Alison Cameron could not move her head. More accurately, she could not turn her neck. No looking up, no looking to the side - well, no looking without unbearable pain accompanied by a bright, searing light. In fact, her whole back was entirely fucked up. She lay flat on the floor behind her desk, shades drawn, Bach cello suites humming in the background. Laura had helped her get down there while Janie had searched through Cameron's iPod for some soothing music.

"Anything but Chopin," Cameron had grunted as she ungracefully jerked her way to the floor. That had been two hours ago though, and she was starting to feel restless.

Her mind strayed back to the events of the previous night, eliciting yet another deep groan from her. She remembered bits and pieces. Crisp still was her anger at Richard. He'd called twice as she'd lain on the floor, and each time she had instructed Janie or Laura to make up a lame-sounding excuse. She was with a patient. She was getting test results. It was too difficult to reach the phone, she told herself. Truthfully, she wasn't sure if she was ready to speak to Richard yet. Wasn't quite sure what she'd say.

It was after she finished her third scotch that things started to get a little fuzzy. She remembered the cool evening on her skin as she walked to the car. Recalled sitting next to House in the passenger seat. She could even dimly picture the layout of House's apartment, bathed only in moonlight and the light shining above the piano.

The piano. She remembered that too. Chopin. But it was all still a blur, one she'd been trying to clarify before any further interaction with House. In a second, the blink of an eye really, something had shifted between them. Something familiar had returned; something strange had been introduced. The shift remained for her much like the previous night - cloudy and full of shadows. She had set out to assert her independence from him and had only managed to become more fully embroiled in his mind games.

She was contemplating whether it would be harder to reach up onto the desk for her cell or more embarrassing to call out for help when an emphatic knock sounded at the door. She bit her lip for a moment, wondering if the person would go away on their own while at the same time half-hoping they'd come in and help her.

"Cameron, are you in there?" Wilson's worried tone elicited a relieved groan from her and she called him in. "Why the hell is it so dark in here? Where...where the hell are you? Are you on the floor?" He walked over to stand next to her feet, looking down on her in bewilderment.

"I hurt my back," she grimaced, attempting to shrug and immediately regretting it. A lot.

"Ah," Wilson stuttered, and she swore that she saw him blush.

"What?" Cameron's tone was accusing. She definitely did not like that look. Had he spoken to House? Was there more to the evening that she couldn't remember?

"Well...I just...Richard is in town and...I don't know what you guys do and..."

"Oh God Wilson," she wailed, "I fell asleep on the couch, okay? Richard didn't even stay the night. He got called back to Boston during dinner."

"Sorry," Wilson exclaimed, holding up his hands in a gesture of surrender. But the mirth remained in his eyes, and she could tell he was suppressing his laughter.

"Can you help me?"

"Sure." He paused, brow furrowed. "Help you how?"

"Help me up, Wilson," she groaned.

"Okay, okay, okay," he said soothingly. He awkwardly moved to her head, gingerly placing his hands behind her neck and shoulders. "Can you sit up a bit?"

"I think," she grunted through gritted teeth. Eventually he managed to support her up to a standing position, his arms hooked under her elbows, hands clasping her own. Dr. Clark picked that moment to walk into her office without knocking. The trifecta of reactive looks that crossed his face - shock, amusement, and opportunity - brought her to what she felt was her new "high point" of the day.

"Dr. Clark," she acknowledged him before he had a chance to run off with a made-up story. God, was she panting? "Dr. Clark, come on in. Dr. Wilson was just helping me up. I seem to have thrown out my back."

"Right," Clark responded, drawing out the vowel. "That's okay. I can come back at a time when you're less...busy." Shooting a smirk at Wilson, he retreated from the room with a bounce in his step. Cameron sighed as deeply as she could, leaning back against Wilson for a bit longer.

"Wonder where he's going," Wilson said with a false brightness.

"Thanks Wilson. I'm sorry if this screws up any inner-office relationships you've got going," she joked, trying to lighten the mood. However, her words had the opposite effect, and she saw Wilson pale, his eyes go wide. "Oh my god," she grinned, "There is someone?! Wilson!" He held up his hands, trying to shush her, as he sprinted to the door, closing and locking it. "And now you've locked us in my office - you trying to make this worse?" He brought a hand to his forehead as he unlocked and reopened the door with the other.

"Could you just...not say anything to House?" he whispered. Her mouth dropped open in shock. "I know, I know - what the hell am I talking about. But you could inadvertently let it slip or you could allude and then...seriously, the slightest sniff of something and he's going to be all over it like..."

