Inquiry: Day Ten, 11 a.m. - Dr. Lisa Cuddy (7/7)

[zeppomarx]

Title: InquiryAuthor: zeppomarx
Characters: All the usual suspects, plus more.
Summary: When a panel is convened to review the facts of Gregory House’s life, his fellows (past and present), colleagues, patients and friends are called to testify.
Thanks: To Brigid45, for her infinite wisdom and advice.
Warnings, etc.: Possible character death.
Disclaimers: Don't own House or any of the show's characters. If I did, things might have gone a little differently.
Chapter Summary: Testimony of Dr. Lisa Cuddy 7/7



Day Ten, 11 a.m. -- Friday

For some reason, all Cuddy could think of during the break was that guy with amnesia, the one who latched on to the alpha personality and mimicked it... and how when the two of them were in the room with him, he'd latched onto House, not her. Could House's actual dominance in their relationship have fueled her desire to control him?

The sense of inferiority she'd always had around her mother, knowing her mother liked Julia better, began to creep up on her. As she strode back into the room, she did what she always did when those insecure feelings threatened. She put on the persona of a warrior knight, trying to make herself as strong and invincible on the outside as she could, so that maybe no one would know what was happening on the inside.

Had she ever let that warrior knight guard down with House, even when they were alone together? she wondered. Even in the middle of sex, she'd had her guard up, protecting that soft inner core, needing to control everything and everyone around her. Where House became a jerk to protect his inner self, she became controlling to protect hers.

Shoulders pulled back, Cuddy walked with purpose toward the panel and reseated herself on the hard chair.

“What happened to Dr. House after you broke off your relationship with him?”

Sighing, she answered. “Not surprisingly, he had a meltdown. Checked himself into a hotel, surrounded himself with hookers, was constantly high on alcohol and Vicodin, jumped off a 10-story balcony into the pool. It was insane.” Insane? There was that word again, coming unbidden out of her mouth. And once again, that woman on the end of the panel looked up sharply when she said it, frowning as she made a note on the legal pad in front of her.

The panel chairman continued. “So because he took one Vicodin, you broke up with him, and because you broke up with him, he spiraled out of control?”

Defensive again, she asked, “Are you saying this is my fault?”

“No, I’m not saying that. What I am saying is that the abrupt and unexpected breakup with you might have been a factor in his subsequent problems.”

“I disagree,” she said firmly. “He was responsible for his own behavior. It was exactly that kind of out-of-control part of him that I could no longer tolerate.” There. That was clear enough.

He’d warned her. That very first day, he’d warned her. He knew how it was going to end before they ever got started and he hadn’t wanted to go there. “This isn't going to work,” said his voice in her head. She’d tried to argue, and then he’d given her the House version of how things would go between them, one that was incredibly prophetic. Whether or not it was preordained, as he seemed to think, or self-fulfilling prophecy, she wasn’t sure.

“It's just a statement of fact,” he’d said. “It's not a debatable proposition.” What had she said then? “Right. Because you can see the future.” “No. But I can see the past. And you're going to remember all the horrible things I've done, and you're going to try to convince yourself that I've changed. And I'm going to start doing those horrible things again, because I haven't changed. Then you'll realize that... I'm an insane choice for someone who has a kid. And from there, it's a short step to the inevitable conclusion that all of this... was a mistake. Tell me any of that isn't true.”

Damn him. Damn him for being right. He’d tried to change… tried harder than she’d been willing to acknowledge at the time… but fundamentally, his core personality hadn’t changed. The reality was that she had tried to convince herself that he’d changed… that she didn’t want him to change. But he hadn’t, and she did.

That first night, she’d wanted him, and because he was so shattered, his usual defenses were down. Yes, he’d wanted to be with her for a long time, but his pessimism -- or maybe it was his rational side -- had always stopped him before, kept her at arm’s length… probably because of what he said that next morning. He knew it wouldn’t go well in the long run.

