A big thanks to all of you who read it!
I've been getting lots of FF alerts and I'm quite happy about it! =)
And an even bigger thanks to my dear beta supershipper!
As always, reviews are much appreciated!
My dear Wilson will tell us more now, but rest assure it's aaaaaalll about Cuddy! ;)
I was on my way back from the psychiatric facility, but my mind was actually far away, replaying the latest events and trying to look for a sign of what had happened. How did it get to this point? Did I miss something? It was always hard when it came to House since he was the master of not letting people know what was really going on. At least with him there, we could throw things in each other's faces, analyze each other's behavior in our own unique way. Sometimes pretend to know the other one was lying and sometimes pretend we didn't. With him gone, I was left with that absence. And to a neurotic man like me, that was hard to deal with.
That was when my phone started ringing. It was Cuddy. Damn, this was going to be tough. I knew she wouldn't let me get away with any evasive answers and I knew I couldn't tell her everything House had told me. I had promised him that, even though I knew I was a terrible liar, and Cuddy wouldn't stop until she got what she wanted.
"Hello."
"Hi, Wilson." She sounded anxious and I could tell she wanted to know if House was still with me in the car.
"He's gone, Cuddy, I'm coming back home now."
"How… how was everything?"
"The only way it could have been. Sad, intense… I think it was really brave of him to want to get himself admitted. It's out of our hands now."
"Did he… tell you anything?"
"What do you mean?"
"About…" She paused for a second, trying to see if I'd interrupt. "About what he's been experiencing lately."
"I already knew he was hallucinating. He had been seeing Amber for a couple of weeks." I knew what she wanted to know, but I promised House I wouldn't get into this subject with her. I was hoping she would believe he hadn't told me anything specific.
"I guess I just still can't believe it."
"Are you at the wedding?" I tried to change the subject.
"Yes. It was a beautiful ceremony. I wish you could have been here. I wish everyone could."
"I know, Cuddy."
That was when I heard Rachel babbling something at the phone.
"I guess she wants to talk to you, too." Cuddy said and I could picture her smiling now. Definitely in a more joyful spirit.
"How is she, by the way?"
"Beautiful as always and today looking like a princess wearing the light green dress uncle Jimmy gave her."
"Ah, the light green dress that was too big." I remembered, a little embarrassed for having guessed the wrong size.
"Oh, stop it! It fits her perfectly now."
"Take a picture of her, okay? I want to see her in it."
"I will… or… you could come and pick us up, congratulate Cameron and Chase and we can talk on the way home."
I knew Cuddy was having a hard time. I knew I was in no condition to talk about House now or engage in any weird games, which would only lead to her dragging things out of me. But I had to step up. Actually, the truth was I could never resist a woman in need. And there were two girls needing me right now. Rachel was too little to understand that she needed a father figure, a male influence, but she did, and Cuddy was too stubborn to admit she needed a friend. She was reaching out, opening a door, and I knew she wouldn't do it twice. So I agreed.
I was in a bad shape myself. Ever since House and I met and became friends – which happened instantly – he was the most constant thing in my life. I had been through three divorces and I had been there when Stacy left. I had watched him become the man he is today. I guess I could say our friendship, in some weird way, was responsible for a great part of who I am today.
Being the one with the least commitment issues, I actually managed to make some other friends over the years. A couple of them had told me more than once that they didn't understand why House and I stayed friends since people always witnessed him saying horrible things to me. One of them actually said that I enjoyed being treated like his bitch. It wasn't that. It wasn't that at all.
In his own deranged way, he was the most sincere and honest person I had ever met. He was the only one who had the balls to tell me the naked truth about my failed marriages and my life as a whole.
I admired him, I looked up to him. He had the guts to do lots of things I wish I had. And being near him was my way of feeling capable of doing such things.
I almost didn't realize I was already parking the car at the wedding reception. I tried to shake those thoughts away as I needed to walk in there pretending I had been called on a medical emergency. No one knew about House's condition and no one should until we heard back from the hospital. We weren't sure how long he'd be gone, we didn't know the extent of his illness and people would start gossiping if we told them anything now. It was time to put on my best poker face and face the party.
Later on, I found myself driving Cuddy and Rachel back home, we were all exhausted from the long journey that the day had been. We made small talk most of the way, I guess both trying to postpone the inevitable - a conversation about House.
