Intense

—passionate in emotion, thought, or activity; occurring or existing in a high degree; very strong, violent, extreme, sharp, vivid, etc.—

Disclaimer: I don't own House, M.D. and no copyright infringement intended.

A/N: It's been a long time since I updated so if you guys are just getting back to this story, it might be helpful to skim through the last chapter to remind you of what's going on. Hopefully there're still some of you guys around, or maybe new readers. On a total side note, the last episode ("Don't Ever Change") is my favorite from this season. It played out suspiciously like a HouseWilson fangirl's dream and the Chase love was a nice bonus too, though I dearly miss House's original team. As usual, please keep in mind that this story was created at the beginning of season two and reflects events only up until that point.

Chapter 8: Friendly

Three days and one case later, Cameron found herself asking herself the same exact question for the thousandth time since she had been accepted onto House's team.

Why House?

So she had wanted the position for the prestige, the pay, and of course the chance to work with one of the best. So she had valid, common reasons, backed up by the fact that she hadn't been fazed by House's non-medical reputation. From the very beginning, she had been drawn to this particular doctor, even when she knew logically that while House was good, while House was even amazing, he was really only one of the best. This necessarily implied that there were others who she could have wanted, who were also some of the best, who had wanted her and would have treated her better. So, indeed, why House?

Originally, her reasoning had all been about the medicine, about things like career advancement, specialization, experience. Something during the interview she had with House had provoked her, though, the same kind of something that had made her want to go into diagnostics in the first place. House was a challenge, one she knew wouldn't be easy, and that had somehow factored its way into everything. It explained somewhat why she put up with him even when it seemed almost masochistic to do so.

After all, the unknown was really just the not yet known, not the unknowable.

Diagnostic immunology was all about techniques that relied on the specificity of the bond between antibodies and antigens. That was what made it so well-suited for the detection of even the smallest of amounts of biochemical substances. Recognition of an antigen by an antibody tagged it for attack by other parts of the immune system, which would neutralize foreign objects such as bacteria and viruses. Immunology was bitter war on a miniature scale, molecule against molecule, and identification of the enemy was a crucial first step in any war.

If she thought about House in the terminology of her field, Cameron reflected, he would definitely be the antigen that was provoking her defensive responses. Despite knowing full well the tension between Chase and herself, and despite being partially responsible for causing it, he deliberately threw them together as much as possible.

The past three days were those of constant irritation over her own broken arm, which hindered her ability to do even simple tasks just enough that she felt useless. Aside from her contributions to the differential diagnoses, Cameron, by default, became the gopher who ran around getting test results back and taking care of the paperwork side of things.

House and his team had been occupied with a case of suspected acute asthma exacerbation which had turned out to be aspergillosis. Despite the demands of the work, there was still quite enough time for Cameron to thoroughly contemplate her failures—as a doctor, as a woman, as a friend, and even her failure as just a decent, moral human being.

Why House?

All attempts at identification of the problem led back to this question. She had to admit that she didn't have any feelings for him in the romantic sense any more, so then why had she so stupidly involved herself, House, and Chase in such an awkward situation? Unlike her female friends, she had never been one for causing drama, either intentionally or otherwise.

Diagnosis, definition 1: The recognition of a disease or condition by its outward signs and symptoms.

Diagnosis: definition 2: The analysis of the underlying physiological/biochemical causes of a disease or condition.

House had injured her pride when they had broken up, however briefly their relationship had lasted in the first place, but that wasn't the underlying cause. She had kissed Chase knowing House was there but not because House was there.

The worst part was that Chase had every right to be mad at her and yet he didn't seem to be. He was just distant, inattentive, and it was all only to her personally, not in any other way. Their professional relationship was still better than most; they worked well as a team. It was just that she hadn't realized how much those little things had mattered to her, like the way he would remind her in various ways that he was there, or the way he would show that he appreciated her, as a friend or otherwise.

It would have been easier to take his anger than his disappointment, and it would have been easier to take disappointment than to have nothing at all.

Between all of this, Cameron knew. Somehow the question had changed from "Why House?" to "Why Chase?"

xxxxx

The 19 year old patient hadn't been the biggest of challenges. He had been diagnosed with asthma as a baby but had never had problems with it until a few weeks before he ended up in the hospital. Within a week, he had presented to the ER no less than five times, presumably because of acute asthma exacerbation. All the symptoms, such as shortness of breath and near syncope fit with asthma. While it was unusual that he had an elevated white count with 50 eosinophils, it was also explained away by asthma exacerbation.

