So guys, I'm still a little overwhelmed that people are reading this, let alone taking the time to write such lovely reviews, as well as alerting and adding it to their favourites. Another huge thank you to all of you, and a bit of a cheeky prompt to keep it up: it encourages me to write.
Even I was rolling my eyes at House here. Bring on the angst!
I own nothing House-related. I merely rent them.
For the next couple of days Wilson's health seemed to plateau and even rally. Because his throat infection was being medicated he found it easier to eat, and because he found it easier to eat he regained some of his strength, prompting House to announce they were all going out for a drive. Ending up at Fisherman's Wharf they ate clam chowder for lunch in a tiny seafood restaurant where antique fishnets and crab pots decorated the walls. Animatedly, they discussed each of their own near misses with the sea, raucous laughter emanating from Cuddy as Wilson recounted the tale of how a jellyfish sting resulted in him losing his virginity during a family holiday in Antigua at the age of 17, after a slightly older local girl took pity on him. Sitting with his back to the restaurant window and looking across at Cuddy, House watched her intently listening to his friend, her body unconsciously leaning towards him and a broad smile lighting up her features, punctuated sporadically with unbridled giggles as she absorbed the story of how a pimply and awkward teenager managed to get the girl. He genuinely couldn't remember the last time he'd seen her look this care-free, relaxed and so utterly involved.
Distractedly he picked up a salt cellar and poured a little mound of its contents on their table, tracing circles in it with his finger as he glanced around at the other patrons, reasoning that they'd all assume Cuddy and Wilson were a couple who'd kindly taken their disabled, single friend out to lunch.
"Everything ok?" Wilson asked, seemingly concerned.
"Peachy," he replied half-heartedly. "I need the bathroom."
As he made his way to the men's room he looked over his shoulder and saw Cuddy cupping the mound of salt in her hand, bringing it across to her side of the table, throwing a pinch over her shoulder and then sweeping the rest onto the floor as Wilson continued to chat to her, the smile she'd had on her face for the last hour not budging. Limping dejectedly to the bathroom House felt invisible.
Later that evening, leaving them arguing over where Hitchcock's cameo came in Rear Window as they sat cross-legged at opposite ends of the bed in the guest room, he walked a couple of blocks or so to the nearest store for no particular reason other than to get out of the house. On more than one occasion he'd tried to steer the conversation towards something he was interested in, but they wouldn't bite. Listlessly he walked up and down the aisles, adding beer, chips and candy to his basket, ignoring the teenager who not so conspicuously gawped at his leg as he rang up his items.
A little over half an hour after going he returned clutching the bag with the things he'd bought, and made his way back into the room about to announce he'd bought supplies, only to find Wilson and Cuddy fast asleep, the film they'd been discussing playing on the TV. Wilson was lying flat on his back with his chin tucked on top of her head, which was in turn resting on his shoulder gently, her body turned towards him and her hand placed lightly on his chest. Nine times out of ten it had been the way she'd fall to sleep on him when they were together, her body instinctively seeking out the warmth from his as she curled round him. Turning off the TV just as a portly, balding man wound a clock, House left them to it, silently closing the door and plonking himself down on the sofa in the living room. Pulling a beer bottle from the bag next to him, he opened it with his teeth and took a long drink as he sat in silence, the dusk light filtering in through the window. Trying to in vain to rationalise what he'd heard a few days before and now seen, he could feel a raw, illogical anger sparking inside him and it scared him. Despite everything his best friend was going through, right now he'd happily swap places if it meant Cuddy wouldn't look at him like he was someone to be endured and mistrusted. Sitting there in the semi-dark with only a bottle of beer for company, he realised he was jealous.
Wilson had woken in the middle of the night clammy, short of breath and feeling as if something or someone was pressing down on his chest; for a split second unable to establish if the dream he'd been having was real or not. As he slept he battled with faceless people who had been pinned him down as a heavy block of metal was lowered slowly onto his chest, crushing him and making it impossible to breathe. In vain he'd tried to free his limbs in his dream, and consequently his muscles ached from tensing them in his sleep. This wasn't the first time he'd had such dreams either. There were always slight variations such as where he was or who was holding him down, but the impending threat of suffocation was always the same, a complication of his illness manifesting itself in his subconscious. Sitting up on the edge of the bed as he gasped to get his breath back, he felt a hand gently rubbing his back, as a bleary-eyed Cuddy asked him if he was ok.
