Chapter 7


Elizabeth had heard soon after her arrival, that Mr. Darcy was expected there in the course of a few weeks, and though there were not many of her acquaintance whom she did not prefer, his coming would furnish one comparatively new to look at in their Rosings parties … [Pride and Prejudice Ch. 30]


The same, four days later

It was like being beamed into an alien world.

In the clinic the smell of disinfectant pervaded, with subtle overtones of vomit, stale urine, blood and sweat. Doctors in sterile white bustled in and out of examination rooms of the same white. They walked with heads bowed over files, their foreheads furrowed, the only sound a low muttering and the occasional barked instructions to attendant nurses. Waiting patients conversed in low tones, calmed squealing infants, and hushed unruly children. It was a bit like swimming underwater, Cuddy thought, as she turned the last round of the day. Everything was muted, fuzzy and unfocused.

Entering the lobby on that particular evening was like coming up for a lungful of fresh air after a dive and being greeted by all the sounds, smells and sights that the water had filtered out. The lobby was festooned in drapes and garlands in patriotic red, white and blue. The sterile white neon lighting had been replaced by garlands of pleasantly diffuse paper lanterns. Crews of workers were carrying in and setting up tables and chairs; a catering company was arranging a buffet dinner near Cuddy's office. There was a cacophony of scraping furniture, clattering dishes and general shouting. On a small stage a band was tuning its instruments while a technician carried out a sound test that sent the microphone into overdrive.

Cuddy checked her watch – just over one hour to go – and looked out for Lucas. He was standing in the midst of the frenzy, a sheaf of notes in one hand, and gesticulating wildly with the other hand. He had been entrusted with the organisation of the fundraiser; as a doctor, he wasn't much of an asset to the hospital, but he definitely had potential as an event manager. She walked over to him and peered over his shoulder.

"Look, if we move those tables closer together and scrap one of the buffet tables, we can get in another two tables," Lucas was saying to one of the workers. He turned to Cuddy. "You do realize that selling more tickets than we have seating was not a bright idea," he reprimanded her.

"I was sure you'd cope," she sweet-talked him. "Besides, it's all for the new paediatric wing. You'll be one of the beneficiaries of this evening's intake."

"Not me," Lucas objected. "I'll just get more kids to treat."

Cuddy changed tack. "Is there any reason why the hospital is looking like a Republican convention?"

"It looks like a Republican convention because the decoration is essentially Republican convention," Lucas explained cryptically. Cuddy raised her eyebrows and he condescended to explain, "Stacy was breathing down my neck because of the costs: 'You can't take the money from this budget, because you require a legitimate medical reason, and if you want it from that budget you need the board's approval'," he mimicked her tone. "Jeez, you'd think she was from bookkeeping. Anyway, so the only way I could do this decently within the range of my budget was to call in a favour from a friend. He has access to the decoration used in the last GOP convention in Philly."

"Well, if it saves money, I'm all for it," Cuddy remarked. That was entirely true; ever since she had been burdened with making ends meet and allocating priorities in a business where lack of funding could cost lives, she tried to cut frivolous and useless spending, attempting to channel the money where it benefited the most. "I'm going to shower and change. I'll see you in half an hour."

She took a quick shower in the en-suite bathroom to her office, dried her hair, and then pondered the problem of her attire. She had brought two dresses, one a more discreet affair with a high-cut neck and a long skirt. You look like a chairman's wife in that, she thought. The other was a black, sleek confection with a low décolletage, short and tight fitting. She hovered between them, uncertain after Stacy's words a few days back. This was, after all, her first major function since she had become dean, and a slip-up in sartorial etiquette would be noted and discussed for weeks. What the heck, she thought and slipped into the black dress before scrutinizing her appearance in the mirror. Okay, that dress certainly was a statement, but then, she believed in making statements. Being a nice, polite Jewish girl had got her nowhere. She was somewhere, and if everyone noticed, then that was just fine. She slipped on a pair of murderous high-heels and stalked back into the lobby, ready to greet the first guests.

