A Little Night Music
Disclaimer: My heart may belong to these characters, but they do not belong to me.
Cuddy was bored.
She was on a date with another perfectly respectable man-Barry the divorced orthodontist from Trenton-but she could barely muster the energy to engage in small talk.
“So what exactly does a Dean of Medicine do?” Barry asked, cheerfully spearing a French fry.
Cuddy smiled, tried to be gracious in response, tried not to look at her watch.
Has House ruined me for all other men? she wondered. How could any man be as challenging, as sexy, as infuriating as Gregory House? Being with House was like extreme dating, she thought. Nobody else gives me that rush.
She was vaguely aware of a 5-piece band wandering onto the bar stage. They started playing a surprisingly respectable cover of the Box Top’s “The Letter.”
Barry looked concerned.
“I didn’t know the band was going to be so loud!” he shouted over the din. “Do you want to leave?’
Oh God. Yes.
She glanced quickly at the stage. A tall, lanky man was sitting behind the keyboard, his eyes closed, a half smile playing at his lips. He was swaying gently to the music and looked very much mid-reverie.
Holy shit. House.
“No. . .let’s stay,” she said unsteadily, still staring.
What the hell was House doing here? He was . . . in a band? How did she not know this? It was true, she and House hadn’t talked much since their breakup-they had at least moved past the nakedly hostile period to something resembling grown-up civility. But surely Wilson would’ve told her? He couldn’t keep a secret if his life depended on it.
“Friend of yours?” Barry asked.
“Wha . . . ?”
“That pianist you’re staring at. You know him?”
“He’s my. . .that’s Dr. House. He works for me.”
“He’s good,” Barry said approvingly, grooving dorkily to the music.
Cuddy knew that it was just a matter of time before House would look up and notice her. So she had two options: Skulk out like a criminal, or brazenly announce her presence.
She called over the waiter.
“See that piano player?”
“Dr. Greg?” the waiter said.
“Yeah. . .Dr. Greg,” she said, smiling. “On their next break, bring him a glass of scotch. Tell him it’s from me.”
“Will do,” the waiter said, scurrying off.
As the band finished Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl” she saw the waiter hop on stage, deliver the drink and point to her.
House looked up, blanched for a second. Then he composed himself, doffed an imaginary hat, and raised his glass.
She raised her own glass back. Barry did the same.
And it occurred to Cuddy that Barry was probably picking up the bill and had just bought her ex lover a drink.
**********
“Of all the gin joints in the all the towns in the world, you have to walk into mine,” House said grumpily.
He was standing in the doorway to her office the next day, his arms folded.
“It was Trenton, not Casablanca,” she said, regarding him warily. “And why didn’t you tell me you were in a band?”
He shrugged. “You didn’t ask.”
“How long have you been with playing with them?”
“When did we break up again?” he asked pointedly.
He knew the answer, but she humored him.
“Five months ago,” she said.
“Yeah, right around then. Something about filling a void.”
There was a brief, awkward silence.
“You guys are good,” she said finally.
“We stink. . . but it’s a way to pass the time. Also, it’s surprisingly easy to get laid when you’re in a band.”
She had gotten very adept at ignoring House when he tried to get a rise out of her.
“Well, kudos to Wilson,” she said. “I was completely in the dark.”
“It is a widely known fact that James Wilson can not keep a secret,” House said. “Which is why I haven’t told him. In fact, I haven’t told anybody and I’d appreciate it if you did the same.”
“Why?” she said, surprised. “I’m sure your team would love to come out and see you play.”
“I think you just answered your own question.”
He needs something that is his and his alone, Cuddy thought. She actually understood this.
“Your secret is safe with me, Dr. Greg,” she said teasingly.
“So, how was your date?” he asked, forcibly changing the subject. “He looked like he had bad breath.”
“He was very. . . nice,” she said, truthfully.
“Accountant? Tax attorney? Orthodontist?”
There was no way she was going to give him the satisfaction of telling him he’d nailed it.
“I could tell you what he does for a living, but then I’d have to kill you,” she said.
She grabbed a patient file and made her exit, enjoying the stunned look on his face as she brushed by.
***********
A week later, she was on her way home from work and found herself passing her own exit and driving straight to Trenton. It was like the car was on autopilot.
What are you doing, Lisa?
She sat in the parking lot of Mike’s Tavern for 10 minutes before she mustered up the courage to go in.
The band was already on stage, playing “You Really Got Me Going” by the Kinks.
She sat at the bar, ordered a dry vodka martini. The bartender was a middle-aged woman with no-nonsense short blonde hair and an elaborate tattoo on her arm involving a heart and a guitar and an American flag that was slightly faded and creped with age.
Cuddy drank quickly, trying to calm her nerves.
It was just a matter of time before he saw her.
She loved to watch House play piano. It was rare to see him this happy, this totally at peace with himself. It was clear that on stage he wasn’t some tortured, angry medical genius. He was just Dr. Greg, the piano player. One of the guys. Watching him like this filled her with inordinate, inexplicable pleasure.
The band finished their first set and, to her surprise, House walked right up to her. She didn’t even know he had seen her.
