Lost signal...
*****
They brought Wilson out of the coma slowly, while carefully monitoring changes in his vitals. For the first time, House entered Wilson’s room, only to be chased out again by an exasperated Cuddy who claimed he was intimidating the nurses by looming over their shoulders and growling like a grumpy, old bear.
If he had been growling, it certainly wasn’t like an old bear. More like a formidable tiger. He settled for pressing his face against the glass, making obnoxious faces and giving them all the evil eye.
But when Wilson’s eyes shuttered open and began roving around the small ICU room, House’s attention fixated on his friend. Unspoken fears gathered close like shadows. Was Wilson still “Wilson” or had the fairies whisked him away and left in his place some changeling creature - some pod person who looked like Wilson, but would lack that unique, vital spark that made Wilson the man House knew and valued?
No one tried to block him this time as he entered. Wilson’s eyelids were already at half mast as he drifted back into the arms of Somnus. House stalked to the edge of the bed and brought his cane down with a sharp rap on the bed rail. Nurses tutted in disapproval as brown eyes flickered open once more in startlement. House leaned close, searching. Above the ventilator mouthpiece, brown eyes locked with blue. Held. At first confusion, a muddy tinge to the usual clarity. Then a flicker of lucidity. One eye squinted just a fraction accompanied by a lift of bushy eyebrows. A question.
House’s mouth quirked in what might have been a smile, had anyone dared say so.
“My phone tried to kill you.”
This lead to a downward pull of those eyebrows. Mystification and/or censure, House wasn’t sure, as whatever commentary was meant to accompany Wilson’s dancing eyebrows was muffled by the intubation tube which had yet to be removed.
House nodded. “Apparently my calling plan sucks!”
Those pull of those brown eyes was too intense and House had to glance away. He looked down at Wilson’s pale hands lying atop the baby blue blanket. Too fragile. Too mortal. He reached out, brushing fingers gently over the tape securing the intravenous catheter to the back of Wilson’s hand. Just checking the placement, and if his fingers also skimmed lightly against skin what did it matter? The hand jumped under his touch and he pulled back, shot a quick look towards Wilson and pivoted on his good leg, heading towards the door.
True to form, Cuddy blocked his dramatic exit. “We’re getting a neurological consult,” she informed him, keeping her voice at a soft murmur. “Foreman will run the tests.”
“He’s fine,” House asserted.
A flash of annoyance tightened her mouth. “You don’t know that.”
“Yes I do.”
“He needs to be properly evaluated,” she stated, with an officious lift of her chin.
House remained unimpressed. “He has been. By me.”
“You barely talked to him!”
“Don’t need to. He’s fine.”
“House…”
“Hey Wilson,” he shouted over his shoulder. “Cuddy thinks you might be a bit brain damaged, so Foreman is going to come ask you a bunch of questions to make sure you aren’t a member of the vegetable family, okay?”
“House!” Cuddy seethed, then grabbed him by the upper arm and forcefully shoved him towards the door to the room.
“What?” House whined as he was unceremoniously evicted into the hallway. “First you keep harping that I should come see him. Then you toss me out. Then you ask me in. Then you throw me out again. Make up your mind!”
*****
House knew Wilson was okay, all faculties intact. He was certain of it, so he hardly needed Foreman’s page to confirm. Still, hearing that Wilson’s brain had suffered no noticeable ill effects must have been reassuring on some level as he found himself relaxed enough to sack out in Cuddy’s office for a few minutes. He would have preferred a few days, but Cuddy arrived and reclaimed her couch, sending him packing with the directive, “Go home, House.”
However, the positive prognosis on Wilson seemed to have re-energized him, and the idea of going home to an empty fridge and reruns of Cops just didn’t have much appeal. Besides, now that he had the time to process, he realized Wilson owed him. Wilson had almost died. And almost dying was on a list of things Wilson was definitely not allowed to do, along with dragging House to shop for bed linens and forcing him to watch Lifetime movies. In almost dying, Wilson had caused House to momentarily lose his cool and give into panic. House had been afraid, and House didn’t get afraid. But House HAD been afraid, and Wilson was to blame. Therefore, it was only fair that Wilson face the consequences of such thoughtless behavior.
