Broken, Part 1
It's midsummer and he wishes it were all another dream, that the chain link fence his left digits are laced through, the people milling about the yard, the steady thump, thump, thump of the basketball on the concrete were all a part of his head again.
But visions and dreams and such things are why he's watching the dancing curl of the smoke from the filter of the cigarette between the fingers of his right hand instead of the steady rise and fall of a heart monitor in New Jersey.
A pang hits him, one he is still not sure how to process or decode because his shrink says these things take time but he was ready to leave the moment they took the laces to his favorite pair of New Balances.
He takes a long drag from the cigarette, watching as the cloudy milkiness rises to meet the blue of the sky. As it ascends, he busies himself with finding shapes in the flow of the smoke on the air but all he sees, all he can see, are faces.
Foreman. Thirteen. The One with the Nose. Wilson. Cuddy. Cuddy.
...Cuddy
The process of thought sticks heavy like syrup in his mind as he closes his eyes and almost feels the heat of her palms against his skin. He sees her blue eyes, absent of tears, but still feels her raw ache as she whispers to him, “I didn't save you, House,” and Amber confirms, “You're still fractured and broken,” and Kutner says nothing-just stands beside Cuddy's desk with a sad look on his face and a small river of blood beginning to seep from his temple.
Just when he thought he had her, in all the ways he wasn't even sure he wanted her and more, she slipped away from him and was as gone as the puffs of smoke now disappearing in front of his face.
Alvie waves to him from across the yard and he flicks the fragment away from his hand. The ember smolders then breaks into ash, his thoughts of any part of his old life doing much the same.
If this is like Girl Interrupted, he is determined to be Angelina Jolie.
*
"Yo, House, you still up?" Alvie whispers loudly towards the other side of the room. "I'm still up. Can't sleep - too many thoughts in my head," the movement of his upper body as his arms punctuate his statement rustle the sheets as he continues. "But I never really needed a lot of sleep, you know? Not that I ever could get any, I mean I couldn't really 'cause it was loud in the heights. The ghetto is loud! But I got used to the noi-"
"Would you shut up!" he bursts out breaking his frustrated silence. Alvie had been whispering over to him every five minutes for the the past half hour. This time he continued talking, probably figuring House was asleep and it would be okay to make even more noise. "No, I can't sleep and if I could your rambling would be keeping me up,” he bites out angrily.
"I'm sorry House," Alvie begins apologizing profusely, sitting up in his bed and leaning towards House's side of the room, "I'm just-"
"Don't apologise. Don't anything - just stop talking," he cuts in, turning his head towards the young man and giving him a glare that finally silences him.
Alvie mimes zipping his lips and throwing away the key before lying back onto the bed. "Goodnight, House!" he says cheerfully settling under his covers and closing his eyes.
He clenches his fist, but doesn't say anything back for fear that it would start another conversation. He too settles into the bed, moving his arms under his head and staring at the shadow and moonlight being cast through the window and reflecting on the ceiling.
Today, had been his fourth session with Dr. Nolan - he still did not have a read on the psychiatrist and had let it slip in a previous session that one of his hallucinations involved Cuddy. It was no surprise that, during this meeting, Nolan had pressed the issue. Since he refused to open up verbally, Nolan told him to write about the event and his thoughts on 'this Cuddy', as he had called her.
He did not have any thoughts on Cuddy that he wanted to write about.
Except that he did.
All the time.
This was not the first night that those very thoughts had kept him up either and, as was unfortunate enough to happen in the past, they were not always sexual.
His thoughts strayed to his last day at PPTH. God, those minutes in her office when he realised that everything from the night before and the morning after had all been his imagination. He stood there shocked and his confession came tumbling out.
She knew.
She knew and she had taken it calmly, her hands rubbing his cheek and back, soothing him like he was a stray that had been beaten and she was a new owner willing to take the time to earn his trust. She led him quietly to Wilson's office, and as they stood in the doorway, he knew too.
Now he was here and despite all evidence to the contrary, he still could not believe that none of it had happened. Maybe writing about it - maybe seeing it in print, doing a DDX as it were, would help him to understand it better he thought to himself before closing his eyes on the resolution to diagnose it tomorrow.
