Cuddy didn't sound like she believed him or was wary of his thanks, and he supposed he didn't blame her. After all, though he'd caused more than his share of problems to their relationship, Cuddy had contributed her share, too.
But the things she had done to help him and to stand by him was more than he deserved. She'd done more for him than he'd probably done for her, that was for sure. His more prominent memories of their relationship involved making Cuddy angry, making her sad, making her cry...
He tilted his head up a little further to meet her kiss. Going to hospital might have been hard work. It had definitely been a hard choice and an even harder adjustment. Cuddy had done a lot more for him than just wait. She'd been the one to hit him with the ultimatum that pushed him to seek help. She'd stuck by him, she'd put up with him, she'd tried to be patient with him. She'd also kept him employed, she'd bailed his ass out more times than he deserved, she looked out for him...
"You've done a lot more than that," he replied. He absently began caressing her belly, rubbing his fingers over the bed covers and running his palm in small, up and down strokes. He wasn't sure what she meant by waiting for him for a long time. There were a number of ways that could be interpreted and he wasn't sure which was the correct one.
Cuddy gave a small shrug. She had done a lot for House over the years both personally and professionally and it was nice to hear him acknowledge that. It was weird, though--as many times as she'd thought she'd like to hear him say "thank you," she found she didn't actually need his thanks. She'd chosen to protect and help him because she believed it was the right thing to do, not because she expected him to be grateful. In some strange way, it was as if whatever sacrifices she'd made meant more because she'd done them without expecting anything in return. Still, it was nice to know he did know what she'd done for him and he was grateful.
"I'm not sure," she said when he asked what she meant about waiting. She really didn't know. There had always been an attraction between them and she'd had fun with that, with the flirting and the innuendo, but she'd never allowed herself to admit to anything more than a superficial attraction. She'd suppressed any deeper feelings so strongly she wasn't sure any more when they'd begun.
"There was that one night, after Stacy left, and the way it ended I knew nothing was ever going to happen for us. But, being at least slightly self-destructive, I couldn't let it go," she said, idly tracing abstract patterns on his skin with her fingertip. It was older than that, though, maybe all the way back to university. There'd always been something about him that spoke to her. She suspected her years of unsuccessful dating were at least a little bit in part because she'd always been looking for someone like House. The trouble was, of course, there wasn't anyone like him. There was only the original.
"I think it started even before that. No, I know it started before that," she admitted. "I didn't want to want you. You're a great doctor but you were never relationship material. It didn't matter anyway because you weren't interested in me. Despite that, here I am, years later, feeling like for the first time in my life, I've finally got the one person who makes me whole."
House nestled his head more comfortably on Cuddy's shoulder, a slight frown forming as she talked. That night he and Cuddy had spent together had been a time he hadn't been able to let go of, either. It had happened at a time where everything in his life had turned upside down, from the infarction to Stacy leaving him. He'd pretended to everyone else that he was fine, that he'd moved on.
But really, he'd been anything but. The worst of it was the loneliness; he'd deserted everyone, Stacy had left him and he'd felt completely alone. For that one night with Cuddy, he felt for a little while that he belonged to someone again. Though he made certain to push Cuddy away from him in fear of her rejecting him more than anything, he'd been unable to let that night go at the same time.
His brows shot up in surprise at what Cuddy said next, about knowing her feelings for him and started long before anything had ever happened between them. He'd had secret fantasies that Cuddy had always been interested in him. There had always been an attraction between them but House was certain her attraction had never gone deeper than entertainment value. Still, he'd sometimes entertained fantasies that Cuddy had always had a thing for him, had always been interested in him.
It was true that he hadn't been interested in her during the years he was with Stacy - he hadn't been interested in anybody else aside from her, he'd been so ridiculously smitten. Once Stacy had left, however, there was a huge gaping hole in him and the closest thing he'd ever had to a relationship since was his and Cuddy's traded innuendos. That was where the fantasies of Cuddy always being interested in him began to surface. He fulfilled his needs, though, with hookers.
"Wow, that's a revelation," he said. He wasn't being sarcastic, either. He was genuinely surprised to hear her interest in him had run deep for years. Did he make her whole? He had a hard time believing he did - he hurt her more than he did her good. He didn't like hurting her, though. He didn't like himself when he did. In fact, he just plain didn't like himself.
He turned his head up against her shoulder again to look at her. "What makes you think I wasn't interested in you?"
Cuddy let out a soft laugh. It was a revelation, one that had been very slow in coming. Even now, she couldn't be completely sure what she'd felt and when she'd felt it. He'd been a major player in her life for so long but she'd tried so hard to keep him out of the center of her life. She'd decided he was bad news, at least on a personal level. Maybe that was a bit of sour grapes because he hadn't shown any real interest in her but there was still some truth to it. He was and always had been a difficult man and she'd conveniently convinced herself she wanted someone easy and normal...and boring.
She looked down at him when he asked why she thought he hadn't been interested. "Well, the fact you never tried to initiate anything was a clue," she said. "You never gave me any sign, not before Stacy, not after. You may have been interested in my breasts but you weren't interested in me."
It was more complicated than that, of course. It always was with him. He hadn't been interested in anyone after Stacy. Although she'd been hurt he never followed up on their one night together, with time she came to understand it wasn't her. He wouldn't have gotten into a relationship with anyone after Stacy. He was too wounded by her leaving.
