25.

His night of drinking and debauchery, what he could remember of it, had been a resounding success. Even if it had involved a lot more of the former than the latter - for him at any rate. Wilson at least had come out of it with a hot blonde data analyst's number. All House ended up with was a hefty bar tab and the pleasure of spending the following day on the sofa wishing he was dead. It still counted as a success in his book.

He'd sufficiently recovered from the weekend in time to face Monday morning, which was just as well since Cuddy accosted him with a new case the moment he stepped through the main entrance.

"Fifty-five year old male brought into the ER following a choking incident at a restaurant. Patient has difficulty swallowing, along with -"

"Stroke."

"Along with spreading numbness, and -"

"Stroke."

"And it's not a stroke, already checked."

"Not even a little one?"

Grinning, she was already on her way, leaving him with the file and a patient who was dribbling and tingling and who, by the end of the day, had also graced them with bloody diarrhoea and a near fatal arrhythmia.

Of almost as much interest for him, though, was the fact that Cuddy had smiled at him. Apparently she too had put the weekend to good use, and had gotten over his plastering the hospital with confirmation of their successful genetic merger. That was the thing with Cuddy. One day she would be spitting mad, the next sending irritated looks his way, the day after that - well by then he'd usually done something else for her to get mad about, and the previous thing was old news.

It didn't seem to matter what he did, it was as if she was physically incapable of holding anything against him for long. He had to wonder what it would take - what he could do to her that she wouldn't forgive. Everybody had a breaking point, he just hadn't found hers yet.

Of course, she was always happy to bring up whatever he'd done in conversation - she seemed to carry a running tally of his many transgressions in her head - but she never could summon much vitriol after the fact. She had the forgiveness part down, if not so much the forgetting.

It was a big step away from Wilson, who didn't bother getting mad as a rule, as he knew exactly how futile it was. Or Cameron, who gave him big wounded puppy-dog eyes until she finally managed to repress everything like a good little WASP - and then let it out to bite him in the ass at some later point.

On that front, he was still paying for having the nerve to sleep with and impregnate another woman. It was the little things that told him Cameron was bearing a grudge. She was still handling his mail, but badly. For instance he'd only found his disabled parking permit renewal form by accident - it had been 'misplaced' under a pile of languishing paperwork, and if he hadn't happened to knock the entire stack off the corner of his desk it would have sat there till his current permit expired.

There were other things, too - Cameron seemed to be able to predict when he was getting to work of a morning and had started making sure there was exactly half a cup of coffee left in the pot when he arrived. She had also begun making a point of reminding him when he had clinic duty - as if he didn't get enough of that from Cuddy. Though maybe that was the point.

And yes, there were the kicked-puppy eyes, like the ones she was aiming at him right now as she stood in his doorway.

"Dr Cameron," he greeted her, having finally noticed her presence, "I was just thinking about you."

It was extremely petty of him, but he couldn't help enjoying the way those eyes of hers lit up momentarily before narrowing in suspicion.

"They just took him in," she said, coming further into the room to deliver her message. "Chase is observing."

The patient would live - another day, another medical mystery solved. He was all done for the week and it was only Tuesday.

What with all the creeping paralysis and risk of heart failure, a little diarrhoea had seemed like the least of the guy's problems - but in the end it had been the key. A previous diagnosis of IBS in the patient's medical history had thrown them off track, but a simple colonoscopy had shown them the abscess, teaming with bacteria, that was currently being drained by some lucky surgeon up in the OR.

He was almost annoyed it had taken him an entire day to catch - but some lazy GP's lazy misdiagnosis was hardly going to sit on his conscience for long. Or at all.

"Foreman's talking with the family, going over treatment," Cameron added after a moment, forcing him to acknowledge she was still in the room.

"You're missing out on some quality hand-holding time then - don't let me keep you."

She didn't move.

"No really, don't let me."

"Are you okay?" Cameron said.