The poor guy had ended up in House's gleeful hands. At first, the team had gotten sidetracked with the discovery that he had given his girlfriend a flying squirrel for a pet about a month prior to the hospital admission, especially since the squirrel was from southeast Asia. In the end, Occam's Razor was the principle to keep in mind.

Fortunately for the patient but unfortunately for House, the case turned out to be a fairly straightforward one of allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis, or ABPA. The diagnosis had been made and confirmed by a culture rather than some intuitive leap of insight; the simplest solution was the best. Cuddy was delighted and House was most definitely not. The fungal infection was rare, but the asthma had made the patient more susceptible to it. While House was somewhat mollified that he finally got a genuine case of aspergillosis, the patient hadn't been interesting in any other way and House could have treated aspergillosis in his sleep.

Cameron ended up in the conference room with the other two, but with House thankfully absent, having been persuaded into doing his clinical rounds by Cuddy's intensively disapproving glare. Foreman turned to her, clearly almost as bothered by the uncomfortable politeness between his colleagues as they themselves were, but much more free to express it.

"What's going on?"

Cameron willed herself to calmness and was gratified that her voice was smooth when she spoke, although her answer might have been a heartbeat or two later than normal. "Are you talking about the patient or something else?"

"What do you think I'm talking about?" Foreman asked. The look in his eye was slightly annoyed, slightly sympathetic. "So then, what's going on?"

"Nothing," she said, injecting a faint hint of surprise into her tone, as if questioning why he would even ask. Immediately, she realized how futile it was. She turned away, unsure of her control over her expression and thinking that the smile on her face might have looked a little too plastic.

"Okay, let me clarify. I really don't care what's going on, but I do hope that nothing gets resolves soon," Foreman said bluntly.

Cameron debated telling him to mind his own business, but she would have to look at Foreman to effectively do so, and she was unnerved suddenly by the fear that Chase was looking at her, right now, even as she kept her eyes on the papers beneath her pen.

"You could ask Chase." Cameron saw Foreman's grimace and felt slightly vindicated, but it would have been better if he hadn't brought up the subject at all. Now Chase was tense, his whole posture stiff with disgust that felt to Cameron as if it were offensively aimed at the both of them.

Foreman shouldn't have had to ask any questions at all. House was a disease of a rare and sophisticated form, and the sufferers could all too easily identify the progressive symptoms in others. But this, of course, only satisfied one definition of diagnosis.

Cameron ignored the other two and turned back to the paperwork, but when she left the stifling room for her break, she let herself succumb to the invisible pressure that she was fairly sure only she felt. The only good thing about her broken arm was that now she could use it as her excuse, backed up by her healing bruises, which were a spectacular yellow-purplish-blue. Cuddy okayed her early departure and Cameron left without saying goodbye to House or the others, her tolerance for dealing with them at a vanishing point.

Unfortunately, House had always had some special ability that often made him seem to be as omnipresent as God, at least in the hospital.

xxxxx

Three days and one case later, House had too much time on his hands. He left Foreman to monitor the patient's vitals, noted that Cameron made a not-so-secretive visit to Cuddy, and sent Chase off to clinic duty in his place. The problem with Wilson's metaphor of the ducklings, House mused, was that it implied that he should be cast in the mother duck role. He would have preferred to be the annoying dog chasing the fuzzy yellow ducklings into the pond. Wilson was a better mother duck, but a small part of House admitted that his team had grown on him. So, since he most definitely wasn't the sort to be kind and nurturing, he simply had to apply his own methods in caring for his wayward team.

He intercepted Cameron in the hallway and noted that she already had her lab coat off, as if she couldn't wait to rid herself of that symbol of doctordom, the implied knowledge and authority of the physician. Cameron looked not so much surprised as resigned when he fell in step with her, deliberately waiting a few extra steps before he so much as spoke.

"Suffering from white coat hypertension, Dr. Cameron?" He grimaced at her fatigued appearance as if in sympathy. The words took longer than they should have to sink in but once they did, Cameron's countenance became slightly strained. House gestured to the general hospital around them. "You would think that spending so much money to make this not look like a clinical setting would cut down on the phenomenon."

"What's your point, House?" Clearly, Cameron was in no mood to appreciate his wit.

"Or is the anxiety caused not by the clinical setting but by the presence of certain doctors? I've always been curious about what a white coat effect would be for doctors rather than patients. Maybe they'd exhibit decreased blood pressure instead of elevated levels since the hospital's just like home to them."

"House, I'm leaving," Cameron snapped, walking faster. "Go back and harass the people in the waiting room, or go play with Wilson."

