Chapter 17

Dénouement

Cuddy was having trouble with her left forearm. The cuts had been on the underside of her forearm and the left one had cut deep into the muscle. She had been warned that she wasn't going to recover her full range of motion. During her recovery, House visited her in her hospital room, making himself at home. He took over the remote, ate her food, ordered juice for her and then drank it along with taking half of her pain meds. He thought he was keeping her company, but there were times when she just wanted to boot him out the door, his caustic wit being too much when the pain meds started wearing off. Despite her moments of frustration with him, she was touched by the fact that when he flew back he drove straight to the hospital to see her and that he had been by her side through all of this.

House was in the room when the FBI agents came back for her statement. He wouldn't leave so Cuddy told the agents that he was furniture and to ignore him.

"Dr. Cuddy, please tell us what happened, starting from what happened to make Dr. Griffin target you."

Cuddy tried pushing on the mattress to sit up, but the pain was too much and she slipped back down. House started to snicker, walked over, put both hands under his armpits and pulled her up like a ragdoll. She nodded to thank him.

"Griffin was sued for malpractice. When the lawsuit was served on the hospital he was assigned a lawyer by the insurance company but Griffin and the female attorney bumped heads. Both the lawsuit and the relationship with his attorney got hot quick, so he managed to get the insurers to hire his brother, a very aggressive attorney.

It turned out that the Plaintiff was the husband of a deceased patient. He worked at a postal office outside of Philadelphia. Part of his claim was for "Loss of Consortium", part of the claim was that the husband relied on his wife to administer shots because he had a compromised immune system from taking drugs for a cancer that had recently gone into remission. Griffin realized he might lose so he decided to take things into his own hands and purchased samples of a virulent strain of Q fever, supposedly for research purposes at PPTH. Dr. House actually diagnosed a patient with Q fever earlier this year. This strain was eventually determined to be the same strain that killed several employees at the same post office, including the Plaintiff. However, once the plaintiff was dead, so was the lawsuit."

The agent that had set up the tape recorder asked, "How did you discover that the strain went to Dr. Griffin?"

"I received a call from Maggie Malone at the CDC telling me that they had traced a vial of Q Fever back to PPTH and they just wanted to verify that it was used for research purposes. When I checked, it looked legitimate, so I she sent the paperwork to Maggie who decided that there was nothing to follow up. But one day, I noticed that an anomaly. Everything was in order except the shipping receipt. It showed that the package had been delivered to the Fourth floor charge nurse and not the third floor charge nurse who handled the infectious disease lab deliveries. I couldn't make out the name of the doctor who had ordered it but they had directed that the order be delivered to the fourth floor, not the third. The charge nurse on the fourth floor remembered the delivery because when she discovered it was for infectious diseases, Dr. Griffin told her he was going down to the third floor and would deliver the package for her. That was the last time anyone had seen the package."

"What did you do?" The female agent asked.

"I gave Dr. Hadley the file and asked her to interview everyone on the third floor to see if Dr. Griffin had delivered the virus to the lab. At this point I wasn't sure who had done what and really didn't suspect Dr. Griffin so I made the mistake of calling him and asking who he had delivered the virus to. He claimed that he delivered it to a nurse he had never seen before. He didn't know that I had already had Dr. Hadley investigating it, so he thought I was the only person who suspected that anything was wrong. You know the rest, he broke into my home and kidnaped me."

The female agent shook her head, "This Teagan Furey saved your life. Considering everyone thought you were in California, it would have been four or five days before anyone would have known you were missing. I've been told she has a real gift, but until now, I didn't believe it."

After the investigation was over, the CDC sent out a media statement claiming that Dr. Cuddy was a hero, having followed up her hunch and catching a murderer. The hospital received praise for its 'open door policy' with the CDC. Maggie Malone said that any other hospital would have covered it up, but she had always known that the doctors and administration at PPTH were the best.

Cuddy was surprised by the surge in patients being admitted to the hospital after the press release. It seems that the patients liked the fact that the hospital had aired it's dirty laundry and then cleaned house.

Cuddy had been informed by Dr. Chase that she could go home the next day, but they had set her up with twice a week Psych appointments with a psychiatrist and psychologist. She wasn't happy about taking the time out to see a shrink, but she was already having nightmares and having trouble sleeping. She came to the conclusion that it might be a good idea.

House was sitting in the chair next to her bed playing with the remote control when she got the word that she could go home.

"I heard you arranged to have my broken window fixed and a security system installed. Is that true?" Cuddy asked.

House just shrugged his shoulders like 'no big deal.'

