Pictures at an Exhibition
Chapter 1
H/Cuddy

“He doesn’t want to become me. Who can argue with that?” House had meant the words to come off glib; instead they were tinged with resignation and bitterness. And admiration. Foreman was going to leave. Good for him; good riddance to him. House needed no additional reminders of his failings as a human being; his failure at life. Let him get out now; before it’s too late.

“He’s not you. And, believe me, he’s at no risk for becoming you, much to his disadvantage.” Houses eyebrow quirked.

“There was an extra syllable in there, Cuddy. That dangling ‘dis.’”

Cuddy sat opposite House, across his desk, picking up a random object, examining it. She wanted him to understand; to not internalize this; take it on as yet another accumulated burden. Making his shoulders sag ever so slightly more; his eyes, ever so slightly, more sad. “Foreman’s an idiot,” she said finally. “Something that you will never be.” House laughed at that: a hollow sound.


“Right. You know, Wilson suggested that I bargain with him. Offer him more money to stay. I asked him how much money did he think it would take for someone to want to be like me. He simply stared blankly back at me. Couldn’t think of an answer. Neither could I.” House rose with the aid of his flaming cane, moving to peer out the window into the rain. The cane, he had admitted to Wilson, gave him the illusion of speed. Yet a new illusion with which to make his smoke and mirrors life more bearable. If only slightly: at least the incongruity of flames on a cane made him smile.

Cuddy sighed. “Talk to him.” It was all she could think to say.

“And say what?” he replied over his shoulder. “‘Hey, Foreman, being like me’s not so bad.’ duck. I don’t want to be me. Wilson nailed that one.”

“Screw Wilson.”

Her voice was near. She had joined him, and looking up into it, he watched her reflection in the glass. “Not my type. Your’s, maybe.” He was deflecting; changing the subject, and she allowed it. House turned, wanting to see her take the bait directly: live.

“Not mine.” Cuddy met his eyes. “And I’m not his. I’m not needy enough. And he’s too slick for me, anyway: too polished in that shiny silver armor of his. White knights seldom are, I’ve found.” House arched an eyebrow before moving past her, alighting in his Eames chair. He sat heavily, lifting his leg gingerly to the footrest. He was overdue for his Vicodin.

“And us knaves?” There was more question than comeback in his tone. More earnestness than he meant. The question caught Cuddy off guard by its tone, which forbade the emerging retort from escaping her lips.

“Seldom as dark or as evil as they would like us to believe they are.”

“Sometime knaves are knaves, and simply evil.” House’s flat response could not hide the self-loathing in his eyes.

“True. But occasionally they are simply knights wearing dark armor. Toughened and tarnished; battered and impenetrable, yet noble in their own uniqueness.”
“But redeemable?”

“Only if there’s something to redeem.”

“If Foreman wants to leave, there’s nothing I can do to stop him. He’s not ready, though.”

“For what? He’s a good doctor. He’s studied under you for three years. And survived. Means he’s tough, at least. If not insane.”

“If he wants to build a reputation in diagnostics he has to build it on his own, not use mine.”

“Isn’t that what he’s trying to do? By leaving?”

“That’s not why he’s leaving. And he’s not ready.”

“You’ve said that twice.” House shrugged. He knew that Foreman had the potential, but still lacked creativity.

“He still thinks ‘horses’ more than ‘zebras.’ It makes him common.”

“Oh. Right. A mere mortal, like the rest of us. Present company excepted, of course.”

“Common isn’t good enough. Not enough of the time. If he’s changed his mind and wants to pursue neurology or teach. Fine. He’s just not a diagnostician. At least not the kind I’m trying to grow. The kind that you go to when no one else has the answer. Every doctor is a diagnostician of one kind or the other. What I’m trying….” House stopped, frustrated. He pinched the bridge of his nose in a moment of thought. “… Not yet.” House didn’t want to be having this conversation. House rose, restless. “It’s late; I’m going home.”

“What if I offered him his own group?” House looked puzzled. He shook his head slightly, not understanding.

“I just said he’s not ready, and you…”

“No. Shut up and listen. A group. Not a department. It would be under you, but parallel; independent. You’d get CC’d on everything, but wouldn’t directly report to you. All those cases that end up in your trash can. The ones that Cameron writes those polite ‘thanks but no thanks’ responses to with referrals to other docs. Why not give them to Foreman.”

“He’d never go for it. He’s even more cynical than I am. He’d see through it in less than two seconds.”

“Maybe he can swallow his pride for a doubling of his salary.” Now she had House’s attention.

“You’d have to have board approval for both of those elements. They’ll never give it. Not expand my department. It’s a black hole as it is.”

“He’d triple the diagnostics case load. The cases would be easier; they’d be able to handle more. If you think he’s going on a wrong direction—one that will harm the patient, you can intervene.”

“O just said.. He’ll never…”

“Where else will he get money like that at his age? And autonomy.”

“He won’t see it that way. Anyway, he’s already setting up interviews. You’ll never get the board to sign off in time.” House watched Cuddy’s eyes sparkle with determination. She had seated herself on the ottoman, her ass nudged against his left ankle. Her thigh moved subtly against his calf as she animatedly sketched out the two separate, but connected departments—big ideas. Foreman would never consent.

House yawned sleepily. “Sorry to keep you up,” Cuddy snarked. “I know you’re not interested in facts and figures, but if I’m going to save your fellow from making a terrible mistake…”

“No…just sleepy. Killing a patient will tire you out a bit.” The words were bitter, but his eyes were devastated. Losing a patient was always difficult. For House, under these circumstances… Cuddy knew, he would dismiss it with sarcasm, but would let it eat away at him for a long time to come.

“I’m sorry about your patient, House. It could have happened to anyone.” It was a platitude, she knew. But there was nothing else left to say.

“No. It couldn’t. That’s what I told Foreman. It couldn’t happen to anyone. Only to good old zebra hunters like us. Sometimes a hoofbeats belong to plain , old ordinary horses. We save the ones that conventional thinking can’t, but run the risk of losing patients that really only needed conventional medicine in the first place.” He shrugged as nonchalantly as he could muster; Cuddy wasn’t buying any of it. “It happens.”

Cuddy let it be. He did look tired. But she wondered whether he really should be alone. “I have tickets for tonight. The David Hockney exhibit.” House eyed her suspiciously.

“I thought Wilson took you.”

“The exhibit had closed. Moved to a different gallery. He felt so bad that he bought me tickets to the real Hockney exhibit; left them for me in my office.” House glanced at his watch.

“Best not be keeping you two lovebirds.”

“I told you. Not my type. So. I have two tickets. Hottest tickets in the art world of New York. And no one to go with me. Care to escort me?”

“House’s escort service. Gee, I don’t know Cuddy… My reputation.”

“Yes or no. Because I have to leave in the next five minutes if I’m going to catch it at all.”

“Can we take my bike? It’s faster.”

“You haven’t driven with me in a long time. No bike. Ruin my hair.”

“Fine.” He was still sleepy as Hell, and feeling more than a little distracted. Killing a patient will do that to you, he surmised. “I might even pop for dinner afterwards.”

“Deal.” She rose from the ottoman, offering House a hand. Surprising her, he took it. Now, if he could only forestall Foreman’s departure, Cuddy’s plan just might work. It was worth a try.

Pictures at an Exhibition

Chapter 2

In truth, House was not crazy about Hockney’s more recent works. Landscapes, with their rolling hills and places to see, placed the edges of yearning into too clear focus. Reminders of what was and will never be. And he was tired of imagining.

House’s artistic taste was eclectic. He liked Picasso’s sketches for their spare elegance and Magritte’s precise surrealism. But he also had a taste for the old; the ancient, even. His flat and his office were repositories for objects d’arte spanning centuries of history from ancient Egypt to Victorian England. Of course, to most people, House and “art” were as incongruous as caviar and peanut butter. But then again, House was, himself, a bundle of incongruities. And he largely preferred it that way. The better to not know him, he would muse.

House had planned on sleeping on the drive to into the city: an hour and a half. As tired as he was, House’s brain would not let him rest. How had it happened? How had he let it happen? House tried retracing the steps that he and the team had taken; every conversation in front of the white board; every word.

Hazy. It was the only way he could describe it. It was almost as if he hadn’t cared to listen. As if he was watching the case unfold from a distant window sill, peering into the diagnostics office. Hazy recollections; that’s all he had. And it freaked him out more than a bit. He tried again. How could they have missed an infection? A simple staph infection, no less. House realized that, more and more, he had been granting his staff the freedom to find the solutions to their own cases. He would hover in the background, solving the DDx on his own in parallel, ready with his own elegant answer waiting in the wings, but only if necessary. But this was different. And he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

“…House?” Cuddy’s voice was raised, annoyed.

“Sorry, must’ve been dozing.” He sounded distant.

“Are you OK?” She knew it was a loaded question. And a stupid one. To everyone else, he was “OK.” Even to Wilson. She knew better. House nodded, stretching his tall frame as best he could in the small car.

“There.” House pointed to the brightly-lit gallery. “Mind if we use the valet? I’ll pay.”

“Your leg bothering you?”

“When does it not?” he responded flippantly. House fidgeted in his jacket for the Vicodin bottle, turning away from Cuddy as he tossed two pills into his mouth. “Need to save my limited daily dose of walking for the exhibit. Don’t want to miss anything.”

“You know, you could have said ‘no.’”

“And miss and my evening out with the dean of medicine?” The thought emerged more earnestly than he had intended, causing Cuddy to smile broadly. He nearly believed the sincerity was worth the result. He had intended to make some wittily biting comment about it being his turn in the sandbox, but the words evaporated before they formed on his tongue.

House moved quickly past the Yorkshire paintings, leaving Cuddy to linger in the brightly colored landscapes. “I’ve always wanted to go there,” she mentioned wistfully, catching up with him before a large photo-montage.

“Where?” He replied distractedly. House was gazing into the montage as if seeking something within it.

“Yorkshire. What do you find so fascinating in a photograph of a guy sitting in an office?”

“It’s a photomontage. Been there. Done that. Hills. Rocks. People with funny accents. That guy in the montage is in a cage. No better than my rat. See how he’s looking out onto the skyline? He wishes he was Superman. Or Spiderman. Or something.” House moved slowly away from the montage. A deep sigh signified his own resignation.

Cuddy tugged at House’s arm, steering him towards a painting excitedly. Her eyes sparkled. “Hey, I can only go so fast, you know. Leg? Cane?”

“Yeah. I’ve seen how slow you move when you want to get out of the clinic. C’mon.” Cuddy stopped in front of an enormous set of paintings depicting the Grand Canyon. “It’s 60 canvases. Almost 300 inches wide. I camped there for a week once. Have you ever been there?” House shook his head wordlessly, turning away, heading for a bench at the far side of the hall.

Cuddy followed him to the bench, sitting close beside him, concerned. “House?” He stared at the expanse of canvas from the vantage.

“It’s a better view from here.” The canvas took up nearly the entire opposite wall. He stared at the multiple canvases for several minutes before rising unsteadily from the bench and heading towards the exit. It was too much; too beautiful; too real; too late; too distant; too near. A honeymoon spoken of but destined never to happen, planned in a dreamy post-coital haze in four years of delight and one of anguish, only to evaporate into hopeless despair. He wasn’t quite sure why he’d thought of it now, after seven years. He hadn’t even recalled it when she had come back into his life and into one more together. Of course there could be no talk of honeymoons then, as she was married.

“House?” Cuddy had caught up with him as he stood on the sidewalk just outside the gallery. He was pacing. She watched him for a moment, hesitating to intrude; clearly, he was upset about something. On his third pass by her, she stilled him with a touch of her hand on his elbow. She knew that he wouldn’t reveal what was bothering him, especially if she asked.

“Got you something.” She wanted to bring him out of this sudden funk. She hadn’t planned on buying anything, but seeing the poster in the small gallery poster shop, she couldn’t resist.

“Why, Cuddy,” he responded, arching an eyebrow, recovering himself, “you shouldn’t have. Playing favorites amongst your doctors is a big no-no. Could get you sued…”

“Shut up and open it.”

“Here?” When she was excited like this, eyes aglow, Cuddy was almost irresistible to House. He glanced inside the large plastic bag as Cuddy waited, watching him. It was a poster of Andy Warhol’s “endangered zebra,” featuring a zebra’s head in red and black.

“Thought this was a Hockney exhibit” House had no other comment. “Warhol had his 15 minutes.” Cuddy shrugged, disappointed that House seemed indifferent. She thought he’d get the reference: the zebra—one colored red and black, no less. The print so completely illuminated House’s genius to her, she was sure he would love it. “Do you want to grab some sushi?” He pointed at the small tiny Japanese café across the street.

Cuddy shrugged, let down at House’s non-reaction. “Fine.”

End chapter 2

Chapter 3

“If we don’t find out the ‘why’ it could happen again. You always have to know ‘why’.” Cuddy cocked her head. They had been sitting silently, except to order, until the miso soup arrived. “He doesn’t care about the ‘why,” House continued. “He’s not ready.”

