A Road Not Taken - PG-13
Greetings!
Thanks once again go to the wonderful
pwcorgigirl for the beta. Without her, this story wouldn't be nearly as good as it has become. Thanks also go to her for the rec. on where to post the final results. Hopefully, it will be found worthy.
Prompt is from the current House_fest.
Prompt: 13. House finds out that Cuddy has been hiding something from him - something about him.
Title: A Road Not Taken
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Gen
Warnings: Cuddy-based spoilers for S2/S3, possible spoilage for misc. bits of background trivia; rated PG-13 for heavy thoughts.
House M.D. and all related characters are the property of Shore Z, Bad Hat Harry, Fox, etc.
This particular variation on a theme belonging to others is mine.
Thank'ee's muchly!
-Katrina
13. House finds out that Cuddy has been hiding something from him - something about him.
A Road Not Taken
To Ursula… tho’ I’ve never shared your regret, I can understand your pain….
Why she brings it up now, she doesn’t know, except that with the latest miscarriage she feels a certain recklessness, a desire to make someone else regret what she cannot seem to have. So, late one evening, when she knows House doesn’t have a case, but hasn’t yet gone home, she takes a bottle of Maker’s Mark that she bought for the occasion and goes upstairs to House’s office.
He’s sitting there at his desk, reading a journal as he often does at night, when for any of a number of reasons he’s not ready to go home just yet. As is also frequently the case after everyone else has gone, the only light in the room comes from his desk lamp and whatever manages to spill in from the hallway outside. The small puddles of light illuminate equally the chaotic explosion of papers and detritus that litter his desk and the lines that pain and years have carved into his face.
He glances up at the sound of the door opening, a look of startled wariness passing swiftly over his face before it settles into the guarded curiosity she knows so well. She wonders, as she often does, exactly what it is that he fears.
“House.” One eyebrow goes up in silent question. “I… I’d like to talk to you.”
The wariness comes back again, combined with curiosity. Cuddy can almost see the question on his face. Normally, she doesn’t like to talk to him. She demands it, insists upon it, requires it - the alpha bending the other to her will. So, something is up. The question becomes… what?
“O-kay…” he replies slowly, indicating one of the chairs on the other side of the paper-strewn desk.
She slams the bottle down with a defiant thump, which is rather muffled by all the papers. Although the intended effect was somewhat spoiled by the debris, House still gives that particular twitch of his head that says he’s not quite believing the evidence of his eyes.
Without another word, she stalks over to the counter in the next room, carelessly banging crockery against the metal of the counter as she searches for a couple of relatively clean mugs. Successful, she returns, slams the mugs down next to the bottle, sits, and stares House in the face, as if daring him to make anything of this bizarre behavior.
He doesn’t. He simply opens the bottle and pours a couple of fingers worth into each mug before setting it aside. He picks up his cup and returns her stare with silent curiosity.
“To what do we owe this occasion?” he finally asks, searching her face for clues.
She doesn’t answer him directly, lifting her mug in salute instead. “To roads not taken.”
House touches his mug to hers then pours a healthy swallow down his throat. She matches him, seeing that his surprise and curiosity do not lessen. If anything, they increase. But he waits silently for her to say whatever it is that she has come to say. He has nowhere to go.
Dutch courage, she thinks and it is all she can do not to laugh bitterly at the irony. For it is she who needs her courage boosted by the bourbon, not House. Finally, she steels herself to begin.
“You remember back in Ann Arbor,” she says quietly.
“Vividly,” he replies. “Anything in particular sparking this trip down memory lane?”
“The night we slept together,” she replies with just a touch of asperity. This is hard enough without the addition of obtuseness, whether deliberate or not.
Warmth lights his eyes at her words, warmth and heat, and she knows he remembers that night very well. “Something must have happened, because…” She takes a deep breath and forces the confession out between her fears. “…because I got pregnant.”
He nearly drops his mug at that, settles for putting it down with exaggerated care, his eyes never leaving her face.
“What happened?” Two words, but what’s left unsaid could fill the room.
“I miscarried. First trimester.” Four words, but the emotion behind them could fill the sea.
“I’m sorry.” She knows he means it. As much as he could scoff about her desire for a child being fueled merely by her ticking biological clock, he never has. She wonders if he shares the moment of regret for a lost chance at immortality.
