A/N: Thanks all for reading. This is an idea that popped into my head while IMing my pal Mixy. She suggested I write a story around it, and, well, here it is.

RE: Medical Information

None of the medicine in this story is going to be accurate. I did surface research and am using real medical terms when I can because what I try to make up doesn't sound good at all, but this is in no way a story about the illnesses or syptoms of the patient. It's meant to be a twisted love story about Huddy, so that's where my real focus is. I just threw in some medical stuff to add atmosphere. Please don't be too disappointed in me.

CHAPTER FOUR

House rushed down the hallway, looking over his shoulder just once. He could see her standing in the doorway, watching him. He could feel the angry confusion wrapped around her like a warm blanket. It was a feeling he had given her often. It held a comforting familiarity that let them both know that things would go back to the way they were, eventually.

"What are you doing?" House burst into Wilson's office without a knock or a hello. It was his standard form of entry into the domain of his closest friend.

"I'm with a patient." Wilson glanced over at the pale young man on the couch.

"Sorry," House blurted without meaning it. "I need you." He waited for Wilson to get up. When the man didn't he added with urgency, "NOW!"

"Will you excuse me?" Wilson smiled apologetically to his patient and followed House out onto the balcony between their offices.

"She's in my office." House said a bit louder than necessary.

Wilson rolled his eyes as he tried to leave. He was stopped by House's tight grip on his arm. "You moved all her things in there House. Where do you expect her to be?"

"I expected her to throw a fit. Then I was going to negotiate with her; then she was going to move back into her office."

"What about the fire ants?" Wilson smirked. House had some pretty outlandish ideas in his day, but this one was quite elaborate and highly amusing.

"There aren't actual fire ants in her office Wilson. I made that part up." House's voice was quieter now, as if he were trying to hide something from prying ears.

"So, tell her that and she'll move back." Wilson was growing more impatient with each syllable.

"No she won't. She'll stay, just to annoy me." House knew her well.

"So, why are you telling me all this?" Wilson wanted to go in. It was chilly and he'd left his coat in his nice warm office, with the dying patient he was supposed to be comforting.

"You're my friend. Friends share their problems."

"You certainly do." Wilson sighed. "There's nothing I can do House. You started this, you have to finish it. Propose to her. That'll send her running."

"You're no help." House huffed, hoping to manipulate Wilson into talking to him through guilt.

"Sorry," Wilson said without a hint of remorse in his voice. He was only sorry he hadn't locked the door on House when he had the chance.

He finally broke free from House's grip and made his way back into his office quickly. With the skill of a man who'd been in this position before, he quickly locked the sliding glass door that separated his office from the chilly outdoor balcony. House would bang on the glass, but he'd eventually give up. Wilson motioned Pete to come sit with him at the desk. It was farther away from the door than the couch was, and with any luck, House's voice would be muffled by the short distance.

Cuddy could hear voices through the glass door that lead to the balcony House had requisitioned a few years back. She shook her head as she remembered holding the requisition with an almost perfect copy of her signature. She wondered how long it had taken House to perfect it. A doctor's signature was usually rather hard to decipher which surprisingly made it harder to duplicate. She imagined House up nights, hunched over a piece of her trash practicing her name over and over until he'd gotten it just right. She should be mad that one of her employees would forge her signature on official hospital documents, and if it were any other doctor, she would be furious, but she felt she understood House, and this understanding led her to be more lenient with him than she probably should have been.

Still, it had been harmless enough. She took the money for the construction out of House's budget, so no other department was hurt by the renovations, and she got a few extra clinic hours out of House as payment. She'd considered it a victory all around.

She walked over quietly and put her ear to the door. She was sure they were talking about her, and she couldn't pass up such an opportunity.

He wanted her to leave. She pondered that as she returned to her desk. Until just a few seconds ago, she wanted to leave too, but now…

"You're still here?" House said as he pushed his way back into the room through the door she'd just been pressed against.

"And I'm staying." It was decided, whether she liked it or not. At least he wouldn't like it.

"No you're not." House's face fell. A sudden look of panic flashed across the deep lines of his face. For just a moment he'd lost control.

