They drove back to the motel in silence.
Gregory House invited himself into Isabella's motel room and stood leaning against the dresser that had the TV on top. He stared at his shoes and tapped his cane on the floor.
Isabella stood a few feet away. She wanted to sit down but didn't because she was wearing her new dress with Gregory House's flowers pinned on her shoulder and she didn't want to get dirty by sitting in a motel chair.
Neither said anything for a time.
Finally Isabella said, "I'm going to change out of my new dress. I'll be right back."
She gathered the sweats she used for night clothes and quickly changed and hung her dress up in the little area provided to hang up her clothes; an open shelf with a rod across it and the hangers attached to the rod. For the first time she minded living in this motel. She hung her pretty dress up beside her goodwill clothes and the stained ironing board. Well that looked depressing.
Gregory House also didn't want to sit on motel room furniture in his good suit and he was still standing there leaning against the dresser a few minutes later when his separated wife came out of the bathroom. He had taken a fist full of his medicine while she was out of the room.
Isabella sat on the bed as she had when they watched movies, all curled up on one corner with two pillows at her back.
Gregory, said, "We should talk." Isabella agreed, but she didn't want to.
"Ya."She said softly, pulling over a pillow and hugged it into her middle.
"What do you want to do, Isabella?" he waited. "When we decided on a divorce we didn't know each other. Do you still want the divorce?"He jumped right in with both feet. He tried to peek around her hair to see her face.
He wanted her to say no, that she didn't still want the divorce; he wanted that more than he had ever wanted anything, but why would she say no? She had everything going for her. She could have anyone she wanted. Why would she pick him? He was nothing but a grumpy old, broken down ex-con of an addict. She shouldn't be saddled with him. But he wanted her, anyway. He wanted her to say no. He wanted her to say she no longer wanted a divorce; he wanted her to say that she wanted to stay with him. He held his breath, waiting for her answer that would determine the rest of his life.
Isabella sat hunched in the corner of the bed, slumped over with her head down. "I don't know; I like being with you. I don't know." she said very softly without looking up at him, her long brown hair formed a curtain that covered the sides of her face hiding it so he couldn't see her beautiful face.
She likes being with me! House was ecstatic. She likes being with me!
"I like being with you too." House smiled.
She didn't say anything. He waited.
When she looked up there were tears on her face.
"No, no no no, don't cry. Please don't cry. Whatever you want will be OK. We'll make it OK. Don't cry. Isabella, please don't cry. Why are you crying?" House pleaded and was beside himself. He couldn't deal with crying women, especially this one.
She used the back of her hand to swipe the tears from her face, but it didn't do any good because they were just replaced with new tears. She was looking down at her hands and started talking with tears in her voice as well as on her face.
"I don't know… I don't know. Our baby is going to be born in a few months and you don't want him. You want me to get rid of him." She cried a little more and then got herself under control, "You are a grown man…you can take care of yourself. He is just a little baby and he needs me. I have to take care of the baby. I don't want you around him. He'll know that you don't want him. Kids always know and I don't want him to know that kind of pain."
Isabella took some breaths and then explained her hopes and dreams for her child."I want him to grow up in a home that is a safe place to be; where he can just be a little kid and no matter what he does he'll know that he can tell me and we can work it out. I want him surrounded by love and acceptance. I want him to be happy and to have self confidence. I don't want him to know that his own father doesn't want him."
House just stood there. He had no idea he had wounded her so. He never intended to hurt her. He didn't deserve her. She was so good and he wasn't. He hated himself. He just stood there as stiff as a board.
"I have to make a home for my child." Isabella continued, "I want to make a good home for him where he is never afraid and never feels alone, where no one will ever hurt him." Gregory House listened carefully; everything other than Isabella was blocked out. "But I want to be with you, too; but I can't have him and you at the same time. And I don't want to be married. I'm too young to be married." she paused.
"You like kids, Gregory House; and you are so good with them. Danny's kids love you. You would be such a good dad." Isabella started crying again. "I don't understand. I don't understand why you don't want your own child. I don't understand why you want to get rid of him and why you don't love him. I don't understand why such a good man doesn't want his own child" Isabella sniffed, no longer crying; now she sounded angry.
House was in shock. He didn't know this was how he made her feel. He wished he could take it back, that he had never said those things. He wanted to hold her and comfort her and love her, but he didn't have that right. He was the one who did this to her, made her feel like this, made her cry.
"Isabella…." He felt so bad that he almost sobbed himself. "Isabella…" She swiped at the new tears on her cheeks.
"Isabella, that isn't the way I feel." The strain of his emotion could be heard in his voice. "Please stop crying. Isabella, I'm sorry. Please stop crying. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. When I said those things I didn't even know you. You had just told me that we were married and then a few days later you told me that you were pregnant. I needed time to deal with all that. Please stop crying. We were strangers, married and having a child and I didn't even know you. I didn't even remember anything about our wedding or what happened later. I don't know what to say. Please stop crying, Isabella, Please. Listen to me. That isn't the way I feel. I was just caught off guard, that's all…" he couldn't think of anything else to say. He just stood there, looking at his wife. He was miserable for putting her through this.
