Gift of Screws, Chapter 10, Part 3
Title: Gift of Screws, Chapter Ten, Part 3
Author: Duckie Nicks
Rating: NC-17 for sex
Characters: House, Cuddy, Rachel Cuddy
Author's Note: This piece takes place in the future when Rachel is five; House and Cuddy are in an established relationship. This fic also contains sex. If any of those things bother you, please hit your back button. This chapter is also split into multiple posts because of Livejournal's word limit.
Summary: For a price, House agrees to celebrate Purim with Cuddy and Rachel. But although he's getting all the sex he wants, he's still not sure he'll be able to last the weekend. Established relationship, contains sexual situations.
Previous Chapters: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9 (Part 1), Chapter 9 (Part 2), Chapter 9 (Part 3), Chapter 9 (Part 4), Chapter 10 (Part 1), Chapter 10 (Part 2)
Disclaimer: I don't own it.
Suddenly Cuddy understood. She hadn't before. Having been at work, she hadn't gotten a very clear picture of what had happened this morning. House and Rachel had told her snippets of events, some more troubling than others. But this was the first time Cuddy got an idea of the timeline for the hours she'd missed.
Quickly sequencing events, she thought that House must have fallen asleep after she'd left. And at some point, Rachel had woken up, wondered where her mother was, and sought House out. House had said that Rachel had accidentally touched his leg then, and Cuddy knew that as soon as that had happened, House had yelled. Rachel had been terrified, so she'd run outside - which had prompted the asthma attack. Since she was still alive, House obviously had given her her inhaler and made sure she was okay before sending her to change.
Cuddy knew, thanks to Rachel, that there'd been some sort of trouble doing that. And House, already on edge, had grabbed Rachel to help her change. Naturally that would have made things worse, made Rachel more afraid and House edgier and guiltier than he'd probably already felt. At that moment, he'd have realized that his actions would get back to Cuddy at some point; he'd have known that there was no escaping it, so he would have tried to apologize to Rachel. Rachel would have accepted, but she would have, no doubt, insisted that she'd done nothing wrong. And technically that would have been true; Cuddy had no doubts about her daughter intentionally hurting House. But for him, the pain would have been real nonetheless. The desire to explain his behavior would have been as well.
So he would have told Rachel about his thigh. She probably hadn't believed him, probably hadn't even thought it possible to hurt someone in the way she had. And that disbelief would have compelled him, as it apparently had, to show her the bane of his existence.
The rest of the morning was even clearer in Cuddy's head, thanks to the conversation she was witnessing. Rachel had obviously believed that a shark had bitten him. House being House had let her believe that. Since he was denying it now, Cuddy could only assume that that meant that he'd told Rachel the truth at some point along the way. Sure, Rachel had had a nightmare anyway, but Cuddy didn't doubt that House hadn't meant to cause this.
He simply wasn't that cruel.
If anything, he looked downright upset at the idea that he'd been the responsible party. And seeing that, Cuddy couldn't help but intervene. "Honey," she said maternally, her fingers carding through Rachel's messy hair. "House has never been bitten by -"
"But I saw it."
"I know," Cuddy replied quickly. "But he was sick. There was no shark."
Rachel looked back and forth between House and her mother. "But he said -"
"He was teasing you, baby. I promise you."
At that, Rachel looked angrily at House. "You -"
"I told you the truth," he said hastily.
She shook her head. "You didn't say you're sick."
"I'm not."
"But…." Her mouth closed shut. She wasn't sure what to say now. Mommy was saying there was no shark. That meant there was no shark. Mommy wouldn't lie. But then something had happened to House. Mommy had said that too. And House had said that his leg hurt sometimes, so that meant he was still hurt, and… so that must have meant he was sick. But he was saying he wasn't, and that didn't make any sense.
"Rachel," Cuddy said, seeing how confused her daughter was. "You need to understand: House was very, very ill. Doctors gave him medicine, and…."
She sighed. It was difficult enough trying to find the right words to make Rachel comprehend House's health. Granted, for a five year old, Rachel had a far better understanding of medicine than most of her peers. She'd spent enough time around doctors, in hospitals, and receiving treatment for her conditions that she knew more than she should have. She understood that there were diseases that required constant care. She had several of those illnesses.
She'd never experienced what House had though. Cuddy hoped she never would. That went without saying. But that lack of experience made it hard for Rachel to envision a situation where you could be healed but still in pain. In her world, you were either cured or you weren't or you were never going to be. House didn't fit into that tertiary. Rachel didn't understand that yet.
But honestly, trying to figure out the best explanation was easy compared to saying it in front of House. As hard as it would be to explain all of this to Rachel, Cuddy knew it would be harder to talk about House's health history in front of him. Not because he was ashamed or because she was, this would be harder simply because this was a history that they had both lived through.
This was something they'd both experienced.
There was an emotional history here that Cuddy didn't want to insult (or particularly relive). Even if it were possible to summarize what had happened in a few short sentences, part of her felt that it was wrong to do so. She shouldn't have been able to condense something that seemed to consume such a big, important part of their history and lives. She supposed for Rachel's sake that she had to. But the last thing she wanted was for House to think that she didn't take that aspect of him seriously.
He'd never accused her of glibness. He'd never done that. He'd come close - he'd accused her of plenty of other things - but he'd never actually gone there.
Thankfully.
Had he done so, she would have overlooked the insult implicit in the comment. Instead, she would have felt compelled to articulate just how awful his pain made her feel. Comments about her narcissism would have never stopped afterwards, but she would have said it anyway. Defensive though she could have been, she would have said it out of a desperate need for him to know that she loved him. She loved him so much that every day, every moment she saw him in pain, she felt horrible.
