35.

"Okay," he announced as he entered the diagnostics lounge to find his team waiting for him, "First thing first. I really wouldn't advise anyone to say anything to anybody about me and Cuddy. And by 'wouldn't advise' I mean 'will happily kill'. Everybody got that? Excellent. Let's move on."

"You and Cuddy what?" Chase said into the silence that followed.

Cameron rolled her eyes as House swung his attention over to her. "I didn't tell them."

He narrowed his eyes. "Yes you did."

She shifted. "Well, I didn't tell Chase." She turned and shrugged at the one person in the room who was still, apparently, confused. "You weren't there when I called him."

"Well, I was," Foreman said. "Just - leave me out of this. As long as you don't get your ass fired, I don't care."

"But that's exactly the problem. You three start blabbing, who knows what might happen. Cuddy could get canned. Then I'd get canned. Then you'd all get canned. Like a shiny, aluminum domino effect." He shrugged. "Or I might just resign in protest, Cuddy and I run off to Maui together - you'd still find yourselves out of a job or three." He made a face and amended, "Maybe not Maui. Not exactly bikini weather in Cuddy-town these days."

"So wait," Chase said, finally starting to catch up, "You and Cuddy, are you -"

"Ah!" He brought his cane around and pointed it at Chase's nose, which shut him up fast. "Not saying anything to anybody includes me. Just call me Greg 'Anybody' House. Any more questions?"

The three of them were obediently silent.

Well, Cameron was speaking volumes with that grimly satisfied look of 'I knew it' on her face, but she was saying it without any actual volume, so it worked for him.

"We're all agreed then, talky-talky bad. Now. Why am I here at three in the ungodly morning again?"

The house was empty when he returned mid-morning. Her car had been parked in the driveway, however, and so as he wandered down the hallway, peering into quiet rooms, he assumed she was just out pretending to jog.

Then he reached the bedroom, intending to bunker down for some serious naptime, and found the doors to the patio standing open.

"And here I thought you'd be ruining another perfectly good Saturday with industrious activity," he said when he was standing over her.

"I'm gardening, can't you tell?" she replied, shielding her eyes to look up at him.

The faded shirt stretched over her belly and the gardening shears close at hand seemed to back her up, but the fact that she was seated at the outdoor table with her feet up, enjoying a patch of late October sun, let her down somewhat.

"Everything needs to be cut back for Winter," she explained, gesturing to encompass the entire yard.

"You need to hire another... I want to say 'Marinara'."

"Alfredo, and shut up."

He dragged the second chair out from under her feet, earning himself a glare as he sat down. "I took care of Cameron. She's totally on board, what with her being our biggest fan and all."

"She told everyone?"

"Just Foreman. I told Chase, apparently."

She looked resigned, rather than upset or angry. He let the silence settle between them before saying, "Are we sneaking around? That's the kind of thing you should probably keep me in the loop on."

"You know exactly what we've been doing," she said, shifting awkwardly in her chair. "I did this already. I stood in front of the damn board and I said, 'he's the father, to hell with anyone who doesn't like it'."

"That's what you said?"

She quirked a smile. "So I'm paraphrasing. But why couldn't that have been enough?"

"We're doctors, a woman's reproductive choices are to be respected, inviolable - we just plain old don't go there. Who she's getting down with? Oh, we'll totally go there."

"I know, just a bit of wishful thinking."

"Are you ashamed of me?" he sprung the next question on her without pause.

She opened her mouth, then closed it, and finally admitted, "Oh, sort of. It's your fault, House - do you know how much of my time is spent apologising for you? Now I'll be apologising for myself. 'Oh, I'm so sorry I'm seeing that crazy person, I'll try not to let it interfere with me stopping him from doing crazy things.' I'm supposed to be impartial."

"You've never been impartial," he dismissed the thought for the idiocy it was, and shrugged. "It's no problem, still plenty of time to settle down with that nice Jewish boy instead. I'll get Wilson on the phone, you two can work something out."

