Disintegration
By Angelfirenze

Disclaimer: Shore, Jacobs, Singer, et al., own everything. The lyrics belong to various bands. The references, quotes and--sometimes--lines, books, and movies mentioned belong to the authors and script writers who wrote them, etc.

Summary: Then House smirked and it was the most bitter, ugliest expression that Chase had ever seen him make.

Rating: R for language and other objectionable subject matter.

Pairing: It was originally going to be House/Cuddy, but my muse has decided that this will be a gen fic rather than het. At least that's the way it's turning out. I think I'll go with it.

Reviews are always encouraged and appreciated.

...If it was just one night...And you could be revealed...

When House was transferred back to his original room in the ICU (still wearing the victory cap, because he refused to take it off), Chase was there to tend to him because of his specialty and because he (and Cuddy) demanded to be House's primary caregiver at the moment. By now, House's parents were off getting some richly-needed sleep. It was very early in the morning or late at night when House woke up enough to be fully coherent and ask why Chase was there.

Chase looked up, his hands steepled under his chin, and took a breath before asking House, "Do you believe in God?"

House stared at him and asked in a quiet and calm voice, "Why?"

Chase thought for a bit and said, "Because I've noticed that you insist that you're an atheist, but sometimes you talk as if God...left you or something. Or that you have this idea that God is playing hide and seek with you or something and you're It and have to find Him again. Other times, you talk as if you and God are in some kind of competition--like with the kid we treated last year. I just...it's one of the things I don't know about you and haven't ever been able to even get a clue about. Your dad--I found him in the chapel this...yesterday morning. He was saying a sacrament for you. I've said several for you. Your dad is Catholic and so am I. You know that, obviously. You might wonder why we would pray for you, but I...it doesn't matter to us, whether you think you're worth it or not. We do. Anyway, I'm getting off topic. Sorry."

House raised an eyebrow at Chase and he chuckled nervously. "Okay, fine--no shame, no apologies." Chase sighed. "Anyway, I get confused about a lot of things pertaining to you, which is probably what you intended. A lot of people don't know a thing about you. I mean, sure, you're the main topic in the rumor mill, but you don't actually gossip, so much as watch people and see what they do and, if it suits your situation later--like there's an emergency with a patient and you need their help and they won't give it to you, you use that information to blackmail them into doing what you want. Also, you may threaten to start rumors, but you never actually make good on it. In fact, half the time you help cover them up. I...I think you know what Cameron and I did in that other sleep lab."

And here House chuckled, knowing what he meant.

Chase gave him a wry smile. "You're the one who stole the tape, aren't you?"

House's face went blank and Chase knew he'd never admit it.

"Thanks. Really. I mean it."

House took a deep breath and Chase ran a hand through his hair before continuing.

"Anyway, since I've digressed from the tangent I was already on...do you have a religion? Did you ever have one and you lapsed? Or do you really just not...believe...in anything?"

And House watched him for so long that Chase almost thought he wasn't going to answer.

"When I was little--yes, I was little once, as I'm sure my mother would love to tell you--no matter how much I'd like everyone around here that I sprang up a fully grown troll from the ground somewhere."

And here, Chase chuckled. House smirked and continued.

"To paraquote "The Boondocks", I got pleasure from sunsets and trees, dolphins and rainbows. I once asked her how soap and water made them while we were washing the car. She'd be happy to tell you that she taught me how to play the piano practically before I could reach the keys on my own. She'd be happy to tell you about my childhood nights at synagogue, saying Kaddish."

And here, Chase's mouth fell open. "You're Jewish?"

House raised his eyebrow again and sighed. "My mother is Jewish, as is most of her family. She and my father told you about some of them while I was upstairs half-stoned on anesthesia. They were Catholic and Episcopalian at first--my grandmother's parents had different religions and all their kids were agnostic anyway--so that's really a family tradition more than anything. They converted to Judaism when my mother was twelve and she found that she loved it, which is great because she had her Bat Mitzvah later that year and got to read the Torah and have a huge party with lots of latkes and wine and all that cool stuff.

"But my dad's family...they're all Roman Catholics--devout Catholics with a long and illustrious history of military service and were, by my mother's account, a bunch of the most miserable, bitter people she'd ever laid eyes on. She wanted to get him away from all that, she said. Anyway, so I mostly think of myself as a third generation agnostic, first generation atheist but...I don't actually know what I am. I remember when I was little, in synagogue, I would look at the huge scrolls of the Torah and I'd try to read the Hebrew on them--I've been able to speak Hebrew practically since birth because my mother's family had a habit of switching back and forth between Hebrew and English and moving all over the place, I picked up a lot of other languages, too."

