And so the chapter count finally makes it into double figures…
A ginormous thank you to everybody who's sticking with this. Your reviews, favourites, alerts etc are like lovely, tasty cookies.
I'll be honest, part of me totally gets where Julia is coming from here. If I found a family member in a similar situation I'd probably react in the same way. The other part of me just hates her.
Beware: angst!
They belong to Shore.
For what seemed like an eternity nobody moved a muscle. They were too glued to their respective spots by the surrealism of the situation they each found themselves in. Finally the clock striking the hour seemed to make Cuddy come to, and as if coming out of a daze she suddenly realised that both her and House were in various states of undress. In one swift movement she grabbed a cushion from the end of the sofa and jammed it over House's front in a tardy attempt to preserve his modesty, then picked up her jumper from the floor next to her and pulled it over her head. Getting to her feet she looked at her sister and then looked past her as if she was looking for someone or something.
"Where are the kids?"
"Oh don't worry Lisa! Your children are being looked after by my husband while you whore yourself out to this asshole," Julia spat back with real venom in her voice.
For House it wasn't the fact that she'd called him out that bothered him. It was the subtle implication that Cuddy was neglecting her children by being here with him. He knew she'd have felt it like a knife twisting into her side, even if the pain of the insult didn't register on her face. Pulling his shorts up his thighs back to sit on his hips, he got to his feet and turned to the woman who felt like an imposter in the house.
"Watch your mouth!" he warned.
Raising her eyebrows in disbelief, Julia took a step back and looked him up and down in disgust, her eyes lingering over the scar on his leg and making him feel incredibly self-conscious.
"Or you'll do what exactly?... Hit me? Because that's what domestic abusers do, right?" Seeing his jaw fall slack, she continued the verbal assault. "No wait! Maybe I should stand right here so you can go and get the car and run me over."
Glancing between them, Cuddy saw House's shoulders and head drop as he shifted his gaze to the floor. She knew what Julia was saying was hitting home, and felt the need to intervene.
"Julia…" she said testily.
"What?" her sister barked back. "You told me this jerk was dead."
"It's complicated."
"Well let's uncomplicate things…" Awkwardly Julia pulled her cell out of her pocket and pressed three numbers. "Either way, he's not meant to come anywhere near you."
"No!" Cuddy exclaimed before she had chance to hit the call button. "Please."
In response Julia regarded her with a look of complete puzzlement.
"Why are you defending him of all people?"
Briefly looking at him with his head still hung down like a schoolboy who'd just been told off, Cuddy knew the reason was because he needed her to. After everything that had happened to them both recently, the last thing they needed was for it to be rounded off by a visit from the Police.
"Just let's talk… Outside. Please."
Narrowing her eyes, Julia let them dart from her sister to House and then to her phone as if she was weighing up her options.
"You've got five minutes before I call the cops," she eventually responded, deliberately making a show of putting her phone back into her pocket.
"Thank you," Cuddy breathed, the relief clearly visible on her face. Turning to House she grabbed his hand and lowered her voice. "I'm going to sort this… Wait here and get dressed." He looked like he was about to say something, but the words failed to materialise and instead blind panic etched itself across his features, as the gravity of the situation finally began to sink in. Feeling his hand grip hers more tightly, she went on. "I promise you this will be ok."
Seeing him manage a weak nod, she took her hand away and turned to follow her sister through the kitchen and outside.
Sitting down on the bench, Cuddy put her head in her hands and exhaled deeply as her sister stood a couple of feet away with her back to her, looking over the garden in the dusky light that remained of the day.
"This isn't what it looks like," she mumbled through her fingers.
"Really?" Julia replied, folding her arms but still facing away from her sibling. "Because it sure looked like you were giving a blow job to the guy who turned your entire life upside down a couple of years ago."
Responding to her words, Cuddy grimaced. It was bad enough that she'd been caught in such an intimate act anyway, but this whole thing was unbelievable.
"You didn't tell me you were coming here?"
"So this is my fault?" Julia asked incredulously, now swinging round to confront her older sister.
"I didn't say that!"
"I came to see how you were… You told me you were looking after Wilson! Was any of that true, or did you just want to palm Rachel and Jacob off onto us so you could screw around with your insane ex?"
"Do you honestly think I could lie about that?" Cuddy asked, genuinely shocked that someone so ostensibly close to her could think she'd do such a thing.
