Wilson parked his car in front of Cuddy’s house. The silence was still filling the air around them since they left Mary’s home. The awkwardness of it was shouting the absence of words that could possibly express how they felt after what Doctor Mary told them. Seconds later Cuddy broke it.
“How… could it… have it come to this, Wilson?” Her voice was lost and his eyes focused on the street.
“I don’t know…”
“Do you want to come in?” She spoke as she opened the door.
“Only if you need me.”
Cuddy took a deep breath and the silence filled the air again. “Should I… should I visit him, Wilson?”
“I think you should.” Wilson was certain on his words. He, beyond anyone, wish the two of them could make things right, NOT that it should be like before… but they should talk.
“What… what am I gonna say?” Cuddy stared at Wilson, her eyes red in tears she didn’t allow to fall.
“I can’t answer that, Cuddy… I’m sorry. I’m not in a situation like yours, so I don’t know how it feels. I’m his friend so I say things to him that I would say if nothing of this had happened… but…”
“Ok, Wilson.” She stepped out of the car.
“Still need me to come in?”
“No, thanks. I need to be alone.”
“Just call me if you need.”
Cuddy stepped inside her house and closed the door. She leaned her back against it and closed her eyes slowly while pictures of a past broadcast inside her head, a past that would not leave her alone and would never come back. The way he would wake up after a long night of pure love, laying on his stomach and sprawled in the bed in a tangle with the blankets, the way she would lay on that beautiful back and hear his breathing, his heart beat, his soul in a moment of serenity, the way his crazy hair would be crazier in the morning and the way she would caress it while he was sleepy, the way she would laugh on his sweetie hard mood when he woke up in the Mondays, she would always make him smile after pissing him about his mood, the way his eyes would sparkle just to see her, wonderful shiny blue eyes piercing her soul making everything else in the word fade away… These would never come back. It was all memories broken in the billion pieces of sand that formed the dust.
“Oh God, what have I done?” Cuddy hid his face in her hands as her back slide through the door until she could sit at the floor.
**
“Hey, baby…” House approached her and kissed soft her lips.
Cuddy was sat at the grass of her backyard looking at the stars. She had to tell him. He sat by her side and looked at the direction she was looking.
“Either you are solving some equation about the black holes and the principle of the uncertainty or you are about to tell me something I won’t like…” He looked at her and smiled. She just looked back at him and took a deep breath.
“Hey, I know I’ve been hard to deal with lately and I’m sorry about that… I just…” House spoke a little embarrassed.
“I cheated on you.” She didn’t look at him but spoke directly. House stared at her with a uncertainty and surprised face, as If his brain couldn’t process what she had just told him.
“Wh…what?”
“I’m sorry, Greg.” She looked down where she was playing with the grass. She couldn’t face him, she couldn’t handle to see the hurt in his face, and she could NOT handle to see the damage, another greater damage she had done to him.
House stared at the previous direction unable to say a word, unable to even process a word. His brain had stopped the moment she said “cheated on you”. A moment of silence filled the air. She could hear his unstable breathing like he was about to cry his heart out and was holding the tears with all his powers. That sound was the cruelest thing she had ever heard in her life and she felt like she was the greater devil hanging around in the world doing damage to people who were already too much damaged.
“Why… why would you do that?” His voice was trembling and broken, but puzzled.
“I’m sorry, Greg…things were not good between us…”
“And is it reason enough for you to fuck another guy? It’s not even a reason.” He interrupted now angry.
“Greg…” She finally looked at him and her heart exploded when she saw his eyes, his blue eyes was a shadow behind an ocean of tears he would not allow to fall.
“You are a coward, Lisa.” He grabbed his cane and stood up.
“Greg, wait.” She stood up and grabbed his arm.
“Get off of me.”
“I know it’s not a reason but I was lost, I didn’t know how to deal with you. You don’t talk to me, Greg, you don’t let me help you when you need…”
“I don’t need your help…”
“YOU are a coward.” She shouted at his face. “You are afraid to show me that even you, the Greater Gregory House, have your vulnerabilities and it’s frustrating because…”
“It’s not vulnerability, It’s pain.” He shouted back.
“I don’t see any difference.” She shouted back and they stared at each other.
“Let go off me.” He spoke angry, but she didn’t listen.
“Do you have any idea how hard it is to see you in pain and don’t be able to do anything? Do you know how it feels to see you cry alone while the pain devours you with no compassion? You don’t know that, Greg!!” She raised her voice.
“How could it possibly justify what you did!?” He raised his voice back.
“It doesn’t! I feel guilty every second I see you in pain…”
“I never blamed you and you know that!”
“Then why don’t you let me help you! For Christ’s sake, Greg! I love you!.”
“Don’t you dare saying that!!”
She closed her eyes and let go of his arm.
“Greg…” Her eyes were in tears and she didn’t care to let them fall.
“I have anterograde amnesia when I’m in pain. That’s why I’ve never let you near me, Lisa. I could hurt you pretty bad without knowing what I’m doing.” He turned and walked away.
“What?!!” She blocked his way.
“Leave me alone.”
“Greg… I’m sorry… I needed someone to talk to, I needed someone to be there and you weren’t. I don’t know what happened to you the last few months…”
“So then you decided to fuck another guy so you could chat with him about my pain and how I’m an egoistic jerk who won’t let you help me for you to feel less guilty… and how did you two chat… Moans? In a foreplay? In the middle of the sexy? For god’s sake, Lisa! You are worse then I am.” She slapped him. Jesus Christ, he did know how to hurt deep inside.
“Get out of my way.”
“No.” She said angry.
“What do you want from me?” He said angry.
“I don’t know… I don’t want you to go.”
“Oh, come on. You won’t be alone… you have your dirty little secret to wash your tears.”
“Stop it!” She shouted. “Stop hiding behind your sarcasm, I can see you need to cry and you are proud enough to even when you are completely destroyed not cry in front of people.”
