Time in Technicolor: Part 7
And now... the final chapter. Sorry for the delay--I was hoping to have this out a few days ago, but then we would have even more weirdly caught up to the timeline (purely coincidence, I swear!), so it's probably a good thing this chapter was a little uncooperative. The number of times I printed out and revised hard copies of this was insane even for my usually crazy amounts of editing... hopefully something at least semi-decent has come from that.
Thanks so much to everyone who stopped by and said hello when I posted everything else earlier. Not that you need me to tell you this, but you guys are so made of win. *g*
Thursday, Nov. 15, 3:24 PM
His already-bruised knuckles were white as he gripped his cane, so tightly that it hurt, and he was almost surprised when the cane didn’t snap. The voice droned on in his ear, authoritative and cocky. “…another incident, this time at Plainsboro Park. Same timeframe, similar setup: female alone after dark. This victim wasn’t as lucky as Ms. Cu-”
“Doctor.”
He had been angry before-a nearly constant emotion for the past couple of days-but this abrupt flare of rage was so intense it barreled past every shade of red on the spectrum and barreled straight into vivid violet. Lucky? The fucking bastard. If he for one second thought that-
“Excuse me?” Lieutenant Whatever asked, clearly annoyed that his monologue had been interrupted.
“Doctor Cuddy.”
“Right. Doctor,” the police officer agreed, though his tone implied that he didn’t at all seem to think the distinction an important one. “With the hair samples and semen we collected from the second vic-”
“Listen, Officer-”
“Lieutenant.”
“Like there’s really a difference,” House scoffed, voice dripping with hatred and scorn and barely-contained fury that all somehow escaped the cop completely.
“Actually-”
“Do you have any useful information or did you just call me to hear yourself talk?”
The split-second silence on the other end was answer enough. House had forced one of New Jersey’s “finest” to deviate from his confident, “we can do no wrong” speech, and there was no chance in hell that anything the lieutenant ad-libbed would be true or helpful. “No positive ID yet, but now that we’ve established a pattern, I’m confident we’ll-”
Even though the slamming of the telephone receiver echoed loudly through his empty apartment, the gesture was nowhere near satisfying. House briefly considered seeing just how much time and effort it would take to smash the entire apparatus to smithereens, but instead settled for flexing his fingers, wincing. His hand ached, but at least in that there was some satisfaction-barely there anymore, but it had been, and that should have counted for something.
His leg was throbbing, the usual steadily pulsing twinge amped up, as if all the anger and aggravation of the past few days had decided to take up residence there-an annoying neighbor whose life seemed to consist of a single maddeningly loud party, interrupting the peace (thought and sleep) of everyone else on the block.
Gritting his teeth, House rubbed his thigh. The pain in his jaw, his knuckles, just wasn’t enough, and maybe it was what he had been looking for: a distraction. Wilson had been quick enough to point that out this morning-though House usually put little stock in anything his friend said while perched high on his moral pedestal (at least not until much later).
The knock on the door was forceful, jarring. He had known it would only be a matter of time before Wilson gathered his courage (and what little was usually left of his fury) to continue the lecture House had walked out on earlier.
“Before you put me back in a chokehold-”
But the hand that launched through the gap in the doorway, coming to rest on his forearm, wasn’t Wilson’s. Her touch was gentle, her voice, too, though she tried to frost it along the edges. “You broke his nose.”
“Wilson?” he asked coolly, his elbow suddenly smarting as if remembering the swift connection with the other man’s face. There probably should have been guilt there, but all he could manage was frustration (and relief at seeing her-but practiced nonchalance covered that well). “He deserved it. How did you get here?”
“Your clinic patient,” Cuddy crisply corrected, a hand clutching her cell phone, and his stomach clenched as he thought of her receiving a call very similar to the one that he had just ended. “And I drove.”
“He deserved it even more.”
