Broken, Part II
He hears her before he sees her because she begins in him as pure song.
He rounds the corner, watches her fingers dance along the keys and loses himself for a moment in her melody.
When she turns to him, speaks in her accent, looks him in the eyes, he thinks she might be a good place to hide from Ward Six.
Just as she begins in him like song, so she progresses. He does little other than watch because she's such a stark contrast to everything around him. She plays piano for a woman who doesn't blink and barely moves and he watches her blow a puff of air up to rustle a strand of hair in her eyes after fighting with the cello in the back seat of her car.
He sits on a bench and watches flower petals rain from his hands, silently chanting the old saying She Loves Me, Not and he almost lets himself drift back to the last woman in his life until the woman of the piano distracts him and deposits the taste of freedom on his lips even more than the presence of a super hero.
In his mind, he tries to rationalize, tries to find the meaning to the kiss by telling himself, “It's a German thing,” but he's thrown for a loop because of the last person he "connected" with in his head. And before his head, she was real and maybe even beautiful standing there broken, crying, and disheveled in her gray sweater that swallowed her limbs.
So yes, he kisses this new woman again and lets himself "connect" to someone else because his shrink said it might be a good idea.
The focus of everything becomes narrow or maybe pear shaped and she makes him forget where he is for a second or two.
He downs her like a palm full of vicodin-to forget he's in pain.
*
His fingers quietly tap in slow cascades against the left arm of the chair.
His right hand absently rubs his thigh; the intensity of the pain a dulled and constant companion. The ibuprofen a joke - but it was perhaps better to laugh than to be crazy.
Perhaps.
Nolan unlocks his office, pausing briefly at the sight of House sitting inside.
"You're early." Nolan comments. "Eager to get this session over?"
"Always," he replies, his right hand stilling as he balls it into a fist and rests it on his thigh.
Nolan nods, pocketing his keys and walking to his desk. He retrieves the pad he left out for this session and walks back over to the seating area.
House absently stares out the window - a slight smile briefly curving the edges of his mouth. He has been here forty-two days.
Today was the last.
There was a difference that he acknowledged in himself, but had he fixed what was broken?
Nolan takes his seat opposite House, settling himself before pouring a glass of water.
House turns towards the sound of the water gurgling into itself. He shakes his head no at Nolan's tilted head offering him a glass.
Nolan picks up his cup, takes a sip and sets back in his chair, crossing his legs. He looks through is notepad, his finger tracing a few spots before he turns his attention to House.
"I've cleared you to return to work," he starts. "However, due to the nature of your stay, the sate board will have to reinstate your license before you can practice. That will likely be a set number of hours doing supervised rounds."
House nods.
Nolan pauses thoughtfully before continuing. "I'm hesitant to recommend that you return to Princeton Plainsboro."
House raises an eyebrow in surprise at this.
"Given the extent of and persons involved in your hallucinations - Cuddy and Amber - I think a change, even temporary, could benefit you. I especially don't think you are ready to interact with your boss on any level - emotional or otherwise."
"You think I should quit?" House asks.
"I think that would be extreme. I think you should try some changes to your immediate environments." He pauses to confirm something in his notes. "I've spoken with Dr. Wilson and upon my recommendation he has agreed to let you live with him; most importantly I don't think you are ready to be on your own."
"Wilson lives in Amber's old apartment," House scoffs. "It's a shrine to her - he didn't get rid of anything. You don't think that would be a bad idea?"
"I think in this particular instance, it will help you both to address this issue." Nolan responds honestly.
House lifts his hand and rubs at his temple, staring at the man across from him. He lays his hand back down on the armrest before finally asking, "But you don't think I should be around Cuddy?"
Nolan leans forward and carefully phrases his next statement, "Your perceived relationship with Dr. Cuddy and the reality of it are... fundamentally disparate. From what you have told me about your past and your recent history, perhaps you were headed in the direction of some sort of romantic entanglement. But that didn't happen." He pauses to allow House to digest his statement. "You need to be prepared that this experience has not only changed you, but it has effected those involved. I suspect of all your relationships you will find this one to be the most changed. I'm not sure that you are ready for that."
"I don't agree. I think I am ready," House insists.
Nolan shakes his head, "Even in here you've made poor relationship choices."
"What are you talking about?" House asks his brow furrowing in confusion as his thoughts immediately went to his friendship with Alvie.
"Your... "liaison" with Lydia," Nolan reminds him.
House waves his hand dismissively, "That was a distraction. I just needed to not have to deal with this," he motions at his head and his leg with a flick of his wrist. "She was interested. Available. I just needed someone... a woman - to want me."