"Don't act hurt. You want all the perks without changing your ways one iota, even if it would help me out. So you're just going to have to live with me being regularly mortified on your behalf."

"That's what Wilson's always saying - you really are perfect for each other."

"Maybe on paper." She sighed. "I've dated nice Jewish boys..."

"Anyone you haven't dated?"

Her mouth twisted in wry amusement, and she said, "You know I could marry Wilson, and nobody would blink an eye? I'm sweating over this because you're you."

"Doesn't seem fair," he commented, bouncing his cane on the ground and watching her carefully out of the corner of his eye.

"It's not fair," she agreed with a slight lift of her shoulders, which was mild as reactions went, but he was willing to wait. He could tell it would weigh on her.

"What do you want to do?" he asked.

"I don't know," she said. Her eyes tracked across the garden before finding his. "What do you want to do?"

"Watch you waddle around the yard like you actually know what you're doing. Failing that, go back to bed before my highly qualified staff need me to hold their hands again."

Sliding down a little further in her chair, she closed her eyes and tipped her face up to the sun. "There isn't going to be any floor show today, sorry."

"Spoilsport," he muttered, and took himself back inside.

"You shouldn't sit here," he hissed a few days later. "People will think you're my secret girlfriend."

"The stupid thing is, half of them already think that, anyway."

"Yes, that is stupid."

She was smiling as she started in on her large serving of pasta salad - almost as if she agreed with him.

"I'm pretty sure where I sit has very little bearing on the matter. And besides, I've been thinking," she began in between shovelling food, and he waited expectantly, having a fair idea what was coming. Difficult to miss after she'd tracked him down in the cafeteria and purposefully joined him at his table like she was on a search and destroy mission. "I don't want to sneak around," she told him, keeping her voice low nonetheless. "It's... ridiculous. We're adults. I shouldn't have to hide my personal life - no matter how embarrassing you are."

He shrugged. "Great, how should we do it - another formal announcement? 'I, Lisa Cuddy, do solemnly swear I am boffing Greg House's brains out on a regular -'"

"I'm not making an announcement. These things get around in their own time, I'm just saying we don't have to lie if -"

"Or, we could make out, right now, the whole place will know before the spit settles."

"Right, I'm going to let you kiss me while you're eating that." She gave his Reuben a distasteful look.

"Fine. Me and my sandwich will take care of this in our own way."

She latched onto his sleeve as if he was about to leap to his feet and start shouting. "This is not a free licence to publicly humiliate me."

"Relax, I almost never publicly humiliate the women I sleep with."

"Almost never?"

"Gotta leave some wiggle room," he told her, and took another bite of his sandwich.

"Let it never be said that I can't go with the flow." The team looked up at him expectantly as he entered the room. "That thing we agreed never to talk about? Changed my mind. Tell whoever you want. Go... gather around a water cooler somewhere, or whatever it is you crazy kids are doing these days. I'm assuming it'll involve your cell phones and spelling words with numbers in the middle of them. Go on, you know you want to."

He got three blank looks in return.

"Whenever you're ready," he added.

Chase cleared his throat. "You mean..."

"Maui?" Foreman filled in mockingly.

"Don't you think we have better things to do than talk about your personal life?" Suddenly Cameron was on the receiving end of three near identical looks. "What?"

House rolled his eyes, and moved over to the door, pulling it open. "Let's try this. Get out. Don't come back till you've gotten your gossip on."

"Why? What's so important -"

"Seriously?"

"You've got to be kidding me."

The protests came one on top of the other but he ignored them, staring all three of them down. Chase was the first to crack - with a simple shrug he rose, collected his coffee cup and wandered out.

"Not like I had lunch yet," Foreman said with a shake of his head, getting up to follow.

Cameron glared at him from her seat. "This is stupid."

"I know. But what's the point of having trained monkeys if you can't get them to fly?"

He let the door swing shut following her disgruntled exit, and made his way through to his office.

Which was where he was, approximately thirty minutes later, when Wilson appeared in the doorway looking highly amused.

"What's this I hear about you and a certain Dean of Medicine?" he said.