House studied her as he spoke and she frowned. If anything, she looked worse than she had when he’d left her that morning, seemed to feel it, too, as she braced herself carefully on the doorframe. The stitches on her forehead stood out in dark contrast, even against the violent maroon of the bruise that surrounded them. She was dressed as if she had come straight from work, and he hoped the hospital hadn’t been stupid enough to call her in to deal with the aftermath of his morning outburst, tried to maintain his scowl.
“You didn’t mow down any old ladies on your way over here, did you?” he continued. “Lightweights like you shouldn’t take painkillers and drive.”
“You shouldn’t be assaulting your patients.”
“Would’ve been easier to yell at me over the phone.” He held the door further open, letting her trip past him, a flurry of heat, pheromones, and slow, smoldering anger. She was trembling, trying not to, and by the way she cringed with each too-deep breath and the determined set of her jaw, he’d say she hadn’t taken any of her pain meds since that morning. He felt a twinge of something, almost guilt, but stifled it quickly. “Guy was a smartass.”
Shutting the door, he fished for his Vicodin, searched around for whatever he had last been drinking-clear, but definitely alcohol, and while drinks and drugs were, to him, as familiar a combination as Dick and Jane, peanut butter and jelly-he couldn’t do that to her without feeling strangely bad about it.
“And you’re not?”
Cuddy had wheeled around at his couch, used the back of it to lean on but refused to retreat to a seat on lower ground. It was a pointless endeavor-she had to know that. He was still taller than she was, even when she wore those ridiculous heels, and knew how to loom over her in so many different ways: to win an argument, the upper hand; to make her uncomfortable; to set her heart racing (and his, by proxy)….
“If I hadn’t popped him one,” House stated as he approached her, making sure to stand much too close, pause, before continuing on his way, “he would’ve gotten it from someone else.”
“That still doesn’t….” She trailed off, and he could practically hear her frown, though he was already halfway towards the kitchen. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“I can hear your screeching just as well from in here,” he called, pulling a somewhat clean glass from the cabinet and rinsing it, voice rising over the rush of running water. “Go ahead.”
But Cuddy refused to give him the satisfaction. When he shuffled back into the living room, she was still standing where he had left her, arms half-folded-left cradling the right, the brace just visible under the sleeve of her jacket. She looked drained-of everything: color, energy, patience-though he knew, at least, that she had gotten some sleep the night before. It had taken her awhile to drift off, and he hadn’t followed till long after, listening to her breathing, her heartbeat, feeling her shift against him (trying to convince himself that all of this had kept him awake). It had only been a few hours stolen back from the pain, but it was a start.
“I shouldn’t have to explain this to you.” Her voice was more subdued now, and he could see her studying the new bruises on his face with something close to concern.
“Sit.” He took a drink from the glass he held, only because it was something to do. “Come on-you know I never played well with others.”
“You don’t even make an effort.” She was trying, almost desperately, to hold her ground, but if she didn’t give in to him now, she would have to succumb to gravity later, as what little strength she had left failed her. This was one battle she simply wasn’t going to win.
“Sit down, Cuddy.”
He was close to her now, so close that he’d be able to push her back onto the couch himself with only a few more inches. She swallowed, her breath hitching on a sigh that he heard and saw and felt trembling through him. Her hand was on his chest now, pushing him away-startling at first, but the distance was just enough for her to slip past him and around the couch, settling onto the cushions.
She was watching him, waiting, raising an eyebrow as he took her hand, tipping two tablets onto her palm and holding out the glass of water. With her hurt wrist, the gesture should have either forced her to immediately swallow the Vicodin or refuse the water (and start an argument, give him an excuse to touch her), but she did neither, carefully spilling the pills onto her other hand and taking the water glass.
Retrieving his recently-rediscovered glass of gin, House emptied the pill bottle of the last two tablets and gulped them easily, draining the drink not because he needed it to wash them down, but because the burn of alcohol was soothing as it slid down his throat. The glass clanked loudly as he dropped it onto the coffee table, hunkering down beside it, his knee brushing hers. Cuddy jumped slightly-at the sound, the contact-cocking her head and staring at the pills she still held out in front of her.
