A big thank you to everybody who's still sticking with this, and taking the time to leave reviews. It really is much appreciated.
This chapter is a series of snapshots from the day House gets out of prison to around six months later. It's a bit of departure from the others, so I hope it works.
They don't belong to me, sadly.
Enjoying the sun on his face, House waited for them to open the gates, well aware that the butterflies in his stomach were a mixture of both excitement and nervousness. He'd been counting down the days until his release practically from the second they'd first locked him in his cell, but now that the time had come he couldn't help but feel a little cagey about his impending freedom. His life was about to change in a major way, and he wasn't entirely sure if he was ready for it.
A loud buzzer sounded drawing him out of his thoughts as the gates slid across. That was when he saw her a few hundred feet away from him. Opening the driver's side door, Cuddy stepped out and closed it again, walked around to the front of the silver car and perched on the bonnet, folding her arms across her chest as she waited for him to walk towards her. For a second or two he just stood there in awe. She wasn't wearing anything particularly special; just jeans, a black t-shirt, a red pair of heels and sunglasses, but not for the first time in his life he thought she could have been a model or an actress if medicine hadn't been her vocation from a young age. In stark contrast he was now an ex-con, who physically had seen better days. In short, he felt inadequate and completely baffled that she'd bothered to turn up to meet him, even if she hadn't hesitated to offer to be there when they let him out.
Inhaling sharply he closed the distance between them until he found himself a couple of feet away from her and smiled sheepishly.
"Hi."
"Hi," she replied, pushing her glasses back into her hair and grinning widely at him. Getting to her feet she took a step forward and held her arms out towards him. "Come here!" Dropping his bag House inched forward and encircled his arms around her, revelling in the fact she was responding in kind and squeezing his torso tightly. Deviously he snaked his hand lower and grabbed hold of her ass, biting his lip when he felt her tense up and then call his name in a reprimanding tone.
"I'm feeling nostalgic!" he said defensively, cupping her backside even tighter. Reaching behind them, Cuddy prised his hands off her and moved away, regarding him with a bemused look. "Oh come on! I've just spent months cooped up with hundreds of sweaty, hairy men. If you were a ninety year old woman with false hips and boobs that swing down to your knees, I'd have done the same thing."
"Really?"
"Really!... Don't think your ass is special, Lisa Cuddy," he jibed, barely holding it together.
"If I'd have known you were so fond of senior citizens I'd have sent my Mother…" Smirked to herself that he appeared to be lost for words, she turned back to get in the vehicle. "Get in the car."
Doing as he was told House limped to the rear door and was about to throw his bag into the back when he noticed a bouquet of flowers on the seat.
"Quite frankly I'm hurt that you didn't remember I'm more of a roses kind of guy," he commented sarcastically, as she opened her door to get in.
"We've got some time to kill before the flight… I thought whilst we're here we could go and see Wilson."
House sighed and placed his bag down in the well at the bottom of the seat, feeling like an idiot as he slammed the door shut. A couple of times when she'd come to see him they'd discussed going to the cemetery and paying their respects when he got out.
"Ok," he finally nodded.
A short while later House found himself staring at the grey headstone in front of him as Cuddy knelt and arranged the flowers either side of it, before reaching her hand out for him to pull her up. Instantly he took it and brought her to her feet.
"I still can't believe he's gone," she said breaking the silence and shaking her head in disbelief. "It'll be two years in September and even now I keep on expecting to hear his voice on the phone…"
"Or that he's going to plonk himself down next to you and whine like an old lady," he added with a weak smile, leaning heavily on his cane as his leg began to throb.
There was a pregnant pause as the both looked down at their friend's grave, deep in thought. Neither of them could comprehend that he was the one that had gone first. Moving her hand from her pocket, Cuddy slipped it into his.
"I know everybody else doesn't know what you did for him, but I do…. I might not like monster trucks or some of the other stuff you guys were into, but I don't ever want you to think that you're on your own."
