Hope

by RochelleRene

A special effort at an angsty fic requested by a friend. House and Cuddy, post "Moving On."

Okay, so this is angst, angst, and more angst. I promise you a fluffy one-shot next, but my dear tweep Vero made a fic request ages ago that I began working on. She wanted something to explain House's actions in "Moving On" with some plausible scenario of how Cuddy could ever get past that. Luckily, she also wanted some exploration of Cuddy's own dysfunction, rather than just House's, which is pretty necessary for having Cuddy get past that.

This was hard. I mean, "Moving On" is this insurmountable monster of an event in this relationship. How can we convincingly write a happy ending? But I thought and thought about the fact that even after that mess, I still rooted for House. And if I did, I have to believe that Cuddy could too. It took me a long time to connect a bunch of brainstormed scenes and conversations into a cohesive whole, but here it is, and I am reasonably happy with it. I am not saying it is an endorsement of that storyline. It's just an attempt to address it.

So "Moving On" happened, but nothing with Wilson dying or fake deaths… basically it's post Season 7 finale.

Vero, this is my best effort, after much thought and revision. The very last lines, in particular, summarize the only way around it in my mind. I hope it satisfies you a little.

Prologue:

The thing about models – psychological, sociocultural, economic – is that they are based on a normal distribution. The bell curve. Most people will do this or that when such and such occurs.

Models are handy. They allow people to make somewhat reliable predictions or educated guesses about human behavior. They allow decisions to be made. People think they know what to do. They think they know what will happen. They think they know what is normal.

But then there are the outliers. These people don't act in predictable ways. That is not to say they are irrational. In fact, sometimes most others behave irrationally and these people cling to rationality with sunken claws and teeth. It also isn't to say they are dysfunctional. People engage in behavior, and whether or not it is "functional" depends on the context: their current circumstances, their future objective, the other people involved.

Two outliers were grieving. They were grieving the loss of each other, and everyone expected them to typically go through denial, to get angry, to bargain, to become depressed, and to eventually accept. That was the model. That is what normal people did, whether rational or not, functional or not.

But these two hung out somewhere else, on the long, gray, blurry tails of the bell curve. And there was simply no telling…

Stage 1: Denial

House felt sick, physically ill. His thought process was so jarred, so overwhelmed with input, he couldn't do what he always did to cope; he couldn't even think. He needed to calm the beehive in his mind, to numb out and make a survival plan, which at that point, ironically, might have been how to die. That's how horrible it was. That's how much he had sunk into this woman. He thought he just might clear his head and decide on death. But he knew that was unlike him and that his brain felt fried, so his first step was to shut the motherfucker down.

He took four Vicodin and fell into bed, feeling the panic wane and the nausea give way to a gentle buzz that let him sleep and figure things out as he dreamt restless dreams.

He knew the stages - denial, anger, blah, blah, blah – and he would just as soon have skipped them. So he conjured a plan. Don't deny the breakup; deny the impact; deny the relationship; deny that it had ever meant what it did. Get high. Get laid. Get massages. Get happy, whatever the cost.

Because this… This despair… It would surely kill him.

And despite it all, he wanted to live… simply because… he didn't want it to be over.

[H]

"Back to work, eh? " Wilson said when House came into his office and dropped onto the couch with a grin, folding his hands behind his head. "Got the heart all mended after a solid week-long juvenile orgy of hedonism?"

"Just what the doctor called for. I am hale, hearty, and ready to focus on avoiding work," House answered. He rubbed his palms together. "Where should we start? Ball game? Bowling? Early lunch that turns into early happy hour and early dinner?"

Wilson gave him a small grin. "You sure you're okay?" he asked gently.

House gave him a look of disgust. "Come on, Mr. McFeely. I'm fine. There are plenty of other fish in the yellow pages."

"Says the man who rarely goes 'fishing' and just had to cut the line."

House sighed heavily. "I was never that invested, Wilson. I knew it was doomed."

There was a pause while Wilson thought about the obsessing over apologies, about the life-or-death drama with Cuddy's mother, about the mariachi band auditions. He wondered what "invested" would look like as he studied him. "It wasn't doomed. Why would you think that?" he asked him.

House's face was flat. "Come on. It started as an experiment. She wanted to see if it we could work." He blinked, then looked casually out the window. "That's what she'd said. Like an old record player you find in the basement or the pen in the back of your drawer." Wilson watched him. He saw a slight downward twitch at the corner of his mouth. "You know, if it works, great. If it doesn't, no big loss."

"House, I don't think that's how Cuddy was looking at this-"

"Yeah, well, you weren't there, Wilson," he snapped. He took a little breath. "It was a blip. We just had to get it out of our systems and we did. So, moving on…" he made a circular gesture with his hand. "When's your last meeting of the balding and benign? I wanna play hookie."

Wilson looked at him sadly and internally debated how hard to push. If this was his process, well, at least he wasn't holed up in a hotel anymore. He actually came to work, so it was progress right?

"I'm free after 1," was all he said.

House nodded, satisfied and walked to the door. He paused with his hand on the knob. He didn't look at Wilson, but said, "I can't talk about it anymore, okay? So just shut the fuck up so I can hang out with someone I don't have to pay for."

Wilson nodded. "Alright," he agreed. "Just know I'm here if you change your mind."

House audibly exhaled, turned the knob, and walked out.

[H] [H] [H]

Cuddy was a similar creature, really. She thought she could think her way out of the consequences everyone else had to face. She was smart, diligent, stubborn. She would not feel this failure. She'd skip over it all - cutting to the chase - right to acceptance. She was resolute and lock-jawed in the face of House, of Wilson, of her own reflection. He'd betrayed her trust and she had done what had to be done. That's all.

Like House, she wasn't going to deny the breakup; she was going to deny that it was a loss. There had never been a future to mourn, no substance to grieve. He was beyond repair, and she'd never denied that. She hadn't really told him she was faithful in his ability to fix himself. She'd shrugged off the question, like when a patient begs to know if he is going to live and she tells him they are doing all they can. It was the truth, yes, but also implied the lack of hope.

So she'd done what had to be done eventually, right? She was merely being efficient… There was no way the relationship was going to work, so she took care of things. She had physically swept her hands of it as she walked down the stairs from his door, brushed his panicked eyes from her mind with a sweep of her hair. She pushed the knot in her stomach down as far as it would go and got up each day after that to do what had to be done.

She had a life to live… even though… she didn't want it to be over.

