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It's when Cuddy reaches for the switch on her desk lamp and closes her office door behind her, late at night, that the idea of House sneaks past her defenses.
Not House himself, all obnoxious comments and blunt craggy walls that he won't let anyone come close to scaling. It's what he hides, what he could be, all the hinted possibilities that peek out every now and again from behind his bullshit that makes wanting him harder to fight. It's hardest of all to resist when she's lonely, when she hasn't had anyone, lately, to turn her mind away from him.
The clinic is closed. Through the walls and floors, or by whatever part of herself is always aware of the hospital, Cuddy hears the murmur of the night nurses and the on-call doctors, the hazy mutters of drugged and sleeping patients, the endless rounds of the custodial staff. When the hospital's quiet like this, Cuddy stands in the reception area and lays her hand on the edge of the admit desk, watching the lights flicker. There's nothing to stay for, except paperwork that can easily wait until tomorrow. She's got nothing to go to, either, except her house, which is less a home than the hospital is most days. But now even the hospital feels empty, and Cuddy knows what she needs in order to forget, and she starts by wanting House.
It's a simple thing to want him, when it's late like this and he's nowhere around. It's infinitely difficult, wanting House when he's right there, broken and loud and defiant. When he's not there to distract her, it's easier to remember small moments during the day when she loved him. Today, he followed a woman and her son out of an exam room, and the mother was sharp-edged and scowling while House rolled his eyes and lectured her, but the little boy was giggling and clutching a lollipop: blue raspberry, a flavour Cuddy knows the clinic doesn't ordinarily stock.
Earlier, she found him leaning on his crossed arms on the balcony above the clinic, munching popcorn kernel by kernel. She'd meant to order him back to work, but he saw her coming, and instead of scowling, he offered her the bag with raised eyebrows and big innocent eyes. She found herself dipping in and taking a handful before she realized she'd have the hulls stuck in her teeth for the rest of the day and nowhere to wipe the butter off her fingers. House ignored her comfortably, watching the flow of patients and staff below them.
It's restful, to stand next to him, neither of them talking. At least she knows that he's not causing havoc anywhere else in the hospital. And when he's quiet like this she can imagine she's not pathetic at all for holding on so hard to a college fling. It's twenty years forgotten and so vivid in her memory that she wants to turn to him and say, Do you remember? Do you ever think about us, about then? though she knows House will never go along with her game of pretend. He doesn't remember the good without the bad, and he's just as likely to frown back at her and say that he remembers their fights, their shouting, the day she walked out for the last time. He's boxed up Greg and Lisa and he keeps them on some back shelf well away from House and Cuddy. Most days, she does the same.
Cuddy licks her lips and tastes the slick richness of the butter, the grains of salt, and she sighs.
House glances up at her and Cuddy remembers that wistful look, although he's older now. The crowsfeet around his eyes and the dip of frown lines between his eyebrows make him seem so tired, so different. Back then, she'd kick him out of her apartment late at night for being a pest, laughing at his protests and slapping his wandering hands. She learned to resist that look, but coming now it's a shock, as cold and bright and blue as running headfirst from burning July sand into the ocean. House lifts his arm off the railing and holds it out to her, and at first she doesn't know what he's offering, until she sees the grease stains decorating his cuffs. She smiles and wipes her hand on his sleeve.
House grins back. "Lise," he says, the mind-reader, and her breath catches in her throat. Everything she was thinking must be painted on her face, and she knows she's blushing. House's lips twitch and he looks down, takes his cane, before he straightens and heads for the elevator.
Cuddy almost, almost, lets him escape. She finds her voice while he's still waiting non-chalantly for the elevator, watching the lights above the doors. "House," she says, "get back to the clinic."
He shakes his head, his back turned to her, but she knows he's smiling. When the elevator arrives, he takes it down, back to work.
Cuddy wants to laugh. Her heart's beating quickly, for no reason at all, and she can't hide the warmth in her cheeks. She wonders if anyone notices, if anyone sees. Maybe, by now, they've stopped looking.
She knows House still looks at her, but it's hard to decide if she wants to be the person he sees. If he loves the idea of her, just as she's resigned herself to loving the idea of him.
And when she leaves the hospital, the icy wind slipping around her ankles and down the back of her coat, she knows that tonight she needs more than memories. She uses his spare key when she gets to his apartment. He's not surprised to see her. He's sitting on the couch, but the television's silent and dark. An empty glass sits on the coffee table, the ice still melting at the bottom. She closes the door and pulls off her scarf, hanging it with her coat and purse over the back of a chair piled with medical journals.
Cuddy lets her heels slip off her feet. She steps closer and he shifts, not enough to show that he's leaving room for her. He stretches his legs along the cushions, the right carefully propped on the edge. Cuddy sits in the vee of his legs and drapes herself over him without a word. She presses her ear against his chest, letting him ignore her as much as he wants. She listens to his breathing, to the steady lub-dub of his heart. It's cold outside, fall slowing into winter, but he is warm and his t-shirt is soft under her cheek. Cuddy buries one arm between him and the back of the couch. She runs her free hand down his ribs and then up, under the shirt. His skin is hot beneath her spread palm, and she brushes her fingers against the grain of his hair just below his armpit.
