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remixredux08Title: When He Was A Girl (You'll Be A Woman Soon Remix)
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
thedeadparrot
Summary: One day, Wilson wakes up as a woman.
Fandom: House
Pairing: House/Wilson
Rating: R
Disclaimer: These characters do not belong to me. They belong to Fox, David Shore, and Bad Hat Harry
Original Story: When He Was A Girl byusomitai
Notes: Many thanks to my betasqueenzulu and savemoony, who made this story infinitely stronger and also rolled their eyes and laughed in my face when I said I wasn't going to write genderfuck for this challenge.
***
When He Was A Girl (You'll Be A Woman Soon Remix)
One day, Wilson wakes up as a woman.
Well, to be perfectly precise, he wakes up uncomfortable and achy, feeling like his organs just reorganized themselves, his head throbbing in pain.
He stumbles into the bathroom, hand on the porcelain sink, and when he looks into the mirror, everything becomes so much clearer. There's a woman staring back at him from the other side of the glass. A woman with his eyes, his hair, his mouth.
It's disconcerting, to say the least, and not just because he'd woken up female, not because his body had changed its physical sex overnight, but also because of the vaguest hint of recognition he feels when he sees her, like he's seen her before.
---
He dreads telling House. Of course he dreads telling House. This was the sort of thing House would never let him live down for the next couple of lifetimes and then some.
But Wilson needs his help, and when he asks, House comes over without asking too many questions. He only subjects Wilson to mild amounts of humiliation. It's almost nice of him.
It turns out House can be helpful when he wants to be, curious, focused, and determined. He gets caught up in the work, in solving the puzzle, and while Wilson's been the puzzle before, this is the first time he's wanted to be.
Later, he falls asleep over a medical textbook, and when he wakes up, House's hand is unnaturally gentle on the back of his neck. And even though Wilson knows he hasn't actually become someone else, he feels more and less like himself when House touches him, though he can't explain why. It's too much to untangle, the way everything's knotted up inside him.
"Your hair is thicker," House says, turning away.
---
The next day, House finds an answer and Wilson sleeps with him. It's stupid. It's monumentally stupid. But Wilson's selfish, and he likes the way House looks at him, the way he used to look at Stacy, with a weird mixture of blatant lust and hidden affection.
The idea lodges itself in his brain in the dim light of morning along with the faint memory of House's hands on this skin. He lets it grow, develop, during the rest of the day, because House keeps ogling him and making lewd remarks. Wilson finds that he likes the attention, in a sick, twisted way, finds that he wants to see if he can leverage this in their perpetual game of one-upmanship. He spends too much time thinking about whether or not sex breaks down any of House's walls.
But in the end, it's House who instigates the whole thing. "Sure, wanna fuck?" he asks, waggling his eyebrows after Wilson tells him that he clearly needs to get laid more often.
"Okay," Wilson says, because he's thought about it all day, and if he was being honest with himself, he'd say that this has nothing to do with his new body and everything to do with waiting for House to ask.
House groans, vaguely pained, when Wilson slides onto his lap and kisses him, like this is tearing something out of him he didn't want to give up. When he touches Wilson, he touches Wilson like he's a girl, like Wilson's soft and fragile and delicate. Wilson's not, though. This body's not. He knows what it's like to be on the other side of this.
All his reactions are different as House thumbs his nipples, licks at his neck, bites at his ear. Everything's inside out and backward, foreign, exotic, strange, new.
His orgasm hits like a wave, his body clenching and spasming, and he wants to ride this feeling forever, just like this.
---
He finds out he's pregnant from one of those home pregnancy tests, after he wakes to a roiling stomach three days in a row. He sits on the cold tile of the floor, test clenched tightly in hand and decides to abort, because this isn't him, can't be him. He's not ready for this. House is less ready for this. And Wilson can't let himself think about raising a child by himself, no way, no how.
The clinic waiting room is occupied but not full, and he ends up next to a girl who can't be older than sixteen, her nose stuck in a magazine with Justin Timberlake on the cover. She looks impossibly young, and her shirt is pulled too tight over her distended belly. It reminds Wilson, too vividly, of when his mother was pregnant with Isaac, the way it felt to know there was a brother growing inside her, the way it feels to know there's something growing inside him right now.
He leaves quickly, hands in pockets, the endless pit of his stomach wider than it ever was before.
---
"I don't care what you do with it," House says when Wilson tells him.
"You wouldn't," Wilson says. "That would mean admitting that you give a shit about anything other than yourself."
"You're assuming that I do give a shit about anything other than myself."
---
In the end, it's Cuddy who convinces him to go back to work.
"I expect you back in the office at nine am sharp," she says, arms folded across her chest, staring at Wilson's new form. "I'd also recommend shopping for something that fits. People can be vicious about the way we dress."
It's probably just a slip on her part, but Wilson keeps replaying the way she said 'we' in his head until it feels like it's echoing.
He decides that if he's going to go for the clothes, he might as well go all the way. He gets the lipstick, the mascara, the foundation at CVS, a strange thrill going down his spine. He gets up early the next morning to get ready. Julie used to take forever putting all this stuff on before going to work, her hands deliberate as she pulled back her hair, as she slid into a skirt.
