Dresden Files, House, M.D. 1. Chapter 1

**Weh-hey-hey! Another story, I know, I have no willpower but I mosied my way into Waterstones the other day and demanded my fix of the Dresden Files and came over all inspired. I just can't seem to help myself. **

**Okay, if you haven't read the fabulous Dresden Files books by the one and only Jim Butcher then throw aside the rock and crawl out into the real world, they're FABBY!**

**The idea is that Harry Dresden is the savvy and sarcastic only phone book registered wizard in Chicago. I was reading them (the books) and thinking that Hugh Laurie should be the one to play Dresden if they ever made a TV series and lo! They did, but no Hugh Laurrie. So I thought, next best thing: have a House/Dresden Files crossover. **

**So here we are. This will be EXTREMELY AU and is purely for my own giggles and the sheer joy of writing the conversations between Harry and House. **

**No ties to reality. **

**Lots of Huddy and lots of smut though, when I get around to it, so that should make up for a lot. **

**If you want to know about Harry Dresden and can't be bothered reading a book, go and watch some of the telly series. I haven't personally seen it, but according to the one and only IrnBruOrDeath, it's da bomb!**

**Anyways, tell me what you think and if you think it's crappy I'll post it in the book section! **

**Chapter 1: Blast from the Past**

Cuddy let her head fall back and sighed expansively at the high vaulted ceiling of Chicago National Airport. What, in the name of all that was holy, had she ever done to deserve _him_? She snapped her head down and stared at Dr Gregory –effing- House as he sucked on a red lollipop and trailed after her like a lanky and antisocial puppy.

"Right then, oh fearless leader, are we still late?" He demanded coolly as he sidled up to her, his sneakers squeaking on the linoleum flooring.

She turned away to hide a small smirk. She had been pretending, for the last several hours, that they were both woefully late for the diagnostic conference they were both here for. Well, House had begged to go and the board had only agreed to put up the money for it if someone went with him as a chaperone. It was at that point that all eyes in the room had turned to her. She still couldn't quite believe that she had agreed to come. She should have just said no and then put up with his pouting and moodiness.

"Hey, why aren't we rushing anymore?" He demanded, lifting his cane and prodding her in the hip with it.

"Because we're not actually late, I booked us on the earlier flight. We have several hours to get there." She informed him and snatched his cane out of his hands.

"Give it back!" He told her and staggered towards her, trying to snatch it back.

"Do you promise to behave?" She demanded and whipped it out of his reach, unheeding of the way she nearly took an unfortunate traveller's eye out. She had more important things to be worrying about.

"Never." He grinned down at her and limped a little forward so that he could rest his hand on her wrist. Heat bolted up over her skin and wrapped around her throat, making it a little harder to breathe. Damn the man, he had no idea how good he was at that. Her senses locked onto him and she was aware of the texture of his skin against hers, the way the light reflected out of those bright blue bottomless eyes, the way his voice sounded as it dripped honey-like in her ear, the cool scent of his aftershave and the temptation in her tongue to lap out and taste him.

"Lisa? Lisa Cuddy?"

The spell was broken and she turned, careful not to give House an excuse to fall against her as she did so and looked to the source of the voice. The familiar scent of leather reached her nose and her eyes widened as a grin curled her full mouth.

"Harry Dresden!" She laughed and shoved House's cane back at him before running into the waiting arms of Chicago's friendly neighbourhood wizard. He was a tall long limbed man, built much in the same way House was, but with sharper hawkish features and dark, almost black eyes. He lifted her smaller frame right off the floor and spun around on a laugh. Cuddy laughed with him and was only slightly dizzy as she was set back down on the floor.

Harry Dresden, professional wizard stood tall before her and looking healthier than he had in a long time. His long black leather duster swirled about him, he wore cowboy boots under jeans and a black silk shirt open at the throat to reveal his mother's silver pentacle hanging there. He looked over her with a similar approval.

"You're looking well, Cuddy-cat, how long has it been?"

Cuddy blew a breath out as she thought about it. "Too long. How's business?"

"Booming, unfortunately for Murph." Dresden grinned and rubbed at the back of his neck and up through his short dark hair his eyes fell on House and he stilled, his hand protectively on Cuddy's elbow. "And you are?" The wizard's voice was cold as he demanded it of the doctor and House couldn't fail to notice it.

Cuddy stepped in between the two men and made introductions before House could open his mouth and get a face full of summoned wind for his troubles.

"Dr Greg House, meet Harry Dresden. He's a private eye." Cuddy told the half truth so smoothly that House missed the shadow of a lie there.

The two men looked each other up and down and Harry turned to Cuddy with a single raised eyebrow.

"Good god, no!" She blurted before she could stop herself and softened her tone when House scowled at her. he had remained oddly silent so far and was obviously working up to something. "We just work together. We're both here at the diagnostic conference."

Harry's brows rose. "Very elite, so I hear. You _that _Greg House?" He asked of House politely enough.

"The one that breaks the rules and does his boss? Yeah, that's me." House said brightly and leant on his cane. "All expenses paid and a King size, she insisted on coming." He jerked his head at Cuddy who sighed and waited for Harry to plant one ion Greg's face. The spirit of chivalry was alive and well and resided solely in one Harry Dresden. Harry looked between them, his mind snapping like a whip. She spoke quickly so as to avoid a brawl.

"So what case are you working on at the minute?"

Harry didn't look away from House before he was tempted to initiate a soulgaze just so he could rattle the bastard a little. He looked like he needed a good rattling. A soulgaze is something that happens when a wizard's gaze meets another person's. You literally see the other person's soul and vice versa, it can be both amazingly fantastic and nightmarishly horrific. You can never forget a soulgaze, no matter how much you might want to and Harry knew that his soul was something rather shocking to look on, judging by the way certain people had reacted to it. He still had scars from when Lisa had seen his soul. To be fair, neither of them had been expecting it and he would guarantee that Greg House wouldn't expect that kind of confrontation.

"Animal attacks. All over the city." He said eventually and tore his eyes away from House before he really was tempted to make him suffer a little.

Lisa's brows rose. "Really? Any fatalities?"

"Not so far, but a ten year old was put into ICU last night." Harry said it heavily as if the weight of the injury rested on his shoulders. Greg snorted and popped a vicodin.

"What kind of idiot lets their ten year old out at night when there are reports of animal attacks?" He grumbled, people really were idiots.

"The boy was asleep in his bed when it happened. Not outside." Harry said it and looked down at Lisa. She nodded slowly. She rested her hand on his arm and didn't see how House tracked the movement with a tightening of his jaw.

"We'll be in town for a week. Let me know if you need any help, okay?"

Harry nodded on a smile. "Probably just an escaped tiger or something like that, we'll have it wrapped up within the week. Besides, I've got help already. Just going to meet his flight." Harry jerked a thumb over his shoulder to indicate the direction he needed to go his reply was mindful of House. He didn't know how close he and Lisa were, but the guy didn't move like he knew her _really_ well, so Harry decided to veil his words a little bit.

"I mean it. None of this male pride crap. You need me, you call." She whispered in his ear as she hugged him once and then stepped away before House made a snide comment. She smiled brightly at him. "I'm at the Whaldorf, we'll have to meet for dinner sometime."

Harry nodded. "Sure thing." He waved over his shoulder as he turned to leave and then strode through the crowd. It wasn't difficult to track his movements, he stood a little taller than most and cut a swathe that was plain in the bustling crowds. Cuddy turned back to House to find him standing much closer than she had been expecting, she didn't step back, but she was forced to arch her back away from him a little. He looked down at her with thoughtfully narrowed eyes and then spun around as elegantly as he could and hobbled for the exit. Cuddy frowned and stalked after him. People moved out of her way as easily for her as they did for House.

She caught up with him in a few clicking strides of her Prada heels. "What? No witty remarks about Harry?"

House looked down at her and momentarily distracted her with the way his tongue lapped over his lollipop. "Do you want me to?"

"No, but it's out of character."

"So is you having a friend I know nothing about. Especially in Chicago. I know you used to spend your summers here when you were in med school, but I never knew _why."_ He said it with a rather significant smirk and a bob of his eyebrows at her.

She rolled her eyes as her case wheeled along behind her. She had already slung his bag over the top of hers so he didn't have to carry it. Something he was grateful for but didn't plan on thanking her for at any point in the near future. More worryingly, she didn't deny his insinuation. Had she been coming here to meet the leather coated PI Dresden? He watched her as she walked along beside him, a small smile on her lips and she turned once to search the crowd for Harry, picking him out in the distance and only moving on after she'd seen him. That was an uncomfortably familiar gesture, House thought. He decided then and there to be as rude as possible if a certain Harry turned up again.

They walked together out of the airport and he hailed a cab. In an uncharacteristic fit of chivalry, he went to help her with the bags and stood back in vague surprise when she tossed both of them in the trunk single handed. He didn't know what she had packed but he knew that _his_ bag weighed at least twenty pounds. A little bit like Cuddy shouldn't have been able to swing that. Hell, he didn't think even he could have tossed that with one hand.

She caught him staring. "What?"

He shook his head. Too much vicodin after all those vodkas on the plane he decided. "Nothing." He answered her and slid into the cab as she rounded the opposite side and sidled in next to him, giving the address down to the street name of the hotel. She really did know Chicago apparently. House stared out at the bright lights of Chicago town and mulled over the mysterious Harry Dresden.

How did he know Cuddy? How did she know him?

Was he really a private eye? Why had she been so interested in the animal attacks? Why did she think she would be of any help in an investigation?

Were they involved? Did they want to be?

Why did he care so much?

House scowled and turned to see Cuddy staring out her own window with that same little smile on her face. She looked like she had just come home after a long time away. He hoped that was directed towards the city and not to a certain leather wearing investigator.

She sighed a little and settled back in her seat. He found himself letting his eyes wander over the way her 'See What You're Missing' suit that she was wearing. He supposed he shouldn't care. He supposed she should have any guy she wanted. He supposed that he should be that guy, damnit.

He sat back with a thoughtful expression on his face and wondered if he could use this time away from Princeton to convince her around to his way of thinking.

Now that would be fun.


	2. Chapter 2

**Okay, doke, here we are with chapter 2. this is what I was inspired to write with today. So if y'all don't like it then I might just cry…if I can be bothered. **

**Anyways, to Eleanor J, yus House is jealous and about to have a hell of a lot more to deal with by the end of this chappie. Heheheh. I'm eeevil. **

**As I say. VERY au in this fiction but the ideas I have for it are good, so just give it a chance. **

**Pleeeeeez read and review. **

**Chapter 2: Unexpected Words**

Lisa Cuddy sat back in her chair with a cavernous yawn that showed sharp white teeth and stretched back, twisting her arms up into the air with a flexing pop of bones. She let her arms drop to fold behind her head and tangle in her hair as she shut her eyes and hummed softly to herself. She was kind of glad she had come to Chicago now, even if she did have to put up with House. She was looking forward to catching up with Harry, even if he had no intention of taking her to dinner, she would track him down. She missed him. Cuddy's eyes opened and her gaze dropped a little as the smile slipped from her lips. She wandered if he would miss her when she was gone.

She shook her head rapidly and pushed the thought away. No point in thinking about that now. She had made her decision and she was going to live with the consequences. She nearly laughed at the irony but let the matter drop before she did. Her skin itched and her feet burned with the need to run. She needed to get out of this hotel room. It was spacious, granted, but she still felt a little claustrophobic. She surged to her feet and crossed the room to rummage through the drawers where she had unpacked her things. House lounged on the other king sized bed. The only room that they could afford was a double. It was nice enough but sometimes Cuddy thought the hospital was conspiring to have the rumours about the two of them come true. Why not get adjoining rooms? But then again, she was only the dean of medicine, what did she know about propriety?

He tossed peanuts up into the air and flickered a glance her way, tearing his gaze from a General Hospital re-run. He watched her yank a tank top and sweats out of the drawer and then pull off her suit jacket. For one gleeful heart-stopping moment, he thought she had forgotten he was there and was about to get changed but then she turned and stalked to the bathroom.

"I was watching that!" He called after her and she turned in the doorway and shot him a look. The door slammed behind her and he grinned when he heard the click of the lock. His gaze wandered back to the television and only slid away again when the door opened again.

Cuddy stalked out in a pair of tight fitting cut-off black sweats and a matching tank top. Interesting. She wore nothing underneath either of the garments, which was surprising when she was built as curvy as she was. She tugged on a pair of slip on running shoes without socks and then tied her hair back into a loose tail with a snap of the hair band over her fingers. His eyes moved to the window and he saw the ruddy smears of sunset over the city. He sat up and frowned at her.

"It's getting dark, you shouldn't go out there." He told her, surprised at the protective streak in himself. She frowned, if she got hurt it just meant he had to go home early, that was all he was worried about, he decided.

She glanced at the window and stretched a little, sorting the clothing into comfortable places. House was momentarily distracted. He hadn't known she could bend like _that_.

"The track's only a mile or so. I'll be back before full dark."

"It's stupid. There's got to be a gym downstairs."

She shrugged. "There is…but I don't like gyms. I like outside." She told him and headed for the door. He lunged up and off the bed and wrapped his fingers around her arm. She stopped and looked down rather pointedly at the contact. They didn't touch. Ever. It was one of the rules that he had just broken. She reached down and removed his hand with surprising strength. "The park's well lit and I'll be fine. This is my city, House. I know what I'm doing." With that, she turned and walked right out of the hotel room.

House considered going after her for a moment or two but decided that it was really her choice. For all he knew, she had someone downstairs, another old friend, meeting her to go for a run. He looked down at his leg and scowled. The wave of resentment that rose in his chest was hot and hard. If he wasn't such a damn cripple then he could have gone with her. Women shouldn't run alone at night.

He sank back down onto the bed and scowled, trying to refocus on General Hospital. Instead, his gaze kept trailing back to the door and waiting for it to open. He knew he wasn't going to feel easy until she walked back through it.

That annoyed the hell out of him.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHDRESDENHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

The beast padded through the park on silent obsidian clawed paws. It moved through the shadows as if it were part of them. Whiskers twitched and the tail swished low to the ground. Leaf litter made no sound as the predator moved over it. The setting rays of the dying sun shone through the leaves over head and dappled bloody gold on the black on black silky coat.

Small pointed ears flicked to and fro, taking in the many sounds of the waking night. The heartbeat of a nearby fox, terrified at the sight of such a large animal coming through its small territory, the claxon call of migrating geese overhead, the sound of beetles clacking over the bark of trees, the hissing grumble of cars on the roads and the patting beat of a runner's shoes on the path not two meters beyond the tree line in which the animal hid.

The smell of expensive perfume over sweat and endorphins reached the raised velvety nose of the hunter. A satisfied smile kicked the inhuman lips. This would be fun.

Crouching low, violent blue/green slit pupil eyes tracked the coming of the unwary jogger. They had no idea they were being watched. With a sudden flash of movement and a silent bound, the hunter was up the tree. Shining black claws gripping the bark and pulling nearly three hundred pounds of muscle straight up without effort. The hunter picked a strong branch and padded along. Sinking down on her belly, she let her tail hang down and twitch lazily right over the pathway.

The jogger came on. A petite but athletic woman, arms and legs moving with graceful strides. Breath heavy but not laboured as she pounded her way along the track. She was locked in her own rhythm of movement, completely unaware of anything around her. Silly rabbit, she should really be more wary, there were lots of nasty little, and not so little, beasties roaming the streets and parks of Chicago at sundown.

The hunter gathered herself, ready to drop down within inches of the jogger and scare the living daylights out of them. Her claws unsheathed to knife-like proportions, her lips pulled back over massive ivory canines and her powerful shoulders rolled as she readied herself for the pounce.

Then the wind changed.

A sudden alien and nauseating scent pushed at the hunter's nose and she reared back with a coughing sneeze. The jogger slid to a halt beneath the hunter and looked around, panting, for the source of the sound. When finding nothing, she shrugged and moved off again, falling into her easy running rhythm.

The hunter shook her head and her ears flattened against her blunt aristocratic skull. Her nose wrinkled into a silent snarl as she raised her nose and sniffed the air, zeroing in on the source of the horrific smell. Her ears twitched forward and were ready to cup any sounds of the other hunter in the night.

The hunter recognised the scent. Something huge and dangerous. The smell of carrion mixed with wet cement and damp mouldy earth. The scent of decay in a building and mildew. The hunter snarled.

This was her territory, she had no intention of letting anyone else hunt here.

The hunter bounded down out of the tree head first, claws biting hard into the tree bark and slowing her descent. She hit the ground running and exploded out of the tree line into an easy spring-spined lope that ate the ground with silent strides.

The thrill of the hunt was on.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHDRESDENHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

"You're sure it's here?" Harry asked for the hundredth time as he looked down at the tall man beside him.

Blane nodded and rose to stand slightly smaller than Harry. Blane, for lack of better description, was a beautiful man. He was tall with a slim leonine build, triangular handsome face, golden eyes the colour of orange flame and long dark brown hair that tumbled down to his shoulders in a sleek wave of a mane. He was dressed all in black. Black jeans, black boots, black tee shirt and a black biker's jacket over that.

"All the other attacks were in urban areas though, what would it be doing in the park?"

"I'm not the investigator, Dresden, you are. I'm just here to help you find the damn thing."

Harry abruptly remembered why he hadn't wanted to call Blane up here. The guy may be one of the best trackers of his kind, but he had a stick up his ass the size of a redwood. Harry sighed and hauled his staff out of his jacket. "All right, come out, come out, wherever you are." Harry sang softly and the Blane looked over at him with an arched brow. Harry shrugged. "It was worth a try."

Harry and Blane made their way along the path. The Ishaaran stalked along with the wizard, his animal senses to the full as the approached the fountain that sprinkled a bright mist of moonlight caught water into the indigo sky. His fiery glowing eyes scanned left and right and Harry stopped by the fountain and frowned as he pressed his will along the length of his staff. The runes carved in the length of the dark wood lit brightly with a fiery glow and the tip hummed with energy like a gigantic lit cigar. A cigar that could blast almost anything a good fifty yards, but there you go. His frown deepened. There was something wrong with this picture. Now, if only he could put his finger on it.

"Harry?" Blane asked, his voice a quiet rasp in the too still night. Whatever it was, it was waiting for the right moment to strike.

"Yeah?" Harry levelled his staff a little higher, to striking height, and shook out his shield bracelet.

"Isn't there supposed to be a statue in that fountain?" Blane pointed out and Harry whirled.

He shouted a warning to the Ishaaran even as he jumped forward to shove Blane out of harms way but the monster was too quick. With a roaring snarl and an explosion of water, it surged up and out of the fountain. Its roar echoed through out the park with a bark of cavernous thunder. There was, indeed, supposed to be a statue in the fountain. It was a statue of a Chimera (god only knew why) and some charming dark sorcerer/magic worker/ whatever had seen fit to animate the damn thing and attack the populace of Chicago. At least, that's they way it was looking right now.

The stone chimera roared and lashed out with on lion pawed limb to smash into Blane's chest. The werecat was sent sprawling with a grunt of pain. He soared through the air and smashed into the tree line. Disappearing into the dense undergrowth. He did not reappear. Harry whirled to face the stone chimera and swallowed as he raised his shield at the last instant.

The snake-like tail arched up over the twin headed beast's back and smashed down like a ten foot long scorpion might. The half dome of energy that was Harry's shield lit up with a bright white blue ring of magic. Harry grunted and sank to one knee as the bracelet on his wrist began to heat uncomfortably under the pressure of the blow. Damn, the thing was _strong_. The tail arced upward in preparation for another blow and Harry seized his chance.

He leaped to the side with a distinctly panicked sounding cry and tumbled end over end across the cobbled path. This gained him no reprieve. The goat head of the chimera swept down and hooked two long horns under Harry's belly, only the spells on his duster to toughen the leather and sheer dumb luck prevented the wizard from being eviscerated. Harry flew up into the air as the Chimera tossed the goat head with a laughing roar. He was the lion's head rush towards him as he yelled, out of sheer exhilaration and the love of his job he was sure, as massive marble fangs came dangerously close to his head and the crushing thereof.

A coughing yell of a roar cracked through the night and a part of the black sky detached itself and slammed right into Harry. Throwing him to the ground under the massive weight of the beast and, incidentally, saving his life. Harry tumbled with his furry saviour across the ground, only landing on the bottom once and rolling to a halt next to the marble wall of the fountain. His lifesaver was already up on its feet and snarling at the Chimera as the massive animated statue turned to them on clumsy mismatched legs.

Harry blinked, a little dazed, and took in the form of his new lucky charm. He blinked some more as he realised what he was seeing. A massive leopard stood over him. It was completely sooty black with darker rosettes covering its pelt like printed silk.

"Glad you finally decided to join me, Blane." Harry muttered and tried to haul himself to his feet. The black leopard turned to him and gave a disdainful snort.

Blane was even more impressive in his leopard form than he was in human form. He wasn't just big, he was _huge_. Over seven feet long from nose to swishing tail and nearly four feet at the shoulder. A slinking body of pure muscle that was sturdy but not stocky and weighing in at a comfortable two hundred and change pounds. Twice the size of any normal leopard. Definitely a creature with which one did not fuck.

"Any thoughts or feelings on how we might deal with this one, buddy?" Harry asked as he levelled his staff at the Chimera. It bellowed at them and began a charge.

Blane gave a rumbling snarl that would have put a Rolls Royce to shame and dropped to a crouch, massive shoulders rolling in preparation for the spring.

"Sounds like a plan." Harry agreed and raised his staff with a snarl. "_Fuego!"_

A tongue of fire as thick as Harry's leg lanced out of the end of the staff and cannoned into the Chimera. The beast roared and reared up onto its hoofed hind legs, paws lashing the air as the fire blasted and splashed over its scaled hide. Harry let the spell subside and the fire lanced out into quiet.

Harry gaped.

"Not fair." He whined and Blane snarled again and slunk off to the side. Bluish green eyes glowing like lamps in the night, head low and on the prowl.

The chimera, instead of being at least partially melted by the blast of fire, seemed to have enjoyed it. It turned on Harry, twin mouths gaping with an ominous glow starting in their throats as they stared at him. Of course, Harry thought, real chimera can breathe fire. How stupid of me. Harry bolted to the side with a yelp as a blast of fire headed his way. He soared straight over the marble edge of the fountain and plunged into the frigid water. The blast of fire hissed on the surface of the water and it was the only thing that saved him from becoming crispy fried.

The tongue of fire cut off and Harry came up gasping. He spun around and gaped at what was occupying the chimera now. Blane had taken it upon himself to practice his climbing skills…on the chimera.

He clung to the statue's shoulders with claws buried into the stony scaled flesh. Massively powered jaws twisted and wrenched at the sensitive vulnerably spot there as Blane tore at his foe.

"Way to go, Blane." Harry muttered even as his mind raced. Fire didn't work. Wind wouldn't do much good against the stony beast either. It had the strengths of a real chimera, did that mean it had the same weaknesses too? Great, what were a chimera's weaknesses?

Harry scowled and dripped his way out of the fountain. The damn beasts didn't have any, aside from a possible multiple personality disorder.

Blane was apparently having the time of his life while tearing chunks out of the big beastie. Dodging the hammering blows of the snake head tail while ripping and clawing at the back of the goat and lion heads.

Harry continued to think. Okay, it looked acted and blasted fire like a chimera, but it wasn't. You just didn't find them this side of the Nevernever anymore. It had to have a weakness, an off switch. If someone had switched the damn wind up toy on, you could bet your ass that there would be a way to turn it off. Okay, statue animation, it was a golem which meant that…there! On the snake's head.

The snake lashed down and buried its fangs in its own flank instead of catching the bounding Blane. The panther ripped off a lion ear in retaliation for the affront of being snapped at and the chimera bellowed in pained frustration.

"Blane!" Harry yelled to his friend. "The snake head! Destroy the snake's head!"

Blane caught Harry's words with nothing more than a flick of his ear. He gathered himself and then pounced, twisting through the air when the snake tried to move out of his way and catching the sinuous length between four mighty paws the size of Harry's face. Blane's blunt head darted forward and jaws powerful enough to snap bones like toothpicks clamped at the base of the snake's head.

The chimera went insane.

With a yowl and a buck it leaped into the air like a huge and terrifying bronco. Its tail lashed wildly and it screamed in agony as Blane wrenched his head back and forth and proceeded to gnaw the tail off while holding on grimly to his madly swinging perch.

Blane suddenly went flying through the air, the snake head and a good portion of neck clamped between his jaws. He twisted in the air and landed smoothly on all four paws.

The chimera went stock still and gave a pained wail as it slowly transformed back into its original, inanimate self. A good twenty feet from its original perch in the fountain but a statue once more at any rate.

Harry staggered over to where Blane was crouched over the still writhing snake head. He gripped it tightly in his jaws and growled a warning at it when it tried to slither away. He let it go and it wriggled madly before Blane gave a playful yowl and pounced on it. Classic cat with mouse behaviour. Harry frowned, he had seen Blane in his furry britches before and the big solemn Brazilian had never even looked like he knew how to be playful. Chew your head off and enjoy it? Yeah, that was more Blane's style but toy with a severed and magically animated snake head?

Didn't really fit with Harry's experience of the big werecat. Mind you, the Ishaaran were a tricky race to read.

"Alright, Blane. Let me kill it." Harry sighed. He was tired, soaked and cold and the damn overgrown kitten wanted to play.

Blane gave a small growl and slammed a dinner plate sized paw over the snake's head. It hissed and writhed. Its stone fangs dripping poison uselessly into the grass. The glowing runes on its head stood out clearly in the night. Harry crouched down beside it and was eye level with Blane. He frowned slightly as the big cat winked at him with one blue orb. He hadn't known that Blane could change his eye colour along with his pelt when he went all fuzzbucket. Harry shrugged. He could ask him about it later.

He reached down and scrubbed his thumb through the E of Emet that was moulded onto the snake's triangular head with golem animation clay. No, you could not pick that up at your local art store. The snake abruptly went still with one last plaintive hiss and coiled into its original position.

Blane looked down at his toy with a low grumble of disappointment in his chest. He patted at the still stiff snake head with a huge paw and then looked at Harry with an accusing glower on his feline features.

"I'll get you a catnip mouse or something. Now go and get changed into your other suit. It's time for us to make tracks." Harry told him as he stood. He could already hear the sirens approaching in the distance and he didn't really fancy standing around and giving an eyewitness account to the local PD. He may have friends in SI, but SI weren't exactly a popular bunch themselves.

Harry watched as Blane gave a disgruntled snort and then loped off into the bushes. Presumably to change back. Harry waited impatiently his heel drumming against the ground. After a few minutes, with sirens getting uncomfortably louder. Harry waded towards the trees to haul the Ishaaran out by his damn tail if he had to. He stopped in surprise as a racking cough preceded the battered Blane out of the trees.

"Damn, Harry, that hurt." He coughed.

"You were doing fine a minute ago. I thought the change doesn't hurt."

Blane frowned. "It doesn't. I was referring to being smacked by a damn Chimera and then having to thrash around in the bushes and reset my own ribs." Blane did look a little more concave in the torso area now that he mentioned it.

"Well, you dealt admirably through your pain while gnawing off a snake tail." Harry said dryly. He really did prefer Blane as a leopard.

"What are you talking about? I haven't chewed off anything."

"But you just…" Harry jerked a hand over his shoulder and froze. "That wasn't you? There's another Ishaaran wondering around here?"

"No…" Blane trailed off and tilted his head as he caught a familiar spicy scent. His eyes lanced Harry's with a sudden glare. "She was here. Why didn't you tell me she was in the city?" Blane demanded and Harry realised his blunder too late. Damn, he hadn't for a moment thought it had been her.

"Where is she?" Blane demanded. Fire high in his eyes.

"If she wanted to talk to you then she'd contact you. She hasn't. Get over it." Harry started to stride away and Blane followed after him.

"She's mine, Dresden. If you don't tell me where she is, I'll find her myself."

Harry weighed the options. He rounded on Blane, his features harsh. "If I take you to her and she says no, again, then you have to take it this time. No means no. Got it?"

"She won't say no. I'm her last chance." Blane affirmed.

"If she says no, you leave her be, that's the agreement. Take it or leave it."

"Or what?" Blane demanded.

"Or I make myself a new rug." Harry growled at him. His eyes gleaming ominously in the dark as he towered over Blane. The werecat thought for a moment.

"Alright."

"Your oath."

"If she denies me again, I'll leave her alone. You have my oath on it." Blane said formally and Harry nodded.

"Alright then, this way." Harry stalked out across the dark grass as the police arrived at the scene behind them. The wizard and the Ishaaran slunk away silently into the night and melted into the shadows.

They were never seen.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHDRESDENHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Cuddy hummed to herself with satisfaction as she jogged along the corridor towards her room. She whipped the key card out of the belt of her sweats and panted out a breath as she slid to a halt and clicked the card into the magnetic lock. It blipped but the door swung inward before Cuddy could open it herself. House stood on the other side, stony faced.

Yikes, she knew he had been pissed about her going for a run, but still. There was no reason to be that annoyed about it. She brushed past him into the room.

"What's wrong with you?"

"We have guests." He growled at her and Lisa froze as she saw the two familiar men standing in the middle of the sitting room part of their suite. She recovered quickly and wiped the shock from her face. She nodded to Harry as a tempest of heat crackled in her eyes. He was going to be sorry for this.

"When I said to come and see me, Harry, I didn't think you'd come this quickly. I would have dressed better." She said low and dangerous.

The other man rose. He was as attractive as she had remembered him and just as repulsive then as now. Her eyes narrowed and her lips pulled back over her teeth, the expression was not a smile.

"Blane. What brings you North?"

"Harry asked me to come. I didn't realise you would be here. If I had known, I would have come sooner. It's been a long time since I've seen your face." He stepped towards her and reached out to touch her cheek.

She stepped back with a hiss of breath between her clenched teeth. House stiffened behind her and caught her elbow, shifting his weight so that he stood between Blane and Cuddy slightly. The tension in the room reached improbable proportions and Harry squirmed, he wished it hadn't come to this.

"Touch me and you lose that arm!" She snapped at Blane, unmindful of the way House's grip changed from comforting to restraining. Every line of her body thrummed with anger and aggression. House couldn't see the way her eyes gleamed and the way her pupils retracted into pinpoints of black on oceans of anger. She was incredibly close to losing control and she really couldn't afford to. Not now, not with House standing here, and not with Blane as witness to it. He would use it against her if he saw it.

Blane smirked at her, seeing exactly what she was trying to hide. His voice was silky and grating to her ears when he next spoke.

"Now, now, Lisa, is that any way to talk to your husband?"


	3. Chapter 3

**WARNING!! Fresh off the presses and not really betad, so forgive me some mistakes but I want to post this before I go abed. **

**Thanks. **

**Uum, not really a hundred percent happy with the way this one turned out. House and Harry in their conversation were nowhere as sarcastic and biting as I wanted them to be but I kind of got caught up in the Lisa-Blane side of things. **

**But I have found my little book of abuse and will be using it to reference some good comments for the coming chapters. **

**Thanks to everyone who is reviewing this, I'm glad folks are giving this a fighting chance because I am about to pile on the angst and fling plot bunnies at it until at least one of them sticks. **

**Cuddy's…situation will be explained in the next chapter or so, along with the introduction of Bob and a little background info on Ishaarans because it's kind of integral to the plot. **

**But I'll have to do some research on what exactly happens at a medical conference because I've no idea. **

**To Eleanor J: Read the books, they are so unbelievably excellent. I haven't seen the show but I would put money on the fact that the books are funnier. Like, laugh out loud good. **

**I love em. **

**Read and review kiddies!**

**Chapter 3: Old Rules**

Silence clattered through the room after Blane's voice mocked itself away into nothing. Cuddy's fingers tightened into fists so hard that her knuckles cracked and turned bone white. She saw House stare at Blane and then whip around to look at her. His mouth opening with words rather than just hanging useless from his face.

"But Cuddy, you can do so much better." He said with a hint of snide in his tone. He looked back to Blane like the slightly smaller man was something rather disgusting that had been stuck to the bottom of his cane. "Please tell me this was a drunken Vegas thing."

Just like that, at the sound of his mocking tone, her control stole over her once more like a heavy mantle. It settled heavy and comfortable on her shoulders as she held Blane's gaze. Her spine straightened, her fists unclenched and her eyes lost that blood lust gleam that had been so high in them a moment before.

