Cuddy sighed, leaning her head on her desk, large stack of papers crinkling under her forehead, hands hanging down past the seat of her chair.
The door opened, but she didn't look up. The distinctive three-part rhythm of the steps told her that it was House, and he had no right to demand that anyone act normally just because he entered the room.
"Oh no, someone seems to have killed the dean of medicine. Whatever shall I do?"
Cuddy groaned. He was in a playful mood. She was not.
There was a long pause, wherein she heard nothing from the irascible diagnostician.
"You are actually alive, right?"
"Yes." she grumbled.
"Ok, just checking. Cus if you said no I woulda had to wipe my fingerprints off the door handles. Actually, I probably woulda called the zombie patrol first, then wiped my fingerprints off."
Cuddy snorted.
Another long silence.
"Are you ok?"
She sat up, blinking.
"Tired. Why do you care?"
"I don't. It's Christmas, why are you even here?"
"I'm Jewish, House." she said, putting her head back down.
"So? So's Wilson. Last time he stayed at work for Christmas was when his first wife showed up drunk at his apartment on Christmas eve."
Cuddy sighed.
"I've got to finish these reports."
"Making great progress on that, I see."
Cuddy sat up, glaring at him.
"Why the hell do you care?" she snapped.
House blinked.
"I told you, I don't."
"Then why are you here?"
"Wilson's first wife showed up at my apartment drunk."
Cuddy blinked.
"Why?"
"Because Wilson neglected to mention that he moved out."
Cuddy laughed.
House sighed, sitting down in the chair opposite her desk.
Cuddy blinked.
"What're you doing?"
"Sitting. My leg hurts."
"Why are you sitting *here*?"
"Because I'm bored."
"Go bug Wilson."
"He's at my apartment dealing with his drunk first wife."
Cuddy sighed.
"Go help him."
"No way, it's *his* drunk ex, not mine. See, that's why I never married Stacy."
Cuddy blinked at him for a long moment, then laughed, resting her elbows on her desk and pressing her face into her desk.
House frowned.
Cuddy kept laughing.
She jerked straight upright, as a hand touched her shoulder.
"Hey, stop laughing. It's making me nervous."
She blinked at him, then sighed, hysterical laughter fading.
House frowned.
"What? You're not just tired."
"Go away, if it's the puzzle you're interested in, I'm not telling you. It's stupid. Irrational, you wouldn't like it."
House tilted his head.
"What."
Cuddy took a deep breath, trying to calm herself.
"My..." she stopped.
House considered leaving there as soon as he possibly could, but paused–though he really did want to leave–as Cuddy's hand gripped the very edge of his jacket.
"Let go."
Cuddy, looking away, let go, picking up an envelope and holding it out to him.
He took it, frowning.
"Dear Lisa,
Happy birthday! I can't believe you're thirty nine already! Your father and I are coming for Christmas, like you said. We can't wait to meet that nice and handsome man you told us about, Greg was it? I hope you....."
House stopped reading, staring at his boss.
"You told them I was a nice and handsome man?" he asked, his voice cracking slightly.
Cuddy sighed.
"My mother still will not believe that I don't have a boyfriend."
House continued to stare at her.
"You told your parents I was your boyfriend."
Cuddy nodded.
"That is soooo hot."
Cuddy swallowed, obviously upset.
House tilted his head.
"Tell them I've got a patient or something. Why show me this? All you're doing is opening yourself up to my eternal bugging."
"Read the first part."
"That your birthday's in late December? I already knew that."
"No, that I turned thirty nine."
House thought for a moment.
"Chances of successful in-vitro fertilization drop dramatically at about age forty two. You've got three years before they stop accepting you into the programs as easily."
Cuddy nodded.
"Your birthday's three days from now. You're not even thirty nine yet. You're the dean of medicine at one of the biggest hospitals on the east coast. There's no way you won't keep getting accepted."
Cuddy glared at him.
"Go away."
"You gonna pretend to your parents that you can't give your boyfriend the day off the entire time there here?"
Cuddy frowned.
"You just want to pretend to be my boyfriend."
"No, I just want to pretend to have access to your vagina. Actually, I'd like to *have* access, but I'm guessing that's unlikely."
Cuddy laughed.
"Ok House. Ok, but you've got to act like an actual human being."
House smirked.
Cuddy rolled her eyes, wondering how this could possibly end any way but badly.
"Lisa! Oh, and you must be Greg! Happy holidays both of you!"
