Chapter 29: After the Birthday
House refrains from going to the house the following week and tells the kids that he has a case and needs to work late into the nights. He gets no message from Cuddy, so he assumes that she is still upset.
On Saturday, he drives over to pick up Rachel and John to take them bowling. Cuddy is out shopping for groceries when he arrives.
On their return, she is either still gone or avoiding him, because she fails to show up and greet them when they enter. He is tired of not knowing where they stand, so he searches the house for her.
The door to her room is slightly ajar, and he enters without knocking. She is sitting at her desk, working, not looking up as he approaches cautiously. He exaggerates clearing his throat.
She still shows no reaction.
"So is this what it'll be like now? You don't talk to me anymore?" He stops halfway into the room, keeping his distance.
She slowly takes off her reading glasses and looks up at him. "What did you tell the kids?" Her voice sounds detached and measured.
He shakes his head. "Nothing. Busy week."
"Then we should come up with something. They'll start asking questions." She plants her lower arms on the desktop. "We'll say we had a fight. About money, or whatever. I want more support, you disagree."
Her suggestion confuses him, regarding both logic and substance. "Why would you want more money?"
"I'm not saying I do, I'm just saying we should give them a reason."
"If you want to sell them a fake story, make up something realistic. They're not idiots. And besides, why do we even need a fake story?"
"Do you want to tell them the real cause for why things are weird between us?"
"No, I want us to get past the weirdness. Don't you think that a week is plenty of time to get over the fact that there was a night of great sex between great friends who didn't end up together? Scratch the sex part and we move on to being great friends again." He acts light and aloof, because he desperately needs things to go back to the way they were. He needs her in his life.
She looks at him with raised eyebrows. "Right," she says sarcastically, "it's that simple."
He wants it to be. "Actually, I wouldn't mind keeping the sex part, but I'm assuming that's not an option."
She stares at him blankly. "Get out," she commands.
"Oh, come on," he says with slight desperation in his voice. "I've apologized! What else do you want?" He looks at her helplessly, wishing she could give him an easy solution on how to fix this. "I don't really see the harm done here."
Her face hardens. "House, get out! Now!"
He hangs his head in defeat, and tries to come up with something he mighty say to improve the whole situation. Failing, he leaves.
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The following week, the kids start bugging him about why he is not coming over to see them, and he keeps deferring them to Cuddy.
House picks them up Saturday evening for dinner and a movie. On their return, Cuddy is asleep on the couch with papers scattered across her lap. Several of them have slid off and are lying on the carpet.
John picks them up and puts them on the coffee table when she startles awake. "Oh hey, you're back." She scans the room briefly, and sits up. Leaning forward, she kisses John on the side of the head. "How was the movie?"
"It was good. Dad fell asleep right in the middle, so Rache put popcorn up his nose. It was so funny."
"It was gross!" Rachel chimes in. "He ate it after snorting it out."
John laughs.
House shrugs. He is standing in the doorway still in his coat, about to leave again.
"Well, I'm glad you had a good time," Cuddy mumbles, rubbing John's back. "Now go get ready for bed, okay? It's late."
The kids glance at each other and from House to Cuddy, obviously picking up on the tension between them. They refrain from commenting on it, though, and simply tell them good night before leaving for their rooms.
"House, can we talk?"
House believes there to be hardly anything left to say, but he nods anyways. He takes off his coat and sits down on the couch a few feet away from her.
"I've thought about this a lot, and to be honest, I'm still having a hard time understanding it. Please explain to me again why you are not willing to give this another chance."
He runs his knuckles across his forehead, his other hand fiddling with his cane. "Because it's a slim chance. Chances are higher that this isn't gonna work." He pauses briefly, contemplating his words. "We were always good at being friends. We sucked as a couple."
She takes this in for a moment, chewing on her lower lip. She obviously wants this to be a mature and reasonable conversation, and also considers her words carefully. "We're better now. Better than we've ever been. This has been going great for over three years now."
He agrees with her. "Which undermines my point."
"How can you be so sure this'll start going south if we were to try this?" Her voice is calm. She sincerely wants to take his perspective and comprehend his logic.
"Because it usually does. It's the typical phenomenon. Once people feel safe in a relationship, they loose control over themselves. They get fat, sluggish, disrespectful."
She tries to lighten the mood. "Obesity can be an issue, but not a reason for a break up. The kids will surely keep you on your toes, and you're already disrespectful." She gives him a small smile, which he cannot reciprocate.
Instead, he turns even more serious. "You know me. I sabotage my relationships; I push people away. Intentionally and unintentionally. I self-destruct." He rubs over his missing thigh muscle. "My leg might get worse. I might go back on drugs. I might end up letting my pain out on you and the kids."
Cuddy shakes her head. "You don't know that."
"I know the past. And I know my current pain level. The number of bad days I'm having…"
"House, unless you're gonna start abusing me or the children, there's nothing you can do or say to make me leave you." She stares at him intently, and he knows she means it. The same way she meant it when she told him she did not want him to change—but then she did.
