"Right, so, we have bleeding from several orifices, localized pain in the abdomen, a barely healed tatt that would be cool on anyone other than our fifty-year-old stripper grandmother and a less-than-complete medical history, thanks to the fact that she doesn't speak English and we don't have a Korean translator. Any thoughts?"
"Foreman says you're dating someone," Cameron said. "Is that true? I mean if it is, that's great."
House flipped his cane, catching the rubber end in his palm. He glanced over at Cameron, then tossed the cane again, grasping it around the crook. "Since we cannot communicate with our patient with words, we'll need to find alternate means. I vote for shadow puppets—who's with me?"
Cameron gathered up her long hair and began knotting it into a ponytail. "I think he's wrong. I think you'd be acting differently if you were really in a mature and loving relationship."
"I'm sorry, have we met? Because I'm pretty sure I'd be a bastard either way."
"Why do we care?" Chase hid a yawn behind his hand, blinking sleepily as he stared at the table. "He hires all his dates anyway."
They both jumped when House slapped the cane down on the conference table. "Bloody orifices, people, it doesn't get much sexier than that. And for the record and to shut up Cameron, no, there is no one new in my life. Now can we get back to the shadow puppets idea? I can do a German shepherd and a dove but I need one of you to handle the colonoscopy. I vote for Foreman, he knows all the secret down low hand signals. One of them ought to work."
Cameron rolled her eyes. "He's also not here to defend himself."
"Like that would make a difference. How long until the translator gets here?"
"Two hours," Chase said around another yawn.
"Are we keeping you up?" House limped over to the white board and uncapped a pen. "Because if we are, Cameron and I can soldier on without your blazing insight and vast medical knowledge. Of course if you leave, that would mean that you'd rather sleep than do your job, which means that I'd have to fire you and it'd be so totally justified that not even Cuddy could find fault with it. Are you awake now?"
Chase coughed and straightened in his chair, brow furrowing in a belated expression of professional interest. "Right, sorry. Long night."
"Not interested. Now, we have—"
"Wait, that's it?" Cameron stared at House. "He's practically asleep and that's all the grief you're going to give him? Maybe you are in a relationship."
"Oh, my God." He threw aside the pen. "How is my love life any more interesting than a fifty-year-old Korean stripper bleeding from—"
"Her orifices, yes, we know how much you like the word." Cameron launched a smirk at Chase, then pouted when he missed it because he was rubbing his bloodshot eyes. "But she's sedated, she's stable, and we've got lab results on the way. And you said love life, not me. I just assumed it was a dinner and sex thing. Is it a love thing instead?"
"I can see that the Cameron train of annoying speculation is picking up steam," House pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, "so let's derail it, shall we? We'll ask Wilson. If anyone knows, he does, right?"
Cameron's eyes widened. "We don't have to—"
"Oh, stop, you were going to anyway. I'm just speeding things along. Hello? You busy? Of course it's a rhetorical question. Cameron wants to ask you something. Yes, now. No, here, not over the phone. Here, in the middle of my differential. Because the humiliation is more fun to watch in person. Oh, yours or hers, I don't care." He turned away from the table and lowered his voice to an intimate growl. "Ouch—you talk to your mother with a mouth like that? No, it won't take long. Yeah, okay."
He snapped the phone shut and dropped it back in his pocket. "He is overjoyed to meet with us and is on his way. He just had to tell the dying woman that he was consoling that you need a confirmation about some office gossip. Don't worry, he left her with a box of tissues and some gum, she'll be fine."
"You're kidding, right? You're kidding."
"Of course he's kidding," Chase mumbled. "There was no gum."
When Wilson joined them two minutes later, Cuddy was right behind him, clipboard in hand.
"House," she barked, "you cannot expect the hospital to pick up a tab for the ten cases of Fresca you had delivered to a homeless shelter."
"Okay," he replied, the soul of amiability, "but before we begin a debate that you will undoubtedly lose after hearing my medical reasons, Cameron here has a question for Wilson. You might even be interested in the answer."
All eyes turned toward Cameron, who sat up straighter in her chair even as her cheeks turned pink. "Well, it's not that big a deal, I just had heard that House was seeing someone. You know, romantically."
Wilson turned disbelieving eyes on House. "This is why you interrupted my lunch? Because Cameron thinks you got laid?"
"Not just laid," House replied, "in a relationship."
Wilson stared at him, then scrubbed a hand over his face before turning to Cameron. "Okay. I'm only telling you this so I can get back to my pasta before it turns cold. The truth is—" he shot a look at Cuddy, "House is seeing someone."
"Okay," Cameron's smile was forced as she ignored Chase's muffled groan, "anyone we know?"
"It's me, all right?" Wilson held out his hands as if pleading for understanding. "It's me. We're having a torrid love affair that's been ten years in the making. We've almost been caught making out three times in the clinic alone and trust me, the sex is fantastic. I expect we'll be picking out china soon. I favor the Kate Spade but House is traditional, he's more of a Lenox man." He turned back to House. "There, satisfied?"
"No," House leered, "but I imagine I will be later. You're so good at angry sex."
Wilson tossed up his hands. "Whatever. Remember you're picking up dinner, I have a board meeting."
As the door closed behind him, Cameron muttered, "Well, that was a waste of time."
"Why?" Cuddy shoved the clipboard into House's hands. "Didn't he just confirm the rumor?"
"Hardly." Cameron crossed her arms over her chest, nudging a dozing Chase with her elbow. "That was all just bullshit from a friend to shut me up."
Cuddy pointed a finger at a silent House. "You, my office, ten minutes. Bring your check book." She turned her finger in Cameron's direction. "As for you, you might try minding your own business, it makes it easier to realize when someone is telling you the truth."
House stared at her. "You knew?"
Cuddy shrugged. "I figured it out when you showed up wearing his shirt."
"How'd you know it was his shirt?"
Eyes raised toward the ceiling, Cuddy sighed. "Monogrammed cuffs, you idiot. Even if the shirt did have un-Wilson-like stains of undetermined origin on it, I could still see the stitching."
"Wow," House looked at her with new respect, "that's impressive." He glanced over at a slack-jawed Cameron and a now wide awake Chase. "Uh, oh, we're scaring the kids. You'd better tell them something innocuous to scrub out their brains. Something about teddy bears and unicorns ought to do it."
"Sorry." Cuddy tossed her hair off her shoulders. "Your torrid affair, you deal with the fallout. Meanwhile, my office, seven minutes." Cuddy smiled at them all impartially and exited, the faint scent of Juicy Couture floating in the air behind her.
"That was good," Cameron stuttered, "you had Cuddy in on it, too."
"Did I?" House reached for the pen once more. "Sorry, not into threesomes. Well, not any more. Can we get back to work? Or do you need to know our favorite sexual positions and what Wilson tastes like in the morning?"
The look of distaste on Cameron's face was reply enough and they returned to the differential with over-enthusiastic interest on Cameron's part and a yawn from Chase. Later that night, after another bout of the now legendary, unbelievably fantastic sex, Wilson was not shy in explaining that he was never going to be put on the spot like that again. But when House pointed out that torturing Cameron was a natural by-product of their now out-in-the-open-but-not-really affair, Wilson had to admit that being honest had its rewards.