Unprotected, 8
Title: Unprotected, 8/9
Pairing, Characters: House/Cuddy established. The DDX team. Wilson.
Warning: Explicit content in some chapters. It is always safe to assume some angst.
Summary: This one asks the question, what would the sharkverse House and Cuddy relationship be, (temporarily) without sex?
Disclaimer: House MD and all characters and settings therefrom are not my property. This is a work of fanfiction and I am not profiting from it in any way.
A/N: Yes, Stenveny lives. Thanks for the comments on this story and the expressions of concern. I am blessed with some of the nicest readers in the fanfic community. Thank you for reading!
And since it has been so long since I began this story, here is the link to the
beginning.
House recognized Thirteen’s handwriting on the envelope. It had, strangely, become more legible since she left. The spaces between the letters, the size of the periods, had grown larger since the last note, which had said only, Death, I am finding, speaks in short sentences. Forgive. Try. Work. Be. Touch. Laugh. Love.
This one was more succinct still.
Soon.
“House?”
He dropped the card into a patient file and looked up.
Stephens glanced at his feet on the desk. “Care to offer some words of wisdom, oh, Intrepid Leader?”
“That depends. Would you be able to follow them, if I did?”
She rolled her eyes, and he took that as a “no.” “Dan,”
“The patient,” he corrected absentmindedly.
“ -- was hiking in New Mexico last summer, not far from those brush fires. I took a sample of his lung fluid, thinking there might be some weird plasmic pneumonia thing going on, and I’ve also got two trays of cultures incubating in the lab; maybe there’s a recurrence of the giardia he picked up in Canada, or some other protist in his gi tract somewhere. “
“Fever?”
“Still very low-grade. One of the idiot nurses gave him a dose of Tylenol at six, when I was in the shower. I’m sorry.”
House jerked his feet off the desk and picked up his cane. “Damn it, I told you not to leave him.”
“I’m sorry,” she repeated. “I left word, wrote it in his chart, but it was change of shift, and. Jesus, I’m sorry.”
“For that, you get to be the one to kick him out.”
“What!?”
“Cuddy’s orders,” he snapped, and stood up. “We can’t be wasting hospital resources on healthy people. If he’s not febrile, comatose, seizing, or gushing something nasty by noon, out he goes.”
“But that’s - that’s - I was up all night!” she sputtered, as if she expected him to care, and trailed after him as he limped toward Wilson’s office. “What if he’s really sick?”
“Then, he’ll start to get interesting. Or, he’ll drop dead after Cuddy cuts him loose, and I’ll live off the guilt for months.” Win-win, as far as House was concerned.
“That’s horrible,” she pronounced. “What the hell kind of doctor are you?”
“Didn’t I just give you an assignment?” he asked with false benevolence, and opened Wilson’s door. “Get his release papers signed, put him on a bus, and get me a new case by twelve-oh-five, or you’re fired.”
“What was that all about?” Wilson asked mildly.
“Staff management issue.” House flopped onto the couch.
“Cuddy’s or yours?”
“Do you even have to ask?”
“Where are the other lucky manage-ees, staging a revolt?”
“Taub’s on his way to his ex-wife’s wedding. “
Wilson cringed. “And the others?”
House let a slow grin spread across his face. “The patient lives in Boston.”
“You sent them all on a burglary road trip?”
“I got them - this is the best part -- to volunteer for a burglary road trip. I sort of hinted that I wanted to mess with Townsend’s new relationship by sending her on an overnight with a male colleague.”
“How silly of them,” Wilson observed. “You’re clearly not bored with testing your own relationship yet; why would they think you’d divert your attention to testing one of theirs?”
“I know, right? So Foreman selected himself as the most appropriate person to supervise her, because you know, he’s so mature. He actually insinuated that Chase and Shaeffer would just make moves on her, can you believe that?”
“I assume they resented the crap out of that insinuation?”
