Hi everyone!

Here I am, back with a new story. One that I've started writing a very long time ago. Actually, I first wrote it (the beginning of that first chapter and bits of others parts) almost a year ago, when season 8 wasn't even finished.

That's the reason why this fanfic is not really a post series finale fiction. I just can't write about that, I'm sorry. Writing something that is post "Moving On" is already a huge challenge for me, because for a very long time, I've considered (and maybe still do) that what TPTB did to the show, House (and I mean, not only Huddy) was simply irreparable. Then, they wrote season 8 and I thought, well, if TPTB doesn't even care, why would it be a problem? After all, everything seemed possible in their world, especially with the second half of season 8, where Chase miraculously walks again, merely two weeks after almost dying, Dominika comes back, rich like Croesus, only from selling knishes out of a VAN in Atlantic city! Wilson, an oncologist, gets a treatable cancer, but refuses to get chemo and House, a guy with a missing chunk of MUSCLE in his thigh, manages to fake his death by escaping a building on fire, running to the back door, while it crashes and explodes in pieces. So yeah, I kinda thought, wow, maybe writing about House and Cuddy finding each other again is not that crazy if TPTB thinks it's ok to throw that kind of storylines at us and selling them as perfectly plausible options…

Dealing with House's faked death, Wilson dying of cancer and Dominika still being "the wife" is beyond my bestestest good-wills, though. So, that story won't start after "Everybody Dies." Actually, since I first started to write it around the time when they aired "Nobody's Fault," I've decided to stick to my initial plan. So there is NO sick, dying Wilson in it, NO fake dead House and, to some extent, NO Dominika House, even if, for the story's purpose, she will appear at some point. You've been warned…

Disclaimer: I sincerely think that two adults are perfectly capable of dealing with a relationship in a mature, albeit romantic way, instead of cheating and lying, or emotionally blackmailing each other like bitchy, whimsical kids so I'm obviously not affiliated with the show.

Now on to the story! :)

** I WILL ALWAYS CHOOSE YOU **

I spent a year in prison. To pay my debt to society, as they say. As if it could have changed anything…

If it had been my call, I'd have spent the rest of my miserable life there. What else did I deserve? What else was left for me? I had lost everything: my friends, my work, my girl… I'd screwed up but then, I am screwed-up. It's not like people could expect anything else from me. I've ruined all my chances. I wondered many times if I really had ones anyway. Was part of all this written? Was I not destined to end up like that, in a way?

When I was there, I was beaten, I was debased, and I was ignored. I was ordinary. Ordinary and miserable. Nobody pitied me because nobody gave a fuck about me. I was a number, a casualty, another misfit whose mistakes society had to pay for. But I didn't care. Time helped of course. After several months of that same routine, day after day, I could almost not see your face anymore. I could almost not remember why I once felt that much rage to have lost you. Remorse? I don't even know what that is. Maybe because I'm too familiar with regretting every single thing I do only when it's too late. So remorse, no, that's a luxury I really couldn't afford my mind to be drowned into. But I knew. I knew the cost of what I'd done and every implication it had. Better than anyone would ever be able to see. Better than anyone would ever be able to make me see. So why would I have let them tell me how I should have felt? When they didn't know. When they didn't feel it themselves. Knowing the price to pay for what I'd done, from the very moment I'd stepped out of my car that afternoon was enough. I knew, right then, that I'd never be able to erase that. Because that meant losing you. For good. And that was the real punishment. That , was worse than being sentenced to a lifetime in Hell.

I spent a year in prison and I would have been okay with spending another one there. And another one after that. And again, until the day when they'd have found me dead in my cell. Of overdose, of cirrhosis, of cancer, of infection.

I didn't care.

But then, there was medicine. Mystery. Sick people to save. I am not a philanthropic man. The lives I saved in all those years didn't mean a thing to me. But beating fate did. Congress men, devoted parents, religious people, heartless murderers, they didn't make a difference to me. What interested me was to know, when no one else did. That power, nothing can beat it. So I gave in to it again, because it was stronger than me, stronger than my will, stronger than the pain I'd rather have inflicted to myself.

And, in a way, it saved me.

Foreman got me out of jail. I didn't ask him anything. I'm not sure I really wanted that. But he got me out of prison and he put me back to where I didn't belong anymore. I'd lost my team. I'd lost my department. I'd lost the little respect I had from my peers. Why did I say yes? I can't say. But, even though I didn't know it at that time, somehow, it was the first step.

The one that would lead me back to you.