House lifted one shoulder half-heartedly in a shrug, stopping abruptly so that Cameron instinctively stopped as well. She turned to face him with a nearly murderous expression, miffed that she had fallen for his trick. House simply smiled with his best innocent expression. "Can I tell him you suggested it?"

"Better yet, take a couple of pictures and send them to Chase," she suggested acidly, and then looked as if she regretted involving the person in her retort. House let it slide since she looked as if a gentle push would send her tumbling.

"Read the file, Cameron. I know you still have it."

She gave him a dark look and then firmly ignored him as she opened the door and walked out. House whistled cheerfully as he made his way back to his office, slightly feeling the same things he did after diagnosing one of his patients—a mixture of smugness and relief at being undeniably right.

xxxxx

"You like her," Wilson commented, and let it hang like that, not quite a statement but not quite a question. House chose to answer it anyway.

"Of course I like her. I wouldn't keep her otherwise."

"She's not a pet, House."

"I never said she was. You implied that she was just now."

"All right. You like her, so why did you end it? It wasn't a matter of screwing up, House, I know you too well for that. You decided when you went into it that you would end it, so why go into it in the first place?"

"Why watch Cuddy when you know she's not the least bit interested in you?" House shot back.

"Because she's—" Wilson cut himself off and narrowed his eyes at House. "There," he finished. "That's totally different, House. You don't agree to be with someone just because they like you. You're not that considerate."

"But she is, isn't she? She's too good. Too ethical, too soft, too caring," House paused. "Possibly too much like you, but without someone like me to tone down that idealism. She wants to heal the world, one person at a time, and I'm on the top of her list."

"So you dated her because she was interested in you and then you dumped her because you think she's not interested in you?" Wilson's skeptic tone pointedly ignored House's criticism of him.

"Cameron wants to heal Chase now," House pointed out, something like disdain but possibly pity in his voice. "Whatever's going on is between the two of them. I get to sit back and watch the fireworks."

"You really find them that fascinating?"

"Why else do little girls put Ken and Barbie together?" asked House nonchalantly.

"They grow up to find out that Ken and Barbie divorced," Wilson retorted. "You've been bringing up Chase and Cameron every time I see you, House. It's not like you. You haven't even said anything about the last case you had."

House gave an exaggerated yawn. "That's because it was an open and shut case of aspergilliosis. The only thing cool about it was the flying squirrel and that had nothing to do with it. Anyway, Cameron is about to find out about Dr. Rowan Chase."

"She what? House, did it ever occur to you that I ranted about patient-doctor confidentiality the last time you asked about Rowan Chase because it's important? If he wanted Chase to know, he would have told him himself. But no, you just went ahead and told his son's non-official girlfriend that, by the way, if it ever came to marriage she never has to worry about the father in law. What the hell were you thinking?"

Wilson was definitely pissed, but House was used to Wilson being pissed. "I'll diagnose Cameron while you shut up and listen. Cameron is the kind of person you hate for trying, but can't help but care when she gradually stops. You despise her for hoping, so then your disappointment is all the more bitter in the end because you realize that you were hoping. But to a person who's already given up long ago, there's nothing better than someone who absolutely refuses to give up."

Wilson stared at House for a long moment as if to examine the sincerity of the blue eyes looking steadily at him, and then sighed. "House, that's either the dumbest or most insightful thing that's ever come out of your mouth, but I have a diagnosis for you, too. Give up your games, stop treating your team like your patients, just…give up. You're like a child who doesn't realize that there's a breaking point to your favorite toys if you play too much with them."

"Little girls put Ken and Barbie together," House said nonchalantly.

"And grow up to find out that Ken and Barbie divorced," Wilson retorted. "Are you seriously comparing yourself to a child and

"You never know, they might be better off," House said, to Wilson's chagrin.

xxxxx

There was a message on her answering machine when she got home and Cameron stood in front of it, looking blankly at the blinking red light for a moment before she even reacted. She hadn't gone straight home after leaving the hospital, knowing that she had left Chase's file there and feeling provoked by House's last demand that she read it. It was probably House again, calling to add to her misery. For a moment Cameron contemplated directly erasing it, but she was too punctilious for that. She let it play.

Beep. "Allison, it's Chase."

The distinctive Australian accent she secretly liked so much; she only knew one person that spoke like that. It's Chase. As if she could ever mistake him for anyone else. There was a pause of a few seconds before the message continued, during which Cameron could have sworn, contrary to her medical knowledge, that her heart utterly stopped for a prolonged moment before it resumed beating, but shakily.

"I'm calling to let you know that I'm covering for you tomorrow morning, so you don't need to come in. Cuddy already okayed it and told me that you'd left. Get some rest."

