Fear of Fire Leaves You Cold, Chapter 3
Title: Fear of Fire Leaves You Cold, Chapter 3
Author: Duckie Nicks
Rating: NC-17 for sex
Characters: House, Cuddy, Rachel Cuddy, Wilson, Arlene, Julia, etc.
Author's Note: Since this piece is set post "Moving On," there are spoilers for that episode. Also please note that, while I plan on making this House/Cuddy, it's not going to be a quick thing. Given what House has done, it will take a while to work through all of those issues. If you're looking for an easy happy ending, this isn't the piece for you. Some chapters are split for length. These next few chapters were written for harvesttime88 for the help_lisa auction.
Warning: This fic also contains sex. If that bothers you, don't read.
Summary: After House crashes his car through Cuddy's home, both strive to rebuild their lives and deal with the consequences of their broken relationship.
Previous Chapters: Chapter 1, Chapter 2 (Part 1), Chapter 2 (Part 2)
Disclaimer: The show is not mine.
Nails scraped at the remnants of ink on the pads of his fingers. In the silence of his holding cell, there was nothing to do but focus on the marks of accusation. Nearly scratching at himself, he wasn’t delusional enough to think that clean fingers would make anything, much less everything, all better. Escaping the reality of what he’d done was impossible; being in jail was proof of that.
He wasn’t going to get out of this.
However frequently and willingly Cuddy had forgiven him in the past, that wasn’t going to apply here. She’d pressed charges. She’d watched him be arrested. She’d probably cared that he was being taken away in handcuffs in front of Rachel. But that hadn’t been enough to have her intervening on his behalf. House didn’t blame her for that; he just knew after it had happened that, if she hadn’t interfered then, she wasn’t ever going to.
She had said goodbye to him for good.
He’d already known that, truthfully. After he’d driven his car through her home, it had been nothing more than wishful thinking to think that forgiveness could ever be on the table. She was so pissed that on some level, he knew this was it for them. It had to be. But when the handcuffs had been placed on his wrists, he had hoped - stupid as it was - that she would change her mind, that some part of their bond would reach her and make her put a stop to this.
No, he didn’t deserve it. He hadn’t earned anything from her with this, and there hadn’t been a second where he thought he had. He’d just… wanted it. In spite of everything he had done, part of him had clung to the hope that things weren’t really as bad as they seemed.
Now it was clear things were worse than he could ever imagine.
The police had hauled him off the plane with a swiftness that made his leg sting and a paradoxical laziness that made Rachel’s full meltdown something he’d been unable to miss. He’d done his best not to look back, not to react when he’d heard her screaming his name. The way she’d cried, she’d believed he had the power to make all of it go away - as though if she’d just shouted loud enough, he would stop walking, and the police would disappear, and it would be over. He guessed he’d hoped the same thing at the time. But knowing that he would never be the one in control of this, he’d had no choice but to keep walking - to not look back.
Of course, when he thought about what had happened, House didn’t believe he’d have ever had the nerve to turn around. To do that would have been to face what he’d done, to see in Rachel’s eyes the full breadth of his actions and the horror contained in them. He hadn’t had the courage then.
And he definitely didn’t have it now.
When the police had first brought him to the station, he’d spoken few words: his name, his address, an explanation for the Vicodin he kept in his pocket. He had not talked about what he’d done. He couldn’t, and the second they’d wanted to press him for a confession, he had, instead, asked for his lawyer, the one Cuddy had found for him all those years ago.
The request left House feeling seedy, every bit the criminal he was. It wasn’t enough to destroy his girlfriend’s home and run away. He’d come back, but he was no more willing to accept the consequences of his actions. His feet couldn’t take him far, not while he was in this cell, but mentally, he had yet to stop distancing himself from… that moment in time. If he could accept that Cuddy hated him, that was one thing. Reluctant though he was to admit that he'd completely and permanently ruined that relationship, he wouldn't deny the obvious, not even if it meant making himself feel better. But to embrace jail? That was something else entirely. At least, it was right now.
It was too much. To be with her one moment and then tossed out of her life, to see the light at the end of the tunnel and then, with one foot on the peddle, be driven further into the darkness, to see her again and then be arrested... he didn't know how to reconcile all of those thoughts and events in his mind. And until he knew exactly what it was he wanted to do, he would buy time by asking for a lawyer. In his opinion, it was better to take that precaution now than to mistakenly confess to everything and regret it later.
Unfortunately Gemeiner wouldn't come to talk to him until the morning. By the time House had been processed, it was late, his one phone call coming after they’d let him sit in a holding cell for a while. And then when House had finally gotten in contact with his lawyer, he'd learned that the attorney was currently vacationing in the Adirondacks, which was several hours away from Princeton. Gemeiner had promised to leave right away, but even if he’d started driving the second he’d picked up the phone, it would still be a long while before House ever saw him.
Truth be told, he wasn’t sure that mattered. He didn’t need his lawyer here to explain that he would be denied bail. He had no job now; well, technically he did, but that would be a mere formality at this point. Cuddy would have that taken care of by morning… if she hadn’t already. His best friend and ex were going to testify against him, meaning House had no ties to the community - something that Law And Order said was important. He hadn’t fled the country, but he had… left it, and that would make it difficult to get anyone to believe he would stick around like a good little boy for trial. Gemeiner, having gotten House out of the whole Tritter debacle, was a talented attorney, but even he couldn’t save House now.
Maybe not ever. Because even if a jury found him not guilty or the police dropped the charges, both possibilities nothing more than a long shot as it were, House would have no way of rebuilding his life. Wilson and Cuddy hated him. The only people who had ever mattered were now estranged from him. And given that, how could he ever hope to make a life for himself again? He would have no job, no references, no friends - nothing. And if he went to jail, he had even less to look forward to when he got out.
If he got out, House corrected mentally. He was an addict, in constant pain. He would need Vicodin, and how long would it be before the other inmates found out? Of course, he would be a target no matter what. His personality ensured that. The fact that he had access to drugs would just make things worse for him. And frankly from his perspective, short of being a child molester, he couldn’t have faced worse odds. His future couldn’t be bleaker, and a lawyer wouldn’t necessarily change that.
House supposed if he wanted his situation to improve, he would need to start making adjustments now.
And the first thing that would have to go?
His Vicodin.
That was the bitterest detail of all - that he should have to deny himself what he needed most, that, in a time where he felt nothing but pain, he had to willingly accept more.
He deserved it. After what he did to Cuddy, he had more than earned the cramps, the pain, which would be dulled no longer, the withdrawal. This was the least he could do.
But by the same token… he had already suffered. His life since the infarction had been a testament to it, every moment punctuated, dictated, created by pain. Yes, he used Vicodin. Yes, he was an addict. None of that could erase the missing part of his leg, the common source of agony that was so excruciating he would prefer death. Quitting Vicodin had been to spare his mind, the only thing he had in the world worth anything to anyone. He hadn’t done it, because he believed he could live without it. On the contrary, life without Vicodin had been, at times, worse than anything he could imagine. There had been moments when the medicine he allowed himself to take wasn’t enough, when he had to lie to himself and to others about how okay he was without the drug he’d relied on time and time again.
Then he’d started to date Cuddy. He had in his life the woman he wanted more than anything. And for a brief moment, he thought - he truly believed - things might be okay. He might be able to get used to being in her home with her daughter; he could grow to love the little girl and open himself up to her. With Cuddy, he could have a life outside of work, be appreciated for something other than his valuable mind.
But that relationship had given life to more pain for him to work through. There was the fear of failure, her mother’s sickness, and then finally, what he thought was the last blow, Cuddy’s illness. It had been too much for him. That sounded like a cop out, but that was how he felt anyway. He’d needed someone or something to make Cuddy having cancer okay. But there was nothing in the world that would make that all right. If she were so sick she could die, nothing else mattered. Nothing could cheer him up, he thought with a scowl.
Everyone had told him to go to her. Rationally he’d understood that they were right. She needed him there; that was what was important. But he hadn’t been able to sit with her when she might be sick. He just couldn’t do it. He’d needed to be able to look her in the eyes and exude the strength she needed, the strength he ultimately didn’t have. How was he supposed to comfort her when her illness would destroy him just as quickly as it killed her? How could he be of any use to her then?
He’d taken the Vicodin to numb him to reality. She’d accused him of refusing to share her pain, but the truth had been that that had been precisely what he’d been trying to overcome by taking the pills. He’d wanted to be strong enough to be there for her, to hold her when she needed him, to lie and tell her she was going to be fine if it came to that. He’d screwed up, but all he’d ever wanted was to do the right thing. The one time he’d wanted to be as selfless as possible, he’d found himself being punished for it.
And then to look at her every day?
To watch her move on or at least try to?
That had been more than he could bear.
It was still more than he could bear.
She was hurt now, but she would move on. Her life would eventually get better. His, on the other hand, was over, no matter what happened at trial. His life would simply diminish until he died.
And that would happen, first under the delirium of withdrawal, and then with a mind sober enough to notice things getting worse each and every step of the way.
****************************
Uncontrollably he shook in the metal seat. The cheap aluminum chair felt cold against his clammy skin, and his teeth chattered loudly. Sweat made him shift about; his thigh made him regret the movement. And it was only through sheer willpower that House didn’t scream out loud for the Vicodin he wanted.
Across from him was Gemeiner who was reading the police report in jeans, sneakers, and a polo shirt. He’d driven all night to get here, and his face was a monument to the exhaustion he must have felt. Eyes tiredly scanning the folder in front of him, his gaze slowly went from curiosity to dread.
