fic: When the Wind is Southerly: Season 7 (2/?)

[readingrat]

Author's Note: Once again, encouragement and corrections from  flywoman and brighidsfire shaped this up. Episode transcripts from Clinic Duty simplified my task.

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V: Office Politics
Treats of the infamous conduct of James E. Wilson towards his friend Gregory House that he artfully disguises as an act of friendship towards his superior.

"You're inflicting Martha M. Masters on him?" They had resurrected their weekly lunch dates, the 'PPTH Superpower Summit', as House liked to call it, in the days after the Trenton crane disaster. In the first weeks they'd started off with inconsequential chit-chat, but of late they'd dropped the pretence that their lunch dates were about anything other than House. Nonetheless, by beginning the conversation in the cafeteria queue before they even had a chance to sit down, Wilson was transgressing against an unspoken rule.

Cuddy gave him a sharp glance before she returned her attention to the weighty question of frozen yogurt with or without sprinkles. "Mmmm."

"That isn't very nice of you." Wilson, who had taken two ice-cream bars, replaced one of them. House had the tact to stay well clear of them on 'summit' days, but Wilson's habit of grabbing double the amount of junk food he needed was ingrained.

"Being nice isn't part of my job description," Cuddy pointed out as she picked up her tray and turned towards her favourite table.

"But throwing that girl to the lions? What do you hope to achieve? House will eat her for lunch and toss the bones to his fellows."

Cuddy stopped so abruptly that Wilson nearly ran into her. She whirled around, her bottle of water tipping over on her tray. "Are you offering Masters a rotation in oncology?"

"Who ... no ... I mean, I already have two students."

"You couldn't take a third?"

"Masters is ... she has ... I don't think she'd fit in the team," Wilson improvised.

"And could you name a department where she'd fit?" Cuddy asked. Wilson gaped at her. "No? Exactly."

Cuddy sat down and waited until Wilson did the same. "Masters is one of our students, so we are obliged to offer her the rotations she needs to complete her degree. The departments that offer compulsory rotations have no choice in the matter, but no other department head will take her on voluntarily. There's only one department whose head won't deny me a favour." She propped her chin in her hand and smiled at Wilson from under her lashes.

"So you're using your relationship to foster this ... this nightmare on House? He'll fire her within a week."

"Oh, he fires her about three times a day. Wilson, use your brains! It's a win-win whichever way it goes. If House keeps her, Masters gets to complete her optional rotations while we have someone to keep an eye on House. It's a lot cheaper than using a fellow as a babysitter. If he fires her, I have an excuse to get mad at him again."

Wilson knitted his eyebrows. "Does Masters know that she's your watchdog?"

"Oh, no! She's a natural. During her other rotations I had her in my office every other day reporting irregularities. She even managed to dish up stuff about Chan, whose department is the only one that passes all inspections with flying colours."

"Clever," Wilson conceded, ignoring the slur on the oncology department which would also pass any inspection, even the surprise ones, if its head didn't have a moral responsibility towards a certain ex-diagnostician who occasionally made him transgress a rule or two.

"Yes. I admit I'm seeing a lot more of Masters than I'd like, but I guess it can't be helped."

"So you're aware of House's treatment plan for Dugan?" Wilson asked slowly.

"Hep A to combat Hep C? Yes, Masters ratted on him. That was unfortunate, but I'm sure House will get a handle on the situation. I just need a positive Hep C test from him." Cuddy waved the matter away with a flick of her wrist.

"Look, I don't know what he's planning, but he's going to lie to you. Keep an eye on him."

Cuddy put down her fork and stared at Wilson, her expression sombre. "Why are you dishing out the dirt on your friend? You're doing neither of us a favour."

"Odd," Wilson dead-panned, "I was under the impression that I was helping you."

Cuddy's voice rose. "By telling me to stop House from doing whatever it is he needs to do?"

"That's not what I said. You want House to break up with you, right?"

"Yes, but not at the cost of a patient's life!"

Wilson shrugged. "Call him on the lie when he's cured the patient."