“House.” She took a breath, closed her eyes for just longer than it should have taken to blink. “It wasn’t him.”
And there it was-but gentle, almost with remorse.
He had known it already-before Wilson had intervened, yanking him by the collar (only succeeding in pulling him off the guy because of the gag reflex, air deprivation), even before his fist had first crashed against the patient’s face. But the connection had been solid, fulfilling, and never having seen the face of the attacker, not really, it had been easy enough to make due with what life (and the clinic) presented him. He had been restless that morning, after his and Cuddy’s lazy breakfast, and she hadn’t told him to leave or asked him to stay-hadn’t forced him to do his clinic hours, either, but that had eventually been where he’d ended up.
It had been a terribly fantastic five seconds: sharp, bony knuckles slamming into cartilage, tearing skin, scraping against teeth. The blows aimed against him had seemed feather-light, almost tickling-he could feel them now, in the aftermath, but at the time there had been much too much epinephrine, testosterone, for anything else to show through. It had been foolish, a mistake (not that he’d ever admit to it)-but it had felt damned good, and if Wilson hadn’t interfered, more than the patient’s nose would have been broken.
“Take those,” he responded finally (even while they both knew he had heard her), tilting his cane towards her hand.
She didn’t move at first, eyes locked so intently on his that he couldn’t have looked away if he’d tried, and the swift break when her gaze swept from his to her palm was almost painful (or this might have been his headache catching back up with him). When he looked back at her again, the pills were gone, the tip of her tongue slipping from between her lips to catch a stray drop of water. She was watching her hands, quivering even as they curved around the glass, the clear liquid rippling within.
“It’s not like one of your cases, House. Not something you can solve with a differential and a battery of tests. Sometimes-”
And he couldn’t have stopped his hand from reaching out to her chin, tipping it upward, his body bending, even if he had wanted to (laughable, really). She had been bruised and broken-physically, emotionally-a thousand times more than he had, yet here she was, trying to comfort him. There was anger and frustration-at himself, at whoever had done this to her (to them)-a surge of some emotion so sudden and intense that it didn’t have a name. Or maybe was just too many all at once: colliding, coalescing, convoluted and changing with every fraction of a second.
Behind his closed eyes, the spectrum spun like a pinwheel in a sudden rush of wind-glinting and metallic: the dark and vivid violet of anger twirling to heliotrope, lavender, mauve-taking with it the feeling of helplessness, dulling the blazing pain in his leg to the slow, familiar ache.
This was perfection, nostalgia-pure, simple, and….
Cuddy’s lips were soft, surprised, and she gasped when he made contact. Maybe it was only to breathe, maybe in astonishment. Whatever the rationale behind it, he didn’t hesitate to take advantage of her open mouth, and she didn’t seem to mind, leaning into him as he twisted, bridging the gap between the table and the sofa without breaking contact.
Anyone who claimed that time (and one’s heartbeat, breath, all ability to think) only stopped at death was either a complete moron or had simply never had the pleasure of kissing Lisa Cuddy.
The moment twisted, sticky and sweet as taffy, stretched out forever and not long enough. When she dropped her head downward, her lips trailing from his, he let her go, her cheek resting on his shoulder. His hand slid to the nape of her neck, fingers working out forgotten kinks and knots while she caught her breath.
He was careful with her, so careful, as if she were hand-blown glass: dangerously fragile, transparent, something to behold. She could be sharp when she wanted to be-needed to, for him-could solidly support or stand her ground (there was a crack there-one that he could consistently worm his way through no matter how often she’d tried to repair it). Right now, she was nothing but delicate-almost strange when juxtaposed with her usual strength-all smooth, hollow curves and silk edges.
