Challenge Fic: The Boxing Mirror
Nov. 19th, 2006 05:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
namasteTitle: The Boxing Mirror
Author: Namaste
Rating: Gen, PG
Summary: Two sets of 13 drabbles, one focusing on House and Wilson and their relationship with House’s pain and pain meds, the other on the evolution of House and Cuddy’s relationship.
Author’s Note: I wasn’t satisfied with the result of my first go-round on the Housefic_Pens random drabble challenge, so decided to try again, this time using the random prompts and working within a linked theme. Since I’d commented to someone in the first version that you could probably write multiple drabbles from the same prompts, I decided to do just that, using the same list of song titles that I’d used previously. And apparently I’m a glutton for punishment, because I decided to do two different sets, one two different themes.
If anyone is interested, the original set of drabbles is here:
http://namasteyoga.livejournal.com/12039.html
Like the first version of the challenge, I took the title from the name of an album that provided one of the drabble titles, this one is from Alejandro Escovedo.
Poor Lost Soul
Wilson hears the thud from the hallway. He glances through the door, waves off the nurse and walks in. He picks up the paperback from the floor. “I think you dropped this.”
“Leave it.”
Wilson tosses the book onto the dresser and picks up the newspaper. “Want this instead?”
“Can’t concentrate. I keep reading the same paragraph over and over,” House says. “We need to change the meds.”
“You’ve only been on the OxyContin for two days, give it time.”
“I can’t think. I can’t ...” House shakes his head. “Get them to change the meds.” He stares at Wilson. “Please.”
One True Love
Vicodin isn’t as strong as OxyContin. It isn’t as non-addictive as ibuprofen. But House claims that it works.
Wilson sees House massage his thigh as it cramps up. “Hate to disagree with you, but ...”
“It works good enough,” House says. “I can deal with this.”
Wilson wonders how bad the pain was before, if this is what House now considers tolerable. But House isn’t complaining about pain, only boredom.
Wilson opens his briefcase and pulls out the journals that had been gathering dust on House’s desk. “I grabbed everything I could find.”
House takes them with a nod. “Find more.”
Are We Almost There?
Wilson isn’t sure when House begins taking two of the Vicodin regularly, rather than just one, but one day realizes that he downed two while they sat in his office. He sees him do the same thing the next night, then again a few days later.
“Bad morning,” House says with a shrug. He shakes the bottle. “There should be enough to last until my appointment Friday when I have to convince Dr. Scrooge to pry open the pillbox.”
“You been running out?”
“Not yet,” House says. “We’re just having a disagreement about the meaning of the words ‘as needed.’”
The Path of Thorns
“Simpson doesn’t understand.” House looks out the window into the rain.
“So convince him,” Wilson says. “He’s your doctor, I’m not. Or get Cuddy to write the prescription.”
“He doesn’t get pain. Neither does Cuddy. You do. Or at least that’s what your patients say.”
“That’s different. I’m your friend, not your doctor. It’s a bad idea to get those confused.”
“You can be both,” House says. “Be a friend and help me control my pain.”
Wilson shakes his head. He taps his pen against the desk once, twice. He reaches for the prescription pad. “Just this once,” he says.
Dancing With the Women at the Bar
Wilson wishes they hadn’t come. He hadn’t even wanted a bachelor party. This will be his third marriage, Julie’s second.
“We want to keep everything low key,” he’d said.
“Right, so we’ll only hit two strip clubs,” House replied. “After all, we wouldn’t want the new in-laws to think you’re perverted.”
He’d agreed to it because House was looking forward to it, and realized House hadn’t been bar hopping since the infarction.
Two hours into the evening, he can see House leaning heavily on the cane, sees him down two Vicodin with a Coke, and wishes he hadn’t given in.
The Dress Looks Nice on You
There are just two attendants for the wedding. Originally they planned on three, but when Stacy left House, they decided to make it easy and cut the size of the wedding party.
When Julie’s first bridesmaid appears, Wilson senses House stiffen beside him. He remembers seeing the cut and style of her dress when Stacy had modeled it -- a simple cocktail dress, in keeping with the simple plans for the wedding.
“You can sit, if you want,” Wilson whispers.
House shakes his head. “I’m fine.”
Wilson can see House’s knuckles turn white as he tightens his grip on the cane.
All My Loving
Wilson apologizes on his way out for the call that had woken Julie before 5 a.m., then apologizes that he’ll be late tonight because of a meeting.
