Disclaimer: I don't own House MD, at all, not even a little bit.

A/N: Thanks for the reviews! This is the final chapter, I hope you like it! I put pieces of the song "Any Other World" by Mika in between Cameron's thoughts, I hope it's not confusing… Please R&R!

4. Leaving

It had been God's error. Sometimes House being right could be downright annoying.

He had diagnosed an unprecedented case, ironically just before she quit. As if he tried to show her what opportunity she was going to miss.

In any other world

You could tell the difference

And let it all unfurl

Into broken reverence

Smile like you mean it

And let yourself let go

Still, in Cameron's eyes the recovery of her patient remained a miracle. Really, what were the odds of her heart starting to beat again just when House switched off the machines and her husband laid his head on her heart? They could call her naïve, crazy, hopelessly romantic, but for her it was a miracle. And to see the couple happy at last gave her the final courage she needed to have to go through with her plan, hoping everything would turn up alright.

She looked at House and sighed. She would try a relationship with Chase and quit today. The thought of leaving everything she felt for House behind nearly paralyzed her. But she needed to get over it; all she would keep was her respect for him and his job.

Just then House looked at her, so she smiled, trying to mean it and trying to let go.

Later…

I tried to live alone

But lonely is so lonely alone

So human as I am

I had to give up my defences

So I smiled and tried to mean it

To let myself let go

She was standing in front of Chase's apartment, trying to work up the courage to start whatever was about to start with him. She sighed. She really had tried to wait for House. She had tried to live alone, but being lonely was so painful. After all she was just human, she couldn't just put up defences against everyone but the man who hurt her again and again.

So she knocked and waited nervously. When he opened she smiled, hoping that he wouldn't notice how broken she was. Because that was the one thing she was sure to find in him: hope and maybe a way to let herself let go of the past.

Later…

She now was officially Chase's girlfriend. Seeing him so happy about the choice she had made nearly made her regret her choice. It's not that she didn't want him to be happy, but it hurt her to be partly lying to him, the last thing she wanted was to see him suffer.

But now she was sitting on House's chair, behind his desk. And all she could think of was her soon to be former boss. She remembered all the good times: the non-date, the Christmas presents, the bike-ride, the kiss, oh yeah, the kiss. Another thing she worked hard on trying to forget and not compare. Yet, the bad times were on her mind too: the real date, the time he faked cancer, when he was shot, and so many other times. They far outweighed the few good moments they had had together.

A shuffling pace interrupted her thoughts and she knew at once: House was coming, goodbye was coming.

Cause its all in the hands of a bitter, bitter man

Say goodbye to the world you thought you lived in

Take a bow play the part of a lonely, lonely heart

Say goodbye to the world you thought you lived in, to the world you thought you lived in

When Cameron stood up and handed him her resignation letter hope stole it's way inside her heart, against all reason and most of her will. Maybe he would admit not wanting her to leave him but to be with him?

But as soon as he asked her about her intentions behind her resignation she chastised herself for being such a fool. And that short ray of foolishness, for hope it could not be called, made her realize that her choice hadn't really been her choice at all.

She had laid all her heart in the hands of that bitter man. He had dug himself a place in her life while neglecting her presence in his own life, his world, but at work. Every time she had had to make a choice concerning him, he had been the one making it. Because no matter what she wanted, what he wanted had been always superior to that. With one word he could have made her destroy her resignation letter, break up with Chase, whatever.

But no more. He had given her a chance to escape, and she was taking that chance. She needed to learn how to say no to him, to have her own will decide when in his presence.

To his question, asked as the bitter lonely boss he was, she would answer as an employee would and finally say goodbye to the world she thought she lived in.

And she gave him a smile, a real one, trying to hide her love with the respect and affection an employee owed an employer. A smile she had never given Chase, but nobody had noticed.

In any other world you could tell the difference…