YOU KNOW, YOU KNOW
by Mickie; 05.11.21

----------------

Lisa Cuddy's heels clicked on the cold hospital floor, their noise amplified by the late-hour silence that filled the hallways of Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. She was making one last stop to her office tonight to grab some files before heading home. She would fall into bed, more tired than anything, wake up early and come back to this office she spent more time in than her home. The cycle of this would repeat as it had for weeks, months. It was only the late-night quiet that brought these thoughts on; she would never think of them otherwise.

She pushed open one of the glass doors to her office, which was by now only dimly lit from the light-posts outside the window, and stepped inside. She made it almost halfway across the room before she looked behind her and to the left: a sight for sore eyes. House was on the floor, his back against the glass wall separating Cuddy's inner office from her assistant's desk area, and his legs sprawled out in front of him. His cane was on the floor beside him and his eyes were very blue. Cuddy rushed over to him in seconds, and with every second realizing another piece of this puzzle: his position, his pained expression, the empty Vicodin bottle on the floor. She felt her veins popping from fear, her heart racing, all thoughts of home and files forgotten.

"House?" she kneeled beside him and put a hand to his neck which snapped his gaze up to meet her concerned one.

"Hi, Cuddy. That was some long dinner break," House's eyes were half-closed and she could see that they were glassy underneath. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears like a train sounding its horn to rid animals from the tracks.

"Greg, it's almost eight o'clock. What have you done? Why are you here?" She forgot about hiding her concern from him as it grew apparent something was wrong. Her hands were everywhere: his forehead (temperature), his wrists (pulse), his chest (breathing), his hands (strength). It wasn't hard to figure out what had happened. The hard part was convincing him to undo it.

Cuddy shuffled her bare knees across the carpet a few inches closer to him until they touched his thigh. Kneeling opposite him, she took in his appearance, a look of utter defeat, and tried to calm herself while still holding onto his right hand with her left. She didn't know where her other hand went.

"Greg, what happened?" she asked softly.

He paused to collect his thoughts, which were a bit dismantled about now. The focus sobered him up a bit and kept him from falling into the blackness that was approaching. "The Yankees won. Sent me over the edge." Cuddy lowered her head a second, too worried to care about the joke. She looked back up at him, blue on blue, and silently asked her simple question again.

"She hates me." It was barely above a whisper.

"Who does?"

It was House's turn to lower his head, swishing it lazily from side to side, brow furrowing in agony and confusion, his head light. The thought pained him. "You know who, you know…"

Cuddy didn't want to upset him now, or risk losing his focus. "Yes, yes, I know. I know. I'm sorry." She didn't know what else to say. But after a moment, she asked, "Why did you come here?"

House seemed to look around for a second. His wandering eyes came to focus on Cuddy across from him, slightly above him since he was slouching against the wall. He felt her hands: one moving gently over his arm, the other on his leg. He felt her concern – saw it in her face – and for a second, it felt good. He shrugged. "Seemed like the thing to do at the time," he answered.

House was coherent and, though sitting on the floor, upright. He had a faraway look in his eyes and Cuddy knew that was the first sign. This couldn't take too long. A minute or two later, his head lolled back slightly to rest against the glass wall again, his eyes once again half-closed. She wouldn't watch anymore. Cuddy unattached her hands from him and began to stand up, turning her head in the direction of her desk, the direction of her phone, but his surprisingly strong hand on her forearm stopped her and spun her back around to face him. He closed his eyes, squeezed her arm. "No," he said.

Cuddy became anxious in his grip. "Greg! You have to let me get you to the ICU; you have to let me pump your stomach!"

"I don't have to," he ground out from clenched teeth, "and I don't want to."

The stages hit her fast: anger, depression, bargaining. She slid as close to him as she could, her left side resting against the glass, her front pressed against his right side. She rested her right hand on his chest over his heart. "Please, Greg, you don't have to do this," she whispered gently.

"I don't have to," he replied, softer this time.

She circled her arms around him and tried to pull him up but he just pulled her down. Panic set her heart in a new rhythm, chaotic. Images flashed in her head quickly – meeting him, first being told off by him, witnessing his real talent for diagnosing patients, then loving him, then watching him love another woman, then watching him die, losing his leg, losing his life… Tears sprung to her eyes and she wished for the strength of ten strong men. He wouldn't move if she pulled him, dragged him, or pushed him. And he wouldn't let her go to reach a phone. They were alone, she was alone.

"Why won't you let me help you?" Cuddy let out, frustrated by her failed attempts to move him, to save him, slow tears tracing paths down her face. "Why did you decide to come to my office if you didn't want me to find you, to help you?" she finished, emotion thick in her voice. He was silent and she grew angry but it passed, quickly replaced by defeat and soulful melancholy.

"I can't watch you die again," she closed her eyes and rested her forehead on his left shoulder. She turned her face into his neck, letting her tears slip under his collar and down his chest.

He blinked his heavy eyes a few times, aware of their embrace. He let go of her wrist and replaced the hold with an arm around her waist, pulling her close. He didn't want to think about why he was doing what he was doing. He felt calm, like he thought he would by now. He felt a lot of things, quickly, before the calmness returned once again. He felt Cuddy's very quiet sobs and subtle shivers. He felt his heart constrict, not because of the poisoned blood now running through it, but for non-medical reasons. Distantly, he remembered that the brain really controlled feelings, presenting this guilty pain in the left chest where it would become associated through time with a certain breaking organ that resided there. He almost regretted this.

"I just wanted you to find me, so you would know," he whispered into her ear as she held onto him tightly, her right hand now slightly digging into his chest.

"So I would know what?"

"That it wasn't your fault, now or before, that you're not her," he finished softly, holding her tight.

Acceptance; that was the final straw. Her sobs grew louder as she realized what the morning would be like. It would be real then. She hoped he knew everything she wanted to say, since she couldn't find the words now, but sadly thought he didn't – he had no reason to. She wanted to hold onto him for a bit longer, wanted to believe this was just a bad dream, one they would both wake up from. His slowing breaths indicated it wasn't. "I'll miss you," was all she could manage as she raised her head slightly, lips trembling, almost meeting his eyes.

"No, you won't," House breathed out, and then he didn't, and then she finally felt something inside her breaking, the feeling neither new nor foreign, and she wished that she had awakened sooner.

----------------

A/N: It's dark, but that's how I was feeling at the time. I pretty much just wrote what came into my head while watching 206 Spin as fast as I could get it down, and I don't know if I like it, but here it is anyway. Reviews would be loved, and will be cherished.