Hello to everyone! Just a few chapters to KIDS ending and I'm already being nostalgic...
This is a completely different story and my first one in which House and Cuddy are not in an established relationship (and in which she's not pregnant *LOL*). It's set in season 3, in one of my favorite episode: Airborne. It's even the first story I'm writing in Italian and English at the same time so it's still incomplete... but I already know where I want this plot to go... so, don't worry! As a reader I hate so much incomplete stories that I really can't leave one of mine like that!
Here just the first chapter! I want to finish KIDS first... but I couldn't resist the temptation to publish the first chapter as well.
I didn't decide about the rate of the story yet... but I know myself too well so... rate M, just as a precaution. ;)
Many many thanks to lenasti16. I really appreciate your help, girl! Proof that on Huddy friends you can always count on, all over the world! Salamat!
...
Chapter 1 - Airborne
...
"We have to turn around" House said to the flight pilot entering the cockpit with the flight attendant. A piercing gaze despite his tired features.
38000 feet above the Pacific Ocean. Almost above the Arctic Circle. At least another 13 hours of flight. No antibiotics. The already infected passengers wouldn't have survived.
Cuddy wouldn't have survived...
He thought of having more time. He hoped of having more time...
...
Cuddy... breathe... c'mon, look at me... Cuddy, look at me...
Cuddy... c'mon... stay with me...
... Don't do this to me... you can't do this to me...
... c'mon...
...
He stood there. Motionless. In front of that closed door which kept Cuddy away from his eyes. The flashing lights of ambulances seeped in through the windows, illuminating the dim light of the room with red and blue glares.
...
"Not funny!" She had told him, abruptly taking away the headphones from his ears and making him open his eyes.
He had held her annoyed look.
"Fever, headache, severe abdominal pain, and a rash all over his lower back. It's serious. Maybe contagious" She had said again, continuing to look into his eyes.
He had replied ironically, continuing to hold her gaze.
"Whoa! We just attended a symposium on pandemics and you run right into one on the flight home. Talk about a small world!"
"If it's meningococcus, half the passengers on this plane could get infected and die before we reach New York" She had whispered not to be heard by the rest of the passengers, while maintaining her firm and decided tone, although he could always tell by her eyes when she was anxious.
Of course it could be meningitis! But it could be thousands of other things!
"It's a hangover. He had a snootload of Bloody Marys before dinner" he said staring at her and then at the passenger in front of him, suddenly became very interested in their conversation "Or an allergic reaction to pollen, peanuts, and the semen-stained
polyester blanket he's lying on."
She had inhaled deeply. How she did all the times he said something exasperating.
"We have to turn around, House"
He had looked at her, at the girl in front of him and at Keo, the flight attendant. They didn't know enough about that! Did they really want to start a panic? Most likely it was really a drunken idiot!
"Dr. Cuddy just meant that he might feel less nauseous if he was facing in a different direction. She didn't mean to panic a planeload of people. I'm a doctor, too. I am a board-certified specialist in infectious disease. She assigns parking spaces" he had said looking at Cuddy as she shook her head, voluntarily degrading her, perfectly aware of getting her madder.
Food poisoning had seemed a good alternative to meningitis! All the symptoms perfectly fitted! As long as Peng hadn't begun to have neurological signs. Ataxia was another symptom of meningitis. But the girl on the seat in front of his had the same symptoms... Come on! She hadn't really been so close to Peng. Not enough to be infected! Him in first class. Her in the second one. Monkey see, monkey barf! And as far as he knew, with her 36C tits stuffed into a 34B, she was probably really pregnant!
Cuddy had shaken her head, leaning her back against the wall.
" Two different diagnoses. I thought you didn't believe in coincidences." She had told him, looking at him with a tired and at the same time exasperated look.
"I believe in statistics." he had said, standing up and starting to get his things, ignoring her "Two hundred passengers on the plane,10 should be gay, two should be with child, and one should be incredibly annoying with an extra ass chromosome."
He had just glanced at her before turning around, telling her to take care of Peng while he walked toward the second class, ignoring her 'House...'.
He hadn't watched her until she had called his name again. The tone of her voice had caught his attention. The way in which she had pronounced again that '... House'. The way in which she had pronounced with difficulty that '... House'.
He had been petrified as soon as he had looked at her. She had leaned against the seatback for support, bending forward as she could barely standing because of the abdominal pain, throwing up on the floor the contents of her stomach...
