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[mmkaternater]

Christmas Eve. The High Mass would have started twenty minutes ago, Chicago time, by Cuddy's watch. Her father had called late in the day, wished her a "merry Christmas" and had asked her if she was going to local services. I haven't been to mass in twenty years, dad. You know that. By now, the priest would have greeted the congregation and begun to cite the Pauline epistles, then moved on and asked everyone -- conveniently on their knees -- to pray for God's mercy and to give thanks for the miracle of a holy birth two-thousand years young. Her mother would not have attended the service. In a strange twist of heretical faiths, her mother -- born in a Jewish suburb in Upstate New York -- had fallen in love with a well-spoken Irish Catholic and had managed to keep her religious independence in the face of her red-nosed, red-elbowed in-laws. Cuddy had always felt more akin to her mother's faith -- the Amidah and the Shir ha-Shirim with their rich, rooted words -- and she kept a small silver menorah on the table behind her desk during this season. It was the only time during the year that she showed any deference to a power higher than medicine.

Seven-thirty. It had not yet snowed. There were holiday parties going on all over campus -- she had been invited to several but had pleaded off for necessity of business -- and there was little staff support in the hospital save for those whose hearts weren't in the holiday (or those whose hearts weren't functioning very well at all.)

Stacy had returned a week-and-a-half prior and had brought with her the smell of sharp cloves and legal affidavits. She had worn black (but then again, when had Stacy not?) and Cuddy had given the answers that she asked for, but had tempered her responses where at all possible. The high, plucked black brows (matched perfectly to the curl of bobbed hair) had risen a few times during the course of the conversation, but Stacy liked to keep her arguments to herself until she had sufficient evidence to voice them -- it was what made her undeniably good at what she did.

Cuddy had not spoken to House outside of routine hospital palava since she had sent him home. He had appeared the next day, peaked but bearing some likeness to his former self, and had not seemed surprised when Stacy had presented herself. They seemed to make a conscious effort to avoid one another.

A milder soundtrack on her computer. Every once in a while she would tap the volume button up a few clicks, decide that it was too high, and then lower it again. This happened several times. She was on her eighth budget surplus report when, dragging her fingers around the rim of her cup, she had touched nothing but a cold, glassy shell. It had gone cold. She tipped it out into the wastebin beside her desk.

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[addxcted.livejournal.com]

House had a theory as to why it was yet to snow; it was too cold. Sure, the logic in that statement was absent, but the chill outside was the numbing sort of cold that as soon as you sucked in a breath of it, forced your lungs to nearly collapse and your blood to freeze over. 30 seconds exposed left your extremities tingling and nose burning and perhaps the only thing that had kept his ungloved hands from losing feeling altogether was the cup of coffee he'd managed to scrape from a nearby coffee shop at which the proprietors were heartless enough to make their employees work this late on Christmas eve.

He'd pulled the sleeve off just so that the heat would transfer into his fingertips, and was still playing the game of passing it back and forth from hand to hand until the burning became too much to bear and required him to pass it back again, when he hesitated his otherwise bundled form short of Cuddy's office door and ducked his head slightly to peer through the glass inside.

House was not surprised to see her there.

Opening the door without knocking, he stepped inside, all the while blinking curiously at the music she had playing.

[betteroffdean.livejournal.com]

Shaking out the last feeble drops from the inside of the cup, the sound like herbal rain, Cuddy looked up to find him standing -- bundled like he was ready to go on a deep sea dive with Jacques Cousteau -- in her doorway with a hot cardboard beverage in his hand. She was at turns jealous and covetous. He did not seem predisposed to speech (maybe his mouth had frozen shut) so she breached the silence for him, leaning back over the sway of her desk:

"I thought you'd be long gone by now. You should get out while you still can -- I'm making the clinic schedule for the next six months after I finish these budget reports."

[addxcted.livejournal.com]

She had reason to be neither, as he had no interest in the coffee. Virtually inject it as he may during the morning, House tended to lay off it as the day dragged on and on. If he drank anything near the end of the day, it was water or .. very much not water in the form of alcohol.

Smirking despite himself, House ducked his head forward into a shake and progressed forward against her warning to hold out the cup to her once he was close enough to reach her over her desk.

He didn't come bearing kingly gifts, but then again, there hadn't been coffee back in the days of Christ's birth, either. It might have made the cut had it been. "Maybe that's why I'm here. Brownie points?" Not that she was the type to be impressed by vouches for brownie points, but that hadn't been his intention in showing up anyway.

[betteroffdean.livejournal.com]

She took it, wary of gifts, and tickled her fingers around the sides to displace the immediate burn. "Thanks." It wasn't pitched too far off the mark from suspicion but she recanted when she lifted the lid and saw a opaque swirl of cream and the foggy residue of pure cane sugar crystals -- it only discomfited her slightly that he knew exactly how she took her coffee -- and, well, gift Houses and mouths.

