One of these days I'll listen to myself
Just the other day I was telling a friend that I almost always write within a certain format because it's what I'm comfortable with, and what I'm reasonably comfortable that I can do a passable job with.
Then I get a mutant bunny and maybe I should've drowned it at birth with the other runts--I'll let you decide. It's Cuddy/Wilson. Yeah, you heard me--it's Cuddy/Wilson...but it's all about House.
The Best You Can Hope For
When it finally clicks, when you finally realize it's happened, it's both the worst thing that could happen and the best you can hope for. It's the worst because Cuddy's ship sailed years ago and Wilson's never coming out of that closet. Assuming, of course, that he's in the closet which you're not 100% sure of some days. It's the best because neither of them will ever fully belong to you and at least this way they won't belong to someone else, someone who might take them completely away from you.
You refuse to accept the solution, though, despite the fact you've always loved a good dichotomy, and press on in your attempt to abort the single worst idea ever in the history of matrimony.
"But you're not in love with him."
"I like him," Cuddy says, messing around with the papers on her desk so she doesn't have to look at you. "I like him and the sex is great and sometimes companionship means more than romance."
"You want companionship, you get a dog, not a husband. Although, if it's sex you're talking about then maybe a dog isn't the way to go."
Cuddy gives you a disgusted look but refuses to respond directly. "Afraid you're losing all two of your friends?"
"Wilson's a romantic. You're a romantic. The two of you getting married out of nothing more than pathetic loneliness is not romantic and, by the way, a disaster in the making." A disaster called divorce and then one of them will have to go and where will that leave you? You'll either have your best friend/dealer/cook or you'll have your boss/protector/masturbation fantasy material but you won't have both. All. Whatever.
"At least we're being honest about it."
"You're settling."
"For Wilson? That's flattering."
"He's been married three times already. And more importantly, he's been divorced three times. It'll never last."
"House, you know the part of the ceremony where they ask if anyone knows why these two should not be joined?" Cuddy waits until you give an impatient nod. "Speak, and I'll rip your tongue out."
~~**~~
"Have you lost your mind?"
Wilson doesn't even bother to look at you. He simply finishes writing orders for some of his useless cancer medicine and moves onto the next chart. "I'm going to assume that's a rhetorical question."
"She doesn't love you."
"She...likes me."
You're truly baffled. As long as you've known Wilson he's always been a sucker for love. So much so that he's currently supporting half the female population of Princeton. Since when does he go into marriage with his eyes open and his heart closed?
"It's pathetic."
"It's honest."
"Pathetic honesty." You pace the length of his office while your mind turns over all the possibilities. "You can't stand being alone so you pick a woman even more desperate and pathetic than you are."
"I like being with someone. And I picked a woman who is smart and sexy and likes baseball." Wilson finally looks up you. "People get married for worse reasons every day."
"You certainly have." Which is true, but doesn't really help your position when you're trying to prove that this reason is the worst reason Wilson has ever gotten married.
"You've got two months, House." Wilson is way too sure of himself for a guy who's engaged to marry a woman for pure convenience. And the breasts, obviously, but mostly for convenience. "Eight weeks to make your move. After that 'let no man put asunder'...not even you."
~~**~~
At Wilson and Cuddy's wedding you sit and scowl at anyone who glances in your direction, something neither the bride nor the groom make the mistake of doing. They exchange their vows in front of a justice of the peace and a relatively small group of friends and family. No fuss, no bother, no drowning in chiffon and flowers. Wilson's wearing a nice suit and Cuddy's wearing a simple champagne-colored sheath.
You're wearing clean underwear to mark the occasion. At least, you think they're clean.
The thing is you have to admit--but only to yourself--that Cuddy looks amazing. She looks happy and happiness makes her look even more beautiful than you've ever thought possible and you've always thought she was smoking hot. Wilson basks in the glow of that happiness and the strain that has built up over the years has eased. The pinched look on his face and the tightness in his shoulders is gone and he looks almost as young as he did when you first met.
It's a shame it'll never last.
Wilson, wisely, has not asked you to stand up with him and has explicitly asked you to not make a toast. In a rare moment of consideration for your best friend, it's the least you can do and you're all about doing the least you can. So you sit alone and glowering and when Cuddy and Wilson take the floor for their first dance, you think you may puke from the sheer sappiness of their smiles.
