Thirteen walked into one of the exam rooms and saw a little boy sitting on the table with his mother in the chair next to him.
"Hey," she smiled. She picked up the chart and sat in the rolling stool. "You're throat hurts?"
The little boy nodded.
"When did it start?" Thirteen asked the mother.
"Last night," the mother answered.
"Open your mouth for me," Thirteen told the little boy, "And say ah."
The little boy did as instructed and Thirteen checked his throat. Then she checked his ears. She took out a pen and her prescription pad. "It's just a mild infection. Here's a prescription for some antibiotics." She ripped off the paper and handed it to the woman. Then she took a candy cane out of her pocket and handed it to the little boy.
He smiled at her and hopped off of the table. The woman smiled at Thirteen, "Thank you."
Thirteen just nodded and watched them walk out. She stood up and walked out of the exam room. She returned the chart to the desk and waited for a nurse to hand her another chart.
She'd already been there for a few hours and was ready for a coffee break.
"Dr. Hadley," the nurse said, "There aren't any new patients right now."
"Oh," Thirteen nodded, "Okay. Well, I'm going to the doctor's lounge. Page me is you need me."
The nurse nodded and Thirteen walked off.
Thirteen yawned when she sat on the couch with her coffee. She hadn't quite recuperated from last night so she was still tired. She grabbed the remote and turned on the TV. She wasn't surprised to see it was already on the soap channel. She flipped around until she saw the snowboarding was on.
After being thoroughly enthralled with the women's snowboarding half pipe for a good hour and a half, her pager went off. She checked the number and noticed it was for the ER not the clinic.
When Thirteen walked up to the ER desk and asked the nurse, "Someone paged me."
"Dr. Hadley?" the nurse asked.
Thirteen nodded.
The nurse handed her a chart, "Dr. Cuddy told me to call you. There's a patient at the end over there who Dr. Cuddy wants you to look at."
Thirteen took the chart and walked over to the patient. She moved the curtain out of the way and found the patient holding a oxygen mask over his mouth, "Hi. I'm Dr. Hadley."
The patient looked up and moved the mask so he could talk, "I'm Scott." He put the mask back.
Thirteen looked at the chart, "You have shortness of breath, fever, high blood pressure, and a nose bleed."
"The nose bleed stopped," Scott told her.
She nodded and made a correction to the chart, "Any joint pains or fatigue?"
He nodded, "Both."
She wrote something else and looked up when the patient grabbed his side. She walked over to him, "Are you okay?"
"Sharp pain in my side," he groaned.
Before Thirteen could do anything else, he leaned over and threw up in the bucket next to the bed. He laid back after he was done.
"Blood in the vomit," Thirteen wrote it down, "I'm going to go admit you."
Scott put the mask back over his mouth and took a deep breath. He nodded.
Once Scott was moved and sedated, Thirteen walked in and picked up the chart, "How do you feel?"
"Horrible," Scott answered with a small smile.
Thirteen looked over his chart again, "I'm going to take some blood and do some tests. We'll probably run you through a MRI just be sure."
"What do you think it is?" he asked.
"I'm not sure yet," Thirteen answered, "But that's what the tests are for." She picked up a syringe and drew some blood.
"While you do the blood tests do you think I can get some paper and a pencil?" he asked.
Thirteen raised an eyebrow, "Sure." She looked in her breast pocket of her lab coat and pulled out a pencil, "I'll send a nurse in with some paper."
He smiled, "Thanks."
Thirteen walked out and after asking an orderly to bring Scott some paper, she headed to the labs to run the tests. It was weird being the lab without the team, but Kutner was out of town at his parents' house and Taub was somewhere on some mountain with his wife for the next few days.
She looked up from the microscope with she heard the lab door open. Cuddy stepped in.
"How's it going?" Cuddy asked.
"Low platelet count," Thirteen stated, "Which I already figured. I'm still running other tests."
Cuddy nodded, "Thanks for taking this case. Let me know if you need any help and I'll have House poured into a cab from the bar he's at."
"I think I got it right now," Thirteen smiled, "I'll let you know if I need help though."
Cuddy smiled back, "I'll be in my office. Merry Christmas."
"Merry Christmas," Thirteen replied and watched Cuddy leave.
After about half an hour, the door opened again. This time it wasn't Cuddy.
Thirteen smiled, "What are you doing here?"
Cameron smiled back and adjusted her lab coat, "I heard you were working alone in the lab and thought I'd come help."
"You didn't have to," Thirteen told her as Cameron walked over.
"Chase is watching a rugby match with some of his friends," Cameron replied, "Besides, it gives me a chance to do my old job without having to deal with my old boss. And of course to hang out with you."
Thirteen smiled, "Okay."
Cameron sat on the stool next to Thirteen, "What are we doing?"
Thirteen opened her mouth, but the only sound in the room was her pager going off. She checked it and started walking out the door, "He's seizing." She took off in the run followed by Cameron.
Once he was stabilized, Thirteen reinserted his IV in the other hand because the first one was ripped out by the seizure.
Thirteen and Cameron walked out of the patients room together.
"Any ideas?" Thirteen asked as they walked back to the lab.
