Disclaimer-I don't own

Corrected errors-republished

Cuddy had gotten rid of the vast majority of Rachel's books, and most of the toys. Many of the clothes were gathered to be dropped off at the clothing bank. The clothes that Rachel had worn to school the morning she died, were another story. After their earlier discussion, Cuddy disappeared from the room with the plastic bag, shutting the door behind her to make it perfectly clear to House that he was to remain in the room until she returned.

Initially, he was frustrated, both that she kept the items, and that she refused to let him know where she was storing them. He was disturbed that she didn't trust him enough to share where she was keeping the clothes, although he acknowledged that he had, on occasion, "helped" people by forcing them into situations they weren't ready to deal with. Finally determining that her fears were somewhat justified, and that, at that point, the clothing was simply too difficult for her to part with, he decided to be more than satisfied with her overall progress.

The much emptier, more organized room was visible evidence that Cuddy was trying to cope with the situation.

When she returned from stashing the package, she found him sitting on Rachel's unmade bed with pictures next to him. "Where was this?" he asked, pointing at a picture of a widely smiling Cuddy, holding an awed Rachel, who was inches away from the face of a giraffe that she was feeding.

"Maryland Zoo. Right down the road."

"Who took it?"

"Does it honestly matter?" she asked, her tone and body language displaying her frustration at the question.

"I'm supposed to say no"

"You…are trying to turn your hurt into jealousy, so that instead of feeling hurt, you can feel angry with me…but I'll answer, or you'll assume I'm deflecting. My sister and her kids came for the day, we went to the zoo. It was a good day."

He nodded, took a deep breath, and said, "Wilson said you were distant with the last guy…"

"I tried my hand at a normal relationship one more time. It didn't work out. Are you going to be disappointed that Matthew and I didn't work out?"

"Decidedly no," he answered curtly before continuing, "Wilson also said the new beau wasn't invited to stay over much…why?"

She looked out of Rachel's window at the street below, "He was the third guy I'd dated seriously since I'd adopted Rachel. I didn't want her getting the picture that there was a revolving door on my bedroom"

"Is that the truth?"

She sighed, "Partially, I guess"

"So…what's the truth?"

"I wanted to meet someone that would make me forget that I missed you. I didn't want to miss you. I didn't want to be the woman that would let a man hurt her like that, and come back for more."

"Did you love him?" he asked, his voice nearly cracking.

She looked at him suddenly, uncertain how much to disclose. She studied his face carefully, looking for signs of cruelty or manipulation, and only found insecurity. "No. I didn't"

"Did you tell him you did?"

"No. I would never lie about something like that"

"So…you meant it when you said it to me?"

"Yes, I did. Every single time I said it"

He smiled involuntarily, all while hating her use of the past tense. It was a mixed blessing, her admission that she did, at one time, love him, but her words were clear, she was referring to the past. Sitting there, raw with ache, he desperately wanted her to tell him that she still felt that way.

"The real question is…did you mean it?" she asked, having trouble even forming the words.

"I did," he answered with surprising directness and then quickly moving on, "Say it to anyone else…after me?"

She sighed, "Of course, I said it every day…"

"Not to Rachel, or anyone in your family…you know what I'm getting at…"

"I can't get a straight answer from you about your hooker habit, but you want me to come clean about my feelings for other men?"

"Works for me. Sex and love...are two very different things"

"You are the last man I said those words to. You are also the last man I felt that way towards. Did I answer all of your questions now? Are you happy? You win. I'm too tired to play games," she said, walking out of Rachel's room and into her own.

He caught up to her in her room, "Does this really matter now?" she asked.

"Yes," he answered gruffly before pushing her against her window and kissing her fervently.

"What the hell…" she moaned out, as he was almost fiercely removing the clothes from her body.

His only response was an unintelligible groan as he started removing, with similar urgency, his own clothes. She moved her hands along his hips, trying to slow the pace somewhat, slowly, calmly lifting his shirt.

"House, really, are you OK?" she managed as she tried to focus on her questions and not the sensations of him trying to arouse her.

"Want you…now," he said, moving them over to her bed as quickly as he could.

She desperately craved a more meaningful exchange…something that would fill the pain, but certainly not the quick cold round they were headed for. She knew that when he agreed to accompany her a few weeks earlier, he had no idea that he would become mired in feelings he was unaware of himself. She also knew that his calm insistence that they try to separate explorations of their relationship from emotionally charged situations was much simpler to enforce when he wasn't the one feeling the emotions.

