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readingratAuthor's Note: Okay, so this fic has become obsolete by now – the idea was born during the hiatus, but I was busy with 'Twelve Days', so it sat on the burner. After 'Selfish' it qualifies as off-canon, but since it's written I'll upload it nonetheless.
This fic takes place a few weeks after 'Help Me'. The basic assumption is that House and Cuddy have chosen not to inform anyone of their liaison. It belongs in the 'Wilson finds out' category of hiatus fics (boooring), but it's from Sam's point of view, and hence another homage to Blade Mistress's 'The Hardest Part of Dying'
A big thanks to my beta Brighid for her support and encouragement. I'd tell you to check out her latest fic, 'Harvest', which promises to be a great read, but chances are (a) that you're reading it already or (b) that you haven't read her fics yet (otherwise (a) would apply), in which case you need to start at the beginning of the series. So if you belong in category (b), do read her first fic, 'Treatment'.
Doomed
Their first marriage was doomed from the outset, doomed the moment James brought his young bride home to meet his mother. Over the following week James ignored the rising tension, avoiding all confrontations by escaping to the nearest bar, ostensibly to meet old high school buddies. In retrospect, Sam supposes that she should have called him on it and made him choose sides. That way she would have known what she was letting herself in for. She's determined not to make the same mistake twice.
When James asks her to move into the loft conversion she's overtly delighted. Secretly, however, she's more obsessed with removing the greatest hindrance to their future happiness from James's loft and life than in actually occupying that desirable venue herself. First things first, is her motto.
“But will House be okay with me moving in?” she asks.
“It's my place,” James points out. “He'll survive.”
“Yes, I'm sure he will,” she says with only the teeniest emphasis.
James asks the question he could have/should have asked at the outset. “Are you okay with House being around?”
“Me? Oh, yes, absolutely! Hey, I survived your mother – House is only marginally worse.”
Perhaps James has done his share of reflecting on the breakdown of their marriage, for when she moves in House has moved out.
James gets increasingly edgy as the week passes. At first she assumes that he needs to get used to female company again, but then she catches him leaving a message on House's answer phone and she notes with astonishment that he's genuinely worried.
“He's not a baby, James!”
“No, but …. he's got issues. He … he was staying with me because his therapist didn't want him to be staying alone in his apartment.”
A nutcase! No wonder James latched onto him. Good thing she got rid of him!
“Cuddy also doesn't think it's a good idea for him to move back into his old apartment,” James continues miserably. So Lisa gave him a dressing-down, did she?
“Then why doesn't she take him in?” Sam asks with some asperity.
“Not a good idea,” James says, massaging the back of his neck. “Cuddy's got a boy-friend.” He hears her unspoken, 'You have a girl-friend!', so he adds, “House, er, likes Cuddy. A lot.”
“You could check on him regularly,” she suggests. James will do that anyway, but coming from her it sounds supportive.
“He's too mad at me to take my calls, even. It's unlikely that he'll let me in.”
That's good. She feels confident enough to gamble. “Why don't you ask him to move back in?”
“You wouldn't mind?” Relief is etched into every fold of his face.
“Of course not! It wasn't my idea that he should move out.”
Her gamble pays off – James returns from his quest to recapture House with his tail between his legs and no House trailing in his wake.
There's a brief lull, but then James comes back from a long night in the ER saying that he'll need to spend more time with House.
“Cuddy is moving into a new house with her boy-friend. Possibly he's her fiancé by now.”
“That's lovely!” she smiles. James looks gob-smacked. “For Lisa, I mean.”
“I …. suppose so. You haven't met her boy-friend,” James says darkly.
He can't be worse than House, she thinks. No one can. Aloud, she says, “But I see that it's tough on House: Lisa's getting married, you're …,” she pauses expectantly.
James obliges. “We could get married, too,” he says.
They agree on a private ceremony, just them and witnesses, and a small informal get-together in the loft for close friends. Anything over and above that would be wildly inappropriate. The Friday after the next would suit fine, they decide. James has the sense not to suggest House as one of the witnesses, but his presence at the do is unavoidable. She decides to employ the same strategy on him with which she neutralizes her nephews at Thanksgiving – keep'em busy!
“He's an excellent cook,” she says. “Do you think he'd take charge of the kitchen for us? Then we can concentrate on our guests.”