“You didn’t let me finish,” Cuddy finally sighed against his neck, trying (failing) to chastise.
“You stopped me on my way to second base.”
He felt the warm puff of breath against his skin-silent laughter (almost)-and then she pulled away, slowly canting back against the arm of the sofa. Her eyes never left his lips, but it was as if in separating herself from him, her thoughts had been flung thousands of miles away (no doubt pushed forward from the darkest recesses of her mind, where they had been lurking all along).
“The police-”
“Are idiots,” he quickly snapped, instantly hating how vulnerable Cuddy suddenly became as she nodded in agreement, how admitting that seemed to tear from her what little hope and fortitude she’d had left.
The voice that followed was his-and the words-and even while he had known they were coming, it was still something of a surprise when they were only half-teasing. “Want to talk about it?”
It seemed to catch her off-guard, too, though she clung to the tone-soft and serious, but only as far as either of them wanted it to be. “When have we ever talked about anything?”
“Argue about it, then?” This seemed to relax her, granted him that half-smile she could never quite suppress, so he continued on, the next logical stop after years of (disguised, almost workplace-appropriate) foreplay. “We could just skip all the chit-chat and get straight to the sex.”
“Is it possible to have a conversation with you without it circling back to your sexual fantasies?”
“That’s not even a real question.”
And just like that-he had it. His fantasies. Hers. Not the same (for the most part-and in some places so different that they couldn’t even be translated from one to the other), but would it really be such a terrible thing if some edges were trimmed, a few concessions made, so that they could somehow fit together? It wouldn’t be neat and pretty-nowhere near picture-perfect (he could promise her nothing but blue eyes and a stubborn streak a mile wide). But it would be something-and the two of them, even if only for a few minutes at a time.
Cuddy was mid-comeback, but he didn’t hesitate (never did) to interrupt. “The Make-A-Wish Foundation.”
“House….” She was half-groaning, had followed his train of thought far enough to pick up the connection, but couldn’t possibly know where he was going to stop next.
“I could-” He took a breath, tried to sound nonchalant-it was now or never. “-make a donation. If you wanted it.”
“I thought you hated the idea,” Cuddy responded after a moment, almost a whisper. Confusion, astonishment, all of it guarded-she was searching his eyes so intently that he could feel the heat in the space between them, but if she was looking for a punch-line, she wouldn’t find it. She fidgeted, seemed to remember to continue the metaphor: “Of giving to charity.”
Looking away before the raw emotion in her gaze could wrest any from his, House shrugged. “I’ll do almost anything for a tax deduction.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Cuddy murmured. This, too, was to cover the silence-ridiculous, really, since they both seemed to know the gesture was no longer required. But old, comfortable habits can sometimes never be broken.
“Now, plastic cups and used magazines never really did anything for me, but if you let me trade them in for your C-cups….”
She didn’t respond-even while he had left her wide open-her arms folded across her stomach, chin tilted downward. And if she hadn’t moved so suddenly, he might not have seen the light glint off her tears.
But then she was kissing him-long and hard and wanting, with a ferocity that she shouldn’t have been in any shape to exude. Though he tried to be gentle in return, he knew when she moaned that it was pain more than desire, but let her continue. He had settled on violence earlier-this was her release, and it wasn’t until he felt her breath hitch, the hot tears slide from her skin to his, that he eased her back to stillness, held her as the tears fell from a dozen different emotions: for everything that had happened, all she had lost, even what she stood to gain.
“If you really thought it was such a bad idea, you could’ve just said so,” House teased, wishing it had come out as something more soothing (which really would have meant just as little-they were only words, after all), something more like, Everything will be okay. Not right now. Maybe not even soon. But, eventually….
Cuddy half-laughed through her tears-an exquisite sound-her fingers cold as they brushed against his, interlacing tightly the moment they made contact. I know, they said, Thank you, and even, House…. She had understood (always did), and he squeezed her hand to show that he did, too.
