Daily Drabble #21
Daily Drabble #21
Rating: G
Warning: kid!fic (part of the Church-verse)
Word Count: 2336 words
A/N: Thanks to everyone for being so patient while I was AWOL, and for all your wonderful comments/thoughts/prayers/vibes. I appreciate you all so much, you have no idea. Sorry for the long wait, I hope it's worth it ^^
Also, little_himself has written two drabbles for me in the Church-verse that I've posted on my journal. If anyone's interested, you can find them here. Try and talk him into writing more, he swears he can't write, but I say different. He doesn't believe me ^^ (he's my baby cousin, you'd think he'd have more faith in me).
Seventeen years after Lisa's first tearful phone call, Stacy once again listens to her one-time boss, sometime friend, as she cries softly on the other end of the line. Her first panicked thought is that something has happened to House, and then, Church. She is incredibly shocked to find that it is Wilson whose illness has affected Cuddy so.
Tumors in his brain, operable, and at least they found it in time, Lisa says, but still she cries, hiccoughing sorrowfully.
Stacy isn't sure how she feels about it. Since Church's sixth birthday, she has maintained a distant friendship with Wilson, and even somewhat with House. Shared dinners from time to time, more birthday parties, even Church's bar mitzvah (she laughs to think of it even now), and, of course, House's regular monthly progress reports.
In all that time, she has never fully answered the question in her own mind. Was House punishing her, was this his way of showing her what she had missed? Or, rather, was this his way of allowing her a glimpse into his life, of somehow making amends?
She knows House well enough to know that the question may never be answered, because House himself could not tell her what she wants to know.
She does know that she doesn't want Wilson dead, but there is a small part of her that knows how lonely she has been since Mark's untimely death three years earlier, and wonders if there might be a place for her if Wilson were no longer alive.
It's despicable, true, but she is nothing if not pragmatic. Wilson is the glue that keeps that particular extended family together, and with him gone...
She shakes her head, trying to clear her head of such thinking. She owes Wilson more than that, not just as House's lover, but as her own friend.
"I'll come by and visit after the surgery," she promises, when Lisa's tears finally give way to embarrassed silence, "Ask them if there's anything that they need."
........................................
She hasn't seen Church in four years, and in that time, he has grown like a weed. He is every bit of six feet tall, with some inches besides. It won't be long before he's peering down on the top of House's head.
"Church, is that you?" she calls, making her way toward the front entrance of PPTH. The hospital hasn't changed much on the outside, but Lisa has kept the place in a constant state of remodeling for years. Stacy is glad to see a familiar face, hating the idea of getting lost in a place she once worked in.
That dark head swivels, eyes brightening with recognition as Church runs an elegant hand through his short-cropped curls. Pushing himself away from the wall against which he'd been leaning, a sly smile creeps over his face as he questions huskily, "Who's asking?"
"You know exactly who," she retorts. Something about his attitude, his very demeanor put her so in mind of House, she finds herself speaking to him as she would House.
"Do I then?" he asks, raising a sardonic eyebrow, and that voice is every bit as arresting as it was in his childhood. More so now, actually, that time and puberty have deepened it. The cigarette that he holds loosely in his fingers isn't helping matters, either.
He is his father's son. She almost hates him for it.
"Mrs. Stacy," he says, those blue, blue eyes dancing with mischief, as slim fingers raise in salute. "How's life treating you?" He puts his cigarette out on the bottom of his shoe, palming it into the pocket of his pants until he can find a place to dispose of it.
"Just fine, thank you. How is Wilson?" She finds herself taking his offered arm, her fingers wrapping around his skinny bicep. Another of his old-fashioned, courtly gestures, affectations that would seem odd or forced on a less self-possessed young man.
"Much better now. He and House were fighting over my graduation invitations when I left them." He leads her through the hospital, waving to various personnel, becoming involved in a solicitous conversation with an elderly lady in the elevator concerning her children, her medications, her bowels.
Exiting the elevator together, he grips her hands tightly, whispering, "Save me," in her ear. She laughs at his silliness, letting him pull her down the hall like the young girl she can almost remember being.
The glass walls are still a problem, Stacy notices, remarking to Church, "I don't think they're arguing anymore."
"Hard to tell with them. Most of their arguments are affectionate, and I've seen kisses that were actually preludes to battle," Church notes, shrugging. "I find it easiest just to ignore all of it." She wonders what it would take to shock him, if the passionate embrace the two men are currently involved in only elicits a shrug.