Wilson takes his time, watching himself in the mirror as the lipstick makes his lips darker and the mascara makes his eyelashes look longer, and it brings back a memory from somewhere deep inside himself. He was eight at the time, playing around in his parents' bedroom, and he remembers his mother's dresser, a short wooden thing with rows of neatly organized bottles in front of a large mirror. At the time, he'd been fascinated by the way his mother would apply her makeup, the way it could make her look like a completely different person, the way it made her look beautiful.
He tried putting on the lipstick first, then the eyeshadow, then the blush, but his hands were clumsy and unpracticed, and when he looked at himself in the mirror, all he could see was the grotesque red "o" of his mouth, the purple splotches above his eyes, the unnatural pink of his cheeks. He felt ugly, incapable of undergoing the same transformation his mother experienced each morning, so he washed it off, scrubbing the soap deep into his skin, before his parents could come home and see him like this.
As he looks at himself in the mirror now, his hair still short, his skin smoothed over with foundation, he thinks he looks beautiful.
---
He begins to start showing at four months, just the slightest bump, but when he feels it for the first time it fills him with a wonder he can't articulate. He goes to work every day and assures his patients that he's no different except for the outward appearance. He learns how to wear pantyhose without causing runs. He still sleeps with House even though it's still a bad idea.
"You're really into this, aren't you?" House says during one of their usual arguments. "I always knew you were a giant girl on the inside."
He's said things like that to Wilson before, in far meaner ways, but this tears at something that feels tender, raw and vulnerable. "Fuck you, House," Wilson snaps. "Just... Fuck you."
And even House seems a little taken aback by his vehemence.
---
One of the things Wilson finds out about being female is that he's better at dressing himself than he thought he would be. He'd never minded going with his girlfriends when they went shopping, because the women's section had always been more interesting than the men's. There were always different styles, colors, fashions, and Wilson liked to wander the aisles as he was waiting, liked to feel the different fabrics between his fingers as he passed by.
---
House handles the pregnancy better and better as time goes on. He's more willing to indulge Wilson's cravings, less likely to complain when Wilson refuses him sex because he's tired. There are even times when he could be mistaken for a doting boyfriend. Wilson enjoys taking advantage of it whenever possible.
This doesn't mean he's stopped being House, however.
"I really should have listened to my dad when he was explaining the importance of not knocking up girls," he says as Wilson vomits into a toilet bowl.
"I'm having a blast over here, too," Wilson says, spitting to get as much of the taste out as possible.
House snorts. "You totally are. I bet you've even picked out baby names."
"No, I haven't," Wilson says, because even though he's pretty sure on some gut level it's a boy, he hasn't had the nerve to name it yet. Not right now, not when everything still feels so uncertain.
---
One day, he meets a kid in the clinic, a tall scrawny teenager with bad acne and incredibly wide eyes.
"What's it like," the kid asks, pulling his knees up to his chest on the exam chair, "being a woman?"
The question stuns Wilson into silence. He doesn't know what to say.
The kid continues, tripping over his words, "I, um, I was-- I've never really felt-- you know. Right. The way I am. And I-- I don't know. I didn't think it was possible, but you-- you did it. You changed."
The kid looks at Wilson with pleading eyes, and Wilson realizes that he knows what he--she--is. That knowledge feels like a kick in the gut, like he's just opened his eyes, like there's a door inside himself that's finally opening up, one that's been shut for most of his life, one that he's never been able to open before. Wilson's never felt right the way she was was, either.
"It's not that simple," Wilson says, her hands curled tight around the stethoscope around her neck, because it really isn't. Never has been, never will be.
---
She doesn't have time to think about it for the rest of the day, because she has patients, she has a job to do, but at the end of the day, she goes back to her hotel room instead of House's apartment.
She's looked, of course she's looked, but she's never looked before, never really let herself. She stands in front of the mirror in the bathroom and unbuttons her blouse with shaky hands, peeling it off to reveal her simple, white bra.
She has breasts. They're not huge, but she likes them, the way they fit in her hands. She never was a breast man before, but she always loved the feel of her wives' breasts, even as they used to dredge up some strange, buried longing deep inside herself.
Her face has always been too boyish, but now it looks reshaped, womanly. It fits her now, fits the way she's always seen herself without knowing it. She runs her finger over a cheekbone, feels the unfamiliar-familiar shape of it. She hasn't shaved her face in months.
Her hips are wider, sturdier. Child-bearing hips. The thought makes her touch her growing stomach, makes her imagine what it will feel like when the baby finally kicks.
---
Wilson's gotten used to the odd looks and muffled whispers, but it still takes her by surprise when one afternoon, in the elevator, a man says to her, "Excuse me, but are you Dr. Wilson? We haven't met, but--"
"Yes," she says, anticipating the invasive questions, the uncomfortable staring, "that's me."
"You're beautiful," he says. "You should be proud. Not everyone gets such a successful sex change operation."
