Warning: This final chapter contains character death.

VIII. The Embrace

When he'd had the infarction, over a decade ago now (and were we ever that young, to think that a decade meant something so precious?), he never asked why. We were doctors. But more important, for those agonizing moments of reflection, we were men. Human. The questions that we focused on were about motives not so physical. These were the days before he'd stare into a microscope and give a virus the third degree. All of the why's back then were about Stacy. About Cuddy. About him. And of me, he only asked where. Where were you?

It was hard enough just to get him standing again. Maybe we were distracted too easily. Maybe we didn't want to think about it. Or maybe that was me. He thought about everything. Why does a healthy man suddenly throw a clot in his leg?

I'm sure he thought about that.

There are things I have to try to remember about him, even though it's only been a few months since he died. Standing in line at the grocery store, I'll look at the tabloids and try to remember which one he'd buy in anticipation of a full day of clinic duty. Reading the paper in the morning, I'll try to remember some of the things he'd said about the inheritability of stupidity. Passing Cameron in the hall, I'll try to remember exactly what his face looked like when he mock-ogled. Waking up from some stupid dream where I see him smooth-shaven and smiling, I'll struggle to remember why it feels so wrong. Then I look at his picture on the bedside table (oh spare me, he'd say).

I never have to remember that he's gone.

And then, there are things I try to forget. Waking up that morning, cold fingers against my back. Stupidly fighting my way into the morgue mid-autopsy because I just had to see. Cursing at Cuddy for not warning us that he was prone to throwing clots (we were all doctors, once). Holding his mom's hand at the funeral. Why I want to forget that, I can't say. But it doesn't feel like it belongs to me. Not anymore.

I've lost people I loved before, but it's never been like this. But maybe that's the problem. Love in the past tense. Wives, uncles, brothers. They leave or die or just fade away into time and I still care for them and the memory of us together, but do I love them? I can't answer that. I do love him, though. At this moment, I love him very much. I pray to God that never changes. Because I feel like I'm…more. I'm fundamentally different than I was before I loved House. It's not all that surprising, I suppose. Just because he seemed immune to my influence doesn't mean that people are full of shit when they say that a love that great can change a man. Everybody lies, he'd say. Or maybe not. Maybe he'd grin and say he knew how to make an impact and hit me with his cane. Or maybe he'd just smile and kiss me.

I think about that part of us a lot. His lips. His face both sharp and soft. His hands on my arms, my neck, my face. I can close my eyes and practically feel him there with me. But when I open my eyes, I never have to remember that he's gone. Sometimes, though... sometimes I have to remember that I'm not gone, too.

"The Embrace" by Mark Doty

You weren't well or really ill yet either;

just a little tired, your handsomeness

tinged by grief or anticipation, which brought

to your face a thoughtful deepening grace.

I didn't for a moment doubt you were dead.

I knew that to be true still, even in the dream.

You'd been out – at work maybe? –

having a good day, almost energetic.

We seemed to be moving from some old house

where we'd lived, boxes everywhere, things

in disarray; that was the story of my dream,

but even asleep I was shocked out of narrative

by your face, the physical fact of your face;

inches from mine, smooth-shaven, loving, alert.

Why so difficult, remembering the actual look

of you? Without a photograph, without strain?

So when I saw your unguarded, reliable face,

your unmistakable gaze opening all the warmth

and clarity of you – warm brown tea – we held

each other for the time the dream allowed.

Bless you. You came back, so I could see you

once more, plainly, so I could rest against you

without thinking this happiness lessened anything,

without thinking you were alive again.