In the Region of Ice, a house, m.d. fanfic

Title: In the Region of Ice
Author: allthingsholy
Rating: PG
Pairing: Cuddy/Wilson
Email: allthingsholy(at)yahoo(dot)com; or just beam me happy, happy thoughts.
Disclaimer: Took the title from Joyce Carol Oates, and the characters from David Shore. And now they are mine! Mine, I say! (Ahem.)
Summary: Her knee grazes his hip; she shivers. "It's freezing," she says.
Disclaimer: I stole the title from Joyce Carol Oates, I stole the characters from David Shore and several other people. I'm a kleptomaniac, and I like it that way.
A/N: Many, many beta thanks for lulabo, who is the best. Written for the lj houserareathon fic challenge, taken from the prompt: "I had a wound that would not heal. You rummaged your hands through it and it bled again. It bled clean this time, and the poison left me." - Jeanette Winterson

When she wakes, the sun is sliding in around the curtains and the wind is tapping beats against the glass. She feels the sheets tangled between her feet, the comforter tucked under one arm. Her eyes still closed, she focuses on the pounding in her head, the heaviness in the pit of her stomach; she's sure she still smells like liquor, like bad vodka and good sex. She raises a hand to her head, brushes her bangs out of her eyes, breathes out. Pushing herself up onto her elbows, a body moves heavily beside her, lets out a deep breath, not quite a snore. She opens her eyes, slides smoothly out of bed—his breathing still heavy behind her, he doesn't follow.

Wrapping her robe too tightly around herself, she walks slowly toward her kitchen. The floor is cold beneath her feet, and her toes curl in; she shoves her hands deeper into the pockets of her robe, fights off a shiver, tries to pretend she's not still a little drunk. Water, she thinks, and ibuprofen.

Filling a glass from the faucet, she surveys the little patch of yard visible through the window, runs her eyes over the smooth, even surface of white snow. Frost climbs up the panes, paints the edges pale. Her stomach quivers, and she raises the glass to her lips, the hard clink when she sets it on the countertop rattling around the small kitchen, out into the dining room. She stares out the window, tries not to think about regret and second chances, tries not to think about morality and fidelity as she shifts from foot to foot, toes cold against the tile.

The first wife's name was Carla, that much she remembers. Not the color of her hair, or the sound of her voice, just her name, and the way he said it. Resigned, almost sad—like a prayer, like a plea, his voice dropping an octave as he whispered slowly, "My wife's name is Carla."

She almost left, when he said it, almost buttoned her blouse and turned around and walked away. She almost left, but she didn't, and she's still not entirely certain why. Something to do with loneliness, she thinks, or need. Or both. The fact that she's stayed, still, has nothing at all—and this is something Cuddy remembers to remind herself of later, when the wife's name is no longer Carla, but he's still too often found in Cuddy's bed—nothing to do with love.

She's been with other men; he's been married two more times. She doesn't pretend that he's the one great love of her life, and he doesn't pretend that he knows how to have only one great love. But she's dated fewer and fewer men since they started, comparing them to James, to an ideal she doesn't even idealize. It's dangerous, standing them up next to this impossibly perfect imperfect man, knowing they'll fail; it's daunting, being the other woman, shaking Carla's hand at a fundraiser, seeing Sarah walk toward him down the aisle. She'd put an end to it, she thinks, if she thought there was an ending to be found.

She's sitting on the counter, her back to the window, when she hears his feet on the wood floor. Tea in hand, she blows steam off the top, closes her fingers around the warm ceramic, flicks her hair out of her eyes. He walks in, fastens the belt on his robe. "Whistle woke me," he says, running a hand over his face; Wilson crosses his arms, leans against the door frame.

She hitches her head to one side, lowers the mug to her lap. "There's extra water in the kettle if you want some tea." Her voice is soft, low; he treads lightly, in body and mind.

He walks forward, stops just beside her. Her knee grazes his hip; she shivers. "It's freezing," she says, curling her shoulders into herself, raising her mug to her lips.

"Your tea's steaming, I can see it from here." Poking his head around the cabinet door, he creases his forehead, peers into her mug. Cuddy looks up, fights a smile.

"I meant the weather. And the counter. And the floor." His naïveté surprises her, at times, and the sheer amount of faith he puts in other people. It's endearing, for the most part, how strongly he believes in everyone's capacity to do good; it's saddening, how strongly he believes he's failed. She doesn't blame herself for his infidelity—if it weren't her, she's fairly certain it would be someone else, is almost surprised that it's not someone else, almost regrets that she's not been replaced—but she doesn't fault him either, not exactly. This is his great weakness, his largest fault, she thinks, as if he's only got one.

Wilson walks to the counter, pours water into a mug. Her voice is thick when she speaks, her eyes down. "Where does Julie think you were last night?" He pauses, one hand on the counter, the other clutching a box of Earl Grey. It's not an unfair question, but she feels bad for even asking. The suspicions she's had for the past few weeks—only furthered by his wrinkled shirts at the hospital, the blanket and pillow half-hidden behind the chair in his office, the burn of his light first thing in the morning and last thing at night—don't make the words any easier to say. She wouldn't take them back, but she'd reshape them, soften them somehow.

