My Foe

Disclaimer: House M.D., its characters, locations and storyline are the property of David Shore, Bad Hat Harry Productions and the Fox Television Network. All Rights Reserved.

A/N: Well, so much for part IV being the last! I was going to write the following as part of an independent story to follow "My Foe" but realized that it just couldn't stand on its own so I added it as a fifth chapter here. I apologize for it taking me so long to update but there has been a death in the family and I haven't had a lot of time to write. It may be a while before I update any of the stories I have on the go, at least until after the funeral. I ask for your patience!

Thanks to those who have been reviewing. I often incorporate reviewer's ideas into what I write so it really is a great motivator for me when I receive reviews! To those of you who have been reading along but haven't reviewed yet, there is still time!

Warning: This story involves adult issues and strong language. Reader Discretion is advised.

Part V

One month. That is the amount of time it has taken me to recuperate from my near death experience from fish poisoning. A week after Lucas Douglas was arrested for poisoning me (and framed by Wilson and Chase for Wilson's phony poisoning) I was well enough to be moved to a private room in a regular ward. I still suffered from random neurological 'attacks' as an aftereffect of the Ciguatoxin's influence on my nervous system. Such attacks included bouts of temporary itching and pins and needles in some very unusual areas of my body, muscle spasms and jerks, visual problems (blurred vision and double vision being the most prevalent) and short term memory problems. These, I knew, could continue to plague me for many more months before they disappeared. My cardiovascular health was improving daily and the gastrointestinal side-effects had pretty much been extinguished by the fourth day after onset. A week after I was moved to a ward room I was discharged but not allowed to come back to work until my bouts of dizziness, my short term memory problems and my general strength and well-being were better.

Dr. Lisa Cuddy, Dean of Medicine, quickly discovered that Wilson and Chase had staged Wilson's illness when she caught the oncologist sitting with me in my room discussing the ethical implications of what he and my Fellow had done to Lucas. She had declared that she wouldn't reveal our little secret after it came out that the charges for poisoning Wilson had been dropped in exchange for a confession in House's case. The skunk was released on bail pending his trial but at least he was going to get his. We got lucky; if Cuddy had reported our little sting to the police, Lucas most likely would have been given a 'Get Out Of Jail Free' card.

I'm sitting at home in front of the TV, bored silly. No work means no puzzles to solve and no puzzles to solve leaves my mind without something to keep it occupied. I'm going insane without something to focus my attention on; I have always been that way. I believe that's why I found myself getting into so much trouble in my youth. School was mundane and pedantic, a brainwashing institution that tried to drive all original thought and opposing opinions out of the upcoming generation of mindless serfs being prepared to serve their industrial, corporate and military masters. The education system today hasn't improved or changed in intent all that much but I digress; I was always bored beyond belief, having already known the information from my own self-study at the library or having grasped the concept the first time it was taught and frustrated with having to wait for the rest of my classmates to grasp the concept before the teacher moved on. I would end up trying to entertain myself during these periods of monotony; my love for pranks and intelligent humor combined with my active imagination and naturally sarcastic nature led to activities that my teachers, principals, local law enforcement and, of course my parents found objectionable, to say the least.

Wilson is out grocery shopping, a chore I refuse to do. Walking up and down rows of food, personal care items and household cleaners pushing a cart along with a bunch of thirty-something house-fraus and their screaming brats while mind-numbing muzak plays loud enough for the ear to catch a hint of a note here and there but softly enough to act like a constant annoying whine on the periphery of one's consciousness is not my idea of a fun time; without him around my boredom takes on the edge of torture.

The doorbell rings and I am tempted not to acknowledge it, but then it occurs to me that I have nothing better to do and no matter whom it may be on the other side of the door I'm certain that I can find some entertainment out of mocking and/or humiliating him or her. That brings a slight smile to my face; I rise slowly from the sofa, grab my cane and head to the door, making certain that I wipe the smile off of my face before I answer. When I swing the door open I'm surprised to see Lisa Cuddy standing there, about to ring the bell again when she notices me. My heart does a flip in my chest upon seeing her and I chastise myself for being so weak whenever I'm around her. After all that has happened, I should know better than to fall for her obvious physical attributes and charms, but hell, I am a red-blooded American man and all of that crap, and a great rack makes Little Greg want to take over control of my brain for a little while.

"Hi," I say, staring down her low-cut blouse briefly before meeting her brocade blue eyes staring up at me. I can't help but smirk at the way she rolls her eyes at me, having noticed my quick ogling.