“You gotta be kidding.” He laughed soft and looked away. “You are the last person in this world I will cry over its shoulder after what you did to me.” Now he was serious. “There were another less cruel ways for you to hurt me, Cuddy… and you choose the most horrible one. If you want to know whether I’ll cry or not, I tell you that I will because you were the last person I thought could hurt me so bad and you did. Proud now? I’ll cry the rest of my life because I love you and I won’t be able to deal with it. And still people ask me why I have issues about trusting… Now let me go, please.” He was crying.
She got out of his way and he left.
**
Cuddy stood up and headed to her bedroom. She was so tired she could sleep for the whole eternity not to deal with guilty anymore. She laid curled up in her bed and held her pillow to soon fall sleep.
The lights in prison were still on and Theodore was sat at the little table trying to decipher another book of pathology that House had stocked there. Theodore seemed to have fun with those difficult books even though he would understand just a bit. Sometimes he asked House things and House tried to explain but Theodore couldn’t understand. He was also listening to House’s IPod even though he would know less about those songs.
“Greg… are you up?” He took the phones off.
“Yeah.” His voice was a little sleepy and sounded like a moan.
“What is a… Anti-neu…trophil cyto…plas… I can’t pronounce that?” Theodore tried to spell the word but couldn’t.
“Anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies.” House spelled for him.
“I could never spell something like that, how do I expect myself to understand it.” Theodore smiled.
“It’s not that hard. ANCAs are a group of mainly IgG antibodies against antigens in the cytoplasm of neutrophil granulocytes and monocytes. They are detected in some autoimmune disorders, but more associated with systemic vasculitis.” House stopped for a moment. “Ok, maybe it is that hard.” He smiled, but Theodore could not see.
“Oookaay… I got the word “disorders”…” He laughed. “Are you ok?” Theodore felt House’s voice a little agonized. He turned to look at the bunk bed and saw House curled up massaging his thigh.
“Yeah… Fine”
“You don’t seem fine.”
House didn’t respond. The lights suddenly went off; Theodore closed the book and headed to the bunk bed. He handed in House’s IPod and climbed the safety leader. Of course he slept at the bed above. A minute later he spoke.
“Thank you for saving me that day.”
“Whatever…” The ‘whatever’ came in an agonized moan.
“You’re far from being ok… can I do something to help you?”
“No…” Another moan.
“Oh, God.” Theodore looked down “We can call the guards to take you to the infirmary.”
“Just sleep Theodore.”
“I can’t….”
“Then shut up.” House tried not to sound so hard and got it.
“Do you think Jay-E will come after you for revenge?”
“Probably...” House didn’t want to talk, but he didn’t want to cut Theodore off. The pain was destroying him… those painkillers were like candies, they didn’t have any effect.
“I’ll be there for you.”
“No, you won’t! You can’t fight him!” House spoke angry.
“I can, Greg!”
“No, you can’t! You can’t even to fight to get out here knowing you are innocent.” He said angry.
“How do you know that?” Theodore turned to his side and looked down at House.
“How could a man like you possibly do the kind of crime you have to do to be sent to this prison?”
“I’m no better then you are, Greg.”
“You don’t know me at all and you should not say that when you know what I did.”
“Then how is it possible for man like you to do something like that?”
“I don’t have the answer, Theodore.”
“I have. This woman did something to you; she hurt you pretty fucking bad. I know everybody should say that it doesn’t justify what you did but you had no other way to show her how hurt you were or to take back so you choose that horrible way that happened to be a screwed up in every part way, by the way, but…”
“There are no buts’! For Christ’s sake are you trying to justify raping?”
“No!”
“Then shut up!” House was angry because he didn’t want to think that rape could be justified, because If it could… it would be his fault what Jay-E did to him. In his mind he was sure it was his entire fault, but he didn’t have to think about it all the fucking second.
“I’m not innocent at all, Greg.” The silence filled the air and was broken seconds later by the voice of Jay-E who appeared to be in a closer cell that he hadn’t been before.
“Heeeeey, Gregggg… my little cutie bitch… are you up?”
House flinched in his bed as that voice assaulted his head. “What is he doing up here?” Theodore spoke and looked down to check on House.
“I don’t know…” House spoke with a scared voice.
“Greg! Tomorrow I have a surprise for you! We will make sweetie love.”
“Shut up up there!”, “Yeah, new show coming up, yo!”, “Fuck him hard and let us watch, yo-E” These were the kind of murmurs the convicts who were still wake were spelling.
“Don’t let him get into your mind! Shut up you disturbed piece of crap.” Theodore screamed.
“Looks like your boyfriend wants some fun too, Greg.”
“Leave him alone...” House finally spoke.
“Only if you suck my cock, little bitch.” He laughed and the some convicts followed his laugh by laughing too.
“Oh yeah! Now I remember… I was supposed to do that but I left you on your knees screaming in pain on the floor.”
“Shut up!” Jay-E could not handle things that would show how vulnerable he could be.
“Shut the fuck up up there!”, “kill him yo-E!”, “Leave a piece of him for us, E.”, “Pretty nice ass should it be.”
“Shut up! All of you!” The guard up their floor said with angry and imposition in his voice.
“I have a plan, Greg.” Theodore whispered and went down to sit in House’s bed.
“Just sleep, Theodore.” House turned to the other side to face the wall.
“If you end up in the solitary he couldn’t get you, Greg.”
“I don’t want to end up there again.”
“Would you rather being raped and let that monster beat the shit out of you?”
“We would just delay the inevitable.”
“Here’s the deal I’ll offer, you have a night to think about it. We will be at lunch talking, and then we will start to shout at each other whatever stuff we think about that could look like a real fight, then you will jump in me and beat the hell out of me.”
House turned again to face the man. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because I don’t want you to be killed.”
“Why?”
“Do I have to explain the unexplainable?”
“Yes If the unexplainable has something to do with me owning you a favor that I would NOT like to pay.”
