A/N: I wrote this as a one shot two years ago, and it is by far the weirdest thing I've ever written. This was a follow up to that season three episode with Honey, the woman House flirted with in the clinic. (Can't remember the episode title.) There are references to, and actual quotes from other episodes as well.

Chapter two was written as a sequel a year ago, and chapter three as another sequel last month. If it seems familiar to you, you've probably read it over at live journal. Beta'd by the most awesome, blueheronz.

Allison Cameron had never really believed in fairy tales. She was not the princess waiting for her prince to carry her off on his white steed. But she did believe in her own version of happily ever after. Or maybe happy was too strong a word. She'd settle for satisfaction.

She was seated at the end of the bar, a baseball cap on her head and a beer in her hand. The hat was the only remnant of her relationship with Chase (unless you count regret), something she'd borrowed from him in her hurry to get home to shower and change one morning. She needed to be around people; desperate people, lonely people trying to make a connection, people who were even more pathetic than she was. Or so she told herself. Tonight the hat was her keep out sign.

Not interested. Don't care. Just here for the beer.

Something was different with House lately that she couldn't pinpoint, and it bothered her. He bothered her. The fact that she was still in love with him bothered her. Hence the beer that was beginning to take effect.

Satisfaction not guaranteed. I can't get no...satisfaction. But then again, you can't always get what you want.

She took a long swallow for Mick Jagger and his infinite wisdom.

She'd been imagining a future with House for so long that she felt incapable of giving up on that hope. It wouldn't be perfect. He'd still have his vices--vicodin and bourbon and sarcasm--but she would love him anyway. She'd never wanted to change him. Didn't even think it possible.

"People don't change. At least, not in any way that really matters."

A patient's wife had once said that to her and she believed it was true. Then again, that woman had been trying to murder her husband, so maybe she shouldn't give her words too much weight.

Her words were worth their weight in gold, which she sprinkled on his cornflakes every morning, slowly poisoning him.

Cameron grinned as her thoughts started going in circles, making less and less sense as the buzz from the beer warmed her and made her limbs feel deliciously tingly. She was a lightweight when it came to alcohol, but tonight she didn't care.

Circular thoughts. Ringing around my mind. Ringing. Circling like a ring. More gold. A gold ring. A band meant to represent love. Commitment.

She didn't even need the ring. But the commitment would be nice.

As if her thoughts had somehow conjured him up, she heard his voice, deep and smooth and as familiar to her as her own voice. It washed over her like a warm shower on a cold day. She glanced up from her beer and spotted him several seats over, his back turned to her, sitting next to a woman who was sipping tea. She recognized the woman from the clinic--had seen House flirting with her there. Honey.

Sipping tea. It suits her to a T. Tea with Honey. Honey with her tea.

She almost started giggling at that. Maybe it was an effect of the beer, but she thought it awfully strange that someone would drink tea in a bar. She unconsciously leaned forward on her stool to get a better look at the young woman.

Long wavy brown hair, petite, slender frame, small breasts, young--maybe even younger than Cameron herself, and very pretty. She barely refrained from raising her beer to the woman in a sort of salute. The physical resemblance between them amused her. It was even kind of flattering in a weird way, like House was seeking out a substitute for herself.

Honey. A sweet substitute for saccharine Cameron. Sappy, sugary Cameron. Sugar and spice and everything nice. Sugar comes from a cane. He could make me come with his cane. His cane makes me come.

She buried her head in the crook of her arm to stifle her laughter. In a brief lucid moment she realized how drunk she was. She'd probably have to call someone to pick her up when she was finished drowning her angst in alcohol.

Chase will come for me. Chase has come for me. In the sleep lab, in the supply closet, in a patient's home. I chased Chase and made him come. Now Chase is chasing me, but I will not come for Chase anymore.

She snorted into her beer, then tried to focus on House and Honey again, straining to hear what they were saying.

"I'm on antidepressants, 'cause a doctor friend of mine thinks I'm miserable. I don't like them, they make me hazy. I eat meat. I like drugs."

A hazy House. A high House. A hazy high House. High hopes for hazy House.

Only House could rattle off a list of vices and still be charming. But then she heard his next words and they wrapped around her heart and squeezed until she felt she couldn't breathe, felt that surely the blood had stopped pulsing through her veins.

"And...I'm not always faithful to the women I date."

Cheater, cheater, meat eater...

The words clattered around her brain in an endless litany, like some kind of demented nursery rhyme. She felt suddenly, excruciatingly sober.

Maybe she was as naive and pathetic as everyone thought her to be, because she never imagined him as a cheater. Never imagined that if they finally came together he might not be true to her. Of all his vices, this was the one she could never accept.

She gathered her jacket, her bag, and her dignity, slid some bills across the bar and left quietly. Her hand on the door, she caught his reflection in the glass.

"Oh, and I hate tea," she heard him say as he brought the mug to his lips.

"What the hell is this?"

"Black walnut and ginger."

"It's nice."

Everybody lies.

She wouldn't let herself cry, for crying would leave evidence that she was heartbroken, and that was something she could not, would not give him. She simply grabbed a cab, stumbled through her door, dropped her things, grabbed a bottle of wine and crawled into bed fully clothed.

Sobriety was overrated.

She opened the wine and gulped it straight from the bottle, hoping for the buzz again. She was glad she hadn't waited to see if he took Honey home. Didn't want to think of him screwing her in his bed. The bed she'd so recently sat on while she gently woke him.

"This is what regular people look like when you wake them up."

Yeah. Except when had House ever been a regular person.

We've switched your regular House with Folgers decaffeinated House.

She snorted in a very unladylike fashion, and sloshed wine onto her bed, which pooled in a crevice on her comforter before soaking in and leaving a blood red stain. Like the carpet he'd insisted on keeping in the conference room.

"All change is bad. It's not true, you know."

Change sucks!

She'd perched on the edge of his bed, silently hoping he'd swoop her onto it fully and ravage her body, foregoing foreplay and simply tearing off her clothes and pushing into her in one quick thrust. She'd wanted it rough. Hoped it would be rough. And then she'd hoped he'd ask her to stay. Wrap his arms around her and sleep, waking later for a round of gentle lovemaking. She'd hoped it would be the beginning of them.

Hope was dead. Crushed to dust under the weight of her plummeting expectations.

"I'm not going to crush you."

Everybody lies.

Did he take Honey home? Dip his stick into her honeycomb? Dunk his teabag into her mug?

Suddenly it wasn't funny anymore.

Ignorance is bliss.