Author's note: House's "There is no heaven…" line early in this chapter is lifted from episode transcripts. I don't want to imply I wrote a line I didn't.

Chapter 2

Soon after feeling a spark of hope, House looked into the face of hopelessness. Wilson. Kind, patient, wry Wilson was getting kicked in the nuts and wasn't fighting back. Hearing that his friend had cancer had wrecked him, but helping him through intense chemo in his living room had been as close to a religious experience as House could experience. It was penance, hope, faith, commitment. It was doing hard things just in case there was something better on the other side of the effort. With that, he could deal with this.

So watching his friend slowly curl up to die, refusing to carry on with the battle, enraged him. He looked at nihilism in a new way… Even with no insurance that it would work, he wanted Wilson to try to believe it would; to have faith in the medicine; to have faith in the possibility of recovery.

So he drugged him with Propofol, trying to show him the nothingness of the other side and convince him to fight. Still, when he woke in his office Wilson stood stubbornly resistant, arguing that this simulated death proved nothing. "There is no heaven," House said. "There is no hell. Your soul is not gonna float out of your body and join some great unifying energy force. The fact that you're dying is not gonna change that."

Wilson smiled sadly. "This conversation is futile. We're in different camps, House. But to appease you, let me just say that my life has been good and I don't want the end to be bad."

"You want it to be nothing," House said bitterly. "Don't you see that even if it's bad - messy, ugly - it's better than nothing, better than the void…" he trailed off, his gaze clouding over as his thoughts jumped to some connection he was making that Wilson wasn't privy to. He left abruptly. Some things never change.

House went to his office and drew the blinds. He hadn't called her in weeks. Since he'd found out about Wilson. His heart was so out of shape, he wasn't equipped to deal with both things.

"Let me call you right back," she said in a hushed voice. She hung up and he hung on.

"House, I'm so sorry," she said a few minutes later, without him having to say a word. "It's is the most horrible news. It's tragic and… unfair… and depressing…" She was babbling a little.

"I don't want to talk about Wilson," he replied flatly.

"Okay," she replied, an edge of anxiety creeping into her voice.

"It doesn't have to be good. Me and you," he clarified. "You're right, it never was. But this… nothingness. The space where you used to be… in my day. In my life. It's killing me."

He waited. "I don't want to talk about us," she finally said.

"Okay." More silence, then "He's being an idiot," House groused.

"And there you are, with the most natural, compassionate, human reaction." He could picture her eyeroll even though he couldn't see her, and it made him grin a little. "He's in shock. He's scared. He's hurting. He's not thinking clearly."

"That's no excuse for being an idiot."

"Hmmm. It isn't, eh?" she asked gently.

He hung up.

[H] [H] [H]

A few weeks later he smelled her. That's how he knew. When he walked in the building he noticed a few people looking at him, a few whispers, and he figured it was either Wilson dying or some taboo action he'd taken recently and promptly forgotten about. Then he got off the elevator and was walking by Wilson's office on the way to his. The door was closed, he noted, and then he had this unmistakable sensation of her. He realized it was her scent – her perfume, shampoo, skin – and he limped to the door and leaned his ear against it. Others passed by and gave him their usual disapproving glares, but his heart raced for reasons other than the illicit activity. Cuddy was in there. He heard the unmistakable smoky music of her voice. His mind was racing as fast as his heart now. He hadn't prepared for this in the least and felt like some kind of opportunity would slip through his fingers if he didn't get a game plan fast. As the minutes ticked past the hour, the hallway calmed down with people already settled into their next appointments or closed in their offices to get some work done. In the quiet he could hear better.

"Sometimes I feel that way," Wilson was saying. "I'll really surrender the things I can't control and the weight will lift for a little bit. But it comes crashing back when I realize that… That I'm afraid to die."

There was a long silence. He wondered if they were crying. He wondered why Wilson wouldn't fight more if he felt this way. Then he heard her again. "Of course you are. I'd worry about you if you weren't. Knowing it's coming – I mean we all know eventually – but knowing it's sooner than later… It's tortuous."

"But then I go back to the first feeling, you know? It's pointless to sit there worrying about something I can't control." He laughed a little. "Then I'll get a muscle pain or a headache and wonder if this is the beginning of the end, and I'm back to terrified."

"Wilson…" He heard the shakiness in her voice. She was crying. "I wish there was anything I could do. I wish I could help you."

"You are," he assured her."Just being here. Being with me."

"I know," she murmured, and House felt sick. He was transported to the beginning of their end, and his inability to do anything to help her when she thought she was staring down the same gunbarrel. But just like she couldn't cure Wilson's cancer, he couldn't… couldn't even… Ugh. No one understood that inability.

Wilson's voice broke his reverie. "I don't know if I'm scared of being alone at the moment I die as much as I am of being alone while I'm dying, you know? It's one thing to send flowers, make phone calls, but it's another to hang out with the guy who's coughing up a lung and pissing himself. I'm afraid people won't want to be with me."

There was a long silence. "He will," she told him.

Wilson chuckled a little bitterly. "I speak of him in the plural now," he joked. Cuddy laughed softly. "Well, he's not sober, so that might help," Wilson offered.

