Chapter VI – A Stranger (6/12)

And I listen for the whisper
Of your sweet insanity, while I formulate
Denials of your effect on me

"We're not gonna find a kidney in time," Cameron said as she entered the conference room and threw a pile of forms on top of the table.

House poked her with his cane. "Who are you, and what have you done with our resident optimist, Dr. Cameron?"

She rolled her eyes. "This is serious."

Chase and Foreman chuckled anyway.

"Of course it's serious, it's a kidney transplant." House said matter-of-factly…

… which meant he wasn't done making fun of her, but she continued nonetheless. "Dr. Gervais will be here in seventeen hours. We need to have a kidney by then."

"If you've got five thousand dollars, there's an Asian guy I know who might hook you up," House added, unhelpfully.

"House!" Cameron tried to look as threatening as she could, her arms high on her hips and her head tilted.

"Sorry, Mom. Just because your best friend is dying, that's no reason to lose your sense of humor."

"Cameron had a sense of humor before?" Foreman quipped, earning him a death glare.

"If you're in such a hurry, why don't you give her yours?" House asked her.

She pursed her lips in reply. He sure knew how to push her buttons.

"… you've already tested yourself and you're not a match?" he concluded, correctly.

She nodded.

"Relax, Cameron," his voice's tone changed from humorous to concern. "We'll find a donor." Then she saw his glance towards Chase and Foreman. "Go test them, and then grab Wilson – he loves being a hero. If you don't find a match, then go through every department of this hospital and look at them—" he trailed off for a second. "Look at them like you're looking at me now, like someone just ran over your puppy. We've got seventeen hours."

"It's 3pm," Foreman added. "Everyone will be going home soon."

"Then you better get a move on," House replied, and she glanced at him one last time before hurrying out of the room.

"Are you sexually active?"

The patient (Cameron's voice in his head added Mackie) frowned. "I'm a nun."

"You didn't answer the question," House added from his uncomfortable position in one of the recliners they had in the rooms. He was half-lying, half-sitting in one of them as he asked the patient some questions; usually the lackeys would be doing this kind of stuff, but they were busy trying to find a donor and he knew an opportunity when he saw one.

"When I say I'm a nun, I mean I've committed myself to God, Christ and the Holy Spirit," she added with a smile.

"Do they all wear condoms?" House quipped and he was surprised when Mackie laughed.

"Is anything sacred to you, Dr. House?"

"No, not really," he said with honesty.

Mackie nodded. "The answer's no, I'm not sexually active. I had sex with one kid in High School; his name was Matt, and I was in love and rebelling and we had sex. He died two months later of viral pneumonia."

"And you were overcome with some sense of misplaced guilt, so you joined a convent?" House deduced, trying to figure out this patient, because in the back of his brain, if he could figure out Cameron's best friend, then he'd figure out Cameron.

Mackie laughed, "No, I know his death had nothing to do with me. We were together for six months – the best six months of my life. His parents asked me to speak at the service, and I couldn't say no. During the day, however, I couldn't stop crying – I had no idea how I was going to be able to read what I wrote, especially because the paper was soaked in tears and falling apart. Sister Francine came to me, and she didn't offer any words of wisdom, or tell me to trust God. She just hugged me, and she held me until I was composed enough to get up there and tell everyone about how great Matt was and how he'd changed my life. She made me want to help others - that's why I took my vows."

House grimaced, unable to find any untruths or white lies in the story, unable to call Mackie a hypocrite or gullible, so for the moment he just moved on to the next question, "Do you do any drugs?"

Mackie shook her head. "No."

"Alcohol?"

She nodded. "Communion wine, two or three glasses a day."

He wrote the information down. "Any history of psychological problems?"

Mackie shook her head, "No. I thought I'd already answered all these questions."

House put the questionnaire down for a minute. "That was for your history; this is for the transplant committee."

"Did they find a donor?"

"No, not yet. But Dr. Cameron's working on it," he said, trying to sound reassuring.

"You're part Catholic, aren't you?" Mackie asked with a smirk.

"I'm the one asking questions, Sister," House quipped.

