Hey guys, thanks so much for all the reviews. They honestly give me so much motivation to keep writing, but I'm really starting to confuse myself because I'm writing way ahead of my posting! I'm really glad you're all still enjoying the story though - even with the presence of Lucas.

I have to admit, writing this next chapter was painful for me so I can imagine it might be painful for you to read - my apologies already. I think it may be a little bit of a filler chapter, but it paves the way for an important next chapter, so I hope you enjoy! xxxx

VIII

Cuddy knew she had the hour drive back to the inn in Spring Lake to pull herself back together and put as much of what House said as she could out of her mind. Lucas had gone to so much effort to make this weekend absolutely perfect, and even if only because it would infuriate House even more, she was determined to make the most of that fact and enjoy it. His words were still ringing in her ears, his voice amplified by what seemed like a million times inside her head. All she wanted to do was get away; get away from him and never go back because she didn't think she could ever face him again. And she didn't know if she could trust herself around a man that had got so deeply under her skin. The darkness she was driving in felt suffocating – she felt trapped, as if she couldn't escape one small mistake she made. All she desperately wanted was to be back with her daughter and her boyfriend – a man who she hoped loved her now, and would regardless of whatever she did, and a little girl she knew loved her now, and would regardless of whatever she did. She wanted to stop feeling like a terrible, horrific person and she realised that even though she had Lucas, she'd distanced herself from him by keeping a secret from him and that meant she was just as alone as she ever had been.

She knew this is exactly what House wanted to do to her. He had planted a seed of doubt in her mind and stepped back to let it grow. And she was determined not to let him win. As guilty as it made her feel, she knew Lucas would make her feel more confident about herself – he always did. Before she even noticed, because her head was too filled with everything else she couldn't get rid of, she was pulling in to the car park of the Chateau Inn. It took a lot of restraint not to run straight in, her usually unblemished complexion wet and tear stained, and let Lucas make everything better. Once again, just as she had before entering the hospital, she reapplied her makeup so she looked flawless once again and only then realised what she'd become. Her makeup had become a mask that she hid her true feelings, her secrets, her hopes and her fears, behind. She was one of those women that she always judged – she was an unfaithful liar – or that was at least how House wanted her to feel.

As she stared at herself in the her compact mirror, she fought not to let emotion overcome her. It felt unbelievable to her that only a few days ago she was really, truly happy. And since then, in those blissful moments when she was able to forget her burden, she had flashes of how happy she had been. And now all this pain had been caused by only a few seconds of weakness in light of almost 20 years of foreplay. One kiss, and everything suddenly felt like it was falling apart. Only then did she jump a little, and her cell phone told her she had a new text message, from Lucas. He wanted her to know that he missed her and Rachel missed her mum too, and they were in room 268 when she got back.

Not wanting to be apart from him and Rachel any longer than was necessary, she checked her appearance once more, and when she was satisfied, she stepped out of the car. The cold wind that hit her was like a harsh reality, but she locked the car and made her way to the reception, then entered the elevator, hitting the button for the second floor. The room wasn't difficult to find; the hotel seemed to simply be one long, expansive corridor that twisted and turned but never stopped, and she kept walking from 201 until she reached room 268. She raised her fist to knock on the door, but before she did she hesitated and took a deep breath. Only when she was sure she was calm and collected – or as calm and collected as she could manage at this point – did she knock on the door.

Lucas leapt up at the sound of the knock, and as he heard Rachel, who was sitting on the end of the bed, cry "Mama!" in response to the noise, he scooped her up in his arms in her baby gro and carried her to the door when he opened it. He let out a huge smile when he saw his girlfriend, and stepped back to let her in to their room. It was very nice; cosy, clean, homely, and he'd already unpacked the suitcase, having put all her clothes in the provided chest of drawers and all the toiletries in the bathroom. He was actually quite proud of himself, and even though the weekend so far hadn't gone entirely to plan through no fault of his own, he was determined to make this as nice for her as he possibly could. "I thought after driving all the way to Princeton and back you wouldn't want to go downstairs for dinner tonight so I arranged for something to be brought up to us, if that's okay? I can cancel it if you like, before they make it; I ordered it for 9 o'clock so we've got another hour, I thought you might like to say goodnight to Rachel and put her down yourself, because I bathed her for you, and then you could have a little time to relax and calm now before we eat… I hope it's okay…" He spoke rather quickly as if trying to get everything out before she could tell him everything that he'd done was wrong.

