"Don't you think I'm in enough pain already?" he asked, though it didn't sound like he really wanted an answer.

He was in pain, anguish, turmoil. He had been for a very long time. But if she had to whack him across the leg to keep him from leaving, then so be it. Better he be in pain and safe in her home than numb and splattered across the road.

"House, you are not leaving."

"For fuck's sake, Cuddy, what the hell do you want me to do? Sit here and cry like a baby?"

"Yes."

He blinked, then he blinked again. "You don't want me to drink…but you want me to cry?"

"Your best friend walked out on you, House." She sat down on the opposite end of the sofa, making sure the cane was still out of his reach. "You have every right to be upset."

"Do I?" he sneered. "It's nice to know I have your permission."

"You can't keep your anger bottled up like this. You need to let it out."

"What I need is to leave and get hammered." He went to stand up…only to pause when Cuddy lifted the cane, threatening to bring it down hard across his lap. She was one second away from doing just that when he realized she was serious and settled back on to the cushions.

"He left you standing there," Cuddy told him. "He said you were never friends. After all these years he just takes everything you had together and throws it in the trash. I know you're angry and I'm telling you have every right to express it."

Looking away, House replied, "I don't need your goddamn pity."

"I'm not giving it to you. Let me have yours. Let me have all your pity and anger and frustration and sorrow and resentment. I'll take it, House."

"No."

"You're angry, House. Now tell me how angry you are."

"No." His eyes were closed. He was barely hanging on.

Tell me something. Anything.

"Your best friend abandons you and you have nothing to say about it?"

"We were never friends."

"You were friends!" Cuddy was practically shouting at him. "You had fun together. I saw that myself. He confided in you and you confided in him. He went to you when he found out Julie was cheating on him. Is that not what friends do for each other?"

"I was the manipulator and he was the enabler. He waited until the last second to tell me that because he was protecting me and my blunted feelings. That was the least he could do."

"He was your friend, House. If you can't be angry at him then be angry at me."

"No." A single tear slowly trickled down his haggard face.

Be angry with me, House. Please feel something.

"You have to do something about what you're feeling, House. You can't hold it in forever."

"I don't have to do jack shit."

Please let your feelings out, House. For once in your life let your feelings out…

Begging him wasn't working. It was time to try a different approach, something House could relate to. "Fine. Just sit there on your sorry ass," Cuddy spat. "That's all you do, anyway."

"I will."

"Be my guest."

"It's nice to know I have your permission for that, too."

"You do."

"Thanks."

"You're quite welcome. Sit there and drink the whole damn bottle. Maybe by tomorrow you'll forget you ever had any friends at all."

"If you insist." House reached for his still half-full cup and drank the rest.

"Maybe Wilson had a reason to walk away from you after all," she said. "He probably got tired of seeing you drink your troubles away."

"He was the enabler," he reminded her as he poured yet another drink. "He never stopped me from drinking."

"Because he was too polite to say how pathetic you are."

"He was."

"But I'm not. You're pathetic, House. Absolutely pathetic. Tomorrow I'll call Wilson up and tell him exactly what went on here tonight. I'm sure he'll have a good laugh about it and--"

She was cut off in mid-sentence when House used his good leg to push the coffee table over, sending the bottle of scotch tumbling onto the carpet. She could hear it faintly gurgling and spilling in the otherwise new silence; House's now fierce blue eyes cut across the room and into her. After a few moments she realized she was gasping for breath as his chest was heaving up and down, gulping large chunks of air as if he had just broken the surface of a lake after being pulled under.

"Is that angry enough for you?" he managed to say. "Or was that just one of the many pathetic actions of a pathetic, friendless cripple?"

"House, I--"

"You want angry? Oh…I'll show you angry." With a sweep of his arm the lamp crashed to the floor, followed by the table it had been sitting on. The bulb flashed on and off like a strobe light several times before sputtering out, leaving the room an ashen grey.

