House: Parts of a declaration 2/3
Part II:
In between (remember) it’s this:
The weight of House drops and she takes advantage of the new space by spending more
on clothes and gaining precious pounds to fill them out. Her new life is shiny and bright and
nothing like the dark ghost she left in Princeton. When she doesn’t think about it at least,
because when she does - think about it - it doesn’t take long to recognize the ghost never
left her alone and she doesn’t want it to. No, not yet. When the divorce papers come she’s eating
a sandwich in her apartment on a Tuesday. It’s all very nice and civil, and she doesn’t even
have to see him to end their short chapters together. She dates. No one in the hospital; she’s
very strict about that. She goes for drinks and ends up nearly drunk in the seat of a strong
man’s car like when she was young. God, when she was still herself and not struck by some
reckless cane. They laugh and she feels herself begin to stitch up the seams. She fucks him
and the wound tears open so beautifully well,
raw and hot,
and it’s better like this again.
-
They’re in bed, finally, and he’s satiated and feeling like a king. He stares at the ceiling and
lets his hand tangle into the dark curls of her hair. She mumbles something dark in her sleep
and his lips smile at nothing in particular because it has become oddly comforting, having
her here and being the heart to his body. He has her, Cuddy. He has her and he has no
intention of letting go. But in the dark it’s easy to slide back into habits thought broken and
he flinches. Fuck Cameron and what she’d said.
For a while, things go well. Better than well. She holds him and kisses the back of his neck and
he holds the baby in his arms and doesn’t feel like smothering her with a pillow. They work,
amazingly. The drugs stay gone, and shit, it’s pain, godawful pain, but he doesn’t say anything
about it when she’s attempting to make dinner. He will hold onto normalcy with split nails and
bleeding skin. For Cuddy, he thinks, because being whole and unbroken for her is a hell of a lot
better than being fucked up. It has to be. The first huge fight is when she decides they need to find
a house. It’s one step too many and he may love her like crazy, but this is his home for christsakes
and maybe his love is not the kind of love meant for suburbs and picket fences. She storms out
and takes her baby with her. It’s no secret now she’s hers and not his. House throws a cup at
the refrigerator and when it breaks he smiles. The bitch was right. Oh, she was right.
-
Another year and now when she thinks about House she drinks up the power she felt that
night she left him writhing in agony. She hates him. She hates him like the good lord told
her not to when she was six and her father died and He became he. Goddamnit.
The good doesn’t seem to leave her system. She’s still in the ER and it’s still not enough
so she begins to help at the homeless shelter and volunteers at the nursing home where
she meets Walter and his faded wife Delilah. She’s paper ass thin and every time he touches
her another bit of color falls away. His reverence is touching and close to
brea king
a heart she is sure can’t take any more, but her tears when he talks about the love of his
life assure her, yes, her heart still breaks blood. When she heads home she laughs at how
much in common she has with a photograph. She’s washed out and falling at the corners
despite her attempts to keep it all the same. Maybe she’s trying too hard. The good used
to be easy, and now she’s forcing it to her breast so it doesn’t fly away and leave her where
it’s so tempting to keep crumbling to elements.
She’s leaving the El when she’s attacked. Not just mugged and beaten, but vigilantly
torn and shredded apart in the shadows of a closed for the evening dumpster. It stains the
back of her eyelids gold and fans the flame dying because the former slave had found the
love of his life. And she fights it, him, don’t think she doesn’t, but somewhere in the throes
of it, the pain turns to pleasure and it matches the dark her soul has taken on. The man
bloodies her face and throws her onto the ground before grabbing his belt and bleeding
her more. Hell, she doesn’t have much more left. Her throat is already swollen, her chords
bruised, and when he thrusts his dick into her mouth she immediately thinks to bite down.
He clicks the gun at her temple, and there’s no biting thoughts anymore. Or laughing. Lying
there, the snow underneath her and smothered red with her blood, she looks up into the
sky and sees no stars. Her breath rushes out, white into the night, and for the first time in
a very long time she thinks about crying. She doesn’t. Because life is a fucked up shitworld.
She gets
herself up.
-
He yells at her. And it feels damn good. It feels like the beast has been let loose from the
iron cage and the new space is freedom and muscles are stretched that haven’t been
used in decades. She’s speechless and his chest rises with deep breaths. It’s been a
while since he was able to do that. She watches him crack; he’s almost sorry. Because
it was never love, not the type he experienced once with Stacy and not the kind Cuddy
wanted to build her dreams on. It was close, so close to it, and he realizes he’s been a dick.
Not to her, no, not to her. Someone else.
It’s funny how he only gets his heart back when he’s alone for good.
-
The fucker shows up two months later. He’s burned, crispy, oh to a wonderful crisp.
She knows it’s him because both the incisors of his teeth are gold, so yellow, against
the back of her eyelids. Her body
aches, just the scars, and she feels them
light
up like fireworks in summer on her skin under her clothes. She offers to begin the
debridement, they’re understaffed of course, and they take her offer, because she’s
Dr. Cameron of course. Her hands shake as the adrenaline surges and it’s been a
long time since she felt like a fucking human being. She takes her time, and in
between her beginning and end, whispers into his ear that she’s going to screw his
shit up.
-
Time somehow pulls him apart mercifully. He starts to feel guilty about what he did to
Cameron and Chase, even admits it to Chase when they’re sitting in his office at the
end of a long case. They’re in the dark. Don’t ask why, and once the confession is out,
sinner to sinner, things remain quiet. Chase just looks at him, probably as surprised
as he is. They are more alike than not, and both realize it to different degrees. House
has created a mind, an absolutely wondrous mind that doesn’t think inside the lines
and screws the rules to get a diagnosis. Monkey see, monkey do. He is all of House’s
brilliance with a lesser amount of dark around his shoulders. Aussie says something
about not wanting her to see him turn into a monster, or to drag her down with him
because the last thing she needed was another House on her back. They share a look,
because that’s what they are these days: wary beasts. The moment Dibala went
flat
Chase sold his soul, and it’s not like he didn’t know. It’s not like he gave it a second
thought, because his mind was decided in a second, just like House’s would have been.
The crippled nods his head in agreement, wondering just how deep Chase’s scar
will run and whether the liquor in his glass will become his vicodin.
When House is alone, like he has become accustomed to being lately, he limps into the
conference room and stands at the desk stuffed into the corner. It’s not her desk. It never
was, but it has her memories stamped all over it. He begins to pile all the papers into a
stack and drops them onto the conference table until there is nothing left on that small
desk except for the computer and phone. Wilson comes in the next afternoon and raises
an absurd eyebrow toward the fellows. They roll their eyes. When he nags at House like the
wife he is, House shrugs a shoulder and says he needs an extra room waiting. Wilson has
no idea what it means, and it remains.
-
She cries. Yeah, she does.
-
The drugs have been back for a while now. Cuddy barely speaks to him. The kid doesn’t
remember
him. The last of the two ducklings are gone; two more are circling in. Wilson has a new
girlfriend. The world moves on without him, and he’s fine with that. Because he’s fucked
up everything. He’s fucked up her, and he knew it when he did it. He just didn’t think he’d
care this long down the line. She’d be happy, he knows,
to see him
now. Back where he was before she even came along, maybe even worse. She’d split him
open even more and just because he’d have to, he’d sew her up a little more too.
When he gets the email, he’s speechless.
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