Chapter seven- the spirit.
Friday morning arrived, bringing with it the first sign of snow. A frost lay on the ground, and flakes fell from the sky, making futile attempts to stay, but still melting.
Cameron was pretty miserable to have to leave her little warm convertible, but at the promise of her morning coffee, she switched off Belinda Carlisle and made her way into PPTH, happily noticing on her way in that the maintenance guys were putting up the lobby Christmas tree. She loved the holidays.
When House arrived in his corvette, he shuddered at the prospect of getting out into the cold weather. All for what, morning coffee? Although, Cameron was making it, there's a silver lining to every cloud. So he switched off The Who and made his way into the hospital. When he reached the lobby, he realised wretchedly that the fools from maintenance were fixing a ridiculously large Christmas tree up in the lobby. He hated the holidays.
Another morning, another round of coffee. The three young doctors sat around their conference table, chatting quietly. They briefly discussed the fact that the patients condition was almost back to normal, but they then moved onto more interesting topics like the weather, the holidays, the Christmas party, and their planned evening. But Chase had to be awkward:
"So, what's going on with you and House?" Cameron looked slightly taken aback:
"What? Nothing!"
"Oh come on, I came in for coffee and the two of you were in his office, with the blinds closed."
"Come on, man leave it." Cut in Foreman, but Cameron stopped him in his defence, and spoke up to Chase:
"What do you think we were doing?"
"Uh, use your imagination" Chase mocked with an irritating smirk on his face.
"Jealous? We weren't doing anything you'd be interested in."
"Yeah, right." He replied sulkily,
"I swear, Chase, you so suspicious!" Cameron was half laughing now, as was Foreman.
"Fine."
"Oh don't be so miserable! I'm still coming tonight, aren't I?" The mood lightened considerably after that. The three agreed to meet at the bar at seven, and to stay until whenever. Foreman, as usual said he probably wouldn't be staying late. He and his girlfriend weren't really party animals.
When Wilson entered Cuddy's office that morning, he found her massaging her temples with her elbows on her desk. Her forehead was creased into that cute little expression she had when she was stressed out. It made Wilson just want to scurry over and look after his friend, and ask her out for a drink. But he knew what would happen. This was Lisa, and he'd adored her for years, but he could never act upon anything he felt. It would be inappropriate and worse, she was likely to say no, because she knew his reputation. He couldn't take that; he couldn't break the comfortable soft friendship they had. So, he didn't scurry over, he just said:
"Hey Lisa, what did House do this time?"
"Nothing. I'm stressing… over a goddamned Christmas tree!" She threw her hands up at the end of the statement.
Wilson chuckled at his friend's exasperation:
"Ok! What's gone wrong?"
"Well, I'd naturally hired someone to come decorate it for me, choose the ornaments…"
"Naturally."
"But she's cancelled. And I can't do it! Somehow everything looks the same! That's what's gone wrong" She laughed a little, but still looked stressed, the laugh was more a desperate sound, forcing her words out with it.
"I'm not sure if you'd want me to do it… trust me, you don't want House to do it. How about Cameron?"
"What about Cameron?"
"Get her to help."
"James, we're hardly close colleagues, I can't just go 'Hey, Cam, having a difficult time with the tree, care to help?'"
"Uh, are we talking about the same girl?"
"No. NO. It will get back to House. What is it with them? They were like a married couple at lunch yesterday."
"I think, he's getting in touch with his feelings. I'll go talk to her, I'm pretty sure she'd love to help. Over lunch or something."
"Thank you, but she can take the afternoon off, or she doesn't have to do clinic. She has done a ton of overtime and she's not used any of her days off. And if she carries on the way she's going she'll be in need of a shrink in less than a month, no just say for her to forget clinic for today. That way, any emergency and she can be back in the diagnostics department faster than you can say lupus. I mean, if House needs someone to make coffee in a hurry, I certainly don't want to be the one who told Cameron to go to the mall" She took a deep breath after her ramble. Wilson smiled at her softly:
"I'll tell her that. See you later."
"See you."
When House came into the office, and Cameron handed him his coffee as usual, he couldn't help but notice what she was wearing: a red sweater vest over a cream Victorian puff-sleeved shirt with little red polka dots on it, and black suit trousers. She looked fantastic, and then he corrected himself: she looked very nice. Very professional. Very Cameron.
