By five o'clock House was back in his office checking his email. There was a message from Krishna Ramakrishna with a link to a JAMA article entitled "Van Gogh Had Meniere's Disease and Not Epilepsy." House grinned appreciatively and responded with three citations rebutting the theory. Fifteen minutes later he got a reply from Krishna with four citations rebutting the rebuttals, and an attachment, which House opened. It was Krish's CV. House scanned it, impressed. Then he deleted it so when Krish formally applied for the fellowship, he would have to send it again.

Cameron came through to pick up her coat and laptop. "I called Dr. Silberstein," she told House. "He said not to bother poisoning your coffee. He said he's already tried that with every toxin known to man, and it only made you stronger. I have an interview with him next week."

"You're going on your own time," House reminded her.

"I wouldn't have it any other way," she smiled. "Have a great weekend."

Wilson dropped by just before six. "Are you okay?" he asked, feigning anxiety. "When they told me you were still here after five on a Friday, I thought I'd better check to make sure you had a pulse."

"Why," complained House, "does anyone take me for anything but the dedicated professional I am? Of course I'm still here. I'm illegally downloading porn MP4s."

"You could do that at home," Wilson pointed out.

"I'd hate to implicate my personal computer in something like that," House demurred. "Oh, look: Blonde at Both Ends!" He pretended to click on something.

Wilson sat down so slowly and carefully that it caught House's attention. "Whoa. Tough week?" He was apprehensive; if Wilson needed real friendship perks like a sympathetic ear, it could seriously interfere with his dinner plans.

Wilson made a dismissing gesture. "A long week," he admitted, and smiled wearily. "Want to grab something to eat?"

"Ah." House looked at the clock on his computer: 5:56. And right on cue, here was Carolyn.

"Angie ate like a football player!" she exclaimed. "Is that normal?"

"Let her eat," said Wilson. "She won't feel like doing that much after tomorrow."

"She won't need to. I left her and Nate sharing a bag of popcorn the size of a toddler," said Carolyn. She turned to House. "Ready to go?"

He glanced at the oncologist, who looked back at him, one eyebrow raised. House had one moment to make a decision, and he decided to go big.

"Wilson wants to go along. Is that okay?"

"Ooo! Riding in cars with boys," said Carolyn. "Hope my dad doesn't find out."

They headed out of the building.

"Let's go to Snowshoes," said Wilson. "I'm in the mood for a cherry Coke."

"Well, put on your poodle skirt, Sandy, and let's go," said House. "I want a beer."

"They have beer at Snowshoes," said Wilson. "They also have a good jukebox."

"Who's going to drive?" asked Carolyn.

"Not you," House told Wilson, who hadn't offered.

"Why not?" Carolyn wanted to know.

"Because he drives like a little old lady," said House. "Five miles an hour below the speed limit, one foot constantly tapping the brake. I let him drive us to New York once, and came back with cumulative whiplash."

"Then you drive," said Carolyn.

"I don't have enough gas."

"I'll drive then."

"What're you driving?"

"Angie's Volvo. It's kind of a mess, but we can probably make room for all three of us."

"Forget it," House decided. "We'll take Wilson's car. I'll drive."

"I'll pick the music," said Carolyn.

"The driver picks the music."

"Not when you're burning someone else's gas."

"Do I get any say in this?" Wilson asked politely.

"No," said House. "But if it makes you feel better to pretend to have input, we'll pretend to listen."

They spent the drive to Snowshoes in a pointless argument about speed limits. House maintained that cops should spend their time catching criminals, not law-abiding citizens with good vision and excellent reflexes who happen to be in a hurry. Carolyn pointed out that since speeding is against the law, citizens who speed are, in fact, criminals. Wilson opined that House should upshift sooner and downshift later and please stop for red lights.

"It wasn't red until we were already under it," House pointed out.

"It was yellow when you approached it! Yellow means get ready to stop!"

"That depends on whether it's a fresh yellow or an old yellow," said House.

"What are you talking about?"