“Shut up, man! I’m not that kind of a man. I’d not sexually blackmail you. I would not blackmail you at all and I’m not even gay.” Theodore was angry, but he could understand why House couldn’t trust anyone.
“So you are ok I beat the shit out of you just to protect me.”
“Protect me either since I’m also stuck in the situation for now on. I’ll be safe in the infirmary and you will be metaphorically safe in the solitary… at least to give us some time to think about how to stop that monster.”
“I’m not doing this… I can’t… go back to there again…”
“Greg! He is going to kill you.” Theodore almost shouted, but could suppress his voice in time.
“Then he would do me a favor…”
“Oh, listen to yourself!” Theodore spoke in disbelief and climbed up the safety ladder. “You, Greg! You don’t know how lucky you are!”
“How could I possibly be lucky, Theodore?!” House was getting really angry with the guy.
“You don’t value your life… Your life is enough lucky, Greg.” Theodore shifted impatiently in his bed.
“My dad, who turns out not to be my real one, abused me when I was a kid and my mom hid in their bedroom while he practiced his atrocities in his son. I tried to kill myself because of him when I was 12, I shoved his gun inside my mouth and pulled the trigger, in front of him, and he laughed because the gun was unloaded… my first real girlfriend betrayed me when she consent on a surgery, without my approval, and crippled me, and then she abandoned me because she couldn’t handle the guilty in seeing me in pain all the time… Then the first woman I really loved cheated on me… then I lost it, became addicted to morphine and raped her when she screamed on my face that she was still fucking the son of a bitch… then when I tried to kill myself for ‘100’ time I got stuck in an accident that burned 70% of my body and trashed one of my kidneys… then I end up in prison, went to an agonizing detox from vicodin and morphine, and then a monster like that rape me and fuck the shit out of me… do you think that is lucky?” House was angry, really angry. His breathing was hard and he was almost panicking. Theodore couldn’t spell a word after House’s brief panic attack. He was still processing all his friend had just said and it hurt, so much, because Theodore realized Greg was a victim of life and now, his theories wouldn’t apply…
Cuddy couldn’t sleep a wink as the flashbacks were playing through her mind. She needed a reason to explain what the hell she was thinking when she hooked up with John. Everything falls apart in the end, that was House’s point of view, but the difference between the explainable failure and the unexplainable one were the way the events would happen. Death was one of the explainable ones… what human beings couldn’t destroy… death would… But humans’ twisted minds were always running wild and free to do whatever damage they want to without think about the consequences… What would lead someone to hurt? Maybe human minds were controlled by some greater force, maybe things we couldn’t explain or even understand were set on by something bigger then us. Bullshit… Why do human beings always want to justify their actions by blaming something “bigger” then them? As If there were aliens out there controlling our minds and doing whatever damage they wish. Anyway… there she was trying to justify… How pathetic was that. She cheated, what’s there to explain besides the obvious? But the obvious for their relationship were more complex then the complicated obvious of normal people. House was not a normal guy, he was a genius, he was a child, he was needy, he was introspective in every possible way. You could not expect him to act like a normal guy. Ok, enough with the surreal and back to the reality. Forget the cheating and focus on the consequences of it. Why would he rape her? Can we call that rape? Did she enable him? Could she have stopped him? Did he have… an anterograde amnesia induced by the abuse of morphine and severe pain? No, that didn’t seem like it…. He was pretty consciousness. She never knew he had this kind of amnesia before. This means that the pain he felt was way crueler then she ever thought it could be. But she never realized it in him… Maybe because he would NOT let her near him when he was in pain… because he could hurt her and didn’t even know what he was doing… “I have anterograde amnesia when I’m in pain. That’s why I’ve never let you near me, Lisa. I could hurt you pretty bad without knowing what I’m doing.” … but no, that wasn’t it… She was a doctor; she would recognize an amnesia… Fuck… she couldn’t sleep anymore.
Cuddy stepped outside her bedroom and headed to the kitchen. She grabbed some juice in the refrigerator and leaned against it when she closed the door. Her eyes were lost and when she better knew, she was calling Wilson.
“Hello.” Wilson spoke with a sleepy voice.
“Hey, Wilson… are you sleeping?”
“Not anymore…” Wilson turned in the bed and looked at the ceiling.
“Did you know House had anterograde amnesia when he was in pain?”
“I guess I didn’t… why?”
“I was thinking… when I told him about John… we had a pretty hard fight… and he told me that he didn’t allow me to help him because he could hurt me without knowing…”
“Well! He’d never told me… He’d never let me help him either…”
“I was thinking maybe he had it when he… when he… could it be possible, Wilson?” Wilson sat in his bed and looked confused.
“I know he was high… Morphine could do that but he had to have used a lot of it…”
“Wilson, I need to see him…” Cuddy sniffed and Wilson caught that.
“Hey, Cuddy… you alright… calm down… We will figure a way out.”
“I should have fought harder!”
“Ok! Listen to me… just calm down. I’ll be right there soon.”
Wilson wore the first outfit he found and headed to Cuddy’s home.
In prison Theodore couldn’t sleep, he was listening to House’s irregular breathing and thinking… He needed to ask him something, but what If he was sleeping, what If the answer was a ‘yes’ and he panicked about that…
“Greg…” He whispered.
“Shut up, Theodore.” House spoke with a sleepy and begging voice.
“I have to ask you something… I know you freaked and it’s not a good time to dig this, but I need to know… maybe it could explain some things…”
“Just sleep.”
“The abuse? Was it… did he… was it sexual?” He finally spoke and hoped House wouldn’t panic.
“No…” He answered simple. He just wanted to sleep and make the pain go away.
“Ok… can I ask another question? I promise it would be last…”
“Please… shut up…” House’s voice had a bit of crying.
“When you pulled the trigger… You knew the gun was unloaded? You knew, Greg! Please, tell me you knew and you did it just to scare your father…” House didn’t understand Theodore’s concerns, but he was in a lot of pain to obsess with it and he just needed to sleep.
