They liked to pace, he mused. House had to pace when the monstrosity that is his thigh cracked down, and Sairah… that's how she thinks, it seems.
It amused him to no end, this similarity. Wilson was standing at Sairah's doorway, as she was working through the floorboards, oblivious to his presence. The constant recitation of "damn!" seemed to be necessary too. Barely suppressing a chuckle, he strode up to her and stopped her.
"Cuddy doesn't want to pay for new flooring AND House's lawyers," he told her. He smiled back when she rolled her eyes at him, marveling at the level of comfort that they had reached in such a short time.
She placed her hands on his hands, moving them away from her shoulders.
"I need to think, James. This is how I think. I pace."
"What you need is sugar." She narrowed her eyes at him.
"What I need to do is not screw up the quad delivery tomorrow. Which is why I need to make sure I'm completely prepared. And that cannot be done when you're distracting me!" She pushed him out of the door.
"Come on... this works for House all the time. Eat some gelato. Or some sorbet. Or better yet, a cupcake. Nothing beats sugar-induced confidence." He grinned at the beginnings of acquiescence.
"That gelato better be bloody good, Wilson."
"There's also chocolate mousse."
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House watched them walk to the elevators, shaking his head at Wilson's back.
Smooth operator, my ass. All I wanted you to do is distract her, Wilson, not bust a fucking move.
He snapped open his cell phone, and hit speed dial 2.
"Make sure that she doesn't have her purse, Wilson."
"Patient's stable, Patricia."
"Nice acting."
"I try my best."
"No keys in the pocket, no cell phone, not even spare change, do you understand me?"
"What did you want me to do, frisk her? Patient has been detoxed, for what it's worth."
"Great."
"See y.." He was cut off.
"You remember what I said, don't you?"
"Hou..."
"Keep it in your pants."
Click.
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While Wilson dragged his goddaughter to the Bent Spoon, House snuck into her office.
He was going through her purse in the semi-darkness when all the lights were suddenly turned on.
"Tell me you're not going through her things." House looked up, startled.
"I'm not going through her things."
"Why is your hand in her purse, House?"
"I need her keys."
"She doesn't have a spare?" He smirked at the question. Not long ago she would have asked him why he needed the keys.
"She hasn't had the time."
"Okay…" The two syllables were dragged out as Allison Cameron walked towards him and propped a scrub-covered hip on the desk.
"Listen. It's five o'clock, which means I have exactly fifteen minutes to get her keys and go to her place, and wait for Lenny. You're not helping." Rolling her eyes, she held her hand out and wiggled her fingers.
It didn't even take a second for her to find the keys attached to a tube of lip balm and a mini flashlight.
"Thank you…" He saw her eyes widen. "What, is it that unthinkable that I thank you?"
"Uh... yes?" He smirked again.
"Wanna come with?" She sighed.
"Why the hell not."
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She didn't realize how much she had missed it. Riding on his bike was something she had only experienced once, but that time was forever imprinted in her mind. But now, she couldn't stop the sudden grin as he once more yanked her already willing arms around his middle. She was resting her forehead against his back when he handed her the helmet.
"You really should be the one wearing the helmet," she mumbled.
"I left the spare in my other pants."
"Oh, snap?" She ventured.
He chuckled as he started the bike, casting a longing look at the Kawasaki gleaming a few rows down as they maneuvered out of the parking lot.
Something occurred to her.
"Who's Lenny?"
"What?"
"Who's Lenny?"
"Wait till we get there, Cameron!"
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They pulled into the spot directly facing Sairah's living room window. Neither of them wanted to let go, it seemed. The feeling of Cameron's arms wrapped around him and the pleasant warmth against his back was one he was reluctant to lose. He winced inwardly.
Come on, House. Snap out of it.
"Cameron." His voice had taken on a surreally gentle quality as he moved a shoulder in an effort to nudge her.
"Cameron."
He gingerly pried the arms from his waist, cringing at the rush of seemingly cold air against his lower back.
Before he got a chance to turn around, Cameron straightened, obviously awake.
His chest tightened just a fraction, looking at the heavy-lidded eyes and lazy smirk.
He wanted to comment about the level of her fatigue if ten minutes on the bike put her to sleep. He wanted to brush the errant lock of blonde hair away from her eyebrow. He wanted to trace the pad of his thumb along the faint scar on her cheekbone he knew was from a bicycle accident. He wanted to yank her arms around him again, envelop himself in the delicious cocoon of Cameron that he had come to—
He blinked.
What the fuck?
Cursing his treacherous subconscious and its ridiculous notions, he quickly dismounted.
"Come on, then. Lenny should be here."
"Which leads me to ask again, who's Lenny?"
"Leonard Mason is the now owner of a very prestigious family-owned company that makes pianos." He fiddled with Sairah's lock. "Of course, this was before Yamaha bought them over…"
He stepped inside; warm, jasmine scented air greeting the pair of them.
