Gentle Knock-Chapter 2
Title: A Gentle Knock at the Door, Chapter 2
Author: zeppomarx
Characters: Mostly House & Wilson, plus Cuddy, Chase and Foreman, along with some new folks.
Warnings and So On: Probably NC-17 for concepts. Later on for violent imagery plus... oh, you'll just have to wait and see. H/W friendship (perhaps slash if you wear slash goggles)
Summary: A sequel to Priority's Exigencies
, which is a sequel to DIY Sheep's The Contract
, which has now spawned an incredible number of offshoots. You may want to read the original stories to get the context for this. The short version is that House is a physical and emotional mess, having been wrongly imprisoned and tortured and all sorts of nasty stuff. It's about what happens next, and how House deals with it.
Timeline: This is set nearly a year after the beginning of Exigencies.
Earlier parts here: Part 1.
Comments: This is the first fiction I've written since junior high. I'd love comments, but if you've got something icky to say, please be gentle. And if you're going to flame me, find another target. A big thank you to the three gracious folks who served as what I now understand are called betas: AW, GM and my medical guru TD, who tells me the medicine is okay, but the procedure is all messed up. She adds that there's no point in changing it because it would destroy the story (which she liked) if I make it proper. So, if you're a stickler-ouch, you may feel the need to get on my case. Truth is, I already know. Drama trumps medicine, or so I've heard.
Oh, Yeah, the Disclaimer: I certainly don't own House or any of the characters therein, although it would be nice if I did.. They belong to David Shore & company. It's just that they waltzed into my head and wouldn't leave until I told their story.
___________________________________________
A Gentle Knock at the Door
Chapter 2
While House was talking to Roberts and Matthews, Wilson was talking to Cuddy.
“No surprises this time,” he said. “He was way ahead of me and ready to get it over with.”
Cuddy nodded. She didn’t think she’d ever figure out Greg House. Although she was smart and she knew it, his mind ran rings around hers. She prided herself on being able to multitask, but somehow her daily routine had nothing on his. She could juggle a busy schedule, PR functions, the books (little joke there) and assorted doctors and board members. But he somehow had the uncanny ability to let one part of his brain continue working while the rest of him was playing some idiotic game or harassing his staff. And then, when you least expected it-presto! chango!-out came an answer than no one else in the world could have come up with. And it would be the right one.
She was so grateful to have him back at her hospital. He might tire easily, and lord knows he lived with more pain than anyone should, pain that was constantly apparent behind his eyes, but when his brain was needed, it was there. In the few months since he’d come back to work, he’d already solved half a dozen difficult cases that his team and his successor (and predecessor), Dr. Evans, would never have found an answer to. People were alive who would have been dead if it weren’t for Greg House.
“How’s the patient?” asked Wilson, shaking Cuddy from her introspection.
“Stable last I heard. They really should have brought her here sooner, as soon as the sepsis was suspected. The longer they waited, the greater the probability that she wouldn’t survive the infection. Those prison doctors had to have known this was beyond their abilities. Surely someone can cut through this red-tape crap, and get this woman’s conviction overturned quickly so she doesn’t have to go through what House went through-months in an inadequate prison hospital awaiting retrial.”
“Depends on the D.A.’s office. Last time, they insisted that House was guilty of Cameron’s murder, despite literally tons of evidence to the contrary.” Wilson felt himself getting angry all over again. If the D.A.’s office had just followed the FBI’s advice, everything could have been handled quietly behind the scenes. The trials wouldn’t have been so stressful on House, and perhaps he wouldn’t have collapsed into catatonia. Oh, and the tabloid press wouldn’t have created a circus out of the “Tortured Doctor Testifies About Abuse” stories. Sure, the press would still have been on the story, but maybe it could have been controlled.
“They got such bad PR out of it, though, maybe they’ll be more sensible this time,” said Cuddy, doubtfully.
“Let’s hope.”
“Do you think House realizes the tabloids are going to get involved again, and will rehash the whole thing?”
“Don’t know, but I wouldn’t put it past him. He’s not stupid. That may have been part of what shook him this morning. He’s finally got a semblance of a life, after nearly six years of nightmarish insanity, and it’s going to get turned inside out again. I’m sure he’s fighting the desire to resent this poor woman for shaking things up. Or the FBI for taking so long to find out about her. If her story had come out the same time as House’s, it would have been bad, but over with by now. Like tearing off a band-aid quickly.”
