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The Vampire's Apprentice	By : Evilida44 Category: G through L > House Views: 1787 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own House or its fandom nor do I make any money from it.

Chapter List
- 14
- 15
- 16
Reunion

There had been changes in Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital since two of its department heads had disappeared. Another oncologist had agreed to act as temporary head in the absence of Dr. Wilson. Wilson was missed, but the Oncology Department continued to function without him. The Department of Diagnostic Medicine had not fared as well. It had been created specifically for Dr. Gregory House and no one else could take his place. Dr. Eric Foreman, who had been with House the longest, suggested that he step in temporarily, but Foreman's judgement was suspect. Instead of appointing him interim head, the Hospital Board asked for his resignation. The last Cuddy had heard, Foreman was working as the chief medical officer for a prison in upstate New York, the only job he'd been able to find without a letter of recommendation.
Foreman's romance with Remy Hadley, another of House's fellows, had ended when he moved. Hadley consoled herself in her usual way – with casual sex and recreational drugs. Hadley was caught with a great many of these drugs in her possession outside a lesbian bar in New York. This wasn't the first time Hadley had been busted, but the last time her beauty, tragic past and uncertain future had swayed the arresting officer. He had let her off with a warning. Unfortunately for her, her arresting officer this time was a heterosexual female who had no interest in hearing her life story. Hadley had been charged, and the hospital had suspended her.
The remaining two members of House's department had gone their separate ways. Taub had returned to cosmetic surgery, and Kutner had decided to take a sabbatical from medicine. He was travelling across India, his parents' homeland.
In the absence of facts, ugly rumours, impossible to prove or disprove, surrounded the disappearances of the two doctors, making other doctors and staff uneasy and possible corporate donors skittish. Dr. House, diagnostic genius, had been PPTH's biggest asset in attracting donations. He had been what distinguished this hospital from others in the area. Without him, donations dropped. The hospital had been forced to make budget cuts. Clinic hours had already been reduced, and, if things did not improve, the clinic would have to be closed entirely.
Lisa Cuddy, Dean of Medicine, had thought that having Dr. House on staff had made her job difficult. His disappearance made it almost impossible.

Cuddy was late home again and her babysitter, who had had plans for the evening, had not been mollified by the extra twenty dollars Cuddy gave her. Cuddy could see that she'd have to find another sitter in the near future. She'd lost count of how many she'd gone through.
Rachel was crying, teething again, and how many teeth did she need, for God's sake? Surely she ought to be done by now. Cuddy kicked off her high heels and went upstairs to the nursery. She found Rachel's pacifier on the floor, where she must have thrown it, and went to the bathroom to wash it with hot water. She used to sterilize the pacifiers properly until she saw all the other things that Rachel put into her mouth. She popped the pacifier in her daughter's mouth, and then headed back downstairs. She hadn't eaten since the slice of toast with low-cal margarine she'd had for breakfast, but she was too tired to cook, and even calling for takeout seemed to require more energy than she had. She settled for a couple of Rachel's arrowroot cookies. Cuddy lay down on the couch trying to read a report on the costs and benefits of outsourcing food services, but she was too tired to focus her eyes properly.
She was almost asleep when the doorbell rang.
Of course, Cuddy had imagined this moment many times, ever since House had gone missing. She'd pictured him on her doorstep, and there he was, just as she had imagined, grinning at her, as if nothing had happened. Wilson was there too, a few steps behind, looking uncomfortable. At least Wilson seemed to realize that four months without a word required some kind of apology or explanation.
Then Cuddy hugged House, and there were tears of relief in her eyes that he was safe and alive. Wilson was still hanging back, so Cuddy reached out to him, and then Wilson was in her arms. She opened her door wide, but for some reason they both seemed reluctant to enter – as if the passing months had made them strangers who needed a formal invitation.
"Come in," she said, and she led them into the living room. House and Wilson sat on the couch, leaving the stuffed armchair for Cuddy.
"If you're going to ask for your jobs back I can't promise you anything. You've upset and worried a lot of people. Even the police were involved. They found your cane at Wilson's house. They had this ridiculous theory that Wilson killed you and then killed himself. They said you would never have left it behind."
"I left it behind because I don't need a cane anymore," House said.
"I can see that. You're not even favouring your good leg. Is that why you left? To pursue some kind of unorthodox, probably illegal, treatment?" She frowned and turned to Wilson. "What about you? Your patients depended on you. Your behaviour was highly unprofessional."
Cuddy's husky voice was reproachful.
"It would be even more unprofessional," said Wilson, "for me to see them in my current condition. I couldn't trust myself to act in their best interests anymore."
Cuddy nodded. She thought she knew what Wilson meant. She knew that he had suffered from depression in the past.
Wilson looked at House, who nodded, and then Wilson stood up.
"I'll go to the kitchen and make some tea while House fills you on things. You're teabags are still in the right-hand cupboard?"
Cuddy nodded, "Coffee for me, though, if you don't mind."
She noticed that as Wilson walked between House and the coffee table, House reached out as he edged past. House's fingers just brushed against him for a fraction of a second, but Cuddy knew in that instant that they had a physical relationship. While Wilson waited for the water to boil, he searched Cuddy's cupboards for sugar or honey. Hot, sweet tea was good for shock, and that was why Wilson was making tea instead of the coffee Cuddy had requested, but all Cuddy seemed to have was artificial sweetener. Finally he found a couple of paper sachets of sugar from a fast food place lurking at the bottom of Cuddy's junk drawer.
He came out bearing the cup of tea just in time.
"She doesn't believe me," House said. "She wants proof."
"Don't prove it to her the same way you did with me," Wilson said. "It's much too dangerous not to mention upsetting. Where's a mirror? One of those little ones women use to check their makeup would be okay."
"You think the lack of reflection thing won't upset her. You get freaked out and you've been a vampire for months!"
Cuddy took a sip of the hot sweet tea.
"There's a mirror in my wallet," she said. "I'm not finding this joke at all funny." Wilson spotted Cuddy's purse and shoes where she had discarded them, at the bottom of the stairs. He retrieved Cuddy's wallet and handed it to her.
"At least I hope you're joking," Cuddy said, "because if you're not, you're both delusional. Folie à deux."
"A mirror won't reflect our images because we're vampires," House said.
"There's an ugly black swirl where our faces should be," Wilson said, as if the thought distressed him, and House gave him a sharp glance, warning him off that particular topic.
Cuddy looked at her own tired face in the tiny mirror and then House got up and stood next to her, and she adjusted the mirror so that it should reflect House's face. It didn't. There was tarnish on the mirror or maybe the angle was wrong. She looked closer into the mirror, into the centre of that dark swirling fog, feeling queasy. Then she blinked and her mind edited out what it did not want to see – something inexplicable and strange – and put what should have been there in its place.
"I see your face. Of course, I see your face," Cuddy said.