“Poor James,” she says with a smile. “Everybody wishes there were more of you to go around.”
House is at his office when he gets there. Wilson hands over one pill, then a second when House keeps his hand out.
“You should have told me you were running low,” Wilson says. “I would have gotten you the scrip earlier, if you’d asked.”
“Thought I could make it through the night. I was wrong.”
Free Money
Wilson looks over the brochures from the drug rep, focusing on the latest non-opioid pain killers.
Each comes with its own list of side effects. There’s no way to predict how anyone will react to the meds. It’s all trial and error, trying to find the right pill -- or the right combination of pills -- that will help.
“I’ve got some samples of that,” the rep says.
Wilson wonders if House would be willing to try something new, or if he’ll refuse -- again -- preferring to stick with what he knows.
“I’ll take them,” Wilson says. Maybe this time it will work.
Blush
The first massage had been a gift from Julie.
“Ingrid’s amazing,” she’d said. “She’ll make you feel like a new man.”
“I thought you liked the man I was now,” he’d teased.
Julie hadn’t mentioned Ingrid’s stunning looks, and Wilson hesitates a moment before getting undressed, embarrassed by his own reaction. But as he lies on his stomach, he feels her fingers loosen the tight muscles along his shoulders, and at the base of his neck, relieving years of stress in minutes. He wonders how much training she’s had, and how she would work with damaged nerves and thigh muscle.
Terry
Wilson checks with the new pharmacist on his first day and tries to calm the waters even before House has shown up. House has used other pharmacies when he has to, but PPTH is the easiest place to pick up his supply. It’s also easiest on everyone else when there aren’t any glitches in the system.
“Call my office, any time you need authorization,” Wilson says. “We’ll clear the prescription.”
“You know I’ll need something in writing.”
“You will,” Wilson assures him. “I appreciate your understanding.” Terry seems comfortable with the situation. Wilson isn’t sure if that’s a good thing.
Orphan Girl
The first few days after House handles Crandall’s daughter’s case he seems calmer, more relaxed -- the pain back under control.
“I took something,” House says.
Wilson doesn’t ask anything, but House knows what he’s thinking.
“One of your sleeping potions,” House says. “I must have slept for twelve hours and didn’t do anything for another ten after that. It must have worked itself out overnight.”
Wilson wants to believe him. He’s seen House’s pain level ebb and flow before, so he ignores the voice in the back of his head trying to tell him that’s not what happened this time.
The Sun Comes Through
House passes through the worst of the Vicodin detox while he’s sleeping through the Ketamine coma.
When he’s ready to check out Cameron brings House’s jacket from his office. He pulls it on, and they hear a rattle in the pocket. House holds the half-filled bottle in his hand, staring at the plastic, at his name on the label. He tosses it to Wilson. “Throw those out, will you?” he says. “I won’t be needing them.”
Wilson finds himself hesitating, just as House had. He sees his own name on the bottle, just above House’s. He lets the bottle fall.
Settle For Me
When House shows up with the cane, Wilson feels his stomach clench. He pushes down the emotion, forces himself to keep a neutral look on his face.
House taps the end of the cane against the wood. “I’ll take those off your hands now.”
Wilson reaches into his desk drawer. His hands touch the bottle of Vicodin stashed there a day earlier. He hands it over, but can’t bring himself to look House in the eye.
“I’ll even make it easy on you and avoid the uncomfortable phrase ‘I told you so,’ just to ease your guilty conscience,” House says.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
The Dress Looks Nice On You
Jeans would be more practical, but Cuddy is tired of looking just like everyone else on campus. She leaves the denim in the closet, and instead puts on a skirt and blouse that cling perfectly to her body, then adds her grandmother’s silver necklace.
“If you’re trying to make an impression, it’s working,” comes a familiar voice from a table at the coffee shop window when she stops for a break. “Of course, the impression is that you’re relying on your breasts, rather than your brains, to get ahead -- which I would guess isn’t the one you were going for.”
Free Money
Cuddy hates the job at the Student Union, forced to smile and give out campus information and directions, but she needs it for her scholarship.
The misery almost seems worth it when she sees House there, with two people who must be his parents. She’s picked the most embarrassing anecdote possible by the time they near her desk.
“And next year,” his mother is saying, “he’ll be a full doctor, isn’t that wonderful John?”
“He’d be a doctor already, if he hadn’t screwed up,” his father says. House just shakes his head.
Cuddy lets them pass, without saying a word.
