Here we are... the remains of the date. Thank you once more for your comments and criticisms (More criticism would be good!)

Chapter 3

They stayed through the second set, two more drinks, and snatches of stilted conversation that was trying for normal. He'd graduated from Michigan, practically next door to her home state, but she already knew that, and she'd spent two summers as a camp counselor in Maine, but he'd already known that. The only truly new information was the fact that they were willing to actually share those things instead of having them be random second-hand discoveries.

It was almost eleven when House pushed the heavy wooden door open and ushered Cameron out into the autumn night. The chill air sobered him up quickly, not that he was particularly drunk to begin with. Years of practice turned nursing four drinks over the course of an evening into amateurs' night. Cameron, he imagined, was not so well-practiced and he expected her to show the effects of the night. She did give a slight shuffling stumble when the coldness hit her face like ice water. She even felt like giggling for a second as the tingling feeling of being alive thrummed like crackling energy across her skin. House watched her, waiting for that giggle, for that bigger fall that would leave her limp with her arms around his neck, forcing him to support her the way he lied to himself about dreading. The bubbling laugh never materialized, instead stopping at a quirky half-lifted smile, and she held herself straighter after she'd taken a full breath of non-smoke-filled air. She beat him to the motorcycle without even challenging him to a race. Later he would say he let her win just so he could watch her hips sway.

She stood a step away again, letting him get on, but this time he didn't need to motion her to join him. She swung on behind him and hooked her thumbs into his belt-loops, fingertips tracing the line of his belt.

He grabbed her hand and nearly pulled her thumb out of joint as he jerked it away from his waistband.

"Hold on right," he said gruffly, pulling it around his midsection. "You've been drinking and if you fall off, I'm not stopping to scrape your entrails off the road."

Her momentary thrill of House's actions was quashed by his ever-present sarcasm, but she reached around with her other hand and fanned it out over his stomach. "Oh, and you haven't had a drop," she said in reply.

"Years of practice," voice low and tinged with something he would never label as regret but which had no other name. He hit the gas, kicked the bike into gear and they sped out of the parking lot throwing up gravel and dust in their wake.

The drive back to her apartment took them towards the outskirts of Princeton, but House drove them even farther, winding through a side street and out onto a stretch of two-lane highway that was the opposite of a short-cut. Cameron wasn't sure if she should read anything into it other than that he felt like riding. She felt like riding too, so she wasn't about to stop him. She stopped short of resting her chin on his shoulder, but held on tighter as he topped eighty. Her hands had slipped under his leather jacket and rested against his soft shirt, feeling his blood and breath in her palms. He pressed his right hand over hers on the straight-a-ways and she knew it wasn't to make sure she wouldn't fall off. When he finally pulled up at her apartment building it was after midnight.

Cameron slid off the bike, grateful that her legs were still willing to support her after being tucked up and pressed against House's thighs. A shiver ran through her body as it adjusted to the absence of House's back pressed against it. She wasn't sure what his plan was, but she was a little relieved and a little surprised when he didn't just give her a hasty nod and speed off into the dark the second she had both feet on the ground.

Pulling his cane free, he dismounted and tugged off his helmet. Their eyes met when she handed him the custom graphite helmet she'd been wearing, and then he watched as she ran her fingers over the still warm gas tank and leather seats.

"Great bike," she said and she wasn't fawning or being disingenuous. "A definite chick magnet." That was said with a raised brow and coy smile. House didn't think he'd seen that smile before.

"Spur of the moment purchase," he admitted.

"What happened to the one you had in college?"

"Sold it a few years ago." Ten to be exact.

Cameron didn't need him to say the words in order to hear them. Inside she was smiling rather smugly.

"She wasn't the biker chick type," House verified what Cameron had already been thinking.

Her delicate eyebrows rose slightly but she made no other motion. "Oh. I guess the strip club meeting was just a rumor then."

House's eyebrows shot upward at that, and he looked toward her for an explanation.

"Cuddy's new secretary," she said with a shrug. "He gossips and he's got ears like a bat."

