Training Wheels
This comes from a prompt from my girl suzmum: How would Cuddy feel if House dated a formidable woman—with a kid? If you're familiar with the rest of my fics, it might remind you a bit (okay, a lot) of Hope. Just think of it as Hope 2: The Revenge.
I was going to post it all as one long fic, but it's getting hella long. Hope to post Part 2 later tonight. If not, definitely tomorrow.
It was probably not good form to obsess over the thing that tormented you. But it was kind of hard not to obsess when that thing was constantly in your face.
This is what House was thinking as he leaned over the railing and watched Cuddy and Lucas walk through the lobby.
They were having lunch together, he guessed. Or maybe going home for a quickie—the thought filled him with a kind of all-consuming dread.
She was laughing—that big, throaty, room-filling laugh of hers. Cuddy was pretty serious at work—she had a lot of responsibilities, she had to be. So when she laughed like that it was a thing of beauty, a thing to be treasured. He liked to be the one who made her laugh like that.
God, how did it end up like this? How did that unworthy man child get to live his life? It felt like a bizarre world of some sort—like the authentic reality, the one where he was the one making Cuddy laugh and Lucas was the one lurking in the shadows, was existing on some other dimensional plane.
He thought about Lucas taking her home—would they fuck in the bedroom or on the couch? Or would they be so eager they'd fuck in the hall? The thought of Lucas with his hands all over her . . Lucas kissing her. . . Lucas undressing her. . . Lucas getting to navigate the map of her desire. Gah! He had to stop thinking this way. He was driving himself crazy.
"You're going to drive yourself crazy," a voice said.
He looked up from his trance. Wilson.
"I'm not. . ." House started. Then he decided there was no point in protesting. "Does that make any sense to you?" he said, gesturing toward Lucas and Cuddy, who had just made their way to the front door. "I mean, at all?"
"If he makes her happy, then yeah, it makes sense," Wilson said.
"Thanks pal," House grumbled.
"I'll admit it, Lucas isn't the first person I'd expect her to be with. But what can I say? The heart wants what the heart wants."
"Vomit is actually forming in my mouth."
"You should do what Cuddy did."
"Start dating Lucas?!"
Wilson gave a tiny, tolerant chuckle.
"Start dating. Period."
"I don't date."
"No, you prefer to pine away for an unavailable woman."
"It's a hobby."
"When was the last time you went on a date? A real date?"
"Well, just last weekend, this extremely flexible girl named Brandy . ."
"A date you didn't pay for," Wilson said, cutting him off.
"Are we counting Cameron's Win a Dream Date with Gregory House?"
"For argument's sake, let's skip that."
House sighed.
"You know it hasn't been since Stacy," he said.
"That's over 10 years."
"So. . ."
"Dating is like a muscle, you have to exercise it. . ."
"In that case, you must be like a Mr. Universe at this point."
"I'm just saying—go on a few dates. See if you can find chemistry with any other women."
"I don't want other women. I want a woman. And she's unavailable."
Wilson had the look on his face when got when he was about to make what he considered to be a devastatingly insightful point.
"So what if Lucas and Cuddy break up?"
"Why? Have you heard anything?" House asked hopefully.
"No, strictly hypothetical. Then what?"
"Then I move in to console her," House said. "She can cry on my strong, manly shoulders. . . an attempt to distract her from the cane."
Wilson shook his head.
"No, I mean. . .Cuddy's end game for you, right? She's the one you want to spend the rest of your life with."
"It's not looking too promising right now. But at one point that was the idea, yeah."
"Do you do brain surgery before you know how to do a suture? Do drive a Ferrari before you know can handle a sedan?"
"These are metaphors, right?" House said. "You should really leave those to me."
"I'm just saying . . . what if Cuddy becomes available and you're not . . .ready? You're out of practice, pal. Dinners, daytrips, small-talk. . . these are all things you need to master."
"That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard," House said, with a scowl.
