Important note: I went back and edited this chapter a bit and toned down the more sexually explicit parts to make them more tame (even though they weren't even that bad in the first place...) because has been removing stories and even whole accounts for explicit sexual content lately. I don't want to take any chances. I'm really sorry about this guys, but I don't want to test my luck and if this story got taken down I don't know what I'd do. That said, the original is on my livejournal account if you want to read it. Thanks for understanding.

Homecoming

Cuddy smiled around her spoon, looking up as Wilson walked in, following a knock on her door. She put aside her hospital-rationed chocolate pudding and smiled at him as he entered.

"I guess you're feeling better?" he asked, smiling back at her warmly.

"I am," she agreed. "Though I think I'll feel even better when I can get out of here…I've been cooped up here for a week."

"Well it shouldn't be too much longer, should it?" Wilson asked as he pulled up his chair and sat next to her bed.

"Apparently my stitches look fine," she said. "The arm will take a while to heal, but…I should be headed home tomorrow morning." She gestured a bit bitterly at her injured arm, but smiled none the less as she remembered that she would soon be free of this hospital bed.

"That's great," Wilson said with a wide grin. His expression faltered after just a few moments, however, and he studied his clasped hands. "And House…How has he…?"

"He's been great," she said, her voice sounding wistful and somewhat impressed even to her own ears as she thought back on the past week and all that had happened. "He's been…amazing. More than I ever thought I could expect from him."

"That's good…" Wilson said, his own tone taking on a somewhat surprised affectation.

"It is," she agreed, smiling warmly. "Still…I'm worried about him…"

"Hard not to be," Wilson said, chuckling a bit.

"He's been fantastic, but I just can't help the feeling that he's hiding something…like something is bothering him more than he lets on…and he won't talk to me about it. Even if I ask." She sighed heavily. "I just don't like wondering if it's really taking its toll on him…He's already in enough pain as it is." Her eyes were full of worry and guilt as Wilson met her gaze.

"House has always been like that," he said a moment later. "You can't expect him to change overnight."

"I don't," she said. "I know he's not going to. I know he might not change at all…I don't want him to change." They paused, and slowly, Cuddy began to smile. "It's funny…" she mused. "We really haven't been together that long, but it feels like we have. I keep having to remind myself of how young this relationship actually is…" She ran the fingers of her good hand over the rough surface of her cast, deep in thought as she spoke.

"We've already been through so much…" she added a moment later. Wilson nodded.

"Kutner's death, this…and then there was…" She trailed off, falling silent, and Wilson knew what she was thinking about just then: the pregnancy that never was, the child that had never been conceived, the very idea of which had almost driven the two of them from each other for good. But he didn't say that; he doubted Cuddy was even aware that he knew about what had happened or that House had told him, and he didn't want to put any extra strain on their relationship when it was already in the throes of a raging storm, as it were. So he stayed silent.

"And all this crap about Reverend Mendel…ugh…" She covered her eyes, groaning, as if the very thought of it caused her physical pain. "It's just such a headache."

"Speaking of him," Wilson began, somewhat hesitantly, "I've been talking to some of the nurses. Apparently it won't be too much longer before he's able to be discharged. It's against doctor's orders, really…and he won't be able to travel for a while yet, but at least he won't be in this hospital anymore."

"You have no idea how much I'm looking forward to that…" she sighed. "But right now I'm just looking forward to not being here myself."

"I bet," Wilson said with a smile, one that she returned, albeit tiredly. "You need anything? I should probably go before too long. I have a meeting with a patient in fifteen minutes…"

"I'm fine," she reassured him. "Go. Work." Her smile grew as she spoke, and Wilson stood. Just as he was about to leave, however, something occurred to him, and he turned toward her again, reaching into his lab coat pocket for a permanent marker.

"May I?" he asked, uncapping the marker and gesturing at her cast. She grinned and nodded, holding her arm out to him. He scribbled a quick well-wishing message and signed his name, along with a wide smiley face on her forearm near her wrist.

"Thanks," she said.

"It's my pleasure."

He wondered as he capped the marker and left with a final wave of his hand, where House was and what was running through his mind.

That night, the weather called for more snow, but all they got was rain. House was thankful; he was already tired of snow. An early winter had settled in Princeton; November was already almost half gone, and House had no idea how he was going to make it through the holidays without going mad.

He looked past his TV out the window at the pouring rain in the dark, and he absentmindedly rubbed his leg. Damn rain…always made it hurt more.

He told himself that it was the rain, and not his own racing thoughts as Wilson might like to think.

