Author's note: Thanks for sticking with the story. Please let me know what you think. I hope you enjoy it
After his visit with Chase, House had an entire weekend to think about the events of the past week. He wondered if his talk with Chase would make any kind of a difference. He certainly wasn't going to lose sleep looking for Chase's forgiveness when it came to what happened with Chase's father, but House admitted to himself that how Chase worked out his problems did actually matter to him. Now if he could only work out his own problems, he thought to himself. He rubbed his eyes as he thought of the issues that that mainly pertained to his team and in particular, one Allison Cameron.
At his piano, he sat with a cigar and a healthy glass of scotch contemplating his options. His fingers glided effortlessly over the slick keys, moving from Jazz to Chopin and finally the Rolling Stones before even that proved not enough of a distraction. Nothing he did seemed to keep her out of his thoughts.
And it was only in those private thoughts that he could acknowledge any possibility of himself caring for her. In reality, there'd be no way he could keep her on as his employee and student and pursue something personal with her. She was young enough to probably be willing to take the chance, but he could never knowingly put her personal and professional reputation at risk. He, on the other hand, was old enough to know better.
Irritated by the foreseeable lack of any reasonable chance for a normal relationship with Cameron, House forcibly stamped out the cigar into the ashtray and threw his head back to drain the last few drops of his scotch. I must be crazy, he thought to himself. If anything, the last few days has shown that Cameron wasn't even remotely interested in him as she once had been. She was hurt about losing her fellowship and how all of that transpired for sure, but he wasn't convinced she still possessed feelings for him.
What he really needed, he finally decided, was more time to figure it all out and there was only one person he knew who could make that happen.
Lisa Cuddy stood in her closet contemplating which suit best matched her current mood. Her eyes ran over the vast collection of outrageously expensive garments hanging flawlessly along the closet wall. God help me, but I have a feeling I'm going to need something red today, she thought to herself. She pulled a deeply hued magenta silk blouse off of a padded hanger first and then a tightly tailored red skirt. The skirt went on easily over her small hips and buttoned effortlessly around her waist. She slipped on a dangerously high pair of heels and grabbed a matching red suit jacket, folding it over her arm before flicking off the light in her closet.
In the hallway mirror she checked her hair and applied a fresh coat of crimson lipstick. Thankfully, she thought, she'd managed to have almost no contact with Greg House at work since the Gallery fundraiser. But there was no way she could expect to avoid seeing him for much longer.
The weekend had actually done her some good. She hadn't wallowed in her thoughts as she imagined she might do. And, by late Sunday afternoon, she'd started coming to terms with House's decision. Nothing, she had decided, was going to stop her from getting what she really wanted. And what she really wanted, she realized, was something more precious than a relationship with Doctor Gregory House.
After giving herself one last look over in the mirror, she inhaled deeply and slipped on the suit jacket and then grabbed her travel coffee mug from the hall table before heading out the door.
The Diagnostics office was dark when Allison entered Monday morning. It was seven thirty, nearly half an hour or more before she could expect Foreman to arrive and a good hour and a half before House would make an appearance. She dropped her messenger bag beside her desk and hung up her raincoat on the coat rack. She quickly flipped through the half dozen envelopes she'd picked up from the department's mail box on her way in this morning. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary, but any of which could be Curriculum Vitae's for new candidates, she thought. Eventually, she walked over to the coffee maker to start the day's first pot.
As she carefully measured the coffee, her thoughts quickly turned to how many more times she would ever perform the simple task in this office, a task which had grown familiar and comforting to her. She also thought about the handful of job contacts she'd made over the weekend. Two promising leads had come out of them and she'd quickly sent off her CV and a descriptive letter detailing her interest and availability.
Ten minutes later, the door swung open. "There should be a law against coffee smelling that good," James Wilson said sheepishly from where he stood in the doorway, coffee mug in hand. "Good Morning, Doctor Wilson," she said, as a small smile turned up the corner of her mouth. "Perfect timing. It just stopped brewing".
From behind her desk, she watched him as he poured coffee into his mug. He fidgeted nervously with the wooden coffee stirrer before tapping it twice against the rim of the mug and throwing it in the trash can.
"Good weekend?" he asked, blowing on the hot liquid before taking a sip. "Just making job inquiries and sending out resumes" she said without looking up from the disarray of papers on her desk.
Wilson slowly moved towards her. "Yes, I heard about your fellowship," his voice was soft with just a hint of sadness. "Find anything here that might look promising? You know, I heard Logan up in Internal Medicine might have a fellowship opening on his team. It's only one year, but it could buy you some time," he added hoping the hour he'd spent on Friday trying to talk the uptight, close-minded Internist into using his surplus teaching dollars for a new fellowship slot hadn't been in vain.
Cameron looked up from her desk with a certain look of curiosity in her eyes. "I hadn't heard about that one. I don't know. I'm not so sure if taking on another specialty would be a good idea. I've been thinking that maybe it's time to just take my two years worth of diagnostics experience and get back into an Immunology specialty. I'll look in to it though, thanks for letting me know," she said softy, making a point to look him directly into his big, brown eyes.
Wilson nodded gently and turned to make his way to the door. "Allison," he said softly, as he gently tipped the coffee mug back and forth in his hand, his eyes pressed downwards to the floor. "It matters to him. You should know that. He may not let on, but where you go and with whom matters. It's not going to be easy on him to let you go. Nothing we've grown comfortable with ever is".
Cameron closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead as if the last few thoughts from Dr. Wilson had suddenly given her a headache. "Well, he's never given any indication of that over the past two years I've been here. Do you think that's going to magically change in the next four weeks?" she said defensively, as she leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms across her chest.
"I just thought you should know, that's all. What you do with it, is up to you," he said gently, as he held her gaze for a moment before turning to set his half full coffee mug on the conference room table and walked out the door.