Hi guys, I'm the one who left you alone for almost two months *runs away under a hail of stones* *finds the chapter hidden under a ton of homework* *puts it on the table and escapes from yet another hail of stones*
Alright, this pretty much summarized it. As I expected, I don't have much time to write this year, probably not even during the holidays two weeks from now. But I did write, however, let's say, a quarter of the next chapter. So, I don't know when I'll be able to update again, but I'll do my best. We'll see. I'm so sorry. I know it sucks :(
I'd like to thank IHeartHouseCuddy for her great help, and all of you for your reviews and support. It means a lot to me. :)
10/18/12 : Oops, forgot some disclaimers. The Hitchcock shirt does exist IRL. It was designed by Dan Elijah Fejardo and Peter Kramar (It was available on the Internet at some point, but apparently it's not anymore, sooo... I don't know).
Chapter Thirty-Six
House whined as he caught a glimpse of Arlene's car parked in their driveway. He would have to stop Cuddy's black Lexus halfway on the sidewalk and wait until the elder woman had left to drive it into the garage.
He shut off the engine. Cuddy sighed and rubbed her forehead.
"Ready?" he asked.
"You could say that."
He offered her an encouraging smile when she turned to him. "Come on, it's just your mom."
"That's not very reassuring."
He leaned towards her and kissed her lips tenderly. As he pulled away, he noticed the thin line of stitches bordering her hairline, which he concealed by drawing one of her raven curls over it. The last thing they needed was Arlene questioning those recent-looking sutures. Cuddy smiled shyly at the attention. Eventually, she decided to go. They unfastened their seatbelts, stepped out of the car and slammed the doors. As they made their way towards the entrance of her house, the diagnostician fumbled in his coat pockets in search of his keys. He eventually laid his hand on them and they walked in carefully. At that time of the day, Rachel must be taking a nap.
Their assumption was right. They had barely been inside when Arlene appeared from the living-room.
"Shh! Rachel is sleeping," she whispered.
"I know that, Mom," Cuddy replied in the same tone, noiselessly shutting the door. "Good afternoon to you, too."
House peeled off his woollen coat and hung it in the closet, revealing the short-sleeved tee-shirt he was wearing in spite of the chilly February weather. Arlene frowned and paid more attention to her daughter's outfit. An oversized sweatshirt and jogging pants?
"What have you two been doing?" she asked, bewildered.
Cuddy rolled her eyes. She had expected it. "None of your business."
While she took time to undo her laces, House merely kicked his shoes off and headed towards the corridor. "Gonna get changed," he announced. The youngest Cuddy nodded and walked into the kitchen, her mother hard on her heels.
"How come he's changing clothes in the middle of the day?"
Cuddy deflected, "How did it go with Rachel?"
"Fine."
"'Fine'? That's it?" she asked, setting two empty glasses on the kitchen table, where her mother had sat down.
"Well, she got out of school at the usual time," she detailed as she slid one of the glasses closer to her. "Ate almost all of her broccoli, and slept the whole night through. I couldn't expect it to go better. And yes, I'd like some water. Thank you, sweetie."
Cuddy coldly snatched the recipient from her hands and laid it back on the table. "These glasses are for House and I."
After a brief silence, Arlene brought back the previous topic. "Why weren't you here at one o'clock?"
"House told you," her daughter said, opening a drawer. "We overslept."
"Are you sure? Maybe you didn't and you were dreading to see your daughter," she insisted. "It's okay, Lisa. After what happened, it's understandable that you lose your confidence. You can tell me."
Cuddy angrily dropped the cutlery on the table.
"I need to speak to you outside," she said in the bossy tone she had not used in ages. She headed towards the entry door, the elder woman following her without complaining – much to her surprise – and left it ajar after they had stepped outside.
"Is he taking good care of you?" Arlene asked before her daughter had a chance at uttering anything.
"I –" she stammered, taken aback by her sudden question and unexpected kindness. "What – How is this related –"
"Your sister is worried about you," Arlene cut her off. "You haven't called her in a week."
"I didn't have time." She then sighed, knowing her mother expected an answer to her previous question. "Yeah. Yeah, Mom, he's doing great."
"Does he make you happy?"
It did not take House long to get rid of his clothes and change into clean ones, adding a cerulean shirt above a white-tee shirt depicting Alfred Hitchcock sitting on a bench surrounded by multicoloured birds. He limped back into the hallway and, surprised to see the door ajar, went to close it, hearing voices as he grabbed the doorknob.
