A/N: I've been ready for this for forever! That's why it's so quick an update! You'll probably need to read it twice to catch certain things.
Disclaimer: D.O.H.
The cool cup of milk slips in his grasp, the condensed water on the sides refuses to let him gain control. Involuntarily, he jumps as best as he can away from the cup as it falls clumsily to the tiled floor, ridding its white contents along the floor in a catastrophic mess.
"Damn it," he mutters, staring at the spilled milk. With a long sigh, he reaches over the island counter for the green hand towel.
"He was at death's door, his knuckles poised to knock a final time when I," he motions with his own hands, "snatched him back to the realm of ex-con Martha Stewart and deranged Brittany Spears."
Taking a bite out of the PB&J sandwich, he waits for the obvious eye roll. It doesn't come. The peanut butter leaves his mouth gummy as he tries to swallow. He watches her fiddling with the tip of the braid thrown over her shoulder. As she averts her eyes once again from his, he throws the sandwich down onto her counter.
"What is it? Forget to let the sun go down?"
She doesn't smile, doesn't even scoff. Pushing herself away from the small counter, she rubs her warm arms and looks at him before finally speaking.
"Nothing."
He forgets the towel as his brain registers the pain in his leg with such intensity that he nearly collapses to the floor. Catching himself on the counter, he braces all his weight on his left leg, only to find it's wavering as well.
The glass of milk she'd handed to him as he'd made the sandwich is slick in his hand. He brings the cup to his lips, taking one sip and then deciding he needed to finish it all. He sits the cup back on her counter, his head whirling, his mind sick, his heart stuck.
The silence is thick enough to make him think he's about to suffocate. What the hell had he gotten himself into? Refusing to look at her, he stares down at his empty cup. Not once had he ever thought he'd be in this position. For once, he's speechless. Damn it! His hands slap the counter and he lowers his head, sucking in a breath loud enough for all of New Jersey to hear.
The hesitation radiating from her body reaches him as he finally looks up at her on the other side. In that moment he wishes he'd never gone down the E.R. the night of the banquet.
Gritting his teeth, he leans back against the cabinets of the island, his ass firmly planted on the floor. He grips his thigh, fighting the wave of massive, dull to the bone, pain. Why is he remembering this?
"We've been together nearly six months. What do you want?"
The question unnerves him, obviously. They'd never spoken about their dreams, hopes, and aspirations. The thought comes to him that it has to do with TB guy's arrival a few months ago.
"Why? What's happened?"
"I just need to know, House."
"Things are fine as they are. We're…dating."
The way her eyes bore into his, searching, scares him to a core he hasn't been afraid of in a long time. She's got something biting on her tongue, something huge, and he doesn't want to hear it. He doesn't want it to change.
"Camer-."
"I'm pregnant."
"The hell?" he whispers painfully, his mind trying to make sense of what he was remembering. It doesn't make sense, he thinks, finally spying his vial of vicodin beside the sink.
He doesn't care that she's crying. All he knows is he has to leave. He can't be around her right now. Leaving her alone in her kitchen, he limps to her door and lets himself out. As he walks down the short hallway, he imagines each step as a step closer to his own demise, his own prison that she's built for him. He has to wait for the elevator to climb its route, each second repeating the words she'd said that spun his world out of orbit. 'I'm pregnant.'
The ding makes him snap to. The doors open and he hastily makes his way inside, expecting to see her running down the hallway to stop him. She doesn't.
The fresh air hits him and he has to stop on the sidewalk. The many breaths don't help. The fast limping doesn't help. The sight of two busty women with their arms around each others waist doesn't help either.
No matter how far he walks, he's never far enough. He can't escape it. Winding back at his own apartment, he walks in, the safeness washing over him.
Falling back down, the Vicodin firmly in his grasp, he swallows two hungrily. All he can do now is wait. And while he's waiting, he's also becoming more and more confused at these bursts of ludicrous, unclear, random spaced, memories.
"This isn't my fault!"
"Then who else's is it!"
"It takes two, House!"
He runs a hand through his hair as he grabs his cane with the other. He needs to get his leg moving.
"What are you going to do?" he asks before answering for her. "Wait, stupid question. God, we're stupid!"
"I am not stupid because I got pregnant!"
"Yeah, you are."
"House," the lowness of her tone makes him pause to look at her. Her mouth is set in a hard line. "I did not get pregnant to trap you."
"Don't believe you."
She snaps her mouth closed, the harsh intake of her burning her nose, and in this moment, she hates him. Things never do change.
"You're an ass, you son of a bitch!"
"Tell me something I don't know, Cameron!"
"I'm scared to death right now, and you are not helping me at all! Do you think I wanted to get pregnant?!"
"I'm not helping you? You're not helping me! You sucked me into this relationship and now we're having a kid! I don't want a kid!"
"Then you don't have to!"
Holding his head in his hands, he clinches his eyes shut. Too many memories. Too many thoughts. Too many words. Too many not right things. Too many not plausible events. Nothing is in order.
She'd ended things two months after they'd dated. She'd slept with TB guy and gotten pregnant. They barely spoke to each other but she'd eaten with him after he'd been in the coma because she felt sorry for him. That is the way things happened. That's what everyone's told him. It doesn't make sense.
However, if he believes these new memories, she told him, Gregory House, that she was pregnant. He was the father. That meant she'd never ended things. They'd still been together when he went into the coma. It meant she'd never had a rebound thing with TB guy.
He goes over each short memory, trying to place them in order. 1)He eats the sandwich. 2)She tells him she's pregnant. 3)He drinks the milk. 4)They argue. 5)He limps out.
She lied. She lied to him. All this time. His head hits the cabinet with a loud thud and he barely feels it. Nothing makes sense. Nothing is right. She lied. She lied. She lied.
A/N:Try to put the memories in order because they're not. It confused you right? I know. It confused House too. That was the point.
Better? Should be. I hope it is. This story is meant to mirror what House is seeing. We know what House knows and that's it. So, House remembering in this distorted, confusing, discombobulated, wreck, makes us read it the same way. And as he puts the pieces together, so do we. We realize as House realizes.
Which leads us to why? Don't worry, it's coming together as I type. And it won't be so drawn out like the past chapters.