Chapter three: Wednesday
Cuddy woke at 6am every morning. When she accepted the Dean's role at Princeton Plainsboro, she quickly discovered that if she arrived an hour and a half before most of the day staff she had plenty of time to deal with any minor crises that had arisen during the night before anyone came in to bother her. House woke as soon as his pain meds wore off. When her alarm sliced through the soft morning banter of a handful of birds, Cuddy woke almost instantly, snapping off the buzzer before rolling over to check on the man beside her. He was awake, staring at the ceiling glassy eyed.
"Hey." Cuddy looked at him, mild concern filtering through her bleary eyes. House's head rolled on the pillow, eyes slowly meeting her gaze.
"Hey." His reply lifeless, eyes dull in soft light that spread through the room. Cuddy slid out of bed, striding toward the bathroom with the sort of purpose most people are unable to muster at that time of morning. House watched her close the door, moments later he heard running water, he sighed, returning his attention to the ceiling. Cuddy emerged some ten minutes later, wrapped in a towel, opening drawers, selecting undergarments. House propped himself up against the headboard, watching her as she strode into the large, walk-in closet that cut into the far wall. This was familiar. Stacy woke early as well, earlier than he ever did. If he ever found himself awake at the sort of ungodly hour at which she rose he would watch her. After the infarction he hardly slept, but would pretend to as soon as she woke. A flash of black as Cuddy strode back toward the bathroom snapped him out of his thoughts before the obnoxious whine of a hairdryer cut through the morning bird noises. House reached over the side of the bed, fumbling around for his sweatpants. He hooked a finger through the fabric and flicked them up toward where he lay, throwing the bedclothes back. He bent forward, pulling them over his feet and up to his knees before swinging his legs over the side of the bed. House stood slowly, wincing as he pulled his pants up. He grabbed one of his crutches, wedging it firmly under his right arm and limped slowly into the bathroom. He brushed past Cuddy as she dried her hair and propped his crutch against the wall next to the toilet. He lifted the toilet seat up. Cuddy killed the hairdryer.
"Switch it back on." House grumbled. Cuddy shrugged and returned to drying her hair, watching him out of the corner of one eye. He sighed, shoulders relaxed, head tilting backward as he emptied his bladder. Cuddy finished drying her hair and unplugged the dryer, quickly wrapping the cord around the handle and placing it back into the cabinet above the basin. She gathered her hair into a loose ponytail and secured it with a clip, leaning a hip against the basin as House flushed. He began to turn toward the basin.
"Greg." Cuddy nodded at the toilet seat.
"Women." House mumbled, flicking the seat back down.
"Wash your hands." Cuddy chided as she walked out. House rolled his eyes, shifting his crutch from the wall to the side of the basin and turning on the tap.
By the time House wandered into the kitchen, Cuddy was seated at the table, sipping coffee and casually slicing a banana over her muesli. She looked up at him, his movement far from elegant as he leaned on the single crutch, but he still retained a potent physicality, all lean muscle and barely contained anger as he shifted his weight forward, almost daring gravity to take hold and pull him to the floor. Cuddy returned her attention to breakfast, adding a liberal amount of milk to the bowl. She picked up a spoon, poking at the assortment of grains and banana absently before loading the utensil. House reached the table and grabbed the milk carton from in front of her, adjusting the lips of the carton briefly before lifting it to his own.
"Hey!" Cuddy glared at him. "That's mine. Use a glass." He ignored her. Maintaining her irritation, Cuddy watched his throat shift with every gulp.
"Uhhghh." House screwed his face up, dropping the empty carton back onto the table with a hollow thunk. "Low fat."
"Are you being intentionally obnoxious this morning?" Cuddy glared at him, unimpressed. "Or are you normally like this?"
"Generally I'm much worse." House returned her glare. "Toast?"