Now Wilson sat outside with his eyes closed, revelling in the fresh air and the Sun beating down on his face, a couple of feet away from House who had been bouncing a tennis ball he'd found in the soil behind him against the back wall of Cuddy's home for the past half hour. The incessant noise was beginning to test the oncologist's patience. His friend had been distant since he'd woken up after spending the night on the sofa, and Wilson had initially assumed it was just because he was hungover, the numerous beer bottles he'd drained disposed of by Cuddy before she'd been called into work for an emergency. Now it was plainly obvious it was more than that. He'd barely made eye contact, let alone spoken to him.
"House!" Wilson finally snapped. "If you're perfecting some kind of torture, it's working."
"If you're not feeling well, you should lie down," he replied emotionlessly, continuing to bounce the ball against the wall and catch it.
"I don't want to lie down. I want to sit here. In peace… What the hell is wrong with you?"
There was a deafening silence as House thumbed the white, wavy line that dissected the ball, concentrating on it as if his life depended on it.
"Did you sleep with her?"
"Who?"
Wilson had spun round now to face him, as he tried to decipher what his friend was talking about.
"Cuddy," House responded evenly, still avoiding eye contact.
"Seriously?... I can barely stand up for any length of time, let alone maintain an erection. The nearest we got to exchanging bodily fluids was when she watched me coughing my guts up into the toilet this morning. I've had better one night stands."
Wilson was almost incredulous. This was ridiculous. They happened to fall asleep in the same bed, nothing more. Swivelling round on the on the raised, brick flowerbed he was perched on, House finally returned his gaze and evidently he was angry.
"I heard you both talking out here the other day."
Wilson sighed and rubbed his hand across his face.
"That was a private conversation."
"You're deflecting… You did, didn't you?" He gulped and went on. "After I left."
The older man was scrutinizing the man in front of him like he was a criminal, his eyes rapidly darting around his features for signs he was about to lie.
"No!"
"You're lying."
There was a cold certainty to his words.
"I'm not!" Wilson retorted adamantly. "Look, she came to see me the day after the crash to tell me she was leaving."
"So you screwed her as a leaving present," House interrupted. It was a statement of fact, rather than a question. "Thoughtful."
"House, shut up and listen…"
"Oh I'm all ears! Always keen to hear stories about the time my best friend schtupped my ex-girlfriend. Hey, we could compare notes!" he spat sarcastically.
"We didn't sleep together. We kissed…" He hesitated before he went on. Honesty was probably the best policy. "It could have gone further, but it didn't."
"Who kissed who?"
"Do we really need to do this?"
Ignoring him, he persisted.
"Was it you?"
Almost imperceptibly Wilson shook his head. Dropping his own head down, House shifted uncomfortably and crossed his arms across himself, vindictively scraping his sneaker across an ant that had been minding its business crawling across the patio in front of him. The thought of Cuddy kissing someone else, wanting somebody else always made him feel sick, but this was pure torture. He supposed Wilson's story was plausible, but something wasn't adding up.
"You're telling me Cuddy was coming onto you, all hot and needy, and you turned her down. I know you Jimmy. Desperation is like an aphrodisiac."
"How many times do I have to tell you House, nothing happened."
"If it was all so innocent, you'd have told me."
"In case you've forgotten, I only had to mention Cuddy's name and you told me you weren't interested." It was true. He'd wanted a clean break and yet here he was arguing about her in her home. Life sure threw some curveballs. "Did it occur to you I didn't tell you because you'd do this?"
The former diagnostician shook his head and stared his friend squarely in the eye.
"I don't believe you."
Sighing, Wilson stood up and walked towards House, who was still resting on the edge of the flower bed.
"There's nothing I can do about that." Moving away beleagueredly Wilson made his way back inside. "I'm going to lie down."
Still not finished House stood up and followed him.
"Is the kid yours?... Is this why we're here? You thought you'd bring me along for a cosy family reunion?"
Wilson stopped in his tracks and span round.
"Are you serious?"
"As cancer James," House retorted stonily, his eyes cooly regarding the sick man in front of him. Somewhere deep down he knew it was way below the belt, but his mouth was on auto-pilot.
"Ok. You want to know the truth?"
"It's what I've been waiting for."
Leaning against the jamb of the windows, House smugly folded his arms, awaiting the confession he expected to hear.
"Fine… When a beautiful woman tells you she wants to sleep with you, you think twice. When she's kissing you and telling you she wants you, the easiest thing in the world is to let your dick override your brain. Believe me, the part of me that was angry with you wanted to, but I couldn't do it…. She was a mess. We both were… But I couldn't do that to her. After everything that happened she needed a friend, not someone to make herself feel better with for twenty minutes."