“You assume correctly. Then they got into a fabulous little pissing contest with each other about whose moves were the bigger threat to her new relationship. After a little yelling, they all left-- you know, second thought, I take that back, this is the best part - in Foreman’s car.”
His best friend gave him a look of equal parts contempt, fascination, and confusion. “Let me get this straight. They’re driving six hours, while royally pissed at each other, to break into the home of a patient who’s not even going to be a patient by the time they get there?”
House nodded sagely. “You’re right. That’s the best part.”
“How did April react to all this drama?”
“No; let me revise again. They left before she got here. That’s the best part.”
Wilson laughed.
“So, I just freed up my morning. And Cuddy’s in her begging-rich-people-for-money outfit, so she’ll probably be out this afternoon. Wanna go to the track with me?”
Wilson eyed the stack of paperwork on his desk, then glanced toward the hallway. His eyes twinkled, and House knew he had him.
“I do have some grocery shopping for the dinner party to do,” he admitted.
House groaned. “You’re really going through with that stupid shindig?”
Wilson’s expression sobered. “I have to, now. I need to show I'm supportive of Kristen's friendships and ambitions. We’re … having a few issues.”
House had been to enough excruciating dinner parties at Chez Wilson to know what that meant his Friday evening would hold. He’d rather be water-boarded than spend two hours sitting at a table watching Wilson and one of his women Having A Few Issues.
“What dumbass thing did you say?” he demanded.
“See, that’s what makes you such a good friend, House: you always take my side.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“I swear to God, I only told her I was looking forward to spending more time with her,” Wilson complained. "She took offense at that, God knows why. I even offered to loan her some money for her new business, and she took offense at that. Now, we can hang out at the video arcade next to Aldos for a while, pick up my order, take it back to the loft, and then pick up some subs for lunch, or you can stay here, obsess about your post-exposure HIV blood test tomorrow, and watch Stephens play hide-the-patient all afternoon. Take it or leave it.”
“Stop with the blood test,” House bristled. “You and Cuddy are the ones obsessing. When Cameron got exposed, she did drugs and had sex with Chase. Did you nag her?”
“Take it or leave it,” Wilson repeated.
“Boring,” House asserted. “But lucky for you I’m easily entertained.”
“Good morning, Doctor Townsend, “ Sparkman chirped from behind the reception desk. “How are you today?”
April, averse to giving the wrong answer to any question, gave this some serious consideration.
“I’m in love, and my rat died,” she summed up. “So I would have to say I’m happy, but also sad. I’m wearing tights that have a higher wool content than I’m used to, so I’m also a little itchy.”
“I just hate when that happens. When I feel more than one thing at a time. “
“A-men to that. The closer it is to fifty-fifty, the worse it is,” Lucy concurred. “Stresses me all the way out.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Kristen argued cheerfully. “I’m really excited about starting my own business next month, and a little worried about how much time it’s going to take, and that’s an okay mix. On the other hand, this really liking my boyfriend and also wanting to kill him? Not so much.”
Cuddy, who was reflecting that she’d never broken thirty percent on any single emotion in her life, disguised her eavesdropping by pretending to concentrate on her messages.
“Never mind, I shouldn’t complain,” Kristen mumbled uncomfortably.
“Oh, yes you should, you really should,” Jeffrey said solemnly. “It will feel so much better to get it off your chest.”
“Well, you know how Tijuana Charlie’s is under new management and closed for renovations? I told James about it and he said it was a good thing - now I won’t be wasting so much time with my girlfriends.”
There were audible gasps.
“Wow,” April said grimly. “That’s .. that’s just. I don’t even. Fizzou would never do that -- and not just because I don’t have any friends. He doesn’t like rats, they squick him, but he bought me a new rat. I don’t need a replacement rat; I need a boyfriend who’ll buy me a replacement rat.”
“Oh, Honey, don’t we all?”
“Doctor Cuddy! Do you have a moment?” Dillon Nardin was approaching, a dangerously pleased expression on his face.
