HOUSE M.D. FIC: Going Quietly
Title: Going Quietly
Fandom: House M.D.
Rating: PG-13
Words: ~2800
Characters: House, Wilson, and Cuddy, with a cameo appearance by the Cottages
Summary: My most pessimistic predictions for the Season Seven finale. If you’re the kind of person who rubbernecks at horrific accident scenes, this fic’s for you.
Warnings: No actual spoilers that I know of, but plenty of speculations. Think of this as bringing an umbrella along to prevent the rain.
Disclaimer: I am neither David Shore nor Margaret Mitchell.
Thanks: To jezziejay , for unexpectedly enthusiastic beta.
She hasn’t been to House’s apartment since this all began, and she strongly suspects that, even without the news she bears, she wouldn’t be welcome now. She takes a deep breath to steel herself before knocking on his door.
There’s a long pause, then a muffled shuffling sound, before House answers the door, eyes bloodshot, face haggard. He appears to be alone, for which Cuddy is unreasonably grateful. It may not actually make this any easier, but Dominika’s congenital good humor is the last thing she wants to deal with right now.
“Didn’t call for a hooker tonight,” House says, deliberately looking down her blouse. She can smell the alcohol emanating from him, along with something else she can’t place. “Is there a discount for ex-boyfriends, or-“
“I’m pregnant.”
She catches a flash of surprise and delight so brief that a moment later, when he visibly connects the words to her obvious distress and the walls slam down behind his eyes, she’s certain she must have imagined it.
“Cheer up,” he says, turning from her and starting to close the door, “maybe you’ll have a miscarriage.”
“It’s not yours.” Cuddy nearly whispers the words, but the intensity with which she delivers the revelation stops House in his tracks as effectively as a shout.
He stands there for a moment with his back to her, head cocked as if listening to something beyond the range of normal human senses. Then: “The night of the wedding.”
“Wilson,” Cuddy confirms, her voice surprisingly steady. Seeing the tension stiffening his shoulders, the hand trembling with suppressed violence where it grips his cane, she blinks away the threat of tears.
At last House turns his head to look directly at her. “I wanted to hurt you,” he states with surprising frankness. “If Wilson was that turned on, I guess it must have worked.”
Like most of the things House says to wound, this insult has the added advantage of being true. Rather than even attempting to counter the accusation, Cuddy only responds with, “I’m keeping the baby.”
Dull blue eyes shift aside, away. “Does he know?”
“Not yet.”
“Really,” he says sharply. “You thought that I had the right to know before the father? Or were you not sure at first who the father was?”
She straightens her shoulders, lifting her chin. “I was sure. I still thought… given our history... I thought that you should hear it from me.”
Moving with astonishing speed for a cripple who’s far from sober, House is suddenly towering over her, his face mere inches from her own. “You thought,” he breathes, the fumes of whiskey filling her nostrils so that she has to fight hard to resist the urge to back away and cough, “that I wouldn’t dare to hit a woman.”
“And was I right?” Cuddy responds, hoping that the bravado in her voice will be enough to belie her watery eyes.
House stares down at her in silence for what seems like an eternity before abruptly turning on his heel and slamming the door in her face.
***
When Wilson gets home later that night, House is waiting for him. Sitting in the dark, of course, so that his victim is almost in his lap before his presence is discovered on the sofa.
Having extricated himself from the embarrassing tangle of limbs and switched on several lights, Wilson is agitated, pacing back and forth and reflexively rubbing the back of his neck. “What the hell? You nearly scared the shit out of me!”
“Interesting,” House intones. “Guilty conscience?”
“No, crazy ex-roommate,” Wilson retorts, but House can see the speculation in his flushed face. Wilson is wondering if he knows, somehow, and if so, what could possibly have persuaded Cuddy to spill their secret. “What are you doing here?”
“Got a question for you.” House eyes him with a meaningful tilt to his head.
Wilson stills, his worst fears clearly confirmed. He sits down in the nearest chair and waits for the axe to fall.
“You gonna make an honest woman of her?”