"My guess is one parent is Catholic, the other Jewish…?"

House frowned, but didn't reply.

"Am I right?"

"Just because I enjoy corporal punishment and I'm a stickler with money, it doesn't mean you're right," he joked.

"I'm talking about the guilt in your voice; I recognize it."

"I have nothing to be guilty of," House replied, quickly becoming very uncomfortable.

"My guess is, you tell everyone you're bad with names, but you remember the name of every single patient you lost. You're memorized their faces, their symptoms, everything – because you can't live with the guilt."

"You're wrong," he said simply. "You're confusing me with Dr. Cameron."

"She feels guilty about everyone she meets, even the bus driver that would pick us up for school every day. You're much more selective," Mackie added with certainty.

House decided to change the subject, "So, tell me more about your high school years together; please leave the dirty, sordid details in…"

2 Months Before

Her cramps were so bad that she was about to steal one of his Vicodin. Of course, then he'd ask her what was wrong and she'd have to tell him more than she wanted to.

It's not like they were dating, after all. She'd rather maintain most of her bodily functions to herself, for the time being.

Coming to his house had been a mistake. It's not like she'd had anything better to do for the weekend, but typing up an article for him so he could publish it, on her free time, was borderline pathetic…

… except he'd actually read not one of her papers, but two – and signed off on them. And in the process, he'd apparently realized she did a much better job at formatting and editing her papers than he did on his. So now she was lying on his couch, propped up on several pillows while she typed up an article from his handwritten notes. At least the heat from the laptop, propped up on her bent legs, and resting on her stomach, was alleviating some of the pain.

He was playing his guitar a few feet away, except he didn't plug it into the amplifier, so all she was hearing was the awkward sound of tensed wires against fingers. That seemed to bore him fast enough, so he moved to the couch she was sitting in and sat right next to her feet before turning on the television. The volume was muted, she noticed as the images of animals in the wild flashed across the screen as the humans continued to co-exist in silence.

She was slightly startled when he took her sock-clad foot in his lap and undressed it before he started massaging it; it did something to her cramps – something good, not to mention other parts of her. It was also very distracting, so she forced herself to concentrate on finishing the article so she could leave.

He spent a whole half hour on the one foot, before he switched targets. Another half hour later, he moved her sweatpants up her leg to massage her calf. She didn't usually make a habit of dressing down when she went to his place, but she felt like shit, so she dressed like it: her college sweatshirt and matching sweatpants, granny underwear and no bra. That should hold him off, she thought – except his hand kept moving up her leg, massaging everywhere he could reach. Then her feet were planted against the couch again, back to their original spot as he changed the channel, this time to some historical show of some kind.

His hand against the crotch was so unexpected, that as her head shot up, her glasses almost slid off her face. "Wh—what are you doing?" she stammered.

He smiled deviously. "Nice try… but I already know you're not as naïve as people may think."

She gulped down, the sound so loud in her own ears that she was afraid he'd heard it too. "I'm not—I'm not—" she tried to say but his thumb had found her clit and it was insistently pressing against it. "I didn't come here for sex. I need to finish this article."

"Your point being?" he asked, not stopping his ministrations.

"We're not having sex tonight," she whispered, with as much sincerity as she could muster.

"I think we are," he replied.

She shook her head back and forth several times, "no, we can't."

"How come?"

"I told you, I need to finish this article," she whispered as she felt her underwear becoming damper and damper.

"Sex now… stay over here tonight and you'll finish it tomorrow," he said as he removed his hand from her crotch long enough to close her laptop and put it on the end table behind her head, then place her glasses next to it.

He spread her bent legs so he could lie between them, on top of her. She responded to the kiss because it felt great, and she was always turned on by his kisses – which was why she didn't stop him when his hands reached underneath her sweatshirt and t-shirt to caress her especially sensitive breasts.

"No bra?" He teased her between kisses.

