They Faked Their Way Through Fairytale of New York, House/Cuddy, NC17
Title: They Faked Their Way Through Fairytale of New York
Pairing: House/Cuddy (no, really)
Rating: NC17
Spoilers: Up to and including the season 7 finale (I haven't watched since, so forgive anything that I might be Jossed on)
Disclaimer: The characters belong to Shore, NBC Universal and whoever else wants to claim credit for wrecking them. I'm putting them back more or less as I found them! The title is a lyric from a song by The Hold Steady - 'Chicago Seemed Tired Last Night'.
Prompt: House/Cuddy, five Christmases that never happened (and one that did)
Dedication: For my darling flippet, who takes me to the ballgame and can psychically send emails in the midst of an otherwise rubbish day. She's pretty like Chicago architecture, and a truly wonderful friend to know.
1.
As campus empties itself of students, the snow falls again to fill the space. Green and gray spaces become blank sheets of white overnight, and Lisa finds herself practically hugging the radiator in her dorm to stay warm.
Her mom’s letter is on the pinboard, the angry capitals and army of exclamation points accusing even from across the room. Lisa stares at it for a moment, reassessing her decision for the twentieth time, before bowing her head and getting lost in her brand new Infectious Disease textbook.
He’s late, she thinks, as she turns the page into chapter seventeen. It hadn’t exactly been a promise or anything, but lying in bed this morning House had seemed pretty excited about her not going home for the holidays.
She gives it another hour, before the gnawing worry has become too much of a distraction. Dragging out her snow boots and a couple of extra layers, she struggles to pull a hat down over her uncontrollable goddamn curls. Lisa doesn’t know whether she’s concerned or angry, all told, and she feels more than a little conflicted as she trudges out into the night.
It’s like the world has had the sound turned all the way down, and it would be beautiful if she weren’t on a mission. There’s nothing but the crunch of her boots in the snow until she’s standing outside his shared apartment.
She knocks, but gets only a stoned roommate and a hastily emptied room for her trouble. There’s a ripped Stones poster still hanging on one wall, and a forgotten sock by the headboard, but otherwise the room feels as blank as the snowy streets outside.
Lisa doesn’t cry until she’s halfway back to her dorm, the warm tears scalding against her freezing cheeks, feeling like they might freeze in turn. She stumbles a little, unable to see the path with watering eyes.
By the time she’s shrugging off the extra clothes and kicking off her boots, the flow has already been stemmed. She wipes away the evidence with the sleeve of her new Michigan sweater, and vows then and there that she’s done caring about this. So she’ll spend Christmas alone, like she originally planned; it’s not like she even celebrates the damn holiday.
Infectious Diseases are waiting right where she left them. With one last sigh, she crawls back under the blankets and picks up the book that’s as heavy as her heart.
2.
There are places more depressing than an airport bar on Christmas Eve, but she can’t think of any right now. Her back is still aching from pulling a double, pausing only to shower before driving way over the speed limit to make her flight.
Which, of course, has a two-hour delay.
The bartender is handing her a glass of Chardonnay when the guy sitting next to her finally speaks. He’s wearing a baseball cap pulled low and has stubble just crying out for a decent razor. Great, another creep hitting on her when she’s too tired to be polite.
“Did you learn to be this rude in med school?” He asks, and there’s something familiar in the gruff voice and its neutral accent. Then he turns to look at her and suddenly Cuddy is thrown back nine years.
“House?” She asks, incredulous. She can’t believe she remembers his name, but that’s the problem with almost never dating: she remembers the few and far between. “What the hell?”
He whistles, in perfect pitch, the aggravating Disney song to suggest that it is, in fact, a small world after all.
“Going home like the dutiful daughter?” He asks, his tone exactly as mocking as she remembers. “I thought the chosen people didn’t go in for Christmas?”
“This was the only time off I could get,” she snaps, already on the defensive. “And we celebrate the holidays, it’s just that Hannukah has already been and gone.”
“You don’t look too enthused about it,” he calls her on it, and Cuddy groans a little at being so transparent.
“No,” she concedes. “I don’t need another three-day lecture about working too hard and not having found a good husband yet. But, that’s what people do, right?”
“That’s what idiots do,” he says, taking a long pull on his beer. “Obligation is for wimps.”
“And you’re not doing the same thing, sitting here in the airport?” She asks, disbelieving that he’d be quite so abrupt.
“Nope. I’m fleeing the state. Totally different.”
“Oh,” Cuddy says, taking a hearty swallow of wine. “Well, that’s okay then.”
For a moment it looks like he might say more, might explain himself and a real reason for being in the airport, but he turns back to his beer and the moment passes.
“I’m going to Vegas,” he says, turning back to her with a gleam in his eye. “You could blow off your family obligations. Come with me, play hooky for a few days.”
“Right,” she snorts. “I’m going to run off to Vegas with a one-night stand I haven’t seen since college. That totally sounds like something people do.”
“Sounds like more fun than a lecture,” he goads her, seemingly unconcerned with how much time has elapsed and how they barely know each other now.
“Right. So do a lot of things.”