House shifted his weight onto his good leg, and jammed his hands clumsily into his jeans' pockets like a naughty schoolboy. The possibility that Wilson was telling the truth started to creep its way into his psyche.
"Wild overestimation of your sexual prowess there," House jibed half-heartedly.
There it was. The usual deflection to avoid an apology.
"I am so fed up with your bullshit House… Even if we did sleep together, which we didn't, you don't have the right to get pissed. Even if I had fathered a child with her, which I didn't, owing to the fact we've never actually had sex, it's none of your business. Any say or input you had on Cuddy's life ended the day you decided to drive your car into her home…"
"But…" House's eyes batted wildly as he tried to put together a coherent sentence.
"But what?... You could have killed her… As it is she had to uproot herself and Rachel, and left a job you and I both know she loved."
Digging his thumb and forefinger into the corners of his eyes, Wilson inhaled deeply. He felt queasy and dizzy, but he was determined to put his point across.
"You ok?" The question was practically a whisper.
Letting his hand drop back down to his side, the oncologist looked directly at his best friend.
"No I'm not!... I just realised what a selfish bastard I was bringing you here, and making her have to face you every day."
House's mouth dropped open. A few minutes ago he'd been furious and now he was the one feeling stupid and wracked with guilt, and rightly so. Imagining what it must be like for her to see him in her home after what he did to her was almost unbearable. Both stuck to the spot, the two men heard the front door open and the subject of their argument calling out a greeting. A wave of nausea crept up from the pit of House's stomach. He couldn't be there with her, not after this. Barging past Wilson he walked into the living room and made his way to the front door, only to be stopped abruptly in his tracks by Cuddy, who was walking in the opposite direction from the hallway.
"Hi," she offered with a small smile, tiredly rubbing the back of her neck.
"I need to go," he replied shiftily.
Walking past her, he grabbed his jacket, opened the door and stepped outside without looking back, leaving her utterly bewildered. Noticing Wilson heading towards the guest room she thought she'd get some clarity on the situation there, but before she could open her mouth he'd already put paid to that.
"Don't ask!" he exclaimed, throwing his arms in the air in a display of annoyance.
Meandering her way through the house Cuddy wandered into the kitchen, and noticing the open French windows stepped outside. There on the patio was a tennis ball rolling around in the breeze. Picking it up, she placed it back in its spot in the corner of the flower bed where it belonged.
Waking up to the sound of glass breaking, Cuddy nervously crept downstairs half expecting to see the sight that greeted her; House sat in the dark with his head resting listlessly on his palm, a finger tracing of the rim of the glass in front of him and a bottle of whiskey on the counter next to it, both from her cupboard. The drink had been a gift from a donor who'd seen the pictures of Rachel and Jacob in her office and assumed she was married, offering it as a present for her husband. Not quite sure why, she went along with it.
"I broke a glass. It's in the sink… I'm sorry," he mumbled without turning to look at her, and then swallowed the contents of his glass in one go. "You really need to step up security at the back of the house. Any bum could let himself in."
"Thanks for the tip," she countered dryly.
"I'd offer you a drink seen as it's yours, but then that'd mean less for me."
He finished the sentence with a hiccup and a breathy chuckle. From his demeanour he'd clearly drunk his way through the day, causing Cuddy to exhale deeply. She couldn't be bothered to deal with him when he was like this during the daytime, let alone in the middle of the night when she was struggling to keep her eyes open.
"I'm going to back to bed."
"Don't," pleaded a small voice, bordering on pathetic.
Throughout the years she'd known him as his boss and then his girlfriend, she'd lost count of the times he'd turned up at her house drunk, and she'd felt obliged to deal with him. Now there was no obligation. In theory.
"I have to be up early…" She cut herself off before explaining that she had to make a call first thing in the morning. There was no reason for her to justify her actions to him. Truth be known there never had been, but it was almost a reflexive response. Nobody currently in her home had ever been big on maintaining personal boundaries.
House nodded his head and reached into his pocket, pulling out his Vicodin bottle and pouring a number of pills into his mouth like they were candy, reaching for his glass and washing them down. Determined she wasn't going to give him an audience for his pity party, Cuddy turned on her heel and began to walk away when he asked her a question that glued her to the spot.
"Why did you leave me?"
At some point she'd expected this to happen, as much as she wanted to avoid it. The initial awkwardness and some semblance of a truce, was always inevitably going to give way to questions and recriminations. It was in his nature to pick at a scab until it bled so he could see what was underneath, regardless of the damage it would do.