It wasn't fair to say his only interest had been physical either. Yes, he had always enjoyed ogling her breasts or leering at her ass but if that had been all there was, he probably wouldn't have even remembered her name. And she certainly wouldn't have put up with his bull all these years. Something had clicked between them. They became friends and colleagues. They tormented each other but they also talked. They confided in each other. There'd always been some undefinable thing between them.
"It doesn't matter," she said, lifting her hand to stroke his hair. She let out a sigh and stared up at the ceiling for a moment before lowering her head to look at him again. "Even if you'd made a move years ago, I might've turned you down. I might've thought what the hell do I want with this crazy man?" She gave him a crooked smile. "Maybe we both needed to have the lives we've had separately before we were capable of seeing what we could have together. I'm just glad we did see it before it was too late."
"You never tried to initiate anything with me," he countered. "You never gave me any sign. You may have been interested in my big cane but you didn't seem the slightest bit interested in me, either."
Cuddy was right that he hadn't initiated anything with her... but neither had she, as he'd just pointed out. That she'd never pursued anything with him after their night together said to him she wasn't interested in taking things further. It was probably just as well in hindsight - he hadn't been in any place to have a relationship at that time. But it had admittedly hurt that she didn't seem to want anything further to do with him.
But like she said, it didn't matter anymore. That was back then and this was now. She probably would have turned him down. Fair enough, too, because he was a bastard that most sane women wouldn't want to have anything to do with in a million years. Proof that Cuddy was either insane or a masochist, or possibly both.
As she stroked his hair, House sighed and closed his eyes briefly. Maybe she was right that they'd needed to live their lives separately before realising what they were capable of having together. Better now than never. "Maybe," he agreed quietly.
He opened his eyes back up to Cuddy then. "But you're wrong, just so you know," he said. "About me not being interested in you."
"Never?" she asked, one eyebrow arched. Admittedly she'd never come right out and told him she was interested in a relationship but she'd done everything but that. She'd done everything she could to keep him close by, to help him. Some of that was for his benefit--she knew he needed his work to keep him sane. However, it was for her benefit as well. Almost since the moment she'd met him, she'd wanted him in her life and she'd achieved that any way she could.
Of course, if she'd thought he had any serious--ie not breast related--interest in her, she might've been more direct in expressing her own interest. One thing she'd learned was not to put her heart out where it could get trampled on. That wasn't his fault. All the men she'd expressed interest in had sent her on her way. In that sense, House was just like all the other guys. It was the only way in which he was like other men but it was the one way that made her keep her emotional distance.
There truly was no point in thinking about woulda/coulda/shoulda. The past couldn't be changed. Besides, who knew what might happen even if they could change it. Maybe they would've gotten together sooner, and maybe it would've been a disaster. What they had now could still end in disaster, too, but it didn't have to. They still had a potential future together and that's what she cared about, not some possible missed opportunity in the past.
"Oh, please," she scoffed gently when he told her she was wrong. In the early days, he'd already been a legend and she'd been just another face in the crowd. Then there'd been Stacy and House hadn't had any interest in anyone but her. Cuddy didn't think he'd even been able to see any woman but Stacy. He'd been completely in love with her. Then, after Stacy, he hadn't wanted another relationship. He'd done everything in his power to avoid the possibility. If he'd had any interest in Cuddy, he must've beaten it down before it could surface.
"Sorry," she said, gently ruffling his hair. "If you say you were interested, then I believe you. I just.... When were you interested?" she asked. "Because I obviously missed it."
House gave her an incredulous look. Though he'd never outright pursued a relationship with Cuddy, he did think he made it kind of obvious that he liked her. "I've been sexually harassing you for eight years and you missed that I was interested?"
He shoved himself up on his elbow so he could see Cuddy better. He hadn't just noticed her at work - he'd noticed her back when they were in college. Well, he'd noticed a lot of girls in college, though he couldn't recall any of their names. Cuddy's name, however, he'd remembered.
"Do you remember that time in college I found your neurobiology notes that you'd lost? I gave them to you in the cafeteria at lunch and told you you'd labelled the Brodmann brain area 36 incorrectly? You'd labelled it parahippocampal gyrus; I told you it was the parahippocampal cortex. I think you were kind of pissed off that I'd gone through your notes. Which I did - I read through everything."
He paused, a mildly sheepish look growing on his face. "You didn't lose your notes. I might have taken them out of your bag when you weren't looking."
"I realize you have a difficult time with the 'subtle' differences, but sexual harassment and romantic interest aren't the same thing."
Except possibly in House's case, she had to admit. He was just socially awkward enough he might consider ogling to be an indication of a deeper interest. The added benefit for him was that if the target of his interest rejected him, he could pretend his own interest had never been anything but purely physical. What he didn't seem to realize, though, was that if he ogled every decent set of breasts that crossed his field of vision, there was no reason for Cuddy to think it meant anything more in her case.
She needed a more definitive sign in any case. Unlike House, she was not socially awkward. She got along fine with people as colleagues and friends. She'd never gotten the hang of romantic relationships, though. She didn't know why but she never read the signs right. Too many times she'd ended up looking stupid or pathetic because she'd misread a man's level of interest. She'd learned to wait until she got a clearer indication which, with House, never came.