“Come on, Lisa,” he says, and it’s almost kind of cute when he asks nicely.
“I prefer Cuddy now; Dr. Cuddy. That’s how it goes in the big, bad world,” she feels another dig about how much he doesn’t know her, about how much time has passed, is warranted.
“Fine, Cuddy. Come to Vegas. Live a little.”
And somehow, she’s thinking about it. Thinking about slot machines and fancy drinks and giant hotel beds instead of family arguments and her lumpy childhood bed in Long Island. It’s tempting, so very tempting, and she doesn’t even really know why.
She opens her mouth to accept, with some ridiculous condition or other, when the tannoy interrupts.
They’re calling her flight.
It’s like a sudden blaze of clarity in her foggy and exhausted mind. She picks up her glass and polishes it off in record time. Placing it back down, she summons up a smile and picks up her carry-on.
“Maybe some other time,” she doesn’t promise, and he watches her go with what might just be disappointment.
In the chaos of boarding and the nerves over flying, she loses track of him pretty quickly. It’s only that night, sitting on her parents’ sofa, that she allows herself a moment to regret.
3.
“Stacy’s going to Memphis,” he says, apropos of nothing. Cuddy looks up from her stack of paperwork just long enough to roll her eyes.
“Let me guess--after last year, you’re not invited?”
“It’s probably because they’re racist,” House sighs, collapsing onto her brand new couch.
“Hate to disappoint you, House, but you are, in fact, white,” Cuddy points out, crossing out three ridiculous line items on the oncology budget and signing off on the remainder. She needs to get a new Head of Department in there before Dr. Cole manages to bankrupt them.
“Not in--”
“No penis jokes today, House. Seriously.”
“You sticking around for the holidays?” He asks, his legs bouncing with unspent energy.
“Oh no you don’t,” Cuddy warns, dropping her pen to the desk. “I don’t celebrate Christmas. You’re not going to con me into cooking for you. Not gonna happen.” She stares him down. “Don’t you have a patient?”
“Cured her. Well, of the autoimmune problem. She’s still a bitch,” he sighs, already bored. “Hey, what do you take for that, maybe I can prescribe it?”
“Ha. Ha,” Cuddy says, rubbing her temples.
“You can’t cook anyway,” House points out.
“Wow, this is quite the charm offensive.”
“If you have beer in your fridge and some takeout menus, maybe we can kill some time, is all I’m saying. I guess you’ll be working the rest of the time, trying to prove that your job is more fulfilling than a man, or whatever your deal is this month.”
“Get out,” Cuddy snaps, but he smirks because he knows that he’s won.
“Nothing domestic,” he says, having the sheer brass balls to put in a drinks request after being pointedly refused. Cuddy shakes her head and gets back to work, but in the grocery store that night she picks up some imported beer and shoves it in the back of her fridge when she gets home.
Christmas morning comes and goes, and by the time the sun sets there’s still no sign of him. Cuddy’s staring at the television, a takeout menu in her hand when a text message finally makes her clunky Nokia beep.
Merry Christmas from Memphis! Love, Stacy and Greg xx
Cuddy rolls her eyes and switches the phone off. She should really have known better.
4.
Wilson calls and tells her about the pills, about the overdose. Her instinct is to get in the car and rush over there, but Wilson talks her down like one of his cancer patients.
Cuddy settles for worrying instead. When House calls, in the early hours of the morning, she sends him straight to voicemail without hesitation.
5.
“Merry Christmas, Cuddy,” he says, and she hears it but it doesn’t really register. Her world has very suddenly reduced to the happy little girl in a yellow blanket, and Cuddy is surprisingly okay with that.
The resident and attending show up for the next round of checks, and despite the ache in the balls of her feet, Cuddy is still standing transfixed at the side of the plastic incubator. She watches her doctors perform their exam with quiet efficiency, and feels glad that for once her personal and professional worlds are in harmony with each other.
“You’ll be able to take her home in a few days,” Dr. Larsen confides as he updates the chart.
It’s the best Christmas gift anyone’s ever given her.
6.
“You’ve got a lot of nerve,” she says, slamming the door in his face.
He just knocks, and knocks again. Hammers on the wood like the persistent, entitled bastard that he is. To hell with the lateness of the hour, to hell with what she might be doing or the other people he might be disturbing.
“I just want to talk!” House yells, not caring that a new set of Cuddy’s neighbors will be peeking out from behind their curtains and tutting in disapproval. Her zip code might have changed, but her being mortified by his behavior has not.
“Are you going to drive a car into my house if I keep saying no?” The shot is a little cheap, but oh so deserved.
“No,” he grumbles, his voice muffled by the thick wood of the front door. “I came on my bike.”
She should have known, Cuddy thinks, that a two-and-a-half-hour drive wouldn’t be far enough away. She’d snatched at the job offer in Baltimore, wanting to settle Rachel again as quickly as possible. It’s been a year and seven months with no attempt to contact her, so of course House shows up on Christmas Eve. At least there’s no one in the house but her right now.
