A brief announcement from 1985laurie: Hello, only me – just wanted to explain about this fic…I was bored, I had loads of work to do but I somehow ended up writing this…It is going somewhere, trust me. But for now it's just a little 'House!hurt with a fair bit of humour' story for all the people who seem to like my writing (I can't understand it myself!) It's a little tongue in cheek and I am pretty much making fun of myself and my sadistic nature. So enjoy…
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It all started on a normal day in the clinic; House had no patients and even Wilson seemed to be going through a dry spell. They were both traipsing through the clinic, on their way to lunch, when House stopped suddenly and dropped himself into the nearest chair causing it to scrape noisily against the floor. Wilson stopped in his tracks when he saw House's cane scoot past him, and he turned to see House crouch over his bad leg; he didn't know whether to ignore it and wait for House to get back up, or if he should ask House about increased leg pain just to get angrily dismissed.
"Leg" Wilson stated simply, choosing the latter option and expecting to get an 'I'm fine' answer as usual.
"Sorta…" House replied looking slightly worried as he raised his head to look Wilson in the eye, "ankle just gave out."
"What, just like that?"
"Yeah…"
House sat in the chair feeling every bit as confused as Wilson looked. He'd been walking beside Wilson, ranting about how the nurses shouldn't be able to get lunch before hungry doctors, when he'd felt something snap in his right ankle. His first instinct had been to get off his feet, so he'd literally thrown himself onto one of the plastic chairs that were scattered around the clinic waiting area. Now he was fully conscious of the 20 or so 'sick' people, who had obviously taken the time from their own lunch hour to get checked out for STD's in the free clinic, who were now staring at him. 'No way am I going to be stuck in here' he thought as he gingerly hopped up and grabbed his cane which Wilson had picked up, 'not with this bunch of idiots watching my every move' he thought indignantly.
He motioned to Wilson to enter the exam room that he'd literally just escaped from to go to lunch; Wilson facial expression by this point was a mixture of bemusement, worry and confusion. House managed to lean completely over his cane without using his right leg at all as he threw himself into the empty exam room and hopped onto the bed. Wilson closely followed and closed the door; he turned to find House attempting to lift his leg onto the bed, a grimace set on his face.
"What's going on?" Wilson asked as he stood by the door; something had House spooked, and it was scary enough to stop him from going to lunch!
"That's what I want to know…" House said as he gently pushed his shoe off with his left foot, hissing as the action angered his ankle. "Take my sock off."
"I'm not touching your feet!" Wilson exclaimed loudly, causing a few people sitting nearest to their exam room to momentarily look up from their carefully selected magazines.
"I didn't know you suffered from podophobia…" House said, clearly amused at how much Wilson didn't want to touch his feet.
"Other people's feet are fine – it's just yours I don't want to touch." Wilson said defensively as he stuck his ground by the door.
"Fine…" House muttered under his breath as he tentatively leant over his thigh and peeled his sock off to reveal a nasty looking break coupled with plenty of bruising and swelling.
"How…what – how?" Wilson stuttered as he overcame his apparent podophobia to grab House's foot and examine it; House leaned back on his elbows, a bemused look on his face.
"I have no idea…ow!" He replied as Wilson continued to prod and pull at the injured limb, "would you cut that out – it does hurt."
"Sorry…" Wilson said distractedly as he frowned at the broken ankle as though it had deformed into an alien appendage, "when did this happen?"
"About…2 minutes ago?" House said, not even believing it himself. "Honestly, I haven't done anything that would have caused this…it just went out there!"
Wilson looked at his friend sceptically, but House either had his best poker face on or he was actually telling the truth…
"You didn't fall last night, maybe kick the coffee table or…get knocked off your bike?" Wilson said, knowing full well that House hadn't used his bike for the past two days and he had spent the whole of last night watching T.V with him.
"No, nor did I go jogging during the night, fall in the shower or get beaten up by tobacco chewing cowboys!" House said, grinning at the thought, "get me some crutches – stat"
"You're actually enjoying this?"
"Hey, my bones are breaking for no apparent reason – what's not to enjoy?" House said as he leaned back onto the bed, his arms going numb from leaning on them for too long; he just had time to chuckle at Wilson's look of disbelief as he caught a glimpse of Cuddy storming towards the exam room, "lock the door, lock the door!"
Unfortunately Wilson wasn't quick on the uptake and the door came flying open, slamming into his shoulder as Cuddy burst in looking irate, "what's going on?" she asked, looking slightly disappointed that she hadn't walked in on anything worth seeing, 'damn, I seriously thought I'd prove those rumours to be true…'
"I don't remember asking for a consult." House said innocently as he lay on the bed.
"Nurse Brenda told me that you two were in here…together…at lunchtime...with no patients." She said, forcing the point home to Wilson who looked shocked, "and she heard shouting…something about feet?"
"So you thought we were…" He couldn't continue, especially when he saw the smirk on House's face, "He's broken his ankle." He blurted out pointing at House, causing the smirk to be replaced with a scowl.
"What, how?" Cuddy asked, turning her attention to the man on the bed; only now did she notice the lack of shoe and sock on his right foot.
"Snowboarding." House replied sarcastically.
"House, I hardly believe extreme sports are your forte." Cuddy said dryly as she regarded his thigh.
"Yeah, that's why I broke my ankle." He replied making Cuddy roll her eyes in frustration.
She abandoned the interrogation, turning to Wilson to see if she could get a straight answer; it must have happened in the last hour or two because she'd already seen House today and he was limping around fine, therefore Wilson must have been present for the accident, or at least close-by.
"I uh, we're not really sure how it happened…" Wilson said, shrugging to show his indifference, "it just…broke."
"You're going to need it x-rayed…and probably a cast." Cuddy said as she backed out of the room. Obviously there was some kind of big secret that she wasn't allowed to be a part of; and in the event that it may prove to be illegal or simply damaging to the hospital, she didn't really want to find out how House had broken the damn thing!
Wilson watched her leave with a mixture of disbelief, embarrassment and horror on his face; "I think she thinks that we're up to something" he said worriedly.
"Crutches!" House said, clapping his hands together to remind Wilson that there was a sense of urgency; he had spent all morning trying to get out of clinic, this ankle breaking business had bought him a free pass to radiology for the afternoon!
Unsurprisingly, no one quite believed the fact that House really didn't know how he'd managed to break his ankle and that he'd managed to sustain such a bad looking break with severe swelling and nasty bruising. Foreman and Chase were under the impression that he'd been beaten by a clinic patient and Cameron was under the delusion that he'd probably heroically rescued a puppy from certain death by leaping out in front of a bus…or some other similar romantic/heroic gesture.
The next 6 weeks saw House casted up and roaming PPTH's halls on crutches; he eventually pushed the fact that his ankle had broken for no apparent reason to the back of his mind and convinced himself that he must have stepped awkwardly. It was harder to apply the same logic to the next strange occurrence that happened to him a week after the cast was removed…