This is a crack!AU inspired by DreamsofSpike's "Dark Redux". First two seasons already on my profile and at the CollarVerse community. Assuming I can keep it up, there's going to be one chapter per episode, based on the episode. We're now heading into the third season. There are slaves, House is no longer one of them... or is he? and kindly Doctor Wilson is still very interested...
3.01 Meaning
When Wilson came home, Greg was running on the treadmill. He had been running for some time; he was sweating and looked exhausted. Wilson stopped to admire him and check the exercise program: it still had twenty minutes to go. The attendant from the sports clinic was ready to leave, and Wilson went back out to the hall to get a verbal report from him.
"There's no problem, Doctor. We're late today because he was difficult about his lunch. Did as you said, just told him he'd have to eat it and then waited till he did."
Greg's meals had been planned out for his four-week convalescence. Wilson knew he was bored with them.
"He asked to have the treadmill set to eight miles, and he's doing fine - he's on the cooldown stage right now."
"I'll make sure he does his stretches," Wilson nodded. Greg would go back to work tomorrow - the hospital had consented to his having a full four weeks convalescence at Wilson's apartment, providing Wilson made arrangements to ensure he was properly fed and exercised. "Thanks very much for helping out." He handed over an envelope with a substantial tip. The attendant was being paid via the clinic, but he'd done an excellent job. Like the Greg squad at the hospital, he was tall and strong enough that he could literally pick Greg up and move him against his will, and the clinic dealt with slaves as well as free people, so Clarence was experienced - and he had a nursing qualification. Greg had experienced no complications - both bullet wounds had healed cleanly.
"Pleasure," Clarence nodded. "Any time you need me."
Wilson sat down on the couch and watched as Greg finished the last few minutes of his exercise. He looked fit and healthy: Wilson had bought athletic shorts for him and Wilson could still enjoy looking at his scar, though it no longer hurt Greg and the pain showed no sign of returning. Greg did the full set of stretches under Wilson's eye, and then Wilson sent him through to the bathroom to shower and change into fresh shorts.
"You'll be going back to work tomorrow," Wilson told him.
Greg was eating his dinner. Wilson had originally thought they'd eat the same meals, but he'd got bored with the prescribed convalescent diet well before Greg had. Greg looked up from his plate, still chewing. He looked at Wilson for a minute, chewing, swallowed. "Peachy."
It was the first thing he'd said to Wilson all day. Wilson smiled. "Looking forward to going back?"
"Clinic hours. Hospital food. Crazy patients with guns. What's not to like?"
After dinner, they watched Vertigo. Wilson made a small bowl of popcorn and let Greg have some, his only departure from the planned diet. He liked sitting on the couch with Greg nestled up against his shoulder.
Wilson cuddled Greg to him in the big double bed. Greg had recovered enough to give wonderful blowjobs. He was probably healthy enough to fuck, but Wilson was taking no chances. His plan for prompt, simple discipline had worked too - Greg had never needed to be caned, but he'd got a merited spanking three times. Wilson had taken care to explain to Greg exactly why he was being spanked, and made sure Greg was in a comfortable position for it. Surprisingly, he found that the smacking wasn't all that sexual for himself - he could slap hard enough to make Greg's bottom cheeks go red, but that stung. It was pleasurable afterward, when Greg was subdued, not insolent. Wilson went to sleep contentedly.
The next morning, Greg followed Wilson out to the car, actually looking a bit eager: evidently four weeks off had bored him. He slumped in the corner of the passenger seat as usual, but about three-quarters of the way to the Center, he spoke. "This isn't the way to the hospital."
"No," Wilson agreed. "We have to make a short stop off at the SAC. It's a legal requirement, I would have thought you'd be glad to comply." He glanced sideways at Greg and saw for an instant Greg's face turn towards him, eyes wide and bright blue. Then Greg turned away and hunched up his shoulders, ducking his head. He mumbled something very quietly.
"What?" Wilson asked.
"I said," Greg said, suddenly, loudly, "I'm ecstatic." He turned his head violently away and stared out the window. Wilson shrugged and focussed on his driving. Greg was liable to mood swings.
Wilson followed the signs off the highway to the Slave Administration Center: the car park was smaller and emptier than he'd thought. There were no handicapped spots, but he was able to get a place near the entrance. There was an exit to an underground car park, he noticed when he got out of the car: most of the staff must park there. Greg was shivering. He hadn't been out of the house much over the past month - Clarence had taken him for a walk outside in the afternoons when it was sunny. His hands were crooked together over his stomach, a self-comforting response Wilson had noticed in the past when Greg was under stress.
The receptionist on duty didn't smile: she looked Wilson and Greg over as if weighing them up. Wilson came forward, towing Greg by his wrist. "I have an appointment," he said. "Doctor James Wilson." There were two security guards standing behind her, solidly built, carrying taser batons. Greg froze: Wilson could feel his muscles lock.
The receptionist frowned, her hands moving on her keyboard, glancing down at the screen briefly, shaking her head. "I don't have anything under that name - "
Wilson produced the SAC letter, fumbling a bit. He didn't want to let go of Greg's wrist. The receptionist looked at it, frowning. "This isn't - " And then she did smile. "Oh. This is the Princeton-Plainsboro hospital slave? You shouldn't really have come to this entrance. It's no problem," she added, as Wilson began to apologise. "Would you please sit down and wait over there? I'll have someone come and take you to the right place."
Behind them, someone else was coming in - a woman in an expensive business suit. She looked stressed and she'd made a bad job of her makeup. Wilson took Greg's wrist again and steered him over to the short row of chairs by the wall to the right of the door.
The woman walked up to the counter and handed over a letter. The receptionist nodded and told her "Put your hands there - good. Now look into this viewer - good. By the authority vested in me by the state of New Jersey and as a notary public - " There was more, but the security guards were moving to take the woman by the arms, and Wilson realized what she'd meant by this being the wrong entrance. He was embarrassed. The woman was guided to a set of units that looked like a photocopier had mated with an exercise machine: for the last one the guards had to get her to kneel to put her neck in the right place, and when she got up again, she was wearing a plastic collar. She was staggering a bit, and the guards got to sit down on the floor and take off her heeled shoes. She had to deposit her purse and her cellphone and some other items in a large bag - her shoes went in as well - and then the guards took her smoothly through another door behind the units. Wilson rubbed the back of his neck, realizing that he had just seen an ordinary human being becoming a slave. Greg was sitting with his hands folded together on his stomach, his head up, his eyes open, his knees wide. Three more guards had come through the door behind the receptionist, and one of them came over to Wilson.
"I'm sorry, you came in the wrong entrance - we had to get you guest security badges before we can take you through." The badges were large metal plaques on a lanyard. The guard handed one to Wilson, and looped the other over Greg's head. "Can you bring your slave with you? You have to badge him through each door as well."
It was quite a long walk through neutral halls: Greg walked passively with Wilson, as smoothly as if he was on the leash. Eventually they ended up in carpeted hallways with painted walls, and finally, were ushered into an office with carpet on the floor and pictures on the walls, but no windows. There was one guest chair. Greg dropped to his knees, put his hands behind his back, head up: perfect form. Wilson sat down. He was beginning to be a little disturbed by Greg's reaction to this place. The guard stayed, by the door.