Wilson raised his hands in a "don't shoot" kind of way.
"Just making a suggestion," he said.
"Well stop it. You suck at them." But he got a faraway look in his eyes like he was thinking.
"Whatever you say, House," Wilson said, with a slight smile.
#####
The next day, House slid into the seat across from Wilson in the cafeteria.
"Where do I start?" he said.
"Start what?" Wilson said, feigning innocence.
"You know, with the whole dating thing."
"Ahhhh, that," Wilson said, knowingly.
"Don't gloat. Just tell me what to do. And if you say online dating, I'm going to hit you over the head with this tray."
"It just so happens that I have someone in mind. . ." Wilson said.
"Shocker."
"You know Amanda? That girl I've been flirting with?"
"You want me to date the girl you've been flirting with? Kinky!"
"No. Not her. . .Actually, she recently agreed to go out with me."
"Mazel tov."
"But there's a catch. We need to make it a double date. . .and I need to find someone for her friend Victoria."
House looked at him incredulously.
"So this whole, 'You really need to exercise the old dating muscle, House' thing was just an elaborate ruse so you can get in some girl's pants?"
"No, I meant all that. It just so happens that, in this case, your interpersonal needs align perfectly with mine."
"How convenient."
"So will you do it?"
"No chance. The dreaded 'best friend who needs a date' is a red flag if ever I've heard of one. Next you're going to tell me she has a great personality."
"She's hot," Wilson said, raising an eyebrow.
"Says who? Amanda?"
"Says . . . my eyeballs," Wilson said. He pulled his smart phone out of his pocket and opened up a Facebook page. Then he handed it to House. "I think she looks a bit like Cybill Shepherd."
House glanced at the phone. Did a doubletake.
"Okay, she found one frozen moment in time where she happened to look a little bit like Cybill Shepherd. In actuality, she probably looks more like Sam Shepherd."
Wilson took the phone back, scrolled through to another photo. Handed it triumphantly back to House.
He looked again.
"Okay, two frozen moments."
"Face it, House, she's hot."
"Then she must be dumb as a pile of bricks."
"She's a rocket scientist. Also, she's loaded. Her family is old money—the have buildings named after them."
"Shut up."
"No, really."
"Then why aren't you dating her?"
"I like Amanda," Wilson said, defensively.
"Well, something must be wrong with her. Otherwise, she could find her own man and wouldn't need to get fixed up on a date."
"You're getting fixed up!"
"My point exactly," House said.
"There's nothing wrong with her. She just went through a messy divorce and between her work at the Space Telescope lab and raising a three-year-old daughter. . ."
"Aha!" House said.
"Aha what?"
"Dealbreaker: She has a kid."
"Cuddy has a kid!"
"I know. And I did everything in my power to stop that adoption from happening."
"And yet you still like her."
"I grandfathered her in."
"Look House. I'm not asking you to marry this woman. In fact, I'm not even asking you to date her. I'm asking you to go on a date. One date. As a favor to me and as a . . . dress rehearsal for the real deal for you if and when Cuddy becomes available."
"Have you heard anything else about Cuddy and Lucas breaking up?" House said, leaning forward.
"They're not breaking up!" Wilson said, annoyed. "At least not in the immediate future. But statistics say, one day they will. And the question is, will you be ready?"
House looked at the phone again: She really was a knockout: Thick, shiny blonde hair, grayish-blue eyes, a curvy physique.
"When's dinner?" he said.
#####
More and more, Cuddy found her thoughts drifting to House.
Ever since he had discovered Lucas in her hotel room at the medical conference, things had been chilly between them. (And things had moved from chilly to downright arctic after House's little attempt at relationship sabotage.)
She hated to admit it, but she missed the bastard. She missed flirting with him. She missed matching wits with him, that little electric jolt she felt every time they went toe-to-toe. She missed the way he looked at her. Hell, she even missed the way he leered at her. (He still leered of course. He just did so from a polite distance.)
