Fic: Attrition for Stalkers, House MD
Attrition for Stalkers
Jersey. Winter. Another sleepless night in an endless string of sleepless nights. Snow falls in patterns too complex for the human eye to adequately perceive, bodies colliding and re-colliding in a frenzied dance. Cause and effect and cause again. House spends the entire ride out of the city staring out the window, thinking about chaos systems and strange attractors and hoping Wilson doesn’t say anything to make the cabbie call the cops. The night is thick with possibilities.
Luck is on his side. Jimmy manages to stay mute until they’re dropped off at their destination, rubbing their hands and stomping their feet to ward off the cold. The scene of the crime is shut tight and unnaturally still in that way common to all upper-middle class neighborhoods where hardworking mommies turn in early for the night, secure in the knowledge that they’ve taken out orders of protection against their drug-addicted ex-boyfriends… a silence waiting to be shattered.
His chaperone turns to him with a distressed look in his liquid brown eyes. “This,” he says in a voice that sounds like he’s portending the ides of March, “is a very, very bad idea.”
“Just stay close,” House replies, jerking his chin in the direction of Cuddy’s new house and pushing off on his cane. He’s too busy calculating the variables in connection with her jammies to waste time on reassurance. “And prepare to be amazed.”
The footpath isn’t wide enough to walk two abreast so Wilson follows at his heels all the way to the porch, crowding in close every few steps to sputter a new objection. His words crystallize in the frigid air, paranoia transmuted into something tangible. “Have you thought about what happens if we get caught? This isn’t closure, it’s breaking and entering! We could be arrested!”
“We’re not breaking.” Grunting with the effort required of his good leg, House stoops to retrieve the spare key from its hiding spot under a flower pot he doesn’t recognize. Metal so cold, it burns his fingers. “Just entering. Legally there’s a difference.”
Jimmy blinks, looks from the key to him to the key again. “I can’t believe she keeps that there.”
“I know, right? It’s almost like she’s inviting me in.”
“Didn’t she threaten to-and I quote-catheterize you with a knitting needle if she catches you on her property?”
“You seem to have a very good memory for anything involving my penis.” Inserting the key in the lock, he turns the knob and opens the door with a theatrical flourish. “Time to get the peep show on the road. After you.”
But Wilson doesn’t move. He just stands there on the Sesame Street welcome mat looking horrified. Obviously, single motherhood has inspired Cuddy to make some interesting life choices.
“Look, House…” Those sad retriever eyes settle on him, and he can practically feel the knife sliding into his back. “When I said I’d do whatever’s necessary to help you get your life together, sneaking into the home of a woman you nearly killed wasn’t what I had in mind. Don’t you think this is kind of…?”
“Unconventional…?”
“Counterproductive is the word I was looking for,” Wilson moralizes, perching his hands on hips, “though creepy and sociopathic would have also been acceptable.”
House doesn’t bother to argue. He has no defense. Either Wilson is going to hit the panic button and call 911 or he’s not, and nothing’s going to change it. The serenity prayer as applies to stalking. Probably not what his court-appointed therapist had in mind.
“I thought you said you were through with this?” Wilson hisses from the relative safety of Bert and Ernie’s embrace.
“Yep.” When Cuddy wrote a letter asking the judge for lenience, he said a lot of things. “But I never said it was through with me.”
In fact, it’s just getting started. Stepping over her threshold feels like taking a deep breath for the first time in months. He moves purposefully through the dim hallway, away from the light of the street. His heart punches against his breastplate and suddenly he’s awash in the endorphin rush that comes from knowing she’s asleep only a few rooms away, well within reach. His mouth waters with an anticipatory ache. Somewhere behind him, the front door clicks shut.
“Glad you decided to make it,” he mutters as the familiar presence draws even with his elbow.
“You’re a moral leper,” Jimmy accuses, his thick bottom lip pulled tight with disdain.
“And you’re not using your six-inch voice.”
Wilson glances nervously toward the opposite end of the house, where Cuddy’s no doubt curled up dreaming her naughty administrator dreams. “Now what?”
He lifts his eyebrows to share a smirk that Jimmy doesn’t return. “Now I plunder.”
Her mail is first. It’s conveniently located in an antique credenza in the living room, just like at the other place. People don’t change. He finds the set-up oddly discomforting.
Using his cell phone for light, he removes the contents from the drawer and riffs through half a dozen professional and parenting magazines before finding what he’s looking for near the bottom of the stack: leather corsets and lacy stockings displayed on fuckable young models. Turning to a particularly stroke-worthy spread, he angles the lingerie catalog toward Wilson. “You think Newark General’s new Chief of Staff would ever wear something like that to work?”
“Probably not.” He’s blank-faced, trying to be flippant, but his voice comes off pinched and kind of strangled. “I’m pretty sure crotchless panties would be a health code violation.”
“She wears crotchless panties to work, the health code won’t be the only thing getting violated.”
Wilson purses his lips and doesn’t say anything.
“To be fair, that joke probably would’ve been a lot funnier before I became a violent offender.” Folding the catalogue in half, he tucks it into his breast pocket and ambles over to the photo album on the coffee table.
“House, this isn’t why we’re here.”
“I can multitask.” He chooses a page at random: grass, swings… a trip to the park. Cuddy’s wearing a floral halter dress in the pictures, showing off her tan and her kid as she angles an armload of former orphan toward the camera. Neither of them is smiling.
He removes the photo from its protective sleeve.
“Please tell me you don’t have any plans that involve Photoshop.”
