Fic: Prodigal (House/Cuddy)
Title: Prodigal
Character/s: Greg House, Vanessa Cuddy (OC), implied House/Cuddy
Warning: PG, no spoilers
Word Count: 1200
Disclaimer: I don’t own House or his office, but I do own Vanessa, and the Cuddy family backstory.
Summary: The mystery sister arrives.
A/N: This is another installment in my ‘history of Lisa Cuddy’ storyline, and follows loosely on - thematically, if not precisely chronologically - from my recent Estelle-centric fic ‘Beta’, although this piece can very much stand alone, of course. I’m actually going somewhere with this, believe it or not; this series is going to serve as my AU/prediction for Season 6. Stay tuned, there’s quite a lot more to come.
Vanessa is a whirlwind.
She is a cyclone; she is sheets of corrugated iron flying in the spiral wind of a hurricane.
She is a natural disaster.
There is hardly anyone in the world he likes better, except perhaps her sister, of course.
A wild tangle of dark curls trembles with sparking energy, the takeout coffee in her left hand probably the sixth or seventh of the day, if he knows her at all, and it is only barely five in the afternoon. A flurry of perfume; dripping, multitudinous layers of over-sized, art student-chic jewelry and the dangling ends of a glimmering, sequin-shot scarf trail behind her, gleaming like an aura, and she hops casually onto the edge of his desk, while Chase and Foreman stare, gobsmacked, through the glass.
“Hey, you.”
“Hey, Ness.”
Birch-silver eyes, half a shade lighter than her sister’s, narrow and sharpen to a point, wicked smile tripping at the corners of a pale, petal-painted mouth. Vanessa is smirking, like usual, her crossed legs jiggling with temporarily-bridled mania, but even when she is like this - even when she is six quick minutes from crazy - she is still enthralling and exciting and impossible to ignore. One white hand, complete with bruise-purple talons and jangling silver bracelet, shoots out to tug, like a schoolkid, upon the loose collar of his shirt. She’s grinning now, dark and dangerous; her big sister’s evil, on-trend doppelganger.
“So… how’ve you been? Heard you were in the cuckoo’s nest.”
A snort, a sound torn halfway between shock and amusement escapes him, and Vanessa’s pointed left eyebrow shoots toward the ceiling, as the remnants of his team filter past his open office door, two pairs of curious eyes as tangible as a shifting breeze staring unashamedly in their direction.
“That… metaphor doesn’t exactly work, Ness.”
“It’s not exactly a metaphor, Greg.”
He can’t help smiling back at her, an edge of nerves beginning to poke and prod within him, while Vanessa’s fingers fidget with the inevitable white snarl of a set of headphones looped around her neck like a noose. Her eyes dart, her mouth twitches, and he can’t help wondering what terrible emergency has kept Cuddy from putting a stop to her sister’s free roam amid her precise, carefully-controlled kingdom. Vanessa can disrupt order just by the mere power of her presence, and something really, really important must have come up for Cuddy to have allowed her to run wild throughout the hospital.
Like she is uncannily capable of doing, Vanessa reads his mind.
“Lise is in some meeting, with a couple of rich guys in Armani. They look sleazy.”
“They probably are.”
The smallest, sneakiest whisper of pity creeps up like a shadow upon him, and it doesn’t seem to matter how beautiful, how stylish and cuttingly cool and untouchably artistic Vanessa is; he has always felt a little sorry for her. Even as the bratty, messy nine year old he first met a lifetime ago, she was constantly, consistently, thoughtlessly dismissed; her father’s daughter to the last degree, the inevitable epitome of wildness, of unpredictability. The troublesome daughter. It’s never been entirely fair, and although he knows Cuddy, and Estelle, for that matter, both love her desperately, Vanessa has always been victimized.
She’s different, and he can appreciate that, and so he gently - fondly, he hopes - shoves her, in the shoulder, and even as she wobbles precariously from the momentum of it her smile changes; shifts from calculatingly self-aware, to brightly, fleetingly happy. He likes being kind to her, even if it is in small ways, and he is one of the few people remaining who is still willing to take the risk.
“So…”
“So?”
“So, are you okay? It’s not much fun in the nuthouse.”
She’s not speaking strictly from experience, but the intention is still there - it is still something they have in common, this tendency to lurch and bend toward the far ends of the sanity spectrum - and he can appreciate the gesture, at least.
“Yeah. I’m good. You?”
She ducks her pretty, flighty head; deflection palpable in the very movement of her muscles and bones. A trilling, alien thrill of worry winds through him, fueled by an ancient memory of protectiveness, of near brotherly duty.
“I’m okay.”
She sounds just like her sister sometimes does, all of a sudden; a tiny, unsteady voice, a quavering note of unease colouring her swift and ultimately meaningless response. The worry rises a notch, from where it has settled somewhere in his chest.
He’ll play along, though, because it is only fair.
“Good. How long you in town?”
Her face brightens, quick as the sun slipping from behind cloud, enthusiasm at some new scheme or other making her look more like a kid than ever. She looks happy, for the while, at least.
“NYC Opera is holding open auditions. All month. As long as I keep making the callbacks, I should be around… for a while.”
He nods, genuinely pleased for her. She’s a brilliant vocalist, an unquestionably talented musician, and he can still remember the first time he heard her sing. She outshone everyone, blew every other kid right out of the water, at that lame-ass junior high talent show, and she deserves every accolade she has ever earned for her music. She deserves a spot with the opera company, and he’s already hoping, already crossing his fingers for her. She’s still smiling, still free of the chasing tiger of self-doubt that he recognizes so well. He nudges her shoulder, again.
“Awesome. You’ll do great.”
“Yeah?”
It’s seems strange, that she would question his praise, because he has always given it freely, eagerly, even; he has always been the one to champion her talent, in the face of her sister’s doubt and their mother’s fear. He’s always argued her case, even back in those first few years when her tiny family was still new to him; back when he still saw everything through the prismatic lens of her older sister’s perception. He wants to encourage her, because he is not quite sure that anyone else is about to.
“Yeah. You’ll blow ‘em away, Ness. You always do. C‘mon, your sister should be done with the sleazy suits by now.”
Her expression shifts to yet another incarnation of a smile; this one lopsided and pink-cheeked, and beneath it he clambers ungainly to his feet, unhooking the cane from the back of his chair in a practiced, automated gesture. Vanessa, still grinning, leaps lightly from the desk, and scoops her thin, sharp-elbowed arm through his. Her feet in their black leather boots fall into an easy step beside his own, and they amble, forming what he is certain must look like an hilariously unlikely couple, toward the door.