"House, take Harry downstairs and buy him a drink." She said quietly, her eyes never leaving Blane's. Anger still crackled through her. She had been dancing around this since their first, and last, night together. She and Blane had unfinished business and she couldn't afford House to witness it.

House and Harry both turned to her, protests high on their lips but she silenced them with a look…not that she expected it to work on either of them. Harry got there first.

"No way! I know what this guy's like. I'm not leaving you alone with…" He trailed off as House's hand landed on Harry's arm. Cuddy pulled her eyes away from Blane long enough to share a non-verbal conversation with him. House nodded slowly.

"She's a big girl, Dresden and this is none of our business." He shot a look at Blane. "Though if he does hurt her we can both take turns in beating the shit out of him. Fair enough?"

Blane didn't look the least bit intimidated by the doctor's heavy stare but when Harry relented and took a step back before levelling his own dark glare at Blane, he did have the sense to swallow nervously. Both of the tall men left the room. One with a wet duster snapping around his legs and the other with the odd gait of a man with a cane.

The door shut with a near silent click behind them and Blane turned back to Cuddy. Her eyes gleamed a cold blue lanced with green lightening and he felt his resolve falter somewhat. She could be very intimidating when she wanted to be but he couldn't afford to let this opportunity slip by.

"I've left you alone for long enough, don't you think it's time you came home?" He asked her with a cool voice, trying not to rile her further.

He did not succeed. In fact, quite the opposite. Her shoulders tightened and her lips darkened slightly. Blane's senses went on high alert as she spoke back in a perfectly neutral tone. "I think it's time you got it through your thick skull that I have never, nor will I ever, be your wife. Now, leave here before I send you home in a box." Her voice darkened to a snarl at the end but she remained still. Her control was amazing. "My home is here not with you." She finished in more measured tones.

His shoulders tightened in an old outrage. "You'd sentence us both to this? It's not just yourself you have to think about, Lisa." He snapped, his own eyes brightening.

"There are any number of females that would have you, Blane. You don't need me. Any pain you suffer is due to your own stubbornness." She told him in a condescending voice.

"I don't want them."

"You don't want me either, you want the position I'd inherit from my parents." She snapped at him.

"That's what you think? You think I don't love you."

She laughed. A hardened bitter sound. "Blane, you don't know how to love. You don't want a partner. You want a thing you can own that will keep your bed warm and breed you children. I'm not that."

"You can't deny that you want children, I can give you sons, Lisa. Strong sons and beautiful daughters. Don't throw that away. Live with me, you will learn to care for me. Is having a baby, of your own looking up at you from your arms not worth that?"

She stilled a moment. Instinct and her own deepest desires warring with her head. It was true, she would have thought a child of her own would be worth almost anything…but it wasn't worth a prison in a backward world where her 'husband' would be synonymous with her 'jailor'. She shook her head sharply and his gaze darkened. "No, Blane, it wouldn't."

"I give you one last chance to come with me willingly." He warned her.

Her spine straightened and her brow arched. She made it clear she didn't think him capable of making her do anything. "It has always been my right to say no, Blane. You know that. If you force me, anything between us is void but if that's what it takes. If I have to beat you to a bloody pulp in order for you to finally get it. Then that's the way it has to be." She let her arms drop loose to her sides and face him calmly.

The tension was thick between them.

"Well?"

He thought furiously for a moment. Then made his decision. With a strangled snarl. He leaped right at her.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHDRESDENHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

House sat opposite Dresden and flicked peanut shells into an empty beer glass. They had both ordered drinks and then let them steep, barely touching them. Soft music played in the background, murmuring voices layered on top of that, but nothing could cover the screaming tension between the two men. Aside from the handful of words it had taken to order two beers. Neither of them had spoken a word. Harry was first to break the silence.

"Why did you leave her up there with him?"

House looked up. Laser blue eyes meeting nearly black. He shrugged. "It's her own problem, if she wanted me there then she would have asked me to be there." His voice sounded hollow, like he knew that was what she had wanted but he didn't have to like it any more than Harry did. "You left her too." It wasn't an accusation, but Harry took it as one anyway.

"You know her better now." It wasn't much in the way of an excuse, but it was the only thing that Harry had.

"But you know things I don't. You knew about Wayne."

"Blane." Harry corrected automatically.

House shrugged, his mouth twisted with distaste. "Whatever. The point is; that I'd never even heard of the guy and suddenly he turns up spouting that he's a long lost husband. I don't buy that, Cuddy doesn't want to be alone, if she had a husband, she'd try and make it work."

Harry nodded. "I don't think she's ever seen them as being together. Her family sort of…persuaded her to give it a go with him. She did, didn't like it and left his arrogant ass. The guy really is a prick." Harry scowled. Beginning to fully remember why he had been so reluctant to call Blane in the first place.

"Why do you work with him then?" House asked after taking a moment to digest that little gem of information.

"He's one of the best there is at what he does."

House smirked and snorted a laugh.

"What?"

"People say that about me all the time. Doesn't make me any less of an asshole."

Harry sat back on a sudden smile. He was beginning to warm to House. He doubted they'd ever be drinking buddies, but once you got past the narcissistic ass bit, he was a funny guy. A wisecracking asshole that inspired nearly everyone he met into fantasies of homicide directed his way…he was really too much like Harry for the wizard not to like him.

"At least you can admit it. Blane thinks he's…a pillar of human strength or whatever. The guy really gets on my nerves." Harry scowled and longed to go back up to the suite and drag Blane out by his GQ hair if necessary.

"So, how did you and Cuddles meet?" House swirled his beer in his glass, though he had no real intention of drinking the dark brew. He kept his tone casual, but Harry could see through that. There was a kind of tension between the two doctors, whether they wanted to admit it or not.

"Nearly twenty years ago now, a mutual friend introduced us and we worked a couple of cases together." Harry said, brushing over the details that might not be strictly canon for anything Lisa might have told House.

"Cuddy did the PI thing?" House sounded more surprised than Harry thought was possible, but then, Lisa had been lying all her life. It would be fairly easy for her to create a new identity for any state she happened to be living in.

Harry nodded and sipped from his own beer. He grimaced at the manufactured taste. He guessed he was spoiled with Mac's home grown brews. "Yeah, she was damn good at it too. You'd be surprised at how useful some decent medical knowledge can be in a case."

House tilted his head as if trying to picture that. He shook his head eventually, he couldn't. "That's a long way from Prada and power suits."

"People change."

"Everybody lies." House replied and looked up at Harry. The men shared a grin and a nod at each other.

"I'm beginning to warm up to you, House." Dresden informed him with another tolerant sip of his beer.

"I'm not your type and Cuddy's real possessive." House bobbed his eyebrows and decided he might as well drink some of his own beer.

Harry snorted and looked away. This guy was something else. He frowned as his gaze caught on something that didn't strictly belong in the expensively furnished lobby of the hotel. House twisted in his seat and followed the wizard's gaze. He swore softly under his breath as Blane limped into the bar. His shirt was torn, his hair mussed and there were several bruises on his face and neck. He held one arm awkwardly and made his way painfully towards Harry with a wince at every step.

"I'm going back to Brazil, Dresden." Blane said carefully. "Can you give me a ride to the airport?"

Dresden looked the battered Blane up and down and nodded once. He set his beer down and reached for his wallet. House stopped him.

"Forget it. I'll pay. You get this bastard out of here." His voice was a low growl and Blane actually took a step back from him as he stood. He tossed a twenty on the bar and then limped from the bar to go back up to his room. If that's what Blane looked like, what the hell had happened to Cuddy?

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHDRESDENHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

House jammed his key card into the lock and swung the door inward. The room was dark.

"Cuddy?" He called out. No answer. he snapped the light on and took in the signs of a hastily tidied fight. The table by the door and the lamp on it were askew. One of the pictures had evidently been knocked from the wall and then hung up again upside down. House followed the trail of destruction with ever increasing worry heavy in a frown on his brow. He checked out on the balcony, noting one of the glass panes in the doors was cracked and then limped through to the bedroom. "Lisa?" He called out a little louder this time and there was a muffled sound from the bathroom. He marched to the door and gripped the handle. Grunting in frustration when he found it locked. He hammered on the door. "Lisa? You in there?"

There was silence for a long moment on the other side of the door.

"Yes." Her voice sounded…wrong. To husky, to low.

House leant against the door. "Open the door." He ordered her. Judging by the state of Blane, she wouldn't be a pretty picture when she did but she'd need treatment.

Another long silence.

"No."

"Lisa, don't be stupid. You're hurt and you need help. Blane's gone. Dresden's taking him to the airport. Let me help you." House ignored the real note of concern in his voice. He would brush it away later with a sarcastic comment but right now he just wanted to make sure she was still in one piece.

"I'm fine, House. Go and watch TV or something."

"What?!" He demanded incredulously. "That guy looked like he'd been through a meat grinder. He was twice your size, you expect me to believe that you're completely fine?"

Another silence. "I suppose not."

"So you'll open the door?"

"No."

House ground his teeth and took a step back from the door. He eyed it calculatingly. It was pretty enough, but not very thick. He moved back to speak through the panel. "Open the door before I break it down." He told her.

"Don't be stupid, House." She snapped from the other side. He imagined her leaning against it. His mind conjuring all kinds of scrapes and bruises all over her. He braced his hands against the frame of the door when he realised they were shaking.

"I'm not being stupid, you are. Now open the fucking door before I do." He growled and there was another long silence…followed by the click of a lock. House grabbed the handle and twisted, yanking the door open. He strode into the room and stilled when he saw her. She sat on the floor, still dressed in her tank top and sweats, her feet were bare though. It took him a moment to realise that this was the first time he had seen her with bare feet. It threw him a little but he limped over to stand above her. Her head was tilted down and away from him. He knelt down beside her. Her hair was loose and covering the top half of her face as it swept down in a messy tangle.

"Did he hit you?" He asked gently as he took a hold of her arm and raised it for inspection. She was completely impassive, her arm limp in his hands as he examined her for signs of trauma. She was silent a moment before raising her head slightly, but still keeping her face turned away from him. He could only see her profile.

"Not hard." She finally admitted and anger lanced him, his fingers tightening marginally over her skin before he reined his temper in.

"Bastard." He growled and continued to check her over for bruises. It took him a moment to realise that she must have meant her face. It was the only place he couldn't really see properly. Most guys that hit women went for the face, anyway. He frowned as he took in the changes in her. When he had come into the room she had been cool under his fingers, now she was burning up, a sheen of sweat on her skin, her pulse hammered in the hollow of her throat and her chest was heaving as her breathing caught into short pants. She was trying hard to hide it, but she couldn't cover it completely.

"Cuddy, don't panic, it's over now. He's gone."

She hummed low in the back of her throat and sat forward suddenly, her arms wrapped around her belly and her head dipping down towards her knees. "Not panicking." She managed after a moment as he stared at her, not quite sure what was going on.

"What's wrong?"

"Hot." She gasped and his hand came down on the bare skin on one shoulder. He swore and snatched his fingers away. She wasn't just hot, she was burning. She had spiked a fever, a dangerous one, in less than a minute. He lurched to his feet and turned the shower on to arctic blast. The water hissed as it hammered down into the tub. He shrugged off his jacket and kicked off his shoes as she remained crumpled on the floor. He had to act fast if he didn't want her brain to cook.

"Come on, Cuddy. Get up." He ordered her as he slipped his hands around her and pulled her upright. She still kept her face turned from him as he hauled her to her feet and pushed her into the shower. She gasped and squirmed, surprised at the frigid water. "No." He stepped in with her and held her ruthlessly under the freezing water. He had to get her cooled down right now. "Stay here, you're far too hot." She squirmed and snarled once as she tried to wriggled away from him. House scowled and pushed her up against the wall, pinning her hands above her head. "I'm trying to help! Stop squirming!" He snapped at her and she tossed her head back, her hair splattering against the white tiles as her eyes met his for the first time. House stared. "Wow." He muttered, completely entranced by her gaze.

He'd never seen her eyes so…_blue_. They were deep pools of sunlit water with flashes of emerald lightening flashing in their depths. They seemed to take up his entire mind as he took them in. Her pupils had dilated, not surprising with a fever, and they seemed to swallow all the light in the room as she let her eyes rove over him with an almost predatory hunger.

"Okay." She panted. "I'll stay here."

The water really was cold, and he was taking most of it, but he didn't really feel it as the way her body was pressed against his seamed to be plenty wood to keep the internal fires going for the next decade or so. Their clothes were plastered against their bodies and House was incredibly aware of how it was only on layer of cloth over her curving body. Her breasts rose and fell against his chest with every gasping breath that she took. Her lips were dark and inviting as he let his gaze drop to them.

"You can let go of me now." She said softly and he blinked at the sound of her voice. Dragging his thoughts back to a less steamy section of his brain, or at least he hoped he was.

"Right." He muttered and cleared his throat, leaning back off her wrists and releasing them. She stayed like that for a moment, her arms over her head and then she slowly let them drop down to her sides. They watched each other for a moment. House wasn't exactly sure what had just passed between them, but he definitely knew that he was no longer in boss-subordinate territory. Somehow they had managed to wander through to man-woman-and-a-whole-pile-of-lust.

When she moved, he was ready for her. Her hands spearing into his hair and tugging his head down towards hers. Their lips met in a storm of contact and heat that should have turned the freezing water to steam. He pushed her up against the tiled wall with his body as she purred into his mouth and slid her tongue against his.

He had no idea why she was kissing him. He had no idea why she didn't have a single bruise or cut from her obvious fight from Blane. He had no idea why she had spiked that sudden fever and now seemed to be perfectly fine…and do be quite honest, he could have cared a whole lot more.

But he didn't.


	4. Chapter 4

**Okay, quick update before I die of hunger (the pasta is boiling). **

**Uum…jam. Read it and review it. **

**Otherwise, bit more Dresden-esque in this chappie and I have spent the entire weekend on watching house season three (SQUEEE) and I've seen all of it except for the last four episodes…can't find them yet. **

**Ack. **

**My favourite one, patient wise, has to be the one with the dwarfes. **

'**shall we go for a spin?' **

**SNERT**

**Aaaannnnd…fave Huddy moment so far has to be at the end of 'Act Your Age' and some of the bits in 'Airborne' as well. In fact, I liked 'Fetal Position' as well when Cuddy went all…House. **

**Oh, to hell with it, I loved the whole damn lot. **

**Frustrated that I can't see the last four eppies (wheep) and I wanna see them now!!! (pained flail). **

**Ag. This chapter's a bit crap, but I promise the next one will be better! (nods)**

**Chapter 4: Soon**

Harry sighed as he trudged down the stairs to his basement apartment in the old boarding house in which he lived. He unlocked the solid steel door that helped guard his apartment against evil spirits, blood-sucking vampires and the occasional Avon lady. Harry set the wards aside with a stretch of his will and heard the meow of greeting that was his only warning before thirty pounds of enthusiastic feline bounded down the steps behind Harry and thudded into his legs. Harry was no lightweight, but thirty pounds was a lot of cat. He stumbled with a soft greeting to Mister the mutant cat and staggered into his apartment.

Apartment was an optimistic description for it. It was a cave, really. Mostly subterranean, two rooms making up his living space, a hole in the wall for his kitchen, the bedroom was the other room with a similarly tiny bathroom with ice cold shower (magic and water heaters were a bad mix, as were lack of funds and electrical bills). The place was filled with furniture that was second or third hand but well maintained. The lack of working light bulbs meant that you couldn't really see the frayed edges or the mismatching tastes. A patchwork of rugs covered the bare concrete floor.

Harry shivered and pulled himself out of his clothes, wriggling into cool but dry fresh ones and setting the fire with shivery numb fingers. He was momentarily envious of Lisa in her centrally heated hotel room. His thoughts took the predictable turn to Blane and he scowled. He had been stupid to bring that particular cat up here and she had been the one to pay the price. True, he hadn't known that she would have been in the city for this particular case but still, he had brought Blane here so it was his responsibility if she got hurt because of it.

She seemed different. He couldn't quite put his finger on it but there was definitely something off about her. Maybe it was just because of this House guy. There was a history there, Harry was sure, he just hadn't figured it out yet. She had been…reserved, almost melancholy when she had seen him again. Her eyes had roved over him as if she had been trying to memorise every detail in his face.

Like she would never see him again.

Harry shivered harder at that thought and scowled as he rose to his feet and plucked a striped bathrobe from a hook embedded in the wall. He shrugged his way into it as he whipped aside one of the rugs on the floor to reveal a heavy trapdoor beneath. He hauled it upwards and lit a candle to show him the way down that didn't involve falling and concussing himself. The yellow flickering light showed him the way down the stepladder and Harry touched the tiny flame to more candles in his sub-basement lab. Light expanded through the lab to reveal a small square room taken up by three long work benches cluttered with various wizarding paraphernalia and a central one, leaving a slim walkway around it.

Shelves covered the walls cluttered with bottles, jars and Tupperware boxes filled with various ingredients. Some of them less savoury than others. Harry strode to one lone shelf that differed from the others. It was mainly empty except for a worn bundle of wax that had once been a candle, a set of worn romance novels and…a bleached human skull.

Harry picked up a legal pad and an HB pencil. He rapped the skull sharply with his pencil.

"Wake up, Bob." Harry pulled a stool closer to the work bench and sat ready to take notes on whatever Bob could tell him.

The skull flickered to life with twin fiery orbs blooming into existence in the empty eye sockets of the bone. The skull cracked a yawn without having muscles and tendons to move itself or its jaw. Never mind actually having vocal chords to make sounds with.

"What's up, boss?"

"Golems." Harry stifled his own yawn. "The chimera statue in the west park decided to come out and play with me and a friend tonight."

"Golem's eh, you're looking for a rabbi." Bob said off handedly. "Or anyone else that can perform a simple animation charm and happens to have a fair bit of power behind them."

"So, basically. A bunch of bad guys instead of a shortened list." Harry pointed out blandly and glared at Bob. Bob gave a skull's version of a shrug…or he was just trying to turn around, Harry wasn't entirely sure.

"Narrowed a little. Golem's are powerful spells to work. You'd have to have quite a lot of power to work anything, especially something is big as that monstrosity in the park." Bob pointed out and Harry tilted his head acceding the point. "Who was your friend?"

"What?" Harry really was too tired for these kind of conversations.

"You said you and a friend were attacked. Who was the friend?" Bob demanded.

"Ishaaran." Harry answered.

"Ugh, Blane. I note the resident asshole is no longer with us. Did he get squished?" The spirit injected a certain measure of malicious glee into his voice at the prospect of one smooshed werecat.

"Partially, but it wasn't him that helped with the scuffle." Harry said innocently and waited for Bob's amazing memory to put two and two together and come up with something miraculous.

"Cuddy-cat!" Bob crowed. Harry smirked. "That delicious female is in town and you didn't think to stuff me in your pocket and let me tag along?" Bob sounded more than a little offended at the thought.

"Yeah, that's great, I'll just mosey through Chicago airport with a huge bulge in my pocket while talking to a gorgeous woman. That wouldn't get me arrested." Harry said drolly.

"It's not like you haven't been arrested before." Bob pointed out and then went back to a more interesting topic. "So, when's she coming to see me?"

"She's in town for a conference with a colleague, I don't know if she'll have time." Harry frowned at the spirit. He and Lisa had always gotten along ridiculously well.

"Colleague a guy?"

"Yeah." Harry frowned. Since when had Bob cared about men. It was women he was interested in…or rather the lust they were capable of.

"Good." Was all Bob said and Harry's curiosity was well and truly piqued.

"What do you mean, 'good'?"

"It's about time she found herself a man. Time marches on et cetera." Bob tried to smooth it away.

"She'll live to be over five hundred years old. I don't think her biological clock has begun to scream yet." Harry pointed out and stilled when Bob looked away from him nervously. He hadn't even known that Bob could _do_ nervous. "Bob, what is it?"

"Nothing."

"Bob, I command you to tell me what you know about Lisa Cuddy." Harry sat forward. He didn't like Bob's tone.

"She's an Ishaaran female of particular hotness." Bob told Harry. Harry glared at him. "What do you know about the Ishaaran?"

Harry shrugged. "Not much. They keep pretty much to themselves."

Bob sighed. "Then you don't know about Ishaaran females and how…insistant their instincts can be." It wasn't a question so Harry didn't respond. "The Ishaaran are very powerful. They're smarter, faster, heal quicker and live longer than your average human…but they're also more vulnerable to their genetic programming. In humans, the need to reproduce is etched into you but some of you don't have it as strong as others. In Ishaarans it's an imperative."

"Bob, get to the point."

"Okay, if Ishaaran females don't mate then they die."

"What!?" Harry stared at Bob and then relaxed. "Well, okay, Lisa's gorgeous, there's no way that she's still a virgin." Harry said as the tips of his ears burned a little.

Bob snorted. "Harry, don't be obtuse. I don't mean 'mate' as in 'fornicate' I mean 'mate' as in 'soulmate'."

"You've lost me."

"Blane claimed to be Lisa's mate, right?"

"Yeah."

"But he wasn't. It was painfully obvious. If Lisa had really been mated to Blane then she would have found it physically impossible to stay away from him. They'd have been drawn to one another from across continents…or so the legends go." Bob gave another skull-shrug. He saw Harry's slightly dumbfounded expression and sought a way to make the wizard understand. "Okay, you know how sex between humans is a spiritual as well as physical experience? Even the most emotionally detached couples will have a certain level of connection with each other."

Harry nodded.

"The Ishaaran have evolved beyond that. When they take a mate they can literally blend with their partner. This makes them stronger, faster, uber werecat, rather than just super werecat, and, of course, they spend a lot of time walking around with big grins on their faces and lots of kids."

"Uh…right."

"But they evolved to depends on this blending. If an Ishaaran doesn't take a mate, particularly the females, then they just…die. They fade away. They bleed into the energy form that they take on between human and cat and can't reform either way. They just…evaporate into the atmosphere." Bob sounded saddened at that. Harry was surprised, he hadn't thought that Bob was capable of that kind of emotion.

"You're saying this could happen to Lisa."

"I'm saying if she isn't mated with this guy that's with her, because it could only really be him, then she will die." Bob was silent a moment. "Soon."

Harry sat back in his chair and stared at Bob. Lisa and House weren't together…at least not that way, he was almost sure of it.

Damn, one of his best friends was going to die.

Soon.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHDRESDENHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

"No!"

House blinked in surprise as he found himself shoved backward, impossibly balanced over the edge of the bath with only her hands fisted in his shirt collar holding him up. He blinked at her and she yanked him forward, allowing him to straighten.

"Sorry." She said on a rush. "I shouldn't have…I mean, I don't know…sorry." She said again and then brushed past him and leaped out of the bath, dripping water onto the floor heedless of the mess it would cause.

"Cuddy…" Jesus, his lips felt numb and burning all at the same time.

"Forget it, House. Just forget it ever happened." She said over her shoulder, her hands gripped together in front of her out of his sight. She stepped out of the bathroom, grabbing a towel on her way and slammed the door shut behind herself. House was left alone under the freezing water and absently flipped it to warm as he tried to figure out what the hell had just happened.

On the other side of the door, Cuddy slung the towel over her shoulders and stared down at her hands. Her nails were far too long, too dark and too damn sharp. God, if she'd scratched him she'd have ripped him to shreds. She strode out into the lounge part of their suite and stopped in front of the mirror, taking stock of her appearance with a kind of horrified desperation. Her eyes were too bright, too blue and the pupils were to…vertical to be named strictly human, her hands lifted, trembling slightly as she ran her finger tips over her dark mouth. Her lips were blackening…this was bad.

The detached doctor in her noted all of the symptoms with a rather cool head. She was blurring, the change no longer strictly under her control; her body was fighting it by increasing her sex hormones and making her more impulsive, lowering her inhibitions and making certain roommates seem absolutely irresistible; she was healing faster than usual and her senses were heightened too. The symptoms were obvious and damning. Cuddy met her reflection's gaze squarely and swallowed hard. There was no getting around it. It was finally happening.

She was dying.

Soon.


	5. Chapter 5

Ugh, gawd, what a day.

I was thinking about deleting this with the other chapter five that I wrote, but then, in a fit of determination, I redid the sucker and wrote this one instead. It may still be hopelessly AU and a bit freaking weird on top of that but I think this chapter is actually worth reading.

Hah!

Anyways, read and review for me.

**Chapter 5: Last Request**

Cuddy had her arms folded across her chest as she leant with one shoulder against the white frame of the window. The huge white paned windows had been thrown open to the sounds and smells of the waking city and Cuddy's sharp eyes took on a ruddy glow as the bloody smear of the rising sun shouldered its way over the blocky horizon of the city. Cuddy tilted her head so that her forehead rested against the frame. She had stayed up all night watching the sky wheel overhead. Truth be told, she didn't need to sleep nearly as much as she let on to House a couple of hours at dusk and she was up for the rest of the night. After all, she was a nocturnal animal. She had slipped out of the bedroom and come here, to the window, to think about her life.

Or rather, the end of it.

She had started off by thinking through the process of putting her affairs in order. Which charity she would leave her money to, what would happen to her house, she supposed she should make arrangements for some kind of memorial service but then it had hit her.

What would people remember?

She had no close friends to speak of aside from House and Wilson and perhaps Harry, and even they would be left without a body to mourn. Her family, for all she knew, thought she had died many years ago. They had certainly never looked for her after she had left them nearly twenty years ago. Nearly everyone that had seen her on a daily basis was either her subordinate or a colleague. Cuddy blinked when she realised that she didn't actually have that much of a life to lose. Sure she had a nice house, nice clothes, drove a very nice German car and was never short of money but…her life was empty of people to share it with.

Cuddy hugged herself as she realised that she hadn't really been living at all.

She would have laughed at the irony of it all but she didn't really feel like it at that moment in time. Cuddy watched the sun rise. One of her last. She breathed in the city air and took in the smells of the lake not far off, the petrol exhaust fumes, the hotdogs sizzling in the stand in the corner of the street, the bread of the bakery down the road. She closed her eyes and listened to the roar of the traffic, the rustle of the wind through the sparse trees dotting the sidewalk periodically, the call of the mailman to the milkman on their morning deliveries, birdsong and the bark of a dog.

And she smiled.

It had been a while since she had done that. It had been a while since she had submersed herself in nothing but the world of her senses. Just listened, and smelled and _felt_ the world move around her.

She turned her head and did the same to the interior of her hotel room. It was a guilty pleasure and one that she rarely indulged in, but she figured that she would do it more often in the next couple of weeks. Enjoy her last few days.

She could hear him from here like he was lying right beside her. the steady thump of his resting heart rate, the rush of his blood through his veins, the movement of air in and out of his lungs, the rhythm of, was that…? Yes, the rhythm of his fingers tapping against the mattress. She could smell the clean scent of him. She would know that smell anywhere. The bitter trace of the vicodin, cool aftershave over deodorant, sweat and a bucket load of testosterone. He really was a baser male than he believed. That kicked the smile a little higher on the corner of her mouth and she felt a brief pang of sadness as she realised that she would never see him again.

She didn't know exactly how long she had left but it wasn't long. A week or two, a month at the most. She wondered idly if this was how brain tumour patients felt when they were told they had weeks to live. She remembered breaking the horrific news to several over the years and had always known that her words, no matter how heartfelt on her part, were useless and hollow to the person that had just realised that their sunrises now had a countdown attached to them.

But patients with brain tumours, or cancer or radiation exposure…they hadn't brought it on themselves.

She supposed she should feel guilty, or at least frightened, but she couldn't. she knew she had made the right choice. Life was more than just the next breath in your lungs or the next beat of your heart. Perhaps it was a tad late for her to be realising this, but life with Blane would have been mere survival. She'd rather have seven days of freedom against seven centuries of imprisonment. A cool sort of resolve overcame her then as she realised that it was the truth, not just something she was trying to convince herself of. She wanted to live for the rest of her time and she wanted it to be worth something.

Well, she'd pretty much given up on being the one to cure cancer, House was more likely to do that than she was if he ever worked up the enthusiasm for it. So, what were her options now?

Cuddy let her mind drift for a few moments and several thoughts shouldered their way to the fore at once. She couldn't go back to the hospital, she couldn't risk just disintegrating in front of a donor. That would be kind of embarrassing. She couldn't resign either, she didn't want her last two weeks to be spent looking for a replacement for running the building that she had let swallow her life. She would have to just disappear…and it would have to be after the conference. She'd baby-sit House for the next few days, pack him onto the plane back to Jersey and then get 'lost' in the airport. That sounded like a plan. These last few days with him would be…her goodbye to him.

It was all she could give, after all, he was only human.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHDRESDENHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

_Mine. _

House awoke to that single word screaming through his brain. He sat up and blinked rapidly, bolting awake opposed to his usual drifting into consciousness. His eyes roved over the room and immediately came to rest on Cuddy's bed. Cuddy's empty bed. A strange and spicy scent was heavy in the air. Like cinnamon, vanilla and - he inhaled deeply – _woman_. He rolled to his feet and limped to the doors of the bedroom he threw them open and strode into the lounge without even stopping to pick up his cane. Intent on nothing but finding whoever smelled so good.

_Mine, mine, mine, mine, MINE!_ The mantra got louder as he saw her leaning against the window and watching the sun rise. She had wrapped a robe around her body, it was a midnight blue silk thing that reached mid thigh, her hair was mussed about her head in a wild mane and her eyes were heavy lidded in a languid relaxation. She looked good enough to eat.

Cuddy jerked away from the window and whirled to see him standing there. Her eyes raked over him and a small smile tugged at her lips.

"House, I had no idea that you slept naked or…that you would be so happy to see me." She said, the smile evident in her voice and House snapped his head down to see nothing but naked skin.

Ah.

House lifted his head, ignored the heat filling his face and refused to cover himself. He sniffed a bit disdainfully and strolled to the couch, a little ungainly without his cane and flopped down onto the plush cream material, casually flipping a cushion over his lap. She stayed by the window, pointedly not looking away and grinned at him.

"I thought you'd be out." He lied and folded his hands behind his head watching her. it wasn't just a lie but a gross lie. He had known she would be here. He had known that the delicious smell had belonged to her. "New perfume? I knew you were itching to get your claws into that cute little bellboy." He smirked at her and she arched a brow at him.

"You think the bellboy's cute?"

His smirk slipped a fraction. "No…but I know that a man-eater like yourself wants easy prey."

She threw back her head and laughed. Obviously the joke had a deeper meaning for her than he'd thought but he forgot about that as he let the musical sound wash over him. Glad that the pillow was over his lap to conceal exactly how happy he was to see her at that moment.

"Oh, House, you have no idea." She pulled away from the window and stalked past him, choosing to brush past his bare foot that was folded over his knee with the silky curve of her thigh. "I'm going for a shower, do you want anything? A vicodin? Your cane?" She smirked at him. "Pants?"

House tired very hard to completely unaffected by the way she was enjoying his indignity but he had a sneaking suspicion that he was glowing a rather charming shade of crimson. "Vicodin's fine." He told her with as much easy going as he could muster. It promptly evaporated as she turned and bent at the waist to retrieve the orange bottle from the low coffee table. House cleared his throat in a desperate attempt for control as the hem of her robe rode dangerously high and not high enough and then slipped disappointingly down again as she straightened and turned back to him. He only managed to take the bottle from her as she held it in front of his nose and shook it until it rattled. He snatched it from her with a grunt of what could have been mistaken for gratitude.

The knock at the door had them both turning. Cuddy glanced at the clock and strode towards the door, it was a little after six, hardly the hour for visitors. House watched her go and was nearly toppled over by the surge of sudden protectiveness that arose in him.

"Don't answer the door." He said suddenly and lurched to his feet, striding after her and snagging her wrist, hauling her back against his body. She fell against him, caught off balance and he momentarily enjoyed the feel of her smaller softer body against his before he thrust her bodily towards the bedroom. "Pants, get me pants." He told her and she rounded on him preparing to cut him down with a wicked word or three before he turned and growled at her, eyes smouldering. "Now, _woman_."

Cuddy glared at him, but went and got him his goddamn pants, and his cane while she was at it. She wasn't above looking either when she returned to him with them. He pulled them on in more graceful movements than she would have believed possible while limping to the door. He checked through the peephole and then threw it open with a low sound of irritation.

"Dresden." The single grated word of greeting had the wizard blinking in surprise at the sight of the mussed doctors in front of him. He looked rapidly between them and jerked his thumb back down the hallway.

"Should I come back later?"

"No."

"Yes."