The silent conversation continued (endless)-conveying shades of thought and feeling that were too subtle for sound to convey. Through it, behind it, the banter continued-both of them talking, responding, biting back easily. Neither of them hearing a word.
Thanks so much to everyone who stopped by and said hello when I posted everything else earlier. Not that you need me to tell you this, but you guys are so made of win. *g*
Thursday, Nov. 15, 3:24 PM
His already-bruised knuckles were white as he gripped his cane, so tightly that it hurt, and he was almost surprised when the cane didn’t snap. The voice droned on in his ear, authoritative and cocky. “…another incident, this time at Plainsboro Park. Same timeframe, similar setup: female alone after dark. This victim wasn’t as lucky as Ms. Cu-”
“Doctor.”
He had been angry before-a nearly constant emotion for the past couple of days-but this abrupt flare of rage was so intense it barreled past every shade of red on the spectrum and barreled straight into vivid violet. Lucky? The fucking bastard. If he for one second thought that-
“Excuse me?” Lieutenant Whatever asked, clearly annoyed that his monologue had been interrupted.
“Doctor Cuddy.”
“Right. Doctor,” the police officer agreed, though his tone implied that he didn’t at all seem to think the distinction an important one. “With the hair samples and semen we collected from the second vic-”
“Listen, Officer-”
“Lieutenant.”
“Like there’s really a difference,” House scoffed, voice dripping with hatred and scorn and barely-contained fury that all somehow escaped the cop completely.
“Actually-”
“Do you have any useful information or did you just call me to hear yourself talk?”
The split-second silence on the other end was answer enough. House had forced one of New Jersey’s “finest” to deviate from his confident, “we can do no wrong” speech, and there was no chance in hell that anything the lieutenant ad-libbed would be true or helpful. “No positive ID yet, but now that we’ve established a pattern, I’m confident we’ll-”
Even though the slamming of the telephone receiver echoed loudly through his empty apartment, the gesture was nowhere near satisfying. House briefly considered seeing just how much time and effort it would take to smash the entire apparatus to smithereens, but instead settled for flexing his fingers, wincing. His hand ached, but at least in that there was some satisfaction-barely there anymore, but it had been, and that should have counted for something.
His leg was throbbing, the usual steadily pulsing twinge amped up, as if all the anger and aggravation of the past few days had decided to take up residence there-an annoying neighbor whose life seemed to consist of a single maddeningly loud party, interrupting the peace (thought and sleep) of everyone else on the block.
Gritting his teeth, House rubbed his thigh. The pain in his jaw, his knuckles, just wasn’t enough, and maybe it was what he had been looking for: a distraction. Wilson had been quick enough to point that out this morning-though House usually put little stock in anything his friend said while perched high on his moral pedestal (at least not until much later).
The knock on the door was forceful, jarring. He had known it would only be a matter of time before Wilson gathered his courage (and what little was usually left of his fury) to continue the lecture House had walked out on earlier.
“Before you put me back in a chokehold-”
But the hand that launched through the gap in the doorway, coming to rest on his forearm, wasn’t Wilson’s. Her touch was gentle, her voice, too, though she tried to frost it along the edges. “You broke his nose.”
“Wilson?” he asked coolly, his elbow suddenly smarting as if remembering the swift connection with the other man’s face. There probably should have been guilt there, but all he could manage was frustration (and relief at seeing her-but practiced nonchalance covered that well). “He deserved it. How did you get here?”
“Your clinic patient,” Cuddy crisply corrected, a hand clutching her cell phone, and his stomach clenched as he thought of her receiving a call very similar to the one that he had just ended. “And I drove.”
“He deserved it even more.”
House studied her as he spoke and she frowned. If anything, she looked worse than she had when he’d left her that morning, seemed to feel it, too, as she braced herself carefully on the doorframe. The stitches on her forehead stood out in dark contrast, even against the violent maroon of the bruise that surrounded them. She was dressed as if she had come straight from work, and he hoped the hospital hadn’t been stupid enough to call her in to deal with the aftermath of his morning outburst, tried to maintain his scowl.
