Week Eleven: It's Complicated

"I should go see House." Cuddy was talking to Wilson, but it was more as if she was talking to herself. He looked at her and cocked a concerned eyebrow, but didn't say anything, and so she continued. "I should go talk to him. Maybe I can figure out where this all went so wrong."

"Just a guess," Wilson ventured, "It went wrong about the time he drove his car into your living room?"

Cuddy didn't respond to that, but she knew it was right. They'd broken up before that, of course, but all of the second-guessing she had been doing had flown right out the window the moment he had pulled that stunt, the biggest and most damaging temper tantrum she had ever seen him pull, without regard for his or her own safety or any of it. But there was something else lingering there too, something she really didn't want to admit. Something that, if it were framed positively instead of as a character flaw or psychiatric illness, might be admiration. Being weirdly touched that she had hurt him enough for him to go so far. Hadn't she been telling him to show his emotions, to tell her what she felt?

But no, that was crazy. House was crazy – leukemia or not, House wasn't right, and he didn't have any place in her life now that she had a child. She hadn't had time for all of this craziness in the past and why should she have any time for it now? She would look out for him a little and hope that he beat the disease and didn't die, but apart from that, she needed to be done. She'd been charitable enough by not having him thrown in jail for what he'd done.

"Cuddy, maybe you should just take a step back from all of this," Wilson suggested. "I was the one who was rooting for you and House to get together. I thought that it would be good for him but maybe…" He trailed off.

"Maybe…?"

"Maybe I should be the one to go talk to him. I need to find out how he's dealing with this whole… Cameron situation. It's… no doubt made things more complicated." Wilson sighed. Cuddy looked at him, wondering if his stake in the situation had changed because of Cameron. He couldn't actually think that she could be more suitable for House? It would be a disaster for both of them, probably was a disaster already considering that obviously something had happened between them to result in this ill-advised pregnancy.

"Fine," Cuddy replied, picking up a clipboard and pretending to flip through it. "Go talk to him. But I can't put it off forever."

Wilson stood up and started to leave the room, wishing that he could. But House had always ended up being his responsibility in the end. He would never be able to escape it, whether House went to Antigua or Belize or the moon. Whether he lived… or whether he died.

House was in the middle of watching Lip Service on Netflix when his doorbell rang. He had run out of episodes of the L-Word to watch and had gone out looking for similar shows, and had along the way discovered this gem of a Scottish series, with even hotter lesbians.

He found himself pretty deeply invested in whether Cat was going to choose Frankie or Sam, and hoped he would find out before he went off to meet his maker.

Which, he liked to tell himself, he was handling just perfectly well.

House hit pause and stood up from his chair, taking his cane in hand and slowly sauntering over. He hoped it wasn't Cameron knocking at his door, because that wasn't a situation he felt like dealing with right now. It was also a situation that, as long as it wasn't right in front of his face, he could act like it didn't exist. So that's what he had been doing.

Maybe it was Dominika. Maybe they needed to do… something to help keep their green card marriage going. Maybe she'd like some popcorn.

He opened the door and sighed when he saw that Wilson was standing before him.

"Come in," he told his best friend dryly. "There's lesbians on TV."

Wilson rolled his eyes and walked inside.

"Listen House. You've really done it to yourself this time…"

"Oh, yeah. Sorry about the leukemia. I knew that was going to be a bridge too far… I'll have to scale it down next time. Why are you here, Wilson? I can do without a lecture right now… but I know that you're going to give me one anyway. It's your M.O."

Wilson sighed.

"No lectures. Just checking in to see how you're doing. A lot is going on right now, House…"

"No shit." House sat back down on his couch and picked up the remote.

"And you need to figure out how you're going to handle all of it. First of all, this whole situation with Cameron. I don't know exactly how you too got together but now… well, you don't need me to tell you that her being pregnant means that a lot of things are going to change."

"Oh, I know. I need to go out and get plenty of baby bonnets. I'll even set up a registry," House replied sarcastically. Wilson let out an exasperated sigh.

"You are incapable of taking this seriously, aren't you?" he snapped. "This isn't just one of your games or your bets, House! You drove your car into a woman's house and you got another woman pregnant! You're playing with people's lives here!"

"I'm a doctor. I play with people's lives all the time…" House replied with a smirk. "What else is new?"