A/N-Thanks to everyone who followed and favorited this story and to all of you who left a review: IHeartHouseCuddy, lenasti16, Boo's House, aussiefan12, Tori, IWuvHouse, Guest, Babaloo Blue, jaybe61, LapizSilkwood, Little Greg, housebound, ikissedtheLaurie, chebelle, JLCH, JM, BJAllen815, givemekevinbacon, OldSFfan, KiwiClare, harpomarx, iridescentZEN, Suzieqlondon, ClareBear14, dmarchl21, Ana anamq, huddy you are mine, freeasabird14, Fran, siddigfan, HuddyGirl, Alex and LiaHuddy. *One other note for House-Cuddy fans: I don't do FB, but for people who are interested, check out the WeWannaWatchThunderRoadtrip page.
-Protection-
Cuddy asked calmly, "Would you please talk to me? Tell me what's going on."
"I already told you. I'm tired and I'm in pain," House answered after a prolonged silence, opening the door and lifting his right leg carefully from the car.
Cuddy quickly exited the vehicle and rounded it, trying to make sure that he did not fall. She helped him out of the car, his size was uncomfortable and unwieldy, and his limbs seemed to serve little function except to support some of the weight of him while she directed his forward motion. Before they even reached the steps, he had difficulty continuing. "What did you take, House?" she pressed.
"Umm…it might have been Vicodin…let me read the label."
"What else did you take?"
"I haven't been sleeping."
She was growing exhausted under the sheer weight of him as she helped him up the stairs. "You took sleeping pills?"
"I'm fine, Cuddy, I'm on the upswing."
"I can see that," she said sarcastically as they crossed into the hallway outside of his apartment.
Nodding toward the door, she held out her hand for the keys. His one arm was still draped over her shoulders for support. Had he not been so tired, he would have pulled his arm away, but in the middle of so much pain and heaviness, her delicate and warm body actually felt good next to him. He was far too tired to fight the one thing that was keeping him from collapsing in the hallway, which was also the only thing in his reality that felt pleasant at that moment.
When she unlocked the door, she gestured for him to walk through, and when he didn't respond, she looked at his face. She expected him to be scowling or grimacing, somehow showing his disapproval for her nearness. She paused, trying to decipher the look that certainly was not disapproving. All she could see in his eyes was pain and disorientation, and something that almost looked like appreciation. Even once he noticed that she was looking at him, he didn't pull away. She thought about saying something, anything at all, but had no idea what she wanted to say.
Slipping his keys into his jacket pocket, she reached her newly freed hand up to hold onto his arm, the one that was over her shoulder, and her voice crackled as she suggested, "Come on, we should go inside."
House dropped his head, nodded and the two went in together. She leaned him against his sofa and watched while he practically slid around it and dropped down.
"Get back up, I'm taking you to the hospital," she stated certainly, "you're worse than I thought."
"No," he shook his head, "I'm sick of being in that fish bowl. As soon as the sleeping pills wear off, I'll be fine."
"A different hospital then."
"Just a different fish bowl."
"You need to rest…sleep…be monitored. You need to get help."
Cuddy inspected the apartment to look for evidence of anything else he might have taken. The place was a mess. No one considered House a neat freak, but his place was never this dirty in her previous visits. There were dishes piled in the sink and his refrigerator was almost entirely empty. She found drained bottles of booze on the counters and an overflowing ashtray. She came across generic sleeping pills, some cold remedies, several empty Vicodin bottles and started to wonder how he was still breathing. She hoped that he hadn't had all of those things at once, but she had little way of knowing which things were taken in what combinations or when.
"You can't be alone when you're this disoriented, and I don't know how much you've taken," she said as she walked into the living room and placed a few of the medications on the coffee table. "Which did you take today?"
"Visiting nurse will be here in an hour, she'll look in on me. Leave with a clear conscious," he said after looking at his watch.
In the next breath, his head tipped back and she knew he was sleeping or perhaps he passed out. She watched him for a few minutes, trying to decide what to do. She had suspected over the previous few weeks that he was worse than he let on, but she had no idea things were as bad as what she was seeing.