And if there's envy, it's purely for the grace of their movements, not the affection in their eyes.
~~**~~
You answer the knock on your door, baffled by Wilson's appearance on the other side.
"Hey," he says as he pushes past you, holding a six pack. "I brought beer."
"It's only been six weeks."
Wilson pauses, his face scrunched up in thought. "What?"
"You're married."
"To Cuddy," Wilson says as he continues on to the fridge and sets the beer inside. Now you've got the scrunchy thinking face and Wilson is staring at you as if he doesn't understand the need for the scrunchy thinking face. He throws up his hands, obviously surprised he has to explain it to you. You're a little surprised he has to explain it, too. You're usually much quicker on the uptake.
"She's used to her 'me' time and I'm used to spending time with you. It works. Why are you complaining?"
"You still call her Cuddy?" Because you don't really have a reason to complain that Cuddy's given Wilson a long leash but you're not about to let him off the hook. There has to be something wrong with the marriage, even if it's only that they have you for a friend.
"Safer that way. She'd castrate me if I slipped and called her Sweet Cheeks in a board meeting."
She would, too, but Wilson doesn't look all that worried about the possibility and now your mind is on this weird loop of wondering what Wilson does call her in bed. And what she calls him. You consider, just for a moment, planting a bug in their bedroom but that's more torture than even you are willing to subject yourself to.
"Are her breasts all I've imagined them to be?"
"Yes, but you weren't just imagining," Wilson says easily.
"She told you?"
"She figured you'd mention it at some point and she preferred I hear it from her." Wilson regards you with both affection and a certain smugness that comes from knowing that he's got what you had once, for a moment.
"All that honesty--you realize that's a guarantee this will never last."
"Depends on what the honesty is about."
"You lie to Cuddy?" You're mildly surprised. Wilson lies with such sincerity he usually gets away with it, but he's always had this pathological need to come clean eventually, especially with his wives. And Cuddy had him whipped even before they were married.
"All the time." Wilson makes a grab for the remote and you snatch it off the coffee table right from under his fingers. He gives you a pointed look. "Almost every day I tell her you did do your clinic duty or you didn't insult your patient or you're not taking too much Vicodin."
"Pfftt." You know Cuddy probably doesn't believe any of that but if she did it would be because it was Wilson who said it. You toss the remote at him and slump down into the cushions. "Get me a beer."
~~**~~
"You have to cheat on Wilson or kick his puppy. Something."
"Really? Why?" Cuddy is amused and damn it, you didn't march out of happy Wilson's office just to deal with happy Cuddy. The really frustrating part is that neither of them is happy happy. They're not laughing and singing and bringing joy to little bald cancer kids. They're simply...content. Cuddy has lost that harried air and Wilson doesn't mope in his office but you need your friends to be as screwed up as you are.
"Because he's happy and he's not even on happy pills anymore."
"That's a shame," Cuddy says dryly. "And what makes you think I have a problem with this?"
"You've destroyed the natural order of the universe."
"Go me." She gives you that smug look that comes from knowing that she's got what you wanted. "And you said it wouldn't last."
'It's only been ten months, two weeks and six days. You're not out of the woods yet." You give Cuddy a long, appraising look and if you're right--and you usually are, eventually--the trees are beginning to thin. "You picked an OB yet?"
She stares at you, then shrugs. "Carson."
"My god, you want that to be the first face your kid sees?" Carson looks like a thyrotoxic ferret but she actually knows what she's doing. Most of the time.
Cuddy simply shrugs. "It's better than a slap on the ass."
~~**~~
What's even stranger than Wilson still spending time in your home is that you start spending time in his. His and Cuddy's. Cuddy's living room has always been XY accessible. It's not flowery or frilly or pink. But you always thought of it as her web, designed to ensnare the unwary single male, and not as a place you'd ever be resting your feet on the coffee table and sharing popcorn out of one big bowl. And enjoying it.
"That was a fair ball," Cuddy yells at the tv, her exasperated hands knocking the bowl and scattering cheese popcorn on the floor. She turns to Wilson. "You saw it."
"Well...."
"Oh, shut up." Cuddy slumps back on the couch, pouting and Wilson shrugs. You clear your throat and stare pointedly at the floor. Cuddy brushes off your concern. "The dog will get it."
