Fault Lines, Chapter 8
Title: Fault Lines, chapter 8/8
Fandom: House, MD
Pairing: House/Cuddy, Wilson friendship
Warnings: Explicit content in some chapters.
Summary: Post-season 6, continuation of “Coming to Terms.”
Disclaimer: Seriously? You do know I am not David Shore, right?
Criticism, reviews, suggestions, questions welcomed.
“House,” Sam said blearily. “James is,”
“Not taking his meds.” House held up a prescription bottle as he pushed past her into the loft. “Romantic idiot thinks he doesn’t need them. You may be good, but you are no substitute for anti-depressants.”
She stepped aside and he gave her the pill bottle. “Where did you get these?”
“Broke into his car.”
It was too early in the morning for this. “Why did you break into his car?”
“Because if his prescription is in the car, there’s no point in breaking into his gym locker. And because I can never get Foreman to do that for me. Now, you can either make sure he takes those the way Amber did, by kicking his ass until he takes care of himself, or you can do what I have been known, on occasion, to do, and slip them into his beverage of choice without telling him. My method tends to make him a little pissy.” He sniffed. “Wilson make the coffee?”
“Just before he left. Be my guest.” She was reading the prescription label. “I don’t understand. I had no idea James was clinically depressed.”
“You’re kidding, right? He’s over forty, been divorced three times, his job is boring and depressing, and his closest friend is me. No wonder the guy throws bottles.”
“I guess you have a point,” she conceded, although she had no idea what he was talking about.
“Wilson,” House said, as he poured a mug of coffee, “idealizes. And he compartmentalizes. He thinks if he keeps his work, and his sexual relationship, and his friendships - okay, his friendship -- all in separate boxes, where they can’t talk to each other, that makes him safe, instead of crazy.”
“I’m not entirely comfortable talking about him to you like this.”
“That’s how he deals,” House went on blithely. “A depressing job or a screwy friendship with a crippled asshole, or a dissatisfying relationship, can’t fuck up all of his life at once. The problem is, no one of those things can fulfill him all by itself, either, so he’s constantly shortchanging something. Usually himself.”
“Psychoanalysis too,” she said warily. “You are a man of so many talents.”
He helped himself to a muffin from the plate on the counter. “If there’s one thing I know, it’s self-isolation. Wilson’s a master of it.”
“Sorry, I keep forgetting this is all about you.”
“Play nice, now,” he scolded, pointing his finger at her. “One thing interests me. I don’t know when Wilson started drawing these thick, dark lines between the different aspects of his life. It’s not natural, so it has to be reactive. I suspect, at one point, someone he trusted in one of those boxes must have screwed up something from another box. A friend screwed him over professionally. Or, a woman he loved fucked a friend of his.”
He stared at her meaningfully. “Or… for the triple play of soul suckage, his wife cheated on him with his best friend, who was also his mentor.”
He shrugged, but there was nothing casual in the gesture, or the intensity of his stare. He knew exactly what he was doing; he’d just identified the target and hit it. “That’s just a theory. But it does fit, don’t you think?”
She felt her throat constrict.
“If that happened,” she said grimly, “and I’m not saying it did, then trust me, it will absolutely. Never. Happen. Again.”
“Oh, I know that,” he said, his eyes glittering malevolently. “You can’t screw his boss, because I’m screwing his boss. And I’m his best friend now, and at least one of us loves Wilson way too much for that other part.”
“As if I’d ever sleep with you, you insufferable prick. Get out,” she commanded quietly. “Get the fuck out of my- our - home. And wipe that smug look off your face. I don’t owe you any explanations. You have absolutely no power over me. We both know, James is a very, very forgiving person. If he’s tolerated all the shit you’ve put him through, he is never going to leave me - especially not over something that happened more than a decade ago.”
“Maybe not,” he said, and the arrogant bastard actually smiled at her. “But he may do something worse to you than dump you. Might already be doing it, in fact.”
