"And since we don't have a patient," House started dealing the cards, "Poker."
"Cool," Kutner smiled, "What are we betting?"
"Money," House tossed at card at him, "Duh."
Thirteen raised an eyebrow. "Shouldn't we be helping in the clinic or something?"
"Unless something means you and Cuddy participating in oil wrestling then no," House kept dealing, "The ante is a dollar."
Five ones dropped onto the table and the doctors looked at their cards.
"Is Texas Hold 'Em relevant in any way?" Taub asked.
"It's character building," House looked at his cards, "Plus, I need lunch money."
Thirty minutes later, Kutner was tapping his cards on the table. "Alright," he threw in his last dollar.
House looked over at Thirteen and studied her. She looked back and raised an eyebrow.
"I call," House tossed in his last dollar.
"Me too," Thirteen threw in a dollar.
Foreman and Taub had already pulled out of the game after loosing all the cash they had on them.
"Pair of tens," Kutner laid down his cards.
"Pair of kings," House smiled and reached for the money.
"Hey," Thirteen called, "Don't touch my money." House looked up at her and she turned over her cards, "Spade flush."
"Damn," House sat back in his chair, "Well can I borrow ten bucks? And by borrow I mean I have not intention of paying it back."
Thirteen sat back in her chair and started counting money.
"How did you learn how to do that?" Kutner asked her.
Thirteen just shrugged.
"She's naturally mysterious," Taub quipped.
Cuddy walked in the diagnostic office door and saw the men sitting around sulking while Thirteen counted money. When House saw Cuddy he offered an explanation, "She gives one hell of a table dance."
Cuddy just shook her head. "That's not why I'm here. The dean of the school Architecture is sick." She handed out folders to everyone and still had two in her hand.
"Who are those for?" House asked.
"The other doctors who will be joining you," Cuddy answered, "This case is top priority."
"Other doctors?" Foreman looked at Cuddy.
The door opened and Chase stepped in.
Cuddy handed him a folder, "You're working diagnostics for this case."
Chase looked around and his eyes stopped on Thirteen. She was pretending to read so she could avoid looking at Chase.
"I don't think this is a…" he trailed off when the door opened again.
"Who paged me?" Cameron asked.
"I did," Cuddy handed Cameron the last folder, "You're working with the team for the remainder of this case. All issues anyone may have with each other need to be set aside." She looked at House, "I'm mostly talking to you. No one's getting out of this." With that she walked out.
"Ookay," House stood up and took his folder to the white board. He wrote down chest pain, fever, chills, and seizures.
"It could be anything with those symptoms," Kutner said.
"Well then you better get to testing huh?" House asked, "Taub and Foreman do an MRI and blood smear. Everyone else go to his house and snoop around. I'll be eating lunch." House hobbled out leaving the other doctors to fend for themselves.
Kutner and Foreman walked out leaving Kutner, Thirteen, Cameron, and Chase at the table.
No one moved for a while so Thirteen stood, "We should go."
"Yeah," Kutner, eager to get out of the tense situation, stood with Thirteen. "I'll drive."
They all walked out to Kutner's Saab. Thirteen opened the front seat with all intension of getting in to avoid sitting by Chase, but when she saw Cameron, Thirteen offered the seat to Cameron. Cameron smiled and sat down. Thirteen closed the door and got in the backseat next to Chase.
Thirteen sat close to the door all the way to the house and as soon as Kutner parked she was out of the car.
Cameron unlocked the door with the key Cuddy gave them and they walked into the large house.
"I'll go upstairs," Thirteen offered and walked up the stairs. Cameron followed her.
"Okay," Kutner said, "I'll take the kitchen."
Once upstairs, Cameron pulled on gloves and reached in her pocket for her glasses, but found they were gone.
"Loose something?" Thirteen asked.
Cameron turned around, "I can't find my glasses." She looked at Thirteen and smiled. Thirteen was holding her glasses.
"You dropped them in the office," Thirteen handed them over.
Cameron took them and slid them on, "Thanks. You look tired."
"Well I was on the phone with someone until three o'clock last night," Thirteen smirked.
"I wonder who that was," Cameron feigned ignorance.
"Next time," Thirteen walked into the bedroom, "You can just come over and talk to me while I sleep."
"I was doing that last night," Cameron retorted.
"I only dozed off twice," Thirteen defended herself.
"More like seven," Cameron answered walking into the bathroom attached to the bedroom.
When they got back to the hospital, all the doctors split ways. Chase went to his car to go get lunch, Kutner went to eat in the cafeteria, Thirteen went to check on the blood panels and Cameron went back to the office.
