Rediscovery

By Ellie

Disclaimer: I don't own House. If I did, Cuddy wouldn't be portrayed as an incompetent doctor most of the time.

A/N1: My 'All In' add on will have to wait. I was so upset at the lack of the piano scene that I forgot to tell my Tivo not to delete the episode so I could re-watch it when I was calmer. So it's going to have to wait until the transcript is up at twiztv.

Chapter 12

Cuddy glanced at the clock on her desk as she attempted to read the reports in front of her. House was due back at work today. He had gotten an extra two days off because of the weather, but the roads were now clear enough for people to get around again. When he had called the previous night, she had told him that she expected him in today. He complained, of course, but she knew that he was starting to get bored at his place.

They had talked every night since she had returned to the hospital. She had been pleasantly surprised when he had called her that first evening. It had been a long day catching up on what had happened while she had been stranded at his place and trying to deal with the possible Mueller fallout, but he had still managed to make her laugh. It had become a nightly ritual. He would call in the early evening hours when she was less likely to be working and would help her unwind from the day.

Cuddy fought the urge to get up and wait for him at the door. It wasn't that she hadn't done it before, but she had always had some hospital related excuse: a patient or a rebuke of some kind. This morning she just wanted to see him. The problem was that she wasn't comfortable expressing that feeling just yet. She consoled herself with the knowledge that once he had discovered what she had done, he would present himself in her office soon enough.

Cuddy repressed a grin as House burst into her office twenty minutes later with an annoyed look on his face.

"You gave Cameron the next four days off?" he asked loudly.

"Dr. Cameron was one of the staff who worked through the blizzard. I'm giving as many of them as I can time off. Cameron - since she works for you - doesn't currently have any patients and your department can function just fine with one less doctor for a few days," she told him calmly.

He looked angrily at her as he opened his vicodin bottle and dry swallowed a couple of pills. "I'm her boss. I'm the one who approves her vacation time."

Cuddy stood up and matched him glare for glare. "I'm the Dean of Medicine of this hospital, and I have the authority to give vacation time to whomever I want. You have two other qualified doctors who can help you with any cases that come up."

House deflated a little. "But they won't open up my mail," he complained.

Cuddy smiled in amusement. "Oh, poor baby," she said sarcastically.

"Fine," House growled as he threw himself into one of her chairs in mock defeat.

She chuckled at his antics as she sat back down and their eyes met. They shared a genuine smile before House looked away.

"So how are things going on the Mueller front?" he asked.

Cuddy sighed. "I'm having lunch with him tomorrow to try and convince him to reconsider. I'm hoping to at least talk him into slowly withdrawing his support so that we can look for alternative funding. I would ask you to apologize, but I'm not going to give you the chance of offending him even more. Just stay out of the way."

"Are you ashamed of me?" he asked.

"Yes, me being ashamed of you is the only possible reason I don't want you anywhere near a huge donor that you've already insulted once."

"Hey! I insulted him to defend your honor," he protested.

Cuddy scoffed. "Whatever. You were just annoyed that he interrupted your little concert."

"He was making a pest of himself to Wilson, to you, and to everyone at this hospital. And you were all letting him get away with it, just because he gives a shitload of money to the place. He shouldn't get special treatment because he's rich."

"Yes, it's not fair that someone gets special treatment, even though he's a jackass, because he has something that this hospital needs," Cuddy replied sarcastically. House made a 'What me?' face and Cuddy repressed the urge to throw her stapler at him before she continued. "This hospital uses his shitload of money to help a lot of people. So if he requires little schmoozing, then so be it."

House opened his mouth to say something, but Cuddy interrupted.

"And no prostitute comments," she said sternly.

House made a disgusted noise as he looked away, but kept his mouth shut.

"I believe that you're scheduled for clinic this morning," she told him.

House raised his head in surprise. "I can't believe that you're going to make me do clinic hours when we've just been reunited."

"Believe it, buster," she told him with a smile.