Revenge proved nearly effortless for someone of House’s cunning. He merely went to visit the rapidly recovering Wilson, squelching all possible feelings of guilt at Wilson’s enthusiastic surprise over his visit. Picking up Wilson’s chart, he made a show of carefully reading the notes while yammering on about his treatment. Then a word deliberately muddled here. A few transposed phrases there. Expression open and earnest while blathering, “It was poodeling smearnoff in the doodlebain while you were observasing!” Aside from the difficulty of maintaining an innocent expression in the face of Wilson’s growing agitation and horror, it was all absurdly easy. And then, the pièce de résistance, pretending not to understand what Wilson was saying when he began telling House about these new symptoms. “What did you just say? You’re hairy with the roma throat? Wilson? Are you okay?”
It was Wilson’s fault really. How long had he known House? And yet he fell for it - hook, line and sinker with treble hook. Besides, House reminded himself in the face of those wide, frightened brown eyes, Wilson had started it by almost dying. House was just settling the debt.
*****
Foreman found him snoozing in a clinic exam room later that afternoon, marched in and snapped on the overhead fluorescents.
“What did you do?”
House sat up rubbing his eyes. “Not ‘what’… ‘who’. As in ‘Who did you do?’ And the answer would have been Alessandra Ambrosio if you hadn’t woken me up right when things were getting interesting.” He shifted, swinging his legs over the edge of the exam table, and easing to his feet with a wince. “She was showing me her candy lingerie collection, and you know what THAT means.”
Foreman stood with arms crossed, frowning at House. “Wilson just insisted I conduct a second neurological exam on him. When I didn’t find anything wrong again, he demanded a second opinion, and went through the whole thing a third time with Myers, who also found nothing wrong. Then he demanded we call in a speech pathologist for a consult. And what do you know, she didn’t find any indication of use of neologisms, paraphasia or agrammatism either.” He took a step closer. “But you knew that, didn’t you? If you had really been concerned you would have been there, breathing down our necks.”
House dry swallowed a Vicodin, and eased back against the exam table taking his weight off his damaged leg while the pill had time to work. “Second opinions can be helpful. Things get missed.”
Foreman eyed him with a shrewd expression, as though trying to figure out how much of that last statement hinted at genuine concern, and how much was pure bull shit. Good luck, House reflected, as he wasn’t sure himself.
“I think he figured it out when Myers was checking him over, but he wanted to be sure.”
House nodded, but couldn’t hide the slight smirk that rose to the surface. “On a scale of one to ten, how pissed is he?”
“One a scale of one to ten…?” Foreman considered. “A fifteen. You might want to consider moving to Mongolia. I hear they need good doctors there.”
“Yeah, but they pay in goats. Who needs goats? Do I look like a Cashmere kind’a guy?”
Foreman shook his head, and turned to leave, pausing for a moment to assert, “No, you look like an ass,” before disappearing out the door.
*****
They were releasing Wilson in the morning. House waited till fifteen minutes before Wilson was scheduled for parole, then unceremoniously barged his way into the room.
Wilson was dressed in loose khakis and a t-shirt, and was busy signing some paperwork for an attractive, blonde nurse standing at his side. “Thanks, Mary. You’ve been wonderful.
The nurse simpered, and patted him on the arm. “Oh, you were no trouble, really. I’ll just go ahead and arrange for a wheelchair then.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Wilson assured her with his most charming smile. “I’ll be fine on my own.”
“You get some rest, Doctor Wilson. We’re all so glad you are going to be all right.”
“Thank you, Mary. Tell the nursing staff I appreciate all they’ve done.”
She flashed a smile full of teeth so white they must have been sandblasted clean and sashayed out the door.
House watched the view of her departure with appreciation.
“Chicks really dig that Lazarus bit. Bet you could get laid by half the nursing staff right now, and not just the women.”
Wilson turned his back on House in a deliberate snub and resumed shoving a few toiletries into a worn, green duffle bag. House recognized it as the one he had tossed to Chase the day before with the directive to fill it with necessary items from Wilson’s apartment. Without his armor of lab coat, pocket protector and tie, Wilson looked boyish and vulnerable. House felt something clench in his chest, and braced himself against the wall, seeking stability. “So, you making a break for it? I could create a diversion. Set off a stink bomb. Shout fire. Tell everyone Johnny Depp is in the third floor washroom.”
Wilson dropped a can of shaving cream into the bag, then turned to House with a glare, adopting his best affronted, akimbo stance. “You are an ass!”
“So Foreman tells me. Everyone’s a critic.”
“What were you thinking? Why would you do that?” There was hurt there, trying to hide in the shadow of righteous anger. One hand reached to rub the back of his neck. Clear Wilson-speak for emotional vulnerability.
House parried with an unrepentant thrust of his finger. “You almost died.”
