this is my first House story, so I hope you enjoy. it is a continuation of the ass-groping scene from 'Half-Wit', 3x15. enjoy, and tell me what you think, please? :) x

How We Are Now

"Call the Make-A-Wish Foundation."

It wasn't like I hadn't expected him to make some sort of move on me. I didn't even need to turn around to know he was inviting himself in to my bedroom. In twenty years, he'd never given up – it seemed he would never take no for an answer. Because I kept saying it, and he kept coming back. But part of me now knows that he knew me better than I knew myself, and that was the sole reason he never totally abandoned the mission. He saw lust and want in my eyes, where I saw only platonic love and age-old passion.

I look back on it now and wonder how I managed to get such desperate emotions confused. Maybe it was because I had never felt the former for any man other than him for so long; I'd almost forgotten how they felt completely. Maybe it was because I mentally convinced myself that I was only capable of feeling the latter for him. A mixture of both explanations seemed the most likely cause, but I am only exploring my past to be sure I will never fall into those traps again. Because I never want to go back to that. Not now I know what this could become.

To this day I still cannot recall what changed my mind, what made me turn back to him as I heard his hand turn the door latch. Curiosity, possibly, or anxiety. Or twenty years worth of pent up frustration at his cryptic comments and chauvinistic remarks coupled with the desire to hear him speak the truth, once and for all. He was dying – maybe death could instil honesty into the most fraudulent of souls. I needed to know if this was all just a game to him, or whether his motives weren't as pure as he insisted.

"Wait."

The way his hand fell so obediently to his side and his body turned like so magnetic attraction drew him to face me, told me part of what I wanted to know. It wasn't completely a lie, or a twisted challenge he'd set himself to conquer. There was some sort of honesty in everything he said to me, but an honesty he would never willingly admit to. But time was something he no longer had on his side, and if he accepted that, I was more likely to hear that honestly now than any other moment.

I took one step towards him, as did he to me. We both retraced our steps until we had returned to the positions of moments ago. I felt that if I were close to him, it would make lying more difficult. Familiar words formed on my lips, reminding me that we'd been here before, and I deigned to get the answer I wanted. Instead, I got no answer at all. I wasn't quite sure which answer I did want; 'the truth' was a generalisation of enormous breadth, and provided so many loopholes that it could create an answer that wasn't 'the truth' at all, and was in fact, as far from 'the truth' as you could possibly get.

Now, I realise, 'the truth' was exactly what I wanted to hear. But if you had told me at the time what 'the truth' consisted of, to any third party I would have vehemently denied any interest in or association with 'the truth'. To him, however, I couldn't lie, as much as he could not lie to me. When confronted with 'the truth', my reaction was the stark opposite of anything I could have predicted. Conversely, he must have predicted my reaction; otherwise he would never have divulged 'the truth'.

"Do you want me, House?"

Again, I asked the question, with a small variation, in parallel to a few nights ago. And again, I expected a small variation of a very similar lack of answer. I noticed his face contort into that rare expression of meaningful thought, before anxiety took hold of my gut and twisted it beyond recognition. I wasn't sure why I was nervous – regardless of his answer, my reaction would never differ, I was sure of it. Merely intrigue had coaxed me into revisiting the question that previously failed so miserably to extract 'the truth' from him.

I had the whole exchange rehearsed in my head, preparing myself for every possible outcome to my curiosity. There was no option I was ill-equipped for.

"Yes."

Except that one. It wasn't what he said – I'd even planned for the possibility he would throw the question back in my face by ridiculing the total absurdness of it. It was the way he said it – there was a delicacy and consideration, a sincerity in his voice that I'd never heard before, and could never have predicted. There was a similar tenderness in his touch, as his left hand curved around the shape of my hip, and his gentle hold on my abdomen gave him enough leverage to draw me forward so that, when our lips met, it didn't seem like it was entirely his fault.

His lips were warm, and out of female instinct, I closed my eyes to heighten my remaining four senses. My brain was shooting countless electrical impulses into my limbs, urging me to walk away. I didn't want this. But it seemed that the moment the consensual word passed his lips in such an honest fashion, and 'the truth' was revealed to me, my body seemed to be disconnected from my thoughts. There was a chink in my armour, he'd worked his way in to, and although I wasn't responding, my body had no intentions of allowing me to pull away. I didn't understand it. Now I do.

My body was acting on the orders of that part of me he knew was there, but I remained unaware of until this point. The part of me that wanted him more than anything else, the part of me that had been left to fester for over twenty years, locked in a cage I didn't even know existed. Only he had the key, and now free, that part of me was taking over my conscience. He broke the connection, seemingly alarmed by my lack of reciprocation, and the warmth inside me petered away. His eyes locked mine in a silent beg for approval, and I could not extinguish the fiery passion from my eyes.

The moment's hesitation and the look in my eyes was evidently all he needed, and as his lips crashed back on to mine, the chink in my armour was wrenched open to a crack that resembled the San Andreas Fault. But this time, he didn't kiss me. We kissed one another. I heard his cane drop to the floor, and both his hands were free to explore where only his eyes could roam before. Every touch was multiplied tantalizingly through the elusive silk of my gown and it took my breath away.

My arms were to longer commanded to remain motionless, they were granted permission to rise to his chest and relieve him of his jacket. Clearly, my movement sparked something inside him, the dominant alpha male I was enchanted by all those years ago. If this were to happen, it would be under his control, on his terms. That I didn't mind, it rather enthralled me. The inevitable pain in his thigh was discarded, I knew, as he walked me backwards towards my bedroom, from where I came, and right now, tonight, where I belonged.

Only when my bare feet hit carpet did I have any concept of where we were. All the new experiences were uncommonly familiar, and memories embroidered with present-day sensations pushed everything but the here and now from my mind. His right hand only left my body to close the door behind us, to shut out the rest of the world, because tonight was about us, no-one else.

Clothes were shed, and when I felt my feet leave the ground as he lifted me to the bed, I recall a feeling of weightlessness, and elation. Each time our lips broke apart for the sparse seconds it took to take a fresh breath, they reconnected harder, more desperately, as if to make up for lost time. My dark hair was splayed over the cream covers, framing the hungry and frantic expression painted on my face. I looked up into his bright blue eyes and his name passed my lips in ecstasy for what wouldn't be the last time that evening.

I look back on it now as our bodies, sticky from last night's sweat, are engulfed in the magnolia duvet, and we are both warmed by the body heat of the other. My head is rested comfortably in the crook of his shoulder, his arm draped delicately around my waist as I trace patterns softly on his chest while he sleeps. I replay the events of hours before through my mind like a film reel, and nothing in the world would make me take it back. Nothing in the world would make me regret. Things have changed.

This is it.

This is how we are now.