"I don't know, Lisa… I never thought I'd walk into your home one day and find you all over that asshole either but…" She finished her sentence with a shrug.
Cuddy sat up and rested her back against the rungs on the seat, throwing her head back as she ran a hand over her face. There was no easy way to explain what had happened since Wilson and House turned up on her doorstep what seemed like a lifetime ago.
"We've just spent the last few weeks watching our best friend die, and you think I cut myself off from my kids because I wanted to sleep with House?" She paused to gauge her sister's reaction, and was greeted with scepticism. "None of this was planned. It just happened."
"And the whole House-being-dead thing?"
"I thought he was and then he wasn't." The Dean of Medicine sighed. She was far too emotionally exhausted to explain everything here and now. "Does it matter?"
Shifting awkwardly on the spot Julia's expression seemed to soften, and she resolved to sit down next to her sister on the bench.
"I'm not sure I want to know the details… I still don't get how you could have him in the same building as you, let alone this."
Thinking about her answer, Cuddy watched as the row of solar powered lamps flickered on at the bottom of the garden, highlighting the little pink playhouse she and House had put together the day before.
"He's not a bad man, Jules… He gave up his entire life so he could be with Wilson at the end."
"This isn't about Wilson, Lisa," she rejoined, shaking her head. "Have you forgotten what he did to you?"
Try as she may to block her memories of what happened after the crash from her mind, she couldn't. The initial shock of what he'd done to her home while she was still in it had soon given way to a debilitating depression that had practically left her bedbound in her sister's home for nearly a week. All of this as she tried to come to terms with the fact that the man whose baby she was carrying hated her enough to pull a stunt that had put her life in danger.
"No, I haven't forgotten," Cuddy said evenly.
"I mean aside from the fact he ruined your home and made you give up your job, has it slipped your mind that he could have killed anyone of us in there?"
Feeling a wave of nausea flow over her in response to her sister's question, Cuddy gulped and took a deep breath. She couldn't reconcile those violent actions with the man who'd tenderly made love to her the night before, and who'd spent the afternoon cooking for her. They seemed like two different people.
"He was drunk and stoned. He had no idea what he was doing…" She faltered over what she was trying to say next. "He's… What House did that night… It's not who he is."
"Are you seriously making excuses for him?... I suppose he's living life of sobriety now then?"
"He would never do anything like that again." Cuddy countered adamantly. She had to believe this.
Grabbing hold of her sister's arm, Julia turned it over and pulled up the sleeve on her jumper revealing the bruise on her wrist.
"And you expect me to believe that? Did you think I wouldn't notice this?"
"That was nothing to do with House," Cuddy insisted, watching her younger sibling regard her with a mixture of concern and mistrust, as she directed her gaze between her face and the purple mark on the back of her arm. "I fell."
"I don't believe you Lisa…" She hesitated, before cautiously going on. "If he's forcing you to do things…"
"Of course he's not forcing me to do anything!" she practically screamed at the implication. That was one thing she categorically knew he wasn't capable of doing. Shaking her head, Cuddy sat forward again and looked down at the paving stones under her feet as she rubbed her temples. "This whole conversation is pointless… House was going to leave before you brought the kids back anyway."
"And you think that would be the end of it?... He's a leech! One day he'll turn up again and this time he'll drag them into whatever games he's playing."
"He wouldn't hurt them."
"And you know that?"
"Yes!" Cuddy countered emphatically. From the way he'd spoken about Rachel and how he'd reacted when he saw the pictures of Jacob, she knew he'd never intentionally hurt either of them. Intentionally. "He knows about Jacob."
"Oh you fucking idiot!" Julia snapped.
"He had a right to know. He's my baby's father…"
"No Lisa, he's just the guy who got you pregnant… Jacob doesn't even know he exists, and hopefully things are going to stay that way."
Gathering the fact that she wasn't getting through to her sister, Cuddy knew she had to move onto the crux of the whole situation.
"Look I need you to level with me… Are you going to call the cops or not, because I will beg you not to if I have to?"
"That depends," Julia eventually answered.
"On what?"
"I'm going to come back tomorrow at lunch with the kids and not only do I want him to be gone, I want you to promise me you won't have any contact with him again…. He's scum, and once you get some perspective on this without him in the picture, you'll realise that and move on with your life."
