(no subject)

[mmkaternater]

Silence from the diagnostics department usually meant one of two things, and those two things were universally at odds with one another: Either things were going well -- and "well" for House and his team meant "progressing under Cuddy's radar as effectively and quietly as possible" -- or they were going terribly. Neither outcome was especially cheering, even on a stunted afternoon in late February, when the first hints of Spring had begun to leak into the collective consciousness.

After her initial consult with House (which had hardly been a consult as much as it was a bargaining session), Cuddy had left much of the diagnostic process to his discretion. She kept her visits to a minimum -- both with the department head and the patient he was treating -- and kept up to date with the progress through impersonal database updates and chart perusals. And, when those proved fruitless (House was notorious for keeping most of his theories in his head and off of paper), she gleaned information from the on-call nurses. She'd learned, for instance, that House had mostly wrapped his pre-standing case and was devoting most of his quota of lab tests and Duckling hours to Don Herrot's troubling brain and lungs. Early on, there had been an incident that she'd red flagged: a catheter had been placed without the use of anesthetic, but Cameron had reported directly from House that, Shrug. Allergic reactions aren't always listed in the medical history.

Now, a week into the case and a week without so much as a word passing between dean and diagnostician, Cuddy began to feel the constriction of worry. Wilson had been mildly helpful in assisting a fraternal diagnosis: "He's just...House," the man had said, and tucked into his beet salad with a raising of block brows, "he's got to know where you stand. Wherever that is."

Knowing where she stood meant that Cuddy had to temporarily step out of herself and into a position where the vulnerable was known to lurk. Her hair was loose when she came to see him, ten-to-three on a murky afternoon that bled with the promise of later sun, and there were softer shapes making up her posture and expression. She was not dressed for work. The effect was strange: a drop of non-Cuddian colour in a Cuddian world. Her sweater was the same pulled-out collar affair that she'd worn in Stockholm, when she'd been more of herself and had rallied him to structure with a tuxedo. Her appearance was cultivated; not an accident.

She pushed inward on the glass that led to his office. Her chin and eyes were level. She cleared her lips of hesitation and made them glossier with tongue's sweep. Her voice came through clearly and without any rumble of throat to precede it:

"I need you for a couple of hours."

Comments

[addxcted.livejournal.com]

At this rate, Jiffy Lube was a dead man with an undefined timer. There was a part -- a large, glaring, evil part -- of House that didn't care. He didn't like the man, and as he often expressed when cornered on subjects such as that, everyone was dying anyway. There was another part, unfortunately, that recoiled at the idea of losing a patient -- any patient -- as it meant he was defeated by the puzzle.

Behold the problem that was a specialty in infectuous disease. Most disease was infectuous. Something like 96.9% of the entirety of disease in the world was infectuous leaving millions upon millions of diagnosises to weed through when you weren't even entirely positive how much time you had in the first place.

Currently, it was giving House a headache, and he was hunched forward at his desk with both elbows angled against the firm surface, providing a bracing point for his temples in his palms. Lids peeled back at the sound of Cuddy's voice near the door and he reluctantly lifted his head, responding before he'd even gotten a good look at her.

"..we all need something. I need a lung biopsy --" Which he hadn't even brought to Cuddy yet because he knew the dangers of a total collapse if he attempted to take it currently in the wake of the disease's onslaught. "-- and Mr. Ten-minutes-or-less needs about another 2 weeks for me to go through the 476 distinctly possible diseases he has one by one. Neither of us are going to get what we need --"

House froze, brows slanting downward as he took into register Cuddy's attire. Carefully, he turned his attention aside to the clock on his computer screen, wondering if he'd somehow dozed off or neglected to realize what time it was.

..No, it was still the middle of the day. "Why are you dressed like that?"

[betteroffdean.livejournal.com]

Here was the careful part. House, both curious and suspicious when it suited, spun conjecture out of air like other artists spun pottery out of clay. Cuddy saw the narrow fissures developing between his temples; he'd left a pressure mark on the clear-of-scruff part of his cheek. He was building the ramparts of his defenses, having spied her sweater armor, and there was a very gray line to walk if she was going to get him out of the office without a Serpico-esque interrogation --

"I took the afternoon off," as much of it as she could without giving in to squirming doubt and preoccupation; she diverted her eyes toward the door, came a few paces closer on muffled moccasin feet, "come on -- your team can handle the four-hundred-and-so possibilities for a couple of hours."

