---)(---Love---)(---

Hand in Hand.
No, don't ask me
to apologize.
I won't ask you to forgive me.
If I'm gonna go down,
You're gonna come with me—Elvis Costello, Hand In Hand

Gregory House believed in himself. He didn't trust, didn't believe people were capable of selfless acts. It wasn't just curmudgeon cynicism as most believed, it was experience hard learned. He hadn't always been so jaded, certainly not. He had given people plenty of chances and every time they failed…and that was hardly his fault. People were self centered, self preserving, it was nature and he wasn't going apologize from bursting peoples naïve bubbles. Why should he lie, go along, agree with peoples bullshit beliefs that humanity was good when clearly it wasn't? He believed in himself, he was straight up and if people didn't like it then that was just too damn bad—at least he was honest about being a jerk.

'You've made me a liar…' He didn't know why her words were stinging it wasn't like he had let anything she had ever said before bother him. Sure there had been a few little comments from her that had stuck in his ears but that was just because her voice was so annoying that it jumbled wires for a good long while—not because she had said anything really significant.

'You just couldn't love me…'

'You asked me why I like you…you're abrasive and rude but I figured that everything you do you do it to help people—but I was wrong, you do it because it's right…'

'Goodbye House'

Yeah, he was sure it was just because she had that grating voice that her words hung around.

She was playing all high and mighty all of a sudden, being pious, touting righteous indignation about him making her a 'liar', she had some issues.

He didn't care about Cameron any more than any boss cared for their employees so it shouldn't bother him that she was angry with him…it shouldn't make him glad that she had stopped having sex with Chase…it shouldn't have made him feel that strain of possessiveness flare in his blood stream in the first place.

She was beautiful, and he tried not to use that word because it came with attachments he didn't care for. When describing aesthetically pleasing DNA blessed (or collagen enhanced) women he liked the word 'hot', it was a straight forward word that described her body, her looks—only. But beautiful, beautiful stirred up more murky images, more complicated romantic notions. Beautiful was a word that was just too damn implying. But she was beautiful, he thought watching her through the glass windows talking with the parents of their latest patient, it was good news—their daughter was going to be okay.

She glowed, he observed with disgust. She was reclaiming her halo and it made him sick. Her smile was lighting the whole room, her tender voice rippled and her warmth was suffocating. He didn't like it…didn't like the way she became all but a saint—he didn't like her like that….it made him all the more aware he was a tainted damaged sinner.

"House…" she jumped a little as she came out of the open door to find him standing there.

"What made you decide all of a sudden to change, dump Chase and do the saint act?" he leaned heavily on his cane.

Her glaze fell to the floor. "Don't look at the floor, it can't talk…answer me, look at me!"

She looked up, "Can't you just let it be?"

"Obviously not."

"Fine—fine," she folded her arms resigned, "I decided I wasn't happy with who I was when I got in my car to drive home alone after telling Chase I couldn't sleep with him anymore because he wanted more, he wanted a relationship and I didn't. It all just hit me, all the changes…I was hurting people because I myself was hurting. I don't want to hurt anybody anymore; I don't want to hurt anymore."

"Do you still hate me?"

She looked confused eyes crinkling in the corners, "What?"

"Don't you remember, you told me you'd joined the bandwagon…that you hated me…So do you still?"

It took a minute but she pulled the memory from her mental file, "House I was angry when I said that…I've never hated you…I don't hate you—sometimes I wish I could…" she started to laugh but found she really didn't feel like it.

"Okay…" he nodded thoughtfully, he started to walk away.

"That's it? You're just going to walk away?"

"Yep, figured I'd go first this time since you know, normally it's me chasing you down—just giving myself a head start."

She followed, "What are you talking about?" she demanded always a little surprised that he could move so fast in spite of the cane.

"It's me, I'm always chasing you down, you're always the one running—figured you were just rubbing it in," he gestured to his cane with his eyes.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Course you don't. Haven't you ever noticed that it's always you running? You get some sort of kick from making men chase you. Take for example the situation of you supposedly wanting a 'relationship' with me, you thought yourself the aggressor but really if you think about it, it was me, I had to jump through the hoops, I had to chase you and I didn't even want the damn thing.

"You quit your job then force me to hunt you down and beg you to take it back…hell I had to play the 'pretty please game' with you to go to the damn monster trucks with me! You go cry in the lab so I will come find you and ask what's wrong. You march off on moral high horses so I'll follow to bring you back.

"It's about the chase with you, you don't really want me to catch you, you want to play the game. After I was shot, I asked you out, you refused, I was getting too close, I had almost caught you. You want me or really anyone, take Chase for another example, to chase you, climb your walls like some damn prince charming. But when we get close, when we've fought back all the prickly thorns and slain the dragon to reach your tower instead of putting out like any decent princess you run to lock yourself away telling us to perform yet another task… That's what this is about, this turning over a new/old leaf—it's about pushing everybody away. Guess what Cameron, you are me already…you just use pretty movements to cover up your ugly motives. You're just as alone as I am…just as damaged, just as much a sinner."

