House purposefully made his way towards the cafeteria. He had one last piece of business to take care of. As he entered the room, he noticed the surgical interns clustered on one side and immediately headed in the opposite direction. Sure enough, there sat his query, as far away from the interns as possible. Addison frowned as she absently swirled her yogurt with a spoon.

House stopped behind her chair, resting both hands on his cane. "Shepherd's an ass."

Addison glanced up, not altogether surprised. "What, no 'hello' or 'nice to see you again, Addison?'"

Settling into a chair, House answered, 'Politeness has never been my strong suit."

She smirked. "You truly have a gift for the understatement."

"I try."

Addison smiled. "It's been a long time, Greg." She nodded at his cane. "I heard about that. Did you get my gift?"

"If it was a fruit basket, I used the fruit to throw at people. And you're changing the subject."

"Not changing. Avoiding. There's a difference." Her eyes pleaded with him to let her do so. He complied, for the moment.

"I used it once."

"What?"

"The rainbow striped cane you sent me. My old one had a little accident and the replacement one pissed me off."

Addison grinned. "Did you bring it to work?"

He shook his head. "I'm not that dumb. Just to the grocery store."

Addison put her hand to her chest. "You? Grocery shopping?"

House smirked. "The kid at the cashier told me he was 'down with the rainbow.'"

Addison nearly spit her yogurt out at that, covering her mouth and nose to keep it from spilling out. House bowed his head to disguise his own grin.

"How badly did you traumatize the poor kid?"

"I made a few pithy remarks about his acne and then smacked him with the cane."

Addison shook her head, not surprised. "Let me guess, you sent James the bill?"

House pretended to be shocked. "No! That would be mean and disrespectful. I sent it to Cuddy."

"You boss?"

House nodded.

"Nice."

Across the room, the interns were watching the pair with stunned fascination.

"What the hell…?" Cristina muttered.

"What is that?" Meredith asked, looking at the others. "Are they actually having a normal conversation?"

"It looks like they're…friends," Izzie said disbelievingly.

Alex shook his head. "Figures. Satan and his whore."

"This is just weird," Cristina declared

"Totally."

Meredith sat back in her chair, biting her lip a little. "You guys don't think he's, you know, gonna tell her about what me and McDreamy did at prom?"

The others exchanged looks.

"Crap."

Across the room, House was secretly studying Addison. Or at least, he thought he was doing it secretly.

"I know you're watching me and I know why. I know about Derek and Meredith and what happened at that stupid prom. So you can stop trying to decide if you should tell me." Off House's surprised look, she explained, "I hear the nurses talk, too. And I got a visit from Dr. Torres, who also said I shouldn't blame it all on Meredith because she's not as bad as she seems."

"Addison…"

"No, Greg, it's okay. I'm okay."

"You should call Cuddy. She would literally jump for joy if you asked for a job. And that's something I would love to see."

Addison smiled sadly. "I don't know what I'm going to do. I just don't know."

House bowed his head. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry, Addie." He reached out hesitantly and rested his hand on hers.

Addison met his gaze and held it. "Me too."

---x---

"Iz! Izzie!"

Izzie slowed down, allowing Chase to catch up. "What do you want, Dr. Chase?"

"Iz, just listen to me."

"Fine. Talk."

"I'm a jerk. I know that. And what I did was wrong, leading you on like that. But I was upset about Allison and I wanted some kind of distraction. Which wasn't fair to you."

Izzie studied him. "You love her."

"I think so, maybe." Chase couldn't keep the smile off his face as he admitted that.

"It's okay, Chase. You were sort of a rebound, distraction, and way to make someone jealous, all in one."

"Good to know." Chase turned to leave, but stopped. "He loves you, Iz. I hope you know that." He walked down the hall and just before he turned the corner, Izzie yelled,

"You have really great hair!"

---x---

The Seattle Grace surgical team gathered bid House's team goodbye and House himself good riddance.

"Hey, Alex, are you free later?"

Alex was taken aback, but he nodded. "Yeah, sure. You-you wanna do something?"

Izzie nodded, biting her lip as she grinned. "Yeah. I do."

"Cool." Alex grinned back. "Cool."

Addison hung back, watching the group that she could never join, the magical little group her husband belonged to without her. She watched as House's team – minus House – said good bye to her colleagues and husband. Sighing heavily, she turned back to the nurses' desk and reached into her pocket for a pen to work on a chart. Her fingers brushed a small paper square and she withdrew it curiously. Addison grinned when she realized what it was. There was a crude stick figure drawing of a woman – presumably a doctor, since she was wearing a stethoscope – with a huge chest jumping up and down while clutching a phone. She flipped it over. It was a business card for Lisa Cuddy M.D. Underneath the name, in Greg's familiar script, it said: "You deserve better."

Addison looked up and saw Greg had finally joined his team. He caught Addison's eye on his way out the door and winked. She smiled back and fingered the card in her hand. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Derek following Meredith into an elevator. With a small nod, she pocketed the card for later.

---x---

"Hey, how's Cameron?"

"She died. Sorry we didn't mention it earlier."

Cuddy rolled her eyes. "Did you drop her off at home?"

"Nope." House jammed his thumb into the elevator button. "Chase took her. They, like, totally like each other." He entered the elevator and pushed the door close button.

"I got a call from Addison Montgomery-Shepherd." House reached out and grabbed the elevator door to keep it from shutting. "She's interested in a job here. Know anything about that?"

House smiled and let the door slide shut.

Cuddy turned to Foreman. "So how bad was it?"

"The word 'disaster' comes to mind. But he didn't kill anyone, so as well as could be expected."

"So a really big fruit basket and a thank you for not suing will cover it?"

Foreman hesitated. "Maybe you should call, too. He called the Chief of Surgery an uneducated moron."

Cuddy sighed exasperatedly and stalked off to her office.

---x---

Back in his office, House pressed the play button on his answering machine. Derek Shepherd's angry voice floated out at him, screaming about how he was an arrogant bastard, had no right to offer his wife a job, blah, blah, blah. House smacked the machine with his cane, leaned back in his chair, and pressed one of the speed dials on his cell phone. "Wilson. Wanna come over and play? I've got really good campfire stories."

---x---x---

Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed this fic. I'm sorry this last part took so long and I'm glad I finally got a chance to finish it. I hope you all like how I wrapped things up. I probably won't be writing much at all in the coming months but when I finally do start again, I hope you all read it. Thanks again!

---x---x---x---

11.1.2006 -- Just a simple request I wanted to add: if you think my story sucks, that's fine. I encourage you to tell me so. But if you you're going to say so, please do me the courtesy of explaining why it sucks. And if it's because you don't like one of the fan-doms it deals with, that's not a reason. Out-of-character lines and actions, weak storyline, those are reasons. Hating Grey's Anatomy is not. So unless you want to explain why my fics suck, please don't bother leaving reviews to that effect. It's a waste of my time and yours.