“No, I didn’t know.”
“Why would you do that, Greg? You were a child…” Theodore needed an answer based on God for all his theories and he couldn’t come up with one about House.
“…” House was crying in silence. “I just… wanted to… end… that, Theodore… please”
Minutes later…
“Good night Greg!”
**
“Why would you cheat on him, Cuddy?” The question surprised Cuddy. They were talking about what-why-how would she see him after all that happened. “I can’t stop wondering… House is a nice guy when he wants too… He is never boring, he is smart, has those incredibly blue eyes, he is funny, ironic, defying, handsome… and he loves you… why would you do that?”
“It’s complicated, Wilson…” Cuddy shifted in her sit. She didn’t want to talk about that with Wilson.
“There’s gotta be a reason… I know because I’ve been there… I’m not judging you yet because I did it too, but I had reasons and I can explain easily all of them…”
“I was lonely, Wilson. The last few months of our relationship were not… fine… He was distant… he didn’t open up… didn’t let me help him. I think he was already on morphine and I… I couldn’t see him in pain and not be able to help him because he didn’t let me…” Cuddy was dropping tears. “Everything on the outside looked great, people saw us as the couple of the year, but the real thing was totally different. We were fighting all night, hurting each other deeply… I just needed someone… I hate myself for being that weak, I hate myself for being the real cause of all this mess, I hate myself for cheating when I could look at his eyes and just punch him on the face and say that I loved him so he should better let me help him or I would hurt him even more…” The last words made a little smile appear at Wilson’s face, but it was easily faded because he saw Cuddy was really crying.
“Come here.” Wilson hugged Cuddy.
“I’m sorry, Wilson. I didn’t know about the amnesia… I didn’t know he was pushing me away to protect me… I’m so selfish”
“Calm down, we will fix this mess… We can do it.”
**
“Gregory! What are you doing outside?” Little Greg watched his father approaching him in fury. He flinched and stood from his previous sit. He was observing some ants in the garden.
“Please, John… leave him…” Blythe tried to stop the furious man.
“I told him to not be outside at night. He does it to defy me!” John grabbed Greg’s little arm and started dragging him through the garden.
“Mon…” Greg tried to call for his mom in a scary voice.
“John, please… stop it.” Blythe begged in tears… Greg could see she was tired to see his father hurting him, she had been sad since Greg was 5,… She probably felt guilty and Greg felt guilty about his mother sadness. He didn’t want her to fell guilty about what John did to him because it was not her fault… It was Greg’s fault…always, even when he tried his best to be a good son, he failed, in everything and now he was failing in make his mother happy… make her be proud of him… He didn’t want to see her crying like that anymore… crying because of him… because he was there in the garden observing ants when he was strictly told NOT to do that… Blythe should be disappointed with her son… He didn’t want to see her mother in misery like that… He needed to stop it… If he was the cause of her suffering, he should stop it.
“Go to our bedroom, I’ll be there soon.” John kissed her forehead and dragged little Greg to the basement.
“Greg…” She whispered his name and he turned his head to look back at her while he was being dragged.
“I’m sorry, mom.” It was all he could say before Blythe was running away. He had to stop hurting his mother.
“When I specify a rule to you, Gregory… you should follow it… I’m your father and you should do what I said. Do you think you are smart enough to defy me… You aren’t, little child.” John threw Greg inside the basement and closed the door.
“I’m sorry dad, please.” Greg flinched when he saw the tub and his father getting the ices from a fridge.
“I give you all a boy can dream. I give you good school, I give you expensive toys, I give you a bedroom full of stupid child stuffs and I feed you! All you have to do is obey me! Is it so hard, Gregory?”
“I’m sorry, dad…I just wanted to see the ants.” Greg was scared, but he was thinking about his mom. He had to stop hurting her no matter what.
“You owe respect for me and your mother. Do you think she likes when you disobey me. Do you think she likes when you defy me? Answer me, Gregory.” John was now filling the tub with ice and water. Greg felt his little heart sunk with the words of his father. Greg new it was his fault that his mom was sad, and feeling guilty when she was not blamed. His little blue eyes spotted his father gun at the shelf. He had to stop that… for her mom he would do anything… even if it meant taking his own life away and stop being a sin to his parents. Little Greg ran to the shelf.
“Gregory! Where are you going?” He said in an authoritarian voice.
Little Greg grabbed the gun and John froze.
“Greg, put it down.”
The child held it for a while and then he turned to face his father. John stared at his son and all he could see was Greg shoving the gun inside his mouth and pulling the trigger, quickly. He screamed ‘no’ and ran to his child, but no sound was made by the gun. He stared at Greg relived, but he couldn’t show his son that vulnerability, so he started laughing. Greg was disoriented, his little blues eyes was lost… He swore he was dead and when he realized his father was laughing he lost it… He cried… he needed to end that… and he failed again…
“You are pathetic, Greg.” John grabbed the gun from Greg’s little shaking hands and put it away. He tried to reach his son arm but Greg ran quickly. John let him and when Greg reached the door and ran outside, John started to cry. The crying thing was the part that Greg didn’t see.
**
“Greg! Wake up! You are having a nightmare.” Theodore sat beside House and tried to shake his curled up form to wake him up. The man was trembling and sweating. “Greg wake up!” Theodore was desperate. “Greg!” He shouted and shook House’s shoulders. House opened his and immediately flinched in Theodore’s arms to then press his body against the wall, as If he was trying to protect himself.
“Greg! It’s ok… you were having a nightmare… It ok… look at me.” Theodore tried to reach him.
“There… was blood…” His voice was trembling, scared and his eyes were lost.
“It’s ok, it was a bad dream…”
“I just wanted… to do… something good… for once… for my mom… to stop her from being sad because of… me…” He started to cry a lot and embrace himself. Theodore reached him and pulled him to himself, to hug House’s curled body against his chest. House didn’t deny it… He grabbed Theodore’s T-Shirt with all his forces and held it like it was his life.
