Can't Help It

My muse has been a stranger to me lately but for some reason, I got this silly soap opera plot stuck in my head and couldn't get rid of it. I actualy considered writing this fic under an alias (yes, that would be an alias for my alias). But then I decided: What the hell! It's fan fic, not a doctoral thesis. So join me in basking in the cheesiness of this "Cuddy wears a wire" fic. – atd

Cuddy didn't even think twice when she looked down at her phone and saw it was Wilson.

They'd stayed in touch since she'd moved to Long Island and started her job at Westchester General. Not weekly phone calls, or even monthly ones, but enough to make James Wilson's name popping up on her cell at 4 o' clock on a Tuesday seem perfectly ordinary.

"Hey," she said, putting her feet up on her desk, preparing for a long conversation about the latest PPTH gossip, or the newest woman Wilson was dating.

"He's out," Wilson blurted excitedly into the phone.

"Who's out?" she said.

"House," he said, more calmly this time. "They released him from prison. I thought you'd want to know."

She put her feet down and sat up straight in her chair.

"That's crazy," she said. "It's only been 18 months. He was sentenced to five years."

"With the possibility of parole with good behavior," Wilson reminded her.

"Don't tell me he behaved himself. This is Greg House we're talking about."

She could almost hear his conciliatory shrug on the other end of the phone.

"No, actually he was released to the custody of the hospital. Foreman needed help with a vexing case."

"You're joking," Cuddy said.

"No. It's true."

"So where is he now?"

"Ummm, right down the hallway, consulting with his team."

"His team?"

Wilson inhaled a bit.

"Yes, uh. . .he has a new team. Well, some of his old team, too."

"He's head of diagnostics again?"

"Kind of. . ."

Cuddy was so enraged, she split the pencil she was holding in two.

"So let me get this straight: He rams his car into my house, forces me out of job and home, gives my now 4 year old daughter nightmares for a year—and he gets 18 months of prison and his old life back? Does that seem fair to you?"

"None of this fair, Cuddy," Wilson said, apologetically.

"This is bullshit," she said. "And I suppose you guys are best friends again."

Wilson sighed.

"He needs someone. He's all alone."

"I was all alone. I was fucking all alone when he ruined my life."

"I know, Cuddy. And I tried to be there for you, too."

She swallowed a bit. She was getting angry at the wrong guy.

"You were, Wilson. I know how it is with you and House. You just can't help yourself."

"There was a time when you couldn't either," he pointed out.

"Thankfully, those days are long behind me," she said.

######

"How are you, Dr. Cuddy?" DA Eric Oldham said, trying not to stare too brazenly at the beautiful woman sitting across from him in his office.

"I'm pissed, as you well know," Cuddy said.

He looked down at some file on his desk, as if it was to blame for this predicament.

"I know."

"Just explain to me how it is that a man who could've killed me—who could've killed my daughter—is out on parole."

"He told the parole board that he knew for a fact your daughter wasn't home."

Cuddy's stared at him.

"How on earth would he know that for a fact?"

Oldham put on his reading glasses and looked back down at the file.

"He said, uh, 'She always went to her grandmother's house on Fridays.'"

"That's a lie!" Cuddy said, flabbergasted.

The DA looked up at her from under his glasses.

"She wasn't at your mother's house?"

"No, she was," Cuddy said. "Thank God. But it wasn't a weekly thing. Occasional at best."

The DA shrugged.

"He says he knew."

"And that was good enough?"

"The parole board found him credible."

"This is outrageous!" Cuddy said.

Oldham gave a sympathetic nod of his head.

"You're not the only one who thinks Dr. House should still be behind bars, you know."

She squinted at him.

"I'm not?"

"No, you have an ally. Somebody who feels quite strongly that Gregory House is an unrepentant criminal. In fact, I believe you know him."

"I do?"

He pushed the intercom button on his phone.

"Sally, let him in."

The door opened and a hulking, beady-eyed man with a physical presence that seemed to take over the room stepped in. Cuddy's mouth dropped open.

