Chapter 4: Absence

House stood before the door to Cuddy's room. It was a bit much in the moment. It was hard to even think about facing her at the moment. He looked down towards the floor and tried to gather an idea of what to even say once he got in there.

"Dad?" Gabrielle said getting his attention. "I know that you're scared to go in there, and that is understandable because once you go in there, you're going to have to face up to what could happen."

"Oh, well now its all a completely different story," House sneered in response.

"Don't!" Gabrielle snapped. Crossing her arms, she just sighed. "Look," she said as she went and stood before him. "If you're not going to go in there, at least let me. That way you can gather yourself while I let her know that we didn't forget about her." She studied the unchanged expression on his face and then turned and walked into the room.

House just stood out there in the hallway. In all honesty, he wanted to go in there and tell Cuddy that it would all be okay, but he couldn't. There was a memory that kept playing over and over again in the back of his head. It was from one time when he had gone over to her house after she had miscarried.

(They both sat on the couch together, House and Cuddy. House sat at the end while he had Cuddy, who was wrapped in a blanket, in his arms. The room was dark and silent. He could feel her shoulders shake when she would cry.

"Need anything?" It wasn't much of a question at the time, but it was all that he could think to ask at the moment.

"I wouldn't know what," she answered with her shaky voice. She then sat up and looked over to House. Even though it was dark and House didn't really care, she still felt the need to try and dry her face. "At least I lost it now instead of getting more and more attached to it, I just kinda wish I could get to the point where I can pick out the names and decide whether or not I want the sex of the baby to be a surprise."

"How far along were you?" House asked.

"Almost three months," she nearly whispered. "For almost three months, I was almost a mother." She sat back into the couch and sighed. "What do you think about me being a single mother?"

"Let's see," House said as he looked over to her. "You can handle the hospital, you can handle the hospital with me in it…I think you can handle a baby."

"My sister told me that all of this would be so much easier if I just went ahead and waited until I got married and then had a baby with someone that I actually knew," Cuddy said.

"Considering that the last time you told me about your sister you mentioned something about her being a complete bitch who needs to mind her own business and stop telling you what's right for you, I think you should just ignore her," House said.

Cuddy laughed. "Well, she does have her points, but there is one thing that would be so much harder."

"What's that?" he asked.

Cuddy turned to him, but her eyes were focused on the ground. "If I end up completely failing to become a mother, then I have to live with the fact that I never had a baby, but if I was truly in love with a man, and completely failed, then I failed on having HIS baby. I missed out on the chance seeing a part of me and him grow up. I didn't just lose the baby of some man that meant nothing to me, I lost the baby of the man I love.")

House's eyes watered as he looked up towards the ceiling for a second. Without a moment's thought, he went down the hallway towards the elevator. There was no way that he could handle any of this anymore.

************

Gabrielle stepped into the room and closed the door behind her. Cuddy's back was turned to her, which allowed her to pull out her phone real quick and text to Wilson to look out for House and make sure that he gets to Cuddy's room eventually. She had known better than to believe that he was still out in the hallway outside the door. He had to be hiding out somewhere. "Lisa?" she asked as she slowly walked closer. The room felt extremely awkward to her, so much to the point that she had wished that House was there with her.

Cuddy turned over and sat up. "Hey," she said as she dabbed her eyes.

"Um, my dad's kinda overwhelmed at the moment. I really don't know when he'll get here," Gabrielle said.

"I figured," Cuddy said. She knew how House was, and didn't expect much of him when it would come to situations like this.

Gabrielle sighed as she looked down towards the floor. "I'm sorry, he just," she started.

"Yeah, I know," Cuddy said. Any sort of anticipation or hope was gone from her voice. She looked over to the side and stared out the window for a minute. All she wanted to do was to run away. Nothing was going right for her, and it was being taken out on those around her. The very thought of being able to move on and just forget about anything that had gone wrong for her seemed to offer a little comfort. "It's not like I was ever expecting him to just run in here."

Gabrielle could see how hurt she was that he wasn't there. That was the one person that she needed the most at the moment and left her on her own. There was nothing to say to that. She crossed her arms and went and sat down in the chair next to the bed. "He'll be here. Not right now, not when you need him most, but he will show up sometime." She knew that between her and Wilson, that that was possible. "He'll show up to come and see his two new daughters."

Cuddy looked over. "You always say to expect the worst. Why change it now?" The meaning behind her question was not be negative, but to find out why this girl thought that the baby would make it. She had needed to hear something good, and this had to be, this had to give her something to look forward to.

"I do, and at the moment that is slowly what I am preparing myself for, but there's a huge difference between the two of us in this situation. I end up losing a little sister, the one I had been looking forward two since you told me about her. A part of my family dies and leaves me, another person is taken from me. I will be sad, and I will cry, but my pain will fade sooner or later. You, you lose the daughter that you have been trying so hard for. You have to go through the pain that you've been through so many times, and even more so this time." Gabrielle shook her head. "I honestly don't think that you would be able to heal if anything goes wrong." Gabrielle reached over and grabbed her hand. "You have to hold on to any hope you have in order to keep yourself from losing it."

"Fine, I'll try and think of how this could end up good," Cuddy said. She just didn't want to argue anymore, but she could see what Gabrielle was telling her.

House sat in Cuddy's office with every blind and door shut. He didn't want anyone to walk in and see him. To absolutely make sure of this, he hid in the bathroom with his booze and vicodin. The quicker he consumed both, he was sure the quicker he would forget about everything.

"You coward!!" House jumped as he heard the words before the door slammed. He leaned over and saw Wilson walk into the room.

"I know you're in here House. Don't think that its possible to hide from everything," Wilson said as he started to slowly pace the room.

House just stayed where he was. The last thing that he wanted to do at the moment was to talk to Wilson. He knew everything that was about to be said between t he two and thought it pointless to talk.

"Fine! If you're not going to come out and take this like a man than at least listen to me." He stopped and sighed as he thought about what he was about to say. "Cuddy, aka, the fiancée, could be watching her own kid die up there! That's not easy for anyone, especially her and after what she went through to have those kids. And what do you do? You leave her to go get drunk." He paused for a moment to let that sink in and then began to laugh. "You are so pathetic, you don't even know how pathetic you are! You need her and she needs you! Where in that statement does it say that it is okay to just leave someone when they need you ? Your own kid may be dieing, and all you care about is getting drunk so that you wouldn't have to remember any of this and actually deal with it someday." He again stopped and sighed. "I guess I really don't care what you do at this point, but I'm going to go see Cuddy. If at anytime you decide that that's better than your bottle of rum or whatever, come and join me."

House waited until he heard the footsteps and the door close. Leaning his head back against the wall, he popped a few pills into his mouth and washed them down with the gin in his hand. That was the only thing that had ever come natural to him.