"There ain't no reason things are this way.
Its how they always been and they intend to stay.
I can't explain why we live this way, we do it everyday.
Preachers on the podium speakin' of saints,
Prophets on the sidewalk beggin' for change,
Old ladies laughing from the fire escape, cursing my name.
I got a basket full of lemons and they all taste the same,
A window and a pigeon with a broken wing,
You can spend your whole life workin' for something
Just to have it taken away," Brett Dennen.

Detective Michael Tritter smiled as he placed his hand over the bible, and swore to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, "so help me God." The trial itself had come and gone, without much fuss. Witnesses were called, sworn in, questioned, and let go. The jury heard all the evidence, and disappeared into chambers for less than an hour. They came back with a guilty verdict and now we were sitting in another courtroom, at the sentencing hearing. House sat on the cold wooden bench, dressed in his best suit, and the red tie I gave him two months earlier. He didn't say a word to me when our eyes locked and I started to wonder what he might be thinking.

"Would you please tell the court, in your own words, what happened on the night in question?" the prosecuting attorney asked. Tritter nodded, still smiling, and I wondered what, if anything, people would do if I shot him right there.

"I went to Princeton Plainsborough Teaching Hospital's free clinic for a rash, and Dr. House was my attending physician. He was rude, and I spoke to him harshly. He laughed, turning to leave, without having preformed any tests. I tried to reason with Dr. House and when he tried to leave, I pulled his cane out from under him. He had this look in his eyes, a weakness, or fear maybe, and that was when I picked him. After I left the clinic I found Dr. House's parking space, so I would be able to recognize his car. I orchestrated a speed trap and pulled the good doctor over. He was driving without a license and was carrying a handful off loose pills, Vicodin I believe. As far as I could tell they were stolen. I told him this and arrested the good doctor, although I would have brought the guy in even if he didn't have anything on him. This was just icing on the cake. I brought him to the police station—for driving while intoxicated, speeding, driving without a licensee, and possession of a class 3 substance." Tritter was still smiling but House only sat there staring at his shoes.

"What happened when you arrived at the police station?"

"I booked Dr. House, voucher his personal belongings, and brought him into an interrogation room. I handcuffed him, and punched him hard in the diaphragm. He made no sound when he fell. Dr. House didn't speak once, not the whole evening. I beat the suspect for over an hour and then I told him he was going away for a very long time. I offered to—help him, although I had no intention of doing so. He still wasn't speaking, and didn't make a sound when I took off his clothing. He didn't even cry when I—did him." House was looking at me, desperate, like he wanted—needed—to leave, so I turned to our lawyer and asked if it was okay. Then I stood up and pushed House's wheelchair out of the courtroom and into the hall. Neither one of us needed to hear what Tritter had to say. A fellow officer had walked in on the cop after he had been alone with House for more than nine hours.

He was rushed to the hospital but it was already too late. Dr. Gregory house was gone, and the man who now lived inside his body was—wasn't even really a man. He was a shell of a person. He was broken, even worse than before. House was admitted to the emergency room with three cracked ribbed, and a fractured right clavicle. His right leg was broken in six places, and most of the fingers on his left hand were crushed, as if they had been stomped on repeatedly. He was covered in bruises and blood. Tritter had rapped him, twice—payback, I suppose, for the thermometer thing—and knocked one of his teeth out. They were able to set most of the broken bones, but he had to have a few surgical pins put in, in his leg, and hand.

After he got out of surgery they put him on a morphine drip, and gave him a boatload of sedatives, because he had been shaking, and he flinched whenever the nurses came near to check his BP and temperature. House lay there, sleeping, looking broken, beaten, swollen, black and blue and purple, and I just wanted to make him better. I wished I could make it all go away.

I sat next to him in his room all night and well into he next day. When he finally opened his eyes all House seemed capable of was sitting there, staring into space. Since then he almost never speaks—and when he does he never say s more than two or three words—can't make eye contact with anyone other than me, has nightmares almost every day, and suffers from severe anxiety and panic attacks. Sometimes he cries or screams, but mostly I've learned to live with the silence, and talk to myself.

He's learned to use his right hand to feed himself—not that he actually eats that much, maybe once a day at the most—but I do pretty much everything else for him now. I bathe, clothe, and put him to bed, stay with him during the day, hold him, talk to him, tell him that it's gonna be alright. I take care of him.

Tritter wouldn't admit to what he had done to House until after he was found guilty. He then also confessed to having beaten and raped four other women, and three other men. He got away with it in the other cases too. I guess nobody complained, and if they did they were all criminals, and he was a veteran cop.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

I just keep on thinking that if I had only driven him home that night nothing would have happened. House would have been safe, and the bastard cop wouldn't have anything to go on. But I didn't drive him home. I said I was too busy, and stayed at the hospital until 11:00, and then went back to my hotel room. I keep telling myself that if I had called his apartment I would have found out he wasn't there, and maybe I could have found him in time. Maybe I could have rescued him.