"I like this office." She casually walked around the desks, her hand gliding across the smooth surfaces of each. "It's a good location, the ladies room is right across the hall, a little redecorating would open up the room …it's even got a balcony."

"You'd better be careful or someone might push you off it." House was NOT happy. This wasn't how this was supposed to go.

She smiled that smug little triumphant smile he hated. He wanted to smack it off her face. No, that's not what he wanted to do. He wanted to kiss it off her face, to lick it slowly off her sweet, salty flesh as he devoured every hint of smugness from her soft, silken lips and…he shook the thought out of his head.

Ever since that damned kiss, that sweet, blissful, cursed kiss he couldn't get her off his mind. And now here she was, in his office for god knew how long, teasing him by simply being. Oh, if she knew what her mere presence was doing to him…no, he couldn't let that happen. There was no way he was going to admit her being there was having any effect on him at all.

"Hope you like music." House petulantly flipped on his iPod, choosing the most obnoxious thing he could find, which happened to be Marilyn Manson's greatest hits. That would surely send her screaming out into the night.

Cuddy winced as the first curse flew out of Manson's demonic throat. Then she smiled and said she didn't want House to change his routine just because she was there.

"I'm glad to hear you say that," House replied, propping his feet up on his desk, which pushed some of his papers onto her desk, which was his intention. He also cranked up the speakers and began playing air guitar to the song he'd only listened to once before. The CD had been a gift from a patient and he'd loaded it onto his iPod for just such an occasion, to bug the hell out of whoever happened to be around.

Cuddy shut her eyes tightly for a moment, and practiced her yoga breathing. She had been working on centering herself and staying calm. She thought it would be a good thing to be able to do when she became a mother, back when she was foolish enough to think she would become a mother. Her mind flashed back to the birth of her almost daughter Joy. She could practically feel Joy's tiny hand wrap around her finger.

She didn't notice House watching her, but he was staring intently. There was such sadness in her shut eyes, the small smile that raised the corners of her lips while her brow remained bitterly furrowed. He knew exactly what she was thinking about.

It hadn't been long, only a few weeks, since she lost the baby. Joy hadn't died, thought it might have been easier that way. Instead her birth mother had decided to keep her and destroy Cuddy's dreams of motherhood once more.

House knew he shouldn't be glad his friend hadn't gotten the baby she'd dreamed of for so long, but he was. He wasn't ready for Cuddy to have a child. He wasn't ready to share her, not with the parade of boyfriends he'd chased off through the years and not with a child, with whom he knew he could never compete.

And he still didn't know why he'd kissed her.

Maybe it was his way of showing her she wasn't alone, that she didn't need some baby in her life to feel like she meant something to someone. She meant something to him, and if he were a better man, a braver man perhaps, he would tell her that, but he couldn't. He couldn't open himself up like that. Not to her, not to anyone. He'd done it once and had his life shattered. This time the stakes were too high. If he lost Cuddy he wouldn't just loose a lover, he'd lose a 20 year friendship. It was too rare a gift for him to throw away in the pursuit of love…no, not love. He wouldn't allow himself to think of it as love. It was sex he wanted pure and simple, and he couldn't lose his friend over another one night stand.

Cuddy had opened her eyes again and was holding them wide, trying to fight back the tears that threatened to escape as soon as she blinked. She looked down, doing that nervous fidgeting he found particularly adorable. She put her hand to her head. He knew this was to hide the tear that had finally escaped.

For just a moment he thought of turning the music off, perhaps leaving her alone for a while, but he didn't. He couldn't. Instead he started to hum to the music.

Cuddy reached over and yanked the speakers out of the wall. "I lied. I hate music!" She loved music. In college she used to go down to the student lounge to listen to House play piano. It was the only one he had access to, being a poor, deeply in debt intern and student advisor (a condition of his acceptance at Michigan, after having been expelled from Hopkins). He played beautifully, with such pathos and intensity. That, was music, Marilyn Manson screeching about guns wasn't.

"I hate silence." House pouted, struggling to push the plug back into the socket without actually getting out of his chair. His attempts, though unsuccessful, brought a small smile to Cuddy's face. Especially after the second time he banged his head on the bottom of his desk.

