Wilson looked up when House poked his head into his office, his hand having just come from placing a pen into his mouth.
"Working hard?" his friend asked, banging his cane on the wood. "Good," he said without waiting for an answer. Not that Wilson had planned on giving him one. "I'm here to let you know that my whole team knows about us and we're in big trouble with Cuddy. Goodbye."
Blinking, Wilson removed the pen from his mouth just as his office door swung shut again.
His whole team...that couldn't be good. He thought about running after House and inquiring after more detail than that, but he had quite a bit of work to do, and they would have a chance to talk when they got back to the loft.
But Cuddy...she was his friend too. He didn't want to upset her and he knew that House felt the same. He was sure that if it had been up to House, Cuddy might never have found out about it. Or at least, it would have been sometime far in the future.
He caught himself smiling when he realized that he had just made the assumption that they would still be...whatever they were now in the future. He swiftly wiped it away when he realized that he had no idea what they were going to tell their boss.
::::::
At around five-fifteen that evening, Wilson wrapped up most of his paperwork. He stuffed the rest of it into his briefcase, along with a couple of patient files, and began to pack up. Poking a couple of pens back into their holder, his eyes swept the desktop, searching for any stray objects that may need to be taken home with him. He found none and stepped out from behind the desk for the first time in nearly an hour to hang up his worn white lab coat. He rubbed his eyes as went back over to retrieve his overcoat from the back of his chair, but didn't put it on just yet; it was a little warm. Instead, he slung it over his right arm, grabbed his briefcase, pressed a button on his lamp to turn it off, made sure he had his keys, and exited his office, locking up behind him.
His footsteps were heavy as he headed down the hall, shoving his keys into his pocket as he went. He had reached the elevator, and was in the process of pushing the down arrow, when the doors opened, revealing House to already be inside. His blue eyes lit up when they spotted him standing there. Wilson stepped forward to stand next to him.
"Were you coming up here to get me?" he asked, palming his face to stifle a yawn.
"I'm not about to face my death sentence all by myself," House replied. "I go down, you go down."
Wilson sighed, shaking his head. "Very noble of you."
"Thank you. I thought so too." House's tone transitioned into a serious one. "What the hell do we tell her?"
"I have no idea," Wilson told him honestly. "We could always improvise. You know - it might be easiest if we just elope. Right now. I've got plenty of wedding rings - you could have one - "
"I could have sworn that was my natural instinct," House growled, but he didn't sound too upset. "To make a joke about everything. When did we switch roles?"
"I told you we were improvising." He hadn't forgotten that House was uncomfortable with jokes of that nature - he just didn't particularly care at that moment. He was nervous. Then he noticed the small grin on House's face and felt a gentle touch at his elbow. He turned to him, his gaze just as gentle and direct.
"Are you really not worried about this?" House asked, scanning his face.
"Of course I'm worried about this," Wilson told him quietly; they were going to reach the lobby any second now. "Cuddy is a good friend of ours and we have no clue as to how she's going to react - "
And House was suddenly much closer, one hand on his cheek, stroking it with his thumb. Wilson lost the ability to speak. He closed his eyes instictively and, sure enough, felt pressure on his lips soon after. Stubble scratched the skin around his mouth; he could feel it more now than the first time they'd kissed...he wondered briefly why they were kissing. Right as the elevator let out its usual ping!, Wilson lightly pushed him away, and the doors slid open to a nearly empty lobby, where Cuddy was thankfully nowhere to be seen. He ran his tongue smoothly across his bottom lip, his stomach stuck somewhere in between his chest and his throat, while House gave a little, almost imperceptible, nod, standing back a couple of feet as though he'd overstepped sternly set boundaries.
Simultaneously, they hastened from the elevator, bumping shoulders with purpose. Wilson could certainly see that House had not planned on that particular moment to occur, and had therefore realized afterward that the particular moment was not the right one. Having had experience with situations such as this, Wilson hoped dearly that House would not lose the little confidence he had in what they were doing because of it. He had not pushed him away to be a jerk - simply to spare them humiliation had someone seen them. Namely Cuddy. House had to know this. Did he? It was essential that he know.
Before they reached the receptionist counter in the middle of the lobby, Wilson hurriedly whispered out of the corner of his mouth, "Sorry."
House elbowed him, snatching up an orange lollypop from the glass bowl as they passed it. Wilson took that to be a good sign and relaxed immediately. But as soon as they came to approach the transparent door emblazoned with the title Lisa Cuddy M.D. Dean of Medicine, he tensed once more. Lisa did not appear to be sitting behind her desk - in fact, she did not appear to be inside the office at all. Nevertheless, House barged right in and he followed.
He closed the door quietly behind them, as if afraid that shutting it too loudly would alert the invisible people in the room to their presence and the most probable reason they were there. He drew the blinds on the door as well to keep out the wandering eyes of curious staff members and patients alike. Not that there were any at the moment, but...it was always better to be safe.
