When they returned to the function room, Kitty was horrified to find almost all the guests had already arrived. "You told me we had plenty of time," she hissed to House under her breath, annoyed but still feeling a note of satisfaction at the evidence of her success. The room was almost full, the musicians and entertainers were wandering around the room, and the men and women looked spectacular in their evening dress and Mardi Gras masks.
She grabbed House's wrist and checked his watch, horrified at finding out the time. "The function's already started!" Kitty whispered angrily. "We've missed the hors d'oeuvres and I've missed greeting people!"
"Ah, don't get your knickers in a twist, you've got plenty of time to say hi to everyone," he answered, pulling his arm from her grip and looking at his watch. "Dinner's still ten minutes away."
"Ten minutes?" Kitty whirled to face him. "We were away for over an hour! You said you'd keep an eye on the time! I need more than ten—"
"Ms Brecht, Dr House," a voice said smoothly behind them. "It's nice to see you again."
Kitty turned and frowned at the man greeting her. His face was familiar but—
"Seth Bannister, from Bannister McKinnon," the man said helpfully. "I read Andrew Barnes's will."
Kitty felt House's arm snake around her waist and press into her in an uncharacteristically discrete show of support.
"What are you doing here?" House asked curtly. "Checking to see we're upholding our side of the agreement?"
"Yes, actually," he replied pleasantly, ignoring House's rudeness. He gave a small smile to Kitty. "And our firm is pleased to support the PRC's work."
"Well, thank you," Kitty felt obliged to reply. "But as you'll see when he makes his speech later, Dr House is very much in place as Chairman of the PRC."
Seth Bannister nodded. "I look forward to it. I notice some unusual people are attending tonight," he added mysteriously. "But then I guess as it's a charitable event, you can't necessarily control the guest list. Still. I'm glad my table's up the back." He gave them a strange, lopsided smile and then disappeared into the milling throng of guests.
"What was that all about?" House asked.
"I have no idea." Kitty shook her head.
House shrugged. "Oh well. It doesn't matter. Everything's fine. We're doing everything according to the will stipulations. It's not like he's going to find anything that can change the bequest."
"I guess you're right." Still, Kitty couldn't help the strange sense of anxiety that had begun to grow in the pit of her stomach. Something he'd said gave her a looming sense of dread, as if there was something terribly important about the evening that she'd somehow overlooked. Before she could think too much further, Lisa Cuddy came over to them.
"House! You always look so handsome in a tux. Don't know why you don't wear one every day," she said.
Kitty noticed House's faint embarrassment and wasn't all that surprised that he covered it with a rude quip.
"Whereas I can see perfectly well why you can't wear a dress like that every day. Not with that ass."
"It's a beautiful dress, Lisa," Kitty said, elbowing House and hoping to interrupt before the bantering could go much further. Cuddy was wearing a red silk sheath that hugged her every curve and had a mask shaped to look like flames that matched it perfectly. She turned to House. "We forgot our masks, they're still up in the . . ." Kitty trailed off, realising she had been just about to give away the fact that she and House had shared a hotel room.
"Yeah, I know, we left them on the bed," House said. "I was too spent from our passion to remember to pick them up."
Kitty felt the blush rise up her cheeks and didn't miss the challenging look House sent to Cuddy. To her surprise, Lisa Cuddy simply nodded and smiled.
"Everyone will take their masks off when we sit down to dinner anyway," Cuddy said consolingly. "And speaking of—"
A Pierrot-style clown danced through the crowd with a dinner gong.
"You're both on my table," Cuddy said. "We're table number three, up the front." She pointed to a table near the stage.
"Why don't you go sit with Cuddy while I just check a few last minute things?" Kitty said to House, hoping that a last minute run through of details with Penny would settle the nervous knot in her gut. "I really have to check in and make sure everything's okay."
House nodded and he and Cuddy headed off towards the table.
Kitty put a hand on his arm as he began to walk off. "Greg?" she said quietly. "It's an important night for me."