[addxcted.livejournal.com]

The notion of Cuddy taking..any time off was almost ridiculous. There were several long seconds in which he debated staying rooted and questioning her or following just to see what was up, and finally, reluctant as he was to give in so easily and predictably, he snagged up his cane and maneuvered to his feet.

..that wasn't to say he wouldn't question her once he was obeying her summons. "...you never take time off."

She was just going to have to indulge his curiousity if she expected to bait him with it.

[betteroffdean.livejournal.com]

"Then I must think whatever I'm doing is especially important." His coat on the rack, dusted with rat fibers and ringed around the collar with a pale cotton scarf. The fringe was tucked into either pocket. It rattled when she lifted it from the helpful arm and folded it over the joist of her elbow, stepping around him in presentation. Ulterior motives for getting him out of the hospital were suspicious enough and she knew that he would pursue them. But if she didn't pursue her own nature -- specifically keeping him out of immunological harm's way -- she would give him even more cause to close down. She didn't move from his side until he'd passed both fists through the sleeves. Then,

"We're taking my car." Her feet angled toward the door; a wild thrill of "playing hookie" banging around in a submerged, rebellious part of her brain. Outside in the hall, the hospital was still thrumming with activity. Nurses passed by with wheelchairs and beds stacked high with patients and equipment. There was a fluid functionality to everything here, like it was choreographed. To see the movement made her feel a little better; she was convinced that the hospital could function in her absence. After all, she went home every night and returned the next morning and the world was still spinning on its axis, reliable old top.

She kept pace with him all the way to the elevator bank and down into the lobby. The silence in the elevator could have been awkward, and she could feel his eyes skirting the contours of her face for any visible indication of their destination. He might've thought that this was all an elaborate ruse (it was, but probably not the kind he was imagining.)

Once outside, Cuddy turned her collar to the cold and quickened her pace to the car park. Her vehicle -- silver and sleek, with an engine that could topple most dragsters' records -- was situated precisely in its allotted parking space. She got in, threw the locks, and warmed the engine while she waited for him to take the passenger seat. Sound from the radio: the same music she'd been playing in her office on Christmas Eve. Schubert. She thumbed down the volume.

[addxcted.livejournal.com]

Curiousity made him fairly compliant, which would explain how, exactly, she'd gotten him into his coat and out of the hospital in complacent silence but it could not be contained long.

"..you know," Spoken as he clambered in to the passenger's side and made himself comfortable, palms rubbing fiercely against the denim against his thighs to warm them (sure, he had pockets, but friction was so much more quick). "If you were really going to choose your mid-forties as a time for a mid-life crisis, you're doing the whole rebellion thing wrong. We should totally be on my motorcycle." Which he had driven to work, despite the inclimate weather (his argument was that the roads were dry, despite lingering snow). He tended to, whenever he could.

[betteroffdean.livejournal.com]

Cuddy revved the engine -- more for the sport of it than calibrating the machinery -- and tipped half of her profile toward him, "Mid-forties? You can get out and walk now." But her trustworthy automatic locks had already clamped down and put them into automotive confinement; Cuddy craned a look over her shoulder and eased out into a car park lane, taking care with the speed bump to spare his knee a knock with the 'dash.

As in other aspects of her life, she craved control of the road. She'd been known to have a lead foot; a fast starter and a quick stopper, and her engine had been re-tooled a couple of different times to account for her vehicular vah-voom.

She eased onto a cross street and took the suburban sprawl onto the highway. She hoped that he would stretch his legs and his temperance along the way. It troubled her to know that she could not know what he was thinking, though there was no logical -- or safe -- way to peer into the quiet places of Gregory House's mind.

[addxcted.livejournal.com]

An imediate smirk flicked into place at her agitated response to his jab. There was no shame in being middle-aged in this day and age. Middle-aged (unless you had a history of drug abuse and were on immunosuppressants) meant you had on average a good 'nother 40 years left of life. He'd known it would get a rise out of her, but still...