Chase watches House smile, then, and is mesmerized because it's the first time he's ever seen House really smile. Smirking and leering, sure, but positively happy? Never. So he watches now and fights down the urge to smile himself as though he's afraid that House's will retreat back into the sadness and anger that clings to him no matter how hard he tries to shake it off. Like a burr on your pant leg, Chase thinks, but he doesn't say anything.

"But anyway," House says, finally continuing to speak, the smile a little less visible, but still there. "Those letters, those numbers...they mesmerized me. It was like a puzzle. I would spend hours at home looking at the Siddur and using the alphanumeric text and combine it with the Latin my father spoke whenever he thought I couldn't hear him. I made up my own language. I even made a dictionary or a sort of glossary for it. I even wrote a story once where the characters spoke it in everyday conversation. I still have it."

House's face becomes pensive, then, and Chase feels as though he's watching wet clay being molded.

"I have a lot of things I didn't think I'd be able to hold on to. Military weight regulations and all...but I have this one box that, if I arranged them carefully, I could fit everything in it. I even have my treasure hunting tools from when we lived in Egypt in there. Wilson's never seen it. Cuddy's never seen it. Not even Stacy ever did."

House sighs again, his face blank once more. "But, to answer your question...I don't know. I've decided that I don't have enough experience or knowledge or ability to comprehend it all in a way that would let me believe in this or that or to even have an idea about God. I won't know the answer until I'm dead. It's the greatest puzzle ever and most people don't even realize it because they think they have all the answers. But no one does. I don't have faith in people. It's hard to have faith in something that tries so hard to destroy itself and everything around it. You try to create a utopia and that turns to shit, too, because it's built around someone's idea of a perfect world. A world without sin., so sayeth the Alliance operative in Serenity who promptly went forward to kill everything and everyone that stood between him and one of the most innocent beings I've ever seen."

House scowled, then, and while it gave Chase the feeling of security that comes with recognition, there was also a sense of sadness because House's happiness was so brief.

"I'm not innocent. I do things that most people think are despicable. I frequent bars and OTBs, I drink, I'm obviously heavily dependent on a narcotic drug--and despite what some people might think, that's not something that could or should ever be changed--and that it's probably the only thing in my life that's completely ruined it but that wasn't a choice I made. But...that's not the thing that pains me. What pains me is that when I was little, like most kids, I had absolute faith that whatever was up there, watching us all...like some morbidly obsessive documentary on the thin line between good and evil and the choices that take us to either side...watching me...was always going to keep me warm, dry, and safe. I could smile and my dad would lift me up and spin me around and we'd play pilot and when he set me back on my feet, I'd be unstable, but he was always there to catch me and I'd laugh and we'd do it again and again and again and I loved it. I loved him. I still love him. But then my father went off to war far, far away and then he came back and I never got to believe that again."

Chase watched, his eyes widened in sadness and in shock as tears welled up in House's eyes and he shut them, trying to squeeze them back in. When he opened them again, gazing up at the ceiling, his eyes were reddened and glassy.

"I remember when he left, he bent over and kissed the top of my head and told me to take care of my mother, help her not feel so sad. But then he came back and I used to wonder if it was something I'd done wrong. If I'd made my daddy mad so that he didn't like me or my mommy anymore. He'd always go off on a jeep and then he'd come home really late and he'd walk past my room and turn to me in my tent--I hated my bed and never slept in it unless my father put me in it after one of my...punishments. But he'd turn to me and he'd stare at me while I tried to pretend I was asleep and I could smell that he'd been drinking. Not a lot, but enough to be able to tell. I remember him whispering in Latin because he didn't think I could speak it. He'd say he was sorry. Years later, I stopped believing that. That it was true or meant anything...it was a rote memorization of words. That he could be sorry, that G-d or Whomever had their eye on me or anyone else. They couldn't if my life was such hell. Little did I know that it was only the tip of the iceberg, to use a tired yet horribly accurate cliché.

