Systemic lupus rarely manifests itself before puberty—and the usual victims are women. It shouldn't even be considered when the patient is a seven-year-old boy. But what else could explain the kidney dysfunction, the fever, and the swollen, achy joints that had plagued this kid since he was admitted almost a week ago? Unless it was something else, some determining factor that everyone was missing—
"—they're leaving for Switzerland next week, so this could be our last chance to see them until April—"
A good look at the patient would help, but this wasn't his case. Which was bad luck for the kid; Ettinger could overlook a hooker in a whorehouse. House was dying to sneak a peek at the files, but Cuddy had warned him for the last time about interfering with other doctors' patients. He'd have to wait until she left for the AHA conference in San Diego, and that was still two weeks away. At the rate the kid was going, he could be underground by then. Unless he bribed one of the night nurses . . . There was one who wore a Stones t-shirt under her uniform, and they were playing Philly next month. The show was sold out, but he knew a guy who knew a guy . . .
"So do you think you'll get off duty on time tonight? Greg?"
As if dropped from a flying saucer, House found himself standing in the corridor outside the clinic, peering cluelessly into the face of Dr. Allison Cameron. He experienced a familiar sinking sensation as he understood that he had somehow missed whole minutes' worth of information—vital information, judging from her expression.
His confusion must have been evident; now she looked deeply suspicious. "Did you hear a word I just said?"
There was only one way to handle this: bluff with all your might.
"Of course. Leaving next week, coming back in April. I can't promise a case of Gay Feinmesser Cohen syndrome won't walk through the clinic door in the next two hours, but at this time it's safe to say I will be available at five o'clock." Nicely done; she seemed to be buying it. "So, what's the dress code? Casual or black tie?" Uh oh—he got overconfident and went too far.
Cameron rolled her eyes, considered the merits of losing her temper, decided to be patient instead.
"Greg. Deena and Tim—my best friends from college? the ones I talk about all the time? are going to Gstaad next week. They'll be there for almost six months. I talked to Deena last night and we made plans to meet for drinks and dinner."
Before he could stop himself, House emitted a mighty sigh. Deena and Tim were nice people, but fifteen minutes in their presence was pushing it. The thought of an entire evening in their company, listening to them agonize over which SUV to buy, or which gated community offered the best environment for children, or whether they should have children at all, made him understand why a wild animal would gnaw its own leg off to escape a trap.
Cameron stiffened and eyed him dangerously.
"Greg. These are my friends. I want us to spend time with them—"
"Of course," House said placatingly.
"An evening once in awhile isn't that much to ask, and if you'd just relax and try to enjoy yourself—"
"You're right."
"You think everyone who isn't exactly like you is mentally deficient. Deena and Tim aren't geniuses, but they are good people—"
"The best!" House agreed. "Salt of the earth. Men of the soil. Oops—persons of the soil. Not to imply there's anything wrong with their personal hygiene; there isn't. Nope: nice, clean-living, genuine folks."
Silence. Cameron looked at him squarely." You can be such a jerk."
As if that were news to either of them.
House heaved an internal sigh.
"Cam— Allison. I said I would go. Where do you need me to be?"
Unappeased, through tight lips: "The Lion and the Unicorn. Quarter after five. You don't have to dress up; we're only going to Renee's for dinner." She did not say out loud, because by now she did not have to, "And if you could tuck in your shirt, and shave, that would be a good start."
Great. Renee's. A French "bistro," a word that apparently translated roughly to "small portions of sour food at a inversely proportional price."
"Fine. I'll be there." He forced a smile. "And I'll try to do something with my hair, too."
Cameron relaxed little and smiled back. She had a beautiful smile. She touched his hand—she had beautiful hands. She was a beautiful young woman with a personality to match. Why did he sometimes find that so annoying?
She tiptoed to kiss his cheek. "Thank you," she said softly, and turned away.
House watched her go, the smile fading from his own face. He was feeling another wave of the misgivings that had plagued him from the moment he realized his new fellow had a life-threatening crush on him. For his part, attraction had always been mingled with caution. Cameron was a smart and talented doctor, but she didn't have much of a sense of humor—a vital coping tool, House had always felt—and she was not good at dealing with unpleasant facts. Basically, she ignored them. Forcing people to face unpleasant facts was a signal characteristic of Dr. Gregory House, and he had felt from the start that by the time he was finished with her, Dr. Cameron would have lost her innocent belief in the essential goodness of life in a way that she would not enjoy. Her worldview was too fragile, that was a fact, and whenever he was around her, he felt like a three-legged bull in a china shop.
