They walked across the street to the diner. It probably didn't bode well that the last time House remembered being visiting the place, was the day Stacy had told him she thought it 'wasn't working any more'. The memory of her pale, frozen face and silent tears still haunted his dreams sometimes, although when he relived it now he always said the right thing, always caught her hand when she got up to leave him instead of watching her go. Avoiding the fateful booth, he took at a seat at the counter and watched as Isabel did the same, flipping her curtain of long dark hair over her shoulder. There was a moment or two of awkward silence before the waitress came to take their order.

"Just a black coffee, please."

House nodded for the same noting, as he did so, Isabel checking her watch for maybe the third time. She had already made one phone call, to who he didn't want to guess, and now seemed a little on edge. Had she called Cameron, blown her off, lied to her? Or had she told her the truth and was now anticipating the fall-out. Watching her curiously, House wondered again at their relationship. Wasn't the familial bond supposed to be the closest of all? So why hadn't Cameron mentioned that she had a siblings before, let alone that she had a sister.

"You said she was your only sister. Do you have brothers?"

Half turning towards him, it was Isabel's turn to look surprised.

"Boy, you really don't know a lot about her do you?" A curious smile tugged at her lips, for some reason it made him a little uncomfortable. She shook her head, "Uh...no. We have a step-brother, Matty, but he's a lot older. I sometimes wish we had though. Maybe we'd have been better prepared."

"For living with us?"

She smiled, "For coping with your caprices. Ours was kind of an unhealthily feminized household. We loved men and we loathed them. Or at least Mom and I did. I think Ally's always been a lot less judgmental."

Their coffee arrived and, pausing to add more sugar than seemed really necessary, Isabel frowned.

"Can I ask you something now?"

"You don't strike me as someone who usually bothers to ask permission."

"I'm being polite."

"Ha!" House tapped his fingertips against the side of his cup. 'What happened to your leg' was the normal standard of course, closely followed by 'why are you such an asshole'. He wasn't sure why, but somehow he doubted Cameron's sister needed to know the answer to either.

"You said before that you thought Ally was broken..." Her voice was soft. Curious. Drawing herself up in her chair, she stirred her coffee slowly, "What has she told you about Michael?"

Michael. If truth be told, he had never even thought to ask his name. Cameron's dead husband. Somehow it had always seemed simpler to imagine him in the abstract; a caricature of a cancer patient rather than a flesh and blood human being, but now, almost despite himself, he found his curiosity piqued. Lacing his fingers around his coffee cup, House dabbed at the grains of sugar on the countertop with a fingertip.

"Not much. She met him at college. He was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. She married him. He died." Turning his gaze back towards her, he raised an eyebrow, "Did I miss anything out?"

"She told you they met at college?" Isabel's eyebrow matched his own, "But did she tell you he was her tutor?"

He wanted to smile, although he realised nothing was funny. That Cameron hadn't mentioned her husband's age or the circumstances of their meeting didn't exactly surprise him. After all he hadn't exactly pried the information out of her in the first place: she had been ready to tell someone at PPTH and he, he had just been conveniently located when the water finally overflowed the dam. That she hadn't offered it later wasn't too much of a shock either. The fact that she also had a history of being attracted to authority figures would only have added to his brutal sketch of her phychological make-up.

"Ally met him her first year at Michigan. Michael was forty-one, divorced, alone and still working, even though he'd lived with cancer for almost a year. He was brilliant and she worshipped him." Isabel cocked her head to one side, "He was the one who persuaded her to specialize you know? She had no real direction before she met him: she just knew she wanted to be in medicine. Michael looked past the pretty package and saw a great doctor. someone who could really make a difference."

"He sounds like a saint."

He hadn't meant to sound so sarcastic, but the words just came out that way. Pursing her lips, Isabel shook her head.

"He wasn't. If I'm honest, I don't think I ever liked him. There was something about him that defied it, you know? He was all angles, all edges, " she gave a low laugh, "To be truthful, I thought he was an selfish, arrogant cocksucker and I told her so. But you know Ally, when she sets her mind on something...

When he finally had to stop teaching, she moved in with him. Mom and I tried to talk her out of it, but she was adamant she could care for him and still keep up her studies. It was her idea that they get married. I used to think she did it just to keep his name, but she dropped it again after he died. "

The waitress returned to bring them a refill and, covering his cup with his hand, House gave a small shake of his head. Beside him, Isabel looked silently into her own coffee before lifting it up to drain the last drop and once again he was struck again by the familiarity of her features. Her profile was smooth and porcelain and, if he was totally honest, a little smoother, a little more refined than her sister's. Her long dark hair smell faintly of violets, her large blue grey eyes were perfectly made-up and free of dark circles and her mouth, her mouth was a firm, red curve where Cameron's was soft and pale. The differences were subtle, but the more he looked now, the more he saw. Isabel O'Connell was eight years older than her sister, closer to his age, closer to his height, smart, funny and self-assured and maybe the first woman he'd had an open, honest conversation with in five long years. The fact that every word of it had been about another woman failed entirely to strike him as ironic.

