7.9—"The Threat"
It was raining outside. Monica had a black umbrella and a stylish beige trench coat, but her hair still got a little wet. She shook her umbrella out as she came through the hospital doors, grimacing. She ignored the people who did double-takes as she passed and made eye contact with no one, looking at the ground instead. Usually she took the stairs, even in heels, but today she didn't feel like walking. She pressed the up button on the elevator and leaned against the wall waiting for it. There couldn't have been more than a few ounces of rain water on her jacket and in her hair, but she appeared weighted down as she trudged down the hallway to Wilson's office. She closed the door behind her and hung her coat up on Wilson's coat rack. She sagged into his couch without looking at him.
He was looking at her, though. When she'd come in he'd looked up immediately and was now watching her anxiously.
"Well?" he asked after a moment, not able to take it any longer.
Monica raised her head from her hands and looked at him. She shook her head. "She gave me a green light."
Wilson's shoulders sagged. "You're kidding."
"I'm not," Monica insisted. She got up from Wilson's couch and sat instead in the chair across from him. "She gave me a green light. Me specifically. She said they usually discourage inter-office relationships because the couple might break up and cause problems, and I was about to leave, but she gave me permission. She pretended it was because this 'shadowing' thing is only a temporary program." Monica leaned forward, elbows on her knees, and put her head in her hands. "I don't believe it. I really thought I could trust her. She's a pretty woman. I thought she'd empathize with me. Honestly, James, I really thought she would see past my looks and hire me because...because I've worked my ass off and I deserve it."
Wilson resisted the urge to get up and put a comforting arm around her shoulder. He was sure she wouldn't let anything happen between them now, not after what they had discussed with House last night, but there was still an attraction between the two of them and he didn't want to push it.
"I'm sorry, Monica," Wilson said. "I don't know what's gotten into her lately. She used to be so nice; I definitely considered her a friend, a close friend, even, but ever since House and I got together it's been like a war."
"I don't get it," Monica said. "How does she think he'll react when he finds out what she did? How can she possibly expect him to want to be with her?"
"I'm not sure," Wilson replied. "She didn't want him to find out, she wanted me to cheat on him and then she'd be there to comfort him. But she should have known he'd figure out what she was really up to. Maybe now her mindset is just, 'if I can't have him, nobody can.'"
Monica scoffed. "Does that really ever work?"
Wilson smiled involuntarily, thinking of all the times House had tried to break up a relationship he was in, and then realized, with a twinge of worry, that it had worked.
"James, what's funny?"
Wilson shrugged. "It worked for House. There's a difference, though," he added quickly. "House has always wanted me, when I was single and when I was in a relationship. This is the first time Cuddy has actually tried to pursue a relationship with him. She was never interested in him until he was taken. House knows that."
Monica nodded. "So I guess we're going to have to tell him now, huh?"
Wilson sighed. "I wish we didn't. It will hurt. He does love Cuddy, a part of him always will. But we do have to tell him. He'll want to know." Wilson gave a wry smile. "He believes knowing is always better than not knowing."
[]
House was watching Prescription Passion when the oncologist and wannabe oncologist entered his office.
"Whatever it is can wait," he said without looking up. "Anna and her sister are going into labor at the same time, and Brock needs to choose which one he's going to be with."
"House, we need to talk," Wilson said seriously, turning off the TV.
House looked from Wilson to Monica and back again. "Oh god, you're pregnant," he said to Wilson. Then he glanced at Monica again. "And you don't know which of us is the father."
"House, Cuddy said yes," Monica interrupted, looking him in the eye.
House looked down at his desk. "Oh."
Wilson and Monica looked at each other.
"Are...you okay?" Monica asked tentatively.
Wilson moved to put his hand on House's shoulder, but House shrugged it off. Wilson looked at Monica. "Can you give us a minute?" he asked, but House cut him off.
"No, she can stay." Then he looked at her. "You're part of this, after all."
Wilson was in his office, leaning against his bookshelf. House was sitting in a chair in front of his desk, Monica on the couch.
"House, I think you might be right," Wilson said. "Monica...well I wouldn't say you've been overly friendly, but if Cuddy brought it up and..."
"So what do we do?" Monica asked. She looked a bit hurt. "How can we know for sure if she hired me because she thought I could learn from you...or because she thought I could get into your pants?"
"We already know," House said grumpily. "Right before she hired you, she summoned me to her office to remind me she's 'there for me.' She wants you to jump Wilson and then when I find out I'll come crying to her and she'll comfort me the only way she knows how—sex."
"We don't know that for sure," Wilson pointed out.
