So it's me again. Incapable of shaking off the 'Fic Pimp' for fear she'll hunt me down and hold a gun to my head. Anyway she wanted a Huddy friendship fic, so here's my attempt to appease her.

In a way I never minded that House and Cuddy broke up. In fact I kind of expected it because of the way they got together, but I did want something a lot more grown-up in the aftermath rather than the metaphorical and literal hope-crushing car crash that ensued. Not only were they hugely OoC, but so was Wilson who turned strangely passive when he really should have been his usual meddling self. Here's the first part of an angsty two-shot that hopefully goes some way to rectify that.

I hated 'Fall From Grace' for the record, but for the purposes of this story it seemed like a good jumping off point and I do like a challenge. I'm ignoring the monster truck incident though. It still makes me feel second-hand embarrassment that they went there.

Needless to say I don't own these characters.

"You free?" Wilson asked, popping his head through Cuddy's office door and seeing his friend still working away her way through a pile of paperwork. With unusually heavy dark circles under her eyes and an obvious tension in the way she was flicking through the sheets of paper, understandably she looked like she'd had better days.

"I've got two documents left to read and sign, and then I'm going home."

Swinging his arms by his side like an agitated schoolboy, the oncologist walked to the centre of the room and began to pace.

"So you're not going to the wedding?"

Throwing the pen she'd had in her hand on her desk, she folded her arms and eyed the man in front of her who was currently wearing a hole in her carpet, too distracted by his movement to continue working. Something was clearly up and no doubt it was House related.

"If he wants to marry one of his hookers that's up to him, but I'm not going to be a part of it… If you're here to drag me along with you so I can witness that charade then good luck with that." Wilson opened his mouth to respond, but seemed to think better of it, his hesitance immediately making her nervous. "What has he done now?"

"It'll be better if you come and see for yourself." Rolling her eyes Cuddy pushed herself up and went to grab her cell from the corner of her desk, making him interject quickly. "You won't need that. This'll take five minutes tops."

Curious at his behaviour she assented, silently following behind him out of the office, through the foyer and into the elevator, where she noticed the caginess of his demeanour as he pushed the button for his and House's floor, his entire demeanour suggesting there was something seriously troubling him. Tiredly bracing herself against the panelled walls she wondered exactly what her Head of Diagnostics had done to make his best friend this cagey. Scenarios tormented her. Could he have fired one of his fellows just to give her an administrative headache? It would hardly be the first time. Perhaps he'd flooded the men's room? Again something so petty wouldn't surprise her. Since they'd broken up he'd done anything and everything to make her life as uncomfortable as possible, and although she was trying to keep it together, he knew precisely what buttons to press. Things were bound to come to a head between them eventually and the thought of the subsequent fallout genuinely worried her.

Getting out on their floor she lagged behind Wilson again, the rhythmic clicking of her heels the only sound as they walked down the now darkened and deserted corridor, an impending sense of doom plaguing her as they rounded the corner and made their way to his office. Pulling his keys from his pocket he opened it up and gestured for her to step inside. Baffled, she complied and straight away saw her Ex sat at his friend's desk looking uncharacteristically smart in his grey suit and tie, concentrating on folding a memo into a paper aeroplane. Spinning around to ask Wilson what was going on, she saw the door close behind her and heard the jangle of keys in the lock, her stomach flipping over in panic.

"Wilson?!"

"It's for your own good," he responded, peering through the pane of glass seeming fearful and yet resolute. "You two need to talk."

"Open the goddamn door!"

"Not until you sort this out."

Lingering for a second he turned and swiftly walked away, leaving a furious Cuddy rattling the door handle and calling for him to come back, her palm smashing against the wood until it stung. Realising he wasn't going to come back, she took a step further back into the room.

"I knew he was up to something," a voice chirped up calmly from behind her, his attention focused on perfecting the wings of his paper construction.

"Then why the hell didn't you do something?"

He shrugged and propelled the aeroplane he'd been making across the room, smirking to himself as it narrowly missed her head and hit the light box behind her.

