Gunning the throttle like a madman, House pulled into the hospital parking lot with pizzazz, Cameron's arms tight around his waist, her warm body pressed against back. Her Camry was parked where she'd left it the previous night.

She's not even gone yet and he already wants to see her again. House has asked her 20 Questions, but the question that occupies his restless mind is this:

After I drop her off, how do I get her to come back?

With a flick of his wrist, House switched off his donor cycle, pulled the helmet off of his head, and swiveled in the saddle to help Cameron with hers.

"You lucked out," House remarked, indicating the Toyota, which looked unscathed from its vigil in PPTH's lot. "Looks like Foreman took the night off from looting and thievery."

Cameron climbed from the bike with a shake of her head. If there were a shot to be taken at his subordinates' expense, House would fire away.

"It might have something to do with the fact that Foreman pulled an all-nighter at the clinic," Cameron admitted in a confession that raised her boss's eyebrows skyward. "I asked him to fill in for me."

"I didn't tell you to cover the clinic last night," House said, tossing his helmet into the air and catching it.

"No. Cuddy did." She faced him, legs slightly spread, arms folded against her chest.

House swung his leg over the bike and stood leaning against it. He scanned the cluster of buildings that comprised PPTH while his thoughts bounced around the maze of his mind.

"You showed up in my office last night, but it was late, so there's the question of where you were beforehand. Not doing your job, apparently." House watched a white moth fly past, scratching the scruff of his chin thoughtfully.

"Was that a question, House, or are you just talking to hear the sound of your own voice?" It was fun and not true sarcasm that ebbed from Cameron's voice and she smiled at him, enjoying his perplexed expression. Someone's got to step up the plate and ride him when Foreman and Chase aren't around, she thought, throwing in a sports metaphor for her own private amusement.

After meandering, his gaze comes full circle and he studies her quizzically, silently. House knows that sometimes you learn more if you keep quiet, although he is seldom patient enough to wait.

Hair crazed around her face from the static, and far from freshly showered, nothing can quell the effect she has on him as she brushed stray locks off her forehead with the back of her hand.

She looked like the Cameron he had hired, the Cameron who wore adorable puffy-sleeved shirts along with an innate sense of kindness and decency, the Cameron who surprised him with remembering his birthday, who stocked jars in his office with candy canes at Christmas, and always said thank you for that which she received.

This couldn't be the same woman who had provoked him not long ago to tell her to shut up. He'd hollered it directly into her face, actually, when she'd confronted him about a case – or was it about his personal life? She'd been known to meddle in both. Anyway, she'd henpecked him like an interloper and he'd reacted.

She'd deserved the harsh treatment and more. A face slap, perhaps.

What's gotten into you?? House had thought. Wasn't ecstasy enough? Now you're fucking Chase like tomorrow's Armageddon. And yet I keep silent. What the hell is wrong with you? What the hell is wrong with me?

The diagnostician considered this: Foreman was the one who feared that he'd turn into House, but it was Cameron who had really changed.

Or so it seemed.

Last night when she came to the office, she was the way he'd remembered. Her steady hand on his shoulder as he fought the searing pain in his ravaged leg, her soothing, quiet voice close to his ear, she was like aloe. He couldn't have sent her away even if he had wanted to be rid of her.

Examining the black helmet in his hands, he blinked, realizing how much he had missed her, that younger, softer Allison.

Had he ever called Cameron by her first name? He can't remember. House preferred her as the person she had always been to him, the person she would always be: Cameron. Allison has never fit her. If he were the kind of guy to give people nicknames, he'd affectionately call her "Al." He wasn't that guy. Far from it. Maybe it was the fact that he had a dirty mind or maybe it was just a natural thing, but he could see calling her "Al" in the throes of an orgasm. Then again when Mount Gregory blew, he wasn't responsible for what came out of is mouth. Cameron suited her, even if it had once belonged to her husband, or as House liked to think of him, the bastard who beat him to her. So what if he was dead. That was no reason not to hate him.

Cameron pulled her arms across the thin material of her white blouse and rubbed her shoulders, shivering. For a spring afternoon, it was nippy, and the wind from the motorcycle ride had left her chilled.

"Cold?" House shrugged off his motorcycle jacket, wrapping it like a shawl across her shoulders. His eyes flicked from her silk shirt to her form-fitting hip hugging trousers and down to her high-heeled ankle boots. Sexy as hell, without a doubt, but he liked it better when she had to look up at him from a great distance. Made him feel more like God.

"Shouldn't wear heels, Cameron. Bad for the feet." He hesitated at her quizzical expression, then leveled her with a look. "Just because you're small doesn't mean you're not taken seriously. Although if I had a dime for every joke written about you in the men's room, well, I'd never have to do clinic duty again. Wear flats."

Without heels, she barely reached his clavicle. The smaller she was, the more he towered over her. It tugged at his heart to look down at her, so vulnerable, to wonder what it would be like to pull her to him again, but this time, to hold on to her.