His eyes avoided her entirely, this was the first time since they'd been reunited that his touch had been so impersonal. He pushed her back onto the bed and moved his hips between her legs, prepared to take what he needed for himself when he looked at her face. He looked at her for a split second, hoping to see desire and excitement, some evidence of their mutual need for this. It was easy to see by her expression that she wasn't lost in passion or even lust. He stopped, put his forehead down on her shoulder and whispered, "Everything hurts… I just wanted to…"

He sighed as he tried to pull himself into a seated position. He had done many horrible things to her throughout time, with varying aftereffects, but sex was the one thing he always felt she was a willing participant in, even at the times she was more hesitant, he was always careful about not pushing her too far. He knew well that one hand on his chest, placed just so, would give him pause, or a certain tone she would use when she'd whisper his name always focused his attention on whether or not she was consenting.

She guided him back down onto the bed, "I wasn't stopping you…I want you too," she whispered.

"Didn't look like it"

She moved next to him, partially over his body and kissed him with the loving need she felt, both taking and giving. His initial response was stilted, but it only took a few moments for him to feel that this was what he wanted. The way she looked at him, the way she felt, the way she moved, he could feel the depths of her caring for him. They moved as quickly as possible past foreplay, wanting only the deepest physical connection they could find, the sex really only incidental to their need for oneness. She sunk down on him, clumsily. All of their finely choreographed experiences of the past, teases and torments, the way they used their knowledge of the other to increase desire and intensity were ignored. She shoved pillows under his shoulders, trying to have him sit up at that back of the bed to feel him close.

As their excitement built, they started exchanging smiles, fully enjoying the carefree experience of sheer pleasure and the sense of relief that was chasing so much intense pain. He murmured against her lips, "Tell me."

"…I missed you," she said, looking into his eyes.

"Not what I want to hear. You know that"

"You feel…so good," she panted.

"Come on, Cuddy…please"

"I need you, I've… always needed you"

He closed his eyes, frustrated, until he felt her placing soft, delicate kisses along his face, "I need you too," he answered, resigned.

"You know how I feel, House, I don't have to say it"

That admission was enough for him for the moment. He pulled her to him with crushing force, "Me too," he said, at a volume just below a whisper. They raced to completion, the least composed of all of their hundreds of encounters, yet possibly the most heartfelt.

When they were finished, he kept her against him, and she could feel the sense of disappointment emanating from him. That sense that, perhaps all wasn't forgiven. She sat up, kissed him sweetly and said, with the utmost directness, "I'm not going to discuss my deepest feelings for you for the first time in a very long time, while we're having sex. If either of us is going to ever say anything like that, I want to make sure we know what we are saying. If you're going to tell me anything that serious, I want it to come from your mind, not your penis."

"What if my mind and my penis both share the same feelings for you? I think they're remarkably united on that front"

She giggled genuinely for the first time in what felt like ages.

Some of the tension was broken for the time. Although they both understood they were seeking a reprieve from the emotional overload, they found temporary solace in each other.

Later that day he was enjoying his favorite things…sitting in front of the piano, tempted away from it only by the promise of sex…with her. In between sex and playing, she had brought him food. The day was looking up. They had agreed to take the rest of the day off from their obligations, vowing to finish organizing Rachel's room the next day.

As he tinkered at the piano, she looked over a few work items before disappearing with her phone. When she returned, she leaned down on the piano facing him.

"Come hither smile, breasts on display…I'm guessing this means you want something from me…Please tell me that wasn't your mother on the phone."

"It…wasn't my mother on the phone"

"Lil' sister?"

"Nope"

"OK, anything else is fine then"

"I should probably run into work, tomorrow, just for a few hours. You wanted to see the place anyway…"

He made a slightly disapproving face, tinged with suspicion, "I thought you were on leave"

"Just some things need signed. It will be faster if I take care of it"

"Faster?" he asked skeptically.

"I'm sure certain things will get done correctly if I handle them"

He nodded, still playing. "So…" she continued, "if you want to come along, you can see my office, and one of the clinics I run, or you can stay here and have some alone time with the piano…provided that you take whatever precautions are necessary to avoid getting splinters in anything I might want to play with later"

He stopped playing, thrilled with her teasing banter, and placed a hand on the piano, "I can't believe you'd suggest that she'd give me splinters…she's not that kind of girl"

Cuddy grinned at him. "I'll go with you…could be fun," he said, raising his brows.

"Hear me now, I promise you, there will be no sex, or sex-like acts, anywhere in my clinic…anywhere on the grounds, or in the parking areas, or…" she thought carefully, trying to close any loopholes he may try to use, "you always find the damn gaps in my rules...let's go with this: there will be no sex or sex-like acts from the time we walk out of this door to go to my clinic in the morning, until the time we get back here afterwards. Still want to go?"

"Definitely"

"You understand what I said right, you...agree to my rules for clinic conduct?"

