This chapter gets a little dark. (a little? heh) Downright angsty, really. But then the episode 7x11 "Family Practice" is one of the darker episodes I've seen in a long while. I… I'm like the sane(r) characters on that, I have no words for the utter depth of ethical depravity reached by this episode.
It is my personal opinion that canon Cuddy's treatment of canon House is emotionally and psychologically abusive. Morally, ethically, and as of this episode one could argue legally. Just because she hasn't hit him doesn't mean it's not abuse. Canon House has a very classical presentation of little-to-no self esteem: drug use prior to the infarction, loner behavior, past abuse, the fact that he rarely defends himself unless there's a patient involved. Even (especially) when he's right.
I'm starting to regret my decision to keep this story arc ultra-compatible to the show's canon. Now it's just a matter of when I reach my critical mass of disgust for Abusive!Huddy. I call it even odds I can stand to make it to the end of this season before taking things full AU.
The Nebulous Mistress flips a coin.
This chapter rated M for themes on gender, child abuse, etc.
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The appropriate time was met with slammed doors and an irregular stomping, punctuated by what sounded like a cane being slapped, hard, against any surface that wouldn't break. Dr. Nolan sighed, moving from his desk to his comfy chair. Must have been a bad week.
House threw the office door open, a scowl of self-hatred darkening her features. She glared at Nolan, daring him, goading him into saying anything, any excuse to start shouting.
"All that stomping around must be painful," Nolan said calmly.
House growled.
"You must have some reason for wanting to punish yourself," he continued. "Won't you tell me about it?"
House all but threw herself into the comfy chair, purposefully landing on her right thigh and banging it against the armrest. Nolan couldn't hide the sympathetic cringe. House's agony seemed to overshadow the anger for a moment before it all started fading into a resigned dullness.
"I'm going to lose my license," House said, all emotion gone.
Nolan hadn't been expecting that. It was enough for concern to break through the façade of professional detachment. "What happened?" he asked.
House opened her mouth to begin the rant but nothing came out. She tried again. She couldn't get the anger back. She couldn't get anything back, lost in an almost pleasant haze of nothingness. She closed her eyes to block out the light. It was nice here, the anger couldn't get her, she didn't hurt anymore. Nothing existed here.
"Gillian," Nolan called. "Gillian! What happened?" He got up and started checking to make sure she was okay. Her heart rate was okay, she was breathing, didn't seem to be in any unusual pain. Wait…
"Gillian, you're having a dissociative event," Nolan said, sighing in relief. She wasn't in any danger, she'd just… shut down. "You fell into this because of stress from what happened. I can help you through this. If you can tell me what happened, why you think you're going to lose your license, then maybe I can help you. We can get you through this, Gillian. I can help you keep your license. But first I need you to come back to me. I need you to come out of this dissociation. Can you do that for me, Gillian?"
There was a voice tickling at the edge of her awareness, buzzing like a fly just out of reach. It wanted her to come back. She wasn't sure what she wanted. She didn't have to be sure, not here surrounded by Nothing, not here where only the best drugs and worst events of her life could bring her. Her eyes opened, seeing Nolan grasping her by the arms and gently shaking her. Strange that she couldn't feel the movement.
"Please, Gillian, come back," Nolan pleaded. "Come back and we can fix this. That's why you come to me, so we can fix things. I can't do it for you, you have to come back. Please."
The voice was right. She came here to fix things, she always came here to fix things. Everything could be fixed. She had to believe that. She had to, otherwise there was no reason to go back, ever. She reached out a hand to touch the reality just beyond the edge of Nothing.
A hand clasped hers and pulled. She fought against Nothing, dragging herself to the surface, desperately trying to take in reality again. Like trying to escape quicksand, Nothing tugged at her, tried to keep her within. And then…
House came back, disoriented and shivering. She hissed as all the pain came crashing back.
"Stay with me," Nolan coaxed. "Welcome back. You just had a dissociative event. They're fairly common. You're going to be all right, just stay with me, Gillian."
House noticed then that she was grasping Nolan's hand in her own. She looked down at it, wondered why it was there.
"You reached out for me," Nolan said quietly.
House nodded. She gave his hand a squeeze.
