Thursday, middle of the night

It took House a couple of days to get over the bug he'd caught. The worst of it had passed the first day he came down with it, but it still lingered in his system in the form of lethargy and a sore throat. Being run down from tiredness and stress was probably the biggest contributing factor to that.

Cuddy being the health conscious and pregnancy conscious person she was stayed out of his way for those couple of days, which suited House fine. After spending three and a bit weeks solid in her company without barely a break, and after the way their vacation had ended, a break was the thing he wanted most. He didn't like the unsettled feeling that stayed with him about his relationship with her, not knowing if she and him were going to be able to figure everything out between them. But regardless, the break was needed. The Thursday evening she arrived at his apartment, he was feeling close to 100% health again, and he let her in because she'd brought some dinner over and because, despite everything, he did miss her. He actively steered clear of any conversation regarding things they needed to talk about, though. He wasn't in the most talkative of moods, anyway, and didn't offer huge amounts of conversation over dinner. Instead, he kept most of his focus on the television.

In the end, he offered for her to stay the night if she wanted to. He joined her in bed a little while after she retired for the night, though he couldn't sleep. Having Cuddy right beside him made him acutely aware of the tension that still lingered between them. He watched her sleep for a little while, then became too restless to stay in bed and got up to get himself a drink of water. In the end, instead of returning to bed, he switched the TV back on and watched it for a while in hopes blanking out to it would make him tired. He channel surfed, trying to find something interesting enough to actually watch but not interesting enough to engage him to want to stay up watching. And nothing. Because TV in the middle of the night was nothing short of pathetic. Tossing the remote aside, he got up from the couch and moved across to where he kept his DVDs and videos, deciding that maybe if he put on something familiar, a movie of his he liked, it might lull him to sleep.

After rummaging through his movie collection, he came across a few porn movies he had stashed at the back, none of which he'd seen in a while. He pulled them out and studied the covers, attention diverted from watching a movie to the erotic images in front of him. On the cover of one was a brunette chick, naked and posed on a chair in an extremely provocative way, her hands cupping her breasts and her face sporting a 'come here, big boy' expression. One of his favourite porn of the porn films he owned. He glanced over his shoulder towards the bedroom, mildly self conscious that he was considering watching this while Cuddy was in the apartment. But he figured if he kept the sound low enough, she wouldn't know. She wouldn't have to. He was feeling a bit frustrated, a bit in need of some kind of relief now that he was feeling better, and he wasn't entirely sure Cuddy would appreciate being woken in the middle of the night.

Returning the movies he'd pulled out from the shelf to their spot, he moved across to the TV, slipped in the porn DVD and grabbed up the box of tissues near the TV and the remote from the coffee table on his way back to the couch. He slumped down and kicked his feet up onto the table, the box of tissues to his side and when he hit play and adjusted the volume to a level he was sure Cuddy wouldn't hear, he set the remote aside and got comfortable. Kind of sad, he supposed, that he was resorting to porn. Except he didn't see anything wrong with it. Porn was arousing to him. It was completely without emotion, with erotic images that never failed to turn him on. It was harmless, the same way Cuddy used her vibrator to pleasure herself. His form of pleasure was just in the form of porn in this case.

The first ten minutes of the film was little more than the 'plot'. A brunette woman, House's favourite kind of woman, was soon stripping off her shirt and shimmying out of her skirt while a guy laved her with licks and sucks and kisses to her neck and chest. He shifted his hips with a kind of aroused impatience, feeling his penis stiffen when the woman knelt down in front of the guy and started to suck him off. He imagined she was Cuddy, her mouth on him, sliding up and down his shaft. Running his tongue across his lower lip, he slipped a hand down over his crotch and lightly rubbed himself. He felt his heart rate increase a little and his skin flush all over, staring transfixed at the TV while the blowjob grew faster, more intense. Then as the position of the people on the screen changed, the guy going down on the woman, House slipped his hand under the waistband of his pants and caressed himself with light strokes of his fingers. He swallowed, the noises the woman was making turning him on even more, and he grasped his penis in his hand and began to stroke himself slowly while the guy on screen crawled up the woman and started to tease her clit with his cock.

