See the World
Title: See the World
Characters: Cuddy. House, Cameron, Foreman, Chase
Pairing, Rating: Huddy, PG-13
Summary: Late! Secret Santa gift for Inez, who requested, "anything with Lisa's face on it, Huddy, and a naked Robert Chase under my tree." Set at the end of episode 3-15, "Half-Wit." Title is taken from the song of the same name, by Gomez.
Unlike House, Lisa Cuddy has actually read Cameron's resume. Before she offered Cameron a position -- months before House decided, on an apparent whim, to poach Cameron away from the immunology department -- Cuddy dutifully called every reference that Cameron had dutifully listed, and listened dutifully to the litany of dear Allison's charms: her big heart, her exceptional brain. And: her wondrous arms. Cameron, Cuddy had been repeatedly assured, was possessed of not only a deeply competitive streak and an enviable work ethic, but a deceptively powerful fastball and oh, such a glorious curveball, the miraculous blend of precision and strength from which had issued three Illinois state high school softball championships.
So, when Foreman tells her, "Cameron hit House and knocked him out" in unmistakable awe, Cuddy registers a small flicker of, not satisfaction, exactly, but comfort. It's nice, Cuddy thinks, when things turn out the way you've always secretly expected them to.
"Shit. I guess she's suspended, or probably, fired," she sighs. "How is she?"
"I have no idea. She took off right after she decked him with the damnedest little right hook I ever did see. House, the stubborn ass, wouldn't come in to the hospital for a head CT, so Chase is going to stay at his place tonight and keep an eye on him."
"What did he do to set her off?" Cuddy is expecting to hear that House committed some heinous breach of ethics with his last patient; she's been expecting it all week. The patient, a brilliant musical savant, was being led, unknowing, into a dangerous procedure that had the potential to alter his life's course, by a medical proxy with a vested interest. Perfect storm. Even if he weren't grappling, in his own inexplicable ways, with his own cancer diagnosis, the case would be hitting every one of House's triggers.
Foreman finally surprises her: "Nothing much, just faked cancer."
"He what?"
"He qualified for the trial by falsifying patient records."
"House isn't dying? That's." Cuddy finds herself about to say, "wonderful," but abruptly substitutes, "reprehensible."
"That's House."
Cameron is red-eyed when she answers Cuddy's knock.
"I know," she says. "I'm suspended. Or probably, fired. I don't give a shit." She grimaces a little as she says "shit."
Cuddy pushes past her into the apartment, where there's a wineglass on the coffee table and a cat curled up in a blanket on the couch. It's a charged but strangely domestic scene. Even Cameron's benders are demure.
"That's up to House," she says. "Was there any mention of assault in your contract?"
Cameron says nothing and glumly trods into the kitchen. The cat twitches its whiskers, once, and closes its eyes.
"After what I went through with losing one ... with losing my husband, to cancer. He knew that. He knew. " Cameron has returned with a glass of wine for Cuddy. "And he still let me get involved in his scheme to get drugs. He let me think that I was going to lose him the same way. "
"That... that, shit," she decides, grimacing again, and sits down on the couch.
It's impossible to argue with that. Cuddy sips the wine as she considers what to say.
"I doubt," she says carefully, sitting down in an upholstered chair, "that House sees them as equivalent experiences. He doesn't think highly enough of himself to think that you'd mourn him as deeply as you did your husband. He probably wishes you'd stop thinking that highly of him. Or at all. Most likely, he didn't give a thought to what possible effect his dying would have on you, because, well." She shrugs minutely. "If he's dying, it's not about you."
She sips again -- the wine is really quite good -- and adds, "And he didn't involve you; you involved yourself, by looking through his mail and listening to his home phone messages."
"Seriously? You're taking his side?" Cameron angles herself forward. The cat glares at Cuddy. Cuddy glares back.
"My God, you are, aren't you?" Cameron demands indignantly. "You're worse than I am."
"I beg your pardon?"
"I'm hopelessly in love with the shit. What's your excuse?"
She spends almost five minutes standing in the hall outside House's apartment, debating herself. The sensible thing to do would be to call Wilson and let him handle the cleanup detail, but when it comes to House, Cuddy and sense parted ways a long time ago.
Chase finally answers the door; he's bare- chested, dripping wet and clutching a towel wrapped around his waist. "Sorry, I was in the shower," he mumbles, and Cuddy looks pointedly down at the puddles he's leaving on the hardwood. "He's resting in his room."