A woman came in, apologizing. "Hello, Doctor Wilson - We were expecting you a little earlier."
"I came to the wrong entrance," Wilson apologized.
"Kathryn Coleman," she introduced herself. "I'm a notary public. Thank you for coming all the way over here. It's customary of course to remove the collar here, but we also need to perform a physical and a fitness test when a slave is being released after a serious vandalism incident. Tell your slave to go with Chris, please."
"I'd like to observe the physical," Wilson said. "I'm a doctor."
"I'm sorry, that's not allowed," Coleman said. "It's a legal requirement, I can see your slave is in good health. It should take a maximum of thirty minutes, and you and I can do the necessary administrative work while he's being dealt with."
Wilson glanced down at Greg. He met an astonished, wide blue gaze. "All right," Wilson said, pointing at the guard who he supposed was Chris, "Go with him, do what he tells you. It's just a physical."
Greg got up. He was moving awkwardly. He was shivering. He still looked astonished.
Wilson had told Greg when he came to see him in the ICU that he was being manumitted: he'd told him again when he took Greg home, a day after he woke up from the ketamine coma. They hadn't discussed it during the four weeks Greg had been recovering, but then most of that time Greg had been exhausted or sulking or bitching about the food.
The door closed behind them both, and Coleman opened the folder on her desk. "This is quite a manumission document. Can I get you a cup of coffee?"
The manumission document had been drawn up in consultation with the hospital's legal and accountancy staff. It was complex, with multiple clauses. Wilson had to sign or initial each section, four copies. "One to the SAC federal archive, one for our own archive, one for the hospital. The federal archive keeps it permanently, we keep it for fourteen years, the hospital has to keep its copy for at least seven years."
"Four copies?" Wilson asked.
Coleman gave him an odd look. "The freedman gets a copy to keep, too."
Wilson nodded, feeling embarrassed again. Of course Greg would now have the right to hold documents concerning him.
"Will he be working under your supervision?" Coleman asked.
Wilson rubbed the back of his neck. "Yes," he said. Doctor Cuddy hadn't said if Greg was going to be given normal department head status, but he didn't expect so. For the first year, Greg would be working for minimum wage, and he'd be living in Wilson's apartment.
"I imagine that you think the most difficult thing will be getting the other hospital staff to treat him as a freedman," Coleman said. "In our experience, the chief difficulty is the former slaves re-accustoming themselves to a life in which they have to consider rent, utilities, saving, spending. If he does lose control again and needs to be re-enslaved, you are aware that you will have only the rights of any other creditor?"
"We've planned for that," Wilson said.
Coleman nodded: "I see you have arranged for him to have supervised residence. That's good, but we've known ex-slaves go into debt even with pretty severe supervision of their spending."
"And then they - " Wilson gestured " - come back here?"
"Only if the bailiffs get to them in time," Coleman said. "They don't come in voluntarily the second time. They run, or... they die. If he goes into debt, Doctor Wilson, you need to treat him as a high suicide risk. This is frankly not a good situation for a freedman to be in, working for the same institution that owned him. We'd suggest a transfer of his labour to another institution, would that be possible?"
"Not... acceptable," Wilson said, envisaging Cuddy's reaction if Greg "transferred" to another hospital.
"Well, it's your choice of course," Coleman said agreeably. "He'll be using the name 'Greg House' when he's free?" They went on through the process; it took nearly the whole half hour.
The guard brought Greg back and pushed him to his knees. Greg was still trembling and sweaty: he'd evidently been pushed hard in the fitness test.
Coleman glanced down again at the manumission document. In a clear monotone, she said "By the power invested in me by the state of New Jersey as a notary public, I confirm that the slave 56025498378 has labored to repay his debt and is from today a freedman, having the lawful right to use the name Greg House. The patron of record is Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital." She paused. "Greg House."
Greg's head jerked. He had been staring at Coleman as if frozen.
"You are hereby notified that the status of freedman is permanent but that as a freedman you are subject to summary distraint if you should again fall into debt. Your patron has agreed to retain your labor for the next seven years, and provide you with appropriate maintenance and control for that time." Greg's head jerked round to look at Wilson. Coleman went on with what was obviously a standard script. As she spoke, Greg's gaze turned back to her. "You are bound not to leave the state of New Jersey for the next seven years without the explicit permission of your patron, and should you do so, you will be returned to the Slaves Administration Center and your freedom revoked." She paused again, and smiled. "But I hope that we will never need to see you again. Congratulations on your freedom, Mr House."
"Doctor," Greg said, hoarsely. He struggled, clumsily, to his feet.
"What?" Coleman was holding out a copy of the manumission document to Greg, obviously expecting him to take it.
"Doctor," Greg said. He took hold of the document and held it away from his face so that he could focus on it. He looked up and stared around the room. "I'm... Doctor House."
*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*
The hospital lawyers had spent a lot of time drawing up the manumission papers for Greg House. The hospital would still be entitled to the benefits of his labor, at a gradually increasing salary over the next seven years. The first year's salary was minimal: he wouldn't be able to live independently, but Doctor Wilson had agreed to lodge him for the first year at least for a nominal rent.
When slaves owned by the hospital were set free, the process was for their supervisor to give them the manumission papers and for the slave to then be removed as quickly as possible to the New Jersey Slave Administration Center, where the slave's collar could be removed. They had to be released with enough money to save them from immediate destitution: PPTH generally provided them with two sets of clothing and a few other basics besides what they were actually wearing. The usual manumission certificate restricted them to the tri-state area but banned them from the hospital premises and environs.
The hospital freed slaves only if there was both a clear legal mandate - if the slave had worked for long enough to earn back their initial debt - and if the costs of re-selling the slave would be greater than the cost of freeing them. The combination didn't happen often, but PPTH kept slaves in good condition, often for years. Lisa Cuddy had signed off on a few such releases. And there had been Alfredo, but he had simply gone back to his family.
Wilson had escorted Greg to the SAC that morning. They'd advised her that the process of manumission should take less than an hour. Cuddy had told Wilson to bring Greg in at nine-thirty. He was late.
At quarter of ten, they finally came in: Wilson a step ahead, Greg just behind. "Doctor House", Cuddy reminded herself. Legally a free man.
Wilson was apologising for being late, explaining there had been a hold-up at the Center, but Greg stood in the doorway, looking round her office as if he was reminding himself of what it looked like. She hadn't seen him in her office since before he was shot: the last time she'd seen him at all he'd still been in a ketamine coma, still drained and white from the blood loss. He looked healthy - Wilson had done an excellent job supervising his convalescence and rehab.
Greg saw her looking at him, and he lifted his chin. Almost swaggering, he closed the door behind him, walked over to the guest chair he had never sat in, and sat down. "What have you got for me, boss?"
Wilson broke off what he was saying and stared at Greg.
There were three patient files on the desk in front of Cuddy. Greg picked up one of them and began to leaf through it. "This is a Diagnostics patient? What've you been doing with my team while I was gone?"
"You're completely pain free?" He had walked in without limping, his weight evenly on both feet, no need for a cane. "The ketamine treatment can wear off."