The pain in his thigh changed from a nagging sense of discomfort in the back of his mind to a much more prominent and irksome problem when he reached for his Vicodin and realized that he'd left the bottle in the pocket of his coat…on the other side of the room near the door. He sighed, and after gathering up his willpower for a moment, stood with a grunt and limped to the coat rack. He found the pill bottle after just a few moments of digging through his pocket and greedily swallowed two white pills without water, slinking back to the couch to put his bad leg up on the coffee table.

She was being released in the morning. It was a relief, he thought as he flipped through the channels on the TV, from Food Network to the news to Animal Planet to an infomercial. He settled on Boomerang, grinning as the opening theme to Dexter's Laboratory began to play.

It wasn't all that late yet, he noticed, though the darkness caused by the incessant rain made it seem so. He hadn't been to see her that day; despite working in the same building that his girlfriend was recovering in, he hadn't seen the need. After all, she didn't need him to be flitting around her bedside twenty-four hours out of the day. And he was planning on being there to take her home the next morning anyway.

Still, he wondered whether or not he should give her a call.

His hand lingered over the phone a moment or two before he decided against it. No need to seem clingy.

Cuddy seemed to be in quite the predicament when he walked into her hospital room the next morning; her shirt was stuck halfway over her head, the cast on her arm apparently getting in the way of her pulling it on properly. He snickered at her before taking hold of the hem and pulling it down.

"What would you do without me?" he quipped, and she spun around in surprise, her shocked expression melting into a grateful smile when she saw it was him.

"You could have knocked."

"Did," he said. "You were a little…caught up." She rolled her eyes and smoothed out her shirt over her stomach; the bandages on her abdomen protruded out under the fabric, and she winced a bit, tenderly placing a hand over it.

"You okay?"

"Fine. Just a little sore…" She reached over and finished packing up her bag. "I was supposed to stay another two days, to heal a little more, but I said screw it. I'm sick of staying here…" She zipped up her bag, turning to face House with a triumphant, though tired expression. "If I'm going to be laid up, I'd rather be confined to my hospital bed."

"You shouldn't push yourself…" House chided.

"I'm not. I won't. I'm not coming back to work for a while anyway. I need a break from this place…"

"Fine…but if you start trying to overexert yourself I reserve the right to tie you down." Cuddy grinned at him.

"You'll have to take it easy for a while," she joked, cupping his rough cheek in her hand. "I'm still healing." He smiled back, only just. There were dark circles under her eyes, betraying the fact that she hadn't been sleeping well. He'd asked about it once or twice, since those circles had been omnipresent over the past week, but she'd always changed the subject. So he'd dropped it. But his eyes lingered there now, as he saw the exhaustion hiding under her smile, and his gaze shifted after a moment to the band-aid on her forehead.

"You should change that bandage," he said.

"What?" He pointed at it, causing her to reach up and feel it for herself. The adhesive was giving, and the band-aid was peeling off on one side. A spot of blood was visible through the pad.

House limped over to the counter and took out a fresh bandage, gesturing for her to sit down on the bed, which she did silently. He sat opposite her, cupping her face in his hand and gazing intently at the bandage as he grasped the free edge and quickly peeled it off. She winced.

"Ow."

"Better quick than slow." He took the backing off the new bandage with his teeth and tenderly placed it over the healing wound on her head; it was small now, scabbed over and shrinking with every passing day. Gently he smoothed out the bandage over her skin, his fingers lingering there as he did so.

"Glad you're coming home," he admitted softly, his voice exhibiting a rare glimpse of his more compassionate side. She smiled, and it was a more genuine one this time, overshadowing her exhaustion.

"Me too…" With her good hand, she grabbed his, and she leaned forward to kiss him. He took her by surprise when it deepened it, his lips moving against hers as he brought his hand to her neck and slipped his tongue between her teeth. She allowed the embrace to continue for a few blissful moments, but it was only a matter of time before she pulled away, chuckling breathlessly.

"Completely inappropriate," she mumbled, through she was still smiling as she did. He grinned.

Cuddy had never known what it was to miss a door, but the front door of her house had never looked more welcoming than it did when she finally made it home the following afternoon. She smiled tiredly as she stepped into the front hallway, hearing the dull noise her suitcase made when House dropped it onto the hardwood floor behind her.

"Hungry?" he asked, his keys jingling as he buried them in his pocket. She was, actually, now that she thought about it. Very. And whether her stomach was actually empty or she just wanted to detox from the week's worth of hospital food was beyond the point.

"Yeah." The bandaged wound on her abdomen throbbed, and she winced, sitting down in the living room. And her arm wasn't exactly being quiet when it came to pain, either. "I need to take my meds anyway…I'm supposed to take them with food." She fished through her purse for the two orange prescription bottles she'd brought home containing her antibiotics and her pain medication, studying the labels.