Cuddy nodded. No, this band-aid was getting slowly removed, taking with it hanks of hair and skin. She would never let House know she was thinking this, but she couldn’t help it: Poor House.
He’d be appalled.
* * * *
“How’d it go?”
“Fine.”
Apparently, that was all House was going to say on the subject. He looked exhausted, and he probably was. His skin was translucent, amplifying the scars on his face and hands, and his eyes stared vacantly into the distance.
With Wilson silently at his side, House hobbled along on his crutches, headed back to the safety of his office. He was almost healed from the latest surgeries on his right leg; the next set were scheduled in a couple of weeks, repairing some of the damage on his left. He faced years’ worth of reconstructive and corrective surgery on his legs, hands, face, back… you name it. There wasn’t an inch of Greg House that hadn’t been damaged. Wilson ought to know; he was the only one, besides Linda, House trusted enough to see the injuries.
Proud and stubborn, he had been so fiercely protective of his independence and privacy when his leg was injured years before; now he had to settle for protecting the only thing he had left to protect: his battered body. Nearly everything else was public knowledge, written up in the tabloids in garish detail.
When House first came back to work, a few months earlier, he had to fight the shame and embarrassment he felt when someone recognized him, either from before or from the news stories. They know who I am. They know who I was. They know what happened to me.
Now, he’d gotten to the point where he could shrug it off most of the time. Unless someone was particularly insensitive. Funny that other people’s insensitivity bothered him now. Him. Greg House. The King of Insensitivity. Who prided himself on his crudeness.
Well, not so much any more. That jig was up. He still had that sharp wit, but now people tended to take it with a grain of salt when he tried to misbehave. Plus he just didn’t have the gumption for all the games anymore.
He dropped into his office chair with a groan. Three o’clock. He wasn’t sure he could make it until five. Wilson stood nearby, hovering, exuding the concern that sometimes drove House crazy. Out of the corner of his eye, House saw his team in the conference room, looking back at him. He motioned them over.
“Anything urgent?” he asked, hoping the answer would be no. And the answer was no, much to his relief. After his team left the room, Wilson looked at him expectantly, transmitting clear nonverbal messages that it was time to go home. House closed his eyes and nodded. “You win.” He didn’t even have the energy to fight it tonight. He wanted to go home. He wanted to sink into the soft leather sofa, eat some comfort food, watch mindless television, take a pain pill-maybe two-and go to bed. He wanted to hide.
* * * *
They were coming for him again. They always came. It didn’t matter how tired he was or how much he hurt; they kept coming. The door clanked open. It was playtime. Hours later, new bruises and breaks assaulting his senses, they dumped him back on the floor of his cold cell, his breathing sharp and short around the pain.
Sometimes it wasn’t physical pain, but mental. Sometimes-often-they held him down while some guard or prisoner raped him, leaving him weeping with humiliation and disgust. Sometimes they merely threatened. To chew his hands up in a garbage disposal. To put his eyes out with a pencil. To castrate him. Eyes, voices, taunting him, never letting him be. Even his own mind was invaded by them. There was no place to hide, no respite, no sanctuary, no hope.
In his bedroom, which shared a wall with House’s, Wilson heard the screams. Damn it! He knew he should have stayed over tonight. Grabbing his key, he ran outside.
Frantically unlocking House’s front door, he tore into the bedroom, finding House curled up on the floor, pushing his back into the corner, his eyes unseeing and his breath coming in short gasps.
“House! House,” he called. The tormented man in the corner didn’t see him. “It’s okay. It’s okay. I’m here. No one can get you.” He forced himself to speak in a soothing tone as he crouched down on the floor next to his friend.
“No, no. No!” cried House, seeing not the reality of his bedroom but the terrors of his past.
“Please. No more,” he begged. “Let me die. Please… please… please. Just let me… die. Let me die.”
Quietly shocked, Wilson drew in a quick breath. He’d never heard House ask to die before. Of course, he must have wanted to-anything to avoid the pain and the terror-but according to Thompson’s contract, if House died, someone else would, too, probably Wilson himself. So House stayed alive because it was all he could do.