Shit! She hadn’t intended to, and she hadn’t realized she was doing it at the time, but she had taken advantage of the situation. How could he possibly say no when she offered herself to him under those circumstances?

She was the one who seduced him, and maybe, because he was in such a fragile state, that should give her a heightened responsibility for the outcome. She wasn’t crushed by the death of a patient, she wasn’t sitting on the floor contemplating taking a Vicodin after more than a year of sobriety, and she wasn’t the one who was devastated by unkind things said at the crash site. No, she was ruled by her own emotions and desire, not really taking his situation into account, and she was the one in charge -- in control -- overruling his apprehensions, grabbing him by the hand and plunging both of them on ahead into certain disaster.

What would have happened if she'd never gone to House's place that night? She'd been so sure that her love for him was enough. Her feelings. HER feelings. She always seemed to be led by her feelings. It was all about what she wanted... in starting things up with House, in how their relationship progressed, in their breakup, in her refusal to think of how that breakup affected him. It was all about her feelings.

Despite House’s flaws -- and God knows there were many -- she had loved him… at least she had at the beginning. Now she wasn’t sure if she still did. What was making her most uncomfortable here in this room, right now, was that these people were making her look at her own flaws under the same magnifying glass she’d always used to look at his.

“How long did this meltdown last?”

Shaken by her train of thought, it took a minute for her to refocus on the question. “I…I don’t know. A couple of weeks, I guess. I really wanted nothing to do with him for awhile, so I wasn’t in on all the intrigue.”

“Was he still doing his job during this time?”

“After a fashion. From the hotel, with the hookers, high on Vicodin.”

“Would you say that he was spiraling out of control?”

“Yes, I guess I would.”

“And was his meltdown affecting how he did his job?”

One of their first conversations after the breakup came to mind. “You didn't expect me to say yes to rupturing his aorta, did you?” she’d said to him. “Since I didn't ask, I wasn't expecting you to say anything at all,” he’d replied, his usual abrasive self. As she had before they’d gotten together, she challenged him, but unlike before, there was a new, decidedly unnerving tension in the air.

“You have no reason to believe this will save his life,” she said. House had laughed at her, his anger and hurt hanging between them. “Really?” he’d asked. “No reason? None at all? I'm just planning on cracking open his chest, blowing up his heart, what… to pad his bill? Or you think that since you broke my heart I want to break his.” Of course that’s indeed what she’d thought, and right that moment, she’d hated him for seeing through her, even though she also felt pity for him, because she was sure she was right about his motives.

“I don't know,” she said. “I think maybe you're looking for something that can excite you. Fill a void. And it's affecting your judgment.”

Surprisingly, House agreed with her on this, although he ignored her earlier heart remark. “You're right. I am,” he’d said, replying to her comment about him looking for something to excite him, to fill the void. But then, he refuted her last statement, that it had affected his medical judgment. “But my damaged, depressed, drug-addled judgment is still better than yours or any other doctor in this hospital, and my team is going to do this procedure and save his life. So you can either have security arrest me and my team, or you can get the hell out of my way.”

There was nothing she could say to that, Stunned into silence, she remembered gaping like a fish. “Annnnnd… she caves.”

Was House’s meltdown affecting his job? That was the question the chairman had asked what seemed like hours ago. “M-maybe…” she replied, finally, uncertainly.

When she didn’t sound totally sure of herself, the chairman responded to her hesitancy. “You don’t sound completely convinced, Dr. Cuddy. Why the indecision?”

“I must admit that, on that first case after we broke up, despite the circumstances, he was right… medically right.”

Another moment, a conversation with Foreman, popped into her mind. “He's avoiding you and you're avoiding him and this patient is going to die,” he’d said. She’d told Foreman that House was fine... that he was always fine. But was he fine? Clearly he wasn’t.

She faltered. “Y-you asked if his meltdown affected his job? I… I don’t know. I really don’t know.”