She let out a faint hurrumph. She absolutely remembered him returning her notes. She'd been thrilled to have her notes returned to her. She'd been in a panic trying to find them and worried about how she'd make up for the loss if she couldn't. Lisa Cuddy had not been prepared to see her grade drop just because she'd lost her notes. When House had shown up with them, she'd damn near kissed him, she was so relieved. The urge to kiss him had died quickly, though, when he started talking. The arrogant bastard had not only read them all, he'd corrected her. It had been so annoying, and so House.
"You didn't," she exclaimed. She pushed upright a bit more, staring at him in surprise. Then she gave him a light thump on the head. "Do you have any idea how worried I was about those notes?" She laughed then, and kissed the spot she'd thumped. It was such a classic House move. She really should've seen through it, except she hadn't known him as well back then. She hadn't known to look for ulterior motives.
"Ow," he complained at being hit on the head, not that it hurt at all. As he rubbed the spot she'd hit, he replied, "Of course I knew you'd be worried. I wouldn't have stolen them if I didn't think it would get your attention."
He hadn't known Cuddy too well at college, but he'd known her well enough to know she was a study fanatic. In fact, he needn't have even known her to know that - almost every time he'd laid eyes on her, she had her face jammed in a book, or her arms bundled with books and notes.
That was all the info he'd needed to know how much she'd freak over losing an entire subject's worth of notes. It was a good ploy in getting her attention, too, and it had definitely worked. Though, he hadn't really known what to do once he did have her attention. He was just as awkward back then as he was now with approaching women he liked.
When Cuddy kissed him and exclaimed that he should have said something, he shrugged. "That would've been boring," he answered. The actual translation of his answer was: I was too chicken to. He shrugged again. "It was an excuse to talk to you more than anything. And it worked. Well, up until the part where I told you the places in your notes that you'd gotten things wrong."
He smiled slightly to himself. Some things never change, he thought. He'd never in a million years thought back then that he'd end up working for Cuddy and doing things like correcting her and Cuddy getting pissy at him doing so. In one way or another, he and Cuddy had remained in each other's orbit for twenty years - that was even more than the amount of years he'd known Wilson.
"Actually," he said, "I was going to ask you to come out with me one night to the student bar. That was the whole point of me stealing your notes. I had a plan devised. But then I guess I... well, I chickened out." He rolled his eyes at himself, a little flustered by his admission.
"You're such an idiot," Cuddy said, her tone a mixture of exasperation and affection. He hadn't needed an excuse to talk to her. Even back then, everyone had known who Gregory House was. And a lot of people, including her, had wanted to get a little closer and watch the genius at work. If he'd wanted to talk to her, all he had to do was crook his finger and she would've come running.
Thing was, she had been thrilled when he'd returned her notes. She'd been thrilled he'd even noticed her...right up to the point where he started correcting her. Her ego was big enough she didn't take well to being told she was wrong, especially not in the blunt way House did it. What had really deflated her ego, though, was the thought he believed she was stupid. Compared to him, she had been pretty ignorant but having it pointed out.... Well, it had killed any small notion she might've had that he could ever be interested in her.
"We're both idiots," she added, relaxing back against the pillows again. She couldn't help but wonder what it would've been like if they'd hooked up back then. Back when they were both a little less cynical, back when he'd had full use of his leg. Would they have been mature enough to see past the surface and recognize each other's true qualities? Maybe. Or maybe not. There just wasn't any point regretting the missed opportunity.
Although....
"For a genius, you're not all that bright sometimes," she said. "You never figured out the only reason you knew who I was is because I audited a class you were taking."
Maybe he was an idiot. Honestly, he never got it quite right with women he liked. He'd so badly want their attention but always managed to make an idiot of himself in the process.
The girl he'd liked in John Hopkins - House had gone to ridiculous lengths to get her attention, even joining the cheerleading team she was on. When he'd met Stacy at a paintball game, he'd fired a round of paint pellets at her to get her attention, only for Stacy to turn her gun on him once and shoot him square on the arm. And with Cuddy... well, he'd stolen her notes out her bag to get her attention. And he'd sexually harassed her for years.
He was just about to sprawl out onto his back to stretch when Cuddy spoke again. He stopped mid-sprawl and threw her a curious look. Then he shifted back towards her, propping himself up further on his elbow. "Wait, what?"
He cocked his head, equal parts confused and incredulous. He definitely remembered her being in his class. She was right - he had noticed her. In fact, it was in that class he'd stolen her notes. Still, he'd had no idea she wasn't registered for the class without credit.
"Let me get this straight. You audited a class I was taking because...?"
"I said I audited neurobiology," Cuddy repeated. Really, he was an idiot at times. She was several years younger than him. She was several years behind him at school. She wouldn't have been taking the same classes he did and he should've realized it. He should've known she wasn't supposed to be in his class. Given he normally picked up on each and every little detail, she had to wonder how he'd missed that one.
