BZZZZZZZZZZZZZ...BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ...BZZZZZZZZZZZ

On reflex, Thirteen threw her pager across the room. Bolting upright and swearing out loud from the surprise when it hit the floor, she threw her head wildly across the room until she saw the object in question. "Fuck me," she muttered, throwing her legs over the side of the bed and yawning before retrieving the small black box that had so often caused her to wake with a start.

"Untangle from Cam n get n here. We have a case. U have 1h"

"Ugh...House," Thirteen rolled her eyes and tossed the pager onto her bed. Yawning and stretching her arms over her head, she strolled over to her closet. Glancing at the mirror on the closet door, she took a quick look at herself. Her hair was fine; throw a bit of product in there and she'd be in good shape. Figuring she'd be spending the night at the hospital, she grabbed a duffel bag and tossed two extra pairs of scrubs, jeans, a t-shirt and some undergarments inside of it. Picking out a plain blue t-shirt with a pocket on the breast and pair of dark blue skinny jeans, she began to remove her bed wear and redress herself for work, smiling when she thought about the events from the night before. She knew Cameron liked her, she could see it in her eyes. Her smile broadening, she knew she really cared for the blonde as well.

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ...BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

"Jesus..." swiping her pager off the bed, her browed furrowed.

"Call me ASAP."

That was all the message from Cameron read. Her pants still unbuttoned, Thirteen swiped her phone off the bed stand and selected the number from her contact list.

"Hey, you." Cameron answered, smiling so hard it could be heard through the phone.

"Couldn't wait for me to get into work, huh?" Thirteen smirked, locking the phone between her ear and shoulder, so she could finish with her pants.

"You wish. Unfortunately, this is serious. Chase knows and he's...upset." Cameron chose her words carefully. She had every right to be upset with Chase, but being who she was, she also knew he had every right to be confused and upset that she'd date a colleague.

"House?" Thirteen guessed, sitting down on the pile of blankets and sheets that she so desperately wanted to lay down in.

"House," Cameron confirmed. "I just wanted to warn you," a beat. "I'm sorry."

"For...?"

"I should have warned you about this. Robert was always jealous. I don't know what he's going to say or do when you get here," knitting her eyebrows together, Cameron hoped the other doctor could feel her concern in her words.

"I'll deal with Chase," Thirteen was confident when she spoke, her alpha instinct switching into high gear. "I've handled plenty of disgruntled exes in the past."

"Oh, really?" Cameron sounded amused.

"Well, yeah," Thirteen was smug again. "Have you seen me?"

"Remy," Cameron exhaled as her name came over the intercom system, paging her to E.R. "I have to go. Will you let me know?"

"I will let you know, scouts honour. Have a swell shift, Doctor Cameron," Remy adopted the playful tone she always did when saying Camerons name that way.

"Bye, Remy."

Click.

Thirteen pressed her palms to her head, trying to mentally prepare herself for the headache that would surely ensue. Pulling into the parking lot at Princeton Plainsboro, she was reassured of her suspicions.

"Cuddy," Thirteen pulled out her biggest toothy smile. "Hi."

"Hello, Doctor Hadley," Cuddy crossed her arms and allowed Thirteen to get the duffle bag out of her back seat before going in for the kill. "Hadley, why is Chase in my office reciting a point form list of why he thinks you shouldn't be on the diagnostics team?"

"House?" Thirteen offered, shrugging and taking Cuddy's lead towards the hospital.

"Well, of course it's because of House. But even when House jerks people around, there's some truth to it. What's happening between you and Doctor Cameron?" Cuddy asked point blank. There was nothing accusatory in her question, just genuine concern and curiosity mixed with the authority Cuddy always had in her voice.

"Nothing that's any of Doctor Chase's business," Thirteen became instantly defensive.

"Maybe, but if there's conflict in my hospital that's going to affect lives being saved, I need to know about it. So please just tell me?" Cuddy turned the younger woman so that they were facing each other, imploring her with her gaze.