Cuddy glared at House and he glared right back. He didn't want Harry anywhere near her. For some reason, he couldn't tolerate the thought of another man within fifty feet of her. He had always been possessive of her, but this morning it had taken on a decidedly Neanderthal tilt.

Cuddy shouldered him out of the way and neatly shoved him back into the room with a nudge of her hip. He staggered slightly and grunted again in annoyance but hobbled backwards allowing Harry room to enter as Cuddy held the door open for him.

"Good morning, Harry." She said on a smile that soothed over the tension in the air. She was an old hand at sanding off House's rough edges and she fell into the pattern of words easily.

"I need to talk to you." He said immediately and stepped closer to her. he stilled as House moved. He didn't exactly take a step forward, or make any threatening kind of movement, but the whole angle of his body changed and Harry suddenly got the message that he wasn't to get any closer.

Damn, Harry had definitely missed something.

"House was just going for a shower." Cuddy said on a forced smile and shot a look at House, she walked towards him and invaded his personal space until he took a few steps in the right direction.

"I was?"

"_Yes._" Cuddy gritted. "You were."

"I thought I was going to watch cartoons while you cavorted about in this silky bit of nothing." He said stroking a finger over the silk collar of her robe and shooting a meaningful glace at Harry. He knew he was being more of an ass than usual, he knew that he had no right to stake claim to Cuddy like this but…goddamnit! He wanted that right. Cuddy planted her hands on her hips and glared and him as his finger slipped lower over the deep V of her robe neckline. He smirked at her and then stepped away. "Apparently I was misinformed." She narrowed her eyes at him and he finally let his hand drop as he turned away from them both and hobbled through for a shower.

A cold one.

Cuddy went to the couch and folded her legs under herself as she turned to Harry. He didn't begin to speak until they both heard the hum of the shower coming on. Cuddy could actually hear the patter of water as it hit House's skin, but she decided not to share that information with Harry.

"What's with him? I thought he was going to club you over the head with his cane and drag you back to his lair."

Cuddy smirked at that particular image and then sobered when she realised she had no idea what was wrong with House. She shrugged. "I'm not sure. He's always been sort of possessive over me, interested when someone else wants to play with his toy but this morning was different…" She trailed off as she turned the problem over and over in her mind.

Harry watched her, tried to take in every detail of her as she sat there looking as beautiful as ever. Harry would be lying if he'd never entertained thoughts of how he and Lisa would be as a couple but he knew that she didn't think of him that way and that he cared about her too much to risk their friendship. It was how much he cared about her that had him blurting out his question without further preamble.

"Are you dying?"

The words echoed throughout the room and Lisa turned slowly back to him and blinked rather expansively with brilliant blue cat-eyes. She tilted her head in a way that was so suddenly feline that Harry briefly wondered how she had managed to hide her heritage all these years. She nodded once. "How did you know?"

Harry un-shouldered his gym bag and let it thump to the floor. It was one of the huge hockey ones and held all sorts of wizarding goodies, including one inhabited human skull. Harry yanked Bob out and set him on the table. Orange flame lights flickered to life in the skull and danced as they fell on Cuddy.

"Cuddy-cat!" Bob yowled happily and his skull did a little shimmy of happiness. Cuddy grinned and leant forward, not picking up the skull but grinning at Bob.

"Bob-sicle." She answered on a warm smile that abruptly faltered. Her eyes shot to Harry. "You brought him here? With House right in the next room?"

"He's taking a shower." Harry dismissed the other doctor and Cuddy rolled her eyes.

"He's feeling a little unpredictable this morning, in case you hadn't noticed." Cuddy hissed at him and Bob butted in readily.

"Cuddy-cat, you need to get laid."

Cuddy spun back to look at the skull and arched on eyebrow. "Was that an offer, Bob?"

"Are you kidding? Honey, I'd have you in a heartbeat but the lord and master ain't so jonesed with that plan."

Cuddy grinned readily. It had been a steady joke between her and the spirit that they were both gagging for each other but Harry constantly stood in their way. Her grin faltered slightly at Harry's stony expression. "I take it that you're the one that spilled the beans?" She directed at Bob and the skull gave his version of a nod. Cuddy shrugged and sat back against the couch. "I guess you were going to find out sooner or later."

Harry exploded. "That's all you have to say. You're about to literally disintegrate and you can't even work up some remorse for not telling one of your oldest friends?!"

Cuddy blinked at the outburst and let it wash over her. "There's nothing you can do, Harry. This is my choice, my life. You'd have only been convinced that you could save me from it. I didn't want you to tear yourself up over something that you just can't change." She said it gently but firmly. She hadn't done this to hurt him and he needed to understand that.

Harry sat down heavily on the chair opposite the couch and chewed on his thumbnail disconsolately as he stared at her with dark eyes. Bob swivelled to look at him.

"She's got a point, boss."

"Shut up." Harry said absently and without venom. It wasn't Bob's fault. "How long?"

Cuddy shrugged. "A week at the least, a month at the most."

Harry felt the information cave into his chest like a physical blow and stared at her. she seemed so…serene about the whole thing. "Only that?" He scrubbed a hand over his face. "You're really okay with this?"

"Well…not okay, I don't want to die, but this was my choice. I made it knowing the consequences. I'm…at peace with it." She shrugged and gave him a small smile. She decided than and there what she wanted to do with her remaining time. "You still need a tracker?"

Harry jumped at her question and stared at her. "Yes…but I'm not using you, you've been out of the game for…"

"My reactions are still about five times faster than yours." She said in as patronising a tone as she could muster and folded her arms over her chest. "Besides, what are they going to do? Kill me?"

Harry glowered at her.

"You need me, Harry, and I'm a lot easier to work with than Blane." He looked unsure. "Consider it a last request. One last case together."

Harry rubbed at the back of his neck and looked at her out of the corner of his eye. He couldn't believe he was going to agree to this. "We were a good team."

Cuddy grinned and leant forward, resting her hand on his knee. "And we will be again."

"Does this House guy know?" Harry asked suddenly and Cuddy shook her head rapidly.

"No, and you've not to tell him." There was no argument to be had with her tone so Harry nodded. It was her life, she could do what she wanted with what was left of it.

"Well, this is cosy."

Harry and Cuddy both looked up to see House, hair still damp from the shower, standing in the bedroom doorway. He was dressed in a pale blue shirt and jeans with his trade mark sneakers on. His cane spun lazily in one hand as he watched his woman pull her hand quickly from Harry's knee. There was danger in his eyes as he turned the full level of his glare onto the other man and Harry's brows rose at the ferocity in that simple look. Cuddy, oblivious to this interplay, rose smoothly to her feet and across the room.

"You boys play nice." She told them as she brushed past House and into the bedroom. She heard the door click shut behind her and untied her robe, letting it fall from her shoulders.

"What do you see in that guy?"

Cuddy swore viciously and spun on one heel, catching her robe at the last second and hauling it up over her chest as she glared at House. "House!"

"What?" He asked innocently as he hobbled towards her and crowded her space. If it were at all possible, she smelled better up close and personal like. "You've seen me naked this morning, I thought it was only fair."

"You walked in on me without any clothes on!"

"You didn't look away." He countered and loomed over her. "You're avoiding the question. It's not as if he's really handsome."

"You're practically identical, the only difference is the nose and the eyes." She pointed out and then shook her head as she realised he was sidetracking her. "Harry and I are just friends."

"You want it to be more?" House leant onto his cane heavily. "So you think I'm handsome then?"

"No." Cuddy answered both question's simultaneously.

"Then he does."

"House, it is possible for a man to care about a woman without wanting to screw her brains out." Cuddy clutched the robe tighter to her chest and blinked in surprise as her naked back hit against the cool wall of the bedroom.

"Not when the women look like you do." House said, still getting closer. Cuddy suddenly remembered the way she had felt with his body pressed against his in the shower. The way he had tasted, his lips moving over hers, the way his tongue stroking into her mouth had her shivering even now. "Are you cold?" He practically purred. "I can warm you up."

"The shower will do that just fine." She said on a dry throat. "And I'm not cold."

"Your skin's so warm." He uttered softly as his finger trailed over the curve of her shoulder almost reverently. "So soft." He almost whispered and Cuddy lifted her chin as he leant towards her. He blinked rapidly and then shook his head as if trying to clear water from his ears. He took half a step away and glared down at her. "So, what does this guy have that I don't?"

Cuddy might have laughed, has his expression not been deadly serious. Of all the times for him to suddenly admit that he liked her. "The personality of a human being?"

House whipped up his cane. "Ah, but does he have one of these?"

Cuddy looked at the cane and thought of Harry's staff and blasting rod. "Two of them."

House blinked. "But is his as bitchin' as mine?" House gestured to the tiny flames licking at the bottom of his new cane.

Cuddy's mind landed on the image of Harry summoning forth a column of fire with his staff and blasting away a solid concrete wall. "Only slightly more so." She said dryly and House glared at her. he was seriously beginning to not like this Dresden character.

"Mine's bigger." He affirmed and Cuddy rolled her eyes.

"Not big enough." She said easily and then glared at him. "House?"

He looked at her sharply. "What?"

"Go away." She snapped and he scowled at her one last time. His eyes raking her mostly naked form with a small smirk before he turned and hobbled away towards the door. Cuddy didn't relax until he disappeared through it and it clicked shut behind him.

Oy vey, the man was infuriating! Cuddy stilled at the thought of how this might be one of the last times that he grated on her nerves. A touch of melancholy coloured her movements as she let the robe drop to the floor again and headed for the shower. Damn, she was going to miss their little sparring matches.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHDRESDENHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

House limped into the auditorium and hobbled easily through the crowd. His height and his cane making everyone get out of his way PDQ. Cuddy followed in his wake, not particularly paying attention to anything that was going on around her. No, her mind was focused on how to give House the slip to go and meet Harry and set about tracking these earth monsters that had been attacking people all over the city. It wasn't as if she'd ever have to attend one of these things and try and stay awake through all of the mind numbingly boring speeches ever again.

That was a plus.

Cuddy shoved her hands into the pockets of the short leather jacket she was wearing. A black V neck sweater was soft against her skin underneath the leather and drawstring linen pants, also a sooty black covered her long legs. Black stiletto heels clicked underfoot and she had left her hair loose. If she had to change in a hurry, one layer of clothing and easy on, easy off garments were the way to go.

She let a small grin tug on her features as she followed automatically after House. Drawn to him by the familiar shape of his back and his unique scent that she could follow anywhere. Every one of her nerves was drawn tight. Her blood practically sang in her veins and her skin itched to ripple into glossy fur. To feel the ground flying under fleet paws, her spine slinking and stretching in a long feline gallop. If they had been the right shape, her ears would have been twitching and swivelling with every stray sound and burst of laughter in the crowded room.

House turned to her and she adjusted her smile to suit his perception of her before he turned away from her and continued walking on. She followed behind him and gradually began to slow. It was a big room and it was packed, nearly a thousand doctors were here. It was feasible, she supposed, that she might get separated from him for a couple of hours and just not see him in the crowds. She sank back further behind him, letting a couple of people scatter between them. A couple of hours was all she needed. She'd go meet Harry down in the car lot, go off and track down a couple of demons, do the good deed and then trot back here in time to pick up House and smooth over the feathers that she knew he was already working up to ruffling.

As she sank into the crowd and melted away, she should have known that nothing was ever that easy.


	6. Chapter 6

**Weeeee!!!**

**Back fae ma holidays and pleased about it no end. So if y'all were wondering where I was, I was in Lake Garda (well in it once then learned there was pike, eel, etc in residence so stayed out after that) and if ye didn't miss me then I suppose I might just cry. **

**This might explain the lack of updates and/or reviews for peeps that I usually review for. **

**Anyways, before ye mewl about the lack of updates let me tell something to you; **

**Hand. Wrote. This. Chapter.**

**I have a callus on my finger the size of rhode island but I freaking did it. This isn't even all of it and the only reason I'm updating is because I quite literally dreamed up the plot of my novel while I was away. **

**I'm not thinking it was a gift from god or anything but I'm going to ignore any screams from burning bushes in the near future just in case. **

**Anyway, I'm pleased with this effort as it think it managed to carry of the Jim Butcher elements quite well. The furies are a nod to his fantasy series 'the Codex of Aleria' which is as fantastic as the Dresden Files but different. **

**Uuummm, my Bob is a combination of the book's Bob and the TV Bob. Coz I can but mostly this is based on the books so enjoy.**

**Um, not beta'd or nothing so mistakes probably abound. Thinking about writing a CSI fic next possibly GSR but I could be persuaded to do a Grillows, lemme know yer views on that and we'll see what I can come up with. **

**Further updates as soon as I get the time. **

**Ciao. **

**Chapter 6: Not Fair**

Cuddy decided, after long and careful consideration, that she hated cars. Not her prized and well maintained Lexus, but rather those cars that smothered scents in their noxious cocoons of diesel and burning gas. Shutting off her other senses by way of their steely carapaces, like some grotesque beetle intent on ruining her day. Cars that had been used to spirit away black-magic users after they had committed some dastardly deed and thus prevented her from kicking their collective asses, were especially high on her list.

"I stink." Harry lamented, not without his own fair share of annoyance colouring his tone.

"Yup." Cuddy had to agree. He was, after all, standing upwind of her inside the door of his apartment. She traipsed down the last few steps leading to his door and hesitated on the threshold.

"Wards are off." He informed her miserably and turned away, picking something unidentifiable out of his hair.

Poor Harry. As good as she was at tracking (even after having been out of practice for so long) she was unable to track people through steel. Ergo, her vexation with automobiles. Ishaaran tracking was a mixture of the physical senses and a mysterious sixth sense that was as indefinable as it was useful. She had, however, managed to track down some of the dark witch/wizard/teen-with-a-grudge's tools to a particularly putrid dumpster across the street from the park where they had been golem wrestling the night before. Upon reaching said cesspool, Harry had turned to look at her rather expectantly at which point she had coolly informed him that this top was Dolce and it was _his_ investigation. So Harry had gone dumpster swimming and managed to come up with some magical tool goodies that currently resided in the recycled Burger King bag she held in one hand.

Harry stomped into the hole-in-the-wall kitchen in one corner of his cave, ahem, apartment and yanked a can of something out his ice box (a real honest to goodness ice box, with real ice and everything). Lisa padded inside and deftly avoided the danger of an upturned corner on one of the many rugs that carpeted the bare concrete floor of his apartment. She dumped the paper baggie on one of the nearest and numerous coffee tables that slouched here and there. Various candles flared to life as Harry flickered an unheard command to them to light. The dim illumination was more than enough for her sharp eyes to pick out every detail in the apartment and then some. It had changed little since the last time she had visited. Harry popped the top on a can of Diet Coke and drained half of it in one long gulp. He held up the can to her in silent question and she nodded eagerly. He tossed a can to her and she caught it easily before looking inquisitively at the cupboards that looked suspiciously empty. Harry caught her glance and chuckled.

"The cupboards are Hubbardly I'm afraid but we can go to Mac's once I'm fit for human consumption again."

"Okay." That was fine with Cuddy, she was starving. She was so good at hiding her feline side that it was all too easy to forget that she was a wild animal in human clothing. As such she spent most pof her time repressing her urges to live solely on the three F's. feeding, fighting and, ahem, fornicating. She was a simple creature. A simple creature that needed upwards of three thousand calories a day just to keep ticking over. She'd already put away several meals today and she was still hungry. Harry felt a brief pang of sympathy for her as he told her he was heading for his shower and headed off that way. Guys could scarf down three Big Macs in a row but a woman would get gross oglings if she managed to polish off two. Something that Lisa had been raised to paranoid against seeing as she had a fabulous fur coat that no animals had died to make. Harry made a mental note to hurry through his shower before she got really hungry and decided to test out the nutritional value of one of his neighbours.

Not that he thought for a moment she would actually lower herself to eating a human being.

She didn't know where they'd been.

"Hurry up, Harry, I'm about to start chewing on your leather sofa." She told him on a small smile as she drank from her can daintily. It was a constant amazement to him that someone who could lift a small car if she was annoyed enough could be so graceful.

"Yes, mistress." He growled over his shoulder in a put on deep baritone. Cuddy had to laugh, it was so like House.

"Go!" She nudged him with her foot in the right direction, idly listening switching on the freezing cold water in his shower (Harry and water heaters did not have an amicable relationship). She walked into the living room and smirked when she spied a bleached human skull sat grinning on the table. She rapped her knuckles lightly on the brow ridge and spoke cheerfully.

"Coming out to play, Bob?"

"With you, Cuddy-cat?" Bob's laughing tone filled the room as a swirl of glittering orange mist spewed out from the skull's eyes and coalesced into the tall and dapper figure of a suited man with white hair and gleaming orange eyes. Bob's human façade sat next to her on the couch without even a creak from the worn leather. "Always." He bobbed albino eyebrows at her coupled with a lecherous grin and she gave an orbital roll of her eyes. he spread an arm along the back of the couch and Cuddy only had the faint impression of a slight chill over her shoulders. Bob was completely non-corporeal but that didn't stop him from wishing. He hadn't always been able to manifest himself like this and Harry had yet to figure out a way to let the spirit show himself in this form outside the strongly warded walls of his apartment. Lisa had the feeling that this had left the spirit only more sharply reminded of his limitations. He looked like he had a body but he didn't. It was all smoke and mirrors. He couldn't touch things or people. Couldn't move or be moved by them either.

"You know, Bob." She decided suddenly. "I'm going to send my collection of romance novels to you."

A look of sheer delight passed over Bob's face. "Are they naughty?" He asked gleefully and she smirked after sipping her soda. Bob had become an expert at living vicariously. His specialty were romance novels, the steamier the better.

"The naughtiest on the market." She promised him and he rubbed his hands together soundlessly. As hospital administrator she hadn't had much opportunity on the social/dating scene (House had always interfered anyway) so she had compensated with some trashy and deliciously smutty novels.

His glowing eyes turned suddenly serious. "I can't find a way out of this for you, Cuddy-cat. I wish I could but your people are just too damn secretive."

Lisa hadn't even realised that he had been thinking about it. "It's alright, Bob. I didn't expect there to be a way out when I made my choice."

"It's not very fair." Bob scowled as if that alone would change the balance of the universe in her favour.

"Life rarely is." Lisa murmured more to herself than him as she settled back on the couch, tilting her head to rest in the crook of his shoulder. Giving him some parody of human contact. His cool essence crackled around her head like static electricity. "Maybe I'll come back from the after life to play with you." She said after a moment's silence. She smiled at that, not even sure how her belief system incorporated the afterlife into her paradoxical nature. Did jungle cats in human skins even have a heaven?

"I'll have to beat all the other lecherous spirits off with a big ectoplasmic stick." Bob assured her with a slightly bitter smile. "So…" He said wanting to escape into a cheerier topic. "What's the story between you and this House guy?"

"He's a colleague." Lisa answered swiftly and almost believably after many years of practice.

Bob snorted.

"Puh-leaze!" He begged her. "I can sense the change in your heartbeat at the mere mention of his name. There is definitely _something_ going on there." He prodded her.

"I'm his plaything. Nothing more." Lisa sighed and plucked at the ring pull on the top of her can.

"I very much doubt that." Bob said sagely.

"He's possessive of me, sure, but it's only if someone else is interested and he doesn't want anyone else playing with his toy." She swallowed in an effort to wipe the bitterness from her tone. The echo of might-have-beens. "Sometimes I think he wants more but…there's too much stuff in the way."

"Like?" Bob asked shortly. He had little patience for human idiocy at times. Stuff indeed.

"His personality for a start." She laughed shortly and realised how small that sounded. She planted her chin on her hand and her elbow on her knee, sloshing flat coke about in the can. "His addiction to vicodin. His position under me as a colleague. His constant pain. The addiction's the only way he can manage it. It's destroying him but he won't change." She slapped the can on the table hard enough to dent the wood, suddenly angry at the man that wasn't even here. "Stubborn bastard." She snapped.

"Says the woman that won't even get married to save her own skin…" Bob murmured dryly.

Lisa went to slap him and jumped when her hand passed clean through his solar plexus.

"Such violence!" He mocked her on a laugh.

"That's entirely different." She sniffed in mock disdain.

"If you could, would you? With this House fellow, I mean."

Lisa turned to him and spoke slowly to make sure that he understood completely. "But I can't so there's no point in thinking about it. Is there?"

"Are you sure?"

She shrugged. "It's easier that way."

"I meant are you sure you can't bond with him?" Bob clarified.

"What are you talking about, Bob?" Lisa looked over her shoulder at him still reclining against the couch, almost angry with him now. "I'm Ishaaran. He's not. That's all there is to it."

"Perhaps." Bob shrugged, indifferent to her temper. "Perhaps not. It's worth investigating though. This is your life we're talking about." Bob intoned blandly.

Lisa went suddenly still.

"Bob,…what do you know?"

Bob suddenly looked like he had said more than he had intended. "Nothing more than whisperings and legends, Lisa. Nothing concrete."

Lisa could count on one hand the number of times Bob had called her by her given name. including this occasion she would be counting one finger. By God, he was serious about this. She opened her mouth to ask him more but she was silenced by a low sub-sonic rumbling that issued from under the house and vibrated through the entire apartment in violent shaking motions. Lisa bounded to her feet, juice can clattering to the shuddering floor. Every one of her heightened senses were screaming and that psychic sixth one was the loudest yell of them all.

"Back inside, Bob." She ordered tersely. Bob promptly evaporated back inside his skull as Harry staggered down the rocking hallway and Grabbed Lisa by the arm, hauling her under a doorway and his long lean frame for shelter. He wore nothing but the towel slung low on his hips and a few droplets of freezing water trickling over his leanly muscled frame. Lisa couldn't help but notice he had bulked up considerably since the last time she had been on a case with him, especially since she had her nose practically pressed against his chest.

"Not natural, Harry!" She yelled over the noise of things crashing from shelves and furniture toppling over. Never mind that Chicago wasn't on a fault line as far as she knew, she could barely think over the clanging of some major magic ringing through her ears/.

"They're going to bring the whole building down!" Harry yelled back. They had to get out of here. Not just because of the risk of the entire tenement coming down on them but because other people lived here too and Harry couldn't tolerate other people being hurt if he was the target.

Lisa began to think that it was a very sound idea when the floor in the kitchen bucked and heaved, buckling concrete as _something_ pushed its way up and out of the floor. Massive slabs of concrete formed ragged shoulders, a huge hound-like head slugged its way up out of the floor and turned to regard them with eerily burning emerald green eyes. the earth-hound parted huge jaws to display a rather impressive set of obsidian fangs as long as Lisa's arm. It roared a challenge that sounded like a rock slide tumbling down on their heads.

"Run?" Harry offered.

"Run." Lisa concurred and practically tossed him the length of the room towards the inches thick steel door.

Harry scrabbled it open and Lisa snatched up his sports bag with all his magical tools still inside it. She ran after him when he flew out the door and threw himself up the steps to street level. Lisa slammed the door shut with a shoulder, tossing the bag up onto the street at Harry's feet even as she braced all of her considerable strength against the door in an effort to at least slow that…thing down.

"A spell any time now would be good, Harry!" She advised on harried shout and glared at him when the sparks and special effects weren't forthcoming.

"Goddamnit, where is it…" Harry was muttering to himself as he rifled through his bag, slapping things out onto the street, worry evident in every line of his face. Had he taken the staff out? Put it down somewhere? He couldn't remember and blind panic wasn't exactly conducive to easy thinking.

"Harry!" Lisa gasped as the door was rammed from behind with tremendous force. Enough to bounce her off the metal and clatter her head against it when she fell back against it. She gaped and panted, bracing herself again. The sheer _power_ behind that blow was immense. The pounding of the steer door rang out like a bell and it had barely faded before another assault fell on it. And another and another. She looked up, Harry was still looking for his magic wand and she couldn't hold this much longer.

"Harry…" He nodded absently at the worry in her tone and his face lit up in relief as his hand closed around the rune scarred length of his blasting rod, exactly what he needed. He whirled and levelled the staff down the steps, looking like he was preparing to blast Lisa right through the chest, she gathered herself to jump and they both froze abruptly.

The pounding had stopped.

Lisa leant back against the door cautiously, straining to hear around the cap of metal. The door was fairly effective at blocking anything that couldn't be measured on a Richter scale though and she could make out nothing. She didn't move from the door, certain that this was some kind of trick. Things that went bump in the night didn't attack you and then leave you still standing unless you sent them packing.

And she was right.

"Hell's bells." Harry could be heard to mutter as Lisa yelped in surprise as the floor under her feet bubbled up and parted in a great obsidian maw to snap her legs right out from her under her. Fiery green eyes blazed hatefully at her as her reactions proved to be too fast and she bounded right off the things nose to soar up into the street and land silently beside Harry. Harry snapped out of his shock and levelled his blasting rod.

"_Forzare_!" he bellowed and a whirling column of air slammed out of the rod and beat down on the head of the beast, whipping away chunks of its earthy carapace. It shuttered its eyes in a wince of pain and gave and ear-grating howl of outrage before shouldering its way back under the concrete at the base of the steps, leaving it as smooth and as unmarred as if it had never been there.

Lisa kicked off her shows and tore off her jacket. Every muscle tensed ready for the fight. The change practically bubbled under her skin. Her lips darkened a shade and her eyes gleamed a little brighter as she scanned them over the street.

"Where is it?" Harry whispered, hitching his towel a little higher.

"Don't know." She murmured. Their voices seemed impossibly loud in the street. Echoing off brick and mortar, the sounds of the city had died away to nothing. She was entirely focused on the matter at hand. "Still here. I can smell it." It wasn't exactly true, but it was the closest thing she could get to explaining how she _knew_ that the thing was still here. Her hands flexed at her sides, her nails lengthening and darkening into talons. _Come on_, she thought, _come out and fight_.

The attack came so swiftly that she didn't even have time to yell a warning to Harry. A paw the size of her torso plunged up and out of the street and swiped down towards Harry's unprotected back. Instinct had her moving before she'd fully thought about it and her arm was around Harry's waist, dragging him tumbling across the street as the paw crush concrete to gravel behind them. She tried to angle him so that he was protected by her tougher body for most of it, but she could smell the blood as he scraped against the rough tarmac of the road. When they finally slid to a halt, Harry was battered and bruised by Lisa was on her feet in a flash, her lips pulled back over too sharp teeth and a snarl echoing in a low echoing challenge down the road.

Harry looked up in time to see the hulking behemoth of an earth fury (that was right, a freaking earth fury, not a golem) lurching up and out of the road. Huge cracks spider-webbed out from the buckling opening it made in the ground as it shoved the street itself out of the way to come and get them. Stars and fucking stones. He had underestimated whoever was behind these attacks.

Greatly.

It wasn't your average everyday dark practitioner that could raise and control an earth fury. It was kind of like trying to put a bridle on an earthquake and getting it to take you on a ride down the street without rattling your teeth clean out of your head. furies were practically forces of nature unto themselves. Earth furies in particular hated to be summoned to do anyone's bidding and they _always_ turned onto the summoner if given half the chance. Earth furies, physically at least, were the strongest off all.

In other words; out of Harry's league.

Way out.

Lisa was apparently not familiar with anything that she couldn't take on and win against. Either that or she had just ignored the memo. Harry watched, definitely not gaping in away wizened wizard that he was, as she tore off her clothing and charged the rearing fury. She didn't undress hastily. She didn't pull the clothes off in a hurry. She, quite literally, ripped the garments from her body and roared right back as she sprang at the thing.

She changed mid-air, not something every werecat can do. They don't have the control. Lisa was the goddess of control, though. The only thing she loved more than being in complete control of herself was losing it.

Harry could only stare in abject wonder. Watching her soar through the air and slamming the change into high gear. Her skin silvered in the late afternoon light then evaporated off her body in a glittering mist. Dark sooty black fur rolled along her frame while her bones shifted and reformed from clumsy human appendages into the long flowing lines of a hunter bred to kill. Lisa, in all her feline glory, let loose a coughing roar of rage and landed on the fury's back and neck, all four sets of sharp claws at their full extension. She savaged the exposed earth of the neck with a sweeping blow that could have sheared Harry's head off with half the effort behind it.

Harry stumbled to his feet when the scratches barely registered with the now bucking and twisting fury. Trying to dislodge Lisa like an angry bronco with a determined cowboy. She was going to get killed while he sat there gawking if he didn't do something soon. Harry shook out his shield bracelet and checked his force ring, having retrieved both from his bag. Lisa continued to worry any exposed earthy spot she could find on the beast's bus sized body. it barely registered with Harry that he had lost his towel somewhere along the street and was now facing off against one of the most powerful creatures on earth wearing nothing but some old jewellery, a glowing stick and a dashing look of grim determination.

His resolve hardened as the fury threw Lisa from its shoulders and batted her mid-air to send her flying across the street. She smashed into an innocently by-standing fire hydrant. The impact knocked the red upright apart and sent a geyser of water soaring up into the air. Lisa's black velvet body twisted with an indignant yowl of outrage and she landed squarely, if a little gingerly, on all four paws. Soaked, but still breathing.

That was it, Harry decided, you just didn't hit women. Even if they did happen to have four legs and a tail at the time.

Harry shook out his bracelet again and levelled it with it chin. A flex of will had a shell of bluish energy glimmering over his body. holding his blasting rod in his right hand, he tucked it along his left forearm and fisted his hand until the knuckles whitened and the wood of his rod creaked. His force ring gleamed brightly under the blue tent of energy thrown off by his shield bracelet. His force ring was a highly useful tool and it worked by absorbing a portion of the kinetic energy exerted every time Harry moved his arm. When it was at full charge, like it was now, he could level a fairly solid wall with it. The thrum of his shield apparently caught the fury's attention and it swung its great head around to him. A grin pulled over its black shining teeth and its head lowered, preparing to charge him.

An earth shaking growl of recognition issued from deep in its chest. It hauled its hind quarters fully from the cloying hold of its mother earth and braced itself on all four tree trunk sized legs.

"I'm so going to die." Harry muttered to himself when it began its charge. Not particularly fast, you wanted fast you got an air-fury, but when they got going, earth furies were practically unstoppable. Harry's jaw hardened, not today they weren't. He waited for it to get closer out of sheer stubborn stupidity. Every instinct he had screamed at him to run. He had one shot at this and he was totally screwed if it didn't work.

Fifteen feet.

Ten feet.

Eight, seven, six…he could see the flickering facets of its fist sized emerald eyes as the twin orbs glowered down at him. Harry angled the shield higher and let loose the restraining band of will that held the two tools in check. He staggered backwards as the resulting wave of energy roared from him like some massive bird released after a long grounding.

The wall of force from the ring combined with the energy of the shield, bolted upwards and slammed into the fury's face like a magical wrecking ball.

The fury didn't even have a chance to howl in agony before the sheer force of magic that Harry had levelled at it neatly removed its gargantuan head from its shoulders. Harry scooted backwards with desperate steps as the headless body tottered on four unsteady legs and then crashed horrifically to the street with a boom of impact.

Harry rounded the great hump of the beast and trotted across the street to where he'd last seen Lisa. He found her crouched under the spray of the broken hydrant, crouched down on all fours, her sides heaving from the after effects of her change of forms and clean tracks of water sluicing through the patchy dirt that coated her smooth skin. She straightened a trifle unsteadily and Harry noted there was an ugly bruise on her side from where the fury had hit her. she folded her arms casually across her chest and gave no other indication that she was embarrassed or even bothered and being completely buck naked in front of her long time friend. She nodded to the fallen fury.

"Impressive." She noted as the water slicked her hair to her shoulders and back in glossy curls.

Harry grinned, enjoying the cool feel of the artificial rain falling over his overheated skin.

"I like to think I still have it in me to impress a lady." He confided in her. he was unprepared for the way her eyes slid over him in a blatant appraisal.

"You needn't try so hard, Harry." She told him quietly and then blinked in surprise at her own tone. She rubbed her hands over her arms absently. "Sorry, I…the change always has this effect on me. the adrenaline, the hormones…" She waved a hand to dismiss it but Harry just grinned down at her. Her cheeks seared with heat so hot he though the water hitting them might steam. She looked away from him and was saved from a merciless teasing from him only by the expression of horror that flickered across her features.

Harry turned slowly, following her gaze to the fury's body.

"Oh, _not_ fair…" He objected weakly.

The fury, which in Harry's opinion should be decomposing into a good little pile of ectoplasmic goo and evaporating by now, was lurching slowly to its feet with a slow lumbering movement. He turned to Lisa who was tired, but looking to him for his cue on this.