The thing was Cuddy couldn't imagine him entirely out of her life for good. Even after Masters had told her about his death, a tiny part of her had always expected him to pop up somewhere, no matter how unwelcome she had thought it would be. It didn't help that her son looked so much like him too. Now she knew she'd spend the rest of her life actively looking over her shoulder to see if he was there.
"What if I can't promise to do that?" she tested, waiting with baited breath for an answer.
"Then I'll take the decision out of your hands."
"They could prosecute me." It was true. If the cops picked House up in her home, she could easily be charged with harbouring a criminal. Not only would that jeopardise her job, but it could lead to a custodial sentence, which in turn would obviously separate her from her children. In short, it'd turn her life upside down again, but perhaps even more catastrophically this time.
"I love you Lisa, but if your judgement is so skewed that you'd expose your kids to someone who's capable of being violent then maybe you need that wake-up call."
"You'd honestly do that to me?" Cuddy asked, her eyes wide in bewilderment. She had no idea how Julia could even begin to entertain the idea. "This isn't fair!"
"I really don't want to… I'm worried about you." Seeing tears well up in her sister's eyes, Julia gulped back ones of her own and decided it was time for her to leave. Getting to her feet she bent down to hug Cuddy goodbye, but was pushed away. Taking a step back she looked down at her older sibling, who seemed determined not to meet her gaze. "I'm going to go now."
"You know where the door is."
Taking the hint Julia turned on her heel and walked back into the darkened home, only to be greeted by House who was perched on the back of the sofa in the living room, his jeans now back on and his hands jammed into his pockets. He'd made no attempt to pull the blinds or turn on the light. As soon as he saw her he stood up and blocked her path.
"Are you going to call the cops?"
Instantly seething that that was all he seemed to be concerned with whilst Cuddy had just been grovelling on his behalf, before she knew what she was doing, she felt the back of her hand connect with his face.
"You selfish bastard!" Julia raged, looking on with satisfaction as his hand shot to his mouth and pulled away again to examine the blood on his fingers from his freshly split lip.
"I can't believe you just did that," House mumbled, as he continued to dab at his mouth.
Ignoring his protestations, she knew she was far from finished with him.
"You are the worst thing that ever happened to her. You've made her miserable for years… If you have anything resembling a conscience in there somewhere, you'll walk out of that door and never come back, so that she can finally move on with her life and meet someone who's actually worthy of her." In the dim light she saw his whole demeanour change as he absorbed what she said like it was another punch. "Maybe you'll find someone else to latch onto. Or better still for the rest of humanity, you'll crawl into a hole and die for real this time."
"You finished?" House enquired keeping his tone measured, but in reality not sure how much more of this he could take.
"Leave my sister alone," she warned, before pushing past him and slamming the door behind her on her way out.
Alone again he sank back onto the edge of the sofa, and hung his head. Every single part of him hurt.
Dropping his packed bag on the sofa, House walked into the kitchen and saw Cuddy sat on the bench outside with her back to him, appearing to be fixated on something at the bottom of the garden. Digging into his pocket he pulled out his Vicodin bottle and poured first two pills, and then another two onto the palm of his hand before dry swallowing them all, taking a deep breath and stepping outside to do what he knew he had to do.
As soon as he saw her face he knew she'd been crying, despite the limited illumination from the lights that spanned around the garden. Her eyes looked red and puffy, and when she briefly turned to look at him, he saw the wet tracks of her tears that had tumbled down her cheeks. With every fibre of his being, all he wanted to do was hold her, but he knew he had to stay strong, to concentrate on saying what he had to say and then putting one foot in front of the other as he walked out of the door and out of her life for good. This was for the best; for him, but especially for her. Her sister had been right, all he'd ever done was bring her down and him walking away would give her the opportunity to start afresh once and for all, maybe with someone who deserved her this time.
"Cuddy," he practically whispered, coughing to clear his throat when he realised his voice sounded hoarse. "I'm gonna go." He stood and watched her continue to stare into the middle distance as if she hadn't heard him. "Thanks… Thank you… For everything."
Still she didn't respond so he turned and began to walk away, his heart feeling like it was breaking when Cuddy finally spoke and stopped him dead in his tracks.
"Is that it?" He could hear the anguish in her voice, as she asked the question.