House stood up and made his way to the bookcase. "This is what happens when my best friend abandons me!" Books and knick-knacks flew through the air. The sound of something shattering to pieces flew through the air after them. "This is exactly how I feel! Is this what you wanted, Cuddy? Is this enough emotion for you?"

"House, please," she cried. "I just wanted--"

"You just wanted to see me cry. You…you got your wish…you got your wish," he stammered out as a sob filled with all the anguish and grief he could possibly have clawed its way out from the very core of his being. Tears streaked down his red face. "Damn you, Cuddy. Damn you to hell. Damn you to fucking hell!"

He was moving again, moving faster than Cuddy had ever seen him. At first she thought he was going for the front door and moved to block his way. Instead he turned down the hall and stumbled into the bathroom, closing and locking the door before she could catch up to him.

Oh God, what have I done?

"House!" she called, her heart breaking as she heard his sobs continue on the other side of the door. "House, please open the door."

No answer, just the awful sound of his crying.

"House!"

The unmistakable sound of glass shattering on the other side of the bathroom door. The mirror. He must have smashed the mirror.

"House!"

"Leave me alone." His voice was muffled and weak and wracked with shame.

"House, let me in. Please let me in."

Please don't let him be hurting himself in there…

"Go away."

"Please open the door."

"Just leave me the fuck alone!"

"House…Gregory…let me in," she cried, pounding and pounding on the door.

The door remained locked, with House crying on one side and Cuddy crying on the other. This wasn't supposed to have happened. He was supposed to lash out at her, yell and scream at her. He was supposed to open up to her. He was supposed to trust her and be able to express what he was feeling, not have an utter and complete breakdown and lock himself in a room with broken shards of a mirror that he could easily dig into the soft, thin skin of his wrists…

More pounding. More crying from the bathroom. The door remained locked.

She had to get the door open somehow. Breaking it down was out of the question; she'd end up breaking her shoulder first.

It's just a simple lock. You should be able to open it like the flimsy locks back home. No privacy back then since all it took was nail file and five seconds to pick the damn thing…

A minute later Cuddy was digging her nail file into the doorknob when there was the distinct snap of the lock releasing. She turned the knob and carefully pushed the door open, expecting it to be slammed right back in her face. It wasn't, it just slowly swung open and only stopped with a faint thump when it hit the wall. She had been right about the mirror: there was a softball-sized hole punched in the middle of it. The sink was littered with shards and the floor sparkled with them. Drops of blood were also scattered along the floor with the remains of the mirror.

House was sitting on the edge of the bathtub, his head in his hands, slowly rocking back and forth. The knuckles of his right hand were gashed open, blood freely dripping on the floor and running down his arm, into his sleeve.

"House?" Cuddy said quietly as she stepped into the bathroom, pieces of the broken mirror crunching under her shoes. "House, my God, your hand…"

She was standing over him now. He hadn't looked up. He didn't acknowledge the fact that she had picked the lock. She wasn't sure if he even realized she was in the same room with him.

Gently she pushed his hands away from his face, then cupped his chin her hands and tilted his head up. His eyes were red-streaked and bleary and vacant. He was looking right through her, perhaps seeing better times in the past or what his life had become in the here and now. Her mouth opened to tell him everything was going to be fine, to tell him that she was there for him. But he wasn't listening and wouldn't listen anyway. When his eyes finally focused back on her, Cuddy kept quiet and gently tugged on his arm, encouraging him to stand up. Surprisingly he did without any kind of protest or resistance and allowed himself to be led to the kitchen where she sat him in a chair and proceeded to tend to his wounded hand. It wasn't as bad as it looked and soon it was cleaned and bandaged. House didn't say a word, just stared at what she was doing without really seeing it. He only grunted a bit when the peroxide bubbled in the gashes on his hand. She helped him take off his long-sleeved shirt and cleaned the sticky blood streaks that ran up to his elbow with some wet paper towels.

She tugged on his arm again. "Come on, you should lay down."

He didn't move from the chair, just looked up and let her see the despair behind his eyes.