He studied her for a while before giving a curt nod.
"Thank you." Kitty smiled; she knew he understood what she had asked. Not that he be anyone other than the man he was, but that he play nice, just for a while, the way she knew he could if he cared to.
-
-
Cuddy was pleased with how her little strategy for the evening was working out, but still a little anxious about what might yet happen. She wasn't really looking forward to sitting next to Denis Barnes for hours, but as soon as she'd arrived she'd gone over to the table and altered the place cards to ensure that Denis and House were sitting on either side of her. She was sure she'd be able to find a way to engage the two of them in conversation.
Just before they reached the table, a white-haired doctor Cuddy recognised as Dr Grosvenor from Princeton General pulled House to one side. House said he'd meet Cuddy in a minute.
Cuddy was nearing table three when she saw a blonde woman she didn't recognise rearranging the name cards.
"Were you unhappy with the place settings?" Cuddy asked quickly. She scanned the table and saw that Denis and House's names were still together, except now instead of being in between them, she was on one side of Denis, with Catherine on her other side instead of next to House.
"I just really wanted to sit next to Catherine," the woman said with a funny smile. "We're old friends and we haven't seen each other for a long time. It would be great to catch up."
"Oh, that's nice," Cuddy said. She didn't care, as long as her plans for tonight were still in place. And they were.
Cuddy and the blonde woman took their seats, leaving a space in between them for Kitty.
"I'm Lisa," she said, putting out her hand to shake.
"Miranda," the other woman answered.
Cuddy was distracted for a moment as Denis arrived at the table.
"Ah, little Lisa Cuddy," he said heartily, in a way that made Cuddy's stomach drop. She'd got so wrapped up in her stratagem for House, she'd forgotten quite how much this man made her stomach turn. She forced herself to remember that the man was House's half-brother and that it was important for House that she was nice to him. "I see you've met my sister Miranda."
"Denis," she said, pasting on a smile. "How nice to see you, and yes, Miranda and I have met." She stood up and Denis pressed a sloppy kiss to her cheek.
"You look beautiful!" he said loudly. Then he leaned in and whispered in her ear conspiratorially. "I brought the . . . ah . . . little blue pills with me tonight, so if you want, just say the word and I'll get us a hotel room."
Cuddy choked and barely held herself in check. She had an overwhelming urge to yell in his face: Do you really think there's the slightest chance on earth I'd want to have sex with you?? For the first time Cuddy felt a faint sense of discomfort about what she had organised. Was this man really the kind of brother House needed to get to know? She had to admit, for all his faults, House was usually an excellent judge of character, and Wilson had already told her that House wasn't interested in knowing Denis. She suddenly reconsidered her plan, but looking around the room at the guests who were now seated and eating their entrees, she realised it was all far too late.
She sat down and reached for her glass of wine, thinking that getting mildly drunk might not be a bad idea. As she picked up her drink she noticed Miranda putting down a glass of red wine in the empty place next to her. She frowned, wondering what the woman was doing.
"I just realised I accidentally picked up the wrong glass!" Miranda said with a little giggle, picking up the glass of champagne in front of her. "That must be Catherine's. I don't even like red wine."
"Easy done," Cuddy said shrugging. When the woman smiled her face pulled tight and Cuddy was slightly horrified by the grimace it produced. It confirmed her decision never to have plastic surgery. Well, maybe a little botox, but no surgery. Miranda turned away quickly, absorbed in conversation with the person on her other side.
"Now, Lisa," Denis's booming voice said to her right. "Tell me about Princeton Plainsboro. What's going on there this week?"
Cuddy sighed, plastered a smile on her face, and began talking. As she spoke she saw House walk up to the table. He looked down at his place card and pulled out his chair. Belatedly, he seemed to notice who was sitting next to him and he scowled. Cuddy briefly caught his eye and he glared at her as if he knew exactly what she'd done. He shifted in his seat, adjusting his chair so he had his back to the other man, and began talking to the person on his right. Patently ignoring both her and Denis. Cuddy was both disappointed and impressed – she realised that under usual circumstances, House would have made a fuss, kicked up a racket, refused to sit where he was meant to.
