This is a crack!AU inspired by DreamsofSpike's "Dark Redux". Assuming I can keep it up, there's going to be one chapter per episode, based on the episode. Whee... AND another long chapter, sorry!
1.20 Love Hurts
Wilson signed into the clinic for his two hours during Greg's morning shift. He wanted to watch Greg, uninterrupted by any serious work - morning clinic patients tended to be a light shift - and he wanted to think about Cameron.
Greg must have noticed him, but didn't look at him: in fact, when Wilson walked into his path, Greg turned abruptly right, and headed away from the examination room towards a vending machine. Wilson shrugged, and watched him go. He couldn't afford to do this too often: he didn't have Greg tagged (yet): and Julie shouldn't get any information about Greg if she called the hospital and tried to pry gossip out of the oncology department.
"Damn it!" Greg said, and Wilson glanced at him, startled.
He was standing facing off a patient - a young Korean man, carrying a cup, the contents of which were now mostly on Greg.
"I'm sorry," the young man said. He was backing away, looking wary. Greg was over six foot: he loomed over the younger man, and his cold stare could, Wilson remembered, appear intimidating.
Wilson sighed. Two security guards were heading for the situation, and Greg was heading for a whipping. He tucked his next patient's file under his arm, and walked over to Greg and the patient.
"I'm sorry," the young man said, helplessly. "I didn't - er, I didn't - " He was still backing away. Greg stood still. Wilson glanced over Greg's shoulder and realized the security guards were looming.
"Hey," Wilson said to the Korean guy, "my friend here would like to apologize."
Greg touched the wet stain with his fingers, lifted them to his nose. "Apple juice," he said. "I'm sorry," he added, to the Korean guy, and looked warily at the guards, who had stopped a few yards off.
The man turned his back and leaned up against the nearest wall and from his throat came a noise like sobbing. Greg frowned. He ignored Wilson: he ignored the guards. He fished a penlight out of his pocket, turned the man's face towards the light, and looked into his eyes. Only for a moment. He let go of the man's face and pressed his hand against the middle of his back, as if holding him there against the wall.
"Get a wheelchair," Greg said abruptly, to the nearest guard, and to Wilson, "and get this guy into the ER. He's having a stroke."
"What happened?"
"Right pupil's blown," Greg said.
"Holy shit," Wilson said, surprised. "You gave the guy a stroke?"
Greg gave him an odd look. "If I had, would I admit it?
An aide from ER arrived, and loaded the Korean man into a wheelchair. Greg said to the aide "Tell Doctor Foreman you've found a zebra," and went back to the clinic waiting room.
*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*
Foreman wasn't finding Chase any better company today than yesterday. He wouldn't have said he liked Cameron, but she diluted the locker-room effect. Chase wouldn't be telling the stupid joke about the bear and the rabbit if Cameron was here.
One of Foreman's ER nurses paged him. He got up with relief, and saw Cameron in the doorway. "Yo!" he said, surprised and pleased, as Chase got up, saying "Hey!" sounding pleased and surprised.
Cameron hugged him back. She looked pleased with herself.
Chase asked "What are you doing here?"
"I work here," Cameron said cheerfully.
"What, here in this office?"
"Cuddy practically begged me to come back."
"Tell me you took her to the cleaners," Chase said hopefully.
"Same lousy salary."
"Then why'd you do it?"
Foreman glanced over at the door. Greg was standing there, holding a file, eyeing the three of them.
"21-year-old male, visited the clinic because he was grinding his teeth, and panicked himself into a stroke in the waiting room," he said. "Doctor Cameron. Passing through, or here to stay?"
"Blown pupils usually means brain stem edema," Cameron offered.
"Sure," Greg said, limping over to the light board, brushing past Cameron with an odd look, "but since he s not dead or in a coma, I m going with stroke to the optic nerve." He put up CT scans on the board. "Two things."
Foreman looked, and saw the ischemia. "Death of brain tissue. Means there's been some damage, hopefully not permanent."
"And?" Doctor House, amused and sarcastic.