"I don't know what else to say," he answered honestly, his hand still poised to open the French windows. He really didn't. Nothing seemed enough to describe the gratitude he felt towards her for everything she'd done for him and Wilson, the feelings he had for her, and how much it was killing him to walk out of her life permanently.
"Say you'll spend the night with me."
"It'll just make it harder," he responded, dropping his hand and resting his head against the cool glass in front of him. This was in no way fair; he loved her more now than he ever had, and yet it was imperative that he leave her once and for all. For a second he mused that if this was karma for the all the bad things he'd ever done in his life, then it had well and truly come to bite him on the ass.
When he heard her get up and walk towards him, he knew he should go but he felt frozen to the spot, his body sabotaging what his brain was telling it to do, as he longed for her to touch him again.
"I don't care," Cuddy said softly, reaching out and rubbing her hand down his back. "I'm not letting things end between us like this."
"Why?"
Her hand stopped moving on his back and dropped to his side, clasping his fingers and pulling him around to face her.
"I love you," she asserted as a fresh tear spilled down her cheek and glistened in the moonlight.
Instantly House's mind flashed back to the time he'd been hunched on his bathroom floor with a handful of pills, and she'd walked in and told him the self-same thing. So much had happened since then that it felt like a distant dream. He'd never imagined he'd hear her say it again. Rubbing the tear away with the back of his hand, he enveloped his arms around her and kissed the top of her forehead affectionately.
"You are insane."
"I know."
"No seriously," he persisted. "I am the biggest pain in the ass on the planet."
In response she tilted her head backwards to look him in eye.
"I know who and what you are, and I love you," Cuddy insisted, before settling her head back onto his chest and tightening her grip around him.
For long minutes they just stood there holding one another, relieved that they'd allowed themselves a few extra hours together, neither one of them feeling the need to talk until House finally became concerned when he ran his hands down her arms.
"You're cold."
There was a pregnant pause before she responded.
"Can you go upstairs and run me a bath?"
"Sure," he agreed with a slight frown on his face, as he pulled away.
"There's an email I forgot to send," Cuddy explained. "You go up and I'll be with you in ten minutes."
Seeming to buy her explanation, House nodded and walked inside turning the lights on as he passed through each room.
Waiting until she was sure he'd gone upstairs, she went inside herself and walked stealthily to the office, ignoring her laptop and heading straight for the safe that was tucked in the far corner of the room. Opening it she pulled out the $2000 she had in cash and stuffed it into an envelope she found in the drawer of her desk, sealing it as she wandered quietly back into the living room and slipped it into House's bag, which still lay on the sofa. Looking around her as she tried to figure out what else to include, she spotted the end table and pulled out one of the photo albums, flicking through it until she found the most recent picture of her, Rachel and Jacob all huddled together on the grass outside and beaming at the camera as they collectively said, "cheese!" Removing it from the sleeve she placed it next to the cash and zipped his bag back up, before turning off the light and walking up the stairs.
Running his fingertips down the length of her spine as she rested her head on his chest, House was consciously trying to commit how she felt on top of him to memory. They'd just made love, slowly and deliberately, neither of them wanting it to end until it inevitably had to when Cuddy's nails dug into his chest and a string of expletives fell from his lips, as she tipped over the edge and took him with her. He wasn't entirely sure he was capable of describing the emotions he was feeling, but it laid somewhere between satisfaction and the sense of foreboding and resignation someone on Death Row felt the day before their execution.
"If I died right now, I'd be happy," he mumbled, more or less thinking out loud.
"Nobody's dying…" Cuddy lifted her head and looked him in the eye as if she was searching for something there. "Promise me you're not going to do something stupid when you leave here."
"I think the chances of me not doing something stupid at some point are fairly slim."
"You know exactly what I mean," she insisted, the upset clearly evident in her voice. "I can just about deal with knowing you're out there somewhere living your life, but not that."
"Ok."
"Promise me."
House knew that in all likelihood if something did happen to him, she probably wouldn't hear about it anyway. He'd purposefully left all forms of identification back in Jersey, so with him already being a dead man in the eyes of the law he'd probably remain a John Doe. Rationally he knew it shouldn't bother him, he'd be dead after all, but it did. A pang of grief for his hypothetical, deceased self stabbed at him. Aside from that, he knew that was real fear plastered all over Cuddy's face as she looked down at him.
"I promise," he said firmly.
