A/N: Sorry again for the long dely...but you are rewarded for your patience by an extra long chapter...

So, here is the deal...there will be one more lengthy chapter after this one that I hope to have posted sometime tomorrow, after that this story will be complete. Though I'm thinking that since this was a story about their past, it seems only fitting that we should have a sequel telling the story of their future...yes? I dunno, let me know what you guys think.

So this bit is a little sad...but funny, I think...In 'The Itch' when Cuddy was describing to Wilson how she thought a relationship with House would go, it occurred to me the details there...kind of seemed like she had some first hand experinece with that...enjoy!

And to those of you who have stayed with this story, and reviewed...or just kept on reading....you are the coolest of the cool...

Remember December

Chapter 15

When House walked into his office on Tuesday morning he found Cuddy sitting behind his desk in his chair, her legs crossed and an annoyed frown plastered on her face.

She didn't even let him put his bag down before she started in. "When I told you to work this McCarthy case 'by the book,' what did that mean to you?"

"You left early this morning," he said ignoring her question.

"Yes, I left early because I have a job to do. And you have a patient who went into cardiac arrest last night, after you ordered him to be shot up with amphetamines."

"And yet I managed to stay in bed until after nine," House tossed a file on his desk and motioned for Cuddy to get out of his chair. She didn't budge.

"I asked you to act responsibly with this case and to keep me informed on everything—"

"You seem like you've been informed." House tapped his cane on the ground impatiently.

"After you almost killed him." Cuddy stood up and moved aside so that he could have his chair.

"I needed to stress his heart to rule out an arrhythmia, which the EKG did, which means it's not his heart. It's his brain." House leaned back in his chair, and eyed Cuddy closely. Her cheeks were tinted red, out of anger, he was certain, but her eyes were still soft, as they almost always were when she looked at him.

"His brain? Well that's great," Cuddy said with mock enthusiasm. "Let's just cut open his head and dig around until we find the problem."

House gave her an absurd smile. "My thoughts exactly. Is this meant to be or what?"

"Or what," Cuddy quickly shot back. She was still angry. "Are you trying to push me?" He rolled his eyes, but before he could open his mouth to refute her, Cuddy dug in. "You think that because we're sleeping together, you need to push me, to see what I'll let you get away with, or to feel like you need to show me that I can't control you."

House had started to open the file but dropped it on the desk in front of him and leaned forward in his seat looking her dead in the eye. "This has nothing to do with us. I take risks, it's what I do, and you know it. As far as risks go this one was actually pretty tame. You storming around my office and shrieking like a banshee has nothing to do with the case or the patient or me breaking rules. It has to do with you being afraid to get to close to me because you think you'll go soft, that I won't respect you anymore if you don't put me in my place. I'm sorry that you feel like that Cuddy, but the truth is you haven't lost any ground with me. I didn't respect you before we started sleeping together, and I still don't." He stared at her and her back at him, her mouth gaping. With their hostility permeating the space around them, Cuddy crossed her arms and squared her shoulders.

"You don't make another move on this case without talking to me first, or I will toss you." And with that she turned on her heel and left the office. House shook his head and let out a deep breath. The fact that words flew out of his mouth without concern for the consequences was nothing new to Cuddy, but House knew when to push just hard enough to hurt her. As soon as he figured her out, he never hesitated to manipulate her feelings when it served him, but now something was different. He almost felt bad about it.

After glancing over the test results, House decided that it couldn't wait any longer. He was going to have to go and talk to the patient.

When he walked into the room, the young novelist lay motionless in his hospital bed and a meek looking dark haired woman sat at his side, her eyes closed and her head tipped toward her chest. House cleared his throat and James McCarthy opened his eyes and glanced over at House.

"Shalom," he said, "Hello."

House grunted a laugh at the anti-Semite greeting him in Hebrew. He nodded to the woman who still had not moved. "What's with her?" he asked.

"She's praying," he said. "She's afraid for me."

