- disclaimer: in part one
- a/n: thank you to adrift, bellsie805 and xantichoicex for reviewing. I hope you enjoyed.

i pray you know me when we meet again

chapter three/three:
tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow…

the cripple

'I don't want to be here,' she gives.

'I don't want you to be here,' you give back. She almost smiles and sits across from you. Sitting means long conversations. With an Oh Well shrug you prop your feet up on the desk and put the cane across your lap.

'I don't want to be Mrs. Wilson Number Four,' she says abruptly, and you pretend not to be taken aback.

'Don't propose,' you recover, earning a wry smirk. 'He cares, you care. Last time I checked, two plus two equaled four.'

'It's not that simple.'

'Sure it is,' you say, and by the tone in your voice, almost convince yourself.

'I love him. As a friend, maybe more. Definitely more. But I can't…' she stops speaking and looks away and you tilt your head and wait patiently for her to speak. As far as you're concerned this is her show—you're going to sit and listen and you figure she'll talk long enough that her problems will sort themselves out and you won't have to give any advice, and if you're lucky she'll knock back the clinic hours.

Or maybe not.

'Look, Cuddy,' you begin when the silence gets too heavy—then pause. There's a grand speech you've prepared, one very House-like, with a few jests thrown in for good measure—but watching her through a steady gaze you know it's pointless.

'Whatever he gives, he's going to want back,' you say simply. 'If you can't - or won't - give it to him, then get out now.' Because he doesn't deserve another broken heart is what hangs tightly at the end, but you refuse to say it. Depths to which you won't sink.

She's quiet for too long and your concentration shifts to your leg. It's pulsating and annoying, but only because you're concentrating on it does it hurt, so it's more out of restlessness and agitation than anything else that you pop two pills in your mouth. Cuddy shakes her head and scoffs good-naturedly and you know it's broken the barrier.

'You're worried he's going to get hurt.'

'Why does everyone think I've suddenly grown a conscience?' you snap, hoping to drive her away. She rises, but steps closer instead and you eye her warily.

She laughs suddenly and the sound seems foreign to your ears. 'Underneath that thick, recalcitrant, self-centered exterior-'

'Lies an equally thick, stubborn, egotistical man. I promise.'

She smiles briefly but it fades and she follows your gaze to the blinds.

'You're worried you're going to get hurt too, aren't you?' She doesn't move except for her arms, which tighten across her chest.

'If he leaves again, he can't come back,' she murmurs, and you have to hold your breath to catch it.

You nod slowly and tap the head of your cane absentmindedly.

'He knows that.'

She looks a little surprised and you just look back. 'He should pay me by the hour man talks so much.'

She raises an eyebrow and you smile suggestively. Maybe she'll think you know all the gory details.

'Nice try, House, but we haven't gone that far yet.'

'I don't have to give you that talk, do I?' you grouse and begin tapping the cane against the side of the desk.

'I'd really appreciate it if you didn't.'

You smirk suddenly, the look only broadened by her confusion. So you were right after all. 'Cuddy, my dear, I think you just answered your own questions.'

Cuddy and her one-liners. She frowns and you cease your tapping, leaning further back in your chair, wearing your trademark smirk like a gold star.

'You said 'yet'.'

the administrator

'God, you're tense.' He's sitting behind you, leaning against the arm of the couch, one leg tucked under him and you can tell from the unrestrained glee in his voice that he's wearing an impossibly boyish grin and relishing in his good fortune. You're sitting with your back to him and his hands are on your shoulders, long fingers gently kneading away at the sailor's knots in your muscles.

'Occupational hazard,' you murmur with a slight shake of your head and a wry grin that he can't see. You aren't sure how you got in this position, or how you came to be wearing an old t-shirt of his, or even how your guard lowered enough to let him get this close.

'Don't you ever… go out and spend the day at a spa or get a massage or something ridiculously feminine like that?'

'Why do that when I've got my own personal Cabana Boy?'

'I don't see any martinis.'

You chuckle and your shoulders vibrate; you don't notice his fingers twitch slightly or that he backs his hips slightly away from you.