"You left a concussed patient unattended with a supply of Vicodin?"
"He's in a mood," Chase informs her flatly.
"Go check on Cameron," she orders quietly. "I'll take over here." She removes her shoes and uses a roll of paper towels from the kitchen to clear the hall of wet footprints, dragging them along the hardwood with her foot sideways. She stops at the threshold to the open bedroom door and looks hesitantly back over her shoulder, only to get a view of Chase's backside, encased in tight blue briefs, as he shimmies into his pants. Dear God.
"Did I call the Make-A-Wish Foundation, or did you?" a gravelly voice asks. House, sprawled out on the bed, is bemused. His left eye is puffy and there is a streak of dried blood on his temple. His t-shirt is snug across his chest, and his smirk is making his eyes seem bluer.
Cuddy folds her arms and leans against the doorframe. "There's no way Immunology is going to take Cameron back now that you've corrupted her, and we don't need her in Internal Medicine. You're stuck with her, at least until she can get her ACLS training and something opens up in Emergency."
"Duly noted." He looks up at the ceiling. "'She's stuck with me, too, then. What are you going to tell her?"
"To work on her left hook. Her right evidently doesn't need improvement."
He chuckles.
"You should eat."
He swivels his head to look at her for a moment. "Chinese?" he asks, almost hopefully, and Cuddy's heart does an entirely unwelcome, undignified little jig in her chest. "Those spicy Chinese pea pods you like and some fried rice sound okay?"
"Sure."
"Help me up." He beckons with one column of an arm.
She retrieves his cane from the corner and sits down beside him as he pushes his leg over the edge of the bed, putting her left shoulder at his disposal, looping her left arm around his waist.
Leaning on her silently, and only for a moment, he lumbers into the living room and makes the call, ordering her favorites as well as some moo shu for himself.
"Turn on the stereo," he says, easing himself onto the couch.
Cuddy eyes the CD case on the receiver. "Your patient."
"Former patient. Last recording he'll ever make."
House's eyes flutter closed. "Before the procedure, I heard him play for the last time. I asked him to play whatever he wanted for me. Right before we bisected his brain, he played for me, Cuddy. He played Beethoven's Sonata Number 21 in C major. Third Movement."
Cuddy settles in beside him and watches him.
"At first, there's a sweet, simple, melodic, theme, repeated from earlier in the piece," he says, seeming to read her thoughts. "Then a staccato tension, overlaid by a series of cadences in minor chords. It gets very fortissimo and dramatic, and someplace in there there's a dance sequence. Then it streams into this delicate, softly fading pianissimo section before finishing in a blaze of prestissimo glory."
"And you found something informative in that?" Cuddy inquires. "You thought you could tell whether a mentally disabled patient would prefer to have half his brain removed, from his musical expressions?"
Beneath his lazy eyelids, his eyes glitter with amusement. "Who else should I trust?" he asks. He yanks her hand gently toward him and squeezes it, and she finds herself tamping down a rueful little smile. She wants to bury her head in his chest and listen to the steady rhythm of his heart.
"You know, House, Patrick is kind of an unusual case. Treating the thing that is keeping you from a full life does not always mean removing what makes you extraordinary. And there are other, less extreme, means of getting pain relief than having someone inject experimental chemicals directly into your brain. For example, you could consult in good faith with any one of the experts I've drummed up on your behalf."
"Oh, here we go," he mutters. "It was an outpatient procedure. I was curious."
"Can you please try to restrict your curiosity to something just a little less dangerous, fraudulent, and stupid?" she asks tartly.
House fixes her with a sizzling, heart-throttling look. "What did you have in mind?"
No doubt about it, that's an invitation. Cuddy, who has never backed down from a fight or declined to take a dare in her life, tries hard to resist, and for all of a half second, manages to hold firm.
"Well," she says uncomfortably, "there's this." Before she can think better of it, she takes his face in both of her hands and leans in.
The kiss is long and scorching, and somehow tentative, too.
"Less fraudulent, I'll give you," he laughs, very softly, as she pulls away. "Totally lives up to the advance PR. Every bit as amazing as advertised. But if it's not at least as dangerous, and much more stupid than ..."
It turns out, that kissing House is a efficient and effective way to shut him up.