"Lisa, I'm done, I can't pull another stunt like I just did…" He trailed off, failure bucking hard against his pride.

Lisa barely glanced at him as she watched the fury regrow its head…and then _another_ head alongside the first. "Oh, marvellous." She muttered. "Now all we need is for it to start rain…" A look of sudden epiphany crossed her features. She turned then. "Harry!" She held out her palm to show the water splattering onto it. "The water! You can channel fire, can you channel water too?"

Harry was looking uncertainly at the way the fury's heads were looking to each other and grinning before turning to glare gem-hard at Harry and Lisa. He caught the sight of a small child gaping out of their bedroom window in the apartment building across the street. He clenched his jaw in renewed determination, his brain working overtime at the complexity of what he was about to attempt.

"I'll have to be right next to the source. Can you get it over here?"

"Way ahead of you, partner." Lisa grinned and was off running. Already changing as she ran towards the fury. She dropped to all fours, her ears lengthened and twitched, her tail springing slinky and lashing from her lower back. The cat in her overjoyed at being allowed out unchecked once more. She hadn't run free like this since she had been a cub. It was an exhilarating feeling.

Harry watched as she baited the beast the size of a bus into trying to squash her. the fury obliged with hair raising accuracy. Its great paws hammering down in thundering impacts missing Lisa's velvet body by a mere whisker. She yowled in a laughing kind of way and taunted the thing, daring it to try and squish her even as she inched it towards Harr, her secret weapon.

Harry shut it all out and turned his focus inward and down along the mains pipeline of water. He gripped his blasting rod between both white knuckled hands and breathed harshly between clenched teeth. His staff would have been a better focal tool but he decided his rod would have to do.

The water from the hydrant ceased spattering down onto his head and shoulders from above and instead settled back into a seething shining bubble that roiled impatiently against the restraining harness of Harry's will. Sweat beaded on his brow at the difficulty of his task and the draining suck it had on his energy reserves. He was using the water's own pressure for this, like fisting a hand around a garden hose and letting a bubble build behind the knot.

Only a helluva lot bigger.

Harry began to pant now as he continued to hold it back. Water wasn't his favoured element for good reason, it was slippery and almost seamed to have a mind of its own but he beat it back and held it, just a few seconds longer…

Harry cracked open an eye and risked a glance in time to see a shadow bound out of the way of a pillar of crushing granite not six feet from him. The paw pulverised the road to gravel and spitting sand that lashed Harry's exposed skin over his chest and face.

"Now Harry!" Lisa called to him, her voice still rough from the stresses of a too-quick change but Harry put his faith completely in her as he let loose the river of water he was holding back with a roar of the first words that came to mind.

Water clamoured up and out, sending Harry and Lisa reeling in the backwash as the street itself was punched out of the way of the raging torrent of hydraulic force. The fury never stood a chance against the onslaught and was washed away to lumps of concrete and glittering sands in an instant. The roar of the water finally died away to a gentle swishing of a wave rolling down the street and lapping against the feet of the buildings opposite.

Harry sat up on a groan. Lisa had managed, in the way of her kind, to land on her feet but Harry hadn't been so lucky. She helped him to a sitting position, her skin still shining with the silvery lustre of the change.

"'_Expecto Patronum'_?" She asked curiously, a teasing tilt to her lips.

"It's not actually the meaning of the words that's important you know." He sniffed at her in mock disdain and sagged against his knees. He was completely knackered. "Anyway, it worked didn't it?" He asked pointedly as she tucked her legs up against her body and looped her arms around them in a pose that somehow managed to be erotic and modest at the same time.

Wow, werecat pheromones had a kick.

"That it did." She agreed solemnly as two cop cars screamed around the corner, slowing to a sploshing pace as their sirens wailed out to the falling night. They sloshed to a stop in front of the two lone – naked – inhabitants of the street. The police officers looked about themselves and the imploded fire hydrant the water that trickled steadily down the road. Their eyes landed, amused and stern at the same time, on Harry and Lisa. One of the uniforms planted a hand on the butt of his sidearm and raised an admonishing brow at Harry.

"Evening, Dresden." The oldest cop greeted Harry.

"Evening, Bert." Harry replied and settled back to lean with his hands behind him. He crossed his legs at the ankle and tried not to smirk at the way the female officers were looking anywhere but at his lap.

"Mind explaining what went on here with you and your lady friend here?" Bert asked congenially.

Harry sighed as he tried to think up a suitable lie. Somehow he didn't think that a 'tee-hee these things happen, officer' explanation would do it. Even if he did have the delectable Lisa sitting beside him smiling like the Mona of a similar name up at Bert with all the confidence she would have had she been fully dressed in one of her sharp business suits.

"The main's pipe blew, officer Bert." Lisa offered smoothly. A more accomplished liar than anyone would believe of her or her reputation. "We were standing close by when it happened and the resulting blast took the clothes clean off our backs."

Bert looked to her and furiously battled the flush that was trying to stain his already ruddy cheeks above his silvery handle bar moustache. "Clean off your backs?" He asked and they both nodded, serious faces and reproach at the good officer of the law doubting them. "And you're just sitting here…for why?"

Harry looked expectantly at Lisa and she didn't disappoint him.

"I'm a doctor, Harry was suffering from shock, poor thing." She patted Harry on the shoulder without even looking at him and continued to spin lies into almost believable truths. "I ordered him to sit down and wait it out before he got back to his apartment which it just over there."

"Uh-huh…and you're still buck naked why?" Bert latched onto the one tiny hole in her story. Lisa thought on her bare feet and smiled slowly with her answer.

"I'm a doctor, I would be negligent in my responsibility as a healer to leave Harry here alone and disorientated."

Harry nodded to show that this was true and didn't have to fake the dazed expression on his face. His head was beginning to pound from all the effort of taking out the fury.

Bert looked between them both and appeared to mull it over. Silence descended on the street and Lisa sighed as if just having realised it was about to rain.

"We're going to be arrested aren't we?" It was unclear who exactly she was asking, safe to say that Harry had more experience in this area than she did but it was an open floor.

"Yup."

"Not fair." Harry pouted but couldn't help but smile. You either laughed or cried at these things and Harry was opting for the frown turned upside down series of events.

"Life rarely is." Lisa murmured with a strange kind of smile, it didn't even leave her lips when one of the female officers offered her a blanket from the car and pushed her into the back of it. She even began to laugh as they drove Harry and herself to the police station.

Not fair indeed.


	7. Chapter 7

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**Chapter 7: Bailing Out**

"Alright then, Dresden, who is she?"

Lieutenant Karin Murphy rose to her full height of a kitten sneeze over five feet, folded her lean arms over her chest and narrowed cornflower blue eyes up at the overly tall wizard. Murphy was the head of Chicago PD's Special Investigations department. The department that handled all the weird and wonderful things that went on in Chicago and tried to put a public and logic friendly spin on things. Murph had been sent here as a dead end career and, to the consternation of all the brass in the city, she had made the job work for her.

Harry looked down at her and scrubbed a hand over his jaw. Unsure of what exactly to tell her. With her tiny proportions, delicate features, sleekly bobbed blonde hair and the cutest smattering of freckles that you ever did see, Murph looked more like the kid sister next door than a hardened city police officer but she was very much the latter and had a whole bunch of attitude to back it up. Murphy hadn't gotten where she was today by being a pushover.

"She's a friend." Harry finally decided on and Murphy's eyes narrowed further.

"A naked friend." She added and, if Harry hadn't known better, he would have said there was a hint of jealousy in her tone. Murphy glanced back at the surveillance screen on the terminal beside them and let her cold eyes track over the tiny form of Lisa Cuddy on the screen. The dark haired woman was dressed in baggy convict orange pants, a white tee shirt and she prowled back and forth behind the bars of her cage exactly like the panther she was hiding just behind sea green eyes. It was impossible to miss how her fellow inmates were all crammed into the corner of the cell, as far away from Lisa as the fifteen by fifteen room would afford. They may have been drunken bums, drug addicts and the hardest hookers the streets had to offer, but they damn well knew a predator when they saw one.

Murphy apparently realised how her last comment had sounded and glanced at the technician in front of them (trying very hard to be invisible at that moment) and rested her hand on his shoulder to get his attention. "You're dismissed." The poor young tech practically sprinted from the room, eager to get away from the Lieutenant and her 'advisor'.

"Well, that really wasn't her fault." Harry tried to point out. He then scowled at her. "Besides, Indecent Exposure is a crap charge and you know it."

Murph arched a blonde brow at him and Harry wondered if he should be back-pedalling about now. "How –_exactly_- Dresden, did you and your 'friend' manage to get naked in your neighbourhood?"

Harry didn't want Murph involved with this. Whoever was controlling a Fury was more powerful than just about anyone he'd come up against. Barring, of course, the faery queens…hells bells, there was a thought, could it be Mab?

No, she wasn't as subtle as this and Harry was of more use to her alive than dead. He hoped. He blinked when he realised that Murphy was still giving him the evil eye. He thought furiously and decided a little bit of the truth wouldn't hurt too much.

"I was in the shower when we were attacked by a big beastie. It was shaking the whole building so we had to get out into the street, I didn't exactly have time to pull on some pants while running for my life."

"Alright, what were you attacked by and how did she lose her clothes?"

"The same thing that's attacking kids out there and why are you so interested in why she was naked?" He usually would have no problem with telling Murphy the whole story, but Lisa's secret wasn't his to give away.

"Do you always have to answer a question with a question?"

"Why does it bother you?" Harry found himself saying before he could help it and had a sudden premonition that he was about to be shot by one irate police lieutenant. Murphy glared at him and Harry grinned back in what he hoped was a winsome manner. Murphy heaved in a breath and released it on a barely audible growl.

"Dresden, women make you stupid, pretty ones in particular. It wouldn't be the first time that a batting of big – probably fake – lashes have gotten you into more trouble than you can handle. I need to know if I'm going to have to bail you out of trouble repeatedly because of this…doctor woman." Murphy snapped at him and Dresden held onto his temper by its tail. Lisa was helping him and she had been there for him when Murphy had been prepared to throw his ass in jail. She was a friend, so close she was practically family and he wasn't about to let Murph go slinging accusations at her like that.

"Lisa's a friend and she'd never get me into trouble. If anything, she'd probably be more likely to bail me out than you would." He glared fiercely at her, his sharp features pulling as harsh as a hawk's profile. To her credit, Murph didn't back down.

Murphy rocked back on her heels. Ouch. "You know I sometimes can't back you up because of my position."

"Lisa's dean of a hospital and she's never let her position get in the way of helping her friends." He couldn't help the slight emphasis he put on the last word. He didn't know why Murphy had disliked Lisa on sight but there it was. "Now, are you going to drop the charges and let her out of that cage? Because I'm pretty sure she doesn't like it."

"And what happens if I don't?" Murphy shot back, planting her hands on her hips and glaring up at him.

"Remember the Loup Garou?" Harry spoke quietly and Murphy went completely still. They were still repairing parts of the building where the cursed monster werewolf had destroyed half of the old cell block. Lisa was detained in the new one, which was why there were no gaping holes in the walls. The Loup Garou was the origin of the werewolf magic curse. Most werewolves can change on demand and are not ravening beasts but intelligent predators, like the Alphas. The pack of young werewolves with their territory surrounding the university. It was a giant monster, nearly completely immune to mortal and magical weapons. Only something of inherited silver could kill the beast. It had massacred several of Murphy's fellow SI officers and she still felt their loss. Harry knew it was a low blow, but he also knew that Lisa was claustrophobic and he had no idea what being locked up would do to her control.

Murphy heaved in another deep breath and glanced back at the still stalking Lisa on the security screen. "Alright, I'll go down to the cells with you."

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Lisa paced back and forth in her cell and tried to remain calm. She could feel the steel bars, even from two feet away. The seemed to be pressing in on her mind and jamming up against her control. Her lungs felt too tight to breathe, her skin hummed and her teeth itched to bite and tear. She couldn't quite contract her claws all the way so her nails were too long and too dark. She kept her lips pressed tightly together to prevent them pulling back over teeth that were a trifle too large for a human mouth. It wouldn't do to eat her fellow inmates.

Of course, the hunger made it worse. She had been in need of food before the run in with the earth monster and the multiple changes piled on top of that had caused her blood sugar level to plummet. She felt sick, light headed and trapped. She wanted out of this cage more than she wanted her next breath.

Ishaaran children are taught from a young age to never be caged. If they were caught, chances were the cat would take over. It's a defensive mechanism. Something that was right on that line of her control. Ishaaran could not be contained. The cat would out.

Lisa heaved in a breath, wishing for fresh air and reached up to grip the bars. The metal creaked slightly under her white knuckle grip and she let her head fall forward. Her spine flexed and the muscles alongside it bunched in tension. Her hair tumbled in a dark cascade down to cover her face. She could hear her cellmates cowering in the corner. They had instinctively recognised the need to stay away from her as soon as she'd been shoved unceremoniously into the cage with them. They had stepped away from her almost as one and resolved to group together and stay as far away from her as possible.

Their fear made things worse. It awakened the hunt/kill reflexes in her brain. She could smell their adrenaline, hear the fluttering of their hearts in their chests and measured their rapid breathing against her own. She wanted to pounce but held off. If she hadn't been dying then it wouldn't have been nearly so bad. Harry would get her out of here soon. He had to. She didn't know how long she could hold back.

There was a buzz of the door being unlocked and two sets of feet walked into the room. She recognised Harry's immediately but couldn't identify the other. She listened to them coming along the corridor. Lighter than Harry's, moving more rapidly to keep pace with him as well. She could smell perfume. A small woman, they had some scents in common so probably a close friend. Might this be the mysterious Karin Murphy that she had heard so much about?

Lisa managed to drag her head up for them entering the room and realised she must look almost as bad as she felt judging by the way Harry's eyes widened when they landed on her. He made to rush over to her but the tiny blonde woman stepped in his way. Lisa narrowed her faintly glowing eyes at the woman and growled before she could stop herself.

The woman faltered, steeled herself and then came to a halt not a foot away from the bars. Within arms reach. Lisa ran her tongue over her teeth but didn't straighten. She was only six inches taller than the other woman but she more than outweighed her in muscle and strength. Not to mention how ferocious she was feeling at the woman behind the lock-up order that had landed her behind these bars.

"You're Lisa Cuddy."

"That's Doctor Cuddy to you." Lisa answered smoothly, her voice too low and rough but she didn't bother to hide it. Had she been in her other shape, her ears would have been laid flat against her skull and her tail would have been viciously lashing back and fourth.

"I'm Lieutenant Karin Murphy, head of Special Investigations. Harry tells me you're a friend of his."

Lisa blinked slowly at her and resisted the urge to reach through the bars and close her hand around the pulse beating at Karin's throat. Taking a police officer hostage wouldn't get her out of here any quicker. In fact, it would probably slow things down a helluva lot more. "You have a point?"

Murphy inhaled deeply, she obviously thought it was a calming motion, and hardened her jaw before continuing. "Can you tell me of the events leading up to your arrest?"

"Murphy…" Harry started but Murphy cut him off with a single glance.

"I can." Lisa stated flatly. She had no intention of doing so though.

"I suggest you start at the beginning then, because you're not going anywhere until you explain yourself." Karin snapped and Harry glared down at her. Lisa knew that the lieutenant couldn't see the thunderous expression on the wizard's face but she had no doubt that she felt it.

"As I told your fellow officers, we were walking in the street, the mains water pipe blew and the resulting blast of water took the clothes clean off our backs." Each word was viciously clipped from between clenched fangs and Cuddy finally straightened to her full height to tower effectively over Karin. "I should never have been arrested for this. I have no priors on my record and I certainly should never have been placed in this sorry excuse for humane conditions." Lisa snapped, her voice brushing up against a snarl from the back of her throat. "Now, are you going to let me out or do I have to get myself out?"

"Feel free to grease yourself up and try and squeeze through the bars. I'd enjoy it for sure and I think even Dresden might like it."

Everybody turned at the new voice joining the conversation and landed on the lounging lean frame of Gregory House slouched against the doorframe. An uncertain bailing officer stood beside him. A single glance from Murphy had the man scuttling away out of the line of fire.

"Who are you and what are you doing here?" She demanded.

House grinned and limped into the room. He shuffled a piece of paper from his pocket and waved it at Karin. "I'm Dr Gregory House and I'm posting bail for the convict over there." He smirked patronisingly down at her. "Plus I've a conjugal visit fantasy that I need to work out of my system." He winked and ambled over the bars, leaning against them so that Lisa could shift her hand and touch him if she wanted to. "So, Cuddy, indecent exposure? Remind me to take you out on the town more often." He bobbed his eyebrows at her and had she been feeling a little less than sick to her stomach she might have smiled back.

"House, nice of you to turn up. Eventually."

"I thought you wouldn't like it if I came too early." He said innocently and Cuddy managed a weak eye roll. He seemed to notice her lack of full commitment to the banter and frowned in concern. He reached through the bars and tilted her chin up so he could better look at her face. Her eyes were glassy, her pupils dilated and there was a distinct pallor to her skin. He could feel the slight tremble shivering through her body as well. He turned away and pointed his cane at Murphy imperiously. "Guard, release the prisoner."

Murphy looked very much like she wanted to tell House to go to hell. Deprived as she was of interrogating Cuddy further, but bail had been paid and the law was clear. Without probable cause and more charges, she couldn't hold Cuddy any longer. She stalked stiffly to the gate and unlocked it with a card that she held on the key chain at her hip. The gateway buzzed and slid automatically to the side. Cuddy seemed momentarily stunned at her returned freedom and then quickly stepped from within her cage. The door buzzed shut behind her and House didn't miss the way she flinched at the clang of the shutting gate.

She stood still for a moment, then her head whipped up and her eyes landed on Murphy. She stepped towards the officer and only House's hands on her shoulder prevented her from…well, she didn't know what she had been planning to do but she had no doubt that it wouldn't have been pleasant for the cop.

"Okay, enough fun for you tonight." House whirled her and propelled her towards the door. "Let's go back to the hotel, order some room service and you can show me any hints and tips you picked up from the red-light ladies." He suggested brightly and felt a stab of concern when she didn't rise to meet his challenge. It wasn't until they were out in the corridor leading from the cell itself and back to the bailer's office that she let herself stagger and then lean heavily against him. All trace of games left his face and his arm came around her automatically.

"Cuddy…?" He wanted to ask her what was wrong but he didn't know how. She let her head rest against his shoulder and inhaled his scent greedily. She felt the mad loss of control recede slightly. She felt the panther settle down and curl contentedly up in the back of her consciousness. She wrapped her arms around his waist and held him tightly, ignoring the fact that, a week ago, she would never have allowed herself to reach out to him like this. But she needed this now, she needed someone to steady her and she had the feeling that he was the only one that could do that for her. It all fell away, washed away by the comforting beat of his heart steady under her cheek until only the slightly dizzy feeling of hunger was left. His hand came down gently on her hair and she let her eyes flutter closed.

"Thank you." Her voice was a gentle whisper. She didn't think she was strong enough to make it any louder.

"For what? You realise you're going to have to pay me back in full." He tilted slightly looking down at her. She didn't meet his eyes, keeping hers closed. She couldn't face him right now. He always saw too damn much. A tremor went through her body and she could smell the change in his mood. Concern, anger and determination. "Come on, you must be hungry. We'll stop somewhere and eat." He ushered her along the hall. Her tight grip on him making it somewhat difficult but he managed. They leant on each other and supported each other along the hallway.

Cuddy ceased to pay attention to her surroundings. She drifted in a haze of not quite there and knew that he would look after her. House, despite his carefully crafted reputation to the contrary, would make sure she was alright. He did care for her, even if he wouldn't admit it to himself. The same way she couldn't admit to herself the way she really felt about him. The true depth of her feelings towards this exasperating brokenly perfect man. She was aware of being put into the car. The new clean smell of the rental managed to reach her half switched off brain and she felt him pull a seatbelt around her when she didn't move to do it herself. Something spiked in her senses, a pulse of colour around him. Lilac concern rolled off him in waves.

"I'm okay." She sounded drunk and slurred. She really needed to eat soon. "Just need dinner." Her head fell back against the head rest when her neck could no longer support it anymore.

She rolled her head to the side, looking out the window. Heard the car door shut with a soft whump and then slipped down into the inky darkness of some much needed sleep.

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"She lied to me."

"So?"

"It's against the law to lie to the police, Dresden." Murphy said slowly like she was explaining to a particularly dense child.

"You were being an ass." He folded his arms across his chest and scowled down at her. He usually went out of his way to be pleasant to Murphy. Not only because she had a gun and was a black belt martial artist, but because he genuinely liked and respected her. The source of his irritation came from the fact that this affection and respect seemed to be awfully one-sided recently. She blinked at him in surprise, his attitude a surprise to her. Harry could be many things, but he was rarely out and out rude like this. He could be sarcastic, but rarely so callus.

"Harry…" Murphy started but Harry cut her off. He didn't want to hear it.

"Lisa's a friend to me. More than that, she's practically family. She helped me set up here, if you were to get technical about it, she actually owns half of my business, Murphy, and you were downright rude to her. You were bitchy and shallow just because you didn't like the look of her. She didn't deserve that." He stood away from where he'd been lounging against her desk in her cupboard size office and towered over her. Angry energy rolling off him in waves. "I was ashamed of you down there, Murph." He shook his head and turned away from her. "Fucking ashamed." He muttered to the wall and missed the brief flash of hurt that flew across Murphy's features.

"I'm doing my job, Dresden. I shouldn't be making exceptions for you and I definitely can't afford to be making them for people that I don't even know." She tried to defend herself, trying to tell herself that Harry's words hadn't hurt her as much as they had.

"Why don't you just cut the crap, Karin?!" He snapped at her, whirling back to face. Murphy rocked back on her heels in surprise. He _never _called her Karin.

"What crap?" She asked incredulously. She wasn't aware that she had been bullshitting him.

"You were pissy with Lisa because you were jealous."

Murphy blinked owlishly. "Excuse me?" Her voice was low and dangerous and any other time, Harry would have shut up there and then and only opened his mouth again to apologise profusely…but this wasn't any other time. He was so annoyed, so aggravated, so fucking _irate_, that he couldn't stop himself.

"You heard the report that Lisa and I had been found naked in the street, jumped to the worst possible conclusion and then you were _jealous_." He couldn't stop himself. His mouth was a runaway train intent of derailing itself. "You were jealous at the thought of me with another woman."

"Dresden, your…"

"Way out of line, I know, but I don't care. It wouldn't be so bad if you could just freaking acknowledge it instead of hiding behind your badge all the time. I'm not your ex-husband, Karin, I'm not going to be embarrassed if you're a better investigator than me, hell's bells, Karin, I'd probably find it a turn on." He was standing too close now. They both knew it but she wasn't stepping away so he wasn't backing down either. "Would it be so terrible to actually let yourself be a woman?"

_SMACK!_

The blow to his jaw actually sent him staggering. She was small but she did have one hell of a right hook. Stars flashed in front of his eyes and Harry blinked rapidly to try and stem their watering. Anger billowed inside his chest like a heaving storm cloud and he worked his jaw with one hand and stared down at Murphy, her chest heaving and her eyes blazing, with cold dark eyes.

"Dresden, I don't know what the hell is wrong with you but you are so out of line you're in another freaking country!" Murphy jabbed her finger against his chest. "And don't you ever belittle the sacrifices I've made in this job to get ahead!"

"The only one that think s you have to make sacrifices is you, Murphy. The other guys don't care that you're a woman. All they care about is the fact that you're a damn good cop. Well, you would be if you ever got the stick out your ass." Harry shot back and Murphy gaped at him. That was too far!

"I'll show you woman, you…" Murphy snapped, her leg swishing out and catching Harry in the back of the knee. The blow was so quick that he didn't even have time to register the bloom of pain up his thigh before he crashed down into the chair in front of her desk. Her fingers tangling in his hair and wrenching his head back were a cause for concern.

A worry that evaporated when she straddled him neatly and brought her mouth down on his for a deep searing kiss.

Harry's eyes flashed open in surprise at the fact that Murphy was sitting on his lap and sliding her hot tongue against his. They soon fluttered closed when his hands found her waist and tugged her harder down against his lap.

Angry, embittered sex in Murphy's office sure as hell sounded like a bad idea, but in practicality it really did feel good.

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Cuddy moaned and awoke alone in a still and silent car. Concern washed over her as she bolted upright in her reclined seat and cast her eyes wildly about for House. She heaved a relieved sigh when her gaze landed on him not twelve feet away from the parked car, a grocery bag in one arm and a carrier for drinks in the other hand, balanced awkwardly with his cane. Cuddy scrabbled at the door until she managed to open it and nearly fell out of the car when the scent of delicious hot foot reached her. She actually growled in anticipation before she remembered herself and stifled the sound.

Her power nap had revitalised her so that she no longer felt dead on her feet. She was still famished, but she could manage the walk to the picnic table by the lake that House had picked out for their dining room.

"What did you get?" She asked from right behind him and he whirled to face her with an explosive curse high on his lips.

"Sheez…! Damn, you're quiet without heels." He told her, she could hear the hammering his heart was giving from here and couldn't resist a small grin of her stalking triumph. The reason she wore heels at the hospital (aside from looking damn fine in them of course) was that they made a hell of a racket without much conscious effort from herself. She was a naturally quiet person, so quiet it was easily seen as being not quite human.

She ceased to pay attention when the bag was put down on the table within her reach. She delved inside and began to haul out cartons stuffed with fine smelling yumminess that deserved her immediate and undivided attention. "Ooh, Italian." She murmured happily and dragged out several cartons of pasta for her perusal. She sank down onto the bench chair and was aware of House taking the seat beside her. probably to steal whatever food she didn't inhale immediately. She was so starved. Her hunger reared its head with a vengeance at the evidence of food splayed out right in front of her.

Hmm, tortellini, she must make a clean kill for it could be vicious if only wounded…

"You know, there's cutlery right here."

"Cutlery's for wimps." She asserted and continued to eat with her fingers. She lapped creamy Carbonara sauce from her fingers, her eyes dancing as he regarded her with that puzzled expression so evident on his face.

"Now this, I just don't get." He started and she didn't interrupt her eating just so he could wax lyrical. If he wasn't going to have that garlic bread then that just meant more for her. "Of the two of us, I figured I would be the first one to get arrested on this little trip, and…since when did you ever unclench long enough to eat with your hands?"

"You know, House," She said and finished chewing before continuing. There was a fine line between being relaxed and being disgusting. "Contrary to your own omnipotent belief that you know everything about me, there are entire rooms that can be filled with what you don't have a Scooby about in my life." She smirked at him and then uncapped a bottle of some kind of fizzy grape juice before downing half of it.

"A Scooby about?" He echoed her and she nodded enthusiastically before wolfing down some meatballs, wrapping some spaghetti around her fingers and then slowly sucking it off with a moan of pleasure. Good lord, she loved food. The knowledge that her heightened senses were actually a symptom of her impending doom was conveniently swept aside as she focused on what would be one of her last suppers, as it were. With every gulped bite of food she felt her strength returning and that was a heady feeling.

The scent of Parmaham caught her senses and she zeroed in on the blossom of the smoked meat between House's own fingers. She had lunged forward and lapped it from his hand before she'd even fully contemplated the thought.

"Hey!" He yelped and trailed off when she briefly nibbled the tips of his fingers. He took in the sight of her, leaning forward, straddling the bench and practically on his lap. Her eyes danced and her cheeks were flushed while the biggest grin he'd ever seen on her face lit up her entire body.

"More." She demanded and he'd be damned if he'd deny her. With almost hesitant fingers he picked up some cheesy bread and offered it to her. She bit it softly from his offering hand, her teeth scraping his skin in a delicious tease. "Mmm, more." So he fed her. Pasta from a fork, meat sauce from a spoon, bread from his fingers and cheese from his palm.

It was a moment out of time. A moment away from Cuddy the dean. The ultimate professional woman that would never be caught dead lapping cream cheese off the hand of her employee…but there it was. He couldn't believe that this was really happening, that she was allowing this intimacy with him. That he was allowed to see this playful teasing side of her. He wasn't about to waste the opportunity though and he was going to make damn sure that he didn't open his mouth and say something stupid to snap her out of it. He finally ripped open the carton containing dessert. A tinfoil box of peaches smothered in cream. She actually whimpered when he held the carton in one hand and scooped out a crescent of the fleshy fruit and held it out to her. Thick cream slid down over the back of his hand and trickled towards his wrist.

Her glittering eyes traced the movement of the liquid and her tongue traced over her lips. He had a moment to discern her intention before she swooped forward, balancing on her fingertips and angled her head down against his arm. Her tongue flicked out to sweep the cream from his skin. She murmured her approval at the taste of either him or the dessert, he was helpless to try and figure it out because the feel of her mouth on him, kissing and nipping the sticky cream off him before finally sucking the peach from between his fingers was too all consuming to allow anything else to input into his brain. Desire pooled low in his belly at the rapt look in her eyes, it flared into sloshing lust when she leant forward once more and sucked the entire length of his finger into her mouth. His eyes flew wide when her tongue wrapped around the digit and she slowly sucked back until she kissed his fingertip and released him.

He cleared his throat and scrabbled desperately for some kind of familiarity in this situation. Her face was barely three inches from his and that grin was back. Her eyes laughing at him while her tongue did that sinful thing like a cat lapping cream from its mouth.

He frowned when all that laughter abruptly leeched from her expression. She didn't move any further away from him but it was her demeanour that changed and put a Grand Canyon of distance between them. House wanted to snarl in frustration. Her eyes flew beyond him and latched onto something behind his left shoulder. His frown deepened and he turned to see what looked so damn interesting. Then she…_moved. _Nothing more than a flicker of bunching muscles, but suddenly she was crouching on the bench rather than straddling it and both hands clasped his face, stopping him from doing anything but stare right at her chest. which he usually wouldn't have objected to but he'd seen the flash of emotion in her eyes.

It had been something very like fear.

"Cuddy, what is it?" He made no attempt to wriggle out of her hold. It was like her fingers were made out of steel. Her body was suddenly entirely forged from strength and he didn't actually think he would be able to turn around if he wanted to.

"Greg, I want you to do exactly as I say, okay?"

"Cuddy…" He stopped abruptly when her fingers flexed against his temple.

"I mean it! Do exactly as I say."

"Fine, fine, but let go of me."

"Okay…" Her voice was barely a whisper and her hands lowered themselves to rest on his shoulders. She kneaded him there with her nails scraping against the fabric of his jacket noisily. "I want you to go to the car, get in and start the engine. Don't move suddenly and don't –whatever you do- turn around and look, okay?"

House sighed and rolled his eyes. This had to be some kind of joke. "I'll do it if you tell me what the hell I'm not supposed to be looking at."

She actually growled then and he felt the bite of her nails even through the combined layers of his clothes. "Remember those animal attacks that Harry's been investigating?"

"Uh-huh."

He watched her throat work as she swallowed hard.

"Well, there's a few more of them standing right behind us."


	8. Chapter 8

**Okay kids!!**

**I know I said I was gonna update 'Family Ties' first but…well, Scareltt demanded this one first so…there. **

**Thanks for all the reviews on my 'Seven Days of Smut' series, I may do some holiday ones if I feel like it aaaannnd I will not be continuing the one with Stella in it as the characters don't belong to me…but if Prin asked me to write a fic with her I probably wouldn't say no. **

**Okay, read and review because you love me. **

**Ciaooooo. **

**Chapter 8: Close Encounters of the Worst Kind**

Harry knew he should stop. He shouldn't be hauling Karin closer and plunging his tongue deeper into her mouth…but he couldn't stop himself. He would let her go, eventually, he was sure of it, but he wasn't done with her yet. She moaned, flexing her long legs and grinding herself against him. Harry groaned on a small curse. She felt like fire in his hands, too hot to handle but enthralling, he wanted more. His fingers delved through her hair, angling her mouth more fully against his. He wanted more. More contact. More skin.

He managed to free his hands and grip her suit jacket, pulling it down her arms and letting it flop to the floor. He was painfully hard up against the fly of his jeans and the way she was squirming and mewling on his lap wasn't helping things. He unclasped her gun from her hip and it thumped to the floor unnoticed by her. She was still far too much in control, she had started this but he was damn well going to finish it.

