ficlet: Disquiet Probable teensy spoiler for season 8
Title: Disquiet
Characters: House, Blythe
Rating; PG
Words: 600+
Comment: Wilson is really p****d
“Why did you do it, Greg?” His mother’s eyes, troubled but full of genuine enquiry, stared into his. For a minute he could say nothing. Surprise at her being there was part of it but he was suddenly overwhelmed by the realisation that almost overnight, it seemed, she had become an old woman.
He was responsible for this.
She reached out and took his hands gently but firmly in her own. Deprived of physical contact for weeks, he tensed at her touch. “Why did you do it, Greg?” she repeated as if she were asking the rebellious child he once had been; still was, a part of him acknowledged.
“You know me, Mom.”
“Yes, I know what you’re capable of feeling -but the doing I thought you’d mastered, long ago.”
“After the old man beat it into me; yes, I thought so too. But I was wrong. All it took was one woman who said I’d always be the most amazing man she’d ever known and one vicodin taken in fear.”
“And disappointment and hurt and jealousy,” said Blythe.
“Nothing new there. Maybe to a greater degree. Yes, greater,” he admitted, to his mother’s ‘don’t try to kid me' expression.
“I felt, kind of normal, you know, for a while. Not that it’s normal exactly to be setting up some kind of a …family at my age with your boss and her adopted kid, but normal for me.”
“Oh Greg.”
“So I just let it all rip after she finished it. I warned her that I’d do horrible things and I did everything I could to prove to her how right she’d been to dump me.”
“Is that how Dominika got into the picture?”
“You know about her?”
“I know about everything.”
A wave of shame washed over him. Giving in to the urging of others to ‘let it all out and you’ll feel better’; this is where it had led him. Back to the infliction of pain and disappointment on others, back to the open demonstration of his deepest, most destructive feelings, so long fiercely guarded, to the whole damn world.
“How?”
“A House knocking down another house, even if it was in Princeton, is apparently newsworthy in Lexington. It’s not as if there is anything else going on in the world, after all,” said his mother drily. “Besides, James left a message on my phone, apologising for not calling earlier. He sounded reluctant, and distant. Just gave me the facts and told me where to find you.”
“I hurt him too.”
“Yes, I know. What are you going to do about it? You need him now more than ever.”
“I don’t know, Mom, I really don’t…” He felt despair and unaccustomed panic well up inside him. Moisture pricked his eyelids.
Somewhere, a bell rang shrilly and turning over uncomfortably, he woke to another day.
Five hundred miles away, Blythe lay awake as usual. It was one of the curses of old age, she thought, this inability to sleep the whole night through. Too much opportunity to think and to worry. She hadn’t heard from her son for months. She was hoping that his relationship with Lisa was the reason for his silence. James seemed to think things were going well when he last spoke to her. She didn’t like to call James; it seemed devious. And after all, he had never let her down.
She looked down at her ankles, swollen even after a night’s rest and wondered if she should ignore her practitioner and take the short flight. The very thought of the drive exhausted her. She’d risk it; her son, now, was all she had. John’s voice came to her, telling her to stop fussing. Greg was over fifty; he didn’t need her .She ignored it. Two years dead, all but, and still she sensed his jealousy.
It was just a feeling of disquiet.
Characters: House, Blythe
Rating; PG
Words: 600+
Comment: Wilson is really p****d
“Why did you do it, Greg?” His mother’s eyes, troubled but full of genuine enquiry, stared into his. For a minute he could say nothing. Surprise at her being there was part of it but he was suddenly overwhelmed by the realisation that almost overnight, it seemed, she had become an old woman.
He was responsible for this.
She reached out and took his hands gently but firmly in her own. Deprived of physical contact for weeks, he tensed at her touch. “Why did you do it, Greg?” she repeated as if she were asking the rebellious child he once had been; still was, a part of him acknowledged.
“You know me, Mom.”
“Yes, I know what you’re capable of feeling -but the doing I thought you’d mastered, long ago.”
“After the old man beat it into me; yes, I thought so too. But I was wrong. All it took was one woman who said I’d always be the most amazing man she’d ever known and one vicodin taken in fear.”
“And disappointment and hurt and jealousy,” said Blythe.
“Nothing new there. Maybe to a greater degree. Yes, greater,” he admitted, to his mother’s ‘don’t try to kid me' expression.
“I felt, kind of normal, you know, for a while. Not that it’s normal exactly to be setting up some kind of a …family at my age with your boss and her adopted kid, but normal for me.”
“Oh Greg.”
“So I just let it all rip after she finished it. I warned her that I’d do horrible things and I did everything I could to prove to her how right she’d been to dump me.”
“Is that how Dominika got into the picture?”
“You know about her?”
“I know about everything.”
A wave of shame washed over him. Giving in to the urging of others to ‘let it all out and you’ll feel better’; this is where it had led him. Back to the infliction of pain and disappointment on others, back to the open demonstration of his deepest, most destructive feelings, so long fiercely guarded, to the whole damn world.
“How?”
“A House knocking down another house, even if it was in Princeton, is apparently newsworthy in Lexington. It’s not as if there is anything else going on in the world, after all,” said his mother drily. “Besides, James left a message on my phone, apologising for not calling earlier. He sounded reluctant, and distant. Just gave me the facts and told me where to find you.”
“I hurt him too.”
“Yes, I know. What are you going to do about it? You need him now more than ever.”
“I don’t know, Mom, I really don’t…” He felt despair and unaccustomed panic well up inside him. Moisture pricked his eyelids.
Somewhere, a bell rang shrilly and turning over uncomfortably, he woke to another day.
Five hundred miles away, Blythe lay awake as usual. It was one of the curses of old age, she thought, this inability to sleep the whole night through. Too much opportunity to think and to worry. She hadn’t heard from her son for months. She was hoping that his relationship with Lisa was the reason for his silence. James seemed to think things were going well when he last spoke to her. She didn’t like to call James; it seemed devious. And after all, he had never let her down.
She looked down at her ankles, swollen even after a night’s rest and wondered if she should ignore her practitioner and take the short flight. The very thought of the drive exhausted her. She’d risk it; her son, now, was all she had. John’s voice came to her, telling her to stop fussing. Greg was over fifty; he didn’t need her .She ignored it. Two years dead, all but, and still she sensed his jealousy.
It was just a feeling of disquiet.