Chapter 3

Painful Reminders

"Dr. House, here you are," Cameron said as she closed the door to the lounge behind her. She looked a bit pale and nervous as she moved to the chair next House and sat down. "Dr. Chase and I were just…were just…"

"I know what you were doing." House said nastily.

"I checked the patient's urine," Cameron started. She had no desire to discuss her personal life with House. "And he…"

"So is it his hair you like?" House provoked her.

"Cameron tried to evade the question. "The patient…"

"Or is it his eyes?" House interrupted. "He does have gorgeous eyes. I guess if I were a young woman with a thing for sick people I'd…"

Cameron grew red with embarrassment and anger at this remark. "I just wanted to tell you…"

"You know, I was thinking about it, and if you like dying people enough to MARRY one, you should talk to Wilson. He likes banging patients too!" House now stared bitterly at her.

"I came in here to tell you that the patient tested positive for steroids." Cameron paused for a moment as her mind switched gears, then continued on, her voice livid. "You drove Stacy out of your life so you could be miserable again, I get it! But you don't have the right to try and ruin other people's happiness now that they've finally found it!" With an intense energy she abruptly stood up, turned and walked out the door, slamming it behind her.

Now sitting alone in the lounge, House stared at the door as though he expected her to come back and yell some more. She didn't, of course. Nor had he actually expected her to. Sighing remorsefully, he finally stood up and hobbled out the door. There was a lot to mull over on his way home.

The doors slid open as the elevator slowed to a halt. The lobby was quiet, with only a few patients milling around, as well as the regular staff of nurses at the entrance desk. The last light of dusk filtered through the windows and gave the entire room a strange, yet not unpleasant glow.

Stepping out of the elevator, House limped across the room to the exit. Not a single person lifted a finger to help the crippled doctor. They knew him all too well. Even the patients seemed to sense that they were to leave him alone.

The diagnostician paused before passing through the exit. Gazing around, all eyes seemed to be on him, though none actually were. Turning to face the sun, he walked out of the lobby to his motorcycle. Unlike the deserted lobby, the parking lot was unusually full, and it took Greg some zig-zagging between cars before he finally found the cycle he'd borrowed $5000.00 to buy. Glancing up from this prized possession, he saw Cameron unlocking her car several parking spaces over. Momentarily staring, House briefly caught her gaze, an accomplishment that was rewarded only with an icy glare as she climbed into her Pontiac.

Reflecting morosely on the meaning of this, House climbed onto his motorcycle and began the short trip home.

"Well, I guess we're back to doing House's paperwork." Chase sighed the next morning.

"Who would think that being the personal secretaries of an anti-social jerk would be so much work?" Foreman exclaimed as he slid another pile of file folders out of his way. "Where is he anyway?"

"Don't know," Chase said off-handedly. "He just called in this morning and told me to get us working on the files. A shame that kid's case wasn't more complicated."

"Yeah, maybe we'd actually get to do what we went to medical school for!" A vein of frustration was clearly audible in Foreman's voice. Discouraged, he sighed and looked around, noticing that Cameron was working on a separate pile of files in the other room, where they usually participated in House's famous differential diagnoses. "Have you noticed anything strange about how Cameron's been acting lately?"

Looking for all the world like a deer caught in the headlights, Chase hesitated. "Uh…I…don't know…" he said unconvincingly as he avoided Foreman's gaze. "Why would I?"

Foreman gave Chase a suspicious look, but said nothing. Instead, he turned back to the files in front of him and began working again. Hearing the low creak of the door opening, he glanced up to see House step through the door. Using his cane, the old doctor rapped on the glass barrier that separated his office from the common area where Cameron sat by herself. So involved in her work was she, that she jumped at the noise, and turned wildly to the source of the sound, only to see House casually motioning for her to join them. A small scowl crossed her face, but she nevertheless put down her pen and walked in to join them.

"Our patient, 'prunes-for-balls' has been re-admitted." House paused dramatically. "He had a psychotic break."

Foreman spoke up immediately. "Psychosis is indicative of steroid use. We already determined that he's been using steroids. Why are you putting this case back on our plates?" Foreman expected House to have a particularly nasty come-back reserved for his question, but if he did, he didn't make use of it.

"Joseph was…"

"Jason." Cameron corrected him coldly.

Instead of rolling his eyes, or telling them how much he didn't care what the boy's name was, House just pressed on. "Jason," he said with emphasis, "had been here three days before we got to him. Add to that the time we spent diagnosing him and his overly-protective mother who no doubt has been checking on him every five minutes since he got home, and you've got five days during which he hasn't been juicing at all. His symptoms should be getting better, not worse. Something else is wrong."

They all stood in silence, none of them disagreeing with his assessment. Finally, House leaned forward as though he were about to share a secret and whispered "What are we not talking about?" Looking smug because of his own witticism, he turned to Foreman. "Go talk to Wilson, have him check for cancer. Chase, go get a medical history. See if his family has a history of mental illness."

The two nodded and left the room. Cameron started to follow them, but House called her back. His smugness was gone now, replaced by sobering somberness. "I'm sorry." He said quietly. "I was out of line." Her gaze seemed to soften ever so slightly.

"You can be a real ass sometimes." She stated frankly.

"Kindof brightens the day, doesn't it?" House said with a furtive smile.

For some reason, between his apology and his remark, her anger melted away, and in spite of herself, she smiled softly back. "A little."

A touch of playful mockery entered his voice as he spoke again. "Next time though, could you make out in Cuddy's office instead?"