A/N: Thanks for all the great reviews. Here's chapter 7. Keep reviewing! ;)

Mood Music: Lost? - Coldplay

Disclaimer: I don't own any of it.

Things were happening too quickly and I desperately needed to slow them down. My brain couldn't work at one-hundred miles per hour. Honestly, I couldn't understand how any person's brain could. I spent an hour and a half laying on the couch in my office, mentally throttling myself for the way I'd yelled at Wilson.

What kind of insensitive person yells at someone who's only just lost someone so important to a chance death? I handled the situation so poorly that I was loathe to call myself Lisa Cuddy anymore. The person I'd been acting like had definitely not been the person I was. The worst part was, I didn't have anything to blame. I couldn't blame grief, or stress, or anxiety, or anything else. I wasn't going through any of those – or I shouldn't have been.

I sat up and put my shoes on. I needed to go visit Dr. Wilson before he left for good. I knew where he'd be and I knew that if I didn't visit him now and set things right, I probably wouldn't get a chance to.

The walk up the stairs was a long one. House's office and adjoining conference room were empty and dark. His team had been sent to work in different departments until House had recovered. I stopped in front of his office for a minute and looked inside. For once, everything was peaceful. There was no brooding doctor inside and there was no miffed team waiting for permission to run a test. It was odd and unnerving.

I finally reached Wilson's door after what seemed like a walk across the Sahara. I knocked softly but there was no answer. Was I wrong? Had he just left without warning? Had he changed his mind?

I gently tried the door to find it unlocked, "Dr. Wilson?" My voice was loud in the thick silence of the room.

He was packing books into a box with a look on his face that warned me to go away. I wanted to go away. More than that, I wanted to run as fast as I could. I didn't.

"I wanted to apologize for yelling at you earlier. It was rude of me." I stepped inside and shut the door behind me. Leaning against it, my hand still on the knob in case of emergency.

He grunted and kept moving books, "I also wanted to let you know that I'm going to give you a month long leave of absence. It'll give you time to get things together and decide if you really want to resign or not." He stopped packing and looked like he wanted to argue, "It'll be paid, of course."

The books started going back in the box and I wondered what he wanted from me, "What do you want me to do, Dr. Wilson?" I was getting desperate, "You're the best oncologist in this hospital, I don't want to lose you."

He mumbled something I couldn't understand and kept packing, "What?"

"Admit it." He looked up at me and his eyes bored right through me, "Admit that you have feelings for House. That you've been cutting him breaks and giving him handouts, not because you feel guilty for his leg, but because you're in love with him."

I had never seen this side of Wilson before. He was angry, sure, but he was beyond that. It was a sort of venomous anger that spread throughout the room. It made the air seem thicker and the light seem darker. I felt like I was in a fifties horror movie.

I didn't say anything for a long time and, eventually, he gave up on me saying anything at all. He started moving things around on his desk again and I watched him.

"I don't understand." I decided that going with the truth was the best way to deal with this, "Why do my feelings for House matter so much?"

He threw a book down and the loud bang echoed through the room, making me jump and nearly cry out, "Because I'm tired of being in the middle of it! I'm tired of it, Cuddy, and it needs to end. You two are ridiculous!"

I took a step back and my voice got softer as I backed off, "Maybe you should talk to House-"

"He is no more guilty than you. You are the one who is constantly saying yes to his every whim. You allow him to practically stalk you without so much as a tap on the wrist and you'd let him get away with murder-"

"His reputation keeps this hospital-"

"Screw his reputation! You either love him or you don't, Cuddy. It isn't hard." He looked up at me and I paused. Taking my first real breath in, what felt like, five minutes.

I backed up until I was in line with his couch and I plopped down on it, letting my feet unload. My whole body ached like I'd run a marathon when really I hadn't done anything at all. I dropped my head into my hands and sulked, thinking about what Wilson was trying to prove. It was preposterous, really.

His tone lowered and I heard him stop packing, "Think about it, Lisa. Think about everything you've done for him. You've cut him a lot of breaks. Do you think you'd do that for any other doctor here?"

I thought for a second, "I think-"

I didn't need to think, not anymore. In one shining second, it was like someone had turned on the flashing sign. Hullo! There it was.

"I think you're right." I gulped, seriously gulped, "Shit, you're right."

He sat down in his desk chair, content to stop packing – since he wasn't leaving anymore anyway. He didn't say anything, he just looked at me. I looked up at him and we locked gazes for a second before I dropped mine again.

I sat in silence for a long time and I think he started to get a little impatient. I wondered if he expected me to jump up and run down to House, screaming, "I love you" at the top of my lungs. I certainly wasn't going to do that, no matter how out of character I was acting at the moment.

I looked back over to Wilson and he looked empathetic, "I don't know what to do."