"On the counter." Cuddy sighed, returning to her muesli. House dragged himself over to the counter, fiddling with the plastic clip that prevented the loaf of bread from escaping the bag. He growled at it in frustration, tearing the bag open in his impatience. He jammed two pieces of bread into the toaster and depressed the lever. He turned to face Cuddy. Having watched the entire incident, she shook her head and finished the last of her cereal. The toast popped, House fished it out of the toaster and limped back to the table, dropping down into the chair next to Cuddy with a grunt.
"Heard of using a plate?" Cuddy watched him, unimpressed.
"Plate?" House crunched on his toast, cocking his head to the side, brow furrowed. "Interesting idea."
Cuddy watched him eat; he leaned back in the chair, toast crumbs collecting in the light hair that dusted his chest.
"I'm going to work." Cuddy stood up, collecting her empty bowl, cup and the milk carton and wandered over to the sink. She returned to the table, standing behind House then lent over his shoulder, brushing the crumbs off his chest. He craned his neck backward to look up at her; her fingers trailed up the length of his neck to grip his chin. Cuddy eyeballed him.
"I swear this is like having a child." She glared down at him. House grinned at her, tempted to blow toast crumbs in her face. He refrained. Cuddy strode back to the bedroom, emerging a few minutes later some three inches taller and made up, carrying her bag. She grabbed House's keys from the table near the front door.
"You're taking my car?" House looked at her incredulously.
"Mine's still at work, remember?" Cuddy replied patiently, she sighed. "Look, stay here, try not to break anything, and be good." Cuddy paused, "and don't go through my stuff."
"Yes Mom." House mumbled through a mouthful of toast. He looked at the clock, 6.45, fantastic.
The days were always harder than the nights, which didn't seem to make sense. He attributed it to the fact that he was barely mobile and essentially useless. His first thought was to start hunting through Cuddy's house for booze, but he figured he owed it to her to at least try to stay sober.
Cuddy arrived home at 7pm, carrying a few bags of groceries. House lay sprawled across her couch nursing a box of Cheerios watching TV, a basket of neatly folded laundry on the coffee table in front of him.
"You did laundry?" Cuddy asked in a state of mild shock.
"Uhuh." House looked up from the TV. "You shopped. We're practically married."
"You hungry?" Cuddy asked, packing eggs and milk into the fridge.
"Yeah," House put the box of cereal onto the coffee table and swung his legs over the edge of the couch. "Whatcha cooking?"
"Steak." Cuddy held up a pair of sirloins trapped between plastic wrap and a styrofoam tray. "Will you eat vegetables?"
"Maybe." House hoisted himself off the couch and limped over to the kitchen table, sitting down heavily.
"Here," Cuddy dropped a handful of potatoes, a peeler and a sheet of newspaper in front of him. "Make yourself useful."
"That's no way to treat a guest." House grumbled. "No wonder you're single."
"Me?" Cuddy looked at him incredulously. "I can't believe anyone would put up with you for five years."
"I'm great in bed." House began to peel a potato. "And I've got that whole tortured genius thing, chicks dig that."
"And modest." Cuddy opened a cupboard, producing a grill plate. She set it on the stove alongside a pot of water. House slowly peeled, placing the potatoes in a neat line along the edge of the newspaper, humming quietly to himself as he worked. Cuddy leant against the sink, arms folded across her chest watching him.
"Why are you keeping me here?" House asked, starting another potato. "Still convinced I'm going to off myself, or do you collect cripples?"
"You're sick." Cuddy replied bluntly.
"So take me to hospital." House offered the logical answer. "There are doctors there…" He paused, tilting his head to watch her. "Or is the hospital the issue here?"
Cuddy looked around, seeking a distraction.
"See I know you don't want a pet…" House returned to his peeling. "A puppy would be way cuter than I am, probably easier to look after." House tidied the pile of potato peelings in the center of the newspaper. "You could take me into your room and take advantage of me in my weakened state, but that practically screams rebound…"
"Do you have a point?" Cuddy snapped, snatching the potato out of his hands along with the others. "Or do you just like hearing the sound of your own voice?"