For a long time House just looked down at her. Now more than ever, and especially in light of his present surroundings, it really did feel like she was the only one good thing he had left. Before he knew what he was doing he was leaning down and seeking out her lips with his own, when he felt her hand firmly push against his chest.
"House, no," she protested quietly and moved her head away.
Momentarily thinking he was in the right place for the Earth to swallow him up, House mumbled an apology and turned on his heel to go back to the car, wondering which insane part of his psyche thought it was appropriate to try and kiss her in the middle of a cemetery, let alone when they'd come to mourn their best friend.
Minutes passed as he gazed at the rows of headstones through the car window, and caught sight of an old woman meticulously cleaning the stone in front of her in between wiping tears from her eyes. Whoever was buried there, be it her husband, child or some other relative, she'd clearly loved them deeply and this act, however futile, was further proof of her devotion to them even though they were no longer with her. Looking past her at many of the other graves which were dilapidated and less well maintained he realised how much of a rarity it was to see this. People professed their love to their partners, children, parents and friends all the time and yet often when they slipped out of their lives they simply moved on and/or forgot about them. For that woman, whenever she'd lost the person she was grieving over, nothing was ever going to be the same again and he couldn't help but empathise. Losing Wilson had completely shifted the ground under his feet, but he'd clung onto Cuddy like a life raft and if he wasn't careful he'd risk taking her down with him, which was particularly unfair when he took Rachel and Jacob into consideration. She was right: they had to keep an emotional distance or they'd suck everybody into the all-encompassing black hole of misery and confrontation that had plagued their relationship the last time. That didn't make denying what they had between them any easier though.
As if on cue Cuddy opened the driver's side door and sat down next to him, leaning her head back and focusing her attention a few feet on the road in front of her.
"So it took me all of ten seconds to screw up," House exhaled all in one go.
"You didn't screw up," she breathed. "We both need a bit of time to adjust to this now that you're out." He nodded in response, so she decided to change the subject. It was senseless adding to the awkwardness of the situation, at least this was neutral territory. "I think I've found you an apartment."
"Yeah?"
"We can take a look tomorrow if you're up to it."
"Sure."
Putting the key in the ignition she turned to him and grinned.
"You ready to meet our boy?"
"As ready as I'll ever be," he responded with a tempered smile, wishing he could share her out and out enthusiasm. He was already bound to this little boy he'd never met, yet he knew there were no guarantees Jacob would even like him. Rarely had meeting someone for the first time meant this much to him. If ever.
Sensing his trepidation Cuddy reached over and squeezed his hand.
"It's ok, Rachel made a banner... Except when she got to your name she ran out of paper so she just drew a House," she admitted with a smirk.
"That's… wow… That's ingenious!" he cracked, letting out a chuckle. "You should probably be pleased that my last name isn't Bullock. Kids can sometimes have a problem differentiating between certain vowels."
Laughing genuinely she turned the key.
"Well Mr Bullock, we've got a plane to catch."
Splashing water on his face House looked in the bathroom mirror above the sink, and saw the dark circles under his eyes; the last remnants of his hangover from the night before;- a night which now he'd rather forget. Five minutes ago he'd awkwardly excused himself and left Jacob watching cartoons in his new living room, he'd said because he needed the toilet, but in reality he was hiding out. He'd taken a call from Cuddy when he was sat on his own in the café near his apartment earlier that day, and reluctantly agreed to pick him up from the Nanny who'd fallen ill during the morning. This was the first time he'd had him on his own, and now he had no idea what to do or what was expected of him. His mind cast back to 3 weeks earlier when he'd walked through Cuddy's front door and immediately seen the little boy knelt down in front of the coffee table next to Rachel, seemingly ensconced in something she was telling him about the doll she had in her hands. As soon as they'd noticed their Mom both of their mouths had split open into wide grins and Jacob had run to her before she'd had chance to remove her jacket. Picking him up she'd hugged him and had taken a step back towards House, as she tentatively began an introduction.
