A/N: Being the House addict I am, along with the bizarre fascination I have with the intricacies of the House/Cuddy/Lucas triangle, these three have been on my writing mind for some time now. I had several ideas floating around my brain, but this was the only one that managed to finish up – hence, it's here, for your reading pleasure.

Now, it's kind of weird. At least for me. I mean, it's awkward for all of us to think about Cuddy talking about House to anyone, let alone someone like Lucas. But with the implication that Cuddy told Lucas about House's hallucination, back in "Known Unknowns," I figured I'd give this a shot anyway.

Please be gentle with your expectations here, yeah? I'm not entirely sure how this will be received.

Cheers.

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The Story
By: Zayz

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"So…what's up with you and House?"

He slipped the question between the bill – which he swiped neatly from her hand – and the dessert the two had ordered to share. The execution was perfect: casual tone, eyes down at the check instead of at her, a breath and then a look up at her with open, clear blue eyes. Her reaction told him he'd done his job well – he had disarmed her, and he could see the surprise flicker in her eyes for just a moment before it was gone.

"I'm sorry, what was that?" asked Cuddy, even though they both knew she had heard.

"I asked, what's up with you and House?" Lucas repeated, this time keeping his earnest eyes trained on hers. "I mean, since the whole thing with me pranking his apartment and making that bet. You guys cool now?"

"I…don't know what you mean by that," said Cuddy, putting on a very good impression of airy, affronted, irritated. The only give-away was the blush in her cheeks, a little too pink for the mood she was trying to sell.

"Come on, I know you guys are still – somehow – friends," Lucas wheedled. "How are things going? Are you guys all good?"

"Um…yeah." Her cheeks were still too pink as she busied herself with her purse, playing with the clasp and pretending she needed something in it. "We're fine. Why do you ask?"

"Just curious," said Lucas. "I mean, I know he's been trying to make a move on you lately, and I wanted to make sure everything was going smoothly."

"I don't know why you need to be worried about my relationship with House," she replied, her tone more even, more comfortable now. "You made your opinions pretty clear to him."

"Well, you know House," said Lucas with a shrug. "He doesn't really know when to give up."

"Neither do you," Cuddy pointed out with a smirk. "I told you punishing House and Wilson for the loft was unnecessary. You did it anyway."

"You did say that – but you didn't say you disapproved," Lucas returned.

"I figured my saying it was unnecessary should have covered that," she said. "You didn't have to do it – so why do it?"

"It was necessary," said Lucas steadily. "I mean, you let House get away with everything."

"And how is that any business of yours?"

The conversation was becoming slightly dangerous now. Cuddy's tone was cooling fast, bordering on icy already, and Lucas was determinedly pushing deeper than he had originally intended to go. Both knew that their relationship was heavily tainted by House's presence – but they didn't often discuss it so openly.

Lucas paused for a few seconds, seeming to gather his thoughts. Then he looked Cuddy right in the eye and said, "Because I think you still have a thing for him."

And there it was. The accusation; the big insecurity that Lucas had attempted subtly and not-so-subtly to battle for the duration of their young relationship. He thought she still had a thing for House. And there they arrived at the soft spot.

Cuddy closed her eyes, her face going into her palm, and she suddenly felt very tired. She wished she hadn't entered this conversation. But now she was in it – and the dessert wasn't here yet – so she had no out. She had to address the matter. Somehow, she always knew she would if she wanted to keep Lucas around; but it's abrupt appearance here, tonight, was not something she could have foreseen.

"It's…complicated," she said finally. "House and I…we go back a long time. It's always been weird. I can't say we are or we aren't, because in a lot of ways, we're…just both."

"You told me he'd been working in the hospital for several years, and that he'd had that hallucination about you," said Lucas. "The records told me the same thing. How far back do you guys go?"

His face hadn't changed – it was still open and earnest, inviting with those clear blue eyes of his – but she knew that this wasn't an easy conversation to have. Somehow, she felt uncomfortable, mixing her two relationships and telling Lucas about House. The whole triangle was complicated to every exhaustive detail, and they all knew it, but it still felt wrong, letting those details and complications come to light.

So, as she had toyed with telling him about the hallucination that drove House to Mayfield, she toyed with telling him their story.

And, like when she told him about the hallucination, her desperate need to prove to herself that she trusted him won out, and she decided to tell him.

