Thank you for all your reviews guys! I love that you've all come to pretty much the same conclusion about what's going to happen next!
Here's a really long chapter for you - I meant to post it before I went out tonight but with a scheduling disaster, that didn't go as planned. I hope you like it, and please leave a review on your way out! Now, go see if your predictions were right xxx
VII
He was well practised at planting decoys when he wanted her out of her office. This time House decided on sticking the lock on one of the toilet cubicle doors in the public ladies on the fourth floor – so when it was locked, it couldn't be reopened. Of course, in the event of a poor unsuspecting patient or family member getting stuck inside a toilet stall for a considerable amount of time, the Dean of Medicine would be paged. Because, of course, it's her hospital, and she is in charge of any mishaps like this that may occur, totally by accident. And then, because it is her hospital, she would be expected to wait there until the victim was freed from their plastic cage, to supervise any escape attempts or attempts to let her out. He knew that as a result of all these responsibilities, if this unfortunate event were to occur, she would vacate her office for upwards of an hour, which would give him upwards of an hour to search it to find out what had prompted her sudden desire to get away from PPTH, and where she was actually going. He was baring in mind what Wilson had said – that this wasn't the new House, this was the sort of crazy and obsessive thing that the old House would have done – but he told himself that if she never found out then it was no harm, no foul. What she didn't know wouldn't hurt her, or his chances with her.
So, when Thirteen returned from the bathroom around about quarter past three to tell him that there was a 7 year old, extremely brattish girl locked in a cubicle on the fourth floor and she was screaming the hospital down so the nurses had had to page Dr. Cuddy to go and sort it out, he left it for a couple of minutes or so. Then he got up and left his office without a word, completely disregarding the fact that his team were attempting to tell him about the new case Cuddy brought up that morning, taking the elevator down to the lobby. He made a beeline for the clinic but instead of taking the file that was held out to him by Nurse Brenda, he walked straight into his boss' office. Ignoring the protests by her young male personal assistant, he twisted the catch to lock the door behind him then waved as he shut the blinds covering the glass door.
Regardless of the fact that according to his calculations he should have in excess of an hour, he wanted to be out of there as quickly as he possibly could. He sat behind her desk and immediately began rooting through her drawers, only discovering the usual stationary – pens, pencils, rulers, erasers, a stapler, a hole punch – in the first drawer, and the second was filled with paperwork. He flipped through every sheet individually, in case she'd slipped something in to the middle of a pile to keep it safe and hidden. He then came to the locked drawer on the other side of her desk, so he rooted through her pencil pot for a paper clip and carefully bent it out of shape and made it as close to a long, thin, straight wire he could possibly manage, before inserting it into the key hole, just like he'd watched Foreman do a number of times before.
After a few moments of concentrated manoeuvring and an extremely tense silence, there was a loud click as the lock was released. But as he pulled the drawer open and saw only family pictures and other sickly sentimental things, he shut it again immediately and was almost relieved when he heard it click shut. By most people's standards, searching someone's office without their permission is classed as an invasion of privacy, but to House it was merely satisfying curiosity. But seeing a drawer full of private, meaningful and clearly inherited possessions was a bit too much for him. It was almost as if it reminded him that his boss was actually human, with human feelings and human emotions, not just a mechanical administrator who was categorically the enemy. He brushed off the moment of discomfort as quickly as possible and began searching her outbox and inbox, which contained nothing out of the ordinary either, other than the fact that her inbox was half its usual size, and her outbox double.
"Come on, come on, where else would she hide things from me?" He muttered to himself, almost not even aware the he was talking out loud. And then he spotted something he should have spotted the moment he entered the room – her hand bag was sitting, open, on the sofa. Where she usually kept it in her office, even he hadn't discovered yet, but she had clearly been in it when she got the page and left in such a hurry that she forgot to put it away again. He then went to look through the contents of her bag; the only essential accessory she had that wasn't in there was her cell phone, which she no doubt had with her. At the very bottom of what seemed like a bottomless pit, he found an already opened envelope with 'Lisa x' written on the front. It seemed personal, which was exactly what he was looking for, so he looked inside and saw exactly what she'd seen when she opened the very same envelope the previous evening – a booking reservation for a double room with a cot at the Chateau Inn, in Spring Lake, from Friday to Sunday, and three tickets for the Peaceable Kingdom Petting Zoo for Saturday morning.