Dancing With The Women At The Bar
Some of the students talk Cuddy into coming with them to the Blind Pig. She’s put them off for weeks, focusing on the MCAT, but she’s too tired to argue.
It’s Tuesday, no cover charge and half-priced drinks before 10 p.m. Cuddy doesn’t recognize the name of the band that’s playing. Some local group, someone says, and she walks in time to the beat.
She comes to a stop when she recognizes House on stage. He doesn’t see her beyond the spotlights. He’s bent over the keyboard and Cuddy realizes that it’s the first time she’s seen him look happy.
Terry
Cuddy hates that she can’t stop crying. He’s a jerk. She knew that, but allowed herself to think he’d change.
The party continues on even as she makes her escape. She finds her coat, her purse, steps outside. Alone in the cold night air, the tears form again. Suddenly someone is there, handing over a package of tissues.
“I suppose this is the wrong time to say I told you so,” House says, “about him being an idiot, I mean, not that you’re gullible, though I suppose that’s true too.”
Cuddy wipes her eyes.
“Come on. I’ll walk you home.”
Are We Almost There?
Cuddy catches a glimpse of House in the hallway his last week before heading east for his residency. He sold or gave away most of his stuff, only keeping what would fit in his car.
She doesn’t know what she should say to him, or if she should say anything at all. She wonders if he’ll remember her, or if she’ll just become a slightly vague face from his past.
She tells herself she isn’t sensing hero worship, no pedestal. He’s an ass, she thinks. She always knew this. But then she wonders why she’ll miss him when he’s gone.
Blush
It doesn’t take Cuddy long to learn she needs a thick skin for hospital administration. The first time she chairs a committee and can veto decisions, people want to throw her off her game, make her so uncomfortable she’ll give in.
“See the new study on the gender difference in science aptitude?” one guy asks.
“How badly did the boys do this time?”
“I’ve been hearing some complaints about the way you dress.”
“Are those from the same people complaining about your bedside manner?”
Cuddy really should thank House some day. Compared to him, everyone else is easy to handle.
Poor Lost Soul
Cuddy takes a chance on Princeton-Plainsboro. She’s only been there once. She doesn’t have any friends there, no mentors.
But every other hospital she’s worked at hasn’t quite fit. In Boston she felt never felt comfortable in the country club atmosphere that was the doctor’s lounge. At Cleveland she was just another name.
When it’s time to move on, she interviews at PPTH and Drew King in LA. House is on staff at Princeton. They never spoke when she was there. No one even brought up his name. But something tells her that this is the place she finally belongs.
Settle For Me
Someone on the board suggests a lump sum payment to House, before House has even been discharged. His girlfriend is an attorney, they say. The two of them will take PPTH for everything they can.
Cuddy convinces them to wait. They haven’t heard anyone threatening legal action, not even the whisper of a lawsuit. They may not take things to court at all.
Privately she doesn’t expect House to come looking for an easy payoff. She thinks he wouldn’t want to put a price on his leg. Besides, the hospital may have something to offer him more valuable than cash.
The Path of Thorns
“Why is it so hard for you to grasp this concept?” Cuddy stands in House’s new office, the duty roster for the clinic in her hand. “It’s part of your contract, you’re required to work in the clinic, and it’s only two hours out of your life once a week.”
“Exactly, two hours of my life wasted, Cuddy, and I’ve lost so much already.” House taps his cane against the floor.
“Ten o’clock tomorrow, House. I’ll be waiting.” Cuddy heads out the door.
“Bring a book,” House says. “It’ll help you pass the hours when you’re waiting all by yourself.”
The Sun Comes Through
House drops the charts onto Cuddy’s desk. “Updated through January,” he says. “Happy now?”
“Mildly pleased.” She doesn’t bother looking up from her papers. “I’ll be happy when you’re actually up to date on every month, not just three out of the past twelve.”
“I thought slavery had been abolished.”
“It’s not slavery if you get paid.”
“You stole my staff and put them to work in other departments. That’s got to be illegal. Indentured servitude. Something like that.”
“They’re getting paid too,” Cuddy says. “And they haven’t complained at all in the past week. I wonder why. Any ideas?”
Orphan Girl
The black eyed susans in Cuddy’s back yard came from her mother’s house. Alfredo had helped her transplant them after the funeral.
She remembers how tenderly he treated the flowers, cradling them in his hands before transferring them into the ground.
Now Cuddy watches from across the hallway as the occupational therapist talks to Alfredo. She tries to tell herself that he would have died if he hadn’t gotten prompt treatment, but her thoughts aren’t very convincing.