House paused what he was doing a moment to shimmy his pants down from his hips to his knees. Damn things were getting in the way of him wanting to stroke himself hard and fast. Taking himself back in his hand, he reached his other hand down and lightly caressed his balls, then concentrated on jerking off, slowly but firmly. His breathing grew deeper the more aroused he got and a few times his eyes fluttered shut at how good it felt. As the guy on screen started to pound hard and fast into the woman, House began stroking himself with the same kind of desperation, letting out a quiet "oh" as the woman upped her moaning to a level that aroused him even more.

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If Cuddy hadn't been so busy at work catching up from her time off, she might've worried more about House. As it was, though, her first few days back on the job were grueling. It seemed like everyone had stored up all their complaints and comments and requests until her return. In a way it was nice--it made her feel needed. But mostly it just exhausted her.

Her evenings, too, had unexpectedly turned out to be full. Monday night resulted in a panicked excavation of her closet as she realized that most of her skirts didn't fit anymore. Most of her slack were okay. They were cut lower so the waistband didn't dig in right where her belly was expanding. She liked to wear skirts for work, though, and most of them were cut so tight and high on her waist that she couldn't fasten them all the way up. She could make some of them work by wearing looser, longer tops that hid the unfastened skirt, but in the end she'd spent the following evening on an unplanned shopping excursion. No maternity clothes--she didn't need those yet--but she found a few 'regular' things that would help her get by in the meantime.

In between dealing with everything else, she'd made plans for a quick weekend trip home. Out on Friday afternoon, back on Sunday. The last thing she wanted to do after the trip to Europe was get back on a plane but it had become very clear that if she wanted to be able to break the baby news to her parents before it became obvious, she was running out of time.

In the midst of all her other concerns, she hadn't had much time to think about House. He was the first thing that popped into her mind whenever she wasn't engrossed in something else, but she hadn't spent a lot of time thinking about him. Maybe she didn't want to. She didn't know how to sort out their relationship and thinking about it only depressed her. It had to be done, and she fully intended to do whatever she had to do to fix things...but a few days apart wasn't entirely unwelcome.

When she did finally go to his place to spend the evening with him, she wasn't crazy about his uncommunicative mood. He was more interested in the tv than he was in her, and she started to get twitchy about it. In fact, she fully intended to just go home and sleep in her own bed rather than put up with the way he was ignoring her, but she decided that making it easy for him to ignore her was probably not a good idea. She didn't want him to get used to it, so when he invited her to stay the night, she agreed pretty quickly. After all, if she was right there in his bed, it wouldn't be easy for him to ignore her, would it?

She fell asleep almost immediately. As great as it had felt to get home and sleep in her own bed, she'd found she couldn't sleep as soundly. She'd gotten too used to having House in bed with her. That night, with him there, she drifted right off. She didn't know how long she slept before she woke. She was momentarily disoriented and she looked around in confusion before remembering where she was. The next thing she noticed was that she was alone. That wasn't terribly surprising--he had trouble sleeping. She thought about turning over and going back to sleep but, worried that he might have had a nightmare, she forced herself out of bed.

She hadn't planned to spend the night so she'd gone to bed nude. She got chilled the moment she slipped out from the bedcovers. It was too cool to wander around the apartment naked but she didn't want to get dressed. Instead she simply grabbed one of House's buttondown shirts and pulled it on as she left the bedroom. She followed the glow of the tv into the living room, yawning.

She glanced at the tv as she reached the end of the couch, then did a double take, her sleepy eyes widening as she realized what he was watching. She looked down at him, mouth open to ask why but she simply stood there, stunned, when she saw his hand working furiously over his erection. Her mouth moved soundlessly for a moment before she sputtered out, "Wh...at?"

He was close, so close. Typically, he might've drawn this out more than he was, but he hadn't come out here with the intention to masturbate and hadn't expected to find himself as desperate for some kind of release as he was now. He tried to keep his eyes focused on the porn, his pulse pounding in his ears and his skin hot and raw, but the closer he drew to climax the harder it was to keep his eyes open.