“Okay, I won’t tell you.” Opening his coat, he carefully slides the picture between the folds of the catalogue so the corners won’t bend. What he’ll never admit is that he has no plans at all. The reason is there is no reason. A lie is so much easier than the truth. Suddenly impatient, he nudges Wilson and nods toward the inner sanctum. “Let’s get this over with.”
Jimmy squints at him long enough that House begins to worry about what he sees, even in the low-level lighting.
“Unless you want to see if she still leaves handcuffs under the couch..?”
Wilson rolls his eyes and gives him a dubious frown.
“Fur-lined… neon pink.” He acts like he’s going to pull the catalogue out of his pocket again. “In fact, I can probably show you what they look like.”
Jimmy’s shoulders assume an angle of defeat. “I think I could use another drink.”
“That’s why I like you, Wilson. Always with the ideas.”
Falling back a step, he lets his faithful sidekick lead him into the dining room. The furniture is a mix of before and after pieces; evidently the new, improved Lisa Cuddy isn’t quite adept at shaking off the past as she wants everyone to believe. The sideboard looks familiar, and the grandfather clock used to be in her living room. The table and chairs are new.
Wilson stops in front of a liquor cabinet made of solid oak. A thick combination lock secures its doors. That’s new, too.
“Rachel figured out how to work the child safety lock,” he explains.
“Someday Mommy’s little darling is going wind up the idiot savant of reform school. Out of the way.” Nudging Wilson aside, House puts his ear down close to the dial, but that’s just for show. In the entire course of their relationship, Cuddy has never set a boundary he couldn’t think his way around; he knows how her mind works. Converting Rachel’s birthday to a six-digit number combination, he spins the dial, left-right-left.
The lock doesn’t open.
“House...”
He tries her adoption date.
The lock still doesn’t open.
Wilson delivers a hard tap to his shoulder. “House!”
Irritated, he turns to shake Jimmy off… and that’s when he realizes they aren’t alone.
Standing just inside the doorway to the kitchen, the tips of her little pale toes poking out from under a t-shirt he vaguely recognizes as once his, his arch nemesis observes them from a wary distance. Her bleary eyes are narrowed into slits, making her appear even meaner than he remembers. A smear of what looks like green marker discolors one corner of her mouth.
“Hello, Rachel.”
She blinks at them. “Is this real life?”
Jimmy looks at House and shakes his head.
“It sure is,” House replies.
“Don’t be scared,” Jimmy hastily adds, though he’s the only one who seems frightened. Rachel appears more curious than anything, rubbing her eyes and fixing them with an intense stare as she scuttles closer. She moves with such quick self-assurance, the hem of the t-shirt hovering just above the ground, that it gives the impression she’s gliding across the hardwood. Watching her, House feels something well up in his chest that might be either envy or pride. He shoves it back down again.
She frowns at him. “Mommy said we can’t play together anymore.”
“I know.”
“But why?”
“Because…” He tries to swallow but his throat is dry. “Because I’m not well.”
Closing the gap between them, she rests her chin on the knee of his good leg and tilts her face up toward his. “Are you going to get well?”
He searches for the right answer, but what he’s capable of is no longer so cut and dry. “I don’t know. I’m trying.”
Beside him, Wilson remains conspicuously silent.
“Here.” House reaches in the waist pocket of his coat and with some difficulty removes the stuffed duck he won from a vending machine at the airport. It’s poorly made and looks so cheap, he should be ashamed to give it to her but he’s not. At a buck a play, that piece of crap cost him seventeen dollars. “This is for you.”
Rachel doesn’t take the duck. She just stares at him and plays dumb. Or maybe she’s not playing. Sometimes House wonders how much the kid comprehends. Hesitantly, he places his free hand on top of her head, palming her skull like a basketball. All those soft bones and fontanelles, so easily broken, press against his conscience.
“For whatever it’s worth, I’m sorry I wrecked your house.” He gives the sleep-tangled hair under his fingers an experimental pat. It’s not as bad as he thought it would be. “I’m sorry for a lot of things.”
She sighs and wipes her nose on his knee. “I’m tired.”
The floorboards creak as Wilson fidgets uneasily. “I don’t mean to interrupt, but we should probably get going.”
House isn’t ready to go, not yet, but he nods his consent. Being in her house, among her things, breathing air lightly perfumed with her scent, is like reclaiming a piece of himself he thought had been abandoned. He doesn’t want anything to ruin it.
Rachel takes his hand, grabbing two of his fingers in an impatient squeeze. “Are you going to tuck me in?”
Wilson looks like he’s about to go tachycardic, but House ignores his imploring eyes and turns to look down the dark column of the hallway. A line of perspiration breaks out on his upper lip. Somewhere in all that darkness, Cuddy waits for him.
Feeling dangerously unmoored, he releases Rachel’s hand. “Not tonight.”
“What about next time?” she demands, folding her arms over her skinny chest and pouting with hurt disapproval-a near-perfect imitation of her mother.
“We’ll see,” he says, shooing her off to bed. But there won’t be a next time. This is it for him, where he gets off. One last goodbye. “If you can be potty-trained, anything is possible.”
Everybody lies.
Halfway down the hall, Rachel stops and turns to wave to him.
Like an idiot, he waves back.
* * *
Jersey. Spring. Another sleepless night in an endless string of sleepless nights. Rain falls on the windshield and beads together in combinations too complex for the human eye to adequately perceive, bodies colliding and re-colliding in a frenzied dance. Cause and effect and cause again. House spends the entire ride out of the city staring out the window, thinking about chaos systems and strange attractors and hoping Wilson doesn’t say anything to make the cabbie call the cops.
The night is thick with possibilities.