Wilson laughs nervously, and in that moment House can’t help but hate his friend a little, that stupid grin, the high-pitched giggle. “Am I- what? No, why would you-? I can’t believe she even told you about that.” He leans forward earnestly, spreading his hands as if pushing away any objections. “House, please, it was one time, and it didn’t - it didn’t mean anything, to either of us.”
House doesn’t blink. “You think I don’t know that? You think I don’t know you, panting after every needy woman in your path like she’s a bitch in heat?”
“House,” Wilson says sharply, as if stung. “House, I’m sorry. I am. But you… you’re married for God’s sake. Talk about the pot-”
“Let’s not talk about the pot,” House interrupts. “Let’s talk about the stove. Or, to be more precise, the oven.” When Wilson only looks back at him blankly, he elaborates, “The oven. The one with the bun in it.”
He watches with a certain malicious satisfaction as a look of appalled understanding blanches Wilson’s boyish face.
***
When the silence between them became too awkward to endure any longer, Wilson spoke kindly to Cuddy, slumped next to him on House’s hard mattress. “You’ve had a long day. Let me drive you home.”
They were both quiet in the car, Wilson wondering a bit guiltily whether his absence from the wedding’s aftermath had been noticed, Cuddy probably reliving the humiliation of the week’s events, culminating in this latest outrage, in living Technicolor. He realized that she really hadn’t thought that House would do it. After all these years, he marveled at her continued ability to underestimate the man’s madness. Well, she had attempted a relationship with him, after all. That took a certain brand of obstinate obliviousness.
Cuddy looked so pale and fragile when they arrived at her house that Wilson walked her to the front door. She fumbled with her keys, brushing her hair impatiently out of her face, then reached for his hand as he turned to leave.
He stood there quietly, uncertain. She kept her head down, but her shoulders were shaking under the dim illumination of the porch light, and her fingers gripped his in an unspoken plea.
When she lifted her face, he couldn’t help pressing his lips to the tears that glistened on her cheeks, to take away the bitter sting of salt. From there it was only a short step to a chaste, comforting kiss on the mouth… a kiss that deepened unexpectedly when Cuddy responded by clasping the nape of his neck and pulling him closer with a mournful little moan that bypassed his brain and went straight to his cock.
Flustered, he started to pull away, but Cuddy came with him, flowing against his body and reaching for his jaw with her other hand. He grabbed her wrist as gently as he could and broke the kiss. “Cuddy-“
“God,” she groaned, leaning into him and resting her forehead against his chest. “Not you too. Can’t I just be Lisa for once? If you only knew how lonely-“ Her voice broke.
He stroked her thick, dark hair, feeling her small frame shudder with silent sobs. “We shouldn’t-“ Wilson took an urgent, frustrated breath. “House would-“
“House has been screwing half the hookers in New Jersey and just got married to a stranger in order to spite me,” she said into his shirt, the ragged edge in her voice revealing just how deeply she had been hurt by her ex’s recent antics. “He didn’t just make a mockery of marriage in front of all of those people. He made a mockery of me. Of us. Anything that goes on between you and me now is none of his business.” She looked up at him again, and Wilson felt himself drowning in those wet blue eyes. “Besides, he never has to know.”
As if of its own accord, Wilson’s finger rose to her face, tracing the track of a fresh tear. From there it touched the corner of her mouth, the rapid pulse at her throat, the notch between her clavicles - more prominent now than they had been even a year ago - continued on over the fine links of her chain… and finally caught in the collar of her blouse.
“Please,” she said, closing her eyes in supplication.
At that moment James Wilson was lost. He could no more have kept himself from caressing her than he could have bypassed an injured baby bird as a boy instead of cradling it in his hands. Cuddy must have sensed this even without seeing his face, because she slowly shrugged out of her black blazer, revealing the pearly skin of her shoulders, the sweet softness of her upper arms.
Wilson followed her inside without a second thought.
***
He stops the story there, ever the gentleman. House tries to hide his horrifying surge of jealousy with a habitual sneer.
“What a touching fairytale. And you still haven’t answered my question.”
“What?” Wilson asks, looking baffled.
House raises his cane and lets the rubber tip bounce against the floor once, twice. “Are you going to become the next Mr. Cuddy?”
Wilson frowns. He clearly is barely beginning to come to grips with this situation. “Um. I hadn’t-“ He blows out a breath. “Sure. If she’ll have me. If I can help.”