He shifted on the seat a little, spreading his legs more and angling his hips up eagerly. The woman moaned again and the camera panned down over her body and her finger sliding over her clit and--

"Jesus!" House exclaimed at hearing a voice behind him. He snapped his head to look over his shoulder at the same time and felt an incredible feeling of dread and nakedness wash over him at seeing Cuddy standing there and staring at him. He immediately let himself go and scrabbled up from the couch just enough to frantically tug his pants up over his hips and to hide his erection. At the same time he made a clumsy grab for the remote to switch the film off but found himself wrestling too much with his pants to be able to get a proper hold on the remote.

Shit, he was thinking. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. He rubbed a hand over his face, then threw another look over his shoulder at Cuddy, feeling so exposed and vulnerable he wanted to disappear into the ground and never see the light of day again. Typical, typical that Cuddy would have to wake up now. Of all the god damned times she had to wake up in the middle of the night...

House quickly attempted to compose himself, despite the film still playing. "Did I wake you?" he asked in the most nonchalant tone he could muster - but in his mind, the word shit was still racing through it like a broken record, at high speed.

Cuddy simply stared at House as he scrambled away from her, trying to hide what she'd already seen--his erection. Seemed like a wasted effort but then what he'd been doing with it seemed pointless as well.

Her mouth was still gaping open in surprise but she wasn't an idiot. She knew men masturbated, probably more than women did. She knew they did it even when they were in a relationship and had a willing sexual partner. She didn't think they normally when that willing partner was lying in bed next to them, though.

Under other circumstances, she'd probably find this situation funny. She'd probably enjoy House's obvious discomfort. But with everything that had been happening, all the turmoil between them, it wasn't funny at all. She'd been there all evening, she'd been in bed next to him, and he preferred to jerk off to some--she turned to glance at the tv screen again--some cheap looking tramp with artifical boobs than making love with her? It was bad enough that he'd avoided talking to her but sex was the one thing they got right. It was the one thing that always worked. Had the relationship broken so badly that he didn't even want to touch her?

She tugged his shirt closer around her but it didn't help. The chill she was feeling came from the inside now, a deep, cold hollow place that settled in her chest. She waved her hand at his groin, wanting some kind of explanation that would make the cold go away. "Why?"

House really wished Cuddy would leave the room. Not so he could continue what he was doing, but so he could avoid feeling so exposed. His still throbbing erection and the way his pulse was hammering through his body with unresolved arousal made him feel even more exposed. House wasn't a prude in any manner of the word. He wouldn't even have many qualms masturbating in front of Cuddy if she really wanted to watch him do that. But not like this. This was private. This was something that was strictly his privacy, not something he wanted to share with anybody, not even Cuddy. She probably wouldn't like it if he walked in on her masturbating, either.

Swallowing, he struggled to stay sitting still against the urge to squirm with discomfort, his gaze almost turning guilty as Cuddy stared at him with obvious disbelief. Stupid he felt guilty. This was his home. He could do whatever he wanted in his own apartment. At her question, House simply gazed at her - then snapped his attention to the TV when he heard the woman on TV cry out in demand for the guy to fuck her harder. House felt his face flush and he hastily grabbed up the remote and fumbled with it until he managed to switch the DVD off. The silence that followed seemed to echo through the apartment, making House even more acutely and uncomfortably aware of Cuddy's presence.

He dropped the remote to the couch and faced back to her. His erection was flagging a little now and his pulse was slowing down. He didn't feel any less awkward, however, despite doing his damnedest to appear unfazed by Cuddy walking in on him like this.

He really didn't think he owed her an explanation, though. He had a right to masturbate. Why should he answer to Cuddy about that? That very fact made him feel instantly defensive.

"Why not?" he retorted. "I'm allowed to. You got a problem with that?"

Cuddy was in a sort of shock. She didn't understand why House was getting off to porn when she was there. Was he repulsed by the way her body was changing? The changes weren't huge. She could still hide it with the right clothes but he saw everything, even the tiniest changes. Maybe he wasn't attracted to her anymore. Or maybe the changes made it too difficult for him to ignore the pregnancy in the same way her morning sickness had. He'd tried to eliminate her morning sickness so he wouldn't have to deal with it; maybe turning to porn served the same purpose.

