Author's Note: (drags self from invisible grave) No, I am not dead. So, first off, I'd like to thank everyone for waiting patiently for the update. It's been over two months since the last one, and the only reason I have to justify the delay is my sudden creative stroke (extreme excess of, and I hate to say this, "unneeded" creativity that blocks what I need to write this, and other, stories). Okay, enough about that; onto the great reviews. Thank you to: Gomes (I hope this helps you overcome your mental block; you're a great reviewer/writer/artist/actress/shipping advocate, and I respect you for it), Chromo26 (well, I want to apologize for not helping you escape any classes for over two months but thank you for the great review), Scrubs (man, did I miss your reviews; they inspired and guided me and made me feel all the more guilty when I couldn't update), Little Lunar Wolf (short and sweet is the key, and your review made my day), lemonjelly (Jade, I'd like to say now that you, along with others, inspire me to write and continue writing; your poetic lines melt into my soul like green paint into yellow paint to make blue, which reminds me: love Joni Mitchell!), MutantJediBauer (don't worry; I gave up that idea, but maybe I'll do a "Land of Lost Writers" award for myself), qt roo (hey, you're review was great, and yeah, fan fiction does that to me sometimes; still, I'm glad you got your review through), (I have a lot of people say that, and I think that I do lighten up in the later chapters, but maybe not; I'm just a metaphor fanatic, I guess), and, even though her review was not sent the normal way, I'd like to thank the lovely lijep for sending me a review through private messaging. It was very touching, and I really do appreciate it; plus, some of the wonderful fanfiction I read from you during my creative stroke was inspiring.

Disclaimer: I will own House when I eat meat. :)

Spoilers: I spent the longest time writing this, and I can definitely say that the spoiler count is a zero.

Note: I know that House and Cuddy are out-of-character, but I actually like it. I'm going to guess that some of you won't, and that's fine. Just tell me what you think and I'll be happy. And a warning this time: I don't know when the next chapter will be up, but I hope it will be soon. Wish me luck if you want, but, for now, enjoy!


Chapter Eleven: Beautiful Imperfection

Stability and balance are key when walking upon the fine line of revealing information. Letting your true feelings slip out could surely lead to utter abomination.

Skin, eyes, hair. They were all hit by a steady stream of water that flowed from the shower head. Water that touched her skin and fell down, down onto the floor where it was devoured by the drain in all its glory.

The shower was her place of release, a place where all the contained sexual tension was liberated. Those few but precious minutes where everything stored over an indeterminate amount of time was released. Every bit of tension caused by House.

Some days, it might have been helpful to look forward on their relationship, but then she would only fall back into the past. Look ahead and fall behind, look behind and fall ahead. Maybe if she looked back and learned from her mistakes, the future would hold many unexpected gifts.

Of course, the only unexpected gift she had received from a relationship with him was a pregnancy. And how amazing, she thought, that she had progressed this far. Seven months since that day, that beautiful day, that memorable day, that lovely day.

That day she secretly loved. But today was a better day, for she realized something that she had been blind to for so long, a question that she held dear in her heart but never in her mind:

Why was it that every woman, or almost every woman, carried the fate of the world on her hips?

If woman were treated as objects at times by various men, then why were they obligated to carry the fate of the world on their bodies? Their abdomens, their hips? Without them, populations would be non-existent, and men would not be.

Then again, it wasn't as though they could do it all by themselves.

But, of course, all men had to do was simply aid the women. They sat back and watched the growth and the life with simple and apathetic eyes. That was, unless that one of those men happened to be House.

Yes, she knew about him and his secret love for this child, or, rather, she had naturally assumed that it existed and was correct. But why? What caused an indifferent man to become a creature of admiration of fragile life? As she saw it, his mind was like an atom.

On the outer part, over the patterned surface, it was like the energy levels that held the electrons. And those electrons were the negative thoughts that sped across the path of everything positive that tried to break through the surface. And everything positive, or everything not created by misery, was confined in the center of his mind, the nucleus. And, at times, when he was the on the brink of releasing his true feelings to her, he became unstable, and it was because all those thoughts contained were trying to escape as the atom of his mind was about to explode. If were to explode, he would become a different and more enlightened person.

No matter though, for he hated change and it would most likely never happen, anyway, not even in his wildest dreams.

But it could happen in hers.

And with that, an idea slowly began to form in her mind.


"You want me to what…?"

