Title: What Things Are
Author: Ellie
Rating: R (for adult themes)
Spoilers: Post-"Who’s Your Daddy?"
Summary: "His bike was in her driveway when she got home,
but he was nowhere to be seen, until she entered her living room
and his voice rang out in the darkness. ‘You were going to ask
me something.’"

****
"Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the
only animal that is struck with the difference between what things
are and what they ought to be." –William Hazlitt
****

****
Part 1
****

His bike was in her driveway when she got home, but he was
nowhere to be seen, until she entered her living room and his
voice rang out in the darkness. "You were going to ask me
something." His tone matched the lazy insolence of his posture
as he sprawled across her sofa.

"You beat me home."

"Bike beats Beamer every time. You planned to say more than
‘thank you.’"

She sat her briefcase by the sofa and settled into a chair opposite
him. "What makes you think I’d tell you now, when I
obviously decided not to say anything then?"

"You wouldn’t have mentioned it if you didn’t want me to ask.
You knew I would."

She sighed, and knowing he was right. But she wasn’t sure she
wanted him asking her right now. "And your curiosity needed
to be satisfied less than two hours after I walked out your
door?"

"It’s me! You’re lucky I let you walk out the door without
getting an answer. But I have a feeling that the hospital hallway
wasn’t really the best place to hear it."

"No." She looked away, suddenly nervous, and picked at an
invisible bit of lint on her skirt. The perfect opportunity had
presented itself earlier, and she’d walked away from it. She
wasn’t certain she could muster the courage now.

"And?" He continued to rest akimbo on her sofa, right leg
stretched along its length, looking no less casual than he had
when she’d arrived. But there was an expectant, persistent note
in his voice that she recognized, and knew that he wouldn’t
budge until she’d said something to him.

It might as well be the truth. "I did want someone I knew and
liked; that’s why I asked Wilson out to dinner, to pursue that
idea. But it just felt wrong, and I thought it would be too
complicated."

"Because deciding to have a baby through in vitro is such a
simple process."

She locked gazes with him, and he quieted. "And after what you
said in the clinic, I started thinking about it again. About what
I’d said to you in jest."

"You want me to be the donor?" He was frozen, so still that if
she hadn’t heard him speak, she wouldn’t have believed he was
breathing.

This was the beginning of the frighteningly complicated mess
she still wasn’t sure about diving into. For all his façade of
indifference about everything, she knew he wouldn’t be able to
remain neutral and uninvolved if he was the father of her child.

After taking a deep breath she nodded, then looked up at him.
"You can be as uninvolved as you want. Or not. I’m not
looking for someone to play house with, but if you want to help
pick a name and come to piano recitals…." Despite speaking to
people for a living, she felt words suddenly eluding her, unsure
of how to ask him while still giving him every possible out.

"Piano recitals are good. Maybe even soccer games. But I
absolutely refuse to come to ballet recitals. All that pink tulle
gives me hives."

"Mmm, it’s very scratchy." She smiled and realized he’d been
thinking about this, too.

Without another word, he rose from the couch and lumbered
towards her door. Pausing, he turned back to her with a troubled,
serious expression. "Does this mean I can call you Big
Momma?"

She laughed at that, much as she tried not to encourage him.
"Go home, House."

He winked at her before disappearing out the door.

****

Unsteady with nerves and precarious stiletto heels, she stepped
into House’s office. He didn’t look up at her entrance, just
continued to sit, slouching, with his feet on his desk and a cheap
tabloid in front of his face. As she approached the desk, she was
able to read the distressed, nearly illegible printing on his t-shirt,
which proclaimed "ne travaille jamais" proudly to the world.

She could think of nothing more appropriate for the man in front
of her. "Nice threads."

"I thought you’d appreciate it."

Leaning against his desk, she toyed with the fuzzy, oversized
tennis ball that rested on the corner, studying her nail as it traced
the curve of the seam. "Positive. I thought you’d like to
know."

He slapped the magazine down on his desk and looked at her
with something approaching a genuine smile. "Does anyone
else?"

"Know? No. I want to keep it quiet for a while, especially
considering…." She didn’t have to finish the thought, just
gesticulated in the space between them.

"Congratulations." He did smile then, and she added it to the
handful of times she’d seen him do so. When he smiled, she
thought, he was almost handsome.

"Thank you." It seemed so inadequate, a smile and thanks. Yet
anything more was too much for them now.

For a moment they smiled, then, uneasy with this unusual
circumstance, quickly broke away. House cleared his throat and
she bounced the ball on the edge of the desk, then settled it and
stepped away.

"I’ll see you tomorrow. Try to be on time for a change, huh?"

"Give me lateness or give me death."

"That was liberty."

"But it works better with lateness."

She rolled her eyes and walked away, wondering what she’d
committed herself to for the next eighteen years.

****
Part 2
****

It was three minutes before five when the phone on House’s
desk trilled. He debated not answering it, as he had his bag in
one hand and coat and cane in the other. But a glance at the
caller ID revealed that it was Cuddy. She never called him this
late in the day when he wasn’t working on a case, because she
knew he left; she didn’t like it, but as with most of his other
behavior, she tolerated it.

