Wilson suspected something.

Wilson was always suspecting something, but this time, House mused, his suspicions were morphing into actions. He looked out the blind-covered window behind his desk at the sunny, blue sky and tried not to wince. Damn sun. Persistent. Cheery. Blinding was more like it.

It had started about two weeks ago - the day of Cameron's back pain - when he'd foolishly attempted to help her out of some misguided and unexpected feeling of guilt. Guilt was not his thing - quite the opposite in fact. Yet he'd seen her pain, so unexpected on her delicate features that were more often than not oozing with useless emotions like compassion and empathy, and it had affected him. Instead of pondering over the why or how, he'd spent his time since then trying to deny his motivations and rationalize his actions. He would have been successful too, had it not been for Wilson.

"How's the new couch?" Wilson's question, full of knowing, moral superiority had been the first inkling of trouble. House had answered with a look of suspicion, simultaneously calculating the depth of Wilson and Cameron's friendship. "You know, the expensive, completely uncomfortable one you got after my last break-up so I'd never move in again?" House had again remained silent, warning Wilson with his eyes. In that moment, House felt himself paying the price of friendship - too high, in his opinion, especially in their case. The at times rocky, dysfunctional nature of their relationship should have come at least at half-price.

He'd managed to evade Wilson that day, but the oncologist had been baiting him ever since. That very morning Wilson had offered, out of the blue, to carpool together to work. Though House had initially thought better of it, his laziness had won out in the end. It wasn't until he saw the medium-sized birthday bag on the passenger seat - the one Wilson pretended to have forgotten about - that he truly, though briefly, rued his weakness for mooching off of his friend. There was only one person for whom the gift could possibly be intended. Wilson seldom bought gifts for people at work and, if he did, always took great pains to conceal them lest he endure a full day of House's ribbing.

This time, however, House had said nothing about the gift. Wilson had smirked the entire way to work, and House had been powerless to do anything about it without risking Wilson bringing up the subject of Cameron. And, based on Wilson's actions of late, that was not something House was willing to do.

Turning his back on the picture perfect day, House sank into his chair, continuing to thoughtfully rap his cane on the ground. He knew that Wilson suspected him of...questionable...actions and intentions where Cameron was concerned. His frustration with House for never providing a sufficient answer as to why he'd even brought her back was, House mused, probably the root of Wilson's recent intensified observation of the pair.

Wilson suspected something. Thus, Wilson was trying to meddle. Thus, he would have to take appropriate steps to ensure that Wilson's meddling led nowhere and that it soon stopped. Before he could begin to formulate just how he would cease that meddling, he looked up to see her standing in the doorway - expectant and so annoyingly, eerily calm.

"Busy?" But it was a formality, and his mind raced, checking possibilities, examining the catalogue of minutiae he stored for emergencies both medical and otherwise.

"Very," he drew out the word, hoping to buy time and thus increase the appearance of further clues. Even her blinking was languid. The hint of a smirk ghosted her face. Then again, time did nothing for him if she felt like she had all day. "Is there a point to your little visit? I believe birthday cake is on floor four." Was there a spark of pleasure in her eyes at his admission? He didn't want to know - didn't want to care.

"Chocolate," she said simply, moving further into the room. "With white frosting," she added, slipping into the chair across from him. Her movements were too damn slow and methodical for his liking. Why was she here? He knew only that he would have to perform flawlessly if he hoped to discover anything at all.

"I know. Already had three pieces." He searched for something on his desk to play with. Ball. Stapler. Rubick's cube that he'd stolen from pediatrics for reasons he couldn't remember. He picked up the multi-colored puzzle, tossing it up and catching it with a deliberate flair. Let her wonder. "I didn't get you anything," House said, throwing her a mock look of worry.

"Didn't expect you to," she smoothly replied, unruffled. His patience was proving very thin.

"I could take you bowling," he joked, resisting the urge to roll his eyes at his own inanity. Why couldn't she just leave? Instead, she seemed to settle deeper into her seat, chuckling good-naturedly. A silence settled over them. While she seemed more than comfortable in it, he was one moment away from whacking all nearby objects with his cane if only for the satisfaction of hearing something.

"Wilson got me-"

"Don't care," he said abruptly, irately running a hand through his hair. "Look, don't you have somewhere to go? A hot night out on the town with the fianc you have to get ready for?" He began to pace.

"No." Once again, her answer was smooth and steady. This time, he paused, looking up at her sharply, trying to assess her seriousness. He forced his thinking to slow down and back track. He'd missed something - what was it? He felt the answer, tantalizingly close yet obscured.

"Wilson said-," he began slowly.

"I know what I told Wilson." He realized then that the steadiness he'd seen in her face wasn't that at all. It was something deeper, something darker. Warning bells went off in his mind, his eyes retreating to some unfocused point across the room. He cursed himself for underestimating her, for believing they were still playing checkers when she'd clearly moved on to chess. When had it shifted? He slowly began to pace again, peering sideways at her from time to time.

"Oh - kay," was all he would venture.

"What do you do for fun?" Despite the situation and the fact that she was asking, he couldn't stop himself from waggling his eyebrows, a lecherous grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Not who," she scolded, her eyes shining, "What. Keep it clean. And remember, I already know about the monster trucks."

