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Mar. 21st, 2007 10:53 amIt had been a month since Don Herrot had smoothed a ballcap over his surgically-deepened hairline and left to go back to his fourteen-states-spread auto maintenance routine -- albeit at a slightly reduced speed limit. In a month's time, things around Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital had gone back to normal gear, too. House had returned to work the day after her visit and had seemed to favour his leg only slightly more than usual. He had agreed to an MRI, but neither Cuddy nor Wilson had been able to catch him long enough to wrangle him out of his distressed jeans and into a hospital gown -- even though Wilson had commented that Cuddy was now in a better position to do so. Clinic duty was shirked, patient rights were violated, and there was always a nurse on duty to watch the status of any expensive equipment that might meet with House's "special attention."
In other words, it was business as usual.
Outside of business was a trickier, cagier creature. It had been an unspoken agreement from the onset of this Unnamed Thing between the two of them that House's apartment should be the command center of things to be consumated. It had just seemed more practical. His place was on a leyline between the hospital and her home and driving from one to the other was a three-point process that Cuddy undertook both before and afterhours. House had couched himself in her home only a few times -- once for breaking and entering, another for a midnight panty raid that produced no goods but allowed him to cop a feel -- and it was a kind of Mecca environment to the both of them that forced all conversation surrounding it to be conducted in whispers.
So when she had formally invited him (as formal as an invitation could get when you were slung half across your invitee with your skirt bunched up around your hips) and he'd accepted, it changed the dymanic. A sort of exposure of those parts of Lisa Cuddy that she strived to keep as hidden as possible: bookshelves stuffed with titles she didn't reveal to anyone else; how her closets were organized; the new paint on the walls and why she chose the colour. It was a nest of intrigue and inquiry and House's natural curiosity compass would go mad trying to dissect it all.
She had lit a fire -- the last of the year -- and had ordained herself in casual clothes. Wine had been opened and tannins allowed to mellow. He was due at 7:00.
It was 7:12.
In other words, it was business as usual.
Outside of business was a trickier, cagier creature. It had been an unspoken agreement from the onset of this Unnamed Thing between the two of them that House's apartment should be the command center of things to be consumated. It had just seemed more practical. His place was on a leyline between the hospital and her home and driving from one to the other was a three-point process that Cuddy undertook both before and afterhours. House had couched himself in her home only a few times -- once for breaking and entering, another for a midnight panty raid that produced no goods but allowed him to cop a feel -- and it was a kind of Mecca environment to the both of them that forced all conversation surrounding it to be conducted in whispers.
So when she had formally invited him (as formal as an invitation could get when you were slung half across your invitee with your skirt bunched up around your hips) and he'd accepted, it changed the dymanic. A sort of exposure of those parts of Lisa Cuddy that she strived to keep as hidden as possible: bookshelves stuffed with titles she didn't reveal to anyone else; how her closets were organized; the new paint on the walls and why she chose the colour. It was a nest of intrigue and inquiry and House's natural curiosity compass would go mad trying to dissect it all.
She had lit a fire -- the last of the year -- and had ordained herself in casual clothes. Wine had been opened and tannins allowed to mellow. He was due at 7:00.
It was 7:12.
