Hi guys! So, I've been away from the House genre for a while...but I was going through old fanfiction files and I came across this story I wrote in 2007. I reread it and I actually really, really like it. I'm not sure why I never posted it. It's set sometime after Stacy but before the team shakeup. Somewhere I'm sure in the 2007 season lol. I'm pretty sure I was writing this with an anticipation of a part two, but I'm pretty sure that won't happen and I think this can stand alone. I hope you enjoy and ship this pair as much as I still do! Love ya, RA

The Weight of Dark

"Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift."
― Mary Oliver

"House…" I call hesitantly opening the door to his office.

"I'm here; don't get your panties in a twist." I crack a smile because I know he can't see it in the dark.

"Cuddy was doing a staff count and when you came up missing I drew the short straw to come and find you," I step gingerly into the door trying in vain to strain my eyes into seeing any death trap that might have materialized since the lights went out. Though I've been in here a thousand times, it seems I can't for the life of me remember where he keeps his extra chair.

"Well you found me so you can report back to Cuddy that if she hadn't been such a cheapskate we would have generators that support more than just the bare legal minimum…if I may point out, patients who are comatose hardly care if there is a pretty light above their bed…the only light they care about is the one at the end of the tunnel.

Tell Cuddy that I could surely sue for unsafe work conditions since this whole office wing is black….I don't care if all of Jersey is in a white out…"

He prattles on and I wonder if he senses how I arch my eyebrow at him, "Talkative tonight aren't you?"

He laughs—grunts in what I can only say to be a slightly humorous way. "This room is blacker then pitch, my PSP is dead, the roads are so full of morons that even if I could dig my car out of the snow bank I couldn't make it home so that leaves me no other options except to talk….I tried talking to myself but I just couldn't keep my attention so now you're here and get to listen to me."

"You are sounding a little mental House." I fold my arms over my chest.

"You're glaring at me, it sounds like you're glaring at me," I hear him he laugh lowly.

That he called my move makes me glare all the harder.

"By your silence I can only assume that I am correct and you find that so irksome you are now glaring all the harder, so much so I would bet that your face is scrunching in that oh so unflattering way."

Damn him, "Nothing could be farther from the truth…and I don't scrunch my face!" and wouldn't you know I have to make a point of relaxing my facial muscles after finding that they were in fact scrunched.

"Hit a nerve did I? ...Hey, where is your flashlight? You can't tell me you found your way here without one." All skepticism and arrogance, he's so blasé and sure it makes me sick.

"In fact I have no flashlight, only this," I pull my cell phone from my pocket flipping its slim frame open letting it cast a mild hazy blue glow across his desk.

"How resourceful," he smiles.

He has a nice smile, I think watching the light vanish as the screen goes off. Perhaps it's the fleeting light that has me contemplating the curve of his thin lips even now sitting in the startling dark. His mouth isn't aesthetically pleasing—it's not a beautiful lover's mouth by any means. The wide indent of his upper lip makes it so when he pulls his lips in that tight grimace of contemplation his mouth nearly disappears. His tongue is too tart, too quick to lash and his words are never sweet enough to endear…oh but when he smiles!

I realize I am still holding my phone open in my hand, I return it to my pocket trying to banish my lofty nonsense ponderings there as well.

"You know Cuddy is leading a game of charades with the peds patients who are scared of the dark—you might have fun criticizing or I don't know stealing their candy or something…"

"Ouch, you must think me a regular Scrooge, I'm wounded—still I'm thinking that's a no to that, besides I'd rather talk."

Again, I arch an eyebrow that he can't see to appreciate as I settle back into the chair; I think I am going to be here for a while. "You don't talk, at least not the type of talking most grown-ups do. You don't talk unless it is to taunt, insult or make dirty jokes—you talk like you're still in junior high."

"Oh snap—I think the duckling just got one in!" he scoffs.

