Chapter Text
When the hospital found out House asked Cuddy to marry him, no one could really believe it.
Wilson physically genuinely laughed when House told him the story of how he’d taken Cuddy behind her favourite local Italian restaurant and gotten down on one knee. Half out of disbelief, and half out of a bit of fear.
Not fear, per se - but concern. Concern for House; whether he rushed this decision or if that’s what he really wanted. Concern for Cuddy; worry for if she’d get what she and Rachel needed from him. and worry for the hospital and how a marriage between the clinically insane, drug addicted head of diagnostics and the dean of medicine who actively enables him and his addiction would go for the hospital and itself.
The disbelief came from the fact that House was the one to propose. The man who’d spent 50 years of his life swearing off the concept of marriage - since he’d learned what the word ‘marriage’ meant - was the one to propose to his girlfriend just because he could? He didn't even show her affection when they were dating. They constantly argued and it was constantly his fault.
When the team found out (through the hospital gossip grapevine because House would never bring that up) their reactions ranged from sharing Wilson's disbelief to laughing at the thought of the consequences.
Foreman let the corners of his mouth lift for the first time in a long time while at the hospital. He was genuinely happy, because as much as he’d like to protest, he saw himself in House nowadays and if there was hope for House, there was hope for him, no matter how dysfunctional.
Chase laughed under his breath, tucking his bottom lip into his mouth as if to say, “wow”. He was genuinely happy for the guy but couldn’t feel like this was going to make House any happier. No matter what happened in House’s life, he found a way to blow it all up and have that come back in the faces of his team.
Taub didn’t show it but he couldn’t believe it either, and how it came so soon after his own marriage fell to pieces. It almost felt like a taunt, House shoving his healthy relationship in his face and saying, “look, I can hold this down but you can’t”. Obviously he wasn’t, but Taub selfishly wished for them to come falling down in some dramatic way, so long that dramatic way didn’t impact him. (That was never going to happen.)
Masters’ eyes lit up and she smiled that wide, genuine smile. She knew House and vaguely knew Cuddy, but she hadn’t known them long enough to think this was probably a bad idea. In her mind, anything that made House happier would make her life easier, and would help her and the rest of the team focus on the patient at hand at any given time.
House and Cuddy didn’t mention it publicly for a long time. House actually kept his promise this time, however mostly for selfish reasons. When he told people he was dating Cuddy, that was a brag, something to show off and tote despite her pleading not to tell anyone for a while. This time, it was almost like he was afraid. Afraid for his team and the other staff members of Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital to see him in such a vulnerable state. Didn’t want to admit he might’ve been wrong about marriage.
Cuddy went almost the opposite way. Against her better judgement, she wore her engagement ring on her finger in the days afterwards, but dodged any questions about it, subtly changing the subject as best she could. She wanted to tell people, wanted to scream that she was getting married, but didn’t want the potential judgement that came with the idea of people knowing she was marrying House. Both from a HR perspective and from a “House? Really?” perspective, because she knew what people thought of him, and it was not positive.
House didn’t even tell Wilson, which was crazy. Despite House’s public perception of being a completely closed off loser, there wasn’t much about him that Wilson didn’t know. And if there was, and House was hiding it on purpose, Wilson would find out in a matter of days, if not hours. So the fact House was able to hide an engagement as well as the fact he was even planning a proposal from him was astounding and it made Wilson feel a lot of emotions. He was hurt that House hadn’t come to him first, but could understand that a little. Another part of him was genuinely impressed he was able to hide something of this magnitude from him, but at the same time that worried him; what else was he hiding?
The person who could believe this news the least however, was House. He had genuinely, actually proposed to someone. Someone who loved him, who made him a better person (albeit a worse doctor, but he was willing to make that sacrifice), and someone he could see himself spending the rest of his life with. He’d never felt this way before about anyone. Sure, he’d loved Cuddy for years, and constantly made those snarky sexual comments at her, but he hadn’t realised until they got together how much better she made him. Knowing made his life a lot better and himself a lot happier.
It also scared the shit out of him.
Since the muscle in his leg had been taken and Stacy had left him, he had felt unlovable. There were no parts of himself he considered redeemable, as much as his persona exuberated confidence. Having someone see through him and admit they loved all of the parts of him, including his flaws, made him scared to death. Even though she loved him, he had to change now. For her.
The proposal wasn’t a reaction to fear. It was a reaction to love, and a reaction to his brain telling him you have to do something about this now, or you’ll lose this forever. And that was scarier than having to change.
So, now he stood in front of his team, hooking his cane onto the whiteboard, about to attempt to diagnose a patient with their help, acting like no one had heard anything and acting like nothing was wrong at all.
“So,” he swallowed, avoiding all eye contact with the four fellows at the table in front of him, who were smiling like sharks waiting to get the first snarky comment about his engagement (well, Masters wasn’t. She just wanted to help the patient.)
“What causes a rash, headache, and an inability to sneeze?” He says, placing an emphasis on the last symptom. It was the strangest out of the three. They saw rashes and headaches all the time, but never an ability to sneeze. Last night, when Masters was with the patient, she noted that he kept trying to, but could never let it out, and House took it on board because it made this case more interesting. And the more interesting the case, the more he could care and the more attention he could get off of himself.
Chase, Foreman and Taub shared a knowing look between them and Chase spoke just as Masters was opening her mouth to give her opinion on the patient.
“Are we seriously not going to talk about this?” Chase asked, raising his hands in the air, letting the topic go unspoken because surely everybody knew exactly what he was talking about.
“The patient’s ability to sneeze? No, that’s what I was trying to talk about,” House snips back at Chase, but there’s less behind it than there usually is. There’s no malice, no poison, just a pure deflection. His tone is the same but it doesn’t silence Chase and the team like it normally would.
“Lack of sneezing could be caused by the nerves in the nasal cavity,” Masters says all-too-quickly, trying to speak and diagnose this patient before someone could interrupt her and speak about House’s engagement again. She sighs and takes a deep breath. “Although, I’m not even sure the lack of sneezing is a symptom. It could be unrelated or circumstantial.” She snorts after she ends her sentence, nervously laughing about the possibility of being wrong and screwing up this whole case.
The other three let her speak and then just as quickly whip their heads back to House, completely ignoring her and her concerns for the patient.
“Come on, it’s a big step in your life,” Taub says, basically pleading with him to reveal the idea that something might’ve gone wrong.
“And meningitis is a big step in our patient’s life.” He caps the whiteboard marker solemnly, before throwing it on the table, startling Masters.
“You think it’s meningitis?” Masters asks.
“Fits all the symptoms. Boring answer but it works. Chase, Bert and Masters. Go do an LP and test for it and come back to me.”
Everyone stands up and starts walking towards the patient’s room, before House calls out.
“Foreman.”
Everyone else leaves swiftly.