The two of them, both on heavy pain meds. That was surely a recipe for some sort of disaster, she thought. Still, there was a sort of romantic symmetry reflected in the situation too. She without an arm and he without a leg…what a pair they made! She chuckled.

The soft sounds of House rummaging around in the kitchen attracted her attention.

"Are you cooking?" she asked, surprise evident in her voice. She supposed it shouldn't have been, really. After all, House was a man of many talents, not the least of which was his ability to make a mean cheese omelet.

"You can hardly call it that," he shouted back from the kitchen. "There's hardly anything in this house that's not expired or organic." He spat out the last word like it tasted foul on his tongue, and she smiled. "Still, I'll make it work. Just cross your fingers we don't get botulism!"

"I'm going to bed," Cuddy announced a little past eight-thirty. House turned to look at her from his place on the couch, muting the television. She was exhausted and worn, and her meds were making her groggy. She looked forward to being in her own bed, between her own cool sheets, resting her head on her own pillow. Just the thought of her warm, welcoming comforter made her eyelids droop.

"Alright," he replied.

"You staying the night?" He shrugged.

"You kicking me out?" She chuckled.

"No."

"Then yes."

"'Kay." Gently, she nudged his shoulder as she passed him on her way to her bedroom. "Just try not to wake me up whenever you decide to come to bed."

Come to bed…That phrase sounded so…domestic to her ears. Like they were an old married couple. She shrugged it off. Chances were he'd just fall asleep on the couch anyway. And besides, she didn't have the energy to be going over the semantics of things now; all she needed was sleep.

She was drowning. Or at least, that's what it felt like.

She turned her head, mouth agape as she vainly tried to gasp for air, but frigid water rushed into her mouth and nose as she did. She coughed and choked, tasting asphalt and blood mixed with the ice-cold rainfall.

Her vision was hazy, the fog that was her field of sight transforming from green to yellow to red and back again in a slow, paced rhythm that made her feel dizzy to concentrate on it. She closed her eyes, but it merely made her focus more on the pain that overcame her whole body, so she opened them again to the brightness.

Her arm burned, as did her chest and her abdomen, weight crushing her from above. The water ran down over the pavement, between the scraps of twisted metal and shards of glass that kept her trapped, pinned against the asphalt. It rushed down over her, the water level rising and rising until it was a flood, and she was underwater. She couldn't breathe; ice filled her lungs, preventing her from even screaming.

She woke up breathless, chest burning, her body covered in a sheen of sweat despite the cold air that surrounded her. And then…warmth. Warmth that came with a strong embrace that enveloped her, and a voice.

"Cuddy," he repeated over and over, trying to get her attention. She eventually came to, her vision clearing, adjusting to the dark. His face filled her vision, his blue eyes piercing into her gaze. "Cuddy," he said again. Slowly she relaxed against him, and it was only then that she noticed the burning in her chest had given rise to tears that streamed down her face like the rainfall in her dream.

"You okay?" he asked somewhat cautiously once she seemed to have composed herself.

"Fine," she choked. "Just a…nightmare…"

"Obviously," he said. "You were thrashing around like crazy." He paused, never letting go of her as she wiped her face with her good hand. "Was it about the accident?"

"Yeah…" Unbidden came a fresh wave of tears, and she stubbornly tried to hold them back. Her face contorted with the effort.

"How much do you remember?"

"Not that much," she said truthfully. "At least not until I fall asleep. Then it's like my subconscious pulls out a movie reel and plays it over and over again…" She took a moment to calm herself, breathing deeply and steadily until she was seemingly at peace.

"I'm okay…really."

"Really?"

The pause was tangible.

"Really." She tried to smile. It didn't work well. So instead she merely leaned forward, leaning her head against his chest and closing her eyes until something occurred to her that made her laugh quietly.

"What?"

"It's just…so weird…this…us…"

"What about it?"

"I mean, look at us…We haven't actually been dating for more than a couple of weeks! But it's like…it's longer than that…"

"Well, granted before we were actually 'dating,' things were…happening."

"Yeah, but that's not what I mean." She paused, her mind turning over ideas and thoughts. One stuck out to her that made something clench deep in her abdomen as she ran her fingers over his arm. "I wish things could…happen now…" she mused, a husky edge to her voice. He raised an eyebrow; she knew that even without looking.

"Your stitches…"

"I know…I can't…not yet…" She sighed in frustration. "I'm sorry…I didn't mean to wake you up."

"S'fine," he mumbled.

"I just…it was…terrifying…being out there…in the cold…I…" She trailed off, because saying such things made her throat ache and she knew that it wasn't easy for him to hear either.

"Can you sleep?" he asked after a moment. She pondered that a while. She was still tired beyond belief, but the images that had flashed across her mind when she'd last closed her eyes were still fresh and raw like a gaping, jagged wound.

