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HERE'S THE NEXT CHAPTER!

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CHAPTER 25: Please read and comment.

Later on that evening, Cuddy was putting on her coat and scarf to get ready to leave for home.

She thought about stopping by House's office on the way out to talk to him about Cameron's resignation, but she decided against it, knowing that he was involved in a case.

And she knew that their conversation about Cameron would inevitably lead to a discussion about them, which she had no desire to have in front of his team.

As she grabbed her purse and began to dread walking out into the cold night air to her car, Wilson entered her office.

"Got a minute?" Wilson asked her.

"Sure. What's up?" Cuddy asked him.

Wilson cocked his head to one side as a smirk played about his features, making the dimple in his left cheek more prominent.

"I never realized you were such a sadist," Wilson teased.

"What are you talking about?" Cuddy asked him, narrowing her eyebrows in confusion.

"You're punishing Chase for helping Cameron," Wilson replied. "And I think you're actually enjoying it."

"Chase told YOU what I did?" Cuddy exclaimed in surprise.

"No….my sister told me what you did," Wilson said, placing his hands in the pockets of his lab coat.

Cuddy shook her head, even more confused.

Wilson kept his gaze on her, watching her face change from bewilderment to realization. Her eyes widened and her face wore a look of epiphany.

"SOPHIE'S YOUR SISTER?!" Cuddy stated incredulously.

"House didn't tell you?" Wilson asked, equally surprised.

"HOUSE KNOWS that Sophie's your sister?!" Cuddy asked back, even more shocked.

"I'm guessing he didn't tell you," he said.

Cuddy closed her eyes wearily for a moment. She then slowly walked over to her couch and sank down onto it, still wearing her coat and scarf.

Wilson sat down next to her, knowing that she was holding something back.

"This isn't like you. What's going on?" Wilson asked her.

Cuddy exhaled deeply. She looked at Wilson, knowing that if she didn't tell him the truth, he would find out eventually.

"Last night… House… wasn't with a hooker…" Cuddy began.

Upon hearing this, it was now Wilson's turn to look shocked.

"That was YOU who flushed the toilet?!" Wilson asked.

Cuddy nodded, closing her eyes again and leaned her head back against the couch cushion. Wilson grinned broadly.

"When did this happen?" Wilson asked her eagerly.

"A few days ago," Cuddy replied, still not opening her eyes.

Wilson arched his eyebrow, bewildered at her body language and tone of voice.

"You don't seem happy," Wilson commented. Cuddy opened her eyes and looked at him in a melancholy fashion.

"I am happy. I'm just—" Cuddy began.

"Not happy," Wilson finished for her.

Cuddy briefly looked down at her lap and then back at Wilson again, quickly debating if telling Wilson what she was about to tell him was a smart choice.

"…You can't tell House anything," Cuddy finally said.

Wilson held his hands up in front of him, indicating that he intended on keeping their conversation confidential.

"While House and I were together last night… I was thinking about Chase," Cuddy told him.

At first, Wilson said nothing, merely staring at her. He raised his eyebrows ever so slightly.

"'Thinking' as in… 'fantasizing?'" Wilson asked.

"No!" Cuddy said loudly, startling Wilson in the process.

"Thinking as in 'comparing,'" Cuddy clarified.

"Oh," Wilson said. "Well… that's… normal," he added tentatively.

"It's not like it wasn't good with House… because it was great," Cuddy said.

"REALLY great," Cuddy added admittedly.

The corners of Wilson's lips turned upwards at her admission.

"So then what's the problem?" Wilson asked her.

"A few days ago… when we first got together, I asked him if he wanted to go out for a few drinks or if he just wanted to get right to it," Cuddy mumbled.

"That's a good line. Mind if I steal that?" Wilson quipped, hoping Cuddy would laugh.

But she didn't.

"I'm guessing you didn't go out for drinks," Wilson said gently.

"I guess it's my own fault. I did give him a choice," Cuddy muttered with a shrug.

"But you were hoping he'd take you out for a drink first," Wilson said.

Cuddy nodded in response as Wilson began to finally understand what she was feeling.

"You don't want Chase. You want romance," Wilson declared.

"Is that such a bad thing?" Cuddy asked with a hint of sadness in her voice.

"No," Wilson replied sincerely with a smile.

Cuddy returned his smile as they enjoyed a companionable silence together.

"So are you still gonna make Chase work that shift in NICU?" Wilson asked, hoping that she'd change her mind.

"Yep," Cuddy replied simply.

Wilson sighed in defeat, knowing that Sophie had called him earlier to ask him to try to change Cuddy's mind and that she was going to be disappointed.

"And tell Sophie that it was pretty clever of her to use her older brother to manipulate me," Cuddy said with a grin.


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A FEW DAYS LATER, SATURDAY EVENING…

That Saturday, at around 7 PM, Chase was working in the NICU, examining a newborn full- term female infant.

As per standard hospital procedure, due to the fact that the mother had a fever during delivery, Chase had ordered that the baby girl be placed in the NICU on IV antibiotics.

Chase noted the infant's vitals were stable on the chart and left the nursery to sit at the desk in the ante- room of the NICU.

As he leaned his elbow on the desk and rested his face against the palm of his hand, he found his mind drifting off to the conversation he and Sophie had over the phone earlier in the week:

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" Chase had asked her in a soft voice.

"NOTHING EXCITING. JUST STUDYING," she had replied, matching his soft tone.

"WHERE ARE YOU?" Chase had asked her, his voice becoming slightly husky.

"IN BED," Sophie had replied demurely.

"WHAT ARE YOU WEARING?" Chase had asked.

"… CAMI AND PANTIES…" Sophie replied, barely above a throaty whisper.

