So this little fic is based on a really sweet prompt from my pal flippet: What if Cuddy had found a lost earring of hers, from Michigan, in House's bureau drawer? This is obviously a prompt that writes itself, so I didn't embellish at all. (My motto: Leave a tender prompt alone.) It might, in fact, be the prompt that keeps on giving, because I could do a follow-up to this fic from House's perspective, if people want it. It takes place early in S3, I'd venture. (Sorry Z.)
Cuddy knocked on House's door, waited a few minutes, and then knocked loudly again.
"Stop that infernal banging!" House said, stumbling out of his bedroom. "I have surgical equipment in here and I know how to use it."
He peered through the peep hole.
"Oh, it's you," he said, opening the door. He was dressed in pajama bottoms and an old white tee-shirt. His hair was standing on end.
He rubbed his eyes. "What are you doing here? This can't be a dream, otherwise you'd be wearing a slutty Girl Scout's uniform."
"You need to get dressed and get to work," Cuddy said, all business. She stepped into his apartment.
"Are you insane, woman? It must be the crack of dawn."
"It's 11 am."
"Oh," he said.
"Oh," she echoed. "And today is the management meeting. Mandatory for all department heads."
"I can't come to work today. I'm sick," he moaned.
"You're hungover."
"I'm a grown man. I think I know the difference between being sick and hungover."
"Wilson said you practically drank an entire bottle of Jack Daniels last night."
House rolled his eyes.
"He's such a Judas," he said. "Besides, can't a man be hungover and sick?"
Cuddy reached out and felt his forehead. As always, she was the only person in House's life who had no compunctions about manhandling him.
"You have no fever," she said.
"An Ice Queen like you can't assess fever that way," he said. "Your hands—and heart— are way too cold."
"Fine, then give me a real thermometer."
House slumped theatrically onto his couch, clutching his head.
"Bedroom. Nightstand drawer," he said, closing his eyes.
"I'm supposed to go fetch your thermometer?" she said.
"You're the one who doesn't believe I'm sick," he said.
Cuddy sighed. She went to his bedroom. The bed was unmade and last night's clothing—jeans, a concert tee, his motorcycle jacket—were flung on the floor.
She opened his nightstand drawer. Condoms. (Well, at least he practiced safe sex.) Hand-cuffs. (Huh.) A ticket stub from a horse race. A half-smoked joint. (Who knew?) And, curiously, a single earring—gold and shaped like a sea shell—wrapped fastidiously in tissue paper. Cuddy looked at the earring for a few minutes. It seemed strangely familiar to her, but she couldn't quite place it. Had it been Stacy's?
She found the thermometer and handed it to House.
"I'm watching you," she said, pointing at her eyes and then to him. "Don't even think about going Ferris Bueller on me. You're suspiciously close to that light bulb."
He smiled a bit, at her reference to one of his favorite movies, stuck the thermometer in his mouth, looking like a glum schoolboy in the nurse's office.
She had to admit that sick—or in this case, faux sick—House was adorable.
The minute he pulled it out of his mouth, she snatched it from him.
"98.7," she said. "What a surprise."
"Malfunctioning thermometer?" he offered.
"Get dressed, department head."
#####
That night, as she was drifting off to sleep, Cuddy's thoughts turned to House. This wasn't that unusual. She often reflected on their exchanges—with all their embedded codes and indecipherable layers of meaning—before she went to bed. But this was different. She was remembering the first time she saw him, back at Michigan. He was standing in the hallway, dressed in faded jeans and a navy blue sweater, having a spirited debate with a professor.
She had noticed a few things about him right away: One, of course, that he was incredibly tall and good-looking—with the prettiest eyes she'd ever seen on a man and the kind of lean, athletic build you didn't often find on med students, who tended to be skinny and pimply and pale. And two, not only was he clearly winning the debate, the teacher actually seemed a bit intimidated by him, maybe even in awe.
"Who's that?" she had whispered to a friend.
"That's Greg House," her friend whispered back, knowingly. "Hot, huh? They say he's a genius—and he knows it."
And as Cuddy and her friend had walked past him—perhaps she was staring a bit too obviously?—House had winked.
She smiled now at the thought: Cocky son of a bitch, even then.
But what on earth had made her think of that? She hadn't thought about her days with House at Michigan in years.
Then she bolted upright in bed.
The earring.
