Post-Trauma 4/? (probably 6)
Here's the long-awaited continuation of "Post-Trauma," a follow-up to
Earlier parts, in case you have to refresh your memory: (They're still in the bad formatting from before I became an LJ Wizard halfway competent.)
Part 1: http://alex51324.livejournal.com/597.html
Part 2: http://alex51324.livejournal.com/1030.html
Part 3: http://alex51324.livejournal.com/1519.html
Part 3.2: http://alex51324.livejournal.com/1685.html
“I looked into the facility where you had your rehab,” Temas opens, the next time he has a session with Greg House. “New Horizons, in Nevada?”
“Yeah.”
“You should know that some of their methodology and philosophy are…controversial.”
“The treatment was very effective,” Greg recites.
“For instance, apparently they maintain that people who are really in pain don’t become addicted to pain medication. A lot of addiction specialists disagree.”
“That’s interesting,” Greg says flatly.
“Treating addicts who also have chronic, intractable pain is a pretty complex subspecialty. A case could definitely be made that the staff at New Horizons weren’t qualified to handle your case.”
Greg shrugs.
“What was your experience there like?”
“…It took me a long time to get with the program,” Greg confesses.
“Yeah?”
“I resisted treatment for…sixty four days.”
“That must have been difficult.” Knowing what he does about New Horizons, Temas is genuinely impressed with both Greg’s strength and his instincts for self-preservation.
“I didn’t understand that they were trying to help me,” Greg says agreeably.
“Were they?”
“Of course they were.”
“How’d they help you?” Temas is careful to keep his tone casually curious, not confrontational. He wants Greg to come to some critical awareness that some of his experiences in rehab and with Dr. Luerssen had been problematic, if not actually abusive-not simply agree with Temas’s own opinion.
“Group and individual therapy,” Greg answers promptly.
“Do you feel comfortable telling me about some of the things you talked about there?” Temas knows it’s going to take Greg a moment to untangle that question, but it seems like a good time to reinforce the idea that Greg has a right to set limits about what they work on in therapy.
“I don’t really remember,” Greg says after a moment.
“That’s okay.”
“My memory’s usually pretty good.” He props his chin on his cane and stares at a spot on the rug. “You’d think I’d remember most of it, once the physical withdrawal was over.”
“Maybe if you think about it for a while,” Temas suggests.
“I remember they had two big guys meet me at the airport and shove me in the back of a van,” Greg muses. “Which was a good thing, because I was thinking about running away and spending the three months gambling and watching all-nude revues instead of puking my guts out and talking about my feelings.”
Temas smiles at this sign of what his overly-compliant patient had once been like. “What else do you remember?”
“I remember…wishing Wilson would come and save me.” He shakes his head. “He didn’t come.”
Temas isn’t sure what to ask next, so he settles for an interrogative sound.
“I didn’t really think he would.” Greg rubs at his thigh. “I know rehab isn’t supposed to be enjoyable,” he adds hastily.
“It’s not exactly a barrel of laughs,” Temas agrees. “But if the program was a good fit for you, you’d probably be able to think of some good points.”
Greg folds his arms across his chest. That kind of body language is normally interpreted as resistance; in this case, Temas sees it as a good sign. Greg doesn’t like where this is going, and-for a change-he’s trying to protect himself. “I don’t know.”
“What was going on when you were, uh, resisting treatment?”
“I had to stay in the isolation room.”
“What was that like?”
“It was unpleasant,” Greg snaps. Less than a second later he folds in on himself and mumbles, “Sorry.”
“You’re fine,” Temas says. “Can you say more?”
“It was for my own good,” Greg answers listlessly.
“Maybe. Sometimes when people say they’re doing something for your own good, it’s not true,” he offers.
Greg shrugs. “I don’t know why they’d lie.”
Temas knows that, among other things, I don’t know can mean I don’t think you’d believe me if I told. It can also mean I don’t want to talk about it or I don’t want to remember. Sometimes, it’s best to honor those messages and back off-the therapeutic relationship can be a good place for the client to practice establishing and defending boundaries.