"Because I was trying to get some brownie points with the professor," she said. She kept an absolutely straight face as she said that, but only for a second. Then she rolled her eyes at him. "I audited a class you were taking because that was the only way I could get close to the legend. It was the only realistic chance I had of watching the notorious Gregory House at work." She studied his face and for a moment it was overlaid by the image of him at Michigan. His face was less wrinkled and there was more hair and none of it gray. And there was a light in his eyes, a spark that had damn near been extinguished in the ensuing twenty years.
She lifted her hand to his cheek. The spark wasn't entirely gone. He'd be dead if he'd lost all sense of fun and wonder. And she still saw the light in his eyes, sometimes, when he looked at her.
"I was in that class because you interested me." She smiled. "So much so I'm still following you around all these years later."
House stared at her, uncertain whether to be nonplussed or flattered. He was definitely bewildered because in all his years of knowing Cuddy, he hadn't once thought to question why she'd been in his class. At the time, he hadn't really worked up the nerve to talk to her properly beyond tossing her some sarcastic remarks. Perhaps if he had, he would have figured it out. But she'd always seemed so studious and so intensely focused on the 'work' in the class that he'd assumed she was taking the class just like he was.
"Why didn't you just say something?" he asked after taking a moment to let the news sink in. "You call me an idiot and turns out you're no better."
Weirdly, though, these revelations were the epitome of how they're entire relationship - friendship and work-wise - had always been. Dancing around each other with innuendos and making fun of each other, picking on each other, never truly being upfront and honest about the more personal things. They were in a relationship now and they still danced around each other.
And it seemed he wasn't the only one who went to ridiculous lengths to get closer to the ones he was attracted to or intrigued by - Cuddy auditing a class for the sheer sake of being near him was as ridiculous as some of the stunts he'd pulled in the name of checking someone out closer. All these years had gone by and only now House was finding out he and Cuddy had been playing the same game with each other without wanting to be caught.
He started to smirk, impressed by her trickery and his ego inflated that she'd been attracted to him all those years ago. "That was some dedicated stakeout," he said. "You sat next to me for the midterm. I cheated off you."
"I couldn't say anything. You were Greg House. I was a nobody."
Looking back, it had all been so high school of them. It was a wonder they hadn't been passing notes in class or calling each other's friends to find out if they liked each other. She might have done just that but she hadn't noticed House having close friends, not the kind he might confide in. Her friends weren't much better. They tended to keep their noses in their books, like her. There wasn't a lot of gossiping about anyone's love life...not that any of them had much of a love life.
She wouldn't have made a move in any case. She'd been just another nameless, faceless undergrad. She'd never been shy when it came to her academic abilities or in promoting her professional qualities. If it had simply been a matter of debating the nuances of diseases with him, she would've given it her best shot. However, approaching him out of some personal interest would've taken more self confidence than she'd had. Frankly, knowing him as well as she did now, she wasn't sure he would've known how to react if she had approached him.
"That wasn't very smart--cheating off a girl whose notes you considered erroneous," she pointed out. "But then you were just looking at my test as an excuse to look down my blouse, weren't you?"
She tucked her chin so she could kiss him, a soft press of lips. Then she pressed another kiss to his temple before resting her head against his. She didn't know if her life would've been better or worse if she'd acted on that initial infatuation. All she knew was that despite all subsequents attempts to suppress her attraction to him, it had lingered and even grown stronger.
"I was a different person then. So were you," she said quietly. "If we'd hooked up back then.... We would've had some fun, I'm sure of that. But I don't think we would've appreciated it, not the way we should."
"You say erroneous, I say erogenous," he agreed with a leer about looking down her blouse. "Though, if memory serves me correctly, your shirts weren't as low-cut back then. The whole do-me get up came later when you were distracting corporate egos by their penises with your best assets in order to scale corporate ladders."
That wasn't the only way she'd scaled those corporate ladders to get to where she was today and he knew that. He knew she'd worked damn hard to get to her position. But that wasn't going to stop him from making the remarks that he did. But Cuddy was right - it wasn't very smart of him to cheat from her when he'd found her notes erroneous. Even more, it hadn't been smart of him to cheat at all, not after what had happened in Hopkins and his expulsion for cheating.
Still, he'd done it anyway. Just like in Hopkins when he'd cheated, he hadn't agreed with the lecturer or the material being taught, therefore had refused to pay any attention. But he had to know the material the lecturer's way in order to pass and Cuddy was the perfect person to cheat from - she was extremely textbook back then.
"Besides, I passed the midterm, so your notes can't have been too erroneous," he added. "Unless you being in my class and sitting near me for an entire semester showed you the error of your erroneousness."
He met her kiss, still smirking in equal parts amusement and incredulity. How bizarre to have found all of this out now, he thought to himself. What would have happened if he and Cuddy had made something together back then? Would it have worked? Possibly not. He'd graduated when she was still in med school and moved to Boston to begin employment in the nephrology branch of internal medicine at New England Medical Centre, the first job he would find himself fired from in little under two years. He and Cuddy probably would have gone their separate ways. Or maybe not. It was impossible to really tell. No matter how much their lives intersected, they'd gone different directions until he'd wound up employed at Princeton.
It was like Cuddy had read his mind, with what she said next. "Hmm," he agreed thoughtfully. "Maybe." He tilted his head to press another kiss to her lips. "But I'm perfectly okay with the way things turned out."
