Disclaimer: I do not own David Shore, House MD, any of the characters, plot lines, sub plot lines, innuendoes, snarks, actors … you get the idea. I am going to "borrow" them for a while and play with them; bend them, fold them, mutilate them, then return them. On the other hand, I do however, own my thoughts, dreams, aspirations, deviant thinking and biased points of view. I profusely apologise in advance if I misquote, omit to mention where in the shows many scripts I got the lines from and/or accidentally plagiarise from other writers and/or forget to put in details about where I got quotes – tell me where and I'll fix, promise. I don't have a beta (should get me one of those – huge, huge, huge hint) but I do have a very bad memory (blame it on my meds) and an insatiable need to read (blame that on my mother).
I haven't written anything since high school English and this is my first foray into fan fiction.
Due to various things, this may or may not be continued, it may or may not be updated in any or a reasonable time frame.
The following is written in the third person, may use some quotes from shows scripts and contains the ramblings of a sane mind …
--House--House--House--House--House--House--House--House--
Chapter 1: The Solution …
House sits, his leg resting on the coffee table, his cane somewhere near the door, or is that the floor, who cares, his butt embedded in the sofa, his tv switched to mindless drivel, his mind wandering the cosmos.
House thinks of Wilson, his best friend, maybe his only real friend. His friend is always there, no matter what he does – barging into Wilson's office, stealing Wilson's food, commenting on Wilson's life with a snark or too, listening to, or pretending to listen to, Wilson's lectures about his own, seeing Wilson's face when he has again done something that Wilson lists as "crazy".
His friend is always there, every day of every week, twenty four-seven, he never leaves.
But to be honest, House knows he has another friend, also there twenty four-seven, who also never leaves.
Pain.
It isn't the pain that is the main problem; it's what goes with it.
The pain is the ignition switch which starts the car and leads to the constant droning background sound of the engine working.
With the pain comes the exhaustion. It wears him out, second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour.
With the exhaustion comes the overwhelming desire to sleep but the droning background sound hinders that.
With the overwhelming desire to sleep, to block out the sound, comes the solution.
The solution … painkillers, alcohol, the occasional morphine … leaves him groggy, slow, more tired, nauseous, feeling disconnected from reality, then comes the pain again … a never ending cycle.
Tired, always tired; leaving him with no energy left for anything at the end of a day but sitting, on his butt, watching mindless drivel. House wishes this friend would leave, never come back and let him have peace.
House wonders if this is how his other friend feels about him. Does Wilson always feel tired, does Wilson wish he could get some peace, does Wilson wish House would leave and never come back?
House did something crazy, yet again, and Wilson looked so very, very tired. But this time, House knows that Wilson may indeed feel like wanting House to leave and never come back.
Amber.
A fossil tree resin, appreciated for its color (occurring in different hues), and beauty. The rarest type is clear, but the opaque type, with bubbles, considered to be true amber, is known as "bastard amber".
House thinks this most appropriate for "Cutthroat Bitch", she was beautiful, colorful, smart, hard to read, and the occasional bastard. So much like House, and yet better, in that she had Wilson's friendship and that she did not have House's other friend. He didn't hate her, he envied her, to be truthful, was probably jealous of her.
She had everything House wanted. She had given Wilson everything he needed and deserved. If House no longer existed, he would have been comforted with the knowledge that Wilson would not be alone; he would be cared for and loved.
Pain and Amber, Amber and Pain.
The "Solution" to his other friend, or at least one of them, alcohol, had destroyed all that in what seemed like an instant.
He'd heard all the platitudes, it was the truck driver, it was bad luck, it was a chain of random events that led to Amber's death, but House knew it was the "Solution" to House's other friend that had really caused Amber's death and he felt sick to his stomach. Ironic, his feelings towards Amber's death and one of the side effects of the "Solution" were the same.
Nothing House did, or could ever do after the bus crash, would change what had happened, it was the past. They say those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it; so far House had managed to ignore that little piece of wisdom.
House was pondering it now.
The "Solution".
It had now led to the death of an innocent, way before her time, the "Solution" needed to be rethought, reconsidered, replaced.
House hated change. Change meant failure. House considered himself anything but a failure, hence no need to change, but Amber's death felt to him like the biggest failure he had ever made. Therefore, House had to change, to correct the failure, to try to stop it ever happening again.
House had looked previously into many alternatives to his current "Solution" but none would offer permanent results except for one. One method, which he had blankly refused, argued violently against, gone to great lengths to ensure would never happen, would definitely permanently replace the "Solution".
This method would not be able to be done here; he would have to go elsewhere to do it. It would require many months of recovery and therapy, there would always still be pain but it would be more easily manageable with a much less dangerous and lower level of pharmaceutical treatment.
He would need to detox first, no painkillers, no alcohol. It was drastic but doable and Cuddy had said he could take as much time as he needed to recover from his head injuries. By the time he had done it, there would be nothing she, or anyone else, could do about it.
--House--House--House--House--House--House--House--House--
"ramblings of a sane mind" quote – Sherlock Holmes – Conan Doyle – can't remember which story but when I do I'll put it here
Amber – paraphrased a description from Wikipedia, the free online encyclopaedia
George Santayana: "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it." And, yes, I deliberately misquoted it.