Harry moved before he could think better of it. Boosting her up, he took on step and then perched her on the edge of her desk, pushing her back and pinning her down with his larger broader body. She moaned, she loved this. Her legs cinched tight around his hips and he growled his approval. It had been too damn long and, if he were honest with himself, he had been waiting for Murphy to get reacquainted with this side of himself.

He slipped the pearly buttons from her shirt free from their moorings and could have died happily right there when her slim curves were revealed to him. Along with miles of pale smooth skin that he was just dying to taste. He smirked and caught her wrists in one hand, pinning them to the wood of her desk above her head. his other hand flipped the front clasp of her bra and peeled it away from her skin like wrappings from a long awaited present.

"Stars and fucking stones, Karin, you're beautiful." His voice was low and reverent. He felt the power of the lust rising between them sparkling through his bones and the lights flickered overhead. Murphy's computer blinked off with a small puff of smoke from the modem. The small fan sputtered to a stop in the corner of the room.

"Harry, I…" Her voice died with whatever protest she had been formulating when his head lowered and he took the sensitive peak of one rosy pink nipple between his lips. Tasting her greedily. He worked his hips, digging harder against her hot core with the hard ridge of his cock through his jeans, the contact wasn't nearly enough for him, but judging by the way Karin was arching her back and moaning, it was doing her just fine. Harry felt something nudge his cheek and lifted his head in amusement to find her police shield on the link chain around her neck lying against the heaving curve of one of her breasts.

It made on hell of a picture, her lying there, her shirt open, her lacy bra shoved out of the way, her nipples flushed and erect incongruously against her shining police badge. Then looking up to the lilac colour of her lust heavy eyes, the stain of arousal high on her cheeks.

Hell's bells he wanted to fuck her until they were both raw from it.

"Harry, I can't…I need…" Karin twisted against him and he realised he'd been just watching for far too long.

He grinned then, she needed him. Phone the fucking press, Murphy had admitted that she needed someone.

"Okay, beautiful, hold on tight, I'm going to make you scream."

Harry's body bowed over hers. One hand pinning her hands above her, robbing her of control. His eyes devoured the way she threw her head back and whimpered for him. His tongue lapped over her nipple again, distracting her from what his other hand was doing to her slacks. He worked the snap free and the rasp of the tiny zipper seemed impossibly loud to him. He buried his face in the valley of her cleavage and inhaled deeply, he loved her scent, feminine and yet…strong. Murphy was the strongest woman he knew and she was trembling for him. It was a heady feeling.

His fingers skimmed low over her belly and slid under the waistband of her slacks. He encountered the creamy silk of her panties and he slid his fingers inside those too. He brushed against her damp curls and then lower to slide his fingers against the damp folds of her sex. She cried out and turned into her own shoulder to mask the sound. He arched up and took her lips again with another forceful drugging kiss, all the better to muffle her small scream when he pushed two fingers deep into her. Her teeth savaged his lip when his thumb rolled around her clit and he couldn't help but grin against her mouth when she bucked her hips against his hand. Wanting more contact. Craving it.

He let her hands go, sliding his arm around her waist and dragging her closer to him. Her response was to wrap her arms around his neck and kiss him fiercely. He added a third finger to the steady thrusting of his hand and she buckled under him, tearing her mouth from his and biting sharply into his shoulder. Her nails scored his back and he grinned savagely against her skin. He welcomed the small stings of pain because they came from her.

"Harry…" Her voice was desperately quiet in the flickering light of her tiny office. Their harsh breathing filled the small room. Her fingers delved into his hair and tightened, pulling his mouth tighter against her chest. He twisted his fingers inside her and shook at the way her tight inner muscles clung to him. She was so close. He could feel it. He just needed to…

"Harry!" She screamed for him and he muffled the sound with his own mouth as she shuddered and trembled beneath him. Her molten sex spasming around his fingers and her muscles twitching in delicious aftershocks. He smirked down at her as she sagged against the impassive wood of the desk, she watched him through heavy lidded eyes that widened when he lifted his fingers to his mouth and slowly lapped the taste of her from his hand while she watched.

The phone trilled.

They both froze.

"Don't answer that."

"I'm…" She was panting, he could see the flush heightening in her cheeks, though not with arousal, this time with embarrassment. "I'm still on duty…Dresden."

Harry pulled away from her and swore. So he was back to being Dresden again. A few seconds ago she had been screaming his name in ecstacy and now he was back to being her 'advisor' that tended to fuck up a little too often in suiting with her law enforcement sensibilities. She twisted on the desk, snatching up the phone.

"Murphy." She answered shortly, frantically pulling at her clothes, rearranging them back into some semblance of propriety. She couldn't refasten her bra with one hand though, so Harry reached out and did it for her. His cock was a burning brand of need rearing behind his jeans and it was going to ache for hours…but he helped her. Buttoning her shirt, sliding her jacket over her shoulders while she spoke on the phone. He even reached down and grabbed her gun off the floor, handing it back to her and then helping her to clip it onto the fixing at her hip.

She watched him the whole time with wide blue eyes. Stammering down the phone intermittently, he had to admit, the just come hard was good on her. Her hair was a little mussed, her cheeks flushed and her lips swollen from the pressure of his mouth on hers. He could still taste her on his lips, sweet and honeyed flavour. He sat down opposite her and planted his feet up on the edge of her desk, where she was still sitting. He waited until she looked at him again and then slowly, torturously, ran his tongue over his hand again. Like there was something on his skin that he just loved to taste.

"Uh…what was that?" She stammered down the phone and he grinned. Ah…finally something that shook her up. He stilled when her face turned serious, she even forgot her chronic embarrassment. "Right, okay, we'll be there in ten." She hung up the phone and finally managed to look Harry in the eye.

"Something's happened out by the lake. Description matches your friend Lisa."

Harry's blood chilled at those words.

**$inister $cribe**

Lisa was crouched on the bench, she could feel House tense under her grip and reminded herself to loosen it slightly before she powdered his collarbone to dust. He swung his leg carefully over the bench and slid out from under her hands, her palm slid down over his jacket sleeve until she could grip his hand. She didn't dare look away from them, as long as she was watching them they wouldn't pounce…she hoped.

She didn't know how many of them there were, she counted four…no five of them prowling out of the bushes. They were smaller than the one that she had Harry had taken on earlier that day but…they were still five feet tall even on four legs. They slunk out of the shadows, green eyes burning at her. They prowled like giant cats of some monstrous kind. Shingle, like shells covered their earthy hides and rattled ominously with every one of their steps. They were fixed on her for the moment, they didn't appear to notice House because…because they had been sent for her. Whoever was controlling them could obviously sense who she was. Possibly even see her through their minions' eyes.

She just wanted House to get into the car. She didn't know if that would draw their attention to him but she had to take the chance. She didn't think she could stand it if something happened to him. She would take any pain for him. She hadn't realised that until now, but now that she knew she wasn't going to let anything happen to him.

"Cuddy?" She was still holding onto his hand. She forced herself to release him.

"Just get in the car, House." Every muscle in her body tightened. Her skin hummed for the change and then she abruptly slammed on the brakes. She couldn't, not with House standing right there. He would never understand. Her tongue swiped over her lips nervously. Shit. What now?

They prowled closer, growling lower than human ears could pick up. Chuffing and grunting to one another like…exactly like panthers did. Cuddy narrowed her eyes with a low answering growl of annoyance. The bastard thought he was going to get her by mimicking her…well he could just guess again because she wasn't some dumb animal. She was Ishaaran and she was going to send what was left of his toys back to him in a box.

She heard the car door open and the lead Fury's head swung up with a grunt of surprise at the movement.

Shit.

Cuddy leapt without further thought. She soared off the bench, she'd take House seeing her do some freaky martial art tricks over dying, thank you very much. If it came to it, she would probably change as well, but that would be as a last resort. She tackled the lead beast by grabbing its shoulders with unsheathed claws. She had moved too fast for it to track and it yowled in surprise when her momentum yanked it sideways and sent it crashing down onto the ground. She rolled on the ground, never letting go of it, dragged its entire body over hers and kicked out sharply with both feet smashing into what passed for the thing's rib cage. It flew up and into the air with a gasp of surprised fright and then plunged over the wall and splashed into the lake with a squeal of pained agony.

Cuddy was on her feet again before the others could smother her. Snarls sounded behind her and she bolted to the car. This was going to be close.

House chose that moment to turn the key in the ignition, switch the headlights on and shed some illumination on the subject. Twin beams of light lanced through the dimly lit clearing of picnic tables and Cuddy hissed as harsh artificial light stabbed her retinas, she put an arm up to shield herself but didn't miss a step. She hurdled the hood of the car, slithering over the polished metal and grabbed a hold of the edge of the windscreen, pivoting her body and sliding in through the open window of the car to flop into the passenger seat.

House was too busy staring out the window with a dark frown on his features to notice her acrobatic prowess.

"Cuddy…" Lisa prepared herself for making up some explanation that was House friendly to explain the presence of the four earth Furies. "What are you running from?"

"What?" Cuddy looked out the windscreen and frowned.

There was nothing there.

No, wait, there in the shadows, a blur of movement. The light had frightened them off. They didn't want to be seen. The engine died and Cuddy looked over incredulously to see House holding the keys in his hand and looking at her carefully. He reached out and gently probed at the bruise on her temple.

"Maybe you hit your head harder than we thought."

Cuddy could have quite happily maimed him right then and there. She slapped his hands away. "House, you turn this car on right now. They're hiding from the lights."

"Cuddy, there's nothing…SHEEZUS!" House slammed back against his chair in surprise when…when…what the hell was that thing? Whatever it was, it had just landed on the bonnet of their car and was…grinning through the windshield at him with glowing green eyes and dripping black fangs.

"Told you." Cuddy muttered and looked to his hand. "Where are the keys?"

"I…I think I dropped them." House muttered, entranced by the monster sitting on the hood of their car. He tilted his head one way and a chill trickled down his spine when the beast, scaled like a giant crocodile but shaped like a lion on steroids, mirrored his movement and huffed a great steam of breath against the glass between them from within the great glowing gape of its maw.

"House, dropped them where? We need to get out of here!"

"Second that motion, they're down…" House turned to Cuddy and froze, his finger pointing down at the foot well.

"House, what is it?" He had gone completely stock still. His blue eyes wide and disbelieving…and staring right over her shoulder.

Cuddy whirled. There was a Fury at the window. _Right_ at the window. The open window. The window that Cuddy had forgotten to shut. She jammed her finger in the button and the Fury grunted in confusion when the window whirred upwards, barring it from it's prey. Cuddy swallowed, it was so huge that it had to stoop to look through the glass at them.

"Oh shit."

_CRUMP!_

"More shit." Cuddy amended when the roof buckled down over their heads. There was another one on the roof now. This was a rapidly deteriorating situation. She yelped in surprise when the back windshield exploded inwards in a shower of millions of pieces of glass. House swore and she grabbed him, shielding him with her body as glass spat at her. she looked up to see the huge blunt head of the lion-fury thrusting itself through the slim back windshield. It was so huge that it had to buckle the roof upwards to fit its shoulders through the gap.

"We're going to get eaten by…I don't even know what these are, Cuddy." House lifted his head and flinched when a massive paw swung at the windshield and thumped into it. Spidering cracks all over the safety glass. He breathed a sigh of relief. It was quickly cut short by the shattering of Cuddy's window. A huge paw the size of his head thrust through the window and clamped onto Cuddy's shoulder. She yelped and scrabbled frantically when the hooked obsidian claws yanked on her flesh and slammed her backwards against the door. Her head cracked against the metal frame of the car so hard she saw stars.

"Hey!" House leant over and stabbed his cane through the window. The business end caught the animal in one glowing eye and it jerked backwards with a yowl of surprise more than pain. It released Cuddy and staggered back from the car, long tail lashing. Its shell shaped ears flattened against its skull like head and House jerked back. There was no doubt about it, that thing was not normal.

The roof chose that moment to crumple further under the weight of the animal on it. It sank a good six inches and House grimaced, ducking down pulling Cuddy with him. Great, so if they weren't mauled to death then they'd be crushed. This night was quickly going downhill.

"House! Get the keys." Cuddy felt at the back of her head and winced when her fingers came away bloody. There was also blood seeping from the cuts high on her shoulder, her white tee shirt and convict scrubs were quickly becoming worse for wear.

The roof sank another inch and the windshield exploded, either because of the crumpling of the roof or the pawing of the beast on the hood. House winced as thousands of splinters of glass slashed over his face in a myriad of tiny cuts. Cuddy ducked down and slithered over the gearbox to find the damn keys.

Of _course_ he had to yank them out. He couldn't just do as he was told for once in his contrary life and trust her when she told them that there was a bunch of man-eating earth-furies prowling out of the night to make appetisers of them.

Noooo, that would be too much to ask, wouldn't it?

On the bright side, any other time she happened to be sprawled over House's lap with her hands sliding down between his legs would have been cause for some lewd comment, but right now he was too focused on dodging the dinner-plate sized paws coming through the windows intent on ventilating his ribcage. She spotted the keys behind his sneaker and hooked the ring around her finger with a twist of her wrist. Wriggling backwards she managed to yank herself back into a sitting position only to come face to face with House, bent sideways over the seat because the roof had collapsed nearly completely.

They both twisted to look up when the screech of metal could be heard as massive knife sized claws punctured the battered shell of the rood and peeled it away like it was a tinned can needing opening.

"Well, this is a wrinkle." Cuddy murmured and jammed the keys into the ignition, sprawling across House's lap again to reach around the steering column.

House managed a wry chuckle. "What a way to die with a hot woman on your lap."

"No dying tonight." Cuddy gritted and jammed the key around with a savage motion. The engine roared under the hood and the fury perched there looked down with vague interest at this new purring sound under its feet.

"Not in gear." House informed her and she rolled her eyes. Twisting around in their rapidly shrinking prison to reach under herself and grab the gear stick. Remind her again why they had gotten a stick shift?

"I have to do everything myself." She muttered and crunched the gears savagely, not stopping until she found one. It didn't really matter to her which one it was, so long as they got rid of their new hood ornament.

The engine squealed in protest at this rough treatment but the car bolted into motion obediently…backwards.

She'd found reverse.

"This is what you get with women drivers!" House shouted over the surprised roar of the furies and Cuddy couldn't help but laugh, this was insane. He grappled with the steering wheel but it was too late. In their desperation to get away they had long since lost control of the now careening rental car. "Wait a second, wasn't the car parked with the trunk pointing at the lake?" House had time to ask this one panicked question before the car smashed tail and trapped fury first into the wall edging onto the lake. The wall exploded with a burst of shattered magic and smashing mortar and the car sailed almost gracefully through the air for an eternal second.

Cuddy had time to note that the doors had been crushed shut by the weight of the furies before they splashed down into the water and the freezing cold currents of the lake poured in through the many holes in their battered rental car.

**$inister $cribe**

Harry sat beside Murphy in her car, the siren light plugged onto the roof and wailing overhead. He resisted the urge to tell her to hurry up. Again. She'd just get more pissy than she already was. He would have thought that after the incident on the desk she might have relaxed a little…but apparently not.

"Harry…" she began and he resisted the urge to fling himself out of the car. It was her 'we need to talk' tone and he was more than ready to run for the hills rather than sit through another 'I love you like a friend' speech. Not that the L word would ever dare to pass Murphy's lips, that might be mistaken as a human emotion and that would just never do.

"Yeah, Murph." Was that a long suffering sigh in his voice? He hoped not. Bob would be impossible to live with if he turned out to be right that Harry was turning into a morose bastard.

"About what happened, in my office…" She took a hairpin right at sixty and Harry worked at not clinging to the dashboard and screaming like a ten year old on a fairground ride.

"What about it, Murph?"

"It can't happen again."

"No."

"You're agreeing?" Murphy had to admit she was surprised. She had expected a bit more of a fight from him on this. That was damn near insulting how quickly he had agreed to never touch her again.

"No."

Now she was really confused. "You don't agree?"

"Damn right I don't." Harry actually did shut his eyes at the next turn at ridiculous speeds. "If you think that I'm going to have you once and then not have you return the favour you're dreaming."

"I…I…" Murphy was speechless. That was what she was.

"I thought you believed in fair play, Murph?" The bastard was actually grinning at her. "You wouldn't use me and lose me, would you, Murph?"

Damn it.

"It's not like that…"

"You got another man I don't know about?"

He _knew_ she was single. Between her job and the beating she'd taken from her divorce she'd sworn off man-handling for a while…trust Dresden to be the one to have her breaking even her own rules. She was mortified. She could believe that she'd let him pin her like she was some teenage bimbo in the back of a Cadillac.

"No, I…"

"Then what's the problem. I like you, you _evidently_ like me. I don't see why we can't…give things a try."

"Dresden, we work together!"

"Your point?"

"Don't get involved with the people I work with."

"I'm not him, Karin. I'm not you're fucking ex-husband and I never will be." He snapped at her, suddenly angry. He wasn't going to hurt her but he'd be damned if he'd let her just slip through his fingers. She drew the car to a halt, shut off the siren and turned to look at him. A million unsaid things scrolled across her face and she couldn't seem to pick which emotion to go with first. Anger, indignation, sorrow, lust…the list was endless and she seemed paralysed by the choice.

Harry left her to it. He had no desire to sit there and let her formulate an excuse for why they should ignore the screaming chemistry between them. He swung out of the car, in his white tee and convict orange pants (charmingly provided by Chicago's finest)…just in time to see a battered rental car covered in enraged furies go flying past and smash through the barrier and go flying out over the lake.

**$inister $cribe**

The water was freezing. House gasped in the sheer shock of the frigid cold splashing through the windows and windscreen to splatter onto his jeans and pool around his ankles in the foot well. The animals had not been affected by the momentum of their car. They hadn't even batted an eyelid (if they even had eyelids) at smashing through a wall…but the water apparently terrified them.

They squealed and howled, trying to jump away from the water but they all fell to it. They all sank beneath the sloshing waves on the lake's surface and disintegrated painfully upon impact like it was concentrated acid touching them instead of neutral fresh water. House had no idea what they were and, at the moment, he didn't care. He could survive this and then ask questions.

House's hand went to the door handle and he swore when it came clean away in his hand. The car had taken a beating that was for sure.

"Oh…crap." He finally decided on and turned to look at Lisa. She was slumped unconsciously against him, a deep and angry gash on her forehead seeping blood down her cheek. "Oh, shit, Lisa, wake up!" He patted her cheek, trying to gently bring her round.

No response.

Fear lashed him. She wasn't moving, he couldn't even hear her breathing over the sloshing of water around them. He tried to feel for a pulse at her neck but he couldn't get the angle right. Oh God, she couldn't be dead, he couldn't deal with that. He didn't even know if he could deal with her being hurt. Terror clawed at him, though not for himself, but for the woman sprawled against him, unmoving and pale.

"Jesus, Cuddy, wake up!" He punctuated his words by cupping a palm full of water and sloshing it in her face. She jerked as if slapped, her eyes flying wide.

"Hmm, what?! Where are we?"

"In the lake. Your driving skills suck." House shifted uncomfortably even as relief swamped him in a dizzying rush. She was alright. She was't dead. She was fine. Or as fine as a woman in a sinking car could be. The water was lapping up at his chest now and the car was sinking far too fast. "I can't get the doors open." The car was sinking nose first, that was where all the weight and the damage was.

Cuddy grimaced. She felt battered. Every bone and muscle ached but she pushed past it. She could get out of here and then fall apart. She blinked rapidly trying to clear the fuzz in her brain. The blow she'd just taken would have probably killed a human. Caused a blood clot or worse and killed her off slowly in unconsciousness, but Ishaarans were made of sterner stuff. She swung her head around to look behind her…up at the trunk of the car with the gaping wound where the Fury had tried to climb into the back seat.

"We can get out the back. Go that way." She gestured and blinked in surprise when House grabbed her waist and boosted her up in front of him.

"Ladies first." He grunted and shoved her further when she tried to turn and protest. "Don't give me any equal rights crap when we're sinking. If you want to go all feminist on me we can wait until we're on dry land." He snapped at her and slapped her on the ass like she was a horse he wanted to run. She summoned a glare because it was expected and then scrambled into the back seat. She slashed her palms on the glass when clambering out onto the trunk but ignored it. As soon as it happened she began to heal anyway. Instead she focused on reaching back through the broken window and hauling House out of the crumpled car.

She was beginning to wish that she had never come to Chicago.

**$inister $cribe**

"Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yes, Harry, I'm fine." Lisa insisted, edging Harry towards the door of the suite she was sharing with House. Harry had fussed and hovered over her while the EMTs had checked both her and House over. House had various bruises and cuts…whereas Cuddy had been miraculously unscathed. By the time she had floundered to shore, her cuts had healed and her bruises had already faded…she hadn't had to give much of an explanation, just sit there and look dazed, it always worked more effectively than some fantastic and erudite tale. Lieutenant Murphy had not been fooled however, and had watched her like a hawk like she expected Cuddy to leap up and start ripping throats out with her bare hands at a moment's notice. Lisa had no idea what she had apparently done to Murphy to upset the woman but…judging by the way Harry and Murphy's scent had been all over each other it was fairly safe to say that they were involved and…Murphy probably didn't appreciate her boyfriend turning up naked on a street with another woman.

Cuddy could identify. In the state she was in she would probably claw the eyes out of another woman that even looked at House.

Cuddy felt a start of surprise at that thought and then sighed in resignation at the thought. She might as well accept that she wanted the man. It was a bit late in the game to be kidding herself otherwise.

"Lisa, you're sure you're okay?"

"Yes, Harry, I'm fine. Thanks for watching House while I was in the shower, but I think it's time you were getting back to Karin." She shoved him gently out the door.

"What? I mean, Karin and I are…"

"Going at it like rabid weasels?" She asked drolly with a lift of one teasing eyebrow.

Harry blushed. She thought it was unbearably cute that a grown man could blush.

"Go! We'll be fine." She insisted and firmly shut the door in his face. She heard him sigh on the other side with her sharp ears and then walk down the corridor to presumably go and find Murphy and 'not' screw her senseless.

Lisa turned back to the room and sighed. She felt sore but…she was getting better. She listened for House, he had been in the shower but she could no longer hear the splatter of water against his skin. She frowned, what was he doing now? A quiet House was a worrisome House. She padded through the lounge to the double bedroom. The door swished open over the carpet and her scowl of confusion changed to a worried frown. He was sitting at the edge of one of the beds, a towel wrapped around his hips and his head in his hands.

"House…?" She pushed all the way into the room. Her concern evident in her tone. "Are you alright? Does your head hurt?" She crossed to him quickly, kneeling in front of him and looking up into his closed eyes.

"No…" He said heavily and heaved in a sigh. His chest seemed too tight for the words though and he let the breath out in a constricted rush before snapping open his eyes and looking at her in an almost pleading manner. "What happened tonight? What were those things? Why are you fine? You were bloody and bruised at the lake and now there isn't a mark on you?" He spoke too quickly for her to even try and answer. She didn't think he really wanted answers. He was trembling. She could hear his heart racing and his skin was clammy. "Oh God, Cuddy, in the car, I thought you were dead. You could have died. We almost died tonight I…it doesn't make sense…none of it makes sense." He began to shake in earnest now.

"House…House…Greg!" She clasped his head in her hands and forced him to look at her. "You're going into shock. I need you to breathe, okay?" She kept her voice gentle but her tone brooked no argument…he seemed to respond to it. Her thumbs rubbed against the planes of his cheekbones, soothing. He dropped one hand over his heart without thinking and repeated the soothing motion there too. His breathing regulated almost immediately, she held his gaze with her own and spoke in the words of her people.

"Ve kalmen, vorkat, ei amo tesh bu rono."

He blinked at her and reached up to cup her face with his own hand. "That's beautiful…what does it mean?"

_Be calm, my-heart, I am here with you._

Cuddy swallowed past the lump in her throat and shook her head. "It's just a prayer. An old one."

"I like it." His hand slipped down, cupping the back of her neck. He tugged lightly, pulling her up against his chest. she could have fought him, in all honesty, she should have but she met his lips with a sigh from her own. She needed this and she told herself that he needed it too.

Just for tonight, they needed each other.


	9. Chapter 9

**Oh, like I'd miss out on a chance to write Huddy smut. **

**In answer to Just Lost, yes, House is human. 100 per cent but he is affected by Cuddy's pheromones, she's giving them off because she's Ishaaran and in this chapter his leg doesn't hurt so much because cat's apparently purr to heal themselves. So that would be passed onto him because he'd been in such close…proximity (smutty grin).**

**Um, anyway, read and review me!!**

**Chapter 9: Go Purr Yourself**

The kiss was supposed to be just that. A brief meeting of lips to convey comfort, affection, a human connection to ground him and help him get through his shock. It was gentle and pleasing. It should have ended there. He should have let her go. Said something stupid and pushed her away like he did every day…but he didn't want to. Not today. They had nearly died tonight.

House had never really cared much about whether he lived or died. He was alive, that was acceptable, and when he died, he didn't think he'd care much about that either. Cuddy however, was a whole other story. He wanted her to live. People would miss her. He would miss her if she died. It wasn't really a shock to have this thought. Not now, not after he'd spent all this time on the sidelines yearning for her. Wanting what he wouldn't allow himself to have. Pushing it away for fear of ruining it.

Tonight he would take the chance though. Tonight he would risk ruining everything if it meant he could hold her just this once. Be with her in the way he wanted to since the moment he had met her.

His hand angled upwards, his fingers spearing through her hair and hauling her mouth harder against his. He couldn't do soft and gentle. At least not now. He hoped that she understood, but he needed it to be hard and alive and screaming.

Apparently she did understand. Her hands flexed on his shoulders. Her nails scoring against his damp skin.

Then she pounced.

There was no other word for it. One minute he'd been in control, his hand at her nape, pulling her up against him while she knelt in front of him. Then he was flat on his back looking up at the dark grin of her lips. The flash of her pink tongue running over sharp white teeth while her hands slid down over his chest. She hummed in the back of her throat and wriggled her hips down against him.

He swore, arching up under her, grinding up into the heat of her body. She gave a small whimper, rolling her hips against his. She threw back her head and inhaled deeply he blinked in surprise when something happened between them. Something deep and throbbing that seemed to emanate from her body and vibrate clean through his. her eyes fluttered closed and he thought she looked more beautiful then than he had ever seen her before. Her hands gripped the hem of her sweats and yanked it up, revealing inch after inch of taut tanned skin that he so wanted to taste. His hands followed hers dutifully, smoothing over her skin and teasing her with talented fingers.

She swung the sweater over her head and swung it out on one hand, letting it swing and then drop to the floor. That same deep throbbing, like a low sound below the range of his hearing, intensified when she opened her eyes – impossibly deep eyes – and smiled a small smile on those glossy dark lips of hers. She wore nothing under the sweater and he was too busy trying not to swallow his tongue to make a smart comment. She undulated slowly against him and he rolled his hips upward instinctively. Her hands slid into her hair and she arched her back, the pose showing off the high curves of her breasts to their full potential. She scrunched her curls up onto the top of her head and gave a low throaty moan that sounded oddly like the purr of an extremely large cat.

Her eyes snapped open and her hands slipped from her hair, slapping down against his shoulders and hauling him up against her. Naked chest to naked chest. She swayed against him, suddenly seeming uncertain but then his arms wrapped around her and yanked her closer, angling her mouth against his again and giving free reign to the plundering of his tongue. He pushed her down tucking her beneath him like he wanted to hoard her all to himself and settled himself in the welcoming cradle of her hips.

Lisa groaned, throwing her head back and tried to regain some control. That wicked mouth of his would be her undoing. He kissed down, down her neck, over her throat, causing her to shiver when he nipped her there, and lower still to lave attention to the tingling skin of her breasts.

Good lord she was purring and she couldn't stop.

It was a highly debated subject on why exactly it was that cats purred and, if it was anything like why the Ishaaran did it, then it was a wonder that felines ever stopped doing it. Lisa had _never_ purred before. It only happened when two lovers were especially attuned to each other. Purring wasn't so much the start of pleasure but the heightening of it. The sound was too far below the human range of hearing for House to have heard it but the sound was rumbling in her ears like a freight train. It filled her senses, vibrated through her brain, rattled her bones and hummed through her skin into his. He must be able to feel it. She'd turned into a freaking vibrator for god's sake!

Perhaps it was because she was nervous. She'd never had a human man before. She'd had a white court vampire, she'd had a native American who could turn into a bear and who'd had an extremely inventive imagination when it came to honey. She'd even had the leahnanne sidhe, the most famed lover of the fey courts…but none of them had made her feel like this. None of them had made her positively purr with pleasure.

His tongue swirled around her nipple and she arched to him. The rumbling sound of the purr rolling in her head and she moaned aloud in harmony with it. It felt _so_ good. His thumb flicked against her other nipple and she thought she might explode there and then from the sensation of it. He worked his way down her body, his palm coming to rest on her belly, his hand tingling on her skin like a current was passing between them. A slight frown pulled at his features in confusion. Oh god, he could feel it and she couldn't stop.

"Greg…" She panted. "Don't stop." He smirked up at her and trailed his hand lower. He hooked his fingers under the waist band of her sweats and pulled them slowly, torturously, down her legs before stuffing them out of his way.

He crawled back up her body and lay down on top of her. Her head fell back against the coverlet, she couldn't focus enough to hold it up anymore. He stroked a curl of dark hair out of her eyes and smiled. He felt really good. Whatever it was that was thrumming between them was nice. It soothed him more than anything ever had before. He felt like a live wire. He half expected electricity to snap and crackle between them. He loved the feel of her hair. So silky and heavy soft. He buried his fingers through it and brought her mouth to his.

She moaned her tongue sliding against his greedily. Tasting him made it better. God, she felt drugged. The purr roiling through her body and her brain and vibrating through him too. Every sensation was cranked to the max. She didn't know how much more of this she could take. Every inch of his skin pressed to hers, from lip to ankle, was too much and not enough all at the same time. Her nails dragged down his back, raising welts that he arched under. His cock slid hard against her and she whimpered.

"Mine." He murmured against her neck. His hands still buried in her hair and immobilising her. His teeth scraped her skin and she shivered. Hard. He couldn't know. He _couldn't_ know that being bitten on her throat had a direct line to her clit. White hot ecstasy shot through her like a lightening bolt and she screamed, twisting and thrashing under him until the spasms passed. Until she floated back down to earth. Every inch of her pulsing in time to her deep human-silent purring. The bastard laughed, held her down and bit her again.

At the exact same time as he lunged forward and thrust the entire red hot length of his cock deep inside her.

Lisa thought she was going to die then and there.

And what a way to go.

Her claws unsheathed against his skin and she fought not to shred him. She was barely in control. It was too much to hold herself back. A growl erupted from her throat and mated with his moan as he absorbed the feel of being buried balls deep inside her. Her hot inner muscles tightened around him, caressing him and he shut his eyes against it to try and remain in control. Her legs locked around his hips and she couldn't have let him go if her life depended on it.

"Greg…finish me." She pleaded. She needed this. She needed it right now so badly it almost hurt.

He panted into her mouth. Dizzy on her. He kissed her then. Far softer than any kiss they'd ever shared before. Then gentle comforting kiss that he should have given her instead of stripping her and fucking her until she screamed with it. Then he began to move. Slowly at first, deep slow strokes that had her clinging to him. Holding onto him as he pushed her higher and higher with every magic stroke of his hips.

He pulled his hands from her hair, kissing her fiercely now bracing his weight on his arms and rocking into her. That rumbling crackle of energy intensified between them, gathering around his cock like a velvet fist and clawing up his spine to constrict his chest.

Lisa splayed her hands against his chest. Forcing herself to retract her claws and not tear her lover to shreds. She tightened her grip on his hips with her legs and rose to meet his every thrust. He felt so good. Hitting that secret spot deep inside her just right. Sending fire-bursts of pleasure throughout her nervous system. She could feel the magic humming under her skin. Making her bones itch like she wanted to change but…it was different. She buried her face against his throat to hide the darkening of her lips, the glowing of her eyes, she just hoped her skin wasn't silvering. He was bound to notice that.

She could hear his pulse hammering by her ear. Feel the force of his life thundering just there under the skin. She licked him there. Lapping her tongue over the fluttering pulse there. So fragile, so close to danger. She licked him again, absorbing his musky taste. The pheromones, the lust, the male of him. Her fangs scraped his neck and he growled in his throat, liking it as much as she had. She would worry about that later, for now she wanted to bite him. Possessiveness rose in her like a wave. She wanted to mark him as hers. No other woman would look at him without knowing that he was taken. That he was hers.

