Cold Turkey
I came THIS close to not posting this fic, because it’s really subpar, dammit (not to mention WAY derivative of many of my other fics). But then I decided: What the hell? It’s finished. It has a beginning, middle, and end. Plus . . .Huddy! I think (hope?) that’s better than no Huddy fic at all. I'll try to do better next time. xo, atd
House had been a sporadic presence at the hospital since their breakup-stumbling in late, conspicuously unshaven, the previous night’s alcohol still on his breath, lipstick on his collar (for her benefit, no doubt)-and Cuddy had tolerated it, to a point.
But she had run out of patience. She was just about to call him and tell him that the pornographic pity party was over when he appeared in her office, looking relatively refreshed and groomed, and as sober as she’d seen him in over a week.
“Good morning,” he said evenly.
“Good morning,” she said, surprised. Then she squinted at him. “So you’re done with the rock star on a bender routine?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Good. I’m glad. And you’re ready to get back to work?”
“No.”
“No?”
“I’m not ready to get back to work because I’m here to tender my resignation. I quit.”
She had been down this road before. She heaved a sigh.
“What do you want, House?” she said wearily. “A raise? A new flat-screen TV? Twenty-four hour on-call massage service?”
“It’s not like that. I just quit.”
Now she sat up straight in her chair. It occurred to her he wasn’t kidding.
“But why?”
“Because every time I see Robert Chase it fills me with a crippling sense of depression and regret. Oh no wait, I mean you.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, meaning it.
“Me too.”
She bit a fingernail and regarded him.
“But House. . .we’ve gotten through rough spots before. We’ve survived you being an ass to me, me being an ass to you, fights, fantasies, periods of hating each other, periods of being obsessed with each other, even me dating Lucas.” She gave a nervous laugh. “Why should this be any different?”
“The fact that you have to ask that is the reason why,” House said.
Cuddy kept studying him, trying to detect some chink in his resolve, some sense that he was anything other than 100-percent serious.
“What if I don’t accept it?” she said stubbornly.
“You have no choice,” he said, handing her the formal letter of resignation-hospital protocol. “That’s it. I’m done.”
She took the envelope but didn’t open it.
“House, you’ve been through a lot these last few weeks. We both have. No one should do anything rash at a time of extreme duress.”
Something resembling scorn flashed across his face. Then he began to laugh, maliciously.
“Oh, that’s rich,” he said.
“What?” Cuddy asked, meekly.
“Something rash like, I don’t know, break up with your boyfriend of 10 months?” he sneered.
Her face began to feel hot.
“Fair enough,” she said quietly.
There was a heavy silence.
“House,” she said finally. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” he said, not blinking, looking at her square in the eye.
“But what about your department? What about your fellows?”
“Chase can take over. Foreman may be the more obvious choice, but Chase is the most naturally intuitive diagnostician on my team. He’s good.”
“He’s not as good as you,” she said.
“No.”
“Are you sure we can’t just talk about this?” she said. “We haven’t once just sat down like two adults to discuss our breakup.”
“Do you want to get back together?” he said. The question wasn’t tender. It had an edge.
“No,” she admitted.
“Then there’s nothing left to say.”
#####
Four months later, Wilson sat down across from Cuddy in the cafeteria.
“Hello grumpy,” he said with a grin. “Who stole your lunch money?”
Cuddy, who had been deep in thought, blinked at him.
“You’ve got to tell me where he is,” she said.
Wilson rolled his eyes a bit.
“Oh, that again.”
“Yes. That.”
“I told you, I’m sworn to secrecy. Why not just call him?”
“I have. He won’t return my calls.”
“Did you leave messages?”
“Yes.”
“Telling him that you miss him? That you want to get back together?”
“Not quite. . .”
“Then that’s why he’s not returning your calls.”
“I do miss him, Wilson. When I broke up with him, never in a million years did I think he was suddenly going to . . .drop out of my life.”
“What did you expect?”
“That I’d see him at work. That we’d find a way to be friends again.”
“You were never just friends.”
“No… so maybe we’d find some new way to be friends. Friends with. . .subtext. Hell, I might’ve even considered friends with benefits.” She gave a self-deprecating chuckle, but Wilson didn’t look amused.
“That was unrealistic, Cuddy,” he said. You and House saw the relationship differently. To you, House was just a guy you dated and it didn’t work out. . .”
“That’s unfair!” she found herself raising her voice, but then, remembering where she was, she lowered it. “I was in love with him for 20 years. I’m still in love with him. That doesn’t mean we’re meant to be in a relationship together.”
“But it was different for House. You were his brass ring, his one shot for happiness.”
“That’s a bit extreme,” Cuddy said.
“No, actually it isn’t.”
“Look, I’m already resigned to the fact that I’m never going to love another man the way I loved House,” she said. “That kind of passion. . . it’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing. I know that. But that doesn’t mean I can’t find someone else to love. Someone I can build a life with.”
“Well good for you. But House doesn’t feel that way. You’re his. . .everything.”
Cuddy shook her head.
“He fell in love with Stacy. He fell in love with me. He can fall in love again. I don’t see him as quite as love-impaired as you do.”
“You know that’s bullshit,” Wilson said. “Stacy was before the infarction. Before the darkest parts of his nature took over. You fell in love with a drug-addled, asshole, miserable, misanthrope. Stacy broke up with him when he became that man.”
Cuddy considered that for a moment.
“He wasn’t like that, you know,” she said. “When we were dating. He wasn’t an asshole. He wasn’t miserable. And, until the end, he wasn’t on drugs.”
“Because of you.”
“He can be like that again!”
“I think you underestimate the power you have in his life, Cuddy. You always have.”
“Then please just tell me where he is.”
######
House didn’t believe in sixth senses, but he understood how other people could, because he could always sense when Lisa Cuddy had entered a room. The scientist in him knew it was some combination of her perfume, the specific rhythm of her heels clicking against the floor, even the way people reacted to her-men drooling, women sizing her up admiringly-like some glamorous starlet had just arrived on the premises.
