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It’s been a stressful few weeks. Of course, House’s track record is well-known (of being a huge ass, that is), but Wilson’s manipulation tactics managed to make the foster system people and social workers to accept them into the possible parents list. And after a few weeks, they’d gotten their first match.
House knows he’s been avoiding doing what usually goes to him; Wilson takes care of other household chores, and he cooks. And he’s very much not done that today.
“I’m only here to establish an alibi,” House says as he steps into the kitchen.
Wilson is already annoyed. “You haven’t cooked!” he exclaims. “You know I’m busy learning ASL for our kid—”
“I’ve been trying to learn ASL for her too,” House intercepts.
Wilson stops in his tracks. “You’ve what ?” He pauses. “You don’t know ASL?”
“No,” he admits, looking away. “Listen. I know you thought I did, but I didn’t, and you know how I get around kids whose parents are— like that… ”
“Oh,” Wilson says, and a smile starts to form on his lips. “You wanted to get her because of her track record.”
“Of course I did,” he says, his gaze still fixated on the floor. He waves his hands around vaguely. “You know how it is.”
Wilson leans in to kiss his cheek. “I do know. I’ll order takeout.”
“I’ll ask Leah if she’s okay with Mexican.”
Wilson smiles at him, and so House turns and goes to their kid’s new room. The house is still mostly depleted— before they got into the foster system’s lists, they were still in House’s awful, small apartment. But now they’re here, slowly filling out the house with things Leah likes.
He goes for the notepad on her nightstand and glances at her. She’s too small. It scares him, to see her small frame, her huge eyes just remind him of how scared she was when she first got to them. She’s frail and her clothes are too big for her and he can see the bruises.
He bites his lip and scribbles it down on the notepad before showing it to her and handing her the pen.
Mexicans good
He smiles at her and nods. “Okay.” He turns and leaves, going to call some takeout place for Mexican food.
When the food gets there, they all sit on the sofa, the only thing they salvaged from House’s apartment. Wilson wanted a complete change of scenery to go with the new addition to their family— much to House’s chagrin. He’d never been good with change, something he’d never known had an exact cause until he went to a psychologist as part of the foster system process.
And it’s the same thing Leah has, and so he knows a little what it’s like for her. Just a bit, though— for her, it’s wildly different.
House leans against Wilson while eating takeout, and leaves a respectful foot of distance in between him and Leah. When Wilson pulled her into a hug for the first time she’d cried uncontrollably, so he’s decided to not hug her or try to touch her if he can help it.
It’s silent throughout most of it, House scoffing at the TV and Wilson looping an arm around him.
Leah clears her throat as she puts her plate down. “Thank you for the food,” she says.
Wilson smiles at hearing her talk. “It’s no problem, Leah. You can stay, or go back to your room. Anything’s fine by us.”
“What he said,” House says, leaning into his shoulder.
Leah hums and turns, leaving to her room.
“She's so small,” House whispers. “She doesn't look ten.”
Wilson goes to rub his back, shushing him with a kiss. “I know. But she'll grow. She's here now.”
House hopes she's here for longer; House hopes his terrible personality doesn't drive her and the social workers away from him. He wants to give Leah what he could never have.
But he can't say any of those things, he can't say any of those things without being vulnerable, vulnerable . And so he settles for the next best thing— actions.
“We should go buy her something she likes.”
Wilson hums and keeps rubbing his back. “What does she like?”
House smiles a little. “We’ll find out.”
Leah doesn’t seem to have many things she likes. There's just a few things— chess, cats, dinosaurs, Pokémon. She has a copy of Pokémon Sapphire and it seems to be one of her few possessions.
Their new place is slowly starting to take form as House ponders what to give her. Of course, he could go the easy route and gift her a dinosaur toy or a console to go with her Pokémon game or a chess set.
But she likes reading.
House does it in secret, taking from his bank account and asking for help putting it up with a man made for the job. Wilson's taking care of his cancer patients, House has the day off, Leah is in her room.
