Chapter Text
~THEN~
Monday morning.
Violet walks into the hospital ten minutes early, wearing pale blue scrubs and a coffee she didn’t buy herself. Wilson had left it on her desk with a note that just said: “You’re not special. I was already going to the lobby.”
She smiled anyway.
It lasted until she saw the wheelchair.
House. In a wheelchair.
Coasting down the corridor like he was king of the burn unit, pushing himself with theatrical effort, his bad leg extended like a tragic relic from a battlefield no one asked about.
Foreman walked past him without blinking.
Foreman muttered, “No one’s even surprised.”
Chase tried to give Cameron a high five only to be ignored.
Violet said nothing. Just sipped her coffee. Watched the absurdity roll past her like a fever dream with a grudge.
House didn’t look at her. Not once.
But his voice echoed down the hallway loud enough for everyone to hear:
“Somewhere out there, a poor, deserving disabled person is enjoying my parking spot. I hope they choke on the moral high ground.”
Wilson sighed so hard from behind the nurses’ station, he nearly passed out.
___________________________________
Later
“House. It’s a wheelchair-accessible spot. You’re not paralyzed.”
“No. Just morally burdened.”
Cuddy pinched the bridge of her nose. “The ADA doesn’t exist so you can sulk in high gear.”
“She parks crooked.”
“She’s in a wheelchair.”
“So am I. Look at me go.”
He gave one dramatic push and knocked over a biohazard bin.
“House,” Cuddy said tightly, “your tantrum isn’t cute. You can’t intimidate a wheelchair user out of a parking space.”
“Then I’ll adapt,” he said, grinning. “Give me one week. I’ll prove I qualify.”
Cuddy stared at him.
“You’re betting me your own discomfort just to prove a point?”
“Wouldn’t be the first time.”
She squinted. “You last in that thing for one week—clinic hours, rounds, cafeteria traffic—and I’ll talk to Facilities.”
House raised a brow. “You swear?”
“I’ll consider it.”
He shook her hand with the smuggest grip humanly possible.
__________________________________
By noon, the wheelchair had crashed into three carts, jammed one elevator, and House had deliberately reversed into a vending machine that didn’t carry his chips.
“I’m adapting,” he said when Wilson passed him in the hallway.
“You’re regressing.”
“I’m fighting for my rights, Wilson.”
Wilson crouched beside the chair. “You know what’s easier than this? Therapy.”
“Is it covered by parking validation?”
“God, I miss when your self-pity was quieter.”
House grinned.
Wilson’s smile faltered.
Then he asked, like it didn’t matter: “You saw her, didn’t you?”
House didn’t answer.
Didn’t look up.
Just adjusted the wheels and rolled away.
Meanwhile…
Violet pretended she wasn’t listening.
Pretended she didn’t glance over her charts just to hear the ridiculous squeak of House’s wheelchair against linoleum.
Pretended her hand didn’t pause mid-note when he cursed after hitting the water fountain.
Pretended this wasn’t exactly the kind of distraction she used to secretly love.
But she said nothing.
And House didn’t say anything to her, either.
Whatever they were doing—
Avoiding?
Preserving?
Punishing?
—it was a cold war made of hallway stares and deafening silence.
Still, when she passed the Diagnostics lounge that afternoon and saw House spinning slowly in a circle to reach the whiteboard…
She didn’t speak.
But she left a sticky note on the board while he was out of the room.
One word.
Clockwise.
He found it.
And for the first time in weeks, he smiled.
Just a little.
___________________________________
House made it to Day 6.
Six full days of dragging himself around PPTH in a wheelchair, terrorizing interns, jamming doors, pretending to be helpless at the coffee cart, and clipping several ankles (none apologetically). He had a horn attached to the chair by Tuesday. By Thursday, he started doing three-point turns in crowded elevators.
Wilson had begged him to stop by Day 3.
“You’re making it harder for actual disabled people.”
“I’m raising awareness.”
“You’re raising cortisol levels.”
But House didn’t quit. He was so close.
Which is why it was all the more tragic, and hilariously inevitable, that he lost on Day 6, not to exhaustion, not to a confession, but to a vending machine.
*
Flashback: The Cafeteria
Wilson was mid-lunch when he heard it:
“YOU UNGRATEFUL CAPITALIST BOX OF LIES!”
He didn’t even look up. Just sighed.
Foreman peeked around the corner. “Is he…”
“Yup.”
“Again?”
“Mhm.”