"You know Mommy told you I was going to pick up Daddy?"
"Uh-huh," he answered, wrapping one of her curls around his index finger.
"Well this is your Daddy, baby."
Encouragingly she smiled in House's direction, as Jacob's brow furrowed for a moment or two.
"You mean the man who writes me letters?"
"Yeah sweetie," she confirmed, rubbing at a splodge of green paint on the corner of his face.
Turning to the guy she was referring to, Jacob looked him up and down and offered a weak, "Hi."
"Hey!" House returned a little over enthusiastically, before the three year old looked back at his Mom and asked if he could play outside.
He wasn't quite sure what he'd expected, but relative indifference hadn't necessarily crossed his mind, and he'd been greeted with the same bored tolerance by his son ever since.
Pulling him back into the present moment he heard a door close and a woman's voice, and half-expected it to be Cuddy back from work early to pick Jacob up. What actually greeted him when he went to investigate turned his stomach. In the corner of the room the little boy had pressed himself against the wall next to the bookcase, as a blonde woman in her late twenties crouched down and tried to talk to him; the same woman he'd slept with the night before after meeting her at a local bar. Suddenly he felt as sick to his stomach as he had when he'd woken up in the early hours of the morning and found her next to him in his bed, breathing evenly as she slept on. Rationally he knew he hadn't done anything wrong, and yet his first instinct was to flee the scene out of a cloying sense of guilt in the hope that Kate, Carol, or whatever her name was, would get the message when she woke up and found an empty apartment. Clearly she hadn't though.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" he asked angrily, bringing her to her feet.
"I knocked but there was no answer. I heard the TV so I tried the door… Is this your son?"
"That's none of your business," House retorted coldly. "Why are you even here?"
She gulped, and looked as if she'd rather be anywhere else apart from where she was in that minute.
"I think I left my keys."
"Where?"
Turning to look at the boy behind her, she gestured nervously towards the door that led into the bedroom.
"In there."
Looking past her at Jacob, he saw him glued to the spot with his hands behind his back as he looked on confusedly at the situation that was playing out before him. He needed to get this over and done with as quickly as he could.
"Give me a minute."
Walking into the bedroom he looked either side of the bed and then eventually found the bunch of keys at the side of the night stand, grabbed them and wandered back into the living room handing them to her.
"Thanks," the young woman said gratefully, inserting them into the bag that hung from her shoulder. "I guess I'd better go."
"Yeah," House agreed jamming his hands into his pockets, and thinking how much easier this would have been if she hadn't been so nice about it all.
Following her to the door he held it open for her as she stepped into the communal hallway and turned around to look at him. She was pretty. If circumstances were different he might have been interested, but the fact was he wasn't and there was no point in stringing her along.
"You don't want to see me again, do you?" the blonde enquired knowingly, purposefully lowering her voice so that Jacob couldn't hear.
"No… I'm sorry."
Disappointedly she sighed and tucked a loose strand of her hair behind her ear.
"I'm sorry too, Greg."
Craning her neck forward she planted a chaste peck on his cheek and then turned on her heel to exit the building, as he closed the door and leant his back against it wondering why his life had to be full of stupid mistakes and awkward moments like that. A few feet away from him Jacob regarded him with what appeared to be a mixture of suspicion and contempt. Looking from him and then to the television House knew he had to say something. They couldn't stand at adjacent sides of the room in silence for another couple of hours.
"Wylie Coyote is so stupid," House finally commented jovially. "If he was that good at painting things and making them look so realistic he should spend his time being an artist and making money, rather than chasing Roadrunner around the place."
The little boy's forehead creased into two deep lines and his mouth turned up into a half sneer.
"Then what would be the point?" he shrugged, his palms remaining flat against the wall as he crossed one leg in front of the other.
