Gregory House wasn't sure how long he had been sitting in the women's locker room staring at the spot where Allison Cameron had once been standing before him. He couldn't quite process that she had she had called his bluff, baring her body and ultimately her soul to him and then simply walked away. The beauty of her body having been only slightly eclipsed by her bravery, he thought. He was taken aback by the immediate sensations she had started within his own body, a series of mental and physical chain reactions that rendered him completely immobile.
Slowly, as if coming up from the bottom of a deep pool, he could hear the muffled voices of women floating about him as he sat in a stunned silence. His internal voices of self respect and self preservation told him to get up and walk out, but he remained defiantly frozen. Disbelief and regret washed over him in waves and he realized something he hadn't felt in a long time had settled in the pit of stomach…loss.
Finally finding his legs, he stood and turned towards the exit. He never saw the strange glances or heard the mocking strings of laughter as he opened the door and walked out.
Lisa Cuddy looked impatiently around the room packed with important looking, rich people just waiting for an excuse to drop some of their cold hard cash on a worthy cause like Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. She nodded in acknowledgment to the immaculately dressed man and his wife as they made their way across the room to talk with her.
This is what Dr. Lisa Cuddy did best, talk about her most prized accomplishment, her hospital. In less than five minutes, she had espoused the strength of their cutting edge cancer treatment programs and clinical trials, their nationally ranked surgical teams and one world renowned Diagnostician and his team that was putting that department at PPTH in the same fraternity as Johns Hopkins and the Mayo Clinic. Two minutes after that, she had a check in her hand for $10,000.
But at the moment, what she thought she wanted more and didn't have was any idea what to do about was Gregory House. Despite all her annoying reminders and chiding throughout the day, he was still late. His cell phone had been turned off and no one had seen him on the fourth floor or the clinic for hours.
Just as she was starting to make a break for a quiet corner to try her luck at paging him, she spotted James Wilson walking into the room. Quickly, Lisa made her way over to him, dispensing pleasantries along the way to faces she hardly know but needed to be getting to know better. She hated that she was so distracted by Greg House and his disregard for how important this evening was to her.
"Well, Dr. Cuddy don't you look especially stunning this evening," James Wilson said, flashing his trademark shy smile. "Been dipping your hands in any deep pockets?" he asked, as he stared at the folded check in her hand.
"Well, not as many as I'd like to. Have you seen House tonight?" she asked impatiently, as she glanced down yet again at her diamond encrusted wristwatch. "No. But let me guess, he's missing in action after swearing he'd be here on time?" Wilson almost felt badly for her, but if anyone should have known what they were getting into before starting an affair with Greg House, it should have been Lisa.
Wilson eyed her intently trying to discern if the look on her face was more of worry or agitation. Their sudden interest in one another following the shooting didn't shock him, but he had to admit it deflate his ego a bit. Even though he had no business jumping into another relationship so soon after his divorce, he had been flattered by Cuddy's dinner invitation. Once he pieced together strings of idle gossip overheard from various nurses, he suspected she was looking for the necessary 'Y' component to make a baby. That, he had to admit, titillated him even more than he could have imagined.
"Don't say it," she shot off at him. Choking back a laugh and trying to control the urge to grin he replied, "I wasn't going to say a thing. I'm just as concerned as you are as to what could have happened to the good doctor. Frankly, it's shocking".
"Shut up and mingle," she said, curtly. "Mingling, right. I'm on it," he said, as he walked away to find the beverage service.
In the cramped driver's seat of his Corvette, House sat watching the parade of couples in formal clothing make their way in and out of the college's Cultural Center building. This was an important fundraising event for Lisa. A local artist who had been a cancer patient at the hospital was showing a collection of her work, donating most of the proceeds to the Cancer Wing and PPTH as a gesture of her gratitude for saving her life.
Lisa, he knew, would be in her element having scores of warm bodies to talk endlessly to about her hospital. But almost as importantly, she had hoped to use the evening's events as an opportunity to present themselves as a couple to their colleagues. The idea chafed at him worse than the stiff collar of his dress shirt.