“Are we talking about Foreman again?”

“Do you know how many times he’s responded ‘It doesn’t matter. The treatment’s the same’? Just in the last month. There’s no sense I get from him of filing away the information for future recall. No storing up of data from a wrong diagnosis that can get him to a correct one five years down the road.”

“Are any of them in that place?”

“Chase. Maybe. But the other two aren’t trying to fly the coop.” Cuddy was intrigued. In the six years he had worked for her, this was the first time House had ever spoken about his fellows. Not the last crop, and not this one. She had surmised that House was taking Foreman’s departure much harder than he let on, but, clearly, it was eating away at him even more than she had guessed.

“Like I said, House, let me try to work something out with the board. What was up back there?” She had held her breath a moment before venturing into what she knew was tricky territory. Something back at the gallery had struck a nerve, turning a reasonably innocuous trip to an art exhibit into a dark journey into House’s troubled psyche. For him, anyway.

Cuddy was more than a little concerned with House’s emotional well-being. She had watched him internalize what would have been devastating to anyone—the shooting; the incredible release from years of pain, only to see it cruelly return. Then there was the whole Tritter fiasco. The image of House’s sunken eyes as he struggled through withdrawal: accusing and hurt as a wounded lion haunted her for months. She’d had the power to remove the thorn from his paw, and it was nearly too late by the time she did it. Even though he’d put himself back on Vicodin, he’d known it was no good. He had tried, in his own way to find an alternative.

House had argued that too many of the pain meds available to him either didn’t work or fogged his brain, making him mentally incapable. She knew that all he really wanted was to be “average;” to be “normal,” although, she also knew that he would never admit it. She had observed him these past few months, watching him encourage patients to give up a little uniqueness for a little bit of “normal.” It’s what he yearned for, she knew, and he was projecting that onto his patients. He was desperate and felt he had no one to go to. Especially not after hers and Wilson’s betrayal early on.

Cuddy reached a hand across the table. House lifted his eyes, meeting hers along the way. “What happened back there? In the gallery.” House gestured with the small soup ladle.

“It’s impolite to talk and eat at the same time. Besides, soup’s messy. Don’t want to get any on my jacket.” Cuddy refused to retract her hand; refused to retreat her gaze from his. House sighed, resignedly, caught in the earnestness of her eyes.

“Just something back there. A memory best left just that. Thanks for the poster, by the way.” House glanced at Cuddy’s hand still extended towards him. He lingered on it a moment before returning his gaze to the soup.

Cuddy relaxed back into her seat. It was all she was going to get, she knew. From him. Now. “It fit. You’re always chasing those zebras—the odder, the better.”

“Except when they’re really horses. Then patients die. I told her that we ‘really were that good,’ you know. That there was no way she was going to die as long as Dr. Gregory House was on her case.” He put the ladle back into the bowl, scrubbing his eyes. “I’ve never done that before. Said it. Thought it; think it—all the time. But saying it…I… I don’t know why I did that. With her. I just…I couldn’t stop myself…couldn’t filter… My focus is off. I should have been better at…”

The waitress arrived with their main course. House picked at the sashimi platter, selecting a piece of white tuna, then replacing it on the platter before pushing it away.

“Have you changed your meds at all? Upped the Vicodin? You have been known to do that, you know.”

“Vicodin doesn’t fog my brain. I can still think clearly on it. It’s why I haven’t…” He stopped himself, not wanting for the thousandth time to explain himself. “It’s not like I have a lot of choices…And no, to answer your question. I have not changed my dosage. Or been taking anything recreational, if that was your next question.” His tone was sullen, and Cuddy wanted to redeem what was left of their evening.

Cuddy finished her hand rolls while House continued to pick at slices of raw fish on his plate. When the waitress returned with their check, he quickly grabbed it, thrusting his Gold Card into her hand without looking at the bill. Cuddy’s eyes widened at the gesture. “Your tickets, your car. Least I can do for ruining your evening.”

“House…” He averted his eyes, nervously tapping his cane. He felt like shit for having ruined the evening. She had made the gesture in the first place, he understood, as an act of kindness and he repaid it by being a sullen ass. But what would she have expected. It was who he was. And that wasn’t going to change. Just ask Foreman, he mused darkly.

House sulked nearly all the way back to Princeton. He was tired; his leg throbbed unmercifully cramped in her small sports car. “I’m sorry, Cuddy,” he declared through the darkness. His voice was tinged with regret and an unarticulated longing—for something. “Thank you. For the Warhol poster. I’ve always liked that print. Not that I like Warhol, but for some reason…” Cuddy snapped on the radio.

“Pick what you want, House…on the radio.” Bill Evans’ piano sounded through the multiple speakers, surrounding them with his melancholy composition.

“Since when do you listen to jazz?” House loved Bill Evans. He noted that the radio was tuned to his favorite public radio station. “Jazz and blues: all day and all night,” was its motto. He smiled, closing his eyes.

“Since I first heard you play it, back in the day. That trio of yours back at UMich. You guys were good.” House remembered that Cuddy had been an undergrad at the University of Michigan while House snagged a Masters in Chemistry, before returning to Hopkins for Med School. He had been her Organic TA. He smiled.

“Another bad influence I had on you.” House felt Cuddy smile back at him through the darkened car as they pulled up at House’s apartment. And, for a moment, he felt, what he thought was a reasonable facsimile of “normal.”

“It’s been a long drive back. Want a cup of coffee before you go home?” Cuddy knew he was making an effort to redeem himself from his earlier mood. The street light reflected off of his sad, beautiful eyes, making them nearly transparent, accentuating their depths and their humanity.

“Sure.”

Pictures at an Exhibition

Chapter 4

“Do you actually have any coffee?” Cuddy was rooting around in the cupboard as House had instructed while he filled the clear acrylic water tank.

“I actually have espresso. And coffee. No decaf, though.”

“And where, exactly, does this alleged coffee live?” House sighed dramatically, turning off the water faucet.

“It’s right in front of you. Never mind. Move.” House moved Cuddy out of the way and grabbed a small box. “Coffee or espresso? Or…” He moved a few packages aside. “Or…latte?” Cuddy arched an eyebrow, amused.

“Fine. Latte.” House removed a flat disc from each of two packages. Cuddy observed as House placed the first disk in the machine and pushed a button. He repeated the action with the second, larger disk. He handed the latte to Cuddy, smiling smugly.

“No muss. No fuss. No coffee grounds. No moldy carafe to clean.” Cuddy was impressed, regardless of his explanation. She leaned against the butcher block island watching him as he prepared a cup of coffee for himself. Leave it to House to find just the right technology to avoid cleaning up a kitchen mess. At least his mood seemed better now.

They moved to the living room, sitting at opposite ends of House’s overstuffed leather sofa, quietly sipping. “You asked me once, last winter,” House began randomly. “You asked me what the hell I was doing hanging out in the jogging park.” He laughed humorlessly. “I had told Wilson that it was the last place you’d ever think of looking for me. A jogging park. You’d never have found me at all, had you not run into Cameron. But that wasn’t the only reason.”

Cuddy shifted, facing him, her interest piqued. “I’d watch people being free. I’d remember what it had been like for those two fucking months. I don’t know why I wanted to, but I wanted it burned into my memory before it completely faded; before it would stop invading my dreams forever.

“At that gallery…” This was difficult for him, but House felt he owed her some sort of explanation for his behavior other than that he was simply insane. “The landscapes…I lived in England for awhile while my dad was posted there. We were in London, but we had some distant relatives in the north. I’d go up to them on weekends sometimes and run. Just run. And, in case you’re wondering, yes, I can handle seeing paintings of the Yorkshire hills without losing it. But that complex of canvases…the Grand Canyon...I don’t know what happened…Stacy and I had planned…before…” He wasn’t sure why he was telling her. Explaining himself. House felt exposed and his defenses were failing him, it seemed.

“House. You don’t need…” She caught his gaze as he tried to look away and couldn’t. He was tired. Tired of hurting; tired of fighting the hurt; tired of explaining his motives and his actions. Simply tired. He’d felt his edge dull and fade away like a scalpel past its usefulness. He’d felt distracted and didn’t understand why, any more than the emotions, long buried, crept too close to the surface for his comfort or use. It more than worried him. It scared him to death. It would be so easy to fall into Cuddy’s large grey eyes and lose himself there; to drown in the comfort of her embrace.

House broke away from her eyes first, rising from the sofa and sitting at the piano. Tension poured off his shoulders as he sat facing the keys, eyes closed and focusing on the music. Better he should lose himself in it than in the warmth of her nearness. Mussorgsky was surely fitting. He could pound the keys, ham-handedly, if he desired, and get away with Mussorgsky. “Pictures at an Exhibition.” He could pour out the hurt, punish the keys…until the lyrical movements begged a lighter touch. He couldn’t resist the breathtaking sadness—that inimitable Russian melancholy that seemed to beckon seductively. The pounding chords lightened suddenly to a gracefulness that Cuddy, as she listened, found heartbreaking and incredibly romantic. She had heard House play, but not like this. She felt the voyeur, but couldn’t resist sitting beside him, absorbing this, unknown, House, basking in the sounds that emerged from beneath his delicate touch.

House felt her presence, smiling slightly, as her hip carelessly nudged his thigh. He glanced down at her, fighting the urge to stop playing and simply touch her. He knew that stopping would be his undoing; the piano was his last bastion. But the Mussorgsky had played itself out and House sat staring at the keys, immobile; his hand stilled and settled silently on the yellowed ivory.

“It’s late,” he suggested after a long silence.

“I should get going.” Cuddy peered at her wristwatch. It was past midnight. “It was lovely, House. What you were playing. Angry, then gentle; straightforward and complex at the same time. Russian?” She was guessing at the piece’s origin, but she could have as well been describing the pianist. Except for the Russian part.

“Mussorgsky. ‘Pictures at an Exhibition.’ What else? So that poster. What’s that about? Is that like my own personal scarlet letter or something? Am I supposed to hang it above my whiteboard as a warning to the pedestrian hoofbeats that venture onto my service? ‘Enter at your own peril—oh ‘ye equine non-anomalies?’”

“Take it for what it is. A gift. What you do with it is up to you.”

“Thank you. I owe you an evening out. I sort of ruined this one, didn’t I? Bet Wilson…” Cuddy rolled her eyes in mock exasperation.

“I told you. Wilson’s not…”

“And you were wrong about him. He’s not safe. I don’t care what you say about him not being your type. He’ll get you to marry him anyway. He doesn’t need another ‘ex’. I, on the other hand, am completely safe.” House’s tone had an air of feigned conceit.

“Oh yeah. Real safe,” she mocked back at him. His eyes became serious as he placed his hands gently on her upper arms, holding her, making certain that she understood what he was saying.

“You are safe with me, Cuddy. I would never manipulate you…” She arched a skeptical eyebrow. It took everything she had to not laugh aloud at him. “I would never manipulate you…” he repeated, “…about this; about anything personal. Ever.”

“What are you saying, House? Exactly.”

“Exactly what I said. I’m here. You need to go out with a friend—a male friend… I may tease you unmercifully, and I do reserve that right, but I won’t bring it up in public or even tell Wilson. Any teasing will be done in private. I mean…That didn’t come out…” He was flustered. Out of practice and pretty useless at overt niceness, but he was trying. And Cuddy appreciated it; and was enjoying it immensely.

“Look. Some idiot patient gave me two tickets to Sunday’s Phillies-Cubs game. It’s the least I can do for ruining your evening. The tickets are yours. Take whoever you want. Wilson loves the Cubs. Feeds his passion for the hopeless…”

“Where are the seats?”

“Fifth row, first base side. Infield.” Cuddy was impressed.

“If the weather’s nice you can pick me up on your bike. If not, I’ll pick you up at 11:00. Game’s at three, right?”

“What about Wilson? I thought…I’m giving the tickets to you. No strings.”

“What? You suddenly don’t like baseball?” She knew he loved the game; had a complete set of 1972 baseball cards somewhere in the rats nest of his front closet, he had told her once. “Good night, House.” She got up and let herself out, leaving him sitting at the piano, stunned.”

“Goodnight, Cuddy.” House smiled, feeling better than he had all evening, if slightly off-kilter. He sighed, rising unsteadily from the bench. His leg protested the strain. He reached for his Vicodin bottle and made his way back to the couch, no longer sleepy.

Chapter 5

“You knew about this.” It was more a statement than a question. Of course she knew. House was furious and pacing agitatedly in front of Cuddy’s desk, pausing only to glare at her. “How long? How fucking long?”

Cuddy was frozen behind her desk, understanding that if she spoke—actually answered him—it would set him off anew. In reality, she had only known for a day or two. She had noted to Wilson a slight change in House’s mood: he seemed more relaxed; less intense. She had wrongly assumed that it had something to do with her (although she would never have said that to Wilson). “What the Hell do you think you’re doing, Wilson?” she had asked him. “You have no idea what else he’s taking besides the Vicodin. Anyway, you can’t dose him against his wishes. It’s not ethical.”