Cuddy immediately sank down on the end of their double bed and held her arms out to take Rachel, holding her close to her. And then she looked up at Lucas, and an exhausted but grateful smile spread across her face. "Of course it's okay, all of it's okay. In fact, it's better than okay, all of this is amazing Lucas. Thank you, for all of this. For everything. It's wonderful." And then she turned to her daughter held in her arms. "Now Rachel, are you going to go to bed like a good girl, and mommy and Lucas will take you to the zoo tomorrow? Would you like that?" She lifted her daughter in to the cot that was beside their bed and picked up one of Rachel's story books that had been left on the beside cabinet, presumably with the intention of it being her bed time story, and once Rachel as laying flat, began to read it.

At this point, he always left them in private so he padded quietly out of the room as quickly as possible and shut himself in the bathroom. Looking at himself in the mirror, he splashed water and himself and just thought a little bit. He knew there was something bothering her at the moment but he also knew very well from experience not to bother her and ask her what it was, because that only resulted in her biting his head off – she would come to him if she was ready to and wanted to talk about anything that was bothering her. But that made things all the more frustrating when he knew there was something wrong and he knew she clearly had no intention of telling him what it was. She'd been subdued and preoccupied, and constantly worried, and he was worried it was something he'd missed, something that he should have noticed but he hadn't. Only when he could no longer hear his girlfriend's voice reading 'Ella the Spotty Dog', and could only hear silence, did he dab his face dry gently on the hand towel and then leave the small bathroom. He walked over to the bed and put his arms around her shoulders, chancing his luck and hoping if he'd judged this wrong, she'd be too tired and too grateful to be angry at him anyway. "Are you alright? Well, okay, stupid question because I know you're not alright, I can always tell when you're not alright, but you do know you can tell me what's bothering you if you need to or want to, don't you?" Again he was speaking quickly because he was anxious in case he'd done something wrong.

She rested her head against his shoulder gently, scared of how she might respond to him. Suddenly, her heart just wanted to tell him everything – to open the flood gates and let all that she was feeling pour out. And if he wanted to judge her for how she felt or what she'd done then let him, all she could ever be was honest with him. But her head was still too scared – far too scared that if he found out who she really was and what she'd done, regardless of the fact that it was a mistake and she'd wished every waking moment since that she hadn't done it, that he wouldn't want her anymore. And as per usual, she listened to her head, even if only for the simple reason that the last time she listened to her heart, she'd been regretting it ever since, and she kept her mouth shut. She smiled softly but was afraid it looked a bit more like a grimace, so spoke quickly. "I know, thank you. I guess I'm just stressed out at the moment; Wilson won't give me a moment's peace now House is out of Mayfield and living on his own again, like he expects me to do something about it. And House himself, well, he's a nightmare at the best of times but he now seems to have escalated since he came off the drugs. It's like making me angry or wasting my time is his new replacement for vicodin. It's nothing I can't handle, and it'll pass. They'll both get bored of harassing me after a while when they realise it's having no effect what so ever and it'll all go back to normal. Don't worry about me, this weekend should calm me down, anyway." But she was grateful for his concern, even though it made the roaring fire of guilt in the pit of her stomach a million times hotter, brighter and painful.

He let out a long low breath in complete relief and then smiled before kissing her on the cheek. "I do worry about you though, because I lo-" And then he faltered, and realised what he was about it say. It wasn't that he didn't want to say it, but he was worried that she wasn't ready to hear it yet, and he didn't want to scare her off. "-I really care about you." But by the time he finished his sentence and corrected himself, his face was bright red and burning with embarrassment and worry, and he looked away from her, rubbing the back of his neck anxiously.

When she realised what he was about to say, her stomach immediately twisted in to a knot but she was careful not to show any reaction on her face at all. Inside, however, she was terrified. It wasn't that she didn't want him to say it, because she did, but on the other hand if he did it would make the gravity of what she'd done to him a whole lot worse. If he really did love her, the betrayal was so much more real, and the lying about it made it even worse. She grit her teeth in preparation for possibly the best, but also the worst, thing he could possibly say right now – but then it didn't come. She looked at him for a second but noticed he couldn't quite meet her eyes. Only then did she realised how much this relationship meant to him. In that one fleeting moment she realised, he was actually scared. He was scared to say it – he obviously wanted to because he almost had without thinking, but he was too scared in case it wasn't what she wanted to hear. And in some ways she was more relieved than she probably should have been. She however didn't want him to feel awkward, so she continued on as if nothing had ever happened and as if she hadn't noticed his hesitation what so ever. "I know, thank you. You're too good to me, you know." She returned his kiss but instead went for his lips rather than his cheek in hope of distracting him from his awkwardness and embarrassment. But then she let out a large and rather unprompted yawn when she went to kiss him, and burst into a fit of giggles.