"And that is so going to impress him!" Cuddy snorted.

"He is convinced that as his girlfriend you will not forgive him the lie."

"He's - what?" Cuddy looked completely puzzled. "What crap! I want him to lie, and he knows it. That's how we work: I officially forbid him to carry out some insane procedure; he lies to me about it, but carries it through nonetheless; I pretend to believe that he's obeying my orders until he comes in, gloating, to tell me he's saved the patient. Then I pretend to get mad. (Well, sometimes I skip that step and admit immediately that he was right.) It's our mutual contribution to protecting the hospital while saving the patient."

"Not this time," Wilson said smugly. "This time he's convinced that you expect him to respect your wishes."

"What did you tell him?"

"Who, me? Nothing." Wilson did a reasonable imitation of House's hurt puppy look. "He came to me asking how you'd react to a lie. I told him that he knew how that would go. I let him work out all the answers by himself."

Cuddy shook her head. "I still don't see how this will work. Either I yell at him, he yells at me, and afterwards everything is fine again, or I tell him it's over, which is what I thought we were trying to avoid at all costs."

"You forgot option number three. Tell him he has to apologise."

Cuddy laughed bitterly. "He's never going to ..." A look of comprehension spread across her face, followed by an appreciative smile. "Oh, you manipulative bastard!"

"I'll take that as a compliment."


VI: A Pox on Our House
Gives credit where credit is due, namely to Grandma House, for the timely diagnosis of a rare condition, and allows the Reader insight into the true motives behind Wilson's ill-fated proposal to his ex-wife Sam.

The door to Cuddy's office swung open, its impetus sending it crashing against the wall. Cuddy's head jerked up. It wasn't who she expected, given the dramatic entry. It was Wilson who marched up to her, finger pointing at her in accusation.

"Seriously, Cuddy? He was in danger of dying of smallpox, but not only are you continuing this ridiculous quarrel over lying. No, you didn't even have the decency to stay with him!"

Cuddy straightened, putting her pen down carefully. "A, kicking up a fuss about him lying to me was your idea. B, he was in no danger of dying because it was rickettsialpox, which are harmless and have never been known to cause death, ..."

"You didn't know that," Wilson yelled, leaning on the desk with both hands to tower over her.

Cuddy pushed back her chair to reduce the discrepancy in height. "Not at the beginning. I knew it by the time I left him to stew by himself."

"You knew, and you didn't tell him? You left him there for another hour thinking he was going to die? If your paperwork was so important, you could have called me and I would have sat with him."

"C, he knew all along it was rickettsialpox and that there wasn't the slightest danger of his dying," Cuddy continued undeterred, "which was, D, why he didn't want you down there, because you would probably have figured it out much quicker than I did, and spoilt his fun."

Now it was Cuddy's turn to raise her voice. "I am so mad at him that if he doesn't dump me, I swear I will dump him, melt-down or not! Do you have any idea what I went through when I thought he was gonna catch smallpox? Any idea at all?" She got up and turned away, ostensibly examining the bleak view from her window. When she spoke again her voice was coated. "And then I find out he's screwing with my mind! He's lucky his balls are still intact."

"He ... knew it was rickettsialpox all along? No! He'd never have let the father die if he'd known."

Cuddy turned round, collected again. "By the time he'd figured it out the father couldn't be saved any more. His immune system was shot thanks to the kidney cancer. The daughter was never in any danger. There are no known fatal outcomes caused by the disease alone."

"Are you sure he knew it was r-pox?"

"Absolutely."

"How'd you figure it out?"

Cuddy touched her forehead with her fingers in a gesture indicating self-reproach. "I should have noticed much, much earlier that something was off - when he went into the isolation room without a suit, and suddenly everyone went, 'Oh, it's smallpox after all!', but no one from his team seriously tried to find an alternate diagnosis. They just stood around saying, 'You shouldn't have gone in there, you seriously screwed it up, House.'" Cuddy's tone mock-imitated Foreman before returning to her normal diction. "All except for Masters, who wasn't in the know."

