Chapter 23

Don't Look Back

On Wednesday Teagan felt him coming closer, but it had been so long since they had connected, she wasn't sure what direction he was coming from. He could be in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San Diego...anywhere on the west coast. But it still made her nervous. She had trouble sleeping that night, worried that he might try to see her.

On Thursday morning Teagan packed up Gregory and went to pick the last of the blackberries. House was thinking about her and managing to get through. She opened the gate trying to try and determine just how close he was.

"Hello Teagan." House kept repeating as he drove closer. "I'm in California; would you like to see me?"

She didn't want to answer, let him know that she cared or even heard. Hoping that he would get discouraged and go away, she shut the gate.

When he passed the lodge he saw Yolanda out front giving directions to a tourist. As the managers, Yolanda and her husband knew the comings and goings of everyone in Aspen Valley. She smiled to herself when she saw him. House looked at her and they both waved at each other. Continuing, House turned left on Mather Road and then into Teagan's drive.

He first noted that Teagan's truck was parked in the drive. He hopped out of the car and went to the door. He knocked, but there was no answer. He knew that the door would be unlocked, but before he opened the door Fred passed by.

"Hey Greg!" House turned around as Fred leaned out his window. "I saw her go to the Blackberry patch this morning. Good to see you, gotta run, but let's catch up later." Fred leaned back in and drove off.

House went back to his car and grabbed a baseball cap, taking off for the Blackberry patch. His heart was racing, realizing he hadn't been this excited in a long time, he grabbed his cane and took off.

Gregory and I were half way through picking the morning haul when Gregory let me know, quite loudly, that he needed a snack. I stopped, sat down on the blanket in the warm morning sun and let him nurse. I had closed the gate because it was making me so nervous I was getting sick to my stomach, but I still felt him coming, relentlessly coming. I knew he had to be close, maybe already in Yosemite, maybe on his way from San Francisco. I decided that I needed to get out of Aspen Valley because I knew he was going to show up any moment. As soon as Gregory stopped nursing I had decided that I was going to run back to the house, get in the truck and take off. I switched Gregory to the other breast when Molly ran barking into the woods. My heart fluttered, I knew I had run out of time. Opening the gate wide, I could feel him and how excited he was. His heart was accelerated, his mind racing, all he could think about was holding me, touching me. Molly came running out of the forest wagging her tail and right behind her was Greg. He was beautiful, so tall and lean. His beard was turning grayer and so was his hair. But he was essentially the same man who had shared my bed. I felt his shock when he saw Gregory at my breast. His excitement turned to confusion and curiosity.

"Teagan? What's going on?" He asked, brow furred, eyes narrowed.

"Hello Greg, how are you doing?" She responded, smiling at him.

"Don't evade my question. You're nursing a baby." He hesitated and looked up to the heavens in frustration, "This is my baby?" There was silence, no response, "Is this my baby?"

Teagan looked down at Gregory and stroked his hair, "Yes." She pulled Gregory off of her breast and he started crying. Pulling her shirt down, she started grabbing her things and putting them in the backpack to make a run for it. She picked the backpack up, the burlap sack of berries and instead of putting Gregory on her back, she balanced him on her hip in a sling.

House grabbed her upper arm and stopped her. She looked down at his hand on her arm and then into his eyes. He shook his head, "Why didn't you tell me?"

"You'd try to fix it. It would be a puzzle and you would try to put it together, make it work, find a solution."

He looked deep into her eyes and held her gaze for almost a minute without saying anything. Then he took the sack of berries from her and they walked quietly back to the cabin. He kept stealing glances at the baby. Teagan could feel his curiosity about his son. When they got back to her cabin, she put down the backpack and handed the baby to House. He looked down at her and hesitated, finally taking the baby in his, he cradled him. She could feel House trying hard to be indifferent, but his heart was melting, morphing from anger and pain to curiosity and affection. As she put the berries in the kitchen, she felt his emotions change back to anger, anger at her.

"Wilson told me you were working like a slave when he was here, that your feet were swollen and raw from being on your feet all day." His anger started to increase along with the volume of his controlled voice, "I don't understand you! Are you some f#ckin martyr? I could have helped you; you didn't have to go through this alone." He realized he was holding the baby and so he calmed down. Gregory was staring up at his Dad with wide blue eyes. Obviously, the baby wasn't used to someone yelling. Gregory's face screwed into a mass of red wrinkled and he started screaming.

House tried to hand him back to Teagan. She laughed, "Hell no, you can start helping now. There you go Greg, take care of your son, I've got to go pee."