They didn't even call me when he was brought into the hospital. I didn't find out until I got there for work, four hours later. I never once left his side for more than a minute after I found out though. I stayed with him, and held him, and talked to him. He didn't talk to me, or anyone, didn't look at me, didn't do anything. Finally someone suggested bringing in a shrink, and we had him evaluated.

"There doesn't seem to be any sign of brain damage," she said. "Everything seemed to be working fine, but the trauma, and stress of being brutalized, was too much for him to handle. He had to shut down to cope, and now he's reverted to an almost catatonic, child-like stage. Greg has gone back to the time when he last felt safe," two different psychologists told us. They both said it like that, using his first name like they were his best friend, and I wanted to punch the morons.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Even though it had been a few months his leg never healed well enough for him to be able to walk. Dr. Gregory House was going to be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. I knew he hated it, and did whatever else I could to make him as comfortable as possible. I got him a bunch of books and puzzle games (most of them were for one person although sometimes he played with me) and set him up on the couch most days to watch his soap and do anything he wanted.

Fifteen minutes after we left the courtroom, everybody else walked out through the doors. The lawyer came over and told me that there was an hour-long recess, for lunch. Then he turned and looked at House.

"You guys don't need to be here for this. He doesn't need to testify—not that he actually can—I can call you when we finish, tell you what's going on when they figure everything out."

"How long do you think he's going away for?" I asked, touching House's hand softly. "He's sort of freaked, but I think it might make him feel better to actually see some justice."

"The shrink who evaluated him before the trial said that Dr. House is basically brain dead, right? I don't think he even knows where he is right now." I'm still not sure if it was a response to what the lawyer said or now, but House pulled on my jacket then, and I took out the prescription bottle, took the lid off and handed him a couple pills, and the water bottle I now carried with me everywhere.

"You shouldn't talk about things you don't, can't understand. You stick to the law, and I'll take care of my paitent," I told the lawyer snottily. "Now if it's okay with you, we're going to have lunch…or is that illegal now?" Ever since the attack I had been more and more angry and with more and more people. Suddenly, I started to understand why House used to call everybody stupid. He was right about everything. No wonder he was always so sad. "Hey Pal, what do you say, crappy cafeteria hamburgers, or crappy cafeteria chicken? No? Cookies? Pizza? Come on, Buddy. We talked about this," I pleaded, crouching so I could look him in the eyes. He just sat thee, staring beyond me at God only knows what. He smiled, and three seconds later I felt a hand gently touch my shoulder.

"How's he doing today?" Cuddy's voice was suddenly in my ear, and I bounced back up, shocked. At first I couldn't understand why or what she was doing there. Then I remembered the phone call from the night before. Cuddy called our place. She wanted to come with us to the courthouse. She had heard from someone, that today was the last day of the sentencing hearing, for moral support, but I said no. She came anyway, typical Cuddy. I stood there, staring at her, praying for House to say something about her breasts or ass. But, as usual he said nothing. He did stare, although whether it was down her blouse or into space, I couldn't tell.

"He's in a lot of pain, and being in the same room as that bastard cop is making him—he freaked out a little earlier, while Tri—while the cop was testifying, and we had to leave. I'm in here getting us some lunch. He doesn't seem to want anything, though. If you are really trying to be helpful could you just lean over and hug him—it might cheer him up a little."

"You want me to let House look down my shirt because he's throwing a temper tantrum?" She asked chuckling.

"What you think he's faking?"

"No, not faking, but there's no way he's completely—I mean what happened is horrible but he was pretty much normal before it happened. Plenty of people are assaulted and they don't end up like him."

"Plenty of people don't have a history like House's. His dad used to beat the shit out of him on a regular basis. And he, let's just say this isn't the first time Greg's gone through all of this."

"And he told you that?" She asked, looking down at him sadly. "Why did he tell you?"

"Because I was his friend, and I give him drugs. Plus we were sleeping together before he was—attacked. I think he trusted me. But if you don't think he's really that bad off, then just go ahead, take him off the Xanax and the pain meds too. He's probably faking the poorly healed six leg fractures and the smushed up fingers."

"You know that's not what I meant," she said pouting, hands on her hips. "He's a—he was—no wonder he hates his parents. You really think he's going to eat if I let him touch me?"

"Honestly, I don't think he's going to notice. It's really just a test to see how far gone he is. Fine, don't help. I'll just put a g-tube in his stomach and then we won't even have to worry about choosing food anymore." Cuddy caved under the guilt thing, like I knew she would and she hugged him. House looked up at me for half a second, and sort of smiled. Then, I saw his eyes drift downward momentarily, and then he looked away. "You wanna eat something, Buddy? How about a burger and some friends?" I asked, getting into the food line with him. "You in there somewhere, House?" I asked, placing two burgers, a large French fries, and a couple sodas on the tray, paid, and found us a table. "We don't have to go back into the courtroom unless you want to. Hey? These fries are really good. Jesus, I never thought I'd miss the days when you used to steal my lunch. Oh come on, I made that way to easy for you. Make fun of me, laugh, call me an idiot, say something anti-Semitic, anything!"