“Amazing how a few dozen cell divisions can take a man from pity fuck to pity marriage inside of sixty seconds,” House gibes. “This is the first time, right? You don’t have any other rugrats running around that I never knew about?”
“Go to hell,” Wilson says, although he looks more exhausted than angry.
House knows that the minute he walks through that door, they’ll both regret it.
He does it anyway.
***
After that conversation, Wilson doesn’t speak to House for weeks. To be fair, he doesn’t wander down to Diagnostics, and he takes the stairs most days, but House isn’t exactly banging down his office door either. He and Chase meet up a few times at the bowling alley, trying to pretend that nothing has really changed, but after they catch each other listening for the familiar uneven footsteps too many times, they call it off by mutual consent.
Cuddy laughs at him outright when he asks her whether she’d like to get married.
***
She tells herself that it’s supposed to be harder at her age, but it’s too soon for her shoes to stop fitting, for her stomach to swell. She can’t seem to shake the morning sickness, and her vision is beginning to blur.
She’s an M.D. despite House’s doubts as to her competence, and she’s not stupid. She knows that something is seriously wrong.
***
“Cuddy was admitted this morning with preeclampsia.”
Wilson is standing in his office doorway, arms folded over his stained white coat and wrinkled shirt. He looks like he’s aged a decade since House caught a glimpse of him two days ago.
House frowns and takes off his reading glasses, leaning back in his chair. “Pretty early in the pregnancy for that. You suspect something else?”
“No,” Wilson says slowly, raising one hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. “We’re sure.”
House shrugs as nonchalantly as he can. “If you’ve already got a diagnosis, then you don’t need me.”
“We do need you. Her symptoms are severe, and they’re progressing in spite of treatment. The only safe option at this point is to terminate.”
House turns back to his computer screen to conceal his distress. “What do I look like, a gynecologist? On second thought, don’t answer that.”
“Cuddy,” Wilson says, and inhales raggedly. “Cuddy wants to wait it out.”
“She’s an idiot,” House says automatically. When this pronouncement is met with silence, he is forced to look up. “What? You didn’t think that I could convince her.”
Wilson says nothing. House looks at him more closely and sees a mixture of guilt and grim determination stiffening the line of his jaw. “You didn’t think that I could convince her,” he repeats slowly as realization dawns.
Wilson just stares back at him, eyes suspiciously bright, and then turns and walks away.
No. You didn’t think I could convince her. You thought I could save her.
House counts to ten before taking a deep breath and stumping off to see Cuddy.
***
She’s been pregnant -briefly- before, but she’s never experienced anything like this. She knows that it’s critical that she stay still, lying on her left side, while her doctors struggle to get her pressure down. In a way, it’s just as well - she’s so weak from the vomiting that she doesn’t feel capable of anything more.
Suddenly the door swings open, a tall, gaunt figure looming just outside. Speaking of high blood pressure. “House.”
“If we’re talking, as big as a,” he agrees, advancing to her bedside as if that had been an invitation.
“Shut up.” Not her best riposte, but the ever-present headache is currently blinding. “I suppose Wilson told you?”
His gaze flicks from the monitors to her carotid pulse to the collection bag and settle back on her swollen face. “Wilson told me that you were being a moron.” Off her look, he adds, “I may have been paraphrasing.”
“I know I’ve been working too hard, but with bed rest and constant monitoring-“
“If we don’t terminate, you’ll start seizing within twenty-four hours.”
“Don’t you dare try to bully me,” she hisses. “You’re not my doctor. You’re not my boyfriend. This is my baby, and you have no say at all in this situation.” The second the words leave her mouth, she feels contrite. “House. I didn’t mean-“
“What about Wilson, does he have any say in it?” he asks so quietly that she wonders whether she misheard. He turns to the supplies cart and readies a syringe.
“What’s that?” she asks sharply as he deftly disconnects the drip line to her cannula.
“Mild sedative,” House pronounces, plunging the contents home. “Just a little something to take the edge off.”
Far more rapidly than should be possible, she feels her eyes closing despite herself. “Wait… wanted to say ‘m…” The word sorry whirls away in the warm darkness that crashes over Cuddy like a wave and drags her under.