It confuses Wilson for a moment before she realizes that it's an honest compliment. She thinks this man might get it, on some deeper level, thinks he might understand that this may have started as a freak accident, but it's become more than that. So much more. "Thank you," she says.
---
She feels it kick for the first time during a board meeting, and afterward, she tells Cuddy, who smiles from the corner of her mouth as she congratulates her.
"I'm happy for you," Cuddy says too sincerely, her expression tired, worn out.
"I'm sorry," Wilson says. She's gotten more than she ever deserved, and Cuddy's a far better person than she ever was.
"This one didn't take either," Cuddy says, her voice cracking on the last word. All Wilson can do is leave a hand on her shoulder and wait for the sobs to subside.
---
"I'd always wondered what it'd feel like to bring life into this world," Wilson tells House, her legs tangled in House's sheets, and she can't quite believe how good it feels to say it out loud, to finally get it out there. Her stomach is huge, now, and her back aches, and her ankles are always sore, but she doesn't mind. It's a small price to pay.
"Gee, did Santa finally get you what you really wanted for Christmas?" House asks, and Wilson doesn't even mind the mocking, because part of her feels freer than she's ever felt before in her life.
"Yeah," she says. "Maybe he did." The words come out sounding a little sarcastic, but Wilson's not sure she's ever been more earnest. She closes her eyes and smiles. "I want to name him Richard," she whispers, finally admitting it to herself, just loud enough for House to hear.
---
When her water breaks, she's at House's, just minding her own business, and then she feels the first convulsions, and then House yells something, and then everything becomes a jumble of sounds, people, other doctors.
If she tries really hard, she thinks she can remember House holding her hand.
---
She wakes up to the beep-beep-beep of the monitors, her head still groggy with drugs and too much sleep.
"You're not fooling anyone," House says, irritated, as she tries to get her bearings. "I know you're awake."
Her body feels different, but that's okay, that's to be expected after birth. There's none of that reassuring weight in her stomach, reminding her this is actually real. She pulls herself into a sitting position, and that's when she realizes what's happened, the flatness of her chest, the familiar-unfamiliar thing between her legs.
"Welcome back to the bigger, stronger sex," House continues. Wilson can't keep her face from crumpling as she hears it, even though she knows better than to break down in front of House.
Sure enough, House studies her closely, his eyes narrowed in concentration. Wilson looks away.
"You didn't want to change back, did you?" he asks, sounding accusatory, and it's typical House. Knowing without understanding. "What, you were sick of failing as the happy husband and wanted to take a shot at failing as the happy wife instead?"
"Go away, House," Wilson rasps out, her throat tight and tinged with sleep. Her voice is too deep.
House does, but he says, "I named her Richard," as a parting shot as he goes. Wilson wants to punch him for throwing their daughter in her face, for just always being such an asshole, for not understanding when Wilson needs him to.
The hospital room is quiet after he leaves. Just her alone with the monitors and this familiar-unfamiliar body, the one that was never really hers and never will be again.
end
Author:
thedeadparrotSummary: One day, Wilson wakes up as a woman.
Fandom: House
Pairing: House/Wilson
Rating: R
Disclaimer: These characters do not belong to me. They belong to Fox, David Shore, and Bad Hat Harry
Original Story: When He Was A Girl by
usomitaiNotes: Many thanks to my betas
queenzulu and savemoony, who made this story infinitely stronger and also rolled their eyes and laughed in my face when I said I wasn't going to write genderfuck for this challenge.***
When He Was A Girl (You'll Be A Woman Soon Remix)
One day, Wilson wakes up as a woman.
Well, to be perfectly precise, he wakes up uncomfortable and achy, feeling like his organs just reorganized themselves, his head throbbing in pain.
He stumbles into the bathroom, hand on the porcelain sink, and when he looks into the mirror, everything becomes so much clearer. There's a woman staring back at him from the other side of the glass. A woman with his eyes, his hair, his mouth.
It's disconcerting, to say the least, and not just because he'd woken up female, not because his body had changed its physical sex overnight, but also because of the vaguest hint of recognition he feels when he sees her, like he's seen her before.
He dreads telling House. Of course he dreads telling House. This was the sort of thing House would never let him live down for the next couple of lifetimes and then some.
But Wilson needs his help, and when he asks, House comes over without asking too many questions. He only subjects Wilson to mild amounts of humiliation. It's almost nice of him.
It turns out House can be helpful when he wants to be, curious, focused, and determined. He gets caught up in the work, in solving the puzzle, and while Wilson's been the puzzle before, this is the first time he's wanted to be.
Later, he falls asleep over a medical textbook, and when he wakes up, House's hand is unnaturally gentle on the back of his neck. And even though Wilson knows he hasn't actually become someone else, he feels more and less like himself when House touches him, though he can't explain why. It's too much to untangle, the way everything's knotted up inside him.
"Your hair is thicker," House says, turning away.
The next day, House finds an answer and Wilson sleeps with him. It's stupid. It's monumentally stupid. But Wilson's selfish, and he likes the way House looks at him, the way he used to look at Stacy, with a weird mixture of blatant lust and hidden affection.