"Have these ever happened before?" he asked.
"Several times," she said, voice scratchy with unused screams.
"When was the last time it happened?" he asked.
House thought back, slowly becoming more aware of her own body. Every sense of every cell added to an underlying feeling of wrongness, a feeling only conspicuous in its absence. Her mind focused on an incident, a terrible self-induced migraine to prove an old rival wrong. "Four, maybe five years ago," she said. "I'd self-induced a migraine to prove a point. I was in so much pain. Enough vicodin to numb every nerve I have didn't touch it. I medicated with LSD, caused a serotonin spike that ended the migraine. It worked, it blissfully worked. I took a shower in the locker room then felt myself leaving. Cameron walked in. I, I think I told her I could see music. She started examining me and then I let myself go. Before she was done I was Nowhere. When I came back she was gone. I think that was the last time it happened."
"And what about the first time?"
House went dull again, not quite losing herself to the memory.
"Take your time," Nolan said.
House stared at their clasped hands, trying to ground herself outside the memory. She squeezed his hand, felt him squeeze back. "I was twelve," she began. "Dad had just started speaking to me again after, well, after I told him I knew he wasn't my father. He was up for promotion to Lieutenant Colonel. He and Mom were at some function so Dad could try to butter-up his superiors.
"I was glad they left me at home. I prowled the house, did all the things Dad would have punished me for if he caught me: moving all the books around, jumping on the bed, drinking some of Dad's scotch then watering down the bottle so he wouldn't know, in general being a big ball of chaos. I was in their bedroom looking for Dad's porn so I could masturbate in the living room when I found it.
"Mom couldn't decide what dress she wanted to wear. Right before they left she'd narrowed it down to two. Dad made her pick one and she left the other hanging on the closet door. I never looked in their closet, not after that one time Dad found out about it and made me… well… Anyway, I had the incredible urge to try it on.
"It was a bit too big for me, too much space in the chest, but it felt beautiful. I spent who knows how long flaunting in the mirror before realizing there was something missing. I found Mom's stockings but couldn't get my feet into any of her shoes. I'd never put makeup on before but that didn't matter. I did what I'd seen Mom do." House smiled sadly at the memory. "I ended up with too much eyeshadow in this horrid shade of green, bright red lipstick, the rouge was about right though. Then I went downstairs and did something I never dared to do even when Dad wasn't home, I touched the turntable. I put a record on, I think it was Handel or something, and imagined a dance partner for myself."
House's face showed every moment of joy of that memory. It was one of the best of her childhood, dancing in her mother's dress with an imaginary man to the sounds of the orchestra. It was also one of her worst. The joy faltered before fading into a guarded fear. "Then they came home," she whispered.
"I'm sorry," Nolan offered.
"Mom and Dad brought the Colonel and his wife home for a drink. He didn't say anything when they all saw me. He didn't have to. I knew he was going to kill me. I ran. Ever tried to run in stockings?"
"Can't say that I have," Nolan admitted.
"It doesn't work," House said. "It's worse than socks. You have no traction and your feet slide all over a wood floor. He caught me before I was out of the room, grabbed me by the back of the dress. I remember it ripped as he dragged me out back. I know I screamed. He'd never hit me with his hands before. Each blow hurt less until I didn't feel it at all. And then there was Nothing. I don't remember what he did to me. I don't think I want to. When I came back I was left outside with a black eye and a few bruises I had no memory of getting. All I knew was that I couldn't go back inside, not until he let me in. That was two days later."
"What time of year was this?" Nolan asked. Discussions of House's abuse as a child were not new; he knew the procedure for dealing with them.
"Late August," she said. "He didn't let me have any clothes. All I had were the ripped dress and stockings. It was cold but it wasn't bad. It could have been much worse." She went quiet, mourning a childhood she hated. She finally took her hand from Nolan's, wrapping her arms around herself.
Nolan got up, fished in his desk for… ah ha! He brought out an ill-used teddy bear and set it next to House. She snatched it up and held it, needing something to hold, something to ground her.
"That was a terrible thing to do to a child," Nolan said.