"I was curious." In reality Wilson had sent him a message saying that Cuddy wanted to talk in the neutral setting of his office. Instantly dropping his wedding preparations he'd thought he'd finally got through to her and headed straight back to the hospital, ensconcing himself in his friend's office when he soon heard the door locking. That didn't mean he had to tell her that though, especially as he'd been played just as much as she had. She'd dented his pride enough as it was without knowing he'd dropped everything to see her.

Sighing, the Dean of Medicine looked for the phone on Wilson's desk, only to find an empty space where it usually sat. Evidently he'd planned every detail of this and now him telling her to leave her cell behind made perfect sense. It was probably best for him that he had skulked away, because right now she wouldn't necessarily be responsible for her actions if he did come back.

"Where's your cell?" she inquired evenly.

"It's at home. I left my adorable fiancé watching equally adorable kitten videos on it." Again that wasn't strictly true. He'd simply forgotten it in the rush to get back to PPTH.

Now knowing she was trapped in an enclosed space with the last person she wanted to spend any time with at the moment, Cuddy groaned and flopped down onto the couch, her head falling reflexively into her hands. After a day from Hell this was the last thing she needed.

"Relax! Security will be along in a few minutes on their rounds. In the meantime we can sit in silence and enjoy the not at all awkward ambience."

"There might be a problem with that," she contradicted bleakly. "Like some of my other members of staff, Barney has a habit of falling asleep while he's on duty."

"You have got to be fucking kidding me? Why haven't you fired him yet?"

Snorting at his hypocrisy, she scowled at him.

"He has another job and four kids!"

"And I'm supposed to care, why exactly?"

Shaking his head he lifted his jacket sleeve and glanced down at his watch, before abruptly standing up and limping to the door leading out to the balcony. Toeing the lower glass to test how secure it was, he lifted his cane and was about to try and smash it when he felt a hand on his elbow, the touch sending bolts of electricity shooting through the rest of his body.

"What are you doing?" Cuddy quizzed sternly.

"I'm getting out of here," he countered defiantly, wrenching his arm away from her. "I have no intention of spending my wedding night in here with you."

"Believe me, House, there are a million places I'd rather be right now, but if you damage my property I'll make sure getting back to your child bride is the last thing on your mind."

"So what are we supposed to do? Sit here and play dominoes?"

"We wait for Wilson to come back. He's bound to chicken out of this soon."

Mulling what she'd said over, House eventually nodded and sat back down in the chair behind the desk, observing his former girlfriend perching back down on the couch and crossing one leg over the other. As she brushed her hair from her face and stared blankly at the door opposite her, she seemed just as exhausted and despondent as he felt.

For over twenty minutes neither of them spoke a word as the tense atmosphere crackled around them, punctuated by the ticking of the clock on the bookcase behind Wilson's desk. There were so many things that needed to be said, but neither of them was willing to let the dam break. What good would it do, aside from leaving them on the verge of throttling each other? Furthermore why should they give their supposed friend the satisfaction?

Thoroughly bored, House was the first one to give in.

"So you're wearing that to the ceremony?" he commented, deliberately baiting her.

"I'm not coming… I know exactly what you're doing and I'm not biting."

Looking on as she continued to avoid eye contact with him, he saw her gaze was still locked on the exit like a cornered animal. From the way she was rubbing her temple he knew he was getting on her nerves, and he couldn't resist poking the bear even more.

"You know Cuddy, in spite of those satellites orbiting around your planet-sized ass, the World does not actually revolve around you."

"Then marry her," she breathed irritably, at long last turning to look in his direction and setting her jaw. "You don't need me there to do that…. Maybe you've finally found your ideal woman. She's young enough to appreciate your immature jokes and stupid enough to think you acting like a jerk is cute."

Combatively he leaned forward and flicked a balled up piece of paper in her direction, snickering when it bounced off her leg and landed on the floor. Disgruntled she picked it up and got up to put it in the bin, before retaking her seat.

"You're a child!"

"And you're jealous," he shot back without missing a beat. "It's really not a good look for you at your age."