Other times, it’s better to send a strong message that the secret isn’t as unbelievable as the patient has been led to think. “They might lie because they were doing something wrong, and didn’t want to get in trouble,” he suggests.
Greg looks at him searchingly. “Do you know?” he finally asks. “What it was like?”
“I’m starting to have a pretty good idea,” Temas admits.
“Tell me.”
He isn’t sure how to answer. If he’s wrong, he runs the risk of planting false memories in a highly suggestible patient. On the other hand, if he deflects the question with another question, he could destroy whatever trust in him Greg’s managed to build. What finally tips the balance is the realization that he can barely find words to fit what he thinks happened. “I think you spent three months being tortured, and then the next four months coming here for weekly follow-up torture,” he answers. “I think what they did there was about as far from therapy as you can get, and resisting it for as long as you could was the best thing you could have done under the circumstances. That’s what I think.”
Greg nods slowly. “That’s one way to describe it,” he agrees in a small voice.
“I also think,” Temas continues bravely, “that they lied about a lot of other things, and once you start to name the lies, you might start to feel better. Really better.”
The silence stretches out, long enough that Temas thinks maybe they’re just going to sit quietly for the rest of the session. But finally Greg says, “The way I resisted therapy was, I said my leg hurt. I don’t have a drug problem, I have a pain problem. Is what I said. They wouldn’t let me out of Iso until I said my leg didn’t hurt anymore. After a while I decided I’d just lie and say it didn’t hurt, but they found out I was lying and put me back in. That’s when they started the injections. After a while, I believed them when they said it didn’t hurt.” He hesitates. “But I think maybe it does. Hurt.”
“Yeah,” Temas says softly. “I think it probably does, too.”
Wilson thinks he’s imagining things when he hears a spray of pebbles hit his balcony door. House hasn’t been out there in months, and no one else has ever been out there. But he turns and looks, and it’s House. Looking equal parts sheepish and grim-not energetic or mischievous-but you can’t have everything.
“I’m sorry, I have to take that,” he excuses himself to his patient, and steps outside, shutting the door behind him. “What’s up?” It’s Thursday afternoon-therapy day. Something must have happened.
“My leg hurts,” House reports.
“Yeah, I know.” There’s no way House is here for Vicodin. Just no way.
“What are we gonna do about it?”
“I…don’t know.” He rubs the back of his neck. “Is this an emergency? Can I finish this consult and then we’ll figure out what to do?”
House drops his eyes. “Yeah. It can wait.”
Wilson feels that he’s let House down somehow. “Okay. This’ll just take a few minutes.”
House nods.
“I’ll be right back.” He goes inside and finishes up-it’s just a second opinion, and he doesn’t really have anything new to add, so he doesn’t feel too bad about chivvying the patient out the door-her primary doctor can take care of any remaining questions.
House is still on the balcony when he goes back out. “I wasn’t sure you’d come,” he says.
“Well, I did.”
It’s almost inaudible, but House says, “You didn’t, before.”
“When?”
“Rehab.” House’s hand tightens on the railing. “I just remembered.”
Wilson isn’t sure what to say, or do. He puts his hands on the railing and looks out toward the parking lot. “What do you want me to do?”
“Help me.”
“I will. I just don’t know how.”
House leans on the railing and rubs his thigh. Several times he opens his mouth to speak, then subsides without saying anything. Finally he says, “Take me somewhere.”
“Where?” Wilson has no idea what he means-lunch? A pain clinic?
“I don’t care. Anywhere but here.”
Wilson decides to just agree. “Okay. Let me get my jacket. Do you need yours?”
It’s almost like old times, although when they pass Cuddy on the way out instead of accosting House to yell at him for something, she just smiles distantly and looks away. In the car, House plays with the radio. It’s been so long since he’s driven House anywhere, that all of the pre-sets are actually stations that he likes to listen to.
“Where to?” he asks.
“Just take me somewhere.”