"Well I might be lonely once you're gone, but we won't know that until you actually, you know, go."

"You seem distracted lately - you didn't even notice when I came in."

He gave her a look and she flushed, self-conscious. "That's not - " She stopped and rolled her eyes. "I meant you notice everything."

"Let me guess, you're feeling neglected? Left out?"

She came closer, till she was standing beside the desk, giving him the sort of look better spent on their patient's family members. "It's understandable," she began.

"I'll say, it's called sibling rivalry. New baby comes along, older kids start to wonder whether daddy loves them anymore."

"It's understandable, you being distracted," she corrected. "You've got a lot on your mind."

He sighed. It wasn't easy giving the brush-off to someone so caring it formed an impenetrable shield of empathy around her. He'd have to try a different tack.

"People have sex," he said.

She blinked at what must have seemed like something a non sequitur, even for him. "I... know," she said.

"People have sex, and a small subset of those people have babies. It's a numbers game. We're just lucky the ratio works out the way it does. We could be having a lot less sex and a lot more babies - no way that wouldn't suck."

"A numbers game? People have babies every day, you don't."

"I don't have sex every day, either - don't suppose you want to help me out with that instead of coaching me through the emotional minefield of unplanned parenthood?" He looked at her expectantly for a moment. "Didn't think so."

"You don't have to pretend it's not affecting you, that's all I'm saying."

"Sure, but the way you keep insisting on it suggests you're the one who's affected - so what's your deal, jealous of Cuddy? Wishing you were the one expecting little House Jr?"

"No!" she exclaimed. "I'm happy for you - and Dr Cuddy - is that so hard to believe?"

"From you? No, you would have no trouble genuinely wishing us well while still resenting the hell out of the fact that I've got this thing with her now and not you."

She put her hands on the hips - she only did that when she was extra annoyed, and she'd only be that annoyed if he was right. This was further confirmed when she suddenly switched to the offensive.

"Which is what, exactly?" she demanded. "Are the two of you in a relationship?"

He smiled to himself and thought about telling her the truth - for about a half second. "That depends, are you going to hunt Cuddy down and try to claw her eyes out if I say yes? Preferably while wearing spangly string bikinis?"

"I don't think you are," she said, looking disgusted and - finally - fed up. "I don't think Cuddy would bother trying to put up with you. And who could blame her?"

He shrugged. "Some people can't help fighting a losing battle."

"If they're smart, they'll figure out when to quit."

"Now I'm all confused - who are we talking about?" He adopted a puzzled expression.

She looked away, vitriol draining out of her, leaving her resigned. She shrugged. "Does it matter?" She looked back at him for a moment, and then away again, and sighed. "I'll go... see how the surgery's going."

He watched her go and couldn't help thinking that maybe he'd broken her heart. Though if he had it wasn't as if it was in any way his fault, especially since he'd never asked her to have a thing for him in the first place. The truth was, of course, that he did care about her in his own way - just not the way she wanted him to. That sucked for her, but it wasn't his problem as long as she kept doing her job, and mostly he just wanted her to get over it. Without him having to contribute to the process at all.

Unless the process happened to involve the occasional application of verbal abuse, because he was probably going to be doing that anyway.

The problem was that at times talking to Cameron was too much like beating his head against a brick wall. It wasn't productive, and it wasn't painless, and after this weekend he'd had enough of headaches to last him a long time.

There was only one thing for it - he needed a place to hide.

Making sure his pager was on, he headed out of his office. First stop was the nearest vending machine, where he hit up a passing gaggle of med students for change. Then once he'd continued on his way and reached his destination, he opened up his soda and chips and settled in for some uninterrupted TV time.

It wasn't the greatest of hiding places, since pretty much everyone knew about it, but at least here people were less likely to just drop by or hang around for no reason. The old guy in the coma tended to put people off.

"Excuse me, do I know you? Are you a friend of Charles'?"