[H]

"It was good of you to go to him," Wilson told her as she was finally getting ready to return home after House's middle-of-the-night surgery.

"I just helped out a colleague."

Wilson laughed. "Yeah. Like a ride to the airport. A five dollar loan." He shook his head at her.

Cuddy rolled her eyes. "What was I gonna do, Wilson? Leave him to die in his bathtub?"

"You could have called an ambulance, someone else," Wilson answered. "But that would have… just devastated him. I'm glad you were strong enough to go."

"I've always been strong enough to handle House," she answered immediately, leaning against the door jamb wearily as she buttoned her coat, not meeting Wilson's eyes.

"I'm just trying to compliment your maturity, Cuddy," Wilson clarified. "It's all different now and you still- "

"Nothing's different," she said, snapping her gaze up to meet his. "It's the same old shit."

Wilson chuckled condescendingly. "Yeah. Except that you were in love with him and he was being an idiot and risking his life."

Cuddy smiled sadly. "The same old shit."

Stage 2: Anger

So House's plan hadn't exactly worked. It might have if Cuddy hadn't been in his face so much - wanting to talk, wanting to be friends, wanting to be so fucking healthy. It was hard to deny the existence of something when someone intermittently insisted on processing its demise. So he'd gone on autopilot, answering her questions, making the small talk. He stayed on the drugs that kept the sadness at bay.

Then her goddamn hairbrush. He'd wanted to return it, particularly because it kept interrupting his little this-never-happened mantra every time he showered or peed. But even acknowledging it was there - and needed to be returned - pulled him back to reality enough to make his face twist with the pain. So it sat there.

But she'd asked for it and he was more than happy to finally pull that Band-aid off before getting shit-faced with Wilson. They had been civil a few times and it seemed like they might just pull this thing off without the all that ugly pain and recovery.

He would always remember the feeling of that brush handle in his hand, the swoosh of the bristles against his pant leg as he'd carried it up the walk. It was the last thing he had sensed before he was senseless.

Oh, he would never pretend he'd been insane, or even high enough to justify what he'd done. All he had been was angry. So indescribably angry that it needed a way out of his body. It was that anger one initially feels with a shock. Appall? Was that the word for it? But it doesn't subside with deep breaths or calm thoughts. It grows. It grows so that any other thoughts have no room. They pass through the brain like people falling from trees or rooftops, with nothing to grab onto because the anger is a slick, disgusting ooze that covers anything tangible.

He'd thought of carnage. A passing warning, like a siren on an ambulance that eventually turns and doesn't pass you. He'd thought of consequences, but like a gnat or fruit fly, he brushed the thoughts aside with a furious flick of the wrist. He'd thought of her physical body, or Rachel's… And at every moment after the act that thought had filled him with a self-loathing unlike any he'd ever experienced. But in that moment – in that fury of seeing her life so happy and full of potential while he tried to swallow suffering like vomit in his throat – these thoughts were wisps of dandelion fuzz soaring on a putrid wind.

The putrid wind was made up of the following: How could she have done this to him? How could she have stacked the deck so against him, testing him with secret tests and asking him to become something he wasn't overnight? How could she have denied him his one other solace in the face of losing his first? How could she be fucking laughing and eating and living her fucking life, so unmarred by it all?

So in spite of the rational things he should have been thinking, these were the thoughts that took over. And as he tried to drive away, he composed a response that could only be expressed with dramatic flair: I mattered. I did something to you. I affected you. I was in your fucking life, goddammit, and if you want to pretend it never happened I refuse to let you.

I mattered, was what he was thinking when metal hit brick and glass and he exploded into her house the way the anger had exploded into his heart.

[H]

House rushed around the apartment, throwing some clothes and pills into a duffel bag. His phone kept ringing and he kept ignoring. After booking a flight and calling a cab, he called his mother, told her he'd be unreachable for a while.

"Where are you going?" she asked him.

"I don't know," he snapped, "I just wanted to warn you… They'll probably come looking for me," he cautioned.

"I need to know what's going on," she protested. "What did you do, Greg? How bad is it?"

The words reverberated in his head. How bad is it? "I have to go, Mom."

"I'll help you," she pleaded. "Tell me what happened. I will help you."

House stood straight and stared at the back of his closet. He took a few deep breaths. There was the honk of a taxi. "You don't get it. There's no helping me," he replied. He dropped his phone in the toilet, limped down the hall, grabbed his keys, and was gone.

[H] [H] [H]

If his anger was an explosion of fire and smoke, Cuddy's had been a harmless puddle of gasoline until it met his heat. Then it ignited and devoured her.

There was an emotional cascade, initially. The jarring What the hell is happening? as his car came through her wall. Then the puzzled How did I not see this coming? as he walked away from her. Then the logistical What do I do now? but she was thinking about her guests, funnily, not her life.

Her anger was not over his destruction, nor the relationship. She was angry that he hadn't allowed her to usurp the human reaction. She had tidied this up and moved on and now he was forcing her to acknowledge it had not only existed, but been significant enough to cause this.

It didn't match her rewrite: We met, we flirted, we dated, we tried, we moved on. So she tried quickly editing the rewrite, amending things to match these newer events, while still denying he could really hurt her: We met. He was incredible. I was naïve. He was a mad man. I drank his Kool-aid. But I eventually saw the lunatic he was.

"At least it's finally over," Julia had said, sitting next to her on the stoop of her broken home, just hours after.

At least it's finally over… It's finally over… It's over. Cuddy closed her eyes. She spoke to him psychically as the fury lit her veins on fire. Fuck you, House. Fuck you for making us an "it." Suffer. Rot in jail. Die there. Die unhappy, somewhere. I hate you… I hate you… I wish I didn't… But I can't help it.

[H]

She drove Wilson to the hospital. He'd insisted on staying there while she sat through hours of police interviews, his arm clearly broken. He'd sat there with her, his arm in a sling, just watching the chaos unfold. So even though it felt bizarre to leave her house with a hole in it, to delay going to Rachel, she felt she owed it to him.

They were silent all the way to the hospital. They both just watched the passing headlights of oncoming cars, the shadows on the streets, the lights twinkling out of happy homes.

It wasn't until they pulled into Cuddy's parking spot and she cut the engine that she was overwhelmed. She kept her hands on the steering wheel, laid her head against it and sobbed silently, her body convulsing with the waves of her emotions. Wilson sat there with her, but dared not speak or touch her. He knew she just wanted him there, but didn't want him to attempt comfort or normalizing of this craziness.

