Previously, on Just Friends...

Hugh would be at the party. Therefore she should absolutely not be at the party—but how could she get out of it? Not only was she worried that she would lose her mind and do something stupid…
    He might bring Jo.
    Nausea again—it was something of an old friend द्वारा this time. Just the idea of what she had been about to do…
    It came to her in a flash. Two मिनटों later she was up in her room, digging through her bedroom drawer until she discovered the one thing that would feasibly get her out of this obligation without too many questions…
    Another country.
    “Hey, Julie?” Lisa fingered her plane tickets nervously. “It’s Lisa. Is there any way आप can हटाइए up my flight to Spain? I was hoping to fly out this morning...”


~*~*~
    “This shouldn’t take long…” David started to speak and raised an eyebrow at Hugh’s knee, which was bouncing convulsively as it had been since he got to the set. “Hugh. For the प्यार of God. Are आप ready to start?”
    “Huh? Yep. Yep yep yep ready to go. Let’s go.”
    “O…k?” David and Katie exchanged glances, but didn’t think much of it; it was the last दिन of shooting. Everyone was wired; everyone was tired; everyone wanted to get this over with, and above all… everyone was on time.
    It was a freaking miracle.
    Everything ran smoothly. Everything was minimal takes. Until…
    “Where’s Robert?” David looked around the set shortly after lunch. “He should’ve been here द्वारा now.”
    “Oh, my head’s going to explode,” Hugh muttered to himself, looking for his friend. The only scenes left to shoot in the entire season were House’s scenes in Wilson’s office—and Wilson was nowhere to be found. Hugh leaned against a wall, rubbing his thumb absently against his palm, his mind racing. Already he was making plans for the end of the night—he was going to get in his car, and he was going to drive like a bat out of hell to—
    “Sorry!” Robert came rushing in, already in character clothes and makeup, and Hugh launched himself off the दीवार and towards Wilson’s office set. “The golf गाड़ी broke down…”
    “You lazy cur,” Hugh growled, gripping the man’s arm and propelling him into Wilson’s डेस्क chair. “Come on now, I’ve got somewhere to be.”
    “Tonight?” Robert raised his eyebrows. “Oh, right—you’d want to get back to—”
     “Ready when आप are!” David called, and Hugh hightailed it off to the side to make his entrance. Robert narrowed his eyes at him, thinking. Something was off…
    The door swung open and Hugh walked in, looking enormously self-satisfied as he lowered himself into a chair. “I slept with Cuddy.” Robert’s jaw dropped a bit. “After she helped me detox from Vicodin. I’ve been clean for almost 24 hours now…”
    Eight या nine takes later, Hugh’s knee was bouncing again and David finally कहा they could हटाइए on to the अगला scene. Eddie tossed Hugh the thermal तस्वीरें of Lisa that they had doctored and Hugh raised an eyebrow at the pictures, amused.
    “Not her best look,” he offered, waving them at Robert.
    “Yeah. So… how was your night last night??” Hugh shot him a suspicious look. “I mean, आप really looked beat; I hope आप got some rest…”
    “You guys going to start या will we be here another दिन या two?” Someone called, and Hugh rolled his eyes but quickly got himself into place; after all hurrying up was part of his agenda in the first place.
    “Proof!” He said, and they began.
    Nine and one half billion hours later (at least to Hugh’s sleep-deprived mind) the scene was good enough for David. Hugh was starting to get snarky with his friend as they kept attempting to draw out the nuances of Wilson’s lines, until finally Robert snapped.
    “My God, Hugh, I’m sorry it took me so long! I’m not Lisa, आप know!”
    A completely unexpected smile suddenly took over Hugh’s entire countenance at the sound of her name. Robert’s jaw dropped again—for what seemed like the 800th time that day—and he moved his mouth soundlessly, trying to come up with the words for what he thought we was looking at. He had never seen that expression on Hugh’s face before. It was almost as if—
    “Oh, we know,” David cut in, walking up with a script in his hands. “You’re much prettier. Hugh, let me look at this last scene with आप before we start?”
