Disclaimer: Fox owns House, Md. and all of its characters. Sera and anyone else you don't recognize belong to me!

CHAPTER 13

Everyone turned to see an attractive, trim woman in her mid-forties with brown hair pulled up into an attractive French twist. Sera saw her and went rushing to her, pulling the taller woman into a big hug. "Carmela!! I am SO happy to see you!" Carmela held Sera away from her, looking her up and down. "Oh, look at you! Skin and bones! Have you eaten anything in the past five years? You look gorgeous, of course, but so scrawny!!" Carmela pulled Sera close to her for another hug.

House stood and looked at the woman he hadn't seen in nearly 20 years. The years had been really good to her. She had a few laugh lines around her mouth and eyes, but other than that, she still looked just the way she did when they went to college together.

Sera introduced her briefly to everyone in the room, except for Mitch and Dave, who Carmela already knew. While Dave was fiddling with the recorder so that they could play back Eric's statement, Sera went to ask Mitch to have his agents check the stairwell again to see if Dumas had dropped his knife. She tried to keep one eye on Carmela, who had gone over to speak to House, and the other eye on Lisa, who had been watching the proceedings quietly.

Carmela stepped over to House. "Greg, how wonderful to see you again. My goodness, you got even sexier with age!" She stood on her tiptoes and kissed House on both cheeks. House smirked at her. "So, what's with the bourgeois, faux-Euro both-cheek-kissing crap?"

Carmela rolled her eyes. She looked pointedly at his cane. "So, I heard about your leg." House looked at her balefully. "Yeah…so?" She shrugged. "So…sucks to be you, that's all." House stared at her for a moment, unable to believe what she had just said. He felt the corner of his mouth wanting to twitch upwards into a half smile and he fought it valiantly. He was saved from embarrassment by Mitch calling them over.

Mitch looked at everyone assembled at the table. "One of the forensics guys found traces of blood on the floor about 10 feet to the left of the door Dumas took Dr. Cameron through. They also found a small nick in the floor near the blood. I'm guessing Dumas dropped the knife while he was struggling with Dr. Cameron. He must have picked it up after he rendered her unconscious. We're checking the blood against Dr. Foreman's anyway, just to be sure."

Mitch was about to continue when an intern knocked on the door and stuck his head in. "I have the blood work results for Dr. Foreman." House walked over and snatched the file from the young man before making shooing motions for him to leave. House opened the file and scanned it before handing it to Eric. "Probably not a shock to anyone, but Foreman has curare in his system. I guess your boy used a dart or something." House looked at Eric. "There's more than enough in your system to have knocked you out quickly. Even though the dart only scratched you, this stuff is potent enough to that you should have dropped like a stone immediately. I don't even know why you were able to fight as long as you did."

Lisa smiled softly. House was, in his own way, still trying to reassure Eric that he had done all he could - had in fact, gone above and beyond what he could - to save Cameron. He had continually surprised her today. He had been concerned about Sera, anguished over Cameron, and reassuring to Foreman. He had even complimented Chase. He was acting all paternal, and Lisa loved it. The last time she had seen him acting like this was when Foreman almost died. He was still his abrasive self, but anyone that knew him could see the fear underneath. Fear for his team…his children.

Lisa's smile disappeared as she saw Dr. Ling lean over House's arm to look at the file he had retrieved back from Eric. She nearly snarled when she saw the woman say something to House and he smiled at her. Smiled at her! Lisa was fuming. She'd been putting up with House's crap for year - his abuse, his innuendos, his crass jokes – and he rarely graced her with a genuine smile. This woman comes in with her cute traveling suit, throws around some air kisses, and he's a friggin' marshmallow.

Sera glanced over at the table and did a double take. Lisa was glaring at….Sera followed her line of sight and grinned. If looks could kill, Carmela would be toes up by now. Sera went over to the table and slid in next to Lisa as everyone else came over to finish going over Eric's statement. She whispered to her friend, "Green is SO not your color, sweetie." Lisa blushed slightly, muttering, "Shut up, Peace!" House, glancing in their direction as he sat down, noticed Cuddy's blush and wondered about it. He cocked his head to the side as he looked at her. 'Hmm', he thought. 'I need to make Cuddy blush more often…she looks hot.' As if she heard him, Lisa glanced up. When she noticed him staring at her, she blushed even more and looked pointedly at Agent Mitch. House smiled smugly. 'Oh, yeah. I AM the man.'

Mitch looked up as another agent entered the room. At his questioning look, the other agent told him, "Sir, we couldn't find the knife, but the footprint was a Nike tennis shoe, the Air Trainer Huarache. Unfortunately, it was one of the most popular shoes sold last year…millions of pairs sold at thousands of locations. Impossible to trace. But…" The young man pulled out another sheet of paper. "We discovered traces of two different blood types."

Mitch frowned at him. "Two? Can you determine…?" The agent interrupted in his excitement. "Yes, sir! One of the samples was Dr. Foreman's blood, which we expected. But the other one is NOT Dr. Cameron's. It doesn't come up in the system, so whoever it is isn't known to us." Mitch looked at others in the room. Dave came over. "And the blood sample isn't old?" The other agent looked at Dave in disgust. "No, sir, the two blood samples are the same age."

Mitch smiled grimly. "Well, Dr. Foreman, either your punch was more effective than you thought or Dr. Cameron was able to draw blood during her struggle. Either way, we have a blood sample of our murderer."