'I did when I first started working… I guess I don't think about it that much.' You give a slight shrug of your shoulders and part of your hair spills over your back. The touch he uses to brush it to the side again sends a shudder along your spine and you shift hoping he won't notice.

'About how unbelievably high-strung you are?'

You roll your eyes. 'It's better to think about what you're stressed out about than to dwell on the fact that you're stressed.

'Well if I'd known you thought about House that much I'd have left you alone,' he drawls in a completely genial manner.

'Cute. House isn't the only source of my daily tension.'

'Right,' he nods sincerely. 'I'd rather deal with sick people than finances any day.' You turn and shoot a glare over your shoulder, one that you're sure has no intimidation factor whatsoever. It's hard to look angry when you're really not, especially when he's moved his hands to the base of your neck and under your ears. You shift again.

'I'm serious.'

'Sure,' you mutter dryly and turn back around to give him easier access to your stiff muscles.

'I am! I can go home and, after a few beers and some bad television, usually forget about work.'

You nod once. 'If you didn't you'd go crazy.'

'I just wish you had that off switch too.' There's no insinuation driven into his words, just a small touch of regret.

'The hospital isn't all I think about,' you say softly, and maybe you sounded hurt because he immediately defends his words.

'I didn't mean it like… just, you're so dedicated to your job, sometimes I have to wonder if the woman you've seemed to bury under the administrator is getting a fair shot.'

You have to smile at that. 'She's trying,' you say, and turn again to meet his eyes. His hands don't move from your shoulders and he leans forward into the kiss you're offering. The day with the spatula (as you and your mind refer to it) opened up another door that you've tentatively been walking through for the last month, trying to discern if it's worth the risk to step in all the way.

It's been your experience with love so far that if it looks like love and it feels like love than you haven't quite woken up yet, so the familiar feeling that creeps up on you (like a phone call from an old, old friend) makes you uneasy.

But when you pull back he's smiling again, and you dare to think maybe this time it might be worth it.

As you turn around his hands are sliding up your back under the shirt and before you can protest he's got your bra unhooked and his fingers have moved on to the space behind your shoulder blades.

Your arms instinctively cross in front of you. 'James, what are you-'

'It was in the way,' he says offhandedly and you exhale sharply through an amused grin. With a mental shrug you pull your arms through the straps and stuff the contraption under the cushions of his sofa.

'Under that polite façade sometimes I forget you're still a guy.'

He snorts. 'Oh, thanks.'

'You know what I mean.'

A hiss escapes through your teeth when he finds a particularly tight knot and you flinch.

'You alright?'

The pain dissipates and his concern is oddly touching. 'Fine,' you say, but he backs off a little anyway. 'That feels good.'

You can feel his satisfied grin when his lips press against the back of your neck and along your shoulder where the shirt doesn't cover. Convenient. You shudder as goose bumps make their way up your back.

'Cold?'

So naïve.

'No.'

You shift and you imagine the desire in his eyes mirrors your own. Only a few seconds of holding his gaze go by before you're demanding entrance to his mouth and your tongue grazes across his lower lip.

His arms tighten around you and you're chest to chest with your hands on his face, his fingers clawing at your back. You're practically in his lap and try as you might can't escape the brief moment you feel like you're in high school, making out with a 'study buddy' while your daddy's at the grocery store.

But you're not in high school because his hands don't shake as he pulls the shirt over your head and the feel of his mouth on your breasts makes you forget everything other than what he's doing to you.

And somewhere between his hands and his lips and the tangling of limbs, you can't remember that he ever left at all.

the cripple

'So you banged the boss,' you call into the next room where he's fishing beers out of your refrigerator. 'Nicely done. You're moving up in the world.'

'Cute,' he grumbles, returning with two bottles and a bag of chips.

'What, afraid I'll put a damper on your raised spirits?' You make no changes to your stoic facial expression and let him interpret your accent as he will. Out of the corner of your eye you see him roll his eyes just as you expected.

'Trying not to get your hopes up; I know how you love details.'