She turns to head back to her office, and catches sight of House, standing at the far end of the hall, watching her.
All My Loving
House hasn’t asked why she’s pursuing the IVF. Cuddy guesses that it’s because he’d rather figure it out on his own, but she’s grateful she hasn’t had to put it in words.
It would be easy to make excuses about biological clocks. But it’s more than that.
She looks at the photo of her nieces. Inside her purse, there’s a drawing one of them made during their last visit. There’s her house in the background, her trees, her fence. The stick figure that’s supposed to be her stands alone, two hands reaching out, with nothing and no one to grasp.
One True Love
Cuddy clips her badge onto her lab coat. Every week she assigns herself to the same clinic duty that everyone else does. She looks forward to it. Sure there are whiners, malingerers and hypochondriacs, but it’s the only time she stops being an administrator.
Once she thought about stepping away from her desk, giving up the dean’s title to practice medicine full time again. Then Andie was admitted, and somehow House gave her another year of life. Another year with her mother.
If House wasn’t there, Andie wouldn’t be there either. And if Cuddy wasn’t there, where would House be?
Author: Namaste
Rating: Gen, PG
Summary: Two sets of 13 drabbles, one focusing on House and Wilson and their relationship with House’s pain and pain meds, the other on the evolution of House and Cuddy’s relationship.
Author’s Note: I wasn’t satisfied with the result of my first go-round on the Housefic_Pens random drabble challenge, so decided to try again, this time using the random prompts and working within a linked theme. Since I’d commented to someone in the first version that you could probably write multiple drabbles from the same prompts, I decided to do just that, using the same list of song titles that I’d used previously. And apparently I’m a glutton for punishment, because I decided to do two different sets, one two different themes.
If anyone is interested, the original set of drabbles is here:
http://namasteyoga.livejournal.com/12039.html
Like the first version of the challenge, I took the title from the name of an album that provided one of the drabble titles, this one is from Alejandro Escovedo.
Poor Lost Soul
Wilson hears the thud from the hallway. He glances through the door, waves off the nurse and walks in. He picks up the paperback from the floor. “I think you dropped this.”
“Leave it.”
Wilson tosses the book onto the dresser and picks up the newspaper. “Want this instead?”
“Can’t concentrate. I keep reading the same paragraph over and over,” House says. “We need to change the meds.”
“You’ve only been on the OxyContin for two days, give it time.”
“I can’t think. I can’t ...” House shakes his head. “Get them to change the meds.” He stares at Wilson. “Please.”
One True Love
Vicodin isn’t as strong as OxyContin. It isn’t as non-addictive as ibuprofen. But House claims that it works.
Wilson sees House massage his thigh as it cramps up. “Hate to disagree with you, but ...”
“It works good enough,” House says. “I can deal with this.”
Wilson wonders how bad the pain was before, if this is what House now considers tolerable. But House isn’t complaining about pain, only boredom.
Wilson opens his briefcase and pulls out the journals that had been gathering dust on House’s desk. “I grabbed everything I could find.”
House takes them with a nod. “Find more.”
Are We Almost There?
Wilson isn’t sure when House begins taking two of the Vicodin regularly, rather than just one, but one day realizes that he downed two while they sat in his office. He sees him do the same thing the next night, then again a few days later.
“Bad morning,” House says with a shrug. He shakes the bottle. “There should be enough to last until my appointment Friday when I have to convince Dr. Scrooge to pry open the pillbox.”
“You been running out?”
“Not yet,” House says. “We’re just having a disagreement about the meaning of the words ‘as needed.’”
The Path of Thorns
“Simpson doesn’t understand.” House looks out the window into the rain.
“So convince him,” Wilson says. “He’s your doctor, I’m not. Or get Cuddy to write the prescription.”
“He doesn’t get pain. Neither does Cuddy. You do. Or at least that’s what your patients say.”
“That’s different. I’m your friend, not your doctor. It’s a bad idea to get those confused.”
“You can be both,” House says. “Be a friend and help me control my pain.”
Wilson shakes his head. He taps his pen against the desk once, twice. He reaches for the prescription pad. “Just this once,” he says.
Dancing With the Women at the Bar
Wilson wishes they hadn’t come. He hadn’t even wanted a bachelor party. This will be his third marriage, Julie’s second.
“We want to keep everything low key,” he’d said.
“Right, so we’ll only hit two strip clubs,” House replied. “After all, we wouldn’t want the new in-laws to think you’re perverted.”
