Current mood:	blah
Entry tags:	fic author: phinnia, fic genre: friendship/non-slash, fic pairing: wilson/amber, fic rating: pg, fic timeline: post-"don't ever change"

A Taste of Memory
Title: A Taste of Memory
Author: phinnia
Written For: rosehiptea for purimgifts 2008. <3
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Not my characters, and I'm broke.
Author's Note: Thank you to my courageous band of Merry Men, my first readers, without whom this would be significantly thinner and sadder. Special thanks to nightdog_barks for candle advice above and beyond the call of duty. This is not my usual mindless fluff and after-dinner fare (okay, fine, it does feature cookies, but you know what I mean, don't you?), but people assure me it's still all right.

James Wilson, aged four, is sitting in the potato bin in his parents' house. He's hiding. There are bad guys, and he's gonna jump 'em and save the world. He can hear savta humming and singing softly, little pieces of song in Hebrew. He knows it's Hebrew but he doesn't know what it means when she sings that song.

There's something - tick tick tick claws on the floor, a lolling tongue slurping out of a water bowl. Not the bad guys. Just the dog.

"What do you think, Cherry?" That's savta talking to the dog. She doesn't know about the bad guys. Probably 'cause he's scared 'em off. Yep. He's pretty scary to bad guys. "I'd give some to Jimmy, but I can't seem to find him."

He giggles. He's hidden pretty good here in the potato bin.

"What's that, Cherry?" She talks different than Mom or Bubbe - the dog's name sounds like 'Jerry' when she says it. "Oh, I don't know where he is. Maybe he doesn't like cookies any more, I don't know. Shame, he's been a very good boy today, and he deserves a treat."

"I'm here!" Bad guys can wait. Cookies are more important. He scrambles out, spilling potatoes on the floor with a rolling thump. Savta laughs, rich and musical, and her hand caresses his cheek.

He bites into a cookie. It's the best ever.

---

Many years later, as the woman with the floating kidney sleeps peacefully, Wilson lights a candle by the living room window and remembers savta, his great-grandmother on his mother's side.

They are quiet memories, and sparse. She died when he was five. (He would say that's too young to understand death, but that assertion is defied daily in his line of work - but he does know that he didn't understand it then, that she was just there one day and gone the next.)

He remembers a dark dress, smudged with flour. Velvet skin folded gently into wrinkles. Hands soft and hard, hands that worked the earth, fed babies, braided bread and rolled out dough.

He can almost taste the cookies. The dough is soft and still flaky, tinted with butter and drooling warm apricot jam on his fingers.

He sighs and the candle sputters, wavering; the shadows leap up in the corners of the room.

He's terrible at religion, really. He doesn't remember when the last time was he went to temple; he's addicted to bacon and most Friday nights are spent with House or, lately, Amber (whose grandfather was in the Hitler Youth, a fact which he won't be divulging to anyone anytime soon).

Maybe it's better he doesn't have children. He thinks that most of the time, actually. But moments like these, thinking of savta and the cookies, he wishes that he could pass some things on.

Julie always said that the closest thing he had to a child was House. So did Bonnie, actually. He smiles at that, because it's true, and because he wonders if they knew that about each other.

Come to think of it, Cuddy's said it, too.

Up until tonight he would have said that House, like a cat or a severely autistic toddler, was impervious to ... manners, and the needs of others, and the concept of personal space, and ... well, a lot of things.

Now, maybe he's starting to think the man just has a slow learning curve on those issues. And he smiles again, because it's true, and because you could count on a hand with fingers left over, the things that Greg House learns slowly.

He switches on the lamp and starts combing through his things for the recipes he'd copied last time he was at home. The cookies should be in there.

There's an overgrown four year old (who's hopefully neither sulking nor causing actual property damage, but who might easily be, through the magic of modern game consoles, slaughtering bad guys) who deserves a treat for good behavior.