Catherine must really have his number.
And meanwhile, Denis was so busy talking to her, he didn't even notice House's presence next to him.
Cuddy held in a groan. Knowing she'd got herself into this didn't make it even a little bit easier to put up with.
-
-
Kitty quickly checked with Penny and the hotel's event manager to make sure all the last minute details were being attended to. There had only been one little drama, one of the guests had fallen faint in the foyer, but the hotel's first aid team had dealt with that and the woman and her partner – a doctor, of course – as well as the couple that were attending with them, had gone home. That meant she had a table of only six, but there was nothing she could do about that. She quickly went over to check on them, happy to find them in good spirits and quickly working their way through the bottle of champagne on their table.
Everything seemed fine, and yet Kitty still couldn't rid herself of the gnawing sense of anxiety in the pit of her stomach. Perhaps it was simply the lawyer's presence that was upsetting her. She tried to shrug it off – there really was no reason to be concerned.
Still feeling a little weak from her exertions upstairs with House – it really had been a very irresponsible thing to do, she chastised herself – Kitty was more than ready to sit down and enjoy a glass of wine. She headed over to table three, quickly spotting the single empty chair that was hers. She was disappointed to note that House wasn't seated next to her, but then she figured that probably wasn't a bad thing, if he had been, he'd no doubt do something like try to fondle her under the table and, knowing how weak she was when it came to him, Kitty would probably have let him do it. She was pleased to see that on one side of the empty spot was Cuddy, and she looked up when Kitty reached the table and pulled out the empty chair.
"Just in time to eat," Cuddy said warmly. The man on Cuddy's right put a hand on her arm, and Cuddy gave Kitty a barely perceptible grimace before turning back to him. Kitty's eyes followed and she couldn't hold in the gasp of surprise at realising that Cuddy's dinner companion was Denis Barnes. To Denis's right was House, deliberately turned away and in deep conversation with the person on his other side. He hadn't noticed Kitty's approach. Kitty observed the white-knuckled grip Dr Cuddy had on her wine glass, she was sure the other woman was not having the time of her life.
Kitty sat down, desperately trying to catch House's gaze, but he was clearly so determined to look away from Denis he was ignoring everyone on that side of the table. With Cuddy and Denis talking, Kitty felt she had no choice but to introduce herself to the rest of the table. She turned to her left and felt the air rush out of her lungs.
Miranda Barnes was sitting right next to her, staring at her with unconcealed hatred. She reeled back, clutching the table with one hand. How had this happened? She hadn't even seen Denis and Miranda's names on the guest list, let alone figured they'd end up on her table. Then with a sinking feeling she realised – they'd been invited by Lisa Cuddy because of the Barnes Trust: Kitty knew that it funded PPTH. And Penny had done the final run-through of the guest list while she had been upstairs. She felt her pulse rise and a sense of panic grip her. Logically she realised it wasn't that big a deal – all she had to do was go find somewhere else to sit for the night. There was no way she could sit next to Miranda Barnes and not either pass out from an angina attack or get bitch-slapped. Or both. But for some reason, whether shock or just plain anxiety, she couldn't find the will to stand.
"Kitty," Miranda said as if the word was repellent to her, her face a snarl.
"Miranda," Kitty replied, trying to be civil. "I didn't realise you were coming tonight."
"Clearly."
"How are you?" Kitty choked out. She looked across to House, desperately hoping he could rescue her, only to find James Wilson had walked over and House had stood up to greet him, both men wandering away from the table a little way.
"I'm very well," Miranda answered, her eyes flashing. "I see you've found another rich man to sponge off."
"What?" Kitty gasped. While she'd known Miranda would be unpleasant, she had no expectation the other woman would come out fighting so publicly. With a shaking hand she reached out for the red wine in front of her and took a sip, trying to calm her nerves.
