The Road Home: All I've Ever Wanted

I had everything I'd always wanted for myself. Since I was a child, there's only been three things I have ever wanted for my future:

1. To Become a Doctor

2. Get Married

3. Have Children

Marrying Brian had given me hope to accomplish all of those things, but he died shortly after we were married. I spent the rest of medical school devoted to number one on that list, and ONLY number one. I figured if I threw myself into my career, I could get myself to a point where I could forget the pain of knowing my husband was dead and just attempt to forget that number three would possibly never happen.

Everything changed when I met House - I fell, and I fell HARD. I admit I pushed things at first. On the night of our first disastrous date (which I also admit, I forced him into...more so for my needs than his) he told me I was damaged, that I needed someone to fix. He couldn't have been further from the truth. House was everything I secretly admired. He was a bold, cynical, blatantly honest (sometimes brutally) individual who had no shame in hiding anything from anyone. I was sick of being poor fragile Allison, the emotional goody two shoes...I wished I could have his strength. I just loved everything about the man, and I knew that deep under the layers of anger and frustration - there was a part of him that wanted to love someone again. I saw it in looks he'd give me (when he thought I didn't notice) from across the cafeteria, or the way he'd always hold the door open for me as we all left the conference room (I like to forget the part where he'd pass through the door next and fling the door shut behind him, causing either Chase of Foreman to get a face full of glass).

After a particular patient came to us, I got sick and tired of waiting for him to admit his feelings. I decided to play a nice game of "Moving On" with myself, even though I knew there was part of myself that was always going to pine for him. Okay, maybe I just wanted to show him I wasn't going to wait forever (though knowing myself I probably WOULD).

The patient that we were currently working on had given me a new set of problems to worry about. I was in his room during the time of his violent coughing attack. I had turned around to face him, to find he was coughing up blood. Before I could move out of the way, he managed to cough some blood right in my face - in my eye to be exact. This particular patient had AIDS. I froze where I was standing, in too much shock to move.

A couple of hours later, after cleaning myself up, I found myself sitting in the clinic. I was half listening as the doctor went over the procedures that were to follow, as I was handed a prescription to take, should the case be that I had contacted the virus. In two weeks I was to be tested for HIV and would go from there. I left the clinic and went up to the roof to contemplate the events that had taken place a couple of hours ago...or as House put it as I passed him on the way up, "To get all emotional and cry about what could possibly happen."

He really could be a bastard.

That night I did something pretty stupid. I had taken some meth off the patient who coughed on me, assuring him that once I had tested the drugs for any foreign substances, I was going to dispose of them. I sat for an hour before I realized I had two weeks before a diagnosis that could possibly spell the end to my life. To hell with goody two shoes Allison, I thought. I took his drugs and found myself calling up who at the time, I thought was Chase, for some company.

"COME OVER, RIGHT NOW," I had screamed into the phone, not waiting for an answer, then hanging up. I had other plans for him...I was going to jump his bones - make House jealous. It would be twenty minutes later, as I flung the door open, before I realized that I should have dialed a little more carefully in my drug induced haze.

House was standing at my door, looking at me with an expression of worry and complete shock on his face. What happened next is somewhat hard to recall, as the last thing I remember is feeling light-headed and passing out on my couch.

I woke up that morning, feeling like hell. The biggest shock of all though, was realizing that not only was I lying on the couch, but the pillow I thought I was resting my head on was not a pillow. I turned around and glanced up to see that I had my head resting in House's lap, that he had spent the entire night there with me.

We talked that morning, a lot. I don't remember exactly everything that we talked about, but I do know is that I knew right then that I was absolutely correct in thinking he had feelings for me. From that day on things changed between us - things changed with HIM. Every day he became a little nicer to Foreman and Chase, even left Cuddy stunned most days, to wonder where the cracks about her cleavage went. Sure, he was still the snarky king of sarcasm, but there was was a definite change. The entire hospital had seen it, and after catching House holding hands with me in the hallway the day my final HIV test had come back negative, thanked me profusely.

Cuddy actually fainted the morning he proposed. Always one to create a scene (and not great with the whole romantic thing), he had called Wilson down for a "patient consult" in the conference room, Cuddy had been there lambasting him for ordering a CT scan that was obviously unnecessary for someone with a simple headache. Not being one to talk House out of any outlandish diagnosis, I simply sat on my usual chair waiting for Wilson to arrive. When he got there, I suddenly found House making his way over to me from the whiteboard. He slowly got down on his good knee and reached for his pocket.

I've never seen a diamond that big in my entire life. Nor have I ever seen the eyes of three grown men bug out so far, or a dean of medicine manage to take out a whiteboard and two chairs as she passed out. Gregory House, Captain Misanthrope of the League of Diagnosticians had just asked me to marry him. I sat staring at him, with tears in my eyes until he made some crack about having two bum legs soon if I didn't at least give him an answer.

Nine months after our honeymoon, I gave birth to our daughter Alexandra Anne House. House had been next to me the entire delivery, scared out of his mind over the fact that HE was going to have to help raise a child, making sarcastic remarks about how messed up our daughter would become after having him as a father. He was sitting with me a couple hours after she was born, telling me how much money a good child psychologist is nowadays when they brought in Allie for us to hold. I knew from the look of sheer joy on his face as his little daughter opened her bright blue eyes and looked right up at him, that he was going to be just fine.

The sparkle in my husbands eyes is gone, replaced by the pain that was present from the first day I met him. I blame myself entirely for it. If I had only remembered to lock the office door, upon rushing out of his office that day, my sweet little daughter would still be here with us. I know he must blame me, who wouldn't? It's gotten to the point now, where he can barely look me in the eyes some days. He goes off by himself for hours now, to sit on the roof, talk to Wilson - anything to get away from me I guess. He tells me that he still loves me and will be there for me through everything, but I can't bring myself to believe him.

The police told us they are doing everything they can, but the former patient who's their current suspect must have given us a false name when we admitted him that morning. I don't know what to do with myself in the meanwhile. I took leave of absence from work but found sitting around the house, looking at pictures probably wasn't a good way to deal with things. I eventually went back to work and once again threw myself into my job to try and overcome the stress I was under. I don't go out at night anymore though, I find myself sitting with Greg, crying for my daughter, crying over the fact that I don't even know if she's alive. That morning when I woke up, I had all I've ever wanted for myself and my life. In the span of a couple of hours, all of those dreams had been destroyed.

Eight years later I still find myself sitting on the couch crying for her - this time, alone. We're still married, but Greg chooses now to simply move on. He's put up another wall, to show people that he's accepted things, accepted the fact that she's probably gone for good. I know he's hurting though, I can see it. We barely talk to each other anymore, we've become the couple that Wilson and Julie once were, before their divorce.

I can't help but wonder what will happen if I can't snap out of this depression? Will we end up like Wilson and Julie?