Title: Red Sky at Morning
Rating: PG-13, TV-14, T; future chapter may be M
Spoilers: "Failure to Communicate"
Summary: Picks up where "Failure to Communicate" leaves off and takes a very big AU turn. If you're familiar with my fic, it'll be about what most of my fic is like. Rating subject to change as there will be sexual content.
Disclaimer: Not mine.

AN: This will be a short fic. Four chapters at most. The latter chapters will probably contain sexual content. I'm not sure how explicit it will get yet, but this fic may be rated M very shortly. The objective is to examine House and Stacy's relationship as it is coming out of "Failure to Communicate." This is an AU fic, meaning I seriously doubt that what I'm going to write will be what happens between the two of them, but I got this idea and it won't stop bugging me, so I have to write it out. Wilson will drop out after the second chapter in all likelihood. No ducklings, no Cuddy. I don't expect that many people will like this fic. As someone who watches the show closely, I don't think this would ever happen on the show, hence the AU stamp. Nonetheless, I'm attempting to stay as close to character as I can. Also, I don't know anything about airline rules in the US right now, so whether they'd let Stacy take House's bag with her on the flight, I don't know, but it's important for plot purposes. I also don't know how House would've gotten back to Jersey either; what I've got here is, again, for plot purposes.

Chapter 1: Red Sky at Morning

House sat in Terminal B outside the United gate, bouncing the pink rubber ball he'd acquired yesterday against the wall. The female member of an elderly couple sitting next to him gave him the evil eye for the fifth time in the last two minutes and he could tell the mother with the screaming baby sitting behind him was about to snap. He caught the ball and held it for a moment, just long enough for the woman next to him to hope he wouldn't throw it against the wall again. Ten seconds after she'd returned to her Sky Mall catalogue, he tossed the ball again, grinning slightly to himself. Out of the corner of his eye he saw her hand clench and wrinkle the magazine. Well, he mused, it was the aphasic malaria patient's fault for making him miss his flight—either that or the snow last night. His Nintendo DS was on that flight. How could he have predicted this turn of events? And if Wilson didn't show by the time he'd thrown the ball forty-seven more times, a certain oncologist was going to receive an angry phone call.

It was also Stacy's fault for not talking the airline out of throwing him off the flight. And it was completely wrong of her to claim his bag, leaving him with no Nintendo. He threw the ball with extra muscle. She would take his bag. Greg, I know it's hard for you to carry and walk, I'll take it and drop it off for you tomorrow at work. And how he'd read in her eyes, seductively, unless you need it sooner…

He threw the ball mercilessly, scorching the wall pink.

God. Kissing her last night. He hadn't kissed anyone and meant it since before the infarction. And she knew it. God. She knew it.

And if the kids hadn't called…if Cameron hadn't said just before he hung up…

Jesus. He didn't want to think about this. Where was Wilson?

He threw the ball again. Twelve. Dinner reservations. So self-defeating. Had he done it just to get her goat? Just to see how she would react?

He didn't mean it. He didn't want it. He hadn't actually believed she'd go to dinner with him. He wouldn't survive another round with her. But oh how he needed it. And he knew she was only doing this because she and Mark weren't sleeping together and she needed sex—he knew how she needed sex…he knew how he needed sex—but last night and this morning when she'd left, he'd really believed that she was sincere. No one who kissed like that was insincere. Not in the heat of the moment, anyway. But it was so easy to believe that she did want him back. That she did need him. She hadn't kissed him like that, with that much raw, aching, bleeding need since…since he couldn't recall when. And he needed her. But this would kill him. It couldn't happen. He was glad that it hadn't happened, but God, how he wished it had.

"I can't believe I did this."

House caught the ball and grinned. "You should know by now just how irresistible you find me, Jimmy."

Wilson sighed one of those 'I can't believe he's done it again and I can't believe I'm helping him' sighs and said, "Come on. It's supposed to snow again this afternoon and I don't want to get stuck in it."

House heaved himself out of the chair. "You mean you don't want to spend a dark and stormy night trapped in a car with me? I'm wounded."

Wilson merely rolled his eyes and led House out of the terminal.