Tentatively, Wilson reached out and gently touched House on the arm. Sometimes this worked, bringing House back to today, back to safety. More often, it didn’t. Tonight would be one of those nights. House flung Wilson’s arm away, wrapping his own arms around his head. “No!” he cried out again, his head sinking onto his chest.
“House. House, please. It’s okay.” He tried again, this time encircling House’s upper body with his arm, pulling the shaking man toward him. “It’s okay. You’re safe.”
With a gasp, House came back to the present, focusing his red-rimmed eyes on Wilson. He let out his breath and dropped his head onto Wilson’s chest, sobbing, letting Wilson’s arms encircle him as he shook, grasping a bit of Wilson’s shirt in his misshapen fingers.
* * * *
Cuddy had learned her lesson. When House had returned to work, someone-she was pretty sure it was Dr. Alan Pevey, the little weasel-had notified the press. House, surrounded by the vultures, had been knocked over in the scramble, winding up in the emergency room. Well, it wasn’t happening again. She was going to play this as close to the vest as she could.
She owed it to Greg to protect him. He’d saved her life and the lives of several others, by sacrificing himself to Thompson’s insanity. Once again, she marveled at House. He’d always been so prickly, so difficult. She’d liked him despite it, and had always suspected it was a protective front. Who would ever have thought that the seemingly self-centered bastard Gregory House had it in him to endure years of unimaginable agony to save others, to put the people he cared about above his own safety, even above his own life? When she’d tried to thank him, he’d shrugged it off, saying it was his choice, his decision.
But now, since his release from prison and the attendant publicity, other people had learned what he was made of. They might still try to cast him as the arrogant ass he always pretended to be, but deep down, everyone knew what he’d done, what he’d sacrificed. Everyone except Pevey, of course. But Pevey was a jerk. She was hoping one day he’d push her too far, and then she could get the board to fire him. Serve the little rat right.
Agents Roberts and Matthews were due any minute, and she wanted to discuss strategy with them. How could they help her protect the shattered man who just wanted to do his job?
* * * *
Rainie Adler lay quietly on the hospital bed in Room 304. She whimpered as she tugged the blanket over her head, trying to make herself as small as she could. Maybe if she was small, they wouldn’t see her. Maybe if she stayed very, very still, they wouldn’t know she was there.
Outside her door sat a policeman, guarding his dangerous prisoner.
* * * *
“So that’s it?” asked Cuddy. “You can get her conviction overturned quietly and quickly? The D.A.’s office isn’t fighting it this time?”
“That’s it,” said Roberts. “They were pretty embarrassed with the House case, so I think we can keep this one on the QT. I’m sure some wiseass tabloid newshound will pick up the story eventually, but we should be able to control it some. Hope so, anyways. Those two have been through enough.”
She nodded, flooded with a sense of relief.
“He looks a lot better,” added Roberts, somewhat abruptly.
“He is,” replied Cuddy, following his train of thought. “Still pretty fragile sometimes, but who wouldn’t be?”
“How’s she doing?”
“She’s critical, but out of the ER. She’s technically in ICU, but for her own safety-and because the police still think of her as a prisoner-we’ve got her in a private room. Why didn’t those idiots at the prison hospital send her over as soon as she collapsed? We almost lost her yesterday.”
“Can’t say. It’s a whole new staff over there, as I’m sure you can appreciate, and I guess they’re not used to dealing with anything like this. Not that anyone would be used to injuries like hers…” Unspoken were the words “… or like House’s.”
“How long will it take?” Cuddy forced herself to focus on the issue at hand.
“I think we’re looking at having the conviction overturned in a day or two.”
“That soon…? Wonderful. Has anyone contacted the Times to let them know what’s happened? She must have friends there, plus… ” Her thoughts drifted off. Just because Rainie Adler was a reporter, this would make the news.
“Been pushing it off until everything’s straightened out.”
“Does she know? I mean, about her little girl?”
“We think those s.o.b.’s told her after it happened, but I don’t know if it registered. Maybe better if it didn’t.”
Cuddy nodded. “How do you want this handled? The press stuff, I mean?”
“Let’s work out a plan, with contingencies, in case the word gets out sooner.”
Again, Cuddy nodded.
* * * *
“I’m her doctor.”
The police guard looked intently at the ID, matching it to the face before him. Finally, he nodded and stepped aside. The tall, lanky doctor slipped into Room 304, his crutches making an irregular sound on the linoleum.
