Title: Chiaroscuro
Pairing: House/Cuddy
Synopsis: "But she would always be Cuddy to him, no matter what her name was now." After Wilson dies, House goes on a road trip and accidentally meets Cuddy.
Notes: This might be loosely based on canon again, since I didn't watch Season 8 of House.

Part I: Shadows

He might as well have been hallucinating.

If he was, it was probably his drug-addled brain's way of telling him that (a) he has made a grave transgression; and (b) this was its form of punishment. Because across the street was Lisa Cuddy, in the flesh, and she was not alone.

Thinking of her was torture enough, that's why he always made sure to try to think of Not Thinking About Her. But seeing her, physically real, physically there, across the street from him? It was even more agonizing. She was holding hands with two children: one that he assumed was Rachel (the kid definitely grew several inches), and a boy roughly older than Rachel was. They were looking at a display of toys, giggling, talking, and more importantly, bonding. The three were too intimate-too happy not to be a family. And several feet away from them, House could see that. It couldn't be a nephew; it didn't appear to be Julia's offspring. It certainly didn't look like it popped out of a Cuddy vagina, despite its brown hair. And that could only mean one thing: Cuddy was married.

Or she was with someone. It really didn't matter. House gritted his teeth and gripped his cane tightly. Of course. Of course she'd marry someone. With Cuddy, marriage was inevitable, he thought. But not with him, he scowled.

Suddenly he heard her laughter resonate from the other side of the road. And that was when he literally felt pain in every part of his body. His leg cramped, his chest tightened, and his head ached. He felt like he wanted to throw up that very moment. But he didn't. He couldn't.

And it was all because of her.

His gaze was on her, and she was still beautiful. She looked radiant, even. Her hair was cut shorter than he'd like it to be, but she looked as if she didn't have a care in the world. And maybe that was true. And he wasn't sure if he wanted to kill her, fuck her, or worship her. He didn't know if he wanted to make her beg ('Come back to me, House. Please,' was what he thought of in bed at times) or if he wanted to do so instead. He felt pain in every part of his body, and it was all because of Cuddy.

What would Wilson say if he was still here? He didn't know, and he wouldn't know. And now was not the time to think of his best friend. Not when there were other things on his mind; not when he had only her on his mind.

Maybe he should just finally get it over with and die.

But he couldn't; maybe not yet. He just wanted to find out.

-

There were many things that Gregory House couldn't help doing, and snooping was one of those things. It was easy for him to say that he didn't know what became of Cuddy, because he really didn't know. Where she was, her job, if she was with someone, Rachel; of those, he didn't have any idea about.

But now she was here. Or in this case, he was, and he saw her by accident. He was here, and he needed to know what became of Lisa Cuddy.

It was fairly easy to get a decent P.I. in Minnesota. All he had to do was to skim through the Yellow Pages in the motel he was staying at, and voila. Problem nearly solved. The man had a potbelly, a moustache, and a balding head of hair and House hoped that it would make Mr. Tate Feldman, P.I. inconspicuous.

"Here you go, Mr. House," Tate handed him The Lisa Cuddy Papers. He was eating a glazed donut in House's room, which was sparsely decorated. It had a single bed, hopefully clean sheets, a TV, a fridge, a bathroom, and a bedside table for only twenty-five dollars a night. The place even had a lithograph of Picasso's 'Guernica'. Talk about sophisticated. The room could've been a dump. "Everything you wanted to know about Doctor Lisa Cuddy, photos included," the man lisped.

House simply grunted and handed him five one-hundred dollar bills.

"Now wait just one second." Tate protested, his arms akimbo. "Wait just one, tiny second here. I got you the broad's files, photos, plus video. We specifically agreed that it was six, or six-fifty. Not five hundred."

"I paid for the donut you were eating, and what you're now spewing on my shirt. I paid for your food, and that cost me approximately a hundred and fifty-four f. Add that to the five-hundred, and you get your six-fifty. Plus four. Do the math."

"Look, mister. I ain't going here 'til you-"

"Doctor," House interrupted. It wasn't really true. He was legally dead anyway. "Doctor House."

"Doctor House," Tate sneered. He finally finished eating the rest of his donut, wiped his hands on House's bedspread, and put his hands in his pockets.

House stifled the urge to hit the man with his cane. Lucas was nicer, he thought. But then his thoughts came back to Cuddy. He then concluded that private investigators were the Scum of the Earth.

"You know what the great thing about stakeouts is? I got to see your Doctor Cuddy in her underwear. Twice. Damn, that woman's hot. I'll remember her when I'm cold and lonely, Doctor House."

House quickly swung his cane towards Tate, but the man was swift despite his size. When he heard the door slam behind Tate, he hit the bed several times. Then he hit the paper-thin wall. He saw a hole.

"Hey! You bastard!" someone yelled from the other room. "Get your stick outta the wall or we'll…We'll report you!"

He stilled for a moment. I drove my cane through a wall, he thought.

"I'll pay for it!" he shouted back.

He felt drained, and sat on the bed.

Boy, was he pathetic, he told himself.