New Fic: Blythe's Story Chapter 23

[namaste]

Title: Blythe's Story, Chapter 23
Author: Namaste
Summary: "The truth would tear down everything, like waves beating against a rocky shore, one after another until the rocks themselves wore down to sand."
PG, 955 words.
Author’s Note: A look at House's early life, based on the new background we received in the fifth season episode "Birthmarks," using chapters of about 1,000 words.
To start at the beginning: Chapter One



Greg would never tell her what he'd said, or what he'd told John that day.

"That's because you never asked." The voice deep inside Blythe pointed out.

Blythe turned up the radio and tried to ignore the voice. It was getting harder. Call it her conscience, call it a voice of reason, call it her better nature, but it was always there now. It seemed to taunt her, to point out everything she did wrong, from not putting enough vanilla extract in the butter cream frosting to avoiding John's eyes at the breakfast table.

She'd heard it before, back when she'd first met Phil, but it had seemed to go silent after Greg was born, and she saw how happy John was.

This time it wouldn't shut up.

"I asked," Blythe whispered.

"No you didn't," the voice said. "Not really. You could have made him tell you, if you tried."

She sat at the edge of Greg's bed that first night, and waited for him to speak first, to ask ask the question that would expose everything. Greg was always asking questions. This time, he didn't. He shook his head when she finally asked him if he'd tell her what was wrong.

The next morning, she took him his breakfast – "Confined to quarters, until further notice," John had typed out on a blank sheet of paper before he headed out – and she almost stammered out something about what had happened, back then, but she didn't. She told herself that she didn't want to give Greg any clues if she was wrong. Maybe he didn't know anything.

"Of course he knows. You're only making things worse."

Greg watched her closely as she put the plate down on his dresser: pancakes already coated with maple syrup alongside two slices of bacon. She placed a glass of milk next to them.

She turned to him, finally. "Is there anything you need?"

He only stared at her, his eyes catching hers for a split second before he turned away.

She paused at his door, her hand on the knob, hoped that he'd say something if she waited long enough, but he didn't.

John wouldn't let him come out of his room except to use the bathroom for the first week, then told him he couldn't leave the house for another two weeks.

"House arrest," he typed out.

"This is ridiculous," Blythe told him as he folded the paper in half, creasing the line of it between his thumbnail and the thick skin of his index finger. "Talk to him."

"I'm not in the mood to listen to any more of his lies," John said.

"You should tell him too," the voice said. "Greg wasn't lying. You're the only one who lies."

Blythe didn't say anything, just watched as John slid the note under Greg's door.

"Coward."

Yes, she thought. She was. She was afraid of losing everything she'd had, everything they'd all had.

"If everything you've had can't survive the truth, maybe it's not worth holding onto."

Blythe wiped away a tear. Maybe, she thought, that was true. Maybe that's why she couldn't risk exposing it – exposing herself. The truth would tear down everything, like waves beating against a rocky shore, one after another until the rocks themselves wore down to sand. If solid rock wouldn't last, what hope did they have?

"You'll never know, will you?"

She tried to tell John once.

"I'm sorry," she whispered on a hot summer night when she couldn't fall asleep.

"For what?" he asked.

"For -- " she tried to think of the right words, tried to arrange them into something he could understand, but the words jumbled together, froze up in her mind unspoken. He drifted off to sleep before she found the right answer.

The summer passed in near silence, the TV banned in one of John's written punishments. Blythe turned on the radio some days, just to try and drown out the voice in her head, but then she'd hear some song filled with empty promises of everlasting love and she switched it off again.

After the first month, Greg filled his days cleaning out the garage, or washing the car, or polishing John's shoes – whatever chore the note told him to do each morning. Blythe took him shopping with her one day to the NEX, hoping to see him smile again, but his silence only seemed to burrow deep into her soul.

"He needs you to make this right."

Blythe agreed with the voice, but could never figure out how to do it. She promised herself that she'd try. She asked John again and again to speak to Greg, to end the punishment.

"It's been long enough," she told him on an August night with the sound of cicadas echoing through the bedroom. "He doesn't deserve this. Nobody does."

"You don't know what he said."

Blythe paused, saw her opening. "So tell me."

It was the first time the voice in her head was silent in weeks.

The white of his eyes were bright in the darkness. He placed his hand against her cheek. He sighed. "No," he said. "It was a lie."

"What if it wasn't?"

John looked at her for a moment longer. She couldn't read the thoughts in his head, couldn't make out his expression. Finally he shook his head. "It was," he said, then rolled over and turned his back to her.

Blythe stared at the outline of his body under the sheets, watched as his breaths deepened into sleep.

"Coward," the voice said.

She nodded, and turned away from John. "Yes," she whispered. "I am."

Chapter 24

Comments

[chippers87.livejournal.com]

You know what this chapter made me picture (and this is going to sound insane)? It's as though Blythe was standing in the middle of a room at normal speed while Greg and John move at completely different speeds around her, isolating and ignoring her. Or it's because I'm listening to the song "Mad World." Then again, that may the perfect song for Blythe.

Without him even saying a word, one can pick up on the pain House must be feeling right now. His father, whom he resents anyway, thinks he's a liar, and there is no way in hell that he can open up to his mother about it.

Such a painful chapter. Very good work.