House was trying to reverse his wheelchair uphill into the vending alcove to reach his sour cream and onion chips, which had jammed. Again. For the third time this week.
He had already written a four-page manifesto against this specific machine.
But this time, House didn’t just curse and bang the glass.
No.
This time, he stood up.
Fully. Loudly. Dramatically.
And kicked the machine.
Right in front of Cuddy.
And two nurses.
And a very startled woman in a real wheelchair, trying to refill her water bottle.
The silence that followed was long and biblical.
Cuddy blinked.
“You just stood up.”
House froze. Mid-lean.
“…No, I didn’t.”
“You stood up and kicked a vending machine.”
“Didn’t see any security cameras.”
“There’s literally a sign that says ’Area Under Surveillance.’”
“I identify as horizontal.”
“Get out of the chair, House.”
“No.”
“Out.”
“I still qualify emotionally.”
“Dr House.”
He sighed. Stood. Stretched his back. “It was the chips.”
Cuddy crossed her arms. “The chips?”
“They betrayed me.”
“Out. Of. The. Spot.”
“Big wheelchair thinks it’s won. But this isn’t over.”
“You lasted six days. I’m impressed. Now walk to Clinic duty like a grown man.”
House kicked the vending machine again, less dramatically. “You think this is a loss. I think it’s performance art.”
*
Later, in Diagnostics
House stormed into the lounge, dumped the wheelchair against the glass, and collapsed into his regular seat with a grunt. The limp was exaggerated for effect.
Foreman raised an eyebrow. “What happened?”
“I was persecuted.”
Chase looks up, “Let me guess. You lost the bet.”
“I liberated the parking spot.”
Cameron without looking up, “By standing up in front of witnesses?”
“She had no right to look that smug,” House muttered, glaring at the vending machine in his mind.
The room was quiet for a beat.
Then—
A sticky note appeared on the board.
Next time: Snacks first. Ego second.
No signature.
But the handwriting was unmistakable.
House stared at it.
And this time, he pocketed it.
He just sat back and grinned. Pained, petty, quietly pleased.
__________________________________
Later That Evening, Wilson stopped by his office to grab his jacket.
Violet was there, reading a chart.
“I heard he lost.”
She didn’t look up. “Tragically.”
Wilson chuckled. “Didn’t peg you as a fan of vending machine vengeance.”
“I’m not.”
Beat.
“…But I am a fan of sticky notes.”
He gave her a long look. “You know you’re driving him crazy.”
“I know.”
“You okay with that?”
She finally looked up, and for a second. Just a second. There was softness in her eyes.
“I’d like him to miss me a little,” she said.
Wilson smiled faintly.
“He does.”
___________________________________
House was late.
Which, in itself, wasn’t unusual. He’d made tardiness a sport. But this morning, something about it sat wrong. Foreman noticed it first. No witty text, no clatter of his cane down the hallway. The conference room felt off without his bitter sarcasm humming under the fluorescent lights.
Then came the email.
All physicians under disciplinary review must report to the state board hearing by Friday.
Wilson was the first to read it. His face paled.
He didn’t have to guess. Not this time.
By noon, he found House not at his desk, not in Diagnostics, but in the janitor’s closet, sitting on an upturned mop bucket, clutching a pill bottle with white-knuckled hands.
Wilson stepped inside and shut the door behind him.
“So. They’re serious.”
House didn’t look up. “Usually are when the words ‘felony’ and ‘unfit for duty’ make the rounds.”
Wilson exhaled, long and tired. “You have to detox. Immediately. Not tomorrow. Not after one last refill. Now.”
“I know.”
Wilson blinked. “You—what?”
House finally looked up. His eyes were bloodshot. Not from withdrawal. Not yet. Just exhaustion.
“I know,” he repeated. “They found the forged scrips. The pharmacy flagged it. They brought it to Cuddy. Cuddy brought it to legal. Legal brought it to the board.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“What’s there to say?” He leaned back against the cinderblock wall. “I’m out of lifelines.”
For a moment, Wilson said nothing.
A beat passes.
“Does Violet know about this?”
House didn’t answer.
“You haven’t told her?”
Still, silence.
Wilson stepped forward. “I think she deserves to know.”
“No,” House said. “She deserves better.”
__________________________________
The clinic room was dimmed, blinds drawn, air conditioning too high. House lay on the cot, a saline IV in one arm, his whole body curled slightly against the ache beginning to burn under his skin.
This wasn’t his first detox.
But it might be the first one he wasn’t running from.
He’d signed the papers himself this time. Wilson had watched.
Three days.