"Thanks. For the jacket." Cameron handed him her helmet. "I should go. This has been …"

"What was it?" he interrupted her to find out what her 20 Questions "thing" had been, surprised to find that for once, he didn't require the answer to a puzzle. He was mildly curious, however. His guess would have been a dildo or a dick, items that Cameron might think would shock him – but then he had been sexed up all weekend, and if Wilson were in his head, he'd say that House was "projecting."

What he hoped was that the way Cameron answered would tell him something new about her. Just anything.

She blushed.

That was a good sign, he thought, the corners of his mouth turning up.

Her hands went to her hips, and she tilted her head at him, squinting in the late afternoon sun.

"My best friend suffers from acute depressive episodes. Her meds messed up her ability to … to have orgasms. When I was at Mayo, I did a little research on vibrators and found out that they could really help women like Mia," she said earnestly, her voice lilting. "When we began playing 20 Questions, I was thinking of her, and remembered that her psychiatrist recommended the Emotional Bliss line of vibes. They really helped her. She's abandoning immunology and going into sex therapy. No, seriously!" Cameron laughed at House's incredulous expression. "Would I lie to you? Oh, yeah. That's right. I would."

"You would?" House echoed, wracking his brain to recall if he had ever caught her in an untruth.

"No. Of course not." Cameron reassured him, patting his shoulder.

"Okay," House reacted to this, drawing out the syllables of the word, as was his way.

And then she smirked.

House grabbed her by the shoulders and gently shook her. "You would, wouldn't you? You're not … uncomplicated."

"So, did you guess it?" she asked, placing her hands on his shoulders, so in their cowardly fashion, they're holding each other – at a safe distance.

Hospital personnel walking by would have thought that the two of them were an item. Whether that had more to do with their physical ease with each other or the unusually soft look around House's eyes, and the way Cameron's face tilted laughingly up to his, was a mystery.

As Cameron queried, pulling his jacket closer around her frame, House tucked his smile out of sight.

"Got me on that one," he lied.

A passing car backfired and the two of them pulled apart.

Cameron backed toward her car, still facing House. "So, I'm going to go take a long, hot shower. Guess I'll see you Monday?"

Fuck. House panicked.

I want to see her. I want her in my miserable pathetic fucking little life.

Last time he asked her out – for dinner, for drinks, after all, he heard himself say, we both have to eat – she turned him down.

WWWD. What would Wilson do?

"Got hopes, dreams, aspirations?" he asked, remembering some advice Wilson had parceled out that he still hadn't used.

"What?" Cameron bit her bottom lip to quell her laughter. "That is so Wilson!"

House scrunched up his face at her.

"Big plans tonight?" he asked. "'Cause if you're not doing anything besides showering, Wilson lent me his copy of Happiness Now: Timeless Wisdom for Feeling Good Fast. "

Hands on hips, her fine features fixed in an expression he recognized from when he tried to convince her to come back to work after she'd resigned. It was an expression that indicated, that's not going to cut it.

"Not fun enough? Okay … extreme sports, then. Come and watch skateboard vid clips. There's a new one with sick trick tips from Paraguay." He spun a helmet into the air and caught it, grinning.

"House, what are you getting at? What do you want?" Cameron asked him the million-dollar question.

In response, House free-associated, gazing off into the distance and watching as a cloud shaped like a pair of bazookas drifted past.

I want my leg back the way it was. I want you on my arm. I want your small hands dipped in hemp seed oil stroking my cock, that and your hair spread out and trailing my chest, that and your mouth, more of it against mine. I want your thighs spread wide apart. I want to be inside…

"I forgot to give you your birthday present," he shrugged and slapped his forehead with mock exaggeration. "Come and open it."

Cameron narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "My birthday's in December."

"I like to be early." He wonders what the hell she'd like.

She sighs. "What time?"

Consulting his watch, House decides on eight.

"And then we'll play Twister naked," he yells at her back as she walks to her cream-colored Camry.


Back in his neighborhood, House limps along the street, doing what he does best with life outside of the hospital: he peers into windowpanes and keeps his distance.

Through the glass, he observed ordinary people living ordinarily.

House window-shops at life.

What to buy for Cameron? The fact that after three years, he still didn't know what she'd like is a dig at his deductive powers of reason, not to mention his intuition. She's still such a mystery to him.

An image of himself in the flower shop made him cringe at his attempts to pick out blooms for her corsage. Yet it had been a hit.

Something simple, or something funny, or both, he thought. The latter came to him as he passed a curio establishment, where he found an old powerful magnifying glass. He was pretty sure he had a punch line to go with it.

As for the something simple, well, that was complicated for a man with an intellect like his.

His head down, memorizing his red-tinged sneakers, he almost missed it.

Muriel's.

A sign above the store read "Muriel's Intimate Apparel," but House was oblivious to this salacious detail. He would have limped past it if it weren't for a flash of white materializing in his peripheral vision like lightning.

Stooped over his cane, House glanced inside.

The window display featured an array of negligees. A red satin sheath clung to the curves of a mannequin and a silk paisley two-piece thing-a-ma-jig screamed, "Take me from behind." The shorts were cut parallel to the pelvis and the tank top ended above the belly button. The ensemble was lascivious.