House's legs were typically in a state of perpetual stretching and he took little time to get himself comfortable this time, situating himself before tossing a brief glance out the window. No hint as to their destination was revealed there so he turned his attention onto Cuddy. She was a lot easier to read than the window, anyway.

"Where are we going? The docks? I thought I heard cement shoes clattering around in the trunk.."

[betteroffdean.livejournal.com]

Cuddy bapped her turn signal into alignment and merged into a newer, fresher lane of traffic. Two-thirty in the afternoon and the roads were mostly clear; they had an unobstructed view of farmland in either direction and the cool grit smell of road salt and diesel filtered through the vents, merging with expensive leather interior. She took her eyes off the black lick of highway; gave him an expression unpainted by artifice --

"I thought we could both stand to get out of the hospital for a while," this like it had been a casual, impromptu decision, "I figured we could go into the city; have dinner." She brought her eyes to the rearview mirror and guided the nose of the car into another lane. "There's a jazz pianist performing at the McCarter Theater Center. He's supposed to be pretty good."

[addxcted.livejournal.com]

A suspicious quirk of the brow was provided at the nonchalance she feigned in the face of them both taking off from work to have dinner and go see a jazz pianist, gaze angled onto her while he searched for the pitfall in the whole thing. She had an alterior motive, she had to. This sort of activity was so far removed from typical-Cuddy that she had to have some sort of motivation outside of really liking the piano.

..that or she was suffering from incredibly high fever.

"..you're not flushed, no patchy skin," She didn't appear clammy either, but he continued with his visual assessment with a sudden ticking of concern in the back of his mind. Maybe she was going crazy. That would be endlessly interesting. "-- so you've either lost your mind or you're feeling very guilty about something."

[betteroffdean.livejournal.com]

House's need to distinguish symptoms in the physical sense paled in comparison to his need to find them in the psychological, and Cuddy knew that she wouldnt've been able to last the entire car ride without him rooting around in her brain for an explanation. She would have preferred a quieter atmosphere (even with the luxury of structured sound engineering, the highway was loud and hummed around the car) and a chance to view him head-on. It would be easier, she thought, to have no vehicular distraction bogging her down. But House was House, and House couldn't resist twisting his fingers around an intrigue.

She cast her eyes to him; a somber aside. "I never slept with him."

[addxcted.livejournal.com]

There was a sharp swoop of his gaze away, a tension in his chest loosening but otherwise making a good show of being unfazed by the admittance. He was suddenly very interested in the scene outside the windshield, even if his love for vehicles didn't seem to even scrape the surface of Cuddy's.

He should have felt perhaps a little sheepish at his treatment of the man over the past week but he didn't. He'd still go back to the hospital and be an ass to him until he was fully out the door. The guy liked ballroom dancing, afterall.

"If this is your way of pleading with me to save his life so that you can actually get the chance to sleep with him, you're wasting your breath. He's not going to die, I just don't know what's wrong with him yet."

[betteroffdean.livejournal.com]

Cuddy leveled her foot with the floor, prompting a forward surge of the nose of the car (and House's progressive jerk of chest against the seatbelt strap), but most of her riposte was confined to an expression -- one familiar to him for its crunched-down brows and worm's squirm of a mouth. "I'm not pleading with you for anything," she said, a curling kind of apprehension building up in her chest, "and I'm not going to sleep with him. I was letting you know where I stood. Where I'm standing."

They were coming up on an exit ramp now; car's tires buzzed over the rumble strip as they made their way onto narrower, tree-lined streets. The car was quieter for the absence of the highway noise. She had more of an opportunity to look at him now and she did so, turning her chin over her dark shoulder, her lips and expression even.

"When you showed up on my porch that night with the file for the CIPA patient..." she was squinting needlessly against the glare of a white sun through gray clouds "...and you did," a loose hand, "whatever it is you do best, I went back inside and he was putting on his shoes. He'd heard what I said to you; what you said to me."

[addxcted.livejournal.com]

Bobbing forward with the forward motion of the car, he turned a complaining glance in her direction before simply adjusting his posture and threading a thumb into the space between his neck and the seatbelt strap in case she decided to do it again.