"I do."
"Maybe I could ask her," Monica suggested.
The two older doctors stared at her.
She rolled her eyes. "Not why she hired me. I could ask her if...it'd be okay for me to sleep with you. If I'm...you know...allowed. Obviously she knows you're together. If she says no then she really does care and she wants to protect you, House. If she says yes, then we know why she hired me."
House and Wilson looked at each other. House shrugged.
"That sounds like a plan," Wilson agreed. "Why don't you stop by her office before you leave tonight? You'll want to do it at a time when most people are gone."
"I will," Monica decided.
"In that case, I'm outta here," House said, getting up. He looked at Wilson. "You coming?"
"Not yet, I've got a couple of evening patient meetings and then some paperwork to catch up on. You go ahead and I'll see you at home."
"Will you be there for dinner?" House asked, leaning against the balcony door.
Wilson grimaced. "I'll try, House, but no promises. I'll text you later, okay?"
House shrugged. He put his hand in his jeans pocket and made a fist before heading outside and across the balcony to his own office.
"So what are we going to do, then?" Monica asked, sitting down in one of the chairs.
"Resign," House decided without looking at anyone. "I don't know what Cuddy's problem is, but obviously it's getting worse." He looked at Wilson. "Don't know about you, but I don't want to work for her if she's gonna do that to you."
"I agree," Wilson said slowly, "Except for the fact that she's wronging you just as much as me. And Monica, too. I certainly don't want to work for her anymore."
"Neither do I," Monica chimed in.
Wilson looked around and shrugged. "So do we do this all at once, or separately?"
"I'm gonna go," House said suddenly, standing up. "I'll tell her. Wilson, write my resignation for me. I'll give it to her later."
"House, are you sure that's a good idea?" Wilson asked, following him to the door. "Maybe I should come with you."
"No," House said, looking at him. "I need to do this. This is between me and Cuddy. You just got dragged into it. Just one of the many hazards of dating Gregory House."
"But worth it," Wilson teased, smiling at him.
House looked around for a metal pan to pretend to throw up in, but since they were in his office rather than a patient room, he settled for simply rolling his eyes before hobbling down the hall to the elevators and sticking his hand into his pocket.
[]
House's face was deadly serious as he stepped into Cuddy's office. She saw who it was and, looking just as grave, stood up from her desk and smoothed out her skirt. Her breasts were practically spilling out of her frilly pink top, but House didn't even look. Nothing about her, not even those, was attractive to him right now.
"Hello," she said cautiously, looking him over. "Is...everything all right?"
"No," House responded shortly. He was looking at the floor.
Cuddy took a few slow, tentative steps toward him. "House," she said, her voice gentle, soothing. "What happened?"
"I discovered some unpleasant news this morning," he answered, not watching her step closer. "Someone I thought cared about me betrayed me."
"Oh, House," Cuddy sighed, coming closer to him. "I can't believe it. Wilson–"
"–No," House cut her off, looking at her for the first time. "Not Wilson. Wilson loves me. Wilson wouldn't do anything to hurt me. I'm talking about you."
At this Cuddy took a step back. "Me? What are you talking about?"
"Monica came to you last night," House said, leaning on his cane and stepping forward. "She wanted to know if you had a problem with her sleeping with Wilson. You gave her a green light. Didn't even bother to mention that he was in a committed relationship with–"
"–House, no–" Cuddy tried to interrupt, backing towards her desk, but House plowed on.
"–You wanted her to sleep with him. You wanted him to have an affair, because you wanted to break us up, because now that you're the one single and miserable, you want the rest of us to be as well."
He had advanced on her and was glaring into her frightened eyes. She was shaking her head. "It's not true, House. I never said I was all right with her sleeping with Wilson."
"I don't believe you," House said coldly.
She continued to shake her head but didn't say anything else.
"I'm resigning," House said flatly, looking at her desk. "Wilson and Monica are too. You can expect our letters on your desk by this afternoon."
"What?" Cuddy asked, but she seemed to have got some of her strength back. "House, that's ridiculous, you can't resign."
"Watch me."
"No one else will hire you," Cuddy scoffed, almost smiling. "Foreman couldn't even get another job because he was too much like you. You're a liability, House, no one will go near you. You think I'm trying to break you up? Well go ahead, resign, House. Try living for a few months without your job, see how long your relationship lasts then."
She was standing up straight now, and House was glaring at her. She was right. He knew she was right. House wouldn't be able to get a job anywhere else. Wilson obviously would. Even with Wilson in his life, without his job, House would be nothing short of depressed, and seeing Wilson able to work would cause him to silently resent him. They'd get into fights all the time. They would eventually break up.