The rational part of her brain that should have stopped her was buried somewhere quiet. Under a haze of lust. Lisa laid her teeth over his throat. Over the pulsing beat of his jugular that seemed to throb in time with every thrust of his hips against hers.

Then she bit him.

The orgasm hammered them both. It leaped on them and wrapped around them. Smothering them in sheer sensation so intense it was nearly pain.

Greg took her mouth, swallowing her scream and blending it with his own. He gentled her with his kiss. Letting her float back to earth rather than fall. They drifted back down together until they found themselves wrapped in each others arms. Sprawled across one of the king size beds in their suite. Not quite sure how they had managed to end up like this.

Greg gathered her close and pulled her under the sheet to keep her warm. He wanted her safe, next to him where he could protect her. He ignored the fact that as a cripple he wouldn't be up to much protecting, but he couldn't stow the feeling. He had meant what he had said. She was his and he wasn't about to give her up easily. She rested against him, her ear listening to the steady thump of his heart under his ribs. That same lower-than-he-could-hear hum was still there. Still sizzling between them, but this time it had a distinctly contented tone to it. She smiled at him shyly and then yawned. He thought it was cute and realised he was in some deep trouble right there.

He was smiling though, as he watched the dawn peek in through the curtained window. He was smiling as he rubbed his hand up and down her back, feeling that unexplained vibration in her chest and in no hurry to ask what it was. He was smiling as he fell asleep. The feeling that he was exactly where he wanted to be, strong in his chest.

**$inister $cribe**

Harry slammed into his apartment and Murphy followed as meekly as she knew how behind him. She shut the heavy steel door behind them and watched candles flare to life throughout the apartment. A few years ago, he would have made an effort to at least pretend to light them, but now he threw what he was in her face, out there for her to see plainly. He had lied to her, yes, but it had always been to protect her. Murphy couldn't pretend that it hadn't offended her on a very basic level. That he had thought that she, a hardened cop, would need protecting. But that had been before she had seen up close and personal what exactly it was that he was trying to protect her from. Murphy would never admit it but she was glad that she had Harry looking out for her and the rest of the city against the things that went bump in the night…and crash during the day.

He was angry, she knew that too. But he had to understand that she had worked hard for her career. She could be throwing that all away if she hooked up with Harry…it was a little frightening to realise that she was actually considering it.

"Greetings, boss-man!"

A cloud of orange smoke billowed from the mouth of a grinning bleached human skull and a dapper English gent appeared in the middle of the room. His orange eyes glowed merrily and his white hair mimicked the sheen it would have if the light from the candles actually had something to reflect off of.

"And the delectable deputy Murphy!" Bob grinned broadly at her and then faltered when she managed only a weak smile in return. "What happened to you two?" The spirit demanded and feigned sitting on the arm of one of the many battered couches in Harry's hole, ahem, apartment.

"Bad day." They answered in unison and a snowy white brow arched in ponderous thought.

"We're here for a tracking spell on this junk." Harry snapped, his mood moving well past foul by now, as he dumped the paper sack of magical tools that he had found while dumpster swimming on the coffee table. "Then we're going to Mac's to see if anyone knows anything about any furies or anyone buying up some elemental summoning tools." He growled and Bob narrowed his flame coloured eyes at his master.

They widened in sudden recognition. Bob shot to his feet and glared accusingly between the two humans in the room.

"YOU TWO HAD SEX!" He blurted in a thundering accusatory tone.

Harry turned to him. His glare intensifying to that of a bull elephant that had just been shot at by a stupid poacher. Murphy's cheeks flamed and she looked anywhere but at Harry and Bob.

"And…?" Harry demanded coolly and Bob folded his arms over his chest with a dignified snort of disdain.

"About goddamn time." The spirit affirmed and Harry's scowl deepened. Murphy found a sudden interest in the way the wax was pooling off one of the candles scattered throughout the apartment.

"Bob…don't talk."

"What? All I'm saying is that you've been lusting after the luscious lieutenant for years and you two finally managed to…"

"Bob!"

"Get jiggy with it." Bob grinned, enjoying himself thoroughly.

"Years?" Murphy perked up at that little titbit, apparently Harry hadn't just been lying about magic.

"Oh yes, I'd say that you were popular material for those long hot showers…if Harry actually had hot water." Bob mused and Harry turned beet red. Murphy resisted the urge to laugh. Not that it was funny but it was either laugh or fry and she didn't fancy the alternative.

"Bob, take Mister for a walk and stay away until sunrise." Harry snarled. "Before I send you on a vacation to the Nevernever."

Bob grinned. "Okay!" Orange glittering smoke billowed where the dapper English gent had been moments before and swirled into the thirty pound grey cat that looked to be half bobcat snoozing on the couch. The cat sprang up into a sitting position, tawny eyes gleaming flame orange, smirked at Murphy with a wink then bounded off the couch and out the door which Harry held open for him.

"And no orgies!" The wizard shouted after his denizen.

Mister Bob rolled his feline eyes and sprang up the steps leading to street level. Had somebody been standing outside Harry's apartment, and had that someone decided to follow the abnormally large cat that just happened to be humming the show-tune; _Any Dream Will Do, _from Jason and His Technicolor Dream-Coat, they would have soon found themselves wandering into one of the more dank and depressing alleys that the city had to offer.

Had they continued after the cat, though perhaps not mimicking the impromptu feline soft-shoe shuffle which followed, they would have traipsed daintily through this alley and bounded up a fire escape to tread lightly onto the rooftops of Chicago. Whenever Bob was allowed to wander in his cat accomplice's skin, he always loved to take in Chicago from the roof gutters down.

Had they managed the feat of dodging pigeons and dancing over chimney stacks they might have seen the great grey cat still. They might have seen the fur along Mister Bob's back bristle in awareness. They might have seen the stub of his tail fluff up in indignation of another predator in his territory. Mister Bob whirled and froze, all four limbs locking in fear as the cat's blunt head tilted back to look up at the dark figure looming over him.

"Hrothbert of Bainbridge." The silky voice intoned on a dark smile. "And Mister the cat. We have things to discuss you and I. things of great import."

Mister Bob shivered, caught in the trap of glowing yellow eyes that lanced him right to the marrow.

**$inister $cribe**

House awoke with that same smile on his face. It was a little past ten in the morning. He yawned so wide that his jaw cracked and started in surprise when an answering sigh sounded next to his left flank. He looked down and his smile changed to a smirk worn by cat's with feathers around their mouths across the globe. Lisa lay next to him, her face buried against his side, an arm and a leg stretched over his body, anchoring him to her. her nails kneaded his skin lightly in an unconscious gesture while she slept.

Greg tilted his head and cleared a curl away from the smooth lines of her face. She slept on blissfully unaware of his scrutiny and he took the opportunity unabashedly to let his attention sweep over her intently. She was so beautiful…but then he already knew that. She was, however, more so now because he knew the exact way she screamed when she came. The way she liked to bite and be bitten, he rubbed at the mark on his throat one that he couldn't see but he imagined the livid colour of the bruise there. She hadn't cut him but she hadn't been gentle either. He stroked a finger over the love-bite on her own neck…he hadn't exactly been at his most suave and sophisticated either. She moaned softy, the noise thrumming in her throat like a purr. He smirked at that, Dresden had called her Cuddy-cat, he wondered idly how she'd earned the name and then banished the thought of other men anywhere near her on a scowl.

Hunger gnawed at him.

"Room service." He decided.

Cuddy mewled at his side, muttered something in that language of hers that he was _going_ to learn and rolled over, releasing him from her hold. House focused on not feeling bereft because of that and reached for the phone. Dialling the number he put in an order for two breakfasts…his eyes slid to Cuddy and he remembered how much and the fervour with which she had eaten the night before. He made that three breakfasts with an order of pancakes on the side and a jug of orange juice followed by a pitcher of coffee. Her nails scored lightly over his hips. Make that wholemeal pancakes with maple syrup and whipped cream too. She mumbled happily and dozed again.

Though he didn't want to, he slipped from the bed and pulled on his jeans, shoved his feet into his sneakers and pulled a tee shirt on over his head. Best to at least put on a show of decency for the wait staff he supposed. She'd never forgive him if he answered the door naked and he fully intended on getting back into that bed to have breakfast so he'd better behave himself for now.

House limped heavily into the lounge and rummaged for his stash. His leg wasn't bad today but he looked for his vicodin anyway. In fact, his leg was better than it had been in a long time. He felt good, his head clearer than usual. He fiddled with the white pill in his hand, he wondered how long the feeling might last. The hope in his chest flickered against the gusting draft of the ever present fear. The fear of the pain biting him when he wasn't prepared. When he wasn't numbed against its fangs. He liked this feeling of alertness, his leg still hurt but it was manageable…he slipped the pill back into the bottle and the bottle into his pocket.

He could brave the fear for a while.

A sharp knock announced breakfast at the door and House threw it open to allow the young guy in pushing the trolley. The waiter took in the sight of the askew pictures on the walls, the jostled hallway table and the damp clothes scattered from last night. House smirked at him knowingly.

"What can I say? I bring out the beast in her." He shrugged and handed the kid a twenty. He was feeling generous today. Stuffing his wallet into his back pocket, he ambled back towards the bedroom to announce the arrival of sustenance. The kid nodded at him, decided that a twenty was worth some slight mental scarring and hustled himself out the door.

Throwing open the bedroom doors, House limped into the room and froze. A dark shape rolled over on the bed and rose onto all fours. For a moment, House didn't know what he was seeing. The sheer incredulity of the moment causing even his mind to go blank. Then it registered.

There was a panther on his bed

And there was no sign of Cuddy.

House swallowed hard and staggered back. Primal fear reared in him and caused his movements to become jerkier and wilder. He slapped into the doorjamb and the noise caused the cat to turn his way. It blinked huge aquamarine eyes and, if he hadn't been so damn terrified of being eaten, House might have taken in the beauty of the animal. It lounged forward onto its chest, rump in the air and then swung forward in a spine popping full body stretch complete with twitching tail and gaping jaws to reveal inch long fangs and a pink velvet tongue.

"Holy fucking God…" House muttered, not even knowing what he was saying.

The panther turned to him, ears swivelling in his direction and then tilted its head at an angle, apparently confused by his reaction.

House didn't know what had happened he didn't know why there was a panther in his room, he just wanted to know where Cuddy was.

"Cuddy?" He called out, keeping a wary eye on the massive living shadow of a cat taking up the bed at the moment. Maybe she was in the bathroom.

The cat growled, a great coughing yowl of a growl that cut off abruptly. The panther seemed…surprised. House frowned at it, wondering what the proper procedure was in theses situations. The panther looked down at itself and then back up at House. It growled again. It started across the mattress, paws the size of his head sinking into the mattress.

House lunged backwards, his intellect taking a back seat while his instincts took over. He stumbled over something, or maybe his leg just couldn't support him and he crashed to the floor.

The panther leapt from the bed and bounded to his side. House thought he was going to be gone in a single snap of jaws and realised he did actually want to live after all. He was bothered about it. It wasn't until the cat loomed over him, a low rumble in it's throat sounding concerned that he cracked open an eyelid and met the cat's gaze.

Then he _knew_.

Only one living thing had _ever_ looked at him with that exact mixture of compassion, worry and exasperation in their eyes.

"Lisa." He scrambled backwards. It couldn't be. That wasn't possible. Women did not turn into jungle cats it just didn't fucking happen!

The panther rumbled and padded towards him, pleading with her eyes for him to understand. She reached out one paw and he shied away. Scrambling wildly, his hand landed on something familiar, his cane and he struck out wildly, catching her on the nose.

She yowled in surprise, he hadn't hurt her and sat back on her haunches. Her ears dropped and she rumbled again.

House was already on his feet. "Not possible." He was saying, shaking his head wildly. "Not fucking happening." He staggered backwards and away from her. The cat, the woman that he had been in bed with half an hour ago was gone, in her place was…he didn't know what she was. He hit the door to the suite and scrambled wildly, throwing it open and staggering out into the hallway. He slammed the door shut and didn't look back as he ran down the hallway.

There was nothing in his mind except for escape.

The panther, Lisa, sat in the middle of the hotel room and let her head dip forward to rest on her paws. She sniffed once and gave a low keening sound of pain. She couldn't turn back, not right now, she didn't know if she even would be able to again. She was losing control. This was the beginning of the end.

The apartment stank of fear. His fear. Fear of her. Fear of what he didn't understand.

Lisa felt loss gnaw at her like a gaping wound and whimpered again this time in real physical pain. She belly crawled back to the bedroom, sidling under the bed and curling in on herself. Tail up under her chin, making herself as small as possible. She hadn't known she could cry in panther form until this moment because there were great silver tears tracking through her sooty fur and she couldn't stop them.

She wept for her loss. Not of her life, she had accepted losing that a long time ago, but of her love. She didn't think she could stand the thought of the man she loved being afraid of her.

Of thinking her a monster.


	10. Chapter 10

**Written so quick it's not even beta'd but I just had to post this tonight. **

**(Scarlett Scribble was threatening me again ::pouts::)**

**um…whee, told you the pace was picking up, this one's quite jumpy but I like it so there. **

**Read and review me. **

**Chapter 10: Impossible**

House sat down in the booth and tunnelled his fingers through his hair. He heaved in a breath, picked up his beer, set it down without drinking and scrubbed his hands over his face. He had been walking for the better part of two hours and had ended up in this Irish kind of place. Mac's. Whatever. House idly noted that there were thirteen tables scattered about the basement pub and thirteen pillars to break up the flow of the room that restaurant designers usually went for now. He had sat at the back of the bar, in the dimmest corner. He didn't want to talk to anyone at the moment. House picked at the label of his beer. He was stalling his mind whirring over useless things rather than think to hard on what he had just seen.

Because what he had just seen was _impossible. _

Women did not turn into animals. Nobody could turn into an animal. That would involve a massive form of cellular mitosis on the genetic level that would take years to occur once never mind switching back and forth like she apparently could. House finally took a gulp of the beer and raised his eyebrows in surprise. Tasted good.

Okay, so let's, for a moment, suppose that Cuddy really was a…werecat for lack of a better term. Let's suppose she was born that way. She would have hidden it all her life. He hadn't known, he never would have guessed. Of course she would have hidden it, it was human nature to fear what was different and changing into a panther was definitely different.

House took refuge in his questions instead of flapping over things that freaked him out far too well. The multitude of answerless queries swarmed in his brain and he picked at his beer bottle while he tried to think them through.

Was Cuddy a human that turned into a cat or the other way around? Could she do it at will or was it a full moon thing? Was that werewolves? Did werewolves exist? Was Cuddy a one off, unique to nature or was there a whole race of people out there that could shape-shift? Had she always been like this? Was it genetic or synthetic?

The questions were shunted aside by one all encompassing fact.

She was still Cuddy.

No matter what skin she was in. He had seen her eyes. Even if she'd had four legs and a tail that had been Lisa Cuddy behind those eyes. The woman that he…the woman that he loved.

Next to the awareness that she could transform into a two hundred pound feline, that realisation wasn't nearly as shocking as it could have been. House scrubbed at the hollow feeling in his chest without conscious thought. He had hurt her, he had seen it in her eyes, when he had been scrambling away from her and she'd been trying to tell him…_something. _She had been reaching out to her and he had…he had hit her.

House looked down at the length of his cane in his hand and his fingers snapped open in immediate disgust. He had hit her with it. Revulsion for himself welled in his chest. How could he have hit her? The cane clattered to the floor and bounced away. A cowboy booted foot stopped it and a familiar hand clasped the wood.

Harry Dresden straightened and handed the cane out to House.

"You dropped something."

Even Harry, who'd spent a hell of a lot more time in fights than House ever had, didn't see the other man's fist until it was crashing into his face. Harry fell back on a curse and crashed into the next table along. House's hands were fisted in Harry's shirt collar and he hauled the other man's face to within inches of his own.

"What the fuck, Dresden?!" House demanded coldly. It was irrational for House to blame House but his world had just swung a hairpin at rational and was still screwy.

"Whatever this is, Dresden, take it outside." The owner of the bar growled at Harry, who he apparently knew and then nodded once to Murphy…the police lieutenant.

Harry practically dragged House out the door and up the stairs of the pub. He thrust the doctor away from him on the street and House staggered, pain lashing up his thigh before catching himself. He had left his cane down in the pub and Harry had left Murphy there.

"What the hell is your problem?!" Dresden demanded and yanked at his leather duster to straighten it. His face hurt like hell. House had a hell of a right hook.

"Cuddy's…I don't even know what she is, but my roommate was a little furrier this morning if you catch my drift!" House snapped, his chest heaved, anger raced through him.

Harry stilled. He looked up at House, dread flowing icily through his body. "What?"

"A panther. She was a freaking panther!" House blasted. He knew that Dresden knew something. "What is she?"

Harry shifted. "She…changed in front of you?"

"No, she was asleep and…she must have changed then." House faltered the weirdness of this catching up with him.

Harry swore again. Changing in her sleep. She was losing control. Harry didn't know how long his friend had left, it could have been hours, it could have been days, but he didn't think that she was making it into the weeks category anymore. Harry felt like crying. Sorrow settled down over his shoulders in a heavy mantle that he couldn't shake off.

"What?" House demanded. He saw the look on the wizard's face and limped painfully forward. He got into Dresden's face once more. "What is it, Dresden?"

"If you count Lisa amongst your friends I suggest that you go and see her tonight." Harry said hollowly.

"What? Why?" Harry hung his head and House grabbed him, shaking the man hard. "_What is it?" _

"She's dying, House. That's how you found out. She's losing control of her powers. It's one of the latest stages."

"Stages? Dying? Dying of what?" House yanked on Harry's collar again. "Look at me!"

Anger lanced Harry and he gripped House's wrists with an iron strength. "Fine!" He snapped and smashed his gaze against House's.

The soulgaze was instantaneous.

Harry, who had done this before, was still shaken when the Sight activated and House's soul was revealed to him.

The first thing he noticed was the knowledge. He hadn't realised exactly how smart House was until he saw that his soul was shown to him as a mountain of books. Hundreds of glittering golden volumes on every subject imaginable built up into a towering pyramid with light blazing over the crest of the peak. Where House sat. On his throne of intelligence.

This wasn't the arrogant man that House presented to the rest of the world though. He was bent double over his throne. His face a mask of pain, his clothes once rich and shimmering tattered and worn hanging from his frame. His bones shone through his translucent skin and he clutched at his leg, a glowing hot knife embedded in the muscle and black poisoned blood seeping unending from the wound. Harry gaped, how could someone survive something like that?

The blood splattered, dripping down over the books, tainting everything. It smeared over the light and blocked it out so that it was difficult to see. But the brilliance was still there, just overshadowed by the pain.

Harry suddenly realised that it wasn't the sun that was blazing from the top of Book Mountain. It was a square of something in House's hand. He was still hunched over his leg, one shaking hand gripping the wound in a mindless futile attempt to make the agony stop but the other hand gripped a photograph that blazed light. That offered the only illumination in this otherwise dark void. It reflected off the golden covers of the books and without it, they wouldn't gleam at all.

It was a picture of Lisa and House was holding onto it like his next breath depended on it.

Harry and House staggered away from each other. Harry bent double and gripped his knees. Breathing hard, his mind reeling. Holy shit, no wonder the guy was a bastard. That pain was enough to drive anyone mad, it cut him right down to his soul. From what Harry could tell, House had two things to look forward to when he dragged himself out of bed every morning that was answering every question his brain could come up with and seeing Lisa.

House had fallen to the ground. Panting like he'd just run a marathon and was staring at Dresden. "What did you just do to me?"

"Soulgaze." Harry panted. "Does exactly what it says on the tin."

House grunted something that may have been a laugh and swallowed hard. "That was your soul I saw?" Right now he'd believe almost anything.

Harry nodded.

"Wow." House slid over to the kerb and hauled himself onto it to try and look a little less like a vagrant who'd come off worse in a bar brawl. Especially to Dresden.

"Same boat, buddy." Dresden finally straightened to his full height.

"When the pissing contest is over can we follow a lead?"

Both men turned to find one tiny Karin Murphy standing at the entrance to Mac's. House's cane twirling in her hand. Pedestrians cut them a wide berth or crossed the street altogether. She levelled the cane at the doctor's throat and tilted his chin with it. "And if you hit Harry again, not even your freaky girlfriend will be able to find all the pieces."

House snorted and took the cane from her to hide how chilling the cute little cop could be when she wanted to. There was steel in those eyes of hers. He bounced the end of his cane against the road and huffed a sigh. He could feel Dresden looking down at him and the memory of the wizard's soul reared to the fore of his mind. House jerked involuntarily and then shook it off.

"You should go back to her, House." Harry was saying. "I think…I think you need her as much as she needs you."

House whipped his head up, his lightening blue eyes boring into the near black of Harry's before dancing away. He didn't really want another one of those soulgaze thingies. He inspected the gutter between his feet. He noted that he hadn't even pulled on socks that morning. He thought about Cuddy-cat in the hotel room, he wondered if she could get out without thumbs to turn the handles. He was struck with the sudden urge to laugh and managed a dry growl of a chuckle. Dresden frowned down at him and he sobered.

"I'll go back…just not yet. Need to think a few things over." Why was he telling the wizard this, because he knew that he _was_ a wizard now. Looking into another guy's soul was more probing than your average prostate exam that was for sure.

Harry nodded and then turned to Murphy. "Alright, Murph, let's hit the road."

The cop fell into step with him and strode purposefully down the street. She looked up at her companion and House could just make out her voice over the sound of the intermittent traffic passing by in the lunchtime rush hour.

"You going to tell me what that was about?"

House saw Dresden shrug. "Probably not." He answered and then House couldn't hear them anymore. His fingers tightened on his cane and he turned his attention back to the road between his feet again. A twinkie wrapper blew against his sneaker and he didn't bother to move it.

A shadow fell over him.

He sighed.

"Whatever it is, I'm not buying or selling." He grumbled and thumped his cane against the floor for emphasis. There was a swish of expensive fabric and the shadow coalesced into a form and hunkered down beside him on the sidewalk.

"The wizard is right, Gregory House."

House whirled looking up and falling into glowing golden yellow eyes. His lips parted but he couldn't form words. A gentle hand stroked his face and swept the hair tumbling down over his brow back with supreme softness. A breath he hadn't realised he had been holding gusted out leaving his chest feeling barren. After a moment he remembered to breathe in again.

"She does need you." The voice continued and House couldn't tear his gaze away from her eyes. "She needs you like she needs her next breath." The stranger leant forward. Her cheek brushing his and her lips so close he felt their brush against his ear. "Her name is Ishaaran and you can save her. All legends began in truth. Convince her of that and you will both be healed." She kissed him on the cheek. "Convince her, brother, convince her well."

Then she was gone.

House surged to his feet, looking up and down the street wildly. There was no one there. The faint bass thump from Mac's could be heard, the growl of traffic in the distance but nothing else disturbed the stillness of the afternoon heat of the Chicago road. There was no sign of the yellow eyed woman. Only the faint trace of her spiced scent lingered in the still air but then the breeze billowed and it was gone. Then a car turned the corner and the silence was broken. A dog barked and someone stepped out onto the street.

The spell broken House swallowed past the dust in his throat. He shuffled his cane against his sneaker and mulled over his options. Then it occurred to him that there was only one real outcome to this debate. He looked up and stepped out onto the street.

Hailing a cab.

**$inister $cribe**

Cuddy stretched up onto two legs and sighed. She wavered slightly, unused to being so high up after being on four legs for such a long time. The room suddenly looked alien to her new viewpoint. Her very bones ached. She'd never found it so difficult to change before. Not even the first time she had done it in her teens. She rubbed her hands slowly over her belly and picked up a strawberry that had come with breakfast and wolfed it down automatically. It turned to ash in her mouth but she ate more anyway. She didn't know what else to do with herself. Her heart felt like it had been ripped out and beaten with a cane.

She had been trapped under the bed when House keeping had arrived, she had huddled there and wanted not to be seen more than anything, the last thing she needed was to be trapped in her panther shape and have animal control called. She would have laughed at that, but she didn't find anything funny anymore. Finally, she had managed to change back. After she had calmed down. She knew that heightened emotions made controlling the shift more difficult but she had never really had to put that theory to the test before now. She had wandered aimlessly about the suite. Pulling on one of his shirts when it had finally registered that she was naked. She'd inhaled his scent with longing and then dropped the fabric away from her nose.

Now she was curled on the couch in the lounge. The television on to some mindless twaddle just so there was another sound in the hotel room other than her breathing. Her stuttering heart beat. A faint sound reached her ears…like tiny claws…against glass.

Turning, she frowned at the huge grey cat that was pawing frantically at the window of their hotel suite. Padding to the window and throwing it open, Cuddy arched a brow down at the feline and rumbled a low greeting from deep within her chest.

"Well, hello to you too."

Cuddy leapt back in surprise and glared down at the cat. It's familiar orange eyes twinkling.

"Bob!" She hissed at him and was sorely tempted to kick him out the window. But that would have involved sending her little cousin sailing out with him so she stayed herself. "What are you doing here?"

"Where's your man?" Mister Bob asked instead, meandering after her to sit on the couch, crawling up onto her lap and purring deeply when she stroked his host between the tufted ears. She was pretty sure that this beastie was at least part lynx.

"He…left."

"Well, that's just bleeding inconsiderate that is! How am I supposed to save your life when the main ingredient is missing?" Mister Bob rolled onto his back and grinned up at her when she scratched his belly. Her hand stilled.

"Bob, I'm not in the mood for jokes." She drew her knees up towards her chest and rested her cheek against them. She continued to stroke Mister Bob's ears but he wriggled out from under her hand.

"Not joking. Saving." The spirit argued back stubbornly. He reared up onto his hind paws and rested his forepaws on her knees, bringing them to eye level. "What do you know about the werewolf legends?"

Cuddy frowned. Where the hell was this going? She shrugged. "Not much, mainly that it's learned or given magic, not like a bite but…taught I suppose."

Mister Bob tilted his head and arched a brow. An interesting thing for a Manx hybrid to do any time, never mind when inhabited by a spirit of air and intellect. "So, Cuddy-cat, if that little kernel of truth didn't come from werewolves, where did it come from?"

Cuddy straightened a little. A bright beam of something slicing through the grey gloom of her depression. It felt a great deal like hope.

"Keep talking." She ordered and Mister Bob grinned, sitting back on his haunches and obliging her gratefully.

**$inister $cribe**

Murphy ran.

As fast as she could, she barrelled along the alleyway, crashing into trash cans and vagrants without thought. Her gun hung heavily at the end of her arm. It seemed to weigh a tonne. Her breath was bursting from her lungs in harsh gasping pants and she staggered further, out of the shadows and into the bright full light of the street.

She found her car more by luck than anything else. She imagined she could still hear them behind her. The great thundering impacts of their footfalls. The unnatural rockslide sound of their growls. The slashing sound of their claws slicing through Kevlar and flesh like it was tissue paper.

Falling against her vehicle, Murphy ignored the ribbons of blood that splattered down the side of the polished metal and scrabbled frantically with the door until it finally opened for her. She grimaced in pain when it tore at her with molten claws in her side. Lunging through it she crashed into the passenger seat of her car and flipped the radio into her hand with a kind of desperation that only heightened her cop instincts.

"Officer in need of assistance!" She gasped to dispatch and the radio crackled, the tinny voice of the man on the other end barely reaching her as the edge of her vision hazed into grey. "Lieutenant Karin Murphy on the corner of fifth and Walsh." She blinked rapidly trying to stay conscious, blood was pooling on the seat below her, so red and livid, she tried desperately to hold it back with her gun hand while retaining her death grip on her nine millimetre. "Request immediate back up and…and paramedics."

"_Be advised, assistance en route, Murphy. ETA five minutes, Murphy?" _The dispatcher frowned on their end of the radio. _"Lieutenant Murphy, can you hear me?" _

Murphy couldn't, she was sprawled half into her car. Blood dripping from the seat to patter onto the sidewalk. Incongruous against the backdrop of the summer city birds chirping happily in the trees lining the street. Murphy's bright blue eyes were closed, her breathing short and shallow.

She was still alive, but only just.

**$inister $cribe**

House opened the door warily, not knowing what he would find on the other side. He pushed into the suite. Everything was…normal. In fact, it was tidier than he had left it. Sudden fear shot through him, was she still here or had she gone. Was he too late? Too late to implement a plan that he barely understood? He wandered into the main room and stood uncertainly next to the couch. A huge grey cat trotted past him and House frowned down at it. It winked at him and bobbed its way out of the door jauntily…humming as it went. The door clattered shut behind it.

Then she was there.

Relief flooded him.

She stood in the doorway of the bedroom wearing nothing but his shirt. Her fingers tightened on the doorframe like she was stopping herself from running to him. He wished that she wouldn't. He wanted so much to show her how he had missed her. How close he wanted to hold her now.

"You're dying." The words were blurted harshly before he could stop himself and she blinked as if surprised that he was real and he had actually spoken. The words floated between them like a damaged paper plane and finally crashed to the floor between them in a crumpled heap of tension.

"I know." She finally said and her fingers tightened on the doorframe. "There's nothing you can do."

His eyes narrowed. "Everybody lies." He told her coldly. There was no way she was pushing him away. Not when he could save her. Not when he had a chance to help someone that he actually cared about.

"It's impossible."

"Look who you're talking to." He smiled then, a strained quirk of his lips but she almost smiled back so it was worth it. "Haven't you ever heard the saying 'physician heal thyself'?" He asked her, edging towards her. She watched his approach warily, like she was afraid he was going to turn yellow and rabbit again.

"Some things you just can't heal yourself." She said. Her voice was so hollow. He hated it. She was going to let herself die rather than let him save her and he was suddenly angry with her. How dare she? She who had always lectured him on caring. She who would abandon him leaving him without the only person in this world (aside from his mother) that he truly cared about. He wasn't letting her go, not without a damn hard fight. His hand slid around her throat, his thumb swirling over the bite he'd given her last night. It was dark purple against the moon pale of her skin.

"I can heal it. If you let me." He stepped closer, looming over her, filling her vision and taking up her entire world. "You going to let me or not?"

The question hung heavy in the air between them. Whether it fell or flew was entirely up to her.


	11. Chapter 11

**Wu-hey!! Chappie eleven!!**

**Woot. **

**Um…aye, well, this is the big chappie where things are resolved between House and Cuddy…sort of. **

**Thanks for all the lovely reviews and don't take that as an excuse to stop doing it!**

**Enjoy. **

**Chapter 11: Not Afraid**

Murphy swam upwards through the sticky molasses of unconsciousness. Her head rolled and lights swished overhead. Where was she?

"You're in the hospital. Can you remember what happened to you?"

An EMT face floated over her and Murphy frowned. "Harry…" Her voice was broken glass and scratched all the way up and out of her throat. "Where's Harry?" She had to know. nothing bad could have happened to him. She wouldn't tolerate it.

"You were with Harry?" Another face loomed over her and Murphy's sluggish brain realised she was being hauled through a corridor on a gurney.

Murphy managed a nod. "We were…attacked…" She was struggling now, black encroaching in on her vision. Trying to rob her of the chance to communicate. Murphy blinked at the man looming over her. He looked familiar. Lean features, long dark hair and piercing silver eyes. "Thomas." Murphy finally made the connection. She reached up and grabbed a hold of Harry's brother. "Find Harry, they took him."

Thomas kept pace with the gurney, his gaze intense. He needed to know where to look. "Where, Murphy? Tell me where." He urged her.

"Don't know…earth furies…" Unconsciousness swept over her. dragging over her senses like a heavy blanket and that was the last she knew.

Thomas was shoved back by a nurse and a doctor when they rushed into a trauma room. He tried to get past. He needed to find Harry, but they shoved him back. They wouldn't let him in unless he was family.

He looked down at the nurse. Silver eyes blazing and pulled his lips back in a snarl. She folded her arms over her chest and didn't back down.

"Sir, your gonna hafta wait. She ain't talking to nobody anyways."

Thomas scowled, knowing there was nothing he could do but desperately wanting to anyway. Thomas sat in a plastic chair that squeaked whenever he moved. He stared at the scarred linoleum on the floor and bit his lip.

Damn.

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Cuddy stared up at House for a long moment. Would she let him help her? She turned away in disgust. What a question?

"Lisa…" He reached for her but she shrugged him away.