"If it just went from green to yellow, it's fair game," said House, demonstrating. "If it's been yellow for awhile, then you should stop."

"You just went through an old yellow!"

"It was around a curve! How was I supposed to know how old it was?"

"Wasn't there a city in South America that decided to save money by not lighting the yellow signals?" asked Carolyn. "Lights went straight from green to red. The body shops must've loved it."

Snowshoes was intended to evoke a 1950s drive-in, with a statue of a giant rabbit in snowshoes on the roof and lots of chrome and red leather inside.

"I feel like I'm in an outtake for American Grafitti,"said Carolyn, taking in the décor. She peered out the window at the adjoining lot. "Ooo! There's even a putt-putt golf game!"

Both men agreed that there could be no question of playing miniature golf, especially on a course with a dinosaur motif called Juraissic Putt.

They placed their dinner orders, and House rose. "Gotta walk the trouser snake," he said, and headed to the restroom.

Wilson watched Carolyn watch House go, saw her smile slip away and a look of sadness take over her eyes. Then she remembered herself and pasted the smile back on as she turned to him.

"How long have you and Greg been friends?"

"Nine years," said Wilson, with mild disbelief.

"Wow. That's some kind of record for him." Carolyn drew a little circle in the water beads condensing on the side of her glass. "Greg isn't usually one for longterm relationships. I was surprised to hear he managed to live with a woman for five years. I guess the whole thing with the leg blew that out of the water."

"It was pretty iffy even before the leg," Wilson confided.

"Was it? I'm not surprised. Greg—please don't tell him I told you this, he hates amateur psychoanalysis, especially when it's about him. But Greg had one of the most dismal childhoods of anyone I've ever known. He'd tell me stories from when he was a kid, and he thought they were funny, but it was all I could do not to cry."

Wilson was startled. "I know his dad was a Marine, and they moved a lot."

"They moved every couple of years. Greg was always walking into a strange school, alone. He didn't even have a brother or sister to help him learn how to get along with other kids, or to take some of his parents' attention off him once in awhile. It was just him and Mom and a dad who was determined to make a Military Man out of a boy who was born with 'Question Authority' tattooed on his butt. Sometimes they were stationed in places where there wasn't even a school for him to go to. No one his age to play with, no one to interrupt his obsessions and say 'let's go ride bikes,' schools full of teachers who didn't know what to do with a kid who was teaching himself calculus in seventh grade. He never really learned how to form attachments, never figured out how to get along with someone over the long haul, never learned how to tell when someone liked him. His default position is offense so he never has to play defense."

"You've given this a lot of thought," Wilson said.

"Yeah, I have," Carolyn admitted. "You've been friends with him for nine years, you know how it is. Our break-up was horrible, a complete car wreck. But a year later, even twenty years later, I'd find myself thinking about Greg, wondering what he'd say about this or that. He can be pure awful, so bad you want to murder him with your bare hands, but then he makes you laugh, and it's not ingratiating—he's so sharp, and funny. It's fun just watching him mull something over. He's not like anyone else." She looked across the room; House was on his way back. "Thank god, right?" She winked conspiratorially.

"This place really does the Fifties theme to death," said House, dropping into his seat. "The urinal cakes are shaped like little 45 records."

"Liar," said Carolyn.

"Go look."

Carolyn shot him a daring look and left the table. House leaned across it and asked Wilson, "What'd she say about me?"

"She said you cry after sex. She found it endearing, but a little bit gay."

Carolyn came back, triumphant. "They're just ordinary urinal cakes! But there's a guy in there with a two-headed dick."

"Now you're lying," House accused. Carolyn held out her hand in a wagering gesture. "Wilson, your turn," said House, nodding toward the restrooms.

"It's such a good story," said Wilson. "Why spoil it with research?"

After dinner, and midway through the third round of beers, both men agreed that it would be a shame to come all this way without playing miniature golf. Fifteen minutes later they were teeing up at the first hole, an easy one located between the front feet of a triceratops that didn't even move its tail.