"Yeah, I get it," she muttered. "So, who is it? Is it that new nurse in the clinic?" Wilson tried, unsuccessfully, to retain a neutral look on his face. "It is, isn't it?" She grinned once more, happy to be able to focus on something other than her pain. "Don't worry. Your secret's safe with me." And now she would also have leverage in the event that House ended up relaying information to Wilson about the previous night that she herself could not remember. Not that she couldn't get Wilson to fold on her own, she mused with another grin.

"Yeah, well...I'm going to get going. Page me if you need anything. Help getting up off the floor, a shot of morphine, you know, anything." As she watched him leave, she felt the pain slowly edging back, reclaiming her senses.

"Janie," she called, walking gingerly to her doorway. "Where's the file on the new guy from yesterday. The one with the seizures?"

"Oh," Janie stammered, looking down at the desk in apprehension. "Ah, it's gone."

"Gone?"

"Yes, um, Dr. House came by this morning while you were, um..."

"Yes Janie, I know what I was doing. What did you tell him?"

"I said you had a headache." Cameron rubbed her forehead, feeling the start of one at the young woman's words. "Then he said he was taking the file and, if you had a problem with it, you could get it back from him."

"Fine," Cameron kept her answer clipped, hoping to encourage the girl to be less intimidated by House. Had she herself been so fragile and accommodating during her first months under him? She shuddered at the thought. "Just go there and bring the file back."

"But Dr. Cameron-"

"Go," she said in exasperation, closing her eyes in exhaustion. She retreated into her office after hearing the gentle click of Janie's heels grow softer and softer. She was still there, braced against the wall, when Janie returned, pale, frustrated, and sans file. "Goddamn it," she muttered, heading slowly yet purposefully toward the elevator. She was in no mood.

A couple dozen stares from hospital staff and a few awkward turns later, Cameron inched her way into House's office, desperately wishing she could at least put her hands on her hips. "My file," she said icily. He looked up from his television, appraising her awkward stance and movement. Remaining silent, he dropped his legs from their perch on the desk, and walked the file over to her, holding it out amiably.

"What's missing?" she asked, grabbing the folder then holding it up at eye level so she could flip through it.

"Nothing," House shrugged.

"Why the hell did you take it?"

"Curiosity?" She paused, mouth open a bit. What the hell was going on?

"What did you do to him?"

"Do?"

"Yes, what tests did you run, what treatment did you give. Where's the differential? Is it on the board?"

"No tests, no treatment. No differential." She sigh slowly.

"Why are you doing this?" Sensing the conversational shift, House turned his back on her, retrieving a ball from his desk. "Is this," she hesitated ever so slightly, "Is this because of last night? Did something - did I -" How was she supposed to ask him, of all people, why she'd woken up early that morning on his couch, covered by a blanket?

"Last night?" He shrugged, tossing the ball into the air casually.

"House," she said bitingly, raising her arm and taking an unthinking step forward. She gasped in pain, dropping the file from her hand to immediately support her lower back. His eyes darted up in concern, the ball motionless in his hands, yet his stance remained calm and unfazed. As she breathed through her pain, he slowly walked up to her, then leaned down to pick up the fallen file.

"You're in pain," he murmured, and she thought she saw something strange in his face, something akin to guilt. It was difficult to pin down, however, due to the shooting agony that was causing her to see stars. She tried to take a step forward and stumbled a bit, causing him to gently steady her by grasping her forearms with his own. The minute the contact registered in her brain, it was gone. "Here," he reached into his pocket, producing a full bottle of pills that he shook suggestively.

"You can't be serious," she grinned a little through her grimace.

"As your doctor, I couldn't be more serious," he said with fake sincerity.

"No," she said simply, catching herself before she could shake her head. "I better get back -"

"Other room," House suddenly commanded, walking to the conference room without waiting to see if she'd follow. Part of her wanted to turn around and leave, was too tired to deal with his insanity any more. Yet another part of her wanted the damn file, wanted to finish what she'd practically crawled over to get. So, grudgingly, she stepped into the room.

House had pulled a chair sideways near the couch, hooking his cane on the back. "There. Onto the couch," he ordered.

