CHAPTER 17

House reached over and pushed the speaker button. The room became silent as everyone stared at Sera, who in turn was staring at the now silent phone. After a few moments of tense silence, House clapped his hands together once, causing nearly everyone to jump. "So", he asked almost jovially, "Who's hungry?"

Everyone started fussing at House at once. "Do you have any sensitivity at all?" "What the hell is your problem?" "Are you crazy?" "Really, Dr. House, that was highly inappropriate." "You rotten son of a …" Sera cut them all off.

"I would LOVE something to eat! How about we all adjourn to my house and I'll whip us up a good meal. I have a feeling it's going to be a long night." Sera looked around at everyone staring at her with their mouths hanging open. "What? It's 7:30 and I haven't eaten any dinner. I'm hungry and I think better if my stomach's not growling. I also think better if I'm comfortable and I'm definitely not comfortable here. I need to go home."

Robert looked at her with narrowed eyes. "You're not going." Sera smiled brightly at him. "Why can't I go home?"

Robert frowned at her and repeated, "You are NOT going tomorrow morning."

Sera smiled at him again and hit him gently on his chest. "Oh, Robert, don't be silly. Of course I'm going!"

Once again, there was a cacophony of voices, this time directed at Sera. "Are you crazy?" "Hell, no!" "Don't even think about it!!"

Robert gripped Sera tightly by her upper arms and pulled her closer to him, lifting her up to her tiptoes. "You are NOT going tomorrow! It's insanity!" He punctuated each word with a little shake.

Sera smiled a little at him, patted his cheek and spoke slowly to him, as if she were speaking to a young child. "No, sweetie, insanity is thinking you can tell me what to do." She did a quick movement that removed Robert's hands from her arms and went over to House, putting her arm through his. "So, Dr., do you want to go to my place?" Sera waggled her eyebrows at him.

Robert grabbed her other arm and spun her around. Sera sighed internally.
She knew what she had to do. She just hoped House wouldn't rag on Robert too much about it.

She put her own force into the spin Robert had her in and plowed into him. When he took a step back for balance, she swept his leg out from under him and used the force of her weight to push him to the ground. Moving too quickly for anyone to see, she struck Robert with a series of movements. She straddled Robert, sitting back on his legs.

Robert was winded, but still got out, "So, that's it? That's what you're going to do to Dumas? Hit him a few times? What happens when he pulls out his knife and attacks you?"

Sera smiled at him calmly. "Go ahead and attack me, then." Robert went to stab her with a pretend knife and found that he couldn't move his arm. Either of his arms. Or his upper body. He could move his legs, but with Sera sitting on his thighs, he couldn't do anything useful with them. He began to panic a bit.

"Sera, can you please release me?" Robert could hear House snickering above him and knew that he would never live this down. Sera smiled sweetly at him. "Would you want me to release Dumas?"

Sera leaned down a bit and propped her head up on her elbows, which were digging into Robert's solar plexus a bit. Robert huffed out a breath, but didn't say anything. He wouldn't give her the satisfaction. Sera spoke to him, although her comments were addressed to everyone in the room.

"As you can see, I CAN take care of myself. The only reason he got me before is because I was unprepared. This time, I know what I'm going into and I'll be ready. Winston is good, but I'm better. Unless he has a gun, which we've never seen any evidence of, there is no way he can get me. I have a better chance of getting out of this alive than Allison Cameron, that's for sure. That'll be wearing off any minute now, by the way."

Robert moved suddenly and flipped Sera over on her back so that he was on top of her. He held her arms over her head and slowly lowered his body so he was lying full length on top of her. Her knees were slightly raised, so he was actually nestled right between her legs. His eyes were dark as he glared at Sera.

"Actually, it wore off while you were monologuing. Are you going to be that careless with that psycho?"

