"Who is that?" Cuddy asked, looking at the furry pile curled up on House's recliner. Behind her House loomed, his glare deep and foreboding.
"Not who, what is that? It looks like a toupee that escaped from the trash compactor," came the unkind observation. House raised his cane and gave the fur pile a tentative poke; the puppy stretched out, flexing his legs and passing a little gas.
Cuddy laughed. House did not.
"The only scruffy thing dispensing methane around here will be me," he announced balefully. Cuddy shot him a sidelong glance.
"Which you do unceasingly, come to speak of it—must be all the fiber you're getting these days."
"Yes, well still can't hold a candle to you—literally," House replied dryly. "When I call you Toots I mean it, you know."
"House," Cuddy sighed, "Shut up. Marlena, is this your dog?"
Mrs. Farber, who had been ignoring the conversation looked up from her knitting and shook her head. "Not mine—I am a ket person."
The puppy hopped off the recliner, tail wagging as he snuffled House's shoes, circling around the man and breathing deeply. House watched him, all the way up to the point that the puppy leaped up and buried his inquisitive nose deep into House's crotch.
"Whoa there, Fido—not even airport security is allowed to probe THAT deeply. Call him off, Cuddy—speak to him in flatulence—"
Ignoring the jibe, Cuddy knelt and called the puppy over; delighted at her soothing tone the dog scrambled away from House and leaped around Cuddy, trying to lick her hands. She laughed and led the puppy over to the sofa, calming him with slow petting as House made a show of wiping off his recliner and sitting in it.
"He's not staying," House grumbled. "Fuzzy-assed mooch, looking for a comfortable home and three meals a day, a chance to lie around and scratch his balls—"
"Sounds familiar—" Cuddy murmured, shooting Mrs. Farber a glance. Marlena pursed her mouth tighter to keep from laughing. House caught the look and growled.
"Hey, hey, I work for a living; I earn the right to lie around and—"
"—None of zat," Mrs. Farber broke in firmly. "Ze poopy is just zat—a poopy."
This time Cuddy DID laugh; Mrs. Farber smirked good-naturedly as House settled more deeply into chair. "Yeah, well that aptly named mongrel is headed for the pound first thing in the morning."
"We can't call a dog 'Poopy,'" Cuddy protested, running her hands over the puppy's back. He promptly flopped over and offered his belly for scratching, which she did, lightly raking her nails along his pink stomach. The dog gave a happy little yowling sound, and House looked over.
"Should I get you two a room?" Came his sardonic comment. Cuddy laughed.
"No need to be jealous . . . "
"I'm not jealous; I'm practical. Another mouth to feed right now isn't what we need."
Mrs. Farber rolled her eyes. "Don't vorry, Hasi; I vas going to put meinself out on ze ice flow tomorrow—"
"So noble, so self-sacrificing, but leave now and the She-Beast there would beat me to death with my own cane. All I'm asking is what use do we have for a damned dog, that's all," House murmured, closing his eyes. It had been a long day, and he wanted another Vicodin. Cuddy rose and came over to him, resting a cool hand on his forehead.
"You need food and sleep," she announced. He shook his head under her touch.
"Crappy diagnosis. I need drugs, food, and sex and then maybe sleep. What's cooking?"
"Chicken schtew," Mrs. Farber announced, rising stiffly from her chair and setting aside the knitting. "Unt potatoes."
"How come you don't cook like that?" House demanded of Cuddy, who helped to pull him out of the lounger.
She snorted. "Because I'm an administrator, not a chef."
All through dinner Mrs. Farber and Cuddy discussed names for the puppy who circled around under the table like a shark at a pier. House loftily ignored the entire conversation, making his way through two bowls of stew, and it wasn't until Cuddy growled, "Ah-HA!" that he flinched, looking vaguely guilty.
"What?"
"You're slipping pieces of chicken under the table," she accused him.
House looked affronted. "I am not."
"You ARE too!"
"Not."
"Too!"
"Not."
"Not," Mrs. Farber broke in quietly. "He's been schlipping his carrots under ze table. Grreg hates carrots."