"It's been a month," Greg said casually. "It's not wearing off. What have you got for me?" He put the folder down and looked as if he would reach for the other two: Cuddy moved them out of the way. The ketamine treatment could wear off any time in the first six months, and Greg knew it: he had been the one to direct her to the research on pain relief. He looked at her very directly.
Greg had looked at her directly before: always before he had been kneeling in front of her desk, looking up. Sitting in a chair, like a free man - even though the red mark of his collar was visible on his neck - his eyes were on a level with hers. He wasn't hospital equipment: he was her employee. She had supposed a month off would make the change easier, and that Greg would be meeker.
"Why are we having this discussion?" Greg asked. "Want to hear me thank you? Thank you, Doctor Cuddy. Not just for removing the bullet, but thank you for putting me in a ketamine-induced coma and changing my life. Happy?" He paused, a beat, "I am," and lifted his head, turning his chin from side to side, and Cuddy understood suddenly that he was showing her the mark of the collar on his neck. Thanking her for freeing him without saying so. She glanced at Wilson, wondering if he had dealt with this puzzling gratitude, but got nothing.
"Middle-aged man," Cuddy said, "had hair transplant about a month ago - "
"Infection throwing clots," Greg said. He had barely had a minute to look at the file. "You're holding a file for a twenty-six year old female, what have you really got for me?" He picked up the third file and began to look through that - the brain cancer man who had rolled his wheelchair into the family swimming pool.
"Girl was doing an inverted yoga pose," Cuddy said, and Greg looked up again. "Neck snapped, paralyzed from the neck down - " She handed him the file " - except the x-rays show no evidence of spinal injury."
Greg took the file. He grinned, showing all of his teeth. "What about Stephen Hawking trying to do the 500 butterfly?"
"Forget it," Wilson said. He was familiar with this case. "Brain cancer, brain surgery - there's nothing left to diagnose. I would take the other one."
"Hmm..." Greg singsonged, glancing up at Wilson. He bounced to his feet, and grinned at Cuddy again. "I'll take them both. What's my clinic schedule, boss?"
"Ten hours a week," Cuddy said. She'd used part of the huge donation Wilson had secured four weeks ago to fund another full-time nurse practitioner for the clinic - Brenda had been asking for that for years. "Talk to Brenda about your schedule."
*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*
Wilson saw Greg leave the clinic at a rapid clip and head towards the stairs. Wilson caught up with him - Greg didn't seem to have seen him - and touched his arm.
Greg whirled round and stepped back - a huge step, like a flinch. "What do you want?"
Wilson pointed at the second patient file. "You don't think he had brain cancer?"
Greg's eyes widened, and it was a perceptible moment before he spoke. "Of course he had brain cancer. Even oncologists don't screw up for eight years."
"So if there's no diagnostic issue why are you taking the case?"
"Treatment can be interesting," Greg said shortly. He started moving again, circling Wilson neatly and heading up the stairs. Wilson followed, annoyed, saying breathlessly "Not to you."
Greg stopped, half a flight up, and looked down at him. "I've changed."
Wilson stopped, to catch his breath. Not because he didn't want to pass Greg on the stairs. Greg was looking down at him with that all-too-familiar, closed-off expression. "No, you haven't."
Greg frowned, briefly. "No," he said. "I haven't."
"Then why are you taking the case?"
In a tone that sounded like Greg was stating the obvious, he said "Guy tried to kill himself."
"Attempted suicide is diagnostically interesting? The guy had brain cancer, he's a lump - for eight years he hasn't been able to touch his wife, speak to his kids - " Wilson broke off. Greg had turned away and was running up the stairs.
After a minute standing gaping up as Greg disappeared, Wilson went slowly back down the stairs, rubbing the crick out of his neck. He hadn't discussed Greg's impending freedom with him because Greg had appeared wholly unwilling to talk with him about anything. But he had made clear to Greg, when he was in the ICU, that once Greg was fully recovered, he was going to be freed. During the past four weeks the only time Greg had even worn a collar was when Clarence had taken him out for exercise, and that was just because it was a legal requirement for a slave in public. Greg really hadn't changed.
*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*
Doctor Cuddy had assigned them all to different departments for the duration of Greg's convalescence. Cameron to ER, Foreman to Neurology, Chase had been offered NICU but had asked for a surgical rotation instead. They hadn't seen much of each other - they'd deliberately stayed away from each other inside the hospital.
(After a day in their new posts, they'd met after work for pizza and beers, and to establish the strategic response to the kinds of questions they were all being asked. It was all over the hospital that Doctor Wilson had raised a huge donation which had paid off Greg's remaining debt so that the hospital could legally free him. They knew from past experience that the questioning stopped sooner if all three of them were saying much the same thing in answer - and aside from Cuddy having told them that the department of Diagnostics would continue, none of them had any more answers to give.)
Chase brought in a box of croissants and pastries: Cameron made coffee. Foreman was the one who walked into the back office and reported back that Greg had a brand-new desktop computer but the bunk and storage unit were gone. None of them discussed the huge mark on the carpet where Greg had bled after he was shot.
Chase had wondered how Cuddy would stage Greg's return. Officially it shouldn't make too much difference to them, they'd all as his fellows been supposed to treat him as if he was Doctor House. Now he really was.
Wilson had reacted to all questions, Chase knew, with a smiling bland look of "None of your business" and a polite reply that was meant to make the questioner embarassed. Cameron had asked after Greg early on (she'd told them about it over drinks one night) and Chase had seen Wilson turn other questioners away.
The door opened. Doctor House walked in. "Let's start with the cute paraplegic," he said without other greeting.
"Welcome back!" Cameron said.
Chase stood up. He found himself smiling. Doctor House was standing there without a cane, without a collar. "Hey," he said, really pleased.
House lifted his chin and stared back at them all. Cameron looked as if she wanted to hug him. She and Foreman were looking at House assessingly. "You look..."
"Healthy," Foreman completed the sentence.
Chase realized he actually wanted to hug House. Self-preservation kicked in and he only patted House on the shoulder: he realized even that had been a mistake when House gave him a frowning look, and brushed through them all, dropping two files on the table.
"Quad with no broken neck," House said. "Struck me as odd."
"Uh... you could take a whole two minutes to ease into being back," Cameron offered.
"Four weeks is the standard recommended rehab time for a gunshot wound to the stomach and neck. So, go." House walked over to the fridge, took out one of Foreman's sodas, and chugged it.
"Did you hear what happened to the guy who shot you?" Cameron asked.
"What?" House looked at her, making his eyes wide. "You think he might have shot this patient too? Would explain her symptoms..."
Chase wanted to know what had happened while Greg - House - was off on rehab, too, but it was obvious Cameron wasn't going to get anywhere. "Could be MS," he tossed out. He sat down to look at the folder more thoroughly.
"See, it's not so difficult," House told Cameron. He glanced at Chase. "It's not MS. She had no symptoms before she climbed on to her head. Unless she's been upside-down for the last ten years, MS ain't it."
"Could be transverse myelitis, swelling in the disk choking off nerve function," Foreman offered.
"MRI's negative for that," Chase said.