"See, now the only thing you care about is your career." House leaned back in the chair, arms folded across his chest watching Cuddy as she dropped the potatoes into the pot of now boiling water. "That hospital means everything to you. Which leads me to my point…"
"Wonderful." Cuddy sat down at the table across from him, wrapping the potato peelings up in the newspaper. "Enlighten me."
"I know that you generally don't see patients outside of the odd clinic gig when you're understaffed." House continued. "Yet you're still treating me…"
"We made a mistake, I'm responsible for everything…"
"Ahh!" House's eyes flashed. "See that's the thing, Lisa. It takes a chain of small seemingly insignificant mistakes to cause a crisis. Tell, me which one was yours?"
"Bringing you here." Cuddy growled.
"None of them." House ignored her. "The system fails. Happens all the time, Lisa. Patients die, life goes on, and here we are." House paused. "I am the embodiment of failure in your system. Your hospital."
House watched her carefully. Cuddy shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She stood up and wandered over to the stove, dumping the newspaper into the trash and lighting the coil beneath the grill. She turned back to face him.
"I represent everything that you can't control from your little office." House concluded.
Cuddy threw the pair of steaks onto the grill.
"How do you like your steak?"
"Rare."
They ate in silence; House tearing into his food with a veracity that he found startling. The steak was good, exactly what he needed. Cuddy couldn't look at him. He cleaned his plate with a slice of bread.
"So what happens now?" House looked at her. Cuddy shifted her food around her plate; appetite all but gone. "Am I staying here until you forgive yourself?"
Cuddy sighed, rubbing her forehead.
"Do you remember what you said to me yesterday?" Cuddy asked. "About the scar on your leg?"
House was silent; he stared at his plate.
"That's how I feel when I see you dragging your sorry ass around on your crutches." Cuddy paused, a hint of malice in her voice. "You should have walked out of my hospital, and it tears me apart that you couldn't." Cuddy paused. "Happy now?"
House said nothing. Cuddy stood, collecting both plates and heading over to the sink. She scraped the remainder of dinner into the trash and began to load the dishwasher.
"I know she made you do it." House said quietly.
Cuddy stopped, turning to face him.
"If I hadn't, she just would have found someone who would." Cuddy sighed.
"Look, I know what she's like." House turned in his chair to face her. "It's not your fault, Lisa."
"I wish it were that easy, Greg." Cuddy closed the dishwasher and walked away.
House fished into the pocket of his sweatpants for his Vicodin; down the passage doors slammed and the shower sprang into life. He tapped out a pill, swallowing it dry. He hadn't asked for this.
There was nothing on TV, House flicked between a re-run of last weekend's baseball and some B grade film featuring one of the Baldwins for around half an hour before beginning to cycle endlessly through the channels, silently glad Cuddy had cable. After a five full rotations he found a foreign language film starring a pair of bi-sexual Swedish girls. House had never cared much for blondes; lesbians on the other hand were a different case entirely, and largely more appealing than any member of the Baldwin family. Forty five minutes later he still had no idea what the film was about, but the lesbians had fucked twice; once in a bed, once in a barn full of hay (he had laughed so loudly at how trite it was at the time that his leg hurt), and currently one of the girls was fooling around with some hairy guy; big, round breasts bouncing as she pretended to ride him for the cameras. House sighed, silently thanking the gods for European cinema.
Cuddy sat in bed leafing through staffing reports in preparation for the board meeting scheduled for tomorrow evening. The clinic was understaffed in light of the departure of a pair of research fellows earlier that month. She had been forced to fire a junior Cardiologist earlier that month for writing fake prescriptions and everyone wanted more money in spite of the hospital's limited budget. Sarcastic laughter filtered through from the lounge, Cuddy looked over at the clock, it was getting late. A small part of her wondered what House was watching. The television noise suddenly died, only to be replaced by the sound of heavy footsteps coming down the hall. House stuck his head into the bedroom.