“You didn’t mow down any old ladies on your way over here, did you?” he continued. “Lightweights like you shouldn’t take painkillers and drive.”
“You shouldn’t be assaulting your patients.”
“Would’ve been easier to yell at me over the phone.” He held the door further open, letting her trip past him, a flurry of heat, pheromones, and slow, smoldering anger. She was trembling, trying not to, and by the way she cringed with each too-deep breath and the determined set of her jaw, he’d say she hadn’t taken any of her pain meds since that morning. He felt a twinge of something, almost guilt, but stifled it quickly. “Guy was a smartass.”
Shutting the door, he fished for his Vicodin, searched around for whatever he had last been drinking-clear, but definitely alcohol, and while drinks and drugs were, to him, as familiar a combination as Dick and Jane, peanut butter and jelly-he couldn’t do that to her without feeling strangely bad about it.
“And you’re not?”
Cuddy had wheeled around at his couch, used the back of it to lean on but refused to retreat to a seat on lower ground. It was a pointless endeavor-she had to know that. He was still taller than she was, even when she wore those ridiculous heels, and knew how to loom over her in so many different ways: to win an argument, the upper hand; to make her uncomfortable; to set her heart racing (and his, by proxy)….
“If I hadn’t popped him one,” House stated as he approached her, making sure to stand much too close, pause, before continuing on his way, “he would’ve gotten it from someone else.”
“That still doesn’t….” She trailed off, and he could practically hear her frown, though he was already halfway towards the kitchen. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“I can hear your screeching just as well from in here,” he called, pulling a somewhat clean glass from the cabinet and rinsing it, voice rising over the rush of running water. “Go ahead.”
But Cuddy refused to give him the satisfaction. When he shuffled back into the living room, she was still standing where he had left her, arms half-folded-left cradling the right, the brace just visible under the sleeve of her jacket. She looked drained-of everything: color, energy, patience-though he knew, at least, that she had gotten some sleep the night before. It had taken her awhile to drift off, and he hadn’t followed till long after, listening to her breathing, her heartbeat, feeling her shift against him (trying to convince himself that all of this had kept him awake). It had only been a few hours stolen back from the pain, but it was a start.
“I shouldn’t have to explain this to you.” Her voice was more subdued now, and he could see her studying the new bruises on his face with something close to concern.
“Sit.” He took a drink from the glass he held, only because it was something to do. “Come on-you know I never played well with others.”
“You don’t even make an effort.” She was trying, almost desperately, to hold her ground, but if she didn’t give in to him now, she would have to succumb to gravity later, as what little strength she had left failed her. This was one battle she simply wasn’t going to win.
“Sit down, Cuddy.”
He was close to her now, so close that he’d be able to push her back onto the couch himself with only a few more inches. She swallowed, her breath hitching on a sigh that he heard and saw and felt trembling through him. Her hand was on his chest now, pushing him away-startling at first, but the distance was just enough for her to slip past him and around the couch, settling onto the cushions.
She was watching him, waiting, raising an eyebrow as he took her hand, tipping two tablets onto her palm and holding out the glass of water. With her hurt wrist, the gesture should have either forced her to immediately swallow the Vicodin or refuse the water (and start an argument, give him an excuse to touch her), but she did neither, carefully spilling the pills onto her other hand and taking the water glass.
Retrieving his recently-rediscovered glass of gin, House emptied the pill bottle of the last two tablets and gulped them easily, draining the drink not because he needed it to wash them down, but because the burn of alcohol was soothing as it slid down his throat. The glass clanked loudly as he dropped it onto the coffee table, hunkering down beside it, his knee brushing hers. Cuddy jumped slightly-at the sound, the contact-cocking her head and staring at the pills she still held out in front of her.