Three days of supervised withdrawal or they’d file criminal charges for drug fraud. Immediate suspension. License revoked.
This was mercy.
But it felt like hell.
___________________________________
The first hint came when Wilson dodged her eyes in the hallway.
Not the usual I know something snarky about you dodge. This was tighter. Like he was holding in a secret too big to joke about.
Then, House’s pager went off during a consult, but the nurse said he was “on leave.”
On leave?
House never took leave unless someone died. Or unless someone made him.
That’s when Violet started looking.
___________________________________
She found Wilson in the oncology break room.
Coffee. Empty chairs. The hum of a vending machine no one used anymore.
“You were avoiding me,” she said, arms folded, voice even.
Wilson didn’t look surprised. Just sad.
“He didn’t want you to know.”
“He never wants me to know. That’s how he lives. God, I shouldn't even be pissed. We were nothing in the first place.”
“Not this time.”
“Then what?” Her voice cracked, barely. “What is he doing?”
Wilson hesitated.
“Detox.”
That one word hit her like a stone.
“Now?”
Wilson nodded. “He had no choice. State board found the forged prescriptions. They gave him a deadline. Get clean, or face felony charges and lose everything.”
She blinked. Her throat went dry. “Why didn’t he tell me?”
“Because it’s House. He doesn’t want to be seen like this. Especially not by you.”
Especially not by the woman who once left him to heal alone.
___________________________________
It was afternoon when she found the clinic room.
Cuddy had let her through with a quiet nod. No words.
Inside, it smelled of antiseptic and sweat.
House lay curled on his side, visibly shaking, clutching a blanket like it might anchor him to the mattress.
He hadn’t shaved. He hadn’t eaten. His eyes flicked open when she stepped inside, but he didn’t speak.
He didn’t have to.
Her breath caught at the sight of him. Fragile. Burning. Not reduced to nothing, but damn close.
She pulled up a chair. Sat quietly.
He watched her for a moment before turning his head away.
“You’re not supposed to see this,” he rasped.
“You didn’t give me a choice.”
“I didn’t want to be a burden.”
“You never were,” she whispered. “You just never trusted me enough to let me carry any of it.”
His jaw tightened.
Then she reached out—slowly, carefully—and laid her hand over his.
He flinched at the touch. Not in pain. In shame.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” he said.
“You’re already doing it.”
She laced her fingers through his.
And for the first time since they parted, he didn’t pull away.
___________________________________
The hospital let House go that afternoon.
Not because he was better.
Because there was no more they could legally do. His vitals were stable. No seizures. No suicidal ideation. Just the slow, jagged unraveling of a man trying to claw his way out of hell one molecule at a time.
Wilson was supposed to drive him home.
But Violet was already in the lobby with his discharge paperwork in her hand.
She didn’t ask.
She took the keys from Wilson, nodded at the nurse, and helped House into the car herself.
Wilson hesitated.
“You sure?” he asked, brows drawn, voice full of layered meaning.
She turned, quiet but certain. “He doesn’t want anyone to see this.”
“You’re not just anyone.”
“I know.”
Wilson looked at House, slouched in the passenger seat, jaw clenched like he’d rather bite through bone than accept help.
“Call me if it gets bad,” Wilson said, stepping back.
“It’s already bad,” Violet replied. “That’s why I’m staying.”
___________________________________
House’s apartment looked the same as it had two months ago.
Except dimmer.
As if the light itself had grown cautious.
She helped him inside slowly, an arm slung around her shoulders, his cane forgotten in the backseat. He didn’t argue. He didn’t joke. He just moved, stiff and wordless, one step at a time.
When they reached the couch, he collapsed into it with a groan.
She stood there for a moment, letting silence thicken between them.
Then she moved. Efficiently and quietly.
Blankets.
Water.
A small bowl of ice cubes for his neck.
She dimmed the lights.
Closed the blinds.
Made the room as quiet as she could.
House didn’t say thank you.
But his head tilted toward her, as if listening for a breath he didn’t deserve.
*
He didn’t sleep.
Not really.
He trembled and jerked, teeth gritted, sweat soaking through his T-shirt. His body was a live wire, desperate and panicking, every nerve screaming for the thing he couldn’t have.
Vicodin.
Just one. Just one pill to shut the noise down.
But there were none. She’d emptied the apartment. Every drawer, every bottle, every hiding place. She even checked the piano bench.
And he knew it.
So he suffered.
And she stayed.
Sitting on the floor beside the couch, knees drawn up to her chest, fingers brushing over his wrist when he shook too hard. She kept ice water by his lips when he was too feverish to think straight.