"How could I have been so wrong?" she finally asked the universe, straightening up and wiping snot from her face.

"Cuddy," Wilson said quietly. "Don't do that. This is so unequivocally not your fault."

"I made a grave error, Wilson. At some point. If he was always capable of this, how could I have thought he was a potential functional partner? And if he wasn't, how did I so mishandle this that he became capable of this?"

"He's… Sick, I guess. He's on drugs. He's emotionally beyond fucked up. He's…"

"You're facing the same question," she laughed bitterly. "He was my… boyfriend, whatever. He was your best friend."

They sat there in silence, the was floating there ominously.

"He's not dead," Wilson stated matter-of-factly.

Cuddy tucked her lips into her mouth and Wilson saw fresh tears pool along her lashline. "He is to me," she whispered.

Stage 3: Bargaining

Cuddy got over her anger with the thought that maybe, in a weird way, it had been for the best. Maybe he had forced her to do the things that really would allow her to pretend this never happened, that there was nothing to grieve. She could find a new home, new job, new boyfriend. If she did all that - she asked fate - could she just shake him off, like dust from her feet? Could she just be rid of him, once and for all? That was the deal she struck. She'd give it all up and start over, if he could be unthreaded from the fabric of her life… an errant piece of lint.

In the following weeks, Cuddy felt like he was always watching her. He was "at large" which meant he could be anywhere and she had assumed he'd be near her for some reason. Well, for many reasons. So she put on a front of being calm, cool, collected. She moved through her days with businesslike affect and efficiency, making sure every hair was in place. Ironically, the ever-present thought of him motivated her to act as if he was the furthest thing from her mind.

Then she received a phone call when they had caught him, informing her that she could relax because he was now "in custody." And instead of feeling safer, better, she felt totally at sea. She had anchored herself to him, all these years, and she felt overwhelmed by an ocean she could now sail, moving in any number of directions because she didn't have this thing holding her back, weighing her down… defining what was home.

[H]

"So he is going to prison. How does that feel?" her therapist asked her.

Cuddy thought about that. The minute the officer had assured her he couldn't get anywhere near her, it squelched the anxiety that had been coursing through her so thoroughly that she had grown used the constant tremor. But she felt empty. She felt lonely. She felt bored.

Cuddy bit her lip. "It's a relief."

"Why is it a relief?"

"Because he's in custody. He can't hurt me." She didn't like this conversation and wanted to just say what she was supposed to say.

But her shrink probed. "Are you afraid of him hurting you?"

"He drove his car through my dining room."

There was a pause.

"Are you afraid of him hurting you?"

A montage of ugly images ran through Cuddy's mind. House yelling at her, glaring at her, sneering at her, screaming at her. Twenty-five years of intermittent anger.

"No. I'm not afraid of that."

"Why not?"

"I know he knows how to hurt me. That he's capable of it. I've always known that…" Her shrink nodded. "I'm not afraid of it though."

"What do you feel about it, then?"

Cuddy considered. What did she feel when House hurt her, besides, well, hurt?

The thing is, when it came to the hurting potential, she gave him a lot of credit. Maybe too much. He had a zillion demons, from birth to the present, waging war in his emotional psyche. The fact that he kept it together at all was remarkable to her. And the fact that he kept it together for her gave her such a feeling of power, it was exhilarating. He'd chosen her. He'd try to be better, for her. Try not to hurt her, however unsuccessfully at times. She was invited into his damaged world, and she was honored.

Oh, she was intelligent enough to know how sick that was. She'd read the self-help books, watched the talk shows. She saw herself in a million other fucked up women and knew she just hid it better. She hid her obsession with a broken man, her singular focus on being his salvation.

The thing was, she didn't know if she wanted to be that for him, or for herself. It was either altruism or selfishness, and she hadn't had time enough to figure out which yet. Either way, there was egotism involved.

So how did she feel about him hurting her? Truth be told, it was worse than making love, better than apathy. She couldn't stand his apathy. It was thorough, impenetrable, and merciless. When he decided to act indifferent towards her, she could cut her fucking arm off and he'd give a neutral reply and excuse himself. It didn't happen often, but it always scared her shitless. She'd rather him hurt her, than ignore her.

"Lisa, what do you feel when he hurts you?"

"I feel guilty. I feel sorry." She may as well be honest at 150 bucks an hour.

"You feel guilty when he hurts you?"

"I feel guilty that I couldn't help him enough."

"Help him what?"

"Help him be better."

The therapist looked at her with a steady gaze, but pursed her lips. "Lisa, you know that is not your job. You cannot fix another person."

Cuddy snorted. She said nothing.

"Lisa?"

Silence.

"This was not your fault."

Cuddy took a deep breath. ""At least it's finally over."

[H] [H] [H]

Bargaining was harder for House because in bargaining, there is the implicit belief that you are bargaining with someone. He could never find solace in a god or a karmic destiny or even some energy field that organized the chaos in some way.

So he was forced to bargain with her, in a private and sick way.

He DDx'd himself as he stared at the ceiling of his jail cell. Had he taken too much Vicodin? Had he meant to fake them out and lost control of the car? Had the combination of euphoric chemicals and depressive chemicals coursing through his brain over those weeks finally caused a mental break?

There had to be an explanation because surely it couldn't be that this had mattered that much. It couldn't be that someone had gotten in far enough to rip his heart out and cause him to turn into a deranged psychopath. It couldn't be love or need or hope that had anything to do with it, because those things weren't destructible by blunt force. Those things would survive and worm in his brain like prions.

So he never spoke her name when he explained his crimes to people. He pretended it had been a random act of violence, a vandalism gone awry. He had truly been sociopathic, he implied, caring nothing about the worth of another human life… because at this point, that beat caring.

If he did this, separated his crime from her, removing Cuddy from any node in this chain of events, maybe he could move on as soon as he got out of this shithole. Maybe he could finally be free of her, wherever he ended up. He had no idea where she was and wanted no part of finding out because her vanishing allowed the charade. It didn't matter. Isn't that what he'd been thinking as he pressed down on the gas pedal? It didn't matter.

[H]

Dr. Nolan was his sole visitor in prison. When House had been told - four months into his sentence - that someone was there for him, he thought there must be a mistake. When he was assured there wasn't, he had pressed his hand to his stomach, physically pushing back that hope that had started to rise up, not dead yet after all. It's Wilson. It's Wilson, he kept telling himself as he was led down the cinder block hallway. It couldn't be anyone else… He pushed against his stomach harder and reminded himself it couldn't be anyone else.