Setting his bag on the chair, he snatched the phone and barked,
"This better be good."

He regretted it as soon as he heard her voice, subdued and
tremulous. "Greg, I need you to come take me home."

"I’ll be right there." He hung up without waiting for a reply.

No one spared a glance at him as he strode impatiently down the
corridors; everyone was accustomed to him being in a hurry to
leave. Occasionally there were upsides to his behavior.

When he reached Cuddy’s office, the doors were closed and the
curtains were drawn. He tapped once on the wooden doorframe
with the handle of his cane before opening them and slipping
inside.

The room was dim, with just a table lamp glowing to illuminate
Cuddy, lying on her couch, shoes and jacket off. When she
turned to look at him, he could tell she’d been crying, with puffy
eyes and a conspicuous lack of mascara.

"What’s wrong?" He eased himself down to sit on the low
table beside the couch.

She looked at him with pleading eyes as her lips soundlessly
formed the beginnings of several explanations. After a deep
breath, she simply murmured, "I took codeine and need you to
drive me home."

It took him a second to process everything implied that
statement. "You’re sure?"

Turning away to stare up at the ceiling, she closed her eyes and
nodded twice, rapidly.

"Fuck," he muttered under his breath. Then, "And you don’t
find it at all crazy that a woman who’s taken one codeine is
asking a Vicodin addict to drive her home?"

Gracing him with a faint, watery smile, she said, "You do a lot of
stupid things, but you’ve managed not to total a car yet. I’ll take
my chances today."

"C’mon, then." He pushed her shoes towards her as she sat up,
putting a hand on the couch to steady herself. After a brief
juggling act with their coats and bags and his cane, he managed
to free a hand to graze her back as they crossed the office to the
door.

She froze for just a second before opening it, enough to bring
him into firmer contact with her, before dropping his hand away
as they stepped out into the larger hospital.

It was two minutes into the drive before she caught on. "We’re
not headed back to my house."

"No, we’re not. We’re headed to mine."

"I just want to go home," she said, sotto voce.

He reached across to rest a hand on her thigh, fingers stroking
the soft bouclé skirt. "I’m closer, and have a bigger, softer bed.
And a really fabulous pizza delivery place two blocks away."

"I don’t think I can eat anything right now." She turned away,
gazing out the window at the blurred buildings.

"No, but I think I need grease and beer right now."

She didn’t answer, simply dropped her forehead to rest against
the tinted glass. No words passed between them in the
remaining six miles back to his apartment, and she didn’t seem
inclined to speak to him as they went inside, either.

He didn’t see a reason to say anything to her. For a moment, he
watched as she stood in the foyer, looking a bit lost. Then she
crossed the living room to his couch, where she seemed to
collapse, as if all the reinforcements that had been holding her up
since he’d first stepped into her office had finally given way.

Shedding coats and bags, he proceeded to his bedroom, where a
bit of rummaging turned up the old afghan his grandmother had
knitted him for his first apartment, now a bit ratty around the
edges, but soft. He carried it and a pillow back to the living
room, where Cuddy was curled on the couch, tears slipping down
her cheeks.

Precariously settling on the edge of the couch next to her, she let
him slip the pillow under her head and tuck the afghan around
her. He’d long ago abandoned what little tenderness he
possessed, but from some primal deep of his soul, a bit of it
sprung free. His hand slid through her curls and down to caress
her neck.

Still, she didn’t speak, just looked up at him with teary eyes he
had no idea how to treat.

"When did you realize?" He hadn’t expected the words to stick
in his throat.

She drew a deep breath. "Around one. I thought it was just
something I’d eaten, then I realized it wasn’t."

"But you stayed the rest of the day."

"There wasn’t anything else I could have done," she said,
sounding resigned and tired. "I was in review meetings all
afternoon."

"You should have called me sooner. I could have created some
sort of disaster for you to handle by sitting in the Eames chair in
my office for the rest of the day. Disasters are my specialty."

With a sigh, she shook her head. "Hiding wouldn’t have
helped. At least the meetings took my mind off of it a little."

"Can I do anything to help with that now?"

"Play me something," she mumbled.

"What do you want to hear?" he asked, hobbling cane-free to
the piano and settling himself at the keyboard, fingers skimming
the keys.

"Anything. Just something."

He thought a second, then slowly started into Dylan’s "Just
Like a Woman." He never sang for anyone, but he sang for her
now, deep and smoky, accompanying himself at a slow, bluesy
cadence. The first two lines seemed so horribly right. But as he
sang, he began to realize this was perhaps the wrong choice.
When he looked over at her, she’d curled deeper into herself and
was obviously crying. Halfway through the third verse, nearly
choking on the lyrics, he improvised his way into a refrain and
came to an awkward close.

After a pause to gather himself back together, wanting to say
something to her and not finding any words, he slipped into a
Debussy étude and lost himself in its complicated delicacy.
Without stopping, he continued into another, noting the evening
rise and fall of Cuddy’s breathing and her stillness. She was
falling asleep, and he was happy not to break the spell.