XXX

The low, rhythmic banging dragged him slowly out of a sound sleep. Cracking open one eye, House tired to focus on the glowing face of the clock on his night-stand, before finally giving up and reaching for it. 1.32am. The banging ceased for a moment and then continued afresh, as he gradually became aware of its source. Dropping the clock to the floor with a low moan, he rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. 1.32am. Who the fuck was hammering on his front door at 1.32am?

The air outside his bed was bone-cold and, pulling on a pair of sweats and a second t-shirt, House limped painfully through to the front room. The pain in his leg was always worst in the early hours of the morning, which was why he normally chose to sleep through it and, pausing to locate his phial of Vicodin on the kitchen counter, he palmed two and slapped on the faucet to fill a glass of water. He'd just located a clean tumbler when the noise started up again.

"Holy fucking CHRIST!" Smashing the glass back down, House dry swallowed the pills on his way from the kitchen. The bitter taste saturated his tongue, making him gag and, grimacing, he threw open the door, "This better be a fucking life and death emergency..."

The sentence hung unfinished in the air. Standing on his doorstep in the pouring rain, Allison Cameron's hair was plastered to her head, one white-knuckled hand raised in the act of battering his door down. The grey sweat-suit she was wearing was soaked black and, as he opened his mouth to demand an explanation, she stepped towards him with an expression of furious anger.

"How fucking dare you!"

Planting both her hands on his chest, she shoved him backward, but, even with one bad leg, her strength was no match for his bulk. Grabbing her shoulders, House tried to hold her back, but her skin was wet and her sweat-suit slipped off one arm.

"You son of a bitch! Who the fuck do you think you are! What the fuck..." her eyes flashed silver-grey in her pale face and she clawed at his fingers, "Are you just...what! What is it? I mean what is fucking... WRONG with you!"

He stepped back, letting her hands drop. Behind her, the door was still yawning wide open, the icy rain slanting inwards and, stepping around her, he pushed it closed. Picked up his cane from the floor. Her back was turned towards him, her slim shoulders bare and slicked with rain. He could see her shaking.

"You're cold."

"No..." Rounding on him, her hands balled into fists, "No, I'm just really. fucking. angry."

"Your lips are blue and your fingernails are white. You're cold."

Limping past her, House walked out to the bathroom and fetched a clean towel from the radiator. When he handed it to her, she took it without a word. A small puddle of water had formed around her feet and watching it grow, he frowned. His every instinct told him to get her out of her freezing wet clothes and get her dry and warm immediately, but the idea of suggesting that seemed about as wise as her decision had been to come here. Instead, he poured them both a whiskey.

Her hands wrapped around the glass were the colour of ivory.

"OK, so...want to take that again?" Taking a seat on the couch, House placed his glass carefully on the table in front of him. When she didn't answer, he tapped the crystal softly with a fingernail. The sound was like a distant bell. "I think you got as far as...'what is fucking wrong with me'? Although there were some more expletives, you may have even finished that part. I forget..."

Her chin lifted. She of the pale, soft, little mouth. As if he could ever forget.

"Is nothing sacred to you?"

Her voice was steady, no trace of a tremor. Pulling the towel a little tighter around her shoulders, she locked eyes with him. The anger in them was only slightly lessened by the desperation.

"I mean, I've always known you were a heartless sonofabitch, but this? This is below even you."

"Believe me when I say that nothing is below me..."

"Oh, cut the bullshit will you!" She almost spat the words, "Your games won't work with me and you know it. You want to fuck with my head at work, that's fine? I signed up for that the day I passed your screwed up little interview process. But I am not Chase. You can't just...push my fucking buttons to see what happens. Because you're curious, or because you're so damned...miserable that you wish everyone else there with you. Outside work? You stay the hell away from my private life, do you hear me?"

Taking a mouthful of whiskey, House let the liquid leak down the back of his throat. The pain in his leg was still nagging at him, but his tried and tested alcohol/Vicodin combo was starting to help. What wasn't helping though, was the sight of pale, shivering young woman dripping water onto his living room floor.

"Sit down Cameron. You're messing up the rug."

And for a moment he really thought she would. Something in her eyes flared that he recognised, something that resonated; a deep painful echo inside him. Pulling the towel from her shoulders, she let it drop to the floor.

"Go to hell," she said quietly.

She let herself out.