Wilson had countered with a laugh and a comment about how little House cared about ethics. “I plan on telling him. As soon as I see that they’re having an effect. Or not.”

“Tell him, Wilson. Today. Or I will.”

Cuddy knew that House had been more tired than usual; feeling not himself. He hadn’t been able to quite put a label on it; and now he knew. And “pissed off” was too kind an adjective for how he was taking it. How could Wilson have been so stupid to not realize that House would put his own symptoms (or lack of them) together and figure it out.

“Wilson killed that girl--Lupe; not Foreman. Not me.” House continued to pace punctuating dangerous silences with short rants. Cuddy wondered when –or if—he would eventually wear himself out.

House HAD figured it out on his own. His dying patient’s observation that House was smiling while arguing with her about philosophy was the missing piece of the puzzle for him. The haziness he had felt; the sleepiness… House had felt distracted for nearly two weeks; his intensity draped in cotton batting and his thought process dulled by a sense of “que sera, sera,” that was not part of his apparatus. He had felt “good” in a way, but in a way that made him uneasy; not himself. And now he knew.

“You’ve been ‘happy,’ “ Wilson had argued.

“Hazy.” House had countered. He had felt compelled to explain, although Wilson surely had not deserved the explanation, that nothing House used to control his pain (whatever its source) made him feel “hazy.” “Why the hell do you think I’ve never considered anything stronger than Vicodin? I need to think. The way I need to think, or I’m useless...”

“You are not…”

“I need to control the pain. Enough to let me think without my whole existence being about just pain. Stronger meds; different meds—they might control the pain more effectively; anti depressants may make me feel ‘good.’ But they don’t let me do my job. Don’t fix what isn’t broke, Wilson.” But House knew his words wouldn’t penetrate. Why would they, if they hadn’t the last 150 times?

House had stilled his movements enough for Cuddy to approach without fear of being run-over. “House.” She started simply, quietly: a hand on his elbow.

“Just so you know. I told the parents. My patient—it was an attempted suicide. It was against…”

“I heard.” She had heard about House’s breach: it was her job. One of the nurses had overheard him talking quietly to her, sitting on her bed; leaving her room—his eyes downcast and troubled. “You were right.”

“I referred her to Silverman. The parents said they’ll work through it. Take care of it.” House’s hollow laugh was tinged with bitterness and resignation.

“You don’t think they will? Therapy, drugs will…”

“Yeah. Until the next time. It’s not that simple and you know it.” The roughness in his voice exposed a concern that went beyond his usual detached honesty. Cuddy nodded, acknowledging the truth of his words; remembered the despair in his eyes Christmas morning, only months earlier. He was pacing again.

“You’ll get used to them.” House glanced at her, confused. “The antidepressants. You do seem happier on them, maybe they can be adjusted…something. Try some other scrip.” He stopped and wheeled, facing her. Frustration and defeat clouding his features. He glared at her a long moment before stalking out the door.

Fed up: it was a fair description, House thought, of just how he felt. He’d had it with people (or, more specifically, Cuddy and Wilson) trying to manipulate him, lie to him, betray him—all for “his own good.” He wasn’t a child in need of tough love; a teenager in need of reigning in. Wilson…well Wilson would always be Wilson. A Jiminy Cricket complex that would make Gepetto proud, but House was tiring of the act. Cuddy was a different story. Entirely. House could not even begin to articulate the disappointment he was feeling. He had thought…had believed…had felt. Felt for the first time in a long time…that maybe. But he was wrong; so very, very wrong.

House glanced at his watch as he entered his inner office. Realizing the time, he grabbed his backpack and headed off to Tony’s Pub and Coffee Bar.

An hour and a half; three cups of mint tea (better than he expected—Nana tea, she had called it, reminding him, as he sipped it, tasting its familiarity, of the scent of it from a year spent in Egypt as an adolescent.) She was young, he had to admit. Too young. Younger than Cameron had been: a freshly minted fellow three years earlier—an nowhere as wise (which was saying a lot since “wise” was not an adjective he would use to describe Cameron—then or now). And Cameron was and is too young. In too many ways.

Honey would have been a great one-night stand, if House went in for that sort of thing. Which he didn’t, although he would never quite admit that even to himself. “I’m on antidepressants; I don’t like them—they make me feel hazy; I like drugs…” He kept trying to give her the reason to walk away from an impending disaster. But she wouldn’t budge. She simply sat there—mindlessly grinning, telling him that his unique eyes were a sign of…something…he wasn’t really listening that closely. He realized that he was going to have to be the one to bail; something he was not very good at—except with Cameron, who simply made it easy.

“Sorry, Honey, I just don’t think you’re quite right for the job.” And, laying a $50 bill on the counter, he edged his way carefully to the door, his leg throbbing from sitting on the high stool for too long. He felt his age and his infirmity acutely as people moved aside to let him pass in the crowded college night-spot.

She was waiting for him, sitting on the stoop in front of his building. “You’re going to get arrested for vagrancy, you know.” House’s ego had taken enough blows for one day. He reached into his jacket for his Vicodin, only to find an empty pill bottle. Great. He hadn’t had any vicodin for hours and his leg felt on fire. He didn’t need another lecture from Cuddy to add to his misery.

“House. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have assumed…” House waited, saying nothing. Cuddy hadn’t moved, still sitting on the step, effectively blocking his path.

“Excuse me, I’m not exactly able to leap over you, here,” House spat out, impatiently tapping his cane on the pavement. Cuddy sighed, standing up to let him past, glowering at him briefly for his refusal to listen to her. She noticed his gait as he mounted the step with difficulty. He reached out with his left hand for the additional support of the doorpost, nearly toppling into it in the process. He was wobbly at best, and she briefly wondered if he was not a bit drunk. Or high. But Cuddy knew better.

Cuddy stayed close behind him: not hovering, but close enough to assist him as entered the building. House was silent as he unlocked the door to his apartment and entered, tossing his backpack into the corner before sagging, exhausted against the alcove wall. “Cuddy,” he breathed. “On the nightstand in the bedroom…” Cuddy located the bedroom and retrieved the pill bottle, returning to him with two tablets and a glass of water.

House’s anger at Cuddy dissipated as crouched beside him. “What can I do?” A simple request uttered as she sought and held his eyes. He shook his head slightly. There was nothing to be done; only to wait. She wanted to “do” something, slightly alarmed at his obvious distress. House’s breathing steadied as the Vicodin began to work its magic. He continued kneading his right thigh, although somewhat less furiously. Cuddy sat on the floor to his left, taking his hand; allowing his to grip tightly hers as the spasms of pain subsided in his leg. He glanced sideways toward her, suddenly embarrassed.

Half an hour passed as they sat on his floor in silence. Finally he felt steady enough to stand and he walked to the sofa, leaving his cane on the floor by the door. Cuddy followed, sitting beside him, one leg tucked under her. She watched House manually lift his right leg to the coffee table, before settling himself back into the deep leather cushions. She simply waited. “This is what it’s like, Cuddy. No guarantee that it won’t happen in stands at Phillies Stadium on Sunday. You might be better off taking Wilson. Less hassle.”

“What happened?” Cuddy ignored House’s comment, refusing to indulge his wallowing.

“Stupid. Took my last Vicodin back at the hospital. Didn’t have…I had a…I stopped for a drink at the pub. Forgot I was running on empty. I hate this.” He sounded beaten down and tired.

“I know.” Her voice was all compassion: a balm on his wounds. She wouldn’t dare suggest that a wheelchair might be a sane option for the gargantuan ballpark; she knew his pride would never allow it. He glanced across the sofa towards her, understanding something about himself—about her—for the first time. “We’ll manage; you’re always a hassle, why should going to the Phillies Game be so different?”

House smiled, not the hazy anti-depressant fueled smile he’d seen reflected back at him in the co-ed’s room that night, but something more genuine. They would manage. Somehow.

Pictures at an Exhibition

Chapter 6

There was a reason why House never went to major league sporting events. Or hadn’t for nine years running. But House had ignored his internal warning system in favor of spending the day in the sun watching the Phillies extinguish the feeble hopes of the Chicago Cubs. With Cuddy.

Things started out well: the weather was spectacular for May in New Jersey. Eighty degrees, low humidity—perfect. House arrived at Cuddy’s 15 minutes early, surprising her as she was just stepping out of the shower. She greeted him wearing the same light green terrycloth robe she’d been wearing that night in March when he’d woken her to discuss removing half of a patient’s brain. At this moment, however, the robe was wet and clung to every one of Cuddy’s curves.

House eyed her, not quite successfully concealing his breathlessness—and his desire. But he was a “friend”—and a “safe” friend at that. Wasn’t that what he had told her? Wasn’t that what set him apart from Wilson? Still…

“Stop staring,” she reprimanded, smiling at him. It was that same coquettish smile she had smiled at him several times in the past few weeks. He was so busted. And he knew it. And she knew he knew it. And he didn’t really care all that much that she did. “Go. Sit. There’s some bottled water in the fridge. I’ll be ready in five minutes.” Short bursts of sentences—commands delivered with a mirth and camaraderie.

Cuddy was surprised to return from her bedroom to find House sitting quietly on her sofa, fingering the chin strap of a motorcycle helmet. He extended it towards her before rising. Cuddy cocked her head? “It’s a long ride, and I assumed you didn’t have one, so…” The helmet was clearly female-sized and brand new. Cuddy was still not so sure about taking his bike to the game, but he had made it hard for her, by his gesture, to deny him.

Cuddy was dressed for the warm May day: shorts and a halter top. “You’re going to get a sunburn. Our seats are not shaded,” he chided. “Besides, do you want every drunk in the stands to hit on you? Maybe you do…maybe I’ve uncovered Cuddy’s secret fantasy…” She stopped him by slapping his arm playfully, while producing from her bag a pair of sunglasses and a bottle of sunscreen.

“Ironically,” she retorted, “I’m a doctor too.”

“Yeah, that’ll keep the drunks away…”

House mounted the bike and looked over at Cuddy as she expertly placed the helmet and settled herself close behind him on the seat. “You’ll have to hold on to me, so…” he began, but she had already arranged her hands on his hips, bracing her forearms against him. House closed his eyes, taking in her nearness; sighing almost against his own will. He felt her breath against his back and absorbed into his senses the green tea fragrance of her shower gel.

Riding was the only time when House felt truly free of his disability. He could fly unfettered; feel the wind against his face and blowing through his clothes. Half the time, his urge was to forgo the helmet; but the doctor part of him had an even louder voice than his inner rebel, and he always acquiesced to that more insistent voice. As they traveled, Cuddy molded to his back, edging closer to him as they went, holding him tighter as they maneuvered curves and hills.

House’s nearness, the vibration of the bike’s engine, the scent of spring and House’s soap allayed her concerns; made this feel completely right. She sighed into his back as they passed a grove of apple trees, their fragrance penetrating helmet mask. She could get used to this.

Eventually, they arrived at Citizens Bank Park, home of the Philadelphia Phillies. House immediately missed Cuddy’s nearness as she dismounted, parking the bike in a handicapped space on the first base side.

Cuddy examined the distance between the parking space and the entry gate complex, the journey’s momentary magic broken by reality. “You going to be OK with the distance? Do you want me to get a…”

“I’ll be fine.” What else could he say? He knew that her next inquiry to him would be about a wheelchair, and House needed to forestall that bad idea. Very bad idea. They made their way to their seats, which, as promised, were practically on the field.

House relaxed into the surroundings as the warmth, the beer, the food and the company the perpetual gnawing in his right thigh a distant cadence. He spent the first two, very boring, innings surreptitiously observing Cuddy out the corner of his eye. She had a bit of hot dog mustard clinging to the corner of her lower lip, and it was all he could manage to not lean over and sweep it away. Cuddy looked happy: she hadn’t stopped smiling since they’d reached their seats. She had loved baseball since she was 13 years old, telling House excitedly that she had practically grown up in Tigers Stadium and hadn’t been to a ballgame in years. Cuddy turned abruptly to look at House, catching him as he watched her. “That fascinating, am I?” she laughed.

“You have…” he gestured to his own mouth regarding the mustard.

“Where?” she teased, “Can you…? I’m terrible at that without a mirror?” He knew it as lie…a sweet, seductive lie. House rewarded the tease with a lascivious smile as he swept his thumb over the corner of her lower lip, skillfully removing the mustard. Cuddy caught his hand before he wiped it on the hot dog wrapper, licking the mustard from his thumb in a deft move of her own, leaving House speechless. Cuddy kept hold of his hand, turning her attention back to the game, as House twined his fingers in her grasp.

The game was uneventful—a pitcher’s duel—through the first five innings. The bottom of the sixth brought the stadium to its feet, watching a long Phillies fly ball make its way to the outer reaches of center field and into the stands. Cuddy flew to her feet with the crowd, shouting with excitement.

“House! Did you see…” She glanced to her left, only to notice House still struggling to lift himself from the low, hard seat, losing the missing the moment. He observed her watching him as he gave up, slamming the arm rest with his fist.