"His team knew?" Wilson said incredulously.

"Yes. They'll all deny it, of course, as will House if you ask him, but I'm not a total idiot. When Broda refused to move House to another isolation room I called the team into my office to figure out how we could kidnap House to get him out of there, and then it became clear that they weren't interested in helping to move him. They said it might cost them their licences. I mean, seriously, taking the high moral ground when it comes to duping the CDC - does that sound like House's team? Now I know that House isn't exactly your boss-of-the-year, but normally even Foreman musters some compassion for him. I finally smelled a rat when Chase offered to go to the chapel to pray for House."

"You're basing your assumption that House pulled off an elaborate stunt to jerk you around on the fact that Chase wanted to pray for House? That's paranoid," Wilson stated.

Cuddy rolled her eyes. "If I'm paranoid then it's not the cause of any delusions about being screwed over by House, but the result of being screwed over by House. No, that was just the beginning of my suspicions. I took Masters aside and asked her how they'd come to their diagnosis. Turns out they had an old Dutch ship log that House got translated - not by our translation service, but by an online hooker from Amsterdam."

"That sounds like House."

"Oh, yes, if we're talking about causing the hospital a horrendous bill for x-rated services that I'll have to justify to Accounting, but not if we're talking about a patient's life. There's no way House would use a person who has no knowledge of medicine and whose native language isn't English, not unless he knew beforehand what was in that log. So I searched his desk and found this." Cuddy pulled a computer print-out out of her desk drawer and handed it to Wilson, who finally lowered himself into the chair in front of her desk.

After glancing at the first page Wilson returned his gaze to Cuddy, puzzled. "That's ... Dutch."

"Yes, it's a second copy of the ship's log," Cuddy confirmed.

"So how is that supposed to have helped him? It's still Dutch!" Wilson reiterated.

"Turn a few pages on," Cuddy instructed, rolling one hand in illustration.

Wilson turned a few pages, first slowly, then faster when he failed to find anything of interest. Suddenly he stopped dead. On the sixth page of the print-out a few paragraphs had been underlined by hand. The word kater had been highlighted. Wilson frowned at the log while Cuddy smiled grimly. Wilson turned over a few more pages until he came to one that not only had several paragraphs underlined, but also a few notes in the margin. The notes were in House's handwriting. One said, 'R-pox?'

Wilson sighed. "So House knows Dutch."

"His grandmother was Dutch."

"He ... told you that?"

"He made some unbelievable cookies the other day, called bokky-somethings -- a Dutch term for goat's feet. He knew them from his childhood when his grandmother used to bake them for him."

"He baked cookies for you." Wilson's expression was somewhere between 'pigs can fly' and 'he's never baked any for me!'

"For Rachel, actually," Cuddy corrected, as though that would soften the blow. "She wanted to bake something, and I couldn't be bothered."

Wilson's mien tipped unmistakeably towards 'he's never baked for me', so Cuddy continued hastily, "The point is, House read the log before he put the online hooker on it, so he knew that the patients had r-pox. Masters and I figured out that kater might be cat, so I sent her back to the hooker while I got our translation service onto this. I must admit that the hooker was quicker."

"Geez. I guess he's lucky you didn't eviscerate him on the spot."

"Too busy dealing with Broda. He wants to file a complaint against House for disregarding his instructions and putting the hospital at risk of contamination."

Wilson pointed a finger, this time a knowing one, at Cuddy. "You want to kill House, and yet you're protecting him against Broda."

"I'm not protecting House, I'm protecting my own ass here. What do you think will happen if Broda finds out that he can't file a complaint against the jackass doctor who jerked him around because that jackass happens not to be a real doctor?" Cuddy marched to and fro, gesticulating as she went. "I'm done with House! I had a near heart-attack, I had to leave Rachel at my mother's mercy last night, which means she'll be unbearable tonight, and now I'm sitting on a pile of paperwork that'll explode in my face if I can't get Broda off my back."

Wilson massaged his brow. "Ummm, give me some time to 'get rid' of Sam. If you toss him out while he thinks Sam's still living with me, he won't accept my help."

