013 [audio

[worksmart]

[Filtered to Police, Hospital, Friends || hackable;]

Something in Eden Mac Cionaoith's body came after me, but it's not her. I know whatever it is can't keep doing this, but if you're trying to stop it, bear in mind it's holding a sick kid hostage in there. And be careful.

[/end filter]So I can't get out of the damn room, and nobody else can get

Comments

[if you're looking for a catfight, get your ass in front of the referee.]

[worksmart]

He can't hear her, but he catches the knock at the door and assumes Cameron's still playing the consummate professional card. It seems like it's her best way of dealing with him right now - strictly business. After a few minutes, like earlier, the knocking turns to rattling at a stuck, useless handle.

"I told you it won't open!" he calls back, swinging his legs round to sit on the edge of the bed. He's not risking the trek to the door without a crutch, not with one knee bundled up like a preschooler on a snow day. No one's given him a crutch yet, because he's not supposed to be out of bed.

[if you're looking for a catfight, get your ass in front of the referee.]

[as_damaged]

If only that nurse had taken a moment to try the knob...

Two minutes of arguing and explaining that the door is not locked does nothing to convince the harried nurse that she should leave Cameron alone. And so the immunologist finds herself headed back towards Chase's room, already suspicious at the mention of a 'concerned relative.'

When she rounds the corner to find Angela waiting outside the room, she's honestly tempted to turn on her heel and send up a janitor. As much as she'd like to be big about this-- after all, technically speaking Angela is the wronged party (or a wronged party, anyway,)-- it's hard to be rational, hard to muster any compassion. The last thing she wants in the world is a rivalry, because Cameron knows she's bound to lose, unwilling to participate-- it necessitates an admission she doesn't want to make. But she doesn't want to surrender, either

[if you're looking for a catfight, get your ass in front of the referee.]

[as_damaged]

Track This
So much for civility. Knowing that Angela is-- was?-- engaged as well doesn't help Cameron's opinion of her. But that's a private bias; she knows there's next to no one else who'd consider that as grave a breach as she does.

She shakes her head a little, still straight-lipped. "I couldn't get it to open, either," she says, stepping forward to try the knob again, jiggling it more than she really has to. Not to be obnoxious, though it likely seems that way-- she realizes, and doesn't care-- but in the hopes that Chase can hear it. She listens, hearing nothing from his end, and takes a step back.

"It must be broken, unless this is the City's doing." If she could open the door, she would. If she'd locked it, she'd admit to it-- if only out of guilt, because Cameron lacks endurance in lying. Though Angela's tone might be enough to make her reconsider.

[if you're looking for a catfight, get your ass in front of the referee.]

[as_damaged]

Disinclined to be polite-- why bother, it's obvious Angela doesn't intend to give her the benefit of the doubt-- Cameron reaches into her pocket for a set of keys.

"I didn't lock it. If you don't believe me, you're welcome to try," she says flatly, palm extended with the mass of metal atop it. "I haven't even been able to check his vitals. Ask one of the nurses if you don't believe me."

[if you're looking for a catfight, get your ass in front of the referee.]

[as_damaged]

"Those are all the keys I have. If someone did lock the door, it wasn't me." And Chase claims it wasn't him, either; she's inclined to wait and see if the door magically opens at midnight, but clearly Angela isn't so patient.

"I'm not sure why you think I'm trying to keep you out. If I wanted to, I wouldn't have told you he was ready for visitors." Which she could have, is the tacit reminder. And didn't, though she'd considered it-- a perhaps misguided attempt to be grown up about this mess.

Keys taken back and slipped into her pocket, she shrugs. It's enough to make her faintly ill, angry at Angela and moreso at Chase. This hardly seems like the aftermath a casual relationship, either-- which makes it that much worse that he never said anything about it. And makes it sting, just a little more.

[if you're looking for a catfight, get your ass in front of the referee.]

[worksmart]

Chase has curled back up against the pillows in the sanctuary of his hospital room, oblivious to its status as oasis of calm in the face of the building tempest outside. He's still running a slight fever, and he could drink a fishbowl dry, but Cameron knows the door's stuck. All she needs to do is call in the janitor.

He's tired, and he can wait.

Until his phone buzzes on the bedside cabinet, almost vibrating it's way onto the floor before he catches it and flips it open. And maybe there is a curse today.

"Robert dear?" Angela sounds like she's channeling Joan Collins in full Dynasty mode, acid dripping from a cultured tongue. In other words, something's up. He frowns into the phone, wetting his lips before replying, cautiously, "The door's stuck. I'm sure she's got someone on it already. I'm bearing up."

[if you're looking for a catfight, get your ass in front of the referee.]

[worksmart]

Why do people insist on putting this on him when he's sick? He's never sick, which means he should definitely be cut a break now that he is. People should be bringing him grapes and mylar baloons shaped like bunnies, not asking him to mediate world war three.

This, this is why he'd planned on avoiding that party. Women.

"It's not Cameron, it's not the city, it's a stuck door," he tries, using the special voice he keeps for explaining tricky problems to preschoolers. "I doubt she'd lock herself out just to spite you." He doubts she's interested enough to want to spite anyone.

[if you're looking for a catfight, get your ass in front of the referee.]

[worksmart]

Loose lips sink ships. He shouldn't have brought up Cameron to Angela at all, but this was before anything happened, before he thought there was even a chance of it, and with his neighbour an artist and his colleague a medic there had seemed little chance that the twain should meet.

Obviously he hadn't factored in curse days and mysteriously stuck doors. "Angela," his tone drops low, as though protecting the conversation from invisible listeners, "Don't."

Yes, the barb struck him too. It's not imagined, this thing between the two of them. However Cameron might like to protest, she's devoted to House. They all are, it just matters more with her.

"I'm not asking anyone to fight about me. Someone could get a screwdriver and take on the door if they felt like it."