“You’re trying to tell me that James is cheating on me? What kind of a friend are you?”
He made a dismissive noise. “He’s not due for that for months, yet. That’s not the something worse I’m talking about.”
He’d softened his voice to a scathing growl. “In the long dark night of Wilson’s soul, it is three a.m. Miss America, you ain’t, but it’s last call and you’re here.
So he might, just settle for you.
And if he does, Sweetheart, you deserve it.”
Ignoring her fury and shock, he straightened and tapped the counter. “So glad we had this little talk,” he said cheerfully. “See you at work.”
She did not give him the satisfaction of throwing the mug at his head. If she had spilled coffee on the rug, James would have never forgiven the stain.
Who the hell was Amber?
“Twenty eight year old woman, migraines, joint pain.” House surveyed the room.
“Leukemia,” Wilson said reflexively, and it sounded too easy, but some of House’s patients did in fact have cancer.
“Infection,” Taub said.
“And auditory hallucinations,” House added happily. “She hears hawks flying.”
Foreman squinted. “How does she know they’re hawks?”
“Yes, that’s obviously the most significant question,” Chase muttered sarcastically. “If she heard falcons, that would alter the differential entirely.”
“Pigeons would be even worse,” Taub piled on. “There’s no cure for pigeons.”
“Taub, get the bloodwork - and I mean, all the blood work this time,” House barked. “Chase, you and Miss July go break into…”
“Why do we do that?” she piped up.
Chase assumed a patient expression. “We’re looking for toxins, medications, narcotics, indications of pertinent ..”
“No, I know why we search the patient’s house, I just want to know why we break in. Why don’t we take the patient’s keys from her purse when she’s out of her room?”
With five people looking at her, she fidgeted. “If we take her car keys, we can use the garage door opener in her car to get in to the house through the garage, and no one will see us parked there.”
House was scowling at her, and she felt an apparent need to add: “She drives a Lexus.” She held up a key ring and jangled it meekly.
Chase, Taub, and Foreman all looked up at House, who tapped his cane on the floor and said, “Well, all right, if you have to take shortcuts.”
“A minute please?” With two graceful steps, Cuddy, wearing a long lab coat over her dress, was in the room.
“Good morning,” she said to the group assembled around the table. “Doctor House and I are seeing each other. All of each other."
“What are you doing?” House asked her.
“Outing you as a human being,” she replied. “Deal with it.” She turned back to the diagnostics team. “And there will be no patting of his head, pinching his cheek, or gushing of any kind.”
“Do you really expect Foreman and me to abide by that last part?” Taub deadpanned.
“I might gush a little,” Foreman said.
Cuddy narrowed her eyes at Wilson. “You told them.”
“I swear, I, I didn’t,” he stammered.
She glared an accusation at House, who shook his head. “They must have … diagnosed it, or something. Weird, I know.”
There was a long moment during which they all, with the exception of the medical student, who merely looked pleasantly confused, stared at her and House with pleased expressions, but no surprise - and, thank God, no smiles either; there’d be hell to pay if any of them cracked a smile now.
“Look at what you’ve done now,” House said, waving his hand toward them. “They’re ruined. I’m going to need new ones.”
“Because you can’t abuse them in good conscience when they’re wishing you well?”
“You think I have a conscience?” He looked insulted.
“Forgive me; because you cannot possibly strike fear into their hearts if they’re wishing you well,” she amended. “Fine. I’ll call Dial-A-Minion. Later. Rates to the dark side are outrageous at this time of day.”
“I’d have thought you’d get a frequent customer discount,” House retorted.
“I’m sending you the bill,” she said to Wilson.
“Me?!”
She handed a file folder to House. “Approved,” she said. “Unorthodox choice, but it works. Get the paperwork in by the end of business today.”
Wilson was the only one who caught her broad smile as she left.
House passed the folder over to Foreman. “Take care of this management crap. I’ll take care of scheduling the MRI. Who am I this week?”