    “You—we’re—I—” Robert sputtered as Hugh and David turned away from him to talk about the pages for the last scene of the season. Then Makeup managed to catch him full in the mouth with a foundation brush and it was another मिनट या two before he could get the taste out of his mouth enough to speak normally.
    “Action!”
~*~*~
    “Yep—oh, I don’t know, I’m just completely—here it is!” Lisa held up the missing dress in triumph, tucking the phone between her ear and her shoulder. “I just had planned on having so much और time to pack, आप know? So I’m running around like crazy, but I can always just buy whatever I forget to bring.”
    Shazam put his head in his paws on the floor, whining slightly. Kapow sat down in the empty suitcase laying on the bed.
    “Mmmm hmm, well, we’ll see about that. I know, the party… well. Yeah?” Lisa grabbed a pair of jeans and folded them over her arms, jumping slightly when something fell out of the pocket and landed on her foot before rolling away. Shazam was up in a flash and after it, diving into a corner and immediately settling down to a healthy cracking of plastic in teeth. “No! James, I gotta go.” Lisa dropped the phone on the dresser and कबूतर after the dog, prying jaws open and feeling about at बिना सोचे समझे until she came across something that was most decidedly not canine and fished it out.
    A mangled tube of Chapstick.
    Lisa felt her entire head grow hot—staring at the tooth-marked plastic, she saw Hugh’s eyes when he slid it across the तालिका, टेबल to her, unspoken promise in his gaze. Swallowing hard, her stomach twisting, she forced herself to get up and place the damaged lip balm in the covered garbage can, out of reach of curious dogs.
    “You know, this is exactly why I need to leave the country before the party,” she कहा conversationally to the dogs. “I need to get this out of my system, आप see. And the way to do that?” She held up a brightly colored dress, perfectly cut for dancing. “Cute Spanish guys!”
    “Rowrrrr,” कहा Kapow.
~*~*~
    “I’m as surprised as you, but I think I’m serious. Communication can’t start unless आप both—”
    “I’ve been trying to make her angry for—” Hugh tried not to let his growing anticipation flow under his words, but it was becoming अगला to impossible.
    “No आप haven’t. Come on! Poo? Strippers? It’s routine stuff! You’ve been pulling your punches. You’re scared. आप should be.”
    I’m not scared, Hugh suddenly thought to himself as he slowly got out of the chair. I’m terrified.
    “Now. Go terrorize her.”
    The cameras shut off. There was a moment of silence, as David strung out the very last nerves of his remaining cast and crew, making them suffer…
    “Oh, all right,” he finally said, and was rewarded with a spontaneous round of applause. “Great job, everybody! Remember, the party is tomorrow night…”
    “You!” Robert grabbed at Hugh’s jacket, just barely missing it as he tried to get away with as little conversation as possible. Realizing that his friend wasn’t about to stop walking, he joined him as they pushed out the doors and into the lot. “In a hurry?”
    “Yeah—just, I want to get to—”
    “Jo hasn’t gone back yet?” Robert asked, and Hugh froze, the blood rushing out of his face. Very, very slowly, he turned and looked at Robert.
    “I beg your pardon?”
    Robert ducked his head. “I’m sorry. She called me yesterday. She didn’t want to interrupt your filming; she just wanted to make sure आप weren’t spending the night here like आप sometimes do… she कहा it was important.”
    Hugh’s stance relaxed a little; he looked around, and satisfied that they were alone, said, “Yeah. It was important. She, um… we’ve not been doing so well lately… I don’t think—it’s not going to work anymore. She brought divorce papers.”
    Robert nodded slowly. “Was it—bad?”
    “No. No, honestly. Not bad at all. Sad, of course, but—” Hugh was staring off into the distance, smiling faintly. “Well, sometimes things just don’t work out the way you’d think.”
    “Well, I’m just glad आप guys are all right,” Robert continued, oblivious. “Lisa was worried that something horrible had befallen—”
    “Lisa?” Hugh’s voice hardened in two tenths of a सेकंड and his entire body tensed again. “You told Lisa?”
    “Honestly, Hugh,” Robert said, raising his hands in surrender. “Believe me, I wasn’t going to. She happened to hear me on the phone with her. What was I supposed to do?”
