Alright.. I wrote this story for mainly two reasons. First off, I have an unhealthy obsession with the idea of Dr. House and Dr. Wilson being, and always having been, female. It just tickles me in all the right places. It doesn't change much in the narrative, it just... makes me happy.
Second, I thought the episode "One Day, One Room" was really strange, and it kind of blind-sided me. The whole time I was expecting something terrible to happen, some grand manipulation, anything. But then in the end it was just what it was. I had a hard time understanding why House was sharing the information he was with Eve, because I could think of plenty of more recent, hurtful things he could've shared, and while he does like to bitch about his dad, he doesn't seem that inclined to sharing why he doesn't like him. So why tell her that? (Aside from the obvious explanation that he wouldn't have to interact with her again and she'd never meet his parents, which I can sympathize with) This fic is my exploration of how he (she) might have come to the decision to share this with Eve.
Disclaimer: I don't own House M.D.~
She isn't sure why Eve wants to speak with her. The girl was raped, and she seeks out the one doctor who is least likely to feel any sympathy for her predicament.
House has nothing to offer; no magical insight. No heartwarming stories to share.
"It's like you're hurt too," the girl says and House stares at her. She wants to say -everybody hurts- or -what do you expect, have you looked at my leg?- but she knows that's not what she meant.
House has never been hurt, not like that, and comparison is a dangerous game.
…...
There was the time she was shot, as Wilson helpfully points out. By all means, that should be a traumatic memory, but somehow it's less. It seems surreal, when she thinks of it now.
It had all happened so fast. Then came the ketamine and the few months' pardon from her life-sentence of pain. They never found the guy, but it didn't matter. She felt no more or less safe than she ever had.
"Who would want to hurt you?" his tone had been mocking, and between the two of them they knew the real question was "Who wouldn't wanna hurt you?".
Her world view had been far from shattered by the bullets - it hadn't been whole to begin with.
…...
"Tell her your life has been good," Cameron offers, and House scoffs at her naivety. "It hasn't been," she counters, because objectively her life is not that great.
She thinks about the infarction, and she doesn't think of blinding pain or the patronizing doubt of her physicians. She doesn't think about desperation and lonely nights spent in agony; she doesn't even think about the little bottle of pills tucked away in her pocket. (Still, upon not thinking about it, she subconsciously reaches for it.)
When House thinks of the infarction she thinks of Stace. Of the guilt with which he'd looked upon her from the moment she woke up, to the moment it was all over.
She thinks of the betrayal. Her betrayal and his betrayal.
She thinks about how they took away her right to make decisions about her own body, took away her control, and she is angry and maybe a little bit scared.
But comparison is a dangerous game, and House still remembers Eve's sneer.
"So you think I am raping YOU? Out! Get OUT!"
It had been the purpose of her words. Almost got her out of this pinch. But only almost.
The girl's grand plan had been seemingly stupid; an overdose in a hospital. Not a bid to die – Just a way to get what you need. (Such as answers.)
House can sympathise, but she doesn't tell Eve that.
…...
"Tell her your life sucked," Foreman says and House almost rolls her eyes. It didn't. She thinks about hanging out with Wilson, solving cases and annoying Cuddy. She thinks about sports and Stace.
She even thinks about climbing trees and exploring the wildlands of wherever her family had been stationed at the time. She thinks about meeting the janitor-doctor who no one liked but everyone needed. She thinks about hope.
"What would you have wanted your father to say to you?" Coma guy asked, and she hadn't realized how much she meant it before she'd said it.
"You were right. You did the right thing."
So she thinks about the janitor. No one thought they needed him until they did. Because he was right.
House is good at being right.
"Act like.. you've healed." Foreman adds, and she wants to say something snarky about how muscle doesn't just grow back, but she knows that's not what he meant and for once she keeps her mouth shut.
"Act like you've healed".
Has she?
…...
"Has anything terrible ever happened to you?"
…...
Terrible is such a big word. House thinks that plenty of annoying things have happened to her, and some may even count as terrible. If something is terrible you feel terror.
She thinks about the times she's thought she would die. And she thinks about the times she has wanted to die.
A good deal of the time they overlap, which is probably a good thing.