"..neither of us said anything." Nothing that could have been taken as being involved, anyway. Cuddy had accused House of liking her and he'd denied it. Otherwise, it was a relatively common trade for them. It was hard to see the chemistry when you were so close to it.

"I can't say I'm not relieved, though." When it seemed for a split second that he was actually going to get sentimental, he backpeddled on the statement and divulged. "He came back positive for gonorrhea. I was having to come up with creative ways to test you without telling you."

[betteroffdean.livejournal.com]

"Tuh!" A hard sound that was paired in incredulity with upward brows, both of which she angled toward his side of the car -- "Keep the creativity. Save the guy." And she let that lie where it might.

They drove on in passive silence for a few more miles, bare trees bwapping by. Schubert was discernible on the stereo now. Her father had liked the "Ave Maria" and had had it played at his wedding -- followed closely by the "Have Nagila" at her mother's insistence. It was a strange tradition, it seemed, in the Cuddy family that nothing -- especially not personal relationships -- should be easily managed or defined.

Cuddy was working an idea around in her brain when her speech centers fired randomly: "I'm glad you were there," an aside to the street strip so she wouldn't have to meet his eyes.

[addxcted.livejournal.com]

"..Well, yeah." Blinking blankly in an expression that could have easily been translated as 'duh,' House turned his attention aside and to her to meet her probing gaze. "Who wants gonorrhea?" He would take full credit for her not getting it, even if it was unlikely that she would have gotten it in the first place, Cuddy's medical know-how taken into account.

It was House's way of making light of the conversation -- it kept things from getting too serious despite a serious subject. She still had his attention, despite however he might be pretending to divert it.

[betteroffdean.livejournal.com]

Her volleying glance was shrewd and full of high angles. "Careful," she said, one finger tapping against the steering column, "I can still return these tickets and get my money back." Corner teeth showed in a grin -- as close as Cuddy came to full-on amusement -- and she flicked hair back over her shoulder and turned her attention to the road.

The elephant had been cleared from the inside of the car and the air was lighter for it. She could progress now, knowing that she'd said what she felt necessary to say and that he'd heard it -- 'might not have been visibly receptive to it, but it had gone in one of those high wolf ears and mingled with the connective tissue of his brain.

[addxcted.livejournal.com]

House gave a minute bob of his chin forward at her warning, squirming in his seat once to try and comfortably stretch his right leg out a little more (he eventually just used the handle to move the seat back; it was obvious Cuddy didn't often have passengers in her car, much less riding shotgun) while simutaneously making a show of distracting himself before he admitted in a distant undertone.

"I'm glad I was there, too." It had been an exercise of restraint to so much as treat the man. It would make House's job a little easier not hating him as intensely now, even if he still didn't like him.

[betteroffdean.livejournal.com]

Now you see him, now you don't as House's chin and angular nose disappeared toward the back of the car, the seat puffing up dust of disuse. Cuddy's endeavors in her car were ninety percent solo; she liked the freedom of having this space, this one space, entirely to herself. At the same time, she tried to keep as many of her personal touches out of the car as possible -- no kitschy little decals, no lipstick containers or loose change in any of the cup holders. Her personality was stamped into the interior by the CD sleeve above the passenger seat (classical piano for her somber days; ragged blues guitar for when she was feeling more herself) and the sticker in one corner of the windshield that declared her fit to park anywhere on campus.

It was strange to have House filling up this space. Strange, but not altogether off-putting.

She flexed her lips in response to his comment, but her appraisal of it went no further than that. Neither of them were strong on sentimentality and enough had been said already that would satisfy her need to quell guilt.

[addxcted.livejournal.com]

Strange? He'd all but offered the motorcycle, she was the one that had ignored the offer in favor of getting insulted by his teasing poke at her age. She had no room to complain about his taking up space if she didn't want to take him up on a bike ride.

Reaching upward, fingers caught on and tugged the CD sleeve easily free of its hold on the visor and down into his lap so he could go through the assortment of music (you could learn almost everything you needed to know about a person by going through three things -- their medicine cabinet, underwear drawer, and CD case or iPod). "You need to get an iPod. CDs are so 20th century."