"Tritter," she said out loud.

"Dr. Cuddy," he said, with a tiny smirk.

"Have a seat Detective Tritter," Oldham said, gesturing to the chair next to Cuddy.

Tritter folded himself into the chair next to Cuddy. As usual, he looked like he was contemplating some deliciously malicious secret.

"I see we finally see eye-to-eye on Dr. House," he said to Cuddy. "Took you a while. I was surprised that a woman as intelligent and sophisticated as you would get involved with a reprobate like him to begin with."

"My personal life is none of your—"

"But I get it, I suppose," Tritter interrupted, musingly. "All women want to save the tiger with the thorn in its paw. Until they come to realize that the tiger is a wild and vicious creature that cannot be tamed."

Cuddy rolled her eyes.

She felt uncomfortable being somehow aligned with this brute of a man. But they were, for now at least, on the same side.

"Detective Tritter shares your opinion that Dr. House is a threat to society," Oldham said.

Then he added, to Tritter: "She says House lied about the little girl. That he had no way of knowing she wasn't home that night."

"So he lied to the parole board," Tritter said, shaking his leg antsily. After smoking again for a couple of years, he was back to noisily chewing his nicotine gum. "That's an imprisonable offense." He turned to Cuddy: "Can you prove it?"

"How am I supposed to prove it?" she said.

"Get him to confess to you. Wear a wire."

"Dr. House and I aren't speaking anymore," Cuddy said.

"So?" Tritter said, chomping on his gum. "Speak to him."

"He doesn't want to speak to me, I'm sure."

Tritter smirked at her.

"Of course he does. He'd cream in his pants if you showed him even the tiniest bit of kindness—excuse my French."

"I strongly doubt. . ."

"You're the best thing that ever happened to that miserable son of a bitch," Tritter said, laughing derisively. "Trust me, he'll talk to you."

Cuddy looked down.

"So would that work?" she said, quietly. "If I got him to confess that he had no idea whether Rachel was home or not. . . they'd put him back in prison?"

Oldham nodded.

"If he's found to have willfully lied to the parole board. . .yes, he could go back to prison."

"For how long?"

"Hard to say. Up to a year. Maybe more."

Cuddy felt her hands shaking a bit. She folded them in her lap.

"I don't know. . .I've never done something like this," she said.

"Dr. Cuddy, you came to me," Oldham said. "I'm just trying to help you here."

"Can I think about it?" she said, pursing her lips.

"Take all the time you need," Oldham said.

"You know what galls me?" Tritter said, as if talking to himself. "House has no sense of the consequences of his actions. He almost kills Dr. Cuddy and her innocent little girl and look at him now. Sitting pretty as the prestigious head of diagnostics, with no regard for the lives he ruined along the way. That guy always wins."

Cuddy stared at him, processing his words.

"I'll do it," she said to Oldham.

######

Gregory House was barking at his team—for a change.

Park had just suggested that they remove the patient's spleen—although the diagnosis still wasn't confirmed.

"Good idea!" House said, in mock cheer. "Let's remove all his non-vital organs. We can start with spleen and then make our way to the gallbladder, the testicles. Maybe we can blind him! Can anyone get serious here and give me an actual suggestion?"

But his team was silent. In fact, they weren't even looking at him. They were looking dumbly at the door. Taub and Chase, in particular, looked stunned.

"What?" House growled, turning to the door. And then he turned white.

Now, instead of staring at Dr. Cuddy, his team was all staring at him. They had never seen him lose his cool like this.

"Either I'm hallucinating or you're in the wrong hospital," House finally managed to choke out.

"You're not hallucinating," Cuddy said. "I'm in town visiting my mother. I thought I'd stop by and visit my old stomping grounds."

"Are you armed?" he said, only half-joking. "Because I've been shot in this office before and it hurt."

"They made me check my weapon at the door," she cracked.

Chase stood up, awkwardly, and walked up to her.

