Title: Signifying Nothing
Author: Ellie
Rating: PG13 (language)
Summary: Post “Lines in the Sand,” Cuddy finds House in his office.

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She watched maintenance leave, tool kit in hand, and saw Cameron walk out the front door, looking dejected and confused. When the hallways had quieted to their low evening hum, she headed upstairs to his office.

He was standing in the open doorway between his office and the conference room, apparently lost in thought. Certainly he must have heard the approaching sharp echo of her heels in the hallway, but he didn’t turn as she entered his office.

Her hand rested against his shoulder, and she could feel the strain there. Running her hand down his back, index finger tracing the channel of his spine, she could feel the tension in the muscles there, coiled, awaiting release. She ran her hand back up, with slightly more pressure, and she felt him give ever so slightly to her hand.

“Why throw such a tantrum over this?” She thought she knew, but was curious.

When he looked at her, she realized how little she truly understood about him. There was so little of the perverse glee she’d expected him to get from arbitrarily aggravating her. Instead, she saw confusion and mistrust and worry and, just perhaps, fear. For all his misanthropic behavior, his unguarded eyes were expressive as any words Molière had ever written, if one only knew the language to read them. She wasn’t as well versed as some, but had known him long enough to recognize the larger themes.

He just shook his head and leaned more heavily on his cane, causing the muscles under her hand to ripple and flex. His eyes, cast on the faded bloodstain, indigo against the grey Berber in the phosphorescent streetlight filtering through the blinds, deliberately stayed away from her line of vision.

“You wanted it to stay, then Wilson tells me--”

“Wilson’s a manipulative bastard.” That elicited a brutal, appraising stare from him, and she could see the betrayal, his brain processing faster than anything Intel could dream of.

“And he’s so good at it that you sent him into my office blathering about Asperger’s like I didn’t spend the same time in medical school the two of you did. You can read people so well it’s frightening; you just choose to provoke and ignore mores. You’re a fine one to talk about manipulation!”

He hobbled away from her, into the darkened conference room, where he stood over the stain. After a moment, she crossed the room to join him.

“Why does this mean so much to you?” She knew the reasoning he’d shouted in her office was just so much sound and fury.

For an eon he was silent, and she almost turned to go, thinking there was no response to be had. His rasping voice froze her where she stood. “That was my second chance. And this and a fading scar are all I’ve got left from it.”

“You had a couple of good months. And you’re still doing better than you were.”

Like a dervish, he turned on her. “Don’t give me that condescending, polite bullshit like I’m any other patient whose crapshoot didn’t turn out quite as well as expected.”

When he was angry and looming, she remembered how tall he was, how powerful he could be, in spite of his handicap.

“It was just a sick joke. Three pain-free months while I’m recovering from a fucking shooting! When I’m finally well enough to enjoy it, to start living again, it’s gone.”

She tried not to feel intimidated; he’d never hurt her, for all he’d scream and threaten. “You’d have rather continued like you were, with no relief at all?”

“No! I’d rather the damned ketamine have worked, so I could walk without this fucking cane.” He shook it in front of her face, menacing, before hurling it across the room, where the dull thud of wood on carpeting was surely less satisfying than he must have been hoping for, but better on her maintenance budget than repairing a broken glass wall would have been.

“You don’t have to let your leg define you.” She couldn’t back down now, not when he was teetering, so close.

“Fine words of wisdom coming from the woman who made it what it is.”

“House,” she whispered, her hand coming to rest on his right forearm. “You are who you are, who you were, before anything at all happened to you. What you’ve got in your head is more than anyone else here can ever hope for. You’re the smartest man I’ve ever met. Everyone looses the physical, eventually.”

“The day you loose those tits is the day I quit.”

“You’ll be fired for sexual harassment long before then.”

He turned away again, to stare down at the floor. “I should have done more with it while I had it.”

“Keeping the carpet won’t bring it back.”

“But it will remind me.”

“You don’t forget anything.”

“I forgot I could feel good,” he said, softly.

