Cameron had a meeting with Cuddy a few days after Richard's visit. They discussed departmental concerns, as well as how Cameron was doing as House's advisor. She admitted that it was difficult at times, but that she had everything under control. Cuddy was glad, and admittedly proud, that Cameron could hold down the fort and sat back at her desk and smiled warmly.

"I'm glad that I hired you back," she admitted freely. "I knew we could use a new head of Internal Medicine and I knew that you had a great set of references behind you."

Cameron smiled, crossing her hands loosely in her lap. "I was admittedly surprised when you called me for the hire. I thought you might call Dr. Chase in, especially since he went on to head Intensive Care over at Mayo; he was a perfect candidate."

Cuddy shrugged. "I wanted someone who I knew I could count on. Dr. Chase, however stunning his recommendations and experiences may have been, isn't reliable when it comes right down to it. And Dr. Foreman's gone on to bigger and better things heading up Neurology at Hopkins. The three of you all went on to do great things. You were the best candidate to bring back."

"Thank you," Cameron replied modestly, a small, happy flush on her cheeks. "I was particularly surprised to be put on the board of directors."

"You've grown quite the backbone. House has been obsessed with finding out why; all I care about is that it's there."

Cameron frowned. "He's been obsessed with finding out why, has he?"

Cuddy smirked. "Of course he has. His little duckling's come back all grown up. Bigger and badder than before. He's intrigued."

"Yes, House is intrigued by a lot of things, isn't he?" She studied her nails and delicately picked nonexistent dirt out from under them. "I'm surprised that he's so obsessed with it, though. I was under the impression that he didn't care about me one way or the other."

A knowing look settled onto Cuddy's face and she sat back in her chair. "You don't really believe that, do you?"

"Of course I do," Cameron stated with a shrug. "He repeatedly turned me down when I worked for him and fell out of touch as soon as he possibly could once I'd left. I e-mailed him to keep him updated on my work, at least, and never got a return message. I assumed, quite naturally, that he'd moved on to his new batch of workers."

"His falling out of touch with you explains how he was unaware that you'd remarried," Cuddy commented cautiously. "I'd heard about it and was surprised when you didn't send him an invitation. Or Wilson, for that matter. You two were pretty close when you worked here."

Cameron sighed and tapped her polished fingernails on the arm of the chair that she was seated in. "We both had busy schedules and fell out of touch by the time Richard asked me to marry him. I didn't think it was very kosher to send a wedding invitation to someone I hadn't spoken to in over two years." She smiled and shrugged. "We've caught up now, though, and I suppose that's really all that matters."

"I guess," Cuddy responded with a small smile of her own. She checked her watch and sighed, reaching into one of her desk drawers and grabbing her purse. "Sorry to have to cut this short, but I need to pick up my daughter from school."

"Daughter?" Cameron asked with a wide smile. "So you did wind up getting pregnant. Congratulations."

Cuddy laughed, standing and slinging her purse over her arm. "Thanks. Her name's Ruth and she's the most perfect little girl."

"Are you raising her on your own? I didn't hear that you'd gotten married." She paused and realized her possible faux pa. She gave a small laugh. "Not that there's anything wrong with that…" she added hastily.

With a grin, Cuddy patted Cameron on the back. "I'm a single, workaholic mother and I love it," she responded happily. "Now I'm off to go pick up Ruth. Have a nice day, Dr. Cameron."

Cameron gave Cuddy a genuine, happy smile. "You, too, Dr. Cuddy."

It took Cameron the rest of the day to finish up small, managerial things that she'd really rather not be doing. She'd meant to talk to House before lunch about his little puzzle-solving obsession, but hadn't gotten the chance to, thanks to little things that kept her busy. By four in the afternoon, she'd signed so many papers that she thought her eyes might cross if she had to sign her name one more time. So she headed down to Diagnostics to be sure that House was doing his job.

She stopped at his office and saw him there, bouncing an over-sized tennis ball off of a wall and catching it, a thoughtful frown gracing his features. It occurred to her that he was probably thinking and that she shouldn't disturb him, but damn it. She needed to tell him to back the hell off. So she opened the door to his office and poked her head in. "How's the case coming along?" she asked with a quirked eyebrow.

House turned his head as he caught the ball he'd been bouncing. "Badly," he admitted in a clipped tone before tossing the ball at the wall once more.

"How badly are we talking?" Cameron asked with a frown. "Do I need to call in another doctor for a consult?"

House gave a severe frown. "I know how to solve a case, Cameron," he snapped. "I just need more time."

"Well you don't have more time, Dr. House. Your patient is in critical condition and if you don't-"

"You think I don't know this?" he growled angrily. "If you'd pull your head out of your rich little ass for two seconds, you'd remember that I always know the status of my patients."

"I need to pull my head out of my ass?" she asked with a small, insulted laugh. "That's grand, coming from the infamously assholic Dr. House."

