A/N: Well, thank you all so much for the lovely reviews! I did enjoy writing for you guys! I could have done much much better, but with every update I kept rushing, first because I know what it feels like, waiting for a new chapter (am doing it every day! It is hell!), and second, because I am impatient with my stories. They come like an impulse, and if I sit on them too long, and re-write and think about them, they lose the fire. So, for the sake of this fire, I keep sacrificing better writing. I hope you still enjoyed the story! No, not the last chapter yet. Last but one.
CHAPTER 17
Being alone is what worked easiest for him, and he knew it. He was not good at relationships; the simplest forms of communicating with another human being was something he had not been taught, and it was sarcasm that generally came to his help. The only person he could tolerate for a longer time was Wilson; but, Wilson did not have slender wrists and a gentle touch that seemed to emerge from his memories at odd moments. He was not there to keep reminding House that life can be something more than Vicodin and booze and solitary piano playing on gloomy evenings. He was not there to hand him his coffee and sort his mail without his asking, he was not there to carry out any bizarre order he might come up with in the middle of the night. It was all her, her that he kept hurting over and over again. Trying to own her in his sick ways. Possessing her body so that maybe, just maybe, her soul will be chained to him. He should have known better.
Pondering on things past was another thing he was not good at. Dragging the heavy burden of a guilty conscience for hours and hours, eventually realizing what an idiot he had been, was just not his thing. Remorse was too trite and weak for him to acknowledge, so whenever anything close to repentance threatened to overcome him, he resorted to what he knew would help: drinking, pills, soaps, music.
But now music was a threat too. He knew he would never forget that song, and the words that came like the unblocking of his soul. He had always been scared to let go, and let another human being approach him emotionally. Stacey and Wilson had been the exceptions, and out of those two, only one had turned out to be a lasting relationship. All the changes that were taking hold of his life made him sick- so how come he was craving for change on this warm summer afternoon, all filled to the brim with warmth and sunshine and something new, something he couldn't define, but knew it was there, like a new spice in an already perfect cake, adding exquisite taste to it?
Walking to the entrance door he heard his heartbeat in his ears, drumming like crazy, deafening his senses, almost causing him to gasp with… joy? No, joyous was something he had not been for a long time. Perhaps not ever. But something close to it. Serenity. Yes, he definitely felt serene and… mellow, as he opened the door and stepped out into the sun setting, the rays of ripe orange sunlight and his heartbeat reverberating in the space and time continuum he was the center of. He stood in the sunlight, soaking up the ocean of warmth and unexpected hopefulness. He took a few small steps without any sense of direction, not looking where he was. He just felt he belonged there and nowhere else. In a spot where anything can happen.
As he opened his eyes and looked up he saw her stepping out. Clad in her beautiful dove-grey coat that enhanced her perfect shape, her hair falling down like a velvety river, her otherwise open glance now very dark and so severe. He wondered if he did that to her, and he just couldn't help thinking what an ass he was, what an ass he had been ever since he had talked himself into rejecting her over and over again. What the hell could he have wanted to prove? That he was the stronger one? That her feelings for him weren't real? Who was he trying to protect? And what right had he to tell her what to do or not to do?
She saw him the moment she set her foot on the pavement, on the way to her car, parked outside the hospital for a change. He was rooted in the middle of a patch of sunlight, weirdly enough covering only part of the space outside the building. She looked up to the sky to find the culprits, but there were no clouds at all. She looked back at him, and she saw his eyes fixed on her. Those big blue eyes that had mesmerized her for what seemed like an eternity to her did not leave her face, and she struggled to understand what they were telling her.
How could she feel anything but love when it came to Gregory House? All his faults that would have driven nine hundred and ninety-nine women out of a thousand she had long acknowledged, accepted, and stepped over. She knew that just as beauty most often shrouds ugliness, beneath roughness there is always tenderness to be found, and she had seen his eyes when he was talking to a dying patient, or his hands when fighting to save someone's life. She knew that I need time was his way of saying I care, and I want to learn how to show it.
She needed him to make her complete; he was everything she ever wanted. Which realization seemed strange, to say the least, when she took into consideration just what she was bargaining for: almost middle-aged guy, with one good leg, a very damaged emotional life, obstinate, rude, completely neglecting every social expectation thrown at him, and for whom love might not even exist. How on earth could a normal person behave like he did, not only to her, but to everyone else around him?
Then again, how could a normal person make her feel what she felt? That endless, unexplainable sense of belonging and gratitude when he was close to her, yes, when he acted like a jerk and pushed her to the limits of her tolerance almost every time they met? He had taught her so much, and she was still learning. Learning to forgive, to accept what she was given, to try and give her love to where it was most needed. Saving patients was alright, but they weren't the ones who needed her care most.
She stepped closer to him to see his eyes better, to dive deep in their waters and resurface, reborn, all new, all eager to start afresh, with the world, with herself, and with him.
He stood there motionless, enjoying the sun caressing his cheek and her gaze holding his. He knew that a mere few steps would lead him right next to her, and he could hold her again. He was not sure he would behave like she expected him to; he wasn't sure she expected him to do anything, and that was the best part. He felt free.
He was so deaf and blind to the rest of the universe that he never heard the car-tyre screech only a couple of meters from where he stood. In fact, he never noticed he was standing in the middle of the road.
She heard the car first, then saw it. She was not sure of its colour; the sense of fear covered her from head to toe, and she was frozen for what seemed to be forever. Her brain stopped processing new information, and she only had time to think of what it would have been like, loved by him. Then her instinct pushed her across the road, to where he stood. She managed to reach him, and touch him, and hold his hand.
Even in that moment of unearthly fear, he saw gentle love in her eyes.