(Doctor Gregory House and other canon characters featured in this work of fiction belong to NBC/Universal and David Shore. Original characters are my creation. I make no money from writing these stories, it's done for pure enjoyment. All literary passages, quotes and song lyrics are used without permission; I do not own them or make money from using them.)

Too late for second guessing

Too late to go back to sleep

It's time to trust my instincts

Close my eyes, and leap

It's time to try defying gravity

June 1st

Sarah put the first jar of strawberry jam on the counter and smiled as the lid clicked. She wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead and reached into the canner with the tongs.

"I have a question." Jason stood in the doorway, book in hand. "What's 'incongruous' mean?"

"Can you give me the sentence it's in?" She took another jar out of the boiling water.

"Uh . . . 'The placement of the two colors was incongruous'," Jason recited.

"Okay. What do you think it means based on context?"

Jason fidgeted. "That's why I'm asking you," he said at last. Sarah hid a smile.

"All right. You've been good about looking things up today. It means out of place or something that doesn't fit."

Jason's face brightened. "I get it. Thanks."

"You're welcome." Sarah put the last jar on the counter and turned to the pot of preserves on the stove. She took them off the heat, picked up the tongs and began to put half-pint jars in the canner. When someone came into the kitchen she said in a mock-stern tone, "I've given you all the freebies you're going to get today, young man."

"That's too bad. I was really looking forward to some afternoon delight." Sarah glanced up to find Greg in the doorway. She offered a smile, glad to see him. "Hey," she said. "Come on in and sit down. I need a taste-tester for the first batch. There's some fresh cornbread to try it out on."

"I already tasted it," Jason yelled from the dining room. "It's fine."

"Well I need two opinions then," Sarah called back. She smiled when Greg rolled his eyes. "Okay?"

"Yeah, I guess," came Jason's grudging reply. Sarah wagged a finger at Greg when he started to answer. He closed his mouth and gave her an affronted look, but he sat at the breakfast bar on the other side of the island and watched as she served up a generous square of buttermilk cornbread, soft butter and the leftover jar of preserves, along with a knife.

"How are the interviews going?" she asked as she returned to her second batch.

"They aren't," Greg said. He slathered the cornbread with butter and preserves and took a huge bite.

"You'll choke if you keep that up," Sarah chided him. "You look like a snake eatin' a rat." She picked up the funnel and fit it in a jar. "What do you mean 'they aren't'?"

Greg swallowed noisily and took another bite. "Been though a dozen interviews. They're all idiots," he said through a mouthful of food. "I don't need some moron in six-inch heels drenched in perfume that smells like Black Flag. What's even worse, they think working means a latte at Starbucks and an hour-long gabfest instead of doing my paperwork." He glared at Sarah. "We don't even have a Starbucks around here."

"You're too picky for your own good, Mister Tudball," Sarah said. "Besides, as you well know you can get a perfectly decent latte at the bakery. Rick makes 'em better than any chain ever did. A good secretary would find that out first thing, but you'd expect her to make great coffee in the office anyway." She wiped the rim of the jar with a damp paper towel and put the lid in place, then set the band over it and tightened it with care. "What are you looking for specifically?"

"Someone who can do the damn job," Greg said, and stuffed in the last bite.

"Come on, you know what I mean," Sarah said in mild exasperation. "This isn't just any old secretarial position."

"Position, I like the sound of that. So many possibilities." Greg gave her an exaggerated leer.

"Hah." Sarah began to fill another jar. "Whoever takes on the job will need special skills. Yeah yeah," she said when he started to reply.

"You don't know what I was going to say. It could have been some pithy and insightful paradigm on the difficulties of finding decent staff nowadays." Greg pushed his plate toward Sarah. "More."

"Between you and the bottomless pit in the dining room I won't have anything left to serve for supper," Sarah said, but she gave him another piece. "You need someone else to interview your candidates."

"Thanks! I appreciate it," Greg said. He got up, took the plate with him and headed out into the dining room. Sarah stared after him, speechless. But not for long.

"Hey! Get back here! I didn't volunteer!"

"Someone on the board of directors has to do it," Greg said. He sounded impatient. "Gene's out of town and Will's not free till the weekend. Roz is up to her tits in wiring—"

"Greg." She knew it was pointless but couldn't help herself. She heard Greg say something to Jason. The two of them snickered. Despite her annoyance she felt a little glow inside at the sound. While progress was slow, her two lost boys had begun to get accustomed to each other. She wouldn't go so far as to call it friendship, not just yet, but they took it one small step at a time, and that was fine with her.

