Happy Friday, friends! Here's the next installment! And I'd like to take a moment to thank all of my wonderful Ch. 1 reviewers for their awesomeness... it was a nice welcome back into writing after my hiatus and a huge fire-lighter under my booty for writing this week :-D So, shout-outs to: lenasti16, liljunkie, JLCH, IHeartHouseCuddy, OldSFan, Abby, HuddyGirl, Alex, and my two Guests!
Also, last time I forgot:
DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters from "House, M.D." They are sadly property of David Shore, whose abuse of Huddy it will take years of reparations to rectify in fanficiton form.
House remained in Cuddy's office in spite of her directive, smiling in that insincere and infuriating way that always made her vacillate between smacking him and wanting to kiss him. Thankfully, though, the remainder of the group began filing out of her office and getting back to their regularly scheduled hospital programming. Unfortunately, the administrator's most annoying employee apparently showed no intent to follow them.
"What part of 'back to work' are you having a problem with?" Cuddy asked him casually while she breezed past his self-appointed post leaning on the front of her desk. She attempted to busy herself by doing some filing.
House made a fairly grand gesture of sitting down at one of the chairs in front of her desk, obviously getting comfortable for an expected lengthy stay when he relaxed down into the seat and crossed his feet at the ankles on the ground.
"Actually, you said 'everyone else, back to work.' Since when do I fall in the same category as 'everyone else'?" he questioned flippantly
"Since never, but in this particular case I was actually including you with the group, uninvited by me I might add, to exit my office en masse." House put the red lollipop back in his mouth that had been taking a vacation in his hand while he held court with his hastily assembled audience. Slowly, he swirled his tongue around it as he regarded his boss's tightly-skirted rear, which was conveniently in his direct line of vision, while she maintained her pretense at filing. When Cuddy gathered from both the lack of limping gate and sounds of the door that her star doctor still remained in his spot, she turned around. He removed the lollipop from his mouth and gave her the most gradually suggestive smile he could muster.
"No," Cuddy responded pointedly, walking back to her desk at a deliberately clipped pace.
"What do you mean 'no'? I haven't even asked you anything yet," House stated innocently.
"But I know what you're thinking."
"So now in addition to your vast talents of pushing paper and bossing people around, you've added telepathy to your repertoire?"
"Pretty sure I don't have to be telepathic to know what's going through your head right now," replied the administrator while she feigned business at her desk.
"Humor me then, oh Cuddy the Clairvoyant."
"You're imagining me in lingerie and thigh highs, wearing stilettos, spread-eagle on my desk."
"WOW. Now that is talent… right on the nose, except for the last part." Cuddy looked up hesitantly, but was immediately sorry when House added, "I was actually picturing you bent over your desk."
"You're hilarious," she dryly returned.
"Let's go pick out some lottery numbers, and then we can quit this lousy healing the sick and supervisory stuff for good."
"And then there's the whole thing about you wanting me to sing in your band," Cuddy added with a raised eyebrow, still not making eye contact with House.
"Oh, that… oh, you meant that head!" he sputtered maniacally, unabashedly gesturing to his crotch. "Ha, I see what you did there."
"The answer's still no, House. You have my full cooperation as the head of the hospital for this project, but that's all."
House had expected Cuddy to resist his invitation to be part of the group since the idea was merely a flicker in the back of his mind. He had not, however, anticipated the way in which she had so coldly shut him down, and with such an air of finality. Usually the exchanges between the two of them left an air of palpable electricity in the atmosphere that begged for the progression of give and take; in this case, there seemed to be no room to inch, let alone wiggle.
On the rare occasions when House allowed himself to remember the layered history between himself and Cuddy, especially sans alcohol, he couldn't help but wonder what had caused such a dramatic shift in her personality and priorities over the years. House always accepted that he was a sarcastic asshole, if a great deal more charming and mildly personable one, before his infarction. His descent into the realm of completely intolerable bastard after his leg, therefore, surprised no one, himself included.
Once upon a time, in contrast, the overworked brunette before him held a passion for medicine nearly equal to the one she displayed for music. Coincidentally, it had been that period of her life, during undergrad, when her path had crossed that of an older medical student who enthusiastically shared her interest in both pursuits. He could still see her in his memory; a long mane of unruly curls, leather pants and tight shirts that left nothing to the imagination. Sometimes she sang with a second-rate bass guitar slung around her slightly curvier frame, which she played competently, but House's favorite view of her in that setting was always the one where she sang her complicated soul out into the microphone in her pleasantly raspy alto, almost like she was devouring it.
Finally looking up long enough to notice the gaze House had trained on her that somehow managed to be incredibly focused but simultaneously absent, Cuddy instantly felt uncomfortable under his visual scrutiny.
"I'm pretty sure we're done here. So how about you find someone else's time to waste, or… I don't know, go check on your patient?"
