Title: Succumb (8?)
Author: Teenwitch
Summary: We have to succumb to the feelings we can never face.

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"So, what do you think?"

Cuddy kept her eyes focused absorbedly on her paperwork, only half listening to Wilson's drawling statement. "What do I think about what?"

Wilson rolled his eyes, reclining in the visitor's chair on the other side of her desk. They had come to that familiar lull in the middle of the day, and he had retreated to her office for one of their regular meetings. It had become a habit for them over the years, eventually turning into a tacit, weekly ritual. "You know exactly what about. House."

Finally, she lifted her head, fixing her glasses on the bridge of her nose. She glared at him, managing to convey a sense of impatience, as if she hadn't known full well what he was going to talk about. "I don't think anything. I've learnt my lesson. I am not going to interfere in that man's life again." She wrinkled her nose. "Honestly, why I would want to, I have no idea." She shuffled a few papers, resting her hands absently on top of them.

"You care. You worry about him. Admit it."

She frowned back at him. "No… I don't think that's it."

Wilson scoffed. "And putting Cameron on his team again-- that wasn't interfering?"

"That was a professional call. Dr. Kendall requested it. I couldn't just turn her down because House has personal issues. If I let that dictate my decisions there wouldn't be a doctor left in this hospital."

Wilson smirked slightly. He knew she was being intentionally evasive. They had always shared a mutual concern over House's welfare, but Cuddy liked to think it was her way of managing the hospital rather than actual amiability.

"Cameron's changed a lot."

Cuddy gave up on her paperwork, wearily sliding off her glasses and placing them on her desk. "She has a daughter now. I'm sure that's had some kind of effect."

Wilson shrugged. "She's more cautious. That's probably a good thing."

Cuddy stopped, eyeing him sideways. "Oh, come on. You don't really think she would be stupid enough to pursue something with him again, do you?" she demanded hotly.

Wilson folded one leg over the other, smiling sadly. "I don't think she's that self-destructive. But, if he was the one…" he trailed off, shrugging lightly.

Cuddy leant back in her swivel chair, fixing him with a dark look. "He let her go three years ago without a backwards glance. Face it, James; you're fighting a loosing battle. Rehabilitating House is not going to work that way."

Wilson frowned at her choice of words. "Rehabilitation is a bit of an exaggeration, don't you think?"

"He's getting worse", Cuddy said darkly. She looked away, studying a painting overhanging the opposite wall; the one with the flowers and the pots that he always thought vastly out of character for her. "We've both noticed it. Doctors are finding it harder to deal with him, and patients are complaining a hell of a lot more frequently. I'm starting to have to let him off clinic duty because he's upsetting so many people. The only people that can stand to be around him are his team, and he's never going to admit that he likes them."

"Half of them, anyway," Wilson corrected. He remained calm in the face of her diatribe. This was part of their routine, after all. She complained, and he reassured her. And the world moved on its axis again. "I don't know why you keep Hudson around."

Cuddy waved a hand impatiently at his attempts to dissuade her. "He's a brown noser, but I guarantee you he's the only applicant in a twenty-mile radius who could tolerate House."

Wilson eyed Cuddy thoughtfully. He knew they had a trustworthy friendship. They respected each other as colleagues—and as willing sufferers of House's exuberant mood swings. They could be forthright, and she sounded like she had something on her mind that demanded sharing.

"What are you saying, exactly?" he asked slowly.

She sighed deeply, looking immensely troubled. She avoided his gaze, pursing her lips with a grim foreboding. "I'm saying… that House is going to have to go if he doesn't improve", she admitted reluctantly. "The hospital's reputation can't take any more battering."

Wilson stared at her disbelievingly. He felt the innate need to defend his friend. "House is half the reason we have our reputation!"

She twisted her mouth downward, looking more than a little apologetic. "The bad eventually outweighs the good, Wilson."

He scowled, but he couldn't disagree, and that bothered him more than anything else. House's behaviour had been a lot worse lately. Cameron's arrival had momentarily stayed the inevitable, but if it were only a temporary visit, then things would rapidly decline again.

"That's why you put Cameron back in House's department," he guessed shrewdly. "You're buying him time."

She shrugged, remaining quiet. She shifted in her chair, tapping her nails vaguely on her desk. "She seems to be able to get through to him," she conceded at last. "At least sometimes. And face it, we're coming up short on allies."

Wilson glanced down at a stain on her otherwise immaculate carpet, sighing deeply. He couldn't fault her for strategising. He was slightly more concerned with House's emotional welfare than she was, but his professional future would certainly have an impact on that.

"You're giving him a deadline, aren't you?"

She suddenly looked her size behind her formidable desk, and he knew she loathed being in her current position. She was their friend, or at least something resembling that title. But she was also their boss. It didn't make it any easier to hear.

"I'm sorry. I have to give him a month. Two, at most. If he doesn't improve after that… he has to go."

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