The team've been sitting in the diagnostics room for the last half hour, and still there's been a no show of House. Chase goes through his notes for a third time and Foreman starts tapping his pen against the table, which rapidly gets under Camerons skin.
"Would you stop that?"
Foreman looks at her with a short laugh, "Stop what?"
Cameron throws a hand out, "Tapping your pen. It's...annoying."
He shares a glance with Chase, who shrugs at him and he lets the pen roll onto his file but frowns when he sees Cameron sink into her seat, "You okay, Cameron?"
"I'm just...worried about House. He's not always this late for work, and if he is, he usually let's us know why or leaves us a note."
Chase shuts his file and pushes it to the side, "Maybe he's still trying to get Wilson out of his bed."
She rolls her eyes as Foreman snorts with laughter, "Oh yeah, like there can't be any other explanation. Anyway, I passed Wilson in the hall this morning."
"How'd he look?"
"I don't know, tired? He also had a cut on his lip."
When Chase raises an eyebrow at Foreman, Camerons mouth falls open, "You can't be serious!"
Chase stares at her, "Well, think about it, Cameron! House gets his hand fixed up by Wilson, then for the rest of the day, he's stuck in this weird daze, and Foreman said Wilson was acting strange yesterday too. When I went to talk to talk to House about the patient, he kept looking at Wilson as he left the room, and last night, House left early, which he never does! And now House hasn't shown up for work in almost an hour, meanwhile Wilson's wandering the halls 'looking tired'. I'm telling you, something's going on with those two."
"Well, why isn't House saying anything to us?"
"Maybe he's embarrassed?" When Foreman gives him a look, he smiles, "What? Wilson's his best friend. It just screams predictable. And none of us have actually known House to feel any sort of love for anyone, much less romantic love."
Cameron goes to argue her point, but there's a sudden noise behind her and she turns to see House limp into the room holding a styrofoam cup in his other hand. Her stomach turns when she notes that he looks just as tired as Wilson does, and as he rounds the table to his seat, the light manages to catch a dark red shiner on the edge of his jaw. He's also wearing a baby blue turtleneck under his jacket, which Chase begins to laugh at as House puts his cup on the table to take his backpack off.
"Sorry I'm late. My ears were burning. Hope you were saying nice things about me."
He hangs it on a hook then takes his seat, and Chase sits up in his chair to get a better look, "What are you wearing? Next to him, Foreman tries hard not to smile but Cameron just ignores them. She's too focused on his bruise to care about his attire for the day.
House frowns, "I'm trying to bring this back in fashion. Turtlenecks just aren't appreciated enough in this society." He puts the cup to his mouth and waves a hand towards Foreman, who hunches over his file and begins to read, and like that, the tension's gone from the room,
"18 year old kid collapsed from a heart attack in the middle of his job. His catheter was clean and the echo showed no functional abnormalities."
House nods to him, "What's his job?"
"Uh…" Foreman goes down the paper a bit, "He works at Chuck E Cheese."
"He's not the chipmunk, is he? Cause I would hate to be that guy."
"No, he's just a waiter. Why is that important?"
"I'm thinking of working there. Always wondered what it's like having kids scream in your face and smelling like old pizza when you get home later. Then again, maybe I'm thinking of a cafeteria lady…
Foreman shakes his head, and Cameron decides to cut in, "Fatigue, night sweats, weight loss preceded the heart attack. He's only 18 and an orphan, as well as a single father of two."
House reaches over to steal Chases file, and as he reads it through, a wide grin appears on his face, "Party of five! Powerful stuff. The OC of its day. Stress explains everything except the itchy feet."
"Athlete's foot covers that. Waiters work twelve hours a day in old sneakers."
"Hmm. Good idea. Ignore the symptoms. Makes your job easy."
Cameron sighs in exasperation, "I'm not ignoring the symptom, I'm explaining it."
House drops the cup on the table and seems to dismiss her as he turns to Foreman, who's throwing out his own theory. Cameron soon tunes out, still drawn to the mysterious mark on his face, and she doesn't came back until she hears the faint sound of a pen being moved about on paper; it's House, she realises, writing something down on an envelope.
She leans forward, her brows furrowed, but House sees and blocks her view with his arm. After a couple seconds, he moves away and something comes to Camerons mind.
"You can't know what's wrong with him after a 30 second perusal of his file." She watches him stand and limp over to his whiteboard, and he flashes her a grin over his shoulder.
"I hope I can. Each of you get one test and the clock runs until lunch. If I'm right, he'll still be alive. If I'm wrong, it's a very cruel game." Using a magnetic paperclip, he sticks the paper on the board and moves back to show the team he's written something on the front, which makes the guys smile, but Cameron's already standing with her file in hand.
The two take theirs and swiftly leave the room, but not before Chase gives her a wink and with that, they go, already heading for the elevator. House is about to go to his office, but when he realises Cameron's still present, he stops at his door, "You're not getting a cheat sheet."
