Chapter 17: Everybody Lies (part 2)

Gabrielle stood in the kitchen, getting dinner ready while Jason sat in his high chair. "Is someone getting tired?" she asked after hearing him yawn.

"No mama," Jason answered.

Gabrielle laughed and looked over to him. "Yes," she argued.

"No!" Jason replied, and then yawned once again.

Gabrielle laughed as she turned back to face the stove. "Okay then," she said.

Andy walked into the room and sat down at the table. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the stack of mail in his hand, the letter. "Did we get anything today?" she asked.

Andy started scanning through it. She could see him briefly stop on one of the envelopes and figured that it was the one from Missy. "Bills," he carefully answered.

Gabrielle briefly raised her eyebrows, keeping her face down towards the stove. She had been hoping that he would mention the letter. Why she was doing this, she didn't really know, maybe she had know that she could trust him when it came to things like this. Then again, maybe he was waiting until after he read it, just to see what it was and then would forget about it.

ooo

House and Cuddy both walked in the door together. House quickly made his way through the living room and into the kitchen, while Cuddy slowly made her way over to the chair in the living room and sat down. It had been a ling day for her since House had found out about the patient. He had been cold and distant. Any thing said between them was her apologizing and him making cutting remarks towards her.

On the couch, Elisabeth and Jessica were both working on a crossword puzzle that they had found. Elisabeth looked up and noticed Cuddy mindlessly staring towards the tv. Jessica noticed her looking over and then turned back to see the same thing. She then looked back to her sister, silently questioning what was going on, and the response she got was to go upstairs. As naturally as they could, they gathered the puzzle and headed up to their room. Jessica stayed slow to make sure that her and Elisabeth stayed together on the staircase.

Elisabeth closed the door behind her as Jessica set the puzzle on the desk. Elisabeth asked her if she saw the way that daddy had hurried away from mom.

Jessica shook her head. "I didn't notice anything until I looked back and saw mom," she explained.

Elisabeth nodded and sat down on the edge of her bed. She knew that they had both been a little stressed out lately, she was just scared of what was going to happen between them now. Deep down, she knew that it was because of her, but she didn't want to say anything.

"What do you think they're fighting over?" Jessica implored.

Elisabeth shrugged and told her it could be anything.

ooo

That night, House and Cuddy both lay silently in bed together. Over dinner that night, they both tried to act normal, but they found that they were both bad actors when it came down to it.

Cuddy looked over, she could see his outline, his back turned to her. "Greg?" she gently called, hoping for a response. Even if she felt that she was right to give the patient to someone else, it was more important to her for them to be talking to each other. She wanted to apologize, and hope for his forgiveness.

"What?" House gruffly asked, not even bothering to sit up, or turn to look to her.

"I'm sorry," she stated.

"I'm sure," House replied.

"Really," Cuddy assured him. She sat there for a moment in the silence before she put her hand on his shoulder.

House finally turned over and looked to her. "Do you think I'm an idiot?" he snapped, sitting up. He saw Cuddy jump back, but didn't even care at this point. "You're not sorry, you still think that you were right."

Cuddy sighed. "Tell me what was so wrong with what I did then," she instructed.

"You treated a grown man like a child. You have told me before that you respect me as a doctor and then you go behind my back and go against everything that you had ever told me. All that talk about respect and trust was all a bunch of bullshit and you want me to thank for being the hypocrite you were," he harshly explained. "What's even worse is I know the second that I go behind your back and do something you'll bitch and moan about it to me for weeks, even after I apologize."

Cuddy sat there, biting her lip. "You wanna know why I did it?" she sternly asked.

"Why? You think of a good lie to tell me in the last few minutes?" he questioned.

Cuddy ignored the comment and went ahead and told him. "The same damn reason that you walk out every time someone around here gets sick or something goes wrong. I was scared."

House looked up to her. He couldn't clearly see her face, but he could hear the pain and upset in her voice.

"I thought that would be something that you of all people would understand," Cuddy spat.

"You were scared that I would walk out on the patient?" he responded. He knew better than that, but something kept him from saying her. A guilt that suddenly overcame him.

"I was scared that you would walk out on your family," she informed him. She sniffled as the tears of frustration fell from her eyes. "I need you Greg, and I didn't want to lose you because I was dumb enough to just hand you a file that would cause you to go overboard," she bitterly explained.

He needed her too, more than she would ever know. He couldn't tell her that though. He wanted to, but he couldn't, he was afraid to. For some stupid reason, he felt like that would make him too vulnerable. "You really think that keeping me from seeing that one file is going to change what's going to happen in a few months?" he inquired.

"You've already given up? You're not even going to try to stick around?" she implored. It wasn't a surprise to her, she hated to hear him give up so quickly.

House just sat there, silently. Now, he was afraid of saying the wrong thing. He knew that he probably would leave when the time came. He did when anything else happened. That wasn't what he wanted to tell her though. He also didn't want to tell her that he wouldn't leave and then end up leaving anyways. It wasn't like he was walking out on their marriage, he was just leaving the situation for a little bit.

"I see," Cuddy flatly stated.

"Oh come on Lisa," House stated, getting irritated, not because of her, but because of the guilt that he felt. "What difference would it make anyways? We could watch each other react? There's nothing that anyone can do. We've already lost. As a matter of fact that was determined twelve years ago when she was born."

"At least we wouldn't be alone," Cuddy replied.

"Yeah," House sighed out, just ready to go to sleep and forget about all of this.

ooo

Gabrielle lay in bed as she watched Andy get ready for bed. He hadn't brought up the letter yet, so she was starting to think that it might have just been nothing. "I forgot to mention earlier, I got a call from Marcy today," Gabrielle started.

"Yeah?" Andy asked, coming to join her in bed. "What did she have to say?"

"Joe proposed to her and she said yes," Gabrielle answered, smiling. She was truly excited for her friend. The last time that she was out to see them, she had brought Joe along with her. Gabrielle had been pretty sure from the start that they would end up getting married.

"Well there you go. You were right," Andy said and then leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.

"I just hope that the wedding isn't until after the baby's born. She wants me to be a bride's maid and it would be pretty bad if I had to cancel on her," Gabrielle explained.

"You didn't tell her about the baby?" Andy questioned, looking to her with confusion.

"Of course not! She was so excited, how could I take the spot light away from her like that?" she implored, acting as if it were common sense.

Andy looked over towards the door and sighed. "I forgot to lock the back door," he said and then stood up. "I'll be back in a minute."

Gabrielle watched him. Something was wrong, there was something on his mind. "Okay," she replied, watching him walk out of the room. Sighing, she laid back and stared up towards the ceiling, thinking maybe there was something in that letter. Either that, or she was becoming paranoid. One or the other.

Andy got downstairs and stopped in the kitchen. Instead of going over to the door, he stopped at the counter where he had set down all the mail and picked out the letter from Missy. The envelope had already been torn from when he had opened it not too long ago. With his fingers, he traced the outline of the flap before he opened it and pulled the letter out, the folded paper that contained the picture of a six year old boy, one that closely resembled him.

Carefully, he put everything back in the envelope and slid the letter into his coat pocket out in the living room before heading back upstairs. In his mind, what Gabrielle didn't know, couldn't hurt her.