Notes: This is a crossover with Lost. No pairing, just House winding up where he least expected.
Wither Shall I Wander
by Ijemanja
When he came to, the first thing he noticed was that his mouth was full of sand.
Other information filtered in more slowly: His cane was lying two feet away. Sand was as hard to spit out as he remembered from childhood. It was hot. His head hurt.
He almost definitely had a concussion.
But all things considered, he was okay. 'All things' of course being that the last he remembered he had been in a rapidly descending plane, and now he was on the ground.
Reaching out for his cane, he stood up, turned his head this way and that, taking in the complete and utter chaos that surrounded him.
Then he put his hand on his thigh.
He looked down.
Blinked.
"Huh," he said.
*
It had been a medical conference in Cairns - though 'medical conference' in this instance was interchangeable with 'four days of drinking, debauchery, sunshine and water sports'. He bowed out of the latter, naturally. Had some modicum of success in the debauchery department, but his primary focus had been the drinking, to which he applied himself with great enthusiasm. Got plenty of sun, too, and boarded the plane for the trip home with a mild sunburn and a major hangover.
It was one of the better vacations he'd ever had.
If he ever actually made it home, he'd be sure to thank Cuddy for letting him go.
('Letting him go' in this instance of course meaning 'signing off on it with barely concealed glee and offering to drive him to the airport if it meant he was out of her hair any sooner'.)
*
One of the smarter moves he made was not telling anyone he was a doctor.
The other guy was swamped with forty people all clamouring for him to look at their ouchies and boo-boos - he had absolutely zero desire for a piece of that action. Jim, or John or something, that was his name, the guy splitting his time between Pregnant Girl, the other girl with no apparent medical conditions but a nice ass, and Very Obviously Dying Guy.
Everyone was worried about VOD Guy. He didn't think a medical degree was needed to know the guy with the large, jagged piece of metal in his chest was a goner if the rescue party didn't turn up right now. But apparently people really were that stupid.
Not that he didn't already know that.
And there was always the concern his passport might turn up, or a passenger manifest list or something, but if anyone questioned the 'Dr' part of his name, he'd just tell them he was a particle physicist, or a psychologist - something of absolutely no use on a desert island in the middle of nowhere.
Other than that, he didn't need to worry about anyone bugging him. People were too busy worrying about their own problems to pay much attention to anyone else, which was just how he liked it.
*
A week here and he was getting along all right, content to doze in the shade, and let everyone else run around worrying about monsters and mysterious transmitters and who got the best building materials for their shelter.
He held onto his cane. It was good for batting ripe fruit from high branches.
An inordinate amount of people survived a plane crash, there were polar bears in the jungle, Asian Guy looked like he had a handle on the fishing industry and as for himself, he was well on his way to a killer tan, so -
"Dude."
Train of thought interrupted, he looked over and saw Just This Side of Morbidly Obese Guy standing nearby, giving him a puzzled look. "Yeah, Dude?"
"You were, like, smiling? What's there to be so happy about?"
"The people I work with," he said, "Are going to be so completely screwed without me."
Somehow JTSMO Guy managed to look even more confused. "Okay," he said, before waddling off across the sand.
Just watching that guy go through sugar withdrawal was going to be a treat in itself. Detox was a bitch. Not to mention the rapid weight loss. He might even have a heart attack.
"Oh, I'm going to like it here," he said to no one in particular, and decided that later, if he felt like it, he might go for a leisurely jog down the beach.