James is pleasantly surprised by her suggestion. Yes, he'll ask House, who has been uncommonly dampened lately. That'll give them time for some male bonding over shopping for ingredients and pre-dinner preparations. (Instead of being happy that House isn't causing havoc at the hospital, James seems to suspect that House's uncharacteristically good behaviour and lack of manic energy is a symptom of some fatal malady.)
“I'll have to invite Cuddy, but she's bound to refuse the invitation. There's no way she'll risk spending a whole evening in House's company, not after the scene he caused in Trenton.”
The week is marred somewhat by two major setbacks. First, James comes back from his catering errand in an unbelievably foul mood. He'd dropped by House's apartment and on finding it deserted (once again) he'd used his spare key to enter.
“It barely looks inhabited – practically no food in the refrigerator, no journals on the coffee table, no dirty laundry in the hamper. But ….,” James hesitates.
“But what?” Sam asks dutifully.
“He's ripped the bathroom mirror off the wall. There's a hole in the wall behind it large enough to hold a couple of pill bottles.”
James becomes increasingly distressed as the date of their re-marriage approaches: House is avoiding the issue, House denies having had a relapse, House says he doesn't care whether James believes him, and House doesn't think it's any of James's business where he's spending his free time.
“It's a bit like the time he was on methadone.”
“Oh my god, you don't think ...”
“No. He's still in too much pain for it to be methadone. But if he's back on vicodin, it might calm him initially, making him feel happy until the novelty wears off and he's back to misery again.”
The second drop of sorrow in their cup of joy is contributed by Lisa. She felicitates politely but unenthusiastically when they visit her in her office to invite her, picking up her pen to note down the invitation in her calendar. James purposely doesn't include her boy-friend in the invitation – 'Sam, I don't care how it looks! The fellow ruined my new flat-screen and flooded the apartment, not to mention the minor matter of the opossum in the bathtub.' - , but that fazes Lisa as little as the casual mention of House as chef-de-cuisine.
“How nice! He's quite the gourmet cook … or so I've heard,” she says with the first genuine smile of the conversation. She turns a page in her calendar. This is where she's supposed to 'discover' an important prior engagement and regretfully decline the invitation, but Lisa messes up her lines. “Fine. I'll be there.”
There's nothing James and Sam can do but express their delight. Outside Lisa's office Sam turns on James.
“Do something! I don't want my evening ruined by House getting drunk and molesting Lisa.”
“What can I …?”
“Your friends – your problem.”
“Okay! I'll fix it.”
When they get back from the justice's office, formally Mr and Mrs Wilson again, House has taken over the kitchen. His apron sports the caption, “I have the biggest … ladle”, the words placed so that 'ladle' is positioned across his groin. The smells are tantalizing, and by the time the first guests arrive at six, there's a sizeable buffet arrayed on the dining-room table.
The first person to arrive is a blond man in his early thirties. James introduces him as Dr Robert Chase, a member of House's team. Surely he hasn't felt obliged to invite the whole hospital – they'd agreed on an intimate little gathering!
“Wilson's paying me to babysit House,” Chase explains with a boyish grin. James looks sheepish.
Oh. She'd assumed that by 'fixing it' James had meant that he'd somehow 'uninvite' Lisa, but that was stupid of her, she admits. James is too full o' the milk of human kindness to catch the nearest way.
When House spots Chase he gives him a calculating look. “How much is Wilson paying you?”
“Five hundred,” Chase admits reluctantly.
“Fifty-fifty,” House proposes.
“Why should I split with you?”
“Fine, if you want a run for your money.” House deftly flips a crêpe over and slides it onto a plate.
Chase pulls out his wallet, counts off three bills and hands them to House. A vein in James's temple is throbbing.
House, noticing Sam's murderous glare, says, “Now if Wilson had just asked me to behave ...”
“... then you'd have agreed?”
He looks at her, all blue-eyed innocence. Then: “No,” he says bluntly, “but it would have been nice.” He rubs his thigh absently.
“Do you need your ibuprofen?” James asks, picking up House's backpack from the corner into which House flung it. Sam suspects that James would like a glimpse of whatever House is taking.
So does House. “Bottle's empty. Took the last pills four hours ago. Doesn't matter, I'll be fine,” he adds at James's worried look.