The medical student said, “Doctor Cutter. OB-GYN.”
“Good thing the patient’s female,” House noted, limping into his office as his team scattered.
Wilson was confused.
“We’ve discovered it’s easier to get priority from the czarina des machina in radiology if the attending is someone other than one of us,” House explained as he scrawled something on an adhesive label. “Preferably, a someone else who is on vacation and can’t bitch about it to Cuddy. It was Miss July’s idea.”
“You’re falsifying patient records? House, that’s a,”
“Clerical error.” House smacked the label onto the patient file and smoothed it down.
“Wouldn’t it be easier and, I don’t know, less of a felony, to just be nice to the radiologists? There is a new one down there, who owes me a favor or two,” Wilson preened.
“I beg of you, do not be more specific. That is information I do not want to have. And besides, Wilson,” House chided. “I would never take advantage of a personal relationship in that way.”
“Don’t even joke about that.”
Wilson had wanted to begin Sam’s first day at PPTH with breakfast at Mickey’s, after which they’d drive in together, parting in the lobby with a quick, not unprofessional, kiss for their respective offices. He’d thought they might meet for lunch in the cafeteria, or if time allowed, even go out for lunch; Cuddy, being busy with House now anyway, would probably understand if he needed to cancel their standing lunch date in favor of helping Sam get settled and feel welcomed in her new job.
Sam had declined all of that. She didn’t want anyone to think she’d gotten the job because of her boyfriend. In fact, she really preferred that for the time being, their personal relationship be kept quiet - not secret, exactly, just not something they advertised.
Wilson completely understood this.
“Now, if only I could get Cutter to chart this while he’s gone, that would rule,” House plotted. “Remind me to have Miss July hack into billing. That girl has potential. I should have hired a computer science major years ago.”
“Cutter is a she,” Wilson informed him, and then stopped up short. “Wait - you hired her? Miss Jul -- April?”
“She’s a girl. She’s a divergent thinker. I get her cheap. And I fulfill my teaching obligation. That’s like a win-win-win. Win.” House closed one eye and pressed his lips together. “Might have one too many wins in there. Let’s just say it was one of my more cunning plans.”
“But -- A medical student? Over an experienced,”
“Which ‘experienced’ would that be, Wilson?” House cut in baldly. “Sam does not want to work for me.”
“She did. She was counting on,”
“She doesn’t now.”
“What the hell did you do, House?”
“My job.”
“Sam turned down a job as an assistant department head for a placement at this hospital.”
“I was under the impression that she turned down that job for you, Wilson, because you would have done the same for her,” House said, in a tone that no one was supposed to hear as malicious, or merciful either.
“She did,” Wilson said, his voice pitching nervously. “House, are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine. I make necessary decisions for a living. I needed to make a decision, replace Thirteen. So I did.”
“But -- already? House, you don’t make changes quickly or easily.”
“Who said it was easy?” House’s eyes were hard and his voice was unyielding.
“I didn’t mean losing Thirteen was easy,” Wilson rushed to add soothingly. “Of course it wasn’t. But she’s just one member of your team. The last time you made a hire, you waited until you were down to zero fellows, and then I had to kidnap your guitar, and Cuddy had to threaten you with death by clinic hours, before you even started to look for a replacement. Now, before we can even suggest one, you make a decision?”
“Right. Suggest,” House snorted. “I know how that works; it’s how I ended up reporting to my ex, and this hospital got a constitutional lawyer with absolutely no medical knowledge defending billing practices and answering malpractice claims. You and Cuddy make the ‘suggestion’ and I have to be an asshole and say no, or say yes and let someone I do not respect tell me how to do my job and tattle to Cuddy every time I step out of line.”
“Is that what this is? You’re digging in your heels and doing something stupid, just to prove that Cuddy doesn’t have you whipped?”
“It’s not stupid. And she kinda does, this time."
