Chapter 5: Sign Language

House woke up from the loud commotion coming from the kitchen. He assumed the screeching was coming from the urchin. He rolled over to glance at the clock and it read 1pm. Wow, he must have really been tired. Folded on Cuddy's bed were his dried clothes from this morning so he got dressed thinking about what he should or shouldn't say to Cuddy.

If I care about her I should just get dressed and walk away. The Rich guy doesn't seem like that big of a douchebag after all. She obviously is happy with him. If I told her how I feel about her and she no longer felt the same way then I will feel like a total ass. More so than usual. What if she is only with him because she thinks I no longer care and that what happened last year was just a result of me losing my mind.

House was sitting on her bed fully clothed and since he couldn't come up with any answers, he decided he better join them in the kitchen. He was starving anyway.

The kitchen looked like a bomb went off. Cuddy, Rachel, the highchair, and floor were covered in pureed carrots and some other combination of colors that constituted baby food. Rachel was wailing in her prison of a high chair and was banging her spoon and hands or her food tray as if she was auditioning for stomp.

"What the hell is wrong with the kid" House asked.

Cuddy looked up at House a little startled. In her daughter's feeding frenzy she had forgotten that House was sleeping in her bedroom. Rachel looked up at him as well and immediately stopped wailing as she stared at the new man in her house.

"She is going through a bit of a temperamental phase. She has another tooth coming in and she is not very happy about it. I just want to get some lunch in her and then get her down for a nap. I need about twenty minutes and then we can talk." Cuddy actually looked like she needed more than twenty minutes to get herself together but House bit his tongue.

Cuddy expected him to make his way over to the couch and leave her and the kitchen nightmare to herself but she was really surprised when he walked over to Rachel and sat down next to her at the table.

"Don't worry, I want to throw food at her too sometimes" he said to Rachel who was still staring at him trying to process who he was and why he was in her house.

Cuddy nearly fell on the floor when House picked up Rachel's spoon and started to shovel the remaining baby food into her mouth. Rachel was too in awe of this new man to care what that she was actually eating her lunch that she instinctively swallowed when the enormous amounts of food were being shoveled into her mouth.

"House, you don't have to put half the jar on the spoon, she is only one" Cuddy commented.

"Oh, like you were doing a stellar job before I came into the kitchen" he countered. Cuddy just grinned at him and started to wipe the streaks of food that covered the floor and the counters.

When lunch concluded Cuddy took Rachel to her room to clean her up and put her down for a nap while House started ravaging Cuddy's cupboards looking for something edible. He finally found some blue tostado chips and some salsa. He was a little curious as to why the chips were blue. Did they taste the same as the white ones? He was holding up the chip in the air why contemplating these thoughts when Cuddy entered the room.

"House, it's not going to hurt you, it's just a chip"

"Just a chip! Do you know what this poor ear of corn has had to endure to become a chip. Then, someone had the nerve to dye it blue. What the hell is up with that?"

Cuddy grabbed the chip from his fingers and started to eat it.

"Hey, that was my chip. Not fair" House whined.

Cuddy wasn't about to fall into the trap of deflection and start a whole conversation about chips and their origins so she turned her chair to face him and looked straight into his eyes saying "I think we should talk and I mean about more serious things then the color of tostada chips"

House meet her gaze but was instantly distracted "It's a little hard when you have dried pureed carrots all over your face."

Cuddy blushed and started looking for the rag she had earlier but House moved faster. He grabbed the rag off the table and held her head with his left hand as he rubbed her right cheek with the rag. Cuddy was absolutely frozen by his touch.

When House finished he left his left hand in place behind her neck as he tossed the rag on the table. He then returned his right hand to her face and then started to caress it saying in a soft voice "much better."

Cuddy closed her eyes as his touch. His power over her was overwhelming. She kept her eyes close to find her composure, she didn't want him to see the affect he had on her.

House was no longer thinking and instead just following his instincts. He was much better at actions than words. He wanted Cuddy to know how he felt about her, he just couldn't put it into words. She had her eyes closed and was leaning into his touch. Her skin was so smooth and he wanted to feel more of it. House opened up his hand and was now holding her face with both of his hands.

He leaned in a little brushed his lips to hers.

Cuddy slowly lifted her eyes as House pulled his head away from hers. He was still cradling her face.

"I thought we were supposed to talk?" Cuddy asked in a soft voice. She wasn't giving House an open invitation but she wasn't pulling away from his hold on her. Their eyes were fixed on one another.

"I am talking" House said, "It's my version of sign language."

Cuddy lifted her hands to his and slowly removed them from her face. She didn't let go of them and instead, held them in her lap. She kept her gaze on their hands as she spoke.

"House, you can't just kiss me and walk away again. It messes with my head. I don't know what to think and it drives me crazy"

"Interesting choice of words, Cuddy."

She didn't mean to insinuate any connection with House's breakdown and she instantly felt horrible.

"House, that's not what I meant. Seriously, you confuse me." She was starting to ramble now. She had pulled back her hands and was gesturing when she spoke. "I had all these pent up feelings about you that I didn't even know I had until you kissed me. Then you acted like you wanted nothing to do with me, especially after Rachel, so I ignored my feelings. Then you had that hallucination and started screaming things about us from the balcony."

She was standing up now starting to gesture wildly as she was getting all these thoughts off her chest. She wasn't looking at House anymore and it was like he wasn't even there as she just kept rambling. "Then you're gone for three months so it's not like I can talk to you about it. Then Richard shows up and is all nice and perfect and I would be an idiot to let my feelings for you get in the way of that. Then you find out and I thought if you still cared for me you would fight for me, or be mad, or something, but again you just ignore me.

She finally turned to face him again before she finished her tirade "and now you show here at my doorstep and your all half naked and charismatic making me feel all these feelings again and I don't know what to do anymore"

Cuddy collapsed back on the chair with her elbows on the table and her hands covering her face. She wasn't crying or even upset, it was pure frustration.

House was dumbfounded. He didn't really know what to say. He had never actually viewed the situation from her vantage point. He contemplating running away but he figured that wouldn't get him anywhere either.

So he just sat there.

After a few minutes of silence Cuddy finally turned to him and asked in a pleading voice "Can you please say something?"

She was staring at him and he needed to do something. He turned her chair to face him and placed his hands on the back of her chair so his arms were straddling her face. He still was trying to find the words.

Cuddy spoke first, in a soft comforting voice "I need you to use real words House, not just sign language."

Finally House found the courage and said exactly what was on his mind. "Cuddy, all I know is I want to kiss you, strip you naked, and make love to you. Today, tomorrow, and the day after that and the thought of another man touching you drives me crazy, like Mayfield crazy."

He brought his eyes up to meet hers and he saw her expression was a mixture of shock and confusion. He wanted so much to know what she was thinking but he was too afraid to ask. He stood up saying "I'm not going to wait this Rich thing out, you need to decide what you want."

It was much more blunt and forceful then he intended, but it was out there. He finally said it. He picked up his cane and limped out of her kitchen towards the door.

A/N: Sorry I didn't continue with the House-naked in-a-towel the way you may all have been thinking but I am hoping the next few chapters make up for it.