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Eye Contact
by kementari
A week into his rehab, he hits me. It isn't unexpected - if anything I'm surprised he didn't do it sooner. I've been accompanying him to physio sessions since he began his court-ordered rehabilitation, shuttling him there and back in my recently relinquished car because he's in no shape to ride his bike, hanging around while an army of nurses and physiotherapists work his right leg and tell him to visualize the healing process. Cuddy told me to go with him, but I'd have done it anyway. My motivation for being there is largely guilt. Guilt for having turned him in, guilt for betraying him - because everyone knows thirty pieces of silver can't buy back a friendship, but I'm trying.
Some days I just sit in the waiting room with a magazine until he's done, and others I go in and watch because he's being difficult and the nurses say my presence calms him, even if he still won't speak to me. Today is one of those days. I'm standing at his side, arms folded, while he clings to a metal bar as a small, middle-aged woman in scrubs slowly moves his leg up and down. It's been nearly six hours since he's had anything even vaguely resembling pain relief, and eight days since his last Vicodin. Despite having learned the first day that encouragement is wasted on House, she murmurs little positive reinforcements now and again.
"That's it, honey - good job. You're almost there. Ten more of these, and then you can rest."
Nurse Donnell. For all intents and purposes, I've come to believe that the woman is a saint. Since day one, she has handled with grace all the shit that House has been dishing out in more than copious amounts, and even though I know it annoys him I still think he appreciates it. But today, even her good-natured refusal to be walked all over is no use. I see him grit his teeth as she slowly shifts his leg back up forty-five degrees. Sweat has beaded on his forehead and his eyes are glassy and unfocussed. And then he lets go of the bar.
It is only through luck that she manages to jump out of the way in time - he's lost a lot of weight in the last week, but he's still more than twice her size. House hits the rubbery surface of the gym floor with a sickening sound somewhere between a thud and a smack, and he can't hold back the half-shout of pain that leaks from his throat as his right leg is pinned underneath him. He falls on his back and lies silent, slowly curling into a ball around his ruined limb. Nurse Donnell rushes forward to help him up, but when he refuses to respond to her she turns imploringly to me. I'm reluctant at first - I know that if House won't accept her help then he certainly won't welcome mine. But she's looking at me and I'm his best friend.
I come forward slowly and drop to my knees at his side. His eyes are squeezed shut and his jaw is set. Tears ooze down his cheeks and I know the pain has made his eyes water. This is not emotion.
"House," I say in a low voice. When he doesn't respond I put a hand out and hesitantly touch his shoulder. He looks up at me then, red-rimmed eyes hard with hatred. "Are you all right?"
"Fuck you," he whispers.
"House, come on. We can stop. You don't have to finish today if you don't want to. You can pick it up tomorrow." He slowly lifts himself up onto his elbows, and then to a sitting position. "House, we can go home now. You don't have to..."
House lunges forward, and his fist connects with my lower jaw, knocking me backwards so that I crash painfully into the exercise equipment behind me, a metal bar making intimate acquaintance with my spine. I hiss in pain and blink a few times, and then he's on top of me, fists pummeling me erratically and mercilessly for all he's worth. I look up and see that his eyes are still glassy, but focused and desperate and more than a little crazy. His whole body feels tensed and desperate as he lays into me with every ounce of strength he has left. He doesn't say anything - he doesn't even yell. He's beyond words now - what he's feeling is purely physical. I hear Nurse Donnell gasp and barely manage to wave her away, getting out a quick "It's all right," before his fist connects with my cheekbone and my head is forced sideways.
Just let him, I want to say. Let him hate me. Let him blame me. Let him beat me and push me and do everything to me that I know he's been doing to himself. I don't regret my decision to turn him in, but I still know I betrayed him and the terms of our friendship. If I'm the only casualty of his long-needed redemption, it seems a small price to pay. I'll deal with the pain later.
He keeps on hitting me and I taste blood in my cheek. But his punches are less focused, and then they stop altogether and he's just staring at me; lying on top of me and panting and I see the anger drain out of his face to be replaced with an expression of utter disbelief. He breaks eye contact and rolls off me, sitting slumped against the wall and staring at his hands. Nurse Donnell hurries forward to help me up, but I wave her away. I get to my feet gingerly, fingering my lip where I can still taste blood. I don't say anything as I go to him and pull him to his feet, fitting my shoulder carefully under his. He doesn't say anything as he lets me. The drive home is silent, and he doesn't stop staring at his hands.