He drives with no goal in mind but to keep moving. At each intersection or stoplight, he goes the way that involves the least waiting. Eventually, he blunders onto the turnpike. Once he gets the car up to sixty miles an hour, House leans back and lights up a cigarette.
“Hey! You can’t…at least open the window.”
House rolls down the window and hangs his arm out.
“Do you want to find someplace to eat?” Wilson raises his voice over the wind and the radio.
“Let’s wait a while.”
“Okay.” He drives. It’s nice, being with his friend again. Even though he doesn’t know what’s going on, really, that’s nothing new when it comes to House. House seems…not more comfortable, but then, House has never exactly been comfortable in his own skin. He seems on edge, and because of that, more like himself. “We’re going to be in Pennsylvania soon,” he says after a while.
House shrugs. “So?”
“Should we turn around and go home?”
“Why?”
“You want to keep going?”
“Yeah.”
Wilson isn’t sure what the point is, but he’s glad enough to see House acting sure of himself that he’d drive all night, if that’s what House asked for.
House reaches for the radio dial. He’s put off finding a new station as long as he can. He can still make out the music, but it’s overlaid with an ever-thickening layer of static. Turning the dial slowly, he pauses when a station comes in clear.
“I feel guilty for not helping him,” a crackly voice says through the radio.
House, involuntarily, turns and looks at Wilson.
“What you’re really saying is, ‘As long as I can keep myself from seeing this situation honestly, I can stay in it.’ You said earlier that you promised to support your husband in sickness. He isn’t sick. He’s an addict. You can’t help an addict--”
Wilson reaches over and twists the radio dial violently. “I don’t think we need to hear that,” he says mildly.
“I guess not.” Static fills the car.
“What happened to your iPod, anyway?” Wilson asks.
“I don’t know.” He had it on the plane, on his way to rehab. He doesn’t have it now. It must have disappeared while he was in Isolation. “I lost it at rehab.”
“We can get you a new one.”
House shrugs. “I have to learn to take better care of my things,” he says, even though he thinks maybe what he really means is that he doesn’t want a new one, he wants his old one, that had all of his music on it.
“Yeah,” Wilson says flatly. “Sure.” He points out the windshield. “Are you hungry yet? There’s a lot of places off this exit.”
He was a little bit hungry, but he didn’t want to stop yet. The need to be somewhere else drove him like hunger or pain or curiosity. “Let’s keep going for a while.”
“Okay. We have to decide soon if we’re going to Philadelphia or around it.”
Going through the city will mean slowing down, stopping in traffic. “Around it. Stay on the highway.”
Wilson nods, and drives. After a while, House goes back to the radio, turning the dial until he finds a decent station. NPR out of Philadelphia; they have an evening jazz program that he’s listened to before, on clear days when the station comes through in Princeton.
The circle around Philly and get on the Pennsylvania turnpike. Wilson takes the toll ticket and sticks it in the clip on his sun visor.
“You know what they say about Pennsylvania?” House asks.
“What?”
“You’ve got Pittsburgh on the left, and Philadelphia on the right, and Alabama in between.”
Wilson smiles, even though it’s not a very good joke.
Another fifty miles of road scroll away under the Volvo’s tires, and the insatiable hunger for distance eases off. “Let’s start looking for someplace to eat. And maybe sleep.”
“Okay.” Wilson gets off the turnpike at the next exit. Chain restaurants are clustered around the off-ramp-Bob Evans, Cracker Barrel, McDonalds, Dairy Queen. “I’ve never been to one of those,” he says, pointing to an Eat ‘n Park.
“Their home fries are good,” House says.
“Want to go there?” Wilson asks.
“Yeah, sure.”
They both order bacon and eggs. House plows through his meal without thinking much, and is surprised to realize he’s cleaned his plate. He snatches a piece of toast from Wilson’s and runs it around his plate, mopping up the last traces of runny egg. Wilson doesn’t protest. When the waitress comes and asks if they want anything else, House orders another round of the same.