"I… I don't know." In that precise second he felt like a complete idiot, even more so because he'd been outmanoeuvred by a three year old. Stepping forward he bent over the back of the sofa. "Do you want something to eat or drink?" Jacob shook his head and stared down at his feet, looking at the undone lace on one of his sneakers, and then lifting his gaze to meet his Dad's.
"Rachel makes fun of me because I don't know how to do laces yet."
Smirking to himself, House made his way over to him, bent down and began to tie his lace.
"Rachel didn't know how to tie laces when she was your age either," he confided, pulling the two sides of the knot. "Girls don't like to admit they weren't born knowing everything, especially your Mommy and your sister."
Raising himself to his full height again, instinctively his hand fell to his thigh when he felt a twinge there.
"What happened to your leg?"
House knew the question was going to come sooner or later, and he'd already decided he was going to tell him the truth. Taking a step back he perched on the arm of the sofa.
"I had something called an infarction… Some of the muscles in my leg died, so the doctors cut them out."
Wincing slightly, Jacob bit his lip.
"Does it hurt?"
"All of the time," House admitted. "Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot."
For what seemed like an eternity, his son looked at him thoughtfully.
"Can I see it?"
At first he considered it. When he was younger, he'd have been curious too, but then the thought of Cuddy shouting at him for giving the little boy nightmares crossed his mind. It probably was too much for someone so small to deal with right now.
"Maybe some other time," he offered, turning off the TV as he glanced at the piece of furniture in the other side of the room and formulated a plan. "Have you ever played a piano before?"
Jacob shook his head, and looked excitedly at the baby grand House had treated himself to only a few days earlier. Until he'd spotted it in the window of a music store and had it moved in, the apartment had felt like something was missing.
"Grandma Arlene's got one, but we're not allowed to touch it when we go see her."
Getting to his feet the former diagnostician offered his hand out for Jacob to take.
"What's the point of having a piano if nobody's going to play it?"
After a little hesitation Jacob wrapped his fingers around his father's and followed him to the opposite side of the room, looking at him expectantly as he was lifted onto his knee and the lid was brought up to reveal the keys underneath. With a flourish House ran his fingers down the length of the board, feeling the little boy jump slightly on his leg at the cacophony of noise it produced.
"Your turn," he said encouragingly.
Tentatively Jacob placed his finger on the key that was nearest to him, and pressed down, a gleeful smile spreading across his face at the sound it made. Again he played the note, and then again and again, his legs swaying happily in the space between the base of the piano and the limbs that were propping him up.
"There are other notes, you know."
"I like this one," Jacob retorted defiantly, making the older man roll his eyes. He should have known that stubbornness was one of the character traits his son was bound to have considering who his parents were. "Who was that lady?" he went on to ask, stilling his finger on the key.
Fumbling to find an appropriate answer, he settled on the most obvious.
"She's just a friend."
"Like you and Mommy are friends?"
If there was a less accurate equivocation, House couldn't think of one.
"No kiddo, not like your Mommy and me... We're different." Once more he felt the guilt gnawing away at him, confirming how much of a mistake last night had been. He wasn't ready for a relationship with another woman, and he wasn't sure if/when he would be. Waking up next to somebody else had felt wrong, and he knew it'd hurt Cuddy if she found out he'd casually slept with someone else, even if she'd never admit it in a million years. "Listen, your Mom doesn't need to know about Daddy's visitor today, does she?"
"Why?" Jacob enquired, now concentrating on alternating his fingers in between two notes.
"Because…" He paused for a second to fill his lungs with air. "Because that lady's not important."
Turning to look up at his Father, one pair of steely blue eyes met another.
"Daddy?"
House realised he could probably count on one hand the number of times Jacob had actually called him that since he'd come back to San Francisco after leaving prison. Generally he'd avoided calling him anything when he'd been at the house, or more or less ignored him altogether, preferring to get Cuddy's attention if he needed anything. It felt strange having somebody call him that, and yet he quickly realised how much he liked it too. For the umpteenth time since he'd found out, he was almost inclined to shake his head in disbelief that he had a son.