***
House corrals his team without delay and shoves the paperwork into Taub’s hands.
“Wait, when did this become our case?”
“About, oh, five minutes ago. Call off your golf game.”
“Did Dr. Cuddy sign the consent forms?” Foreman asks, frowning. He takes the folder away from Taub and starts thumbing through the files.
“She’d be a fool not to,” House growls, and even though that isn’t really an answer at all, Chase nods curtly and heads off to prep for surgery.
***
At some point, she opens her eyes to the subdued lighting of hospital night. She feels gnawed out, painfully hollow. House is asleep by her bedside, his head pillowed on his folded arms. She blinks, her eyelids sore and sticky, and slowly slides her hand across the sheet to touch his fingers. Encountering an unexpected dampness, she frowns. It’s almost as if he’s been… but surely not.
She loses this thought as sleep once again swallows her whole.
***
House is playing foosball with Wilson in the doctor’s lounge when the call comes. He goes quietly, giving the table a farewell pat on his way.
Cuddy has been waiting for him. Her face is set in hard, unfamiliar lines and literally as white as the sheet she clutches closely to her, covering her thin hospital gown. As if he hasn’t mapped every inch of those breasts with his mouth in the dark as well as the light.
For once he can’t make up his mind what best (or worst) to say, but she takes the decision away from him.
“You’re fired.” He can see that Cuddy’s been crying, but her eyes are dry, her words crisp and cold.
“I saved your life,” he offers automatically, but inside he has already surrendered, and they both know it.
“Tell me that there’s no part of you that’s glad this had to happen.”
He can’t deny it.
“You’re lucky I don’t have your medical license revoked and your sorry ass arrested,” Cuddy cracks out, and winces at the effort this has cost her. “I told Foreman to clean out your desk. It’s his now.” When House still doesn’t respond, she jerks her chin towards the door. “I never want to see you again.”
“Where will I go?” he asks, hating the hopelessness in his voice.
Her laugh, when it comes, is brittle and harshly disbelieving. “Frankly,” she says, “I don’t give a damn.”
Fandom: House M.D.
Rating: PG-13
Words: ~2800
Characters: House, Wilson, and Cuddy, with a cameo appearance by the Cottages
Summary: My most pessimistic predictions for the Season Seven finale. If you’re the kind of person who rubbernecks at horrific accident scenes, this fic’s for you.
Warnings: No actual spoilers that I know of, but plenty of speculations. Think of this as bringing an umbrella along to prevent the rain.
Disclaimer: I am neither David Shore nor Margaret Mitchell.
Thanks: To jezziejay , for unexpectedly enthusiastic beta.
She hasn’t been to House’s apartment since this all began, and she strongly suspects that, even without the news she bears, she wouldn’t be welcome now. She takes a deep breath to steel herself before knocking on his door.
There’s a long pause, then a muffled shuffling sound, before House answers the door, eyes bloodshot, face haggard. He appears to be alone, for which Cuddy is unreasonably grateful. It may not actually make this any easier, but Dominika’s congenital good humor is the last thing she wants to deal with right now.
“Didn’t call for a hooker tonight,” House says, deliberately looking down her blouse. She can smell the alcohol emanating from him, along with something else she can’t place. “Is there a discount for ex-boyfriends, or-“
“I’m pregnant.”
She catches a flash of surprise and delight so brief that a moment later, when he visibly connects the words to her obvious distress and the walls slam down behind his eyes, she’s certain she must have imagined it.
“Cheer up,” he says, turning from her and starting to close the door, “maybe you’ll have a miscarriage.”
“It’s not yours.” Cuddy nearly whispers the words, but the intensity with which she delivers the revelation stops House in his tracks as effectively as a shout.
He stands there for a moment with his back to her, head cocked as if listening to something beyond the range of normal human senses. Then: “The night of the wedding.”
“Wilson,” Cuddy confirms, her voice surprisingly steady. Seeing the tension stiffening his shoulders, the hand trembling with suppressed violence where it grips his cane, she blinks away the threat of tears.
