Chapter Fifteen

Drive Me Away

Thanks to RHSecretLove, DrusillaBraun, mj0621, EOshipperSVU-MSR-Huddy, gabiroba, HouseAddiction, Boys Don't Cry, the vigilante15 and Huddytheultimate for their reviews!

Disclaimer: I own nothing House. I just wish I did.

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Cuddy was doing the dishes when House came home. Once glance at him told her everything she needed to know and wished she didn't. His steps were even more erratic than usual and the stench of alcohol filled the apartment, hitting her like a two ton bus. She set the dishes down and walked toward him, catching him when he nearly fell over.

"Greg, what the hell?" she murmured as she helped him onto the couch, wrinkling her nose at the heavy scent.

"Noneofyourbusiness." He mumbled, slurring his words together. "Noneofyourdamnbusiness."

For a moment, Cuddy just glared at him. Angry that he would do such a thing. Angry at herself for believing that he may change.

"Did you drive home?" she asked, panic rising in her voice in spite of her best attempts to remain calm and reassuring for his behalf.

He fumbled in his pocket and dropped his keys, mumbling indescribable words. She picked them up and knew that he had indeed driven home on his motorcycle drunk. She regretted letting him leave the apartment that morning. He said he was going to try and get his job back. Trying to make a better appearance in court. If both of them had their jobs and respected jobs, then the judge couldn't say that House was only an addict that offered nothing to society.

Obviously his request had been denied and he had drowned his emotions with whiskey shots and vodka on the rocks in a lonely bar. Now she was simply grateful that he hadn't gotten killed or killed anyone else.

A knock at the door called her attention. She checked the time. It was about time for Stacy to come over. Without checking who it was she pulled it open and then stepped back.

Tritter grinned back at her with the smile of the Chesire cat. "May I come in?"

"No." She said quickly, starting to shut the door. "Unless you have a warrant or something."

The sound of throwing up came from the couch behind her. Tritter could not wipe the satisfied grin from his twisted face as he leaned his weight on the door, forcing Cuddy to move back to avoid being clocked in the face.

"Well, looks like House overdosed again didn't he?" he pointed out. "I wonder what the jury will think of that when I bring up what kind of home life Jesse has."

"Jessica." She corrected. Jesse was the nickname that family and friends had given her daughter. Tritter did not fall in that category. She tried to force him back, but he was stronger than her and heavier, keeping the weight on the door, keeping it open and his eyes focused on a more than little drunk House.

"I came to serve you with a warrant granting us a request to keep Jesse away from you during the trial." Tritter said, handing her a folded piece of white paper.

She took it with frosty eyes. "You son of a bitch. I'll get her back. This is all just your stupid attempt at revenge." She said through gritted teeth, clenching her fists, forcing herself not to lay a hand on Tritter's smug face.

He tipped his hat at her with another smile. "I'll be seeing you Lisa."

"Dr. Cuddy." She corrected before she slammed the door with all her might in his face and sank down onto her knees, closing her pretty blue eyes, slumped on the ground. Once she regained her composure she began to play doctor again, walking toward House.

"House, that was Tritter." She said coming back beside him, assessing his dilated pupils and his other vitals.

"So? Whocares?" He mumbled, leaning his head onto the back of the couch.

"He's the cop that has our daughter." Cuddy threw back as she took a damp cloth and wiped the corners of his mouth. "You just showed him why she shouldn't be with us."

"Maybesheshouldn't." He challenged. Just as surly and cocky as he always been, but the alcohol clouded his judgment, his thoughts. He felt comfortably numb and Cuddy's voice seemed to be off in a distance, unreal. He couldn't think clearly. Words came before his mind could react to them. He couldn't even tell by the expression that was plain on Cuddy's face that those words had cut. And cut deep.

"Fine." She said, voice trembling, her hand clenched around the towel. She was shaking and trying to hide it. "Fine."

Hurt coursed through her veins. Disappointed laid close to her heart as she tried to wipe the tears from her eyes furiously. House was too drunk to notice. She knew her life had been fine before House had reopened the door she had tried so hard to shut. Like a fool, she had believed that she House would change.