“Don’t make me call the police, House,” she warns, but makes no move to fasten the chain inside the door for extra protection. She isn’t scared of him, not really; she’s scared of how angry she still is.
Cuddy runs her fingers through her hair--it’s shorter now, but always pinned up when she’s at work. Nobody at Union Memorial makes objectifying comments about her appearance, and it’s the kind of cool professionalism that she told herself she wanted, every day. She’s still wearing her work clothes, not having had a chance to change for the drive up to her mom’s where Rachel and everyone else is waiting.
“Cuddy...” he says, with nothing like the same volume. If she weren’t standing with her back pressed against the door, she wouldn’t even hear it.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she says, not caring if he hears it.
“But I am,” he says, every bit as quiet.
She hears the scrape of material against the wooden door, and the inevitable thump that says he’s sitting on her porch. Some things, despite the time and the geography and the angry, salty tears involved, really don’t change.
“House,” she turns back around to face the door, hitting her forehead off it lightly in frustration. She can already feel her traitorous left hand, dominant enough to almost have a mind of its own, reaching for the doorknob as she once instinctively reached for him. “It’s December. It’s Maryland.”
“I know,” he snaps, as though normal people hold conversations through locked doors all the time. Cuddy supposes she should be grateful he hasn’t treated her like a patient and just picked the locks.
“If I let you in...if we talk, will you leave after that?”
“If you still want me to,” his answer is quick, almost rehearsed. She wonders how many scheming hours with Wilson have been spent on this ridiculous stunt; at least she’s not the one paying for their wasted time anymore.
“Fine,” she concedes and in two quick movements the door is open.
He stumbles awkwardly to his feet, and she tamps down an urge to help. He’s the one who should know better by now. The treatment might be harsh, but the patient is always so very weak. She stands aside, gesturing towards the sitting room with a tilt of her head.
They take their places on opposite sofas, a scenario that’s played out so many different ways over the years that Cuddy feels almost pushed by the simultaneous deja vu. At least today she’s fully dressed, and nobody’s life can be immediately at risk. She hadn’t realized how much she missed the high stakes until now.
“I’ve tried everything,” he blurts out, staring her down in that arrogant way he has when his confidence is failing him most. “Changed my life; went back to my old life. Nothing works, and nothing helps.”
“I’m sorry to hear that?” Cuddy can’t help the question in her inflection. She’s spent such a long time hating him, wanting to see him punished, that the concept of not wanting that feels alien to her.
“But in prison--or Summer Camp, as I liked to call it--I found something out. And it just occurred to me that I could try it here.”
“Really? Have you come to make a shiv out of my toothbrush? Good luck with that; it’s electric.”
He pulls a face at her sarcasm, never comfortable having his own weapons turned on him. Cuddy tries not to record that his eyes are bloodshot and his stubble is patchy and increasingly silver. He’s fine; and if he isn’t, that’s nothing at all to do with her.
“It’s about doing what you have to, to get by. And it seems, despite working my way through every hooker in Eastern Europe, that what I need to get by is you.”
“You had me, House. And you traded me in for Vicodin, remember?”
“I’m managing that, now,” he snaps.
“Until the next time you’re not,” Cuddy is unwavering. “But if I tell you things like that you have a nasty habit of taking it out on my property. Wait, you’re not here to return another hairbrush, are you?”
“God, you wreck one house...” He trails off, aware of the flimsiness of the joke.
“I have to get going soon,” Cuddy warns, making a point of checking her watch. She’s already so tired that the long nighttime drive seems a horrible prospect.
“Okay, cut the crap then,” House surmises, his eyes flashing with something like amusement. “What’s it going to take to get you back? I mean, obviously I still have this rockin’ bod, not to mention the charm.”
“Are you high?” Cuddy gasps at the cheek of it.
“Usually,” he admits. “Not overly so right now. Just enough to survive the trip.”
She stands, in a fury, and takes the two strides necessary to get a handful of his leather jacket. Cuddy thinks she might be able to drag him bodily to the front door, but somewhere in the red mist she gets confused.
She’s too close, that’s all. She can still smell the cold on him, the faint traces of gasoline and the old-fashioned soap that’s painfully familiar. Her nails (long again, she never has a chance to slip on latex gloves now--no clinic in this Administrator role) are scraping down the battered leather, snagging on the stitching as the tears start to fall.
“You bastard,” she sputters, and he kisses her. It’s not apologetic, or polite, or in any way seeking permission. It’s hard and direct and ten miles down the road from where they’re supposed to be with each other.
And still she kisses back.
Cuddy can’t think, not beyond the pressure of his tongue parting her lips. She lets him, fuck no she lets him, and worse than that she wants it. Her other hand, instead of slapping or clawing or pushing, it betrays her too by tugging at the zipper of his jacket and grasping the warm material underneath. She can feel his heart beating, fast, under this hand, and she wishes she hadn’t touched him at all.
He pulls back then, his goddamn sixth sense for knowing when she’s on the knife edge saving them both again. It’s the closest he gets to being a gentleman--giving her a clear chance to back out, to stop this right now and throw him out like she planned.
