All righty, guys. Couldn't wait to share this chapter with you. I wrote it about a month ago when ya'll were like "It was so unfair of Cuddy to have kept John a secret." (which I totally agree with, by the way). This chapter finally addresses some of House's anger. I struggled a little with where to put it in the storyline, but I think the time is now :D
Enjoy! And let me know what you think.
Chapter 22
The weekend after they stood at Wilson's grave, House finds himself alone in the house for the time it takes Cuddy to drop the kids off at Coach Sanders'—his youngest son is celebrating his birthday—and go grocery shopping.
He is not sure what prompted him exactly, but he ends up leafing through some of the photo albums Rachel had pulled out on the night he found out about John. Most of them are nicely decorated and probably meant for the kids to take along when they move out: They have their focus on either Rachel or on John. Others hold memories from vacations and are generally family themed, showing them at a beach, huddled around the fireplace next to a Christmas tree, or at a birthday party.
In one of the family albums, he notes a slight elevation between the back of the hard cover and the extra envelope around the book. He takes off the envelope and finds a brown paper bag taped to the back. The bag is sealed with tape as well, but it comes off easily, and he reaches for the contents inside.
He pulls out a small stack of photos, this time recognizing the locations they were taken at. They are pictures from the past; from the time he was still a part of her life.
The first few show Wilson and House's old team at Cuddy's house in Princeton, taking turns in holding Rachel when she was still a baby. They must be from Rachel's Simchat Bat. The next one is a selfie of Wilson, Cuddy, and Rachel as a toddler, taken in Cuddy's old office, Wilson and Cuddy making faces at Rachel to get her to smile.
The next picture is taken in a hospital room. It is dark outside. Cuddy half sits and half lies on a white visitors' couch with her eyes closed, her head leaning against the armrest. Her hands are tangled in Rachel's hair. Rachel is lying asleep on the couch with her head resting in Cuddy's lap. It was the night of his self-surgery, the night he had tried to remove the tumors in his leg. She must have called Wilson and waited until his arrival.
The second to last picture actually has House in it. He is sitting on the floor in his office with Rachel, toys strewn all over the place. It captures a moment when he and Cuddy were still dating: Cuddy had dropped Rachel off with him for an hour because the nanny had been sick and Cuddy had to take part in an important meeting.
House holds his breath when he sees the last picture. It shows him and Cuddy at a PPTH Christmas party, the only one they had attended as a couple. It is taken from afar with neither of them noticing the camera, showing them both in full body length. He is sitting on a bar stool with his feet up on the footrest. Cuddy stands between his legs, with her head nestled against his chest. The fingertips of her right hand are tucked into the front pocket of his button-down shirt, gently holding on. It must have been at a late hour, because her eyes are almost closed, and she seems to enjoy just resting against him for a little while. He has his arm draped around her, his hand spanning the small of her back. What moves House the most is the expression on his own face. He is looking down at her, as if he was in the middle of talking to her, a gentle smile playing around his lips, his tenderness and compassion palpable. He has never seen himself more content than in this picture.
He stares at it for a long time before he stores the entire stack away and returns everything to how he found it.
He draws himself a bath and tries to order his thoughts. The pictures must have been taken by Wilson—that he knows for certain. What he needs to know is when Wilson gave them to her.
When he hears Cuddy return, he hurries out of the tub and gets dressed quickly.
He finds her in the living room, clearing away John's Lego bricks.
"Did Wilson know about this? About John?" he inquires, approaching her in big strides. His voice is loud and shaking. For a brief moment he sees fear in her eyes, but he ignores it. He is scared they had been scheming this together. Afraid that his best friend had betrayed him as well.
"What? No!" She squints her eyes at him, taking an almost imperceptible step backward.
Her foot has moved merely an inch, but he noticed it anyways. Part of her obviously expects him explode and lay his hands on her again. He realizes he should calm down, but the fact that she still views him as a threat only adds fuel to his anger. "When did he give you those pictures?" he howls, nodding toward the cabinet.
She sets her jaw. "You've been going through my stuff?"
