It was really only a matter of time before my House/Cuddy muse started up again. This plot bunny may not be especially fluffy (yet), but it was begging to be written all the same—and in a Monty Python white rabbit kind of way, so I thought it best not to ignore it.
The usual disclaimer: sadly, House and Cuddy still don't belong to me.

Tuesday Nov. 13, 5:37 PM

"For the last time, get your damn hands off me!"

He struggled against those who were trying to hold him down with a force reminiscent of hormone-laden, high school brawls—when all that mattered was the solidity of your own knuckles, the crack of bones (hopefully someone else's), and the affections of the girl you were trying to win over. The rush of adrenaline had been tremendous, was still going strong, and though the two female nurses that were trying to pacify him (and the male doctor that had been pulled in for sheer muscle alone) formed two-thirds of a fantasy, after the events of the last hour, he wasn't about to let anyone hold him down against his will.

One of the nurses stumbled backwards, overturning a tray of instruments in her effort to maintain balance. They had called for both security and restraints the moment they had seen him, but (not surprisingly) neither had arrived. It was the umpteenth time he had pushed this nurse away since arriving at the hospital only a few minutes ago, yet still she was (stupidly) trying to reason with him. "Dr. House. You're going to have to—"

"House."

Finally, someone who would listen to him. Or, at the very least, knew better than to try to restrain him. House turned in the general direction of the door, all red-heat and anger. "Tell these morons I don't need—"

"Just…." It was a good beginning, but Wilson seemed unsure where to go from there. House watched his friend's lips press together—a thin, worried line—as he surveyed the chaos, and at last he took a breath and held out a hand. "Sit down."

"What the hell makes you think I'm gonna listen to you?" House asked defiantly, realizing too late that he had already stopped fighting against the three pairs of hands—one of them suddenly, suspiciously, holding a syringe in the air, ready to take aim and fire.

"You're not going to do much good bleeding all over the place."

"It's not mine," House muttered, trying not to feel the scratchy stiffness where the blood on his shirt and coat had already dried, and worse, the sticky chill in the places where it was still wet, had flowed much more thickly.

"That gash on your head says some of it is."

Now this came as something of a surprise. House wasn't in pain—none at all, even his leg—and perhaps that should've been the first sign that something was amiss. He brought a hand up to his forehead and pulled it slowly away only to frown at his fingertips, glistening red. Taking the cloth that Wilson held out to him, he pressed it to the wound, the gesture seeming to flick a switch somewhere inside the back of his head. Admittance of injury was the first step in defeat, and the pain was beginning, swiftly—or returning, because he remembered it now as it had woken him earlier: an Acela Express appearing like lightning out of a hidden tunnel and leaving him in flattened pieces on the tracks.

"I've got this," Wilson stated softly, nodding to the nurses and doctor that still had House surrounded. There was the distinct odor of swift, momentary disappointment. As lost and concerned as the ER staff had appeared upon their arrival, neither of those were enough to curb the hunger for juicy, sizzling gossip, and as they started towards the door, House had the sudden, distinct image of a pack of dogs that had just missed an opportunity to sink their teeth into an unguarded t-bone steak.

"How many fingers?" Wilson asked after a moment, his hand so close to House's face that that alone would have made it difficult to count.

"I'm not an idiot."

"Humor me," Wilson responded on a sigh.

"Not in a humoring mood."

"There might be a higher dose of pain meds in it for you."

"You better not be jerking me around." He pushed at Wilson's fist to move the fingers back into focus. His own hands were stained scarlet, and Wilson's were streaked now, too, though he should have been wearing gloves. "Three."

"What's your—?"

"Greg House. Tuesday. November. Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. New Jersey," House spat out in one rushed breath, standing. "We done?"

How do I know you're answering the right questions? Wilson might normally have teased. Instead, House felt a hand on his shoulder, almost gentle. "No. Sit."

Why House slid so easily back down onto the exam table was beyond him. Even Wilson seemed unsure of what to do in light of this unexpected docility, finally bending to pick up the first-aid supplies that had scattered across the room. It was suddenly, inexplicably, stifling, and House shrugged out of his coat, letting it drop to the table behind him.