Only when he’d finished three more pieces did he rise from the
piano and make his way back to her. She was dozing, fitfully, a
furrow across her brow. But he let her rest, picking up his cane
and heading for the kitchen.

He chased a pair of Vicodin with three fingers of Scotch, then
called for pizza. Grabbing a beer from the fridge, he made his
way back to the living room to settle in the easy chair with a
backlog of journals. An unopened issue of the Journal of
Investigative Medicine lay across his lap, the cover slowly
absorbing a ring of condensation from the beer bottle, as he
studied Cuddy.

Until she’d started planning one, he’d never wanted a child. He
didn’t like children, as a rule, and knew even before the infarction
that he was not the fatherly type. Never had any of his
relationships progressed to the point where children were a part
of the discussion. There had been a couple of close calls,
panicked discussions while pregnancy tests decided their fates.
Never had it been something sought, wanted, desired.

Here they were, in something they’d taken great pains to keep
from becoming a relationship, because she wanted a child. And
he had to admit that the idea had grown on him. While not as
delighted as she had been, in the two weeks since she’d come to
his office with the results of the pregnancy test, he’d been almost
happy about it. Had wanted some part in it.

Now, he felt less entitled to the grief she obviously felt. But he
was not unaffected. He didn’t know how to handle this delicate
truce between them now, after this blow. Would she try again?
Cuddy had always been determined once she set her mind on a
goal, and he would be more surprised if she didn’t try again.
How long would it take her to get through this, though?

His thoughts were interrupted by an abrupt knock at the door.
Cuddy lifted her head cautiously as he made his way across to
the door. Carefully balancing the pizza on his arm, he crossed
back to slide a bag perched on top of the box down onto the
coffee table in front of her, then settled the pizza box down
beside it.

She looked at the bag in front of her warily, almost as warily as
she looked at him as he settled on to the couch next to her.

"I got you a salad." He shrugged and opened the pizza box,
breathing in the aroma of hot pepperoni. "You can have a slice
of this, too, if you want."

"No, thanks."

He watched her in his peripheral vision as he devoured several
slices. She picked at the salad, but ate some of it, picking around
the bits of cucumber. They ate in awkward silence that he wasn’t
sure how to breach.

"Are you going to eat those?" He pointed at the cucumber, off
to one side. "Steve would love them."

"Steve?"

"McQueen. Didn’t I mention my rat?" Rising from the couch,
he went to the kitchen and retrieved Steve’s cage.

"Somehow, this doesn’t surprise me." She tossed a slice of
cucumber into the cage, and he watched her watch the rat eat, the
vaguest hint of a smile playing at the corner of her lips. Without
a word, she rose from the couch and was halfway across the
room before turning back to him. "Can you get my overnight
bag from the trunk of my car?"

"Anything you want."

She nodded. "I’m going to take a shower."

When he returned with the overnight bag, it wasn’t the shower he
heard, but the sound of water sloshing in the bath. He sat the
overnight bag by the bathroom door and went back to put the
remains of the pizza in the fridge, before settling back down with
his journals.

He was acutely aware of her moving around his apartment, but
tried not to notice. As she settled down on the couch next to him,
she became impossible to ignore.

"Your rubber ducky has devil horns."

"It was the horns you noticed?"

"Actually, I was more surprised by the big claw-foot tub and the
Mr. Bubble hiding under the sink."

The chitchat pained him, when they were normally so
comfortable together. He decided to step away from the banter.

"The tub’s why I got this place. I can actually use it." After a
silent beat, he asked, "How’re you doing?"

She flipped through a few pages of a discarded journal. "I’ll be
fine. You know as well as I do that most women who miscarry
this early haven’t even realized they’re pregnant. It’s just a
really heavy flow day with terrible cramps. I just have the
misfortune of knowing. And I had an appointment with Rouse
tomorrow at eight, anyway." She wouldn’t look at him as she
spoke, just stared at Steve McQueen, still nibbling the last bits of
cucumber.

"Did you want anything else? I’ve got plenty of Vicodin if you
need it."

A pained, barking laugh escaped her lips. "Now I know the true
depth of your feelings, if you’re offering to share your pills with
me."

He put an arm around her, whispering, "You have no idea."

"I think I do," she said, resting her head against his shoulder.

Closing his eyes, he enjoyed holding her for just a moment, the
only sound their breathing and the squeak of Steve’s wheel.
This was some sick parody of what he thought they could have,
given half a chance and completely inverted circumstances. She
felt heavy and limp against him, soft skin and sweats. "Go to
bed, Lisa."

"Mmm," she returned, nodding her head against his shoulder,
her cheek warm through his t-shirt.

Gently, he nudged her off of him. "If you’re looking for
someone to carry you, you’ve come home with the wrong man."

"I didn’t come home with you. You brought me against my
wishes." She shook her head and rose tentatively from the
couch. As she passed him, she reached out and tousled his hair,
but said nothing else as she disappeared into his bedroom.

He heaved a sigh and collapsed back against the sofa, propping
his leg on the coffee table, toe nudging Steve’s cage. Popping
another Vicodin, he debated the relative merits of spending the
night on the couch. Things with Cuddy would certainly be less
awkward. His leg, on the other hand, wanted no parts of a night
spent away from his featherbed and soft sheets.

