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Chapter 25
Monday Morning… Cameron's First Day
It was seven ten a.m. when Cameron walked down the hall of the fourth floor. She couldn't help notice how eerily quiet it was. In another hour these same walls would be consumed with chaos. She stopped in front of the glass door that read Diagnostics and stared at the prestigious word for a few seconds before she pulled out of her pocket, the brass key House had given her and stuck it into the small keyhole and turned it. The click of the lock echoed throughout the hallway. She slowly pushed open the door and stepped inside and let the wave of familiarity wash over her. She honestly never thought she would be doing this again.
She tossed her bag and coat on one of the chairs and looked around the room. Nothing looked different except for the notorious white board which was new and more modern looking. House's colored markers were in the tray, as always; the oblong table was the same, even the red mug, House's favorite, was in the small sink where he placed it every evening. Nothing was different, she thought, except for her.
She wasn't sure what to do first. So, she did what felt normal and walked to the sink, washed the red mug, sat it to the side and started a pot of coffee. She then proceeded to House's office, walked to the window and opened the blinds to let the morning light stream across the semi-dark room. She turned to look at the objects throughout the room, not really focusing on one thing, when a feeling of calmness swept over her. It amazed her, after everything, how normal it felt to be there. Her eyes fell upon the stack of mail that was piled on the side of House's desk and a half smile crossed her pretty pink lips. She walked over and picked up the stack and began tossing out the junk mail and putting aside the important stuff. She laughed when she thought that if it were House doing this, he would do just the opposite and throw out the important stuff and keep the junk mail. After taking care of his mail she sat down in his chair, like she had done so many times before and turned on his computer. She used the same password he has had for the past four years, to log into his email and was somewhat surprised to find that he had two hundred and fifty emails waiting for his attention. Unbelievable, she said out loud. She was going through the array of messages when she heard someone walk into the other room. She didn't look up to see who it was but did glance at her watch to see it was already eight o'clock.
Taub saw that the door to House's office was open and wondered why his boss was in so early. He hung up his black coat, poured a cup of coffee and proceeded into the adjoining room and was definitely surprised to find Cameron sitting at the cluttered desk.
"Hi Cameron." He said in a surprised tone.
"Hey." She answered as she continued to click away at the emails.
Taub watched her carefully as he moved closer to the desk. "So, why are you here?"
"Uhhh. I work here." She said, suppressing the grin that so wanted to display itself.
"Really? For the day? A special project?" He asked as he sipped his coffee.
"No. I'm here permanently."
Taub choked on the sip of coffee in his mouth. "You're what?"
Cameron heard him choke and looked at him. "Are you okay?"
Taub was coughing but managed to acknowledge by a shake of his head that he was okay and wiped the drips of coffee that had dribbled down his chin.
"Did you say permanently?" Alarm bells were going off in Taub's head wondering why House would have hired Cameron back unless it was to replace one of them.
"Yep, as of today." She said, this time she let the grin display itself across her mouth.
He was just about to say something else when he heard Kutner and Remy walk in and he walked back into the other room to talk to them.
"Cameron's in there and she says she's working here, in diagnostics again. Did either of you know about it?"
Kutner smiled. "Cameron's working here? Great." He said with a smile and went to talk to her.
Taub shot Kutner an annoyed look, then turned his attention back to Remy. "Did you know about this?"
"No." She said with a confused look on her face. "Why would House hire her back? That doesn't make any sense."
Taub looked at her curiously. "Why?"
"I heard something as to why she really resigned and if it's true, it doesn't make sense for House to hire her back."
"What did you hear?" Taub anxiously waited to hear what she had heard when Forman walked in and they quickly stopped talking.
Foreman gave them both a curious look and wondered what they were secretly talking about when Cameron and Kutner stepped into the room. He suddenly understood what the topic of conversation was between Taub and Remy.
"Hi Foreman." Cameron said with a smile.
"Hey Cam." Foreman answered and proceeded to the pot of coffee.
Taub saw the exchanged looks between Cameron and Foreman. "It seems at least one of us knew what was going on."
Foreman shot Taub a look over the top of his coffee cup.
Just then House swung open the door and saw the stunned looks on everyone's face. He limped across the room, feeling the weight of their stare. "What?" He snarled.
Taub spoke first. "You're here early. Let me guess why.' He said sarcastically. House ignored Taub's sarcastic remark. "I'm guessing everyone knows who our new playmate is." He shot Cameron a look as he made his way to the coffeepot. "That better be your coffee." He said to her and tossed his bag on the floor and grabbed his red mug, filled it to the brim and took a sip. It was heaven going down. "If you do nothing else, just make sure you continue doing this."
Cameron smiled inwardly. "Nice to know all my education wasn't for nothing."
"Okay people. Good news, for us anyway. A new patient is coming in this morning." House said as he tossed a blue file on the table.
"Thank God." Foreman said with relief and picked up the file.
House turned his attention to the blank white board and grabbed the black marker out of the tray. "Foreman, start giving me symptoms."
