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Sorry that this rambles on a little longer than I might've liked, though I did edit it down quite a bit -- I blame House and his incessant talking.

Chapter 11: Insects and Paperwork

House's eyes snapped open to the pitch black of early morning. Cuddy's scent reached him before any memory of the last few hours, and it was purely reflexive that his arm swept over the other side of the bed. The sheets were empty and cold, and that shouldn't have been right, he thought with a frown, sitting up and struggling to make sense of the swimming numbers on the clock.

It was the time of night when everything is eerily silent, except for those incessant crickets and the odd car slinking almost quietly down the street… and his apartment's pipes, apparently, because the sound of running water suddenly reached his ears.

Rising, he pulled on the first pair of pants he found on the floor and fumbled for his cane, following the noise to the kitchen. There, he found Cuddy, her back to him as she stood at the sink in his white undershirt, one ankle resting on the back of her other calf in an effort to keep all weight off her foot. Her shoulder blades were moving furiously, and she seemed to be attacking the grime that he'd let pile up on his dishes all week as if it had done her some sort of personal wrong.

"Was it really that bad?" House asked from the doorway, jokingly frowning at the clutter in his apartment.

The schoolboy watched the girl's lips moving as she mumbled her dandelion-wish into the wind. He wondered what she wished for: a spotted dog she could pet and play with, the smiling fireman, Oreo cookies and milk as an after-school snack. The thought that it might have anything to do with him hadn't even occurred to him, would have sent him soaring through the air after the dandelion fluff.

Cuddy jumped at the sudden sound but seemed to find comfort when she recognized it as his voice. She glanced back at him over her shoulder, the faucet still running. "When I can't sleep, I clean."

House's mind wandered vaguely back to the few times he had seen inside her house – how spotless it had been and how little time she actually spent there – he wondered just for a moment how many nights she spent in just this way. "You're thinking too much."

When he approached her, she must have sensed it, though she had turned away, her hands stilling in the sinkful of suds. "I'm not supposed to think about any of this?"

"Not at three in the morning," he grumbled, tapping her leg lightly with his cane. "You realize we only went to bed two hours ago?"

This, at least, made her almost smile, a slight twitch of the lips that might've taken off more fully but for the lateness of the hour. "I think it was awhile before that."

One of the firemen was talking again, but he should've known better than to think a gaggle of elementary school students would listen when the other firefighters were packing away their gear (and the spotted dog, too), and were pulling out of the parking lot. Only one truck remained as the other classes straggled back into the school: the brave team that had been given the task of trying to remove the spider without setting off the alarm again.

"With the intent of sleeping," House amended, grinning, gently repositioning her foot with the tip of his cane and watching as she winced. "Definitely fractured your first metatarsal."

"And you're complaining that I'm thinking too much."

"Must hurt like a bitch." His vision was still hazy laced with Vicodin and this close to sleep, but still it wasn't difficult to make out the way her foot had swollen or how the bruise had darkened to an angry maroon. "We'll get it x-rayed tomorrow. It'll be fun."

"We're not and it's fine," Cuddy answered back sharply, scrubbing viciously at a particularly dirty plate.

"You're cranky when you're overtired."

"You're an ass all the time."

"Come back to bed," he said simply, taking from her the dish and the sponge, lifting her hands so both of theirs ran under the almost-too-hot water before he turned it off. She didn't object, not even when he wiped his wet hands on her shirt, the glare she shot him not counting at all when, for lack of any alternative, she followed his lead, her hands swiping where his had just been.

The teacher's excitement was faked when she announced that they were going to stay outside, taking a hint from their eight-legged friend and see what other insects they could find – won't that be fun? A spider is not a bug. The boy knew this and was on the verge of pointing it out when the girl's voice rang out: Are they gonna hurt him? The spider?

House hitched an arm around Cuddy's waist, knowing they would both need the help of each other and his cane for the slow shuffle back to the bedroom. Tossing his cane aside once they reached it, he flopped down on the bed, watching as she stood in front of him, rubbing a hand over her eyes.

"We have ways of making you sleep…."

"That sounds promising."

"Pick your poison." Tugging at her wrist, he wrenched it just enough so that she spun and sat facing him. "I can spike some warm milk with a few crushed Vicodin…."

"People don't generally use that phrase when they're talking about actual poison."

"Hey. Don't knock it 'til you've tried it," he scolded. "Second best sleep you'll ever get."

He waited expectantly, staring at her with raised eyebrows. At first, Cuddy tried to ignore him, but sensing he wasn't going to fold, eventually took the bait with a sigh. "The first?"

"Little more of a time commitment, but highly effective. Involves multiple adrenaline rushes which will leave you disorientated, exhausted, and under the assumption that I am God." He was already fingering the hem of her t-shirt, dragging it upwards as he leaned in to kiss her.