And his heart had literally skipped a beat as soon as he had lifted her shirt...
...
"Do you know her name?" A nurse asked him, suddenly coming out of that door and awakening him from the trance state in which he was.
He looked up at her. The dark shadows under his eyes were clouded by the red and blue flashing light of the ambulances which continued to bring there the flight passengers. But the dim light of that waiting room wasn't enough to hide the tension of his strained features. And the redness of his eyelids just enhanced the blue of his eyes.
"Cuddy" he said, running a hand over his face "Er... Lisa Cuddy. 38 years old" he added, rubbing his neck "We're Americans, and..." he made a brief pause running a hand through his hair "She's not on any medication. She was on menotropin... er... at least a couple of months ago... but she's not pregnant. She doesn't have any medical problem... nor allergies... "
The nurse looked at him with a quizzical gaze. Much more information than she expected to get from a guy met by that woman on a flight...
"Uh... and you are...?"
"Dr. Gregory House. She's my..." he hesitated, glancing at the information plaque on the door.
'Authorized access only to patient's relatives'
"Um... my... wife..." he said.
The nurse's expression changed suddenly and she looked at him, nodding and placing a hand on his arm.
"I'm sorry..." she said as his gaze went from her face to the hand resting on his own arm "Please, come with me..."
...
Four hours in a waiting room. Without any news. Nothing. Not the role he was used to.
Peng had died soon after landing. And... Cuddy was right. Meningococcal meningitis.
He had discarded that hypothesis. Actually he hadn't discarded it. He had hoped to be wrong. He should have told to the pilot to turn around immediately. They would have earned a couple of hours. Maybe even more. The dozen passengers with symptoms had been hospitalized at Saint Joseph Hospital in Manila. All the other passenger had needed only some preventive antibiotic therapy. A couple of pills and there goes.
Everyone, including himself. But... not Cuddy.
He knew that her condition was serious. From what he knew she could have been already dead. High fever. Cervical rigidity. Vomit. Photophobia. Rash. All textbook signs of bacterial meningitis. The two pills of amoxicillin that he had forced her to swallow on that flight weren't enough in front of that pathogen. She needed at least one third-generation cephalosporin or vancomycin... and possibly both... Her condition had worsened rapidly. Her breathing had become erratic, she had started having breathing difficulty and had lost consciousness just before landing.
He looked out the window, letting his gaze getting lost in the lights of that city, now plunged into darkness.
His cane was still at the airport with his luggage... his last thought as he got in that ambulance with her... and yet... he didn't miss it as he walked up and down that room, lit only by the cold white light of neon tubes. Not that he had no pain... but that kind of pain was the last thing he felt right now.
And he was surprised to feel what he felt at that moment. He couldn't name it... it was a feeling he had never felt... Because... he was human, right? So his survival instinct should have prevailed over everything else. So why now what he felt was the opposite of that ancestral instinct? He wanted to be in her place...
Yes, he wanted to be in her place... but the truth was that... he should be in her place.
The truth.
The truth was that he was an asshole. A spoiled child who liked to annoy her just to get her attention. He had sent her in that second class just for the fun of annoying her. Why on earth didn't he have left her in that damn second class! Obvious! Again... because he was an asshole! And he had sent her straight to work on Peng, nonchalantly sipping his glass of Shirah.
He sat down on one of those white plastic chairs in the waiting room, resting his elbows on his knees and his face in the palm of his hands trying to dispel the images he still saw in front of his eyes.
Her eyes... staring at him but not seeing him...
"Mr. House..." a woman's voice made him raise his head.
The same nurse of a few hours before. At least ten years older than him. Straight black hair tied in a ponytail. Just some silver hair among the black ones. The typical features of the local women. Helen. That was the name written on the badge pinned on her chest next to her picture.
"Kamusta na siya?" He asked in Tagalog watching the surprised expression on that woman's face at the unexpected sound of her tongue on the lips of that stranger.
How is she?
"Sumunod ka sa akin... " She replied, watching him as he stood holding his leg with his hand, then following her.
Please, come with me...
He walked down the hallway as if in a trance. He put on the PPE gown and mask the nurse handed him and walked through the door.
Dr. Diaz turned as he heard him coming in, and put Cuddy's folder on the nightstand, then reaching out to shake his hand. House shook his hand, looking at him for a moment before looking at Cuddy.