"Yeah, hi."
Cuddy's mother smiled.
"I don't bite, hon. And neither does Harold."
"Well that's a relief. Cus Lisa..."
Cuddy placed her hand over House's mouth, but Linda Cuddy seemed more amused than anything else.
"So you're Greg, huh?" asked Harold, looking vaguely uncomfortable and suspicious.
House nodded.
"Yep."
Harold sighed.
"Sorry... Lisa's almost forty, I should really stop that by now...."
House smirked a little.
Linda had pulled Cuddy off to the side a bit.
"He really is cute, you know?"
Cuddy blushed.
"Yeah, I know."
Linda smiled.
"So, do'ya like sports?" asked Harold, trying vainly to start a conversation and looking very uncomfortable with what he had asked.
House shrugged.
"I played lacrosse in college, and I ran a lot, though I never actually joined the track team. Don't do much anymore, just watch. Mostly hockey and wrestling." he said, raising his cane.
Harold blushed, but House shrugged.
"So... what do you do? Lisa never mentioned."
"I'm a... erm...."
House raised an eyebrow.
Harold sighed, "well, I do marketing research for video game companies... that is to say, my entire job is watching people play video games in small rooms and giving them questionnaires to fill out at the end."
House laughed a little, and the two proceeded to embark on a very long and enthusiastic discussion of the metriod game House had bought most recently.
A few minutes later, Cuddy, having just directed her mother to the nearest bathroom, turned, expecting to have to break up some sort of argument or staring contest. Instead, she found House and her father sitting down, bent over House's gameboy, pointing to the screen, and generally getting along quite nicely.
She couldn't help but stare. None of her boyfriends had ever managed to have a civil conversation with her father. None. In twenty-something years.
In fact, Harold had thought that they all had big egos, and were rude.
House was the very epitomy of a rude person with a big ego.
She came over and bent down, listening.
"there's a glitch right here, if you stand in this square, this guy can't hit you. Then you can shoot that one and...."
"yeah, they noticed that too late in production to fix it. But this one..."
Cuddy stood up, blinking, as someone tapped her on the shoulder.
"oh, sorry mom."
she smiled, laughing.
"it's nice to see, actually."
Cuddy nodded, looking around.
"you two aren't really together, are you?"
Cuddy blinked.
"um..."
Linda smiled, shaking her head.
"it's ok."
"but... how did you know?"
Linda shrugged, "the last time we visited, when you talked to him, all you were thinking about was him. You were totally focused, you couldn't have cared less who else was in the room. But now it's forced. You're acting. He's acting."
Cuddy looked down.
"it wasn't—"
Linda looked straight at her, smile gone, "I never said it was. But it will happen eventually, mark my words."
Cuddy stared at her.
"he's an ass. He's a misanthropic ass that I don't get along with at all!"
Linda smiled again.
"then why did you put his name down as your boyfriend in your letter?"
Cuddy blinked, "because there's no way that would ever happen. He doesn't care, that's just not part of him."
Linda smiled further, "you backed yourself into a situation he could help with, and he volunteered to help, even though helping required being civil and polite. Why would he do that if he doesn't care?"
Cuddy gaped.
"how... how did you know he volunteered."
Linda actually laughed at that.
"he's not the one in denial."
Cuddy swallowed, watching Linda walk away to talk to House and Harold.
There was no way around it.
Her mother was right.
The only reason for House to have volunteered was to help her.
He... cared... about her.
An hour and a tour of the hospital later, they were all sitting at a restaurant table, talking about what had been going on in their lives.
Harold asked House if he and Cuddy had gone on vacation together that summer.
House glanced at Cuddy, then answered, "just for a weekend. Kinda hard to ask people to not die for a little while so you can take a break."
Harold laughed, "well, where did you go?"
Another glance at Cuddy.
She couldn't tell if he was asking for help, or telling her to play along.
"flew out to Oregon."
Cuddy blinked, stunned.
Was it just a coincidence he had chosen to say her dream vacation spot?
"well? What did you do there? Other than the obvious?" asked Linda, smiling at Cuddy.
"mostly just went to Olympic park. Lisa loved the trees, right?"
Cuddy closed her eyes.
"yeah."
how the hell did he know that?
Linda turned to her.
"isn't that where you've wanted to go since you were a girl? That's wonderful that you finally got to go."
Cuddy nodded, silently, looking at House.