She lifted the cup of hot, sweet tea to her mouth, but her hand was shaking so badly that most of the tea ended up on her blouse.
Lisa Cuddy, pale and shaky, was lying on the couch, covered by an afghan. Wilson was in the kitchen warming up a can of chicken noodle soup for her. House sat down on the couch next to her, not quite touching her. Still he could smell her, the meatiness of her, and he could feel the heat radiating from her body. It was unsettling.
"I have a photograph of us – the three of us – from before. Wilson and I don't photograph any more, of course."
House took the photograph out from his pants pocket. It was a bit creased now. He showed it to Lisa.
"You've been my ideal woman, Lisa, ever since I first met you in university. You were so smart and confident and sexy. You still are. We had one night together and then it was over. I only got one chance with you, and I screwed it up."
"You didn't screw it up," Cuddy said. "I thought you were brilliant and sophisticated and handsome. You were older than I was and you'd been all over the world. You were very impressive. You were just a bit too intense for me. You took everything so seriously."
"I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you."
"I was twenty years old, House. I wasn't thinking about life-long commitments. I was focused on grades and exams and getting into a decent med school. It wasn't the right time for a serious relationship."
"And now ..."
"I've just found out that vampires are real and there are two of them in my house. I can't deal with anything else."
Cuddy sat up when Wilson came in bearing chicken soup and crackers. He set it down on the coffee table in front of her... A glance passed between the two vampires – permission asked for and granted? – and Wilson moved to sit next to House on the couch. She noticed how still vampires were in repose. They never fidgeted. Every movement was swift, controlled and precise. She felt their otherness for the first time.
"So what is being a vampire like?" she asked, between spoonfuls of soup.
House said, "We're stronger and faster than you are, and we self-select for intelligence, so as a group we're smarter than you are. We heal quickly and we are immune to disease and age. Theoretically, I could live for as long as the human race continues."
"Yes, I can see that you'd need your food supply," Cuddy said drily. "You must see yourselves as ranchers and we're a herd of big, fat, stupid cows headed for slaughter."
We kill because he have to. We have our ecological niche, like every species." House said sharply.
I'm sorry if I offended you. " Cuddy said. "I'll try another analogy. You live among us, and we do not recognize you for what you are. You are not part of us, and you do us harm. You're like cancer cells in the body."
Wilson got up, picked up Cuddy's half-full bowl of soup, and went into the kitchen. House glared at her. Cuddy shivered. This wasn't her old friend House; this was a predator, and she was his prey, and she couldn't afford to forget that.
Then House stood up and followed Wilson into the kitchen, and she could hear the low voices of the two vampires, although she could not make out the words. Cuddy got up and headed for the staircase, ready to run upstairs, grab her daughter and escape.
She was out of the living room and halfway down the hall when House returned.
Where are you going?" he asked suspiciously.
"I have to use the bathroom upstairs. The ground floor toilet isn't working," Cuddy said
"I'll just be a minute."
She went upstairs and headed for Rachel's nursery. She wrapped her daughter in a blanket and picked her up, praying that she would not wake up. She opened the window and looked out. It was a long drop – two and a half storeys since her lot was on a slope. With luck, she could make it herself without spraining an ankle or breaking something, but it was too risky with a baby.
Reluctantly she abandoned her plan. She put Rachel back in her crib, and headed for the bathroom. When she came back, House and Wilson were waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs. House had his arms around Wilson and he was nuzzling the back of his neck.
Cuddy felt a rush of anger. Twenty minutes ago House had been professing his undying love for her and now he was making out with his boyfriend in front of her. Even House had to realize how totally inappropriate his behaviour was. Except of course, House wasn't House anymore, and vampires were cold-blooded killers who didn't have any standards of behaviour.

