Occam's Razor - House M.D.

Part 42- Creature Feature

Madelyn shook her head frantically with her foot restlessly bouncing up and down, 

"I didn't want him to find out," she repeated, "I was trying to avoid all...this!"

"Avoid what?" Thirteen asked sincerely, gently rubbing Madelyn's back. 

Together, they sat in House's otherwise empty office. The guys were off on their lunch break, and House was nowhere to be found. 

"If you'd seen the way he looked at me. My fucking heart-my heart is-is breaking." She sniffled, stumbling over her words. Her decisions were also finally catching up to her. 

Thirteen wasn't entirely sure how she could possibly make her friend feel better, so she told her the truth instead:

"I know it hurts right now, but it's better that he knows about all this. Madelyn, can you really imagine going through this alone?"

"I mean, I have been for the last seven weeks." Madelyn answered honestly.

Thirteen rephrased herself, "Well yes, but I mean going through the abortion alone. If that's what you decided to do, of course. If I were you, I wouldn't want him leaving my side." 

"I didn't want to be selfish about it. I wanted to spare him the emotional exhaustion. The entire reason why I kept it a secret for this long was to spare him any sort of pain." 

"But, don't you see how even though you had the right intentions, keeping it a secret made it worse than things would've been if you'd just been upfront." Thirteen confessed, her attention fully on her friend. 

Admittedly, for Madelyn, Thirteen's words were like bullets, but at least she was being honest; that was more than Madelyn could say for herself at the moment. 

"I do now, yeah. God, this is such a nightmare." Madelyn concluded and dragged the backs of her hands across her forehead to attempt to ease her headache. "Remy?" 

"Yeah?" 

"What does this mean for House and I?" 

Thirteen hesitated just a little before saying, "I'm not sure. You just need to give him space." 

"We have to talk about this, though. Wouldn't it be worse to let it settle?" Madelyn questioned. 

"Since you're asking me, I think it would be worse to force the issue. If you allow him time to come to you, then I think that'll be one way to regain his trust about respecting him." 

"I'm such an idiot!" Madelyn cursed to herself. 

"You're not, you're just going through a lot. I really do understand why you did what you did, and I completely see your side. But, when you look at it more closely and from House's side, I can see that while you thought you were doing this to protect him and as an act of love, it wasn't--"

"--Up to me to decide what he could handle or not." Madelyn finished, reading Thirteen's mind perfectly. 

As she said those words, Madelyn thought back to only moments ago when House told her the exact same thing. It made sense now. The edges of Thirteen's lips curled inwards to create a half smile half frown look:

"Exactly. As you've seen for yourself by now I'm sure, House can be really sensitive. I see the way he looks at you. He loves you. I can't imagine how hurt he is."

Thirteen had this way about herself where she could be incredibly empathetic and understanding of almost any situation, which contradicted her often disregardful demeanor. Madelyn had learned that fairly early on in their friendship, and yet she was still surprised that her best friend was putting all her energy into understanding her situation even when she acknowledged the mistakes made in it. 

"He cried in front of me. I've never seen him cry before." Madelyn confessed, her eyes welling up. 

Thirteen looked down at the floor then back at Madelyn, "Just give him some time, okay?"

"What about the abortion?"

"How soon are you wanting it?" 

"I don't know, but I think I would want House with me. I don't want to do it by myself." Madelyn whimpered a bit. She rubbed her eyes with the cuff of her white jacket, getting some runny eyeliner and mascara on it. 

Thirteen began to tear up at this moment and told Madelyn, "If he doesn't come with you, I will. You can count on that." 

The two friends hugged and just as they were pulling apart, Foreman, Chase, and Taub walked into the office:

"What the hell?" Chase cried out as if he were scared. He was just confused and also wondering if Thirteen was hitting on Madelyn. He still didn't totally understand her bisexuality.  

"Chill." Thirteen replied with a small laugh. 

"Everything okay?" Taub questioned with a raised eyebrow. 

"Not really." Madelyn cleared her throat, wiping her and Thirteen's tears. 

Foreman remained silent as he was pretty confident as to what was going on. 

"Just to... put everything out there. I'm pregnant." Madelyn said to the room, but mostly to Chase and Taub. 

"The hell you are?" Chase blasted, utterly confused. Madelyn sort of laughed at his response. 

"Whose is it?" Taub wondered, wide-eyed. Everyone turned to look at him.

"What do you mean?" Foreman asked Taub, a half smile on his face because it was entertaining. 

"She's dating House?" Thirteen said almost like a question, completely caught off guard. 

"Shit, where have I been? I mean I knew you guys were kinda weird and flirty together, but..." Taub asked himself out loud. "Holy shit." 

"Yep..." Madelyn's voice trailed off and her chest feeling a little lighter with the secret completely out there. "And no, we didn't plan it."

"Does House want a baby?" Taub asked Madelyn. 

"Not to mention a baby wanting House..." Chase commented, stunned by the realization.

Just then House walked back into his office, grabbing his coat from the rack.

"Congratulations, daddy!" Taub hollered when he noticed him enter the room. 

Madelyn squinted her eyes shut, embarrassed. 

"Please..." Thirteen grimaced at Taub and gestured to him to cut it out. 

The team watched House approach them like high tide. None of them missed how distraught he appeared. House didn't acknowledge the comment: 

"Did anyone end up helping out in the NICU with Dr. Sartori?" House asked the team. 

"She left about a minute after you did. I don't think she actually needed help." Chase answered.

"Great. So nothing dire on the agenda for the rest of the day?" House replied, his tone surprisingly gleeful. 

"No? I don't think so." 

"Alrighty. I'm taking the rest of the day off. I can trust my little elves to cover for me." 

"Yeah, but if Cuddy bring us a-" 

"That wasn't a question." House corrected in a hurry, eager to leave off the hospital. 

A moment later, he was out the door and hadn't acknowledged Madelyn in the slightest. With the four doctor's eyes glued on her, Madelyn shrugged her shoulders all out of words. She clapped her hands together, and said:

"Back to it, I guess."