A/N Is long, and somehow a teensy bit of House/Cam poked its head in at the very end, so non-shippers it's not a big deal, and shippers, go nuts, have a party. Inspired after re-watching the episode where House's parents come by for a visit (House's mom was in 'Silence of the Lambs', aaaack!), enjoy! And please leave a review, I need it like a knife needs blood.

"Mom's nice enough. Doesn't have much of a sense of humor, doesn't like confrontation."

She truly never did. He hated her for it when he was younger, and then learned to twist it to his own advantage when he grew to those teenage years when young boys want independence. When he was a younger boy he couldn't depend upon her to take up his side of an argument. When he was older he made sure to bring up all the fuss to the front to ensure he got the car that night, that he got to slip out of the house when his father wasn't home.

"I don't hate her, I hate him."

And he didn't. Hate her, that is. Gregory House never thought about loving anything in his life before, it wasn't something he actively avoided (though the opposite could be said about that now) but it wasn't something he actively sought either. So he puzzled about that. Did he love her?

Sure. Yes.

Every boy loves his mother. It didn't seem like much, but he supposed she won him over with all the little things. The little, trivial, happy things he could remember.

And really when you sum it all up together in the end and it comes out to enough that when you think of a person and a happy image is conjured, that must be the best kind of love. Comfortable, easy, and without burden. Easily tucked away and forgotten about.

When he was younger she would wipe his mouth with a firm gentleness and made sure the sticky food didn't creep down to his neck, make him feel uncomfortable. When he was old enough to acknowledge what she was doing he would look up at her and she always had a smile right back. He remembered the exact pressure, the texture of the apron, the smell of it. Fabric softener. The very nicest kind. When he was old enough to feel embarrassed about it and give a half-hearted complaint (which sometimes won him a sharp look or a warning noise from his father) she still smiled, though it was out of amusement.

Not a lot of sweets allowed but sometimes when he was passing by in the kitchen to get to the bathroom, or the back door or his room, she would snake her arm around his waist and pull him back out of view from the sitting room, where his father would sit with a book or the paper. Out of sight, silent giggles and a treat discreetly slipped into his mouth and then quick shoo-ing motions as she sent him on his way, a shared grin on his face and the candy pocketed away in his cheek. He learned from then on to always take the kitchen's route, and the days he got lucky, were lucky days indeed. It was a secret they kept from his father, a secret only they were in on and even when he was older and that rule couldn't really be enforced, he would still take the kitchen's route and share a knowing look with his mother.

She would help him with his socks and his shoes. He remembered insisting on velcro sneakers that he could do by himself but his father refused to buy them until he could tie his laces with ease and on his own. His mother was a warm presence in his bedroom, pulling things out of the closet, trying to make him wear his nice clothes and failing, and helping him pull on his socks, or do up buttons. There's something oddly therapeutic about having someone dress you, and even when he was a bit older, his fingers longer and more coordinated and he had no trouble with socks, he let her help him with them anyway. She complained that he could never get more than half his clothes on and it took such a while to get him ready, but he could already tell she enjoyed their routine as well, and for a while he let her help him. Because he liked it too.

She didn't have much of a sense of humor, but it didn't stop him from playing all the pranks he could play on her. Rubber snake in the soup, little shouts of 'boo' from around the corner, plastic poop on the floor or in her drawers. He got her every single time, and she would get a shock and the reactions were priceless, priceless. The best part though, was when she cooled down and gave him a look. Trying to understand his humor and failing. And he would giggle and laugh like mad, holding his plastic toy crap triumphantly in the air, and then she would laugh too. Laugh because her son was laughing and he was happy and amused and though it was at her expense, it might as well have been. He caught on to that subtle difference in the humor she found out of life, and he appreciated it quite young.

If he looked like he was helping her in the kitchen, he could beg for scraps and tasters without his father scolding him for it. Of course, he never was much of any help and his mother tried a few times now and again to actually have him do something, and he properly mucked it up enough that she would 'whoof' with resignation and let him sit up on the counter and swing his legs and watch. He liked watching her cook, and when her fingers plucked away a little something, something, he opened his mouth and neatly it was tucked away, chewed, swallowed, the operation smooth and quick, and he was off the counter top and helping stir the pot by the time his father passed by to see how things were doing. The taste of the sauce or meat still lingering with the hidden smile threatening to creep up from his face.

