Hello everyone! Long time no see...
I have just finished my finals, and I now have two months of unlimited free time. I'm hoping to write at a more intense rhythm again.
In the meantime, here's a new 'drabble': it's quite long, to make up for my absence. It's set in season 7 and was written with the help of House-less and IndyStarkDeanJr. I hope you will like it.
67. Do you want to come too?
Getting up late had lots of upsides. Among them: a couple hours of extra sleep that made up for his insomnia and avoiding rush hour.
An other, undeniable benefit, was that Cuddy never got to watch him get up – or try to.
On the morning, it could take up to several minutes for him to quell the pain that had gotten worse during the night. He'd take more pills, massage his leg, sometimes get up and feel his leg give up on him, letting him fall on the floor or right back to bed.
It was something he loathed. It made him feel like a pathetic cripple. During the day, he could manage exploits that made him forget just for a second about his disability – climb a few steps, walk a certain distance without his cane, juggle with various objects, use his genius to solve a case, give Cuddy a mind-blowing orgasm. But the morning always reminded him of what he was, what he would always be.
And it was something he didn't want to share with Cuddy.
He knew how guilty she felt about his leg. She was an expert at hiding it, but when the pain got really bad he could see an ephemeral veil of guilt in her eyes.
Again, not something he wanted to burden himself with.
That night, she'd called him to let him know she had to work late and that he shouldn't wait up for her. At around three, he'd felt her crawl into bed and had immediately spooned her.
At six, her alarm had rung, just as usual – but she'd quickly shut it off, muttering an expletive.
He'd made a sort of grunt of inquiry.
"Took the morning off," she'd explained, and they'd gone right back to sleep.
His biological clock had woken him up around nine. He wasn't feeling as rested as he'd wished, but he knew there was no hope of going back to sleep at the moment.
However, he still contemplated a lazy morning with Cuddy and moved closer to her. It lasted a few minutes, before he heard his cell phone vibrate, which thankfully Cuddy didn't hear.
He listened to his team describe how worse their patient had gotten during the night, and assured them he'd be coming in soon.
He slowly slid his arm from under Cuddy's neck, and his ritual of getting his leg ready for the day began.
Tentatively, he swung his leg out of the covers and sat up, his feet resting on the carpet. There was a light drizzle outside, and he could feel the drop of pressure in his leg. Today would be a bit tricky.
Before he even tried to touch his leg, he dried-swallowed a couple of ibuprofen pills from the bottle sitting on his nightstand. They were the last two, and he made a mental note to replace the bottle during the day. Although he was an expert at dry-swallowing, his mouth felt dry that morning and he felt the discomfort of the pills sliding down his oesophagus. He let a few minutes pass by and rested his hand on his thigh. The sudden pressure of his hand made him hiss, but it was nothing he couldn't push through. Gritting his teeth, he began to massage his leg, along the same rhythm he'd perfected after all those years.
When he deemed the pain had dissipated enough, he looked around for his cane, before remembering he'd left it in the living-room. Still, he tried standing up, reaching for the frame at the feet of the bed, just in case. He didn't fall, but his leg didn't feel ready to hold his weight yet, so he grabbed the bedframe and lifted his leg for a few seconds, willing the muscle to relax.
"Is it like this every morning?"
The noise startled him and had him turning around, even though he knew it was a bad idea.
Cuddy had raised herself up on her elbow, looking at him, her brow knitted.
She was worried. Concerned. Guilty.
More importantly, she'd had no idea.
He felt the urge to get as far away from her as possible, his old, bad habits overwhelming him before he could smother them.
"I'm fine," he muttered, shifting his weight on his right leg again – whether it would want him to or not.
He took a tentative step to the bathroom and heard the rustle of the sheets behind him. "Stay in bed," he instructed.
To his relief, she listened to him, but that didn't last long – when he was in the bathroom, he heard her soft footsteps in the hallway. What was she up to now?
He washed his hands and decided to get breakfast first – his leg wouldn't let him stand under the shower at the moment. When he opened the door, he was greeted by the distant smell of coffee – as well as Cuddy herself.
"I got the coffee machine started," she told him. "How about a hot bath in the meantime?"
A woman on a mission, she didn't give him time to say no and practically barrelled through the door, heading towards the bathtub. She turned on the taps, looking at him with an easy smile that definitely enticed him.
God, if every morning looked like this…
He gladly took off his pyjamas and got into the bathtub, without her proposing her help – he never required it and she figured today wouldn't be any different. He felt the tension ebb away as soon as he'd immersed his leg and let out a cathartic sigh. He kept his eyes closed for a few seconds before he turned to her. "Do you want to come too?"
Cuddy shook her head with a smile. "I'm exhausted. I'm going back to bed." She gave him a soft kiss. "I'm sorry, you know."
There it was, he thought with a roll of his eyes. The guilt. "Don't."
"I should have noticed," she interrupted him. "And I shouldn't have given you so much crap over the years for coming in late."
Surprised by his own relief at hearing those words, he couldn't think of anything to say and just nodded in acknowledgement.
He watched her long, bare legs as she headed back to the bedroom.
When he got out of the bathroom, he was pleased to find his cane by the bathroom door – he instinctively turned to the bedroom in gratitude. He drank the coffee she'd left for him and drove to the hospital.
That night, as he got to bed, he found on his nightstand a new bottle of ibuprofen, as well as a glass of water. Realising he'd left his cane lying around again, he was about to go get it when Cuddy walked into the bedroom with it.
"Thank you."
He held her extra tight.
The next morning, he felt her kiss him on the forehead before she left for work.
Smelling the coffee from the kitchen, he grinned.