What? Don't want to review any longer? Anyway, I'm uploading this new chapter in the same day...since it's written and all...heheh.

He was already sitting down in the cafeteria as I came in the room. I walked the line and bought my own meal, missing the tradition-ish way that Jimmy had always paid. He was in the same room, and I still missed him. Or maybe I missed the days before I 'confessed' (Cameron, upon drawing up the basic storyline, had insisted on calling it such a girly thing).

I set my tray down at his table and took a seat, glancing at the pair behind him. Foreman and Cameron were sitting there, a stack of cue cards on the surface before the dermatologist. She raised the first one, and I read, Say hello, don't just sit there.

"Hi," I said, overly happy.

I saw his eyes look at something behind me before he said, "How's clinic duty going?"

Before I could ask how he knew I had had it that day, I read off a card, "It was hilarious, a woman confused an infected bee sting with herpes."

He raised an eye brow at me and deadpanned "That's very funny, House. I can't believe it."

"I got to look." I shrugged, reading, Is he jealous? "I had fun, at least. Maybe Clinic isn't so bad after all."

He choked into his coffee and looked up, but he looked past me again and apparently changed his mind about what he wanted to say. "I haven't exactly been having a great day, myself. There aren't as many confused women lifting their skirts in the oncology department. Unless you count cervical cancer, then they're all over me."

God, I couldn't laugh. I had to hold it in. Cervical cancer isn't funny. Maybe it was the way he said it, or that he was just desensitized to it after twenty years. Still, a Jimmy grin (I had missed those, come to think of it) took up residence from ear to ear.

Cameron doubled over with laughter, and handed the next card to Foreman to hold up. She's laughing because of the look on your face. Wait, how did they already have that written out? Something was fishy. Still, the next card dictated that I say, "Enjoying work after being gone so long, I take it?"

He looked past me for the third time and said, "It was only two days. Have some patience."

"I waited until the second day to get an address, didn't I?" I was paying more attention to Cameron, who looked up and past me for a moment before sniggering again. Okay, what was behind me? Both Wilson and Giggle Girl kept looking at whatever it was, but Foreman's slightly scolding face hadn't so much as flickered.

Annoyed, I started to turn around, but Jimmy put his hand over mine and, needless to say, I froze. "Um, I wanted to say…thanks?" He asked it in a question, but was looking past me again. What the hell? He nodded, very slightly, and went on, "Yes, thanks for…um, still coming to lunch. Or something."

"Are you high?" I asked, trying to see whether or not his pupils were dilated. I turned around, and nothing was out of the ordinary. "Why do you keep looking past me?"

"Don't worry about it, I'll stop." He took his hand away from mine, looking relieved. I looked at Cameron and Foreman, only to find that Chase had joined them, and the two guys were just finishing some ancient ritual secret handshake. Chase was actually smirking and looking right at me, too.

Wait a minute. Wilson and Cameron were looking past me. When I went to turn around, Wilson delayed me. And now Chase was over there, like magic, and even Foreman had his head on his arms, shaking with laughter. Hadn't Chase been talking Wilson?

That stack of cue cards was bigger than it had been before I'd turned around.

I leaned forward in my seat, and saw Jimmy get nervous. All three lackeys shushed each other and tried to listen in, but I muttered, barely audibly, "Do you really think you need cue cards to talk to me?"

Cameron, the closest, had obviously heard, and had to excuse herself to go laugh out in the hall. Wilson turned beet red, and said, "I'm done eating, are you?"

I looked down at my plate of half-finished egg salad and nodded, standing up. After we had both returned our trays, we walked the halls for about thirty seconds before he said, "That is the last time I let one of your three flying monkeys help me."

"My three flying monkeys were operating without my say," I informed him. "But thanks for the vote of confidence, it's good to know where I stand." Mmm, falling into normal conversation was proving easier than expected. It felt very, very good. "Anyway, there's no shame in cue cards. I assume that Chase was the one that suggested them? It was Foreman, on our team."

"You were using them, too? Chase didn't tell me that!" he said, far louder than necessary in the crowded hall.

"They didn't tell me, either" I reminded him. "I'm just awesome like that." We were almost to his office, and I asked somewhat nonchalantly, "Did Chase really give you orders to grab my hand if I started to turn around?"

He wouldn't meet my eyes. Was that a good sign?

"Sooo," I started again. Ask him out, maybe to dinner tomorrow, my inner cheerleader squealed. You could make out or something! "Are we friends again?"

"You know where I stand on that. I'm not the one that said we weren't."

The Jimmy grin came back, and I shrugged. "Fine, we're friends."

He smiled. I thought I was going to die of the urge to smile back.

After he had gone inside, I gave him enough time to sit down before I stuck my head in the door. "It turns out you're harder to give up cold turkey than anything else."

He cocked his head to the side, not understanding.

I took a deep breath and said, "Let's grab dinner somewhere tomorrow."