“House,” she breathes in a warning and an admission of defeat. “I--”
“Ssh,” he presses a cool finger to her lips. “Tell me to go. If you want.”
Cuddy looks at him, blinking away the fresh tears that are blinding her. His eyes, blue and intense as ever, don’t hesitate to meet her gaze. It’s too much, after all this time. How can she tell him to go when she’s been missing him for the best part of two years? It doesn’t have to mean anything, she starts to tell herself. How many rules has she broken for him already? Doesn’t it make sense that she would break this own (sensible, necessary) one of her own?
So she kisses him full on the mouth again, practically jumping him in her forcefulness. He mutters something that fades against her mouth, and sighs in something like contentment as she bites down on his bottom lip.
And whether from memory, or loneliness, Cuddy lets her heart rule her head one more time. He’s as challenging as ever, evading her mouth when he wants to explore further. She lets him kiss her neck before nipping at his earlobe in retribution.
Without instruction, they begin to strip each other. Nobody agrees, exactly, but his jacket comes off in one push, and he tugs her cashmere sweater up and over her head with enthusiasm.
From there it doesn’t take long until they’re (mostly) naked on the couch, and if it’s uncomfortable for House’s injured leg he doesn’t complain. Cuddy flashes momentarily to the additional damage done, to the last time he needed her, and she scratches her nails down his back until the thought goes away with his sharp hiss by her ear.
He’s every bit as good, the bastard. Cuddy has long since separated her needs from her ‘should’, but there’s no denying how wet she was when he first stroked those long fingers over her. The fleeting moments of awkwardness give way to need they can’t express in words, and beyond a momentary fumble with a condom, they barely pause long enough to talk anyway.
“Oh God,” she whispers against his chest as he nudges her thighs further apart. She traces a scar on his chest, unsure which injury it belongs to, before sighing in pleasure when he finally slips inside of her.
“Fuck,” he gasps as she wraps her legs loosely around his hips, and his eyes are slightly glassy as he begins to thrust. Quick, shallow thrusts that he knows still drive her wild, making her hips rock in towards him in a bid for more.
And there, in the heat of the contact between their bodies (and the wandering hands, and the playful mouths) it’s like nothing ever went that wrong. Cuddy comes first, it’s sharp and colorful and it feels better than any yoga class could hope for, when the tension finally goes. He’s not far behind, smothering his cry in the hollow of her collarbone, before falling a little heavily on top of her.
Cuddy gives him time to recover, before he gets too heavy, before squirming out from under him. With the release of tension comes clarity, and she’s already livid with herself. Determined not to show it, she clutches quickly at her discarded clothes and pulls the sweater and skirt back on without bothering with underwear.
“Uh...” House says, propped on his side on the couch. He looks faintly ridiculous, sweaty and spent and confused. She can see a lot of the man she loved (and still, yes, loves just enough for it to hurt) but he’s shrinking in the shadow of the man she’s learned to feel almost nothing for. They’re too much for one body, for one sofa, and Cuddy can’t do this.
“The bathroom is down the hall if you want to clean up. I need to get ready. I’m leaving in twenty, so make sure you’re done by then, okay?”
“Cuddy, wait--”
“No, House,” she says, and it sounds a lot sadder than she wants it to. “Come on. What did that fix?”
“Well, your obvious dissatisfaction with your sex life, for one.”
Cuddy sighs, and suddenly she feels a lot older. While sparring (and more) with House used to make her feel younger, tonight it’s left her feeling weary and more than a little stupid.
“Seriously, House. Just go.”
It looks like he’s going to marshal another argument, make one of his endless bids to wear her down before doing what he wants anyway, but something in her face makes him reconsider. His own expression goes completely cool in a second flat, and Cuddy knows he’s sacrificed as much of his goddamned pride and stubbornness as he’s willing to for one day. That’s the problem--she deserves someone who’d stop at nothing to apologize, to make things right. If she can’t have that, then it’s better to not have anything at all.
He reaches for his top, and she takes her cue to go.
So yeah, maybe she locks the door to her en suite while she takes a brisk shower. She squeezes her eyes shut under the spray and hopes he’s taking the hint this time. It doesn’t take long to dress, tying her wet hair up ready to be shoved under a hat she leaves the house. Being a mother has certainly forced her to have a quick turnaround, and not fifteen minutes later she has her boots in her hand as she walks down the hallway to say goodbye.
She doesn’t need to look in the living room to see that he’s gone because the front door is slightly ajar; she’s been meaning to fix that, because it only closes properly if it’s slammed. She steps up to do the honors, not risking even a peek outside. She doesn’t want him to see her and think it’s a sign of reconsidering.
The door slams easily from her shove, and as the echo of the noise fades, she allows herself to say it out loud at last.
“Goodbye, House.”
She turns to finish her preparations, catching sight of the clock on the wall as she does. Half past midnight, meaning they’ve finally seen Christmas Day together, if only for a few minutes. For a moment she thinks about rushing out to see if he’s there, to tell him that they finally managed it, but there’s a rev of a motorcycle engine from the street and that’s enough to jolt her back to sense.
