Okay, maybe I'm foolish to try and singlehandedly jump-start an apparently fading community, but I did try my hand at writing Wilson/Cameron fic... PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE IF THERE IS ANYONE OUT THERE, R & R! I will love you forever (forever being a relative term...)!

A/N: COMPLETE WIP, much editing needed, I want to post it elsewhere once I hear from readers. Probably a one-shot, but with much revision in its future.
Title: "Happy"
Pairings: Literal Wilson/Cameron, theoretical Wilson/House & House/Cameron
Rating: R? The MPAA system is dumb.
Summary: Set sometime between "Finding Judas" and "One Day, One Room", if you want canon-compatibility. Or we could say that it's AU-- What if Cameron's conversation at the end of "Insensitive" was with Wilson instead of Chase? Either way, the fic is an exploration of their dynamic and what they're sublimating in that dynamic...




Cameron could feel that he was distracted. She couldn't ask, because that would be breaking the quiet. A spell of silence clung to their tentative touching like cobwebs against hair, and she wouldn't brush it away. It was too uncertain. She had no idea how he would answer if she asked.

She arched against him, trying to artifice passion, but although she found him sensual, and although his demeanor was always companionable and so damned kind, his eyes weren't the right color and his tongue, while capable, wasn't nearly acidic enough. She threaded her hands through hair that was too soft and too brown and pulled him up to kiss her, and it was gentle like she expected but not nearly warm enough.

He made a noise as though about to speak but she silenced him with a quick shake of her head and a pleading glance. "I don't want to know," she said hoarsely, surprised at how firm her voice sounded. Let him believe she was sure about this, that she'd worked it out and didn't have to find the answer.

He nodded and smiled half-heartedly, kissing her neck and sliding a hand up her shirt. Maybe they could enjoy this. Maybe, Cameron thought to herself with a secret smile as he stepped back to loosen his tie, it didn't have to be compensating. She wouldn't have to leave in the morning with a stomachache, because it could be fine. Not great, but okay. Worthwhile.

Wilson pulled off the tie and unbuttoned his shirt, and she watched his fingers deliberately undo each fastened clasp. He wasn't looking at her, and Cameron considered that he might be using the time it took to undress as time to reconsider their present predicament, the state of their relationship, and everything else at stake. She worried she might use the time he was taking for those worries too, and so she shoved into him with more force than he'd expected and tugged at his belt impatiently. He dropped his hands with a surprised noise she found strangely compelling, so much so that she wasn't aware of who kissed who first, only that her pants were around her ankles and his knee was between hers and they were doing this without any more wait, as though it had somehow been a long time coming.

It hadn't been, though; it was just a spur-of-the-moment, chance sort of cataclysm that enveloped them full force when they cared too much and mistakenly with each other. She could use Chase for this kind of thing, Cameron thought belatedly, but it didn't matter now because Wilson had been there instead and she'd invited herself over without knowing he was living in a hotel. Pretending it wasn't sex she was there for seemed especially dishonest when confronted by the dingy surroundings Wilson brought her to.

His hands were stronger than she would have guessed, and the fingers were broader. He was very good at what she needed him for anyway, so no complaints if the physicalities were slightly off. When she came, it occurred to her that it wasn't a secret suaveness or his understated, handsome face that made Wilson an unexpectedly great lover. He was still the slightly fussy, mostly decent kind of man she'd come to know in the context of Princeton-Plainsboro, still the kind of guy she imagined would have been in love with her in high school. They were ten years apart at least, yet she could imagine him as the hopelessly loyal, awkward teen that always seemed to find her cruelly and tauntingly beautiful. That was what made Wilson so starkly sensual-- the boyish enthusiasm tempered by years of disappointment, betrayal, and a kind of wisdom that came from those qualities combined-- he exuded an earned, strange confidence, years of learning culled into a knowledge of sex that was nothing if not thorough.

They lay in the hotel bed together for a long time afterwards, his hands coming to rest on either side of her hips. The sheets were pressed but hadn't been changed, and the stiff blankets scratched their exposed skin.

"So, you don't like to talk during sex?" He asked jokingly. Cameron turned to meet his eyes in the dark. He smiled and raised his eyebrows, still sweat-damp and wild.

She looked at him questioningly and shifted against his chest. "I don't usually," she said. "You do?"

"Unless my wife isn't talking to me at all," he asserted, self-deprecation masking the truth behind his words. "But it was nice, this way." He coughed awkwardly.