Her mouth hung, her eyes were cold.

"What, don't like that?"

"Your first mistake House was thinking me royalty, I am no princess, I'm no saint either—I am not you—I will not be—and you House are anything but charming…" she started to walk away but turned "and I don't ever remember asking you to scale my wall or you ever wanting me to 'put out'." She turned away lab coat swishing slightly behind her.

---)(---

"You shouldn't drink and drive." She stood in the doorway of his office leaning against the jamb.

House didn't look up from his scotch. "You shouldn't mess in affairs that are none of your business."

She sighed walking in; the office was dark only the street lamps outside reflecting in kept the curtained off office from total darkness. Everyone had gone home—everyone one but him and her apparently.

"It's after eleven House…you should go home, get some sleep."

"I don't like you."

She sighed again, "I know, you've told me that before—I get it," she smiles softly sitting a hip on the front edge of his desk.

"I'm not going to say I'm sorry…" he kept staring at his glass of amber colored liquid.

"I'm not asking you to," she spun his oversized tennis ball with the tips of her fingers "I've never asked you apologize for who you are…" she pauses looking up to him, she wants him to look at her but he refuses. "You know it's kind of silly but I was jealous of Ali, that seventeen year old girl who was infatuated with you—I was jealous that you wanted her…That you thought I didn't accept you...I have always accepted you, always—" she finally gets him to look up. "But I also believe you can be more if you want…That you are more than the caustic person you try to be. I told you I can't hate you and I mean it, you are an amazing man, brilliant, dedicated and despite your façade, caring…"

"That's not accepting, that's denial."

"No House, you're wrong, I accept you but I don't believe in stagnation. I know you want someone who will just let you be, won't challenge you, won't ask anything of you and that's okay, really it is, I really do understand."

"You still love me then?" he sits his glass on his desk leaning forward almost like was eager to hear her answer.

"Yeah, I do—much rather not, obviously, makes things awkward but I discovered last night, before I started a bottle of vodka, that despite my attempts at lying to everyone and myself, I am very much in love with you," she shrugs, "and it is a different kind of 'love', different than the blind love I had for you when I first started here, different than any love I have ever had for any man, even my husband. The love I discovered I have for you is the deep wholly consuming, a damning/saving kind of love. Not the lusty heat of the moment love but the staying sturdy kind that will survive the years."

He looked at her like she had three heads; he was at a complete and total loss for words.

"It's funny, I hadn't even realized I was looking for 'true love', I honestly had thought I had found it with Brian but while that was a beautiful love it wasn't 'it'. I had always thought that one could have more than one 'true love' if you lost the first but I was wrong—you only get one. And I know you don't want to hear this but it's true--you're mine."

He regained composure, and downed the rest of his scotch, "Huh, I always that kind of realization came with happy dances, gushes of laughter, flowers and cherubs with bows and candy." She wasn't dancing, she wasn't even grinning like a loon, she was just calm and nonchalant.

"So did I, but mine comes with a cane and a snarky comeback."

He can't help but smile, "Lucky you, your Fairy Godmother must be blind as well—I'm old enough to be your father."

"Hmm, maybe I was wrong, maybe I'm not in love with you, I just have daddy issues." She's smiling now.

"That would make more sense, that or food poisoning, I mean the Ali had…" he started but she had a strange look on her face that made him, for some reason, shut up.

"No—it's not either of those, it's exactly what I said it was. But you're right I too believed it would have come with some ecstatic jumping at the very least, but it didn't, it just sort of washed over me like a wave of right, a wave of knowing and it just…was. But don't worry I'm not asking you to do anything, I'm actually okay with this—" she laughs "Everything is starting to go back to okay, I'm taking control of my life and for the first time in a long time, I'm okay, really okay." She hops from his desk looking satisfied and happy.

"You're just going to walk out the door after saying something like that?" he stands prepared to chase her like he always does.

She turns, "There's really not much else for me to do…besides isn't that what you say I do best, walk away?" there's no malice just acceptance.

"Yeah, but do you really want to just leave it like this?" he's floundering for something, anything to say but finds his vast repertoire has nothing fitting.

"What other way would there be?"

"I don't know but this doesn't feel resolved…" he brushes a hand through his hair, she notes this—it's a nervous gesture, but not one he's ever been prone to.

"Maybe it's not, but for tonight I think we're done." She takes a few steps back to him standing beside his desk. "I love you House—you can do with that what you will," she grins and brushes a quick light kiss to cheek.

Before he can even register it she's gone and his door is swinging shut.

TBC