Stupidly, it felt like the bottom had dropped out of his stomach. He felt feelings he hadn't felt in a long time – not since he found out that Stacy had got married – and it was predominantly jealousy. It was almost like, for all these years, Cuddy had been his toy – he didn't really want her, he just liked that he could have her, but by the time he'd decided he wanted her, it was too late. Someone had beaten him to it. House didn't know who it was but in that moment he had a strong and almost irrepressible desire to rip their head off. But at least he knew now that when she was telling Wilson that she'd moved on, that she didn't want him anymore, she wasn't lying just because she never did want him. He was right, she had wanted him, and he'd just left her hanging too long.
"If you're done playing ridiculous games, you might actually want to have a look at this case. You know, because the guy might die and everything?"
What House had seen in Cuddy's office was still playing on his mind, a lot, but there was no way on earth he was going to let any of his team think he had anything to be preoccupied about. Therefore on his return to his own office, he looked up with an expression of mock thought at Foreman's comment. "How do you know he might die, if you don't know what's wrong with him?" He pulled out his chair at the head of the table and sat down, surveying his most enduring fellow with distinct sarcasm before continuing. "And I assume you don't know what's wrong with him because you're asking me to run a differential diagnosis to find out what's wrong with him. Therefore your point is invalid." He then noticed the most unimpressed look he was getting from the other end of the table, so he added very innocently. "I'm just pointing it out!"
Clearly trying to resist the urge to scowl and taking the view that if his boss got no reaction, then he'd get bored, Foreman pressed on and began a description of the case as if House hadn't said a word. "We have a 37 year old male with fever, chills and back pain. He's been experiencing the symptoms for about 5 days and his previous doctors can find no known cause."
"The guy probably has kidney stones that he can't pass. No big deal, give him a lithotripsy and send him home. It's not like this is an unusual case – it's only landed on your desk because this guy has a hell of a lot of money and a smart ass lawyer, and Cuddy couldn't be bothered with the hassle." Taub was extremely nonchalant in his answer, something House picked up on immediately.
"Dr. Taub, how on earth could you be so cold and dismiss this patient so quickly? As Dr. Foreman said, he might die. Shouldn't you show a little bit more compassion and care? You are a doctor, after all. Besides, this case came from Dr. Cameron, so if you have an issue with it, talk to her." Using that sickly sweet and kind voice as he spoke, House mocked Taub, using the same suggestion Cuddy had given him not long ago.
"It's not like you show any compassion and care towards your patients, and you're a doctor, aren't you?" Taub bit back immediately, making the same mistake he did every time his boss mocked him – he thought he could win an argument with him. Unfortunately, there was great delight taken in proving him wrong.
House looked sarcastically startled for a second, and then marginally hurt. "Me? Of course I show compassion towards my patients – I care very much about their wellbeing. That's why, when we've finished this ddx, you can go and make sure the patient is comfortable and has everything he could possibly need, and you will be here all night in case he needs anything else." He then turned back to his other two fellows and addressed only them. "Clearly, it's not just a difficult kidney stone. What else could it be?"
"Acute pancreatitis? We haven't asked about his drinking habits, this may well have been self induced." Foreman answered immediately, as if determined to prove that he was actually more than the butt of most of House's jokes.
"Really? Or can I just pretend I didn't hear that? Foreman, have we, or have we not, had him on a heart monitor since he got here? And when on that heart monitor, has he shown any signs of abnormal heart rhythm? No, I didn't think so. So can we move on and actually have some plausible explanations for his symptoms please?"
Thirteen had been unusually quiet throughout the ddx so far, partially because she was mulling over the collection of symptoms and wondering why Cameron chose this case out of the hundreds she gets into the ER every day to give to them. However, her stony silence could have also been due to the fact that her boyfriend had politely asked her not to intervene if House was humiliating him, because he was capable of standing up for himself and if she did it for him, he simply looked weak. Therefore, she only spoke when an actual idea came into her head. "He's an athlete. With all the training he does, he probably wouldn't have notice body ache. And even if he did – he probably would have passed it off as the general pains of a heavy work out."