Sera smirked at him, marveling at how incredibly turned on she was by Robert's position and the way his eyes looked like storm clouds when he was angry. "Honey, do you think you are not exactly where I want you to be" she whispered in his ear in a husky voice. She wiggled a bit to make her point. Robert jumped off of her as if he had been zapped with a stun gun and stood up quickly, his face flaming.

House's snickers turned into a full blown laugh as he looked at Chase's bright red face. He limped over to where Sera was still lying on the floor and offered a hand to her to help her up. He was still chuckling up to the point where Sera yanked him off balance and flipped him over her head. She twisted him so that he landed on his good side, although she was fairly certain the landing was incredibly uncomfortable. She quickly sat directly on his stomach and gave a little bounce. After House's "Oof!", she picked up his cane and pressed it against his throat lightly. "Don't you dare tease him about this!"

After he nodded, she got off of him and stuck out her hand to help him up. He looked at her hand for a minute and sneered at her. Robert leaned over and offered his hand to House, who accepted his help and stood up. Sera handed House his cane, trying hard not to laugh. He snatched it from her and went to sit down, pulling out his Vicodin bottle as he went. He glared at Sera.

Sera went over to where he was sitting. Normally, she didn't try to placate the male ego, but she needed House on her side since everyone else thought she was crazy. She leaned over and whispered something in his ear. At first House scowled and leaned slightly away form her. She kept whispering and House's expression changed. At first, he smirked then he blushed slightly. Finally, he smiled a bit and looked at Sera, saying, "Really?" She nodded and he smiled a bit wider. Sera kissed his forehead then turned to everyone else in the room, all of whom were trying to act like they weren't attempting to eavesdrop.

"Let's go to my house so we can eat and strategize. Eric, tell your doctor that you are signing yourself out A.M.A. Donna, your shift ended at 7 pm, right? Come with us. I'm sure you won't relax unless Eric is under your care. Mitch, see what your boys can get me along the lines of top of the line body armor. Even if it hasn't been released yet. And see if Hil has anything cool brewing in that lab of hers."

Donna asked her, "Hil?" Sera grinned. "Yeah. Dr. Hilary Andrews is the chemist in the FBI lab. She comes up with some fairly groovy stuff. She's a real genius. She mothers everyone, though, so we all call her Mum."

Sera then turned to David. "Why couldn't you pick up the cell phone signal? Or at least narrow it down to a tower?"

David shrugged in annoyance. "I have no idea! Dumas always called us on his own phone, which has all sorts of gadgets on it to prevent us from tracing a signal." Sera nodded. "Yes, so does mine. I didn't want the feds after me. But why did you have problems with Eric's?"

Dave shrugged again. "There are devices that can "hide", so to speak, a whole area. He must have one in the house. A stroke of luck for him. Stinks for us, though. I should have realized he had a block when he didn't get off of the phone right away. If I had started the trace earlier, I might have gotten it. The cell signal bounces all over the country to throw off anyone trying to trace it. I had traced back through 22 towers. I only had 3 more to go when he hung up. I should have had the computer on mute...if he hadn't heard the beep…"

Mitch cut him off. "Knock it off. We could "I should have" ourselves to death here or we could try to figure out where Dumas is holding Dr. Cameron. I'd rather not risk sending Sera in if we don't have to."

Sera let out the breath she didn't know she was holding. Mitch's statement told her that, if he had no choice, he would let her go to Dumas. She knew that she would have a lot of trouble getting by Mitch if he didn't allow her to go. For some reason, she couldn't even dream of doing to him what she had done to House and Robert. So having his approval, even grudgingly, was the best thing.

Sera walked over to Robert and grabbed his hand. "Give me an hour, then all of you head on over. That should give everyone time to do whatever they need to do. Bring some personal items and changes of clothes if you have them, because I have a feeling we're not getting a lot of sleep tonight." Sera pulled Robert out the door and left a group of bemused people staring after them.

House was the only one who didn't seem concerned. "So", he said, leaning back in his chair and lacing his hands behind his head. "Fifty bucks says she and kid are gonna get down and dirty before we get there."