"Yeah?"
"Have you got any cookies?"
House offering to babysit had shocked her probably more than Rachel letting slip that she had a date the following night seconds earlier, as they all sat around the dining table one night. She'd literally bumped into the guy in question at the supermarket a few days earlier, and when he'd introduced himself and then asked her out for a drink, even though her first inclination was to decline, Cuddy couldn't think of a good enough reason to say no. David was good-looking, ran his own business and had a son from a previous marriage, and she hadn't been out on a proper date for, well, years, so why not?
Opening the front door, the first thing she heard were the snores from the sofa; a louder, gravelly rattle punctuated by two sets of much softer intakes of breath, as the muted television provided the only light in the living room. Slipping off her heels and leaving them at the bottom of the stairs, Cuddy tiptoed closer to the source of the noise, and couldn't help but smile at the scene before her. Sat in the middle with his head lolling back and his mouth slightly open, House was propping up Jacob and Rachel either side of him, as the former lounged precariously on the edge of the sofa, his head resting on his Dad's lap, and the latter snuggled into his torso. For a second or two she was tempted to take a picture with her phone and use it to tease him later, because if somebody had told her a few years ago she'd come home one day to find House like this with her kids, she'd have laughed in their faces. Instead she stepped forward and shook his arm gently until his eyelids began to flicker open.
"Hey," he eventually whispered, lifting his head and rubbing his eyes with one of his hands. "We fell asleep."
"I noticed."
"How was tonight?" he asked cautiously, his gaze fleetingly dropping to the carpet before making eye contact again. It was subtle, but she knew him well enough to know that despite him seeming to be ok with her date, deep down he was never going to be entirely alright with her seeing somebody else. To offer to look after the kids whilst she went out with another guy had involved him sucking up a lot of pride. He needn't have worried though. For most of the time she was out she'd either spent it texting him to see if Rachel and Jacob were ok, or looking at her phone to see if he'd replied. After the second time she'd come back from the bathroom to ring him, she'd looked around the bar and couldn't see David anywhere. Asking the barman if he'd seen him, she was told he'd gone and was handed a note with the money for a cab attached to it: I really like you Lisa, but I'm not into threeways with other guys. Thoroughly pissed with herself she sat and had another drink, before hailing a cab and coming home. There was no way in hell she was going to tell House that though.
"I'll tell you later. First we need to get these two upstairs… Can you manage him?" Cuddy asked softly, gesturing towards the little boy.
"Sure."
A little while later, she walked back down the stairs and found House perched on the arm of the sofa with his leather jacket on.
"You're going?... Usually I have to kick you out after you've emptied my fridge and drunk all my coffee."
He shrugged his shoulders.
"A professor's travelling in from Cern to give a talk about the Hadron Collider in the morning. I thought I might break the habit of a lifetime and actually turn up to something before nine AM…" He paused for a second and cheekily looked Cuddy up and down in her black dress. "Unless you can think of a good reason for me to stay." In response she lifted an eyebrow at him warningly. "Fine!" House conceded, rising to his feet. "You going to see this guy again?"
For much longer than she intended nothing came out of her mouth. She knew House would eventually want some details, and as much as she didn't want to share her embarrassment she didn't want to create a rift between them by lying for no good reason. Even if they weren't together she liked having him there. The best thing to do was tell as little of the truth as she could get away with.
"I doubt it," she admitted, awkwardly crossing her arms around herself. "You've gotta kiss a few frogs first eh?" For a millisecond Cuddy saw his line of vision drop to her lips, and she felt her pulse quicken. It frustrated her that he could still have this effect on her with a single look, and so she changed tack. "You better not have gone snooping in my room again tonight."
"It's all good… I left the porn where I found it," he answered dismissively, the corner of his mouth turning up into a wily smirk.