Sure enough the mutt they rescued from the pound is vacuuming up the popcorn like he hasn't been fed in a month. "I always knew Wilson would be the girl in this relationship, but when did you become such a slob?"
Wilson rolls his eyes but pretends he didn't hear. Cuddy ignores you until the last batter pops out to second base. Then she turns the evil eye on you. "This from a man who looks like an unmade bed?"
"It's my signature style."
"Yeah. You keep telling yourself that."
You watch Cuddy lean over to kiss Wilson then plod slowly out of the room and down the hall. You look at Wilson, who's currently channel surfing instead of following his smoking hot wife into the bedroom, and you're sure you're seeing the first cracks in the happily ever after façade. You usually love saying 'I told you so,' but you're not as happy about that as you thought you'd be
"Aren't you supposed to go service your wife now?"
"Not tonight."
"You already lost that loving feeling?"
"None of your business."
You ponder Wilson's words, and more importantly, his demeanor. Then you consider Cuddy's demeanor, and more importantly, her breasts. "When did she lose it?"
Wilson sighs. "Last week."
"It happens." And why are you suddenly being Mr. Supportive? You don't want them to reproduce. You don't even want them married. "Happens to a lot of women. Doesn't mean anything."
"She doesn't want to hear that right now."
"Yeah, but...shouldn't you be...letting her cry on your shoulder or rubbing her feet or making a new baby?"
"House." Wilson says your name in that tone that means you shouldn't push it. This time, you think you just might pay heed.
~~**~~
Cuddy suffers two more miscarriages before their third anniversary and even you hurt for them. You're not going to say it, though. In fact, what you do say is that Cuddy should finally get a clue that she wasn't meant to be a mother. You actually do feel like an ass when it turns out she has.
Wilson being Wilson, he's decided that if they're going to put a permanent end to their parental hopes, then it's easier for him to get the operation than her. So when you wander, just by accident, into the clinic where they emasculate whipped husbands, it's Cuddy sitting alone in the corner huddled in on herself.
You sit in the chair next to her, plant your cane between your legs, and watch the tear winding an erratic path down her cheek. You know you're totally worthless at this stuff so you sit and say nothing and when she's done you shove a box of tissues at her. By the time Wilson walks--gingerly--back into the waiting room, she's dry-eyed and composed. She goes to him and puts her arm around his waist and Wilson puts his arm around her shoulders and presses a faint kiss to her forehead before they walk--gingerly--out of the clinic together.
And that's when you realize this just might last.
~~**~~
You drag your finger through the icing and Cuddy smacks your hand with the spatula. "Stop it."
"It's my birthday cake." It's the first birthday cake you've had since you were ten years old but having somehow become Cuddy and Wilson's surrogate child, it makes sense. At least it makes sense if being their soon-to-qualify-for-AARP surrogate child makes sense, which you really don't like thinking about given that you'd still like to hit that. Either that.
Besides, you thought they got the rescue dog to be their surrogate child.
"It's not like you baked it."
"Wilson made it but I'm in charge of the decorating." She smacks your wandering fingers again and you dab a bit of icing on her nose. "Why didn't you go shopping with him?"
"Shopping with Wilson is embarrassing. Real men don't read labels."
"Which would explain how you can end up with three cans of refried beans and no salsa." Wilson enters the kitchen and sets two bags of groceries on the table before giving Cuddy a peck on the cheek.
"Hey, where's my kiss?"
Without missing a beat, Wilson turns, gives you a peck on the cheek, then hands you an onion and a knife. "Make yourself useful."
You're sitting there, onion and knife in hand, still trying to figure out the kiss when Wilson sees the cake. He gives Cuddy a look and she plants her hands on her hips, a gesture so Wilsonian that you think maybe they're spending too much time together.
"Don't look at me." Cuddy points an accusing finger in your direction. "He's the one who wouldn't stay out of it."
"You trying to put the moves on my wife again?"
"I never stopped putting the moves on your wife." The years haven't been kind to you and neither has your addiction. You're afraid the best you could do is be an extremely interested observer even if you could talk both of them into that threesome. Still, it is what you asked for as a birthday present and voyeurism isn't outside your realm of interest.
Unfortunately, it appears to be outside theirs.
