Gathering Stones
Summary: 4 drabbles on how Chase, Taub, Thirteen, Foreman, Wilson and House spent their Thanksgivings past and present.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2, 291
Disclaimer: I'm weird, not crazy.
A/N: The past-tense and present-tense changes from one drabble to the next; this is done on purpose.
Happy Turkey Day everybody!!! :)
“A time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones together”. -from the song Turn, Turn, Turn, words inspired by the Bible, Ecclesiastes 3:5
*********************************************
Chase
Last year
They spent Thanksgiving at her apartment, since, surprisingly, she had the bigger kitchen of them both.
They made love until nine and then helped each other in the kitchen, laughing about things that now he can’t recall. The dinner table was the most romantic spot he’d ever witnessed---soft jazz music floated lazily in from the background, and once the light was dimmed, the candles brought a soft glow about Allison’s face. He loved her then more than he’d ever loved anything, and he vowed he would be with her always.
She was slowly letting him into her heart. Slowly letting go of the husband she’d lost, in order to make room for a new one. He knew he wouldn’t compare to her love for him, but somehow he knew that she would learn that she could love him just as much, and that they would get through thick and thin together.
This year
As far as Chase is concerned, he has nothing to be thankful for.
His wife has left him; he traded this lousy job in for his marriage. He belongs in the OR but he doesn’t trust himself with a scalpel. Thanksgiving (a holiday meant for having dinner with family, or with friends) this year is only a constant reminder that his wife has left him and he has no parents left. Any living relatives he knows of are all in Melbourne, Australia, and the last thing he wants to do is to arrive without wife---and then have to explain to everyone what happened. Of course, in fact, he can’t explain; he can’t tell them his wife left him because he killed a man, even if that man was a leader of genocide, and that he spared thousands beyond millions of lives for the sacrifice of one.
He could have called Taub back, or even House for that matter---he could be calling anyone and pathetically inviting himself over, but the last thing he wants is their pity. Instead, Chase sleeps most of the day, watches reruns of M*A*S*H, spends the rest brooding as the day slips into night, and then drinks way too much of whatever he can get his hands on, before finally passing out on his living room couch.
It doesn’t matter that alcoholism runs in his family; it doesn’t matter that his mother died from liver failure after drinking herself into oblivion after his deadbeat father left. He’s going to numb himself until he feels nothing, and then he’ll leave the rest up to fate, except he already knows where this is going: he’ll never remarry, he’ll never have any kind of life outside of his job, and he’ll die alone.
The next day he tells everyone that he doesn’t remember how he spent his Thanksgiving, and that’s the truth: he doesn’t remember because he wishes not to remember, and because there is nothing significant to tell. He’s a murderer, not to mention a personal and professional failure, and these aren’t the type of things you talk about in the locker room.
* * *
Taub
Last year…
His wife slaves in the kitchen while he watches whatever he can find on t.v. He’s never been a fan of football so he gives up after a while and goes to help in the kitchen. Rachel is a sucker for the Macy’s Parade and so, once all the fixings are made, and the turkey is stuffed, they snuggle up on the couch and watch it together while the bird is simmering away in the oven.
It’s nice to feel her this close to him again. They haven’t made love since he went back to House’s team, and he can tell from her silence that she still hasn’t forgiven him. He doesn’t understand why she won’t talk about it, and the silence is making him miserable; at the same time, he’s glad that they’re not fighting. He wonders if they will be able to ride this out.
When her favorite giant balloon character, Garfield, comes up on the big screen, Rachel smiles and squeezes him playfully as though he were her childhood playmate, and he feels all warm and fuzzy inside, because it reminds him why he married her in the first place. He knows then that whatever this is, they’ll make it through. They made it after he had an affair, after all---compared to that, this is a piece of cake.
(It would be easier, however, if she were talking to him like she was in love with him again, instead of as a stranger.)
This year
He slaves at the lab until five pm, and comes home to a house that’s as quiet as a tomb. There’s more than half a turkey and his plate is still at his place; there’s a full glass of wine that his wife had poured for him.
* * *
Fourteen
Last year
Thirteen
Foreman takes her home the night before the one rare day that they have away from House, and they make love almost desperately, as though they know that this is the one night they have left: and eventually, they wind up falling asleep in each other’s arms.