Guilty.
For her part in his current condition.
For denying him Vicodin on occasions when he'd needed it.
For letting him have the drugs until it nearly destroyed him.
For giving them to him at all.
For not being able to find some way to help his pain without harming him.
All that within her, no, she wasn't glib. There had been - and would be - moments where she struggled to understand, wavered with indecision when it came to making good medical choices for him. But she was never careless.
And it would have killed her to make him think, even for a second, that she was anything other than obsessed with doing the right thing for him.
But she guessed that was the risk she had to take. Rachel would never get it otherwise.
Clearing her throat, Cuddy continued, "And it took a long time to make him better. He was very sick. And because of that, even though we fixed what was wrong with him, his leg isn't going to get better. He's not sick now. He's just in pain."
Cuddy's eyes purposely searched Rachel's face; she didn't dare look at House. Rachel didn't really look like she understood though. Nevertheless Cuddy asked, "Do you understand?"
When Rachel spoke after a minute or so, her voice was hesitant, worried. "Is that going to happen to me?"
Cuddy shook her head in confusion. Surely she hadn't heard that right. "What? I… why would you think that?"
"You…" Rachel swallowed hard and shifted nervously. Her soaked underwear and pajama pants were clinging to her legs in what Cuddy could only assume was very uncomfortable. But that was not the reason Rachel was squirming about.
"I what?" Cuddy asked, wanting to end this conversation sooner rather than later.
"You say… 'It took a long time to make him better.'"
"I did. Yes."
"Well… I sick. You say to me I never get better. I always have needles." She sounded undeniably bitter about that fact, not that Cuddy could blame her. "So… does that mean it's gonna happen to me too?"
Nobody was answering. Sometimes that happened when she wasn't saying things right. But Rachel knew she was saying everything like she was supposed to. She'd made sure of it, cause she wanted Mommy to know what she was saying.
But nobody was saying anything.
Maybe that meant she'd asked a stupid question. But Rachel didn't think it was. House was sick for a long time. Mommy said to Rachel a long time ago that she would always need to get shots. She was gonna be sick for forever. That was a long time too! So Rachel didn't think she was being stupid.
Although… maybe she was being mean. She wasn't trying to be. Honest. But she didn't want to end up like House. She hadn't even touched him hard this morning, but she'd hurt him. She didn't want to be like that.
And his leg was ugly too. It was scary. The skin didn't look right; it reminded her of a raisin - all rippled and wrinkly, and Rachel wasn't so sure a shark hadn't been involved. What happened didn't really matter much though, cause she didn't want her leg to look like that.
No, she thought, changing her mind. That wasn't maybe mean. That was definitely mean. But when she was that way, Mommy always told her to be nice, and nobody was saying nothing.
So Rachel thought that must have meant she was right. Cause otherwise someone would have said no or something. And that made her afraid. "Mama?"
Cuddy didn't know what to say. Well, okay, she knew she needed to reassure Rachel. But Rachel's question had caught her off guard completely. And it was hard to find words when surprise rendered her speechless.
Of course, it wasn't lost on her that her silence was making Rachel panic. Cuddy could easily see the effect her inaction was having. But, in addition to her shock, she found herself debating what the right answer was.
Would Rachel absolutely end up like House? Of course not. Could she? Yes. And in fact her health made it more likely that she would suffer the same problem as House - far more likely. Her weight, her susceptibility to infection and disease, the likelihood that she would, at some point, have negative, even destructive, drug interactions - it all spelled out a person at risk. Having an infarction was just one of the many potential complications. Even if she never had the exact same medical problem as House, the result of another illness could create a situation just as dangerous.
And Cuddy didn't want to explain that truth, but she didn't want to lie either. Rachel was sick; she would always need some form of care. Lying to her about that or about any facet of her illness was wrong.
In the short term, Cuddy would agree that lying had its advantages; giving Rachel a date when or a promise that all of this would end would certainly make her more compliant now. Cuddy had seen plenty of parents who did that. But in the long term, not adequately preparing Rachel for her future would only backfire. At some point, Rachel would have to confront the ugly realities of her illnesses, and Cuddy didn't want Rachel to enter that moment unaware. For all of the parents she'd seen lie, she'd seen just as many instances where their lies had turned destructive.
She didn't want that for her daughter.
However, Cuddy wasn't sure she could be honest now.
Should she even try to be?
She never got a chance to answer that question. Before she could, House had made the choice for her.
"No," he said sternly. "That's not going to happen to you."
Rachel looked at him with reluctant relief. "Are you sure?"
"Yes." He was talking as though he had no doubt in his mind. He was lying.
Cuddy wasn't sure how to feel about that fact, so she said nothing. He didn't stay quiet though. Instead he explained, "I got really sick, because no one knew what was wrong with me. We know what's wrong with you."
Rachel considered his words before nodding her head. "Okay."
"You believe me?"
"Yes."
"You sure?"
She nodded her head again. "Uh huh."
"Good." At that moment he looked to Cuddy as if to say, "We're done now. Put the kid to sleep."
But Rachel had other ideas. Rather than going away quietly, she confessed needlessly, "I dreamed you were attacked by a shark."
House replied dryly, "Yeah, I got that part."
"But you weren't bited by one." She said it as though she were making sure.
"Nope."
"And you can't be? Right?"