Characters: Cuddy. House, Cameron, Foreman, Chase
Pairing, Rating: Huddy, PG-13
Summary: Late! Secret Santa gift for Inez, who requested, "anything with Lisa's face on it, Huddy, and a naked Robert Chase under my tree." Set at the end of episode 3-15, "Half-Wit." Title is taken from the song of the same name, by Gomez.
Unlike House, Lisa Cuddy has actually read Cameron's resume. Before she offered Cameron a position -- months before House decided, on an apparent whim, to poach Cameron away from the immunology department -- Cuddy dutifully called every reference that Cameron had dutifully listed, and listened dutifully to the litany of dear Allison's charms: her big heart, her exceptional brain. And: her wondrous arms. Cameron, Cuddy had been repeatedly assured, was possessed of not only a deeply competitive streak and an enviable work ethic, but a deceptively powerful fastball and oh, such a glorious curveball, the miraculous blend of precision and strength from which had issued three Illinois state high school softball championships.
So, when Foreman tells her, "Cameron hit House and knocked him out" in unmistakable awe, Cuddy registers a small flicker of, not satisfaction, exactly, but comfort. It's nice, Cuddy thinks, when things turn out the way you've always secretly expected them to.
"Shit. I guess she's suspended, or probably, fired," she sighs. "How is she?"
"I have no idea. She took off right after she decked him with the damnedest little right hook I ever did see. House, the stubborn ass, wouldn't come in to the hospital for a head CT, so Chase is going to stay at his place tonight and keep an eye on him."
"What did he do to set her off?" Cuddy is expecting to hear that House committed some heinous breach of ethics with his last patient; she's been expecting it all week. The patient, a brilliant musical savant, was being led, unknowing, into a dangerous procedure that had the potential to alter his life's course, by a medical proxy with a vested interest. Perfect storm. Even if he weren't grappling, in his own inexplicable ways, with his own cancer diagnosis, the case would be hitting every one of House's triggers.
Foreman finally surprises her: "Nothing much, just faked cancer."
"He what?"
"He qualified for the trial by falsifying patient records."
"House isn't dying? That's." Cuddy finds herself about to say, "wonderful," but abruptly substitutes, "reprehensible."
"That's House."
Cameron is red-eyed when she answers Cuddy's knock.
"I know," she says. "I'm suspended. Or probably, fired. I don't give a shit." She grimaces a little as she says "shit."
Cuddy pushes past her into the apartment, where there's a wineglass on the coffee table and a cat curled up in a blanket on the couch. It's a charged but strangely domestic scene. Even Cameron's benders are demure.
"That's up to House," she says. "Was there any mention of assault in your contract?"
Cameron says nothing and glumly trods into the kitchen. The cat twitches its whiskers, once, and closes its eyes.
"After what I went through with losing one ... with losing my husband, to cancer. He knew that. He knew. " Cameron has returned with a glass of wine for Cuddy. "And he still let me get involved in his scheme to get drugs. He let me think that I was going to lose him the same way. "
"That... that, shit," she decides, grimacing again, and sits down on the couch.
It's impossible to argue with that. Cuddy sips the wine as she considers what to say.
"I doubt," she says carefully, sitting down in an upholstered chair, "that House sees them as equivalent experiences. He doesn't think highly enough of himself to think that you'd mourn him as deeply as you did your husband. He probably wishes you'd stop thinking that highly of him. Or at all. Most likely, he didn't give a thought to what possible effect his dying would have on you, because, well." She shrugs minutely. "If he's dying, it's not about you."
She sips again -- the wine is really quite good -- and adds, "And he didn't involve you; you involved yourself, by looking through his mail and listening to his home phone messages."
"Seriously? You're taking his side?" Cameron angles herself forward. The cat glares at Cuddy. Cuddy glares back.
"My God, you are, aren't you?" Cameron demands indignantly. "You're worse than I am."
"I beg your pardon?"
"I'm hopelessly in love with the shit. What's your excuse?"
She spends almost five minutes standing in the hall outside House's apartment, debating herself. The sensible thing to do would be to call Wilson and let him handle the cleanup detail, but when it comes to House, Cuddy and sense parted ways a long time ago.
Chase finally answers the door; he's bare- chested, dripping wet and clutching a towel wrapped around his waist. "Sorry, I was in the shower," he mumbles, and Cuddy looks pointedly down at the puddles he's leaving on the hardwood. "He's resting in his room."