When it's done, he starts filling it up with the boxes labeled for this. Medical books, a few fiction books, a few poetry books Wilson told him specifically not to throw into the garbage.
And then, the last corner he fills up with books about the world before mammals dominated the earth. About dinosaurs, about what happened after them, what was there before them.
He stretches a little— his leg hurts like hell. He takes some of the non-opiate pain relievers and goes to lay down. Wilson can be surprised over the bookshelf when he comes home.
Of course, he wakes up to Wilson gently nudging him awake with his hands. He's always treating him like he's made of china— just a little less than the rest of the world, and only when touching him. He speaks his mind, but he holds him tight while doing so.
He blinks the sleep out of his eyes. “What?” he yawns.
Wilson starts peppering kisses on his face, his hands on his sides. “You’re incredible. I love you. Do you want to show Leah?”
He yawns. “Of course. Just a second.”
He shakes the sleep out of his body and stands up, clutching his thigh as he limps to Leah’s bedroom. He knocks on the door, Wilson making a beeline behind him. Leah opens the door, looking up at them— God, she’s so small, but she’s gained some weight in the last month.
House pulls his hand away from his thigh and draws in a breath. “I have a surprise for you,” he signs, doubting every move of his hands. He’s multilingual, sure, but sign language is a completely different ballpark— he’s still growing used to it.
Leah raises her brows and Wilson and House step back to let her go to the living room. They follow behind her, and when they’re by the bookshelf House kneels down and takes some of the books out of it, showing them to Leah.
She stares down at them before opening one of them, skimming through the pages; she smiles bright and wide, and it’s the most sincere smile he’s seen in her face. Wilson gives House an approving nod. She looks up and leans in to hug House. He blinks, but hugs back, tight and sure of himself.
When she pulls away, she goes, “Thank you so much! I love it!”, her hands moving rapidly, but he can catch what she’s saying.
“I’m glad you like it,” he signs.
“Of course I like it!” she replies, smiling at him brightly.
House pulls her into another hug. “I’m glad. You can go read these, sit on the sofa, okay?”
“‘Kay,” she mumbles.
He kisses the top of her head and turns to go watch TV with Wilson. He ends up paying more attention to Leah, with her book in her lap, reading in silence, swinging her legs.
House leans on Wilson, hums happily, and switches between Real Housewives of… and their foster daughter.
Elementary school is hard for anyone, but especially for Leah. She signs angrily about her classmates calling her names and them bothering her about her being a foster kid and about them. Wilson does all the comforting because he’s got a talent for those things— years and years of cancer kids made him made for such things.
“Why am I different?” she asks them both one night while keeping her distance in between House and Wilson.
Wilson eyes House— this is a conversation made for him, not for human kindness personified. He nudges him.
“It’s—” House sucks in a breath. “It’s how your brain is wired. My brain is wired like that, too. It makes you different from everyone else. But it doesn’t make you worse. Or better.”
“But why?”
“No one’s very sure,” House tells her. “But there’s a genetic factor.”
Leah’s eyes widen and she’s terrified. House’s heart pangs painfully at that— what did he say wrong?
“I’m like this because my parents were like this?” she says, her hands shaking.
House wants to give her a comforting lie. Something he’s usually against, but she’s ten years old, she’s traumatized, she’s gone through so much and she’s so young— “Oh, not at all,” he soothes, offering him a hand. She doesn’t take it. “You’re not like them. You’re not like them at all . You’re so much better than them.”
“But—”
“It can be other things,” he says. “You’re yourself. You’re nothing like them.”
Leah sobs out and wipes her tears away, shrinking on herself and hugging her knees. She somehow looks smaller— she somehow looks more frail than usual. House wants to hug her and kiss the top of her head and mumble comforting lies into her hair. She stays in her position, crying silently, and after a few minutes she reaches for House’s hand, and he squeezes softly.