He should have known the peace and quiet wouldn't last long. It never did.

Annoyed at the interruption, he looked up at the woman who'd just entered the room.

Tall, blonde, coiffed and manicured to within an inch of her life, she was in her thirties and attractive, but in a very deliberate sort of way, as if she was expecting to find herself in front of a camera at any moment.

"I'm a doctor," he said finally, "Not a visitor. Should we try and figure out which one you are now? I'm going to go with 'visitor'." She looked at him askance, and he took the chance to further size her up. "Daughter or wife?" he mused aloud. "Daughter's more likely given the age, but with the wedding ring, I'm keeping my fingers crossed."

Recovering her equilibrium the woman narrowed her eyes at him. "Is there something wrong with my husband?"

We have a trophy wife, he thought happily, and smirked up at her as he removed his feet from where they were propped on the edge of the bed.

"Besides being in a near vegetative state?" he replied, reaching for his cane and getting to his feet. "Nah, the old guy's right as rain, raring to go - well, raring to lie there comatose, if you want to get into specifics. You're seriously the wife?" He looked over at the unconscious man, impressed. He'd had no idea the guy was so loaded.

"Are you seriously a doctor?"

He shrugged and spoke self-deprecatingly. "I don't like to advertise it. Word gets out, people might expect me to do stuff like treat their medical problems. Got ID around here somewhere..." He patted his pockets and then pointed to the door. "Why don't I go look, leave you to what I'm sure will be a touching reunion."

"Wait a minute," she said sharply, following him out. So much for the reunion, he thought as she quickly overtook him and planted herself in his path. "If you're a doctor, but you weren't seeing my husband for any medical reason, what were you doing in his room? Because it looked like you were having your coffee break in there."

"I like your accent - it's interesting," he said. It was a cheap trick, put the woman off-guard with a personal remark out of left field so he didn't have to come up with an explanation he didn't have - besides the truth, but that would hardly go over well. "Sounds like Jersey Shore beaten into submission with the help of a few elocution classes, topped off with a year or two in the south of France. You're very tanned, too - but no tacky tanning salons for you. Been holidaying somewhere nice this year?"

"Majorca, actually," she replied in a clipped tone. "It was lovely."

"So close. But with plenty of frequent flyer miles racked up, what with all those trips to Paris and Milan for the fall fashion, right? So listen - Anna-Nicole, was it? Why don't you go see your husband? Sure, it's not like he's going anywhere, but it has been a while, hasn't it."

Well that was fun, he thought as he left her standing there, collagen-enhanced mouth gaping indignantly.

"Excuse me!" he heard her demand loudly of a passing nurse, her voice echoing down the corridor after him. "I want someone to check on my husband's condition right now. And have the linen changed, there are shoe prints on the sheets. And do you know who that man was? I want him kept out of my husband's room."

This was followed by the nurse's uncertain response. "Er... maybe I should call Dr Cuddy, Mrs..."

"Stewart. As in Charles Stewart? He's one of your patients - I assume I don't have to explain what that means? Oh, don't bother, I'm obviously going to have to speak to Lisa about this myself."

He heard the clicking of high-heels rapidly approaching where he was waiting for the elevator, and he glanced back to see a very unhappy socialite bearing down on him. "I'm sorry, did you say 'Lisa'?" he said.

"Lisa Cuddy. If you do work here, she's your boss - if not, then she's the one who's going to have you thrown out."

"Friend of yours, is she?"

"Not that it's any of your business," she snapped, and then made a big show of ignoring him as she waited, arms crossed and foot tapping, until the elevator arrived a few seconds later.

He backed off warily, no intention of joining her, and then redirected himself over to the nearest nurse's station. He leaned over the desk and picked up the phone - after all, no one could go running to Cuddy if they couldn't find her.

Page sent, he took a moment to pilfer a handful of candy from the sack one of the nurses had left sitting in a partly open drawer before moving off again, confident in having made a clean getaway.