"Dr House is, as you well know, a reasonably wealthy man," Miranda continued. "Not as rich as my father, but then, I guess you've got to take what you can get – now that you're getting on a bit and can't play the innocent little girl anymore."
Kitty's mouth fell open and her shock turned into anger. She hadn't spoken more than a few words to Miranda since she'd stopped seeing Andrew. And even back then, they hadn't exactly had many interactions. She knew the woman disliked her, but Kitty would had never predicted the strength of her loathing.
Miranda leaned closer, spitting out her words in a furious whisper. "Daddy only needed one daughter. Having you whoring around was never going to—"
The rest of Miranda's words were lost as music came swelling out of the speakers around the room and the lights dimmed. Kitty's stomach churned with disbelief and rage, but there was nothing she could do now but sit quietly – getting up to walk off would be noticed by everyone in the room because their table was right at the front. And Kitty was feeling so emotional, she wondered if she could even manage to stand. She told herself that as soon as the speeches were done, she'd excuse herself and find somewhere else to sit. Even if it had to be the kitchen.
She turned her back on Miranda, making it look as if she was turning to face the stage, but in truth she couldn't bear to look at the woman anymore. Having her cloying perfume hanging around was bad enough.
Dr Grosvenor walked to the podium and welcomed everyone warmly. He thanked them for coming, and – just as they had rehearsed – briefly and politely explained that he would be stepping down as Chairman. He thanked the board, Kitty and his family and then generously introduced House. Kitty had trouble taking it all in, Miranda's accusations were running through her head. But despite that, when House took the stage Kitty tried to put it to the back of her mind. She willed a silent prayer that he'd do a good job, and couldn't help admiring him again, all dressed up in his evening finery. He held a single sheet of paper in his hand – his speech, Kitty was pleased to see. She held her breath, wondering how he was going to do. They hadn't exactly used the break in the hotel room to practice, as she'd suggested.
House put the paper down on the lectern and looked down at it. "The Pain Research Council exists to conduct research into all types of chronic pain," he began reading. "Its mission is to—" House broke off and closed his eyes for a moment. Kitty held her breath. He'd started off so confidently – read the first line of the speech she'd written perfectly just as she knew he could do. Did he have stage fright?
House took the sheet in front of him, folded it into four and slipped it back inside his jacket pocket. He grabbed the lectern with both hands and stared out at the audience. The few whispers that had begun when he'd fallen silent immediately ceased.
"The PRC's mission is irrelevant," he said, practically spitting out the management jargon. "What it's meant to do is to relieve suffering. With every piece of research we fund, we come closer to giving life back to someone who lives in pain every day. Pain isn't popular. It isn't interesting, or fun, and often it isn't even explainable. There are no concerts, no ribbons, no international day of chronic pain. And it's not about celebrities, or supermodels, or especially cute-looking kids. It's about you . . . And you . . . And you." As he spoke he pointed to three people in the crowd who gasped, clearly in shock at having been correctly identified as suffering from some kind of pain condition.
"I can't promise you I'm going to be a good Chairman, hell, I'll probably be crap at all that stuff. But I'll rely on Steve—" He gave a nod to the man next to him. "—and K-Catherine—" He smiled warmly down at her. "—to navigate me through. What I do want to do is come back here next year with some real people. I want to introduce you to people who are now living pain-free because of work done by the PRC. I want you to hear their stories, about what it's like to be crippled by pain, to be misunderstood, stared at, ridiculed and constantly, incessantly hurting. And then they're going to tell us what it's like to have that burden taken away because of work we do. I want to show you people who are no longer living in agony. And I'm hoping that might include me."
He gave a curt nod and limped away from the lectern. There was a moment of shocked silence before the room erupted in applause. Kitty blinked back tears as she clapped hard enough to make her hands tingle. Cuddy twisted around in her seat to give Kitty an amazed look; Kitty smiled when she saw the other woman's eyes had welled with tears too.