When she stopped speaking, House gave her a look of over exaggerated confusion. "Yes, okay, but don't stop now. Aren't you going to tell us what that could mean…?"
"Oh, right, sorry. If he has body ache, along with back pain, fever and chills, it indicates infectious endocarditis. That explains all his symptoms." When she had finished, and it seemed as though House wasn't objecting to her suggestion, Thirteen tried hard not to feel very pleased with herself.
House looked at his other two fellows questioningly. "No objections to that from dumb and dumber? Okay, then go and put him on IV broad spectrum antibiotics and see if there's any change. If not, he might need surgery but it doesn't look that bad yet so we might have caught it in time."
Winter was closing in fast, which meant that darkness was closing in faster too. It was barely 6pm but they'd already been on the road for almost an hour, and it had been light when they set out but now it was almost pitch black. Luckily, Rachel was asleep in her car seat so was completely oblivious to the fact that her mom and her mom's boyfriend were completely and utterly lost.
"I'm sure you were meant to turn left at that roundabout. You said you knew where you were going!" Cuddy was mildly frustrated but also found this situation marginally funny, although she was aware it would be a lot less funny if Rachel woke up before they got to the hotel.
Lucas had the over head light on and was concentrating hard, with an extremely puzzled look on his face, staring intently at the map. "I do know where I'm going, I went the right way! I just, don't know why we're not there yet, I'm sure it's here!"
Over come with a fit of giggles, she tried desperately to stifle them because she didn't want to antagonise him anymore than he already was. "Okay, well, if you're sure it's here and you're sure this is the right road, then why don't you just keep driving down this road and see if we can find it? How does that sound like for a plan?" But she was holding her tongue and trying not to tease him too much – she knew his masculinity had already been threatened that night by his inability to read a map, so she didn't want to emasculate him anymore. So instead she tried to make it so that he found the hotel, not her.
"Okay, okay fine." He handed her the map, determined not to let her down. He started then engine again and pulled off the side of the road, continuing down it with only his head lamps lighting the country lane. They seemed to be the only vehicle on the roads, which was a comfort when they didn't know where they were going. But within minutes, as he drove over the top of a small hill, the head lamps lit up a large sign with 'Chateau Inn' emblazoned on it, behind which was a huge wooden lodge that looked frankly beautiful.
When she saw the place he'd booked, she tried her best not to burst in to tears right there and then because she knew that would seem ridiculous. She was just over whelmed – with happiness, that he'd gone to this much trouble to do this for her, and for Rachel, but also with guilt, because she knew how much a place like this must have cost, and he earned a fraction of her salary; and after what she'd done, she wasn't fit for a place like this. However, she did her best to keep this feeling to herself, and as they pulled into the car park and he cut the engine, she leant over and kissed him gently. "Thank you, for all of this. Thank you so much. You really are wonderful."
He was rather taken aback by this show of gratitude, and pleased, because he'd never really been called wonderful before. "You're welcome, you deserve it. You grab Rachel, I'll grab the bags." He pecked her gently on the cheek in return before climbing out of the car and beginning to lift all the cases from the boot.
"Come on sleepy girl, I know you're tired sweetheart but you have to go upstairs to bed first. And you haven't had any tea yet, have you? No, I'm sorry, there's something in the back for you." As she took Rachel out of the car seat, Cuddy placated her with a constant stream of words, hoping that it would help keep her calm when she was waking up in a strange place she'd never been before. Rather than putting her in the push chair, she merely carried her tightly in her right arm and took the folded up chair in her left, locked the car door behind them and followed Lucas into the lobby of the inn. But just as she got inside, she heard her cell phone ringing, so she propped the push chair against the reception desk and whilst still holding Rachel, she searched for her phone in her bag that she'd slung over her left shoulder. When she dug it out, she took one look at the caller ID and quickly stopped herself from swearing in front of the baby. So she signalled to Lucas she was going to take the call outside then stepped back into the darkness, answering the call. "House, what do you want? I've just left, and I specifically asked you before I left if there was anything you needed."
"I need your signature for a procedure I need to do on my patient." House was listening intently, his ear pressed hard against the speaker, desperate to hear anything in the background that would tell him where she was. But all he could hear was wind, which only told him she was outside.