"Greg, you don't even know what you're asking for. You don't even know what I am." She sliced a hand through the air emphatically. "You never should have known!"

"But I do." He limped towards her again. Following her back into the bedroom. He wasn't giving up now. Not by a long shot. "Ishaaran." He said. He wasn't sure what that meant but judging by the way she froze it meant something to her.

"Who told you that?"

He shrugged. "No clue. Never seen them before but they also told me that your _dying_ and that I can save you. Why are you even debating this?"

"Because you could never accept what you have to do to save me…you don't even know what it is. You think it'll be some kind of shot? You think it's some magic pill that you can give me and I'll just suddenly be all better? You think if it was that simple I wouldn't have already done it!?" She was angry now. She didn't want to be taunted like this. She didn't think she could stand to tell him and then have him refuse.

He snatched her by the shoulders and turned her to face him. "So I can help." A new light of determination shone in his eyes. He hadn't been sure before but now that he saw she was afraid he knew he was right. "Whatever it is, I don't care, I'll do it."

She looked like she wanted to run. She shook with the feeling but she couldn't. If there was one chance…

"But…it would change you."

"Maybe I need change." He angled his head so that he could look into her big blue eyes. Eyes that he wanted to fall into.

"It will hurt." She looked back at him needing him to understand. "It would hurt more than anything you've ever felt before."

"I'm used to pain."

"Not like this."

"If you live it'll be worth it." He wasn't backing down. This was one fight he needed to win. They both needed him to win.

"You don't understand, up until half an hour ago, I didn't even know this magic existed that my people had this kind of rite and now you want me to just carry it out on you? I can't do that to you. You could die."

"And you _will_ die if we don't!" He argued back. "I'm not losing you! I can't lose you." He let go of her suddenly and limped away, scrubbing a hand through his hair and then throwing his cane away in disgust. He hated that damn thing now. "I have two things to live for. My puzzles and you…and I don't think I can live with just one of them."

She stood dumbfounded. She didn't know what to say. Greg House could not possibly be stitching his heart on his sleeve for her. He didn't know how. He wanted her, he didn't care about her there was a big difference. He stepped closer to her again. He could see what she was thinking in those eyes of hers.

"Stop lying to yourself. You know that I love you. I always have." Now that he'd said it and it was impossible to take the words back…a lot of the scary had melted away.

A single silver tear fell down her cheek and she shook her head in silent denial. "You think I'm a monster." Her voice was a broken whisper.

"No, I was surprised and I was…okay, so I was scared but that was because I hadn't had time to think it through. Even in fur I recognise you. You're still you…even with whiskers." He managed a small smirk that she didn't return.

"You don't even know what I am."

"Then show me!" He bellowed at her suddenly, causing her to jump. He reined himself in again and said more slowly. "You really think I'll run again? Fine. Prove me wrong, do your mojo and try and scare me off. I'm not going anywhere." To emphasise his point he limped to the bed and threw himself onto it. Folding his arms over his chest.

She looked at him incredulously and he raised an eyebrow in a 'well?' gesture. She narrowed her eyes at him. He wanted to play? Fine. She'd prove to him that he couldn't handle it. She turned to him, her hands going to the front of her shirt and unbuttoning it. She shut her eyes briefly and felt the change push at her skin. The magic pulling in and gathering itself. She didn't feel the panic of earlier when it hadn't answered her. When she hadn't been in control. That seemed to have passed at the moment. But the episodes would come closer together now that she was definitely dying.

She opened her eyes to see her skin shining silver. Standing in the middle of the room she let the shirt fall to the floor and watched as his eyes widened. She could practically hear his brain screaming that this was impossible. But he wasn't afraid and he didn't run. It looked like she was actually going to have to be in her other skin to prove to him that he wasn't up to this.

House watched in amazement. She was gorgeous. Her skin shone like she was moulded from silver. Her hair seemed more strikingly ebony and her eyes glowed a deep green-blue as she watched him. She rolled her head on her neck and then bunched and flexed the muscles in her shoulders. Energy bled from her eyes and mouth and she dropped forward onto all fours. Her skin…split, peeling back and evaporating off her body in a shimmering glittery mist that wafted about her. Black shadows roiled under her disappearing skin. Swirling and reforming. He heard the click and crunch of bones and he couldn't help but wince. She didn't appear to be in any pain but it sure as hell sounded sore.

He blinked rapidly. Yep, that was definitely one big panther standing at the side of the bed. She looked up at him and rumbled low in her throat. Her tail swished back and forth. She still thought he was leaving. He scooted over on the bed slightly and patted the cover at his side.

"Here kitty, kitty, kitty…" He taunted lightly and her small pointed ears swivelled to lay flat against her skull in a feline scowl. He smirked at her and bobbed his eyebrows. "You'll note I'm not hobbling in terror. To be honest you're more cute and fuzzy than big and scary." He told her and she snarled at him. He laughed. "I think my bunny slippers just ran for cover." He told her drolly.

His smirk vanished when, in a flash of movement, she was up on the bed with him. Her tail lashed and some small part of his brain was still freaking at the fact that his boss/lover was standing on four paws with a hell of a set of teeth on her. She glared down at him, towering over him when he was lounging back like this.

He had lied, she most definitely wasn't cute and fuzzy. She was beautifully fierce. Every line was the sleek formation of a predator. From the tip of her expressive swivelling ears to the end of her clubbed tail she was gorgeous. She was bigger as well. Leopards were usually less than a metre at the shoulder but Cuddy-cat was close to three feet. Her ebony fur was deep black with even darker satin rosettes on it. He had reached out to touch her before he had even realised what he was doing.

She moved in a flash. Faster than his brain was able to keep up with. His outstretched hand was in between inch long fangs in an instant. And the vibration of her growl shuddered through the now seemingly delicate bones of his hand. The rasp of her warm sandpaper tongue was hot against his palm and her slit pupil eyes met his.

She hadn't hurt him though. She held his hand between bone crushing jaws as gently as she might have held a cub. He smirked at her again.

"You're still not frightening." He arched a brow at her. "The urge to run is not overwhelming." She shook his hand like she wanted to savage it, but he noted she was still careful not to hurt him. She released him slowly and sidled up to him, laying her head against his chest and rumbling a small purr against him. He felt it rattle his ribs…oddly familiar. She huffed a hot breath against his neck.

The crackle of bones and the silver shimmering of her skin reforming announced her switch in forms. It weirded him out. It was plenty kinds of freaky but he was learning to deal and he definitely felt no urge to leave her any time soon. His hand tangled in long human hair and her slim pale arm wrapped over his belly.

Thousands of questions rolled around in his head and demanded answers but there was only one that was immensely important to him.

"You going to let me help you?"

She was quiet a long moment.

"I've told you, I don't care what it is. I'll do it anyway."

Her single response echoed through the room and loosened the knot of tension that had been bundled so tightly in his chest.

"Okay."

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On the rooftop of the hotel, a similar meeting took place. A shadow departed itself from its dark brothers and trotted over the asphalt on the roof. It moved silently on grey paws and bounded up onto the wall surrounding the roof. Gleaming orange eyes landed on an angularly beautiful face that smirked back. A manicured hand with dark long nails stroked over tufted ears and Mister Bob purred in gratitude. It was nice to borrow a physical body for a while and get a loan of some good old fashioned sensations.

"You told her?" Yellow eyes flashed when the woman asked the question. Her long dark coat billowing about her slim frame, caught by the warm summer's breeze. Night was falling and the city was bathed in a soft rosy light.

"Yup indeedy." Mister Bob answered readily and then sat back on his furry haunches to regard his partner in crime.

"It is done?"

"Yes." Mister Bob answered. He had already answered this question.

"Good." She smiled, yellow eyes flashing and Mister Bob sighed and stared out over the city with her.

"It occurs to me…" He began conversationally. "That all of this never would have happened if you lot weren't so obsessed with your secrets."

The woman smiled and removed her coat. Mister Bob eyed the expanse of tawny skin revealed appreciatively.

"Perhaps not." She said on a smile and dropped to all fours. Golden light shimmering over her skin. Bones cracking and popping as her inner nature asserted itself in the physical world with a low growl. The tawny leopard yawned and stretched and looked up at Mister Bob on the wall with pricked ears and a curled tail. A feline smile.

Mister Bob gave a happy yowl and bounded over the rooftops with her.

**$inister $cribe**

"Okay, explain it to me one more time." House asked. It was taking a while to wrap his brain around this.

Cuddy hadn't moved from being draped over his chest. Even if he backed out, at least she could have this. Lying with him, absorbing his scent, his warmth…it was a nice way to die. She had told him all the details. She didn't want to trap him. She didn't want to do to him what had been done before. She didn't want him to think she had betrayed his trust because, if he did this, they were going to be together for a very long time.

"We have to come together." She picked at the buttons on his shirt. Toying with the stitching. "Which means that you're going to have to take me, it's all about choice. You have to chose to accept me."

"Meaning…?"

"You have to screw me senseless." She said bluntly and patted his chest.

"Liking it so far." He smoothed his hand down her back, enjoying the silky soft feel of her skin. "Then what?"

"I have to gather the magic, like I would to change."

"You're not actually going to change though…right?"

She laughed at the horror in his tone. It was so him.

"No, then I bite you and it…" She gestured between them. "Then it flows between us."

"And then…I change." He said slowly.

"I don't think you'll actually switch forms…but something will definitely happen to you. Ishaarans don't age like humans so you may come out of this a little younger looking." She reached up and tugged at his hair. "Maybe a few less greys."

"Hey, chicks dig the distinguished gentleman look."

She growled. She couldn't help it. No other woman was touching him. Not ever. He was hers now and that was that. He grinned down at her.

"You're jealous." He sounded pleased with that.

"I'm possessive, there's a difference." She sniffed at him and he chuckled. He sobered slightly when something occurred to him.

"When this is done…I'll be like you?"

"Well," she sat up and looked into his eyes. He was still getting used to exactly how little she cared about being naked around him. She hadn't been in any hurry to put clothes on and he hadn't pushed for it either. "You won't look as good in heels as I might…but you'll be Ishaaran with all the bells and whistles that come with that." She tilted her head at him. "Still want to go through with it? I'll understand if you don't, I mean, it's a lot to take in and…"

She was cut off by his mouth covering hers. Her eyes fluttered closed and everything in her rejoiced at the rightness of this. Her hand came down softly on his cheek then angled backwards into the silky shortness of his hair. He growled against her, spanning her waist with his hands and pulling her onto his lap. The kiss deepened and she purred into him.

She yanked at his tee shirt, wanting it off and out of her way. The heat between them was instantaneous. From zero to boiling point in a single kiss. It would always be like this for them. Always had a new meaning for her now and she didn't intend to waste it. His jeans followed soon after, pushed down and out of the way. She smoothed a hand over his thigh and something occurred to her. Something new and frightening.

"Greg, stop." She murmured against his mouth and then pulled him away.

"What?" His hands were stroking over her, making it difficult to think. He nipped at her throat with his teeth and she squirmed. That felt far too good.

"Your leg…" She tried again. She had to tell him. She wouldn't do this unless he knew all the facts.

"It's fine." He assured her and kissed lower. Sliding her nipple into his mouth. Her back arched and she squirmed.

"No." She dragged his head away from her body and looked into his eyes. She knew hers were glowing, her lips were too dark and her teeth were a tad too fang-like for comfort but he didn't flinch. "The pain, the change might not stop it. We'll live for centuries, Greg, I don't want to trap you like this forever…"

His hand closed over hers and he kissed her fingertips. "I told you; whatever this is I'm seeing it through with you. It doesn't matter, as long as you're okay."

She felt tears glaze her eyes. "You're sure?"

"I'm sure I'm sure." He told her and kissed her softly on the lips. Deepening the kiss when she moaned softly against him. She could feel the deep throb of the purr in her chest and didn't even try to hide it. He pushed her back onto the bed, following her down and keeping her lost in his kiss. Naked skin slid over naked skin and he revelled in the feeling. This was what he wanted. He wanted her, like this, with him for the rest of his life. If that was five minutes or five centuries he didn't care. So long as it was with her.

Her hands gripped his shoulders. Her claws pricking his skin and he smiled against her mouth. Realising how much she must have hidden from him last night. God, was it only last night? It felt like a lot longer.

"We could wait you know…" She was saying breathlessly. "There's still time. We don't have to rush into this…"

His answer was a low growl and to thrust inside her with the hard length of his cock. Her back arched and she cried out. He watched the light glint off the length of her fangs. She was right, this was going to hurt…but he could deal if it was for her.

He shivered, she felt so good so hot around him. His hips rolled against hers and she whimpered. He could feel that pulsing vibration wrapping around him. Emanating from her chest. He threw back his head, baring his neck to her without thought. He knew what he had to do, somehow instinct was taking over. This was alright, this was natural. This was what he had to do.

She bucked under him. A growl rumbled from deep inside her chest. She was losing control. He was terrified that they wouldn't be in time. After the…magic, his mind still stumbled over the word, took hold of him. He would sleep until sunrise, she would be on her own until then. Vulnerable. Then they would have until the following sunset to perform the second right that would bond them. This sex was a means to an end but it was also so much more and he wanted to make it good for her.

He twisted his hips. Driving into her and making her gasp. Her arms wound around his neck, tugging him down towards her. She lapped at his throat. Nibbling and sucking there. His nerve endings screamed at one another and his cock throbbed. The sensations shooting down his spine to pile on top of the heaven he was already feeling.

"Last chance to back out…" She murmured against his skin. He gripped her by the hair in reply and pressed her sharply up against his neck. She couldn't hold back any more. Her teeth sank into the flesh of his throat and the magic that burned under her skin lanced between them. Pouring into him. He shouted, he didn't know what and exploded with her. The orgasm sending another flash-fire wave of energy into him. His bones burned white hot, his skin was on fire and he'd never felt anything so intense. It wasn't exactly pain or pleasure just undiluted sensation assaulting his senses and bathing him in light.

He came back to himself in the bathroom. He was propped up in the bath and she knelt beside him, watching him with worried wide eyes and a smear of bright red blood on her lower lip. He blinked several times to try and clear the cotton feeling in his brain.

Wow, Ishaaran sex was some potent stuff.

He reached out and wiped the blood off her lip carefully. He was faintly surprised to note that it was his blood and shouldn't he be bleeding put all over the cream tiles by now?

"Are you alright?" He heard her as if from far away and had to focus hard to form a coherent response.

He nodded. "Just dandy." His voice was harsh, lower. "Why are we in the bathroom?"

"Because…"

House doubled over and wretched violently expelling the contents of his stomach with great wracking heaves. This was awful. He couldn't stop. His entire body shook and just when he thought he was about to pass out from lack of oxygen he shuddered to a stop. His body shivering and heaving. Lisa was still with him, holding onto his shoulders. She looked worried, concerned for him. She rubbed his back and switched on the shower over him to wash away the horrible…black stuff that he'd just coughed up. When had he eaten that?

"What…?" He was shaking so hard he couldn't get any more than that out.

"It's the Ishaaran magic. It'd getting rid of everything your body doesn't need anymore. It's probably worse because of your vicodin habit." She soothed him as best she could, keeping the water hot and cleaning him with a sponge. She wasn't disgusted by the toxins he'd just expelled. She was actually relieved. Maybe it just looked like a lot but the damage the drugs had been doing to him definitely seemed more substantial than he had been letting on.

"Cold…"

"I know." She had been cold her first time too. A bone deep chilling that nothing could get rid of. It had started days before her first switch and there had been nothing her parents could do. No comfort they could offer. That didn't mean she wouldn't try. "Greg, it's alright, it won't be for much longer now." She stroked his face.

"You're crying…" His hand shook as he tried to reach up and wipe her tears away. "Don't cry. It hurts me when you cry…always has." She sat forward resting her forehead against his. She didn't think she could stand this, watching him suffer. "I'm sorry." He was saying. She straightened slightly, looking at him in confusion.

"For what?"

"For all those times it was me that made you cry…I'm sorry." He began to shudder more violently and she climbed into the bath with him, pulling him into her arms. He began to jerk uncontrollably. She held onto him and soothed him as best she could. Knowing it wasn't enough but she couldn't just sit there and do nothing.

"Don't leave…" He choked out and held onto her, his hands going around her waist, his face buried under the wet mass of her hair against her throat.

"Never." She promised him. "I'm not going anywhere." The tears coursed hot down her cheeks and it was all she could do to just hold onto him and try and wait this out.

**$inister $cribe**

It was after midnight before she finally managed to get him back into the bed. He had passed out an hour before and his convulsions had stopped only five minutes ago. His skin was now turning silver. She smoothed her hands over his chest. Needing that connection between them. He was deeply unconscious. Nearly in a coma while his body went through the transformation from human to something different. Worry gnawed at her. A few times tonight she had thought the magic would be too violent for him. That it would kill him. He had known that was a risk but she had still had her heart in her mouth for a better part of the evening. She was exhausted, not just emotionally but physically as well. Transferring the magic to him had been more draining than she had thought it would and she was shivering with fatigue. She could sleep with him now though. She could lay down and rest with him. She pulled the duvet up over him and crawled under it to lie wrapped around him. She rested her head against his chest and wrapped an arm over his hips. The steady thump of his heart in his chest was comforting. She noticed that it sounded different…larger but that didn't frighten her. she listened to the steady sound of his deep breathing there was now just a hint of a growl there at the lowest edges of her hearing. She smiled. It was working. He was going to be okay.

Now she could finally rest.

A knock sounded at the door.

She shut her eyes and growled. Determined to ignore it.

The knock sounded again. This time more urgently. She scowled.

"Lisa! I know you're in there! Answer the door!"

Lisa bolted upright, fatigue clawed at her but she brushed its heavy weight aside and fumbled out of bed. She tugged a robe on and staggered to the door. Throwing open the door she blinked in surprise when a beaten and bleeding Harry fell over the threshold.

"Harry! What happened? Are you okay?" Harry leant heavily against her and his hand manacled around her wrist. Too late she saw the glowing green eyes deep-set in his skull and knew the truth.

A fury.

Someone had made a fury to look like Harry.

She reacted on pure instinct. The roar echoing throughout the room as her claws unsheathed on one hand and sliced down over 'Harry's' head. A hamburger sized slice of clay flesh was peeled off his head and the fury bellowed its pain and released her in surprise. she didn't get out of the way of its fist in time though. The knock to her chest sent her flying backwards. She sailed through the air and tried to twist to land on her feet, but she was too tired. Too slow. She smashed into the coffee table and sent it sprawling.

The fury slammed the door shut and grinned an obscene obsidian smile down at her. He stomped towards her and huge claws grew out of the fingers of one hand. Cuddy panted. She couldn't run. Not with Greg lying unconscious and vulnerable just next door. She had beaten these things twice now and she wasn't about to lose her winning streak. She reached up, gripping the ruined leg of the coffee table and waited. The thing stomped towards her and reached for her, intending to grab.

The entire coffee table, marble top and all was whipped up and off the floor. She brought it down on its head with a sickening crack. The marble split and the fury's feet punched through the floorboards to the knee with the force of it. She scrambled up and away. She needed a weapon, something, anything. Something wrapped around her ankle and she crashed to the floor. Looking around wildly. She saw the fury, pulling its mangled legs out from the floorboards, twisting its head back up to a more upright angle on its neck, holding onto her, it dragged her over the floor.

Her claws shredded the carpet, looking for a weapon. Something to defend herself. she couldn't change, she was too tired. This was up to her wits to solve. Her hand landed on something smooth and glazed, a flower vase. Gripping it tightly she swung, it wouldn't do much damage but she might be able to distract it enough to get away. To lure it from Greg. The vase smashed against the imitation of Harry's face and water splattered all over it.

The fury screamed.

A horrible preternatural screeching sound that grated on her ears. Cuddy didn't waste any time clapping her hands over her eardrums. She had a weapon now. Something she could use. If she could lure it into the bathroom she might be able to soak it in the shower…or failing that she could smash its face into the shower and drown the bastard.

She scrambled up and was dimly aware of approaching sirens in the distance. Someone had obviously heard the racket and had phoned the police. Cuddy wondered if she would be seeing lieutenant Murphy again any time soon. She would bet she would be popular for that.

She didn't see the fist until it smashed into her face from around the corner of the bedroom doorway.

Cuddy lay on the floor. Dazed, blood seeping from her nose and mouth where she had cut herself with her own teeth. Without missing a beat, she reached up and reset her nose with a crunch of cartilage and a burst of pain. Looking up from where she was sprawled on the floor, she blinked to find the elfin features of Karin Murphy staring coldly down at her…with glowing green eyes. 'Karin' reached down and manacled a hand around her throat, lifting her from the floor like she weighed nothing more than a week old kitten. Cuddy struggled, clawing great hunks of flesh from the fury's arm and kicking wildly. She was swearing a blue streak in Ishaaran too but neither seemed to be having much effect on her captor. She caught a glimpse of Greg lying still unconscious and unmolested on the bed right before the wall rushed out to meet her face and blackness swept over her senses.

The fury tilted its head with a tumbling-rock growl and looked over to its mangled companion. It grunted and hissed, communicating something and jerking its head to indicate the second Ishaaran on the bed. The mangled 'Harry' scrunched itself over, walking half sideways and peered with its remaining eye to see the unconscious male. It growled and shook its head with a grinding of stone on stone. The female had hurt it well. It growled at her unconscious form, slung over its companions shoulder.

The Murphy fury shook its head in denial. They were to bring back the female unharmed.

'Harry' grumbled and reached up with both hands, wrenching cruelly at its head until it was once more where it should be. It flexed its legs until they too were once more in straighter formation.

Sirens now wailed outside and they could hear the footsteps of the mortal law enforcement treading heavily along the hallways towards this chamber. They grunted to one another and moved to the window. 'Harry' smashed it with a casual flick of its wrist and took the entire pane of glass out with the contemptuous movement. Both furies leapt onto the sill as one and then dropped away out into the darkness, taking the unconscious female with them.

Police kicked the door in at almost the exact same moment. They took in the trashed hotel room, guns raised and swept it efficiently. Shouts of 'clear!' were echoed throughout the suite until they reached the bedroom and found the unconscious inhabitant Dr Gregory House sprawled unmoving and unresponsive across the bed. The paramedics were allowed in shortly afterward to tend to him.

They checked him over, exchanging meaningful glances. One looked up to the police officer looming over him.

"Don't think you're going to get much out of him officer. He's comatose. We're gonna hafta take him in for observation but he doesn't appear to be in any immediate danger."

"And the woman, Dr Cuddy, anyone seen her?"

The paramedic looked at him askance. "Dude, that's your job."


	12. Chapter 12

**Okay, sorry, sorry, sorry for taking so long to update but I have been deprived of my broadband connection so I've had to deal with hiking to the nearest computer labs just to check my emails. **

**Sigh. **

**I'll have broadband in the new flat soon. **

**Anyway, this has been updated as soon as possible. It's only got another couple of chapters to go but there is going to be a sequel (yay, I hear you shriek) and that'll be a CSI/House/Dresden crossover with a stronger story to it instead of just romance and fantasy. I'll probably base it on a novel by one of my favourite authors. **

**Just so y'all know. I've nearly finished the epilogue for Family Ties, started the next chapters for Naked Truth and Night Terror and I've started a completely new Huddy fic, which I shall post as soon as I finish Family Ties. **

**Yay. **

**Also, you can check out my latest Harry Potter fic if you want. It's called 'Harry Potter and the Wytch Childe' and it's set ten years after the Deathly Hallows. Feel free to swing on by and have a gander. A LOT more grown up than the original series so…be prepared. **

**Leave me reviews here too though!!!!**

**Ciao, thanks for being patient(ish), $cribe. **

**Chapter 12: Wake Up**

Greg was dreaming.

He knew it and yet, could do nothing to wake himself. _It wasn't time yet._ House frowned, how could he know that? He didn't know the answer to that either.

He was…in the mountains. Thick alpine forest surrounded him. Sheer granite rocks jutted up out of the blanket of thick snow that covered everything. He inhaled deeply the clean fresh scent of the air and the smell of the forest around him. He was alone, naked, in the deep winter of a mountain range. He wasn't afraid though. He was waiting for something. He could sense its coming. Padding through the snow on silent velvet paws. It was large, he could make out its shadow stealing towards him from within the gloom of the trees. A flash of gold and another shadow bounded to join the first. At first he thought of Lisa but…the colour was wrong. The feel of the stranger in his head did not match that of the woman he knew so well.

Greg narrowed his eyes and peered into the gloom of the forest. He crept forward and stilled when he realised his leg didn't hurt. He looked down, expecting to see the flesh whole again, that way it always was in dreams. His heart sank a little when he realised he was still horribly scarred. It was different though. He knelt in the snow, the freezing temperature as an afterthought to his inhumanly warm skin, and examined the old wound. His palm spread over the warped twist of long healed broken flesh. Before it had been a deep crimson gouge, a tear in his leg, sapping his strength. Now though…now it was a silver crack of lightening over tanned skin. There was the unmistakable cording of steely muscle bunching and flexing under the newly solid leg at his command. The pain was gone. His weakness with it.

His internal reeling was brought to an abrupt halt by a soft chuffing noise reaching his ears. Everything seemed sharper. All his senses. He could hear mice hibernating under the snow fifty yards away, their little hearts fluttering. He could smell the scent of caribou miles away, starting their winter migration. He could see colours that shouldn't be there. Not just the tone of the dark pine trees but the life that flowed under their frozen bark. Every change in the wind registered on sensitised skin. If he had shut his eyes he believed he would have been able to navigate cleanly through the thick trees just by judging the differing air pressures on his body. He could taste the familiarity of the creatures in front of him.

He met the eyes of the great golden cat first. "Who are you?"

The cat smiled at him. Long leopard tail swishing. _You know who I am, brother._ She answered, her voice rumbling through him and emanating from everywhere. She looked to her massive companion, standing tall and proud in the snow next to her. the cool blue eyes of the predator regarded Greg with shocking familiarity. _And him, you already know. _The male prowled towards him on huge silent paws and huffed a hot breath against Greg's human face. They were so close that long whiskers tickled against the scruff that lined his jaw. He still wasn't afraid.

He turned to look back at the golden cat. "Where's Lisa? She should be here."

_She's been taken, brother. By the ones she hunted, with the wizard._

Fear chose that moment to pounce on him. He was gripped by it tight and suffocating around his chest and it took a concentrated effort to beat it back. The cat opposite him, the huge male, growled his mutual disapproval his long swishing tail lashing back and forth against the snow.

_Be calm, you can track her. You can find her when no one else can._ The golden female soothed him, slinking over to him and rubbing her cheek against his shoulder in comfort. _Do not worry. She is with the wizard. He would die to protect her. _

"How do you know all this? Who are you?" Greg demanded suddenly.

A faint smile kicked at the gold female's lips and her tail twitched in amusement. _A ghost, a friend. One who offers aid and guidance and a maker of mischief when it suits me._

"A name would have done."

The female leopard gave a great chuffing laugh that echoed through the trees before finally being dampened by the snow.

_You have tarried here long enough, little brother. Now you must go. Remember, you have until sunset to find her again. _

"But _how_ do I find her?" House demanded. He stood towering over her at his full height. She looked amused again.

_Sunset, brother. Be fleet. _

Then she was gone and Greg crashed back into the bed with a clatter. His chest heaved as scents, sounds, sights, sensations and tastes assaulted his newly amplified senses. His deep blue eyes flew open on a gasp and he sat bolt upright in the hospital bed. It took him a full minute to gather himself together and still the clamour in his head.

As soon as he had, he threw back the cheap polyester sheet and leapt from the bed. He had places to be.

**$inister $cribe**

"Lisa? Lisa, you okay?"

Lisa awoke groggily to the world of the fully conscious and blinked at her hazy thoughts bumbling around and staggering into one another. "Present." She murmured and tried to move. Something tightened around her throat and she lifted her hands to claw at it automatically.

"No! Don't, they only squeeze harder if you fight."

Lisa brought herself back under control with an effort and dropped her hands. The hold around her throat loosened in accordance. She sucked in a breath, tasting that carrion, wet cement smell she had come to associate with the furies. The one that looked like Karin Murphy held her with a gnarled claw around her neck that bore more resemblance to a tree branch than the real woman's small hands. Lisa was allowed to move so long as she did it slowly and made no effort to try and fight the fury calmly holding her to the cold concrete floor beneath them. She looked over and saw a battered Harry being held by his mangled doppelganger. She blinked, her brain still scrambled from the blow to her head last night. They must have hit her hard enough to have almost killed her for her to have been out this long.

"That's really weird." She finally managed and gestured to Harry being pinned by…Harry.

"You let it in because it looked like me. Didn't you?"

"Yeah." Lisa shifted and drew her robe around her a little better. It was the only thing she had on and it barely reached mid-thigh. Not exactly the thing to be seen in when in a hostage situation. She looked up in time to see Harry's guilt ridden look.

"Harry, stop beating yourself up." She told him forcibly. "You're bloody enough as it is and if I hadn't opened the door to that thing it would have found another way." She was quiet a beat. "Have you seen Greg?"

Harry shook his head. "They brought you alone."

Relief flooded her and she gusted out a breath she hadn't realised she'd been holding before a fresh wave of anxiety washed over her. "What time is it?"

Harry shrugged. "Early afternoon."

"Oh…okay."

"Why does it matter?"

She laughed wryly then. "I think I may have just put a shorter time limit on my life expectancy." She murmured.

"What?!" At his irate tone the fury holding him, tightened its grip on Harry's shoulder causing the wizard to wince.

"I turned Greg." Lisa said quietly, beginning to think it was the stupidest thing she'd ever done. If he didn't find her before sunset then they were both dead. God, this was like some bad fantasy novel. Sunset to break the curse or true love dies…if it was so crappy why did she suddenly feel like crying?

"Turned how?"

Lisa was quiet a beat further. "He's like me now. An Ishaaran."

Harry's eyes widened. "I didn't know you could do that."

"Neither did I." She admitted softly. "Only, now we only have until the sun sets tonight to complete the right or we both die."

Harry stared at her for a long moment and then laughed once, slightly hysterically sounding before dropping his head onto his knees. He muttered something that sounded suspiciously like 'it never rains but it pours'.

She scowled at him. "It's not like I was planning on being kidnapped, Dresden!"

"I know it's just…things like this always seem to happen in this particular way in my life. I really should expect it by now." He smiled slightly at that and Lisa couldn't help but smile back. It was either that or cry and she didn't want to give her captors the satisfaction. Speaking of…

"Do you know who's behind the big master plan?" She asked Harry.

He shrugged. "I have a few suspects."

"Fell like narrowing it down any?"

"Oh, there's no need, I'm right here."

Both Harry and Lisa were allowed to turn to inspect the owner of the new voice in the conversation. Both of their mouths dropped open in shock as they blinked and tried to ascertain that, yes, they were seeing who they thought they were seeing.

"Well…" Lisa said at length.

"That was unexpected." Harry finished for her.

**$inister $cribe**

"Lieutenant, I want you to know that you discharge yourself against medical advice." The doctor almost pleaded with Karin as she edged her way along the corridor. The stitches in her stomach tugging painfully with each step even through the morphine haze.

"Duly noted." Karin spoke between clenched teeth and moved closer and closer to the exit. If she could just get out of this hospital and down to the precinct then she would be able to get people out looking for Harry. Competent people who knew what to expect.

"If you leave now then you run the risk of reopening the wound and infection." The doctor stood in front of her now and Karin nearly groaned when she realised she was going to have to go _around_ the idiot. "Not to mention the considerable pain you'll be in." Doctor added a trifle smugly, thinking this would win him the argument.

"Doc, the only pain I'm experiencing right now is you. So get the hell out of my way before I remember where they put my service weapon and I kneecap you for obstruction of justice." Karin gritted from between clenched teeth and he finally took the hint. Shrugging exaggeratedly and stepping out of her way with a 'don't blame me when you're bleeding out on the floor' expression on his face. Karin was just glad she didn't have to look at him anymore.

The walk out to the taxi rank was unbearably long. Karin stood in the sunlight and tried not to think about how much worse being hot made her feel. She swallowed against the sickly sweet taste in the back of her throat that morphine always left her with and blinked when her eyes landed on a familiar face.

