A/N: Another small shift in the way things work :)
Furrowing her brow as she climbs beneath the covers of House's bed, Cameron pulls his proffered shirt on with a giddy flip of her stomach as the creased cotton carries a dangerously familiar scent.
Not so dangerous anymore...
No, she supposes not, and she leaves the buttons undone beneath the messy fall of her hair. From the other room, the floorboards creak as House moves around, and she holds her breath awkwardly as she hopes - prays - that he means to offer her more of a response than he had the last time they did this.
He will.
She assures herself, recognising the sound of water running through old pipes before the soft thud of a door opening and closing precedes the footsteps that crescendo towards the bedroom.
"Here."
House offers as he slips back into view, and Cameron holds her hands out instinctively to catch the small box he tosses at her as a form of greeting.
"Here?"
She asks curiously, turning the box over in her hand to inspect its cover while House suffers a brief wave of mixed emotions as he considers the periwinkle folds of his shirt framing a teasing flash of pale flesh. Honestly, he's still rather shocked by his unlikely whim of throwing the garment so suggestively onto the bed, but he supposes the end result is worth the faint sense of disquiet he fails to swallow.
A sense of disquiet born mostly from the fact that nothing about seeing the blonde clad in his clothes and sat in his bed feels as utterly insane as it should.
"They're Wilson's."
He explains as he grabs a pair of sweatpants out of the drawer of his dresser and pulls them on along with a faded t-shirt from the back of the armchair in the corner.
"... Seriously?"
Cameron looks up at him with her brow cocked and a bemused dip to the side of her mouth.
"Seriously. His ex-wife bought them thinking they might fix things between them... Hopefully, they'll work out better for us."
House replies, and the blonde rolls her eyes as she pulls the lid off the box and removes the set of cards from inside.
"I didn't mean 'seriously', are they Wilson's, I meant, well... Seriously?"
She shakes her head as she reads the text on the top card.
"Yes."
House grins, putting the empty box - the words '50 Questions To Get Know Each Other' emblazoned in purple on the front - on the nightstand as he moves to sit on the edge of the bed and pulls the covers up over his legs.
"Talk about overcompensating..."
Cameron murmurs under her breath, but she matches House's grin with a smirk of her own, and when he frowns and asks her if she wants to give him the cards back, she shakes her head as she leans comfortably against the headboard.
"No, no, let's play your obtusely on-the-nose game."
"It's not a game, they're just a means to encourage conversation."
"Yeah... You know, there are normal ways of doing that, too."
The blonde chuckles, but she offers a more genuine smile as she senses her teasing might be touching a nerve.
"Neither of us is normal."
House advises her seriously, and Cameron nods in unabashed agreement as she selects a card from the deck at random. Rolling her eyes when she reads the text, she hisses "Profound!" sarcastically to herself before relaying the question.
"What's your favourite colour?"
"Well, I'm not five, so I don't have one."
House grunts, wondering if the proffered cards had been a mistake while asking the blonde dutifully
"What's yours?"
"I don't know... Most of my clothes are dark. Maybe black?"
"That's not a colour, that's a shade."
"Oh god, you're one of those..."
"One of what?"
"Never mind, just ask me one."
Cameron shakes her head, fanning out the deck and holding it out in front of her.
"Okay... As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?"
House reads off the card.
"A doctor."
The blonde shrugs, earning herself a sigh.
"You're boring."
House accuses, catching just a hint of unease in green eyes before Cameron tosses her hair back and scoffs flippantly
"Oh, I'm sorry. I meant to say a swimsuit model."
"Much better!"
House grins, supposing now would ordinarily be the time when he'd slip in a sly and likely unkind comment, but it's a little hard to think of anything with his borrowed shirt hanging loosely open to reveal a peek of pale flesh.
"What about you?"
Cameron asks curiously, and she raises a brow when House informs her he had once dreamed of becoming a racecar driver; uncertain whether or not he's fucking with her.
"...Your parents must have been very disappointed when you decided to forgo likely injury and study medicine instead."
She teases, and House smirks as he bites back flippantly
"As must yours have been when you opted to pursue academia rather than flashing your, uh, assets."