"Good luck to you," Cuddy snorted, adding as an afterthought, "I thought House isn't letting you and Sam 'break up'?"

"Gotta think of something he'll accept as a valid reason."

"Marry her. Marriage has always been a death knell to your relationships."

"Nice. But no thanks. I can't face another of House's bachelor parties." Wilson frowned in concentration. "Come to think of it, that's not a bad idea."

Cuddy raised her eyebrows. "A bachelor party?"

"No. Heavens, no!" Wilson shuddered. "But a proposal might do the job. Or a pregnancy. Give me a few weeks."

"One week."

"Done!"


VII: Small Sacrifices
In which a Secret of Cuddy's is revealed that will hopefully surprise the Reader as much as it did Wilson (and the unsuspecting Author of this Work).

When Wilson came out of 221B, Baker Street, Cuddy was ascending the steps to the house. Tipping her a polite salute with two fingers, he passed her briskly on the steps. He'd almost made it when her voice cut through the evening air. "Where do you think you're going?"

Wilson turned around reluctantly. "He tossed me out. Said you were dropping by."

"Well, yes. He apologised," Cuddy explained. She tipped her head as she regarded Wilson. "Weren't you supposed to get dumped today?"

"I got dumped today, most painfully and ignobly."

Cuddy worried her bottom lip with her teeth. "Doesn't he normally offer comfort and couch when your relationships disintegrate?"

"This time House is adamant: booty beats beer." Wilson shrugged, seemingly indifferent to House's priorities.

"I can't believe he won't let you stay." She sank down on the top step and patted the spot beside her. Wilson sat down gingerly. Cuddy leaned her forehead on both hands. "And I can't believe he apologised. He'd even prepared a trite little speech on how he needed to take a leap of faith and show more trust. ... Hang on, did you tell him to apologise?"

"Well, yes," Wilson admitted sheepishly, "but you know he never takes my advice. He hears what he wants to hear. Apologising does not belong in that category. Usually, good sensible advice makes him go and do something really, really stupid. Or insane. Or both. I was kind of banking on that happening."

"Making promises he can't possibly keep belongs somewhere in there, I'm sure," Cuddy conceded.

"Will you dump him?"

Cuddy sighed. "I should, I suppose. I just don't know how."

"Last week you were adamant about dumping him."

"I know. I ... freaked last week. He's a jerk and I want him to suffer for what he did to me there, but I don't want to set him back again." Cuddy pushed a stray strand of hair back. "I guess I'm in for another evening of Scrabble or Savagescape 2. We're stuck on level four with a horde of zombies. No matter what we do, they just get up again and keep going till we're flattened."

"You need an axe to kill zombies," Wilson said, as though stating the obvious.

"Really?" Cuddy turned her head to look at Wilson in surprise. "You play Savagescape, too?"

"No. This is wisdom acquired from years of watching zombie movies with House. You have to lob off their heads." Wilson frowned. "House should know that."

"House has been trying everything except axes on them," Cuddy said. "He's jerking me around again, damn him!"

"That doesn't make sense."

"Makes perfect sense to me. He gets to watch the zombies feast on my avatar twenty times in a row - I'm always the first one to go down. Besides, he knows how much I hate losing."

"Yes, but the longer you play, the longer he has to wait to get laid," Wilson objected. He raised his hands defensively when Cuddy rolled her eyes at him. "Yes, I know he won't get laid anyway, but he doesn't. ... How come you're so uptight about sleeping with him?"

"Why are you so interested in my sex life?" Cuddy countered. She added shrewdly, "Or is it his sex life you're interested in?"

"It isn't your sex life I'm interested in, it's your lack of one. You and House have been circling around each another for years. Finally, those circles get tight enough that you collide, and you chicken out. Why?"

Cuddy picked a piece of lint off her sleeve. "He's sick! It would be ..."

"I'm impressed by your impeccable moral stance, but what difference does it make?"

"When he stops hallucinating and figures out that I got him involved in a real relationship knowing that he wasn't in his right mind, he won't like it."