~~**~~
"Yes, Mom." Wilson rolls his eyes. "Look, Lisa wants to talk to you and I don't want to run up your bill so I'll talk to you later."
You grin broadly and Cuddy's eyes go wide as she silently curses Wilson but when she takes the phone and wanders into the house her voice is as pleasant as it possibly could be. Must be all that advanced administrator training she has. Either that or all the House training.
"You're going to pay for that."
"Not so much," Wilson says, not sounding the least bit worried. The two of you sit on the back porch watching the coals in the grill fade to gray ash and Cuddy's voice sounds faintly from inside. "She knows there's only one of us that can get my mom off the phone and it isn't me."
"Wuss."
Wilson isn't worried by that either but then he learned a long time ago to not get worried about much of anything you say to him.
"I know you'll never say it, so happy anniversary." Wilson salutes himself with the beer bottle. You very pointedly don't raise your own bottle. Wilson raises his eyebrows, then looks away again. "It's been six years. You said it wouldn't last."
"You settled." You take a long drink of your own beer because yeah, it's been six years and Wilson's had marriages last longer than that before but this time he settled. Settled for a woman who's smart and sexy and funny and fusses over him when he's sick and stays up late with him when the game goes into extra innings. And you're pretty sure this time it's going to last.
"I thought I was the one who settled." Cuddy rests her ass on the arm of Wilson's chair and waits, already amused by your explanation.
"You did. Too. As well as."
"Right, I wasn't supposed to settle for looks and intelligence and wit."
Wilson raises his bottle again but Cuddy intercepts and finishes it off. You clutch your own bottle close to your chest because you don't trust her. It wouldn't be the first time she's stolen something right from under you.
"Remind me again--what was I supposed to wait for?" Cuddy asks as she grabs a fresh bottle from the cooler and hands it to Wilson.
"Me."
Turns out you were right just like you always are, eventually. Cuddy and Wilson getting married is the best you could've hoped for because even though they each might have been within your grasp at some point in time, you were never going to take the chance. It's also the worst that could've happened because against all odds they've created something for themselves that you'll never know. And as much as they include you in their lives, there's a line you can't cross. Even the dog has a more intimate connection to their lives than you do and you figure it's kind of cruel to consider offing the mutt in an attempt to gain entrance to their private circle.
Then again, you've never liked that damn dog.
Then I get a mutant bunny and maybe I should've drowned it at birth with the other runts--I'll let you decide. It's Cuddy/Wilson. Yeah, you heard me--it's Cuddy/Wilson...but it's all about House.
The Best You Can Hope For
When it finally clicks, when you finally realize it's happened, it's both the worst thing that could happen and the best you can hope for. It's the worst because Cuddy's ship sailed years ago and Wilson's never coming out of that closet. Assuming, of course, that he's in the closet which you're not 100% sure of some days. It's the best because neither of them will ever fully belong to you and at least this way they won't belong to someone else, someone who might take them completely away from you.
You refuse to accept the solution, though, despite the fact you've always loved a good dichotomy, and press on in your attempt to abort the single worst idea ever in the history of matrimony.
"But you're not in love with him."
"I like him," Cuddy says, messing around with the papers on her desk so she doesn't have to look at you. "I like him and the sex is great and sometimes companionship means more than romance."
"You want companionship, you get a dog, not a husband. Although, if it's sex you're talking about then maybe a dog isn't the way to go."
Cuddy gives you a disgusted look but refuses to respond directly. "Afraid you're losing all two of your friends?"
"Wilson's a romantic. You're a romantic. The two of you getting married out of nothing more than pathetic loneliness is not romantic and, by the way, a disaster in the making." A disaster called divorce and then one of them will have to go and where will that leave you? You'll either have your best friend/dealer/cook or you'll have your boss/protector/masturbation fantasy material but you won't have both. All. Whatever.
"At least we're being honest about it."
"You're settling."
"For Wilson? That's flattering."
"He's been married three times already. And more importantly, he's been divorced three times. It'll never last."
"House, you know the part of the ceremony where they ask if anyone knows why these two should not be joined?" Cuddy waits until you give an impatient nod. "Speak, and I'll rip your tongue out."
~~**~~
"Have you lost your mind?"
Wilson doesn't even bother to look at you. He simply finishes writing orders for some of his useless cancer medicine and moves onto the next chart. "I'm going to assume that's a rhetorical question."
