This is the beginning to part II which is obviously entitled denial. It is rather long. As always please comment. =D

Part II: Denial
6 months later

All human beings have ways to defend themselves from their pain. Some pop pain medication at an alarming rate and drink themselves to sleep. Some channel their pain into a savior complex, turning themselves into the proverbial white-knight for all. Some change their names and hop on the first greyhound they come across, hoping that if they erase their identity they can erase what happened. But the most common human defense mechanism is denial. It is much easier to deny the unpleasant than it is to face your reality. Denial is the panacea of pain…until it is the bearer of pain. It is an escape rope for those in agony…until it becomes a noose. bạn can only run for so long before it all catches up to bạn and hits bạn at once, but that did not stop Lisa Cuddy from indulging in it. It was easier for her to get through the ngày if she didn’t face the truth.
She was sitting at her bàn staring at the same file she had been for the past hour. For some reason she just couldn’t concentrate today. She threw her pen down on her bàn in frustration and buried her face in her hands, tears burning at the corners of her eyes. Her work used to be her safe-zone, where she could go to get away from all of the turmoil in her life, but now even it was tainted. The lack of sleep and caffeine was taking a toll on her mental acuity. The memories of all that had happened thus far nagged her and the thêm she tried to repress them the stronger they became. Each ngày was a perpetual battle, filled with fear and anguish. There was no reprieve for her anymore. Then there was the matter of the baby, the baby she was supposed to feel some sort of attachment to, the baby she was supposed to care about. No matter how hard she tried to tình yêu and care about it she didn’t. In her mind that made her a horrible person. Sarah had assured her that it was normal to feel that way, but her assurances meant nothing to Cuddy. Sarah did not hiển thị emotion and the front of hyper-rationality was too well constructed to be fake. If she felt nothing how could she understand how Cuddy felt? Sarah had worked hard at stripping herself of all humanity and she had succeeded. Save for the one angry outburst back in Cuddys’ living room, she had never once shown any sort of feeling, but anger didn’t count. Everyone knew that Sarah was angry at, well, the world.
What did she have to be angry about, Cuddy thought with surprising annoyance, Sarah was a white girl from the suburbs with a relatively intact family, an insanely high IQ, and three careers.
Then Cuddy remembered what she had đã đưa ý kiến in the hospital, “... but bạn could run. bạn could get a new hospital, get a new name, start over. That’s not to say that you’re old life won’t haunt you, that bạn won’t see him dying every night when bạn close your eyes, that the guilt won’t linger in the back of your mind, tormenting bạn for the rest of your life, but you’ll survive, you’ll adapt.”
For some reason Cuddy felt there was some sort of hidden meaning in those words. Once again she dismissed this as over-analysis.
“I would think bạn would’ve covered up your tracks better,” House đã đưa ý kiến smugly laying a couple of old newspaper các bài viết out on her bàn in front of Sarah.
She smirked at him, amused bởi his obsession with her ambiguous past and its cause.
“It would be thêm constructive for bạn to tell Cuddy that bạn are hormonally attracted to her and if I did a substandard job covering up whatever it is bạn think I’m hiding then why did it take bạn six months to find anything of seeming importance?”
“I’m not in tình yêu with Cuddy.”
“The alternative is that bạn are hormonally attracted to me and since a relationship between us would be like a relationship between Hitler and Stalin if they had both been homosexual and we would destroy each other I don’t think that’s the case.”
“Shouldn’t bạn be thêm nervous,” House đã đưa ý kiến ignoring her.
What he had found was not really of significance, but he wanted to test her, see if he could trick her into betraying her secrets, hoặc at least betraying that she had any deeper than what he had found.
“Over newspaper articles,” Sarah scoffed, “I’m trembling on the inside.”
As he suspected it didn’t work.
“Who were Wanda Crawford and Dylan Stratford?”
“Why do bạn ask?”
“I found these các bài viết in with your mothers things when she was visiting.”
“That only proves that these people were significant to my mother. It doesn’t prove that they were significant to me.”
House listened carefully for any sign of annoyance hoặc anxiety in her tone. There was none, she sounded just as cold and đắng, cay đắng as she always did.
“If they were significant to your mother, chances are bạn at least knew them and their untimely demises affected bạn in some way. The fact that they were both thirteen in 2023 when bạn were thirteen makes me think that they were probably your friends.”
“So what if they were? What exactly is it that bạn think this says about me? The fact that Dylan tried to kill Wanda who killed him out of self-defense and in turn killed herself three days later out of guilt is a possible explanation for my misanthropy and it is rather dramatic, but it did not directly involve me like bạn thought whatever had damaged me would.”
“I don’t believe that and I don’t believe this is the only piece of the puzzle.”
“Since bạn will not find all of the pieces to whatever puzzle bạn have construed in your imagination why don’t bạn just go tell Cuddy that bạn have feelings for her?”
“As I stated earlier I don’t have feelings for her.”
