Just a minor fic. Okay, actually two minor fics forcibly wedged together. In the first, I address the dreaded tripwire episode. In part two, I do some follow-up to Rachel's Simchat Bat. (One of my most requested prompts, by the way.)
The common thread is, well, baby Rachel. Also, House and Cuddy constantly picking the brains of other people to get insight/confirmation about each other. Anyway, hope you enjoy.
Special thanks to Frenchie, MC Rainbow Puke, Jess, and Hannah for beta reads. And thanks, as always, for all the swell comments. They really keep me motivated. xo, atd
"Dr. Cuddy! Come quick! Come quick!"
It was Nurse Lori, from the second floor. She was out of breath and seemed highly agitated.
"Slow down, Lori. What's wrong?"
"Some maniac set up a tripwire in Dr. House's office and he fell and hit his head pretty hard. There's a lot of blood."
Cuddy went white.
"Oh my God," she said, hastily getting up from behind her desk. "Where is he?"
"ICU, room 103," Lori yelled, as Cuddy ran toward the ICU, at a full trot. Her heart was racing.
What had she done?
But when she entered ICU 103, the room was empty, the bed stripped. She looked around, in dismay.
"Gotcha!" House said, leaping out from behind the door, a camera dangling around his neck.
She must've jumped a foot in the air.
"Jesus," she said, clutching her chest. "You scared the shit out of me."
"You set up a tripwire in the office of a cripple. I think we're even."
"You idiot, I thought you were really hurt."
"You know what they say: It's all fun and games until someone gets a cerebral hemorrhage."
"I told you. I've sunk to your level. I'm not proud of this fact," she sighed.
"You seem to have a distorted view of my level. I don't try to physically hurt people. Tripwires might be really funny in Bugs Bunny cartoons, Cuddy, but in the real world—Elmer Fudd's hematoma isn't miraculously cured during the commercial break."
Cuddy's shoulders slumped.
"I'm sorry," she said. "You're right. It was immature and. . . beneath me."
"I never said it was beneath you. I said it was beneath me."
"Cute," she said. She was still extremely wound up. She was trying, in vain, to catch her breath.
"What's the camera for?" she said, finally noticing it.
"Wanted to capture your face in its precise moment of pure terror," he said. He looked at the viewfinder, smiled. "I think it's an instant classic. My version of Edvard Munch's The Scream."
She sat at the edge of the empty bed, partly embarrassed to show him how agitated she still was, but unable to fully catch her breath.
"Nurse Lori is totally fired by the way," she said.
"Today's her last day," House said, sitting next to her and patting her knee in a somewhat patronizing way. "How else do you think I got her to lie to the Dean of Medicine like that?"
Then he gave a self-satisfied grin.
"I can hear your heart beating in your chest, Cuddy. I really gave you a scare."
"Screw you," she said.
"I remember how freaked you were when Jose fell off your roof," House said.
"Alfredo," she said wearily.
"I could only imagine how upset you would be if you murdered me in cold blood."
"I don't know," Cuddy said. "I'm actually thinking of murdering you right now."
#####
House showed Wilson the picture of Cuddy.
"How would you describe Cuddy's face in this photo?" he said.
"Upset?" Wilson said.
House raised an eyebrow.
"Can you be more specific?"
"Extremely upset? On the verge of tears. Why? What did you do to her?"
"What makes you think I'm responsible for this face?" House asked.
"Ummm, let me see. For one, you are almost always the source of Cuddy's misery. And two, you are boastfully showing me this photo."
"She thought I was bleeding from the skull," House said, proudly.
"And why on earth would she think that?"
"Because Nurse Lori told her I was."
Wilson chuckled.
"Nurse Lori is so fired."
"Today's her last day," House said, pulling a lollipop out of his back pocket, and shoving it in his mouth.
"Okay, I'll bite. Why did you want Cuddy to think you were bleeding from the head?"
"Because she set up a tripwire in my office."
"No way," Wilson said.