"She doesn't love you."
"She...likes me."
You're truly baffled. As long as you've known Wilson he's always been a sucker for love. So much so that he's currently supporting half the female population of Princeton. Since when does he go into marriage with his eyes open and his heart closed?
"It's pathetic."
"It's honest."
"Pathetic honesty." You pace the length of his office while your mind turns over all the possibilities. "You can't stand being alone so you pick a woman even more desperate and pathetic than you are."
"I like being with someone. And I picked a woman who is smart and sexy and likes baseball." Wilson finally looks up you. "People get married for worse reasons every day."
"You certainly have." Which is true, but doesn't really help your position when you're trying to prove that this reason is the worst reason Wilson has ever gotten married.
"You've got two months, House." Wilson is way too sure of himself for a guy who's engaged to marry a woman for pure convenience. And the breasts, obviously, but mostly for convenience. "Eight weeks to make your move. After that 'let no man put asunder'...not even you."
~~**~~
At Wilson and Cuddy's wedding you sit and scowl at anyone who glances in your direction, something neither the bride nor the groom make the mistake of doing. They exchange their vows in front of a justice of the peace and a relatively small group of friends and family. No fuss, no bother, no drowning in chiffon and flowers. Wilson's wearing a nice suit and Cuddy's wearing a simple champagne-colored sheath.
You're wearing clean underwear to mark the occasion. At least, you think they're clean.
The thing is you have to admit--but only to yourself--that Cuddy looks amazing. She looks happy and happiness makes her look even more beautiful than you've ever thought possible and you've always thought she was smoking hot. Wilson basks in the glow of that happiness and the strain that has built up over the years has eased. The pinched look on his face and the tightness in his shoulders is gone and he looks almost as young as he did when you first met.
It's a shame it'll never last.
Wilson, wisely, has not asked you to stand up with him and has explicitly asked you to not make a toast. In a rare moment of consideration for your best friend, it's the least you can do and you're all about doing the least you can. So you sit alone and glowering and when Cuddy and Wilson take the floor for their first dance, you think you may puke from the sheer sappiness of their smiles.
And if there's envy, it's purely for the grace of their movements, not the affection in their eyes.
~~**~~
You answer the knock on your door, baffled by Wilson's appearance on the other side.
"Hey," he says as he pushes past you, holding a six pack. "I brought beer."
"It's only been six weeks."
Wilson pauses, his face scrunched up in thought. "What?"
"You're married."
"To Cuddy," Wilson says as he continues on to the fridge and sets the beer inside. Now you've got the scrunchy thinking face and Wilson is staring at you as if he doesn't understand the need for the scrunchy thinking face. He throws up his hands, obviously surprised he has to explain it to you. You're a little surprised he has to explain it, too. You're usually much quicker on the uptake.
"She's used to her 'me' time and I'm used to spending time with you. It works. Why are you complaining?"
"You still call her Cuddy?" Because you don't really have a reason to complain that Cuddy's given Wilson a long leash but you're not about to let him off the hook. There has to be something wrong with the marriage, even if it's only that they have you for a friend.
"Safer that way. She'd castrate me if I slipped and called her Sweet Cheeks in a board meeting."
She would, too, but Wilson doesn't look all that worried about the possibility and now your mind is on this weird loop of wondering what Wilson does call her in bed. And what she calls him. You consider, just for a moment, planting a bug in their bedroom but that's more torture than even you are willing to subject yourself to.
"Are her breasts all I've imagined them to be?"
"Yes, but you weren't just imagining," Wilson says easily.
"She told you?"
"She figured you'd mention it at some point and she preferred I hear it from her." Wilson regards you with both affection and a certain smugness that comes from knowing that he's got what you had once, for a moment.
"All that honesty--you realize that's a guarantee this will never last."
"Depends on what the honesty is about."
"You lie to Cuddy?" You're mildly surprised. Wilson lies with such sincerity he usually gets away with it, but he's always had this pathological need to come clean eventually, especially with his wives. And Cuddy had him whipped even before they were married.
"All the time." Wilson makes a grab for the remote and you snatch it off the coffee table right from under his fingers. He gives you a pointed look. "Almost every day I tell her you did do your clinic duty or you didn't insult your patient or you're not taking too much Vicodin."