**
Thanks again, all of you! Sorry by the mistakes! I think my betta quit! :)
See ya!
“How… could it… have it come to this, Wilson?” Her voice was lost and his eyes focused on the street.
“I don’t know…”
“Do you want to come in?” She spoke as she opened the door.
“Only if you need me.”
Cuddy took a deep breath and the silence filled the air again. “Should I… should I visit him, Wilson?”
“I think you should.” Wilson was certain on his words. He, beyond anyone, wish the two of them could make things right, NOT that it should be like before… but they should talk.
“What… what am I gonna say?” Cuddy stared at Wilson, her eyes red in tears she didn’t allow to fall.
“I can’t answer that, Cuddy… I’m sorry. I’m not in a situation like yours, so I don’t know how it feels. I’m his friend so I say things to him that I would say if nothing of this had happened… but…”
“Ok, Wilson.” She stepped out of the car.
“Still need me to come in?”
“No, thanks. I need to be alone.”
“Just call me if you need.”
Cuddy stepped inside her house and closed the door. She leaned her back against it and closed her eyes slowly while pictures of a past broadcast inside her head, a past that would not leave her alone and would never come back. The way he would wake up after a long night of pure love, laying on his stomach and sprawled in the bed in a tangle with the blankets, the way she would lay on that beautiful back and hear his breathing, his heart beat, his soul in a moment of serenity, the way his crazy hair would be crazier in the morning and the way she would caress it while he was sleepy, the way she would laugh on his sweetie hard mood when he woke up in the Mondays, she would always make him smile after pissing him about his mood, the way his eyes would sparkle just to see her, wonderful shiny blue eyes piercing her soul making everything else in the word fade away… These would never come back. It was all memories broken in the billion pieces of sand that formed the dust.
“Oh God, what have I done?” Cuddy hid his face in her hands as her back slide through the door until she could sit at the floor.
**
“Hey, baby…” House approached her and kissed soft her lips.
Cuddy was sat at the grass of her backyard looking at the stars. She had to tell him. He sat by her side and looked at the direction she was looking.
“Either you are solving some equation about the black holes and the principle of the uncertainty or you are about to tell me something I won’t like…” He looked at her and smiled. She just looked back at him and took a deep breath.
“Hey, I know I’ve been hard to deal with lately and I’m sorry about that… I just…” House spoke a little embarrassed.
“I cheated on you.” She didn’t look at him but spoke directly. House stared at her with a uncertainty and surprised face, as If his brain couldn’t process what she had just told him.
“Wh…what?”
“I’m sorry, Greg.” She looked down where she was playing with the grass. She couldn’t face him, she couldn’t handle to see the hurt in his face, and she could NOT handle to see the damage, another greater damage she had done to him.
House stared at the previous direction unable to say a word, unable to even process a word. His brain had stopped the moment she said “cheated on you”. A moment of silence filled the air. She could hear his unstable breathing like he was about to cry his heart out and was holding the tears with all his powers. That sound was the cruelest thing she had ever heard in her life and she felt like she was the greater devil hanging around in the world doing damage to people who were already too much damaged.
“Why… why would you do that?” His voice was trembling and broken, but puzzled.
“I’m sorry, Greg…things were not good between us…”
“And is it reason enough for you to fuck another guy? It’s not even a reason.” He interrupted now angry.
“Greg…” She finally looked at him and her heart exploded when she saw his eyes, his blue eyes was a shadow behind an ocean of tears he would not allow to fall.
“You are a coward, Lisa.” He grabbed his cane and stood up.
“Greg, wait.” She stood up and grabbed his arm.
“Get off of me.”
“I know it’s not a reason but I was lost, I didn’t know how to deal with you. You don’t talk to me, Greg, you don’t let me help you when you need…”
“I don’t need your help…”
“YOU are a coward.” She shouted at his face. “You are afraid to show me that even you, the Greater Gregory House, have your vulnerabilities and it’s frustrating because…”
“It’s not vulnerability, It’s pain.” He shouted back.
“I don’t see any difference.” She shouted back and they stared at each other.
“Let go off me.” He spoke angry, but she didn’t listen.
“Do you have any idea how hard it is to see you in pain and don’t be able to do anything? Do you know how it feels to see you cry alone while the pain devours you with no compassion? You don’t know that, Greg!!” She raised her voice.
“How could it possibly justify what you did!?” He raised his voice back.
“It doesn’t! I feel guilty every second I see you in pain…”
“I never blamed you and you know that!”
“Then why don’t you let me help you! For Christ’s sake, Greg! I love you!.”
“Don’t you dare saying that!!”
She closed her eyes and let go of his arm.
“Greg…” Her eyes were in tears and she didn’t care to let them fall.
“I have anterograde amnesia when I’m in pain. That’s why I’ve never let you near me, Lisa. I could hurt you pretty bad without knowing what I’m doing.” He turned and walked away.
“What?!!” She blocked his way.
“Leave me alone.”
“Greg… I’m sorry… I needed someone to talk to, I needed someone to be there and you weren’t. I don’t know what happened to you the last few months…”
“So then you decided to fuck another guy so you could chat with him about my pain and how I’m an egoistic jerk who won’t let you help me for you to feel less guilty… and how did you two chat… Moans? In a foreplay? In the middle of the sexy? For god’s sake, Lisa! You are worse then I am.” She slapped him. Jesus Christ, he did know how to hurt deep inside.
“Get out of my way.”
“No.” She said angry.
“What do you want from me?” He said angry.
“I don’t know… I don’t want you to go.”
“Oh, come on. You won’t be alone… you have your dirty little secret to wash your tears.”
“Stop it!” She shouted. “Stop hiding behind your sarcasm, I can see you need to cry and you are proud enough to even when you are completely destroyed not cry in front of people.”