She had taken off her coat and, after looking for a coat check in vain (it wasn’t a coat check kind of place), was now heading toward a bar stool in front of him.
Seeing her for the first time in months felt like a setback. Like, he had convinced himself he was getting over her, moving on with his life and now seeing her, in the flesh, he realized that he was right back where he’d started from.
But he’d always had a good poker face.
So he placed an empty martini glass in front of her and then began shaking the vodka and vermouth and ice in a shaker.
“Four months,” he said musingly. “I actually thought Wilson would’ve held out longer.”
“I harangued him into submission,” she joked.
“It’s your special skill,” he said.
He poured the martini into her glass, expertly, leaving just the tiniest skim of ice on top, just a whisper of vermouth. Then he speared three olives and dropped them in.
“So this is where you work now?” she said, looking around, still disbelieving.
“Well, yes, either that or it’s ‘make your own martini’ day here at McLeod’s.”
“And this is it? You’re not practicing medicine anymore?”
“Never said that. Just biding my time here until I figure out what I want to be when I grow up.”
“You already are grown up,” she said. “And you’re a doctor. A damn good one. Best I know.”
Cuddy took a sip of the martini and had to contain herself from immediately proclaiming it the best she’d ever had.
“Not bad,” she said.
House gave a small smile.
She took another sip and then looked at him, pleadingly.
“House, stop this madness. Come back to work. It’s been long enough.”
“Excuse me one sec,” House said.
The bar was half empty-it was 7 pm on a Tuesday-but he still had customers.
“Refill?” he said to a bearded guy drinking some sort of serious looking brown liquid at the end of the bar.
The guy nodded. House poured bourbon into a glass, refilled the bowl of peanuts, and returned to Cuddy.
“Sorry. . . you were saying?”
“Come back to work!”
“Are you still the Dean of Medicine?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll stay here thanks.”
She sighed.
“Are you at least looking for a job? If not as a practicing doctor, as a researcher?”
“I will. . . when I’m ready.”
“But a bar, House?”
She looked around. It really wasn’t much to look at: The bar stools were covered in a dark red vinyl that was frayed and chipped, leaving some of the foam interior exposed. There were vintage beer posters on the brick walls, a few dark wood tables where families and couples munched on burgers and chicken tenders. There was a Keno machine. A baseball game-Mets against the Phillies-was playing on the TV, with the sound turned down.
“I like it here,” he said with a shrug.
“You’re a misanthrope at a job that forces you to be surrounded by people all the time!’
“Barflies,” House said. “My kind of people.”
“You’re a drug addict hanging around other addicts.”
“I haven’t taken a Vicodin since…the last time I laid eyes on you, actually.”
She swallowed.
“You’re a genius wasting his gifts on creating the perfect martini,” she said.
“Perfect, huh?” he said, pleased. “I could tell you liked it.”
“House, it’s not funny.”
“Who’s laughing?”
“Not me. Three patients have died in the last four months that I’m convinced you would have saved.”
“I probably would have. Instead, I chose to save myself.”
It was true he looked good. Trim, fit, in snug jeans, a red tee-shirt, and a newsboy cap.
“So my presence here is upsetting you?” she said.
“Naw, I’m a big boy. I can handle it,” he said.
A waitress came up to the bar. She was mid-30s but had the style of a younger woman-tattoos, mini skirt, combat boots. Her dyed red hair was tied into ironic pigtails.
“Doc, I need two Cokes, a seabreeze, and a Bud Lite.”
House nodded, and began to make the drinks.
The waitress cocked her head in Cuddy’s direction.
“You a friend of Doc’s?” she said.
She was pretty: Wide blue eyes, a smattering of faded freckles across her nose, a slightly crooked grin.
Cuddy folded her hands in her lap. She didn’t know how much this woman knew about House’s past.
“We, uh, used to work together.”
Her eyes got even bigger.
“So you’re her, huh?” she said.
“I’m. . .Dr. Lisa Cuddy.”
The waitress, whose name was Rose, looked her up and down.
“And it all becomes clear,” she said, mirthfully.
House slid the drinks toward them, then placed them on Rose’s tray.
“I see you two have met,” he said.
“Not formally,” Rose said. “I’m Rose Kelly. I’d shake your hand but. . .” she gestured to the now slightly teetering tray.
“And this is Dr. Lisa-”
“I know who she is, Doc,” Rose said, with a wink. “As if I couldn’t have guessed.” And she walked back to the dining room.
“She seems … nice,” Cuddy said.
“She is,” House said, in a distracted sort of way.
Cuddy felt a sudden sense of being in an alternate dimension: One where House wore newsboy caps and had a rag poking out of his back pocket and flirted with comely Irish waitresses named Rose. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so out of touch with him-Mayfield, probably. But that was temporary, not to mention therapeutic. Then again, according to House, this was therapeutic, too.
When she looked up she saw that he was looking at her, trying to figure out what she thinking about.
“What?” he said.
“I just . .miss you,” she said, finally.
“You dumped me. You don’t get to miss me,” he said.
“I never thought you’d just leave,” she said. “I miss having you in my life. I wasn’t prepared to go . . . cold turkey.”
“Cold turkey,” he said with a tiny smirk. “We both have a bit of history with that.” (He was referencing Cuddy’s Thanksgiving scam-the cold turkey sandwich waiting for him at Julia’s house.)
“Bad analogy,” she said, chuckling. “But you know what I mean. I got used to seeing you every day. And now you’re just . . .gone.”
“The unintended consequences of dumping me,” he said.
She eyed him.
“So that’s what this is? Punishment for me dumping you?”
He gave a tiny snicker.
“Your narcissism truly knows no end, Cuddy,” he said.
Her face reddened.
“I just can’t believe this is the right path for you. I understand that you don’t want to work with me. I understand that seeing me is painful. So let’s work something out.” She suddenly found herself babbling. “We can get a new supervisor for you. A new protocol for okaying medical procedures. We can minimize our contact. Coordinate our schedules so we don’t run into each other in the halls. Communicate via email. Take alternating days in the cafeteria.”
