Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it...
I've been spouting off in various ljs/emails over the past few days about how despite everything the last scene of "Dying Changes Everything" felt to me, bizarrely, like the most romantic H/W scene they've ever done. It just... was. So there I was, vaguely contemplating this point, when I FINALLY REALISED WHY.
***
"Darling, I'm going to tell you everything," she said, putting her hands on the arm of his chair and leaning down to him. "I've been so wrong, such a stupid fool--"
I'm sorry. I know I didn't try to kill her; I know I didn't want her hurt. I know it was a freak accident. But I feel like crap and she's dead because of me.
As his tired eyes met hers, she broke off in embarrassment, shy as a girl with her first beau. If he'd only make it easier for her! If only he would hold out his arms, so she could crawl thankfully into his lap and lay her head on his chest. Her lips on his could tell him better than all her stumbling words. But as she looked at him, she realized that he was not holding her off just to be mean. He looked drained and as though nothing she had said was of any moment.
"Once I would have thanked God, fasting, to hear you say all this. But, now, it doesn't matter."
I don't blame you. I wanted to. I tried to. I must have reviewed Amber's case file a hundred times to find a way... but it wasn't your fault.
"Doesn't matter? What are you talking about? Of course, it matters! Rhett, you do care, don't you? You must care. Melly said you did."
Then we're okay. I mean, I know you're not, but... maybe I can help.
"Well, she was right, as far as she knew. But, Scarlett, did it ever occur to you that even the most deathless love could wear out?"
We're not okay.
She looked at him speechless, her mouth a round O.
Amber was never the reason I was leaving.
"Did it ever occur to you that I loved you as much as a man can love a woman? Loved you for years before I finally got you? During the war I'd go away and try to forget you, but I couldn't and I always had to come back. After the war I risked arrest, just to come back and find you. I cared so much I believe I would have killed Frank Kennedy if he hadn't died when he did. I loved you but I couldn't let you know it. You're so brutal to those who love you, Scarlett. You take their love and hold it over their heads like a whip."
I didn't want to tell you because I was trying - like I always do - to protect you.
Out of it all only the fact that he loved her meant anything. At the faint echo of passion in his voice, pleasure and excitement crept back into her. She sat, hardly breathing, listening, waiting.
Which is the problem. You spread misery, because you can't feel anything else. You manipulate people because you can't handle any kind of real relationship.
"I knew you didn't love me when I married you. I knew about Ashley, you see. But, fool that I was, I thought I could make you care. Laugh, if you like, but I wanted to take care of you, to pet you, to give you everything you wanted. I wanted to marry you and protect you and give you a free rein in anything that would make you happy--just as I did Bonnie. [!] You'd had such a struggle, Scarlett. No one knew better than I what you'd gone through and I wanted you to stop fighting and let me fight for you. I wanted you to play, like a child--for you were a child, a brave, frightened, bullheaded child. I think you are still a child. No one but a child could be so headstrong and so insensitive."
And I've enabled it for years - the games, the binges, the middle-of-the-night phone calls. I should have been the one on the bus, not...
For a moment he hesitated as if debating whether a kind lie were kinder in the long run than the truth. Then he shrugged.
...you should have been alone on the bus.
"Scarlett, I was never one to patiently pick up broken fragments and glue them together and tell myself that the mended whole was as good as new. What is broken is broken--and I'd rather remember it as it was at its best than mend it and see the broken places as long as I lived. Perhaps, if I were younger--" he sighed. "But I'm too old to believe in such sentimentalities as clean slates and starting all over. I'm too old to shoulder the burden of constant lies that go with living in polite disillusionment. I couldn't live with you and lie to you and I certainly couldn't lie to myself. I can't even lie to you now. I wish I could care what you do or where you go, but I can't."
If I've learned anything from Amber, it's that I have to take care of myself.
He drew a short breath and said lightly but softly:
"My dear, I don't give a damn."
We're not friends anymore, House. I'm not sure we ever were.
***
See? You just know that somewhere, House is waving his cane at the sunset and vowing, "I'll think of it all tomorrow... I can stand it then. Tomorrow, I'll think of some way to get him back. After all, tomorrow is another day."
FINE. MOCK ALL YOU WANT. BUT IT'S TRUE, I TELL YOU :P