A/N: Wow, tonight everyone on Twitter seems to be reminiscing over Huddy. A nice trip down memory lane but also sad. Remember, no matter what, they can't take the good memories away from us!

Thanks to Cherokee Jedi who took a look and had not one single recommendation for edit. Now we all need to give her a friendly shove in the right direction so she will crank out that next long-awaited chapter of Safety!

Disclaimer: I don't own House. If I did, Cuddy would have walked into that sham of a wedding at House's apartment, grabbed him by the tie and yelled, "SNAP OUT OF IT!" and then turned around and bitch-slapped that Ukrainian knish-making masseuse whore and kicked her ass right out of Princeton. And that, my friends, is how "Fall From Grace" should've ended.

Okay so where were we? It's Friday night...

Cuddy spent the better part of an hour trying to get Rachel back to bed. By the time she did, House still hadn't returned home. She tried to call his cell phone but it went directly to voice mail. She couldn't imagine where he'd gone. As she sat in the rocking chair by the front window, she looked out, hoping she'd see her car pull up into the driveway. When another half-hour passed, she decided to call Sharon, just because she needed a friend.

"Hi Lisa," Sharon answered.

"Hey, are you busy?"

"Not really. Hannah's asleep, I'm just reading. What's up?"

"House and I got into an argument, Rachel walked into the middle of it and he took off."

"Geez, I'm sorry Lisa, and your first night together again too. That sucks. What was the fight about?" Sharon put down her book and diverted all her attention to her friend.

"He and Rachel came by the hospital today to see if I could leave early. He saw me talking to Phil Resnick and accused me of flirting with him."

"Resnick...I don't think I've met him."

"New guy in our department. I'm supervising his rounds for a few months."

"Okay. So...umm...were you flirting?"

"No...of course not!" Cuddy stated defensively. She added, "At least I didn't think so. It wasn't intentional. Besides, if there's one thing House knows about me, it's that I would never cheat in a relationship. Ever."

"I'm sure he does but old habits die hard and from what you've told me, his life is littered with disappointment and the people he counted on most seemed to give up on him eventually. Maybe you should try looking at this from his point of view."

"What do you mean?"

"Let's say you were visiting him in Princeton and you went to the hospital and saw him laughing and flirting with one of the female doctors."

Cuddy laughed out loud. "That would never happen."

"Just go with me on this."

"Okay," Cuddy relented.

"So you're excited about spending some time with him and then you see him flirting. How would you feel?"

"It's just hard because...well...House would never do that."

Sharon sighed loudly. "You're not making this easy," she said.

"Sorry."

"Okay forget that scenario. Were you ever jealous of him with any woman?"

"Yeah, twice. There was his ex-girlfriend, Stacy."

"Okay good, now we're getting somewhere."

"When her husband was sick, she came back to the hospital asking for House's help, I worried there might still be something there. I was right."

"What happened?"

"House had never really gotten over her. He pushed her away in anger after the infarction. She just couldn't put up with the anger and guilt anymore so she left. They never had closure and he never had the strength to move on so when she came back needing his help, it brought back all those feelings again between them."

"Even though she was married?"

"Yeah. They slept together a few times before she left again for good. Wilson told me that House asked Stacy to leave Mark for him. At first she couldn't do it but then she decided she would. A few days later, he'd changed his mind. He told her he couldn't do it, that he wouldn't change for her and things would be like they once were. And that was it, she packed up that night and was gone for good."

"So how did all that make you feel?"

"I had feelings for him back then but I was his boss and he'd changed and become a harsh, angry person after the infarction. There was no way I could even think of a relationship with him. We were adversaries most of the time, kept each other at arm's length and it worked for us. I resigned myself to the fact that we could never be together. But even then, I still cared about him very much and I worried she would break his heart again. When I found out she was leaving, I was actually relieved."

"And what was the other time?"

"He told me recently that he'd met a woman at Mayfield, the psychiatric hospital he'd been in. She visited her sister-in-law often and she and House got to know one another. Apparently she didn't pass judgment on his past and she was easy to talk to. He said he felt comfortable with her."

Sharon noted a hint of anger in that last sentence. "Was there anything serious to their...relationship?"

"No, but they had sex...once."

"And that was it?"

Cuddy sighed deeply. Talking about Lydia was hard but she couldn't just pretend it didn't happen.

"He thought he might've felt something for her but when he found out she was moving, he showed up unannounced on her doorstep and found out she had kids and she didn't want to leave her family. He didn't say it but I could tell it hit him pretty hard. He said something good came of it though because she helped him open up and realize that he could feel something again. I guess I should be thanking her for that huh?"