    “That’s why she was telling me to go home,” Hugh muttered to himself. “God…”
    “Well, don’t let me keep you,” Robert said. “I don’t know how much longer she’s staying… how often do planes fly out to लंडन these days?”
    How much longer is she staying?
    The बिना उत्तर phone calls…
    How often to planes fly out to…
    “I’ve been gazing at my plane tickets practically every दिन and trying not to drool on them…”
    Vacation…
    “I gotta go,” Hugh muttered, and barely heard Robert’s farewell as he sprinted for his car. Collapsing into the front seat, he immediately began to dial Lisa’s number as he took off, revving the engine.
~*~*~
    “Oh God, who is it now?” Lisa muttered as her phone began to ring. In the exact middle of the staircase with three rather large suitcases around her, she tried to untangle herself without toppling down the rest of the way, counting the rings as she went. Half a मिनट and ten rings later, she had made it to safety and grabbed the phone, forgetting to check the caller id. “Hello?”
~*~*~
    “Oh for God’s sake,” Hugh muttered after the ninth ring, dropping the phone from his ear for a moment before finally giving up and turning it off. She was either gone already या she was ignoring him. Only one way to find out…
~*~*~
    “Suitcases द्वारा the back door… ok… instructions for dog sitters… on the counter… dogs…” Lisa looked around and saw Shazam and Kapow looking at her in a most accusing way. “Do not give me that look,” she warned. “I got आप guys the best dog sitter in the history of the world; she brings आप presents, she spoils आप rotten, and आप will not want me to come back घर ever again once आप meet her. Actually…” Lisa began going through her mental checklist again and realized what she’s forgotten. “She’s not going to be able to play with आप if she can’t find your ball, and she won’t find your ball if I don’t put it back where it belongs from where आप troublemakers dropped it in the front yard…”
    Lisa swung the front door open to retrieve the dogs’ plaything, and there on her front step was Hugh Laurie.
    Easily twenty सेकंड्स went द्वारा as they stared at each other, Lisa with her jaw hanging open in shock, and Hugh in surprise that she had opened the door before he had a chance to ring the bell. Then Lisa laughed softly, self-consciously, and brushed past him to walk onto the lawn, picking up the squeaky toy she had come for.
    “I thought I told आप to go home,” she finally कहा when her voice came back from where it had fled. She tossed the ball into its rightful place in the mud room and turned to face Hugh.
    “I did go home,” he said, his voice low. “Last night. Do आप mind if I come in?”
    Lisa hesitated, then finally shrugged her shoulders in defeat. “Sure. Sorry. Sure. Come on in.” Reaching around him, she turned the key in the door and took a step back, raising an eyebrow and putting her hands on her hips. “So what are आप doing here?”
    “I came to see you,” Hugh said, his mouth suddenly dry. All दिन he had been thinking about this—trying to decide what to say, how to say it—and all of his carefully selected words had flown out the window in the face of Lisa’s ridiculously endearing facial expressions. She was looking at him like he’d grown another head.
    So words weren’t working for him. Fine. He would work without them.
    Hugh took a step closer and Lisa immediately lowered her eyes and took a step back, biting her lips. A small smile played along Hugh’s lips as the moment formed and became real in his head—the one thing that had been stopping her was no longer an issue, and now… now she was going to know it.
    And God only knew what would happen then.
    Hugh continued to walk forward, and Lisa furrowed her brow, putting a hand out as if to stop him and taking a false step back into the beginning of the carpeted area of her living room. Hugh took her hand in his to steady her, bracing himself with his other hand against the दीवार at her back. He leaned in.
    “Hugh, what are आप doing?” Lisa asked, her voice shaky.
    There was still half a foot of अंतरिक्ष between them, but he still had her hand and was rubbing the soft skin of her palm hypnotically, his eyes boring into hers.
    “Nothing,” he कहा lamely.
    “Hugh…” Lisa’s stomach dropped to her feet as he began to lean forward, excruciatingly slowly. “Hugh please, आप can’t keep doing this to me! You’re married.”
    Hugh stopped, their faces just inches apart. “No,” he said. Lisa looked at him. “I’m not.”