House was walking round the conference room. He stopped abruptly. Except that he was looking down at the mark on the carpet, with his back to the door, he was standing exactly where he had stood when the gunman shot him four weeks earlier.
Cameron sounded rattled. "The leg looks fine. You totally pain free?"
Greg turned. Now he was facing the door. He lifted his chin. "When did this turn into 'what did you do over your summer vacation?'"
"It's a little weird to discuss the case while you're staring at your blood on the floor," Foreman observed.
"I asked Cuddy to replace the carpet," Cameron said.
Chase hadn't thought of that. He glanced at Cameron, quite respectfully, but Cameron didn't even notice.
"No, I like the carpet," Greg said. He glanced down at the mark on it, again, and then looked at Cameron, moving away from the mark, a step or so nearer to her. His tone of voice was almost friendly. "What did you do over the summer?"
Cameron visibly brightened. "I - "
Quite abruptly, House turned away from her. "Re-do the tests." He walked across to the window. "Let's see if the source of the problem is in the limbs or the spine. Do an EMG."
All three of them exchanged glances. Cameron looked actually disappointed. Foreman shrugged, his mouth curling in the man's an ass expression. Chase shrugged. They were all heading for the door - at least they could talk while they were re-doing all the tests - when House called them back.
He sounded cheerful. "Got a whole other quad to cover; this guy's still got fluid in his lungs."
This was the quadruplegic that had rolled his wheelchair into his own swimming pool.
"You don't think that's from the pool he drank?" Cameron asked. Chase had to agree: this didn't sound like a diagnostics case.
"Give him an O2 mask," House said. "His leg muscles have atrophied, tendons have shortened from disuse causing intense pain. Tendon surgery will make him more comfortable."
Chase blinked. "Comfortable?" Foreman and Cameron looked as astonished as he felt. He'd never, in all of the years he'd worked for Greg - House - he'd never heard House express any concern for the patient's comfort.
House was watching them, Chase realised, and he'd never seen Greg look at them like that before; uncomplicated, secure amusement. "Scoot," House said, and Chase backed off.
*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*
Their new patient spelled her given name Caren, but Cameron tried not to be judgemental. She had been working on a headstand pose in yoga and had fallen badly - fortunately at the yoga class, and the instructor had promptly called an ambulance. There was no sign of damage to her back, but Caren didn't seem to have voluntary movement of her legs and lack of sensation which corresponded to a broken neck - but she wasn't having difficulty breathing. The obvious first test, Foreman ruled, was intramuscular EMG - Cameron and Chase would move the patient's limbs to get But he had only just inserted the first conduction pin when he stopped. He wasn't even looking at the screen which would give him a reading on the electrical activity of the muscle at rest.
"She flinched," Foreman said. "Can you feel that?" he asked Caren.
"No," Caren said, sounding honestly puzzled. "What are you doing?"
"I'll get House," Cameron said.
She found him at last in one of the OR observation rooms, watching their other patient have surgery. This hadn't been unusual - Greg was generally off limits for assholes harassing him when he was either at work or could be observed by patients or relatives and the OR observation rooms were good on both counts - but when Cameron thought about it, she was surprised: House was free now, he needn't bother. And the patient's wife and son were in the observation room too.
The wife was hugging her son: they both looked upset. House looked detached as usual. It was hard to believe that he'd argued for surgery just to make the patient more comfortable.
"Sorry," Cameron said politely, "need you."
"Thank you," the woman said, obviously speaking to House, very heartfelt.
The moment the door was closed, Cameron said "We were doing the EMG but we never got past the insertion of the conduction pin. Did she just say thank you?"
"I loaned her some money," House said. "What went wrong?"
Nothing had gone wrong - a flinch wasn't wrong - and Cameron said so.
"Nothing went wrong then something went right."
"You're not going to tell me why she thanked you?" Cameron couldn't remember Greg - Doctor House - ever having a normal patient-doctor interaction. He normally only saw patients when he had to, he spoke little and brusquely, they weren't people to him, they were cases. But then he'd wanted this man to be comfortable. "You did something for which she is grateful and you're... embarrassed?"
"For you," House said.
Cameron looked at him.
"Saw you coming up, thought you were a fourteen year old boy, I set her straight," House said.
Cameron stopped. House was teasing her, and she didn't like it. He wanted to know about the unexpected result of the EMG, he could tell her seriously why this patient's wife had thanked him. "I'm not telling you what went wrong - or right, until you tell me why she said thank you."
"Oh you got me," House said. He was smiling. He looked really amused, as if he thought Cameron was funny. "You know I need to know, I'm so going to fold. Except you're forgetting, there's one thing I can do now."
Cameron stared back at him, confused. Was he flirting? He sounded happy. Then she saw his face change, his eyes moved from hers - she turned to see what he was seeing, and then she heard him sprint off. There was nothing behind her. Down the hall, House was running - easy, fast, as if he'd never been a cripple, as if he'd never been a slave. Cameron actually laughed herself, watching him.
*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*
Foreman had decided that when Doctor House came back to work as a free man, that would be a clean slate: he'd treat Doctor House at all times as he would if things had been different two years ago, and his fellowship had been supervised properly, by a free man and not by a slave. He got rid of the riding-crop he had bought and never used, in a sack of used clothes and books he gave to Goodwill one Saturday. He deliberately put out of his mind the insolent and disrespectful ways Greg had behaved: now House was free, they could have a proper professional relationship.
The young white woman had flinched when he slid the electrode in, though she said she couldn't feel it. Foreman didn't think she was faking, not consciously anyway, but she wasn't experiencing true paralysis: the flinch indicated she could feel pain, and though he couldn't evidence it, he was sure that this was a pseudoparalysis. He planned to explain this to Doctor House when he arrived from seeing the other patient: Cameron had gone off to fetch him, she'd probably explain everything she understood on the way over.
The sound of a man running down the hall interrupted Foreman's careful explanation. House slid to a stop like a runner reaching home base. "What happened?" he asked.
"Okay," Foreman said politely, "This is Doctor House. House, this is Caren - "
"Pleasure's all mine," House said with obvious, brisk insincerity. He wasn't wearing a rolltop, but he was wearing a white coat. He looked like a doctor, at least. "What happened?" he repeated.
"When we inserted the conduction pin," Chase said, "she flinched."
Foreman didn't even look at Chase to express his annoyance. This wasn't a life-or-death situation, there was plenty of time to explain exactly what was going on.
Cameron walked in after House, and House turned to her and said brightly "She flinched! Did you hear?"
"Does that mean I'm getting better?" Caren asked. Pseudoparalysis was not under the patient's conscious control: Foreman didn't doubt that she was genuinely worried.
"How big is a flinch?" House asked, ignoring Caren. "Bigger than a twitch? Smaller than a spasm?"
Chase demonstrated, with a glance at Foreman. Once again the electrode insertion caused a visible flinch.
"You smoke?" House asked Caren.
"Socially, a lot," Caren admitted.
"You do yoga and you smoke?" House said. He sounded as if he was fact-checking. But Caren's admission file had been clear that she smoked three or four cigarettes a day, so House must already be aware of it.
