The Last Time

Chapter 1: Booty Call

The digital clock on Lisa Cuddy's bedside table read three a.m. when the phone beside it began to ring. Cuddy's arm shot towards it on the second ring, one finger violently jabbing the 'talk' button if only to stop the noise. She was content to just leave it without even listening to what the person on the line had to say. One side of her brain felt she had to answer it, it could be the hospital… The other side said hospital be damned, it was three o'clock in the morning and she had just worked for twenty hours straight. Cuddy knew who it was anyway, and she did not want to be talking to Gregory House in the middle of the night. It was bad enough to be dreaming of him, which is what she had been doing before being interrupted by the phone. Her hunch was confirmed by a muffled voice coming from her receiver that was annoyingly familiar.

She reluctantly picked up the phone and positioned it close to her ear without even opening her eyes.

"It is three o'clock in the goddamned morning, House! I do not need this right now." Cuddy rolled over into a more comfortable position because she knew that he was not about to give up easily.

"Come on, Cuddy, what if there was a patient in need?"

"You diagnosed the patient, he is being treated. You do not have a new patient, nor the opportunity to steal one from someone else. I know for a fact that nothing interesting is going on at the hospital. Nobody spewing strange bodily fluids. No one spontaneously seizing. Nobody with an unusual case of the hiccups. No elves with brain tumors. And nobody's brain is on fire. So, in short, nothing you would be interested in," Cuddy told him in a manor that clearly conveyed her annoyance.

"Geez Cuddy, you know that nobody seizes spontaneously. There's always a reason, duh!" Cuddy rolled her eyes.

"What do you want, House? And if this is a booty call, you are fired. Don't even bother coming in on Monday."

"Now, Cuddy, get that pretty head of yours out of the gutter. This is not a booty call. I would have used my sexy voice for that, obviously."

"Sure," Cuddy said with another roll of her eyes. "Why in the world did you call me at this godforsaken hour, House?"

"I don't feel good," House stated.

"We're not in the third grade anymore, House. Take a cold pill and go back to sleep," Cuddy told him.

"I already did that. It didn't work. And its not a cold, anyway. I think I could diagnose that myself, thank you very much," House said indignantly.

"It's a cold, House. Go back to sleep," she said with a yawn.

"It isn't a cold. The second showing of my delectable take out is evidence enough. It wasn't as good the second time if you were wondering. And in order to go back to sleep a person needs to have been asleep already, which I wasn't."

"House, I'm sorry you don't feel good, but I am not your mother and I have an early day tomorrow. I have to pick my sister up from the airport at seven. I'm hanging up now," Cuddy told him.

"Cuuuddddyy," House whined. "I don't feel good. Can't you come over here and check me out or something?"

"You probably just have the flu, House. And I am not a nurse! Regardless of what you think, I did get my medical degree, just like you."

"Oh come on, Cuddy, we both know that wasn't a real degree. They just didn't want you to feel bad and realize that all those sexual favors over the years were for nothing," House mocked. Cuddy ignored him.

"You don't sound very sick to me," she told him.

"Oh sorry, would you like me to wretch directly into the phone? Would that be better for you?"

"No, thank you," Cuddy said, grimacing. "What would you have me do, House? Get up and drive to the pharmacy in the middle of the night just to buy you some drugs and bring them to you?"

"Now that you suggest it…"

"If it gets you off the phone. I'll be there in a half an hour. But this is the last time." Cuddy hung up the phone and swung her feet to the floor.

"Goddamn you, House!" Cuddy began to get dressed, muttering some choice expletives along the way. Her socks didn't match and she was wearing sweat pants, but Lisa Cuddy truly could not care less. Who the hell was out at three o'clock in the morning, anyway?

Cuddy left her house for the chill spring night and noticed that the only sound she could hear was the quiet humming of the street light. Obviously none of her neighbors were awake at this hour. She was glad for the solitude, for once not being reminded by all the kids playing in the street of the life that she couldn't have.

She got in her car and turned it on, opening the windows, her stereo playing softly through the speakers. Cuddy couldn't help but wonder what it was about Gregory House that made her willing to run around town in the middle of the night. It couldn't be his charm, nor was it his kind nature. There was just something about him that made her forget logic for a while. It wasn't logical to drive around town in the middle of the night for someone who made your life a living hell. It wasn't logical to care whether or not he felt like crap in the middle of the night. It wasn't logical to be dreaming about the bane of your existence. Nothing about this was logical, but Cuddy could not, for the life of her, go back home.

She pulled into the drug store and went inside. Not knowing exactly what it was that ailed him, Cuddy bought a random assortment of pills, gel caplets, and some horribly bitter syrups. She even grabbed some cold medicine, just in case. She took her basket to the front of the store and unloaded it on the counter. Cuddy didn't miss the glance the barely-twenty-years-old cashier gave to her chest and found herself thinking that she preferred House's blatantly rude comments to this kid's obvious ogling. She rolled her eyes, not caring that she was rather scantily clad in her camisole. Men were terrible.

Cuddy left the store, making a mental note to tell House that he now owed her thirty dollars. She sighed and got into her car, driving the familiar route to House's apartment without passing even a single other car on the way there.

She arrived at the apartment and found a parking space a few doors down. She pulled the bag from the passenger seat and walked to his front door. Rummaging through her purse, Cuddy found her "only for booty calls" key to House's apartment. She unlocked the front door and for some reason had to resist the urge to shout, "Hey Lucy, I'm home!" Cuddy had the feeling that this was going to be the start of a very odd day.