"Pfftt." You know Cuddy probably doesn't believe any of that but if she did it would be because it was Wilson who said it. You toss the remote at him and slump down into the cushions. "Get me a beer."
~~**~~
"You have to cheat on Wilson or kick his puppy. Something."
"Really? Why?" Cuddy is amused and damn it, you didn't march out of happy Wilson's office just to deal with happy Cuddy. The really frustrating part is that neither of them is happy happy. They're not laughing and singing and bringing joy to little bald cancer kids. They're simply...content. Cuddy has lost that harried air and Wilson doesn't mope in his office but you need your friends to be as screwed up as you are.
"Because he's happy and he's not even on happy pills anymore."
"That's a shame," Cuddy says dryly. "And what makes you think I have a problem with this?"
"You've destroyed the natural order of the universe."
"Go me." She gives you that smug look that comes from knowing that she's got what you wanted. "And you said it wouldn't last."
'It's only been ten months, two weeks and six days. You're not out of the woods yet." You give Cuddy a long, appraising look and if you're right--and you usually are, eventually--the trees are beginning to thin. "You picked an OB yet?"
She stares at you, then shrugs. "Carson."
"My god, you want that to be the first face your kid sees?" Carson looks like a thyrotoxic ferret but she actually knows what she's doing. Most of the time.
Cuddy simply shrugs. "It's better than a slap on the ass."
~~**~~
What's even stranger than Wilson still spending time in your home is that you start spending time in his. His and Cuddy's. Cuddy's living room has always been XY accessible. It's not flowery or frilly or pink. But you always thought of it as her web, designed to ensnare the unwary single male, and not as a place you'd ever be resting your feet on the coffee table and sharing popcorn out of one big bowl. And enjoying it.
"That was a fair ball," Cuddy yells at the tv, her exasperated hands knocking the bowl and scattering cheese popcorn on the floor. She turns to Wilson. "You saw it."
"Well...."
"Oh, shut up." Cuddy slumps back on the couch, pouting and Wilson shrugs. You clear your throat and stare pointedly at the floor. Cuddy brushes off your concern. "The dog will get it."
Sure enough the mutt they rescued from the pound is vacuuming up the popcorn like he hasn't been fed in a month. "I always knew Wilson would be the girl in this relationship, but when did you become such a slob?"
Wilson rolls his eyes but pretends he didn't hear. Cuddy ignores you until the last batter pops out to second base. Then she turns the evil eye on you. "This from a man who looks like an unmade bed?"
"It's my signature style."
"Yeah. You keep telling yourself that."
You watch Cuddy lean over to kiss Wilson then plod slowly out of the room and down the hall. You look at Wilson, who's currently channel surfing instead of following his smoking hot wife into the bedroom, and you're sure you're seeing the first cracks in the happily ever after façade. You usually love saying 'I told you so,' but you're not as happy about that as you thought you'd be
"Aren't you supposed to go service your wife now?"
"Not tonight."
"You already lost that loving feeling?"
"None of your business."
You ponder Wilson's words, and more importantly, his demeanor. Then you consider Cuddy's demeanor, and more importantly, her breasts. "When did she lose it?"
Wilson sighs. "Last week."
"It happens." And why are you suddenly being Mr. Supportive? You don't want them to reproduce. You don't even want them married. "Happens to a lot of women. Doesn't mean anything."
"She doesn't want to hear that right now."
"Yeah, but...shouldn't you be...letting her cry on your shoulder or rubbing her feet or making a new baby?"
"House." Wilson says your name in that tone that means you shouldn't push it. This time, you think you just might pay heed.
~~**~~
Cuddy suffers two more miscarriages before their third anniversary and even you hurt for them. You're not going to say it, though. In fact, what you do say is that Cuddy should finally get a clue that she wasn't meant to be a mother. You actually do feel like an ass when it turns out she has.
Wilson being Wilson, he's decided that if they're going to put a permanent end to their parental hopes, then it's easier for him to get the operation than her. So when you wander, just by accident, into the clinic where they emasculate whipped husbands, it's Cuddy sitting alone in the corner huddled in on herself.
You sit in the chair next to her, plant your cane between your legs, and watch the tear winding an erratic path down her cheek. You know you're totally worthless at this stuff so you sit and say nothing and when she's done you shove a box of tissues at her. By the time Wilson walks--gingerly--back into the waiting room, she's dry-eyed and composed. She goes to him and puts her arm around his waist and Wilson puts his arm around her shoulders and presses a faint kiss to her forehead before they walk--gingerly--out of the clinic together.