Take this date with her friends. It was not possible for anyone in the party to overlook the fact that he was by far the oldest member—anyone but Cameron, who blithely pretended that it didn't matter. But of course it mattered. He could feel her friends thinking, "Allison could have any man in the tri-state area; what is she doing with this old guy?" They tried to hide it behind a wall of hearty greetings and faux bonhomie, but it slipped out every now and then. "Allison has always had a soft spot for charity cases," Deena had once confided to him, and then looked stricken, as if she'd accidentally disclosed a secret. But House had known all along that in her eyes, he was just the latest beneficiary of Cameron's warm, compassionate heart and weakness for hopeless causes. And it was starting to piss him off.
He had to admit that it had been great at the beginning, when he'd finally decided to trust Wilson and Cuddy's judgment in the matter of Allison Cameron. She was perfect for him, they declared. She actually put up with him—how miraculous was that? He'd never find someone who adored him so unconditionally. It was a year after that disastrous reunion with Stacy, and since he had been the one to break it off this time, he was presumed to be officially over it. Now it was time for him to open up and allow himself to care and be cared for.
Thus it was, that night in his office when, in the middle of a heated argument over taking on a case (he thought the referring physician was an alarmist; she worried that the patient was not going to get adequate care anywhere else), she'd challenged him to kiss her. What the hell, he thought, and did. Ten minutes later they were on their way to his apartment (it was closer than hers), and the night that followed was like three days of rain after a six-year drought; he actually felt himself grow stronger, regain color, reach for the sun. Cameron—Allison—was not exactly a sex kitten, and she wasn't terribly adventurous; her main satisfaction seemed to derive from observing his pleasure. But she did not cringe from the cratered scar in his thigh, she accommodated his physical limitations well, and there was no denying the sheer exhilaration of sharing a bed with a gorgeous, lithe-bodied young woman.
Cuddy and Wilson, having sniffed out the truth at once, were ecstatic; for once, he wallowed in a warm bath of their undiluted approval. That Chase, the pretty rich boy, did not trouble to hide his jealousy was a pleasant bonus. The only jarring note was Foreman, who said nothing, but flicked his eyes away from House's face in a familiar gesture of disapproval.
"I do care for her, you know," House said, wondering why he bothered to campaign for Foreman's imprimatur but wanting it all the same.
"I know you do," said Foreman. "But that's not going to be enough, and you know it." And he got up and left. "Piss off, then," thought House, but the exchange left him uneasy.
At first he brushed the uneasiness aside. Having a devoted girlfriend was doing him good, no doubt about that. He slept better with her beside him—and she stayed almost every night. He gained a little weight—nutrition was a kind of hobby for Cameron, and she could cook some very passable meals. He seemed to be learning how to interact with her without trampling her feelings too badly. He even managed to cut back on the Vicodin. Of course, officially, and as far as Cameron knew, he had stopped altogether. But the goal was progress, not perfection—right? The important thing was that his hidden stash lasted twice as long as it used to.
So when the warning signs began, he tried at first to explain them away. Did it matter so much that he always had to explain his cultural references to her? (Was it reasonable to be impatient when she did not know what "going to eleven" meant, or that she seemed incapable of distinguishing between the Who and Yes?) Was it important that she had little interest in accompanying him to sports events? (And why was he so resentful when her plans for them prevailed over his?) She hated riding his motorcycle; thought he and Wilson sounded like idiots when they started busting each other's balls; and showed every sign of being jealous of Cuddy, to the point where he stopped making cracks about his boss's wardrobe and tried to avoid looking at her at all. So what? (And wasn't it paranoid to suspect that what others saw as unconditional love was actually a kind of willful blindness to some aspects of his personality, and a grim determination to change the rest?)
As the months went by, it became harder to pretend that he was comfortable with all this. Sometimes when she chided him for some gap in his social skills, or teased him in front of the other ducklings, he wondered if his original instinct to keep her at arms' length wasn't justified after all. Did she have any respect for him as her boss anymore? Shouldn't she have some? Her possessiveness made him feel smothered; her tactful tutelage in the fine points of human relations and her gentle determination to turn him into a kindly optimist made him want to run amok downtown, tripping children with his cane and mooning nuns. He felt the old irritation creeping back, and the tendency to lash out verbally returned. Lately the trips to his stash were becoming more frequent.