It hadn't snowed, but his head was still trimmed in a crust of frost that was melting along his hairline. He had colour in his face again and some of it was from looking after himself, not just the cold. She fit the cup to her lower lip and puffed a breath of warning air on the coffee surface, simultaneously setting her eyes up to look at him. "Those brownies'd better have azathioprine in them," she said when she had disengaged mouth from up, "did you take your dose today?"

[addxcted.livejournal.com]

He gave a disgruntled shift and sank into the chair opposite her desk with a mock huff at the thought. He wasn't going to spend the better part of half a year crashing his immune system and living pain free just to ruin it over a distaste for oral medication. He'd popped vicodin for so long it was habit to have some sort of pill bottle on him at all times. He felt naked without the shuffle of pills against his leg through his pockets.

It was like not having your keys or wallet. Even if you knew exactly where you'd put them, you still kept patting yourself down to look for them because your body registers the absent weight in your pockets.

"Not only that, but I humored Wilson with an MRI for lymphomas. Way I figure it, it keeps me from having to buy him another really bad tie for Christmas."

[betteroffdean.livejournal.com]

"You did the MRI? Good. Thank you. I was going to give him the sweater I had set aside for you," she said, "but now I've got to trade up." He was arranging himself in the chair opposite the desk, balancing his weight on one leg while he hitched up the opposite hip to tug his jacket down. When he finished with one side he moved his weight to the other -- seamless transition. It was a feat that he could not have accomplished ten months prior.

She leaned back in her own chair, fingers loosely tented around the circumference of the cup. Her feet slid halfway from constricting heels and she let the points dangle over the carpet. Her lungs felt rattly. She hoped she wasn't getting a cold.

"'Stacy go back?"

[addxcted.livejournal.com]

House's lips tightened tenatively, an expression he only used when his thoughts turned one direction but he exercised restraint against voicing them. It was rare that he ever thought one thing and said another. Even when he lied, his thoughts were believably fixated on his words.

"Yes. Partially why I'm here." Hesitating as he debated, he scrubbed knuckles into a slightly-trimmed up scruff line (he'd let it grow more than he even typically did while his father was at the hospital; normally, House never let it venture from scruff to beard, a transition he kept at bay by shaving on Saturdays so he still had a few days growth by Monday) before simply deciding to get it out there, a decision emphasized by a wave of the hand minutely. "Nothing happened. I know you didn't ask and wouldn't have... but there it is."

[betteroffdean.livejournal.com]

Cuddy was used to perpetrating magnanimous gestures, but the raise of her hand -- vulnerable palm flesh facing him, fingers slightly bowed -- "House, you don't have to..." the fingers went stiff and then curled into her palm. She pressed her face into easier angles, the softer end of a forced laugh. "...Really."

She swept that hand, too casual to be borne on casual thoughts, across her desk. "Far as I'm concerned, she needed a ride to the airport." A week-long ride to the airport. "And I'm glad that she could be here for you. It was nice to see her again," she began to reshuffle the order of her desk, nudging files aside with slick coffee fingers, "I just wish it had been under different circumstances." And she pressed her lips, almost demure.

[addxcted.livejournal.com]

Dangerous question. Possibly the only question a female could pose that was more dangerous was the terrifying 'does this ___ make me look fat?' as no possible answer was a good one.

House shifted uncomfortably, wondering at himself for having presented that bit of information; he'd known better than to think she was over it, but perhaps there was a part of him that was a glutton for punishment as well. It really made their relationship make sense. They both enjoyed being torture and torturing each other so it worked out.

Attempting a shred of nonchalance, he gave a shrug and pressed fingers into the keys of the piano to distractedly muddle through the opening chords of a 60s boogie piano arrangement of the "Marche" from the Nutcracker. "Gina Morrison."

Gina had been a decent enough student, a year older than Cuddy and had gone on to Columbia, but had never been considered a 'brilliant' doctor by her peers.

..her other redeeming qualities included blonde hair and amazing legs.

[betteroffdean.livejournal.com]

This brought a low, incredulous laugh from her and she stepped back on one heel, her bare toes going up in a fan of barely disguised contempt. "Gina Morrison? What, did she turn in her paper topless? No." A resolute shake of her head. "There's no way that Gina Morrison could have scored higher than I did."

She turned on a confident heel and went back toward the couch. Paused and pushed a look over her shoulder, "She was sloppy with her numbers. You could've put mine through the eye of a needle."

[addxcted.livejournal.com]

Despite whatever Cuddy wanted to believe about it, Gina had scraped a 93 to Cuddy's 92. It wasn't a professional decision, but neither had been wittling Cuddy's grade down from her expected 102.3 to a 92 on principle because she had challenged him to find something wrong with the paper. She'd been graded on a different scale and had done better than House was grudgingly willing to admit.