"Is my bag still in the bathroom?" House asked. Cuddy nodded, not looking up from the report she was reading. She waited until she heard the bathroom door close before looking up from the report. It was strange, they had met briefly in Med school and she had known him as this wild, casually brilliant guy. A terrific athlete and utterly fearless when it came to life in general, literally saying whatever flew into his head at any given time. Half of his Professors hated him; all of them secretly envied him. She had always imagined that he would go on to become some great doctor, maybe cure cancer or win a Nobel prize or something, however life experience had taught her that hard work was the source of greatness, brilliance ultimately proved problematic. Over the last few months she had gotten to know him fairly well; still the same man she remembered from all those years ago, but older, more complicated and embittered in the wake of the infarction.
From where Cuddy sat, Stacy leaving him was a blessing in disguise. The woman had gone out of her way to compensate for what she had done, fawning over House like a child, speaking on his behalf and treating him like an invalid. He hardly spoke in her presence and seemed reluctant to look at Stacy or acknowledge her existence. The sheer willpower required in order to maintain that degree of hostility must have been emotionally draining in itself; Cuddy sensed that insofar as House was concerned, silence was far worse than anger. At that moment, the man in question appeared in the doorway, clad only in white jockey shorts that for all intents and purposes seemed to hang too loosely from his lean hips.
"Do you want me to sleep on the couch tonight?" House asked, shifting his weight against the crutch that seemed to have become his constant companion.
"No." Cuddy sighed, shifting over to the far side of the bed. "Last night was kind of… Nice." House limped over to the side of the bed, placing his pill bottle on the nightstand.
"Don't get used to it." He threw the covers back. "I'm not a cuddly guy. That was the morphine." House folded himself carefully into bed. "What's that?" He attempted to look at the papers over her shoulder.
"Board meeting tomorrow night." Cuddy replied. "Just going over some staffing reports."
"Uhuh." House nodded. "So you'll be home late?"
"Yeah." Cuddy continued to read. "Hopefully not too late, but it's not looking good at this stage."
"What's the problem?" House asked, lying down on his side, propping his head up on his arm. "Budget, staffing, legal?"
"Greg, it's a teaching hospital." Cuddy replied thickly. "Those come standard in the problem department."
"Seriously?" House cocked his head to one side. "My last boss told me that I was the sole cause of every budget, staffing and legal problem that he had."
"Why doesn't that surprise me?" Cuddy looked down at him, one eyebrow raised.
"You wanna talk about it?" House offered. "Maybe I can help?"
"Do you want to sue?" Cuddy asked. "I've got this month's summary from legal here, I can just add you on if you like."
"The only person I feel like taking action against doesn't work at your hospital." House rolled onto his back and resumed looking at the ceiling. Cuddy sighed, placing the stack of papers onto her nightstand.
"What were you watching on TV?" Cuddy folded the bedclothes back and slipped under. "Comedy or something?"
"Of sorts." House chuckled, rolling onto his side to face her again. "Foreign language film.
"What sort of foreign language film?" Cuddy asked cautiously.
"A Swedish one." House paused. "Sort of an educational film." He sat up, grabbing his Vicodin off the nightstand.
"Learn anything?" Cuddy asked.
"Nothing I didn't already know." House swallowed and lay back down again. "Thanks for dinner by the way."
"That's okay." Cuddy leant over and switched off the lamp, the room fading into darkness. "I'm just glad you're eating something other than toast."
"It's the Vicodin." House sighed. "Kills your appetite. I'm getting used to it though. Should be better once I get myself another job."
"Have you got any idea about what you're going to do?" Cuddy asked.
"I've always wanted to be a stewardess." House sighed wistfully.
"You're such a dick." Cuddy rolled over to face the window. "Goodnight Greg."
"Fine," House offered fake attitude. "Trample on my dreams."