"But...about a month and a half ago...I saw a documentary on the Sundance Channel, because whee! Robert Redford's annual moviefest just wasn't enough. We need awesomeness all year round. Anyway, the one I saw was about the effect of the war in Afghanistan and Iraq on the veterans who've survived and come home. The traumas they've gone through and the way it destroyed their humanity. It's like someone flips on this switch but..they don't tell you how to turn it the fuck back off. You're always angry, you're always thisclose to losing it. You can't figure out who you even are anymore. They've turned you into a living weapon. They've driven you crazy and then they want you to stay that way because if you try to seek help for the flashbacks and the rage and the night terrors, they call you a conscientious objector and say they can't help you."

Then House smirked and it was the most bitter, ugliest expression that Chase had ever seen him make. "They're like the Alliance, really, the way they condition people, strip them of their sanity...the price they pay, I guess. Remember in the Firefly episode, 'Ariel', when Simon got that 3-D imager scan of River's brain and stared at it, horror filling him at what they'd done to his beautiful, innocent sister. The most important person in his world?"

Chase nodded, remembering with a sinking feeling in his gut as he recalled Simon Tam's words.

They cut into her brain. And they did it over and over...the only reason to cut into someone's brain is to lobotomize them, to remove dead tissue...why someone would cut into a healthy brain is--they stripped her amygdala.

"She feels everything," he quotes back at House, even more horrified.

House nods and finishes the words, "She can't not. It's just like that. And the ones that come home, they try to dull the pain, bury it, but it always comes back. And they cannot sleep. They lash out. And the government did that to them, to my father, trying to make that World Without Sin. But they don't see their own evil...or maybe they do, what with all the effort they put into hiding it from the civilian public. They way they hide what they do to those people and others, strangers they've never even met. The families they destroy. They tear you apart and then don't even bother to try to put you back together so I guess River's not the only 'prodigious' project in the world or any other. They all are. My father died in Vietnam. The only thing that came back was a shell--a zombie. The walking undead. Or sort of a Reaver-lite. Because they can't control themselves, can't control the aggression and the all consuming fear. And it's all because ever since World War II, all our country has been obsessed with has been meddling. 'Being in the hearts and the minds of the people'--George W. Bush actually said that shit and it's more accurate than that idiot realizes. World War II...That war was the last one went to to actually save lives. I don't hate the military. I love it and every aspect of their jobs. It's awesome, really, willing to do something like that. But I don't like what happens when there's a war and suddenly they're all being dragged away from their families and we all miss each other and there's nothing we can do about it. You watch them leave and you hope to who or whatever that they come back, that you won't have to mourn. Because it hurts, missing them so badly it makes you cry and cry because your daddy or your mommy has gone away and you don't know when they'll be back. You don't know where they've gone. You want your parent back and you can't have them. But despite all that, being a military brat is part of who I am and I don't know who I'd be if I wasn't. I love all the places I've been and the things I've seen, but I hate the things my father has seen and done and the government who put them in that position, but wouldn't ever let their own children serve. No way, fuck that. Let someone else's son or daughter or father or mother die because it's just much more preferable. Not to mention more convenient.

"Now...we're going to other worlds, other civilizations and deciding that they should be a carbon copy of ours and anyone who puts up a threat against that abrupt change should be done away with. Humanity and all its splendor be damned. Sometimes I wonder if there's a connection between the term 'good' and 'G-d', versus the term 'evil' and 'Devil'. It's all an unanswerable question for me."

House took a long, deep breath, his bright blue eyes burning in his pale face and Chase watched him back, waiting.

"So. Robert," House tells him, using his first name for the first time in a very long while. "I'll tell you this. I don't think I have the capacity to decide if G-d exists or what Their intentions are...but I know that people are evil. And stupid. And immoral. And sometimes soulless monsters. And every other malevolent thing in existence. And it knows it. I found an entire paragraph that was deleted from the Muse turned Demon, Azrael's exposition in 'Dogma'...I like to think of it in combination with the Grigory Bartleby's despair over what amounts to the same thing. One had been a muse, remember, and had ascertained that inspiration had no place in battle. Bartleby had been a Watcher, sent down to Earth to watch over the humans and the ones that weren't soon corrupted truly felt sorry for the victims of the Lord's wrath.