Three hours later, she felt as if every muscle in her body had been racked. Her face was stretched into a smile that must, she feared, be reminiscent of a hyena's grin, and her feet were screaming "Sneakers, sneakers!" What on earth had made her believe that she could survive an evening of hard work, because that was what this fundraiser was, on four inches when she normally only wore three? She had smiled and shaken hands with a veritable army of potential donors, she had held a speech that was a nice balance between past achievements and future possibilities, stressing the role she would play in making this best of all possible hospitals better still, she had danced with the most promising donors and had stopped the one or other of them from feeling her up (how high would a donation have to be to make that acceptable, she wondered), and had made a round of most of the tables, chatting to guests and to staff members. She had had no fun at all; as dean she couldn't afford to seem to flirt with any of the staff, and there had been no other male whom she considered even mildly attractive. Would anyone notice if she stopped socializing, sat down and didn't move around any more? In her previous hospital, fundraisers had petered out to a natural end at this time of day; here in PPTH the evening seemed only just to have begun.

She steered towards a practically empty table next to the stage on which the band played and sank gratefully into an empty chair. The band was having a break – only the pianist was picking out quiet background tunes. The table was a litter of half-empty glasses and discarded napkins, and in one corner a young man sat, toying with a fork in a bored manner. He had pleasant, open features, and Cuddy decided that she needn't write off the evening as a complete waste as far as men were concerned. She might still have fun, after all.

Cuddy smiled, "Dr. Wilson, wasn't it?" she asked, although she knew she was right. One reason for her early success was that she seldom forgot names, faces or important facts about people.

He looked up, surprised, and held out his hand, "Yes. I don't think we were introduced, but I know who you are, of course, Dr. Cuddy."

"Stacy mentioned you were coming," Cuddy clarified. She didn't mention that she had looked him up in the internet. Now that she was Dean she had little time for medical conferences. If she wanted to make contacts in the medical world with the aim of sighting potential staff members, she had to keep her eyes skimmed and her ears open all the time. "I understand you're a friend of her boyfriend's." She hadn't seen House yet, so she assumed that he'd chickened out at the last moment. She felt slightly downcast at the idea. It was nice of his friend to accompany Stacy, nonetheless.

At the mention of House, Wilson's eyes flew over to where the pianist sat, and Cuddy followed his line of vision. At the piano sat, not the hired pianist, but Greg House, attired in a tuxedo with the bow tie untied and his collar open, a glass of beer perched on the grand piano in front of him. He looked good. He wore his hair shorter than at school and he looked less like an over-grown school boy. His features had matured, his formerly lanky frame had filled out nicely with muscles, and the crinkles he had around his eyes were those of laughter. He was clearly oblivious to his surroundings, concentrating on variations of some jazz melody that struck a faint chord in Cuddy's memory.

Cuddy could feel a look of annoyance cross her features; bands could be touchy about their instruments, she thought, and the pianist would certainly not want half-drunk guests spilling beer over the keyboard.

"Oh, don't mind him," Wilson hastened to reassure her. "He's better off behind the piano than annoying your staff or insulting the donors, you know. He can be a trifle ..." He broke off and shrugged, raising his hands in an endearing gesture.

"Talking about me, Wilson?" House growled, bent over the keys. He looked up and met Cuddy's eyes. "Hey, Cuddy," he greeted in his usual off-handed manner and continued playing, for all the world as though they met on a daily basis.

"Hello, House. I'm fine, and thank you for asking," Cuddy snapped. She could locate the source of her overall annoyance with him now, and it had nothing to do with worries about the sensibilities of absent band members and their instruments. She hadn't seen him in, what was it, ten years, and she had subconsciously been looking forward to seeing him again, but it seemed that he didn't share her sentiments. She'd spent the evening in a dangerously low-cut dress with ridiculous high heels, getting ogled at by all and sundry, but Greg House didn't deign to notice her! Not that she'd chosen the dress because of him ...

"Ah, old friends," Wilson surmised, grinning knowingly at Cuddy's obvious irritation.

"We were at med school together," Cuddy offered, deciding it was better to come up with all relevant facts than to let House present his version of their acquaintanceship.

"Now that is interesting," Wilson said, leaning forward towards Cuddy. "Was he as much of a," he lowered his voice dramatically "jerk as he is now?"

"I can read your lips, Wilson," House intoned without raising his eyes from the keys.

Cuddy decided that Wilson was slightly wasted, but she thought he was sweet. She leaned in towards him, too. "More so," she said with emphasis. "Can you believe that he cheated during examinations?" Somehow the endocrinology exam still rankled after all those years.

"No!" Wilson exclaimed in mock surprise. "He didn't, did he?"