"Hi," she returns and then looks past me into the loft. "Can I come in?"

I consider her question. If Wilson were here he would not appreciate me welcoming her inside. He still carries a great deal of anger and bitterness over the way she reintroduced Lucas into our lives and flaunted him in front of me after leading me on for weeks before admitting her relationship with the P.I.. He is very protective of me sometimes, something that can be both incredibly endearing and incredibly annoying depending upon the day and my mood.

I resent the fact that she didn't tell me about Lucas and her as soon as I returned instead of flirting with me and getting my hopes up. I hate the fact that she told him about my delusion of her and me making love and my psychotic breaks that led me to Mayfield. It hurt to watch her push both Wilson and I away, straining our friendship with her to the breaking point in order to pacify her boytoy. It tore at my heart to tell her that I was in love with her only to have her slap me and run away to Lucas. I'm angry that she bailed him out of jail, and while she's not living with him anymore, she still maintains contact with him as he prepares for trial. Yet, I can't bring myself to cut ties with her in the same way Wilson has. I realize that Lucas was lying to her the entire time they were together and was manipulating her as much as he was me. That doesn't mean I still trust her as I had before Mayfield, but I can't bring myself to be furious with her. My emotions are confused and uncertain. A huge part of me still loves her, but an equally large part of me wants to push her away for the sake of my sanity and sobriety.

Instead of answering verbally, I step back and hold the door open for her to enter. Once she's inside I shut the door behind her. One thing I don't do is offer to take her coat. She is not completely welcome here and I want her to realize that.

"Wilson will be home in about fifteen minutes," I tell her, trying to appear nonchalant even though I'm definitely not feeling that way. "I wouldn't recommend being here when he gets home."

She nods and walks away from the foyer into the condo proper, looking around the place. It occurs to me that this is the first time she has been in the loft since Wilson bought it out from underneath her and Lucas.

"I like what Wilson has done with this place," she said approvingly and I don't detect any resentment or sarcasm in her voice.

"How do you know it was Wilson who decorated?" I ask with mock indignity.

Cuddy gave me a knowing smirk. "I've seen how you decorate," she commented, referring back to my apartment. "Besides, this just screams Wilson."

She's right. Very little in the loft screams me, but then again, it's not really my place. I just bunk here while I try to keep myself sober and 'uncrazy'.

"You came here to comment on the décor?" I ask her a little coolly. "I could have e-mailed you a picture and saved you the trip."

My discomfort with her is not lost on her. She looks up at me, tossing her straight black-brown hair over her shoulder flirtatiously and I have to wonder if she's doing that on purpose or if it's just a genetic predisposition she is unaware of possessing.

"I came over to make peace, House," she tells me with an expression of regret on her face. I know she is waiting for me to say something in response to that but I don't have any intention of making things easy on her, so I simply stare at her in silence, waiting on her. She stares back at me, frowning slightly and then sighs.

"Can I sit down for a few minutes?" Cuddy asks, slightly frustrated.

I shrug, and reply, "I don't know. Can you?"

The Dean of Medicine takes that as a yes and sits on the long sofa and then gestures for me to join her. With a silent sigh I limp around and grab the remote control, turning the volume on the TV down but not muting it. Then I sit down at the opposite end of the piece of furniture, setting my cane down on the surface of the table.

"What do you want, Cuddy?" I ask her, trying to sound annoyed but it doesn't come out sounding like it. I'm still easily played out, another aftereffect of the poisoning. "You want absolution? Go seek out a priest—or in your case, a rabbi—because that's not my specialty."

"I honestly didn't know that Lucas had pranked Wilson and you like he had," she insisted, shaking her head and spreading her hands out in front of her, palms up. "If I had known I would have confronted him on it. I'm sorry that I wasn't paying close enough attention to have seen what was going on."

I look at her, my eyes burning a hole through her as I search her soul for a spark of the Lisa Cuddy I once knew before all of this mess, but for the life of me, I can't see her anywhere in the stranger sitting before me. Disappointed, I shake my head and exhale loudly, rising to my feet. "Is that all you came to say? Because if so, then you've said it and you can go home to your daughter now." I tell her sharply.

She stands up as well. "What the hell is the matter with you? I came here to apologize and you're acting like a jerk about this!"