The chairman nodded thoughtfully. “Thanks for your candor, Dr. Cuddy. Shall we see if we can step back from the more emotional, personal aspects of this for a moment and try to look at things more objectively? You were still his supervisor -- and again, as when you first got involved with him sexually, this might have been a good time for you try a little harder to find a way to step down from that capacity. Did you consider contacting Dr. Nolan to try to help Dr. House? Did you attempt to shore up his support system, or provided in-house or outpatient drug and psychological counseling? In short, were you concerned about what was happening to him?”

“Yes… of course I was. But I wasn’t responsible for his craziness…” Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw Nemesis making more notes. Shit. “He… I was done.” There was that phrase again.

Wilson had confronted her a couple of times about what was happening to House. “He needs you in his life,” he’d said. “Even if you're not sleeping with him, he needs you. Without you…” She’d held firm. “You can't go backwards. I can't fix his problem. I am his problem.”

“We understand how traumatic your cancer scare must have been for you, and we do sympathize. But you remained his supervisor. Do you feel that you might have been having as much trouble separating the personal from the professional as you say you had when the two of you were together?”

She hadn’t thought of it that way. “Well… yes, I guess I might have been.”

“Let’s look at this strictly from a professional standpoint. You have a valued employee who is going through a particularly difficult time emotionally, and is not reacting well to the situation. As his supervisor, is there anything you would normally do?”

Taking a deep, deep breath and letting it out slowly, Cuddy tried to clear her thoughts, tried to see the situation more objectively, tried to pretend that House and his reactions belonged to someone else… Wilson, perhaps. If Wilson had gone through a bad breakup -- and she had seen him through a couple of divorces, so this was not unfamiliar territory -- and had reacted unfortunately, but was still reasonably functional on the job, what would she have done?

Remembering how supportive she’d been when Amber was dying, she hoped that she would talk to him, calmly and supportively, and perhaps suggest -- or even require -- counseling, time off to get himself together. If she’d found out he was also drinking or doing drugs, holed up in a hotel, having a complete meltdown, would that have changed her response? Yes, it probably would have made her more concerned, more determined to intervene and get him the help he so clearly needed.

Part of being a supervisor was trying to support employees who were in crisis, so they could return to full capacity as smoothly and quickly as possible. Could she have done the same for House? Should she have done the same for House? Because she was so close to the situation, and because her guilt and anger were so overpowering, she knew she had been unable to pull back enough to provide House with what he needed… or even to suggest that someone else do it.

She took a deep breath, and told the truth. “I really hate to admit this, but yes. If it had been anyone other than House, under any other circumstances, I probably would have staged an intervention to get him the psychological and medical help he clearly needed.”

The chairman made a note before continuing. “I’m sure this is going to sound harsh, and I don’t doubt that you were hurting, too, but again, we’re just trying to get to the truth of what happened. You set him adrift personally after he had sacrificed his sobriety to try to give you what you needed, and then you also set him adrift professionally. Would that describe what happened?”

Abruptly feeling defensive again, unwilling to admit to more than she already had… even though she knew that she might have screwed up… she blurted out angrily, “I honestly didn’t give a crap.” Not true, said her little voice. She had given a crap… she just hadn’t been willing to do anything about it, because his meltdown had simply confirmed for her that she’d been right to break up with him. “He hadn’t been there for me, and I didn’t see any reason to be there for him.”

After making a couple of notes on his ubiquitous notepad, the chairman paused a moment before adding, “It does concern us that throughout this time, you were unable to separate the personal from the professional.”

Cuddy had had it. “Oh, I was professional. I was coming in every day, doing my job. He was the one who was out of control.”

The chairman chose that moment to change the subject. “Shortly after your breakup, Dr. House got married. Were you aware that he was engaged?”

Still angry, Cuddy replied, “To that whore? Yes, I was aware. He had the gall to bring her into my office and get her attached to his health insurance so she could get a tooth fixed before their fake wedding.” Cuddy was still pissed off about that.

“First off, Dr. Cuddy, Mrs. House was both a licensed aesthetician and a pastry chef before her marriage. And second of all, it has been suggested to us that he only married her in the hopes that you still cared enough for him to stop the marriage. In his own way, he seemed to have been trying to get your attention, and perhaps find a way to reconcile with you.”