House didn’t like seeing his assumed inevitable imprisonment confirmed in his representation’s eyes. “Is this the part where you ask me if I did it?” he asked with bitterness.
Gemeiner read off, “Burglary in the second degree. Harassment. Five counts of aggravated assault. Criminal mischief. Criminal trespass. Resisting arrest, and obstruction of justice. I’ve been told they’re considering throwing in reckless driving and a few other charges as well, so they can maximize the amount of time you’re in prison. You did it, or someone really has it out for you,” he said matter of factly. “Either way, we’ve got too much work to do for me to even consider whether or not you’re guilty.”
Hearing the charges listed made House’s stomach do somersaults. He wanted to believe it was just the withdrawal making him feel like shit. But the fact was having his misdeeds named and categorized was terrifying. He knew what he’d done was wrong, evil, but in his head, the act didn’t amount to what the district attorney was leaning towards. He’d been violent and selfish but more importantly completely out of his mind with jealousy and betrayal. He had been upset. But the long list of crimes Gemeiner was reading made it sound like he had no humanity at all.
And then, as sweat dripped into House’s eyes, he realized: he didn’t have any. He did all of those things that he was being accused of. He was guilty. It didn’t matter what the crimes were named. He had done them. And if he could do that, to the woman he loved no less, there was no goodness left to be found in him.
“Now,” Gemeiner interrupted. “You spent some time in a psychiatric hospital. Maybe we can use that.” He looked at House pointedly. “You’ve obviously decided to start using Vicodin again.”
“Trying to quit,” House said with a bite.
His lawyer shook his head. “Don’t do that. If we’re going for a Vicodin defense, I need you to seem like you need the pills to function.”
“I do.”
“Yeah, well, that’s not how it’s going to look if you voluntarily stop taking the pills.”
“If I don’t stop taking the Vicodin, prison isn’t exactly going to be fun, you know?”
“The point is to avoid that, House. On the other hand, I can work with you quitting. It’ll make you look less like an addict though. That won’t work in our favor.”
House didn’t think anything would work in his favor. Whether he was crazy or “just” a garden-variety drug addict, there wasn’t anything being said so far that suggested Gemeiner had a plan that would succeed in keeping him out of jail.
Gemeiner somehow comprehended that House’s thoughts had turned dark. “I won’t lie to you: this is going to be a tough case to win. You’re accused of trying to cause grievous harm to five different people, one of whom you never met. The most important people involved, of course, are your best friend, the award-winning oncologist, and your ex-girlfriend, your boss and a single mother who, if I remember correctly is quite beautiful.” House glowered at the description. “A jury will eat that crap up. Especially if you’re still detoxing then. Even more so if you run your mouth when you’re not supposed to.”
“Is this leading to something, or am I just paying you to tell me I’m screwed?”
Gemeiner got straight to the point. “When it’s you and me, you can say whatever you want. In front of the cops, you say nothing. In the courtroom, you say nothing. You look serious, concerned, but you don’t ever look angry. You give nothing away even if that’s how you feel. You understand?”
“Yeah.” House did. Given the position he was in, it was clear that he could no longer trust himself where Cuddy was concerned. Maybe he’d initially thought differently, but as time wore on, the more obvious it was that he wasn’t in his right mind to trust his instincts. He couldn’t trust himself to open his mouth; the chance of destruction was too real.
“Remember that when you see her.”
He swallowed hard. He hadn’t thought about that happening. His mind had been so focused on going backwards that he hadn’t imagined what it might be like to see her in court, to hear her talk about all the things he had done to her.
Suddenly Gemeiner had him looking at the future interactions he would have with Cuddy, and things looked even more bleak than they had before.
“Yeah,” Gemeiner said, as if to underline his point. “Get used to that idea. Now I can’t say for certain that she’ll be there at your arraignment. I personally doubt it, but she might be there to show us she’s serious. She might feel that it’s necessary to be there to request a restraining order against you.”
House scoffed in disbelief. “A restraining order?” He understood why she would want him to stay away. He couldn’t understand why she would think a court document would be necessary when she would already be doing all she could to keep him in jail. “You think she’s really going to do that?”
“If they grant you bail, she might. But you’re not going to get bail.”
“I know.”
“Good. Because what I need you to understand is that you’re looking at years of imprisonment.”
House laughed shakily. “You think I don’t know what’s at stake? What I’ve already lost?”
“I’m not here for your self-pity. In fact, stop doing that right now. You may feel bad about what you did or didn’t do, and that’s fine. Whatever. But if you let that mess up with your head, you will jeopardize your case. And maybe you don’t care if you spend the rest of your life in prison - which is what we’re really talking about here: life. Second-degree aggravated assault is subject to five to ten years in prison. Multiply that by five, House. You’re a dead man. And even if I ignore the numbers, the fact is: boys like you don’t do well in prison. You cause trouble, get into fights. They might not sentence you to life, but someone like you could very well make it that way,” Gemeiner pointed out without any hint of sympathy in his voice. “Again, maybe you don’t care about that. But this is my case now, and you are not to lose it for me. Understand?”
House nodded his head. His mouth moved like he wanted to say something, but he didn’t have the words to describe what he was thinking, feeling. There were no words to voice just how much he wanted to close his eyes and wake up like nothing had happened. Part of him needed to believe that all of this was just a bad dream, that he couldn’t really be looking at that much prison time. But he didn’t have a way to ask for those reassurances - nor did he have anyone who would offer him them. So he stayed quiet.
“Good. It’s important you understand how bad this can get if you let your guilt get in the way. Now’s the part where I tell you that we can make a good case of this - if you help me.”
House wasn’t sure what to do. He was guilty. But he didn’t want to die in prison. He didn’t want to go the rest of his life without there being any possibility of making things right with Cuddy or Wilson. His career written off as a joke, his mother dying without a family member to visit her grave… those were things House couldn’t accept, no matter how awful he had been or was.
Reluctantly but with an odd sense of determination as well, he asked, “What do I need to do?”
Gemeiner smiled coldly. It wasn’t friendliness; it was pleasure that he had gotten the most difficult man he’d ever known to cooperate. “I need to know everything that led up to what allegedly happened. Anything you can think of about weeks or months, I need to hear about. The sooner I know what was going on, the sooner we can start to develop your argument.”
House wasn’t sure where to start. So much had happened these last few months that it was impossible to know what was relevant and what was better left unsaid. So he told all, starting with, “She dumped me. We were doing great, and then… she got sick. Blood in the urine - we thought she had cancer. I took Vicodin to deal with it, and she found out. And -”
“So you tried to kill your cancer-ridden -”
“She didn’t have cancer. She’s fine.” Gemeiner seemed relieved to hear that news. “But she was mad, so she broke up with me.”
“What happened after that?”
“I don’t know.” House’s head bobbled with indecision. He really couldn’t explain the depths to which he sunk after that. “I kept using. Spent several weeks with prostitutes. Jumped off a hotel balcony. Into a pool.” He added that part all the while knowing that that didn’t make the act any better. “I got married - to piss her off, I guess. Then there was this drug the hospital was testing on rodents. It was supposed to regenerate muscle, so I took it.” He scratched his head nervously. It made even less sense when he said it out loud. “The drug causes tumors, and as it turns out, that’s what happens in people as well.”
“So you had cancer,” Gemeiner said with a smile.
“Not exactly.”
“But that’s what people will think. Tumors are cancer. That’s good. We can use that.”
“I tried to remove the tumors myself. When that didn’t work, I had to call Cuddy. And….” House stopped talking when he noticed his lawyer was holding a hand in the air.
“That’s enough for me to start with. I’ll need access to all your medical records from that time, and if you could let me talk to your… wife and if you have the names of any of the women you slept with -”
“Yeah, I may not have shown the best judgment the last couple of months, but I’m pretty sure hookers don’t talk to lawyers about their clients.”
“Probably not,” Gemeiner admitted. “But I’m willing to see what a few bribes, at your expense of course, will get me.”
“Fine.”
“At this point, it’s worth a shot, House.”
He knew what that meant. “You don’t think I have a good case.”
The lawyer shook his head. “On the contrary, I think you’ve given me a lot to work with. A medical genius in constant pain falls in love only to be dumped. He’s on a downward spiral when he discovers cancer-like tumors in his leg, the very thing that is the source of his drug and mental problems. And in that time of need, he has to rely on the very woman who broke his heart. It’s perfect.”
The way he put it, it did sound tragic, sympathetic.
House didn’t think though that it made his behavior any less horrifying.
Nothing could take away the sting of that.
****************************
Not surprisingly he didn’t get bail. Fleeing the country tended to cast doubt on your ability to stick around town for a trial. Even if Gemeiner hadn’t warned him, this was a fact House was already well aware of.
Against his lawyer’s advice, he hadn’t started to take the Vicodin again. When jail was inevitable, he couldn’t risk the complications drugs would create. Of course, House had a hard time believing the police would have handed him pills any time he asked for them. It was possible that, even if he had followed Gemeiner’s orders, the cops would not. And as such, it was just as well to go through the majority of withdrawal over the weekend, while House waited to be arraigned. It wasn’t easy to do, not by any means. Every moment had been filled with the possibility of defeat. But House had resisted, the increase in pain somehow alleviating and distracting from the horror of his actions.
By the time he first appeared in court, he only had the slightest bit of nausea and malaise left. Most of his symptoms gone, he was clear headed to take in with painful understanding what the district attorney was saying about him. As he was inundated with charges, House could only think that he was relieved Cuddy wasn’t there.
