Okay, so I can no longer mock gratefulinsomniac for estimating her fics will be, like, half the chapters they end up being. This is *not not not* the last chapter. I have at least two more, maybe three. The thing grew on me.

Thanks for reading, everyone. And many of you who review don't have accounts that allow replies, so I want to tell you I appreciate all the comments, emotional responses, thoughts, and encouragement.

[H] [H] [H]

Cuddy woke in the late afternoon light. She had a merciful moment of disorientation in which she'd forgotten all that had happened, why she was in bed in the middle of the day, and why House was pressed along her body, his arm still snugly around her.

House's breathing was even and slow, so she was careful when she rolled over to look at him. As she did, the Vicodin bottle he'd held loosely in his hand feel out of his grasp and rattled onto the bed.

It hurt to look at him. It hurt to think about the recent past; just days before they had been hopeful and laughing. It hurt to think about the future; she could end up alone with nothing but her work and endless ambitions to fill her days.

She didn't know anything right now except that she was tired of going through this. She knew the pain would dissipate over days, as the mundane creeped in and occupied the crevices of her mind, drowning out the delicate throb of loss. But facing those days was daunting.

She also didn't know if this time she would heal in the same way. The… fetus… had been his. Theirs. Could she let it go like so much dead tissue and evanescent spirit as she had the others? Or would it linger, trapped between them, only to slowly gather what bound them and pull it along in its eventual disappearance?

House opened his eyes and she watched his parallel navigation back to reality. To the loss. He looked at her with knit brows. They just stared at each other for a few seconds. "Is there anything I can do for you?" he finally asked, his voice low and scratchy with sleep.

"You're doing it," she told him. After another minute she asked, "Is there anything I can do for you?"

House looked like he was thinking, the he warned her, "It might be impossible." She raised her eyebrows in question and he continued. "Try… if you can… if this is even fair…" He hesitated.

"What, House?" she probed.

"Try not to regret it. I don't wanna regret it."

Cuddy gave him the weakest of smiles. "I don't think I do," she told him. After a little more thought she added, "I don't, because you're here. I was going to try again, with or without you. I was going to go through this again. But I'm not alone this time. So I don't regret it."

"I'll do anything you need me to do," he promised. He still felt illogical guilt.

She smiled. "Can I get that on tape?"

House grinned back a little. "I just want you to be okay, Cuddy."

"I will be, House. I always am."

House swallowed hard. "God, it's a shitty feeling, isn't it?"

Cuddy nodded, moved by his vulnerability. "The worst I've felt, really."

"It's up there," House agreed, and the fact that he'd felt pain that compared with this reminded her just what different lives they had lead. As if on cue, he picked up the pill bottle, opened it one-handed, and shook a tablet into his mouth. He offered Cuddy one then. She paused, then took it, just wanting enough of a buzz to dull the sharp edges of the pain so she could make food and take a shower without falling apart. As she swallowed the bitter taste in the back of her throat, she strangely felt closer to House than she ever had.

"I have to pee," he told her, as if apologizing for having to leave her temporarily. Cuddy nodded and he disentangled and walked to the bathroom.

When House was peeing, his sharp eyes caught the tiny dots on the floor. No larger than the tips of pencil erasers, the three dark circles lay in a neat row. It was blood Cuddy had missed in her quick effort to clean the mess away. Again he thought of her alone, dealing with it all. The blood served to crystallize the loss they had experienced and he didn't know how she had been so strong while feeling this loss physically, staring at a thousand times more blood than he was now looking at, knowing there was nothing to be done but clean it up and file it away in her mind.

It had been a little cluster of cells. That's all, he told himself. But it had been a mixture of them both, and it was dead now, relegated to the sewer system. Masochistically, he held the thought and flushed.

House suddenly felt hot, then light-headed. He was nauseous and gripped the wall. It wasn't the blood, of course. And he didn't have any delusion that that cell cluster had had consciousness. It was a fetus, not a baby. But somewhere along the coming weeks, it would have changed. It could have, potentially, gripped his finger at some point. Surprising him, tears welled in his eyes. So much potential, gone in an instant. Nothing now but waste.

