** Thanks for continuing to read and review!! It makes my day :-) So, who else REALLY wants to punch Cuddy this week?? He's supposed to be freaking recovering, and she goes and punks him like that?? Seriously. She's a pod person. I feel like I don't even know her anymore!! Sorry for my mini-rant, but it's really been bugging me.

Dr. Lawrence Kutner was dead.

When he had failed to show up for work on that fateful Monday early in April, his colleagues had suspected that something was amiss. The sometimes adolescent Kutner was late for work occasionally, but by minutes, not hours like their perpetually tardy department head. So, Foreman and Thirteen had gone to his apartment, thinking that they would probably find Kutner either sound asleep to a beeping alarm or hung over to the point of incapacitation.

Instead, to their horror, the couple discovered their friend sprawled on the floor of his bedroom. He lay motionless in a pool of his own blood, the gun that created the wound in his head laying eerily close to his hand. They called an ambulance, but Foreman and Thirteen knew it was useless. Kutner's body was ice cold.

Later that day, the team found themselves back around their table in the conference room attached to House's office, where the absence of Kutner's gangling presence and kid's sense of humor was painfully palpable. House grilled his three remaining fellows incessantly, alternating between probing them for possible motivations for suicide to chastising them for missing any signs of distress or depression that Kutner may have shown.

In reality, he was inwardly probing and chastising himself just as much. House would not admit it to his team, or to Cuddy or Wilson for that matter, but deep in his soul he felt guilt; guilt for not noticing any anomaly in Kutner's behavior, and therefore guilt because Kutner had killed himself. The man who said he was only there for the puzzles was pretending not to care. The man who saw everything coming was suddenly sure of nothing.

In the days following Kutner's death, there had been a silent acknowledgement of truce between House and Cuddy. If it was possible, he was closing himself off emotionally even more drastically than he usually did, and she was genuinely concerned. The team's current patients, a couple in their sixties dying from two different causes, barely held House's interest. He squeezed by on his bare diagnostic minimum and instead threw himself into searching for any explanation for Kutner's demise that would refute the possibility of suicide.

House had spent the better part of his day on the computer doing just that, until he was interrupted by Cuddy walking into his office in the late afternoon. He continued to focus intently on the screen of his Mac but sent Cuddy a subtle sidelong glance as she sat down in one of the chairs across from his desk. She was wearing pants, which he had noticed she had started to do more often, and a slightly baggy top that still showed the hint of her growing baby bump. As much as House wanted a distraction from his current hell, he didn't want it to be her out-of-reach hot pregnant body.

"Shouldn't you be off grazing somewhere, mother cow?" House snarked derisively. Cuddy almost came back with a sharp retort, but decided to stick to the reason for her visit.

"IT's been trying to close out Kutner's email account all afternoon," she stated matter-of-factly, "But apparently, someone is still logged onto it," Cuddy added, gesturing to House's laptop.

"It wasn't hard to figure out that his password was 'Kutner,'" House responded without emotion. "He did exactly what they tell you not to… if he didn't want people hacking into his email, he should have picked a password less obvious than his own name."

Cuddy looked at him with sincere concern in her eyes. "Why are you doing this, House?" she asked quietly, already fairly sure of what his answer would be.

"Because someone has to figure this out," he answered firmly, finally granting her eye contact, but only fleetingly. "The police are idiots for immediately dismissing this as a suicide. He witnessed a murder, for Christ's sake, Cuddy. Who's to say this wasn't some type of revenge?"

Cuddy sighed. She had expect him to do this, but she had hoped it wouldn't be so extreme. "He wasn't murdered," she said gently, putting her hand across the desk and tentatively laying it on top of his. House looked up at her curiously at the unanticipated contact, trying to remember the last time they had touched. He was pretty sure it was the night he had uncovered her pregnancy and forced Cuddy into an impetuous embrace and lip-lock. He mentally shook the image before continuing their conversation.

"But his parents were murdered, and the guy who killed them is coming up for parole."

"He's coming up for parole, he's not out on parole," Cuddy countered, frustration clear in her tone as she retracted her hand.

"Kutner testified at every one of his hearings. The guy wouldn't be the first to see the clock ticking and hire a buddy from prison or his previous life of crime to carry out the deed for him," House continued decisively.

