A/N: I loved the episode "Half-Wit" including the Huddy scenes which were so very much "them" but I also believed that the Cuddy we knew and loved would've been distraught over his diagnosis and that she would've gone to great lengths to try and help him. I also believe once she found out he'd lied, she would've been pissed and she would've let him know it too! This story goes there.

House and Cuddy share a long and complicated history. They're both screwed up and even when they don't think they need each other, they do. Enjoy and thank you for reading!

Reciprocity: The act of responding to a positive action with another positive action. To give and take mutually; and to return in kind.

It was late Friday night and Cuddy couldn't sleep. She'd arrived home so exhausted that she'd headed straight for the shower and then to bed. She tossed and turned for hours, going over the things that weighed heavily on her mind.

First there was little Emily Warren who had been brought to the Emergency Room two weeks earlier because she was having adverse side effects to her cancer treatment. Wilson had been treating her for Neuroblastoma over the course of the last few months and upon learning of her emergency room visit, he ran the necessary tests and quickly determined the treatment was not working. Upon learning she was terminal, he had immediately admitted her in an effort to give her palliative care and make her more comfortable.

Cuddy, who had always had a special fondness for the kids in the cancer ward, had met Emily during her cancer treatment a few months earlier and she had been immediately smitten. Emily was a lovely little girl with large expressive brown eyes and a sweet smile. Removed from her abusive home at just a year old, she was immediately fostered with the Warrens and their five biological children, who fell in love with her and eventually adopted her.

Upon hearing that Emily was admitted and losing her battle, Cuddy visited the little girl as often as she could. She didn't understand the pull Emily had on her, but it was there and just seeing the little girl brightened her day. She read Emily stories and sat with her when her parents needed to tend to the other children.

No one outside Wilson and the floor nurses knew Cuddy had been spending time with the little girl. She had intentionally kept that from House out of fear he would mock her. Cuddy knew Emily did not have much time and she wanted to enjoy the time with her, not being mocked and insulted by House.

House. He was the other matter consuming her thoughts. Four days earlier, Chase had informed her that House was possibly interviewing for a position at Massachusetts General Hospital. Cuddy immediately contacted them only to discover he wasn't going there for an interview or friendly visit. It hadn't taken her long to deduct from Dr. Medick's cryptic comments that he was being seen as a patient in the Oncology department. She had later confirmed with Wilson that the physician was a renowned brain cancer specialist. Suddenly feeling sick, she'd left work early, informing only Wilson and her assistant. She needed time to process the news alone.

When she arrived home she'd changed into her pajamas, opened a bottle of wine and sat on her couch crying. It was hard enough facing the eventual loss of the little girl she'd grown fond of but the thought of House having cancer devastated her. She couldn't bear the thought of losing him. He'd been a part of her life for so long she sometimes thought of him as invincible. She wanted to go to him and hold him and tell him she'd be there to fight the disease right along with him. She wanted to confess to him things she'd kept bottled up for so long but as it was with them, fear restrained her from doing that. In the end, she stayed home, drinking wine and watching old movies and thinking up ways she might be able to save him until she fell asleep on the couch with the television on.

The next day she made a call to a longtime colleague and friend at Massachusetts General and convinced her she needed help accessing House's files. Her colleague at first refused to help her but after hearing Cuddy's pleas, she relented but swore her to secrecy. Hours later, pouring over the information, Cuddy immediately noticed things didn't add up. House was supposed to be in a somewhat advanced stage of illness yet he'd shown no symptoms that she could recall. She wracked her brain for signs she might have missed and came up with nothing. She realized something else was going on and her suspicions were confirmed when she read the last few pages in the file discussing the experimental drug trial. The drug had received accolades and high levels of success in treating depression in terminal cancer patients. That's when it hit her that House didn't have cancer, it was the drug he was after. With that realization, she felt sick to her stomach and ran to the bathroom and threw up. Later, she'd sat on the couch with the bottle of wine she'd opened the previous night. She was relieved House was not dying but angry at his lie, especially given a little girl who had never had a chance to live her life was wasting away in a hospital bed from the disease. For the second night in a row, she shed tears and fell asleep on the couch, the empty bottle of wine on the table beside her.

Cuddy sighed loudly in the dark. It had been four days since she first found out about his diagnosis and two since her discovery that he wasn't dying. In those two days she had successfully avoided him but knew it would not last long. She knew she would have to confront him but she wasn't ready yet, she was still too angry. She didn't care that he'd misled Wilson and his team but she was different. She and House had long history that went farther back than either of them had with anyone else outside their families and regardless of the sometimes turbulent nature of their relationship and there had been an unspoken trust there. She had always trusted him when it mattered; that he didn't reciprocate that trust wounded her deeply. Her feelings for House ran deep and that he hurt her yet again forced her to rethink his role in her life. She couldn't fathom him not being a part of her life but she feared he may have given her no choice.

Cuddy rolled over on her side and pulled the covers up to her chin. She resolved not to think about it any longer. With an exhausted sigh, she closed her eyes and tried once again to get some sleep.

House sat at his piano playing a melancholy tune. He let his fingers drift over the keys and played whatever came to mind. The glass of scotch he'd poured ten minutes earlier was already empty. He hadn't planned to drink but changed his mind when his team left his apartment hours earlier pissed at him for lying to them about his cancer diagnosis.