Isabella swiped at her cheeks again and stopped crying, thinking about what her husband had just said. All this turmoil and emotion was exhausting.
"I'm 18 years old. I never wanted to be married. I don't want to be tied down and I'm too young to be a mother..."
She lay back against her pillows again, still thinking. She fell asleep, thinking. She slept curled up in a ball like the little girl she was right now; using only a tiny corner of the bed.
House cried a river on the inside, his misery clearly visible on the outside for what he had put his innocent young wife through. He paced around the room.
He was such a fuck up and his wife suffered for it. He didn't deserve her. He should just leave her alone, let her get back to her life; only she couldn't get back to her life because he knocked her up. Eighteen years old and he knocked her up. He should be back in prison where he belonged; where he couldn't hurt people, far away from nice, normal people. Well…he couldn't leave her alone, not right now. He wanted to hold her. He had to stay here until she woke up and then he had to try to clean his mess up. How could he do that? How could he repair the damage he caused? He couldn't. He couldn't fix this. There was no way he could undo this.
House took off his suit coat and hung it up beside Isabella's new dress. The night had started out so well. He thought they were happy, but apparently he was wrong. Isabella had been carrying his shit all this time and he was so self absorbed he didn't even realize it.
He stood in the middle of the room. He couldn't sleep on the chair again. Last time he did that he had a heart attack from the severe pain in his leg. He wanted to sleep holding his wife. Ya, that's all she needed after everything he had put her through, she had already told him not to touch her.
Cuddy had been right, he chose himself over everyone else. He had told her that he could do better, but she knew better; Cuddy knew better. She knew him better than anyone else on the planet and she knew that he couldn't do better. He swallowed more pills. Cuddy had been right to leave him. He didn't deserve her, either.
And now he had screwed up again and this time he had wounded someone who never hurt anyone in her life. He had wounded an abused child, for christ's sake. What the fuck was wrong with him? His dad could tell from the time he was little; Gregory House was a worthless fuck up, and he took everyone in his path down with him.
He grabbed his cell phone and swiped Isabella's card key off the dresser, wrote a quick note on a motel pad of paper in case Isabella woke while he was gone, and then he went outside and sat in his car. He hadn't been to see Dr Nolan for nearly two years, but he still knew his emergency number. He dialed and the answering service picked up. "Is this an emergency?" the voice said.
"Ya, it's an emergency."House croaked out.
He had to wait until the answering service called his doctor and then Nolan came on the line.
"House, are you in a safe place?"
"Yes, I'm sitting in my car."
"The service said this was an emergence. Are you planning to hurt yourself?"
"No."
"Have you overdosed?"
"I've taken my Vicodin, but not enough to kill me."
"OK, you are in a safe place. You are not going to hurt yourself and you haven't overdosed. You said you were in your car. Where is your car?"
"I'm outside my wife's motel room."
This was new. House was married and living in a motel? No he had said he was outside his wife's motel room, not their room. Nolan was on uncertain territory and he was worried. Was this more domestic violence? House had a history; he had driven his car into Cuddy's house, he had punched people at bars and at work. Nolan didn't like this.
"Is your wife alright, House?"
"No, it's all my fault. I fucked up and hurt her."It sounded like House was crying.
"What did you do, House? Did you physically hurt her?"Nolan asked with dread.
"NO! Not physically."
"What is your wife doing right now? Is she with you?"
"She is inside sleeping, that's why I came out here. I didn't want to wake her up."
"House, do you need to come into the hospital? Nolan was relieved that House's wife was apparently unharmed, physically.
"No… I just don't know what to do."
"Ok House…do you want to tell me what is bothering you?"
And so House started his story. Once he started he couldn't stop until he was done. He and Nolan talked for more than two hours. The crisis was abating. Nolan gave him an appointment to come into the office at ten the next morning. With his leg, he probably couldn't make it before then. Nolan told him that he would see him in the morning, but to call before then if he needed to. Nolan broke his own rule and gave House his private number. House, for some unknown reason, had always been one of Nolan's favorite patients. Nolan was worried but by the time they got off the phone he felt confident that House and his wife would be OK until tomorrow He seemed to be getting back to the old House by the end of the phone consult.
House felt strangely calm after telling Nolan everything that had happened to him during the last couple of months. He only wanted to go in and sleep beside his wife. So he did. He was careful not to get too close, but Isabella was all curled up in a ball…way over on one side of the bed. There was plenty of room. He watched his wife sleep. He leaned over and gave her a gentle kiss on her temple. Damn him. She had to go for a job interview tomorrow after he got her so upset. He reached out with his hand and gently caressed the back of her hand with his index finger, comforted by the contact.