It was supposed to be a straightforward case. A young boy, ten years old—diagnosed late, prognosis grim. You had fought for a more aggressive treatment. House had disagreed.

You were wrong.

And when the update came—when the boy coded in the ICU—you were still clutching the chart like a shield you didn’t deserve to carry.

The fight started in his office. You were pacing, voice cracking through words like “I just wanted to try—he was a child—” and he, as always, played the cold card, arms crossed, deflecting, analyzing your guilt like a failed theory.

“You got emotional. You got involved. That’s your mistake, not mine.”

“He was dying!” you snapped. “I wasn’t going to just stand there—”

He stood sharply, voice rising to match yours, crueler than it had to be:

“Exactly. That’s why you’d make a terrible mother.”

The room went still.

You froze, breath catching halfway between your throat and your chest. Not because of what he said—but because of what it hit.

He didn’t know. About the miscarriage. Or the trauma of your own parents, of the scheme repeating itself. Or how you still wake up in cold sweats with phantom fear curled around your ribs to one day be a mother.

Your hands curled at your sides. You looked away, too fast.

He caught the change. Your silence wasn’t the same kind of angry. It was glass-shattered-on-the-floor quiet.

“Hey,” he said, voice rougher, but you’d already turned to the door. “I didn’t mean—”

But you were gone.