Title: Mentor

Chapter Fifteen: Interns

Allison waited nervously in the clinic of PPTH. Fidgeting with her blouse, she waited for the rest of the interns to get there. She had come in with Cuddy, so Allison had been stuck being early for the program to begin, and her nerves had worked themselves raw. She'd be meeting Dr. Franklin Diar, the medical director of Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital today, and she was worried about making a fool out of, not only herself, but Lisa, James and Greg as well!

"You must be Allison Cameron!" Allison spun around to see an elderly, spherical man standing behind her, "I'm Dr. Diar, medical director of this hospital." He held out his hand which Allison forced herself to shake firmly. "I've heard a lot about you. Dr. Cuddy told me she'd bring you in early so I could meet you ahead of time."

Allison nodded, "Yes, I have been very excited to meet you. I'm honored that you included me in the program."

"How could I not!? You impressed Dr. House! I'm his boss, and I don't even think I impress him." He laughed jollily, making Allison think vaguely of a beardless, balding Santa Claus. "I read your transcripts, and your letters of recommendations from your teachers back at your college. Very impressive." Dr. Diar nodded, "Now, I believe Dr. Cuddy has explained what will be going on with your involvement." Allison nodded, "Very good! Just remember, you are to strictly observe and shadow the interns. You may not comment or suggest anything." She nodded again, "And please see Dr. Cuddy if you have any questions, or just stick with a pair of the interns. Allright?" Again she nodded. "Very good! Also, Dr. Cuddy will have a sheet for you to fill out for clocked time. This may be very beneficial for you when you apply for medical school. You can pick that up when you find free time." Allison felt like she was a bobble head figure. "Well the other interns will be arriving soon. I'll explain to them that you are only shadowing, so please do not mention that a special spot was made for you. Very good!"

Allison had the feeling that "very good!" had become Dr. Diar's expression for the end of a statement over the years. But she nodded one more time and felt like her neck had turned into a spring, for it didn't want to settle back into a neutral position by the end of his speech.

When the other interns started arriving, Allison felt her nervousness rise once again. No one paid much attention to her until Dr. Diar mentioned that she'd simply be shadowing them. At that point, many glanced at her suspiciously, wondering, perhaps, if she would be critiquing them as they went about the hospital. Most seemed to acknowledge her age, and write her off as a potential future student in the medical program, and nothing more than that.

To her great misfortune, Allison was paired with two girls who she quickly became annoyed with. She had to follow them around the clinic, watch them take notes and quickly become befuddled and run off to fetch a resident for explanation. Groaning at the boredom she felt, Allison slumped around, making notes, (strictly as an observer of course), and coming to her own conclusions about patients. Even more frustrating, was the fact that the girls she'd been paired with didn't bother to extend any of their information on the patient to her, and left Allison to strain her ears to discover the outcomes of pulse, blood pressure, and other such readings. Also, extended questions Allison had could not be made, so it was difficult to draw her own conclusions.

Around lunch time, Allison moped her way to Lisa's office. "Wow." Lisa's eyebrows rose, "What's wrong with you?"

"I'M PISSED OFF!" Allison hollered. "This is boring! And annoying! And frustrating!"

"Woah!" Lisa stood up from her desk chair, raising her hands, "What happened?"

"First of all, I'm stuck paired with two girls who can't tell a sphenoid from a sphincter! Second, I can't say anything. And third, I can't even try and come up with anything to do than watch while I'm bored to tears, and my idiot group mates suggest IBS because a woman has gas! Damn it Lisa! Everyone's so focused on turning little problems into drama that they're wasting my GOD DAMN TIME!" Allison shrieked.

"Woah." Lisa's eyes bugged out, "House has rubbed off on you way too much." She shook her head. "I'll see if I can get you paired with another group."

Allison groaned, "I doubt it will be much better. I still can't say anything. Do I have to observe the interns? Can't I observe a department?" She asked hopefully.

Lisa sat down, thinking carefully. "I don't know..." She bit her lip. "You could go to Wilson's department I suppose..." Pointing her finger at Allison, she firmly stated, "But you can NOT go anywhere near diagnostics!"

