A/N: Here ya go kids! The chapter you've all been waiting for, but not before I thank the ever-fabulous Rose12345, Gabunny, Fluffy2001 and emotikka for reviewing! YAY!
And remember kiddies, stick around after the show for the everybody-gets-plastered bonus chapter! (Now isn't that the dictionary definition of fun?)
Oh yeah, just a note; the ACA is the Adult Children of Alcoholics Worldwide Organization. Just a pop-culture reference y'all should probably know. (Okay, done stalling now.)
Disclaimer: Not Mine. Don't sue.
X x X x X
Everybody lies.
It's a fairly straightforward message. Don't trust. Don't believe. Don't be a moron. Everything you say can and will be used against you, so don't bother with the mendacity, the niceties, all the usual social crap. Anyone who can't see through that deserves to be manipulated.
Gregory House had always seen. He didn't take life glossed over, to see people pitied. He liked the facts, cold and hard, to know, to understand, to cure. The human race was nothing more than a puzzle.
Maybe that was a lie.
Was life something more? Was a sonnet more than words? Was a song more than notes? Or was emotion nothing but the brain's all-too-gullible reaction to everything it saw and heard? Did refusing to feel make him less human or just cold?
House tilted his head to the left then to the right, trying to see every aspect of the world around him; the slight dust collecting on his grand piano, the rough stapling of the medical journal sitting on his dirty coffee table, the ring of dried coffee left beside the coaster. Maybe if he could see everything, see through everyone, he could feel just a little less than God indented, if such a being existed.
God.
He had never believed. There was no proof, no reason to waste your time and, inevitably, your life dedicated to something there was no evidence of. Was God an emotion too, some other sentiment he just couldn't feel?
God forbid.
Why did people believe? Did they value their ignorance so much? Is that how they made it through like? Was blind the only way to wander? Maybe life was too ugly to travel seeing. House had always refused the blindfold. What make him ugly also made him sharp, made him see. Was it worth it?
House bit his lips, taking note they were starting to chap. He wouldn't do anything about it, just make note of it.
Carefully he laid his long, nimble finger across the smooth, cool, un-daunting keys of his piano, letting the notes ring out, surround him, fill him. There so much emptiness to fill.
It wasn't like his life was lack of people. He had Cuddy, Wilson, his minions. Ducklings. When he walked they walked. When he stopped they stopped. Usually.
There was Cameron, the broken doll. Beautiful and misused, misunderstood and neglected, she was a flower left alone to bask in her own beauty and self-loathing. She got involved where she shouldn't and expects others to give a shit too. She didn't want to be alone. She wanted to love and be loved. She was only setting herself up for disappointment.
Chase was the kid lost in the super-market, desperate for attention and scared out his mind, directly showcasing nine of the thirteen common traits the ACA spent all their time pushing out on those cheesy Public Service Announcements. He was just a poor screwed up teenager, pissed at his dad and kissing his teacher's asses rather than studying for tests.
Finally there was Foreman, the Muhammad Ali of medicine, who was probably the only one who stood a chance of taking House in an intellectual fight. He was smart, one of the sharpest doctors he had ever met, and willing to work his ass off for whatever he needed. He knew hell. He also knew what it took to get out of it.
Most of his former employees, namely the ones that hadn't stuck, had left with the fear that they would spend the rest of their professional lives in his shadow. Foreman expected to surpass it. Cameron didn't mind. Chase preferred it to his father's. They weren't particularly noble reasons for surviving him, but House had never cared much for nobility. All he cared was that it worked.
House faltered, his fingers slipping, missing a key. Damn. He froze, for a moment unsure of how to continue. Picking a new piece seemed over-rational. Starting over was a bit too OCD for his liking. Slowly his fingers started up again, continuing through the ruined piece.
He had been all over the world, seen all types of people and the places they thrived. He had seen discrimination and hate and pity and love and promise and starvation among lands some considered to flow with milk and honey. He had been told lies of truth and truth in lies and in the end the most important lesson taught to him was to learn, to listen, to see.
He knew of religion and unity and morals. He just chose to ignore them.
He used to wonder about the human race, about his fellow man.
He chose to ignore them too.
The end of the song was nearing, his fingers twisting, entwining, lacing across the black and white bars, his pace rabid. The beat was matching that of his heart, intertwining with his very being.
The worst moment of his life was waking up in a starch white hospital room, with an indescribable, near-blinding pain pulsing throughout his body, the source his leg, and, even worse than the pain, the horrible sinking feeling in his stomach, the plummet of all emotions but misery, as he realized that all he had dreaded, the misuse of his leg, the title of cripple; it had all come back to him. It was him. He was a cripple. He. Was. A. Cripple.
And worst of all was Stacy, standing guiltily beside his bed, terrified of what he'd say.
And he had done the worst.
He told her to get out.
It wasn't that he didn't want to see her. He just couldn't stand to look at her. She had done this to him, saved his life. If only he didn't rather be dead over this.
He was a cripple.
He was a pill-popper.
He was an ass.
He saw.
He saw everything he did and did not want to, saw joy and celebration, tragedy and resilience. He saw birth and death and everything in between.
He saw life.
If he couldn't, wouldn't live it, at least he was a witness.
He was a whisper of a man.
In the end, he was nothing more than a forgotten whisper.
Dare he forget?
X x X x X
Well, that chapter almost killed me. I started this over about half a dozen times before I was satisfied with his portrayal (still not completely, but close.) It's pretty hard to get inside the head of someone whose entire existence is devoted to getting into other people's heads.
Yow.
I really hope everybody liked this, even though it's a bit rougher than the others and I didn't rap it up the way I originally planned. I'll try and pull it all together better in the bonus chapter.
Who's ready to get smashed?
Yup. Me too.
Review?