Thirteen sighed and rolled her eyes like a teenager before she spoke. "Allison and I have become...involved. We've been on dates and we're hitting it off. It's not a big deal!" Thirteen threw her arms up in the air, her bag nearly falling from her shoulders. "I'm prepared to treat Chase like an adult, if he's prepared to do the same for me." Cuddy looked hard into Thirteens eyes, feeling slightly maternal without even thinking about it, but didn't say anything. "Cuddy...seriously." Thirteen returned the steady gaze. "He married her and no one said anything. And when I dated Foreman, and this may be the last time you ever hear me say that out loud, it wasn't an issue."

"You're right," Cuddy conceded. "But this is your mess, and I don't want it all over my hospital. Got it?" Cuddy turned to start walking towards the hospital again before stopping briefly on her heel. "By the way...I think it's great for you both."

Thirteen blinked several times. She wasn't sure if she'd just gotten a lecture or gotten a soldier if it ever came down to a brawl between her and the other doctor. Feeling slightly boosted from the sort-of-but-not-really lecture/pep talk, she followed Cuddy. Keeping her distance to avoid another lame excuse for a talking to, Thirteen strolled to the lockers. She spun the dial to let herself in to her tiny metal mini apartment and stuffed her belongings inside. Grabbing her long white coat from a hook she flipped it on and pulled her hair up into a messy bun using the elastic that was around her wrist.

Nearing the elevators, she glanced through the windows of the clinic. Catching a glimpse of blonde hair on the beautiful face she'd woken up to many hours earlier, Thirteen felt a stitch in her stomach that everyone else she'd been on a date with in the last three years had failed to make her feel. She made a mental note to think of something suave to impress Cameron later, and to stop being such a girl.

Stepping in to the elevator, Thirteen felt nervous all of a sudden. She knew it was because she'd have to confront Chase now, or else leave the hospital and never come back again, unless he got hit by a bus or fired. Neither of which she actually wanted to happen. When she walked into the diagnostics room, all of the men stopped talking. Because she was, in fact, such a girl, she knew they were talking about her.

"Hey," she spoke calmly, making eye contact with each of them in a dare to say something to her.

"Oh, hi there!" House spoke first, enthused. "Turned anyone else's ex wife into a lesbian in the last twenty four hours?"

"Just yours," Thirteen threw back at him, taking her seat.

"Stacey wasn't my wife," House cleared his throat. "Just my live in love slave. Patient is twenty two years old, female. Has a severe fever, nosebleeds, headache and fits of unconsciousness."

"That fits a million different things," Thirteen tried to look at House, but was afraid to look from Chase. His face was red, with what was obviously rage, and he looked like a schoolboy who had been tormented to the point of exploding.

"Then test for a million different things," House looked at her pointedly. "Oh! Before you all get up. The boyfriend brought the patient in. Chase, go with her to make sure the girl is protected from hot bisexual doctor syndrome." House winked at Chase like he was giving him the most important job in the world, while Thirteens stomach sank into her feet.

"You've got to be kidding me," Chase finally averted his gaze, looking at House incredulously.

"When am I ever jerking you around when you want me to be jerking you around?" House asked innocently, continuing to write the symptoms on the white board.

Chase glared at the back of Thirteens head as he followed her out of the room, daring only to speak when they were out of earshot from their colleagues, for fear of what he might say.

"She's not a lesbian, you know," he started.

"Me either," Thirteen was trying her best to blow him off, but she knew it would be an uphill battle.

He grabbed her wrist now, spinning her to face him, hurt all over his face. "How could you do this to me? We were supposed to be friends."

"We were?" More deadpanning.

"Well, no, maybe not. But she'll leave you," his voice was frantic now. "She left me because of her ex. She told me, you know. Everything. She owed it to me."

"Great," Thirteen swallowed now, knowing full well she was about to hear a lot of things she didn't want to hear.

"Yeah! She did! She couldn't get over her ex because she didn't have the time to grow apart from him. They fell in love and he was dying and it was great. With me, I was always there. I was there when she was frustrated. I was there for the honeymoon period and for all the shit." He was looking harsher as he went on, beginning to look down his nose at the brunette.