He jumped backwards slightly in surprise, as he had moved in to return her kiss, so relieved by her reaction, and instead found her yawning in his face. However, he couldn't help but laugh too and grabbed her round the waist playfully, pulling her closer to him. He pressed his face in to her hair and took in her smell as he breathed in and when he spoke, his voice was slightly muffled. "If you're tired, we can always go straight to bed you know."

When she felt him holding her so close and tightly to his body, she suddenly felt more alert and awake than she had done all day. So instead she pulled away from him a little and gave him that look that he knew all too well what it meant. It was almost a mischievous look, but she bit her lip ever so slightly so he knew it was definitely suggestive. "I'll take up your offer of going to bed, but don't expect any sleep." And when he looked marginally surprised but extremely eager upon her answer, she couldn't help but grin. "Hey, Rachel's asleep, and don't try and tell me that wasn't your main intention for this weekend anyway…" But before he could open his mouth to defend himself, she quickly kissed him and pushed him softly but authoritatively backwards so he was laying flat on the bed.

Knowing that she was somewhere, probably in the depths of the country, alone with another man was torturing him much more than he expected it to. Of course, he'd never admit it, but as he tossed and turned in his own bed, he'd have given anything to be that man there with her, not him. He didn't know who he was – that was his next task, the next thing he had to find out – but he already hated his guts. And he was torturing himself even more, imagining what they were doing together right that moment, and it was a good job he didn't know that he was exactly right. Since he'd left Mayfield there had been a lot of sleepless nights, but that was usually something he could blame on the increased amount of pain he was in since coming off the vicodin and being left with only ibuprofen which barely put a dent in it at the best of times but even less so at night. But this time, the pain wasn't the reason he was still awake, in fact, he could barely feel the pain.

She was the reason he was still awake. It seemed as though the pain of rejection and loss he was feeling was so much more than that of the physical pain in his leg, his leg was scarcely even noticeable. And he hated himself for it. Before Cuddy, he'd only ever let one woman turn his world upside down and that was Stacy. The first time he let her in, but that was before his leg, and after his leg he drove her away. The second time she let him in, she was even prepared to leave her husband for him, but he ran away, too scared that she was going to do the same to him again that she had done all those years ago. He'd given up the chance of trying again with her because he was too scared that she was going to hurt him again, that she was going to leave him again. So he decided not to take that risk, and not to leave himself open for the possibility of such pain.

After Stacy, he knew he'd never let a woman do that to him again. He would never let a woman have power over him again, not in the way she had at least. He'd always liked Cuddy – he'd always liked the idea of sleeping with her, at least. He'd found her extremely attractive in med school, and if possible now she was even more so. But quite possibly as a result of the pain his last relationship put him through, he'd never considered her in more than an aesthetic point of view. At least, that's what he tried to tell himself, except it was far too easy to let Wilson convince him to make a go of it with her. And then he really had started thinking. And as much as he swore he'd never get that attached to anyone else, he did without even knowing it. He only realised how much he liked and had got used to the idea of her being his girlfriend until the option was taken away and he knew it couldn't happen. The fantasy was only fun when it could possibly happen, and after that it only brought him pain.

For a moment, he had a strong urge to break something. He knew he had no right to be angry at her, but he was. He'd got clean for her, he'd worked hard and gone against so many of his principals and philosophies to prove to her that he was a man that she could actually spent the rest of her life with. And instead, she'd left him alone, just like Stacy did.

He knew continuing to think about the fact that the only two women he'd truly ever loved had left him alone would never allow him to sleep, so he desperately tried to bury his head into the case instead. But the more he tried to steer his thoughts away from her and her boyfriend, the more he couldn't get them out of his head. He pushed himself in to the sitting position in bed and without switching his reading lamp on, he fumbled for his cell phone on the bedside cabinet. He flipped it open and searched down his list of contacts until he reached her name. His finger hovered over the call button, yet he was trying his hardest to convince himself not to do it. There was a small, ever so tiny glimmer of hope, a flicker at the back of his mind that this boyfriend thing wouldn't work out, and he wanted to keep in her good books as much as possible in case that eventuality occurred and she came running in to his arms for comfort. He knew he was being sadistic but on the other hand he couldn't help it. His conscience won over the devil's advocate and he put his phone back on the cabinet, sliding back under the duvet and forcing himself to think about the only subject that he knew for certain would take his mind off Cuddy. The case.