At first, everything felt surreal. Even Wilson punching me in the face wasn't enough to wake me up from that new surreal PPTH, where baby doctors with mom and dad problems became part of my team without me having a say about it. Foreman being the Dean was the least shocking news. I had kinda deduced that from the way he'd looked at me when he'd visited me in prison. If it were possible, the smugness on his face had raised up another notch when he'd told me he was the one that had the power to release me from prison. Foreman. Could I blame him? Not really. He'd probably done what anyone in the same circumstances would have: he'd seized an opportunity when it had presented itself to him. I couldn't pretend he wasn't worthy of the title, even though I disapproved of it. After all, I'd been the one training him all those years, so I knew what kind of a doctor he was. Administratively though, I wondered whom, among the Board, could have considered he'd be able to deal with that kind of responsibility. But then again, he didn't have to deal with me when he got promoted, so maybe the job was not that much of a challenge by then...

Foreman's office, your office, was like a nightmare in 3D. The first time I stepped in it, I felt the immense void. And it wasn't because of the total lack of furniture, no. What I felt was your absence. It made me crave your presence even more. Excruciatingly. So I locked myself in. I pretended I cared about rebuilding a functioning team for my department and I hired that girl I'd met in the prison's infirmary. Then I stalked Thirteen, because that's what I do, and I convinced her to come back, too. She didn't stay, though, because I sent her away. I made it look like a grand gesture. I told her she'd be better off without me. Or maybe, I didn't want to watch her die, experience another loss. Thirteen left and then Taub and Chase joined in.

And so we functioned, indeed, for a while. I mean, we solved cases. Did I enjoy it? At least, I made sure everyone thought I did. But the truth was, I felt nothing. Oh, but I still smiled! And I quibbled over my team's suggestions, I argued against their better judgments, like I always do, and it saved lives. But there was no excitement. I felt numb. I felt as if I were where I shouldn't be. All this time, I felt like an outsider in my own life, like I was out of place, undeserving. You could say I was not really happy, in a way, but when was I, anyway? Except when I was with you. For those blissful, fleeting, almost surreal months during which you let me love you. But there was no "you" anymore in my life. Just a void. Materialized by a colorless, empty office where someone else was seated in your chair. And none of the patients' files I read held my attention long enough for me to forget it. Day, after day, after day. So, I was not happy. But worse… I was not unhappy, either.

I just felt nothing.

It went on for a few months. Me and my team, the newbies and the senior ones, we found our tempo, somehow. I kept teasing Taub and that Asian, awkward girl because, well, that was just too easy. I challenged Chase, while openly favoring him because, medically, I'd always considered him like "my prodigal son" and, even though I'd have never admitted it, he kinda made me proud. I made inappropriate, sexual jokes with the young, beautiful one, just to upset her. I really managed to put up a good face. The great pretender! How easy it was. It wasn't even rewarding, in fact. And then, I had a wakeup call…

Chase got stabbed.

He almost died. He could have ended up being paraplegic and… it was my fault. That's not what I told the man that was sent to investigate the case, of course. By that time, mind you, I had stopped thinking that prison was my best option. Prison is a real cage and… I've built enough metaphorical bars around me to feel imprisoned already. I realized I've had enough cages for a lifetime. But that was not really a revelation, was it? What hit me, however, was that I got away with it and nobody flinched. And, like that, the numbness was gone. Where there was nothing before, suddenly there was you, in my every thought, every second of every day. I kept thinking: you… you'd have never let that happen. You'd have yelled. You'd have challenged my medical judgment. You'd have said 'no.' Of course, you'd have protected me, too, you'd have covered my ass, but… unlike Foreman, eventually, you'd have done it for me, not for yourself solely.

When the guy declared it was nobody's fault, I protested. I accused him of being a coward and it was like a stupid outburst, but I understood something that day. I understood you. What you kept telling me about how you felt, I felt it too.

You never made me a crappy doctor.

How wrong I was to tell you that. And I'm sorry, I'm sorry I said it, and burdened you with that awful lie like it was your fault, or like you should have been the one feeling guilty. Because, you'd done nothing wrong. On the contrary, what happened when Foreman closed his eyes on my reckless attitude that pushed Chase to be even more reckless and got him stabbed was me being a crappy doctor. I was inhuman then, arrogant, and stupid. I was not a man, nor was I responsible. I was that guy, genius guy maybe, but with a God complex, who thought he was above the rules. But you? You'd have never let that happen. Because that never was what you'd have wanted for me. You made me human. For a long time, I fought that feeling because it scared the hell out of me but, the truth is, I was a better man when I was with you.

You kept me grounded. No, I was not a crappy doctor when I was with you. I was just a man, in love, with different priorities and different needs. Needs I was not used to dealing with anymore. Priorities, I hadn't had in my life for so long. And it overwhelmed me. I was holding it, in my hands, and yet… I just couldn't figure out what to do with it. But I had it. Happiness. I had it, because of you.