She nodded against him and she pushed against his touch, trying to get his hand to squeeze just a little bit. He complied and she moaned into his mouth. They sat up long enough for him to pull the t-shirt and sweatshirt off her, and then his mouth was kissing the engorged skin of her nipples. His breath against her skin was warm and she moaned, louder this time; she'd never felt like she could come just from nipple stimulation before. An orgasm was still far away-- but it was definitely possible, she realized as he switched nipples.

And then his hand was trying to move inside her sweatpants, and she panicked. She pushed him away and slipped out from underneath him. "I said no sex," she insisted, her resolve faltering slight as she saw the way his jeans were tented.

"What is going on?" He asked, sounding like a child about to throw a tantrum, which made him more vulnerable than she was used to seeing.

She decided to tell him the truth, "I'm—it's my period. I'm on my period."

He was silent at that, and she held her breath. Until he started laughing, "you're kidding, right?"

She shook her head, confused. "No."

"You're actually telling me you don't want to have sex because you're on your period?"

She nodded.

"We're doctors. I don't think I need to tell you that this is a normal bodily function in the female body; and I also don't think I need to tell you that women can, and do, have sex while they're riding the cotton pony."

She threw a pillow at his head. "House!"

"What?" he asked. "It's true."

"I know, I've just never felt comfortable doing it," she said. "Some heavy petting is fine, but anything more is just too messy," she admitted.

He got up from the couch and started limping towards the bathroom, stealing a glance at her that told her he expected her to follow.

It wasn't the first time she'd seen his bathroom, but she'd never noticed the steel stool with those anti-slip rubber tops he kept next to the shower. "All cripples and old folk apparently need one of these. I haven't used it since right after the infarction, but I have to admit I have my limits. And I can't have sex standing up, and on a wet floor, so you're gonna have to do most of the work," he explained. "Trust me. It'll be worth it."

She bit back a reply as he undressed and turned on the shower. She could feel the room temperature increase rapidly and she watched him disappear behind the fogged-up glass, giving her the privacy to take off her pants, underwear and dispose of the stuff.

His hands pulled her into the shower as soon as she opened the door. He was still standing up, and the almost unbearably hot water was cascading down his body. She noticed his erection standing proud and demanding, but she didn't touch it. He lathered up her body and handed her the shampoo bottle so she could do her hair. Then his soapy fingers moved down to her nether lips and he found her swollen clit right away, "See? You wanted sex too," he accused.

"Shut up," she demanded and surprisingly, he complied. Every once in a while, she'd glance down to see a red rivulet running down his hand, but then it'd wash away before she could feel too embarrassed. She didn't want him to overdo it with his leg, so she pushed him to the metal stool. He dropped in an unceremonious heap and she took the opportunity to straddle him, glad to see that the stool's height allowed her to keep her feet on the tiled floor – and therefore off his leg.

As soon as he entered her, she felt her muscles contracting around him, followed by her uterus cramping; pain and pleasure, all mixed together. She shouldn't find pleasure in this, she shouldn't trust this much – except she did already, so she might as well enjoy it. As long as he didn't find out the true extent of her loyalty, she was still safe.

She rode him, fast and hard, then soft and slow and back to fast. He was moaning incoherently as the water cascaded around them, one arm trying to hold onto the slippery tiled wall, the other wrapped tight around her hip.

Her orgasm hit, and she cried out as even cramps turned into pleasure. Her eyes were shut tight, white bolts of pleasure dancing behind her closed lids, as every muscle in her body felt like it was being electrocuted.

He didn't wait until she was done riding the aftermath, because she suddenly felt the added warmth against her extra sensitive cervix – and she was coming again, not as long or as intensely, but it was definitely another climax. The hand against the wall moved to brush her wet hair off her face, and through her faze she realized he was watching her, cataloguing her expressions as she continue to come.

When she finally came down, she burrowed her face in his neck, enjoying the way his stubble felt against her cheek and nose, but most importantly, hiding from his prodding gaze until she could put her mask back on.

His apartment seemed to have an industrial-sized water heater, because the water around them was still scalding hot. It wasn't until she felt his thigh muscle spasm underneath her that she finally vacated his lap, and helped him back to his feet.

As she showered, in his shower, she vaguely realized she was about to spend the night – for the first time.