Chapter 10: News
Cuddy stood there, waiting intently. As soon as House came up beside her, she reached over and grabbed his hand. She needed him, and if this was as bad as she was thinking earlier, he wasn't going to be there after this.
"You two have probably noticed her decline in lung capacity. And you are both most likely aware that this was completely expected?" the doctor asked, looking back and forth between the two.
House expressionlessly nodded as Cuddy bit her lip.
The doctor sighed, carefully putting his words together. "You also know that we were wanting to get her a lung transplant?"
They both nodded, just waiting to hear it. Wanting to get this over with already.
"We think that it would be best to take her off the list and just let her go. With the way that her visits have been going, and then today, she doesn't have much longer anyways. She'll most likely make it through this year, probably right up until spring, and towards the end most of her time will be spent either here or not able to do much, getting out of breath just walking around the house," he explained.
House just stared. It was obvious to him that this was all coming up, but there was something about hearing it from someone else. A reassurance of the reality of his own fears. There was nothing to say or do at this moment. Just stare.
Cuddy let out a small gasp. Her hand squeezed House's, as if she knew that he wanted to turn and leave. She needed him there with her now, and something told her that as soon as she let go, he was gone. "Thank you," she softly responded, simply to let him know that they were done.
The doctor took the hint, nodded, and left them.
Cuddy heavily breathed out and ran her hand through her hair, looking down towards the ground. She wasn't sure whether she wanted to cry or throw up, her daughter's time was almost up and there was nothing that she could do about it. Most other problems that she had in her life, she was able to find a solution, find a way to over come it, but this was different. Her biggest problem ever, and there was nothing that she could.
House turned and started to limp back to the waiting room. As soon as Cuddy let go of his hand, he stopped and turned back. "Coming?" he flatly implored. He knew that she was going to make him think about this, deal with this right now, while all he wanted to do was go back home and distract himself, but he couldn't just leave her there.
Cuddy jerked her head up to him. "Yeah," she answered and then regained her composure before joining him back to the waiting room.
Gabrielle sat up and waited for them to come back. What scared her though, was that, not just Jessica was silent while they were gone, but that Tommy and Rachel were also silent. They all knew that something was wrong. She got up and moved over to join the three, figuring that it might be easier for them to explain to everyone at once.
House and Cuddy both got to where the four were sitting and stopped for a moment. "Well, um," Cuddy started, barely able to force the words out.
House sighed. "She's not getting the lung anymore and she has approximately seven months left," he gruffly explained. "Now I'm going home. Anyone can join me," he said and then started towards the door.
Tommy and Jessica looked up and saw the look of utter betrayal and disgust on her face. It was visible that she wanted to strangle him. With that warning of how edgy she was, they got up and started to follow House, although, he didn't seem that much easier to get along with at the moment.
Rachel looked over to Gabrielle. "I'll let you know if he does anything," she assured her and then stood up to leave.
"Thanks," Gabrielle replied. The last time that Elisabeth had a health scare, she explained to Rachel that House can be a little self destructive and told her to call her if he did anything stupid.
Gabrielle then looked up to Cuddy with sympathy. "I can drive you back when ever you're ready," she gently offered.
Cuddy looked down to her. "I forgot to ask whether or not they told her," she told her. It was hard for her to even think straight right now.
Gabrielle just looked to her, nothing to say. "You wanna go see her?" she inquired.
Cuddy nodded. "Yeah," she replied. "Let's go see what room she's in."
oooo
House sat at the kitchen table. Staring. Right now, he didn't feel anything, and that scared him. He should feel something, he was just told that his daughter was going to die soon, but he couldn't. After all of this time of trying to hide the reality of her upcoming death, trying to force himself to forget that with each doctor's visit she was that much closer to the end, that he may have desensitized himself to it all. This was just another trip to the hospital, just more news about her declining health.
Normally, he tried so hard to shield himself from any pain, but now that he didn't feel it, he was scared. Scared, and mad at himself, telling himself that it made him a horrible father.
He was there, he saw her fall down the stairs, he saw her as she was taken into the hospital, and he heard the doctor tell him that she was closer to death. Why no emotion yet? Was he really that bad of a person?
oooo
Rachel, Jessica, and Tommy all sat up in Rachel's room. "What do you think's gonna happen now?" Jessica asked.
Rachel shrugged. "All I know is that Gabi told me that he can go over board when anything happens. She told me to watch him, and watch how many pills he takes," she explained.
Rachel was the only one that Gabrielle had told about his tendencies. She was the oldest one there now, and she figured that she could keep an eye on him every once in a while and let her know when he was starting to slip. So far though, she was still the only one to have seen him fall apart, to be there with him at his worst. That was why she had Rachel watch him though, call her to go talk to him before any of her siblings had to see him like that.