He doesn't knock, pushing open the door and leading her through, despite her protestations. "Get a room, you two, we have a visitor." He presents her to Wilson and House as if to royalty, as if she were a visiting dignitary. They pull away from each other, a pleasant flush spreading over Wilson's cheekbones, devilry in House's eyes.
They greet her in one voice, laughing at themselves for doing it. House, relieved of his cane, walks toward her on two legs, and it is all she can do not to burst into tears. She had heard that he'd finally assented to a prosthesis, but it is quite another thing to see it in person. "No tears," he growls, but he holds his hand out to her. It is almost an apology. It is more than enough.
"We have a room," Wilson is retorting to Church, "A very nice, very spacious hospital room...Church House, have you been smoking?"
The offender doesn't even have enough remorse in him to blush, although he does lean down and hug Wilson, careful not to disturb his bandaged head. "Sorry, Jimmy. It's been a rough week." A sneaky kiss is placed on Wilson's scratchy cheek, as he excuses himself to go to the bathroom, presumably to wash the nicotine smell from his hands.
She finds herself hugging Wilson, feeling terrible for the thoughts of replacing him that had somehow infiltrated her brain during Cuddy's call. What in the world had she been thinking? It was quite obvious that replacing him is not even a remote possibility.
They talk for a while, the three of them reminiscing, although Wilson is obviously tiring from the exertion. Church disappears after a half hour or so, returning with Cuddy in tow. She orders them all out, in that particular tone of voice that brooks no argument.
"Go feed my child," Wilson orders, as said child takes the opportunity to exact another hug. It is almost too emotional a moment for Stacy to witness, watching Church's tall frame as it folds around his parent, as if to make sure that he's real, that he's actually still with them. How difficult this must have been for him, fearing the worst for Wilson.
It shocks her to her core when House crosses to them, enveloping the both of them in a hug so fiercely protective that she finds herself out in the hallway before she realizes it, as if she had been physically ejected from the room.
"I never get used to it," Cuddy murmurs, dabbing suspiciously at the corner of her eye. "Even after all these years."
She is still reeling when Lisa invites her along to "feed the child", accepting the invitation which she might ordinarily have turned down.
"Chinese, of course," Church scoffs when asked what he wants to eat for dinner. Belatedly remembering his manners, he amends, "If that's alright with you, Mrs. Stacy?" He doesn't ask Lisa's preference, and he and House stage a mock-fight over the choice, but Church eventually wins out.
The restaurant is close to the hospital and obviously a favorite, as the hostess immediately greets them by name, smiling and laughing at House and Church's antics. Lisa tries in vain to shut them up, but they are in high spirits and nothing can get them to be still or behave. Wilson could, perhaps, but his absence leaves a space that they both seem to be struggling to fill for each other.
Stacy can't help but feel awkward, despite the overall pleasantness of the atmosphere. Eventually, the conversation turns to Stacy and House's years of living together. She laughs at House's mimicry of her voice, her gestures, while recounting a particularly grueling argument, barely noticing that Church has excused himself from the table.
After some time passes without his return, she asks after him. House rolls his eyes, miming a cigarette being brought to his lips, and Cuddy snickers, "His mother will have a fit if he finds out we're letting him smoke, but this has hit him so hard, we don't have the heart to stop him."
Lisa says it so naturally, calling Wilson the boy's mother, while still including herself in the discipline of their child. It strikes Stacy just how intensely odd this situation is, her own divided feelings added into the mix pushing it over into something just sort of chaos.
She decides to leave before she says something insensitive or rude, or asks them both if they're insane. Strange how the same situation can look so different depending on how she looks at it. Maybe she's just tired, and lonely, and envious of a family unit that is so utterly functional and cohesive despite (or maybe because of) its varied membership.
"Thank you," House says to her as she stands to leave, offering her help if there's anything that they need.
In seventeen years, the man that she lived with, the man that she loved, has been irrevocably changed. House is still as caustic as ever, and still completely unafraid to voice an unpopular opinion, but the fact remains, he is no longer the same.
As long as she had known him, House had always been alone. Even when they were living together, he existed within his own corner of the world, completely self-contained, completely self-involved. He needed no one, and no one needed him. Except her, of course, but he had always been emotionally unavailable. She had never realized that he was even capable of the things that Wilson not only expected, but also received.
Maybe that is the difference, the fact that Wilson expected more from House than anyone ever had before. Maybe no one could know for sure, except House (if he even knew himself).
Still and all, it is powerfully compelling to watch, and more than a little upsetting.