Halfway through the second plate, he pauses and takes a deep breath, and resumes eating, more slowly. The bacon is crisp but has a little bit of play in it; the homefries are crisp on the outside and mealy on the inside; the eggs are buttery and tender. It might be the best meal he’s eaten in months.
Wilson’s watching him with a faint smile on his face. “You ready to tell me what we’re doing out here?”
House crunches through his last piece of bacon. He doesn’t think too much about his answer-if he does, he won’t say it. “You’re rescuing me.”
“Rescuing you from what?”
“Rehab.” He’s just put it together himself, what this sudden and desperate desire to run away really is-a chance to reenact what never happened, and make it turn out right this time.
“I….’m confused,” Wilson admits.
“I just remembered, earlier today. My first few weeks…months…at rehab, I kept imagining you’d come. Break me out and take me home.”
Wilson swallows hard. “I didn’t know. That you needed to be rescued.”
“I know. That’s why I’m letting you do it now. Better late than never.”
Wilson rubs the back of his neck. “Do we have to go the whole way to Nevada? Because I’m due for an oil change. And we’re both supposed to be at work on Monday.” House can tell that Wilson isn’t saying he won’t take him to Nevada, if that’s what he needs to do. Just that it’s not very convenient.
“I don’t think I’m going to want to go back to Nevada for a long time.” House isn’t sure what it’s going to take for him to feel rescued. He feels somewhat better already-if they drive twice as far, will he get twice as much relief? Or is he already bumping up against the point of diminishing return? “I think we can just go a little farther,” he says slowly, feeling it out, “then hole up somewhere for a day or so, and head back on Sunday. Or Monday morning.”
“If I’d known we were going away for the weekend, I’d have wanted to stop home for some things,” Wilson grouses.
“You don’t stop to pack before going on a rescue mission,” House tells him. “It’s a rule. I’m sure they sell toothbrushes in Pennsylvania. And hairdryers.” He picks up the dessert menu that’s tucked behind the ketchup bottle. “I think I want pie. Do you want pie?”
diysheep's "Weird Creepy Story" here: http://diysheep.livejournal.com/8214.html
Earlier parts, in case you have to refresh your memory: (They're still in the bad formatting from before I became an LJ Wizard halfway competent.)
Part 1: http://alex51324.livejournal.com/597.html
Part 2: http://alex51324.livejournal.com/1030.html
Part 3: http://alex51324.livejournal.com/1519.html
Part 3.2: http://alex51324.livejournal.com/1685.html
“I looked into the facility where you had your rehab,” Temas opens, the next time he has a session with Greg House. “New Horizons, in Nevada?”
“Yeah.”
“You should know that some of their methodology and philosophy are…controversial.”
“The treatment was very effective,” Greg recites.
“For instance, apparently they maintain that people who are really in pain don’t become addicted to pain medication. A lot of addiction specialists disagree.”
“That’s interesting,” Greg says flatly.
“Treating addicts who also have chronic, intractable pain is a pretty complex subspecialty. A case could definitely be made that the staff at New Horizons weren’t qualified to handle your case.”
Greg shrugs.
“What was your experience there like?”
“…It took me a long time to get with the program,” Greg confesses.
“Yeah?”
“I resisted treatment for…sixty four days.”
“That must have been difficult.” Knowing what he does about New Horizons, Temas is genuinely impressed with both Greg’s strength and his instincts for self-preservation.
“I didn’t understand that they were trying to help me,” Greg says agreeably.
“Were they?”
“Of course they were.”
“How’d they help you?” Temas is careful to keep his tone casually curious, not confrontational. He wants Greg to come to some critical awareness that some of his experiences in rehab and with Dr. Luerssen had been problematic, if not actually abusive-not simply agree with Temas’s own opinion.
“Group and individual therapy,” Greg answers promptly.
“Do you feel comfortable telling me about some of the things you talked about there?” Temas knows it’s going to take Greg a moment to untangle that question, but it seems like a good time to reinforce the idea that Greg has a right to set limits about what they work on in therapy.