So when he saw the wide open face of his doctor he took a few seconds to even place him. It was such a strange context. He sat and just stared at him through the glass until Nolan picked up the plastic phone receiver, cuing House to do the same.

"How are you, House?'

"Confused," he replied. Nolan raised his eyebrows in question. "What the hell are you doing here?" House asked him.

Nolan sighed. "I felt the impulse to see you. To reach out."

"Four months in?" House taunted, leaning back in his chair, trying to look nonchalant.

"It took me a long time to decide if this visit was appropriate. If it would help or hurt you."

House smirked and shrugged. "Well, it helps you," he told him. "I can scratch you off my hit list now."

Nolan smiled sadly. "You aren't a sociopath," he told him.

House smiled bitterly. "Wanna testify to that at my parole hearing?"

"I would," Nolan assured him.

House's smile faded. "Wanna follow me around when I get outta here? Tell that to my friends and family?"

Now Nolan smiled a little bitterly. "That's your job."

They sat in silence for a minute.

"Why are you here?" House asked him again.

Nolan's lips were tight. "I just wanted to know if you were okay."

House swallowed a lump in his throat. "And?"

Nolan shook his head a little. "I don't know."

House laughed. "Some shrink."

"I've never been able to tell with you. I… I need a Greg House of psychiatry to diagnose what the fuck is wrong with you."

"Yeah, well," House ran a hand through his hair. "Even when you diagnose it, it can be bad news."

"Yeah," Nolan said wearily. "But sometimes it's not. Sometimes the patient gets better, and has a whole new appreciation for what was almost lost."

House leaned forward, resting on his elbows, weary. "They appreciate it if it's all lost too."

Nolan nodded. "I guess that's something."

"Yeah."

Stage 4: Depression

Though no one would know it, Cuddy was depressed. The paperwork and interviews and questions from friends and colleagues and contracts and explanations and tasks were over and there was no drama to distract her. There was just life. Mundane, everyday life. So Cuddy worked. Rather than lie around not getting out of bed, she just worked her ass off.

She had goodness, of course. Her job was challenging and interesting. Rachel was amazing and loving. She dated a little. But she missed that catalyst he had been for everything. Everything had had more meaning because it was somehow attached to him, for better or worse. So much of what she felt, she felt about him. And now there was this gaping void, with nothing incredible enough to fill it.

People could be incredible, but that didn't mean you should be with them, she told herself. It didn't mean you got to be with them. Didn't mean it was love. Still, she felt a need she logically couldn't satisfy, like an addict who fought to stay sober. She was never content.

[H]

"Are you sure?" Wilson asked her, sitting in Cuddy's living room amid the moving boxes. "He's in prison, Cuddy, for at least a year longer. He can't be here. You might… feel differently in a few months. You might heal."

"I've made my decision, Wilson. We're leaving."

"Cuddy, don't let him take everything you've worked for. Don't let his dysfunction destroy what you've built here."

Cuddy snorted. "You mean like a car can destroy a building?"

"Don't give him the satisfaction of thinking he wrecked your life."

Cuddy looked at Wilson sadly. "He doesn't think that, Wilson. That wasn't even his intent." Wilson looked at her with a question in his expression. "He was wrecking his life. It took me a long time to figure that out, but he was trying to rub out any last remnant of hope he had left."

Wilson considered her theory. "Why would he do that? Why would anyone want to lose hope?"

Cuddy sighed and sunk deeper into her chair. "Hope is the thing that keeps leading him into hurt," she told him.

"Oh, don't martyr him, for Christ's sake, Cuddy. Pardon the pun."

"I'm not excusing him. I'm not elevating it to an act of valor. I'm simply saying I understand it now. It was either do the unthinkable, the unforgivable, or keep hoping for the unattainable. He had to do something so significant, that we were impossible. He had to act like I didn't matter to him because he knew that was the way to make sure he no longer mattered to me. So he could let go."

"Closure," Wilson summarized. Cuddy nodded.

"So why not you? Why didn't you let him die in his bathtub or fire him or push him out of the realm of possibility?" Wilson asked. He was getting heated, needing to understand why House was so different from everyone else, from all the normal people that got closure in a drunk dial or rebound relationship.

"I don't believe that love has to hurt me," she answered. "He does."

"He's a brilliant man, Cuddy. He knows the idea that love always hurts doesn't make any sense."

"Not always. Just him. It always hurts him."

[H] [H] [H]

House welcomed the depression like an old friend. Yes, he was depressed that he could not properly grieve this thing like a normal person. He was depressed that he was so broken, processing what she'd meant to him would destroy him. He was depressed that he was beyond repair, caught in a no man's land because the tunnel he had to go through to get out was too long, too dark, and too awful to enter.

So life sucked, but he was comfortably used to that. It was worse than before, though, because she had always been this tiny little light at the end of that tunnel. He'd told himself that if he ever got it together enough to go through it, to do the work, he'd see her in the end. Now it was just blackness, so he truly had no options. There was no point in stealing up to leave, yet there was nothing for him here.

He went back to work when Foreman beckoned because it was the best option he had. He wanted familiarity because it was impossible to blaze a new trail when he had no ambition, no hope of life being anything noteworthy again. He just had to get through the days and go home. He just had to accept that there was nowhere else to go.

[H]

Chase entered the DDx room late one night, returning for his cell phone that he'd left on the table. He saw House in his desk chair, with his back to the room, his feet propped on the shelf. There was a bottle of scotch on the desk. There was music playing softly.

Chase internally debated it for a few moments, but decided to stick his head in. "House?"

House turned for a moment, jarred out of his reverie, then looked back out the window. "Yeah?"

Chase hesitated again. "It's late… You all right?"

"What are you doing here?" House deflected.

"Forgot my phone," Chase said, holding it up as a feeble excuse for prying into the man's privacy. House nodded. Chase jerked his head at the bottle on his desk. "You need a ride?"

House shook his head. "No. I have stuff I'm going to do here."

"Drunk and case-less?" Chase teased gently. "Come on, mate. I'll take you home."

House nodded, stood, and grabbed his stuff. No anger. No defensiveness. No mockery of Chase's Australian nickname.

They walked to the parking garage in silence, and Chase drove House home. When they got to his building, he was at a loss for words. He reminded him, strangely, of himself post-Dibala. He was trapped in his own mind, playing and replaying things with a maddening commitment.

So he said all he could with that connection. "It's gonna be okay, House."

