Faint of Heart, Part 14
Title: Faint of Heart 14/17
Pairing: House/Cuddy established
Warnings: Some fluff.
Summary: House and Cuddy need a vacation, and they take one, but it isn't that simple.
Disclaimer: More’s the pity.
Comments welcome.
“It had to happen sometime,” House opined casually. “The way Wilson carries on. Someone- an ex-wife or girlfriend, a current wife or girlfriend, a jealous husband or boyfriend, a protective father, somebody -- was going to kneecap him, eventually.”
He pulled his hat down over his eyes. House liked to costume himself, making a parody of whatever role he had decided to play. This week, in between stints as Criminal Mastermind and Model Spouse, he’d been playing the Stereotypical Tourist, complete with obnoxiously loud Hawaiian shirt and striped swim trunks. His khaki hat had plastic fishing lures pinned across the brim. None of which would be quite so irritating if it weren’t cute as hell.
“Not now, House.” Cuddy plunked Rachel down on the beach chair next to House’s. “You either, Young Lady.” This, she thought, was what she got for trying to relax. Or rather, for trying to convince House that she was trying to relax; he’d only stolen her laptop or locked her out of her email account twice, the sneaky old hypocrite.
“The only surprise is that it didn’t happen sooner. And I didn’t think it would be a three year old with a toy shovel,” House continued.
Rachel sniffled and drew in a shaky gulp of air, signaling another wail. She’d been so frightened by Wilson’s exclamation of pain, the blood, her mother’s shock and anger, or perhaps just her own impulsive behavior, that she’d burst into tears. She’d only just now stopped bawling and was settling into a tired, drained, rhythm of sobs.
“Ten minutes,” Cuddy said, jabbing her finger at Rachel, and extended her glare to include House. “Not one word, either one of you. James, is that all right?”
Rachel responded with an inarticulate little mewl, and House -- now sprawled out on a lounge as though nothing was even slightly amiss, and it struck Cuddy that he was even somehow managing to drip arrogantly -- with a smirk.
Wilson looked up from dabbing his knee with the corner of his beach towel. “No problem,” he said dryly, and winced. “The salt water probably sterilized it.”
“Fish poop in that water,” Rachel said gravely.
“Rachel,” Cuddy warned.
“Howse said,” Rachel insisted, quoting with fine accuracy.
“Well, of course he did.” Cuddy closed her eyes, pushed past her mortification, and assumed control. “House. Go get some antiseptic and a band-aid.”
“Me?” He feigned outraged innocence.
“Unless you want to stay here and supervise the discipline?” She put her hands on her hips.
“I didn’t think so,” she scoffed, when he gave her a lost look. “Go. And on your way back, get me a drink.”
“Me too,” Wilson said. “Beer.”
“Get your own booze,” House replied, and stretched his legs out. “Mine, too. My leg aches.”
“In my medical opinion, I need my strength to fight off the fish poop sepsis.” Wilson leaned back in his lounge, settling in for one of their classic stare-downs.
“In my medical opinion, you’ll live. Tanqueray gin and tonic with extra limes. Mojito for Cuddy.”
Wilson, Lord love the man, could almost match House for ornery stubbornness. “Domestic. Bottled,” he said steadily, looking House in the eye. “Not canned. Cold.”
“Something blue. An my magna doodles,” Rachel put in.
“I don’t think so,” Cuddy said firmly, even though she was putting the odds of Greg giving in to whatever Rachel’s whims commanded, either out of sympathy or just to be perverse, at fifty-fifty. “You’re going to sit there quietly without any toys for ten minutes, and then you’re going to apologize to Wilson. Honestly, Rachel, what were you thinking?”
“That’s a dumb question, Cuddy.” House, plainly determined to be no help at all, rolled his eyes. “She was thinking, obviously, that it would feel good to whack Wilson.”
“Uh-huh.” Rachel swung her legs, and under the brim of her hat her brow furrowed. “I doan like Wilson,” she stated.
House found this curious. “Everybody likes Wilson, Fang. That’s Wilson’s special power.”
“Howse,” Rachel said, aiming a black look at Wilson, “is my friend.”
“Of course he is, Sweetie,” Cuddy said instinctively. “But he’s Wilson’s friend too. We have to share our friends, sometimes.”
“No. Sharing stinks.”
Cuddy and Wilson looked accusingly at House, who lumbered to his feet and picked up his knapsack. “I’ll just go get the first aid and a few drinks,” he announced guiltily.
“Bottled,” Wilson repeated in a satisfied tone.
“House,” Cuddy said, and held out her hand, palm up. When he hesitated, she beckoned.
“I’ll take my chances on the terrorist chick,” she explained sweetly, giving no quarter to his kicked-puppy expression. “Unless you would prefer I keep the condom in my purse?”
He didn’t like that idea any more than she thought he would. She almost laughed at his miffed expression; sometimes he was just too easy. “You’re not the Fonz, House.”