"We go back to med school," said Cuddy at last, her tone flat and almost detached, the way it always got, even in her head, when she recalled this beginning. "We went to the University of Michigan together. There was a party, which meant there was drinking…and I mean, he was already a legend, and I admit, I was curious. So we had a one-night stand, two strangers indulging for the hell of it."

Lucas's eyebrows came dangerously close to invading his hairline. "You had a one-night stand with House?" He couldn't keep the disbelief out of his voice. "I mean, I know something had to have happened, but…I don't know. Wow. You and House really did have sex."

"Well done, Sherlock," Cuddy remarked dryly, sipping the last dregs of her drink. "Anyway…after the one-night stand, he never called and I thought it was because he was just another jerk. I knew a lot in college. I found out later that the reason he didn't call was because he got expelled from the University the next morning and had to figure out what to do next. We didn't see each other for a long time afterwards."

"But you obviously did see each other again," prompted Lucas.

"Obviously," Cuddy agreed. "I started working for Princeton Plainsboro and everything was fine. Then, out of the blue one day, I get his resume in my inbox. It didn't take much digging to find out that he was desperate for a job. No one would hire him because he was insane and took the law with a pinch of salt."

"So why did you hire him?"

Cuddy smiled to herself, amused. She had gotten this question too many times to count.

"I hired him because he was a good doctor," she said. "We came up with the idea for a Diagnostics Department, run by him and a team of fellowship students, and I got him pretty cheap, considering everything. He's been working there ever since."

"Was he always snarky and obnoxious?" Lucas inquired.

Cuddy snorted. "Of course he was. The first thing he said to me when he came in to see me was, 'Whoa. Is it just the shirt, or did you get some major surgery up there?'"

"He recognized you?"

"I actually don't know," Cuddy admitted. "Maybe he said it because he remembered me, or maybe he said it because that's what he says to his potential employer. I don't think I'll ever know."

"And you still hired him," said Lucas.

"I did," said Cuddy, "because like I said, I got him cheap and I knew he was good."

"There was no other reason?" Lucas wiggled his eyebrow expressively, making her chuckle.

At this point, the dessert finally arrived – tiramisu with two forks and just a tiny bit of cream. Cuddy and Lucas dug in, taking several silent, uninterrupted bites of tiramisu, before Lucas landed back on the House topic like a boomerang coming home.

"Right…so are you sure there were no other reasons for hiring House?" asked Lucas.

"This clearly means you have your own theories on why I hired him," said Cuddy wryly. "So do tell. Why do you think I hired him?"

"Well, I think I know you pretty well by now and I know you're not the one-night stand type," said Lucas. "And I don't think you forgot about how House didn't call. I think you were attracted to him…but only because you'd never had a chance with him, and you were still curious about him, and you wanted to keep him under your nose. I think you wanted a relationship with him."

Cuddy blushed. "No," she said curtly. "That wasn't it. Despite his reputation as an ass, he also came with prestige. He could solve the cases no one else could solve. This hospital is exemplary, and I owe part of that to House and his department."

"It definitely goes deeper than that, Lisa, don't think I don't know" said Lucas wisely. "You don't give away one hundred million dollars, perjure in front of the court, or allow a thousand insane procedures just because he's an asset to your hospital."

"And that's what I meant when I said we were complicated," said Cuddy, tone slightly strained. "It's not like I did those things because they were some grand gesture of my undying love. The hundred million dollars came with Edward Vogler, who wanted to turn my hospital into a business and become a tyrant. The procedures…House has hunches. And they're good ones. He rarely kills patients and that's something I can work with. All the law-suits in the world can't stain that kind of a record."

"What about the perjury?" Lucas asked. He was plainly enjoying this. "I mean, you could've been in a boatload of legal trouble, besides losing your job and license and everything. Was your whole life worth him staying out of jail? If it was anyone else, I can guarantee you wouldn't have done it."

Cuddy sighed. She was feeling more tired by the second and she hated the way Lucas kept grilling her, pouncing on her, like this was a game or something. It wasn't. It was her feelings, her relationship, her all the way through. If this was how he treated her past, what did that say about them?

"Besides his medical gifts, House and I are…friends," she said honestly. "I just…I knew he would have done it for me. I guess in that moment, that was enough for me."

"He wouldn't have done it for you," said Lucas scornfully. "Not if it put his own ass on the line. I've hung out with House too and I know he has his own interests on top of the list."