*
The metal gears of the lock harshly slide against each other as it clicks into place. He reaches down and closes the lid of the toilet before awkwardly turning in the cramped stall and lowering himself onto the seat.
Pulling out a yellow spiral bound notebook from his shirt pocket, he rests it on his thigh. He stares at it; his fingers dusting the edge of the blank pages, flipping them briefly, before he pulls the pen out of the spiral’s grasp and opens it to a random page.
His mind is suddenly void of all the thoughts that had cluttered it the night before so he stares blankly at the peeling green paint of the stall door in front of him.
He closes his eyes and leans his head back against the cool concrete behind him.
Cuddy.
As soon as her name manifests in his mind, a myriad of images floods his conscience - both real and imagined. Why had the final crack been her?
He sighs opening his eyes, tracing the stains on the ceiling before he leans forward and picks up the notepad with his left hand. He holds it, idly tapping the pen against the blank page before he begins to write.
APPROACH TO THE ACUTE ABDOMEN
SELMA AND PATTY!
HURT
PAIN
HALLUCINATION SEX
COLLEGE - ENDO?
SAVIOUR
WHY WOULD SHE WANT ME?
KISS
COULDN'T MAKE IT TO HER DOOR
FATE
The expanding stain of ink begins to blur along with his vision - the first awareness that he has of having stopped writing.
He could not believe that this was his reality: crying in a bathroom stall over a DDX of the current state of his pathetic life. A wave of anger floods him just as quickly as the tears had.
Awkwardly yanking himself up off the toilet, he stumbles, the pen and pad falling to the floor. He reaches down for the latter, snatching it up and ripping off the top sheet. He lets the book fall to the ground as he rips the DDX to shreds.
He slams the lid back up and tosses the pieces into the white porcelain bowl - misbegotten wishes; change into a fountain.
They flutter from his hand into their watery grave - a brief shower of confetti, barely taking on any water before he depresses the metal handle. Their jagged pieces whirling down the drain as the echo of the stall door slamming reverberates in the empty bathroom.
But visions and dreams and such things are why he's watching the dancing curl of the smoke from the filter of the cigarette between the fingers of his right hand instead of the steady rise and fall of a heart monitor in New Jersey.
A pang hits him, one he is still not sure how to process or decode because his shrink says these things take time but he was ready to leave the moment they took the laces to his favorite pair of New Balances.
He takes a long drag from the cigarette, watching as the cloudy milkiness rises to meet the blue of the sky. As it ascends, he busies himself with finding shapes in the flow of the smoke on the air but all he sees, all he can see, are faces.
Foreman. Thirteen. The One with the Nose. Wilson. Cuddy. Cuddy.
...Cuddy
The process of thought sticks heavy like syrup in his mind as he closes his eyes and almost feels the heat of her palms against his skin. He sees her blue eyes, absent of tears, but still feels her raw ache as she whispers to him, “I didn't save you, House,” and Amber confirms, “You're still fractured and broken,” and Kutner says nothing-just stands beside Cuddy's desk with a sad look on his face and a small river of blood beginning to seep from his temple.
Just when he thought he had her, in all the ways he wasn't even sure he wanted her and more, she slipped away from him and was as gone as the puffs of smoke now disappearing in front of his face.
Alvie waves to him from across the yard and he flicks the fragment away from his hand. The ember smolders then breaks into ash, his thoughts of any part of his old life doing much the same.
If this is like Girl Interrupted, he is determined to be Angelina Jolie.
*
"Yo, House, you still up?" Alvie whispers loudly towards the other side of the room. "I'm still up. Can't sleep - too many thoughts in my head," the movement of his upper body as his arms punctuate his statement rustle the sheets as he continues. "But I never really needed a lot of sleep, you know? Not that I ever could get any, I mean I couldn't really 'cause it was loud in the heights. The ghetto is loud! But I got used to the noi-"
"Would you shut up!" he bursts out breaking his frustrated silence. Alvie had been whispering over to him every five minutes for the the past half hour. This time he continued talking, probably figuring House was asleep and it would be okay to make even more noise. "No, I can't sleep and if I could your rambling would be keeping me up,” he bites out angrily.
