Chapter 8: Steamrolled

Chase wheeled Joe back to his room in silence. Luckily the tall man luckily hadn't fainted until they got him in the wheel chair but it had been a close call. With the help of the nurses Chase was able to Joe back into his bed and began to re-adjust the monitors. He shouldn't be this tried, or requiring as much pain medication as they were pumping into him. Cameron might be relieved that it wasn't cancer but Chase was becoming increasingly worried about the state that Joe was in.

The man rolled his head towards Chase, "So. You're sleeping with her?"

Chase nearly dropped the IV bag that he was hanging up. "Sorry?! What?"

"Sam figured it out, or Allie told her, I am not sure. Anyways, you're Allie's new guy."

Chase decided to be honest with his patient for once, "It's not really a relationship per say, more of just a convenience at the moment."

Joe laughed, "Let me guess, Allie's idea?"

This guy had been around them for less then a week and had already picked up the key element of their relationship that Foreman, Cuddy and Wilson had all missed. Chase rubbed his jaw, "Yeah it was."

"You would have been crazy turn her down," Joe answered honestly, "She just has now idea how hot she is." He then paused wincing in pain and began to rub the lump his neck, "This had got to be awkward for you."

"What do you mean?" Chase asked, flipping through Joe's chart and checking his temperature levels.

"Having Allie reliving all the crap she went through with Mike, bringing up all of the old relationships, having me around again."

Chase let the chart rest against the bed, "I'm microwave pizza for Cameron, convenient and easy. I am not even in the race."

"But you didn't say anything when we were dealing with the stuff." Joe pointed out.

Chase got ready to leave the room, "I didn't have much to say." He paused hesitating for a moment, "And my answers were going to be biased. I want to be part Allison's new future."

Joe nodded, "It's gonna be a tough fight. Which is partly my fault I guess. Allie and I grew close when Mike was dying. Too close really. I didn't handle it well, I just sort of left when Mike died. But I think you would be good for her."

Acknowledging the other man's advice, Chase nodded left the room. From across the hallway, he could see Cameron laughing with Sam and Sophie. Her smile was huge laughing a picture that Sophie had just painted.

All of a sudden the bells and whistles began to go off behind him. Running back into the room, Chase hit the emergency call button.

Joe was going into cardiac arrest.

House found Cameron curled up with Sam and Sophie in the chairs in the waiting room. After going to cardiac arrest, Chase had rightly decided that no matter what the lump was it needed to be removed as it was growing and beginning to block Joe's airways. Still in surgery, everyone was waiting on pins and needles hoping that there was no permanent damage.

Lifting up his stick House poked Cameron awake. Shielding herself, she glared up at him, "What is it?"

"Chase is in surgery and Foreman is still running tests. I got bored with no one to torture."

Getting up Cameron straightened her white lab coat, "What do you need me to do?"

Turning to walk down the hallway House made Cameron follow him, they walked in silence for about 50 metres before he turned to her. "That was a really stupid thing to do."

Cameron continued to look ahead, "I wondered when you were going to yell at me about it."

"Planning a future with a guy that had none? You knew he was terminal when you married him!"

She wasn't going to apologize for the decisions she made, "Sometimes people go into remission. Sometimes tumours just shrink. And some times when you are 21 you fall madly in love."

Cameron was always surprised at how quiet hospitals were at night, walking up a down the corridors all she could hear was the rhythmic "thump" of House's cane. After processing what she had just said, House changed topics, "Speaking about love, you are going to have to make up you mind about Robert."

Cameron stopped walking exasperated at House's prying, "You too!! Cuddy has already had this chat with me. I'm not going to get hurt, it's just sex."

House turned toward her, glaring her straight, his blue eyes bright in the dim half-light, "I know you are not going to get hurt, because it is not you that I am talking about."

Cameron was about to open her mouth in response when Foreman's shout pierced that darkness, "HOUSE!!!"

He ran towards them panting, "I have been looking all over for you!. He clutched a print-out in his hands, "You were right, it was allergies. Two working together at the same was caused the weird results. I was able to separate them this time – one caused the lump and the second the pain"

House glanced at the print-out and muttered, "The guy's allergic to his kid's play paint!"

Chase straddled the wooden bench in the changeroom, just sitting in his scrubs. Surgery always drained him, it was an amazing adrenaline rush when you were in the operating room, fighting to keep someone alive, but afterwards the crash could be brutal.

"You okay?" Chase was surprised by Cameron's voice. She was leaning against the doorframe in the darkness. He wondered how long she had been there just watching him.

Rolling his head on his shoulders, he nodded, "Yeah, and Joe is going to be okay as well. The lump was just this odd benign tumour that had started growing as a result of his allergic reaction. What was he doing, drinking the kid's paint?"

Cameron walked toward him and then sat behind him on the bench. Reaching up she began to massage the muscles in his neck, "Joe wasn't always the swiftest sometimes. He accidentally set some it on fire and then breathed it in…"

Chase laughed; he liked Joe but could see the man be a bit of walking disaster in the real world. He leaned into the massage, it felt amazing. "I am sorry I wasn't more of a help today sorting through your stuff."

Cameron's hands stopped and she rested her head on his back, "It's fine and you were there when I really needed you that other night."

Turning toward her, Chase looked her right into her eyes, "I don't have a limp. And I'm not dying. We not bonding over some painful experience either. It's not that I don't have issues, I have lots of them. I just sorted them out before I met you. So, while I don't need to you to fix me, that doesn't mean that I don't need you. And I want you to need me."

Cameron looked stunned for a moment, and started speaking as if she wasn't sure where the words were coming from, "I don't know what will happen if I get the chance to lean on someone else."

"Give it a try Allison."

She answer was out of her lips before she knew what she was saying, "I would really like to, Robert."

The funny thing about falling in love with someone is that you don't even realise it is happening. You see them everyday for weeks, months, even years and they have no effect on you. But one day you wake up and you see them and your pulse races, your stomach goes queasy and you forget how to move.

Cameron had thought that she was completely insensitive to Chase, but she had been steamrolled...