Cuddy glanced over at him, her concern cutting through him like a knife as she caught his eye; before he turned away, humiliation and frustration pouring off of him in waves; his eyes looking everywhere but in her direction. He turned his back towards her as he popped two pills in his mouth, washing them down with a swig of a beer. She granted him the privacy he so clearly sought, her gaze focused away from him and onto the field.

In the normal course of a day, House never wasted an opportunity to flaunt the Vicodin in everyone’s face: patients; colleagues; even cops. He defiantly dared anyone to say a word about it; had a ready retort for anyone who did. But not this time; not when he was feeling more humiliated than defiant.

They continued, sitting in this awkward silence for a full inning. Cuddy was grateful that crowd’s excitement had waned as the game settled back into the uneventful pitcher’s duel. There was nothing suggesting the game would again bring the crowd to its feet any time soon.

House stood suddenly, steadying himself with his cane. “Be right back. Can I get you anything?” He seemed calmer; but his voice was subdued. She missed his earlier mirthful playfulness. Cuddy shook her head, wanting to reach out to him, knowing that any attempt would be viewed as pity. She stood allowing him to pass, wondering how he was going to get by the five filled seats between hers and the aisle.

House glowered his way through the row of seats; most people rose enabling him to pass, with one fan simply moving his knees. Cuddy watched House shoot the big man a withering glare, raising his cane to enhance the threat. She couldn’t hear what he said, but she assumed it was something adequately demeaning to urge the guy to stand up and let House pass into the aisle.

He had been gone for a full inning when Cuddy began to worry. The Cubs were now winning 3-1 and the game was beginning to wind down. House was nowhere to be seen. She didn’t want to get up and look for him, only to have him return to find her gone. She sighed figuring that the men’s room line was longer than she thought it was; or maybe he’d stopped to buy another beer or another hot dog. Her worry, she concluded, was unfounded and silly.

At the top of the ninth Cuddy’s concern returned as she scanned the crowd behind her. She had thought they might want to get a jump on the crowd heading for the exits. She spotted him, finally; he was leaning against a wall near the concourse exit, still and peering out to towards the field, watching the game. She was piqued that he had abandoned her for what was now nearly two innings, preferring to enjoy the game standing, farther back, and without her company. Her intention was to stalk over to him and tell him he was being a jerk (so what else is new, she mused from inside her anger). Cuddy clambered over the seated patrons towards the aisle, nearly tripping over a stack of beer cups and the knees of a large and pissed off looking man. As she ran up the concrete steps, she slid on the remains of a spilt Coke, catching herself before she fell on the shoulder of an elderly woman. “Sorry,” she apologized sheepishly to the woman, who glared at her in response.

It suddenly dawned on her as climbed the stairs to where House was perched: why he hadn’t returned to his seat, preferring to hang back, even standing, despite the discomfort. She reached him as the last Phillies batter grounded softly to first base, thus ignobly ending the game, fans streaming silently and quickly towards the exits.

“Hey.”

“Ready?” House’s voice was quiet; he was avoiding her eyes, expecting her to yell at his disappearing act. He had been preparing for it: every wittily-rendered retort waiting at the ready on his tongue. Cuddy regarded him, seeing the defensiveness already in his eyes; knowing that even the most sympathetic question about his whereabouts would be deflected with resentment. She let him be, knowing he might say something later; not wanting his frustration to be directed at the most convenient target—her.

After he own adventure in reaching him, she now understood that he had not wanted to once again deal with climbing over fans, risk tripping or having his cane lose its grip on the slimy, beer covered cement---or try to maneuver the steps down to their seats through the throngs leaving early going in the opposite direction. That was a difficult proposition for anyone—a fish swimming upstream what the best way to describe it. For House, it would have been an exercise in futility. So he held his position nearby but out of the way, simply, and safely, waiting.

“Why don’t we wait until it clears out a little,” she offered. “It’ll take an hour just to get out of the parking lot anyway. That way…”

“What…?” he wheeled on her , hanging on to the railing he had been leaning on as he did. “I’ll have less a chance of getting trampled by some drunken Phillies fan? I’ll…” he began, words voice dripping bitterness. He stopped suddenly, mid-rant, biting down on his lower lip before slamming the heel of his hand into the metal rail. His eyes were ice-cold and Cuddy could sense the rage in them; in him. She stood calmly silent, waiting; being there if he needed her to be.

Several minutes passed, as House’s shoulders seemed to relax a bit; the fury in his eyes dissipated and the grip on his cane loosened. He glanced sheepishly at Cuddy and cast his gaze around to the quickly emptying ball park. He turned back towards her, capturing her eyes for a second before turning away again, wanting to run, but unable to move. He felt trapped: angry at having put himself in this position; having her witness it, and his humiliation about it.

It had been a ridiculously stupid idea, he realized, coming to the game. He had told himself that it would be OK; had worked out the angles and done the math. But he had evidently left out an important variable or two in the equation. “Sorry, I…I didn’t mean to…”

“It’s OK,” she interrupted. It hurt her that the simple pleasure of going to a baseball game could be the source of such distress for him. Every trip to the bathroom; every seventh-inning stretch; joining in the excitement of standing up and cheering—even watching, when everyone else was standing—all of it: the “normal” pleasures of simply going to a sporting event. For him—none of it was “normal.” Every part of it became a calculation for him—and he was very good at math. Everything she took for granted about just going out and having fun; living life, she realized with a single moment, he could never count on a simple or without risk. She understood that plenty of people managed just fine: walkers, canes, wheelchairs—they coped; they adjusted: but it was never easy—and never simple.

As a doctor—as his doctor—she knew this. Talked to patients about it all the time. She cringed inwardly at all the times she had told a patient: “it could be worse,” or “you’ll manage fine after therapy.” She was, as House would surely point out, an idiot. She grieved his loss suddenly and keenly.

Pictures at an Exhibition
Chapter 7

The ride back to Princeton was awkward and silent. House hopped on the bike wordlessly, passing Cuddy’s helmet to her as she climbed aboard behind him. She wasn’t sure how to treat him; how to touch him—their earlier causal intimacy had evaporated and left her grieving for it. Cuddy placed her hands gingerly on either side of him, feeling House tense at the contact. A moment passed before he relaxed slightly, pulling her arms tightly around his middle, before starting the engine. Miles passed before Cuddy felt him relax beneath her embrace, urging her to nudge closer to him.

Cuddy focused on the farms and fields; the orchards in full bloom and the cloudless sky above them. When she breathed in she consumed eau d’ballpark: the unique combination of sweat, beer and popcorn that clung to both of them. She felt her back getting hot in the sun, remembering that she had not reapplied sunscreen before getting back on the bike. She realized it was too late by now, and her back was likely a mass of reddened skin for which she would soon pay dearly.

They pulled up at her place, House removing his helmet; his eyes unreadable. Cuddy dismounted and returned the helmet to House. House smiled, slightly; shyly. “I…it won’t fit my…” he gestured to his head. “Keep it,” he continued, recovering from his sudden embarrassment. “You never know when one of your patients might get violent; come in handy.”

“Yeah,” she responded lightly, sighing at their return to a more comfortable place. “Or a doctor…”

“Well, there is that…” Cuddy was touched that he had obviously bought it for her; the odd gift suggesting something vague and lovely to her, although she wasn’t certain just what that was. She regarded him; his ruggedly handsome face now tanned from their day in the sun, and dripping with perspiration (as she was sure hers was) accentuated the unique color of his eyes. There was none of the earlier mirth in them; only hesitation and melancholy.

“Wanna come in for a cold drink. You look like you could use it.” She tried to keep the mood light, slightly seductive, ignoring his body language, which told her that he wanted to get away as fast as possible. Certainly not to come in for a beer. She turned towards the house not waiting for his response. He could follow or not: his choice.

“I’m not very good company, so I think…” he called out to her, gloomily. She didn’t wait for him to finish. House wiped his arm across his forehead, watching her go. “Better take care of that sunburn, Cuddy! Scarlet woman doesn’t even begin to describe…”

“I have aloe inside. But it’s mainly my back, I think. Can’t reach all the way around…”

“Do you have real beer…like in a bottle?” His voice growled just over her left shoulder. “Aloe’s slimy. It better be great beer and really, really cold, if I’m going to get my hands and clothes all gooey with that stuff. Gross.”

“No….Gross is that t-shirt.” She wrinkled her nose, teasing. It did smell awful—a combination of sweat, cigars and beer.

“I don’t have to stay if ‘eau d’ baseball’ offends you. Then your burn will peel and it’ll itch and then you’ll be oh, so sorry, you shooed me away…” Cuddy was delighted to hear the mirth creep back into his voice, almost despite himself.

“Fine. But the shirt goes. Feel free to use my washing machine or stick it in the bathtub until you’re ready to leave, but it is NOT going anywhere near my furniture!”

“Hey, you’re the one who needs the first aid. You invited me in. Some hostess—and they call me ‘surly…” his voice trailed off, point made, softened by the grace note of gentle teasing behind his words. He dutifully removed his tee-shirt, holding it gingerly away from himself. “Washing machine through there?” He pointed dramatically towards her bedroom.

“Yeah. You wish. Gimme.” She grabbed the shirt from him, momentarily forgetting his unsteadiness, nearly knocking him over into the coffee table. He caught himself, using the cane to recover his balance. “Sorry.” Her eyes turned serious, lending truth to her words.

It had been a long time since Cuddy had seen House’s bare torso. The layers he normally wrapped himself in suggested the illusion of fragility in his physique. But illusion it was. His upper body was muscular and lean—far from frail. His abdomen had only the early beginnings middle-agedness, reinforced by the salt and pepper hairs that had begun to find their way to his otherwise auburn chest hair. Cuddy disappeared into the laundry room, while House grabbed two beers from the refrigerator. “Niiice…” he commented under his breath, the woman had good taste in refreshment at least: straight from a local microbrewery. Perfect.

House handed her a beer and popped the latches on his own bottle, taking a deep swig. “So where’s this aloe. Don’t want to let that burn set in for too long. Didn’t anyone tell you that unprotected sun causes skin cancer?” he scolded.

“I’ll keep that in mind.” She handed him a tall bottle of greenish-blue gel.

“Mind if we do this sitting down? My leg would appreciate it and all…”

“Just don’t get any on my sofa.” Cuddy led House to the Victorian styled sofa; she sat facing away from him.

“Here,” he said, moving her ponytail out of the way, “hold this out of the way.” Cuddy raised her arms to grab her ponytail from House, the pain in her shoulders from the burn causing her to hiss as she did so.

“Ow.”

“I haven’t done anything yet. Don’t be such a baby.”

“Ha. I seem to recall something about pots and kettles. Anyway, that wasn’t you I was ‘ow-ing’ at. My shoulders seem to have gotten a bit too much sun too.”

“And your chest. Didn’t you put any sunscreen on at all? What was that bottle you waved at me before we set out this morning. I know it said sunscreen… Problem is that you have to actually put the stuff on…you know…open bottle, pour…”

“House! Are you going to do this or not?” She was getting annoyed at his teasing, which had gone from gentle to not so much.

“Fine. I’m just sayin’…” House poured some of the gel into his hand. He recalled once using real aloe…a real plant on his own burn when he was a kid; was fascinated by the plant’s healing power. Cuddy tensed in anticipation of his hand coming in contact with her very, very sore back. She was not looking forward to it.

House’s voice took on a seriousness that Cuddy could only describe as full-on doctor mode. “I’m going to put some of this on your left shoulder. It will feel cold but nice.” Cuddy smiled at the unnecessary explanation. She felt the coolness of the aloe hit her shoulder, causing her to sigh. House’s gentle hands applied the gel first to her left shoulder and across her back to the right. As the burning in her back subsided she relished his expert touch. She almost felt like purring.

“I’m going to undo your halter tie. Don’t want to get it all yucky. You’ll never get it undone…”

“No way you’re...” She was snapped from her languorousness, suddenly aware—too aware—of what his ministrations had done to her, inside and out. It was too easy; it felt too good; it had to stop. Now.

House removed his hands. “You won’t be able to…”

“Doesn’t matter. This top is not coming off.”

“Not off. Untied. At the neck. I am crushed at the suggestion that I would take advantage… I am a doctor, you know…” he protested. She remembered how he had been the past spring—a year earlier, when she had asked him to help give her fertility injections. She had been surprised then, too: the gentleness, the professionalism. He was right.

“Fine.” She waited. When he made no further move, she sighed, undoing the tie herself, letting the halter fall to the front.

“You know this isn’t easy for me either,” he admitted suddenly.

“What? Oh, yeah, I know, goopy hands and all.”

“That’s not what I’m saying.” He stopped short of saying anything else as he concentrated on covering the burned areas with aloe. He paused, examining his work for a moment. “I need a towel.”

“Kitchen, by the sink. You’re done?” She turned to face him, but he was halfway to the kitchen. “What about my chest…my…?” He returned, drying his hands on a blue and brown dish towel.