"Not unless I jump into the ocean wearing a suit made of fish heads, which, I gotta say, does have its appeal right now," he muttered in response.
His lack of enthusiasm went ignored.
Instead Rachel asked, "They can't get in?"
"No." Surely, he thought, a meteor could crash into his skull right now and spare him this conversation. Maybe a satellite falling out of the earth's orbit could do the job. But closing his eyes, as he waited for impact, he quickly realized he wasn't that lucky. And since Cuddy seemed to be incapable of helping, he knew that he would have to take care of this on his own.
"Know why?" he asked eventually.
"Uh…" Rachel thought about this long and hard, a fact that made House bang the back of his against the headboard a couple times. "Cause sharks don't have feet?"
Good enough, House decided. "That's exactly why."
But Rachel wasn't satisfied. "But couldn't they just walk on their fins like seals?"
This was precisely why he hated kids. "No."
By outright denying it though, he'd only encouraged her to keep talking. "You don't know that."
"I do too."
She was snotty when she replied, "Prove it."
He didn't need to accept the challenge. He was aware of that; he wasn't required to prove anything to a little kid. But he wasn't going to let her walk away thinking she'd bested him. "Fine. Sharks' bones are made of cartilage. Even if one could manipulate its fins, its skeleton wouldn't support all its weight on land."
"But -"
"I mean it. On land, Jaws is gonna be about as active as your Aunt Julia, meaning, unless your definition of 'active' is barely having the coordination and mental capacity to drool and wipe your own -"
"House."
He snorted at Cuddy's attempt to defend her sister. Like she didn't agree with him, he thought knowingly. Clearly she did; she had two eyes, so she must have. Anyone would have.
But he knew that this wasn't about Julia or her penchant for wielding her maternity leave and the poisoned fruit of her loins like weapons. He certainly would have preferred a conversation about the lawyer/mommy/fascist hybrid and her little pack of mouth breathers for children to the one he was having. However, he knew that wasn't going to happen. So he reluctantly got back on topic. "Besides, sharks need water to breathe. The thing could moonwalk out of the ocean, and it wouldn't matter."
Rachel nodded her head, satisfied. He wasn't sure why that was the tipping point, but apparently it was, and that was all that mattered to him. "Oh. Okay," she said after a moment.
Later on, in hindsight, he would note her relief. At that moment though, he missed it completely. He was too tired to notice it and maybe a little too annoyed as well. Whatever the cause, in that exact second, he took her response as dissatisfaction.
Sneering in reaction, he told her sarcastically, "Sorry to disappoint you. I know you came running in here hoping to find Mommy lying next to a really full shark but… didn't happen. Not gonna happen. So you'll just have to hope I accidentally drown in the bathtub, kid."
Did he really think she wanted him dead? Not really. She certainly didn't like him; she didn't care about him. He knew that much. But he also knew that she probably didn't have homicidal feelings in her toward him. Maybe she did; she could have, he supposed, but he was teasing her, not seriously telling her, "Better luck next time." He was just toying with her.
Rachel missed that point though. Her back suddenly becoming ramrod straight, she looked as though he'd slapped her. Her lips frowning, she told him in a hurt voice, "I don't want you to drown."
"Uh huh." He pretended to sound doubtful, not really paying attention to the effect he was having on her. Some part of him recognized that he should have been taking this seriously. But he just assumed that she was messing with him as he was her.
And then she said something he'd never expected her to say. "I don't want anything to happen to you."
His throat suddenly felt dry. His heart raced with realization, with fear. His mind tried to process what she was saying, what it meant, but this time he was the one who felt as though he'd been hit.
He might as well have been. He was stunned, the air knocked out of him. And though he needed to breathe, needed to respond, needed say something - anything - to blow past this instant, he couldn't. His mouth slightly agape, his eyes wide open, he couldn't do anything but look at her as though he'd never seen her before.
She didn't want anything to happen to him?
She was admitting implicitly that she cared about him?
It made no sense.
None.
Rachel cared - why should she? She shouldn't have; he'd never asked her to, and he'd never given her any reason to. No, she really shouldn't have been concerned for his wellbeing, and he was tempted to tell her that. Well, not so much tempted, he corrected, as much as he felt obligated to tell her that…
There were better people to care about.
But his mouth refused to speak those words.
Pushing her away seemed like the only good thing he could do, but House couldn't find it in himself to say or do that.
However, Rachel wasn't prepared to let him off that easily. "Why would you say that?" she demanded to know. Like he had an answer for that. "Why would -"
"Rachel."
Cuddy's voice was a welcome interruption. She hadn't been loud; to the contrary, she had spoken so quietly that he was surprised Rachel had heard her at all. But the kid must have, because as soon as her name had been uttered, her head jerked to look at Cuddy.
"It's very late," she explained in a soothing tone. "House knows you care about him very much." But the way Cuddy spoke made House think that she was just as surprised as he had been. Unlike him though, she was pleased and could barely contain it. "He's just… tired, baby. We all are. Aren't you feeling sleepy?" Rachel hesitantly nodded her head. "He's not thinking clearly right now."
House bristled at what she was saying, but Cuddy didn't care. He might not have liked her explanation, but by now, he would have realized that allowing her to intervene was the best way to resolve the situation at hand. And she wasn't going to apologize for something he only superficially despised.
"So," she said to Rachel, ignoring House's reaction. "Why don't you and I get you cleaned up and -"
"But," Rachel interrupted, clearly not liking the idea. "I -"
"Rachel," Cuddy told her gently. "It's late. It's bedtime. I promise you: House knows, and nothing's going to happen to him." She did her best to sound matter-of-fact without being condescending.