House smacked the top of his desk sharply and released a chuckle. "I mean, just look at it. It's perfect. On the off chance I’m not an asshole and I hire your girlfriend, Cuddy gets an extra layer of accountability between me and her, which protects her reputation with the suits. If I am an asshole and say no, she still gets a good radiologist. And by bringing it up, she satisfies you and supports our friendship.”
“Except that she didn’t actually bring it up.”
“Sure she did,” House scoffed. “She knows I snoop in her desk. She found the one thing that would get me off my scrawny ass, and threatened it without forcing a confrontation, or even saying a word. Even better, she avoided that whole ‘colluding with my best friend to make me do something I do not want to do, for my own good ‘shtick, which is at the top of both of our lists for ways we can fuck up this relationship before it even gets out of the gate. Brilliant, brilliant-er, and brilliant-est."
He grinned and let out a long, ardent, articulated breath, closing his eyes contentedly, and Wilson had never seen him look so engaged, so fully himself, so ... alive. “God, Wilson, is it any wonder, I love that woman?”
“Because she manipulates you so skillfully,” Wilson concluded tiredly, not knowing quite what to make of the fact that his two dearest friends were characters in a Machiavellian romance. “Yeah, that’s the secret to a long and lasting relationship.”
“That, and separate houses. We can only hope.”
The box was sitting on her desk, wrapped in shiny black wrapping paper with a red bow. Cuddy approached it carefully, intrigued.
It wasn’t an anniversary - was it? No, and it wouldn’t matter; as he’d so tactfully pointed out at one of Wilson’s anniversary parties, he did not believe in celebrating anniversaries.
“You’re supposed to feel romantic, Wilson, so dammit, get back in there and feel romantic," he'd said. "Go embrace the concubinage of sentimentality. That's what it's there for.”
This had not endeared him to Julie. Wilson had laughed, and that had not endeared him to Julie, either.
She shook her head. How entirely like him: romantic in a corny way, unexpected, gracious. And not a little devious: House, who frequently and without provocation complained about her long hours, must have sneaked into the hospital very late last night or very early this morning in order to leave it here without being noticed.
The block printing on the label announced: I AM NOT A BOMB. I PROMISE. Glancing at the door - expecting House to appear and say, in his most cynical voice, that that’s exactly what a bomb would say, then ridicule her for her poor self-preservation instincts, the hospital’s inferior security measures, and all of the myriad character flaws and psychological defects that caused her this ridiculous, self-flagellating habit of getting up at the crack of dawn, anyway, and dear God, woman, you need to loosen your gas cap before you blow --- she unwrapped it.
Pensively, she pulled it out of the box, and broke into a grin. The motorcycle helmet was a garish black and red, to match House’s jacket. She turned it over in her hands as if it were fragile, like a world, like an egg.
She was not really surprised - touched, thrilled, but not surprised -- until she read the enclosed card.
Lisa,
You’ll need this.
And -- hold on tight.
James
Blinking back mist, she put her hand to her lips.
“So I was thinking joint custody.” Wilson was leaning in the doorway, his hands in his pockets. “How does every other weekend and Wednesdays until eleven sound?”
It was an old joke; no -- an old truth, the sharp edges of it worn down by dreams and tears. She wiped her eye, recalling Amber - dear, fierce, antagonistic, Amber, so much like House in the way she had given no quarter to self-pity or indifference, and in the fearless and uncompromising way she had loved Wilson.
Cuddy smiled softly, grateful that he was finally able to recall Amber this way, with more warmth than pain.
“He bowls every other Wednesday,” she said.
“Thursday.”
“He sees Nolan or plays poker on alternate Thursdays,” she returned, in her best negotiating voice.
“Tuesdays?” he countered.
“Deal.” She indulged a stab of irrational pride as she imagined somewhere, Amber approved of the arrangement.
She was fairly certain she’d never know how Sam felt about it.
They shared one long knowing look between them, and then he said, “Thank you”, as if she was the one who had been generous. He squared his shoulders resolutely, and Cuddy heard him placing one solid footstep in front of the other, back toward the office next to House’s.
