"It's lunch-time and Wilson has abandoned me," he announces, as he barges into your office. "If you have cold hard cash, I'll take you out for fish tacos."

"Charming offer, House," you reply, shaking your head, "But I already have a lunch appointment."

He teases you a little more, tries to find out who you're meeting. "Boyfriend?" he asks obnoxiously. "Does he know he has a date with the devil?"

"Donor," you snap, and he grins, shrugs and leaves.

You realise, after the fact, that this is how all betrayals start - small, with a tiny, completely forgiveable white lie.

- - - - -

The first call from Stacy comes almost three months after her resignation.

Stacy, as usual, sounds smooth, confident, and on this particular occasion, winningly apologetic. "I'm sorry I left without more of an explanation," she says, "which you didn't deserve. I'd like to make up for that, if you'll let me. Can we do lunch next week?"

You can't think of a reason to say no other than you bitch, you broke his heart twice, so you do the polite thing: you check your schedule, and pencil Stacy in for Tuesday.

Then you lie to House.

A tiny, completely forgiveable white lie.

- - - - -

The week Stacy quit is still a mystery to you.

You remember getting the page, and hurrying over from your office to find Stacy just sitting there, boxes packed, already buttoned into her coat, fingers plucking restlessly at the arms of her chair.

"Lisa," she starts, and stops, her eyes darting to the ceiling and back to the floor, "I - I have to go."

"Go? You're quitting?"

You walk over to her, even though you're not really good enough friends for a hug, because you've only ever seen her look like this once, and it was a night you'd both rather forget.

"Mark..." she insists, "is getting better." She finally looks up at you, and you wonder that, given her profession, she isn't a more proficient liar.

"He isn't," you say gently, "I read his charts this morning."

"It's not working out," she tries again, desperately, "I need to get back to my practice. And I..."

"It's awfully sudden, Stacy," you interrupt, "It's House... isn't it?"

She looks almost grateful that you understand - and nods, jerkily, once.

You sigh.

There isn't anything you can do. House, from what you've heard, has outdone even himself in the bastard ex-boyfriend stakes.

So you let her go, and you touch her arm - i'm sorry for what he's done - as she leaves.

- - - - -

It's only later that you realise why she flinched when you touched her.

Of all the things House has hinted at, or come close to revealing, he has never told you what happened that week.

You just know that, with all the mess and shuffle of Stacy packing up and leaving with Mark, even the Vicodin wasn't enough to paper over the gaping hole in House's chest that went so well with the one in his leg.

- - - - -

You mean for it to be just one lunch, a once-off thing.

She's your friend, kind of, and you were her boss, briefly, and this is all you owe her, one lunch - nothing more.

But as she talks aimlessly about the weather, and Mark's recovery, and asks about how Cameron is doing, oh and Foreman and Chase, and has Wilson secured that grant he was looking into a few months ago - it strikes you that Wilson, dependable, loyal, eager-to-please Wilson, must have finally told Stacy he couldn't talk to her anymore, that he could no longer be her last, frail link to House.

So Stacy turned to you, instead.

At no point in the conversation does she even mention him. But the questions she doesn't ask are there all the same, cut deeply into her words and the bruised flicker of her eyes, and it surprises you that you actually feel sorry for her.

You suppose this is why, when the waiter comes with the check and she says, tentatively, "Maybe we can do this again?", the part of you that wanted to become a vet when you were younger, the nice part - the part that got lost in the thirst to prove that you could do anything your brothers could do and better - says, simply, sure. okay. why not.

- - - - -

The next time Stacy calls and proposes lunch at Fleming's, you pencil it into your schedule as a dental appointment.

It's hardly a lie at all, you tell yourself, because you have a right to privacy and House has never respected it. You know for a fact, though you have no proof, that there were a couple of months last year when he broke into your office at least once a week to check your diary.

(Only with House would trespassing be considered an act of kindness. Again, you have no proof, you never do with House, you just know that this was his way of looking out for you - for those few weeks, he knew with uncanny uncertainty when he could run a particularly illegal test or perform some especially crazy procedure and somehow allow you the cover of not being in the office at the time.)

Whatever the case, he's the reason you have to lie, just a little. That's your story, and you're sticking to it.

- - - - -

You don't tell Stacy about the ketamine when it works. You tell yourself: she'll find out some way, through someone else, and this flash of hope, this belief, this joy - it's yours.