House found himself, against his will, smiling back. He leaned in closer, his eyes flickering downward to appreciate her low cut top.

"You know you missed me," he told her.

Cuddy chuckled at the attempt to distract her from his clinic duty. "You called every night. I didn't have time to miss you," she said.

"And I suppose that I used my powers of mind control to force you to talk to me every evening."

"Did you miss me?" she asked in a low voice.

"Nah," he replied in an offhand manner. "I didn't need to. I had your thong and bra to keep me company."

Cuddy raised her eyebrow knowingly. "Are you telling me that you can't tell the difference between me and my underwear?"

House, who thoroughly approved of where this conversation was leading, was about to reply when Wilson entered Cuddy's office.

"Cuddy, have you --" he began and then noticed House sitting at her desk. "There you are," he said. "Foreman and Chase are looking for you."

Cuddy looked down and pretended to study some papers as she hid her smile at the murderous look that House was throwing Wilson's way. She watched as House stood up and limped out of her office in uncharacteristic silence as he tossed one more scathing glare at Wilson.

"Wow," Wilson said in shock. "What's got his shorts in a twist?"

Cuddy thought quickly, looking for any excuse other than Wilson's chronic case of bad timing for House's temper. It wasn't that she expected to keep it from him forever. She just didn't want to deal with it at this moment. "Did he tell you about our game of 'Truth or Dare'?" she asked.

Wilson blushed a little. "Yeah, but he wouldn't tell me anything other than your dare to call me," he said quickly.

"I can only imagine what he hinted at," Cuddy griped before continuing. "One of the truths that House discovered was our little conspiracy last year to get him to start seeing patients again. I was reminding him that he had clinic duty this morning when you walked in."

Wilson actually paled a little at Cuddy's revelation. "Oh God. He's going to do something very bad to me, isn't he?" he asked rhetorically.

Cuddy merely raised her eyebrow as she picked up her pen to make some notes in the margin of the paper in front of her.

"Right," Wilson said after a moment. "Well, I'm going to go. You don't think he's had time to set up any booby traps in my office?" he asked without really expecting an answer. He stood and walked towards her office door and then turned around. "I may take you up on that vacation time after all," he said.

"I wouldn't" Cuddy told him. "It would just give him more time to plot against you."

Wilson nodded. "You're right," he said sadly. He walked out of her office like a condemned man. Cuddy chuckled. Watching House and Wilson over the next few days would definitely be amusing.

House bypassed the clinic as he made his way to his office. He was in a sour mood at Wilson interrupting his and Cuddy's 'almost moment' yet again. They really needed to work on some sort of booty call signal. Not that he was going to have Cuddy's booty anytime soon, but Wilson was ruining the booty call setup.

House paused a moment at his office door before entering, a reluctant smile appearing on his face. Chase and Foreman were sitting at the table talking animatedly to each other. He could only guess what they were arguing about this time.

"Hello boys! I'm baa-aack," he said as he opened the door and made his way to the coffeemaker to pour himself a cup.

"How was your vacation?" Foreman tried to ask as nonchalantly as possible. House studied him as he sipped his coffee. He turned to study Chase who was eagerly waiting for a response.

"Fine," he answered slowly. "Why are the two of you so interested in my vacation?" he asked. He hoped that word of Cuddy being at his place hadn't leaked out. He didn't think that she wanted those kinds of rumors floating around as they were in this 'pre-dating/just friends' stage of their relationship.

Foreman and Chase looked at one another a moment before Chase finally answered. "We bet on whether or not you left town for your vacation. Foreman said that you would go someplace like Atlantic City or Vegas to … uh."

"Drown my sorrows in a den of debauchery?" House finished for him.

"Yeah," Chase said, relieved that he hadn't had to say it. "I said that you were too cheap to travel someplace expensive to gamble and drink when you could do all that from the comfort of your home."

He smiled at his staff. He had taught them well. "Foreman, give Chase his money. I've been at home spending time with my friend Jack Daniels and getting caught up in my backlog of porn. It's nice to see that Wilson didn't blab my plans to everyone in the hospital."