Pale. Too pale. Dark shadows around her eyes as her dark hair, spread on the pillow, made her look even paler.
He moved his gaze on the ECG electrodes on her chest. The same cleavage in which he peered every day and that cheered up his days.
The ECG line moved on the monitor. Each P wave was followed by a QRS complex and a T-wave ... while a beep ... beep ... beep ... rhythmically broke the silence of the room, together with the sound of the raising and falling respirator plunger.
"For now I managed to stabilize her" Dr. Diaz said, looking at him as he still stared at the monitor "I'm giving her intravenous Ceftriaxone and Vancomycin. And steroids. She's in induced coma to reduce her brain damage as much as possible. Her blood pressure is very low and she's tachycardic, but she's young and her heart seems to respond well to therapy. I had to intubate her and put her on artificial respirator, but her blood oxygen saturation is good now... Now, well, we can only wait... it's too early to dissolve the prognosis or to know if there will be a permanent damage..." he said, looking at House as he nodded.
"Salamat" he said, shaking his hand again and nodding. Thank you.
"Puwede mong samahan ang iyong asawa dito..." Dr. Diaz replied, probably with a polite smile behind his mask, pointing to the armchair in the corner of the room.
You can stay here with your wife.
House nodded again and looked at him as he left the room, before looking back at Cuddy.
So different from the Cuddy he knew. He had always mocked the relatives next to the beds of patients in a coma. Talking with them as if they could hear them. Now he knew what it was like... the need to be there... It didn't matter if she could feel or not his hand holding hers... he needed to feel her hand in his... and to tell her he wouldn't let her go...
He sat down in the armchair, stretching his legs in front of himself. With the Platinum Card in his wallet he could sleep in a five-star hotel room rather than break his back in that hospital chair in the middle of the Pacific Ocean... but that chair was the only place he wanted to be.
He tilted his head back, leaning it against the wall, and closed his eyes.
He could feel his own heart hammering in his chest and almost echoing in his ears, virtually at the same rate of the beeps marking her heartbeat.
He exhaled slowly without opening his eyes. He had never paid attention to how much disquieting the rhythmic, slow and puffing noise of a respirator was. Disquieting but at the same time reassuring. Like that beeps. She was still alive. And for now that was enough.
The humanity enclosed in that apparently trivial concept surprised him. She was still alive. And everything else went into the background. His mind refused to think about everything else. Neurological damage. Permanent disability. His mind knew even too well numbers and percentages. He was a doctor. He knew well what and how many the risks were. Too early to make predictions. She was alive, but... would she be back to what she was? Maybe he wouldn't have seen her smile anymore... maybe he wouldn't have heard anymore the sound of her voice...
And yet his human mind prevailed over the medical one in an ancestral defense mechanism.
He wanted her to open her eyes. He wanted to see her eyes rolling at one of his absurd demands. He wanted to see again that glint in her eyes when she glared at him. And he wanted to see the slight ripple of her lips when she held back a smile after one of their exasperating fight. Seeing her biting her lip trying not to smile, thinking that he wouldn't notice it.
"Do you like me, House?" She had asked him only a month before, the night in which he had tried to ruin her Valentine's Day date.
He had replied as always with a joke. Yeah... with yet another joke.
He wasn't just an asshole. It was a cowardly asshole.
A forty-five-year old that behaved as a fifteen-year old. He was so scared of her "no" that he preferred to evade that question directly. Never expose yourself. Never show your cards. Because in the end she wasn't the woman for him. Indeed, he wasn't the man for her. How could a woman like her to want a guy like him? ... He didn't need to ask her that question because he already knew the answer.
Really? Did he really know?
"Genes matter" he had told her when she asked him to help her find a donor for in vitro fertilization "Who you are matters. Find someone you trust"
"Someone like you?" She had asked.
"Someone you like" He had answered.
Was it that what she wanted to ask him that evening on his office door? When she had instead just thanked him for the injections?
She hadn't asked. He had pretended not to understand. And again he would have liked to have the balls to have said something different.
He slowly and rhythmically tapped his head against the wall while those thoughts swirled in his mind, trying to dispel those images...
He let himself go to that sound... to that rhythmic and incessant beep and to the sound of the respirator that mechanically pumped air into her lungs holding her tied to life... until tiredness got the better of him...