Author's Chapter Notes:
I know these chapters are way shorter than I usually come up with, but it seems to work in this story. Chapter 4 in progress...
“So what are you saying?”
Pam was pretty sure she knew exactly what he was saying, but she felt extremely uncomfortable with what he was suggesting.
“I'm saying – Pamela Jane Beesly,” House enunciated ever syllable of her name as if it was some unpronounceable exotic tropical disease, “You've got to step up to the plate. You've got to go for the fences. Knock one out of the park with all the bases loaded. You've got to take one for the team. Push it into extra innings.” He rubbed his hand over his chin. “Scratch that last one. But you get what I mean.”
“What? Just walk up to him and tell him exactly how I feel?”
“Ah ha!” He exclaimed standing up again. “So you at least acknowledge you feel something for the jerk.” He started walking toward the kitchen. “You don't happen to have any coffee, do you? You know, the good kind – not the stuff they push on you to save indigenous populations.”
Pam got up to follow him. “Wait – you can't drink coffee.”
He turned back toward her. “No? Why can't I?”
“Well,” Pam waved her hands in the space between them, “you're not real.”
“I'm not?” House looked genuinely surprised. “Whatever in the hell ever gave you that idea?”
“But...but you're not!” Pam continued, starting to doubt her sanity. “You're a character on a television show.”
“Well of course I am,” House harrumphed, and walked into the kitchen. “I thought you implying I was ghost or one of the undead or something.” He started rummaging through a top cabinet. “Where do you keep the coffee?”
Pam sighed and gave in to the motions of busying herself with brewing a pot of coffee. At least this prevented him for talking more about her and Jim, and she was starting to think that maybe coffee would do her some good as well. Though the fact she was starting to believe she was talking to the Gregory House was enough to make her want to reach for a much stronger drink.
She had just poured them each a mug when House got back to the topic at hand. “So tell me, how long do you plan on living like this?”
Pam furrowed her brow. “You mean on my own?”
He sighed. “If we're going to play the runaround game then I might as well leave you alone on this path of destruction right now. I'm sure it will be fun to watch.” He sipped his coffee. “Or something.”
She was quiet as she stared into her mug. “I don't know what to do,” she admitted finally.
“There you go,” House said loudly, startling her. “Finally we are getting somewhere.”
“Yeah, nowhere fast,” she replied sardonically.
“Good, more humor,” he observed. “There might be hope for you yet, Beesly.”
“Thanks,” she replied, mostly to herself.
“Now tell me. What is so damn hard about telling him how you really feel?”
“Everything,” she exhaled loudly.
“Really?”
“Yes,” she nodded emphatically.
“That's bullshit.”
“Hey, now wait a minute --”
“It's bullshit,” he repeated. “Sitting around feeling sorry for yourself is easier than talking to him with a little thing we like to call honesty?”
“It's only going to make things worse,” she said. “I know it would.”
“Right.” House stood up from the barstool at the kitchen counter and picked up his half-empty mug. “I can see how things could possibly get worse than this --” he waved his mug around the room before pouring more into it. “This living alone, coming home alone every night, never going out, never being with people beyond your job requirement.” He took another drink of his coffee. “That has got to be the life. I really, really envy you.”
“Shut up,” Pam grumbled.
“No, really – tell me more about this wonderful life you have right now.” He started to walk back toward the living room. “When's the last time you had sex with something not battery operated?”
Pam's head jerked up and she couldn't stop the blush creeping across her face if she'd wanted to. “That's – that's.....it doesn't matter.”
“No, of course it doesn't,” he agreed, leaving her sitting alone at the counter.
Pam finished her coffee and debated what next to do. Clearly this was all a strange dream, right? So why couldn't she wake herself up? Maybe she should just go to bed; maybe that would make him go away.
“Are you going to just hide in the kitchen now?” She heard him call. He really was more irksome in real life than on television, she thought, then corrected herself it wasn't real at all. Still, the tone of slight contempt in his voice rattled up her defenses, and she knew that dream or not, she wasn't about to back down to Dr. Gregory House. She put her mug in the sink and strode purposefully back into the living room. He was seated on the chair again, feet up. She walked over, pushed his feet off the coffee table and sat down where his feet had been.
“Fine,” she said, a note of challenge in her voice. “Tell me what I should do.”
