A/N: Filler, but it was fun to write :). Hopefully, it's fun to read too. Enjoy, and please review! :)

"Then it turns out I was right; you are an idiot."

House growls, before turning heel and limping out of the room, leaving the blonde biting her tongue irritably. Taking a moment to corral her thoughts, Cameron sniffs dismissively before stalking back to the samples on the counter and placing them back in the tray that houses the diagnostics team's ongoing cases; making a neat note on the accompanying clipboard of the date, time, and vial she had opened to obtain a sample.

She hesitates as she goes to initial her entry; annotating the paper first with a small 'A.C.' before carefully blocking out the 'A' and turning the 'C' into a 'G' and signing off under House's name instead. She supposes it makes little difference - her writing and House's nothing alike - but she suddenly wants absolutely nothing to do with the case in question.

In fact; she suddenly wants nothing to do with the hospital in general, and she reminds herself that this is precisely why she'd handed in her resignation.

She is curious - no, more than curious, after all, being part of that old team, in that old room, had been almost like a drug to each of them - as to the suffering young woman's mystery ailment, but she is through letting House talk to her like shit.

Sure... That's why you really gave him a good talking to just now for being an asshole, rather than simply watching him get bored of you and leave...

Oh, hush.

She smiles.

She has to, or her ingrained ways would surely drive her mad.

She tries not to think about their amicable laughter while bickering pleasantly in McDonald's.

Nor about the way he'd held her to him when walking her carefully - so carefully - over to the exam room to see to her injury.

It just gets too confusing when she does.

"What's a girl like you doing in a place like this?"

Jumping in surprise as she hadn't heard the quiet hiss of the glass door to the lab being pushed open, she glances over her shoulder to regard Chase with a smirk.

"Oh, you know, just trying to breed a super-virus."

"And people always said you were the nice one."

"Fools."

She chuckles quietly, but her companion's own laughter is due to the fact the blonde's cheeks flush at her own ill-meaning insinuation.

"Try again, Flo."

"Four years and you and Foreman still get off on that, huh?"

"Aw, don't get all butt-hurt. You were Florence, and we were your machine!"

He snickers, and Cameron rolls her eyes as she moves aside to let Chase access the far counter.

"Different Florence... Nightingale did - according to some accounts - have an owl, though. She kept it in her pocket."

"And you know this how?"

The blond inquires as he shoots her an amused glance over his shoulder.

"I was reading a paper on the Crimean War the other night, and-"

"-You don't get out much, do you?"

"Four years, and still that tone of surprise."

She sighs, but Chase pays this little mind; making his way over to the tray in which she'd recently placed back House's samples and frowning at the accompanying documentation.

"...You signed off for House?"

"Oh... Yeah, I, uh, said I'd take a quick look at something for him."

"The Latina girl?"

"Yeah, why? Did he ask you to take a look, too?"

"Are you mad? Of course he didn't. Foreman did."

"... Not really your speciality."

Her words are low, but he catches them easily and turns around to study the blonde properly. He knows her well enough to doubt that the curious hint of irritation and spite - spite? really? - that laces her words will have been directed towards him, nor does he take any offence to her blatant acceptance that House would be unlikely to seek him out for advice. What he does find strange is Cameron's rather cagey demeanour in regard to his asking about the case, and he leans back against the counter and raises an eyebrow.

"Something up?"

"Not that I know of."

"Cameron..."

Sighing, she shrugs; perching lightly on one of the stools.

"Nothing new, just House being House."

"Isn't that why you quit? What did he do?"

"Asked for help... Then called me an idiot for trying to help."

"That does sound like House."

"Yeah... I know I shouldn't care..."

"But you do."

Chase finishes simply. Cameron shrugs, and he mimics the action; leaving what they both know to be her reasoning unsaid. It's a dulled, fleeting affliction, but they no more mention its lingering shadow these days than they do the events that led her to possess the large, men's hoody in which he'd dressed her back at her apartment.

We argue less this way, and it prevents the subsequent speculation over the fact that no such lingering feelings - at least of naive hope - still exist between the two of us...

Still, all awkwardness aside, he has always had a lot of time for the blonde and doesn't like seeing her tense and bemused the way she looks now. Offering her a smile, he digs his pager out of his pocket and gives it a cursory glance before frowning back down at the papers pertaining to House's patient.

"Well, given as I have a feeling Foreman only asked me to take a look at these because he didn't find you first, I'm not sure what more I'd have to offer if young Flo herself isn't glasses-deep in notes and pipettes... I get off in twenty minutes. I'd tell you I wanted to buy you dinner, but I actually just have one more stamp left on my loyalty card for that Italian place down on Weydon, so it's more just a case of giving in to sucker advertising."

"Sounds good."

"You'll lower and debase yourself with me?"

"I'm fairly sure half of those stamps are partly mine anyway; you practically owe me for helping you finish your plate on a regular basis."

"True... Now, if only you'd wait for me to ask for such noble aid."

Chase sighs, and Cameron shrugs with a smirk.

"You should just learn not to order olive bread."

"Or just quit asking you to join me."

"Perhaps, but for tonight, it's too late. I have no food left in the house, and I've already accepted your offer to be wined and dined. I have to wait for a couple of test results to come through, and then I'm properly off the clock. Meet you there? Doctor style?"

Chase grins at the term the three of them had appropriated early on into their fellowship for the rather unpredictable meet-up timings plaguing their profession.

"Doctor style."

Limping into the DDX room, House clocks his employees with hard, blue ice; studying each of them in turn.

His gaze falls upon the pretty brunette last and longest.

He frowns irritably before turning towards the whiteboard and rapping it with his cane.

"So, it has been brought to my attention that - apparently - everything you lot are doing is entirely adequate; so much so, that a second opinion seemed - by one account at least - as good as pointless..."

Silence.

"So why then, children, is there nothing new written on this goddamn board?!"