**end**
Fandom: House, MD
Pairing: House/Cuddy, Wilson friendship
Warnings: Explicit content in some chapters.
Summary: Post-season 6, continuation of “Coming to Terms.”
Disclaimer: Seriously? You do know I am not David Shore, right?
Criticism, reviews, suggestions, questions welcomed.
“House,” Sam said blearily. “James is,”
“Not taking his meds.” House held up a prescription bottle as he pushed past her into the loft. “Romantic idiot thinks he doesn’t need them. You may be good, but you are no substitute for anti-depressants.”
She stepped aside and he gave her the pill bottle. “Where did you get these?”
“Broke into his car.”
It was too early in the morning for this. “Why did you break into his car?”
“Because if his prescription is in the car, there’s no point in breaking into his gym locker. And because I can never get Foreman to do that for me. Now, you can either make sure he takes those the way Amber did, by kicking his ass until he takes care of himself, or you can do what I have been known, on occasion, to do, and slip them into his beverage of choice without telling him. My method tends to make him a little pissy.” He sniffed. “Wilson make the coffee?”
“Just before he left. Be my guest.” She was reading the prescription label. “I don’t understand. I had no idea James was clinically depressed.”
“You’re kidding, right? He’s over forty, been divorced three times, his job is boring and depressing, and his closest friend is me. No wonder the guy throws bottles.”
“I guess you have a point,” she conceded, although she had no idea what he was talking about.
“Wilson,” House said, as he poured a mug of coffee, “idealizes. And he compartmentalizes. He thinks if he keeps his work, and his sexual relationship, and his friendships - okay, his friendship -- all in separate boxes, where they can’t talk to each other, that makes him safe, instead of crazy.”
“I’m not entirely comfortable talking about him to you like this.”
“That’s how he deals,” House went on blithely. “A depressing job or a screwy friendship with a crippled asshole, or a dissatisfying relationship, can’t fuck up all of his life at once. The problem is, no one of those things can fulfill him all by itself, either, so he’s constantly shortchanging something. Usually himself.”
“Psychoanalysis too,” she said warily. “You are a man of so many talents.”
He helped himself to a muffin from the plate on the counter. “If there’s one thing I know, it’s self-isolation. Wilson’s a master of it.”
“Sorry, I keep forgetting this is all about you.”
“Play nice, now,” he scolded, pointing his finger at her. “One thing interests me. I don’t know when Wilson started drawing these thick, dark lines between the different aspects of his life. It’s not natural, so it has to be reactive. I suspect, at one point, someone he trusted in one of those boxes must have screwed up something from another box. A friend screwed him over professionally. Or, a woman he loved fucked a friend of his.”
He stared at her meaningfully. “Or… for the triple play of soul suckage, his wife cheated on him with his best friend, who was also his mentor.”
He shrugged, but there was nothing casual in the gesture, or the intensity of his stare. He knew exactly what he was doing; he’d just identified the target and hit it. “That’s just a theory. But it does fit, don’t you think?”
She felt her throat constrict.
“If that happened,” she said grimly, “and I’m not saying it did, then trust me, it will absolutely. Never. Happen. Again.”
“Oh, I know that,” he said, his eyes glittering malevolently. “You can’t screw his boss, because I’m screwing his boss. And I’m his best friend now, and at least one of us loves Wilson way too much for that other part.”
“As if I’d ever sleep with you, you insufferable prick. Get out,” she commanded quietly. “Get the fuck out of my- our - home. And wipe that smug look off your face. I don’t owe you any explanations. You have absolutely no power over me. We both know, James is a very, very forgiving person. If he’s tolerated all the shit you’ve put him through, he is never going to leave me - especially not over something that happened more than a decade ago.”
“Maybe not,” he said, and the arrogant bastard actually smiled at her. “But he may do something worse to you than dump you. Might already be doing it, in fact.”
“You’re trying to tell me that James is cheating on me? What kind of a friend are you?”