The idea lodges itself in his brain in the dim light of morning along with the faint memory of House's hands on this skin. He lets it grow, develop, during the rest of the day, because House keeps ogling him and making lewd remarks. Wilson finds that he likes the attention, in a sick, twisted way, finds that he wants to see if he can leverage this in their perpetual game of one-upmanship. He spends too much time thinking about whether or not sex breaks down any of House's walls.
But in the end, it's House who instigates the whole thing. "Sure, wanna fuck?" he asks, waggling his eyebrows after Wilson tells him that he clearly needs to get laid more often.
"Okay," Wilson says, because he's thought about it all day, and if he was being honest with himself, he'd say that this has nothing to do with his new body and everything to do with waiting for House to ask.
House groans, vaguely pained, when Wilson slides onto his lap and kisses him, like this is tearing something out of him he didn't want to give up. When he touches Wilson, he touches Wilson like he's a girl, like Wilson's soft and fragile and delicate. Wilson's not, though. This body's not. He knows what it's like to be on the other side of this.
All his reactions are different as House thumbs his nipples, licks at his neck, bites at his ear. Everything's inside out and backward, foreign, exotic, strange, new.
His orgasm hits like a wave, his body clenching and spasming, and he wants to ride this feeling forever, just like this.
He finds out he's pregnant from one of those home pregnancy tests, after he wakes to a roiling stomach three days in a row. He sits on the cold tile of the floor, test clenched tightly in hand and decides to abort, because this isn't him, can't be him. He's not ready for this. House is less ready for this. And Wilson can't let himself think about raising a child by himself, no way, no how.
The clinic waiting room is occupied but not full, and he ends up next to a girl who can't be older than sixteen, her nose stuck in a magazine with Justin Timberlake on the cover. She looks impossibly young, and her shirt is pulled too tight over her distended belly. It reminds Wilson, too vividly, of when his mother was pregnant with Isaac, the way it felt to know there was a brother growing inside her, the way it feels to know there's something growing inside him right now.
He leaves quickly, hands in pockets, the endless pit of his stomach wider than it ever was before.
"I don't care what you do with it," House says when Wilson tells him.
"You wouldn't," Wilson says. "That would mean admitting that you give a shit about anything other than yourself."
"You're assuming that I do give a shit about anything other than myself."
In the end, it's Cuddy who convinces him to go back to work.
"I expect you back in the office at nine am sharp," she says, arms folded across her chest, staring at Wilson's new form. "I'd also recommend shopping for something that fits. People can be vicious about the way we dress."
It's probably just a slip on her part, but Wilson keeps replaying the way she said 'we' in his head until it feels like it's echoing.
He decides that if he's going to go for the clothes, he might as well go all the way. He gets the lipstick, the mascara, the foundation at CVS, a strange thrill going down his spine. He gets up early the next morning to get ready. Julie used to take forever putting all this stuff on before going to work, her hands deliberate as she pulled back her hair, as she slid into a skirt.
Wilson takes his time, watching himself in the mirror as the lipstick makes his lips darker and the mascara makes his eyelashes look longer, and it brings back a memory from somewhere deep inside himself. He was eight at the time, playing around in his parents' bedroom, and he remembers his mother's dresser, a short wooden thing with rows of neatly organized bottles in front of a large mirror. At the time, he'd been fascinated by the way his mother would apply her makeup, the way it could make her look like a completely different person, the way it made her look beautiful.
He tried putting on the lipstick first, then the eyeshadow, then the blush, but his hands were clumsy and unpracticed, and when he looked at himself in the mirror, all he could see was the grotesque red "o" of his mouth, the purple splotches above his eyes, the unnatural pink of his cheeks. He felt ugly, incapable of undergoing the same transformation his mother experienced each morning, so he washed it off, scrubbing the soap deep into his skin, before his parents could come home and see him like this.
As he looks at himself in the mirror now, his hair still short, his skin smoothed over with foundation, he thinks he looks beautiful.
He begins to start showing at four months, just the slightest bump, but when he feels it for the first time it fills him with a wonder he can't articulate. He goes to work every day and assures his patients that he's no different except for the outward appearance. He learns how to wear pantyhose without causing runs. He still sleeps with House even though it's still a bad idea.
"You're really into this, aren't you?" House says during one of their usual arguments. "I always knew you were a giant girl on the inside."
He's said things like that to Wilson before, in far meaner ways, but this tears at something that feels tender, raw and vulnerable. "Fuck you, House," Wilson snaps. "Just... Fuck you."
And even House seems a little taken aback by his vehemence.
One of the things Wilson finds out about being female is that he's better at dressing himself than he thought he would be. He'd never minded going with his girlfriends when they went shopping, because the women's section had always been more interesting than the men's. There were always different styles, colors, fashions, and Wilson liked to wander the aisles as he was waiting, liked to feel the different fabrics between his fingers as he passed by.
House handles the pregnancy better and better as time goes on. He's more willing to indulge Wilson's cravings, less likely to complain when Wilson refuses him sex because he's tired. There are even times when he could be mistaken for a doting boyfriend. Wilson enjoys taking advantage of it whenever possible.