"You think I'm jealous?" she laughed in disbelief. "Every single thing you've done since we broke up has made me realise I was right to end it… You want to go ahead with this joke of a wedding just to piss me off then go right ahead, but I refuse to be a part of it!"

Leisurely House lolled back in Wilson's chair and propped his feet on the desk, his shit-stirring grin in full flare.

"Scared that my marriage is going to last longer than yours did?"

With satisfaction he watched her eyes fly wide open in distress, the mention of her marriage enough to create a chink in her armour.

"Fuck you!" she spat, rising to her feet and walking to the glass door to give herself time to compose herself. On purpose she'd refused to answer his questions about her first husband when they were still together, because it was too painful to discuss. Being cheated on was hardly the kind of information she wanted him to have, and thankfully she'd been prescient enough not to hand him that particular stick to beat her with. Taking a fortifying deep breath she steeled herself to ride this out and leant her head against the glass, fixating on the coolness of the night air striking through it to stop herself from crying.

"I have no idea why I allowed myself to fall in love with such an asshole."

"You loved me?" he snapped back incredulously, his retort dripping in sarcasm.

Rolling her eyes back into her head, Cuddy span back around and rested against the glass again, the coolness on her fingertips continuing to ground her.

"Yes, I loved you."

"Bullshit! I was just an itch you needed to scratch before you moved onto the next victim… Who is next on the list to drag into your lair and emasculate? Wilson? Foreman? Chase?"

Barely keeping a lid on the anger bubbling up inside her, Cuddy stuck her tongue firmly in her cheek and nodded.

"Go on, House! Keep on insulting me like the pathetic child you really are!… Keep on presuming that because I'm not screwing everything that moves and jumping off balconies that I'm not hurting too!"

"I have no way of knowing what's going on inside your head, owing to the fact you're a poker-faced bitch!"

Finally snapping, his ex-girlfriend strode across the room and slapped her palms down on the desk, bending forward so their respective faces were so close she could smell the feint odour of whiskey on his breath. Cleary, as she'd expected, his current diet mostly consisted of alcohol and Vicodin.

"You want to know what's going on in my head?"

Surprised by the force of her question, he dropped his feet back to the floor and folded his arms defensively.

"Suit yourself."

"I'm fucking miserable!" she almost screamed, fighting to keep the tears that pricked at the corner of her eyes at bay. "I come to work, I have to deal with you twisting the knife at every opportunity, I go home, I put my daughter to bed and then most nights I cry myself to sleep. You happy now?"

"Ecstatic."

In spite of his initial intent, there was little venom behind his response as he watched her fight to stay in control of her emotions, the struggle playing out across her features. In that moment he knew she was floundering just as much as he was. For the past two weeks he'd thought he'd feel pleased if he knew she was struggling with this too, maybe even relieved. Instead he felt of a wave of sadness roll over him and threaten to swallow him up.

"I don't get to fall apart like you… People here rely on me no matter what's going on in my personal life. My daughter relies on me." Finally a solitary tear fell down her cheek, making her self-consciously brush it away with her fingers. "I was so scared when they found the tumour. For once, I needed somebody I could rely on."

"I took one pill."

"You're an addict, House. One would have always led to two, to three, to four and so on."

"Not necessarily," he mumbled uncertainly.

Unhappy with his answer, she pressed on.

"Look me in the eye and tell me honestly what would have happened if the tumour had been malignant. If it had metastasised and I only had a few months left."

Time and time again he'd gone through it himself and always came to the same conclusion. Resolving to be honest with her, he looked her in the eye and licked his lips uneasily.

"I would have used to get me through it, and then when it happened…" He faltered for a moment, even now incapable of saying the word, the mere thought of her dying still too much to bear. "Then when you went I would have found the nearest bridge."

Watching him look away and stare at the various articles on the bookshelf, Cuddy closed her eyes and felt her body sag in an odd kind of relief. Deep down she'd known it would have been too much for him to deal with. The last time he'd had a similar amount of emotional stress placed on him he'd used to the point of having a mental breakdown. Those strange dreams she'd had in the days leading up to the breakup had been her subconscious screaming out to her exactly that.