"Assholic? Is that even a word?" He set the ball down and turned his chair so that he faced Cameron. "I'm trying to think; get out of my office."

"Ha! You want me to leave you be when you denied all requests of mine? I don't think so." She approached his desk and settled her hands on it, leaning in so that her face was mere inches from him. "Get off of your ass and go deal with your patient. Sitting here isn't going to do anything for you. You need to make a connection and you need to make it fast, because if this patient dies, I'm writing you up for physician neglect."

He glared at her. "Threats, Cameron? How sweet. I'm not your ex and the puny intimidation tactics that you attempt aren't going to work on me."

"That isn't a threat, Dr. House. I'm going to write you up if this patient dies. It will be the third one this year, and that just can't happen anymore. Your means for treating a patient are absolutely ridiculous, even if they do work most of the time. Most of the time isn't all of the time, and-"

"Shut up," he told her calmly. "Just shut your pretty little mouth and get out. I'll make the connections my own way."

"I'm your boss."

"I don't care." He stood and leaned on his cane, glaring angrily at her. "You're not really my boss, you know. You're playing the part of it. Now, if you want me to do my job, you'll get the hell out of my office. If you want to spend the rest of the afternoon arguing with me, then by all means, stay here."

Cameron frowned and crossed her arms over her chest. "I'm just playing the part of your boss?" she asked sweetly. "In that case, I'll just 'play the part' of marching down to the board of directors and throwing you to their mercy. As a matter of fact, I'll even just 'play the part' of writing you up for insubordination and giving your file to Cuddy so that she can sign off on you being fired. I am completely okay with that."

For a moment, he really believed that she'd do it. The icy glare that he got from her was intimidating; he wouldn't deny that. But he'd be damned if he was going to let her win this. "You wouldn't dare," he whispered. He had to whisper to keep himself from yelling at her. Who did she think she was to march in here and threaten to fire him? Well … besides the head of Internal Medicine and a director on the board.

"Don't try me," she said slowly, punctuating her words for emphasis. "Now get your ass to the patient's room and figure out what's wrong before he dies."

"Did Richard like that bossy quality you've developed?" House sneered. "Or did he hate it just as much as I do?"

"You only hate it because you don't know how to respond to it," Cameron snapped. "You don't even know what to make of it." House's eyes narrowed and Cameron smirked. "Oh, I had a bit of a chat with Dr. Cuddy. Your … obsession with my current 'bitchy' status has everyone asking questions. People are speculating… You aren't doing a whole lot for your lonely, misanthropic reputation, Dr. House."

"You say that like I should give a damn."

"Go deal with your patient, House."

"I am, Cameron."

"No, you're not," she stood her ground. "You're hiding from the problem by sitting in your office and berating yourself for not solving this as quickly as you ought to be able to. You aren't thinking; you aren't even working. You're just sitting in here, trying to convince yourself that you really do know the problem even though you really don't." Her anger and frustration with him grew as he simply gave her a bored look. "Fine," she whispered. "Fine. I'm going to write you up. Hope you find a new job."

When she turned on her heel and stormed toward the door, House moved quickly to stop her by grabbing her wrist. "You couldn't analyze me ten years ago, and you certainly can't do it now," he told her heatedly. "You think marrying into money makes you better than you used to be? Newsflash: it doesn't."

"You think that I think marrying into money makes me better than I used to be?" she asked with a cold laugh. "You don't know the first thing about me; you never did, really."

"You do think you're better than everyone else," House argued. "You snub everyone and stick your nose in the air as high as it'll go. You treat everyone like they're beneath you and all because you married some rich guy with a stick up his ass."

"No," Cameron snapped, yanking her wrist out of his hand. "I treat everyone like they're beneath me because they are. I'm the head of Internal Medicine. I'm sitting on the board of directors. And you're still here in your office, playing with your juvenile toys and using your juvenile tactics to get information out of patients. I've moved up the professional ladder and you've sat on your step ladder, hoping for a break."

House watched her, stunned by her words. He was surprised by her angry little outburst and amazed that what she'd said had serious anger behind it. "You are one hell of a bitch, you know that?"

"Thank you for the compliment," she snapped. "I'd rather be a bitch than a weakling any day."

"That's the spirit," he sneered. "Hate everyone. Feels good, doesn't it?"

"Go to hell," she said through gritted teeth.

"Be angry," he continued, staring her down with his intense gaze. "Be bitter and insulted and irate. Take one look at a person and decide that he's the one you'll cut down today."

"I'm not you."

"You're doing a damned good impression. Want a Vicodin?" he asked, taking the bottle out of his jacket pocket and shaking it at her. "They're tasty and they take the edge off."

