Hey all--another piece in the "Anticoagulation" verse, this one focusing on Kutner post-Thirteen's death. Everything will make lots more sense if you read "Bluebells in the Late December" and a little of "Anticoagulation." Of course, you should read them anyways :)
Don't own, never will.
Song title comes from The Pierces' "Three Wishes"
Kutner first notices Natesa when Tod is working on rehabilitating her shoulder down on the floor one day. He is working on his own patient, a much cooler patient, who has recently had a nerve implantation. Kutner actually collaborated on the nerve implantation, had worked on developing the new technologies. But he notices her looking at him. She's pretty. He gets a little self-conscious. On the fifth Wednesday, she asks him if he wants a cup of coffee. Having not been on a first date with a stranger in almost 10 years he says sure before he can think about it. He has been at Johns Hopkins for three months by that point, and he should be getting acclimated, right?
"So, uh, your shoulder?" he asks.
It turns out she'd injured it in a tennis match, nothing complicated, she says. She is a guidance counselor for a high school, and she uses the phrase "really fulfilling" to describe it. He can't find anything against her, so he asks her out to dinner that Friday. And then she asks him out to a matinee that Sunday, and soon it's late dinners on Tuesday and walking her dog together on the weekends. She pronounces him "quiet," which was okay with him because it saves him from having to explain things. She's funny, and nice, and he's OK with both of those.
But pretty soon (barely two months later) the one-year anniversary of Remy's death rolls around, and Chase and Cameron invite him up to their place, ostensibly because the girls have a dance recital and because he hasn't seen Rocco in five months, so the kid has apparently doubled in size. He knows that it is a cover, that they don't want him to be alone that weekend, and that they think he needs to be in Princeton, and he doesn't care and even almost appreciates their worry. He immediately agrees, has to tell himself to wait fifteen minutes to email Chase back.
Natesa, however, is surprised when he mentioned that he'd be going up to Princeton. "A dance recital, for your old friends' kids? That's so adorable! How old are they?" They're in her apartment, like always. Even though he moved partly to make a break, he can still trick himself into believing Remy's just around the corner in his new townhouse. Some days he feels her, and some days he just misses her. It's waves, slowly ebbing to evenness. The books and research all say things come in waves and he believes them.
"The friends? Oh, about 43 and 45. So, average 44," he jokes.
She slaps him lightly with a towel, laughing, "That's pretty old for a dance recital."
"Oh, oh, you mean the girls," he says. "Elizabeth's eight; she's in third grade, and the twins, Sophie and Claire, are six. Kindergarten."
"They sound adorable," she says randomly. He doesn't feel like their ages justify the moniker 'adorable,' but they are three of the most adorable children born, ever, so he lets it slide. "They're all from Princeton?" He never mentions much about his past, but it's still an odd question. Of course the kids are from Princeton, if the parents are from Princeton. "Are they the girls in that photo in your apartment?" he's careful, usually, to tuck photos from Princeton in drawers when she's over (which is rarely), but he must have missed one.
"Yeah, I worked with their parents."
"For how long?" she asks. It's an odd thing to fish for, he thinks, randomly, but obliges because it's harmless. She's already told him about her last three relationships, her eyes filling with hopefulness every time that maybe, just this once, he might share something. He can't.
"Did I work there? Oh, about … nine years," he calculates. Six with Remy.
"Why'd you leave?"
"Needed … needed a change," he replies.
"You grew up there, though?"
"Close by," he says. He covered this once, he could have sworn. "Haddonfield. Anything else you need to know?" He doesn't mean for it to come out sharply, but it does, and she looks slightly stricken. "Sorry," he apologizes.
"No, it's fine … just whenever you feel like sharing, I'm here."
"Sharing?" he says. "We just spent 20 minutes talking about our days! I cooked you dinner!"
"Thank you for that," she snaps. "But you're 41 and you've never been married, you're Indian but you have photos of a white couple I can only assume are your parents, and I still don't know where you went to medical school!"
"Penn," he answers, feeling like that is something he could have at least shared. "NYU for undergrad."
"Well, thank you for exerting yourself," she huffs, flopping down on her couch.
He looks at her, then looks at the clock. "I should go," he says. "I'll give you a call when I get back on Sunday."
"Sure," she says, not looking at him. She sounds like she doesn't believe it, and he not sure he does either.
Even though it's only 7:30 on Thursday night and he told Chase not to expect him until Friday around one (he took the Friday off, some weird form of commemoration), he heads up immediately anyways. His bag was in the car, and he realizes somewhere around Newark, Delaware, that maybe he planned it this way.
The traffic on the Turnpike and on 295 is light, and he makes it there in slightly over two hours. He sits in their driveway for three minutes before realizing that it's stupid and there's no way he's going to pay for a hotel, and goes to ring the doorbell.
Cameron, in yoga pants and a mold-green cardigan, opens the door. She's a little shocked for a second, before breathing, "Kutner," and wrapping him in a tentative tug, which she gradually tightens. "I'm so sorry, you caught me off-guard, Rob said you weren't coming until tomorrow."
"Surprise," he says. "I hope this is alright."
"Are you kidding? Of course," she says. "We haven't seen you for five months, you sure we can't keep you an extra night on the other end, too?" she steps aside to let him in. "Just be a little quiet—the twins are asleep, and Rocco just went down, too."
