Undeserving

By: Ellie J

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: I'm David Shore! I am!!!!!! Just kidding. I don't own them. Just having fun playing with them for a while.

She'd been in her office working when she'd received word of House's latest brush with death. She ran to his office just in time to see them place him on a gurney as they moved him to his own room. The blond fellowship candidate looked at her with wide eyes and said, "He paged me, and I found him like that."

Cuddy had patted the young woman's shoulder as she said something that she hoped was comforting. She didn't know. She was running on autopilot at the moment. Cuddy walked into his office and saw the burnt out socket and the knife lying next to where they'd found his body.

'Why would a guy voluntarily shove a metal object into an electrical socket?'

House's question from yesterday seemed to stab its way through her mind and down to her stomach. She turned around and walked as quickly as she could to the nearest bathroom and promptly lost her dinner. She flushed the toilet and went to the sink to wash her mouth out. Her skin still felt clammy and she took some deep breaths to try and calm herself before heading to find him.

A nurse was able to tell her where they'd put him. He was pale, lying there in the hospital bed. She flashed back to the infarction when she'd been the one to zap his heart into starting again. She remembered praying as she held the paddles to his chest, even though she knew he would be the first to berate her for doing so. She then remembered how he'd looked after the shooting. True, his heart hadn't actually stopped that time, but he'd lost a great deal of blood, and he'd looked just as pale then against the hospital sheets as he did now. Then there was the overdose and Wilson's call to take care of him, and then the cancer scare that wasn't a cancer scare. She hesitantly reached out and gently stroked his cheek. It was always unnerving to see him so still.

It was only when she saw the tears fall onto House's sheets that she realized she was crying. She wanted to yell and scream and hit him until he understood what this did to her. She wanted to, but she knew she wouldn't. It wouldn't do any good.

"Oh God."

She turned to see Wilson standing there, his face just as white as House's – as white as her own probably. He walked slowly towards the bed and stood next to her.

"You stupid fucking idiot," he whispered angrily.

She snorted with dark humor, even as her tears began to fall again.

"He … he was berating a patient for believing in an afterlife and I told him … I said he didn't know for sure because he hadn't died," he confessed, his eyes never leaving the figure in front of him.

"His heart stopped for less than a minute. There shouldn't be any …" she trailed off, not even wanting to think about the possibility of there being brain damage. God damn him for doing this.

"Who found him?"

"One of his wannabes. He paged her before doing it."

They didn't speak for several minutes as each contemplated the forethought that he'd put into his latest stunt.

"I'm … I'm going to go check on his patient," Wilson finally said. Cuddy nodded in acknowledgement, but her eyes never left House. She sat there, unmoving, staring at his still form as she lost all track of time.

A discreet cough from the door drew her attention and she turned to see both Cameron and Chase staring at him with tears in their eyes.

"He should be fine," she assured them both in a tired voice. They walked into the room together, Chase's arm wrapped tightly around Cameron. Cuddy felt a prickling of jealousy that they could lean on each other like that, but pushed it down with the rest of the emotions swirling around her heart. She watched them both for a moment before detecting a hint of guilt in Chase's expression. She remembered hearing that House had tried to start a fight with him, but the young man had just walked away.

"Did he really do this to himself?" Cameron asked, breaking the silence.

"Yes."

"Why?" she asked incredulously.

"Because he's a stubborn ass who always has to be right," Cuddy said, the bitterness seeping into her tone before she could stop herself. "I don't know all of the details, but apparently it's House's latest proof against the existence of an afterlife."

Cameron leaned into Chase as she closed her eyes. "I'm going to kill him," she said.

Cuddy smirked. "I'm afraid that line forms right behind me and Wilson." She turned to Chase, who was still looking at House with a slightly haunted expression on his face. "Dr. Chase," she began. He turned to look at her. "You did the right thing yesterday by not letting him bait you into a fight." He licked his lips as he acknowledged her statement.

"We should probably go," Cameron said after a few more moments of silence. "Can you –? "

"I'll let you know about any changes in his condition," Cuddy assured them both. They took one final look at him before leaving. Cuddy returned to her seat to resume her silent vigil. A voice in her head was reminding her that she had work to do, but she couldn't seem to make herself leave.

House moved his hand slightly and she got up to examine him. Relief flooded her as he made some more slight movements.

"Is he waking up?" Wilson asked from the door. She turned and nodded, unable to speak. Wilson closed his eyes in relief as he entered the room and stood next to her. House continued to make the small, pained movements that heralded a return to consciousness.