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“Because I didn’t want to tie you down. And then I lost the baby and figured it didn’t matter.” She looks away, even though she knows that by doing so she’s just told him it isn’t the only reason. There’s only so much she can bear to share, even with him. And, for once, mercifully, he lets it go.
“Why tell me now?” Sharp blue eyes bore into hers, seeking answers.
For that is the crucial question after all, the place where guilt and grief and culpability come together in one razor-sharp moment of clarity.
“Because you lost this one too.” He answers the question for her, a gift, so she doesn’t have to say the words just yet, breathe in their awful finality.
She nods, trying desperately to keep the tears from falling.
House raises his mug once more in a silent gesture of acknowledgment.
“To roads not taken.”
The light clink as their mugs come together is the only sound in the room, the echoes sealing their common bond and loss. They drink the toast to all that might have been and now will never be, while the tears finally break free and taint her whiskey with the faintest hint of salt. She lowers her head to try to hide them. She knows that House is uncomfortable around tears.
A gentle hand reaches out, brushes the tears away. She looks up to see House leaning over the desk, pulling back his hand, dampened now with her grief. He sits back down with a grimace. Scar tissue makes short work of compassionate gestures these days.
“Thanks,” she says, appreciating the effort.
He shrugs off her gratitude as he always does and together they sit in the silence of long knowing, taking turns pouring out as the level of amber liquid in the bottle steadily lowers as the level of pain and regret decreases, if only for a time.
**********************
House wakes in the pale first-light of dawn. They ended up in his Eames chair, with her cuddled up on his left side so as to spare his leg. He’s still stiff and sore from remaining in one position all night, and the hangover looming on the horizon promises to add its own exquisite agony to the mix. House suspects she’ll be feeling much the same once she wakes. Neither one of them are as young as they used to be.
He reaches down into his jacket pocket, pulls out the Vicodin bottle, thumbs the cap off, and spills a couple of pills into his lap. He doesn’t want to wake her just yet, although he knows he will have to wake her soon. Before long people will start arriving, and neither one of them needs to add any more tidbits to the hospital gossip train. But for now, he simply puts the cap and the open bottle back in his pocket and dry-swallows the pills before settling back. No real reason to wake her before the pain meds kick in… it’s not like he’s going to be going anywhere before then.
She murmurs in her sleep and snuggles closer, burrowing her head into his neck. House allows himself to enjoy the feeling of her being there… it’s been a long time since he’s had the chance to simply hold her.
There is an unspoken dynamic between them, one that allows the two of them to work together despite their history. For all his snarky comments about the size of her breasts and the length of her skirts, there is a line he simply does not cross. Even he isn’t entirely sure why - whether it is some form of the gentlemanly behavior pounded into his head by his father, or simply a manifestation of his attraction to her, he couldn’t say. And it probably doesn’t matter anyway. Wasting time on useless speculations of what might be is a pointless exercise at best, and he spends a great deal of time and energy avoiding pointless exercises. He allows his thoughts to spin off aimlessly while he sits there, holding her and waiting, knowing this time will end all too soon.
Eventually, inevitably, the Vicodin dulls the pain down to something resembling bearable, and he knows that the time has come. He calls her name softly, and she stirs and wakes, looking up at him with storm-grey eyes, her hair spilling over his arm in soft black-brown waves like a silken sea.
“You gonna be okay?”
She nods. “I’ll be fine.” And while he knows that right now, the definition of ‘fine’ is ‘lousy’, he also knows she will be all right… in time.
She gets up and heads back downstairs to run home, shower and change, and come back to start another day.
He gets up more slowly, grabs cane, coat, and backpack to head home and try to sleep.
As he makes his slow, painful way downstairs, House thinks on roads not taken and the what-if’s of might-have-beens… a child that might have been, a relationship that never was. But those choices have flown with the years like the birds sailing through the early-morning skies outside his window. All they have left now is the dawning of a new day.
As he crosses the parking lot towards his bike, he looks up at the lightening sky. A new day, a new generation. For he and Cuddy, heritage and history will most likely come in the form of students taught, not in children raised, knowledge passed on to children of their hearts, not their bodies.
There has been too much time lost for it to be otherwise now. But that is itself a legacy, and one that, upon consideration, is a worthy one.
House nods to himself. A worthy one indeed, he thinks as he rides off into the morning sun.