"I would've known what it was doing to you, and I couldn't have dealt with that as well as preparing Rachel for the worst," she explained. "I wouldn't have been strong enough, mentally or physically."

"You knew I was a recovering addict. You told me you didn't want me to change."

Forcing the carbon dioxide out of her lungs, Cuddy dug her thumb and index finger into the bridge of her nose. She had, even though she'd had her own reservations from the get go, stupidly she'd let herself believe that love alone could make the relationship work.

"And I was wrong. I apologised to you for being wrong… I just realised if any sort of relationship is going to work for me, it has to be with someone who can really be there when things go badly wrong. Not just for my sake, but for Rachel's too."

"And that wasn't me," he whispered back, the hurt plain to see in his expression.

"More than anything I wanted it to be you." It was true. She'd never felt like that for anybody else, and probably never would. If things had been different, if she hadn't been a Mother, maybe she could have afforded to take greater risks and let her heart rule her head.

"I told you it wouldn't work."

"I should have listened to you… I screwed up, but I don't deserve to keep on being punished for that."

"I know," he agreed with a nod. She didn't. There'd been no real malice behind her wanting to end their relationship, of that he was certain now. She just couldn't cope with the barrier he reflexively put between himself and anybody he'd gotten close to when things went wrong. It wasn't even as if this was a solitary occurrence. Stacy had walked away the first time when he'd insulated himself with a wall of drugs and self-pity after the infarction. Allowing himself to believe that a relationship with so much stacked against it could work was just as much his fault as hers. He was still angry, but mostly with himself.

"Then can we call a truce before this ends up with one of us having to leave?"

"You're not going to fire me," he said confidently. They'd had this discussion on a mind-numbing number of occasions over the years. She threatened more or less weekly to replace him, but so far he'd lasted around a decade as her Head of Diagnostics. Their professional relationship was chaotic, but symbiotic and usually resulted in a favourable outcome for his patients. She protected him from the fallout of his unorthodox methods and in return he performed the medical alchemy that put her hospital on the map. It just worked.

"Maybe I won't, but I am seriously close to giving a friend a call and accepting a job offer."

Shifting awkwardly in his seat he thought back to all the occasions he'd gone through her mail over the years, both in her office and more recently at home. On a regular basis she was contacted by other hospitals and health organisations who wanted to attract her over with impressive salaries and benefits. So far her loyalty to Princeton-Plainsboro had made her turn all of that down.

"You love this place."

"Right now the reasons to go are starting to outweigh the reasons to stay."

Searching her face for any trace of insincerity, House couldn't find any. This wasn't a rouse, she was completely serious and the recognition that he was on the verge of pushing her away for good hit him like a punch to the gut. Not only would her going elsewhere put his career in jeopardy, but more pressingly he couldn't get over the thought of not seeing her anymore. She'd been a huge part of his life long before they'd entered into a formal relationship, and he'd hoped she always would be. How could he even begin to find something or someone to fill the void if she left?

"Do you want to go?"

"I want things to go back to normal."

"Like we never happened?" he asked tetchily, causing her to run a hand over her face wearily.

"What we had meant something to me. It's always going to mean something to me… I didn't break up with you because I'd stopped loving you."

Processing her admission, House looked down and followed the journey of his fingers along the smooth surface in front of him until they paused over a knot in the wood. He didn't know how to feel about it. Loving someone you couldn't be with seemed so pointless, and yet knowing he wasn't alone in that was somehow reassuring.

"You don't have to go," he breathed, raising his eyes to meet hers again. "I'll stop being such a prick."

"Thank you."

Visibly relieved she smiled warmly at him for the first time in weeks and turned to sit on the edge of the desk. In quick succession House got to his feet behind her, cane in hand, and headed back towards the glass door, preparing once more to put the piece of wood through the lower pane, forcing her to object once more.

"I told you not to do that!"

Scratching his head in exasperation, he turned back to regard her.

"We might not be about to kill each other anymore, but I doubt you're ready to watch me pee in the corner."