He doesn't wait for an answer and just waltzes into his office, practically ignoring her. After a beat, Cameron follows and is almost hit with the door had she not had her hand out in time; despite it, House still doesn't regard her and she clears her throat, causing him to finally look up from digging around in his drawer for a Vicodin bottle.
"I'm not sleeping with you either."
Cameron purses her lips and is about to reply, but Houses eyes widen in 'realisation', "Oh I know." He points at her with the bottle in his fingers, then to the bruise, then laughs, "You should see the other guy."
She sighs, "Where were you last night, House?"
He frowns as he tips a pill in his palm, "Ask Chase, he might have an idea. There was some mention of a party as I recall…" He drops it in his mouth, and Cameron makes a face as he dry swallows the pill.
She puts her file on his desk and sits in the chair across from his, turning a blind eye to his confused expression, "Seriously. You've been acting really strange for awhile - "
"A while is not two days. Try a different word choice next time - "
"And, well…." She closes up, hesitating to continue, but when she takes another look at the bruise again, she decides to go for it, "Chase and Foreman think it has something to do with….you and Wilson."
House stares at her, "Dr. Cameron, I'm appalled! Telling on your colleagues? Surely they taught you better in medical school."
"Is it? Be honest."
"Why, you going to put me on a polygraph test?"
She folds her hands together on her lap, "I'm worried about you. And I know that if it was urgent, you'd tell us, but…"
"But you wanted to get it from the horses mouth," he finishes. Cameron nods and when she sees House take a deep breath, something strange bubbles inside her, and she leans slightly forward in her chair. He drops into his seat, puts his cane on the desk beside her folder, then takes the ball from its stand and begins tossing it up and down as he speaks, eyes on the ceiling,
"Wilson asked me out to dinner last night."
Cameron frowns, "Like a date?"
House slowly exhales, catches the ball, "Exactly." Throws it again.
"But he's married."
"Well, clearly that didn't stop him."
"Has he talked to his wife about this?"
He waits for the ball to fall in his hand before looking at her, "If you want the details, feel free to ask Wilson about it."
Camerons eyes go wide, "No, sorry. I'll shut up."
He nods, then goes back to his game of tossing-and-catching, "He hasn't, and he won't." The ball hits the ceiling and shoots back into his hand, but he doesn't throw it again, "We had a fight in the bathroom. He punched me, I punched him." That explained Wilsons cut lip. He puts the ball onto its stand, "So when I said you should see the other guy, I was serious."
Cameron is quiet for a long time, and again, House doesn't take much notice of her as he opens a different drawer for the tv remote. When she looks at him, there seems to be a concerned expression on her face, "House, you can't do this."
He finally finds it buried underneath a porn magazine, and turns to the tv, "I'm not a child anymore, Mom." He switches it on and relaxes into the chair.
"What, so you're just going to keep seeing Wilson? Continue to...ignore the fact that he has a wife at home who has no idea - "
House switches off the set, knowing he's not going to be able to watch his show in peace unless he cuts in. He tosses the remote on the desk to face her, "What kind of person do you take me for, Cameron? This's my best friend we're talking about!" She narrows her eyes as he swipes the remote to point at the tv again, but when she doesn't say anything, he stops and rolls his eyes, "I'm not going to do anything else. It's up to him whether or not he tells his wife what he's been up to."
"And if he doesn't?"
"Then…" He nods, "We'll cross that bridge when we get to it."
They're both silent as Houses attention rests on the tv, while Cameron's brain is still trying to understand all of this. Before she leaves, however, a new question comes to the forefront of it and she takes her file in both hands to have something to hold, her voice gentle,
"How...do you expect this to end, House?" Though his body's facing the set, his eyes clip to her and she sees him start to grow uneasy, "I mean, if Wilson does tell his wife, then she'll leave him and….presumably, you'll get your happily ever after. But...if he doesn't - "
"Don't you have a job to do?"
Cameron stops, surprised he's still listening to her, "I just want to make sure that - "
He presses a button to change the channel, and plays up checking his watch. Okay, maybe he isn't, "Time's running out, Cameron. You don't want one of your male colleagues to win this one, do you?"
Cameron looks at him a little longer, but when it's clear that he's done with the conversation, she pushes her chair back and goes to the door. Once she's a few steps away, House drops the remote on the table and reaches for his cane, resting his palms on the handle as he stares at the screen.
He's surprised when he sees Cameron stood by the door from the corner of his eye, but he only glances at her, "Can't you see I'm trying to watch my show here?"
She smiles warmly at him and opens the door, but doesn't leave just yet, "According to Freud, and I'm paraphrasing here…." He slowly turns his head to her, lips pulled into a frown, "Instinct of love towards an object demands a mastery to obtain it, and if a person feels they can't control the object or feel threatened by it, they act negatively toward it."
He looks at her strangely, and his voice becomes soft, as if something's just presented itself in his mind, "You're saying I punched Wilson because I'm scared he won't leave his wife?"
Cameron frowns, confused, "You never take Freuds beliefs seriously."
Houses gaze drops to the floor, and his voice is now impossibly quiet she almost misses what he says,
"I know."