"He paid for it," House said, smirking evilly. "He never got that promotion. He retired a Major. Every time I called him by rank he re-lived his failure as an officer and a father. I made sure to use his rank as often as possible after that, preferably where he could hear me. I always did, to the day he died."
"So what happened these past few days that would match that level of trauma?" Nolan asked.
House sighed. She moved the teddy bear to her lap. "Cuddy is an idiot," she began. "Years of her mother being a hypochondriac finally caught up with her. I refused to be on the case and told Cuddy she shouldn't be on it either. Of course she bribes and threatens me into it. So I make nice to the old bitch and set her up to prove she's a hypochondriac. Works so well Arlene fires me.
"I was so very thankful to be off the case. I knew I couldn't be objective. Cuddy didn't care, she ordered me back on it. I tried to make a deal with Kaufman, Arlene's new attending, and got shot down. So Cuddy had me sneaking behind Kaufman and her mother to 'do whatever it takes'."
"She used her position and your relationship to force you to take on an unethical case against your will," Nolan stated, rephrasing House's words. "Twice. The second time illegally."
"Pretty much," House agreed. "I bugged her room as a test for Masters. Didn't work, she's still a narc. So I got her distracted by something and came up with a real diagnosis with the rest of my team. Thiamine deficiency secondary to alcoholism, it fit the symptoms at the time and I had precedent considering how much she drank. I made Cuddy do all the dirty work of confronting her mother and giving her the thiamine supplements.
"Things wouldn't have gotten anywhere near as bad if she hadn't chickened on me. Cuddy told me I still wasn't allowed off the case and then refused to give me the resources or clearance I needed to do the case without breaking every ethics code in sight. I had my team switching medications behind Kaufman's back to avoid Cuddy's wrath. Masters caught wind of the maneuverings. I had her in a corner and blackmailed her into staying quiet."
Nolan sat in shock, feeling slightly ill at what he was hearing. No one should ever have to go through this, any part of it.
"Despite knowing I could ruin her, Masters went straight to Kaufman," House continued. "Kaufman has threatened to go to the licensing board about it. He will, too. And there's nothing I can do about it."
"There was," Nolan said. "You've told me. I seem to remember testifying on your behalf to the licensing board before."
"I didn't go through with it," House said, trying not to cry. "I couldn't. I didn't destroy Masters. Cuddy is actively sabotaging me, Wilson isn't there anymore, I need some sort of barrier. She's it. She's all I have left." She wrapped her arms around the bear, buried her face in the back of its head. A muffled sob broke out from behind the bear's vacant head.
"It's okay to cry, Gillian," Nolan said quietly. "You know that."
House squeezed the bear so tightly it seemed the head would pop off. This time was different somehow, she couldn't stop herself. She sobbed openly into the back of the bear's head until she had no more tears left.
When the sobs lessened and turned to sniffles Nolan offered the box of tissues.
House took the offered tissues. She wiped snot off the bear's head then blew her nose. "I want off the estrogen," she said.
"What?" Nolan asked, shocked. "Why?"
"I don't deserve it."
"Gillian, listen to me," Nolan said, enunciating as firmly as he could. "Your hormone treatment isn't a privilege, it's a right. You have the right to live inside a body that's yours. Identity is the one thing that every person takes for granted. You are Gillian House. No one can take that from you."
"I've done terrible things…" she said, trailing off.
"I don't know anyone who hasn't in some way or another," Nolan said. "What matters is how we learn from them, how we react to them. You were forced into doing a terrible thing, forced by circumstance and by a manipulative girlfriend. Cuddy is as guilty as you, if not more so."
House sniffed.
"Part of taking responsibility for your actions is recognizing when you're the one responsible. And you've done so. You've done so well, Gillian, you've come so far. You don't have to throw it all away because you feel you need to be punished. That's Greg talking."
"I know," she admitted, wiping her nose. "But it's just so hard…"
"Just because it's hard doesn't mean it isn't worth doing," Nolan said gently. "You've worked so hard for this already. You've come so far. You've punished yourself enough. Please don't drop the estrogen because of this."
House nodded. She curled up in the chair like a little girl, clutching the teddy bear to her chest. She rested her chin on its head. "I wish I had one of these as a kid," she whispered. "It would have helped so much."