“You gotta be kidding.” He laughed soft and looked away. “You are the last person in this world I will cry over its shoulder after what you did to me.” Now he was serious. “There were another less cruel ways for you to hurt me, Cuddy… and you choose the most horrible one. If you want to know whether I’ll cry or not, I tell you that I will because you were the last person I thought could hurt me so bad and you did. Proud now? I’ll cry the rest of my life because I love you and I won’t be able to deal with it. And still people ask me why I have issues about trusting… Now let me go, please.” He was crying.
She got out of his way and he left.
**
Cuddy stood up and headed to her bedroom. She was so tired she could sleep for the whole eternity not to deal with guilty anymore. She laid curled up in her bed and held her pillow to soon fall sleep.
The lights in prison were still on and Theodore was sat at the little table trying to decipher another book of pathology that House had stocked there. Theodore seemed to have fun with those difficult books even though he would understand just a bit. Sometimes he asked House things and House tried to explain but Theodore couldn’t understand. He was also listening to House’s IPod even though he would know less about those songs.
“Greg… are you up?” He took the phones off.
“Yeah.” His voice was a little sleepy and sounded like a moan.
“What is a… Anti-neu…trophil cyto…plas… I can’t pronounce that?” Theodore tried to spell the word but couldn’t.
“Anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies.” House spelled for him.
“I could never spell something like that, how do I expect myself to understand it.” Theodore smiled.
“It’s not that hard. ANCAs are a group of mainly IgG antibodies against antigens in the cytoplasm of neutrophil granulocytes and monocytes. They are detected in some autoimmune disorders, but more associated with systemic vasculitis.” House stopped for a moment. “Ok, maybe it is that hard.” He smiled, but Theodore could not see.
“Oookaay… I got the word “disorders”…” He laughed. “Are you ok?” Theodore felt House’s voice a little agonized. He turned to look at the bunk bed and saw House curled up massaging his thigh.
“Yeah… Fine”
“You don’t seem fine.”
House didn’t respond. The lights suddenly went off; Theodore closed the book and headed to the bunk bed. He handed in House’s IPod and climbed the safety leader. Of course he slept at the bed above. A minute later he spoke.
“Thank you for saving me that day.”
“Whatever…” The ‘whatever’ came in an agonized moan.
“You’re far from being ok… can I do something to help you?”
“No…” Another moan.
“Oh, God.” Theodore looked down “We can call the guards to take you to the infirmary.”
“Just sleep Theodore.”
“I can’t….”
“Then shut up.” House tried not to sound so hard and got it.
“Do you think Jay-E will come after you for revenge?”
“Probably...” House didn’t want to talk, but he didn’t want to cut Theodore off. The pain was destroying him… those painkillers were like candies, they didn’t have any effect.
“I’ll be there for you.”
“No, you won’t! You can’t fight him!” House spoke angry.
“I can, Greg!”
“No, you can’t! You can’t even to fight to get out here knowing you are innocent.” He said angry.
“How do you know that?” Theodore turned to his side and looked down at House.
“How could a man like you possibly do the kind of crime you have to do to be sent to this prison?”
“I’m no better then you are, Greg.”
“You don’t know me at all and you should not say that when you know what I did.”
“Then how is it possible for man like you to do something like that?”
“I don’t have the answer, Theodore.”
“I have. This woman did something to you; she hurt you pretty fucking bad. I know everybody should say that it doesn’t justify what you did but you had no other way to show her how hurt you were or to take back so you choose that horrible way that happened to be a screwed up in every part way, by the way, but…”
“There are no buts’! For Christ’s sake are you trying to justify raping?”
“No!”
“Then shut up!” House was angry because he didn’t want to think that rape could be justified, because If it could… it would be his fault what Jay-E did to him. In his mind he was sure it was his entire fault, but he didn’t have to think about it all the fucking second.
“I’m not innocent at all, Greg.” The silence filled the air and was broken seconds later by the voice of Jay-E who appeared to be in a closer cell that he hadn’t been before.
“Heeeeey, Gregggg… my little cutie bitch… are you up?”
House flinched in his bed as that voice assaulted his head. “What is he doing up here?” Theodore spoke and looked down to check on House.
“I don’t know…” House spoke with a scared voice.
“Greg! Tomorrow I have a surprise for you! We will make sweetie love.”
“Shut up up there!”, “Yeah, new show coming up, yo!”, “Fuck him hard and let us watch, yo-E” These were the kind of murmurs the convicts who were still wake were spelling.
“Don’t let him get into your mind! Shut up you disturbed piece of crap.” Theodore screamed.
“Looks like your boyfriend wants some fun too, Greg.”
“Leave him alone...” House finally spoke.
“Only if you suck my cock, little bitch.” He laughed and the some convicts followed his laugh by laughing too.
“Oh yeah! Now I remember… I was supposed to do that but I left you on your knees screaming in pain on the floor.”
“Shut up!” Jay-E could not handle things that would show how vulnerable he could be.
“Shut the fuck up up there!”, “kill him yo-E!”, “Leave a piece of him for us, E.”, “Pretty nice ass should it be.”
“Shut up! All of you!” The guard up their floor said with angry and imposition in his voice.
“I have a plan, Greg.” Theodore whispered and went down to sit in House’s bed.
“Just sleep, Theodore.” House turned to the other side to face the wall.
“If you end up in the solitary he couldn’t get you, Greg.”
“I don’t want to end up there again.”
“Would you rather being raped and let that monster beat the shit out of you?”
“We would just delay the inevitable.”
“Here’s the deal I’ll offer, you have a night to think about it. We will be at lunch talking, and then we will start to shout at each other whatever stuff we think about that could look like a real fight, then you will jump in me and beat the hell out of me.”
House turned again to face the man. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because I don’t want you to be killed.”
“Why?”
“Do I have to explain the unexplainable?”
“Yes If the unexplainable has something to do with me owning you a favor that I would NOT like to pay.”
“Shut up, man! I’m not that kind of a man. I’d not sexually blackmail you. I would not blackmail you at all and I’m not even gay.” Theodore was angry, but he could understand why House couldn’t trust anyone.