Wilson was outside waiting in their S.U.V., and Cuddy should have felt safer with one half of the vampire menace out of the house, but she didn't. When Wilson was around, she realized, part of House's attention was always on the other vampire, but now House was focussed entirely on her.
"Becoming a vampire is like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly. As a human being, I had confidence in my profession but my personal life was always a mess, because I didn't believe in myself or know what I wanted and needed. There's a kind of clarity about being a vampire that's hard to explain. I love being what I am."
Does Wilson love being a vampire too?"
Wilson is having some minor difficulties adjusting," House admitted. "I had to rush the transformation process with him because I was on a deadline. I didn't have time to explain it to him properly."
"So the transformation can go wrong."
If you are fully committed to the process, if you follow my instructions exactly, and if you trust me completely, nothing will go wrong."
And if I refuse?"
I'm offering you a better life than you could ever dream of. There's no reason to refuse."
"That's not an answer."
"When I came for Wilson, I told him if he refused I'd have to kill him. I was telling the truth, because there was another vampire waiting for me, and I knew he'd kill Wilson if I didn't. Those were his rules.
I want you to accept because you want to, not because you're afraid to say no. If you promise not to tell anyone that vampires exist, I won't hurt you."
What about Wilson? You two are together, aren't you?"
Wilson's mine," said House. "I'm not sharing."
"I wasn't asking you to," said Cuddy. "What I meant was, how does Wilson feel about me joining you? "
Wilson likes you," House said.
"He's not jealous?"
You don't understand vampire relationships. Weaker vampires like Wilson accept that their protectors are going to have other disciples. Wilson isn't jealous at all."
"Maybe you want him to be?"
Suddenly, instead of being afraid, Cuddy just felt very tired. Damn, House, she thought, showing up on my doorstep and scaring me witless, instead of just picking up a telephone and asking me for relationship advice.
"What exactly are you trying to accomplish here, House?" she asked. "Are you trying to hurt Wilson? Is this expedition of yours a test to see whether he loves you or not? Or do you just like taking long cross-country trips?
Don't tell me you've come back for me, because I won't believe you. I may be your ideal woman. but you don't love me. In your whole romantic pitch, you didn't use the word love once."

Wilson had turned on the interior light and was reading his paperback. He put it down as House opened the driver's side door.
"You're draining the battery," House complained, switching the light off. He turned the key in the ignition and pulled away from the curb.
"Where's Cuddy? You didn't have to kill her?"
"You're always accusing me of killing people. I've never killed anyone except for food, which is more than you can say."
"So she's going to join us?"
"No, she wants to raise her daughter. I decided not to kill her. She won't tell anybody about us. She promised and besides she's an intelligent professional. She knows that reporting an encounter with real-life vampires would be career suicide."
House drove past his old apartment. He expected his car and his motorcycle to be in the parking lot, where he'd left them, but both were gone. He wondered what had happened to them.
"Anyplace you want to see again before we leave?" House asked. "We can drive by the hospital if you like."
"No thanks," Wilson said. "You know she invited us in, and she never revoked the invitation. That means that we can go back anytime we want."
"We could come back in a few years, when Rachel's a troubled teen who can't stand her mother. We could ask her again then," House said.
"Or we could just drop by for a visit. I wouldn't mind having someone else to talk to. Just the two of us all the time can be a little cramped. Though it would be a lot easier talking to her if she were a vampire."
"I bet she would have tasted delicious," House said, "like a fine wine."
He noticed Wilson's frown.
"Though not as good as you, of course."
- 14
- 15
- 16
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The Vampire's Apprentice