She faked a smile and led him into her office. When the president of the medical school asks if you have a minute, that’s a rhetorical question at best; at worst, it’s an order to find one, or ten, or thirty, and put them at his disposal immediately.
“What can I do for you?” she asked, waving him toward a chair. She hoped he wasn’t about to throw another one of his damned game-changers at her. Every time Nardin decided to “mix things up,” disaster ensued.
“I’ve found us a new head of public relations,” he announced proudly.
Princeton, we haaaave a problem. She’d just authorized HR to make an offer to a downright miraculously qualified applicant: an Army ROTC graduate with a public relations management degree from Indiana, whose resume boasted of, among other accomplishments, co-managing the “gubernatorial campaign of the biggest putz east of the Mississippi.”
“Who?” Cuddy inquired.
“Jenna Wittenburg,”
“What relation to Paul?” she asked, as if she didn’t know what was coming. Paul Wittenburg was one of her most reliable donors. She owed him a dozen favors, not least of which was a no-interest bridge loan that the hospital wouldn’t be able to pay back until the state of New Jersey came through with the red-tape entangled reimbursement they’d promised the university over a year ago.
“His niece.”
Cuddy refused to panic. With luck, HR was too backlogged to have formally issued the offer yet. Even if they had, there was a chance - remote, in this job market, but still a chance - that The Miracle wouldn’t accept it.
She worried her lower lip thoughtfully. Maybe she could rescind the offer. Was that even legal? She’d never had to know; ordinarily, she’d simply hire the first applicant through the door and wait for the poor thing to run screaming. It usually didn’t take long.
The Miracle, however, was made of sterner stuff than the hospital’s ordinary PR hopefuls, as Cuddy had learned when, two minutes into the interview, she lobbed out the old standard, “why are you leaving your current position?”
“Because my boyfriend lives here and we’d like to have sex more often than one weekend every two months, so one of us has to move,” The Miracle said. “And my current director, who has a mullet and an anger management problem, is sleeping with his boss. I’m stubborn and I really rock at my job. He’s not going anywhere and he’s not getting rid of me. We’re stuck in this cage match that has become my career. It makes more sense for me to get a job here in Jersey than to have my boyfriend move to the sticks and wait for me to inevitably murder Mullet-man.”
“How much money are we talking?” Cuddy asked.
“Lisa.” Despite being two years her junior, Nardin somehow managed to scold her in two syllables. “You know it doesn’t work that way. He mentioned Jenna’s been having trouble finding a job since she graduated from Wellesley last spring, and I commiserated about how things are tough all over, the university is having trouble covering day to day expenses, let alone paying for the technology expansions. From there he segued into the fact that Jenna had a minor in computer science, she majored in English and edited the school paper. Later on I let it drop that you’re always looking for PR help, and let’s face it, you can’t afford to be too picky about experience, and implied that while every little bit helps, a donation in the six-figure range would not be taken amiss.”
“Leave her contact information with Kristen and I’ll schedule an interview,” Cuddy promised tiredly, and crossed her fingers. Maybe, just maybe, she could delay the offer to The Miracle until House made mincemeat of Miss Wellesley. How long could that possibly take?
How long would it take the check to clear?
“How about today?” Nardin asked.
“I have the Anchor Foundation luncheon this afternoon.”
“Can’t miss that,” Nardin mused, and he was unfortunately right. Every philanthropic organization in the region would be there, along with representatives from all the non-profits vying for a share of the collective loot.
Cuddy had asked Kristen to join her. A chance to interact with all the local bigwigs and non-profit fundraising chairs might help Kristen make some contacts for her new business.
Having Kristen’s calm, pleasant presence at hand might also abate some of the awkwardness. Interacting with the headmistress of Brye Academy was not going to be easy. There’s no social hell like politely competing for large sums of money with the person who is preparing to expel your child.
Nardin beamed condescending approval at her as he left. “Tomorrow, then.”