No one he knew was.
That fact wasn’t entirely pleasing. With all the careers he’d helped shape, part of him had maybe hoped that someone would view that as reason enough to show up in support. But then he remembered that he didn’t talk to the fellows that had come before Foreman, Chase, and Cameron anymore. Foreman had quit to escape him… only to be forced to rejoin the team by a world that believed he was already tainted from working with him. Chase had been fired and had chosen to rejoin… only to lose his wife. Cameron had quit and never looked back. The woman who had once wanted him wanted nothing to do with him or anyone who saw value in what he did.
Kutner and Amber were dead. Taub was probably too busy having an orgy with several women too gorgeous to be slumming it with him. Thirteen had gone to prison, and she, perhaps too much like him, knew that her probation would be questioned if she were to hang around with someone being charged with several crimes. And with Cuddy and Wilson hating him, there really wasn’t anyone to be there for him.
There was no one left to be his friend.
But that wasn’t entirely a sad fact either. At least this way, no one got to see him taken out of the courtroom in hand cuffs.
That was a small consolation, considering he was going straight from the courthouse to jail. Just because no one witnessed it didn’t mean they wouldn’t know eventually. And even if he could keep this turn of events to himself, that didn’t make being transported to jail any better.
The second he was pulled out of the police car and dragged into the building he would spend the next several months living, he understood:
Nothing could make this better.
That said, his entrance into the prison system was rather quiet. His lawyer had told him to behave, and House didn’t have any intention of creating any more problems for himself. But being processed early Monday morning, he didn’t even have a chance to fight the prisoners who had been convicted. From what House gathered, they were being kept in their cells while the new prisoners were brought into system and those in solitary got a chance to go down to breakfast.
As House’s brand new five pack of underwear and plastic watch (provided by Gemeiner and no one else) was checked for hidden items, he was surprised at how… quiet the building was. Sure, everywhere around him, there were conversations going on. Staff talking to one another, to prisoners, the din of other prisoners talking to one another in the distance - there was noise all around him. But it wasn’t like he imagined.
He thought there would be fights happening in every corner. TV had taught him not to drop the soap, to expect violence at all times and from all people. Maybe that would turn out to be true in the end, he thought grimly. For now though, things seemed calm.
After he changed into his orange jumpsuit, he was walked to his cell. The few belongings he was allowed to keep in his hands, he did his best to maintain his balance without his cane. Over time, he assumed it would become easier; he would learn where all the nooks were he could grab onto, where the cracks in the floor were. He would learn the perils around him, and he would eventually know to avoid them. In the meantime, he would have to shuffle about without it. Well, maybe “have to” was too strong a word. The guards had offered to let him keep it, but they cautioned against it. As the fat guard had told him, “Could become a weapon, you know?”
He decided to go without it. Like the Vicodin, it would be left behind.
Truthfully, it wasn’t like he would need it. The first few days, if there was one thing he figured out, it was that: there really wasn’t anything to do in jail. Most hours he was in his cell simply waiting for the next part of the day to begin. Outdoor activities excluded House on principle; basketball was a favorite among the inmates, but thanks to his leg, he couldn’t exactly play, now could he? In the evenings, other prisoners settled down to a game of cards, and he wouldn’t mind participating in that. But he always decided against it. Poker was a good way to get into a fight, and that was the last thing he needed.
Nights were punctuated by the sounds of scurrying rats and the occasional conversation between cellmates nearby, making it hard to sleep. And the early laundry service and wake up time left him constantly tired.
After a week, all House wanted to do was get out. He didn’t have a roommate just yet, a fact he hoped wouldn’t change while he was here. The other prisoners didn’t like him. He didn’t try to hang out with him, instead choosing to spend his time making his way through the limited selection of books in the library. He had a scar that somehow always earned him a few looks of disgusts, confusion, and who knew what else when he got out of the showers. So far no one had said anything to him - about his leg or otherwise. But the longer he stayed here, the more exhaustion wore down his self-control, the worse things would get.
He wasn’t learning much, reading the equivalent of an eight grade English class’s syllabus. But if he had picked up on one thing, it was that this precarious situation would change eventually.
And not for the better.
****************************
When they got off the plane, Cuddy didn’t consider returning to her mother’s. Rachel was inconsolable, crying so hard that she was beginning to retch from the strain, and Cuddy didn’t think that would be something her mother could tolerate. Better stated, she didn’t think she could handle the stress of her mother and her daughter - not after the plane ride she’d just taken.
Simply being in the same space as House left her shaken. This was a man she’d known for years, had dated for nearly twelve months. This was someone she was supposed to be able to trust, even if it would never be enough to sustain a relationship.
He was not supposed to be someone who made her feel like this.
Cuddy refused to admit that she was scared. She was upset, much more so because she now had to carry her screaming toddler through the airport. The second they were off the plane, she did her best to calm her daughter down. But Rachel didn’t respond to being bounced up and down in her mother’s arms, didn’t like being kissed, and didn’t believe Cuddy when she tried to tell her everything would be okay.
Exhausted from the flight and the barrage of emotions she felt from sitting next to House, she didn’t have the energy to try anything else. And instead of spending more time consoling Rachel, Cuddy made the undignified choice of hurrying to get her baggage and escape the airport. This was not how things were supposed to end. He wasn’t supposed to make her feel this awful, but Cuddy could see with startling clarity that this was now her life. Fear and anger, disgust and embarrassment had become part and parcel, and the screaming baby in her arms was just one more thing she would have to get used to.
Uncharacteristic for her, Rachel didn’t calm down in the car ride to the hotel nearest to the hospital. If anything being buckled in her car seat just made her angrier, more agitated. She kicked and screamed until she threw up all over herself and fell into despair.
Tears quickly rolled down her red cheeks, and Cuddy felt her own guilt kick her in the stomach.
If only she hadn’t gotten on that plane. If only she hadn’t complained about House being there. If only she hadn’t dated him at all, none of this would be happening.
House was more to blame, of course. He had made choices that she was now reeling to deal with, and the anger and sadness Rachel felt weren’t entirely the result of Cuddy’s choices. But at the end of the day, House wasn’t Rachel’s parent.
Cuddy was.
And it had been her responsibility all along to protect Rachel from this.
She’d known that at the start. Hadn’t that been why she’d been so reluctant to let House spend any time with Rachel? Because as much as she wanted to be with him, some part of her had intuitively understood that House had no business being around a child? Given what would happen months later, she had to think that those reservations had been a sign - which she had chosen to ignore in order to please him.
At that moment, it didn’t seem like enough to promise never to do it again. She’d done it once, and that was plenty. The ramifications of which were now all around her, screaming in the backseat.
Cuddy did her best to ignore the sound. It broke her heart to do so, but she had no other choice. Half-baked attempts to reassure her hadn’t worked so far. Rachel needed her full attention, and that meant Cuddy needed to get them into the hotel where, once alone, she could put all of her effort into making her daughter feel better.
By the time that happened though, Rachel had stopped crying on her own. She had come to the conclusion that no one was going to make console her, maybe even that nobody could do that. She was withdrawn, sullen.
For Cuddy, it was another mistake to add to a long list when it came to being a mother and one that she feared would not be so easy to rectify.
“Come on, honey,” she said softly, as soon as she’d managed to close the hotel room door behind her. Bewildered by her new surroundings, Rachel was too confused to fight being plucked up off her feet. Her gaze wandering as she tried to take in the hotel room, she barely listened to Cuddy when she told her, “Let’s go take a bath, okay?”
Rachel was quiet as she was carried into the bathroom, said nothing as Cuddy started to run the bath water.
“I know you love House very much,” Cuddy said, pulling Rachel’s t-shirt off. “I know you miss him.”
Rachel shook her head. As though she were embarrassed or thought her mother would disapprove, she didn’t want to admit what Cuddy could see obviously. “No.”
“It’s okay, Rachel.” Cuddy kissed her forehead before helping her out of the rest of her clothes. “He was your friend. He liked to play with you and let you watch TV you weren’t supposed to watch and gave you food you weren’t supposed to eat before dinner. Right?”
“Like cheese doodles.”
“Like that, yeah.” When she slipped her hand under the running water, the temperature had become too warm. Cuddy quickly pushed the lever to the right but warned Rachel anyway, “Don’t get in. It’s too hot right now.” Thankfully, Rachel didn’t try to disobey, allowing Cuddy to pull off her own clothing without having to suddenly grab Rachel.
When they’d settled into the bathtub together, Rachel on her lap, Cuddy felt comfortable enough to broach the topic once more. Her chin was nestled against Rachel’s wet hair, and Rachel was half-heartedly playing with the bar of soap. Although Cuddy didn’t exactly want to talk about House anymore, it was necessary. Rachel seemed okay now, but Cuddy couldn’t leave the conversation here. She needed Rachel to understand that, while it was all right for her to have formed an attachment to him, that was over.
“It’s okay if you were happy to see House, you know. He was nice to you on the plane, wasn’t he?”
Rachel nodded her head emphatically. “Uh huh.”
“Good.” It wasn’t. “But remember how I told you that we wouldn’t be seeing House for a while?”
This time the nod was reluctant. “Yes.”
“Well… that’s still true. He’s not going to be coming around and seeing us for a little bit.” Technically it would be more than “a little bit.” Cuddy was hoping that his absence would last the rest of her life. After what he did, eternity didn’t seem like enough time away from him. It would be too much for Rachel to hear that though, and so Cuddy tried to keep her explanation as simple as possible.