Well, aside from the fighting and the huge ups and downs their relationship faced, and the struggles he was going through. Besides all that, he wouldn't change what he had with Cuddy for the world. He moved onto his belly more and commando crawled a little further up the bed so he was within cuddling range of Cuddy. Then he attacked her with a big, smothering cuddle.
Cuddy scowled at him briefly when he accused her of using her physical assets to get ahead professionally. He knew as well as she did she hadn't gotten where she was by flashing a little cleavage. She'd fought hard to be taken seriously as a doctor and an administrator. She was intelligent and she worked hard and that's why she was the Dean of Medicine.
Of course, she also worked smart and yes, fine, that meant occasionally using her physical assets to her advantage. She'd learned early on that some men were always going to focus on her breasts and not her brain. Eventually, she'd decided if those men were going to be such unrepentant Neanderthals, then she was justified in using it against them.
"You passed the midterm for the same reason I did--because I'm smart," she reminded him. She knew he knew that. As much as he loved to leer at her, he'd never genuinely dismissed her as a doctor because of her physical attractiveness. He sometimes dismissed her for other reasons, but not because he thought she had a great rack.
She let out a muffled laugh as he climbed up and tried to smother her in a House blanket. It wasn't easy to do anymore with her belly in the way but he did a pretty good job of wrapping himself around her. She wrapped her arms around his chest and turned her face to him. She exchanged gentle little kisses with him as she shifted slightly toward her side. They just didn't fit together quite as well anymore but she managed to snuggle up and get comfortable. She gave him one more slightly longer kiss, then tucked her head in against his shoulder.
She didn't know if she'd say she was perfectly okay with the way things turned out. A small part of her would always wonder what could've been if they'd gotten together before his leg and Stacy and all the damage that had done to him. But she was with him now and she was close (she hoped)to giving birth to their baby. Ultimately, she did have everything she'd wanted so she wasn't going to waste time on regrets.
"I'm happy with where we ended up," she agreed. She reached down with one hand and rubbed her belly, a soft smile on her face. "I just hope Junior is a little smarter than we were. I hope if she meets some charming lunatic on campus, she'll be smart enough to grab onto him and tell him what she wants."
But the things she had done to help him and to stand by him was more than he deserved. She'd done more for him than he'd probably done for her, that was for sure. His more prominent memories of their relationship involved making Cuddy angry, making her sad, making her cry...
He tilted his head up a little further to meet her kiss. Going to hospital might have been hard work. It had definitely been a hard choice and an even harder adjustment. Cuddy had done a lot more for him than just wait. She'd been the one to hit him with the ultimatum that pushed him to seek help. She'd stuck by him, she'd put up with him, she'd tried to be patient with him. She'd also kept him employed, she'd bailed his ass out more times than he deserved, she looked out for him...
"You've done a lot more than that," he replied. He absently began caressing her belly, rubbing his fingers over the bed covers and running his palm in small, up and down strokes. He wasn't sure what she meant by waiting for him for a long time. There were a number of ways that could be interpreted and he wasn't sure which was the correct one.
"What do you mean?" he asked her.
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"I'm not sure," she said when he asked what she meant about waiting. She really didn't know. There had always been an attraction between them and she'd had fun with that, with the flirting and the innuendo, but she'd never allowed herself to admit to anything more than a superficial attraction. She'd suppressed any deeper feelings so strongly she wasn't sure any more when they'd begun.
"There was that one night, after Stacy left, and the way it ended I knew nothing was ever going to happen for us. But, being at least slightly self-destructive, I couldn't let it go," she said, idly tracing abstract patterns on his skin with her fingertip. It was older than that, though, maybe all the way back to university. There'd always been something about him that spoke to her. She suspected her years of unsuccessful dating were at least a little bit in part because she'd always been looking for someone like House. The trouble was, of course, there wasn't anyone like him. There was only the original.
"I think it started even before that. No, I know it started before that," she admitted. "I didn't want to want you. You're a great doctor but you were never relationship material. It didn't matter anyway because you weren't interested in me. Despite that, here I am, years later, feeling like for the first time in my life, I've finally got the one person who makes me whole."
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But really, he'd been anything but. The worst of it was the loneliness; he'd deserted everyone, Stacy had left him and he'd felt completely alone. For that one night with Cuddy, he felt for a little while that he belonged to someone again. Though he made certain to push Cuddy away from him in fear of her rejecting him more than anything, he'd been unable to let that night go at the same time.
His brows shot up in surprise at what Cuddy said next, about knowing her feelings for him and started long before anything had ever happened between them. He'd had secret fantasies that Cuddy had always been interested in him. There had always been an attraction between them but House was certain her attraction had never gone deeper than entertainment value. Still, he'd sometimes entertained fantasies that Cuddy had always had a thing for him, had always been interested in him.
It was true that he hadn't been interested in her during the years he was with Stacy - he hadn't been interested in anybody else aside from her, he'd been so ridiculously smitten. Once Stacy had left, however, there was a huge gaping hole in him and the closest thing he'd ever had to a relationship since was his and Cuddy's traded innuendos. That was where the fantasies of Cuddy always being interested in him began to surface. He fulfilled his needs, though, with hookers.