"I can understand that. Certainly you knew the boundaries were limited given that she was married, but you also claim to have a deep affection for your boss. You even imagined that you had begun a meaningful relationship with her. Yet you seemed to ignore all of that in having your relationship with Lydia." Nolan challenges.
House shakes his head, "I didn't ignore it - I thought about it every day. But I didn't have to think about it when I was with her. There was a challenge there. I was puzzled as to why she was interested in me and there was the lack of fear of getting hurt. She was married - it couldn't go anywhere."
"But you got hurt." Nolan reminds him.
House is silent. Had he gotten hurt? Yes. To some extent, he had been hurt by her rejection, by her lies. She had a child. If he was honest with himself, he had not really expected that she would give up her life for him. The only reason he had even made it to her door was because he had failed the last time he stood steps away from a threshold when he had been unable to knock on Cuddy's door. Though his hindsight was not long, he knew that his thing with Lydia was an infatuation that he let get out of hand - he had needed affection and she had been willing.
"I did get hurt. But mostly by my own stupidity," he concedes.
Nolan nods, "I'm glad that you can take some ownership over your actions. And I know that you are probably eager to put yourself out there for Cuddy. But i want to be very clear that leaving here and attempting to pursue her - no matter how much you want it to be - is not a good idea."
"Noted," House replies succinctly.
Nolan holds his gaze for a few moments to convey his seriousness, before continuing, "I'm not saying that in a few months - a year - that it's not worth pursuing. You obviously have a deep sense of attachment and affection for her and should she return it could be very fulfilling. But you're not in the place to offer that to someone else because you haven't dealt with all of your own issues."
House briefly looks as though he is going to respond, but remains silent effectively ending that topic.
Nolan decides not to press the issue, flipping the page on his notepad and changing the subject. "So there aren't any alternatives to Vicodin that I'm willing to prescribe you. We're going to continue with the Ibuprofen and massage. I know that they are only making this manageable at best, so I would also advise that you start physical therapy to further supplement the two."
"Is that all?" House asks a bit testily because the pain was not manageable, it was just easier to deal with than the alternative.
"I want you to come in once a week for an hour session. I know this is a bit of a commute for you and sometimes we can schedule the sessions in Princeton, but most of them will be here. Other than that, and some release forms you'll need to sign, we're done for now," he finishes, closing the notepad and clasping his hands over it.
House smirks at the thought that this is finally over, "Once a week should be fine," he agrees to continue the sessions. "I wish I could say that this has been a pleasure, but I really can't."
He tempers his statement by leaning across the coffee table one hand extended, and the other awkwardly balancing him, "Thank you," he offers sincerely.
Nolan takes his hand, shaking it firmly as he smiles."I enjoy a good challenge," he jests before continuing with sincerity. "I think you're going to be okay, House."
House releases Nolan's hand, falling lightly back into his seat.
"Yeah," he responds. "I do too."
*
He stands at the discharge desk with a tight grip on the handle of his suitcase in one hand and his cane in the other.
Around him, disinfectant and chemicals still cling to the surfaces but they never remind him of home or the way things used to be. Here, there is something else in the way of things, like maybe lavender in the products they use in the women's restroom and something else floral in the dining hall.
It was not Princeton Plainsboro which he eventually, after time, lost in himself.
Behind the counter, he watches a morning shift nurse wipe his name from the dry erase board. Dr. Beasley offers him a small smile as she hands him his discharge papers.
“Take care of Alvie,” he tells her.
“Or maybe hope that Alvie learns to take care of himself?”
It seems like a fair statement, so he nods and turns to leave. She is right. No one can help Alvie but himself. Not even him, even though part of him wishes he were able to. Other people can't save you. You have to learn to save yourself, filled his brain with each step.
The doors feel better under his hands going out as opposed to coming in. Progression, accomplishment, freedom. It is easy to take these things into him with breaths and the sounds of the hospital dying. Dying and then changing into the sound of sparrows in the air. Into the breeze shuffling the leaves on the trees. To the heat of the sun upon his skin. To his feet connecting to the blacktop. To his back hitting the wooden bench of the bus stop.
He turns his gaze to the spot beside him.
Alone.
Nothing and no one beside him. Even though the physical space is empty, his mind remains full. Perhaps it hadn't been that long since he milled about and blended into the world but the only world he could think of, the only one he felt he knows how to function in, is 100 yards behind him.
The architecture looks foreboding and awfully gray and green mixed in with the rays of light from the sky. It seems so weird to carry hope from a place that looks like it never returned anything to anyone, never gave anything away. Almost as if it drained the sky because the clouds are only wisps behind it and the greens of the grass and the blue of the sky seem duller beyond it, less vibrant that it is in the opposite horizon.