Around 2 a.m., he finally spoke.
“It’s crawling under my skin.”
She looked up.
“My spine. My chest. It’s moving.”
She didn’t blink.
He swallowed. “Don’t let it win.”
“I won’t.”
*
By the second night,
The fever broke around midnight.
It returned by dawn.
He started hallucinating.
Not vividly. Not yet.
But his eyes flicked around the room like he was following something invisible.
“Don’t,” he murmured, once, eyes locked on the corner of the ceiling.
She moved toward him.
His head snapped to her. “She’s in the corner.”
“Who?”
He blinked.
Then shook his head slowly. “Never mind.”
She sat beside him again. He leaned into her without asking.
“I see you,” he muttered, voice barely audible. “Even when I shouldn’t.”
Her hand moved to his back. Light. Steady.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not.”
“You will.”
Her fingers curled slightly against his shoulder. “Then let me lie a little longer.”
*
It hit around 4 a.m.
At first, the apartment had taken on a strange stillness — not silence, exactly, but the kind of eerie quiet that settles after a storm and before another. A limbo of discomfort. Pain ebbed and flared like waves against bone.
House hadn’t moved in hours.
Until suddenly, he did.
A warning groan, the sound he made when nausea built to a point past reason, and then he shoved the blanket aside and staggered, too quickly, off the couch.
His body buckled mid-step.
He crashed against the wall, then slumped to his knees.
Violet was there before he even called her name — not that he would have.
She knelt beside him just as the first retch came, violent and dry and guttural. His fingers clawed at the floor; he couldn’t catch his breath.
The second wave hit harder.
She held his shoulders, firm and steady, adjusting his position so he didn’t choke. When the bile finally came, she barely flinched. Just reached for the bowl she’d placed nearby hours ago, anticipating this.
She didn’t recoil.
She didn’t grimace.
She just wiped his mouth with a damp cloth when it was over, crouched beside him on the cold hardwood, her knees red from the pressure, her breath slow and even as his came in heaves.
“Don’t look at me,” he gasped, voice thick with shame and acid.
“I’m not,” she whispered.
But she was.
Gently.
Deliberately.
Like someone who wasn’t afraid of what he was.
His body trembled — from pain, fever, rage at himself.
And she stayed.
One hand on his back, the other brushing the damp hair off his forehead.
She didn’t say I told you so. Didn’t say you deserve this.
Just:
“You’re okay. It’s just the drug leaving.”
And in the quiet that followed, when the tremors eased and he leaned against her like a man too tired to pretend anymore,
House let her hold him.
Just for a minute.
Just long enough to remember what mercy felt like.
*
Later, hallucination so cruel, it was almost cinematic.
He saw Violet.
Not the real one. Not the quiet, patient figure curled beside him with a cool cloth. But a version burned into his mind. The one who smiled in the conference room, clipboard in hand, eyes bright with discovery. The one who used to argue, match him, make him ache with how completely she saw him.
She was standing by the piano.
Wearing that ridiculous cardigan she always forgot to take off. Barefoot. Smirking.
“You look like hell, House,” Dream-Violet said.
He tried to speak.
Nothing came out.
“You keep waiting for people to stop loving you,” she said. “And then you make sure they do.”
He blinked. “You left.”
“You let me.”
He reached for her.
But she was already gone.
*
On third morning, he woke up gasping.
Violet had fallen asleep in the armchair, head tilted against her hand. When he jerked upright, she jolted awake instantly.
“Nightmare?”
“Dream.”
“Good or bad?”
“Worse.”
She stood. Walked over. Sat beside him again.
His hand found hers under the blanket.
Didn’t squeeze. Just held.
Like a drowning man clinging to the edge of a raft.
*
By the third afternoon, he could eat toast.
Barely.
She brought it to him without comment. No fuss. No condescension.
He took it. Sat up a little. Chewed slowly.
“Why are you doing this?” he asked finally, voice hoarse.
She looked at him. Not pitying. Not angry. Just there.
“Because I love you.” There was no pretense when she said that.
He stared at her.
“I’m not saying that to make you better,” she added, softer now. “I’m saying it because you don’t believe anyone should.”
Silence.
“You shouldn’t,” he said.
“But I do.”
He looked down.
And whispered, “I don’t know how to deserve this.”
She leaned in, kissed his forehead.
“You don’t have to earn everything, House.”
___________________________________
Wilson came by the next day.
Let himself in with the spare key.