He’d agreed to it because House was looking forward to it, and realized House hadn’t been bar hopping since the infarction.
Two hours into the evening, he can see House leaning heavily on the cane, sees him down two Vicodin with a Coke, and wishes he hadn’t given in.
The Dress Looks Nice on You
There are just two attendants for the wedding. Originally they planned on three, but when Stacy left House, they decided to make it easy and cut the size of the wedding party.
When Julie’s first bridesmaid appears, Wilson senses House stiffen beside him. He remembers seeing the cut and style of her dress when Stacy had modeled it -- a simple cocktail dress, in keeping with the simple plans for the wedding.
“You can sit, if you want,” Wilson whispers.
House shakes his head. “I’m fine.”
Wilson can see House’s knuckles turn white as he tightens his grip on the cane.
All My Loving
Wilson apologizes on his way out for the call that had woken Julie before 5 a.m., then apologizes that he’ll be late tonight because of a meeting.
“Poor James,” she says with a smile. “Everybody wishes there were more of you to go around.”
House is at his office when he gets there. Wilson hands over one pill, then a second when House keeps his hand out.
“You should have told me you were running low,” Wilson says. “I would have gotten you the scrip earlier, if you’d asked.”
“Thought I could make it through the night. I was wrong.”
Free Money
Wilson looks over the brochures from the drug rep, focusing on the latest non-opioid pain killers.
Each comes with its own list of side effects. There’s no way to predict how anyone will react to the meds. It’s all trial and error, trying to find the right pill -- or the right combination of pills -- that will help.
“I’ve got some samples of that,” the rep says.
Wilson wonders if House would be willing to try something new, or if he’ll refuse -- again -- preferring to stick with what he knows.
“I’ll take them,” Wilson says. Maybe this time it will work.
Blush
The first massage had been a gift from Julie.
“Ingrid’s amazing,” she’d said. “She’ll make you feel like a new man.”
“I thought you liked the man I was now,” he’d teased.
Julie hadn’t mentioned Ingrid’s stunning looks, and Wilson hesitates a moment before getting undressed, embarrassed by his own reaction. But as he lies on his stomach, he feels her fingers loosen the tight muscles along his shoulders, and at the base of his neck, relieving years of stress in minutes. He wonders how much training she’s had, and how she would work with damaged nerves and thigh muscle.
Terry
Wilson checks with the new pharmacist on his first day and tries to calm the waters even before House has shown up. House has used other pharmacies when he has to, but PPTH is the easiest place to pick up his supply. It’s also easiest on everyone else when there aren’t any glitches in the system.
“Call my office, any time you need authorization,” Wilson says. “We’ll clear the prescription.”
“You know I’ll need something in writing.”
“You will,” Wilson assures him. “I appreciate your understanding.” Terry seems comfortable with the situation. Wilson isn’t sure if that’s a good thing.
Orphan Girl
The first few days after House handles Crandall’s daughter’s case he seems calmer, more relaxed -- the pain back under control.
“I took something,” House says.
Wilson doesn’t ask anything, but House knows what he’s thinking.
“One of your sleeping potions,” House says. “I must have slept for twelve hours and didn’t do anything for another ten after that. It must have worked itself out overnight.”
Wilson wants to believe him. He’s seen House’s pain level ebb and flow before, so he ignores the voice in the back of his head trying to tell him that’s not what happened this time.
The Sun Comes Through
House passes through the worst of the Vicodin detox while he’s sleeping through the Ketamine coma.
When he’s ready to check out Cameron brings House’s jacket from his office. He pulls it on, and they hear a rattle in the pocket. House holds the half-filled bottle in his hand, staring at the plastic, at his name on the label. He tosses it to Wilson. “Throw those out, will you?” he says. “I won’t be needing them.”
Wilson finds himself hesitating, just as House had. He sees his own name on the bottle, just above House’s. He lets the bottle fall.
Settle For Me
When House shows up with the cane, Wilson feels his stomach clench. He pushes down the emotion, forces himself to keep a neutral look on his face.
House taps the end of the cane against the wood. “I’ll take those off your hands now.”
Wilson reaches into his desk drawer. His hands touch the bottle of Vicodin stashed there a day earlier. He hands it over, but can’t bring himself to look House in the eye.