She listens to him drive off, and this time it doesn’t make her cry.
Pairing: House/Cuddy (no, really)
Rating: NC17
Spoilers: Up to and including the season 7 finale (I haven't watched since, so forgive anything that I might be Jossed on)
Disclaimer: The characters belong to Shore, NBC Universal and whoever else wants to claim credit for wrecking them. I'm putting them back more or less as I found them! The title is a lyric from a song by The Hold Steady - 'Chicago Seemed Tired Last Night'.
Prompt: House/Cuddy, five Christmases that never happened (and one that did)
Dedication: For my darling flippet, who takes me to the ballgame and can psychically send emails in the midst of an otherwise rubbish day. She's pretty like Chicago architecture, and a truly wonderful friend to know.
1.
As campus empties itself of students, the snow falls again to fill the space. Green and gray spaces become blank sheets of white overnight, and Lisa finds herself practically hugging the radiator in her dorm to stay warm.
Her mom’s letter is on the pinboard, the angry capitals and army of exclamation points accusing even from across the room. Lisa stares at it for a moment, reassessing her decision for the twentieth time, before bowing her head and getting lost in her brand new Infectious Disease textbook.
He’s late, she thinks, as she turns the page into chapter seventeen. It hadn’t exactly been a promise or anything, but lying in bed this morning House had seemed pretty excited about her not going home for the holidays.
She gives it another hour, before the gnawing worry has become too much of a distraction. Dragging out her snow boots and a couple of extra layers, she struggles to pull a hat down over her uncontrollable goddamn curls. Lisa doesn’t know whether she’s concerned or angry, all told, and she feels more than a little conflicted as she trudges out into the night.
It’s like the world has had the sound turned all the way down, and it would be beautiful if she weren’t on a mission. There’s nothing but the crunch of her boots in the snow until she’s standing outside his shared apartment.
She knocks, but gets only a stoned roommate and a hastily emptied room for her trouble. There’s a ripped Stones poster still hanging on one wall, and a forgotten sock by the headboard, but otherwise the room feels as blank as the snowy streets outside.
Lisa doesn’t cry until she’s halfway back to her dorm, the warm tears scalding against her freezing cheeks, feeling like they might freeze in turn. She stumbles a little, unable to see the path with watering eyes.
By the time she’s shrugging off the extra clothes and kicking off her boots, the flow has already been stemmed. She wipes away the evidence with the sleeve of her new Michigan sweater, and vows then and there that she’s done caring about this. So she’ll spend Christmas alone, like she originally planned; it’s not like she even celebrates the damn holiday.
Infectious Diseases are waiting right where she left them. With one last sigh, she crawls back under the blankets and picks up the book that’s as heavy as her heart.
2.
There are places more depressing than an airport bar on Christmas Eve, but she can’t think of any right now. Her back is still aching from pulling a double, pausing only to shower before driving way over the speed limit to make her flight.
Which, of course, has a two-hour delay.
The bartender is handing her a glass of Chardonnay when the guy sitting next to her finally speaks. He’s wearing a baseball cap pulled low and has stubble just crying out for a decent razor. Great, another creep hitting on her when she’s too tired to be polite.
“Did you learn to be this rude in med school?” He asks, and there’s something familiar in the gruff voice and its neutral accent. Then he turns to look at her and suddenly Cuddy is thrown back nine years.
“House?” She asks, incredulous. She can’t believe she remembers his name, but that’s the problem with almost never dating: she remembers the few and far between. “What the hell?”
He whistles, in perfect pitch, the aggravating Disney song to suggest that it is, in fact, a small world after all.
“Going home like the dutiful daughter?” He asks, his tone exactly as mocking as she remembers. “I thought the chosen people didn’t go in for Christmas?”
“This was the only time off I could get,” she snaps, already on the defensive. “And we celebrate the holidays, it’s just that Hannukah has already been and gone.”
“You don’t look too enthused about it,” he calls her on it, and Cuddy groans a little at being so transparent.
“No,” she concedes. “I don’t need another three-day lecture about working too hard and not having found a good husband yet. But, that’s what people do, right?”
“That’s what idiots do,” he says, taking a long pull on his beer. “Obligation is for wimps.”
“And you’re not doing the same thing, sitting here in the airport?” She asks, disbelieving that he’d be quite so abrupt.
“Nope. I’m fleeing the state. Totally different.”
“Oh,” Cuddy says, taking a hearty swallow of wine. “Well, that’s okay then.”
For a moment it looks like he might say more, might explain himself and a real reason for being in the airport, but he turns back to his beer and the moment passes.
“I’m going to Vegas,” he says, turning back to her with a gleam in his eye. “You could blow off your family obligations. Come with me, play hooky for a few days.”
“Right,” she snorts. “I’m going to run off to Vegas with a one-night stand I haven’t seen since college. That totally sounds like something people do.”
“Sounds like more fun than a lecture,” he goads her, seemingly unconcerned with how much time has elapsed and how they barely know each other now.
“Right. So do a lot of things.”
“Come on, Lisa,” he says, and it’s almost kind of cute when he asks nicely.