She grabbed the bottle out of his hand and threw it hard against the wall. Pills scattered all over the floor and she turned on House. "I have every right to be bitter," she hissed at him. "Every. Right. My husband was great in the beginning of our marriage and grew to hate me because I was independent and because I refused to stop doing my job just to keep him happy. I refused to be a trophy and that pissed him off. You have a permanent scar in your leg; I have a permanent scar on my emotions. The difference is that narcotics can't take away my pain."

"Self-pity's fun, too, isn't it?" he asked her grimly. "You don't want to think that anyone else in the world can share your pain; that you're the only one who could possibly be hurting so badly."

"Stop comparing me to you," she growled. "I'm not the same as you."

"You don't want to believe it, but you are. You accuse me of hiding out in my office while you're doing your own little game of hide-and-seek, yourself. I hide in my office; you hide behind this façade of the strong, wronged woman." He smirked when she clenched her jaw and her fists. "You must be so angry to know that you're no better than the old, bitter cripple who hides in his office. That must just kill you inside."

"You're wrong…" she whispered, shaking her head in denial. "I haven't become a thing like you…" Her hands were shaking and she backed away from him slowly, breathing deeply to keep herself from falling into a full-blown anxiety attack. "You're so wrong…"

"I'm right," he sneered, advancing as she retreated. "You know it and it scares the piss out of you." With every step she took back, he took forward until he had her cornered against a file cabinet. Her eyes searched wildly for an escape and she dodge to the right, thwarted by his cane against the wall. She dodged to the left, thwarted by his arm. "Gotcha."

"I need to go," she said. She tried to keep her voice strong, but even she could hear it shaking. And if she could hear it, she was sure House was bound to capitalize on it. "I have work to do."

"It can't be too horribly important since you've spent so much time down here berating me about that whole not doing my job thing." He noticed that she looked like a cornered rabbit and his eyes lit up with a predatory glint. "Scared?"

"Annoyed," she said, pursing her lips. "Let me go."

"No. I don't want to. I sort of like you here, actually." He liked seeing her trying to cover things up and failing at it; was that so wrong?

"Dr. House, I'm not going to ask again," she said with a glare. "Move or I'm kicking your leg."

"Your new backbone doesn't mean you're uncaring," he told her, his voice quiet, but stern. "You're not going to kick my leg out from under me. You're not going to do anything mean because you still don't have it in you to do so. You're stronger. You're gutsier. You're more assertive than ever before. But you still have a heart."

"Which is exactly why I'm not at all like you," she snapped. The phrase was meant to cut, to hurt, to devastate.

"Oh, I have a heart. It's just not worn on my sleeve, like yours still is."

"It's broken, not out for everyone to see," she defended.

"Everyone can see that it's broken, Cameron," he said with a frown. "Everyone can see it. No matter how much you try to hide."

"And everyone can see how broken you are," Cameron responded with a snarl. "Everyone can see how you try to cover it with snide remarks and cool intellect. You're not fooling people anymore than I am."

"I've had more practice."

"I'm better at it."

"Liar."

"Hypocrite."

"Bitch."

"Bastard."

He moved his left hand to grip her hair, yanking her head back and crashing his lips hard on hers. If she'd asked why he did it, he wouldn't be able to answer her. He wanted to shut her up. He wanted her to stop having a comeback; no more witty retorts from her. He wanted her the way she was now and the way she'd been before. He wanted her, and really, that was the fact of the matter.

When his lips came down on hers, she had every intention of biting his lip and getting away from him and going back to her office to hide away, just like he'd been doing. But God… God it had been so long since she'd had any sort of passionate embrace. And with the way he was forcing his tongue into her mouth, forcing her to react, and forcing her to whimper when he bit down on her bottom lip, she wasn't going anywhere at the moment. She reached out and grabbed hold of his lapels, pulling him roughly to her.

His leg gave and he fell into her, pushing her hard into the filing cabinet behind her. She moaned in pain and delight and her fingers curled around the nape of his neck, pulling him in as she devoured his mouth in return. There was no way she was letting his pain ruin this experience for her; not right now. She was allowed to be selfish every once in a while, and with the way he was scraping his teeth over her tongue as she twirled it with his, she didn't think he was all that aware of any pain right now, anyway.

He growled low in his throat and took hold of her hips, yanking her forward a bit so that her hips aligned with his. He ripped his mouth away from hers and left a series of hot, furious kisses along the column of her delicate little throat. His stubble burned an angry red against her skin, and his teeth scraped. He wanted to mark her; to get beneath that cold, now-rich exterior and make her realize that she was still a lowly worker on the inside, just like him. When he heard her give a strangled moan, he sucked at the base of her dainty little neck.

"Oh, God…" she mewled, hands moving to his back.

He could feel her perfectly manicured nails biting into his suit jacket and it drove him insane. He pushed her hips back away from his, shoving her into the filing cabinet and pulling his lips away from her neck. Both of them were breathing erratically, and his eyes burned into hers. "You're just the same as me," he growled, panting for air.

Finally, she conceded, giving him a look of awe and defeat. "I'm just the same as you."