“Figured you’d probably want to keep that honor for yourself. I didn’t want to presume…to be accused of…”

“House,” her voice was tinged with regret for impugning his earlier motives regarding her halter top. “Look. I can barely move my arms without intense pain. My skin feels so tight, I think it’s going to crack if I even try to do this myself. Can you…?”

House averted his eyes, momentarily, before taking another swig from the beer bottle. He held out his hand for the aloe. “Here. Turn to face me.” He drew close to her as this time he applied the slippery gel directly to her collarbone from the bottle. It tickled her as he drew the green line across her skin, causing her to shiver. “Too cold?”

Cuddy shook her head as she held the front of her halter top over her breasts with her right forearm. “Your upper arms are pretty crispy, too.” He used his thumb to spread the aloe over her upper chest, pausing for a moment before gently sweeping it to the edges of the burned area—where it met her top, carefully avoiding anything overtly provocative. She closed her eyes, taking in the sensuality of his care, absorbing his touch through her pores and into her soul. She opened her eyes as he finished, wishing he hadn’t stopped quite so soon, knowing that anything more or prolonged would be something else entirely.

Her eyes opened into his gaze: he was watching her serenely, silently, intensely. His eyes raked over her face, a mix of apprehension, bashfulness and an unmistakable desire. He looked away finally, breaking the moment as he grabbed the towel to wipe the aloe from his hands. “My…” He gestured towards the laundry room. “It should be…” He stood, reaching for his cane.

“House, it needs to go into the dryer. I’ll… House…” He was pacing, not sure what he should be doing; what she expected him to do. What she wanted; what she didn’t. He had promised her the safety of a casual date with a friend. And at this moment he felt anything but safe for her. Cuddy watched him struggle, not quite knowing what had set him off. On his next circuit, she stepped into his path, stilling him with a touch to his hand.

“Sorry, I… I should probably go. It’s warm out. I’ll get my shirt some other time. I…”

“House.” Her voice was soft, it conspired with her touch to drown him in sensation. Her hand moved to his face, bringing his eyes to meet hers. “Thank you. For this.” Her hand lingered. It was sweet torture, every bit of his self control remain still. Cuddy moved her hands to his bare chest, stroking the soft skin at his collarbone. She couldn’t embrace him, not with her sunburned chest and a layer of aloe between them, but she willed him to understand, that permission was granted and he need only act on it. If he wanted to. And when.

Finally he understood as her steady gaze and unnerving touch penetrated through years of denial. The kiss was chaste, but left no doubt as to intent. House lowered his head brushing his lips first across her forehead and coming to rest, finally, on hers.

This is great! I already read it on FF.net, which is how I know. Thank you so much for posting it here too. :D

Pictures at an Exhibition—chapter 8

“You are one evil cunning woman!” House’s dramatic entrance into Cuddy’s inner office startled the two women conferring at the table. “You ladies can gossip later,” he added, dismissing the nurse from their presence. It had been worth a shot—to deflect the deed away from him and on to…whoever… Damn Chase for being so perceptive. Too perceptive these days.

House sat in his office, retrospectively processing the case in his mind as he mindlessly palmed the giant tennis ball. Memorizing all of the diagnostic steps; the nuances; the mistakes; filing them for future reference.

But this Foreman thing… Yeah, OK, fine. He had done it. Didn’t regret it for a micro-second, though. House wasn’t certain of his precise reason for having sabotaged Foreman’s interview at Mercy Hospital, but he could, in retrospect, think of several excellent ones. He had just known it was the right thing to do. More or less.

Foreman simply wasn’t ready, in House’s estimation. Even after three years, he still had the blinders of conventional wisdom soundly secured to his instincts. And in diagnostics, you weren’t going to catch many zebras that way. Not if you couldn’t see them—and those damn zebra did seem to gather in the periphery of one’s vision. Beyond the blinders. Foreman’s years with Marty what’s-his-name had not benefited him, the damage was still undone. Mercy was offering him his own diagnostics department. Idiots. The first time it wasn’t vasculitis they’d know it, too. Suckers. Would serve them right, though…

Admittedly, Foreman provided House a nastiness to push back against. As knee-jerk as Foreman’s reactions to his ideas were, they were occasionally valid challenges. They kept House focused on the game. Foreman was smart enough that every once-in-awhile his insights were correct; House could never quite dismiss Foreman enough to ignore him completely. House needed that. Sometimes, anyway.

What he didn’t need was Foreman’s judgementalism. Three years hadn’t taught him that a patient is simply that. You can’t value one over another (if they were really sick in the first place, and not just some idiot with a hang-nail): all lives are equal when it comes to medicine. Or they should be. There was plenty of time to hate the bastard after he was healed and walking out of the hospital under his own steam. Bias had no place in patient care. All three of his team much to learn on that score, he considered. And of course, there was Foreman’s arrogance. And his ego. Those, more than anything, House thought, would be his eventual undoing.

House’s thoughts drifted back to the patient. He smiled, appreciating that the kid faked him into resigning the game; laying down his king – prematurely. His Blitz Chess skills were undoubtedly rusty, but he should have figured…a jerk like that… House thought back to his own chess tournament days as a kid…wherever that took him: Europe, Egypt, “home” whatever po-dunk air-force town that meant. It never mattered, House almost always won.

But at least no one would beat the crap out of him for doing that. He knew kids like his patient—more than sarcastic: just fucking mean; they almost never played chess. But they excelled at beating the crap out of anyone they considered an outsider. And that almost always meant him. Only to return home to suffer under his father’s own brand of punishment du jour. “You know, Gregory,” he would say, that was a general’s son you pissed off. His voice would always be dangerously calm. It was never any good to argue that he’d not done anything wrong except to get a perfect score on his math exam; or ace the French final; or sign up for the chess team. It would still be his fault, his father would certainly insist… No, that patient, what’s-his-name. He wouldn’t have suffered the effects of excess iron; he would simply be dead. End of discussion.

House peered out his office window and into the rain. Foreman was more like him than he would ever know. He could picture the young Foreman: too smart for his own good and toughened by sudden knowledge that you are simply different than everyone around you. And there’s not a goddamned thing you can do about it but either fight or die. Neither option particularly good on any given day. Foreman became a gang-banger to survive, used his smarts to fit in. House hung on to his differentness like a lifeline, reveling in it as he became the best at everything: music, languages, science, medicine. Like it mattered. Like he could use it to prove his worthiness; his value—to anyone: the assholes who delighted in pummeling him when he was a kid—or his own father. Until it finally it ceased to matter. And he simply stopped caring. At least that’s what he told himself: it just fucking doesn’t matter. Period. Full stop.

House sighed, trying to shake off the melancholy mood. He’d fixed the kid; and he would have won that game. So what, if Foreman’s leaving. The guy had been useless since his illness last spring anyway. When was the last time he’d made the winning diagnosis? House couldn’t remember. So maybe Foreman was right to leave. He’d never be the diagnostician that Chase was becoming; or the tireless worker that Cameron always had been.

“House?” He swiveled his chair towards his door, slightly startled at the female voice penetrating his late night ruminations. He scrubbed his hands over his face, focusing. “He said ‘no.’” House cocked his head, confused. “Foreman. He said no to running a parallel diagnostics group.”

“Not surprised. I never thought he would.”

“Then why did you OK it?”

“Would it have stopped you if I hadn’t? How’s the sunburn?” He didn’t want to talk about Foreman.

“Better. Thanks. For the other day. For…Sunday. I had a….nice time.”

“Liar. Polite though. Of course what else could you say? Anything else would be awkward; we see each other every day, after all…” He was going for disinterested amusement in tone, not quite managing it.

“House, look… I…” She approached his desk, perching finally on the corner of it, inches from him. “I want you to know. I…” Cuddy struggled with trying to convey her feelings. One of them, at least, had to be brave enough for honesty. “I want a ‘do-over,’” she said finally. “My sunburn…what a great way to cap the day,” she laughed, trying to keep it light.

“Yeah…lest we forget…my sunny mood…” he added darkly. “I’m sorry. I seem to be saying that a lot to you. Maybe that’s telling us something. I’m useless at this…”

“Stacy didn’t think so.” It was dangerous to go there on any number of levels; and she knew it.

“Yeah, she did. It just didn’t matter… And look where it got us, anyway…”

“Unforeseen circumstances. Shit happens. Not always your fault…” she smiled, making her eyes luminous in the dim light of House’s office. “Have you eaten yet? I’m starving.”

“I’m not really…”

“I’m paying. Thai Villa take out. Best Asian food in Princeton. Your beer; your apartment. I’ll even challenge you to a game of chess. I hear you’re not too bad a player.” House had to smile, despite his mood. Pad Thai, Asian beer, chess and Cuddy: an irresistible combination, he thought as he rose from his chair. He grabbed his iPod from its dock and shoved it and some journals into his backpack. “I’ll meet you back at your place.”

Pictures at an Exhibition

Chapter 9

House’s chess set had been a gift from a dying patient 15 years earlier. A lifetime ago. He kept it on the bottom shelf of the hallway bookcase; he rarely played at all, and told himself that he eschewed the intellectual pretentiousness of simply displaying the thing without ever using it. Everybody lies.

House was never very good with names, but Robertson Cantwell’s name and face, even now, occasionally haunted the periphery of House’s consciousness. Cantwell was dying. Fast. First his kidneys, which had brought the referral to House’s desk, then his liver and finally his heart began to fail. Cantwell had three days. A week at the most—a painful week of dying alone: no family, no local friends. He had plenty of colleagues from the University mathematics department, but no one from whom he would hear comforting words or who would hold his hand in the final hours.

“Play me a game of chess,” he had asked House a week before the heart went, and days before the liver problems became insurmountable.

“I don’t play,” House had lied. In truth, House had no desire to engage a patient on that personal a level. Even if Cantwell was a ranked player. Semi-famous, even, if you at all followed the game.

“Yes you do. And pretty well, as I understand.”

“I don’t know where you got your inform….”

“I have my sources. Humor a dying old man.”

“You’re not dying.” And then the liver began to shut down. “But I don’t have a chess set,” was a valid excuse. And came after the next request, a day or two later.

“Ah, but I do. Tomorrow. And now I am dying, so no more excuses.”

“You’re not…” But, in actuality, he was; and both he and House knew it. What House didn’t expect was Cantwell eccentricity. The old professor had a colleague transport his favorite set to his hospital room. The exquisitely elaborate set was from India—an antique with carved and enameled ivory pieces depicting battling warriors riding elephants. The board was intricately inlaid and designed to hold the pieces when closed.

House beat the elderly mathematics professor. It hadn’t really even been much of a contest, not surprisingly considering the man’s age and physical state. The game concluded, Cantwell had grabbed House’s arm. “It’s my time to go, you know. I’m dying. You can’t save me. No one can. And soon, too, if I can read the faces of all those nurses and technicians who seem to hover all day and all night. Give me something. To…you know…to make it quicker.” House had known the implications of the request. He could lose his license—end up in jail. Those things mattered to House…then.

“That’s not a fair request. You know I can’t…”

“Who’ll tell? I don’t have any family. There’ll be no autopsy. I’ll be dead in a week anyway…or less.”

“No. I can’t…I…Sorry. I can’t…” But House had done it anyway. Two more days of pleading. They had stopped all treatment on Cantwell’s request. Morphine only… for the pain. Palliative treatment. It was only a matter of time.

And now, years later, calloused and scarred—immune, he would tell himself, to the Cantwells of the world--House stared at the set, lying dust-covered on the bottom shelf. He hadn’t thought about it for a long time—years and years. A memory, vague and tamped down flickered on the edges of House’s mind. It had been the first time he had helped someone…someone in dire condition, on the brink of death…end their suffering. He’d never told anyone—not even Wilson. “I heard that your patient on four died last night. I’m sorry.” House had only nodded slightly in response. “Nice chess set,” he added, admiring the board, now sitting on House’s desk. Cantwell’s colleague, who had brought the set over to hospital only days before, insisted that Cantwell wanted him to have it.

But House hadn’t wanted it, despite the craftsmanship, the beauty and gracefulness of the pieces; the reminders they held for him of Kipling stories he had read as a kid, himself living in faraway places. But he wanted no reminder of Cantwell or what he had done to him. It was the right thing to do, House knew. But even something that is right, can make you feel like crap and steal part of your soul. So it sat on a shelf in his flat, gathering dust. He’d never even shown it to Stacy. Because he would have had to explain to her where it came from and what it had meant. And how ghoulish accepting it had made him feel.

But now Cuddy was coming over, and it was the only set in his possession. He’d meant to grab the set from the doctors’ lounge and had gotten distracted. House hooked his cane on the bookcase and bent down gingerly avoiding too much stress on his right leg. The chess set was heavy, requiring lifting strength his legs no longer possessed. But he managed to retrieve it, sagging back against the shelves to recover his balance, blowing the accumulated dust from the closed wooden case. He nearly failed to hear the knocking at his door.