And she must have succeeded, because Rachel nodded her head. "Okay."
"All right," Cuddy said, getting out of bed. Waving at Rachel to join her, she added, "Let's go." She didn't bother to pay attention to House as Rachel got out of the bed. Cuddy didn't need to look to know that he was relieved.
And, truth be told, she wanted to give him his space. After all, if she was surprised that Rachel worried about House, then Cuddy couldn't imagine how he must have felt. Shock couldn't even begin to describe the emotion going through him, she thought. He was convinced - always so convinced - that he was disliked and unlikable that she was sure he was reeling right now.
Confused, terrified, and maybe (though he would never say this) a little happy, he needed time to sort this out. And though part of Cuddy wanted to help him through it, she understood that he needed to do this alone. She couldn't process this for him; he had to do that himself.
All she could do was give him the quiet space and time to do that.
That was much harder than she anticipated. Oh, taking care of Rachel was simple. They'd done this enough times that cleaning her up was down to a science. But it was difficult to pretend like House wasn't just a couple of rooms away, struggling to understand what had happened.
Rachel wasn't making it any easier. As Cuddy helped her into the bathtub, Rachel muttered, "I'm sorry."
"It's okay. Everybody has accidents," she said, kissing her daughter on the cheek. Cleaning her up, Cuddy added, "We'll just wash you, and then I'll change your sheets, and you can go back to sleep."
"No," Rachel muttered under breath quickly. "Mean… sorry I say that to House."
Cuddy stifled her desire to sigh. If she'd been hoping not to think about House, Rachel wasn't making that easy for her, no. But Cuddy knew that that wasn't Rachel's fault; this had happened to her as well, and the last thing Cuddy wanted her daughter to take away from this was that she should be apologetic for telling House how she felt.
"No, don't feel that way," Cuddy said. "I'm glad you told House that you care about him. You should tell him how you feel. He needs to hear that sometimes."
"He wasn't happy about it."
Cuddy shook her head. "He's just surprised, Rachel. He's not used to hearing you talk like that. Not about him anyway."
"I guess." Rachel wiggled her toes in the hot water as Cuddy washed her.
"You know that sometimes you're not very nice to him. When you say that you hate him, he believes you," she said knowingly. House would never admit that. Had she ever said that near him, he would have done everything he could to prove her wrong. But Cuddy knew the truth. He fully believed Rachel didn't like him or care about him. "So… he was surprised tonight. But it'll be okay. Everything will be just fine."
Cuddy wasn't sure who she was trying to convince. Truth be told, it shouldn't have been herself. Rachel admitting that she cared about House was the kind of thing Cuddy had assumed she could only dream about. She'd never expected that to actually happen. And now that it had, part of her was elated by the news, by the fact that there was some sort of bond between House and her daughter.
But at the moment, honestly, Cuddy mainly felt dread. She knew how House could be when his worldview was suddenly altered. She knew how he dealt with sudden outpourings of emotion, and she worried how he would deal with this. It wouldn't be good. She knew that much.
As though this weekend hadn't been difficult enough.
Of course, that made her sound resentful. And really… she wasn't. She loved House and willingly accepted and forgave his flaws. She just wished selflessly that he could understand how much he really was loved.
But he would probably never get that point. For reasons surpassing her understanding, unconditional love was something he couldn't comprehend.
Even when he was surrounded by it.
And now that he had heard Rachel say that she cared, Cuddy wasn't so sure that he would ever have a good reaction to it. But she didn't even consider telling Rachel that. Cuddy hated the idea of lying to her, but in this instance, the truth - or what could be the truth - was something Rachel didn't need to know.
And in the end, Cuddy's reassurances must have worked (on Rachel anyway). By the time she'd finished bathing and dressing Rachel and changing the bed sheets, Rachel was fast asleep. Her only noise a sigh of contentment as Cuddy tucked her in, she was sleeping as though nothing was even remotely wrong.
Only Cuddy herself seemed to be painfully aware of just how precarious things really were. And that reality brutally asserted itself the second she entered her bedroom once more.
Her eyes searching through the darkness, she instantly realized:
House was gone.
His dirty pajamas crumpled up on the floor in a ball, his dresser drawers open, he'd changed and left.
To be honest, Cuddy wasn't sure why she'd expected him to stick around after what had just happened. Looking at the situation now, she thought she should have seen this move coming. She should have known he would run away, their bed not large enough to give him the space he needed.
Nonetheless, she was surprised, shocked at how quickly he could be scared off. She would have liked to have had the opportunity to comfort him, to tell him that Rachel caring about him was a good thing. And Cuddy could see why he was afraid of having that moment, but she was still caught off guard at how fast the need to escape had hit him.
Hopefully, the need to return would seize hold of him just as quickly. That was all she could tell herself. As much as she wanted to go after him, she knew that it would no good. He would come back - and she had no doubt that he would come back - when he was ready.
Until then…
Sighing, Cuddy sat down at the foot of the bed. Her hand lightly running along his side of the mattress, she thought, with dismay, that the covers had already turned cold. Whatever warmth his body had provided was long gone… as she supposed was he.
Closing her eyes, she sighed again. She knew she should try to get some sleep, but she doubted she would be able to. Cliché and pathetic though it was, after years of sleeping next to House, it was difficult for her to do so without him. But right now, she didn't exactly have a choice, did she?
She might have wanted him here; she might have needed him here. But that didn't matter. It didn't change anything.
He was gone.