Lisa arrives late, her child on her arm. “Sorry. My babysitter ditched me, so I had to bring her along. We won't be able to stay long – she'll be getting cranky in about an hour.”
Sam makes all the appropriate cooing noises while James relieves Lisa of the bag with baby paraphernalia. Lisa's daughter is soon being passed around among the guests that now fill the loft while Lisa, as Sam registers to her dismay, drifts towards the kitchen area. Where is Chase when one needs him? Chase is at the bar, replenishing his glass for the third time – James's money is so wasted!
Sam follows Lisa unobtrusively and stations herself within earshot, darting glares at the happily oblivious Chase.
Lisa, filling a glass at the sink for her toddler, says, without looking at House, “You haven't told him.”
“No.”
“House, we agreed that you'd tell him!”
“You decided. I don't remember agreeing or disagreeing.”
“Fine – I'll tell him. He's also my friend.”
“Don't,” House says quietly. They stare at each other in a battle of wills.
“Then will you tell him?” Lisa says, a note of pleading in her voice that tells Sam that House won that one. House nods almost imperceptibly. “Today?”
House sighs. “Yes.”
Sam feels like slapping Lisa. It's not that James doesn't suspect already that House has relapsed, not since discovering the state of House's bathroom, but while there is uncertainty there is hope, and while there's hope there's a chance that James will focus on her, Sam, instead of wasting his time on his lifeforce-sucking friend. Does Lisa have to ruin their wedding day with her personal agenda? Besides, this is more Lisa's problem than James's – House is her employee, not his. James may not like it that his friend has chosen to go back on drugs, but unlike the dean of PPTH, he is under no obligation to act on his knowledge.
Something needs to be done to keep House and James apart, so that House can't fulfil his part of whatever deal he has with Lisa. Chase hasn't earned his keep yet …
But Chase, not quite so boyishly charming now that he's well down the road to Wasteland, is not supportive. “Not my job,” he says, his accent broadening in proportion to his blood alcohol level. “I was paid to keep House away from Cuddy. And from you. Not,” he insists, “from Wilson.”
“You haven't done anything yet to earn your money!”
“Lady,” says Chase, “there's nothing one can do to keep Wilson and House apart.”
The dinner buffet is a ripping success – she receives a lot of praise that she's happy to divert to House. Actually it isn't as difficult to keep House and James apart as Sam feared: she effectively nails James down in the living room by making him responsible for the drinks. House supports her efforts - either unintentionally or to avoid the conversation that Lisa seems so eager for him to hold – by insisting on tidying up the mess in the kitchen all by himself.
As everyone settles into a postprandial daze a movement just within her radius of vision catches her attention. Lisa is moving towards the kitchen area, her bag tucked under her arm. Sam picks up a few dirty plates as a smoke screen and follows her, ostensibly heading for the dishwasher.
“Just put them on the counter. Dishwasher's full to the brim,” House says, unscrewing the cap of a pill bottle he's holding and shaking out two pills. It looks like an ibuprofen bottle, but by now Sam knows the PPTH crowd well enough not to be surprised at such minor delinquencies as switching the contents of prescription medication receptacles.
“I thought you'd run out of pain meds,” she murmurs.
“I brought him a refill,” Lisa says, as though it is the most natural thing in the world for a dean of medicine to carry medication refills for her employees around with her.
Lisa is supplying House with vicodin? The mind boggles! No wonder she wants to palm the problem off on James as soon as possible. Sam hopes that James won't vacillate, but pack House off to detox, rehab or whatever pronto, but the sad truth is that while James will worry, lecture and moralize, he'll be quite happy to bask in the warm glow of being needed, even if it's only to sign off scrips. But not tonight! Sam vows. Lisa can be House's dealer a little while longer.
Having dry-swallowed the pills, House takes the plates from Sam in an unmistakeable gesture of dismissal. They are silent as she leaves, but she stops just around the corner.
“Are you deliberately outing me?” House asks. He doesn't sound genuinely annoyed, though.
“No … look … they're worried. Okay, Wilson is worried.”
“Wilson is always worried.”
“He thinks you're back on vicodin again. House, can't you just …?”
“Believe me, he won't like this any better.”
