A/N: I finished this chapter earlier than expected.

Brad - the doctor who House got into an altercation with over the past weekend - comes back, and boy, is he ruthless. If you hate Brad before, you are CERTAINLY going to hate him even more in this chapter.

It's still Monday - trial is on Thursday. House and Cuddy still aren't speaking.

Enjoy! And thank you once again to all my readers! You guys are what keep me going every chapter!

Chapter 74:

The same day on Monday, John Greene was in his office. Seated across from him was Allison Cameron.

Cameron was indeed extremely curious why the lawyer asked her to his office for a "chat," and she didn't have to wait much longer to find out what he wanted.

"I don't know if you are aware, but Lisa Cuddy has a court date on Thursday," the lawyer began, once he had the young doctor's full attention.

"I knew that, yes. I was there when House was served the subpoena. Although, I didn't know when it was."

"Yes. This Thursday…I, uh, had a few questions regarding Robert Chase that I thought you could help me out with."

"I am assuming that you are Lisa's lawyer?" Cameron asked him.

"That's why I'm asking you these questions," John told her, smiling.

"What's going on with her and House?"

John was silent for a few seconds before answering her. "You really shouldn't be asking me. You know that."

"Well, whatever it is, I think it's affecting their jobs."

"If you think that, then I'm certainly not the person you should be talking to -"

"But you do know what's going on," Cameron interrupted.

"Yes, but frankly, it doesn't concern me. And I'm not surprised that you think it is affecting their jobs…they'll get past this…"

He cleared his throat and continued. "But, let's get back to why I asked you here today…you and Dr. Foreman have worked aside Dr. Chase for a couple years now, correct?"

"Yes…," Cameron replied hesitantly, unsure of what the lawyer was getting at.

"What can you tell me about how he operated?"

"What do you want to know?"

John merely shrugged. "Anything you are willing to share with me…"

"You mean, anything that will help Lisa's case?"

"Well, yes."

"He's a good man. A great doctor."

"Why don't you at least start with being honest with me here?"

Cameron looked at him, quizzically. "What do you-"

"Oh come on," John interrupted. "He worked under House. There's no way he's all saintly."

"You're determined to find skeletons," Cameron told him quietly, after a two second hesitation.

"No, actually, I'm not," John replied. "I'm just determined to find something that I can work with."

"Robert is a… very smart, brilliant doctor, but he's too…too straight-laced. He does - If he does something wrong, it nags at him like a bad toothache."

"A bad toothache, eh?"

"Well, maybe it was a bad analogy, but I'm sure you get the idea," Cameron replied.

"He's – he's not as bad of a person you are making him out to be," she continued.

"I noticed that you called him 'Robert'. Just an observation…"

He noticed Cameron's brief hesitation and continued before she had a chance to say anything.

"Is there something I'm missing here, Dr. Cameron?" John waited patiently as she still stayed silent.

"I care about him," she whispered finally. "That's all."

John hesitated before going delving deeper. "More than just a colleague?"

"We…at one time, were more than just… colleagues..."

John leaned back in his chair, staying quiet for a few seconds as he steepled his fingers together, thinking.

"Are you protecting him?" he finally asked, fixing the young doctor with a penetrating gaze.

"What?!" she exclaimed. "No!"

"My apologies," John replied hastily, although he didn't think she spoke the truth. "That's the lawyer in me. Sorry. Brief mere speculation."

"When I went to see him in November," Cameron began, "he was wallowing about what he did…and I bet you he still is now."

"Does either Greg or Lisa know you paid him a visit in prison?"

"Lisa does. House, no."

"Any particular reason why you didn't tell House?"

Cameron fixed him with a look that screamed Are-you-serious-right-now?, as she replied, "I think you already know the answer to that question."

He silently agreed. "Okay, okay. Point taken. He would have probably killed you, am I right?"

Without waiting for her response, he continued on. "I really don't care if he is wallowing or not. What I do care about is going about this trial as fairly and as to the point as possible. What he did was indeed wrong and against the law, and it's my job to make sure he rightly gets what he deserves."

When Cameron did not say anything, he continued again.

"Now then, since you seem to know Chase outside of a, oh shall we say, working environment, did he…drink a lot?"

Cameron shrugged and eyed the lawyer warily, but answered him. "No more than average, I guess. He isn't usually the type to just pop open a beer in the middle of the day, unless it was a social gathering, if you know what I mean. He's…responsible…"

"You mentioned before that it nags him if he does something wrong. Hence, the wallowing, like you said," John said to her. "Do you remember back then in November if anything – did he happen to…mention anything unusual to you or anyone else, anything that may have been going on, perhaps?"

Cameron shook her head. "If he did, I don't even think I remember…He did seem kind of pre-occupied, but he didn't share with me about what. And he never drives when he's drunk -"

"Until last November," John interrupted.

"Yeah. Look, Robert is not a bad person," Cameron told him firmly. "He just…he just made a mistake. You're making him out to be this - this 'criminal'!"