But her efforts didn’t pay off. Rachel looked up in confusion anyway. “But why?” she asked.
“Rachel….” Cuddy wasn’t sure how to explain it. “He did some very, very bad things, and he can’t….” She paused, not liking the way it sounded and tried again. “He’s really sick right now, and he has to get better before he can come over. The policemen today? Remember them?”
“Yes. They get bad guys,” Rachel said in explanation. Thankfully, she’d learned more in her few years of life than how to speak like a pirate.
Cuddy kissed her in praise. “That’s right. That’s exactly right, my smart little girl.”
That wasn’t what Rachel wanted to hear. Instantly she struggled to get away from her mother. “House isn’t bad.”
The knife twisted deeper at that moment. No matter what he had done, Cuddy would always have to protect his reputation in front of the only person who mattered to her. She would never be free to speak ill of him, never be able to indulge in her loathing. Because to do that would be to destroy Rachel’s faith in the world and in one of the people she trusted, loved, more than anything. And Cuddy couldn’t do that, which meant she would always have to be careful; she would always have to lie about what had happened, minimize what he had done.
He deserved all the hatred she could muster, but even now, even after all of this, he wouldn’t get it.
“No. He just made some mistakes, and he has to be sorry about that. But right now, he doesn’t want to admit that he did something bad.” That might not have been the truth. At this point, it was hard to say what was motivating House, and she was doing her best not to think of his thought process either way. She needed, however, to say something, and a lie was as good as whatever the truth might have been. “So until he admits that he wasn’t very nice, he can’t come around. Okay?”
Rachel shook her head. “But I want to see him.”
“I know, but that can’t happen right now.”
No child liked being told no, and Rachel was no exception to that rule. The idea of being kept away from House even temporarily was more than she could handle; she wanted things the way they had been for nearly a year. She wanted to be home, her mother to be happy, to have him in her life, and she couldn’t understand why none of those things were possible right now. Cuddy wouldn’t let her see enough of the truth for comprehension to even begin to happen. House being arrested in front of her was more than Rachel ever needed to witness, and for that reason, Cuddy was determined to keep her ignorant to the rest. On that she would remain firm.
That fact made clear, it instantly frustrated Rachel. “No!” she shouted, slapping the water surrounding them with one of her small hands.
Cuddy wasn’t sure what to say. They’d had this conversation before, right after they’d first run into House. She’d hoped that by reiterating that, while it was okay to miss House, he wasn’t going to be in their lives, Rachel would give up. The more Cuddy emphasized that he needed to go away for a little while, the more, she’d envisioned, Rachel would accept that fact. Instead the opposite seemed to be true. Bringing him up only made Rachel more upset. Explanations served to make her want him more, and while Cuddy didn’t relish the idea of silence, maybe it was better to not talk about it again.
“Shh…. It’s all right. Calm down,” she said in a soothing voice. “Maybe….” She licked her lips, as if trying to make the lie come out easier. “Maybe we can see him sometime. But right now, it’s just going to be you and me, and… and we’ll have a lot of fun, all right?”
Rachel’s tantrum went on hold. Her body remained tense against Cuddy’s, making it clear that, with one wrong word, the kicking and crying would start up again. Cuddy chose her words carefully.
“I know you miss him. I… I-I do too. But we can still have fun together, just the two of us. We had fun on the beach together, didn’t we?”
Rachel nodded her head slowly. “I like to swim.”
“I know you do. And we can still do fun things by ourselves. I don’t know if you know this,” Cuddy said conspiratorially. “But I’ve heard this hotel likes to give ice cream sundaes to good little girls.”
It was a bribe, yes. It was a distraction, of course. It was also an effective way of getting Rachel’s attentions away from House.
Cuddy knew that this wasn’t the healthiest way to go about things. She didn’t intend to fill House’s place with food, and she didn’t want Rachel to grow up thinking differently. But for right now, for this second, she wasn’t above this particular tactic. If a little ice cream calmed Rachel down and kept her mind off of House long enough for her to forget him, Cuddy had no problem with that.
Rachel didn’t have a problem with it either. “I like ice cream,” she said with a smile.
“I know. You want a sundae after we get out?” Rachel nodded her head. “Okay. We’ll do that.”
“Yay!”
Cuddy didn’t feel good about successfully distracting her daughter. But it was necessary, she told herself. Anything to keep Rachel’s mind off of seeing the closest thing she’d had to a father arrested was acceptable for the time being. And if Cuddy had to spoil her for a little bit, she could deal with that. It would only be temporary anyway.
Naturally though that didn’t stop her from resenting House for creating this situation. She did her best to keep the feeling hidden from Rachel, but inside the emotion churned hotly. Even when he was in jail (she assumed he was there), he was still interfering with her life. He was still making things worse for her.
When she’d broken up with him, she’d never thought….
Understanding interrupted the sentence, because she realized then how off track things had become. Forget when she’d dumped him; when she’d started to date him, she’d never believed this would happen, that he could be capable of doing any of this.
Was that a result of naïveté, she wondered, or had she drawn it out of him? It wouldn’t have been intentional, but had she somehow made him this way? Was she being punished for her ignorance or because she had taken a fragile man and broken him?
Whatever the case, she was being penalized for something.
The cops had taken him away, but thanks to Rachel, he was no longer the only one imprisoned by his behavior.
Cuddy glanced down at her daughter. With a forced smile, she asked, “How about we wash your hair?”
****************************
She couldn’t sleep. The bed beneath her was soft, the covers warm against her skin, which was perfect given the cool temperature the room was currently set at. Rachel had gone down easily after running around the place for over an hour in a sugar-induced haze. After chasing after her and playing with her, Cuddy thought that sleep should have come to her just as quickly.
It didn’t. Although Rachel hadn’t mentioned House once, Cuddy’s mind seemed determined to stick to that topic anyway.
Maybe that was to be expected. The more she didn’t want to think about him in the past, the more she usually did. He had a way of lingering when she least wanted him to. After she saw him today, why wouldn’t she think about him?
She wondered where he was. In jail probably, hopefully, she guessed, but in the dark of her nice hotel room, she found herself thinking about how his evening had turned out. Was he lying on a metal cot somewhere? Confessing to his crime?
On the other hand, she’d ended up in a beautiful penthouse, an impractical choice to be sure, but just what she needed after the day she’d had. Well, that wasn’t exactly the truth. What she wanted was to be in her home, in her bed. Obviously that wasn’t an option. Trying to explain to her mother or her sister why she’d returned so early from her trip wasn’t appealing; living through that plane ride had been enough for Cuddy. And since she didn’t have any friends she could stay with, a hotel was her only option.
The penthouse was a good choice for the time being. There was a separate room she could put Rachel in, giving Cuddy the smallest bit of privacy. There was a kitchen she could cook in, a beautiful view. It wasn’t where she wanted to be, but it was nice enough that she could handle living here until…
She didn’t know how to finish that sentence. Whether she moved back into her home or not, it would take a while before the house was livable again. Once more the comparison to House entered her mind: would he be in jail by then? On trial? Would he be free for his crimes and ready to harm her again?
Suddenly she didn’t want to move back into the place he’d destroyed. There were too many memories there - of him kissing her in the hallway when she’d lost Joy, him snuggling with her on the couch as they’d watched a movie, him making her breakfast and serving it to her in bed; he now tainted every room.
It killed her to think that she would have to move permanently because of him. She had nurtured her home from its leaky roof to the rotting wood on the porch in the back. She had painted every wall, chosen every inch of décor. Nothing had been left to someone else’s taste. It was a testament to who she had been when she’d first come to live there. It was a shrine to who she was now.
She had become a mother in that house.
But all of that seemed overshadowed by someone who wasn’t worthy of any place in her mind.
She hated that she was wasting time thinking about him, about what he had done. He’d destroyed her home and walked away as though nothing had happened. He’d gone straight to Fiji like what he’d needed was some leisure after he’d worked so hard to screw up his own life and then her own. At no point had thoughts of her entered his mind; his behavior was proof enough of that. And knowing that, she felt that she should have been able to do the same right back to him. If he didn’t care about her, she shouldn’t have cared about him. If he couldn’t spare a single thought for her, there was something wrong with her if she couldn’t do the same in return.
But in the end, the more she wanted to think of something else, the less she seemed to be able to. Rage towards her mind did little to stop the thought process she was caught in. As the night passed, she thought only of what he had done, what he was now doing, and how she was supposed to continue her life after all of it. The sounds of her home being destroyed, the shock at seeing him exit the car - and then not being shocked at all - it played over and over in her head. The moment repeating until tears stung her eyes, she understood that she could not go back there.
She couldn’t live there ever again. Although that house would always mean something to her, Cuddy understood that she would be trapped by the memories, reminded of the fear she’d felt and the disgust that still lingered. If she wanted Rachel to move on, Cuddy knew that that started with her. She had to move on first.
For her own sanity, she would buy a new house, she decided in the dark, nodding her head with a firmness no one could see. It would be difficult enough to go on. She’d trusted him; she’d thought he was someone who would never hurt her like this. To be wrong about that meant… she could be wrong about so many things. Untangling wrong perceptions from the right ones would be hard enough without the constant reminder of the one time she’d failed spectacularly. She wouldn’t subject herself to living there anymore, no matter how much she loved that house.
She just hoped she wouldn’t have to make the same choice when it came to her job. Because if she could no longer work in the hospital, where she had spent years with House, she would know then:
He had truly destroyed everything in her life.