"You hate carrots?" Cuddy demanded. House sighed hugely and looked upward, the very picture of annoyance.
"Yes, I hate carrots, all right?"
"Fine," Cuddy murmured softly, amused. "I just . . . never knew. I guess I'll never stuff you with carrot cake."
Even as the little joke left her lips, she suddenly realized neither Mrs. Farber nor House were smiling. For a heavy, awkward moment there was silence.
Then--
"When I was seven, I was forced to eat three bunches of the damned things in a single sitting," House murmured quietly, his expression defensively vulnerable. "At that time a bunch was roughly three pounds, give or take. I was told to eat them all or face the consequences."
Nobody spoke in the sudden quiet at the table. Alarmed, Cuddy looked to Mrs. Farber, who had her lips pressed tightly together, her sorrowful gaze down at her bowl.
House continued. "So, the math worked out to nine pounds of carrots into a seventy pound kid, with the threat that if I threw any of it up, I'd have to eat that too. I suppose I should resent the authority and not the vegetable, but my taste buds won't cooperate."
He paused and added heavily, "Maybe there is a use for the damned dog."
Cuddy had no further appetite; she pushed her bowl away and slipped away from the table, passing through the living room towards the elevator. She rode up to the master bedroom and threw herself onto the bed after kicking off her shoes, curling into a ball, one hand wrapped protectively around the little bulge low on her belly.
After a while, she heard the elevator descend and rise again; heard the creak of the floorboards and the thump of the cane as House crossed the room. Cuddy knew he was staring at her back, and she wasn't ready to roll over and face him.
House spoke. "Stop being upset."
"That's a little like asking me to stop being pregnant."
"We can keep the dog, if you want," House offered, managing to insinuate through his tone that this was the ultimate sacrifice on his part. Cuddy rolled over and glared at him, her mouth just on the fine edge of trembling.
House sighed and motioned for her to scoot over; when she did, he hung his cane on the headboard and stretched out, relaxing inch by inch.
He stared at the ceiling as he put one hand behind his head. "Lisa, tell me this—was your father all cuddly and supportive and great?"
She propped her head on one hand, near to House but not touching him. "You know he wasn't. But that wasn't . . . his style. My dad was a musician; yeah he was temperamental and demanding at times, but he wasn't an outright bastard!"
"Are you sure?" House murmured, closing his eyes. Cuddy began to protest, but before she could speak, she thought better of it and stopped. House made a small triumphant sound deep in his throat.
"My dad never tortured me," Cuddy managed in a whisper. "And you can euphemize it all you want, Greg, but what your dad did to you was . . . sadistic."
"How much of the year was your dad on the road? How many times did he miss all those special milestones in your life, She-Beast? Did he make your birthdays? Your high school graduation? Hell, your college or medical school ones for that matter?" House replied in a deceptively simple tone. "Because the Damian Cuddy I met out at Tudor Manor was a selfish, egotistical bastard who was jealous of his daughter's success and had been for years."
"He was delusional," Cuddy rasped, blinking hard. "Not in command of his faculties and you know it."
"Yeah, but that was only a recent development. Get real, Lisa—neither of us had good fathers, and any psychologist would claim it's why we're so driven, career-wise. All that over-compensation to nurture on a global level. I'm sure Mansfield believes that crap."
"So . . . " Cuddy stroked her stomach bleakly, "You're saying we're going to suck at this."
House snorted. "Nooooo, I'm saying we're . . . challenged. I had Farber on my side, so I didn't end up in jail or dead. Evil Spawn will have you, so I'm saving up now for that trip to Oslo for the 2027 Nobels."
At that Cuddy laughed, and reached over to rest a hand on House's chest. "Jesus when you dream, you dream big, don't you?"
"It's a fact that Nobel Winners get asked to be sperm donors a lot," House pointed out. "And if I push the genetics connection, I could get a piece of that action."
"You'll be sixty-eight by then," Cuddy reminded him. "Too old to be a reliable shooter."
"Gimme a nice Levitra/Vicodin cocktail and we'll see," he grumbled back, not pleased to have his fantasy deflated. "And a Swedish babe with hooters."