"James, honey," House said in a eerie, motherly tone, "this isn't a drug trade." His blue eyes narrowed in suspicion and Wilson knew exactly what he was thinking. He held his hands up, showing that there was nothing to be suspicious of.
"No," he said firmly. "I don't care. There's a difference between caring what people think, and valuing your privacy."
House tore the wrapper from his sucker and plopped it into his mouth, nodding at something beyond him. "Ding dong, the witch isn't dead."
Wilson whirled around as graciously as he could to greet the person he knew was about to enter. Cuddy opened the first door, staring dazedly at the ground in front of her, grabbed onto the handle of the second door, looked up, and spotted them standing there. She paused, but it was so brief that Wilson was sure he'd imagined it.
::::::
"Hi," Cuddy said breathlessly, as in popped her head and then the rest of her body. "I...didn't expect the both of you to actually...well. I'm glad you did." She hovered for a moment in front of them, her gaze flying to each of their faces, before she glanced away and headed for her desk.
House glanced everywhere and at everything in the room besides the two most important people in his life, but, peripherally, he saw Wilson turn to watch his ex as she bustled around, putting various papers in their rightful boxes or folders, before she finally stilled and walked around to have a seat on the edge of the front of her desk. He removed the candy from his mouth, lowering his arm down to his side, and leaned heavily on his cane.
"You wanted to interrogate us?" he asked in a polite manner that Cuddy would easily see through.
She sighed, standing. "I want to know what's going on," she said, sounding marginally less fierce than she had mere hours ago. House swallowed and Wilson came to stand next to him, though admittedly a couple of feet away. "It's one thing for - " she stopped, staring at what seemed to be Wilson's knees, but resumed rather quickly. "It's one thing for you to go on a hooker binge for God knows how many weeks, and it's another thing, even, for you two to start - seeing each other - but when I have to hear about it from - I mean, honestly." Cuddy suddenly glared up at him. "Masters hasn't been here a month, House. Not a month. So tell me. Tell me all about this." Her glare then flickered between both of them.
House's vocal cords were not cooperating properly with his brain. Wilson fidgeted next to him, obviously troubled, but he didn't say anything either. So Cuddy took up the silence again.
"Is this...a joke?" she asked, confirming House's earlier thoughts. "Is it some sort of plot to..." she trailed off, gesturing helplessly and looking slightly apologetic. "I don't know what. Get me back? In some twisted - "
"It's not a joke," Wilson interrupted quietly. Cuddy's eyes flew to him, sharp and calculating. House's breath caught. Wilson didn't say anything more, seemingly having lost his nerve.
"It's not," she stated carefully after a pause. She looked at House, who shook his head. She scrutinized them for a very long period of time during which House didn't dare look at Wilson and, likewise, he didn't feel Wilson's gaze. "And I'm supposed to believe that two of my department heads - both male, both having been good friends for years, both two of my own good friends - are suddenly head over heels for each other."
"Sickening choice of phrasing, but - that's the general idea," House muttered. "I've heard that it's been a long time coming. My team for instance - "
"Yes, let's talk about your team," Cuddy broke in, her bottom lip trembling once. "If, say this were true, why does your team suddenly have an all-access pass to your inner thoughts?"
"Cuddy, he never - was going - he never planned to tell them," Wilson told her, still speaking quietly as though afraid that their boss wasn't strong enough to handle all this information, that it would just blow her straight over. "Foreman, it turns out, has been silently rooting for - us - for years - "
"What?" Cuddy asked, staring at him as if he had gone quite insane. "Foreman. Really. If there is anyone on this planet less interested in the two of you - "
"Well, he hasn't been doodling our names inside a big heart in his notebook," House snapped without meaning to. "He's made observations over the years. Ones that I never made. Wilson never made. And he - cracked and told Masters all about them, probably hoping that new meat would have the right combination of character traits to pester me about it. What you heard was - probably the idiots scheming out the best way to get Wilson and me locked up in a janitor's closet somewhere. So thanks to them for shouting about it, and thanks to you for barking up Wilson's tree this morning - I was forced to confront my entire team to find out what happened. And you all think that this is because Wilson and I have always loved each other deep down inside our pathetic little hearts - we were too stupid and too in denial to realize it - " he simpered sneeringly. "But that's not the case. I'm not gonna bother to tell any of you what the case actually is because not one of you will understand. I. Don't. Understand. What I do understand is - I don't want you to come crawling back to me," he said to Cuddy, whose blue eyes had been steadily widening and, at his words, filled with something unidentifiable, before emptying themselves of all emotion. "I'm not so pathetic that I'm going to con Wilson into going along with a prank as elaborate as this just to get you back."
He paused then, his mind whirling with things and ideas he was absolutely bursting to say now that it seemed that a dam had broken inside of him. Wilson looked at him with varying fascination, wonder, curiosity...among others. He didn't feel up to naming them. The things they felt for each other would fill books and books...
