A stewardess came by to offer drinks and started chatting with House…who chatted back. And the stewardess was all "That's so funny," and "Is there anything else you need?" Cuddy was annoyed.

"She was totally flirting with you," Cuddy said accusingly.

House shrugged. "Probably."

"Don't you think that's a little bold of her when I'm sitting right here? I mean, we're clearly together."

"We are not 'clearly together,' Cuddy. Look at us," House replied, flipping through the SkyMall magazine. He held a page up to her. "They have slippers with lights in them," he noted. "I'm totally ordering these for Wilson."

"House," she said, clearly bothered, "Why do you think we don't look like we're together?" House saw her knit brow, her lips tucked in.

"Cuddy, it's no big deal," he reassured her. "But let's assess the situation. I'm in an appropriately large and colorful shirt, much like the sixty other ones all around us. You're the only one who flies to Hawaii in a blazer." Cuddy looked down at herself and smoothed her jacket self-consciously.

"I haven't taken a vacation in years, House," she said defensively.

"I know. And that's why I'm going easy on you," he explained. "But an attractive professional woman isn't usually with the boozing stubbly asshole next to her. Which is why she may have flirted despite your presence."

"You weren't an asshole to her," Cuddy pointed out. "You're all wisecracks and small talk. You never once called her a moron. You just have a thing for women who are subordinate to you, who serve other people, like stewardesses and nurses and… hookers."

House sighed and flipped a page in his catalog. "Yes, clearly I have a thing for subordinate women, which is why I am dating the Dean of Medicine of a prestigious hospital," he retorted. "I love how you just let me just boss you around all the time." House rolled his eyes.

"Well, then why are you being so friendly to her?"

"I'm not," he laughed. "I'm just enjoying the fact there is a person whose paycheck is linked to being unconditionally nice," he explained. "That's what I like about hookers too, I might add."

Cuddy wriggled around in her seat and took her jacket off. House gave her a look of amused pity. "My mom thought it looked good," she stated, pouting.

"Your mom is a moron, Cuddy."

Cuddy started laughing a little. House took her hand. "You're just freaking out. You left the hospital. You left Rachel. You're going to a semi-remote location with me of all people. And you never do things like this. You're basically retarded at having fun."

Cuddy nodded slightly. "It's fine," he reassured her, "I know a good tutor." He winked at her. "We'll get you a nice appropriate coconut bra as soon as we land." Cuddy sat back in her seat and laid her head on his shoulder. He held up the catalog and pointed. "The three-day lemonade detox diet!" he exclaimed. "Nobody told me I could have had lemonade. Bastards." Cuddy laughed as the people in the other seats turned and stole glances at them. Then the stewardess arrived and gave them their drinks.

"You're a moron," House informed her.

[H] [H] [H]

They walked into the hotel suite and looked around. House had spared no expense. The rooms were spacious. The bathtub was the size of a small pool. The bed had eight pillows on it.

He threw his bag into a corner and then got Cuddy's and set it reverently at her feet.

"Now you have a choice to make, Cuddy," he informed her. "You can do what I know every cell of your body wants to do and unpack this and carefully lay items in appropriately categorized drawers." Cuddy gave him a smirk. "Or, you can dig around and make a mess of things to find the bathing suit you're essentially going to live in for the next week and leave all your carefully-chosen-for-every-possible-weather-slash-occasion-scenario outfits in a disheveled heap on the floor."

Cuddy nodded. She pulled her shirt up over her head suddenly and then bent to begin digging through her suitcase, making a big show of tossing items crazily over her shoulders. She stood and held up her bikini triumphantly, then smiled at House as she dropped her pants. House stared up and down her underwear-clad body.

"Now you have another choice to make, Cuddy," he repeated. "You can delude yourself into thinking that we are going to take part in some kind of aquatic excursion right now." Smirk. "Or you can accept the fact that we are currently about to have sex."

"I thought this was a vacation, House," she teased. "We're in Hawaii! We can have sex any old time," she joked, dismissing his suggestion with a wave of her hand.

"Yeah… When we were talking about 'getting away from it all…' Sex-any-old-time wasn't really what I was referring to as much as board meetings, Cheerios in our bed, and Wilson spending four months talking to me about possibly getting a cat." He put his arms around her and pulled her close.

"I thought you were gonna teach me how to have fun," she teased, smiling up at him.

House nodded, agreeing. "This is lesson one," he explained. "Opportunities to have sex trump all other opportunities. Are you taking notes?" He lifted her up and she wrapped her legs around him as he limped them to the bed. He laid her down, then climbed on top of her. As they kissed, House started chucking pillows off the bed. Cuddy unbuttoned his awful shirt and peeled it off him.

"I was so relieved you didn't try to get me to do the whole 'mile-high club' thing," Cuddy confessed against his lips.

"Ugh, no," House answered, muffled and slurred between kisses. "That's disgusting. You can't be an 'infectious disease' guy and do it in an airplane bathroom."

Cuddy grabbed either side of his face and held him still to look at him intently. He raised his eyebrows at her. "I love it when you say 'infectious disease' during sex," she said lustily. House smiled.