"I didn't presume the closet in the living room to be off limits," he retorts roughly. "Answer me!"
She wavers for a second, caught between fight and flight mode, before she visibly beats down her fear and takes a deliberate step toward him. "What's with the yelling?" she asks firmly, a mixture of annoyance and irritation about his coarse behavior crossing her face. "Why are you so upset?"
He rubs his forehead, trying to gain control over his breathing. He feels somewhat relieved—he needs her as his equal—and manages to back off a bit. "Would you just answer the question?"
She blinks several times until she decides to humor him. "It was after we'd broken up. Wilson was never here, I never talked to him since Rachel and I left."
House searches her face intently, trying to detect any sign that would indicate she was lying to him. "Why did he give them to you?"
She raises her eyebrows at him questioningly. "To be nice?! To cheer me up?! Remind me of good times?!" She shrugs. "You were obviously too self-absorbed to notice, but our break-up wasn't exactly easy for me, either."
His tension decreases, but he keeps eying her closely, still not one hundred percent convinced.
"Why would you think that he knew?" she asks him with an arched eyebrow.
"Before he died, he made me swear I wouldn't off myself. He said: 'You never know what good might come along'."
"That's pretty vague. It could've been just a phrase." Cuddy shakes her head, pondering his suspicion. "I mean, it is not completely impossible. He knew my sister, you had her address… He could have put a tracking device on her car and followed her up here one weekend. He might have seen me come out with the baby…" She looks up at House. "But even if he did, he couldn't have known for sure that it was yours. And don't you think he would have told you?"
House shrugs. "Maybe he also thought that it was for the better. Maybe he thought if it were mine, you'd come around to telling me one day." He shakes his head. "He always overestimated people's heart sizes."
Cuddy raises an eyebrow and tilts her head in surprise.
"Certainly explains why he was my friend," House tries to deflect. He is not sure where the jab at her has come from all of a sudden.
"If you have something to say, go ahead and say it," she demands.
He sits down on the edge of the couch because his leg is starting to hurt. "If it hadn't been for your husband's illness and Rachel calling me, I still wouldn't know, would I? Even when I was here playing housekeeper, you couldn't bring yourself to mention that I had a son."
"For good and valid reasons," she states coldly.
He refuses to take this as an argument any longer. "You're the queen of guilt. You feel responsible for shit that doesn't even remotely concern you. And this you manage to keep from me deliberately for years. Like some cold-hearted bitch."
She stares at him, squinting her eyes. "You think this was easy for me?" she says in a raised voice. "You have no idea how many nights I lay awake, tormenting myself. I've had discussions with Michael about this recurrently, which always ended in 'Honey, it's your decision if you want to tell him. Just remember to mainly base it on what would be best for John.'"
"Oh, poor you and the couple of sleepless nights you had over me," he spits at her. "You in bed next to your loving husband. In a cozy home with two kids who adore you, a job that feeds your ego… Do you have any idea what my life was like since Wilson died?"
"And you wanna blame me for that?" she bites back, shaking her head. "You managed that all by yourself, House! You pushed everyone who even remotely cared about you away. You hurt people, especially the ones who were close to you. And now you want some belittlement for having ended up alone?"
"You didn't even give me a chance to do right by my son," he growls at her.
"Because you wouldn't have!" She is yelling now, glaring at him full of spite. "That's the conclusion I came to—every single time I thought about this. You were a mean and manipulative ass, and I didn't want that for John."
"Oh, stop with your self-righteous bullshit! You did what was more convenient for you. Afraid I would throw my crap all over your pretty little family portrait."
"Well, I've had enough shit from you over—"
"This wasn't only about you anymore," he cuts her off angrily. "You should have faced the damn consequences!"
She draws in a quivering breath, shaking her head. She presses one hand against her chest while she slowly says: "I think that a father should be kind and loving and reliable. At least that's what I wanted for my son."
"Then you should've let yourself get knocked up by that guy!" he bellows. The picture of him and her at the Christmas party briefly flashes up in his mind's eye. "Why were you even with me if I was such a selfish and cruel son of a bitch? I don't recall ever having forced you to spread your legs."