Continue on to the next chapter
Author: Duckie Nicks
Rating: NC-17 for sex
Characters: House, Cuddy, Rachel Cuddy, Wilson, Arlene, Julia, etc.
Author's Note: Since this piece is set post "Moving On," there are spoilers for that episode. Also please note that, while I plan on making this House/Cuddy, it's not going to be a quick thing. Given what House has done, it will take a while to work through all of those issues. If you're looking for an easy happy ending, this isn't the piece for you. Some chapters are split for length. These next few chapters were written for harvesttime88 for the help_lisa auction.
Warning: This fic also contains sex. If that bothers you, don't read.
Summary: After House crashes his car through Cuddy's home, both strive to rebuild their lives and deal with the consequences of their broken relationship.
Previous Chapters: Chapter 1, Chapter 2 (Part 1), Chapter 2 (Part 2)
Disclaimer: The show is not mine.
Nails scraped at the remnants of ink on the pads of his fingers. In the silence of his holding cell, there was nothing to do but focus on the marks of accusation. Nearly scratching at himself, he wasn’t delusional enough to think that clean fingers would make anything, much less everything, all better. Escaping the reality of what he’d done was impossible; being in jail was proof of that.
He wasn’t going to get out of this.
However frequently and willingly Cuddy had forgiven him in the past, that wasn’t going to apply here. She’d pressed charges. She’d watched him be arrested. She’d probably cared that he was being taken away in handcuffs in front of Rachel. But that hadn’t been enough to have her intervening on his behalf. House didn’t blame her for that; he just knew after it had happened that, if she hadn’t interfered then, she wasn’t ever going to.
She had said goodbye to him for good.
He’d already known that, truthfully. After he’d driven his car through her home, it had been nothing more than wishful thinking to think that forgiveness could ever be on the table. She was so pissed that on some level, he knew this was it for them. It had to be. But when the handcuffs had been placed on his wrists, he had hoped - stupid as it was - that she would change her mind, that some part of their bond would reach her and make her put a stop to this.
No, he didn’t deserve it. He hadn’t earned anything from her with this, and there hadn’t been a second where he thought he had. He’d just… wanted it. In spite of everything he had done, part of him had clung to the hope that things weren’t really as bad as they seemed.
Now it was clear things were worse than he could ever imagine.
The police had hauled him off the plane with a swiftness that made his leg sting and a paradoxical laziness that made Rachel’s full meltdown something he’d been unable to miss. He’d done his best not to look back, not to react when he’d heard her screaming his name. The way she’d cried, she’d believed he had the power to make all of it go away - as though if she’d just shouted loud enough, he would stop walking, and the police would disappear, and it would be over. He guessed he’d hoped the same thing at the time. But knowing that he would never be the one in control of this, he’d had no choice but to keep walking - to not look back.
Of course, when he thought about what had happened, House didn’t believe he’d have ever had the nerve to turn around. To do that would have been to face what he’d done, to see in Rachel’s eyes the full breadth of his actions and the horror contained in them. He hadn’t had the courage then.
And he definitely didn’t have it now.
When the police had first brought him to the station, he’d spoken few words: his name, his address, an explanation for the Vicodin he kept in his pocket. He had not talked about what he’d done. He couldn’t, and the second they’d wanted to press him for a confession, he had, instead, asked for his lawyer, the one Cuddy had found for him all those years ago.
The request left House feeling seedy, every bit the criminal he was. It wasn’t enough to destroy his girlfriend’s home and run away. He’d come back, but he was no more willing to accept the consequences of his actions. His feet couldn’t take him far, not while he was in this cell, but mentally, he had yet to stop distancing himself from… that moment in time. If he could accept that Cuddy hated him, that was one thing. Reluctant though he was to admit that he'd completely and permanently ruined that relationship, he wouldn't deny the obvious, not even if it meant making himself feel better. But to embrace jail? That was something else entirely. At least, it was right now.
It was too much. To be with her one moment and then tossed out of her life, to see the light at the end of the tunnel and then, with one foot on the peddle, be driven further into the darkness, to see her again and then be arrested... he didn't know how to reconcile all of those thoughts and events in his mind. And until he knew exactly what it was he wanted to do, he would buy time by asking for a lawyer. In his opinion, it was better to take that precaution now than to mistakenly confess to everything and regret it later.
Unfortunately Gemeiner wouldn't come to talk to him until the morning. By the time House had been processed, it was late, his one phone call coming after they’d let him sit in a holding cell for a while. And then when House had finally gotten in contact with his lawyer, he'd learned that the attorney was currently vacationing in the Adirondacks, which was several hours away from Princeton. Gemeiner had promised to leave right away, but even if he’d started driving the second he’d picked up the phone, it would still be a long while before House ever saw him.
Truth be told, he wasn’t sure that mattered. He didn’t need his lawyer here to explain that he would be denied bail. He had no job now; well, technically he did, but that would be a mere formality at this point. Cuddy would have that taken care of by morning… if she hadn’t already. His best friend and ex were going to testify against him, meaning House had no ties to the community - something that Law And Order said was important. He hadn’t fled the country, but he had… left it, and that would make it difficult to get anyone to believe he would stick around like a good little boy for trial. Gemeiner, having gotten House out of the whole Tritter debacle, was a talented attorney, but even he couldn’t save House now.
Maybe not ever. Because even if a jury found him not guilty or the police dropped the charges, both possibilities nothing more than a long shot as it were, House would have no way of rebuilding his life. Wilson and Cuddy hated him. The only people who had ever mattered were now estranged from him. And given that, how could he ever hope to make a life for himself again? He would have no job, no references, no friends - nothing. And if he went to jail, he had even less to look forward to when he got out.
If he got out, House corrected mentally. He was an addict, in constant pain. He would need Vicodin, and how long would it be before the other inmates found out? Of course, he would be a target no matter what. His personality ensured that. The fact that he had access to drugs would just make things worse for him. And frankly from his perspective, short of being a child molester, he couldn’t have faced worse odds. His future couldn’t be bleaker, and a lawyer wouldn’t necessarily change that.
House supposed if he wanted his situation to improve, he would need to start making adjustments now.
And the first thing that would have to go?
His Vicodin.
That was the bitterest detail of all - that he should have to deny himself what he needed most, that, in a time where he felt nothing but pain, he had to willingly accept more.
He deserved it. After what he did to Cuddy, he had more than earned the cramps, the pain, which would be dulled no longer, the withdrawal. This was the least he could do.
But by the same token… he had already suffered. His life since the infarction had been a testament to it, every moment punctuated, dictated, created by pain. Yes, he used Vicodin. Yes, he was an addict. None of that could erase the missing part of his leg, the common source of agony that was so excruciating he would prefer death. Quitting Vicodin had been to spare his mind, the only thing he had in the world worth anything to anyone. He hadn’t done it, because he believed he could live without it. On the contrary, life without Vicodin had been, at times, worse than anything he could imagine. There had been moments when the medicine he allowed himself to take wasn’t enough, when he had to lie to himself and to others about how okay he was without the drug he’d relied on time and time again.
Then he’d started to date Cuddy. He had in his life the woman he wanted more than anything. And for a brief moment, he thought - he truly believed - things might be okay. He might be able to get used to being in her home with her daughter; he could grow to love the little girl and open himself up to her. With Cuddy, he could have a life outside of work, be appreciated for something other than his valuable mind.
But that relationship had given life to more pain for him to work through. There was the fear of failure, her mother’s sickness, and then finally, what he thought was the last blow, Cuddy’s illness. It had been too much for him. That sounded like a cop out, but that was how he felt anyway. He’d needed someone or something to make Cuddy having cancer okay. But there was nothing in the world that would make that all right. If she were so sick she could die, nothing else mattered. Nothing could cheer him up, he thought with a scowl.
Everyone had told him to go to her. Rationally he’d understood that they were right. She needed him there; that was what was important. But he hadn’t been able to sit with her when she might be sick. He just couldn’t do it. He’d needed to be able to look her in the eyes and exude the strength she needed, the strength he ultimately didn’t have. How was he supposed to comfort her when her illness would destroy him just as quickly as it killed her? How could he be of any use to her then?
He’d taken the Vicodin to numb him to reality. She’d accused him of refusing to share her pain, but the truth had been that that had been precisely what he’d been trying to overcome by taking the pills. He’d wanted to be strong enough to be there for her, to hold her when she needed him, to lie and tell her she was going to be fine if it came to that. He’d screwed up, but all he’d ever wanted was to do the right thing. The one time he’d wanted to be as selfless as possible, he’d found himself being punished for it.
And then to look at her every day?
To watch her move on or at least try to?
That had been more than he could bear.
It was still more than he could bear.
She was hurt now, but she would move on. Her life would eventually get better. His, on the other hand, was over, no matter what happened at trial. His life would simply diminish until he died.
And that would happen, first under the delirium of withdrawal, and then with a mind sober enough to notice things getting worse each and every step of the way.
****************************
Uncontrollably he shook in the metal seat. The cheap aluminum chair felt cold against his clammy skin, and his teeth chattered loudly. Sweat made him shift about; his thigh made him regret the movement. And it was only through sheer willpower that House didn’t scream out loud for the Vicodin he wanted.
Across from him was Gemeiner who was reading the police report in jeans, sneakers, and a polo shirt. He’d driven all night to get here, and his face was a monument to the exhaustion he must have felt. Eyes tiredly scanning the folder in front of him, his gaze slowly went from curiosity to dread.