"He--and I guess by now, I'm taking into account the sort of doctrine laid out in that surprisingly philosophical movie about the nature of G-d and the roles of angels and humans in the vaulted Great Plan. It certainly fit my interpretation of everything more than any other movie on that subject than any other...until Constantine came long. I was mildly interested in the fact that those became two of my favorite movies for reasons I couldn't fathom at the time. Eventually I made a chart about the characters and their purposes and the actions they'd taken and some of the outcomes of their fates. That helped--I guess my habit of analyzing every and anything can be handy sometimes. But that's when I decided that I just couldn't know. But, anyway, away from my own digression and back to what Bartleby and Azrael said."

House took several deep breaths to steady himself and continued, "Hell was once just the absence of G-d and if you had known Them once, then you know that hurts more than anything you could possibly take. But Man, being unable to see that if they just..accepted responsibility and asked for redemption, they could get G-d to take them back...but they refused to forgive themselves first, let alone ask for redemption, so Hell evolved into an overwhelming pit of the most horrific, soul-retching shit you could ever think of...because of lack of faith, not only in G-d, but in ourselves. Everything we and our hatred and our anger touches is burned and scorched, crumples to waste because we let it. Some of us, women for the main part, can be so gentle and...and have beautiful bright souls."

House looked at Chase again, appraisingly, like he had the night before last. Chase watched him back, inwardly marveling at how calm he seemed to be in House's presence now, when even three years ago, the man had terrified him with his unpredictability.

"I think you have one," House said softly and Chase couldn't help the surprise that fell over his face. House smiled again and Chase took a breath, allowing himself, for the first time in all the years he'd known House, to smile a little back. "Why?"

House's eyebrows raised appreciatively and Chase smiled even more. House's face was still blank, but his eyes were warm. "You're honest and you've allowed yourself to become yourself. Become a real human instead of a cardboard cut out or a mannequin for someone else to manipulate and pose."

Then the anger returned and Chase almost felt like he could feel it in his bones, the way he knew House probably did whenever it rained.

"But most of them...they've been given such...gifts. Such...an abundance of wealth--and I don't mean monetary, fuck that--I mean wealth of love, of caring for yourself and those around you and trusting in the fact that if you needed them, they'd be right there for you. And we've thrown all that away on selfish endeavors and egotistic--which is actually the wrong term, according to that sexual organ fetishist, Freud. The term ego was originally the sort of fence between the superego, your loving capacity--and the id, which is your unsavory impulses' origin. Which I think is bullshit, but I think I get the point that psycho was trying to make.

"We are given choices every day, to obey and to reflect either side. The sheer amount of people who stop caring which side is which scares me. I can't believe in people anymore! I hate that! They lie to me and damn themselves in an effort to outdo someone or something they can't even see! They think the more they lie, the more I'll care. Hypocritical bullshit that serves no one, least of all the very person needing help! How does lying help?"

Chase watches House, who is now sitting straight up in bed, the Yankees cap shielding a portion of his bandages but leaving his face clear and vivid with emotions he's never seen in this man. His eyes are wide and he realizes he hasn't taken a breath in some time, how long he doesn't know. And he watches now as House's frenetic energy he'd managed while talking for so long has completely left him and he's fallen and is now lying on the bed in obvious discomfort, but unable to do anything about it. Chase got up slowly and walked quietly over to House's bed.

"What do you need?" he asked in a soft voice, watching to see if House flinched or moaned.

Instead House just stared at the ceiling before whispering, "I need to stop hating my life. Have they got meds for that yet? Because Jimmy slipping anti-depressants into my morning coffee doesn't count. I'm not supposed to smile while telling people they're going to die. He doesn't, so why do I have to?"

House frowned, then, "And speaking of which, you know how his hair is always so fluffy and cowlicky? The cowlicks aren't on purpose. He has those even when his hair is wet--and don't go getting any dirty thoughts about that. One night that hellhound, Julie...the one even the nurses and all of us in his and our departments hate because she treated him like shit...she kicked him out into a fucking monsoon and he managed to cab it to my apartment. By the time he got up to the door, he was absolutely saturated. His hair, however, whilst dripping, still stuck up in places. I think he may be secretly related to the Potter family."

Chase grinned then, relieved that House had finally made some sort of joke after all the despair of the past...well, ever in his case.

But then House looked at him seriously. "Your apartment. Where is it?"

Chase felt the blood drain from his face. "Why?"