I start to retort but scraping chair movements and a slight grunt distract me, "What are you doing House?"

"My leg hurts and as my power of deduction is great I can deduce that we aren't going to have power or a way to escape this igloo any time soon, I am going to find a more comfortable place and position—I suggest you do the same."

"What was your first pet?" he asks.

"A fish, a gold fish to be specific and his name was Spotty," I answer without hesitation, which I find a little odd since I haven't talked about Spotty in forever, not since Abby Sue's sleep-over in fifth grade actually.

If the lights were on I guarantee this conversation would not be happing, also if the lights were on my boss would not be sprawled half under the conference table…nor would I be sprawled next to him my head next to his.

"Let me guess, he had spots?" he accuses sardonically.

"Indeed and when my parents bought me two more for my fish tank two weeks later I named them Goldie and Blackie—I'll let you guess what they looked like."

He snorts, it should sound insulting but even though I can't see him, I know he is almost smiling and that takes any of the sting it might have carried, out. "Creative child, how old were you?"

"Oh, three maybe four, I can't really remember. What was your first pet?"

There is silence. It's a silence I feel so tangible I can touch it. I shouldn't have asked, it was a wrong question, I don't know how or why but it was…and he won't answer. I want to apologize, take back the words the darkness has eaten hungrily leaving the residue hanging like the last stubborn icicle in spring.

"She was a yellow lab…she was a stray that showed up on our doorstep when we were living in Edinburgh. I named her," he pauses and I swear I can hear an ache of pain ripple through his body.

"I named her Oleo…even though my mom laughed at me…"

He trails again and I shudder at the wistfulness, I awe at the memories he's sharing. There is some pain connected to this memory obviously the only question now is do I want to unearth it… "What happened to Oleo?" I cringe hearing my voice rasp.

"My mother kept chickens, in a coop just behind the house. Oleo was a stray, in many ways a wild dog. She let me take care of her but she always let me know that she was 'letting' me. She was good dog…but definitely a wild dog.

"One day I came home from school to find the back yard full of feathers and blood—but no Oleo. My mother was crying on the back stoop head in her hands…but still no Oleo," he pauses and I pray my guess as to what his next words are wrong. "My dad came around from the back of the coop a shotgun in one hand and a shovel in the other. He threw the shovel at my feet and told me to get rid of the carcass…"

I couldn't stop a horrified cry from escaping, "Oh House…"

"It wasn't her, she didn't do it. I knew it then just as I know it now and I still hate him for what he did…"

I instinctively reach for his hand squeezing it tight. He lets me, he even lets it linger something I know he would never let happen if we had been in the light of day—or even under hospital fluorescents.

"Tell me Cameron what is your favorite movie?"

We've been at this for over an hour, asking all the trivial questions one might ask at either a girl's slumber party or awkwardly over drinks with a blind date. We are at neither of things but it doesn't seem to matter.

"It's a tossup between the '95 Sense and Sensibility or North by Northwest," I answer, then upon second thought add, "But Cary Grant was also so good in His Girl Friday. But I love a good tearjerker and My Girl does the trick every time…but then again so does Ghost," I laugh suddenly realizing how stupid I must sound, "I guess that makes me such a girl huh…"

"Yep, but there is nothing wrong with that—you're a hot girl."

I laugh outright. "What can I say, I love Cary Grant and I don't think there is a sexier voice than Alan Rickman's. If only I could find a guy that looked a little like George Clooney, had a sense of humor like Cary Grant, a voice like Rickman, a personality like James Bond, eyes like Johnny Depp and a smile like…" I stop abruptly realizing just whose name I name was I choking on. I mentally slap my forehead, stupid, stupid, stupid.

"Like whom?" he prods.

Damn the dark, I wouldn't have gone on like some middle-schooler if not for the security of the dark.

"Who?" he demands.

I glare…and damned if I don't scrunch my face too. I weigh the benefits of lying and they far outweigh those of the truth. "Yours," I hear myself say anyway. Damn the dark.

