hi everyone! here's the new chapter.
where are you all? Have I fallen into a parallel universe?

** CHAPTER 35 **

"House! Wake up!"

Her voice. In his ear. House thought there wasn't a sound as beautiful as this one to awaken to. He felt a hand gently pushing his shoulder blade to make him move. He rolled on his back and, with his eyes still closed, stretched his arms in front of him to grab hold of her and tug her into him.

"Hmm," he mumbled, slowly emerging from his slumber. "You really won't give me one minute's rest, will you? We can't have sex more than four times a night, you know! At this stage, it's a disease!"

Cuddy whacked him on the back of his hand to make him recoil and he opened his eyes. She was standing in front of him, showered and dressed, and she stared at him with a faked look of dismay, betrayed by her genuinely fond smile.

"Stop acting like a child bragging about sex you didn't have," she scolded, frowning. "You snored. All night."

He sat up straight in the bed and crossed his arms in front of his chest, smiling devilishly at her.

"My memory tells me I didn't. At least not all night."

She took one step closer to the edge of the bed and leaned toward him, putting one knee on the mattress. She pinched his cheek and gave him a sound smack on the lips.

"Yeah, Lady's man, not all night, that's right! First, you won me over with a silly blues song and shamelessly took advantage of me. Once. Then, you snored," she said playfully, smiling at him. "But party time is over. You gotta get up now and go to work!"

"Oh no, I don't!" he guffawed grabbing her and making her topple into his arms.

She tried to extricate herself from his embrace, but he already had his hands under her shirt and his deft touch irrepressibly started to weaken her resistance. She had unconsciously placed her arms around his shoulders and realized she was about to give in to his kiss.

"House, stop," she protested, though unpersuasively, while he tickled her earlobe with his lips. "I have to go to work. You have to go to work…"

"Your lips say, 'go to work' but your body says, 'oh House, take me roughly on the floor now!'" he joked, sliding a hand under her skirt, and stroking her thigh purposefully.

Cuddy knew House didn't really mean what he said and that it was just banter. Their banter because he had that voice, the one he had when he tantalized her, and they played that delightful, sexual game that belonged to nobody else but them. But in the end, she perfectly knew he wouldn't stop her from leaving. It just felt right, in that moment, to pretend that he could and keep resisting him.

"How about my lips saying, 'if you're not ready in fifteen minutes, you're fired!'"

"Threatening blackmail to force me into another quickie? Oh you, cunning, merciless woman!"

He had managed to unbutton her shirt almost entirely and the opened tails revealed a slate, lacy bra that was cupping her round breasts just perfectly. He really could have done it. He really wanted to do it… He sighed, instead, and loosened his grasp around her. She repositioned herself a little but stayed in his arms and stared at him. He shot her a mesmerized gaze and gently brushed the curvaceous skin of her breasts with the back of his hand.

"You better go," he said throatily, his longing contained in the simplicity of these three words.

She bit her lip to hold back the urge of kissing him and stood up. While he intensely peered at her, she buttoned her shirt up again and tidied herself up.

"Don't fall back asleep as soon as I'm gone," she warned.

"Not a chance! I'm fully awaked now," he replied, glancing knowingly at his groin.

She pouted sensuously and exaggeratedly sighed in disappointment.

"Aww, all this energy lost over nothing!" she teased. "Do you think you'll have some left for tonight, old man?"

His mouth fell agape at her sassy comment and left him speechless long enough for her to turn on her heel and leave the room. Just when she was about to walk out, he called after her.

"Is this a new skirt you're wearing?"

Cuddy felt a shiver of pleasure run down her spine. Of course, her skirt was new. And, of course, he had noticed. Yet, it would never stop to amaze her how he was the only one who would notice such mundane little details about her. She turned around at the threshold and smiled.

"Are you making an inventory of my wardrobe?" she said, in a detached tone, not willing to show how touched she was.

"God no!" House exclaimed. "I wouldn't have enough memory for that! It's just that this skirt favorably suits your otherwise ginormous ass, and it felt unusual enough for me to notice."

She narrowed her eyes and nodded her completely fake approval.

"Yeah, sure!" She chuckled and walked out of the room, conspicuously swinging it for him.

When she arrived at the front door, she stopped at the sight of his guitar that he'd left against the wall in her entry the night before. She closed her eyes and, for a second, she let the memory of him serenading her fill her. A fond smile flickered across her lips, and she felt irrepressibly drawn to the instrument. Unable to resist, she leaned down and reached out her hand to touch the strings.

"Don't touch Muddy!" his voice said playfully behind her, startling her.