........................................
On her way to her car, she is halted by a familiar, dusky voice. "Can I have a minute?" Church asks, as he pushes himself away from the wall in an eerie repetition of their earlier meeting.
He flicks his cigarette away with some force, and she watches warily as it bounces onto the pavement, showering sparks. There is no smile on his sharp face, and the set of his jaw is reminiscent of his father's at his most cruel and obstinate.
She forces herself to stay still, although her heart is racing. This is an entirely different being than the polite, cheerful, helpful teenager whose arm she had clung to so tightly today. "Of course," she says, but there is a trembling in her voice that betrays her nervousness.
Church advances on her, a stealthy, stalking predator, his eyes no longer sparkling. She feels as if he is reading her soul, laying bare every nasty, hateful thought she's ever had in her entire life.
He offers his arm again to her, and there is something of an order in his gaze. She accepts, wondering at the wiry muscles beneath her hand that she could have sworn were not there before. He leads her to her car, opening her door gallantly, but his hard eyes are staring, intense.
When he does speak, his voice is as dark and impenetrable as the night sky. "Do not think, even for a moment, that there is a place for you here. If something happens to Jimmy, even if House wanted it, I wouldn't allow it."
God, he had seen, somehow, those awful thoughts that had swirled in her brain, that were still somewhere in the back of her mind. He was every bit his father's son, and maybe more so. That face held no forgiveness for her, no sense of history, no former bittersweet love. "I don't..." she began, but those eyes stopped the words in her throat.
"I won't allow it. Do you understand?" She has never been afraid of anyone in her entire life. She is afraid now.
"I understand," she whispers. Stacy pulls her hand from his, sliding into her seat, reaching for the door handle to put a barrier between herself and this child she thought she knew.
"Excellent," he breathes, and the threat is no less now that he is smiling. She can see it now that she knows to look for it, the wariness of a young man who is used to protecting his family from outside forces.
Stacy starts her car, watching those slim shoulders as Church disappears back inside, back into the loving arms of his family. A family that she is not welcome in, that she will never have a part of, because he won't allow it.
She doesn't know whether she wants to slap him or thank him. What she does know is that she is no closer to understanding House and his family than she was seventeen years ago.
Not that she's entirely she sure wants to anymore.
(to be continued)
Rating: G
Warning: kid!fic (part of the Church-verse)
Word Count: 2336 words
A/N: Thanks to everyone for being so patient while I was AWOL, and for all your wonderful comments/thoughts/prayers/vibes. I appreciate you all so much, you have no idea. Sorry for the long wait, I hope it's worth it ^^
Also, little_himself has written two drabbles for me in the Church-verse that I've posted on my journal. If anyone's interested, you can find them here. Try and talk him into writing more, he swears he can't write, but I say different. He doesn't believe me ^^ (he's my baby cousin, you'd think he'd have more faith in me).
Seventeen years after Lisa's first tearful phone call, Stacy once again listens to her one-time boss, sometime friend, as she cries softly on the other end of the line. Her first panicked thought is that something has happened to House, and then, Church. She is incredibly shocked to find that it is Wilson whose illness has affected Cuddy so.
Tumors in his brain, operable, and at least they found it in time, Lisa says, but still she cries, hiccoughing sorrowfully.
Stacy isn't sure how she feels about it. Since Church's sixth birthday, she has maintained a distant friendship with Wilson, and even somewhat with House. Shared dinners from time to time, more birthday parties, even Church's bar mitzvah (she laughs to think of it even now), and, of course, House's regular monthly progress reports.
In all that time, she has never fully answered the question in her own mind. Was House punishing her, was this his way of showing her what she had missed? Or, rather, was this his way of allowing her a glimpse into his life, of somehow making amends?
She knows House well enough to know that the question may never be answered, because House himself could not tell her what she wants to know.
She does know that she doesn't want Wilson dead, but there is a small part of her that knows how lonely she has been since Mark's untimely death three years earlier, and wonders if there might be a place for her if Wilson were no longer alive.
It's despicable, true, but she is nothing if not pragmatic. Wilson is the glue that keeps that particular extended family together, and with him gone...
She shakes her head, trying to clear her head of such thinking. She owes Wilson more than that, not just as House's lover, but as her own friend.
"I'll come by and visit after the surgery," she promises, when Lisa's tears finally give way to embarrassed silence, "Ask them if there's anything that they need."
........................................
She hasn't seen Church in four years, and in that time, he has grown like a weed. He is every bit of six feet tall, with some inches besides. It won't be long before he's peering down on the top of House's head.