"What were you like as a kid?"

He shifts, I hear him, he's turning on his side toward me—his breath faintly tickles my cheek.

"I was a good kid."

I arch an eyebrow, its reaction I can't help it even if like all the other facial expression I make they are useless in the dark.

"Oh fine, I was a troublemaker most the time, happy? My friends and I liked to throw snowballs at the Transit Buses in winter, knock out street lamps in the summer because they made it too hard to play hide-n-seek…I got good grades though…"

I almost chuckle, he sounds like every other All American Boy.

"We used to ride our bikes all over town—our favorite place was the old train depot. We'd go there and use our sling shots to bust coke bottles…"

Forlorn; that was the emotion I couldn't before name. He sounds almost lost as he talks. I scoot closer to him; just to be sure I don't lose him.

"Greg…" I taste the almost forbidden name, "Where's home?" it comes out so soft, so quiet I wonder if he can hear me. By the silence that ensues, I can only conclude he didn't.

My heart hammers as I stare where I am sure his eyes are staring back at me. The silence that holds us this time isn't the awkward painful kind but the powerful and electricity charged kind that makes breathing work and thought impossible. If it were light, he would see me leaning unconsciously toward him lips parted in anticipation of one sweet stolen kiss…but if it weren't dark this type of silence would not have dared to fall—it knows better.

"I've lived in California, Scotland, Japan, Germany, Egypt, the mid-west, Connecticut, Florida and Jersey…"

He did hear me.

I suck in a breath, "That's not what I asked…Where is home?"

Silence. The hand I've been leaning on is going numb so I start to shift back to lie again on my back.

"I don't know…"

I'd hug him, but then I just know he would feel my tears.

"How many times do you think Cuddy will check my office before she gets smart and uses the flashlight in here?"

I laugh but quickly find myself trying not to snort which makes me laugh harder which makes it ever harder not to snort.

"You sound like a pig Allie," he says and I hear the almost laughter bubbling up in his voice.

"I can't help it!" I gasp, "I know…it's not that funny…but…." I really truly can't stop laughing!

"You better! I see the Warden's light, she's on the prowl," he hisses but that trace of mirth remains.

"I can't…House…I can't!" I giggle even as I hear Cuddy's clacking heels.

"She's opening the office…keep your mouth shut!" he growls, which really does nothing to actually making me stop.

"For Pete's sake!" his arm comes around me pressing my body into his, his other hand pushes my face into his neck. He's a fairly good form of sound proofing. "Now keep still," he murmurs in my ear.

I do; but not because he tells me to do so but because in this position I can drink in his faint aftershave still clinging to his neck, because I can feel his solid chest so intimately against mine. I keep still because I am so dizzy from him that laughing—or moving, is the furthest thing from my mind.

It seems like an hour passes while Cuddy once again checks his office. Yet it seems a much shorter time when House releases me but even at that, he doesn't let me go immediately after Cuddy leaves.

"I think she's gone," I breathe pulling back ever so slightly, I realize of course that I am pulling back to try and see his face which is totally futile.

"Just wanna make sure…I really don't want to play babysitter for those who may be afraid of the dark—no, much more better here."

This might have started me laughing again but it's not funny…but then I laugh when I'm nervous. I'm thankful for the dark, if it wasn't he'd see my cheeks burn red and eyes wide in stupid youthful adore. If he could see me, he would see that I love him—but thankfully, he's still in the dark...

"This is asinine! How long has the power been out?!"

We're now sitting at the table instead of under it. We're rolling his grey and red ball across the table between us. So far, we're doing pretty well, we've missed only twice.

I move to check my wrist then mentally groan, "Well my watch is about as cheap as they come which means no RoyalGlo so I'm going to have guess between four and five hours." If my cell phone hadn't died, I could tell him what time it is anywhere in the world…

"Fan-friggin-tastic!"