"I moved out," he says, still turned away. She sees his hands falter as he opens the box, watches the slight shake to his fingers as he lowers the bag into the water.

Cuddy feigns surprise at the news, raises the tone of her voice a notch when she asks, "When?" She runs a finger around the rim of her mug, keeps her eyes down.

"About a month ago," Wilson says, his voice flat. He turns to face her, leans back against the countertop. When she looks up at him, his eyes are closed, face pained. She feels pity, feels proud; she's grown accustomed to the presence of conflicting emotions as far as James is concerned.

When he raises his eyes, they meet hers for a moment, then shift away and out the window. "What are you going to do now? Besides move into your office?" His eyes fly back to hers and he knows that she noticed before he said anything, knows that she suspected and stayed quiet, stayed away. She feels victorious, feels ashamed. She raises her mug again and slides her gaze away.

Most nights, she dreams in black and white. She dreams of rivers and wide, white skies, of dark grass and bright, brighter sunshine. She dreams of flying, falling, being surrounded by nothing but air, suspended in clouds and caressed by the wind. Too often, she wakes in the too-early morning, hours before she needs to get up; Wilson's hand on her chest, his arm across her waist, the weight feels too heavy, the sadness too definite. Moments ago she was flying, and now here she is, with Wilson holding her down. She could fly, she thinks, if it weren't for him.

Their most dangerous moment fell somewhere after Sarah, somewhere before Julie. He'd smelled of whiskey and cigars, his words slurred and eyes drooping. Her hand on his chest, his nose in her hair, he'd whispered, "Marry me, Lisa." Bloodshot eyes meeting hers, he'd pressed a kiss to her temple, said it again: "Marry me, Lisa," and she'd almost been ill. She'd dropped her hand, turned away; "I don't love you, James," she didn't say. The next morning, he hadn't mentioned it, just gotten out of bed with a kiss to her shoulder, risen and gone to put on coffee.

The problem, she thinks, is the way that he loves, the need that's too close to the surface, too heavy in the air. It feels genuine, feels used up. She lays next to him, remembers the wind in her hair.

Wilson reaches for a spoon, says, "I've been meaning to ask House if I can crash on his couch," as he stirs in sugar. He leans his head back, looks at the ceiling; the air feels too light, the sun too bright off the snow. He crosses the kitchen with his mug in one hand, stirs the spoon with the other, stops just beside her.

"House doesn't know?" She doesn't need to fake sincerity this time, eyebrows furrowed and head drawn back.

"I don't tell him everything," Wilson says, raising his mug to his lips, setting the spoon on the counter. The way he says it is weighted, grave; she refuses to take from it what he means her to. He lowers the mug, lowers his eyes, puts a hand too close to her knee.

She picks up the spoon, runs a thumb across the length. "He knows," she says, quietly.

He sucks in a breath, raises his gaze. "How does he know?" He looks surprised, looks offended.

"Because he's House." Cuddy studies her reflection in the bowl of the spoon, upside down and inside out, pushed and pulled out of place. Her stomach twists. "Because I told him."

He takes a step back, looks at her hard. "Are you sleeping with House?" She sees him recoil, flinch at his own words, as if he's spoken before he could stop himself. The question lays there a moment, stays between them for a long second before she turns to face him. His eyes are down, his hands playing with the teabag still in his mug, regret—for this, the question, the look in her eyes—lining his features.

"You're asking because you put so much stock in fidelity?" Her voice is biting, her eyes hard; the question is about more than jealousy, more than retribution—it's about diamond rings and joint bank statements and the things they won't let themselves say, the edges of a relationship they work hard not to define. Truth be told, he's been more faithful to her than any of his wives, a fact she never lets herself look at too closely.

Turning to face her, James sucks in a breath, leans away. "Hey, I didn't—"

"No, I'm not. Unlike you, I have very few problems with loving only one person." She regrets it immediately, doesn't know if she meant it. She lowers her eyes, breathes out, set the spoon on the countertop, her hand cold against the tile. She feels him brace himself against the countertop, set down his mug. When she finally looks at him, his face is inches from hers, his eyes wide. Something in her chest constricts, and she clenches her fist.

She can see them, right there, on the tip of his tongue: the words that he owes her, the things he's left unsaid. His eyes are sad, lids heavy. "Lisa, I—"

"Don't." The word is clipped, dangerous. She breathes out, looks away, smoothes a hand over her robe. Her eyes are clear, her head high. "Don't." It's crisp, steady, rings with a finality she both welcomes and mourns.

"Why is this so hard?" he asks, and at first she's not sure if he means his relationship with Julie, his relationship with her. His eyes meet hers, and he raises a hand, tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, runs his thumb along her jaw. "When did this go bad?" His voice is unusually heavy, his eyes unusually sad; he means this thing, this terrible, indefinable thing between them, which she's begun to consider her own great weakness.

"Probably when I started thinking of your wife as the other woman," she says, leaning away from his palm.

She breathes in, runs her eyes over him for what feels like the thousandth time. His hair's sticking up in odd places, a pillow crease down his cheek. She resists the urge to flatten his hair, to run a hand over his skin to smooth it clean; instead she looks out and away, over her shoulder, through the window at the too-white snow. There is no end to this, she thinks, but she will find one.