“Tomorrow,” she repeated under her breath.
part 9
Pairing, Characters: House/Cuddy established. The DDX team. Wilson.
Warning: Explicit content in some chapters. It is always safe to assume some angst.
Summary: This one asks the question, what would the sharkverse House and Cuddy relationship be, (temporarily) without sex?
Disclaimer: House MD and all characters and settings therefrom are not my property. This is a work of fanfiction and I am not profiting from it in any way.
A/N: Yes, Stenveny lives. Thanks for the comments on this story and the expressions of concern. I am blessed with some of the nicest readers in the fanfic community. Thank you for reading!
And since it has been so long since I began this story, here is the link to the
beginning.
House recognized Thirteen’s handwriting on the envelope. It had, strangely, become more legible since she left. The spaces between the letters, the size of the periods, had grown larger since the last note, which had said only, Death, I am finding, speaks in short sentences. Forgive. Try. Work. Be. Touch. Laugh. Love.
This one was more succinct still.
Soon.
“House?”
He dropped the card into a patient file and looked up.
Stephens glanced at his feet on the desk. “Care to offer some words of wisdom, oh, Intrepid Leader?”
“That depends. Would you be able to follow them, if I did?”
She rolled her eyes, and he took that as a “no.” “Dan,”
“The patient,” he corrected absentmindedly.
“ -- was hiking in New Mexico last summer, not far from those brush fires. I took a sample of his lung fluid, thinking there might be some weird plasmic pneumonia thing going on, and I’ve also got two trays of cultures incubating in the lab; maybe there’s a recurrence of the giardia he picked up in Canada, or some other protist in his gi tract somewhere. “
“Fever?”
“Still very low-grade. One of the idiot nurses gave him a dose of Tylenol at six, when I was in the shower. I’m sorry.”
House jerked his feet off the desk and picked up his cane. “Damn it, I told you not to leave him.”
“I’m sorry,” she repeated. “I left word, wrote it in his chart, but it was change of shift, and. Jesus, I’m sorry.”
“For that, you get to be the one to kick him out.”
“What!?”
“Cuddy’s orders,” he snapped, and stood up. “We can’t be wasting hospital resources on healthy people. If he’s not febrile, comatose, seizing, or gushing something nasty by noon, out he goes.”
“But that’s - that’s - I was up all night!” she sputtered, as if she expected him to care, and trailed after him as he limped toward Wilson’s office. “What if he’s really sick?”
“Then, he’ll start to get interesting. Or, he’ll drop dead after Cuddy cuts him loose, and I’ll live off the guilt for months.” Win-win, as far as House was concerned.
“That’s horrible,” she pronounced. “What the hell kind of doctor are you?”
“Didn’t I just give you an assignment?” he asked with false benevolence, and opened Wilson’s door. “Get his release papers signed, put him on a bus, and get me a new case by twelve-oh-five, or you’re fired.”
“What was that all about?” Wilson asked mildly.
“Staff management issue.” House flopped onto the couch.
“Cuddy’s or yours?”
“Do you even have to ask?”
“Where are the other lucky manage-ees, staging a revolt?”
“Taub’s on his way to his ex-wife’s wedding. “
Wilson cringed. “And the others?”
House let a slow grin spread across his face. “The patient lives in Boston.”
“You sent them all on a burglary road trip?”
“I got them - this is the best part -- to volunteer for a burglary road trip. I sort of hinted that I wanted to mess with Townsend’s new relationship by sending her on an overnight with a male colleague.”
“How silly of them,” Wilson observed. “You’re clearly not bored with testing your own relationship yet; why would they think you’d divert your attention to testing one of theirs?”
“I know, right? So Foreman selected himself as the most appropriate person to supervise her, because you know, he’s so mature. He actually insinuated that Chase and Shaeffer would just make moves on her, can you believe that?”
“I assume they resented the crap out of that insinuation?”