NEXT: What Cuddy Sees...
Author: zeppomarx
Characters: Mostly House & Wilson, plus Cuddy, Chase and Foreman, along with some new folks.
Warnings and So On: Probably NC-17 for concepts. Later on for violent imagery plus... oh, you'll just have to wait and see. H/W friendship (perhaps slash if you wear slash goggles)
Summary: A sequel to Priority's Exigencies
, which is a sequel to DIY Sheep's The Contract
, which has now spawned an incredible number of offshoots. You may want to read the original stories to get the context for this. The short version is that House is a physical and emotional mess, having been wrongly imprisoned and tortured and all sorts of nasty stuff. It's about what happens next, and how House deals with it.
Timeline: This is set nearly a year after the beginning of Exigencies.
Earlier parts here: Part 1.
Comments: This is the first fiction I've written since junior high. I'd love comments, but if you've got something icky to say, please be gentle. And if you're going to flame me, find another target. A big thank you to the three gracious folks who served as what I now understand are called betas: AW, GM and my medical guru TD, who tells me the medicine is okay, but the procedure is all messed up. She adds that there's no point in changing it because it would destroy the story (which she liked) if I make it proper. So, if you're a stickler-ouch, you may feel the need to get on my case. Truth is, I already know. Drama trumps medicine, or so I've heard.
Oh, Yeah, the Disclaimer: I certainly don't own House or any of the characters therein, although it would be nice if I did.. They belong to David Shore & company. It's just that they waltzed into my head and wouldn't leave until I told their story.
___________________________________________
A Gentle Knock at the Door
Chapter 2
While House was talking to Roberts and Matthews, Wilson was talking to Cuddy.
“No surprises this time,” he said. “He was way ahead of me and ready to get it over with.”
Cuddy nodded. She didn’t think she’d ever figure out Greg House. Although she was smart and she knew it, his mind ran rings around hers. She prided herself on being able to multitask, but somehow her daily routine had nothing on his. She could juggle a busy schedule, PR functions, the books (little joke there) and assorted doctors and board members. But he somehow had the uncanny ability to let one part of his brain continue working while the rest of him was playing some idiotic game or harassing his staff. And then, when you least expected it-presto! chango!-out came an answer than no one else in the world could have come up with. And it would be the right one.
She was so grateful to have him back at her hospital. He might tire easily, and lord knows he lived with more pain than anyone should, pain that was constantly apparent behind his eyes, but when his brain was needed, it was there. In the few months since he’d come back to work, he’d already solved half a dozen difficult cases that his team and his successor (and predecessor), Dr. Evans, would never have found an answer to. People were alive who would have been dead if it weren’t for Greg House.
“How’s the patient?” asked Wilson, shaking Cuddy from her introspection.
“Stable last I heard. They really should have brought her here sooner, as soon as the sepsis was suspected. The longer they waited, the greater the probability that she wouldn’t survive the infection. Those prison doctors had to have known this was beyond their abilities. Surely someone can cut through this red-tape crap, and get this woman’s conviction overturned quickly so she doesn’t have to go through what House went through-months in an inadequate prison hospital awaiting retrial.”
“Depends on the D.A.’s office. Last time, they insisted that House was guilty of Cameron’s murder, despite literally tons of evidence to the contrary.” Wilson felt himself getting angry all over again. If the D.A.’s office had just followed the FBI’s advice, everything could have been handled quietly behind the scenes. The trials wouldn’t have been so stressful on House, and perhaps he wouldn’t have collapsed into catatonia. Oh, and the tabloid press wouldn’t have created a circus out of the “Tortured Doctor Testifies About Abuse” stories. Sure, the press would still have been on the story, but maybe it could have been controlled.
“They got such bad PR out of it, though, maybe they’ll be more sensible this time,” said Cuddy, doubtfully.
“Let’s hope.”
“Do you think House realizes the tabloids are going to get involved again, and will rehash the whole thing?”
“Don’t know, but I wouldn’t put it past him. He’s not stupid. That may have been part of what shook him this morning. He’s finally got a semblance of a life, after nearly six years of nightmarish insanity, and it’s going to get turned inside out again. I’m sure he’s fighting the desire to resent this poor woman for shaking things up. Or the FBI for taking so long to find out about her. If her story had come out the same time as House’s, it would have been bad, but over with by now. Like tearing off a band-aid quickly.”