"Wow, that's a revelation," he said. He wasn't being sarcastic, either. He was genuinely surprised to hear her interest in him had run deep for years. Did he make her whole? He had a hard time believing he did - he hurt her more than he did her good. He didn't like hurting her, though. He didn't like himself when he did. In fact, he just plain didn't like himself.
He turned his head up against her shoulder again to look at her. "What makes you think I wasn't interested in you?"
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She looked down at him when he asked why she thought he hadn't been interested. "Well, the fact you never tried to initiate anything was a clue," she said. "You never gave me any sign, not before Stacy, not after. You may have been interested in my breasts but you weren't interested in me."
It was more complicated than that, of course. It always was with him. He hadn't been interested in anyone after Stacy. Although she'd been hurt he never followed up on their one night together, with time she came to understand it wasn't her. He wouldn't have gotten into a relationship with anyone after Stacy. He was too wounded by her leaving.
It wasn't fair to say his only interest had been physical either. Yes, he had always enjoyed ogling her breasts or leering at her ass but if that had been all there was, he probably wouldn't have even remembered her name. And she certainly wouldn't have put up with his bull all these years. Something had clicked between them. They became friends and colleagues. They tormented each other but they also talked. They confided in each other. There'd always been some undefinable thing between them.
"It doesn't matter," she said, lifting her hand to stroke his hair. She let out a sigh and stared up at the ceiling for a moment before lowering her head to look at him again. "Even if you'd made a move years ago, I might've turned you down. I might've thought what the hell do I want with this crazy man?" She gave him a crooked smile. "Maybe we both needed to have the lives we've had separately before we were capable of seeing what we could have together. I'm just glad we did see it before it was too late."
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Cuddy was right that he hadn't initiated anything with her... but neither had she, as he'd just pointed out. That she'd never pursued anything with him after their night together said to him she wasn't interested in taking things further. It was probably just as well in hindsight - he hadn't been in any place to have a relationship at that time. But it had admittedly hurt that she didn't seem to want anything further to do with him.
But like she said, it didn't matter anymore. That was back then and this was now. She probably would have turned him down. Fair enough, too, because he was a bastard that most sane women wouldn't want to have anything to do with in a million years. Proof that Cuddy was either insane or a masochist, or possibly both.
As she stroked his hair, House sighed and closed his eyes briefly. Maybe she was right that they'd needed to live their lives separately before realising what they were capable of having together. Better now than never. "Maybe," he agreed quietly.
He opened his eyes back up to Cuddy then. "But you're wrong, just so you know," he said. "About me not being interested in you."
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Of course, if she'd thought he had any serious--ie not breast related--interest in her, she might've been more direct in expressing her own interest. One thing she'd learned was not to put her heart out where it could get trampled on. That wasn't his fault. All the men she'd expressed interest in had sent her on her way. In that sense, House was just like all the other guys. It was the only way in which he was like other men but it was the one way that made her keep her emotional distance.
There truly was no point in thinking about woulda/coulda/shoulda. The past couldn't be changed. Besides, who knew what might happen even if they could change it. Maybe they would've gotten together sooner, and maybe it would've been a disaster. What they had now could still end in disaster, too, but it didn't have to. They still had a potential future together and that's what she cared about, not some possible missed opportunity in the past.
"Oh, please," she scoffed gently when he told her she was wrong. In the early days, he'd already been a legend and she'd been just another face in the crowd. Then there'd been Stacy and House hadn't had any interest in anyone but her. Cuddy didn't think he'd even been able to see any woman but Stacy. He'd been completely in love with her. Then, after Stacy, he hadn't wanted another relationship. He'd done everything in his power to avoid the possibility. If he'd had any interest in Cuddy, he must've beaten it down before it could surface.
"Sorry," she said, gently ruffling his hair. "If you say you were interested, then I believe you. I just.... When were you interested?" she asked. "Because I obviously missed it."
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He shoved himself up on his elbow so he could see Cuddy better. He hadn't just noticed her at work - he'd noticed her back when they were in college. Well, he'd noticed a lot of girls in college, though he couldn't recall any of their names. Cuddy's name, however, he'd remembered.
"Do you remember that time in college I found your neurobiology notes that you'd lost? I gave them to you in the cafeteria at lunch and told you you'd labelled the Brodmann brain area 36 incorrectly? You'd labelled it parahippocampal gyrus; I told you it was the parahippocampal cortex. I think you were kind of pissed off that I'd gone through your notes. Which I did - I read through everything."
He paused, a mildly sheepish look growing on his face. "You didn't lose your notes. I might have taken them out of your bag when you weren't looking."
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Except possibly in House's case, she had to admit. He was just socially awkward enough he might consider ogling to be an indication of a deeper interest. The added benefit for him was that if the target of his interest rejected him, he could pretend his own interest had never been anything but purely physical. What he didn't seem to realize, though, was that if he ogled every decent set of breasts that crossed his field of vision, there was no reason for Cuddy to think it meant anything more in her case.
She needed a more definitive sign in any case. Unlike House, she was not socially awkward. She got along fine with people as colleagues and friends. She'd never gotten the hang of romantic relationships, though. She didn't know why but she never read the signs right. Too many times she'd ended up looking stupid or pathetic because she'd misread a man's level of interest. She'd learned to wait until she got a clearer indication which, with House, never came.
