Chapter 4

A/N: Thanks for being patient! I just graduated from college and start a new job on Monday so I'm a little nervous and preoccupied. Hopefully I will still have new chapters posted tomorrow and Tuesday or Wednesday. I PROMISE there will be more House/Cameron interaction in the following chapters and even though House is recovering, there will be plenty of angst ahead!

Much later that evening Cameron sat reading beside House's bed, waiting for him to wake up. She had spent the majority of the afternoon in the comfortable chair reading, doing a crossword puzzle and trying to make a dent at the charts piling up on House's desk to be properly filed.

"You're pathetic."

Cameron jumped at the mumbled words of her boss and dropped her book on the floor. "Hey," she whispered, "how are you doing? You gave us a hell of a scare."

House ignored her question and regarded her tired face and messy hair through half-lidded eyes, "You should have run for the hills as soon as you knew there was a chance you could have gotten rid of me forever." He fingered his neck gingerly noticing the thick bandage and the dull pain in his abdomen. "I guess I'm not dead. I always figured heaven would have considerably more scantily clad women than this." He motioned to his roommate who was an elderly woman in a hospital gown and Cameron in her scrubs.
"But since you are here I guess I'm not in hell either."

"You're an ass." Cameron stood and gave him a soft kiss on his clammy forehead. "Are you in much pain?"

"Nothing a little morphine can't cure." He motioned to the automatic PCR machine beside his bed and Cameron pushed the button delivering more pain meds into his system. "What happened?"

"You were shot twice; one in the abdomen and once in your neck. The bullet missed anything major in your abdomen and the one in your neck damaged your jugular vein. Since this all happened in the hospital they were able to control the bleeding much faster but you did need a transfusion in the OR." Cameron lightly took his hand again, "Do you remember any of it?"

"Not really, I remember that guy asking for me then laying on the floor waiting for the next bullet." House noticed the tears gathering in her eyes but she quickly blinked them away and covered it up with a cough.

"Did you know him? Security was able to get a good picture of him on the outside camera but…" She trailed off not really wanting to tell him that the gunman got away.

"He got away." If House was alarmed by this he didn't show it, "Figures. I vaguely recognize him but can't picture it. Was he a former patient?"

"Not sure. The police are going to put his face on the eleven o'clock news and see if anyone can provide a name." Cameron looked at her watch, "It's almost eleven so hopefully we can have some more information by tomorrow. Do you want…" she stopped, realizing that House had fallen back to sleep from the pain meds and exhaustion. She sat back down in her chair and pulled the extra blanket the nurse provided for her across her legs and felt herself drifting off after him.

MDMDMDMDMDMDMDMDMDMDMDMDMDMDMDMDMDMDMDMDMD

"Dr. Cameron, wake up." Cameron opened her eyes reluctantly and was ready to slap the source of the voice but then realized it was Dr. Cuddy. She pulled herself up gingerly, her body aching from spending so much time in the chair. "I'm up." She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and looked at the older woman expectantly, "did they find anything else out?"

"Yes, the police received several calls overnight about the man on the security tapes and they think they have a positive identification." Cuddy saw the look of confusion flicker across Cameron's face and quickly explained, "Its six in the morning."

"Oh. I slept longer than I thought."

"The man is supposedly named Jack Morarity and his wife was a patient of House's a few years ago. We pulled the file and saw that you and House treated her a week before Chase came on board and six months before Foreman."

"Did you say Morarity?"

Cuddy nodded. "Her name was Emily and she died from massive internal bleeding following the rupture of her left fallopian tube."

"I remember her. She had an extra-uterine pregnancy, an ectopic pregnancy, and the tube burst long before we saw her. House and I were doing a shift in the ER that night because they had a mass trauma and needed extra hands. I remember he was especially thrilled to be working in the trenches," Cameron rolled her eyes, "he bitched the whole time but he never compromised patient care. The woman waited a long time after the pain started before coming in to the hospital. We had no idea she was pregnant and she presented like some sort of head trauma because she was unresponsive and her blood pressure was dangerously low. We tried to resuscitate her but couldn't, that's when House noticed the distention in her low abdomen. He ordered a portable ultrasound stat and we saw the ruptured tube and copious amounts of free blood around the internal organs." Cameron shuddered at the memory, "That was the first time I had ever seen a doctor try to perform an ovariohysterectomy in the emergency department. We tried everything we could to save her, but it was too late. This husband showed up five minutes after we pronounced her."

Cuddy looked at the chart again, "He apparently blamed House for the death of his wife and child."

Cameron nodded, "He was understandably upset when we told him she had lost too much blood to save her. I tried to explain to him that the pregnancy started off in the fallopian tube instead of the uterus and that because Emily didn't know she was pregnant, she delayed in getting to the ER when the pain started on her left side. It is very rare, and very sad but it happens."

"Well, apparently that explanation wasn't good enough for Mr. Morarity." Cuddy hesitated and looked at the sleeping House, "He also has a warrant for aggravated assault and robbery of a gas station clerk a few months ago. He has been eluding the law quite frequently actually. The police are still searching for him and hope to get him before he hurts anyone else."

T.B.C…