“House.” She took a breath, closed her eyes for just longer than it should have taken to blink. “It wasn’t him.”
And there it was-but gentle, almost with remorse.
He had known it already-before Wilson had intervened, yanking him by the collar (only succeeding in pulling him off the guy because of the gag reflex, air deprivation), even before his fist had first crashed against the patient’s face. But the connection had been solid, fulfilling, and never having seen the face of the attacker, not really, it had been easy enough to make due with what life (and the clinic) presented him. He had been restless that morning, after his and Cuddy’s lazy breakfast, and she hadn’t told him to leave or asked him to stay-hadn’t forced him to do his clinic hours, either, but that had eventually been where he’d ended up.
It had been a terribly fantastic five seconds: sharp, bony knuckles slamming into cartilage, tearing skin, scraping against teeth. The blows aimed against him had seemed feather-light, almost tickling-he could feel them now, in the aftermath, but at the time there had been much too much epinephrine, testosterone, for anything else to show through. It had been foolish, a mistake (not that he’d ever admit to it)-but it had felt damned good, and if Wilson hadn’t interfered, more than the patient’s nose would have been broken.
“Take those,” he responded finally (even while they both knew he had heard her), tilting his cane towards her hand.
She didn’t move at first, eyes locked so intently on his that he couldn’t have looked away if he’d tried, and the swift break when her gaze swept from his to her palm was almost painful (or this might have been his headache catching back up with him). When he looked back at her again, the pills were gone, the tip of her tongue slipping from between her lips to catch a stray drop of water. She was watching her hands, quivering even as they curved around the glass, the clear liquid rippling within.
“It’s not like one of your cases, House. Not something you can solve with a differential and a battery of tests. Sometimes-”
And he couldn’t have stopped his hand from reaching out to her chin, tipping it upward, his body bending, even if he had wanted to (laughable, really). She had been bruised and broken-physically, emotionally-a thousand times more than he had, yet here she was, trying to comfort him. There was anger and frustration-at himself, at whoever had done this to her (to them)-a surge of some emotion so sudden and intense that it didn’t have a name. Or maybe was just too many all at once: colliding, coalescing, convoluted and changing with every fraction of a second.
Behind his closed eyes, the spectrum spun like a pinwheel in a sudden rush of wind-glinting and metallic: the dark and vivid violet of anger twirling to heliotrope, lavender, mauve-taking with it the feeling of helplessness, dulling the blazing pain in his leg to the slow, familiar ache.
This was perfection, nostalgia-pure, simple, and….
Cuddy’s lips were soft, surprised, and she gasped when he made contact. Maybe it was only to breathe, maybe in astonishment. Whatever the rationale behind it, he didn’t hesitate to take advantage of her open mouth, and she didn’t seem to mind, leaning into him as he twisted, bridging the gap between the table and the sofa without breaking contact.
Anyone who claimed that time (and one’s heartbeat, breath, all ability to think) only stopped at death was either a complete moron or had simply never had the pleasure of kissing Lisa Cuddy.
The moment twisted, sticky and sweet as taffy, stretched out forever and not long enough. When she dropped her head downward, her lips trailing from his, he let her go, her cheek resting on his shoulder. His hand slid to the nape of her neck, fingers working out forgotten kinks and knots while she caught her breath.
He was careful with her, so careful, as if she were hand-blown glass: dangerously fragile, transparent, something to behold. She could be sharp when she wanted to be-needed to, for him-could solidly support or stand her ground (there was a crack there-one that he could consistently worm his way through no matter how often she’d tried to repair it). Right now, she was nothing but delicate-almost strange when juxtaposed with her usual strength-all smooth, hollow curves and silk edges.
“You didn’t let me finish,” Cuddy finally sighed against his neck, trying (failing) to chastise.
“You stopped me on my way to second base.”