House huffed out a breath of air. "It was Wilson's first bachelor party. Stacy was one of the wife's friends and they showed up to add to the fun."

Cameron could easily imagine Stacy Warner… well, her name hadn't been Warner back then… she could imagine her cutting a path through a crowd of horny men and tossing back drinks while carelessly daring anyone to come near her. She could also imagine House jumping at the challenge.

"Is this why you agreed to go out? To dig up information about Stacy? I could be wrong, but I don't think she swings that way."

Rolling her eyes, Cameron looked away, over the tops of the buildings. "No, it's not. Forget I asked." She wasn't sure why she had. Or maybe she was. Morbid curiosity. Desire to know what about the other woman had captured House's affections. Longing to know if she could ever measure up.

"You want coffee?" She spoke in order to silence her inner voice, without thinking about what she was saying. Hopefully he couldn't see her cringing on the inside.

He shocked the hell out of her with his answer. "Sure. Why not?"

It only took a moment to recognize and react to what he'd said. With her chin up and her windswept hair swinging loose down her back, she looked wild and more self-assured than she felt, but that was all right because she looked into his slightly wavering eyes and still felt twice as confident as she had a week ago.

" Come on, then. It's freezing out here," she said, and led the way inside.

He followed her into the apartment building and then into the elevator. That was when he was supposed to start making pithy comments, or messing with her mind, or something else suitably antagonistic enough to be worthy of coming from his mouth. No words came. Instead he tapped his cane against the floor and restrained himself from pressing all of the buttons… all of her buttons… either, or.

Cameron unlocked her door and ushered him in, and House was once more surprised at the way she was opening her space up to him now after guarding it so determinedly during those first two visits so long ago. She didn't even give him any strict instructions not to touch anything.

"You can take your jacket off and sit… or not…" she trailed off as House walked over to her bookcase and started running a finger along the spines. "I'll go start the coffee."

House made an almost dismissive wave in her direction and kept his eyes on the books. She wanted to be offended, but she wasn't. She could see that he just wasn't ready to look at her yet. Not with them on almost equal footing here. After kicking off her shoes, she padded into the kitchen, wondering what normal would be like for them.

Patricia Cornwell, Tom Clancy, Michael Crichton, Anne Tyler, Tennyson, Colette, Shakespeare. The paperbacks alone were an eclectic selection, and he hadn't even moved onto the lower shelves where the hardback and oversized books were shelved. Leave it to Cameron to have everything organized. His own books were lucky to be on shelves at all, and he seemed to remember that he had a Stieglitz photography book next to Best Erotica of 2004. He glanced down and saw the same book on Cameron's sidetable… the Stieglitz, not the erotica. No doubt any books like that were relegated to her bedroom, probably tucked into a drawer in her nightstand.

Hearing the sounds of a coffee grinder… of course she ground her own beans… House made a couple of steps towards the narrow hallway that had to lead back to her bedroom. It would be interesting to test his theory. He turned back around and headed towards the sofa, blaming his aching thigh as the reason for his aborted nosiness. Certainly he couldn't actually be respecting her privacy.

Water and sliding drawers and rattling china. He expected Cameron to come back into the living room while the coffee brewed, but she didn't. Maybe she needed a breather from him. When she returned she had two mugs, and House was drumming the fingers of his left hand on his knee while his right hand pressed the treble-clef part of a Chopin waltz into his cane. She handed him his coffee and he took a sip, burning his tongue in the process.

"Aww, just the way I like it. You make such a good little wife," he said, needing to break the tension.

"So I've been told," she said flatly, and House realized how unfunny his joke was. He took another sip, not caring about his tongue, but wondering what it was about her and this night, that was causing him to lose his edge.

The sofa dipped slightly as Cameron sat down, demurely crossing her ankles and holding her mug with both hands as if drinking in the warmth as much as the caffeine.

"I liked that bar," Cameron said, settling on something non-confrontational to discuss. "The singer was good."

"She's good window-dressing. He's the talent."