"Why not? If he ever stops hallucinating, he'll just go from a relationship that includes hallucinatory phases to one that doesn't." When Cuddy didn't respond, Wilson slammed his hands onto his knees impatiently. "Oh, come on! He's wanted this for ages."

"No, he hasn't," Cuddy snapped. "House has always avoided involvement. He's only interested in something more intimate than our workplace relationship when he's hallucinating."

"You're assuming a connection between his delusions and his desire for intimacy. I'm convinced that he's always wanted this. His delusions don't change his attitude; they simply reduce his inhibitions. You know, he has always been interested, but he's actually a bit shy."

"I must have missed that," Cuddy said with heavy irony.

"All of those dates of yours that he sabotaged?" Wilson prodded.

"Dates?" Cuddy face was one big question mark.

"Yeah, like the one with the guy who owns Eastern Lube."

"I haven't been on a date since I became dean," Cuddy said shortly.

Wilson digested this. Then he said, "We've been on a couple of dates."

Cuddy patted Wilson's arm, smiling at him compassionately. "Those weren't dates, James."

"I thought not," Wilson admitted with a sigh. Then he mustered her curiously. "You haven't been on a date since you became dean? Why not?"

Cuddy shrugged, returning her attention to the non-existent lint on her sleeve.

"Anything to do with House?" Wilson queried.

"Not really."

"Well, he has had a soft spot for you ever since you slept with him all those years ago."

Cuddy fixed Wilson with a basilisk stare. "I don't care what House told you, but I have never had sex with That Man."

"He seems very convinced of it."

"Wilson, you know he's been hallucinating!"

"He said you met in med school," Wilson continued undeterred.

Cuddy snorted. "In med school! Yes, we were at Michigan at the same time, but I was first year pre-med and House must have been in his third or last year of med school."

"You weren't in the same endocrinology class? He didn't cheat off you in the exam?"

"I probably could have talked the professors into letting me audit med classes, but it would have been a complete waste of time for me. House calls me an over-achiever, but not even I audited advanced med courses in my first year of pre-med. Even if I had, there's no way I would have been allowed to sit for the exam. Only bona fide med students may take medical exams."

"He didn't follow you to a dance and then, ummm, ... ?" Wilson rolled a hand suggestively.

"Wilson, it didn't happen!"

"So you never met at med school." Cuddy was silent. "You did meet at med school!" Wilson crowed.

Cuddy brushed a hand through her hair and twisted one of her locks. Finally she said, "I tracked him down at that dance. I'd heard of him and I wanted to see this lunatic everyone was talking about, so I went there with a friend." She hesitated again.

"And you danced with House."

"No. I danced with my friend."

When it seemed as though Cuddy would add nothing more, Wilson prodded, "And?"

At the rate that Cuddy was picking at her sleeve, there wouldn't be much left of it soon. When she spoke again, it was in a low, rapid tone. "We were both pretty wasted, otherwise we'd never have done it. We were usually careful, but everyone seemed so liberal and open. We were idiots." She looked at Wilson from the side. His eyes were narrowed in confusion. Cuddy expelled a long breath before she explained, "I danced with my girl-friend."

Wilson's chin dropped.

"Yes, I bat for the other side. When we went outside for some fresh air some frat boys cornered us. They said they'd knock our queer ways out of us and show us how to be real women. They ... would have done it if House hadn't turned up and stopped them."

"House took on a group of frat boys single-handedly?"

Now that Wilson was focusing on House once more, Cuddy's narrative gained confidence. "Not so much 'took on' as 'got taken on'. He provoked them until they left off us. We managed to get away while they beat him to a pulp, so we hid and waited until they went inside again. As my dorm was close by we took him there - luckily he could still walk - to patch him up. I cleaned him up and let him crash on my couch. When I woke the next morning he was gone."

"And your girlfriend with him," Wilson surmised wryly.