"Church, is that you?" she calls, making her way toward the front entrance of PPTH. The hospital hasn't changed much on the outside, but Lisa has kept the place in a constant state of remodeling for years. Stacy is glad to see a familiar face, hating the idea of getting lost in a place she once worked in.
That dark head swivels, eyes brightening with recognition as Church runs an elegant hand through his short-cropped curls. Pushing himself away from the wall against which he'd been leaning, a sly smile creeps over his face as he questions huskily, "Who's asking?"
"You know exactly who," she retorts. Something about his attitude, his very demeanor put her so in mind of House, she finds herself speaking to him as she would House.
"Do I then?" he asks, raising a sardonic eyebrow, and that voice is every bit as arresting as it was in his childhood. More so now, actually, that time and puberty have deepened it. The cigarette that he holds loosely in his fingers isn't helping matters, either.
He is his father's son. She almost hates him for it.
"Mrs. Stacy," he says, those blue, blue eyes dancing with mischief, as slim fingers raise in salute. "How's life treating you?" He puts his cigarette out on the bottom of his shoe, palming it into the pocket of his pants until he can find a place to dispose of it.
"Just fine, thank you. How is Wilson?" She finds herself taking his offered arm, her fingers wrapping around his skinny bicep. Another of his old-fashioned, courtly gestures, affectations that would seem odd or forced on a less self-possessed young man.
"Much better now. He and House were fighting over my graduation invitations when I left them." He leads her through the hospital, waving to various personnel, becoming involved in a solicitous conversation with an elderly lady in the elevator concerning her children, her medications, her bowels.
Exiting the elevator together, he grips her hands tightly, whispering, "Save me," in her ear. She laughs at his silliness, letting him pull her down the hall like the young girl she can almost remember being.
The glass walls are still a problem, Stacy notices, remarking to Church, "I don't think they're arguing anymore."
"Hard to tell with them. Most of their arguments are affectionate, and I've seen kisses that were actually preludes to battle," Church notes, shrugging. "I find it easiest just to ignore all of it." She wonders what it would take to shock him, if the passionate embrace the two men are currently involved in only elicits a shrug.
He doesn't knock, pushing open the door and leading her through, despite her protestations. "Get a room, you two, we have a visitor." He presents her to Wilson and House as if to royalty, as if she were a visiting dignitary. They pull away from each other, a pleasant flush spreading over Wilson's cheekbones, devilry in House's eyes.
They greet her in one voice, laughing at themselves for doing it. House, relieved of his cane, walks toward her on two legs, and it is all she can do not to burst into tears. She had heard that he'd finally assented to a prosthesis, but it is quite another thing to see it in person. "No tears," he growls, but he holds his hand out to her. It is almost an apology. It is more than enough.
"We have a room," Wilson is retorting to Church, "A very nice, very spacious hospital room...Church House, have you been smoking?"
The offender doesn't even have enough remorse in him to blush, although he does lean down and hug Wilson, careful not to disturb his bandaged head. "Sorry, Jimmy. It's been a rough week." A sneaky kiss is placed on Wilson's scratchy cheek, as he excuses himself to go to the bathroom, presumably to wash the nicotine smell from his hands.
She finds herself hugging Wilson, feeling terrible for the thoughts of replacing him that had somehow infiltrated her brain during Cuddy's call. What in the world had she been thinking? It was quite obvious that replacing him is not even a remote possibility.
They talk for a while, the three of them reminiscing, although Wilson is obviously tiring from the exertion. Church disappears after a half hour or so, returning with Cuddy in tow. She orders them all out, in that particular tone of voice that brooks no argument.
"Go feed my child," Wilson orders, as said child takes the opportunity to exact another hug. It is almost too emotional a moment for Stacy to witness, watching Church's tall frame as it folds around his parent, as if to make sure that he's real, that he's actually still with them. How difficult this must have been for him, fearing the worst for Wilson.
It shocks her to her core when House crosses to them, enveloping the both of them in a hug so fiercely protective that she finds herself out in the hallway before she realizes it, as if she had been physically ejected from the room.
"I never get used to it," Cuddy murmurs, dabbing suspiciously at the corner of her eye. "Even after all these years."
She is still reeling when Lisa invites her along to "feed the child", accepting the invitation which she might ordinarily have turned down.