House couldn't sleep. The pain was bearable but his thoughts troubled him. He gazed over at the clock for the umpteenth time, agitated that only a few minutes had passed since he last checked. If he were at home he'd be drinking, chase a few extra Vicodin with bourbon and wait for it to knock him out. He knew he wouldn't stop at one though. Stacy was still in his house, on his sheets, in his bathroom, the flotsam and jetsam of her previous presence scattered across his home. It wasn't the memory of her that was the problem, it was what she'd done, what she'd done to him; that was the part that stung, the nagging thought that saw him reach for an extra drink in the evening. House shifted in bed, suddenly uncomfortable. Five months ago if he felt like this he would have gone for a run and kept going until his lungs tore at his chest with every breath and his legs threatened to buckle beneath him. Now he had significantly fewer options. He rolled onto his side, watching the rhythmic rise and fall of Cuddy's ribcage as she slept, assuming of course that she was asleep. The creamy top of one bare shoulder seemed to absorb the moonlight that danced in though the light curtains that concealed the window. Cuddy was younger than Stacy by at least five or six years, younger than him as well; the precise figures evaded him, but he assumed she was around 33, 34 at the most. House shifted closer to her, running a finger experimentally down her exposed shoulder. No response. He shifted closer, running his fingertip down her shoulder and over the neatly defined muscles of her upper arm. House moved in behind her until his chest pressed against her back, lightly trailing his fingers up and down her arm.
Cuddy was awake; she had been the entire time, thoughts drifting back to their pre-dinner conversation. The ethical aspect of keeping one of her patients as a pet was beginning to trouble her. She heard him breathing before she felt him lightly caress her arm, gently pressing back against him as he shifted in behind her. She missed this, the last serious relationship she had ended three months before she was appointed Dean. He was an engineer who hadn't enjoyed coming second to her career; it hurt when he left, but her life immediately seemed less complicated without him. House's hand shifted under the sheets, flattening against her stomach and pulling her firmly back against him. He gently nuzzled her ear, deeply inhaling the scent of her hair. Cuddy felt his lips brush the skin just below her ear; a single day of stubble tickling her skin as he gently kissed the side of her neck. She sighed quietly, shifting against him enough to let him know she was interested. His hand drifted from her stomach, down her side, over her hip and down to her knee. House sighed quietly, nibbling on her earlobe as he drew his hand back up the outside of her thigh and underneath her nightgown, flattening his palm against the firm globe of one cheek.
This was interesting. He was hard, Cuddy could feel the firm ridge pressing against her butt; she resisted the urge to slip a hand behind her and size him up, still unsure as to what he planned on doing. She felt his fingers slide under the leg elastic of her panties, following it up and over her hip, then down… Cuddy shifted her leg up and back over his. House dragged his nose down side of her neck, fingers teasing her ever so lightly though the thin cotton of her panties. Cuddy pushed back against him hard, grinding her ass against the terrific ridge in his shorts as he continued to tease. He nipped her earlobe, rocking his hips against her. Cuddy turned around to face him, pushing him onto his back and carefully straddling his hips. House gazed up at her in the moonlight, expression a mixture of sadness and lust, fingertips trailing up and down the outside of her thighs. He gripped her hips; hands travelling firmly up her sides, nightgown gathering at his wrists as he lifted it up and over her head before discarding it. Cuddy leant forward, hard nipples skating across his chest, feeling fingertips traversing the length of her spine as he captured her lips in his.
House gripped her torso, hands splayed across ribs as they felt each other out. Cuddy gasped into his mouth, unprepared for the intensity of his kiss, tongue silky and deliberate in her mouth. Despite his position, House exercised a frightening degree of control, every motion cool, concentrated and executed with an acute sense of how and where he wanted to touch her. He pulled Cuddy forward, lifting her chest up toward his face, dragging his open mouth across the soft swell of one breast before greedily suckling on a nipple. Cuddy's fingers wound through his hair as he continued to lavish attention on her breasts eliciting a series of soft moans as he went. House shifted her weight back to his lap, locking her into deep, purposeful kiss. Cuddy broke away, desperate to kiss the glorious expanse of throat she had been silently admiring for the last day or so. She had barely planted a single kiss beneath his jaw when she felt a hand roughly tangle though her hair.