"What? No! She left when we got to the dorm, because she couldn't take him anymore. He was his charming self then already - even with both eyes swelling shut, lip split and blood dripping from his nose - asking whether we'd do a threesome or whether we'd let him watch some girl-on-girl action, so by the time we reached the dorm my girlfriend was ready to cut his balls off and stew them for a midnight snack."

"But you didn't mind."

"He wasn't as good yet at that deflecting thing as he is now; I noticed right away that he only got obnoxious when we thanked him. My girlfriend was the touchy type; she didn't get him."

"And here I've been trying to drive you into House's arms. I feel like a complete idiot!" Wilson massaged the back of his neck, not quite meeting Cuddy's eyes.

"Don't." Cuddy put a hand on his arm again. "Ever since I got the job here I've been very discreet."

"Is that really necessary? I know it's still not a piece of cake, but this is not the Bible Belt. People here accept different lifestyles nowadays."

"Today's donors and board members were yesterday's frat boys," Cuddy said without rancour. "Oh, they'll all pretend to be open about it - maybe they even believe they are - but the moment I pull any sort of stunt like the deal with AtlanticNet I'll be out faster than I can say Jill Robinson. To be honest, none of my relationships have ever lasted long enough to make it worthwhile facing disadvantages because of them."

"Did House blackmail you into giving him the job?" Wilson asked.

"No. He didn't even recognise me when he came for the interview, and he only recalled the incident when I reminded him of it by thanking him again. If anything, my gratitude tipped the scales in his favour. But to be honest, there were enough other good reasons for employing him."

"And enough good ones not to."

"Okay, I may have been nostalgic enough to overlook one or two of those," Cuddy admitted.

"You employed House although he knew about your sexual preferences and could have told the whole world?"

"He never did, did he? He didn't even tell you!" Cuddy pointed out, not without a hint of schadenfreude.

"But you couldn't know that. He can be a jackass and he isn't exactly discreet."

Cuddy shrugged. "It was a gamble and it paid off. But House is trustworthy. He keeps his mouth shut when it matters. His 'seeming' indiscretions are planned meticulously. He never told you about my IVF either, did he?"

"You had IVF?"

"See?"

"And all that tension between both of you, the flirting, his crude comments, your teasing?" Wilson was looking lost, rather like a little boy whose street friends have just bust the myth of the stork, telling him where he really came from.

"I like House. I like bantering with him. He's witty, he's clever, he's funny. And he was the one man who knew I didn't mean anything when I flirted with him - if I did that with any other guys, they'd be all over me. It was the same for House - he knew I'd never be interested, no matter how hard he hit on me. It was a win-win for both of us - until he lost touch with reality."

"Well, he must have lost touch with reality long ago, because he told me his version of the Michigan story when I came down for my job interview. We went to a bar afterwards and had a few drinks. That's when he told me."

"Great!" Cuddy got up, smoothing down her skirt. Wilson followed suit. "My most troublesome doctor telling future employees that he slept with his boss. That's exactly what I need to enhance my reputation. And you," she poked an accusing finger into Wilson's chest, "believed him."

"I'm pretty sure he believed it himself. It's possible that he's kept his mouth shut all these years because he only remembers his version of your Michigan night."

Cuddy thought about this. "No ... no. During his job interview, when I thanked him again, he remembered some details of that night, and every now and then he refers to my sexual orientation. If you ask me, he only employed Dr Hadley so that he could indulge in fantasies about us getting off together," she joked. Wilson's sombre expression, however, drew her up short. A moment later, her smile faded too. "Your job interview was before the infarction."

"Yes."

"Oh, crap!"

"Absolutely."

VIII: Larger Than Life
Showing the truth of the old biblical wisdom that: Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein: and he that rolleth a stone, it will return upon him. [Proverbs 26, 27]

Giving his watch a quick check, Wilson exited the elevator and headed towards the hospital entrance. He stopped and turned when he heard the tap of brisk heels behind him, and quirked an enquiring eyebrow at Cuddy.

"Need me?"

"Yes."

"Will it take long? It's bowling night."