Caren reacted. "I know it's hypocritical but - "
"Not at all," House said. "The world sees your legs, no one's checking out your lungs." He reached for Caren's purse and began checking through it.
Cameron, visibly still thinking this through, asked "How would smoking cause - "
"It wouldn't," House said. "Just needed a lighter." He found Caren's, and went to the foot of the bed. He pulled away the covers over her feet, picked one of her feet up with one hand and flicked the lighter on with the other. Before Foreman could grasp that House really meant to do this, he had flamed the Caren's heel with the lighter, and Caren was screaming and her leg had jerked away. House flipped the lighter off.
"House!" Cameron squawked.
Caren was crying and whimpering "My God, my God...!"
House looked at them all with an almost theatrical expression of disappointment. "The case was looking so promising."
"Hey, I'm not faking," Caren said. She was staring at House. "What's that on your neck?"
"Never mind my neck, what's that on your toes?"
"Nail varnish," Chase said. Caren had painted her toes red and the paint was chipping.
"You moved, therefore you can move. Pseudoparalysis."
"I'm not faking!" Caren protested.
"Foreman!" House said. "Take a look at that big toe. That is not a sexy big toe. You'd never put that in your mouth."
The paint wasn't chipping off, the nails were cracking. The flesh around the nails looked badly bruised.
"What does pseudoparalysis and an ugly toe say to you?" House asked.
Foreman gaped. He looked down at Caren, suddenly putting all the pieces together. "Caren, when was the last time you drank orange juice?"
"I don't do fruit juice," Caren said. "Too much sugar. I'm on this great diet, lots of protein, lots of - "
"No Vitamin C," Foreman said. He looked up at House. "Scurvy."
"Great diet," House said cheerfully. "Get this lunatic out of here." He turned on his heel and was gone.
"Scurvy?" Caren asked, patently bewildered.
Foreman was feeling benignly pleased with himself. He'd figured out the pseudoparalysis, and he'd known what House was driving at while Chase and Cameron plodded along behind. They'd both gone away - to find a new case, now one patient was being operated on and the other was in recovery - so that gave Foreman a relaxed amount of time to explain to Caren just what was wrong with her and how to fix it: he ordered two pints of orange juice from the kitchens and made Caren drink them slowly through a straw, as she couldn't yet move her arms.
"Like what sailors get when they don't eat right?"
"Aye, aye," Foreman said cheerfully. "Your arms and leg tissues are choked with blood. Makes it hard to move. Also damages your hair and toenails."
"Well... thank you. And thank Doctor House," Caren said. She finished the first pint of orange juice and Foreman picked up the second cup.
"Send him a note," Foreman suggested, and held the straw to her mouth. She'd be better soon. And he was going to get along just fine with Doctor House.
*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*
Just after six, Wilson went over to Diagnostics. Greg was sitting in his Eames chair. He was wearing the steel-rimmed reading glasses that Wilson had bought for him, and studying a medical journal: there was a stack of unread journals on his desk, and a smaller stack on the floor beside his chair.
"Got a patient," Greg said.
"You can't stay here," Wilson pointed out.
Greg glanced over at the empty place where his bunk had been, almost involuntarily. He looked back at Wilson. "Can if I want," he said.
"Your other patient is being discharged tomorrow after surgery to relieve the pain in his legs," Wilson said. "There's no mystery to solve. And you solved your first patient's problems in record time, I understand."
Greg shrugged.
"You're not a slave any more," Wilson said. "You don't have a bunk here, or clothes, or free meals or free laundry. I understand that it's a huge change for you, but - "
"I don't have to go home with you," Greg interrupted. He lifted his chin, meeting Wilson's eyes. The mark on his neck from the heavy collar was very obvious to Wilson, and he couldn't stop himself for staring for a moment before he spoke.
"I heard you were watching surgery with a patient's family. Talking to a patient's family."
"Yeah."
"You took a case with no mystery. Something any doctor could do. A case with no upside except the satisfaction of helping another human being."
"Yeah," Greg said, and added, after a moment, "She thanked me." He sounded... almost bewildered.
Wilson hesitated, looking at him. He himself had had the bewildering experience - and more than once - of telling a patient that they were going to die, and the patient's first response being to thank Wilson. For what, he had never been sure. He was familiar with this case: a long-term brain cancer survivor. The damage caused by the series of operations to save his life, had been extreme. The surgery Greg had proposed would make the man feel more comfortable in the long run, but it was really uncertain how much the man himself would know it. Greg must know that.
There was no reason for Greg to stay here tonight, but if he experienced just a bit of discomfort, realised how awkward it would be for him to stay at the hospital when he had no slave quarters or slave rations or laundry, that ought to convince him to be sensible and come home tomorrow night. Wilson let go of the comfortable prospect of a blowjob tonight, and smiled, with conscious kindness.
"All right," he said. "I'll see you tomorrow."
*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*
The clinic doors opened at eight in the morning. Brenda Previn was usually there by seven. She hadn't expected to find Greg already here, though he was working the eight to ten shift Monday to Friday: Doctor Wilson usually delivered him to the clinic just before the doors opened.
Greg was sitting behind the reception desk. The coffeemaker was on - Greg had helped himself to a cup already. He was allowed to do that, but he eyed her warily as she walked round the desk and stood behind him, looking at his work: he was reading a patient file, someone who'd had extensive brain surgery. Not a clinic patient.
"You're early," Brenda commented. She put a hand down on Greg's notes, and felt miniscule grit of crumbs and a slight stickiness: Greg had been taking cookies from the jar. He mostly only stole them when he was hungry, and she mostly overlooked it.
"I didn't have breakfast," Greg said.
"You're wearing the same clothes you had on yesterday."
"I showered." He folded his hands together across his stomach and looked at her. He was speaking quite meekly, but there was something about his look that had changed. He was free now.
Brenda glanced at the big clock on the wall: Lisa should be in her office by now, dealing with the first tide of emails and drinking her first cup of coffee. She wouldn't appreciate being interrupted.
Too bad.
Brenda had brought an extra sandwich for lunch: she usually did on days when Greg was working in the clinic. She handed it to him now. "Eat that, put that file away, and make sure all of the exam rooms are ready for when the doors open."
"Yes, boss," Greg said, pleasantly, and sank his teeth into the sandwich. Brenda eyed him: but she knew he could do the early morning setup work as well as she could. She left the clinic and walked across the foyer.
Lisa wasn't pleased. "He's supposed to be staying with Wilson. He doesn't have a case."
"Isn't he getting paid now?"
"He'll get his first pay check at the end of this month."
That was more than three weeks off. Brenda raised her eyebrows and said so. "I let him have one of my sandwiches for breakfast, but - "
"Wilson agreed to support him," Lisa said. "I'll make sure he knows that. There shouldn't be a problem - if he really needs to stay here overnight, he'll have access to a locker to keep a spare set of clothes. I've lined up several appointments for him this week for administration staff to get these things sorted out."
"I'll tell him," Brenda allowed.
"Thanks," Lisa said dryly. She hesitated. "How is this working out in the clinic?"
"Fine," Brenda said honestly. "He came in yesterday, logged two hours, saw his usual number of patients, no complaints. He looks healthier than I've seen him for years, and I've always insisted the clinic staff treat him just like any other doctor when he was working there."