"I guess," she lied. She paused a moment. "House?"

"Yeah?"

"You're being really…incredible…" She looked up and found him looking down at her. "We've already been through so much crap…I sometimes can't believe we're both still sane…"

"That or we're both utter nut-cases at this point." She surprised herself by laughing.

"I guess that's possible too…" She leaned forward and kissed him, not meaning for it to become anything much more than a tender embrace, but it wasn't long before other, deeper parts of her mind - parts that she usually reserved for things like remembering to breathe - began to take over, and as she felt his tongue flit between her lips, she eagerly battled it with her own, reaching up with her free arm and running her fingers through his hair. He was leaning forward now, pressing against her, pushing her down until she was flat on her back on the bed.

"I can't," she breathed, frustration evident in her voice. She gestured at her bandaged wounds. "My stitches-"

"I know," he said, even as his hands wandered southward. "I'm not."

"House-" Her voice dissolved into a throaty sigh as his fingers found their way to their destination.

She slumped beneath him afterwards, breathing heavily as he peppered light kisses along her neck and jaw, bringing her down.

"That was a nice welcome home gift…" she sighed. He chuckled.

"Just wait until those stitches heal," he replied with an affectionate growl. He watched her intently for a moment or two, wary of any sign of pain, any sign that he might have hurt her, but the only expression on her face was one of bliss.

"I look forward to it," she said with a sleepy grin. She rested her head against his shoulder. Something occurred to her, and she pursed her lips. "Do you…want me to…" She gestured downward a bit with her gaze.

"Nah." Cuddy's eyebrows immediately shot up.

"No?" she chuckled. "You're saying…no?" He merely shrugged.

"I'm tired," he said, brushing her surprise off as he rested his head back against the pillow. "You woke me up, remember?" She sighed lightly, leaning down to kiss him again on the cheek and curling up against him.

"Besides, now you owe me." She giggled, and her eyes slid closed, and before she could say another word, she had drifted off once more. This time her dreams were not haunted by freezing cold rain and bright lights; she was warm next to him in the restorative darkness.

House lay awake for some time, waiting for the deep thrum of arousal that had sprung up within him to quiet down, as it eventually did. He hadn't lied; he was tired, but that was not the point. The point was that she was exhausted. This wasn't about him.

He was allowed a few selfless acts every so often before it had to mean he was going soft, he told himself, and he found himself smirking. If Wilson ever knew about this (not that he was ever going to tell him) House could only imagine how he would dissect it to make it seem like something more than it really was.

He was honestly getting tired of having to explain to Wilson that every little action didn't necessarily have to have some great emotional cause.

The next morning she was up before he was. There was nothing out of the ordinary about that, but what was out of the ordinary was what happened in the hour between when she got up and when she heard him shuffling down the hallway. As he approached she glanced at the phone and wondered what would be the best way to tell him, for shewould have to tell him, and soon.

"You said you were going to take it easy," he called as he entered the living room.

"I am," she said distractedly. "And so are you, apparently…Not in a huge hurry to get to work, I see?"

"I'm playing stay-at-home-boyfriend," he quipped. She rolled her eyes good-naturedly.

"I don't need you to stay here and take care of me."

"Oh relax," he said, flopping down on the couch next to her. "You only have to put up with me for a few days. I've got some vacation days to burn off anyway. And besides, someone needs to stay here and make sure you don't try and overexert yourself." He leaned close and waggled his eyebrows at her, dropping his tone to a sultry, yet still-playful growl. "I already told you, I will tie you down if necessary." She good-naturedly pushed him away with a half-chuckle before her expression dimmed into one of deep introspection and worry.

"You weren't…planning on going to visit your family over the holidays?" she asked, trying to sound off-handed about the whole thing. House, of course, picked up on the undertones of anxiety beneath her casual question.

"I try and stay as far away from my family as possible over the holidays," he said. "And at any other given time. You know that." Again, he leaned closer to her, but this time it was so he could study her face. She subconsciously leaned away from his intense gaze. "Why?"

"No reason…" He said nothing, but didn't stop looking at her, and she knew that he was not going to let up until she told him the truth. And she had to, she knew. There was no getting out of it, no matter how much she wished there was. "Well…I was on the phone earlier…I told my sister about what happened. The short version, anyway." There was no reason for her to worry her sister with details of the accident, but she was intent on staying in contact with her, keeping her up to date as it were. Admittedly, it was more because of her sister's insistence than her own.

"And?" House prompted. Cuddy bit her lip.

"Well…I just…one thing led to another and…" She paused. House raised his eyebrows expectantly as she sighed. Finally she took a deep breath and closed her eyes, rubbing her forehead.

"House…" she said after a moment, the weight of her words feeling heavy in her chest. "My mother is coming."