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  Fools 
 by leiascully	

 She wasn't sure why she picked up the phone. She wasn't sure why she
called House, except that there was no one else to call. Cuddy didn't have
anything to say when it rang through anyway, just took a long breath. She
wasn't crying. She was too exhausted to cry, sitting on the chilly rim of
the bathtub, trying not to look at the wastebasket.

His machine beeped. "Not here, give up," said his message.

"House, pick up." She was trying not to plead. The phone clicked on and
she put her forehead against the edge of the counter by the sink, the
marble finish cold against her skin. 

"I'm out for the day, Cuddy," he said, sounding bored or maybe high.

"House," she said, and her voice shook. 

"What, emotional trauma rather than medical trauma this evening? Call
Wilson. He's got a degree in psychology these days, apparently."

"I'm not pregnant," she said, her eyes closed and the countertop pressing
hard against her forehead, a cold burn.

"So you've said," he said, and then she heard it click in his mind.
"You're not pregnant."

"No."

There was a long, long pause. She breathed in and out, tried remembering
the thoracic blood vessels and the chemical equations for the processing
of oxygen. All those little molecules of oxygen bonding with the hematin
in her red blood cells, floating through her arteries to nourish her
cells. Finally he spoke, oxygen floating down the line to her, because the
lungs were inefficient and what he couldn't process, he shared. 

"I'll come over."

She nodded numbly, aware he couldn't hear her, and they both hung up. She
stood up, stripped and got into the shower because she couldn't think of
anything else to do. The water was hot, she knew, but all she felt was
cold. Her skin was flushed a high angry pink, almost scalded, and she
turned off the water and went to the closet to drag on his old UMichigan
sweatshirt, the one she'd stolen so long ago, and a pair of yoga pants.
Lisa, put on a bra for god's sake, her mother said in her head, but she
ignored the voice. So her breasts would sag. She had no one to impress
anyway, and they weren't serving any biological purpose. Her breasts were
as purposeless as her empty womb, reminders of a femininity that was too
much and insufficient both. These days her figure was a fundraising
accessory, her breasts a showcase piece, as House had pointed out many a
time. Corporate whoring, perhaps, but it kept her hospital running. She
had no regrets. 

Except. She wouldn't mind losing the slender waist, the still fairly firm
breasts, the slim ankles, if she could have a child. There were days when
she could almost feel the curve of a baby's fragile skull under her lips,
and those days, she felt so lonely she wanted to cry.

She made a cup of chamomile tea. She had never really liked chamomile, but
it was supposed to be soothing, and it seemed like the thing to do. There
was nothing on television. She tried to watch the news for a few minutes,
but realized she wasn't paying attention to either the anchors on screen
or the fact that the mug of tea was burning her palms, and she turned off
the television and set down the mug and curled up against the armrest. In
a couple of minutes she was asleep, unintentionally. She stirred a little
when the sirens flicked on down the street, but she didn't wake, just
turned over and pressed her face into the cushions. 

She dreamed.

House came in quietly, using the key she figured he'd copied from her
stolen spare. He wasn't as subtle as he thought he was. She knew it was a
dream, when she stopped to think about it, but that didn't seem important.
He dropped keys and jacket in her foyer and limped to the couch, easing
down in the opposite corner and putting a hand on her ankle. 

"I wasn't sure you were still trying," he said. "I thought..." 

She knew what he thought. She remembered the night she had gone to his
apartment, a week before the shooting, and when he had opened the door,
she had said, "I like you," and that had been enough. He had let her in.
She had kissed him in the foyer and he had led her into the bedroom. The
strong arrow of time pointed only one way, but pity, it seemed, could
change, however unidirectional things had seemed. He was gentle with her.
She was gentle with him. Sex was complicated and difficult under ideal
conditions, and these were not, but they made the most of it. They knew
their ways around each other. He kissed her almost tenderly afterwards and
she lay in his bed for a long time before she went home. After that, they
hadn't talked about it, and he had been shot, and she had started the
artificial insemination, and every month she came home hoping. She hadn't
known he was hoping too.