House nodded. "Right." This really was the worst part of this damn job. He sat down on a stool near the foot of the bed and flipped open the file again. "You told the admitting nurse that you have a history of lightheadedness and fatigue. Then you got better for a while sometime last year—"

"While I was writing my book," James said.

"Right. But then when you were done with the book, you got sicker."

James thought for a second and then nodded. "I guess," he said. "Who are you?"

"Your doctor," House told him. "Don't worry, my parents were Baptists." James drew a thin smile, but said nothing. "I am however doing a Jew, or at least I was as of last night. You think it's contagious? Like maybe I got some on me?"

James looked up and met House's stare. "My parents are the ones who say those horrible things not me. They had me brought here when I was unconscious, I don't even know what is happening to me."

"No one does, that's why you're here."

"They think that just because one lunatic with a gun wanted to hurt me because of some stupid story that they all do."

"The Jewish conspiracy? It's understandable I guess. You know how temperamental and irrational they can be…"

"I do," James said and then smiled at the dark haired woman next to him. "I'm married to one." The woman looked up suddenly as if she had suddenly realized there was someone else in the room. House glanced between them.

"You're married to him?" He asked the girl, who nodded and slowly stuck out her hand for him to shake, which he hesitantly took.

"Shalom," she said. "I'm Ann. You're the doctor who's going to cure him?"

House let go of her hand. "Assuming I can figure out what happened to him." The two exchanged a look. "You…don't have a problem with what he writes?" House asked the girl.

She looked down at her hands in her lap. "It's just fiction," she said.

"Pretty blasphemous fiction." Ann and James shared another look, this one a little more tense. Clearly this was a sensitive subject.

"Words…have power," she said slowly. "But they don't actually hurt anyone."

House frowned. "Tell me about the gun shot. Did his symptoms get worse right after?" James had laid his head back on his pillow and seemed to have fallen asleep.

"Um…no, actually. He was feeling better when he was writing his novel, and then he got sick after he finished. Then he was shot several months later when we were on vacation in Jordon. But when he was in the hospital he got a little better." She stopped and thought for a while. "When he left hospital that's when he got very bad."

House bit down on the inside of his lower lip. "Get me a list of any medications he was on in the past year or so. And the name of his doctors in Jordon." House stood up and turned to leave the room, but Ann called out to him.

"Doctor!" When House turned back he saw she had stood up, her skin was white and eyes wide. She was grasping James hand. "He's squeezing me," she said. House stepped over to James' bedside and saw that he was trembling lightly and had started to sweat. House grabbed his penlight from his front pocket and opened James' eyelid. He stared for a brief second before taking a step back and pushing the nurses' station alert. "Shit," he said, and looked up at Ann. "He's tachycaric. He's going into a coma."

House leaned against his white board and drew small circles over and over again. "Doodling a new part of the process?" Cuddy was standing behind him. House was sure she had gone home hours ago.

"It's this new thing I'm trying," he said, a small smile crossing his lips in spite of himself.

"I heard James McCarthy slipped into a coma." She leaned against the conference table and crossed her arms over her chest.

"Wasn't my fault," House said. "I was just talking to them."

Cuddy nodded. "I know," she said. "I didn't come down here to yell at you. I came to see if I can help."

House finally turned around. The deprivation was written all over his face. He didn't know what was wrong with James, and it was starting to get to him. Not starting, he was a wreck. "You can't help this kid," he told her. "I can't even help him. I've run every brain scan and blood test, LP when I was thinking infection. I've done everything except crack open his skull and poke around inside."

"I can help you," she said. "If you let me." But House just shook his head and turned back to the board. They sat in silence for several minutes, before House stared to doodle circles on the board again.

"You were right," he said after a while. Cuddy looked up at him but he still had his back to her. "I was trying to push you. I wasn't sure if you would change once we got involved, and I thought I needed to test you." He changed the doodles from circles to hearts. "I'm sorry."