Wilson’s lips parted slightly and his eyes widened in surprise. Obviously, that was not the answer he’d expected. Then a look of introspection narrowed his gaze and he studied House intently. Whatever it was he saw seemed to placate him, for he relaxed, crossing his arms and rocking back on his heels. His voice took on the dry tones reserved for trading banter with House. “You know, when most people ‘almost die’, their friends generally send flowers. But not you… You try to convince me I’m suffering from global aphasia”
“If I had sent you flowers, the shock probably would have given you another heart attack.”
For a moment, they faced each other in silence, House tapping his cane on the floor studying Wilson from beneath lowered lashes. Wilson, face set, giving nothing away.
It was Wilson who broke the standoff, turning to zip up the duffle bag. “I talked to Chase. He had a very interesting story to tell.”
“Really?” House made a lewd face, which was sadly wasted on the back of Wilson’s head. “He usually saves that story for people he’s trying to get into bed. Is there something you haven’t told me about you sexual proclivities?”
As expected, Wilson completely ignored the diversionary innuendo. “He seems to think you had a close encounter with something… unnatural. He called it, ‘evil’.” Wilson carefully kept his back to House, which House suspected was meant to make him more comfortable with the idea of “talking” about things. Yeah, right.
“Chase is an idiot. He saw what he wanted to see. He has a choir-boy background. Of course he’s going to fall back on religious doctrine in the face of the unknown.”
Wilson had picked up the duffle bag, but now he tossed it back on the hospital bed and turned to face House, expression thoughtful. “And what about you? You did tell him to pull the phone out of the wall. Why would you do that if you didn’t believe it would help?”
“The reception was crappy. Too much static on the line. I decided to upgrade to a cordless.”
Wilson huffed in affectionate exasperation. “House, Chase isn’t the only one who sees what he wants. You wouldn’t believe even if Gregory burst into flames and started talking to you in ancient Aramaic.”
“Now, that would be way cool.”
Wilson eased himself down on the edge of the hospital bed and caught House’s gaze with his own. “Greg. Something happened. If what Chase told me is true, you have quite a story to share. I think you need to talk to… someone.”
“There’s nothing to talk about!” House snapped. “Your near death bring about some sort of epiphany? You finding personal fulfillment in auditioning for role of Father Confessor?” House made a show of considering his own shortcomings, counting them off on his fingers. “Let’s see, I lust after my boss’s mammary glands. Luxuria. I’m a glutton for punishment. Gula. I have a selfish desire for porn. Avaritia. I blow off clinic duty. Acedia…”
“House.” Wilson’s voice was low, but commanding, and it cut House short.
House moved away from the wall, taking a few labored steps to the window where he stared out through the blinds, one hand fiddling with the cord tilt. His narrow, rigid shoulders, warned Wilson into silence. House’s voice was low and stifled as though arising from some place deep and secretive inside him. “Chase just gave you the Reader’s Digest Condensed version.” There was a pause, a weighted hiatus as the slats of the blinds opened and closed in a syncopated rhythm only House could understand. “You’re going to think I was drunk or drugged or just insane.”
“So, what’s new?” When the quip did nothing the ease the tension in House’s stance, Wilson sighed. “It’s okay, House,” he coaxed, voice gentle. “I know you. Whatever absurdity you’re mixed up in, I’m pretty confident it is based upon something.”
For a moment, it seemed as though House would remain silent. Then haltingly, he began speaking. “It started with your patient, Elizabeth Nolan.” “No… I think… It started before that. When I picked up the phone…”
*****
Didn’t it defy the laws of nature when something that had been troubling House for weeks only took a few minutes to summarize? Of course, there was a lot he neglected to include. Just because he was letting Wilson in on the secret didn’t mean he had to indulge the man with lurid details.
His voice eventually trailed into spent silence, which they let settle around them like an invisibility cloak. Shutting out the world. Giving them both time to process.
House tracked the slant of sunlight through the slats of the blinds, amber fingers creeping almost imperceptibly across linoleum tiles. When he finally turned, he found Wilson still perched on the edge of the bed and watching him, expression thoughtful.
House shrugged, as though to dismiss the whole situation. “Sure it’s weird, but I could never find a logical explanation for the popularity of Veggie Tales either. I mean, animated talking broccoli? Come on!”
But Wilson didn’t take the bait. Instead he tilted his head slightly and began diagnosing the diagnostician. “So let me see if I got this right.” His hands came up, framing his observations. “You could have pitched the phone at anytime, but you didn’t.”