This wasn't the first time I'd begged him like that. Usually he didn't respond at all, and at first I thought this time wasn't going to be any different. Then House did something I wasn't expecting. He looked up from his food and said, "Jimmy," in a soft, sad, little voice. After almost a year of not speaking, not touching or being touched, and not even making eye contact, "Jimmy," seemed like a big breakthrough. He was exhausted—it was nearly 2:00 PM, and he had been up since 4:00 in the morning—and so I took him back to the apartment, and told him how proud I was. Later when we were sitting on the couch watching this morning's General Hospital, I smiled at him.

"I still can't believe Cuddy hugged you! Did you actually get to see anything or was her shirt buttoned all the way to the top? Look, I know you've had a long, hard—see I'm making it easy for you to make a joke here—day, but we really gotta find a way to communicate with each other. You could blink, or type it out on a computer or do fucking semaphore, but—sorry—frustrated. I'll be better as soon as the D.A. calls, I promise, but until then you're gonna have to bear with me." He just nodded, not taking his eyes off the TV screen. "You're not even listening to me are you?"

He shrugged.

"Do you know what I just said? I am so sorry House. This is all my fault."

Still nothing.

"You asked me for a ride home and I said I was too busy. I didn't even call to make sure you got home all right." This got his attention. House looked up at me, squirming. He whimpered, squeezed my hand, and put it over his heart. "You, love me? Is that what you're trying to—okay, I'm trying. I just don't really understand. Go slow for my sake, okay? You—no me, you're talking about me…my heart? I love—you're trying to tell me that you know that I love you? No? Yes? But you are in there, right?"

Nothing.

"Look you don't have to say anything. You don't even need to look at me. We aren't working right. We never have to go back to work. After what you've been through, I don't expect you to get better. but if you think you want to, we could go see somebody—a shrink…or not…Please, anything. I just need to know that you're not completely lost. Please mess with my head, I don't care, but I can't—if, are you all right? Sorry, stupid question, I didn't say that. House?"

But Greg didn't say anything. He just laid his head against my chest, closed his eyes, and fell asleep.

I got a call the next morning, life without the possibility of parole, which was, at least, something. When I told him, he reacted the same as when I told him what I'd made for breakfast. I was starting to wonder if I would ever get my House back. I loved him, sick or healthy, scared or strong, okay or sick, but that didn't make me hate to see him this way.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"I'm gonna take care of you," I promised, a couple of weeks later, leaning down over the couch. House had a small red notebook he had in his hands, he had been writing in it every night for a month. One of the shrinks suggested he keep a journal, although most days he didn't write anything in it, and when he did it was usually just a couple of words, phrases. His hands still hurt me even now. Bad smell. Hate me. STOP. I felt guilty for reading his private thoughts, but they made me hopeful. I thought that maybe if he kept writing he might work his way to full sentences, complete thoughts, and maybe then he would be able to talk to me, maybe get better—even if he only got a little bit better I thought it would be a miracle.

Today it was open to an empty page. House's fingers gripped the pen awkwardly, and moved slowly, as he wrote.

Wilson.

"Yeah? I'm here. I'm here, and I've got you, ohh-oh-okay," I was trying to calm him down, because as soon as I sat down he wrapped his arms around me, pressing his face into my shirt. "It's okay. What did you wanna tell me?" Nothing. Then I realized I was still hugging his body too closely for him to be able to write. When I loosened my grip he sat up, taking the paper in his hand, writing again.

He added the words not bad to the end of my name. Wilson not bad. I had no idea what that meant, and told him so. House looked up at me, angry and frustrated. Didn't hurt me. Not your fault.

"How long have you been able to—are you…can you talk to me? Do you think you might be okay to…can you look at me. It's okay now. You'll be safe here. I'm gonna protect you, not gonna let anybody hurt you, ever."

I know. I hugged him again, kissing the top of his hair, and when he turned his face up to meet mine, I saw a look in his eyes I hadn't seen for almost a year. Help me.

"Okay, how do you want me to, I mean, uh—what do you wanna, do you wanna start going to see the doctor, the shrink, and maybe you could talk to her about what happened. She might know—I don't know what the right things to tell you are. I don't know what you need to hear, and a psychiatrist will."

You,he wrote, underlined it, and circled it. Then he wrote, me, and crossed it out with thick black lines.

"No," I said, almost too harshly. "Sorry, House." Then I took the pen from his hand and wrote down, us and put a heart around it, handing him the paper and pen. "I'm gonna take care of you, make you better, help you. We're gonna be okay, I promise. You're not—you're going to be okay. As long as I'm alive I will never leave you, unless you want me to, never. I will always be here."

Okay. And then he did something I never expected. Sorry, House wrote, and put his hands on mine.

"It's okay," I whispered. "This wasn't your fault, it was never your fault. Tri—he was a bad cop. He hurt you because he wanted to. There's nothing you could have done to stop it, and nothing you did made you deserve it. It's gonna be all right," I promised. House looked up at me doubtfully. "I swear. I swear to God." He shook his head. "I still believe. You can mock me all you want, but—I promise I will a way to make this better, to help you. You believe me, right? House?"

To Be Continued?