“I come bearing Panang Curry and Tom Yum Kai.” Cuddy was precariously balancing a boxed Asian feast against the door jamb.

“What? Did you order one of each thing on the menu? Did you invite the entire faculty to join us?” House eyed the box’s contents, noting the sheer number of bags and cartons.

“I couldn’t decide and I didn’t know what you liked…or didn’t. And since I’m paying, I get the leftovers.” Cuddy made it to the kitchen, placing the large carton on the butcher block island. House grabbed two bottles of Grolsch from the refrigerator and two sets of ornate chopsticks from a drawer. “Plates,” Cuddy directed, pointing to a glass-fronted cabinet.

“Asian food is meant to be enjoyed au naturel: straight from the container,” he admonished smugly, brandishing a skewer of beef satay and before balancing it on a container of pad Thai. Finding his way back to the living room, he sat at the far end of the leather sofa, propping both legs on the coffee table. Cuddy soon joined him, occupying the opposite side.

They ate from within a silence overflowing with subtext: words unspoken hanging between them, punctuated by furtive glances at each other; neither quite comfortable small talk.

House looked up, casting his eyes on Cuddy. “She’s beautiful; has a zesty bod,” he remembered remarking, seriously, and with a certain amount of envy, after Cuddy had asked Wilson to dinner a year ago. House had always had a thing for dark-haired women; he always had a particular weakness for Cuddy—even through his deep and unremitting love for Stacy. Both women were strong, over-achieving, smart women, but Cuddy had a softness that emerged when something moved her; Stacy never did. His love for Stacy had been something immovable, even after she had betrayed him; selfishly keeping him alive for her own sake, even when she knew his wishes. Understood and articulated that death would have been preferable to the life he knew lay ahead for him—trapped in limbo between pain and pills.

But his feelings for Cuddy were different. She, too, had rescued him when he wanted to die: alone and in pain six months after Stacy had tired of his sullen brooding and constantly accusing eyes. But salvation at Cuddy’s hands was consensual as she convinced him that life might be a worthwhile endeavor; coaxing and cajoling him out of his dark hole one freezing night in the back room of a filthy bloodbank. He both resented and loved her for it. The sensuality of her hands washing the tears from his face as he wept in her arms, humiliated and in pain, never far from his thoughts.

House rose suddenly from his position on the sofa to pace restlessly around the room, alighting finally near the fireplace. “I don’t need him,” he said, an exasperated sigh breaking the quiet. Cuddy cocked her head, confused by the random comment. House glared at her as if she were a dim-witted child for not following this train of thought. “Foreman,” he clarified brusquely, waiting for her to pick up the thread of a conversation aborted hours ago.

“Ah. Actually, you do.” They were both back on more comfortable ground arguing. “Why are we talking about work? I can talk about work…at work. And usually that means arguing with you. I don’t want to argue with you. I want to…”

“He’s useless since last spring. His arrogance cost a girl her life… even Chase is a better…”

“This judgment coming from the paragon of humility, of course. He stands up to you; he gives whole new meanings to the term ‘devil’s advocate.’ I don’t want to do this. We’ve been over this ground. Talk to him. I thought we were going to play chess. Do you even have a set?”

“What’s this sudden interest in chess? I’ve never even known you to play.” House retrieved the board, setting it on the coffee table as Cuddy removed various food containers to the kitchen.

“Hey! I was first female president of the Ann Arbor High School chess club.”

“I can just imagine the caption on the yearbook picture: ‘beauty and the nerds’,” he called out towards the kitchen. Cuddy returned to find the board opened and set up. House was sitting on the floor, his back propped against the sofa, right leg cushioned by a large floor pillow and extended under the table. Cuddy sat on another floor pillow opposite.

“This set is gorgeous. Look at these pieces.” She picked up a knight, a turbaned noble riding a tiger. “Where did you get this?” She’d always admired House’s collection of rare antiques—from trinkets to artwork—an eccentricity that was at odds with the self-professed boorishness in which he daily reveled. House looked away, not wanting to say too much about it.

“It was a gift.”

“Some gift.” His eyes fixed on the elegance with which she touched the pieces, as she insisted on examining each one—the intricacy of detail in the enamelwork and the carving. “This must be worth a fortune.” She picked up another piece, this time the king; House mesmerized by the way she seemed to caress it. He broke his gaze, perusing the board.

“Black or white,” he asked, impatiently, infusing his voice with a forced annoyance. “Or are you planning to simply sit there all night and touch the pieces?”

“Fine. White. Remember? You’re a black night; said it yourself. Wouldn’t do for you to have possession of the white knight, now would it?”

“Give me time. Six moves, tops, and I’ll have not only both of your precious white knights but your queen at my mercy.”

“That a challenge, House? Care to put your money where your mouth is? Or rather: care to put your money where your mouth is, Sucker?” Cuddy rubbed her hands together in anticipated delight.

“Not money…” He leered dramatically, a sly smile crossing his face. He thought for a moment, the possibilities, and not a few recent fantasies, fleeting through his mind. “First significant piece taken, and pawns don’t count, the loser of the skirmish has to do one thing the winner says.”

“Fine. First ‘check’. Same thing. Lose a queen: two somethings.”

“And checkmate?”

“You win, no clinic for a week. I win you give me double hours in the clinic—no sending of lackeys allowed.”

“Agreed. How about adding something more personal to the final outcome?”

“I thought clinic was personal to you. You hate it more than everything else put together. The bane of your existence, you keep telling me. I can’t think of anything….”

“Loser fulfills one fantasy of the winner. Any fantasy.” His eyes became serious. “I’m not talking sexual…” Cuddy quirked an eyebrow, having assumed that was exactly what he did mean, and was about to quash the notion completely. “Could be a full day in the spa—all expenses paid—for you; trip to Antigua, whatever desired.” The game had suddenly gotten to be pretty high stakes. But she couldn’t convince herself to back down.

“Fine. Can hardly wait. White moves first.”

“I have played this game before, you know.”

“Pawn to King-4.”

Pictures at an Exhibition

Chapter 10

She was a better chess player than House had reckoned. President of the chess club, indeed, he thought puzzling through his next series of moves—and hers, his index finger perched atop his bishop. “Maybe we should have used a timer, House,” she teased impatiently.

“Stop drumming your fingers on the board. It’s not allowed.”

“Hah! Right. By whose rules? Yours?” House removed his finger, satisfied, finalizing the move. The board looked like a battle zone after eight moves. Both were playing their most aggressive game. But neither had claimed an opposition piece. Cuddy smiled broadly.

“What?”

“You are so dead, House,” she laughed evilly, taking his knight with her rook, a gold castle balanced atop a rampant ivory elephant. House cursed himself for his stupidity, falling into a novice trap. “I promise to not report you to the chess police, but you did set yourself up.”

“Yeah, well, maybe I let you take that piece. You know, give the amateur a break.”

“Yeah, right,” she laughed. “Or maybe you were too distracted by my boobs. In any event. What was that wager? You do anything I say?”

“One thing. And not clinic duty. That’s for the winner of the game.”

“Fine.” Cuddy considered the possibilities, pleased, watching House squirm. She reasoned that she could be satisfied endlessly watching him try to figure out what she had had in mind; worrying about the consequences of a lost rook.

“Bzzzt. Time’s up. Thanks for playing.” House examined the board, ready to resume the game. He picked up a pawn.

“No way time’s up. There’s no clock on this.”

“Had your chance…” Cuddy shook her head, ignoring House.

“I want my feet massaged. And I want you to…”

“No, no. One thing,” he warned smugly. “That sounded an awful lot like you were going to add a second component to that request. So request with care, since it’s going to be your only opportunity.”

“Feet, it is. Bare. Half an hour. Minimum.”

“You drive a hard bargain, mysterious lady,” sighed House in an unidentifiable foreign accent. House picked up a pawn.

“What are you doing?” Cuddy’s Cheshire cat grin turned to a scowl.

“I figured we collect after…”

“There’s no ‘we’ in this. I collect. Now.” Her voice was hard, but her eyes were mirthful.

“Fine.” House began to stand, using his left leg and the table for leverage. He tried to supress a grimace, biting his lower lip, a pained gasp escaping through his teeth. He mentally calculated how long it had been since his last vicodin. Too long, he figured.

“You OK?” Cuddy’s eyes filled with concern as House fell back onto the sofa, vigorously massaging his thigh. She knew he hated this: not being able to cover quickly enough; being seen in pain; hurting and (in his eyes anyway) vulnerable. House nodded unsurely.

“I was just going to put on an album,” he breathed, regaining himself. She gave him the time he needed, using the opportunity to get another beer. By the time she returned he was putting an old vinyl recording on the Sota turntable. The room filled with the resonant tone of Charlie Parker’s saxophone. She watched as he took two vicodin, chasing them with a swig from the Grolsch bottle, his back to her. Cuddy wanted to tell him that it was OK. That she understood; she wasn’t going to berate or belittle him for doing what he needed to for the pain. Not today; not anymore. She’d learned that lesson the hard way; and the cost was too high, especially for House.

Cuddy observed him for a moment, noting the heavier slouch to his shoulders; the more difficult gait to his step. When he turned, she caught his eyes, which seemed more melancholy these days; more guarded; more wary. “What?” he asked as she stared at him a moment too long. “I needed to take…” He started to explain, a defensive look darkening his features even more.

“No.” She stopped him. “That’s not it. Sorry…I can see that…” What could she say: that she approved of his taking the meds? The needed meds? Like he needed her approval? No. He had no need to explain himself: to her; to Wilson; to anyone. “Feet,” she commanded randomly, changing the subject, ratcheting down the intensity of the moment.

House sat back in his corner of the sofa, inviting Cuddy to sit again at the opposite end. “Gimme.” She smiled in anticipation, propping her ankles up on his left thigh. “Which is more tense, left or right?”

“Both.”

“Yeah, well who told you to wear ‘fuck-me’ stilettos to work every day. One day someone’s going to take them seriously, you know. Or maybe you’d like that.”

Cuddy said nothing in response, ignoring the teasing, choosing instead to lose herself in the sensation of House’s warm, strong hands manipulating the instep of her left foot. Closing her eyes, she saw them anyway—his hands. They were large, not unexpectedly so, considering his height; but gentle and steady. She imagined him playing his guitar, which hung on the wall near the piano: all grace and precision; or doing a procedure on a patient… She gasped involuntarily as he encountered a particularly tight knot, her gasp only serving to egg him on; increase the intensity of his kneading. He prodded the area just in front of her toes with the pad of his thumb, causing her to sigh. And suddenly his motions turned gentle, becoming more caressing strokes, before, just as suddenly, he switched to the other foot.

House jumped slightly, disturbing the mantle of feeling that had lulled Cuddy into a pool of sensation. She opened her eyes at the movement, regarding him, observing. His own eyes were closed; his face, she noted, was so beautiful when he was in repose like this. Cuddy realized that her foot must have brushed his right thigh, causing him to startle, move it out of harm’s way reflexively. “Did I kick you?”

“No,” he responded almost groggily. “It’s fine…I…” He looked embarrassed, almost, at having been caught enjoying his task nearly as much as she was. Cuddy regretted having said anything; the moment broken. His hands stopped their motion and Cuddy instantly missed their warmth and gentle pressure. As if reading her thoughts, his massage resumed.

The Charlie Parker side had long since ended when House eased Cuddy’s ankles from his lap. “You stopped.” The massage left her as relaxed as a bubble bath would have and twice as aroused. She had wanted him never to stop.

“It’s been well over 30 minutes…and you have a game to lose.” His voice was quiet and husky.

“Sounds like it was quite a burden for you,” she teased, feeling certain that it quite the opposite.

“Just wait till I capture your queen.”

“If. Big ‘if.’ I liked this way too much to let you take my queen.” The seductiveness in which Cuddy enfolded her words did nothing to suppress House’s own arousal. Her feet planted in his lap; the smoothness of them on his calloused fingers sent signals to every pleasure center in his brain. In truth, he really had not wanted to stop. It was something he had to do—for his own preservation. At this point he wasn’t even sure that he could concentrate enough to play chess, let alone win the damn game.

The beer, the vicodin, the company, all conspired to make House feel more than a little buzzed. Cuddy was ahead by one beer, however, which made her sloppy in her play. Three moves until he took her queen with his knight. “Ha! You did that on purpose,” he chided. “Only a novice leaves their queen unprotected like that.”

Cuddy actually hadn’t seen it coming, her own concentration waning, focusing instead on how wonderful House’s hands had felt on her skin; how they made her shiver and made every nerve ending in her body come alive.

House rubbed his hands together in exaggerated delight. “It is so my turn, Cuddy. And I get two wishes.”

“Tasks.”

“Tomato, tomahto. For task number one, I also want a massage, but not my feet.” He looked away from her, unexpectedly shy, to a spot on the carpet. His voice turned grave, nearly a whisper. “My leg. I…”

“Of course,” she interrupted. She knew what he was asking; he didn’t need to say it. “You’ll need to remove…” she added with no hesitation, putting as much “full doctor mode” behind the words as she could gather. “I’ll get a sheet. Or we could go…” She gestured towards his bedroom. “Your choice.”