She didn't understand why she was there if House didn't want her there. Obviously, she was there that evening because she'd invited herself over, not because he wanted her there. But in the larger sense, what possible reason was there for her presence?

She stiffened slightly when he snapped at her. She was still too confused and lost in her own thoughts to try to guess at his thoughts. She could only take his words at face value.

"No...." She made a helpless gesture, waving her hand vaguely in his direction. "Sorry I ruined your fun. It won't happen again."

She turned and walked directly back to the bedroom but when she got there, she didn't know what to do. She stood, shivering slightly and staring at the bed. She felt like she was forcing him into something he didn't want. Not just the baby but the whole relationship. She'd promised--threatened?--that she wasn't going to let him push her away but that was when she'd believed he actually wanted her despite his actions. She was afraid now she'd been mistaken. She was afraid she'd never been the woman he wanted.

House stared after Cuddy as she headed back down the hall, his defensiveness rapidly turning into bafflement. He was glad she was gone in the sense that he didn't feel so damn exposed the way he had while she'd been in the room. But he didn't get what her whole reaction towards what she'd seen was. Sure, he was getting off to porn. She knew he did that. They'd openly addressed that a couple of times, albeit in a cynical, teasing way. He didn't have a problem with her getting off with her vibrator, so why the hell should she have a problem with him using porn? Ultimately, it all resulted in the same thing: orgasm and gratification. As far as he was concerned, both were completely and utterly harmless and healthy.

He looked away, frowning in thought over what had just happened. He considered just letting Cuddy go back to bed, seeing she'd gone back to the bedroom. He doubted, judging from the way she'd reacted, however, that she'd be sleeping any time soon. Running a hand over his face again, he then reached for his cane and stood up. He adjusted his still half hard penis in his pants, all signs of arousal now petering from his system. He felt frustrated he hadn't gotten the orgasm he'd been heading for, but that frustration would soon pass.

Slowly, he limped down the hall and stopped just short of his bedroom door when he spotted Cuddy just standing in the middle of the room, looking - from his angle - lost. He frowned again. What the hell was going on with Cuddy lately? It seemed every single move he made ended up with her acting insecure. About what, he had no clue. She had no reason to even be insecure.

"So, instead, you're just going to stand in the middle of my bedroom for the rest of the night, looking like you've just found out I'm cheating on you?" he remarked, a hint of cynicism to his tone. "Cos just in case you couldn't tell, it's just porn."

Cuddy knew it was just porn. Porn wasn't the point. It was when he chose to indulge in the porn that bothered her. In her mind, watching porn--and jerking off to it--was just like when they were out together and House spent the time staring at other women. It was...rude. And it made her feel insignificant, like she wasn't enough for him.

"No," she said with a bitter laugh. "You're not cheating on me, you're cheating with me."

She felt like the 'other woman' in this relationship. House had his closed-off little life with his solitude and his loneliness and his still burning love for Stacy. It didn't seem like much to most people but he'd seemed happiest with it. Then the shooting happened and it shook him up. It traumatized him. And he'd looked for a distraction and she'd been convenient, proximity-wise, and the only problem with that was she wasn't interested in a fling and he'd gotten more than he'd bargained for.

She slipped off his shirt and tossed it on the bed. No point in hanging it up--it couldn't get any more wrinkled than it was. She reached for her own clothes, folded neatly and sitting on the corner of his dresser. She put her bra on and then stepped into her jeans. She wasn't going to be able to sleep anymore that night but she had plenty to do at home. She still had a stack of work to catch up on and she needed to pack a bag for her trip home. With any luck she'd stay too busy to have time to feel anything.

"Go on back to what you were doing," she said, glancing over her shoulder at him. "I told you--I won't ruin your fun anymore."

"With?" House echoed, bewildered. "What?"

He moved further through the doorway and watched Cuddy strip off his shirt and head over to hers on his dresser. Okay, he could understand Cuddy not liking the fact that he watched porn. He understood that from past experience - Stacy hadn't been too crash hot on it, though she usually made fun of him about it instead of took it personally. But ultimately, watching porn was harmless. It was just a tool to get off to. It wasn't anything more than that for him. Didn't Cuddy get that? Obviously not, he thought to himself as she slipped on her bra and jeans.