In the morning, she makes him bacon and eggs and he kisses her tenderly and again tells her how glad he is that she “understands”.
She does understand---he has a hard time being vulnerable, but then again, so does she; so does Chase; so does everyone. (Often, she wonders if this inability to be vulnerable was a possible reason for Kutner to have killed himself…but then, she realizes that she will never know the answer.)
Eric asks her (somewhat guiltily, making him all the more adorable and appealing in her eyes) if her father’s okay with her spending Thanksgiving with him. Amused, she says that it’s too late for that…and then she takes it a step further, telling him that he could be doing the same, that his father probably misses him and that his mother does, too: even if she wouldn’t know what she’s missing (she knows of his mother’s Alzheimer’s; wonders, too, if her illness has anything to do with his attraction to her, wondering if it could be some Freudian thing, but she was never that good at psychology). Eric seems to think his love can save her---from disease, from herself---even though time and again she’s constantly having to remind him that it won’t, that nothing can save her---that five years, tops, is all she has left, and that if she feels it’s best to spend those five years with him, or by herself, that’s what she’s going to do: and who is he to argue?
He answers this giving her a peck on the lips while announcing that she can laze in bed all she wants, she deserves it: but he’s going to start making the turkey. It’s his classic deflection, and she knows it all too well; it’s what nearly drove them apart.
Yet when they sit down to eat, everything about the atmosphere feels like home, and suddenly she’s forgotten what she was angry about. They kiss while the soft glow from the candlelight flickers, moving the shadows around as though they were dancing. She loves him for the man he is when he’s around her, and everything else begins to slip away---her illness, their boss, anything that causes her pain. She’s there with him now, and that’s all there is.
This year
Foreman
Eric makes the three-hour journey to Albany New York and spends the holiday with his parents.
Upon arrival, he’s awed by his mother’s physical appearance, as it seems that she has aged since he last saw her over a year ago. His father looks older too; withered down, he knows, by the burden of caring for someone who, on good days, can mostly remember his name, but other times barely knows who he is.
However, most frightening is his own mother’s fear when he comes through the door, asking her father wildly why this strange man is with them. When he comes closer, she backs away shouting frantically for his father. He’s rooted on the spot, unable to move, as his mother trembles and stares at him as though he were a monster.
“Mom, it’s me,” he keeps on saying, over and over, but all his mother can do in response is shake her head and mumble something inaudible under her breath. He knows why this is: for to her, he’s a stranger.
His father comes to save the day, but only manages to calm her down when he removes her from the room. Eric remains where he is, only realizing he’s trembling himself until his father comes back looking shaken, walks right up to him, and puts both hands sturdily on each of his son’s shoulders, promptly calming them. “It’s not your fault, son,” he says simply, and the words seem to break Eric from a kind of spell. Before he realizes what he’s doing, he leans into his father’s shoulder and weeps for the mother that he knows he has lost.
Wilson and House
Last year
Wilson had been surprised when, unsuspectingly, House invited him over for Thanksgiving---with the promise that he would “stay out of the kitchen”. Trying to quell the nervousness and suspicion that he was in for something over his head---say, some kind of tranquilizer injected into the bird, which would knock him out before he could protest---Wilson acquiesced, and reluctantly schlepped over.
Upon arrival, House tossed him a beer, told him to sit put, and then solemnly vowed that he was going to make “the best damned turkey in all of Princeton NJ, so good that Emeril of cooking fame would call” and that Wilson was going to be “blown away” by his “mad skills”.
After some soft jibing about how House was going to stand for so long (House waving beer and a full Vicodin bottle in Wilson’s face in response) House went to work and Wilson was left to fend for himself for an hour.
Later, smells of the most glorious kind began to drift in from the kitchen, and with it the promise of everything good about Wilson’s favorite All-American holiday. (It became harder and harder to concentrate on the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, as the smells became stronger and Wilson’s mouth began to water.)
Finally, came Wilson’s favorite part of the early afternoon: the official “Taste Test”. House held out a dangling piece of meat, and Wilson gobbled it up as quick as a man who hadn’t eaten in days. While House waited with brightly hushed, anticipating eyes of excitement, Wilson kept his eyes closed in mediation until all the juices quelled on his tongue. “Perfect,” Wilson solidly approved.
