Cuddy.
It was a light rain, but it had motivated her enough to bring an umbrella.
This seemingly innocent search for an umbrella turned into a seemly innocent arrival in the hospital parking lot ten minutes later than she would have liked.
It had not been her fault that the umbrella had chosen such a delicate day to be elusive to her frantic searches, and it had definitely not been her fault that she had seen him walk into the doors of one of her most prized possessions as if he had done so for the past few months.
However, it was her fault that she had chosen to take such a seemingly innocent moment and turn it into an excuse to finally let the uncried tears leading up to the day she knew he would come back fall freely onto her face.
The rain would have explained the dampness on her face and the smudged makeup, but unfortunately, she had chosen to bring an umbrella that day, and it was this small piece of black pointed proof that told the employees in the clinic that Lisa Cuddy, Dean of Medicine, had indeed been crying, prior to her arrival in her office, fifteen minutes later than she would have liked to come.
Then again, House had arrived fifteen weeks later than she would have liked him to come.
It was not a gloomy day, not really, though there were rainclouds in the sky, there was sun, and a bright glow had set itself into the sky.
The rain was still falling from the relentless heavens, but it was such a rain that if you didn't look closely when you stared longingly out the window, you could delude yourself into thinking that it wasn't actually there, that it was yet another cloudy, mundane day, just like the cloudy, mundane days you had lived through the other days of this week.
However, the rain was there, and try as she may, Cuddy couldn't ignore the fact that there was something different about this day.
Of course, for the past few hours, she had worked her mind hard to push the fact that the unusual part of her day was in her hospital, probably sitting up in his office wondering what to do with himself.
She was supposed to meet with him so she could outline his responsibilities, but the sight of him walking through the door had convinced her that she could wait a couple more hours.
No, coordinating the next Board meeting would be far less painful that hearing him snark her like he hadn't been in a psychiatric hospital for more than three months.
He would do that, it was in his character.
Acting like nothing significant had happened was always his response to situations that had anything remotely resembling emotions.
No, he would be fine up in his office, she was sure that his video games and tennis ball would keep him occupied for hours.
She clicked the print button on her computer and watched as the minutes for the last Board meeting inched out of her printer, trying hard to keep her mind in her office and not in his.
**********
It was quite astounding that she had made it through the first day of his return; despite the fact that she had only seen him for a total of fifteen seconds to tell him he would be working alongside his team for the time being, before turning on her impractically high heels and leaving him to stand there, wondering what had changed.
Even more amazing was the fact that she had made it through the first week of his return without cracking.
Of course, everything had changed.
He had undoubtedly changed, although hopefully not too much.
Some part of Cuddy wanted him to come bursting into her office, demanding something ridiculous as usual.
Unfortunately, usual had not happened for a long time, and something told her that House wasn't ready to slip into the old routine quite yet.
Oh, he would pretend to be normal, pretend to be the same man who had grabbed her breast when she had tried to take their relationship further, if they ever clashed, but he wouldn't seek her out, not for weeks.
There was a trail of broken objects and hearts that followed him, she had wanted that, she hadn't wanted him to be a shadow of his former self, but this was too strange, too out of the ordinary that she had convinced herself long ago was just part of hospital life with Gregory House.
Yes, she had felt strangely empty in the months that he had been gone, but not having the never-ending stream of conflict when he was actually there was starting to get to her.
The period that he had been gone, the period that he had voluntarily checked himself into a psychiatric hospital-she still couldn't get over that word-was as much a period for his self exploration as it was for hers.
In her office, while she talked mindlessly to donors and executives and the like, her mind wandered to days long gone, and never before had her mind dwelled so much on The Kiss.
There was no doubt that it was an event that deserved mental capitalization.
Just the raw ferocity of the kiss, the way he just bent down and captured her lips, the way she accepted the kiss so readily, not bothering to think about what would happen next, hoping that at last, something would happen next, still sent shivers up her spine.
And of course, there was the two-syllable, monotone response to that fiery kiss, 'goodnight'.
How could she have had a goodnight, when she had lost her baby, her Joy, to a girl that was barely a woman, how could she have slept when thoughts of his lips and his tongue and his breath were still fresh in her reeling mind, when there was a part of her that wished that they could have both taken their desires further?
And what of the distance he had put between them?