He waited for more of an explanation from her, but when all he got was her telling him once again to go back to what he was doing, that she wouldn't ruin his fun anymore, he threw his hand up and tossed his head in exasperation. He settled his gaze back on Cuddy, in disbelief, and quickly blocked the doorway so she couldn't get out when she started towards him.

"What is going on with you?" he demanded. "Lately, I can't even breathe without you getting upset or insecure."

Cuddy tugged on her shirt and turned to head for the door. When House blocked her way, she let out a frustrated breath. She raised her eyes to stare at the ceiling, silently counting to ten in an effort to stay calm.

"There is nothing 'going on' with me," she said, dropping her gaze to meet his. There was a touch of anger in her expression but mostly she looked defeated. She'd never wanted anything as badly as she wanted this. She wanted a relationship where she felt safe and wanted and respected. She wanted a family. She wanted to be excited about their future. That was a little hard to do when House obviously felt suffocated by her.

"You breathing doesn't upset me. You checking out other women, on the other hand...." She made an abrupt slashing gesture with her hand. She'd explained this before and he continued to deliberately provoke her insecurities. She didn't know why. She didn't know if he wanted to make her even more insecure or if he just couldn't help himself. Either way it seemed pointless to keep going over and over the same damn thing.

"Please," she said in a low voice. "Just...let me out."

"Right. It has webbed feet and goes 'quack quack', but it's not a duck," House retorted sarcastically, and incredulously.

Of course there was something going on with Cuddy. He didn't know what the hell it was, but he'd noticed how much more uptight she'd been getting about their relationship lately. He wasn't stupid. He just didn't know what he was doing wrong.

"It was porn," House argued, throwing his hand out in gesture to the living room again. "Porn doesn't equal anything other than getting off. Which, last I heard, people are allowed to do solo even when they're in relationships."

As Cuddy stood in front of him and said to let her out, House just stood his ground and stared down at her. "You complain about me not talking, and now you're doing the exact same thing. The difference is, I don't actually have anything to answer for. You, on the other hand, do. Because I don't know what your problem is."

"I don't care about the damn porn," Cuddy snapped. She didn't care about the porn per se. She didn't get the attraction but to each his own. And if she hadn't been sleeping right next to him or if she'd turned him down, she wouldn't care that he'd been masturbating. Again, it was the circumstances in which he chose to do it that bothered her.

"No, of course you don't have anything to answer for. Gregory House never has anything to answer for."

Why did he always do this to her? He never wanted to talk about anything when there was a chance of having that discussion in a calm and rational manner. He always waited until emotions were running high and the most likely outcome of any 'discussion' was a screaming fight. She was sick to death of screaming fights.

"You spent the entire evening avoiding talking to me. You spent the entire evening avoiding doing anything with me. Why should I believe you want to talk now?"

"That's because I actually don't," House sniped back. "You're the one taking offense at every move I make."

Just to further block Cuddy's path out the door, House lifted a hand and set it on the doorframe, filling the entire space with his height. He'd asked her stay the night. He wouldn't have asked her to if he didn't want her there. He hadn't been in the mood to have a discussion about their relationship because he knew it would escalate into a fight. It always did. Because Cuddy liked to accuse him of things he wasn't even doing, like thinking of her as second best and finding other women attractive over her. He considered that irrational. Why the hell should he therefore discuss it with her?

"Avoiding you would mean not letting you in, not eating dinner with you, not asking you to stay the night," House shot back. "Seeing I did the opposite to all those things, pretty much means I wasn't avoiding you."

He drew in a deep breath, feeling his blood pressure rising at how ridiculous Cuddy was being. And as for wanting to talk now... "You never believe anything I say," he retorted. "Anything. 'I love you'. 'Not good enough'. 'I think you're hot'. 'No, you don't'. 'I want to have a quiet evening with you'. 'You're avoiding me'. See a pattern there?"

He pushed away from the doorframe and turned away, snorting derisively as he headed back down the hall. "Tell me when the pregnancy is over. Maybe then you'll stop being so god damn irrational."