Hours before, House had been sitting there right where Cuddy was and he had told me about what he hallucinated the night before. I was speechless because of something specific that he said and that was why I had to find a way to ask Cuddy about their past without her knowing why.
"So what now?" She finally said.
"Now we wait… to hear from the doctors."
"This is going to be extremely hard for him. And the worst part is he's going to have to go through it alone."
"You know him, even if he didn't have to, he would choose to." She said.
"Go through it alone, you mean?"
"Of course."
"I've had my share of friends having problems with drugs, with the police, even mental illnesses and although it is a lonely road to be traveled inside those facilities, the support of friends and family always helps. Maybe we can even visit him later on." I tried to comfort her.
"Oh, I'm not going. I know he wouldn't want me to. But you absolutely should go."
"I will, but what makes you so sure he won't want to see you?"
"You heard the things he said in your office. He won't want to see me." She sounded really hurt.
"He's an idiot."
"I never said otherwise."
"I guess he has always been like that, right?"
"I… guess…" She said trying to read my expressions. She was on to me. She knew I was trying to get some information.
"You don't guess. You know." I pushed it too far.
"Is there anything you want to ask me, Wilson?"
"No, I just… I've always wondered how the two of you met, that's all."
"And I'm sure after all these years, House never told you…" She was being sarcastic.
"He didn't."
"You are lying. And you suck at it." She was right.
"I know. I was just curious."
"If you really want to know… I was still an undergrad back at Michigan when I heard about Gregory House, the legend. He had been transferred from Johns Hopkins and all the girls talked about the handsome genius boy with the destructive behavior. He was himself a contradiction, something I had always been drawn to.'
"The girls would talk about him in the dorms, during lunch breaks, always gossiping about his latest prank."
"I observed him from a distance, never once let it escape my lips anything about me being attracted to him. That's the kind of girl I was: discreet, skilled and I knew what I wanted."
"I decided to audit his endocrinology class. I guess I just wanted an excuse to be near him and away from my girlfriends. Just a chance to get to know him. And I wanted to know so much more than he was letting on."
"We became friends really quickly. We would stay talking after class, occasionally meet at parties, but we had a weird dynamic."
"Our friendship was always a secret. If anyone asked, I'd say: "Yeah, I've heard of him." He would, as I came to know later, of course, tell people we were only sleeping together. No one believed it, because no one would believe I would actually be envolved with a guy like him."
"Wow! And here I thought college years were over."
"Shut up! Do you want to hear the story or not?"
"Please, go on…"
"Well, there was something about him. He had a way of making me feel smart. Somehow everything got more interesting when we were studying together. Well, most of the time he was tutoring me."
"And so an endocrinologist was born."
"I know you miss him, Wilson, but stop analyzing me."
"I just thought that was worth mentioning since…"
"Don't you think I know? Don't you think I'm well aware of every little aspect of my life that has Gregory House's signature on it?"
Cuddy was almost screaming at me. She just burst out in anger. It definitely looked like she hadn't talked about that in ages. To my surprise, she calmed down quickly and continued the story. I could tell by her eyes she was enjoying this conversation, well it was more like a monologue at that point.
"So I was getting to know Greg, as opposed to the House everyone else know, or at least thought they did. We just had the most amazing conversations about everything. There even were a few times when it got very intimate and dramatic. One night, after burying ourselves in the books, I asked him about his father and why he'd never mentioned him. He told me some awful things, I'm sure you know most of them, but what hurt me the most was to hear that he hadn't forgiven his mom for enabling his dad's way of disciplining him. And I could tell by the way he was telling the story, that he actually loved her more than he could bear."
I was listening intently.
"You may find that hard to believe but it was 4 a.m. and we had drunk a lot of wine."
And she stopped.
"On that night he revealed something to me I could tell he hadn't shared with anyone. On that night, he stole a piece of my heart. But I guess I didn't know it back then. Just kept saying he was like the best male friend I'd ever had."
"So that's when you two…?"
"When we what?"
"Slept together, Cuddy!"
"Slept together? What makes you think we…?"
"Well, you know, giving how…"
"Greg hooked up with lots of girls back then and I had my share of fun as well. You know what med school is all about, right?" She didn't deny it.
"Oh, I certainly do. But what part of that story exactly is supposed to prove that he has always been a jerk?"
"We had good and bad days. One night, at a party, something happened and it changed things for me. Everyone was back at school after spring break. Well, almost everyone. I knew Greg had gone home to be with his family, but I didn't know if he had come back yet or not, so I was looking forward to seeing if he would be there."