Even now, she wasn't sure if he had been trying to protect her from the inevitable harm he would cause her, or if he was just scared of commitment, scared of everything that she could do to him, scared of something happening and losing her like he had lost Stacy, or a little bit of both.
He wasn't a bad person; he was just a jerk, a bastard, an ass, a deliciously sexy and irresistible ass.
Well, he must have been at least a little bit resistible, because Cuddy had been able to block him out of her mind, push him so far off the plate she was balancing that was full with the hospital, and Rachael, and the endless torrent of things to do, that she hadn't noticed that he was not okay, that he wasn't just being a jerk, that he was hallucinating, that he was delusional, that everything he had said his last day at work was not for some convoluted reaction from her, that it was to let her know he had wanted more of her, after a night of passion that had never happened.
And after over three months reviewing the information that Wilson had reluctantly given her, she had come to a conclusion, perhaps a conclusion she had come to before, but was reluctant to admit.
House wanted her. And she wasn't sure if it was a bad thing or a good thing.
Unfortunately, even through months of planning, she hadn't come up with an action plan for dealing with him when he came back.
The panic that had settled itself in her chest when she had first seen him, limping through the light rain, had abated just a bit, but every time she saw him, whether it was in the clinic, yelling at some numbskulled patient for trying to treat themselves or taunting Wilson about some nurse in Radiology, or even one time at the supermarket, reluctantly examining packets of steak while Cuddy hid behind a barbeque sauce display, willing him not to see her, she felt a pang in her chest, a feeling she hadn't felt since she had first seen him back in Michigan.
No, she refused to be smitten, she refused to be in love, but it was hard to ignore the thoughts that had began popping into her head since he had gotten back.
And it was this bottling up of feelings, this refusal of acknowledgement of what she really wanted from him, that forced her to stay away from the man who had plagued her thoughts.
And, correct her if she was mistaken, but it was this same refusal of emotions that kept him away from her, as if their same states of mind kept them at arms length from each other, like two negatively charged magnets.
************
A knock at her door at two in the morning was most unexpected.
At a happier time, she would have been unsurprised and lifted herself off the couch to meet the man with the cane who would be standing out of her door.
Of course, it wasn't a happier time; it was three weeks after he had gotten back, the only time less happy than this was the period before it.
She got herself out of bed; in a happier time she would have been asleep, but not now, not when thousands of radical thoughts were speeding through her head unchecked. Of course, opening the door had forced one though to the forefront: what exactly did she feel for this man?
"House." she said, it was more of a statement than a question.
"Cuddy."
"Why are you standing on my doorstep?" Yes, why was he there, without his cane, looking more vulnerable than ever?
"I-" His mouth shut after the first choked syllable, and then he limped off, carefully supporting his crippled leg as he made his way back to his motorcycle, leaving Cuddy to wonder just what the hell had happened, leaving her to question whether the whole scene was just a product of her sleep deprived mind.
No, Cuddy really hoped she hadn't gone crazy, but as for how to approach the visit at work the next day, she was at a loss.
Nothing would ever be easy for her; nothing would ever be simple when it came to him.
************
It was a week later when she had heard the same sound, almost like the fates were taunting her with little bits of the life she had had before everything had crashed, before Kutner had killed himself and House had lost grip, little bits of the things she had hated and secretly loved about the man.
A knock on the door, a sound in the middle of the night, a disturbance at a time when healthy people were sleeping, surely someone was torturing her for dealing with his return so badly.
Her distance had taken a toll on both of them, the strain between them when they were alone together, and the unbearable awkwardness when it settled on them that they were talking, to each other, without any witnesses.
It couldn't be called anyone's fault, really; or maybe it was both of them, the woman, scared of the things that he did to her, reluctant to do again what had ended in failure, the man, feeling like he was undeserving, assuming that she wouldn't want him, hadn't wanted him for a very long time, since he had made it clear that he wasn't ready to put his feelings on the table, reluctant to do what was against his nature.
Wasn't the definition of insanity doing something more than once and expecting different results?
Surely if even an ounce of Gregory House had wanted her, he would have made the move, his keen observation skills would have noticed that she was not going to do anything except put on a mask of indifference whenever he was in the room.