"Lisa, it was obviously a very terrifying time in his life. That he was able to make a meaningful connection with another human being during that time is significant."

"When he went to Mayfield I missed him so much. I missed him every single day. I kept going over everything that had happened in the past year, wishing I would've been a better friend, seen the signs. I hated myself. I wanted to be the woman he confided in, the one who made him better. It just hurt that he turned to someone else."

"But you didn't have that kind of relationship then," Sharon reminded her.

"No, we didn't. We were never on the same page."

"Try looking at it differently. Instead of still feeling guilty that you couldn't save him, be thankful there was someone to help him get to the point where you and he could finally take that next step. Because remember, he didn't take that step with her, he took it with you."

"You can put a positive spin on anything, can't you?" She asked, feeling a bit lighter.

"I'm that good." Sharon laughed. She was glad Lisa was in a better mood.

"I'm just trying to help you see his side of things. I hope it's working."

"It is. Talking to you always makes me feel better."

"Ditto. That's what friends are for."

"Sharon, you want to know what's really crazy?"

"What?"

"When my anger at him for what he did to me started to subside and I thought about how he was doing, I wondered if he'd found someone else. Even though I'd hoped he'd found a way to move on, in my heart I hoped he hadn't found anyone. It wasn't because I wanted him to be miserable, oddly enough I didn't, at least not later on. I just didn't want him to be able to give his heart to another woman. Does that make me a bad person for feeling that way?"

"No hon, it just makes you human."

Around ten-thirty, House limped into the bedroom and found Cuddy buried under the covers and sound asleep. Part of him had hoped she would still be awake so they could talk. Then again, he thought maybe it was better to sleep on it and talk in the morning when they were thinking more rationally.

He quietly stripped down to his briefs and headed to the bathroom to take a quick shower and brush his teeth. When he emerged a half hour later, he was dressed in pajama pants and a tee shirt. He slid under the covers facing Cuddy. As he looked at her in the dark, her features barely visible in the soft glow of the nightlight, he reached his hand forward to push a stray hair out of her face, careful not to wake her. As he watched her, House remembered all of the nights when they were together, when he'd wake up in the middle of the night unable to sleep all the way through because of the pain in his leg or something else on his mind. He'd often watch her and wonder how he got so lucky. A guy like me doesn't deserve a woman like her, he'd say to himself. With that would come the worry that he was inevitably going to do something stupid and push her away. He only hoped when he did, they could still work together. Sure, she was the one who would hire him but more importantly he couldn't imagine his life without her in it.

Cuddy sighed in her sleep and emanated an unintelligible word, then rolled over on her right side away from him. House rolled over on his back and put his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling. He trusted Cuddy and he knew she would never cheat, it just wasn't who she was. And yet he was practically accusing her of wanting to. Sure, she flirted and that bothered him but really the more he thought about it, the more he realized it wasn't intentional. Cuddy had an open, extroverted personality and people were drawn to her. When she smiled it lit up a room. It was one of the reasons he loved her.

Love.

He loved Cuddy more than he ever thought he could love anyone. His was overwhelmed with feelings he could never explain. Sometimes it thrilled him but most times it scared him to death. He never thought he could feel that way again after Stacy. After she left him, he swore he would never trust his heart to anyone else. He just couldn't handle the pain. It had taken him years to get over Stacy. He couldn't go through that again.

He lay there thinking about Stacy and how she was doing. They hadn't talked since he forced her out of his life again for good during Mark's recovery. He wondered if she and Mark had stayed together, if they'd had any children. He smirked at that thought. Stacy had never wanted any kids, not while they were together. She was a busy career woman and he just wasn't the fatherly type. House knew Mark was different. He was a steady, responsible, nurturing guy who would probably want kids. Though House was initially jealous of Mark, deep down he knew he was what Stacy needed. Stacy craved a man who was mature, responsible, and emotionally available. That was never House.

Until now.

Though it was still hard for him to open himself up at times, and let himself just be happy and enjoy the moment without reservations, he knew he wasn't the same man now that he was back then. He never wanted to be that way again if he could help it. Despite all that had happened between them, he had the woman of his dreams sleeping next to him. He already knew he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. He didn't consider himself the marrying kind but stranger things had happened. After all, he never thought of himself as father material and yet he was incredibly fond of Rachel and she was of him, and to his surprise, he was actually okay with that. He smiled to himself thinking about that but it was quickly followed by a frown. I'm getting way ahead of myself here, he thought. Before he could even think about the future, he needed to deal with the present.

He drifted into a deep sleep as he pondered how he would do that.

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