That night, House put on some soft jazz music and they ate by candlelight, and later, Wilson helped clean up in the kitchen. He’d never been more grateful to have House as a friend---while there were certain aspects of the friendship he no doubt resented, these were the perks---and best yet, he had not been poisoned.
This year
Wilson cooked himself a TV dinner of turkey medallions and stuffing and ate by himself, because he figured there was no point in cooking a full turkey when the only one there was him. After, he watched tv and then, when nothing left was on, he put on some soft music and rested back on the couch, listening to the silence, wondering when House would get home---though, by then, it was almost already midnight. Part of Wilson was happy that House wasn’t home yet---it might mean that he’d made some kind of peace with Cuddy. Perhaps they were talking; perhaps, having sex in the moonlight…perhaps, dare he even think it, making love?...He’d known House was going to have dinner with Cuddy and part of him feared that House was in for a fall. The whole thing felt fishy, and he didn’t like it one bit---especially since House was the only person he’d truly wish to have Thanksgiving with.
He felt abandoned and didn’t know why; House wasn’t tied to him like they were married; he wasn’t Wilson’s ball and chain. After Mayfield, he seemed to be getting better at taking care of himself, and Wilson was trying to let him have his space to the best of his protector’s ability.
He knew House would find the answer sooner or later as to how Cuddy felt about his progress---for that was what Wilson felt House was trying to decode, whether or not he had changed for the better and if the one constant woman in his life could see the difference.
Wilson could see the difference; all he had to do was look around the large apartment which, in every place he looked, held some telltale sign of House’s presence: the chess board in the living room; the coffee maker in the kitchen (he only drank tea); the second placemat that once was Amber’s. Amber…Wilson closed his eyes as many Thanksgivings past rushed through his mind, and he could see both himself and Amber, alive, a soft glow of love upon her face, as they cuddled in the moonlight and listened to the romantic music she loved. A soft glow of warmth spread itself throughout his heart, and Wilson smiled; curiously, when he thought of her, even though she would never be here again, somehow, in this dark, heavy silence, he felt less alone.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2, 291
Disclaimer: I'm weird, not crazy.
A/N: The past-tense and present-tense changes from one drabble to the next; this is done on purpose.
Happy Turkey Day everybody!!! :)
“A time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones together”. -from the song Turn, Turn, Turn, words inspired by the Bible, Ecclesiastes 3:5
*********************************************
Chase
Last year
They spent Thanksgiving at her apartment, since, surprisingly, she had the bigger kitchen of them both.
They made love until nine and then helped each other in the kitchen, laughing about things that now he can’t recall. The dinner table was the most romantic spot he’d ever witnessed---soft jazz music floated lazily in from the background, and once the light was dimmed, the candles brought a soft glow about Allison’s face. He loved her then more than he’d ever loved anything, and he vowed he would be with her always.
She was slowly letting him into her heart. Slowly letting go of the husband she’d lost, in order to make room for a new one. He knew he wouldn’t compare to her love for him, but somehow he knew that she would learn that she could love him just as much, and that they would get through thick and thin together.
This year
As far as Chase is concerned, he has nothing to be thankful for.
His wife has left him; he traded this lousy job in for his marriage. He belongs in the OR but he doesn’t trust himself with a scalpel. Thanksgiving (a holiday meant for having dinner with family, or with friends) this year is only a constant reminder that his wife has left him and he has no parents left. Any living relatives he knows of are all in Melbourne, Australia, and the last thing he wants to do is to arrive without wife---and then have to explain to everyone what happened. Of course, in fact, he can’t explain; he can’t tell them his wife left him because he killed a man, even if that man was a leader of genocide, and that he spared thousands beyond millions of lives for the sacrifice of one.
He could have called Taub back, or even House for that matter---he could be calling anyone and pathetically inviting himself over, but the last thing he wants is their pity. Instead, Chase sleeps most of the day, watches reruns of M*A*S*H, spends the rest brooding as the day slips into night, and then drinks way too much of whatever he can get his hands on, before finally passing out on his living room couch.