Her eyes held something that looked far too much like hope for his taste. He'd seen it and impulsively desired to extinguish it immediately. And yet. For the briefest of moments, his mind had simultaneously flipped through the short list of activities he liked to categorize as "not-unpleasant." That had been an impulse too, though weaker and nearly forgotten.

For a moment he was speechless, giving into those wide, gray eyes. And then he heard himself mumbling something about voyeurism, saw a veil draw over her expression as it reverted back to one of weariness that was so familiar to him. She was gone and he was suddenly unclear, annoyed, and unsatisfied.

Later, he watched her leave, arms full of bags stuffed with ribbons and paper, balloons wafting buoyantly over her head. When he was sure she'd really left for the day, he walked two files over to her department, thrusting them at one of her shell-shocked staff.

"But, where should I tell her they came from?" the young blonde stammered.

"How should I know? I'm just a messenger. In fact, don't mention my name at all. Clear?" She nodded her head vigorously, effectively convincing him of her compliance. He nodded his head once before briskly strolling out of the office.

He felt disturbed by his actions. Alone in his office, the disgustingly picturesque sunset hidden from view, he examined the photo he kept in the back of his bottom drawer. It was useful for times like these, he thought, clicking to his favorite jazz album on his iPod. It helped him remember an essential truth that he was apt to forget every now and then. It stopped the questions in his mind.

Cameron could not explain her irrational love for her temporary apartment. At first she had thought it was the feeling of returning home - for Princeton would always be home in a sense. It was where she had grown out of her sorrow and grief and into something else, something she was still figuring out. Truthfully, however, Princeton was as much the same as it was different, as much a return to the old as it was a new beginning.

As she rolled out of bed and walked over to the blinds, she wondered if it was the coziness of the apartment itself. She raised the blinds to reveal the windowsill, damp from the rain due to the faulty seal that had yet to be fixed. This reminded her both of the clogged bathroom sink and the disturbing hole in the living room wall. Of course, on the other side of that wall were the loud, insanely sexually active neighbors that she had only heard but never seen. No, she decided, not so cozy. As a temporary living space it was fairly adequate, and memories of her med school days reminded her that she'd seen worse. However, she was glad that she would be leaving soon for a nicer, more spacious condo.

She was rummaging through her nearly empty fridge for a yogurt that had not yet expired when the phone rang. Propping the door open with her foot, she leaned back to pick up the phone. There were only two people who would call her this early. They were in between cases at the hospital, so that could only mean one thing.

"Hello?" Her voice pleasantly echoed off the walls of the kitchen. She resumed her rummaging in the fridge. "Hey sweetheart." She could have sworn she had one last blueberry. "No, I'm good - Richard - Richard, we've been over this. I'm not mad." She sigh in frustration, grabbing a strawberry/banana in defeat. "Richard, I don't like birthday's anyway - I'm not being passive aggressive - I'm not! You have patients, I understand."

Where were her damn spoons? She scanned the stacks of boxes strewn around her kitchen floor, searching in vain. "I told you! I went out for a drink with some people from work, then came home. - No, he wasn't there. He wasn't there Richard. - Believe what you want to believe." She kicked the nearest box in frustration, then directed her attention toward the sink, hoping she'd saved at least one spoon.

"What? - I told you, I'm staying at the Hilton. - I don't know the room number yet, I'll let you know when I find out. - This afternoon. Or tonight. I'm not sure. I have to be out of here by the end of today, so I'm just going to pack everything in the car and take it to work. - Yeah, that's all still in storage." A fork. That's all there was in the drainer next to the sink. One lonely fork. She sighed in frustration, peeled back the lid of the yogurt, and stirred it with the fork.

"Well, because I have the gala tonight. - I told you about the gala. - Richard, I told you. - Yes, he'll be there. - I don't want to talk about this. - Richard. Richard. When are you coming down next?" Holding the phone up with her shoulder, she brought her meager breakfast back into the bedroom, climbing back into bed. It looked a little like rain outside, she noted. Grayish-white, but still. She craved the weather report, but remembered that she had already unplugged the television. Damn. Well, she'd definitely have her umbrella since she would be packing her entire temporary-life into her car in an hour or so.

"Okay, I'm sorry. I know you have to go. But, when are you coming? - Richard, just give me an answer. - What the hell is that supposed to mean? You're being ridiculous. How many times do I have to say it? There is nothing going on. - What?! I am not obsessed with him. How can you even say that?" She placed the yogurt cup on the nightstand beside her. She definitely wouldn't miss the furniture in this place. The mattress was lumpy - and she hadn't even wanted to think about it beyond that. The furniture was old, but in a cheap rather than vintage way.

"So what are you saying?" She played with some loose stitching on her bedspread. She loved this bedspread - had hated to put it on this disgusting mattress. She was going to wash it before christening her new home with it. "Fine. - Fine. - No...just...fine. - Okay. - Yup. - Bye." She punched the off button on the phone, tossing it toward the foot of the bed.

Closing her eyes and sighing, she let the silence of the room, the building, and even the city, envelop her. This, she thought suddenly and savoring the notion, this is why I love this place. And she knew then that it had nothing to do with the city, nothing to do with the four walls itself. She realized that the attractiveness of her abode resided in what it lacked more so than anything it offered.

More terrifying and disturbing than the realization itself was the lack of surprise she felt at her conclusions. How long had she known this? What did it say about the life she thought she had made for herself? And, perhaps most importantly, what did it say about her decision to return?