"What's this about you and Teagan? Are you two an item now?" She was curious since Teagan had gone to him when Cuddy had contacted her. It raised a lot of questions.

"It's over."

"What? I thought it just got started. You've already screwed it up?"

"I'm not necessarily responsible for everything that goes wrong in a relationship. She wants to live in the California Sierras and I choose gorgeous New Jersey, the Garden State. Get the picture?"

"You mean you actually got along but geography is keeping you two apart?" Cuddy paused and softened her voice, "That doesn't mean you can't keep in contact and go see her or she come see you."

"She's a hermit...no computer, no email, no telephone, no cell phone, no television...the only way to reach her is by the U.S. Mail."

Cuddy raised her eyebrows, "Wow, she is a hermit...really back to nature. How hippie ish. Well, I'm sorry House. I was hoping it would work out for you. She's an incredible and gifted person."

"Aaah, no use crying over spilt milk. Moving right along, do you need a ride home tomorrow? Do you want someone to sleep over? As long as you don't snore or have cold feet, I don't mind."

"No, I'll be ok. I don't need you of all people to babysit me."

The next night at midnight, House was on his way over to Cuddy's. She wasn't ok, she was sobbing when she called him, waking him from a wet dream of him and Teagan in the meadow. Still in his sleepwear, House knocked on the door and waited for her to look through the camera and open it. She showed him the guest room and he threw his overnight bag inside.

"Do you need me to look under the bed or in your closet?" he asked, a little miffed at the fact that she woke him up so late to come over.

"No. Just be here."

"I'm here. I'm tired, but I'm here." he gave her a look of exasperation.

"Thanks." She gave him a slight hug and went back to bed.

House continued to stay over with Cuddy and had just finished his first week as a resident of the Cuddy Inn when he received his first patient in two weeks. House had just arrived at the hospital,grabbed a cup of coffee from the pot and was reclining back in his chair, feet up and eyes closed when Remy Hadley came in and kicked his feet.

"House we have a new patient, don't you want to join us?" Thirteen yelled.

"Crap." he was tired.

Foreman looked at him, "Late night?"

"Slumber party with Cuddy, didn't get much sleep if you know what I mean?" He gave Foreman two winks.

"How is she?"

"It's tough, she just can't stand being separated from me. Can you blame her? Ok, what's the differential?"

Foreman and Case gave him the background and he ran them off to do some tests. Wilson came in. "Heard you're babysitting Cuddy...do you want me to rotate with you?"

"Ha! Hell no. Best gig in town. She feels so guilty asking me to sleep over that she makes me breakfast, dinner, does my laundry, makes my bed and provides other delightful services that require Kleenex when you're done. I even got her to move her television into my bedroom."

"Your bedroom?"

"I may never move out." He grinned like the devil.

Eventually Cuddy decided that she could probably go it alone. She was tired of House's dirty clothes all over the bathroom floor and his refusal to put any dirty dishes in the sink and rinse them. After awhile she began to see a pattern, almost as if House was purposefully doing things to make it uncomfortable to have him around. She thought this desire to have him gone was probably a good sign, she was starting to get a grip on her life.

The next morning Cuddy watched House, dressed in a t shirt and boxers, ramble into the kitchen and grab the pot of coffee. He was scratching and yawning. It dawned on her what pigs men were, especially in the morning. House looked at the watchful Cuddy and realized she had something to tell him.

She put her cup in the sink, "You can sleep in your own bed tonight. I think I can get by without you in the guest room."

He looked at her and gave her a strange look of disbelief, "Yeah, right. We both know you'll just call me at midnight and beg me to come over and provide my services."

"Your services? You eat my food, watch television, make me pick up after you and let me do your laundry...that's a service?"

"You better believe it. It provides a distraction. You can't be worried about evil surgeons if you are cleaning up the beard hairs in your bathroom sink."

"I think I will survive. But thanks, I really do appreciate that you came over and stayed with me."

"Are we joking or do you really want me to go home?"

"Go home House! Go back to the piano, go back to your journals, go back to your hole."

"Gee, you don't have to be testy." He smiled as he heard the click clack or her high heels out the front door.

House went home, back to his hole. He played his piano, watched television, read journals and thought about Teagan. He tried not to think about her, the time with Cuddy had helped distract him. When he was at Cuddy's he only thought about Teagan during those last few moments before he drifted into sleep. But since coming home, when he played piano he remembered playing for her in the barbeque joint; when he made toast, he thought of Blackberry jam (and the dozen jars in his cupboard.); when he listened to Led Zepplin, he thought of air guitar. He was trapped in the Teagan mind warp. He was fucked.