"I was there; I saw it. And I believe it wasn't the only time."

"No, he has a problem with rules," Wilson acquiesced.

House's fingers hit a dissonance and he stopped playing. "It's not my aim to follow rules. I became a doctor in order to save lives. Rules are for administrators and accountants." There was a note of aggression in his voice that jarred with the playfulness of the exchange between Wilson and Cuddy.

"Ah, and how many lives do you save as, what are you now, a fellow or the head of a department?" Cuddy put a question mark in her tone as she rose and marched purposefully towards the piano. The slight to her job nettled her and she was now in her 'bristles up' mode. He was silent, his glance sliding back to his fingers that were still poised on the keys of the piano.

"He's just been fired," Wilson supplied helpfully. House flashed him a look of annoyance, at which he shrugged as though to say, Hey, you normally aren't so fussed about admitting that you've just lost a job.

Cuddy moved in for the kill, leaning over the piano suggestively, exposing, as she knew, a liberal amount of cleavage. "Tell me, Dr. Wilson, why someone with the brains and the undoubted abilities of a Gregory House is not head of a department somewhere, making decisions that will save zillions of lives in the near and far future? It seems to me that following rules and having a positive influence saves more lives than getting fired."

House mustered his fingers as though they held an answer, then he looked up at her. "I can't help it if the system won't let me do my job. Wherever I go, there's reels of red tape tripping me up, and then some idiot shouts at me, and I shout back, and hey presto, I'm out of a job. They want me to compromise, but I can't and won't compromise on medical facts."

He said this casually, as though he didn't care much either way, but she wasn't fooled. She hesitated, wondering whether she dared bare some of her inner thoughts to him, then she said, "You want to do as you like, and at the same time you want the benefits of a hospital that's run like a well-oiled machine. Well, you can't have your cake and eat it, House. Nor can I. I want to make this the best run hospital in the country. In addition, I want a family - a husband and two or three kids. Since I won't compromise on quality in either case, I just do without the latter. At least, for the time being. But I don't blame the system that I don't have a happy family. I am fully aware that it is my priorities that are to blame." Her eyes held his, but he suddenly broke eye contact and his mien changed subtly. It was like looking at his face through a glass pane that suddenly frosted over – one minute one could see into him, the next it was as though he had never exhibited any sort of emotion.

House's face twisted into a smile. "Most likely your propensity for dressing like a hooker is to blame," he quipped, favouring her cleavage with a pointed stare. "That sort of thing puts decent family men off. Ones like our friend Wilson here."

Wilson flushed with embarrassment. "Oh no, Dr. Cuddy, that dress looks just fine to me. Not at all like a ..."

"Oh, it looks just fine to me, too," House echoed with an exaggerated lift of his eyebrows, letting his eyes linger along her body in a manner that would normally have made her palms itch to slap him. "But that just proves my point, doesn't it? – I like hookers. It had a marvellous effect on the donors, too." His eyes were back in her face, gauging her reaction as he leaned back and planted his final thrust. "How much are you going to make that old lecher you danced the first two dances with pay for letting him grab your ass?"

"I didn't ..." Cuddy responded angrily. She had put an end to the donor's groping as quickly as she could without causing a scene, not wanting to expose him in front of his wife or to disrupt the fundraiser.

A voice from behind her penetrated their conversation, "What are you guys talking about? Oh, am I barging in on anything?" It was Stacy, who had come up without Cuddy noticing it. Cuddy drew back from the piano, slightly embarrassed and hoping that Stacy hadn't heard any of the last part of their exchange. If she had, it would confirm her in her opinion of Cuddy's choice of clothes, and Cuddy didn't think she'd ever hear the last of that.

Wilson bravely jumped into the breach. "We were just discussing fundraising strategies," he said somewhat vaguely.

"Oh yes," House confirmed with a malicious grin. "We were just saying that Cuddy's approach is very fresh and, ah, arousing. I'm sure it raised any amount of, ah, donors – I mean donations." His ambiguity was not lost on Cuddy, and she narrowed her lips as she turned away. As she marched back to a group of guests she could hear him playing again, this time variations on The Lady is a Tramp.


"My fingers," said Elizabeth, "do not move over this instrument in the masterly manner which I see so many women's do. […] But then I have always supposed it to be my own fault – because I would not take the trouble of practicing." [Pride and Prejudice Ch. 31]