Foreman clenched his teeth, and looked again. House was observant, but not miraculously so. What he could see, Foreman could see. "That's it," he said. "There's nothing there to tell us what the underlying cause is. We've got to do an MRI."
"You're looking at the wrong part of the scan," House said.
"I'm looking at the brain," Foreman said tightly, "What else is there?"
"The jaw," Cameron said.
"The jaw tells us why he stroked?" Foreman said incredulously.
"No," Cameron said. "The jaw tells us why we can't do an MRI. Unless we want his jawbone flying across the room."
"Metal plate," House said. "He's had major reconstruction and there's no way we're removing it, so we're forced to be clever. Angiogram to rule out vascultis, EMG for peripheral neuropathy, tox screen to eliminate drugs, an echo to rule out cardiac emboli. Doctor Cameron, do you have treatment privileges at this hospital?"
"I work here," Cameron said.
"Here, in this department?"
"You hired me," Cameron said.
"You quit. How did Cuddy get you back?"
"I asked for a perk," Cameron said. She was smiling, pleased with herself. "And I got it."
"Am I going to find out what this 'perk' is?"
"Oh yes," Cameron said. She was smiling, wide and happy.
Greg looked at her oddly. He seemed tired. "Okay. Foreman, your ER nurse is slipping, I told her this was a zebra two hours ago. Get moving... " he glanced at Cameron again "...all three of you."
They all knew House could hear them out in the hall: Chase closed the door and started walking before he asked "What perks?"
Cameron all but smirked. "Nothing you'd be interested in." She was walking ahead of them down the corridor.
Thoughtfully, Foreman considered the options. "Not money. Office space, insurance, better parking... anything Cuddy could offer you, we d be interested in."
"Cuddy agreed House could go on a date with me."
Foreman stopped short. He glanced at Chase, whose mouth had opened, stunned: obviously he'd had no notion. "A date?" Cameron's smile, if anything, got broader.
"Date," Foreman clarified, "Dinner and a movie, naked and sweaty date?"
"We get to go out to dinner," Cameron said. "No committment to anything else."
"He's so, he's so old!" Chase said.
Cameron's smile got smugger. "And you're so young."
"It's a big mistake," Foreman said. Cameron might have lost track of it, but Greg was a slave: untagged, back at work as if he was a normal doctor, but collared property of the hospital. "Does he even know what you asked for?"
"Sure," Cameron said quickly. "Doctor Cuddy and I discussed it yesterday. It s my boss. I'm allowed to sexually harass my boss. I'll arrange for the EMG." She looked at Chase. "You want to set up the angiogram." She looked at Foreman, her eyes bright. "You get the blood samples, patient history, patient consent?" She walked off.
Foreman glanced back at the Diagnostics office. The door was closed. Chase was standing still, looking stunned and disgusted. "Like watching an accident about to happen," he said affably to Chase, and walked off to the admissions ward.
*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*
Chase had been staggering from disbelief to outright horror, since Vogler left.
It shouldn't have happened. None of it should have happened. How could any slave have dared make as insulting a speech - in public, on display, advertising his owner? How could any slave, especially one already at hazard of being sold or punished, have dared shout at his owner? How could it have happened, when a slave insulted Vogler, shouted at Vogler, that it would be Vogler who left the hospital - why would any board vote to refuse a donation of a hundred million dollars, when the price was disciplining one wayward slave?
Chase couldn't see how he'd picked the wrong side. He'd done the sensible thing, all the way, and not out of any hostility to Greg, just because if Greg was going to survive, he had to knuckle under.
What made it worse was that the last time Greg had said a word to him about it was when he'd asked "So how can I work with you?" and Chase, with a confidence that now made him shudder, had answered "Well, you don't have a choice."
The new patient had been to a succession of alternative practicioners: acupuncturist, a Shen balancer, a homeopathic doctor, a chiropractor, and a naturopath. And he was seeing a semi-professional dominatrix regularly enough that she was at the hospital with him. Chase was veering between wondering if he should let someone know about Annette's alternative profession, and wondering when House was going to exercise his power to hire and fire: it was the first full-team DDX they'd done since Senator Wright.
"The EMG was clean," Cameron said.