Thumbing motion through the discs hesitated slightly on one disc before continuing to the next in idle perusal. The girl seemed to like her piano; no wonder she never closed herself off whenever he played.

[betteroffdean.livejournal.com]

"I've got one," she said, "I run with it." Cuddy could manipulate the dials and buttons of her car blindfolded; she thumbed the 'eject' button on the side of the stereo face and handed him the spit-out disc. House had been through her medicine cabinet and her underwear drawer -- his purposeful invasion of her privacy had doubtlessly left no stone or satiny undergarment unturned -- and his impressions of her musical tastes had been somewhat gleaned from their flight to Stockholm. She had subtler, more full-bodied passions for piano and drums and things with an electric guitar riff injected in the middle.

She looked right. His thumb was handling CD edges very carefully, sliding along the rainbow curve. His brows were knit with consideration. "Most of those are things I've had since, I don't know, forever. I don't know why I don't change them up more often -- it's just comfortable." She flicked a finger in regard to the sleeve. "If you see anything..." she let the sentence trail; clear indication that he should select something if it met his discriminating criteria.

They were nearing the brighter globule lights of the city.

[addxcted.livejournal.com]

She was never in her car for long periods of time anyway, which most likely made up for a great deal of the fact that her musical selection inside changed rarely if ever. House was positive if he looked hard enough, he'd find similiar gems under the seats or tucked in obscure places of his own car. Truth was, he just was rarely in there.

"No embarrassing --" and revealing. "-- mix CDs. Damn." He hadn't exactly expected to find one crammed in between the mix of classic and jazz but it would have been keyed in on immediately if he had. It also would have been fantastic to find something like Shania Twain or the Pussycat Dolls in there.

..He couldn't say much. He did have that 'Don'cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me?' song on his iPod.

There was a prolonged pause as he replaced the sleeve into its rightful place before he turned eyes fully on Cuddy around the seat back he'd reclined himself behind. "So did he hear you call him a Shriner?"

[betteroffdean.livejournal.com]

Her forehead flagged upward -- warning sign -- but her hands were steady at ten and two on the wheel. In her haste to forget about the preceding conversation, Cuddy had left the window of that particular evening open and now a cool draft of memory was blowing around her brain. House had been wearing the same coat as he was now. The scarf was a newer incarnation. She briefly turned her cheek to the side he couldn't see; high, creeping colour.

"I think he cut his hair so he wouldn't have to identify himself through a part." Don had a narrow widow's peak that receded back into his hairline and made his forehead look like the fleshy incarnation of a brick wall. She'd had a chance to push her fingers through it -- before there had been a collegiate interruption -- and it had been as bristly and uncouth as a wire brush. House's hair, on the other hand, though thinning in places and dusted with gray, was as fine as it could be at his age. When he had occasion to rest his head on her shoulder (usually only when the two of them happened to find their way to one another in post-coital sleep) she had made a stamped memory of it and now equated it with one of her favourite textures.

"He said I talked to you differently," on the soft edge of a laugh, as if the idea itself was preposterous, "'difference between how I talked to him and how I handled you. Something about liking that woman better."

[addxcted.livejournal.com]

Looking away had kept him from seeing the rise of color in her cheeks but it also kept her from being able to see the amusement that sprang to life at her words, eyes all but twinkling with the urge to snicker.

"..so he likes bossy, confrontational women." It really wasn't the insult that it might have sounded like. House apparently did, too, or else he wouldn't be sitting where he was with a patient dying of a mystery disease a few miles behind them.

[betteroffdean.livejournal.com]

"You know, I really didn't get a chance to find out." Lacksidasical kind of tone, only mildly irritated, and a dark gloss of curl that came over her brow when she directed her chin back to his side of the car. Glitter in his eyes that she could see. When he was amused, all the lines of his face got into the action and he grinned like an exaggerated caricature. She pulled part of her lower lip between two eye teeth and nibbled a fissure; 'released it when she had collected her thoughts again.

"He liked me enough not to take advantage of the situation when he knew my mind was on other things."