Now I'm angry as well. "You didn't come here to apologize! You came here to justify your actions under the cloak of making amends," I insist, raising my voice somewhat. "Well, you've done that so you can pat yourself on the back, shake off the guilt and leave here feeling good about yourself! Just don't expect me to forget everything that's happened between us, Cuddy, because I refuse to. I've learned a lot about you from these past months but not as much as I have about myself. I'm still me, House, the jerk! I'm still not good enough for you as a friend or as a lover, am I? Because we both know that if Lucas hadn't been caught poisoning Wilson and me you'd be at home with him right now playing house with your baby in your perfect, reliable relationship. Well, I'm through with trying to prove to you that I'm a new man because I'm not! I'm still a surly, misanthropic ass, only now I'm that without the Vicodin!"

She marches angrily around the sofa now, coming to stand right in front of me, her eyes flaring in fury. "I should have known better than to try to reason with you! You're too much of a creep to actually shut up long enough to allow me to explain!"

"There's nothing left to explain!" I yell. She looks like she wants to scratch my eyes out but turns and strides towards the front door instead. I follow her, wanting to be the one to slam the door on her ass! She spins around and takes a startled step backwards, not expecting me to be standing right behind her. She quickly recovers, pointing a finger in my face.

"You think you were the only one to fall apart last spring?" she nearly screams and then, realizing that she has said more than she intended, covers her mouth with her hand and looks away. At this point I can see that she has begun to tremble from head to toe and in spite of her effort to hide any sign of vulnerability the look of pain in her misty eyes betrays her. Seeing her like that, I realize that I'm seeing for the first time in nearly a year the Lisa Cuddy I fell in love with. I'm afraid to do so much as breathe for fear that she'll disappear again and never return.

"What do you mean by that?" I ask her, sotto voce. My anger is gone, replaced with curiosity and something else that I can't put a name to just now.

"Nothing," she tells me coldly, shutting down, and the woman I used to know disappears. "This was a waste of time." She goes to the door and tries to open it but I hold it shut and force her to look at me.

"Tell me," I demand with finality. "You're not leaving until you do."

Cuddy glares up at me defiantly. "Like hell I'm not!" she insists and pulls harder on the door to no effect. Turning on me she spits out, "A few seconds ago you had no interest in hearing anything I had to say and now I'm supposed to spill my guts out to you? How does that work?"

I smirk angrily. "You just said something that could possibly be of some interest to me, that's how! Now tell me what you meant!"

She huffs indignantly, crossing her arms in front of her chest as she regards me suspiciously.

"How do I know you won't use what I tell you against me somehow?" she demands.

I shake my head once. "You don't."

Her eyes flare again but I can see her starting to give in. After a moment she shakes her head and looks down at her feet. I hear what sounds like a bitter laugh come out of her before she says, "You scared me to death that day you walked into my office and began to fall apart in front of my eyes. I had no idea things were that bad, House. For years you've been this indestructible, menacing force with more than nine lives and in a strange way I was comforted somehow by that. When I realized that you weren't the super-anti-hero I had imagined—that you were just as vulnerable and broken as I was—I didn't know how to deal with what I was feeling, but I was terrified for you…and me."

Cuddy stops for breath and I remain silently attentive, my eyes fixed on her.

"That's why I took you to Wilson. I knew I was about to lose it and I didn't want you or anyone else to see that." She sighs and looks up at me again. Her eyes are wet but otherwise she is the image of calm. "Long story short, I had a mini- breakdown of my own. I took a week off of work because I couldn't get myself out of the house, I was weepy, anxious. I couldn't sleep more than one or two hours a night. I was barely able to take care of Rachel. Wilson forced me to see someone for it, a psychiatrist in Trenton. It took me almost the entire time you were away to get back on my feet completely to the point where I felt like me again. During that time my therapist was encouraging me to move forward with my life because there was no guarantee you were even going to come back to Princeton once you were released.

"One night Lucas called me up. I couldn't even remember who he was until he reminded me. He said that he'd been thinking about me and wanted to know if I'd meet him for drinks…well, anyway, I was afraid that hopes of ever having my dream of the perfect husband and the perfect children in the perfect house living the perfectly happy life I've always wanted wouldn't happen now that you…." She allows her sentence to drift off and sighs. "Lucas seemed like my last hope of ever having it come true. Then you came back looking better than I'd seen you in a very long time; I was confused. I didn't intend on leading you on, House. I just felt like I didn't know what my next step should be and I wasn't looking forward to telling you about Lucas and me because I didn't want to hurt you so soon after your hospitalization. Listen, no excuses. I made the choice that I thought was the healthiest one for me and Rachel. Now I know I chose poorly, and I've made a mess of everything; I really did come over here to apologize but my pride wanted to keep up the pretenses just a little bit longer."

