I'm baaaaaaaaaa-aaaaaaaack... Sorry I've been so irregular with the updates recently. I'll try to get one out once a week from now on.

Wilson frowned when House finally made his way out of the bedroom. "You weren't sleeping."

House rolled his eyes. "Wow, you're like Sherlock Holmes or something."

His sarcasm was not unfounded. With the bags under his eyes and the slump in his posture, it was obvious that he'd been doing everything but resting.

Wilson twitched, looking extremely annoyed. "Why don't you just tell me what's going on? I could help you with this stuff…"

House scoffed. "No, you couldn't, and that's why I didn't tell you. Just stop mothering me, Wilson."

Wilson was annoyed with him, but he was also annoyed with himself. He should have made sure that House had been resting, and helped him if he wasn't. He couldn't count on House to ask for help - he'd learned long ago that his pride wouldn't allow him to. But it still bothered him to know that House was not quite willing to reach out to Wilson quite yet.

Meanwhile, Cuddy was watching the exchange silently from her seat at the table. She felt for Wilson, she really did, but sometimes it seemed like the man was more of a disapproving dad to House than a friend. And a disapproving dad was something House did not need. He'd had enough of that to last several lifetimes. She hoped Wilson would let it go, for now. She, too, wanted House to trust them enough to say something, even when they couldn't do anything but keep him company. But Wilson's disapproving looks were the wrong way to go about it - scolding House like a child would get them nowhere.

Thankfully, Wilson just dished out House's plate. He dropped it, but he was still clearly irritated. The silence in the room was awkward and Cuddy felt inclined to fix it.

"The hospital's quiet without you, House. Dare I say it, I think some of the nurses actually miss gossiping about you. Their main topic of entertainment is now gone."

Her plan worked. House grinned, the sparkle back in his eye. "Aren't I the charmer," he gushed, pretending to fan himself.

Wilson rolled his eyes, but Cuddy could see a faint smile at the corners of his mouth. It was times like these that she was glad that Wilson didn't usually hold grudges.

By the time dinner was over, they were all three back in good spirits. This had a lot to do with Wilson's good cooking and even more to do with the jokes House was cracking. The meal seemed to have distracted him from that ache in his leg - Cuddy only wished that someone had been there to do it sooner.

"And, I kid you not, this little kid turns to his mom and tells her to her face that she's lying – and lying is bad you know – and asked her how come she didn't tell the doctor that she wasn't really sick, but just wanted to skip work."

Wilson laughed heartily, as did Cuddy, at the image of an enraged and embarrassed mom and an amused House. "Kids," House chuckled, setting his fork down on his empty plate. "Never afraid to say exactly what they're thinking. Why do we grow out of that trait?"

Wilson looked him up and down, smirking. "Well, most of us do, anyway. You didn't, that's for sure."

House grinned right back. "I think it just came back with the teenage years, and never left me."

Wilson looked bemused. "Came back? What, you mean you were a decent human being for a while?"

Cuddy watched as the amusement trickled off of House's face, to be replaced by a fake smile that was covering up such a strong inner sadness that she was shocked Wilson didn't immediately start apologizing. "Yeah. You can have my dad to thank for that. He had the social norms beaten into me for a while."

Cuddy winced at the word choice, whilst Wilson looked puzzled. "I refuse to believe you were anything but a stubborn troublemaker throughout your childhood."

House's smile was gone now, replaced by an ill concealed anger. "Yeah, well. Too bad he's dead, or you could both laugh over how much of a little shit I was. I'm sure he'd agree with you."

Wilson blinked at the anger in House's words. "House, what's wrong?"

House gritted his teeth, looking away. "Nothing. I'm going to sleep," he seethed, and promptly rolled away from the table. The bedroom door slammed shut a moment later.

"What the hell?" Wilson wondered out loud, staring at the closed door. "What did I say?"

Cuddy shook her head, trying not to be angry with Wilson. He didn't know anything that House had so begrudgingly confessed to her, so he had no way of knowing that his remarks had been triggering. Cuddy, while he had been speaking, had resisted the urge to leap over the table and smother him, but now she almost wished she had.

Wilson looked at her plaintively, his eyebrows pushed together in concern. "I have no idea why he's so mad. What set him off?"

Cuddy swallowed. "I'll go talk to him."

And she did. She got up and walked into his room without knocking, sitting on the bed. He was laying on it, on his back. She'd never get over how self sufficient he was - even with no functioning legs, he still climbed in and out of that chair like a pro. His hands where behind his head, clenched together.

