Two Americans in London
Chp 4: Wuthering Heights
A loud rapping sound at her door woke Cuddy from her dreamless slumber. She sat up and rubbed her eyes, annoyed, she had a very good idea who was knocking on her door. The loud sound of wood hitting against wood echoed throughout her room and forced her to get out of bed to answer the door. The rapping became louder, now using the sounds on the door to beat out well known rhythms. Cuddy opened the door so suddenly, House was caught by surprise his cane held in mid-air waiting to knock on her door once again. Cuddy snatched the cane from House's hand and slammed the door in his face. She tossed the cane onto the armchair in the corner of her room and went back to bed. A few moments later, the knocking on the door started again. Cuddy practically growled into her pillow before getting up and once again answering the door to House. House, more wary this time, took his new cane down faster to avoid it getting swiped.
"I always carry a spare." House said with a wink at Cuddy's glare.
"What is so urgent that you felt it was your duty to come and wake me up?" Cuddy uttered still half asleep, not quite ready for the banter that was bound to ensue.
"I wanted to get all the touristy stuff out of the way as soon as possible," House replied in an almost cheery voice.
"Excuse me? Are you implying that we would be doing touristy stuff together?" Cuddy questioned.
"Well duh! I saw how you wander aimlessly around London, and since you certainly aren't here for the conference I thought," House was answering when Cuddy get him off.
"I don't remember inviting you on this vacation House."
"Well, when you put Dr. Gurther in charge of me you practically sealed your own fate."
"As much as I love talking to you House, some people actually like to get their beauty sleep. We'll finish this pointless conversation later." Cuddy muttered sarcastically pushing the door closed. She was annoyed when she couldn't close the door because House had stubbornly put his cane in the way.
"What are you are you implying Dr. Cuddy, that I'm not beautiful?" House said with a sweep of his hair.
"House!" Cuddy sighed exasperated.
House ruffled through his coat pockets and pulled out a tourist book, he opened it to a page and threw it to Cuddy. She caught it and gave him a fierce look to show she was not pleased with him. The page was about the Millennium Wheel.
"The Millennium Wheel, so what?" Cuddy asked while tossing the book onto the bed.
"I want to ride it." House paused.
Cuddy sighed and turned around to get her things, she saw it was pointless arguing with him, but it surprised her when he continued.
"Its not like London has an all access pass to cripples, the only way I'm going to see all of London is if I see its skyline." House muttered bitterly.
Cuddy turned around clothes in hand, and for a second caught a glimpse of unguarded affection towards her plastered all over House's face.
"What time do you want me to meet you in the lobby?"
The look had gone in a second and House was back to his usual self, "You don't have to meet me in the Lobby, I can wait here," House suggested, smirking as he gave Cuddy's assets a nice long look.
"Oh no you won't, I've got to change." Cuddy replied, pushing House outside of her room before he could reply. After she thought House was gone Cuddy took her clothes into the bathroom and locked the door. What Cuddy didn't realize was House had slipped her room key into his pocket before he left, and now used it to re-enter her room.
He decided to use the time she would take in the shower to search for her prescription pad. He wasn't even sure if she was allowed to prescribe in England but his Vicodin supply had gotten dangerously low, and therefore he was on slim rations. He could already feel the effects of withdrawal but had convinced himself it was the pain. House emptied her purse, searched through her drawers, pausing for a moment to admire a black thong, and searched anywhere else he could think of before coming up with nothing. It had been a long shot anyway. House gripped his cane harder than usual as he came up to quickly from his kneeling position. A wave of nausea came over him that made him wonder once again if it was the pain that was causing this or if it was withdrawal, he shook the thought away, not liking to think about it.
Cuddy smiled to herself while she put her lipstick on. It had been a silent agreement between them not to talk about the kiss, but it didn't stop her thinking about it. It had been so unlike House, so gentle and caring, and then there was the look she caught this morning. Cuddy grinned foolishly, and put her fingers to her lips, lightly tracing, trying to create the sensation he left on them from the previous day.
She came down to the lobby and had to repress a grin when she saw House nod approvingly at her clothes. She was wearing a flowing white dress and a black sweater to compensate for the cold weather outside.
"Conservative Cuddy, not as great a fantasy sluty administrator Cuddy, but very nice to look at." House called out to her, Cuddy was secretly pleased at his reaction but threw him a look of disgust.
"House I don't want you fantasizing about me at all." House held out his arm to her in a gentlemanly manner but Cuddy knew House to well to accept it, instead she walked by him and flirtatiously looked over her shoulder before shouting, "Come on House, my grandmother could walk faster than you and she needs a wheelchair."
