Just a quick oneshot that wouldn't go away. Wasn't sure which section to put it in - it's technically my first official crossover so I'm not used to working that one out. Hope you like. If you have questions I won't be able to answer them in the next chapter since this is a oneshot so I will add any information to the bottom of the page if necessary.
The doctor leans on his cane on the other side of the glass and stares at me as if I'm a puzzle he's going to solve. I pretend not to notice. I know he will never work out why I'm dying and that he will never understand why I don't care.
You can't solve a puzzle if you don't have all the pieces. He thinks he will find the pieces eventually – despite me continuing to point out that most of those pieces are classified. Apparently he believes rules don't apply to him so he still plans to work it out. Of course, I won't even tell him who he should contact to try for information which infuriates him even more. He assumes I'm military but that's it. Even though my record is buried pretty deep, eventually my former employers will find out that someone is asking questions about me. I wonder if they will come for me before or after I've died. I'm taking quite a while so maybe they will make it before. Occasionally I've had dreams where a scottish doctor long dead comes for me. I think I would let him try to save me. Maybe. But he's dead and soon I will be too.
Every day they try something new. Nothing works and nothing leads towards giving them any other answers and so the doctor continues leaning on his cane staring at me. I contemplate whether I will die before he begins to get impatient to do an autopsy. I laugh thinking that even then he will never get his answers.
Right now, with him staring at me, I feel the most at peace than I have in a very long time. Perhaps it's only his eyes that are keeping me alive. Some perverse kind of thrill knowing I have power over him – perhaps will still continue to be on his mind long after I'm dead. He will never solve me. He will forever be frustrated by my secrets. He doesn't like secrets, he doesn't like things he does not know and he most certainly does not like idiots like me who have no interest in continuing to live. Today might be one of those days he comes in and berates me. And then he will get angry when I laugh. Which will make me laugh even more, until I cough so hard that I pass out. Good times.
He throws names at me. All the usual suspects – Iraq, Afghanistan and the like. He assumes at least my apathy is a symptom of post-traumatic stress. The rest could be an exotic disease native only to certain war-torn lands I may or may not have seen combat in. I laugh. Iraq is nothing compared to where I've been and what I've seen. Even if I was able to tell him, he would never believe me. And even if he did it wouldn't help him to save me.
Trapped in his frustration and fascination, he struggles against my control over him. Like the truth that he wields with a blunt edge, he has thrown many weapons at me so far. So many doctors have come in to 'have a chat'. A pretty willow brunette, a pretty willowy blonde, a curvy attractive older woman. Then perhaps wondering if I swing the other way he has sent in a pretty blonde man with an accent, followed by an older dark haired man with soft eyes and a sympathetic style. No doubt he is trying to find just the right person to get me to crack. To give him the truth he needs.
All I know is that some people can't handle the truth that he so obsessively pursues. Some people aren't built for too much truth and perhaps I'm one of them. The truth is I've seen much of two galaxies and it's all filled with so much darkness and death. So much evil. I fought it for a long time. But there comes a point where it is all too much, too hard. When the formidable enemies you fight finally fall only to have an even greater darkness rise in their place. Undefeatable. Darkness on all sides, from all directions, no escape. When a soldier no longer believes he can win the war - not just doubt but utter loss of hope – something inside him breaks. That happened to me. My faith, my hope... all gone. Gone like the friends who I couldn't save. Gone like the scottish doctor who saved me once before but will never do so again. Gone like the millions more who will be destroyed in the coming years.
Others will continue to fight in my place – untainted by my truth. Some people need to keep believing, need to keep fighting. Some people will never accept defeat no matter how obviously it is coming. Darkness will prevail. Evil will win. Millions of people will suffer and die and there's not a damn thing anyone can do about it.
And Dr House still thinks he can bully me into wanting to live.