Disclaimer - See chapter 1.

Author's Note – Chapter 3 edited. This time I canged quite a bit and added a lot too. As I said when this chapter was originally published, I'm aware that this story is rather unusual, but I wanted to do something a little different. I needed Cameron's husband to return to help develop the plot. I also apologise if this chapter is a little out of character, but it is rather difficult to imagine somebody's reaction to such a situation.

Allison stared at the man sat in the bed in front of her. To anyone else he would look like just another patient, dressed in the regulation hospital gown with a slightly paler than usual face. But to Allison he was someone else completely. While some of his features had changed – his dark blonde hair had grown to below his ears and his nose looked as though it had been broken at some point – he looked otherwise the same as when she had last seen him. The familiar scar bellow his left eye from when he fell off his bike aged eight, his dark brown eyes that could be so warm when they wanted, even the way he said her name reminded her of a life before House, Princeton, or even being a doctor.

"Mark. It really is you." Cameron held her head in confusion and embarrassment. How could it be? She'd just blurted that sentence out to a complete stranger without even stopping to think.

"Yes." Allison didn't believe his reply for one moment. She wasn't even surprised that the stranger had agreed with her statement. She was so confused that all emotion and expectation had drained away from her.

"No…you're…you're dead." Cameron stumbled over the words, not believing that she was having this conversation. Feeling her legs going numb she reached for the end of the bed to support herself. She forced herself to look at the man's face again, at the face she had once adored. The face of her husband.

"Allison, I can explain." The man seemed nervous. He obviously hadn't planned this meeting and was desperately trying to find a way to escape.

Cameron completely lost her cool. All the sadness for her husband's apparent death had suddenly and painfully switched to anger. "You can explain?" she hissed furiously, "You can explain? How can you possibly explain this? You are dead. I'm standing at the end of a bed in the hospital where I am considered a respectable member of staff talking to what is most probably thin air. Any minute now somebody is going to come here and wheel me off to the psych ward. And you know what? I'll be glad when they do. Because at least that won't mean I've been married to some sick son of a bitch who thinks it is funny to pretend he has died." she paused for breath, which gave her husband time to talk.

"Allison, honey-"

"Don't you dare-"

"OK, not ready for any reconciliation." All Cameron could do was glare. "I didn't mean for this to happen. I wanted to stay with you, I promise."

By now Allison had come to terms with the reality of the situation. Her husband was alive. It was her dream had come true, only now it was a nightmare. "Somehow, promises aren't good enough anymore. Perhaps it had something to do with that whole wedding vow thing. I'd call that a pretty big promise that somehow you couldn't keep. 'Till death do us part' ring any bells? So excuse me if I don't believe you anymore."

"Technically I did die."

"And yet here you are - alive," Cameron spat.

"Only just," those two words brought her back down to earth. She tried to convince herself that this man was like any other patient. He needed her help. She just didn't know if she could give it him.

"Look, we have a lot to talk over," the bed's occupant tried desperately to calm the angered doctor down. He had been so happy with his life since he had 'left' Cameron. Now here she was, and he had a hell of a lot of explaining to do. He knew she would never believe him - she was too proud. He couldn't pretend that he wouldn't partly enjoy the pain she would feel when he revealed the truth. But there was something else nagging at the back of his mind. Now he had been found out, he wondered for the first time had what he had done been legal?

"You think?" Cameron couldn't remember a time when she had been more annoyed, "I don't even know your name anymore."

"It's still Mark. I gave a fake name to that nurse. I guess I've always been a little jumpy around hospitals since I…" he tailed off.

"Faked your death?" Cameron finished his sentence off for him.

Mark ignored her last comment. "So your Dr Cameron now?"

"Well seeing as that is my name-" She was beginning to take on House's sarcasm on as a defence of her own. It had always worked for him, but she was struggling to fight back. Her pride, her dignity, had taken a hard knock, not to mention her already fragile emotional state. She was barely able to stand up for herself.

"It's not."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, technically you're still Allison Holloway," Mark smirked slightly at the look of horror on her face.

"You mean we're still married?" Allison trembled at the thought. All these years she had wished to be reunited with her husband. Now she dreamed of having never met him. It's funny how your hopes can turn on you in a moment.

"Well you didn't get any divorce papers did you? Nope, you're still Mrs Holloway. Dr Holloway." He corrected himself.

Cameron shook herself. "He's stalling you idiot. He's trying to distract you with the petty details. Concentrate on the truth," she told herself. "Isn't it time you started that explaining? There seems to be a lot of it so you'd better make a start," she tried hard to regain control of the conversation.

"I-." The sound of Cameron's pager going off interrupted Mark. She looked down to read what it said and sighed.

"I've got to go," Cameron partly cursed House and partly praised him. While she wanted to hear the truth about such a huge event in her life, she was also unsure of how much longer she could spend in Mark's presence. She despised him, but right now she didn't truly know why.

"Her master calls," Mark called after her in a mock aristocratic accent. Cameron sighed. She really wasn't going to enjoy the next few days, and right now she had a lot of things to worry about, never mind her husbands annoying remarks.