"I'm not doing this now."
"Now's as good a time as any." There was a pause as he watched her struggle with what to do from the back. "Please."
Finally her shoulders sagged and she turned round, walking towards him and sitting on a stool opposite, uneasily adjusting her dressing gown as she got comfortable and braced herself for what was to come.
"You know exactly why I left you… I couldn't do this." She gestured towards the drink and the half empty pill bottle. "Every time something goes wrong, you do this."
"You knew that long before we got together…"
"Thinking you can deal with something and actually having to do it are two different things."
"You're telling me," he responded mock jovially.
For a moment or two they sat in silence, Cuddy running her finger over a blemish on the counter and House swirling around the couple of drops of liquid left in his glass.
"After the cancer scare I realised you were never going to be there for me. Not up here." She tapped her temple. "It's just not who you are..."
"I tried." His voice was tinged a mixture of desperation and anger.
"I know… But the thing you thought would bring you closer, just pushed you further away…" He knew she was talking about the Vicodin. "I felt more alone after I found out, than I did when you wouldn't come to see me."
"I wanted to be there… More than anything I wanted to be there."
House gripped the glass tightly as he said it, Cuddy looking on as his nail beds whitened at the pressure. This wasn't easy for him to talk about either.
"It wasn't enough… I couldn't…"
"Couldn't what?" he pushed.
"There were always going to be other times when your first instinct was to reach for the Vicodin. I couldn't live with that hanging over my head… I couldn't sit around and wait for the day your liver would give up, or I'd find you dead… Rachel even…" She winced at the thought. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to watch someone you care about slowly kill themselves?... I couldn't do it. I couldn't put my daughter through that."
House sat quietly considering what she'd said, before opening his mouth again.
"You should have married Lucas… You should never have come to mine that night."
Cuddy sighed and rolled her eyes. If she was honest the thought had crossed her mind, but she'd always ended up dismissing it.
"So this was all my fault?"
"I didn't say that," House countered defensively.
"I didn't love Lucas."
"He was reliable. He was good with Rachel… Best of all he wasn't a drug addict."
"It wasn't enough."
"Love is way overrated," he countered vehemently.
Cuddy shifted awkwardly on her seat.
"My Mom never loved my Dad and I saw what that did to him. The more he loved her, the more she resented him for it. Year after year it hollowed him out.. I'm not that cruel…" She lifted her head and looked him in the eye. "If I have to choose between being with someone I didn't love, or being with a man who could never be there for me, I'd rather be on my own."
House tapped his fingers rhythmically on the surface, and smiled wryly at her.
"Maybe Mr Perfect is one Ivy League educated, football playing insurance rep away." Selfishly he hoped not. God he hoped not.
"There's no such thing." Rubbing her eyes and getting off the stool she continued. "Look House, the reason you're in this state isn't even about me or us. Whatever happened between you and Wilson is… I have no idea what went on and frankly I don't care, but you need to make a decision… Either you suck it up and finish what you started here, or you leave tonight and I'll see this through on my own."
"Do you want me to go?"
Cuddy hesitated before she spoke. It would be so easy to say yes, and have him out of her life once and for all.
"We both know that this is just the tip of the iceberg. I had to put him on oxygen tonight and up the dosage on his pain relief. Within a few days he could be doubly incontinent. I want Wilson to have his best friend, but not if you're going to walk out every two minutes…" Stepping forward she put her hand on House's shoulder, making him jolt at the sensation. She hadn't touched him in so long it made him realise how much he'd ached for it. "He loves you, and I know deep down you love him… You owe him this."
There was a heavy silence as she saw him struggle to compose himself. Finally he lifted his head and looked at her with tears forming in his blue eyes, which shone as the moonlight hit them.
"I am so fucking scared…" His voice wobbled as he choked back a sob. Scared of what was to come. Scared he wasn't strong enough. Scared of what would happen afterwards when he was alone.
Seeing a tear run down his face, Cuddy instinctively wiped it away and cupped his cheek. He was vulnerable and right now so was she; a voice at the back of her mind telling her she didn't want this contact to end, and it frightened her. What she thought were long buried feelings bubbled to the surface.
"So am I."
Forcing herself to move her hand away, House's eyelids flickered fleetingly at the loss of her touch. Wordlessly, she backed away and didn't stop moving until she found herself back in her room, climbing into bed and staring at a tiny crack in the ceiling.
This wasn't happening.