Gabrielle knew very well that Cuddy could handle him. There was no question about that, and when it came to certain things, she was a lot better at it than Gabrielle was, but whenever it involved Elisabeth, she wanted to give Cuddy the chance to just concentrate on her rather than dividing her attention between both Elisabeth and House.
"Over dose? Alcohol poisoning?" Tommy questioned. He knew the sort of things that House did, so it wasn't very hard to know what Gabrielle was talking about.
"I guess," Rachel responded.
Jessica looked up to Rachel. "What do you think is going to happen to Ellie?" she meekly implored. Her eyes starting to fill with tears.
Tommy looked to her as if she were an idiot. "Weren't you there? She's going to die," he harshly answered.
Jessica, now hurt, looked to him. Words were right on her tongue, but she couldn't bring herself to speak. Giving up, she stood up and hurried out of the room.
Rachel quickly shoved Tommy off the edge of the bed, causing him to lay on the floor, propped up on his elbows. "Are you retarded?" she asked. "You know what meant! She wanted to know when she would be coming home, what she would do for the next months. Instead you act like a complete ass and shove her sister's death in her face like she's some moron."
"Oh come on!" Tommy whined as he sat up. "I wasn't shoving anything in her face. We all heard the same thing! How was I supposed to answer that? Besides, we all know that she is dying, there was no surprise in that. I was simply telling her the truth," Tommy argued.
Rachel got up and sighed as she looked down to him. "There's a difference between being honest and being a jerk," she informed him and then left the room.
Tommy rolled his eyes and then got up. "If she can't handle it now, how do you expect her to handle it the day that Ellie does die?" he called out after her.
oooo
Gabrielle took Cuddy out to lunch after checking in on Elisabeth. She was still pretty out of it, so they only said hi to her and then got out of there and let her sleep.
"You want me to stop back and get a few things for you to stay the night at the hospital with her?" Gabrielle offered. The entire lunch had been quiet, except for a few comments here and there.
"I want to stop home first, that way I can get my car and make sure that things are okay over there," Cuddy responded. Her eyes were still distant.
Gabrielle nodded. "Are you doing okay?" she carefully implored.
Cuddy sighed. "I don't know," she confessed.
"I would be a little worried if you were doing just fine," Gabrielle stated.
Cuddy pushed her plate off to the side and leaned in closer to Gabrielle. "Can I confide in you?" she quietly requested.
Gabrielle smirked as she leaned in. "Why would now be different than any other time?" she questioned.
Cuddy ignored the remark and went on. "Everyday, I wake up, work out, shower, cook breakfast, go to work, talk to Greg, tell him no a few times, go to lunch, tell Greg no a few more times, sign some papers, negotiate with Greg, come home, listen to Rachel talk endlessly about her day, find out what Tommy got in trouble for, argue with Greg because he finds enjoyment in Tommy's rebelliousness, check on Ellie, cook dinner, check on Ellie again, relax a little, check on Ellie again, and then finally, get ready and go to bed. That is a typical day for me. I have a hospital to run, a husband who is insane as a person and completely out of his mind as a doctor, a son who doesn't listen to anyone but the man who encourages him, a daughter wanting to hurry to grow up, a daughter who is dying, and a daughter who does have a point when she says that she is a little ignored," she informed her.
"You're stressed."
"I can handle Greg at work, as a matter of fact, I enjoy arguing with him there, talking to him. I enjoy waiting to hear what he wants to do to his patients. I may get irritated, but really, he keeps things from getting boring. I can also handle a twelve year old girl who thinks she should be allowed to do everything that a twenty year old gets to do. We have fun together, I take her out to do all those girly things, talk to her about dating and all of that stuff, telling her to just relax and be patient. Wait to grow up. I can handle a daughter who feels invisible to most of the world. I can even handle a son who is exactly like his father, never listening and doing only as he pleases and calling the rest of the world stupid for not agreeing with him," Cuddy started. "But I don't think that I can handle my little girl dying," she admitted, tears forming in her eyes.
Gabrielle, who had actually been wanting to cry since she had been told what was going on, fought back the tears that were that much closer to falling. "She still has time," she mentioned, trying to help.
"But how long can we keep saying that?" Cuddy implored. "And what happens when that time is out?"
"I don't know," Gabrielle helplessly answered. She wanted to tell her something to help, she wanted to make her feel a little better about the situation, but she couldn't think of anything. There was nothing.
The tears started falling from Cuddy's eyes and she borrowed her face down in her arms that were folded on the table. Gabrielle watched her for a second and then got up and went over to the other side of the table and slid into the booth next to Cuddy, putting her arm around her. "I wish there was a better answer than that," she said.