28.
Over the next few days House avoided her, and she spent the time asking herself if she'd done the right thing. But if not, what was the alternative? House had made an overture, she'd rejected it for good reason. She could believe he did care about her, in his own dysfunctional way, but this was House, she knew him, and even disregarding concerns about their jobs - which were not insignificant - she just couldn't see it working.
But that didn't stop her thinking about it, and at the same time half-wishing he would call her again just so that she could be the one to make some kind of cutting remark and then hang up on him for a change.
And she had no lack of time to obsess over it all - House avoiding her meant the quietest few days she'd had in a while. At one point, when the embargo between Diagnostics and the Dean's office had been lifted out of necessity, Foreman had appeared with a procedure for her to sign off on.
"House wishes he could be here," he'd said with a roll of his eyes, expressing exactly how he felt about being caught in the middle of things, "But he's too busy upstairs encouraging people to refer to you as 'She Who Must Not Be Named'."
She was not, however, glad of the reprieve, because it felt too much like the calm before the storm. Which, when it eventually hit, was in the form of House blindsiding her one night as she was walking out to her car.
One moment she was alone, the next his shoulder was jostling hers as he adjusted his uneven gait to keep pace with her.
"What's 'A', and why are you having dinner with it?" he said.
She blinked, neither prepared for his sudden appearance, nor the abrupt questioning. "Haven't seen much of you this week."
He produced a small yellow square of paper in response, and held it in her eye-line. It had the words 'Dinner with A' written on it, and looked suspiciously like a post-it that she had last seen stuck to the edge of her computer monitor - after the Olivia Stewart fiasco she'd been taking no chances with lapses in memory. She reached up to take it from him but he quickly moved it back out of reach.
She shot him a sideways glance, pursing her lips. "What have I got to do to keep you out of my office? Lay down a mine field? A moat and drawbridge?"
"'A' is for a lot of things, like adulterer, alcoholic, archfiend, asswipe. You could at least give me a clue - animal, vegetable, or mineral? And is he going to get any?"
She rolled her eyes as they reached the door leading out to the parking garage. He moved to hold it open for her and she muttered as she passed under his arm, "I suppose a set of stairs would work just as well."
"The more flustered you become, the snarkier you get. Really didn't want me finding out about your hot date, did you?"
"Maybe I'm flustered because I'm worried you're going to try something, forcing me to turn you down and be cast once again as the evil bitch in the soap opera that is your life."
He stopped walking, and she had to resist the urge to look back at him. "I'll take that as a yes on the hot date," he called after her.
And her resolve failed. Or maybe he was just that annoying. "The 'A' is for accountant, House," she told him witheringly, as she rounded on him. "I'm having dinner with my accountant while we go over a few things, all right?"
He began lumbering towards her again. "Is that what they're calling it these days?"
"Yes, House." She looked down, digging in her purse for her keys. "Marjorie, my accountant, and I have been having a torrid affair for the past eight years - never mind that she's happily married, or a woman."
"That'd just make it more interesting. For me to picture." As he drew closer she moved towards her car which was parked nearby, pressing the button to unlock it. "So," he said, following at a more sedate pace, "You're going to get 'flustered' every time I come near you? We work together. This could get weird."
"Thanks to no small effort on your part." She loaded her laptop case into the back seat and as she did so he took up residence casually lounging against the driver side door, effectively cutting off her escape route.
"This dinner, is it baby stuff?" he asked.
"Not everything is about the baby."
"But this is, or you would have just said no. You realise trust fund babies have a bad habit of being high-maintenance little monsters."
"Thank god he'll have such a well-mannered, low-maintenance father to set a good example for him," she retorted, crossing her arms over her chest. She really didn't think the man actively preventing her from getting in her car was one to talk about being high-maintenance. "Besides, I'm just making sure he can pay for college. We're not talking millions here."
"We're not talking anything." He swung his cane petulantly, hitting the side of the car with every back-swing. She leaned her shoulder nonchalantly against the car beside him, steadfastly ignoring the fact that he was probably marking the hell out of her paint-job. "You don't want me around," he said. "You don't want my money. Makes sense, the more I pay, the more say I get. Your money, your kid."
"Oh for..." She cast her eyes upwards in a silent bid for patience, took a deep breath, and said, "I want you involved, House. Is that what you want me to say? I want you to do this with me. I want you to care about the baby - and me - enough to be there for all the stupid, trivial baby stuff you hate! Okay?"
He looked unconvinced. "Really."
"Yes, you know that, of course you know that." She stared at him. "How can you not know that?"
He rolled his eyes suddenly. "The thing you always seem to forget is how extremely transparent you are. Of course I know. I've suspected since you got so pissy every time I told you how not interested I was in any of this. And I've known since you stood in front of the board of directors and told them you were having my baby and they could like it or go to hell."
She continued to stare at him, and when she spoke it was a struggle to keep her voice even. "So this was just a test? You wanted to, what, see how far you could push me?"
"If you can admit it, means you want it more than you're afraid of it."
"I'm not afraid of you."
"You're afraid of what I might do to you. Get involved, get bored, maybe you get too fat or maybe I realise you were never that great to begin with. I abandon you and you spend the rest of your life cursing the day you ever laid eyes on that handsome devil, Greg House."