This doesn't mean he's stopped being House, however.
"I really should have listened to my dad when he was explaining the importance of not knocking up girls," he says as Wilson vomits into a toilet bowl.
"I'm having a blast over here, too," Wilson says, spitting to get as much of the taste out as possible.
House snorts. "You totally are. I bet you've even picked out baby names."
"No, I haven't," Wilson says, because even though he's pretty sure on some gut level it's a boy, he hasn't had the nerve to name it yet. Not right now, not when everything still feels so uncertain.
One day, he meets a kid in the clinic, a tall scrawny teenager with bad acne and incredibly wide eyes.
"What's it like," the kid asks, pulling his knees up to his chest on the exam chair, "being a woman?"
The question stuns Wilson into silence. He doesn't know what to say.
The kid continues, tripping over his words, "I, um, I was-- I've never really felt-- you know. Right. The way I am. And I-- I don't know. I didn't think it was possible, but you-- you did it. You changed."
The kid looks at Wilson with pleading eyes, and Wilson realizes that he knows what he--she--is. That knowledge feels like a kick in the gut, like he's just opened his eyes, like there's a door inside himself that's finally opening up, one that's been shut for most of his life, one that he's never been able to open before. Wilson's never felt right the way she was was, either.
"It's not that simple," Wilson says, her hands curled tight around the stethoscope around her neck, because it really isn't. Never has been, never will be.
She doesn't have time to think about it for the rest of the day, because she has patients, she has a job to do, but at the end of the day, she goes back to her hotel room instead of House's apartment.
She's looked, of course she's looked, but she's never looked before, never really let herself. She stands in front of the mirror in the bathroom and unbuttons her blouse with shaky hands, peeling it off to reveal her simple, white bra.
She has breasts. They're not huge, but she likes them, the way they fit in her hands. She never was a breast man before, but she always loved the feel of her wives' breasts, even as they used to dredge up some strange, buried longing deep inside herself.
Her face has always been too boyish, but now it looks reshaped, womanly. It fits her now, fits the way she's always seen herself without knowing it. She runs her finger over a cheekbone, feels the unfamiliar-familiar shape of it. She hasn't shaved her face in months.
Her hips are wider, sturdier. Child-bearing hips. The thought makes her touch her growing stomach, makes her imagine what it will feel like when the baby finally kicks.
Wilson's gotten used to the odd looks and muffled whispers, but it still takes her by surprise when one afternoon, in the elevator, a man says to her, "Excuse me, but are you Dr. Wilson? We haven't met, but--"
"Yes," she says, anticipating the invasive questions, the uncomfortable staring, "that's me."
"You're beautiful," he says. "You should be proud. Not everyone gets such a successful sex change operation."
It confuses Wilson for a moment before she realizes that it's an honest compliment. She thinks this man might get it, on some deeper level, thinks he might understand that this may have started as a freak accident, but it's become more than that. So much more. "Thank you," she says.
She feels it kick for the first time during a board meeting, and afterward, she tells Cuddy, who smiles from the corner of her mouth as she congratulates her.
"I'm happy for you," Cuddy says too sincerely, her expression tired, worn out.
"I'm sorry," Wilson says. She's gotten more than she ever deserved, and Cuddy's a far better person than she ever was.
"This one didn't take either," Cuddy says, her voice cracking on the last word. All Wilson can do is leave a hand on her shoulder and wait for the sobs to subside.
"I'd always wondered what it'd feel like to bring life into this world," Wilson tells House, her legs tangled in House's sheets, and she can't quite believe how good it feels to say it out loud, to finally get it out there. Her stomach is huge, now, and her back aches, and her ankles are always sore, but she doesn't mind. It's a small price to pay.
"Gee, did Santa finally get you what you really wanted for Christmas?" House asks, and Wilson doesn't even mind the mocking, because part of her feels freer than she's ever felt before in her life.
"Yeah," she says. "Maybe he did." The words come out sounding a little sarcastic, but Wilson's not sure she's ever been more earnest. She closes her eyes and smiles. "I want to name him Richard," she whispers, finally admitting it to herself, just loud enough for House to hear.
When her water breaks, she's at House's, just minding her own business, and then she feels the first convulsions, and then House yells something, and then everything becomes a jumble of sounds, people, other doctors.
If she tries really hard, she thinks she can remember House holding her hand.
She wakes up to the beep-beep-beep of the monitors, her head still groggy with drugs and too much sleep.
"You're not fooling anyone," House says, irritated, as she tries to get her bearings. "I know you're awake."
Her body feels different, but that's okay, that's to be expected after birth. There's none of that reassuring weight in her stomach, reminding her this is actually real. She pulls herself into a sitting position, and that's when she realizes what's happened, the flatness of her chest, the familiar-unfamiliar thing between her legs.
"Welcome back to the bigger, stronger sex," House continues. Wilson can't keep her face from crumpling as she hears it, even though she knows better than to break down in front of House.
Sure enough, House studies her closely, his eyes narrowed in concentration. Wilson looks away.