I smirk.

"Who was your first crush?" the question pops into my head and out my mouth, I have remarkably lost any censor that used to be between my brain and lips it seems. I pass the ball lengthwise down the table to him.

"An Ling, I met her in junior high in Japan. Her mother was in the air force and her dad worked in Tokyo at the Microsoft development office there…She had the biggest brown eyes, sweet as could be." He chuckles.

"What happened?"

"We did the boyfriend/girlfriend thing, whatever that meant at that age. Only lasted like three weeks, till we discovered it was better to be just friends instead of just friends that are dating."

"Do you keep in touch at all?"

"Actually, yeah up till medical school. Last I heard she was married and expecting a kid."

"Really, what made you drift apart?" as soon as the words leave, I realize I am pretty sure I already know the answer.

"Stacy."

Duh, I nod to myself with an inward sigh.

"I met Stacy my first year, she was in pre-law…after that nothing really mattered. She was gorgeous, smart; a smart ass as well—always liked that about her. She could give it as well as she could take it, never put up with me. I was smitten."

I take in a sharp quick breath wondering if I really want to hear this. Do I really want to hear him talk about the 'love of his life', to listen to him list her virtues like some damn Venus? Turns out, I do, it hurts like salt in a cut but I want to hear. I want to hear what it is about her that beguiled him and what about me so repels.

"Why didn't you two ever get married?"

"Selfish I suppose. Neither of us really wanted to give into the other. We were together but never together never halves of a whole. I may be a stubborn ass but I am smart enough to know that in a marriage there has to be give and take—giving in and standing firm. Of course at the time we didn't really see this as an issue, we were too content with great sex, and marriage wasn't on the mind."

My stomach turns and I cringe. Maybe I don't really want to hear this after all. Too late now.

"Then when my leg happened, everything that was wrong about our relationship, everything that was wrong between us came to light. We didn't trust each other, I couldn't trust her, I didn't believe in her and ultimately she didn't believe in me. Our relationship turned out to have zero substance. We never would have worked, if it hadn't been my leg it would have been something else. I loved her—just not enough and not in the way she needed."

I blink and the ball that I heard coming toward me rolls off and thuds on the floor.

"I thought…"

"Yeah, everybody does. Last time she was around, we had a fling, which amusingly enough is a pretty accurate description of all our years together. One great big fling, this time it was just a vain attempt to reclaim something we never had. We wanted our relationship to have meant something, and it did, just not what it should have. Luckily we found this all out before it ruined her marriage."

This knocks the wind out of me; I really never would have thought any of that.

"Do you think you'll ever marry?" I cover my mouth with my hand a moment too late; the question just barely slides by.

"Yes."

My chin is somewhere on the floor now. Didn't expect that answer, nor did I expected him to answer it so quickly. Perhaps the dark is liberating, and not just for me.

"Don't you have a sister?" he asks, I hear the ball rolling as he does.

"Yeah, younger, she graduates college this spring. She's going to be a vet. My parents find it amusing they ended up with two doctors in the family. They are hoping my younger brother becomes a dentist but he's only sixteen and still thinks he can be the next great NFL star."

"You want kids?"

Though it shouldn't, not with everything else that we've shared, the question takes me slightly by surprise. "Yes, I've always thought four was a good number, two girls, two boys…but I have to find the right guy first," I add with what I hope to be a lofty laugh.

"You found him…once."

I swear for a moment I quit breathing, it took a second for the 'once' to register. For a split second moment, I thought he was saying that it was him—that he was the 'one'—that he was qualifying himself with 'you found him'—but like they always have my fairy tale crashes down.

"My husband was sick when I met him; I knew that we wouldn't have children…but somehow even knowing that, I still knew I would have a family. It sounds strange I know, and I can't even explain it really. I mean I loved him, I did truly and I would do it all over but I still knew I would marry again—that another man would be the father of my children. I knew I was going to lose him… Am I horribly cruel?"

