The next evening, the Inquiry support group met, with some notable exceptions...Dr. Chakravarti and Dr. Nolan. There was still Dominika, Chase, Foreman, Taub, Stacy, and Dr. Helen Martin.
Wilson came in, holding Cuddy's hand. Taub stood up in amazement. "Dr. Cuddy! You're still alive!"
"Define 'alive'," she groaned, sagging into a chair.
"How did you make it here?" asked Foreman
"Wilson gave me a lift. No, no coffee. Nothing for me. I just want to crash at the hotel and forget this ever happened."
Foreman got up and took the chair next to her. "You remember Dr. Martin, don't you? House's first fellow?"
Cuddy nodded. "Yes. Hello, Dr. Martin."
"Good evening, Dr. Cuddy," Helen said frostily.
"I gather you're one of the people who threw me under the bus." Cuddy laughed ironically. "Thanks for that. Thanks for telling them how warm and fuzzy House was with you. I don't know what strange power you had over him, because nobody else saw him hanging out with you, playing music and enjoying each other's company. You knew that the Diagnostics Department has glass walls."
"You were never there because you were ashamed of what you and Ms. Warner did to his leg."
"I was never there because I had a hospital to run. House drove me crazy from day one. He said I gave him everything he wanted because one night he gave me everything I wanted. That panel probably didn't mention it because it might dent their ironclad case that I was out to wreck his life. During a hospital inspection, I said that that I let him run around like a monkey in a banana factory. For one day—one day—I begged him to pretend to be a professional doctor. But no. We ended up with a $200,00 fine. Then House told me I should have been fired."
"Was that after he kidnapped the soap star?" asked Chase. He got up and helped himself to a second bear claw. He loved the bear claws.
"No, that was during. That—that bunch of fanatics asked me personal questions—questions about actions that took place behind closed doors—questions they could have only gotten through hospital gossip or-or bugging my apartment and office! It wasn't enough that we were both completely traumatized after the crane accident—" her voice grew louder and more outraged, "I raped him by going to his house afterwards!"
"That's not even the best of it," interrupted Wilson. "That vindictive bitch at the end of the table—she chopped Cuddy apart for the Trenton crane collapse. House badgers her about her engagement to the Lucas in the middle of a disaster area, she gets angry, and he calls her a pathetic narcissist."
"The pot calling the kettle black—sorry, Foreman." Taub smiled. "What can I say? It rubs off."
"Then House said...he said," Cuddy's voice broke. "' A life lesson from a middle-age single mom who's dating a man-child.' All around us is destruction and people dying, and he's giving me shit about my being self-centered?"
"VB tops it by asking Cuddy if she should have had House—"
"My disabled employee. Let's not forget he was disabled. Oh, no, let's not forget he was disabled. If I hear that word one more time..."
"Her disabled employee," Wilson grinned and pretended to duck. "If she should have had House crawling around in the wreckage. House chose to crawl around in that tunnel! He called the shots on the patients' treatment. First he tried to save her leg, then he made the decision to amputate it." Wilson rolled his eyes. "We talked about it after the two of you broke up and he got drunk. The patient dying...that did him in."
"I'm sorry I went back to the hospital that night, Cuddy," said Foreman.
"On my orders," said Cuddy, rubbing her forehead. "I thought House would be better and faster doing triage and diagnosing the accident victims. Then he decides to play hero. Oh my God, everything is mixed up. That vindictive bitch—what did you call her, Wilson?"
"VB."
"VB twists everything I say. There are no right answers. What do they want from me?"
"For you to commit suicide, by the sound of it," observed Taub.
Foreman glared at Taub. "You don't need to say that."
"Yes, I do," retorted Taub. "Look, we've all worked for House, or had a relationship with House or whatever. You all know what an abrasive, self-destructive jerk he is. Foreman, Chase and I got locked up for breaking and entering a patient's home. We did that with every patient. That was illegal. But we had to do it because he was our boss."
"Seems that anything that happened as a result of House being our boss got a free pass," Chase observed.
"Croissant?" offered Dominika.