"Chinese, of course," Church scoffs when asked what he wants to eat for dinner. Belatedly remembering his manners, he amends, "If that's alright with you, Mrs. Stacy?" He doesn't ask Lisa's preference, and he and House stage a mock-fight over the choice, but Church eventually wins out.
The restaurant is close to the hospital and obviously a favorite, as the hostess immediately greets them by name, smiling and laughing at House and Church's antics. Lisa tries in vain to shut them up, but they are in high spirits and nothing can get them to be still or behave. Wilson could, perhaps, but his absence leaves a space that they both seem to be struggling to fill for each other.
Stacy can't help but feel awkward, despite the overall pleasantness of the atmosphere. Eventually, the conversation turns to Stacy and House's years of living together. She laughs at House's mimicry of her voice, her gestures, while recounting a particularly grueling argument, barely noticing that Church has excused himself from the table.
After some time passes without his return, she asks after him. House rolls his eyes, miming a cigarette being brought to his lips, and Cuddy snickers, "His mother will have a fit if he finds out we're letting him smoke, but this has hit him so hard, we don't have the heart to stop him."
Lisa says it so naturally, calling Wilson the boy's mother, while still including herself in the discipline of their child. It strikes Stacy just how intensely odd this situation is, her own divided feelings added into the mix pushing it over into something just sort of chaos.
She decides to leave before she says something insensitive or rude, or asks them both if they're insane. Strange how the same situation can look so different depending on how she looks at it. Maybe she's just tired, and lonely, and envious of a family unit that is so utterly functional and cohesive despite (or maybe because of) its varied membership.
"Thank you," House says to her as she stands to leave, offering her help if there's anything that they need.
In seventeen years, the man that she lived with, the man that she loved, has been irrevocably changed. House is still as caustic as ever, and still completely unafraid to voice an unpopular opinion, but the fact remains, he is no longer the same.
As long as she had known him, House had always been alone. Even when they were living together, he existed within his own corner of the world, completely self-contained, completely self-involved. He needed no one, and no one needed him. Except her, of course, but he had always been emotionally unavailable. She had never realized that he was even capable of the things that Wilson not only expected, but also received.
Maybe that is the difference, the fact that Wilson expected more from House than anyone ever had before. Maybe no one could know for sure, except House (if he even knew himself).
Still and all, it is powerfully compelling to watch, and more than a little upsetting.
........................................
On her way to her car, she is halted by a familiar, dusky voice. "Can I have a minute?" Church asks, as he pushes himself away from the wall in an eerie repetition of their earlier meeting.
He flicks his cigarette away with some force, and she watches warily as it bounces onto the pavement, showering sparks. There is no smile on his sharp face, and the set of his jaw is reminiscent of his father's at his most cruel and obstinate.
She forces herself to stay still, although her heart is racing. This is an entirely different being than the polite, cheerful, helpful teenager whose arm she had clung to so tightly today. "Of course," she says, but there is a trembling in her voice that betrays her nervousness.
Church advances on her, a stealthy, stalking predator, his eyes no longer sparkling. She feels as if he is reading her soul, laying bare every nasty, hateful thought she's ever had in her entire life.
He offers his arm again to her, and there is something of an order in his gaze. She accepts, wondering at the wiry muscles beneath her hand that she could have sworn were not there before. He leads her to her car, opening her door gallantly, but his hard eyes are staring, intense.
When he does speak, his voice is as dark and impenetrable as the night sky. "Do not think, even for a moment, that there is a place for you here. If something happens to Jimmy, even if House wanted it, I wouldn't allow it."
God, he had seen, somehow, those awful thoughts that had swirled in her brain, that were still somewhere in the back of her mind. He was every bit his father's son, and maybe more so. That face held no forgiveness for her, no sense of history, no former bittersweet love. "I don't..." she began, but those eyes stopped the words in her throat.
"I won't allow it. Do you understand?" She has never been afraid of anyone in her entire life. She is afraid now.
"I understand," she whispers. Stacy pulls her hand from his, sliding into her seat, reaching for the door handle to put a barrier between herself and this child she thought she knew.
"Excellent," he breathes, and the threat is no less now that he is smiling. She can see it now that she knows to look for it, the wariness of a young man who is used to protecting his family from outside forces.
Stacy starts her car, watching those slim shoulders as Church disappears back inside, back into the loving arms of his family. A family that she is not welcome in, that she will never have a part of, because he won't allow it.
She doesn't know whether she wants to slap him or thank him. What she does know is that she is no closer to understanding House and his family than she was seventeen years ago.
Not that she's entirely she sure wants to anymore.
(to be continued)