Worse than a relapse? What could House be taking, courtesy of Lisa, that would have James's panties in more of a twist than vicodin? Perhaps he's participating in some risky medical trial or he's fallen for some charlatan's ridiculous herbal treatment.
“The kitchen's a mess. You'll be at it till midnight,” Lisa remarks after a longer silence.
“I could ask Wilson whether I can stay the night.”
Lisa laughs at that, but since Sam can't see their faces she isn't sure whether House is joking or not. This needs to be prevented; for one she doesn't need a precedent of this sort that'll end with House taking root in the condo again, for another it will give House an opportunity for his man-to-man talk with James.
Lisa's daughter (Rebecca? Rachel?) is perched on James's lap rubbing her eyes.
“Tired, honey?” Sam croons, stretching out her arms. Rachel - that's her name, Sam decides – responds on autopilot and snuggles into Sam's embrace. James, relieved, doesn't ask where she's taking the child.
She carries Rachel around for a few moments, jiggling her up and down gently and humming into her hair. Rachel, her sell-by date long gone, flops on Sam's shoulder with her thumb in her mouth. Sam casually makes her way to the spare room – James still calls it 'House's room' – and lays the child down on the bed. (Why are there sheets on the bed? Was James planning on House spending the night on their wedding night? Or worse, is he hoping that House will move back in soon?) Rachel fizzles out at once and Sam, after switching on the bedside light, creeps out leaving the door slightly ajar.
By this time Lisa has started looking for her daughter. Her face falls when Sam shows her Rachel sleeping blissfully.
“If you'd prefer not to wake her, why don't you stay the night? I can lend you everything you need and I'm sure James has a new toothbrush somewhere.” (James has spare sets of everything.)
Mission accomplished, she thinks as she carries a pile of towels and her chastest set of flannel pyjamas into the spare room. Then she returns to her guests, leaving Lisa to build a nest around Rachel so she won't fall out of the bed.
The next hour or so passes peacefully. Chase, who has persuaded Wilson to dig out an old guitar that he still has from his days as a boy scout, strums and sings sentimental love songs in an astonishingly sweet voice. Turns out he used to sing in the church choir. Lisa emerges from the spare room sans heels and curls up comfortably in a corner of the sofa, nursing a glass of wine. House potters around in the kitchen. James, sleeves rolled up, hair tousled, slightly tipsy himself by now, is telling tales of previous stag parties. The other guests start leaving.
When Sam returns from escorting the last guests from the door – Chase, whose idea of 'guarding' House seems to consist of staying as long as House does, is intoning 'Bridge over Troubled Waters' - she joins House in the kitchen and helps him to dry the last glasses. As he moves to and fro between dishwasher and counter to put the dried glasses onto a tray, she notices that he's limping heavily. She's almost sorry for him - the stint in the kitchen must have lasted all of eight hours – until he pulls out his pill bottle surreptitiously and pops two more pills into his mouth. Then she remembers that it's House waving neediness like a red flag at James that is threatening her peace of mind.
Finally he flourishes his dish towel over his head and proclaims, “Finished. Bed time. Tell Chase to go home.” It's only when he has limped up behind the sofa to remove the guitar from Chase's grasp that he spots Lisa snuggled up in the other corner, one foot tucked under her rear. His eyebrows rise in surprise. “What happened to the titchy one?” he asks.
“She fell asleep so we put her down in the spare room. She and I are staying the night.” She grins wickedly at House.
“What, in my bed?”
“Your bed? How many do you have?” There's some innuendo in Lisa's voice that Sam doesn't quite comprehend. If she didn't know better, she'd say that Lisa is flirting with House. But one doesn't flirt with someone like House, not when he's on some obscure drug and one has a nice steady guy at home. Or does one?
“I'm the person who has spent the most nights in it so far, so it's my bed. If you're nice to me, I'll let you share.” House wriggles his eyebrows suggestively.
“Sorry. We're in possession already.”
James interrupts at that moment, proffering a brand-new toothbrush. House turns to James, arms folded across his chest. “If she's staying, so am I.”
“You … you can sleep on the sofa,” James stutters. He shrugs apologetically when Sam glares at him.
“Gimp leg. Need a decent mattress.”
“I'm not sharing a bed with someone who hasn't brushed his teeth,” Lisa chimes in. Sam frowns. Lisa might as well be begging for crude comments.