“I don’t really remember,” Greg says after a moment.
“That’s okay.”
“My memory’s usually pretty good.” He props his chin on his cane and stares at a spot on the rug. “You’d think I’d remember most of it, once the physical withdrawal was over.”
“Maybe if you think about it for a while,” Temas suggests.
“I remember they had two big guys meet me at the airport and shove me in the back of a van,” Greg muses. “Which was a good thing, because I was thinking about running away and spending the three months gambling and watching all-nude revues instead of puking my guts out and talking about my feelings.”
Temas smiles at this sign of what his overly-compliant patient had once been like. “What else do you remember?”
“I remember…wishing Wilson would come and save me.” He shakes his head. “He didn’t come.”
Temas isn’t sure what to ask next, so he settles for an interrogative sound.
“I didn’t really think he would.” Greg rubs at his thigh. “I know rehab isn’t supposed to be enjoyable,” he adds hastily.
“It’s not exactly a barrel of laughs,” Temas agrees. “But if the program was a good fit for you, you’d probably be able to think of some good points.”
Greg folds his arms across his chest. That kind of body language is normally interpreted as resistance; in this case, Temas sees it as a good sign. Greg doesn’t like where this is going, and-for a change-he’s trying to protect himself. “I don’t know.”
“What was going on when you were, uh, resisting treatment?”
“I had to stay in the isolation room.”
“What was that like?”
“It was unpleasant,” Greg snaps. Less than a second later he folds in on himself and mumbles, “Sorry.”
“You’re fine,” Temas says. “Can you say more?”
“It was for my own good,” Greg answers listlessly.
“Maybe. Sometimes when people say they’re doing something for your own good, it’s not true,” he offers.
Greg shrugs. “I don’t know why they’d lie.”
Temas knows that, among other things, I don’t know can mean I don’t think you’d believe me if I told. It can also mean I don’t want to talk about it or I don’t want to remember. Sometimes, it’s best to honor those messages and back off-the therapeutic relationship can be a good place for the client to practice establishing and defending boundaries.
Other times, it’s better to send a strong message that the secret isn’t as unbelievable as the patient has been led to think. “They might lie because they were doing something wrong, and didn’t want to get in trouble,” he suggests.
Greg looks at him searchingly. “Do you know?” he finally asks. “What it was like?”
“I’m starting to have a pretty good idea,” Temas admits.
“Tell me.”
He isn’t sure how to answer. If he’s wrong, he runs the risk of planting false memories in a highly suggestible patient. On the other hand, if he deflects the question with another question, he could destroy whatever trust in him Greg’s managed to build. What finally tips the balance is the realization that he can barely find words to fit what he thinks happened. “I think you spent three months being tortured, and then the next four months coming here for weekly follow-up torture,” he answers. “I think what they did there was about as far from therapy as you can get, and resisting it for as long as you could was the best thing you could have done under the circumstances. That’s what I think.”
Greg nods slowly. “That’s one way to describe it,” he agrees in a small voice.
“I also think,” Temas continues bravely, “that they lied about a lot of other things, and once you start to name the lies, you might start to feel better. Really better.”
The silence stretches out, long enough that Temas thinks maybe they’re just going to sit quietly for the rest of the session. But finally Greg says, “The way I resisted therapy was, I said my leg hurt. I don’t have a drug problem, I have a pain problem. Is what I said. They wouldn’t let me out of Iso until I said my leg didn’t hurt anymore. After a while I decided I’d just lie and say it didn’t hurt, but they found out I was lying and put me back in. That’s when they started the injections. After a while, I believed them when they said it didn’t hurt.” He hesitates. “But I think maybe it does. Hurt.”
“Yeah,” Temas says softly. “I think it probably does, too.”
Wilson thinks he’s imagining things when he hears a spray of pebbles hit his balcony door. House hasn’t been out there in months, and no one else has ever been out there. But he turns and looks, and it’s House. Looking equal parts sheepish and grim-not energetic or mischievous-but you can’t have everything.