And there was no telling when he would be back.
Co ntinue on to the next chapter
Author: Duckie Nicks
Rating: NC-17 for sex
Characters: House, Cuddy, Rachel Cuddy
Author's Note: This piece takes place in the future when Rachel is five; House and Cuddy are in an established relationship. This fic also contains sex. If any of those things bother you, please hit your back button. This chapter is also split into multiple posts because of Livejournal's word limit.
Summary: For a price, House agrees to celebrate Purim with Cuddy and Rachel. But although he's getting all the sex he wants, he's still not sure he'll be able to last the weekend. Established relationship, contains sexual situations.
Previous Chapters: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9 (Part 1), Chapter 9 (Part 2), Chapter 9 (Part 3), Chapter 9 (Part 4), Chapter 10 (Part 1), Chapter 10 (Part 2)
Disclaimer: I don't own it.
Suddenly Cuddy understood. She hadn't before. Having been at work, she hadn't gotten a very clear picture of what had happened this morning. House and Rachel had told her snippets of events, some more troubling than others. But this was the first time Cuddy got an idea of the timeline for the hours she'd missed.
Quickly sequencing events, she thought that House must have fallen asleep after she'd left. And at some point, Rachel had woken up, wondered where her mother was, and sought House out. House had said that Rachel had accidentally touched his leg then, and Cuddy knew that as soon as that had happened, House had yelled. Rachel had been terrified, so she'd run outside - which had prompted the asthma attack. Since she was still alive, House obviously had given her her inhaler and made sure she was okay before sending her to change.
Cuddy knew, thanks to Rachel, that there'd been some sort of trouble doing that. And House, already on edge, had grabbed Rachel to help her change. Naturally that would have made things worse, made Rachel more afraid and House edgier and guiltier than he'd probably already felt. At that moment, he'd have realized that his actions would get back to Cuddy at some point; he'd have known that there was no escaping it, so he would have tried to apologize to Rachel. Rachel would have accepted, but she would have, no doubt, insisted that she'd done nothing wrong. And technically that would have been true; Cuddy had no doubts about her daughter intentionally hurting House. But for him, the pain would have been real nonetheless. The desire to explain his behavior would have been as well.
So he would have told Rachel about his thigh. She probably hadn't believed him, probably hadn't even thought it possible to hurt someone in the way she had. And that disbelief would have compelled him, as it apparently had, to show her the bane of his existence.
The rest of the morning was even clearer in Cuddy's head, thanks to the conversation she was witnessing. Rachel had obviously believed that a shark had bitten him. House being House had let her believe that. Since he was denying it now, Cuddy could only assume that that meant that he'd told Rachel the truth at some point along the way. Sure, Rachel had had a nightmare anyway, but Cuddy didn't doubt that House hadn't meant to cause this.
He simply wasn't that cruel.
If anything, he looked downright upset at the idea that he'd been the responsible party. And seeing that, Cuddy couldn't help but intervene. "Honey," she said maternally, her fingers carding through Rachel's messy hair. "House has never been bitten by -"
"But I saw it."
"I know," Cuddy replied quickly. "But he was sick. There was no shark."
Rachel looked back and forth between House and her mother. "But he said -"
"He was teasing you, baby. I promise you."
At that, Rachel looked angrily at House. "You -"
"I told you the truth," he said hastily.
She shook her head. "You didn't say you're sick."
"I'm not."
"But…." Her mouth closed shut. She wasn't sure what to say now. Mommy was saying there was no shark. That meant there was no shark. Mommy wouldn't lie. But then something had happened to House. Mommy had said that too. And House had said that his leg hurt sometimes, so that meant he was still hurt, and… so that must have meant he was sick. But he was saying he wasn't, and that didn't make any sense.
"Rachel," Cuddy said, seeing how confused her daughter was. "You need to understand: House was very, very ill. Doctors gave him medicine, and…."
She sighed. It was difficult enough trying to find the right words to make Rachel comprehend House's health. Granted, for a five year old, Rachel had a far better understanding of medicine than most of her peers. She'd spent enough time around doctors, in hospitals, and receiving treatment for her conditions that she knew more than she should have. She understood that there were diseases that required constant care. She had several of those illnesses.
She'd never experienced what House had though. Cuddy hoped she never would. That went without saying. But that lack of experience made it hard for Rachel to envision a situation where you could be healed but still in pain. In her world, you were either cured or you weren't or you were never going to be. House didn't fit into that tertiary. Rachel didn't understand that yet.
But honestly, trying to figure out the best explanation was easy compared to saying it in front of House. As hard as it would be to explain all of this to Rachel, Cuddy knew it would be harder to talk about House's health history in front of him. Not because he was ashamed or because she was, this would be harder simply because this was a history that they had both lived through.
This was something they'd both experienced.
There was an emotional history here that Cuddy didn't want to insult (or particularly relive). Even if it were possible to summarize what had happened in a few short sentences, part of her felt that it was wrong to do so. She shouldn't have been able to condense something that seemed to consume such a big, important part of their history and lives. She supposed for Rachel's sake that she had to. But the last thing she wanted was for House to think that she didn't take that aspect of him seriously.
He'd never accused her of glibness. He'd never done that. He'd come close - he'd accused her of plenty of other things - but he'd never actually gone there.
Thankfully.
Had he done so, she would have overlooked the insult implicit in the comment. Instead, she would have felt compelled to articulate just how awful his pain made her feel. Comments about her narcissism would have never stopped afterwards, but she would have said it anyway. Defensive though she could have been, she would have said it out of a desperate need for him to know that she loved him. She loved him so much that every day, every moment she saw him in pain, she felt horrible.