"Don't." He growled, throat vibrating beneath her lips as he lifted her head.
"Wha..?" House cut her words off with his mouth, hands leaving her head to tug at the sides of her panties. Suddenly things weren't happening fast enough for House. He didn't want her to touch him. Gripping the sides of her panties, he yanked them outward, the impatient growl of tearing fabric momentarily over-riding the gentle wet sounds of their kissing. House discarded the offending garment, deliberately running his thumb down the length of her cleft and pushing it briefly inside her, then back up to circle the firm nub of flesh at the apex of her folds. Cuddy broke their kiss, sitting up to grind against his palm, noticing the vaguely satisfied smile that tickled his features in the dim moonlight as he watched her move. She reached down beneath her, fingers sliding under the thick elastic at the top of his shorts; Cuddy's eyes met his.
"Greg?" She whispered thickly, wishing she didn't sound as desperate as she had. He nodded, lifting his hips off the mattress just enough for Cuddy to reach underneath her and pull them half way down his thighs. She twisted, arms disappearing under blankets to push them down his shins, while House silently admired the sleek curve of her torso in the moonlight, still rubbing her gently while he waited. Cuddy turned back to face him, his hands shifted to grip her hips, erection lying flush against his abdomen.
"You safe?" House rasped as she ground against him, coating him with her own slick heat.
"Mmmhmm." Cuddy nodded, fingers circling his thick shaft, angling it toward her, his head pressing lightly against her hot flesh. Teasing, she swivelled her hips quickly before sinking down onto him in a single motion, gasping as she adjusted to his girth. His eyes widened, breath escaping from between his lips with a hiss as warmth enveloped him.
"Fuck, you're tight!" House breathed, smoothing a palm up and down the length of her side as she slowly began to ride him. Satisfied that he could match her rhythm, House gently thrust up at her, admiring the sensuous ripple of muscle in the moonlight as she moved above him. They moved together slowly, deliberately; House reached up, running his thumb across her lips, which she quickly took into her mouth, tongue trailing along the underside. He groaned in sensory overload, slowly withdrawing his thumb and dropping it down between them to tease her again, a single hand guiding her hips as they moved. Cuddy's breathing quickened above him, she rode him harder, gripping him tightly. House grit his teeth, looking away as she fucked him, desperately wanting to thrust up hard into her but uncertain of his ability to maintain the rhythm. Above him she groaned, sinking down deeper, he squirmed, furious at his own incapacity, fingers tightening around her hip; thumb pressing harder as he rubbed her.
"Oh god…" Cuddy moaned, breathing ragged as a wave of pleasure swept down through her. "Greg…" He felt her tighten around him.
House stopped rubbing, gripping her hips tightly, fingers digging into her flesh as he thrust up into her hard, hips lifting off the bed. He was close. He thrust again, deeply. Cuddy moved with him, riding out the last waves of her own climax. Three more deep thrusts and he came hard, pulling her down against him swearing and hoarsely calling her name. Cuddy groaned above him, eyes squeezed shut as he throbbed inside her, satisfied in the knowledge that she'd never felt quite so full in her life. She collapsed onto his heaving chest as he lay there panting, drenched with sweat, slowly wilting inside her.
"God that was good." Cuddy whispered. He offered no reply, hands slipping from her hips. Cuddy sat up, climbing off him, his half-flaccid penis sliding across her thigh. "Your leg?"
"Baaaad." He groaned, fumbling for his Vicodin on the nightstand. Cuddy reached across him and plucked the bottle from out of his grasp, uncapping it and slipping one into his mouth. House blinked; mouth twisting as he desperately tried to generate enough saliva to swallow the pill. "Thanks"
"Greg?" Cuddy propped herself up on her elbow, looking down at him and the tragic mixture of pain and resignation that clouded his eyes. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah." He rolled over to face the wall.
Cuddy flopped onto her back, sighing. At least he'd sleep; though she doubted she would.