Here's the next chapter. I tried to get into House's head, but I'm not sure. Let me know. All mistakes are my own.
Jess

Chapter 3: Drinking. Both Times.

"Princess."

"Hi daddy." I hear Brenna's voice and hear the familiar creak of springs as she settles on her dorm bed.

"How are you?"

"I'm good. Ready for finals to be over so that I can be home."

"I'm ready for you to be home too."

"Me and Tessa are going to come visit you at the hospital. She wants to be a doctor."

There are many responses that can follow her comments, so I go with one of my favorites.

"What's mean about Tessa?"

"Dad!"

"I have a new wombat that needs some straightening out. You think that you're up for the challenge?"

I can almost hear her rolling her eyes.

"I wish you wouldn't call all of your irritating new fellows wombats.I like Uncle Robert best, so be nice."

"Jimmy will love to hear that."

"You know what I mean."

I hear yelling in the background and then Brenna covered the mouth piece to yell something.

"Daddy, I got to go, a bunch of us are going to study."

"Okay Princess, be safe. I'll talk to you later. Love you."

"Love you too." She hesitates for a split second. "Take care of yourself too Daddy. Tell mom that I'll call her tomorrow. Bye."

I hear breathless laughter before the click and I cannot help but smile.

She is her mother's daughter. That is a fact.

"What?"

I do not realize that I am staring at my wife until I hear her voice.

"Just thinking."

"About what?"

"Brenna."

"She okay?" I watch as Allison's face immediately becomes worried.

Never mind the fact that she spoke to Brenna seconds before I did.

"I was just thinking about how alike you two are."

Allison rolls her eyes and slides her body next to mine on the couch.

I prop my feet onto the coffee table and wrap an arm around her.

"Don't get to comfortable. Miguel will be here soon." She warns.

Our favorite Mexican restaurant, Nuevo Leon, doesn't deliver to anyone except us.

They opened years ago and are close enough to the hospital for us to go there for meals.

The owner Ricardo has known us forever, and his son Miguel has had a crush on Brenna since the two were kids. Nothing will ever happen between the two of them because that's the way life is. Plus, Miguel has a girlfriend. His crush has turned into an old joke and platonic love.

Not that it would matter if they loved each other.

No one is good enough for my daughter. Just like no one was good enough for her mother.

Even me.

Brenna won't end up with a crippled, alcoholic, drug addicted bastard like me though. I won't let her.

Then again, she has my stubbornness. This thought sends me reeling and Allison taps her finger on my nose.

"Stop."

"Stop what?"

Even after over twenty years it is surprising how well she knows me.

"Thinking."

"So you want me to be an idiot?"

Allison sighs. "Brenna will always be your baby girl and you've scared away at least half of her prospective boyfriends. If she wants to get married and if she finds the right guy you'll know."

I open my mouth but the doorbell rings.

"That's the food. I'll get it."

She jumps up and dashes out of the room before I can respond, but it leaves me smirking.

We fit perfectly with each other.

She is ying and I am yang.

Or whatever crap they talk about when two people 'complete' each other.

Truth is all the BS about it is true. We work well together.

If you ignore all my stupid mistakes.

It was never about the taste of alcohol. It was never about getting high.

Truthfully?

It was because I could.

And because I needed it.

The first time anyway.

I could pass out from the drinking and get up at two the next day and go to work.

I could get away with it, and save lives too.

Growing up my father was strict.

To strict.

Ice baths, beatings, sleeping outside, you name it I went through it.

When I became an adult I made a name for myself.

And once I made a name I could sit around and do nothing.

I was the best in my department.

I had people writing in from all over the worldfor my help.

And in the beginning I had it all, the perfect girlfriend, the best job, easy money, and weekends watching or playing sports with some old friends or colleagues. And I could say anything I wanted to them without getting scolded.

Theyexpected me to be sarcastic.

And then I lost my thigh.

My ability to walk normal.

My girlfriend.

Mylife.

Drugs could only help so much. Work could only help so much. Hell, even sex couldn't take my mind completely off the pain.

It started as a few beers to help me sleep, and by the time Cameron became my fellow it had been a scotch. And when she left it was even stronger scotch that eventually turned into rum and a handful of Vicodin to help me sleep at night.

Intervention and everything surrounding that happened.

And then I was happily (yes happy) married and had a beautiful daughter.

Drinking was a think of the past.

That doesn't mean that I didn't miss alcohol. I just had more important things.

One day I went out with Brenna and Allison. Brenna was ten and it was April. That much I can remember.

We were at a Monster Truck event and we were standing in line for cotton candy when a woman turned to beam at me.

"How nice of you to take your daughter and granddaughter out for a night. Do you like watching the trucks?"

Brenna had frowned at the woman and Allison and I had tensed.

"He's my dad."

The woman had been at loss for words, but by then it was her turn to get cotton candy. We got ours and then a still frowning Brenna pulled us towards Grave Digger.

It was one of the first times in a long time that I had seen true disappointment shinning in Brenna's eyes.

That was the night I bought my first beer.

At first it was just buying beer.

I cannot tell anyone how many beers I bought only to pour them down the sink a few hours later, or pay for it without taking a sip.

Two months after Grave Digger Brenna and I got in a fight. Nothing big – in fact I can't even tell you what it was about.

I can tell you that Allison was staying overnight at the hospital which meant I had to play 'bad guy'.

I hate you!

Brenna had screamed at me right before racing to her room and slamming the door.

I ran down to the store and bought a six pack of Budweiser. I took a sip of the first beer and then realized what I had done. I gave the rest to some homeless man who was sitting by the store before racing home.

I had found Brenna curled up with her knees to her chest in my office her cheeks red and eyes puffy.

I'm sorry Daddy.

She had flung herself at me and sobbed and told me that she thought I had left her.