"I was thinking TTP?" Cameron offered.
"And I was thinking HUS," Thirteen opened the lab door for Cameron, "So we treat him with plasmapheresis and steroids?"
Cameron nodded, "Looks like it."
"Well," Thirteen looked at her watch, "That means it's lunch time after I schedule the plasmapheresis."
"It's three o'clock," Cameron raised an eyebrow.
"I missed lunch," Thirteen answered.
"Do you feel like going out for lunch?" Cameron asked.
Thirteen shrugged, "Sure. I have the rest of the day off, but I don't know what's going to be open."
Cameron smiled, "There's this little Indian place down the street that's open."
"Cool," Thirteen smiled back.
After they scheduled the treatment, they took Thirteen's car to the restaurant that was almost thirty minutes from the hospital.
Thirteen looked over the menu and raised an eyebrow, "Um…why don't you order for me? I don't usually eat Indian food."
Cameron nodded, "Okay."
After Cameron ordered and they got their drinks, Thirteen looked over at Cameron who was staring into her drink.
"Is there something interesting going on in your drink?" Thirteen asked lightly.
"Sorry," Cameron snapped out of her haze, "I was just…thinking."
"Care to share?" Thirteen asked.
Cameron opened her mouth and her phone rang before she could get out a syllable. "Sorry," she muttered and flipped it open, "Cameron…mom?…Merry Christmas…you're where?!"
Thirteen watched Cameron after her voice went up a few octaves.
"Okay…I'll be right there…" Cameron said and hung up. She put her phone in her pocket.
"Where are we going?" Thirteen smiled.
Cameron sighed, "My parents are going to be at the airport in half an hour." She dialed a number on her phone and put it to her ear. After about a minute of waiting she hung up. "Chase isn't answering his phone."
Thirteen flagged the waiter down and asked for their food to go. When she got a questioning look from Cameron she just smiled and answered, "We can eat on the way to pick up your parents."
A large grin spread across Cameron's face, "You'll go with me?"
"Yeah," Thirteen nodded, "You're car's too far away and I certainly don't have anything better to do."
"Thanks," Cameron studied Thirteen for a moment before letting her smile grow a little bigger.
On the way to pick up Cameron's parents, they ate and listened to the music Thirteen cranked up.
"I love this song," Cameron beamed, "What's it called?"
"So Far We Are," Thirteen replied, "It's by the French Kicks."
Cameron nodded and continued to listen to the music while eating and helping Thirteen ate without swerving off the road.
At the airport, Cameron nervously fidgeted at baggage claim. Thirteen was standing idly by eating her desert, which was an ice cream cone from the vending machine next to them.
"I can't believe you're eating ice cream," Cameron told Thirteen, "It's like fifty below outside."
Thirteen smirked, "It's only three below and I can't believe you're not eating ice cream."
"Well then aren't you glad I dragged you kicking and screaming in here?" Cameron asked with a small smile.
"I wasn't kicking and screaming," Thirteen answered after taking a lick of her ice cream, "I just said that I don't know your parents, so it may be weird that I'm waiting in the airport for them."
"You're not in the airport waiting for them," Cameron turned so that she was fully facing Thirteen, "You're here keeping me company while I wait for them."
"And to chauffer you to wherever you want to go," Thirteen grinned.
A smile took over Cameron's lips. Her eyes traveled from the younger doctor's smiling lips, up her slightly pink cheeks from the cold, and up to her crystal blue eyes. Cameron bit her lip and traced Thirteen's face again with her eyes as her stomach somersaulted until she was slightly dizzy.
Luckily a voice came from the crowd before Cameron did something she was sure she'd regret. "Allison!"
Cameron turned around and spotted her parents.
When Cameron walked off to greet her parents, Thirteen let out a long breath. Now she was imagining that Cameron was getting ready to kiss her and she was a little unnerved at how much she wanted to feel the older doctor's lips on her own.
She shook out of her thoughts by a cold liquid running down her hand. She looked down and her ice cream was melting. A few quick licks later, her ice cream was gone and Cameron was approaching with her parents in tow.
"Mom, dad, this is Thirteen," Cameron introduced her, "She works in the diagnostic department at the hospital."
"Nice to meet you," Cameron's mother smiled.
Cameron's father just smiled and nodded.
"Nice to meet you too," Thirteen smiled at them. She looked them over and realized that Cameron had her father's eyes and her mother's smile.
"C'mon," Cameron told Thirteen, "We're going to have dinner with them at their hotel."
"Okay," Thirteen nodded.
"We're going to go find our bags," Cameron's father told Cameron.
She just nodded then watched them walk off.
"When I say dinner," Cameron told Thirteen, while watching her parents, "I mean they're going to eat and I'm going to get hammered."
Thirteen chuckled, "Why? They seem nice."
"They seem nice to you," Cameron replied, "But they're my parents. I actually know them."
"Alright," Thirteen put her hands in her pockets.
Cameron was quiet for a moment before adding quietly, "Thanks for going along with this. It means a lot to me."
Thirteen gulped and answered as nonchalantly as possible, "Anytime."
Soon they walked out of the airport followed by Mr. and Mrs. Cameron in tow.