House scowled again, "Because you have two contributors to your chromosomal deoxyribonucleic acid and one of them forced you to take care of her, not because she was sick, but because she drank herself into her grave and the other, a self-serving prick who dragged you around, pretending he gave a shit about you, then dumped you unceremoniously back home and saying, 'fuck it and fuck you, too'--had metatastic cancer and couldn't be...mother of Hell...he couldn't even fucking tell you that to your face. He told me. And then he asked me not to tell you. I wanted to, just to spite the selfish son of a whore, but I didn't."

House sighed, narrowing his eyes up at the ceiling.

"I guess I kept hoping he had some sort of compunction or something--which, as you know, I don't normally grant for anyone. But you...I wanted to see a father doing right by his child and he disappointed me more than I thought possible. Then, just before dying like the coward he was, he added insult to injury by cutting you out of his will. What the fuck was he trying to do? Punish you? Punish you for what? Existing? That was his fault, not yours. Your apartment. Where is it?"

Chase felt his face crumple, blinking and looking down at House's feet under his blankets and sheets, not wanting to cry in front of him.

"Robert," House snapped, his voice soft but timbre sharp and Chase felt himself snap to attention. "Tell me where it is. Not saying anything is a lie of omission. Your fucking lowlife of a sperm donor forced me to tell one; don't you do it now."

Chase shuddered and felt himself hitch. A tear slid down his left cheek and he had to restrain himself from wiping it away.

He told House the address.

...'Cause I see you lying next to me...With words I thought I'd never speak...Awake and unafraid...Asleep or dead...

It was another month before House was strong enough to finally go home. He didn't bother to clip the medical bracelet from his wrist, countering his parents' protests with the fact that it was pointless since they all knew he had to go for more chemotherapy within the week. He wore the Yankees cap on a regular basis now, chemo having made what little hair that had grown back after his surgery fall right out. The bandages were gone now, the scars nicely healed, which was a huge plus because he no longer felt the insane desire to scratch his head vigorously.

When it finally abated, he'd slump back against his pillow and Dad would let go of his wrists, sitting back and saying softly that it'd be over soon, that the bandages would come off and that the irritation would stop.

House would nod and scowl even more, whispering bitterly that he knew, but that it didn't make it any more bearable. The meager strength he had from resting after the chemo was completely sapped now and he would fall asleep listening to Dad humming tunelessly, his last conscious thought being that he and Mom were in agreement that Dad couldn't carry a tune in a barrel, let alone some stupid bucket. But he didn't mind.

It was so much better than fighting and hurting each other all the time. So what if his ears melted, right?

But the annoyance was gone now and he'd been cleared to go home, coming back twice a week for chemotherapy and a modified regiment of PT to counteract the deterioration of his right leg, while causing him the minimum amount of pain. He'd called them big babies and insisted they extend and contract his leg like they would otherwise, reminding them that he could take whatever they dished out.

The therapists had smirked and done as he'd asked, relieved when he calmly reacted the same way he always had. Dad had attended two of the sessions, seen the deep crevice, the scarring on his right leg and resisted the urge to flinch and frown, both impressed and saddened at the way Greg simply gave little flinches whenever there seemed to be pain. He never made a sound and the after the first session, John had gone back to his and Blythe's suite in the ICU and covered his face with a hand, crying quietly until the sobs had finally lessened into hiccups. He'd gotten slowly to his feet and entered the adjoining bathroom and washed his face, affirming in his mind that his son was one of the strongest people he'd ever known. Stronger than he'd ever been and truly the miracle his grandmother had proclaimed him to be nearly fifty years before.

...Stop speaking for me and I'll stop speaking for you...

After House had come home, he'd immediately demanded to see Chase's apartment, going alone with him to the address in a place just outside Plainsboro and watching Chase unlock the door. House had taken one look at the place before softly but vehemently cursing at great length in languages Chase couldn't understand and some he could, inwardly marveling at the fact that he hadn't been aware you could do such things with a boomerang, or that marsupials could be spurred to do anything like that.

It was then and there that his dad had turned to him and said quietly but firmly that Rob was going to have his apartment and that was that. Rob had gaped at him until Dad had risen an eyebrow and recommended he close his mouth before insects decided to make their home in it. Rob had slammed his mouth shut so hard that they both heard his teeth click and Dad had shaken his head, muttering something about dentists making a fortune before expertly, if slowly, maneuvering his wheelchair back to his 'abominable death trap' of a car, as Lisa liked to refer to it, and Rob got him situated shotgun before climbing into the driver's seat and driving Dad back to his (their) apartment, Dad saying that they would get his things moved and out of storage as soon as he and Jimmy had moved into Lisa's house because they thought it was 'fucking ridiculous that Jimmy's been taking up valuable space at the Hyatt when various illicit activities could be taking place there, instead.' Rob had to struggle to hold back a laugh to avoid swerving into the oncoming lane and his dad had smiled in victory.