It was sheer chance that she saw him stepping out of the shadows and hailing a cab. It even took her a couple of seconds to place him. After all, she'd only seen him once. Dr Gregory House strolled out onto the street without a trace of the limp he'd had, or even the cane, when Karin had first met him. She watched him prowl over to a taxi and duck inside. He had been dressed in dark blue hospital scrubs. The kind of thing that someone took when they had nothing else to wear. Karin wondered idly why he would be at the hospital. Treatment for his leg?

That didn't ring true. If you walked with a cane with the ease that Greg House had, your condition wasn't treatable. At least not with any medical science that she'd heard of. She bit her lip a moment, waiting in the queue for the cabs outside the hospital entrance. Her stomach ached. She'd been slashed there by one of those monster things that had attacked Harry. She'd lost a lot of blood but the damage had been mostly been superficial. As superficial as near evisceration could be at least. A few pints of O neg and she was ready

Was it a bad sign that she was so blasé about near death experiences?

She frowned and watched the cab with Greg in it drive away. She pushed her way to the front of the queue, flashing her badge and a scowl to anyone that wanted to say something about it and clambered into the first cab. Where had they been staying again.

"Whaldorf, please." She said and then sat back gingerly in her seat.

House would lead her to that Cuddy woman and Cuddy, in all probability, would be able to find out where Harry was. If not, Karin was going to crack heads until she could find someone that could track down Harry.

She refused to acknowledge the possibility that the pain in the ass wizard could be dead.

He was too damn stubborn she told herself.

**$inister $cribe**

House sidled along the corridor and eyed the crime scene tape over the door of the hotel suite. He gripped the door handle experimentally and jangled it. The lock held firm. He scowled down at it and then flexed a little more weight behind his movements. He heard the lock crumble under his ministrations and the door swung open with a swish over the plush carpet. He ducked under the tape without breaking the seal and shut the door near silently behind him. He looked over the suite and the trashing thereof. The coffee table was in bits over by the window, there was a sizeable dent in the wall, shattered vases, stained carpet, chairs had been overturned and the place was in general disarray.

He looked about himself and inhaled deeply. He could smell blood, a flash of pain lit up his senses but it wasn't his own. Somebody else's. Lisa's. a growl erupted from his throat before he could stop it and he scrubbed a hand over his face to try and ward away the disjointed feeling splitting his skull. He felt like he had two people fighting over what to say and do. One said think the other said fight.

She had been by the door, he tracked her scent to the centre of the room. He crouched, she had fallen here. He traced his hand over the carpet and his jaw tightened. She had been afraid. He stood, she'd wriggled away, he prowled across the carpet, there was a stain, shattered china, she'd hit it with the vase. He remembered the scent now. It was like rotting meat and sidewalks after rain. It was one of the things that had attacked them by the lake and totalled their rental car. He inhaled again deeply, half closing his eyes and using that _extra_ sense to divine what had happened the night before while he'd been lying useless and unconscious on the bed.

A sudden wave of anger lashed through him. His spine flexed and he grimaced, feeling his teeth pierce against his lip. He tasted his own blood and then growled when the cut healed right under the sweep of his tongue. Whatever had happened to him was frightening. He didn't understand it.

It was brilliant and terrifying all at the same time. He sank down onto one knee on the floor and gripped his hair with both hands. None of this made any sense. These things…these changes that were happening - had happened – to him shouldn't be possible. He just needed to find her. That was all he knew. It was an instinctive impossible to deny urge. He had to find her and he had to do it right now.

Okay, Greg, shake it off. Push it away and deal with the problem. He focused on the scent trail again and moved off to track it. He touched the dent in the wall and flinched away from it. Anger crackled through him and he didn't immediately recognise the rumbling sound in the room as being his own growl. They had hurt her here. His teeth ground together, too long again. He thought about his regular teeth and they pulled back into his gums. He took a moment to suck at them and ponder that.

Weird wasn't even beginning to cover it.

"You know that trespassing on a crime scene is illegal, right?"

"So is a woman being in possession of more than seven dildos…but I won't tell if you don't." Greg turned and let his eyes rake over the tiny cop standing in the doorway…more like leaning heavily. There was a smear of angry red at her middle, like it had been overlaid on House's vision. He blinked and then looked more carefully.

"You're hurt." He moved towards her and she stepped back, her hand going to the hilt of her gun. He put up his hands. "I am a doctor, remember. I'm not going to hurt you."

"You're not even human."

House blinked slowly at that and then shrugged with exaggerated care. "Neither is your precious Harry…and we both know how _close_ you two are." He gave her a meaningful look and her jaw tightened in annoyance, her hand dropping away from her weapon.

"Jesus H. Christ does _everybody_ know that?" Murphy demanded and Greg swallowed his smile.

"Just we ferals…what are you doing here?"

Murphy leant carefully against the wall before she fell down and House edged closer still. He could smell her blood and even the pain she was feeling. he knew there was morphine in her system and that it was wearing off. He knew she had an incredibly high pain threshold but even that had been stretched to its limits by the deep gouges on her stomach. He could smell that same wet concrete/carrion scent on her that permeated the hotel room. She had been attacked by the…monsters as well. e He

"I'll be the one asking the questions…"

"Yep, looking really intimidating there, Five-O." Greg batted her hands away and lifted her shirt without asking permission. She looked like she wanted to slap him, but the movement would have pulled a stitch or something. "You're a mess, what kind of idiot gave you the idea of leaving the hospital?"

"Shut it, snowball."

"Snowball? I'll have you know this is a…" Greg trailed off when he caught his reflection in the skewed hallway mirror by the door of the suite. His hair was still grey but paler, silvery in the light with darker streaks running through it in a damn near salon style. It was still scruffy, but more feathery than curled now. He looked like he was on the middle aged front cover of GQ.

Not to mention the fact that he had the body of a twenty five year old again…well, maybe not twenty five, but he definitely had that roaring energy and he looked to be in his prime…not an eight year vicodin habit over the hill.

"Damn, I'm good looking." He muttered and then turned back to undressing the nice officer in front of him. She really was tiny, but the fire in her eyes said she would be snapping him in half right now if not for the gaping wounds in her flank.

"Are you insane?" She gritted to him, half annoyed and half pained.

"Beginning to feel that way…these are pretty bad. You look like a hamburger." His hand splayed over the bandages swathed around her middle. "Why did you come here?" He asked her again.

"I followed you." She finally admitted. "I figured your girlfriend might know where Harry is."

He stiffened at that. "She's gone too." His voice was small, suddenly almost frightening sounding. It was hard to believe that somebody this narcissistic, this large, could be frightened by anything. "I have to find her." He said and his voice sounded odd but in a different way this time. There was a lower thrumming cadence to it. Something deep and rumbling just below the edge of her hearing and his hand felt strange against her wound. She tried to back away but he followed her, his eyes half lidded and his hand pressed to her belly under her shirt.

"What are you doing?" She was trying to sound unafraid but his eyes were…glowing. Too bright and the pupils were too small.

"Fixing you a little bit…"

"You going to help me find Harry?"

His bright eyes lifted and met hers. The smallest smile curled his lips. "You going to help me find Lisa?"

"I think it's probable that they're together."

"Was that cop speak for 'yes'?"

Murphy felt a deep warm sensations seeping from his humming hand into her body. The pain melted away and her head tilted back against the door. Gold seeped over her senses and she murmured something incoherent. Even with his sharper hearing, Greg had to lean forward to hear the breathed words slip from her mouth.

"Yes."


	13. Chapter 13

_**I know, I know, I know, you wait forever and when you do finally get an update it's only a short one. I think that Author's note is gonna be longer than the actual story. I had to end it here though. The pacing's just right is all.**_

_**Nearly over! ((pained flail)) I have a bulletin on at the end so make sure to trawl through that too for important updates, 'kay?**_

_**Anyway, read on and enjoy the show. **_

**Chapter 13: Riding to the Rescue**

"Here?" Karin lifted her gun from her hip holster and flipped her thumb over the safety. "You're sure?"

Greg stood beside her, blending in with the shadows of late afternoon. He dipped his silvery head in a low nod, his blue eyes cold and forbidding in a wild kind of freezing anger. Karin was suddenly incredibly glad that the huge man was on her side.

"Dresden and Lisa are inside?" She had to be absolutely sure. He nodded again and she reached for her radio. "Dispatch, this is…" Karin was cut off when House's huge but gentle hand landed over hers. He shook his head.

"You want to go in there without any back up?"

"If I can do my thing then we won't need them. Wait here." Then he was gone. Disappeared into the trees, melted away like he'd never even been there. Karin stared into the gloom of the long shadows a few moments longer before realising it was a futile effort. He might as well have turned invisible. She sighed and palmed her gun more securely in her grip, eyes lazing half shut, her most useless sense in the sporadically lit forest, her ears perking up for every minute sound.

And she waited. There was nothing else she could do.

**$inister $cribe**

Greg padded his way into a clearing and felt the sunlight spill down over him like an actual golden thing. He absorbed it through his every pore and smirked slightly at the sensation of calm that came with it. This was absurd. Seven different kinds of stupid all mixed into one big catastrophe waiting to happen. He scrubbed his hands down over his face and huffed out a long breath…but he had to try.

He looked around for some kind of inspiration and finally settled on mimicking what he'd seen Lisa do in the past. He tugged at his dark pilfered hospital scrubs and whipped the shirt up and over his head. He didn't even pause to preen at the way any trace of middle aged gravity had vanished from him and he was as lean and as trim as he had been in his lacrosse days. Quite literally in better shape than he'd ever been in his life. His skin turned bronze in the late afternoon sunlight and the muscles over his chest, arms and stomach rippled like liquid metal under his skin. He kicked off his stolen slippers and wriggled out of the scrub drawstring pants so that he stood completely naked in the clearing. The only marring to his physical perfection the lightening silver scar running the length of his right thigh. Visually disturbing but that was it. It didn't even twinge and he somehow knew he was never going to be bothered by it ever again.

He huffed out a breath and tasted the forest around him. Heard the traffic on the freeway a few miles away. Smelled the other smaller animals, frightened of the big bad cat amongst their pigeon community. He could sense Karin a ways back. Her aura bright in the back of his mind. Golden and strong. She was good people.

So was Lisa. He wanted her back. To do that…he had to change shape.

The human part of him scoffed and the cat snarled at the slight in his head. He felt like he was caught in the cage between two over loud prisoners and he had no way to shut them up. One of them was going to have to give in or…or it didn't really bear thinking about. House shook that thought off and tried to remember exactly how Lisa had looked when she had changed that first time. It had been terrifying and alluring all at the same time. Truly fascinating.

Maybe it was a matter of thinking and doing.

He frowned, his eyes snapping open. Someone else was here…his sharp gaze landed on a tawny form standing tall and willow thin in the shadows. He narrowed his eyes, inhaling sharply and taking in her scent. The golden cat. That was her.

She stepped out into the clearing, golden eyes dancing with amusement. _You've done well, brother. You deserve this small help, no?_

Again, she spoke with that voice that was everywhere at once.

She folded down into an elegant crouch and House mirrored her movements. Watching her carefully. _Just let him out, brother. He knows what to do. _Her hands buried themselves in the golden leaves, her back arching and her head dipping forward. Her skin turned a strange metallic hue and split off, evaporating away with a crunch and snap from her shifting bones and splitting muscles. Exactly like Lisa's transformation except bathed in bright shimmering golden light instead of silver. A huge tawny leopard lay sphinx style on the opposite side of the clearing. He blinked and she was gone.

Greg frowned, had he imagined…?

No.

_Let him out. _

Yeah, sure, but which him?

Greg ducked his head, nails digging in to the dirt and shut his eyes. He could feel the animal part of him, larger than it had been before, crouched pent up and dangerous in the back of his mind. It growled and circled. Pure instinct wanting out. Get his mate. Claim her. That's what he wanted.

Greg shook in indecision. He had to make a choice and, for the first time in his life, he had something huge to lose if he made the wrong one.

He pictured the cage around the massive cat saw the latch huge and sturdy to hold the beast back. His tongue traced sand dry over his parched lips. He heaved in another shuddering breath, reached out to the latch in his minds eye and…

Flipped it.

**$inister $cribe**

"So…Harry," Cuddy looked from the huge villain of this masquerade and over to her fellow captive. "Any idea who the kid is?"

Harry shrugged under the weight of his earthy doppelganger. "Haven't a Scooby."

All eyes turned to him.

"What? I'm a detective but not the world's greatest. That's copyright you know. I was nowhere near solving this case." He defended himself vigorously. Cuddy hid a smile. "I've never seen the sprog before in my life."

"Of course you have!" The, obviously, Machiavellian mind behind this entire evil scheme stomped his foot and let his ten year old face turn three shades darker in irate anger.

"Oh, so that's puce." Lisa noted wryly. More than used to tantrums of one sort or another. If she was going to be killed, she might as well in some small measure deserve it. "Does your mother know you're out this late?"

"I have no mother." Spat the boy and Lisa arched a brow. She slid a look to Dresden.

"You're serious? A ten year old? We've been captured by a freaking ten year old?!"

"Tommy Rawlins!" Dresden suddenly said, his eyebrows shooting up.

"What?"

"He was one of the first victims of the fury attacks. He was maimed in his bedroom and horrifically scarred and he looks…"

"Exactly like the evil overlord over there?"

"Well…yeah. He'd been home sick from school and…" Dresden stopped, his face turning to stone as he stared at the boy. "In fact he'd only been pretending to be sick, hadn't you Tommy?" Dresden's eyes had turned to obsidian and he glared at the boy.

"My name is not TOMMY!" Tommy roared, the furies' grip tightened on their respective captive's throats and both Harry and Lisa choked for a minute before Tommy nodded and the furies relaxed their grip. "It's Prince Tarok, Overlord of the End of the World."

"Yeah right." Cuddy snarled. "You're just a spoiled brat in need of being sent to his room." There was something off about Tommy. Something tainted in his aura. Something rotten right down to his core.

"I get it now." Harry spoke suddenly. Deadly quiet. "The victims, before Tommy's 'attack'."

Lisa turned to look at Harry.

"Education." Harry smirked with no humour at all. "All of them were connected to the education system in some way. You had them maimed and _killed_ because you didn't want to go to school."

Tommy shrugged petulantly. "Who needs it?" He kicked at a stray pebble and eyed his captive sullenly. "I was six when I first figured I could control these guys." He gestured negligently to the two furies. They rumbled back at him…sounding a little to threatening to be the faithful pets Lisa had first thought them to be. "They did stuff for me. Got me in on some action." Tommy grinned then. "Vampires pay well for some concrete muscle, huh?"

"That explains the rest of the victims then. I thought it was Black Court vampires calling up furies but…it was a little spoiled human kid."

"He's not human, Harry. He can't be." Lisa didn't know how she knew but she felt it in her bones. Tommy Rawlins, _couldn't_ be human. Nothing that warped, that twisted, could have been born a human, surely?

"Afraid not, kitty-cat. I'm as human as the next guy. So, I have a couple of really weird dogs, but I just control 'em. They're a tool. Nothing more." Tommy scrubbed a small hand through his unruly brown hair and looked over at them with a child's glee in his blue eyes. "But now you gotta die. Nothing personal, but you keep killing my pets and…that's gotta stop." Tommy crouched down so that he was at eyelevel with Dresden.

"Pity really, if you and me had gone into business it coulda been good?"

"The Warden's are going to hunt you down and behead you for this." Harry spoke coldly and then leant forward. Speaking coldly with clipped enunciation. "And I won't stop them."

"Ooh." Tommy mocked him. "Big bad wizard's trying to be frightening!" Tommy pretended fear and then gave a high pitched laugh. "Oh I'm trembling! _Not." _

"People wonder why I hate children." Dresden muttered.

Lisa had just about had enough of this. If he was going to kill them, fine, but for the love of god, don't make her sit through this loathsome diatribe.

"Don't need school, kid?"

Tommy turned to her, lip curled in attitude. "Nope."

"Really? Do you know what a leopard can do to a kid your size?"

Tommy stared at her, not comprehending.

"A leopards pounce is so powerful that the impact alone will crush your ribs to fragments. It'll feel roughly like being hit with a truck. His jaws can crush your skull at the weight of two tonnes per square inch. He can shear off your hands with a single swipe of his paws and, of he wants to, he can eat you from the guts outwards while you're still writhing in pain." Cuddy smiled coldly at him. "You might have learned that if you'd stayed in class."

Tommy scoffed. "Yeah right, cat-woman. My dog's gonna crush your neck the instant you try to get your fur on."

Lisa bared her teeth in an expression that was a hundred miles from a smile. "I wasn't talking about me, idiot. I was talking about my mate. The one that's going to kill you."

"You don't have a mate."

"Tell him that."

It was at that very instant that a roar split the air and glass exploded outwards from the window and rained down on them. A huge feline shape thumped to the ground squarely on all four massive paws and fixed glowing blue eyes as cold as an arctic wind on one Tommy Rawlins. A long tail lashed and a low chuffing sound echoed throughout the abandoned warehouse.

Lisa actually joined her mate in the low laugh that echoed from deep within his broad furred chest.

That had been one hell of an entrance.

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_**::IMPORTANT BULLETINS::**_

_**The 'Naked Truth' is being taken over by one Scarlett Scribble (my fellow smut bunny) I will be onlooking in a sort of Beta/advisory capacity because I was going to delete it but she liked it enough to take over. I would say we were gonna co-write but I'm letting her do all the work for it so…yeah, future reviews should be addressed to her too. **_

_**I have THREE new story ideas for the huddy in the pipelines (not including the sequel to this little ditty that I've already started writing btw). Count 'em. **_

_**3**_

_**Yeah, so, they're all WAY out there. The first one is about House being cursed by a witch (you may remember this theme from my doomed Halloween fic last year) and getting turned into a dog (NOT in last year's fic). Cuddy ends up taking him in…but every time he gets 'excited' he turns back into a very House-ish, very naked shape (are you finding that I like them naked in my fics?). **_

_**Behind door number two we have a fic about House and Cuddy being sent back in time to Western/Frontier America. House goes all cowboy and Cuddy finds her inner burlesque dancer. Very magical, quite fantastical and I've never done a period drama before. **_

_**The third is inspired by both the film 'My Super Ex-Girlfriend' and the 'OH MY GAWD!' moments in episode 8 of season 4. Lawl. Basically, Cuddy's a superhero, House finds out and all the fun goings on behind that. Though i should point out that Cuddy is NOT a neurotic flighty cow in it as Uma Thurman played in the film. Just so we're clear. **_

_**I WILL write all of these but I wanted to get feedback on the ideas first. Any particular requests on the order I write them, or any ideas for tweaking them a little are welcome. Feel free to email me or drop it in a review for this or something. Whatever works for ya. **_

**HIT THAT PURPLE BUTTTOOOOOONN!!!!**


	14. Chapter 14

**Written all in one, please ignore errors.**

**Chapter 14: The Not So Grand Finale**

Harry flinched and turned away as best he could from the showering explosion of glass that rained down over his neck and shoulders. He felt a hundred tiny cuts split over the sensitive skin on the back of his neck and side of his face and the gloom of a shadow swooping over him to land with a quiet thump not three feet from him. His ears rang from the coughing roar of a huge enraged cat and he opened his eyes to see one of the largest werecats he had ever seen crouched low, snarl throttling deep in his chest and tail lashing back and forth like a whip.

A snow leopard.

Stars and stones, House had turned into a snow leopard.

Usually, when weres were bitten, they turned into the same kind of animal that had bitten them, but obviously there was some kind of twist in House's DNA that had changed him into this monster of a cat. He was huge. Massive. Made Lisa's terrifying other form look like a kitten. Over four feet at the shoulder and, at a guess, twelve feet long from his velvet nose to his slinking tail. His coat was silver sable with darker rosettes of steel. His eyes were freezing cold, glowing a blue so intense it bordered on ice.

And he looked very, _very,_ angry.

Tommy staggered back, gaping at this beast that stood as tall as he when stooped to pounce. He pointed with a shaking finger and House prowled forward, massive shoulders rolling in preparation to leap the growl in his chest gone eerily silent like the quiet before the storm. Tommy had that animal look of panic in his adolescent gaze of someone who had just realised they were about to die. He pointed at House with a shaking finger and then looked wildly to the furies that had remained statue still throughout the entire drama.

"Kill it! KILL IT!"

Then everything happened at once. The fury holding Harry threw him at the one holding Lisa and Harry grunted as he was caught by the scruff of his neck and shoved face down into the concrete floor. The Harry look-alike pounced at House and was met mid-air by the raging flash of silver that the good doctor had become. Claws flashed and teeth snapped at each other. The fury's claws dug into House's shoulder and House's massive fangs sank into the meaty part of the fury's neck. They spun around each other with the impact and sprawled awkwardly to the floor. House landed on the bottom. The fury punched him on the nose hard enough to draw blood but House didn't even appear to notice. He twisted his neck and bit the wrist of the arm holding his fur at his throat. His back legs found the soft underbelly of the fury and kicked viciously with extended claws. Ichor spewed from the wounds and the fury flipped with a howl over House's head to smack to the floor.

House was on him in an instant. His massive jaws clamped down on the back of the neck and he shook violently. House may have not been in his new body for very long but instinct was filling in all the gaps that his rational brain couldn't.

Harry became aware of a snarl much closer to him than the silver werecat. He pried his face out of the floor and looked up in time to see Lisa's eyes flash to aqua fury before she threw herself straight backwards and collided shoulder to chest with the fury holding her neck. There was a flash of claws and a howl of pain and suddenly Harry was let go and he tumbled together with Lisa across the gritty floor. Harry's head cracked against the floor and he saw stars once more. This was getting pretty bad. He'd been in enough fights to know when he was on the verge of collapse and the grey fuzz at the edge of his vision was an early warning sign of imminent unconsciousness if ever there was.

Oh goody, _now_ they were getting somewhere!

Harry bounded to his feet...or he would have liked to bound to his feet, but didn't manage it the first time around as his knees protested at having been knelt upon for such a long time. He liked to think that his stagger was manly though. He reached for his staff, for his blasting rod, for _anything_ but it had all been stripped from him. He grit his teeth and then the grimace turned to a grin when his hand landed on his mother's silver pentacle at his throat. It would do in a pinch. He pulled it quickly over his head and wrapped the chain around his fist the encircled star hanging over his knuckles.

Now, where was that little brat?

Harry willed some energy into his pentacle. It hummed with energy and a nimbus of blue haloed it to crackle over his hand. With enough luck, it would be enough to stun the kid and get them all out of this without any blood being spilled. Harry's eyes scanned the warehouse, left, right then left again. Where was he? There was so much noise from House and Lisa fighting. The grey veil over his eyes grew thicker and Harry huffed out a breath and tried to concentrate for a few minutes more.

"Harry!"

Harry turned, turtle slow, to look up and he saw...Murphy?

She was running towards him, gun down at her side held in a double grip. He could see the safety was off. He tightened his grip on his pentacle and forced his mind to stay focused.

Murphy raised her gun and pointed it right at him.

Harry had time to widen his eyes right before something huge tackled him and the gun kicked in Murphy's hand with a buck and a roar.

**$inister $cribe**

"Harry?...Harry wake up."

Harry blinked and stared sightlessly at the orange and purple streaked sky overhead. He frowned. This was weird. A face appeared in his vision. Porcelain skin, a dusting of freckles over the elfin nose and summer storm blue eyes. Harry grinned.

"Murphy!" He swayed up into a sitting position and found himself on a gurney by an ambulance. He took a moment to assess and realised that the fizzy sensation in his head was probably due to copious amounts of codine swimming through his blood stream. Murphy steadied him with a hand against.

"Whoa, there!" She steadied him when he swung his legs over the edge of the gurney in preparation for getting off it. He changed his mind when the world took a sharp tilt to the left. He settled for looking down at the top of Murphy's head and carefully measuring the colour of her hair against the sunset before asking a question. He was a detective and he felt that detectives should ask lots of questions.

"What'd I miss?"

"Uh...me shooting a kid." Murphy spoke at length. There was a stiffness to her shoulders, a steel in her voice. "He was going to stab you with some kind of knife...so I winged him. He's in the other ambulance."

Harry didn't look, his faculties of rationality making a return, he focused on Murphy instead. His hand finding her chin and tilting her face up to his.

"You did what you had to, Murph. At least you didn't have to kill him." Harry smiled crookedly at her and winced his arm around her shoulders in a lopsided hug, he had done something to his arm that made the joint feel gritty. "Oooh, what hit me?"

"Snowball."

Harry blinked and looked down at Murphy. "Uh...what?"

"The big snow leopard. Snowball." Murphy bobbed her eyebrows at him. "With his lady panther friend Shadow."

Harry laughed and then stopped suddenly when he realised how painful that was. He coughed once and then scanned the lengthening shadows around the edge of the warehouses. The place was crawling with emergency vehicles. Police black and whites, ambulances and the usual media circus with all the accompanying flashing lights made it difficult for his eyes to pick out any details of a slinking feline form or two in the gathering gloom.

"So...Snowball and Shadow...they okay?"

Murphy smirked and turned to point towards the edge of the woods, using her body to shield her hand from any onlookers. Harry followed her direction and gazed into the tree line. He could just make out...two shapes with matching glowing blue eyes watching him back. He grinned.

Then, with a flash of silver and a slink of ebony, they were gone.

**$inister $cribe**

The sun dipped towards the horizon and Greg ran through the shafts of burnt gold light and shadow with his mate, breathing in the night. They sped silent and sleek on whisper soft paws. Bounding and pursuing each other. She was teasing him, getting him to chase her. Slinking up against him, taunting him with her scent, batting his tail with her paws, nipping his ears with her teeth and then vanishing from his reach with a mischievous leap. Though he was more powerful by far, between them, she might as well have been smoke on the wind with her grace.

He led her into the woods. Deep into the forest. Further into the shadows until the sun could barely reach them any more. The birds chirruped overhead lazily. Tired after a day of flying in the sun.

They trotted side by side into the clearing. A place neither of them had ever been before but felt to be right. He circled in front of her, halting her. He brushed against her, fur to fur, and huffed against her. He circled her and finally stopped in front of her. His silver fur seemed to brighten in the shadows like a beacon. It atomised, melting away. Bones snapped and reformed, muscles shifted and contracted and new naked skin revealed itself until Greg crouched in front of her, nose to nose. He grinned at her.

She changed and he watched greedily. He'd never get tired of looking at her. Not this gorgeous creature. Never.

Her fingers landed on his face and traced his jaw with a soft smile on her lips. She stroked him. Down his neck, the breadth of his shoulders, his arms, over his chest and down over the rippling muscles of his stomach. Any trace of age that his body had been showing before was gone. He still had that kind of weathered look with his steely scruff, his face still had lines but his body was all lean lines and barely constrained power. He felt like he'd burst from it. Heat flared under her every caress and sang through his veins and, judging by the way her eyes had taken on that kind of glassy look, she wasn't entirely unaffected herself.

"How do you feel?" Her hands stroked into his silver hair and the purr rumbled up and out of his chest before he could stop it. She laughed. "That good?"

"Better." He nudged her off balance, pushing her back onto the bed of moss and green grass of the forest floor. She went willingly. He buried his face at her throat, inhaling deeply, lowering his body against hers. Nipping her skin with his teeth. Their bodies slid against one another with the friction of silk against velvet and they both moaned. She arched up against him and he grinned. His tongue swirled around one of her nipples and he sucked it into his mouth. He couldn't help himself. Her hips bucked up against his, her legs wrapping around him, dragging him closer. Her nails scored his back and he drove her higher, stroking, licking, sucking.

"You're _so_ sensitive." He growled against her ear and she gasped when his tongue traced the delicate shell.

"Only with you." She gasped, writhing.

"Hmm...?" He was currently entranced by the way she shivered when he dragged his slightly lengthened canines down over her carotid.

"I'll only react like this with you and...you'll be the same with me." She panted.

He went still over her. "You've...neutered me for other women?"

"Only till sunset. Then you'll be too dead to care." She answered glibly. It was becoming increasingly difficult to retain some coherent kind of thought process.

"Ah well, just be prepared to keep me satisfied then." His mouth crushed hers and she moaned, twining her arms around his neck. He gripped one of her legs, sliding it up and hooking it over his shoulder, her other leg curled high around his thigh. The straining head of his cock slid against her once and she bit his lip at the burst of sensation. Her nails dug into his shoulders. She wanted more. She gave a purring growl into his mouth, demanding it.

He gave her what she wanted and thrust. He gasped, tearing his mouth from hers and gasping. His hips bucked in a rhythm that had them both desperate for more. His skin burned. More than mere desire could warrant. He felt a storm of something building inside him. Raw power, curling and flexing like it had just before he'd changed the last time. He fought against it, wanting to stay thoroughly human shaped for this particular pleasure.

"It's okay." Lisa gasped under him, gripping his shoulder. "It's part of this. Let it happen."

He rocked deeper inside her and that clashing roll of energy inside him intensified. He ducked his head, his nose rubbing up against her throat. He lapped at the rapidly galloping pulse there and then bit down. Hard.

She flew apart for him with a scream. Her claws raked his back and he pushed inside her, as far as he could go, before following her over the edge with a roar. Energy slammed out of both of them. Clashing blue on silver, roiling into icy fire and then bleeding back between them. Leaving him with stars swimming in front of his eyes and his bones feeling like they'd been removed and replaced with jelly replicas. He collapsed down, on top of his mate, and she welcomed him with open arms. Stroking his back and his hair.

They both took a moment to catch their breath in the forest. Birds still sang over head for the evening farewell to their kind, a fox woke for the night not far away and a squirrel dashed overhead towards its home. Greg rolled onto his back and pulled his woman with him so that she sprawled across his chest. She hummed happily at the arrangement. Eyes already shut in pleasure induced dozing.

Greg watched the slim patch of sky he could see, between the leaf canopy overhead, dim and darken. He watched stars peak out into the blanket of the night and felt...whole.

"Is it always like this?"

"Hmm?" Lisa asked lazily against his skin. Her fingers danced through the light dusting of hair there.

"So...vivid, intense...wow." He tried to think of other words to convey it. He could feel her amusement before she even spoke. They were part of each other now. A small corner of his being reserved for her, he could feel something of him in her too. It was an odd sensation, but one he was sure he could get used to.

"I don't know. It's definitely never been like that for me before." She sat up on one elbow and finger combed her wild mane of dark hair out of her face. House watched her and wanted to purr again. She was beautiful, gorgeous and all his.

"Aaaw." She grinned and sat forward again, leaning over his chest. "You think I'm gorgeous!" Greg was saved from protesting at having his mind read without his consent by her mouth coming down over his in a short but steamy kiss. Something..._pink_ bloomed in his head. "And it's not so much mind reading as...empathic. I can feel what you feel, to a certain extent. Not telepathy in words but...pictures or colours sometimes."

"Hm...this is gonna take some explaining back at the hospital." He reached up and folded his arms behind his head. While he tried to digest being colour-telepathic.

"What? Your sudden GQ-esque physique?" She teased him on a sharp grin.

"That...and the no longer needing the cane or vicodin. I'm not pretending to use them." He told her adamantly.

"I wouldn't ask you to." Soothing blue slid over his mind and he settled somewhat. "An experimental treatment? Hair dye? Mid-life crisis?" They were both grinning now.

"It's a lot to think about." He settled one of his hands over her back and stroked the line of her spine. He had the sudden image of a black cat arching up to a petting hand and she slapped him on the chest lightly.

"I'm much fiercer than a house cat."

"This is going to take some getting used to."

She sobered then. "Yes." He knew she was thinking about a celtic knot design. "I'll help you though."

"No." His hands spanned her waist and he pulled her up and over his body so he could kiss her soundly. "We'll do it together."

Then he kissed her again and they both decided they could deal with their problems later.

Much later.

**$inister $cribe**

**Phew!! That was hard to write. It maybe didn't seem like it, but this was one of the most difficult chapters to do. **

**I've been absent a lot lately because I've been going through some stuff that's been mucking me up plenty style. I think this one may have broken my writer's block though. We shall see in the coming days. **

**There is a sequel planned for this. When I get the plot hammered out. I'm thinking of a House/CSI or a House/Dresden/CSI crossover for it. So if the ending seemed a little sudden for you, fear not! For I have a whole nuther story up my Marvin the Martian shirtsleeve. **

**This chapter is dedicated to Scarlett Scribble coz she lets me rant, listens to me when I don't make sense and isn't feeling to great herself at the moment. **

**Everybody send healing thoughts to Scarlett!!**

**(and reviews to me)**

**Thanks very much for reading. You've all been dolls.**

**Ciao, $cribe. **

**XOX**


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