. He'd find out in his own way.

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The treatment worked for the patients, and they would be kept overnight for observation. For the first time in a week, the team went home at a normal time. On the way home, House made a point to hold and caress Cameron's hand. She had her insecurities, and they had been elevated by Stacy's return. Hell, his own had been elevated. He couldn't imagine what it was doing to her.

"I say we stop somewhere and grab dinner," he told her, watching the multiple fast food restaurants pass them by.

"We have food at home," she told him with a small smile. "We don't need to stop anywhere."

"It's been a stressful week. Let's eat out. Come on…" he coaxed. "You know you want to."

She rolled her eyes and pulled into the parking lot of a Chinese restaurant.

"Craving Chinese?" House asked curiously.

"No," she replied with a small frown. "Just salt." They got out of the car to go in and make their orders.

House smirked at her confession of the salt craving. It either put another tally in his theory, or she was close to being on her period. And if he had the calendar right, which he was pretty sure he did, she was most definitely not due for a period. "Are you due for a new pack of tampons?" he asked directly.

"You're so charming when you ask about my menstrual cycle," she responded dryly. "And no, I'm not. But I always crave salt after stress."

"Always?"

"Always," she said definitively. And the subject dropped. They got their Chinese food and went home for a peaceful night alone.