"You didn't want to change back, did you?" he asks, sounding accusatory, and it's typical House. Knowing without understanding. "What, you were sick of failing as the happy husband and wanted to take a shot at failing as the happy wife instead?"
"Go away, House," Wilson rasps out, her throat tight and tinged with sleep. Her voice is too deep.
House does, but he says, "I named her Richard," as a parting shot as he goes. Wilson wants to punch him for throwing their daughter in her face, for just always being such an asshole, for not understanding when Wilson needs him to.
The hospital room is quiet after he leaves. Just her alone with the monitors and this familiar-unfamiliar body, the one that was never really hers and never will be again.
end
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-19 08:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-27 11:52 am (UTC)And yes, this Wilson's one of my favorites, too. I think she has the capacity to be happy at the very least, which may not be true for all Wilsons.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-19 09:00 pm (UTC)(The original, of course, made sense, too, and was excellently written. The original and this seem like two sides of the same coin to me; the same thing, made different by flipping it one way or the other.)
The writing is so powerful in this. Tight, strong, evocative and true without being overly emotional.
Then the end... so sad. For Wilson to be caught unprepared again, having ensconced herself in another type of denial, and then to be forcefully struck with the realization is simply heartbreaking. I hope she found the strength after this to go through the medical/surgical process of gender reassignment, so that her daughter could always know her as a mother.
Thank you for a great story and great remix, and for giving me this new idea to think about.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-27 11:59 am (UTC)And yes, I do think there's a happier ending for her out there, and I'll probably end up writing it. Eventually.
comment, part 1
Date: 2008-04-19 09:19 pm (UTC)When I first saw this, I was (let me admit) weirded out. This is probably because I skimmed the fic (I wanted to see what ground you'd covered! I couldn't wait to find out! So I read to quickly) and was all LDJALDKJFA WHAT IS THIS.
But then I came back to actually read it, and read it closely. I got it, and once I did, I was pleased. And I grew to like the remix even more as I reread it a few more times.
It was strange, and thrilling at the same time, seeing what you kept, what you changed, and what you ended up highlighting. And I say "strange" because so much if similar to the original but it's *not* the same.
From what I can tell, there is an essential element you changed, namely, Wilson wants to be a woman in this version. To me, that’s fascinating because that’s precisely the opposite of my thesis statement in writing the fic-- I wanted to show that Wilson was still who he was, with or without the female body. I wanted to show that gender, in most cases, is a social construct, and that the main change was how others and Wilson himself treated him. (Though I also tried to show the fluidity and confusion over sexuality.)
In some ways, this approach frustrated me, because it meant that I could not explore transgender themes, since Wilson himself was only temporarily in a woman’s body and did not suffer a real gender identity crisis. And I really wanted to consider transgender themes, since that had been one of my goals when I first came up with the idea for the fic! Introducing the Chris character, for a brief scene, was the closest I got to that.
But, here! Because in your interpretation, Wilson always wanted to be a woman (he just never knew it), you get to work with that theme. So, for that reason alone, I was happy with this remix. You got to do what I couldn’t. :)
Well, to be perfectly precise, he wakes up uncomfortable and achy, feeling like his organs just reorganized themselves, his head throbbing in pain.
Ahhh, I’m glad you kept the part about the organs being reorganized, as that was one of the first lines I thought up and kept through all the revisions, because I still liked it.
when he looks into the mirror, everything becomes so much clearer […] because of the vaguest hint of recognition he feels when he sees her, like he's seen her before.
And from that last sentence, I knew that you were going to use a different track from Wilson (having him always feel like he was a woman).
I’m bemused that you also have sight equaling understanding. I don’t know if it was intentional on your part, but the vision = accepting (and looking away = not accepting) ended up being an unintentional theme in my fic, so it’s cool to see it coming out here in the remix.
He only subjects Wilson to mild amounts of humiliation. It's almost nice of him.
Ahahahahah, yes! That’s so very House.
The next day, House finds an answer and Wilson sleeps with him. It's stupid. It's monumentally stupid. But Wilson's selfish, and he likes the way House looks at him, the way he used to look at Stacy, with a weird mixture of blatant lust and hidden affection.
Alkjdflaksjdflakdjf hot. All of it. Hot.
Wilson finds that he likes the attention, in a sick, twisted way, finds that he wants to see if he can leverage this in their perpetual game of one-upmanship. He spends too much time thinking about whether or not sex breaks down any of House's walls.
*More* hot.
"Okay," Wilson says, because he's thought about it all day, and if he was being honest with himself, he'd say that this has nothing to do with his new body and everything to do with waiting for House to ask.
I realize that I’m repeating myself, but, HOT. I love that characterization of Wilson: wanting, desperately wanting, but wanting even more House to ask him. eelings about his own gender).
comment, part 2
Date: 2008-04-19 09:20 pm (UTC)Mmmm. This contrasts with how House treats Wilson verbally/emotionally. Gentle in bed, but rough everywhere else? It seems like a contradiction typical of House: he doesn’t know how to communicate his softer side. I like this moment for that: it shows that House is capable of gentleness but, at the same time, he doesn’t know when or how to apply it-- he’s not reading Wilson properly.
decides to abort, because this isn't him, can't be him. He's not ready for this. House is less ready for this. And Wilson can't let himself think about raising a child by himself, no way, no how.