It doesn’t matter that alcoholism runs in his family; it doesn’t matter that his mother died from liver failure after drinking herself into oblivion after his deadbeat father left. He’s going to numb himself until he feels nothing, and then he’ll leave the rest up to fate, except he already knows where this is going: he’ll never remarry, he’ll never have any kind of life outside of his job, and he’ll die alone.
The next day he tells everyone that he doesn’t remember how he spent his Thanksgiving, and that’s the truth: he doesn’t remember because he wishes not to remember, and because there is nothing significant to tell. He’s a murderer, not to mention a personal and professional failure, and these aren’t the type of things you talk about in the locker room.
* * *
Taub
Last year…
His wife slaves in the kitchen while he watches whatever he can find on t.v. He’s never been a fan of football so he gives up after a while and goes to help in the kitchen. Rachel is a sucker for the Macy’s Parade and so, once all the fixings are made, and the turkey is stuffed, they snuggle up on the couch and watch it together while the bird is simmering away in the oven.
It’s nice to feel her this close to him again. They haven’t made love since he went back to House’s team, and he can tell from her silence that she still hasn’t forgiven him. He doesn’t understand why she won’t talk about it, and the silence is making him miserable; at the same time, he’s glad that they’re not fighting. He wonders if they will be able to ride this out.
When her favorite giant balloon character, Garfield, comes up on the big screen, Rachel smiles and squeezes him playfully as though he were her childhood playmate, and he feels all warm and fuzzy inside, because it reminds him why he married her in the first place. He knows then that whatever this is, they’ll make it through. They made it after he had an affair, after all---compared to that, this is a piece of cake.
(It would be easier, however, if she were talking to him like she was in love with him again, instead of as a stranger.)
This year
He slaves at the lab until five pm, and comes home to a house that’s as quiet as a tomb. There’s more than half a turkey and his plate is still at his place; there’s a full glass of wine that his wife had poured for him.
* * *
Fourteen
Last year
Thirteen
Foreman takes her home the night before the one rare day that they have away from House, and they make love almost desperately, as though they know that this is the one night they have left: and eventually, they wind up falling asleep in each other’s arms.
In the morning, she makes him bacon and eggs and he kisses her tenderly and again tells her how glad he is that she “understands”.
She does understand---he has a hard time being vulnerable, but then again, so does she; so does Chase; so does everyone. (Often, she wonders if this inability to be vulnerable was a possible reason for Kutner to have killed himself…but then, she realizes that she will never know the answer.)
Eric asks her (somewhat guiltily, making him all the more adorable and appealing in her eyes) if her father’s okay with her spending Thanksgiving with him. Amused, she says that it’s too late for that…and then she takes it a step further, telling him that he could be doing the same, that his father probably misses him and that his mother does, too: even if she wouldn’t know what she’s missing (she knows of his mother’s Alzheimer’s; wonders, too, if her illness has anything to do with his attraction to her, wondering if it could be some Freudian thing, but she was never that good at psychology). Eric seems to think his love can save her---from disease, from herself---even though time and again she’s constantly having to remind him that it won’t, that nothing can save her---that five years, tops, is all she has left, and that if she feels it’s best to spend those five years with him, or by herself, that’s what she’s going to do: and who is he to argue?
He answers this giving her a peck on the lips while announcing that she can laze in bed all she wants, she deserves it: but he’s going to start making the turkey. It’s his classic deflection, and she knows it all too well; it’s what nearly drove them apart.
Yet when they sit down to eat, everything about the atmosphere feels like home, and suddenly she’s forgotten what she was angry about. They kiss while the soft glow from the candlelight flickers, moving the shadows around as though they were dancing. She loves him for the man he is when he’s around her, and everything else begins to slip away---her illness, their boss, anything that causes her pain. She’s there with him now, and that’s all there is.
This year
Foreman
Eric makes the three-hour journey to Albany New York and spends the holiday with his parents.
Upon arrival, he’s awed by his mother’s physical appearance, as it seems that she has aged since he last saw her over a year ago. His father looks older too; withered down, he knows, by the burden of caring for someone who, on good days, can mostly remember his name, but other times barely knows who he is.