House paused just before the painful effort to stand. He sighed. "I know. That's all it's gonna be." He got up and limped into his building.

Stage 5: Acceptance

She thought of him every day. For a long time she straddled a line between depression and acceptance, refusing to wake up sad every day, but also refusing to find new joy. She felt like she was on pause, or like she kept rewinding a scene or rereading a passage. She felt like the finale came too soon, and was written all wrong. And everyone knew it. But it was over.

She had finally grown resigned to it - accepting what it was instead of trying to make it what it should be. She accepted that it had been important – perhaps the most influential relationship of her life.

She had tried to walk that line between the man having been a fleeting error-of-judgment and the man having mattered more than any person in her life, but she finally couldn't deny the fact that she thought of him every day. She finally had had to ask, accepting that it had mattered and that she could not grieve it because it was not over: "How is House, Wilson?"

[H] [H] [H]

He thought of her every day. Sometimes it made him almost happy. He'd remember different encounters over the years, the way their paths kept bringing them together. He'd remember her humor, her intelligence, her strength and patience. Sometimes it made him sick. He'd remember making her cry, embarrassing her, scaring her. He'd remember the fact that he could have killed her, and he wondered how it was possible.

He had to accept that it wasn't nothing. It wasn't a failed experiment, a capricious encounter. He had to face that it had happened and it had ended and it had leveled him, because he finally couldn't deny the fact that he thought of her every day. He finally had had to ask, accepting that it had mattered and that he could not grieve it because it was not over: "Where is Cuddy, Wilson?"

Epilogue:

Cuddy was staring at the light brown color of her café au lait, her hands wrapped around it like a life preserver. She hadn't taken her coat off, though the café windows were steamy. Her legs were crossed tightly and her teeth were lightly clenched. Just then, a weathered male hand rested lightly on the table.

House saw her eyelashes flutter, though she didn't look up.

She heard that familiar rumbling voice murmur, "Hi," and she nodded her head in response… all she could manage so far.

House sat down across from her and she finally met his eyes. He couldn't read her expression at all. They sat in silence for a couple minutes, and it was bizarrely comfortable. Truth be told, it was relief.

"How was prison?" she finally asked, the edge to her voice dulled from over-practicing the line.

"Boring."

She didn't know what to say to that. She finally settled on, "Then you didn't suffer enough."

One corner of his mouth pulled up into a sad grin. "People get bored by what they're used to."

Cuddy chuckled bitterly and shook her head. "Yeah, poor poor suffering House. A life of pain. A life of excuses. Must be hard just doing whatever the hell you want and blaming it on your inner demons."

He just watched her. He didn't know what to do. Part of him thought he should let her talk, let her rant and purge it all. But that seemed patronizing. Part of him wanted to respond, to make some feeble attempt at letting her into his head. But that seemed futile. So he was left just sort-of looking at her, his mouth half-open to speak.

"What is this?" she asked, gesturing toward his face. "Shock? You're surprised I'm angry?"

"I'm not surprised, Cuddy. I'm… not sure what to do. I didn't think this through. I'm not usually this impulsive."

"You drove a car into my dining room!" she shouted. "That was pretty impulsive."

"You dumped me the day we found out you would live!" he shouted back. "That was pretty impulsive."

People glanced at them and Cuddy lowered her voice, leaning into him a little across the table. "You're not, seriously, trying to equate the two."

"I'm just saying people do unexpected things when they have been hurt."

Cuddy laughed and sneered at him. "Okay, yeah, House. I broke your heart and you tried to kill me." She shrugged. "Seems fair."

"I didn't try to kill you."

"Hmm. Funny. The car barreling into my dining room must have had some subtler message."

"I don't know how to explain it, except that I would never have…" He didn't want to even dignify the idea with oration. He just shook his head and looked down at his hands folded on the table.

"Why are you here, House?" she asked him with a heavy sigh.

"Are you happy?"

"Yup."

House sighed. "All right… I see ya around." He rose from the table, making a move to leave.

"That's it? You fly here to ask me that and you're going?"

"You said yes."

"What if I'd said no?"

He squared himself to the table again, looking down at her. "If you'd said no, I would know that A. My theory that neither of us can be happy without the other might be true." She looked at him, trying to remain expressionless. "And B. that you weren't gonna bullshit me because I know you and I know you aren't happy."

"So what is this? You wanna get back together, House? Just make the 'til death do us part' an ironic part of our wedding vows?"

"I told you I would never…" He sighed, sat back down. "Cuddy, I need you in my life. That's the only thing I know for sure about all that happened."

He needs you in his life. Wilson's words had been etched on her heart since the beginning of the end, and here he was admitting it himself.

He looked into her eyes. "I know I don't have any right to it, but I never did and you still gave it to me. Can I just have a tiny piece of you? Can I see you? Just… sometimes see you?"

Cuddy felt her chest get tight and she made her brain take over, willing her emotions to stay locked up until she was away from him. "Why?" she said quietly, afraid to try to voice more.

"I just told you."

"I mean, what's the point?"

"To have a point," he answered. "You're the point of it all."

"What all?"

"My life, all. The point of my life."

Cuddy willed herself to feel nothing, at least not yet. "So this is classy. I need to let you see me or you'll kill yourself or something?"

"Thought about that. But I couldn't do that to you." Her face softened a little as she met his earnest eyes again. "I know it would hurt you and I've done enough of that." Cuddy moved her hands to her lap because they were shaking. "I know I have no right," he repeated, "but I just want a little more to look forward to than simply not hurting you more."

Cuddy stared at her coffee again and let the thoughts reel in her mind.

"That's why I asked if you're happy. If you're not… It can't hurt anything to..." he shrugged, acknowledging there was no label for this thing he was proposing.

"Can't hurt," she murmured into her lap.

[H] [H] [H]

They met for coffee again before he left town. Six weeks later he returned and they had lunch. They saw each other pretty much monthly after that, for meals or drinks. And she went from feeling self-righteous and charitable to feeling the anticipation building in her the entire week before a meeting. She'd be distracted at work by picturing him packing the night before, or sitting on the plane. She was distracted by imagining his life.

And that's how it happened. That's how she found the familiar groove of living for the possibility of loving him again. And that's how frank conversation turned to conversation studded with laughter and eventually peppered with innuendo. It's how monthly dates began having weekly, then daily phone calls in between them. It's how they re-connected.