He shakes his head. "People generally enter a relationship not intending to leave the other person. Otherwise, what's the point? And you know how cruel I can be with words." He pauses to look at her face for a moment. "I know how to hurt you. I know how to hurt the kids. And at some point, when it gets too bad, you'll be forced to leave me. For self-preservation." He wishes things were different. He wishes he were different. That he were better.
Her chin drops and she pinches her nose, obviously struggling not to cry. "So, how exactly do you picture this?" She focuses on her line of arguments again, fighting her emotions. He can practically hear the internal prep-talk she must have given herself before this: 'Convince him with logic. Don't cry.' "You want us to pretend to just be friends? You want us to start seeing other people?"
He swallows hard, averting his eyes. "I won't. I'm an old cynical misanthrope with a limp. But yeah. You're free to, you know, do whatever. Relive your twenties." He has considered this likely scenario, and it is the worst aspect of his decision. He is not happy she has brought it up. "Meet every Dick, Clark, and Kenny there is out there."
Cuddy stares at him in disbelief. "And you'd be okay with that? Me dating, being in a relationship with someone else?"
He shrugs. "I won't like it, but it beats the alternative."
"When the alternative is being with me?" She raises her eyebrows at him.
He exhales impatiently. He obviously means a possible blowout between them, and refuses to answer her question.
She is still shocked by his suggestion, but tries to paint his picture. "So on Thanksgiving, Christmas, the kid's birthdays… there's gonna be the five of us: The kids, you, me, and my boyfriend?"
Of course he hates the idea, but he would rather be a part of their lives in this capacity than not at all. "I'll be like the stray homeless dog you give shelter to every once in a while. I'll pretend to be your B.F.'s friend, and you'll appeal to his sense of guilt. 'Oh, but he has nowhere else to go…'." He mimics a high-pitched voice and a sorrowful facial expression. "I'm sure he'll have pity on me. If not, you picked a prick and should dump him."
She smiles at this, but more out of exasperation than humor. "House, this is insane! Are you even listening to what you're saying?" Her voice is becoming loud and despairing. "I don't want to be with anyone else, you idiot. I want to be with you!" Again, there are tears in her eyes. She looks at him beseechingly, her eyebrows furrowed. "I'm in love with you!"
He cannot hold her gaze, and as much as he relishes in hearing those words, they also increase the melancholy and hopelessness he feels. He looks down at the floor, his head moving slowly from side to side. Very quietly he says: "You were last time. It wasn't enough."
He hears her exhale, frustrated and desperate. She has reached the end of her rope. She sits there with hunched shoulders, her arms hugging her torso as she tries to grasp the fact that he really means it; that any attempt to change his mind is bound to fail. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees her finally loose the battle against her tears.
Her sorrow opens something inside him, and he tries harder to make her understand; to make her see why he is acting this way. "Cuddy, I don't have the necessary coping skills if this doesn't work. You'll be fine. You'll move on, find someone new. You'll still have the kids, the house... I'll either blow myself up, or—" his eyes trace around the room, "—all of this." Their home and the warmth she created in it encompass everything good in his life. "I'll end up with nothing."
She waits a beat and swallows hard before she takes a big leap. "What if we got married?" Her voice is barely above a whisper, and at first he thinks he misunderstood.
He looks at her with wide eyes. Did she just propose to him? He is holding his breath, gaping at her, expecting her to add that she was kidding. She just stares back at him, though, awaiting an answer. After taking a couple of short breaths, he decides to ignore her proposition and mock her instead. "Because we live in the sixteenth century and divorce hasn't been invented, yet? What is that supposed to change? Give me a fake sense of security?" He knows that he is being cruel, that he is hurting her. He is not sure at which point exactly their conversation turned into a fight. He feels the need to defend himself. "You said it yourself: I'll always put myself first. It's who I am. And you know why? Because when I was a kid, nobody else did. I had to, in order to survive. And that's exactly what I'm doing now." He is almost shouting. "I cannot go through that again!"
Cuddy is openly crying at this point, tears streaming down her face, and she stares ahead into the distance, her mind shutting down. "I guess there's nothing else I can say." Her voice is cracking, and she bites down on her lower lip to stop it from quivering. "I think you should go home."
House lets his eyes travel around the living room. This is his home; she is; the kids are. He hangs his head and stomps his cane on the carpet several times, pondering what to do. He gets up slowly, but cannot bring himself to leave her like this. She looks so lost and heartbroken. "Cuddy," he tries again, his voice gentle and caring. "You're acting as if I'm rejecting you. Can't you see that I'm doing this because I don't want to lose you?"
She puffs out a breath of air and shakes her head from side to side. She glances up at him, a broken smile crossing her face. "That's not what it feels like." Her words sound despairing, and she barely manages to get them out without bursting into tears. She turns her head away from him, clearly signaling him to leave her alone.
Not knowing what else to say, he picks up his coat and walks out the front door. It is freezing outside, but he refrains from putting the coat on. He feels nothing.