Behind him, his failures and problems stack in a heap on the doorstep of Mayfield, litter the halls in broken screams, and internal anguish smeared on the walls as thick as wet plaster. In front of him, his past but also the future.
Princeton.
He spins the memory in him, samples it in his senses like tasting an aging wine. Before, it was bitter and ordinary. He walked the halls every day, practiced his cases in the same manner, spoke to the same people, lived the same life. Complacency had settled into his bones and muscles and sinews, even the ones that failed to work properly.
What was back home for him? Honestly?
An empty apartment with remnants of ghosts clinging to the walls and the furniture and the sheets on his bed. His job is an afterthought, taken away by the woman who sat in his head handing him ginger and honey tonics.
He tightens his fingers over the head of his cane, thinking back to his frantic scribbles on a bent piece of paper in a bathroom stall. It had been so easy to lose himself then, when hope seemed as distant and all he craved with the chalkiness of a pill sliding down his throat. The physical pain made him long for it. The emotional pain bended him to need it.
The bus pulls up with a squeaking of tires, enough to shatter his thoughts into tiny fragments. It is waiting to take him back to the sidewalks, houses, and halls he's known before. Ones which he will have to relearn the familiarity of again, learn to function in without contemplating where the walls are hollowed out and plastic bottles sit in tiny nooks.
He'd have to do the same with the people who rotated around him as if he were the sun with a magnitude of gravitational pull. Like moths to lights, burning bright. Whatever the reason they befriended him, tolerated him, worked for him, he had to reestablish the creases of their faces and the color of their eyes. The nuances of their demeanors would end up being new because he has been to places that only speculation could fill in their minds.
To them, he does not want to be broken. Unfixable.
It seems weird to care, to honestly wonder what people will think. In his head, he feels better though. The pain in his leg still sends waves through his body but that was no different, would never be any different.
He looks to the back of the vehicle, feeling like the faces of strangers could read him and smell where he has been. But walking past those faces, they are no more concerned with him shuffling down the isle than anything. They read or look out the window or are completely disinterested.
The seat gives way to the weight of him, not bogged down by the burdens of yesterday or what lays ahead.
He smiles, unsure of what was to come. Life, whatever that is, whatever he could make it be, is waiting.
He rounds the corner, watches her fingers dance along the keys and loses himself for a moment in her melody.
When she turns to him, speaks in her accent, looks him in the eyes, he thinks she might be a good place to hide from Ward Six.
Just as she begins in him like song, so she progresses. He does little other than watch because she's such a stark contrast to everything around him. She plays piano for a woman who doesn't blink and barely moves and he watches her blow a puff of air up to rustle a strand of hair in her eyes after fighting with the cello in the back seat of her car.
He sits on a bench and watches flower petals rain from his hands, silently chanting the old saying She Loves Me, Not and he almost lets himself drift back to the last woman in his life until the woman of the piano distracts him and deposits the taste of freedom on his lips even more than the presence of a super hero.
In his mind, he tries to rationalize, tries to find the meaning to the kiss by telling himself, “It's a German thing,” but he's thrown for a loop because of the last person he "connected" with in his head. And before his head, she was real and maybe even beautiful standing there broken, crying, and disheveled in her gray sweater that swallowed her limbs.
So yes, he kisses this new woman again and lets himself "connect" to someone else because his shrink said it might be a good idea.
The focus of everything becomes narrow or maybe pear shaped and she makes him forget where he is for a second or two.
He downs her like a palm full of vicodin-to forget he's in pain.
*
His fingers quietly tap in slow cascades against the left arm of the chair.
His right hand absently rubs his thigh; the intensity of the pain a dulled and constant companion. The ibuprofen a joke - but it was perhaps better to laugh than to be crazy.
Perhaps.
Nolan unlocks his office, pausing briefly at the sight of House sitting inside.
"You're early." Nolan comments. "Eager to get this session over?"
"Always," he replies, his right hand stilling as he balls it into a fist and rests it on his thigh.
Nolan nods, pocketing his keys and walking to his desk. He retrieves the pad he left out for this session and walks back over to the seating area.
House absently stares out the window - a slight smile briefly curving the edges of his mouth. He has been here forty-two days.
Today was the last.
There was a difference that he acknowledged in himself, but had he fixed what was broken?
Nolan takes his seat opposite House, settling himself before pouring a glass of water.
House turns towards the sound of the water gurgling into itself. He shakes his head no at Nolan's tilted head offering him a glass.