Cuddy nodded. No, this band-aid was getting slowly removed, taking with it hanks of hair and skin. She would never let House know she was thinking this, but she couldn’t help it: Poor House.
He’d be appalled.
* * * *
“How’d it go?”
“Fine.”
Apparently, that was all House was going to say on the subject. He looked exhausted, and he probably was. His skin was translucent, amplifying the scars on his face and hands, and his eyes stared vacantly into the distance.
With Wilson silently at his side, House hobbled along on his crutches, headed back to the safety of his office. He was almost healed from the latest surgeries on his right leg; the next set were scheduled in a couple of weeks, repairing some of the damage on his left. He faced years’ worth of reconstructive and corrective surgery on his legs, hands, face, back… you name it. There wasn’t an inch of Greg House that hadn’t been damaged. Wilson ought to know; he was the only one, besides Linda, House trusted enough to see the injuries.
Proud and stubborn, he had been so fiercely protective of his independence and privacy when his leg was injured years before; now he had to settle for protecting the only thing he had left to protect: his battered body. Nearly everything else was public knowledge, written up in the tabloids in garish detail.
When House first came back to work, a few months earlier, he had to fight the shame and embarrassment he felt when someone recognized him, either from before or from the news stories. They know who I am. They know who I was. They know what happened to me.
Now, he’d gotten to the point where he could shrug it off most of the time. Unless someone was particularly insensitive. Funny that other people’s insensitivity bothered him now. Him. Greg House. The King of Insensitivity. Who prided himself on his crudeness.
Well, not so much any more. That jig was up. He still had that sharp wit, but now people tended to take it with a grain of salt when he tried to misbehave. Plus he just didn’t have the gumption for all the games anymore.
He dropped into his office chair with a groan. Three o’clock. He wasn’t sure he could make it until five. Wilson stood nearby, hovering, exuding the concern that sometimes drove House crazy. Out of the corner of his eye, House saw his team in the conference room, looking back at him. He motioned them over.
“Anything urgent?” he asked, hoping the answer would be no. And the answer was no, much to his relief. After his team left the room, Wilson looked at him expectantly, transmitting clear nonverbal messages that it was time to go home. House closed his eyes and nodded. “You win.” He didn’t even have the energy to fight it tonight. He wanted to go home. He wanted to sink into the soft leather sofa, eat some comfort food, watch mindless television, take a pain pill-maybe two-and go to bed. He wanted to hide.
* * * *
They were coming for him again. They always came. It didn’t matter how tired he was or how much he hurt; they kept coming. The door clanked open. It was playtime. Hours later, new bruises and breaks assaulting his senses, they dumped him back on the floor of his cold cell, his breathing sharp and short around the pain.
Sometimes it wasn’t physical pain, but mental. Sometimes-often-they held him down while some guard or prisoner raped him, leaving him weeping with humiliation and disgust. Sometimes they merely threatened. To chew his hands up in a garbage disposal. To put his eyes out with a pencil. To castrate him. Eyes, voices, taunting him, never letting him be. Even his own mind was invaded by them. There was no place to hide, no respite, no sanctuary, no hope.
In his bedroom, which shared a wall with House’s, Wilson heard the screams. Damn it! He knew he should have stayed over tonight. Grabbing his key, he ran outside.
Frantically unlocking House’s front door, he tore into the bedroom, finding House curled up on the floor, pushing his back into the corner, his eyes unseeing and his breath coming in short gasps.
“House! House,” he called. The tormented man in the corner didn’t see him. “It’s okay. It’s okay. I’m here. No one can get you.” He forced himself to speak in a soothing tone as he crouched down on the floor next to his friend.
“No, no. No!” cried House, seeing not the reality of his bedroom but the terrors of his past.
“Please. No more,” he begged. “Let me die. Please… please… please. Just let me… die. Let me die.”
Quietly shocked, Wilson drew in a quick breath. He’d never heard House ask to die before. Of course, he must have wanted to-anything to avoid the pain and the terror-but according to Thompson’s contract, if House died, someone else would, too, probably Wilson himself. So House stayed alive because it was all he could do.
Tentatively, Wilson reached out and gently touched House on the arm. Sometimes this worked, bringing House back to today, back to safety. More often, it didn’t. Tonight would be one of those nights. House flung Wilson’s arm away, wrapping his own arms around his head. “No!” he cried out again, his head sinking onto his chest.
