There Will Be No Divorce Chapter 12
"In the way those eyes I've always loved illuminate this place
Like a trashcan fire in a prison cell
Like the searchlights in the parking lots of Hell
I will walk down to the end with you
If you will walk all the way down with me."
"Old College Try", The Mountain Goats
Groggy from the anesthetic, she slept all night.
He sent her sister home and spent the night watching her, barely comfortable in the chair he dragged into her bedroom.
Four times, or perhaps five, he stood and tugged at the sheet to crawl into bed and hold her. Each time, he dropped the thick cotton and thought better of it. He returned to his chair and grabbed a few fragmented moments of rest as he listened to her breathing.
House resisted the urge to kiss her when he left in the morning, but he left the chair out of place so that she would know she wasn't alone.
He slept fitfully all day, both phones switched off and unplugged so nobody could bother him. When he awoke, it was already dark, so he took a long shower to clear the hazy feeling and ordered pizza. He thought about going over to check on her, but his cell showed no evidence of her trying to contact him, so he opted to stay home and pretend to not worry about her instead.
Cuddy was surprised to wake up in her own bed. It was definitely morning again, but she didn't feel rested at all.
She remembered the clinic, how long the day had felt even with a large chunk lost to anesthesia. Then a confusing image of House leaning over her, of Karen's angry whispers some time late last night, and the door banging closed a few hours before.
With full consciousness came the awareness of her discomfort. Cramping and stiff, she made slow progress to the bathroom, wincing at the traces of blood on the pad when she got there. With the scraps of energy she'd built up overnight, she turned the shower on full blast and let the deliciously warm water cleanse and soothe her body for endless minutes. Coming back into the bedroom, she paused to wonder why a chair from her dining room was by the foot of the bed.
Exhausted but unable to sleep any more, she called the hospital and drafted the ancient Dr. Adler into covering for her for a couple of days. She made vague allusions to the flu and he didn't care enough to pay attention. Cuddy often wondered if she should replace the old fool with a younger, more dynamic deputy. But she didn't want to be watching over her shoulder for a coup, and the strategy had been pretty successful so far. A few days without her ruthless efficiency every so often and everyone in the hospital would always be clamoring to have her back.
Right now, she couldn't contemplate ever feeling like going to work again. The thought of the long, gloomy corridors with the irremovable scent of antiseptic gave her a strange sense of revulsion. Unsure of what to do with her sudden free time, she dug out her most comfortable sweats and an old Michigan t-shirt, settling in front of the TiVo with a cup of peppermint tea she didn't really want.
It took thirteen minutes of daytime television before she was ready to climb the walls in frustration.
Switching off the inane chatter, Cuddy began to prowl the house looking for something to do. She returned the out-of-place chair, cursing Karen for leaving it there. Not that she should even be out of bed, never mind lifting things, but thankfully the house was spotless as ever and there was nothing else for her to waste time on.
With nothing much to do, she returned to the sanctuary of her sheets, noticing once again how big her bed was for just one person. She could have sworn there was a faint scent of House lingering in the room. For someone who liked to look so messy, he was meticulously clean and always smelled like those generic sports shower gels men were so fond of. Crumpling up on the mattress, she hugged an overstuffed pillow to her chest, anything to soothe the ache of missing him.
Of course, that was just a distraction from what she really missed: her child. Reality should have warned her not to consider it a done deal, but it had been impossible not to get excited. The sun was creeping in through the curtains, something Cuddy had pictured countless times with a gurgling baby girl between her and House on the bed. Hating herself for such pointless optimism was only making her feel worse.
Lost in her misery, she had no idea how long she had been lying there when she heard a brief knock on the front door. By the time she had disentangled herself from the bedding, wiped her face and made her way to the front of the house, there was no one at the door. Sighing at the interruption, she turned to slam the door closed but noticed a brown paper bag on the mat.
Bending to retrieve it was awkward, but with care she managed to pick it up without putting too much pressure on her abdomen. Something in the bag smelled delicious, and she realized she couldn't remember the last thing she ate.
Suddenly ravenous, she began tearing at the paper as she made her way to the kitchen. In a few short minutes, she had disposed of the salt beef sandwich, pausing only to get a glass of water halfway through.
When it was gone, her distraction was too. Reality came flooding back, and with it a fresh tinge of cramping. After checking that the bleeding was still light, she helped herself to two of the painkillers her doctor had provided and made her way back to the bedroom.
Despite her overwhelming exhaustion, she was still staring at the clock when night fell.
House showed up at work the next morning feeling hung over, despite having stopped after his second beer last night. His morning Vicodin had left an especially bitter taste in his mouth, and for the first time since he began taking them, he had accompanying nausea. Scowling at his fellows, he deposited his backpack and took off without a word. Foreman sighed at the lack of communication, and continued sifting through case files for something to occupy the team.