“So you are ok I beat the shit out of you just to protect me.”
“Protect me either since I’m also stuck in the situation for now on. I’ll be safe in the infirmary and you will be metaphorically safe in the solitary… at least to give us some time to think about how to stop that monster.”
“I’m not doing this… I can’t… go back to there again…”
“Greg! He is going to kill you.” Theodore almost shouted, but could suppress his voice in time.
“Then he would do me a favor…”
“Oh, listen to yourself!” Theodore spoke in disbelief and climbed up the safety ladder. “You, Greg! You don’t know how lucky you are!”
“How could I possibly be lucky, Theodore?!” House was getting really angry with the guy.
“You don’t value your life… Your life is enough lucky, Greg.” Theodore shifted impatiently in his bed.
“My dad, who turns out not to be my real one, abused me when I was a kid and my mom hid in their bedroom while he practiced his atrocities in his son. I tried to kill myself because of him when I was 12, I shoved his gun inside my mouth and pulled the trigger, in front of him, and he laughed because the gun was unloaded… my first real girlfriend betrayed me when she consent on a surgery, without my approval, and crippled me, and then she abandoned me because she couldn’t handle the guilty in seeing me in pain all the time… Then the first woman I really loved cheated on me… then I lost it, became addicted to morphine and raped her when she screamed on my face that she was still fucking the son of a bitch… then when I tried to kill myself for ‘100’ time I got stuck in an accident that burned 70% of my body and trashed one of my kidneys… then I end up in prison, went to an agonizing detox from vicodin and morphine, and then a monster like that rape me and fuck the shit out of me… do you think that is lucky?” House was angry, really angry. His breathing was hard and he was almost panicking. Theodore couldn’t spell a word after House’s brief panic attack. He was still processing all his friend had just said and it hurt, so much, because Theodore realized Greg was a victim of life and now, his theories wouldn’t apply…
Cuddy couldn’t sleep a wink as the flashbacks were playing through her mind. She needed a reason to explain what the hell she was thinking when she hooked up with John. Everything falls apart in the end, that was House’s point of view, but the difference between the explainable failure and the unexplainable one were the way the events would happen. Death was one of the explainable ones… what human beings couldn’t destroy… death would… But humans’ twisted minds were always running wild and free to do whatever damage they want to without think about the consequences… What would lead someone to hurt? Maybe human minds were controlled by some greater force, maybe things we couldn’t explain or even understand were set on by something bigger then us. Bullshit… Why do human beings always want to justify their actions by blaming something “bigger” then them? As If there were aliens out there controlling our minds and doing whatever damage they wish. Anyway… there she was trying to justify… How pathetic was that. She cheated, what’s there to explain besides the obvious? But the obvious for their relationship were more complex then the complicated obvious of normal people. House was not a normal guy, he was a genius, he was a child, he was needy, he was introspective in every possible way. You could not expect him to act like a normal guy. Ok, enough with the surreal and back to the reality. Forget the cheating and focus on the consequences of it. Why would he rape her? Can we call that rape? Did she enable him? Could she have stopped him? Did he have… an anterograde amnesia induced by the abuse of morphine and severe pain? No, that didn’t seem like it…. He was pretty consciousness. She never knew he had this kind of amnesia before. This means that the pain he felt was way crueler then she ever thought it could be. But she never realized it in him… Maybe because he would NOT let her near him when he was in pain… because he could hurt her and didn’t even know what he was doing… “I have anterograde amnesia when I’m in pain. That’s why I’ve never let you near me, Lisa. I could hurt you pretty bad without knowing what I’m doing.” … but no, that wasn’t it… She was a doctor; she would recognize an amnesia… Fuck… she couldn’t sleep anymore.
Cuddy stepped outside her bedroom and headed to the kitchen. She grabbed some juice in the refrigerator and leaned against it when she closed the door. Her eyes were lost and when she better knew, she was calling Wilson.
“Hello.” Wilson spoke with a sleepy voice.
“Hey, Wilson… are you sleeping?”
“Not anymore…” Wilson turned in the bed and looked at the ceiling.
“Did you know House had anterograde amnesia when he was in pain?”
“I guess I didn’t… why?”
“I was thinking… when I told him about John… we had a pretty hard fight… and he told me that he didn’t allow me to help him because he could hurt me without knowing…”
“Well! He’d never told me… He’d never let me help him either…”
“I was thinking maybe he had it when he… when he… could it be possible, Wilson?” Wilson sat in his bed and looked confused.
“I know he was high… Morphine could do that but he had to have used a lot of it…”
“Wilson, I need to see him…” Cuddy sniffed and Wilson caught that.
“Hey, Cuddy… you alright… calm down… We will figure a way out.”
“I should have fought harder!”
“Ok! Listen to me… just calm down. I’ll be right there soon.”
Wilson wore the first outfit he found and headed to Cuddy’s home.
In prison Theodore couldn’t sleep, he was listening to House’s irregular breathing and thinking… He needed to ask him something, but what If he was sleeping, what If the answer was a ‘yes’ and he panicked about that…
“Greg…” He whispered.
“Shut up, Theodore.” House spoke with a sleepy and begging voice.
“I have to ask you something… I know you freaked and it’s not a good time to dig this, but I need to know… maybe it could explain some things…”
“Just sleep.”
“The abuse? Was it… did he… was it sexual?” He finally spoke and hoped House wouldn’t panic.
“No…” He answered simple. He just wanted to sleep and make the pain go away.
“Ok… can I ask another question? I promise it would be last…”
“Please… shut up…” House’s voice had a bit of crying.
“When you pulled the trigger… You knew the gun was unloaded? You knew, Greg! Please, tell me you knew and you did it just to scare your father…” House didn’t understand Theodore’s concerns, but he was in a lot of pain to obsess with it and he just needed to sleep.
“No, I didn’t know.”
“Why would you do that, Greg? You were a child…” Theodore needed an answer based on God for all his theories and he couldn’t come up with one about House.
