Father son: part 1
Father son
Title: Father son
Author: snark_b8it
Rating: PG - 13
Character/Paring: Gen
Summary: John House reflects on his son's life, when unfortunate circumstances force them together.
Set before season 5, so it’s AU now.
Father son
John House stood in the lobby of St. Mary's Hospice, caught up in a thousand insignificant thoughts that came and went, floating into his consciousness before melting away again like the snowflakes outside as they hit the ground.
He stared up at the night sky and slowly let go of a sigh he didn’t realize he’d been holding in.
He hadn’t seen snow like this in a long time; thick flakes hanging on the air in every direction. Earlier in the day, as he’d traveled back here after a quick trip home to shower, New York had been covered in a blanket of white. John decided it looked best that way.
He was generally a man of few regrets, but tonight, thoughts of his past, present and potential future were weighing heavy on his mind. For the first time in as long as he could remember, he felt utterly lost.
The taste of stale coffee clung to the back of his throat and the unmistakable whiff of industrial antiseptic was clawing at his sense of smell. The same scent seemed to follow him wherever he went in the building. The simple fact was John didn’t like hospitals; he’d been in too many and seen some of the most of uncomfortable sights of his life inside their walls. But this place - a hospice - a hospital people didn’t come home from, was even worse.
Aesthetically, they were comfier than hospitals. The walls were decorated in magnolia rather than bright white, the seats in the lobby were that little bit plusher; the art on the walls was soothing, and peaceful. And then there was the staff, who were a collection of nurses and caregivers going on saints; they were patient, professional and caring, simply outstanding human beings.
But that wasn’t all John saw. Everything here was shaded slightly darker. People didn’t speak, they whispered. None of the residents were going home and all of the visitors were about to lose someone. The place had been squeezed dry of optimism; there was no chance that a loved one could get better. The halls and rooms were filled with resignation.
No one here was waiting on the uncertain words of a doctor to give them back their life, one that had been happily meandering along until an unforeseen catastrophe had rail-roaded everything just after lunch on an boring Wednesday afternoon.
And John was one of them; he was drifting in acquiescence, slightly unsure how to tell one day from the next because time had become an insignificant feature in his life. Day and night, eating and sleeping, none of that mattered. John was here, at this place, waiting for his wife to die.
~
John turned away from the front entrance; finally the icy draught that had been hitting him every time someone went through the automatic doors, had won out. He walked back - hands deep in his pockets - to the reception area. There were five or six blue sofas flush against the wall. He found the ghost of a smile for the nurse behind the reception desk and sat down in one of the chairs. His wife had been admitted two days ago. She’d been sick for about half a year now: cancer. Having the disease in their lives had become almost normal to them. They’d been coping, they had adapted. But the end stages of her illness had proved too much for him, for both of them. It had been time to get some help. She’d made a decision and asked him to call here.
John was exhausted; he wasn’t sleeping, didn’t dare to in case Blythe needed anything, or in case something happened. The only something that could happen now…well he needed to be there when it did.
The nurse at the desk was in her mid forties; the patient, pleasant smile on her face was almost a comfort to him. Then, to his complete surprise, his son arrived.
Greg limped slowly through the automatic doors and looked around briefly before spying his father. John had only called him the night before. He’d been angry on the phone, deeply incensed that no one had told him about his mother’s illness until now. But she hadn’t wanted him to know, and as far as John was concerned, his wife’s wishes were more important than Greg’s feelings right now.
Greg had a thick black over coat pulled tight around him; standing just inside the doors, he held his father’s stare for a moment before giving up the silent tug of war and letting his gaze fall to the floor.
“She didn’t want to upset you,” John said pre-emptively when Greg reached him. His son, as usual, looked pissed.
“Right. You didn’t want to bother the only doctor in the family, that makes sense,” he shot back, sarcastically.
“You’re her son, not her doctor,” John replied, tiredly.
He could see a familiar look in his son’s eyes: he was ready for a fight, if need be, but he wasn’t going to get it from him, not today. John just didn’t have the energy for it, nor the will or the fortitude. His wife was dying, and he couldn’t deal with his son’s misery today as well.
“You’ve had a rough year, she didn’t want to trouble you with her problems,” he offered peaceably.