Kitty took a deep breath as the applause finally subsided. Steve re-took the stage, assuring everyone that it was a hard act to follow, but he now had the boring stuff to take care of. The audience laughed good-naturedly and he went on to present the year's results as they'd prepared. House still stood on the stage, back and to one side of Steve, no longer in the spotlight. But although the lights weren't on him, Kitty could see him perfectly and could tell that his eyes were on her. She gave him a beaming smile – Denis and Miranda and her sense of doom forgotten for the moment. This man not only understood and forgave her past, he understood and supported her present. She wanted nothing more than to make him a part of her future. He wanted her to be Mrs House? Suddenly, she couldn't wait.
Kitty picked up her wine glass and held it in a little salute to him before mouthing the word "Yes" across to him. He frowned at first, confused, but then she saw as awareness dawned, as he understood what she meant, and was thrilled by the look of delight that flooded his face. She looked away, worried that someone might see the raw emotion on her face, and took a long sip of her drink. She grimaced at the bitter flavour, and made a note to speak to the hotel about the quality of the wine.
She turned back to the table, feeling somehow stronger, knowing now that she wasn't alone. She braced herself for Miranda's spite, only to find the other woman had disappeared at some point. Good. At least it gave Kitty a chance to find another seat and to try to avoid her for the rest of the night. Kitty still didn't know exactly what she'd done to deserve the woman's hatred. Kitty couldn't help thinking that with what Andrew Barnes had put her through, surely it should be the other way around?
"Congratulations on organising such a lovely evening," Dr Cuddy said once Dr Grosvenor had completed his speech, deliberately shifting her body to face Kitty.
"Thank you."
"I know how much work these things are. You should be proud. And you actually got House to make a speech. That's seriously impressive – you deserve a medal."
Kitty nodded, still smiling, but all her thoughts were on making a quick exit to somewhere safer before Miranda returned. Preferably in the back of the room as far from table three as possible. At that thought, the words of the lawyer earlier came back to haunt her – he'd said he was glad he was at the back of the room. Could he possibly have been trying to avoid the Barnes brother and sister too? Kitty decided to see if she could find him and ask some questions.
Kitty picked up her wine glass and drained it. She pulled a face as she did. "This wine is terrible," she said to Cuddy. "I must talk to the hotel about it. And they obviously poured me the last of the bottle, it was all gritty. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to—"
Cuddy reached out and grabbed Kitty's arm. Her eyes went wide as she leant in and whispered. "Please, save me. I can't stand another moment talking to him."
Kitty gave her a sympathetic smile. She knew exactly how she felt.
"Dr Cuddy, excuse me but I need to go to the bathroom," Kitty said conspiratorially, raising her voice enough so that Denis could hear. "Do you know where they are?"
Cuddy grinned. "Actually I could use to powder my nose too. I'll show you." She reached down to grab her evening purse, leaving Kitty looking straight at Denis.
"Oh, Kitty, it is you," he said. "I didn't realise you were sitting there." He did one of those sleazy laughs Kitty felt he'd perfected. "You look, uh, lovely."
Kitty smiled but bit the inside of her cheeks to stop herself from saying anything. Denis was as thick as two short planks, but he still made her uneasy. At least Miranda's hatred was obvious. Denis's feelings were less clear. Sometimes she thought he disliked her as much as his mother and sister did, while at others she thought he sort of fancied her. Ick.
The two women stood up, but as soon as she was on her feet Kitty felt dizzy and her head began throbbing with the beginnings of a bad headache. She paused, gripping the chair, and took a deep breath.
"Are you okay?" Cuddy asked, concerned.
Kitty gave her a weak smile. "I just have a little headache," she confessed.
"Understandable," Cuddy said. "These evenings can be so stressful."
You have no idea, Kitty thought. She ought to be angry with the other woman for seating her and House with the Barnes' siblings, but she had to remember that even if it had been done purposefully, it had been done without knowledge of her past.
"Have you got any painkillers?" Cuddy asked, still concerned.
"I'm sure I'll be fine," Kitty said reassuringly. "Let's go."