Most of the class didn't seem to care. The boys mostly murmured that squashing bugs was cool. The girls whined that spiders were scary and gross, and why did they have to go looking for them? The schoolboy's friend was under the impression that spiders could talk and spell words in their webs, and made the unfortunate decision of sharing the thought aloud.

"I thought I had a choice," Cuddy mumbled, though she made no motion to pull away.

Slightly amused, he pulled back to look at her, let his fingertips skin over the smooth muscles at her waist, felt them ripple. "You really want the warm milk?"

"No."

He wasn't sure if she truly spoke or he'd only imagined it, though, either way, he knew he felt the answer pulse through the air and his skin as she rested her head on his shoulder, her breath hot and quick against his neck.

"Good. Milk expired last week. Great emetic, not so hot as a soporific."

"Then why'd you ask?"

"Given the alternatives, I didn't think we'd be having this conversation," he mused, adding, "Stop talking."

He didn't hear another coherent sentence out of her until very late the next morning.

Cuddy appeared in the living room, still sleepy and yawning, hours after the ache in House's leg had forced him to give u p the warm comfort under the tangled sheets beside her. "God, I haven't slept like that since…."

"The day after my med school graduation," he answered automatically, peering up at her over his mug of coffee.

"That's a little egotistical of you."

"Then tell me it isn't the truth."

While the rest of the class quickly shot this babyish spider theory down, with much sniggering, the schoolboy pretended, for the moment, not to know who his friend was. There was simply no way you could defend someone against something like that, not when the whole class had heard. Distracted though she was, the schoolgirl still found it in her to place a reassuring hand on his friend's shoulder, and the schoolboy wasn't surprised when this seemed to help more than he could have.

When Cuddy blushed, House saw her as she had been that morning, almost twenty years ago: young and almost carefree, smiling sleepily as her eyelashes fluttered, her bare skin pressing against his when she stretched on top of him, her curls – longer then – tickling his chest.

"I rest my case." Grinning, House held out an open package, the thin foil crinkling as he folded it back to reveal the frosted, flat pastry still tucked inside. "Pop-Tart?"

Cuddy slipped onto the couch beside him and wrinkled her nose at his offering, pushing it aside and stealing his coffee cup instead. It shouldn't have thrilled him, her lips closing around the mug's rim where his own had been just seconds before; he watched as she sipped and swallowed, curving both her hands around the warm cup. "How can you eat that for breakfast?"

"They're delicious, and here in the Eastern time zone, this meal is generally considered lunch."

She groaned. "I was supposed to call in for the lab results on – "

"All negative. I had them do a colonoscopy, and they're treating your poor little rich boy for IBD." Reaching into his pocket he took out her cell phone and dropped it on her lap. "You had it on vibrate," he explained with a smirk. "Good choice."

The girl was chewing her lip, and the boy didn't know what to do to comfort her when he didn't at all understand why the life or death of a spider should be cause for such distress. He looked around wildly, searching in vain for another fluffy white dandelion, but there were none to be found. He turned to the girl, her eyes blue like the sky, and he had never been this close or this still to notice before. Though it went against a thousand unspoken rules, if she wanted, she could change her wish and he wouldn't mind.

"You diagnosed my patient over the phone."

"Course not." He was trying to ignore her and focus on the muted television for the moment, or at least pretend to, which was proving more difficult. "You did. And when you go to get that x-ray today, you might want to pretend you have a cold. The nurse was a little suspicious at first, so I had to fake a sneezing attack."

"My foot is fine."

"If by fine, you mean fractured, then I totally agree with you. Twenty bucks says – "

"If you think I'm making another bet with you, House…."

"Fifty." He broke off a piece of the Pop-Tart and popped it into his mouth, chewing slowly. "Scared you'll lose again?"

"No. This isn't – "

"Then it's a bet." He took the rest of the Pop-Tart from the package and forced it into her hand, snagging back his coffee and downing what was left. "You'll thank me."

Cuddy frowned, but it wasn't directed at him. She picked up her cell phone and answered it, the ensuing conversation quick and to the point, and when she ended it with, "Thank you so much, I'll be right down," House felt his stomach twist into a knot.

"My car's ready," Cuddy announced with forced enthusiasm.

House nodded. "I'll get my keys."

But neither of them moved.

The solution seemed perfect, the girl so exuberant that she hugged him right there, and they were lucky that the class had already started to move away. Look, the teacher eagerly announced as they rushed to catch up, the boy's heart beating so fast, Jimmy's found a colony of ants. The teacher should've known better than to bring any attention back to the boy's friend, because the jeering started almost immediately: Which one's Charlotte?

