Disclaimer: Not mine.
A/N: Muse took a little break to write this oneshot for Pandorama, to thank her for all the hard work she did editing my end of term papers. Enjoy it!
A/N: Melissa is my lovely beta reader!
It was colder than normal for September, or maybe that was just the way she was feeling. The house was quiet for the first time that she could remember in a long time. She supposed that wasn't entirely surprising. It was empty, after all.
Except for her, of course. She shivered slightly, noticing that there was a draft coming from somewhere. She frowned. One of the windows had to be open. She checked the windows of her bedroom, where she was standing. None of them were open. As she approached her bedroom door, she knew where the draft was coming from, which window it was. She wondered how long it had been open. The room hadn't been entered in nearly a week.
She had avoided the room at all costs, not wanting to exacerbate her grief. Although the door was open, she hadn't been able to bring herself to come close enough to the room to close it. The room was directly across from her own, which meant she had been forced to avert her eyes every time she left her bedroom so as not to accidentally catch a glimpse of the uninhabited space across the hall. Tonight, however, she was unable to do so. Another shiver overtook her, and she knew that she had no choice but to close the window. Wrapping her arms around herself, she took off down the hall.
She knew as soon as she entered that one of the windows had to be open in this room. The temperature had dropped noticeably from her own room. She once again dwelled on how unusually cold it was for September; it felt more like November in New Jersey. It was already dark, as the sun had set nearly half an hour before. Resigning herself, she knew that she would not be able to avoid looking at the room. She couldn't see what was on the floor and didn't want to trip. Her hand snaked across the wall until it found the light switch. She flicked it on, flooding the room with light.
Her eyes fell on the bed first, neatly made with all the stuffed animals in a row. The quilt was hand-stitched, a gift from her mother. A purple blanket was folded on the end of the bed, her favorite since birth. On top of it lay the blanket from the Harvard bookstore, purchased at her dream school during one of the college visits. She took a tentative step closer, hesitation holding her back. She felt sad and empty as she crossed the threshold of what had been her daughter's room.
Rachel's face smiled at her from the photographs tacked onto the bulletin board on the wall. Cuddy walked over, eager to get a closer look at her daughter's face. Her eyes greedily took in the images. The one in the center had been taken just three months before she had left, a graduation picture. Rachel's hair was long and dark, and her arms were around her two best friends. All three of them were clutching diplomas, their graduation tassels moved to the left. Cuddy smiled at the memory. She might have been biased, but she thought her daughter was beautiful.
Another draft blew through the room, reminding her why she was there. Tearing herself away from Rachel's face, she turned to the open window. She could feel the wind moving through the holes of the screen as she pulled the window down and shut. She breathed a sigh of relief as the draft receded.
It really was too cold for September.
Her business in the room done, she turned to leave, but found that she could not. She felt an inexplicable pull to the room, a need to be physically close to her daughter – something that perhaps being in the room could fill, or at least help to relieve. Rachel had been her first daughter, her only child. Although she had tried again, when Rachel was five, she had been unable to conceive. Although she had hoped for another child, Rachel had become enough.
Memories flooded her as she sat down on Rachel's unused bed. She remembered explaining to a seven-year-old Rachel that she had been adopted, although she kept the details about her daughter's biological mother from her until nearly six years later. Seven was, she had rationalized, too young to know her mother was dead, that there was no biological father in the picture. Rachel had listened with her usual attentiveness, quiet, yet composed. She had cried a little when learning of her mother's death, and Cuddy remembered holding her then, taking her into her arms as though Rachel were still a baby, but knowing that she was not so young anymore. Over the years, Cuddy had watched her daughter grow into a beautiful young woman. She had watched her fall in love for the first time and experience heartbreak. She had stood by her daughter's side as they attended the funeral of her childhood friend, killed by a drunk driver, and Rachel had stood by hers at the funeral of her own mother, just the previous year.
But now Rachel was gone, too.
How long Cuddy sat there, she did not know. It was long after the patter of rain had begun to sound on the windowpanes and lightning flashed across the sky. She felt as though the weather was strangely accurate in its reflection of her mood.
"I'm home."
She whirled around. He was standing in the doorway, leaning more heavily on its frame than he once had. It still surprised her that he managed to get to work every day – and still had a desire to be there – but she had long since stopped questioning him or insisting that he retire. As with everything he did, he would do it his own way, in his own time.
"Missing her?" House asked, his voice low and understanding.
She realized suddenlythat they had not spoken about Rachel's departure since she had left. She supposed this shouldn't have surprised her. Although he had officially adopted Rachel as his own daughter years ago – on her ninth birthday – she still wondered about the level of emotional connection he felt to her. Rachel had always been taken with him from a young age; from him, more so than her, Rachel had developed her interest in science and medicine. Cuddy supposed this was because her daughter saw her as more of an administrator than a doctor, though she did not take offense. She relished the memories she had of House talking with a teenage Rachel long into the night about his various cases, rare diseases, and diagnoses.
"Yeah," she admitted.
"How long have you been sitting here?"
"Long enough," she sighed, standing up. Her knees felt sore as she straightened her legs. She walked slowly over to House and wrapped her arms around his waist. He leaned down to kiss her forehead.
"I miss her, too," he murmured.
She smiled slightly at his admission. So her departure had affected him deeply after all. Cuddy still remembered the day they had dropped her off at her dorm just a week ago. Her dorm room at Harvard was stocked with all the best that the online Target store could buy, and as was her custom, everything was color-coordinated. Lavender and navy had been the dominant colors, and Rachel had insisted they wouldn't clash, which wasn't entirely true, but she supposed the room had to be to Rachel's liking anyway, not her own. Although Rachel had seemed happy there, she couldn't shake the image of the tears in Rachel's eyes as she hugged her for the final time, or the feel of Rachel's warm body in her arms. She hadn't taken Rachel's presence in her life for granted, but it felt as though her leaving for college had left a void in Cuddy's life that just couldn't be filled.
"She's happy there, you know," House said. "That's all we want for her, right? To be happy."
"Why couldn't she have fallen in love with Princeton instead?" Cuddy wondered aloud. "Then she wouldn't have to be so far away." She felt surprised when she felt tears in her eyes. She had not cried since the little bit on the flight back home, but now she felt as though her grief was all-consuming.
House laughed softly as he wiped the tears from her cheeks. "You know that we never would have allowed that," he told her, a trace of his familiar snarkiness now noticeable. "Too close. Any true college experience has to take place at least a thousand miles away from the parentals."
"Harvard isn't a thousand miles away," Cuddy pointed out.
"Then we obviously sucked at being parents."
Cuddy smiled in spite of herself. "Obviously." She wrapped her arms tighter around House, leaning into his chest.
The sudden ringing of the phone broke their embrace apart. They both looked at each other, and she knew they were wondering the same thing. "I'll get it," she said, her voice hushed. She ran from the room, not wanting to miss the person on the other end of the line. The phone had already rung three times before she reached the receiver. Steadying herself, she answered it.
"Hello?"
Her face broke into a huge smile as she heard the voice on the other end. "Hi, Mom."
A/N: I appreciate any and all reviews!