Cuddy slid away from the table and stepped up behind him, placing a hand on his back. "You don't need to do that," she said. "I'm not going to change if you don't."

"And what if I do?" He looked down at her. He had such a way with questions, if she didn't know him better she'd think that what he was asking was actually what he was asking.

"I know you won't. That's what I… " she caught herself. "I like you the way you are."

House nodded. He tipped her chin up and kissed her. They held on for a moment, not all too concerned with getting caught since it was after eleven, but careful nonetheless, not to get too wrapped up in each other. House pulled her close to him, and she pulled his bottom lip between her teeth and gave him a soft nip.

House groaned into her mouth. "Good god woman."

"Are we okay?" She asked him, smiling against his lips.

House nodded, and tucked her head under his chin, content to just hold her while he stared at his whiteboard full of theories which told him absolutely nothing. "Yeah," he said. "But you should go home. I'll come over when I'm done here."

"I doubt I'll be able to sleep," she said.

House kissed her hair and pulled his vicodin from his pocket and shook the bottle. "So take a pill," he said popping open the lid and tossing one into his mouth. "Want one of mine?"

"No thanks," she said stepping back. When she looked up at him again he wore a look she had seen so many times before. He figured it out.

"What?" She asked him.

House limped over to the table and flipped open the file which held the list of medications James had been taking. And he was quite the little self-medicator.

Ginkgo biloba. Better.

Stimulants. Worse.

Vasodilators. Better.

oh.

House smiled slightly. Damn, guilt made him an idiot.

"What? House what's wrong with him?" Cuddy's insistent voice brought him back to earth. House glanced up at her. If he told her the truth, she'd never let him do what he needed to do. And this was an emergency; the coma a pretty good indicator that the guy didn't have much time left.

"Arteriovenous malformation," he told her. "The medications he was on were masking it. I'll do an MRI to confirm." The lie tasted bitter in his mouth, how easily it came to him. How he was not in the least concerned with the consequences. Not of what he had to do, nor of what her reaction would be once she found out. He swallowed hard. "Go home, he told her. I know you have to be back early." She stared at him, and drew her eyebrows together.

"You sure everything is alright?"

House nodded and bent down to kiss her again. "Couldn't have figured it out without you," he said.

She wasn't gone ten minutes before House was on the phone. "I need an OR," he said. "And set it up for a craniectomy."

"Excuse me?" Said the surgeon on the other end.

"I just finished talking to Cuddy. She agrees, he's too far gone. If we don't do this he dies." Reluctantly the surgeon agreed. House had not screwed over enough people in the hospital yet, for them to really doubt him when he said, I talked to Cuddy.

An hour later House stood in the tower and watched over James' surgery. Ann was behind him silently praying, her lips moving rapidly. House tossed her an annoyed glare.

"That won't save him," he told her. "That will." He pointed to the procedure happening beneath them. Ann looked up.

"I don't understand this," she said.

"They're doing what's commonly called a bur-hole lobotomy." Ann looked up at him terrified. "Your husband has a condition that restricted blood flow through his brain. When he was taking all those drugs and herbal supplements while he was writing his book, he was essentially opening up those blood vessels and treating the condition. After he was shot, he had mild increased pressure in his brain and when they medicated him for that, they treated this as well. When he went off all of the medications, he got worse. To a point where most of his vessels have become restricted, and we can no longer treat it chemically." Ann pushed her hands against her mouth and House folded his across his chest. He could see that he was upsetting her more than he was consoling her. "There's a theory that by drilling small holes in the skull, we can increase blood volume and oxygenate the brain."

"Will he be okay?" She asked, her hands shaking slightly, and House realized that was all she wanted in the first place.

He nodded. "If I'm right and it works, he should come out of the coma in a few hours."

"And if not?"

House, uncrossed his arms and walked toward the door. "Then he'll die," he told her before turning away and leaving her alone.

