A/N: I promise there will be more interaction between Cameron and House soon, I just wanted to set it up a bit first! :)

"You idiot!"

Wilson greets as he lets himself into the DDX room.

"Did you all get together to rehearse that?"

House grunts, rubbing his scruff with his good hand; the other strapped with a splint and held against his chest in a sling.

"Huh?"

"Cuddy said the same thing. And Taub. Thirteen was thinking it, I could tell. And the boys in blue probably wrote something similar in their little notepads. It's getting dull."

"Dull?! Tackling a gunman and exposing a trafficking ring is dull to you?!"

"It's getting to be that way, yes. All the questions, all the chaos. I don't care for it."

"You-"

"-All this drama. I should at least receive some sort of reward and have women throwing themselves at me."

House sighs as he takes a seat at the large table centring the room, staring morosely at the whiteboard littered with leftover notes concerning their last doomed case. Following the direction of his gaze, Wilson sits down opposite him and allows a moment of silence to fall between them. Finally, he speaks up quietly

"They're running tests... On Cameron and the Polish girl, and also the place itself. It was on the news just now; crawling with a couple of guys in hazmat suits and about thirty police. No names have been released yet, save for Lordes and the guy that got shot. I imagine they'll disclose the names of the men involved once they know more. They referred to that Mick guy only as 'the suspect', and that's probably a legal thing, but I'd be lying if I said I knew how that all works... They showed footage of the room the girls were kept in, too, complete with a shot of the barrel they found Jane Doe inside of. Tasteless if you ask me, whether you could see anything or not, but that's the media for you, and I suppose the fact that they've kept your lot's names out of things is something at least. They showed markings on the wall and scratches at the door. Horrendous stuff. You could see bloody handprints on a set of lockers, and that pretty news anchor with the legs was speculating over which of the victims they might have belonged to... Chase says they're likely Allison's."

Wilson trails off, waiting for a reaction - a response - but his friend remains silent. Sighing, he continues gruffly

"The guys working our side of things think they've figured out what it was that was polluting the air down there. Some of the crap left in the storage room was improperly sealed and mixed to create an unpleasant cocktail that started binding to cells. They think the infection and trauma experienced by the girls likely sped things along, but it's too soon to speculate on the exact mode of action. Now that they know what they're looking for, it's just a matter of time, though. They'll figure it out, and you'll finally know what happened to your patients. I appreciate that it's not your way - being told the facts, rather than figuring them out for yourself - but it will offer your team a sense of closure, at least... They're keeping Cameron and the girl under observation, but so far, tests suggest that there's no sign of deterioration matching that of any of the deceased... For now, the tentative presumption is that they weren't down there long enough to inhale a large enough dose to cause any lasting damage, and neither of them is showing any symptoms beyond those linked to their current condition. Of course, the higher-ups will want that put in a way they can confirm and analyse, but what matters to the rest of us is that they should both be okay."

Frowning as House keeps his attention trained on the whiteboard, Wilson demands uneasily

"... Why haven't you been to see her?"

"Who?"

"Cameron! Who else?"

"What is there to see?"

"House..."

The oncologist warns, finally earning himself an irritable glance as his friend replies gruffly

"What? As you said, she seems fine. And it's because of her that I'm dealing with all these questions and this entire mess!"

"... Don't be an asshole. Firstly, that's not what I said; I said there doesn't seem to be any damage caused by what was in the pesticide. She was in pretty rough shape when they brought her in, and I'd imagine she's fairly shaken up. The girl they found down there with her was in full panic mode when they wheeled her through, though none of us could understand much of what she was saying. The police brought in a translator and it sounds as though she was picked up about a week ago, but I think the rest is muddled and they're trying to account for where she's been kept in the meantime, poor thing. Allison was pretty much out of it. Concussed, and her shoulder was badly dislocated. Her side was a bloody mess, too. Literally... She's been through hell, House, working on your case. You need to go and see her. You know you do."

Squinting against the bright glare of the overhead light, Cameron blinks slowly as she comes to. Considering the dull pattern of the blanket tucked around her slim frame, she moves her legs and confirms that the over-laundered material rubs against bare flesh and that someone has taken it upon themselves to strip her of her jeans and sweater in favour of a hospital gown. She hopes it wasn't anyone she works with, but supposes that this is rather optimistic.

How embarrassing...

Looking down at the tube snaking from her arm - the cannula hidden beneath a patch of white tape - she considers the drip to her side before realising she has a visitor.

"Chase."

She muses, and the blond turns around to face her with a weary grin.

"And she's back!"

"She is."

Cameron agrees, pushing herself up with a wince as a sharp pain shoots down her arm, and she offers the blond an irritable glower when he presses a button at the side of the bed to adjust its position to support her.