She started doing dishes, dutifully cleaning up, and then surrendered. This was his mess, she cleaned up his messes at the hospital, but she wasn't going to clean them up in his home. She stomped out from the kitchen to the sofa, but when she found him, she could not prevent the rising feeling of compassion. She walked around the sofa, lifting his feet, shoes and all, up onto the furniture. It was no easy task, he was so unconscious that it was like lifting dead weight. She got a pillow from his room and negotiated him down so his head was on it.
"I'm so fucking stupid," she said into the air, wondering if she should just call an ambulance or Wilson, but then feeling guilty because she knew he did not want either of those two things. She also did not want to relax her vigilance and have the man die. As she watched him, she worried, wondering which combination of chemicals was coursing through his body. He didn't move at all so she approached, sat on the edge of the coffee table and reached over to find his pulse. It was there, slow but steady. She jumped when there was a loud knock on the door, withdrawing her hand as if touching him was some sort of sin that she would be punished for if caught.
Opening the door, she saw a woman in front of her, realizing that he was not entirely joking about visiting nurses. Cuddy nodded at the hooker, "He's a bit under the weather, he'll have to reschedule."
The prostitute looked past Cuddy, "When isn't he under the weather?"
"When did he call you?" Cuddy asked.
"Standing appointment."
"I'm sorry, you came here for nothing," Cuddy said, "he doesn't need you today."
"You the wife or the girlfriend?" the hooker asked, propping a knowing hand on her hip.
"Neither. He's unconscious."
"I'm here, I want to get paid. Just ask him, he always pays whether or not I-"
"Really, I don't want to know," Cuddy held up a hand.
"Wake him up and ask him."
Cuddy looked over at the sofa, trying to figure out if she could get to his wallet but not wanting to wake him, and finally going for her purse. "How much?"
"I want forty."
"Forty…just for showing up?"
The hooker looked her over, "I'll throw something in for ya if you're interested. Forty's a good deal for what I can do. Wake him up and I'll cut you a deal for the both of you."
Cuddy shook her head subtly but for longer than necessary, "I'll be fine. Here's sixty, and cancel the standing appointment. Don't come back unless he calls again."
"I'll be here next time."
"Eighty then, that's double, to not come back," Cuddy said.
The hooker looked at the money, "Fine. Ten minutes after you're gone he'll be calling to reschedule."
"That's his business," Cuddy said, reaching out even farther with the cash.
"You're willing to pay eighty to stop me from coming back and you aren't the wife or the girlfriend?"
"I'm just a friend," Cuddy answered more sadly than she expected.
"A friend who's spending eighty dollars to make sure he doesn't sleep with another woman?"
Cuddy nodded, "Take your eighty, and don't come back unless he calls you."
"Call me," the hooker shouted into the room.
Cuddy smiled stiffly at the woman, shutting the door.
"You just paid a hooker," House said without moving.
"You're up already?" she asked.
"I heard the door. If I could have reached my phone, I would have gotten a picture of you paying her…I'd never do an hour of clinic duty again."
"How are you feeling?" she asked House while she walked around to the front of the sofa.
"How in the hell does it look like I'm feeling?" he said through a weak voice.
"Is this what you want?" Cuddy questioned, sitting on the edge of the coffee table, ignoring his previous answer.
"What? A hooker?" he asked, his forearm flung over his eyes.
"All of it. Hookers, sleeping pills and Vicodin. You can't work like this, not like you are right now. This can't be…all you want from your life. It's hard to even find you in there anymore," she added aloud. It was supposed to be silent, typical internal dialogue, but he heard it.
He pulled his arm down from his face, it brushed her leg and he jerked back, looking with contempt at where her bare knee jutted out from her skirt.
Cuddy breathed out an angry laugh.
"What?" he responded.
"Nothing," she answered snidely, shaking her head.
"No, what? Tell me. Tell me what happened now that has you feeling so superior?"
"I don't feel superior."
"I can feel you looking down at me with that laugh."
"It's hard to believe," she said angrily, "that you'll have sex with a hooker but you're horrified by my fucking knee. That's what."
"You sent the hooker away, I was scared you were offering to take her place," he stared, managing a scowl that lacked its usual strength.
"I get that you don't like me, and believe me, you have made that perfectly clear. I wasn't making you any offers, I just don't understand what it is about me that repulses you so much."