“And here I thought I was the one who feared change,” he said, knowingly.
“I just can’t stand seeing you waste your gifts,” she muttered.
“So which is it, do you miss me? Or are you upset that I’m wasting my medical gifts?”
She looked at him. He’d been, at various times in her life, her unrequited crush, her greatest conquest, her boldest hire, her adversary, her lover, and her best friend. Now it almost felt like she was talking to a stranger.
“It’s both,” she said.
#####
After Cuddy left, Rose came over to the bar.
“Well, I can see why you’re so hung up on her,” she said.
“I’m not so. . .” He stopped. There was no point in protesting.
“Things looked pretty cordial between you guys. Does this mean you’ll be leaving us? Stop with the slumming? Go back to the hospital where you belong?”
“No,” House said. He looked at the spot where Cuddy had been sitting, as if he could conjure her.
“Why not? I hate to sound like, well, her. . . but world-famous doctors don’t tend bar at dingy Irish pubs in Trenton.”
“This one does,” House said.
“For how long?”
“Until I’m ready to move on.”
#####
Cuddy was making it difficult to move on, though, because she showed up again, a few weeks later, this time wielding a patient file.
“I hate to bother you,” she said. “But I thought if you could just take a glance at this file. See if it triggers anything? Your team-I mean, Chase’s team-is stumped.”
House was already making her a martini. He slid it toward her, grabbed the file.
She took a sip, then a bite of one of the olives.
“What’s in this?” she said.
“I cured the olives in garlic-infused oil and stuffed them with gorgonzola,” he said. “You like?”
“I love,” she said, eating another one. “Can I have, like, a little bowl of these on the side?”
He grinned. Filled a bowl with the olives.
Flipping through the file, he said: “I assume they’ve ruled out MS?”
“Yes.”
“And lupus?
“Test came back negative.”
“Has anyone checked for Sjögren's Syndrome?”
Cuddy grabbed the file back from him.
“No,” she said, popping another olive in her mouth. “Dry eyes and mouth. Fatigue. Joint pain. It fits.”
She pulled out her cell phone. “Chase, I just had a brainstorm. Did you check for Sjögren's Syndrome? Good. Do the test. . . “ Then she gave a sheepish smile. “Uh, okay. I will.”
After she hung up: “Chase says hi.”
House smiled.
“More olives?” he said, noticing her empty bowl. She nodded.
“I always forget what a good cook you are,” she said. “You should’ve have cooked more when we dated.”
“And deprive myself of your Tuna Surprise Casserole? Never!” he said.
“Shut up. You loved my tuna casserole.”
“I did,” he said. “The surprise was that it actually wasn’t horrible.”
“I remember the first time you cooked dinner for me,” she said. “I thought you had a personal chef hiding in a closet some place.”
“You never were very trusting,” House said.
“Come on, that’s totally something you would do. Admit it.”
“I suppose it is,” he said. “You know me well.”
“Yeah,” she said, taking a festive sip of her martini. “No one knows you better.”
“Right back at you.”
And they contemplated each other.
#######
She was back a week later with another patient file (Binswanger’s syndrome) and then a few days after that with another one (Cushing’s Disease) and then a few days later with a fairly easy to recognize case of small cell carcinoma. And each time she stayed later, and they talked more, reminisced more-got into that little, impenetrable bubble of theirs where the world receded and it was just the two of them (at one point forcing House’s boss to bellow: “Hey, Romeo, you have more than one customer!”)
The last time, she stayed until closing. He walked her to her car.
“Sorry I keep barging in your place of work like this,” she said. “I don’t know why we’ve had all these hard-to-solve cases lately. But I really appreciate your help.”
“No problem.”
“I feel like I’ve been disrupting you.”
“You’re fine. It’s a bar. Not an operating room.”
“But I mean…you left Princeton Plainsboro to get away from me and I keep showing up. Like a. . .bad virus.”
“I like seeing you,” he admitted.
“If you like seeing me here, why can’t you like seeing me at the hospital?” she said leadingly. “Where you belong.”
It was a valid question, of course. The truth was, every time he saw Lisa Cuddy he felt like he was cheating-taking increasingly addictive hits of his favorite drug. (When it came to House’s addictions, Vicodin had always been a distant second.) The sensation was heady-temporary euphoria, followed by the inevitable crash and self-doubt: Where was his will power? Where was the very resolve that had compelled him to leave the hospital in the first place? He knew that seeing her was wrong, but still. The idea of never tasting his favorite drug again filled him with dread.
“I don’t mind seeing you at the bar,” he rationalized. “My turf. My terms. But don’t push it.”
She smiled.
“Fair enough,” she said.
Inside the bar, the staff was cleaning up, vacuuming, putting chairs on top of tables.
“I should probably go help,” he said, cocking his head in their direction.
“Right, of course.”
For a second, they hesitated: Would they kiss? Hug?
House opened the car door.
“Good night, Cuddy,” he said. She reluctantly got into her car, and drove away.
######
“You’re slipping,” House said over the phone.
“What?” Chase said.
“I leave you alone for five months and you forget how to diagnose small cell carcinoma?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Cuddy brought me that guy’s file. I was the one who diagnosed him.”
“No you weren’t,” Chase said.
“I wasn’t?”
“No. We made that diagnosis right away.”
“You did?”
“Of course. We learned from the best. And when are you coming back, you asshole? Things just aren’t the same here around here without you. Cuddy still refuses to promote me-I’m the ‘interim department head’-and no pays any attention to me anyway.”
House ignored him. His mind was racing.
“And the patient with Cushing’s?”
“I, uh, think it was Taub who diagnosed him.”
“And Binswanger’s?”
“Foreman got that one, if I recall. . .”
“What about Sjögren's Syndrome?”
“That was you, right?” Chase said. “That time Cuddy went to visit you at . . .well, wherever the hell you work these days.”
House nodded.
“Right,” he said.