Before he'd left, the patient had come out of surgery with no signs of infectious endocarditis. So not only was Cuddy's flying visit of absolutely no benefit whatsoever, but he still didn't know what was wrong with the patient. He knew he was alone but still spoke out loud as if someone was there to hear him. "He has fever, chills, and back pain, and it's not infectious endocarditis…" He was sure he was missing something – he didn't know why, it was just one of those feelings he often got. He searched his brain for something significant and wished he had the patient's file to look at. When he was this determined, he'd usually comb all the information they'd noted down until he found something seemingly insignificant that he could make significant to fit a wildly impossible theory that usually turned out to be right. He thought back to their differential diagnosis.

None of his fellows had mentioned a girlfriend, or any woman at all other than his mother, yet the look on Thirteen's face when she came back from attending to him for the first time told it's only story – he was clearly attractive, and bisexuals are hard to please. Thirteen was, anyway. "Why…?" He asked himself, still talking aloud as if there were someone else present. "Why would someone who's attractive enough to even get Thirteen's approval, not have a stunning woman on his arm? There's no reason… Someone like that would always have the next girl lined up and ready even if one finished with him. So, if there is no woman, there must be a problem in that department. If he has erectile dysfunction, that means it could just be prostatitis, or in the worst case scenario, a spinal cord abscess." Pretty pleased with himself, but knowing he still probably wasn't going to sleep tonight, he made a mental note to show off to his team in the morning that he'd solved the case and they could all go home until Cuddy got back.

But as he closed his eyes again and attempted to sleep, her smell came rushing back to him and the images of her with someone else returned to torture him.

Even after very little sleep because Rachel had woken up early, decided she wasn't keen on the new environment and decided to scream the place down, both Cuddy and Lucas were remarkably cheerful when they reached Peaceable Kingdom Petting Zoo the next morning – though the happiness wasn't all too surprising considering the way they sent each other off to sleep last night. Rachel was wrapped up in gloves, a hat and a large coat in which she resembled a pink snowball with legs, and both adults had donned as warm clothes as they possibly could. The wheels of the pram crunched and bumped over the frost covered gravel and Rachel had a giggling fit and squealed every time it rocked slightly as if she was on a rollercoaster.

"Rachel, what do you want to go and see first?" Cuddy asked as they stood together in the middle of all the enclosures around them.

"Moo, moo!" Getting very excited and attempting to jump up and down in her seat, but having distinct trouble because she was strapped tightly in, and pointing to the cows in front of them.

Smiling, Cuddy took Lucas' hand and pushed the pram with the other towards the fence at which Rachel was pointing. When they got close enough to feed the animals, she went into her coat pocket and pulled out the brown paper bag full of feed they'd bought so Rachel could give some to each of the animals. She knelt down beside her daughter's pram. "Hold out your hand sweetheart." And when she obliged, she took off the tiny mittens and poured a small amount of the brown pellets into her palm. And then she took her daughter's hand in to her own and helped her hold her hand completely flat between the bars of the fence. The nearest cow turned and shuffled towards the smell of food and then, when it was close enough, licked all the pellets out of Rachel's hand, leaving both mother and daughter with extremely sloppy, sticky and smelly hands.

Rachel giggled at the tickling feeling of the cow's tongue, but at the look of the uttermost disgust of Cuddy's face to have a hand covered in cow saliva; Lucas couldn't help but crack up laughing. "Oh come on Lisa, you must have known that was going to happen!"

With a highly unimpressed expression, and one of complete distaste, she scowled and walked towards him, before dramatically wiping all of the sticky liquid on her fingers on to his coat. "Not so funny now, is it? And you can help her feed them next time." But instead, after that she steered the pram towards the less messy animals.

They went inside a barn, where Cuddy held a white rabbit out and Lucas helped Rachel stroke it, they helped her feed a carrot to a horse, and they helped one of the farmhands collect eggs laid by the hens that morning. It was like they were becoming a real, functioning, nuclear family.