...You were the one, but I can't spit it out when the date's been set...

At the moment, Mom, Dad, Lisa, Jimmy, and Rob (who he called that all the time now, and Rob called him 'Dad') were presently wrapping his things in insulation and setting them strategically into sectioned and open boxes. His books had taken ten boxes all on their own, Dad laughing that they might as well have a library built behind Lisa's larger house to accommodate them all. Chase had been adamant in participating, having personally watched with House as Chase's name was painted on the new window beside the door. Rob had managed to stifle a sob, gripping the handles of House's wheelchair--his own, by then, having balked at riding out of the hospital front doors in one of the 'stupid, geeky hospital crap just-damned-ugly' ('Shut, up, House.') wheelchairs--as the window bearing Dad's (as he now called House in private, having explained at length what he'd told John House weeks ago) name had been removed and the one bearing the title of ROBERT CHASE, M.D. - DEPARTMENT OF DIAGNOSTICS was fitted and soldered to replace it. Lisa had promptly agreed when both Jimmy and Rob had asked that the previous window be preserved so as to be framed and hanged in what was to become House's study in her house.

It was official: Dr. Gregory House was retiring. He no longer worked there; headed a department. He'd no longer stalk about, terrorizing any stranger in his wake, darkly amusing those who knew him well, incensing those who hated him most.

He felt like a soldier becoming a private citizen again. Maybe this was how his father had felt. If you're a good soldier, you'll be a bad civilian...

Small steps--figurative ones. He wasn't strong enough anymore for the cane and neither of his arms was strong enough now to support his body weight in any fashion. Sometimes it was a relief, no longer suffering backaches or stiffness in his left from favoring it for so long. Other times it felt like a prison or an over-sized stroller for an over-sized child. Cuddy and Wilson accused him of being one already, but this--he felt--cemented it. Sometimes he seethed. Other times he was just too tired to care.

He went home on a Wednesday. He used surnames out of habit, forgetting that they were no longer his colleagues. They'd humor him and then he'd remember and want to throw something, but everything was too heavy. He was too heavy and it sucked.

Everything sucked.

Sometimes he had seizures, small ones where he'd lose awareness of his surroundings or trail off in the middle of a sentence. Other times, he'd forget things--remembering just in time that the milk did not belong in a cabinet. He was happy because it was light enough to carry, furious that he had to fucking care.

Once, Wilson found him in his bed, trying to sit up and failing again and again and again. He growled viciously when Wilson tried to help and swung an arm out blindly, trying to connect and failing at that, too. Those times he cried.

A month later, it was decided that his apartment was too small. That he needed more care than there was room for. He threw himself out of his wheelchair, crawling, dragging himself into a corner and weakly gripping the edge of the big desk. They'd left him alone, then, a full week going by before it was mentioned again.

Cameron and Foreman were gone, to their chosen destinations and he found it hard to care. It was all so tiring. He had enough people staying as it was. It was a full month before he agreed, his face pale, his expression dull, his voice lifeless and flat. His father had watched him, frowning not in disappointment in the first time that he could remember. His father lay a hand on the top of his head, the weight warm and heavy. It made him itch and burn, but he couldn't bring himself to get away. His father took his hand away and kissed his forehead, saying, "It'll be alright, Little Albatross."

But House...Greg--he'd never be House again, like Lisa would never be Cuddy and Jimmy would never be Wilson again. He had to call them by their names. It'd been so long, he didn't know if he could do it. Their names felt thick on his tongue, like glue or wet sand...and Greg...Greg tried to believe his father. But he couldn't.

A week later, Chase--Robert. Rob. Rob showed up with a bucket filled with cleaning crap and a determined look on his face. He would help, he said. He owed so much more, he told Greg when they were in the kitchen and the bucket had been placed where Steve's cage had once sat. So they started. They brought boxes, some with slats, others open and they packed away his things. They packed away his life and he was dying earlier and earlier every minute.