"Way," House said. "She's pissed at me because I'm allegedly keeping her away from her Precious."
"You mean her infant daughter she just adopted?"
"Golum has his Precious, Cuddy has hers."
"Still. . . tripwire isn't her style."
"Exactly. Which was why I needed to point out the potential dire consequences of her actions."
"Oh yeah, because you're a real think-before-you-act kinda guy."
"I'm not. But Cuddy is. I was appealing to her better nature. Manipulating her guilt is just way too easy."
"And you never turn down an opportunity to tighten the screws."
House looked at the picture again, for a long time.
"She looks really upset, huh?" he said, happily.
And Wilson put his head in his hands.
######
House stuck the photo in Chase's face.
"Describe Cuddy's face in this picture."
Chase peered at it.
"Terrified? Guilty? And. . .hot."
House nodded in agreement, tucked the photo back in his jacket pocket.
Later, he found Cameron in the cafeteria. He slid across from her.
"Why can't you supervise me?" he demanded.
"You know why," Cameron said. "You're my mentor. You taught me everything I know. I'd let you get away with too much."
"Also, you're hot for me," he said, grinning.
"I'm . . . I'm. . . happily dating Chase," she sputtered.
"Never said you weren't," he said. "So we've established why you can't supervise me. Why is it that Cuddy can?"
"Because she respects your methods but isn't afraid to say no to you. She's, like, the only who can do that."
"She is, isn't she?" House said musingly. "But the real question is: Do you think she's hot for me?"
Cameron blanched a bit.
"I … wouldn't know. That's between you and Dr. Cuddy," she said.
"Ha! Just a rhetorical question. The correct answer is: She's totally hot for me. And yet she can still supervise me. Fascinating huh?"
"Fascinating," Cameron said, somewhat tersely.
House shrugged. Then he pulled the photo out of his pocket.
"Describe Cuddy's face in three words or less," he said.
#######
A week later was Rachel's Simchat Bat.
Cuddy had her typically schizoid feelings about House's presence.
At first, she thought she didn't want him there, because she feared he would quietly (or worse, not so quietly) mock the entire ceremony.
Then, she realized that the milestones in her life just didn't have meaning without House there. For better or for worse, his presence completed her.
So every time the doorbell rang, she got her hopes up and every time it wasn't him, her heart sank just a little bit more.
Just once, why couldn't House make a tiny gesture of compromise for her? Why couldn't he put aside his famous pigheadedness and do something simply because he cared?
She sighed. Who was she trying to kid? She may've spent the whole evening glancing anxiously at the door, but he had probably forgotten all about Rachel's big night the minute he got home.
The ceremony, for what it was worth, went well. Rachel wasn't fussy. She smiled and gurgled and kicked her little feet and impressed the room with her overall adorableness. And after, Cuddy was exhausted. She had dishes to do and piles of baby blankets, booties, and onesies to sort through in the morning. For now, she just wanted to sleep.
The phone rang at 1 am. At least, she thought it did. She was so groggy, it barely registered. (She knew it wasn't the hospital; they always paged her on her cell). She pulled the covers over her eyes and forgot all about it.
In the morning, she made herself some strong coffee, fed Rachel her bottle and put her down in the baby swing. Only then did she remember the phone call.
The light was blinking on the answering machine. She pressed play.
"I'm sorry I didn't make the ceremony," House's voice slurred. "But I wrote this for you."
There was a sound of the phone being put down, maybe the moving of a glass, the shifting of a piano bench, and then he started to play. It was one of the most beautiful, haunting melodies she had ever heard. It began in the melancholy Hebraic tradition, until it turned into a kind of lilting jazz ballad, and then ended on a sweetly optimistic note.
The music finished and there was a pause.
"So yeah, I wrote that for you," House said. "G'night, Cuddy."
And he hung up.
Inexplicably, ridiculously, she felt like she wanted to cry.
She listened to the song four more times.
Later, her friend Judy came by to help with the cleanup.
