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[personal profile] menolly_au
Title: Mother & Son
Characters: House, Blythe, Dominika
Rating: PG
Spoilers: For 8.14 Love is Blind
Words Approx 2500
Warnings: None
Summary: Post-ep for Love is Blind. When House doesn't turn up for dinner Blythe goes looking for him. Mother & son have a discussion about House's parentage amongst other things.

A/N Thanks to srsly_yes for picking up a timeline error :)



Dominika answered the door and came back with Blythe in tow. His Mom was wearing her 'look how tolerant I am of my wayward son' expression. She had perfected that over his childhood and the few times he'd met his parents as an adult.

"We had dinner arrangements, Greg."

He put down the video game controller and looked at her. "Well, after how the last dinner went I thought I'd take a raincheck. I'm sure you and Thomas will have a good time, maybe you could take Wilson, he always enjoys a free show."

"I don't think we'd be welcome back at that restaurant. It's my last night in town Greg, I'm going home tomorrow, would it be so terrible for you to spend a few hours with me? I hardly ever see you."

House looked away, unwilling to face the disapproval in his Mom's expression. She usually allowed him to dodge these social engagements, although he knew he disappointed her when he did so. He had thought she would let this one slide as well.

"I will go out Greg, you have a nice visit with your mother," Dominika said, picking up her coat and purse. He shot her a look of betrayal but she just smiled at him and departed with a wave of her hand.

When the door had closed behind Dominika his Mom took a seat. "She seems like a nice girl."

"The best green card wife a man could have." He sighed and scratched his eyebrow; this would be a long evening. "It's just a fake marriage Mom; don't start knitting clothes for the grandkids."

"She seems to like you, and you're comfortable with her," Blythe looked around the apartment, Domnika's feminine touches were obvious, he'd gotten used to them, and her, over the last few months. "Maybe you could become something more?"

"I drove a car through the house of my last girlfriend, Mom, do you really think I should have another one anytime soon? "

His Mom's lips tightened, he'd scored a hit with that comment. It wasn't like he was proud of what he'd done and wanted to boast about it; he had just wanted her to stop trying to pair him off. After the disaster with Cuddy he wasn't eager to go down that road again; the hookers were suiting him fine, sex with no commitment, that's what he needed.

He hadn't wanted his Mom to know about the 'incident' with the car, and his going to prison, but as it turned out she'd known for a long time. Also, apparently, she hadn't thought about visiting him while he was rotting in prison.

"I just don't understand Greg, why would you do something like that? How could you do that to Lisa? Your father and I didn't raise you to... "

House stood up abruptly, he couldn't listen to this. He couldn't listen to her lecture him about how he was raised. Not now, not with the memory of Wilson's words ringing in his ears. Thomas wasn't his father, and his Mom had thought he could be. Just how many lovers had she had? How long had she been lying to his father? Was that why...

"Thomas isn't my father," he said abruptly. He didn't know why he'd said that - he hadn't intended telling her he knew. It was foolish, to keep thinking that there might be a man out there who could be a father to him, that things could be different. He was too old; nothing was going to change for him now. His father, his real father, could walk through the door and his life would still suck just as much as it did now. Blood was just that, blood. It wasn't family.

Mom looked up at him, a flash of surprise passing over her face before her features settled into that composed, slightly amused expression she usually wore. Shit, Wilson had nothing on her when it came to presenting a persona to the world. He'd been fooled by it - all his life he'd thought she was a boring, mundane, average, house wife who hated conflict and loved her bastard of a marine husband. He'd thought that her cheating on John was some sort of aberration, now he'd found out that the whole thing had been a lie. There had been no happy marriage, she'd been cheating on him the whole time, whether she was sleeping with Thomas or not.

"I never said he was, dear. You said that. After you... exposed yourself in that restaurant. Really, Gregory, with all those people there, and in front of your friend, was that scene necessary? I've never been so embarrassed."

House laughed, a short bark of a laugh. "You weren't embarrassed about me doing that, you hardly raised an eyebrow. And you thought Thomas could be my father, you didn't deny it. He thought he could be too - hard to miss that look of horror. Obviously you two had been doing the horizontal mambo right about nine months before I was born." And for a long time afterward . He blanked out the image of the hotel room in his mind, the rumpled sheets, and the naked man in his mother's bed.

