Hi everyone!

So, this is my attempt at a post-Moving On story. I started watching House on Netflix during the Christmas holidays, and I've shipped Huddy since the very first episode... so imagine my surprise and disappointment when I found out how it ended! After reading a lot of fanfiction in these months, I finally decided to write my own, which is unusual for me (the last fanfiction I wrote was 9 years ago). It's just that I'm usually happy with the canon of a tv series, and I don't like messing with it even at its darkest moments, but with Huddy there's just no closure! So yeah, I developed this post-s7 headcanon and decided to turn it into a real story.

Season 8 happened but is partially ignored (maybe because I still haven't watched it and I'm not sure I plan to do it, I just read something), the biggest change I made is Wilson: in my story, he did have cancer but he decided to treat it, and he survived. This also mean House never faked his death. That's why I call it a post-s7 and not a post-s8.

The plot is already planned out in my head, details included, and a part of it is already written. It starts kind of angsty, but then it gets better. Also, Wilson is going to have a big role in the first chapters (that's why I needed him alive), and Rachel will be important too later on.

One last thing: English is not my first language, so you may spot some mistakes.

Well, I think I've said enough... I'll leave you with the prologue/first chapter.

Enjoy!

Unchained Melody

I. Survivor

It was a dark Friday evening, the cold January breeze smelled a little like snow. It had been snowing the whole afternoon.

Lisa Cuddy was standing there, right in front of the main entrance of Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, the place that for so many years had been her second home. It had been more than four years since she was last there, but somehow it felt like yesterday.

She folded her arms, shuddering, although she wasn't sure if it was because of the cold, or because of the memories.

She remember the last day she was here, the day her life radically changed, the day she was forced to give up everything she had built and start a new life elsewhere.

After handing in her resignation, she accepted a job as endocrinologist at Pittsburgh Mercy. She didn't want to go that far - from her family, her friends, from her old life - and to be honest she wasn't really happy about the job either, but she had a three-year-old daughter, a house to rebuild, a new one to rent or possibly buy, and being unemployed was really not an option, so she had to accept the offer. Plus, the board had told her their current Dean of Medicine was going to retire soon, and that she would definitely be considered for the job. Well, he did retire about a year later, and she was considered for the position, but eventually they chose someone else. She was made Head of Endocrinology instead.

She briefly considered quitting and looking for a job elsewhere, but then she decided against it. The last thing she wanted was to put her daughter (and herself) through that stress again, so she accepted that this was going to be her life from then on.

It didn't feel like home, though. She missed her old job. Not that she didn't like being a full-time doctor again, that was her passion after all, but she really missed the old routine, the administration, the power. She missed the power a lot. Sometimes she found herself thinking at all the things she worked so hard for, and had to leave behind, but she knew she had to be strong and move on.

Truth is, starting a whole new life at 43 was not that easy. But she did it anyway. She had to.

With time she got used to it, the new routine. She made new friends, started dating, even joined a new yoga class. Slowly, she readjusted.

One day, she woke up in the morning with a smile. For the first time in years, that morning she finally thought that everything could actually fall into place, that she could truly be happy again. She was really moving on.

Then- oh, the twist of fate! -two days later, she received that call. It was a sunny hot mid-summer afternoon. She was in her office, filling in some paperwork while she waited for her next patient, when her phone rang. She picked up.

"Dr. Cuddy", she said.

"Lisa Cuddy? Hi. It's Eric Foreman".

He didn't bother with small talk, and went straight to the point. He was offered the job of Head Administrator at the St. Catherine Hospital in San Francisco, a much bigger and important hospital than PPTH, so he was going to leave his current job at the end of the year. Meaning, the position of Dean of Medicine at PPTH was going to be vacant soon, and apparently the board had mentioned Cuddy's name.

"I thought you wanted to know", Foreman had said before hanging up.

Even though she waited a week before submitting her application, she had made the decision the moment she hung up the phone. It was impulsive, and maybe she should have thought more carefully about it, but she couldn't lie to herself, the idea of having her old job back and move closer again to her family made her happier than she thought it was possible.

Predictably, she was hired. The official announcement was made in mid- September, although she would only take over at the beginning of the new year.

And there she was. She had spent the Holidays packing everything with Rachel, who was excited for the new school and happy to be living close to her grandma again. She didn't like the idea of leaving her best friend, Michelle, but they had promised to be pen pals, so in her mind everything was going to be great.

Cuddy and her daughter left Pittsburgh that morning. She had arranged for Rachel to stay with Julia for the weekend, then she had planned to go home, maybe order some Chinese takeaway for dinner, and then try to get some sleep on the couch, which was the only piece of furniture currently present, or maybe get a hotel room somewhere. Then, she would have the following two days to take care of everything.

Instead, she found herself driving to the hospital.

It was cold and it was a Friday evening, and no one was around. There was just her, standing in front of the main entrance.

Only a month ago, her life in Princeton felt like a memory in the distant past. Right now, it felt like the four years she spent in Pittsburgh were only a dream, a small parenthesis.