The climax of their dysfunction began receding, a spike of horror that seemed to erode as the reasons they were drawn to each other pooled again, becoming so deep that the pain receded into its depths. Cuddy would go home at first and feel dirty, like she'd indulged in a chauvinistic fantasy or shopped online while at work. She'd recognize how it could have happened, but chastise herself for giving in to something her intellect knew was wrong. But even that feeling was familiar. That's how it had always been between them: She resisted the ever-present pull she had toward the man who was all wrong for her. Perhaps there were no limits to what she'd forgive him for. And she wasn't claiming that it was romantic or healthy. Just true.

And that was what she told herself when they were hugging goodbye once and his lips found hers. Well, they "found" hers as they trailed from her forehead down to her temple, her cheek, her chin, then eventually made contact. It was a dark fall evening under the awning of the restaurant, where they were supposed to part ways.

He didn't move anything else at first, keeping his hands fixed on her back where they'd embraced her, his eyes gently closed. He hadn't even allowed himself a breath. He let only his lips move across hers as he drank in the feeling and waited to see if he could have more.

She was equally cautious and so they stood there for a minute, their partially-parted lips linked and slipping over each other. He murmured against her warm mouth, "I didn't mean to… I just… I can't help it, Cuddy…"

Cuddy exhaled against his lips. "Does that mean we should stop or not stop?" she laughed breathlessly.

"It's just why," he said before she captured his bottom lip between hers. He kissed her deeply, wrapping his coat around her shivering body as the wind whipped against them.

She was an idiot. She was weak. She was foolish, stupid. She was forgiving and forgetting years of problems, a heinous act, just because she was obsessed with him. She would think she was a cliché if he wasn't the antithesis of one. But she accepted it. She accepted her feelings for what they were and told him, "Take me with you."

His brow furrowed in conflicted thought for just a moment before he took her hand firmly and led her to the small parking lot. He paused between their two cars, parked on opposite sides of the aisle. He turned his body to hers and pulled her close, looking down into her upturned face, searching her expression for guidance. "Cuddy," he said before kissing her again.

Cuddy felt his hand in her hair, holding her head to kiss her more deeply. His other found her fingers and they entwined. They were so lost in each other they both jumped when a car horn honked abruptly at them and they had to shuffle out of the way. They were leaning against Cuddy's car now, laughing at themselves between still more kissing. "Cuddy," he said again. "I think… I think you should go home." Cuddy was stunned. This was the first time in their lives House had been the one to slow things down. She looked at him like he was crazy, still smiling. "I know. I know. I know I'm going to kick myself over and over again for this," he explained, "But not as much as I will if I screw this up."

Cuddy moved to her tiptoes to greedily reach for his mouth again. "You aren't screwing anything up," she told him.

He took her face in her hands, unable to stop himself from kissing her back and speaking between tastes of her mouth. "Cuddy… I finally… have that feeling back. I… I'm hopeful… Glad to wake up in the morning." He paused kissing her and looked into her eyes, still holding her face. "I just need to give you time to think about this. Because if we go too far and you tell me we can't… That I can't see you anymore…" He smiled sadly at her, shook his head a little. "I can't go back there."

"You won't," she assured him, still pulling at his clothes and limbs. He took her hands and held them, pinning them to his chest.

"When people are dying," he said earnestly, "When they know it's all over, they all talk about the same thing – what they would give for one more day. One more day of this bullshit. One more breakfast, one more shower, one more orgasm, one more rotation around this planet's axis. And it used to seem so silly to me. What difference would one more day make? But I get it now, Cuddy. It's hope. Hope that there is more happiness. And I know it because I felt it. I would lie on my bed in a prison cell and think about you and the complete endness I had created and I would have done anything for one more time with you. One more encounter. Something that offered the hope that I could feel happiness again. You're it, Cuddy. You're my days."

"That's not healthy, to have so much of yourself wrapped up in another person," she said robotically.

"Who gives a fuck as long as you have that other person?!" he cried out. "People tell you it's not healthy to make you feel like there's another option when you've lost her. And there isn't. I'm sure of it. There's you or there's misery, Cuddy. And I'm an unhealthy bastard, but that's the way it is."

"What does that make me?" she cried back.

House smiled at her with wide hopeful eyes. He pressed his forehead to hers. "The same, I think."

Cuddy was breathless, her body and her heart trying to process many stimuli at once. "House, I don't need to think. I want this."

He nodded before she'd even finished speaking. "I know. I know you think you do. And," he kissed her lightly on the mouth, then tiny kisses slowly along her jaw, "I want you to want this." She put her hands in his hair, willing him to continue. "But if I take you to my room," - his hands had trailed to her hips and pulled them up hard against his - "And I get you naked," - a hand pulled up until the hem of her skirt was between his fingers - "And do everything I am thinking about doing right now," - he kissed her neck, his tongue licking her skin as he sucked a little of her into his mouth - "If I hold you again and that makes me have to let you go again… I'll die, Cuddy. I think I'll die."

"I won't!... Don't… Just… Let's go. I'm sure." Cuddy was hanging off his neck now, barely able to support her own weight because of what he was doing to her.

House straightened up, held her hips firmly, then reached for her car door with one hand, opening it. "I'll come back in a month. I'll come back in a week. I'll come back in two days." He kissed her mouth gently, then her cheeks, her forehead, her closed lids, the tip of her nose. "I'll be your boy-toy-for-hire. Say the word and I'm here." He laughed quietly. "I just want you to decide when your brain has full circulation."

"House?" It was all she could think to say.

He grinned down at her. "Please, Cuddy," he said quietly. "I don't want to be afraid the whole time." He smiled at her widely now. "Fear is not hot."

Cuddy's eyes were wide and wet with emotion. She swallowed and nodded, trying to center herself. She arched up to kiss his chin one more time, then slid her hands down his chest. She slipped into the driver's seat. He closed it behind her and leaned against the car for a second, catching his breath. Then he walked slowly to his car, directly across from her, and got in.

Neither car moved. They both sat there, panting, staring at the other's taillights in their rearview mirrors. He felt like if he squinted he could even make out her eyes looking back at his in the red glow. Each inhalation and release that was supposed to calm them only made them think more of being pressed against the other, feeling the other's breath move against them. They sat there for a full five minutes. Then simultaneously they opened their car doors and rushed toward each other, meeting in the same spot as before. House took her in his arms, lifting her up toward him, kissing her fast and hard, like a binge. Cuddy's arms were around his neck again and her hands pulled at his hair, her lips brushing over lip and stubble.