'Of your sex life? No thanks. I'd rather watch gay porn for a week.'

He snorts. 'You'd watch any kind of porn.' He takes a drink before adding on, 'That's good, though. I promised Cuddy I wouldn't share.'

'Oh, well now you have to give.'

'She's got a tattoo,' he offers you just shake your head at the unmistakable tone of glee in his voice. 'Left shoulder blade.'

'Angel, right?' you give back and his furrowed expression almost makes you laugh and you give him a pointed look. 'And you thought it was just a rumour,' you mutter, secretly delighting in knowing you've got everyone stumped, maybe even her.

'I'm not going to speculate on how you know that. But yes. She got it in college.'

'That doesn't count. I already knew that.'

He tips the bottle in your direction. 'Sorry. Scout's honour.'

'You and your badges,' you grumble but there's no bite and you have to hide your smile behind a handful of chips.

You'll be the last to admit it but you're happy for them. Two incredibly dysfunctional people, who've managed to find each other, get lost and find each other again. It's a rarity, and the non-existent romantic in you loves it. But then, you also loved finding Cuddy's bra stuffed under one of James' pillows and still proceed to bring it up whenever possible.

'Greg,' he says, and you can't tell just from his voice whether he's trying to get your attention or questioning what you're thinking; the smile on his face that he's failing so miserably at hiding speaks for itself.

'I know.' The edges of his lips distance themselves even more and you feel like you're talking to a lovesick fifteen year old. Which you are, in a lot of ways. 'Careful,' you warn. 'You wouldn't want your face to stick that way.'

He laughs and his eyes glint. 'Why not?'

the friend

You're not really sure what love is. You're sure you've been in love -one out of three at least, right?- but tried and failed to love confined within the bonds of holy matrimony. It doesn't mean you're lacking- you have enough love to fill the world as if it were a bowl and from it feed most everyone, or rather, most anyone who asks.

Which, you consider, might be one of your foibles. You spread love like disease, and people catch it, and they fall and you catch them, but you're so busy catching them that you miss the one you declared you loved, and they fall instead. But rather than realize your love isn't gone, just misplaced, they leave.

So once again you're left alone with all this love and not a soul to give it to.

So once again, you go looking for it.

You have an ability backwards from most- to give; yet your hindrance lies on the receiving end. You love to love, that's what he says, love giving away that part of you that makes your love so what it is.

Problem remains, while you know how to love, you're naïve when it comes to getting it back. One of these days you'll realize that love is like people – shapes, sizes, colours, styles, dresses, moods and façades. None alike, no matter how similar.

You've given up on believing it will come back the way you sent it out, and now the cynical part of you always looks for the box marked Return To Sender. But despite what rationality tells you, you always wind up searching for a package with your name and address, no clue where it will be or what it will look like, just going on a hunch that if you search hard enough you'll find it.

So a-questing-for-love you go, when you should be moving away the dust to find the love you already have in front of you, just a little buried.

You can't really be blamed for it – except by them, of course – but they're just as naïve as you are and don't realize you're a man with a heart bigger than most, and if they don't drink it all in who will?

But all your thoughts of love draw you back to her and you wonder bitterly how you'll fuck it up this time. She seems to think you won't, but you've been living with you longer than she has, and you know deep down you're just an idiot at love.

For now, however, she stays and sleeps on silently as your fingers run up and over the goose-bumps on her arm, the length from the top of her shoulder blade to the edge of her wrist, so tantalizingly close to those hands that can assure you almost as much as her lips can that what you feel is love. One could say your touch is absentminded, but you know from nights spent wide awake that she sleeps better with the gentle reassurance that you haven't left, and so you stay awake though dropped lashes and half-sleep just to ease her mind.

You've accepted that the application of love is not your strong suit, but like you haven't before, you've sworn: not this one, not this time.

Whether she'll stay or go you're not really sure, just like you're not really sure it isn't love, but you can tell from the loose grip her fingers have, curled around the side of your unbuttoned shirt, that she'll be there in the morning and for now that's more than enough.

Because if it looks like love, and it feels like love, then just maybe this time…

/fin