There was no other option. She had given him time to change. Chances upon chances and he had thrown them away without even a glance behind. Almost mockingly he threw the doors she opened for him right back in her face and she had suffered the bruises time and time again. She understood taking the edge off with a drink or two, but Greg House was the definition of extremes. If it had only been her, she would've done what she'd always done. She would have wiped his mouth and taken him to bed, making sure he was safe and alcohol poisoning was not an issue. Then lie beside him until the morning came. However, she had her daughter to think of and she refused to let Jesse be caught up in the middle of House's destructive habits. He brought hurt and pain to anyone around him and Cuddy had endured it, but she refused to let her daughter be caught up in his tangled web of a downward spiral. If he believed that Jesse didn't belong with them, then that was what she would do. There would no longer be a 'them'. It would only be her. She would take Jesse away and they would forget about Gregory House.

With her mind made up, Cuddy went to work. She took House's keys and hide them in the one place she knew he could not get to while he was drunk. On top of highest cabinet. She had to climb up the counter to get there, but she did it. Then she helped him, complaining and stumbling onto his bed and tucked the covers around him. She took his pulse and vitals, satisfied that he was merely very drunk and not in danger for his life.

With a tear in her eye and a heavyiness in her chest, she kissed his forehead, touched his face, and memorized every aspect of him. He fell asleep while she watched him. With one last kiss on his lips, she slipped away and shut the door behind her.

Her next target was the kitchen. She poured every bottle of alcohol down the drain and recycled the bottles. She took his Vicodin and dumped all but two pills down the drain. The two would be for him in the morning. He would have to refill it the next day. No chance of him overdosing that night. Her eyes skimming the apartment, she was sure she had taken his drugs from him, before she remembered the box beneath his bed.

When she saw him sleeping, she almost hesitated, given up. Almost crawled into bed beside him and forgot about her decision to leave. Held him close and confessed her feelings to him like she had done a thousand times while he had been sleeping. Her maternal instinct, however, kept her together as she took his morphine and codeine from the wooden box and cleared the liquid and threw the needles away.

Then she was sure she had taken all things that could've harmed him away. With a sigh of regret, she slung her bag over her shoulder and once again, disappeared from his life.

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Chase and Foreman were the only two sitting at the glass table in the diagnostics department. Files lay scattered on the clear table with sunlight streaming from the windows. Despite the busy caseload, the whiteboard loomed before them. Forbidding, taunting, yet familiar.

Neither of them could bring themselves to pick up the markers. For Chase it was out of respect, though he would never admit it. For Foreman it was out of insecurity.

Finally Chase completed his moment of silence, then went to the whiteboard and picked up a black marker. He wrote down the first symptom without a word.

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House awoke with a start to a pounding headache and cold. With his eyes closed, he reached for Cuddy, sure she would be there, snuggled up to him. But he found no one as his eyes flew open in panic. She wasn't beside him as she should have been, tucked in his arms, her warm breath on his neck. Her place was cold and so was he.

The apartment was deathly still. He jumped to his feet and fell down again as a sharp pain shot up his leg and he felt it throughout his entire body. He stumbled, breath coming in gasps. He saw two white pills sitting on his bedside table next to a glass of water. He gulped them down.

Then he limped out of the room. Immediately he knew she was gone. The dishes were washed and put away. However, any trace of her was gone, except a trace of her perfume. She had left him. And his pounding head told him why.

He recalled the two little pills he had taken. She had laid them out for him. Tucked him in and made sure he didn't die through the night. He could not recall what he had said to her and that scared him. What had he said to make her run? Was it forgivable? What if it wasn't? What if she ran off and wouldn't come back? What happened now? What about Jesse?

A thousand questions concerning the night before coursed through his head. Tritter. That much he remembered. A knock on the door. It had been Tritter, but that was it. What had he done? How did he hurt her again?

But as he rubbed the ache in his leg as the pain subsided, he knew that even through her own pain and hurt, she had still taken care of him. And once again, he had let her down.