"Why are you getting her a piano?" He smiled again.
"She's turning twenty five in a few days." He watched as Cameron's face broke out in a grin both at his words and the picture on the little table by the door. Quirking his eyebrow, he waited until she brought him the frame.
A twenty five year old House, grandly bedecked in a paper birthday hat, had his face scrunched tightly against a tiny hand holding a glob of what looked like cake icing to his nose. In the background was a laughing woman holding a casserole dish.
He struggled to breathe as he clutched the frame. Blue eyes slid slowly shut, only to snap open again at the sound of Cameron's voice.
"You're right," she said. After weeks of her unassuming nonchalance, after watching the easy friendship his former fellow struck with his goddaughter, House had finally relented a short time ago, and told Cameron about Sairah. Everything.
Strange, how he didn't need the aid of alcohol this time.
The strange compulsion to tell her struck him when she walked into his office a few days ago and threw herself at his yellow armchair, and asked him if he wanted some coffee.
"She does look like her mother," Cameron finished.
"Yeah," he rasped.
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They had waited for the mysterious Lenny, for five, ten, fifteen minutes before House's cell phone rang.
Cameron was shocked at the sudden emergence of self-restraint as House stopped himself from yelling at Lenny for the sudden cancellation and instead proceeded to do the man's job for him. He walked around Sairah's living room, making rough measurements by pointing his cane at the walls. Cameron couldn't hold back a smile at the sight of House limping through the apartment, muttering as he did the mental calculations.
How sweet.
"You want something to drink?" She called out.
"She's not going to have alcohol," was the reply. She rolled her eyes as she eyed the sparse cabinets.
"There should be a jug of iced tea in the fridge!" He shouted back.
She took out a giant plastic gallon jug from the fridge, filled with appetizingly dark liquid and thick slices of lemon.
Two glasses of iced tea were in her hand as she made her way back into the living room. Walking along the mantle above the fireplace, she looked at the pictures displayed there.
Intrigued, she set the glasses down on a nearby table and walked closer to inspect.
Besides the picture they were just looking at, there was one of him at a piano with a little girl perched next to him. His mouth was open, and he was turned towards her, both of them oblivious to the presence of the camera. There was another one with an older Sairah standing next to her mother holding a rolled up piece paper with a—
Her thoughts came to a crashing halt as she felt the warmth at her back.
House said nothing, but Cameron saw a hand come up to grip the mantle beside her. The other hand followed momentarily, and distantly, she heard the clatter of cane against floor.
Cameron turned, very slowly, in the intimidating circle of House's arms and faced him. His breathing was almost imperceptibly fast, and as he leaned against the mantle, stretching his back, Cameron felt hers quicken as well.
"What are you doing?" The question came out in a low whimper that, two seconds later, Cameron realized came from her. Her nostrils filled with the clean, citrusy scent of his skin, and the proximity made her head spin.
"Honestly…" he began.
She was immediately seized by an irrational need to smile. Greg House… honest?
Her thoughts must have shown on her face because the corner of his mouth twitched in shy amusement.
"I really don't know." The display of husky vulnerability made her knees weak, but her hand didn't seem to have that problem. The knuckles of her right hand scraped along his jaw and her voice dipped an octave.
"That makes two of us."
Warm breath caressed her face as a huff of laughter escaped his mouth. The very same, very perfect mouth that she was staring at like a dog would stare at a fresh cut steak. It should have been embarrassing when House shot her a pointed look, but she could only smile weakly, and swallow the saliva that had pooled in her mouth. Every fiber of her being was screaming for contact, and the image of him, her, and the damn needle kept flashing in front of her eyes, teasing her with memories of their previous kiss.
"Um.."
"I.."
House spoke. And when he did, the shocking openness in his eyes made Cameron dig her nails further into the palm of her left hand.
"I don't want to hurt you, Cameron."
"So don't."
"You know it's not as simple as that."
"As a matter of fact, I do."
"I will, though."
"What?"
"Hurt you."
"Do your worst, House."
And at that, he leaned into his grip on the mantle until his nose was just millimeters away from hers.
"You really shouldn't give me an opening like that."
"Well," she said, extricating her nails from the soft flesh of her palm to cup the side of his face, right hand already curled around his neck, "Let's see what you do with it."
It was as if every was taking place in slow motion: the brief appearance of House's tongue when he licked his lips, the opening and closing of Cameron's eyes, and the flex of his biceps when he leaned in impossibly further. It felt like minutes, hours, days, months… years had gone by before Cameron curled her hands around his neck and closed what little distance there was between them.
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It was glorious.
Satisfied that her hands weren't slipping down to bring out a needle, House leaned further into Cameron's embrace, slowly relaxing his grip on the mantle and curling his hands around her hips.
His whole universe was awash with sensation, the slide of a scrub clad shin along his, the friction of fingertips against his scalp, the nails scraping up his back, the pit of his stomach filling with an aching feeling that was almost too much.