“Dr. Cuddy,” he said. “What brings you here?”
“I came to watch you play,” she admitted. There was no point in making up some lame excuse. “Is that okay?”
He nodded. “It is,” he said evenly.
The bartender handed House a scotch and eyed Cuddy suspiciously.
“So you’re the infamous Dr. Cuddy,” she said.
“Guilty,” Cuddy said sheepishly.
“Cora, Cuddy. Cuddy, Cora,” House introduced.
“Pleasure to meet you,” Cora said, not exactly pleasantly.
“Hi.” Cuddy gave a weak little wave.
“I gotta get back on stage.” House said, swigging his drink. “Now you girls play nice.”
He limped off.
Cora stared at her. If looks could kill, Cuddy would already be in a body bag.
“You really did a number on that boy” she said.
“We did a number on each other,” Cuddy replied ruefully.
“You flat-out broke his heart.”
“I know,” Cuddy looked down at her drink. “It’s complicated.”
“What’s so complicated? He’s a man. You’re a woman. You love each other. End of story.”
“That’s a little over simplistic, isn’t it?” Cuddy said wryly.
Cora gave her a look that suggested that the fancy lady who ran the hospital was being naïve.
“What I don’t understand is how you could ever look into those baby blues and not forgive him for every little thing,” Cora said, washing a glass with a rag and staring vaguely in House’s direction.
“Believe me, I forgave him for big things, small things, and all things in between,” Cuddy said. “Until I . . . just couldn’t any more.”
“And yet here you are,” Cora said.
“Here I am,” Cuddy said.
They regarded each other in a cool silence.
**************
Cuddy started showing up at Mike’s Tavern every Thursday. She found that she liked the easy rhythms of the nights at the bar. It was nice just to be a woman nursing a drink, listening to music, flirting with the piano player. For once, she didn’t have to be Lisa Cuddy, superwoman.
House and I are both hiding out, she thought.
Eventually, she and Cora became friends.
She learned that Cora was married to Joe, the guitar player in the group and that they had bought the tavern from the original owner, Mike, a few years ago.
She found out that, after their breakup, House would come to the bar and skulk around the stage, waiting for an invitation to jam with the band. Finally, they decided to go ahead and make it official.
“Have there been many women?” Cuddy asked one night. “Groupies, I guess?”
“I’ve seen a lot of women try,” Cora said. “But I haven’t seen any succeed. Honey, it’s all about you.”
Cuddy didn’t want to admit to herself how happy this bit of news made her feel.
************
Things at work were strange in their. . . normalcy. Neither she nor House acknowledged their secret life ever. It was all business as usual. House harassing his team. House angling for reckless medical procedures. House making inappropriate remarks about her undergarments.
In that sense, the Thursday nights at Mike’s were almost surreal. It was like she had stepped through a portal and into this world where she was Lisa Cuddy, seasoned barfly, and he was Dr. Greg, this soulful guy in a band. For now at least, she preferred it that way.
*************
One night, as the band played Pat Benatar’s “Heartbreaker” Cuddy was overtaken by an urge to run to the front of the stage and start dancing by herself. She hadn’t done this since college.
She had switched out of her office uniform and into a tight pair of skinny black jeans with black suede booties and a loose white silk blouse. So she moved to the music freely, feeling sexy, young, and carefree.
The guys in the band all knew her by now and egged her on, “Go Cuddy! Go Cuddy!”
From behind the piano, House pounded the keys and watched her intently. When she got back to the bar, she felt sweaty but exhilarated. Cora gave her a shot of tequila, which she downed with a flourish, raising the glass triumphantly over her head. The bar patrons cheered.
Later that night, she and Cora got into a long, intense discussion bout Cora’s first husband Floyd, the lowdown, rotten, two-timing bastard. Cuddy didn’t realize that the band had finished its final set and that the bar had emptied out until House came wandering over.
“You still here?” he asked.
“Guess so,” Cuddy said.
He got her coat from the now-empty rack, helped her on with it.
“Walk you to your car?”
He waved goodbye to the guys in the band, who were clearing their equipment off the stage.
“See ya next Thursday, Dr. Greg,” Joe said.
The bass player, a guy they called Scooter, made a cat-cally whistle in Cuddy’s direction. “About time you hit that, Dr. Greg.”
“Shut up, asshole,” House said, grinning at him.
Cuddy said good night to Cora and followed House outside.
The air was cool and pleasant, but Cuddy felt herself shiver just a little.
“Quite a performance you gave in there,” House said.
“I still got it,” she said, laughing.
“Yes you do,” he said.
They stood in front of her car, staring at each other. Neither dared to move.
Finally, House put a hand on her cheek, caressed it. She inhaled. Closed her eyes. Felt herself lean into his touch, like a cat.
Here we go.
But he didn’t go any farther. Instead, he softly said to her, “You’re killing me, Cuddy.”
And limped back to his motorcycle.
***********
“Should I stop this?” she asked Cora, staring idly at her drink.
In recent weeks, Cuddy had switched from Martinis to scotch on the rocks-the same brand House drank-and found she had acquired a taste for it.
