The Nightmare Is Over
This is a kinda random story about House and how he felt about his father, whilst his father was alive and when he died. It also deals with House's issue with keeping the abuse by his father a secret from his mother only to tell her all later on.
Anyway I do not own any of the characters of this story as they all belong to Fox...not me sadly.
At the mention of his father's death Gregory House felt nothing but relief.
Whilst his mother sobbed into his arm he couldn't help but pray that his father's lifeless body be cremated any quicker by the flames that licked at his coffin.
As his relatives shook his hand and apologised for his loss he felt like crying out "what loss?" but seeing his mother in pieces prevented him from expelling the feelings he'd kept at bay for years.
The reason for these bitter and twisted feelings was to do with the way his father had treated him throughout House's life. Gregory House kept a very dark secret within only between him and his father. There was also that patient Eve, the rape victim who had consoled herself and him as she opened up to her horrific experience and also let him confide in her about the way his father had treated him as he grew up. But to be honest this secret was still between him and his father and as his father took that secret to his fiery grave House wondered if he could finally share it with someone close to him.
He thought about telling all to his mother but he could not bear to shatter the ideal of her perfect husband now he was dead. He thought about telling Wilson or one of his Ducklings but what was he to achieve from that? Nothing was the answer.
So the secret would have to be taken to his grave as well.
Months after his father's funeral House helped his mother move into a smaller home, she didn't have her husband to support her anymore and she wanted to live closer to her son whom she hardly ever saw.
He came across a picture of the three of them; they looked the perfect picture family. House however knew that this picture was a lie in itself. This picture had been taken the day after his mother had got home from her week away due to work.
House had been looked after his father, he was only six and the day before his mother's homecoming he remembered all too well.
"Greg!" his father hollered from the living room.
A young Gregory House was sat outside in his sandbox playing away with no worries on his mind, he was doing as he was told and was staying out of his father's way whilst he tided the house for his mother's arrival.
"Yes dad." House shouted back, even now Greg knew that the name 'Dad' was a formality. If he had it his way he wouldn't call his father anything at all.
"What did I say to you about tidying your room for your mama?"
"It had to be spotless." Greg replied as he felt his father's anger surge out of him.
"So why isn't it then boy?"
"It is." Greg replied panicking. "I put all my clothes away, cleared my toys up and made my bed."
"So how comes I found your books on the floor then?"
'Oh no!' Greg thought desperately. "I was gonna tidy them up honest." He replied panic stricken.
"Well that's not good enough is it son? I said spotless and you disobeyed me. I think that's a night outside with no dinner."
"No dad! Please!" House whimpered.
"Are you arguing with me boy?" his father asked baring his teeth.
"No." He replied quietly as he focused on the sand in the sandbox.
"That'll teach you that when I say something I mean it." His father spat as he closed the back door.
House could hear the scraping key in the lock and here he was for the night.
The clouds became overcast and rain started to drip from the clouds before it turned into a downpour.
There was an old doghouse at the back of the garden which House retired to in these times of desperation.
How he wished his mother would return as tears stained a dirty old pillow.
"Greg honey." Blythe House said as she took the picture from her son's hands. "Are you ok? You seemed to drift off." She took a look at the picture and smiled "I remember this picture. You and your dad threw me a little welcome home party when I came back from working away. Do you remember?"
"No, no I don't." House lied as he wrapped a vase closest to him.
If only she knew what his father had really been like, if only she knew what he used to put her son through. If only.
Two years later his mother passed away from a bad bout of pneumonia.
House decided to bury his mother in a nice cemetery overlooking the busy town. As he managed to kneel down before her grave stone he let it all out. All the things he'd wanted to tell her but couldn't in fear of breaking his mother's heart.
"You know he wasn't as great as you thought he was." House started as he looked into the marble. "He was a right old bastard and you never knew." The wind ruffled House's now lack of hair as he continued. "When you went away he used to be so mean to me." He took a deep breath before he carried on. "He used to lock me out in our back garden for the stupidest things. He once locked me out back because I left some books on the floor; I had to use the dog house for shelter. That was the man you married Mom. Another time I came in all dirty from playing soccer and he made me take a bath in ice. Yeah, in ice and he wouldn't let me out of the bath until I'd turned blue. I know right about now you'd say I'm overreacting but I'm not. If only you were there to protect me from him. I hated spending time alone with him so much. I felt everything I did I'd be punished for; I couldn't be a normal kid around him. That's why we never shared that bond you complained we never had, because the truth is Mom that I resented him. I hated him with every fibre of my being for what he did to me, the pain he put me through. Even after I made a life of my own he was never happy for me, he always disapproved of how I turned out, how I became a cripple. But at least you loved me for the person I was." House felt there was so much more he needed to say but his emotions told him that was enough for the time being. He was sure that his mother now had an idea of what her husband was really like.
It'd only taken him over fifty years to let it out, but since his father had died he knew that the nightmare was over.
He wiped his tearstained cheeks with the back of his hand and limped out of the cemetery knowing that he was a free man, free of not only fear but free of heartache.
The ending's a bit cheesy but review please :)