After a moment of this, he grit his teeth, willing himself to get his shit together. The last thing Cuddy needed was him being weak right now. He wiped up the three drops and mentally said goodbye to something he hadn't been able to love yet, but something he had made and heard thriving inside Cuddy, making her so happy.

House pressed the heels of his hands hard to his eyes. He splashed water on his face, smacked his cheeks, and left the bathroom. Cuddy was sitting on the edge of the bed, staring into space, but looked up when he came out.

"You okay?" he asked.

Cuddy shrugged. "You know."

"I do now."

"That's good stuff," Cuddy commented, feeling the effects of the medication.

House nodded. "I never settle for less," he joked half-heartedly. And Cuddy laughed. And somehow, with that throaty laugh, she did what she'd always done for him: assured him it would be okay.

[H] [H] [H]

They were in her kitchen and Cuddy was making sandwiches and drinking wine. She handed him a glass, which he gladly took. When she came and sat with him, plunking a sandwich in front of him, she declared, "It's harder and easier because it was with you."

House chewed and thought. "Care to expand on that?"

Cuddy chewed and thought. "No."

House nodded and they continued eating together. Cuddy got up to pour more wine. "Careful, Vicodin," House cautioned her. Cuddy gave him an Are you kidding me? look. "I'm 90% Vicodin. I can handle it," he defended.

"It's okay. I'm a doctor," Cuddy joked. And she started laughing. She laughed hard. "And you're a doctor," she added, cracking up. He watched her face change from amusement to grief. "And still, we can't fucking do this." She started crying.

House stood up and went to her. He wrapped his arms around her and she buried her face in his chest. Cuddy sobbed into him, overwhelming emotion wracking her body. After several minutes of purging all she felt, she calmed, composing herself. They stood there in the middle of her kitchen.

"I don't know if I can do this again," she told him, "but if I do, I can't be with anyone but you. It has to be you now."

House rubbed her back. "Whatever you want."

She looked up at him. "Why?"

"Because I like you too."

She smiled at him and wiped her nose. "Do you wanna get drunk and watch TV?"

House wiped tears off her face with his thumbs. "I mean, who ya talkin' to here?"

[H] [H] [H]

Cuddy gave herself a full 24 hours to mourn, then tucked it all away into emotional abscesses, squeezed into a tight skirt, and got back to business. At work, Cuddy avoided any attempt House made at intimacy. If he even tried to give her a meaningful look, or lingered over a pause in conversation, she found a reason to move onto something else. She wouldn't let it penetrate work, which was this precious bubble in which she felt competent and in control.

Still, he'd go see her every evening. Sometimes he'd admit he was checking on her, but many times he'd offer a lame excuse that she'd just as lamely accept. There, she'd let him into her home and her heart. They'd eat takeout, watch movies, read in various spots in her house. Sometimes they touched. Sometimes they got drunk. Sometimes they bitterly mocked people with babies who walked by Cuddy's home or were characters on television. Sometimes she cried. But over time, the pain receded and more of their time was spent just hanging out. And it was easy and good.

Which is likely what prompted Wilson to enter House's office and sit down, a month or so later.

"What are you worried about, Wilson?" House asked without really looking at him.

"Who says I'm worried?" Wilson asked. "Maybe I came in here to gossip."

"You're clenched," House commented. "You don't clench for gossip." Wilson looked down at himself to spot whatever House was referring to, while House continued clicking around the monster truck website he was perusing.

"I haven't talked to Cuddy in a while," Wilson stated, persevering.

House turned to him, feigning shock, and rested his chin on his hand, looking at him with wide eyes. "Oh, this is good stuff. Why didn't you say so?"

"I'm just saying," Wilson replied, holding his hands up defensively.

"I'm just saying too," House said, turning back to his computer. "Your gossip blows."

"I haven't talked to you about Cuddy in a while either."

"You came in here to tell me what I'm not talking about?"

Wilson sighed. "Cuddy used to be approximately one third of what we'd spend time discussing. And I'd spend one third of my time with her discussing you. And she got pregnant. With your baby. And she miscarried. And now you both don't talk to me about the other."