“Offering to take me to bed. Who could resist that?”

“It’s a massage.”

“Like I said.”

“In your dreams, House.”

“Every night.” They welcomed the easy bantering, but both knew how difficult it would be to stay lighthearted once House removed his jeans and revealed his leg. He had known it was asking a lot of her—that seeing it would rekindle her feelings of guilt—that his badly scarred thigh would be the elephant in the room that always would stand between them. “Give me a minute.” House retreated into his bedroom down the hall, closing the door.

“I have seen you in your boxers before, House!” she called to him from the hallway. House emerged a minute or two later dressed in a baggy tee-shirt and knee-length jersey work-out shorts. “Where are you going? I thought…”

“In your dreams, Cuddy. Sofa’s fine.” House had considered the two venues, opting for the living room when he realized that his bed was, at this particular moment, the most dangerous place in his apartment. He was still aroused enough from giving the foot massage, that he would not easily be able to control his feelings, or anything else, once she began touching his leg—therapeutically or not.

“Where do you want me to start?” Cuddy inquired as House made himself comfortable, his head propped on the arm of the sofa, an old blanket draped across his middle.

“Tip of my toes,” he sighed closing his eyes in blissful anticipation. Cuddy sat on a floor pillow next to the sofa and began to work his toes, one at a time. She knew that his entire leg was probably a mass of knots, tense and overworked as it compensated for missing muscle and damaged nerve endings. House made no secret of the fact that he was in constant pain, but one could only guess at what it was like for him to live like that—knowing that no matter what he did; what drugs he tried; what procedures he experimented with, the horrible truth was that every morning for the rest of his life would be agony.

Cuddy understood too well that drugs only dulled the pain, or made him not care about it. He said that the opiates allowed him to do his job, to focus on something other than how “it” felt. Without them, there was only pain, eradicating all other rational thought. But she also knew they were poison for him: dulling the pain of a harsh life as well as the pain. People knew him as hard, cynical and indifferent to anything but himself. She knew better: that his cynicism was borne of a disillusioned idealism, crushed at too young an age; his seeming indifference an armor against caring too much for anything or anybody; his hardness a shield against too many and too intense feelings.

In a lot of ways, Cuddy thought, she had helped condemn him to this life so long ago. Like Wilson--who had encouraged Stacy argue with House; to go against his wishes; to save his life when he was certainly throwing it away--her friendship with House was an ethical responsibility. She had kept him here; kept him alive, betrayed him; saved him. She didn’t want to lose him; neither had Wilson. Was that so very wrong? House had no survival instincts, and maybe there was a reason for that; some people would call it a death wish; House would call it just not giving a fuck. And maybe what she wanted was selfish and not fair to House: to keep him safe; to keep him…here.

She remembered the last time she had rescued him. Fed up, Stacy had vanished and in her wake, House had blazed through four hospitals, pissing off four deans of medicine; four CEOs. He was a liability. Life sucked and had done his best to let everyone who entered his orbit know it in no uncertain terms. He had pushed everyone away until they stopped caring altogether, throwing up their hands in frustration or disgust—or both. And suddenly everyone was gone; no job, private practice a shambles; his reputation: a case of “what have you done for me lately.”

He had been working in a New York blood bank for $10.00 an hour doing exams; screening for AIDS and other disqualifying diseases. Gigging in seedy, smoke-filled bars on piano, guitar or any other instrument needed to fill in for a night. The blood bank clients were as sullen and silent as he was; and House was fine with that.

There had been an incident with a female patient; Cuddy didn’t know much more about her than that she was schizophrenic and homeless. An ludicrous and obviously untrue accusation had been made and a friend of the woman came after House with a lead pipe, catching him unawares, and in the right leg. By the time the fog of pain had cleared from House’s senses, he had been fired by the blood bank with no chance of appeal. He’d had nowhere else to turn; so he called Cuddy, his voice weak, nearly unrecognizable. It was 11:00 p.m. when he had called; she reached him nearly two hours later as he sat against the building’s rotting wall, legs drawn up to his chest, barely conscious.

Somehow, Cuddy had gotten him back to his flat: a one-room, first-floor hovel in a tenement neighborhood. She had cursed him for refusing to accept PPTH’s settlement offer, throwing it back in all of their faces—his pride never a less attractive trait. “How long has it been?” she had asked, as he had huddled himself into a fetal position on the ratty couch. “How many hours since your last pain meds?” He had shrugged in response.

“Ran out,” he added simply, brokenly. “No cash. No pills.” His eyes had had the vestiges of defiance somewhere within the despair and pain. His words tinged with a sarcasm that had taken far too much effort. Cuddy had brought him back to Princeton, the next morning, caring for him, once again bringing him back to life. Convincing the board that they should take a chance on this broken genius. They, all of them, owed it to him.

Cuddy observed him now, a peaceful smile on his ruggedly handsome features, grateful that he had phoned her that bleak night. Cuddy worked his leg now, not noticing the tears that had formed in her eyes at the memory; she had reached his calf muscles—taut and knotted. House grimaced as she prodded a particularly sensitive spot.

“I thought you had fallen asleep.”

“With all the pain you’re causing me? Who could sleep?”

“I could stop,” she suggested with affection.

“You’re only at the calf. I wasn’t asleep anyway. Just enjoying the spoils of victory.”

“You weren’t victorious, you only got my queen. The victory is still to be determined.” Her deliberate kneading became more gentle strokes as she reached the knee.

“Keep that up and we’ll never find out who wins the match,” he growled sexily. She continued, running the back of her hand over the hardness of his knee, the soft auburn fur that covered his lower leg, causing him to adjust his position. He was far from relaxed at her change of pace, causing her to smile. He sighed as she now alternated caresses with pokes and prods into the tight muscles. “Never mind task two. Just keep doing this…three or four hours should suffice.” And then she arrived at his thigh.

Pictures at an Exhibition

Chapter 11

The quadriceps muscle is actually a group of four distinct muscles that work in tandem to enable a person to lift, walk, climb, and move with ease in different directions. For House, the irreparably damaged quadriceps muscles of his right leg were merely his “scarlet letter.”

House’s quadriceps only served to brand him as “different.” And although even if he had possessed a perfectly healthy and intact quad, House would not be “a normal guy;” he could at least pretend to fit in—when he chose to; when he needed to. Before the infarction destroyed a large section of his quad, House could run; golf, play tennis, enjoy paintball and Frisbee, all the things that allowed him to pretend to “normal;” to escape the persistent racing of his mind, to put him and the people around him on a level field.

And for that moment, seemingly so long ago, but in reality less than a year past, House tasted what it might be like again…if only. But that moment was but a brief few weeks. He willed himself to not let anyone see the devastation left behind by that folly, so he had worked extra hard to gird himself. He pretended that it didn’t matter; refused to discuss it altogether. He increased the distance at which he held everybody, which wasn’t difficult: his own anger and bitterness directed towards himself; at life in general and at anyone who dared offer not-so-helpful advice created a natural and effective barrier. To all eyes, House had simply become a bigger bastard, and that was fine with him. So how had he gotten to this point: Cuddy sitting beside him on the floor, so near; allowing himself to feel; allowing her to touch him; to get to him.

When Cuddy moved her hands from his boniness of his knee to the area just above, she could feel his entire body tense beneath her touch. She stopped. House’s eyes had been closed as she worked his leg; caressed his leg. Now his eyes were open and he was regarding her warily.

The few times he had let anyone touch that area had been only out of medical necessity. The hands that had examined and prodded had possessed a clinical detachment that allowed House to simply ignore the intrusion. But this was Cuddy. And her own hands, although they had poked and prodded their way up his lower leg had also caressed and stroked; and suddenly this did not seem quite as good an idea as when had first claimed her queen.

She had seen it before, he knew. After the surgery when she had told him that the incision “seemed to be healing nicely;” her eyes, not knowing quite where to look, telling the real truth with their tearful sorrow. And then she had seen it again, oh so many years removed from his hospital bed, yet still in agony from the pain he predicted would turn chronic; knew would be intractable; knew he was better off not living at all than living with it. He was begging her then; decorum between them stripped away along with his trousers—making her look; making her see just how nicely it all healed. Knowing it would hurt her to see, but needing her to see, to be reminded in no uncertain terms, that his problem was not in his head, but in his leg. To not be believed, to be forced in to proving it again and again, he reckoned was almost worse than the pain itself. “I need you to give me a shot of morphine in my spine,” he had requested reasonably before her angry tirade began and he dropped all pretense of dignity before her. And she had given him saline; and it had helped. Placebos are a powerful antidote when you want to believe. When you need to believe. He had wanted to die as she revealed her truth to him, pity in her eyes, leaving him standing gape-jawed and pathetic in her office as she went off for morning rounds.

“Do you want me to stop?” House was far away as Cuddy paused at his knee. “House?” She got up from her position on the floor, sitting on the edge of sofa near his elbow. “House? You OK?” House emerged from his thoughts, finally hearing Cuddy’s voice, almost surprised to hear it so near his ear.

“We should get back to our game.” Cuddy was slightly unnerved at the sudden mood shift.

“No way. I didn’t finish my task. In ten minutes you’ll call ‘foul’ and tell me I cheated on your prize—then demand a full body massage or something. So forget it, House!” She smiled cagily, kept her voice light, despite her concern. He peered at her, telegraphing apprehension and wariness. She understood that he wasn’t up to some roguish game here; that he was having second thoughts. “House,” she asserted finally, sighing sadly “I have seen a scarred leg before. I’ve seen your scars before. I don’t know…”

“Please, Cuddy, don’t. I can’t… I…” He placed his hands on top of hers, preventing her from continuing. Cuddy rose from her position and disappeared into his bedroom. She re-appeared a moment later folding a soft, brown merino wool blanket. House was in the same position, his forearm draped across his eyes. Cuddy was slightly surprised that he hadn’t used her absence to sit up and resume his stance at the chessboard. She resumed her position back on the floor, draping the blanket over House’s waist and thighs, putting both hands on his arm. He had missed the warmth of her hands, craved them, but he couldn’t do this.

“House, you need this; you’ve earned it, anyway, by taking my queen. I promise I’ll be gentle. I promise.”

“That’s not it.”

“Then what?”

“No one has…”

“Let me know if I’m hurting you,” she offered, full-on doctor mode, ignoring his protest. Cuddy felt House’s entire leg stiffen as she touched him lightly above the knee. She let her hands linger there beneath the blanket, her touch firming on his leg, allowing him to become accustomed to her.

House felt the warmth of her resting hands, trying to relax into them; to not care that she would recoil as soon as she encountered the deformed area. Cuddy sensed his effort to relax as he breathed deeply several times, patiently waiting him out: neither releasing him or proceeding before he was ready. Several minutes passed before either of them moved or spoke as Cuddy observed House, whose eyes were closed now closed. He seemed more relaxed now and had she not been able to feel the tension still coursing through him, she would have sworn he was asleep.

Cuddy sighed deeply. This was the man who everyone saw as the bastard’s bastard. And, to be honest, so did she, more often than she would have liked to admit. And he was—too often; especially with a ratcheting up in his pain levels. More than the usual amount of stress tended to bring House’s less attractive traits into high relief as well. But Cuddy also saw in him someone who, despite his assertions to the contrary, was a decent man; who would fight tooth and nail for his patients, often at professional and personal risk to himself. He hated the hypocrisy that he saw in the practice of medicine--where doctors worked in their patients best interests only until they came into conflict with their own, or their hospital’s, or their insurance company’s. It was that attitude for which House reserved his most poisonous wrath.

House nodded his head slightly, almost imperceptibly; and Cuddy moved her hands slightly up on his leg. This time he didn’t tense at the movement, but remained still; waiting. She scooched up to gain better access under the blanket as she firmly prodded the edges of the scar with the palm of her hand, careful to avoid the sort of touch that might trigger a flash of nerve pain. She suppressed the catch of her breath as she reached the center of the deeply uneven surface of his thigh, refusing to let on in any way that she had even noticed a change in the pattern of his skin. “You doing OK, House? Let me know if feel anything other than ‘good.’”

“Yeah, fine,” he rasped, willing himself calm, and, to his surprise, succeeding. He let himself believe that it would be OK, that she was a doctor—his doctor as she kneaded the tight muscles surrounding the damaged area, carefully watching his face for signs that he was in pain.

Cuddy moved yet closer as she massaged, so that her body was even with his knee, firmly stroking the outside of his leg from the knee to the hip with her right hand as her left worked the remaining muscle of the damaged area and his inner thigh. House sighed as he felt the pressure increase and subside, causing sensations of pleasure to course through every nerve ending in his body. House perceived a very slight change in the way Cuddy was manipulating his leg. Her strokes were becoming more languorous and less precise; he thought for a brief second that she had scraped her nails gently across the junction between his leg and his pelvis. But it was too brief to be certain, and, in any event, surely a momentary lapse on her part. And then it happened again, as her hands approached the area just below his groin twice more, sending signals right to the pleasure center of his brain.