Four years, she thought.

"So, look who is back" a male voice suddenly spoke from behind her.

Cuddy smiled.

"How did you even know I was here?!" she said, turning around. Her gaze met a pair of familiar dark brown eyes.

"I think I just know you that well… and I thought you could use a friend" James Wilson replied, smiling back.

They met each other in a warm hug.

They were always friends, even before, but they had gotten closer during the last years. They talked a lot right after the crash, supported each other. Then there was his disease. Even though she never visited him, she called him almost every night, just to check how he was, and after he was declared in remission, he took a plane and visited her for a couple of days. They had fun. Rachel adored him, she called him "Uncle Jim". They kept in touch after that. Now they called each other about once a week, sometimes on the phone, sometimes on Skype. Usually, especially in the last year or so, Rachel insisted a lot on Skyping with him. She would show him her drawings, or her missing teeth, or what she learned at school. Then she discovered the marvels of technology, in particular all the online games that allowed two players, so now that was her favorite activity during the weekly Skype calls with him. And this, if you asked Cuddy, was a win-win situation: her daughter was having fun with her friend, and she could finally take some time for herself and do something she enjoyed, like a hot bath or a good book. Wilson never complained. In fact, he truly seemed to enjoy playing online mini golf with her seven-year-old.

"Thanks", she whispered, before pulling away from the hug and returning to face the hospital.

They stood there in silence for almost a minute, before he spoke.

"So… Did you already have dinner?" he asked.

"Not yet" she simply replied, turning to look at him.

"There's a new Greek restaurant in town, I've heard it's nice. Do you want to try it?"

"Sounds good!" she said. "I just… need another couple of minutes"

They fell silent again, but it was not an embarrassing silence, it was more an understanding one. During the last few years, they had found out they were the kind of friends who could spend time together without saying a word and still enjoy each other's company.

After a while, he broke the silence again. There was this thing he really wanted to ask her, but never did before, because it was the kind of topic that he liked to discuss in person.

"There's something I need to ask you" he started tentatively.

As soon as he had her attention, he dropped the bomb.

"What are you planning to do with him?"

Cuddy took a deep breath.

There it was, the giant elephant in the room she was trying so hard to ignore. Him, Gregory House, the man behind all this, the man who ruined her life.

After she moved to Pittsburgh, she kept having conflicting dreams about him. In some of them he was violent and hurt her, in some he apologized, and in some other ones they were still together. The thought of him wouldn't let her alone during the day either. She happened to see someone who looked like him on the street (and it was never him), or think she was hearing his voice (and she wasn't). She wanted him to suffer and at the same time she wondered if he would ever try to contact her again.

She eventually decided that, in order to move on, she needed some help, so she went to therapy. Weekly sessions, every Monday evening, that went on for almost a year. At the end, she came to an important conclusion: what he had done to her was not her fault. For weeks she had thought "what if I had done something different", but the truth was that he was a dangerous drug addict, and it was just a matter of time before he did something completely reckless. The only thing she blamed herself for, was not being able to see that sooner.

She had fallen in love with him, and that had been the problem. She enabled him even when she shouldn't have. She allowed him to hurt her. That was her only fault.

After this realization, she found a sort of peace within herself. The anger she felt slowly faded away. She started dreaming less about him during the night, and thinking less about him during the day. Less and less. Eventually she stopped. She stopped talking about him to her friends, even to Wilson. She finally closed that door forever. She never forgave him, she couldn't even think about it, you don't forgive people who tried to kill you and your family, but she felt a sense of closure. House was dead to her.

When she told everyone that she was going to move back to Princeton, they all asked about him again, but the point was that her decision to come back had nothing to do with him. She wanted her old life back, and if having to deal with him randomly was the price to pay, then she would pay it. It didn't matter. Even if they shared the same workplace, it didn't mean anything to her. He didn't mean anything to her.

"I mean… are you going to fire him?"

Wilson's question brought her back to reality. Cuddy looked at him and saw the concern in his eyes.

"If you fire him, he won't be able to find another job. Ever." he added.

She gave him a tiny smile. This was the first conversation they had about House in ages. She never asked about him, never felt the need to. He himself never mentioned his friend, maybe just to say that they had dinner together or played poker together, but never to talk about him. Weirdly enough, Wilson was the only person that didn't mention him even when she had told him she was moving back. He had just said how happy he was to have her around again.

"I am not going to fire him as a first thing on Monday, but I can't be as indulgent as I used to be." she finally answered. To be honest, she had briefly thought about firing him, just as a personal revenge, ruin his life as he had ruined hers. But then she thought again. She was better than that. But she would fire him if that was what he deserved.

"I understand" Wilson said. "Do you want me to talk to him?"

"No, it's fine. I will talk to him as soon as I have time"

That was her plan. Formally talk to him, set some ground rules, just for the sake of the hospital. She would talk, he would shut up and listen. He was dead to her anyway.

"So, what about that Greek restaurant?"