He doesn't know you spent the two nights he was knocked out prowling the halls of the hospital, drawn tight into yourself, praying to any god who'll still take you after everything you've done or not done, that the gunshots would do some good rather than take him even further away from the life he used to lead.

You remember Wilson coming to you at midnight, coffee and bagel in hand, and it's when you take the cup from him and almost spill every drop that you realise you've been shaking with tension and hope and fear and guilt, and you can't remember what he said. But you know you told him, "House asked for this. He's still fighting."

And that made you happy, and selfish, so you don't tell Stacy about the ketamine. You just eat your salad - watercress and balsamic vinegar - and smile to yourself.

She says, you're glowing, and leans over the table and asks conspiratorially - have you met someone, Lisa?

And you laugh at that. You met him over twenty years ago.

- - - - -

You can't deny that you sometimes resent Stacy, who sits there with a tuna-fish sandwich, a husband, five years with Greg (not House), and never seems to be happy, or at least content, with any of those things.

Other times, you know how Stacy feels, because being with House is all or nothing, even when you're not with him, even when you've not been with him for years.

And so this is why you share a table, and very occasionally dessert, with Stacy - she shares your battle wounds, hairline scars invisible to the naked eye that snake across your skin and wind themselves around your bones, your heart. You've both been marked, in your own ways, by loss and anger and guilt since he came into your lives.

She's been through it too. She understands. Like you, she's seen House die, literally, metaphorically, and everything in between.

- - - - -

You don't tell Stacy about the ketamine when it fails, either.

You don't tell her about House picking up his cane only to limp more heavily than he did before.

You don't tell her how it took you a day to work up the courage to touch him on the arm and try to apologise for what he's lost (for what he's lost again, you always tell yourself), except apologies don't work because his leg is dead for the second time and now so are his eyes.

You don't tell her that looking at him these days, as he lumbers through the halls and pretends that everythingisthesameeverything'salright, makes salt sting the back of your eyes, and sometimes, at night, the witching hour when you don't have to be Dean of Medicine or the sensible one in the family, you let your shoulders slip and your face fall.

You remember that moment - he'll hate me for this, Lisa, she said, brokenly, as broken as you've ever seen her, as broken as you'll ever see her - and you can't tell Stacy about the ketamine when it fails.

But she knows. She has her sources, and she studies you as you study your plate of lettuce, and she touches the back of your hand, tentatively.

You look up.

Lisa, is all she says at first - and you're surprised that your heart catches at the sympathy in her words, because you recognise it from your own voice the night you laid out the options she had to keep House alive, even if it meant breaking him and losing him and watching him kill himself with drink and drugs and pain. 

"I'm sorry," she says, and you nod, jerkily, once.

- - - - -

After a few months, almost a year of meeting every few weeks, you and Stacy become better friends.

It was inevitable - she's smart, interesting and actually strings words together in a way that doesn't make you impatient to leave the room. Sometimes, all she has to do is roll her eyes and you crack up, and you like it when she tells stories about Mark, funny ones, filled with life and love, because listening to them almost makes you believe she's happy again.

Something she says one time, over a bowl of steaming chicken soup, sticks with you for years afterwards. Mark always dries the sink after he's used it, she tells you once, bemused, I guess it's true what they say. It's easy enough to find a man you'll live for. About ten times harder to find one you can live with.

- - - - -

This time, when you sit down to lunch, your face is flushed.

You try, but you can't, there's no way you can think about anything but his hands tangled in your hair, your nails raking down his back, the kisses you can never tell if you initiated and the way he always asks, without really asking, before he enters you and you gasp and it's better than it should be and it's like it was and not like it was and everything is different now, different but the same, good but better, strange but perfect.

And while Stacy orders the cod, you flush again. And you think, I must look drunk. sick. guilty.

You haven't betrayed anyone here, Stacy is with Mark. Stacy is happy with Mark, you tell yourself.

And you - you don't even want to say that you're with House. After all, you've been with him for years, and he with you, you've bled into each other for so long that this doesn't feel like a change, except it is, the simplest, biggest change in the world, and you're sure that every blood vessel in your face is about to explode.

Somehow, you manage to carry on a conversation with Stacy that doesn't betray the tremble in your thigh or your tension headache. She tells you about her new puppy, and how it chewed up her slipper last week, and you think about his lips pressing fire into the nape of your neck.