By the seventh hole House had pulled far ahead, and Carolyn and Wilson were in a dead heat for last place. House hit his ball into the brontosaurus's mouth with just enough force to send it rolling out of its tail onto the next green in one stroke. Wilson and Carolyn each took three.

As they studied the eighth hole, Carolyn said—ostensibly to House, but loud enough for Wilson to hear—"Two guys have been wilderness camping for a week, and as they start hiking home they're getting on each other's nerves. So the one says to the other, 'Look, there are two routes to our next campsite. Why don't we split up; you take one route, I take the other, and we'll meet at dinnertime.'"

House narrowly got his ball past the raptors and headed for the ninth hole, whistling. Wilson managed to squeak through in two. Carolyn followed suit.

"So they did," Carolyn continued, when they were all together on the ninth hole. "That night, they get together at the campsite, and the one guy says to the other, 'You won't believe what happened to me. I was walking along a railroad bed, and I found a naked woman tied to the tracks'."

House knocked a clean shot right past the T. Rex's mouth and tail. Wilson squatted to study the angles.

"'So I untied her, and had sex with her all afternoon in every possible position.'"

Wilson addressed the ball; paused; and squatted again.

"'Wow,' said the other guy. 'So, did you get a blow job?'"

Wilson rose and drew back his putter.

"'Nah,' said the other guy. 'I couldn't find her head'."

The ball hooked wildly, flying over the fence and landing in the midst of a wholesome family group on the fourth hole. Wilson sat down abruptly, helpless with laughter. House added his raunchy cackle. Carolyn stepped neatly over Wilson and, without so much as a flicker of a smile, putted out in one.

-0-

Wilson was still alternately giggling and hiccuping in the back seat as they pulled out of the Snowshoes parking lot.

"Are you trying to lay an egg back there?" House demanded.

"That is the worst joke I've ever heard," Wilson gasped, wiping his eyes.

"It's pretty bad, isn't it?" Carolyn said proudly. "But that's the worst one I know, so you're safe now."

"Don't believe it," House warned him. "She's a little competitive, and she's a genius at blowing your concentration."

"Why are you turning here?" asked Carolyn.

"Because it's quicker," said House.

"No, it's not," she said. "Broadway's quicker."

"Broadway has three signaled intersections," House pointed out. "This way has none."

"You only think it's quicker because you feel better when you get to keep moving," said Carolyn sagaciously. "But Broadway is much shorter, and if you hit the lights right, you can shave five minutes off the trip."

House challenged her to a test drive at some future date.

"No," said Carolyn, "because you'll cheat."

"How can I cheat?"

"I don't know," she said darkly, "but you'll figure something out."

House pulled into the visitors parking lot and drove up and down the rows while Carolyn tried to remember where she had parked.

"Don't you have a panic button on your keychain?" he asked.

"I disabled it," she said.

"For god's sake, why?"

"Because I kept pressing it by accident and scaring myself silly when the horn went off. Oh, look, there it is." She got out and blew them kisses. "Night, boys. Go right home!"

Wilson got into the front passenger seat while they waited to make sure Carolyn's car started. It did, and she beeped, waved, and drove off.

"Sorry I horned in on your date," said Wilson.

"It wasn't a date."

"I sat in the back and listened to the two of you flirt all the way to Snowshoes and all the way back," said Wilson. "It certainly sounded like a date."

House reddened. "Let me ask you something," he said. "Do you ever see a man and a woman together and not think there's something going on?"

"Yes," said Wilson, "but in this case there is."

"She's an old friend!"

"It's not just her," said Wilson. "You're in love with the whole package. You're adopting a family."

House snorted. He pulled into a spot next to his car and got out.

Wilson slid into the driver's seat and rolled down his window. "What are your plans for the weekend?" he asked, insinuatingly.

"I plan to take the bike out and burn up some precious, geopolitically incorrect natural resources," said House. "And then I plan to do laundry."

Wilson grinned. "Have a good one," he said, and he drove away.