The indifference, the forced conversations, the fakeness of it all, wasn't helping him. And maybe that was why he had rode up to her house, on his motorbike, in the middle of the night last week, to try to do something, to clarify, to get something out of his jumbled mind.
He was free of problems, no hallucinations, no delusions, a clean bill of health, no longer taking Vicodin, he was in pain, but that was alright, he could cope with that, he had alternative medication.
He didn't know what to do with the emotions, though, his psychiatrist had taught him techniques to deal with his thoughts, when he couldn't say them out loud, and maybe that was why he hadn't exploded under the unbearable tension that he and Cuddy had put themselves under.
Two normal people surely would have done something by now, but it was like one of their old power plays, one of their old games, the first person to crack under the pressure and approach the other with intentions of working out their problems, they would lose, they were weaker.
No, Cuddy could pretend that she was a person who dealt well with her feelings, but the truth was, she was scared of this, she was angry that after all these years House still had this ridiculously strong effect on her.
He was miserable, she knew that; she couldn't imagine what the experience he had gone through had been like, getting the one thing that he could count on ripped away from him, all because he had depended too much on the one thing in life he thought he could depend on.
Vicodin.
But the Vicodin was only necessary because of the error of several people; the horrible infarction in his thigh had left him without more than just a muscle.
How many people realized just how much of his life had been torn from him? How many people have gone through that?
No, these hardships did not give him an excuse to be an ass, but there was so much he had to deal with; was his short temper because he didn't have time to deal with the inadequacies of other people, because he was so acutely aware of his own?
Even now, years after the surgery, she still felt guilt, a horrible sensation, washing over her, blanketing all other feelings.
Was it because of her that everything had gone wrong in his life?
The stay at Mayfield, could she have prevented that if she had just looked into his asshood a little bit more?
No, there were many people blame, if blame needed to be placed.
Wilson, for not telling her about the hallucinations, her, for trying to pretend he was just being himself, his team, for not noticing anything strange.
Kutner, for killing himself, that event must have shook House up, it was Kutner, not Foreman, who was most like House, Kutner, the little spark of laughter in the hospital, could he have really been that empty?
And, House, Cuddy knew he wouldn't kill himself, but he had come pretty close, he wasn't actively destroying himself, but he didn't care when he did.
Maybe, maybe this stay at Mayfield had done something for him, maybe he had learned something.
Well, nothing that Cuddy knew about, because she avoided him, and he avoided her.
Curiosity still burned at her, but it was too risky, out of her comfort zone, she didn't know this man anymore.
And it was this rift that had opened between them, this impossible chasm, that kept her up at night.
In the wee hours, her thoughts ran unchecked, and she wondered what could have been, what would have been, maybe even what should have been if one of them was just willing to build a goddamn bridge.
Well, tonight he had at least thrown a rope over to the other side, and hopefully he hadn't blindly tried to get over the rift to see what was on the other end.
Hopefully he had some sort of plan, and a better speech prepared tonight than 'I-'.
Hopefully she would be able to say something, and hopefully the interaction on her doorstep, at 1:29 am, would get farther than the hurried conversations of the past month.
With a defeated sigh, she lifted herself off her bed and walked to her front door. A man, fifty years old and clad in a leather jacket, his face as unreadable as always, stood on her doorstep, holding his cane.
"House. What are you doing? And please don't walk off without saying anything again."
"I said something."
"Yeah. Cuddy. I. Leaves. What do you want?" She wanted an answer, some sort of dialogue to get over the awkwardness that seemed to follow them like a plague of insects since he had gotten back.
"Thought I would start up an old tradition."
No, not an answer.
Not an answer in any way.
Unfortunately, she didn't have anything more to say to him, no quick-witted reply rose to her lips, nothing.
The months of no practice with her retorting skills must have robbed her of the ability to snark.
Besides, House looked in no condition for a verbal battle; Mayfield must have taken away that skill from him.
She wondered, not for the first time, exactly what he had been through.
"I was trying to sleep." she said finally, fully aware that that statement had nothing to do with anything she was thinking.
"Funny, I was trying to sleep too, but look where I ended up."
"There is nothing funny about disturbing your boss in the middle of the night for absolutely no reason." No, no, no, her mind screamed, that's not what you want to say to him!
"Hmm. Well, in that case, I guess I'll leave the boss alone. Goodnight."