“You assume correctly. Then they got into a fabulous little pissing contest with each other about whose moves were the bigger threat to her new relationship. After a little yelling, they all left-- you know, second thought, I take that back, this is the best part - in Foreman’s car.”
His best friend gave him a look of equal parts contempt, fascination, and confusion. “Let me get this straight. They’re driving six hours, while royally pissed at each other, to break into the home of a patient who’s not even going to be a patient by the time they get there?”
House nodded sagely. “You’re right. That’s the best part.”
“How did April react to all this drama?”
“No; let me revise again. They left before she got here. That’s the best part.”
Wilson laughed.
“So, I just freed up my morning. And Cuddy’s in her begging-rich-people-for-money outfit, so she’ll probably be out this afternoon. Wanna go to the track with me?”
Wilson eyed the stack of paperwork on his desk, then glanced toward the hallway. His eyes twinkled, and House knew he had him.
“I do have some grocery shopping for the dinner party to do,” he admitted.
House groaned. “You’re really going through with that stupid shindig?”
Wilson’s expression sobered. “I have to, now. I need to show I'm supportive of Kristen's friendships and ambitions. We’re … having a few issues.”
House had been to enough excruciating dinner parties at Chez Wilson to know what that meant his Friday evening would hold. He’d rather be water-boarded than spend two hours sitting at a table watching Wilson and one of his women Having A Few Issues.
“What dumbass thing did you say?” he demanded.
“See, that’s what makes you such a good friend, House: you always take my side.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“I swear to God, I only told her I was looking forward to spending more time with her,” Wilson complained. "She took offense at that, God knows why. I even offered to loan her some money for her new business, and she took offense at that. Now, we can hang out at the video arcade next to Aldos for a while, pick up my order, take it back to the loft, and then pick up some subs for lunch, or you can stay here, obsess about your post-exposure HIV blood test tomorrow, and watch Stephens play hide-the-patient all afternoon. Take it or leave it.”
“Stop with the blood test,” House bristled. “You and Cuddy are the ones obsessing. When Cameron got exposed, she did drugs and had sex with Chase. Did you nag her?”
“Take it or leave it,” Wilson repeated.
“Boring,” House asserted. “But lucky for you I’m easily entertained.”
“Good morning, Doctor Townsend, “ Sparkman chirped from behind the reception desk. “How are you today?”
April, averse to giving the wrong answer to any question, gave this some serious consideration.
“I’m in love, and my rat died,” she summed up. “So I would have to say I’m happy, but also sad. I’m wearing tights that have a higher wool content than I’m used to, so I’m also a little itchy.”
“I just hate when that happens. When I feel more than one thing at a time. “
“A-men to that. The closer it is to fifty-fifty, the worse it is,” Lucy concurred. “Stresses me all the way out.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Kristen argued cheerfully. “I’m really excited about starting my own business next month, and a little worried about how much time it’s going to take, and that’s an okay mix. On the other hand, this really liking my boyfriend and also wanting to kill him? Not so much.”
Cuddy, who was reflecting that she’d never broken thirty percent on any single emotion in her life, disguised her eavesdropping by pretending to concentrate on her messages.
“Never mind, I shouldn’t complain,” Kristen mumbled uncomfortably.
“Oh, yes you should, you really should,” Jeffrey said solemnly. “It will feel so much better to get it off your chest.”
“Well, you know how Tijuana Charlie’s is under new management and closed for renovations? I told James about it and he said it was a good thing - now I won’t be wasting so much time with my girlfriends.”
There were audible gasps.
“Wow,” April said grimly. “That’s .. that’s just. I don’t even. Fizzou would never do that -- and not just because I don’t have any friends. He doesn’t like rats, they squick him, but he bought me a new rat. I don’t need a replacement rat; I need a boyfriend who’ll buy me a replacement rat.”
“Oh, Honey, don’t we all?”
“Doctor Cuddy! Do you have a moment?” Dillon Nardin was approaching, a dangerously pleased expression on his face.