House didn’t like seeing his assumed inevitable imprisonment confirmed in his representation’s eyes. “Is this the part where you ask me if I did it?” he asked with bitterness.
Gemeiner read off, “Burglary in the second degree. Harassment. Five counts of aggravated assault. Criminal mischief. Criminal trespass. Resisting arrest, and obstruction of justice. I’ve been told they’re considering throwing in reckless driving and a few other charges as well, so they can maximize the amount of time you’re in prison. You did it, or someone really has it out for you,” he said matter of factly. “Either way, we’ve got too much work to do for me to even consider whether or not you’re guilty.”
Hearing the charges listed made House’s stomach do somersaults. He wanted to believe it was just the withdrawal making him feel like shit. But the fact was having his misdeeds named and categorized was terrifying. He knew what he’d done was wrong, evil, but in his head, the act didn’t amount to what the district attorney was leaning towards. He’d been violent and selfish but more importantly completely out of his mind with jealousy and betrayal. He had been upset. But the long list of crimes Gemeiner was reading made it sound like he had no humanity at all.
And then, as sweat dripped into House’s eyes, he realized: he didn’t have any. He did all of those things that he was being accused of. He was guilty. It didn’t matter what the crimes were named. He had done them. And if he could do that, to the woman he loved no less, there was no goodness left to be found in him.
“Now,” Gemeiner interrupted. “You spent some time in a psychiatric hospital. Maybe we can use that.” He looked at House pointedly. “You’ve obviously decided to start using Vicodin again.”
“Trying to quit,” House said with a bite.
His lawyer shook his head. “Don’t do that. If we’re going for a Vicodin defense, I need you to seem like you need the pills to function.”
“I do.”
“Yeah, well, that’s not how it’s going to look if you voluntarily stop taking the pills.”
“If I don’t stop taking the Vicodin, prison isn’t exactly going to be fun, you know?”
“The point is to avoid that, House. On the other hand, I can work with you quitting. It’ll make you look less like an addict though. That won’t work in our favor.”
House didn’t think anything would work in his favor. Whether he was crazy or “just” a garden-variety drug addict, there wasn’t anything being said so far that suggested Gemeiner had a plan that would succeed in keeping him out of jail.
Gemeiner somehow comprehended that House’s thoughts had turned dark. “I won’t lie to you: this is going to be a tough case to win. You’re accused of trying to cause grievous harm to five different people, one of whom you never met. The most important people involved, of course, are your best friend, the award-winning oncologist, and your ex-girlfriend, your boss and a single mother who, if I remember correctly is quite beautiful.” House glowered at the description. “A jury will eat that crap up. Especially if you’re still detoxing then. Even more so if you run your mouth when you’re not supposed to.”
“Is this leading to something, or am I just paying you to tell me I’m screwed?”
Gemeiner got straight to the point. “When it’s you and me, you can say whatever you want. In front of the cops, you say nothing. In the courtroom, you say nothing. You look serious, concerned, but you don’t ever look angry. You give nothing away even if that’s how you feel. You understand?”
“Yeah.” House did. Given the position he was in, it was clear that he could no longer trust himself where Cuddy was concerned. Maybe he’d initially thought differently, but as time wore on, the more obvious it was that he wasn’t in his right mind to trust his instincts. He couldn’t trust himself to open his mouth; the chance of destruction was too real.
“Remember that when you see her.”
He swallowed hard. He hadn’t thought about that happening. His mind had been so focused on going backwards that he hadn’t imagined what it might be like to see her in court, to hear her talk about all the things he had done to her.
Suddenly Gemeiner had him looking at the future interactions he would have with Cuddy, and things looked even more bleak than they had before.
“Yeah,” Gemeiner said, as if to underline his point. “Get used to that idea. Now I can’t say for certain that she’ll be there at your arraignment. I personally doubt it, but she might be there to show us she’s serious. She might feel that it’s necessary to be there to request a restraining order against you.”
House scoffed in disbelief. “A restraining order?” He understood why she would want him to stay away. He couldn’t understand why she would think a court document would be necessary when she would already be doing all she could to keep him in jail. “You think she’s really going to do that?”
“If they grant you bail, she might. But you’re not going to get bail.”
“I know.”
“Good. Because what I need you to understand is that you’re looking at years of imprisonment.”
House laughed shakily. “You think I don’t know what’s at stake? What I’ve already lost?”
“I’m not here for your self-pity. In fact, stop doing that right now. You may feel bad about what you did or didn’t do, and that’s fine. Whatever. But if you let that mess up with your head, you will jeopardize your case. And maybe you don’t care if you spend the rest of your life in prison - which is what we’re really talking about here: life. Second-degree aggravated assault is subject to five to ten years in prison. Multiply that by five, House. You’re a dead man. And even if I ignore the numbers, the fact is: boys like you don’t do well in prison. You cause trouble, get into fights. They might not sentence you to life, but someone like you could very well make it that way,” Gemeiner pointed out without any hint of sympathy in his voice. “Again, maybe you don’t care about that. But this is my case now, and you are not to lose it for me. Understand?”
House nodded his head. His mouth moved like he wanted to say something, but he didn’t have the words to describe what he was thinking, feeling. There were no words to voice just how much he wanted to close his eyes and wake up like nothing had happened. Part of him needed to believe that all of this was just a bad dream, that he couldn’t really be looking at that much prison time. But he didn’t have a way to ask for those reassurances - nor did he have anyone who would offer him them. So he stayed quiet.
“Good. It’s important you understand how bad this can get if you let your guilt get in the way. Now’s the part where I tell you that we can make a good case of this - if you help me.”
House wasn’t sure what to do. He was guilty. But he didn’t want to die in prison. He didn’t want to go the rest of his life without there being any possibility of making things right with Cuddy or Wilson. His career written off as a joke, his mother dying without a family member to visit her grave… those were things House couldn’t accept, no matter how awful he had been or was.
Reluctantly but with an odd sense of determination as well, he asked, “What do I need to do?”
Gemeiner smiled coldly. It wasn’t friendliness; it was pleasure that he had gotten the most difficult man he’d ever known to cooperate. “I need to know everything that led up to what allegedly happened. Anything you can think of about weeks or months, I need to hear about. The sooner I know what was going on, the sooner we can start to develop your argument.”
House wasn’t sure where to start. So much had happened these last few months that it was impossible to know what was relevant and what was better left unsaid. So he told all, starting with, “She dumped me. We were doing great, and then… she got sick. Blood in the urine - we thought she had cancer. I took Vicodin to deal with it, and she found out. And -”
“So you tried to kill your cancer-ridden -”
“She didn’t have cancer. She’s fine.” Gemeiner seemed relieved to hear that news. “But she was mad, so she broke up with me.”
“What happened after that?”
“I don’t know.” House’s head bobbled with indecision. He really couldn’t explain the depths to which he sunk after that. “I kept using. Spent several weeks with prostitutes. Jumped off a hotel balcony. Into a pool.” He added that part all the while knowing that that didn’t make the act any better. “I got married - to piss her off, I guess. Then there was this drug the hospital was testing on rodents. It was supposed to regenerate muscle, so I took it.” He scratched his head nervously. It made even less sense when he said it out loud. “The drug causes tumors, and as it turns out, that’s what happens in people as well.”
“So you had cancer,” Gemeiner said with a smile.
“Not exactly.”
“But that’s what people will think. Tumors are cancer. That’s good. We can use that.”
“I tried to remove the tumors myself. When that didn’t work, I had to call Cuddy. And….” House stopped talking when he noticed his lawyer was holding a hand in the air.
“That’s enough for me to start with. I’ll need access to all your medical records from that time, and if you could let me talk to your… wife and if you have the names of any of the women you slept with -”
“Yeah, I may not have shown the best judgment the last couple of months, but I’m pretty sure hookers don’t talk to lawyers about their clients.”
“Probably not,” Gemeiner admitted. “But I’m willing to see what a few bribes, at your expense of course, will get me.”
“Fine.”
“At this point, it’s worth a shot, House.”
He knew what that meant. “You don’t think I have a good case.”
The lawyer shook his head. “On the contrary, I think you’ve given me a lot to work with. A medical genius in constant pain falls in love only to be dumped. He’s on a downward spiral when he discovers cancer-like tumors in his leg, the very thing that is the source of his drug and mental problems. And in that time of need, he has to rely on the very woman who broke his heart. It’s perfect.”
The way he put it, it did sound tragic, sympathetic.
House didn’t think though that it made his behavior any less horrifying.
Nothing could take away the sting of that.
****************************
Not surprisingly he didn’t get bail. Fleeing the country tended to cast doubt on your ability to stick around town for a trial. Even if Gemeiner hadn’t warned him, this was a fact House was already well aware of.
Against his lawyer’s advice, he hadn’t started to take the Vicodin again. When jail was inevitable, he couldn’t risk the complications drugs would create. Of course, House had a hard time believing the police would have handed him pills any time he asked for them. It was possible that, even if he had followed Gemeiner’s orders, the cops would not. And as such, it was just as well to go through the majority of withdrawal over the weekend, while House waited to be arraigned. It wasn’t easy to do, not by any means. Every moment had been filled with the possibility of defeat. But House had resisted, the increase in pain somehow alleviating and distracting from the horror of his actions.
By the time he first appeared in court, he only had the slightest bit of nausea and malaise left. Most of his symptoms gone, he was clear headed to take in with painful understanding what the district attorney was saying about him. As he was inundated with charges, House could only think that he was relieved Cuddy wasn’t there.
