I am so so so sorry that this took so long. I'm horrible. Please forgive me and read and review this chapter.

Disclaimer: House is not mine, but Emily, Gabe, and the new character in this chapter are.


For the next several days House began his mission to get Gabe locked back up where he belonged. He spent endless hours on the phone, talking to legal experts, and doing internet research on the murder and the Cameron family, since he didn't want to approach the subject with Cameron herself. He thought that maybe someone who had been close to the ordeal might be valuable in court, and luckily for him, this information was not hard to find.

Nick and Lindsay Cameron were basically considered royalty by everyone in London, England, where they resided with their twin daughters, Allison and Emily, for 8 years. Nick was a very important man, thus they had a large staff running around their huge mansion to care to their every need.

It turned out that the girls were so popular they even had their own assistant, who was in charge of their itineraries. Taking care of all the public events they attended, and things like that.

House had decided that he would have to call on these people, whether Cameron liked it or not, in order to accomplish his task. As he picked up the phone again, he wondered when the last time she spoke to them was. Especially her father…

HMDHMDHMD

In the diagnostics office, Foreman and Chase were sitting around twiddling their thumbs. They were still waiting for a new case, and if they didn't get one soon they were going to die of boredom.

Fortunately for them, God intended to keep them on this earth for just a little while longer.

"Whoa," Chase said, looking up from his crossword. Foreman followed his gaze to the door, where there stood a beautiful blonde haired woman, who appeared to be in her 40s.

Chase dropped the crossword and clumsily got out of the chair to go greet the woman. "Hi," he said, beaming ridiculously at her. "I'm Dr. Robert Chase, can I help you?"

She smiled back. "Kelly St.Clair," she said, taking his extended hand and shaking it. "I'm a friend of Allie's."

"Oh, Cameron, right, well, she's not here right now, but I can page her for you." Chase offered.

"No, that's alright, I'm actually here to see Dr. House."

Foreman and Chase exchanged a glance. "You are?"

"Yeah, he called me, and well, I don't really want to go into the details, but basically he told me I was needed here, so I hopped on a plane and here I am."

The two men were each trying to come up with something to say to that, but their quests were ended when the doctor in question waltzed through the door. Kelly turned around and it seemed like they both immediately knew who the other was.

"Ms. St. Clair I presume?" House asked.

"Oh, please, call me Kelly. It's nice to meet you Dr. House." They shook hands, to which Foreman and Chase both raised their eyebrows, and then House spoke again.

"We can talk in my office," he said, motioning to his right. Kelly followed him into the office and House shut the door, leaving his two male ducklings still completely dumbfounded.

HMDHMDHMD

"So, this is about Allie?" Kelly asked, taking a seat across from House.

"Yes, and thank you for getting here so quickly."

Kelly smiled. "Well, I'd do anything for that girl."

It was House's turn to smile. "So, I take it you were close with her? While she lived in England?"

She sighed. "Yeah, I was. I was basically the only adult in that house that Allie and Emily could confide in."

"So then you were around her a lot after her sister was killed?"

Kelly looked him straight in the eye. "Dr. House, how exactly do you know about that?"

"I told you on the phone-"

"You told me that you needed my help to put Gabe Manning back in jail. You never told me how you found out that Gabe Manning existed."

House looked at her for a moment. Then he decided to tell her the whole story.

"Look, I found out from Cameron, or Allie, I guess you call her. She was…having a rough time of it lately and I wanted to know what was going on,"

Kelly looked surprised. "She really told you about all of this? I'm sorry, I just find that a bit hard to believe,"

"And why's that?"

She hesitated for a moment before speaking. "The whole thing was hell for her. She barely survived it the first time, and she doesn't like to rehash it, so somehow I don't see her pouring her heart out to her boss just because he notices that something is bothering her."

House had to hand it to this lady, she had spunk. "Well, what can I say, I can be pretty demanding. Besides, it's not like she had anyone else to talk to about it."

A hurt look then appeared across Kelly's face. "I tried to get her to talk to me after it happened. But she just shut down. She closed herself off from everyone. At least when she was still at the mansion I could keep an eye on her, but then when she and her mother moved back to the States she was finally able to sever all ties with us."

"By us, you mean…"

"The London World. Her father, me, the rest of the staff, her father's political friends, her own friends."

House nodded. "Ms. St. Clair," she gave him a look. "Kelly," he corrected. "I need to know everything that happened during Gabe Manning's trial."