Ana Ramirez visibly jumped in her seat when House came crashing through her office door, and he would be lying if he said he didn't derive some small pleasure from the fact.
"You and me, Doc. I need to beat myself up for a few hours, and you seem like the kind of woman who can show me a crappy time. You in?"
With a wistful smile at the paperwork on her desk, Ramirez looked like she was about to refuse. However, curiosity won out and she simply nodded. When she stood up and left for the therapy suite, House knew he had won this round.
He was cursing his own idiocy two hours later. His faded Budweiser t-shirt was soaked through with more moisture than a keg of the stuff. Still, he mused, his sweat probably tasted better.
Ramirez was ticking something on her clipboard with a maniacal grin to equal his own. She had worked him like a dog for two hours and though every sinew in his body was creaking out a message of 'Kill the Bitch,' he felt better than he had in weeks. Best of all for at least 90 of those minutes, the world had consisted only of pain, strain and his doctor barking out instructions as she gave him a full workout.
Grabbing gratefully at the fresh bottle of water she eventually offered, he emptied it and discarded the bottle on the floor with the other three he'd gotten through in the course of the session.
"Ok, Doc. Let's see what else you got."
She looked at him suspiciously.
"That's quite enough for today, Greg. You've been skipping appointments all over the place, and frankly, this is more than I should have allowed you to do. If you can move tomorrow, feel free to come back. I'll clear some time at 11."
House shook his head furiously, running a towel over his wet hair.
"This is helping. I need this."
Ramirez stood firm, her pen hovering steadily over the chart.
"You can't overdo it. It's obvious you have some stuff going on, and while I'd suggest for the 200th time that you consult our staff psychiatrist, I know when a battle is lost. Come back tomorrow, and the day after. If you need more, work on the home exercises I gave you. The breathing ones might be especially helpful."
He simply sneered at her refusal, lifting himself from the mat with a melodramatic sigh. Shrugging off her suggestion, he got hold of his cane and took his leave to the shower room.
For the first time since enrolling her most difficult patient, Dr Ramirez was confident he wouldn't blow off the next appointment.
House got his backpack from his office, paging Kutner to meet him in the clinic. His muscles were already protesting his over-exertion, and the clean clothes he'd changed into had a faint air of eau de sneakers, having been crumpled in the bottom of his locker for months.
He made laborious progress to the elevators, but even through the additional pain, he could feel the loosening in his thigh muscle. The damn idea might be working a little after all.
He waited impatiently for Kutner in the clinic, swiping red and orange suckers for his stash, and wasn't overjoyed to see Cameron marching towards him from the direction of Cuddy's office.
"House!"
She wasn't in her now habitual scrubs. In fact she had dressed up quite nicely in a school-marmish sort of way.
"Dr. Cameron, what a pleasant surprise! Are you down here to get those hemorrhoids checked out?"
To her credit, she barely flinched when he yelled the word loud enough for most heads in the clinic to swivel in their direction.
"I need to speak to you."
House felt his face contort in disgust at the very idea. Talking only ever meant trouble for him. Until Kutner could drag himself away from whichever Harry Potter fan fiction he was reading, he wouldn't be able to escape.
"How is Dr. Cuddy?"
The shrug he gave was meant as a ploy to cover up the effect of hearing Cuddy's name.
"As I understand it, she's recovering from an outpatient procedure. I thought you had to be admitted for an ass reduction, but the advances in plastic surgery are just amazing, don't you think?"
Cameron folded her arms in a manner that was freakily reminiscent of their absent boss.
"Is everything okay with, you know…?"
To her credit, Cameron understood whatever had crossed his face instantly, and placed a gentle hand on his forearm to stem any reaction that might be forthcoming.
"I'm truly sorry, House. Can you tell her that? Also, I'm keeping an eye on Dr. Adler. He's doing the sleeping at her desk part of the job, I've got the donors and the paperwork covered, okay?"
A grateful nod was the best he could manage. She smiled at him, her eyes already tracking the movement of the clinic staff as she stood with him. Perhaps she was a better Cuddy stand-in than he thought.
Choked up with the thought of Cuddy and how miserable she must be, he was relieved to see Kutner strolling across the lobby. Before the annoyingly perky doctor reached them, House groped frantically for something in his jacket pocket and upon finding it, pressed it into Cameron's hand.
She smiled when she saw the Vicodin bottle with her name on it.
"Wow. I thought that now, of all times, you'd be blurring the edges. Well done."
"Whatever. Now go find yourself something that's cut lower on the top and higher at the bottom. You won't make the hospital any money dressing like a Pilgrim."