He made a dismissive noise. “He’s not due for that for months, yet. That’s not the something worse I’m talking about.”
He’d softened his voice to a scathing growl. “In the long dark night of Wilson’s soul, it is three a.m. Miss America, you ain’t, but it’s last call and you’re here.
So he might, just settle for you.
And if he does, Sweetheart, you deserve it.”
Ignoring her fury and shock, he straightened and tapped the counter. “So glad we had this little talk,” he said cheerfully. “See you at work.”
She did not give him the satisfaction of throwing the mug at his head. If she had spilled coffee on the rug, James would have never forgiven the stain.
Who the hell was Amber?
“Twenty eight year old woman, migraines, joint pain.” House surveyed the room.
“Leukemia,” Wilson said reflexively, and it sounded too easy, but some of House’s patients did in fact have cancer.
“Infection,” Taub said.
“And auditory hallucinations,” House added happily. “She hears hawks flying.”
Foreman squinted. “How does she know they’re hawks?”
“Yes, that’s obviously the most significant question,” Chase muttered sarcastically. “If she heard falcons, that would alter the differential entirely.”
“Pigeons would be even worse,” Taub piled on. “There’s no cure for pigeons.”
“Taub, get the bloodwork - and I mean, all the blood work this time,” House barked. “Chase, you and Miss July go break into…”
“Why do we do that?” she piped up.
Chase assumed a patient expression. “We’re looking for toxins, medications, narcotics, indications of pertinent ..”
“No, I know why we search the patient’s house, I just want to know why we break in. Why don’t we take the patient’s keys from her purse when she’s out of her room?”
With five people looking at her, she fidgeted. “If we take her car keys, we can use the garage door opener in her car to get in to the house through the garage, and no one will see us parked there.”
House was scowling at her, and she felt an apparent need to add: “She drives a Lexus.” She held up a key ring and jangled it meekly.
Chase, Taub, and Foreman all looked up at House, who tapped his cane on the floor and said, “Well, all right, if you have to take shortcuts.”
“A minute please?” With two graceful steps, Cuddy, wearing a long lab coat over her dress, was in the room.
“Good morning,” she said to the group assembled around the table. “Doctor House and I are seeing each other. All of each other."
“What are you doing?” House asked her.
“Outing you as a human being,” she replied. “Deal with it.” She turned back to the diagnostics team. “And there will be no patting of his head, pinching his cheek, or gushing of any kind.”
“Do you really expect Foreman and me to abide by that last part?” Taub deadpanned.
“I might gush a little,” Foreman said.
Cuddy narrowed her eyes at Wilson. “You told them.”
“I swear, I, I didn’t,” he stammered.
She glared an accusation at House, who shook his head. “They must have … diagnosed it, or something. Weird, I know.”
There was a long moment during which they all, with the exception of the medical student, who merely looked pleasantly confused, stared at her and House with pleased expressions, but no surprise - and, thank God, no smiles either; there’d be hell to pay if any of them cracked a smile now.
“Look at what you’ve done now,” House said, waving his hand toward them. “They’re ruined. I’m going to need new ones.”
“Because you can’t abuse them in good conscience when they’re wishing you well?”
“You think I have a conscience?” He looked insulted.
“Forgive me; because you cannot possibly strike fear into their hearts if they’re wishing you well,” she amended. “Fine. I’ll call Dial-A-Minion. Later. Rates to the dark side are outrageous at this time of day.”
“I’d have thought you’d get a frequent customer discount,” House retorted.
“I’m sending you the bill,” she said to Wilson.
“Me?!”
She handed a file folder to House. “Approved,” she said. “Unorthodox choice, but it works. Get the paperwork in by the end of business today.”
Wilson was the only one who caught her broad smile as she left.
House passed the folder over to Foreman. “Take care of this management crap. I’ll take care of scheduling the MRI. Who am I this week?”
The medical student said, “Doctor Cutter. OB-GYN.”