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Cuddy laid her bags down in a desolate hotel room. Noises from a television in another room was her only company as she stared off into the wall. It was cold and she closed her eyes as a wave of misery fought of overwhelm her as Gregory House limped into her thoughts. She fought him off.

Then busied herself with phone calls, unpacking, and watching the newly released Martha Stewart prepared cupcakes.

The only sign of her weakness, her grief, and her fear as the ever so slight trembling in her hands and the small waver in her voice when she spoke. There were only two people who could've known how she felt at that moment alone in a hotel room. Herself and the man she left behind.

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Wilson found House in a piled mess that afternoon. He and Stacy stared for a moment at House, who lay on the couch staring at a blackened tv screen, not even noticing them entering his home.

"What happened?" Wilson asked.

"Where's Lisa?" Stacy demanded, shoving him aside. House was her friend, but Cuddy was her best friend and if she wasn't where she had said she would be Stacy wanted to know why.

"Gone." House rasped harshly.

Wilson was in shock that House hadn't downed the lethal combination of alcohol and Vicodin again in his depressed state. He looked like hell, but he wasn't drunk or high. A yellow piece of paper was enclosed tightly in House's hand. House threw it at the wall with a stormy expression on his face.

Stacy retrieved it. They read its contents and exchanged glances.

"She must've taken his pills." Wilson sighed in obvious relief.

Stacy breathed easier as well. "That's Lisa. Always thorough." She murmured.

"I'll get him another prescription and stay with him. You might want to track down Lisa." Wilson suggested.

Stacy nodded. "I'm guessing she's the one who left me a message." She said, checking her cell phone and then slipped out of the apartment. A moment later, a car could be heard pulling out of the parking lot. Wilson's car.

Wilson noticed a text message on his cell phone and sighed when it read it.

"Keys are on top of the highest cabinet. – Lisa"

Wilson glanced at House, who was staring off into space. "I messed up didn't I?"

"Yeah you did." There was no way to sugar coat it. House had screwed it up. They had only planned for one weekend together. One weekend to relive everything that they had missed, but in secret, Cuddy had confessed to both Wilson and Stacy that she was falling in love again. That she would have been more than willing to stay if she got her old job back and House could be a father to Jesse.

That's when they had prayed that House would see his errors and change. Then they now realized that it was too much to ask for.

"I don't want to keep doing this." House was murmuring as he closed his eyes.

"She doesn't want you to keep doing this either. So why did you do it?" Wilson asked, being cruel to be kind. Forcing him to face her leave.

"I just don't know. I don't know why. I wanted to take the edge off. Then I just kept going." A memory triggered in his mind. Shit. A blonde girl. A young blonde girl and House couldn't remember anything else.

"There was a girl."

"You slept with someone?" Wilson demanded. His voice rising a few notches. "You slept with someone?"

"I don't know." House groaned. "I can't remember."

"Oh my God." Wilson yelled. "I can't believe you would do that to Cuddy. I can't believe you would just throw her away like that. Don't you know she opened a door for you when she agreed to stay for a weekend? Then after Jesse was taken, she stayed here. Couldn't you fucking see that she opened a door for you to be with her again and you threw it shut in her face?"

House didn't answer. Wilson mistakenly took his silence for contempt.

His voice became low and slightly cold. "If you did sleep with someone, if you were blind enough not to realize what you had in your hands and you threw it away from some blonde bimbo in a bar, then you deserve everything's that's happened to you and it is your fault that Cuddy is being dragged through hell with you."

House didn't answer. Just stared at the floor as he listened to his best friend slam the door shut and call a taxi. His own stupidity had costed him not only Cuddy, but his best friend as well. He didn't know how much more he could take.

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Author's Note

I know that was a bit hurried. I just wanted to paint Cuddy's once again exit so that we can give House entry to do something wonderful to win her back. I don't believe that House is a total jerk. I think he would do things for Cuddy that he wouldn't do for anyone else. So therefore, I am going to make him stand up and do something in the next chapter. Lol. Tell me if you loved or hated this chapter. I'm sorry it takes me so long to update. I'm like going through a giant period of writer's block. The next chapter will be better. At least, I hope so.