“Well, I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.” A pastry chef? A licensed aesthetician?

“Dr. House was vulnerable and troubled when you started the relationship with him. What made you think he would be any different when you broke it off with no warning a few months later?”

“I don’t know,” she huffed. “I guess I always expected so much more from him.” And wasn’t that the real problem all along? thought Cuddy. I always expected so much more. I always expected House to be someone he wasn’t. And then, when he couldn’t turn into that person I wanted, I kicked him to the curb.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but it sounds as if you see yourself strictly as the victim in this situation, Dr. Cuddy, with Dr. House as the villain.”

In an attempt to regain control, Cuddy pushed aside her newfound perspective on what had happened between her and House, forgetting how much she had hated being considered the victim when the story broke in the press. Now she was simply tired, frustrated, hot and more than a little touchy. “Well, of course I do! The man drove his car through my dining room!”

“Which, of course, is atrocious.” The chairman softened his voice, sounding sympathetic to her situation, before asking the next troubling question. “We don’t suggest that Dr. House should not be held responsible for that -- in point of fact, he was held responsible for it -- but do you think it might be possible that some of Dr. House’s behavior following your breakup -- however unsavory -- might have been, at least partly, because he was not receiving psychological and medical support during a trying time?”

Despite the chairman’s attempt to ask the question as gently as possible, it pushed Cuddy’s buttons, and now she was furious. “That’s ludicrous! He was the one who had a major meltdown! He was the one who spent time in a mental institution!”

All of the panel members looked up swiftly at this outburst. There was a pause before the chairman responded. “If that was such an important issue for you, Dr. Cuddy, had it occurred to you before you began a sexual relationship with him to be concerned about entering into a relationship with someone who had been institutionalized and who had possible addiction issues?”

She thought back to how she’d felt the night of the Trenton crash. Trying to calm down, she said, “No... not really. I told you. I suddenly knew I loved him and wanted to be with him.”

“Is it possible you were not seeing him very realistically when you showed up at his place and began a relationship with him?”

“He didn’t seem any crazier than he ever had been.” She really needed to stop saying things like that. Notes were taken on her choice of words, and she saw the panel members conferring for a moment. Cuddy wished she could read lips.

“Had you actually noticed, Dr. Cuddy? You have already admitted to avoiding Dr. House after he was released from Mayfield, and have stated that you had not noticed any particular changes, despite the fact that his own team reported a marked improvement in his behavior and general well-being after he came back to work.”

“I was busy. Plus I had a small child at home and was in a stable relationship.” A relationship that I ended as soon as I realized I was in love with House.

“In addition to getting involved with someone who was particularly vulnerable, you were also in a position of authority over him. This sounds like a sexual harassment suit waiting to happen.”

“Well, he had been leering at me and making sexual comments about my appearance for years...”

“You misunderstand me. I’m not talking about a sexual harassment case against Dr. House, Dr. Cuddy, but one from him against you. According to the Princeton University policy manual, ‘…no supervisor may influence, directly or indirectly, salary, promotion, performance appraisals, work assignments or other working conditions for an employee with whom such a relationship exists.’ This kind of influence constitutes sexual harassment, according to the rules of your employer. It’s pretty clear that you influenced Dr. House’s work assignment and working conditions because of your relationship. Looked at a certain way, it could be said that you took sexual advantage of a vulnerable employee, and then once you were in a relationship with him, you manipulated his behavior at work, using your sexual relationship as a tool, expecting him to change the way he did his job to suit your ideal of a mate.”

Cuddy was horrified. “Me!? What about him? He’d been making sexual comments about me for years.”

“He wasn’t your supervisor, Dr. Cuddy, and it sounds to us, based on your own answers here, as well as those of other witnesses, that you didn’t make much of an attempt to curtail those ‘sexual comments’, but rather enjoyed them, and had been trying to encourage a relationship between the two of you long before you two actually got together.”