House looked at her with sheer fright, "That's not funny, he obviously needs some of that stuff you're packing. I don't nurse very well."

"He needs you to shut up and rock him." She yelled over her shoulder as she disappeared into the bathroom.

House looked back at Gregory and yelled through the door of the bathroom, "What's his name?"

He heard her muffled voice come through, "Gregory...."

He was even more confused about all of this, "Gregory, come on buddy, what have you got to be upset about? You get a breast in your face every day. Enjoy it now buddy, enjoy it because it will be a long time before you get one in your face again and you'll have to work really hard before that happens again."

Gregory started to calm down as House talked calmly to him and bounced him up and down in his arms. When Teagan got out of the bathroom, House was in the rocker talking to the baby like he was a member of his team.

"And don't be a moron and crap in your own pants. You've got to get control over that...that's what they call anal retentive...if your mom screws with your head then you can blame her for toilet training you too soon. It's a good fallback position."

"What are you talking about? You're having your first conversation with your son about sticking me with his psych bill?" She laughed.

"He needs to know these things."

He sat for an hour asking her questions about her and the baby. "When you were in the hospital, do you remember sending me a message?"

"I don't, I really don't. I was pretty sick. I was in the hospital for four days and three nights. But since then I have been better, healthier."

"That must have been expensive. I didn't help with the pregnancy; let me help you with the hospital bills."

"They're already paid."

"That had to be several thousands of dollars...how did you do it?"

"I just sold a few things and scraped it together."

It finally dawned on him that she had sold the Mustang. "You didn't sell the Mustang?" She didn't say anything. "Damn, I would have bought it from you, kept it for Gregory." He could see it really pained her and he wasn't helping, "I'm sorry."

She was looking down, talking to her shoes, "I sold it before I got sick. I needed a cushion, you know, I didn't want to be living hand to mouth." Looking up, she gave him a shrug and a half-hearted smile, "It was just a machine."

He knew it was more than a machine, but she had made that sacrifice for Gregory. She did it without griping or feeling sorry for herself. This sacrifice was so foreign to him. Feelings of guilt washed over him, he knew that he was too selfish to do what she did. He was too selfish to make the sacrifices he knew would be necessary if this relationship was to work. He was beginning to see that she was right, the relationship was doomed.

Looking at him, she put a hand to her throat and sighed, "So, where were we? I can tell that you want to figure things out, fix this. You need things to be right in the world. Greg, you can't solve this puzzle. I can't go into your world yet and you can't join mine. It's too long distance for any relationship to have a chance, especially since I'm not exactly reachable by today's standards. I appreciate that you want to make it work, but please be realistic, you just can't."

He hated her for being so realistic, for knowing that there was no easy solution. He looked at the baby and it finally hit him that he was a father. A father. He had never wanted to be a father. It made him think of his own father and realized that he had never been taught how to be a good father. He didn't know how to be a father. He could play music, he could practice medicine, he could be witty, he could be an ass...but he couldn't be a father, he didn't know how. What was he suppose to do? A tiger can't change its stripes. He knew that he could walk out and never contact her again and she wouldn't ask him for anything. He knew he had an out and it hurt. It hurt because he knew that he would probably take it.

Looking at her with pain written all over his face, "I don't have any answers."

"Greg, leave me. Leave us. I don't need the stress of trying to accommodate a long distance relationship. I can feel that you don't want to be a father, that it scares you. I want to be a mother so leave and forget that you know about the baby. I won't ask anything from you and when he gets older I'll tell him that you didn't know about him, that it wasn't your fault. He may show up on your doorstep, but he'll blame me for keeping you apart, not you. You don't have to solve this, this isn't a puzzle."

"How can I do that, just leave?"

"It's easy, just turn the key and let the car take you back from wherever you came." She let the gate open and let him feel that she really was ok with him going, that it would be alright and for the best. She let him feel that she understood and didn't judge him. She knew that he wanted to be more, but that he couldn't. They would be alright without him. There was a silence so full of sadness that she couldn't look at him.

It was unfair; he hated the fact that she was once again letting him off the hook. House looked down at his son and handed him back to Teagan. He stood up, giving her a look that said how guilty he felt. He took the keys out of his pocket and got in the car. Teagan didn't follow, she stayed inside and held her son close to her. Teagan kept sending him feelings of understanding and kindness to make him not hate himself. In her own way, she wanted him to leave now. If he left now, it was because he couldn't handle being a father. If he stayed and then left them later, he would be leaving her and Gregory, not fatherhood. That would hurt even more.