"If we weren't sitting alone in the dark…if you were talking to anyone besides me then maybe, but since we are and you're not then no, not cruel—human. You're female which means you use your heart more often than your head but you're human none the less and the instinct to ensure survival of the species is stronger than even love. I believe that you loved your husband, that you were devoted to him…knowing that you would have kids with another man during the marriage isn't terrible it's common sense."

"You make it sound absolutely horrid."

"Don't mean to—I respect it, its life and life is almost never pretty."

I still frown, "Do you want kids?"

He's quiet for a moment, "Yeah, but getting a little old for it."

See that's where you're wrong, and you are never wrong. You aren't old…especially not here, in the dark, when the weight of everything leaves…

"I'm starving!" I exclaim when the quiet feels like it's hung around too long.

"Well guess what, I get to be your knight," he shuffles around, I hear the door open and close. There is a slight crash followed by a bang before something is sliding toward me.

"A knight, in shiny foil wrapping," he amends.

I pick up a half eaten granola bar. I am too thankful to answer, it is an incredibly kind gesture—he doesn't do kind.

"Don't worry I broke it in half, no boy germs or anything," he sounds snide.

"Not even worried a little. My hero! I know you can't see me but I just saluted you," I laugh.

His answer is his stomach rumbling. "I thought you broke it in half!"

"I did…at lunch," he answers.

"Oh!"

"Its fine, for Pete's sake act like I took a bullet for you, it's half a granola bar. If I was starving I'd go down to Cuddy and her Merry Men and eat," he protests as I so unceremoniously, so ungracefully stumble my way to take the chair to next him.

"No, have half of this, eat it!" I break the bar handing—well shoving his part at him.

"Can't, you touched it."

"Grow up," I angle the piece in the direction I believe his mouth to be.

"That's my chin, baby doll."

"Take it then…" a loud mechanical groan and electrical wheezing interrupts me. The lights begin to flicker then blaze fully.

Our eyes meet for a brief second before we blink madly shrinking away from the menacing brightness. The air changes almost instantaneously, whatever magic or safety had existed in the dark is now nothing but vapor memories quickly extinguished in the weighty light.

"Well looks like the party was really in here the whole time…makes your butterfly hand puppet look downright tame…"

About the same time I realize Wilson and Cuddy are in the doorway I realize I am still sprawled across the table, nearly in House's lap a broken piece of granola bar in my hand directed toward his face. I back quickly away.

"Yeah, so why don't you turn off the lights again and leave," House stands becoming everything that trademarks him as one of biggest jerks in the known galaxy again. Even the acerbic tone and self-important stride is back as he ambles as best he can with his stiff leg to look out the window, "Has the snow stopped yet?"

"No, according to the news we aren't going to be going anywhere for a while. Good news is that I've been able to locate some extra cots so the staff will be able to get some rest but we'll have to sleep in shifts." Cuddy is speaking in a general non confrontational manner but is looking curiously at me.

Quiet, it's so not the same. Thankfully I'm not left to feel awkward long as Foreman comes bursting through the door.

"We've got a huge trauma coming in, the ER is short staffed and we can't send them to another hospital. An SUV full of teenagers lost control on the ice out there and totally obliterated a research lab. We've got eight teenagers coming in several burned badly and all have internal damage. There are also twenty-five lab workers with varying degrees of burns and injuries…and all have been exposed to numerous viruses and contaminants. The lab researches treatments for, among others, the avian flu and SARS.

"We don't know for sure everything that we are dealing with but if SARS is the worst of it we are still looking at a potentially huge Biohazard situation…"

The weight of light and the levity of dark...it's all a balance and as I look to House I see that the balance between us has permanently shifted. Things between have changed. I think we might have fallen in love in the dark, now to just bring it to the light.

Hope you all enjoyed and reviews totally make my day! :)