[namasteyoga.livejournal.com]

It's not such a strange image. In writing this, I had this image of Blythe being stuck, not certain how to go back and fix the previous damage or move ahead, so she knows what's wrong but can't even find the words when she wants to fix things. In a way, she's frozen in that moment.

[pwcorgigirl.livejournal.com]

What gets to me here is not so much Blythe's turmoil, which is heart-wrenching, but that this is when everything changed forever between John and Greg. All this time, she's been trying to hold the family together in her silence, and it fractures over this summer in the same way.

[namasteyoga.livejournal.com]

Thanks. To a certain extent, because of John and Greg's personalities, I don't know if there was anything she could have done that would have held them together. Even with 20-20 hindsight and if she'd done everything perfectly, I still think the two of them would still clash in huge ways.

[spicyride.livejournal.com]

This made me sad. How awful for all of them.
I wonder if John knew/realized, but it didn't matter. And it just really hurt him to be accused of not being his father.
ETA: I have to remind myself that all this isn't "real" :).

[namasteyoga.livejournal.com]

Thanks, and while I know it's not real, I wish I could still reach through and somehow confront or console Blythe. (I go either way, depending on the day.)

[chilibreath.livejournal.com]

Both House men didn't want to hurt Blythe and Blythe didn't want to hurt either of them with the truth.

They know that the truth will hurt.

Excellent chapter.

[namasteyoga.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I think Blythe remains the unifying force between them, and always will be no matter how they feel about each other.

[warmdarkwoman.livejournal.com]

I'm chartreuse with envy at how you can so skillfully portray the complexities in a story that has the potential for so much melodrama.

[namasteyoga.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I always prefer to avoid melodrama. No throwing of cutlery, please.

[poeia.livejournal.com]

The saddest thing is that she did all this to hold them together as a family and they were already splintered apart. You just know that from the day he left from college, he severed ties as much as he could without completely freezing Blythe out.

I'm very happy that there are 37 more years for you to cover because this is wonderful.

[namasteyoga.livejournal.com]

Good Lord, I couldn't write 37 more chapters of this. It'd wear me down just like Blythe.

[feanix.livejournal.com]

Guh...How do you keep writing this??

It keeps getting more intense, more gutwrenchingly painful, but remains beautiful with the picture of a woman trying to keep herself and her family together...

[namasteyoga.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I think I need to write some fluff soon just to balance things out.

[jonne17.livejournal.com]

I'm finding it increasingly hard to comment on this story because I hate this situation so much. Of course that's a compliment to your writing, because you make me care about these characters so much.

How can parents do this to their child? I'm convinced John knows Greg's not lying, he can do the math now that Greg has pointed it out to him. So while John and Blythe are ignoring their problems, they are ruining their son's youth. Grrr.

[namasteyoga.livejournal.com]

What's the old Jim Morrison bit? Nobody gets out of this alive? That's kind of the situation they're all in, and no one will escape uninjured in some way -- whether they're an innocent bystander or not.

[daisylily.livejournal.com]

I made an icon especially for commenting on this story :D

Oh dear - they're all on different wavelengths, aren't they?

I'm still very much loving this.

[namasteyoga.livejournal.com]

Ah, sweet icon (quick, let me insert my House'rents one!).

I do see them all as fumbling and bumbling and hurting in independent worlds, which makes everything that much worse.

[hibernia1.livejournal.com]

Oh, poor Blythe... and John's so harsh...

[namasteyoga.livejournal.com]

I tend to view John as falling back on his training and discipline when in doubt, either through his father (who I picture as having used the "spare the rod, spoil the child" phrase too much) and military training because it's a world he knows. Hence the military jargon in the notes.

[(Anonymous)]

Another beautifully crafted chapter; Blythe's conflicting voices are so clear and so damning. But I do wonder why John doesn't take out more of his hurt and anger on her rather than focus all of his fury on Greg. John's behavior toward Greg is a sort of abuse and Blythe is now complicit in it since she won't correct the situation. Such a horrible situation, rendered in such gorgeous language. I continue to swoon at the power of this story.
--blacktop

[namasteyoga.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I see John as having a willful ignorance of Blythe's actions. He simply refuses to believe the truth, refuses even to contemplate it because he doesn't want to believe it. He compartmentalizes that possibility and locks it away, which leaves him with his belief that Greg is the one being hurtful and lying.

[3kelvin.livejournal.com]

Good lord. This is heartbreaking.

Having John write the notes in military terminology makes the punishment worse, IMO.

So sorry for Blythe. There's no good way to resolve this.

Am I interpreting right, that John knows but chooses to ignore the truth?

[namasteyoga.livejournal.com]

Thanks. As I mentioned above, yes, I believe that John willfully is ignoring the truth -- he doesn't want to believe it, he's got enough reasoning on his side to support his side of the argument (Greg could have been two weeks early rather than two weeks late, birthmarks aren't conclusively heriditary, his belief in Blythe) so he's simply locked down his belief and institutionalized it in a way.

He then falls back to what's comfortable: military terms and language. There are rules and orders within the military life, he understands those, so he uses them.

[angelfirenze.livejournal.com]

Okay, this was well worth remembering once I was out of the hospital. You've addressed everything I've felt about the last chapter and, even better, you used Blythe's own thoughts to do it. You are beatific. A genius. Or maybe I'm just feeling way too gratified for no tangible reason.

Something like that. *gleeful*