A/N yeah, this is the hump chapter I think, the one that refuses to write, and you have to force it out, and it winds up so much worse than the ones surrounding it, but now that it's done, the story can improve.

It's funny, how two people who are pointedly avoiding each other wind up drawing more attention to themselves than if they had simply gone about their day when their day normally involves avoiding one another. Wilson had been the first to notice, perhaps because of House's insistence that they not go out for lunch that day, seeing as going out meant that they'd have to walk right past Cuddy's office. Not to mention the way that House was pointedly avoiding anything that could possibly get him in enough trouble to merit a trip to the principals office.

And when Cuddy opted not to come up to chew out House for the six weeks of paperwork that hadn't even been started on, his suspicions were confirmed. They were avoiding each other, and they might as well have been wearing glaring neon signs that said "Ask us about our (lack of) relationship!" But Wilson held his tongue, knowing both of them better than to mention it this early on in the day. No, this was a conversation to be had when walking out to cars in the bitter early December wind.

Which he did, as soon as he saw her making her way outside, fighting off the wind from the impending nor'easter heading their way. "Cuddy!"He called from halfway across the parking lot, and the slow clip-clop of heels on ice paused, if only momentarily.

"What do you want? And if it involves someone whose name is a synonym for abode, I don't want to hear a word about it."

"What the hell happened?"

"None of your business." She had reached her car, and had set her bag down, turning to face him long enough to emphasize her point with a glare.

"You ignored the fact that he hasn't done paperwork in months, that he sent a clinic patient home in tears-"

"He's House, that's what he does. He screws up, acts as though it's never his fault, and leaves other people to clean up after him. And I'm not in the mood to go cleaning up after him right now, it can wait until the urge to wring his scrawny little neck has subsided."

"What did he do now?"

"What doesn't he do? He's House, that's reason enough to want to kill him on a good day."

"He had to do something between yesterday and today-"

"Fine you want to know what he did? He turned a civilized dinner-that was supposed to be about how to stop you from meddling in our personal lives into a fight, because that's exactly what he does. He's not content with leaving well enough alone, he has to push the limits until someone snaps." Wilson had unconciously backed away from the sharp tone in Cuddy's voice, afraid that there would be a resounding slap following her words. Luckily, the diatribe was only followed by the sharp slamming of a car door, and the screech of a car backing out of a spot with slightly more force than was strictly necessary.

Wilson stood there, the snow kicking up around his pants, watching the small luxury car make the hard right onto Princeton-Plainsboro Road, heading in the vague direction of Plainsboro proper-the long way home for her, technically, but it was avoiding the traffic of Route one in rush hour. He sighed, and turned around, walking back inside and up to the fourth floor, stopping not in his office, but in House's.

"Why are you avoiding Cuddy?" He asked House, not even bothering with anything resembling a nicety.

"I'm not avoiding her." House didn't even look up from the gameboy in his lap.

"Yes you are. I heard you took her to dinner last night-" The gameboy landed on the desk with something between a clack and a thud.

"I didn't take her to dinner, and it wasn't dinner, it was a plotting session. On how to stop you from interfering with our lives."

"She said you turned it into a fight." There was a bit of a bitter, humorless chuckle from the other side of the room.

"Of course she did. She tell you that she decided to beer-batter me before tossing me in the deep fryer? You know how hard it is to wash twelve ounces of beer out of your hair?"

"You don't have enough hair to wash out. Besides, you obviously had to have done something to warrant her deciding to pour beer on you."

"I asked her for a beer!" Wilson rolled her eyes. "Besides, she started it. She mentioned she-who-must-not-be-named." Wilson sighed. Of course that would set House off.

"You know you two are both adults. Which means you are capable of talking about how you actually feel about each other."

"And what we feel is a mutual animosity."

"Which is why you kissed her a week ago, why when she was borrowing your office you decided to grope her, and why you pointedly avoid anything to do with her and you going to college together. Right, I'm sure that there's nothing there, and that there never was."

"She dated my drug dealer's roommate. She was the annoying one who was always complaining about us smoking, or drinking, or my raiding the hospital pharmacy and coming back with all sorts of fun goodies. We hated each other then, and we still do now."

"She dated a-" Wilson was trying to wrap his brain around the idea of Cuddy even going anywhere near someone of ill repute. Then again, he had hired House, who was about as ill reputed as they came.

"No, she dated his roommate, there's a difference. I wouldn't buy drugs from anyone that had decided that she was somehow a great idea for a date, I'd be afraid of what they'd try to sell me, because there's no way they'd be in their right mind." Wilson rolled his eyes.

"Right, which is why you keep going after her."

"I do not keep going after her. The only thing she has going for her are her looks, and those go out the window when you turn off the lights."

"Right, of course."

"Don't you have your own life to live? Go find a fourth Mrs. Wilson, and stop bugging me about my love life, which I'm quite happy with at the moment." Wilson ignored the harsh comment, not wanting to show just how much the cut about finding a fourth woman to love and lose hurt.

"Fine, go on, keep being miserable." Wilson threw his hands up in the air, leaving to go to his own office, gears in his brain working overtime-he didn't need a fourth wife, but he counted both House and Cuddy as his friends, and they both deserved a bit of happiness, didn't they? They both deserved someone.