“I’ll even make it easy on you and avoid the uncomfortable phrase ‘I told you so,’ just to ease your guilty conscience,” House says.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
The Dress Looks Nice On You
Jeans would be more practical, but Cuddy is tired of looking just like everyone else on campus. She leaves the denim in the closet, and instead puts on a skirt and blouse that cling perfectly to her body, then adds her grandmother’s silver necklace.
“If you’re trying to make an impression, it’s working,” comes a familiar voice from a table at the coffee shop window when she stops for a break. “Of course, the impression is that you’re relying on your breasts, rather than your brains, to get ahead -- which I would guess isn’t the one you were going for.”
Free Money
Cuddy hates the job at the Student Union, forced to smile and give out campus information and directions, but she needs it for her scholarship.
The misery almost seems worth it when she sees House there, with two people who must be his parents. She’s picked the most embarrassing anecdote possible by the time they near her desk.
“And next year,” his mother is saying, “he’ll be a full doctor, isn’t that wonderful John?”
“He’d be a doctor already, if he hadn’t screwed up,” his father says. House just shakes his head.
Cuddy lets them pass, without saying a word.
Dancing With The Women At The Bar
Some of the students talk Cuddy into coming with them to the Blind Pig. She’s put them off for weeks, focusing on the MCAT, but she’s too tired to argue.
It’s Tuesday, no cover charge and half-priced drinks before 10 p.m. Cuddy doesn’t recognize the name of the band that’s playing. Some local group, someone says, and she walks in time to the beat.
She comes to a stop when she recognizes House on stage. He doesn’t see her beyond the spotlights. He’s bent over the keyboard and Cuddy realizes that it’s the first time she’s seen him look happy.
Terry
Cuddy hates that she can’t stop crying. He’s a jerk. She knew that, but allowed herself to think he’d change.
The party continues on even as she makes her escape. She finds her coat, her purse, steps outside. Alone in the cold night air, the tears form again. Suddenly someone is there, handing over a package of tissues.
“I suppose this is the wrong time to say I told you so,” House says, “about him being an idiot, I mean, not that you’re gullible, though I suppose that’s true too.”
Cuddy wipes her eyes.
“Come on. I’ll walk you home.”
Are We Almost There?
Cuddy catches a glimpse of House in the hallway his last week before heading east for his residency. He sold or gave away most of his stuff, only keeping what would fit in his car.
She doesn’t know what she should say to him, or if she should say anything at all. She wonders if he’ll remember her, or if she’ll just become a slightly vague face from his past.
She tells herself she isn’t sensing hero worship, no pedestal. He’s an ass, she thinks. She always knew this. But then she wonders why she’ll miss him when he’s gone.
Blush
It doesn’t take Cuddy long to learn she needs a thick skin for hospital administration. The first time she chairs a committee and can veto decisions, people want to throw her off her game, make her so uncomfortable she’ll give in.
“See the new study on the gender difference in science aptitude?” one guy asks.
“How badly did the boys do this time?”
“I’ve been hearing some complaints about the way you dress.”
“Are those from the same people complaining about your bedside manner?”
Cuddy really should thank House some day. Compared to him, everyone else is easy to handle.
Poor Lost Soul
Cuddy takes a chance on Princeton-Plainsboro. She’s only been there once. She doesn’t have any friends there, no mentors.
But every other hospital she’s worked at hasn’t quite fit. In Boston she felt never felt comfortable in the country club atmosphere that was the doctor’s lounge. At Cleveland she was just another name.
When it’s time to move on, she interviews at PPTH and Drew King in LA. House is on staff at Princeton. They never spoke when she was there. No one even brought up his name. But something tells her that this is the place she finally belongs.
Settle For Me
Someone on the board suggests a lump sum payment to House, before House has even been discharged. His girlfriend is an attorney, they say. The two of them will take PPTH for everything they can.
Cuddy convinces them to wait. They haven’t heard anyone threatening legal action, not even the whisper of a lawsuit. They may not take things to court at all.
Privately she doesn’t expect House to come looking for an easy payoff. She thinks he wouldn’t want to put a price on his leg. Besides, the hospital may have something to offer him more valuable than cash.
The Path of Thorns
“Why is it so hard for you to grasp this concept?” Cuddy stands in House’s new office, the duty roster for the clinic in her hand. “It’s part of your contract, you’re required to work in the clinic, and it’s only two hours out of your life once a week.”
“Exactly, two hours of my life wasted, Cuddy, and I’ve lost so much already.” House taps his cane against the floor.
“Ten o’clock tomorrow, House. I’ll be waiting.” Cuddy heads out the door.
