Thank you for the reviews, I'm glad nobody wanted my head for making Greer blind (unlike the time when I made Aiko sick in the previous story!).
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Foreman was sitting outside on the backyard terrace of the house staring ahead morosely. Chase and Cameron found him there as they came out of the kitchen where the rest of the House-hold was waiting for House and Cuddy. Cameron had a mug of coffee for Foreman as well as for herself. Chase was drinking ice tea.
"Are you ok?" Cameron asked.
"I suppose," Foreman sighed. "Though I would much rather have been in Chase's shoes, fainting and all, than in mine. I kept hoping to the very end that I would find something, anything that would indicate that we could fix it. I hate giving bad news to people, - well I suppose we all do -, but telling House that his daughter is blind. I would have given anything not to have been the one, even though he already knew. Thank God he wanted to tell Cuddy himself."
"No wonder you have been so glum for the last couple of days," Chase noted. "Given a choice I would not trade with you for anything."
"Why didn't you tell us?" Cameron wanted to know. "Not that the results would have been any different, but we could have helped. You wouldn't have been alone."
"House told me not to," Foreman stated simply. "Had he not needed help with the tests, he wouldn't have told me either. He didn't think it would have been fair that half the hospital knows before he could tell Cuddy."
"Makes sense," Chase agreed. "I sure wouldn't like to be the last one to know if it was my kid."
"I agree," Cameron said. "I think I'd be rather pissed at not being told from the start. House really should have brought Cuddy in the moment he suspected something."
"He said he didn't want to stress her unnecessarily," Foreman shrugged. "It might have turned out to be something fixable and it would have softened the blow. I think that had it taken us longer to be sure, he would have told her soon, anyway. Besides, had we needed Greer to stay in the hospital longer, he would have needed to tell Cuddy why."
"He has been awfully assertive lately," Cameron mused. "He doesn't usually take charge this readily."
"You say that like he hasn't bossed us around mercilessly for the last three years," Chase snorted.
"When Cuddy manages to force him to take on a patient, yes," Cameron pointed out. "The rest of the time he prefers to mind his own business and let others go on with their lives the best they can. I think it's nice to know that when things matter, when it's a question of his own family, he doesn't hesitate."
"For now," Foreman inserted. "He is still interested enough to do it. And I suppose it has some novelty value as well. I just hope that he sticks around long enough for Cuddy to recover from everything."
"You are still expecting him to leave her?" Cameron stared at Foreman. "Even I don't do that anymore! Yeah, I don't know if they are lovers or not, or if whatever it is between them will last, but I do know that he is not going to skip town and leave Cuddy alone with the children. Not gonna happen."
"But then, you see him through rose-coloured spectacles," Foreman sneered.
"What does the man have to do to get you to trust him?" Chase wondered. "He has changed his life to accommodate Cuddy and the kids; he has bought a house and brought his Mother and Aiko's Grandfather in to live with them. He has hired a trained Nanny and even lets the Nanny's boyfriend move in to keep everybody happy. For nearly a year, or at least the better part of it, he has been a dedicated and loving even if somewhat unconventional Daddy to Aiko. He was there for Cuddy all through her pregnancy even during the delivery. Not even once has he shown any signs of wanting things to go back the way they were."
"No?" Foreman asked. "Remember the Ruth Rawls episode?"
"That had nothing to do with his children," Chase insisted. "Yeah, he might have handled that differently, but if he and Cuddy aren't having an affair or anything like that, he is free to seek other company, even one night stands; though I think, given what happened last time, he won't be doing that in a hurry again."
"I still don't think he will stay the duration," Foreman was convinced. "It's eighteen years at least!"
"Why not?" Cameron wondered. "He likes the hospital; he gets to do his thing the way he wants which would not be the case anywhere else. He has roots here, now. Friends, family, a house as Chase said. Where would he go? Why would he go?"
"He cannot stand responsibility," Foreman tried to explain. He couldn't understand how the other two could be so blind. "He hates ties. Friends and family - has he ever cared about them? He may have changed his life, but he hasn't changed himself. When he gets tired of faking it, he'll be gone."
"You know what your problem is Foreman," Chase was starting to get angry. "It's not that you are afraid of turning into House. You're afraid of him turning into you! Just because you bailed out on your family does not mean that he will bail out on his."
"I don't have family," Foreman tried to laugh incredulously. "I have no kids, no wife or whatever Dr Cuddy is to him. I haven't bailed out on anyone."
"No?" Chase sneered. "Not even your parents?"
"I see my parents when I can," Foreman insisted getting angry. "And talking of them, where's House's Dad?"
"Right where he deserves to be," Cameron inserted. "I don't know when the rift between them started or what caused it, but I'm sure it wasn't House's fault. You've met the man! The way he treated Aiko is more than enough to tell me all I want to know about him."
"Besides, Blythe House doesn't seem like a woman who would leave her husband without a very good reason," Chase pointed out. "I'm sure that whatever John House got, John House deserved. Can you say the same about your Dad, Foreman?"