An undeniable urge to leave welled up inside of her. She wasn't ready to see him yet. She couldn't. She didn't want to hear his rationalizations and excuses for what he had done. He would mock her pain, and that wasn't something she thought she could handle at the moment.

"Wilson," she said desperately as she met his gaze. He looked at her and immediately understood and put his hand on her shoulder.

"Go on," he said. "I'll be here for him." She nodded and quickly left the room before House woke up completely. She walked with a confident stride she did not feel all the way to her office where she promptly closed all of the blinds and locked the door. A wrecked sob finally broke through her tightly held control as she blindly headed towards her couch. She didn't know if she could keep on doing this.

House sat in his darkened office. The hospital had officially released him, but he didn't feel like going home yet. Of course, he really wasn't getting anything accomplished staying here either. He just couldn't tear himself away from his thoughts long enough to get up the energy to drive home.

He'd been … irked when Cuddy hadn't visited him after his little incident. She was always there. She'd been there after the infarction, the ketamine and the overdose. He hadn't realized that he depended on her to be there until she wasn't. He didn't like it.

When she finally had come to see him, she hadn't even bothered to yell at him, which troubled him even more. He could handle an angry Cuddy, but this tired and sad Cuddy made him feel things he had long thought himself incapable of feeling. He didn't do guilt. That was her gig.

"They didn't put you in the psych ward for observation?"

House raised his eyes to see Cameron standing there with a smirk on her face.

"Would you have switched your specialty again just to be able to tend to me?" he asked sarcastically.

"Only if I could have made you go to Group Therapy. You know ... hours and hours of listening to other people talk about their problems."

He smirked, despite himself. "You've gotten cruel and vindictive."

"I learned from the best."

"Where's your lesser half?" he asked, looking behind her for Chase.

"He's finishing up a surgery. I heard you'd been sprung and wanted to make sure that you were doing all right."

"Yes, I could feel your concern with the lack of visits when I was actually a patient."

"Both Chase and I came to see you, but you were still out. Cuddy was there and gave us a full report kept us informed so we knew that you were okay, but then both of us got slammed with a multi-vehicle accident and I couldn't get away until now."

"Cuddy?' he asked, his attention focusing on the fact that Cuddy had been in his room.

"Yes Cuddy," Cameron paused at his confused expression. "Our boss. You constantly talk about her breasts and underwear," she said as if to prod his memory.

"Hardie harr harr," House laughed sarcastically as his mind absorbing the fact that Cuddy had been there when he'd been out, but had obvious left before he'd regained consciousness. He turned an annoyed glance at Cameron who was still watching him a bit too closely for his taste. "Go on. I'm sure Chasiepoo is out of surgery by now so that the two can go home and play hide the sausage. Or in Chase's case, maybe, hide the cocktail wiener."

"I can assure you that there's nothing cocktail wiener-like about Chase," she said with a knowing smile as she left his office. House cringed a little at that mental image before trying to decide what he wanted to do with this new piece of his Cuddy puzzle. Sighing, he finally got up from his desk. He needed some more first hand data before he could make a diagnosis.

He stood at Cuddy's door and knocked loudly. He paused for a moment but didn't hear anything. It was too early for Cuddy to be in bed, so he continued to hit the door with his cane until he heard a muffled groan and saw the foyer light turn on.

She opened up the door and looked up at him. "What?" she asked, not even bothering to hide her irritation.

"You lied to me," he said matter of factly as he strode past her and into her living room. He rolled his eyes at the pile of paperwork she had lying on the coffee table. He turned and saw her leaning her head on the door before turning to face him.

"About what?" she asked tiredly.

He watched her closely, preparing to analyze each tiny facial expression before answering. She was paler than normal and he could see dark circles forming under her eyes. "You let me assume that you hadn't come to see me after my little incident. But my sources tell me that you were at my bedside waiting for me to wake up. The only question is why did you leave before I regained consciousness? Were you afraid you'd let your true feelings for me out and jump me in front of everyone?"

He saw a flicker of something – he wasn't quite sure what – in her eyes before she closed them and rubbed the back of her neck as she took some measured breaths. 'Tension headache,' he thought to himself.

"I never said that I hadn't been in to see you, House. You just assumed that I hadn't because you hadn't seen me."

"A lie of omission is still a lie," he answered quickly. She looked up at him and he could practically see her put on the Dean of Medicine.

"I, as your boss, needed to make sure that you hadn't done any permanent damage. Once I was sure that your meaningless experiment hadn't caused any, I left," she said, talking to House as if he were a five year old.