She let out a faint hurrumph. She absolutely remembered him returning her notes. She'd been thrilled to have her notes returned to her. She'd been in a panic trying to find them and worried about how she'd make up for the loss if she couldn't. Lisa Cuddy had not been prepared to see her grade drop just because she'd lost her notes. When House had shown up with them, she'd damn near kissed him, she was so relieved. The urge to kiss him had died quickly, though, when he started talking. The arrogant bastard had not only read them all, he'd corrected her. It had been so annoying, and so House.
"You didn't," she exclaimed. She pushed upright a bit more, staring at him in surprise. Then she gave him a light thump on the head. "Do you have any idea how worried I was about those notes?" She laughed then, and kissed the spot she'd thumped. It was such a classic House move. She really should've seen through it, except she hadn't known him as well back then. She hadn't known to look for ulterior motives.
"Why didn't you just say something?"
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He hadn't known Cuddy too well at college, but he'd known her well enough to know she was a study fanatic. In fact, he needn't have even known her to know that - almost every time he'd laid eyes on her, she had her face jammed in a book, or her arms bundled with books and notes.
That was all the info he'd needed to know how much she'd freak over losing an entire subject's worth of notes. It was a good ploy in getting her attention, too, and it had definitely worked. Though, he hadn't really known what to do once he did have her attention. He was just as awkward back then as he was now with approaching women he liked.
When Cuddy kissed him and exclaimed that he should have said something, he shrugged. "That would've been boring," he answered. The actual translation of his answer was: I was too chicken to. He shrugged again. "It was an excuse to talk to you more than anything. And it worked. Well, up until the part where I told you the places in your notes that you'd gotten things wrong."
He smiled slightly to himself. Some things never change, he thought. He'd never in a million years thought back then that he'd end up working for Cuddy and doing things like correcting her and Cuddy getting pissy at him doing so. In one way or another, he and Cuddy had remained in each other's orbit for twenty years - that was even more than the amount of years he'd known Wilson.
"Actually," he said, "I was going to ask you to come out with me one night to the student bar. That was the whole point of me stealing your notes. I had a plan devised. But then I guess I... well, I chickened out." He rolled his eyes at himself, a little flustered by his admission.
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Thing was, she had been thrilled when he'd returned her notes. She'd been thrilled he'd even noticed her...right up to the point where he started correcting her. Her ego was big enough she didn't take well to being told she was wrong, especially not in the blunt way House did it. What had really deflated her ego, though, was the thought he believed she was stupid. Compared to him, she had been pretty ignorant but having it pointed out.... Well, it had killed any small notion she might've had that he could ever be interested in her.
"We're both idiots," she added, relaxing back against the pillows again. She couldn't help but wonder what it would've been like if they'd hooked up back then. Back when they were both a little less cynical, back when he'd had full use of his leg. Would they have been mature enough to see past the surface and recognize each other's true qualities? Maybe. Or maybe not. There just wasn't any point regretting the missed opportunity.
Although....
"For a genius, you're not all that bright sometimes," she said. "You never figured out the only reason you knew who I was is because I audited a class you were taking."
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The girl he'd liked in John Hopkins - House had gone to ridiculous lengths to get her attention, even joining the cheerleading team she was on. When he'd met Stacy at a paintball game, he'd fired a round of paint pellets at her to get her attention, only for Stacy to turn her gun on him once and shoot him square on the arm. And with Cuddy... well, he'd stolen her notes out her bag to get her attention. And he'd sexually harassed her for years.
He was just about to sprawl out onto his back to stretch when Cuddy spoke again. He stopped mid-sprawl and threw her a curious look. Then he shifted back towards her, propping himself up further on his elbow. "Wait, what?"
He cocked his head, equal parts confused and incredulous. He definitely remembered her being in his class. She was right - he had noticed her. In fact, it was in that class he'd stolen her notes. Still, he'd had no idea she wasn't registered for the class without credit.
"Let me get this straight. You audited a class I was taking because...?"
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"Because I was trying to get some brownie points with the professor," she said. She kept an absolutely straight face as she said that, but only for a second. Then she rolled her eyes at him. "I audited a class you were taking because that was the only way I could get close to the legend. It was the only realistic chance I had of watching the notorious Gregory House at work." She studied his face and for a moment it was overlaid by the image of him at Michigan. His face was less wrinkled and there was more hair and none of it gray. And there was a light in his eyes, a spark that had damn near been extinguished in the ensuing twenty years.
She lifted her hand to his cheek. The spark wasn't entirely gone. He'd be dead if he'd lost all sense of fun and wonder. And she still saw the light in his eyes, sometimes, when he looked at her.
"I was in that class because you interested me." She smiled. "So much so I'm still following you around all these years later."
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"Why didn't you just say something?" he asked after taking a moment to let the news sink in. "You call me an idiot and turns out you're no better."
Weirdly, though, these revelations were the epitome of how they're entire relationship - friendship and work-wise - had always been. Dancing around each other with innuendos and making fun of each other, picking on each other, never truly being upfront and honest about the more personal things. They were in a relationship now and they still danced around each other.
