When Cameron wakes the room is darker than before and she guesses it is night. Chase has slipped from her bed and is now sleeping. It's better that way. They aren't going to get any where if they don't speak and lack of communication had always been their biggest problem. He'd spent weeks sleeping with her before he actually told her he wanted more. She'd spent weeks of him telling her he wanted more before she admitted that so did she. The rest of their relationship had been spent avoiding each other rather than talking. When they did talk it was great- They knew each other better than they knew themselves, but it had taken a lot of work to get that far. Cameron had avoided him to the point where he broke up with her instead of telling him that she'd found the ring and Chase had left her thinking he was having an affair for weeks before telling the truth. A voice startles her out of her reverie and she jumps-every fibre of her body on edge.

"You tried killing the wombat. Good idea. Solves all your problems, guess it didn't work so well in action though. It also makes you a hypocrite for leaving him when he killed someone, but hey, you can't always get what you want." House's tall shadow is leaning against the wall. She can make out the shape of his cane next to him. She doesn't speak- refusing to be dragged into his game.

"I'd say you've changed but people don't change. You seem different, but the way you're mournfully staring at Chase and his hair make me think that you're just putting on a show." His voice isn't bitter how she expected, it's just smug. He's solved one of his puzzles and this is probably the happiest he'll ever be.

"I don't like who I was when I first started working for you House. I was weak and naïve, I couldn't stand up for myself and I thought that compassion made a good doctor, that if I cared enough and had enough morals-if I did the right thing- I'd not only be a better doctor, but a better person. I was wrong. I was an idiot. But I don't like who I was when I left either. I was running away, because I was scared. I was strong enough to believe that my opinions were right. I wasn't strong enough to stand up for them. When I left you I was the girl who was running away from her husband because she was scared. That's what I hate about myself. I like who I was when I was in the middle of working for you, which, ironically, was the time when I was drugging patients, euthanasing men and lying to the police." She caves; she will always give House what he wants no matter how much she hates it. She's drawn to him, in some strange way she will never be out of his grasp.

"Who are you now?" The puzzle has suddenly got more interesting for him and she can see him mentally bouncing ideas off a white board.

"I don't know, but I don't like her. This is what you do, House: you take in damaged people and you break them- you push them until they crack, because it's interesting, it's a puzzle to solve. You had Chase first: alcoholic mother, father who abandoned him, and he ended up killing a man." She can't remember when irritation turned to anger or when she had begun shouting but she was.

"See you do blame me for what Chase did."

"No! I don't blame you for the fact that he killed a man, I blame you for the fact that he- and even Foreman and me- thought that it was a good idea, that we weren't utterly repulsed by the idea."

"But you left him for it"

"Then you hired me…" She ignores his accusation, too wrapped up in her own thought process.

"With your dead husband and your saviour complex" He finishes her sentence.

"And I ended up leaving my husband didn't I?"

"You blame me for that as well. I've done a lot haven't I? See you're alternating between blaming me for everything and blaming me for nothing. You can't have it both ways."

"No I blame you for the things that drove me to make that completely idiotic decision. The incidents that changed me enough to think that that was the right decision to make." The venom in her words catches House of guard.

"That still means you blame me" He re-gathers his composure before she notices anything. She has surprised him and in some strange way he is proud of her.

"Foreman." She carries on unfazed. "He had a bad background: Criminal record, tough childhood. He tried to gat away didn't he? He saw what you were doing to us, but he couldn't escape." She takes deep breath contemplating what she's about to do. "Kutner."

"Don't"

"Sweet little Kutner, he wouldn't hurt anyone intentionally. He worshipped you. And he ended up with a bullet in his brain."

"Stop it"

"Taub, he had his marital problems and his cheating. Now look he's divorced. And then there was Thirteen. She has Huntington's, watched her mother die from it. She killed her brother, House.

"And you blame me for all of this?"

"Not directly, they're our mistakes. You just get into our heads, change the way we think, teach us to push things until they break just like you."

"You're just looking for someone to blame."

"I don't have to look far do I?"

A prolonged silence echoes through their minds. Words slicing through their heads; knives ripping at their skin. Their eyes bore into each other; daring the other one to make the first move.

"I'm sorry" Cameron chokes.

"30 seconds, you're getting better" Cameron gives House a quizzical look. "The time it took for you to go for malicious bitch who tells the truth to human being."

"What I said…"

"Was true." His words settle on her chest "You're too magnanimous towards me" She sits waiting to see if more will come. "I expected Wilson or Cuddy or maybe even Foreman to tell me those things, not you. You always forgive me, you always trust me. You shouldn't."

"I don't want to. I hate it. But I will always listen to you."

"Do you love me?" Cameron laughs at this, a bitter emotionless laugh but a laugh nonetheless.

"Do you love him?" House motions to the sleeping Chase, and Cameron freezes. She watches chase's sleeping form, mesmerized. She has always loved to watch him sleep; he looks peaceful and innocent, like a child. When he sleeps it's the only time she sees him fully relaxed because it's the only time he ever gets fully away from the world.

Of course I love him. Oh shit I love him. Fuck.

Cameron had known that she loved him; she'd been trying to talk herself out of loving him since she'd started loving him. It was just a fact that was always there in the back of her mind: she was in love with Robert Chase, but this was the first time she actually admitted it.

"Yes"

"So why did you leave? That's just stupid" She would've expected a better insult from him, although stupid sums it up perfectly.

"Why did you leave Cuddy" deflecting is a skill House taught her and she's mastered it well.

"Who told you…?"

"Thirteen" She answers before he's finished, reading people is another useful skill she's picked up from him.

"I didn't leave Cuddy- she left me"

"But why didn't you fight for her?"

"Because it wouldn't have made a difference it would've-"

"Because you knew she was better off without you" He observes her closely; her and her new found wisdom, he finds it hard to believe that this is the same naïve girl who spent years pining after him, and yet she is still the same, she is just a toughened up, Housified version and he begins to wonder if that's really a good thing like he originally thought.

"So you still love him? You just think you're too evil and he is better off without you?"

"Yes" She doesn't think before answering because House knows the truth, he will always know the Truth, he always finds a way.

House limps from the room.