####
That night, after the last customer left, and the bar was mostly cleaned up-it always looked a little dingier than they’d hoped the next morning (late nights and dark bars had a way of hiding a thousand sins)-Rose pressed a button on the juke box.
“This is one of my favorite songs,” she said, dreamily: “Tell it Like It Is” by the Neville Brothers.
She began swaying to the music.
“Dance with me,” she said.
House looked around the bar, confused. But it was just the two of them.
“Yeah, you,” she said, laughing.
“I don’t dance,” he said. “I mean, I know I hide the fact that I’m a cripple well. Were it not for my severe limp and giant cane, you’d probably never even notice . . .”
“C’mon, it’s a slow song,” she said, holding out her arms. “I’m not asking you to do a cha-cha. I’ve had a long day and I just really want to dance. Don’t leave me hanging, Doc.”
He winced a bit. Then he sighed, got out from behind the bar, and began dancing with her. Almost instantly, she got close-too close-wrapping her arms around him, her breasts pressed up against his chest.
“Tell me something, Doc,” she murmured into his shoulder.
“What’s that?”
“We’ve been working together for five months. I laugh at your jokes, touch you when we talk, make meaningful eye contact. . .I mean, Flirting 101. And yet you haven’t hit on me once. Don’t you find me attractive?”
“Of course I find you attractive,” he said. “In a ‘I Picked a Style in 1995 and I’m Sticking With It’ sort of way.”
She playfully swatted him.
“Then kiss me,” she said, raising her chin.
He recoiled a bit.
“I . . .can’t.”
“Why? Because of her?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not asking for a relationship, Doc. Just a little uncomplicated sex. No strings attached.”
“No such thing,” he said.
“Try me,” she said. And this time, she got on her tip toes and kissed him. He kissed back, for a second. She tasted of maraschino cherries. She was pretty. Her skin was soft. Her bed would be warm. He could lose himself in sex-after all, he’d done it before. But that was different. A transaction. No feelings. Not even the simulacrum of feelings.
“I can’t. . .” He pulled away again.
“You’re a real basket case, you know that?” she said.
“I know,” he said sadly.
She rested her head against his chest. “What am I going to do with you, Doc?”
He held her more tightly, appreciative that she understood, that she wasn’t mad.
And then, seemingly out of the blue, she said: “Shit.”
“Shit what?”
“I just saw your girl.”
“My girl?”
“Dr. Cuddy.”
“What?”
He reeled around, looked at the door.
“She was looking through the window,” Rose said. “She must’ve seen us dancing. And then she. . . disappeared.”
“Fuck,” House said. The song wasn’t over. He looked at Rose, helplessly.
She let go of him.
“Go get her, Doc. Good luck.”
He limped quickly into the parking lot, fearful that she’d already be gone. But her car was still there in the corner of the lot. She was sitting, motionless, in the driver’s seat.
He rapped on the window. He startled her, she jumped. But when she saw that it was him, she rolled down her window.
“Hi. . .” she said.
“What are you doing here, Cuddy? It’s 1 a.m.!”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I guess I . . . made a mistake.”
“Can I. . .?” he gestured toward her passenger seat.
“Don’t you have to get back inside?” she said, sharply. “Isn’t Rose waiting for you?”
“No,” he said.
“You’re lying. I . . .saw you kiss her,” Cuddy said.
“No you didn’t.”
“Yes I did, House! I was watching through the window.”
“Then you saw her kiss me. And you saw me pull away.”
“And then she put her head on your chest. It was. . .intimate.”
“She was calling me a basket case because a beautiful woman was hitting on me and I had zero interest in her,” House said.
“Why not?”
“You know why not,” he said.
They exchanged a look.
“I guess you better come in and sit then,” she said, reaching across the seat and opening the door.
“Thank you,” he said.
They sat side by side for a few seconds, listening to the gentle hum of her engine, both collecting their thoughts.
“I know about the files,” he said quietly.
“What files?” she said, although she already knew.
“The patient files. I know that my team had already solved those cases.”
“I guess I just wanted to see you. . .” she admitted.
She was wearing a coat, an expensive parka of some sort-Northface-but he could see that she had sweat pants and tee-shirt underneath. Coming to visit him at this late hour had obviously been a last minute whim, a spontaneous decision.
And with that, he dove for her, reaching under the coat, reaching under her tee-shirt, feeling her skin, her naked breasts (she wasn’t wearing a bra)-kissing her everywhere.
She didn’t resist. She accepted his ardor in the spirit that it had been offered-as what she secretly wanted. As what they both secretly wanted.
They fumblingly, furtively made their way to the back seat, got under a blanket, and in moments he had wriggled out of his jeans and he was inside her. “Oh my God,” he kept moaning into her ear, as his own breathing grew louder, stuttered, unrecognizable. “Oh my God.”
(Rose, locking up and heading to her own car, had seen the undulated, blanketed figures in the back of the parked car. “So that’s that,” she said to herself.)
Afterwards, House held Cuddy close, not wanting to let go. (His leg, of course, was killing him. A small price to pay for what he’d been craving for months.)
“Thank you,” he said.
“No, thank you,” she said with a giggle, kissing his neck.
For a second, they were both blissed out, basking in a post-coital giddiness. Then a heavy silence fell over the car.
“So now what?” he said.
“I honestly don’t know.”
He looked at her.
“Do you still love me?”
“Of course.”
“And you miss me?”
“The parade of bogus case files over these last few weeks would indicate that,” she said, ironically.
“And you want me back at the hospital?”
“I’ve always wanted that.”
He kissed her, on the mouth, because he could.
“I haven’t taken a Vicodin in months,” he said, still making his case.
“I know.”
“I’m ready to come back to work. I’m ready to be your boyfriend again.”
“I know. . .”
“Then what, Cuddy? What?”
“I’m scared,” she said.
“I’m scared, too,” he said. “Let’s be scared together.”
She sighed. Being in arms felt natural, inevitable, life-sustaining-like breathing.
