Dear Houselover8195: Thank آپ for ever so kindly telling me to get off my butt and write something...

Thus beginneth the dreaded Author's Notes--I am so sorry this took so long, but I had no earthly idea how I was going to do this chapter. Nothing sounded right. Finally I just decided to push through, and hope it would get better اگلے time... also there are no pictures with this particular episode that I could think of anything to do with, so I just used the best one I could find from Joy To The World and called it quits. :)

PS: Any X-Files شائقین out there... spot the shout-out!

~*~*~
    “Just a trim today?” Lisa’s hairdresser snipped her scissors in the air above her head as she met Lisa’s eyes in the mirror. “Same as always?”
    Lisa stared at herself. The incident in her trailer a few nights پہلے had been keeping her up nights, and the circles under her eyes were barely covered with her best concealer. She was back on the set the اگلے دن for the filming of Joy to the World, and she would have to see Hugh… she still wasn’t sure what she was going to say. یا do. Maybe she wouldn’t say anything.
    Yeah.
    That went well the last time.
    “Actually—” she spoke as the scissors had just barely touched her hair. “I do want something different.”
~*~*~
    Lisa shouldered her bag and stepped out of her trailer, looking around automatically to see if Hugh was anywhere near. Her mental checklist popped up and she amended it. Gotta stop doing that.
    “Lisa… oh.” David came up اگلے to her and noticed her hair. “Um—we didn’t talk about this.”
    Lisa stopped walking and fixed him with a look. David almost took a step back at the intensity of her stare. “There is no reason for Cuddy not to get a haircut. And after the incidents with House in the last episode, I see no reason for her not to want to hide her eyes, at least until she can get herself under control.”
    David furrowed his brow. “Ok… no, that actually works. Ok. But please, Lisa, the اگلے time آپ want to do something like that, will آپ call one of us just to make sure?”
    “Fine.” Lisa turned away and headed for the set. Hugh was sitting in his chair, looking through his script. Hearing the sound of Lisa’s heels approaching on the concrete, he looked up—then did a double take. Lisa paused when she saw him looking, then sighed and went over to her own chair, only a few feet from his. They both sat in silence for a few minutes, and then Hugh cleared his throat.
    “You got your hair cut.”
    “Yeah.”
    “It’s—different.”
    “Different is bad?” Lisa raised her eyebrow. Hugh shrugged.
    “Can’t really see your eyes.” He stopped, and after a few moments Lisa finally looked up to see him gazing at her, his eyes soft and sad. “I imagine that’s what آپ were going for.”
    “Hugh—”
    “No. It was my fault.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Listen. Really, it was my fault. And I don’t want آپ losing any مزید sleep over this.”
    “How do you—”
    “You’re wearing مزید makeup than usual under your eyes. I don’t want to do this to you. So… I know what آپ meant now when آپ were asking me to stay away from آپ after آپ had that dream.” Lisa’s eyes started to water slightly, and she blinked quickly. Maybe the bangs really were going to come in handy. “I’m going to leave آپ alone.”
    “Thank you.” Without looking at him, she put her script down and walked off to the set, not looking back.
~*~*~
    “What is going on with you?” Robert Sean Leonard plopped himself into Lisa’s chair اگلے to Hugh, who was watching the action on set. Lisa was doing a scene with the young girl in the hospital bed, and a woman walked on set with a baby in her arms. Hugh watched her intently as she handed it to Lisa for the scene in which Cuddy brought the baby to Natalie’s بستر after finding it in the abandoned house.
    “I’m a little surprised سے طرف کی this baby thing,” Hugh کہا finally, looking back down at his script. “Lisa and I—” he cleared his throat. “We talked about it, we didn’t really think—it seemed like a character exploration مزید than anything. We really didn’t think they were actually going to give Cuddy a kid. Little worried about how it’s going to work out.”
    “No. No, آپ have been acting weird all day, but آپ knew about the baby two weeks ago, easy. I know آپ read the script when آپ first got it, so the only difference is today… Lisa’s on set. And آپ two haven’t کہا a word to each other outside the script all morning.”
    “And?”
    Robert glared at the side of Hugh’s head as his friend refused to meet his eyes. “And nothing. I’m going to get something to eat.”
~*~*~
    “Joy to the world… joy to all the little boys and girls… joy to all the fishes in the deep blue sea…” Hugh’s baritone floated around the corner and Lisa quickly straightened her shoulders, putting on her game face. “Fancy meeting آپ here.”
    “Fancy that indeed,” she said, gesturing to a chair on the other end of the set. “Have a seat?”
    Hugh looked from where she was sitting cross-legged on the hospital بستر to the کرسی, آرام کرسی in the corner سے طرف کی the window. All the way across the room. “Ok…”
    “I saw Robert talking to you.”
    “He’s… concerned.” Hugh gave her a half-smile, and entirely to her chagrin, Lisa found herself smiling back.
    “Well, don’t worry, I already told him to mind his own business.” Hugh raised an eyebrow at her. “I didn’t tell him what happened. He may think I’m PMS’ing.”
    “Is he wrong?”
    “He may be.” Lisa ran her hands through her hair. “This was probably the stupidest thing I could have done. I already hate it.”
    “What? It’s very… becoming.”
    “You hate it too.” She blew upwards, watching her hair float back down in front of her eyes. Hugh crossed his legs and folded his hands in his lap. “I don’t know what I was thinking about. I’m sorry.”
    “You have nothing to be sorry about.”
    “We both have something to be sorry about.” Lisa braced her elbows on her knees and rested her chin in her hands. “We let our emotions get the best of us. That’s all that happened. No reason we can’t just go back to the way things were. I don’t want to lose آپ as a friend…” Hugh looked up as her voice softened. Lisa met his eyes seriously. “I don’t think I could handle that, Hugh.”
    A few سیکنڈ passed, and neither of them blinked. Then slowly Hugh rose from the chair and walked over to the bedside, holding out his hand. “Friends?”    
    A brilliant smile spread across Lisa’s face, and she reached to shake his hand. “Friends—YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEOW!”
    “Gotcha!” Hugh held his hands up, دکھانا the buzzer in his right palm.
    “Hugh!” Lisa scrambled to untangle her legs as he sprinted off the set. “Maybe I could live without that!”
    Some very British-sounding laughter was the only response as she sped after him down the hall.