Stopped in the doorway.
Saw House on the couch. Pale, disheveled, exhausted—but alive. Awake. Eating cereal.
Violet was curled beside him, one hand absently tracing circles on the fabric of his sleeve.
House looked up at him. Met his eyes.
Didn’t joke.
Didn’t lie.
Just nodded.
Wilson smiled faintly.
“Guess I’m not needed here.”
“You never were,” House rasped.
Violet rolled her eyes. “He’s lying.”
Wilson shrugged. “Good. I missed that.”
He left the groceries on the counter.
Told them he’d be back later.
And for the first time in a very long time, he left without dread in his stomach.
___________________________________
The sun had already risen, though you wouldn’t know it by the state of the apartment.
The blinds were still drawn, casting a pale gray wash over the furniture. Shadows clung to the corners of the room. The couch, crumpled and sunken, was still damp with old sweat and crumpled blankets. The faintest scent of saline and bleach lingered in the air.
Gregory House hadn’t moved for hours.
Not from exhaustion this time, not from fever. Not because his body was revolting from lack of opioids. That storm had passed.
It wasn’t relief.
It was emptiness.
The kind that echoed.
He lay flat on the couch, eyes open, staring at the ceiling like it might offer something — a reason, an answer, a numbness that hadn’t already been stripped from him.
Everything in him felt raw. Scraped. Not just physically, but in a way that made him feel like a man made of nerve endings.
The worst part wasn’t the pain.
It was the silence in his mind.
He could hear everything now. Too clearly. His own thoughts sounded louder than they ever had with Vicodin muffling them — all jagged and chaotic, looping in cruel, sharp circles.
You’re not the man she thinks you are. You’re not the man anyone should love. You’re nothing but the mess you tried to medicate.
He closed his eyes.
They stayed closed for a while.
And then he felt it — soft, barely there: the couch dipping beside him.
The familiar rustle of her hair.
A breath, slow and even, not far from his ear.
Violet.
She didn’t say a word.
She never announced her presence like Wilson did—with worry or analysis or gentle lectures dressed in compassion. She didn’t fill the space with reassurances he couldn’t stand to hear.
She simply was.
That alone was staggering.
He turned his head, just slightly.
She was lying next to him on the couch, one leg curled beneath her, the other draped lightly over the blanket he hadn’t bothered to straighten. She wore a soft, worn sweatshirt and pajama pants that probably weren’t hers. Her face was bare, lashes casting faint shadows against her cheeks.
Her hand — steady, warm — was moving slowly, rhythmically, along his chest.
Just her fingertips.
Just a soft rub over the cotton of his T-shirt, like she was tracing the shape of his heartbeat.
It startled him, how badly he needed that.
Not even the touch, but the fact that she was still here. After all of it.
After vomiting. After hallucinations. After he called her every ugly thing his shame could weaponize. She had stayed.
And now she was quiet.
Soothing.
Unflinching.
Her fingers moved again, brushing lightly over his sternum. Not possessive. Not sexual. Just there. Just grounding.
He let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding.
“Still alive?” she murmured, not opening her eyes.
He huffed softly, the closest he could get to a laugh. “Physically.”
She nodded. “That’s a start.”
Her hand stayed where it was, gentle and slow.
He didn’t know how to name what was happening between them. Didn’t want to ruin it by trying.
He just knew he hadn’t felt this safe in years. Not since before the infarction. Not since before pills became survival.
Violet shifted, just a little closer. Her forehead now touched his shoulder.
“I should be used to silence by now,” he said hoarsely.
“But you hate it,” she whispered back.
“Sometimes it’s worse than the pain.”
Her hand paused, then resumed. “It’ll get easier. The quiet won’t always echo.”
He didn’t respond.
They lay there, unmoving.
At some point, he turned slightly, not enough to startle her, but just enough to let his arm brush her hip. Just enough to feel her warmth along his side.
He closed his eyes.
The withdrawal was over. The damage wasn’t.
But he could feel her breath rising and falling near him.
And in that silence, for once, he wasn’t completely alone.
___________________________________
It was almost 5 p.m.
The sun outside slanted through the blinds in slices, golden and lazy. The fever had broken for good. The nausea had retreated. House wasn’t better, but he was no longer unraveling.
He hadn’t moved from the couch in hours. Not because he couldn’t—he could. He just hadn’t found a reason yet.
Violet padded into the living room, holding two mismatched mugs.
“Ginger tea,” she announced, gently nudging his foot.
He looked at her like she’d just offered him a live scorpion. “You made tea.”
