Chapter Three: Gregory House (Part Two)

"Why do I get the feeling, Dr. Cuddy, that the story of the first time you met House is going to be funny, dirty, or involve humiliation on someone's part?" said Dr. Allison Cameron with a big grin. Cameron settled back in her chair. This was going to be good.

"How about all three? Ok, so House was leading this bunch of very young, very eager med students around, including yours truly, wearing the expression suitable for a heretic being led to a stake piled high with firewood. Well, the first thing he did was to lead us to the Morgue, where he goes up to a body lying on a slab. He proceeds to flip it over, so it is lying on its stomach. He then gives us a speech..." Cameron couldn't help but grin at the thought of House's expression. She could so imagine his...indescribable loathing at having to babysit a bunch of med students.

"'It is absolutely necessary to have two important qualities as a Doctor of Medicine: the first is that you're not disgusted by anything involving the human body.' He said that, then to everyone's utter revulsion, House stuck his finger in the corpse's...butt and after pulling it out, licked it." The way Dr. Cuddy hesitated in naming that part of the human anatomy, something that a doctor should have no problem with, made Cameron suspicious...

"Then House said, ' You all have to do this, in turn, or you will all get an "F" for today.' Naturally, everyone refused. Except..." began Cuddy, with a not-very-well-hidden mortified expression on her face.

"One Dr. Lisa Cuddy." said Cameron with certainty. Now she knew why Cuddy had edited herself...

"One Lisa Cuddy. After I licked my finger, I ran into the bathroom, threw up, rinsed my mouth with disinfectant soap. But damned if I was going to give that smug bastid the satisfaction."

"What happened next?"

"Well, when I emerged out of the bathroom, House was still waiting, and now he just looked vastly amused. Gah!! Then he said 'The second most important quality is observation. I stuck in my index finger and sucked on my middle finger. Now learn to pay attention!'" Cameron burst out laughing at the conclusion of Dr. Cuddy's story. It was such a completely...House thing for him to do!! It not only combined a nasty sense of humor, but drove in a lesson about observing, as opposed to merely watching. Something that he had been trying to teach the three of them from day one.

"Then House declared everyone got an 'F' for the day, except me, I got a 'B', and when I squawked in protest, he came right next to me and said 'You get a B for having two big ones under your belt, but you still need to pay better attention. Don't worry, I disinfected the cadaver. You know, I've been doing this trick for a while now, and you're the first one to call me on it.' I replied that it wasn't that, I just refused to give him the satisfaction. And that's how we started to become friends." House in Michigan had been...fun. Everybody knows the urban legend of medical students using dressed cadavers to drive on the carpool lanes, but House was the only person she had ever known who had actually (sorta) done this. After coming back from an Easter visit to Ohio, he had regaled Lisa with the story of how he had used a skeleton, a fedora, a piece of string and a trenchcoat to make excellent time despite the holiday traffic.(The string was tied to the skeleton, and House would pull on it as they drove past cops, to make it move like a real person.) House's parents were not amused, but his little sister had literally fallen down giggling and laughing. She had insisted on sitting "Fatty" at the dinner table, solicitously offering him roast beef and mashed potatoes. His poor sister...and poor House.

Allison Cameron, once she managed to get her giggles under control, realized that Lisa Cuddy knew instinctively from day one the quintessential rule in dealing with one Gregory House, Jerk extraordinaire. Never back down, never roll over, and never ever give him the satisfaction. Cuddy had always known how to handle House. Something that she had failed so badly, so often.

"So you started dating House back then?" She had to know...

"We never dated. Even if we both didn't have type A personalities, which meant it was doomed from the start, really, the reason we were friends was because...I refused to sleep with him." Lisa Cuddy had always been...jealous of Dr. Allison Cameron, jealous of her gentle inner strength and compassion, and dealing (though not always successfully) with a major pain in the butt, one Gregory House, MD. She had been jealous of her flawless figure, and her classic, refined beauty. And, she admitted to her inner self, House paid attention to her. Granted, it was the kind of attention that would get anyone else sued for sexual harassment, but attention none the less. There was none of that maddening clash of will that she had daily with House, that sense of unresolved endings and what-could-have-beens that fueled her own regrets.

"What?" Way to go, Allison, brilliant interrogation method. Looks like your three years with House are a total write off.

"House was...not so bitter back in Michigan. He was handsome, incredibly smart, an athlete, and a wicked, clever sense of humor. He had a lot of girls back then, each one of them hoping to land a future brilliant doctor. Cameron, can you imagine his reaction to that motivation? He slept with them, a lot of them, and dumped them. And he dumped them in a not-very-nice fashion, and word got around. By the time I'd met him, well, let's just say aside from his musician friends, I was the only person willing to spend time with him. And I'd made very clear to him that I would not to sleep with him. I was...saving it for my marriage. Of course, that's when the comments started. And never stopped. But he respected my decision, he just had to test it every single day. But that's House, don't you know?" Cameron did indeed know. It was something of a shock to hear about a House that wasn't as bitter and as cruel as he was now. Not that it really surprised her. She had never believed Stacy, who had obviously been trying to avoid implicating herself, saying that House was just the same now as when they'd met for the first time. And House testing Cuddy's resolve...well, she could totally imagine the first House comment to Dr. Lisa Cuddy...

"How hard did you slap him, the first time?"

"Enough to sprain my wrist. I punched him. Remember the scar he has on his jawline? My grandmother's antique amethyst ring." Cuddy grinned at the younger doctor. God, she had resented Allison Cameron for such a long time. She was too professional to let it color her dealings with the immunologist, but everyone probably noticed her coldness tword Cameron. She never quite realized exactly when it happened, when she had fallen for Gregory House, back in Michigan. She had lost him three times. Shortly after they had finally begun dating, she lost him when the only person he had ever unconditionally loved died. Allison House, his half sister. She had lost him again when Stacy had appeared, when Stacy had brought back the sparkle in his eyes, the ones she thought were forever extinguished by the loss of his "Allie". And lastly, when House had hired Allison Cameron, Cameron had made the ashes in his eyes go away. Now that she was leaving, she could finally give up the unfounded, irrational hostility she had felt for her. And made her feel guilty for so long. She had called in Cameron to ask her to reconsider her resignation, for the good of her hospital. But as she looked closer at her former employee, she saw the same thing she had seen in her own mirror, when House had hired Cameron. She saw the wound in her heart, and she knew it was no good asking Cameron to stay another day. To stay another day with House, who had hurt her. To stay with the man that they had both loved. To stay with the man she still loved? Did she still love House? And to whom was she asking the question, to Cameron or to herself? Lisa shook her head at her inability to answer her own questions.

There was still one thing that Cuddy had to know...

"Cameron, why did Foreman quit?"

"Ego and...fear." Lisa Cuddy nodded at Cameron, encouraging her to continue.

TBC...