Fic: Knowing
Title: Knowing
Words: 1400
Summary: House finds out that Cuddy has been hiding something from him - something about him.
A/N: written for a House Fest prompt (above) I picked up a while ago.
The well-worn page shakes slightly with her hand. The print blurs as her eyes moisten just a bit. Months have passed since she first read it, but she feels no closer to figuring out how to deal with it. She isn’t even quite sure why she had ordered the analysis of House’s sperm, but it seemed an option worth exploring at the time. Now, she was coming undone because the action could not be, no matter how hard she wished it.
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It began with a present.
It was a small nondescript package covered with muted silver wrapping paper and tied with a simple white ribbon, but Cuddy had instantly known who the gift was from. It’s placement in her refrigerator was a dead giveaway. There was only one person who so completely disregarded her personal space and privacy.
'It’s sure to beat up 613’s,' the small white card had read.
It had filled her with indignation and disgust, but also joy and pride. It was an apology and acknowledgement that she deserved to be a mother all tied up with a bow. It didn’t absolve him of all his wrongs, but it was just the sort of sweeping gesture that managed to keep him in her good graces despite her better judgment. It was the sort of gesture that cut to the core of what she wanted and needed. It was the sort of gesture that reminded her there were still people in her life who saw past the façade she worked so hard at manicuring and inspired her to do things like commit perjury.
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Her reaction is the same whenever she thinks of it. She breathes deeply willing herself calm. Ease of long practice has her the picture of equanimity in moments. Her pager buzzes, offering a welcome distraction, until she reads the message: Clinic…House.
She first hears and then sees House arguing with a young nurse at the clinic nurse’s station.
“What is it now?” Cuddy asks irritably.
“We were told to page you whenever he tries to leave early, and it’s an hour before the end of his shift,” the young pip of a nurse squeaks, clearly intimidated by House and Cuddy.
Cuddy dismisses her with a wave of her hand.
“What is it this time House, another top secret mission for the CIA? Your team need you?”
“I don’t feel good,” he whines, pouting pitifully.
Cuddy knows he’s only doing it for comic effect, but the effect it has on her is rather different. She can’t find it in her to push.
“Fine, go,” she says simply.
“That’s it? No lecture?” he says in mocks disbelief.
“Would it do any good?” she asks tiredly.
“Of course not, but that never stopped you before,” he replies playing with a pen from the counter, readying for battle.
“I’ve got to go,” she says, turning away.
“Cuddy,” he says, forcing her to turn instinctively. “What gives?” he asks distractedly, making sure to keep the fear that she’s giving up on him hidden.
She feels his eyes studying her, raking over her expression, her posture, her being. She knows she should be trying to hide any tells, but she’s paralyzed. It’s getting hard to breath around the suffocating truth.
“What are you keeping from me?” he pokes. “Looks like something personal,” he analyzes. “Have you implanted my seed?” he asks and whether his voice is full of pride at the thought of her spawning his child or thinking he’s guessed her secret neither of them can be sure.
He’s wrong of course, but he’s just close enough to the trail that it’s too much for her. “I couldn’t use your gift House,” she says softly, apologetically, and she knows she’s giving it away, but can’t help it. She knows her façade is mostly useless against his piercing gaze as it is.
“Why?” he asks curiously, almost gently.
She hears the softened edge of his tone and realizes his error. He thinks it was because there was something wrong with her making her infertile.
“I can’t do this,” she says, turning to leave once more. It may have began with a present, but now the knowledge of a damned future is choking her. She could not tell him. He would find out soon enough and whenever he did it would be horrible.
Huntington’s disease was a sentence to a death that would seem sweet relief after the progressive degeneration that preceded it. House had only one mutated allele, but it was autosomal dominant, that’s all it took. De novo mutation was rare. It was likely that one of House’s parents had the illness, but just hadn’t presented yet, which was a good sign for him. The later the disease presented, the better, though the principle of anticipation applied. Anticipation dictated Huntington’s presented earlier and more aggressively in each successive generation. The number of triplicate nucleotide repeats increased with each generation.
“Wait,” he says in a quietly commanding tone, and she can’t refuse.
“What?”
“Why couldn’t you use it Cuddy?” he says, drawing out the word couldn’t. She didn’t say she didn’t want to use his sperm, or that she wasn’t going to, but that she couldn’t. It meant either there was something wrong with her or him. Of course, the possibility that she couldn’t use it because of the messy social situation it would lead to never even registered.
“I just couldn’t House,” she says firmly.
“But you could use other guys’ sperm?” he half-asks, half states.
Her silence is confirmation enough.
“So either you’re hopelessly in love with me, or you found something wrong with it?” he says already knowing which is true.
‘God damn him,’ she thinks. He never can let up. She can never fool him for long. Of course, they both know she loves him. She had loved him since the day he first impressed her with his wide breadth of and ability to assimilate knowledge, and she would love him till the day this illness stole his last breath along with all his memories and abilities. And she’d love him all the days in between. She and House and Wilson were as loved as they were lonely. That was the way it was with a chosen family full of emotional cripples, but that’s not what this was about.
“And since you always see hope everywhere, it’s not the former. What did you find Cuddy?” he asks more quietly.
“No, House,” she protests.
“You owe it to me to tell me,” he says, voice growing ever quieter.
She knows he doesn’t rage and yell when it really matters, but his near soundless inquiry is heart-breaking. She almost wishes he would yell so she could yell back, but she responds in an equally quiet tone.
“I owe it to you not to,” she says looking away.
“Oh, so it’s that bad,” he sighs, willing his mind to stop racing through diagnoses.
They stand in silence, locked in an embrace of the eyes.
She aches to touch him, to comfort him, but knows it would not be appreciated, not here, not now, not when she’s keeping from him the one thing he sought above all else: truth in knowledge.
“You know I can just run the tests myself?” he mumbles.
“I know, and I know that you almost certainly will, but I’ll still recommend against it, and hope that you won’t. It won’t change anything that might happen in the future, but it will make you even more miserable in the present.”
Choreaform movements were usually the first symptom noted, but that’s because they’re the most obvious. His speech was intact as were his facial expressions, no mask facies…yet. His memory and cognition are also normal for now. He already uses the cane so she can’t be sure if he has an unsteady gait or dystonia. She wonders if any of his irritability, could be attributed to the mood lability symptomatic of the disease. It’s too hard to tell, and she doesn’t really want to. She doesn’t want him to be plagued with this constant search for signs and symptoms either. It’s futile torture.
“Well, whatever it is, at least it’s worth time off clinic duty,” he says smiling slightly at her, for her.
“Oh no, I intend to have you make up this hour next week,” she replies, forcing a small smile, for him. She knows it’s a fool’s wish, but keeps hope that he won’t test himself.
It’s just too soon for the end to begin.