"Does he make you happy?" Arlene was asking her daughter. He knew she was talking about him. He could not help listening discretely to the conversation, hoping he would not regret it later.
"You mean right now?" Cuddy inquired, before heaving a sigh. She took a horribly long time to think about her reply. "No," she admitted in a murmur. "I'm not happy right now." She cleared her throat and raised her voice. "But it's not his fault. I'm not happy, but I think I would have been more miserable without him. Without his help." Arlene did not answer. House conjectured that she had simply given her a nod. "We're healing. Slowly, but we are. We'll get through it. I'm sure about that."
"That's good."
"We're going to see his shrink soon. And we're planning to move out."
"Not too far from here?"
"No, we're staying in Princeton." After a few seconds, Cuddy added, "I'm glad House is by my side. I don't know what I'd do without him." Then, barely above a whisper, "He saved me."
He grinned. His wide smile, however, faded as she pushed the door open when he least expected her to. She was as startled as he was to see him standing in front of her. Her eyes quickly searched into his own. Had he heard everything? How was he going to react? He distinguished a hint of dread in her look, as if she were fearing he might panic. She was putting too much responsibility on his shoulders. But he would not be scared. He was not scared of her feelings anymore.
"How about spaghetti for lunch?" he suggested with a slight smile.
She beamed. "Okay." Then, turning to her mother, "'You staying with us?"
"Thank you, no," she refused. "I already had lunch. I'm going to leave." Followed by her daughter, Arlene stepped into the house, grabbed her purse and coat, which she slipped on as she turned to House. "You couldn't help eavesdropping, could you?"
"Of course not," he admitted. "Just wanted to make sure you weren't badmouthing me."
Arlene smirked. "Satisfied?"
"Pretty much."
She acknowledged it with a nod. "Anyway, I have to go," she said, patting his shoulder. "See you, Greg." Cuddy observed them with a hint of amusement. He seemed surprised by her sudden kindness. "Thanks for saving my daughter."
Arlene moved on to her daughter, as if she had not purely and simply astounded the diagnostician. When he recovered from the shock, the elderly woman was gone, the door was closed, and Cuddy was staring up at him with a wide smile on her lips and pride in her eyes.
"What did you do to her?" he asked. She chuckled softly, shrugged her shoulders and let her arms fall back along her body in an I-don't-know gesture.
"Who cares?" She took his hand and led him into the kitchen. He offered no resistance. "I'm starving." While she added two plates and as many towels on the table, House filled a saucepan with tap water and placed it on the hotplate. "I should get changed," Cuddy decided after spending a moment standing beside House in front of the cooker, merely watching the water warm up slowly.
"Seriously?" He pulled at the collar of her sweater, easily revealing her bare shoulder, which he kissed swiftly. "I like my sweatshirt on you." She smiled, rolled her eyes and turned away. "Stay sexy," he called out as she exited the room. She walked back in clad in a pair of jeans and a black woollen jersey, causing House to scowl. "That's your definition of sexy?"
She sneaked up behind him and wrapped her thin arms around his waist. "What, you'd have preferred me in a thong?"
"I would have preferred you naked, actually."
She smirked and nuzzled his ribs. "In your dreams. Water's not boiling yet?"
He gazed down at the pan. Tiny bubbles were rising from the abyss of the recipient, only to disappear when they reached the surface. "Barely. Get me the pack of spaghetti, would you?"
She fetched it into a cupboard. A minute later, larger bubbles were rushing up from their nests and bursting as they met the atmosphere. House turned on the hood and grabbed a handful of pasta. Cuddy pouted.
"I'd add some more," she commented, plunging her hand into the box in order to get her own handful, smaller than House's.
He nodded. "So, since they won't fit into the saucepan..." He grabbed both ends of the yellow strings and broke them in two.
"Fascinating," she teased him playfully, before splitting her spaghetti as well. He reduced the heat and threw his spaghetti into the boiling water. "Time for baby handful of spaghetti to have a bath," he said, gesturing towards the pasta in her hands. A flash of melancholy crossed her features, which did not go unnoticed, before she allowed her spaghetti to follow their destiny.