"You left a concussed patient unattended with a supply of Vicodin?"
"He's in a mood," Chase informs her flatly.
"Go check on Cameron," she orders quietly. "I'll take over here." She removes her shoes and uses a roll of paper towels from the kitchen to clear the hall of wet footprints, dragging them along the hardwood with her foot sideways. She stops at the threshold to the open bedroom door and looks hesitantly back over her shoulder, only to get a view of Chase's backside, encased in tight blue briefs, as he shimmies into his pants. Dear God.
"Did I call the Make-A-Wish Foundation, or did you?" a gravelly voice asks. House, sprawled out on the bed, is bemused. His left eye is puffy and there is a streak of dried blood on his temple. His t-shirt is snug across his chest, and his smirk is making his eyes seem bluer.
Cuddy folds her arms and leans against the doorframe. "There's no way Immunology is going to take Cameron back now that you've corrupted her, and we don't need her in Internal Medicine. You're stuck with her, at least until she can get her ACLS training and something opens up in Emergency."
"Duly noted." He looks up at the ceiling. "'She's stuck with me, too, then. What are you going to tell her?"
"To work on her left hook. Her right evidently doesn't need improvement."
He chuckles.
"You should eat."
He swivels his head to look at her for a moment. "Chinese?" he asks, almost hopefully, and Cuddy's heart does an entirely unwelcome, undignified little jig in her chest. "Those spicy Chinese pea pods you like and some fried rice sound okay?"
"Sure."
"Help me up." He beckons with one column of an arm.
She retrieves his cane from the corner and sits down beside him as he pushes his leg over the edge of the bed, putting her left shoulder at his disposal, looping her left arm around his waist.
Leaning on her silently, and only for a moment, he lumbers into the living room and makes the call, ordering her favorites as well as some moo shu for himself.
"Turn on the stereo," he says, easing himself onto the couch.
Cuddy eyes the CD case on the receiver. "Your patient."
"Former patient. Last recording he'll ever make."
House's eyes flutter closed. "Before the procedure, I heard him play for the last time. I asked him to play whatever he wanted for me. Right before we bisected his brain, he played for me, Cuddy. He played Beethoven's Sonata Number 21 in C major. Third Movement."
Cuddy settles in beside him and watches him.
"At first, there's a sweet, simple, melodic, theme, repeated from earlier in the piece," he says, seeming to read her thoughts. "Then a staccato tension, overlaid by a series of cadences in minor chords. It gets very fortissimo and dramatic, and someplace in there there's a dance sequence. Then it streams into this delicate, softly fading pianissimo section before finishing in a blaze of prestissimo glory."
"And you found something informative in that?" Cuddy inquires. "You thought you could tell whether a mentally disabled patient would prefer to have half his brain removed, from his musical expressions?"
Beneath his lazy eyelids, his eyes glitter with amusement. "Who else should I trust?" he asks. He yanks her hand gently toward him and squeezes it, and she finds herself tamping down a rueful little smile. She wants to bury her head in his chest and listen to the steady rhythm of his heart.
"You know, House, Patrick is kind of an unusual case. Treating the thing that is keeping you from a full life does not always mean removing what makes you extraordinary. And there are other, less extreme, means of getting pain relief than having someone inject experimental chemicals directly into your brain. For example, you could consult in good faith with any one of the experts I've drummed up on your behalf."
"Oh, here we go," he mutters. "It was an outpatient procedure. I was curious."
"Can you please try to restrict your curiosity to something just a little less dangerous, fraudulent, and stupid?" she asks tartly.
House fixes her with a sizzling, heart-throttling look. "What did you have in mind?"
No doubt about it, that's an invitation. Cuddy, who has never backed down from a fight or declined to take a dare in her life, tries hard to resist, and for all of a half second, manages to hold firm.
"Well," she says uncomfortably, "there's this." Before she can think better of it, she takes his face in both of her hands and leans in.
The kiss is long and scorching, and somehow tentative, too.
"Less fraudulent, I'll give you," he laughs, very softly, as she pulls away. "Totally lives up to the advance PR. Every bit as amazing as advertised. But if it's not at least as dangerous, and much more stupid than ..."
It turns out, that kissing House is a efficient and effective way to shut him up.