“Good thing the patient’s female,” House noted, limping into his office as his team scattered.
Wilson was confused.
“We’ve discovered it’s easier to get priority from the czarina des machina in radiology if the attending is someone other than one of us,” House explained as he scrawled something on an adhesive label. “Preferably, a someone else who is on vacation and can’t bitch about it to Cuddy. It was Miss July’s idea.”
“You’re falsifying patient records? House, that’s a,”
“Clerical error.” House smacked the label onto the patient file and smoothed it down.
“Wouldn’t it be easier and, I don’t know, less of a felony, to just be nice to the radiologists? There is a new one down there, who owes me a favor or two,” Wilson preened.
“I beg of you, do not be more specific. That is information I do not want to have. And besides, Wilson,” House chided. “I would never take advantage of a personal relationship in that way.”
“Don’t even joke about that.”
Wilson had wanted to begin Sam’s first day at PPTH with breakfast at Mickey’s, after which they’d drive in together, parting in the lobby with a quick, not unprofessional, kiss for their respective offices. He’d thought they might meet for lunch in the cafeteria, or if time allowed, even go out for lunch; Cuddy, being busy with House now anyway, would probably understand if he needed to cancel their standing lunch date in favor of helping Sam get settled and feel welcomed in her new job.
Sam had declined all of that. She didn’t want anyone to think she’d gotten the job because of her boyfriend. In fact, she really preferred that for the time being, their personal relationship be kept quiet - not secret, exactly, just not something they advertised.
Wilson completely understood this.
“Now, if only I could get Cutter to chart this while he’s gone, that would rule,” House plotted. “Remind me to have Miss July hack into billing. That girl has potential. I should have hired a computer science major years ago.”
“Cutter is a she,” Wilson informed him, and then stopped up short. “Wait - you hired her? Miss Jul -- April?”
“She’s a girl. She’s a divergent thinker. I get her cheap. And I fulfill my teaching obligation. That’s like a win-win-win. Win.” House closed one eye and pressed his lips together. “Might have one too many wins in there. Let’s just say it was one of my more cunning plans.”
“But -- A medical student? Over an experienced,”
“Which ‘experienced’ would that be, Wilson?” House cut in baldly. “Sam does not want to work for me.”
“She did. She was counting on,”
“She doesn’t now.”
“What the hell did you do, House?”
“My job.”
“Sam turned down a job as an assistant department head for a placement at this hospital.”
“I was under the impression that she turned down that job for you, Wilson, because you would have done the same for her,” House said, in a tone that no one was supposed to hear as malicious, or merciful either.
“She did,” Wilson said, his voice pitching nervously. “House, are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine. I make necessary decisions for a living. I needed to make a decision, replace Thirteen. So I did.”
“But -- already? House, you don’t make changes quickly or easily.”
“Who said it was easy?” House’s eyes were hard and his voice was unyielding.
“I didn’t mean losing Thirteen was easy,” Wilson rushed to add soothingly. “Of course it wasn’t. But she’s just one member of your team. The last time you made a hire, you waited until you were down to zero fellows, and then I had to kidnap your guitar, and Cuddy had to threaten you with death by clinic hours, before you even started to look for a replacement. Now, before we can even suggest one, you make a decision?”
“Right. Suggest,” House snorted. “I know how that works; it’s how I ended up reporting to my ex, and this hospital got a constitutional lawyer with absolutely no medical knowledge defending billing practices and answering malpractice claims. You and Cuddy make the ‘suggestion’ and I have to be an asshole and say no, or say yes and let someone I do not respect tell me how to do my job and tattle to Cuddy every time I step out of line.”
“Is that what this is? You’re digging in your heels and doing something stupid, just to prove that Cuddy doesn’t have you whipped?”
“It’s not stupid. And she kinda does, this time."