"I'm fine."

She insists, leaving out the fact that a constellation of stars glitters momentarily at the periphery of her vision, and she fiddles with the pulse oximeter clipped to her finger while leaning over to study the screen beside the bed showing her stats.

"Stop that, leave it alone and lie back down."

Chase sighs, reaching over to offer her good shoulder a pointed shove.

"Have they tested oxygen levels? And bloods? What are they-"

"-Allison."

"I just-"

"-Well don't. Relax. There's nothing showing up on either your tests or Lena's, other than what would be expected. Dehydration, hypoglycaemia, ABG showing some expectedly elevated results, and the girl has an infection in the gash to her leg. You got lucky on that count; it doesn't seem like you picked up anything nasty other than the need for a third and hopefully final set of stitches. I'll leave my opinion on the fact that your sugars were as low as they were for a time when you're not hooked up to machines that may mistake your irritation for a medical event, but I'm sure you can guess what I have to say."

"My throat's dry."

Cameron confides, ignoring Chase's comment as he'd known she would, and he nods and assures her amiably

"Not surprising. A drip's no replacement for a tray of frozen margaritas - or whatever you're in the mood for - and they had you on oxygen for a bit. Nothing to do with the crap in the air down there, don't worry, your breathing was shallow because of the cold. I brought you some water, but take it slow, okay?"

"I know what I'm doing."

The blonde mutters, rolling her eyes, and Chase chuckles as he imagines she's unaware of just how pitiful she looks with her bottom lip sporting a series of shallow grazes and her complexion paper-pale.

"Sorry, doctor."

He grins, handing her a cup of tepid water and watching her sip tentatively.

"So there's no signs of anything?"

Cameron asks finally, moving to place the cup to her side, but Chase intercepts and takes it from her to keep her from twisting her shoulder.

"Not so far, and there's nothing to suggest a delay, rather it's looking as though the damage caused by what was in the pesticide was cumulative in the girls that were kept down there longer. The police are working with Lena to figure out where she's been in the days between her capture and being brought down the stairs into the room you were hiding in-"

"-Pushed. She was pushed down the stairs."

"Ah. Then she's lucky she didn't break anything, and if she hasn't told the investigators that, I imagine they'll need that information from you, along with anything else you can give them, but Cuddy made it very clear that they were to wait for her permission to bother you. Orders from the Queen directly."

Chase smiles, and Cameron raises a brow.

"Good news at last... What about Marta?"

She asks curiously, and the surgeon greets the name with a frown of incomprehension.

"Marta?"

"There was a name scratched into the wall beneath the stairs. Marta. With some tally marks like in old prison movies. Seven marks..."

She swallows, and Chase pulls a face as he comes to the same conclusion as his colleague had upon discovering those marks; imagining that they correlate with the number of days their author had spent in the squalid pit beneath the warehouse.

"So far as I know, the name hasn't come up, but two of House's girls are still unidentified, and then there's the girl that was down there..."

He rubs at his lips nervously, noting a flicker of horror flash in the blonde's eyes before she can help herself, and he nods when she murmurs softly

"The girl in the barrel."

"Yeah. She's a Doe for now, but the police are working on it. They're working on all of it."

"Okay... There was a gunshot... I heard a gunshot before I hit my head."

"It was one of the men from the tyre factory. House went to distract them so that we could check the warehouse for you. By that point, we were fairly sure you were trapped inside, what with your text and with the way they were acting. One guy, the older guy, said he'd spoken to you the day before. He seemed genuinely surprised when we explained we were looking for you as you'd never come back. The other guy-"

"-Mick."

"...Yes."

Chase agrees, offering the blonde an uneasy glance as he's not sure how she's come by her information, and, knowing what he knows of the circumstances, he's afraid to ask her.

Seeming to understand the sudden tension in the air between them, Cameron fingers the abused flesh of her lip as she explains

"I heard them. The guy I spoke to let me look around the tyre factory, but it was pretty clear he wasn't into the whole detective thing. He told me to beat it, and I told him I would. I just happened to see the pesticide place while beating it, and... It seemed to fit with what we were looking for. The guy I spoke to mentioned that he worked with a guy called Mick, and then, when they threw Lena down into that little room, I heard one of them use the name and put two and two together."