Foreman scanned the pages inside the folder. "Looks like we have a 28 year old male who has had a rash on his upper body, fever and headache for the past five days. Fever increased to 104 yesterday and has remained at 103 and 104." Foreman slid the file across the table to Cameron, who opened it so she and Kutner could look at it.
House stood back and stared at the symptoms. "We need more. Remy and Taub get a family history, Kutner draw some blood and start the usual tests."
Taub was annoyed that House was avoiding the Cameron issue. "That's it? What about Cameron?"
Cameron looked at Taub with a furrowed brow.
House on the other hand, was amused at Taub's insecurity. He turned to look at him. "Does Cameron being here bother you?"
"It depends." "On?"
"Why she's here. Did she ask to come back?"
Cameron let out a little laugh. "I'm standing right here. You can ask me."
Taub ignored Cameron and continued to stare at House, waiting for an answer.
"I asked Cameron back." House admitted.
This clearly shocked Remy. "Why?" She said it more coldly than she meant to.
"Because I wanted her back. Do you have a problem with that?" House said in a slightly agitated tone.
"Did you hire her because you are firing one of us?" Taub persisted.
"That's what I love about you Taub. You are always looking out for number one." House started walking to his office without giving Taub an answer. "Get to work."
"But…" Taub tried again. "That wasn't a question, Dr. Taub." House turned and gave Taub a stern look.
Taub took the hint and followed the others out of the room.
House caught Cameron before she walked out the door. "Cameron. Come hither."
Cameron raised her eyebrow and followed him into his office wondering what he wanted.
As House walked into his office for the first time this morning, he glanced at the stack of mail that was now neatly stacked in the center of his desk. "I see you have started going through my mail. Find anything interesting?" He asked.
"Not really but you having two hundred and fifty emails is interesting. Why haven't you been answering them?" Cameron asked as she stood in front of his desk with her hands on her hips.
"I don't like going through my mail. I find it boring and I don't like reading emails unless they contain porn or don't you remember?" He said truthfully as he sat down at his desk.
"I started answering the emails that were marked urgent and I deleted about a hundred that had no purpose."
House gave her a gasp. "I hope you didn't delete any porn."
Cameron rolled her eyes. "They were the first to go."
House smiled.
Cameron continued. "You might want to check the others. You still have some marked urgent that I didn't get to. I shudder to think what your patient files look like."
"You might want to have a stiff drink before you look at the those."
Cameron sighed. "Great. I'm surprised Cuddy hasn't been riding your ass."
"Cuddy is always riding my ass. She likes it."
"I bet she does." Cameron said sarcastically causing House to look at her. "What did you need?" She asked.
"What?"
"You said you wanted to see me."
"I said come hither and you obeyed. Just wanted to see if it still worked and it did. Already seems like old times, doesn't it?"
"House." Cameron said annoyed.
"Tell me you haven't missed me." He teased.
"So, there was no purpose for you asking me to stay behind?"
House really looked at her for the first time this morning. She wasn't in her pink scrubs. She had on black slacks that showed off her ass nicely. The white button up rayon shirt was shear and flowed attractively over her breasts. Her hair was pulled back in a pony tail and it bounced when she walked. She looked really good, he thought. He suddenly realized he was staring and not talking.
Cameron didn't miss how his eyes roamed over her and she could feel the heat rising in her face.
"I had a reason. (pause) What did you do this weekend?"
"Now you want to know how I spent my weekend?" She knew where the conversation was going.
"Thought maybe you spent it with someone interesting." He said slyly.
"You can stop playing your little game. I already know that Wilson told you about us having dinner together. Did he tell you we slept together?" She said without any expression on her face.
House stared hard at her, trying to read her expression. Is she serious? He wondered, his stomach doing somersaults.
"By the look on your face, you don't tell each other everything." She said, still without any expression.
"He didn't mention that piece of information when I talked to him yesterday. What does your Aussie boyfriend say about that?"
"You mean Chase?" Cameron spat out his name. "He decided we needed to take a break from one another. I was upset and one thing led to another."
House wasn't sure how to take this new information. "And you're just offering this information to me?" He asked cautiously.
"Actually, I figured James would have already told you. I'm surprised. Anyway, can I go now? I don't want the others to think I'm getting preferential treatment." She said with a mischievous grin.
House didn't miss the grin and nodded for her to leave.
He waited until he heard her heels clack down the hall and jumped up and headed straight to Wilson's office. He entered the office to find it empty. Shit! He said under his breath. He rubbed his chin and dialed Wilson's number. He let it ring until it went to his voicemail. He hung up without leaving a message. He decided there was only one thing to do and that was to sit on Wilson's leather sofa and wait. He thought about the news Cameron just threw at him and two things she said stuck in his head. She called Wilson by his first name and was she lying about her and Chase taking a break from one another? And of course there was the part about the two of them sleeping together.
He glanced at his watch. Where the hell was Wilson?!