Sighing, she shook her head. A few nights earlier he'd offered to put the kids to bed and then hadn't come downstairs. When she'd gone up to see what was wrong she'd found him in her closet going through a box. Before she could ask him what he thought he was doing, he'd held up a suspect DVD and was tutting at her.
"As I've told you about twenty times before, a. I've never watched it, and b. I'm pretty sure it belonged to you." As with so many other things after the move, they'd laid in cardboard boxes about the house untouched. With work, the kids and life in general she hadn't had time to sort everything out.
"You know the first step to combatting addiction is admitting you have a problem, Cuddy," he said in a condescending tone. "Relying on porn to get you through the day is a serious matter."
"Shut up and go home!" There was no real force in her request, in fact he was cheering her up after a crappy night, but there was always some apprehension when she found herself alone with him these days. It wasn't that she didn't trust him, but more that she didn't quite trust herself.
"Fine!" House exclaimed throwing his hands in the air in mock exasperation. "I know when I'm not wanted." Closing the gap between them he took a second to unashamedly appreciate the woman in front of him. "That guy you went out with tonight is such a moron. You looked amazing tonight." Before she had chance to answer he was already leaning forward and placing a kiss on her cheek that lasted a fraction too long for people who just considered themselves 'friends'. "Goodnight, Cuddy," he murmured into her ear and then limped heavily into the hallway, grasped his cane and walked out of the house, leaving her heart thumping in her chest.
"Goodnight, House."
To say that she'd had a bad day was an understatement, and this was only making matters worse. Cuddy glared down at her son, as he looked up at her with a mixture of insolence and disdain. Dark circles were etched under his eyes and she knew full well that if she didn't get him in the bath in the next few minutes, he'd fall asleep and then it'd be impossible to wash out the blue glitter glue he'd somehow managed to get stuck in his hair.
"Baby, you need to get a bath before you go to bed," she insisted as calmly as she could manage. All she wanted was to get this over and done with and have some peace.
"No!" Jacob's arms folded across his chest defiantly, and he stood his ground. "I want to stay here and watch cartoons with Daddy and Rachel."
"This isn't up for discussion!... We can't take you to look at your pre-school tomorrow with your hair looking like that!" Despite her best efforts to temper her increasing anger, her voice had raised a notch attracting the attention of House and Rachel, who were now peering over the back of the sofa and watching what was happening behind them, rather than what was on the screen.
"That's not fair!" the little boy screamed, tears beginning to form in the corners of his eyes.
"The sooner you realise that life isn't fair, the better," Cuddy screeched back, reaching down to grab his hand when House stepped in between them and stopped her.
"I've got this." Calmingly, he rubbed her arm and turned around to pick Jacob up. "Dude! You can't go and look at your school with glitter in your hair… Everybody will think you've been attacked by a bunch of evil fairies.
With minimal resistance she watched House slowly carry their son up the stairs, and heaved a sigh of relief. Turning her attention to Rachel she switched the TV off, and held out her hand for her daughter to take.
"Come on Rach, it's time for you to go to bed too."
"But Mom!" the seven year old protested with a whine.
"Honey, I'm not in the mood to go through this with you too… If we hurry up there'll be time for me to read you something."
Begrudgingly Rachel gave in and went upstairs with her, wandering into the bathroom to brush her teeth. Watching from the doorway Cuddy saw House applying a small mountain of bubbles to his son's head in the bath and then rubbing his scalp, as Jacob happily splashed around in the water.
"So who knew glitter glue was the most difficult substance known to mankind to get out of somebody's hair?" he cracked, filling the jug on the side of the bath and pouring it over the boy's head.
"Do you want me to try?"
"I'm good." He turned his head towards her at the door and smiled broadly, before reaching for the shampoo and soaping up Jacob's hair again. "You know me, I like a challenge."