House breathes in, half a sigh, and tucks her closer. He presses his chin against the top of her head, and she turns to kiss his collarbone, her nose pressed into the hollow of his throat. She skims her thumb lower, rubbing small circles into the softer skin of his stomach, just above the point of his hipbone.
Cuddy's mind whirls with work and meetings. She's probably left a thousand things unfinished. But she can overlook that, as she breathes the scent of him, butter-soft and salt-sweated. She lets herself curl into him and drowse, in the golden-dim lamplight. House moves a hand to her back, massaging gently down her spine. On the edge of sleep, she's only half-aware of the whisper of his fingers against her back, enough to make her shiver. Then, with a quick twist, he's snapped open her bra, and Cuddy can't stop herself from laughing into his shirt, her shoulders shaking under his hand.
"Think you're getting lucky?" she murmurs, and she loves the sound of his voice resonating through his chest when he answers, "I think I know a sure thing when she shows up at my door."
"You would," she says, but there's no sting to the words. Sleep would be good, but it's even better to forget everything by kissing his chest, teasing his nipples through the t-shirt until she can push it up and away. House pulls it off and drops it beside the couch, stretching his shoulders as he does. When she lifts up to meet his eyes, he studies the buttons of her blouse instead, undoing them one by one. Her bra goes with it, and his skin against hers is even warmer, even more wanted.
Cuddy meets his body with hers; she wants to know the shape of him, how he fills this space, how he's changed. House touches her delicately, as if she's a finely calibrated instrument, and to hurry would ruin the outcome of whatever he's trying to learn. She doesn't know what's left to discover, unless it's the exhaustion she feels between them. Tired and tender both, so that their movements are soft and blurred, so that even their breathing is slow and deep, as if this is a dream. House runs his hands as far as he can reach down her stockings, sheer and slippery between them, and then he pushes them down, along with her skirt, her panties. She does the same for his jeans. He isn't hard yet but it doesn't matter. There's no need to rush, only the slow certainty of his hands, his mouth when he reaches up and kisses her breasts. He strokes his tongue across her nipple, and oh it is good. She feels as lithe as the tide, surging closer.
"House," she says, like the beginning of a question, but she doesn't know what she's asking. His mouth burns against her breast, but he's being so gentle. She knew he could be, but it hurts that it's only now that he allows it. Still, she is glad, so glad, that he lets her in at all. Maybe she is saying thank you but neither of them will ever know because she says it into his hair where it is thin at the crown of his head. She draws back, then, and kisses him, and the words are lost.
House kisses deliberately, full of slow-burning intent. Cuddy allows herself this, to feel every movement of his tongue, the way he is saying this, now. When she reaches for him, he's harder, still not quite there, but he arches when she takes him in her hand and strokes him. She watches the muscles of his stomach tensing, his chest flexing as he grips the back of the couch. His head tips back and his eyes are closed, sweat darkening his stubble. Cuddy remembers watching him sleep. How he lay sprawling, careless, smug, across her bed and across her memories of years ago. Later, in his hospital bed--three times, and how can Wilson watch over him every time it happens?--his body tense, tight, uncertain. And now: as he groans, as he pants under her touch. When he opens his eyes, Cuddy kisses him again, her hand still on his erection as she shifts her knees next to his hips, and slides down. She's wet, so that it's easy to relax and let him slide in, deeply.
"Yes," House hisses, "Cuddy. Lisa."
She doesn't know what name she wants him to call out, and maybe both are best. New and old. "Remember?" she whispers, while he fills her, stretching, hard and blood-warm. His erection rubs her g-spot, sending the feeling spiraling higher. He slides his hand down her belly until his fingers find her clit, and she is moving on him, oh slow, oh love, making love to this idea of House who she remembers and forgets every day, who is not Greg, who gasps beneath her and moves faster now, more desperate. He gives her the pressure she needs so badly against her clit, quickly, until she is coming, perfectly, in this moment. She trembles above of him, letting go into the hot spread of pleasure, and whatever she cries out is wordless.
"Yeah," House says, "yeah," and he thrusts again. It's a bit painful now, aching, but Cuddy shudders through the aftermath and then he jerks, twice, three times, and she feels him coming inside her.
Cuddy slides down on top of him, keeping him close even as he starts to soften. The salt on his skin is stronger, the scent between them musky and warm.
It won't be long until they cool off, and House's leg must be hurting him by now. For a moment, Cuddy takes what she wants from him: their skin sticky, his body hot beneath hers, the rasp of his chest hair against her nipples, too sensitive now and protesting. She'll leave soon, driving home through the dark, going back to her cold sheets, and when she does, she'll want to keep this memory for as long as she can.
She starts by wanting him; she ends, loving someone she'll never have.