Yes, way to condense several pages into a few phrases. XD
he ends up next to a girl who can't be older than sixteen, her nose stuck in a magazine with Justin Timberlake on the cover. She looks impossibly young, and her shirt is pulled too tight over her distended belly.
I now sincerely regret not having put such a moment in my fic-- it’s perfect! It’s a great contrast, having a pregnant teenager (young! reckless!) compared to Wilson (older! a guy! didn’t mean to get knocked up either!).
"You're assuming that I do give a shit about anything other than myself."
Oh, that’s… cold. (On the whole, I think your House is colder/more distant/more cruel than mine.)
It's probably just a slip on her part, but Wilson keeps replaying the way she said 'we' in his head until it feels like it's echoing.
Yes, we, Wilson! Welcome to the group.
He goes to work every day and assures his patients that he's no different except for the outward appearance.
Ahahahah, I wanted to have a scene like that so bad in my version, but I never did find where to place it.
He still sleeps with House even though it's still a bad idea.
♥ (IT’S A FAVORITE THEME OF MINE I CAN’T HELP BUT HEART IT.)
"I always knew you were a giant girl on the inside."
Ah, House, again getting the point (even if he doesn’t know it yet), and being cruel about it.
He'd never minded going with his girlfriends when they went shopping, because the women's section had always been more interesting than the men's. There were always different styles, colors, fashions, and Wilson liked to wander the aisles as he was waiting, liked to feel the different fabrics between his fingers as he passed by.
I could see this being true of even Wilson in the tv series.
There are even times when he could be mistaken for a doting boyfriend. Wilson enjoys taking advantage of it whenever possible.
These glimpses into House’s kinder side are my favorite, if only because I know how rare it is to see them.
"No, I haven't," Wilson says, because even though he's pretty sure on some gut level it's a boy, he hasn't had the nerve to name it yet. Not right now, not when everything still feels so uncertain.
I really like your use of the name Richard, here, and the… way it plays out. Giving a name really does provide a certain reality and… concreteness. I like that Wilson isn’t able to come up with a name until he feels more definite about his own situation and wants.
"What's it like," the kid asks, pulling his knees up to his chest on the exam chair, "being a woman?"
I like how he pulls his knees up to his chest. :D
That knowledge feels like a kick in the gut, like he's just opened his eyes, like there's a door inside himself that's finally opening up, one that's been shut for most of his life, one that he's never been able to open before. Wilson's never felt right the way she was was, either.
Hello, pronoun change & realization!
The next section is especially interesting to me, because of the parallels and differences from my version. Here Wilson also tries to look at himself, alone, in a sign of accepting who he is and what he wants-- except here he’s coming to a fuller realization that he’s happier as a woman. I noticed you didn’t include the masturbation, which makes sense, because you don’t have the sexuality theme.
I love that Wilson wears a simple white bra and not something more elaborate. Yay!
comment, part 3
Date: 2008-04-19 09:21 pm (UTC)She never was a breast man before, but she always loved the feel of her wives' breasts, even as they used to dredge up some strange, buried longing deep inside herself.
This is lovely.
It’s also interesting because you'd think that a guy that was feeling up breasts would be *fulfilling* the longing, but if it was for himself that he wanted the breasts... cool inversion, there.
"You're beautiful," he says. "You should be proud. Not everyone gets such a successful sex change operation."
XXXXD Two of my beta readers loved this moment/scene/line, which took me by surprise, because it was an accidental vestige of a plotline that didn’t make it the final version of the fic. (The guy is the six-fingered lawyer that dates trannie nurses that House and Wilson refer to an episode in season three.) I meant to take it out, but forgot to remove it before having my beta look at it, and since she liked it, I kept it.
It’s even more surprising to see it be one of the scenes that ended up in your remix! I guess you can never really tell what will leave an impact on the readers. :D
She thinks this man might get it, on some deeper level, thinks he might understand that this may have started as a freak accident, but it's become more than that.
It’s terribly sad, and true, that Wilson can find the best sympathy and understanding from *strangers*.
"This one didn't take either," Cuddy says, her voice cracking on the last word. All Wilson can do is leave a hand on her shoulder and wait for the sobs to subside.
Aw, man, no luck for Cuddy in this version either. ;__;
"I'd always wondered what it'd feel like to bring life into this world," Wilson tells House, her legs tangled in House's sheets
Loved the legs tangled in House’s sheets; it’s a good image, for starters, and, for another, it can be read symbolically! (Entangled in House.)
Wilson doesn't even mind the mocking, because part of her feels freer than she's ever felt before in her life.
This just makes the ending even sadder.
She closes her eyes and smiles. "I want to name him Richard," she whispers, finally admitting it to herself, just loud enough for House to hear.
See, there you go! Once Wilson is at peace with who she is, she can name her kid. She can even tell *House* about it.