"I had almost forgotten," she murmured, staring absent-mindedly at the saucepan. She felt almost guilty for enjoying herself. Forgetting about Mary meant she was doing some progress, she was well aware of it. She also knew that getting over it was a synonym for bidding adieu. She had no idea if she were ready to move on and abandon her late daughter. She sighed. She should want to move on. Why could not she resign herself to cease lingering in such misery?
House dismissed her sad thoughts by pulling a fork from a drawer.
"You need to stir the pasta," he said, brandishing the set of cutlery like an ultimate weapon. "So that they don't stick to the saucepan."
Cuddy cocked an eyebrow. "Are you seriously giving me a cooking class?"
"You obviously haven't tasted your own spaghetti."
"That's just mean." She punched his shoulder playfully. He pretended to be hurt.
"I would have said 'realistic'."
He moved behind her, grabbed her hand and put it on the handle of the fork, then covered it with his own and dove the utensil into the water.
"See, you do it gently, just like that," he carried on, moving the fork clockwise.
"This is ridiculous." They cracked up, however kept on agitating the pot quietly together.
"I'll call Nolan after lunch."
"Okay," she acquiesced.
"I understand you have some phone calls to make, too."
"Yep."
And they kept on stirring peacefully.
"Wilson offered me my job back," she blurted.
"Okay," House simply acknowledged.
"I don't know what to do," she continued. "He said we'd start by working together, then he would leave me on my own for half a day, and finally I would go back full time. Maybe I should talk about it with your shrink." This time, he did not respond, keeping on stirring the pot. She felt her throat tighten. She would trust a man she did not even know to solve such a simple problem, to answer the silly question that was 'Am I ready to go back to work?' It was unfair to House. He gave excellent advices. He helped her see the truth everywhere. He was honest with her. Furthermore, if they stopped chatting about such casual matters, it would lead to the end of them, one way or another. She did not hide anything from him, and she hoped he did not hold back anything from her as well. "What do you think I should do?" she asked him eventually.
He shrugged. "That depends. Are you ready to handle the pressure? To go to the hospital early and come back home late?"
"I don't know," she admitted. "I don't know what I want to do. But if I stay inert, I'll never get better."
He paused, mentally deliberating. The rhythm with which he moved the fork slightly slowed down. "You should wait. Don't go back unless you really want to."
She nodded, convinced. "Thanks."
Rachel is sitting pensively at the table in the dining-room. Her mom has been home for three days now, and she barely gets out of her room. She sleeps all day, including when her daughter and House come back from school. Even though she joins them for dinner and stays until the diagnostician puts the kid into bed, Rachel misses her mommy a lot.
She heaves a sigh and rests her jaw in her palms.
"What's up, kiddo?" House asks, taking a seat beside her.
"I'm bored," she whines. He has just driven her home and yet it feels like she has been sitting here for hours.
"How about we read a story?" he suggests. Rachel considers it briefly and shakes her head. "Jigsaw puzzle?" She refuses. "Feed-The-Monkey? Blocks? Colorings?" She turns down each of his propositions. "I could play the piano," he insists. "Or the guitar."
"I want Momma."
"She's taking a nap, right now. We can't wake her up."
Rachel's eyes mist up with tears. "But I want my Momma," she argues with a sob in her voice. Immediately, House's expression grows blatantly concerned. He rises, lifts the toddler into his arms and sits on the chair she previously occupied, setting the kid on his left thigh.
"Look," he says in a soft voice as she rubs her moist eyes with her tiny fists. "Your Momma is carrying your little sister in her tummy."
"I know."
"And it's very tiring for her," he continues. "You see, everything she does, she has to do it for both her and the baby. Eating, drinking, sleeping, breathing. And because she had a lot of work to do at the hospital, she is twice as much tired. So she needs to catch up. Do you understand?"
"Yeah," Rachel acquiesces.
He smiles. "Don't worry, she'll be up and about soon, and she'll be able to play with you again."
"'You sure?"
"Yeah."
Then an idea pops into her head. "I could make Momma a drawing!" she exclaims.
"Sounds like a good idea," he approves with a smile.
Rachel promptly slides down to the floor, and runs towards her bedroom. A moment later, she rushes back in with her pencils and crayons, as well as a few sheets of paper, which she hands to the diagnostician. He sets her stuff on the table as she climbs onto his lap, mindful of his bad leg. He holds her tiny waist delicately, making sure she does not topple over.
"So what do I do?" she asks, in front of her blank page.