When we get back to his townhouse I make the silent decision to stay. Up till now I've been dropping him off, making him dinner, and then leaving, coming back to pick him up in the morning. He makes a beeline for the couch and collapses, not bothering to take off his coat or shoes. I know he's still in pain. I rummage in my own pockets for the bottle of extra-strength aspirin I've taken to carrying with me and fish out three. I dry-swallow one myself, and immediately wish I hadn't. It catches in my throat on the way down and I hack until it comes back up. On the couch, House stirs but can't seem to muster the energy to look up. Still coughing, I fill a glass with water and gulp the pill down. I carry the remaining two and the glass out to him. Then I return to the kitchen to find some ice for my jaw and to make him dinner.
Much later, I help him off the couch and half-drag him to his bedroom. We still haven't spoken, and as I unlace his shoes his eyes bore into me. He stares at me like he doesn't really believe I'm there, and as I pull the blankets over him and switch off the light, I can tell what his eyes are saying. Tomorrow, you won't be here.
I head for the bathroom and check my face out in the mirror. There is a purple watercolour stain that heralds the beginning of a bruise on my lower jaw. My lip valleys around the dark line of a split. The marks of my betrayal are imprinted on my face; anyone who sees me now will know. I go to the linen closet and pull out blankets with crumbs on them and his only extra pillow. I sleep fitfully on his couch. The leather still smells like the soup I made him that he didn't eat.
I consider waking him the next morning, but instead I decide to let him sleep. Physio's not till two, anyway. He finally stumbles out at eleven-thirty, blinking in the light. He scrubs a hand over his face when he sees me, as if there are scales in his eyes he needs to dislodge to take the sight of me away. I hand him a mug of the coffee that I've made, and he stares at my hand before taking it. Our fingers brush momentarily. He still won't make eye contact with me. He sits down at the table and I set a bowl of oatmeal in front of him. I catch his eyes flickering across the bruise on my jaw as he prods it with his spoon but doesn't eat it.
Physio goes better than yesterday. I can tell he's actually making an effort this time, whether out of guilt or a desire for it to be over. Nurse Donnell has him lying on his back while she moves his leg in a circular motion. His teeth are clenched and I know he's in pain, but he doesn't say anything - just silently waits it out until his eyes are watering and his breathing becomes ragged. I hear him gasp quietly and force myself to look at him. For a second all I see is blue. He hangs on to my gaze like a liferaft, and I wonder how long he's been looking at me, silently praying for me to look back. I hold his gaze until Nurse Donnell slowly lowers his leg back down on to the table. It's five o' clock and the session is over.
When I go to him he can barely stand. He clings to my sleeve and shoulder as together we make our way to the change-rooms. The drive home is as silent as it was yesterday, but the quality of the air between us has changed. It feels charged, like it's full of tiny dust particles waiting for a beam of light to reveal them. I almost don't want to breathe, for fear of inhaling something too significant. We make it in the door and he heads straight for the couch again, collapsing into it and holding his thigh. I produce another pair of aspirins and switch the TiVo on for him, finding an old episode of the New Yankee Workshop. The whole time he watches me, unabashedly, but when I meet his gaze he looks away. It feels like we're playing eyeball-pong, both volleying around this thing between us, bouncing it off each other but too afraid to catch hold of it and examine it.
I go to the kitchen and open his fridge. It's empty. Again. Same with the cupboards. Apparently food tastes better when I buy it. Sighing, I shrug on my coat and grab my wallet and keys from the table. I consider warning him before I go out, but when I glance over at the couch I can tell from the way his head is resting against the cushions that he's fallen asleep. I slip out the door as quietly as I can and climb back into the car. It feels the way it must have felt when they opened Tutankhamen's tomb: sacred and undisturbed. I imagine I can see some of those golden dust-particles escaping as I open the door, and for a moment I wonder if they won't all go up when I turn the ignition. The crunch of this morning's snow under the tires jolts me back to reality and I drive to the convenience store trying hard not to think about anything.
I arrive home with modest spoils; two cans of tomato soup, a loaf of bread, some Ritz crackers, cheese, and a carton of milk. Tomorrow I'll have to do real groceries. As soon as I turn the key in the lock I can tell something's off. My first breath of air inside the apartment tastes frantic, like some feral animal has gotten in and is waiting in the corner, terrified, waiting to see what kind of threat I am.