A few hours later, he picked his way through the dim apartment
to his bedroom. There, he was distracted by the small form
curled in his bed, nearly lost amongst the pillows and rumpled
blankets. She hadn’t moved when he emerged from the
bathroom in his pajamas, but when he lowered himself onto the
bed, she turned to stare at him with bleary eyes.

"House?"

"Go back to sleep."

"What are you doing?"

"Going to sleep." He settled into the pillows and closed his
eyes.

"But…." She was still befuddled by sleep, not finding the
words to refute him.

"It’s a big bed, and it’s not like I’m going to try and take
advantage of you right now." He opened his eyes and saw her
peering over at him in the darkness. "Go back to sleep."

The bed shifted as she lay back down. Nothing else was said,
but that night he was kept awake a long time, just listening to her
sniffling breaths and wishing he could cure what ailed her.

****
Part 3
****

She woke in House’s bed as dawn was wending its way into the
room, its watery light revealing her hand on his stomach and her
head on his chest. With all due speed, she’d moved away, crept
to the bathroom and back into her clothes. He still appeared
asleep when she’d emerged, but a second glance revealed blue
eyes tracking her movements.

With a resigned sigh, she sat down on the edge of the bed,
sinking into the blankets and feathers. He had the softest bed of
any man she’d ever met, and she wanted to spend the next six
months curled up in it. "I should go."

"Yeah." In the morning, his voice sounded huskier, deeper than
usual. "Did you want me to drive you this morning?"

She shook her head, convincing herself she didn’t need him.
"No. I already took the day off. I’ll be fine." As she rose
from the bed, she couldn’t look at him, knowing that his eyes
would draw her back, offer her some sense of comfort she didn’t
want now.

Only when she reached the bedroom door did he speak again.
"If you need anything."

"Yeah." The snick of the door behind her was reassuring, the
click of the walls sliding back into place. There was too much
risk in his reassurance, danger she couldn’t handle now.

The morning air was bracing as she stepped outside, damp and
crisp, and driving home with the windows down she felt almost
herself again.

Driving home from Rouse’s office later that morning, she kept
the windows up, their tint shielding her wounded soul from the
prying eyes of other motorists. The finality of it all crashed
around her in a way that couldn’t be distracted by the chatter of
NPR or cacophony of the morning rush hour.

This had failed.

Lisa Cuddy did not fail, but here she’d failed in so many ways.
She’d failed to find a mate like everyone else, choosing to marry
her career the way Elizabeth I had married England. No child
was to be found in either marriage, and so when the desire for
one struck her, her biological clock tolling so much later than her
college friends that the desire itself had seemed a failing, she
hadn’t known where to turn. She’d turned to what she
knew—reason, science, medicine.

By now, she should have known better than to try to combine the
personal and the medical. It never worked out well for her.
When she’d tried to do the best thing for House, she’d done
nothing but wound him in ways that refused to heal. A soft,
insistent voice suggested that she might have wounded herself
just as profoundly now.

It had all failed her.

At home, she logged onto her computer, sifting through work
email and trying to care about a backlog on cotton swabs for the
clinic and department heads’ vacation requests. Ten minutes in,
she wandered into the kitchen in search of something to distract
herself. She wasn’t hungry, had barely felt the desire for a salad
last night and had eaten nothing since. Staring at a bunch of
bananas, though, she thought that baking would at least give her
something to occupy her mind.

Two hours later she had cooling loaves of banana bread, and felt
no better about things. She didn’t even want the bread. House
would probably love it, she thought, then quickly dismissed the
idea. If she returned to his place, she’d just want to curl up in
his ridiculously comfortable bed and stay there all weekend,
wallowing. She did not wallow. It was absurd and indulgent and
solved nothing.

But how wonderful it had felt to wake up there, for the brief
second she’d allowed herself to enjoy it before fleeing the bed in
panic. Rationally, her mind screamed that she was vulnerable
now, shouldn’t be making any decisions like this, but the same
voice insisting on her potentially permanent wounding suggested
that since things were going to hell anyway, one more regret was
nothing.

Ignoring her nagging mind, she returned to her computer and the
work she could handle from home. There was a pile of reviews
in her briefcase needing to be written up, and she focused all her
attention on them.

****

Monday morning, walking into the hospital wearing her pearls
and carrying a cup of chai, her armor and sword, she felt her old
self. The nurses at the clinic desk didn’t look at her any
differently, and her assistant greeted her with the same chirpy
salutation as always. The hollow clanging of the empty armor
apparently resounded only in her own ears.

It was easy enough to avoid House, who was wrapped up in a
case that has thus far not required him to do anything insanely
foolish. Or else no one was telling her what dumb thing he’d
done now, which was just as well, so long as he kept the patient
alive and she didn’t have to handle the paperwork today.

The backlog of paperwork and inane minutiae kept her busy all
morning, enthralling her so completely she didn’t have time to
think about anything else. This, for once, was an advantage .

Only when Wilson came in that afternoon, carrying a folder of
information on the fall series of oncology lectures, did she feel
back on unsteady ground.