"Swedish girls are overrated," Cuddy murmured absently, earning a quick, intrigued glance from House. She smiled enigmatically in return, and House gave a little grunt.
"Spill."
"Oh you know . . . the Eighties . . . . it was a time of . . . . experimentation . . . " Cuddy teased throatily. House sucked in a breath at the onslaught of sensual girl on girl imagery and reached for her, pulling her across his chest.
"I want full and lurid details—" he demanded, nuzzling her neck and plucking at her shirt buttons. "—every naughty bit—"
"I bet you do—"
Marlena heard the sounds overhead and smiled in relief as she quietly finished up the dishes. Given the degree of enthusiasm, she was sure it would be a while before either of them came down again, and that was as it should be.
She looked down at the dog, who was busy licking leftover stew from a little bowl. "You're schtaying. Oont you need a name."
The puppy didn't look up until the bowl was completely clean; Mrs. Farber let him out the back door and waited there as he wandered around the bushes, trying to find the right one to water.
She sighed and closed her eyes, remembering, drifting back to the painful Night of the Carrots nearly forty-one years ago . . .
"They're full of vitamin A, and if you ever plan on becoming a pilot, you'll need good eyes."
"I don't want to be a pilot."
"Eat. I'm not going to let you get away with wasting food, Greg. There are kids in Africa starving to death while you've got a full plate there. It's not like it's liver."
"John, can we talk about this?"
"No, Hon. He's got to learn that there are rules, and one of them is not wasting anything. Mrs. F, bring in the rest of the carrots so we can get this lesson learned here and now."
"He's choking!"
"He's faking . . . vomit, Greg, and you'll be eating that too—trust me, it's better to keep it down."
"John, he's had enough!"
"Hon, he'll be fine, but next time he'll remember this before he loads up on anything. Where are those carrots, Mrs. Farber?"
Memories of John House, tall and determined, gently nudging her aside and pulling open the refrigerator, rummaging in the vegetable crisper while she and Blythe tried to stand between him and the boy . . .
And Greg. Thin, but with unblinking blue eyes, mechanically chewing in loud crunches, his skinny chest heaving with the effort of not gagging—
She'd nearly lost it then, and wanted nothing more than to grab the child and run; take him away from that relentlessly calm father and whimpering ineffective mother, the two of them tugging the boy's soul between them like a frayed rope.
Greg had deserved better; a hell of a lot better than what he had.
She stayed. Ultimately it was the greater good; simply being there made a difference and they both knew it. Greg turned to her first for his decisions and diatribes; she kept him fed and loved. Not that they said it much, nor needed to—both of them were stoic in their own ways, handling their own pains.
But to have been able to spit in John House's face, just once—
Mrs. Farber crossed herself and stepped out into the yard, calling the dog in gentle tones.
00oo00oo00
Mrs. Farber's Chicken Stew
INGREDIENTS:2 tablespoons olive oil
6 slices bacon, diced
8 ounces mushrooms, sliced
4 large carrots, sliced
1 red bell pepper, cut in 1-inch squares (or use roasted red peppers from jar)
1 green bell pepper, cut in 1-inch squares
1 bunch green onions sliced in 1/2-inch, about half of green included
4 chicken breast halves, boneless, cut in 1/2- to 1-inch chunks
1 can (4oz) sliced ripe olives
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
3 tablespoons tomato paste
1 (14.5 oz) can tomatoes
1/4 cup chicken broth
1/2 teaspoon dried ground marjoram
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper or mixture of black and red pepper
PREPARATION:Heat olive oil in a large skillet; sauté bacon until browned. Add mushrooms, peppers, and green onions and sauté for a minute. Add vinegar and cook 1 minute more, scraping up the browned bits from the bottom of the pan.
Set aside.
Place chicken in a 3 1/2 -quart or larger slow cooker. Add sautéed bacon and vegetable mixture to the pot, then the olives. Combine the remaining ingredients in a bowl and mix. Pour over chicken and vegetables in the slow cooker. Cover and cook on low for 8 to 10 hours.
Serves 3 to 4, unless one of them is House—in that case, fill up on bread and salad while plotting revenge.