"Yeah, well, Mick didn't take too kindly to us playing detective either. When House went to buy us time to look for you, things went south the moment we had to try and break the lock open. I guess they must have heard that, figured out what we were up to, and according to House, that's when Mick pulled out a gun. The older guy, Jerry, tried to take it off him and ended up getting shot in the leg in the mess that followed. Chances are the bastard was aiming for House, but with Jerry batting at the weapon and House hitting the guy so hard with his cane it snapped, I'm not sure anything went down the way he was hoping it would. Foreman broke up a fight between Mick and House just before the police showed up, while Jerry was busy thinking he was going to die. He didn't, he's on the ward, and he was quick to tell the powers that be that we weren't the ones they were after... An eventful morning in other words!"

Chase chuckles, but it's a strained sound and his posture remains tense as he studies the blonde.

"Sorry."

She sighs, settling back against the pillows wearily, and the surgeon thins his lips as he takes in washed-out features and the way Cameron moves her hand to her hip, imagining the pain there is becoming unpleasantly familiar.

"... I know why you did it."

He offers finally, and she glances over at him; her expression cautiously neutral as she tries to decipher his meaning.

"I know why you went to seventh alone even though the Foreman and Wilson told you not to. I'm sorry about that, by the way. I got called into emergency surgery. I got your message and was heading out to meet you. I'd bought you a coffee and some cake and everything, but then Mason called me in, and by the time we were done and I went to go find you and apologise for standing you up, the others were tense, and as soon as they realised I wasn't with you, they knew something was wrong. It soon became pretty obvious you'd opted to fly solo, and you better believe our shared opinion on the matter was anything but complimentary. Foreman couldn't wrap his head around why you did it, but I know why..."

"Yeah?"

"You did it because you didn't want to deal with the shit House would have given you if you didn't. The way you always do. The way you did with your hip and the way you have so many times before. I wanted so badly to agree with the others when they insisted you wouldn't be that stupid, but you were. You are."

"Thanks."

Cameron hisses irritably, and Chase merely shrugs; raising his palms to indicate he doesn't know what more to say other than the truth. Smirking, he sits back with a yawn and warns her

"It backfired spectacularly by the way. Just so you know."

"Yeah, well, it wasn't exactly my plan to get caught in the middle of everything that was going on."

"Oh, that too, but I meant more that your efforts to keep House sweet failed terribly. I'm sorry to say, but he's monumentally pissed at you."

"I'm sure he is."

The blonde sighs, and Chase grins as he continues with a teasing note of camaraderie

"I think it's mostly because he has to attend a hearing as a witness. Everything's still up in the air right now, but I did hear Cuddy mention that he'd have to wear a suit to represent the hospital given everything that's gone on... He'll never forgive you for that."

"No. He probably won't."

Cameron agrees, allowing a hint of a smile to tug at the corner of her lips, although her heart sinks a little when she contemplates the unlikely possibility that House will see her side of things now that the dust has settled.

Still, the fact that he had accompanied Chase and Foreman on a search for her and had put himself at risk in the process both surprises her and confuses her.

Why? House loves a puzzle almost as much as he loves getting out of Clinic duty. Hunting you down offered him the perfect opportunity to do both. That's all there is to it.

She nips the tip of her tongue, recalling the voice messages received while hiding on top of the lockers that had suggested otherwise.

That had suggested he'd cared.

"I don't-"

But Cameron trails off at the sound of a soft knock. With the curtains drawn over the glass walls, only a small window centring the door allows a visitor to peer in, and from her position on the bed, she can't make out much of anything. Holding her breath as she wonders whether it might be House coming to check on her - or yell at her, that too - she lets it out slowly through her nose when Cuddy lets herself into the room.

"Allison, you're awake. Robert, could we have a minute?"

The Dean takes an expectant step to the right to allow pointed access to the door, and Chase nods and excuses himself with a soft squeeze of the blonde's good shoulder.

Claiming his recently vacated seat, Cuddy crosses one leg over the other, looking alarmingly put-together in her heels and neatly ironed shirt, and Cameron runs her hand sheepishly through the tousled mess of her hair.

"How are you feeling?"

The Dean asks, and the blonde looks down at the tubes attached to her finger and arm and sighs.

"Like I never want to watch another horror movie or crime show again."

"I can imagine."

"Otherwise, I reckon I'll feel a lot better once I've showered about ten times and have crawled into my own bed."

"I'm afraid that might have to wait a little while yet."

"But my shoulder-"

"-Your shoulder will be fine. Your hip too, hopefully, although at some point you're going to need to stop ripping yourself open, or it will never look right."

"It's not like I meant to-"

"-But I've put a 72-hour order on you to stay put."

"What?... You're putting me under a 5150?"

"Well, your more recent decisions would make doing so tempting, but no, I just needed to make a call in terms of time, and it seemed a sensible hold. We're still not clear on what happened to House's patients. We're getting there, but until that happens, I need you and that young woman that came in with you to stick around so that we can monitor your condition. If anything comes up, I'll keep you in longer, but for now, I've made my decision and it's best you stick with it or it will be your own team having to take action, and I know you well enough to know that's the last thing you want."