Thirteen found that the blood panels weren't ready.
As she walked back toward the office she yawned. She was definitely exhausted. The diagnostic part of her brain didn't seem to be affected, but her motor functions were definitely slower than usual. So she set her watch alarm for the end of her lunch break and laid out on the couch in the doctor's lounge in the hopes of catching a few z's.
Cameron yawned as looked over the file again. It was lunch time and she had one thing on her mind. Sleep. She figured the closest semi-private place to sleep was the doctor's lounge.
Just as Thirteen was starting to doze off she heard the door open. She peeked over the top of the couch and ducked back down when she saw who it was. She hoped Chase didn't see her. She really wasn't in the mood to deal with him right now. She laid on her back and used her arm to cover her eyes.
"So you steal women and couches?" Chase asked snidely.
Thirteen raised her arm to see Chase standing at the end of the couch with his hands in his pockets. Thirteen sat up on one end of the couch and muttered, "Sorry."
"Ten days," Chase stated.
"Drop it," Thirteen warned, "It doesn't concern you anymore."
"She feels sorry for you," Chase crossed his arms, "Because you have Huntington's and she fell for you. Just like she fell for House. But that didn't last and neither will you."
Thirteen stood up, "Why can't you just leave it alone? It's done and over with. It's not an experiment."
"Are you sure?" Chase asked.
Thirteen set her jaw and swallowed hard. When she couldn't force herself to answer, Thirteen walked out of the doctor's lounge.
Cameron was walking down the hallway when she saw Thirteen fly out the doctor's lounge obviously upset. Cameron paused trying to decide whether to go after Thirteen or find out what upset her in the doctor's lounge.
But before she decided, Chase stepped out of the doctor's lounge. She narrowed her eyes and walked straight over to him, "What did you do?"
"When?" Chase played dumb.
"You know exactly what I'm talking about," Cameron seethed, "What did you say to her?"
"The truth," Chase stated, "I told her that she's just an experiment and soon you'll realize that."
Cameron was fighting the urge to slug Chase right there, "I can't believe you. She's not an experiment and she never was." Cameron turned on her heel and walked off after Thirteen.
"Are you sure?" Chase called after her, "Because she's not."
So much for sleeping. Thirteen rubbed her eyes and poured herself some more coffee. She walked back over to the conference table in the diagnostic office and picked up the chart.
As she was making notes the door opened. She turned around to see Kutner. "Hey."
"Hey," he answered. He took a seat next to her and picked up his file.
"I thought you had a hot date at lunch," Thirteen said.
"She got paged," Kutner opened the file, "Apparently some guy shot himself while cleaning his gun."
"So she was the OR nurse," Thirteen stated.
"Yeah," Kutner nodded.
The door opened again and Cameron stepped in. Kutner looked up to see who it was and then said to Thirteen, "Uh, I think it's for you."
Thirteen turned around and saw Cameron.
"Can we talk?" Cameron asked.
Thirteen nodded and followed Cameron out the door. Cameron walked across the hall to a supply closet and walked in. Thirteen walked in behind her and Cameron closed the door.
"I know what happened with Chase," Cameron started. She took Thirteen's hands. "Everything he said is completely wrong. You're not an experiment to me. I'm with you because I care about you and I feel comfortable around you and I'm attracted to you. I love the way you hide under the covers when you first wake up in the morning and the way your eyes catch the sun. I love the way you can see right through me and I'm not scared to let you." Cameron paused, "There's so many things that I love about you. You have to know that you're so much more to me than an experiment."
Thirteen was completely awestruck. No one had ever gone this far to make sure she was sure about their relationship. She couldn't manage any words so she relied on the one form of communication which she could always get through to Cameron.
Cameron felt her back hit the shelves from the sheer force of Thirteen's kiss. The kiss was passionate and soft at the same time making Cameron weak in the knees.
When she pulled away Thirteen rested her forehead on Cameron's just breathing her in.
Cameron smiled, "We still have an hour left of lunch. What do you say we go to my apartment?"
"And do what?" Thirteen smirked.
When they got to Cameron's apartment they went straight to the bedroom, hand in hand. Thirteen helped Cameron take her jacket off and Cameron took Thirteen's coat up. Cameron grabbed Thirteen's waist and pulled her into a soft, sweet kiss.
"Are you ready?" Cameron asked.
Thirteen nodded, "Oh yeah." She kissed Cameron again.
They both crawled into bed and under the covers before drifting off to sleep in each other's arms.