Resigned, she told him to get on with it.

Cuddy couldn't quite fathom what had just happened. In a literal sense she knew Wilson had locked them in his office, they'd argued, they'd cleared the air and then they'd finally got out, House being strangely gentlemanly as he'd put his jacket over the broken glass for her to crawl over and then held her hand as she navigated the wall that divided his office balcony from the one they were leaving behind. She'd headed to her own office to grab her things whilst he'd made a trip to the bathroom, and then he'd come and found her again. Now they were stood in the car park not knowing quite what to say to each other, both of them bewildered by the turn of events.

"You going home then?"

Awkwardly House shifted on the spot, his car keys jangling in his hand and the top button of his shirt newly unbuttoned after he'd removed his tie. Instantly chastising herself, Cuddy couldn't help but think how good he looked.

"I thought I'd hit a bar. Get some Dutch courage before I tell Rasputin's great-Granddaughter she'll have to get her green card elsewhere."

For a millisecond he thought he saw something akin to satisfaction fleet across the features of the woman stood in front of him. He guessed that was hardly surprising when the whole purpose of his 'fiancé' was to torment her.

"Will that be a problem?"

He shrugged.

"She's got a knucklehead boyfriend, but I can deal with it."

"Do you want me to talk to her?" Cuddy asked entirely seriously, making House stifle a chuckle. As much as he'd enjoy watching her do her Rambo routine, this wasn't her problem.

"I'm a big boy. I got myself into this mess, I can myself out of it… Maybe I can throw in the Segway to soften the blow."

In spite of herself, she smirked. On several occasions earlier that day she'd wanted to wrap that thing around his neck. She'd be more than happy if that particular contraption found a new home.

"You've already been drinking. You shouldn't be driving." Noting his mouth contort into a pissed grimace, she carried on. "I'm not nagging you, I'm just concerned."

"I'll call a cab."

"Come back with me," she blurted out before her brain had chance to catch up with her mouth, the instantaneous shock on his face matching her own.

"Why?"

Pulling her jacket around herself more tightly, she bit her lip. The last thing she wanted to do was give him mixed messages, but their conversation still felt unfinished. Too many times they'd left things unsaid and that very fact had blighted their personal relationship from the time they'd met. There were still things she wanted him to know.

"I need to eat and you look like you could do with a meal."

"What about Rachel?"

"She's at my Mom's… We could grab takeout on the way back."

For what seemed like an eternity he just stared at her, his brow knitting into his characteristic frown in the same way it did when he was scrutinizing a set of symptoms. Just when she was certain he was going to decline the offer, his head bobbed slowly up and down.

"Ok."

"Ok," she repeated back to him, leading the way to her car a few steps away and sensing his eyes on her as they opened their respective doors and sank down into the seats.

In the blink of an eye the atmosphere between them had intensified again.

"You know what's going to happen if I come home with you."

It was a statement rather than a question, and she did. There was an undeniable air of inevitability to it. She'd known from the moment she'd asked him and probably before then when she'd lingered in her office waiting for him to come and walk her out. Just one last time she wanted, no, she needed to feel his breath on her neck as they made love, to say goodbye in a way that fully allowed her to express to him what them being together had actually meant, and overwrite the senseless arguments that had plagued their relationship.

Tentatively she settled her hand over his as it rested on his knee, the tendons flexing in reaction to her touch. He felt so warm in comparison. She couldn't get over how warm he felt.

"Maybe this is a better way to draw a line under everything than us shouting at each other."

Turning his hand over he threaded his fingers though hers and squeezed tightly, his blue orbs burning mournfully into her own over what they'd lost. Since she'd turned up at his door to end it that night he'd wanted to hate her. To turn her into this awful monster that had tricked him into letting his guard down and believing in something that couldn't work, but she wasn't. She was a fallible human being who was clinging on just as tightly as he was. Over the past two weeks he'd gone through four of the five stages of grief for their relationship, some of them having been replayed in the last couple of hours, and now acceptance was starting to enter his horizon.

"Drive woman! I'm starving."