Lisa Cuddy stared, open mouthed at the man stood before her. Her eyes were wide with shock.
"What?" She repeated incredulously, as she pushed back her hair off her face with a weariness that only he could induce.
House shifted and watched her as she buried her face in her hands. Years of experience had allowed him to get used to her limits, but usually, that didn't stop him from crossing most of them and supremely pissing her off. His silence, his lack of a sarcastic quip or joke emphasized just how serious the situation they were dealing with really was. His behaving couldn't last.
"I know." He glanced in her direction, then went back to looking down at the carpet. Cuddy removed her hands from her face and stood abruptly, turning to pace by the window in agitation. House looked up at her, an unreadable expression on his face.
"If I'd just told you that a maniac was threatening to burn down the south part of the building and he'd just shot three patients, maybe I would expect this kind of reaction." He told her, his voice low and smooth. Cuddy gave what sounded like a snort of angry disbelief.
"This isn't the first time we've lost a patient-" He began. In a second, Cuddy was in front of him, her palm crashing down onto his face. The slap echoed around her office as House held his head still. Cuddy looked tempted to slap him again, but she pulled her arm back to her side and glared at him, clearly furious.
"You bastard." She hissed, and he watched her with some kind of fascination with her fury that only made her more angry.
"You've just put the reputation of this department, this whole hospital at risk and all you can do is stand there and joke." Cuddy stared at him, as he showed no obvious signs of her emotions affecting him, still baring the same blank expression. "How could you be so stupid?"
"If this was anybody else," He fired back at her, his low tone thick with sarcastic frustration, "Any body else in this position, you would be listening and understanding and doing your sympathetic-Doctor routine-"
"I have listened!" Cuddy exploded, " And the problem is I've understood everything clearly! Any other Doctor wouldn't have been stupid enough to try and do a risky operation while they were drunk and high on Vicodin!"
Silence followed. House stared at the woman in front of him, his startling blue eyes boring into her; sometimes, she thought that his gaze was so intent that he could see right through her- she had obviously never told him this. She never would. Anyhow, he would probably interpret her thought not as him being able to look through her, and understand her feelings, but as being able to look right through her clothes.
If House could understand my feelings, or anyone's feelings, then we wouldn't be in this situation, she thought.
"It was an accident." He told her quietly, and for one second, she felt her resolve slip as she was inclined to believe him. But she had worked with him for too long now- he had no regard for rules, or boundaries that protected the lives of patients, and this time, it had all gone too far.
"Don't you understand what will happen when this comes out?" Cuddy asked him, trying to keep calm, her voice low and quiet. "People will want answers at the Morbidity and Mortality conference. Answers that you won't be able to give them- even if you do come up with a decent lie to explain why your patient is lying dead in the morgue, they won't believe you." She looked at him with a look of resentment and anger in her suddenly bright eyes. When she spoke, her voice wasn't just filled with the tinge of professional anger towards him; he could hear the smallest part of pain at what he had done, too. "You haven't just put your own job at risk. You've put mine at risk too."
They stared at each other, House with a blank expression, Cuddy with one of hurt and pain. A minute or so passed, before the clock began to chime, breaking the spell.
Cuddy blinked and moved away from him wordlessly to her desk. She sank into her seat, and pulled a pile of paperwork towards her.
"Just…go, House. Please."
House remained stationary, watching her as she steadily avoided looking up at him. When it was clear she wasn't going to talk to him any more, he sighed, and limped towards the door.
"I'm…sorry, Cuddy. For everything." With that, he opened the door and left.
The M and M conference was scheduled for two weeks away, a Monday. House was given all of the details he needed, and was told to prepare the case to present to the group. He didn't speak to Cuddy; he was sure that she was avoiding him. No matter how long and hard he looked for her around the hospital, he didn't find her. He knew she was at work, as Wilson had told him when he had asked. He felt guilty when he thought about how upset she had been, but he still didn't know what to do. He was going to walk into that conference room and they were going to eat him alive.
Everybody knew about his Vicodin- add that together with the fact that he had screwed up a simple operation and the patient had died in the process, things weren't looking good. House spent a lot of time thinking about it; he knew inside that if he spent enough time looking, he could find something, an excuse that could explain something. He wanted to, but he didn't.
Wilson must have told Cuddy about this, because she had stormed into his office a week before the conference, eyes blazing in shock.
"You're not going to make an excuse are you?" She asked. She knew the answer, but when he nodded slowly, it still felt like somebody had poured cold water over her head.
"You'll be fired." She told him quietly, "They'll take your medical license off you. And when they find out about your vicodin use…"
"I know." House replied, just as quietly. The look of devastation on her face surprised him.
"I'm doing what I should do, what a normal doctor would do. I'm facing up to my mistakes, that's what you've wanted me to do for years, isn't it?"
Cuddy let out a bitter laugh.
"Since when have you ever listened to me?" She told him, and the new lightness in her voice allowed House to relax a little, until she next spoke, quietly, as if somebody might be listening.
"Is there nothing…you could do?" She whispered. His eyes jerked up to hers, as if her words shocked him.
"Maybe, if I'd had more time. But not now." Cuddy exhaled deeply.
"You're an idiot." She told him, with a sad half smile. The corners of his mouth twitched in response, but he stayed silent.
"I'm sorry." She told him, and he heard the sympathy in her voice. It made him feel uncomfortable. With that, Cuddy swept out of the room, leaving House alone.
A couple of days later, whilst he was tossing a tennis ball up and down rhythmically in the air, he heard the news; his preparation for the M&M conference was no longer as crucially necessary. Lisa Cuddy had come forward and told them the whole truth, and accepted the blame.