Chapter 18: False alarm
Kate parks her car and goes to the conference room connected to House's office. She is surprised to see the conference room is dark. She looks over to the office and sees the desk lamp on. House is sitting behind the desk with his feet propped up on it. Kate takes a deep breath and walks into the office.
House glances at his watch and says "Wow, you must have been downtown. There is no way you made that good of time from Cuddy's place."
"Let me guess, there is nothing wrong with my patient?"
"Well, besides the fact that she's mysteriously ill?"
Kate's eyes narrow. "Mrs. Hill didn't get worse suddenly, did she?"
"Who's Mrs. Hill?" House picks up the patient file from the desk. "Oh right, your patient. She's still stable."
Kate frowns. She takes her coat off and hangs it on the coat hook along with her purse. She sits on the desk in front of House and crosses her legs. "Ok, Greg. I give up. What is it?"
Greg is thrown. He expected yelling, screaming, and throwing of objects; not a calm response from Kate. "Did you test her for cancer?"
"Don't be stupid. Of course we did."
"Heavy metal poisoning?"
"She was negative."
"Drug use?"
"Occasional pot smoker, but she hasn't smoked in at least six weeks because she's looking for a new job and wants to pass any drug tests." Kate crosses her legs and makes herself comfortable on the desk.
"Lupus?"
"No. ANA negative, sed rate normal."
"Multiple sclerosis?"
"The MRI and LP were negative."
"Why are you leading Wilson on?"
"What? I'm not leading Wilson on!"
"Sure you are. All he does is talk about you. How much fun you are, how much you know about rheumatology, what a great job you are doing with my department. Admit it: you're trying to bed our little Jimmy."
Kate laughs at him. "I could never sleep with Jimmy. That would be like sleeping with my brother or something. Ew."
"You know he likes you."
"Good for him. I like him too. As a friend."
"He's absolutely cow-eyed over you."
"Greg, you're out of your mind. Jimmy thinks I'm too bossy and mean for his liking."
Greg nods thoughtfully. "Well, at least he still has some sense in his head. Frankly, I think he's a bit too OCD for you."
Kate can't help herself, she laughs. House frowns at her and says "What are you laughing at?"
Kate says "That's exactly what I told him when he and I discussed it this afternoon. He told me you were giving him a hard time and saying he wanted in my pants. We agreed that we don't have feelings for each other and furthermore, it would never work between us."
"And here I was worried Jimmy was about to get himself into another messy relationship. My work here is done." House doesn't move from the chair.
Kate waits for him to get up to leave, but sees he isn't about to move. "That wasn't why you interrupted my dinner."
Greg nods in agreement. "A fair statement."
"Seriously, what do you want? I can't read your mind. In fact, I don't want to read your mind; I doubt I could afford the therapy I'd need afterwards."
"Why did you come here?"
Kate rolls her eyes. "Because you paged me, you jerk."
"No. Why'd you come to Princeton?"
Kate nods slowly as if she had been waiting for this question. "I was bored."
Greg shakes his head. "No, that's my line."
"You stole it from me."
"I see it more as I've bought it from you considering all the alimony I pay you."
Kate shakes her head. "Whatever."
Greg stares at her thoughtfully. She meets his stare without flinching. He says "Why would a talented, successful, in-demand doctor drop everything and come from the other side of the country when her ex-husband, the man she blames for nearly destroying her life, asks for her on his deathbed?"
Kate mockingly scratches her head and finally says "I know! I wanted to see you suffer!"
Greg shakes his head. "If that was the case, you would have turned up after the infarction."
"Nah, you still had your girlfriend around then. You were too busy making her miserable to completely focus on your suffering. Lisa and Jimmy told me about after the infarction. You made it your life goal to torture her and make her miserable. It helped take your mind off what she had done to you."
Greg's blue eyes become stormy. "Interesting theory there, Doc. Where could I've learned such destructive behavior?" He points at her and mockingly says "Oh yeah, I learned it from my lovely ex-wife. Granted, I was a lot more vocal in making her miserable. I never was good at giving the silent treatment like you were."
Kate feels her temper begin to rise. "You were never home for me to give you the silent treatment. You hid like a coward at the hospital and threw yourself into your work."
"And that right there proves how miserable I was! I hate patients! You should know—"
Kate puts her hand up to stop his tirade. His mouth snaps shut. She quietly says "This has gone completely off topic. You are trying to tell me you had me paged while you knew I was in the middle of dinner to ask me why I came to Princeton?"
He shrugs. "Sure. Well, and to piss you off."
Kate stands up and stretches. "Ok, you score a point for pissing me off. Frankly, I'm at as much a loss on why I came here as you are. It makes no sense for me to be here. But yet I am. I'm sure there could be a million reasons why I'm here. Maybe it was out of curiosity. I hadn't spoken to you in years and all of the sudden you are asking for me on what could have easily been your death bed? Either you were hallucinating thinking you were a cast member of General Hospital, or you had some ulterior motive."
"What are the other reasons?"
"I was hoping to see you die?"
Greg smirks. "Were you going to apologize to me on my death bed for being such a pain in my ass and drain on my bank account?"
Kate scoffs. "Hardly. I was going to throw a victory party once you kicked the bucket."
Greg stands up and looks down at her. He says "I think you still want me."
Kate says "I think you want me. You're the one who asked for me."
Greg slightly leans in closer to her. She ever so slightly flinches, but doesn't back away. His eyes search her face for something. She whispers "Don't do it."
Greg straightens. He sadly smiles at her and says "Cameron would say you are just as damaged as I am."
Kate stiffly says "I'm not damaged."
Greg smirks and grabs his jacket. "Neither am I. Cameron seems to think I am. She wants to rescue me and nurse me back to health. She wants to fix me. The things that so intrigue her and appeal to her about me are the same things that make you tick. You are just better at acting like a 'normal' human being." He pulls on his jacket and then hands Kate her jacket.
Kate takes the jacket and pulls it on. "Well, it's easy to see why she thinks you're damaged. You're an insensitive, misogynistic bastard who's lazy and has no concept of tact."
He laughs. "Thanks for the compliment. You're exactly the same, except you aren't lazy and you have a decent grasp on tact. Do you think I'm damaged?"
"No, I think you are a jerk. Big difference. But you seem to think I'm damaged."
"No, I said Cameron would think you are damaged. Me? I think you're just hell on high heels."
Kate laughs. "Coming from you, that is a compliment." She grabs her purse. "Since my patient is stable, I'm going home now."
"Can I have a ride home? Wilson hid the keys to my bike and I didn't feel like driving the car."
"That's your problem, not mine."
"You're going to make a cripple hail a taxi cab at this hour? Nice."
Kate sighs heavily. "Fine. I will drive you home. There will be no complaints about ANY of the following: my driving, my rental car, my music, my clothing, or my attitude. Got it?"
"Can I complain about the weather? How about clinic hours?"
Kate rolls her eyes and mutters "Come on." She ushers House out of the office and turns off the lights.
