The longest chapter yet, I think. You can take that as bad or good news as you like.

I do not own House MD, but from this day on; I do indeed own my very own knee brace, that goes perfic with my lovely black cane.


Chapter 7
The words of a mother

He had long since learned to conceal his crying. Burying his head deep into his pillow, strangling mournful, agonizing sobs. But sometimes the sound of his moaning was so loud it could not be stopped. And sometimes he did not care. He just lay in darkness waiting for the strict sound of his father's military steps. Waiting for the belt to be released, and with no other warning than a inhale from the man standing in shadows beside his bed, struck hard and fast against the young boy. He sometimes screamed, even though that would just infuriate the beating arm, and make the lashing even harder and faster.

Sometimes he embraced the torture, every strike, every painful whip, taking his mind further, and further away from the torment that was reality. And when it ended, the boy would smile, long ago had he learned that the only thing that took pain away was pain.

And now House lay there, in his childhood bed, crying stronger and harder than he ever had before. This time he knew that the beating arm would not come. Father was away on a trip for the army, for the first time in the three months following his sister's death. He wept freely, this time no pain to free him from his own suffering mind, just a boy weeping alone.

Then he heard the footsteps. The small petite sound emerging from beneath his mother's slipper clad feet. Beside his still red and swollen body, signs of the goodbye beating from his Father, his mother sat down on the side of the mattress. He half expected her to put a gentle hand on his back, the comfort only a mother could give. But she had neither touched him, nor talked to him, since he failed to watch his baby sister.

The sound of her voice swiftly filled his heart with hope, bit it died just as quickly as the words filled his mind, with loud painful bangs. The whispered words pained him even more than the belt flecking of his soft white skin.

"I do not hate you, you know. I just don't think I am able to love you no more. That day you came home with my beautiful girl in your arms, everything inside me died. I know you are not to be blamed, but I do, blame you, even though I know it to be wrong. You have always been such a difficult child, causing trouble and sorrows. She was a perfect angel, and she was taken away. I sometimes lie awake at night wishing for you to be gone instead of her."

She took a deep breath, any other would have believed that it was all she could do too keep herself from crying, but Gregory knew better, he had heard Father make the same sound many a time before. It was not to keep herself from crying, but to keep herself from hitting him, smashing in his face, releasing her sorrow into violence. Gregory almost wanted her to do it; the pain from a belt across the back was way better than this quiet torture. But she continued, like she sensed his dread and wanted him to suffer.

"But you stayed, not even this time could you do the right thing, die for your sister. And for the rest of your life you will live with the knowledge that her heart stopped beating instead of yours. That your miserable life was left alone, while your wonderful sister was tortured and raped, waiting for her brother to come save her, cos you promised to protect her, and you failed. Even if you for the rest of your life try to reach up to her level, even if you spend the rest of your life too try and relieve your self from guilt, you never will. You are doomed too spend the rest of you life in her shadow, Gregory, and you will suffer for it."

The mother left, and the boy was alone. And since that night, he never cried again, and now he knew how gruesome pain could be, how much a person who was supposed too love you, could hurt you. How a person he trusted, and loved, could betray that trust, without killing the love, and that hurt even more. Since that night, his heart would be forever numb, and he knew that he would be forever alone.


Wilson was again sitting in the dreaded chair beside House's bed, staring at his friend, clutching his IV-less hand, and pondering upon the words that had turned his view on his closest friend upside down. He could not believe it, could not find it too be true. But it would explain a lot about his friend. The strange behavior. The odd comments. Maybe it was so.

No, he could not think this of his friend, not while he rested so deeply beside him. It could not be his friend who lay so innocently sleeping, like a newborn child, with no guilt and hatred to be found. His beautiful friend, who could play the piano like a god, and always seemed to Wilson too be larger than life itself, and larger even than death. This wonderful man, who spent so much time saving lives, and giving back function to those who had been robbed of them.

But still he could not help to wonder about the word Greg's father had so cruelly whispered into his ears.

"He doesn't deserve your love and care, he is a murderous beast, who in jealousy killed my daughter. Get away from him, and start praying to God that this pitiful miscreant are removed from the world!"

But Wilson could not do that, he stayed at his friends side, and did what he had promised Stacy after the infarction, what he had promised Cuddy after every stupid stunt House pulled, and promised himself every single second, and every breath since he met Greg: he would never leave this strong, fragile, wonderful bastard alone.


Liked it? Hated it? It made you wanna stick a knife in a electrical socket? Please let me know. Constructive criticism is extremely welcome, I love to improve my wriring skills.