"I don't know," he shrugs. "It's your drawing."
"You're not helping."
He thinks about it for a second, lacking in inspiration as much as she does. "Why don't you draw things she likes?"
"She'll get better if she sees things she likes!" Rachel exclaims, struck by an epiphany.
"What does she like?" he asks. The kid grabs her yellow pencil and shoves its lead on the upper left corner of the paper.
"The sun."
"That's true. Everybody loves the sun." A vaguely circle-shaped spot appears on the paper. "It even makes people happy."
She turns to him. "Because they love it?"
"It's the sunlight, actually," he explains. "Don't you feel a bit sad when it's cloudy for a few days?"
"Kinda." She widens her sun, which reaches the dimension of a gold medal.
"So, she likes the sun. What else?" he encourages her.
"You!"
He cracks a smile. "She likes you, too."
Rachel drops her yellow pencil and picks the black one, before eventually choosing a forest green crayon. She covers the bottom of the page with a thin, emerald layer.
"Grass?"
"Yeah," she nods.
Then, House watching her with great interest, she retrieves the black pencil she set aside earlier, and draws a slightly crooked vertical line, on top of which she adds a circle, almost touching the sun. The vertical line, crossed by an horizontal one in its approximative middle, reaches the grass thanks to two diagonals attached to its end.
"Is that me?" he asks with a frown.
"Yeah."
"I'm not that tall!"
"You're a giant, Hows. You can touch the ceiling!" she argues. "On my toes, I can't touch the ceiling."
He smiles. "Don't worry, you're not done growing up yet. Maybe you'll be so tall that you won't even pass the door."
She giggles. With a brown pen, she traces at the end of House's arm a curve that looks like a lower-case rho written nonchalantly.
"Forgot your wooden leg," she says. She then draws a smaller, much smaller character than House, barely as tall as his legs. The diagnostician identifies this new protagonist as Rachel herself. Carried away by her inspiration, she adds a third person, taller than herself but still smaller than House. A semicircle stretched between the horizontal line of the arms and the meeting point of the diagonal legs represents a round stomach.
"Cuddy," House says to himself, with a tender smile on his lips.
"Did I forget something?" the toddler asks, worried that her piece of art may not be perfect. He takes a closer look at her drawing.
"We don't have hair," he notices, among other things. Her characters are also faceless and do not wear clothes.
Two black zigzags departing from the crown of Cuddy's head will do the trick for her curls. Rachel simply draws a brown, reversed U onto the circle on top of her body. House is endowed with a few lines of the same colour, separated in two parts by a blank left on top of his head.
"That's good, but why do I seem to have so little hair?" he inquires.
"Because you do!"
"I do?"
"You got a hole on your head."
He passes his hand over the bald at the back of his skull. He has been paying attention to his falling hair, occasionally letting out a sigh when he examines it in the mirror, but somehow Rachel noticing it makes it all the more real and blatant. "Just wait till you grow white hair," he teases her, ruffling her hair. She chuckles.
"Wait, you have grey hair, too!" she exclaims, turning around to look at him more closely.
"No no no no no no no no," he whines as she grabs her grey pencil and adds short lines to the ones she already drew. She giggles triumphantly.
He knows he will never see her grow white hair. Considering his many years of drug and alcohol abuse, he will not grow older than seventy, perhaps eighty if he is lucky. Which means he has roughly twenty or thirty years left to live. More or less. Even his chronic pain is part of the equation. How long will he be able to endure it? He has been in pain for a decade. He does not really see himself suffering for ten more years.
He will not watch his daughters grow old. Even Cuddy will have to grow old without him by her side. Cuddy is younger than he is and leads a healthy lifestyle. She is likely to hear her daughters complain about growing white hair. She will live much longer than House, perhaps even celebrate her one hundredth birthday, why not? The only comfort he can find is that, by disappearing from Earth before her, he will not have to live through her death and eternal absence. He is aware that it is selfish to leave her going through his own death, but he simply would not bear her decease. He cannot even fathom the idea. A life without Cuddy simply does not exist. Even in the farthest parallel universe.