"That leaves you," Greg said. Sarah sighed. She tightened the last band and lowered the jars into the water, put the lid on the canner and set the timer for five minutes.

"Let me think about it," she said.

"Stubborn hardass," Greg growled.

"Takes one to know one."

"If you were really honest with yourself, you'd admit want to help me out in all sorts of ways," Greg wheedled, a lascivious edge to his words.

"So what are you gonna do if I tell your wife you're talkin' this way to me? She'll cut a switch and tan your hide, and that's all she'll do if you're lucky." She went to the fridge and took out her iced tea, then detoured over to the radio and switched the station from classic rock to country.

"Aw come on!" Greg bellowed, clearly displeased. "Not that garbage!"

"You said I was a hardass," Sarah said. "I have a reputation to live up to now, city slicker." She heard Jason laugh and allowed herself a little smile. She sang along with George Strait and raised her voice so the two in the dining room would hear her. The timer went off as they groaned and yelled at her to stop; she laughed and turned her attention to the second batch of strawberry jam.

Of course she took the damn resumes all the same; she had the time, and anyway this kind of thing was what she was trained for, to find out what made people tick—their motivations, beliefs, desires, expectations. She sent Greg on his way with a canvas tote full of supper to share with Roz, who would work late at the clinic. She ate with Jason and walked him home to Bob's place, not that he needed the escort, he'd long since earned her trust on that score, but because they both enjoyed the ritual. Then she came back, grabbed a cold ginger beer, holed up in the office, put on some Doctor John and took a look at the applications. There were about twenty of them, all arrived that day via email or in the post. Sarah propped her feet on the desk and opened the first folder.

An hour later, she'd gone through about half the stack. Eight of them she rejected outright as obviously unsuitable; the applicants were concerned mostly with Greg House's name on their CV. There was no problem with that as a secondary consideration, but not a main objective.

Slowly she read through the rest of the applications. There were some top-notch executive secretaries here. Unfortunately most of them had never worked with anyone like Greg. They'd probably spent years in well-ordered offices where contretemps and crazy logic simply didn't exist. For the preservation of their sanity, Sarah rejected them and re-read the three she'd set aside as possibilities. Still, none of them struck her as the type to deal with Greg when he was at his demanding, obsessed and oblivious worst.

"Then who could?" she wondered aloud, and swigged a swallow of ginger beer. It would take someone intelligent and thoroughly unflappable, with a steady and inexhaustible sense of humor and perspective, able to obey strange orders or weird requests without too many questions or wild surmises about what was going on . . . Sarah looked down at the files and sighed a little. "Whoever you are, you'd better show up soon," she said softly. She'd give these three a try and see where things led, but it was obvious this process would take some time. She didn't even want to think about how tough it would be for Greg to find a team.

It was an hour or two later when Gene came in. Sarah heard the familiar thump of the duffel by the front door and set the files aside. A moment later her husband appeared in the office doorway. He looked tired, but his smile erased the fatigue from his strong features. Sarah got up to meet him. They held each other for a while, glad to be together. Then she moved back. "Come on," she said, and led him to the kitchen for fried chicken and cornbread and a cold bottle of beer. Gene sat, popped the top on the bottle and took a long swallow.

"Woman, you are above rubies," he said.

"Tough weekend?" Sarah pushed the jar of strawberry preserves toward him and finished off her ginger beer.

"Couldn't get anyone to agree on an agenda for the second wave of help going into Joplin," Gene said. He sounded frustrated, and Sarah couldn't blame him; they both knew all too well the utter devastation wedge tornadoes wrought in just a few moments, the years of work it took to rebuild homes, farms and businesses that had been scoured off the face of the earth. That didn't take into consideration the loss of loved ones, the care of the injured and the grief and guilt of the survivors. "I wish just once those bastards had to spend the night in a crawlspace or a storm cellar while the damn wind takes everything they own."

Sarah didn't say anything, but when she got up she came over and put her hands on Gene's shoulders, rubbed them gently. He sighed and leaned back into her touch.

"Heard from Laynie?" he asked finally.

"This morning. She's in Norman, doing some work with an old friend of ours. She and the team are headed back to Missouri to help out where they can."