It was remarkable that, without even seeing his face, she could tell by his voice that he was screwing her around. She wasn't sure why she'd ever expected anything different – maybe because Wilson had spent so long trying to convince her that he'd changed, coupled with the fact that she wanted to believe that he really had changed, she'd convinced herself that it was true. "You think your patient has endocarditis. So you give him IV antibiotics and wait for the infection to clear. There's nothing you need me for."
"You're so suspicious, Dr. Cuddy! The IV antibiotics aren't working. We've tried broad spectrum and targeted antibiotics. I need to open him up." He was trying to sound as carefree as he possibly could, because he didn't want her to suspect there was any other reason behind the call. However, it was a bit too late because it was pretty obvious she already suspected that. Then again, why wouldn't she? Wilson's whole point had been that she doesn't trust him.
She sighed, because she was able to script this conversation before it had even started, because they'd had it so many times before. "Surgery is a bit drastic to go for straight away at this early stage. You need to give the antibiotics – both methods – more time to work. Do that, and if it makes no difference, we'll talk about surgery then. And only then."
He knew she was always much more difficult to argue with over the phone, so he was at a disadvantage in this anyway. "If it's fungal, the antibiotics are never going to work. And if we wait until your little vacation is over and see if the meds work by then, when we actually treat him, by then it could be far too late. Would you really want that on your conscience? A patient died because you thought your vacation was more important than his life?"
"Cut it out House. If you're so desperately concerned that it's fungal, test to see if it is fungal rather than taking random lucky guesses. Besides, it's not as if exploratory surgery is exceedingly dangerous, so I'm not quite sure why you rang up for my go ahead in the first place." She was trying not to get frustrated or angry, or raise her voice at all because Rachel was in her arms, but that in itself was making her right arm go numb.
"Yes, but I assumed that during the exploratory surgery, if he found he was in needed of an artificial heart valve, you'd rather we did it there and then instead of waking him up for a while then putting him under another load of general anaesthetic to do the second operation. But of course, if we're going to do that, we'll need his consent, but he can't give his consent because he'll be under, so we hit a little bit of an issue. So in that case, we need our stunning Dean of Medicine to come and make the decision for him. And we need someone to get us an artificial heart valve." It was more than obvious by his voice that he was extremely pleased with himself, as he was sure he'd trapped her in to a corner and given her no way out but to do as he wanted.
She wanted to scream at him but she knew this was not the time or the place, even though she could see no way out other than to agree to what he wanted, because annoyingly enough, he was right. She bit her tongue, literally extremely hard to try and prevent herself from saying something that her daughter shouldn't hear, and then replied very reluctantly. "Okay, fine, I'll come back and sign the form, but that's it House. When I'm gone this time, I'm gone, and I'm not coming back until Sunday evening. So no pulling totally ridiculous and stupid stunts or ringing me to tell me you want to perform a live post mortem. You better get all the paperwork ready for when I get there." And she ended the call, absolutely furious with him and herself, as well as totally dreading having to tell Lucas. She stuffed her cell phone back in to her hand bag in a slightly more violent fashion than was really necessary, lifted Rachel up where she'd been slipping down her arm and walked back into the warm lobby of the inn with a grimace on her face.
When she returned, Lucas' heart sank. He didn't even need her to explain, even though he knew she would anyway, he could tell by her face who'd been on the phone and what that meant she was going to have to do now. He simply sighed and held his arms out to take Rachel off her, assuming he'd keep her and feed her rather than have Cuddy take her back to the hospital and bring her all the way back again. "You are coming back, aren't you? Tonight, I mean?"
Her guilt was only exacerbated by the fact that he seemed so unsure if she was going to come back – she knew he felt like he came second to her work, to House. She took Rachel over to him then kissed him softly on the cheek. "Of course I'm coming back. This is our weekend – I've warned him, I'm sorting everything out before I leave then I'm not going back until Sunday evening. I'll be back before you know it." All the feelings of shame and self-loathing that hadn't quite disappeared since she kissed House came flooding back like the opening of a dam. As she waved goodbye to her daughter and her boyfriend, even if it only was for little more than a couple of hours, she felt tears welling up in her eyes as she drove away. Yes, she would miss them, but it wasn't that making her cry, it was knowing that she was hurting them, mainly Lucas, and that she already had hurt him.