"I love you," he eventually continued, softly to Cuddy's shoe. "I always did; I always will." They both watched him intently, Cuddy folding her arms, and Wilson shoving his hands into his overcoat pockets. "But," he cleared his throat, "even though I don't recall ever feeling...romantic feelings..." he subtley glanced in Wilson's direction to let her know to whom he was referring, "There's no way I can deny that what I feel - what I've always felt - is - stronger than anything I've - felt for anyone. There's just - something there that can't be replaced or duplicated - and don't - don't do that - "
Tears had begun to slip slowly down Cuddy's cheeks. Apparently furious with herself, she reached up and brushed them impatiently away. But she didn't appear to have any words on her, so he continued in a slightly gentler tone.
"I can't deal with any more pain. That's what our relationship consisted of. I'm not saying that it was all bad, but, toward the end, yeah, it was. Wilson...helped me through it."
Cuddy dragged a finger across the skin underneath her left eye. "How?" she asked thickly.
House was determinedly not looking at Wilson now, who, he knew, was doing just the opposite. "By - acting normal. Being a good friend. Acting like nothing had changed. It's the way he's always helped me deal with...everything."
"And you're...falling in love with him for that," Cuddy hesitantly said.
House barely refrained from rolling his eyes. "Sure. Let's say I am. And let's keep on pretending that Wilson's not really in the room."
At that, Cuddy turned toward the younger doctor, who raised his eyebrows. "This is real. You're really...dating."
Wilson took in a deep breath and let it out, wearing the expression he usually adopted when he was talking to his younger cancer patients. "For the purposes of this conversation, I would say, yes, we are."
Backing down onto her desk again, Cuddy planted her palms on either side of her, looking utterly bewildered. Her tears had been short-lived. Cuddy always had been a very strong, very together woman, and House admired that quality in her; he hardly cried himself. But this had to be a shock. The only way he could think to connect himself with a portion of what she must have been feeling, was to remember his own bewilderment when he had discovered Wilson's ex-wife in their kitchen some months ago. He recalled being irrationally hurt by it. Before he had a chance to put any more thought to the matter however, Cuddy spoke again, her voice steady.
"Well, I can't honestly say that this is an unbelievable thing." She sighed. "You two are closer than - thunder and lightening for goodness sake."
"Which is why - "
But she held up a hand. "I...don't think I want any further explanation."
"Lisa - " Wilson stepped forward, his eyes remaining soft and anxious. "I know this might be an unreasonable request - I don't want all this to tear the three of us apart. I mean, I understand that we're not family, we're not obligated - but none of this is happening out of spite or bitterness. I...want us to be friends."
House was silent, listening. Understanding. This was Wilson; he had to remain on good terms with exes, apparently, no matter whose they were. It didn't bother him. He would like it very much if the three of them could remain fairly good friends...maybe one day things would return to some state of normalcy between them.
Cuddy did not seem to find this an unreasonable request exactly, but a difficult one. She was silent, as House was, for a while before she felt comfortable enough to respond; when she did, she surprised House somewhat by standing and reaching up to touch Wilson's cheek, grimacing lightly. "You are very sweet, Doctor Wilson. But..." she trailed off, glancing at House.
Narrowing his eyes, he came to the realization that Cuddy was still in love with him. And while he realized this, he also realized that there was no way they could ever be together and make the relationship work. They were finished trying. But did he still love Cuddy? Was he still in love with her? Perhaps he had been for a while...perhaps he wasn't anymore. Either way, he no longer wanted to figure out what they were to each other, and he knew that Cuddy shared the same feeling. She might still be in love with him...she couldn't help that. She would overcome that pesky obstacle with time - and maybe then they could reconcile. She just wasn't worth sacrificing what he had miraculously managed to cow rope Wilson into - he wouldn't risk it for twenty dying patients.
Wilson appeared to gather all the information he needed from that one glance Cuddy shot his way. He nodded without waiting for her to complete her sentence and gently squeezed her arm. "I'm sorry." His voice was filled with true sincerety. "I'm sorry this was ever brought to your attention."
She shook her head, not really looking at either of them. "You guys go. Go home. I'm sorry I yelled at you both today - "
"Oh no," House muttered. Wilson looked at him. "She's gonna blow - "
"No, no," Cuddy cut him off. "If you really do care about each other - and I know that you do, I'm just - I'm sure you're mortified at my finding out about this so soon. I'm sure you'd have liked to have waited - especially you - " she said to House. "I realize you would have told me eventually. I'm - I'm happy for you. Really. This is huge."
House caught Wilson's eye briefly, his mouth thinning into a slight, humorless smile. He jerked his head toward the door. "Well, thanks. I guess we'll leave now..."
"House," Cuddy said somberly. "Thank you for being honest with me. I appreciate the lack of sarcasm. This must be important to you."
"It is," House responded gruffly, catching Wilson's eye again. "See you tomorrow."
And they left Cuddy's office, afraid of backward glances, amazed that they had come out unscathed, and relieved to be free from the tension the conversation had inevitably created.