A/N: This story will contain talk of self mutilation and other various dark subject matter. This is not a story for people who want a happy ending. The main characters may seem 'out of character' at times as well. If you do decide to continue, please leave a review for me. I would like to know if you liked the way this story was written and is turning out. This is the first story I have ever written that contains this kind of content and I need to know if you like it, hate it, or are ambiguous.
Disclaimer: The poem and idea are mine, nothing else…sadly.
*She strips her clothes off
Blood drips on the floor
It stings but it feels better
How many times now?
Who knows, she's lost count
She listened to the water of the shower without getting in
She imagines blood pouring down like little raindrops on her face
It's so pretty, red hope
She draws her finger over the cut
Tiny droplets of blood welling up to greet her
She touches her finger to her tongue and thinks
"Is this what life tastes like?"
Sweet, salty, tangy, metallic, bitter
The pain begins to dull into the numb drumming that signals the blood is slowing
"Deeper next time, more pain, more blood"
She thinks this every time but can't bring herself to do it
She's waiting
Waiting for a sign?
Waiting for help
Help to stop or to go deeper
She doesn't know
It doesn't matter
Either way it will be over soon
She steps into the shower
The water washes away the traces of her crimson memories
She watches them go down the drain
She wishes she could follow*
She sat there in the cold, white, void of a room on the stiff, crunching paper and hard examination table. Images from her last experience with a hospital ran through her mind.
*He had a low grade temperature when she first called the doctor. He had told her to give him a small dose of baby Tylenol, and give him a cool bath every couple of hours. When the fever still hadn't gone away and he started to vomit, she had called the doctor again. He had told her to bring him in the following morning and he would look at him. The next afternoon they were finally seen by the doctor. The doctor looked him over and decided that it was probably just a small bug. He had taken blood to be sent off to the lab, and given her a small dose of liquid antibiotics to put in his bottle. That night she woke up to his constant crying. She found him in his crib, much warmer now. He wouldn't take a bottle and nothing she did seemed to help. That's when she got in the car and took him to the ER. By the time she got there he had stopped crying, he was asleep, and she couldn't wake him. The doctors had taken him away quickly, telling her to wait for them. By the following day everything, would be done and over with.*
That's when there was a knock on the door and it opened, the doctor coming in. "Hello Genny, I'm Dr. Cuddy." she said, closing the door behind her and looking up. The expression on her face went from warm and friendly to surprised and puzzled instantly.
When Lisa Cuddy had been trying to get pregnant two years ago she had also been doing something else. Something else that she was glad, at the time, that House hadn't found out about. She had been looking for her daughter. She would have been twenty one then, and Cuddy could finally, legally, look for her. She had always wondered how everything was turning out for her, who she had become.
She had just turned nineteen when her daughter was born. She had wanted nothing more than to keep her, but she had known that she could have never provided the kind of life she wanted for her child. So she had picked out a nice couple from a book, and twenty four hours after she had been born, Lisa had signed the papers relinquishing all of her rights as her daughters mother.
It had been a closed adoption, and though Lisa knew she wouldn't be able to see her child, or know what was going on with her, she knew it was for the best. The parents had agreed to tell her that she was adopted, and that when she was twenty one she could look into it if she wanted. That was all Lisa could do to make sure that her baby would have a good life and be loved.
Now, back when Cuddy had first started looking for this girl, she hadn't known if the girl would want to know her. How she would react to her, what kind of thoughts she had, if she even cared. One thing Cuddy hadn't counted on was the one thing that had happened. She couldn't find her, something had happened and no one knew where her child was. She couldn't believe something like this could happen, and especially to her child.
She had been told that her daughter's name had been Genevieve Marie Strholm. Her adoptive parents, Ben and Sarah, had died in an accident when she was twelve. Genevieve had been put into foster care, and bounced around from home to home for over four years. Then, when she was sixteen, she had run a way. Even though it was reported early and all the proper steps were taken, Genevieve had never been found.
Cuddy had then tried to do anything she could to possibly find her, or find out what happened. Still, none of her actions brought any avail and she had finally let it go. Until about five or six months ago. She and Greg, she never called him House when they were talking about personal stuff, had started to become close. After the adoption had fallen through, Greg had been there for her, as surprising as that was.
He had stayed with her that first night, just holding her. Nights after that he would come over with dinner and they would eat together. Sitting on her couch with his arms wrapped around her, watching television and not saying anything. Finally a couple of weeks passed and one night as Greg was walking her to bed, she asked him to stay. He had looked hesitant at first, but he was still House, and decided to listen to her.
After the first week of this new agreement, or arrangement, or whatever they had going on, Greg woke her up at three in the morning one night. It was cold and he pulled the covers up over her still naked body. She had rolled over and placed her head on his bare chest, taking in his warmth.
"Lisa, are you happy?" he had asked.
"Sure." she had said, still half asleep.
"Maybe right now, but what about in a few months?" he asked.
Lisa looked up at his face at this question. She didn't know what to think, both Greg and House never talked like this.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"I want to make you happy, I want to help you have a baby." he said, strongly stating it.
"What? What about you?" she asked.
"I don't know if I'll ever be happy, I'm content right now, but I wouldn't mind having a baby with you, especially if it makes it you happy." he said.
"Greg, I don't know if I can…" she said, being cut off by his lips on hers.
"We can try, and there are other ways. Besides, we're already doing the fun part." he said, smirking.
She sat up, wanting to be able to look him in the eye, and told him everything. He knew that she had tried before, but he didn't know everything. He also didn't know about the daughter she had and lost. She took this time to disclose everything, and take in his reactions, and his question. She had told him to think about what he wanted, and everything she had told him, then talk to her again.
It was a few days later when he showed up on her doorstep with a bag full of 'trying-to-have-a baby-things' as he put it.
After the first two weeks of trying, she hadn't been surprised when her period was late. She had only been off the pill for a short time and her hormones were trying to get back to normal again. Still, Greg had insisted that she take the test anyway. She had gone in the bathroom and peed on the stick, like she had so many times before. What she was surprised at was the fact that the test had come out positive. Somehow Greg hadn't been surprised in the least though. When she had come out of her bathroom, he had been sitting on the bed with two decked out bowls of ice cream and a huge smile on his face.
That had been around four months ago, and since then everything had been sorted out with the hospital board, and everyone else. She hadn't told them about being pregnant until she started to show at just about three months. This had given her time to plan how she was going to tell everyone that she and Greg were having a child. She was feeling good again, now that the slight morning sickness was completely gone.
She had just put on her lab coat and gone to the clinic desk. She picked up a file for room three and looked at it while walking there. It was for a Genny M. Gracen, 25, complaining of a broken toe and foot lac. She opened the door and went in.
"Hello, I'm Dr. Cuddy." she said, closing the door and then looking up at the girl.
Departing Note: I know what I said in my authors note…and right now it doesn't seem like this is a very dark story, but trust me…it is coming. Please let me know if there is an interest in this kind of genre. Thank you for taking a chance on me (no pun intended) and reading, truly.