House understands her panic, and she’s too young for this type of fear. He wants to save her from herself, for her trauma, for the scars left in her because of her shitty, shitty parents.
God. He’s attached to Leah. He wants to keep her.
Fuck.
“We need a new dining table,” Wilson tells him one night, laying his head on his chest.
House keeps a hand on the small of his husband’s back. “Do we?”
“Yes.” He leans up to kiss his jaw. “I know you’re allergic to change, but it’s in a bad state.”
“Unless it’s falling apart—”
“House.”
He draws in a sigh. He’s never liked changing scenery— he’s still a bit nervous in their new house, and it’s almost been two months. There’s new stuff all over their new place; they’ve got a new bed they still haven’t broken in too much (it’s all uncomfortable and off); they’ve got new nightstands, new lamps, new almost everything. It’s a little asphyxiating.
“Fine,” he says. “Just… have it be similar to our old one.”
“I still don’t know how nobody had any idea,” Wilson says, leaning up to peck him on the lips.
“About me being autistic?”
“Yeah. When you know it’s… glaringly obvious.”
He shrugs. “It’s the nearing fifty and an ex-drug addict.”
Wilson hums. “That’s true. I’m glad you can put an ‘ex’ in there.”
He pauses. He’s had his ups and downs ever since Mayfield, had moments where he’s almost slipped right back into his Vicodin habits, where the pain was too great or his psychic pain was also too great to bear. But Wilson is always there, quietly encouraging him to get into the right path. The recovery path.
Recovery sounded like a fever dream years ago. Now it’s happening, and he’s got a therapist— Nolan and him might be constantly eye to eye, but he’s got a therapist .
“I’m glad about that, too.”
“I want to fast for Yom Kippur,” Leah signs, looking up at Wilson.
He smiles, shakes his head just a little. “You’re turning eleven, right?”
She nods.
“You don’t have to.” He fiddles with his fingers while looking for the correct hand movements. “You can just avoid sweets tomorrow, to ease you into it.”
She smiles. “Kay!” she says out loud, standing up and hugging Wilson. She signs, “Are you going to fast?”
“Uh-huh. I’ll go to temple too. You can come with, or you can stay with House.”
She clears her throat, “I wanna stay with House.”
“Okay.” He leans down to kiss the top of her head. “He’s a bit mean about religion—”
“It’s more about Christians—!” House interrupts.
“—It’s not really. But he lets me be because I’m his husband.”
Leah chuckles. “I won’t eat sweets.”
House stands up and pecks Wilson’s cheek. “Can I tempt her with my superb baking skills?”
“No, you can’t.”
They all laugh, and God, House realizes how much he likes being a family with Wilson. The mere thought of Leah eventually leaving and it being just the two of them again makes his heart hurt. He’s attached, and he doesn’t know how to confront it.
So he waits for the next day— he waits for Wilson to be out in the temple, for Leah to be reading her books about dinosaurs, for the house to be all too quiet. He puts on some vinyl record he doesn’t remember the name of but that he likes the bass line, and tries to relax.
“Leah?”
She looks up and puts her book down. “Um?”
He draws a breath. He can barely be emotionally vulnerable to his husband, who he’s known for twenty-odd years.
“Are you happy here? Do— do you like it here?”
Leah seems like a deer in the headlights, but hell, she had a growth spurt a month ago and she’s filled out at the edges and she looks only a little like when she got here.
She fiddles with her hands, her eyes going everywhere but House’s face. Eventually, she straightens up and starts signing, “It’s better than any place I’ve lived in before.”
House wants to cry at that. He knows they’re not the best parents out there— not the best foster parents out there. He doesn’t even know how to work with kids. And yet…
“I’m glad,” he manages to say.
Leah smiles a little in his general direction. “I like it here.”
“I’m so glad.” He draws in a breath. “Can I hug you?”
“Uh-huh,” she says out loud, and he hugs her tight.
He makes the sign for I love you against Leah’s back, and holds her like she will slip away if he doesn’t.