Chapter 9

House sat quietly and waited for Kate to begin. This was her story and she needed to tell it in her way.

"I told you before that I never knew my father. He walked out on my mom before I was born. My mother was…nice."

"Ouch." House said.

"No, I don't mean it to sound…she was a good person, she loved me – I know that. She just didn't have much self-esteem. Maybe my dad leaving her contributed to it, maybe she was always like that and that's why she hooked up with a guy who would walk out on a pregnant woman, I don't know. But she believed she needed a man to take care of her. She didn't think she could survive otherwise. And she always picked awful losers, every one of them."

"Did she have any more kids?"

"No, only me. Maybe she couldn't after me? I don't know, I never had the chance to talk to her about it. Anyway, the last of my 'stepfathers' as she called them, although none of them married her, came into our lives when I was about nine. He was the usual self-absorbed bastard, drank too much, treated her like shit." Kate shrugged. "Nothing I hadn't seen before. But when I was ten, he started to take notice of me. And not just as a kid who could run to the store for cigarettes or get him a beer from the fridge."

House knew what was coming next, but realized she needed to say the words to him.

"Classic story. My mom worked nights. He started coming to my room at night. I tried to fight him off, but he was stronger and, of course, he threatened me if I told anyone."

"Kate…" House began.

"That's not the worst part of the story. One night, my mom came home early. They'd had a power outage in the restaurant where she worked and it had to close. When she found him with me, she freaked. I told you, she did love me. She had tried to be the best mom she could. She really had no idea he was doing this. She started hitting him and pulling him away from me. She was screaming at him. He just reached out and slugged her."

Kate stopped and took a deep breath. "She fell and was trying to get up again and he got to his knees and started to strangle her. And then…" Kate hesitated again, then said, "He killed her."

House was silent for a few moments. "So you saw this asshole kill your mother and that's the source of your nightmares?"

Kate nodded.

"Well, thank you for telling me. I know it had to be hard to say it, especially if you're still feeling trauma over it."

Kate nodded again.

"And when you're ready to tell me the rest of it, I'll be ready to listen."

Kate looked at him. "What are you talking about? I just told you…"

"You told me part of the story. But there's something else there. You're not ready to say it and I can respect that. So if you want to hold on to it, fine. I'll be here when you're ready."

He walked into the other room and sat down at the piano. She heard him begin to play softly. She felt the tears begin to well in her eyes. Damn it, she never cried. She couldn't begin now. She wouldn't.

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Kate tried to keep to herself during the next few days. Apart from the times House had to help her with dressing or eating, etc., she tried to avoid being near him. It frustrated him, but he knew she needed space and time to come to terms with whatever was on her mind. He hated being hounded about something and he refused to do it to her.

That didn't stop him from doing some research on his own. He went on the internet and looked up news stories. Since Kate was 35, her mother's death had occurred 24 years ago. He also knew she'd lived in Philadelphia as a child. He assumed a violent death would have at least made the newspapers, even in a large city.

It took him some time to research, but eventually he found the story:

A woman was killed after attacking her boyfriend in their West Philadelphia

apartment last night. Roberta Martin, 29 apparently found Stan Towson, 40,

attacking her daughter, Katherine, 11. Martin struck the man with a blunt object

before he fought back and strangled Martin. After strangling his girlfriend,

Towson fell and succumbed to the blow, dying instantly. The child, witness

to these events, is now in protective custody while authorities search for relatives.

Kate hadn't told him about Towson dying at the scene as well. Other than that, the incident seemed to be just as she had said. But as he sat there and thought about what he had just read, he realized what she was hiding from him.

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Kate continued to try to avoid House as much as she could. She had use of her right arm now and the cast was going to be removed from her fingers in a few days. Although she would still have the wrist cast for another two weeks and needed to do extensive physical therapy on her right arm, she would not be as incapacitated as she was. House knew she would choose to return to her home and he would never see her again.

His fears were confirmed the night before the first casts were to be removed, when she told him she would be leaving.

"You don't have to." He said to her.

"Yes, I do. You don't really want me here."

"What makes you think that?"

"You don't believe me. You don't believe what I told you."

"I believe what you told me. You just didn't tell me the real reason you're having your nightmares."

"Really? So seeing my mother murdered isn't enough?"

"It might be, if that's all that happened. But it's not. You're having nightmares because you killed the man who murdered your mother."

Kate was totally speechless. House waited while she struggled to talk. When she did, she was almost incoherent. "How…what…why would you say that?"

"Because that's what happened. I read the newspaper article. It couldn't have happened that way. Your mother hit him on the head with a blunt object, a blow that killed him a few minutes later, but, in the meantime, he had enough strength to not only hit her, but strangle her. Couldn't happen. He might have hit her, but to strangle her? And then fall over and die." House shook his head. "This is what happened: Just as you said, your mother found him with you. He hit her, strangled her. You picked up something and hit him with it."

Kate was staring at him, still in shock. Then, with tears starting, she bowed her head. In a small voice she said, "My soccer trophy. I had just gotten it the week before and it was on my night table because I was so proud of it. I've never liked soccer since then."

House just looked at her. "The cops knew what happened, but they protected you because you were just a kid. That's why you looked up to cops, why you wanted to be one when you grew up. They were the only good guys you knew."

"Officer Gallagher. Neighbors heard the screaming, called the cops, and he was the first one to arrive. I was curled up in a corner, crying. I still had the trophy in my hand. He was experienced enough to figure out what happened. He was also a father and didn't want to see me go through what he knew I would have to go through. He took the trophy from me and put it in my mother's hand. Then he called for backup."

"Nobody questioned that explanation because Towson was such a bastard. It was obvious he had raped you and killed your mother. No need for a kid to suffer for that."

Kate wiped her eyes, swallowing back the rest of her tears. "Okay, so now you know what a mess I really am."

"No more of a mess than the rest of us."

Kate gave a bitter laugh. "I'm a murderer. If it was revealed, I could go to jail."

House tapped his cane a few times on the floor. "You or any of your cop friends ever kill someone?"

"Of course they have. When I was still in uniform, my partner killed a drug dealer that was about to shoot me."

"Wow, how long did your partner stay in jail for that?"

"He didn't go to jail, it was in the line of duty."

"Oh, because the bad guy was trying to kill you."

"I see where you're going. He was trying to kill my mom, so I was just saving her. It's not the same thing."

"No, it's not the same. But's it's also not your fault. No jury would ever have convicted you. First of all, you were a kid. A kid who had been raped continually by this guy. At the time that you hit him, did you know your mom was dead?"

"No."

"Right. So you thought that if you stopped him, you could save your mother. Sounds like defense of a loved one to me."

"If that's so easy, why do I still have nightmares about it?" she demanded, her voice rising.

"First of all it's not easy, nothing is. But I bet your nightmares got worse once you became a cop, and especially when you became a homicide detective. Your sense of law and order's been compromised."

Kate thought about that for a few moments. "You may be right. But that doesn't change anything. I am what I am and you are what you are. There's no future for us. I'm still leaving tomorrow."

With those words, Kate left the room and went to bed.

House stood there looking at the floor for a long time. Finally, he went to the cupboard where he pulled out a bottle of scotch and a glass.