A soft voice, strangely reminiscent of that night that kept popping up in Cuddy's mind.
Goodnight.
He limped off, again, though this time he left her with many more words and many more questions.
But before she could snap herself out of her reverie and her thoughts, he was gone, the only evidence of him having been there a distant rumble in the background, and a piece of paper.
She vaguely remembered seeing him with that rumpled piece of paper in the hospital earlier.
It must have fallen out of his pocket.
She reached down and picked it up off her steps, unfolding it, and even in her muddled, sleep-deprived state, she recognized that significance of its contents enough to gasp and walk inside, all thoughts of sleep erased, all thoughts of him drawn to the forefront of her mind.
Words were printed on this wrinkled piece of white paper, its previously smooth exterior broken by lines, stains, brown and darker brown and a crimson, which she could only guess was his own blood, and a rip, a piece missing.
Typed in a thick black script were the words I am in love with Lisa Cuddy.
He was in love with Lisa Cuddy.
She was Lisa Cuddy.
He was in love with her.
He was in love with her.
God, how many normal people could say those words to themselves without any problems?
I am in love with…well, truth be told, no one had even been in love with her before, and if she had ever doubt in her mind that she was in love with Gregory House before this moment, it was erased.
Love.
That stupid, four letter word that could cause wars.
No, Gregory House probably wasn't ready for this particular arrangement of the letters l, o, v, and e, but here it was, typed out for him to carry in his pocket.
********
She kept his piece of paper in her pocket for weeks.
Their interactions in the hospital were normal.
Clipped.
Fake.
Forced.
Strained.
Ridiculous.
Undesired by either party.
It was slowly driving Cuddy crazy.
How could he just act like he had for the past few months, knowing that he was in love with her?
How could she continue to take his crap without breaking and admitting that she knew his 'secret'?
How could they function without giving in and killing (and/or kissing) each other?
And how could House have sedated a psychotic clinic patient, snuck her off to his office, admitted her under a fake name, stole the spot of a very rich and very angry donor, and gotten her a free MRI?
Oh, and diagnosed a rare brain tumor on a lucky guess, preventing her from dying.
She supposed saving her life was a bit of a get out of an ass-kicking free card.
But that was yet to be decided.
Finding him was a bit of a task.
Besides the obvious difficulty of the task of locating a House who knew he was going to get massacred after his latest stunt, Cuddy was painfully aware of her own reluctance to put her heart into the task.
She didn't want to find him.
She didn't want to face him, because she would undoubtedly lose control and yell at him.
And most likely, she would shout things that didn't need to be shouted.
This was the last straw.
She couldn't avoid him forever.
And despite the conflicting feelings that were battling in her already overloaded mind, for the good of the hospital, House needed to be reminded just where the line was.
"House!" she shouted as she stalked into Exam Room 2 in the clinic, finding a man who looked entirely too interested in an episode of General Hospital to be entirely healthy.
"Yes, oh gracious mistress? Do thou bring me offerings of gold and hand jobs?" House looked at her innocently, but she knew there was nothing that remotely resembled innocence in those steely blue eyes.
Cuddy let out an exasperated groan.
"I expected you to be hiding in here, or in the morgue, or on the roof, or on Mars, because I'm sure you've heard news that I've heard news of your latest stunt."
"And what latest stunt would this be? The one where I forgot to replace the toilet paper in the men's room? Or the official 750th time I've stolen Wilson's lunch?" He knew she was angry, he knew she was livid, he saw the look in her eyes and the flushed tone of her skin, he recognized the warning signs after years of practice.
So why wasn't he getting ready to defend himself?
"No, I'm referring the Yvette Walsh incident." House looked at her questioningly, but she could see through his act. "You know, the one where you drugged a patient, convinced your employees to sneak her up into her room, hacked into the system, admitted her under a fake name, and proceeded to book her into the spot of a woman who had been scheduled for an MRI for weeks."
"Hmm. You seem to have left out the part about if I hadn't done that, you would have had a dying woman bleeding out of her ears lying on the streets of Princeton. I thought saving her life was a bit more important than scanning Mrs. Oh god, I'm getting old, it must be a medical problem." Cuddy groaned again; this was why it was so difficult to deal with him, because no matter what, whatever stupid stunt he pulled, he usually managed to save a life along with it.