And I ruined it.

So, when I visited Chase in that hospital room, I understood. And, inexorably, it became obvious again, like the most inescapable evidence: I need you in my life. Not just because I need your touch, or your body, physically. I do, though, need that so much, too. But, what I need the most is the whole you: your smile, your care, your wit. The way you challenge me. The way you set boundaries. The way you dare to tell me I'm wrong when nobody else does. I need you. Yes, I was wrong in every way possible to tell you that you made me a crappy doctor, but there is one thing, ONE thing, that I was right to say to you because I've never told any truth more honest and blunt than that one in my entire life.

I will always choose you.

After Chase got stabbed, and I realized all those things about me, and what kind of a man I really wanted to be, that thought started haunting me like a ghost. I had to find you. I had to see you. Until that day, I'd never really tried because I thought it was pointless. Life is ironic, isn't it? All this time, I've always known, but I never dared. The coward, that was me, actually. But that day, I stopped having doubts. I stopped being afraid of the consequences. Or, more precisely, I stopped caring about the consequences. You can't get anything if you don't try… And I wanted you back. How? I had no idea. But I knew for sure that if I didn't get to you, to try and make it happen, I'd never be able to look myself in a mirror again. I would never be able to stand my cowardice. And I will never have another chance at being just a man, and not that genius guy with a God complex I'd started to despise so much.

You need to know that Wilson didn't betray you. I knew you and him were probably still in touch. I hated that he never once admitted it, never gave me a hint of your new existence, out there, somewhere, but I guess he genuinely thought it was for the best. I asked him, of course, to tell me where to find you and when I did, he didn't even act surprised. He surely knew that day would come. But, he said he couldn't do that to you all the same. That it was not up to him to decide. He said I should forget about you, move on. Forget about you? When I'd just started becoming hopeful again? No way! So I stalked you. I spent hours on the Internet trying to find you, find a clue, the name of a city, a state, a phone number, an address. But I found nothing. I panicked. I realized that the world is a huge place and that maybe, you'd left the country…

What if you'd left the country?

But no. You would never have left your family. You'd never have given up on your job. Your job… I tried to think like you. I tried to imagine your reactions after I turned your life upside down. You would have probably avoided being a Dean again. Not that I left you with many options, anyway. Those positions are greatly prized, and there're not many of them. And I'd taken that away from you. But you're a doctor. And that, at least, I hadn't destroyed….

I found you when I finally put together the pieces of the puzzle that you'd left for me to solve. The first one that really kept me focused, determined and strangely eager to decipher for the first time in months. I saw your name listed in an article about an upcoming symposium on Fertiity C.A.R.E hosted by Penn Fertility Center in Philadelphia. When I read that you were working there, as an Infertility and Reproductive Endocrinologist, I got dizzy just thinking that, all this time, you'd been living just merely an hour away from me. And when I read that you were also Chief of the Women's Health Clinical Research Center, I smiled. And I felt… I don't know, proud. I'd always admired you for that, that ability you have to care for people's fate, and how you've always wanted to be a part of what could make a difference, as much as you could. It all made sense, after all, that you'd decided to promote your specialty in a way that mattered to you. Because of what you'd gone through yourself, before you adopted Rachel.

The conference was scheduled only two weeks later. Two weeks. That's all I had to put myself together and hope, beyond hope, that you would let me talk to you…

A/N

I just want to add that this fanfiction is NOT going to be a quiet, fluffy ride. However, as evidenced by its title, it IS, most definitely going to be Huddy. But, to some of you, at some point during the story, it might feel painful, harsh, and maybe cruel toward one of your favorite characters, whether you root for House, or for Cuddy. Thing is, I didn't write that story to try and solve everything by waving a magic wand. It WILL, somehow, be painful and harsh, and cruel because, there were things I'd have liked House and Cuddy to address, so maybe I've thrown a little of my anger in it to tackle the subjects that never got a chance to be tackled after LE left. If you reach a point in the story, where you start thinking it becomes too unfair, too mean, or too inconsiderate for your taste then, you are free not to read further. But if you still want to give it a chance, even when you feel doubtful and angry, too, sometimes, just focus on the TITLE and have faith… :)

One last, little thing: I've mixed several writing styles in this story. In some chapters, the narrative will be told in the first person, from House's OR Cuddy's point of view (those chapters, like this first one, will be in ITALIC). In others, it will be written like a classical fanfic, from an outside point of view. This choice is deliberate. I hope it won't be too unsettling. I've tried to cut the chapters so that there'll always be only ONE style at a time in the same part. I hope it'll help…

If you've liked it so far, I hope you'll share a little of your thoughts with me! Thanks for reading.

Have a nice day ~ maya