“I prefer Cuddy now; Dr. Cuddy. That’s how it goes in the big, bad world,” she feels another dig about how much he doesn’t know her, about how much time has passed, is warranted.
“Fine, Cuddy. Come to Vegas. Live a little.”
And somehow, she’s thinking about it. Thinking about slot machines and fancy drinks and giant hotel beds instead of family arguments and her lumpy childhood bed in Long Island. It’s tempting, so very tempting, and she doesn’t even really know why.
She opens her mouth to accept, with some ridiculous condition or other, when the tannoy interrupts.
They’re calling her flight.
It’s like a sudden blaze of clarity in her foggy and exhausted mind. She picks up her glass and polishes it off in record time. Placing it back down, she summons up a smile and picks up her carry-on.
“Maybe some other time,” she doesn’t promise, and he watches her go with what might just be disappointment.
In the chaos of boarding and the nerves over flying, she loses track of him pretty quickly. It’s only that night, sitting on her parents’ sofa, that she allows herself a moment to regret.
3.
“Stacy’s going to Memphis,” he says, apropos of nothing. Cuddy looks up from her stack of paperwork just long enough to roll her eyes.
“Let me guess--after last year, you’re not invited?”
“It’s probably because they’re racist,” House sighs, collapsing onto her brand new couch.
“Hate to disappoint you, House, but you are, in fact, white,” Cuddy points out, crossing out three ridiculous line items on the oncology budget and signing off on the remainder. She needs to get a new Head of Department in there before Dr. Cole manages to bankrupt them.
“Not in--”
“No penis jokes today, House. Seriously.”
“You sticking around for the holidays?” He asks, his legs bouncing with unspent energy.
“Oh no you don’t,” Cuddy warns, dropping her pen to the desk. “I don’t celebrate Christmas. You’re not going to con me into cooking for you. Not gonna happen.” She stares him down. “Don’t you have a patient?”
“Cured her. Well, of the autoimmune problem. She’s still a bitch,” he sighs, already bored. “Hey, what do you take for that, maybe I can prescribe it?”
“Ha. Ha,” Cuddy says, rubbing her temples.
“You can’t cook anyway,” House points out.
“Wow, this is quite the charm offensive.”
“If you have beer in your fridge and some takeout menus, maybe we can kill some time, is all I’m saying. I guess you’ll be working the rest of the time, trying to prove that your job is more fulfilling than a man, or whatever your deal is this month.”
“Get out,” Cuddy snaps, but he smirks because he knows that he’s won.
“Nothing domestic,” he says, having the sheer brass balls to put in a drinks request after being pointedly refused. Cuddy shakes her head and gets back to work, but in the grocery store that night she picks up some imported beer and shoves it in the back of her fridge when she gets home.
Christmas morning comes and goes, and by the time the sun sets there’s still no sign of him. Cuddy’s staring at the television, a takeout menu in her hand when a text message finally makes her clunky Nokia beep.
Merry Christmas from Memphis! Love, Stacy and Greg xx
Cuddy rolls her eyes and switches the phone off. She should really have known better.
4.
Wilson calls and tells her about the pills, about the overdose. Her instinct is to get in the car and rush over there, but Wilson talks her down like one of his cancer patients.
Cuddy settles for worrying instead. When House calls, in the early hours of the morning, she sends him straight to voicemail without hesitation.
5.
“Merry Christmas, Cuddy,” he says, and she hears it but it doesn’t really register. Her world has very suddenly reduced to the happy little girl in a yellow blanket, and Cuddy is surprisingly okay with that.
The resident and attending show up for the next round of checks, and despite the ache in the balls of her feet, Cuddy is still standing transfixed at the side of the plastic incubator. She watches her doctors perform their exam with quiet efficiency, and feels glad that for once her personal and professional worlds are in harmony with each other.
“You’ll be able to take her home in a few days,” Dr. Larsen confides as he updates the chart.
It’s the best Christmas gift anyone’s ever given her.
6.
“You’ve got a lot of nerve,” she says, slamming the door in his face.
He just knocks, and knocks again. Hammers on the wood like the persistent, entitled bastard that he is. To hell with the lateness of the hour, to hell with what she might be doing or the other people he might be disturbing.
“I just want to talk!” House yells, not caring that a new set of Cuddy’s neighbors will be peeking out from behind their curtains and tutting in disapproval. Her zip code might have changed, but her being mortified by his behavior has not.
“Are you going to drive a car into my house if I keep saying no?” The shot is a little cheap, but oh so deserved.
“No,” he grumbles, his voice muffled by the thick wood of the front door. “I came on my bike.”
She should have known, Cuddy thinks, that a two-and-a-half-hour drive wouldn’t be far enough away. She’d snatched at the job offer in Baltimore, wanting to settle Rachel again as quickly as possible. It’s been a year and seven months with no attempt to contact her, so of course House shows up on Christmas Eve. At least there’s no one in the house but her right now.
“Don’t make me call the police, House,” she warns, but makes no move to fasten the chain inside the door for extra protection. She isn’t scared of him, not really; she’s scared of how angry she still is.
