House quickly entered Cuddy▓s darkened office, glancing around the hallway, slipping Blue▓s pilfered keyset back into his pocket, cursing quietly at the loud jingling noise they made. Once inside, he went for her filing cabinet. This lock wasn▓t quite so easy to jimmy open as the one down in the hospital▓s resident shrink▓s office was, but he made quick work of it. Sifting through folders, he found the one he wanted, the copies of expense checks made out to the companies and individuals hired for the latest fund raiser. He rifled the papers quickly until he found the one he wanted, taking down the address and telephone number of the dark eyed crone who had read Wilson's fortune. The one who had given him the perfect excuse to do what he had wanted to do for years without hiding behind the excuse of drunkeness.
His search for her contact information wasn't to thank her, as it might have been for a normal well-adjusted person. Although the normal well-adjusted person would have just asked Cuddy for the information instead of staging an operation worthy enough in their own mind to rival Watergate. He wanted to find the old gypsy and see what her cards held for him. Not that he would believe in what they said. He just couldn't get rid of that nagging little voice that egged him on to do this. It would be fun, this B and E he had performed had made him semi-high. The night could only get better if he could prove her a fraud in some manner.
A few minutes later he was zipping through the New Jersey streets on his bike. The old woman had to be a fraud. Like he had told Wilson, there was no such thing as fortune telling. The old woman had simply read Wilson. It wasn't that hard to do. He had Wilson pegged years ago after the first few minutes of observation after he walked into that decrepit New Orlean's bar but there had been something devious and dark laying just below the surface that intrigued House and kept him trying to get it to come out and play all these many years later. He, on the other, wasn't so easy to read. He had a mask of stone and would give nothing away to this charlatan of a gypsy. He grinned as he climbed off his bike, unclipping his cane and strolling up the steps of a neat looking but run down brownstone in the shadier side of Princeton. "Madame Blovatsky, Fortunes Told But Not Made" the small sign beside the door read. Blovatsky. The name rang a bell somewhere in House's mind, but he couldn't put his finger on it. He settled for ringing her doorbell, composing himself. Man of stone, giving nothing away.
The door opened mere seconds later, the old woman staring at him. "You. What do you want skeptic?" She asked, not moving aside, her dark eyes seeming to bore straight through House to his soul.
He nodded towards the sign. "I want you to read my fortune."
The old woman frowned. "Why? You don't believe." The Romanian accent that the clipped words came out in almost made House shiver. Almost.
"You read my friend's. You were... accurate." House gave begrudgingly. Accurate because you read the open heart on his sleeve. That went unsaid.
"I am assuming that the rest of the evening went well for you and him? You want your fortune, fine, I see the need for viagra in your future." The old woman retorted. She knew House's kind and how to deal with them. They got bored quickly if they were given better than what they could put out.
House smirked. No matter what he thought of her profession, he felt himself warming to this old lady. As much as he warmed. "I got twenty dollars. I want you to read my cards."
"Forty and you will keep your mouth shut unless I ask you to say something." The old woman replied.
"But you charged Wilson twenty." House complained.
"The cards don't like you. It will take extra concentration for me to get an accurate reading." she replied, her dark eyes keeping up their piercing assessment of the man in front of her.
"Fine." House said, entering the hallway as she moved spryly aside and led him into the front parlor.
The room was decorated similarly to the way her tent at the hospital's carnival fund raiser had been. She motioned for House to take a seat and he did so. She sat across from him and began shuffling the old worn cards.
"Who's older, you or the cards?" House snarked, but fell quickly silent as she looked at him sharply.
"Quiet." she muttered, turning her attention back to the cards. She fanned them out on the table. "Pick three cards. Do not turn them over." She instructed.
House tried to shake off the apprehension that settled heavily on his shoulders. He reached out and let his fingers dance along the fanned cards. He drew three out, but didn't pick them up. He pulled his hand back and stared at the three he had chosen before looking up, eyebrow raised at the old woman who was still watching him like a hawk. He didn't like the vulnerable feeling he felt under her gaze, nor did he like the fact he wasn't being his normal snide self about this, all, he was sure and it rankled him, because she had told him to be quiet.
She read the nervousness in the man in front of her and it took everything she had not to smile. She drew the moment out longer than was necessary, reaching one gnarled hand out to the first card House had chosen, caressing it, patting it. She murmured her apologies to the cards for letting this non-believer touch them in her mother tongue before turning it over.
"This card signifies your past." She explained as she flipped the card. "Three of Swords." She studied the card and then House himself. "This is a dark card. One that has many facets and not one of them are pleasant. Heartbreak, betrayal, rejection. Overwhelming sadness because these things are not what you should have expected from your father. His legacy to you has clouded your judgement on many occasions, blinded you but there is a positive side. You learned early and young that you could withstand more pain than most. If you chose to, you can learn from hismistakes and be the better man for it," she told him quietly, noticing the barely there flinch, confirming yet again that her cards never failed her.
House fought not to squirm, fought to maintain her gaze, knowing that any movement he made she could read and interpret for the next card. This one had just been a lucky fluke he told himself.
"The second card signfies your present." She turned the second card. "Five of Wands." She gave another dramatic pause, remembering the cards she had read for his friend a few nights ago. Their readings so far complimented each other. "This card signifies conflict. Conflict between you and the world and conflict between you and yourself. There are battles that need to be fought, but many are better solved with constructive means than destructive ones. You must learn there is no weakness in either forgiveness or repentance, only great strength. Your friend wasn't the only one with some apologising of the past to do, he might benefit from hearing a few from you," she warned him.
House narrowed his eyes, but kept his face impassive. He fought the urge to reach for the lollipop he had in his pants pocket or the pack of old cigarettes he kept in his jacket.
She could tell the man in front of her was fighting not to move, fighting to keep control, to give nothing away and it amused her. It wasn't in his fidgets, looks or nervous tics that she read his fortune, but in the cards before her, passed down from her great-great-grandmother. "The third card signifies your future," she intoned, giving in and sounding like the carnival sideshow that most people expected and wanted when they gave her money. Fools. The lot of them. She sighed, fools they may be, ones that didn't heed her cards, but they payed the rent. "The Four of Swords. You are going to be given a time of rest. You must use this wisely, rest your body and spirit. You must lower your guard and relax. There will be more troubles and battles to face, but you have earned this time of respite. Keep in mind that perhaps the worst is yet to come, but you have the time to heal and prepare, to create the strength and areas of refuge you will need. In your friend's arms might be the best place to start." She told him with a knowing wink.
House stared at her for a few moments before silently reaching back for his wallet and throwing down forty dollars on the table. The glee he had felt at the prospect of showing this woman for a fraud was gone. His inner skeptic was insisting that he must have given something away or this was all an elaborate prank played on him by Wilson and Cuddy, but he was strangely subdued and of the opinion that perhaps being in Wilson's arms right now was where he belonged.