"I'm sorry, Lucas, but if that's what you think, it's bullshit, and you obviously know very little about House," said Cuddy frankly. "There's more to him than an arrogant jerk. A lot of people find that hard to believe – and that shows how superficial their relationship is with him. He's played a lot of games with me and Wilson – and he's hurt us more than once – but Wilson would say it in a heartbeat too: if push comes to shove, House would put his ass on the line for us. He's done it before."

"Really?" Somehow, Lucas was still skeptical. "Do tell."

"When I was trying to get pregnant a few years ago, House figured it out," said Cuddy. "He went through my trash and found what I was taking to increase my estrogen. I thought he'd go running all over the hospital telling everyone about it. But he didn't. He didn't even tell Wilson. He respected how personal it was and kept it a secret; and not only that, he later helped me with my injections and went through the list of sperm donors for me, without any snide comments or ass-grabbing. He was kind about it."

"Well—"

"And not only that," Cuddy interrupted, "but on the day I was negotiating with Atlantic Net, he…found me in my car, taking a breather and trying to figure out what I was doing, and he…he talked to me. He told me that I could do it – something I had been telling myself, but had doubted. If it wasn't for him…I don't know if I would've gotten out of the car and gone back into the hospital."

"Wait…but didn't you kick ass and get them to agree after that dirt I gave you on the CEO?" Lucas asked, confused.

"No," said Cuddy with a breath. "I didn't. I had to terminate the contract and believe for a couple of hours that my professional life was over before they renewed."

"Oh…"

Surprise and hurt, two things very seldom found on the face of Lucas Douglas, began to appear in flickers behind his meant-to-be-ponderous expression. Before now, he was under the impression that he had been the one to heroically save her from losing her job. He hadn't known about House's role in the dilemma. He hadn't known that Cuddy had been this close to giving up altogether.

"So do you get what I mean?" asked Cuddy, gentler now. "House makes my life miserable and I have no problem saying that he is often an ass bent on seeing my day ruined. But…there's more to it than that. I really do think that we trust each other. He's been there when big things happened to me, and I've been there when big things happened to him. I don't have a thing for him, as you put it, but I also don't think I could live without him there."

"Did you ever think that you'd be happy, if you got into a relationship with House?" Lucas's voice was more muted, more cautious, than it had been all night, as he spoke these words. "Did you ever think you would be good together?"

Cuddy smiled, a mixture of affection and sadness in her face, a hint of deep injuries that had been buried deep but had still never healed. She slid her hand forward onto Lucas's, squeezing it tight. Then she said, "I've thought about it before and I don't think I'd be happy in a relationship with House. We're good just like this, sparring and rescuing when necessary. Any closer and I don't know what would happen. It probably wouldn't be anything good."

Some of this was true, some of it could be taken either way, but that didn't matter. Cuddy had finally said, out loud, that she couldn't be happy with House, insinuating that she could be happy with Lucas. They were words both had noted down mentally for future use, to point to later down the line should disaster strike. It was an important moment for the two – a major milestone, as he found out these things about her and she let him – and now, with the tiramisu almost over and the couple ready to leave, the world seemed to branch out with a million different paths, a million different directions to take and run with.

But they didn't really think of it that way. Leaving the money in cash on top of the bill, along with the empty plates, Lucas helped Cuddy with her coat and Cuddy pushed Lucas's chair in for him. They held hands as they walked to the car and he gallantly opened the passenger door for her. The mood was sweet, intimate, as he drove home, the New Jersey lights blending into one another, colored blurs permeating the darkness of the evening. The radio played softly and neither said anything for the entire ride.

Words weren't really necessary, in this case. Words are the easy part, building the story overtly and consciously, organizing thoughts and feelings and emotions into a tolerable bundle. It's the little actions, little gestures that matter, as he kisses her lukewarmly and she looks past him when she smiles.

She was still thinking about what she told him, as they cuddled up together, ready to sleep without making love. She thought about House and what he would say, if he knew he had been the topic of discussion tonight. She wondered if House would be upset that she shared their story, so private and complicated and theirs. She wondered what he would think of her if he knew.

And as she began to fall gently into sleep, losing herself in the intimate sounds of her own slow breathing, Lucas's original question still oddly lingered in her head:

"So…what's up with you and House?"

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A/N: So…yeah. There you go. Again, not entirely sure how you'll take this – it's kind of weird, at least for me, and could easily be taken as OOC – but it seemed to work at the time and I just felt good that I wrote something. So there.

Please remember to review on the way out.