Disclaimer: I own nothing related to House, M.D.

A/N: I'm sorry it took me so long to update. I have had the longest month ever. Thanks to all of you that reviewed or put this story on alert last time; I loved hearing what you reviewers had to say. Eternal thanks to my lovely beta reader Melissa, who put up with a really crappy first draft of this chapter. Enjoy and please review!

It had been two weeks. Two weeks since leaving Princeton Plainsboro, two weeks since leaving House and the Diagnostics Department, and two weeks since moving to Philadelphia. Her apartment was nice, not much different from the one she left in Princeton. The office was crisp and clean, very different from the one she had left in Princeton. After about a week, she had decided the people were nice…enough. There were at least no Vicodin-addicted infectious disease and nephrology double-specialists to make her life difficult.

Or interesting.

The office was overwhelmingly immaculate. The research was stacked and organized into filing cabinets, folders, and neat piles on her desk. The walls were bare; she had never had any walls to display anything on and hadn't quite gotten used to this freedom yet. Perhaps the most noticeable difference was the lack of the white board. She supposed such a thing was not needed for this job.

No patients to diagnose. No siblings to interrogate. No parents' hearts to break… She supposed those were all good things, but she missed it - meeting people, being able to touch their lives in a way, even if that just made it harder when someone died. Now there was no one to die; there was just research, just piles of paper for her to read. Articles and lecture notes and books…it seemed the work would never end. Then again, work as a doctor never did.

A knock sounded on her office door, and she was momentarily jerked from the file she had been poring over. She looked up, wondering who it could be. If it were Yule, he would have knocked and then entered. This person was still waiting outside. "Come in," she called.

Her office door opened and a tall man entered. He had sandy brown hair and looked to be in his mid-thirties. She watched him as he walked toward her.

"Dr. Cameron?"

"Yes?" she answered hesitantly.

"I'm Daniel Weiss, Head of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center. It's a pleasure to meet you," he said, extending his hand. She shook it, taking in his appearance. He wasn't wearing a lab coat, but then again, this wasn't his building, and at any rate, she'd learned months ago that the lack of a lab coat did not mean someone was not a doctor.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, too," she said slowly, wondering what a psychiatrist could be doing here. "What can I do for you?"

He smiled at her. "I'm sorry to have bothered you like this…I know you must be very confused." She gave a small nod, continuing to watch him with curiosity. "Do you…mind if we sit?" he asked, indicating the table with four chairs behind him. "I have something I'd like to talk to you about."

"Oh…okay." She frowned, wondering what this stranger had to say. Cameron wasn't really in the consulting business, so it was unlikely he had come for a consult. She didn't recognize him from Princeton-Plainsboro either – maybe he was related to a former patient? She stood up from her desk and walked over to the round table. She sat down and he followed suit. "Go ahead," she said, folding her hands together in her lap.

"I…Well, I guess I'll just come right out and ask you," he began awkwardly. She frowned slightly, but nodded. "How much do you know about MSF?"

Medecins Sans Frontieres?

"MSF?" she repeated. "Doctors Without Borders?"

"So you've heard of it." Cameron nodded. "They've got a rape clinic right outside of Cape Town, in Khayelitsha – I mean, they have clinics and projects all over the world, but this is one of their more recent projects. Down there, they have lots of women and children – boys and girls – getting raped. Horrible sight. Last time I was there, this pregnant woman came in. She'd been raped, was bleeding all over the place." He sighed. "We did the best we could, but there was just too much blood loss. She died."

Cameron bit her lip. "And the baby?"

He shook his head. "Also died. He was too premature to last long without proper treatment. The clinic doesn't have anything like the facilities you have here. I've seen your PICU. You aren't going to find anything like that down there."

She nodded, still unsure of what he wanted. He must have seen her questioning stare, because he continued, "The clinic needs a psychiatrist to help the rape victims and their families. I'm going back there next week."

"Oh…" she replied. She immediately wanted to kick herself; she should have sounded more enthusiastic than that. "That's great!" Cameron exclaimed loudly. "That you're going to help them, that is," she added quickly. "Not that so many people are being raped." She cringed.

He smiled indulgently at her. "I was wondering if you'd like to come with me."

Her jaw dropped in shock. Go to Africa? To a rape clinic?

What?

"I – I don't know if I can," she answered quickly. "I mean, I'm not a psychiatrist. I'm an immunologist."

He nodded. "That's exactly why I'm asking you to come with me." She frowned, and he continued, "In that part of the world, over half the rape victims we see are positive for HIV - if they don't have AIDS already. With so many weakened immune systems, tuberculosis has run rampant. People die every day from a disease we never even see in the United States, and it's because there's no medicine, no help, no one to fix it.