House had dug his hand into his jeans pocket and it was curled into a tight fist. He wasn't happy about it, but he was a realist, and he knew to prevent himself from being completely miserable, he'd need to stay at PPTH.
"Fine," House agreed shortly. "I'm not resigning. I'll stay. But you're nothing more than my boss from now on, Cuddy. Any friendship we might have had is long over. And I can guarantee that Wilson will still be resigning."
"No he won't," Cuddy contradicted, sitting back down at her desk.
"What makes you think that?"
She looked up at him. "Because if Wilson resigns, I'm firing you."
[]
House sat himself moodily down in Wilson's chair. The two other doctors in the room looked at him.
"Well?" Wilson asked finally for the second time that morning. "How'd it go?"
"I can't resign," House said. "I won't be able to get a job anywhere else. Apparently when you mix nut case, addict, and cripple, you get a recipe for disaster that no hospital will touch. You can still resign, Wilson, but she says she'll fire me if you do."
"What a bitch!" Monica said unexpectedly.
"Well she's gotta be bluffing," Wilson said, giving House a baffled look. "House, did it seem like she was bluffing?"
House shrugged. "Maybe."
"Well it's worked," Wilson admitted, slumping down in his chair. "I'm not resigning if there's a chance you'll get fired."
"One of us has to," House said, looking at Wilson and ignoring Monica. "We're letting her push us around. We both stay here, Wilson, it's just gonna get worse."
"How could it possibly get worse?"
"She's our boss, Wilson. She'll make us miserable. Just leave. I'm sure she won't really fire me, and if she does we can sue her for wrongful termination. I need to stay here, but you...you don't."
Monica felt like an intruder as she watched the two men staring at each other. They weren't touching at all, but she still felt like this was a private moment she shouldn't witness. She cleared her throat to remind them she was still in the room and they still had plans to make.
"I don't want to risk you getting fired, but I don't want to stay here like this either," Wilson said. "Maybe...I don't know, maybe we could get her to apologize or something."
House scoffed. "You think you could forgive her for this?"
"I don't know," Wilson admitted. "I won't be inviting her to any more dinner parties, but...if she really were sorry, I think I could find a way to still work for her. House, I'd rather us both be working for her than have you out of a job."
"You could threaten to sue her if she fires you," Monica suggested.
They looked at her. She shrugged. "If you could somehow prove that she's only firing you because he's resigning, you could sue her for wrongful termination, like you said. You can have your job, Wilson can have his, and if she doesn't cave you could win enough money to start your own practice."
"Right," House said, staring at her. "All we have to do is wait for her to slip up and write 'his boyfriend resigned' under the reason for termination and get a copy of the file. Great idea. Hey, if this job doesn't work out for you, you've got a place on my team."
"House," Wilson interrupted. "It's not a bad idea. We both know she's probably bluffing. If she threatened you to try and get me to stay, she might threaten me too. When I go in there, I'll...wear a wire. We'll see what she has to say and...hopefully it will be something we can use."
House's face flickered for a moment into an evil grin. "Monica, give me your cell phone," he instructed.
"What are you doing?" Wilson asked, watching his shadow hand her blackberry to his best friend.
"We need to get you bugged, and we need information to use against Cuddy in a lawsuit," House explained, punching numbers, "And I know exactly where to get it."
[-]
Lucas Douglas snapped photos of a boring housewife cleaning her kitchen. Some clients really were idiots, but at least they paid him. This was the third day in a row he'd sat outside her house, watching her clean and run errands and change the baby's diapers. She most certainly was not having an affair. She was probably the most boring, average person in the world.
His cell phone rang and Lucas glanced at it. It wasn't one of his usual contacts. Maybe a new client. Maybe a client with more interesting people to spy on. Lucas picked up the phone.
"Hello?"
"Hello," a voice responded. Lucas stared at the phone. The number wasn't familiar, but the caller was. "How would you like to help us dig up some dirt on a one Lisa Cuddy?"
[]
Wilson fidgeted with his pocket protector as he waited outside Cuddy's door, but ceased immediately when she called him in.
"What can I do for you, Dr. Wilson?"
The formality was not uncommon between them. While they usually called each other by their first names in social settings, this clearly wasn't the case now, and in the hospital, while she sometimes called him just Wilson, she used the title more frequently than she did with House.
Wilson took a deep breath. He wanted to yell at her, scream at her, berate her for what she did, lose his temper, maybe throw something through a window, but he couldn't. He had to remain professional. In preparation for this, he'd spent last night venting to House in the condo, which eased his anger somewhat but wasn't nearly as satisfying as yelling at the cause of the problem would have been. His rant had ended with some passionate couch sex, though, so at least there was that.
