Undeniably Enamored
Greg House was, first and foremost, a doctor, but he was also a man. He was a man who had needs but who would deny those needs if they threatened his survival. He was a brilliant prankster, a brilliant mind, and a brilliant ass, but none of those could help him if he couldn't win the heart of the woman he had secretly loved for twenty years. He was undeniably enamored with the last woman he could ever hope to have: Lisa Cuddy, Dean of Medicine.
While he lurked around and tried to piss her off in order to get her attention, she found him juvenile. He wished that he could change her mind, but would not, under any circumstances, sacrifice his reputation as anything other than a brilliant but hardened doctor. Try though he might, he couldn't tell her without dropping his guard. He wouldn't put himself out there again to be hurt. Love or not, he had to protect himself.
Only Wilson knew of House's predicament. He, of course, wanted his best friend to just come out and admit his feelings. He knew that Cuddy felt the same way about House and that the two would work out, but neither of them had the courage to admit their feelings to the other. Wilson was hugely exasperated by the whole situation.
When House stared at Cuddy's ass as she walked by every day, Wilson felt the need to point it out and to suggest that House tell her how much he cared for her. House would never tell her, thought; not if his life depended on it. He was so afraid of ruining everything that he had worked so hard to build that he would never jeopardize it.
House sometimes watched his boss when she was working. He liked the way her eyes darkened when she was frustrated. The slight sway of her hips entranced him. Sometimes he would fantasize that he would bury his face in her hair and bear his soul to her and that she would understand him. He wanted her to know that he loved her, but look at him as if he had never said anything at all.
When she adopted the baby he had to berate her. He had to punish her for giving her attentions away to a screaming child who would never appreciate her loveliness the way he did. The urchin grew and she struggled to settle into a happy life with it. A nagging voice in his head reminded him that he wanted to be man standing beside her as she raised a family, but he shut it up. He shut his feelings for her out of his head and rarely permitted himself to drift off into free thought about her.
Wilson told him he was stupid and silently he agreed. Wilson urged House to express his love for Cuddy, but he refused. He went on living without her and dying inside as she went on giving her life to a creature that would soak up all of her care and turn out to be a beautiful soul. House was, despite all of his efforts, forever a slave to his feelings for her and so he pranked her, he said rude things, and he watched her give her life to raising the child that he wanted to hold.