I look down at her, trying to absorb and process everything she has just told me. Even though I can understand a little better what was going through her mind when she hooked up with Lucas, I still find myself afraid to let go of the anger and pain. Even after I had returned and she saw the progress I had made and continued to make she still continued to choose Lucas over me and treated Wilson and me like we no longer mattered to her anymore. I can forgive her hiding her relationship with Lucas from me as long as she did, but I'm not able to forgive what she chose to do thereafter. It will take a lot of time and big attitude changes before I will be able to forgive, if ever.

"Again," I tell her calmly, "what exactly is it that you want from me, Cuddy? No one forced you to continue seeing Lucas or shun Wilson and me after that? What do you expect me do with what you've told me?"

Cuddy looks up at me longingly, biting her lower lip. She looks so vulnerable at this moment and my protective nature wants to sweep her into my arms and try to take away her pain, ignoring my own. I remind myself that that is exactly what she is hoping for and her look has been at least partially calculated to manipulate me—not that I have any right to judge her for that since I've done enough of my own manipulating to get the result I want in my years associated with her. Still, I force myself to resist falling for it.

Realizing that I'm standing firm, she looks away a little disappointed and shrugs. "Say we can pick up our friendship where we left it and just forget this whole catastrophe even happened," she answers hopefully.

I shake my head no and explain, "I can't do that, Cuddy. I'm not the same person I was before I went to Mayfield, and neither are you. I can't just wipe my memory of everything that's been said and done. Real life doesn't work like that."

Her eyes fill with genuine hurt now. "But, House--?"

"I'm willing to start over," I tell her, cutting her off mid-sentence, "right from the beginning. We become new friends starting now and move forward from here. We're not confidants or buddies. There's not going to be any more thoughts of a relationship developing between us. Maybe someday it can be but not now; that kind of trust has to be earned again. That's all I can do for now. Don't ask me for more. Take it or leave it."

She scowls at me, not looking pleased with my proposal, but I really don't care. She was thinking about her future when she chose Lucas; I'm thinking about mine now, a future that is clean and sober and perhaps even happy from time to time. Whether or not she is going to be a part of it, I'm not certain; I'd like her to be, but it's up to her to accept my terms or reject them. Boundaries, Dr. Nolan calls them, something I've never fully understood until now.

"That goes both ways, you know?" she warns me. "No more special privileges; I won't be giving you any more slack than I do any other employees. I won't argue with you over what your responsibilities are—you'll do what I tell you or you'll be fired just like everyone else, and I'm not going to cover your ass if you pull something stupid. I mean it! Are you prepared to accept that?"

I meet her eyes. "I am."

She pauses for a moment longer and then shakes her head adamantly. "Well, I'm not. I'll always care about you, Greg! You'll always be the exception, whether we like it that way or not. I am your friend, even if you're no longer willing to be mine. A couple bad decisions don't cancel out all of the good things that have happened in the past. Every time you've screwed up, and we both know that the list of the times you have is longer than the distance from here to Camden, I've forgiven you and continued to be there for you. You owe me, and I'm calling in the marker now. Because the next time you need a friend I intend on making up for the idiot I've been and I'll be there. You can deny it now but I know you'll be there for me when I need you and you know I'm right."

Without warning she steps up to me, pulls my head down towards her and plants a gentle kiss on the cheek she had struck months ago and then rushes out of the loft before I can argue with her. I go to the doorway and watch as she quickly retreats and climbs into the elevator. The pocket doors slide shut and she is gone. I reach up and touch the spot where her lips made contact with my cheek. I swear it tingles! Despite the fact that I can't get over what a bossy, stubborn, impossible woman she is, I can't keep a smile off my face. That is the Lisa Cuddy I used to know. I hope she is back to stay, but only time will tell.

I retreat back into the loft and shut the door, realizing that I'm not bored anymore.

"Fuck," I murmur when the realization hits me that I'll never be able to banish that bitch from my mind and heart. She's like a bad stain that will never wash out, and secretly I'm glad but I'll be damned if I ever let anyone find out. Wearing one's heart on one's sleeve is for chumps and idiots.

~{fin}~