At the end of the lunch, Stacy leans forward, smiles, touches your hand. "Congratulations," she says, and you blink.

"You're with House now, aren't you?" she asks, no beating about the bush, her eyes clear and bright, fixed on yours, and you think, god this woman is smart. no wonder House loved her.

You stammer, like an idiot.

She nods, like she's expected it all along. "Make him happy, Lisa."

Then she corrects herself. "Make him less unhappy."

You both smile at that.

- - - - -

"House," you say a few days later, even though you're not sure where to begin, you just know you have to start somewhere, "I have something to tell you."

"Uh-oh," he groans, and pulls a face, "Are we pregnant?"

You slap his arm. "Be serious."

"I am serious. No one has ever started a conversation with 'I have something to tell you' that ends up well. Not for me, anyway."

"I just wanted to tell you that I've been having lunch with--"

You pause. It feels silly, to be so worried, but you still can't bring yourself to admit that you've been going behind his back with Stacy, of all people.

"Are you cheating on me?" he asks, his eyes flicking up to your face as he adjusts his head in your lap. He smiles, all lazy confidence and sex, and says, "After the last few weeks, I'm surprised you can walk straight. Much less even think about ever leaving my bed again."

"The gargantuan black hole that is your ego," you snap, "is sucking all the oxygen out of the room."

"Awww, you adore my ego," he grins back, "You worship it."

"Don't distract me," you wave a finger at him, and he makes a grab for it.

"Fine. So who have you been having mid-day tete-a-tetes with? I've noticed Dr Perkins sniffing around your lair recently. Gotta state it for the record, Cuddy - if it's him, you're not only a trollop, you're a stupid trollop. And a blind one."

"It's Stacy," you finally admit, and you feel you should duck, or something, in anticipation of... you're not sure what. But something, surely.

He levers himself into a sitting position, and turns, with some discomfort, to look you right in the eye.

You hold his gaze, because looking away would make you feel guiltier than you already do.

"You're an idiot," he says, simply, as he pushes himself off the couch and half-drags himself across the room.

I'm sorry, you want to say, except he hates it when you apologise - don't waste your guilt on me, Cuddy, I won't recognise it anyway - so you don't, and just pick up his cane and follow him.

At the door to your bedroom, he turns around.

"I mean it," he says, as he pulls you right into him, and growls into your ear, "You're an idiot. Why do you think I care?"

"Why shouldn't I think you care?" you counter, and try to push him away because damn if he doesn't get into your personal space. "Wilson said you pouted for weeks when he met her for dinner instead of watching monster trucks with you."

"I was an immature brat then," he shrugs.

"How are you any less..."

"No insulting me, Little Miss Benedict Arnold," he cuts you off, "Besides, what makes you think I don't already know?" and you freeze in his arms.

"You knew?" you ask stupidly, "But I..."

"Cuddy," he announces grandly, "You're a great lay and everything, but seeing you in all your naked glory on a regular basis doesn't turn me stupid, you know." He grins. "Just horny."

You slap him on the arm. "But how...?"

"Oh, your little codes were genius," he deadpans, "Come on, Cuddy. Monthly trips to the dentist? Your teeth are all white and shiny and perfect. Fine examples of orthodontic pulchritude." He leers down at you, and you swallow a giggle when he kisses you, hard.

"When did you find out?" you ask, pulling away even though his fingers have already found their way under your shirt and are trailing circles across the small of your back.

"What does it matter?" he mutters into your hair, and it still surprises you how easily he can make you flush, dark red spreading hot across your chest and up your neck and into your face, "maybe four months ago."

"Four months?" you gasp, and pull away from him, "why didn't you say anything earlier?"

"What would have been the point?" he shrugs, "I assumed it was for pretty obvious reasons. Barbie dolls. Guilt. General bitchery about what an asshole I am. Besides, I was trying to get into your pants. I don't think you'd have been quite as receptive if I spent the whole time whining about you going on secret dates with my ex-girlfriend."

"You could have told me," you complain, as he flops onto your bed and waggles his eyebrows at you suggestively.

"You could have told me," he responds, and you can't help but laugh when he loops his arms around your waist and pulls you down next to him.

"Anyway," he drawls, "take it easy on me, Cuddy. I'm getting old. Can't keep track of two menstrual cycles at once."

You roll your eyes, and kiss the smirk off his face.

- - - - -