He wonders if he is too old to be a daddy. He has already grown grey hair, lost some of them. He is fifty years older than his children, which equals over two generations. Rachel and Offspring will barely be adults when he dies. Will he live long enough to see them graduate from high school? College? Fall in love for the first time? Move away from home? What about the father he will be for them as children? Teenagers? Being a cripple does not make fatherhood easy. Being an ageing cripple will make him a burden more than a daddy. He will not be playing soccer or baseball or basketball or whatever with them, will not be able to stand up for too long; unfortunately, most outdoors activities require queuing at some point. And what if their friends mistake him for their grandfather when he drops or picks them up at school?
"Hows?" Rachel calls out, tearing him from his thoughts. He hums. "You like?"
He looks down at her paper. While he was lost in his thoughts, she drew black, wide Vs in the sky. "Sure, it's beautiful." He is sincere. Her drawing is the simple and typical drawing of a three-year-old, but it carries a beautiful meaning; House, Cuddy, Rachel and Offspring being a happy, united family. "What are these things in the sky?"
"Birds."
"Obviously," he smiles.
Rachel speaks up after a brief silence. "Hows?" He acquiesces. "I want to write to Momma to get better soon. Can't do it."
He pulls a blank sheet from the pile of papers she brought. "Yes, you can. Try on a draft first."
She nods, picks a red crayon and traces random waves on the draft. She giggles as she turns to House.
"That's not exactly it," he smiles. Then, gesturing towards her crayon, he asks, "May I?" She gives it to him. "Get... Better... Soon..." he spells as he writes down these words in capital letters. "Copy me," he says, handing her the crayon.
She sighs. "Too hard!"
"Come on, try!" he encourages her. "You'll see, it's easy!"
She slides her drawing towards him. "You do it."
"But it's your drawing," he protests.
"I want to do it with you."
"Fine," he gives up willingly, writing 'Get better soon' with an exclamation mark.
"Thank you Hows." She drops a kiss on his cheek. Just as they are finished, Cuddy's lazy footfalls echo in the corridor.
"Here comes Sleeping Beauty!" House welcomes her.
"Seriously? I think I liked Crocodile better. Hi guys," she greets them as she walks in, clad in a sweatshirt and pyjamas pants. Seeing her at last, Rachel grins. Her mother first pecks House's lips, then wraps her arms around her kid's frame, pulling her into a hug. "Hi, honey," she mumbles into her chestnut hair, which she kisses afterwards. "I missed you today."
"Me too, Momma." Enjoying her mother's embrace, Rachel forgets about her excitement to give her drawing to her. Thankfully, House reminds her by discretely waving the paper. She catches a glimpse of the sheet out of the tail of her eye. "Momma, we made a drawing for you!" she exclaims.
"Really?" She unclasps her arms. The toddler hands her the drawing with a proud smile. "It's beautiful, honey! You're such an artist," she compliments her. "You know what? I'm going to hang it in my room, so that it is always with me!"
"Okay." Rachel tries to keep a cool façade, but she cannot help giggling with joy.
"Thank you. It's very sweet of you." She kisses her daughter on the cheek.
"Don't I get a kiss, too?" House whines, causing her to smile.
"Don't be such a baby," she says, before pressing her mouth on his own. "Can you fetch me a clip-frame tomorrow?" He nods.
"What's a clip-frame?" Rachel asks out of curiosity.
Cuddy takes a seat at the table, her body already strained. "It's a glass that protects a picture," she explains. "You slide the picture between the glass and a frame, and then you clip the glass to the frame, and you can hang it on a wall."
"Cool."
"Isn't it?"
"Momma, come play with me," Rachel demands shyly after a short pause, fearing she might refuse. Against all odds, she accepts.
"Sure, but let me grab a bite first. I'm kinda hungry."
"Me, too. I could use some cake."
Cuddy chuckles, then gestures towards the kitchen. Rachel slithers down to the floor cheerfully. As her mother stands up, House opens his mouth but she cuts him off, "Yes, you can come too, you big baby." She smiles and so does he. Leaning on his cane, he gets on his feet and follows his girls.
She stops halfway and turns around to him. "Are you al- Ow,"she tries to ask him, before being interrupted by Offspring. He giggles. "Are you alright? You seem a little thoughtful."
He leans over and lays a hand on her stomach. "You shouldn't kick your Mom like that. It's not very nice of you."
"House," she insists. "Just tell me if anything –"
"'You comin'?" Rachel calls out from the kitchen.
House looks down at Cuddy's swollen belly and then into her eyes. "Yeah. I'm alright," he assures her with a smile. She grabs his hand and leads him into the kitchen.
TBC...