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.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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.