Cuddy runs her fingers through her hair--it’s shorter now, but always pinned up when she’s at work. Nobody at Union Memorial makes objectifying comments about her appearance, and it’s the kind of cool professionalism that she told herself she wanted, every day. She’s still wearing her work clothes, not having had a chance to change for the drive up to her mom’s where Rachel and everyone else is waiting.
“Cuddy...” he says, with nothing like the same volume. If she weren’t standing with her back pressed against the door, she wouldn’t even hear it.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she says, not caring if he hears it.
“But I am,” he says, every bit as quiet.
She hears the scrape of material against the wooden door, and the inevitable thump that says he’s sitting on her porch. Some things, despite the time and the geography and the angry, salty tears involved, really don’t change.
“House,” she turns back around to face the door, hitting her forehead off it lightly in frustration. She can already feel her traitorous left hand, dominant enough to almost have a mind of its own, reaching for the doorknob as she once instinctively reached for him. “It’s December. It’s Maryland.”
“I know,” he snaps, as though normal people hold conversations through locked doors all the time. Cuddy supposes she should be grateful he hasn’t treated her like a patient and just picked the locks.
“If I let you in...if we talk, will you leave after that?”
“If you still want me to,” his answer is quick, almost rehearsed. She wonders how many scheming hours with Wilson have been spent on this ridiculous stunt; at least she’s not the one paying for their wasted time anymore.
“Fine,” she concedes and in two quick movements the door is open.
He stumbles awkwardly to his feet, and she tamps down an urge to help. He’s the one who should know better by now. The treatment might be harsh, but the patient is always so very weak. She stands aside, gesturing towards the sitting room with a tilt of her head.
They take their places on opposite sofas, a scenario that’s played out so many different ways over the years that Cuddy feels almost pushed by the simultaneous deja vu. At least today she’s fully dressed, and nobody’s life can be immediately at risk. She hadn’t realized how much she missed the high stakes until now.
“I’ve tried everything,” he blurts out, staring her down in that arrogant way he has when his confidence is failing him most. “Changed my life; went back to my old life. Nothing works, and nothing helps.”
“I’m sorry to hear that?” Cuddy can’t help the question in her inflection. She’s spent such a long time hating him, wanting to see him punished, that the concept of not wanting that feels alien to her.
“But in prison--or Summer Camp, as I liked to call it--I found something out. And it just occurred to me that I could try it here.”
“Really? Have you come to make a shiv out of my toothbrush? Good luck with that; it’s electric.”
He pulls a face at her sarcasm, never comfortable having his own weapons turned on him. Cuddy tries not to record that his eyes are bloodshot and his stubble is patchy and increasingly silver. He’s fine; and if he isn’t, that’s nothing at all to do with her.
“It’s about doing what you have to, to get by. And it seems, despite working my way through every hooker in Eastern Europe, that what I need to get by is you.”
“You had me, House. And you traded me in for Vicodin, remember?”
“I’m managing that, now,” he snaps.
“Until the next time you’re not,” Cuddy is unwavering. “But if I tell you things like that you have a nasty habit of taking it out on my property. Wait, you’re not here to return another hairbrush, are you?”
“God, you wreck one house...” He trails off, aware of the flimsiness of the joke.
“I have to get going soon,” Cuddy warns, making a point of checking her watch. She’s already so tired that the long nighttime drive seems a horrible prospect.
“Okay, cut the crap then,” House surmises, his eyes flashing with something like amusement. “What’s it going to take to get you back? I mean, obviously I still have this rockin’ bod, not to mention the charm.”
“Are you high?” Cuddy gasps at the cheek of it.
“Usually,” he admits. “Not overly so right now. Just enough to survive the trip.”
She stands, in a fury, and takes the two strides necessary to get a handful of his leather jacket. Cuddy thinks she might be able to drag him bodily to the front door, but somewhere in the red mist she gets confused.
She’s too close, that’s all. She can still smell the cold on him, the faint traces of gasoline and the old-fashioned soap that’s painfully familiar. Her nails (long again, she never has a chance to slip on latex gloves now--no clinic in this Administrator role) are scraping down the battered leather, snagging on the stitching as the tears start to fall.
“You bastard,” she sputters, and he kisses her. It’s not apologetic, or polite, or in any way seeking permission. It’s hard and direct and ten miles down the road from where they’re supposed to be with each other.
And still she kisses back.
Cuddy can’t think, not beyond the pressure of his tongue parting her lips. She lets him, fuck no she lets him, and worse than that she wants it. Her other hand, instead of slapping or clawing or pushing, it betrays her too by tugging at the zipper of his jacket and grasping the warm material underneath. She can feel his heart beating, fast, under this hand, and she wishes she hadn’t touched him at all.
He pulls back then, his goddamn sixth sense for knowing when she’s on the knife edge saving them both again. It’s the closest he gets to being a gentleman--giving her a clear chance to back out, to stop this right now and throw him out like she planned.
“House,” she breathes in a warning and an admission of defeat. “I--”
“Ssh,” he presses a cool finger to her lips. “Tell me to go. If you want.”