She thinks about Tritter tripping her cane and she thinks, it wasn't terrible, and she would never admit to being afraid of the man, but on some primal level she hated how he flaunted his physical control over her.
House likes to be in control; and not just for the entertainment of Wilson who can spend countless hours psychoanalyzing that trait.
She thinks about being pulled over and turned around and patted down, and she thinks about defiance barely concealing her fear.
It still comes short of "terrible".
She thinks about Wilson and Tritter in her office. The deal and the betrayal. The disbelief in Wilson's puppy-dog eyes, the frown on her face.
How she probably really did think she was doing the right thing.
She thinks about betrayal and she thinks it was terrible, but she doesn't think that's the kind of terror Eve wants to hear about.
She thinks about pain and about wanting to end it all and be free from misery, but she knows it's a weak comparison. Psychological and physical pain is not really the same, no matter how much Wilson insists. (Nevermind that they can, and usually will, coexist)
So she starts to think about being small and out of control and terrified, and there's really only one end-station for those kind of thoughts.
She doesn't want to go to that station.
…...
"Pretending this didn't happen is the best thing she can do"
"No you gotta make this real"
"There's no way she can pretend this isn't real so she has no choice but to process it"
"Just tell her the truth"
Everyone's a psychologist, except none of them are, and it doesn't matter at all because Eve doesn't want a psychologist. She wants a conversation. A heart to heart.
House doesn't do heart to hearts, never has. Whenever she bares her soul she bares it in anger, lashing out at the offender who is slashing at her defenses.
Usually that would be Wilson, but Wilson is not a twenty-something recent rape victim who looks at her like she somehow has the key to put her life back in something resembling it's natural order (and thank god for that).
…...
"There's no wrong answer because there's no right answer," Chase says, wise beyond his years but wrong all the same.
"Wrong. We just don't know what the right answer is."
There's always a right answer and it might be somewhere around the end station, but she doesn't talk about that, it's not something she's supposed to talk about.
"It's not as bad as what happened to you. I think. I mean, I don't know what happened to you." She feels uncharacteristically nervous. Like she's in front of the jury again, only this time they're judging her score in the comparison game and her whiny ass is coming in second.
"But assuming how lousy you're responding I'm assuming it was worse than getting abused by your grandmother," it's a lie, but it's not too far off the truth. House never knew any of her grandparents but that's beside the point. A little white lie is nothing compared to what Eve has already been through, right?
She ignores the feeling that she is abusing this girl's trust. It doesn't matter if the story is true. It just has to be right.
"What did she do to you?" Eve asks, looking awfully sincere and a little bit anxious. House feels her own anxiety build. It was nothing like that. Not that kind of abuse. Then she remembers they're still talking about her grandmother, and it's unlikely that Eve's mind would've gone there immediately, anyway.
She grapples a moment with the lie in the truth, and settles on "my parents travelled a lot" which was not quite a lie, and plants the untruth skillfully. "They'd leave me with her". People do that, right?
"She liked things the way she liked them. And she believed in discipline. She was right, I suppose, because I hardly ever screwed up when she was around.,," It's getting closer to the truth and Eve's eyes are boring into her. She feels exposed. It's not entirely true. Screwing up is many things. There were arbitrary rules she didn't always know how to follow; and when she got older there were stupid rules she refused to follow.
"..too scared of being forced to sleep in the yard, or.. take a bath in ice." She tries for somewhere between nonchalance and sincerity, and she hopes it works, because she doesn't want to explore this any further.
The thought of being small and scared, nerves on fire and with no semblance of control, all because she had been wrong.. It's silly and unbecoming, but it's true. The thought terrifies her even now - more than she cares to think about.
-Now let it go, your turn, - House thinks, a little bit desperate.
"Your parents, they.. they never stopped her?" she asks, and a little part of House wants to laugh at that, but it would be counterproductive.
"I never told them," she said instead.
"Why not?" Eve is looking interested, and House sits down in the chair, creating a bit of distance between them. She's bored with this conversation, or so she tells herself.
"Usual reasons." She thinks of the things she's been forced to read about children in abusive environments through her education; she thinks of her mom's love and devotion. The importance of being right.
"I was afraid they wouldn't believe me.. I was afraid they'd think I'd done something wrong.."