At last House turns his head to look directly at her. “I wanted to hurt you,” he states with surprising frankness. “If Wilson was that turned on, I guess it must have worked.”
Like most of the things House says to wound, this insult has the added advantage of being true. Rather than even attempting to counter the accusation, Cuddy only responds with, “I’m keeping the baby.”
Dull blue eyes shift aside, away. “Does he know?”
“Not yet.”
“Really,” he says sharply. “You thought that I had the right to know before the father? Or were you not sure at first who the father was?”
She straightens her shoulders, lifting her chin. “I was sure. I still thought… given our history... I thought that you should hear it from me.”
Moving with astonishing speed for a cripple who’s far from sober, House is suddenly towering over her, his face mere inches from her own. “You thought,” he breathes, the fumes of whiskey filling her nostrils so that she has to fight hard to resist the urge to back away and cough, “that I wouldn’t dare to hit a woman.”
“And was I right?” Cuddy responds, hoping that the bravado in her voice will be enough to belie her watery eyes.
House stares down at her in silence for what seems like an eternity before abruptly turning on his heel and slamming the door in her face.
***
When Wilson gets home later that night, House is waiting for him. Sitting in the dark, of course, so that his victim is almost in his lap before his presence is discovered on the sofa.
Having extricated himself from the embarrassing tangle of limbs and switched on several lights, Wilson is agitated, pacing back and forth and reflexively rubbing the back of his neck. “What the hell? You nearly scared the shit out of me!”
“Interesting,” House intones. “Guilty conscience?”
“No, crazy ex-roommate,” Wilson retorts, but House can see the speculation in his flushed face. Wilson is wondering if he knows, somehow, and if so, what could possibly have persuaded Cuddy to spill their secret. “What are you doing here?”
“Got a question for you.” House eyes him with a meaningful tilt to his head.
Wilson stills, his worst fears clearly confirmed. He sits down in the nearest chair and waits for the axe to fall.
“You gonna make an honest woman of her?”
Wilson laughs nervously, and in that moment House can’t help but hate his friend a little, that stupid grin, the high-pitched giggle. “Am I- what? No, why would you-? I can’t believe she even told you about that.” He leans forward earnestly, spreading his hands as if pushing away any objections. “House, please, it was one time, and it didn’t - it didn’t mean anything, to either of us.”
House doesn’t blink. “You think I don’t know that? You think I don’t know you, panting after every needy woman in your path like she’s a bitch in heat?”
“House,” Wilson says sharply, as if stung. “House, I’m sorry. I am. But you… you’re married for God’s sake. Talk about the pot-”
“Let’s not talk about the pot,” House interrupts. “Let’s talk about the stove. Or, to be more precise, the oven.” When Wilson only looks back at him blankly, he elaborates, “The oven. The one with the bun in it.”
He watches with a certain malicious satisfaction as a look of appalled understanding blanches Wilson’s boyish face.
***
When the silence between them became too awkward to endure any longer, Wilson spoke kindly to Cuddy, slumped next to him on House’s hard mattress. “You’ve had a long day. Let me drive you home.”
They were both quiet in the car, Wilson wondering a bit guiltily whether his absence from the wedding’s aftermath had been noticed, Cuddy probably reliving the humiliation of the week’s events, culminating in this latest outrage, in living Technicolor. He realized that she really hadn’t thought that House would do it. After all these years, he marveled at her continued ability to underestimate the man’s madness. Well, she had attempted a relationship with him, after all. That took a certain brand of obstinate obliviousness.
Cuddy looked so pale and fragile when they arrived at her house that Wilson walked her to the front door. She fumbled with her keys, brushing her hair impatiently out of her face, then reached for his hand as he turned to leave.
He stood there quietly, uncertain. She kept her head down, but her shoulders were shaking under the dim illumination of the porch light, and her fingers gripped his in an unspoken plea.
When she lifted her face, he couldn’t help pressing his lips to the tears that glistened on her cheeks, to take away the bitter sting of salt. From there it was only a short step to a chaste, comforting kiss on the mouth… a kiss that deepened unexpectedly when Cuddy responded by clasping the nape of his neck and pulling him closer with a mournful little moan that bypassed his brain and went straight to his cock.
