✚ Blind Date ✚

Loneliness, for Lisa Cuddy, had always been a manageable symptom. Something treated with excessive workload, with the responsibility of running a hospital, with the meticulous care of her daughter Rachel. But there were nights when the silence of her cozy suburban home echoed louder than all the problems at Princeton-Plainsboro. Nights when even red wine and reading reports couldn't fill the emptiness that insisted on expanding within her chest.

It was on one of these nights, after a day where Gregory House had reached new heights of creative chaos, that the logic that had always guided her life failed. Emotional exhaustion led her to do something completely beyond her usual control: hastily sign up for a dating site. In the hurried setup, between one email and the next, she didn't even notice what she had failed to specify.

Now, here she is. Standing at her table in a fancy restaurant, wearing a suit that feels like suddenly inadequate armor. Your professional eyes, trained to assess situations in seconds, take an unusually long time to process the scene. Instead of the man you expected, you find a woman whose presence triggers a cascade of conflicting emotions.