House was studying the list of practicioners. "Well, based on this history it s either toxic herbs from the homeopath, spinal damage from the chiropractor, infection from the needle that the acupuncturist accidentally let sit in eye of newt, or the Shen balancer. What the hell is a 'shen' and how come it s lopsided?"
"The only abnormal test result we found was on the echo report," Foreman said. "Mitral valve prolapse."
House glanced at him, and back at the file. He said out loud, "Hang up a shingle and condemn the narrowness and greed of Western medicine, you d make a damn fine living."
Foreman sounded like he was gritting his teeth. Like the patient. "Clot s formed on a faulty valve, gets sent to the brain, voila! Stroke."
"Of course, no harm, no foul," House said thoughtfully. "It's just taking a few bucks from superstitious idiots, right?"
Chase breathed in. If he came up with the right diagnosis, House wouldn't fire him: and no one but him knew that there was likely trauma involved, regular, repeated trauma. "Could also be an aneurysm due to trauma."
Foreman looked at him incredulously. "Trauma? From what, the chiropractic treatments? It's bacterial endocarditis, an infected valve. We should do blood cultures."
"Except the six months that he had with these charlatans might have been spent going to someone who looks at things that exist in the real world. But that s just me being all narrow again," House said, apparently not listening to either Chase or Foreman. He was looking at Cameron, and there was a faint, puzzled frown on his face.
"I noticed a small bruit when I listened to Harvey s left carotid," Chase said. "You could hear that if you had an aneurysm from trauma."
Cameron was still looking very happy, but she sounded quite professional. "Aneurysm would have shown on the angiogram."
"No, not necessarily," Chase said.
House looked at him. "Hmm. Quite a dilemma." He sounded shockingly normal, though this was the first thing he'd said to Chase directly in weeks. He picked up the ball that Chase had been playing with. "Oh, great pool hall oracle, grant me guidance." From House's hands, the ball flipped up and described a neat semi-circle, from left hand to right, and back again. "Do we go with Foreman s theory, which is at least marginally supported by medical test results, or Chase s theory, which is completely unsupported by medical evidence. What to do..."
Chase decided. Being right about a diagnosis always scored points with House, always had in the past, even when House wouldn't accept it first off. "The guy obviously broke his jaw somehow. Who knows what other trauma he's suffered? We should do the angiogram again."
"And all signs point to..." House flipped the ball directly upwards, caught it in the palm of one hand, looked at it intently, and said "Sorry, Chase. The gods have spoken. Start Harvey on blood thinners and antibiotics."
He waved his hand, plainly dismissing all three of them. His eyes lingered on Cameron, and Chase caught again the tiny frown. Whatever Cameron thought, this wasn't going to win her any points with House.
They were walking towards the diagnostics ward. The blinds were down, indicating there was a procedure being performed or the patient needed a bedpan.
Cameron still had a smile on her face. Foreman looked uneasy. Chase said irritably, "I get it. House is adorable. I just want to hold him and never let go."
Cameron opened the door. Annette had her hand on the patient's throat. He was choking and struggling for breath.
In an explosion of indignation, Foreman and Cameron grabbed her and pulled her away. Foreman was holding on to her hard enough to bruise. Chase stood by the doorway, feeling uncomfortable. He closed the door. ""Stop. Let her go."
"She was trying to kill him!" Foreman said, angrily.
The patient had recovered from the choking. He said in a hoarse voice, "No. No, she wasn t."
Cameron was checking the screens, and the patient's pulse. "His vitals seem okay."
"Please," the patient said. "Please don't hurt her."
Foreman and Cameron were looking at the patient with complete bewilderment. Foreman had let go of Annette, at least.
"She's..." Chase swallowed "She s a dominatrix. Right, Annette?"
Both Cameron and Foreman were now looking at him with astonishment. And at this point, hospital security arrived.
Annette went off with the security, against the patient's protests, after Foreman and Cameron had described accurately what they had seen. Annette had grasped the point that she needed to go talk to the hospital administration, and left the patient with the admonition to "Be good, Harvey".