"Fine, you're only half avoiding me."

It was the half that counted as far as she was concerned. Letting her in the apartment was a pretty minimal concession on his part. The fact he'd mostly ignored her once she was there was what counted to her. At least she saw it as being ignored. When he avoided all but the most mundane conversation and kept his focus on the tv, he was ignoring her.

If things were good between them, that wouldn't be such a big deal. She didn't expect him to have all his attention on her all the time. She certainly didn't expect deep meaningful conversation every time. She didn't even want deep conversation every time. But given that they hadn't talked about, let alone resolved, their argument from the last night on vacation, she felt they needed to talk.

Unfortunately, she was seeing a pattern, just not the one he was. The pattern she was seeing was one she'd seen all too many times before. The details were different, of course, but the end result had always been another failed relationship. She was trying to break that pattern. Hell, getting involved with House was breaking it because he was unlike anyone else she'd ever dated. Apparently her gift for screwing up seemed stronger.

Her head jerked back at his parting shot. Her cheeks heated in anger but tears pricked at her eyes. "How can you be so...such a...?" she stammered as she followed him back to the living room. She was shaking now, angry that he would dismiss her feelings as nothing more than hormones. And tell him when the pregnancy was over? As far as she could tell, it hadn't started for him.

She shoved her feet into her sneakers, her heels still hanging out as she shuffled across the room to where she'd left her purse and coat on the piano bench. "Thanks. Really. I don't know what I'd do without your understanding and support," she said bitterly as she fumbled blindly through her purse, looking for her car keys. She finally just grabbed her purse; she'd find the keys when she got outside. "So god damn sorry you've had to put up with my irrationality. Or my pregnancy. Or me."

"What? Bastard?" House finished for Cuddy crisply, stopping just long enough to turn and look at her. "What else do you expect me to be? Happy? Nice? Glad that I'm not living up to your exceedingly high standards?"

He faced away again and moved to the centre of the living room, stopping when he reached the side of the couch. He stared down at the coffee table where he'd left the DVD cover of the porn he'd been watching. God, if Cuddy hadn't damn well woken up and found him watching the porn... If only he hadn't been watching it in the first place. If only he knew what the hell Cuddy's problem was.

He glanced over his shoulder at her as she made her way to her purse, his chest twisting with a sharp sense of dread mingled with anger. How much more was he going to be able to put up with this? With Cuddy's irrational insecurity? Just as he thought that, she snapped exactly what he was thinking at him.

"Oh, for God's sake," House fired back, reeling around to face her. "'Put up with'. That's bullshit, Cuddy. You're talking bullshit!" He started towards her, pointing accusingly. "I am sick and god damn tired of you accusing me of things that aren't even true. I have not once 'put up with' you. Not once. You know why? Because I want to be with you."

He came to a stop in front of Cuddy, glaring down at her. "But here's the thing. The way you're carrying on? The way you're being irrational and insisting that I don't want to be with you - I might as well just be 'putting up with' you. All I'm doing is putting up with your god damn crap about being 'second best' and me 'checking out' other women. I can't say anything, can't do anything that would even prove to you that I want to be with you. Doesn't matter what I do or say.

"Where the hell is the Cuddy I got together with?" he demanded, angry and loud and hurt and furious and frustrated. "The Cuddy who knew I wanted to be with her?"

"How is asking you to respect my feelings count as having high expectations?"

As far as she was concerned, that was a pretty reasonable expectation in a relationship. She knew better than to expect him to understand her feelings completely but she didn't think it was particularly demanding of her to expect him to at least acknowledge her feelings. She didn't think it was unreasonable for her to be hurt when he dismissed those feelings as stupid or irrational. Just because he never wanted face his own feelings was no reason she shouldn't deal with hers.

She tried to ignore the rest of what he said. It only made her angry and as far as she was concerned--he was the one being irrational now. He whined about having to put up with her then turned around and claimed he wasn't. He couldn't have it both ways no matter how much he twisted the facts in his own mind. He couldn't complain about putting up with her moods or her morning sickness or even her need to be responsible about her job and then pretend the resulting fights were all her fault.