Did he think he'd really get away with faking cancer to get an experimental drug implanted in his brain? He was almost there and then his team had to stick their noses into his business. He sensed Cameron was behind it. She had an annoying need to fix everyone and it irritated the hell out of him. He made a mental note to make her do not only his clinic hours for a month but those of the rest of the team as well.

His team thought he wanted the drug to get high but really it was about getting a respite from the pain and misery that pervaded his life. Despite what people thought about him, he didn't like being a miserable son of a bitch all the time, in fact, he'd grown weary of it. He just wanted to feel good like he had in the old days long before he'd become cynical and bitter. While it was his nature to be moody and withdrawn; it had gotten far worse after the infarction. Wilson had told him that his pain was largely psychosomatic and House had balked at the idea but he was beginning to believe that it held some merit, though he'd never tell his friend that. He'd never tell him that while he dealt with constant pain, high levels of stress at times affected the intensity of his physical pain.

After the ketamine failure, House was skeptical about trying any new treatments. He didn't want to put himself through the disappointment again. He feared getting his life back only to have it ripped away from him. But when he'd read the article in the New England Journal about Harvard's experimental drug for depression in terminal cancer patients and how it had been highly effective, he rethought his stance and considered the possibility that it just might work for him.

His fingers drifted across the keys effortlessly as he closed his eyes in thought. He'd been grateful for the short-lived Ketamine treatment. Thanks to Cuddy going against protocol and fighting for him, he'd been happy for the first time in a long time. He'd been able to do so many things he hadn't done in years. Running had quickly become his favorite activity and he took every opportunity to do it. It gave him a feeling of freedom he hadn't had in a very long time.

House had felt so good after the Ketamine treatment that he'd begun rethinking his life and what he wanted out of it. He considered radical changes which included taking a sabbatical and traveling around the world. He even considered approaching Cuddy about being her sperm donor so she could finally have the child she wanted. But not long after he'd decided to talk to her about it, the Ketamine wore off and the pain returned and he permanently shelved those ideas.

His thoughts drifted to Cuddy and how she had been his biggest champion for the Ketamine treatment. She knew about the studies done in Germany, she knew it had achieved some success but it was not officially sanctioned in the U.S. and so she received criticism from some of her colleagues. But she stood her ground and argued during that small window of opportunity when it needed to be administered, that if anyone was the model case for receiving it, it was House. He had learned from Wilson later that Cuddy had taken on the critics and they had backed down, especially after she assumed full responsibility for the consequences. She had gone to bat for him yet again, wanting him to have a fighting chance to live without pain.

He frowned when he thought about how she'd feel once she found out the truth-that he was not sick. He knew his team would eventually tell her what he'd done and she'd be pissed off. So what else is new? He thought. This latest he assumed would not shock her at all. She'd likely consider it another in a long list of stunts he'd pulled over the years. It was no stunt though, it was serious. A chance not to eliminate his physical pain but at least some of his emotional pain, perhaps opening up to him opportunities in life he had long since denied himself thinking that the only life he would ever lead would be one in extreme pain.

He picked up the bottle of scotch and poured another drink. He wished he would've been able to talk to Cuddy about the experimental treatment. Maybe she would've come up with a better plan, something that didn't require faking a terminal illness. He trusted Cuddy with his life and nobody understood him like she did. So why didn't I just tell her? He asked himself. After all, she'd consistently encouraged him to seek out new therapies for managing his physical pain and even attempted to get him to see a psychiatrist. Though she told him on a few occasions she thought his physical pain could be exacerbated by psychological issues, and though she claimed at one time to give him a placebo in his spinal injection, he knew she took his pain seriously. She had always been far more understanding of his pain than anyone else, including Wilson. He just wished he could talk to her about it.

House and Cuddy's unique relationship that bonded them in ways others could not understand was the reason he couldn't talk to her. They had a past, an intimate one and he'd always had feelings for her and because of that he could not share the deepest part of himself, his pain, with her. Talking to her about it meant letting her in and that would change the dynamics of their relationship and that scared him. He needed her in his life and if the dynamic changed and they lost what they had, he didn't know what he would do.

House hated that he felt that way, after all, Cuddy had stuck with him through so much over the years. She gave him a job when he needed it and arranged it as a permanent tenured position. She stepped in and looked after him after Stacy walked out, cooking him meals and helping change his bandages until he could do it himself. She'd administered the Ketamine and took charge of his case when he'd been shot, hardly ever leaving his side until he'd regained consciousness. Later, she'd committed perjury and saved him from jail and countless times defended him to lawyers, his colleagues, and the Board of Trustees.

Cuddy claimed her actions were just part of her job but House knew better. Her actions spoke volumes about the kind of woman she was. She was strong, intelligent, passionate, and caring. She was also fiercely loyal and as many times as she should've given up on House, she didn't. When everyone else had turned their backs on him, she remained and during those moments when life was dark and dreary and so painful he just wanted to end it all, it was thoughts of her that got him through it.

Suddenly a sense of guilt washed over him. She was going to be angry when she found out what he had done. He did not want her get that information from his team. He needed to be the one to tell her. After all, he owed it to her. She was his constant, his friend, his...

He looked down and realized his fingers had long since stopped playing. He knew what he had to do. He got up, limped over to the table by the door and grabbed his jacket and keys and left.

Comments welcome!