Cuddy was the first to get up, rising with a hand on his shoulder and disappearing into the bathroom without a word. When she returned a few minutes later, she had changed back into her own clothes, made it look as though standing barefoot in a wrinkled cocktail dress early on a Saturday afternoon was the most natural thing in the world.

"I have to do some paperwork," she said, speaking the words as if they were an apology, while he began the search for his sneakers.

"It's the weekend."

"Work just magically disappears on the weekend? Here." She was holding his shoes out to him and he yanked them from her grip with more force than he'd intended, and though she looked slightly taken aback, she seemed to understand.

"In some cultures," House answered, using her arm rather than his can to steady himself as he pulled on his sneakers.

"Men who lie in front of their televisions all day do not constitute a culture."

"Shows how much you know about anthropology."

They found a creepy-crawly caterpillar, a red lady bug with seven black spots, and a striped bumblebee that made most of the girls scream, the schoolgirl only standing perfectly still and watching as it buzzed around her. It flew away before he had the chance, but the schoolboy would've swatted at it if the bee tried to sting her, even if it meant getting stung himself.

Conversation continued, just as pointlessly, as they made their way out to his car and drove the few quick miles to the garage, trailing off into silence only when he had parked his car beside hers in the small lot.

"House."

The click was her seatbelt unbuckling, the tapping that continued afterwards his own fingers drumming on the steering wheel, though he hadn't realized he was moving them. He watched her out of the corner of his eye, saw her squinting into the sunlight outside the window. There were at least three greasy mechanics eyeing them, one no more than a pair of glowing eyes within a dark corner of the garage.

Cuddy squeezed his arm as she gathered her things, the pressure of her fingers light and warm, too quick for his liking. "Thank you."

He shrugged, mumbled something about knowing where to go if she ever needed a tune-up – a retort he hardly heard himself and doubted she had either, though she returned his smile on her way out the door. He left as she was standing there, her head following his car so that the keys the mechanic handed her slipped through her fingers and she had to bend to retrieve them.

The long, yellow buses were lining up outside the school, and as they headed inside to gather their things, the schoolboy didn't see the smiling fireman until the girl tugged on the sleeve of his jacket. She asked if he got the spider out, and the fireman said yes and that was it.

House turned the key in the lock without a hint of regret or violation, pocketing it just as easily rather than placing it back in its hiding place on the porch. Neat stacks of files and papers emblazoned with the familiar hospital logo were scattered across the coffee table, and he had only just settled into an arm chair and begun flipping through a file when he heard the door open and shut with a soft click.

"What are you doing here?" Cuddy's voice called quietly.

"Wanted to get in on some of the action."

"Action?"

Opening a file and turning it vertically, House whistled softly, leaning sideways over the arm of the chair in an effort to hold the file out of her reach as she lunged over him to snatch it away, her cheek brushing against the stubble at his chin. "I take it this means 'paperwork' isn't code for 'pool boy.'"

"If you can get off reading the hospital's financial report," Cuddy remarked, glaring at him as she straightened, "then be my guest. And I don't have a pool."

"Whoever said you needed a pool to do a few laps with a pool boy?" He closed the file and threw it onto the table, leaning back to watch her perch on the couch across from him.

"The inner workings of your mind would keep a team of psychiatrists busy for years." She picked up the file and placed it back where it had been, faltering when her eyes flicked in his direction and she felt the heat in his gaze. "You didn't have to check up on me."

"Those guys looked like idiots," he grumbled. "Somebody had to be here to send out the search party when your car didn't make it home."

The boy didn't have time to let the fireman bother him, though the jealous monster inside him was beginning to growl, because the girl wrapped her arm around his shoulders, beaming as she looked at him. Her excitement was infectious, and his frown flip-flopped automatically as she whispered breathlessly, And I didn't even change my wish!

Never mind that he hadn't left her but ten minutes ago, that if he had wanted to make sure her car were running properly, it would've made more sense to wait at the garage or follow her home, make sure she had pulled into the driveway safely and then gone his own way.

"You don't have to stay." Her voice was soft and serious: she meant it even if it wasn't something she wanted to say.

"Is that how Miss Manners teaches you to kick someone out?"

Cuddy returned his smile and stood, ambled in his direction but with the obvious intention of continuing past him. Her hand was on his shoulder again, and then it was gone. He could get used to this, he decided, these small touches that they usually went out of their way to avoid: the brush of her fingers against him like a match tip to phosphorus.

She turned back only once before disappearing down the hallway. "You don't have to go, either."

Eleven down, one to go. :) As always, thanks so much for reading, and please let me know what you thought if you have a second. You guys have been awesome, and I love to hear from you.