"How are you, Cuddy?" he asked, tossing the folder onto her
desk, and looking at her in that caring, curious way she’d seen
him use with patients being tested for unusual cancers.

"Good. How are things in Oncology looking this week?" She
tried not to look up from the papers in front of her, the contents
of which immediately slipped her mind.

"Quiet. You’ve been holed up in here all day. Is everything all
right?"

She stared him down, daring him with her eyes, wanting an
excuse to snap at someone the way she could normally snap at
House. "You know how it is, take one day off, come back to
twice as much work. I wish people could figure out how to solve
their own problems without running to me with everything."

"Yeah," he said, nodding. She wondered what House had told
him, noting the far too comprehending light in his eyes. But
without another word, he left. Mustering all her willpower, she
managed not to put her head down on her desk and sigh.

It was only a matter of time before House came to see her, now
that Wilson’s curiosity was piqued. She looked at the clock,
figuring it would be at least half an hour before he showed up to
goad her. Clicking at her computer, she pulled up an unfinished
report from last week and set to work.

Slightly later than she’d expected, House barged into the office,
swinging the door open with enough force to bang it against the
wall. The crackling entrance nearly jolted her out of the seat, and
she turned to glower at him. "Dr. House."

"Dr. Cuddy!" He threw her off balance by failing to launch
immediately into an insane scheme. Instead, he simply stared at
her for a moment, as if her frown and furrowed brow held all the
answers to his case.

She couldn’t take his penetrating gaze with wounds still so close
to the surface, and looked away first, making a show of saving
and closing the report she’d been typing.

"I want to perform a lobotomy."

"What?" The laughter escaped before she could help it. This
was a new height of absurdity, even for him. "Unless you’re
performing it on yourself, the answer is no."

It was disconcerting when he smiled and flopped down onto her
couch.

"House? No rebuttal? No ‘I have to do this to cure whatever
disease he may or may not have that’s causing his brain to be
near electrocuting itself’?"

Before answering, he gave her a long, appraising look.
"Naaaaah. I figured I’d skip that and go right to the fun stuff.
Besides, I already removed what I wanted this morning. He’s on
medication now and will be on his way home in a few days."

"You did what?" She rose from the desk and walked over to
glare down at him on the couch. It was nice to have the height
advantage for once.

"Oh, don’t get all worked up. Simple biopsy, he’ll be fine.
Total snooze of a case. I was much more intrigued when Wilson
came to see me an hour ago. You know he gossips more than a
high school cheerleader? Come to think of it, maybe he was.
That would explain so much." Smirking, he tapped his cane on
the floor.

With a sigh, she settled into the chair facing him. "So?"

"So, how was your weekend?" It sounded too studiously
casual, as his fingers drummed a steady rhythm on his cane.

"Long. I’m glad to be back here getting caught up on
everything."

"Right," he said, meeting her steady gaze. House never backed
down from a game of chicken with her. "That big backlog of
exciting paperwork is the sole reason you’ve been hidden here
all day. You know I didn’t do my clinic hours today, and it was
disconcerting when you didn’t come force me there at
gunpoint."

She closed her eyes and shook her head before he’d finished
speaking. "You know damn well it’s not. Now that you’ve
satisfied this sick little urge to mess with me, will you please just
go do something. I don’t care if it’s clinic duty or having a
paper airplane race with Wilson. Just go." The effort required
to keep the tremor out of her voice was considerable. Snapping
at him was easy and appreciated, but she couldn’t discuss this
here and now.

Sighing dramatically, House rose and stepped towards her, his
hand coming to rest warm on her shoulder, even through her
jacket. "I’ll stop by tonight." He left then, more docile than
she’d ever seen him at the hospital.

Cuddy shook her head and returned to her desk. There wasn’t
enough paperwork in the entire hospital to take her mind off
what would certainly be a painful conversation with him. She
had no idea how to express the maelstrom of emotions she was
trying not to process, and certainly had no idea how she could
handle a conversation with him about them.

****
Part 4
****

In her kitchen, he found the homemade banana bread and helped
himself. He was pleasantly surprised at how good it was, as he
hadn’t known Cuddy possessed any baking abilities. As he was
pondering why he’d never convinced her to cook for him, he
heard her come through the front door and head straight for him.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

Taking another bite of the banana bread, he let her stew while he
chewed. "Didn’t I say I’d stop by?"

"I thought you meant my office!"

"Which would be why you’re home at 6:30 instead of the usual
eight or nine? A suspicious man would think you were trying to
avoid him."

"And a smart woman knows that you never stick around later
than you have to, so if you haven’t put in an appearance by 5:30,
it’s highly unlikely it’s going to happen." Frowning, she
snatched the rest of the loaf of bread away from him and headed
for the fridge.

"I was eating that!" He banged the fork on the counter like a
child, pouting. How far could he push her tonight before she
broke?

"It’s rude to eat someone’s food without an invitation. Though
God knows it’s never stopped you before."

"Yet you continue to try. What is it they say about replicating
the same actions and expecting different results?" While his
face remained neutral, he was pleased to note that she was
quickly becoming angry. It was so easy sometimes.