"Are you blackmailing me?"

Cameron frowns, and Cuddy raises a brow in open surprise and assures the blonde

"Of course not. I just want to make sure you're alright. The Polish girl will likely be with us longer and has been assigned a therapist, as well as a translator and staff on her door for the foreseeable future. If you require the former or the latter, I'll make sure that happens, but, as I said, I know you fairly well, and contrary to the point of this slightly uncomfortable conversation, I trust you to know what it is that you need, and I didn't want to enforce my own thoughts on the matter on you. As for the hold, it's a precaution, not a punishment. Although..."

Cuddy sighs as she fixes the younger woman with a stern look

"What you did was really stupid, Allison."

She muses, and the blonde bristles as she replies a little icily

"Sorry."

Nodding, the Dean thins her lips, before losing some of her edge and leaning forward to address the blonde more openly.

"You may be sorry, but you're annoyed that I said that... I wasn't telling you that as your boss, though. I was telling you that as someone that's known you for quite some time now, and that knows that you are not, by nature, stupid... I suppose I'm also telling you that as someone that's been stuck with the uneasy feeling of wondering whether making you work the case landed you in the trouble you found yourself in."

"Well, I mean, I wouldn't have gone breaking into buildings without a reason to, put it that way..."

"You wouldn't have done so working alongside a different team."

"A different team wouldn't have expected it."

"House shouldn't have expected it."

"House wasn't even in the room when I decided to go take a look."

"Maybe not, but he was in there."

Cuddy persists, pointing to the blonde's temple, and Cameron throws her a dark look which the Dean considers curiously; seldom dealing with the younger woman when not on her best behaviour. Shrugging her shoulders helplessly, she admits

"I knew House would test you; it's what he does. It's what he does with everyone, but especially what he does with those he finds interesting. I had to make a decision, Allison. I had girls dying at an alarming rate and a member of staff with significant experience working in temporarily the wrong department. I had to bring you back, and House's reaction was pretty much what I expected it would be, but that doesn't mean, as I said at the time, that I didn't feel a sense of guilt on a personal level for putting you in that position. From what I've come to understand since that meeting in my office, House has been on top form in his efforts to make your life a misery, and I'm sorry. I stand by my decision, but I am."

"I know."

"... He's been worried about you. Truly, he has. I mean, we all were, but House... I'm telling you this because I know that he won't and that it matters to you: House cares about you a lot. I know you fairly well as a colleague, but I know House as a friend, and I know how he can be. I know how he can be towards you, and I'll admit, it honestly stretches my brain beyond capacity when I try to understand why an otherwise smart young woman finds his behaviour to be not just acceptable, but appealing... As I said, though, he's my friend, and I suppose I have to accept your admiration for the man when I suffer the same. That said, I've known House long enough to pick up on the little things he does for me that let me know that he cares for me. They're often vexingly well-hidden beneath a whole heap of other stuff, but I see them. I don't imagine he's as forthcoming when it comes to you. He's able to treat you in ways the rest of us that are close to him would never endure, both as he was your superior, and because you let him. I see it. But, I also see what he's like when you're not around, and I hear how he speaks about you. Beneath the veil of - let's be honest now, bullshit - he has a lot of good things to say about you... I just doubt he'd ever let you in on that fact."

"Sometimes he shares them."

"Hmm. If he's made you work hard enough for it, you mean?"

Cuddy counters, and she shakes her head in response to the sour look Cameron offers her and assures the blonde simply

"That much I know from personal experience, belive me! But, I get it, I'll stop psychoanalysing the situation, I just want you to know you were missed. He was worried. Not just because one of his temporary team was missing, but because of which member of his temporary team was missing... Of course, he'll likely tell you otherwise."

"Probably... I haven't seen him."

"Yes, well... That he cares for you and was worried about you are facts I felt I should pass on. At the end of the day, though, he's still House."

The Dean shrugs, and Cameron nods her understanding with a glum cast to battered lips.

"Get some rest, Allison. You'll need it, as I understand Chase and Foreman are planning to punish you for frightening them as badly as you did with a night out. I declined the offer to join when Eric caught me walking behind the two of them, but I will leave you a little something to start things off in your locker for when you're ready to go home."

"Thanks."

"You're welcome. I'm also giving you a week off, which is non-negotiable. I need a little time to prepare for our disciplinary meeting upon your return."

Cuddy smiles thinly, chuckling when the blonde falls back against the pillows with a groan.

"Don't worry. I think circumstances may err in your favour on this one."

"I guess we'll see."