Keep your temper, Wilson reminded himself. Stay professional. He took an envelope out of his lab coat pocket and placed it on Cuddy's desk. "My resignation," he said.
"Wilson, don't do this," Cuddy implored, standing up from her chair. "You've been my head of oncology for years, everyone loves you."
"Then you should't have a problem writing me a letter of recommendation," Wilson replied, keeping his tone even. "You can let me know when it's ready, I'll have Greg pick it up for me."
"Please don't," she asked, coming around the table to stand next to him. Her four-inch heels made her nearly as tall as him, and she stood close, looking in his eyes. "This has been a misunderstanding. I'm sure we can work it out."
"What I'm not understanding," Wilson said, "is why, after years of friendship, you're willing to sever ties with both House and myself by trying to break us up."
"I'm not trying to break you up," Cuddy insisted. "Not anymore. When you first started...dating, all right, I was jealous, seeing him with you made me realize how much I love him, but I acted irrationally and I apologized for that. It's over. I accept your relationship and I want both of you to be happy."
"And I believed that, until you gave Monica permission to have an affair with me. You didn't try to warn House, you didn't try to talk me out of it. You wanted me to sleep with her."
"I never gave her permission to have an affair with you!" Cuddy insisted, starting to lose her temper now. "She asked about inter-office relationships, she never mentioned names. She could have been talking about anybody."
"Right, because she has hours of one-on-one contact with so many doctors in this hospital!" Wilson retorted, forgetting his intent to remain calm. "Just admit it, Cuddy, you set us up so House would get hurt and go to you. You don't want him to be happy, you just want him all to yourself. And if you'd considered that a year ago, you'd have him, but you missed your chance. He's with me, and I'm going to do everything in my power to keep it that way. He wants to be with me, Lisa. Sometimes he tells me...he's the closest he's been to happy. Lisa, you've been friends for years. I know you care about him. Isn't that what you want for him?" Wilson sighed. "I don't want to resign. I'd like things between you and me and you and House to go back to the way they were before. Please, if you just admit what you did and apologize for it, I'll tear up that letter. Just...please, Lisa."
"Wilson, I didn't do anything wrong," Cuddy said. "I didn't give Monica my blessing to sleep with you and I certainly didn't hire her to break you and House up. I have nothing to apologize for, Wilson. But you're not resigning."
"I am resigning," Wilson contradicted. "My mind was made up the moment I found out you're plotting against us. I can't work under these conditions, Lisa. I can't work for a woman who wants to steal away House's—and my—one chance at happiness."
Not looking at her, Wilson turned around and started to leave the office.
His hand was inches from the doorknob when she spoke.
"I'll fire him."
Wilson turned around. Cuddy was standing in front of her desk, her arms crossed.
"You're not leaving, Wilson." She shrugged. "You go, he goes. And if you really love him, you know how much this job means to him. You'll stay."
Wilson looked at her a moment. "No," he said. "I don't believe you, Cuddy. I'm calling your bluff. I'm leaving. If you can find it in you to admit what you did was wrong and make a sincere apology, I might come back. But right now I'm on my way to my office to clean out my things."
He reached for the door handle successfully this time, and walked out.
[]
Taub was accompanying the team's most recent patient, who had just been discharged, out the door. It was early morning, too early for House to be here, but if Taub was in then the others were, too. Cuddy pressed the up button and stepped into the elevator.
Foreman was sitting at the desk in the diagnostic room while Chase and Thirteen chatted at the table. They all looked up when she entered.
"Good morning," Cuddy greeted. "Dr. Foreman, may I have a word with you?"
They stepped through the adjoining doors into House's office.
"What's up?" Foreman asked once the doors were closed.
"How would you feel," Cuddy asked, smiling at him, "about becoming the head of diagnostics?"
Foreman looked at her. "Again?"
Cuddy shook her head. "Permanently this time."
"You mean...co-department heads?"
"Nope. Just you."
He gave her a skeptical look. "In charge of House? How many times have we tried that, and when has it ever actually worked?"
"Not in charge of House," Cuddy contradicted. "House's salary, his office, if he weren't handicapped I'd give you his parking space. Just you, in charge of Drs. Taub, Chase, and Hadley. Permanently."
He still looked suspicious. "Is House resigning?"
"Foreman, just answer the question," Cuddy said. "How would you feel about permanently becoming the department head?"
Foreman hesitated a moment, then shrugged. "Sign me up."