For the last half hour Cameron had tried her best to clear the chaos that was currently residing in the kitchen. She had collected the used plates from living room and loaded the dish washer, packed up the remaining food in several care packages and cleaned the bowls and serving trays as well. Now she was nearly finished. She had started the dishwasher a while ago and was stacking up the dried dishes, while Foreman and Chase were still loading the boxes into the car.

The first people prepared to leave and, determined to speed up the process, House got up and gave a short speech thanking everybody for their attendance and their show of support. If he looked a bit longer at his colleagues at these words than the rest of his audience, nobody of the other guests noticed.

Soon it became clear, that at least some of the guests could not easily get up from the soft sofas they were sitting on. Seeing them struggle, Chase left the last boxes to Foreman and offered his help. The first lady gladly accepted his support, while the others started to gush about the nice young man with the fabulous manners. He had no problem getting her upright, but obviously she was quite stiff after first all the standing at the graveyard and now the long period of sitting on a low sofa. Since she seemed to be in quite some pain as well and not completely stable on her feet either, he insisted on walking her to the car. While she managed the flat surface better the further they got, his support was greatly appreciated on the stairs.

Her son had parked in second row to spare her a long walk, and refused to get out of the car, not even to lend a hand. Soon she was situated in the backseat according to her wish, and Chase was informed, that Mrs. Wild would drive with them and would he please be so kind and help her to the car as well. Apparently they were good friends, and had moved into an apartment together to be able to help each other out without bothering their families.

Mrs. Wild had not even tried to get up by herself when Chase entered the living room but instead waited gratefully for the nice young man to help her. Cathy was currently watched by House and Wilson and kept them quite busy, thereby excusing both of them from helping. Cameron, however, had noticed what he was doing and stepped in to help from the other side, only to be warned: "Don't touch me!"

Slightly surprised by that reaction, Cameron tried to figure out what the actual problem was and was only partly relieved to learn it had nothing to do with the fact that she was a woman as she had feared at first. Her questions quickly revealed that Mrs. Wild got dizzy quite often and recently fell, and now her shoulder hurt too much to accept any support on that side. When Cameron started to carefully palpate the area, the lady was clenching her teeth to keep from screaming, and Cameron was pretty sure that her collar bone was broken and needed to be realigned. She suspected some ribs were broken as well and neither injury had received any medical attention as far as he could tell.

House had obviously observed the process closer than anyone thought and inquired now: "Collar bone and rib fracture?"

Cameron affirmed his guess: "Most likely, I would need to see some x-rays." She was wondering how to handle the situation. It was clear that the injury had not been treated so far, but it would not help to discuss the why now and here in front of her friends. On the other hand, they could not simple just sent her home this way in good conscience.

House mumbled something, that thankfully nobody understood. The ducklings were pretty sure it was something along the lines 'stupid' or 'idiots'. Then he ordered louder again: "Wrap it up, there should be some frozen vegetables around, probably green beans, use them."

Seeing their questioning looks his mother stepped in: "My husband loved them, Greg and I – not so much. He is right, I'll fetch some for you."

"Cameron, drive with them. There is a free clinic about twenty minutes away that should be open now. Make sure, they treat her correctly and she arrives at home safe and sound. I do not want to hear a story for years that we had five doctors here and in the end something happened that could have easily been prevented." Even though House sounded gruff when he gave out his orders, all in his team had gotten the message loud and clear: These people were friends of his mother and would therefore be treated with special care.

At first Mrs. Wild wanted to disagree with his order, she did not want to impose. But Cameron insisted, that it would be an honor and a good opportunity to see how another clinic was run, and after a while she relented. She had heard that all of them were good doctors and in high positions at that hospital they worked at, and obviously they were all convinced she needed to visit the clinic, so they actually might be right.

During their discussion, House's mother had brought back several packs of frozen beans from the kitchen. Competently Chase placed them along the collar bone, and wrapped a bandage around to hold them in place. Then he quickly prepared an arm sling out of the scarf the lady had worn earlier, and assisted her to put it on and get her arm in the correct position. Thus prepared he helped her to get up.

In the meantime, Cameron had quickly packed some of the care packages and the emergency medical kit she always took along on car rides, and was soon ready to go. Together they accompanied Mrs. Wild to the car, Chase actually supporting her and Cameron walking on her injured side prepared to step in at any moment if necessary. The stairs proved to be quite difficult since she could not hold on to the railing as she was used to, but under Chase's calm instructions and guidance she managed to get down, slowly and one step at a time.