"It's incredibly good to see you, Dr. Cuddy," he said, and gave her a stiff hug.

Taub, seeing this gesture, popped up, too. He went to hug her but then thought better of it.

"Hi," he said, giving a half wave. "You look well."

"So do you," Cuddy said.

She turned to the two women sitting at the table: A raven haired beauty (why was she not surprised?) and a mousy androgynous Asian girl with a bowl cut (okay, that surprised her a little.)

"I'm Dr. Cuddy, I used to be the Dean of Medicine here."

"Very nice to meet you," the brunette said.

"Hi," the Asian girl said, with a wave even more diffident than Taub's.

"What are you doing here, Cuddy?" House said, folding his arms across his chest.

"I told you," Cuddy said. "I came to visit the hospital. I'm welcome here. I wasn't the one who left in disgrace."

"I meant, what are you doing in my office?" House said, ignoring her provocation.

Cuddy hesitated.

"I needed to see you," she said. "To see if it was true that you got everything you wanted—again. To see if you won."

"Oh yeah, I'm the big winner," House said, sarcastically.

"And I wanted to see if prison. . .changed you."

"And?" House said.

She looked him up and down.

"You've tucked in your shirt," she said, dryly.

"So I have," House said.

"Besides that, absolutely nothing has changed."

Then she turned to the team.

"Nice to see you all," she said. And she left.

This was calculated on her part. If she seemed too forgiving, House would never buy it. You always had to be a few steps ahead of him. On the other hand, if he didn't follow her, try to make contact, this whole exercise—the tiny wire taped under bra—was for nothing.

House watched her as she made her way down the hall.

His team continued to stare at him like he was an exotic animal behind glass in a zoo.

"What are you still doing here?" House said, finally noticing them.

"Waiting for you to tell us what to do," Park said.

"Go, uh, do that thing," House said distractedly, his eyes still trained on Cuddy, who had stopped to chat with one of the doctors in the hall.

"Do what thing?" Taub said.

"That thing we talked about," House said. "With the spleen."

And he limped into the hall.

"What the hell was that?" Adams said.

"That was Dr. Cuddy," Chase said.

"I got that far. What's her deal with House? He looked like he had just seen a ghost."

"They dated," Chase said. "And, uh, broke up."

"That must've been one hell of a breakup," Park said.

But Adams finally got it: "She's the one," she said. "She's the reason he went to prison."

Taub and Chase nodded wordlessly.

"No wonder he looked like that," Park said.

"The real question," Adams said. "Is why is she speaking to him at all?"
######

"Cuddy!" he yelled, as she approached the elevator. He was limping quickly, slightly out of breath. "Wait!"

She smiled to herself. Tritter was right. House couldn't stay away.

She stopped, feigned an annoyed look.

"What?" she said.

"So that's it?" he said.

"Is what it?"

"You just wanted to see me? Make sure I was the same guy? No yelling? No throwing things? No telling me that I'm pond scum?"

"I guess that's it."

He looked at her, searchingly.

Finally, he said, "How are you?" His voice was gentle.

"I'm good."

"Wilson tells me you're living on Long Island? VP of admin at Westchester General?" A strained attempt at small talk.

"That's right."

"That's good," he said, nodding. "Congrats."

"I had a better job here," she said.

He looked at his feet.

"How long are you in town?"

"Two weeks," she said.

He shoved his hands in his pockets.

"Can I. . .see you?" he asked.

"You're seeing me right now," she said.

"I meant. . . alone. So we can talk. So I can muddle through some highly inadequate and appallingly late attempt at an apology. For drinks. Or dinner."

"Not a good idea," she said, still playing the long game.

"Coffee then," he said. "In the clear light of day. No pressure. I can tell you about how often I got the crap beaten out of me in prison. You'll love it."

He gave her a tiny smile. It was a smile that, at one time, she couldn't resist. Right now, she found it smug and presumptuous.

"Okay," she said, suppressing the urge to touch her chest, where the wire was taped. "Coffee."

######