"I'd hoped he was, it was possible. Thomas and I... we'd been together a few times around that period. You have similar birthmarks. I'd always hoped that you were his, after I realised that you couldn't be John's."

"You knew I wasn't Dad's? Did he know?" It could explain so much.

"I think he always suspected, even before you threw it in his face when you were twelve. You were such a difficult child, Greg, always pushing, always testing. You hurt him deeply when you said you weren't his son. He'd always been a father to you. He loved you, and you repaid him by rejecting him."

" I hurt him," House almost choked on the words; he slammed his hand against the nearest wall, the pain gave him a familiar jolt of distraction. "He didn't speak to me for three months after that, Mom. I was a child, and he didn't speak to me all summer. He hurt me , Mom." He rubbed at his wrist, feeling the clamp of an adult hand around it, as he was dragged up the stairs of their old house. He shivered as he pushed them memories back down, and away, with the habit of long practice.

"That was a long time ago, Greg. Your father is dead. I'm married to Thomas now. He thinks you are his son now, are you going to tell him you're not?"

"If I do maybe I'll get lucky and he won't speak to me either." House had no intention of forming a relationship with the man. Thomas had pretended to be John's friend while sleeping with his wife. House had hated John, he still did, but his father had been a man of integrity, and of honour, he would never have done that to Blythe. House respected him for that, if nothing else. A lying, two timing, so-called minister of the cloth, was no-one he could respect. "How are you going to explain to Thomas that he had competition in the 'fathering your child stakes'? What did you do, take out an ad in the paper?" he asked bitterly.

"Thomas will understand - it was a long time ago. And I think he will survive knowing he's not your father," Blythe said, her voice tinged with amusement. "Thomas and I are married, Greg, and have been for three years. You need to accept the place he has in my life. It's nice to have someone there, and it's not like you ever come to see me, dear. Please don't ruin this for me."

"You didn't tell me you got married. It's been three years, Mom. You couldn't have mentioned it before now?"

"You didn't tell me you were in prison."

"Apparently I didn't need to. Dad always said I'd end up in prison one day, I guess you believed him."

"The police came to my house."

House stared at her, some of his anger fleeing in the face of confusion. "Why would they come to your house?"

"They wanted to know if I'd heard from you. They came in and searched the house, looking for any sign of you. I had to tell them I had no idea where my son was, and if he was in trouble I'd be the last person he would contact. They made me feel like a criminal, Greg."

"I didn't know they'd do that." He heard the defensive whine in his voice and felt like he was being reduced to a child. A child who had spectacularly failed to fool his mother. All the time he'd been lying to her, telling her that he'd been away, she'd known where he was. And why.

She'd made no attempt to contact him, let alone visit him, during that long year he spent in prison.

"The police said that besides the damage you did to Lisa's house you broke James' wrist, Greg."

"I didn't break his wrist!" House shouted, and then reined himself in, "he did that to himself. The car was missing him by a long way, he didn't need to jump, he would have been fine. Wilson is a klutz."

"You know what you did was wrong, Greg. If it wasn't you wouldn't be so ashamed of it."

He looked away from his Mom's accusing gaze. He felt like he was eight again, trying to explain some indiscretion or other. "I've paid for it, Mom. I was in prison for a year I'm still on parole. I was on house arrest until a couple of months ago." He looked down at the bracelet on his right wrist. He wore it to remind himself of what happened, and what it cost him.

"Wilson's fine, we're fine, if you didn't get that from the way he was all over you. We're still BFFs. Things are good between us; better than they've been for a while."

His Mom smiled tolerantly at him, "I'm glad that he's forgiven you, dear. James is lovely, such a generous man, he’s a credit to his mother. It's a shame all his wives left him, and then there was poor Amber of course... “She trailed off delicately and House gritted his teeth and wondered how long he should wait before taking another pain killer. This conversation was certainly worth a couple of Vicodin. He wondered how she'd react if he told her that Amber was dead because of him.

"Wilson's always the perfect husband to his wives, and then he cheats on them; Amber was just lucky she died before he got to that point," he said instead. He fished his pills out of his pocket, damned if he was going to suffer through the rest of this night without some pharmacological help.

He caught his Mom's disapproving glance at his pills and scowled, tucking the container back i his pants. He downed a couple of the pills quickly and made a show of licking his lips.