So much for being agreeable. Window-dressing. Art in the lobby. Was that how he had to define every woman? She didn't believe that. If she did, then she wouldn't be sitting with him in her apartment drinking the gourmet flavored coffee that she saved for when she was feeling depressed. She saw past that sometimes chauvinistic façade. At least she thought she did. She drank deeply and let the unsweetened liquid burn down the back of her throat and warm her from the inside.

House twitched, his eyes flickering to her face before returning to his coffee. "Okay, this is awkward."

"For you."

"Not for you?" he challenged.

"More awkward than our non-date, but less awkward than our real date. Maybe awkward works for me," Cameron quipped.

"But weird doesn't."

"No," she replied with finality. "Look. Did you expect me to make this easy for you? To just forget everything that's happened over the past month and go back to the way I felt before?"

Dead silence.

He heaved himself to his feet. "Fine. I'll see you Monday. We can be all awkward together."

"Wait! What are you doing? That's it? You just walk out?"

"You may have missed it, but I'm not the begging type."

"I'm not asking you to beg."

"Right. You're just asking me to sit here and… And what? Make pleasant conversation? Discuss the weather?"

"Maybe. Maybe just a normal conversation would be nice. Something without barbed hooks punctuating every sentence."

"What, no insightful and deeply personal questions from you?" he countered, weight shifted to his good side, cane waggling in her direction.

"Nope. I'm done with those. Feel free to ask me some though," she answered, as much a dare as anything else.

Clear blue focused and burned. Cameron forced herself not to squirm.

"You could be sorry you offered," House growled.

"Probably, but I'm sick of being blindsided. At least this way I'm prepared."

She had a point and he tilted his head in tip-of-the-hat to her. Score one for her.

"What if I don't want to ask any questions. What if I just want to rip your clothes off and fuck your brains out." There. That should get a reaction.

Her eyebrows rose, accepting the challenge.

"Then I'd tell you I don't put out on the second date."

Was that a flicker of an upward curl behind his perpetual scowl?

"And what do you do on the second date?"

Cameron stood and put her coffee on the end-table. "Leave 'em wanting more."

House stared at her for a long time. It felt like a long time. It was at least thirty seconds. An eternity.

"What the hell are we doing here?" he finally mumbled, not defeated, but lost.

Her feet made no sound as she stepped closer to him. He felt her heat just inches away as he stared at the floor.

"Not sure about that myself," she replied, "but I liked the bar. I liked the bike. I don't want to fix you, and I'm less alone with you too."

He was slow to look up, and she wouldn't have been surprised if he'd just turned and walked out, just like that time in the lab, with her fists on her hips and him not wanting to answer any questions.

"Kissing."

"What?"

"Kissing on the second date."

She wanted to grin, but she didn't. It didn't feel right somehow. Theirs was not a grinning relationship.

"Yes. At the door."

"Fine. Then I'm ready to say goodnight."

He walked to the door, pulled it open and stepped through, then pivoted and waited for her to take up her spot on the threshold. After shaking her head slightly, she did.

She crossed her arms in front of her chest, but it was really too late for self-protection.

"So there will be a third date?" she asked, chin jutting forward.

His only answer was a curt nod. She looked at him appraisingly, before closing the gap between them. That was as much as she'd do. She refused to make the first move.

He didn't leave her waiting long. He was in the middle of bending forward and thoughts of awkwardness, and did-first-kisses-always-feel-like-this? and damn-how-can-her-lips-be-this-soft? sped through his mind. Then there wasn't much thinking involved anymore, and he was surprised to break away and realize that his rough hand was cupping her shoulder blade, and both her hands were on his hips as she stood on her toes to reach his mouth.

"I'll see you Monday," he repeated his earlier words, but they lacked the bitterness that had infused them before.

"Monday," she echoed, and she stayed in her spot as he walked away. As she closed her door she wondered if she should have tossed caution to the wind and considered this their third date. After all, monster trucks stood for something, didn't they? But the thought was fleeting, and she gathered the coffee mugs and walked to the kitchen with what could only be called a smug smile on her face. It had felt exceptionally good to kiss Greg House.