She nodded, but felt compelled to end the conversation on her terms. "I would have," she admitted. "But I didn't want to talk about him." Wilson stopped and dropped his hands from her sides.

"Right, well, he clearly has nothing to do with this situation." Cameron didn't know him quite well enough to discern if he was being sarcastic or definitive.

"If we talk about House, it'll be over," she told him, and because it was threatening it rang true.

Wilson dropped his gaze and turned to face the wall. "You still...care for him?" He asked pensively. Cameron couldn't tell if he was hurt or contemplative.

She cleared her throat. "More than you do."

Wilson turned back over to face her and gripped her shoulder hard. "Don't say that," he implored, voice still low but with an edge to it now. "You can't honestly believe--"

Cameron narrowed her eyes at him and crossed her thin arms over her chest. "I'm glad he apologized to you," she said, voice quietly dangerous, much like a warning. "But don't think for a second you don't owe him an apology."

"I don't!" Wilson informed her sternly, surprised. "What are you talking about?" His voice betrayed him, though-- Cameron noticed, for the first time, or rather recognized, the expression in Wilson's eyes.

"Oh my god," she exclaimed hoarsely, tone completely changed. She was looking intently into Wilson's open face, the purple glow of sunrise lighting them both. He silently begged her not to keep going. "You're in love with him."

Wilson continued to meet her gaze, finding in it a familiar diagnostic search taking place. "How could you say that?" He gestured weakly to their haphazard nest of twisted sheets and splayed limbs. "Dr. Cameron--" She cut him off with a sigh and a small smile, which caught him off guard. It was wry, and Wilson thought it looked slightly like a grimace, but the corners of her mouth turned up and so he stopped talking, surprised at her reaction. He'd wanted an answer to why she'd worked out that conclusion from their brief argument over House, but her reaction to his anger was unexpected. "Why are you smiling?"

"Nothing," she said, before promplty continuing anyway. "It's just that you called me Dr. Cameron, and considering we just had sex-- it seemed a little aloof, even for you."

Wilson's eyebrows knit, wondering silently what she meant by that, but she wouldn't explain unless he asked. "Well, I barely know you."

"I think we know each other pretty well," she answered, looking at him with a vaguely patronizing expression. "I know you're his best friend, but you think you're more than that. You consider yourself his conscience, and sometimes you really do help. But often, you just make him more agitated, and it was wrong to lie about Richard McNeil's case, and your reasons for turning him in to Tritter may have been pure but the results were catastrophic. He's still on Vicodin. He mistreats you, you manipulate him."

"He's still my friend," Wilson stated, and he sounded more hurt than angry this time.

"And 'it's obviously complicated,'" Cameron finished. "Nothing fits. Not unless," she paused, weighing her words carefully. "Not unless you're in love with him. And that's what keeps you going back. Even when he's disappointing, manipulative-- I know he's hard to stay away from."

"I'm not in love with him," Wilson corrected, still meeting her gaze. "I don't want you to think that. It's not true. I've-- I've been married three times."

Cameron nodded. "And every time you've ended up at his apartment," she added coaxingly. "You...don't see a pattern here?"

Wilson paused for a moment and ran his right hand across his forehead. "Of course there's a pattern," he told her. "I'm not a diagnostician, but I do have a medical degree." He sighed, and Cameron waited. "House is a jerk. He's miserable, and he's rude, and he offends more people in an hour than you and I have in our entire lives, but he's pretty much all I've got at this point. If I ever risked that, it was only to help him."

"That's what I'm saying," Cameron spoke with a softer tone now. "You care about him more than you care about your own happiness."

"And you don't?" Wilson asked, skepticism etched across his features.

"No," Cameron replied. "Why else would I be here?"

Wilson took a few moments to consider what she was saying. He and House were best friends, like it or not, and he'd just slept with an underling who'd had feelings for House for years. It might have been a betrayal, but Wilson wasn't sure how House really felt about Cameron; in spite of consistent prodding, he hadn't shown much interest. At the same time, Cameron had deliberately slept with him, of all people, and maybe it was a way to get closer to House. He couldn't be sure. Either way, neither of them seemed to be considering House's possible reactions ahead of time, back when they'd been making out at the hospital. Cameron really was considering her happiness above House's, and maybe that was the sane decision. God knows, thought Wilson, neither of us have been very happy trying to consider House all the time. He turned so that Cameron was less than an inch away.

"So long as you're here," he sighed, "I'll try to think of my own happiness."