It's not entirely true. Blythe, to some extent, knew what was going on between her husband and daughter, and while she didn't approve it was never her call to make. At least that's what House thought, but it was hard to say. They never spoke much of it, and there was a sweetness and naivety in her mother she'd never wish to taint by taking her hostage in their war.
With the years the fight had become less one-sided anyway, until finally it had boiled back to a kind of cold war of mutually assured unpleasantries.
And of course the girl didn't believe her. Great. Her spirited insistence that "you wouldn't keep calling her Oma" was giving House a headache.
It was also confirming what she'd feared. She'd gone with the wrong story. Statistics suggested Eve's assailant had been someone she knew, so House had gone with the "betrayed by someone who was supposed to love me" angle.
Her insistence that "something would have to change" suggested she had no idea what she was talking about.
"You don't know me," House said, but didn't argue her point. "Oma" was a name just like "Dad" or "Mom" are names for specific roles relative to our lives. Things don't cease to be called by their proper name merely because they represent something other that what we'd like them to. A stone is still a stone whether someone uses it to bash your head in, or to build you a house.
"Is any part of your story true?" she looks defeated and House is tired of this debate.
"It's true for somebody."
House feels like an idiot. It was the wrong answer. If she was gonna tell her about something terrible that happened to someone, she migh as well have told her about people who were locked in cellars or pulled into the back of a van never to see the light of day again. What was the point of making it personal if she wasn't going to follow through anyway?
House is grateful when she's interrupted by Cuddy, but it doesn't last. Eve is pregnant. House hopes the perpetrator's name isn't Adam, and that she won't have twins. For once she keeps this overly twisted humor to herself.
Eve wants to keep the baby. "Every life is sacred" she quotes meaningfully, and House just wants to go home and sleep. Except she can't, not now. There's finally a right answer, at least to her. Eve is just yet another moron who needs to learn that House's way is the right way.
She can do this.
"You're enjoying this conversation," Eve aptly observes and House can't help a small smile. "This is the kind of conversation I do well."
…...
"Are you feeling good inside? Feeling warm and fuzzy?" she asks, exasperated. Eve just stares at her intently, and sits down beside her.
"I was raped. What's your excuse?"
House isn't so sure anymore if she needs an excuse to be miserable.
…...
"Why did you choose me?"
"There's something about you. It's like you hurt too." And House is hurting at that moment. A dull ache in her chest and stomach, something like sympathetic pain, a pressure behind her eyes. The familiar bite of her leg, nerve-ends firing confused signals, a constant white noise of barely suppressed agony.
But House has never been hurt, not like that, and comparison is a dangerous game.
House isn't sure what to believe in anymore, but she has always believed in the truth above all else, and she gives it to her like an offering of good faith.
"It was my Dad."
…...
"She's gonna be okay." Cuddy says it like it's a fact.
"Yeah. It's that simple," House says scornfully. Wilson casts a glance over the fussball table, and House ignores her.
"She's talking about what happened. That's huge. You did good." It's rare to hear that kind of praise from Cuddy. It makes House want to remove herself from the situation. What is the point if there is no right answer – how can one possibly succeed?
"And everyone'll tell you .. That's what we gotta make her do. If we're gonna help her, right? Except we can't. We drag out her story," There's a question in Wilson's eyes, one that House isn't ready to answer. She's not sure she even knows the answer.
"..Tell each other that it'll help her heal, and feel reaaaal good about ourselves." The bitterness is unmistakable at this point.
"But maybe all we've done is make a girl cry."
Wilson is looking at her fully now. There's a soft understanding there that makes House cringe.
"Then why did you..?" House shuts her up by hitting the ball too hard, betraying her emotions. For a moment their eyes meet, then House sighs.
"Because I don't know"
Note: Phew, done. Writing takes a lot of energy these days, because there is *something* wrong with my hands, though the doctors haven't figured out what. Well, I'm not exactly dying yet, so I can't expect to be sent to the department of diagnostics ;)
I considered having the whole "first it's grandma, now I tell you the truth" be more of a calculated manipulation to "gradually open up to her", but I kind of felt like House developed a sort of respect for Eve throughout the episode, and that it would be nice if it was in fact this respect which prompted his honesty :)