"That 'mistake' caused Lisa to miscarry her twin fetus and get severely injured!" John exclaimed forcefully.

"And as I recall, you were at the scene of the accident that night, weren't you?" he continued. "…And you're protecting him again…Stop it."

"Yes, I was at the scene that night."

"Did you see Chase? Did he say anything to you?"

"No. By the time I had already gotten there, he had already been taken in the police car. I didn't know he was the one in the other vehicle until the following Monday," Cameron replied, "My focus at the moment was on Cuddy and getting her safety out of the car and here to the hospital."

"Did House say anything that night about Chase, do you recall?"

"No, nothing. His concern was all on Lisa…like I said before, I didn't even know it was Chase in the other vehicle until that article came out the following Monday that everyone read about."

"But," she added, after a two-second pause, "You could just tell he was angry. I mean when Chase came and House told him what he had done, House was furious!"

"What was Foreman's reaction?"

"He was as shocked as I was, but he also knew that it wasn't his place to talk about it…But Chase, he was so…surprised that the person in the other car was Lisa…"

"Do you blame House for getting angry at Chase?"

"Not at all. While he did make a 'mistake', Chase did something extremely dangerous that night. He shouldn't have driven his car after drinking that much," Cameron replied firmly. "House does have a right to be angry. This affected Cuddy tremendously and I think House is angry at that fact more than anything else."

"You mentioned before that you said Chase seemed pre-occupied that day," John told her. "Do you think that may have been the reason why he decided to drink so much? And remember, this was a Friday night, and he was alone at a bar."

"It might be, but I really don't know," Cameron replied. "It very well could have been that the reason why he was so pre-occupied at work was why he decided to go drink heavily and then get into a car and drive. But I wouldn't know that."

"Well," John told her, "this is what Thursday is for. To find out."

He and Cameron continued for another ten minutes, before Cameron received a page that required her immediate attention regarding their patient.

After she left, John sat in his office, thinking about what he had just learned. He didn't think Cameron had to testify and he was determined not to have her testify and as he looked over his notes, he knew it wasn't going to be difficult to win this case, but if Chase's lawyer threw a curve ball at him, that was what worried him the most. Were both Cuddy's and House's testimonies going to be enough?

Meanwhile, while Cameron was sitting in John Greene's office in Princeton, Cuddy was about eleven miles away, driving to New Brunswick. Once she was off the highway and in the area, she flicked on her turn signal as she drove down Easton Avenue, turned onto Little Albany Street and continued to Robert Wood Johnson Hospital's parking deck.

Five minutes later, she still sat in her car, thinking about what she was about to do.

She had no idea how Brad was going to react when he saw her. Given that House and him had gotten into a physical altercation that past Friday evening, Cuddy wasn't sure what to expect from the man who had (from House's words), gotten too "touchy-feely" with her.

Taking a deep breath to calm herself, Cuddy got out of the car and walked into the main entrance of the New Brunswick hospital.

After being directed towards the pediatrics wing of the hospital from the front desk receptionist in the front lobby, Cuddy walked up to the third floor and through a pair of double doors where above them said 'Pediatrics'.

Approaching a desk once she walked through the double doors, Cuddy asked the woman sitting there if Brad Kowalski was available.

"He should be in his office. Hang on." The woman picked up the receiver and dialed an extension before turning her attention towards Cuddy once again. "And you are?"

"Lisa Cuddy…He, uh, doesn't know that I'm coming…"

Cuddy listened as the woman presumably had Brad on the other line. After about thirty seconds, she hung up the phone.

"He says to go to his office. Straight down the hallway to your left. Take a right at the end. He's the second to last on the left."

Thanking her, Cuddy ventured down the hallway as she forced herself not to turn back.

Upon reaching Brad's office, she hesitated and took a deep breath before knocking on the door.

"Lisa, well this is a surprise!" Brad Kowalski exclaimed, as he opened the door to his office not even two seconds later. "Please, come in."

As Brad stepped aside, Cuddy let herself into the doctor's tiny office.

"Hi Brad."

"How are you?" Brad asked her, as he sat down behind his desk as he mentioned for Cuddy to sit down on the chair in front of his desk.

"I'm okay," Cuddy replied, as she sat down and looked around. "They don't give you much room around here, do they?"

"No, but I manage. I'm barely in here most days, anyway…so, Lisa, what can I do for you?" he asked, rather surprised at the woman's unanticipated arrival.

Cuddy hesitated and bit her lip before starting. "Brad… I - I came here to ask you not to press charges for what happened on Friday evening."

Brad was silent for a few seconds. Cuddy waited with batted breath.

"He told you what happened," Brad finally stated. It wasn't a question.

"Yes."

"Did he tell you he punched me first or did he make himself look like the good guy?"

"The former."

"Which I know is shocking to you to think that he actually shares things with me," she added sarcastically.

"What makes you think I'm going to press charges against House?" Brad asked, before taking a sip of coffee from the white RWJH mug that sat on his desk as he looked at her.