“Bring a book,” House says. “It’ll help you pass the hours when you’re waiting all by yourself.”
The Sun Comes Through
House drops the charts onto Cuddy’s desk. “Updated through January,” he says. “Happy now?”
“Mildly pleased.” She doesn’t bother looking up from her papers. “I’ll be happy when you’re actually up to date on every month, not just three out of the past twelve.”
“I thought slavery had been abolished.”
“It’s not slavery if you get paid.”
“You stole my staff and put them to work in other departments. That’s got to be illegal. Indentured servitude. Something like that.”
“They’re getting paid too,” Cuddy says. “And they haven’t complained at all in the past week. I wonder why. Any ideas?”
Orphan Girl
The black eyed susans in Cuddy’s back yard came from her mother’s house. Alfredo had helped her transplant them after the funeral.
She remembers how tenderly he treated the flowers, cradling them in his hands before transferring them into the ground.
Now Cuddy watches from across the hallway as the occupational therapist talks to Alfredo. She tries to tell herself that he would have died if he hadn’t gotten prompt treatment, but her thoughts aren’t very convincing.
She turns to head back to her office, and catches sight of House, standing at the far end of the hall, watching her.
All My Loving
House hasn’t asked why she’s pursuing the IVF. Cuddy guesses that it’s because he’d rather figure it out on his own, but she’s grateful she hasn’t had to put it in words.
It would be easy to make excuses about biological clocks. But it’s more than that.
She looks at the photo of her nieces. Inside her purse, there’s a drawing one of them made during their last visit. There’s her house in the background, her trees, her fence. The stick figure that’s supposed to be her stands alone, two hands reaching out, with nothing and no one to grasp.
One True Love
Cuddy clips her badge onto her lab coat. Every week she assigns herself to the same clinic duty that everyone else does. She looks forward to it. Sure there are whiners, malingerers and hypochondriacs, but it’s the only time she stops being an administrator.
Once she thought about stepping away from her desk, giving up the dean’s title to practice medicine full time again. Then Andie was admitted, and somehow House gave her another year of life. Another year with her mother.
If House wasn’t there, Andie wouldn’t be there either. And if Cuddy wasn’t there, where would House be?
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-20 12:39 am (UTC)Anyway, thanks for this.
cheers.
--Lex
(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-20 12:57 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-20 12:57 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-20 01:01 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-20 01:26 am (UTC)The Wilson set is just remarkable for charting the course through pain and friendship that's led up to where they both are now. This -- “We’re just having a disagreement about the meaning of the words ‘as needed.’” -- sounds like a throw-away line, but it's not. That's the whole crux of things with House.
The Cuddy ones are my favorite, I think, because good portraits of Cuddy as a well-rounded person dealing with the many emotional demands of her career are rare, and these are the best Cuddy drabbles I've ever seen. I love the backstory of how she and House crossed paths in college, but the last three are stellar.
This line, from "Orphan Girl," really got to me: She remembers how tenderly he treated the flowers, cradling them in his hands before transferring them into the ground. And that image of hands leads right into this one in "All My Loving": The stick figure that’s supposed to be her stands alone, two hands reaching out, with nothing and no one to grasp.
The ending line -- If House wasn’t there, Andie wouldn’t be there either. And if Cuddy wasn’t there, where would House be? -- is just beautiful. I love how that line brings the two threads of the story together.
This is lovely, very moving writing.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-20 02:14 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-20 02:15 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-20 02:15 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-20 02:17 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-20 02:31 am (UTC)If you haven't heard Alejandro Escovedo, you should check him out. I like his stuff anyway, and "The Boxing Mirror," with its imagery of one person, fighting himself, seemed to work. He's one of those musicians who is a songwriter's songwriter. (Sample lyric: "I turned my back on me and I faced the face of who I thought I was.")
I was afraid I was repeating things too much by using similar thoughts in the "Orphan Girl" element of the Cuddy section here from the original set in which she deals with her mother's death, but yet it seems to work as a background as to why she wants to be a mother herself now.
And I do think that Cuddy is an important key to House and his fate. He needs her in his life, even if he can't admit that.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-20 02:54 am (UTC)his relationship with Cuddy in particular obviously runs deep (otherwise she wouldn't put up with him. no matter how good he is NO boss puts up with someone like that for very long). I do believe that they share the same feelings (insecurity, depression, rejection, inadequacy) even if the reasons they have those feelings are completely unrelated.
i think the term that I'm looking for is kindred spirits. Now, I want to watch Anne of Green Gables. *laughs*
cheers.