"THAT SOUNDS NICE," Chase had whispered back, feeling his arousal grow at her words.

A tiny smile formed on his lips as he recalled the details of their conversation. He had told her that he had loved the scent of her perfume the last time he saw her. She had gently corrected him, telling him that it wasn't perfume but that it was soap.

And for some reason, this had made him even more aroused.

After that, their conversation had taken a more intimate turn, telling her that he couldn't wait to kiss her again, to take her in his arms again…

To touch her again.

She had hesitated before asking him exactly where he wanted to touch her. He could remember exactly the way her breath had hitched over the phone at his reply.

"How's it going?" a familiar voice said.

Chase opened his eyes, apparently not even aware that they were closed as the voice snapped him out of his lovely haze.

Cuddy was standing in front of him, holding a hot coffee cup in her hand. Her hair was pulled back in a pony- tail and her winter coat was unzipped, revealing that she was wearing a hooded sweatshirt, t- shirt, jeans and a pair of slip on sneakers.

"I don't remember you wearing that to work today," Chase quipped, figuring out that she must have already gone home, changed and had come back to the hospital.

"Looks like a slow night," Cuddy said, peering through the window into the NICU nursery and seeing only one baby in a bassinet in there.

"For now," Chase replied, eyeing the cup of coffee she was holding.

Cuddy handed him the coffee. "I figured this would help keep you awake," she told him.

"…Thank you," he replied, taking the cup from her.

"So are you here in an administrative capacity, or do you just feel guilty about making me work tonight?" Chase asked as he took a sip from the coffee cup.

Cuddy smiled slightly, pulled up a chair and sat down next to him.

"I'm sorry that I punished you and that I made you cancel your date," Cuddy told him sincerely.

Chase put the coffee cup down on the table and smiled back at her.

"I'm sorry that I encouraged Cameron to quit," Chase replied.

"Can I ask you something?" Cuddy asked.

"Sure," Chase replied with a shrug.

"What made you buy those Nasal Strips that night that we were together?" Cuddy asked him.

At first, Chase was a bit surprised by the question, wondering what prompted her to ask him that.

"…I told you. I thought you deserved a good night's sleep," Chase replied.

Cuddy nodded, smiling wistfully.

"Sophie's a lucky girl," Cuddy told him.

Chase tilted his head, now even more curious.

But before he could ask her any more questions, Cuddy stood up from her chair.

"G'night, Chase," Cuddy said as she left the NICU.


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When Cuddy returned home around fifteen minutes later, she wondered if House was still sitting on her couch watching TV.

She had suggested that they had go out to dinner, but he said that he wasn't in the mood to go out.

Wilson was right. She wanted romance.

But she and House had only been together for a few days, and she didn't want to come across as a needy woman.

And she knew that House wasn't the most romantic guy in the world.

As she mused all of this over, she opened her front door to her home and was met with the sound of the song, "Gravity" by John Mayer floating through her home.

"Greg?" she called out.

"In here," House replied from the dining room.

She walked slowly into the dining room and was stunned at what she saw.

Her dining room table was set with two paper plates adjacent to each other, wine glasses, a bottle of Pinot Grigot, boxes of Chinese take- out and chopsticks.

The lights were dimmed and only a single lit candle on the table illuminated the room.

She was so shocked that she couldn't speak.

"I know that a home cooked meal would have been more romantic, but trust me. You don't want me to cook," House said.

"Wilson told you, didn't he?" Cuddy asked him.

"Yep," House said, limping a few steps closer to her without his cane.

She gazed into the beautiful cerulean eyes of the man that had stolen her heart, knowing that this small gesture meant so much.

"I told him not to," Cuddy said softly.

"You know that he can't keep a secret," House said.

"Which means you wanted me to know," he added gruffly, reaching up to touch her cheek and chin with his thumb.

"I didn't want to be the annoying girlfriend this early on in our relationship," Cuddy said, feeling a tingle pass through her at his simple touch.

"You've always annoyed me… and we've always had a relationship," House told her.

"We're just taking the next logical step," he added, his eyes sparkling.

Cuddy smiled as he led her over to her chair at the table.

As House poured her a glass of wine, Cuddy saw that there were two fortune cookies on the table.

She took one of the cookies, tore off plastic wrapper and cracked open the cookie to read her fortune:

"YOU ARE ABOUT TO EMBARK ON A DELIGHTFUL JOURNEY."

"So what does it say?" House asked her.

Cuddy felt a wonderful warm sensation pass through her as she took the fortune and put it in the pocket of her jeans.

Just had Chase had always done with his fortunes since he was a child.

"I can't tell you that. It won't come true," Cuddy replied.


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At around midnight, Chase got off the elevator on the first floor after finishing his fifteen hour shift in the NICU that night. He was still wearing his scrubs and his leather coat.

He began to rake his fingers through his hair.

But he stopped suddenly when he saw Sophie in the lobby waiting for him.

She was wearing her winter coat, jeans and sneakers. Her long, wavy hair was down about her shoulders.

And she had the most beautiful smile on her face.

"…Hi!" Chase managed to say, frozen in his tracks, completely surprised to see her.

"Hi," Sophie replied sweetly, walking up to him.

"…I thought we were going to get together next weekend," Chase stammered as she closed the distance between them.

He could feel his heart pounding in his chest as his eyes traced over her lovely features and the blush that had formed on her cheeks from the cold.

She opened her backpack purse and produced a DVD copy of 'The Lady Vanishes' by Alfred Hitchcock.

She gazed back up at him, getting lost in his sparkling blue- green eyes.

"I didn't feel like waiting," she replied, still smiling.

TBC...