"There's not much to tell. The forensic evidence was rock solid, he had motive, means, and opportunity, there was a witness, and the prosecutor did a great job at making him look insane. Not that that was very hard to do…" she trailed off, remembering. There was silence in the room for a moment.

"So, his sentence was 133 years, right?"

She nodded. "It was that instead of life to prevent him from making parole early. Apparently it didn't work though."

"Kelly, I promised Cameron and I'll promise you. I'll get that monster locked up again."

She smiled gratefully at him. "Well, thank you, for at least trying. And I'll be whatever help I can. Do you have any idea how you're going to get him put back in jail?"

"I've been talking to some people, and going over as much information as I could get my hands on about the case, and I think I might have an answer to that very soon."

"Good. Every minute he's free is another minute no one is safe."

House nodded in agreement, and then Kelly spoke again. "I just can't believe he showed up here. That must have been terrifying for Allie. How is she?"

House sighed. "It was a shock to her, obviously, but she's doing okay now. She's actually trapped down in the clinic right now, but if you want I can give you her home address."

"Would you? I've been wanting to see her for so long."

House took out a notepad and scribbled Cameron's address down on it. As he tore it off and handed it to Kelly he said, "and I'll be in touch as soon as I have any new developments."

"Thank you," she said, rising from her chair and exiting the office.

HMDHMDHMD

Kelly walked down a long hallway and stopped in front of the door to apartment 21. She took a deep breath. What if she doesn't want to see me? We haven't talked in years. Although it was ludicrous, Kelly sometimes thought that Allie blamed her a little bit for what happened to Emily. Not for the fact that Gabe had shot her, but in Allie's eyes, Kelly represented the reason Gabe was even in her life. Her father's politics had brought her to London, and Kelly was apart of that, she was his aide, and London was where she had met him, so for a long time she had been angry with almost everyone in that house.

Finally, Kelly lifted her hand up and knocked on the door three times. It opened, to reveal a smiling Allison Cameron. When she saw Kelly, the smile faded, and a look of shock appeared.

"Hi," Kelly said softly when it looked like Cameron wasn't going to say anything.

"Hi," she responded, equally as soft. "Come in."

Kelly stepped into the apartment and looked around. It was a nice little place she had. Very different from the mansion, but Kelly had a feeling that that was the idea.

"Can I get you anything? Coffee?" Cameron asked, her hospitality skills kicking in.

"Sure, a coffee sounds nice."

Cameron headed into the kitchen to make the coffee. Kelly moved casually around the room, exploring.

Cameron emerged a few minutes later with two mugs of steaming hot coffee, and handed one to Kelly.

"Thanks. This is a nice little place you have here."

"Yeah, I like it."

The two women stood there awkwardly for a moment before Cameron's curiosity got the better of her.

"So, why are you here?" It probably wasn't the best way to phrase it, but oh well.

"Actually, I'm here because Dr. House called."

"He did?" Cameron asked, surprise and a bit of annoyance creeping into her voice.

"Yeah, he wants my help with…y'know. The Gabe thing." Kelly said. She hated using his name.

"I see," Cameron responded. "Well, did he tell you what he's planning?"

Good. They were still capable of carrying on a conversation. "No, I told him what I knew and he said he'd be in touch. He hasn't said anything to you?"

Cameron shook her head. "No, we haven't really been talking about it much."

"That seems odd, because he's very determined to put him away again."

"Yeah, well, that's the thing. My relationship with House, it is odd."

The corners of Kelly's lips curled up. After all the time she had spent with Allie she knew when there was more to the story than she was letting on. Especially when it came to men. "Ah, yes, do tell. I've been trying to figure out what exactly the relationship is since I got here."

Cameron smiled too, and then sat down on the couch. Kelly took the chair next to it, and they both leaned towards each other a bit. "I like him. We went on one date, and then one not-a-date, but the actual date didn't go so well."

"I'm sure you could change whatever happened on the date. To tell you the truth Al, I think he really likes you, and you'd make a hot couple."

"But House isn't exactly the easiest person to get to know. He puts up these walls. I'm sure you saw the cane when you met him, and although he won't admit it, he's very insecure about that, and so he likes to keep people at a distance. He only has one real friend in the hospital. Other than that really the only people he associates with are me, Foreman, Chase, and Dr. Cuddy, his boss, and only because he has to."