Chase smiled triumphantly as he held out his hand to Foreman who passed over several large bills.

"So, do we have any cases?" House asked.

"We've just gotten back ourselves. There's been no time to find a case." Foreman said in an annoyed voice. "Besides, Cameron's not here yet."

"Cameron was here during the crisis," House informed them, "and Cuddy gave her the next four days off as some sort of reward. I guess being a do-gooder had to be good for something eventually. So it's just going to be us for the next few days. I say we do something that we couldn't do if Cameron were here. Anyone up for a showing of 'Debbie Does Dallas' in the office?"

Foreman scoffed. "I'd love to see the look on Cuddy's face if she walked in on you watching porn in the hospital."

House smiled as he remembered Cuddy's face as she threw the books at him when he watched the porn with her at his place. She was very sexy when she was angry.

"So would I," he said with a smirk. Chase and Foreman rolled their eyes at one another.

His phone rang. House's mouth twitched to see Cuddy's extension on the Caller I.D.

"What do you want?" he said cheerfully into the phone.

"I told Wilson that you know about our little conspiracy to get you seeing patients again," she told him without preamble.

"Why?" he asked, confused.

"He wondered why you stormed out of the office in a bad mood, and I didn't want to tell him that he was interrupting our … whatever."

"Again," he said.

"Again," she agreed. "I just thought you should know the cover story."

"I do plan on eventually telling him," House said, choosing his words carefully in front of Chase and Foreman."

"I know," Cuddy replied. "Just give me a day or so to get used to you being here again first."

"You're the boss," he said. House smiled as he thought of Wilson's current predicament. "He's a little nervous, isn't he?" he asked.

"He did mention something about checking his office for booby traps."

"Excellent," he said evilly.

"Aren't you supposed to be in the clinic?" she asked him with a hint of steel in her voice.

"Wilson said that my team was looking for me and I had to find them," he explained in a reasonable tone that he knew would drive her crazy.

"Have you conferred with them?"

"Yes," he said.

"Then get to the clinic."

"How do you know that they don't have a case for me?"

"Because I would know if they had a case for you. Get to the clinic."

"And if I don't?" he asked.

Cuddy laughed throatily. "Then there will be no chance of you ever getting to see the rest of my underwear collection," she told him.

House's imagination was instantly filled with images of Cuddy wearing various lacy things.

"Okay," he said when he could finally speak again. He wanted to say more, but was acutely aware of his audience. He heard Cuddy's triumphant chuckle as he hung up the phone. The next seven weeks were probably going to kill him, he reflected to himself.

House looked up to see both Chase and Foreman staring at him with confused expressions on their faces.

"I really need to find a good sexual harassment lawyer," he said mournfully. "I just don't know how much longer I can stand her threatening me like this." Chase smiled, and Foreman shook his head in exasperation. House grinned as he left his office for the clinic.

He lost his smile as he thought about what the next several weeks were going to be like. He knew … he knew he could get Cuddy to change her mind about the deadline if he really pressed it. And a part of him wanted to change her mind so badly that he could almost taste it. But at the same time he didn't want to do anything that would jeopardize his long-term relationship with her.

He didn't want there to be any regrets when they finally got together. He didn't want her to feel like he had used unfair tactics to get her into bed. He wanted her to choose to be with him without any regrets and without any coercion. And if that meant giving her time to realize that they could have a very successful relationship, then that's what he would do.

He would just have to spend the next couple of months taking cold showers twice a day.

TBC.

A/N2: I was originally going to go straight to eight weeks in the future, but I then I realized that really wouldn't wrap up the story like I wanted to. Don't worry. I'm not going to be spending inordinate amounts of time depicting what happens. Just enough to tie up some loose ends and show how House and Cuddy interact back at work. I think there are probably just two chapters left in the whole story. I don't have any plans for a sequel at this time, but I do have other Huddy stories floating around in my head.

A/N3: Thanks for the wonderful reviews. Remember, they are my drugs of choice.