"Oh yeah? Want me to name some?" he started kissing down her neck.

"God, yes," Cuddy said, laughing.

"Alphabetically!" he bragged. "Anaplasmosis." He licked down her collarbone. "Aspergillosis." He nuzzled her sternum. "Bolivian hemmorhaggic fever." He pulled her bra away and kissed her nipple.

"God, House, more!" she cried out, mostly in jest, but with his mouth on her breast the lines were getting blurry.

House slid his hands up her silky sides and reached back to fumble with her bra strap. He said through gritted teeth as he struggled with the clasp, "Bru-cell-o-sis…" Then just as the garment split apart "Cholera!"

Cuddy was cracking up now and her body was very confused. House made a point of tossing the bra across the room. Cuddy reached down to maneuver his zipper. House froze suddenly and grabbed her hands, pinning them to her belly. "Ah, ah, ah," he chided. "You name one, Dr. Cuddy."

Cuddy rolled her eyes. As if she couldn't name an infectious disease. "Botulism," she said defiantly.

House rolled his eyes. "A. That's the easiest one there is," he declared, to which Cuddy furrowed her brow and laughed at his random rating system. "And B.," he added, "That's not alphabetical. I was on 'cholera.'"

Cuddy met his eyes, licked her lips, and slowly purred, "Chromoblastomycosis." House beamed.

"Coccidioidomycosis," he countered.

"Diphyllobothriasis."

"Touche, Cuddy."

He released her hands and she undid his pants as he resumed tasting every square inch of her body. He slid her panties down with an "ebola," and dropped his own pants with a "fasciolopsiasis."

He was doing so well at this she was beginning to wonder if having sex and thinking about diseases was pretty much House's nirvana.

"Gnathostomiasis," he mumbled into her thigh.

"Please don't name a disease if you start kissing my… you know…"

House snickered and looked up at her. "'If…'" he mocked. And there it was. Cuddy felt his warm mouth against her, first soft, then more insistent. His hands held her hips, his fingers pressing into her flesh. Cuddy reached up and held one of the bedposts, embarking on little fantasy involving handcuffs. House paused and assured her, "Don't worry, I've thought of that." Cuddy blushed and turned away slightly, embarrassed. Nothing got by him. "That's lesson two stuff," he teased. Then she felt him against her again and her embarrassment faded into uninhibited lust. She sat up a little. She propped herself on one hand and put the other in his hair. One of his hands slid up her back, holding her. She started breathing in fits and starts. She started making those ironic and involuntary movements away from the source of all this pleasure. House resisted them and held her steady.

Then Cuddy saw stars. First she abruptly curled around him, then flopped violently back on the bed. She dug her fingers into the covers and dragged them up and down. She bucked her hips so violently she feared she broke his nose, but he stayed so attentive she was sure he was fine. So this is what vacation sex is like, she thought. She'd had it, of course. Just not with people who were much good at the sex part.

She finally came to rest and lay sprawled on the bed, chest heaving and eyes still half-rolled back in her head. House clambered up her body.

"You almost broke my nose," he teased, rubbing it. Cuddy just started laughing like a nut, high on the idea that they had a week of this ahead of them. She rolled toward him and pushed him down on the bed. She straddled him and House ran his hands up and down her thighs.

Cuddy positioned them just right, lifted her pelvis a little, and just as she guided him into her she said in a Marilyn Monroe whisper, "Herpes simplex."

House chuckled, "Oh yeah, baby," he retorted. Cuddy snickered and laid her hands on his chest.

"You probably think you're the first woman to say that to me…" House teased.

"Gross," Cuddy slapped his side gently.

House circled her waist with his hands, just holding her as they found their rhythm. He couldn't get over how much softness could be encompassed by one creature. Her skin was almost imperceptible to his hands. Her hair would gently tickle him when she bent forward. He felt her all around him, tensing with an unbelievable power, but still so… soft.

Cuddy leaned back a little, pressing one hand into his good thigh and the other into the bed. He stared at her body, taut and gorgeous on top of him. Her head was tossed back and he loved that the blissful look on her face was from being with him. He felt the sudden urge to be everywhere at once and his hands roamed all over her body. He bit his lip and tried to think of something else, to make this last.

Where has she left off? Oh yeah… herpes. Herpes… Herpes…

He couldn't think of a single other disease. She'd eaten his brain with her sexiness. And he didn't give a fuck.

When he heard her cry out he was so close he had been preparing his apology. But suddenly she was shuddering on top of him and he just let himself concentrate on every spasm of her body around his spasm-ing body. He wanted to watch her but his eyes squinted shut involuntarily and he lost all track of bodily events. Cuddy collapsed against him, wet skin on wet skin, then rolled off and lay stretched out next to him, gasping.

House found Cuddy's hand and held it while they studied the ceiling of the hotel suite for a while. Then he rolled over her, tenderly brushed a lock of hair off her forehead, kissed the tip of her nose, pulled her body up close to his, stared deeply into her eyes and whispered, "Zygomycosis."