She leaned over and used her finger to finally slip the back of her sneakers over her heels. She straightened up and tried to wrestle her coat on, her purse hanging open from one hand as she headed for the door. She couldn't go through it again, another fight where a lot of things got said and nothing got solved. She pulled up short, though, as she reached for the doorknob.

Where was that Cuddy? She was right there. She was the Cuddy she'd always been, which obviously wasn't the woman he wanted. She looked back at him over her shoulder, a stricken look on her face.

"That Cuddy? She found out you think we're nothing but a mistake." Then she yanked the door open and slammed it behind her as she stumbled into the building foyer.

House was getting frustrated that Cuddy didn't appear to be reacting to anything he was saying. With the way she was tugging on her coat and her shoes, it seemed like she was totally ignoring him. Until she reached the door. He stared at her when she faced back to him and delivered her parting shot.

He continued to stare when she slammed the door shut behind her, a feeling of icy coldness hitting him like a shockwave. But then he instantly moved in reaction mode and he grasped the door handle and tugged it open just as he heard the door in the foyer slam shut. He followed out after Cuddy, yanking that door open too, and he stepped out into the frosty November night in nothing but his pyjama pants, bare feet and a thin t-shirt.

"Sometimes I do wonder that," he shot back. His breath came out in a thin plume of steam and his voice echoed around the quiet, empty street. He was too angry right now to even care if anyone would hear him or be bothered by his near shouting. "Sometimes I think it's you that thinks that. That I'm not good enough for you. That I'm not good enough to you."

He hobbled down the steps. The cold cement under his feet felt like he was treading over blocks of ice and the mild wind curling its way through the air was biting and cut through his clothes like icy fingertips. "If it's not you being hopped up and irrational on hormones, then what the hell is it? What is it, Cuddy?"

He reached the bottom of the steps. A light in the building across the street came on, on the second floor, and House caught a glimpse of someone parting their curtain to peer down at the street. He ignored them. "You want to talk?" he fired at Cuddy. "Then let's talk. Right here, right now. You're not leaving here until you tell me what the hell all this insecure bullshit is all about. You at least owe me that much."

"I never said that. That's your insecurity, not mine," Cuddy said over her shoulder. She was still trying to pull her coat on, struggling to get her arm into the sleeve without dropping her purse. She'd had to park halfway down the block and it was a cold November night. She already felt cold on the inside; she didn't want to have to physically freeze to get away from House.

She ended up dropping her purse anyway. It hit the pavement with a jangle and tipped over. Oh, well, there were her keys. She turned back to look at House as he shouted out into the street. What was he thinking? Bare feet, t-shirt--the idiot was going to get frostbite.

"Who's going to stop me from leaving? You? I can outrun you." She reached down and grabbed her keys and her purse. He couldn't stop her from leaving. He didn't own her--didn't even want her. He had no right to control her. But all his shouting and poking at her sore spots made everything build up inside her until she felt like she was going to shatter into a million pieces if she didn't let some of the pressure out.

"I owe you?" She turned on him, walking back until she was just a few inches in front of him, tears streaming down her face. "Fine. You need to be told why you think this is a mistake? One, you were lonely and you needed a distraction. I understand that, believe me, but it's not the basis for a relationship. Two, I'm pregnant and you hate that. You want it to go away and it's not going to go away. Three, you're still in love with Stacy and I will never be enough to overcome that. You will never, ever love me the way you love her and I'm reminded of that every time you look at other women."

A sob escaped her as she turned away again. "Now go inside before you freeze."

"Nice," House sniped back when Cuddy said she could outrun him. At any other time, he wouldn't have cared less about such an insult. But right now, he took it personally. It just seemed like another stab in the wound on top of everything else.

"You owe me," he agreed evenly, watching Cuddy turn to face him. He was a little taken aback by seeing her crying so hard. Taken aback and filled with a kind of guilt. He hated it when Cuddy cried. Hated it. Not just because he didn't like dealing with tears but because he just couldn't handle seeing her upset. It made him angry and feel helpless and irritated and frustrated and, above all, guilty. "I don't--"

He cut off from saying he didn't think they were a mistake when Cuddy kept talking. And the look on his face grew more and more bewildered. She thought he'd used her as a distraction? But the clincher was her last point: Stacy. House felt like he'd been sucker punched right in the gut. How dare Cuddy even bring that up? How dare she even think that? How dare she?