It was indeed an impressive sight. The massive Ferris wheel was an engineering masterpiece. Cuddy looked down to the brochure she was holding and read that another name for the Millennium Wheel was the London Eye. She couldn't help but agree with the brochure that the name was very appropriate and allowed herself to grin in the direction of House, who was busying bartering with the ticket seller about the price of their tickets.
House came back over to Cuddy with two tickets clasped in one hand and the cane in the other. "I got a great discount on our tickets, its amazing what people will do when you tell them they are dying."
Cuddy was shocked, that was low even for House, "You have no problem abusing your power do you?" Cuddy observed.
"Who said I was abusing my power, the man really is dying." House replied in a manner of fact voice that disturbed Cuddy. How could House be so cold? Their conversation came to an abrupt end, each not sure how to continue, each keeping their mouth shut for fear of what might come out.
Their wait to get on the wheel was a silent one, the previous conversation still pressing on their minds. They were ushered into their carriage on the wheel with 5 other people and waited for the machine to start. It was House that broke the silence between them.
"Cuddy, do you think I'm cold?" House asked. Cuddy looked up to him with a face full of surprise, how had he known what she was thinking?
"Sometimes I wonder…" Cuddy murmured. She didn't really want to talk about this, she wasn't comfortable thinking about House's coldness, let alone talking with him about it. She moved to the opposite side of the carriage where nobody was and watched as the London skyline came into view.
House paused and stood in place, he wanted to go over to Cuddy, explain himself better to her. Let her know that he was intentionally cold so that people wouldn't expect things of him, so he wouldn't hurt people, so he couldn't get hurt. In the end he decided to follow her, but instead of revealing his true feelings, he approached Cuddy on familiar ground.
"Coldness is relative, what may be cold to you, I may deem necessary. Let's take an example, Foreman's dying of some strange, unknown disease but the dean of medicine won't let us take a sample of his brain." House reminded Cuddy.
"House that is completely unfair, you know I had no other choice, he was contagious and dangerous, and it's low that you even bring that up." Cuddy retorted.
"I only bring it up to show you how coldness is relative. Some may have perceived what you did as cold and uncaring, but you saw it as necessary, that you had no other choice."
"How can you even compare us? I had to make a tough call between spreading an infectious and fatal, let me remind you, disease or potentially saving a friend's life. You were just happy because you got a great deal from a man who was dying. Yeah we're both cold bastards." Cuddy yelled at House, she noticed the other people in the carriage look at her and she yet again walked away from House, fuming and having no intention of yelling in public with him again. But House wasn't stopped he came up behind her.
"Cameron thinks she understands me. But then she is disgusted by me when I lie or cheat or blatantly don't care what happens to get something done." House's voice trailed off as if he was waiting for Cuddy to say something. Cuddy turned around, she was confused. What was with the topic change, it wasn't like House to let something go. She looked into his eyes, trying to read him but realized it was pointless his mask was up, as always.
"Cameron is young and naïve, although she would never admit it, she tries to understand concepts that would break the happy bubble she surrounds herself with and fails miserably. She will never be able to understand you House because she has never been given a reason to hate the world, to hate the people in it." Cuddy said a bit more harshly than she intended to, she was still mad about the previous discussion, but it wasn't Cameron's fault House was an ass.
"She had a husband that died of brain cancer."
"Oh." Cuddy hadn't known that about Cameron, it gave Cuddy a new found respect for the girl.
"I think Cameron will never understand me because she doesn't want to understand me. She's afraid of what she might find, of what I'll turn out to be. What I really am." House uttered.
Cuddy suddenly felt empathy for House. He was using Cameron as a vessel to show his feelings to Cuddy. She knew he could never say something straight out, he was indirectly telling her about his insecurities, his hatred of himself, that his coldness bothered him. Cuddy stepped in closer to House, so close she could feel his hot breath on her shoulder.
"What are you really?" Cuddy asked.
"A disappointment." House explained, but he must have crossed an invisible line for himself and he suddenly back away from Cuddy and walked to the other side of the carriage. Cuddy cringed as he gingerly lowered himself to the ground, face full of pain that was not created by the leg alone. It was Cuddy's turn to follow House; she began to approach him when the carriage jolted. Cuddy froze; the carriage jolted again and then came to a complete stop. The talking that had buzzed around the air a few seconds ago had now ceased and there was complete silence. The speaker in the corner suddenly came to life and broke the silence.
"Sorry for the inconvenience everyone but the Millennium Wheel is experiencing some technical difficulties. We've had to stop the carriages moving for safety reasons until we have fixed the problem. Sorry again for the inconvenience."
There was a general sigh of relief once the situation had been explained and Cuddy felt it safe again to advance towards House.