"He doesn't know, Greg."

House cocked his jaw, looking away. "I know. I'm not…"

He sighed. "I just didn't want to fucking think about it. And now I am."

Cuddy laid down and scooted over beside him, smiling slightly when his arms encircled her possessively.

"I wasn't kidding about the teenage years," he explained quietly, his chin in her hair. "Once I got old enough to be an actual challenge, I started fighting back. I never won, and I was punished even more, but I did fight it. With my actions and my words. I was probably about... fifteen, the first time I talked back. Got me a broken arm for the trouble."

Cuddy was silent, marveling at the strength it would have taken to act against John in such a manner.

"I think that I figured if I just kept pushing back, he'd eventually leave me alone. That he'd stop. The closest I ever came to that was when he didn't talk to me for a summer, just gave me orders by slipping them under the bedroom door in the morning. Best summer of my life. Of course, I screwed that up too by blowing him off once school started, trying to keep my grades up. That pushed it back right into its old cycle."

Cuddy nuzzled into his side, arching her neck to kiss his cheek. They lay in silence for a few minutes, both consumed in their thoughts.

"If you would just tell him," she suggested finally, breaking the silence, "He would know better than to push you like that."

House snorted. "And what? He'd psychoanalyze it to death. You know he would. 'Oh, House, you must be so screwed up because of him', and 'Oh, that's just the abuse talking'," he mocked in a passable imitation of Wilson, bitter. "I'd just be feeding his need to be needed."

Cuddy elbowed him in the ribs lightly, and he grunted in surprise. "He's your best friend, House. He cares about you more than anyone else. He's not gonna change the way he sees you just because of this. All he wants to do is help you."

House sighed, his hand idly stroking Cuddy's stomach. "I don't want to," he admitted finally. "You know through necessity. Wilson doesn't need to know."

His tone was harsh, and it hurt Cuddy. As much as she hated to admit it, she was hurt every time he ignored her, pushed away her advice like an annoying fly. To her horror, she felt tears pricking at her eyes.

House was oblivious. "I just... I don't want to change things."

Cuddy was hit by a tidal wave of evidence to that fact, that House hated change. The changes in his life, it seemed, had all brought him pain. His leg. Stacey. Losing his original team, Kutner, Amber. Wilson's change towards him, that horrible four months where he had no one to rely on - not even her, because she didn't want a relationship with him at the time - then the hallucinations, Mayfeild. It seemed that the only change thus far in his life that had been for the better had been leaving his home, and, hopefully, beginning his life with her.

That did it. She felt the tears falling in earnest now. The weight of the problems House was facing was eating her alive, as was trying to find a solution for them.

He reached up and wiped away Cuddy's tears. "Cuddy... I'm sorry. I didn't mean too..."

She rolled over and buried her head in his chest, still crying. "I love you," she mumbled, the words distorted as she was pressed up against him.

The words surprised him. He'd expected anger, frustration at the level of insanity he'd dumped on her life. Instead, he was getting this. Love, in spite of everything he'd burdened her with. Not what he'd been anticipating.

"Love you, too," he sighed, looking down at her. And he did, too. He loved her more than anything in the world.

There was silence for a long few moments. "I don't want to tell him," he muttered finally, but it sounded weak, even to his own ears. He was breaking under Cuddy's gentle prodding in what she saw as the right direction.

Cuddy bit her lip. "I think he does, House. I think that you should share that with him. That's what being a friend is."

"Sharing painful, traumatic childhood memories? Sounds horrid. No wonder I have so few friends."

She refused to rise to the bait. "Wilson loves you House, and you love him. You two are like brothers. Sharing your hurts… that's what makes that bond stronger. He's not going to treat you any different."

House closed his eyes, thinking back. When he'd had the infarction, Wilson had spent the first few weeks, before Stacy had left, tiptoeing around him and treating him like a glass egg. But pretty soon, he'd learned that the best way to deal with House was to treat him as he always had, and House had been immeasurably relieved when Wilson had cracked a mean joke or laughed at him. It was normality, it was comforting. Hopefully, if he told Wilson like Cuddy wanted him too, he'd react the same way. House didn't like change, and letting out a secret he'd kept for so long was a huge one.

"I'll think about it," he muttered finally.

Sorry for the shortness, but the next update shouldn't be long in coming.