His son had been shot in the stomach at the start of the summer; a lunatic had somehow managed to get a gun into the hospital he worked at. It had happened around the time they’d found out about her condition. Greg had spent the summer recovering from his wounds. Blythe had made John swear not to say a thing until he was well enough to deal with it. Telling him had slowly slipped down the list of things to do, becoming harder and harder to do the longer they put it off.
“Have they caught the shooter yet?” John asked him. He didn’t like the idea that someone who’d commited such a violent crime against his son was still out there, roaming the same streets.
Greg angled his features away from him; he had never asked why they’d not visited him when it had happened. They’d called, every day, but Blythe hadn’t been able to travel and Greg had never questioned their absence. John wondered if his son had ever thought about why, but he’d never bothered to ask. So it had never come up.
“No, and don’t change the subject. She’s been ill for six months, dad,” Greg said, before taking a deep breath, his jaw clenched. “When were you going to tell me?”
A weak, “Soon,” was all John could find to say.
“If I’d known earlier, maybe I could have…”
John interrupted him, “Cured cancer?”
Greg’s expression pulled tight with frustration then he glanced away, “Someone should have told me before now, at least,” he finished quietly, before sitting in the seat beside his father.
John sat up a little; Blythe’s room was just down the hall, but if there was going to be any trouble with Greg, it was going to happen out here, out of the way before he took him in to see her.
“I wasn’t sure you’d come,” he said quietly.
He detected a quick snatch of hurt appear in Greg’s expression, but it darted out again, quicker than the shadow of a minnow on the floor of a pond.
“Don’t pretend I don’t have anything to base that assumption on, you’ve missed that many family occasions over the years. Weddings, funerals, I honestly didn’t know if you had the time.”
John regretted his tone and the words instantly; he wasn’t trying to hurt him. He never planned to lecture him, but his words were true, Greg hadn’t been a part of the family for a long time, not really.
He watched him droop in his seat a little; it reminded John of a younger version of his son, when he’d done something wrong as a boy that he wouldn’t give up. But then Greg’s hand came up and he rubbed his right thigh a few times, before massaging the remaining muscle in his leg. It was the action of an old man and it brushed any thought of youth from John’s mind.
His son looked tired, and he looked angry. His features were always so cross. John tried to remember the last time he’d seen him with a smile on his face, or the last time he’d seemed happy, it troubled him that he couldn’t really recall one. It bothered him that an expression of happiness on Greg’s face would be somewhat out of the ordinary to see.
He often wondered how much energy his son used up every day maintaining his default position of angry resistance. Lord knew, it tired John out just being around him.
“She’s asleep, you’re going to have to wait until she wakes up, and I don’t want you giving her any lectures about why she didn’t call you. She had your best interests at heart.”
Greg, eyes fixed ahead, tapped his walking cane against the floor. He looked annoyed - with who knew what? John, the world, or maybe the fact that his mother was dying, and he could do nothing about it, not now.
John looked at the cane: if Greg’s body language didn’t make him seem older than his years, that thing did. He often wondered if his son really needed it, maybe if he’d tried physical therapy he’d have been able to build up the remaining muscle, lessen the ache there. If it had been him, he wouldn’t have just given up the way his son had, but now really wasn’t the right time to discuss any of that.
Greg stopped tapping the cane on the floor and observed his father; John brushed a half dozen minor thoughts out of his mind so he could give him his full attention.
“I can’t believe you didn’t mention this to me until now,” he muttered again.
John had wanted to call Greg the minute his wife had told him what the oncologist had found. As soon as she’d explained about the squamous cell carcinomas in her bladder, the stage it was at, and the low survival rate, he’d wanted to tell his son. But Blythe had made him promise not to.
“I decided not to tell you because you were sick yourself. We thought it was for the best.”
“Wilson is the top oncologist in New Jersey. I could have got him to look at her. He would have done a thorough examination, and exhausted all the available options.”
“And he still wouldn’t have been able to cure her,” John said sadly. He shifted to better look at his son, and dampened his tone. “It’s late stage bladder cancer Greg, you know there is nothing anyone can do, so stop looking for someone or something to blame.”
Greg finally looked away from him, and then silence stacked up like an invisible wall between them. His son’s hate for him was palpable at times, but John didn’t have the energy to worry about that either. He placed his head against the wall, and then let his mind wander back, perhaps just for the contrast, to the happiest day of his life
tbc...