She always smoothed his hair, she told him she couldn't help it. His curls were just like his father's, always messy and she always felt the need to try and groom them back. Of course it never worked, so it was a pleasant ritual. A little fret first, trying to pat down the curls and then with a little teasing smile she gave up and left him to finish his breakfast cereal. She did it with much more fervor when he still couldn't tie his laces, like with everything else, but still now and again, even with him all grown up, she would give his hair the 'look' and play with it for a moment. He let her. He didn't mind.

She liked his girlfriends. That was one he really appreciated. He didn't have that many, but he did bring home a girl more than once or twice. He always tried to when his father wasn't home, though eventually they met him and he tried to be civil. His mother liked them though, genuinely, and they could tell she wasn't just being polite. She left him alone with them too, though he could tell she always worried before sending them off. Still she left them alone, which was a lot more than he could say about his father. When he came home one night and found out Greg was up in his room with a girl from school he called the phone Greg had up in his room.

"Dad? Why are you calling me, we live in the same damn house-"

"Cause I'm goddamned worried that's why!"

He had his moments when he hated her though.

Because she didn't like confrontation. She wasn't a true House in that right.

He remembered being little, and his father having a talk with him. Whether it was about the boy he got into a fight with at school, or the caterpillar he brought home in a jar that got loose, or the toy car he found in the middle of the street he couldn't keep, or the little fib he told his teacher about getting his homework done. His father was relentless. Of course he put on the 'soothing, reasonable' tone of voice, tried to sound rational and understanding, but it was relentless, relentless and unmerciful. It never stopped, Greg just couldn't get away with anything. He would stare down at the socks his mother helped put on him in the morning, that he let her help put on him, and he would sneak a look at her ("don't look at your mother, I'm talking to you"), begging her silently to help him. She would look at him sadly, fret a little and look at his father, thinking about saying something but doing nothing in the end. He learned to stop looking.

She did try, though, when it came to one of the bigger fights. Like about borrowing the car, she had tried to step in and talk about how boys were at the age, and how they wanted freedom and that Greg should have fun because he worked hard, and he would be responsible. His father didn't like that. His mother had always been a silent presence in the background and to break that now was unthinkable. The short, sharp reply he had to that about how boys still needed to be held in line and be disciplined, was not so much for him, but aimed at his mother. It was a smack. A verbal smack. And Greg burned, he could feel his ears get hot and he looked at his father with such hatred that his father gave him one of his 'warning looks'. Greg didn't look away though, and he never did afterwards. He got a hot, "go to your room" but he was still smoldering, and he knew now that he wouldn't look away again.

His mother had always tried to give him his freedoms and accept the things he brought into his life. So it hurt him most when she didn't like Stacey. His father didn't like her much either, but he didn't care about that, what hurt him was his mother didn't like her. She tried to cover it up the fact that she didn't take a shine to her, but it was colder and artificial than any other time and Greg's heart sank. He never quite understood why his mother didn't like Stacey, but he thought perhaps it wasn't Stacey at all. Perhaps it was because she was the first girlfriend he had that was someone serious, someone who he could actually have married and ended up living with and perhaps his mother wasn't ready to give him away yet. She probably never would have been. But still, at the time it hurt.

He hates that she can love his father. And he knows she does as well, it's not just the insane commitment coming out of 47 years of marriage, he knows his mother genuinely loves his father. And he hates that. He can see it, in the fond if somewhat chastising way she says 'John'the amusement she finds out of him, the way she always makes sure he's seen to and cared for first. And he thinks, how can she love him? When she knew, ever since I was little, because we shared those secret looks, those secret exchanges, and those sad looks from behind his scolding shoulder, and she knew how much I hated him and how much he hurt me. And yet she still loves him. Devoted to him. So what was I to her? He treated her little boy like shit and she still dotes on him. But, she probably never saw it that way and he sighs and tries to forget it. She's disappointed him over the years too. He doesn't hate her, but he'll wash his hands of his father and her. She can have him. She can have all of him.

He chuckles to himself, an almost childish, young boy's giggle, just keeping from spilling over from a man's deep throat. It would be nice to have a woman like that hang around you. You could pull all the crap you want, you could be the crankiest man in the world, and yet they would still stick around. How cool would that be?

But Stacey's gone, and Allison...

House sighs and twirls his cane.

...well, Allison's too much like his father.