Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and House, M.D. belong to their respective creators, Joss Whedon and David Shore.
"You can go in, now," said Chase. "Sit with him, if you want."
Bill Arnello looked as if he'd rather do anything but, up to and maybe including having his kneecaps broken. His dark, prematurely graying head lowered, he took a shallow, resolute breath, and then Greg's pager went off.
The interruption was so mundane yet so jarring that, for a few seconds, he stood, speechless and awkward, along with both Chase and the mob lawyer.
"Ah." A glance at the pager left him with a vague feeling of both irritation and curious elation. "Sorry. Looks like my three o'clock just got here."
"Hey," said Arnello, but Greg was already walking away, toward the lobby.
He wasn't looking forward to this. Well, OK, that was sort of a lie—he was, to be honest, slightly giddy, almost gleeful. How long had it been since a medical institution had come calling, flowers in hand?
What were they, again? Something London-based? The message they'd left him on his machine had been succinct, telling him that a "Miss Summers" would be coming to see him at Princeton-Plainsboro at around three o'clock, if that would be convenient? Probably a nubile, come hither-eyed rep, smiling and batting her eyelashes for all she was worth. Maybe he could even get dinner out of her.
Most importantly, maybe this could, finally, turn out to be exactly what he needed to hold over Cuddy's head.
Nothing raised value like competition.
"House!"
Speaking of which. Cuddy was marching down the corridor after him, Wilson right behind her, strangely enough, and his expression was so alike Cuddy's that House almost smiled. How had she got away from Vogler?
"Whaaat?" He let his voice rise into a petulant whine. "Is this about Scarface? You do realize that stopping treatment also involves waiting to see if it works."
"What's going on?" Cuddy's eyes were flashing. "Who is 'Summers'?"
Greg tried to look contemplative. "A masseuse? At least, that's what I'm hoping."
"House—" She closed her eyes, opened them again, and he was struck by how tired she looked, under the make-up. "If you're already looking for another—"
"Hey," said Greg, turning and resuming his walk to the lobby. "They came looking for me. I'm just being polite and hearing them out. It's a long flight from London."
Cuddy looked startled. "London?"
A masseuse really would be something, Greg was thinking. All curves and sleek hair, with Swedish hands and a British accent...
"House," said Wilson, somewhere between worried and exasperated, "if Vogler finds out you're considering other offers—"
They'd come to the part of the corridor that turned into the lobby. Greg stopped there, leaning back against the wall, and, ignoring the two with him, carefully extended his head around the corner.
A woman was standing in the middle of the lobby. A woman in black, waiting, casual and still in a foyer full of lab coats, nurse's scrubs, and tired, hurrying people, with nothing to indicate that she was the one he was looking for besides the fact that she was the first thing he saw, and then the only thing he could. A woman facing the other way, with her back to him and his wall.
So these were the parts of her that he saw first, that marked, then and there, the first time she came into his life.
The straight, upright line of her back. The singular curve of her waist. The light in her hair, golden as nothing was golden.
The line of her neck, from the soft, tussled hairline to the shawl collar of her jacket.
Someone was talking. Greg couldn't quite make out the words.
She wore a tight, jersey jacket, in printed material of gray and black. A matching, pencil skirt, black, made the slender length of her legs all the more eye-catching, her skin all the more honeyed. No briefcase, no bag of any kind, and her hands were loosely clasped behind her back as she stood looking at an art deco print on the wall.
So short. Relative to the front desk, she was maybe five one, five two. So small, with that impossible waist and the impractical legs.
Then she moved—slightly, to one side, to get out of the way of a nurse and an occupied wheelchair, and there was more grace in that single movement than in a thousand sonata codas.
"House!"
Greg jerked, pulling his head back behind the wall. His pulse thudded in his ears and Cuddy and Wilson were staring at him.
He cleared his throat. Tried to think of something to say.
"OK, this I have to see," said Wilson, and moved forward.
He didn't know what came over him. His arm moved of its own volition and his cane was just suddenly—out of nowhere—barring Wilson's way, at an angle across his knees, almost tripping him.
Wilson gaped at him, mouth hanging open. Cuddy's eyes had gone wide.
Greg clenched his jaw and tried to swallow that abrupt, instinctive No!
"Dr. House," someone said then, and Arnello was walking toward him down the corridor.
Just what he needed. Greg glanced at the ceiling, thinking. He'd reacted so uncontrollably, so...uncouthly. What was the matter with him? All he'd seen was her back. All he knew about her was that she was easily bored and wore Armani outfits more expensive than his apartment. Neither of these things did anything to commend her to him.
But his mouth was dry and his heart was still doing a beat displacement against his breast.
"Dr. House," said Arnello. He walked straight past Wilson and Cuddy, right into the open space of the corridor from where he had a clear view of the lobby, "you didn't say if Joey was..."
Arnello stopped, just stopped, right in the middle of his sentence. Greg looked at him, saw Arnello staring out into the corridor, eyes fixed and lips still parted.
"Oh, come on," said Wilson.
"Give me a break," gritted Cuddy, and pushed Greg out of the way as she went around the corner. "Men, I swear, one look at a—"
Greg didn't bother to look. He could see in his head how they would have stopped, Cuddy's mouth closing even as Wilson's came further open. He could imagine the way they looked, Cuddy, Wilson, and the mobster, all stopped dead in the open and staring.
This was a little much, though. "What's wrong?" he said, turning to come up behind them. "Like you've never seen a masseuse before."
Arnello coughed. It was such a peculiar cough that Greg would have turned to look at him, except that was when the woman saw them.
She turned, glancing over her shoulder.
There were nearly twenty other people in the lobby. Nurses, doctors, staff, patients. And he was standing behind three more people, of whom Arnello was probably the most conspicuous, in his tailored suit and tie, old-fashioned haircut and dark, Roman eyes.
But he couldn't help feeling that the first person she looked at, the first person her eyes came to rest on, was him.
She smiled, and Greg nearly stopped breathing.
The girl—no, woman, a woman, no matter how girlishly she smiled, no matter how youthful the shape of her mouth—the woman turned on a black heel and began to walk toward them.
The way she moved—like a knife through the water, clean and sharp, each movement an understated grace, like Greg had once seen a tiger moving quietly, relaxedly through the green and wet of a jungle—
"Shit," Arnello said. "Shit."
The vehemence—and the fear—behind those low, breathless expletives moved Greg to glance at Arnello. Wilson and Cuddy did so as well, though Wilson had to work hard to take his eyes off of the girl.
Arnello's face was...still. Not white, not afraid, but—
"What?" said Wilson.
Arnello turned his face toward Greg, but not his eyes. "How do you know her? How do you fucking know her?"
Greg was so surprised he couldn't say anything.
"What is it?" said Cuddy, her Byzantine glare narrowing with suspicion.
"That—" Arnello gestured with his chin, with his eyes. "That is Nikolai fucking Luzhin's girlfriend!"
Greg...paused. The name wasn't a familiar one.
The woman was halfway to them, now, and getting closer, her eyes (green, he saw, dark and green and fearless) inquisitive when she turned them on Arnello.
Arnello answered the questions Greg hadn't asked, his whisper almost violent. "Luzhin! As in Russian mob! As in Captain fucking Luzhin of the fucking London vory!"
Cuddy's throat worked. Wilson's pupils dilated.
The woman stood in front of them. From her hair, from her clothes, drifted a faint, subtle perfume that reminded Greg, inexplicably, of funeral flowers.
"Dr. House?" she said.