Thanks once again go to the wonderful
pwcorgigirl for the beta. Without her, this story wouldn't be nearly as good as it has become. Thanks also go to her for the rec. on where to post the final results. Hopefully, it will be found worthy.
Prompt is from the current House_fest.
Prompt: 13. House finds out that Cuddy has been hiding something from him - something about him.
Title: A Road Not Taken
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Gen
Warnings: Cuddy-based spoilers for S2/S3, possible spoilage for misc. bits of background trivia; rated PG-13 for heavy thoughts.
House M.D. and all related characters are the property of Shore Z, Bad Hat Harry, Fox, etc.
This particular variation on a theme belonging to others is mine.
Thank'ee's muchly!
-Katrina
13. House finds out that Cuddy has been hiding something from him - something about him.
A Road Not Taken
To Ursula… tho’ I’ve never shared your regret, I can understand your pain….
Why she brings it up now, she doesn’t know, except that with the latest miscarriage she feels a certain recklessness, a desire to make someone else regret what she cannot seem to have. So, late one evening, when she knows House doesn’t have a case, but hasn’t yet gone home, she takes a bottle of Maker’s Mark that she bought for the occasion and goes upstairs to House’s office.
He’s sitting there at his desk, reading a journal as he often does at night, when for any of a number of reasons he’s not ready to go home just yet. As is also frequently the case after everyone else has gone, the only light in the room comes from his desk lamp and whatever manages to spill in from the hallway outside. The small puddles of light illuminate equally the chaotic explosion of papers and detritus that litter his desk and the lines that pain and years have carved into his face.
He glances up at the sound of the door opening, a look of startled wariness passing swiftly over his face before it settles into the guarded curiosity she knows so well. She wonders, as she often does, exactly what it is that he fears.
“House.” One eyebrow goes up in silent question. “I… I’d like to talk to you.”
The wariness comes back again, combined with curiosity. Cuddy can almost see the question on his face. Normally, she doesn’t like to talk to him. She demands it, insists upon it, requires it - the alpha bending the other to her will. So, something is up. The question becomes… what?
“O-kay…” he replies slowly, indicating one of the chairs on the other side of the paper-strewn desk.
She slams the bottle down with a defiant thump, which is rather muffled by all the papers. Although the intended effect was somewhat spoiled by the debris, House still gives that particular twitch of his head that says he’s not quite believing the evidence of his eyes.
Without another word, she stalks over to the counter in the next room, carelessly banging crockery against the metal of the counter as she searches for a couple of relatively clean mugs. Successful, she returns, slams the mugs down next to the bottle, sits, and stares House in the face, as if daring him to make anything of this bizarre behavior.
He doesn’t. He simply opens the bottle and pours a couple of fingers worth into each mug before setting it aside. He picks up his cup and returns her stare with silent curiosity.
“To what do we owe this occasion?” he finally asks, searching her face for clues.
She doesn’t answer him directly, lifting her mug in salute instead. “To roads not taken.”
House touches his mug to hers then pours a healthy swallow down his throat. She matches him, seeing that his surprise and curiosity do not lessen. If anything, they increase. But he waits silently for her to say whatever it is that she has come to say. He has nowhere to go.
Dutch courage, she thinks and it is all she can do not to laugh bitterly at the irony. For it is she who needs her courage boosted by the bourbon, not House. Finally, she steels herself to begin.
“You remember back in Ann Arbor,” she says quietly.
“Vividly,” he replies. “Anything in particular sparking this trip down memory lane?”
“The night we slept together,” she replies with just a touch of asperity. This is hard enough without the addition of obtuseness, whether deliberate or not.
Warmth lights his eyes at her words, warmth and heat, and she knows he remembers that night very well. “Something must have happened, because…” She takes a deep breath and forces the confession out between her fears. “…because I got pregnant.”
He nearly drops his mug at that, settles for putting it down with exaggerated care, his eyes never leaving her face.
“What happened?” Two words, but what’s left unsaid could fill the room.
“I miscarried. First trimester.” Four words, but the emotion behind them could fill the sea.
“I’m sorry.” She knows he means it. As much as he could scoff about her desire for a child being fueled merely by her ticking biological clock, he never has. She wonders if he shares the moment of regret for a lost chance at immortality.