No one he knew was.
That fact wasn’t entirely pleasing. With all the careers he’d helped shape, part of him had maybe hoped that someone would view that as reason enough to show up in support. But then he remembered that he didn’t talk to the fellows that had come before Foreman, Chase, and Cameron anymore. Foreman had quit to escape him… only to be forced to rejoin the team by a world that believed he was already tainted from working with him. Chase had been fired and had chosen to rejoin… only to lose his wife. Cameron had quit and never looked back. The woman who had once wanted him wanted nothing to do with him or anyone who saw value in what he did.
Kutner and Amber were dead. Taub was probably too busy having an orgy with several women too gorgeous to be slumming it with him. Thirteen had gone to prison, and she, perhaps too much like him, knew that her probation would be questioned if she were to hang around with someone being charged with several crimes. And with Cuddy and Wilson hating him, there really wasn’t anyone to be there for him.
There was no one left to be his friend.
But that wasn’t entirely a sad fact either. At least this way, no one got to see him taken out of the courtroom in hand cuffs.
That was a small consolation, considering he was going straight from the courthouse to jail. Just because no one witnessed it didn’t mean they wouldn’t know eventually. And even if he could keep this turn of events to himself, that didn’t make being transported to jail any better.
The second he was pulled out of the police car and dragged into the building he would spend the next several months living, he understood:
Nothing could make this better.
That said, his entrance into the prison system was rather quiet. His lawyer had told him to behave, and House didn’t have any intention of creating any more problems for himself. But being processed early Monday morning, he didn’t even have a chance to fight the prisoners who had been convicted. From what House gathered, they were being kept in their cells while the new prisoners were brought into system and those in solitary got a chance to go down to breakfast.
As House’s brand new five pack of underwear and plastic watch (provided by Gemeiner and no one else) was checked for hidden items, he was surprised at how… quiet the building was. Sure, everywhere around him, there were conversations going on. Staff talking to one another, to prisoners, the din of other prisoners talking to one another in the distance - there was noise all around him. But it wasn’t like he imagined.
He thought there would be fights happening in every corner. TV had taught him not to drop the soap, to expect violence at all times and from all people. Maybe that would turn out to be true in the end, he thought grimly. For now though, things seemed calm.
After he changed into his orange jumpsuit, he was walked to his cell. The few belongings he was allowed to keep in his hands, he did his best to maintain his balance without his cane. Over time, he assumed it would become easier; he would learn where all the nooks were he could grab onto, where the cracks in the floor were. He would learn the perils around him, and he would eventually know to avoid them. In the meantime, he would have to shuffle about without it. Well, maybe “have to” was too strong a word. The guards had offered to let him keep it, but they cautioned against it. As the fat guard had told him, “Could become a weapon, you know?”
He decided to go without it. Like the Vicodin, it would be left behind.
Truthfully, it wasn’t like he would need it. The first few days, if there was one thing he figured out, it was that: there really wasn’t anything to do in jail. Most hours he was in his cell simply waiting for the next part of the day to begin. Outdoor activities excluded House on principle; basketball was a favorite among the inmates, but thanks to his leg, he couldn’t exactly play, now could he? In the evenings, other prisoners settled down to a game of cards, and he wouldn’t mind participating in that. But he always decided against it. Poker was a good way to get into a fight, and that was the last thing he needed.
Nights were punctuated by the sounds of scurrying rats and the occasional conversation between cellmates nearby, making it hard to sleep. And the early laundry service and wake up time left him constantly tired.
After a week, all House wanted to do was get out. He didn’t have a roommate just yet, a fact he hoped wouldn’t change while he was here. The other prisoners didn’t like him. He didn’t try to hang out with him, instead choosing to spend his time making his way through the limited selection of books in the library. He had a scar that somehow always earned him a few looks of disgusts, confusion, and who knew what else when he got out of the showers. So far no one had said anything to him - about his leg or otherwise. But the longer he stayed here, the more exhaustion wore down his self-control, the worse things would get.
He wasn’t learning much, reading the equivalent of an eight grade English class’s syllabus. But if he had picked up on one thing, it was that this precarious situation would change eventually.
And not for the better.
****************************
When they got off the plane, Cuddy didn’t consider returning to her mother’s. Rachel was inconsolable, crying so hard that she was beginning to retch from the strain, and Cuddy didn’t think that would be something her mother could tolerate. Better stated, she didn’t think she could handle the stress of her mother and her daughter - not after the plane ride she’d just taken.
Simply being in the same space as House left her shaken. This was a man she’d known for years, had dated for nearly twelve months. This was someone she was supposed to be able to trust, even if it would never be enough to sustain a relationship.
He was not supposed to be someone who made her feel like this.
Cuddy refused to admit that she was scared. She was upset, much more so because she now had to carry her screaming toddler through the airport. The second they were off the plane, she did her best to calm her daughter down. But Rachel didn’t respond to being bounced up and down in her mother’s arms, didn’t like being kissed, and didn’t believe Cuddy when she tried to tell her everything would be okay.
Exhausted from the flight and the barrage of emotions she felt from sitting next to House, she didn’t have the energy to try anything else. And instead of spending more time consoling Rachel, Cuddy made the undignified choice of hurrying to get her baggage and escape the airport. This was not how things were supposed to end. He wasn’t supposed to make her feel this awful, but Cuddy could see with startling clarity that this was now her life. Fear and anger, disgust and embarrassment had become part and parcel, and the screaming baby in her arms was just one more thing she would have to get used to.
Uncharacteristic for her, Rachel didn’t calm down in the car ride to the hotel nearest to the hospital. If anything being buckled in her car seat just made her angrier, more agitated. She kicked and screamed until she threw up all over herself and fell into despair.
Tears quickly rolled down her red cheeks, and Cuddy felt her own guilt kick her in the stomach.
If only she hadn’t gotten on that plane. If only she hadn’t complained about House being there. If only she hadn’t dated him at all, none of this would be happening.
House was more to blame, of course. He had made choices that she was now reeling to deal with, and the anger and sadness Rachel felt weren’t entirely the result of Cuddy’s choices. But at the end of the day, House wasn’t Rachel’s parent.
Cuddy was.
And it had been her responsibility all along to protect Rachel from this.
She’d known that at the start. Hadn’t that been why she’d been so reluctant to let House spend any time with Rachel? Because as much as she wanted to be with him, some part of her had intuitively understood that House had no business being around a child? Given what would happen months later, she had to think that those reservations had been a sign - which she had chosen to ignore in order to please him.
At that moment, it didn’t seem like enough to promise never to do it again. She’d done it once, and that was plenty. The ramifications of which were now all around her, screaming in the backseat.
Cuddy did her best to ignore the sound. It broke her heart to do so, but she had no other choice. Half-baked attempts to reassure her hadn’t worked so far. Rachel needed her full attention, and that meant Cuddy needed to get them into the hotel where, once alone, she could put all of her effort into making her daughter feel better.
By the time that happened though, Rachel had stopped crying on her own. She had come to the conclusion that no one was going to make console her, maybe even that nobody could do that. She was withdrawn, sullen.
For Cuddy, it was another mistake to add to a long list when it came to being a mother and one that she feared would not be so easy to rectify.
“Come on, honey,” she said softly, as soon as she’d managed to close the hotel room door behind her. Bewildered by her new surroundings, Rachel was too confused to fight being plucked up off her feet. Her gaze wandering as she tried to take in the hotel room, she barely listened to Cuddy when she told her, “Let’s go take a bath, okay?”
Rachel was quiet as she was carried into the bathroom, said nothing as Cuddy started to run the bath water.
“I know you love House very much,” Cuddy said, pulling Rachel’s t-shirt off. “I know you miss him.”
Rachel shook her head. As though she were embarrassed or thought her mother would disapprove, she didn’t want to admit what Cuddy could see obviously. “No.”
“It’s okay, Rachel.” Cuddy kissed her forehead before helping her out of the rest of her clothes. “He was your friend. He liked to play with you and let you watch TV you weren’t supposed to watch and gave you food you weren’t supposed to eat before dinner. Right?”
“Like cheese doodles.”
“Like that, yeah.” When she slipped her hand under the running water, the temperature had become too warm. Cuddy quickly pushed the lever to the right but warned Rachel anyway, “Don’t get in. It’s too hot right now.” Thankfully, Rachel didn’t try to disobey, allowing Cuddy to pull off her own clothing without having to suddenly grab Rachel.
When they’d settled into the bathtub together, Rachel on her lap, Cuddy felt comfortable enough to broach the topic once more. Her chin was nestled against Rachel’s wet hair, and Rachel was half-heartedly playing with the bar of soap. Although Cuddy didn’t exactly want to talk about House anymore, it was necessary. Rachel seemed okay now, but Cuddy couldn’t leave the conversation here. She needed Rachel to understand that, while it was all right for her to have formed an attachment to him, that was over.
“It’s okay if you were happy to see House, you know. He was nice to you on the plane, wasn’t he?”
Rachel nodded her head emphatically. “Uh huh.”
“Good.” It wasn’t. “But remember how I told you that we wouldn’t be seeing House for a while?”
This time the nod was reluctant. “Yes.”
“Well… that’s still true. He’s not going to be coming around and seeing us for a little bit.” Technically it would be more than “a little bit.” Cuddy was hoping that his absence would last the rest of her life. After what he did, eternity didn’t seem like enough time away from him. It would be too much for Rachel to hear that though, and so Cuddy tried to keep her explanation as simple as possible.