"Look, House, I don't care if screwing around the hospital mainframe saves a thousand lives, you still CANNOT do that! You are a doctor like any other, and you are NOT allowed to ignore protocol."
"Oh, wouldn't you like it if I saved a thousand lives at once. I am not like other doctors, you give me leniency. I need leniency; I need to ignore all the things that other doctors can't, because my job, saving lives, taking risks, noticing what other doctors can't, doing what other doctors can't, is why you hired me. And it's also why you're not going to fire me. I am useful; I am an asset to your hospital. So don't think that what ever stupid little rant you have prepared for me is going to scare me into toning it down, because it won't. And you don't want me to tone it down."
"So, you think that just because you have some sort of god-like talent, that because you can do what other doctors can't, that you can just parade around and ignore the rights and needs of everyone, including your patient's, just to get the answer? We both know it's not about saving lives with you, that's just the ultimate excuse that you use to get whatever you need done, done. You couldn't care less whether they live or die, only that you know why."
"Well, if I'm so damn obsessed with why, why haven't I asked you why you've been acting so awkward around me since I got back?"
"I haven't been acting-"
"Yes, you have. What, am I some fragile piece of china? You're afraid to break me until I knock into something that might be worth more? I'm not delicate, I'm functional, and you don't need to act like anything for me."
"I somehow don't think you can blame me for not wanting to hang around you, destruction seems to follow at every turn." Cuddy retorted, angry that the accusations about her had started so soon.
"Yeah? Like me destroying my own mind?"
She looked at him guiltily; it was obvious that she was still feeling responsible for his breakdown.
"Cuddy, you don't need to act all cautious around me, you can talk to me, yell at me, I don't care, anything but this false calmness. I know you have something on your mind."
"And what would you care if I did? Don't pretend to be empathetic; we both know it's something you're not. You just want to figure out the anomaly, why I haven't been after you for all the little things you've been doing all week. I didn't care that you hadn't been doing your clinic hours, I didn't care that your patient's chart was woefully incomplete, I didn't even care that you kept phoning me every two hours to tell me how your patient was. But this stunt with the clinic woman isn't something I can just not care about because you're special."
"So, I've been doing all this bullshit all week, and yet, you never came looking for me. You feel awkward around me, you think that I'm all broken and I'm just licking my wounds in private. I'm not. I'm fine. They fixed everything when I was in Mayfield."
"I came looking for you now, didn't I?"
"That's because someone would have noticed if you had ignored this one."
"So that's why you did it, because I couldn't ignore it? Have you been so desperate for my attention that you decided it would be a good time to get your old reputation back in action?"
"No, I did it to save her life."
"You could have gone to me for an emergency MRI."
"That would have taken too long."
"No, it wouldn't have. So I'm thinking that you just did the reckless thing because you needed me to yell at you. That makes me think that you have something to say to me."
"No, not really. Just needed to get her brain scanned so I could locate the tumor that was pressing on her brain."
"Well, that's all well and good, but I still think that you have something else on your mind."
"So now we've switched subjects? Very smooth Cuddy, very smooth."
"We're not switching subjects; I'm trying to figure out why you've gone beyond your normal ass…"
And that was when she realized what was going on.
The mischievous grin on House's face gave it all away.
"Beyond asshood, you say? Hmm, that sounds familiar. Too familiar."
"So, all this is because you want to get my attention so that you can…"
"I dunno, what word do you want to use? I think we better make sure we're both thinking of the same thing."
"You're trying to woo me?"
He may have been smiling, but she was all business, her voice harsh and accusing, her mind still trying to convince her that she needed to stay away from him, that this new gesture couldn't mean anything more but a new level to the game.
"I don't know. Is it working?"
House was so naïve sometimes; when it came to life, cruelty and pain, he was wise even beyond his fifty years, but when it came to relationships, he might as well have been thirteen and trying to deal with all the new feelings he experienced when he saw a well-developed girl walk by him.
Judging by the grin on his face, he didn't know that his first real effort at winning Cuddy was about to be dashed.
"I believe this is yours." Cuddy said as she shoved the piece of paper with his confession on it into his chest, more forcefully than was necessary, putting all her frustration and confusion over finding that House was human into that single movement, before striding out of the room.
I think we should move in together.