"You realize gossip is supposed to be, like, news, right?" House continued ignoring him, but Wilson continued sitting there in his huff, so House turned to him finally.

"I just want to know if you guys are okay." Wilson said, smiling sadly.

"We're okay," House assured him.

"What's going on?"

House sighed and sat back in his chair. "Honestly, Wilson, it's just personal. It's hard to explain."

"Is that bad?" Wilson pressed.

House shrugged. "Dunno."

"Is it good?"

"Dunno."

"Are you guys gonna try again?"

"Dunno."

Wilson stared at him. "Your gossip blows too."

House smirked. "Ah, but I'm the one who knows Nurse Jeffrey is sleeping with a male surgeon."

Wilson blinked, reorienting. "What?!"

"Well, not sleeping with him so much as blowing him in the locker room."

"How do you know this?"

"I've got thirty-three percent more time to snoop now that I don't talk to you about Cuddy." He turned back to his trucks.

Wilson thought about it. "I'd still rather hear about you guys."

"I know, Wilson," House replied. "But we'll always have Nurse Jeffrey."

[H] [H] [H]

Cuddy didn't know any better than House did what they were doing. She didn't know if this was friendship, courtship, foreplay… but she liked it. As the days went by and each night went on, House would grow quieter and she didn't know if it was him growing progressively more stoned or progressively more trusting, but they would ease into a parallel existence, going about their business while near each other. It was a side of House she'd never seen. Logically, she knew this side existed and that the man didn't spend his evenings throwing insults and sexual innuendo at his empty apartment. But the idea that this House—the one who played Angry Birds and did crossword puzzles and read medical journals in French—would feel comfortable showing up here and just being with her… She hadn't thought it possible, but it seemed like sharing all that pain had made him more comfortable with her.

House, too, was getting used to it. He had almost decided against rocking the boat. But then, House always rocked boats. She was reading a novel in an armchair while he lay on her living room floor listening to music on his phone, headphones on so he wouldn't disturb her.

"We can try again, you know," he said to the ceiling, the words out of his mouth too quickly. She looked up and he glanced at her briefly. "If you want to." He pulled out his Vicodin and popped one. She was quiet for a minute and he knew she'd heard him, so he just listened to his music and gave her time to think.

"Are you ready to lose another one?" Cuddy asked him frankly. She watched as House rolled onto his side and propped on an elbow, sliding his headphones to his neck.

"I'm ready to lose everything but you."

Cuddy's breath caught in her throat. "Me?" she asked, genuinely confused.

"Everything," he assured her, his eyes clear and bright.

It was primal, visceral, cathartic. She didn't know the word for her reaction, but she got out of her chair, fell to her knees, and crawled the five feet to where he lay, sprawled on his back. She took his face in her hands, sweeping gently down the roughness of him. Music buzzed lightly out of his displaced headphones. She straddled him and slid her hands up his shirt, his hands answering with a firm grip on her ass. "I guess you want to," he teased.

"Do you have a condom?" she replied. He looked at her quizzically. "I'm not ready yet. To go through it all again. I think it will be my last attempt and I need longer to gear up for it." House's face was a mixture of emotions—surprise, caution, compassion, hope—and he couldn't have looked more perfect to her. "I don't want to make a baby tonight. I just want to copulate with you." She smiled and he laughed big—a real, rare, Housian laugh. She stopped it with her kiss, gentle, slow, and probing. Against his mouth she murmured, "You aren't gonna lose me, House."

"I bet you say that to all your sperm donors."

"Only the ones I like."

House gripped her shoulders gently, pulling her back to look at him. "Cuddy, don't. Don't promise that. If this goes bad—"

"This," she said, sitting up on him, "has nothing to do with that. We can fail to make a baby and we're still what we've been for years."

"You don't know that. If we fail, you might look at me and know that. Every day."

"I already look at me and know that," she pointed out. "At least now someone is with me in it." He studied her, trying to figure this out. She saw his gears turning. "I like you, House. I like being around you. I like what you do for me. I like how fucked up you are."

"Stop, I'm blushing."

"Do you like me?"

"Do you want me to like you?" Cuddy gave him a death stare. "I like you," he laughed.