It was then I realized I was a terrible father.

Good fathers didn't leave their daughters alone.

Good fathers didn't fall off the wagon.

I never told Allison about my relapse, and I stopped drinking for another year.

There were moments when I would go and have a few sips of alcohol.

But I refused to acknowledge that it was getting out of my control.

It's been said that Doctors are control freaks.

And that is completelytrue.

I am a control freak and I will remain a control freak until the day I die.

But, anyway. The drinking.

I had decided that it was best for Brenna if I distanced myself from her.

The less contact she had with me the less hurt she would eventually have to overcome.

Allison was at a conference and I had just had the day from hell. Literally.

I hit my marker on the white board and waited for my fellows to look at me.

Our patient was a ten year old girl with blue eyes and blonde hair. I had seen her in passing.

She could have been my daughter.

"She's having an allergic reaction to the penicillamine."

"No shit." I spat back.

"We could take her off of it and put her on trientine again."

"It didn't work."

"Well-" One of my male ducklings spoke and then hesitated.

"Speak now." I commanded.

"We could put her on Tetrathiomolybdate,"

"It's not approved by the FDA." Other-Male-Duckling protested.

"But it will save her life. I like it. Go put the kid on it." The three stood, nodded and disappeared.

I sat back and waited for Cuddy to come storming in after my second duckling went to tattle on me.

"Greg! What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Saving a life. Isn't that what you're supposed to do at hospitals?"

"Tetrathiomolybdate isn't FDA approved! It could kill the girl."

"And if it doesn't eventually Wilson's Disease will."

"It's a lose-lose situation."

"At least we know what Wilson's Disease will do. Tetrathiomolybdate is a whole different playing field."

"Thank you Captain Obvious."

"The parents are refusing the Tetrathiomolybdate." Female-Duckling parroted as my three fellows walked into my office. "Sariah's parents just want to take her home."

Even their name meant the same thing.

Damnit.

I knew what would happen to Saraih, but her parents did not.

Her liver would fail, her brain function – well her brain would become a neurological nightmare to put it simply.

I went to talk some sense into them.

But it didn't work.

And she kept staring at me.

The most trusting eyes. She was holding her dad's hand, her lips turned down ever so slightly in pain.

But when her parents spoke she looked at them.

She listened.

She trusted them to take care of her no matter what.

To never let her down.

Just like my daughter.

"Your eyes
As we said our goodbyes
Can't get them out of my mind
And I find I can't hide (from)
Your eyes
The ones that took me by surprise
The night you came into my life
Where there's moonlight
I see your eyes-"

I needed a drink.

And drink I did. When I got home that night I put Brenna to bed and got wasted.

- Actually, she put herself to bed.

Over the last year she had stopped relying on me.

Some days it was a relief. Other days it physically pained me.

And it wasn't as if Allison and Brenna weren't trying.

The number of times that Allison confronted me about my distance from my daughter was in about the four dozen range.

The number of times I had promised to do something with Brenna and then broken that promise was in the same range.

I never thought that I would loose them.

It wasn't until Brenna shoved me to protect Allison, until I saw them pulling out of the driveway that I realized what I had done.

That I had pushed my family so far away that they actually left.

"- How'd I let you slip away
When I'm longing so to hold you
Now I'd die for one more day
'Cause there's something I should have told you
Yes there's something I should have told you-"

"Get up you bastard." The voice shocked me as did the shove and the bright lights that accompanied it.

"What?"

"Get up. Get dressed. Get your wife and daughter back. Go to an AA meeting. Stop denying that you're an alcoholic. And call and convince my wife I didn't know what you were doing."

"I'm not an alcoholic."

"The fact that the first thing that you do is deny the alcohol part? Not helping your case."

If had been a week since my family had left me.

A week full of binge drinking and tears that only happened when I was drunk enough not to remember them.

Alcohol had become my best friend again.

"Your little girl walked in on you passed out on the floor Greg. You grabbed your wife so hard by her shoulders that she has bruises. My friend had to come wake you up with a bucket of ice. You have a problem."

His voice was soft which was how I knew that Wilson was serious.

I already felt as guilty as hell for yesterday.

So I chose a different part of his statement.

"Carrie making you sleep on the couch?"

"She thinks that I for some reason knew about the drinking. But I can deal with it. There's an AA meeting tomorrow at six. I'll pick you up at five thirty. Even if I have to drag you with me kicking and screaming."

I nodded and continued to stare off into space.

A million what if's were racing through my head.

Some things never changed.

Maybe I was one of those things.

The problem variable.

The it factor.

Maybe I needed to remove myself from the equation.

"Greg." I stared at James.

"What if they won't take me back?"

He touched my shoulder gently.

"What if they will?"

I went to AA that night.

"-When I looked into your eyes
why does distance make us wise?
You were the song all along
And before the song dies-"

I went to a month full of meetings and then I realized I was ready.

That I needed my family.

I had wanted to find them from the start.

From the moment that they pulled out of the driveway.

But I couldn't.

I couldn't let them come back to me when even I couldn't stand myself.

Allison had been right when she said that Brenna shouldn't have to grow up around someone like me.

I was sure I wanted them to come back.

That wasn't the question.

The question was if it was right to have them come back.

A crippled, alcoholic, drug abuser.

Brenna could look at me with pride and say that I was her father.

So there was my dilemma.

Whoever said if you love someone let them go was an idiot. If they don't come back to you it's because you let them go. Because it was your own fault to begin with.

If you loved someone and let them go, you had to be smart enough to go and get them back.

"I should tell you I should tell you
I have always loved you
You can see it in my eyes"

Song Your Eyes from RENT

Quote by Doug Horton (If you love something let it go free. If it doesn't come back, you never had it. If it comes back, love it forever. )