Jumping up, Allison nodded and took her notebook and dashed towards the door before stopping, "Oh! Can I have my time sheet?" She said meekly, returning to Lisa's desk.

"Yeah." She grabbed a paper and handed it to Allison, "Here. And I will tell Dr. Diar what's going on... And... Ally, can I see the notes you took?" Allison nodded and handed over her notebook. "Wow... SOAP notes." Lisa nodded and then laughed, "You even documented and initialed them? If only we could get House to do that." She tore the notes out of the book. "I'm going to compare these to the actual outcomes, okay? I've been wanting to see if House has been bragging accurately." She winked.

Allison nodded and felt self-conscious as she left Lisa's office. What if she hadn't accurately diagnosed and written down what she would do if she were the doctor? What if she had just called those two interns idiots, and it turned out that they had been right and she had been dead wrong? There were five patients in her notes, and what if she'd misdiagnosed all of them? What if she just proved that House being impressed with her really was just about looks, and she really wasn't as special as she thought? Allison tried to push those thoughts from her mind as she headed towards the oncology department.

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Lisa was sitting at her desk for an hour reviewing Allison's work. Biting her lip, Lisa wondered if it meant anything, but Allison had been wrong. Dead wrong on a diagnoses.

One out of five diagnosi. Considering it was a clinical diagnoses, it was cause for concern. Looking at the notes again, Lisa noticed something very important. Allison had been misinformed. The patient's BP had been much lower than Allison had written in her notes. Could the young woman have misheard? After all, she wasn't allowed to speak during her observations. It wasn't as if she could ask questions if she misheard something. Reading the notes over and over again, Lisa realized that even with the difference in the BP reading, Allison was still grasping at straws for her diagnoses.

With a groan, Lisa rose from her desk. She didn't want to break the news to Allison about her conclusion, let alone tell her that the two interns Allison despised had been right.

Taking the elevator to the oncology floor, Lisa went in search of House's little protege.

She found her in Wilson's office.

"Ally, can I talk to you?" Lisa pointed to the hallway. Standing, a look of concerned curiosity on her face, Allison went into the corridor. "You were wrong." Lisa said firmly.

"On... On all of them?" Allison choked, disbelieving.

"No, just on one, but A-... Cameron," Lisa corrected herself as doctors passed by, "you were completely wrong. And I reviewed your notes over and over, and I thought I figured out where the mistake was, but... Even when I thought about it, it still didn't work." She handed Allison the file and her notes. "It wasn't hypertension. The interns were right. She has diabetes."

Allison leaned against the wall. Though she knew she shouldn't take it this hard, after all, she was a pre-med student, and she'd managed to diagnose four out of five patients accurately and without any help, so she should have been proud of herself, but... Allison repressed the sniffle she had building. But, when she spoke her next words to Lisa, the nasally sound of her voice was difficult to miss, "Are... You disappointed in me?"

Lisa smiled weakly, "No." She shook her head, "You're doing fine. I just thought you should know because-"

"You don't want me to turn into an egotistical, misanthropic doctor?" Allison tried a weak attempt at humor.

Smiling more boldly, Lisa nodded, "Yeah, something like that."

Allison wanted to go to House and curl against him and tell him what happened as Lisa walked away. She wanted to beat herself up over completely fucking up a diagnoses. She wanted to go to House and tell him he'd been wrong, and that she wasn't special. But she couldn't. Because he was off limits to her in the hospital. Tilting her chin up, Allison pulled back the tears and went back into Wilson's office.

"I fucked up." Allison said, flopping onto Wilson's couch, much like House often did when something was bugging him.

"Oh?"

"I misdiagnosed a patient." She said flatly. "I said hypertension. It was diabetes. I missed one fucking symptom, and misheard a BP reading. And I got a completely wrong answer."

"And what did you learn?" Wilson asked.

"That I shouldn't disregard what someone's saying just because I think they're an idiot?" She quirked an eyebrow.

