You tried to stay, but you could not stand it
To see me shut down slow
As though it was an easy thing to do
Shelter by Ray LaMontagne

Chapter 2 – Truth

You exit his apartment with your coat still in your arms. You cannot stand one more minute watching him like that and knowing that he could stop it. You are angry and hurt and scared and damn him for making you feel all these things again.

You manage to stab your arms into your coat before the hot tears begin to spill, but they cloud your vision quickly and you fumble with the buttons. You take a deep breath to try and calm yourself, you have to get back to the hospital and soon, but instead a strangled sort of sob-scream flies from you. You clasp your fingers over your mouth to prevent House's hearing you. You lean your back against the wall of his building's tiny foyer and slide to the floor.

You are so angry that he won't stop this. He is so stubborn and worse, so selfish. You have never been so disgusted by his childish behavior. It is not just his life he is toying with here and that angers you. He is dangling the life of this patient in front of Cuddy and Wilson like a kidnapper, holding his brilliance a hostage, ransoming a diagnosis for his precious pills.

You are hurt that he is hurting. You hurt for many people; sympathy and empathy are so much a part of you that you could no sooner turn them off than you could stop breathing. But you hurt for him like you hurt for your husband when he was diagnosed. You hurt for him like you hurt for your mother before she passed away. Like you hurt for others you have loved when they faced their life's truth.

You are scared that he will not survive this. You know he is stubborn beyond any possible measure. Certainly he is the most obstinate person you have ever met, and you're sure everyone you could ask would agree. But stubborn doesn't save lives, not even his. You believe that he will be so against admitting he is wrong that he may…it wouldn't be the first time he'd laid his life on the line to prove a point. You are afraid that this time the point will prove him.

You screw your eyes shut against the tears, but they run impossibly faster. You despise your weakness, hating the way it leeches energy from your body, making you want to curl up right there in House's foyer and sleep. You struggle to control your sobs, wracking painfully in your chest and straining all the muscles in your back. You try to take the deep, calming breaths you always advise your patients to take when they are in pain and wind up choking violently on inhaled tears.

The choking has the bizarre effect of stopping your tears. Your eyes still closed, you breathe slowly in and out while monitoring your heartbeat slowing from jackrabbit speed to slow thumping. As you sit, a storm of thought crashes in your head, forming an idea you don't want to contemplate. The very idea of the idea frightens you beyond measure. As the emotions you are so desperate to keep in check roil inside you, the thunderclouds hiding this hideous concept blacken from a dusky charcoal to an inky, swirling black. Warning flashes of lightning keep your curiosity at bay, for the moment.

You move, the stiffness that has settled into your legs and the ache in your shoulders the only remaining evidence of your tears save your mottled makeup. You button your coat slowly, methodically. You pull your gloves from your pocket and slide your hands inside, welcoming their warmth. You walk quickly to your car, head down to avoid the stares of any passersby. You slide into the driver's seat and immediately flip down the visor to inspect the damage. It's not as bad as you feared. A few quick swipes with a Kleenex from the glove box and you are presentable again.

You drive to the hospital in a sort of daze, plagued alternately by visions of him sweating and clutching his bloody arm and the older him you saw in your dream until they overlap and form one sad, desperate House, pained and alone. You pull into a spot in the parking garage and it isn't until you are walking up the ice encrusted path to the hospital lobby does the unlikelihood of that image hit you. You blink away new tears as you think it's far more likely he'll never become that old man, having died a lonely death far too young.

You pause before you enter, aware that Cuddy, Wilson or both will be waiting for you in the lobby. You will not lie for him. And perhaps if Cuddy and Wilson know the shape he's in they will change their minds. You will also not give in to their assumptions that you can't handle House in his dark moods, his worst moments.

"How is he?" Cuddy asks with concern that is genuine and deep.

"He's still House," you reply dryly. You want to remind her that no matter how she tries, no matter the ploy and definitely no matter that she is right and he needs help, she cannot change who he is. He is House and he can be no other way.

You don't actually see him when he returns to the hospital. You know he does from the terse message left for the three of you about how he solved the case. It should elate you; even in such a state as he was in, he can still out-diagnose your entire team and Cuddy. But the message reads wrong. It should be smug and self-satisfied and insulting. Instead it is the epitome of brevity, so sparse and direct it is almost clinical. It is final.

You are scared for him again.

You go home and pace your apartment nervously, debating whether you should check up on him or ignore it. You have nearly convinced yourself the very least you can do is call Wilson to make sure he's okay when you catch sight of yourself in the bathroom mirror on your third lap from the bedroom to the kitchen.

You don't like what you see.

You step inside the bathroom, flipping the switch and flooding the room with harsh light as you go. You stand in front of the mirror, leaning your hips against the sink, and stare at yourself closely, critically.

You are a mess.

You look the way you looked when your mother was ill. The way you looked when your husband was sleeping in his hospital bed and you slipped away for a few moments to cry in private. Your face is drawn, pale and gray at once. You look eons older than your true age. Your mouth is turned down at the corners in what you can only classify as a grimace. You catalog these details carefully before leaning closer to the mirror and taking the final inventory.

You look into the reflection of your eyes.

You see pain you have no right to feel. You see the soul of woman many years your senior. You see sadness. You don't see hope.

You see thunderclouds.

The idea you feared earlier has returned, rumbling for your attention. You see the stormy truth in your own eyes and you recognize it. It is the same look you saw in your mother's eyes and your husband's eyes when they realized their life's truth. They could not escape death. But death isn't coming for you, not now, and you can't understand why now … now when all you can think about is House, all you can concern yourself with is House, why now is your life's truth emerging?

Why can't you stop loving House?

You grip the sink hard as the storm clouds pass and the idea crashes into your consciousness with a lightning storm of self-awareness. You are sacrificing yourself for someone you love. Again. You are giving everything you have, every ounce of what you are to another person, a person who you feel needs it more. A damaged person.

You lower your head away from your horrified eyes toward the sink, unable to look yourself in the eye any longer. You gag; the truth is too large for you to swallow.

What if House is right about you?