Chapter 9: The Inquisition
The coffee had turned to acid in her stomach. Rose stood outside Cuddy’s office, her knuckles poised to rap on the wood. She could see the Dean through the glass wall, a silhouette of sharp angles and focused intensity, scribbling on a chart. The framed photo on the desk was visible even from here: a younger Cuddy, a less-guarded House, arms linked. A fossil from a different epoch.
Rose knocked.
“Enter.”
The air inside was cooler, filtered clean of the hospital’s organic decay. It smelled of lemon polish and underlying anxiety. Cuddy didn’t look up immediately, finishing her notation with a precise slash.
“Sit, Dr. Winters.”
Rose sat, perching on the edge of the visitor’s chair. She folded her hands in her lap to still them.
Cuddy finally lifted her gaze. It was a comprehensive scan, starting at Rose’s sensible flats, moving over the borrowed sweater—one of House’s, she realized with a jolt, the gray cashmere drowning her frame—and settling on her face. The scrutiny was clinical, dissecting.
“Your chart on the Franklin patient is exceptional,” Cuddy began, setting her pen down. “Your differential was more thorough than your attending’s.”
“Thank you, Dean Cuddy.”
“It’s also the only reason you’re not currently suspended.” Cuddy leaned forward, elbows on the desk. The pleasantry evaporated. “Let’s not waste time. You were seen leaving Dr. House’s apartment at seven-fifteen this morning. By a nurse who lives in his building. Who felt compelled, given your age and his… reputation, to inform me.”
Rose’s throat tightened. She forced a breath. The door stays in the room. This was outside the door. This required a different script.
“I was emotionally compromised after the Franklin case,” Rose said, her voice carefully even. “The patient’s age… it hit close to home. Dr. House was acting as my supervising physician. He offered his pullout couch. It was… uncomfortable. That’s all.”
Cuddy’s expression didn’t change. “A supervising physician doesn’t usually provide bedside accommodation for emotional compromise. We have counselors. We have resident halls. We have boundaries.”
“Dr. House’s methods are unorthodox.”
“This isn’t a method, it’s a violation of protocol. And you’re evading.” Cuddy’s eyes narrowed. “Did anything inappropriate occur?”
The question hung in the sterile air. Rose saw the night in flashes. The black silk. The weight of his arm. The whisper against her hair. Little one. Her cheeks warmed.
“No,” she said, too quickly.
Cuddy saw it. The faint blush, the microscopic hesitation. A muscle in her jaw twitched. She looked, for a moment, not angry, but profoundly tired. And something else. A flicker of a raw, personal sting she quickly smothered.
“You are eighteen years old. A prodigy, but still a child in the eyes of the law and this institution. He is a forty-two-year-old addict with a pathological disregard for rules and a celebrated talent for manipulation.” Cuddy’s voice dropped, becoming almost conversational, which was worse. “What do you think he wants from you, Rosalie?”
The use of her full name was a needle. Rose straightened. “He wants me to learn. To be better.”
“He breaks things. For fun. To see how they work. He breaks rules, he breaks protocols, he breaks people. He’s a brilliant diagnostician because he takes everything apart until it fails. Is that what you want? To be his next diagnostic puzzle? To be taken apart?”
The image was too close to her nightmare. Rose’s composure cracked. “He’s not like that with me.”
The silence that followed was absolute, save for the hum of the lights. Cuddy sat back, her face a mask of cold realization. “Oh, god,” she murmured, almost to herself. “You believe that.”
Before Rose could form a denial, the office door exploded inward.
It wasn’t a gentle opening. It was a violent swing that hit the wall with a crash of shuddering glass. House stood in the threshold, leaning heavily on his cane, his hair wild, his blue eyes blazing. He looked from Cuddy’s frozen form to Rose’s pale, stricken face.
“Knock knock,” he said, his voice a low growl.
“House, get out,” Cuddy snapped, finding her voice. “This is a private meeting.”
“About me. I get a vote.” He limped into the room, each thud of his cane a punctuation mark. He stopped beside Rose’s chair, not looking at her, his focus entirely on Cuddy. “Heard you were conducting an inquisition. Wanted to make sure you had the facts straight.”
“The fact is she spent the night in your apartment.”
“Correct. On the pullout. Which, for the record, has a spring that imprints a perfect map of the Battle of Gettysburg on your spine.” He tilted his head. “You’re asking if I fucked her. That’s the subtext, right, Lisa? The real question burning a hole in your professional concern.”
Rose flinched. Cuddy’s face went white.
“Get. Out.”
House ignored her. He turned his gaze down to Rose. For a second, his expression was unreadable. Then he looked back at Cuddy, and his voice lost its mocking edge, turning flat, definitive, final.
“She was with me all night. And she was perfect.”
The words weren’t gentle. They were a claim. A branding. They sucked the oxygen from the room.
Cuddy stared. The professional mask shattered completely, revealing pure, unguarded shock. And beneath it, a wound so old and deep it seemed to physically stagger her. She looked at the photo on her desk, then back at the man in front of her, who had never, in all their years, used that tone about anyone.
House didn’t wait for a response. He nudged Rose’s foot with his cane. “Up. We have real work to do.”
Rose stood, her legs unsteady. She couldn’t look at Cuddy. She followed House’s limping form as he strode out, leaving the door gaping open.
They were halfway down the hall, the echo of his cane leading the way, before he spoke, not slowing down.
“You lied poorly. Then you told the truth poorly. Overall grade: D-minus. See me after class for remedial instruction.”
She hurried to keep up, the ghost of his declaration still ringing in her ears. She was perfect.
“What did you do?” she whispered.
He stopped suddenly, turning to face her. The corridor was empty. His eyes were fierce, devoid of tenderness, full of a furious, possessive certainty.
“I closed the door,” he said simply. Then he turned and walked on, leaving her to understand that the room had just gotten much, much larger, and there was no map for it at all.