“I’m sorry, I have to take that,” he excuses himself to his patient, and steps outside, shutting the door behind him. “What’s up?” It’s Thursday afternoon-therapy day. Something must have happened.
“My leg hurts,” House reports.
“Yeah, I know.” There’s no way House is here for Vicodin. Just no way.
“What are we gonna do about it?”
“I…don’t know.” He rubs the back of his neck. “Is this an emergency? Can I finish this consult and then we’ll figure out what to do?”
House drops his eyes. “Yeah. It can wait.”
Wilson feels that he’s let House down somehow. “Okay. This’ll just take a few minutes.”
House nods.
“I’ll be right back.” He goes inside and finishes up-it’s just a second opinion, and he doesn’t really have anything new to add, so he doesn’t feel too bad about chivvying the patient out the door-her primary doctor can take care of any remaining questions.
House is still on the balcony when he goes back out. “I wasn’t sure you’d come,” he says.
“Well, I did.”
It’s almost inaudible, but House says, “You didn’t, before.”
“When?”
“Rehab.” House’s hand tightens on the railing. “I just remembered.”
Wilson isn’t sure what to say, or do. He puts his hands on the railing and looks out toward the parking lot. “What do you want me to do?”
“Help me.”
“I will. I just don’t know how.”
House leans on the railing and rubs his thigh. Several times he opens his mouth to speak, then subsides without saying anything. Finally he says, “Take me somewhere.”
“Where?” Wilson has no idea what he means-lunch? A pain clinic?
“I don’t care. Anywhere but here.”
Wilson decides to just agree. “Okay. Let me get my jacket. Do you need yours?”
It’s almost like old times, although when they pass Cuddy on the way out instead of accosting House to yell at him for something, she just smiles distantly and looks away. In the car, House plays with the radio. It’s been so long since he’s driven House anywhere, that all of the pre-sets are actually stations that he likes to listen to.
“Where to?” he asks.
“Just take me somewhere.”
He drives with no goal in mind but to keep moving. At each intersection or stoplight, he goes the way that involves the least waiting. Eventually, he blunders onto the turnpike. Once he gets the car up to sixty miles an hour, House leans back and lights up a cigarette.
“Hey! You can’t…at least open the window.”
House rolls down the window and hangs his arm out.
“Do you want to find someplace to eat?” Wilson raises his voice over the wind and the radio.
“Let’s wait a while.”
“Okay.” He drives. It’s nice, being with his friend again. Even though he doesn’t know what’s going on, really, that’s nothing new when it comes to House. House seems…not more comfortable, but then, House has never exactly been comfortable in his own skin. He seems on edge, and because of that, more like himself. “We’re going to be in Pennsylvania soon,” he says after a while.
House shrugs. “So?”
“Should we turn around and go home?”
“Why?”
“You want to keep going?”
“Yeah.”
Wilson isn’t sure what the point is, but he’s glad enough to see House acting sure of himself that he’d drive all night, if that’s what House asked for.
House reaches for the radio dial. He’s put off finding a new station as long as he can. He can still make out the music, but it’s overlaid with an ever-thickening layer of static. Turning the dial slowly, he pauses when a station comes in clear.
“I feel guilty for not helping him,” a crackly voice says through the radio.
House, involuntarily, turns and looks at Wilson.
“What you’re really saying is, ‘As long as I can keep myself from seeing this situation honestly, I can stay in it.’ You said earlier that you promised to support your husband in sickness. He isn’t sick. He’s an addict. You can’t help an addict--”
Wilson reaches over and twists the radio dial violently. “I don’t think we need to hear that,” he says mildly.
“I guess not.” Static fills the car.
“What happened to your iPod, anyway?” Wilson asks.
“I don’t know.” He had it on the plane, on his way to rehab. He doesn’t have it now. It must have disappeared while he was in Isolation. “I lost it at rehab.”
“We can get you a new one.”