“Then why aren’t bạn obsessing over whatever she’s hiding since whatever she’s hiding is most likely way thêm interesting than what bạn think I am hiding? bạn know that is true and bạn are way thêm interested in her secrets than mine yet bạn are ignoring them because bạn don’t want to admit that bạn like her. bạn don’t want to admit that bạn care because the chances of whatever twisted relationship bạn two would have ending with bạn alone and even thêm in pain than bạn are now are very great.”
“Sorry to interrupt,” an unfamiliar voice interjected from the doorway.
Both Sarah and House looked in its’ direction, thankful for the distraction, for an excuse to stop the conversation they were having. A small, Hispanic nurse stood in the doorway shifting her weight from foot to foot.
“There’s a patient in Exam Room 1 that wants to see you,” she đã đưa ý kiến to Sarah.
“Thanks pal,” Sarah replied, “Have a nice rest of the ngày House.”
For once in her life she was happy to be interrupted bởi what would undoubtedly be a moron with a cold hoặc a pulled muscle. Her and her mother would have to have a discussion about holding on to those newspaper các bài viết though. Sarah had worked to hard constructing her cover-up to have it torn apart bởi the front page of a five năm old Plain Dealer and an asshole with a cane looking to distract himself from his feelings for a shattered woman who would probably die.
Cuddy sat in the rocking chair in the nursery she had built the week before. She had hoped that buy expending some effort in her future childs’ room she would grow attached to it, but she was wrong. In her mind it didn’t feel like her child, it felt like Tritters’ child, a constant reminder of that one stupid event that had sent her life spiraling out of control, slipping through her fingers like sand. She wanted desperately to tình yêu it, to be concerned about the brain damage it had suffered not in terms of how much harder it would be for her, but in terms of how it would affect the child. No matter how hard she tried the only emotions she felt in regard to it were dread and hatred, but she would never admit it, not even in the privacy of her own mind. Two weeks, she had two weeks to become the damn kids mother. Somewhere deep in her subconscious she wished that the extreme blood loss and temporary renal failure had killed it, but again she would never admit that.
Two damn weeks before my life goes to hell, she thought bitterly.
You’ll be fine, her conscience soothed.
Cuddy didn’t buy it and she wished that her conscience would shut the hell up. If it did then she wouldn’t feel so damn guilty all the time. All of the sudden she felt a sharp, intense pain in her lower abdomen.
You’ve got to be kidding me, she thought.
With the tiếp theo contraction came a wave of shear panic. She was not ready for this. She was supposed to have two thêm weeks God damn it!! Why couldn’t anything ever go as she had planned?
She pulled herself out of the chair and felt a warm fluid running down her lift leg. The inner part of her pant-leg was stained bright red. Blood, as if things weren’t bad enough. It felt like eternity before she made it into the phòng bếp, nhà bếp to the drawer with the false bottom and the syringes containing what she needed to make it to the hospital. Her hands shook as she tried to inject the contents into her arm causing her to miss the vein several times. The pain would come in waves intense enough to bring her to her knees, but she did not collapse. She did not curl up on the floor and act pathetic and helpless. She handled the situation with a calm that did not betray the panic within. After calling Sarah to meet her at the door she got into her car and drove to Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. bởi the time she got there the pain had gotten so intense that she didn’t know if she could walk anymore. Luckily Sarah was at her door giây after Cuddy pulled into her parking spot. Wasting no time, Sarah yanked the door open and threaded her arm underneath Cuddys’.
“Do bạn think bạn can at least support zero point one percent of your weight,” she asked.
“You should get a wheel chair hoặc something,” Cuddy đã đưa ý kiến weakly.
“You shouldn’t have driven here. Do bạn weigh over two hundred pounds,” Sarah asked sarcastically.
“No.”
“Then I’ll be fine,” Sarah replied pulling her up effortlessly.
“I owe bạn so bad.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
About seven phút later Sarah had practically dragged Cuddy to the maternity ward.
“I need an OB/GYN STAT,” she shouted.
A tall, middle-aged woman seemingly appeared out of nowhere, wheel-chair in tow, and stared at the scrawny red-head and the pregnant, and obviously hemorrhaging woman she had obviously carried up to the maternity ward in astonishment. This had to be the weirdest admittance of a patient she had ever seen. At once the OB/GYN lowered Cuddy into the wheel-chair.
“Is the placenta ruptured,” she asked the red-head. The OB/GYN, Dr. Hanson, recognized her as that bitter, misanthropic, young girl who had synthesized a treatment for Influenza that was effective against most strains and was now close to a cure for Polio. To Dr. Hansons’ surprise she recognized the black-haired, pregnant girl, as Dr. Cuddy. This was turning out to be a very strange day.
“I would assume so, though I’m not sure considering I didn’t really have time to check,” Sarah replied walking along side them to a delivery room.
“She doesn’t appear to be hemorrhaging too severely anymore,” Dr. Hanson commented.
Sarah furrowed her eyebrows, but didn’t comment. Something was amiss…