"Ahh, yummy!" His mother just looked at him; steadfastly refusing to react and he sighed and looked down at the floor. How much longer was she going to hang around? "Taking the moral high ground, Mom? It's a bit late for that isn't it?"

"I'm just concerned about you, Greg. You take a lot of those pills."

"I have a lot of pain." He wondered if he could follow them up with a tall glass of scotch. But that would mean offering her a drink, and before you knew it they'd be doing the whole dinner party thing and she'd never leave. "So, Mom - who exactly was my real Dad?" While she was here at least he could find that out, for once and for all. He'd wasted a lot of time on Thomas. Short of testing the DNA of random strangers he was reliant on his Mom to tell him the truth. If she even knew the answer, and he was beginning to have his doubts about that. This whole visit had made a lie out of everything he thought he knew about his Mom.

"I know for sure it wasn't Dad. I tested his DNA at the funeral, and he wasn't my biological father, and neither is Thomas. Who else was on your dance card around that time? It was a big base, lots of fit young men for you to take for a test drive."

"Gregory House! You will not speak to me that way, I am your mother, have some respect ----"

"Respect? Like the respect you gave dear old Dad?" He swallowed and sank back down into a chair. "Just tell me, Mom, tell me who my real father is. I want to know."

There was a long silence and he thought she wasn't going to tell him but eventually she cleared her throat.

"Your father was away on assignment, so was Thomas. There was a party which a friend of mine was hosting; she needed some help with the food so I went. There were some men from the base there..."

"And one thing led to another, and before you knew it one of them had you in the back seat of his car showing you his metaphorical medals. Does this man have a name?"

"Yes, but it won't do you any good. He's dead Greg, he was deployed the next week and was killed in a training mission before you were born."

Dead, his biological father was dead. Of course he felt nothing, why should he?

"He's definitely the one? No other little liaisons you've forgotten?" He heard the harshness of words but didn't care.

"He was the only other one besides Thomas and John. Thomas returned from deployment the next week, John a few days later."

"Would you have said anything to him if he hadn't died? Would you have told him?"

"John was your father, that is all anybody needed to know."

Mother and son looked at each other, the silence stretching between them, a life of deceit forming a gulf that neither could jump.
________________________________________


Once his Mom had gone, while the memory of her goodbye embrace was still warm, he googled the name she had given him and found an old graduation photo on a family history website. His uniform was crisp and new in the photo, the dates of his birth and death a testimony to his youth. He studied the photo, looking for a hint of something, anything, that would tie this man to him. There was nothing, the man looking back at him was a stranger to him, and always would be. John had been his father, in everything that mattered, for both bad and good.

His father was dead.

He went over to the bookshelf and pulled out Thomas's book of sermons and tossed it into the trash; took one last look at the photo of the young man and switched off the computer. After pouring himself a generous glass of scotch, and downing another Vicodin, he settled down on the couch and waited for Dominika to return.

The End

Date: 2012-10-19 01:29 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] yarroway.livejournal.com
You finished it!

House's sense of betrayal come through loud and clear. How sad that his biological father is dead. House could really use a decent parent in his life, even at his age. Your Blythe fits the canon character very well. I have to wonder what Blythe's excuse for not contacting House while he was in prison was. The only thing I can come up with is that she thought she would only embarrass him and she wouldn't be welcome, but I'd love to hear someone else's take on it.

Date: 2012-10-19 02:02 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cuddyclothes.livejournal.com
Perfect perfect oh God so perfect.

Mother and son looked at each other, the silence stretching between them, a life of deceit forming a gulf that neither could jump.

OH yeah. I just learned something shocking about my late father...I could SO relate.

You are amazing.

Date: 2012-10-19 05:43 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] rslhilson.livejournal.com
I'm so glad to see you finished this! Absolutely wonderful fic - hit all the right points and was completely IC. I don't read a lot of Blythe, but I think you wrote her very well here. Great job!

Date: 2012-10-19 07:24 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] menolly-au.livejournal.com
You finished it!

Thanks to your excellent example, like you I didn't have long to go on this one as it turned out.

