A/N: Thanks to some lazy afternoon spent listening to the wonders of Simple Plan, I discovered what a perfect match our little doctors would be to this song. Enjoy the wonders of writing!
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Don't sue, please.
Eric Foreman stared coldly at the case file sitting in front of him on the glass coffee table of the conference room, offending him with its smudged ink and dog-eared pages. Thanks, Chase. I really appreciate the sloppiness. Of course, he knew that it wasn't Chase's fault. It didn't even make sense that he was blaming the reasonably innocent Australian. But what Foreman wished for more than anything, anything in the world, was that he really could blame Chase. He wanted Chase to work with him. He wanted Cameron to work with him. He didn't like being in charge. It felt to him like he was a child back in the city; growing up with perpetually vanishing parents, he'd had to take on their job, always taking care of his younger siblings. He wasn't sure he was entirely 'capable' of the job of mother and father, especially considering that he had been eleven at the time his parents first made a disappearance.
That wasn't the first time, of course, but it was the first time he'd had to deal with it on his own. Because all the other times he had an older brother to lean back on. But Luke was gone, and this was just like then—House was, too.
Foreman sighed and suppressed a yawn with much difficulty. He leaned forward in his chair, hoping that the gesture would allow the words printed on the pages now mere inches in front of his face to soak in better. The whole team was messing this case up, Foreman thought cynically. For days, days!, they had been stumbling over the poor child's illness. Every treatment resulted in an adverse symptom; every surgery brought them three new reasons why the kid was going to die by the end of the week. He was in an unbearable amount of pain, suffered hallucinations and delusions, and was slowly losing the ability to breathe. His life would've been a great thing to bet on if it hadn't been the cruelest thing imaginable.
But Hadley, Kutner and Taub were getting nowhere, and honestly, as much as Foreman wanted to punish them and put them down for not being able to save a boy from death, he didn't blame them at all. He couldn't. Their boss was in shreds, and the resident oncologist was suggesting an end of his New Jersey life. Which, although Foreman had supported, he would probably regret later on, as Gregory House returned to his usual ass self and assigned an unnatural amount of clinic hours to the young ones on his team. Without Wilson, there'd be no one to break up House's crazy. Could he?
Foreman wasn't sure of anything. Not himself, not his team, not the hospital which was supposed to remain steady and hold on when things got rough. He couldn't lean on anyone. He was alone, but not only that—he was the one the team thought knew all the answers.
It's too bad that the team wouldn't realize that Foreman couldn't lead them like that. They'd get hurt, just like his family had, all the way back in the city.
We're not gonna be
Just a part of their game
We're not gonna be
Just the victims
They're taking our dreams
And they tear them apart
'til everyone's the same
It's too bad that boy would die because he wouldn't be able to save him in time.
I've got no place to go
I've got no where to run
They love to watch me fall
They think they know it all…
It's too bad that House was going to sit and watch Foreman ruin everything, just like his parents did.