"I said I thought it was a trauma induced aneurysm," Chase said.
"Yeah," Foreman agreed. The three of them went back in the Diagnostics meeting room: House wasn't there, more or less to Chase's relief, even if he could now admit the basis for his diagnosis of head trauma.
"And you know this woman from where?" Foreman asked.
Chase had already had time to think out how to put it. Fatal to say anything, in America, that made it sound like you were a bottom. "It was a long time ago. I was seeing this woman. A banker, and turns out she liked to be burned." This was actually true, but she'd never asked Chase to burn her, because he'd never got the hang of playing with fire.
Cameron had been studying him with an expression of disgusted concern, as near as Chase could interpret it: "You actually dated someone who likes to get burned?"
Foreman grinned. "Yeah, why would you want to be in a relationship with someone that's so obviously only going to lead to pain?"
"Shut up," Cameron recommended briefly.
"It was a weird scene," Chase admitted, seamlessly. "I observed..."
None of them had noticed House coming along the corridor until he jerked the door open and looked directly at Chase.
"Did you know about this woman? What she does?"
Chase shrugged. "I met her at some parties, yeah," he said, insouciently.
"Well, here's a phrase to remember," House said abruptly. Hey, this guy might have been pounded on the head one too many times!
"I said I thought it was a trauma induced aneurysm," Chase reminded him.
"Yeah, could have carried a tad more weight if you d mentioned the 'liking pain' thing," House said. "I assume you never started him on antibiotics or blood thinners before Mistress Ilsa s rude interruption."
"It was probably a good thing," Cameron said.
"Start him on antibiotics and blood thinners," House ordered.
"You still think Chase is wrong?" Cameron asked.
House looked faintly surprised. "No, he s probably right."
Chase was relieved. "Then we should schedule him for vascular surgery. Go into the carotids, find the aneurysm, repair it." And they couldn't do that on blood thinners, because he might bleed out.
"But if Foreman's right about it being bacterial endocarditis, and we "
Foreman interrupted. "I think Chase is right."
House glanced at him. "Okay, if you used to be right about it being blood clots, and we take the surgery route, then we ll probably kill the guy. So, start him on blood thinners, and if he has another stroke, then we ll schedule the surgery." He waved his hand, plainly dismissing all three of them. Then said, quickly, "Doctor Cameron, a word?"
Chase went on. He wanted to hear what House had to say, but he guessed Cameron would let it out later.
But before the door closed, he heard House say, not angrily, but bleakly, "I'd appreciate you keeping the terms of your new contract to yourself. Don t want everyone clamoring for the same perks."
*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*
"Annette Raines," the woman said, offering her hand to be shaken.
"She committed an assault on the patient," the security guard said. "Doctors Cameron and Foreman confirmed it."
"No, I didn't," Raines said, quite calmly. "I'm a dominatrix. Harvey asked me to throttle him to calm him down. Doctor Chase will confirm that."
Cuddy took a deep breath. This was a plain mess. She said to her PA, "Get me Henry Walker," - he was the most flexible lawyer they had on the hospital retainer - "and fetch Doctor House." She'd need to speak to him anyway, now Cameron was back.
Standing orders were that whenever security needed to fetch Greg, they sent guards who were taller and broader than him: and he usually wasn't allowed a cane. "Tell them it's not urgent," she added, which was was hospital code for allowing Greg to walk under his own power with his cane.
"Would you like coffee?" she asked Raines, who shook her head. "Is this likely to take long?"
"We just need to resolve this," Cuddy said vaguely, and nodded to her PA to get Raines settled: Walker would take twenty minutes to get to her office.
Greg was delivered to her door in fifteen minutes, wearing a clean roll-top: Henry Walker arrived five minutes later. Cuddy directed Greg to the seat by her desk
"Ms Raines, could you explain what you did to Harvey Parks a little under an hour ago?" Cuddy asked, sat back, and folded her hands.
"The patient asked you to strangle him?" Walker said, sounding remarkably inflexible.
"Harvey is an asphyxiaphyliac," Raines said calmly. "He likes to be strangled or smothered."
Walker jerked his head back."That's just sick."