“Okay,” she said. Then she looked at him out of the corner of her eye: “Did you drop out of my life because you couldn’t handle being around me, or because you knew I couldn’t handle not being around you?”
“Both,” he said.
THE END
House had been a sporadic presence at the hospital since their breakup-stumbling in late, conspicuously unshaven, the previous night’s alcohol still on his breath, lipstick on his collar (for her benefit, no doubt)-and Cuddy had tolerated it, to a point.
But she had run out of patience. She was just about to call him and tell him that the pornographic pity party was over when he appeared in her office, looking relatively refreshed and groomed, and as sober as she’d seen him in over a week.
“Good morning,” he said evenly.
“Good morning,” she said, surprised. Then she squinted at him. “So you’re done with the rock star on a bender routine?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Good. I’m glad. And you’re ready to get back to work?”
“No.”
“No?”
“I’m not ready to get back to work because I’m here to tender my resignation. I quit.”
She had been down this road before. She heaved a sigh.
“What do you want, House?” she said wearily. “A raise? A new flat-screen TV? Twenty-four hour on-call massage service?”
“It’s not like that. I just quit.”
Now she sat up straight in her chair. It occurred to her he wasn’t kidding.
“But why?”
“Because every time I see Robert Chase it fills me with a crippling sense of depression and regret. Oh no wait, I mean you.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, meaning it.
“Me too.”
She bit a fingernail and regarded him.
“But House. . .we’ve gotten through rough spots before. We’ve survived you being an ass to me, me being an ass to you, fights, fantasies, periods of hating each other, periods of being obsessed with each other, even me dating Lucas.” She gave a nervous laugh. “Why should this be any different?”
“The fact that you have to ask that is the reason why,” House said.
Cuddy kept studying him, trying to detect some chink in his resolve, some sense that he was anything other than 100-percent serious.
“What if I don’t accept it?” she said stubbornly.
“You have no choice,” he said, handing her the formal letter of resignation-hospital protocol. “That’s it. I’m done.”
She took the envelope but didn’t open it.
“House, you’ve been through a lot these last few weeks. We both have. No one should do anything rash at a time of extreme duress.”
Something resembling scorn flashed across his face. Then he began to laugh, maliciously.
“Oh, that’s rich,” he said.
“What?” Cuddy asked, meekly.
“Something rash like, I don’t know, break up with your boyfriend of 10 months?” he sneered.
Her face began to feel hot.
“Fair enough,” she said quietly.
There was a heavy silence.
“House,” she said finally. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” he said, not blinking, looking at her square in the eye.
“But what about your department? What about your fellows?”
“Chase can take over. Foreman may be the more obvious choice, but Chase is the most naturally intuitive diagnostician on my team. He’s good.”
“He’s not as good as you,” she said.
“No.”
“Are you sure we can’t just talk about this?” she said. “We haven’t once just sat down like two adults to discuss our breakup.”
“Do you want to get back together?” he said. The question wasn’t tender. It had an edge.
“No,” she admitted.
“Then there’s nothing left to say.”
#####
Four months later, Wilson sat down across from Cuddy in the cafeteria.
“Hello grumpy,” he said with a grin. “Who stole your lunch money?”
Cuddy, who had been deep in thought, blinked at him.
“You’ve got to tell me where he is,” she said.
Wilson rolled his eyes a bit.
“Oh, that again.”
“Yes. That.”
“I told you, I’m sworn to secrecy. Why not just call him?”
“I have. He won’t return my calls.”
“Did you leave messages?”
“Yes.”
“Telling him that you miss him? That you want to get back together?”
“Not quite. . .”
“Then that’s why he’s not returning your calls.”
“I do miss him, Wilson. When I broke up with him, never in a million years did I think he was suddenly going to . . .drop out of my life.”
“What did you expect?”
“That I’d see him at work. That we’d find a way to be friends again.”
“You were never just friends.”
“No… so maybe we’d find some new way to be friends. Friends with. . .subtext. Hell, I might’ve even considered friends with benefits.” She gave a self-deprecating chuckle, but Wilson didn’t look amused.
“That was unrealistic, Cuddy,” he said. You and House saw the relationship differently. To you, House was just a guy you dated and it didn’t work out. . .”
“That’s unfair!” she found herself raising her voice, but then, remembering where she was, she lowered it. “I was in love with him for 20 years. I’m still in love with him. That doesn’t mean we’re meant to be in a relationship together.”
“But it was different for House. You were his brass ring, his one shot for happiness.”
“That’s a bit extreme,” Cuddy said.
“No, actually it isn’t.”
“Look, I’m already resigned to the fact that I’m never going to love another man the way I loved House,” she said. “That kind of passion. . . it’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing. I know that. But that doesn’t mean I can’t find someone else to love. Someone I can build a life with.”
“Well good for you. But House doesn’t feel that way. You’re his. . .everything.”
Cuddy shook her head.
“He fell in love with Stacy. He fell in love with me. He can fall in love again. I don’t see him as quite as love-impaired as you do.”
“You know that’s bullshit,” Wilson said. “Stacy was before the infarction. Before the darkest parts of his nature took over. You fell in love with a drug-addled, asshole, miserable, misanthrope. Stacy broke up with him when he became that man.”
Cuddy considered that for a moment.
“He wasn’t like that, you know,” she said. “When we were dating. He wasn’t an asshole. He wasn’t miserable. And, until the end, he wasn’t on drugs.”
“Because of you.”
“He can be like that again!”
“I think you underestimate the power you have in his life, Cuddy. You always have.”
“Then please just tell me where he is.”
######
House didn’t believe in sixth senses, but he understood how other people could, because he could always sense when Lisa Cuddy had entered a room. The scientist in him knew it was some combination of her perfume, the specific rhythm of her heels clicking against the floor, even the way people reacted to her-men drooling, women sizing her up admiringly-like some glamorous starlet had just arrived on the premises.
She had taken off her coat and, after looking for a coat check in vain (it wasn’t a coat check kind of place), was now heading toward a bar stool in front of him.
