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Game, Set.
by Basingstoke
Cuddy was halfway through her shrimp cocktail, going over budget figures in her head, when a shadow fell across her left shoulder.
"A little birdie told me you were looking for an infectious disease man."
She froze for a moment--it couldn't possibly be him--but then she looked back, and it was, in fact, Gregory House. "I thought I left you in San Francisco?"
"They have these big metal things," House said, widening his eyes at her and limping around to sit at the empty chair at her table. He rested his cane against the white linen tablecloth. "Amazing contraptions. Biggest petri dishes in the world. They swallow you up in one state and spit you back out in another with your choice of virus." House reached for one of her shrimp and she slapped his hand. He looked wounded and amused at the same time.
She'd heard about his leg, of course--Debbie in Intake still emailed her with all the gossip--but it was a shock to see him injured. Misdiagnosed infarction in the thigh muscle. House had figured it out himself, even crazy from pain and medication. Nobody would dispute that the man was a genius; the question was whether the brain was worth the personality attached to it.
"You came all this way to ask me for a job?"
Cuddy picked up another shrimp and House darted his hand across the table and stole one while her slapping hand was busy. "I find myself at a turning point in my career, and we always had so much fun together," House said. He bit into his stolen shrimp triumphantly.
"So you got fired," she said.
"I quit."
She raised an eyebrow.
"I've been insulting Miller to his face for years and he never even told me to shut up. He would never have the balls to fire me." House sucked the cocktail sauce off his fingers. The waiter noticed him, finally, and made a beeline for the table.
"Will he be joining you, ma'am?" the waiter asked.
"Yes," House said, as Cuddy said "No."
"No," Cuddy repeated again, and the waiter nodded and left them alone.
"That wasn't very polite," House said.
"Not at all," Cuddy agreed, and House half-smiled. He looked different than she remembered, tired, thinner. The scruffy eleven o'clock shadow didn't help. "Tell me the truth. I'll find out anyway. I always do."
House sighed, then rolled his eyes up to the ceiling and tipped the chair back slightly. "Miller called me into his office for a meeting," he said, "and when I came in, he pulled my chair out for me."
She remembered that office, the rice paper curtains and the polished wood table Miller insisted on using instead of a desk. It clashed with the high-tech ergonomic chairs, and it was the wrong height for his computer, anyway.
She pictured Miller pulling an ergonomic guest chair out for House--Miller, who puffed when he went up too many stairs, which was just plain embarrassing for a medical professional--and she winced. "Good call," Cuddy said.
"I haven't regretted it yet."
"You never regret anything," Cuddy said, "even things you should."
House shrugged and met her eyes again. "I regret not playing more soccer."
In San Francisco, their offices had been across the hall from each other, and House had made it his mission to exact maximum annoyance from her without leaving his desk. Paper airplanes were a particular favorite; he could get them to bend corners and fly straight into her ear. When she started closing her door, he sent them by interoffice mail, five times a day or more.
She'd rolled her eyes for a couple of weeks, then pulled a string and got him appointed head of the recycling committee. He'd hated every second of it, so she'd made a note in her schedule to come by every Thursday at four with a big smile and a bag of empty plastic bottles.
That was when they started playing tennis together. She beat him badly every time. He had no serve. "As it happens, I am looking for an infectious disease man," Cuddy said.
"My source knows all." House waggled his eyebrows like Groucho Marx. She was really going to have to find out who the leak was, if only to know who House liked enough to fly three thousand miles to visit.
"Send me your resume and salary requirements--I don't know what you've been up to these past two years. And scram before my entree arrives," Cuddy said.
He was insane--she knew that--but also a genius with a golden reputation only slightly tarnished by his personality. A loose cannon, but he brought prestige. And she bet he would take a salary cut to work in a place where the boss didn't pity him.
House grinned. "You're going to hire me."
"I'm going to consider it."
"I want an office with a window." He picked up his cane and leaned on it heavily to stand up. Cuddy could hear the small grunt of effort he tried to hide.
Maybe it was for the best. It could only bring him closer to the patient, make him more sympathetic, and God knew he needed some of that. "We should start playing tennis again," House said.
She looked up at him. "Aren't you tired of losing?"
"Table tennis," House said, looming over her with a devilish smile.
She raised an eyebrow. He widened his eyes. "Foosball," Cuddy said.
"Oh, now you're mocking me," House said. He stole the last shrimp and limped off as her entree arrived.
Cuddy sighed. She was going to regret this, she knew. But then--and she smiled sunnily at the waiter, making him blush--so would House.
The End.
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Legal Disclaimer: The authors published here make no claims on the ownership of Dr. Gregory House and the other fictional residents of Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. Like the television show House (and quite possibly Dr. Wilson's pocket protector), they are the property of Fox Television, David Shore and undoubtedly other individuals of whom I am only peripherally aware. The fan fiction authors published here receive no monetary benefit from their work and intend no copyright infringement nor slight to the actual owners. We love the characters and we love the show, otherwise we wouldn't be here.
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