This fic was inspired by Ernest Hemingway's six word story, "For sale: Baby Shoes, never worn." I used to show how Cuddy feels about about not being able to attain motherhood, which to me, is heart-breaking. I hope when I go to have kids, I won't have the kind of problems she has had.
Minor spoilers for 5x06 Joy (most of it I'm making up though, I'm just guessing what can happen by watching promos :P)
And also, I used a new writing style. I have never wrote in first person before, so I would love it you all told me how I did :)
Disclaimer: I don't own House, that belongs to David Shore, NBC, Fox, blah. I don't own the six line story either, that belongs to Mr. Hemingway :)
Baby Shoes, Never Worn
For sale: Baby shoes, never worn.
It's just an advertisement to sell something I don't need, but I feel tears bead up on my eyelashes, making my vision blurry, hard to see, and leaves a trail of salty wetness on my face.
I hadn't expected it would go this way.
I shut my laptop and set it on the floor, and then put my feet in the chair, bringing my knees to my chest and wrapping my arms around my legs, looking around at the rest of the room. The walls, three out four painted a bright yellow. I had yet to finish the remaining wall, but I saw no need to paint it now. I thought that I still had time before she would need this room; there had been two weeks before she was due. But now I had all the time in the world, because I would never be bringing her home.
The crib that Wilson had helped me pick out, that was useless as well. The rocking chair I was sitting in…I wonder if I can still return it to the store. I will never sit up on tiresome nights, rocking my baby to sleep, whispering sweet sounds into her ear until she drifted off to sleep.
The room that I had prepared with so much love and care now seemed to mock my inability to have a child.
It wasn't my fault that the mother had decided to keep her own child. It's understandable. When you almost die, and your baby – a part of you – almost dies too, you can't help but feel that connection, the need to protect your baby so they never can be harmed again.
The Maternal Instinct.
I don't blame the mother. Part of me hated her because I could not understand why someone would willingly give away their child. How can there be people out there that do not would their kid when I want one so badly?
But another part of me loved her for the same reason. She was giving me an opportunity to give me what I wanted, what I needed.
First, I didn't even think that my baby (her baby…) was going to even stay alive. House tried so hard…for me…because he knew what it meant to me. I was hysterical in the operating room. Crying, screaming, and begging for the baby to be alright. I'm Lisa Cuddy, the Dean of Medicine. Independent, strong, doesn't (easily) lose her cool. But when I was faced with the possibility that I might lose my child (her child now…),the pain was unbearable. I didn't even know the baby, she wasn't even part of my flesh, and I would have died for her, gave her my own stable lungs just so she could breathe.
The baby did live; she's just not going to be mine.
Why? I can't I have what I want? Is it not meant to be? I almost had her…but she was taken away from me…before she was even mine.
On the armrest is the blanket that I had monogrammed just for her. I run my hand over the print of her would-have-been name if she had been mine, and the tears that had been trickling down my cheeks now turned into sobs, crying for what could have been.
Joy.
So...what did you think? Sad? Crying? Think it's bad? Let me know! Review please :)
Thanks!