Seeing her for the first time in months felt like a setback. Like, he had convinced himself he was getting over her, moving on with his life and now seeing her, in the flesh, he realized that he was right back where he’d started from.
But he’d always had a good poker face.
So he placed an empty martini glass in front of her and then began shaking the vodka and vermouth and ice in a shaker.
“Four months,” he said musingly. “I actually thought Wilson would’ve held out longer.”
“I harangued him into submission,” she joked.
“It’s your special skill,” he said.
He poured the martini into her glass, expertly, leaving just the tiniest skim of ice on top, just a whisper of vermouth. Then he speared three olives and dropped them in.
“So this is where you work now?” she said, looking around, still disbelieving.
“Well, yes, either that or it’s ‘make your own martini’ day here at McLeod’s.”
“And this is it? You’re not practicing medicine anymore?”
“Never said that. Just biding my time here until I figure out what I want to be when I grow up.”
“You already are grown up,” she said. “And you’re a doctor. A damn good one. Best I know.”
Cuddy took a sip of the martini and had to contain herself from immediately proclaiming it the best she’d ever had.
“Not bad,” she said.
House gave a small smile.
She took another sip and then looked at him, pleadingly.
“House, stop this madness. Come back to work. It’s been long enough.”
“Excuse me one sec,” House said.
The bar was half empty-it was 7 pm on a Tuesday-but he still had customers.
“Refill?” he said to a bearded guy drinking some sort of serious looking brown liquid at the end of the bar.
The guy nodded. House poured bourbon into a glass, refilled the bowl of peanuts, and returned to Cuddy.
“Sorry. . . you were saying?”
“Come back to work!”
“Are you still the Dean of Medicine?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll stay here thanks.”
She sighed.
“Are you at least looking for a job? If not as a practicing doctor, as a researcher?”
“I will. . . when I’m ready.”
“But a bar, House?”
She looked around. It really wasn’t much to look at: The bar stools were covered in a dark red vinyl that was frayed and chipped, leaving some of the foam interior exposed. There were vintage beer posters on the brick walls, a few dark wood tables where families and couples munched on burgers and chicken tenders. There was a Keno machine. A baseball game-Mets against the Phillies-was playing on the TV, with the sound turned down.
“I like it here,” he said with a shrug.
“You’re a misanthrope at a job that forces you to be surrounded by people all the time!’
“Barflies,” House said. “My kind of people.”
“You’re a drug addict hanging around other addicts.”
“I haven’t taken a Vicodin since…the last time I laid eyes on you, actually.”
She swallowed.
“You’re a genius wasting his gifts on creating the perfect martini,” she said.
“Perfect, huh?” he said, pleased. “I could tell you liked it.”
“House, it’s not funny.”
“Who’s laughing?”
“Not me. Three patients have died in the last four months that I’m convinced you would have saved.”
“I probably would have. Instead, I chose to save myself.”
It was true he looked good. Trim, fit, in snug jeans, a red tee-shirt, and a newsboy cap.
“So my presence here is upsetting you?” she said.
“Naw, I’m a big boy. I can handle it,” he said.
A waitress came up to the bar. She was mid-30s but had the style of a younger woman-tattoos, mini skirt, combat boots. Her dyed red hair was tied into ironic pigtails.
“Doc, I need two Cokes, a seabreeze, and a Bud Lite.”
House nodded, and began to make the drinks.
The waitress cocked her head in Cuddy’s direction.
“You a friend of Doc’s?” she said.
She was pretty: Wide blue eyes, a smattering of faded freckles across her nose, a slightly crooked grin.
Cuddy folded her hands in her lap. She didn’t know how much this woman knew about House’s past.
“We, uh, used to work together.”
Her eyes got even bigger.
“So you’re her, huh?” she said.
“I’m. . .Dr. Lisa Cuddy.”
The waitress, whose name was Rose, looked her up and down.
“And it all becomes clear,” she said, mirthfully.
House slid the drinks toward them, then placed them on Rose’s tray.
“I see you two have met,” he said.
“Not formally,” Rose said. “I’m Rose Kelly. I’d shake your hand but. . .” she gestured to the now slightly teetering tray.
“And this is Dr. Lisa-”
“I know who she is, Doc,” Rose said, with a wink. “As if I couldn’t have guessed.” And she walked back to the dining room.
“She seems … nice,” Cuddy said.
“She is,” House said, in a distracted sort of way.
Cuddy felt a sudden sense of being in an alternate dimension: One where House wore newsboy caps and had a rag poking out of his back pocket and flirted with comely Irish waitresses named Rose. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so out of touch with him-Mayfield, probably. But that was temporary, not to mention therapeutic. Then again, according to House, this was therapeutic, too.
When she looked up she saw that he was looking at her, trying to figure out what she thinking about.
“What?” he said.
“I just . .miss you,” she said, finally.
“You dumped me. You don’t get to miss me,” he said.
“I never thought you’d just leave,” she said. “I miss having you in my life. I wasn’t prepared to go . . . cold turkey.”
“Cold turkey,” he said with a tiny smirk. “We both have a bit of history with that.” (He was referencing Cuddy’s Thanksgiving scam-the cold turkey sandwich waiting for him at Julia’s house.)
“Bad analogy,” she said, chuckling. “But you know what I mean. I got used to seeing you every day. And now you’re just . . .gone.”
“The unintended consequences of dumping me,” he said.
She eyed him.
“So that’s what this is? Punishment for me dumping you?”
He gave a tiny snicker.
“Your narcissism truly knows no end, Cuddy,” he said.
Her face reddened.
“I just can’t believe this is the right path for you. I understand that you don’t want to work with me. I understand that seeing me is painful. So let’s work something out.” She suddenly found herself babbling. “We can get a new supervisor for you. A new protocol for okaying medical procedures. We can minimize our contact. Coordinate our schedules so we don’t run into each other in the halls. Communicate via email. Take alternating days in the cafeteria.”
“And here I thought I was the one who feared change,” he said, knowingly.