"Well, that s an intriguing legal opinion," Greg said, his tone of voice conveying the exact opposite.
Walker turned and stared at Greg, dismissing him. He looked back at Cuddy. "You want a legal opinion? Call the cops."
"I was careful," Raines said, very calmly. "I watched the monitors, made sure his O2 stats were over 90. I would never hurt him."
"Then what was the point?" Greg said. He sounded hostile. Of course Raines was not donor, patient, or staff: and she had apparently tried to harm one of the patients. Cuddy decided she could let the tone gone.
"Harvey was upset," Raines said, looking Greg over. "He needed to calm down. To feel in control by being controlled."
Cuddy nearly choked. She got her voice under control. "He pays you for this?"
Raines nodded, smiling. "In return, he does my taxes and cleans my house."
Greg positioned his cane, and stood up.
"We're not done here," Cuddy said sharply.
"Call the cops," Greg said, "bar her from the hospital, force her to pierce your nipples... not really medical decisions."
"Sit down," Cuddy said. She moved her hand to the phone.
Greg sat. He lifted his chin and looked at her, warily.
"Can you prove that Parks asked you to do this to him?" Walker said, having had time to think.
"Yes," Raines said. "I have letters, e-mails... even a contract, agreeing to exchange house cleaning and tax advice for my services."
"We should get confirmation from the patient himself that this was voluntary," Walker said. "You should ask Ms Raines to provide documentary evidence of their relationship. Subject to that, my advice is that it's not worth pressing charges."
Cuddy nodded. "Thank you."
"But my advice is that you ban Ms Raines from the hospital," Walker added.
"Harvey needs me," Raines said.
"Doctor House?"
Greg lifted his shoulders in a shrug. "Got to admit, I'm medically biased against choking," he said. "Even if you check the chokee's O2 stats."
Cuddy nodded. "I'm afraid that subject to legal and medical advice, and as you're not Harvey's next of kin - "
"He doesn't have any family," Raines said.
" - I am going to have to ask you to leave the hospital, and not come back. The staff will be warned against admitting you."
Raines looked at her, glanced at Walker, and really stared at Greg. "I could come back if Harvey says I'm his next-of-kin?"
"I'll take legal advice on whether this could be considered a domestic abuse situation," Cuddy said.
"Yes," Walker interrupted.
Raines nodded. She gathered herself up. "See you later," she said pleasantly, and went out.
Walker harrumphed. "Sick bitch."
Greg looked up, but didn't speak. When Walker had left, Cuddy said "Doctor Cameron agreed to come back to work on one condition."
"I gathered," Greg said. "She said she'd asked for a 'perk'."
Cuddy hesitated, and said baldly, "She asked permission to have a date with you."
Greg's head jerked back. His mouth opened. His eyes went wide. Only for an instant: he was truly surprised.
"I've booked a table for two at Cafe Spiletto, this evening," Cuddy said. "Seven pm. You'll be allowed to miss clinic duty for that evening. Doctor Cameron will hold that evening's oxycontin dose, if she wishes. If not, you'll just have to do without until the car returns you to the hospital. A security guard will drive the car and wait outside the restaurant. You'll clean up and report here at five pm for appropriate clothing. Questions?"
Greg shook his head. He stood up, unsteadily, his gaze fixed on her.
"She can't... tag me?"
"If she's working as a Diagnostics fellow, she can't tag you," Cuddy agreed.
*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*
By five pm, Cuddy had two distressed parents in her office who had been told that their son was dead, and had got to the hospital to discover he was still alive - and this time she sent the security guards for Greg with orders that it was urgent. They were quite clear that they'd spoken to a man who identified himself as Doctor House. Cuddy summoned Walker, too.
Greg hadn't showered, either.
"You lied to them!" Cuddy said. For Greg to lie to a patient's family, if the family complained, was a standard administrative 10 lashes.
"He told us our son was dead," Mrs. Park said loudly.
Ten lashes tonight meant Cameron couldn't get the "date" she'd wanted: putting it off wasn't a good idea; putting off the whipping was bad practice.