"... Yeah, pretty much." Wilson smiled. "I think, what you really learned today, Ally, is that you can't always be right. Or at least not right off the bat."

"But-"

Wilson shook his head, "No, Ally. There are no "buts" there's only true and false. Did the patient have symptoms of hypertension? Yes. Did the patient actually have hypertension. No."

"I wouldn't have thought hypertension if I'd heard the right BP." She grumbled.

Wilson sighed, "You can't let this eat you up! If you're going to wallow in everything you get wrong, then you shouldn't be a doctor." He said firmly, but quickly softened at her look, "You're just beginning. Fuck ups are to be expected. It wasn't your patient. It wasn't your call. You learn. You don't do it again."

Allison grunted. "Okay, I'm wallowing." She agreed finally. Then flinging her head against the arm of the chair, "Damn am I wallowing!" She got up and took up pacing Wilson's office. "I mean! Four out of five, Wilson!" She flung her arms up in the air. "I should be fucking ecstatic!"

"There you go." Wilson nodded. "Now, go back to the clinic, and use that good temper you had before you started spending too much time with House."

Smiling weakly, Allison nodded and picked up her notebook again. She could do this! And she wasn't going to let a pair of stupid interns who thought that they were better than her make her screw up again. She was here! A special spot in the program had been made up specifically for her, and she wasn't going to doubt herself again!

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"I missed not being able to talk to you today." Allison murmured as House pinned her against the door of his condo, slamming it shut with the force of their bodies, "Knowing you were so close, and I couldn't come see you... It killed me." She moaned, her legs wrapping around his body.

"Mm," House agreed, his hands cupping her ass and squeezing it, "I wanted to do this to you all day. I wanted to see you... Speak to you... Touch you... Anything." He said, smashing his mouth to hers and pressing his body as close as possible to her softer one.

Their tongues danced together in a heated passion, clothes tugging and loosening in their hurry to disrobe.

Soon, her legs slid down his and they were kicking off their pants and shoes. As the remainder of their clothes hit the floor, they ran into the back of the couch. In a flurry of movements, they tumbled over its back and landed on the cushions, lips still connected. House had to dive back over the back of the couch to retrieve his pants and the condoms that were in them. When he returned, hopping back over the arm of the sofa, she laughed and snagged the square wrapper from him and quickly tore it open and rolled it down his length.

Quickly, she stood up and instructed him to sit normally on the couch. He did as she asked and waited to see what she had in mind. Slouching into the couch, House watched her stand with her legs on either side of his, she leaned back, placing her arms on the back of the couch and sunk down onto him. House groaned, placing his hands on her hips and helping her start her rhythm as she quickly rose and fell against his hard on. Her panting and moans soon filled the living room, and he started sliding his hands along the lengths of her thighs. He could feel the muscles of her legs shake after a while and he pulled her down completely, circling his arm around her waist.

Allison whimpered at the deep penetration, and instinctively moved with him as he turned their bodies so that she was on her hands and knees on the sofa. He half rose behind her and took her from behind, the new angle, tightening her pelvis and strangling his cock for all it was worth. Circling her hips, Allison moaned and dropped onto her forearms, the angle making her quake and moan louder.

With the force he put behind his thrusts, Allison felt like he was going to bruise her, but it felt too good for her to protest. Even having to explain to Lisa why she was walking funny the next day would be worth the pleasure she was experiencing now. Only he could put her into this type of frenzy, only he could make her feel so good, and only he could make her want more and more.

"I love you." Allison whimpered as he smashed their bodies together.

House's motions slowed for a moment as he realized that she'd just revealed her feelings aloud. Smiling to himself, he curled his body, pressing his chest to her back and murmured into her ear, "I love you too."

Allison gasped, then shook , and finally came with a harsh cry that tore her throat. He followed quickly into oblivion, both collapsing on the couch in a sweating pile of limbs.

"You love me?" Allison asked breathlessly, hoping his admittance hadn't been a moment of passion.

"Yes, I love you." He said again, stroking her perspiring body. Turning in his embrace, Allison nuzzled against him.

"I love you." She whispered.

TBC