He seemed completely unsurprised by that information. He had known, it hadn't been a coincidence.
"excuse me. I have to use the bathroom."
She hurried away from the table.
House looked at Linda, eyebrows touching.
She grinned.
He paused, then laughed a little, almost silently, and nodded.
Harold looked between them, utterly confused.
When Cuddy came back, House pulled her chair out for her.
She pretended to have left something in the bathroom.
She stood, leaning on the counter with both hands, looking up at the ceiling.
What the hell was going on.
What...
Why was House doing this?
*How* was he doing this?
She didn't *talk* about vacations. To anyone.
It wasn't that she avoided it, she just thought it was a little stupid, that she couldn't bring herself to leave work long enough to go on vacation.
She looked at herself in the mirror.
House had been looking at her almost the whole dinner, god...
How could someone be that polite, and that inappropriate at the same time.
Then she blinked.
Her top came up to her neck. It wasn't tight-fitting. It didn't show anything.
He had been looking at *her*. Not her body.
What the hell was going on?
When she sat down again, House was talking pleasantly to Linda, Harold was looking at House's gameboy, and someone had poured her a glass of wine.
Red wine.
She took a sip.
Her favorite red wine.
She looked at House.
His eyes twinkled briefly, before looking back at Linda.
She closed her own eyes.
"Lisa, are you feeling alright?" asked Harold, sounding concerned.
She opened her eyes.
"fine." she said, smiling, "just enjoying the wine."
Harold smiled.
The waitress arrived, carrying a tray of deserts.
She set a slice of cranberry pie in front of Cuddy, with chocolate ice cream instead of vanilla.
She looked at House again.
He smirked briefly, then dug in to his own desert.
She only ordered it once a *year*, at the most. What did he do, stalk her? Interrogate all her past boyfriends?
They finished dinner, House held her coat, and they were walking out, when Linda suddenly looked up, smiling at Harold.
"mistletoe."
Cuddy turned scarlet.
She looked at House, and blinked.
He was blushing just as hard as she was.
Harold and Linda looked at them, expectantly.
House didn't do anything.
Cuddy closed her eyes.
Then she opened them.
House's eyes widened, as she took a step towards him.
She took another step.
She was less than an inch away from him.
House swallowed.
She kissed him.
He stood, rigid, for a long moment.
Then he returned the kiss.
When they pulled apart, Harold and Linda had left.
Cuddy looked up at House.
He was staring at her, still beet red.
She closed her eyes, swallowing.
"House."
"w-what?"
"why did you do all this."
he took a step back, stumbled, knocked into the wall, and tried to leave.
She caught him by the wrist, meeting his eyes when he turned back to look at her.
"I... it... they... um... leaves...."
Cuddy pulled lightly on his wrist, taking a step forward at the same time.
"*all* of this."
He swallowed.
She closed her eyes.
Her mom was right.
She opened her eyes, looking into his unbelievably blue ones.
"don't."
he pulled away, limping his fast as he could in the direction of the car.
Cuddy stood there, feeling horrible.
She only just then had realized what she had done to him.
He tried so hard to keep up his wall, she had shattered it, and then basically shot him down.
But what was she supposed to have done?
She couldn't have gone with it... could she? That would have been even more cruel.
But... god, she *knew* him. She knew he couldn't deal with emotional pain.
She knew how badly she had just hurt him.
She knew she might have just destroyed him.
And why?
....
....
Because she was scared of the connection, just as much as he was.
The next morning, Cuddy looked up from staring at nothing, blinking at the person who had pulled her out of her guilt-induced reverie.
House was standing in the doorway of her office, literally shaking.
He closed his eyes, took a step in, and stopped, clenching.
Cuddy looked between the object in his hand, and his face.
He sat down, head in his hands, dropping the object and his cane.
"Wilson... said to... here... talk...."
Cuddy got up, walked over, knelt, and put her arms around him.
"I'm sorry. I was scared. I was scared, so I lied."
he jerked.
"lied." he croaked.
"yeah."
She kissed him gently on the forehead.
"I'm sorry."
he nodded, pulling away.
She looked at him.
He was crying.
"merry Christmas. Or Hanukkah, whatever."
he picked up the package, handing it to her.
She smiled, taking it.
Wilson, standing outside the office with Linda and Harold next to him, sighed, relieved.
Seeing House shattered like he had been last night had been the scariest thing that had ever happened to him.
He was glad Cuddy hadn't been an idiot twice.