"Good. That's settled. Now find a condom so we can do this in whatever positions we feel like," she added playfully.

"Positions. I like the plural," House teased shifting out from under her and limping to his backpack, abandoned near her front door.

"Are you sleeping with anyone else?" she asked suddenly.

He looked at her and made an Are you crazy? face. "Else would imply there is someone I'm already sleeping with." Cuddy kept staring at him and shifted her eyes to his backpack. "No. I'm not sleeping with anyone. I just stay prepared should the opportunity arise again to nail your highly-particular ass. I also have handcuffs, sprinkles, and two expense reports in here."

Cuddy smiled coyly. "Stop. You're turning me on."

House returned to the floor in front of her, presenting her with a condom and a small jar of sprinkles. Cuddy looked at him like he was nuts. "You actually have sprinkles," she observed. House grinned. "Why?"

"It was gonna be a joke. A nice joke. If you got your period again and I found you swimming in frozen yogurt."

Cuddy smiled and looked at his amused, lustful, observant eyes. "Your heart," she said. "It's remarkable."

"That I have one?" he joked.

"That you manage to hide it." Their gaze held for a moment and House reached out and tucked a stray curl behind her ear. "Do you actually have expense reports in there?"

"Fuck, no." He smiled.

Cuddy started laughing and the sound comforted him so much. It had disappeared in the initial despairing days, save her hysterical outburst fueled by wine, Vicodin, and grief. For weeks it had been slowly flowing back, and here it was pooling around him and he wanted to dive into it. He cupped her face and kissed her, murmuring, "I honestly don't know what one looks like." He was slow and deliberate, his tongue running over each lip and his hands gliding firmly down her neck, her shoulders, her arms.

"Excellent," Cuddy replied breathlessly. "I'm glad we pay your fellows to do something besides make your coffee and weather your abuse." As she spoke she was motionless, feeling every sensation of his mouth and fingertips in a new way. Without the potential conception woven into their contact, it was just him doing this with her for no reason other than to do this with her.

"Cuddy, if you get naked on top of me right now," he told her, unbuttoning her shirt, "I will learn how to do one, I swear." That laugh again, but this time as she pushed him on his back and kneeled over him, sliding her pants over her hips and down her rump. "You're so easy," he teased.

"You should see what I'd do for properly documented Medicaid case files."

House raised his eyebrows, his hands running slowly up and down the sides of her body. "Crazy shit?" he inquired, smirking at her.

"Stuff you only read about."

"I just look at the pictures."

"Oh. In that case, good thing I didn't send you the erotic email I wrote you the other day."

"It's cool. I read it in your 'drafts' box."

Cuddy froze and her eyes went wide. "You didn't."

House froze and his expression mirrored hers. "You didn't." Cuddy blushed. "You really wrote me a dirty email?"

Cuddy relaxed a little. "You were joking."

"You weren't?"

Cuddy smiled, waggled her eyebrows, and tucked her lips in secretively. House immediately reached for his phone and started opening the email app. "I didn't send it!" Cuddy protested, laughing.

"That's okay, 'PartyPants.'"

"I changed my password," Cuddy said haughtily.

"I know, 'PartyPants1.'" Cuddy gasped and started wrestling with him for the phone. He was laughing and holding it out of her reach while trying to type.

"It's not finished," Cuddy whined. "I need to revise it."

"I'm sure it's perfect," House assured her, still laughing. "You write great first drafts."

"House!" she said sternly. "If you read it, I swear, it will be the last one you ever get."

House paused. He was a lot of things—childish, naughty, horny, and egocentric. And this was tempting all those facets of his personality. But he wasn't stupid. He closed the app and tossed his phone aside. "I better get it this week," he warned, pulling her down for a rough kiss while he worked to unhook her bra.

"You'll get it when I get my expense report," she promised saucily.

House pretended to reach for his phone again. "Just gotta text Cameron regarding an expense report." Cuddy let her bra fall off the front of her. House forgot the phone. "Okay," he relented, distracted. "I'll be patient." He suddenly rolled, flipping Cuddy onto her back. "I'll just keep myself occupied while I wait." He was over her, kissing down her neck. Cuddy hissed air when he took her nipple into his mouth and started pulling her panties off. "I just want to make you feel good," he told her in a low voice.