"Certainly"

"I know you are up to something…I can hear it!"

He smiled deviously and returned to playing.

She went out to the kitchen, feeling like baking something. It was the first day she had felt even the slightest degree of domesticity in her home since Rachel died. House was there, and she actually wanted him there. He was playing and flirting and above all else, he said he loved her daughter. Those words just reverberated in her head as she grabbed brownie mix and oil from the cupboard, eggs from the refrigerator, and preheated the oven. She had always suspected that somewhere inside him he had some small degree of fondness for Rachel, but she never thought that he would say he loved her. It was shocking just how much more intense that made her feelings for him.

She was stirring the mix, actually talking to herself. Though her words were silent, she was gesticulating and truly carrying on the conversation solo.

"All of those empty calories and preservatives, Dr. Cuddy, I'm shocked," she heard from behind her, at the same time as she felt a long arm wrap around her waist and saw his other hand moving to the counter next to her.

She yelled, almost an "eek," as he startled her and she tipped the bowl, knocking it on to the floor and all over her left hand. "Shit!" she griped, trying to turn in his arms but unable.

"You made a huge mess!" he teased. "Did your personalities actually fully split, because it looked like one hell of a conversation you were having in here all by your lonesome"

"You scared me you big jerk," she laughed, looking down at her batter covered hand.

He turned her in his arms and picked her up onto the counter. "I don't have any more mix," she complained.

He slurped the batter off of one finger loudly, "it would have been good. Too bad you're getting shaky and so easily frightened in your old age"

She raised one eyebrow and smeared his face with her batter-covered hand, the sticky concoction clinging to his stubbled face. She started giggling at the shocked look on his face, and he couldn't help but grin as he pushed past her feeble attempts to stop his face from burying into her neck, smearing batter along her skin.

"You are such a jackass!" she yelled, reaching over toward the sink to grab her washcloth.

"Am I?" he said as she nodded. He gripped her hips tightly and backed away just a bit so he was looking at her. "Love you."

"What?" she asked, shocked and waiting for the joke to follow.

"I love you," he said, shrugging calmly, using the same tone he'd use to say "I'm tired" or "I like pizza." Just a statement of undisputed fact.

"Since you don't think we should talk about it when we're having sex, I thought I should say it when I'm pissing you off…that way…you know it's genuine," he smirked. "Just thought, before I have to regret not saying it, I should…say it."

Her mouth slightly agape, she watched as he quickly limped away, turning in the doorway to shoot her a boyish grin before leaving the kitchen entirely.

Sitting for a few moments to collect her thoughts, still completely taking off guard, she hopped down off of the counter to go find him, and stepped in the pool of brownie batter on the floor.

"Bastard," she muttered as she hopped on one foot over to the sink to get paper towels and clean up both her foot and the floor.

House walked into the powder room to wash off his face and leaned down onto the sink, "Stupid, stupid, stupid," he repeated, looking in the mirror. "What in the hell were you thinking?" he asked his reflection, transferring his gaze to the door when he noticed Cuddy standing there, leaning against the frame.

"So, what do you think the chances are that we'd both develop multiple personalities within moments of each other, since I'm not the only one engaging in spirited conversation while alone?"

He ignored the question as he finished washing his face and patted it dry with a hand towel before turning and leaning against the sink.

"Wasn't it you who said that we always find each other in times of sadness, and that you wanted to be sure about our motivations?" she asked.

He squinted one eye, thinking, "Sounds vaguely like something I said"

"But yet…"

"We've been honest about bigger things lately than discussing something we both already knew to be true," he said matter-of-factly, trying to hide the nervousness in his face. He never for a moment expected that she wouldn't have returned his sentiment before he could leave the kitchen and he was angry at himself for not considering that possibility.

"No master plan here?" she asked.

"Nope"

"I'm shocked"

"Don't be. If something happens to you, then I'll have to try to fall in love with Kate or Wilson. Then I have to tell them I love them while mourning the fact that I didn't tell you that I loved you, it's this terrible cycle that I'm really interested in breaking. Face it, I'd rather have sex with Kate, but I know Wilson's the only who's gonna cave to my charms."

Cuddy chuckled at his attempt to lighten the mood. Sauntering toward him and throwing her arms around his neck she said, "You, are the most infuriating human being on the planet…since you already know my true feelings, I guess I won't waste your time," she said, turning to walk away.

"What?" he asked impulsively, "Seriously?"

Turning back to him she said, "I have loved you for so long. If I was able to ever stop, which I seriously doubt I was, but, if I ever I was...I fell in love with you harder and faster at the beach than I thought was even possible."

A/N-drop a review, if you're so inclined. As always, it's appreciated!