Nolan picks up his cup, takes a sip and sets back in his chair, crossing his legs. He looks through is notepad, his finger tracing a few spots before he turns his attention to House.
"I've cleared you to return to work," he starts. "However, due to the nature of your stay, the sate board will have to reinstate your license before you can practice. That will likely be a set number of hours doing supervised rounds."
House nods.
Nolan pauses thoughtfully before continuing. "I'm hesitant to recommend that you return to Princeton Plainsboro."
House raises an eyebrow in surprise at this.
"Given the extent of and persons involved in your hallucinations - Cuddy and Amber - I think a change, even temporary, could benefit you. I especially don't think you are ready to interact with your boss on any level - emotional or otherwise."
"You think I should quit?" House asks.
"I think that would be extreme. I think you should try some changes to your immediate environments." He pauses to confirm something in his notes. "I've spoken with Dr. Wilson and upon my recommendation he has agreed to let you live with him; most importantly I don't think you are ready to be on your own."
"Wilson lives in Amber's old apartment," House scoffs. "It's a shrine to her - he didn't get rid of anything. You don't think that would be a bad idea?"
"I think in this particular instance, it will help you both to address this issue." Nolan responds honestly.
House lifts his hand and rubs at his temple, staring at the man across from him. He lays his hand back down on the armrest before finally asking, "But you don't think I should be around Cuddy?"
Nolan leans forward and carefully phrases his next statement, "Your perceived relationship with Dr. Cuddy and the reality of it are... fundamentally disparate. From what you have told me about your past and your recent history, perhaps you were headed in the direction of some sort of romantic entanglement. But that didn't happen." He pauses to allow House to digest his statement. "You need to be prepared that this experience has not only changed you, but it has effected those involved. I suspect of all your relationships you will find this one to be the most changed. I'm not sure that you are ready for that."
"I don't agree. I think I am ready," House insists.
Nolan shakes his head, "Even in here you've made poor relationship choices."
"What are you talking about?" House asks his brow furrowing in confusion as his thoughts immediately went to his friendship with Alvie.
"Your... "liaison" with Lydia," Nolan reminds him.
House waves his hand dismissively, "That was a distraction. I just needed to not have to deal with this," he motions at his head and his leg with a flick of his wrist. "She was interested. Available. I just needed someone... a woman - to want me."
"I can understand that. Certainly you knew the boundaries were limited given that she was married, but you also claim to have a deep affection for your boss. You even imagined that you had begun a meaningful relationship with her. Yet you seemed to ignore all of that in having your relationship with Lydia." Nolan challenges.
House shakes his head, "I didn't ignore it - I thought about it every day. But I didn't have to think about it when I was with her. There was a challenge there. I was puzzled as to why she was interested in me and there was the lack of fear of getting hurt. She was married - it couldn't go anywhere."
"But you got hurt." Nolan reminds him.
House is silent. Had he gotten hurt? Yes. To some extent, he had been hurt by her rejection, by her lies. She had a child. If he was honest with himself, he had not really expected that she would give up her life for him. The only reason he had even made it to her door was because he had failed the last time he stood steps away from a threshold when he had been unable to knock on Cuddy's door. Though his hindsight was not long, he knew that his thing with Lydia was an infatuation that he let get out of hand - he had needed affection and she had been willing.
"I did get hurt. But mostly by my own stupidity," he concedes.
Nolan nods, "I'm glad that you can take some ownership over your actions. And I know that you are probably eager to put yourself out there for Cuddy. But i want to be very clear that leaving here and attempting to pursue her - no matter how much you want it to be - is not a good idea."
"Noted," House replies succinctly.
Nolan holds his gaze for a few moments to convey his seriousness, before continuing, "I'm not saying that in a few months - a year - that it's not worth pursuing. You obviously have a deep sense of attachment and affection for her and should she return it could be very fulfilling. But you're not in the place to offer that to someone else because you haven't dealt with all of your own issues."
House briefly looks as though he is going to respond, but remains silent effectively ending that topic.
Nolan decides not to press the issue, flipping the page on his notepad and changing the subject. "So there aren't any alternatives to Vicodin that I'm willing to prescribe you. We're going to continue with the Ibuprofen and massage. I know that they are only making this manageable at best, so I would also advise that you start physical therapy to further supplement the two."
"Is that all?" House asks a bit testily because the pain was not manageable, it was just easier to deal with than the alternative.
"I want you to come in once a week for an hour session. I know this is a bit of a commute for you and sometimes we can schedule the sessions in Princeton, but most of them will be here. Other than that, and some release forms you'll need to sign, we're done for now," he finishes, closing the notepad and clasping his hands over it.