"I don't think…." Wilson paused as he rose, eyes widening. "Your leg. Why didn't you say anything?"

Mechanically, House pressed it, felt nothing but the usual ache slightly magnified, though the blood staining his jeans was still wet, so dark it was almost black. The pain of the memory was worse: his leg between hers as he'd slammed into consciousness, the hot liquid dribbling down his fingers, his hand, his wrist as he'd carried her. "It's fine."

"You should let me—"

"No." And it was sharp, commanding—so much so that Wilson recoiled as if bitten, hands quickly at his sides. There was an awkward moment of silence: Wilson didn't seem to know what to say, and House did, but took his time, nodding at the stain on his jeans and repeating, "Not mine."

Wilson braced himself to respond but only got as far as clearing his throat, fumbling so much as he tried to open an antiseptic wipe that House grabbed it from him, ripping the package with his teeth and spitting out the paper that stuck to his lip. Taking the wipe, Wilson began to scrub at the gash on his forehead and House jerked away reflexively. "Jeez! Sadist. Give me that."

But Wilson was a medical marvel, had somehow grown balls within the last thirty seconds and refused to be bullied, holding the cloth out of reach with one hand and grabbing at House's wrist with the other, all sternness and conviction and this-is-for-your-own-good. "Sit still."

"You have two minutes," House growled. At any other time he might have found this show of strength amusing, but as he vaguely felt Wilson poke and prod at the wound on his forehead, he heard for the first time the muffled sounds of activity through the closed trauma room door.

"Doesn't look like you need stitches, but—"

House jerked out of Wilson's grip the moment he felt gauze and adhesive. "Two minutes are up."

"That was more like thirty seconds. You need a head CT."

"Not unless you can do one in the next minute and twenty-five seconds." Searching for his cane, he remembered that he wouldn't find it, and the few steps to the door were slow and painful.

"Fine. Later." Wilson's voice was still behind him but approaching, was suddenly right beside him. "House…. What the hell happened out there?"

Tuesday Nov. 13, 4:48 PM

If there was one thing House knew well, it was pain.

The pain of sex, bordering (surpassing) pleasure. The ache after a good workout. The prickle of sunburn. The twinge of a stubbed toe. The sudden sting of a paper-cut. The shooting pang of a jammed elbow. A fist to the eye (the chin, the cheekbone, the…), the nauseous throbbing of a migraine, the (satisfying) slice of a sharp blade, the agony of dead (lost) muscle, the explosion of a gunshot.

But the strange thing about the pain that woke him this time was that it was from his head – a steady throbbing that pulsed with his heartbeat. He couldn't feel his leg.

Displacement. It was all he could think of and even that just barely. Something had happened to confuse him or his nerves, and it was his leg he felt, really, but… it was still dark when he opened his eyes. No, even that wasn't right. Darkness implied shade and sleep—cool, soothing—but this was something else entirely: a painful prism that burst like fireworks into a dozen shades of smoking, sparking red.

"Fuck."

Something jerked underneath him, and he recognized the press of a body under his own as if it had only just materialized there: a shoulder digging into his chest, his hand splayed over the curve of a hip, his own thigh warm between two others.

For half-a-second, it unfolded like a moment drawn straight from a memory—old, slightly dusty, but still comfortable after all those years, and perhaps even more so because of them. If the familiar feel of her and swift intake of breath hadn't been enough for recognition, the next second would have clinched it, even if the tone was never one he had heard from her before.

"House?"

The raw breathlessness of the sound chilled him and he cursed again, under his breath this time, his brain spinning as he tried to remember anything: what had happened, where they had been, how the hell they had ended up broken and breathless in a dark clump of trees. He swiped a sleeve across his eyes, forced them open, and it was like looking through cracked glass, but it was enough. His hand shook as he reached out and he hoped she didn't notice though there was no way she could have missed it as he tentatively ran his fingertips across the first stretch of skin he found: the line of her jaw.

It was dark, only a strange dim light flickering from somewhere that wasn't at all helpful, especially when it caught on the blood oozing down her forehead, her cheek, the curve of her neck. House thrust it as far from his mind as he could, focused on the pale bit of smooth, untouched skin just over her suprasternal notch.