"You wanted to talk. Get talking."

Her bluster sounded like it always did, but his ear heard the lack
of normal engagement. The snappy retorts did a nice job of
disguising the uncertainly in her tone, but it was there, and it
troubled him. "Well if you’re not going to feed me, let’s take
this somewhere more comfortable."

After a moment, he heard the click of her heels on hardwood as
she followed him into her living room. "I didn’t invite you here,
House. I’m not a takeout service."

She looked decidedly less confident that her statement when she
came face to face with him. On her home turf, in comfortable
surroundings with only him, her barriers were much lower, and
the emotions much closer to the surface. He saw them whirling
behind her eyes.

"No eating out? I’m so disappointed, Cuddy!"

Collapsing into a wing chair, she looked up at him, pleading.
That was the one thing he couldn’t take, that sadly pleading look
she got. With anyone else, he would dismiss it, or be provoked
into rudeness, but with her it was exotic, like sighting an okapi.
It was always different, with her. He sank down on her couch,
wishing she were close enough to touch.

"What do you want me to say?" She could sound so young,
sometimes.

"How are you, really?" By nature, she lied less than most
people, and he was curious.

She sighed and sank back into the chair. "Physically, fine. I
took it easy over the weekend. Thank you." Her eyes told him
what she couldn’t, said exactly how much she’d needed that ride
home.

Still, it wasn’t something he heard often, and rarely put any value
in it when he did. "You’re welcome. What about that touchy-
feely crap?"

"I thought you didn’t care about that." Her eyes closed and her
head fell back against the chair. For a long time, it was quiet. He
was a patient man when the situation required, and he waited. It
wasn’t entirely surprising when something that looked
suspiciously like a tear rolled down her cheek.

"Just because I’m not warm and fuzzy doesn’t mean I don’t
care." He knew she knew that, but she needed to hear it now.

When she looked at him, her eyes were strikingly blue, cutting
straight to his soul with their despondency. "I failed."

It seemed such a small thing, no more than an exhalation,
inadequate to explain everything she must be feeling. But he’d
known her through several different epochs, and the simple
statement carried a profundity that cut straight to the essence of
the Lisa Cuddy he knew. In all those years, she’d always been
her own worst critic, held herself to higher standards than anyone
else, had never settled for less than she desired.

Now she had no choice, had been handed less than she desired,
but perhaps more than she could handle. No, he thought, there
was no such thing as more than Cuddy could handle. He might
not always agree with her handling, but there was no situation he
wouldn’t trust her with when it came down to it.

"You’ve never been one to settle, Cuddy."

"It’s not just this. This is just part of it." She wouldn’t look at
him, talking down at the floor.

"When have you ever wanted to be the bimbo chugging
Starbucks, driving her two-point-five children around in an SUV,
talking on her cell while driving home to her white picket fence
and desk jockey husband? Is that what you’re calling success?
That’s not you. You have succeeded in not falling into the same
stereotype everyone else lives in."

"No, I’d be miserable with that life," she said, shaking her head,
curls falling loose. "But it doesn’t mean there aren’t some parts
of it I’d like to have. And I’ve got none of them."

"I’m sure if you make some calls tomorrow morning, you can
get a white picket fence out front by next week."

She chuffed, not quite a laugh, then frowned. "What I don’t
want I could have so easily. It’s the good things that are
difficult. At this point, I’m wondering if I haven’t passed them
by entirely."

"Given a choice, would you take them over everything else you
have now?"

"I don’t know." Her face was concealed by her hand,
scrubbing her brow.

He knew how much that admission had cost her; she hated to
admit her ignorance or confusion or indecision. It startled him to
hear her say it, and for once he wasn’t sure how to respond. So
he waited, hoping she’d elaborate.

"In my career, I’ve done so much for so many other people.
But could someone else have done it all better? Could someone
else have saved your leg?"

They’d come to the crux of the matter. He’d seen her self-doubt
all day, and wondered how much it would take for her to confess
it. "Does it matter? How would my leg make your life more
fulfilled?"

She stared at him as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"Yours would be better. How many other people’s lives would
have been better if I’d been a better doctor, a better
administrator? Maybe it would have been better if I’d settled for
the mundane suburban life."

"Maybe if you hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t have a leg at all.
Or a life. Maybe a dozen other people would be dead because
you weren’t there. Maybe someone else would have hired the
researcher who would have cured cancer if they’d been in
charge. This isn’t fucking ‘It’s a Wonderful Life.’ We make
decisions because they’re the best for us at the time, and playing
a game of maybe after the fact won’t change a damn thing."

When he finished, she was staring at him as if she was expecting
something more, as if his diatribe would have an answer for her.
He didn’t have the answers to his own problems, and he certainly
didn’t have the answers to hers. "Decide what you want. If it’s
what you want, put in your two week’s notice tomorrow morning
and move to Utah to be someone’s fifth wife and start pumping
out the kids. Or call Dr. Rouse and order up another round of
fertility meds. Or go one a few more blind dates. The right
answer’s what you want out of life. I don’t have it for you."

