Therapy By Matt Gemmell

Just a simple scene with House and Cameron

This was the last time; absolutely, positively the last time.

Cameron pulled the door of Examination Room 2 closed behind her a little more forcefully than was necessary, and walked out of the clinic. She paused in front of the elevators, deciding she ought to at least take a couple of minutes to calm down, and walked back to the vending machines. A soda would probably help with her headache too. But after that she was going straight to his office.

"Go away."

Cameron allowed a weary sigh of disgust to escape her lips before pushing the door open anyway. House was sitting lengthwise along the couch in his office, his cane hanging from the drawer of a filing cabinet behind him. As was often the case, he was playing his Gameboy, and didn't even look up as she walked in.

"If this is about switching your birth control for Tic Tacs, it was totally Wilson's idea." he said, eyes still glued to the small device's screen. He knew it was her; he always did.

With significant effort, she said nothing, merely curling her hands into small fists by her sides as she mentally counted to 10. She had reached 7 before House snapped the Gameboy closed and finally made eye-contact. His expression was smug and playful, but she noticed an element of curiosity there too.

"Another new high score. So much more satisfying than giving Band-Aids to stupid people, don't you think?"

He sprang up, unhooking the cane from the drawer handle and swinging it around to catch his weight in one smooth motion, and in another moment was across the room and in his chair. She never failed to be impressed by how fast he could actually move in that odd, swinging way gait with the cane. For the hundredth time, she questioned how much his mobility had actually been affected by the thigh muscle infarction. And for the hundredth time, she felt guilty for thinking that.

"You're annoyed with me." he said, with a slightly greater note of triumph and smugness than when he was referring to the videogame. "What'd I do this time?"

"Listen, House," she began, noting his raised eyebrow at her not addressing him as 'doctor'; "I know you somehow manage to shirk your clinic duties pretty much every single week, but this is the last time I'm getting roped into covering for you".

She turned away. This is the part where she raises her palms to the sky, House thought. She did so, but he didn't allow himself a smirk. This was just getting good.

"This is the second time in a week! I'm an immunologist, and I didn't specialise just to spend four hours of my evenings treating flaky scalps, pulled muscles and colds!" she said, turning back to face him with a flourish as she finished. His eyes flicked momentarily downward to note how her lab coat billowed slightly and then settled around her waist.

She was starting to run out of steam now; she knew it, and she felt relieved. He infuriated her, but she still hated arguing with him. It used to be purely due to fear, but she'd quickly learned that fear wasn't an option when you were in a stand-off with House. You might as well just wave the white flag before even starting.

He shrugged. "I had a therapy session." She could see he was still smiling. God the man drove her crazy. He was actually enjoying this.

"That's what you said, and I believed you" - she paused, mustering her best combination of accusation and wounded faith - "until Cuddy came by to ask why I was doing your clinic hours while you were playing videogames in your office!" Her cheeks were flushed. She could swear he was pleased by that.

"I never said I was in a group therapy session," he said, getting up more slowly than before, "It was more like taking some quality me-time. I was grieving for my lost dream of taking home the gold in pole-vaulting." He placed both hands over the cane and vaulted half a metre forward, wearing his best bad-little-boy expression, and she threw her hands up in frustration.

Her mouth opened and then snapped shut. She was more angry than anything else, but she realised she'd been a fraction of a second from asking aloud, And why exactly do I like you, again? That wasn't exactly the kind of thought to voice just at the moment. Aside from anything else, he'd be even more sure that he'd won this round. She'd be damned if she would give him the satisfaction. God, could anyone be more irritating?

Cameron spun on her heel and marched out of his office, not even slowing down when she heard the ping of the Gameboy being switched on as House shouted after her "I guess i can't interest you in some two-player?" Not damn likely.

House sat down on the couch again, hooking his cane into the filing cabinet's handle without even looking; the skill was one of the many modest abilities he'd mastered since the length of wood had become his constant companion. The lord giveth and the lord taketh away, he mused as he reached for the Gameboy's Start button to load his game.

He paused with his finger held above the device and looked back towards the door of the room, to the place Cameron had stood only a few moments ago. She was getting feisty, no question about it. He liked that, though only in moderation of course; he was the unpredictable one around here. Just like he was the one who did the metaphors during differential diagnosis.

All the same though, she was interesting. The date a year ago was a non-event, but she wasn't quite the same person now. Less of the wounded young widow. She was still a bleeding-heart idealist, but she at least acknowledged what he saw as the fundamental constant of life - well, the second one besides gravity - that everybody lies. Usually most often to the people they care about the most, too.

And if Wilson ever plucked up the courage to ask him if he cared about her? Well, he'd say no, of course. No more than he cared about any other tool, like his motorcycle or the pin-number that decodes the Playboy Channel at 11pm. And that would be a lie too; Q.E.D.

He pressed the Start button on the Gameboy and settled back on the couch, grinning lopsidedly as he thought back to the day he interviewed her for the job, and how he'd known he was going to hire her by the time she'd sat down in the chair in front of his desk.

"Lucky she turned out to be an immunologist too".