“I didn’t,” House confirmed.
“Because you saw this whole thing as a sort of… competition? You against this… this Oracle or yours?”
House snorted. “Not my Oracle. If it had been my Oracle it would have been reeling off sure bets on superfectas.”
Wilson dismissed this information and fixed House with look of intent scrutiny. “Pulling the plug would have been admitting defeat. You would have lost.”
House didn’t bother denying it.
“So you kept the contest going… with this Oracle… which you don’t even admit you believe in…” Heavy eyebrows quirked upward to punctuate the irony.
House ducked his head in chagrin. That was still a bit of a sore spot. “Basically. Yeah.”
“And even though you kept losing patients.”
House waved a hand, voice rising in agitation. “They would have died anyway! It wasn’t about the patients. It was about the principle.”
“The principle?”
“You don’t surrender a war, just because you lost a battle.”
“House, you didn’t just lose a battle. It sounds like you lost the whole Western Front.”
“No, I didn’t! I didn’t quit! It wanted me to quit, to give in, but I didn’t.”
Wilson eased off, as though knowing his friend was on the verge of fleeing the room. “Okay,” he raised his hands in a placating gesture. “You still thought you could save them, somehow.”
“I came close. Each time, I got closer to the answer…”
“Until me.”
House just looked at him, eyes weary.
“You gave up with me. You pulled the plug.”
House’s voice was rough, subdued. “The stakes had changed.”
“You lost. Because you cared.” Wilson’s own eyes were soft with affection. “You cared more about me than your precious ‘principle’.”
“Yeah, well…” House glanced away, awkwardly. “Don’t let it go to your head. I was merely protecting my access to free lunches in the cafeteria.”
The muted affection spread to Wilson’s words as well. “Of course you were. Very prudent of you.” Looking down, he gave them both a minute to recoup.
House steeled himself and took a tentative step toward Wilson, unsure and ill at ease. “Sometimes…” he started, and then paused, tapping his cane on the floor. His gaze fluttered about the room, not quite able to settle on Wilson. “Sometimes, the only way to win, is to be willing to lose.”
He finally allowed himself to look Wilson in the eye. Allowed the younger man a glimpse beyond the smoke and mirrors. A smile crept slowly across his long face, before he ducked his head and addressed his sneakers. “I didn’t lose, Wilson. I won.”
Wilson apparently had nothing to say in the face of that kind of brutal honesty from House. It was his turn to look away. When he did speak again, it was with a matter of fact tone meant to distance them both from the underlying emotion in the room . “So what do you think it was?”
“The Oracle?” House’s brow wrinkled pensively and he ground the tip of his cane against the floor. “I don’t know.”
“And that’s hard for you to admit, isn’t it? That you don’t have the answer.”
House’s shoulders lifted and fell dismissively. “There are lots of things I don’t fully understand. If ignorance is bliss, why isn't the world overflowing with happy people? Why do you have to put in your two cents worth when it only cost a penny for your thoughts? Why do sleeping pills have warning labels that say they may cause drowsiness?”
“Why do they put round pizzas in square boxes,” chimed in Wilson, nodding sagely.
That earned him a small grin of approval. “And the biggest one of all, why do I keep hanging out with you?”
“It’s a character flaw, I’m sure.”
“Look,” House reiterated. “Just because I don’t understand something doesn’t mean I have to brood about it.”
“And that it. You’re just going to let this go?”
“Why not? It doesn’t matter. Whatever it was burned up in the incinerator. What I believe or don’t believe will change nothing now.
Wilson took a deep breath and let it go with a huff. “Okay. If that’s how you want to handle it. Denial has its uses. ” Leveling himself to his feet, he hefted the duffle bag. “Come on. You can give me a ride to the hotel.”
“No hotel,” House muttered, placing a palm lightly in the middle Wilson’s back to steer him towards the door. “You stay with me tonight.”
Wilson gave him a cautious glance over his shoulder. “You sure? Things didn’t work out too well last time I stayed with you.”
“Of course I’m sure. I bought macadamia nuts.” House smirked. “You’re making pancakes for breakfast.”
Shoulder to shoulder they exited the room.
Fin.
Note: Hab SoSlI' Quch - “You’re mother has a smooth forehead.” Major Klingon insult.
There was a case of a man with green blood published in the Lancet. I did not concern myself about using it, as taht portion of the story was written well before the airing of “97 Seconds”, though I admit to being a bit chagrined when a patient showed up with green blood on the show….
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/73473.php