“No, I haven't got another toothbrush,” James lies valiantly before House can ask.
“We could share,” House suggests to Lisa, leaning over the back of the sofa on which she is sitting. He's wearing that creepy 'hopeful puppy dog' expression of his.
“Eeuuw, that's disgusting!” Lisa protests.
“So's this,” House rejoins, grasps Lisa's chin - James takes an alarmed step forward while Chase, that drunken idiot, looks on grinning - and licks her face copiously from chin to the tip of her nose, like an overenthusiastic puppy.
“House!” Lisa and James gasp simultaneously. While James steps forward and places a restraining hand on House's shoulder, Lisa clasps the hand that's still gripping her chin, not – to Sam's surprise – to push it away, but to hold it while she wipes her face on his sleeve. She seems oddly unruffled by House's antics.
“Don't do that!” she admonishes him, as though he were a toddler like Rachel.
“Okay,” he says equably, “this better?” Resisting James's now insistent tugging, he tips her chin up again and plants a lingering kiss on the corner of her mouth.
“Much better,” Lisa approves, giving his cheek a gentle pat. James freezes. Lisa's eyes slide to him and she gives him a wry, apologetic smile. “He was supposed to have told you.”
There's a lot of indignant spluttering on James's part, punctuated by House's frankly unrepentant mocking, until Lisa puts a stop to it.
“House, be quiet! Wilson, you took – how long? - four weeks to tell him about Sam. What did you expect?”
“Can I go now?” Chase suddenly interrupts. “I figure I'm not needed any more.”
“You knew!” James accuses him. He turns on House. “You told them, but not me?”
“I didn't tell anyone! Cuddy must've ...”
“One has to be blind not to see it,” Chase remarks. House and Lisa stare at him, and then at each other. “Your fingers have been touching the past two weeks when you give each other files,” he explains.
House scratches his eyebrows with his thumb, looking slightly embarrassed. “Sound diagnostic evidence,” he pronounces.
“Hang on,” Sam says. “You took James's money, knowing that you wouldn't be needed?” She's running out of glares.
“We-ell,” Chase says, weaving his way towards the door, “you can try to get House's share back.”
House sighs, takes out his wallet and hands Wilson the bills. “You don't want to know,” he says to Lisa.
Ultimately it's agreed that House will stay overnight (“What the hell am I supposed to do at my place or Cuddy's, if she's here? Watch porn?”), sleeping on the sofa.
(“No, House, Rachel is not sleeping on the sofa. You'll have to share the bed with both of us.”
“It's too small for three of us,” he whines, but the quick glance he gives his leg shows that space is indeed an issue.
“Fine, I'll sleep on the sofa,” Lisa says, rolling her eyes.
“I'm not spending the night with a bed-wetter!”
“House ...”
“I'll sleep on the sofa.” Martyr looks, mutterings and grumbles, but Lisa grins.)
When Sam returns to the bedroom after getting ready in the bathroom, James isn't there. She grabs her dressing gown and follows him into the living room, where he's leaning against the door frame and looking over at the sofa. House is installed there with pillow and blanket with Lisa sitting on the floor next to him saying good night to him. How wise of James to stay up until Lisa is safely out of the way – judging by the expression on House's face he'd have no compunction about having sex on the sofa, no matter who might burst in on them. Lisa gives House a final pat on the chest and rises, her hand still clasped in his.
“Give the girls a squeeze from me,” he says with a leer, reaching around with his free hand to give her ass a quick grope.
“Don't go fantasizing on Wilson's sofa,” she says, smiling.
James groans. “Will you two stop it, puh-leaze?”
House releases Lisa's hand reluctantly as she moves out of range, but his eyes follow her departing form, his gaze morphing from lecherous to something softer. For a few moments he looks boyish, open and vulnerable. It's like seeing a lobster without its protective carapace – an anomaly, and a fatal one at that. Still, it's sweet somehow, this unexpected wave of tenderness emanating from him in Lisa's wake. Perhaps he isn't so bad after all.
Sam turns to James to see whether he has registered this marvellous change in his friend and to smile together at the idea of that tough old codger going soft over a woman. His expression stops her short. It tells her that their second marriage was doomed from the outset, doomed in all likelihood from the moment James met House.
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Date: 2010-10-08 05:52 pm (UTC)