"My mother got ill," Foreman ground through his teeth. "She didn't deserve it. Nor does my Dad. But they are married and Dad does not take his commitments lightly. What should he do in your opinion? Put Mom into a home and go merrily on with his own life?"
"Why not?" Chase shrugged. "That's what you have done. I mean, yeah, the home is her own home and her nurse is her husband but those are mere details. You call when you remember, you send money when you can but you don't visit unless you Dad pretty much forces you to meet her."
"You don't understand," Foreman stared at Chase with almost murder in his eyes. "She doesn't even know who I am when I call. I need to tell her who I am pretty much every time, and even then she doesn't always understand what I'm saying. Visiting would just be too confusing for her."
"Really?" Chase scorned. "You think she remembers who your Dad is any better? Just because he is around every day? You don't think that every morning he doesn't need to tell her who he is; even who she is? You think it gets any easier because you do it everyday? You don't think he would need a break from that just once in a while? That he wouldn't appreciate someone else taking care of her for just a day every now and then?"
"That's why I send him money," Foreman explained. "So that he can hire someone."
"I'm sure he feels real comfortable about leaving her with strangers," Chase replied snidely.
"Hey, guys, easy! Stop before you say something you'll regret," Cameron tried to stop the fight but the men didn't pay any attention to her.
"I'm a stranger to her!" Foreman yelled.
"She may not remember you, but you are not a stranger," Chase told him. "You are her son; and the main point is that your Dad knows that."
"You don't understand," Foreman repeated. "You have no idea what it's like to have your own parent not know who you are."
"No?" Chase sneered. "I spent half my childhood with a mother so stoned out with booze that half the time she didn't know where she was let alone who either one of us was. But did I bail out on her?"
"Oh!" Cameron gasped – again only to be ignored.
"That is different," Foreman tried to insist. "Besides I don't even know why we are talking about this. How do our experiences make any difference to what House will do?"
"They don't," Chase agreed. "But then the conversation was actually about why you don't want to see him for what he is, not about what he will do."
"Well, you have your opinion and I have mine," Foreman shrugged. "Time will tell who is right."
Chase stared at Foreman tightly for a second. "You know, you really don't need to worry about turning into House," he said. "There is a fundamental difference between you two that will guarantee it."
"And what might that be," Foreman snorted contemptuously.
"No matter how hard you try; no matter how badly you want to; no matter what you do: deep down you don't really care," Chase asserted. "While House, no matter how badly he wants it and how hard he tries, cannot not care."
"Oh yeah, he is a regular Mr. Caring!" Foreman scored. "Half the time he doesn't even know who his patient is. Really caring."
"Yes," Chase insisted. "It doesn't matter to him who the patient is. The quality of his mercy does not depend on that. The patient can be young, old, man, woman, rich, poor, nun or felon; that does not matter to him. No matter who you are, if he takes you on, he will put you first. Nothing matters but the patient."
"He doesn't care about the patient," Foreman announced. "You're a fool if you think that! All he cares about is the puzzle, and being right. Once he has solved the puzzle, he couldn't care less about the patient."
"I've seen differently," Chase said quietly. "And so have you, unless you have wilfully closed your eyes, which I rather think you have done because that is the only way you can justify yourself. You know you have done wrong, you know you have practically abandoned your family, but as long as you can tell yourself that at least you're not as bad as House, you don't need to face all that. The problem is that you don't see House as he is; you see him as you want to see him."
"Are you sure you're not the one who sees him as you want and not as he is?" Foreman barked at Chase. "He is an arrogant bastard who does not care about anyone but himself."
"What? Is there trouble in Paradise?" Suddenly they heard House's voice from the doorway leading to the kitchen. "Are my little ducklings fighting?"
"It's nothing," Chase dismissed the argument. "Just a difference of opinion. Not the first time with us."
"I'm sure it's a regular thing," House humoured him. "That's why Cameron seems to be on the verge of tears."
"Am not!" Cameron denied hotly – though in fact she had been feeling like crying with frustration.
"Anyway, that's neither here nor there," House set aside the matter. "I got a call from the hospital. Cameron, Chase, get ready to come with me. We have a case."
"About time," Foreman announced standing up.
"Not you, Foreman," House told him.
"What?" Foreman stared at him. "Are you punishing me for voicing my opinion? Is this what I get for not liking you?"
"If I had heard your opinion, I might, of course, punish you for it," House mused. "But I didn't. As for you not liking me, you never have so for me to start holding it against you now, seems a little pointless. And since when have I needed a reason to make your life miserable?"
"He has a point," Chase observed from the sidelines.
"If what you say is true, then why am I excluded from the case?" Foreman wanted to know.
"Because it would be ethically wrong to have you in it," House replied.
"That didn't really answer my question," Foreman insisted. "Why would it be wrong?"
"Because the patient's name is Marcus Foreman," House dropped his bomb stunning his ducklings into silence.