Hi everyone! Here's a new drabble set in season 7. I'm pretty sure it's a favourite of mine. I really hope you'll enjoy it!

Before I let you read: unfortunately, I don't have as much time to write as I thought I would have this year, which means I can't update my stories as often as I'd like... (although I do have a couple more drabbles in stock, for now!) But your feedback always keeps me going. Thank you. Thank you.

33. I made your favourite.

Hearing soft, padded footsteps down the hall – her footfalls did not quite carry the same magnitude without her heels, but he would always recognize her cadence – House turned away from the whiteboard just in time to see his girlfriend make her way into his dimly lit office. He looked at her from head to toe; she was clad in an oversized hoodie and yoga pants, and had pulled her hair up into a ponytail. Evidently, she'd tried to sleep but never managed to. Since she was wearing one of his sweaters, he knew she'd been missing him. Rachel being at her grandmother's house, it had made it even easier for her to decide to drive to the hospital in the middle of the night and bring him a sandwich.

Well, at least his deduction skills were intact. But it still didn't help him figure out what was wrong with his patient.

Cuddy handed him the Tupperware containing a Reuben sandwich – which he, again, deduced when she told him "I made your favorite."

He thanked her with a nod, appreciating the gesture – dinner had slipped his mind somehow. Cuddy leaned against his desk and shoved her tiny hands into the enormous pockets, glancing at the whiteboard he had moved beside his desk chair.

He gave her a quick glance – odd to see her here, in those clothes. Now that he practically lived with her, he knew there were two Cuddys – one at the hospital who wore heels and power suits and was always perfectly made up, who handled every single crisis with brio and kept the hospital running, and another at home who wore messy ponytails, yoga pants and her real face, wrinkles and bags under her eyes included, who laughed with him and nestled her feet under a pillow when she watched TV on the couch. Suddenly, he was reminded that his boss and his girlfriend were, in fact, the same person.

"What do you see?" he asked her.

She contemplated the array of symptoms he'd jotted down on the board as the hours had gone by. She could tell by the arrows going in different directions and the circles around some of the words that he was at his wits' end. The case had to be solved in the next few hours.

"Ehlers-Danlos."

"No heart murmur." She shrugged. "Nice try, though."

They didn't say anything else, enjoying each other's company in silence – though she suspected that he was too lost in his thoughts to notice she was even there. After all, he was too distracted to touch his sandwich.

She watched him slowly rub the back of his fingers against his chin. He had those little mannerisms when he was deep in thought. He probably never noticed them, but she had memorized and catalogued them all over the years – he'd comment on how bureaucratic of her it is, if he ever found out.

"Shame your patient got worse so fast," she lamented. "We could be in bed right now."

His hand stopped. She saw him tilt his head a little. And there you have it.

"She wasn't in bed," he repeated, before grabbing his cane and bolting out of the office. "Be home in an hour."

"Aren't you gonna eat my sandwich?" she called out after him with a grin, knowing full well that he wouldn't pay any attention to her. Relieved that he would be heading home right behind her to get some rest, she sat in his desk chair and wrote him a note, which she signed with a C and a little heart, and placed it on top of the Tupperware, right in the centre of his desk.

Many thanks to arctichamster for sharing a bit of her extensive knowledge of House's sandwich preferences. :o)