Chapter Two:
"How's the patient?" Susan asked when Dr. House walked into the lab the next morning.
"He'll make it," he replied.
Susan nodded, "Good, I'm glad."
"You don't look glad," House said.
"Oh, I've just got my mind on other things," Susan said.
House waited for her to finish her thought and when it appeared that she wasn't going to voluntarily, he prompted, "like?"
"Jeff," she said.
"Your husband," House replied as confirmation. Susan had never mentioned her husband's name to him before, which did seem a little out of the ordinary he thought.
Susan nodded, "I miss his presence."
"That's a strange way of putting it," House said.
"Oh, we had our issues like every other couple, but we loved each other and his presence was a source of comfort to me, even if things had cooled down over the years." Susan explained.
"Cooled down? Why?" House asked.
"All relationships cool down over time, but in our case it started about 10 years into our marriage. Our daughter was eight and I had to work 60 hours or more per week at my job and when I was wasn't at work, I was taking care of her – getting her to and from her activities as well as doing all the traditional 'lady of the house' things, you know, cooking, cleaning, shopping and such, and I unintentionally put his physical needs on the back burner. Oh, I still performed my 'marital duties', but I was so exhausted that I wasn't all that – well, not as active as I should have been. Of course he didn't react well to that and accused me of putting my job and our daughter ahead of him. We argued and fought a lot during those years and I nearly left, but I decided to stick it out and things got better over time, especially after I was able to find a new position that didn't require me to be at work for so many hours, but the damage was done we never fully recovered what we had before. I tried to make it up to him, but by that time he wasn't really interested in me physically. I still loved him though and I took comfort in his presence even if there wasn't a lot of romance left."
"OK, so I know you stayed, why did he if he was that unhappy?" House asked.
"I'm not really sure to be honest. I know he loved me despite my 'inattentiveness' and he was a wonderful father to our daughter. I'm a decent cook and housekeeper and I really did try to take good care of him. Maybe it was easier for him to stay with me than to start over, I don't know. Whatever the reason, I'm glad he stayed. I was such a failure for letting things get to that point anyway, if he'd left, I'd have been totally devastated." Susan explained.
"Do you think there was someone else?" House asked wondering how Jeff could possibly have been uninterested in Susan.
"I don't think so; he did love me, but of course there's no way for me to know for sure. All marriages have ups and downs you know; it's just the way of things. The key is to stick it out and not give up at the first sign of trouble. If he hadn't gotten sick, I think we would have fully recovered. At least, I like to think that we would have," she replied.
House pondered over what Susan said for a moment and then asked, "How long's it been since you've had sex?"
This entire conversation had been rather uncomfortable and that question even more so; but after Susan recovered from the shock of such a blatant question, she thought for a moment, "Actually, it's probably been since before Dad got sick. Since I was an only child, I was the only one that could go help Dad and then after he passed, Jeff had his heart attack and wasn't able, so I'd guess just over two years now," she replied.
"There hasn't been anybody in all that time?" he asked incredulously.
"No, of course not," Susan replied. "Two years isn't really all that long, Greg. I loved my husband, but I screwed up and nearly destroyed my marriage. I'm not interested in making the same mistakes and I can't just have sex with somebody to satisfy a physical desire. I'm just not cut out that way. Intimacy isn't physical for me; I need an emotional connection. Besides, I'm in my mid-forties – not exactly in my prime and I'm definitely not turning any heads.
Two years, House thought to himself and it had probably been much longer than that since she had actually gotten any real pleasure out of it given her description of her marriage. As much as she obviously loved him, Jeff was a selfish bastard. He obviously wasn't supportive of her when she had to work so much, he probably didn't even bother to help her with basic chores. It was no wonder she was exhausted. She couldn't or wouldn't see it and she blamed herself. Jeff should have supported her when she needed him instead of taking it out on her later by not seeing to her needs. House was a jerk and he knew it, but he took great pride in being everything Cuddy needed and desired behind closed doors. Susan could do so much better; she was worth it. House shook his head to clear it, he couldn't believe he was actually thinking this way – brotherhood had certainly made a difference in his attitude, at least where Susan was concerned.
"I'm sure you didn't come in here to talk about my love life or lack thereof, what's up?" Susan asked changing the subject.
"Cuddy asked me to tell you that Professor Hastings' retirement is scheduled for this Friday instead of three weeks from now, so you'll be taking over the nursing chemistry class starting Monday," he said.
"Oh, cool," Susan said, "I'll go see if I can meet with him this afternoon to see where he is with the class. I'm really looking forward to this. It's been a long time since I've taught; it'll be interesting to see if I can still keep the student's interest."
"I'm sure you'll do fine," House said as he got up to leave the lab.
As House walked back to his office his thoughts returned to his conversation with Susan. This was the second time she had alluded to not being what any man would want. Now he knew that it wasn't just a simple case of low self-esteem as he had thought earlier. Her late husband had done a number on her psyche. He wondered what it was that made her "not what her husband wanted physically." She was attractive and was completely oblivious to the stares she was getting; he'd seen her ogled by several men as she passed by. She was also smart and had a good personality. She could be a little curt at times, but that just comes with the territory of being intelligent. Any man with half a brain could overlook the occasional curt comment that comes from an attractive, but intelligent woman. Maybe that was it. There are a lot of men that are intimidated by smart women; maybe Jeff was no different or maybe it was something else entirely. Whatever it was, something had changed in Jeff and Susan interpreted it as a deficiency on her part. This had to stop.
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Susan walked in Professor Hastings' office and introduced herself. "So you're the 'ever so brilliant Susan' who has Cuddy fooled into thinking my presence can be followed so easily in the classroom." he said condescendingly.