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“Because I didn’t want to tie you down. And then I lost the baby and figured it didn’t matter.” She looks away, even though she knows that by doing so she’s just told him it isn’t the only reason. There’s only so much she can bear to share, even with him. And, for once, mercifully, he lets it go.
“Why tell me now?” Sharp blue eyes bore into hers, seeking answers.
For that is the crucial question after all, the place where guilt and grief and culpability come together in one razor-sharp moment of clarity.
“Because you lost this one too.” He answers the question for her, a gift, so she doesn’t have to say the words just yet, breathe in their awful finality.
She nods, trying desperately to keep the tears from falling.
House raises his mug once more in a silent gesture of acknowledgment.
“To roads not taken.”
The light clink as their mugs come together is the only sound in the room, the echoes sealing their common bond and loss. They drink the toast to all that might have been and now will never be, while the tears finally break free and taint her whiskey with the faintest hint of salt. She lowers her head to try to hide them. She knows that House is uncomfortable around tears.
A gentle hand reaches out, brushes the tears away. She looks up to see House leaning over the desk, pulling back his hand, dampened now with her grief. He sits back down with a grimace. Scar tissue makes short work of compassionate gestures these days.
“Thanks,” she says, appreciating the effort.
He shrugs off her gratitude as he always does and together they sit in the silence of long knowing, taking turns pouring out as the level of amber liquid in the bottle steadily lowers as the level of pain and regret decreases, if only for a time.
**********************
House wakes in the pale first-light of dawn. They ended up in his Eames chair, with her cuddled up on his left side so as to spare his leg. He’s still stiff and sore from remaining in one position all night, and the hangover looming on the horizon promises to add its own exquisite agony to the mix. House suspects she’ll be feeling much the same once she wakes. Neither one of them are as young as they used to be.
He reaches down into his jacket pocket, pulls out the Vicodin bottle, thumbs the cap off, and spills a couple of pills into his lap. He doesn’t want to wake her just yet, although he knows he will have to wake her soon. Before long people will start arriving, and neither one of them needs to add any more tidbits to the hospital gossip train. But for now, he simply puts the cap and the open bottle back in his pocket and dry-swallows the pills before settling back. No real reason to wake her before the pain meds kick in… it’s not like he’s going to be going anywhere before then.
She murmurs in her sleep and snuggles closer, burrowing her head into his neck. House allows himself to enjoy the feeling of her being there… it’s been a long time since he’s had the chance to simply hold her.
There is an unspoken dynamic between them, one that allows the two of them to work together despite their history. For all his snarky comments about the size of her breasts and the length of her skirts, there is a line he simply does not cross. Even he isn’t entirely sure why - whether it is some form of the gentlemanly behavior pounded into his head by his father, or simply a manifestation of his attraction to her, he couldn’t say. And it probably doesn’t matter anyway. Wasting time on useless speculations of what might be is a pointless exercise at best, and he spends a great deal of time and energy avoiding pointless exercises. He allows his thoughts to spin off aimlessly while he sits there, holding her and waiting, knowing this time will end all too soon.
Eventually, inevitably, the Vicodin dulls the pain down to something resembling bearable, and he knows that the time has come. He calls her name softly, and she stirs and wakes, looking up at him with storm-grey eyes, her hair spilling over his arm in soft black-brown waves like a silken sea.
“You gonna be okay?”
She nods. “I’ll be fine.” And while he knows that right now, the definition of ‘fine’ is ‘lousy’, he also knows she will be all right… in time.
She gets up and heads back downstairs to run home, shower and change, and come back to start another day.
He gets up more slowly, grabs cane, coat, and backpack to head home and try to sleep.
As he makes his slow, painful way downstairs, House thinks on roads not taken and the what-if’s of might-have-beens… a child that might have been, a relationship that never was. But those choices have flown with the years like the birds sailing through the early-morning skies outside his window. All they have left now is the dawning of a new day.
As he crosses the parking lot towards his bike, he looks up at the lightening sky. A new day, a new generation. For he and Cuddy, heritage and history will most likely come in the form of students taught, not in children raised, knowledge passed on to children of their hearts, not their bodies.
There has been too much time lost for it to be otherwise now. But that is itself a legacy, and one that, upon consideration, is a worthy one.
House nods to himself. A worthy one indeed, he thinks as he rides off into the morning sun.