She is shocked at his words, and tears start forming in her eyes. He knows he is stabbing at her, and expects her to tell him to leave. He is blowing this up, just like he did everything else. He is not sure why he is acting this way—why a part of him even wants her to throw him out.
Cuddy pinches the bridge of her nose and crosses her arms in front of her. Calmly, she says: "I have no idea why you're acting like such a jerk. If your aim is to make me feel bad for not having told you, I already do. But what gain do you have from that, really?" She looks at him expectantly, the anger gone from her eyes.
He drops his gaze, feeling defeated. She took away all his weapons in a flash. He has no benefit from this whatsoever. And he knows it. He exhales deeply and sits further back on the couch, leaning against the cushions. He rubs his leg as he ponders why he is lashing out at her; what exactly made him this upset.
He swallows hard when he realizes something he had not quite admitted to himself, yet. Which also explains why he had gone for the photo albums in the first place. "I just missed out on so much," he says quietly. "I never saw myself as a father. Never even dreamt about having a kid. But knowing him now and seeing him in all those pictures with you and Michael… I never got to hold him against my chest; smell his neck. He never wrapped his little fingers around my index. I never made faces at him to hear him laugh. I missed his first steps, the first time he called you 'Mom'; I'll probably never hear him call me 'Dad'…"
Cuddy sighs heavily and sits down next to him, contemplating his words. She looks sad and tired. "Obviously I can't give you that," she mutters. "I can share my memories with you." She gestures towards the cabinet. "Photos. And I have some videos." This makes her think of something and she grabs her phone from the coffee table, searching it for something in particular.
When she finds it, she hands the phone to House, a slight smile playing around her lips.
It is a video of rather poor quality, but House recognizes a very little John, probably around one year old, standing by the coffee table, exactly the one they are sitting in front of now, holding himself up with one hand at the table top. About five feet away from him, Cuddy is crouching down, holding her arms out to him. 'Come on, you can do it,' House hears her say. John looks up at the camera, or rather at the person holding the camera, and House hears Michael's voice: 'Go ahead, go see Mommy,' he encourages him. John smiles and focuses back on Cuddy, finally letting go of the table and taking his first wobbly steps. Cuddy grins at him happily. 'Come here.' She pulls him into a hug when he reaches her. 'Yay,' she exclaims, beaming at John, and Michael chimes in on the praise: 'Good job, buddy.' Cuddy and John come closer into view as Michael walks up to them, and then the video stops.
House's heart is racing, and it feels as if something heavy has been placed on his chest. Viewing this moment on her cell phone brings no joy to him. On the contrary, even. A mixture of sadness, jealousy and regret rage through his body, and he notices his vision getting blurry. The phone he is holding is shaking badly, and he realizes it is because of his own trembling hand. She takes the phone away and wraps both her hands around his. "House," she whispers, looking concerned and troubled.
Like the last couple of times he realizes it is not actually her he is angry at. He is frustrated with his own inadequacy, helpless about the fact that he is so broken and screwed up. He never would have said those words to John if he had been in the situation, let alone taken the video. He is not sure he would have even turned his head to observe them if he had been in the room with them. 'You do realize he is not the first person in the world to accomplish that task,' he hears himself say to her, incapable to develop a feeling of pride, rationalizing the moment away. For the millionth time he wishes he could be normal, could enjoy what comes so naturally to most people.
"House…" she repeats, her thumb brushing over the back of his hand. "You can still hold him and make faces with him and hear him laugh. And although you weren't here for his first steps, maybe you'll be here for him to tell you about the first time he kissed a girl or, I don't know, compose his first song."
He is aware that she means well, but her words are of no comfort to him. What she said before, that he was a jerk who would not have done right by his son, rings more true to him than what she said just now, and he pulls his hand away from her, getting up from the couch. He feels like shit and puts on his sneakers, eager to leave.
"House," she calls out to him, rising from the couch. "Please stop running from me when you're upset." It is a gentle request. She does not approach him and does not try to block his way this time.
He grabs his jacket. "Can't. I'm a gimp." He shakes his head, not looking at her, and leaves.