Flustered, he started to pull away, but Cuddy came with him, flowing against his body and reaching for his jaw with her other hand. He grabbed her wrist as gently as he could and broke the kiss. “Cuddy-“
“God,” she groaned, leaning into him and resting her forehead against his chest. “Not you too. Can’t I just be Lisa for once? If you only knew how lonely-“ Her voice broke.
He stroked her thick, dark hair, feeling her small frame shudder with silent sobs. “We shouldn’t-“ Wilson took an urgent, frustrated breath. “House would-“
“House has been screwing half the hookers in New Jersey and just got married to a stranger in order to spite me,” she said into his shirt, the ragged edge in her voice revealing just how deeply she had been hurt by her ex’s recent antics. “He didn’t just make a mockery of marriage in front of all of those people. He made a mockery of me. Of us. Anything that goes on between you and me now is none of his business.” She looked up at him again, and Wilson felt himself drowning in those wet blue eyes. “Besides, he never has to know.”
As if of its own accord, Wilson’s finger rose to her face, tracing the track of a fresh tear. From there it touched the corner of her mouth, the rapid pulse at her throat, the notch between her clavicles - more prominent now than they had been even a year ago - continued on over the fine links of her chain… and finally caught in the collar of her blouse.
“Please,” she said, closing her eyes in supplication.
At that moment James Wilson was lost. He could no more have kept himself from caressing her than he could have bypassed an injured baby bird as a boy instead of cradling it in his hands. Cuddy must have sensed this even without seeing his face, because she slowly shrugged out of her black blazer, revealing the pearly skin of her shoulders, the sweet softness of her upper arms.
Wilson followed her inside without a second thought.
***
He stops the story there, ever the gentleman. House tries to hide his horrifying surge of jealousy with a habitual sneer.
“What a touching fairytale. And you still haven’t answered my question.”
“What?” Wilson asks, looking baffled.
House raises his cane and lets the rubber tip bounce against the floor once, twice. “Are you going to become the next Mr. Cuddy?”
Wilson frowns. He clearly is barely beginning to come to grips with this situation. “Um. I hadn’t-“ He blows out a breath. “Sure. If she’ll have me. If I can help.”
“Amazing how a few dozen cell divisions can take a man from pity fuck to pity marriage inside of sixty seconds,” House gibes. “This is the first time, right? You don’t have any other rugrats running around that I never knew about?”
“Go to hell,” Wilson says, although he looks more exhausted than angry.
House knows that the minute he walks through that door, they’ll both regret it.
He does it anyway.
***
After that conversation, Wilson doesn’t speak to House for weeks. To be fair, he doesn’t wander down to Diagnostics, and he takes the stairs most days, but House isn’t exactly banging down his office door either. He and Chase meet up a few times at the bowling alley, trying to pretend that nothing has really changed, but after they catch each other listening for the familiar uneven footsteps too many times, they call it off by mutual consent.
Cuddy laughs at him outright when he asks her whether she’d like to get married.
***
She tells herself that it’s supposed to be harder at her age, but it’s too soon for her shoes to stop fitting, for her stomach to swell. She can’t seem to shake the morning sickness, and her vision is beginning to blur.
She’s an M.D. despite House’s doubts as to her competence, and she’s not stupid. She knows that something is seriously wrong.
***
“Cuddy was admitted this morning with preeclampsia.”
Wilson is standing in his office doorway, arms folded over his stained white coat and wrinkled shirt. He looks like he’s aged a decade since House caught a glimpse of him two days ago.
House frowns and takes off his reading glasses, leaning back in his chair. “Pretty early in the pregnancy for that. You suspect something else?”
“No,” Wilson says slowly, raising one hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. “We’re sure.”
House shrugs as nonchalantly as he can. “If you’ve already got a diagnosis, then you don’t need me.”
“We do need you. Her symptoms are severe, and they’re progressing in spite of treatment. The only safe option at this point is to terminate.”
House turns back to his computer screen to conceal his distress. “What do I look like, a gynecologist? On second thought, don’t answer that.”
“Cuddy,” Wilson says, and inhales raggedly. “Cuddy wants to wait it out.”
“She’s an idiot,” House says automatically. When this pronouncement is met with silence, he is forced to look up. “What? You didn’t think that I could convince her.”