House drove into Yosemite but he wasn't really paying attention to how beautiful it was. He was consumed with how he was going to be able to live with himself. How could he abandon his son when he knew how much it hurt to grow up without your father.

Wilson was shocked to see House back by noon. "What happened?"

"She wasn't there."

"Are you going to try tomorrow?"

"No. I'll give it a rest."

Wilson screwed up his face in disbelief, "What happened?"

"I was driving there and realized that you were right, that Patricia deserved better. You should be proud of yourself; you finally managed to make me feel guilty. It's a milestone."

"Then why don't I feel like I've done a good thing?" Wilson remarked.

When the women returned, they all went to dinner.

"The hike was beautiful, but we didn't go all the way to Glen Aulen. The drive was much longer than you told us, Greg and so was the hike. But, you were right about one thing, it was the most beautiful walk I've ever been on." Patricia said.

House, on his fourth double whiskey, had been funny when they first sat down, but as the evening progressed, he turned mean, always throwing out an acerbic comment.

Patricia was embarrassed, "Greg, don't be such a jerk."

"I'll be nicer if you'll be smarter."

She clenched her teeth, "You're such an ass. We're here to have fun and I can't say anything a wiseass remark from you."

He snickered, "Well, we all bring something to the table Patricia, can I suggest you bring silence?"

Patricia said very little the rest of the night, which ended quickly after the mean was over. When House and Patricia went back to their room, the atmosphere was decidedly frosty. As they climbed into bed Patricia, hurt and angry, gave House a look of disgust.

"Whaaa?" House looked her in the eye.

"You were cruel at dinner. There was no excuse for it."

"Hey, if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. Why don't you come over here, we can work on makeup sex." He wiggled his eyebrows at her.

"You're not very appealing right now. I'd rather sleep with Ted Bundy, at least he left you dead after a date. You leave a person bleeding and wishing they were dead."

"Okay, fine, if you don't want sex, how about a blow job?"

"You must be joking...I don't want you touching me and I'm certainly not going to touch you." She was so angry it came spitting out of her mouth.

"I can do that. Come on, the world knows I'm a selfish jerk. My motto has always been, if it's not in my best interest then why should I care about it?'"

"What's going on with you?" She asked.

His face turned sad. "Do you want children Patricia?" He laid his head back on the pillow as the world was spinning around him.

Her arms across her chest, "No, I don't. Why do you ask?"

"You're perfect. Have I ever told you that you're perfect?" He said it without sarcasm.

She was now totally confused, "No, you haven't"

"Well I should have. Come here and let me feel you up."

She laughed and scooted over to him. As they made out, she reached down to play with him. For several minutes they continued to kiss and feel each other's body. Diving under the covers, Patricia gave House what he had asked for. But what he really wanted was to be punished. He wanted someone to make him hurt for what he had done that morning.

The next morning he was sober and spiteful. He went to the seminar while the women took their car and went to the Valley to walk about.

Patricia noticed that there was very little gas in the car despite the fact that they had filled up in Oakhurst before entering the Park. She had to fill up at the Wawona gas station for the trip to the Valley. When she returned to Wawona she confronted House at lunch. "You're acting like an ass because you went and saw her, didn't you? What, did she kick you to the curb?"

When House said nothing, Watson started in, "House, you said that she wasn't home. Did you see her?"

He snapped back, "Yes, I saw her."

Jennifer had an idea of what had happened. House was a daddy and either he left her or she kicked him out. She finally spoke up, "You saw your child and it's eating you up isn't it?"

Wilson looked at her with an amusement, "What are you talking about?"

House was clearly shocked, his mouth slightly opened, his brow knitted about his piercing eyes. How did she know?

Jennifer turned to Wilson,"I found out she was pregnant when we were here, but she begged me not to say anything."

"That's why you wanted to know if I wanted kids?" Patricia pressed him. "Is Jennifer right?"

"I saw her and when I saw the baby I turned my back and walked out on them. Are you all happy?"

There was dead silence. Finally Wilson said, "You just walked out on your own child?"

House knew Wilson really wanted kids and would love to have a son. Looking Wilson squarely in the eye, "I walked out on my son. Didn't look back." He tossed down his scotch.

Wilson said nothing. Patricia, horrified, jumped up and went back to the room. Jennifer stood up and nodded for Wilson to come with her which he did. House sat alone at the table with his empty glass.