"Give it to me!" She held out her slender hand and took the plug he placed in it. Then she vanished under the desk and set to work restoring his music.

House never really thought of himself as a particularly lucky man. He'd suffered an Infarction that nearly cost him his leg, he lost his girlfriend, his father was a miserable bastard who hated the constant reminder of his wife's infidelity that he not so affectionately called Greg. All in all, he was not a lucky guy, but sometimes luck smiled on him in small, but satisfying ways.

Cuddy was just climbing out from under their joined desks when 13 walked in without knocking. She knew knocking wouldn't work with House. He'd just ignore it. As soon as House saw her surprised face he grinned from ear to ear.

"Dr. Cuddy?" Remy Hadley stopped dead in her tracks, looking with distain at the head of the hospital, who was now crawling out from under House's desk.

"Dr. Hadley," Cuddy replied with equal distain, though she was starting to blush just a little. She knew how this looked, her crawling ass first out from under House's desk where House was sitting looking far too pleased with himself. Protesting her innocence would only make her look guilty of something, so she simply straightened her skirt and sat at her desk.

"Sorry to interrupt but I just wanted to let you know," she couldn't stop glancing over at Cuddy. "Carly is showing signs of improvement."

"That's disappointing." House frowned.

"Disappointing? Your patient is getting better House. Most doctors find that to be a good sign." Hadley wasn't sure what she'd expected from him, but disappointment wasn't it.

"There's a good reason I'm disappointed. What do you think that is?" He was showing off, showing Cuddy what a good teacher he was. He was trying to impress her, and it was a move not lost on his young employee.

"Because you're a heartless bastard," she snapped, trying to deflate his balloon.

"That's just my clever cover story. The real reason is that if she's getting better without having been diagnosed then we're not going to be able to figure out what was wrong with her?"

"Maybe nothing was wrong with her," Hadley snapped back.

"Right, she was just bored and decided to head out to the emergency room for a little fun."

"Her parents were worried because she hadn't spoken in days. You yourself said it was just teenage angst." Hadley was in a mood to disagree with anything he said. If he'd told her she was a good doctor she would have pointed out all her faults, so spoiling was she for a fight.

"And you listened to me?" Why did they always listen to him when he didn't want them to?

"You're my boss," Hadley snapped back argumentatively.

"She's my boss," House pointed his cane toward Cuddy who was listening intently, "but I don't listen to her."

"That's her problem." Hadley answered recklessly, not caring about the wrath of her boss's boss. Cuddy's eyebrow arched, but other than that she showed no signs of reaction. House noticed; Hadley didn't. "Are you suggesting we make the patient sick so you have something to play with?"

"I'm suggesting you go do your job." House wasn't in the mood, not now. He had already diagnosed Carly Peterson. He was just waiting to see how long it took the Idiots 2.0 to figure it out. He realized that giving Carly the thiamine treatment would throw off any diagnosis they tried to make, but as doctors they should be able to figure out that he'd been giving it to her. He wrote it on the chart, far in the back, in very small writing, but it was there.

After a bit more arguing, Hadley left in a huff, determined to prove that she was right and he was wrong.

"House," Cuddy was about to chastise him once again for his deficiencies as a human being.

"The patient is fine. She's already being treated for Wernicke's encephalopathy."

"But?" Cuddy looked confused.

"Shhhh," House pressed his finger to his lips. "I want to see how long it takes them to figure out their patient has already been cured."

"You can't do that House. If she's better, we have to release her." Cuddy didn't want to know what House was up to. Her job was easier when she didn't know these things. Being here, working beside him, she was going to know every illegal, unethical move he made. The feeling that this might be a good thing quickly slipped away from her and she wondered how long it was going to take Frank to find her a new office.

"I might have gotten the diagnosis wrong. It's better if we keep her here for a few more days." He smiled at her. "Give the kids a chance. They might find something I didn't. Kutner did mention that cyst."

Cuddy sighed heavily. He was right. There was a cyst and the rash and Wernicke's didn't explain either of them. "Patient care is not a game House."

"Of course it's not." He smiled. "This," he wiggled his finger between them, "is a game. Patient care is very serious business."