House licked his lips as his thoughts trotted off and dressed Cameron in the get-up, and then undressed her.

Behind the sexy eye candy and off to the side he spotted it: a white cotton nightgown with eyelets. The hem was scalloped, edged in lace, and fell to mid-thigh, and the weave of the material was so fine it was diaphanous. Its simple lines and old-fashioned vibe brought Cameron to mind.

He stepped closer to the window display, imagining how she would look in the teddy, and wondering if she'd act virginal, dressed in white lace, or if her sexuality would burst from its confines, spill out of its bustier.

Perhaps he was reading too much into it, but the garment seemed to exemplify everything he loved about Cameron. Its structure and decorative details spoke of truth, beauty, sincerity, fun, openness, intelligence, and the kind of hidden sexuality that peeked out from under her reading glasses. The nightgown gave him a queer pang in his heart.

His ticker wasn't the only organ stirred by the sight.

In his mind's eye he saw her nipples darkened beneath the fabric and imagined the patch of springy sable hair visible between her legs, and under the thatch, the lips of her sex, engorged and awaiting his tongue, his hands, his feet, and his hard, hot cock to seduce it.

He wants to be naked and feel her crawl up onto him, her body trailing this bit of white cloth across his sensitive skin.

Looking from left to right down the sidewalk, House took a step forward, stopped, lowered his chin, stroked the growth that shadowed his face, then pushed open the door to the shop.

To his chagrin, wind chimes rang out in the key of "C" as he came in, resonating throughout the potpourri-infested store. He made a face at nothing in particular and limped over to the counter, where a plump woman of more than sixty-five stood checking off items on a clipboard.

With hardly a glance, she called, "Mother?" to the back of the room. "Customer."

A round-faced, gray-haired elderly personage appeared from behind a rack of apparel, and upon seeing House, did a double take before crying out, "It's you!"

She beamed, throwing her arms around his waist and resting her wrinkled cheek against his warm chest. House's arms remained at his sides, until the old woman turned her face to his and he recognized Georgia, who he had treated for syphilis, a condition that in her case, had killed brain cells with the delightful result of stimulating the pleasure center of her cerebral cortex. In spite of himself, he had been amused and charmed by her ardor, as she'd professed the unladylike urge to boink him.

House held her by the elbows and drew her away from him when he felt her rub her pelvis against his thigh. "You've been…getting some," he declared, narrowing his eyes at her flushed cheeks and happy smile. "Your glow would put a nuclear reactor to shame."

With a gleam in her brown eyes, magnified by her glasses, Georgia exclaimed, "Oh, Dr. House. I've found my new best friend, the Womolia vibrator. Muriel helped me order it from Babeland. Who needs a man when you can wield one of those newfangled contraptions?"

"You hussy," he teased her, smile creases appearing alongside his mouth, and decided not to fill her in on the long history of sex toys.

"I just wish I'd known about those buzzers sooner." She frowned, but then her expression brightened. "I still like to look at men, and working here for my daughter, I see lovely, lovely specimens coming in to browse or buy delicates. None so handsome as Ashton Kutcher, or you, Dr. House." Georgia smiled flirtatiously. "How is your sex life? Are you free to tango?"

"Like the Sahara." House sidestepped the second query with the grace of Gene Kelly as he pointed at the white negligee with his cane. "But I feel lucky."

Georgia followed the tip of the cane and reached for the lingerie.

"The one on display, it's her size," House uttered with the confidence of a man who has studied every inch of his lover's body. In a way, he had.

As Georgia boxed and wrapped the garment, she peered over her spectacles at House. "You come back and see me. I want to hear the particulars."

As House exited the shop, the box with its red ribbon tucked underneath his arm, he heard Georgia murmur to her daughter, "That man is sex on a stick."

"That's why I let you wait on him, mom. I knew you'd get off on those blue eyes."

Back at his place, House tossed the box on his bed, and laid down, arms crossed beneath his head, eyes staring at the ceiling.

He rolled over on his side and fingered the satin ribbon, enjoying the sensation of it between his digits, and imagining how he might use it to please her.

Okay, he admitted to himself. So the gift wasn't about what Cameron wanted. It was about what he wanted.

He could live with that.

Besides, there was the magnifying glass. Okay, so it was a joke. Still, he knew she'd love it. That box was wrapped in blue paper and tied with a green ribbon, and it remained where he'd set it. On top of the piano, behind the Complete Set of Sherlock Holmes that Wilson had given him one Christmas.

He reached over to his bedside bureau for his iPod. Soon The Beatles filled his head, and he sat up in bed, clutching his right leg, and singing along with "I Dig a Pony."

"All I need is you: everything has got to be just how you want it to, because…" he yodeled, and grabbing his Gameboy, he settled in:

Waiting for her to come.


A/N: Thanks to all who read & review. You are wonderful & you rule at life. FYI: I think from now on this story will be rated "M."

Disclaimer: I do not now, nor have I ever owned "House m.d." or its characters. And I write for the pure pleasure of it.