“Just because you can’t run eight miles doesn’t mean you’re not entitled to feel good. You don’t have to punish yourself, or atone for something.” Before she could think, she was in front of him, tilting her head up to meet his downcast visage, her lips brushing against his.

His lips were warm, hungry, and his arms were around her like a drowning man clutching a life preserver. Only when his hands slid from her shoulders down to roam the plane of her back, grazing dangerously below the waistline of her skirt, did her mind catch up with her instincts.
She pulled away with a gasp, glancing quickly back over her shoulder to the dim, glassy walls which did nothing to conceal them from the rest of the hospital. The hallway was empty, but she forced herself to step back.

House was looking at her with the same intensity he’d been focusing on the carpet earlier, and it scared her, perhaps even more than what they’d just done. She knew from long experience how he was when he focused on something, so intense, determined, single-minded. That intensity of focus, concentrated on her, was something she’d doggedly avoided for the last twenty years.

“Cuddy….”

With a shake of her head she took another step away, faltering slightly as her stiletto caught in the pile of the carpet. She turned and walked out the door, moving away rapidly down the deserted hallway.

It was almost disappointing when he didn’t follow her, didn’t storm out of his office and hunt her down while she waited on the elevator. Some small part of her had wanted it almost as much as it terrified her. What had she just done?

She couldn’t think about it, didn’t want to contemplate all the possible outcomes the way she knew House was doing at that moment. If she was uncertain about her sentiments, he, who was already in so much tumult, must be even more so. On the other hand, she thought, he could be so decisive when it came down to it. The way he’d kissed her back implied an inclination towards the riskier choice.

Ten minutes later, as she was gathering her things to leave, her office door swung open. He limped in and made himself comfortable on her couch, as she stood by her coat rack and watched, slightly anxious.

“What the hell was that about?” His words were harsh, but his tone was gently curious.

She sighed and hung her coat back on the rack. “I don’t know.”

“As Cameron very poignantly told me this evening, not all change is bad.”

With a quirk of her eyebrow, she crossed the room and looked down at him. “You’re taking advice from Cameron now?”

“Never.” He shook his head and stamped his cane on the floor. “But occasionally she says things that are true, in spite of herself.”

Cuddy frowned and sat in the chair across from him. “You want…?”

“You.” He smiled, without the lecherous smirk that usually infused the expression.

“This is a bad idea right now.”

“And I’m sure you could list every reason why.”

“I could.” She smiled, a little, shaking her head. “You’re not in any state of mind to be talking rationally about this.”

“Because I got in touch with my feminine side earlier? I promise it won’t happen in bed. Unless you’re into that. Then I’m sure we can work something out.” The smirk was back, in full effect.

“Because you’re obviously thinking about feeling good, which is fine, but a very different thing than making a rational decision about what’s best.”

“God forbid we think about this as anything but a rational decision.”

“Given the ramifications of us doing…anything together, I can’t afford to be anything but rational.”

“You mean the hospital can’t afford anything but that.”

“House, that’s not what I said.” The frown never left her face while she studied his. “Did you mean what you said?”

“About what?”

“About feeling good.”

Fingers tapping on his cane handle, he stared at her. “Yeah.” He looked away, gazing down at the journals scattered on the table in front of him.

“And it seems perfectly reasonable to go from Lolita to Lisa Cuddy, just like that?”

“Lolita ended up barefoot and pregnant, and Humbert died in jail. Never a very appealing prospect.”

“So that was yet more pointless bitching from you. Are you sure you’re not getting too close to your feminine side?”

“I’d be happy to prove I’m not.”

Cuddy laughed and shook her head. “You can’t prove a negative.”

“Touché,” House said, with a flourish of his cane like a foil. Then, softer, “What can I do for you?”

She thought for a moment, trying to quickly weigh all her options while ignoring the anxious expression on his face. “Dinner, tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” he said slowly, nodding and drawing out sighed word to several syllables. “I think I can make that happen.”

“Meet me here at seven.”

House rose from the couch with a frown, scowling down at her as he paused by her chair. “You would try to get a couple hours extra work out of me in the process, too.”

“You know me, always thinking of the hospital.”

They both laughed softly as he left her office.

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End
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