In short, as lovers they seemed to be inexorably heading toward the moment he'd always dreaded, when his emotions would desert him and he would default to the detached, objective scientist, coolly pinning her character to a wax slab so he could dissect it and point out all the stuff she'd rather not look at. He would never forget the stunned look that drained all the radiance from her face the first time he did that (that cringe-provoking first date, when he had intended to re-establish himself as an unavailable employer and instead launched into an attack on what she probably considered her best qualities), but at least back then he could draw some comfort from the thought that he had spared her worse grief in the long run. He wasn't so sure that would be the case now. It seemed increasingly clear that it would end the way all the others had ended: in pain and disappointment, in some ugly mess of circumstances that would make it necessary for them to move as far apart from each other, physically and emotionally, as possible.
Wilson suddenly hove into his line of sight and stopped, grinning.
"Well, if it isn't Dr. Love," he trilled. "So deep in contemplation of his lady's charms that he forgot to check in on his patient."
House glanced down at the folder in his hand. Right; clinic duty. If he was going to finish up by five, he'd better get to it. He moved toward Exam Room Two.
"Whoa, there, Romeo," Wilson laughed. "Fix your make-up first."
House looked blank. Wilson mimed wiping his cheek. Right—Cameron had left her mark. He mopped at the spot with his sleeve and turned to go.
"Too much pussy," his friend smirked.
"Whipped," muttered House, and entered Exam Room Two.
-0-
He'd forgotten to read the file, so he was absorbed in skimming the particulars as he entered and did not immediately take in the occupants of Exam Room Two: a middle-aged woman, dressed in lightly soiled sweat pants, t-shirt, and denim jacket, and a young girl, bright-eyed and flushed with fever, wearing jeans and one of those cleavage-boosting tank tops they all seemed to favor nowadays.
Fever, sore throat that started two days earlier, pain swallowing; oh yeah, this one was going to test all his diagnostic powers. House suppressed another sigh at the same moment as the older woman vented something between a gasp and a laugh: "Greg?"
House looked up sharply, registered her face, and gaped.
"Holy crap," he said, and hastily corrected himself: "Uh, wow!"
But Carolyn Barton, nee Campbell, had already turned to the girl—clearly her daughter—and said excitedly, "Angie, this is Greg House, my college boyfriend—you know, the one who went on to be a doctor!"
Given the setting this seemed unnecessary exposition, but the girl seemed too sick to care. She favored House with a weak smile and nod, and resumed staring dully into space. He sympathized: strep throat took a lot out of a person, especially the ones who kept college student hours and a college student diet. House meditated briefly on the debilitating effects of hemolytic Group A streptococci because he was frankly shaken. Five years of monastic existence, and now in the space of one year he'd had visitations from two former lovers and acquired a girlfriend. Five years of nothing at all, and now an embarrassment of women. Was the universe mocking him?
House became aware that both women were looking at him expectantly. He selected a tongue depressor. Belatedly, it occurred to him that when one encountered an old flame, a modicum of small talk was customary before getting down to business.
"Carolyn. It's great to see you. You look—great." She did, too, even in those shapeless sweats. She wore her dark blonde hair much shorter than in her student days, and it was going white at the temples, but her complexion was still clear and only lightly wrinkled, her blue-grey eyes bright, and her figure was as slim as that of the 20-year-old of his memories.
"Not bad for an old dame," she beamed. "How are you? What's the story with the cane—another sports injury?"
House smiled grimly. "I'll tell you all about it sometime," he said. "Now, Angie, sore throat, fatigue, difficulty swallowing—like broken glass in your throat, even when you're eating ice cream?"
Angie nodded miserably.
"Sounds like strep to me," said House, flicking his scope on and raising it to his eye. "Whoa! Classic. But insurance companies don't like educated guesses, so let's swab it to make sure." Deftly, he twirled the cotton-tipped wand across the angry red tissue and escaped to the lab. Watching the technician run the strep quick test, House brooded on the weird coincidences that kept throwing these females in his path.