“I just can’t stand seeing you waste your gifts,” she muttered.
“So which is it, do you miss me? Or are you upset that I’m wasting my medical gifts?”
She looked at him. He’d been, at various times in her life, her unrequited crush, her greatest conquest, her boldest hire, her adversary, her lover, and her best friend. Now it almost felt like she was talking to a stranger.
“It’s both,” she said.
#####
After Cuddy left, Rose came over to the bar.
“Well, I can see why you’re so hung up on her,” she said.
“I’m not so. . .” He stopped. There was no point in protesting.
“Things looked pretty cordial between you guys. Does this mean you’ll be leaving us? Stop with the slumming? Go back to the hospital where you belong?”
“No,” House said. He looked at the spot where Cuddy had been sitting, as if he could conjure her.
“Why not? I hate to sound like, well, her. . . but world-famous doctors don’t tend bar at dingy Irish pubs in Trenton.”
“This one does,” House said.
“For how long?”
“Until I’m ready to move on.”
#####
Cuddy was making it difficult to move on, though, because she showed up again, a few weeks later, this time wielding a patient file.
“I hate to bother you,” she said. “But I thought if you could just take a glance at this file. See if it triggers anything? Your team-I mean, Chase’s team-is stumped.”
House was already making her a martini. He slid it toward her, grabbed the file.
She took a sip, then a bite of one of the olives.
“What’s in this?” she said.
“I cured the olives in garlic-infused oil and stuffed them with gorgonzola,” he said. “You like?”
“I love,” she said, eating another one. “Can I have, like, a little bowl of these on the side?”
He grinned. Filled a bowl with the olives.
Flipping through the file, he said: “I assume they’ve ruled out MS?”
“Yes.”
“And lupus?
“Test came back negative.”
“Has anyone checked for Sjögren's Syndrome?”
Cuddy grabbed the file back from him.
“No,” she said, popping another olive in her mouth. “Dry eyes and mouth. Fatigue. Joint pain. It fits.”
She pulled out her cell phone. “Chase, I just had a brainstorm. Did you check for Sjögren's Syndrome? Good. Do the test. . . “ Then she gave a sheepish smile. “Uh, okay. I will.”
After she hung up: “Chase says hi.”
House smiled.
“More olives?” he said, noticing her empty bowl. She nodded.
“I always forget what a good cook you are,” she said. “You should’ve have cooked more when we dated.”
“And deprive myself of your Tuna Surprise Casserole? Never!” he said.
“Shut up. You loved my tuna casserole.”
“I did,” he said. “The surprise was that it actually wasn’t horrible.”
“I remember the first time you cooked dinner for me,” she said. “I thought you had a personal chef hiding in a closet some place.”
“You never were very trusting,” House said.
“Come on, that’s totally something you would do. Admit it.”
“I suppose it is,” he said. “You know me well.”
“Yeah,” she said, taking a festive sip of her martini. “No one knows you better.”
“Right back at you.”
And they contemplated each other.
#######
She was back a week later with another patient file (Binswanger’s syndrome) and then a few days after that with another one (Cushing’s Disease) and then a few days later with a fairly easy to recognize case of small cell carcinoma. And each time she stayed later, and they talked more, reminisced more-got into that little, impenetrable bubble of theirs where the world receded and it was just the two of them (at one point forcing House’s boss to bellow: “Hey, Romeo, you have more than one customer!”)
The last time, she stayed until closing. He walked her to her car.
“Sorry I keep barging in your place of work like this,” she said. “I don’t know why we’ve had all these hard-to-solve cases lately. But I really appreciate your help.”
“No problem.”
“I feel like I’ve been disrupting you.”
“You’re fine. It’s a bar. Not an operating room.”
“But I mean…you left Princeton Plainsboro to get away from me and I keep showing up. Like a. . .bad virus.”
“I like seeing you,” he admitted.
“If you like seeing me here, why can’t you like seeing me at the hospital?” she said leadingly. “Where you belong.”
It was a valid question, of course. The truth was, every time he saw Lisa Cuddy he felt like he was cheating-taking increasingly addictive hits of his favorite drug. (When it came to House’s addictions, Vicodin had always been a distant second.) The sensation was heady-temporary euphoria, followed by the inevitable crash and self-doubt: Where was his will power? Where was the very resolve that had compelled him to leave the hospital in the first place? He knew that seeing her was wrong, but still. The idea of never tasting his favorite drug again filled him with dread.
“I don’t mind seeing you at the bar,” he rationalized. “My turf. My terms. But don’t push it.”
She smiled.
“Fair enough,” she said.
Inside the bar, the staff was cleaning up, vacuuming, putting chairs on top of tables.
“I should probably go help,” he said, cocking his head in their direction.
“Right, of course.”
For a second, they hesitated: Would they kiss? Hug?
House opened the car door.
“Good night, Cuddy,” he said. She reluctantly got into her car, and drove away.
######
“You’re slipping,” House said over the phone.
“What?” Chase said.
“I leave you alone for five months and you forget how to diagnose small cell carcinoma?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Cuddy brought me that guy’s file. I was the one who diagnosed him.”
“No you weren’t,” Chase said.
“I wasn’t?”
“No. We made that diagnosis right away.”
“You did?”
“Of course. We learned from the best. And when are you coming back, you asshole? Things just aren’t the same here around here without you. Cuddy still refuses to promote me-I’m the ‘interim department head’-and no pays any attention to me anyway.”
House ignored him. His mind was racing.
“And the patient with Cushing’s?”
“I, uh, think it was Taub who diagnosed him.”
“And Binswanger’s?”
“Foreman got that one, if I recall. . .”
“What about Sjögren's Syndrome?”
“That was you, right?” Chase said. “That time Cuddy went to visit you at . . .well, wherever the hell you work these days.”
House nodded.
“Right,” he said.
####
That night, after the last customer left, and the bar was mostly cleaned up-it always looked a little dingier than they’d hoped the next morning (late nights and dark bars had a way of hiding a thousand sins)-Rose pressed a button on the juke box.