“He announced to an entire lobby full of people that he had slept with me!”

Pause. More conferring among panel members.

“That was because Dr. House was suffering from a delusion, wasn’t it? In addition to the hallucinations he had been experiencing for a few days prior. Is that correct?”

“Well, yes...”

“We’re not talking about that… we’re talking about you.”

No response.

“When you began your sexual relationship with him, you were of course, aware that he had spent several months as an inpatient at Mayfield Psychiatric Hospital being treating for his severe depression.”

Startled out of her anger, Cuddy said, “Depression? No, I had not realized that’s what he was there for.”

The questioner looked surprised. “Are you seriously telling me that, as his supervisor and, at that point, one of his doctors of record, you had no idea what his diagnosis was or why he was being treated for such an extensive period of time?”

“I assumed that it was for his drug addiction.” Maybe that wasn’t strictly true. She’d sat there and let Lucas harangue House at that breakfast about mental illness, not particularly for addiction… even thought she believed House’s addiction had caused the delusion.

“In fact, medically -- and I’m surprised that, as a medical doctor, you didn’t know this -- Vicodin has never been known to causes delusions. Hallucinations, yes; delusions, no. Severe depression, on the other hand, can be a cause of both hallucinations and delusions, as can brain injuries.”

Overwhelmed, Cuddy shook her head, trying to shake off the rollercoaster of feelings that were drowning her.

“Let’s not belabor the point. What happened next?”

After using her yoga techniques to breathe in and out, trying to calm herself down, she finally answered. “Dr. Wilson asked me to consider making up with House. He said I wasn’t being fair.”

“Was he right?”

“I think I told him that it wasn’t about what House needed. It was about me being able to know for certain that the man I was involved with would be there for me when I needed him.” Unimpaired. “All I knew was that I was done.” Again.

“Getting back to our earlier point, before the two of you got together, had you been aware that he might not be that kind of man?”

She sighed and rolled her eyes, remember her conversation with Wilson at the medical conference. “Yes. I knew it.”

“But you chose to get involved with him anyway.”

“Yes.”

“And when he turned out not to be the person you’d hoped he would be, you ended the relationship.”

“Yes.”

“Let me try to summarize what happened next. While you were trying to deal with your own emotional upheaval following your cancer scare and the relationship breakup, you were not able to provide for Dr. House’s mental and physical wellbeing in the workplace as he went through this rough patch. Would that sum it up?”

“I think you’re being unfair to my viewpoint, but basically, yes.”

“Tell us about the night Dr. House performed surgery on himself.”

Grateful for any change of topic, she gave a tight smile and answered less angrily. “He called me at home very late one night. I hadn’t really talked to him since our breakup, except a few times at work. He told me what had happened -- about the tumors -- and asked me to come over and help him. I packed up my daughter, not quite realizing just how bad the situation was, and went to his place. I let myself in. I found him covered in blood in his bathtub.”

“That sounds pretty horrific.”

“It was… awful.”

“Did he say why he had called you instead of one of his other friends?”

Friends? Plural? She realized they’d mentioned friends earlier, but she’d been too annoyed to notice it at the time. “Yes. He said I was the last on his list, that no one else was available.”

“Did he tell you why he hadn’t called 911 instead?”

“Yes. He wanted someone he knew… and trusted… to be with him, to make sure everything was handled right.”

“He told you he still trusted you… even after you were the one who suggested the surgery that left him in constant pain. Even after the way you had treated him during and after your relationship?”

“Yes.” Even after the way you had treated him… Their words were running around in her head. “In fact, at the hospital, he begged me to stay and make sure Dr. Hourani didn’t amputate his leg.”

“Despite the fact that the day the two of you had gotten together he had told his patient that he wished he’d let you amputate at the time of his original injury?”

“I don’t know why he said it… or why he was so attached to that damned leg.”

“How did your daughter handle this?”