House smirks at the thought that this is finally over, "Once a week should be fine," he agrees to continue the sessions. "I wish I could say that this has been a pleasure, but I really can't."
He tempers his statement by leaning across the coffee table one hand extended, and the other awkwardly balancing him, "Thank you," he offers sincerely.
Nolan takes his hand, shaking it firmly as he smiles."I enjoy a good challenge," he jests before continuing with sincerity. "I think you're going to be okay, House."
House releases Nolan's hand, falling lightly back into his seat.
"Yeah," he responds. "I do too."
*
He stands at the discharge desk with a tight grip on the handle of his suitcase in one hand and his cane in the other.
Around him, disinfectant and chemicals still cling to the surfaces but they never remind him of home or the way things used to be. Here, there is something else in the way of things, like maybe lavender in the products they use in the women's restroom and something else floral in the dining hall.
It was not Princeton Plainsboro which he eventually, after time, lost in himself.
Behind the counter, he watches a morning shift nurse wipe his name from the dry erase board. Dr. Beasley offers him a small smile as she hands him his discharge papers.
“Take care of Alvie,” he tells her.
“Or maybe hope that Alvie learns to take care of himself?”
It seems like a fair statement, so he nods and turns to leave. She is right. No one can help Alvie but himself. Not even him, even though part of him wishes he were able to. Other people can't save you. You have to learn to save yourself, filled his brain with each step.
The doors feel better under his hands going out as opposed to coming in. Progression, accomplishment, freedom. It is easy to take these things into him with breaths and the sounds of the hospital dying. Dying and then changing into the sound of sparrows in the air. Into the breeze shuffling the leaves on the trees. To the heat of the sun upon his skin. To his feet connecting to the blacktop. To his back hitting the wooden bench of the bus stop.
He turns his gaze to the spot beside him.
Alone.
Nothing and no one beside him. Even though the physical space is empty, his mind remains full. Perhaps it hadn't been that long since he milled about and blended into the world but the only world he could think of, the only one he felt he knows how to function in, is 100 yards behind him.
The architecture looks foreboding and awfully gray and green mixed in with the rays of light from the sky. It seems so weird to carry hope from a place that looks like it never returned anything to anyone, never gave anything away. Almost as if it drained the sky because the clouds are only wisps behind it and the greens of the grass and the blue of the sky seem duller beyond it, less vibrant that it is in the opposite horizon.
Behind him, his failures and problems stack in a heap on the doorstep of Mayfield, litter the halls in broken screams, and internal anguish smeared on the walls as thick as wet plaster. In front of him, his past but also the future.
Princeton.
He spins the memory in him, samples it in his senses like tasting an aging wine. Before, it was bitter and ordinary. He walked the halls every day, practiced his cases in the same manner, spoke to the same people, lived the same life. Complacency had settled into his bones and muscles and sinews, even the ones that failed to work properly.
What was back home for him? Honestly?
An empty apartment with remnants of ghosts clinging to the walls and the furniture and the sheets on his bed. His job is an afterthought, taken away by the woman who sat in his head handing him ginger and honey tonics.
He tightens his fingers over the head of his cane, thinking back to his frantic scribbles on a bent piece of paper in a bathroom stall. It had been so easy to lose himself then, when hope seemed as distant and all he craved with the chalkiness of a pill sliding down his throat. The physical pain made him long for it. The emotional pain bended him to need it.
The bus pulls up with a squeaking of tires, enough to shatter his thoughts into tiny fragments. It is waiting to take him back to the sidewalks, houses, and halls he's known before. Ones which he will have to relearn the familiarity of again, learn to function in without contemplating where the walls are hollowed out and plastic bottles sit in tiny nooks.
He'd have to do the same with the people who rotated around him as if he were the sun with a magnitude of gravitational pull. Like moths to lights, burning bright. Whatever the reason they befriended him, tolerated him, worked for him, he had to reestablish the creases of their faces and the color of their eyes. The nuances of their demeanors would end up being new because he has been to places that only speculation could fill in their minds.
To them, he does not want to be broken. Unfixable.
It seems weird to care, to honestly wonder what people will think. In his head, he feels better though. The pain in his leg still sends waves through his body but that was no different, would never be any different.
He looks to the back of the vehicle, feeling like the faces of strangers could read him and smell where he has been. But walking past those faces, they are no more concerned with him shuffling down the isle than anything. They read or look out the window or are completely disinterested.
The seat gives way to the weight of him, not bogged down by the burdens of yesterday or what lays ahead.
He smiles, unsure of what was to come. Life, whatever that is, whatever he could make it be, is waiting.