Kutner drifted to House's side as soon as he saw him, waiting expectantly for instruction.
"You know Cuddy's address?"
Kutner looked stunned momentarily, but nodded with a guilty expression when he saw that House wasn't going to let the question drop.
"Yeah. I uh, needed to look it up for this…"
House waved impatiently as his protégé began to stammer out an excuse.
"I don't care if you're in love with her or just planning to kill her. Either way, I want you to swing by Penang's and get a bunch of healthy crap and take it to Cuddy's about 7, ok?"
Kutner had gotten used to House's bizarre demands by now, but this was a little weird even for him.
"Uh, are you gonna give me cash for it? Or should I put in an expense claim?"
House couldn't help but laugh a little at the very idea. Kutner rolled his eyes as he realized it was supposed to come out of his own pocket. Satisfied that he had done all he could, House dragged his aching body in the direction of the parking lot.
Sitting in the car, he briefly considered taking a drive over to Cuddy's himself, but knew that she'd tell him when she was ready to see him. Instead he sped off in the direction of his own apartment and the warm bath that was rightfully his.
The long night passed with no call from Cuddy, and when he woke up in the morning after a disrupted sleep, it felt like an elephant had rolled over him in his sleep. Almost crying at the pain, he slipped the regulation dose of two Vicodin down his dry throat, praying to some unknown deity that they would work quickly.
He went through his typical routine of avoiding work, dismissing a couple of promising cases, and sending his minions off to help in other departments care of Cameron. House surprised himself by showing up at the therapy suite just before 11, but if Ramirez was shocked, she hid it well. The demonic woman worked him just as hard as the day before, and he was surprised that he didn't break down and demand more Vicodin when she was done.
He resisted the urge successfully, unsure how he had managed it. In a weird way, it felt like solidarity with Cuddy's suffering. They didn't give out narcotics for heartbreak and he felt he owed her at least some small gesture. Annoyingly, he could feel the improvement even under the agony. Too many years of analyzing his body's every twist and turn left him unable to deny the effect.
The few minutes of comfort in his big yellow chair had somehow turned into a few hours of napping and he woke up feeling better. Better still, it was time for another regulation dose. The urge to pop another couple down after it was ever-present, but he held firm. Being stubborn was occasionally useful.
With considerable difficulty, he again navigated his way from office to the sanctuary of his apartment. What he hadn't expected to find was a pale and lank-haired Lisa Cuddy sitting on his doorstep, shielding her eyes from the weak late-afternoon sun. When she looked up at him, her eyes were an unfamiliar dull gray, a perfect complement to the almost panda-like dark circles under her eyes.
Worst of all, she looked like crap, objectively speaking, and he was still conscious of wanting her.
"If you're here to complain about the delivery service, I didn't ask for customer feedback."
She stared blankly at him for a moment, then mumbled "no" in the quietest voice he'd ever heard her use.
"Well, can I ask to what do I owe the pleasure of your company then?"
He stepped around her, careful not to fall, and she simply stood to follow him without answering.
House led her into the apartment, trying not to replay the nights they'd come stumbling through that door, kissing frantically, shedding clothes as soon as they were clear of the street. This time she stood forlornly in the middle of his living room, arms wrapped around herself in some sort of inadequate hug.
"Cuddy?"
She was startled at his voice, almost as if she had forgotten he was there.
"I, uh, I came here to see you. I can't seem to… Well I've been trying, but I can't sleep," she finished somewhat lamely.
House regarded her warily, unsure of what she wanted.
"So prescribe yourself some Zopiclone and get someone to grab a box from the pharmacy."
She put a hand on his sofa to steady herself, the effort of standing clearly taking its toll.
"Didn't work. I slept for 20 minutes and woke up with a mouth tasting of tin. I need something stronger."
"Like what?"
"Like whatever you have. I just need to not to feel all this crap for a few hours."
She turned to him fully, her expression wan and lost. "House, can you help me, please? Let me sleep before I collapse, please? Give me something to make it all go away. "
That scared the shit out of him. Cuddy never said 'please', not to him. Perhaps once or twice, sarcastically at best. But the fact that she was even asking him for help was enough to have him expecting the end of days.
"Okay."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
Her shoulders sagged with relief at that, and House felt a fresh rush of concern.
"I'll make a deal with you. Get in my bed, I'll heat up some milk and see what goodies I have in my secret stash. Sound good?"
She must have been pretty far gone for sleeping in his bed, his apartment to be anything other than unacceptable. With one final look at him, she stepped past him and down the hallway towards the bedroom.
Running a hand through his still-damp hair, House exhaled harshly.
What the hell was he going to do?