[addxcted.livejournal.com]

Brows quirked slightly, destroying the Cheshire expression from before in favor of a more curious one, the deepening smirk washing away as he scrutinized her, always looking for an answer on his own before he asked the question.

"'When your mind was on other things?'" There was an awful lot of gravity in an insinuation such as that, especially considering it had taken a very flirtacious figurehead in Stockholm to eventually get her to react.

"..Just how long has your mind been on other things?"

[betteroffdean.livejournal.com]

"What, seriously?" Half a glance over her shoulder; she had to route her eyes to find even the barest glimpse of the side of his face. Cuddy had discovered that you had to be very careful with what sensitive information you lent to House. It was like trading high confidence secrets with a rogue state: you never knew what they might do with them or how they might be used against you. With this knowledge in hand, she constructed her face to be partly joking, partly grave. There was a disconnect between the two somehow; she wasn't pulling off the casual aire that she tried to affect.

His face had washed clean of virile teasing and impacted her own. She pushed her tongue against the lower part of her lip; washed it around for a beat and then said, "It doesn't matter, does it?"

[addxcted.livejournal.com]

Lips twitched in amusement, borderline smirk but not quite allowing it to take precedence -- yet, anyway. How very interesting.

"..That long, huh?" If it had been a recent developement, she wouldn't have been evasive. Avoiding the query altogether with such a deflecting comment suggested that it was an ongoing thing, most likely years.

He'd always suspected she liked him; it was the only reason for her to have subjected herself to such repeated torture in college and then to hire him again later on. He certainly wasn't a likeable figure otherwise.

Wilson didn't count, he was crazy.

[betteroffdean.livejournal.com]

Now her mouth cracked open in a wry, half-believing expression. She blew out simultaneous breath through her nose and mouth -- an affected, haughty, Cuddian laugh -- and pushed her hair back from her ear with a smooth palm. "I hired you because McPherson fired you and if I hadn't scooped you up, you'd be working a lab rotation in Des Moines. I did not --" this was delivered with a narrow, downward point of brows, as to suggest that what came next bore weight "-- hire you to get you into bed."

She brought up her shoulder; popped it in an idle, clever shrug. "I could have done that in college and not had to pay you." That grin again.

[addxcted.livejournal.com]

House made a sound of amused disbelief at the confidence in her statement (when push came to shove, he knew she was most likely right, but he would protest just for the sake of doing so; much like an infant that jabbered just to hear itself), shoulders shrugging in feigned indifference to her delusions.

Half the girls on campus had wanted it or boasted the same thing. A great deal of the boys, too, now that House thought on it. Not that he was a hater or anything, it just wasn't his particular cup of tea...

"And you wouldn't have had to pay me? Now you make me sound like a hooker. Not exactly a business prospect I ever considered pursuing, but now that you mention it.."

[betteroffdean.livejournal.com]

"Trust me, you're better off where you are." She spared him a wry side glance and tented her brows high -- two even peaks that sheltered her manifold expressions. There hadn't been a self-respecting girl of quality salt in U of M undergraduate medicine who hadn't at least heard of Gregory House. Broad-shouldered reed of a graduate student who'd gotten kicked out of Hopkins and (as rumour had it) had lit a match on the side of the dean's Mercedes on his way out.

When he'd thunked next to her on the first day of class, lecture hall filled to the brim, Cuddy hadn't given credence to the rumours -- positive or negative -- and her only awe of him came for the diagnoses he seemed to pull out of air, not the extracurricular functions his mouth participated in.

[addxcted.livejournal.com]

And all these years later, for the most part that remained true. She'd gotten callous perhaps to his diagnoses if only because she was regularly exposed to them, but House saw it in her -- and other's at times -- eyes on the off occasion of him catching her off guard with one. It was the clear look of 'how did you get that?'.

He covetted the looks, even if he didn't verbalize the enjoyment. If he was, he'd be far too tempted to respond with Elementary, my dear Watson. and that was too cliche and arrogant even for House. Unless he was talking to Wilson. He might actually stoop to it for him.

"I don't know. Introducing myself as 'Greg House, Prostitute' the next time I barge in on one of your blind internet dates is very appealing. The natural follow up question from your date would be if we know one another and that would bring up so many amusing ways to respond..."