They helped her into the passenger seat, and as expected, the driver was not amused to have been kept waiting so long. Reluctantly he listened to their request to drive them to the clinic instead of their apartment, but then agreed to do so without any fuss when he realized that actually was on his way. Obviously he was a very busy man, and had to pick up his son from baseball training on time.

This gave him a clear excuse to leave them alone at the clinic as well, and soon after dropping them off he was gone. At least he had helped his mother to the waiting area first, thereby leaving Cameron free to support Mrs. Wild. Apparently he had another appointment in the evening. He had let them know, that they should not expect him to pick them up afterwards, they could either take a cab or the bus. Both ladies did not seem surprised by this behavior, so Cameron kept quiet.

She had helped them fill out the paperwork and made sure, both ladies were fine as far as possible on their seats waiting for their turn. As she had expected, the doctors and nurses were completely overworked and would definitely not be able to see everybody before closing time in an hour. So she went to the counter and offered her services for the evening, hoping to speed up the process.

It took a moment to clear all legalities and find the person responsible to allow her request, but upon seeing her license they gladly accepted the help and soon she was treating one patient after the other. She was quite used to that kind of work from Princeton Plainsboro, especially while working under House she had filed numerous hours in the clinic to cover his hours as well. With her usual efficiency she managed to observe Mrs. Wild's case while treating her patients with care and compassion.

They did not close the clinic exactly on time, but they did not run over by much. Thankfully Mrs. Wild's break had not been as bad as she had feared at first, and she would not need to be treated in a hospital. They had been able to set the bone without an operation, and wrapped her shoulder tightly. Additionally they had given her a brace for her ribs, and, equipped with several sheets of instructions and a prescription for some pain medication, they were sent on their way.

Without asking for their opinion Cameron ordered a cab to take them to a pharmacy first and then to their place.

Upon seeing the state of their apartment, she decided to stay for a moment. It was late Friday afternoon, and Cameron was grateful for the internet and its 24/7 availability, which allowed them despite the time to set up some assistance services, the ladies were eligible for. Starting the next week, their food would be delivered by meals on wheels and some students from the area would help with the rest of the shopping and clean the apartment for a small fee. This program had been started in the college a year ago, and was part of an intergenerational study, so the students would mainly be rewarded in credits. They both had obviously done their best in keeping things going, but carrying something, bending down or stepping on a ladder was just not possible anymore and their families were not willing to do more than very occasionally offer their driving services.

She had still time to clean out the fridge, taking out all of the trash bags that had accumulated over the time and make a halfway decent dinner out of the few things that had not gone bad. While she was cooking she had instructed Foreman to bring some groceries when he picked her up later. The ladies had enjoyed the company as well as the meal and were sad, when Cameron had to leave shortly after Foreman had arrived, and they had unloaded the food, but hopefully with young people around regularly, their situation would improve.


At House's parents' house it had taken nearly another hour until all the guests were gone. Thankfully the others had been in a better condition. While several of them needed help getting up from the sofa and down the steps outside and many were very grateful for the care packages, nobody else needed direct medical attention or a hospital visit. Foreman had started lending a hand as well and even though he did not as easily manage to joke with the ladies as Chase did, they appreciated his help gladly.

Afterwards both of them loaded the furniture Foreman had earlier taken apart into the trailer, and together they finished that task quickly. Cleaning up the living room and the kitchen took more effort. While Cameron had done a great job with the plates and the cake before she left, now all the clean dishes needed to be put away. Additionally the living room was still littered with glasses and a few remaining plates, that had been in use during the earlier sweep. House's mother took care of the already clean dishes, which left Wilson and David to collect the used ones and to load the dishwasher, while Foreman and Chase tried to put back the chairs and tables where they belonged according to House's instructions.

In the end it had taken more than an hour before finally everything had been done and the colleagues could get on their way. Cathy did not feel the need to say goodbye to anyone in the town, obviously not even to House's mother, who seemed not surprised by that at all. Nestled against Chase's shoulder again, she watched them getting ready to leave and was visibly relieved when she did not have to walk on her own.

Chase had parked the car close to the house earlier after most of the guests had left, when he had loaded the last items like Cathy's car seat, and House clearly appreciated the effort. Since his mother had been watching, he had not accepted any help on the stair case, but had not admonished Chase for being nearby either. To their astonishment, Wilson had looked relieved when Foreman kept at his side as well.

Since they were not sure how well Cathy would be tolerating the long car trip, House joined her in the back again and Wilson got to drive shotgun with his seat scooted forward as far as he could tolerate to give House more leg room. When Chase switched on the radio – for once not fighting with House over the station – and started driving, all of them relaxed.