“Wilson gave it to me,” he said defensively, withdrawing a foil package from his wallet and handing it over.
She read the label, and smiled when her suspicions were confirmed: an expiration date in 2009. “Is that why it has antibiotics in it?”
Wilson pretended not to have heard the question. “No, not bottled,” he said regally, lifting his hand. “Draft, I think. Extra foam.”
The profoundly misunderstood House shouldered his pack, hefted his cane and limped away toward the bar hut, muttering something about “which one was the bigger bitch.” His calves were tanned and muscled, his toes flexing as they sank into the sand, and even though he was making his best attempt to look persecuted, his shoulders were straight and strong.
“Well, he ought to be back in about two hours,” Cuddy calculated wearily. “And he’ll be at least slightly buzzed when he does come back.”
She loved the man ferociously, but she wished she could know, on any given day, how much of House she was going to be getting. His filters functioned erratically, his intensity sometimes knocking her off her feet and his guarded introversion at other times locking her out.
The ideal setting, she had learned, seemed to be somewhere in the forty-five to sixty percent range: at those levels, she could be loved without being overwhelmed, and she could get just close enough to love him without making him feel exposed and raw.
“I know he’s a challenge to live with,” Wilson said sympathetically.
Cuddy took House’s empty spot next to Rachel. “Not as much of a challenge as it was to live without him,” she admitted very quietly.
House sat in the hotel bar, watching the sun dip over the ocean, trying to choose, among all the things he was avoiding thinking about, which one to avoid first.
Rachel, he decided. Cuddy asked him to drop Rachel off at pre-pre-school last week. Did she do that because 1) she knew Rachel would cry, and she also knew that when Rachel cried House would cave? Or because 2) she didn’t think Rachel would cry? Was he the fall guy taking the blame for doing what Cuddy wanted to do but didn’t have the guts to admit she wanted to do - again -- , or was he the guy who was too insignificant for Rachel to miss?
He wasn’t drunk enough for that subject. Moving on.
Now, the hunk and his pseudo-kid. They had to be related. Had to. No one cared that much about a kid who was not biologically his; it wasn’t natural.
You need to believe that, don’t you, whispered his subconscious in Nolan’s voice. In the same way you needed, desperately, and clung to with all your twelve year old might, the belief that no one would treat his own offspring the way you were treated by John House.
It wasn’t natural.
Natural. House plucked an ice cube from his glass and licked it. Natural. That word came up a lot, lately. What he and Cuddy had going, the part of it that worked the best, anyway, that didn’t seem, on primary examination, to be natural, either.
Hypothesis one -- that theory of hers about fidelity and family unity -- wasn’t complete enough for his liking. Hypothesis two: when two people got as close as House and Cuddy - see family unity and the raising of offspring, above -- were lately, something had to keep them from killing each other (reference again, the family unity and raising of offspring.) The steady endorphin rush was self-preservational and sociobiologically justified.
He was forced to file this away by the sound of his phone. “Oh, good,” Thirteen said when he picked up. “I caught you between jail sentences.”
That snitch, Wilson. “Very funny,” House griped.
“I just wanted you to know, tomorrow is April Townsend’s last day in the department.”
“She decided to take the junior g-man training, then?”
“No, you moron. I just said that to get your attention. She hasn’t made any decisions yet. But she’s going to if you don’t get your head out of your ass and talk to her.”
“It’s none of my business.”
“And that’s stopped you before?” The connection resonated with frustration. “House, do something. Chase sits around moping like someone - I think it’s you, this time - shot his dog, Foreman has appointed himself her ‘mentor’, and Taub … Taub went to her apartment last night to try to talk to her. He came in today giggling. Giggling, House. About the blood rushing to his head, and echolocation signals, or some damned thing.”
“How much dope does that girl actually smoke?” House wondered.
“This has got to stop, House. It’s that whole stupid thing with you and Cuddy, all over again, but this time it’s turning the department upside down.”
“Which whole stupid thing with me and Cuddy?” There had been so many.
“The ten years of rejection, disappointment and missed opportunities because two very smart people were too dammed stupid to admit that they wanted each other, thing. Push, pull. Slap, slap, tickle. You’re invited; you’re un-invited; you’re re-invited, you’re un-re-invited. Come here, go away. I hate you, never leave me. God, I have no idea how Wilson put up with it.”
House hung up and lifted his glass victoriously, gesturing for Amy to bring another one. All of his best theories about relationships came to him when he was a little bit drunk. Unfortunately, they all left him again as soon as he sobered up, so if he liked this new one and wanted to keep it, he was going to have to stay moderately intoxicated for as long as possible.
Which might, actually, annoy his wife and interfere with the endorphin flow he’d just theorized an explanation for.
Oh, cool; a paradox. He inhaled the sea breeze and lifted his eyes toward the horizon. This was a good day.
Part 15