But here was the thing that had kind of snuck up on her: She actually missed his friendship the most. (The physical stuff, she knew she'd miss that—you don't just turn off that kind of sexual chemistry overnight.) She missed laughing with him, telling him about her day, hanging out with him.
This is bullshit, she thought, getting up from her desk. Just because I have a boyfriend now that doesn't mean House and I can't still be friends.
So she marched down the hall to his office.
She practically bumped right smack into a beautiful woman—tall, blonde, statuesque—on her way in.
"Excuse me," Cuddy said.
House, as it turned out, was standing right behind this woman, holding two of her fingers.
(This was one of the details Cuddy would obsess over later, when she was replaying the day's events in her mind. Not holding her hand. Not even wrapping his arm around her waist. But holding her fingers—as if she were leading him somewhere and he was oh-so-willingly being led.)
His hand dropped guiltily to his side when he saw her.
"Cuddy!" he said, surprised.
"I didn't know you were in the middle of something. . ." Cuddy said, feeling sheepish.
"Um, yeah, this is my. . .this is Victoria," House said. "Victoria, this is my boss. Dr. Lisa Cuddy."
"A pleasure to meet you," Victoria said. She had a voice that spoke of education abroad and horse farms in Connecticut and country clubs with exclusive memberships. She extended a perfectly manicured hand towards Cuddy.
Cuddy shook it.
"Did you need something?" House said to Cuddy, narrowing his eyes.
"No, I, uh, actually I was coming by to see if you were available for lunch. But it looks like you've got your hands full!"
Oh God, Lisa, shut up.
"Yeah, we were about to go grab a bite," House said.
"No problem at all," Cuddy said. "We'll catch up some other time."
He looked at her for a moment, curiously. Then he nodded and allowed this blonde stranger to lead him down the hall.
######
"What the fuck, Wilson?"
"Nice to see you, too, Cuddy."
"Who the hell was that shiksa goddess I just saw with House?"
He smiled, still proud of himself for serving as matchmaker.
"That," he said cheerfully. "Was Victoria."
"Yeah, I got that far. What was she doing leading House around my hospital like a puppy dog?"
"He's smitten," Wilson said, still grinning.
Cuddy slumped in a chair, suddenly unable to sustain to her own weight.
"So, she's what. . .his girlfriend?" she said. Then she laughed, as though the very thought was ridiculous.
"Something like that," Wilson shrugged. "House and I went on a double date 5 weeks ago. He's still seeing Victoria. . . Me and Amanda weren't quite so lucky."
"He's been dating this woman for five weeks and no one bothered to tell me?"
"I wasn't aware that monitoring the dating practices of the department heads fell under the province of the Dean of Medicine," Wilson said, with a smirk. "But I'll be sure to keep you posted on my love life. . . unless of course this rule only applies to the Head of Diagnostics."
"Shut up Wilson," Cuddy said. Then she swallowed, tried to compose herself. "So what does she do? High class hooker?" Another laugh. Another attempt to make it seem like she wasn't secretly dying inside.
"She's a scientist," Wilson said, diplomatically.
"What kind of scientist?"
"She's, uh, heading up the research into the new Space Telescope."
"She's a rocket scientist?"
It was like a bad joke.
"Well, yeah."
Cuddy pressed her palms together, as though in prayer, then brought her clasped hands to her mouth.
"I just. . .I just can't believe she's his girlfriend," she said finally.
"What's so surprising? House has always gone for powerful women—present company included."
Cuddy squirmed a bit. She knew Wilson was trying to make her feel better, but it wasn't working. She had felt small and mousy and inadequate next to this formidable creature. The idea that House was sleeping with her—well, it felt downright surreal.
"This is the part of the conversation where you tell me how happy you are for him," Wilson said, still smirking.
She looked up, suddenly realizing how immature and ridiculous she must've looked.
"Yeah, of course," she said. "Happy for him." She nodded firmly. "Of course."
To be continued. . .