"As it turned out, that was the night that left a stain in our relationship forever. A friend of mine called me up as I was talking to Mark, a guy I had been flirting with since the semester before. He was just so dreamy, but I never got to understand what went on between us. Sometimes I thought he was gay, others I was absolutely sure he wanted to do me. I was about to find out which when Lauren came to find me, she was a little short of breath, pushed me to the side and just said:
'Sorry, Lisa, but I thought you should know that Greg is upstairs and he's not well.'
"I got upstairs and found him laying on the bathroom floor completely drunk and with his pupils dilated.
'Oh, God, what did you take?'
'Don't tell me you've never seen a man drunk. You are such a nun, Lisa!"
'Stop being a jerk. I know you took something.'
'You can be such a bitch when you PMS.'
'You don't know what you're saying!'
'Of course I know. Look at the size of your boobs…' And he just motioned to grab my breast and got a slap in the face. His cheek became red with the shape of my hand.
'Get your ass off of the bathroom floor. I'm taking you away from here.'
'I'm not going anywhere with you! You are a stupid bitch! You can't even take care of yourself, how dare you try to mother me? Who do you think you are? Trying to give me a lesson in good behavior after getting knocked up by a guy you didn't even know the name.'
'You are out of your mind! Screw you!' And with that I left another mark on his other cheek and just walked out of there crying."
"I had never seen him yelling like that, trying to hurt me like that. Or anyone for that matter. He was kind to me. Nowadays, when I watch him in pain yelling at me and throwing things in my face, I know what he's capable of and I know why he does it. I know he's not well. When he told me last year that it was good I failed to become a mom because I sucked at it, it hurt me more to know that he was in more pain than he could take than what he said per se."
"Wait… knocked up?"
"I don't like talking about it, Wilson, but yes, I had an abortion and House helped me through it. I spent months in a really bad shape and he was very sweet. Never told anyone and when I started freaking out about what I had done he'd just comfort me with his rationalizations. It actually helped."
"Wow…"
She stopped for a second as I searched desperately for something to say.
"Sometimes I still think about it, you know, last year with all of my failed attempts to become a mom, I started thinking I was being punished somehow for what I had done in the past."
"Oh, God, Lisa, please tell me you don't actually believe that."
"Not anymore." That was when she turned her head to Rachel who was sleeping like an angel in the backseat. Cuddy was smiling now.
"Well, anyway… the night of the party I went back to my dorm and just cried myself to sleep. He was the only person who knew about that and I had told him that in confidence. The moment he started throwing all of it in my face was the moment I started second guessing my decision and freaking out all over again. It had only been two months.
"The next day I woke up with a terrible headache and still alone in my room, since my roommate wouldn't be back for two more days. I ran into House's roommate during lunch and he just started making excuses for him:
'Hey, Lisa. Feeling better?'
'I'm fine, Mike'
'You know Greg is not, right?'
'I really don't care.'
"He knew we were really close friends and of course he must have heard the fight because I remember the moment I walked out, I saw him coming into the bathroom.
'I just thought I'd let you know that he's not well. He didn't tell me much but I guess things weren't easy at home during the holidays. He's on antidepressants and you saw how drunk he was.'
"Mike was playing with my guilt. With that, he left me in the cafeteria, and I thought of going to check on Greg about a thousand times. Never did it though. I couldn't let him hurt me like that. He would have to come and apologize to me. But of course this never happened."
"Wow..."
"Is that all you can say?"
It was, really.
"You want to tell me something, don't you?" There she was again trying to find out what I knew.
"I… no, no."
"I'll just wait here until you start talking."
"House… told me about what he hallucinated yesterday."
"And are you going to tell me?"
"He just said he thought you had helped him detox from the vicodin." I was playing safe, trying to find out how much she knew.
"I know."
"It's getting late, Cuddy, I really should go." We were parked in front of her house for a couple of hours talking while Rachel slept soundly.
"You know something that you don't want to tell me, Wilson."
"And the two of you are going home now and while Rachel sleeps, you are going to stop obsessing over this. I gave them your card as you asked me to and they should be calling you soon. Let me know, okay?"
"This conversation isn't over, you know that, right?"
"Bye, dear."
So I went home, almost sure she hadn't told me the whole story. Truth was I hadn't told her the whole story either. That's what we did when it came to House: we lied.