"A little, yeah."
The blonde replies, meeting the narrowing of blue eyes with a calmness in her own as she maintains a poker face that begs more questions than answers.
"Well... You could moonlight."
House suggests with a purposefully lecherous smirk and Cameron pulls a face as she shoots him down.
"I'm good, thanks."
"Shame."
"Mm..."
"Your go."
"Really? These are kind of lame... You made your point and I appreciate the gesture, awkward as it was, but I'm honestly not surprised these cards failed to save Wilson's marriage."
"Neither am I, but we should give the man at least some credit for his part in things."
House muses silkily.
"I can't comment on that, nor do I want to."
"Ah, we're back to being nice, I see."
"It's not a case of being nice, it's a case of not having a whole lot to say about a situation I know nothing about."
"You could just blindly take my side and feed my ego..."
"No, thank you."
Cameron grins, pulling the top card up from the deck in her hands with a sigh.
"Okay, one more each and then we'll stop pretending we're fifteen."
"Speak for yourself."
"Mm... Oh, fuck me... Would you rather be blind or deaf?"
"Was the first part an option?"
"I don't know. You'd have to speak to fairground management about that."
"Cameron..."
"Yeah?"
She smirks, and House grunts as he suffers the unwelcome discovery of just how enjoyable he finds the blonde's company to be.
"Blind."
He replies in a clipped tone, reaching over and taking a card.
"What's your biggest fear?"
"Hmm... A week ago it would probably have been something stupid like snakes. Not the big ones, they're fine, but the fast, venomous ones creep me out... I don't know. I guess being pretty sure I was about to die put things in perspective a little bit."
She shrugs, and House studies her shrewdly as he detects an unnerving sense of honesty in her tone.
"... Did you really think that?"
He asks finally, and Cameron considers him silently for a moment before deciding that he's asking her a serious question.
"It ruins your belief that I'm hopelessly - and perhaps hopefully! - naive, but I'm neither blind nor stupid, and I could see that it wasn't looking good."
"After finding the Jane Doe?"
"That solidified it, yes, but I figured I was in trouble - real trouble - as soon as they shut Lena down there with me... After all, I might share more similarities with your team's girls than you or Foreman, but they were still a different demographic. I didn't need to overhear the conversation that I did to understand what was going on as soon as I saw how they were treating that girl... If I'd been caught down there, I would have been a witness, which would have ended poorly for me, and not in any way I would have walked away from. I knew that, and I didn't spend too much time fretting over the alternative as I'd read the notes on your previous patients. I know some of the identifying details were estimates, but they were good estimates."
"What do you mean?"
"They were all young... I figured I was too old for what was clearly the target market, which really just left one outcome to consider."
The blonde shrugs again, and House wishes she wouldn't, but her next action troubles him even more when she raises her hand to her head and cocks two fingers pointedly against her temple.
"Stop."
He scolds her, leaning forward to grab her arm and force it back down. Maintaining his grip on her wrist, he looks down at the evidence of her ordeal just starting to fade from her fingers with a frown.
"... That's not a revelation that just leaves of its own accord."
He muses gruffly, looking back up into green eyes and asking the blonde seriously
"Are you okay... Your head, I mean?"
"Are you asking if I'm going crazy?"
"I'm asking if you're okay."
"... I will be."
"But you're not now?"
"I-... I've been having some trouble sleeping. And, when I do sleep, my dreams have been pretty grim."
"Have you spoken to anyone about it?"
"I just did."
"I mean someone that can help."
"... I don't know..."
The blonde replies simply, her gaze locked with House's as he studies her pensively before pushing himself up from the bed.
"Are you staying over?"
"I can, but I don't have to. It's still early enough for me to call a cab if you-"
"-Stay."
"... Yeah?"
"I mean, only if you want to. It makes no difference to me."
House shrugs, before deciding that he isn't overly concerned about winning this particular silent battle of wills and admitting sincerely
"I'd like you to stay."
"Then I'll stay."
Cameron replies simply, nodding affirmatively when House asks her if she wants another drink before pulling the covers up to hide her face as she smiles helplessly to herself as soon as he leaves the room.