However, most frightening is his own mother’s fear when he comes through the door, asking her father wildly why this strange man is with them. When he comes closer, she backs away shouting frantically for his father. He’s rooted on the spot, unable to move, as his mother trembles and stares at him as though he were a monster.
“Mom, it’s me,” he keeps on saying, over and over, but all his mother can do in response is shake her head and mumble something inaudible under her breath. He knows why this is: for to her, he’s a stranger.
His father comes to save the day, but only manages to calm her down when he removes her from the room. Eric remains where he is, only realizing he’s trembling himself until his father comes back looking shaken, walks right up to him, and puts both hands sturdily on each of his son’s shoulders, promptly calming them. “It’s not your fault, son,” he says simply, and the words seem to break Eric from a kind of spell. Before he realizes what he’s doing, he leans into his father’s shoulder and weeps for the mother that he knows he has lost.
Wilson and House
Last year
Wilson had been surprised when, unsuspectingly, House invited him over for Thanksgiving---with the promise that he would “stay out of the kitchen”. Trying to quell the nervousness and suspicion that he was in for something over his head---say, some kind of tranquilizer injected into the bird, which would knock him out before he could protest---Wilson acquiesced, and reluctantly schlepped over.
Upon arrival, House tossed him a beer, told him to sit put, and then solemnly vowed that he was going to make “the best damned turkey in all of Princeton NJ, so good that Emeril of cooking fame would call” and that Wilson was going to be “blown away” by his “mad skills”.
After some soft jibing about how House was going to stand for so long (House waving beer and a full Vicodin bottle in Wilson’s face in response) House went to work and Wilson was left to fend for himself for an hour.
Later, smells of the most glorious kind began to drift in from the kitchen, and with it the promise of everything good about Wilson’s favorite All-American holiday. (It became harder and harder to concentrate on the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, as the smells became stronger and Wilson’s mouth began to water.)
Finally, came Wilson’s favorite part of the early afternoon: the official “Taste Test”. House held out a dangling piece of meat, and Wilson gobbled it up as quick as a man who hadn’t eaten in days. While House waited with brightly hushed, anticipating eyes of excitement, Wilson kept his eyes closed in mediation until all the juices quelled on his tongue. “Perfect,” Wilson solidly approved.
That night, House put on some soft jazz music and they ate by candlelight, and later, Wilson helped clean up in the kitchen. He’d never been more grateful to have House as a friend---while there were certain aspects of the friendship he no doubt resented, these were the perks---and best yet, he had not been poisoned.
This year
Wilson cooked himself a TV dinner of turkey medallions and stuffing and ate by himself, because he figured there was no point in cooking a full turkey when the only one there was him. After, he watched tv and then, when nothing left was on, he put on some soft music and rested back on the couch, listening to the silence, wondering when House would get home---though, by then, it was almost already midnight. Part of Wilson was happy that House wasn’t home yet---it might mean that he’d made some kind of peace with Cuddy. Perhaps they were talking; perhaps, having sex in the moonlight…perhaps, dare he even think it, making love?...He’d known House was going to have dinner with Cuddy and part of him feared that House was in for a fall. The whole thing felt fishy, and he didn’t like it one bit---especially since House was the only person he’d truly wish to have Thanksgiving with.
He felt abandoned and didn’t know why; House wasn’t tied to him like they were married; he wasn’t Wilson’s ball and chain. After Mayfield, he seemed to be getting better at taking care of himself, and Wilson was trying to let him have his space to the best of his protector’s ability.
He knew House would find the answer sooner or later as to how Cuddy felt about his progress---for that was what Wilson felt House was trying to decode, whether or not he had changed for the better and if the one constant woman in his life could see the difference.
Wilson could see the difference; all he had to do was look around the large apartment which, in every place he looked, held some telltale sign of House’s presence: the chess board in the living room; the coffee maker in the kitchen (he only drank tea); the second placemat that once was Amber’s. Amber…Wilson closed his eyes as many Thanksgivings past rushed through his mind, and he could see both himself and Amber, alive, a soft glow of love upon her face, as they cuddled in the moonlight and listened to the romantic music she loved. A soft glow of warmth spread itself throughout his heart, and Wilson smiled; curiously, when he thought of her, even though she would never be here again, somehow, in this dark, heavy silence, he felt less alone.