She stood, walking toward the door, and he heard the voice again, "I was hoping she'd go. We can call the hooker back if you want. Then be left alone. We like being alone anyway. I don't like that look you were getting…like you want to snuggle. That's not us. She's ruining us." House's hallucination said as he came into sight.
The hallucination looked like House in his youth, healthy and strong, but he was an exaggerated self, the embodiment of things people thought they saw in him, the worst of what he thought of himself, a cruel and cold combination of traits all centered in one, angry, sardonic vision. The voice of doubt, resentment, self-loathing and distrust packaged in a body that House had known at one time. It was the voice in his head that so often trapped him.
House's younger self was standing over her, looking down her shirt, "She does have a few nice…features. It's too bad you'd get all attached because I remember what she felt like."
House was glaring unhappily while Cuddy watched him with a baffled look. She had no idea what he was looking at as he stared off to her side with a look of disgust. The hallucination stayed close to Cuddy but turned and looked at House, "You're turning into such a weak little fucker, aren't you?"
"Stop," House retorted, more loudly and forcefully than Cuddy had heard him say anything since she found him at Kutner's.
"Stop what?" she asked.
"Don't go," he said clearly, looking toward the window, regretting the words of rejection he had flung at her a few moments earlier.
"I'm not going," she answered, so stunned that she almost failed to respond. "Someone needs to stay with you. I'm going to my car, I'll be back."
Cuddy took her keys, leaving the apartment with the door propped open so she could easily return.
"This is stupid," House's younger self said after a few moments, leaning on the wall by the door. "She just feels guilty. Tell her to leave. She'll ruin everything."
"I'm not listening to you. You aren't real," House replied.
"I am…believe me. Without me, you'd be nothing. Sort of like you are now…sick, helpless, lost. You don't even have your brains anymore…Fucking pathetic."
"I don't even know why I'm talking to you."
"Because we're completely out of our gourd. I mean we've seen some crazy fucking people, haven't we? Pretty soon she'll figure out just how nuts we are, and she'll have us locked up."
"Once I get some sleep you'll be done."
"What?" Cuddy asked as she came through the door with a gym bag, the hallucination disappearing when the door swung open into the place where House saw it moments earlier.
"I didn't think you were coming back," House sighed.
"I told you I was coming back," Cuddy answered with irritation, still frustrated from their earlier conversation, walking toward the kitchen.
He reached over the back of his sofa, grabbed her wrist and pulled her toward him, letting go as soon as he had her attention. House looked down, feeling like he had to do something extreme because it was possible that she was the only thing between him and complete madness. "You don't repulse me, you never have. I just feel like shit right now."
"Hard to tell the difference from my end."
"I know," he answered softly.
"Where did you go? Are you still in there?"
"This is the same me…since the infarction, this is me."
"No," she shook her head, "it isn't. A year…two or three years ago…this was not you."
"Maybe you weren't looking."
"I was looking. Your behavior is scaring the shit out of me in one moment, and then you are trying to piss me off and push me away in the next."
"Then go," he responded, instantly feeling the cold ache at the thought.
"Not right now…your condition."
"You shouldn't stay if I'm scaring the shit out of you," he countered.
"You aren't, but your current condition is. Your current health is scaring the shit out of me. This…is not good."
"I'll be fine."
"There has to be more for you. More to your life than this."
"There isn't."
"There is!"
He huffed, "You want me to quit Vicodin, Cuddy? Didn't we try this before and it got really ugly?"
"Because we went about it all wrong."
"There is no right way."
"Maybe there is."
"There isn't," he barked.
"Maybe there is," she stood over him, yelling down over his prone form. "What have you tried?"
"Plenty," he retorted roughly, sitting up.
She was getting ready to yell and she saw him slink back down into the pillow. She didn't have the heart to scream at him, it would have been like kicking a puppy. His eyes were bloodshot and heavy. She sat down on the edge of the sofa while he looked at her suspiciously. She reached up to his neck, feeling his pulse, "You don't look good," she said softly.
There was no need to check his pulse, it was an excuse to touch him that she thought he might accept, she could think of no other way to offer comfort.
"I know," he answered.
Her fingers lingered on his neck too long, her thumb eventually brushing the coarse skin under his jaw as the heel of her hand rested momentarily on the upper part of his chest. When she pulled back, the tips of her fingers tapped his chest before she removed her hand.