"Come on," he growled, breaking away for a moment to yank her back toward his car. They split for ten seconds while they each climbed in the proper side, but reunited as if they'd been parted for years, devouring each other over the emergency break. Eventually House started the car and drove one-handed while his other hand touched every part of her within reach. Cuddy was heaving and sighing in the passenger seat, delirious with lust. They made out at stop lights like teenagers. When they reached the hotel they tried to compose themselves to walk in like a normal couple, but House's hand guiding her at the small of her back quickly became his hand unabashedly groping her ass, and Cuddy leaning into him affectionately soon became Cuddy practically humping his side. The elevator ride was a blur of fingers and clasps and they made it to his room only held together by a few stitches.

House sat on the bed, circled her waist with his hands and pulled her onto his lap. She looked down at him, her hair curtaining their faces.

"I can't fuck this up," he told her, kissing down her neck. "I want you… so ridiculously much, but…" he pulled back to look at her. "I love you more, Cuddy. Don't do this if it will mean I can't keep seeing you."

"House…" she breathed in her husky voice. " I don't know what this will be," she warned him. "But I've never been able to not see you. I blink and I see you. I breathe and I see you."

And that was all he needed to fearlessly make love to her again. He unzipped her dress with her mouth pressed to his collarbone, nipping and licking the length of it to his shoulder as she slid his shirt from his body. He pulled her dress down and unceremoniously removed her bra, pulling her close to feel her skin-to-skin again. He sighed like an exhausted man falling into bed, then searched for her mouth again in a frenzy. She moaned into his mouth as his hands slid to her ass, his fingers digging deeply into her flesh.

Then House lifted her hips a little and rolled her onto the bed. He stood and slid her dress down her legs so she was lying there in nothing but panties. "Do you have any idea how gorgeous you are?" he asked, standing there just taking her in. Cuddy smiled seductively for a minute, but couldn't hold it and sheepishly covered her face with her hands. "You do and you don't," he assessed. "That's why you're so fucking sexy." He climbed on top of her and Cuddy wrapped her legs around his hips, bucking up to meet him already.

"Why are you so fucking sexy?" she teased back, reaching down to finish opening his pants and slide them over his ass.

"I've been told it's the messiah complex and the limp," he replied. Then he paused, looking confused. "Wait, did Wilson say that made me sexy? Maybe it was gigantic-pain-in-the-ass. I get those mixed up all the time."

Cuddy laughed and pushed against him, rolling him onto his back and pulling his boxers down his body. She straddled him and looked down at his face. House was staring at as much of her as his eyes could take in, slipping his fingers over her thighs, across her hips, circling her waist, then skating down her belly to her thighs again. "I remember every inch of you," he murmured.

Cuddy licked her lips. She took him in her hands as she lifted her body over him. She pushed down and he pushed up and he entered her, causing them both to close their eyes, overwhelmed by the sensation. "I remember every inch of you," she said, breaking into a giggle before the words were halfway out of her mouth. She felt his body shake a little as he laughed between her legs.

Somehow, after all the pain and horror and fury, they had fumbled their way back to this. They were naked and laughing and happy. There wasn't fear or pretense, judgment or resentment. There was only acceptance. There was only love. And it wasn't supposed to work like that, but he wasn't supposed to be so smart; she wasn't supposed to be so successful; he wasn't supposed to survive the infarction; she wasn't supposed to feel incomplete without him… They simply didn't follow the guidelines.

Their hips rocked slowly together and House sat up to kiss her more. Cuddy felt him inside her, filling her, and his mouth on her breasts, his tongue gliding over her nipples. She pushed the heels of her hands into his back, moving deeply down the cords of muscle, then trailing her nails lightly back up his skin. He slipped a hand between their bodies and ran his fingers over her clit, causing Cuddy to moan and grind harder against him. He pushed her back and was on top of her again, pushing into her with intention now, focused only on feeling her come around him. Cuddy's feet met behind his back, and he took her hands and slid them under her body, at the base of her spine. He wanted her to do nothing but feel him, his body entering hers, his mouth on her neck and breasts, his fingers in her hair and against her clit. "House…" she warned him. "God, House…" She felt assaulted with pleasure. Every erogenous zone of her body had some part of him against it. She couldn't concentrate on just one. Her building orgasm was being distracted by other building orgasms. She writhed beneath the weight of him, and just feeling how he enveloped her, built a haven around her body with his, made her feel so warm she didn't know whether to shout sonnets or obscenities. So it came out a messy blur of both, with her coming and moaning about how she was so fucking madly in love with being fucked by him, or something like that. House watched her face as her body stiffened and released with the rolling waves. He watched her surprise, her grimace, her smile, and he felt like – again - it was the greatest thing he was capable of doing. He held her close as she shuddered against him, soothing the dreaded return to earth with kissing and caresses and murmurs about how he, also, was so fucking in love.

She lolled her head back toward him, smiling blissfully. "Still got it," she teased.

"People don't usually become un-obsessed," he explained, still sliding his palms over her skin, still moving slowly inside of her as she recovered. When her eyes slid shut again, and her breath grew heavy, he concentrated on the feeling of her around him, warm and wet and familiar. He saw them in the mirror next to the bed. He saw them together again and it was so hot he couldn't resist thrusting harder, faster, making her nails dig into his shoulders as she rode along with him. Her teeth nipped at his throat, licked his chin. He sat up and grabbed her hips and continued reveling in their bodies offering each other a solace from their minds. He enjoyed not thinking and just physically feeling her, but looking down at her - her arms splayed over her head, her breasts bouncing with his movements, her eyes focused on his –he had no choice but surrender, moaning her name as he fell, bending his body over hers so his head grazed her belly, and pulling her pelvis to meet him at a gradually slowing pace. She'd blown his mind. They had blown his mind.

They lay there tangled in the sheets, sighing and kissing as they fell asleep. It was a deep sleep of satisfaction that soon turned restless. Their minds were full of questions, worries, self-reprimands. But also… hope. Finally, hope.

"Everything I ever feel, I feel about you," he confessed to her in his sleep.

[H] [H] [H]

House woke to a depressingly empty bed and rolled over to find the inevitable note: Had to go… Rachel, work, etc. Stay in town.

Etc. Cuddy was a specific, clear person. That little etc. told him volumes. House stared at the note for a while, stretching his muscles under the cool sheets. Stay. That, too, told him all he needed to know. He wasn't disappointed. She had given him more than he ever thought he'd get again, and even if he couldn't have her to himself, if she just asked him to stay, he was willing to be her dirty little secret… well, til death did them part. So he killed time until she called to set up a late lunch at a restaurant nearby.