Seemingly it was enough to allay her fears, and she settled her head back down to where it was resting before.
"What are you going to do?"
"My best bet is to get hold of a passport and leave the country…"
"And go where?"
"Europe maybe…," he offered. He genuinely didn't know; he had a vague plan to just rock up the airport and pick a flight. "I have no idea."
For a long while neither of them spoke, but House could tell she was thinking about something as she drew tiny circles with her index finger on the patch of his skin directly in front of her nose.
"You've got a chance to start again. It's good…" She paused for a moment and exhaled, tickling the hair on his chest with her breath. "You'll meet new people. Make new friends… Maybe meet someone…" House felt her tense up. "You're still young enough to start a family."
"I don't want any more kids!" he stressed, barely letting her finish her sentence before jumping in. "Oh and I'm such a people person!"
"That doesn't mean you can't find somebody."
"Lying about who you are, which is what I'd have to do, isn't necessarily the best basis for a meaningful relationship, is it?"
"Everybody lies, House."
He sighed heavily and rolled his eyes. It wasn't the first time she'd thrown one of his own maxims in his face.
"What about you?" he asked, intentionally changing the subject.
"What about me?"
"Your sister probably has a line of guys waiting for you to be fixed up with… One of them is bound to be good with kids."
Cuddy cringed at the thought. He was absolutely right about Julia, but aside from the odd disastrous date she'd managed to side-step her sister's matchmaking since the move out West. Despite being siblings their ideas on what made a guy an attractive prospect varied greatly.
"I'm not looking for a father for my kids… No matter what happens, you'll always be Jacob's dad."
House didn't reply for a little while, processing what she'd just said, surprised how much it meant to hear her say that.
"That doesn't mean you have to slap a chastity belt on, and never even look at anybody else," he finally responded.
Rolling off him onto her side, Cuddy placed her hand on his forehead as if she was checking him for a fever.
"Are you feeling well?" she enquired, her eyebrow raised quizzically.
"Aside from the split lip Mike Tyson gave me…" She glanced at the cut on his mouth and frowned, inwardly furious that Julia could lecture her about being around someone violent and then hypocritically lash out at him like that. "Why?"
"You've ruined practically every date I've been on for the past decade, you tried to break Lucas and me up, and the last guy you saw me with drove you to park your car in my dining room… Now you're telling me to get back in the saddle?"
From the way she said it House knew she wasn't being spiteful. Frankly she just looked puzzled.
"I've been an asshole," he murmured, averting his gaze from her and staring guiltily at the ceiling.
"Well I'm not going to deny that... Although you did save me from some really bad dates to be honest," she jibed, placing a reassuring hand on his chest and trying to lighten the mood. He didn't bite though, instead continuing to look fixedly above him. "I've never been in love with anybody apart from you."
"Bullshit!" he spat and instantly turned his head to regard her. "You don't have to make me feel better about being the World's biggest jerk."
"It's true… Kinda pathetic for a fully grown woman, huh?"
Grinning at her in response, he smoothed the backs of his fingers down her arm and snuck a brief peek at her breasts that were just visible under the covers, nearly losing his train of thought.
"It's actually adorable, Cuddy," he said in a sickly sweet voice, moving his hand under the covers and squeezing her ass playfully. "You mean I ruined you for other men with a combination of my wit, charm and my humongous penis?"
She groaned, and kicked his shin with her foot with no real force, leaving her calf to rest on his.
"You know I'd have to kill you if you weren't already leaving the country, right?"
House sighed exaggeratedly and looked at her with a mock serious expression.
"One minute you're begging me not to do anything stupid, and then the next you're issuing death threats. Now there's the woman I know and love!" He hadn't necessarily intended to drop the 'L-word' in so casually to the conversation, but now he had he didn't regret it. He meant it too. He did love her and he was happy for her to know it too. For once he didn't feel embarrassed or vulnerable bringing up how he felt about someone. It felt right.
"You loved Stacy too once," she pressed. "There's nothing stopping you have a completely fresh start with someone else."
"You're right… I did love Stacy, but even she knew there was something going on with you and me, long before either of us had a clue."
Cuddy's brow furrowed in confusion.
"What do you mean?"