"House?" I call out his name, glancing to and fro as I set the bag of groceries down on the floor beside my shoes. "House?" He's not on the couch. I was only gone about a half hour, but he must have woken up in that time and found me missing. A shift in the light at the corner of the room catches my eye and then I see him. He's sitting hunched behind the piano, his fingers resting on the white ivory keys. He hasn't been playing. He looks up in my direction but not at me. His face is impassive but his eyes, which have defined my day and a large part of my life with their acknowledgement and avoidance, spell out relief. He is relieved to see me, and all at once it occurs to me that he must have thought I left. I'm sure the thought of groceries never once entered his mind. Actually, I'm sure of that on a more long-term basis with him. He thought I'd done what he'd been expecting me to do, what everyone has done, what he's been pushing me to do for a long, long time. And in that instant it also occurs to me that he never wanted to succeed. I feel like I've just tripped over a giant pink elephant and put my foot through the Mona Lisa. I want to go to him, but I can't. His eyes are still fixed to the wall by my ear, and until they meet mine I am frozen; any action on my part would be unwanted, or at least unprepared for.
Standing there, I feel like a Monopoly piece. Do not pass go. Do not collect thirty silver pieces. Because I need to do something I hoist the groceries, brandishing the bag above my head like I've just returned from a successful seal hunt.
"I got groceries," I tell him. "You were all out. For a guy who refuses to eat, you go through a lot of food." No reply, but I do earn a half-smirk and an almost visible release of breath. I stomp to my igloo to prepare the seals. I feed him, and this time he eats. We share bowls of tomato soup with Ritz crackers and grilled cheese, beside each other on the couch with the New Yankee Workshop emitting a soothing handsaw buzz. I lean across to set my empty plate and bowl on the coffee table beside his, and settle back against the cushions. A few minutes into a segment about stupid things that can be achieved with power saws, I feel his eyes on me. I shift my gaze away from the TV and meet his.
His eyes are the colour of blue I've always thought they should print a swatch of in the dictionary beside the definition so that people will know what it's supposed to look like. They feel like you could look at them forever and still never find a name for the particular shade. Pthalo, cobalt, ultramarine - it's like they skipped a notch on the colour wheel. Along with the unidentifiable colour is an unreadable expression. I catch some of the relief I saw earlier, and something else more elusive, more curious. He reaches for the remote and hits the mute button. The room feels like a Paleolithic cave, the TV's flicker eerily similar to torchlight. I'm sure if I glance up at the ceiling I'll see red-ochre markings of bulls and people. The silence feels sacred.
"Why did you stay?" he says, and breaks a silence that has held for eight days and some hours and minutes. I want to answer him, but I don't have any words. I open my mouth, but there's nothing. My words have all turned to ghosts and dust. And I can feel that I'm losing the moment. Without another option, I look at him. Stare into those indefinable eyes and re-establish a contact so ancient I don't know when it began. I hold his gaze until his expression changes and we both understand.
It's hard to tell who leans first or if we lean together, but it's unstoppable and the point is that we're leaning. Our eyes break contact at the same moment our lips touch. There's no shock, no moment of thunder or metamorphosis. But it's real and it's eventual and it feels like the most honest thing we've ever done. His lips close against mine and I can feel a tremble that starts in both of us. Somehow our arms find each other and wind together until we're touching everywhere from mouth to waist. It's a slow kiss, like embers or the progression of night. His fingers are digging into my collarbones and I'm gripping his shoulder blades as though they were put there for that sole purpose. Because anywhere I put my hands is a place I'll be touching him.
The kiss tapers off slowly until we're sitting with our foreheads pressed together. I can feel his eyelashes brush my skin when he opens his lids and I follow him, drinking in his gaze because I never want there to be another moment where his eyes are open and I don't see him.
"Can this be part of my rehab?" he whispers after a long minute of breathing and looking and nothing else. I chuckle despite myself and lean back in to kiss him. He meets me there and it's all that matters. And the best and worst part is that all the words we ever used or didn't use were needless. Everything can be traced back to silence and eye contact.
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Legal Disclaimer: The authors published here make no claims on the ownership of Dr. Gregory House and the other fictional residents of Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. Like the television show House (and quite possibly Dr. Wilson's pocket protector), they are the property of NBC/Universal, David Shore and undoubtedly other individuals of whom I am only peripherally aware. The fan fiction authors published here receive no monetary benefit from their work and intend no copyright infringement nor slight to the actual owners. We love the characters and we love the show, otherwise we wouldn't be here.
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