"Come on Brad. I've known you since medical school," Cuddy told him, exasperated. "Even then, you were always looking for a fight."

"Well, maybe I've changed," Brad replied, defensively.

Cuddy forced a soft chuckle. "I hardly think that's the case."

"Do you love him?" Brad blurted out suddenly.

Drawing in a silent breath, Cuddy hesitated. Her relationship was indeed somewhat rocky at the moment, but even then, she never stopped loving him. Looking him in the eye, she nodded.

"Yes. I do love him," she replied softly, as her body filled with the warm sensation it always did when she thought about the man she loved, even now when they weren't on the best speaking terms, which Cuddy hoped, they could resolve within the next day or two.

"We were good together," Brad whispered, after a brief two-second hesitation, as he searched her face as she sat across from him. "What changed?"

"You cheated on me."

"Which I regret."

"You say that now."

"I regretted it back then too."

"Then why'd you do it?"

"I don't know…," Brad replied. His eyes traveled down her face, tracing her features lovingly, remembering every detail of her years ago, and observed how good time had been to her physical features.

"You haven't changed a day," he whispered.

Shifting in her seat, Cuddy began to get somewhat uncomfortable, which did not go un-noticed by Brad.

"I'm sorry I treated you like that," he said. "Back then."

Cuddy avoided making eye contact with him and instead smoothed out her jacket with her hand, glancing down.

"Lisa, why can't you look at me?"

He waited until she finally made eye contact with him again before continuing.

"We ended on bad terms. I want to fix things between us, Lisa," he continued softly as he stared into her eyes. "I just want us to go back to being friends. How we were before our…break-up…"

"You never said anything about my initial reasoning for coning here," Cuddy told him sharply, as she tried shifting the topic away from their past history.

Brad knew she was getting uncomfortable talking about their past relations with one another, and he knew he wasn't far from getting what he wanted.

"Whoa, why the quick change in topic?" he exclaimed. "Did I not matter to you? Did our relationship not mean anything?"

"Of course it meant something, Brad," Cuddy replied, although she was still extremely uncomfortable with the direction they were once more headed in, especially when she recalled House's comment to her regarding her not knowing "the impact she had on men."

"Then why are you acting like it never happened?" Brad asked, watching her carefully.

"I'm not," she replied. "It's just…Brad, I'm involved now. You know that."

"Doesn't mean you can't still reflect on the past," he told her softly.

He made eye contact with her. "House is lucky to have you."

"Oh don't give me that sentimental crap, Brad! You don't believe a word of what you just said. And want to know how I know that? Greg told me the comment you made about me being into cripples."

"Lisa, I regret that comment. I really do…I'm sorry."

"Here we go again," Cuddy mumbled. She shook her head, amused. "You tend to regret a lot of things, don't you?"

Staying silent, Brad didn't answer right away and instead, took another sip of his coffee while still observing her silently as he reminisced. Oh, how he wanted to run his mouth along her neck, his lips trailing down her collarbone as he breathed in her scent and let her long curly raven hair tickle his face, and claim she was his again. How he wanted to caress her body, running his hands along the curves of her hips. The fact that she was pregnant and still in extremely good shape was indeed a huge turn-on for him.

"I have a proposition for you," he finally said, clearing his throat as he pulled himself out of his thoughts, lucky he was behind the desk and she couldn't see his pants starting to bulge. "...Well, really, for both House and you…"

"Yes?" she said sharply, a bit apprehensive as to what Brad was about to ask of her.

"I won't press charges against House…if you agree to go to dinner with me."

Cuddy merely stared at him, momentarily dumbfounded. "What – you're serious?" she finally stammered, not believing what she had just heard him propose.

"Yes."

Brad's, that's…that's just…insane!"

"Is it really?"

"What if I say no?"

"Then I guess he better hope this doesn't end up going to trial."

"Brad, why – why are you doing this?" Cuddy was amazed at his proposition. "You're – you're getting back at him by using me!"

"That's preposterous, Lisa! Of course I'm not," Brad exclaimed. "I'm simply providing House with a compromise.

"Yeah, which I am part of!" Cuddy exclaimed angrily.

"That's my offer," Brad stressed. "I don't press the charges against him for punching me and verbal abuse, if you agree to dinner with me."

"Obviously, I'm not changing your mind?"

Brad gave a soft chuckle. "Oh no. It's either dinner or your boyfriend's getting served."

Cuddy stared at him, trying to figure out his deal. After about thirty seconds, she stood up, absolutely furious, which Brad anticipated.

"I'll get back to you, asshole," she told him coldly before walking out of the pediatrician's office without even waiting for his response.

After she had stormed out of his office, Brad Kowalski grinned wickedly as he went back to his paperwork he was doing before the interruption.

"Oh you are so going to cave, Lisa Cuddy," he said aloud as he logged back onto his computer.

TBC...

Cuddy has a choice to make. Will she go to House about it or make it on her own? And More importantly, will this bring House and Cuddy closer to coming back together ...or drive them further apart?

Wait and see!