When House left the hospital it was nearly 3 AM. He debated whether or not to go over to Cuddy's, to confess what he did and face the music, or let her wake up alone in the morning and let some nurse or surgeon tell her about McCarthy. Or his widow, if House turned out to be wrong on this one.

He climbed into his beat up Ford and drove over to her house, letting himself in with the key she had given him when they started up with each other several weeks before. He was surprised to find the small living room light seeping into the entry way, and was even more surprised to peak around the corner and find Cuddy wrapped in a blanket and curled up on the couch asleep.

House dropped down beside her on the couch and tipped his cane on the table next to them. He brushed her shoulder and she stirred, rolling over to face him.

"What are you doing out here?" he whispered.

Cuddy blinked and pushed herself up into a sitting position. "Waiting for you." House noted that the rims of her eyes seemed a little swollen, like she had been crying.

"Why?"

Cuddy licked her dry lips and reached for his hand. He frowned but let her take it. "I know about McCarthy." She didn't waste any time with pleasantries.

House nodded slowly. "How?"

"His surgeon called me right after you called him."

"But he still did the surgery," he said cautiously, unsure if she knew that much.

"Yes," Cuddy said. "I told him to do whatever you needed."

House drew in a breath. Part of him was touched that she believed in him, but part of him also knew this wasn't over. "That was very…supportive of you."

"House, do you remember when you gave me this?" She turned her hand over in his and revealed in her palm the small Claddagh ring he had given her twenty years ago. He hadn't seen it since the night he told her he was leaving Michigan, the night she first took it off.

He nodded again. "I had no idea you kept it."

"I've had it put away for years, I haven't worn it in twenty-years, but for some reason tonight I thought about it." She glanced up at him. "When we were…together I fought it with every breath I had, but the truth is, I had never met anyone like you back then and I still haven't. You are everything I want in another person, good and bad." She looked away from him, her naked honesty was shameful. "Except one thing."

"Cuddy, if I hadn't lied to you—"

"If you hadn't lied to me then I might have asked you to find a way to confirm the slow blood flow, or try to increase oxygen through a shunt, before you cut a permanent hole in his head which may or may not save him, but quite possibly will kill him. Yes that's true. And you wouldn't like it, and I'm sure you'd see that as more risky than your crazy risk. But you also wouldn't have made me feel the way you did tonight, to know that you don't trust me, you don't listen to me, and you'd rather lie to me than let me in and let me help you."

House looked down at the place where she still held his hand in hers. "You don't believe that."

"Don't tell me what I believe."

"Then cut the crap, Cuddy. You understand why I operate this way better than anyone else. You're looking for an excuse to push me away because we're getting too close, just like you did back then."

Cuddy laughed out of disbelief. "You're the one who left."

"Yeah, you're right it was all my fault." He tried to pull his hand away from her but she held on to him and didn't let go.

"Back then I never imagined that you would still be in my life all this time later. The fact that you are, it kind of…" Cuddy shook her head and looked up at him, searching his eyes for some sign that he understood what she was trying to say.

"I know," he said, his voice a low surrender. "We've been through a lot with each other."

Cuddy shook her head. "That's not enough, though is it?"

"It is for me. I have something with you that I've never had with anyone. You've been tested. I know you can you can stick where most people would run screaming." House moved closer to her and drew his hand over her hair. "And I don't ever want to hurt you on purpose. "

Cuddy closed her eyes when House bent down to kiss her and for split second her mind stopped working, time stopped moving and she became intoxicated by him. As his lips brushed hers an apology hung between them, and Cuddy considered that maybe she was overreacting. He was here wasn't he? With his heart open, telling her he was sorry for the lie. Sorry for hurting her.

Except that wasn't what he was doing.

He was here to tell her that though he still wanted her, she should expect more of the same. Cuddy turned his hand over in hers as her started to pull away and she placed the cherished, though now tarnished ring in palm of his hand.

When he opened his eyes and looked down, he shook his head. "Why?"