Not wanting to deal with this when they had a patient, or at all, Thirteen whirled around. Her height allowed her to get nose to nose with him. "What's your point, doctor Chase?"

"My point?" He sneered, eyes narrowing and voice becoming cruel. "My point, Doctor Hadley, is that you're an idiot. Cameron wants you because you're broken. She likes the lovey dovey parts of love. With you, it's all she sees is a chance to have that back, yeah?" He was towering over Thirteen now. She'd taken several steps back and felt like she'd shrunk.

Holding back tears because she'd never allow him to see her cry, she nodded her head. "Are you finished?" She scrounged up her last bit of courage and pulled her shoulders back up, glaring at the man she had once thought to be an alright guy. She had even felt guilty and wanted to take him out for drinks and explain to him how this had happened. Now all the brunette wanted was to kick his ass.

"No, I'm not," he was almost whispering now, but the menace was still there. "We all know your style, Thirteen. And when you mess it up, she'll be running back to my arms. And we'll see who's smiling then."

Remy opened her mouth to say something just as harsh but stopped herself. Looking past Chase, she saw Cameron. She saw the tears running down her face and the hurt washing out her features.

"Robert, that's enough!" Cameron shouted at him, the only explanation for the volume and passion of her outburst. She sniffled hard and wiped the droplets of water off her face, storming over to where her ex husband and her new love interest stood. "I can't believe you. I told you those things about my past in confidence. I'm beginning to wonder if you ever loved me."

"You left me for a woman, Cameron! Do you know how that feels?" Chase snapped back, grasping for straws and knowing there weren't any left here.

"I didn't leave you for anybody except myself. And you. I didn't want to make you unhappy, knowing I didn't feel for you how you felt me for me. Not for the rest of our lives. This," she motioned at Thirteen. "This is brand new and it's amazing and it has nothing to do with what happened between you and I. And..." she hesitated, casting a glance at the brunette, not sure how much she wanted to say about their current feelings in front of the other woman. "I don't know if we're going to fall in love or even say those words to each other, or even have another date. That's not the point. The point is, Robert, you need to stop lying to me when you tell me that you are okay with this being over if we're ever actually going to be okay and be friends. And you need to leave Remy alone, because I care about her and I think she cares about me. Right now, I can't even say that much about you." Camerons tone had not lost its power, but her volume had decreased to something plenty more normal by the time she had come to the end of her speech. Chase looked from one set of eyes to the other in complete disbelief.

"This is ridiculous," he threw his hands up in the air and headed off down the hall. "I'll take care of the patient myself." He glared at Thirteen over his shoulder as he made this statement.

Thirteen, meanwhile, had not dropped her gaze from Camerons face. She was in shock and disbelief at how the blonde had just defended herself.

"What?" Cameron asked her, the slight annoyance had not left her voice yet and she instantly regretted it.

"Nothing," Thirteen chuckled in understand, still staring at her. "That was...awesome." She put her hands in the pocket of her lab coat, not knowing what to do with them and feeling silly just standing there gawking.

"I have to get back to work, and you have to go do damage control and let House tease you before he pushes more of Chase's buttons," Cameron glanced at the glass walls of House's office, which he was casually peering through, his door open just a crack.

"Yes, ma'am," Thirteen grinned. Cameron smiled back and shook her head, starting off back towards the elevators, deciding she'd probably be able to avoid Chase by now. "Cameron!" The brunette called after her, smiling harder when the older doctor turned around. "There will definitely be another." She smiled and turned first; heading back to rejoin in the ongoing differential, knowing Cameron was watching her walk away.

AU NOTES: A lot of my reviewers thought that this would get physical, but I just didn't think that was realistic to the story, or to the characters. I know that I'm kind of mashing up the timelines a bit but...IT'S FAN FICTION! Haha.

WonderousPlaceForAnEcho: I did not on purpose take the title from Lady Gaga, it just kind of happened that way! Thanks for your kind words : )