Wilson says nothing. House looks at him more closely and sees a mixture of guilt and grim determination stiffening the line of his jaw. “You didn’t think that I could convince her,” he repeats slowly as realization dawns.
Wilson just stares back at him, eyes suspiciously bright, and then turns and walks away.
No. You didn’t think I could convince her. You thought I could save her.
House counts to ten before taking a deep breath and stumping off to see Cuddy.
***
She’s been pregnant -briefly- before, but she’s never experienced anything like this. She knows that it’s critical that she stay still, lying on her left side, while her doctors struggle to get her pressure down. In a way, it’s just as well - she’s so weak from the vomiting that she doesn’t feel capable of anything more.
Suddenly the door swings open, a tall, gaunt figure looming just outside. Speaking of high blood pressure. “House.”
“If we’re talking, as big as a,” he agrees, advancing to her bedside as if that had been an invitation.
“Shut up.” Not her best riposte, but the ever-present headache is currently blinding. “I suppose Wilson told you?”
His gaze flicks from the monitors to her carotid pulse to the collection bag and settle back on her swollen face. “Wilson told me that you were being a moron.” Off her look, he adds, “I may have been paraphrasing.”
“I know I’ve been working too hard, but with bed rest and constant monitoring-“
“If we don’t terminate, you’ll start seizing within twenty-four hours.”
“Don’t you dare try to bully me,” she hisses. “You’re not my doctor. You’re not my boyfriend. This is my baby, and you have no say at all in this situation.” The second the words leave her mouth, she feels contrite. “House. I didn’t mean-“
“What about Wilson, does he have any say in it?” he asks so quietly that she wonders whether she misheard. He turns to the supplies cart and readies a syringe.
“What’s that?” she asks sharply as he deftly disconnects the drip line to her cannula.
“Mild sedative,” House pronounces, plunging the contents home. “Just a little something to take the edge off.”
Far more rapidly than should be possible, she feels her eyes closing despite herself. “Wait… wanted to say ‘m…” The word sorry whirls away in the warm darkness that crashes over Cuddy like a wave and drags her under.
***
House corrals his team without delay and shoves the paperwork into Taub’s hands.
“Wait, when did this become our case?”
“About, oh, five minutes ago. Call off your golf game.”
“Did Dr. Cuddy sign the consent forms?” Foreman asks, frowning. He takes the folder away from Taub and starts thumbing through the files.
“She’d be a fool not to,” House growls, and even though that isn’t really an answer at all, Chase nods curtly and heads off to prep for surgery.
***
At some point, she opens her eyes to the subdued lighting of hospital night. She feels gnawed out, painfully hollow. House is asleep by her bedside, his head pillowed on his folded arms. She blinks, her eyelids sore and sticky, and slowly slides her hand across the sheet to touch his fingers. Encountering an unexpected dampness, she frowns. It’s almost as if he’s been… but surely not.
She loses this thought as sleep once again swallows her whole.
***
House is playing foosball with Wilson in the doctor’s lounge when the call comes. He goes quietly, giving the table a farewell pat on his way.
Cuddy has been waiting for him. Her face is set in hard, unfamiliar lines and literally as white as the sheet she clutches closely to her, covering her thin hospital gown. As if he hasn’t mapped every inch of those breasts with his mouth in the dark as well as the light.
For once he can’t make up his mind what best (or worst) to say, but she takes the decision away from him.
“You’re fired.” He can see that Cuddy’s been crying, but her eyes are dry, her words crisp and cold.
“I saved your life,” he offers automatically, but inside he has already surrendered, and they both know it.
“Tell me that there’s no part of you that’s glad this had to happen.”
He can’t deny it.
“You’re lucky I don’t have your medical license revoked and your sorry ass arrested,” Cuddy cracks out, and winces at the effort this has cost her. “I told Foreman to clean out your desk. It’s his now.” When House still doesn’t respond, she jerks her chin towards the door. “I never want to see you again.”
“Where will I go?” he asks, hating the hopelessness in his voice.
Her laugh, when it comes, is brittle and harshly disbelieving. “Frankly,” she says, “I don’t give a damn.”