"When things got bad after the infarction, I spent as much time as I could at work… She couldn't understand why I'd asked for you to be my attending when your specialism is endocrinology either…" House paused as he thought back to the pain of the fights the two of them had; him pushing Stacy away constantly out of a misplaced sense of betrayal, and her incessantly putting two and two together and coming up with five. "She accused me of having an affair with you more than once."
"We were just friends."
"No we weren't," the former diagnostician disagreed, shaking his head. "We've always been in some sort of a relationship even if we were too moronic to see it ourselves." He shifted a little closer to Cuddy in the bed, and greedily took in the sight of her next to him. "There are two people I can honestly say I've really trusted in my life, and now that Wilson's gone there's just you."
In response she brought her hand up to his cheek, and ran her thumb along his lip, wincing when he did as she touched the spot that was injured.
"I trust you too."
"Why?" he asked incredulously. "All I've ever done is hurt you."
"That's not true…" House looked at her sceptically, as if he was challenging her to come up with examples, so she did. "If it hadn't been for you kicking my ass the night I lost Joy, I'm not sure I would have had the strength to go on and adopt Rachel."
"That was some ass-kicking…" he joked mirthfully, casting both their minds back to the night he'd turned up at her home, the argument that followed and then the kiss that had come out of nowhere. They'd been so close to ending up in bed that night that Cuddy couldn't help but wonder what would have happened if they had. Would they have decided to broach a relationship then, or would they have just brushed it off as a mistake? Would she have even gone on to adopt Rachel if they'd gotten together after that, or would they have eventually tried for a baby of their own? It felt like falling down a rabbit hole just thinking about it. Either way, she couldn't imagine her life without her daughter now, and was grateful he'd been a gentleman and excused himself before things went further.
"You did the same thing when I was too much of a coward to stop my Mom from going to Princeton General and killing herself in the process… I meant it when I told you that you made me a better person." She stopped to think about the night she'd sleepily opened the front door, and found him and Wilson there. "It wasn't until I saw you again that I realised I've been sleepwalking for the past couple of years… Nobody challenges me like you do… Nobody else has the balls, or cares enough to really want to try."
Not for the first time, looking at her in that moment, House found himself hating the rest of humanity. Even if he'd spent the majority of his adult life making an art form of pissing her off, he always knew part of the reason he'd done it was to see the spark light up in her eyes when they were in the middle of an argument. Innately she may be somewhat of a control freak, but she needed that buzz of being able to engage with someone toe to toe in the same way he did. It irritated him that none of the other guys she'd dated could see that. Generally, he reasoned, his hypothesis about people being idiots was true.
"I wish I'd never screwed us up," he admitted in virtually a whisper.
"We both screwed us up… I should never have dumped you over one minor relapse, and long before that I should never have told you I didn't want you to change." She took a deep breath and frowned, frustration showing on her features. "For us to have even had a chance at working, we both would have had to cut the deflections, the lies, the selfish attempts at self-preservation and all of the other crap, and actually have had proper conversations… Like we are now."
A wry smile spread across House's lips.
"And the Academy Award for irony goes to…" Cuddy smiled tiredly at the joke, causing him to glance past her at the alarm clock on the bed stand. It was gone midnight. "It's late. The kids are back tomorrow and you seriously need your beauty sleep."
Lazily she turned onto her front, apparently amused as her eyes began to droop of their own accord.
"That's not what you said earlier… You are going to say bye before you go?" she asked, relaxing into the feel of his hand rubbing between her shoulder blades soothingly.
"Yeah."
"I love you," she managed just as her eyes flickered shut.
Pushing a strand of hair behind her ear, House watched her as her breathing became slower and more audible, and placed a gentle kiss on her shoulder that made her adjust her head closer to him on her pillow.
"I love you too."
Before she'd even opened her eyes, Cuddy sensed he'd gone. Putting on her gown, she listlessly wandered down in the stairs and called out his name, the daylight hurting her eyes as she did so, but there was no reply.
On the verge of tears, she slumped onto the sofa and pressed her thumb and index finger against the top of her nose when something caught her eye. There on the coffee table was the still unopened envelope of cash she'd placed into his bag the night before, alongside a small rectangular piece of paper that appeared to be written on. Picking it up she turned it over and realised it was the picture of her, Rachel and Jacob she'd slipped amongst his belongings, and flipped it back to instantly recognise his handwriting:
I don't want a photo. I want the real thing.
Straight away Cuddy knew House had handed himself in.