"It wasn't meaningless!" he objected. "I proved that those morons are waiting for something that will never happen!"

"You didn't prove anything!" she yelled, and he could see her wince from the pain. "So you didn't see anything," she continued in a softer tone. "So what? Lots of people do experience something. The only way you'll know for sure is when you die and stay dead and then it won't really matter!" She looked away and ran her hand through her hair. "Who made you the arbiter of truth, anyways? Why do you care if these people believe in an afterlife or not. It's no skin off your back."

"It is when they refuse treatment because of it," his irritation rising to match hers. "They shouldn't give up because of some stupid lie that they live with to convince themselves that there's meaning to everything. They shouldn't live with a lie like that!"

"What about the lies you live with?" Cuddy asked in a tremulous voice.

He rolled his eyes in aggravation. "I'm a crippled drug addict jackass whose liver is probably going to give out on him within the next decade. I'm perfectly aware of what's going on in my life."

He could see pain that didn't seem to be wholly caused by the headache flash through her eyes. "What about the lie that no one gives a damn about you so it doesn't matter if you pull this kind of shit because no one will miss you?" she asked as tears finally made their way down her face.

He could feel the breath stop in his chest as he watched her wipe her face impatiently, as if he didn't deserve her tears. He shook his head ruefully. He didn't deserve her tears, and the sooner she realized that, the better off she'd be. But even as the thought passed through his head, he remembered his … discomfort when he'd thought that she had stopped caring enough to visit him.

She started to rub the back of her neck again, and he abruptly got up and headed towards her kitchen.

"House…" she called out in a confused voice.

"Stay there," he ordered, but hurried up, knowing that she would come after him soon. He found what he was looking for and walked back to the living room. She raised her head to look at him. He could tell she was surprised, but she accepted the pills and the water as he handed them to her.

"Thanks," she said softly

"Headache serves you right after pulling your hair back so tight that I thought you'd finally gotten your first facelift." He ignored her glare and pulled up a chair so that he could sit directly in front of her. He watched her closely for several moments, but when she tried to make eye contact with him, his gaze shifted to the floor in front of him.

"I'm … used to you being there when I wake up from these things," he finally told her. She didn't say anything and he finally screwed up the courage to look up and see what she was thinking. Her eyes were a stormy mishmash of anger, disbelief, sadness and surprise.

She licked her dry lips before finally responding. "It hurts," she said in a gravelly voice. "It hurts to sit there and wonder if you're going to wake up, or if there's going to be permanent damage if you do. And it hurts even more when you're there because of some stupid stunt."

The unaccustomed guilt again welled up in him as he rubbed his chin and looked down. She was right, of course. He hadn't really given a thought as to what his little stunt would do to either her or Wilson. And even if he had, he probably still would have done it. But still … he really didn't mean to hurt her like this. House looked up and met Cuddy's gaze again. She must have seen his guilt because her expression softened a bit as she looked at him.

"You're an idiot," he told her forcefully. "You shouldn't forgive me."

"I haven't," she told him.

"Yeah, but you're starting to let it go. You shouldn't … I don't deserve your forgiveness," he said, trying to get her to understand. "I can't promise that I won't do something like this again. If you were smart, you'd just fire me and get me the hell out of your life as soon as possible. "

"According to you, I'm an idiot," she told him. She then gave him a sad smile as she reached out and touched his arm. "I don't expect any promises. And if … when … I forgive you, it's not a matter of you deserving it. I just … I guess I'd rather have you around than the anger," she admitted softly as she looked away.

He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. She was one of the few people who could rob him of his ability to speak like this.

"Are we done?" she asked, her voice assuming its normal business-like tones. "Because I have to finish that last quarterly report before my meeting tomorrow."

"That depends," he said as a weight lifted off of him and he easily fell into their normal banter. "Do you plan on wearing your Goody Proctor clothing tomorrow?" She raised an eyebrow. "Oh don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about. The level of your neckline is directly proportional to how pissed you are with me. So you tell me … will the twins be making an appearance tomorrow, or will you be smothering them?"

He watched as Cuddy fought the smile that was trying to make its way onto her face. She shook her head. "Good night, House."

"You're not answering."

"You're just going to have to wait until tomorrow," she told him with a gleam in her eye. He smirked back at her. Whether or not he deserved it, there was no doubt in his mind that the girls would be out to play tomorrow, and he couldn't wait.

The End

AN: I know! Two stories from me in one weekend. Neither one of them is K&K, of course, but at least my muse is letting me write. K&K is definitely in the works, though.