"Good morning, House"
"Good morning, Cameron"
He sent the boys off to 'find me a patient'. He knew they wouldn't, it was a strange phenomenon, Fridays were always slow days. When they were gone he sat next to her and told Cameron to do the clinic hours again, before asking:
"Don't you get bored?"
"Of what?"
"Clinic"
"Uh, no." She laughed a little as she spoke.
"Why the hell not?"
"I enjoy my job."
"You're an immunologist, I'm pretty sure there are cooler… more immunology based things you'd rather be doing."
"I like working with people. I like people."
"Why did I even bother asking, Saint Cameron loves people!"
She smiled and shook her head. She got up. As she passed him on her way out, she trailed her hand from his shoulder, across the back of his neck to the other shoulder as she walked by and said:
"That's right."
House was still having trouble gathering his thoughts together, when he looked after her and noticed Wilson had stopped her just outside the door. He narrowed his eyes. What was this? Someone treading in his territory? What was he going on about, his territory? Cameron was nodding vigorously, and as she turned her head back to look through the glass, she was smiling, and her eyes met his. Something inside him tweaked (with, was it Jealousy?) when she turned away from him again.
House had to admit to himself, he was pretty relieved when Wilson left her about two minutes later. He was pretty sure that had Cameron so much as brushed passed Wilson, he would have become like an over protective ogre. He knew Wilson's reputation with women.
Cameron was just turning to pop her head back into the office to tell House what she was doing this afternoon when she realised that he was already coming out of the differential diagnosis room. He was pretty eager, and, dare she say it, jealous? No, she told herself, that was stupid.
"What was that about?" (Maybe not so stupid) She smiled up at him and crossed her arms.
"I got out of clinic."
"What! How?" He paused for a second "Are you having an affair with Cuddy?"
She grinned at him again:
"I've done loads of overtime, and Cuddy wants me to help her with the Christmas tree. Decorating it."
"Are you kidding? I could do that, no problem."
"Yeah, but you don't have a woman's tastes"
"Thank God"
"So, I'll still do your hours, and then I'm helping Cuddy until lunch I guess."
He was satisfied with that, and he went back into his office happily. He was concerned for a moment that Wilson's lechery had sunk to new levels of low. Snatching Cameron from right under Houses nose. One thing House was convinced would never happen.
The morning was pretty busy in the clinic for the two hours Cameron was covering for House. A lot of little kids with colds, and old people with inflamed arthritis. Cameron was looking forward to decorating the tree with Cuddy. The two had never really connected, and Cameron regretted that. She was looking forward to spending some time with the older woman and getting fully immersed in the Christmas spirit. She could only imagine the hell she would get from House if she was to tell him that.
It didn't seem like long before Cameron had finished Houses time, and ensured Nurse Brenda had it noted down should Cuddy come prowling. Due to the fact that the hospital administrator was predisposed with health and safety checks on the Christmas ornaments, Cameron didn't have to worry about Cuddy catching her doing Houses clinic hours today.
When she had replaced all the files in which she had charted, Cameron headed over to Cuddy's office. She gingerly knocked on the door.
"Come in." Cuddy was immersed in some immensely intimidating looking pile of paperwork; she didn't look up as Cameron quietly picked her way into the office:
"Um, Wilson said you wanted some help…with the Christmas tree"
Cuddy's face lit up, to Cameron's relief. Cameron always felt inadequate around Cuddy.
"Hey, Cameron, I really do… need help, I mean. I'm too stressed to even think it through. Take a look at what we've got" She stood up and gestured to her right, where Cameron noticed for the first time were boxes of Christmas ornaments.
The two women stood looking at the ornaments for a while. Cuddy had laid them out on her desk and Cameron was staring at them silently, with a furrowed brow. Cuddy was standing at the other side of the desk wringing her hands in concern. She just knew it. Cameron was going to declare all the ornaments as dated, she'd be right, and the tree would look terrible. And at the party everyone would be patronising and condescending and she would feel like a first class idiot.
"Right." Said Cameron. "If you want my opinion, use the white lights. These… the ones that twinkle occasionally…" she handed Cuddy the box "And, these baubles, the silver and the gold" two more boxes were placed in Cuddy's hands "Don't go for tinsel, go for the lametta. The gold lametta." Cameron focused on her task for a further second before concluding "And these, the red bows. Red, gold, and silver. Tasteful and 'Christmassy'… what do you think?"
Cuddy was surprised at the certainty with which Cameron had done the job in hand. She was so surprised she could only smile and say 'great' before following Cameron to the tree.