The five of them all packed his belongings with an efficiency that came from moving or traveling constantly and often with little notice. They were all a fury of movement and here he was in his own apartment, sitting on his ass, doing nothing but watching intently as his refrigerator was emptied and Dad griped half-heartedly that someone should have rented an industrial hose for the decayed vegetable matter that had accumulated over the years.

"You were right, Wilson, when you said his fridge needed to be...what was that?"

"Autoclaved," Jimmy smirked, chuckling at House, who stuck out his tongue at him in response. "Look at it. Of course, I'm right."

...Sorrow drips into your heart through a pinhole...Just like a faucet that leaks and there is comfort in the sound...But while you debate half-empty and half-full, it slowly rises, your love is going to drown...

House rolled his eyes and slowly turned the wheelchair to his emptying living room bookcase (Lisa had blinked and shaken her head, asking how in the world someone could have masses in every single room of their apartment; he'd ignored her and went to flip through one just to annoy her) where Mom was holding his yearbook, gently sliding her fingers over the page he knew his picture was in. "You always did hate having your picture taken--look at you scowling. It looks like Tom DeLay's less-chipper mugshot," she smiled fondly. "I'm surprised you kept this. You'd only been there six months."

"There's something drastically wrong with someone who grins during a mugshot--unless you're a teenaged Bill Gates. Then it's just funny. But, I...I figured you might ask to see it one day. I was half right. You didn't ask, just picked it right up..."

Mom had chuckled and peered intently at it just to tease him, but he could see the tears starting to build in her eyes. House breathed deeply, trying not to make it worse. "You can have it. I want you to. You can remember I was grumpy long before anyone else thinks."

Mom had chuckled weakly again and closed the book, going to place it gingerly into one of his other book boxes.

"I'll save it while we unpack," she assured him, leaning down to run a hand over his baseball cap, tracing her fingers over the NY emblazoned over the front. There had been a variety of hats presented to him over the past few weeks, but House had rejected them all, saying Jimmy had terrible taste in ties and that it obviously extended to hats, as well. Lisa had snorted elegantly and placed the baseball cap back on his head before telling him that they'd be moving in with her because there was more space and whatever he needed could easily fit anywhere he wanted. The bribe of a room large enough for both his heirloom writing desk and bed instantly sold him on the deal. His smaller work desk in his current living room was getting to be too small as it was covered in medical journals, other seemingly random texts, and his new laptop to add to the clutter.

He had previously saved that desk for only what he'd deemed essential: everything he'd inherited and a precious few things he'd procured on his own. His mother had pointed out that it would make more sense to use all the empty space in the shelves and drawers to hold the texts and journals, leaving the desktop itself free for his laptop and whatever else he wanted. He'd muttered things about it being 'profane' and 'indecent' and 'it's more than sixty years old and no way would anything modern ever sit on it.' Blythe had sighed, kissed his covered head and assured him that she didn't think D.B. or her mother would mind if he utilized it for his professional passions, as they'd done the same thing.

House had frowned and blinked sadly before finally nodding and Blythe had hugged him, secretly glad when (for the first time in his life) he'd voluntarily leaned into her touch and stayed there for at least a minute, tears coming to her eyes as she felt warmth spreading and seeping into the shoulder of her blouse and she'd continued to hold him, blinking valiantly until he'd fallen asleep before lying him gently back on his bed and shifting him upward, her shoulders hitching, tears sliding down her own face at how easily she could move him now, and laying his head on his pillow before covering his pajama pant and t-shirt clad body in blankets and surrounding him with two of the large body pillows that covered the big bed.

Blythe was careful not to disturb the PICC line James had inserted a week before to give House the nutrition the constant vomiting was robbing him of, contributing liberally to the further weight loss. It had helped a good deal and he'd recovered enough to demand to go with Robert to his apartment regarding some agreement they'd made while he was in the ICU. She'd gone into the bathroom then, closing the door that hadn't been in years, and cried silently, wishing that none of it were true, that he was still healthy and strong and even if not whole, then at least self-reliant. He'd stubbornly managed to do just that for as long as he could, making only the minimal adjustments to his apartment that he'd allow. His independent streak was still there, she knew, but this monster inside him (she couldn't think of it any other way) was slowly undermining it, dragging him under and she hated that she couldn't rescue him.

She cried because he was disappearing right before her eyes. She was losing him and there wasn't anything she could do about it.

...Steal all my children if I don't pay the ransom...And I'll never see them again...

...TBC...