"I'm sorry House," Alvie begins apologizing profusely, sitting up in his bed and leaning towards House's side of the room, "I'm just-"
"Don't apologise. Don't anything - just stop talking," he cuts in, turning his head towards the young man and giving him a glare that finally silences him.
Alvie mimes zipping his lips and throwing away the key before lying back onto the bed. "Goodnight, House!" he says cheerfully settling under his covers and closing his eyes.
He clenches his fist, but doesn't say anything back for fear that it would start another conversation. He too settles into the bed, moving his arms under his head and staring at the shadow and moonlight being cast through the window and reflecting on the ceiling.
Today, had been his fourth session with Dr. Nolan - he still did not have a read on the psychiatrist and had let it slip in a previous session that one of his hallucinations involved Cuddy. It was no surprise that, during this meeting, Nolan had pressed the issue. Since he refused to open up verbally, Nolan told him to write about the event and his thoughts on 'this Cuddy', as he had called her.
He did not have any thoughts on Cuddy that he wanted to write about.
Except that he did.
All the time.
This was not the first night that those very thoughts had kept him up either and, as was unfortunate enough to happen in the past, they were not always sexual.
His thoughts strayed to his last day at PPTH. God, those minutes in her office when he realised that everything from the night before and the morning after had all been his imagination. He stood there shocked and his confession came tumbling out.
She knew.
She knew and she had taken it calmly, her hands rubbing his cheek and back, soothing him like he was a stray that had been beaten and she was a new owner willing to take the time to earn his trust. She led him quietly to Wilson's office, and as they stood in the doorway, he knew too.
Now he was here and despite all evidence to the contrary, he still could not believe that none of it had happened. Maybe writing about it - maybe seeing it in print, doing a DDX as it were, would help him to understand it better he thought to himself before closing his eyes on the resolution to diagnose it tomorrow.
*
The metal gears of the lock harshly slide against each other as it clicks into place. He reaches down and closes the lid of the toilet before awkwardly turning in the cramped stall and lowering himself onto the seat.
Pulling out a yellow spiral bound notebook from his shirt pocket, he rests it on his thigh. He stares at it; his fingers dusting the edge of the blank pages, flipping them briefly, before he pulls the pen out of the spiral’s grasp and opens it to a random page.
His mind is suddenly void of all the thoughts that had cluttered it the night before so he stares blankly at the peeling green paint of the stall door in front of him.
He closes his eyes and leans his head back against the cool concrete behind him.
Cuddy.
As soon as her name manifests in his mind, a myriad of images floods his conscience - both real and imagined. Why had the final crack been her?
He sighs opening his eyes, tracing the stains on the ceiling before he leans forward and picks up the notepad with his left hand. He holds it, idly tapping the pen against the blank page before he begins to write.
APPROACH TO THE ACUTE ABDOMEN
SELMA AND PATTY!
HURT
PAIN
HALLUCINATION SEX
COLLEGE - ENDO?
SAVIOUR
WHY WOULD SHE WANT ME?
KISS
COULDN'T MAKE IT TO HER DOOR
FATE
The expanding stain of ink begins to blur along with his vision - the first awareness that he has of having stopped writing.
He could not believe that this was his reality: crying in a bathroom stall over a DDX of the current state of his pathetic life. A wave of anger floods him just as quickly as the tears had.
Awkwardly yanking himself up off the toilet, he stumbles, the pen and pad falling to the floor. He reaches down for the latter, snatching it up and ripping off the top sheet. He lets the book fall to the ground as he rips the DDX to shreds.
He slams the lid back up and tosses the pieces into the white porcelain bowl - misbegotten wishes; change into a fountain.
They flutter from his hand into their watery grave - a brief shower of confetti, barely taking on any water before he depresses the metal handle. Their jagged pieces whirling down the drain as the echo of the stall door slamming reverberates in the empty bathroom.