"Maybe you do." She rose from the chair and settled next to
him on the sofa, close enough that her shoulder brushed his.
"It’s sad and crazy, but Thursday night you were exactly what I
wanted." Her thumb was so soft as it traced the line of his jaw,
catching on his rough stubble.

In a supreme act of willpower, he turned his head half an inch,
away from her. "Lisa. I won’t do this now." Something
primal screamed that he was a fool as he stood and turned to
look down at her, tucked up on the cushions, looking lost and
wounded. He caught her hand in his, thumb caressing her palm.
"We both know I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want you. But
tomorrow, or next week, you’d regret doing this now."

Tears slipped down her cheeks, but she nodded and squeezed his
hand like a life preserver. "I don’t want any more regrets."

For a long, silent moment, they just stared at one another,
uncertain. Then he said, "They lie when they say that time heals
all wounds. But it does give you perspective and a while to
figure things out. I’ll see you at work tomorrow." His thumb
grazed her cheek, coming away damp with her tears.

He was halfway to the door when her whisper stopped him.
"Thank you, Greg."

Twice tonight he’d heard that, and it threw off his worldview. He
simply nodded in acknowledgement and walked out her door.

****
Part 5
****

Cuddy did her best to avoid House at the hospital the remainder
of the week. After throwing herself at him, she had no desire to
face him and his certain subtle reminders of her behavior. He
cooperated surprisingly well with this, showing up to the Clinic
with something approaching regularity while generally avoiding
everyone.

At the end of the week, she wouldn’t have been able to tell
anyone what she’d accomplished at work, but the hospital was
still standing. If it was running slightly less efficiently than
usual, no one had noticed. Life rattled on.

She just felt rattled. A seism had shaken the guiding principles
of her life, and she wasn’t sure how to reassemble the broken
pieces. Or if she even wanted to.

As was so often the case, House had been right. She needed to
decide what she wanted before she decided how to reconstruct
her life.

Returning home from work, she shed the protection of her Tahari
suit and Louboutin heels, and slipped into frayed Levis and a
cable knit sweater. With a goblet of red wine, she curled up in
her favorite chair, and allowed the maelstrom of suppressed
emotions to whirl freely through her mind.

She was good at her job. She loved her job. There were things
she would have done differently, given a second chance, but her
career path was not something she could regret. Too much good
had been done for too many for her to truly second-guess the
decision.

The pinot noir was smoky and fruity, and she could feel it
relaxing her as it made its way into her veins.

She’d always wanted a relationship more than children. Waking
up next to someone was preferable to being woken, readying
kids, prioritizing their lives and yours. Finding that someone to
wake up next to was more difficult than it seemed. She’d been
too busy during school for anything more than fun, and too busy
during residency for anything at all. By then, many of her
undergraduate friends were already marrying and starting
families, and she was just starting her career and thinking of
dating seriously. A decade later, she had a fabulous career and a
nonexistent love life.

It had seemed easier to just skip ahead to the next step, the way
she’d skipped second grade, and just have a child. Except the
process had only made her realize how much she’d wanted the
other, the way House had interfered and touched her and smiled
when she’d told him she was pregnant.

Sitting the empty wineglass on the side table, she studied the tiny
glimmer of cerise at the base of the cup. It was the color of
blood, glowing in the soft light of the room.

Her blood had washed away all her efforts. She was back to
square one, with no relationship and no child. But there was still
something to what she’d felt with House. Despite her
embarrassment at his departure Monday night, she’d meant what
she said.

At that moment, it had seemed impossible to believe what he said,
that he wanted her too. What man would walk away from that?
Half a second later, she loved him more for walking away.

They’d known each other long enough for her to know every
reason that it was a bad idea, predestined to end badly. Yet she
knew, too, every reason it could work. The late night of pizza
and beer and a snowball fight when he was supposed to be
helping her write up organic lab results. That one night of
drunken, amazing sex the night before her graduation. The way
he knew just what to say to make her laugh, even when she
didn’t want to. The way he watched her when she wasn’t
watching him. The way he’d walked away.

Would he walk away, if she appeared on his doorstep tonight?
She mulled the idea over, weighing the decision. There was no
doubt he wanted her, but she wasn’t sure he wouldn’t turn her
away again.

With resolution fueled by bravado and Burgundy, she found her
keys and her loafers, and headed out the door.

It took some luck to find a parking space near his place.
Walking up the block, she stopped by his cracked window,
listening to the piano music escaping, jangling and syncopated.
She didn’t recognize it, but wondered that there wasn’t a crowd
gathered, listening. No one else, except Wilson, would
appreciate the melody flowing out, House at his most expressive.

The music came to an abrupt halt when she knocked on the door.
It seemed an eternity before he door opened, so long that she
wondered if he was going to ignore the intrusion. But suddenly,
there he was, peering out at her.

"Cuddy." He sounded suspicious, and was slow to open the
door wider. It did open, though, inviting her in to the apartment.

She heard the door closing behind her, and pirouetted to face
him. Without giving herself time to think, her arms were around
him, and she felt him totter off-balance, forcing him to return her
embrace.

"Cuddy?" he asked, after a moment, arms slackening, hands
coming to rest on her shoulders.

"Will you do this now?" She looked up at him, expecting
surprise.