He was even too bewildered to speak for a moment once she turned away and ordered him back inside. He stared at her back, the wind figuratively knocked right out of him. He didn't know if he felt hurt or angered by what she'd said. Taken off guard, definitely. Those were completely unfair accusations. He couldn't even form a coherent thought in his head about any of it. Not right now. As the words sank in, he realised he felt like he'd been slapped across the face. Hard. Hearing Cuddy tell him that she thought he saw her as little more than a distraction hurt. She might as well have slapped him across the face. And as for Stacy... He couldn't believe Cuddy had said that.

"So, this is it, is it?" he replied, his voice low but strained and tight with every emotion rushing through him that he couldn't put a name to, while Cuddy headed around to the driver's side of her car. "This is how it's going to end?"

He swallowed as he stared at her and he was horrified to feel his lower lip tightening and trembling slightly. He gritted his teeth to make it stop. He really couldn't even explain what he was feeling even if he wanted to. All that he was aware of was this pain in his chest, a gaping hole, as though Cuddy had reached right in and torn his heart out with her bare hand. In any other situation, he might've started shouting about Stacy. He might have launched a full-frontal verbal attack on Cuddy, ripping her to shreds for even saying something so fucking hurtful. But right now he was rendered little more than stunned. So hurt he couldn't even find it in him to be angry. Just... numb with disbelief.

He looked away towards the street corner and watched a car quietly roll by through the intersection, and felt the cold wind sting his against his eyes. He tightened his jaw, then slowly looked back to Cuddy. His throat felt raw. Everything felt raw. And numb.

"If I ever wanted confirmation that I can't be what you need, this is it," he said, not sure if Cuddy was even listening to him. Didn't matter anyway, he supposed. She was going to leave. "You mean... everything to me. But as it turns out, that doesn't mean anything."

He opened his mouth to say more. But what could he possibly say? She wasn't going to listen to him, anyway. He'd told her he loved her, that he wanted to spend what he hoped to be the rest of his life with her, and she hadn't listened then. So, why would she even listen now?

He closed his mouth again and looked back towards the street adjacent, saw the stoplights turn green, though there was no traffic. His eyes felt red and raw and he realised he was shivering from the cold. Before he let his eyes get any more aggravated with angry tears, he silently turned away from Cuddy and started back towards the steps.

Cuddy sobbed harder when House said it was over. She tried to get her key in the doorlock but she couldn't see to fit it in the slot. She was probably scratching the hell of out of the paint but she didn't care. All she could think was to get away, go home where her heart could break in privacy and her tears wouldn't freeze on her face.

Despite everything, she didn't want it to end. She wanted to find a way to make it work. There had to be a way, she just didn't know what it was. House was a difficult man to have any kind of relationship with but she was simply...useless.

"Don't," she shouted, slamming her hand against the car. "Don't twist this around. I never said you couldn't be the one for me. I only said I can't be the one for you and that's a fact."

It finally occurred to her that she had an automatic doorlock on her keychain. Her hands were shaking so bad it still took her a moment to push the right button. The doors unlocked with a thunk and she jerked the door open.

He was lucky. He'd had that kind of love with Stacy, the kind that Cuddy had always hoped for. And he'd never had to live in the shadow of that kind of love. He had no idea how she felt knowing she would never measure up. Combined with his refusal to accept the baby, she felt like the obstacles were insurmountable. She'd kept trying. She'd keep trying given half a chance. But she was afraid there was no way for someone like her to avoid the inevitable.

She glanced up to see him turn away and start walking back inside. "If Stacy came back tomorrow, told you she'd left Mark and wanted you back, if you had to choose between us, we both know what your choice would be. I love you but I have to live with knowing I'm not everything to you and never could be."

She threw herself into the driver's seat and managed to jam the key into the ignition after only a couple of tries. She had just enough presence of mind to look for traffic before jerking the wheel hard and pulling away from the curb.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Thursday, middle of the night

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