In that moment she couldn't stop her eyes meander over his body, as his attention diverted to the clump of hair that was stuck together. Lying to herself that she hadn't missed him like that was pointless;- she really had. She'd often longed for that type of physical contact in general, but specifically the way he was capable of making her feel when he touched her. Biting down on her lip, she stared at his ass until Rachel nudged past her to go to her room, and pulled her with her.
She waited until House came out of Jacob's room and then clasped his hand and dragged him into her own, barely kicking the door shut before pushing him against her wardrobe and finding his lips with her own. Long seconds passed with him responding in kind, his mouth greedily taking what she was offering until he felt compelled to stop and break away.
"What is this?" he asked breathlessly.
Determined to get what she wanted, Cuddy began to palm the length of him through his jeans.
"This is me wanting you to fuck me."
"What happened to the whole 'friends' thing?" he gulped, trying to maintain some sort of composure and not think about throwing her on the bed, stripping her naked and then screwing her until she moaned his name.
"We can be friends with benefits."
Tilting her head up she went to kiss him again, but he grabbed her wrist and side-stepped out of the way.
"Cuddy, I can't do this"
"You don't want to have sex with me?" Her expression was a jumble of hurt and incredulity.
"Of course I want to have sex with you!... Jesus! I can think of a time when I didn't want to sleep with you, but not like this."
"You're actually turning down no-strings sex?"
As soon as he heard her say it, a loud, derisive snort escaped him.
"Is that even possible when you have a kid and a library archive's worth of history?" Her mouth opened as if she was about to say something, but no sound came out. "You don't want sex, you want a distraction and as much as I love screwing you senseless, I'd rather not have you pissed off with me for the next month because you feel like I took advantage of you… I'd also rather not spend the next month feeling crappy because I took advantage of you."
"And you know this because?" she inquired defensively, her hands planting themselves on her hips.
"I knew something was up the second you came back from work... You've been quiet all evening, you flew off the handle when Jacob started being difficult, and now this." He stopped for a second and lowered his voice, remembering the little boy was sleeping next door. Usually he could sleep through a train wreck, but he didn't want this conversation to get more complicated than it already was. "What the hell happened today?"
For a second of two he saw her bottom lip wobble, before she managed to steel herself.
"I don't want to talk about it."
With his leg throbbing, House felt the need to take his weight off it and sat down on the bed, rubbing his thigh. Glancing up he saw her looking down at him, the concern forming across her features.
"Look Cuddy, I can't just sleep with you once and not want more… I care about you too much." Watching her look away, he saw her eyes grow glassy with unshed tears. "I also care about you enough to know when something's really not right." Swallowing back the bile that was rising from his stomach he went on. "If somebody's laid a finger on you…"
Quickly her eyes met his and she shook her head emphatically.
"It's nothing like that."
Only then realising he was holding his breath, House let the air escape from his lungs as the relief hit him. He had no idea how he'd react if anybody ever did anything like that to her, but he knew it'd probably end with him being incarcerated for a long time.
"Then tell me what's wrong?"
"You'll think I'm stupid," she countered.
"That's a given… Even so I'd still like to know what was so bad that you'd resort to sleeping with me to make yourself feel better," he joked, seeing the ghost of a smile spread across her face. Swinging his legs onto the bed and propping his back against the headboard, he held out a hand for her to take. "A woman I once knew said I was pretty comfortable." Smirking at how he never forgot anything like that, Cuddy relented and took his hand, climbing onto the bed and settling herself in between his legs, her head leaning against his chest.
For a long time neither of them said anything. They were both just happy that they'd allowed themselves this physical contact; Cuddy closing her eyes as House ran his fingertips through her curls, marvelling to himself how good it felt to have her this close to him again.
"I've been making trips down to the Children's cancer ward in my lunch breaks for a few months," she said quietly, finally breaking the comfortable silence. "I met one of the Moms in the cafeteria a while ago and we started talking on a regular basis… Her name's Olivia. She has a little boy called Daniel who's the same age as Jacob, and he was diagnosed with leukaemia about a year ago… She'd been bringing him in for chemo for months, and then finally they were told he'd gone into remission."
