Memento Mori
A/N: This is the first time I've attempted anything for House. My usual forte is Anime. Read and review, please? Before I forget, "Memento Mori" is Latin for "Remember that you will die." I thought it was a fitting title, all things considered.
Disclaimer: It should be obvious, but I do not own House M.D., nor any of the characters. They belong to David Shore and Fox. Kudos to Mr. Shore for creating such an awesome show, with such compelling, fascinating characters. Especially one as colorful as House!
Some days, she imagines that she can feel herself dying. She can feel the decay of her nerves, the erosion of her cells.
She knows this is a ridiculous notion.
The clock is ticking. The noose is slowly tightening. Her days are numbered. How long, she wonders, does she have before her body will begin to betray her? Eight years? Ten years? Twelve, if she's extraordinarily lucky? Will she live to see forty?
She doubts it. And she hopes she doesn't live to see forty, because she knows that by then, she'll be so far gone that she'll only be a shell of her former self, a pitiful shadow. Nothing more than an empty, vacant, withered husk.
She's studied the disease in depth, spent hours reading about it. She knows what to expect. As a doctor, she knows all the terminology for it. And, she watched her mother deteriorate, and die. It hadn't been a peaceful death. She'd died screaming.
Remy remembers after the funeral, the quiet of the house. No more of her mother's screams and curses. In her final year, her mother no longer knew her daughter or her husband. Her mental faculties had all but deteriorated. Remy had seen the quiet as a blessing. But then, it became a curse-at first it had been a relief to come home to, but after awhile it had become oppressive, stifling. It all became too much. She knew her father grieved in private; she'd see him sitting on the bed, quietly sobbing over family pictures from happier times, when her pretty mother had had a sparkle in her eyes and had been full of life before the slow progression of the Huntington's had taken her, and everything she'd once been.
As soon as she graduated high school, Remy had applied to med school, and never looked back. She'd discovered that she had a fifty-fifty chance of inheriting the disease, of ending up like her mother-dying a slow, agonizing, lingering death, becoming a prisoner in her own body.
She wishes that she'd never taken that goddamned blood test now. Not knowing was better, she reasons. She's dying, and there's nothing she can do about it except delay the process.
In a twisted way, being prone to a genetic disorder was a blessing in disguise-it pushed her accomplish everything she'd set out to do- become a doctor, travel the world, take the fellowship with House, one of the world's leading diagnosticians, even if he can be a complete bastard, his intellect is razor sharp, and his insights are often frighteningly, disturbingly accurate.
She knows she'll never settle down and marry. And while she probably would never have children, she feels angry and bitter about all that's been stolen from her-she can't even entertain the possibility of sharing her life with someone, because her own life span has been cut in half. She wonders what people see when they look at her-a pretty young doctor with her whole life and career ahead of her? If they only knew. She's sure they don't see a dying woman living on borrowed time.
She's afraid to place too much faith in the drug trials that Foreman has talked her into participating in-she doesn't know how much good they'll do her. She knows that at best, they can slow the progression of the disease. She listens to Foreman's words of encouragement, and pretends to believe them.
Hope seems to keep some people going. Remy believes that hope is foolish, deluded even.
After all, everyone must die. She's just going to be doing it sooner than most people.
A/N: Yes I know this was rather grim, and this idea kinda popped into my head out of nowhere, because Hadley or "Thirteen" really intrigues me. I wanted to do something about her facing her own mortality…and this was the result. Like it? Hate it? Tell me what you think. I love feedback! I might try my hand at more House fic. I've got some ideas floating around in my head. Thanks for reading!