Snapping out of his atypically unguarded introspective stupor and hoping that he wasn't visibly drooling, he fished his pager out of his pocket to double check it. Fixing it unnecessarily closely with one eye, he declared, "No need! No 911's from the ICU desk or my team, so I assume that Dr. Brock Sterling is still boringly comatose."
"I still can't believe you kidnapped him!" she said with aggravation, but corrected herself quickly. "Wait a second… what am I saying? Why wouldn't I believe that you, of all people, would do something unbelievable?"
"Good question! I'm frequently unbelievable… in a pleasant variety of contexts. But you already knew that." Cuddy threw him a warning scowl, daring him to go "there."
"Your endless list of shenanigans in the last few days almost cost the hospital its stellar accreditation rating… you could have put me in a terrible position with the board if we had gotten any violations. And on top of that, you have the audacity to haul your whole haphazard entourage into my office, call a meeting, declare you're taking on a charity project on behalf of the hospital, require my support as your boss for said project, insult me, sexually harass me, and then expect me to participate?"
"See? Unbelievable!"
"And high."
"Always!"
"No, I mean actually high. Like you must have gotten your hands on some good shit, locked yourself in the staff washroom on the third floor and smoked the whole bag."
"Just like the good old days in the band, right?"
And there it was. The cat wasn't merely dragged out of the bag, but outright yanked, spitting, sputtering and clawing its discontent. She laid her head in her hands and sighed. So they were going there after all.
"I already told you no."
"Even though technically, I never really asked you."
"But you already admitted that you were thinking it."
"Ok, so I was thinking it. Doesn't mean I thought you'd agree to it after… everything," he uncomfortably admitted. "Doesn't mean that I still wouldn't want you to be part of it, either." There was an awkward pause. "Why did you quit all of it?"
At any given time, there were many things between the oddest non-couple at Princeton Plainsborough; a paradoxical cocktail of respect, lust, secrets, protectiveness, animosity, fondness, sexual tension, and exasperation. Silence was a rarity when the two were together and nearly always dangerous. It left House and Cuddy to their own thoughts on the subject of one another, the realities of which created equal apprehensiveness.
Finally, the woman succeeded in meeting House's eyes. "It just got too busy with the whole 'becoming a doctor' thing. Unlike you, some of us actually did have to study," she deflected.
"I studied!"
"I should have been more specific… studied textbooks. You passed off ogling co-eds' asses as studying anatomy."
"Oh come now, it wasn't just ogling. I'm a hands-on type of learner."
"I remember," she retorted a bit sadly.
"It wasn't all bad," he offered in a rare moment of unguarded sincerity.
"No, but a lot of the parts that weren't amazing… which were a lot of the non-hands on parts… tended to incur a lot of damage." Emotionally and property-wise, she added mentally.
"Not the music."
Cuddy allowed a small smile. "No, not the music."
"What do you say then? Can we give the band thing the old school try just one more time?"
"Do you promise to keep your hands to yourself this time?"
"No…"
"What about trying to treat me with at least a shred of respect in front of everyone else?"
"The neighbors will talk!"
"Ok, what if I just settle for not being consistently humiliated in front of my employees… on my own personal time, I might add?"
"Seriously, Cuddy… it's like you don't even know me. I'm hurt. Ouch."
But then she gave him that look; one that she had directed at him only a handful of times after college, one that grudgingly conceded her vulnerability.
He sighed. "Fine. I'll try. But I make no guarantees."
"I can live with that. We'll give it a shot in the name of helping AIDS patients. Which reminds me… what's your real reason for wanting to do this whole thing? I know the philanthropy angle definitely wasn't the cause, and I sincerely doubt you would go through all the trouble of being around people you work with in your free time just to 'seriously rock' and get a free trip to Atlantic City. Especially the second part… you have Wilson for that."
Most opportunely, or not so much in Cuddy's case, House's pager picked that precise moment to call him away with a 911 from Chase.
"Oops, look at that… duty calls!" House declared cheerfully as he stood up. "We'll have to continue this rousingly meaningful conversation later. I'm guessing my comatose soap star finally did something interesting… like wake up." He shrugged. "Or code… I'll find out soon enough."
"House…"
"Later, Joan Jett!"
In his haste, House had carelessly left his copy of the New England Journal of Medicine on Cuddy's desk, open to the pages of the action-inspiring article about Battle of the Band-AIDS. Curiosity understandably piqued about her genius doctor's latest impromptu obsession, she started to read. Not surprisingly, less than halfway through the first paragraph, she had the two-word answer to her questions regarding House's perceived motives: Philip Webber.
A/N: As you can see, I'm messing with final canon for House and Cuddy's backstory. I don't feel that weird about it, though, since this story begins in season 4 when the only thing we really knew about their past was they both went to Michigan and they had a one-night stand. So I'm embellishing for my artistic purposes :-D