When her water breaks, she's at House's, just minding her own business, and then she feels the first convulsions, and then House yells something, and then everything becomes a jumble of sounds, people, other doctors. If she tries really hard, she thinks she can remember House holding her hand.
DLAKJDFLAKDJF. I doubt you'd ever know this, but in one of my original conceptions of the story, Wilson's going into the labor was a lot like the one you described-- House was there, and House held her hand. I ended up being unable to have that moment, since the story required them to be separated when Wilson went into labor, I couldn’t have that. So I’m glad to see it here! I really wanted House to be holding her (his) hand!
comment, part 4
Date: 2008-04-19 09:21 pm (UTC)"You're not fooling anyone," House says, irritated, as she tries to get her bearings. "I know you're awake." […]"Welcome back to the bigger, stronger sex," House continues.
Your House really is crueler than mine. ;___; Wilson finds better understanding and sympathy from strangers & Cuddy than in the man she loves. *shakes head*
Man, Wilson also gets the short end of the stick in this fic, huh? [To make myself feel better, I came up with this epilogue: Wilson gets a sex change and, while she never gets to be a “real” woman again, she doesn’t have to pretend to be a man anymore, either. And she finds some happiness and joy in raising Richard, perhaps more than she does in my version. As for House, well, he just needs to be kicked repeatedly. :P]
I have to say, I’m impressed that you decided to tackle a 75 page fic for a remix! Definitely not the easy way out! (And I’m trying to imagine who else would’ve *wanted* to, besides
So, it was a joy (and a shock at first!) to see this interpretation of “When He was a Girl.” It really feels like a different story to me, due to the different thesis statement (Wilson’s feelings about his own gender).
Re: comment, part 4
Date: 2008-04-27 12:15 pm (UTC)Thank you so much for the lovely, detailed feedback. I know it must have been weird because it takes such a different tack from most remixes, and I was worried that you wouldn't get that I wasn't trying to contradict the original so much as write fic for it.
And yes, you nailed a lot of what I was going for, here, the power in naming things, House's kindness and cruelty. I think he feels betrayed by Wilson's realization, and he's resentful of the power Wilson holds over him.
As for
And as for a sequel/epilogue, you pretty much hit on exactly what I think happens, but I'll probably sit down at write it out anyway. :)
Re: comment, part 4
Date: 2008-04-27 12:37 pm (UTC)And this is really just strange and meta-ish because I wrote the fic in the first place because of something you'd written. Fandom is like a boomerang, I guess??
I was worried that you wouldn't get that I wasn't trying to contradict the original so much as write fic for it.
Not at all! Actually, when I signed up for the remix, I was worried that my fic wouldn't get changed enough. ;) I took it in the ficcing sense, which ARGH SO FLATTERING. And, again, strange!, because because I'd ficced yours too. So it's a fic of a fic of a fic? XD
House's kindness and cruelty. I think he feels betrayed by Wilson's realization, and he's resentful of the power Wilson holds over him.
Betrayed by Wilson's realization? Because he wants to be a woman?? How is that a betrayal?! (STUPID HOUSE.) It breaks my heart to see House so cruel-- partially because I'd tried to make his cruelty be balanced/explained by his fears, so it makes me EXTRA SAD.
So, yeah, a sequels will be cool. To yours (hope you write it!) and to mine (hope I finish it! XD).
(And this is random, but last night I was watching a Japanese show "D no Arashi," in which people "investigate" random things, and the episode was about a 53-year man who'd recently came out as a transvestite. And I felt so sad for her, because... I could tell that she loved to dress up, and take on a more womanly role, but that she didn't know how. I can only imagine the reactions she gets in day to day life. And it reminded me of your remix.)
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Date: 2008-04-20 01:36 am (UTC)You took a really great twist on the original (which I also liked) and made it profoundly thinky in a different way. Poor Wilson. Loved the pronoun shift -- brilliant.
it's typical House. Knowing without understanding. Oh, god, you just nailed it. And that whole section is gold.
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Date: 2008-04-27 01:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-20 08:44 am (UTC)I loved how you switched to "she" after he realised that he would fit in a woman's body much better than in a men's (I don't agree with this when it comes to canon!Wilson, but it's true and very believable for your Wilson)
I loved the understated way you highlighted those few tender gestures that House did, like caressing him, or holding his/her hand when the labor started.
nice job!
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Date: 2008-04-27 01:31 pm (UTC)Also, sequel may be forthcoming soon.
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Date: 2008-04-24 12:20 am (UTC)"What's it like," the kid asks, pulling his knees up to his chest on the exam chair, "being a woman?"
The question stuns Wilson into silence. He doesn't know what to say.
Oh, holy wow.
I love the way this unfolds. That the transformation is never explained; that House isn't as much of a dick about it as first as Wilson expects; that they start sleeping together; that Wilson changes. The slow shift, in POV, from "he" to "she." (And oh, man, at the end, her voice is too deep -- that about killed me.)
This is gorgeous.
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Date: 2008-04-27 01:57 pm (UTC)