27.

He leaned on the intercom button, knowing exactly how welcome the noise would be racketing through Wilson's apartment before seven am.

"Yes?"

Wilson sounded bright and cheerful. House smiled to himself. "Testicle Collection Agency, we're here to pick up your unwanted goods."

There was only the slightest of pauses. "Good morning, House. Come on up."

The door buzzed and he reached for it.

A short elevator ride later, he was outside Wilson's apartment, Wilson at the threshold waiting for him. "You haven't gotten 'AM' and 'PM' confused again, have you? You do realise it's six-thirty in the morning."

"Your monumental case of bedhead tells me all I need to know. What's for breakfast? I'm starving."

Wilson opened his mouth, and closed it again.

Then he reached for his coat, hanging up by the door.

"I cook enough for you, we're going out." He took two steps into the hall, stopped, and went back inside. "Just... let me get dressed."

He had his food, he had his coffee - it wasn't great coffee, but it was brown and caffeinated - and he was happy. Well, content anyway. He'd be even more content if Wilson didn't keep shooting him those looks with absolutely zero subtlety.

Determined to ignore it, he ate a syrup-smothered strawberry, washed it down with coffee, ignored Wilson some more, looked around for the waitress because he needed a refill, and that was when his little cone of silence was rudely shattered.

"Okay," Wilson said with a huge sigh, "Whatever it is just... spit it out."

"What?" He feigned innocence around a mouthful of waffle.

"There's obviously something. You're brooding so hard you haven't even tried to steal any of my food."

He swallowed. Much as he didn't want to talk about this, it was partly Wilson's fault, he remembered, suddenly feeling the urge to share.

"Cuddy," he said, "Thinks I don't really want her. She used to think I did, and it's not like I wasn't perfectly willing to sleep with her before - now, not so much. Want to know exactly how and why this is your fault?"

Wilson nodded, as if everything suddenly made perfect sense. It was irritating.

"So you told her how you feel, and it didn't go well," he said.

"I did what you suggested - that was my first mistake. And then I insulted her intelligence. It went downhill from there."

"Smooth."

"I've always been a hit with the ladies. Cuddy thinks I don't want her, Cameron meanwhile has decided she doesn't want me - they should hook up with Stacy, who did want me as long as I didn't want her back. The three of them can form the We Hate House Club and stick pins in the eyes of little me-shaped voodoo dolls."

"You really think it's the eyes they'd focus on?" Wilson responded mildly.

He reached over and grabbed Wilson's entire serving of bacon off his plate. "You aren't supposed to eat this stuff. Your people frown on it."

"You want my advice?" Wilson said, and then ploughed ahead before House could say 'hell no'. "Forget Cameron, seriously forget Stacy. Stop being you for five minutes, and while you're at it, stop treating Cuddy as if she's Cuddy."

"Please tell me I should be treating her like a naughty schoolgirl, I could definitely get behind that. Ooh, or a harem girl. Or maybe one of those chicks from Cirque du Soleil who can bend their knees behind their -"

"In this case she isn't Cuddy," Wilson went on, apparently unaware House was still speaking, "She's just a woman, like any other woman."

He stopped rhapsodising about the wonders of very bendy women to ask, "Is that the same kind of woman you've destroyed three marriages with?"

"Before I lost them I actually managed to get them," Wilson pointed out. Which was actually a good point, not that House was going to admit it. "You want her, you're going to have to suck it up and tell her what she wants to hear - that you'll be there for her, that you want to make a commitment... Throw in those three little words and you'll be picking out china patterns in no time."

"I've never felt more sorry for the future fourth Mrs Wilson than I do right now."

"I'm telling you to be a man."

"The dangly bits between my legs say I'm already one of those."

"And now you just have to act like it."

"Hit her over the head with my cane and drag her back to my cave?"

"Stop whining, step up, and take some responsibility."

"My way's more fun."

He smirked as Wilson rolled his eyes and muttered something about Cuddy being the one they should feel sorry for.

"Cuddy," he scoffed. "Where's my sympathy? She's only doing this to be annoying. Because she's annoying."

"Women are annoying," Wilson agreed. "Why is that? Because they have what we want?"

"Because they should be the answer to all our problems but they usually aren't."

"Of course, it makes sense when you put it like that."

Wilson held up his cup for the waitress who finally arrived with their refills. House went back to work on his waffles. They were cold now, of course, and he sent a grim look Wilson's way for that.

"'Annoyed' was his mood of choice this morning - partly Wilson's fault, yes, for encouraging the situation, but mostly, it was Cuddy's.

Just for being her.

He couldn't seem to reclaim any sense of normalcy. He wanted his life back, his crappy TV shows and his vicodin and his work, but he was distracted. He'd known her half his life and suddenly she was everywhere - Wilson always wanted to talk about her and his parents were crazy about her and even when he escaped her hospital he couldn't stop thinking about her, which led to him doing idiotic things like leaving flowers on her doorstep on the off chance it might increase the likelihood of him getting to sleep with her again.

And of course it wasn't just her - no, it was them. Cuddy and her impending plus one. They were a package deal, an instant family, and on the surface it was all so very normal. There was nothing particularly out of the ordinary about this situation, people had babies and formed families every day, and yet it was something that had always seemed out of reach for him. Something he never thought he'd have, or be able to hold onto if he did.

Maybe she was right about that. He didn't really care.

It took Cuddy longer than it should have to answer. He pictured her looking at her phone, the creasing of her forehead when his number appeared on the screen.

"House, what is it?" she said without preamble when she finally answered. Her voice, he noticed, was harried. She sounded out of breath.

"You're either in labour or having sex - either way, I'm so glad I called."

"I'm not - I'm out jogging. Do you need something?"

She'd stopped moving now, he could tell, and by her apprehensive tone she was hoping he had some dire medical issue to badger her about. It was almost a shame not to oblige her, he did so like to badger her, but...

"You can't do it," he told her, keeping his tone light and conversational. "You can't divide your life up into neat little boxes marked 'personal' and 'professional' and expect everything to fit. Things overflow. They get messy. Your neat, ordered little world will dissolve into chaos, and you won't be able to stop it."

There were a few more heavy exhalations on the other end of the line before she replied. "As long as it's my responsibility to keep you employed and make sure the hospital is running smoothly, I'm going to try anyway."

"It's not what you want."

"We all make sacrifices."

"Oh now you know platitudes will get you everywhere."

"I just meant -"

He didn't let her get more than a few words out. "You just meant this is your decision so butt out; I just meant this conversation would have been a lot more interesting if you'd been having sex."

He hung up, not at all dissatisfied with the abrupt end to the call, though he imagined she was. He'd gotten what he was after.

Beside him, Wilson was dividing his attention between watching the road and staring at him incredulously.

"Please tell me that wasn't an improvement on the other call." He sighed when there was no response. "Well, some people are just no good at talking on the phone. Or at all."

House, though, was smiling. "It's not what she wants," he said.

"You being rude and abrasive, that's what she wants."

Settling back in the seat and relaxing for the first time, it felt like, since last night, he rolled his head in Wilson's direction and said, "Guess I'm in luck, then."

He'd just regained control of the board, of course he was relaxed - with his next move clear in his mind and being in no particular hurry it was as much a soporific as sex. Right now he was looking forward to getting to the hospital, in fact, so he could find someplace quiet to take a well-deserved nap.

And as for Cuddy, not to mention Wilson and his look of resigned disapproval...

"Just wait," he said.