Gene reached up and covered her hand with his but didn't say anything. He was more relaxed now though, his muscles loosened under her touch. After a few minutes she ended the session, kissed the top of his head and said "Your supper's gettin' cold."

After he ate and they'd cleaned up the kitchen they went upstairs together, hand in hand. Since they'd come back from their time in Key West it seemed natural to touch and hold each other more, a change they both liked. It was a warm night; Sarah had the fan already set up from a heat wave the previous week. She turned it on and stripped off her tank top and shorts. "I need a shower," she said, and unhooked her bra.

"Good idea, so do I," Gene said. He was already down to his boxers. Sarah flashed him a smile as she stepped out of her boy briefs and tossed them into the hamper.

They soaped each other up and rinsed off, then made love slow and easy in the cascade of warm water. Gene rubbed a handful of conditioner in Sarah's hair. "You know I'm gonna end up brushing it out, I don't feel like fightin' with your damn curls all night long," he said with a grin. That earned him a splash of water to the face and started a battle he won, after he stole a kiss.

"How long will you be home?" Sarah asked a bit later, as Gene coaxed the knots out of her locks.

"Couple of weeks," he said. "There's some odds and ends to work on here, but I thought I'd see if there's anything I can do to help out at the clinic. Roz said something about putting up new drywall."

"She'd be glad to have you," Sarah said, and yawned. "Maybe you can get her to take a night off. I don't think she's worked less than twelve hours a day for the last three weeks."

"How's Greg holding up?"

"He's anxious, but at least he's talking to me about it." She couldn't keep the worry out of her voice.

"You think this is too much for him." Gene began to braid her hair, his long fingers deft and sure even as her unruly curls fought for freedom.

"He has a hard time with change." Sarah was silent a moment. "I'm afraid this might be too much too fast, yes."

"He knows he can come to you. And Roz is there for him too," Gene said. He reached over, opened the top drawer on the nightstand and dug out an elastic holder. "Maybe we should schedule a few more rehearsals for the Flatliners. We've been asked to play for the July 4th picnic this year."

"Sounds like a plan." When Gene flipped the braid over her shoulder she drew his arms around her and kissed his bicep. "Let's sleep in."

"Oh yeah," Gene said with a smirk. "Sleeping in for you is six a.m. Then you'll want me to dig up half your garden. I'm wise to your ways, y'see."

"Curses, foiled again," Sarah said, and let him lie down as she stretched. It felt good to be off her feet. Gene settled in beside her, his hand on her hip, rubbed it gently.

"How's the stiffness?" he asked.

"About the same," she said. "Just a little sore."

"You should have it looked at."

"I know." She picked up his hand and kissed it, then turned out the light. "Next week."

Gene snorted softly. "Hah. You said that last week."

"Did I?"

"Okay, I'm making the appointment myself." He let go of her hand and gave her braid a gentle tug. "Stubborn."

"Haven't heard that before," she said on a laugh, and gave a little hum of satisfaction as Gene spooned in behind her. She listened to him slip into sleep, and watched the last sliver of moonlight leave the room before her own eyes closed.

Gene woke to music. He blinked and cursed under his breath, glanced at the clock—two a.m. Slowly he sat up, then stood. Sarah was gone; the sheet on her side was smoothed down neat and tidy. After a moment Gene clambered out of bed, pulled on his boxers and followed the sound downstairs.

He found Sarah in the living room with only a small table lamp on, as she played the Martin six-string. As he watched her she strummed a few chords, stopped, wiped her cheek, and continued. Quietly he came in and sat down next to her.

"Sorry I woke you," she said after a while. Her voice was thick and almost inaudible. For answer Gene slipped an arm around her shoulders and brought her to him gently.

"You really miss your foster kid, don't you?" he said. Sarah set the guitar aside and leaned into his embrace. She pushed her face into the join of his neck and shoulder; she trembled a little. Her breath caught once, twice.

"Yeah," she said finally, and sniffled. "Yeah."

It took a while, but he coaxed her back to bed and waited until he was sure she was asleep before he drifted off. He wondered how he could help her. She had enough pain to bear when it came to families and children.

When he woke at seven she was already up and at work on a new batch of bread, and sang along with the kitchen radio as the washer labored to clean a new load of laundry.

'Defying Gravity', from the Broadway musical Wicked