House Fic - "Monday"
Title: Monday
Rating: PG
Genre: Fluff, Angst
Summary: Monday, she would tell the truth.
Disclaimer: I don't own House or Robert Louis-Stevenson's "To you my Mother."
Author's Note: Based around the small nursery verse from Robert Louis-Stevenson's "A Children's Garden of Verses" - 'To You my Mother'. And a post "Who's Your Daddy?" Scene depicting what would have happened, later on, after Cuddy left House's office. Apologies if anything Jewish-referenced in this fic is incorrect. And sorry, no beta today, i'm a little impatient. So any imperfections are my own.
Yiddish bits: Tateh - Father, Bubbe - Grandmother
Feedback: Is Love.
To you my mother; read my rhymes,
For love of unforgotten times.
And you may chance to hear once more,
The little feet along the floor. - Robert Louis-Stevenson.
**
Standing before him had felt like the most stupid, idiotic, insane and rational idea she’d ever had. He had said ‘Who you are matters. Find somebody you trust.’ And she had replied with her first instinct, the instinct that always thought of him first and deciphered his words before she could. ‘Somebody like you?’ and for a moment she’d seen something on his face that frightened her, something that told her to run for the hills because his lips were twisting towards a whispered - ‘Yes’. Instead, he’d glanced at her, sized her up more honestly than he had in months and stated with a certainty that scared her - ‘Somebody you like.’ As if he thought she’d share this secret with just anyone.
But for all her internal considerations and admitting within herself that a part of what he’d said was true, she couldn’t bring herself to say exactly what she meant to say. He’d laugh or he’d mock her, he’d undoubtedly hold it over her and as she pondered over the possibilities of how he’d take her request, he sat before her, knowing exactly why she was there. Except, with a small sigh of gratitude and just a little confusion, she realised that he planned to wait for her to speak if she wished it. Which was a strange occurrence considering him, though not beyond him, obviously.
“Thank you, for the injections.”
“No problem.”
He’d looked confused, hopeful, even. Or perhaps that was his over-active perceptions. He could read her like a book and just then she’d felt that her unspoken words were as easily written on her face as if she’d plastered them across his whiteboard in permanent ink. But she’d said nothing though not for lack of wanting. She’d opened her mouth to speak but the images that plagued her at night, attacked her and asked her the questions she feared to ask herself in the light of day. ‘What if they didn’t like him?’ and she hated herself for considering the question she’d loathed since childhood - ‘What if they disapprove, because he’s not Jewish.’
But it’s a baby, not a relationship. Despite what her stupid heart had wanted since College. Maybe it wouldn’t even be mentioned, but she knew her mother, her mother would ask and she would hate herself for lying.
“You came all the way up here, just to tell me that?” He had been digging, always searching for the truth and she’d known that when it came to her, she had a little more lee-way than those he pestered and badgered, day in and day out. She had a free pass for escaping conversation if she chose, a courtesy he barely ever showed Wilson or his team.
She couldn’t leave him in the dark like that. As terribly as she’d wanted to ask, she couldn’t; her lips wouldn’t form the words but he’d given her an out. He’d given her a chance to tell him what she so desperately wanted to ask, and she didn’t have to form the words.
“No.”
And she’d left him there with a heavy heart, hating herself because she’d admitted just how much she trusted him. Something he should never really know for fear of holding that trust and her empty threats over her head. It was a regretful move, but she’d made it and she was never one to look back on her actions with regret. She didn’t regret sleeping with him all those years ago, and she didn’t regret the hate he had painted her with, for all those months after Stacy left.
**
She walked back to her office with a ringing in her ears, trying to breathe and twisting her hands together, deep in thought. Reaching out to grasp the handle to her office door she’d frozen in her place, staring through the glass at the demure, petite and curious woman, pacing between her office sofas.
Panicking, she’d turned on her heel to flee but froze again when the tall man with a heavy jaw stood before her with a smile; the smile that reminded her of late night stories, red lollipops and the promise of ice-cream after dinner, lighting the candles for Hanukkah and learning the funny words Bubbe used to say when she’d had far too much to drink.