[betteroffdean.livejournal.com]

"The natural follow-up question from my date would probably be something like 'What does he charge per hour?'" She had pumped the gas pedal and guided them down a chipped-sidewalk thoroughfare with stately restaurants and boutiques on either side, outdoor tables stripped bare of their summer umbrellas to be replaced by a thin fog of snow.

She curved the car into a parking lot adjacent to one such establishment, the awning pregnant with melting slush. Garlic permeated through the closed doors of the car. Yeast smells -- good, baked bread and pasta -- to compliment. Cuddy killed the engine and unclicked her seatbelt. She pushed slips of hair away from her face and turned a low, coaxing smile toward him,

"I'd have to tell him that I had you on retainer."

[addxcted.livejournal.com]

Ooh. Feed his narcissism and vocalize her hold on him in one fell swoop. Well played, sir. Well enough in fact that there was a long moment in which he almost didn't even question her last statement, but as it stood, it really had to be commented on -- or at the very least opposed.

The smirk was still knit in place despite, but brows flared upward in query. "Retainer? Traditionally, that means you gave me some sort of fee to control my...services. This conversation is obviously not about my medical prowess." Which really was the only place she could claim to have such a hold on him. Anywhere else and..well, he hadn't seen the cash.

[betteroffdean.livejournal.com]

Cuddy shoved her tongue into the space between her jaw and cheek and rolled her eyes across the dash and into his lap -- "I'm buying you dinner and taking you to a show. We can discuss an alternative payment plan after the curtain goes down."

She got out of the car amidst a dinging door buzzer, waited for him to follow on his side, and then snapped the door shut. Her sweater was organized around her shoulders -- one thumb tucked around the curve of collar in a low, follow-through dip -- and the coat assembled over it. Cuddy had a number of good winter coats (and handbags) that had come with the package of running one of the most lauded teaching hospitals on the East Coast. Her attire today -- sweater and casual jeans -- played well with the houndstooth knit she slung over it. There was another round of clothes for the pianist; for now, casual was the order of the evening.

Her shoes crunched snow and gravel when she met up with him on the other side of the bumper, fielding his larger, taller shoulder with her own.

[addxcted.livejournal.com]

House did not fail to note the gravitation of her eyes to his lap, amused expression remaining firmly in place even as she climbed out of the car in a way that suggested he had better, as well. Opening the door, he was quick in climbing out and situating himself on the slush-covered pavement of the parking lot before picking his way across to her.

Tempted as he was to say that the alternative payment plan sounded more interesting than dinner and a show, he let her have her game (he was hungry afterall) and didn't point it out.

"I guess just saying I'll pick up the tab the next time won't work."

House's attire was -always- casual and he didn't have a change of clothes for the pianist, so Cuddy would just have to deal with the ratty Greatful Dead t-shirt and blue jeans. At least he had a blazer, rumpled as it was from work.

[betteroffdean.livejournal.com]

"No." A brisk, charged reply, her lower lip pinched briefly between her teeth -- almost with a girl's ease; 'made her look younger and more prone to imagination than she was -- and then released so her smile could return.

The interior of the restaurant had pitched lighting, almost lamplike, and the walls were painted in muted fresco colours (provincial scenes of Italy; ripe hills and cypress trees.) It was steeped with deep atmosphere, but not to the point of being cheesy. Cuddy had chosen this particular location for its hand-pressed pasta and rich, textured sauces. She gave her name -- yes, she'd made reservations for two, even though there had been a danger of dining alone -- and they were led to a table near the rear part of the restaurant. A fluted bottle of olive oil kept company with a low candle -- a quaint centerpiece that had more romance to it than Cuddy was usually eager to see.

She slid into the booth and wrangled the coat from her shoulders. She gave him her full, confident expression when he sat down across from her. "You'll eat well."

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House wasn't sure if that was an order or a statement of fact. He did, at least, feel very tempted to do just that as it was rare he actually went out to eat anywhere, especially in a place Cuddy would find acceptable for her backwards spin on a date.