It wasn't Stacy's earring in House's nightstand. It was hers. She had lost it one night—that night—in his dorm room. They were a nice pair of earrings—expensive; she remembered that she had saved up for them the previous summer.
The morning after the hookup, she did the walk of shame across campus (although in her case, it was more like a walk of pride) and when she got back to her dorm, she touched her ears and realized that one was missing.
Maybe it had fallen out on the meadow between House's apartment and her dorm, she thought. Or more likely, it had fallen off her ear when she was rolling around on House's bed. (This thought actually made her smile.) She'd probably find it in his room the next time they hooked up.
Of course, there never would be a second hookup.
Cuddy had managed to get over her disappointment about the lost earring. As for getting over Gregory House? That was still a work-in-progress.
A single question had haunted her for years. Why had he never called her? They'd flirted for weeks, then finally danced at the hoe-down. She had felt dizzy in his arms—giddy, blissed-out, like she was flying. Then they had talked, all night—the kind of intense, lofty, self-important conversation (him: "Everyone is wearing a mask—they just don't know it"; her: "I don't feel like you wear a mask!") that college students excelled in. The sex was the best she'd ever had. (Granted, she was 18—she didn't have much to compare it to. But she remembered, at the time, thinking she had turned some sort of orgasmic corner, that all sex was going to be like this from now on. How wrong she was.)
She had thought briefly, naively that House was going to be her boyfriend. She was crushed by the reality. It was just a meaningless hookup to him, another notch on his belt. Eighteen-year-old Lisa Cuddy was bitter about this. Thirty-six-year-old Lisa Cuddy understand it was just what college guys did.
But . . . the earring. That made her question everything. Why had he saved it? And not just saved it, lovingly wrapped it in tissue and kept it beside his bed. Their tryst, such as it was, was almost 20 years ago.
Could it be possible that Gregory House wasn't over her?
#####
"I think I'm having a relapse," House said the next day, clutching his head operatically. "If I die of Department Head-itis, you'll only have yourself to blame."
"You should go home," Cuddy said to him, tenderly.
He squinted at her.
"What?" he said.
"Go home. If you're not feeling well, you should rest. Your case is under control."
He folded his arms, studied her. What was her angle?
"My case isn't under control—I have no idea what's wrong with the guy," he said.
"Oh. Well, I'm sure your team can handle it."
"No, actually they can't."
"So you're saying. . .you don't want to go home?" she teased.
"No. I need to stay here and work on my case," he said.
"Then stay here and work on your case," she said.
He gave her a curious look and left her office.
The next day, he came in with the patient's file.
"I still have no idea what's wrong with the guy, but I'm pretty sure full body radiation is the way to go," he said.
"If that's what you think is right," Cuddy said.
His mouth dropped open.
"Full body radiation is an insanely risky treatment," he said.
Cuddy shrugged.
"I'm sure you wouldn't ask for it, if you didn't need it. I trust you."
He hesitated.
"Uh. . .thanks?" he said, reluctantly starting for the door.
"Hey House," she called after him. "They had these on sale at the store, so I bought them for you."
She reached into her desk and pulled out a box of lollipops, tossed them at him.
"All cherry, your favorite flavor."
House caught the box, then began to look around her office, as though searching for a hidden camera.
"Am I being Punk'd?" he asked.
"What do you mean?"
"You told me I could go home when I obviously was not really sick. You approved a radical procedure without so much as batting an eyelash. And now you bought me a gift?"
"I've bought you gifts before," she said.
"Actually, you haven't."
He cocked his head.
"Did you secretly take blood from me and find out I'm dying?" he asked.
She laughed.
"No."
"Are you dying?"
"Not as far as I know," she chuckled.
"Then what the hell gives? You're freaking me out."
Cuddy hesitated. Then she finally decided to come clean.
"How come we never talk about what happened between us at Michigan?" she blurted out.
His eyes widened.
"Because there's nothing to say," he said. "It was a typical story. Boy meets girl. . . Girl gets off. Boy gets off. Girl gets off again. Boy get off again. If I recall correctly, girl gets off a third time. And everyone goes home happy."
"That's not how I remember it," she said. "I remember we danced, we flirted, we talked—for hours—and then we took our intimacy to the next level . . . and then you never called me again."
"If I'm the only man who ever slept with you and never called again, well, congratulations."
"Why didn't you call me?"
