FF: What Things Are (Part 5)

[elliestories]

Title: What Things Are
Author: Ellie
Rating: R (for adult themes)
Spoilers: Post-“Who’s Your Daddy?”
Notes: This is the final part of this. Thank you to everyone who's provided comments and concrit.

Previously:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Comments

[crumpled_up]

I love you.

You are brilliant! I love your style. I love the way you completely capture Cuddy's loneliness and her feelings towards House. I love everything about this series. I'm slightly sad to see this end, but it couldn't have been any better! The way House kept asking if she was ready and the way Cuddy kept reassuring him... beautiful.

Half a second later, she loved him more for walking away.

They’d known each other long enough for her to know every reason that it was a bad idea, predestined to end badly. Yet she knew, too, every reason it could work. The late night of pizza and beer and a snowball fight when he was supposed to be helping her write up organic lab results. That one night of drunken, amazing sex the night before her graduation. The way he knew just what to say to make her laugh, even when she didn’t want to. The way he watched her when she wasn’t watching him. The way he’d walked away.This part just made me melt inside. It's just so... beautiful. I think beautiful is my favorite word to describe this. :P It's

[elliestories]

Thank you so much! No one would turn down "beautiful" as a compliment on anything!

Now go catch up on your bio so you can be the next House ;)

[jordan386]

i just read all 5 parts....you did a brillant job with the story. you got the characterisation down to the point.....thats makes it the story worth reading, it was full of emotions and made me want to keep reading more and more......

i really hate to see the story end......maybe a sequal??? lol

ur last closing "together, they slept"......ohhhhhhh perfection......cant describe another wise....

great job

[elliestories]

Thank you!

I have no plans for a sequel at this point, because frankly I'm not sure how it would work out between the two of them.

[elliejgirl]

Awwwww... that was sweet, but not too sweet. Very nice ending.

[elliestories]

Thanks! I was trying really hard to keep it from being saccharine, and I was worried about the end of this.

[ijemanja]

A lovely, thoughtful piece from start to finish. And in the end, nothing is easy, but they're going to try anyway, and I really like that.

[elliestories]

Thank you, it means so much coming from someone whose writing I enjoy! I liked the idea of ending on the note of them trying in spite all of it, however it might work out.

[pwcorgigirl]

I love this. House/Cuddy is my secret weakness, but this is also so well done. Cuddy's well-hidden loneliness is drawn just right, as are her thoughts about how she's come to be at this point in her life. And your House is just perfectly House -- outwardly cranky, hiding his own pain, and yet letting her in. Plus, the line about wanting to do a lobotomy was hysterical!

The details are wonderful: her pearls and chai as armor and sword, baking banana bread to distract herself, House's calculations about the bottles on the piano, that very true, very sad observation she makes about the color of her wine.

And you've hit it absolutely right that these are two people who have long been friends and who admire and respect each other -- even when they've arguing at the top of their lungs. That gives a strong foundation to all that goes on here, as they work their way backward into a different kind of relationship.

[elliestories]

As someone who admires your writing, I'm so thankful for your kind words about this piece. I'm glad you appreciated all the little details (I'm rather partial to the lobotomy bit myself!), because it really seems to be the little things that make up the relationship between these two. There seems to be so much backstory with these two that the show hasn't shed much light on.