“House. House, please. It’s okay.” He tried again, this time encircling House’s upper body with his arm, pulling the shaking man toward him. “It’s okay. You’re safe.”
With a gasp, House came back to the present, focusing his red-rimmed eyes on Wilson. He let out his breath and dropped his head onto Wilson’s chest, sobbing, letting Wilson’s arms encircle him as he shook, grasping a bit of Wilson’s shirt in his misshapen fingers.
* * * *
Cuddy had learned her lesson. When House had returned to work, someone-she was pretty sure it was Dr. Alan Pevey, the little weasel-had notified the press. House, surrounded by the vultures, had been knocked over in the scramble, winding up in the emergency room. Well, it wasn’t happening again. She was going to play this as close to the vest as she could.
She owed it to Greg to protect him. He’d saved her life and the lives of several others, by sacrificing himself to Thompson’s insanity. Once again, she marveled at House. He’d always been so prickly, so difficult. She’d liked him despite it, and had always suspected it was a protective front. Who would ever have thought that the seemingly self-centered bastard Gregory House had it in him to endure years of unimaginable agony to save others, to put the people he cared about above his own safety, even above his own life? When she’d tried to thank him, he’d shrugged it off, saying it was his choice, his decision.
But now, since his release from prison and the attendant publicity, other people had learned what he was made of. They might still try to cast him as the arrogant ass he always pretended to be, but deep down, everyone knew what he’d done, what he’d sacrificed. Everyone except Pevey, of course. But Pevey was a jerk. She was hoping one day he’d push her too far, and then she could get the board to fire him. Serve the little rat right.
Agents Roberts and Matthews were due any minute, and she wanted to discuss strategy with them. How could they help her protect the shattered man who just wanted to do his job?
* * * *
Rainie Adler lay quietly on the hospital bed in Room 304. She whimpered as she tugged the blanket over her head, trying to make herself as small as she could. Maybe if she was small, they wouldn’t see her. Maybe if she stayed very, very still, they wouldn’t know she was there.
Outside her door sat a policeman, guarding his dangerous prisoner.
* * * *
“So that’s it?” asked Cuddy. “You can get her conviction overturned quietly and quickly? The D.A.’s office isn’t fighting it this time?”
“That’s it,” said Roberts. “They were pretty embarrassed with the House case, so I think we can keep this one on the QT. I’m sure some wiseass tabloid newshound will pick up the story eventually, but we should be able to control it some. Hope so, anyways. Those two have been through enough.”
She nodded, flooded with a sense of relief.
“He looks a lot better,” added Roberts, somewhat abruptly.
“He is,” replied Cuddy, following his train of thought. “Still pretty fragile sometimes, but who wouldn’t be?”
“How’s she doing?”
“She’s critical, but out of the ER. She’s technically in ICU, but for her own safety-and because the police still think of her as a prisoner-we’ve got her in a private room. Why didn’t those idiots at the prison hospital send her over as soon as she collapsed? We almost lost her yesterday.”
“Can’t say. It’s a whole new staff over there, as I’m sure you can appreciate, and I guess they’re not used to dealing with anything like this. Not that anyone would be used to injuries like hers…” Unspoken were the words “… or like House’s.”
“How long will it take?” Cuddy forced herself to focus on the issue at hand.
“I think we’re looking at having the conviction overturned in a day or two.”
“That soon…? Wonderful. Has anyone contacted the Times to let them know what’s happened? She must have friends there, plus… ” Her thoughts drifted off. Just because Rainie Adler was a reporter, this would make the news.
“Been pushing it off until everything’s straightened out.”
“Does she know? I mean, about her little girl?”
“We think those s.o.b.’s told her after it happened, but I don’t know if it registered. Maybe better if it didn’t.”
Cuddy nodded. “How do you want this handled? The press stuff, I mean?”
“Let’s work out a plan, with contingencies, in case the word gets out sooner.”
Again, Cuddy nodded.
* * * *
“I’m her doctor.”
The police guard looked intently at the ID, matching it to the face before him. Finally, he nodded and stepped aside. The tall, lanky doctor slipped into Room 304, his crutches making an irregular sound on the linoleum.
NEXT: What Cuddy Sees...