"That was a great night last night," Judy said, tapping on one of the stars on the mobile above Rachel's swing. It spun and Rachel gurgled a bit in pleasure.
"Judy, do you mind if I play something for you?" Cuddy said.
"Shoot."
Cuddy hit play on the answering machine.
When the song was finished, Judy said: "Wow. That was beautiful. That guy's really talented."
"He's one of the doctors at the hospital," Cuddy said, trying to keep her voice casual.
Judy gave a knowing smile.
"And how long has he been in love with you?"
#####
On Monday, she stood in his office, feeling strangely shy.
"I got your message," she finally said. "Thanks."
He looked up from the patient file on his desk. He was wearing his wire-rim glasses, which he now took off.
"What message?" he said, scratching his head.
"The song?" she said. "That you left on my answering machine?"
A tiny glimmer of mortified recognition flashed on his face.
"Oh God," he said.
"I . . . loved it."
"I should never drunk dial," he moaned. "Or drunk piano-play."
"It was beautiful," Cuddy said.
"It's not like I wrote it for you," House said, hastily.
"Really?" Cuddy said, not buying it. "Because on the message, you said that you did. Twice. Plus it sounded kinda. . . Jewish."
"Oh God," he repeated, totally embarrassed.
"You shouldn't be embarrassed, House. It . . meant a lot to me," she said.
"I beg you to go," he said, putting his head in his hands.
######
"Lovely ceremony Friday night," Wilson said, on line with Cuddy in the cafeteria.
"Thanks," she said.
"Too bad House was a no-show. But it was probably for the best."
"He showed he cared, in his own way," she said, not able to suppress a smile.
"Meaning?"
"He wrote a song for me on his piano, and then he played it on my answering machine."
"No he didn't!"
"It's true."
"How drunk was he?"
"Extremely," she admitted. "He forgot all about it and tried to deny it ever occurred. But I have proof!"
Wilson shook his head.
"I can't believe House went full-on John Cusack in Say Anything on you. I cannot wait to openly mock him for this."
"Oh you can't mock him," Cuddy said quickly. "He'd kill me if he knew I told you. This conversation never occurred, right, Wilson?"
"Right," Wilson said, grabbing a milk out of the refrigerator case and attempting a House-like move where he tossed it behind his back onto his tray. (It fell to the floor and he had to sheepishly pick it up.)
Cuddy looked at him.
"But what do you think the song means?" she asked.
Wilson gave a weary laugh.
"You guys are too much," he said.
####
That night, House sat in his apartment, drinking scotch, looking at the photo he had taken of Cuddy. She looked so scared and upset in it. God, he really was such a dick.
He scratched his head.
And he was a coward, too. He wanted to kiss her, all the time—but instead he pulled pranks, wrote her pathetic love songs and then denied it, pretended she meant nothing to him.
He grabbed his jacket, got on his bike, drove to her house.
This is what he planned to do: He would knock on her door, boldly take her in his arms, and kiss her long and hard, the way he had been longing to kiss her, the way she deserved to be kissed.
But the closer he got, the less bold he became.
He reluctantly cut the engine, limped toward her house, knowing somehow he wasn't going to go through with it, that he would not knock on the door, that he would go home and go to bed, that he would manage to convince himself, yet again, that he was better off alone.
Then he noticed something through the window: Cuddy was standing over an end table, where her answering machine was. She pressed play. And then she pressed play again.
She was listening to his serenade, over and over again.
He inhaled, knocked on the door.
"Hi!" she said, adorably flustered to see him.
She was wearing a pair of sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt, which hung loosely off one shoulder, and somehow made him desire her all the more.
"Hi," he said.
"Do you want to. . ."
But before she could finish her sentence, he grabbed her, found her mouth, felt her body, warm and supple beneath his hands, and kissed her passionately, furtively, the way she deserved to be kissed.
". . . come in?" she breathed finally, when he let go. She was still a bit dazed.
He gave a soft smile.
"I thought you'd never ask."
THE END