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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.
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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?
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Legal Disclaimer: The authors published here make no claims on the ownership of Dr. Gregory House and the other fictional residents of Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. Like the television show House (and quite possibly Dr. Wilson's pocket protector), they are the property of NBC/Universal, David Shore and undoubtedly other individuals of whom I am only peripherally aware. The fan fiction authors published here receive no monetary benefit from their work and intend no copyright infringement nor slight to the actual owners. We love the characters and we love the show, otherwise we wouldn't be here.
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