“I didn’t let her see him until I had cleaned him up somewhat and gotten him into the backseat of my car. He… well, he actually calmed her down when she got upset about the blood on his leg. Something about a stupid pirate cartoon he had introduced her to.”

“So even in his own weakened condition, he was able to comfort a scared little girl?”

“Yes, I guess so.” He really had been very good with Rachel that night… and he was in so much pain and misery, it was kind of amazing that he could reassure her.

“His leg was saved, I take it.”

“Yes, although he needed two more surgeries -- one to get the remaining tumors in his leg, and another when he developed an infection.”

“How long did he stay in the hospital?”

“Only a couple of days. He signed himself out against medical advice.”

“From what we have determined from his records, the trial for the medication that was supposed to regrow muscle ended abruptly because the lab rats all died suddenly, from tumors throughout their bodies. Before he checked himself out, did anyone on Dr. House’s healthcare team think to scan the rest of him for additional tumors?”

Oh, good God, thought Cuddy, her stomach churning. How incompetent are we? How negligent have we all been with his medical care over the years? Looking down at the desk in front of her, feeling a terrible pressure over her heart, she admitted quietly, “No… no we didn’t scan him. No one did anything except perform the surgeries and provide basic post-op care until he checked himself out.”

As she had yesterday, Cuddy was again forced to look at herself through the panel’s eyes, and what she saw there gave her a horrible sinking feeling. For years, she’d accused House of unethical behavior, confronting him about what she said were his personality flaws... but she had never really looked at her own actions and character in the same way. Self-absorbed narcissist, he’d called her. Apparently, once again, House had been right.

If she'd been honest with herself at the beginning, or at least recognized that this might not have been the best time to start a relationship with House (because he was so vulnerable)… or if she had remembered her ethical obligations and not gotten involved with an employee at all… none of it would have happened.

She should have known herself well enough to realize she would try to get him to change, and that no good could come of that. Instead, she led him on for months, until he was so wrapped up in her that he abandoned his personal ethics and his patients to desperately hang onto the relationship, which was clearly already dying. And then, when he was at another low point, she dumped him, and didn't even have common decency to look after his needs professionally.

“Could you tell us about how the two of you interacted following his self-surgery?”

By this time, Cuddy felt deflated.

“I… I f-felt he needed to talk about his feelings. I may have… I did confront him about it… several times.”

“And what did Dr. House say to that?”

What had he said? “I want things to go back to the way they were before we started dating - no more bad feelings, no more issues, just work.”

Not looking up at the panel, she repeated what he’d said to her. “He… he said he wanted things to go back to the way they were before we started dating. He wanted no more bad feelings, no more issues, just work.”

“And he said this to you when?”

“Shortly before… before…”

“Do you have any idea what changed in him from that moment when he took what appears to have been the very reasonable request for things to return to pre-relationship status?”

What had changed? How could he go from that… to that… in such a short period of time? “I’m just asking you to talk about it,” she’d said. “You owe me. Forget about saving your life. You exposed my daughter to that obnoxious pirate cartoon.” She’d been attempting to add in some levity to the conversation, but she was also determined to get him talking about his feelings… something it was clear he really didn’t want to do.

“I guess I kept pushing him to talk to me about his feelings.”

“It had been several weeks since the breakup, hadn’t it? Why now?”

“I’m not sure. Something about how self-destructive he’d been in trying that crazy rat trial stuff and then operating on himself to try to remove the tumors, I guess.” Crazy? Again, dammit.

“So after seeing him fall apart for weeks, and now, when he seemed to have recovered somewhat, you suddenly felt it was your place to push him on how you thought he should respond to the breakup?”

“Yes. I guess so. I think I’d gotten removed enough from the situation that my own feelings weren’t so involved.”

“As a result, you felt it was important somehow to tell him how he should be dealing with the situation?”

“Yes.”

"And this was after he’d made it clear that he just wanted things to go back to some semblance of normal?”

“Yes.”

“How did he react to your suggestions that he deal with his feelings?”