Whatever was or wasn't going on between them was private. It didn't need to be the business of anyone, especially people he barely knew and didn't respect. Other than the fact that she had an amazing body and the sex was great, he wasn't even sure how he really felt about her and after seeing Cameron like that today, he knew he needed time to figure out what the hell he was doing. What ever happened tonight, he had the distinct feeling it wasn't going to end well.
He sighed, looking at his watch and reached over into the passenger seat to pull up a brown paper bag. He slid the bottle of scotch out carefully and twisted off the cap, breaking the seal which fell in tiny pieces into his lap. Cameron's image had been playing itself over and over in his brain and he tilted his head back to take one large pull from the contents of the bottle to try and wash those pictures away.
Another swig, another look at his watch. No way around it now, he thought to himself. "She'll be good and pissed about this," he mumbled, as he dragged the back of his hand across his lips. "What am I doing? What have I done?" he said, as he realized those were two independent thoughts pertaining to two entirely different people. He roughly reached for his cane, pulling it from the floorboard of the passenger seat and levered himself out of the sports car. Within a few minutes he fell in step with the other well dressed people entering the Cultural Center.
"Would you excuse me for just a moment, please," Cuddy asked in her most cordial voice, her eyes settling on the tall, brooding looking man that had just entered the gallery. Almost too eagerly, she made her way through the crowd to where House was pretending to admire one of the works of art.
"Oh, here we go," he said, under his breath as the image of Lisa's thin, tall figure and dark hair crept into his peripheral vision. "House!" she said, breathlessly and pulling the sleeve on his jacket. "Where have you been? The gallery opened over an hour ago. You promised you were going to be on time". House nodded insincerely and smiled at a couple who eyed them with curiosity.
"I was thirsty and stopped off for a drink," he said, flatly. "I can see that" she said, smelling the unmistakable aroma of Scotch and vicodin on his breath. Conceding that this was not a battle she wanted to pursue, Lisa Cuddy quickly changed the subject. "Listen," she said, as she nuzzled her ruby stained lips next to his ear. "Be a good boy tonight and play nice. Don't look bored, don't order more than one drink at a time and please try to mingle" she said in a maternal voice.
House shot her his best pained look. "Are we still on the clock or off? I forget," he said, disapprovingly and walked off in search of Wilson and the open bar.
Three and a half hours later, the evening had mercifully drawn to a close. House reflected that he didn't mingle or stray too far from the bar. He did manage to order only one drink at a time, even though they were consumed minutes within one another. But then again, he didn't cause any heartburn for Lisa by being disruptive. Wilson had stayed close sensing that something was troubling his already overly troubled friend. Although after several hours, (and too many vodka tonics) he was still unable to draw out the cause of House's ailments.
Cuddy was taking care of last minute gratuities for the servers before she finally came over to where House and Wilson now sat in two obscenely overstuffed leather chairs near the front door.
"So, was it a successful night?" Wilson asked, as he tried to look casual in a chair that was swallowing him one limb at a time.
"Well, we received enough to launch the two new Leukemia suites in the Cancer Centre and still have enough left over to cover a couple of Greg's future legal expenses," she playfully said, as she carefully removed two painful looking gold earrings from her ears while simultaneously pushing House's arm off the chair with her hip so that she could perch there.
"Then I'd say that was four hours well spent," Wilson remarked, as he struggled valiantly to extract himself from the man-eating chair. "What do you guys say…anyone up for a nightcap over at Le Monde's?"
Lisa was quick to chime in. "Sure, I could go for…"
"Nope," House cut her off. "Thanks, though. I've got a lot going on at work tomorrow and these things always wear me out. I think I'll just call it a night". Then turning to a stunned Cuddy, he said softly, "Let me drive you home".
"See you in the morning, Jimmy. Have fun with your nightcap," he shot back, glancing over at a striking yet distressed young woman dressed in a revealing little black dress waiting by the door.
Seeing the object of House's gaze, Wilson dropped the normal exchange of parting pleasantries and made a bee-line for the door. "Night," he said quickly, over his shoulder.