She straightened up and turned around in his direction. He stood, naked, at the other end of the hallway and he was smiling broadly, almost victoriously, visibly at ease with his nudity and even taking advantage of it as he perfectly saw that she couldn't take her eyes off of him.

"You're going to be late," he added, leaning nonchalantly against the doorjamb.

Cuddy slightly shook her head as if she needed that little jolt to break the spell and turned her eyes away from him. She took a deep breath and twisted the knob to open the door.

"Go get dressed," she said, facing the door to hide her beaming face from him. "I give you one hour to turn up to the hospital. Not a minute more!"

# # # # #

Of course, House showed up at PPTH two hours later. He walked with a bouncy limp across the main lobby and toward the entrance desk. There, after having greeted the nurse with a loud and cheerful 'good morning!' he leaned over the counter to retrieve his mail and glanced throughout the clinic door.

Cuddy was there, at the nurse station, filling some forms. Maybe she felt his gaze on her because, for no particular reason, she suddenly lifted her head and looked in his direction. Their eyes met and, instantly, House beamed like a child in front of a candy store. She frowned and decidedly put her files down then walked toward him.

"I have no memory of me granting you the morning off," she said in her bossy voice, approaching him at the desk.

"Good morning, Dr. Cuddy," he answered joyfully. "What a lovely outfit you're wearing today! You look like the hottest Dean on the East coast!"

She widened her eyes but soon hid her surprise behind a not-impressed look, flashing him a perfunctory smile.

"And you look like the latest Doctor in the whole continent."

"Yeah, I worked hard to win that title," he replied cockily, taking a step toward her.

She imperceptibly shivered but kept up a good front. She jutted her chin up and engaged in a staring contest with him until she saw he was the one feeling shaken by her intense gaze. She smiled victoriously then and turned on her heel.

"Go do your job, House," she said, walking away. "Curing patients… You do remember I'm signing paychecks saying that's what you're supposed to do, right?"

House watched her walk up to the clinic door, swinging her hips determinedly. She loved to have the last word and he loved to watch her love it! He stood there, his eyes riveted to her silhouette, unable to look away. When she arrived at the door, she deliberately spun round to push it open with her back so that they would lock eyes again just for a few extra seconds.

He narrowed his eyes and flashed a knowing smile at her which told her they would finish their conversation later, outside of the hospital. She smiled back, challengingly, and turned her back to him to enter the clinic. As soon as she disappeared in her office, he sighed heavily and unconsciously shook himself. He turned around to walk to the elevator and met the nurse's dismayed gaze then.

"Geez, she's so into me! Do you think I should sue for sexual harassment?" he exclaimed, conspicuously leaning in, as if to make her a confession.

The nurse opened her mouth to reply, looking utterly bewildered, but he straightened up and walked away with a broad, satisfied smile on his face before she had the chance to say anything.

# # # # #

As House was limping down the fourth-floor hallway, the memory of the past night brought music back to his mind and he entered his office singing the song he'd sung under her window, flippantly humming the words that'd won her back.

I'm a hoochie coochie man
The line I shoot will never miss
When I make love to a woman,
she can't resist

He absent-mindedly paced inside and bumped into Cameron who was on her way out.

"What are you doing here? I thought you'd freed yourself from my powerful aura two years ago."

"I need some extra help."

"Who doesn't?" he said, smiling.

"I thought your team could work in the E.R today," Cameron said, squinting at him intrigued by his unusual, good mood.

"What do you mean, 'my team could work in the E.R'? My team is busy. We-"

"Your patient's been discharged early this morning."

"What?"

He looked surprised then but, worse, he looked like he'd been caught red-handed being totally clueless, as if it were blatantly obvious that he hadn't paid attention to his latest case for quite some time. Cameron smiled, genuinely amused by the significance of his "disconnection".

It was, indeed, more than atypical to witness House not being aware of his patient's condition. He usually was always the first to be updated and if he wasn't, he at least did what he had to do to get the proper useful information on time.

She remembered the conversation Chase, Foreman and she had in the cafeteria about House possibly being in a relationship with Cuddy, and she studied him closely, trying to decipher what could betray that change in him. And he had changed. A woman knew that kind of things. She'd noticed it quite immediately by the way he almost didn't limp, or the way he'd entered his office, unaware of the broad smile on his face. He didn't even bother hiding it behind a sour and bitter scowl like he usually did. Instead, he accepted it. He had 'relax' written in capital letters on his forehead and maybe even the beginnings of happiness taking over him.

"Patients do get cured when you're not here, you know," she said studying his reaction.

"Well, of course they do!" House exclaimed, looking away to hide his embarrassment.

"And you're not often here lately," she added evenly.