"..well, yeah. I need to get my retainer in if you're going to make claim on it later. Might as well get my money's worth," and he wouldn't take the girly way out and order a salad. Scooping fingers up and under his menu as he settled in (having tugged his way free of his coat before doing so), he thumbed it open and perused the contents despite the majority of the menu being in Italian. He'd never understood why Italian restaurants did that.

How many average Americans could actually read it anyway? Japanese restaurants didn't put their menus in Japanese... They were aware of the common American's ignorance.

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House was familiar with a Babel's tower worth of languages, but Cuddy might have had an edge on him with Italian. She could not claim fluency, but had retained enough between patchy lessons in high school (she'd only gone back to basics with Latin in college) and a hard understanding of Romance Languages to get by, especially with these menus steeping in vowels and consonants. A smooth black brow perked, made eto jump higher by the inconstant table candle.

"You mean my money's worth." Easier flow of tone now that the hospital was a few dozen miles behind them. Cuddy could be quite unaffected when she was out of her natural habitat; ease of movement in social situations had always been a pleasant trait she found in herself. She could switch gears more easily than House, at least, who at times looked like a grasshopper in a small cage when he was forced out of his den.

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Her money technically, yes, but she wouldn't be getting that worth until, as she said, after the curtain falls. For the time being, House felt free to spend it unworriedly. She'd take her worth out in him, so he'd be certain to get his fill of whatever he wanted off the menu.

Fair enough trade, right? "You're getting your worth out of it later." Unabashed glance was served up and over the edge of his menu towards her, eyes lingering briefly in curiousity over her hospital-free attitude. He saw it regularly now, but it was rare that, even at one of their homes, that she was completely 'free' of the hospital. It was an interesting change.

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Cuddy closed her menu when his eyes roved over the top of his own, piled Shar-Pei wrinkles puckering his forehead; leering was one of his more piquant hobbies. She papped her thumb against the edge of the table and drew her shoulders back to the booth's cushion, hand lifting a dark sweep of hair from her shoulder. The cant of her mouth was confident, as were her eyes, and she regarded him with a careful cat's mix of curiosity and wariness --

"Did you really think I slept with Don?"

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House did not like to admit when he was wrong about anything, even if he had the excuse of being lead on to believe that wrong assumption readily available to him. Cuddy had presented a strong argument to her want to have sex with Don, so it wasn't an outlandish assumption by any means.

"..I couldn't figure out why you did.." But yes, he had thought she'd slept with him. "He's about as sexually intriguing as Foreman."

The waiter took the time right about then to walk up, giving House a very confused expression over what he'd heard. Unfazed (and uncaring; he didn't care if people thought he was gay), he waved the man off under the pretense of still looking at his menu. The waiter made haste to get away.

"Then again, you also seriously considered Wilson as a donor once so a lot can't be said for that." She had...odd taste. Look at who she was sitting opposite.

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"You spend a lot more time with Wilson than I would have," she said, drawing a napkin across her lap and tightening the corners of her mouth, "what does that say about you?" Wilson would have made an admirable father: one of those shirtsleeves men with the ballcap screwed down over his hair on Saturday mornings -- sitting on the sidelines of a Little League game or in the front row of a ballet recital.

House, on the other hand, might not realize he had children until they were eighteen.

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"Yeah, well, I don't want Wilson to sire my offspring, either." There was an enormous amount of difference between hanging out with Wilson and having a child with Wilson.

As for her assumption on House's parenting abilities, they were a little harsh. He'd notice a kid was there -- hard not too when they're squawling all the time and wrecking things. He just wouldn't necessarily help them so much as hinder their developement.

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The waiter, a hanging dog expression on his face, taxied in the space around their table again before putting his shiny black shoes into gear; he wore a white apron over a starched black shirt and smelled -- not unpleasantly -- of grease. His eyes fixed a little wearily on House, like he was scared to broach another contact, but Cuddy had put her fingers at the edge of the table in a quiet summons.

"The house wine," she said, and felt House's eyes come up at that; she deflected the curve of her smile for the waiter's benefit, "and bread." Provincial tastes for a provincial place. They had good, heavy slices of bread here: the kind that came with flaked crust that had to be micromanaged around the lips, lest you leave a crumb trail behind. Her foot was an easy arc beneath the table. 'Settled the side of it against House's calf.