Back in the clinic, Greg had finished the sandwich, helped himself to a second cup of coffee, and was still reading the patient file. He looked up as Brenda came in, and looked back down at the file.
Brenda walked over, took the file away from him, and said crisply "Get started," or that's what she'd meant to happen: Greg pulled the file away from under her hands, and sat there, holding it to him, looking up at her.
"Greg," Brenda said warningly.
"You check the exam rooms," Greg said. He lifted his chin and looked back at her.
Brenda stared at him.
"Not my job," Greg said. Brenda saw him swallow, hard, but his voice stayed level. "I'll start work when the doors open."
Brenda stared. She glanced at the glass doors into the hospital foyer: she could see the security station from here. She couldn't send him down to the basement: he wasn't a slave. She looked back at Greg, and he smiled at her, showing all of his teeth. He didn't say anything else, but then, he didn't have to. After a moment, he opened the file to look at it again.
The door pushed open and Wendy Miller came in, the new nurse practitioner. Brenda supposed she could have got security guards to remove Greg from the clinic, but she didn't want to do that in front of Wendy. She'd warn the security staff not to let Greg into the clinic before she arrived, if he was going to act like this. "Doctor Cuddy let me know you're supposed to be staying with Doctor Wilson," Brenda said. "You've got appointments with admin staff this week, make sure you keep them." Brenda turned sharply away from him.
She was more annoyed than she would care to show: after all, when Lisa told her that she'd let Doctor Wilson do a fundraising drive for the remainder of Greg's depreciation, she had set up a donations box in the clinic and sourced a good photo of Greg to make sure it was conspicuous. Not that Brenda really thought Lisa would have set out to cheat on the deal, but the photo and donations in the clinic had made sure that most of the staff and quite a few of the clinic regulars and other patients knew what the deal was.
"Come on," she said to Wendy, abruptly, "you check exam room one, I'll do the others."
*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*
They had been working solidly on the brain cancer guy's medical records since he was first diagnosed eight years ago. It was a long shot, Foreman conceded, but if House thought he'd heard the man say something (even if it had sounded like a grunt) he was willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. In any case it was a valuable Diagnostics task, to look over the whole body of records and see if there was a pattern. He'd missed this in Neurology.
"2002, patient had dry eyes," he noted.
"Dry eyes plus a grunt, it all makes sense," Chase said.
"He had neurological issues," Foreman said.
"I get hay fever, I put drops in my eyes, I don't go to a neurologist," Cameron said.
Foreman didn't quite sigh. Chase was lazy, and Cameron was on edge. He kind of hoped Cameron would make a pass at House and either get turned down or get scared off by Wilson, and hopefully that would be the end of it. At least Chase being lazy was usual. "Dry eyes could indicate an autonomic dysfunction; goes on the board."
"What about coughing or boogers?" Chase asked. "Should we include boogers?"
"I'm happy we're doing this," Foreman told them. "I'd much rather do this than lengthen some guy's tendon. Patient's headaches increased. Doc scanned his head, found a tumor."
"You like wasting your time?" Cameron asked.
"I'm learning," Foreman told her.
"To do what? Reconsider solved cases because you don't want to deal with the real world? He's pushing when there's nothing."
Four weeks away from Cameron, Foreman felt, had made him appreciate her good points as well as her weak points. Ultimately he'd be heading up his own Diagnostics department. He wouldn't be hiring anyone like Cameron or Chase, not that House had much of a choice about who he could hire. "Cameron, you are an excellent doctor, you'll get lots of tearful thank yous from grateful patients," he told her.
Cameron didn't look all that happy. "Yeah, am I such a bitch for wanting that?"
"No," Foreman conceded equably, "it's not a bad thing, but it's not why I'm here. I took this fellowship to learn from House."
"He's teaching you to be a masochist," Cameron muttered. Foreman only smiled.
"Dry eyes," Chase said wearily, "goes on the board."
At ten o'clock, Foreman had the 214 symptoms they'd catalogued from eight years of medical records listed on sheets of paper all over the conference table, in some sort of sensible order. Most of the symptoms had repeated, often more than once.
They weren't used to House's new step, at least Foreman wasn't, nor to the speed with which he could now move. The door swung open and House walked in, and didn't bother to say hello or well done: he just asked "Any patterns?"
"Fever plus frequent urination could mean prostatitis," Chase got in first.
"Or a urinary tract infection," Foreman came in smoothly.
"White count was normal, no infection," Chase said.
"If you add pain into the mix," Foreman said - the patient obviously wouldn't have been able to report pain since his brain operation - " then fever, frequent urination could indicate a kidney problem."
"I like it," House said. Foreman kept himself from smiling. It wasn't often that House said something like that.
"No," Chase said, "creatinine and BUN were both normal."
House glanced at Chase. "Not the kidney part," he said, dismissing Foreman's best theory, "the pain part. Abdominal pain plus all that stuff could equal a pancreatic cyst."
"Perfect," Cameron said, "you managed to pick the one symptom he never had. Abdominal pain."
"It's the first symptom on the board," House said. He pointed. He had written it down himself yesterday. "Grunt."
At no point had House ever indicated, yesterday, that he thought the patient had grunted because he was in pain. He'd claimed he thought the patient was speaking. Foreman was actually pleased to have Cameron be the one to say "Grunting isn't pathognomonic for abdominal pain!"
"No," House said, in the tone of voice he used to indicate everyone else was an idiot. "Traditional diagnostic marker is compression of the diaphragm, vibration of the larynx leading to the audible sound 'I have a pain in my abdomen'."
"Richard's symptoms are culled from eight years of medical history," Cameron said. "They're not patterned. These are random individual events over time."
"Illnesses have incubation periods," House said. "Do an upper endoscopic ultrasound."
Foreman hated it when he found himself agreeing with Cameron. His best theory for tying any of the symptoms together had been some kind of kidney problem. House had just shot that down and come up with something new out of thin air and now he was proposing a test that was not just pointless but actually dangerous.
"His throat will collapse, muscle degeneration in his neck won't tolerate the scope, it's an automatic trach!"
House put on a fake-shocked voice. "You're talking about him like he's an invalid."
"Yeah, we're insensitive," Chase said dryly.
"Does he drool?" House said. "Can he hold his neck straight? Does he choke on his food? His neck's fine, his throat's not going to collapse. Cameron, get consent from the wife."
*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*
Arlene agreed almost too easily to sign the consent form. "Doctor House thinks this would help him?" she said, in the middle of Cameron's cautious explanation. "All right."
Cameron was heading back to Diagnostics when she saw House, through one of the glass walls that made the new part of PPTH such a confusing maze: for once, she was pretty sure he hadn't seen her. He was heading for the post-op ward. Her pager beeped: Doctor Cuddy, wanting to speak to House. Cameron followed him.
It seemed he just meant to do the usual post-op checks: he was listening to the patient's heart rate with a stethoscope, which he'd probably borrowed from Chase or Foreman.
"His heart rate's a little high," House said.
"Should I be worried?" Arlene asked.
"Probably just means he's still in discomfort from the surgery. I'm going to up his morphine a little."