"Please," she said, and his fingers moved up her calf under the cuff of
the pants. "House, it isn't going to work."

"It'll work," he said. 

"I wanted it to be you," she admitted. 

"I noticed," he said. "It was pretty clearly you wanted me out of that
hospital bed for more than one reason." 

"I don't want a stranger's child," she said. "I do. I don't. It wasn't
supposed to be this difficult."

"I know," he said, and his palm was warm and she could feel it. "I know,
Lise."

It had to be a dream, because he hadn't called her that since college, but
she wanted so badly to believe.

"Greg," she said, sitting up, and he was looking at her with those blue
blue eyes in the dim. 

"Try, try again," he said. "You know how I feel about puzzles."

"And here I thought you knew me like the back of your hand," she said,
aching.

"Ever looked at the back of your hand?" he asked rhetorically, and drew
her toward him. "Anyway, this is a uterus we're talking about. I have much
less experience with those."

"Thank you," she said.

"Don't thank me," he said, and kissed her. All that vitriol from this
mouth? she thought, and held onto his shoulders as if she were drowning.
He was an unlikely savior, but he was all she had. His hands pushed up
under her sweatshirt (his sweatshirt) to cradle her breasts and she felt
like someone somebody wanted again. It wasn't going to be romance or love;
it was going to be sex, but he was a master of illusions, and he kissed
like he cared.

Guilt. There was so much guilt between them. She could feel it on her skin
as he touched her, but his hands were so good, she found herself
forgetting. Pity me, she thought, if that's what it takes. The heat was
spreading through her body. These things got more difficult as they got
older, but he knew her. He knew women. There was no pointless fumbling,
nothing like adolescent passion, but they were past that. His fingers were
between her legs. His head was pushed under the lifted hem of the
sweatshirt so that he could kiss her breasts. She was balancing over his
thigh, her hands kneading his shoulders and her knees beginning to ache,
but she didn't want him to stop. 

"Bed," she said. "For your leg." He leaned on her a little, left the cane
hooked over the couch, and she could almost pretend they were whole, the
two of them, because they managed the hall at a slow, steady pace.

His fingers played over her ribs as they tried to find a good position,
something not too boring and not too strenuous. She ended up on her side,
facing him, her knee drawn over his hip. They moved against each other. He
was watching her; she held his gaze, and there were all the years between
them laid bare, all blame and apologies, all guilt and joy. He moved in
her and it was heartbreaking to see his eyes, to feel the scars on him
against her thigh and chest. They were both of them scarred. 

"Lise," he warned, and there was a little tremor in his thigh. 

"Go on," she said, and rolled her hips against his. He kissed her as he
thrust harder, and she felt the shudder pass through her as he came. He
lay quietly for a few minutes, panting against her, and then rolled her
onto her back and flung one leg over her as his thumb traced lazy circles
around her clit. 

"Come on," he coaxed, sliding down awkwardly to nuzzle at her breasts as
she began to whimper. "I might need a good reference someday, and you need
some positive things to say around the water cooler. Come on, Lise, stay
with me." He murmured against her breast, a string of gently nonsensical
words that she wasn't even hearing anymore, because his fingers kept
moving and moving in circles and her head was tipped back hard against the
pillow as her back arched and it was difficult to breathe all the way in
and then she gasped and would have floated away if it hadn't been for his
leg over hers, and the scar that tethered her.

"That's my girl," he said, and laid his palm over her stomach. "Maybe if
my guys do their thing, it'll be my girls in a couple of months." 

"If not?" she said, her eyes closed tightly.

"If not, I know where you live," he said, and slid back up her body.
"Crashing here. Leg's not really up to riding home." She opened her eyes
to look at him and he gave her what was almost a smile, and there was pain
in it, and the easing of pain. 

She woke up crying when the phone rang. 

+ + + +

A/N: Because it really did look to my biased eyes as if House got arrested
in Cuddy's neighborhood. How can we explain that?  
   Please post a comment on this story.  


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Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. Like the television show House
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