Greg was leaning on his cane, holding a pink hospital form and a pen in his other hand. He eyed her warily, but sounded unnaturally cheerful: he was directing his remarks to the parents. "It's only a white lie. Technically, all I did was call them a little early. Trust me, he'll be dead real soon. Actually, I saved you some rush hour traffic."
Mrs Park pulled out her cell phone. "I'm calling our lawyer."
If a lawyer was involved, that meant admitting Greg was a slave - the hospital never lied about Greg's status - and that meant the parents could themselves demand a more serious punishment. Greg could be putting himself out of action for a week.
"Fine," Greg said. He put the form down on the tble in front of them. "Just as soon as you sign this surgery consent."
The father stared at the form, and Greg, in silent disbelief. Greg added, "I have a pen," and put it down on the table.
"Marilyn Park for Mark Lerner. Yes, I'll hold."
"Harvey's your son," Cuddy said. The form needed to get signed: fortunately Greg wasn't a surgeon. "I'm sure you still care about him."
Mr Park opened his mouth for the first time. "He humiliated us. Everybody we know knows about his perversion."
Greg leaned forward on his cane. He wasn't looking at Cuddy any more. "But you don't get off on embarrassment the way your son does. I guess it skips a generation."
Cuddy and Walker shared a look. Walker said, in business-like tones, "How much money would it take to compensate you - "
"Yeah, you guys can haggle in a minute," Greg said. "But here's the thing. Humiliation comes in all kinds of packages. People finding out that your son s a perv and a bottom, that s pretty high up there. People finding out that you'd rather let your son die than sign a piece of paper, where s that rank?" He grinned like a dog, showing all of his teeth. "And trust me, if I have to paste up a sign in every nail salon and dumpling shop in Pennsylvania, I'll make sure they know."
There was a pause. Cuddy watched, astonished, as she saw Mr and Mrs Park visibly reconsider. After a long moment, Mrs Park switched off her cell phone, picked up the pen, and signed. Greg picked up the form. "Your son will be in surgery first thing in the morning."
Cuddy summoned her PA, got the form to the surgeon, and had Greg sit down. Without acknowledging that he was a slave, she and Walker danced the Parks through an apology from the hospital, an audibly insincere apology from Greg, and their acceptance of compensation for their time in coming to New Jersey. When they left, Greg got up to go.
"It's after five," Cuddy said. "You're not going anywhere." She nodded dismissal to Walker. "Tell security to come in."
Greg's knuckles were white on his cane. "Dumplings," he said. "that was a cheap shot."
"Lying to a patients' parents," Cuddy said. "You know what that means."
Greg jerked a nod. He swallowed.
"Ten lashes. But," Cuddy said, "given the circumstances, I might cancel it." Vogler had said he didn't think whipping Greg was effective for disciplining him. "Whatever Cameron wants from you, what I want is for her to function as an effective member of the Diagnostics team. If she's still working here ... a month from tomorrow, and I've heard no more from her about tagging you, I'll cancel the whipping. Unless you've done something else to deserve being whipped for in between now and then." She entered it on her calendar, letting Greg see her do it, and smiled at him. "Bear in mind that she's probably the only female who'd tolerate you."
The security guards were standing at the back of the room. Cuddy nodded to them to come forward. There was a bag of clothes beside her desk: she handed it to one of them. "Greg needs to get cleaned up, groomed, and dressed. Do not leave any visible marks on him. I want him back in my office before seven."
*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*
Wilson stepped out of his office at half past five. Julie was expecting him at home to pack up clothes at six. His lawyer had advised him not to stay for dinner. Tonight was Cameron's "date" with Greg.
Two security guards were walking Greg along the corridor. Except that he wasn't struggling, it looked just like when they were taking him off for a whipping. Except that they were heading towards Diagnostics, not away from it.
"What's going on?" Wilson asked.
"Doctor Cuddy wants this groomed, cleaned, and dressed for going out, in her office, in an hour." One of the guards was carrying a dry-cleaning bag. Greg was standing, head down.
"Oh yes," Wilson said. He took the bag away from the guard. "Look, bring him to my office once he's cleaned up and shaved. I can handle getting him dressed." It would make him late for Julie. But it would be worth it.
