When Alice turned up for work the next day, Mad-Eye took one look at her bruised face and scowled. She assumed the therapist had phoned in a report, and Alice guessed she should count herself lucky that she wasn't pressing charges. Mad-Eye didn't say anything, instead taking her off the interview she'd gained with the potential new Republican mayoral candidate, giving it to another features writer. Alice instinctively understood that that was her punishment.
There was an email in her in-box from the HR department, an official warning for behaviour "not within the values set of this organisation", but she knew there was a three-strike rule at the Princeton Observer. This was only her second. She wasn't sure whether the warning was for kneeing creepy Coupland or hitting the therapist, not that it mattered. Actually, Alice thought, they should be thanking her for taking things into her own hands instead of draining organisational resources with an official complaint of sexual harassment against the guy. But Alice had never really been one for following due process.
Her day was dull. Mad-Eye confined her to the news desk, reviewing press releases, handing out assignments, taking calls from overenthusiastic PR people about the latest event that that the paper absolutely couldn't miss! It was more of Mad-Eye's punishment; he knew she hated it.
Alice understood that she was impulsive. She had a quick temper. Cried easily, yelled easily, and seemingly nowadays, assaulted people easily. But she also knew when it was time to suck it up. This was one of those times. The phone rang again, another PR chick. She sighed.
Suck it up.
In a week her bruises would be gone and the whole incident of her walking out of the staffroom leaving Andrew Coupland lying on the floor cupping his balls with both hands would have faded into legend, a story brought out at Christmas parties and whenever he next tried it on some poor female co-worker. She smiled a bit at that. At least she'd be leaving some kind of legacy.
She knew most people wouldn't expect it – certainly not her colleagues who had many nicknames for her, Hermione being one of the kinder ones – but she'd always sort of thought that her legacy would be more of the human kind, a couple of red-haired genetic half-replicas. It seemed like that wasn't going to happen now. She was thirty-nine years old and knew the statistics. More chance of being in a plane crash than meeting a man. Her fertility down to less than half of what it was five years ago. She again silently thanked her take-no-prisoners lawyer who'd grabbed a significant slice of her ex's fortune. She deserved it. That asshole had not only cost her ten years of her past, he'd cost her her future as well. She hoped he and his little twenty-four year old Barbie doll would be very happy.
Well, actually, she hoped he and his little bimbo would die horribly in a fiery car crash, but you couldn't have everything.
Just a week. A week would be long enough for Mad Eye to feel she'd been punished enough and then she'd be back on the big stories.
He fingers ran lightly over the gauze dressing on her arm. And only a week until she had to go back to the hospital to get her stitches out. She wondered if she'd see Dr House again, then tried to ignore the little flutter of excitement that idea provoked. Ridiculous. She'd been totally overwrought, that's why she'd reacted so strongly to him.
With another heart-felt sigh, Alice reached over to answer the phone again, trying her best to listen patiently to the story being pitched to her.
Suck it up.
--
Alice had been disappointed. She didn't get the blue-eyed Dr House when she went to the clinic to have her stitches removed. She couldn't complain about the doctor she was assigned to, he was definitely handsome in a wholesome, all-American kind of way. Charming too. But they didn't talk about how she'd been injured, she didn't put on a telephone-sex voice to tell him a phony fantasy, and he didn't ask to watch her wrestle her therapist in jello. And he wasn't dressed in clothes that somehow looked as if he'd just picked them up off the bedroom floor after a bout of hot sex.
Altogether it was far less fun than last time.
She followed Dr Wilson out of the exam room and, as he told her to keep the cut covered for a couple more days, she saw him, taller than she remembered, standing at the nurse's station. He glanced up, met her eyes and Alice actually thought her heart did a little skip inside her. Yeah, like something out of a soppy romance novel, but that's exactly how it felt. She had to make a conscious effort not to put her hand to her chest. He continued to gaze at her, but she soon realised that he looked slightly confused. And who could blame him? He probably saw hundreds of patients a week, there was no reason he'd remember her, yet here she was, staring at him like a nut job.
What an idiot.
It made her decision when she'd been dressing for the day all that more ridiculous.