House smacked the top of his desk sharply and released a chuckle. "I mean, just look at it. It's perfect. On the off chance I’m not an asshole and I hire your girlfriend, Cuddy gets an extra layer of accountability between me and her, which protects her reputation with the suits. If I am an asshole and say no, she still gets a good radiologist. And by bringing it up, she satisfies you and supports our friendship.”
“Except that she didn’t actually bring it up.”
“Sure she did,” House scoffed. “She knows I snoop in her desk. She found the one thing that would get me off my scrawny ass, and threatened it without forcing a confrontation, or even saying a word. Even better, she avoided that whole ‘colluding with my best friend to make me do something I do not want to do, for my own good ‘shtick, which is at the top of both of our lists for ways we can fuck up this relationship before it even gets out of the gate. Brilliant, brilliant-er, and brilliant-est."
He grinned and let out a long, ardent, articulated breath, closing his eyes contentedly, and Wilson had never seen him look so engaged, so fully himself, so ... alive. “God, Wilson, is it any wonder, I love that woman?”
“Because she manipulates you so skillfully,” Wilson concluded tiredly, not knowing quite what to make of the fact that his two dearest friends were characters in a Machiavellian romance. “Yeah, that’s the secret to a long and lasting relationship.”
“That, and separate houses. We can only hope.”
The box was sitting on her desk, wrapped in shiny black wrapping paper with a red bow. Cuddy approached it carefully, intrigued.
It wasn’t an anniversary - was it? No, and it wouldn’t matter; as he’d so tactfully pointed out at one of Wilson’s anniversary parties, he did not believe in celebrating anniversaries.
“You’re supposed to feel romantic, Wilson, so dammit, get back in there and feel romantic," he'd said. "Go embrace the concubinage of sentimentality. That's what it's there for.”
This had not endeared him to Julie. Wilson had laughed, and that had not endeared him to Julie, either.
She shook her head. How entirely like him: romantic in a corny way, unexpected, gracious. And not a little devious: House, who frequently and without provocation complained about her long hours, must have sneaked into the hospital very late last night or very early this morning in order to leave it here without being noticed.
The block printing on the label announced: I AM NOT A BOMB. I PROMISE. Glancing at the door - expecting House to appear and say, in his most cynical voice, that that’s exactly what a bomb would say, then ridicule her for her poor self-preservation instincts, the hospital’s inferior security measures, and all of the myriad character flaws and psychological defects that caused her this ridiculous, self-flagellating habit of getting up at the crack of dawn, anyway, and dear God, woman, you need to loosen your gas cap before you blow --- she unwrapped it.
Pensively, she pulled it out of the box, and broke into a grin. The motorcycle helmet was a garish black and red, to match House’s jacket. She turned it over in her hands as if it were fragile, like a world, like an egg.
She was not really surprised - touched, thrilled, but not surprised -- until she read the enclosed card.
Lisa,
You’ll need this.
And -- hold on tight.
James
Blinking back mist, she put her hand to her lips.
“So I was thinking joint custody.” Wilson was leaning in the doorway, his hands in his pockets. “How does every other weekend and Wednesdays until eleven sound?”
It was an old joke; no -- an old truth, the sharp edges of it worn down by dreams and tears. She wiped her eye, recalling Amber - dear, fierce, antagonistic, Amber, so much like House in the way she had given no quarter to self-pity or indifference, and in the fearless and uncompromising way she had loved Wilson.
Cuddy smiled softly, grateful that he was finally able to recall Amber this way, with more warmth than pain.
“He bowls every other Wednesday,” she said.
“Thursday.”
“He sees Nolan or plays poker on alternate Thursdays,” she returned, in her best negotiating voice.
“Tuesdays?” he countered.
“Deal.” She indulged a stab of irrational pride as she imagined somewhere, Amber approved of the arrangement.
She was fairly certain she’d never know how Sam felt about it.
They shared one long knowing look between them, and then he said, “Thank you”, as if she was the one who had been generous. He squared his shoulders resolutely, and Cuddy heard him placing one solid footstep in front of the other, back toward the office next to House’s.
**end**