Sitting across from him at lunch, challenging him about his unresolved issues, his choices, she’d seen him try to control those very feelings she was trying to get him to bring out into the open. Full of sarcasm, he’d responded by going through the litany of all the reasons she might attribute his self-surgery to: “I did it to fix my life. No, wait. No, I did it because I'm a deeply unhappy person. No… no… I did it to get sympathy from you. I did it to piss you off. I did it because I'm not over you… or I was over you, and I was moving on. I did it because I wanted to know what it's like not to be in pain. I did it because I want to feel more pain. Whatever the reason, it was a bad reason and a bad idea. That's all that matters.”

Trying to swallow the lump that had lodged itself in her throat, Cuddy answered slowly, “At lunch, I tried to get him to talk about his feelings, about why he’d taken that untested med and then carved himself open in the bathtub. He… he listed off all the reasons why he might have done it… all that emotional stuff I was trying to get him to deal with… and then ended by telling me he knew it had been a bad idea.”

“He acknowledged that he’d done it for bad reasons?”

“Yes.”

“In essence, then, it sounds as if he was fairly self-aware, and was dealing with the situation.”

“I suppose so.”

“Again, Dr. Cuddy, you don’t sound convinced. What happened next?”

“I followed him out of the cafeteria and into the hall. I wanted him to do more than parrot back to me what he thought I wanted to hear.”

“Did he do more?”

“Yes.” He’d loomed over her, and finally… finally… told her he was hurt by her actions, and when she’d apologized, he’d exonerated her from blame, telling her it wasn’t her fault. But was it her fault? Sure, some of it was House’s fault, just for being who he was, and for his crazy -- dammit -- self-destructive streak. But she shared the blame, whether he was willing to say it to her or not. Once again, she was the one who controlled the conversation, controlled the direction that things had gone, the one who forced him to tell her his feelings. “He finally told me how he felt… that he felt hurt.”

“I almost hate to ask this question, Dr. Cuddy, but what made you feel as if it was your place to play psychologist?”

The question threw her. “I don’t understand,” she said, her brow furrowed in confusion.

“It seems pretty clear that Dr. House probably needed some form of counseling after your breakup, although he didn’t receive it, for whatever reasons. Then, weeks later, when he seemed to be coming to some sort of inner peace about the breakup, you… well… you stirred things up. Why was it so important for you to do that?”

Why had it been so important to her to get him to talk all these weeks later? “I’m really not sure. I just felt that he needed to talk about it… to get angry with me.” Oh, hell, she thought. She really had been goading him into getting angry. Not that she could possibly have anticipated that he would do anything quite so insane… choose another word, Lisa, said her little voice… quite so outrageous or dangerous.

“And this conversation took place shortly before the incident with your home?”

“Yes.” The incident with your home. It sounded so benign said that way, when it was actually terrifying to see his car come barreling into her dining room.

“We don’t need to go into the specifics of what happened that night, because we have the police reports, plus Dr. Wilson’s testimony. We know you filed charges against him, and left your job shortly thereafter. Did you have any contact with Dr. House after that?”

“No. None.”

“But after he turned himself in, refusing legal advice and agreeing to an unusually lengthy prison sentence, he did allow his assets to be seized to pay for the damage to your home, did he not?”

“Well, yes.” Not that she ever wanted to step foot in the place again.

“In summary, we are very concerned about the apparent misuse of your authority over Dr. House on numerous occasions, from the time of his original leg surgery right through to his incarceration.”

“I don’t see it that way,” she said. But the truth was that now she was being forced to look at her actions, she did see it like that, at least in part. After being grilled by this panel for two days, she had to admit that there were moments in her past when she had not behaved as well as she might, either personally or professionally, and she had a horrible feeling the consequences of her actions might catch up to her.

“I think that covers everything, Dr. Cuddy. Thank you for your time. We will now begin deliberations.”

Feeling as if she’d run a marathon, shoulders sagging, an exhausted Lisa Cuddy got up and left the room, eager to get home to Rachel and leave all this behind her.

The Decision