Guilty.
For her part in his current condition.
For denying him Vicodin on occasions when he'd needed it.
For letting him have the drugs until it nearly destroyed him.
For giving them to him at all.
For not being able to find some way to help his pain without harming him.
All that within her, no, she wasn't glib. There had been - and would be - moments where she struggled to understand, wavered with indecision when it came to making good medical choices for him. But she was never careless.
And it would have killed her to make him think, even for a second, that she was anything other than obsessed with doing the right thing for him.
But she guessed that was the risk she had to take. Rachel would never get it otherwise.
Clearing her throat, Cuddy continued, "And it took a long time to make him better. He was very sick. And because of that, even though we fixed what was wrong with him, his leg isn't going to get better. He's not sick now. He's just in pain."
Cuddy's eyes purposely searched Rachel's face; she didn't dare look at House. Rachel didn't really look like she understood though. Nevertheless Cuddy asked, "Do you understand?"
When Rachel spoke after a minute or so, her voice was hesitant, worried. "Is that going to happen to me?"
Cuddy shook her head in confusion. Surely she hadn't heard that right. "What? I… why would you think that?"
"You…" Rachel swallowed hard and shifted nervously. Her soaked underwear and pajama pants were clinging to her legs in what Cuddy could only assume was very uncomfortable. But that was not the reason Rachel was squirming about.
"I what?" Cuddy asked, wanting to end this conversation sooner rather than later.
"You say… 'It took a long time to make him better.'"
"I did. Yes."
"Well… I sick. You say to me I never get better. I always have needles." She sounded undeniably bitter about that fact, not that Cuddy could blame her. "So… does that mean it's gonna happen to me too?"
Nobody was answering. Sometimes that happened when she wasn't saying things right. But Rachel knew she was saying everything like she was supposed to. She'd made sure of it, cause she wanted Mommy to know what she was saying.
But nobody was saying anything.
Maybe that meant she'd asked a stupid question. But Rachel didn't think it was. House was sick for a long time. Mommy said to Rachel a long time ago that she would always need to get shots. She was gonna be sick for forever. That was a long time too! So Rachel didn't think she was being stupid.
Although… maybe she was being mean. She wasn't trying to be. Honest. But she didn't want to end up like House. She hadn't even touched him hard this morning, but she'd hurt him. She didn't want to be like that.
And his leg was ugly too. It was scary. The skin didn't look right; it reminded her of a raisin - all rippled and wrinkly, and Rachel wasn't so sure a shark hadn't been involved. What happened didn't really matter much though, cause she didn't want her leg to look like that.
No, she thought, changing her mind. That wasn't maybe mean. That was definitely mean. But when she was that way, Mommy always told her to be nice, and nobody was saying nothing.
So Rachel thought that must have meant she was right. Cause otherwise someone would have said no or something. And that made her afraid. "Mama?"
Cuddy didn't know what to say. Well, okay, she knew she needed to reassure Rachel. But Rachel's question had caught her off guard completely. And it was hard to find words when surprise rendered her speechless.
Of course, it wasn't lost on her that her silence was making Rachel panic. Cuddy could easily see the effect her inaction was having. But, in addition to her shock, she found herself debating what the right answer was.
Would Rachel absolutely end up like House? Of course not. Could she? Yes. And in fact her health made it more likely that she would suffer the same problem as House - far more likely. Her weight, her susceptibility to infection and disease, the likelihood that she would, at some point, have negative, even destructive, drug interactions - it all spelled out a person at risk. Having an infarction was just one of the many potential complications. Even if she never had the exact same medical problem as House, the result of another illness could create a situation just as dangerous.
And Cuddy didn't want to explain that truth, but she didn't want to lie either. Rachel was sick; she would always need some form of care. Lying to her about that or about any facet of her illness was wrong.
In the short term, Cuddy would agree that lying had its advantages; giving Rachel a date when or a promise that all of this would end would certainly make her more compliant now. Cuddy had seen plenty of parents who did that. But in the long term, not adequately preparing Rachel for her future would only backfire. At some point, Rachel would have to confront the ugly realities of her illnesses, and Cuddy didn't want Rachel to enter that moment unaware. For all of the parents she'd seen lie, she'd seen just as many instances where their lies had turned destructive.
She didn't want that for her daughter.
However, Cuddy wasn't sure she could be honest now.
Should she even try to be?
She never got a chance to answer that question. Before she could, House had made the choice for her.
"No," he said sternly. "That's not going to happen to you."
Rachel looked at him with reluctant relief. "Are you sure?"
"Yes." He was talking as though he had no doubt in his mind. He was lying.
Cuddy wasn't sure how to feel about that fact, so she said nothing. He didn't stay quiet though. Instead he explained, "I got really sick, because no one knew what was wrong with me. We know what's wrong with you."
Rachel considered his words before nodding her head. "Okay."
"You believe me?"
"Yes."
"You sure?"
She nodded her head again. "Uh huh."
"Good." At that moment he looked to Cuddy as if to say, "We're done now. Put the kid to sleep."
But Rachel had other ideas. Rather than going away quietly, she confessed needlessly, "I dreamed you were attacked by a shark."
House replied dryly, "Yeah, I got that part."
"But you weren't bited by one." She said it as though she were making sure.
"Nope."
"And you can't be? Right?"
"Not unless I jump into the ocean wearing a suit made of fish heads, which, I gotta say, does have its appeal right now," he muttered in response.