Manubrium, sternum, xiphoid process, fourteen real rib bones, ten false—it was almost all too easy to forget, compartmentalize.

"When I said I wanted you on your back…" he mumbled, pulling himself off her as quickly as he could, still talking, still teasing, as if nothing were wrong. In the epic, instinctual decision amongst fight, flight, or sneer, the last always took the least amount of effort. "…this wasn't what I had in mind."

"Shut up, House."

But she was still going at it too, and they could very well have been back at her office, what with them acting so normally: him making thinly-veiled passes at her (cleverly disguised as insults), while she pretended not to pick up on his hints, could never seem to stop that smile.

It surprised him that she was so calm and collected, but it shouldn't have, really; she couldn't have become Dean of Medicine on looks alone. The truth of the matter was that the world could come crashing down around them—meteors, forked lightning, demonic spirits: total Armageddon—and still nothing about their bittersweet, sometimes twisted relationship would ever change, the playful banter as searing and thick as July air.

His face was pressed close to hers as he tried to see enough to gauge her injuries, and he felt her eyelids flutter closed against his check.

"Cuddy." He squeezed her arm gently, immediately regretting the move when she groaned, a quick, "Sorry," spilling out of him because it seemed the only thing to say.

"It must look pretty bad to make you apologize for something."

"You'll be fine," he bit back much too sharply, trying to picture the grin that would flash across her face whenever she thought she had one-upped him. "Head wounds always—"

"You're lying," she whispered, almost accusatory, though he could sense the strain. "You don't know that."

Maybe she had some kind of sixth sense, could smell the fear as easily as he could pick up on the lingering scent of her perfume even through the crimson stench of blood. A much simpler (and more rational) explanation was that the reek of sweat had seeped through his shirt and coat, that she could feel the tremor of his hands, like the aftershocks of an earthquake.

"It's a little dark to run a differential."

"I thought you said you had x-ray vision."

"X-rays, not light rays. But since we're on the subject, the matching bra and panty set gets three thumbs up." Sliding a hand under her neck, House braced himself, wrapping his other arm around her and pulling her into a sitting position. He heard her breath catch close to his ear, almost a sob though she tried to swallow it. "Okay? Cuddy?"

"Mmm," she agreed, but her breath was stertorous and she leaned heavily against his shoulder before admitting, "Dizzy."

Still supporting her with one hand, he felt blindly for his phone with the other, but everything—his wallet, his cane, even his Vicodin—was gone, and he knew it would the be same with her things, all the way down to that damn book she had been pretending to read. He felt her slip against him, her head sliding slowly off his shoulder.

"Hey. Stay awake." When he spoke, she seemed to hear him, murmured something, but it was unintelligible and then all he could hear was the steady, jarring rhythm of his own blood pounding in his ears. "C'mon, Cuddy…."

His fingers slipped to her neck, found a pulse, quick and thready. With an unsettling but strangely euphoric inability to feel pain, House hoisted her up and began the slow, thankfully short, stumble from the small patch of woods to the park bench where they had sat not all that long ago. He was acutely aware of the hot liquid dripping down his hand where it was tucked under her legs, couldn't help but remember all the times he had teased her since he'd started helping her with the injections—and how she had vehemently denied his accusations every time but the last.

From here on out, everything was hazy and half-remembered, a complicated jigsaw puzzle with very few pieces left that seemed to fit together.

There was the bench; the path; the playground, eerie and empty in the dark; the thudding bass-line growing louder—not his heartbeat or hers, but the rhythm of angry rap music from small speakers. Then the sickly sweet smell of marijuana (unmistakable, nostalgic), and three shadows that transformed into teenagers, ready to take their cheap joints and flee, but one of them stopped, fixating on the gleam of blood, stoned out of his mind: Christ, man—the fuck did you do to her?

And then there was the long (interminable) wait for the sirens and flashing lights while he used her pulse to measure the seconds, not caring that his count was wildly off so long as time didn't stop altogether: one-thousand-one, one-thousand-two, one-thousand-three….

Okay... Things should get clearer as this moves along—and there's already more in the works if you want it. Thanks for reading! As always, I'd love to hear what you thought. :)