"Hey."

He didn't jump upon hearing Cuddy's voice suddenly from ten feet away, but he did swivel round rather abruptly. He had figured he'd have a good five minutes to come up with something, urgent page or no.

Apparently not.

"That was fast," he said, popping candy in his mouth and attempting to look casual.

"I was seeing a patient," she gestured back over her shoulder. "What are you doing here? I was just on my way to your office, because unlike some people, I actually answer my pages. What's so urgent?"

She had taken one look at him, apparently, and decided there wasn't anything much to worry about. She knew his urgent face, and this wasn't it. He just hoped she didn't realise it was his guilty face, instead.

"You got me," he conceded. "I just wanted to... ask you to lunch."

She turned a shrewd gaze on him. "What are you up to?"

All right, so maybe she knew his guilty face, too. "I'm hungry," he said with a shrug. "And bored. And you look nice today - really working that whole glowing thing."

She seemed to hover for a moment between flattery and disbelief. He just needed to tip the balance in his favour.

"It's just lunch, doesn't usually require too much deliberation," he chided.

"Because it worked out so well the last time we had lunch?" She continued to waver on the edge of scepticism, but he could tell he almost had her, especially since she'd fallen into step beside him, heading away from the scene of the crime.

"So this can be a do-over."

"Don't you have a case?" she said. "I could have sworn I gave you something to do." As she spoke she flipped open the file she was carrying, frowning slightly as she looked over the contents.

"Patient's sleeping. Well, he was unconscious last I checked - that counts, right?"

She sighed and checked her watch. "Well, I've got about twenty-five minutes. Were you thinking cafeteria or planning another raid on the fridge in the oncology lounge?"

"Let's hit the cafeteria. It's Tuna-surprise Tuesday."

"Wilson's onto you, isn't he?"

"He's started hiding my food."

"Your food?" She glanced up at him, eyebrows lifting in amusement.

The problem was she still wasn't moving fast enough. Distracted by whatever she was reading, she all but slowed to a stop as she pulled a pen from her lab coat pocket and made a note.

He plucked the folder out of her hand and held it away from her, using it as a lure as he started moving again.

"Hey!"

"Come on, I'm on the clock here," he said, waving the file tantalisingly.

She stared at him for a second, and then frowned, turning to look back the way they'd come. When she faced him again a look of comprehension had taken over her features.

"You are up to something, aren't you?"

"Up to? Me? Something?"

"You've done something. Or you're about to do something. Is it this case you're working on?"

The good news was, she was moving again. The bad news was, she was going in the wrong direction, heading back down the corridor toward the nurse's station.

So close, he thought as he followed reluctantly. She was behind the desk using one of the computers when he caught up to her.

"Did I mention you're glowing?"

She looked up exasperated. "Whatever it is, just tell me - you know I'll find out sooner or later."

"Dr Cuddy?" He looked over to see the nurse from before approaching. "Mr Stewart's wife was here," the young woman said, giving him a wary look as she spoke. She was clearly glad to hand the matter off to someone else. "She said she was going to look for you - I'm not sure what happened but she asked me to make sure Dr House didn't go back into her husband's room."

He glared at her. "Thanks a lot, nark."

Cuddy meanwhile was looking at him with growing dread. "Oh god, what did you do to her?"

He shrugged. "We had a chat. Any woman whose shoes cost more than my bike is worth getting to know, I always say."

Moving around the desk, Cuddy spoke very slowly and deliberately. "The Stewarts have been supporters of this hospital for years. During her husband's infirmity, Olivia Stewart's continued support is extremely important to all of us - House, do you hear what I'm saying?"

"One word, sounds like 'ka-ching'?"

"Exactly. So think very hard about that, about how people like her keep us in MRI machines and gene therapy labs and answer me one question. What did you say to her?"

He took a couple of steps backwards, so that he was well out of arm's reach, and told her.