She worked for another five years, ten months and fifteen days after the last breath left his body and the hospital was all that was left to her.
- - -
There is a last time for everything, and this is hers.
The party is over - soppy toasts from doctors who have long eyed her position and can barely disguise the naked ambition on their faces - and surely today, of all days, she should have gone home on time for once.
But no - it's her last day, and there's too much to say goodbye to.
She walks by the nurse's station, waves at the temp on duty, and thinks of Nancy, Elaine, and all the other girls she might have been friends with, if she hadn't been so busy and they hadn't been so scared of her.
- - -
"Dr Cuddy," and Brenda's voice breaks, "It's Dr House. They brought him in five minutes ago."
- - -
She heads down to A&E, which, as always, hums with the kind of frantic, buzzing life that teeters too close to the edge of death. This room, more than any other in the hospital, makes her feel human, reminds her that the wounds and fevers and scars of the people they deal with everyday tell only a tiny part of the stories of their lives.
As she skirts an empty gurney, she thinks of Cameron - who left five years, eight months and six days ago - and remembers the energy and passion and light that she brought to all the desperate, crying people she treated.
- - -
She rushes down in time to see Cameron tear his shirt apart.
"Ohgodohgodohgod," Cameron gasps. She presses her hand to the wound on his chest, but it doesn't work and when she lifts her hand and stares in disbelief at her fingers, they're stained the dark wine-red of dying roses.
- - -
Surgery next. She walks down the blue-grey hallway, an oasis of calm after the sprawl and chaos of A&E.
Chase ran the unit, at least until four years, three months and two days ago. She had asked him to stay but he'd refused - I've stayed longer than I ever meant to.
- - -
Chase - allowing himself just one blink, a tight swallow - nods, briefly grasps her shoulder, and disappears to scrub up.
- - -
His office - for two years now Ed White's office - looks the same, all cut-glass arrogance and clinical detachment. House, if he were a room.
She thinks of Foreman - who left two years, four months and a day ago - and how he tried to keep the unit running, until he finally told her he had done his best but he had done enough, and it was time to go. She didn't tell him she knew he was leaving because he couldn't live with the shadow - the grey hint of genius - that still hung over his shoulder.
- - -
"I'm sorry," Foreman tells her. He looks desperately uncomfortable, like this is the first time he's ever had to apologise for the failure of medicine and science in conquering death.
- - -
Oncology. Wilson - James, she tells herself, James now that he's just a friend and not your employee - still runs the unit. He's out of town for a week, at a conference, although being Wilson - James - he asked before he left,you okay? you want me to stay?
And she'd said no, because she hasn't been okay. Not in five years, ten months and fifteen days. What was another week?
- - -
The strain in his face - tears trapped in the lines of his face, anger laced into his shoulders - mirrors her own. She's never been the hugging sort. But this time, she steps into his arms, and tries to pretend she isn't crying into his starched white shirt.
- - -
Her office, at last, and as she looks at the bare walls and the empty table, she allows herself to remember House.
The way her closed door never stood in the way of his refusal to give up on a patient. The way he hooked his cane on the chair before he pressed his palms to the table, ready to argue his case. The way he had looked that day they fought over something - she's not even sure what anymore - and to shut her up, he kissed her, fiercely, the way it was always bound to happen again. She thinks of his hand tangled in her hair, as he trails kisses across her collarbone, and he asks, politely for him,should I stop, and she answers by grabbing a fistful of his shirt - what do you think, idiot - and pulls him down onto the couch.
- - -
They had five weeks and six days together.
- - -
She grabs her bag, flicks off the light, and leaves the room.
- - -
The ghosts stay with her.