"House'll be late anyway, and I won't take a minute." Cuddy gestured towards the entrance, falling into step beside Wilson as they reached the doors. "House says you want him to attend some film festival with him on Thursday. I'm sorry, but he isn't going."

"Look, I don't care. A patient gave me the tickets, but I'd as soon not go," Wilson said sincerely. "It's House who's insisting on going."

"That's good, because you're coming to my place," Cuddy decreed.

"I ... am?"

"Yes. It's my birthday."

Wilson was all affability. "Of course. I'll be happy to ..."

"Dinner with my mom."

Wilson's face fell. "Ah. Yes. But I did promise House I'd take him to the film festival ..."

Cuddy stopped short, facing Wilson. "This isn't up for debate. I have expended a lot of energy on setting this up, and if you don't help me House won't show."

"You're precipitating a meeting between your mother and House? You're provoking Momageddon."

Cuddy started off again, making Wilson skip to keep up with her. "Well, I've run out of options, haven't I? If my mother doesn't make House run for the hills, nothing will. I spent a horrible hour on the phone telling her about House, making sure she wormed everything detrimental about him out of me without realising that I was volunteering the information."

As they reached Cuddy's car, she thrust the files she was carrying at Wilson so she could dig in her purse for her keys.

"Detrimental?" Wilson asked.

Having found the keys, Cuddy snapped the trunk open. "Oh, come along! He isn't exactly a dream of a son-in-law."

"Son-in-law?"

"Wilson, stop echoing me!" She took the files from Wilson's limp hands and chucked them into the trunk of the car.

"Doesn't your mother know that you're lesbian?"

"God, no!" Cuddy slammed the trunk shut, and then turned back to Wilson. "I let her believe that my relationships never last long enough for her to meet any of the guys involved. She thinks I'm some sort of, I don't know, slut." She did a combined eye-roll and head-waggle that indicated exasperation.

"That's better than her knowing that you love women?" Wilson said somewhat doubtfully.

"Yes!"

"So this is a first for your mom, meeting a boyfriend of yours," Wilson said in a bracing manner.

"A second," Cuddy corrected. "When I was nineteen I persuaded a gay friend of mine to act as my boyfriend." It was clear from her demeanour that the memory was not a happy one.

"Oh. It didn't work out well?"

Cuddy leaned against the side of her car, crossing her arms against the cold. "It worked out too well. Our parents, his and mine, were delighted that their kids were finally dating. They must have suspected something, and our 'relationship' allayed their fears. It took a lot of pressure off us; our parents were happy, and we could pursue our real interests without anyone suspecting anything, so we got carried away and decided to get married. It took us three days to figure out that it was a big mistake and three more to get an annulment. He was fine as a friend and fake boyfriend, but living with him 24/7 was a nightmare."

Wilson looked hurt. "I never knew you were married."

Cuddy waved a casual hand. "It doesn't count if the marriage is annulled."

Wilson grinned and hummed 'Like a Virgin'.

"Oh, shut up!" Cuddy snapped.

Wilson, trying to look contrite, changed the subject. "So you need me to pick up the bones once your mom has chewed all the flesh off House."

"I'll need you to drag House to my place by his collar, if need be."

"It's your birthday, and unlike me, he's never even met your mother. It shouldn't be that hard."

"He will have met her by Thursday evening. I took care to inform my mother that she needn't come before five because House has clinic duty till four p.m., and I've told Nurse Regina to assign any woman over fifty to House."

"Okay, it will be that hard."

"And don't even think of acting as his wingman," Cuddy said as she opened the driver's door. "Just sit there nodding, humming and hawing, and don't draw my mother's attention to yourself."

Wilson pinched the bridge of his nose. "I feel like Brutus."

"Let's get the right perspective on this: House has to suffer my mother for one evening; I've been subjected to her all my life."



Wilson blinked in the harsh morning sunlight and tried to sit up. The room started spinning immediately. Groaning, he put his head down again at once and shut his eyes, trying to order familiar and unfamiliar impressions into some semblance of order. The fuzzy feeling in his mouth was familiar, the smell of the couch on which he was lying wasn't. So he'd been drugged and was now - where the hell was he?