The roads were still deserted until she got on to highway 195, and only then did she meet any more vehicles. She was concentrating hard, because once again she was driving alone in the dark, with tears streaming down her cheeks. The last night she'd done was the night it happened. Even though she wasn't familiar with the roads she was driving, she wasn't really paying any attention to where she was going, and her mind was totally preoccupied. It felt like she was driving for much longer than an hour when she finally saw the familiar lights of Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, shining in the blackness. She pulled into her designated parking space and cut the engine, but didn't get out of the car immediately. Rooting around in her hand bag, she pulled out her compact mirror and examined herself in it. Her mascara and eyeliner were smudged, and even if she wiped away the tears still clinging to her eyelashes and dried the tear tracks they'd left down her face, her makeup was still a tell tale sign that she'd been crying. She reapplied it then left what felt like the safety of her car, and entered the hospital lobby.
She didn't even bother going to her own office – she wanted to be in and out of the building as quickly as she possibly could. Instead, she walked straight through the lobby and into a waiting elevator, in search of House. She rode the elevator alone and when it reached the floor of his office, she stepped out. The thick blackness outside meant the hospital corridors were lit by artificial light and her heels clicking against the linoleum flooring seemed to make a much louder noise than usual, as the hospital was quieter. Family and friends had gone home, doctors had finished their rounds. The light was switched off in his outer office but she could see a dim one in the corner of his personal office, so she made her way towards that.
"Where's the paperwork?" Cuddy spoke sharply as she opened the door and crossed the threshold into his office.
Clearly, he hadn't heard the glass door open, because House had his back to it and was startled when he heard his boss' voice. However, he spun his chair around immediately to face her. "Oh, so you came?" It wasn't the first time he'd seen her since he found out – she'd been to his office just before she left and informed him that she was leaving and that anything he might need over the weekend needed to be signed off and dealt with right there and then. He managed not to say anything, but since then he'd had time to brood and think it over. That's what made him call her to come back – he knew she was right and the patient could have waited, but he was just inventing some bullshit reason to get her back here, away from him.
She ground her teeth, annoyed with him but knowing she had no direct reason to be. If the patient was sick, it wasn't his fault, but she was sure for some reason or other he would have engineered something to make her come back. She was sure he didn't know about Lucas, so really he would have no reason to drag her back, but then he was quite sadistic and just the pleasure of ruining her weekend was probably enough for him. "What choice did I have?"
"You could have ignored me." He kept his voice steady but the urge to confront her was building. Even though he knew he actually had absolutely no right to confront her – she was a single woman with no commitments to him whatsoever, she was well within her rights to date whoever she liked. But that didn't mean he was happy about it.
"Ignored you? And have you on the other end of the phone for the rest of the weekend finding other reasons for me to come back, finding other things you need me to do? I don't think so; I'd rather get it over with now thank you." The fact that she wanted this over with as soon as humanly possible so she could get back on the road and he was now being facetious, arrogant and flippant was infuriating her even more. But she knew that was one of his favourite things – to make her angry – so she was determined to keep her cool.
Keeping his cool was something House wasn't so concerned about – in fact, he'd like nothing better but to shout at her right now, it would make him feel a whole lot better – she had hurt him. He had gone in to Mayfield for her, and regardless of who ever he met or whatever he did when he was in there, he came out wanting her. And she had taken that away from him. "Cuddy, if you thought I was going to do that, you know fine well that humouring me once wasn't going to stop me doing it over and over again. You wanted to come here, you wanted to leave wherever you've gone, which only leads me to believe you didn't even want to be there in the first place. What are you running away from? Motherhood, responsibility?"
A jibe about Rachel and her former doubts about being a mother was too much when she was tired and irritable, and not where she wanted to be because of him. "How dare you. How dare you bring Rachel in to this, or assume anything about me and my daughter based on whether I turn up to sign off heart surgery. You know nothing. Just give me the papers to sign and I'm leaving." Her face was stony; all the guilt she felt about kissing him turned into bubbling anger, as if she suddenly blamed him for it, blamed him for the kiss. She knew deep down it was just as much her fault as it was his but she didn't want to know that. She wanted to blame him.