Not understanding the comment and deciding not to take the bait Susan said, "I'm here to see where you are with the students so that Monday we can pick up right where you left off."
"Hmph, figure it out for yourself," he said as he tossed the text, notebook and grade book her direction.
Having been unable to catch so many things thrown at her at once, Susan knelt down to the floor to grab the books and notebooks that had fallen, "Just where a woman belongs – on her knees," he said.
Susan was rather taken back by his comment, but she decided not to give him the satisfaction of a retort and made her way back to the lab with the information. What a jerk, she thought to herself.
Back at her desk in the lab Susan opened the grade book first. As she suspected, the majority of the students in his class were female. While great strides were being made in the field of nursing, it was still primarily seen as a woman's job while men were still the majority of the doctors. As she suspected given Hastings' comment, the few men that were in the class had much higher grades than all the women. Well, not all the women, there was one whose grade was pretty high. What a jerk, she thought to herself again as she considered why that one female student's grade was higher than the others. She looked at the class notes, it appeared that the students were studying oxidation and reduction at the moment and were half way through that chapter. It was Wednesday, and Monday would be here before she knew it, so she started working on her lecture notes. Since she hadn't taught this particular class before, she had to start from scratch on her lecture notes. She wanted to have 2-3 lectures prepared in advance of the lesson each time they met.
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House was in the clinic supervising Masters as she examined the patient, a toddler boy with an obvious ear infection. When she came to her conclusion that the child had an ear infection, Dr. House handed over the prescription he had already written to the mother. Masters wrote the diagnosis in the chart and signed it. Dr. House put his initials next to Master's and they moved on to the next patient. They continued in this manner for the next two hours. By the time they finished, Masters had seen 10 patients and had diagnosed all of them correctly. Of course it helped that they had all been pretty easy, mostly consisting of upper respiratory and ear infections, but it had been a good experience for her.
"Well, how'd I do?" Martha asked House as he made some notes in her student file.
"You should have been done an hour ago. I had each of these diagnosed as soon as they walked in the door, you wasted 10 minutes on each one," House said.
"I think it's important for a doctor to spend time with the patients, it makes them feel better about their care," she said.
"I think you're just….." he started to say when Susan walked in the clinic. "Any specimens," she asked.
"Not today," Martha said.
"Great," she replied, then looking over at Dr. House she asked, "Mind if I skip out early today?"
"Knock yourself out," he replied.
Susan went to the lab to get her things. She wanted to go by an office supply store to pick up some file folders, a small file cabinet, a new grade book and other supplies she thought she would need for her teaching responsibilities. Since she didn't have a real office where she could lock things up, she decided that she would be storing the majority of her class notes and files in the lab. There was enough room by her desk for one of those two drawer file cabinets. She also wanted to pick up a backpack so she could more easily cart her books and papers back and forth between home and work.
That evening Susan worked on organizing the materials for her class. She went through the lecture notes provided by Prof. Hastings. It appeared that he was one of those professors that preferred lecturing via PowerPoint presentations. Susan preferred a much more interactive lecture format. In her own experience, listening to PowerPoint presentation lectures tended to put her to sleep. Susan was an animated lecturer walking back and forth lecturing with her voice and her hands as she described the various chemical processes. She spent a lot of time working problems on the board in a stepwise fashion so that students could see the processes. Come Monday, it appeared the students were going to have to get use a completely different style. Finally it was time for bed. As Susan readied herself, she realized that she had completely forgotten about going to the furniture store to look for a new bedroom suit. "This weekend," she told herself, "I'll go this weekend and pick something out."
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"You're quiet tonight," Cuddy said.
"Thinking about Susan," House replied.
"Is she having personnel issues again?" she asked.
"No, not that I know of; I walked in on her in the lab while she was brooding about her late husband," he explained.
"I'm sure it takes a while to get over the loss of your spouse," Cuddy replied.
"We need to find somebody for her," House said.
"Since when do you play match maker?" Cuddy asked. "Give her time, she'll find somebody on her own. She's attractive and smart; I'm sure somebody will come along."
"Maybe," he replied.
A few moments later, Cuddy spoke up. "What about Wilson? Now that Sam has left, he's sure to be looking."
"I thought you said to leave it alone? And no, not Wilson; he may be my BFF, but I don't think he's her type and she's not needy enough for him anyway. Besides, he doesn't have a good track record and I don't want her to get hurt."
"Well, there's always Taub; now that he and Rachel have separated, he's available," Cuddy said with the corner of her mouth turned up.
"What did I say about not wanting her to get hurt?" House exclaimed before he saw the look on Cuddy's face and realized she was teasing.
Cuddy smiled, "You've picked up the protective older brother role fairly quickly. Don't worry House; Susan can take care of herself," she said as she leaned over to give him a quick kiss.
House put his arm over her shoulder, bringing her close as he kissed her forehead. After a few moments of silence he asked, "Cuddy, are you satisfied?"
"What do you mean, "satisfied"?" she asked.
"I mean, with me – with sex. Am I …. You know, taking good care of you?" he asked with a bit of trepidation. Personal conversations were never easy for him, but after his conversation with Susan, he needed to make sure.
"Do you really need to ask?" Cuddy asked
"Something Susan said made me think about it. I just want you to promise me that if I'm not meeting your expectations that you tell me," he said.
"House, I've told you before that you are the most incredible man I have ever known and that includes in the bedroom. You're not only all I need, you're all I desire," Cuddy replied as she gently kissed him on the cheek. "And on that note, it's late." She said huskily with a wink as she pulled him up from his sitting position and started to drag him to the bedroom.
"Hey, slow down! Cripple here," House said as he followed her down the hall.