House didn't see Kelly again until late the next morning. He never worked on weekends if he could help it (some would say he never worked at ALL if he could help it), and the day before had been ruined by the early wake up. So that Sunday he didn't even get out of bed until the doorbell rang.

"You're looking refreshed," she said sunnily. In actuality, he looked homeless with his hair mussed, his beard untrimmed, his t-shirt ripped, and his pajama pants hanging off him like he'd just lost a lot of weight. But she found him endearing in his "natural state" and so was delighted to be greeted like this.

"Are you AWOL, or did they spring you?" He knew the answer; he'd called the hospital to check on her condition. Twice.

"I have been ordered to return in three days to get checked out, but until then I'm a free woman."

He grunted his approval. "Just give me a second to throw on some shoes and I'll help you bring your stuff in."

While she had half-expected him to contact her earlier and offer her a place to stay he hadn't done it, so she'd arrived not expecting it at all; she had only planned to stop in and thank him for all he'd done, maybe make a date for dinner. Somehow it meant more to her that he had thought it would be assumed. "Greg, that's not why I came here. I'm not trying to impose - "

"Shut up."

"But Greg - "

"Shut up. As in, stop talking."

"But - "

"Shhhhh..."

By this point he was halfway into his shoes. She finally got his attention by taking the second shoe out of his hands. "Greg, my stuff's not here. I already checked into a hotel."

He stilled. "Oh. Okay."

Kelly hated to embarrass him. "I really appreciate the offer, though. And if you'd let me do some laundry here tomorrow, that'd be above and beyond."

The promise of tomorrow seemed to placate him. "Sure."

She followed him into the living room, wincing as she watched him maneuver, obviously painfully, without his cane. She tried to hide her expression of sympathy when he turned to face her.

He apparently didn't notice. "Take off your shirt," were his next abrupt words.

Kelly was genuinely taken aback. "I beg your pardon?"

"Get over it. I'm still your doctor for three more days." He turned her around so that her back was facing him and grabbed at the hem of her tight-fitting top layer. "Arms up," he instructed, and she obediently lifted them over her head like a child, laughing as he struggled to peel the shirt away. Finally he managed it and she was left standing in a looser black camisole. While he didn't attempt to remove it, he did lift the back up to her shoulders. "You're not wearing a bra," he pointed out matter-of-factly.

"Not by choice. I don't have one with me that doesn't place an elastic right over the stitches."

He examined her carefully. "These look good so far. Are you in much pain?"

"It's not too bad." He let the shirt drop and she turned back toward him. "I feel well enough to enjoy my health. Go get dressed --- Let's go somewhere."

"Minor surgery is still surgery. You should be resting."

"I'm tired of resting," she exclaimed, smiling at the irony of her own statement. "I feel fine. And I'll be under doctor's supervision."

He gave in. "Whatever. I need to take a shower. My laptop is on my dresser if you're ready to write home."

20 minutes later, he entered his room casually dressed and bare footed, still limping without his cane. He saw that she hadn't bothered to put her shirt back on over the camisole; he'd seen her in much less so modesty wasn't really an issue. He also saw that her eyes looked red. "Everything okay?"

She was laying on her stomach across his unmade bed, propped up on her elbows with his computer in front of her. "Cm'ere," she said, turning the screen slightly and moving over so he could sit beside her. "Look at this." Kelly clicked through several pictures that someone had posted on Facebook, pictures of what looked like a slightly premature newborn and an obviously young mother. "This girl was at the shelter for the last few months I was there. I was hoping to be back before she delivered."

House never knew how to react to other people's demonstrated emotions, but his choice in that moment to say nothing at all was a few steps up from his usual annoyance or frustration.

"Anyway, enough of that." She closed the laptop without shutting it down and pulled herself upright. "Let me take you to lunch."

After some arguing, wherein the words "old fashioned" and "feminist" were liberally employed, it was House who took Kelly to lunch and not the other way around, though he did let her drive. After they ate he suggested a matinee and she teased him for his lack of creativity. ("Dinner and a movie, Greg? Honestly...") Yet when she declined the invitation it wasn't due to his idea, but to the fact that it was irritating her stitches to sit back, and two hours in a movie theatre wasn't bound to help the situation.

So it hurt Kelly to sit, and it hurt House to stand. They were still in deliberation when he received a page. And after several minutes on his cell phone trying to get out of it, he was agreeing to go into work. "An apartment building fire," he explained, more annoyed than apologetic. "I guess it wouldn't have been that serious, except the fire was on a lower level and it compromised the structural integrity; it collapsed. Cuddy's calling for all hands on deck."

"Heaven forbid you should have to do your job. Save lives. All that."

"My job is to solve medical mysteries," he clarified. "There's not a lot of mystery to collapsed buildings and third degree burns."

They were back in the car now, but she'd yet to start the engine. "You're serious, aren't you? You don't want to go to work because despite the carnage and people's lives being in jeopardy, you're going to be bored. Are you really so brilliant that you need to be challenged beyond the norms of regular old life and death? Or do you have some kind of detachment disorder?"

He looked at her engagingly. "My mom thinks I'm brilliant."

"Obviously Dr. Cuddy must too, or she would have fired you by now... As far as I'm concerned, the jury's still out." Checking over her shoulder, she pulled away from the curb. "What now? Am I dropping you off at your car or at the hospital? Or do you want to drop ME off at the hotel and take my car with you?"

They decided on the third option; her hotel was closest. They didn't speak as she drove, and House began to sense that she might actually be bothered by his attitude. "I'm not a monster, you know," he said finally, rushing to qualify his statement. "Once you remove the human element, life and death is just life and death. Regular medicine is largely repetitive and when you've been around as long as I have it can be dreadfully dull."

"Then why remove the human element?" she challenged.

"Because people are idiots, number 1."

She would have laughed at his easy answer if she didn't know he was serious.

He was quiet for a long time before he responded with more. "And because I'm not sure I would know how to survive any other way."

"How you could let yourself care, you mean." He acted as though he hadn't heard her, which she took as a "yes". She pulled up across the street from the hotel and put the car in park, unbuckling her seat belt. "Because medicine is routine, but people are messy. And it's easier to feel annoyed and inconvenienced by them then to care if they live or die."

This was the kind of drivel he'd contested and ridiculed Cameron for time and time again. And he was about to do the same with Kelly until she continued.

"Well, as someone who has apparently been treated with the exception to the rule, I've got to say that caring really suits you. Much more than your usual hard-ass routine." Leaning over the center console, she touched her lips to his cheek. "Try not to kill anyone today. See you later." And she was gone before he could say anything else.

Not that he would have known what to say.