“Tateh?” she whispered, knowing it was a stupid question. Though really, she’d been thinking about her parents a lot lately and how she’d barely seen them in years. To think their arrival was conjured, merely by her over-active imagination, was not a too distant stretch.
“Hi, Sweetheart.” He smiled, resting his hand against her shoulder and she hated that her first reaction was to stare at his hand in silent confusion.
“What are you doing here?”
“Your mother wanted to see you, so did I.”
“Why didn’t you call?” she questioned, not yet ready to leave his warming presence and greet her mother.
“We wanted to surprise you,” he smiled. “…it’s alright; we did check with James that you weren’t too busy.”
Cuddy ran a hand through her hair. “You spoke to Wilson?”
“Yes, he did say that you’ve got a few meetings over the next few days, but he honestly didn’t know if you were entirely free. You mother chose to surprise you regardless.”
Cuddy stared up at him, he was a tall man and she’d always felt so little in comparison and at the moment she felt like a child, staring up at her father because there was no other way to see him without craning her neck. “Well, it is good to see you.” She finally chose to smile and he wrapped his arms around her, holding her tightly until the door behind them swung open.
“Lisa! Darling!” her mother beamed and stole her from her father’s gentle hold.
“Hi, Mom.” She grinned, knowing her reticence was short-lived, as it always was.
“Come, sit down, tell us everything that’s been going on with you, we haven’t seen you in months.” Cuddy smirked up at her dad when he sighed, taking a seat on the sofa opposite his daughter and his wife, crossing one leg over the other and smiling at his distance from the conversation.
“Um, I’ve been…busy.” She tried but her mother frowned.
“Lisa.” Her tone was a gentle warning but Cuddy ignored the insistence behind it. As she always did.
“Really, Mom, I’m doing great.”
“You’re happy? Anyone interesting in your life at the moment?” the almost sinister curiosity made her internally wince. Her mother was scheming. She had sister’s married at the age of twenty-five, three children by thirty and her mother had never failed to remind her of that fact. But her first thought wasn’t of the infernal pushing of her mother, her determination to find her daughter a good Jewish husband. Her first thought was of the very non-jewish man, sitting in a darkened office pondering whether or not he would come to her and offer what she couldn’t bring herself to ask for.
She hadn’t told her parents about the IVF. She couldn’t figure out the best way how and looking at them now, she feared that any moment those glass doors to her office would burst open at the end of a wooden cane and she’d be forced to confess that she was miserable.
“Mom,” Her choice was to usher them out of the room so quickly that they’d suspect, or face the music and dance to its beat. “…if I were to, hypothetically, have a child with-”
Her mother cut her off. “You’re pregnant!” she beamed, bouncing in her seat before wrapping her arms around Cuddy’s neck.
“No, mom, just-” she had to pry herself free. “No, I’m not pregnant but I need your advice.” Her mother was disappointed for a moment and as she glanced at her father, strangely enough, she could see that he was too. Though he held it far better.
Cuddy took a deep breath. “I’ve decided to try In-vitro Fertilisation.” She looked between them nervously, wondering at what speed the cogs in their heads were going.
“You want to try IVF?” Her father clarified and she turned to him slowly.
“No, I’ve already started treatment. My first implantation is next month and I needed your advice, actually.”
“On what?”
She turned back to her mother. “On donors, I mean, they told me that perhaps an anonymous donor would be best, but then a f-friend reminded me that who you are matters, that I should think about this some more, decide if I want to ask someone I know, because really, red hair and freckles doesn’t run in our family.” She tried to flip the conversation slightly towards light-hearted, but their solemn faces ruined the punch-line.
“Mom?”
“Sorry, sweetheart,” her mother took her hand and gripped it within her own. “I’m sorry; it’s just a lot to take in.”
“Well, not really, you want me to have children, right? That’s what you’ve been telling me since Angela was married.”
“Yes, but we wanted you to fall in love, get married and have a family, this way just seems so…clinical.”
Cuddy screwed up her nose. “You don’t want me to do it?”