"You've been so nice to us," Arlene said spontaneously.
House sounded almost confused. "That's the job."
"No, I mean all the other doctors, all they did was obsess on the... the cancer, the treatment, the damage... just trying to fix him. You're the first doctor that's ever given a damn about the quality of his life."
"His heart rate's come down," House said. "The morphine worked. I was right." He turned and looked directly at Cameron, standing in the hall outside, and she wondered suddenly how long he'd known she was there. He walked out of the room quickly, glancing at her as she joined him.
They walked down the hall side by side: House had a long stride and he wasn't making any concessions to Cameron. He didn't say anything. Cameron had to wonder if this was what House would have been like if he hadn't been a slave, if he had been seeing patients like a normal doctor - but he couldn't ever have been a normal doctor, could he?
"What a touching moment," Cameron said. It was exactly what House would have said to her, mocking her, if a patient had said that to her. "That's why we become doctors. For those rare moments when our hearts are warm - "
House stopped. "Would you like to get a drink?" he interrupted her.
"Are you serious or are you just trying to change the subject?" Cameron was confused and pleased. She smiled at him.
"No, I'm serious," House said. He started walking again, this time matching his stride to hers. "I drink, you drink. We could do it at the same time, same table. Do you eat? We could do that too." They reached the elevators, House pressed the down button. "I mean, if the answer's no that's cool but..." He waited, looking at her.
"No," Cameron said, outright confused. She'd thought she wanted to tag Greg, and some part of her still wished she had. This was different. What would an actual relationship with Doctor House be like? "I... it's just... you're just coming off the surgery and you're not yourself yet and I work for you and even though last year's..."
She trailed off in frustration. House was smiling. He looked smug.
"...you're smiling! I'm saying no and you're smiling!"
"Oh, don't take it personally," House said. "It's just because you're full of crap. You have no interest in going out with me. Maybe you did, when I couldn't walk and I was a sick puppy that you could take out of the pound and nurture back to health. Now that I'm free and healthy, there's nothing in it for you."
The elevator had arrived. Two people Cameron knew got out, a doctor from ER and a nurse she worked with from the clinic. Both of them looked at her oddly. They were in the middle of the hall. How many other people had just heard what House said? Had House picked that moment to say it just to embarrass her, to humiliate her?
"You are not healthy," Cameron said. House was still smiling. "Cuddy wants to see you." She turned and walked away.
*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*
Cuddy sent a message to Cameron to get Greg to her office: less efficient than sending a couple of security guards, but she didn't want them to lose track of the fact that Doctor House wasn't a slave any more. He arrived at her office late, looking unruffled.
"You've been back at work twenty-four hours and you're performing a pointless ultrasound down the throat of brain cancer survivor."
Greg sat down in the guest chair and raised his eyebrows. "Who won the pool?"
"You have no evidence that there's any further problem."
"What's the worst that can happen? Cameron got his wife's consent."
"You haven't got mine. And unless you actually have a reason to stay in the hospital overnight, you're to go home with Doctor Wilson in future."
There was a pause. Greg - Doctor House - sat still in the guest chair, looking back at her. "Fine," he said at last. "I'll go back with Wilson. If you'll let me do the endoscopy."
"What?" Cuddy was actually mildly amused. "You want a trade? We're not swapping a couple of goats for your help putting up a barn."
"You want something, I want something." Greg's hands moved together across his stomach. "We compromise. It's the grown-up way to resolve our differences."
"There already is a mechanism for that. It's called the employer-employee relationship. I get what I want, and you don't." Cuddy lifted her hand. "You can go now. Your other patient is due to go home tomorrow. If you can think of any non-invasive, safe tests you can perform on him before then, knock yourself out. I'll remind Wilson that he's not to leave you here overnight again."
*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*
Greg was silent on the drive home. There had at least not been any arguments about whether he was leaving with Wilson.
The door closed behind them, and Wilson turned to Greg, rubbing the back of his neck. "Okay," he said, and was about to go on, to suggest a favorite take-out Chinese now Greg was off his convalescent diet, but Greg had walked away. He was standing outside the door to the slave's room.
"Where are you going?" Wilson asked.
"I get to sleep here," Greg said. He walked in and closed the door behind him.
Wilson stood in the hall looking at the closed door. The slave quarters had been left empty since he got rid of Lady. There was just a double bunk: probably not even long enough for Greg to rest on comfortably. There was a washroom, but it just had a shower, no tub.
This was certainly just an equivalent of Greg sitting down by the door. He'd come out when the food arrived. Wilson ordered a banquet for two.
He ate half of it, taking his time, watching a Hitchcock movie, waiting for Greg to appear. Either the TV or the food should make Greg appear. The food stayed on the table, getting cold, and Wilson ate more of it than he'd intended, until the end of the movie rolled on to the screen and he realised that Greg had now spent at least three hours in slave quarters.
Of course the door couldn't be locked from the inside. Wilson went into his own bedroom and ran a bath - he'd give Greg a long hot soak in the tub before he took him to bed, and hand-feed him in bed since Greg had nothing to eat since the brown-bag lunch he'd brought him nine hours ago.
There were toiletries missing from the bathroom - a bottle of shampoo, a bar of soap. A towel was gone from the rail. Suspicious, Wilson checked the bedroom: one of the blankets was missing off the bed, and so was a set of Greg's clothing from the closet.
When Wilson came out into the hall, he saw the door into the slave quarters closing.
Greg had taken both mattresses off the bunk and stacked them by the wall under the heater. He was sitting on them with a blanket wrapped round his shoulders, eating from a carton with a pair of chopsticks from the take-out place. He didn't move or stop eating when Wilson came in.
"What on earth are you doing?"
"Cuddy said I had to stay with you," Greg said. "Figured she didn't mean I had to starve."
"You can't be planning to sleep in here," Wilson said. "Come through, I've got a nice hot bath ready."
"Got a shower in here. Do you want the towel back?"
"I want you to come through and sleep in a proper bed."
Greg shrugged. He lifted more food into his mouth with the chopsticks. His lips closed around the bite of food. He swallowed, and said to Wilson "Good night."
Wilson rubbed the back of his neck again. This was really absurd. What was really annoying was that he wanted a blow-job very much - in fact, now that Greg was evidently really well again, he wanted to fuck Greg, and he knew Greg must be missing it as much as he was: Greg got desperate for an orgasm when he was fucked, completely incoherent. But he couldn't physically drag Greg from this uncomfortable bed he'd made for himself and make him sleep in the nice big comfortable bed with Wilson. So he'd just have to wait until Greg was ready to admit what he was missing. "All right," he said finally. "Good night."
*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*
The thing about working for House for years, you got used to it: he was right. Even when you thought he was wrong, he was probably right. If he thought there was something to this case besides brain cancer, and was messing around with tendon-lengthening operations just to give himself time to find it, he was probably right. Cameron could snark (and she'd been surprisingly snarky about this ever since House got back: probably the lighter under the girl's foot had struck her as just too much) but there was something here.
On the other hand Chase didn't see any point in throwing his full efforts into finding it, like Foreman, because they wouldn't. Foreman wanted to be House, and that just wasn't going to happen.