"You're not that scary," she said, slow and deliberate, determined for it to be true. "And there are a lot of reasons why this would be a bad idea, House -"
"Really."
Pushing himself away from the car, he wheeled around and was closer suddenly, crowding her space. His hands were on the buttons of her coat, the touch abrupt and alarming in its intimacy. Her mouth dropped open and she raised her eyes to his.
"Has he moved yet?" he said. His hand slid inside her coat and over her swelling abdomen.
She found herself nodding. "Yes."
"It's been, what, a few weeks?"
She nodded again. "No... kicks or somersaults yet, I didn't even realise what I was feeling at first."
His thumb slipped between two of her blouse buttons and found her skin. She pressed her lips together as his head dropped lower and he spoke in her ear, "Deny it all you want, but we are already involved. This is as involved as it gets, and you don't have to let me in on any of it, but if you don't that's you doing it, not me. So don't go blaming me five years from now when Junior here wants to know why Daddy never calls."
She closed her eyes. Her hand covered his where it was still pressed against her belly, and was torn between removing it and holding it there. "How can you be such a bastard?"
She felt him touch her hair, brushing it behind her ear, an oddly tender gesture.
"That's not what you're asking. You want to know, if I'm such a bastard, how come you still want to sex me up so badly?"
She let out a laugh that was full of unshed tears and opened her eyes. He was so close, and she knew before he moved that he was going to kiss her. She had plenty of time to turn her head. Instead she met him halfway in a kiss that was somehow sweet, even through the hurt.
It was sweet, and it was brief, and then she did turn away, reaching over to open the car door. "Get in," she told him, her voice rough as she slid out from between his body and the side of the car and did the same.
This was a public place. There were other people besides them leaving for the night - not to mention the security cameras mounted around the lot. She was conscious of him moving around behind the car, opening the passenger side door and climbing in, knowing exactly what this would look like to anyone watching.
To anyone watching, it would look like a woman talking to a man, kissing him, inviting him into her car... Which would be both correct and completely wrong at the same time.
When she finally looked over at him he was right there, a hand on her face, drawing her towards him again. Firmly, a hand on his chest, she pushed him away.
The mutinous look on his face, the firm grip she kept on his shirt front as she maintained the distance between them, helped to steel her resolve. She reminded herself that everything with him was a negotiation.
"You know I care about you," she told him bluntly. "You know I'm attracted to you. But so what? House, not so long ago you were making it very clear you weren't interested in playing happy families. What exactly do you see us doing here?"
He didn't say anything but his eyes took on a more calculating look, one that was stubborn, and shrewd, and a stark contrast to the way he had been looking at her moments ago as he stood over her with his hand on her belly. She stared him down. He wouldn't get anything more out of her until he gave her some answers.
"Kids don't need two parents and a picket fence," he said finally, looking away. Her hold on his shirt relaxed. He was talking. Maybe he would even tell her the truth. "They need to be safe, and they need to be loved. My mom... was good at that. My dad wasn't. You've got it covered, you don't need me, I get it - I'm a bad investment. Too many risks, not enough payoff."
He looked over at her for confirmation. She didn't deny it, and he turned his face up, away from her, in that way he did whenever he didn't want to talk about something.
"This is the kind of thing that's not likely to happen to me again. And believe it or not, I do know this isn't some cool new toy to play with. The thing is, if I'm going to find out if I can do this at all, I need to do it now, before the kid's old enough to know the difference. And I need you to let me." He huffed, attempting a disgruntled tone that didn't quite work alongside his candour. "I hate that I'm working under a deadline here. I don't do well under pressure."
"Yes you do." Her voice when she spoke sounded high and unsteady. She cleared her throat. "We don't need to... be together for you to act like a father, House. So why -"
"That part's just because I want to." He shrugged, nonchalance settling over him once more. "Why not?"
So, so many reasons, she thought. But something had to give, and she knew it wasn't going to be House. It was never House. She took a deep breath and what she said was, "Okay."
He nodded once. "Excellent," he said, and looked so satisfied, not to mention so utterly unsurprised, she could have happily socked him one.
"That's it?" she demanded, under-whelmed by this reaction.
"Yep."
"Right. Great." She threw up her hands and sat back in her seat, staring out the windscreen. "Well, now that's settled, you can get out, and I can go." She looked back over at him pointedly and made a shooing motion.
There was a little of that surprise she'd been after. "You're kicking me out? But you caved. You caved, like you always cave, and now we have to celebrate. Your total and utter caving, that is. With sex."
She laughed. "No."
"I mean, I guess I could settle for some celebratory heavy petting." When she continued shaking her head he was incredulous. "Not even over the clothes?"
She spread her hands. "I can't, hot lesbian dinner date, remember?"
"Oh that. Well since I'm coming too, we can celebrate later."
That gave her pause. "You want to come with me?"
"Yes, I want to come with you," he answered slowly and deliberately. Then he rolled his eyes. "I know you flunked out of Relationships 101 but this is how it works. We do things together." The dumbass on the end of his statement was unspoken, but heavily implied.
She was frowning slightly as she got the key in the ignition and started the car. So she was in a relationship with House now...
"This is going to take some getting used to," she said.