She breezed into the restaurant, so obviously happy and sexed that he felt a little swell of pride. She sat down across from him and gave him a bashful little smile. She lowered her eyes, then looked back up at him over the menu. "Thank you for giving in on your very reasonable stance last night," she teased.

He smirked back. "I am nothing if not flexible," he retorted. Then, because he just wanted to get it out of the way, "So, did you tell Mr. Etcetera why you were late and showing up with bed head?"

There was a pause. She met his eyes. "Not exactly," she replied coolly.

"How serious is it?" he asked. "Does he live with you?"

"No, no," Cuddy assured him. "It's… It's dating, you know? Normal, regular dating." She swallowed. "You don't seem surprised."

"I'm not a moron, Cuddy. You're a highly-datable woman. And scheduling our… whatever they are… has never been very easy. You're clearly working around more than babysitters and budget meetings."

"I was being cautious, House."

"About getting caught?" he inquired. "Making sure he was busy coaching little league or walking old ladies across the street?"

Cuddy laughed at his competitiveness. "Cautious about my heart, House," she explained. "Cautious about putting all my eggs in one fucked up little basket."

House processed this. "Trying hard to keep me at arm's length. I get it," he assured her. "Look, Cuddy, I get the idea that your drug addicted ex-con ex-boyfriend might not make the best steady romance in your life. As I said, I know I have no right and I'm happy with whatever way I can have you, even a little. I just… I hope he deserves you," was all he said.

The waiter came and broke up the train of thought, so that when they were alone again Cuddy felt awkward broaching the topic again after talks of salads and appetizers. "He knows I see you," she told him. House was surprised. Cuddy rolled her eyes at him. "He doesn't know I… He knows we meet periodically. To reconnect."

"He knows our… history?"

Cuddy laughed. "I haven't had a good solid six hours with him to brief him yet." She sipped her water. "Look, House, I tried to stop seeing him at one point. I'm not a moron either and I know I don't go down your road and ever come back. I tried to break up with him... because of you." House had to admit he kinda liked where this was going, but was a bit confused. "All he knows was that it wasn't the healthiest relationship." She met his eyes and said again, underscoring, "That we weren't the healthiest relationship." House offered a tight grin of acknowledgement. "So he said he was okay with seeing each other un-exclusively. And that seemed like a … wise thing for me to do."

"Sounds like someone figured out how to have his Cuddy… and his Tammy, Vicky, and Leslie too," he joked.

"Do you always have to be a complete ass?'

"Yes. Yes I do."

"Well, since he was so mature about it, I feel like I have to be too. I can see more than one man at a time. I can't sleep with more than one man at a time."

House took a deep breath. Okay, okay, it's fine, he told himself. She's clearly not about to tell him to disappear. She'd be more upset. So last night was a fluke. It might have been the last time he'd hold her, the last times he'd kiss her, the last time he'd hear her moan his name. But that was okay. He remembered prison, the months after his release. As long as he could still see her, he could make that be enough.

"Why the sigh?" she asked, smirking.

"Because I know what you're thinking," he said. "And it's fine. I'm telling you, it's fine. It's not made of win, but it's not soul crushing either. I can do the friends thing." He was rambling a bit and it amused her.

"You know what I'm thinking, eh?"

"You're thinking you should break off our non-existent relationship, but then you're second-guessing it because I made the effort to come find you, which is a bigger gesture than I've ever done and when we're together we connect and you feel like I know you and you know me, but what the fuck are you thinking, this asshole drove a car through your house, but that happened years ago and you haven't had a day when you didn't think of him, and this is all the same cyclical crap that has occupied your brain for two decades and you're tired of it but you must not be tired of it because here you are, looking at me and not breaking off the non-existent relationship." He met her eyes, questioning his accuracy.

"You are some kind of evil genius."

"My photo's next to both words in Webster's."

"So where does that leave us, in your opinion?"

"Exactly where we were," he answered. "In relationship territory that no one has charted because no one is us."

She nodded, appreciating that explanation. "I really struggled to decide which choice is moving on… and… I left this morning to go officially end it with him. To say out loud that I'm going to be with you." She looked at him with a peaceful, happy expression.

House felt tight in his chest. His whole reality had just turned ninety degrees. "I… can't… talk."

Cuddy smiled at his surprise, at his happy questioning eyes. "House, I can leave. Go to work. Meet Etcetera for dinner, put Rachel in bed, moderately enjoy the missionary position, and go to sleep to dream about how we could have been different." House blinked. "Or… I can take the rest of the day off. You can stay here an extra day. Here. For now. We can fuck six ways til sundown, order Thai food, and figure out what the hell we're gonna do."

He stood, reached across the table and laid his hand behind her neck, gently but insistently pulling her to him. Her face turned up so their lips could meet in a heated kiss. They kissed as other diners gave them sidelong glances and they kissed until the waiter cleared his throat as he stood there with their food.

He sat and fought the dumbass smile that was breaking through his cool façade in spite of his efforts. "We can work. I know this," he told her.

"How?" she asked, more amused than skeptical.

"Because life scares us and pisses us of and confuses us and makes us sad, but we're not giving up on it. So why the hell would we give up on us?" Cuddy smiled at him over the table of untouched food and shrugged, agreeing it was futile. He saw her lips and her eyes and her hands idly drumming the table. "I'm not hungry," he said.

"Me neither," she laughed.

"I know a place," he said, raising his eyebrows flirtatiously. She laughed and stood, grabbing her coat and purse as he dropped twenties on the table and sidled up next to her. They walked out to the parking lot, not fighting the walk to his car this time. He opened the door for her, but grabbed her arm as she was about to get in. She looked at him, his face suddenly serious.

"Hey," he said. He hugged her close, burying his face in her neck. "When I think of me, I think of you" he told her. "You are what I want everyone to think of when they think of me, Cuddy." He raised his head and kissed her lightly. "You're the greatest and worst thing I have ever done. And I'm so sorry, Cuddy. I… I never offered you a proper apology.""

She smiled sadly at him. The sadness was over her grief and his, over pasts that made Cuddy Cuddy and House House and them them. "I accept," she told him.

"How can you do that?" he asked, still incredulous.

Cuddy continued smiling at him, but now it was a smile that mixed the grief with relief and fatigue and faith. "Because it's either accept you or stop loving you. And that's hopeless, House. For me, that's hopeless."