FF: Laws of Motion
Title: Laws of Motion
Author: Ellie
Rating: PG13
Cuddy, Gen, 535 words
Summary: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Spoilers through “Fetal Position”
Author’s Note: Subject matter of a divisive and controversial nature.
***
The slings and arrows hit too close to home. He’d intended that, of course, before huffing out of her office, but Cuddy doesn’t think he realizes quite how close. He may suspect, given his uncanny perceptiveness, but his caustic remarks had been aimed at her projection of desire for a child onto the patient, rather than her aversion to the idea of termination.
There’s no way he could know, she realizes, not for sure. It happened before she knew him, and there’s nothing in her official medical records, other than in mentioning prior pregnancy in the fertility paperwork. He might suspect, but there’s no date attached to either event noted there, no specifics, nothing concrete.
She has done the math, though. Late at night, in the last few months, she’s added the months and years, subtracted almost-eighteen from the looming forty. Some nights it’s impossible to believe so many years could really have passed, and she can only think of all that’s happened in the time elapsed.
When she did it, she didn’t think about it much after. It had loomed largest in her mind the day she told her sister, who ignored her frantic, teary pleas and gone straight to Mom. Her mother, always strict and pragmatic, hadn’t seen many options in the circumstances, but had taken the opportunity to pointedly mention that these kind of things often happened when good girls neglected their studies for basketball players.
The decision had been made for her, and Mom used her entreaties not to tell Dad as leverage to get her to crack down and apply herself senior year, to get into a decent college and go onward and upward with her life. She’d already let them down once by her behavior, she wouldn’t let it happen again. She tried to push it all out of her mind, pretend it never happened. For years, it was as if it never had. No one in the family ever mentions it, but now she can’t help but think about it.
Lately, she thinks that her own child might be in medical school, or on the stage at the Met, or off in some jungle with the Peace Corps. Thinks how she could not just have a baby now, but a grandchild. It seems impossible, some alternative universe that she’s offered a glimpse into, because she certainly couldn’t have that life and this one, too. Most of the time, she’s certain she’s better of without that life, better off with her degrees and the lives saved and her bureaucracy, but then there are cases like these.
House had a point. He always has a point, and most of the time it’s a valid one. This time, it’s more valid than he even realizes. She does see herself in this woman, but not just herself now, but twenty-two years younger. There are so many ways she’s too close, but handing the case back over to House doesn’t sit easy with her conscience. She trusts his medical judgment, but he doesn’t understand this, not the way she does.
She sits at her desk for a long time, staring blankly at the spreadsheet on her computer monitor and seeing all the potential.
***
Author: Ellie
Rating: PG13
Cuddy, Gen, 535 words
Summary: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Spoilers through “Fetal Position”
Author’s Note: Subject matter of a divisive and controversial nature.
***
The slings and arrows hit too close to home. He’d intended that, of course, before huffing out of her office, but Cuddy doesn’t think he realizes quite how close. He may suspect, given his uncanny perceptiveness, but his caustic remarks had been aimed at her projection of desire for a child onto the patient, rather than her aversion to the idea of termination.
There’s no way he could know, she realizes, not for sure. It happened before she knew him, and there’s nothing in her official medical records, other than in mentioning prior pregnancy in the fertility paperwork. He might suspect, but there’s no date attached to either event noted there, no specifics, nothing concrete.
She has done the math, though. Late at night, in the last few months, she’s added the months and years, subtracted almost-eighteen from the looming forty. Some nights it’s impossible to believe so many years could really have passed, and she can only think of all that’s happened in the time elapsed.
When she did it, she didn’t think about it much after. It had loomed largest in her mind the day she told her sister, who ignored her frantic, teary pleas and gone straight to Mom. Her mother, always strict and pragmatic, hadn’t seen many options in the circumstances, but had taken the opportunity to pointedly mention that these kind of things often happened when good girls neglected their studies for basketball players.
The decision had been made for her, and Mom used her entreaties not to tell Dad as leverage to get her to crack down and apply herself senior year, to get into a decent college and go onward and upward with her life. She’d already let them down once by her behavior, she wouldn’t let it happen again. She tried to push it all out of her mind, pretend it never happened. For years, it was as if it never had. No one in the family ever mentions it, but now she can’t help but think about it.
Lately, she thinks that her own child might be in medical school, or on the stage at the Met, or off in some jungle with the Peace Corps. Thinks how she could not just have a baby now, but a grandchild. It seems impossible, some alternative universe that she’s offered a glimpse into, because she certainly couldn’t have that life and this one, too. Most of the time, she’s certain she’s better of without that life, better off with her degrees and the lives saved and her bureaucracy, but then there are cases like these.
House had a point. He always has a point, and most of the time it’s a valid one. This time, it’s more valid than he even realizes. She does see herself in this woman, but not just herself now, but twenty-two years younger. There are so many ways she’s too close, but handing the case back over to House doesn’t sit easy with her conscience. She trusts his medical judgment, but he doesn’t understand this, not the way she does.
She sits at her desk for a long time, staring blankly at the spreadsheet on her computer monitor and seeing all the potential.
***