For a Sophomore in undergraduate studies.

Had she been his peer or (fear) one of his ducklings, she'd've gotten reemed. She still attested to the fact that House didn't teach, when she was proof to point that he did.

Despite continued playing, he managed to glance at her in distracted disbelief. "You don't think people should get higher grades based simply on their endowment?"

[betteroffdean.livejournal.com]

Fingers so apt to point were now gathered up to rest at the stitching at her waist: one hand on either hip in a woman's classical pose of annoyance or begrudging admission. Her back was to him for a few seconds before she turned around, arcing a high and imperious expression.

"How much higher of a grade?"

[addxcted.livejournal.com]

"93. And I'll have you know that I got screamed at .. for at least five minutes before I was able to drown her out about it." Maybe that would make Cuddy feel a little better. House had been notorious for flirting and had a reputation for sleeping around, even if he didn't do it nearly as much as girls on campus claimed he did. Gina had been one of several that thought his flirtation actually meant something and she'd been insulted when it hadn't scraped her a better grade.

House's follow up that the grade had been generous and the paper was horrible had been responded to...very badly. He'd been forced to crank up his record player to the point that even his roommate had come out of hibernation in his room to see what the ruckus was about.

[betteroffdean.livejournal.com]

"Oh, I'm sure you got screamed at," she said, her mouth a clever little 'oh' shape with the upswept brows to accompany. "Good. You deserved it. House had suffered muchly in his life, probably a little unfairly, but there was no sympathy or empathy in her for the House that she'd known in her first years of medical school. He had been hard and demanding and had given her more migraines over botched diagnoses or chemical balancing -- they had been few and far between, but they had happened -- than had probably been necessary. He'd even been cruel at times. Absolutely immovable in his assessment of her. She had never blindly followed him and he had always kept her at one long arm's length, but she had pursued his praise -- especially after a debilitating 'A-' that set fire to her heels.

And it occured to her that House liked women who yelled. Women who were difficult and who had bigger chips on their shoulders than this wholly holy men's profession would like to see. He might not have minded the yelling -- if it had had a rational basis. And Cuddy had seen the fabled Gina's paper-writing skills and there was no rational anything to support it.

[addxcted.livejournal.com]

Finally allowing his fingers to fall away from the keys and leave the song hanging to drift away into silence, he dropped both palms into his lap. Music, like medicine, was a barrier and as her storm seemed to have passed in favor of bemusement at him getting in trouble over the grading, he didn't need the barrier any longer.

"I probably did. You know this whole conversation is going to be used against you the next time you try to force me into covering someone's class." Academic favoritism based on appearance of all things combined with the fact that she clung to the idea of him not being an educator. At least he could comfortably spin up an argument when the President at Princeton decided to suggest to Cuddy that she have House teach a class riding the popularity his Nobel would bring.

[betteroffdean.livejournal.com]

The note held and settled and if Cuddy listened, she head it slipping down the gray-painted walls like a warm rain. He was twitching his fingers against his thigh before he played, but in the wake of such a structured activity he was as smooth and calm and confident as ever she'd seen him.

"How do you figure?" She said, tight-strung arms adopting a looser, more conversational drape. "I can make a pretty convincing argument for anything."

[addxcted.livejournal.com]

House wasn't as curious about Cuddy's failure to divulge the information to Stacy as Cuddy was. He had fully expected her not to (which was, inversely, the most likely reason that she hadn't in the first place; the expectation had been known upon the moment he shared the bit of information) and for the most part, Cuddy was trustworthy.

Smirking at her amusement in his response to the praise, blue sank forward to the keys in a mirroring gesture of her posture -- he was, however, slumped forward comfortably and he wasn't sure she ever slumped. Much, anyway.

"Do you play any?" The piano was the obvious question being posed, though she could have taken it any number of ways. Idle way of backing out of a conversation.

[betteroffdean.livejournal.com]

"No," she said, and brought the pad of a warm thumb against one white-licked key, pushing down softly enough not to trigger a sound. Squared shoulders and an indrawn breath. "I never learned." She had had patience for a lot of things, but learning an instrument had not been one of them. Her father had insisted on the short-lived violin lessons, and Cuddy had played to please him, but there was very little musical talent in her family. Certainly not enough in Cuddy herself.

"I never had the patience," she ammended.

[addxcted.livejournal.com]

"..You had the patience to specialize in endocrinology but not to play piano?" The tone was incredulous with disbelief. Then again, House had never been able to pin his interests to one tiny spectrum like most doctors. Infectuous Diseases were about as broad as group of studies as 'Internal Medicine' -- the Nephrology specialization had only come because after he had finished his residency he'd taken so many classes and spent so many hours in the subject (kidneys were typically one of the first thing to go when someone had an infectuous disease) that all he had to do was check a box on his DEA form.

