Week Seventeen: It's Not You, It's Me

Cuddy, in retrospect, probably should have known better than to walk into her office without looking. After all, that was something she'd learned not long after she had hired House – it wasn't a good idea to let your enemy (she still couldn't think of House as her enemy, but that characterization made a certain amount of sense) spot your back, especially if you couldn't spot theirs at the same time.

She still, however, hadn't expected to walk into her office and just see House standing there silently. It was downright creepy.

"House!" She nearly dropped the papers she'd been holding in her hands, and she cursed at herself. Even if she was a little afraid of House now – and she still didn't want to admit she was – she didn't want to show it. There was nothing good that could come from showing her back, showing she was vulnerable. Admitting that there were things she hadn't known or suspected about House when she'd opened herself up to dating him. To caring about him. Hell, to loving him, if she could call it that.

"Cuddy."

Cuddy took a moment to wonder at the fact that he hadn't called her Lisa when they'd started dating. Had that been a sign that something was right there, or that something had been wrong? It had to be that something was wrong because, in normal relationships, in relationships where things are going good, no one drives their car through your front door. Cuddy wasn't stupid. She'd read all the literature on red flags and abusive relationships, hadn't she? But she felt like this was something else. Something outside of the norm, even the norm of the bad.

"What are you doing, House? You should be at home… Resting, or…"

"I should be at home dying, is what you mean," House replied, twirling his cane as if to underscore the point. "Quietly, and out of the way."

"Don't put words in my mouth." Something in Cuddy was rising, as much as she didn't want to take the bait. Somehow, with House, she always ended up taking the bait.

"Well, if I am going to die, isn't a hospital an appropriate place for it? People tend to do that around here."

"Not in your department," Cuddy replied dryly. "You have a pretty good record of saving them."

House made a noise of assent, maybe. He looked around the office.

"Not much has changed since I've been away."

"Planning on ramming your car into this office, too? So you can get a good look at it?"

Cuddy's voice was showing strain, but not fear. She still wondered why no part of her really felt afraid. Or did she? This was House, but this was all the sides of House she had willfully pretended weren't there when she had decided to see if this would work.

"Cuddy, you need to get past it."

"I don't need to get past anything, House. What you need is to get out of my office. Aren't you busy doing something? Dying, as you so helpfully supplied earlier." Cuddy glared at him. She didn't want to feel pity or affection or love. The only thing she wanted to feel was anger. Anger for what he'd done, what he'd put her through, for her own broken heart and the one he'd obviously leave in Cameron. Cameron… that reminded her. "Isn't there someone you're meant to be sleeping with, considering you got her pregnant?"

"That was a fluke," House commented. "Then again, you thought our entire being together was a fluke, which was why you pulled the plug on it."

"Are we really having this conversation?" Cuddy threw her hands up in the air. "Get out of my office, and while you're at it, get out of my life. I could have had you arrested and thrown in jail – which by the way, I've still having people talk my ear off for not doing – you could have gone to prison and you could have lost your license. But I guess I'm a softy."

"I guess you are." House's eyes moved downward, and Cuddy found herself feeling a twinge of regret. If only she had been able to really rely on House, to know that he'd come through for her if she needed it. Then she'd have never had to break up with him, and everything that had gone wrong would be undone. If she had gone back in time… but would she have? Or would she have stayed with Lucas, or no one at all, and just pretended she didn't have any feelings for House at all?

"House," Cuddy began, putting her hands on her hips and letting them dangle there, helplessly. "Listen to me. You need to worry about getting better. You and me… and whatever we are, or what we were – we can worry about that once you're okay again."

House chuckled bitterly.

"You mean, after I die?"

"That sounds a bit like giving up." Cuddy's voice came out harshly than she intended, but she kept on with it. She couldn't think of anything else to do. "You're Greg House. You don't give up. You keep going until you find the answer… Unless, now, you're just a shadow of your former self, in which case, I'm embarrassed for you."

House cocked his head to the side.

"So what you think I need is a peptalk?"

"You need something, all right. But it's something I can't give you, House. You need to figure yourself out." She reached out her hands as if to push him away, but ended up resting them on his shoulders. This was the same man she'd told to feel his feelings, to stop holding everything inside. But was she afraid he'd go to the other extreme? Or that he already had? What was House really capable of, underneath it all? Was she willing to stick around and find out? She could get a job anywhere in the world with her qualifications. She didn't need to stand here and watch him self-destruct.

He walked out without another word, and she found herself watching after him. She could work anywhere else in the world, but nowhere else in the world had House.