“…” House was crying in silence. “I just… wanted to… end… that, Theodore… please”
Minutes later…
“Good night Greg!”
**
“Why would you cheat on him, Cuddy?” The question surprised Cuddy. They were talking about what-why-how would she see him after all that happened. “I can’t stop wondering… House is a nice guy when he wants too… He is never boring, he is smart, has those incredibly blue eyes, he is funny, ironic, defying, handsome… and he loves you… why would you do that?”
“It’s complicated, Wilson…” Cuddy shifted in her sit. She didn’t want to talk about that with Wilson.
“There’s gotta be a reason… I know because I’ve been there… I’m not judging you yet because I did it too, but I had reasons and I can explain easily all of them…”
“I was lonely, Wilson. The last few months of our relationship were not… fine… He was distant… he didn’t open up… didn’t let me help him. I think he was already on morphine and I… I couldn’t see him in pain and not be able to help him because he didn’t let me…” Cuddy was dropping tears. “Everything on the outside looked great, people saw us as the couple of the year, but the real thing was totally different. We were fighting all night, hurting each other deeply… I just needed someone… I hate myself for being that weak, I hate myself for being the real cause of all this mess, I hate myself for cheating when I could look at his eyes and just punch him on the face and say that I loved him so he should better let me help him or I would hurt him even more…” The last words made a little smile appear at Wilson’s face, but it was easily faded because he saw Cuddy was really crying.
“Come here.” Wilson hugged Cuddy.
“I’m sorry, Wilson. I didn’t know about the amnesia… I didn’t know he was pushing me away to protect me… I’m so selfish”
“Calm down, we will fix this mess… We can do it.”
**
“Gregory! What are you doing outside?” Little Greg watched his father approaching him in fury. He flinched and stood from his previous sit. He was observing some ants in the garden.
“Please, John… leave him…” Blythe tried to stop the furious man.
“I told him to not be outside at night. He does it to defy me!” John grabbed Greg’s little arm and started dragging him through the garden.
“Mon…” Greg tried to call for his mom in a scary voice.
“John, please… stop it.” Blythe begged in tears… Greg could see she was tired to see his father hurting him, she had been sad since Greg was 5,… She probably felt guilty and Greg felt guilty about his mother sadness. He didn’t want her to fell guilty about what John did to him because it was not her fault… It was Greg’s fault…always, even when he tried his best to be a good son, he failed, in everything and now he was failing in make his mother happy… make her be proud of him… He didn’t want to see her crying like that anymore… crying because of him… because he was there in the garden observing ants when he was strictly told NOT to do that… Blythe should be disappointed with her son… He didn’t want to see her mother in misery like that… He needed to stop it… If he was the cause of her suffering, he should stop it.
“Go to our bedroom, I’ll be there soon.” John kissed her forehead and dragged little Greg to the basement.
“Greg…” She whispered his name and he turned his head to look back at her while he was being dragged.
“I’m sorry, mom.” It was all he could say before Blythe was running away. He had to stop hurting his mother.
“When I specify a rule to you, Gregory… you should follow it… I’m your father and you should do what I said. Do you think you are smart enough to defy me… You aren’t, little child.” John threw Greg inside the basement and closed the door.
“I’m sorry dad, please.” Greg flinched when he saw the tub and his father getting the ices from a fridge.
“I give you all a boy can dream. I give you good school, I give you expensive toys, I give you a bedroom full of stupid child stuffs and I feed you! All you have to do is obey me! Is it so hard, Gregory?”
“I’m sorry, dad…I just wanted to see the ants.” Greg was scared, but he was thinking about his mom. He had to stop hurting her no matter what.
“You owe respect for me and your mother. Do you think she likes when you disobey me. Do you think she likes when you defy me? Answer me, Gregory.” John was now filling the tub with ice and water. Greg felt his little heart sunk with the words of his father. Greg new it was his fault that his mom was sad, and feeling guilty when she was not blamed. His little blue eyes spotted his father gun at the shelf. He had to stop that… for her mom he would do anything… even if it meant taking his own life away and stop being a sin to his parents. Little Greg ran to the shelf.
“Gregory! Where are you going?” He said in an authoritarian voice.
Little Greg grabbed the gun and John froze.
“Greg, put it down.”
The child held it for a while and then he turned to face his father. John stared at his son and all he could see was Greg shoving the gun inside his mouth and pulling the trigger, quickly. He screamed ‘no’ and ran to his child, but no sound was made by the gun. He stared at Greg relived, but he couldn’t show his son that vulnerability, so he started laughing. Greg was disoriented, his little blues eyes was lost… He swore he was dead and when he realized his father was laughing he lost it… He cried… he needed to end that… and he failed again…
“You are pathetic, Greg.” John grabbed the gun from Greg’s little shaking hands and put it away. He tried to reach his son arm but Greg ran quickly. John let him and when Greg reached the door and ran outside, John started to cry. The crying thing was the part that Greg didn’t see.
**
“Greg! Wake up! You are having a nightmare.” Theodore sat beside House and tried to shake his curled up form to wake him up. The man was trembling and sweating. “Greg wake up!” Theodore was desperate. “Greg!” He shouted and shook House’s shoulders. House opened his and immediately flinched in Theodore’s arms to then press his body against the wall, as If he was trying to protect himself.
“Greg! It’s ok… you were having a nightmare… It ok… look at me.” Theodore tried to reach him.
“There… was blood…” His voice was trembling, scared and his eyes were lost.
“It’s ok, it was a bad dream…”
“I just wanted… to do… something good… for once… for my mom… to stop her from being sad because of… me…” He started to cry a lot and embrace himself. Theodore reached him and pulled him to himself, to hug House’s curled body against his chest. House didn’t deny it… He grabbed Theodore’s T-Shirt with all his forces and held it like it was his life.
**
Thanks again, all of you! Sorry by the mistakes! I think my betta quit! :)
See ya!
