A/N: Gaaaaah, five days! The spoilers are driving me up the wall, I had to do something to get my Huddy energy out. No spoilers in this, though.

"Five Things They Have In Common"

1.

Amid the broken glass and grime, there is a moment of pure and perfect harmony. His hands run up her waist, fingertips touching her with the slightest pressure, raising goosebumps in their wake. He moves in, breath warm and moist on her clavicle, hips pushed urgently into her belly. She hugs his shoulders, bringing him closer, still not enough. His hands round her ribs to her back and stop.

She flinches.

He draws back and the question in his eyes doesn't need to be voiced. He gently lifts her shirt over her head and eases her around to look. She hangs her head slightly, almost ashamed.

"When?" he murmurs, tracing the smooth scar, devoid of sensation. It's an angry pink against pale skin, snakelike along the right side of her spine and up past her shoulder blade.

"Ten years ago," she whispers. He lays his palm against her, thumb still making contact, stroking it as if to soothe it away.

It hits him. Her father's death a decade back, an accident on the interstate. House had just assumed he'd been alone in the car.

He can see the tears and instantly regrets asking. "I'm sorry." He says it so rarely, it seems foreign. He moves closer, hand moving to her shoulder, the other around her waist, hugging her to him and wanting to take it all back, the question and the answer. His cheek rests on hers. He rocks her a little, and she turns, staring up at him with oceanic eyes, a watery slate grey with ripples of blue.

"Thank you," she says, because it's the first time she's ever told anyone about that scar, and she knows he's the one person she could.

2.

He plays for her, two weeks into their relationship, a slow, sad song that eases into an upbeat one and down back to his baseline of melancholy. He allows her to sit beside him and she inches tentatively closer, eventually resting her head on his shoulder, closing her eyes and taking it in.

He plays again the next night, and watches her from the corner of his eye, completely still and engulfed in the moment, and when he's done she strokes his face and kisses him sweetly.

He begins to want to play for her, to see her face as he does. He keeps playing, not every night, but not rarely, either. One night, she stands after his serenade and walks silently to a closet and pulls out a black case. He watches in wonderment as she removes the curving wooden instrument and its bow and stands before him, eyes closed, and plays, and he's shocked both because he had no idea and because she's actually good, better than good.

When she's finished, she puts down the viola and returns to sit at the bench. "I've been playing since high school," she answers to the inevitable question. "I play for Rachel, at night, sometimes."

He doesn't have any words, so they just sit there, quiet, the music of the other echoing in their minds.

3.

He takes her to New York for her birthday, because she says she's always wanted to see La Bohème. She's stunned silent when he takes her shopping, although his intentions are transparent when he has her in the formal department. "Red," he says simply, and she complies because she's already grateful for the gestures he's made and because, she admits to herself, she does love the look he gives her on those days she wears that cherry hue.

When she sees him in his tux and tails, she thinks seriously about abandoning their plans and staying in their hotel room, but then, he did buy her the dress, and it's maybe the third time he's bought her something that wasn't on Wilson's dime.

They sit in their seats and when it begins, she clutches his hand and hopes he knows how thoroughly grateful she is for this, because for all the fundraisers and galas she's attended, all the dresses she's worn, she's never felt like she had class until just now. And she knows that's why he's done this, made this special, shut down his insolent, asshole side for one night and let a sparkle of romance shine through.

When it ends, she's crying, and she looks over and sees the faintest trickle of salt coming from the corner of his eye, and she realizes, he's not tolerating the opera, that he loves it, too, the music, the emotion, the story.

4.

Her mother and sister come for Thanksgiving, and at Cuddy's prodding, he relents and invites Blythe. They sit around the table and the awkward air is only surpassed by the memory of last year, and when his mother assures Cuddy that there will be plenty of leftovers for sandwiches, they both wince. In the kitchen, she gives him a guilty look and he kisses her squarely to assure her there's no hard feelings, even if maybe there are a few.

Cuddy's mother has provided the cranberry sauce, her sister, green bean casserole, and Blythe, the pie. When Cuddy asks what flavor, Blythe tells her strawberry rhubarb, even though it's not in season, because it's House's favorite.

Cuddy's mother's grin is a mile wide and she leans over to whisper, "a match made in heaven." Cuddy herself blushes furiously and tries not to smile, hiding behind a dinner roll because she'd like to believe the soppy sentiment.

5.

He needs her to sign off on a Hail Mary procedure, and tracks her to the NICU where she's watching over an abandoned infant brought in two days before. He rolls his eyes at her unabated hormones, the biological clock still ticking and scaring the hell out of him, even though she's never said a word, and suits up. She's too enraptured to hear him approach and when he gets close enough, he sees what she's transfixed on, a pair of wide eyes more azure than the murky baby blue.

He knows what's in her head, because it's in her face every time she sees a blue-eyed child. He's thought about it too, and about the question she never asked him and the answer he never gave. He didn't know what it would have been until a few months ago, watching her rock Rachel to sleep and thinking, for a split second, that it could have been theirs. He doesn't know if he'd have wanted that, or it, but he knows that there would have been that bond, that thread holding them together, and he knows that he could have made her happy.

He hopes she still is.

She turns and sees him. "They were worried about neonatal diabetes and wanted an endocrinologist," she lies.

"Wonder when one will show up," he deflects.

She smirks, but he sees it, that inkling of want, for a child bound to have blue eyes.