As he found the hem of Cameron's scrub top and slid his hand inside, House wondered what the hell took them so long.
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She was going to kill him. James sodding Wilson was going to be impaled on a long, rusty, metal pole in the middle of the lobby. And she was going to sell tickets.
Sairah strode across the lobby, irritation blinding her to the surroundings. If she hadn't caved, like someone on "The Biggest Loser" at the thought of gelato, then she wouldn't have missed the early arrival of Guadalupe, or "Quad-mom", as the scrub nurses had dubbed her. If she hadn't missed the arrival, she would have had the opportunity to yell at the consulting neurosurgeon that little Carlos did need a shunt in his brain. She would have caught the department head of Cardio that she liked before he left for his organ harvest to repair Juanita's valve.
Instead, she had gone home at seven, full, and relaxed. She definitely didn't expect that her patient would go into labor before her scheduled c-section, at barely thirty three weeks, much less the fact that her nurses would call her only a full forty minutes later, at nine o'clock.
Sairah had almost put in the shunt that was to go into Carlos herself, before the equally irritated neurosurgeon was called back in from a meeting. Of course, she didn't waste any OR time chewing out the nurses. Not when Elizabeth needed steroids to develop her lungs, and Juanita needed cardiothoracic intervention.
At around half five in the morning, she made it out of the patients' room, after placating the new parents, and monitoring little Raquel, who seemed almost suspiciously healthy.
It was then that the fifteen OB nurses on call were subjected to fifteen minutes of her cool, flat voice, and impressive vocabulary.
Finally, at about six, after making early rounds in the NICU and the maternity ward, her patience snapped at the, in retrospect, relatively valid question that a foolhardy intern had posed. And she, in an effort to avoid bloodshed, had instructed the attending at her side to take over, pivoted on one flat shoe and stormed out.
Striding through the lobby after that, she had successfully figured out what, or more importantly who, was the cause of the morning from hell.
She strode so much that, after ten straight minutes of fuming, she found herself making her traditional coffee walk. Greg had mocked her relentlessly when he found out that she walked to Starbucks every day, but she held a steadfast belief that, if she was going to eat a brownie every day with coffee, she was going to burn some calories in preparation by walking a mile to the store.
Hurrying inside, and failing to suppress a smile at the obvious lack of line, she walked to stand behind a blond man in a dark plaid shirt.
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Usually, at six thirty in the morning, he was one of the only customers; the early shifters came in at five, and the regular people came in at seven or seven thirty.
But he liked to take his time, and spend an hour in Starbucks doing his crossword, sipping coffee. It was the next best thing to lounging in the conference room for two hours every morning.
Chase turned around at the sudden appearance of another customer.
Smiling, he nodded to the other doctor.
"Good morning, Dr. Khan." His smile widened at her wry half smirk and the barely suppressed sigh in her voice.
"Good morning, Dr. Chase," she replied, briefly straightening up to greet him before settling back into a slouch.
It's not because she's the same age, or the same position as him, but in that instant, he suddenly felt a rush of warm camaraderie for this woman standing in front of him.
He stepped closer, and his senses were suddenly jarred by the familiar smell of metal, the sigh, and the swollen eyes, but on dark hair and olive skin.
Fueled by said rush of warm camaraderie, he smiled some more.
"Rob," he intoned. Nobody called him Dr. Chase. Even after three years, he has to hold himself back from looking around for his father every time somebody referred to him that way.
"Sairah," she replied.
At the voice of the barista, he turned and ordered his usual venti cappuccino. But when another appeared to take Sairah's order, something shifted in his veins. And as usual, his mouth lost all communication with his brain.
"She's with me," he told her, much to Sairah's obvious surprise.
"That's really not necessary," she protested.
"My pleasure," he said, and sensing discomfort, he threw in a "please."
And when she smiled at him, that something shifted again, prompting him to sweep a hand out in a mocking bow and intoning, "My lady."
He didn't expect her to attempt a giggle and reply, "Kind sir," before stepping up to the register.
"Venti quad skinny white mocha, no whip," she told the barista, and even though his Australian accent was as thick as ever, the jargon sounded strange coming from a mouth that he expected to ask for tea.
"Rough day?"
She smiled again, twinkling eyes strangely reminiscent of House.
"Don't ask."
He nodded toward his usual table when the coffees were ready, and started slightly when she followed, surprised.
And even though he had a hunch, he asked her anyway: "Genetic neurological disorder that presents with skin blistering, and types of hyper and hypopigmentation, original Latin name. First word, thirteen letters."
He watched, smirking, as she carefully put down her coffee with an endearing reluctance. Folding her hands in her lap, and she let her head hit the table with a thud that spoke of a long night buried elbow-deep in amniotic fluid, and numerous hours of crying babies.
She probably doesn't know the answer, he reasoned.
"Incontinetia."
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