She faked a smile and led him into her office. When the president of the medical school asks if you have a minute, that’s a rhetorical question at best; at worst, it’s an order to find one, or ten, or thirty, and put them at his disposal immediately.
“What can I do for you?” she asked, waving him toward a chair. She hoped he wasn’t about to throw another one of his damned game-changers at her. Every time Nardin decided to “mix things up,” disaster ensued.
“I’ve found us a new head of public relations,” he announced proudly.
Princeton, we haaaave a problem. She’d just authorized HR to make an offer to a downright miraculously qualified applicant: an Army ROTC graduate with a public relations management degree from Indiana, whose resume boasted of, among other accomplishments, co-managing the “gubernatorial campaign of the biggest putz east of the Mississippi.”
“Who?” Cuddy inquired.
“Jenna Wittenburg,”
“What relation to Paul?” she asked, as if she didn’t know what was coming. Paul Wittenburg was one of her most reliable donors. She owed him a dozen favors, not least of which was a no-interest bridge loan that the hospital wouldn’t be able to pay back until the state of New Jersey came through with the red-tape entangled reimbursement they’d promised the university over a year ago.
“His niece.”
Cuddy refused to panic. With luck, HR was too backlogged to have formally issued the offer yet. Even if they had, there was a chance - remote, in this job market, but still a chance - that The Miracle wouldn’t accept it.
She worried her lower lip thoughtfully. Maybe she could rescind the offer. Was that even legal? She’d never had to know; ordinarily, she’d simply hire the first applicant through the door and wait for the poor thing to run screaming. It usually didn’t take long.
The Miracle, however, was made of sterner stuff than the hospital’s ordinary PR hopefuls, as Cuddy had learned when, two minutes into the interview, she lobbed out the old standard, “why are you leaving your current position?”
“Because my boyfriend lives here and we’d like to have sex more often than one weekend every two months, so one of us has to move,” The Miracle said. “And my current director, who has a mullet and an anger management problem, is sleeping with his boss. I’m stubborn and I really rock at my job. He’s not going anywhere and he’s not getting rid of me. We’re stuck in this cage match that has become my career. It makes more sense for me to get a job here in Jersey than to have my boyfriend move to the sticks and wait for me to inevitably murder Mullet-man.”
“How much money are we talking?” Cuddy asked.
“Lisa.” Despite being two years her junior, Nardin somehow managed to scold her in two syllables. “You know it doesn’t work that way. He mentioned Jenna’s been having trouble finding a job since she graduated from Wellesley last spring, and I commiserated about how things are tough all over, the university is having trouble covering day to day expenses, let alone paying for the technology expansions. From there he segued into the fact that Jenna had a minor in computer science, she majored in English and edited the school paper. Later on I let it drop that you’re always looking for PR help, and let’s face it, you can’t afford to be too picky about experience, and implied that while every little bit helps, a donation in the six-figure range would not be taken amiss.”
“Leave her contact information with Kristen and I’ll schedule an interview,” Cuddy promised tiredly, and crossed her fingers. Maybe, just maybe, she could delay the offer to The Miracle until House made mincemeat of Miss Wellesley. How long could that possibly take?
How long would it take the check to clear?
“How about today?” Nardin asked.
“I have the Anchor Foundation luncheon this afternoon.”
“Can’t miss that,” Nardin mused, and he was unfortunately right. Every philanthropic organization in the region would be there, along with representatives from all the non-profits vying for a share of the collective loot.
Cuddy had asked Kristen to join her. A chance to interact with all the local bigwigs and non-profit fundraising chairs might help Kristen make some contacts for her new business.
Having Kristen’s calm, pleasant presence at hand might also abate some of the awkwardness. Interacting with the headmistress of Brye Academy was not going to be easy. There’s no social hell like politely competing for large sums of money with the person who is preparing to expel your child.
Nardin beamed condescending approval at her as he left. “Tomorrow, then.”
“Tomorrow,” she repeated under her breath.
part 9