And then he experienced something new as she kneaded, stroked and prodded his scarred leg: the unmistakable pressure of Cuddy’s moist lips. House gasped. He was lost to the chaos of sensation, aroused and intrigued.

“Cuddy,” he pleaded. She stopped, looking up at him, suddenly embarrassed. It was the last thing he had wanted—for her to stop.

“I’m sorry, I… Did I hurt you? I must’ve…I’m…”

“No. I…” Their eyes caught and held, each looking for permission that had already been more than granted. House pulled Cuddy up to the sofa from where she had been seated, sending the chess set tumbling, forgotten, to the floor.

Chapter 12

“What, do you have some sort of scar fetish, Cuddy? ‘Cause if you do, I wish you would have told me years ago and I would have…” He was stopped mid-sentence by an abrupt, but playful, slap to his upper arm, which was wrapped lightly around Cuddy’s shoulders; his thumb absently stroking concentric circles on her back. “Ow.”

She had kissed his most hated place. And while she had not made it better, as he believed she would have wished, she had done much, much more. She had shown him that it simply and finally didn’t matter to her. “It’s just a damn leg.” Stacy’s words from so long ago came fleeting back to him from some random corner of his memory. She had advocated amputation, an option he refused to accept when he knew that simply waiting it out would be the best option. Full recovery, or nearly. That was his self-described prognosis if only she had listened to him. Dying would have preferable, he believed, than life lived with the sort of pain he only imagined, but intrinsically knew, was on the horizon. Incurable, intractable, constant and for a lifetime. Even had they amputated, he knew that the location of the amputation would almost certainly mean phantom limb pain: as bad or worse than he now experienced even so many years later. “It’s just a damn leg,” she had said.

And then the choice was removed from him entirely, and outside the warm, cottony cocoon of a chemically-induced coma, she, with her good intentions to keep him alive, planned his death. A long and painful death—trapped between a never-ending pain that on most mornings sucked the soul from him—and an addiction to opiates that kept the pain at bay, but threatened everything else.

And then there was the scar: the constant reminder of who he was and who he no longer could be. A scar that ruined him for anyone but the occasional hooker who, if he paid her enough, would ignore it, not recoil from it; not be repulsed enough by it to have sex with him. And Cuddy made it not matter. And, in his own way, he loved her for it. Cherished her for it.

The chess pieces lay on the floor, an orgy of Bengal warriers and princesses in competing colors; and neither House nor Cuddy remembered, or even cared, who was winning at that point. Cuddy’s kisses and caresses had moved from his thigh to regions slightly higher – sensual touches, encouraged by what they were doing to him as she felt him grow beneath her touch. He was out of his mind with arousal and could no longer stand to not be touching her in return.

House had solved the problem by pulling her up onto the sofa with him: what his leg lacked in strength, his muscled arms had in abundance. Cuddy straddled his lap, falling against his chest, continuing her kissing: his neck, his jawline and finally, ending his exquisite torture, his mouth.

House was frantically hungry for her mouth, but willed himself to take it slowly—to tantalizingly savor the taste of her lips, her cheekbones; her neck. When ultimately he made contact with her tongue he nearly melted from the barrage of sensation. “Bedroom! Now!” He rasped barely above a whisper.

House had no idea where he had put his cane down, or where it was now. He would have loved to carry her; she was light as a feather, but some things would never again be possible. Cuddy reluctantly got up from his lap, immediately missing the contact, but understanding that sex with a very tall man afflicted with a bad leg was better accomplished in a bed and not on a narrow sofa—no matter how comfortable. She looked into House’s eyes and saw into him in a way she never had before; his eyes no longer ice blue masks but luminous windows, so transparent that she could see into his soul. She took his hand and helped him from the sofa, and he let her do it.

Their lovemaking was giving and accepting; passionate and comfortable; new and yet somehow familiar. They had been here before, but only that one time; that terrible night when he cried in her arms; the night of the blood bank. It seemed to last forever, if you counted from the beginning of the chess game—now hours ago; but it was over before either of them wanted it to end. It had been too long for both of them.

House’s thumb continued to stroke her shoulder mindlessly. His thoughts were far away. The rational part of his brain lazily fired random thoughts concerning the future: the “what nows?” that would certainly increase in frequency as the hours ticked by.

There had been no “what now?” after the last time with Cuddy. It had been pretty straightforward then: a mistake fueled by her guilt and her compassion when faced with the pathetic form of the wreck he had become. “I hired you because you were a good doctor who couldn’t get himself hired by a blood bank,” she had told him not so long ago. “I got you cheap,” she had reminded him coldly. House shivered at the memory of that night; his apartment dark and damp—hell on his leg—with a mattress set on the floor under a mountain of blankets.

Cuddy looked more like an angel than a doctor: wearing a white sweater and illuminating the dinginess: a beacon calling to him in the dark. He had never believed in God or in heaven, but had never come closer to becoming a believer that night with her. And had his faith not been rocked, pounded, mutilated and destroyed by the time he was eight years old, he might have.

His tears that night had been more from pain than anything else; he had been without medication of any sort for three days and he was strung out and hurting inside and out. He could barely pay the rent, much less the pharmacy bill…and food…well, he had always liked peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. He had been at the end of his emotional rope; and even that was fraying fast. He’d sat on the mattress in the corner of his apartment, watching through wary eyes as Cuddy made soup and instant coffee. She brought the cup to him; his hands were shaking from the cold and withdrawal, so she held it for him, bringing it to his lips, as if her were a small, sick child. He let her; long past any sense of pride.

“Let me help you. Let me bring you back to Princeton. I have an idea.” She had said to him, her hands gentle; brushing the hair from his forehead; peering up into them; wanting to help; wanting him. Needing the redemption from having failed him. He nodded, defeated and miserable, surrendering to her; becoming lost within the compassion of her eyes. Their lovemaking that night was so different then than on this night, when he was confident and playful; serene and attentive; alive, not half dead.

They fell asleep in each other’s arms, tomorrow would be time enough for the inevitable “what now?” to come.

Pictures at an Exhibition – 13

“So, what now?” The beams of morning light streamed onto House’s bed. He had been up an hour or so, taken care of his morning routine and had brewed a fresh pot of coffee. He had wanted to be up long before Cuddy; hadn’t wanted her to see his daily ritual of getting out of bed. That awkward, pain-filled task of lifting, testing and praying to a non-existent deity that his right leg wouldn’t buckle as he applied weight to it, and then cursing when it did. On this particular morning, he tried to keep the cursing silent. But now, Vicodin coursing through his body, pain softened back just barely to white noise levels, he climbed back into bed and waited her out.

The sunbeams lit her like a modern version of a Rembrandt. He had moved the soft duvet gently from her shoulder, wanting to see how the light played there, on her bare skin: it made her shoulder radiant. He replaced the blanket just as gently, wanting not to disturb her sleep; part of him not really wanting to know the answer to that question—the “what now?” that loomed between them. House rolled onto his back, propping his shoulders back against the pillows and throwing his forearm over his eyes as the sunlight crept farther and more insistently into the room’s eastern exposure.

She had sat with him that other night, long ago, when she had rescued him like a wounded puppy, getting him home, holding the cup of tea to his lips until he could feel the shaking subside and then stop. And finally taking it from her steady hands wordlessly—his eyes sullen and guarded. There had been nothing to say, no words to explain, no energy to argue. She had stood and made a circuit around the flat. “What happened to all of your books? Your LP’s?”

“I stored them. Wilson has them.”

“Does he know? About this?”

“He knows.” Cuddy had been shocked that Wilson would have let House live like this; without anything; without medicine. House laughed mirthlessly. “Says it’s my own damn fault. He’s right, of course. Shoulda taken the hospital’s money instead of throwing it back. Shouldn’t have pissed off Stacy; pushed her away until she was so miserable that she the only way should could breathe was to simply leave me. So. Wilson’s the next casualty. Fuck him.” House sucked in a breath, riding the crest of a tidal wave of pain as it tore through his thigh, wreaking havoc in its path. That’s when his eyes lost focus as the pain overwhelmed him; that’s when the frustration, the pain, the grief, living itself had finally become too much and gave into it as sobs wracked his body. House tried to regain control, viciously scrubbing at his eye sockets to remove the evidence of fallen tears before she saw. Cuddy stood at one end of the room, unmoving, letting him have the space he needed, or thought that he needed; House was never one for being touched or consoled. But it was the way he said “It hurts, Cuddy,” that shredded her heart and sent her practically leaping across the room and to his side. She held him; and he allowed it.

“How bad?”

“It’s bad.”

“Can you give me number?” She had no idea if he even knew what she meant. But of course he knew. Numbers were rational; numbers were objective; impersonal. Assigning a number to would give him space; would let him regain himself; would…

“Ten.” His breathing was rapid, panicky; she was concerned that he would hyperventilate and pass out if she didn’t distract him from it.

“House! I need you to relax. I know it hurts. I need you to focus on me. Now!” Her emergency medical bag was in the car. She didn’t want to leave him alone like this until he was back to himself. “I have morphine in my car. But I can’t leave you to get it until…”

“This neighborhood?” he hissed with difficulty. “Have any idea of the street value….?” Cuddy smiled, relieved that House was hanging in there. His breathing was less worrisome now; his eyes were clamped shut as his hands worked at the right quad.

“Be back in a second. OK?” House nodded tightly.

A few moments later he was asleep, curled into a fetal position, his head in her lap. She fell asleep herself sitting up, smoothing the hair from his forehead. She hadn’t had the opportunity to tell him about the offer.

He was better by morning, not by a lot, but it was an improvement. The pain was less; the morphine took care of the shaking too. House listened warily over a four-shot latte as Cuddy described the offer to him. His own department in Diagnostics; full tenure; the only teaching he would be required to do was for his staff of three fellows, which he could hire. He could take his time to settle in, acquire the right staff, take cases. No strings—just an hour a week in the clinic. Salary commensurate with his dual specialties and the reputation he would be bringing to PPTH. Period.

There were always strings; that much he knew—and he also knew that the offer must’ve taken the badgering of Cuddy, Wilson and the hospital’s lawyers to pull off. Threats of lawsuits, nevermind that he had refused the hospital’s settlement; House had lots of grounds for an expensive lawsuit and they knew it. And House would win and probably own half the hospital by the time the dust had settled. They hadn’t had to know that suing was the last thing that House would probably have done. Because that would have meant bringing Stacy into it; making her a co-defendant—and no matter how angry he had been at Stacy, he would never harm her in that way. Cuddy and Wilson knew enough about House to know that much at least.

House had accepted the offer, speechless. Cuddy leaned up to kiss him; a seal on the bargain. Her lips were warm and gentle; fierce and passionate—just like they had been last night…

The light continued to play on Cuddy, now reaching her hair, and finally her eyes. Cuddy turned in the cocoon of the blanket, annoyed at the intrusion of light. Her eyes fluttered open, seeing House watching her; observing her. “Hey,” she said, a timid smile on her face; he seemed so far away.

“So now what?” he asked, more impishly than the seriousness of the question warranted.

“We…uh…go to work. I have an exit interview to do with Foreman. His last day, remember? And you need to hire someone to replace him.”

“That’s it?” He was half expecting to hear a slow backing-off in her voice; regret and an “OK, so this was a mistake, and if you tell a soul, even Wilson, you’re fired.” At least.

“What about….this?” He gestured at the bed and the two of them.

“This….this was nice. But…” Ah, here it comes. He steeled himself for the, oh-so-gentle letting down.

“…Yeah,” he interrupted grabbing for the upper hand. “…But it was a one shot deal. A mistake. We’re much better as arch enemies, anyway…A lot less guilt when I make sexual innuendos at your expense in public.” She cocked her head, at least slightly enjoying the real power she suddenly felt over him—for the first time that she could recall…for a very long time.

“That what you think? What you want?” she asked matter-of-factly. She knew it wasn’t. She had known for months that he wanted this as much as she did. The trick was going to be to make it work…somehow. She waited, wanting him to admit it. Step one.

House sighed dramatically, flopping backwards against the pillows, his eyes sulky. “You know it’s not… I wouldn’t have…if…” She had scooched up very near to him; he could feel her breath tickling his ear. “It’ll never work.”

“Only if you don’t want it to.” Her voice was soft, sensual. Serious.

“I want it to.” He said finally, breathing out a long sigh, removing his arm from his eyes, but keeping his eyes cast at the ceiling.

“Then it will.” She knew the risks and the rewards that this could bring; it could destroy them both or save them. Danger, destruction, ecstasy, delight, all of the above: they had no way of knowing. But the journey would never be boring. Both House and Cuddy were certain, at least, of that.

He made a sudden grab for her. Cuddy moved away, laughing at him as she leapt from the bed. “Ah-ah. Work. It’s late, House. Play is for after work.” He glanced slyly at her, frustrated, but in great admiration for her mad skillz. This was going to be fun.

Chapter 14

Time