“No!” her mother gripped both of her hands, regretting how her words had sounded. “No, honey, if this makes you happy then we’ll support you. But I just want to know that this is the best thing for you, are you sure it’s the only way?”
Cuddy nodded, glancing at the door and noticing the tired face of a man beyond the shimmering glass and her heart constricted in her chest. He’d come, she panicked and a tear escaped as he turned his head and hobbled away, taking her chance with him with an expression that looked almost, disappointed. She took a deep breath and wiped away her tear. “Yes, Mom, I’m sick of waiting, it’s so hard.”
“Then you should try.”
“But your friend is right,” Her dad finally spoke. “…you’ll regret it if you don’t choose someone that matters to you.” Cuddy stared at her Tateh for a moment and smiled slightly when his eyes shifted almost unnoticeably to the door.
He’d seen him too; he’d seen her look at him.
Cuddy nodded, looking down at the floor for a moment before she stood. “Could you just - I need to…I’ll be right back.”
**
House had one hand poised to push through the door and out into the snow when he heard the sound of heels clattering on the floor of the silent lobby. Turning his head slowly, he noticed her face, red and flushed and residual proof of a single tear’s existence.
She stopped in front of him, silent, breathing.
“Cuddy.”
“House.” She smiled almost nervously and he tilted his head in gesture for her to tell him what she’d chased him for. But again, she couldn’t speak and she hated herself because every time she looked into his eyes - eyes that mixed with hers - would insure her baby had the richest blues. All she ever felt was fear.
“I trust you.” she said simply, cryptically.
“But you don’t like me?” he questioned and she smiled.
“No, I like you, House.”
She’d never seen him smile quite that way before, it was as infectious as a smile of his could be and she matched it. “You like me?”
“Yes.”
He nodded his head glad for the cryptic nature of the conversation, because he was about as ready to face what they'd agreed to, as she was. “Monday?”
“Yeah,” she breathed. “…talk to you Monday.”
She watched him hesitate with his hand on the door, before pushing it out through the snow that had fallen as they spoke and she smiled.
Monday she would tell the truth.
Rating: PG
Genre: Fluff, Angst
Summary: Monday, she would tell the truth.
Disclaimer: I don't own House or Robert Louis-Stevenson's "To you my Mother."
Author's Note: Based around the small nursery verse from Robert Louis-Stevenson's "A Children's Garden of Verses" - 'To You my Mother'. And a post "Who's Your Daddy?" Scene depicting what would have happened, later on, after Cuddy left House's office. Apologies if anything Jewish-referenced in this fic is incorrect. And sorry, no beta today, i'm a little impatient. So any imperfections are my own.
Yiddish bits: Tateh - Father, Bubbe - Grandmother
Feedback: Is Love.
To you my mother; read my rhymes,
For love of unforgotten times.
And you may chance to hear once more,
The little feet along the floor. - Robert Louis-Stevenson.
**
Standing before him had felt like the most stupid, idiotic, insane and rational idea she’d ever had. He had said ‘Who you are matters. Find somebody you trust.’ And she had replied with her first instinct, the instinct that always thought of him first and deciphered his words before she could. ‘Somebody like you?’ and for a moment she’d seen something on his face that frightened her, something that told her to run for the hills because his lips were twisting towards a whispered - ‘Yes’. Instead, he’d glanced at her, sized her up more honestly than he had in months and stated with a certainty that scared her - ‘Somebody you like.’ As if he thought she’d share this secret with just anyone.
But for all her internal considerations and admitting within herself that a part of what he’d said was true, she couldn’t bring herself to say exactly what she meant to say. He’d laugh or he’d mock her, he’d undoubtedly hold it over her and as she pondered over the possibilities of how he’d take her request, he sat before her, knowing exactly why she was there. Except, with a small sigh of gratitude and just a little confusion, she realised that he planned to wait for her to speak if she wished it. Which was a strange occurrence considering him, though not beyond him, obviously.
“Thank you, for the injections.”
“No problem.”