His lack of enthusiasm went ignored.
Instead Rachel asked, "They can't get in?"
"No." Surely, he thought, a meteor could crash into his skull right now and spare him this conversation. Maybe a satellite falling out of the earth's orbit could do the job. But closing his eyes, as he waited for impact, he quickly realized he wasn't that lucky. And since Cuddy seemed to be incapable of helping, he knew that he would have to take care of this on his own.
"Know why?" he asked eventually.
"Uh…" Rachel thought about this long and hard, a fact that made House bang the back of his against the headboard a couple times. "Cause sharks don't have feet?"
Good enough, House decided. "That's exactly why."
But Rachel wasn't satisfied. "But couldn't they just walk on their fins like seals?"
This was precisely why he hated kids. "No."
By outright denying it though, he'd only encouraged her to keep talking. "You don't know that."
"I do too."
She was snotty when she replied, "Prove it."
He didn't need to accept the challenge. He was aware of that; he wasn't required to prove anything to a little kid. But he wasn't going to let her walk away thinking she'd bested him. "Fine. Sharks' bones are made of cartilage. Even if one could manipulate its fins, its skeleton wouldn't support all its weight on land."
"But -"
"I mean it. On land, Jaws is gonna be about as active as your Aunt Julia, meaning, unless your definition of 'active' is barely having the coordination and mental capacity to drool and wipe your own -"
"House."
He snorted at Cuddy's attempt to defend her sister. Like she didn't agree with him, he thought knowingly. Clearly she did; she had two eyes, so she must have. Anyone would have.
But he knew that this wasn't about Julia or her penchant for wielding her maternity leave and the poisoned fruit of her loins like weapons. He certainly would have preferred a conversation about the lawyer/mommy/fascist hybrid and her little pack of mouth breathers for children to the one he was having. However, he knew that wasn't going to happen. So he reluctantly got back on topic. "Besides, sharks need water to breathe. The thing could moonwalk out of the ocean, and it wouldn't matter."
Rachel nodded her head, satisfied. He wasn't sure why that was the tipping point, but apparently it was, and that was all that mattered to him. "Oh. Okay," she said after a moment.
Later on, in hindsight, he would note her relief. At that moment though, he missed it completely. He was too tired to notice it and maybe a little too annoyed as well. Whatever the cause, in that exact second, he took her response as dissatisfaction.
Sneering in reaction, he told her sarcastically, "Sorry to disappoint you. I know you came running in here hoping to find Mommy lying next to a really full shark but… didn't happen. Not gonna happen. So you'll just have to hope I accidentally drown in the bathtub, kid."
Did he really think she wanted him dead? Not really. She certainly didn't like him; she didn't care about him. He knew that much. But he also knew that she probably didn't have homicidal feelings in her toward him. Maybe she did; she could have, he supposed, but he was teasing her, not seriously telling her, "Better luck next time." He was just toying with her.
Rachel missed that point though. Her back suddenly becoming ramrod straight, she looked as though he'd slapped her. Her lips frowning, she told him in a hurt voice, "I don't want you to drown."
"Uh huh." He pretended to sound doubtful, not really paying attention to the effect he was having on her. Some part of him recognized that he should have been taking this seriously. But he just assumed that she was messing with him as he was her.
And then she said something he'd never expected her to say. "I don't want anything to happen to you."
His throat suddenly felt dry. His heart raced with realization, with fear. His mind tried to process what she was saying, what it meant, but this time he was the one who felt as though he'd been hit.
He might as well have been. He was stunned, the air knocked out of him. And though he needed to breathe, needed to respond, needed say something - anything - to blow past this instant, he couldn't. His mouth slightly agape, his eyes wide open, he couldn't do anything but look at her as though he'd never seen her before.
She didn't want anything to happen to him?
She was admitting implicitly that she cared about him?
It made no sense.
None.
Rachel cared - why should she? She shouldn't have; he'd never asked her to, and he'd never given her any reason to. No, she really shouldn't have been concerned for his wellbeing, and he was tempted to tell her that. Well, not so much tempted, he corrected, as much as he felt obligated to tell her that…
There were better people to care about.
But his mouth refused to speak those words.
Pushing her away seemed like the only good thing he could do, but House couldn't find it in himself to say or do that.
However, Rachel wasn't prepared to let him off that easily. "Why would you say that?" she demanded to know. Like he had an answer for that. "Why would -"
"Rachel."
Cuddy's voice was a welcome interruption. She hadn't been loud; to the contrary, she had spoken so quietly that he was surprised Rachel had heard her at all. But the kid must have, because as soon as her name had been uttered, her head jerked to look at Cuddy.
"It's very late," she explained in a soothing tone. "House knows you care about him very much." But the way Cuddy spoke made House think that she was just as surprised as he had been. Unlike him though, she was pleased and could barely contain it. "He's just… tired, baby. We all are. Aren't you feeling sleepy?" Rachel hesitantly nodded her head. "He's not thinking clearly right now."
House bristled at what she was saying, but Cuddy didn't care. He might not have liked her explanation, but by now, he would have realized that allowing her to intervene was the best way to resolve the situation at hand. And she wasn't going to apologize for something he only superficially despised.
"So," she said to Rachel, ignoring House's reaction. "Why don't you and I get you cleaned up and -"
"But," Rachel interrupted, clearly not liking the idea. "I -"
"Rachel," Cuddy told her gently. "It's late. It's bedtime. I promise you: House knows, and nothing's going to happen to him." She did her best to sound matter-of-fact without being condescending.