"How is Rocco?" he asks. He hasn't seen the baby since he was six weeks old.
She smiles. "He's finally sleeping nine or ten hours throughout the night, which I really appreciate. Right now that's a bigger milestone than riding bikes. Don't tell the twins."
"Our little secret," he replies. They're crossing the living room toward the back of the house, presumably to Chase's den. She knocks on the door lightly before pushing it open. "Hey guys, we have an early visitor!"
"Kutner! Kutner!" Elizabeth, wearing a lavender confection he can only assume is a dance costume, jumps up from Chase's lap. "Daddy said you were coming for my dance recital but he said you weren't here till tomorrow after school!" She wraps her arms tightly around his middle before holding up her arms, silently insisting to be picked up even though she's eight and well over four feet tall. "I've missed you! How are the crabs and clams? Can we come visit? You need to come back more often! You missed our class play, I was Sleeping Beauty. Mostly because of my hair but still I was pretty great. And can you convince Mum and Dad that we need a cat? Dad hates cats but I think he can be convinced. And House taught me a new trick the other day when I had to go to the hospital after school, it's super-cool but I need a cane to do it and—"
"Enough, Lizzy," her mother laughs, extracting her from Kutner. "Give Kutner some space. Don't worry, he'll be here for a while. Right now, it's your bedtime."
"No, Mum, no way! You let me stay up on holidays and weekends and this pretty much counts! I haven't seen Kutner since Christmas."
"Nope, if you fall asleep in class they say you're sick and then I have to come and pick you up. And you've been to the hospital once already this week and that is enough time hanging out with House."
"You let Rocco hang out with House every day," she pouts.
"No, I let Rocco go to day care every day. Miss Patty knows not to cave now. Come on, kiss Dad goodnight."
Lizzy obligingly kisses her father goodnight, and Cameron starts to usher her out but turns and says, "You two should go catch up. I've got everything under control here."
"Night Kutner," Lizzy says before running off, and a few seconds later he can hear her thumping up the stairs.
Chase flicks off the soccer game he and Lizzy were watching, and says, "Bar? Or beer from the fridge?"
He doesn't hesitate. "Let's hit up a bar."
"So how's work?" Chase says, smoothly driving the car-seat-stuffed SUV.
"Pretty good. Doing interesting work, with neurodegeneration and regeneration. Lots of recovery work," he likes the success stories, where he gets people through things, best. "How's PPTH?"
"Ah, you know, pretty much the same. Ally's worried that Wilson is lonely, House's lawsuit rate dropped to 35 percent and Cuddy sent his fellows cupcakes, House and Cuddy are on the ups after two months on the outs, House got a fourth fellow, the cafeteria stopped serving pot roast after House got into an altercation with a cafeteria lady, House continues to be the one person who matters in the hospital."
Kutner laughs gently. "Sounds like Princeton-Plainsboro."
"So, you decided you wanted to see the war zone that is our house on a school morning?" Chase finally asks, a half-hour later, as they're seated at a booth. "This morning, Claire dropped the milk, Rocco upturned a bowl of cereal, Lizzy used one of House's phrases on Sophie, Sophie hit Lizzy, I forgot to fill out two zoo-trip permission sheets, and Ally lost her favorite pearl earrings, which belonged to her grandmother, but they turned up in Lizzy's dress-up closet," he raises his eyebrows. "And I wish I could say that was an unusual morning."
"Hey, an extra pair of hands couldn't hurt."
Chase raises his eyebrows even higher before quipping, "You say that tomorrow morning and Allison will be hiring you as a nanny." Kutner laughs and sips his beer. "You OK … with the date and all?"
"Today I'm fine. Ask me again on Saturday," Kutner says, taking another sip of his beer. He knows Chase wants to know why he's up in Princeton so early. "So I'm kind of seeing this woman in Baltimore, and I told her tonight I was coming up here for a weekend, and she asked a few questions, so I decided to cut the night short instead of talking, and then I decided to drive up here. Pretty simple, really."
Chase plays with the label on his beer, which he isn't really drinking, anyways. Parents. "What sort of questions was she asking?"
"Oh, you know. Why I left Jersey after 40 years of living here; why my parents are white; why I've never been married; where I went to medical school."
He nods. "How long you been seeing her?"
"Maybe … I don't know, maybe since mid-March? It's pretty casual."
"Like her?" As an upstanding father, Chase is too classy to ask if he's slept with her, but that's basically what he means. Kutner chooses to answer the verbalized question.
"Yeah, I guess, you know. Her name's Natesa. She's a guidance counselor. Big Indian family. 29 years old. She's nice. Has a dog, likes romantic comedies but doesn't mind an action flick." Remy had liked raunchy comedies, liked sci-fi, thought most action flicks weren't thought-out. "It hasn't been that long, you know." He's never dated an Indian girl.
"Are you … ready to tell someone why you left Jersey and why you're not married at 42?"
"Hey, hey, 41, my birthday isn't for another three weeks," he says first. Then he says, "I don't know. That's why I came up here."
"Allison Cameron's home for wayward puppies will always take you in," Chase intones before taking a sip. "Come on, it's getting late, and you're on your third." Kutner's surprised to see that he is.