The answering machine continued and Cameron automatically replayed the message, listening to it as if it were a code she had to decipher, finding it hard to take in the words. The brief hope that she'd had flickered, died, and then revived as her mind busily sorted through different strands of thought.

Her pessimistic first assumption was that Chase didn't want her at the hospital because he, like her, couldn't stand their working, perfectly professional relationship any more. It had to be as stressful for him as it was for her, but Chase had experience, didn't he? It wasn't like he hadn't been hiding the depth of his interest for her. She hadn't realized until recently that their relationship had never felt strictly like a friendship because even then she had sensed something different from him.

Maybe it was a peace offering, Cameron thought, a way to quickly make up or at least pretend to smooth things over without actually resolving anything. Both of them had a vested interest to drop the matter. Both Chase's gesture and his ambiguous motives caused a welter of confused feelings in her. It showed he still cared and was still caring for her, but he was still putting distance between them.

He could have called her cell phone. He could have added a goodbye or otherwise softened the brusqueness of his last words, and yet the concern made her ache with the certain knowledge that Chase wasn't so much angry at her as hurt by her.

The innocent looking manila mocked her from where she had placed it on the countertop. She didn't understand how Chase could be so forgiving of her or why he liked her as much as he evidently did. Neither did she understand how her feelings for House could have disappeared as if they had never been more than an immature crush, or when Chase had increasingly become important to her. He had always seemed to be the opposite of House, undemanding and doing what was necessary in the background, like keeping the patient alive until the right diagnosis was made.

It used to bother her how Chase did whatever House asked, as if he either didn't care or was simply that yielding. But the more she got to know Chase, the more she realized it wasn't as simple as it appeared. Cameron always tried to understand House, Foreman always argued with him, and somehow, in some way, Chase trusted House. Then he had watched her date House.

The temptation to skim Chase's information was maddening, particularly so because she knew she would never have even been tempted if she had gotten, say, Foreman's file instead. A tiny part of Cameron knew that she could have gotten rid of the file before now if she had really wanted to.

With a sigh, Cameron flipped open the innocent looking manila folder and took out the surprisingly thick pages, strengthening her resolve not to actually look at the information. She had one of those cheap shredders that topped out at five to six sheets and had problems with staples if she tried to feed it thicker files. Some of these were virtual packets, so she started taking them apart. After the shredder ate up the first few pages, it became easier.

"Take that, House," she said under her breath, trying not to wonder why he was so insistent that she read the file. She readied another packet and was about to feed it to the shredder before her hand froze. Despite herself, she yanked it back, dropping the remainder of the file and not even bothering to pick it up.

She had seen these papers countless times, the exact format. They were in Wilson's office, they were in the top drawer of her dresser, where she kept all the mementoes of her dead husband, including the medical history that detailed the stages of his cancer.

The bottom dropped out of her stomach. Her eyes went unerringly to the top of the page, where there was an informally scrawled Chase, R. in photocopied sharpie. At a glance, the rest of the chart was carefully filled in with Wilson's writing. She flipped through the pages to the end with numb hands. There were MRI's, more charts, all the details of a consult with a specialist.

Stage IV metastatic non-small cell carcinoma of the lung.

Her mind effortlessly translated it. No one needed to go through medical school to know what it meant. Terminal. The one terrifying word, and even more terrifying, the carefully compiled statistics of living past a year.

Cameron looked at the scattered papers on the floor, the top one clearly a recommendation letter for Chase, and felt her eyes fill with tears from sheer reaction. She wasn't crying, it was too immediate and too unreal, but her mind was turning over each day she had seen Chase, rewinding past all the times and trying to see the signs.

They had been together so much. It didn't make sense, it couldn't be right simply for the reason that he couldn't have hidden something like this from her. Denial wanted to burst out of her, screaming that this was too cruel and for that fact alone it should be impossible, but she was alone and there was nothing to refute but the papers in front of her, and they laid out precise evidence.

It wasn't until she returned to the first page that Cameron felt the breath knocked out of her again, and understood through a haze of relief and fear why House had wanted her to read this and had gone to the trouble of putting this in Chase's file when the patient information clearly stated Rowan Chase. Cameron picked up the scattered papers on the floor and shredded them all without having the slightest desire to look at Chase's background, psych evaluation, or education and past employment history. He wasn't going to die, but his father was.

She called Chase.

xxxxx

A/N: Please review! The response I've gotten for this chapter is really disproportionate from the other chapters, so if there's something you didn't like about this chapter particularly, let me know. I'm always trying to improve, but feedback tells me what I'm doing right and what I'm doing wrong. Thanks!