"So you're sleeping in short bursts like that. A few minutes here and there?" she asked, sounding clinical and professional.
He nodded, "An hour…maybe two when I'm really lucky."
"No wonder you don't feel good. You need to sleep. You're also mixing too much."
He started to sigh, "Because I can't sleep and my leg hurts and-"
"OK," she answered quickly. "If I can come up with something for you to try, will you try it?"
"I'm not going to fucking rehab."
"I didn't say that. If I can come up with something, will you try?"
"What do you want me to do?"
"Let me dose you. I control the meds. I come up with a plan that does not include trying to detox while you're working…our bet was a mistake."
"I know how to control my dosages better than you," House answered.
"I can see that," she said, looking down at the coffee table and a small sampling of the meds she'd found.
"It's called tolerance," he answered.
"I know. I want to pull you back. Start weaning you off."
"That doesn't work."
"So you're already unwilling to try?"
"No," he sighed. "I don't want to be in pain."
"I know," she said, her look somber.
He nodded, closing his eyes and covering them with his arm again.
"House, no wonder you can't sleep. This place needs cleaned so you can feel comfortable. Your body needs…reset, you need to let go, your meds need regulated, you need food," she suggested.
"You think I can't sleep because my dishes are in the sink and I'm hungry? Wow, this is sure to succeed."
"See…still not even trying. I just meant it's hard to sleep if you aren't really comfortable and you can't be comfortable here."
"Fine," he removed his arm, "what do you suggest?"
"We can go to my place."
"I don't know."
"Why?"
"Don't you have someone smaller and needier to mother."
"I don't know if she's actually needier," Cuddy said, trying but failing to lighten the mood.
"Your baby pukes on me. And she cries. I'm not in the mood for either, I'll be puking on myself soon enough."
"Give her a chance."
"You've moved on. There's no need for me to give her a chance."
"If I've moved on, why am I here, now, with you?"
"I dunno."
"You think I'm so narrow? So limited? You think that I can't have space for her and you?" Cuddy asked.
"I don't know if you ever had space for me."
"No, House, you are the one without room for me. I tried…I put myself out there, and you slammed the door so fucking hard I can still feel it closing in my face."
"You made it perfectly clear that you wanted a kid and I wasn't part of that. You chose Wilson…leaned on him, went to him, trusted him. And then you chose a kid. You made your choices. Two of them. I was left behind both times."
"When there was a chance between us, you ran. You fled so quickly…so rapidly…to make sure that you didn't feel…feel…," Cuddy looked away, suddenly lost in thought.
"What?" House asked, wondering what it was that she just realized, because he could read an epiphany in her eyes.
"Rapidly," Cuddy nodded, standing and pacing in front of the coffee table. "Rapid detox."
"Rapid detox?"
"Yes," she answered, looking satisfied with her idea, "we admit you, put you under sedation…two hours, the right meds, an opiate receptor antagonist like naltrexone. Then we bring you out…the physical part of the detox is mostly gone. There are some risks, mostly associated with the anesthesia, but you've been under plenty of times before. We'll have to watch you for a few days, then we just have to worry about the rest. About pain management, any…psycho-emotional aspects of addiction."
"I'm not a junkie."
"I didn't say that. If part of what stops you is that you want to avoid the pain of detox…this will address that one concern. We'll figure out how to address one thing at a time. That addresses the physical dependence and then we can see where you are after that."
"Under whose care? Yours?"
"Yea, mine. Unless you want someone else. I know with the surgery…your infarction, you may want to choose someone else. Is that what you're implying?"
"No," House stared up the ceiling, "I'm just tired, Cuddy. So tired. I don't know how many other ways to say it."
"I know. I can see that."
"Everything hurts…everything. No matter what I do. It's all I feel."
Cuddy's mouth dropped open, the honesty in his voice was painful to hear because it was as if his soul was laid bare in front of her. She sat back down on the sofa, on the edge, her hip pushed against his side. This time he didn't recoil like he had when he brushed her knee, the warmth of her felt reassuring.
"You're on all of these painkillers…enough to sedate several people, probably," Cuddy began as he nodded, looking at her, his eyes ringed with dampness, "but with all of the opiates pumping through you…you still feel pain."
He nodded. "It hurts. I keep upping dosages and I can't keep going like this."