He’d looked confused, hopeful, even. Or perhaps that was his over-active perceptions. He could read her like a book and just then she’d felt that her unspoken words were as easily written on her face as if she’d plastered them across his whiteboard in permanent ink. But she’d said nothing though not for lack of wanting. She’d opened her mouth to speak but the images that plagued her at night, attacked her and asked her the questions she feared to ask herself in the light of day. ‘What if they didn’t like him?’ and she hated herself for considering the question she’d loathed since childhood - ‘What if they disapprove, because he’s not Jewish.’
But it’s a baby, not a relationship. Despite what her stupid heart had wanted since College. Maybe it wouldn’t even be mentioned, but she knew her mother, her mother would ask and she would hate herself for lying.
“You came all the way up here, just to tell me that?” He had been digging, always searching for the truth and she’d known that when it came to her, she had a little more lee-way than those he pestered and badgered, day in and day out. She had a free pass for escaping conversation if she chose, a courtesy he barely ever showed Wilson or his team.
She couldn’t leave him in the dark like that. As terribly as she’d wanted to ask, she couldn’t; her lips wouldn’t form the words but he’d given her an out. He’d given her a chance to tell him what she so desperately wanted to ask, and she didn’t have to form the words.
“No.”
And she’d left him there with a heavy heart, hating herself because she’d admitted just how much she trusted him. Something he should never really know for fear of holding that trust and her empty threats over her head. It was a regretful move, but she’d made it and she was never one to look back on her actions with regret. She didn’t regret sleeping with him all those years ago, and she didn’t regret the hate he had painted her with, for all those months after Stacy left.
**
She walked back to her office with a ringing in her ears, trying to breathe and twisting her hands together, deep in thought. Reaching out to grasp the handle to her office door she’d frozen in her place, staring through the glass at the demure, petite and curious woman, pacing between her office sofas.
Panicking, she’d turned on her heel to flee but froze again when the tall man with a heavy jaw stood before her with a smile; the smile that reminded her of late night stories, red lollipops and the promise of ice-cream after dinner, lighting the candles for Hanukkah and learning the funny words Bubbe used to say when she’d had far too much to drink.
“Tateh?” she whispered, knowing it was a stupid question. Though really, she’d been thinking about her parents a lot lately and how she’d barely seen them in years. To think their arrival was conjured, merely by her over-active imagination, was not a too distant stretch.
“Hi, Sweetheart.” He smiled, resting his hand against her shoulder and she hated that her first reaction was to stare at his hand in silent confusion.
“What are you doing here?”
“Your mother wanted to see you, so did I.”
“Why didn’t you call?” she questioned, not yet ready to leave his warming presence and greet her mother.
“We wanted to surprise you,” he smiled. “…it’s alright; we did check with James that you weren’t too busy.”
Cuddy ran a hand through her hair. “You spoke to Wilson?”
“Yes, he did say that you’ve got a few meetings over the next few days, but he honestly didn’t know if you were entirely free. You mother chose to surprise you regardless.”
Cuddy stared up at him, he was a tall man and she’d always felt so little in comparison and at the moment she felt like a child, staring up at her father because there was no other way to see him without craning her neck. “Well, it is good to see you.” She finally chose to smile and he wrapped his arms around her, holding her tightly until the door behind them swung open.
“Lisa! Darling!” her mother beamed and stole her from her father’s gentle hold.
“Hi, Mom.” She grinned, knowing her reticence was short-lived, as it always was.
“Come, sit down, tell us everything that’s been going on with you, we haven’t seen you in months.” Cuddy smirked up at her dad when he sighed, taking a seat on the sofa opposite his daughter and his wife, crossing one leg over the other and smiling at his distance from the conversation.
“Um, I’ve been…busy.” She tried but her mother frowned.
“Lisa.” Her tone was a gentle warning but Cuddy ignored the insistence behind it. As she always did.
“Really, Mom, I’m doing great.”
“You’re happy? Anyone interesting in your life at the moment?” the almost sinister curiosity made her internally wince. Her mother was scheming. She had sister’s married at the age of twenty-five, three children by thirty and her mother had never failed to remind her of that fact. But her first thought wasn’t of the infernal pushing of her mother, her determination to find her daughter a good Jewish husband. Her first thought was of the very non-jewish man, sitting in a darkened office pondering whether or not he would come to her and offer what she couldn’t bring herself to ask for.