“This is one of my favorite songs,” she said, dreamily: “Tell it Like It Is” by the Neville Brothers.
She began swaying to the music.
“Dance with me,” she said.
House looked around the bar, confused. But it was just the two of them.
“Yeah, you,” she said, laughing.
“I don’t dance,” he said. “I mean, I know I hide the fact that I’m a cripple well. Were it not for my severe limp and giant cane, you’d probably never even notice . . .”
“C’mon, it’s a slow song,” she said, holding out her arms. “I’m not asking you to do a cha-cha. I’ve had a long day and I just really want to dance. Don’t leave me hanging, Doc.”
He winced a bit. Then he sighed, got out from behind the bar, and began dancing with her. Almost instantly, she got close-too close-wrapping her arms around him, her breasts pressed up against his chest.
“Tell me something, Doc,” she murmured into his shoulder.
“What’s that?”
“We’ve been working together for five months. I laugh at your jokes, touch you when we talk, make meaningful eye contact. . .I mean, Flirting 101. And yet you haven’t hit on me once. Don’t you find me attractive?”
“Of course I find you attractive,” he said. “In a ‘I Picked a Style in 1995 and I’m Sticking With It’ sort of way.”
She playfully swatted him.
“Then kiss me,” she said, raising her chin.
He recoiled a bit.
“I . . .can’t.”
“Why? Because of her?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not asking for a relationship, Doc. Just a little uncomplicated sex. No strings attached.”
“No such thing,” he said.
“Try me,” she said. And this time, she got on her tip toes and kissed him. He kissed back, for a second. She tasted of maraschino cherries. She was pretty. Her skin was soft. Her bed would be warm. He could lose himself in sex-after all, he’d done it before. But that was different. A transaction. No feelings. Not even the simulacrum of feelings.
“I can’t. . .” He pulled away again.
“You’re a real basket case, you know that?” she said.
“I know,” he said sadly.
She rested her head against his chest. “What am I going to do with you, Doc?”
He held her more tightly, appreciative that she understood, that she wasn’t mad.
And then, seemingly out of the blue, she said: “Shit.”
“Shit what?”
“I just saw your girl.”
“My girl?”
“Dr. Cuddy.”
“What?”
He reeled around, looked at the door.
“She was looking through the window,” Rose said. “She must’ve seen us dancing. And then she. . . disappeared.”
“Fuck,” House said. The song wasn’t over. He looked at Rose, helplessly.
She let go of him.
“Go get her, Doc. Good luck.”
He limped quickly into the parking lot, fearful that she’d already be gone. But her car was still there in the corner of the lot. She was sitting, motionless, in the driver’s seat.
He rapped on the window. He startled her, she jumped. But when she saw that it was him, she rolled down her window.
“Hi. . .” she said.
“What are you doing here, Cuddy? It’s 1 a.m.!”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I guess I . . . made a mistake.”
“Can I. . .?” he gestured toward her passenger seat.
“Don’t you have to get back inside?” she said, sharply. “Isn’t Rose waiting for you?”
“No,” he said.
“You’re lying. I . . .saw you kiss her,” Cuddy said.
“No you didn’t.”
“Yes I did, House! I was watching through the window.”
“Then you saw her kiss me. And you saw me pull away.”
“And then she put her head on your chest. It was. . .intimate.”
“She was calling me a basket case because a beautiful woman was hitting on me and I had zero interest in her,” House said.
“Why not?”
“You know why not,” he said.
They exchanged a look.
“I guess you better come in and sit then,” she said, reaching across the seat and opening the door.
“Thank you,” he said.
They sat side by side for a few seconds, listening to the gentle hum of her engine, both collecting their thoughts.
“I know about the files,” he said quietly.
“What files?” she said, although she already knew.
“The patient files. I know that my team had already solved those cases.”
“I guess I just wanted to see you. . .” she admitted.
She was wearing a coat, an expensive parka of some sort-Northface-but he could see that she had sweat pants and tee-shirt underneath. Coming to visit him at this late hour had obviously been a last minute whim, a spontaneous decision.
And with that, he dove for her, reaching under the coat, reaching under her tee-shirt, feeling her skin, her naked breasts (she wasn’t wearing a bra)-kissing her everywhere.
She didn’t resist. She accepted his ardor in the spirit that it had been offered-as what she secretly wanted. As what they both secretly wanted.
They fumblingly, furtively made their way to the back seat, got under a blanket, and in moments he had wriggled out of his jeans and he was inside her. “Oh my God,” he kept moaning into her ear, as his own breathing grew louder, stuttered, unrecognizable. “Oh my God.”
(Rose, locking up and heading to her own car, had seen the undulated, blanketed figures in the back of the parked car. “So that’s that,” she said to herself.)
Afterwards, House held Cuddy close, not wanting to let go. (His leg, of course, was killing him. A small price to pay for what he’d been craving for months.)
“Thank you,” he said.
“No, thank you,” she said with a giggle, kissing his neck.
For a second, they were both blissed out, basking in a post-coital giddiness. Then a heavy silence fell over the car.
“So now what?” he said.
“I honestly don’t know.”
He looked at her.
“Do you still love me?”
“Of course.”
“And you miss me?”
“The parade of bogus case files over these last few weeks would indicate that,” she said, ironically.
“And you want me back at the hospital?”
“I’ve always wanted that.”
He kissed her, on the mouth, because he could.
“I haven’t taken a Vicodin in months,” he said, still making his case.
“I know.”
“I’m ready to come back to work. I’m ready to be your boyfriend again.”
“I know. . .”
“Then what, Cuddy? What?”
“I’m scared,” she said.
“I’m scared, too,” he said. “Let’s be scared together.”
She sighed. Being in arms felt natural, inevitable, life-sustaining-like breathing.
“Okay,” she said. Then she looked at him out of the corner of her eye: “Did you drop out of my life because you couldn’t handle being around me, or because you knew I couldn’t handle not being around you?”
“Both,” he said.
THE END