"You know this stupid idea was yours." Cuddy teased as she slid down the wall next to him.
"It was your stupid idea to come to London." House retorted half heartedly, he still wasn't comfortable with conversation after his confession from before. They sat in silence for a few moments before Cuddy tried again.
"You want to know something House, I'm a disappointment too."
"Yeah you're certainly the disappointment type. I see screw-up written all over your face." House said sarcastically.
"I mean, I'm also a disappointment to myself." Cuddy admitted with more understanding than House thought possible from her.
Cuddy continued, "When you are a little girl, all you dream about is your beautiful wedding, your handsome husband, your wonderful home and all of the attractive little babies you are going to have. Every little girl and woman on earth probably dreams of loving and being loved. I've often wondered about love and have promised myself time and time again that I will find it, I still have time. But look at me House, I'm 41, never been married, not even close to it, never had kids and my time is running out. That's why I need these fertility meds to work, because this is my last shot at love. My last shot to love and be loved back. So if I'm not a disappointment I obviously don't know the meaning of disappointment." Cuddy said with a weak laugh. House silently slipped his hand into Cuddy's gave it a squeeze and then quickly removed it, looking out of the windows and regretting the awkward moment he thought he had created.
It took a couple of hours before the carriages began moving again. House and Cuddy hadn't talked since Cuddy's declaration mainly because House, who was still suffering from Jet-lag, had fallen asleep. He was now leaning on Cuddy's shoulder, she allowed herself to smile affectionately at him, she figured she was safe since he was asleep. She was almost disappointed when the carriages began moving again because that would mean he would wake up and the warmth of their bodies close together would be gone. She tapped him lightly awake, making sure to mask her affection with a look of annoyance to greet him with.
"House it's been hours, now get your oversized head off of my shoulder." House woke up with a start and clumsily used his cane to shove himself back onto his feet. But he immediately regretted this decision as the nausea and pain returned from this morning.
Cuddy noticed how pale House had become and was immediately worried. "House are you alright?"
"Do I look alright to you?" House snapped back. The nausea was worse than this morning's, his vision became a little blurred and an ache in the back of his head signaled that a bad headache was approaching.
Cuddy ignored this familiar treatment and got up to support House if he needed it, he shook her off still embarrassed about falling asleep on her.
"I don't need you groping me Cuddy, I need more Vicodin."
It was this again, this same stupid argument that always came up.
"Well I sure as hell don't have any, it's not like I was exactly expecting you to stalk me to London now was I?"
"You could write me a prescription."
"It wouldn't matter, I'm not licensed in England, they wouldn't accept it."
House began to feel dizzy as the carriage came to a stop at ground level once more. The nausea was getting much more intense, it was taking all of House's self control to stop from gagging. Cuddy noticed House beginning to sway but daren't touch him again.
"We can go to the hospital in the morning and get them to prescribe it to you." Cuddy suggested as they exited the carriage. When House didn't reply Cuddy kept walking.
House finally admitted he was going through withdrawal. The pain in his leg had subsided and now all House could even register was the cold sweat on him, the bursting headache and the overwhelming nausea that was growing too much for him to handle.
Cuddy turned around at the sound of gasps and saw House leaning by the river throwing up. She shook her head in disgust. She walked back towards him and said before she left.
"Is this always how it's going to be House? Are you always going to be so dependent on Vicodin that it's going to control your life? Look at you, its pathetic, I regret that I even associate with you sometimes." House could not register much, but could hear the sound of her high heels stomping away from him.
House approached Cuddy's room that night. His nausea had passed for now and he wanted to apologize for what happened at the wheel. He brought his hand up to knock at the door, but brought it back down. He sighed in loathing of himself, why was it so hard for him to talk to another human being? He turned away from her room and walked down the hallway to the lobby with the plan on spending his night at the bar.
Cuddy sat in her pajamas clutching her cell phone. Her tear stained face contrasted sharply with her pained laughter. Her cell phone had told her that it was Valentine's Day, she hadn't even realized it. She was laughing at the twisted way House tried to woo her, their twisted relationship and the irony of it all. She sighed and ran her fingers through her hair. Another Valentine's Day alone, another year gone by and still no change in her single status, alone, alone, alone. She had got up and planned to raid her mini-bar for anything alcoholic when she noticed House's cane from the morning lying on the armchair where she had left it. She abandoned her thoughts about the mini-bar and instead grabbed the cane and returned to the bed. Cuddy laughed again at her situation and thought that God really did have a sense of humor. She brought the cane closer to her in an embrace, a sad substitute for the person she wanted to hold. Maybe she wasn't as alone as she thought she was.