Cuddy shook her head, glaring at the other woman. "Oh! Oh! This is a good one! They claimed I was responsible for his breaking a year and a half of sobriety! Sobriety? They term black-out drinking and getting into bar fights sobriety? Did Dr. Nolan do anything about it?"
"Nobody knows," said Wilson. "I think House was seeing him, but if he was, Nolan would have never let House get away with it. That's not what a responsible doctor would do. He'd have House go back into rehab."
"VB accused me of seducing my vulnerable, shattered dis-my employee." Cuddy laughed ruefully. She wasn't going to tell them about House carrying her to the bed, or drawing her that special bath (that turned out to be a disaster), or the two of them spending the next day in blissful idleness when they weren't banging each other's brains out. " House said it couldn't possibly work. He said I'd remember all the horrible things he'd done, and I would try to convince myself that he changed. And he was going to do horrible things again, because he hadn't changed. And from there, it was the inevitable conclusion that our getting together was a mistake. God, if only I'd listened. "
Stacy drew in a long breath. "That's what he said to me when I told him I was ready to leave Mark! I'll never forget it: he said he wasn't going to change. That we'd be happy for a few weeks, few months; and then he'd say something insensitive, or he'd start ignoring me. And at first I would be okay with it, it's Greg being Greg. But I needed someone who could give me what he couldn't. I knew he was right. We'd already gone through it."
"That's why you broke up?" Wilson was incredulous. "I yelled at him for throwing away his chance at happiness, for choosing to be miserable."
"My bad," said Stacy.
"You ended your relationship because he took a pill," said Dominika accusingly.
"Yes, I broke up with him because he got high. But when I thought I had cancer, House kept telling me I didn't! He didn't show up for the biopsy, he refused to entertain the notion that it could be cancer. Then, when we thought it was cancer—he vanished." Cuddy started to cry, one hand ineffectually shielding her face. "He sent Chase to keep me company! In what world is that showing support?"
"Sorry about that, Cuddy, but it was the best he could do," said Chase.
"Not good enough!" Cuddy gave a large sob. "He was there for you!" She turned to Wilson.
Wilson held up his hands in a don't hit me gesture. "It's not like I didn't tell him enough to be by your bedside."
"And then he had to get high," she said bitterly. "To visit me, he had to get high. During that entire ordeal, it kept coming to me over and over: he couldn't be there for me if the going got tough. And he wasn't. He had to have his Vicodin." Tears continued to streak down her face. "It wasn't the drug, it was that he was an addict, and he couldn't face life head-on without drugs. I'd known that for years, why did I think anything would change? We both knew it wouldn't work. House got drunk and said if he had to choose between being a better doctor and being with me, he chose to be with me. And that was before he broke what that VB said was a 'commendable year of sobriety!' What fun-house are these people living in?" As she went on, she grew more animated and angry. "And this really got me-I was sexually harassing him! I didn't know he had depression. I didn't know? For God's sake, he was depressed all of the time! I got the reports from Mayfield—he was still my employee, I was kept abreast of his treatment! Oh, oops, I shouldn't have said 'abreast'. I'm sexually harassing all of you now."
"I like it," said Taub, a dreamy smile on his face. Chase elbowed Taub hard in the ribs. "What?"
"They didn't think it important to go into 'the incident' where House tried to commit VEHICULAR HOMICIDE!" Cuddy shouted, her curly hair falling into he facer. "INCIDENT?"
"You have got to be fucking kidding me," said Foreman. "He tried to kill you, and everybody else in the house!"
"If only my mother had been there. That I would have been okay with."
"Here, have a doughnut." Taub handed her a jelly doughnut. "Eat, it'll make you feel better."
"He broke my wrist," Wilson added, rubbing it. "And then he walked away, saying he felt much better. Incident, my ass. He was already going off the reservation, and he said he knew that. Then, he aims his car at her living room and plows right into her house! House didn't know if Rachel was in there! He didn't think the room was empty, because that's where he saw Cuddy with another man."
"Who I hadn't even gone out with yet." Cuddy smiled, sniffling. Foreman gave her a napkin to wipe her nose. "And then he flees the country. Yeah, that is one pathetic, vulnerable disabled employee."
"He paid you back for the tripwire," Chase said, and ducked the flying doughnut.