"I can't keep this anymore. This is all a lie House. We have to stop before one of us gets hurt."

"No, I'm not taking it back, forget it." He pushed his hand out toward her, but she moved off the couch and away from him.

"That ring stands for every false thing I have ever believed to be true about us. It doesn't mean anything to me anymore, all it does is remind me of everything I lost back then and everything I'm about to lose now."

"Don't do this Cuddy. We have a good thing here." He looked up at her, his face a mixture of anger and helplessness.

"No, Greg. You have a good thing. I feel like crap. I can't be your lover, boss, friend, Irene Adler to your Sherlock Homes, and your arch nemesis all in one. It's too much and I don't trust you anymore."

"You may not trust me right now, but you do want me." He stood and took a painful step toward her.

"It's all the same to me," she said. The two of them stood in a stalemate until Cuddy stepped into her entry way and motioned to the door. "You need to leave."

House stood still, afraid if he moved he would fall apart at her feet. Why did he need to push every woman who loved him as far away as possible? That would be the question, for years to come, but in this moment he knew that wasn't the case. All he had to do was tell her the truth. Tell her he loved her back then, he still loves her now.

But of course he wouldn't. She was pushing him and he was pushing her. The unstoppable force meets the immovable object. They were too stubborn. He grabbed his cane from its perch and met her in front of her door.

"You wanna give up. Just like that?"

"Yeah, just like that." She said.

He shook his head, thinking that she couldn't be serious. "How about some angry break-up sex?"

Cuddy's eyes flashed almost murderous, as she opened the front door and House walked away, not even turning to look her in the eye.

James McCarthy lived, of course. But House didn't come to gloat. He didn't come around for anything at all actually; not to apologize, not to annoy, not even to insult or belittle her wardrobe. It made the break-up easier for them both, but it made work much harder. When Cuddy had a case for him, she slipped into his office first thing in the morning and put it on his desk before he came into the building. If he needed her to sign-off on a chart of procedure, he sent it down with the janitor.

Things went on this way for almost two months, and it was becoming absurd.

Cuddy nervously tapped her fingers on her desk, as she waited for Wilson to pick up the phone. On the fifth ring he did, though he sounded busy and stressed.

"What's up?' He asked her.

"I'm calling to renew my job offer," she said, the tapping on her desk becoming more and more insistent.

Wilson laughed. "What the hell is going on with you two? Every time I've talked to House for the past few weeks he's been acting like someone killed his puppy or something."

"Nothing is going on. House is just House. And I think I may have gotten in over my head," she said. She was actually surprised Wilson didn't know about the two of them. But if House had told him, Wilson was little an elderly Jewish mother in law who wouldn't be able to keep his nose out of it for anything. "If you're his friend at all you will pack up the little wife and get out here asap…because if you don't then I might just have to fire him."

Wilson rolled his eyes. "You're not going to fire him."

"I will give you whatever you ask for," she wasn't even trying to hide her desperation.

A few days later Cuddy swung open the door of House's office and walked inside with a file folder in her hands. House was momentarily stunned to see her there. She had been avoiding and evading just as much as he had these last two months.

"I already have a case," he said nodding to his white board which was completly blank. Cuddy raise her eyebrows. "I'm pacing myself," he said.

"This isn't a case," she said holding up the manila folder. "I have some news for you."

It was House's turn to raise his eyebrows. "I just got off the phone with Wilson. He's my new Head of Oncology."

House smiled and leaned back in his chair. "Why?"

"To run interference between the two of us, of course." She said and he looked away from her. He hadn't really considered that he was causing her more strife by staying away than he would've just by facing their issues head on. "I just want things to get back to normal," she said, lowering her voice.

"By 'back to normal' you mean—"

"I mean I want us to be able to work together without hard feelings. I want us to get back to being friends."

"Were we ever friends?" He asked her. "I can't remember a time when I didn't want to do you." House was deflecting again. He could only remember two instances in his entire life that he'd ever felt this much pain, and neither of them had anything to do with his leg.