Greg's head lifted. He looked at Wilson. He looked disturbed. Wilson smiled.
Along with the suit, there was a clean blue shirt, a tie, and clean socks and undershorts. Wilson hung up the suit and shirt on one of the hangers he used for his own office change of clothes. The guards delivered him back to Wilson's office wrapped in a towel, still wet, only ten minutes later.
"I can manage from here," Wilson said. "Come back in half an hour."
The towel was wrapped round Greg's waist. His hands pressed against it. He was shivering. Wilson walked round him. Greg's back was covered in faint lines - marks from judicial whippings. The dark metal of his collar stood out harshly against the white skin.
"I want you to know it's okay," Wilson said, reassuringly. He took hold of the towel, pulled it away from Greg's hips, and began to pat-dry his back. The skin still felt smooth. "Cameron asked for you. I get it. She can't tag you. I still want to. I'm not mad about this. It's an evening out for you. Have fun."
He had cologne in his office. The guards had shaved Greg, pretty well: heavy beard meant Greg tended to look unshaved most of the time. The clothes Cuddy had bagged for Greg looked good on him: Wilson said so.
"Open doors for her, help her with her chair " Wilson was knotting the tie for Greg.
"I've been on a date before," Greg said.
"Not since disco died," Wilson said. "Comment on her shoes, her earrings, and then move on to D.H.A." He grinned at Greg. "Her dreams, hopes and aspirations. Trust me. Panty-peeler."
Greg's eyes widened. His face was otherwise expressionless. Wilson's smile got wider. "And if you need condoms, I've got some." The last free sample a drug rep had left: condoms with built-in antibiotics. He tucked two into the inner pocket of Greg's suit. "You look good. She'll like you. Want a drink before you go out? Settle your nerves."
"Can I get my cane?" Greg asked.
*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*
The restaurant wasn't crowded. Doctor House was already there. The waiter walked Cameron to the table, and left them there with the menus and the wine list.
"You look very handsome," Cameron said.
"Thank you," House said.
Cameron looked around. She'd been here two or three times. "I've always loved this restaurant."
"Yeah," House said. "It's changed a lot since the last time I was here. It used to be a strip joint."
Cameron laughed, though with a twinge of sadness. She didn't know how often House was let out of the hospital, but it wasn't often. If this worked out, even if she wasn't allowed to tag him - she didn't want to tag him - maybe they could do this more often. Just her and House.
"Nice earrings," House said.
"My mom's," Cameron said, surprised. She didn't wear jewellery much at work, but House never commented on anyone's personal appearance except to make a joke. "Thank you."
"Nice shoes," House added. "Comfortable?"
He'd commented on her shoes at her interview. Not like this. This didn't sound like House, but like standard instructions on dating. "I'm not expecting you to be someone you re not," Cameron said. She picked up the wine list. She wanted to order champagne, but would that be overstating?
"We're in a restaurant, we're dressed up, we're eating," House said. He picked up the menu and looked at it, and almost immediately put it down again. "If not small talk, what is there?"
The waiter came back. House stumbled over his orders twice: Cameron already knew what she was having. "And champagne, please." She pointed to the bottle she wanted. The hospital was paying for dinner; she could spring for the good stuff.
"You ever been married?" Cameron asked.
House was silent for a few seconds. "I lived with someone for a while."
"When I was in college, I... I fell in love, and I got married. And..."
"At that age the chances of a marriage lasting - " House started.
"It lasted six months." Cameron had talked about this with therapists, friends, even lovers. She had learned to say it evenly, without tears. "Thyroid cancer metastasized to his brain."
House stared at her. "So that's why..." he said. He didn't finish the sentence. He was staring at her, assessingly, eyes very wide and very blue. He was completely silent.
The waiter came back with champagne. Cameron almost wished she hadn't ordered it. The waiter got the wire hood off, and the cork out, expertly, with hardly a pop. But the small sound seemed unnaturally celebratory.
"But that s not the whole story," House said. "It's a symptom, not your illness. Thyroid cancer would have been diagnosed at least a year before his death, you knew he was dying when you married him."