House spoke up. "Wait a minute. You've been chasing this guy for, what…6 years? And you've never gotten any kind of sample?"

Carmela answered him. "Greg, we don't even know what he looks like. We've come close to catching him two times now. The first time, we missed him by a matter of minutes. He had left a cigarette smoldering in the ashtray and it had only burned about an inch from the tip. We weren't in time to save his victim, unfortunately.

The second time we almost caught him was 18 months ago when he kidnapped Sera. There was no warning, no bouquet of roses, nothing. He knows Sera and her abilities, so he needed to completely catch her off guard. He respected her forensic skills and her intelligence while at the same time hated her for it. About five years ago, after Dumas killed her older sister…"

House interrupted. "That's right…I remember now. That's why you went on a sabbatical. But I thought you said Dumas wouldn't need to use another pretty woman as a substitute to get back at you."

Sera answered. "He wasn't getting back at me. He was getting back at her. They did a profile on me on 20/20, and they interviewed a few friends and family, asking them about how they deal with the more grisly aspects of my job. Faith decided to basically emasculate Dumas on national TV, calling him a coward, among other things, for preying on women. I begged them not to show that segment, but the producer thought that it made for good television. I tried to get a court order, but they rushed my segment into production and I couldn't stop it. So he made her his next victim. She refused protection…she wouldn't even let me stay with her. The week after the show aired, he kidnapped her. We found her four days later, her face sliced to ribbons and a dagger piercing her heart. The producer of 20/20 apologized to me at her funeral."

House said, humorlessly, "You kicked him in the nads. It made national news." Sera shrugged. "What can I say…I was grief-stricken."

Sera continued the story. "After what happened to Faith, I decided I wanted out. So I packed up my things and left. The Feds offered to relocate me, but I refused. I didn't want anyone to know where I was. Of course, Winston always found me. I don't know exactly how, but I figured it had something to do with Jamal."

Mitch cut in, a frown on his face. "Are you saying Jamal told Dumas…"

"NO!" Sera looked shocked. "No way! I just think Dumas figured out our relationship and somehow managed to follow Jamal whenever he came to see me."

Robert looked at her speculatively. "So you had a relationship with this Jamal fellow for 3 ½ years? You told me you hadn't been in a close relationship with anyone." He looked curious and slightly betrayed.

Sera sighed. She appreciated Robert's phrasing, since it didn't give a way the fact that she was a virgin, but it also made it difficult to explain to everyone. She mentally shrugged and decided to plow on. She doubted anyone but House would rag on her about it, and she could always threaten to beat him with his cane again.

"I didn't lie to you, Rob. I said hadn't been in an intimate relationship and that I hadn't wanted to get involved with anyone because I didn't know where I'd end up. Both of those things were true. Jamal…well, he was one of my best friends. When I started working at the FBI, he was fresh out of the academy himself. We were the youngest ones on the team, so naturally we bonded. But we were just friends…buddies. I was too involved in that job and my job with the medical examiner's office to really think about relationships. But when my sister was killed, Jamal was there. He…stayed with me, he held my hand, he…he stayed up late when I couldn't…when I couldn't sleep. He held me when I had nightmares."

Lisa handed Sera a tissue. Sera took it and dabbed at her eyes. "I'm sorry – sometimes it seems like it happened a lifetime ago and sometimes it feels like it was yesterday." Lisa patted her hand. "Don't apologize. And if it's too hard to finish…"

Sera shook her head. "No…I need to talk this out. I think it's relevant, somehow. There's something that I'm missing and I just have a feeling that this history between me and Dumas is important in this case."

Sera took a deep breath and continued.

"Well, when I decided to leave, I told Jamal. He tried to talk me out of it, but I was through. I was done with Dumas, the FBI, the lectures, the book tour, the interviews…everything. Do you know how many times I heard, "You're the youngest women to ever….blah, blah, blah"? I had done so much before I even hit 30 that I felt like an old woman. And all because I could get into the psyche of a murderer and figure out what he, or she, was up to. Do you know how incredibly depressing that is? So…I can't really blame running away on Dumas, or my sister. It was…all of it.

When I told him this, Jamal said that he understood. He even helped me leave. When we said goodbye at the train station, he kissed me…a real kiss." Sera glanced at Chase. "Not a golf kiss, though." Ignoring the other confused looks in the room, Sera kept going.

"About 6 months after I arrived in Albuquerque, I got a flower delivery. Not pink roses, but a dozen lilies, hand delivered by Jamal. Now, I didn't tell him where I was going, but he figured it out. He stayed about a week, then left. He never mentioned the kiss, and I didn't bring it up. In fact, he never kissed me again until the night he proposed. Anyway, 1 month after he left, I got another delivery, this time pink roses. The note said, "I'll see you soon". So, I packed up and left the same day.

I traveled all over the country. Jamal didn't always contact me, even though I think he knew where I was, but Dumas would always make contact with me. Always with the pink roses and some note. Finally, after more than 3 years and 6 moves, Jamal found me and told me he was sick of chasing and trying to keep tabs on the woman he loved. This came as a total shock to me. I knew we were friends, and I knew we kissed once, but I didn't realize he felt that way. He took an extended leave and stayed with me for a couple of months. I fell in love with him. We still weren't intimate, but we got to know each other well. When he proposed, it was easy to say yes."

Sera stared bleakly at her folded hands on the table and whispered, "When I said yes, I condemned him…to die."