“Stop what, honey?” “Me. Coming here all the time. Just when he’s found some kind of . . .peace. I think I’m confusing him.”
“Are you?”
“I’m definitely confusing myself,” Cuddy sighed.
Cuddy glanced at House on stage. He was helping to tune a guitar. Scooter said something to him and he shook his head, laughing.
He’s happy, she thought. And I’m messing with his head.
A week earlier, House had invited her to sit in while he played poker with the boys. House was wearing some sort of ridiculous sun visor and chomping on a cigar.
She was about to grab a spare chair, when he pat his lap. She hesitated for a second, then sat down, sure to keep all her weight on his good leg.
“When are you two just going to do it and get things over with?” Scooter said, shaking his head.
Cuddy blushed.
“We’re not. . . it’s not. . .”
“Well, if you’re not screwing Dr. Greg, can I have your number?” said Kyle, the drum player.
“Just play your damn cards,” House grumbled.
“So why do you come here so often?” Cora said now.
“I honestly don’t know.” She thought about it a little more. “It’s just nice being anonymous sometimes, ya know?”
Cora chuckled. “Sweetie, the entire bar industry would shut down if that weren’t true. . . And House?”
“I like being near him,” she said. “Is that so wrong?”
“He’s a big boy,” Cora said. “I think he can handle it.”
“Has he said anything to you?” Cuddy asked. “About, you know, my coming here?” She felt like she was in high school.
Cora smiled knowingly.
“He’s just going take what you give him, honey. He’s going to follow your lead.”
*************
On a Thursday late afternoon, on her way to a board meeting, Cuddy stopped by House’s office.
He was wearing his glasses, which she always found kind of sexy, and one of his artfully rumpled pink Oxfords.
“Good work today,” she said. “You saved that guy’s life.”
“Yeah,” he said, looking up. “But if Thirteen hadn’t discovered his autoerotic asphyxiation habit, I never would’ve solved the case.”
“She comes in handy like that,” Cuddy said.
She picked up the oversized ball on his desk and started tossing it from one hand to the other.
“Everything good?” she asked. A leading question.
“Everything’s good,” he answered.
She reluctantly put the ball down. He really wasn’t going to give her anything.
“Okay then,” she said, walking toward the door.
“See you tonight?” he asked, almost an afterthought.
With her back to him, she smiled.
“See you tonight.”
***************
It was about 1 a.m. and the bar had emptied out, save for a few stragglers nursing a pitcher of Coors Light at a corner table. House was at the piano, noodling around on the keyboard.
When he saw her watching him, he motioned for her to join him on stage.
She climbed up, sat next to him on the piano bench. He looked at her, started playing something mournful, a serenade of sorts in a minor key.
“That’s beautiful,” she murmured.
He seemed to steel himself a bit.
“I wrote it for you,” he said.
Her heart began doing pirouettes in her chest.
This isn’t reality, Lisa, she told herself. Reality is Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. Reality is House the drug addict, not House the melancholy musician in the bar.
But she felt herself inching closer and closer to him-the same gravitational pull that had brought her to Mike’s Tavern those many weeks ago.
In an instant, he took her face in his hands and they were kissing, completely oblivious to the fact that the remaining patrons were watching them, that the guys from the band were milling about, leering mischievously at them. House’s tongue was hot and soft in her mouth. His hands were running through her hair, down her back. And it felt so good to be back in his arms. The intensity of their ardor was such that they forgot where they were for a second, to the point where Cuddy was practically straddling the piano bench and her blouse had been tugged open enough to reveal the top of her black bra.
A woman cleared her throat.
“Kids, it truly warms my heart to see you like this, “ Cora said. “But you gotta get a room. I run a family establishment here.”
“My place?” House whispered hoarsely in Cuddy’s ear.
“I’m right behind you.”
**************
“You two have been in suspiciously good moods lately,” said Wilson.
The three of them were sitting in the cafeteria having breakfast. They had resumed this old ritual a few weeks ago.
“Are you. . .sleeping together?” he raised his eyebrows.
House, ever the chivalrous one, was first to respond.
“Get your mind out of the gutter, Wilson!” he said. “I am capable of being in a good mood that doesn’t have anything to do with sex.” He stopped himself. “Wait? Did I just say that?”
“Actually,” Cuddy said, looking down at the table. “I’m seeing someone.”
House looked a little taken aback.
“He’s a pianist,” said Cuddy. “He plays in a band.”
House’s posture relaxed.
“A pianist?” said Wilson, unconvinced. “Hmmm. Who else do we know who plays piano?”
“I guess I like pianists,” said Cuddy, shrugging.
“So is it. . .serious?” Wilson meddled.
Cuddy smiled. “I would say it. . .has potential.”
Wilson turned to House. “And what are you grinning about?”
House stopped smiling, grabbed Wilson’s bagel, took a big bite.
“Just the idea of Cuddy dating some guy in a band,” he said, his mouth full. “So out of character for her.”
Wilson frowned at both of them, gave a kind of “hrmmph” sound, and went back to what was left of his bagel.
House's P.O.V. here.