Cameron swallowed. She hadn't expected this. No one ever said this. Yes, she'd known Ted was dying. It had been part of his dark glamor among their circle of friends, the young man who wouldn't be alive this time next year.
"Must have been when you first met him. And you married him anyway. You loved him because he was dying."
Cameron jerked her head back. House was still looking at her, assessing and almost professional. "Oh, I'm sure he was lovable in other ways. But he could have been cute as a sackful of puppies and you wouldn't have married him if he'd been going to live."
Cameron looked away. She turned the champagne glass in her hands, looking at the bubbles. "According to Freud, and I'm paraphrasing, instinct of love toward an object demands a mastery to obtain it, and if a person feels they can t control the object or feel threatened by it, they act negatively toward it. Like an eighth-grade boy punching a girl."
She looked back at House. He was smirking, faintly.
"I treat you like garbage, so I must really like you. Given your Freudian theory, what does it mean if I start being nice to you?"
Cameron smiled back. "That you re getting in touch with your feelings."
House hummed thoughtfully in the back of his throat. "So there s absolutely nothing I can do to make you think that I don't like you."
"Sorry, no," cameron said. "I have one evening with you, one chance, and I don't want to waste it talking about what wines you like or what movies you hate. I want to know how you feel about me."
House shrugged. He leaned forward, resting his chin on his hands, and said, as meticulously as if delivering a diagnosis, "You live under the delusion that you can fix everything that isn t perfect. That's why you married a man who was dying of cancer. You don't love, you need. And now that your husband is dead, you re looking for your new charity case. That s why you re interested in me. I'm twice your age, I'm not great looking, I'm not charming, I'm not free, I'm not even nice. What I am is what you need. I m damaged."
The waiter returned with the starters. House started to eat. After a moment, as if he'd said nothing out of the way, he commented on the food, and Cameron heard herself responding.
*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*
Robert had got her a set of nurse's scrubs. Nothing else - no staff ID, no badge, and no guarantee that she wouldn't get kicked out. But, as he'd noted, there was nothing illegal about walking into a hospital wearing nurse's scrubs to see a friend. Annette had promised that even if Harvey asked for it repeatedly, she wouldn't choke him while he was a patient.
It worked. She could sit with Harvey for as long as she liked, so long as whenever anyone came in, she was on her feet checking the screens.
The door opened; a doctor came in, walking with a cane. "Hi, I'm Doctor House," he said.
Robert's boss. Annette kept her back turned.
The doctor said "How's tricks, Annette?"
Annette turned. Robert had warned her she'd have to go without fuss if she was recognized: the hospital still had her under an unofficial ban.
"I just wanted to see if he was okay. I'll leave."
"No, it's okay," Doctor House said. He looked them both over. "I came to talk to you both."
He walked over to the bed and looked down at Harvey.
"Like I tell all my patients, you've simply got to say 'no' to strangulation. Me, I m a freak, I get off on not being in pain. That, and chocolate-covered marshmallow bunnies."
"He's not a freak," Annette said, quick to defend. There were few words that pissed her off more.
Doctor House looked her over, and down at Harvey. He shrugged. "Yeah, he is. A little. But it's got to stop. Or he'll die."
It was hard to argue with that. Harvey had liked being choked all his life. Annette had always been careful. But Harvey wouldn't have broken his jaw if he'd always been with careful people.
"It's not about pain," Annette said. "It's about being open, being completely vulnerable to another person."
Doctor House's face was still. His eyes were fixed and cold. For an instant, he looked scary.
"If you can learn to be that deeply trusting... it changes you."
The look dissolved. The doctor smirked. "Well, lock him in a cage. That should be fine, medically." He turned to go.
Harvey's voice was very weak. He could hardly move his jaw. "Doctor House. Were my parents here? Did they come to see me?"
Annette took hold of his hand. She couldn't say it would be all right. Harvey's parents didn't want to know him. And the one thing he'd had that had always made him feel safe, he was told he couldn't have. When she looked up again, Doctor House was gone.
*tbc*