"And what happened?" House coaxed gently.
"He had a massive heart attack this morning…" She paused a second to wipe away the tears that were descending down her cheeks. "I didn't find out until Olivia wandered into my office in a daze this afternoon."
"And they don't know why?" he asked out of a deep-rooted sense of curiosity. This sort of case had been part of who he was for years, and he had a hard time not showing his interest.
"They're doing the autopsy tomorrow." For a full half a minute he watched her run her finger along the curve of her clenched palm, well aware she was concentrating on anything she could to prevent herself from breaking down completely. "She's on her own, and she tried for years to have Daniel with IVF and now he's gone… When she came to see me, she was in floods of tears and all I kept thinking about was how that could have been me… I'm such a selfish bitch."
"No you're not," House said firmly, wrapping his arms tightly around her and resting his chin lightly on her forehead. "You've just been shocked into realising how lucky you are… How lucky we both are," he quickly corrected himself. "For years I didn't even dare to let myself imagine what it would be like to have kids, and now I can't even begin to imagine what it would be like not having our boy terrorizing me every time I set foot in the door… Rachel for that matter too… I don't think I can remember being happy for this length of time in my entire life."
The truth was Cuddy couldn't remember anything like it either. Sure they had their ups and downs, but when they were all together it felt right; like they were a proper family and that was something she'd longed for most of her adult life.
"I miss us."
"I miss us too."
"I'm so scared that if we get back together again and it doesn't work out, everything will blow up in my face again… I don't think I'm strong enough to pick up the pieces and start again somewhere else. I can't put the kids through that either. Not now that you're such a big part of their lives."
"I'd never hurt you again," House insisted.
"You don't know that!"
He sighed, and leant his head back against the metal rung behind him.
"I have no idea what to say to convince you I'm not that asshole anymore… All I want to do is look after you and the kids." He stopped talking for a second and laced his fingers through hers. "If we break up, we break up… I'll deal with it because I know that us being friends and sharing responsibility for bringing up our son like adults is way, way better than me losing both of you for good… I can't lose you again. Either of you."
For what seemed like forever to him, Cuddy sat in silence and considered what he'd just said. Feeling like she was being tugged in two completely different directions, she finally settled on a compromise and twisted around to look him in the eye.
"Come to therapy with me… We need someone to help us with this."
"Because that helped so much before," he snappily retorted. "My trajectory was from a mental institution to prison within two years, and that was after I had shrinks on tap."
"Please."
With one word and the way she was looking him, he knew he couldn't deny her this. In any case he'd be totally idiotic to say no if it meant they had a chance.
"Ok."
"Thank you," she whispered, reaching out and cupping his cheek in the palm of her hand. God he'd missed her doing that, and looking at him like he was the only thing left in the World.
"I should probably go."
"Can you stay the night?" Immediately she saw the reluctance on his face and she felt the need to clarify. "I mean on a strictly 'fully-clothed, hands on top of the covers' basis… I don't want to be on my own tonight."
"What about the kids?" There would be some seriously awkward small talk at breakfast if they saw him wandering out of their Mom's room in the morning.
"I'll kick you out of bed before they get up."
"Nice!" he cracked.
Getting up, she opened her chest of drawers and pulled out an old t-shirt and a pair of pyjama bottoms. It wasn't what she usually wore to bed, as he well knew, but neither of them needed any encouragement. "You got a chastity belt in there too?"
"I think I'm safe," she answered, walking into her bathroom to get changed, but not bothering to close the door behind her.
He had no intention of sneaking a peek of her anyway, not tonight, but the fact that she trusted him enough not to bother shutting it made House unfeasibly happy for such a seemingly small thing: she trusted him and that was a big deal. Kicking off his sneakers and socks, he slipped under the covers and tucked his hands behind his head on the pillow.
For the first time probably ever, he was optimistic about where they were heading.
