"Greg House, I solemily swear not to tell a soul about what happened last evening, on November the 2nd of 2006." Wilson has his hand pressed to his breast and his eyes glued forward, but a smile still leaks over his face.
"Don't look so god damn smug." House is pissed, Wilson can tell, but that is nothing unusual. Ruby had high-tailed it out of his house after they started snogging, and House has pinned Wilson and forced him to promise to not tell anyone about it.
"So… are you guys, like, an item?" Wilson ventures, and House snorts.
"No."
Wilson nods. "Okay."
-------------
When she comes next Tuesday to clean his house, she doesn't even look at him, much less speak to him.
"Okay, Rube, let's get a couple things straight. Firstly, I don't want to, you know, screw you or anything. Secondly, it wouldn't be that horrible just to forget this ever happened and move on." House says, and Ruby looks at him out of the corner of her eye as she Hoovers his rug.
"Greg, I don't love you. You're a great friend, but that's it." She responses softly, and House nods.
"Good. Okay. We have come to an agreement, at least in that area."
She smiles briefly and pushes the Hoover into House's bedroom, heading immidietly for the closet.
She pulls down a dusty box she had seen him rummaging through earlier that week, the one next to HER THINGS, and pulls it open carefully. A cloud of dust makes her eyes wet and cough a few times, but she unloads it anyway.
Within it are degrees, awards, pictures of college days and other parafenalia that gave her a feel for what his past was like.
He was kicked out of a college he got a scholarship to because he was accused of cheating on a test.
He had a girlfriend named Lilly.
He played Lacrosse.
At the bottom of the box, she finds a flimsy loose photo of him, after the infarction, probably present day, and yanks it loose from under a thick medical college book.
He is wearing the same GRAVEDIGGER! hat she'd seen him wear the day he met her, with a stick of pink cotton candy in hand. He's smiling that rare, sweet smile she's only seen once or twice, with a Rolling Stones t-shirt and holding a woman's jacket.
The picture stuck to the back of this one features the young girl at the hospital, Allison something, with her own Gravedigger hat and two sticks of cotton candy. She is blowing a kiss at the camera and Ruby can see House's cane sticking out on the edge of the photo, and can't help laughing.
Maybe these two did have a relationship.
Ruby stands up and packs the box away again, loading it back onto it's shelf and marching into the living room.
"Greg?"
"Yeah?"
"Have you ever kissed Allison?"
"No."
"Do you want to?"
House looks over at her from where he's standing in his kitchen.
"What makes you ask?"
"Just answer the question, Greg." She is daring him, her startling maroon eyes glowing fiercely.
"No." He challenges, and smiles at her huffy sigh.
"Then I quit."
"What?" This catches him off guard.
"I said, I quit! If you don't answer the question with a straight yes or no, then I quit!" She plants her hands on her hips and House is silent for a moment, then relents.
"Ok. Whatever. Yeah, I've though about once or twice. You know, a guy gets lonely." He looks at her intensly, then back at his bag of Potato Chips. "But you know that I don't love her anymore."
Ruby furrows her brow. "Since when?"
"Since I met you." She gulps, and he keeps munching away. "But we're friends, and that's cool. And that also means Cameron back in the running."
"The running? She has competition?"
"Well, it's her, Cuddy, or, God forbid, Wilson." House jokes, and Ruby gasps.
"Paws off, mister! Wilson is mine!" Ruby declares, and House laughs.
"He'd love to hear that."
"Greg?"
"Cha?"
"Let's say you married Allison." House looks up as she says this.
"Oookay."
"And Stacy came back into your life, single and wanting you."
"Right."
"Would you leave Allison for her, or stay with Allison and tell Stacy to hit the road?"
"Well." House thought about it for a moment. "I'd probably sleep with Stacy a couple of times, not telling Cameron, see if I liked it better than Cameron, and if I did, dump Cam. If not, I'd tell Stacy to get lost and go back with Cam." He decided, and Ruby nodded.
"That's kind of cruel, but it works."
"Yup. What if you married me, then Adam comes back into town, single and wanting you?" House tests, and Ruby raises her brows above the Maxuim magazine she was studying with disgust.
"I'd dump you like a wet rock." Ruby replies easily, and House laughs.
"Oh, that hurts, Rube." He pats his hand over his heart. "Right here, babe." She snorts and gives him the bird.
--------
Wilson and House are sitting in the Clinic waiting room, and, for lack of better term, gossiping.
"So… what's with you and Ruby? Are you good?" Wilson implores, and House nods.
"Well, you know. When we made out, she was still hung up over Adam, and I was shit-faced. Now we're back to where we were."
"Which is were?"
"I'm her friend, she's my maid." He smirks and dry-swallows a Vicoden.
"There's a healthy relationship."
"Sure thing."
Wilson looks around the room. "I heard Cameron's still got a thing for you."
"I know."
"Do you return the sentiment?"
"Maybe."
Wilson smiles and walks away.
---------------
Ruby is cleaning House's couch with a spray bottle, damp sponge, paper towels and a hand-held vacuum. It's 10:00 pm.
"Greg?" Ruby looks around but he is nowhere to be found. "Dr. House?" She wonders into the bedroom.
Nope.
The office.
Nope.
The bathroom.
Nope.
She opens the front door and peeks outside, surprised to find House, his shirt off, in shorts, looking up toward the sky and swaying.
"Greg?" She calls, and he opens one eyes, rolling it over to look at her.
"Look, Rube," He lifts his arm slowly and points it toward the black sky, and Ruby looks up as well, studying the star-freckled abyss.
"It's amazing, huh? To think of everything that could be going on up there, or nothing at all." She whispers, and House nods.
"To think that out there, somewhere somebody's probably looking in the very same place, at the very same burning sun. Wherever you are, at any one place in the world, everyone else has got the same stars as you do. When I get lonely, I sometimes look up there and if feels good to know someone's bound to be looking up there too." House confesses, and Ruby smiles, then grabs him hand.
"Greg?" She points toward the sky, "Why don't we pick some stars? Claim them as ours?" Ruby suggests, and House laughs.
"I doubt the stars would appreciate that."
"They won't know."
"Okay," House sighs, and then glances at her, "Which ones do you want?"
"How about… O' Ryan's Belt?"
"Sounds good to me."
TBC.
