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A Measure of Comfort
by bironic
"Please go back to work." Lisa could feel the sobs pushing up in her throat, and she didn't want James around to see her lose it. This crack was already enough.
James sighed. He turned to leave, then changed his mind; reached out to touch her shoulder, but pulled back.
Finally, he said, "What you're going through... it's normal."
Lisa gave him a look.
He responded with a rueful smile, but went on. "You say you feel nothing. But that's because you're overwhelmed, not because you're a, a bad mother. You'll get through it. The both of you will."
"I don't know if I want to try," she confessed, voice going hoarse with the guilt of it. She dropped her gaze down to the bundle in her arms. This baby was everything she'd wanted, but all she felt was blank. Maybe she hadn't known what she really wanted. Maybe she'd been trying for something that wasn't hers to have.
James crouched in front of her and put a hand on her knee. She hadn't realized how cool the room was until the warmth spread from his fingers. "Lisa. Look at you. Your head is a mess right now. In just a few days, your whole life's been turned upside-down." He stroked his thumb back and forth along the inside of her knee. Startled, she looked up at him. Was he really--? "You need something to relax you. Something to feel good--uncomplicated, pure good. Take your mind off things, just for a few minutes."
As seductions went, it wasn't the smoothest, but the look on his face was so sincere, and her need to feel some kind of human connection right now was so strong, that she licked her chapped lips and considered it.
"I know you and House have... whatever it is you have." He smiled again, and this time she found herself giving a small smile back. "This doesn't have to mean anything beyond the here and now."
It was crazy. It was crazy. But she felt crazy right now, out of her head, dissociated somehow, and the idea of sex with someone she trusted, of being comforted, of letting James take care of her for a little while here while Cameron took care of the hospital, tugged at her like a lifeline.
He gazed at her steadily, still stroking. "Let me do this for you."
"Yes," she whispered.
He nodded, and as he stood, he brought his hand up to her cheek and kissed her forehead. She swallowed back tears.
"Let me put Rachel down for a nap," she said. "Meet me in the bedroom."
For all the tough times they'd seen each other through, they'd never done this before, but it felt natural to lie down side by side on the bed, fully clothed, sharing strangely platonic kisses. James was as gentle as she'd expected, working her hair free from the tie, rubbing her back and stomach in soothing circles through her shirt. She thought it would have irritated her any other time, this passivity and caretaking, but right now it was what she needed.
His hand rested on her waistband. "Okay?" he asked. When she nodded, he undid the button and zip and slipped his hand into her pants, stroking her to wetness through her panties with fingertips on the upstroke and smooth fingernails on the downstroke. He chuckled when she reached down to push the cloth out of the way. She let her eyes fall closed when he touched her bare.
The hand James wasn't using to tease up and down and circle her clit slid under her cheek to cradle the back of her head. She let him pull her across the few inches separating them to rest her forehead in the crook of his neck, and she breathed.
He really was good at this, she thought, as he alternated long and short movements, harder and gentler, on her clit and above and around it, building her up slowly and steadily. The two fingers he slid into her made her breath catch with pleasure. She wanted to relax into it, but somehow her lax hands in the blanket and on his shoulder had become fists, and one ragged breath led to another.
Crying during sex, now there was a sign of emotional stability. She sniffed and laughed at the same time; well, the whole point of this was that she wasn't feeling stable. Besides, if what House had been saying for years was true, bedding a weeping woman wasn't anything new for James.
"Shh," James whispered. He leaned back; she opened her eyes and watched him look at her. She knew he could see the lines on her face, more prominent every year, the bags under her eyes that had nothing to do with sleep deprivation and everything to do with the constant crying jags since Rachel had come into her life.
"Just feel good," he said, rubbing and stroking inside and out. She pushed away the voices telling her all the reasons she'd make a bad mother--the authors of those child-rearing books, her own, her mother's, House's--and pulled her legs closer together to sweeten the pressure. He sped up, grinding his palm into her mound, and when she tilted her hips towards him, she felt the orgasm approaching. She closed her eyes and let it come, pushing up into his hand.
When the pulses faded and her heartbeat began to slow, she rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling.
James spoke softly as he stroked her hip with slick fingers. "You've been waiting years for this. The anticipation, the setbacks, the hope, it's meant so much to you, and now it's finally happened. It's no wonder you don't know what to feel."
Her throat went tight. She pulled her clothes back on and sat up. "You should get back."
He sat up too, resting at the foot of the bed. He was probably trying to get her to look at him, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. God, she had a baby. And all she could think about was how to get out of it.
"Yeah," James sighed, and pushed to his feet. "Call me if you need to talk." She waved goodbye without looking up.
The front door opened and shut. On cue, Rachel started fussing in the nursery.
Lisa took a breath, wiped her eyes, and got up to see what the baby needed now.
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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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