"Why not get one now?" Nolan asked.
"I can snuggle Cuddy," she said, deflecting.
"And does she help?"
House shrugged, not meeting his eyes.
"I think that's something for you to do for next week," Nolan said, realizing their time was running out. "I want you to find a teddy bear of your own."
"How do I do that?" House asked, honestly having no idea. "What, I mean, well, what if I get the wrong one?"
"There is no wrong stuffed animal," Nolan coaxed. "You go to the toy store and you find the one that fits best. Hold them, hug them all and choose the one that you feel is best for you. And it doesn't have to be a bear."
House held out the stuffed bear she'd been cuddling. "I'm not the only one who uses this bear, am I?" she asked. She pointed out a hasty repair down it's middle. "I don't remember tearing him in half."
Nolan smiled and shrugged. "You got me," he admitted, taking the offered bear. "He's my loner bear. Sometimes everyone needs a teddy bear. I promise he gets thrown in the wash every time someone cries into him."
"He's good for making people feel better, isn't he?" House said.
"It's his purpose in life," Nolan agreed. "Are you feeling well enough to go home on your own?"
House nodded. "I'm exhausted and depressed but I'm not a danger to myself or others anymore, if that's what you're asking."
"Good to know."
"See you next week, Doc," House said, leaving.
After House was gone Nolan found himself holding the bear close. Sometimes even he needed the teddy bear. He needed to contact someone with more experience in this. Cuddy's treatment of House was edging dangerously close to domestic abuse.
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House needed a decoy. She wasn't comfortable enough with her gender to be public about it and she needed a decoy if she was going to be found on the floor of some toy store test-hugging teddy bears. Luckily she knew a local two-year old who was running her mother ragged. Cuddy all but threw Rachel into House's arms at the offer.
House held the bungee-leash attached to Rachel's wrist as she ran around the mall corridors. The chaos was familiar, comforting. The chance to milk people's perceptions wasn't bad either, although there was something inherently empty in being mistaken for a doting grandfather taking his young granddaughter out for the day.
Rachel ran right past the toy store. House sighed and reeled in the leash, dragging a gleefully giggling Rachel close. "Ice cream!" she exclaimed.
"No, ice cream is after," House admonished. "First you and I are both going to pick out a toy at the store."
"Clicky game?" Rachel asked, eyes lighting up.
"Yes, you can get a clicky game," House said. She was lucky Cuddy hadn't asked what the clicky game was yet. When training Rachel for Waldenwood she hadn't thought the dog clicker would become one of Rachel's favorite 'games'.
"Yay! Clicky game!" Rachel tried to run into the store and was stopped by the leash House still held. Rachel pouted, looking at House accusingly.
House chuckled and reeled Rachel back in. She undid the wrist cuff. "Now remember, no leaving the store," she warned. "If you leave the store without me there won't be any ice cream."
"Okay!" Rachel bolted into the store, rampaging her way down an aisle full of dinosaurs. House loped in slowly behind, straight for the stuffed animals.
She paused, worried. There was an entire aisle of stuffed animals. How in hell was she supposed to choose one? After a moment of panic she started dissecting each one with the practiced eye of a doctor. Too small, too big, not fuzzy enough, too weird-looking, too many moving parts, too seasonal…
Something silver in a sea of big white bears caught her eye. She moved a teddy bear the size of Rachel out of the way and stopped.
A small white unicorn sat alone and forlorn, squished in among the bigger bears. It's stuffed silver horn was dented and listing to one side, the stuffing forcibly migrated out of it through an act of uncaring fate. Its big brown eyes gazed imploringly out at her, asking her to take it away from these giant bear butts. She reached out to feel fluffy softness, picked it up. It was just big enough to not get lost in an enthusiastic hug.
She held the stuffed unicorn and petted it. It wasn't really forlorn, not now that it was out here in the open. And the dented horn felt right somehow. She looked into its plastic eyes and smiled.
"I found you."
She hugged the stuffed animal close. She felt better already.
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To ease fears, I'm not going to stop writing for lack of reviews. I just like having direction. From reviews comes direction, from direction comes motivation, from motivation comes action, from action comes fiction. I can write without direction but I'm faster when I have it.