"I know nothing? Maybe I should rephrase that. Who are you running away from? Honestly, I don't think it's Rachel. I think you got over all of that last year. But you are running away from someone. Who is he?" He couldn't help it; he knew he was completely undoing all the good he and Wilson may have already done by attempting to convince her that he'd changed, but as far as he was concerned, that didn't matter anymore. It made no difference. There was no point in changing because he only ever changed for her; to be with her. And now he couldn't do that because another man had taken his place, so there was really no point in changing anymore.
She didn't know how he knew but she could tell by his face this wasn't a lucky guess, or one of those stabs in the dark he sometimes attempted for the impressive effect if he was right. He knew. Somehow, he knew. And that seemed to make her even angrier, because he couldn't stop interfering in her life. She couldn't have any secrets from him, because he had to know everything. She couldn't have any privacy because he'd always make it his business to find out. He was a better detective than her boyfriend and that's what he does for a living. Her voice was beginning to raise both in pitch, because she was becoming distressed, and volume, because she was furious. "What the hell has that got to do with you? Who do you think you are? I don't have to tell you anything. I moved on, I found someone who I could rely on. Someone I could trust, someone who would be good with Rachel. And most importantly, someone who made me happy. And I'm sorry you can't appreciate that because I didn't wait for you to be ready to be all of that."
He knew she was angry, and that made her want to hurt him, so she listed all the things he wasn't and her new boyfriend was. All his faults and the reasons he wasn't good enough for her. All the things he had been trying to rectify since he got clean. So in return, he tried his best to hurt her. "You moved on? Clearly, there was something to move on from then. You had feelings for me, and I don't believe you when you say you don't anymore. You always have and you always will. You can't stop yourself – just like you couldn't stop yourself the other night. Don't tell me you just found him yesterday and you've already left your daughter in a hotel with him, because I know you'd be lying. Which means you were dating him when we kissed. You forgot to mention that one, didn't you…?" And what surprised him, is for the first time he was actually nettled by something she said. He knew, under any other circumstances that would be an extremely good sign. It meant he was starting to feel again. He was starting to care what other people thought of him and said about him; mainly Cuddy. But right now, that just reminded him of more he'd tried to do to make her want him, and that it hadn't worked.
"You really are unbelievable. And you wonder why I didn't wait for you?" Her voice was cracking at frequent intervals with the effort of not crying; she couldn't believe how much she hated him right now. "I didn't wait for you because I knew there was nothing to wait for. I knew you'd never change – you couldn't. You know what, you're right. I did have feelings for you – I had feelings for you for a long time, and that's why I could never settle. Because they weren't you. But then I realised that I have a daughter now, and I couldn't put my life on hold for you anymore. So I didn't. And I'm not going to apologise for doing something for me and my daughter." Her voice was little below shouting level and she battled to keep it there, but it took an immense amount of self control. It took even more self discipline to walk over to his desk, every step taking her closer to him, without slapping him. When she reached it, her eyes searched the table for the papers she needed to sign. "I've got nothing else to say to you House. So just give me the papers, I'll sign them, then leave me alone."
"Well there's the difference between me and you. I am sorry. I am sorry that you moved on and didn't wait for me, because we could have had something great. And you know that – that's why you're so angry." This time his voice was calmer, but he knew those words would have more impact than any insult, in fact anything at all, he could have screamed at her. Because however furious she was with him right now, he knew in her heart she knew he was right, and that's why she had waited so long for him. He picked up the papers he collected for her and tossed them carelessly across the desk at her before spinning his chair and turning his back to her completely. It may well have seemed childish and immature but he needed to end the conversation without doing any more damage than he'd already done.
She knew by turning away in his opinion the conversation was over, which was somewhat of a relief to her. Even though she knew his words were said with the sole intention of hurting her, that didn't stop them doing their job. And this weekend was supposed to be happy and enjoyable for her, and for her family, and she was determined that however hard House tried, he wasn't going to spoil it for her. She grabbed the papers he'd thrown in her direction, took a pen off his desk and scribbled down her signature. Then she dropped them both back on his desk and walked straight out the room, without looking back.
Only when he knew she must at least be at the elevator did he spin his chair back around. And even though he'd tried his best not to listen, he knew he'd heard a sob as the door swung shut behind her.