Heeeello. My first oneshot. It's sad, I'm sorrrry.

Disclaimer: Oh durn, House and Cuddy are not mine.

Lisa Cuddy watched the long index finger draw little circles on her palm, and though it tickled, she suppressed the urge to swat away the hand now teasing her fingers. She stared down at her old hand. It was skinny, with wide knuckles and wrinkled skin. Her poor hands, worked so hard ever since the day her mother told her she wasn't always going to just be given whatever she wanted. Her nails were cut short, her fingers shaking, not under her control. That silver band choked her ring finger, reminding her of the perfect life she had tried to create. On her dainty wrist where bones seemed to be stretching the skin to its limit, veins protruded, showing every complicated detail of the blood pulsing through her body. It was though it spoke to her, telling her to get away from the man who was now stroking her lower arm. The blood, racing through her, said to leave behind her very existence and find a better way of living. Her every instinct told her that this wasn't what she was meant for, that someone better was waiting for her. Nevertheless, she could never bring herself to leave the king sized bed where she and her longtime lover and recent husband were propped up with the television playing a show that she couldn't bring herself to watch. The man that sat beside her was like a poison, but he was also like an addiction. Though she knew he was no good, she couldn't draw herself away from him.

She looked up and out the large window, framed by the dark green curtains that she had spent so much time debating upon, and past the silhouette of trees and chimneys she saw the sun fading away. The darkness of the sky faded into a soft, baby blue and to oranges, pinks, and yellows as a stray cloud wandered across the horizon. She bit her lip as she stared blankly, the sounds, smells, and feelings of the moment seeming to flow away into absolutely nothing. She heard nothing but silence, even though the people on the TV roared on and on. Feeling nothing but weightlessness, despite the blankets weighing her down and her husband holding her against his chest, she waited for her senses to come back to her. She waited, but all she could do was look at the last bits of light disappear as darkness gave the world away to pure blacks, whites, and all the grey in between.

Lisa's breaths were deep, silent. Her head lifted with each breath that the man beneath her took. Or that shell of a man. How could she describe him? Though he had never laid his hand on her in violence, he was cruel with words, even if they were always sarcastic remarks. He was broken, from too many times of unfortunate happenings, one of which Lisa felt guilty for. She had allowed his wishes to be gone against, and she had, she felt, turned him into who he was. The miserable bastard. He was one of his own kind. He thought in a way that she could never understand, and never would. And he was not in love with her. All too often she was fooled by his acting, but in truth, she knew that he did not feel the same way about her as she did about him.

She finally peeled her eyes away from the window, and she slowly focused on the face of that man, the man she felt she had loved before she had even met him. Who dished her all the trouble he could. Who was waiting for her to speak.

She looked at him with pain and with care.

Gregory House. The man she couldn't stop loving if her life depended upon it. And the man who looked at her with eyes that didn't love her, but only had married her because his life wasn't going anywhere better. She felt like a last resort. And yet, she couldn't make this end. It was something she wanted more than anything, but she had wanted it to be different. She didn't want him to have to pretend, she wanted him to really care.

She pulled her hand away from his grip, picking the remote neatly from the bedspread and flicking off the TV. He looked slightly annoyed, but said nothing. She dropped it on the white carpet, that was only months old, but already off-color and in need of attention. She then turned the switch of the tiny lamp on the table next to her so that it clicked twice, flickering and then dying, to leave them in the inky utter darkness.

They shifted to lie next to each other, and she faced him, his face inches from hers. A warm, salty tear betrayed her and rolled down her cheek onto the pillow. The last light of day caught it, and Greg noticed.

"Okay?" he whispered with his concerned tone.

That was what made her hold onto a last little bit of hope that he could really care, and one day would really and truly care for her: how he noticed things. A new lipstick, a different hairstyle, or a tiny tear in the corner of her eye- he always noticed, even if he didn't mention it. So every time he walked into the room, her heart did a double take, hoping that he would start loving her today, even though she knew somewhere in the back of her mind that she was fooling herself.

"I love you, you know," she said, sighing and sinking deeper into the comfort of the soft pillow.

"I know," he replied simply.

Lisa rolled on to her back, then turned her head towards the glossy window, looking out as the very last of the color dissipated and the sky turned to a black sheet of glass, dark and delicate, covering space. She hoped that the fragile pane wouldn't break while she slept, and then her eyes dropped closed like a heavy curtain, giving way to her restless sleep.