Chapter 9
House woke up to the smell of coffee.
It took him a moment to figure out where he was.
He stretched a little and winced at the pain in his leg. The long soak in the bath last night, a couple of glasses of wine with dinner and general exhaustion after the long trip had helped him sleep through the night, but things were still what they were. Thankfully he had been alert enough to leave his Vicodin in easy reach on the nightstand when he went to bed. They would take a while to kick in, so he leaned back and closed his eyes again.
A knock on the door woke him a short while later.
Stacy entered with a mug of coffee in her hand. One look at her and House knew she was in work mode already – dressed for the office, with her professional face on.
Fully aware that it was futile, he still couldn't resist teasing her a little.
"Come join me for breakfast," he said playfully and lifted the corner of his comforter. He hadn't brought any pajamas.
Stacy laughed but didn't look away. "No thanks, not in a million years. I'm over you, Greg."
The hell she was. The look on her face when she saw him get off the train had said different. But he was okay with playing pretend. Mark deserved that much. Besides, he had promised Stacy to be nice. Whatever that meant. For now, it meant not coming on to her too much. It wouldn't be easy, but he'd manage. As long as she got out of his room pronto.
"Don't you have a job to go to? Give a guy some privacy."
She turned to leave, then said, "don't forget your appointment with Lorimer at 11."
"What kind of a name is Lorimer?" he complained.
"The kind of name your lawyer would have. You don't have to like him. Just talk to him. If anyone can get you out of this mess, it's him." She looked at him for a moment as if she wanted to add something. But she must have thought better of it. "Go and talk to him, Greg."
She closed the door on her way out.
Lorimer was a stocky, well-groomed man with an extremely good looking assistant, a big office full of glossy, dark wood furniture and a liking for expensive clothes. He clearly didn't look pleased with House's presence in his office. House imagined what the lawyer must think of him in his usual jeans, Nike's, linen shirt and blue jacket. Even though he had made something of an effort today he was the only part in Lorimer's elegant, colour-coordinated office that didn't cost a small fortune or came with a designer label. But then, taking on the case of Greg House probably carried a hefty price tag of a different nature for J. P. Lorimer.
"So, how do you know Stacy?"
"The only reason why I'm even talking to you is so I don't have to answer that question." Lorimer looked down at the papers on his desk, but not before House had spotted a slight tic near Lorimer's left eye. The man might be a good lawyer but he'd make a lousy poker player.
"Oho, someone's got a secret. A big, fat, juicy one at that, I bet."
Lorimer looked up, now openly annoyed. "I don't have to answer that question from you or anyone else. Besides, you're the one here who has to answer a few questions. Correction - make that a lot of questions. And the ones on my list here are only the start." He held up a sheet of paper. "If you're lucky, depending on your answers, someone else will get to ask you even more questions. And that someone will be the DA…"
"…who also doesn't have any connection to Stacy Warner, I presume," House finished the sentence.
"Correct." Lorimer leaned back in his chair. "Well, I can't speak for the DA, only for myself."
Clearly, neither Stacy nor the lawyer wanted him to know what their connection was. He had tried to push Stacy earlier but to no avail. If she didn't want to talk about something, she wouldn't, he knew that from experience.
"Care to tell me how you know Stacy?" The lawyer interrupted House's thoughts.
So Stacy hadn't told him anything. Interesting. "Not particularly. Let's just say, it has no bearing on what you're supposed to do for me."
"And what exactly is it you want me to do for you?"
House was sure that Stacy had given Lorimer at least a quick run-down of what had happened two years ago. But she, like everyone else – and that included Wilson – wasn't privy to any details. Until now, his death had been nobody's business but his own.
"You're supposed to help me resurrect Gregory House."
"Hm." Lorimer made a note on the papers in front of him. House usually had no problem reading upside down, but he knew there was no point in even trying to decipher this – the office was so big that the visitor's chair was placed half a mile from the desk. "I noticed you didn't add the M.D. behind your name just now. How invested are you in a continued practice of your profession?"
It was an interesting question; one House had asked himself on the way here. Getting his name back included his title; his licence was a different matter. His recertification would've been due last year, but seeing as Gregory House was dead, his name had quite likely been struck off the register by all concerned bodies. He hadn't expected Lorimer to be able to deal with both issues.
"Not very," he answered honestly. "Not anymore."
He didn't need to practice; he wouldn't miss the constraints of a hospital or of running his own department. Over the last couple of weeks, several ideas had formed in his mind. He didn't need a medical licence for most of them.
Lorimer scribbled another note and then said, "Okay, let's start at the beginning. Why did you die?"
House honestly couldn't recall every detail leading up to the burning building collapsing around him, and he told Lorimer even less than what he could actually remember. The lawyer had said it himself - he only needed to know enough to decide whether it was worth calling in a favour from the DA or not.
"So, how did it go?"
They were having dinner at home. They being Stacy, Mark and House. The three of them together. It should have been a tense affair, but to House's surprise it wasn't. There was a big pot of pasta sauce on the stove and several bottles of wine on the counter. Stacy had changed from successful lawyer into happy and funny Stacy just by pulling her hair back and changing into jeans and a t-shirt. This was a Stacy House hadn't seen in decades, and the transformation right there in front of him brought back a lot of good memories. Something in his stomach gave a little flutter but he told it to be quiet.
"He's pretty smart for a lawyer," House said.
With a little too much force, Mark put a bowl of steaming pasta on the table.
House winked at him. "Clearly not as smart as your wife, though. Lorimer wouldn't even have talked to me without her say so."
Stacy laughed. "Well, he's definitely smart enough to know what's good for him."
"You'll never tell me what you've got on him, will you?" He had to try one more time.
"Secrets of the trade. I'd be stupid to tell you," Stacy replied. "I might as well take out a full page ad in the Bar Association journal."
"If she doesn't want to talk about something, she won't talk. Took me a while to make my peace with that." Mark echoed some of House's thoughts from earlier.
House was privy to at least one of those secrets, but he wondered what else she hadn't told Mark. And, by extrapolation, what she hadn't told him. He was too tired to work on that now, though. He had slept soundly last night but it would take him a little longer to get over the long ride here, bruises and all. He had taken a taxi back here after the meeting with Lorimer and had spent an hour soaking his assorted injuries in the bath. That and the wine he'd already had leading up to dinner had mellowed him to a point where he thought he could just melt back into his chair. Small talk was a chore he despised at the best of times, and it seemed completely beyond him now. So he mostly just watched Stacy and Mark.
Their talk flowed freely, and there was a little good-natured teasing here and there. They seemed comfortable around each other.
There was no other word for it.
They seemed happy.