--Lex
(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-20 03:32 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-20 04:37 am (UTC)I very much liked the insights into House through both sets of eyes. Cuddy's seem more forgiving somehow--taking to heart, House's observation that Cuddy sees the world as it is and as it could be, but not the gap in between. I like how Wilson's are tinged with his own guilt. Good stuff.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-20 11:39 am (UTC)I think you hit it at the jugular right there. Throw it in the face of all those H/Cam shippers. Without Cuddy, where would House be?
(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-20 01:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-20 01:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-20 01:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-20 02:26 pm (UTC)OMG! LOL! Emo!Jesus!!!
Did you know there is actually Bible fanfiction?? I'm dead sure you snagged that line from one of those efforts somewhere.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-20 04:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-20 05:59 pm (UTC)The first set was a perfect series of scenes gradually leading up to the Tritter arc, letting us see just how the Wilson-Vicodin relationship evolved - I loved the fact that at first Wilson didn't want to be House's prescribing doctor.
The second set is the reason I don't like it when you post fics - I know I have to study, and I know i'm going to go off and read anyway.
Cuddy really should thank House some day. Compared to him, everyone else is easy to handle.
If you ever lack a plot bunny, I'd love to read more about how their relationship before. How close were they, really?
(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-20 06:37 pm (UTC)This line was striking:
The stick figure that’s supposed to be her stands alone, two hands reaching out, with nothing and no one to grasp
(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-20 06:59 pm (UTC)I don't know how many details I'd like to get into with the House and Cuddy relationship, since I'm afraid of getting burned by canon, but I can see their snark picking up at Princeton-Plainsboro in the same manner it was at UM.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-20 07:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-20 07:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-20 07:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-20 07:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-20 08:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-22 06:42 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-22 03:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-26 06:13 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-05 10:25 am (UTC)Cuddy's set is also great - I love the insights into her life. I'm also grateful I came to these after I'd finished my own set on Cuddy - but they're surprisingly similar, suggesting that Lisa Edelstein is doing a great job of the character! Her strength, compassion and longing come through so clearly, and it's good to see her getting more attention as a fully fledged character instead of a block/enabler for House. Lovely stuff.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-22 08:25 am (UTC)Brilliant as ever! I agree with you that these two sets are stronger than your originals, but all three are well done.
'“Not yet,” House says. “We’re just having a disagreement about the meaning of the words ‘as needed.’”' *heh*
'“That’s different. I’m your friend, not your doctor. It’s a bad idea to get those confused.”
“You can be both,” House says. “Be a friend and help me control my pain.”' A slippery slope indeed. I love the way you show its beginning here.
'He wonders how much training she’s had, and how she would work with damaged nerves and thigh muscle.' Even here, he thinks of House....
'It’s also easiest on everyone else when there aren’t any glitches in the system.' *heh* I'm sure it is.... :-D
'House passes through the worst of the Vicodin detox while he’s sleeping through the Ketamine coma.' As an aside, I remain unconvinced this is the blessing everyone presumes it is. Five days... there's going to be limits to how deep they can keep him for that long, and no-one topside really knows what goes on in those states.
'Cuddy lets them pass, without saying a word.' I love her sensitivity here.
'He’s bent over the keyboard and Cuddy realizes that it’s the first time she’s seen him look happy.' Such a wonderful picture you paint .
'“Come on. I’ll walk you home.”' The gentleman beneath the jerk. Gotta love his rare appearances.
'Cuddy really should thank House some day. Compared to him, everyone else is easy to handle.' BWAHHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! There's always a silver lining somewhere....
'Besides, the hospital may have something to offer him more valuable than cash.' That makes sense. I've always wondered why he never said 'screw the brotherhood' and sued, not for the cash, you can tell he doesn't really care about it, but just for the principle. So, still not having had the pleasure of seeing all the epis yet... which DID come first - the tenured position or the infarction???
"“And they haven’t complained at all in the past week. I wonder why. Any ideas?”" BWAHAHAHAHHAHAHA!!! I just love the sniping bet. the two... you capture it so well!!!
'If House wasn’t there, Andie wouldn’t be there either. And if Cuddy wasn’t there, where would House be?' True, that. House's life, more than many it seems, is a series of mutually dependent, intertwining relationships. Ironic for someone who dislikes dealing w/other forms of humanity as much as he does.
Again... wonderfully written! Thank'ee's for sharing!!!
-Katrina
(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-25 08:27 pm (UTC)