Brave Heart
The sunlight filters in through the double windows behind her desk, mid morning already on high rise to noon.
She sits, stills herself when the world around her, outside of her office door, pulses with lives, coughs, sickness and pain.
The pink stack of message slips stares her down but she slides them to the side, opting for a breather, a few minuscule moments of down time before dealing with everyone and everything. It proves to be just as discouraging. A resignation from one of her oncology professors. A lawsuit in a malpractice case against the chief neurosurgeon.
The weight shifts inside her and rolls around until she becomes exasperated and picks up a notepad and pen.
1. Find replacement for Samuels
2. Call hospital lawyer about Atkinson case
She throws the two envelopes into the “out” basket. Scanning over the next document, she closes her eyes and sighs. Words stand out in her mind: “House” and “certification” and “150 supervised hours.”
It is hard to figure out how to handle him now, as if he is a cracked toy or a fraying rope. But someone once told her the metaphors are all crap yet she still can't find words for him in a history so loaded between them.
She stands, tucking her secrets deep inside her and her empathy deeper. Wouldn't he want it this way?
But that was before and this is now and she feels lost with the letter in her hand. The double doors of her office feel cool and hard under her palm as she pushes them open.
She walks to officially bring him back into a world she isn't sure he wants to be in.
-
He walks in as one of her students rambles on about the patient's history. The boy's visage flashes a singular moment of terror before going blank at his presence.
“Sorry I'm late,” he says halfheartedly.
The look on her face almost cracks a smile on his but he settles in to her group quietly.
“Yesterday, you said you weren't ready,” she spits out, confused.
“Yesterday, I wasn't. Today, I am.”
“And tomorrow? Is it possible for me to get a five day forecast?”
“Feeling much better. Thank you for not asking.”
“Either you did have a problem, which I can't ignore. Or you were jerking me around. Which I can't ignore.”
She always did look sexy when angry and he takes a moment to goad her a little more before she plucks him out of the room.
“This is the part where you play the employee and I play the boss,” she chastises, motioning between them with her hand.
“I can see your nipples through your shirt. Your turn,” he counters, stepping in to her.
“No, you can't,” she says crossing her arms in exasperation. “Those kids in there are trying to learn something, unlike you. But this is a state requirement, so don't take this out on me. Unless you really don't want to practice medicine again.”
“I could always...”
“No, House. We're not doing this. No more snide remarks, no wardrobe commentary. It's inappropriate,” she whines, actually whines.
“Fine, you win. This time,” he says letting out a maniacal laugh.
Her students stop and stare at the two of them in the hall while he watches her hang her head, mortified.
“Whatever,” she mumbles, without so much as a glance back at him as she enters the room again. He follows in her footsteps, everything almost feeling like old times again.
Almost.
-
Underneath him, he creates jagged weaves in the carpet with his fingers, like spreading stalks of wheat in a field. He stops and picks up an abandoned rubber band, twirling it around until he hears the languid click, click...clack of her heels on the tile in the hallway.
When she enters, he watches her legs which looked really good in security light, every light really.
“Send this in to the board. I signed off on all of your hours,” she tells him.
There is a softness in her voice or a tiredness. It is hard to discern which as she looks down at him. The envelope hangs in her palm out toward him.
“Send this in to the state licensing board. I’ve signed off on all your hours.”
He takes the paper into his hand but leaves it hanging in the space between them. This must have something to do with earlier today, of the spectacle he made in the rounds she was supervising.
“It’s easier this way,” he hears her say and sees things more clearly. “You’re uncomfortable with me.”
She raises her eyebrows and makes a face. “No. Going by the book was pointless. You were gonna learn nothing.”
“Good, I thought it was because of the sexual tension,” he shrugs.
“There was no sexual tension.”
“There was tension. And it made me feel funny.”
“Here,” she says, holding out the paper like an offering. As an offering actually.
He sees “Welcome back” in her face but so much more. She turns away from him, to leave him creating shapes in rubber but he stops her with the sound of his voice.
“That's too bad. I was kind of getting into the whole hot-for-teacher thing,” he says throatily, scanning her up and down.
Wish. Projection. Hope. It all seems a mixture of the actual and the could be. No, he does not close his eyes and think of her anymore. But the past is still haunting and she is still beautiful with her sad eyes and cornflower blouse and skirt.
“You sure you’re okay?” she asks, worrying etching in to her features.
“Yeah, false alarm,” he brushes off but then continues. “What about us?”
“We're good. You press my buttons, I press yours.”
“And by buttons you mean....” he trails off.
Epiphany hits him profound and he uses the support of the wall to help him stand. He almost walks away from her, almost lets her leave without a word from him. But then he smells her and finds himself drawn to her, the proverbial moth to the flame.
Never once does he worry about getting singed, about crumbling to ash and losing his wings.
He watches as surprise washes over her, her blue eyes finding his to ask silent questions about proximity. People had always been easy to read, her being no exception, and he internalizes the barrage of uncertainties she emits from her solid, frozen body.
Will he kiss me?, he reads on her face.
“You do make me feel funny,” he whispers closely to her, leaving her looking after him with no smudges on her lips or sleeves.
-
She rummages through her last minute messages, eager to rid her feet of the cute shoes from the shop window she told herself she had to have.
Her daughter waits, or maybe she waits for her daughter who has already become preoccupied with so many other things than her mother's few and far between appearances.
People say that time passes quickly and yes, she supposes they are right because she can sometimes feel that time in her bones.
Mostly on days like today.
“Going home a bit early,” a voice calls out to her and she doesn't even have to look up because she knows it is him.
“Yeah. I thought I would call it a day. I want to spend some time with Rachel. Cook her a meal, give her a bath, read her a bedtime story before I tuck her in.”
“Understandable,” he nods and when she looks at him surprised, he continues. “You know, I hear it is either quality time with your child now or endless parent-teacher conferences later on about why Susie's milkshake brings all the boys to the yard.”
She catches herself laughing as they walk to the exit doors and she stops herself. Suddenly, it is a year ago and they're standing here “just like this” and she's wanting him to come to Rachel's ceremony more than even she likes to admit to herself.
She is frozen all over again and struggling to remember him and know him in any other way than she always has.
“We're not okay,” she says as they step outside, turning her face into the November sun.
She watches from the corner of her eye as the rays of light move along his face and deposit shadows across his visage and on the ground.
“I know,” he acknowledges and they both turn opposite ways again, disappearing into the dying sun.