He jerked his head back to face her and smiled a little provokingly.

"Are you spying on me, counting my working hours? Did Cuddy hire you in her Dean squad to check on doctors' schedule?"

Cameron couldn't repress a smile. Of course, he had to bring up her name in the conversation. The reason why he had was so obvious and so touching at the same time: Cuddy really had to be in his every thought. But Cameron knew House and how closed-up he could be sometimes when he'd decided not to share any of his personal secrets with anyone. He'd pushed her away once and she remembered well how it'd felt then. But she'd grown now, and things were different.

Over the past two years, away from him, she'd learned how to be another woman, in full bloom, more confident and less needy. She'd moved on. Of course, House would always be her mentor, her Pygmalion, the man she once thought she loved. But she'd had time to think, and she'd finally realized those feelings she'd felt for him weren't real.

They'd carried her away in the delusion of love but that's not what it was. Cameron just needed to get his full attention, like a little girl wants her daddy to be proud of her. She couldn't stand misery. She had this irrepressible need to fix him and make him happy. And now, she was finally seeing it happening. And it was because of another woman.

The very idea that someone other than herself could make House remotely happy didn't even bother her. On the contrary, she felt happy for him and in some way, it felt right. She knew, now that she had Chase in her life, who was the complete opposite to House in character, that House and her would have never made a couple. They weren't a match. But with her… it was different. Cameron could acknowledge that now. She could admit some indisputable evidence when she was facing them. She fondly smiled at House, and he stared at her with a suspicious look.

"What? I can see by the look on your face that your mind's processing about something. I can practically see the wheels turning-"

"Nothing," she answered quietly. "I'm just happy for you, is all."

For a split second, House looked dumbfounded by her assessment, but he soon pulled himself together.

"Of course, you're happy!" he exclaimed with a flourish. "You're like the Judy Garland of medicine in this hospital. You can't help spreading happy, silly thoughts all over the place! You know, sometimes I'm almost expecting you to sing instead of talking."

Cameron smile grew wider, and she looked at him with a fond gaze.

"Funny you'd say that because I thought I heard you sing when you arrived," she said, not impressed by his deflecting attempt.

"Oh, so that's why you figured there's something about me! Because you heard me sing? Tss. You know I was already sharing my huge musical talents, in front of an audience even, when you were still just a little baby running in diapers."

Cameron would have loved to carry on that conversation with him as it felt as if she could learn more about him now, without even having to ask, than she'd ever been able to before, when she desperately wanted to. But those were nothing else but deflecting efforts and she didn't want to let House win his way out of this. Even if she didn't want to push him either, somehow, she wanted him to know that she knew. She wanted to stop feeling like a little girl around him.

She was standing in front of him and, for the first time in a long time, it seemed to her that they were on the same level: doctors, coworkers, equals. She was no longer feeling awkward or out of place around him. It was time for her to get closure.

"I think you and Cuddy should take that step you've both been hesitating to take for so long and maybe you already have but, well, I just wanted to say that I think… it's great," she said looking House straight in the eyes. "You deserve to be happy and Cuddy, she makes you feel that way. She always has. And it's ok: You can sing if you want to. You can be a Judy Garland, too. Don't worry, I won't tell anyone."

She stared at him with a teasing smile, satisfied of her little speech and feeling relieved to have told him she wished him to be happy with another woman while feeling nothing. House stared back at her, expressionless but with his eyes narrowed, and Cameron could tell he was working hard on his trademark, detached, everything's-under-control face. She patted him on the shoulder and started to leave. At the doorstep, she turned around and addressed him one more time.

"Oh, and House, when you see your team, could you please send at least one of them to the E.R. I really need some extra help there."

And then she left. House watched her walk away through the glass walls of his office, and when she disappeared behind the next corner, he went to sit at his desk and stared blankly in front of him for a few seconds. He grabbed his giant red and grey tennis ball and threw it in the air absent-mindedly, with a smile on his face. One that showed respect and a kind of fondness. Cameron was not a little girl anymore. The duckling had spread its wings.

And she'd quite boldly unmasked him, too. But House didn't mind. He wasn't mad at her, because for the first time in years it was ok. He could be a 'Judy Garland' too.

Metaphorically speaking of course, he thought smiling.

A/N

well, ok, seriously, this is strange. I don't mean to say that having readers is a due or anything, but even when there's no comment for a chapter, I can still see that there're always people who stop by to read. but today, ugh, nothing!... like, no one... so this is utterly puzzling because now, I don't really know how I should read this information...

does it mean that I should drop the story and stop posting because no one is interested anymore, or does it mean that the site has a problem?

~ maya