And that's when you realize this just might last.
~~**~~
You drag your finger through the icing and Cuddy smacks your hand with the spatula. "Stop it."
"It's my birthday cake." It's the first birthday cake you've had since you were ten years old but having somehow become Cuddy and Wilson's surrogate child, it makes sense. At least it makes sense if being their soon-to-qualify-for-AARP surrogate child makes sense, which you really don't like thinking about given that you'd still like to hit that. Either that.
Besides, you thought they got the rescue dog to be their surrogate child.
"It's not like you baked it."
"Wilson made it but I'm in charge of the decorating." She smacks your wandering fingers again and you dab a bit of icing on her nose. "Why didn't you go shopping with him?"
"Shopping with Wilson is embarrassing. Real men don't read labels."
"Which would explain how you can end up with three cans of refried beans and no salsa." Wilson enters the kitchen and sets two bags of groceries on the table before giving Cuddy a peck on the cheek.
"Hey, where's my kiss?"
Without missing a beat, Wilson turns, gives you a peck on the cheek, then hands you an onion and a knife. "Make yourself useful."
You're sitting there, onion and knife in hand, still trying to figure out the kiss when Wilson sees the cake. He gives Cuddy a look and she plants her hands on her hips, a gesture so Wilsonian that you think maybe they're spending too much time together.
"Don't look at me." Cuddy points an accusing finger in your direction. "He's the one who wouldn't stay out of it."
"You trying to put the moves on my wife again?"
"I never stopped putting the moves on your wife." The years haven't been kind to you and neither has your addiction. You're afraid the best you could do is be an extremely interested observer even if you could talk both of them into that threesome. Still, it is what you asked for as a birthday present and voyeurism isn't outside your realm of interest.
Unfortunately, it appears to be outside theirs.
~~**~~
"Yes, Mom." Wilson rolls his eyes. "Look, Lisa wants to talk to you and I don't want to run up your bill so I'll talk to you later."
You grin broadly and Cuddy's eyes go wide as she silently curses Wilson but when she takes the phone and wanders into the house her voice is as pleasant as it possibly could be. Must be all that advanced administrator training she has. Either that or all the House training.
"You're going to pay for that."
"Not so much," Wilson says, not sounding the least bit worried. The two of you sit on the back porch watching the coals in the grill fade to gray ash and Cuddy's voice sounds faintly from inside. "She knows there's only one of us that can get my mom off the phone and it isn't me."
"Wuss."
Wilson isn't worried by that either but then he learned a long time ago to not get worried about much of anything you say to him.
"I know you'll never say it, so happy anniversary." Wilson salutes himself with the beer bottle. You very pointedly don't raise your own bottle. Wilson raises his eyebrows, then looks away again. "It's been six years. You said it wouldn't last."
"You settled." You take a long drink of your own beer because yeah, it's been six years and Wilson's had marriages last longer than that before but this time he settled. Settled for a woman who's smart and sexy and funny and fusses over him when he's sick and stays up late with him when the game goes into extra innings. And you're pretty sure this time it's going to last.
"I thought I was the one who settled." Cuddy rests her ass on the arm of Wilson's chair and waits, already amused by your explanation.
"You did. Too. As well as."
"Right, I wasn't supposed to settle for looks and intelligence and wit."
Wilson raises his bottle again but Cuddy intercepts and finishes it off. You clutch your own bottle close to your chest because you don't trust her. It wouldn't be the first time she's stolen something right from under you.
"Remind me again--what was I supposed to wait for?" Cuddy asks as she grabs a fresh bottle from the cooler and hands it to Wilson.
"Me."
Turns out you were right just like you always are, eventually. Cuddy and Wilson getting married is the best you could've hoped for because even though they each might have been within your grasp at some point in time, you were never going to take the chance. It's also the worst that could've happened because against all odds they've created something for themselves that you'll never know. And as much as they include you in their lives, there's a line you can't cross. Even the dog has a more intimate connection to their lives than you do and you figure it's kind of cruel to consider offing the mutt in an attempt to gain entrance to their private circle.
Then again, you've never liked that damn dog.