Cuddy looks at him, blinking away the fresh tears that are blinding her. His eyes, blue and intense as ever, don’t hesitate to meet her gaze. It’s too much, after all this time. How can she tell him to go when she’s been missing him for the best part of two years? It doesn’t have to mean anything, she starts to tell herself. How many rules has she broken for him already? Doesn’t it make sense that she would break this own (sensible, necessary) one of her own?
So she kisses him full on the mouth again, practically jumping him in her forcefulness. He mutters something that fades against her mouth, and sighs in something like contentment as she bites down on his bottom lip.
And whether from memory, or loneliness, Cuddy lets her heart rule her head one more time. He’s as challenging as ever, evading her mouth when he wants to explore further. She lets him kiss her neck before nipping at his earlobe in retribution.
Without instruction, they begin to strip each other. Nobody agrees, exactly, but his jacket comes off in one push, and he tugs her cashmere sweater up and over her head with enthusiasm.
From there it doesn’t take long until they’re (mostly) naked on the couch, and if it’s uncomfortable for House’s injured leg he doesn’t complain. Cuddy flashes momentarily to the additional damage done, to the last time he needed her, and she scratches her nails down his back until the thought goes away with his sharp hiss by her ear.
He’s every bit as good, the bastard. Cuddy has long since separated her needs from her ‘should’, but there’s no denying how wet she was when he first stroked those long fingers over her. The fleeting moments of awkwardness give way to need they can’t express in words, and beyond a momentary fumble with a condom, they barely pause long enough to talk anyway.
“Oh God,” she whispers against his chest as he nudges her thighs further apart. She traces a scar on his chest, unsure which injury it belongs to, before sighing in pleasure when he finally slips inside of her.
“Fuck,” he gasps as she wraps her legs loosely around his hips, and his eyes are slightly glassy as he begins to thrust. Quick, shallow thrusts that he knows still drive her wild, making her hips rock in towards him in a bid for more.
And there, in the heat of the contact between their bodies (and the wandering hands, and the playful mouths) it’s like nothing ever went that wrong. Cuddy comes first, it’s sharp and colorful and it feels better than any yoga class could hope for, when the tension finally goes. He’s not far behind, smothering his cry in the hollow of her collarbone, before falling a little heavily on top of her.
Cuddy gives him time to recover, before he gets too heavy, before squirming out from under him. With the release of tension comes clarity, and she’s already livid with herself. Determined not to show it, she clutches quickly at her discarded clothes and pulls the sweater and skirt back on without bothering with underwear.
“Uh...” House says, propped on his side on the couch. He looks faintly ridiculous, sweaty and spent and confused. She can see a lot of the man she loved (and still, yes, loves just enough for it to hurt) but he’s shrinking in the shadow of the man she’s learned to feel almost nothing for. They’re too much for one body, for one sofa, and Cuddy can’t do this.
“The bathroom is down the hall if you want to clean up. I need to get ready. I’m leaving in twenty, so make sure you’re done by then, okay?”
“Cuddy, wait--”
“No, House,” she says, and it sounds a lot sadder than she wants it to. “Come on. What did that fix?”
“Well, your obvious dissatisfaction with your sex life, for one.”
Cuddy sighs, and suddenly she feels a lot older. While sparring (and more) with House used to make her feel younger, tonight it’s left her feeling weary and more than a little stupid.
“Seriously, House. Just go.”
It looks like he’s going to marshal another argument, make one of his endless bids to wear her down before doing what he wants anyway, but something in her face makes him reconsider. His own expression goes completely cool in a second flat, and Cuddy knows he’s sacrificed as much of his goddamned pride and stubbornness as he’s willing to for one day. That’s the problem--she deserves someone who’d stop at nothing to apologize, to make things right. If she can’t have that, then it’s better to not have anything at all.
He reaches for his top, and she takes her cue to go.
So yeah, maybe she locks the door to her en suite while she takes a brisk shower. She squeezes her eyes shut under the spray and hopes he’s taking the hint this time. It doesn’t take long to dress, tying her wet hair up ready to be shoved under a hat she leaves the house. Being a mother has certainly forced her to have a quick turnaround, and not fifteen minutes later she has her boots in her hand as she walks down the hallway to say goodbye.
She doesn’t need to look in the living room to see that he’s gone because the front door is slightly ajar; she’s been meaning to fix that, because it only closes properly if it’s slammed. She steps up to do the honors, not risking even a peek outside. She doesn’t want him to see her and think it’s a sign of reconsidering.
The door slams easily from her shove, and as the echo of the noise fades, she allows herself to say it out loud at last.
“Goodbye, House.”
She turns to finish her preparations, catching sight of the clock on the wall as she does. Half past midnight, meaning they’ve finally seen Christmas Day together, if only for a few minutes. For a moment she thinks about rushing out to see if he’s there, to tell him that they finally managed it, but there’s a rev of a motorcycle engine from the street and that’s enough to jolt her back to sense.
She listens to him drive off, and this time it doesn’t make her cry.