“I also didn’t poison it. I know. My mistake.”
He smirked faintly, sitting up with a groan. Every joint ached. His shirt clung to his back. He hadn’t changed in three days.
Still, he took the mug. Sipped.
And blinked in surprise.
“This doesn’t taste like grass.”
“Thank you.”
“You’ve poisoned me before, haven’t you?”
She didn’t deny it. “Maybe just emotionally.”
He chuckled softly, the sound brittle but real.
Violet set her tea down and settled across from him on the other end of the couch. One leg curled under her. She watched him over the rim of her mug.
“You need a shower,” she said suddenly.
He didn’t argue.
He just raised an eyebrow. “You volunteering to supervise?”
Her lips twitched. “Do you want me to?”
House paused.
His smirk faltered, became something softer.
“I want… something.”
That was as close as he could get to honesty in that moment.
She understood.
*
She laid out towels.
Found a clean shirt that might still fit him and left it folded on the counter. The shower steamed gently behind the door, fogging the mirror. He stood at the threshold like someone approaching a shrine, unsure if he’d be let in.
“You’ll feel better,” she said, leaning against the doorframe.
“You keep saying that like it’s guaranteed.”
“I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t.”
That quieted him.
He stepped inside.
Violet waited outside the bathroom, sitting on the hallway floor like a sentry.
She heard the water run.
No curses. No shouting.
Just the sound of him stepping back into something ordinary.
When he emerged twenty minutes later—damp-haired, pale, barefoot, shirt clinging to him like paper—he looked cleaner but just as wrecked. Like a man who’d fought the sea and come crawling back to shore.
Violet stood. Met him in the hallway.
“You look less… haunted.”
“I still feel like roadkill.”
“You smell better than roadkill.”
“Thank you.”
*
Back on the couch, she handed him a plate.
Toast. Honey. Sliced apple. Nothing fancy.
He ate slowly, watching her the way people watch fires—not afraid, just mesmerized by the warmth. She was also eating.
“You stayed,” he murmured.
“You needed someone.”
“No. I needed you.”
That made her go still.
He meant it.
And not because she’d held the bucket. Or wiped the sweat. Or cleaned up the mess. But because he couldn’t imagine crawling through those hours without the sound of her voice anchoring him to the room.
Violet swallowed hard.
He reached out, slow, clumsy. Brushed a crumb from her lower lip.
She looked at him. Breath caught.
He leaned in.
Careful.
Tentative.
Their mouths met in a kiss so quiet, it could’ve been a thought.
Just the press of his lips against hers. A whisper of a moment.
Her hand slid up to rest lightly against his jaw, fingers tracing the curve of his stubble.
For ten seconds, it stayed soft and still.
A sigh into him.
A closing of space.
And then—
snort.
House pulled back, confused.
“What—?”
But it was too late.
Violet was laughing.
Utterly, helplessly laughing.
A hiccup of a giggle first. Then a full, contagious ripple of laughter that cracked from her ribs and tore through the quiet like a match to dry leaves. She doubled over, hand clamped to her face, eyes shut tight.
House blinked at her, stunned. “Did I… miss your mouth?”
She shook her head, gasping through tears.
“Then what—?”
She couldn’t answer.
She was laughing too hard to breathe.
He watched her, dumbfounded for a beat—then, finally, something softened in his face.
A lopsided smile bloomed, lazy and crooked.
He ran a hand through his damp hair and leaned back against the couch.
“Well,” he said. “There goes my remaining self-esteem.”
Still giggling, she slid closer to him, pressing her forehead to his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she choked. “I don’t even know what happened. You were just… so sincere. And your face was… I don’t know, it just happened.”
“Good to know I’m a punchline in your nervous system.”
“You kissed me like it was the last ten seconds of your life.”
“It felt like it was.”
Violet quieted. Her laughter dissolved into something breathless and warm.
She looked up at him.
He wasn’t mocking her.
He wasn’t wounded, either.
He was just… there. Soft-eyed. Steady. Calm in the ruins.
And for the first time since she’d come back to Princeton, he looked at peace.
Not the desperate, spiraling kind.
But the kind that dared to be quiet.
That wanted, still, even after the worst of everything.
Violet exhaled, curling into his side.
Her hand found its way to his chest again, right over his heartbeat.
She rested her palm there.
Didn’t say anything.
Didn’t need to.
House’s hand covered hers.
And for once, he didn’t try to fill the silence with wit or sarcasm or fear.
He just closed his eyes.
And breathed.