Disclaimer for the entire story: I do not own House.
Warning: Character death
Parts: 6 … possibly 7
Reviews: are love. Make my day!
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A.D.: Part IVI watched Cuddy walk out of church; eyes glittering with what seemed to be unshed tears. She never glanced back at the cold box at the front of the room, and somehow I didn't blame her. Standing up slowly (not reluctantly), I walked down the aisle towards House. Each step that I took seemed to weigh me down further. (You always found it so hard to say goodbye)
House had always been there to mess me up, to pay me out, to trip me over. There were many times when I thought I hated him. Yet he had become a warped parental figure – or least a warped confidante. (You figured that he was going to know everything anyway, so why bother keeping it from him?) I hadn't told Cameron or Foreman about my family, though Cameron 'would care', as House put it. I had told House. House. The one man who wouldn't care – who I was certain would mock me and label me 'broken.'
But for that one moment when I finished my spiel, I thought I saw something in House's fathomless, expressionless eyes. Something that vaguely resembled (pity? No … he was not a pitying man.) empathy … or sympathy … or something that made me think that he understood a lot more than he let on. I never forgot that moment, even after he dismissed me. And I held onto the knowledge that House was indeed as human as the rest of us. And perhaps he was as scared of making mistakes as we all were.
"I made lots of mistakes," I muttered down to thin layer of glass that separated House from the world of the living. Yeah, perhaps I had made the most mistakes out of the team. I had killed a patient … I had slept with Cameron … I had run off to Vogler … and I had angioed the wrong leg (which perhaps was the most telling mistake of all). I had seen the flash of temper as House realised my mistake. At the time I had put it down to his intolerance of people screwing up, but then … I had sat in on his lecture.
And then I realised.
House's leg had become as it was because of a delay in the correct diagnosis. My mistake could have cost the patient her leg as House's doctors' cost him his. (And he was scared – oh so scared) But I thought of none of that as I ran over to Vogler.
I hadn't gone to my father's funeral, yet here I was at House's. (Why why why?) It was because of the distance, I tried to tell myself. Australia was too far away for me to make it there in time and back again. (Besides, he had enough people who loved him) But my father hadn't always been there for me – hell, he had never really been there for me. And House – House had always been solidly present – sarcastic and hurtful – but always there. I knew (though) that as long as I worked at Princeton, House would always be there. I needed that constant presence, because (and it pains you to admit it) even after … more than fifteen years? … I still needed some assurance that some things always remained the same.
But they didn't, did they?
"Everybody lies," I told House, chewing my lip. "Foreman was right. You do come under the heading 'everybody'." I paused, fiddling with the tie I hated. "You didn't mean to lie – how could you when you weren't even trying to tell the truth?" (How did that make sense?) House's blank, unseeing eyes stared straight back at me with no reproach, and I suppose that was what broke me the most. No matter how many dead people I had known, I never had to see their faces – completely devoid of life. Who had left his eyes open? Dead people weren't meant to be able to looks up at the world around them and see all that they would never be part of again. They weren't meant to be able to see those they never had the chance to say goodbye to. (Your father never said goodbye to you, and you never said goodbye to him.) Did House get the chance to say what he wanted to say, or did death snatch the words out of his mouth? I recalled him once - in the hospital bed, eyes dark with what seemed like fear (fear of what? Of death … or life?). He had gasped, and I had thought he was gasping for breath.
Maybe.
I heard a sound from behind me, and I turned abruptly to see a silhouette in the doorway.
"You done there?" she asked – far too loudly.
I looked back at House.
"Sure," I replied. And she came forward, and I glanced back at House's empty face. "I'm glad you didn't end up happily ever after with her." I murmured. "There would be no happily ever after with her."
Nodding briefly to Stacy, I walked back down the aisle. As I paused to look back, the sunlight from behind the stained glass windows of the church seemed to flicker and fade a little.
"Thanks, House," I flashed a brief smile. "I'll remember everything."
As I left the church, I glanced at my watch. There was still time to call my travel agent for a weeklong flight to Australia.
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