"I want you to believe me," Cuddy whispered, "to believe that I want to help you. I want to stop this for you…for me too, but I don't want to get hurt any more than you do. I'm tired of it too. Every second I'm with you, I'm prepared for the moment when everything that feels like potential or progress becomes something horrible, something that hurts. I don't want to get burned this time."
She reached one hand forward with the most extreme caution, letting her palm come to rest where his stomach met the center of his ribs. She avoided his gaze, although he stared at her, intensely, questioningly, and she finally looked up. Her own eyes were touched with tears, filled with concern and a preparedness for rejection. They each allowed the crossing of a barrier, a dangerous barrier. They each stood their ground in that moment, waiting to feel the full impact of a hurtful although self-protective rejection from the other.
When he stared at her, still tiredly, spirit broken, she spread her fingers more widely, and flashed a brief, nervous smile. He did not return her smile, but his eyes softened. In response she moved her thumb, gently stroking over his ribs, tentatively stepping over the figurative wall between them. He had a quick look of terror, a moment of question in his mind, a question that required a decision: to reject or to allow.
"Want me to get the cleaver?" House heard loudly from behind Cuddy. His id-like hallucination standing directly behind her, screaming at him. "Might as well hack off our balls and hand them to her, carve out our heart too. You really think you can trust her? You really think she's not going to destroy us the first moment she can? If she doesn't, do you really think we won't do it to her? Walk away while you can…before we get really hurt."
"It's too late. I already really hurt," House answered.
"I know, House," Cuddy answered, unaware that he was not addressing her, "but it's not too late."
"Tell her…to get the fuck away. She's like a succubus," his hallucination hissed.
House's eyes squinted tightly, so tightly, that Cuddy thought he was having a spasm. "Your leg?" she asked. "Is it your leg? Want me to rub it…get you a heating pad…something?"
"Don't touch it," he said, his voice cracking.
"Sorry," she replied, withdrawing her hand from his chest and bringing it close to her body, the hurt obvious in her from his rejection because she was offering in-kind openness and vulnerability.
"That's better," his hallucination jeered, still behind her, "now tell her, to go the fuck away. Tell her now. Protect us. Tell her now."
She started to stand and House grabbed her wrist again, "Sit down," he asked more than ordered, "stay here. Don't listen to him."
"Who?" Cuddy asked, her eyes darting swiftly to the door.
House shook his head, trying to smile, to play it off, his face almost cracking at the attempt to show a reassuring expression. "Me. Don't listen to me. My leg's fine, I'm just exhausted and drugged up."
"OK," she answered warily.
The next move was his, he knew that. He knew he did not want her to leave. Moving her wrist, he still had not let go of it, he placed it on his chest at the exact place where it was before she pulled back from him. He nodded, his fingers pressing her forearm into his chest with more strength than what she thought he had left. She met his gaze and he nodded, before closing his eyes and waiting. Again she spread her fingers, slowly letting them ripple up over his ribs toward the center of his chest. One small corner of his mouth turned up when her thumb began to move comfortingly again.
"Want to go to your bed, I'll help you? You can sleep, and when you wake up, we'll figure everything out," she offered.
"I'm fine here," he answered.
Cuddy stood up, "I'll be right back."
She took the thick blanket from on top of his bed and brought it to the living room. While she covered him, he pointed to the sleeping pills, "Can I have that?" he asked.
"I don't know if it's safe."
"It's safe," he nodded. "Let me have it, and I'll do the rapid detox…but not at the hospital."
"OK," she nodded with hope.
"I'll find you a doctor who-"
"You," he interrupted, "I want you for my doctor."
"If you're sure," she nodded, "I'll set it up."
"What about Rachel?" he asked.
"I'll figure it out," she replied, leaving for a glass of water in the kitchen that she brought back. She handed him the pills and the water. Sitting back down in her spot next to him again, returning her hand willingly to his chest, she smiled, "This case…the puzzle is mine. I will figure it out. You just have to let me."
She placed the glass back on the table and his tiredness consumed him entirely. "Just go to sleep, House. Nothing will fall apart while you sleep," Cuddy calmly encouraged.