Instead, he looked away, grabbing his cane from where it rested
beside the door and made his way to the couch. His limp was
more pronounced than usual, and she wondered if her own
affairs had prevented her from noticing him this week. He still
didn’t answer when she joined him on the couch, at the end
farthest from him, a buffer of nothingness between them.

Rather than looking at him, her gaze swept the apartment. Only
then did she notice the bottle of Johnnie Walker and the open
prescription bottle on top of the piano, and reevaluated everything
from the moment she’d heard his piano playing. Looking at him
again, she observed the hand, lightly on the thigh, the tension in
his face. She slid closer to him, halfway across the couch, and
touched his shoulder.

When he looked at her, she could see the pain, old, familiar,
warring with his desire. She asked, "How is it?"

"Worse than usual."

"This has been going on for a while." It wasn’t a question, and
she wasn’t expecting much of a response from him. This wasn’t
something he discussed.

House looked away and nodded. "It’s been getting worse the
last couple of months. There have been a few really bad days,
and today was one of them."

"Why didn’t you say something?" She felt foolish even
asking; she thought she knew the answer.

"You were preoccupied. Then happy. Then grieving." That
hadn’t been what she expected to hear from him. "I’ve dealt
with this long enough that no one else needed to be bothered."

Cuddy’s spine stiffened and she pulled away from him. "Do
you want me to go?"

"No." His hand was suddenly around her wrist, caressing the
skin where it disappeared under soft lambswool. "You
understand what you’re in for, staying?"

"I’ve known you a long time, House."

"Okay, then." He tugged her towards him and she came, pliant
and warm against his tense form.

"How much have you had?"

"Since I got home? Five or six Vicodin. How much whisky’s
left in the bottle?"

"Very little."

"Then too much."

She rose from the couch and offered him her hand. "C’mon.
We could both use a good night’s sleep."

The weight of him as he used her hand to pull himself off the
couch surprised her. He was so lean, she often forgot how much
there was to him.

One hand on her, one hand on his cane, he followed her back to
his bedroom, flicking off lights as they went. "You realize I’ll
probably just keep you awake, and not in the way I’d prefer."
He gave her a half-hearted leer from the doorway.

"I’ve got my ways." She grinned and was rewarded with a
much more sincere leer. "Do you have a t-shirt I could
borrow?"

"Second drawer. Tell me more about these ways of yours."

"That’s for me to know and you to find out," she said, pulling a
plain gray t-shirt from the drawer. "Now get undressed and get
to bed."

"I don’t need to hear that twice."

She heard clothes falling to the floor as she closed his bathroom
door behind her, and knew they’d be left, piled by the side of the
bed. When she emerged, she smiled at the pile of clothes,
exactly where she expected them to be, then looked up to see
House in bed, frowning.

"That shirt is far too big for you."

"That would be the point." She switched off the light before
climbing onto the opposite side of the bed. But rather than
slipping under the covers, she slipped them down. "Scoot
towards me."

He did, hesitating only a moment, then going very still as she
moved across him to rest beside his exposed right leg. When
she touched it, just above his knee, he flinched away instinctively,
but he didn’t move to stop her.

She knew he’d used a masseuse to work out some of his leg
pain, but she doubted anyone had touched the bare flesh. Even
in exams, he’d been reluctant, almost embarrassed about it. Yet
now he allowed her, gentle and tentative at first, then with
increasing pressure, her sure fingers stroking their way down the
lines of muscle. Kneading the line where the sartorius crossed
the vastus medialis drew a groan from him, and her hands stilled,
fingers relaxed to rest lightly on the skin.

"No, keep going, Miss Magic Fingers."

He said nothing else as she worked the tense, tangled muscles of
his thigh, slowly tracing and separating, terminology memorized
since high school floating up to match each line of her fingers.
When he was breathing measured and deep, she shifted and
settled to his left. His hand caught hers, fingers twining and
thumb massaging her palm, warm against her metacarpals.
Placing it on the worn cotton of his shirt, he covered it with his.

"You understand what you’re asking," he said contemplatively,
"and what this is going to be."

"I wouldn’t have stayed if I didn’t."

"Even if it’s more like the last week than anything else?"

She knew only the darkness, combined with too much pain and
alcohol, left his tongue loose enough to even discuss this. Even
without such mitigating factors, she owed him just as much truth.
"You made the last week bearable. Life isn’t perfect, and
certainly neither of us are."

Nodding, his chin brushed her hair. "And can I presume that
those hands are just as talented when put to other uses?"

With a smile and feigned innocence, she said, "Oh, very. I can
paint and knit and play the clarinet."

"Such ladylike accomplishments. You could almost catch a hero
from Jane Austen with those."

"You’re hardly Mr. Darcy. More like something out of a
Brontë novel."

He laughed quietly. "The clarinet? That certainly has great
potential."

"Interested in a duet sometime?"

"Very."

His arm wrapped around and pulled her close. She rested her
cheek on his bicep, feeling the steady rhythm of his breathing
under her hand. This was far from where she’d envisioned
herself ending up, but it was where she felt right.

Together, they slept.

****
End
****