"That's why I need an immunologist. The clinic needs one to help with the rape victims, help treat them, help them learn about the diseases they have or are at serious risk for getting. You're the best immunologist in Philadelphia – your reputation from Dr. House precedes you."

"You know Dr. House?" Cameron asked. She laughed hollowly. "He'd marry Wilson before saying something like that about anyone."

"All right, he didn't say it quite like that," Weiss conceded. "What he actually said was that you cry every time a patient dies and your compassion clouds your judgment. Once we take away Gregory House's tendency toward exaggeration and his uncanny ability to hide compliments in insults, I'd say you are a very compassionate doctor who always puts patient care first. That's what makes you the best immunologist, at least for this job. So…do want it?"

Cameron felt trapped. Saying no would make her sound like a horrible person, but saying yes was just, well, impossible. He wasn't talking about a consult; he was talking about going to Africa. She'd never seen herself working anywhere else but America, and while that didn't mean she couldn't change, the idea of change was just…unreal.

"I – I'm sorry, Dr. Weiss," she heard herself say. "I would really love to help you, but I don't think I can go. I just started working here, and I don't know if I can take the time off to go to Africa…"

"Why don't you talk to Dr. Yule about it and see what he says?" Weiss interjected. "If it's something you would really like to do, you should at least ask."

She nodded vaguely. "I'll think about it."

Weiss smiled. "Good." He pulled his business card from his pocket and handed it to her. "Call me when you know."

She knocked on the hard oak door. "Enter!" a man's voice called.

She stepped inside Yule's office, with the polished red oak bookshelves stacked high with papers and his research. He looked up when he saw her. "Dr. Cameron," he said seriously. "I thought I'd be seeing you soon. I heard you were visited by Danny Weiss today."

"Yes, I was," she replied, as she sat in the chair in front of his desk.

"He's an old friend of mine." Yule paused and considered her seriously. "What did Danny want?"

She swallowed and looked directly at her boss. "He wants me to come to Africa with him."

Yule nodded. "Danny always had a thing for Africa. He's probably been there three times in the last five years. I met him when we were at Johns Hopkins together. He started out in cardiology, you know, but then his sister was diagnosed with schizophrenia. He turned to psychiatry after that."

She nodded slowly, taking the information in. "He wants to work with rape victims in Khayelitsha," she said quietly.

"The Simelela Clinic," Yule supplied knowingly. "He's worked there a couple times before, at least."

"He needs an immunologist."

Yule nodded. "So he asked you."

"Yes," Cameron replied.

"Do you want to go?" he asked her seriously.

She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. "I don't know."

He considered her a moment and then stood up and walked over to one of his many bookshelves. From the bottom shelf, he extracted a dark leather photo album. He handed it to her and sat back down at the desk.

Cameron opened the cover uncertainly. "What is this?" she asked. He didn't answer immediately, but continued to watch as she leafed through the pages.

It wasn't exactly a photo album. While she recognized Dr. Weiss in many of the pictures, usually surrounded by patients, it was clear this book was not made to preserve happy memories. Below each picture of the various patients was the patient's date and cause of death. Wide-eyed children stared back at her through emaciated faces. Little girls curled up next to their dead mothers. Tears pulled at the corners of her eyes. So many faces, so many names, so many dead. When she reached the last page, her stomach plummeted.

SIMELALA CLINIC, Khayelitsha, South Africa, 2003.

"Danny gave this book to me about four years ago," Yule began softly. "This was his first time at the clinic. He put this together in an attempt to convince me to go there with him."

"Did you?" she whispered.

Yule shook his head. "No. I thought about it for a long time, but in the end, I decided it wasn't for me. I had just started a new research project...it just wasn't a good time. I think, though, Africa is just not for me. I can't work at a place like that."

She looked up at him. "Do you think that I could?"

He nodded. "I think you have to. You're not like me, Dr. Cameron. You like research, but your passion is with patients. I devoted myself to research eight years ago and have only seen a handful of patients since then, and I'm fine with that. But you're different. You need patients. You need to help them…in a more direct way than research, I'm beginning to see. You're meticulous and thorough; you are great at what you do. But it's not where your heart is. I'm not surprised that Danny Weiss came to you. You're exactly the kind of person this clinic needs."

She stared at him in surprise. "But – but what about my job? I am working for you! I can't just drop everything and hop on a plane to Africa!"

He shrugged. "Sure you can. My research can wait two months, saving the world can't."