"I don't have time for this-"

"Cameron, just get on your stomach on the couch. I can fix this, if you'd only look outside your prejudice long enough to accommodate my disability," he barbed with false distress as he shuffled over to close the blinds. She continued to regard him skeptically. "Fine," he shrugged, returning to the table, "Be in pain all day. Continue to lay on the floor of your office in pain instead of actually, oh, I don't know, being a doctor. Better put Wilson on speed dial." His final remark was rewarded with a flash, then narrowing of her eyes.

Taking a breath, refusing to think of the word regret, she edged her knee onto the couch, holding out her hand. "I'll need some help." The tortured look on his face, she figured, somewhat balanced out the probable humiliation she was about to experience. He seemed slightly surprised at her acquiescence, but hid himself from her scrutiny by moving behind her to help her take off her lab coat. She felt his hands hover for a moment above her shoulder blades and resisted the urge to groan - moan? - at the electric mix of pain and anticipation of pleasure. Though he managed to remove it without really touching her, she continued to feel the heat of his presence which only added to the heat of her pain. Tossing the coat on another chair, he reluctantly held out his hand, helping to brace her as she descended onto the couch.

"I'm not so sure," she suddenly muttered, hearing House moving around but unable to see what he was doing. She slowly and painfully turned her head ever so slightly to the side in order to breathe.

"Shut up," House commanded, but there was a softness to his voice. He - gently - lifted her head just enough to maneuver a small pillow under it. And then, before she could say anything else, his hands were pressing into her back, kneading places that she hadn't known existed, let alone suspected as the cause of her distress.

"How - ah - did you - oh - I mean where-" She took in sharp breaths and let out short gasps, feeling the tension slowly but surely leave her body in spurts as House moved from one area to the next. She felt his fist pressing into her back one moment, then his fingers spanning out, fluttering across the narrow expanse the next. Suddenly and sharply a clear image of House playing the piano appeared behind her closed eyes.

"Only part of physical therapy that doesn't suck," House muttered, intent on what he was doing. The words fell away, however, and her concentration centered on the pair of hands deftly returning her back to pre-couch looseness. Slowly, methodically he worked his way through her muscles. In an effort to retain her hold on reality - on her sanity - she had started off naming the muscles silently in her head as he touched them, attempting to retain the clinical aspect of his actions as much as possible. After a while, however, words like iliocostalis and longissimus had melted with the sounds of her erratic breathing to form an incoherent, babbling mantra of pleasure in her mind. As the pain in her back fell to a dull ache, the pain left in her neck became more prominent.

"Neck," she heard herself mumble. She was rewarded for her efforts by the slightest of touches as House's hands refocused their efforts. Though delicate at first, his fingers gradually began to knead more deeply and more surely. Desperately wanting to show her gratitude, Cameron tried to form more words, but felt herself succumbing to a curtain of sleep as pleasure flooded through her body, replacing the tension and weariness of her pain.

Hours (it seemed like days) later, she awoke, blinking an extremely confused Dr. Miller into focus. His mouth, she could tell, was moving, yet his words were making no sense. When Clark came into her eyesight, another smug smirk on his face, she pushed herself up of the couch, ready to flee. In mid-push-up, however, she paused with a gasp.

"Dr. Cameron, are you okay?" Words and pictures suddenly clicked into focus while she held her breath carefully, fearful of moving an inch. Her back. The pain. All came flooding back to her as simultaneously images of Miller and Clark carrying her, bent in an unworldly position, back to her office in humiliation.

Gently, clenchingly, she let the breath out and was astonished at the lack of pain. She slowly finished pushing herself off the couch until she was sitting on the edge of it, across from the two bewildered doctors. She could move. No, it was better than that. She hadn't felt this loose in a long time.

"What were you doing on the couch?" Clark insolently asked. But Cameron couldn't think of answers just yet. She was still processing the "what."

"I, ah, I have to get back..."

"Dr. Cameron," Miller called out, concern and eagerness lacing his voice. "Your file?" He held out a familiar red folder which slipped into her hands, surprising her with its lightness. Catalysts should be heavier, the thought startled her. She mumbled her thanks, then exited, the echo of her clipped steps mingling with the hushed, gossiping chatter of the men she'd left.

As the elevator doors closed, the overheard phrase "gets around" continued to buzz in her eardrum as crisply as the satisfying ding of arrival. With such a complete sensory overload, it was no wonder that she failed to notice the third member of her audience, the owner of a pair of deep brown eyes, wide with shock. His sharp intake of breath did not register, nor did his sigh of disbelief.

His one utterance, Oh boy, lightly pushed from his vocal chords with weary breath, blended in with the whoosh of the elevator doors closing - lost to her, but not erased.