House shrugs. “I have to learn to take better care of my things,” he says, even though he thinks maybe what he really means is that he doesn’t want a new one, he wants his old one, that had all of his music on it.
“Yeah,” Wilson says flatly. “Sure.” He points out the windshield. “Are you hungry yet? There’s a lot of places off this exit.”
He was a little bit hungry, but he didn’t want to stop yet. The need to be somewhere else drove him like hunger or pain or curiosity. “Let’s keep going for a while.”
“Okay. We have to decide soon if we’re going to Philadelphia or around it.”
Going through the city will mean slowing down, stopping in traffic. “Around it. Stay on the highway.”
Wilson nods, and drives. After a while, House goes back to the radio, turning the dial until he finds a decent station. NPR out of Philadelphia; they have an evening jazz program that he’s listened to before, on clear days when the station comes through in Princeton.
The circle around Philly and get on the Pennsylvania turnpike. Wilson takes the toll ticket and sticks it in the clip on his sun visor.
“You know what they say about Pennsylvania?” House asks.
“What?”
“You’ve got Pittsburgh on the left, and Philadelphia on the right, and Alabama in between.”
Wilson smiles, even though it’s not a very good joke.
Another fifty miles of road scroll away under the Volvo’s tires, and the insatiable hunger for distance eases off. “Let’s start looking for someplace to eat. And maybe sleep.”
“Okay.” Wilson gets off the turnpike at the next exit. Chain restaurants are clustered around the off-ramp-Bob Evans, Cracker Barrel, McDonalds, Dairy Queen. “I’ve never been to one of those,” he says, pointing to an Eat ‘n Park.
“Their home fries are good,” House says.
“Want to go there?” Wilson asks.
“Yeah, sure.”
They both order bacon and eggs. House plows through his meal without thinking much, and is surprised to realize he’s cleaned his plate. He snatches a piece of toast from Wilson’s and runs it around his plate, mopping up the last traces of runny egg. Wilson doesn’t protest. When the waitress comes and asks if they want anything else, House orders another round of the same.
Halfway through the second plate, he pauses and takes a deep breath, and resumes eating, more slowly. The bacon is crisp but has a little bit of play in it; the homefries are crisp on the outside and mealy on the inside; the eggs are buttery and tender. It might be the best meal he’s eaten in months.
Wilson’s watching him with a faint smile on his face. “You ready to tell me what we’re doing out here?”
House crunches through his last piece of bacon. He doesn’t think too much about his answer-if he does, he won’t say it. “You’re rescuing me.”
“Rescuing you from what?”
“Rehab.” He’s just put it together himself, what this sudden and desperate desire to run away really is-a chance to reenact what never happened, and make it turn out right this time.
“I….’m confused,” Wilson admits.
“I just remembered, earlier today. My first few weeks…months…at rehab, I kept imagining you’d come. Break me out and take me home.”
Wilson swallows hard. “I didn’t know. That you needed to be rescued.”
“I know. That’s why I’m letting you do it now. Better late than never.”
Wilson rubs the back of his neck. “Do we have to go the whole way to Nevada? Because I’m due for an oil change. And we’re both supposed to be at work on Monday.” House can tell that Wilson isn’t saying he won’t take him to Nevada, if that’s what he needs to do. Just that it’s not very convenient.
“I don’t think I’m going to want to go back to Nevada for a long time.” House isn’t sure what it’s going to take for him to feel rescued. He feels somewhat better already-if they drive twice as far, will he get twice as much relief? Or is he already bumping up against the point of diminishing return? “I think we can just go a little farther,” he says slowly, feeling it out, “then hole up somewhere for a day or so, and head back on Sunday. Or Monday morning.”
“If I’d known we were going away for the weekend, I’d have wanted to stop home for some things,” Wilson grouses.
“You don’t stop to pack before going on a rescue mission,” House tells him. “It’s a rule. I’m sure they sell toothbrushes in Pennsylvania. And hairdryers.” He picks up the dessert menu that’s tucked behind the ketchup bottle. “I think I want pie. Do you want pie?”
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