"Here, drink that," a familiar husky voice ordered. A hand slipped under his head and raised it slightly.

Cuddy. He was at Cuddy's place. Wilson opened his eyes a notch and took the proffered glass. "Thawms," he mumbled. He took a few sips of water, relishing the way it washed away the mushy taste in his mouth. It also lifted some of the fog off his brain. "He drugged me!" Wilson said, hurt rather than angry.

"No. My mother drugged you."

Wilson didn't quite believe her. "Why would she do that?"

"You annoyed her?" Cuddy suggested.

"Who, me?" Wilson was all self-righteousness. "I was trying to be ... conciliatory. House was exuding hostility, not me. Hey, he drugged her."

"She tried to drug House," Cuddy offered.

"Tried?" Wilson latched onto the verb at once.

"He figured what she was up to, so he switched cups with her. Technically, House didn't drug her - she drugged herself."

Wilson digested that as he sat up. Someone - Cuddy, he assumed - had placed a cushion under his head and thrown an afghan over him, but he was still fully dressed. "What did your mom say when she came round?"

"What could she say? She could hardly admit that she tried to drug my boyfriend, so she pretended she'd gotten wasted." If Cuddy thought her mother's behaviour was in any way unconventional, she didn't show it.

"Oh." Wilson sought for another scapegoat. "House could have warned me."

Cuddy shrugged. "You annoyed him." This time it was a statement, not a question.

Cuddy's mother was undoubtedly a sociopath and House defied all 'normal' moral categories, but what about Cuddy? "Shouldn't you be a little, hmmm, upset about this? You were banking on your mother beating House into a headless flight. House roofying your mom has put paid to your well-laid plans."

Cuddy waved a regal little hand. "I've changed my mind on that. We, House and I, had a pleasant evening together - he helped me do the dishes and then we watched an old black-and-white movie."

Wilson knotted his brows, trying to imagine this scene of domestic bliss but failing miserably. House doing the dishes? He focused on Cuddy once more, who was picking at the afghan with a faraway expression.

She turned to him with a faint smile. "When my mother keeled over I was sort of relieved, which was when I realised that I'd miss House's company if my plan succeeded. Since I moved out of my parents' place I've never had anyone around me - anyone over two, that is. Someone who talks to me, does stuff with me, hangs around, does the odd chore ... laughs with me. It's nice. I'd never really thought about it, but before House came along, I was - alone. Now I'm not. So I've decided to, just, go along with it, flow with the current and see where it takes me."

"That doesn't sound like you."

"Twenty-five years of solitude - that's the story of my adult life. Even House has a better track record. So why not try something different?"

"A reversal of 'friends with benefits': 'Lovers with no benefits.' Sure, it might work." As always, Wilson managed to imply the exact opposite of what he said.

"It will work," Cuddy said with certainty. "How many people do you know whose relationships are unhappy because of sex: too much sex, too little sex, bad sex, sex with the wrong person?" She looked rather pointedly at Wilson, who had the grace to blush. "Take sex out of the equation and you remove a major cause for misery."

"That sounds good, but in your case, what exactly is left? Do you and House have anything in common?"

"Loneliness."

---

Read on here

Comments

[flywoman.livejournal.com]

I think that this is my favorite installment yet.

As you know, I also loved the line about Wilson's reaction to the cookie revelation... and now I'm also glad that I encouraged you to keep the zombies. (I did, didn't I? It's late here and my brain has officially stopped working.)

[readingrat.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I admit that writing some parts of it was oddly satisfactory - purgatory, one might say. Those three episodes (Office Politics, Pox and Sacrifices) are the reason I'm writing this fic. Had to reconstruct the past - the slightest of detours into Season 6 - but it was worth the effort, I think.

And yes, you did encourage me to keep the zombies, thank you. I'm glad they're still in, too. Might want to reference them in the Bombshells episode.

Poor Wilson. I'm not really into sick!Wilson, but I'm absolutely into jealous!Wilson.