She hadn’t told her parents about the IVF. She couldn’t figure out the best way how and looking at them now, she feared that any moment those glass doors to her office would burst open at the end of a wooden cane and she’d be forced to confess that she was miserable.
“Mom,” Her choice was to usher them out of the room so quickly that they’d suspect, or face the music and dance to its beat. “…if I were to, hypothetically, have a child with-”
Her mother cut her off. “You’re pregnant!” she beamed, bouncing in her seat before wrapping her arms around Cuddy’s neck.
“No, mom, just-” she had to pry herself free. “No, I’m not pregnant but I need your advice.” Her mother was disappointed for a moment and as she glanced at her father, strangely enough, she could see that he was too. Though he held it far better.
Cuddy took a deep breath. “I’ve decided to try In-vitro Fertilisation.” She looked between them nervously, wondering at what speed the cogs in their heads were going.
“You want to try IVF?” Her father clarified and she turned to him slowly.
“No, I’ve already started treatment. My first implantation is next month and I needed your advice, actually.”
“On what?”
She turned back to her mother. “On donors, I mean, they told me that perhaps an anonymous donor would be best, but then a f-friend reminded me that who you are matters, that I should think about this some more, decide if I want to ask someone I know, because really, red hair and freckles doesn’t run in our family.” She tried to flip the conversation slightly towards light-hearted, but their solemn faces ruined the punch-line.
“Mom?”
“Sorry, sweetheart,” her mother took her hand and gripped it within her own. “I’m sorry; it’s just a lot to take in.”
“Well, not really, you want me to have children, right? That’s what you’ve been telling me since Angela was married.”
“Yes, but we wanted you to fall in love, get married and have a family, this way just seems so…clinical.”
Cuddy screwed up her nose. “You don’t want me to do it?”
“No!” her mother gripped both of her hands, regretting how her words had sounded. “No, honey, if this makes you happy then we’ll support you. But I just want to know that this is the best thing for you, are you sure it’s the only way?”
Cuddy nodded, glancing at the door and noticing the tired face of a man beyond the shimmering glass and her heart constricted in her chest. He’d come, she panicked and a tear escaped as he turned his head and hobbled away, taking her chance with him with an expression that looked almost, disappointed. She took a deep breath and wiped away her tear. “Yes, Mom, I’m sick of waiting, it’s so hard.”
“Then you should try.”
“But your friend is right,” Her dad finally spoke. “…you’ll regret it if you don’t choose someone that matters to you.” Cuddy stared at her Tateh for a moment and smiled slightly when his eyes shifted almost unnoticeably to the door.
He’d seen him too; he’d seen her look at him.
Cuddy nodded, looking down at the floor for a moment before she stood. “Could you just - I need to…I’ll be right back.”
**
House had one hand poised to push through the door and out into the snow when he heard the sound of heels clattering on the floor of the silent lobby. Turning his head slowly, he noticed her face, red and flushed and residual proof of a single tear’s existence.
She stopped in front of him, silent, breathing.
“Cuddy.”
“House.” She smiled almost nervously and he tilted his head in gesture for her to tell him what she’d chased him for. But again, she couldn’t speak and she hated herself because every time she looked into his eyes - eyes that mixed with hers - would insure her baby had the richest blues. All she ever felt was fear.
“I trust you.” she said simply, cryptically.
“But you don’t like me?” he questioned and she smiled.
“No, I like you, House.”
She’d never seen him smile quite that way before, it was as infectious as a smile of his could be and she matched it. “You like me?”
“Yes.”
He nodded his head glad for the cryptic nature of the conversation, because he was about as ready to face what they'd agreed to, as she was. “Monday?”
“Yeah,” she breathed. “…talk to you Monday.”
She watched him hesitate with his hand on the door, before pushing it out through the snow that had fallen as they spoke and she smiled.
Monday she would tell the truth.