Compassion
"Stacy..."
Oh, god. He's not awake for twenty seconds and you're already holding back the tears. Come on, hold it together, just a little longer, maybe it won't be so bad... you know you're lying to yourself.
"Hey," you whisper, brushing back stray curls from his forehead. He's still so tired, still so weak looking... he smiles slightly at you, and you feel it like poisoned barb stabbed straight into your heart.
"See?" he says, voice rough from disuse. "I told you. It's not so bad now."
"Greg..."
His eyes flash for an instant, and you can see fear in them, but it disappears again as soon as it came. He smiles again. For the first time in your life, you're wishing he'd stop.
"It still hurts, so the doctors didn't lop it off," he remarks lightly, reassuring himself in the process of trying to reassure you. He's trying to tell you he's okay. But you know that won't last. He's not okay.
"Greg..." you whisper thickly. No, come on, don't cry yet, he's already giving you that look, the one that always reminded you of a child in the face of some tragedy, begging "please don't let it be true, please don't let it hurt me".
And you hurt him anyway. You tell him.
He stares at you for a long, long moment, but you can barely see it through the tears that blur your vision, even though you could have sworn you had cried enough already to fill a lake. He lifts up the blanket and looks, and you can't look at him but you can't look away either. The wounded look on his face is worse than anything, but you still look at him, because you know you deserve to suffer. And nothing is going to hurt worse than this.
He lets the blanket drop back down, and his head lolls back on the pillow. He's staring at the ceiling now, mouth open in shock and pain. He's been kicked when he was down, but there's still a selfish part of you that wants him to understand, even if he doesn't right away, that you did it for him, because you love him, and because the thought of losing him permanently was something so terrifying you couldn't let it happen, even if it meant giving him up.
You hear the quiet keening in his throat, like a wounded animal, and you have to bite your lip to keep from sobbing. You're a mess. You've been a mess for weeks. But this is worse. You don't dare touch him, because you know how his brain works. That sound he's making, the very beginning of crying, that sound fits him well, because you know if you tried to touch him now he'd flinch away and attack you like a scared and hurt animal- he associates you with pain now, and probably always will.
It was a betrayal of trust, and you deserve it, but oh god it hurts.
His breath hitches, and his head shakes back and forth slightly, trying to deny what he can't now, and his mouth opens and closes. You can imagine what's going on in his head right now. Shockwaves of denial, pain, disbelief. In his mind, he's curled up like a child in the corner, sobbing bitterly.
You aren't going to try and justify it to him. He won't listen. You couldn't make this up anyway, it's too deep for him.
His fragile trust has been shattered beyond repair, and you take full blame for it. You'd take it if he screamed at you, hated you, never wanted to see you again. You'd take it because you knew that was the consequence for your actions before you did them, but damnit you couldn't watch him die! But he's not doing any of those things. He's swallowing and staring at the ceiling, trembling. You can't apologize, but you can do one thing for him.
You leave.
AN:
I don't know if this has been done before. The infarction from Stacy's point of view, I mean. But I watched Three Stories again today and it hit me again that Stacy isn't anywhere near as bad as many people want her to be. What's wrong with wanting the person you love to live? But at the same time, I could clearly see the betrayal there. The issues blend into eachother, there.
But I got an image of House's reaction to finding it out, and I wanted to write it. I also wanted to try second person narrative. It's my first, so I know it isn't that good.
Please leave a review, even though it's a short fic. I appreciate it.