She ignored him and dropped the file on his desk. "It's time for you to hire a team, you can't put it off any longer. And you're going to start with him."

House flipped open the file to see an employment portfolio. "Robert Chase?"

"His father is Dr. Rowan Chase, the famous immunologist."

"Uh huh. And why am I looking at the famous immunologist's kid's file? What's he done?"

"Dr. Chase called and asked me for a favor. What will it hurt, he's a smart guy, and now you'll have someone else to talk to your patients and do your procedures for you."

"I'm not hiring anyone because their daddy made a phone call." He closed the file and stared up at Cuddy. He faintly wondered if there would come a day when he'd be able to look at her without being blown away by how stunning she was.

"You'll hire him," she said, putting her foot down, and then turned to walk away.

"Hey Cuddy," House called behind her and she turned back to him. "Your ass looks…really fat in that skirt."

Cuddy's eyes widened, but then a slow smile crept across her face. He wanted things back to normal just as much as she did. "Thanks," she said.

Six months later….

House and Wilson were sitting in House's office watching Monster Truck Mania 4 and tossing popcorn at one another when Cuddy walked in.

"What the hell are you two doing?"

"Crap, mom's home," House said tucking the popcorn bag behind his chair. He straightened up and Wilson concealed a smirk. They were both very good actors. While time had made things easier to ignore, they were still very tense and on their guard around one another. "What do you want?"

"Dr. Chase came to see me today. Why is it that you have him filing paperwork, and won't let him work on the patient?"

House shrugged. "He's got to prove to me that he's not a moron first."

"How can he do that, if you won't let him near the patient?"

"Not running to you because he got his teeny weenie feelings hurt would be a good start," House dipped his hand into the popcorn bag and came out with a handful. He aimed one at Cuddy's cleavage and launched. Wilson watched in amazement as Cuddy caught the popcorn before it could dive into her v-neck and tossed it back at him. The kernel bounced off his head and landed somewhere underneath his desk. Wilson laughed. The two of them were like junior high kids.

House frowned and caught sight of the stack of employment profiles on his desk. For some reason the more he ignored them, the more insistent these idiots were about sending them in. But a photo on the Medical License ID on the top one caught his eye and he smirked. He spun his chair around and picked up the phone, then to Cuddy he said, "I just had some inspiration," he handed her the file, with the photo of the attractive twenty-something on the front page. "My newest fellow," he told her as he dialed.

Cuddy skimmed over the application and frowned, as she opened her mouth to protest, House cut her off. "Yes, can I speak to a Dr. Allison Cameron please….yes, this is Greg House, I was calling to offer you a fellowship on my team….no, no need for an interview Dr. Cameron…" he smiled at Cuddy. "No, all of your qualifications are right in order…you're just what this team needs…..alright then…can you start Monday….great! okay …bye bye…"

House hung up the phone and gave Cuddy another self-satisfied smirk. She rolled her eyes and left.

Wilson burst out laughing as soon as she turned the corner out of their sight. "What the hell was that?"

"What?" he said innocently, "She's been bugging me forever to hire a team."

Another six months later….

House rapped on Cuddy's office door, and then barged into her office.

"What?"

"My two idiot employees just got themselves arrested trying to break into a patient's house. We have to go bail them out."

Cuddy rolled her eyes and looked up the hospital attorney's phone number. She grabbed her coat and her cell phone before following House out of the office. "Is this fun for you?" She asked him. "Turning your employees into felons and making certain that they lose their licenses and go to prison? You better hope the patient drops the charges."

"She will if she wants to live," he said opening her passenger door and sliding into the seat next to her.

"House—"

"Don't worry about it," he said. "It won't happen again."

"Because you won't force them to break into patients house's anymore?" She asked, a little too hopeful as she gunned the engine and pulled out of the parking lot.

"No," he said. "Because I just hired another fellow who will be much better at this kind of stuff."