And it seemed he wasn't the only one who went to ridiculous lengths to get closer to the ones he was attracted to or intrigued by - Cuddy auditing a class for the sheer sake of being near him was as ridiculous as some of the stunts he'd pulled in the name of checking someone out closer. All these years had gone by and only now House was finding out he and Cuddy had been playing the same game with each other without wanting to be caught.
He started to smirk, impressed by her trickery and his ego inflated that she'd been attracted to him all those years ago. "That was some dedicated stakeout," he said. "You sat next to me for the midterm. I cheated off you."
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Looking back, it had all been so high school of them. It was a wonder they hadn't been passing notes in class or calling each other's friends to find out if they liked each other. She might have done just that but she hadn't noticed House having close friends, not the kind he might confide in. Her friends weren't much better. They tended to keep their noses in their books, like her. There wasn't a lot of gossiping about anyone's love life...not that any of them had much of a love life.
She wouldn't have made a move in any case. She'd been just another nameless, faceless undergrad. She'd never been shy when it came to her academic abilities or in promoting her professional qualities. If it had simply been a matter of debating the nuances of diseases with him, she would've given it her best shot. However, approaching him out of some personal interest would've taken more self confidence than she'd had. Frankly, knowing him as well as she did now, she wasn't sure he would've known how to react if she had approached him.
"That wasn't very smart--cheating off a girl whose notes you considered erroneous," she pointed out. "But then you were just looking at my test as an excuse to look down my blouse, weren't you?"
She tucked her chin so she could kiss him, a soft press of lips. Then she pressed another kiss to his temple before resting her head against his. She didn't know if her life would've been better or worse if she'd acted on that initial infatuation. All she knew was that despite all subsequents attempts to suppress her attraction to him, it had lingered and even grown stronger.
"I was a different person then. So were you," she said quietly. "If we'd hooked up back then.... We would've had some fun, I'm sure of that. But I don't think we would've appreciated it, not the way we should."
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That wasn't the only way she'd scaled those corporate ladders to get to where she was today and he knew that. He knew she'd worked damn hard to get to her position. But that wasn't going to stop him from making the remarks that he did. But Cuddy was right - it wasn't very smart of him to cheat from her when he'd found her notes erroneous. Even more, it hadn't been smart of him to cheat at all, not after what had happened in Hopkins and his expulsion for cheating.
Still, he'd done it anyway. Just like in Hopkins when he'd cheated, he hadn't agreed with the lecturer or the material being taught, therefore had refused to pay any attention. But he had to know the material the lecturer's way in order to pass and Cuddy was the perfect person to cheat from - she was extremely textbook back then.
"Besides, I passed the midterm, so your notes can't have been too erroneous," he added. "Unless you being in my class and sitting near me for an entire semester showed you the error of your erroneousness."
He met her kiss, still smirking in equal parts amusement and incredulity. How bizarre to have found all of this out now, he thought to himself. What would have happened if he and Cuddy had made something together back then? Would it have worked? Possibly not. He'd graduated when she was still in med school and moved to Boston to begin employment in the nephrology branch of internal medicine at New England Medical Centre, the first job he would find himself fired from in little under two years. He and Cuddy probably would have gone their separate ways. Or maybe not. It was impossible to really tell. No matter how much their lives intersected, they'd gone different directions until he'd wound up employed at Princeton.
It was like Cuddy had read his mind, with what she said next. "Hmm," he agreed thoughtfully. "Maybe." He tilted his head to press another kiss to her lips. "But I'm perfectly okay with the way things turned out."
Well, aside from the fighting and the huge ups and downs their relationship faced, and the struggles he was going through. Besides all that, he wouldn't change what he had with Cuddy for the world. He moved onto his belly more and commando crawled a little further up the bed so he was within cuddling range of Cuddy. Then he attacked her with a big, smothering cuddle.
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Of course, she also worked smart and yes, fine, that meant occasionally using her physical assets to her advantage. She'd learned early on that some men were always going to focus on her breasts and not her brain. Eventually, she'd decided if those men were going to be such unrepentant Neanderthals, then she was justified in using it against them.
"You passed the midterm for the same reason I did--because I'm smart," she reminded him. She knew he knew that. As much as he loved to leer at her, he'd never genuinely dismissed her as a doctor because of her physical attractiveness. He sometimes dismissed her for other reasons, but not because he thought she had a great rack.
She let out a muffled laugh as he climbed up and tried to smother her in a House blanket. It wasn't easy to do anymore with her belly in the way but he did a pretty good job of wrapping himself around her. She wrapped her arms around his chest and turned her face to him. She exchanged gentle little kisses with him as she shifted slightly toward her side. They just didn't fit together quite as well anymore but she managed to snuggle up and get comfortable. She gave him one more slightly longer kiss, then tucked her head in against his shoulder.
She didn't know if she'd say she was perfectly okay with the way things turned out. A small part of her would always wonder what could've been if they'd gotten together before his leg and Stacy and all the damage that had done to him. But she was with him now and she was close (she hoped)to giving birth to their baby. Ultimately, she did have everything she'd wanted so she wasn't going to waste time on regrets.
"I'm happy with where we ended up," she agreed. She reached down with one hand and rubbed her belly, a soft smile on her face. "I just hope Junior is a little smarter than we were. I hope if she meets some charming lunatic on campus, she'll be smart enough to grab onto him and tell him what she wants."
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