"He was killed by his own gun…" Cuddy began.

"…which he bought years ago, obviously for self defense," House interrupted as he got up to relieve some of his excess energy by pacing, but she jumped in again.

"… in the temple, the cops found residue…" Cuddy finished even more softly than before.

"Oh, because the murderer would never make it look like suicide," House retorted. "That would be unethical," he continued mockingly as he reached in his pocket for his vicodin bottle and proceeded to dry-swallow 3 pills.

"Did you just take 3 pills in one shot?" Cuddy asked, surprised.

"Jeez, Mom, I didn't know you were counting," he replied flippantly, continuing to pace. Now it was Cuddy's turn to get up.

"You know, it's ok for you to be upset about this," she began as she absent-mindedly followed him around the office. "He thought like you, pushed boundaries like you… he lit a patient on fire, for crying out loud, and I still let you hire him because I could tell that you saw some of your better qualities in him."

Cuddy's candor surprised House. But he was even more disturbed by the accuracy with which she had deciphered the inner workings of his mind that he always worked so tirelessly to hide from the rest of the world. Not comfortable with the intimate direction of the conversation, House changed the subject.

"You haven't asked about my patient," he deflected suddenly, stopping to look Cuddy in the eyes once again.

"You're waiting on AAT protein results," she replied automatically.

"That means you checked up to see that I'm still on top of it," he stated knowingly. "You want to transfer the case, but you won't, because you think it might be the only thing that's holding me together. Well… relax," he said as he made his way back toward his desk. "Either I'm right, or I'm wrong. We'll know soon enough. "

"Find out what's killing your patient," Cuddy said as she shifted herself to face him. "And then… I'll find you another patient."

"How many patients until it will be ok that Kutner's dead?" House slipped without meaning to. For once, the real thought that was actually running through his heart made it out of his mouth without his brain so much as blinking.

In that instant, House's vulnerability was so painfully visible on his face that Cuddy couldn't help but let her guard down completely, walking up to him unashamedly and wrapping her arms around him. Without stopping to think, House permitted his emotions to rule the moment.

He returned Cuddy's embrace whole-heartedly, allowing her to share the burden of his pain as he slid his fingers into her hair and rested his head in the crook of her neck. She smelled amazing, and she sent electric sparks flying up his spine as she soothingly stroked his back. It was a moment that both of them could have languished in forever, and House was contemplating moving his hand to her face to seal their clinch in a kiss, when it happened.

KICK.

Both pairs of eyes fluttered open instantly into wide-eyed expressions of shock. House pulled away from Cuddy as if he had been burned to find her looking down at her belly, holding it in her hands. She looked up at him wearing a huge smile, but he didn't return it.

"First time?" he asked coldly, turning his back to her to look out the window.

"Yeah," Cuddy replied in a daze, continuing to rub her belly. The electricity between her and House… could that be what brought it on? She wondered as she looked toward him. Now more than ever, she wanted to come clean with him, to tell him that the baby now kicking away in her belly was his. She took a deep breath, walked over to him, and put her hands on his shoulders.

"House…" she began quietly, but she could feel him stiffening under her touch.

"Just leave, Cuddy," he stated coldly, his back still to her. "Go find the bastard's father and tell him the good news."

"But House…" she persisted, forcing him around to face her as her tears began to fall.

"I said leave," he spat, jerking himself free from her grasp and stalking toward the doors of the conference room. Cuddy wanted desperately to go after him, to make him listen, but she could tell that at this point it would be futile. He was too furious and too badly wounded by both Kutner's death and her lies to hear anything else she had to say. At least on that night.

Cuddy slowly walked out of House's office, looking over her shoulder as she entered the hall to see him sitting in a chair facing the white board in the conference room, his usual gray and orange ball moving in rhythmic tosses over his head. The white board; his place of safety. As she stepped onto the elevator, Cuddy hoped that he would find at least some comfort there.

She regained her composure just long enough to return to the clinic and excuse herself for the rest of the day. Once home, however, Cuddy's tears flowed freely throughout the remainder of night as she alternately paced her living room and obsessively checked on Rachel. This was one hell of a mess she had created for both herself and House, and Cuddy was starting to think she had fashioned such an elaborate web of lies that she would never be able to untangle and mend the damage she had exerted.