He peeked behind her, looking for his hallucination, but not finding it. She saw the worry, the concern, the unraveling of one of the strongest people she had ever known, and could not think of what to say to assure him. She boldly spoke the truth. "You hide your pain, day after day. Try to look impervious to everything around you and no one can go on like that forever. Not even you."
She slid closer on the sofa, closer to his upper body and reached to the side of his head. When her fingertips touched his temple, he looked tentative, not angry but certainly not comfortable. She ran her fingers from his temple, over his ear and into his hair, calmly soothing the last remaining thoughts that he should avoid sleep.
"What's that supposed to do?" his hallucinated self complained from somewhere in the room, "does she think we're her kid? That we need coddled and pacified."
Cuddy watched while his eyes began to lose focus and his eyelids involuntarily shut, not in the harsh pinching way that she had seen them close moments earlier, but a gentle meeting of lids that could no longer stay open. He pulled one arm out from under the covers and reached over her to the coffee table, his arm across her lap. He waited for a sign of disapproval from her, and when he did not find one, he moved his hand closer, finally allowing it to come to rest along her side. The contact was casual, but for him a bold display of affection. His hand tightened on her side for a second and he managed to say, "Thanks, Cuddy," before he began deep breaths that were nearly snores, heavy, long and completely unconscious.
She continued to push his hair back over his ear for a few minutes until his head tilted to the side and she knew that he was entirely asleep and likely would not wake for a while. She was practically shell-shocked at the sight of House so completely surrendered. She wished she felt a sense of satisfaction, that she could feel happy that he trusted her so much, enough to sleep, enough to consider her suggestion for detox, but satisfaction was the last thing she felt as she weighed the possibilities. He agreed, he put his belief in her and now she had to find a way to try. She needed a place that would allow her to serve as his physician, would allow her to administer the rapid detox cocktail while he was under anesthesia.
Cuddy called Wilson, and over the phone she set up a leave for herself, the remainder of the maternity leave that she sacrificed when she returned to work early after she took custody of Rachel. Wilson asked numerous questions, but she would only say that House was fine and they both needed some time off. She called board members while House slept, arranging to have Wilson left in charge, a prospect that seemed reasonable since House would not be working under his friend's watch. She also arranged a leave for House, and put many pieces carefully in place.
When House woke, he saw Cuddy, sitting on the floor, wearing what looked like exercise clothes and working on his laptop. "What time is it?" he asked as he watched her jump.
"Hey," she said, turning quickly. "Umm," she stared at the clock on the computer, "a little after midnight. You actually slept."
"Yea," he said, painfully lifting up his body with his arms. His brain was clearer, but his pain was still there. He reached over to the Vicodin on the table and out of the corner of his eye saw the hallucination of himself.
"You slept through her changing her clothes," House's hallucination complained, "and I can't see what you can't see."
Cuddy watched the worry cross his face again, "Are you OK? You don't feel better?"
"I do," he nodded, shaking his pills, "a lot better, but too many hours without these."
"OK," she answered, unconvinced.
"So," he asked, "Did you figure out somewhere to do the rapid detox?"
There were no other options, he knew what he had really known all along, his days of popping Vicodin were likely at an end if he wanted to retain his sanity. "Coward," his hallucination shouted, standing up from the lounge.
She nodded, "We go Monday."
"We? So you're still going to do it?" House asked.
"Yes, I said I would. You and I…and Rachel."
"Maybe she can wipe puke off of us and the rat at the same time," the hallucination sneered.
"Hardly a good place for a kid," House told her.
"I have it worked out. You both need me, I have a friend who will help me. She's been asking to spend time with Rachel anyway. I can't just leave my baby behind. This is one of those things I just won't bend on…she's my daughter.
House didn't answer, his younger self sneering, "You're considering this…you really are? I hate you, I hate this cowardice and compliance."
"What kind of mother…what kind of human being would I be if I just pushed her aside. I love her too," Cuddy said, looking up at him from the floor nearby.
He wrinkled his brow, trying to decide if Cuddy meant that she loved Rachel in addition to someone else, or if she meant that she felt both love and duty toward the child.
"Oh, don't kid yourself," the hallucination jeered, "she does not love us. Who would?"
"Are you're going to do it?" Cuddy asked, not allowing him any additional time to think.
House shook his pills, nodding, "I want to keep my Vicodin for the weekend."
"OK," she acceded.
"Then I'll do it."