"I want you to come over. And it might help if you did it without complaining."

"Cuddy, as much as I admire your bed, I am not coming over. I happen to be busy."

"I'm sure the hooker you hired will understand."

"How do you know that I'm not working?"

"Because I know you too well. If you were to ever do something remotely related to work outside of the hospital, I would kill myself."

"Okay then. I'll go pick up my stethoscope and you go get your gun."

"Ha, you're such a comedian. House, please, I'm asking you. Just one night."

"Why?"

"Why must I explain this to you? I thought you would have figured that out by now."

"Because you're a lonely, hormonal, and, to my despair, pregnant doctor who just needs a friend? Yeah, I figured."

Just a friend, she thought, didn't even capture the gist of what she was planning, but she digressed, unwilling to delay any longer.

"Let's go with that. See you at eight."

"Hey, I never said –"

But he stopped abruptly as he heard a click from the other end of the line.

"Women," he grumbled.


Standing on her doorstep, he knocked one, two, three times, as custom, and started indifferently at the door.

But, when the door opened, that look was changed entirely.

"He—… "

He didn't even have time to finish his greeting before she grabbed him and, to his secret pleasure, kissed him, roughly, upon the lips.

"Cuddy," he managed to mumble into her lips moving wildly against his own. And she broke the kiss, looking at him with an untamed passion burning in her eyes.

Black flower on fire. Gentle bombs in the green valley. Sweet chaos in Heaven.

"House?"

"Mm…?" he hummed softly into the pillow while trying to simultaneously inhale some much-needed oxygen.

"Aren't you going to ask me why I did what I did? Why I just all of a sudden called you over and dragged you into my bed?"

"No, because I wanted to ask you why you thought I didn't try to fight you when you did."

"You don't like to question, so why start now?"

"Good point. Maybe we should just say that your lack of sex in the past few months besides in your dreams finally drove you to the point of desperation, although you really don't need much help getting there anyway."

"You don't have to smoke after sex; you just have vent out pent up sarcasm. Personally, I'd prefer the smell of cigarettes over the tenuous attempt at trying to be sardonic."

"Do you realize what an amazing couple we make? We're more dysfunctional than the Tudor family."

"Yeah, well, you don't have to worry about beheading me for not giving you a son…"

He elevated his head slightly from the pillow and began to turn his whole body around towards her. "How do you…?"

"I made another appointment to find out the sex. I have the photos."

"And you actually look at these photos?"

"Yes."

Her voice became softer, more fragile like bones made from fine china, and it shook slightly. For the entire time she had turned her head towards the wall opposite the bed, but now she look straight at him, her eyes lit with a glimmer of happiness.

"Hold on, do you have a tape recorder? I need to capture this moment forever and name it 'Proof of Cuddy's Heart: The Day the Monster Became a Man'."

The glimmer left and she glared fiercely at him; to think she thought that he had let his guard down!

"House, you can leave now if you'd like. Besides, I need to go to the bathroom, and it takes pregnant monsters longer to go than you would think. Then again, at least I can go; it must be pretty hard on you not having the balls you need to pee."

Her voice was a knife of ice, and with that she wrapped a robe around her body and walked towards the bathroom.

"I might not have the balls, but I proved to you seven months ago and just now that the other half of my package makes up for the loss," he yelled to her back as she left. But he knew it made no difference as he heard a door shut loudly down the hall.

Their relationship, he thought as he pulled his clothes on his body, was a beautiful imperfection. It was based upon schadenfreude, the deriving of one's pleasure through another's pain. They would have their walls down low enough to touch the bowels of the Earth, and then one of them, usually him, would attack, causing the other's wall to rise once more swiftly. It was a reflex, the rising of the wall, just as a person will hold a hand over their heart once they are shot. It will continue to bleed, yes, but it serves as a placebo: they believe the hand will help the body from leaking more blood than it would without the hand. They believe the wall will protect them faithfully forever more. But it doesn't. It just bleeds and bleeds and bleeds until it cannot bleed anymore. But it doesn't. It just covers the emotion hastily once more until the wall is let down and risen once more.

Luckily, for him, one thing would help him keep the relationship alive: the baby.

"Thanks," he whispered into the darkness before he left.

And, from inside the bathroom, she felt a hand lightly press against her abdomen.


Author's Note: In case you have forgotten: read and review as you wish, and constructive criticism is always welcome. Thanks!