Alice had a rule that whenever she caught a plane she wore good underwear. Not just clean knickers, like her grandmother might have advised, but her priciest, sexiest black lingerie. Her reasoning was sound: you never knew when you might get upgraded, and what happened if you found yourself next to George Clooney who then invited you to join the mile high club? You would not want to be worried about revealing your comfortable-but-faded Fruit of the Loom with the little tear in the elastic at the front.
It was with much the same rationale that she'd put on her lacy gear that morning. Thinking about the medical equivalent of an upgrade. That dark, sexy voice he'd put on – she could hear it in her head. Now that we've got those stitches sorted out, how about we make sure your breasts are okay? Hmm, breasts seem fine – have you had a pap smear recently?
Ew!
It was wrong. Even just thinking about it was wrong.
But she didn't change her underwear. She could feel the black lace crawling up her butt crack right at that moment.
Feeling like an idiot and telling herself to get a grip, Alice turned back to the lovely Dr Wilson and thanked him for his time. She took the antiseptic cream he'd arranged for her just as a voice called over.
"Punched any therapists' lights out lately?"
"House." Alice caught Dr Wilson's warning tone. There was a hint of resignation in it, and she got the impression that Dr Wilson might spend quite a bit of his time saying "House" in just such a tone. She wondered what it would be like to have a conscience in the form of a walking, talking human being. Someone who told you when you'd gone too far; someone who was there to pull you back into line whenever you stepped over it.
Fucking annoying, she decided. The one inside her head was irritating enough.
She walked towards him, telling herself that it really didn't mean anything that he remembered her. "No therapists," she said. "Managed to contain myself to a parking inspector and a guy who works for the IRS. You?"
He pretended to think for a second. "A hospital administrator, an underling, and a patient. But he was really asking for it." He shrugged.
Alice gave a half smile, trying to keep her face straight. She had been wondering if she might have magnified him in her mind after the procedure last week. But no, he was just as attractive as she'd first thought. Scruffy, slightly dishevelled, unshaven. Exactly the opposite of her no-good cheating ex-husband who was neat to the point of obsessive compulsive. The only good thing she'd ever got from him was a surname – so much of an improvement on Alice Spitennzi she'd kept it even as she'd stripped him of half his assets.
Dr House's face turned serious. "How's your arm?" He nodded towards her.
"Practically good as new. I think there'll be a little scar, but then it's probably not a bad idea to have a reminder of it."
"A reminder of your failed potential career as a female mud wrestler?" He lifted up one eyebrow.
Alice felt a little zing in her stomach. He was so flirting with her. She half-wished that it wasn't quite so thrilling. It was just a reflection of exactly how pathetic her life had become.
"It was jello, wasn't it?"
"Oh yeah, jello."
They stared at each other for a little while and Alice wondered what to say next. Her mind was blank and she felt her heart start to pick up speed, keeping pace with her racing but useless thoughts. This never happened to her. She was a journalist! Always had a question. Her life was full of questions. Professional question? Personal question? Pedestrian question? What could she ask him?
"Look, if you two are going to stand around talking about jello, do you mind taking it up to the cafeteria? We're busy in here today." A grumpy nurse pulled the folder out of House's hand and slapped it down on the counter in front of Dr Wilson.
Alice could have kissed her.
"Well, I guess if you wanted jello, a hospital cafeteria might be just the place to get it." His voice had an inflection. An invitation?
At that point, Alice decided she'd follow him to the morgue if he asked, as long as she could look at him a bit longer and enjoy the fluttery, quivery feelings he seemed to stir up in her belly. But she didn't want to seem too eager either.
"Do you think they'll have raspberry?"
"Is that a show stopper? No raspberry, no wrestling?"
"Possibly. I couldn't do it if there was only orange. It would clash with my hair."
Grumpy nurse was obviously getting even more annoyed. "Just go to the cafeteria already!"
Dr House chuckled, seeming to find her annoyance amusing. "Shall we?"
Alice nodded and watched as he collected a cane from where it hung on the counter. She hadn't noticed that last week.
They turned and headed out of the glass doors to the clinic space – he gallantly held it open for her.
"But House!" The Dr Wilson protested from within.
"Suck it up Wilson."