It would have been silly to not do it after doing all the work for it, so he of course took the credit and a much-covetted double-speciality.

Personally, House could never find the patience to spend days spent over a microscope analyzing strips of hormonal glands.

"It's not hard." Then again, House's piano was like a woman in his life that he held above all others in most cases. Stacy had (fondly) accused him of being more appreciative of the object that her at times.

And his fingers -were- very friendly with the keys...

[betteroffdean.livejournal.com]

He'd had this particular piano for a long time. It was still black and polished, but there were discolourations in the keys that Cuddy was fairly sure were from hand oil and not the natural tone of the ivory. Stains that came from a long time of playing and musical intimacy. There was a chip out of the center key -- 'Middle C' -- that he might have agonized over when it happened.

"Niether was Lynch's Practical Anatomy."

She pushed down experimentally on a brass pedal and struck the side of her thumb against a high key. The note came out, held like a breath, and then faded.

[addxcted.livejournal.com]

House gave a disgruntled shake to his head at the rementioning of the class in question. Cuddy had always been quick to voice her irritation with the class, but for the most part, House had only tormented her and that was how he'd spent the semester.

His left hand lifted and pressed his pinky, ring finger, and thumb into place over a trio of notes that meshed harmoniously enough with her single note.

"I was furious when I got assigned that class. I wanted to TA Phanman's course on Immunology." It had been a fairly new course at the time, prompted by the 80s-90s drive to HIV awareness and other diseases that attacked the immune system. It hadn't been a prerequisit when House was an undergrad and he might have actually bought the book had he been able to get in.

Then again, where would he and Cuddy be?

"I think that's why I found you so amusing. You hated being there even more than I did."

[betteroffdean.livejournal.com]

Stirred to greater confidence by the harmony, Cuddy raised her other set of five to the keyboard and followed the pattern of keys, two-three-two-three, until she'd dropped an octave. She pushed the same note, lower tone, and the higher one at the same time. "When I first met you..." she paused mid sentence, her brow went up in a pleasantly indecisive wave "...you know, when I first me you I didn't know what to think. I know I thought you were an ass. That's pretty much held true over the years."

She pressed a black key, decided that she didn't like the juxtaposition in sounds, and returned to the whites. 'Played a couple of chords with him before she turned her eyes, her fingers unsteady on the keys, and gave him a loose smirk. "Phanman, huh? 'Heard he was passed over for Stockholm. He didn't take it as badly as Lynch did, though. I think he kept submitting the same research every year, but with a different coversheet."

[addxcted.livejournal.com]

While House could play comfortably (and skillfully at that) from sheet music, his true strength came in playing by ear and while it took him a second of diligent inspection of where her fingers were moving across the upper keys, he easily slid into following her lead and -- in the case of her hitting a sour note or two -- offset it with responding chords.

Still it was entirely left-handed, his right remaining idle in a loose set atop his thigh.

"It wasn't the professor so much as the class. It wasn't offered when I was in undergrad school. I might have gone into Immunology if it hadn't been as obscure when we were in school." The science itself, old as it was, hadn't been a particularly large branch of medicine until recently, and still there were few people who practiced it exclusively. The only real fields that needed it was diagnostics and pediatrics. "I didn't actually want to be a doctor when I first entered college." He had interest in medicine, like he did a half other million things, but for the most part House had entered college to singularly learn while at the same time placing miles between him and his father.

"I almost went into psychology." But as classes had begun to overlap, his infatuation with medicine had taken hold and never quite released him. He still found the mind interesting, but not so much as medicine in general. He hadn't even gone into neurology.

[addxcted.livejournal.com]

"..Glad you got over it." Well, it could be assumed that she had. She certainly didn't go around making it known that she was trying her damnedest to a pat on the back or whatever vote of confidence she'd been trying so hard for in the past. It was nice being able to have conversations -- or arguments, take your pick -- with her without the entire first two minutes being taken up by a strongly-worded preamble by Cuddy, outlining exactly which textbooks or professors she'd used to formulate her thesis before she'd even tell him what it was in the first place.

On the opposing hand, he'd delighted in seeing her face fall whenever he'd listen for two seconds and poke a hole the size of a small moon in her medical fact. It was much harder to get that response from her now.

His left hand stilled from its cooperative playing to drop down with his right, though he still kept eyes trained onto her, watching.

"I was a very bad role model." And probably would be worse of one now.

[addxcted.livejournal.com]

( Hopefully you get this. The firewalls are back in place so here I am. Livejournal is up and yahoo mail is down. Post here. Well, in your journal someplace.