Kelly listened intently as Allison talked. They had been in touch a few times in the last fifteen years. At Christmases a few times, when the holidays tempted one of them to call, or on a birthday, just to say hi. She knew that Allison worked for a top diagnostician, and she was very proud of her for that. She always knew that Allie was destined for greatness. She had this aura about her growing up in that house. Such a determination, the situations she and her sister had gotten in to, the things the staff did to help them get out of them. Those were good times…

"Well, my advice, don't give up on him just yet. He'll come around eventually."

Cameron smiled. "So," she said leaning back on the couch. "What about you? Any news worthy developments?"

Kelly and Cameron exchanged stories back and forth about their lives. Kelly was careful around the issue of her dealings with Cameron's father. She didn't really know what the status was there, but she didn't think it was good. Cameron seemed okay to listen to her talk about her political career, and the things she was up to, the occasional flames in her life. Kelly had never found the right person to settle down with. Being in London politics was a lot like being a doctor, not a lot of time for a social life. But she didn't really mind. Truth be told, she was kind of married to her job. She lived for it. It gave her such an adrenaline rush, something many people couldn't understand. All politics did was give them headaches.

After a while of sitting and talking like the old days, Cameron made a sweet and surprising offer.

"Hey, you want to see the place?"

Kelly quickly nodded in the affirmative. Although she was only 10 years younger than her, Kelly still felt protective over Allison and wanted to see how she was living. Plus, she was very grateful that they were able to spend this time together.

Cameron gave her the grand tour of the apartment, and they ended up at the back in Cameron's bedroom. Kelly was walking over to the dresser when something caught her eye.

Carefully, she picked up a silver charm bracelet from the top of the dresser, and held it in her hands. When Cameron saw what she was looking at her face fell.

"Oh," she said softly.

Kelly turned to look at her. "I'm sorry, I just…"

"No, it's okay. I take it out and put it on sometimes just to remember."

This wasn't just any charm bracelet. Emily had a matching one. Their mother had given them to them for their 12th birthday, and everytime the girls went somewhere special, they would add a charm to each of their bracelets, some of them only they understood the meaning of.

"I'm sorry that I wasn't there for you more," Kelly suddenly confessed.

Cameron looked up, surprised. "What? No, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have shut you out. You were grieving too."

Kelly gave her a small smile. "That's what I wanted you to know back then. I wanted to help. We all did."

"I know, and it means a lot to me now. Everything you all did and tried to do was so touching, it really did almost make up for dad."

"Hey," Kelly said sharply. "I know you think that he abandoned you in all of this, but he still cares Allie. He lost a daughter, but he still has a daughter left, and he values that so much."

"Then why doesn't he call? Why did he never call after mom and I left?"

"Lindsay told him to only get in touch with you if he was going to stick around. She hated how much time he spent in his work even before Emily died. If he was going to be your father, she wanted him to commit full time. When she told him that he was still in shock about Em, and wasn't really making big, rash decisions like that."

"How hard is it to decide to be a father to your child?"

"Al, you're not being fair. His whole career was in London."

"So! Mom, Em, and I dropped everything and moved there! Why couldn't he do the same?"

Kelly looked at Allison for a moment. It was so evident how much pain her father's neglect had caused her. Kelly wished there was something she could do to fix it. It was in her nature to help Allie, to fix things for her.

Cameron sat down on the bed and sighed. Kelly put the bracelet down and came over to sat next to her. They were both silent for a moment, just staring at the opposite wall.

"I'm sorry, you're right. There's no point in me getting angry with him. I can't change the past."

Kelly smiled at her. After everything that had happened, she had wished that father and daughter could have been closer, she thought it was what Emily would have wanted, but this was a start. Trying not to be angry.

"Look, I'm probably going to be in town for a while, so if you want to talk,"

"I know, thanks." Cameron said. She glanced at her watch. "It's late, I don't want to keep you. What hotel are you staying at?"

"The Marriott," Kelly responded.

"Okay, maybe we can get together. For lunch or something?" Cameron said as they stood up and walked back down the hall.

"Yeah, I'd like that," Kelly said, smiling. When the two got to the door they stood there for a moment, and then hugged each other tightly. They hadn't done that in a long time. It was nice.

"It's good to see you Kel," Cameron said. "I'm glad you're here. You've already been a big help."

"I'm glad to be here." Kelly said, and then she turned and left the apartment. Overall, it hadn't gone so bad. Maybe the two of them could still salvage that friendship they had had all those years ago.