He felt the warm puff of breath against his skin-silent laughter (almost)-and then she pulled away, slowly canting back against the arm of the sofa. Her eyes never left his lips, but it was as if in separating herself from him, her thoughts had been flung thousands of miles away (no doubt pushed forward from the darkest recesses of her mind, where they had been lurking all along).
“The police-”
“Are idiots,” he quickly snapped, instantly hating how vulnerable Cuddy suddenly became as she nodded in agreement, how admitting that seemed to tear from her what little hope and fortitude she’d had left.
The voice that followed was his-and the words-and even while he had known they were coming, it was still something of a surprise when they were only half-teasing. “Want to talk about it?”
It seemed to catch her off-guard, too, though she clung to the tone-soft and serious, but only as far as either of them wanted it to be. “When have we ever talked about anything?”
“Argue about it, then?” This seemed to relax her, granted him that half-smile she could never quite suppress, so he continued on, the next logical stop after years of (disguised, almost workplace-appropriate) foreplay. “We could just skip all the chit-chat and get straight to the sex.”
“Is it possible to have a conversation with you without it circling back to your sexual fantasies?”
“That’s not even a real question.”
And just like that-he had it. His fantasies. Hers. Not the same (for the most part-and in some places so different that they couldn’t even be translated from one to the other), but would it really be such a terrible thing if some edges were trimmed, a few concessions made, so that they could somehow fit together? It wouldn’t be neat and pretty-nowhere near picture-perfect (he could promise her nothing but blue eyes and a stubborn streak a mile wide). But it would be something-and the two of them, even if only for a few minutes at a time.
Cuddy was mid-comeback, but he didn’t hesitate (never did) to interrupt. “The Make-A-Wish Foundation.”
“House….” She was half-groaning, had followed his train of thought far enough to pick up the connection, but couldn’t possibly know where he was going to stop next.
“I could-” He took a breath, tried to sound nonchalant-it was now or never. “-make a donation. If you wanted it.”
“I thought you hated the idea,” Cuddy responded after a moment, almost a whisper. Confusion, astonishment, all of it guarded-she was searching his eyes so intently that he could feel the heat in the space between them, but if she was looking for a punch-line, she wouldn’t find it. She fidgeted, seemed to remember to continue the metaphor: “Of giving to charity.”
Looking away before the raw emotion in her gaze could wrest any from his, House shrugged. “I’ll do almost anything for a tax deduction.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Cuddy murmured. This, too, was to cover the silence-ridiculous, really, since they both seemed to know the gesture was no longer required. But old, comfortable habits can sometimes never be broken.
“Now, plastic cups and used magazines never really did anything for me, but if you let me trade them in for your C-cups….”
She didn’t respond-even while he had left her wide open-her arms folded across her stomach, chin tilted downward. And if she hadn’t moved so suddenly, he might not have seen the light glint off her tears.
But then she was kissing him-long and hard and wanting, with a ferocity that she shouldn’t have been in any shape to exude. Though he tried to be gentle in return, he knew when she moaned that it was pain more than desire, but let her continue. He had settled on violence earlier-this was her release, and it wasn’t until he felt her breath hitch, the hot tears slide from her skin to his, that he eased her back to stillness, held her as the tears fell from a dozen different emotions: for everything that had happened, all she had lost, even what she stood to gain.
“If you really thought it was such a bad idea, you could’ve just said so,” House teased, wishing it had come out as something more soothing (which really would have meant just as little-they were only words, after all), something more like, Everything will be okay. Not right now. Maybe not even soon. But, eventually….
Cuddy half-laughed through her tears-an exquisite sound-her fingers cold as they brushed against his, interlacing tightly the moment they made contact. I know, they said, Thank you, and even, House…. She had understood (always did), and he squeezed her hand to show that he did, too.
The silent conversation continued (endless)-conveying shades of thought and feeling that were too subtle for sound to convey. Through it, behind it, the banter continued-both of them talking, responding, biting back easily. Neither of them hearing a word.