Arlene McNeil didn't mind what tests they performed because she'd come to the altogether sane conclusion that her husband couldn't get worse and he might get better - or he might die. She'd been looking after a man who could barely move, who probably didn't have much brain function left. She wouldn't quit, but she'd got to the point where if he got pneumonia she'd likely suggest he didn't get antibiotics. Chase didn't doubt she still loved him.
The MRI of Richard McNeil's brain had shown it fairly healthy, for a long-term cancer survivor. House had put the scans up over the entire Diagnostics conference room, and when they all came back to report that the surgical repair of the meninges had been successful, he was sitting in the middle of the room staring at them.
"You're lucky he didn't die," Cameron told him, diving into the end of Chase's report on the operation.
House looked at her. "I'm lucky? He's the one who didn't die."
"We told you he'd hemorrhage."
"Told me he'd bleed into his brain, not out of his ear," House dismissed, still staring at the MRI.
"You've got to drop this," Cameron told him.
"We're missing something," House said.
"We did a dangerous test," Foreman said, "and something bad happened, that's all this is."
House got Foreman to walk him through all of the scans, identifying each scar and mark. Cameron protested pointlessly: House wasn't listening.
"Re-do every blood test he's ever had. Re-scan his head."
"No," Cameron said, and House did look at her then, turning round. Cameron stood her ground. "He's been sick and suffering for eight years, I'm not going to help you make it worse; I'm not going to help you make it interesting."
House shrugged. "That's okay, Foreman's better at that stuff than you are." He looked at Foreman. "We need 5mm cuts through the occipital and hypothalamic regions."
Foreman never showed much emotion in his face, but from his voice he was disgusted to be agreeing with Cameron. "No."
All three of them were looking at Chase. For a moment, Chase considered joining the other two: Doctor Cuddy still signed his pay checks. But he still thought that if House had enough information, he'd probably be able to work out what it was. And besides... Arlene McNeil had made clear what she felt, to Chase, at least. "How many millimeters?" he asked.
*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*
Cuddy's personal assistant came in. "The... I mean, Doctor Greg - "
"Doctor House," Cuddy corrected. The door opened again and Greg came in, brushing past her assistant as if he wasn't there, saying "You rang?"
Cuddy nodded her assistant away. It would probably be faster to deal with Greg now. The patient he'd claimed on his first day was now finally being discharged.
"I can help him." Greg was talking fast but clearly. "The suicide attempt was not a suicide attempt; he drove that wheelchair into the pool because he couldn't regulate his body temperature. He had hypothalamic dysregulation. Circumventricular system sends his cytokines, releasing the early stages of the immune response but CDOS releases prostaglandins that reset the hypothalamic set point upward, unless it's countered by antipruritic therapy. His brain's on fire." He came to a halt.
Cuddy waited. "That's it? And you discovered this - how?"
"Wilson's spare bedroom has no air conditioning. I had a cold shower this morning. Felt good." House was staring at her, his eyes wide. "I can cure him."
"Cure him? Fixing hypothalamic dysregulation isn't going to regenerate brain."
"No, but if the scar tissue on his hypothalamus is resting against the pituitary, the adrenals would shut down. Addison's disease."
"You didn't see any scar tissue on his MRI, his CT scan - " If he had seen it, he would say so.
"His brain is functional," House said.
Cuddy had taken a look at the patient's vitals before signing off the discharge. "His temperature's normal. There is nothing wrong with his hypothalamus or his pituitary."
"I can make him walk," House said, urgently. "I can make him talk!"
"That's your argument?" Cuddy asked.
There was a pause. "Seems like a good one," House said finally.
On the face of it, there was no harm in an injection of cortisol. But there was no point in going on with this forever. Richard McNeil had a lifetime cap on his health insurance. He hadn't reached it yet, but he would, and sooner rather than later if Cuddy let House go on trying one thing after another.
"If I thought for a second you wanted to help him, you'd have carte blanche. You're doing this because it's fun."
House waited for a moment. He looked away. "My motives have nothing to do with the case."
"Your motives have everything to do with your judgment."
"For the first time in years I'm not in pain, I've got no opiates in my body, now you question my judgment."
"This is a wild guess! That came to you because you had a cold shower this morning."
"Inject him with cortisol. The guy will have sex with his wife again, he'll hug his kid again. Hopefully that's the combination he was using, it'd be a shame if I'd cured a pedophile."
Cuddy shook her head, refusing to smile. "This is a theory that ties your case up in a neat little bow but you don't have a lick of substantiating proof. No."
"Your decision doesn't make any sense. There is no risk to a cortisol injection. If I'm wrong, big deal. He goes home a vegetable like he already is, but if I'm right - "
"This isn't about downsides or risk management. There are no details, you've a hunch. That patient doesn't exist for your whims. As of 4pm this afternoon, I'm sending your patient home. And you have an appointment with the payroll department this afternoon."
*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*
At five o'clock, or whenever Greg got back from seeing the payroll department, Wilson planned to go home. Greg would get bored sitting in that room by himself with nothing to read and nothing to do all evening.
He was startled when Doctor Cuddy came in. "Is there a problem?"
"No," Cuddy said. "I meant to - " She glanced back at Diagnostics, as if through the wall of Wilson's office. "Richard McNeil was discharged today. He was recovered from his surgeries, enough to recover at home, at least."
"Yes?" Wilson asked.
"House suggested a new diagnosis this morning. Addison's disease. He wanted to inject his patient with cortisol. Of course I said no, there was no evidence, he had no reason, it was a hunch - "
Wilson nodded.
"But I did. I injected cortisol. And before he left the hospital, he was better. He was moving voluntarily, he was clearly understanding what was said to him - House was right. It was Addison's." She stood still, looking quite unlike the slightly distant administrator. She looked astonished. "House was right."
She'd never called him "House" before. Not in Wilson's hearing. There were rumours that Doctor Cuddy had known Greg before he was enslaved, had bought him originally for more personal reasons, but Wilson had never believed them. They had both gone to Michigin, but -
"You plan to tell Greg?" Wilson asked. "You can't."
"I have to tell him. He was right!"
"Why did you do it? Why did you think he might be right?"
Cuddy stared at him. "Because he's House?"
"Medically, what made you think he was right?" Wilson asked.
"Nothing," Cuddy said.
"He got lucky, that's all that happened," Wilson said. "Telling him no was a good thing because next time he won't get lucky, he'll kill someone. Just because he was right doesn't mean he wasn't wrong." He knew his rationale was correct.
Cuddy shook her head. "I see him every day, I can't just..."
"Everybody lies," Wilson said. He glanced at the clock. Cuddy would have to leave soon: if Greg saw her here, he'd wonder why. Greg would be coming home with him, tonight and every night, for a long time.
*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*
end
and I really hope you guys are still interested now House isn't a slave any more. *nervous* Future chapters are likely to be shorter but also faster. Hopefully. Let me know if you're still interested, okay?
So we're now launched into third season of Collar!Verse and now seems a good time as any to remind y'all of Brindlewolf's Bitstrips cartoon commentary:
pics livejournal com brindlewolf pic 00056wsr
(replace spaces with . or / in appropriate places)