The memories associated with Carolyn were especially sweet and painful. She was his first real girlfriend, and he had loved her with all the intensity a romantic teenaged boy is capable of mustering. It was inevitable that she also would be the first to break his heart.
They'd met as freshmen at the public college he'd chosen because it was located as far from his parents as it was possible to get while still qualifying for in-state tuition. Under the unremitting prodding of his father, House had skipped fifth grade and graduated high school at 17, so he was a year younger than most of the freshman class. Nevertheless, he was deeply offended when Carolyn earned better grades in the required biology course they both took that first semester. To add insult to injury, she was a non-major and cavalier about her achievement. He rode her mercilessly, challenging everything she said in class, and was furious when Carolyn decided not to take him seriously. She laughed at his most withering sarcasms and teased him for working so hard at his studies. "If you don't smoke weed, start," was her mock-earnest advice. "If you do, smoke some more." No other girl had ever been so little put-off by his arrogance and prickly temperament. By the mid-term exams period he was hopelessly in love.
It never occurred to him that she might return the feeling. But she practically dragged him into a study group for finals, and they spent a lot of time together during the last two weeks of the semester. Under her good-natured influence, House began to relax a little. Carolyn revealed an unguessed-at fondness for loud rock bands; her favorites were the Rolling Stones, the Who, and Genesis; House enthusiastically concurred on the first two and tried hard to convince her that she was misguided about the last. They both liked the Grateful Dead but stopped well short of being Deadheads. They both drank too much coffee and had loud, high-speed arguments about feminism and environmentalism and whether there was any discernible difference between the Republican and Democratic parties.
Finals week arrived, and they both acquitted themselves well. They made plans to celebrate by seeing The Grateful Dead Movie at the student union. But first they met in Carolyn's dorm room to smoke some killer weed that she had scored from her roommate Sue, who had finished her finals early and left that morning.
House had been in Carolyn's room before, but Sue had always been there too. The lights had always stayed on, and the atmosphere was of co-ed insouciance, with lots of dope and jokes about sex but no indication that the twin beds were ever used for anything but lounging on or sleeping in. House took it for granted that the girls viewed him as a cute little brother, nothing more.
Now Carolyn put Pink Floyd's Meddle on her stereo, lit about a hundred small candles, and turned out the lights. "It's a celebration," she explained. "Let's make it special." She shook out her hair, which she had gathered in one fist while handling matches, and smiled wickedly at him. In the candlelight, she looked lovely and mysterious and artlessly seductive. House was suddenly, achingly aware of his feelings for Carolyn, and also of their solitude. Most of the dorm had already cleared out for the semester break; there was little chance that they would be disturbed.
Sitting on her bed, Carolyn tamped a bud of marijuana into the bowl of her maroon plastic bong and lit it, inhaling efficiently and holding the smoke in her lungs as she prepared a hit for him. A pot smoker since 13, House was as proficient as anyone, but in his nervousness he sucked air with smoke and began to cough. Few irritants provoke as spectacular a coughing fit as marijuana smoke, and it was some time before he could stop choking and wheezing. Carolyn fussed over him, bringing him a beer to sip, handing him Kleenex, patting his back.
Coughing fit over, House discovered that he was fantastically high. Carolyn seemed similarly overcome; her patting slowed and she began dreamily to stroke his back. He leaned into her hand and, turning his head, saw that she was gazing at him with a soft, yielding expression. The sense of unreality created by the drug made it possible for him to draw her face toward his. They kissed.
Carolyn drew away and admitted that technically, she was still a virgin. House kissed her palm and admitted that he was, too. They shifted position and lay side by side, their hands running feverishly over each other's bodies, gushing talk between kisses. Was birth control available? It was—no teenage boy in those days left home without a rubber in his wallet. Could they remain friends if they proceeded? Of course. What about the movie?
"I've already seen it," murmured Carolyn.
"I can see it another time," breathed House.
What followed was inept, embarrassing—and supremely thrilling. Twenty-five years later, House still felt a rush of remembered emotion when he thought of that night. It wasn't just the sex (although that had been a big part of it). It was the talk—whispered confessions of longstanding passion, wistful regret over the long weeks of separation ahead, excited plans for the coming semester. They would take more classes together, go into New York to see the new bands, sleep together on the weekends (Sue and House's roommate, Aaron, would just have to go home more often).
Incredibly, it really did turn out that way.