"He loves you, Wilson."

"He loved you."

"It's different."

"Not really. He has a pain threshold. If he can't handle it, he just runs away," Wilson explained.

"Not always," she argued. "I agree, he often does. But sometimes he walks right into the tidal wave, like an idiot, just to see what will happen."

Wilson laughed again. "Yeah, well he's not a swimmer."

"But he won't sink either." There was a pause. "He's plankton." They both started cracking up and House didn't know whether to smile or cry or barge in and yell "Ah-ha!" They started talking about other things then, so he walked down to his office and dropped his stuff on his chair. Then he went out on the balcony and crossed over to Wilson's door and barged on in. They looked up and he saw Wilson roll his eyes, but then he locked his gaze with hers, which was even and controlled. Cuddy, always. Perfectly poised. Until she wasn't.

"Well, would you look what the cancer dragged in!" he exclaimed, dropping onto the couch.

"You know, I still have a right to some privacy," Wilson protested.

"Yeah, I'll remind you of that when I'm wiping your ass in eight months," House replied, not taking his eyes off Cuddy.

"Hello, House," she said coolly.

"Hey," he said, smirking. It was awkward and tense, but completely delicious to him. It was like the bad old days. And she was just as irritated and beautiful.

"I'm just in town to see Wilson for a while," she explained.

"Cool," he replied. "Wanna ditch him and grab some coffee?"

She had the hint of smirk at the corner of her mouth, but her eyes were wide and sad. "No, House."

"Come on, Cuddy. You can't come here and not just have a cup of coffee with me."

"Um, actually, I can do whatever the hell I want. Without you."

They stared at each other. "House – " Wilson began.

"It's fine, Wilson. I'm leaving," House assured him. "Just had to see if it was the real deal or if I was hallucinating again." He stood up to leave. When his hand touched the door handle she spoke.

"It's good to see you, House."

He didn't turn around. "Is it?"

She sighed. "I don't know."

"Well, if you need to collect more data, you know where to see me again." He pushed through the door and walked back to his office. He dropped into his chair. Chase and Adams were waiting for him, scans in hand. He was happy for the distraction. They stuck the scans onto the light box and discussed symptoms and test results. He saw Wilson walk by the glass walls while he was talking to them and he raised his eyebrows at him as he passed. House didn't know what to make of it.

Eventually his team left and he was alone. He was sitting at his desk, staring into space when his phone rang.

"I should have warned you I was coming. I'm sorry if it's… shaken you up," she said.

"I like when you shake me up."

"Don't do that."

"What?"

"Don't act like this is… normal. We aren't normal. We aren't fine. We aren't five years ago just because Wilson is sick."

"You mean because Wilson is dead."

"If that's how you're going to treat him for the next year, I'm even happier I came to see him."

"Of course! Cuddy to the rescue. Better save the impotent little man from his damaged, heartless best friend."

"You're not mad at me," she said plainly, like she was diffusing a tantrum.

He paused. "I am a little," he replied. She knew she'd hurt his feelings. No use hiding it.

"House." She sounded exhausted. "I can't be seen having lunch with a man who assaulted me three years ago."

"I didn't assault you," he said, angry at the implication.

She said nothing.

"I didn't assault you," he repeated.

She said nothing. He suddenly had a piercing headache between his temples. He felt nauseous.

"Dammit, Cuddy!" he yelled at first. Then his voice hitched a little. "I'm so sorry," he said. And he was.

Cuddy sighed a long, slow, tired sigh. "I hope that's true."

It suddenly occurred to him… Where was she? They'd been together in Wilson's office a mere twenty minutes ago. She couldn't be talking this openly anywhere in the hospital - where the walls had ears - and she didn't have a private space here anymore. Suddenly he stood up and went to the glass door to the balcony, staring across the concrete space to the other glass door, where she stood, phone to her ear, staring back at him.

"Just stop there," she ordered him. They stared at each other through the panes of glass.

"It was like… Like someone throwing a dish at the wall during an argument," he tried to explain. "I just took it to an eleven. Like I always do," he lamented. "But, it was... an isolated event. You can't pretend it was a pattern. I never… hurt you."

He saw tears start to pool in her eyes. "People who throw a dish once sometimes do it again," she murmured into the phone. "I can't risk that. Not when you go to eleven."

Suddenly he just wanted to hold her so badly, to kiss her face everywhere and say he was sorry until he had no more voice, and just keep her close until she trusted him again. He swung open his glass door and loped clumsily over the balcony divider, arriving on the other side of her glass in seconds. Cuddy stepped back a bit, startled.

He kept one hand on his phone, holding it to his ear to not miss a breath. With the other, he placed his palm against the glass and looked down into her eyes. They stared at each other like zoo exhibits, only he was looking at some beautiful, regal, dignified creature – a phoenix – and she was looking at a powerful, mesmerizing, unpredictable beast. Something that could destroy her if she wasn't careful. But the beast stood there looking at her, almost purring, and she had to remind herself of its claws and teeth.

She raised her own hand and put it to his, sandwiching the glass between their skin.

"Is it good to see me?" he asked.

Finally a single tear fell. "I don't know," she whispered.