"Really Cuddy? You wait 20 years to express your anger over this?"
"I'm not angry," she said.
He peered at her.
"No, you're not. It's worse. You're being nice."
She took a deep breath.
"I found my earring in your bureau drawer," she said.
For a second, the skin on his neck turned red.
Then, recovering, he said, "That's your earring?"
"Come on, House. You know it's my earring."
"No. . .I mean, I found it in my luggage when I got home from med school. Always wondered whose it was . . .Kept it as a little souvenir of my . . . extracurricular activities."
Now Cuddy felt her own face turn red. She was such a fool.
"So you had no idea it was mine?" she said.
He made deliberate eye contact with her.
"None whatsoever," he said.
"Well it is," she said coldly. "And I would like it back."
"Okay,"' he said.
"And you can forget about your ridiculous radiation treatment."
######
"What are you doing lying on the floor in the dark?" Cameron said, stepping into House's office, and turning on the light.
"Yoga," he said, blinking at her.
She knelt beside him.
"Are you okay? Do you have a migraine?" Her voice was moist with concern.
"I'm fine," he said. "But thanks for hovering!"
Of course, being Cameron, she wouldn't let it go.
"Are you worried about the case?"
"Nope. Case is under control," he said.
"Then what?"
"Cameron, I have four words for you: Of. None. Your. And business. Not necessarily in that order."
She bristled a bit.
"Excuse me for caring," she muttered.
"You're excused," he said.
######
The next night, at about 9 pm, there was a knock on Cuddy's door.
She looked through the peep hole, opened the door, put her hands on her hips.
"What do you want?" she said.
"Can I come in?" House asked.
She shrugged in a "I can't stop you" kind of way, stepped aside.
"I've come to return the earrings," he said, pulling a small box out of his pocket.
"Earring. Singular," she said, annoyed.
"Actually, earrings," he said gently. "I found you a duplicate."
And he presented her with a box. She opened it: Two gold, shell-shaped earrings, on a small velvet cushion.
For a second, she was unbelievably happy with the thoughtfulness of his gift—he must've searched far and wide to find them (not to mention the expense of having them shipped overnight). Then she remembered how mad she was at him.
"That's very nice of you," she said, tersely. "Good night."
"Cuddy," he said.
"What?" she snapped.
He swallowed.
"Of course I knew it was your earring."
"You're just saying that because you know it's what I want to hear," she said.
"Cuddy. This is me we're talking about. I know what you had for breakfast this morning–dry wheat toast, by the way. Good times. I know the name of your second grade teacher: Mrs. Levine. I know when you're ovulating, for Christ's sake. Do you really think I didn't take note of what earrings you were wearing on one of the best nights of my life?"
She felt her chin begin to quiver.
"It was one of the best nights of your life?" she said, with a shy smile.
"Maybe your life is consistently awesome like that," he said. "For me, it was Top 5 material."
"Only top 5?" She pretended to be affronted.
"Well, I got expelled the next day, so that put a slight damper on things."
"You were expelled? The next day?"
She knew he had gone MIA shortly after their hookup. And years later, she heard that he had been expelled. She had just never connected the two events. (At the time, she merely assumed he was avoiding her.)
"Yup. It was one of those early signs that all great things in life will be followed by an equally shitty thing."
"So that's why you never called me?"
"Didn't see the point," he said.
"But why didn't you ever say anything?" she said.
"When? When you cut out a chunk of my leg? Or when you agreed to hire me out of pity after I had hit rock bottom?"
"Hiring you was hardly an act of pity," she said. "I got the best doctor in the country cheap."
Then she met his gaze. "My biggest concern was: Would I be able to supervise a man I still had. . . feelings for."
"Feelings?" he said, smiling a bit, shoving his hands in his pockets.
"Lots and lots of feelings," she said.
"And yet I bet you don't have a Greg House talisman in your nightstand drawer."
"No," she admitted, with a small smile. "You got me there."
"So. . . " House said, raising an eyebrow.
"So. . ." she replied. "Now what?"
"Now we can go back to the way things were . . ." he said.
"Or?"
"Or we can do this," he said. And he leaned down and gave her a kiss—just long and sensual enough to get them both excited.
"I pick door number two," she said, laughing.
"Me too," he said. "But I have one question first."
"What's that?" she said nervously.
"Did you take off your earrings?"
THE END