I think with Blythe, she and House don't have the kind of relationship where she would visit him/contact him in prison. We've seen the distance between them in the show, twice she came to town, twice House did everything he could to avoid even seeing her (the first time the excuse was John, the second time there isn't really one). They don't get together for holidays, he didn't want to go to his father's funeral for her sake, to support her, or while his father was dying, she waited three years to tell him she'd remarried - let alone invite him to the wedding. He has a brief moment of self-pitying, 'why didn't she come visit me in prison' but I don't think he would really expect it of her. Anyway, that's my take on it - sad as it is.

Thanks for reading and the encouragment to finish :)



Date: 2012-10-19 07:55 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] srsly-yes.livejournal.com
Yay! You completed your fic. It's very well fleshed out. House and Blythe's talk was very informative. It frames all the bits of backstory and makes sense of it. I love how you captured Blythe's voice. She's an elusive character, combining a tough, free spirit hidden within the facade of an old fashioned mother.

Date: 2012-10-19 08:47 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] menolly-au.livejournal.com
Thanks! Glad you liked it, I must admit I am blessed to have two wonderful parents so the whole situation seems very sad to me, and inconceivable that mother and son have drifted so far apart.

Thanks for reading and commenting :)

Date: 2012-10-19 08:48 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] menolly-au.livejournal.com
Thanks - glad you liked it ! Thanks for reading and commenting :)

Date: 2012-10-19 08:53 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] menolly-au.livejournal.com
Thank you! Yes, I must admit I can never quite reconcile Blythe in this episode with the Blythe we got in the Daddy's Boy, but it seems that House's relationship with his mother isn't much better than the one he had with his father, sadly.

Thanks for reading and thanks again for your help :)

Date: 2012-10-20 01:24 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] taiga13.livejournal.com
Since you asked...
I was reminded of that episode of M*A*S*H where Klinger reveals that he's been telling his mother he's living on a base in the States, not in Korea, because he doesn't want her to worry about him. He has an elaborate deception going on and is sure she believes it. By accident he learns that she's known the whole time that he's in Korea. She doesn't want him to know that she knows because she doesn't want him to worry about HER worrying.
That was and still is my impression from that episode. She knew House didn't want her to know, so she pretended she didn't know.

Date: 2012-10-20 02:43 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] sassyjumper.livejournal.com
"You knew I wasn't Dad's? Did he know?" It could explain so much.

It would, wouldn't it? Too bad the writers didn't try to explore this at all, instead of just making that episode a mostly joke-y, "Your mom's a slut," episode.

Anyway. So glad you finished it! You did a great job with Blythe's voice -- no easy feat considering how little we saw of her. And what we did see was...confusing.

It's sad that this is the reality of House's relationship with his parents, but I think you painted it really well. (And man, for all their dysfunction, House and Wilson really are the only steady ones in each other lives.)

Date: 2012-10-20 05:32 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] menolly-au.livejournal.com
It obviously wasn't just John's presence that was stopping House seeing his Mom as he implied the first time we saw them because they obviously still weren't in close contact even after his death. It is sad, but as you say, at least he has Wilson :)

Thanks for reading :)

Date: 2012-10-20 09:32 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] yarroway.livejournal.com
That's very sad, but it fits.

Date: 2012-10-21 07:51 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] barefootpuddles.livejournal.com
I never know what to think about Blythe anymore. I used to have a clearer picture until the later info in the episode you reference blew it all to bits. So I especially apprereciate that some people are starting to take that conumdrum on!

I think you cptured House's unease well. He has mixed feelings about his mother, yet seems to love her. And you captured his ambilvelance abut John well too, and the young man who is his unnamed father in this piece.

What a dysfunctional group!

Thanks for writing this. It was an enjoyable read. :)

Date: 2012-10-21 08:40 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jezziejay.livejournal.com
I didn't watch any of this arc, but I really enjoyed how you wrote the relationship House had with his dysfunctional family. It is something I was interested in ever since Blythe and John appeared in earlier seasons, and think that I avoided it later on just because the (show's) angst was killing me. So, for me, this is canon - and thanks for this, sad as is was, it explains a lot.

Date: 2012-10-21 09:03 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] menolly-au.livejournal.com
Foreman did say something like 'only a mother could do that much damage' when referring to House in Daddy's Boy :)

Thanks for reading it , glad you enjoyed it :)

Date: 2012-10-21 09:05 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] menolly-au.livejournal.com
Probably a wise move to not watch Blythe's return, not one of the show's finest hours IMO - although it had its moments.

Thanks for reading :)
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