Cuddy's Vacation Ch. 2
For those who enjoy the medicine in House, there is a bit of it in this chapter. For those who enjoy Wilson-House interaction, we have that too. For those who enjoy Huddy moments, they're also in here. Something for everyone, yay! And thanks for reviewing!
Cuddy was at home, dressed in her houserobe, sweatpants and slippers. She sat with a big mug of ginger tea in front of her paperwork. After ten minutes, however, she found that she could not concentrate with her blocked sinuses and mild headache. "Oh, screw it," she muttered, abandoned her work, and parked herself in front of the television. A Friends marathon was on.
This is rather nice, she thought. Although she was still sick, being home like this was much better than being at work, keeping up a brave front through her sniffles.
She was just getting into the banter of Joey, Phoebe and Rachel when a knock sounded on the door.
Who could that be? She wondered, as she got up to answer it. When she saw that it was House, she felt a contradictory mixture of being surprised and yet not surprised at the same time. "House," she said, rubbing her temples. "I took a vacation to get away from you."
"I brought soup," House said, and thrust a deli carton roughly at her. She could see that the soup was leaking through the plastic bag, probably from all the joggling on his motorcycle. Still, the gesture was very sweet, and…unHouse-like.
He must have read that last thought in her eyes, because he said, "Oh, don't get all girly-swotty on me. I only brought the soup so you wouldn't slam the door in my face." Also, he figured that Cuddy would be so distracted by the fact that he actually did something nice, that she wouldn't remember that he was supposed to be at the hospital, working.
Cuddy smiled. "Thanks, House." She gingerly took the dripping carton from him and let him in.
She went into the kitchen, poured the soup into a bowl and got out a spoon. When she carried the bowl back into the living room, she saw that House had already made himself comfortable on the couch and was watching TV.
"What is this crap?" He indicated the Friends characters as she joined him on the couch.
"Well, it's a rather popular sitcom, you see, and—" She already felt better with him here.
"Well, it's crap." House said, grabbed the remote before she had a chance to react, and changed the channel to NASCAR racing.
"House!" She glared. "You can't come to my house and change the channel on my TV! Aren't you supposed to be at work anyway?"
Damn. She remembered. He found himself thinking that even in ratty clothes, no makeup and being sick into the bargain, she still looked good. "I'm bored," he said. "Test results haven't come back yet so I have nothing to do. And I know you want to, but we can't have sex because you're sick and you'll get all these germs on me—"
"House!" She exclaimed.
"—So might as well let me watch NASCAR," he finished, smirking. His eyes travelled back to the screen.
She took back the remote. "Get back to work, House," she ordered.
He crossed his arms stubbornly. "Make me." He looked so much like an overgrown child that she couldn't help but smile.
"You can't, can you?" he taunted her. "You can't because you're sick—"
His beeper went off.
"Guess I won't have to," she said.
He grumbled and stood up. "Bye, Cuddles. Rest assured, this isn't the last you've seen of Gregory House!" He cried dramatically as the door slammed behind him.
"I hope not," she murmured, grinning. As she changed the channel back to the Friends marathon, it briefly occurred to her that NASCAR racing would've been all right with him by her side.
--
"Excitotoxicity," House wrote on the symptoms board. "Nerve cell death. Our patient's been ordering in one too many of these Chinese takeouts."
"Excitotoxicity is involved in Multiple sclerosis, ALS, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's—" Foreman numerated.
"The patient's twenty-five!" Taub protested.
"Traumatic brain injury and stroke are also possible causes," Kutner said.
"She's had nothing of the kind."
"Alcoholism?" Thirteen offered.
"Tox screen's negative."
"Huntington's." Kutner said quietly, looking at Thirteen, who bit her lip. "We don't have a history of her parents so we don't know if they have it or not."
"Test for Huntington's, and everything Foreman said." House ordered. "We can't discriminate because of age now, can we?"
When his team left, Wilson poked his head in. "House."
"Now who's bothering whom?" House said.
"I was just over at Cuddy's house during my lunch hour—"
"Playing the knight-in-shining armor," House said, nodding.
"I was bringing over some soup," Wilson said, ignoring him. "And she told me you'd done that already." His eyes narrowed. "You brought soup to a sick person?"
"You make that sound like a bad thing," House said, going over to his desk.
"What's next, helping little old ladies cross the street?" Wilson asked incredulously.
House sighed exaggeratedly, and sat down. "You know," he said loudly. "Cross-examining me every time I do something nice isn't a good motivator for me to keep doing it."
"No, no," Wilson said, raising his hands. "By all means, keep up the good deeds. But I have a feeling that if I, or anyone else was sick, you wouldn't bring soup."
"Oh, here we go," House muttered.
"You like Cuddy." Wilson stated. "And not just because of her ass."
"There's her boobs too, yeah," House threw in. Wilson had left that one wide open; it was impossible to refrain from making these retorts when it was so easy.
"No. Because if you were only after sex, you wouldn't have gone to her house when she was sick."
House decided enough was enough. "Alright, alright, I confess," he said. "The reason I went over to her house was because I wanted to skip out on work, and the reason I brought her soup was so she wouldn't kick me out. There. Sorry if there weren't any hidden romantic motives for you to analyze and live vicariously through!"
Wilson nodded. "All right. Fair enough." He turned to leave. "Oh, by the way, I was thinking of dropping by to see Cuddy again after work."
"Who are you, her mother?" House called after him. He sounded pissed off. Wilson grinned.
--
House stayed late at work that day because of the patient. By the time he got back to his apartment, it was already dark. He heated up a frozen TV dinner in the microwave, too hungry to wait for pizza delivery. He was keenly aware that he hadn't had a decent meal in weeks. Such was the nature of his job. At least he was in good company; his team wouldn't have had five-course meals in a while, either--apart from Taub, who had his wife to cook him dinner. Wilson was another one in the culinarily-deprived club. So was Cuddy.
Well, Cuddy wouldn't have the appetite for a good meal in her current state, anyway.
He washed down the bland meatloaf and limp vegetables down with scotch in front of the TV. The sounds from the show tried valiantly to fight against the grim loneliness of his apartment, and lost. House eventually put it out of its misery by pressing the power button.
He took a few Vicodin, rubbed his leg, and prepared for bed. Suddenly, something occured to him. He picked up the phone and dialed Cuddy's number.
"Yeah?" She answered tiredly.
"Hey. Did Wilson come over after work today?"
"No. Why?" She answered, puzzled.
"Just wondering. Goodnight, Cuddles."
He hung up, the ghost of a smile flitting across his face, and went to bed.
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