A/N: Happy New Year, readers! Yes, I'm still here. The unexpected non-writing project that has taken so much time over the last weeks is still in process, but it's in other people's hands right now. Any day that needs my attention, it will still jump the line and get priority. This is something very good, just time consuming. But much of my legwork in it is done, so I'm getting back down to writing, both giving Mom's book a final polish and starting some fanfiction again.
A note about this story. I've had in it mind for a couple of years since seeing a wonderful live production of Phantom. It isn't very long, and there are other stories in my series that we'll get to after this one, but it's a nice little side journey that simply insisted on being written. Beware that anything is up for change from the TV series, including character ages, backgrounds, and the physical structure of PPTH.
I do not own House or the Phantom of the Opera musical. Wish I did, though.
Updates as I can. Again, it's a fairly short ride, nothing like the length on Pain or even on Verdict. Enjoy!
(H/C)
"We welcome our new first-year residents to PPTH," the administrator said. "As you know, this hospital prides itself on both compassionate and clinically excellent medicine. We are sure that you . . ."
Lisa Cuddy tried to pay attention out in the seats in the auditorium, but the woman had a voice that droned on, little inflection to it, and she found her mind wandering in spite of herself.
PPTH. She had been accepted into their residency program, and few were. Not that that had surprised her; her performance through medical school had been excellent because she wouldn't have accepted anything else. Nor would her parents. No, Lisa Cuddy was well on her way to being a SUCCESS, in capitals. The prestige of medicine meant less to her than the personal satisfaction of a goal efficiently attained. To push yourself, demand your best, and deliver it on schedule, with a bonus of helping other people along the way: That was fulfillment. She was looking forward to not only her residency but the rest of her life, which so far was running admirably to her plans.
"One thing I must mention." The woman's voice for the first time picked up some emphasis, and Cuddy focused. "You are most likely already aware of the back story at PPTH. It was once a small private hospital owned by a billionaire, Dr. Richard Carter. Dr. Carter in his will left his entire fortune to further develop this hospital, specifying that a state-of-the-art multispecialty facility be built alongside and attached to his own private building and that his original smaller structure be left intact instead of being torn down. However, by the terms of that same will, the original building can no longer be used. It is to be maintained structurally as needed but sealed off to general access. The doors to the old wing are locked, ladies and gentlemen, and they shall remain so. None of you need to be in that area, so don't even try. Anyone found over there unauthorized will be disciplined by the Board of Directors. Your individual department heads will be meeting with you this afternoon after lunch break. Once again, welcome to PPTH, and we are glad to have you as part of our team."
"That's not the real reason," Dr. Evelyn Smithers announced to her table over lunch. She was a local to Princeton and therefore in attending residency here was coming back home. "Why that side is locked up, I mean. Everybody in town knows that Dr. Carter was crazy."
"There's a difference between eccentric and truly crazy," Cuddy pointed out.
"Oh, he was definitely crazy. Some people can seem so normal on the surface, but push their buttons, and they become totally irrational."
Cuddy shuddered. The thought of becoming totally irrational was a nightmare for her. "You knew him?"
"Not personally; he died when I was eight. But I've heard stories. Everyone has."
"Dr. Carter was good enough to cure several people at his small facility here," Dr. David Henderson protested. "Challenging cases, too. He liked taking the problem ones. He can't have been too crazy if he was such a good doctor."
"Oh, I don't know," another resident at the large table said. "I've known a few doctors in med school that I wasn't too sure about, and it wasn't because of their medicine. I'd trust them to operate on me but not out in general life."
"Exactly," Smithers said. "But when Dr. Carter was so sick in his last two years, nobody could cure him. Not even him."
Henderson shrugged. "In case you didn't notice in med school, that tends to happen to patients, even nowadays. Science hasn't eradicated death yet."
Smithers pushed on, determined to make her point. "Anyway, now the old building is haunted."
Cuddy shook her head. "Haunted? Come on. Ghosts are just a figment of an overactive imagination."
"No, it's haunted. Anybody who grew up in Princeton knows that. Dr. Carter's spirit is still wandering around over there, trying to diagnose himself."
"If that's the case, why isn't he haunting the doctors who failed to cure him?" Henderson pointed out.
"And why would he put that clause in his will?" Cuddy added. "He wasn't dead yet; he couldn't have known if he'd come back. You think he planned in advance to haunt it and sealed it up for himself? If there were ghosts, and I still say there aren't, they would go after people to draw attention to themselves, not just live isolated with all these candidates for haunting right next door."
"It's haunted," Smithers insisted.
Cuddy rolled her eyes. This one obviously wasn't going to be much of a doctor if she was apt to see ghosts instead of focusing on expanding her education in the area of things that really did exist, like medicine. "Well, it was a pleasure meeting you all. I'm sure I'll see you around the hospital. Now, I'm heading up to Endocrinology."
She efficiently bussed her dishes from the table and then walked out of the cafeteria, but as she waited for the elevator, she found herself replaying that conversation.
Haunted?
"Good grief," Cuddy said. She'd expected better of anyone intelligent enough to get a residency here. The elevator opened, and firmly dismissing ghosts, not that they existed anyway, she entered and pushed the button to her future for the next few years.