Lisa Cuddy softly sat on an edge of the bed and looked at the sleeping man. She run tips of her fingers over his cheek feeling a slight scratching of his bristle. Then she bent over and touched his closed eyelids with a kiss imponderable as a wind puff. Her lips found his mouth with deep wrinkles around, indicating sufferings and being a testimony of an obstinate disposition.
Greg's face got distorted with pain, perspiration appeared on his forehead, he moaned through his clenched teeth but never woke up. Cuddy leaned closer so that her loose hair touched his face, pressed her gentle cheek against his spiny one and whispered words of comfort. House calmed down and turned over on his side. Lisa sighted and slided into bed with a imperceptible move. Finding herself by the side of her beloved she hugged him tight. She inhaled his smell, carefully listening to his even heartbeat.
Having snuggled up to the man, Lisa froze. She loved lying like that, knowing that no sorrow and worries can penetrate this snug world and destroy what ties them together.
Again and again she came here, to this so familiar room. Though recently her visits became more and more rare. Closing her eyes she could only hope that her insidious subconsciousness would allow her to find herself here again, near to him.
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They were very happy then. Happy like only two mature grown ups can be; two mature grown ups who suddenly realize that their dreary but outwardly impeccable being can be absolutely different; two grown ups who understand that it is enough to put a key into a lock, turn in and push the door to see a whole new world, sparkling and aglint waiting for you.
And what is more important you won't be alone anymore. You will leave all your loneliness, desolation and consuming emptiness there, behind the door.
From now on everything will change. There will be the one by you side, the one that will give you all tenderness, all warmth that a human heart is capable of. A feeling of sharp, almost unbearable happiness will feel your every cell and you'll be at once seized with a desire to cry about it aloud. You'll have no fear, there will be no pain. All your misgivings and doubts will go away and you'll feel as if you have 2 strong wings behind your back. This new world will soon become you home. A wary surprise will be replaced with gratitude and confidence.
Perhaps that is what they call love. The feeling that makes you laugh with no particular reason why; the feeling that makes you search him in the crowd and when you finally have found him it is absolutely impossible to take your eyes away from him; the feeling that makes you wake up with a smile knowing for sure that he'll unmistakably understand why you're smiling though it is cold and raining outside and you have to get out of the warm bed and go to work.
That's how it goes. There is only one "but" – no one guarantees that all on a sudden you won't be thrown out of this world. They throw you out in a rude, humiliating manner, taking no pains to explain a thing. They throw you out, slamming the door behind. And you stand there trembling, shocked, hardly realizing that it had happened and questioning yourself what you did wrong. Resentment will give you strength, and you'll start knocking hoping that the one who stayed behind the door will change his mind and open the door. But it will be quite there, the one left inside will be somber and adamant.
Then comes a moment when, tired of knocking, you'll say to yourself "enough". Helplessly you'll stand still leaning against the door with your hand on the smooth polished surface, pressing your hot forehead against it. You'll stand there feeling that acrid, stinging despair fills you, comes up the throat, makes it impossible to breath in. Shaking, you'll start praying that all of it is just a nightmare. But deep inside you'll know that it's true.
Again you'll find yourself in a grey, featureless world having no idea that the moment you stepped out of your wonder kingdom, the world that you left behind blended, lost its magical shine and turned into a mirroring reflection of the cheerless reality you are in.
And you'll go away. You'll go away with your head high, holding splinters of you pride, hiding an unbearable pain behind a dazzling smile so that none can see how devastated you are. The main thing is not to turn around. You'll make a new start, you've always been capable of it, it's just that you forgot about it for a while.
And then there comes hope and…
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Cuddy startled and woke up. She could hear a baby cry coming from the next room. She got up quickly and found herself near the cradle. She took her little baby and tenderly cooed:
"Shhhhhh, Hope, shhhh, baby girl… It's all right, mommy is here…
Rocking the baby to sleep, Lisa approached the window. Sunrise broke above Los Angeles. Soon the air will be soaked with the smell of orange trees heated with midday sultriness, sunshine will fill a little patio of her house.
Alas, all the warm and shine of the day are incapable to dissolve viscous emptiness that settled down in her heart. But a small dark-haired angel snuffling on her arms looking at the mommy with blue cunning eyes of her father can do it, indeed.