And she must have succeeded, because Rachel nodded her head. "Okay."
"All right," Cuddy said, getting out of bed. Waving at Rachel to join her, she added, "Let's go." She didn't bother to pay attention to House as Rachel got out of the bed. Cuddy didn't need to look to know that he was relieved.
And, truth be told, she wanted to give him his space. After all, if she was surprised that Rachel worried about House, then Cuddy couldn't imagine how he must have felt. Shock couldn't even begin to describe the emotion going through him, she thought. He was convinced - always so convinced - that he was disliked and unlikable that she was sure he was reeling right now.
Confused, terrified, and maybe (though he would never say this) a little happy, he needed time to sort this out. And though part of Cuddy wanted to help him through it, she understood that he needed to do this alone. She couldn't process this for him; he had to do that himself.
All she could do was give him the quiet space and time to do that.
That was much harder than she anticipated. Oh, taking care of Rachel was simple. They'd done this enough times that cleaning her up was down to a science. But it was difficult to pretend like House wasn't just a couple of rooms away, struggling to understand what had happened.
Rachel wasn't making it any easier. As Cuddy helped her into the bathtub, Rachel muttered, "I'm sorry."
"It's okay. Everybody has accidents," she said, kissing her daughter on the cheek. Cleaning her up, Cuddy added, "We'll just wash you, and then I'll change your sheets, and you can go back to sleep."
"No," Rachel muttered under breath quickly. "Mean… sorry I say that to House."
Cuddy stifled her desire to sigh. If she'd been hoping not to think about House, Rachel wasn't making that easy for her, no. But Cuddy knew that that wasn't Rachel's fault; this had happened to her as well, and the last thing Cuddy wanted her daughter to take away from this was that she should be apologetic for telling House how she felt.
"No, don't feel that way," Cuddy said. "I'm glad you told House that you care about him. You should tell him how you feel. He needs to hear that sometimes."
"He wasn't happy about it."
Cuddy shook her head. "He's just surprised, Rachel. He's not used to hearing you talk like that. Not about him anyway."
"I guess." Rachel wiggled her toes in the hot water as Cuddy washed her.
"You know that sometimes you're not very nice to him. When you say that you hate him, he believes you," she said knowingly. House would never admit that. Had she ever said that near him, he would have done everything he could to prove her wrong. But Cuddy knew the truth. He fully believed Rachel didn't like him or care about him. "So… he was surprised tonight. But it'll be okay. Everything will be just fine."
Cuddy wasn't sure who she was trying to convince. Truth be told, it shouldn't have been herself. Rachel admitting that she cared about House was the kind of thing Cuddy had assumed she could only dream about. She'd never expected that to actually happen. And now that it had, part of her was elated by the news, by the fact that there was some sort of bond between House and her daughter.
But at the moment, honestly, Cuddy mainly felt dread. She knew how House could be when his worldview was suddenly altered. She knew how he dealt with sudden outpourings of emotion, and she worried how he would deal with this. It wouldn't be good. She knew that much.
As though this weekend hadn't been difficult enough.
Of course, that made her sound resentful. And really… she wasn't. She loved House and willingly accepted and forgave his flaws. She just wished selflessly that he could understand how much he really was loved.
But he would probably never get that point. For reasons surpassing her understanding, unconditional love was something he couldn't comprehend.
Even when he was surrounded by it.
And now that he had heard Rachel say that she cared, Cuddy wasn't so sure that he would ever have a good reaction to it. But she didn't even consider telling Rachel that. Cuddy hated the idea of lying to her, but in this instance, the truth - or what could be the truth - was something Rachel didn't need to know.
And in the end, Cuddy's reassurances must have worked (on Rachel anyway). By the time she'd finished bathing and dressing Rachel and changing the bed sheets, Rachel was fast asleep. Her only noise a sigh of contentment as Cuddy tucked her in, she was sleeping as though nothing was even remotely wrong.
Only Cuddy herself seemed to be painfully aware of just how precarious things really were. And that reality brutally asserted itself the second she entered her bedroom once more.
Her eyes searching through the darkness, she instantly realized:
House was gone.
His dirty pajamas crumpled up on the floor in a ball, his dresser drawers open, he'd changed and left.
To be honest, Cuddy wasn't sure why she'd expected him to stick around after what had just happened. Looking at the situation now, she thought she should have seen this move coming. She should have known he would run away, their bed not large enough to give him the space he needed.
Nonetheless, she was surprised, shocked at how quickly he could be scared off. She would have liked to have had the opportunity to comfort him, to tell him that Rachel caring about him was a good thing. And Cuddy could see why he was afraid of having that moment, but she was still caught off guard at how fast the need to escape had hit him.
Hopefully, the need to return would seize hold of him just as quickly. That was all she could tell herself. As much as she wanted to go after him, she knew that it would no good. He would come back - and she had no doubt that he would come back - when he was ready.
Until then…
Sighing, Cuddy sat down at the foot of the bed. Her hand lightly running along his side of the mattress, she thought, with dismay, that the covers had already turned cold. Whatever warmth his body had provided was long gone… as she supposed was he.
Closing her eyes, she sighed again. She knew she should try to get some sleep, but she doubted she would be able to. Cliché and pathetic though it was, after years of sleeping next to House, it was difficult for her to do so without him. But right now, she didn't exactly have a choice, did she?
She might have wanted him here; she might have needed him here. But that didn't matter. It didn't change anything.
He was gone.
And there was no telling when he would be back.
Co ntinue on to the next chapter