But her efforts didn’t pay off. Rachel looked up in confusion anyway. “But why?” she asked.
“Rachel….” Cuddy wasn’t sure how to explain it. “He did some very, very bad things, and he can’t….” She paused, not liking the way it sounded and tried again. “He’s really sick right now, and he has to get better before he can come over. The policemen today? Remember them?”
“Yes. They get bad guys,” Rachel said in explanation. Thankfully, she’d learned more in her few years of life than how to speak like a pirate.
Cuddy kissed her in praise. “That’s right. That’s exactly right, my smart little girl.”
That wasn’t what Rachel wanted to hear. Instantly she struggled to get away from her mother. “House isn’t bad.”
The knife twisted deeper at that moment. No matter what he had done, Cuddy would always have to protect his reputation in front of the only person who mattered to her. She would never be free to speak ill of him, never be able to indulge in her loathing. Because to do that would be to destroy Rachel’s faith in the world and in one of the people she trusted, loved, more than anything. And Cuddy couldn’t do that, which meant she would always have to be careful; she would always have to lie about what had happened, minimize what he had done.
He deserved all the hatred she could muster, but even now, even after all of this, he wouldn’t get it.
“No. He just made some mistakes, and he has to be sorry about that. But right now, he doesn’t want to admit that he did something bad.” That might not have been the truth. At this point, it was hard to say what was motivating House, and she was doing her best not to think of his thought process either way. She needed, however, to say something, and a lie was as good as whatever the truth might have been. “So until he admits that he wasn’t very nice, he can’t come around. Okay?”
Rachel shook her head. “But I want to see him.”
“I know, but that can’t happen right now.”
No child liked being told no, and Rachel was no exception to that rule. The idea of being kept away from House even temporarily was more than she could handle; she wanted things the way they had been for nearly a year. She wanted to be home, her mother to be happy, to have him in her life, and she couldn’t understand why none of those things were possible right now. Cuddy wouldn’t let her see enough of the truth for comprehension to even begin to happen. House being arrested in front of her was more than Rachel ever needed to witness, and for that reason, Cuddy was determined to keep her ignorant to the rest. On that she would remain firm.
That fact made clear, it instantly frustrated Rachel. “No!” she shouted, slapping the water surrounding them with one of her small hands.
Cuddy wasn’t sure what to say. They’d had this conversation before, right after they’d first run into House. She’d hoped that by reiterating that, while it was okay to miss House, he wasn’t going to be in their lives, Rachel would give up. The more Cuddy emphasized that he needed to go away for a little while, the more, she’d envisioned, Rachel would accept that fact. Instead the opposite seemed to be true. Bringing him up only made Rachel more upset. Explanations served to make her want him more, and while Cuddy didn’t relish the idea of silence, maybe it was better to not talk about it again.
“Shh…. It’s all right. Calm down,” she said in a soothing voice. “Maybe….” She licked her lips, as if trying to make the lie come out easier. “Maybe we can see him sometime. But right now, it’s just going to be you and me, and… and we’ll have a lot of fun, all right?”
Rachel’s tantrum went on hold. Her body remained tense against Cuddy’s, making it clear that, with one wrong word, the kicking and crying would start up again. Cuddy chose her words carefully.
“I know you miss him. I… I-I do too. But we can still have fun together, just the two of us. We had fun on the beach together, didn’t we?”
Rachel nodded her head slowly. “I like to swim.”
“I know you do. And we can still do fun things by ourselves. I don’t know if you know this,” Cuddy said conspiratorially. “But I’ve heard this hotel likes to give ice cream sundaes to good little girls.”
It was a bribe, yes. It was a distraction, of course. It was also an effective way of getting Rachel’s attentions away from House.
Cuddy knew that this wasn’t the healthiest way to go about things. She didn’t intend to fill House’s place with food, and she didn’t want Rachel to grow up thinking differently. But for right now, for this second, she wasn’t above this particular tactic. If a little ice cream calmed Rachel down and kept her mind off of House long enough for her to forget him, Cuddy had no problem with that.
Rachel didn’t have a problem with it either. “I like ice cream,” she said with a smile.
“I know. You want a sundae after we get out?” Rachel nodded her head. “Okay. We’ll do that.”
“Yay!”
Cuddy didn’t feel good about successfully distracting her daughter. But it was necessary, she told herself. Anything to keep Rachel’s mind off of seeing the closest thing she’d had to a father arrested was acceptable for the time being. And if Cuddy had to spoil her for a little bit, she could deal with that. It would only be temporary anyway.
Naturally though that didn’t stop her from resenting House for creating this situation. She did her best to keep the feeling hidden from Rachel, but inside the emotion churned hotly. Even when he was in jail (she assumed he was there), he was still interfering with her life. He was still making things worse for her.
When she’d broken up with him, she’d never thought….
Understanding interrupted the sentence, because she realized then how off track things had become. Forget when she’d dumped him; when she’d started to date him, she’d never believed this would happen, that he could be capable of doing any of this.
Was that a result of naïveté, she wondered, or had she drawn it out of him? It wouldn’t have been intentional, but had she somehow made him this way? Was she being punished for her ignorance or because she had taken a fragile man and broken him?
Whatever the case, she was being penalized for something.
The cops had taken him away, but thanks to Rachel, he was no longer the only one imprisoned by his behavior.
Cuddy glanced down at her daughter. With a forced smile, she asked, “How about we wash your hair?”
****************************
She couldn’t sleep. The bed beneath her was soft, the covers warm against her skin, which was perfect given the cool temperature the room was currently set at. Rachel had gone down easily after running around the place for over an hour in a sugar-induced haze. After chasing after her and playing with her, Cuddy thought that sleep should have come to her just as quickly.
It didn’t. Although Rachel hadn’t mentioned House once, Cuddy’s mind seemed determined to stick to that topic anyway.
Maybe that was to be expected. The more she didn’t want to think about him in the past, the more she usually did. He had a way of lingering when she least wanted him to. After she saw him today, why wouldn’t she think about him?
She wondered where he was. In jail probably, hopefully, she guessed, but in the dark of her nice hotel room, she found herself thinking about how his evening had turned out. Was he lying on a metal cot somewhere? Confessing to his crime?
On the other hand, she’d ended up in a beautiful penthouse, an impractical choice to be sure, but just what she needed after the day she’d had. Well, that wasn’t exactly the truth. What she wanted was to be in her home, in her bed. Obviously that wasn’t an option. Trying to explain to her mother or her sister why she’d returned so early from her trip wasn’t appealing; living through that plane ride had been enough for Cuddy. And since she didn’t have any friends she could stay with, a hotel was her only option.
The penthouse was a good choice for the time being. There was a separate room she could put Rachel in, giving Cuddy the smallest bit of privacy. There was a kitchen she could cook in, a beautiful view. It wasn’t where she wanted to be, but it was nice enough that she could handle living here until…
She didn’t know how to finish that sentence. Whether she moved back into her home or not, it would take a while before the house was livable again. Once more the comparison to House entered her mind: would he be in jail by then? On trial? Would he be free for his crimes and ready to harm her again?
Suddenly she didn’t want to move back into the place he’d destroyed. There were too many memories there - of him kissing her in the hallway when she’d lost Joy, him snuggling with her on the couch as they’d watched a movie, him making her breakfast and serving it to her in bed; he now tainted every room.
It killed her to think that she would have to move permanently because of him. She had nurtured her home from its leaky roof to the rotting wood on the porch in the back. She had painted every wall, chosen every inch of décor. Nothing had been left to someone else’s taste. It was a testament to who she had been when she’d first come to live there. It was a shrine to who she was now.
She had become a mother in that house.
But all of that seemed overshadowed by someone who wasn’t worthy of any place in her mind.
She hated that she was wasting time thinking about him, about what he had done. He’d destroyed her home and walked away as though nothing had happened. He’d gone straight to Fiji like what he’d needed was some leisure after he’d worked so hard to screw up his own life and then her own. At no point had thoughts of her entered his mind; his behavior was proof enough of that. And knowing that, she felt that she should have been able to do the same right back to him. If he didn’t care about her, she shouldn’t have cared about him. If he couldn’t spare a single thought for her, there was something wrong with her if she couldn’t do the same in return.
But in the end, the more she wanted to think of something else, the less she seemed to be able to. Rage towards her mind did little to stop the thought process she was caught in. As the night passed, she thought only of what he had done, what he was now doing, and how she was supposed to continue her life after all of it. The sounds of her home being destroyed, the shock at seeing him exit the car - and then not being shocked at all - it played over and over in her head. The moment repeating until tears stung her eyes, she understood that she could not go back there.
She couldn’t live there ever again. Although that house would always mean something to her, Cuddy understood that she would be trapped by the memories, reminded of the fear she’d felt and the disgust that still lingered. If she wanted Rachel to move on, Cuddy knew that that started with her. She had to move on first.
For her own sanity, she would buy a new house, she decided in the dark, nodding her head with a firmness no one could see. It would be difficult enough to go on. She’d trusted him; she’d thought he was someone who would never hurt her like this. To be wrong about that meant… she could be wrong about so many things. Untangling wrong perceptions from the right ones would be hard enough without the constant reminder of the one time she’d failed spectacularly. She wouldn’t subject herself to living there anymore, no matter how much she loved that house.
She just hoped she wouldn’t have to make the same choice when it came to her job. Because if she could no longer work in the hospital, where she had spent years with House, she would know then:
He had truly destroyed everything in her life.
Continue on to the next chapter