“Okay.” There’s not much else for it. When he’s pulled away, created enough space between then for her to slip back down into the cold, Jem winces and splashes her own face, wipes at her cheeks and sinks down to her chin.
When Kieren died, Jem didn’t leave her room for seven days. She barely ate a thing. She cried so much her eyes stopped being wet. She knows now that he was back within weeks. She knows now that House will be back with them within weeks.
It doesn’t feel reassuring, today. The loss is too new. The grief is too raw, and Jem doesn’t know House the way John does, and Jem cannot possibly love House the way that John does, but loss is loss, and she feels a horrible swell of guilt for having been right there. That she fell asleep at all.
She watches John for a long time, doing what he has to do. He doesn’t look like a god at all, but Jem’s really only ever saw a man, even with his eyes.
She ducks her head under the water. Counts and holds her breath until her burning lungs force her back to the surface. After this she reaches for John’s arm, pulls him back towards her and wraps herself around his middle, presses her face to his chest and holds on very tight. “I think,” she says, with less of a tremble in her voice. “That we should have tea, and eat something. And then we should drag Danny back inside and lie down for a little while, until it’s late enough to drink something stronger. Then we should all be really morose while listening to the cannibal album, because I think House would find it really funny and a huge ego boost if we all get really drunk about it.”
John gathers her in, kisses the top of her head, and holds her. He feels a multifaceted kind of awful, but this is nice. Carefully, he heals her - physically, the only kind he can manage. Washes her up with gentle hands.
"Okay," he says quietly. He feels strangely peaceful. "Let's do that."
She’ll never really be used to the way John is able to make the physical sting and the aches disappear; the way he’s able to get down into the flesh, straight through the muscle and into the nerve endings to make it all better. It’s nice. It’s nicer to be held.
She doesn’t bother dressing, really, when she drags him out of the cold water. She’s holding their clothes against her front like a shield against the wind with one arm, taking his hand with the other hand and leading him home. From there it’s harder, she knows, to exist or be peaceful. It’s a house without House. It’s a bed missing a key component. There are so many corners of this cabin which House should occupy and simply is not.
It’s not easy to ignore. It’s easier to pretend he’s at work while she fixes the tea, still naked, thawing out only by the grace of the fire. It’s easier to imagine he could come back later, in a matter of hours, to cook, to fill up the terrible silence that he’s left behind. Jem’s never been good at grieving, or comforting - she’s decent at tea making, though, so that’s what she does. She makes them a pot, lets it heat them through. She sits on John’s knee for a while, with her face pressed to his shoulder and her fingers stroking his back. After this she drags Danny back inside and puts them all to bed, either side of John, and she strokes John’s hair like she’s doing a dozen times before.
It feels a little like waiting for the clock to hit 5pm, but of course there’s no clock, and of course House isn’t coming home. At the very least, for the rest of the night, she doesn’t cry again.
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When Kieren died, Jem didn’t leave her room for seven days. She barely ate a thing. She cried so much her eyes stopped being wet. She knows now that he was back within weeks. She knows now that House will be back with them within weeks.
It doesn’t feel reassuring, today. The loss is too new. The grief is too raw, and Jem doesn’t know House the way John does, and Jem cannot possibly love House the way that John does, but loss is loss, and she feels a horrible swell of guilt for having been right there. That she fell asleep at all.
She watches John for a long time, doing what he has to do. He doesn’t look like a god at all, but Jem’s really only ever saw a man, even with his eyes.
She ducks her head under the water. Counts and holds her breath until her burning lungs force her back to the surface. After this she reaches for John’s arm, pulls him back towards her and wraps herself around his middle, presses her face to his chest and holds on very tight. “I think,” she says, with less of a tremble in her voice. “That we should have tea, and eat something. And then we should drag Danny back inside and lie down for a little while, until it’s late enough to drink something stronger. Then we should all be really morose while listening to the cannibal album, because I think House would find it really funny and a huge ego boost if we all get really drunk about it.”
no subject
"Okay," he says quietly. He feels strangely peaceful. "Let's do that."
no subject
She doesn’t bother dressing, really, when she drags him out of the cold water. She’s holding their clothes against her front like a shield against the wind with one arm, taking his hand with the other hand and leading him home. From there it’s harder, she knows, to exist or be peaceful. It’s a house without House. It’s a bed missing a key component. There are so many corners of this cabin which House should occupy and simply is not.
It’s not easy to ignore. It’s easier to pretend he’s at work while she fixes the tea, still naked, thawing out only by the grace of the fire. It’s easier to imagine he could come back later, in a matter of hours, to cook, to fill up the terrible silence that he’s left behind. Jem’s never been good at grieving, or comforting - she’s decent at tea making, though, so that’s what she does. She makes them a pot, lets it heat them through. She sits on John’s knee for a while, with her face pressed to his shoulder and her fingers stroking his back. After this she drags Danny back inside and puts them all to bed, either side of John, and she strokes John’s hair like she’s doing a dozen times before.
It feels a little like waiting for the clock to hit 5pm, but of course there’s no clock, and of course House isn’t coming home. At the very least, for the rest of the night, she doesn’t cry again.