Cuddy sighed her assent and raised her arms above her head in surrender. She kept them like that as he began kissing her wrists, working his way down her outstretched arms. His weight pressed against her aggressively, and his mouth licked and nipped at her with more fervor, the further down her body he traveled. She had hooked his tee and pulled it off of him while he moved downward. When it popped off his head, he was right at her sex and didn't even pause before kissing her, licking along her wetness and pressing her thighs open with his hands. Cuddy moaned her appreciation, which only turned him on more. His tongue slid back and forth over her clit and she lowered her hands to his hair. She made herself escort every other thought from her head but the idea that House was going down her right now, and she felt his every motion. She whimpered at what she liked and he soon perfected the stroke of his tongue and the pressure of his mouth. It seemed like every pass was taking her incrementally higher, and the rise was so fucking hot she was panting. She told him, "I'm right there!" as if he couldn't tell from her hips rising up off the floor to meet his mouth. And she told him, "Don't stop!" as if there were any place in the world he'd rather be. Ever. And she started to tell him she was coming, but the words were swallowed with the gasp of air she took in to fuel the ride. She twisted and bucked against the overwhelming sensations, but House held her body in his huge hands and didn't change a thing as she cried out and shook, until she collapsed against the floor and gripped his head tightly to freeze him. He kissed everything nearby—her thighs and knees, her hips and stomach, and came up to meet her.

"Just so you know," he told her. She looked at him, her eyes cloaked with a mixture of satisfaction and still-brewing lust. "You can't get pregnant in that position."

She laughed, then suddenly shoved him hard, pushing him onto his back and straddling him. She was insanely focused, opening his pants and pulling them off unceremoniously. She grabbed the condom, tore in open, and put it on him because he was ready to go. "Can you get pregnant in this position?" she asked him, slowly sliding down the length of him.

House lifted his head and let it plunk to the floor, consumed by the sensation. "God, Cuddy, that is awesome." She didn't miss a beat, completely obsessed with fucking his brains out. She began riding him easily, her sex already wet with her arousal and his mouth. Her body protested a little at the abruptness, but she liked it. She liked that she wanted him more than it hurt. She cupped her own breasts in her hands, pushing them together for his visual enjoyment. She threw her head back and gasped with each thrust of him into her body. House was breathing hard and pressed his hands to her thighs, unable to take his eyes off of her. He slid one hand up to press his thumb to her clit, which she encouraged with a tilt of her pelvis to make more contact.

"You are so fucking beautiful," he said, the sharpness of the F-word helping to dilute the romance of his declaration. He wanted her in every way imaginable—in his life, in his heart, on his body—and he wanted to communicate that to her in a way that wasn't too scary for either of them. "Fucking" helped.

"God, House you feel so good," she moaned, moving faster, her hands in her hair now, her torso teasingly approaching him and then pulling away as she rode him.

"That's all I want," he reminded her.

"Fuck," she replied, her voice high and tight.

"Fuck," he answered, pulling her hips down onto his hard now.

They hid so much behind those "fucks."

"House, I'm so close. Come with me," she gasped.

House hummed with effort to even wait for clarification. "Now?" he begged.

"Yes, Now!"

And they came together in a wave of pleasure, relief, joy, comfort, and understanding. He felt an orgasm in his brain, he really did. It trembled and clenched and released in a sensation of blissful relaxation. She had, if only temporarily, fixed his angst.

She continued slowly moving along him and he felt the post-orgasm spasms of pleasure continue to shoot through him. Her fingertips now danced along his chest and stomach as she sighed and breathed her sounds. Eventually she stilled, sliding off of him and curling up along his body.

"I told you it's like riding a bike," he muttered. She giggled.

"I don't know what kind of bikes you had as a kid." He laughed. She kissed his scruffy cheek, nibbled his earlobe. "Now for the real question," she said, running her hand up and down his chest.

"Hmm?" House asked, his eyes closed.

"Do you really have handcuffs in there?"