Zapped, or Another 97 Seconds

This is my take on what could have happened to House in the "97 seconds" episode of the show.

Pay attention to the first paragraph, where it describes the first action House took (in my story, anyway) after the guy shoved the knife in the outlet. It becomes even more important later in the story.

Disclaimer – I do not own House or any of the characters from the show. The other characters, including Dr. Miller, Dr. Lewis, Andrew Carter, and Millie Smith, are my own creation.

The story is set during the show's "97 Seconds" episode in Season 4. A few details from the episode have been changed and I added an entirely new course of events that occurred after the self-electrocution. Additionally, this story doesn't exactly follow the Season 4 timeline. For example, a few things I mention in my story as having happened before the electrocution, actually happened after the "97 Seconds" episode in the series.

I already have most of the story written, but will hold off on uploading each chapter until I've gotten a sufficient number of reviews to decide whether or not I need to change anything.

Enjoy, and PLEASE REVIEW!

House sat in his darkened office, alone, twirling a pocketknife and reflecting back on what transpired in front of him in the clinic's Exam Room One. His clinic patient presented for treatment of injuries after a car accident. House had no idea why he presented to the clinic instead of the ER, and was ready to turn around and walk out on this boring case, but was intrigued enough by the man's story to stay in the room with him. His clinic patient told him about the "wonderful" afterlife he experienced during the 97 seconds he was "technically dead" after his car accident. The clinic patient wanted to relive that experience. He came into the exam room wielding a pocketknife and, in front of House's eyes, lurched forward, stabbed the pocketknife into an electric outlet, and electrocuted himself. House called a code and hit the knife with his wooden cane to knock the knife out of the outlet. The code team was there within a minute. They ran in and managed to resuscitate the clinic patient. Meanwhile, House had another patient, Thomas Stark, who was not far from death and would soon be ready for the afterlife (if there indeed was one).

House would tell anyone who would listen that he didn't believe in a God, or any kind of an afterlife. He had already experienced near death twice in his lifetime. The first time, after the initial surgery to restore circulation to his infarcted thigh, was because his potassium rose too high and caused his heart to stop. While he was being resuscitated, he remembered seeing "visions" of other patients who had had similar experiences, but every time he recounted his "visions" to others he discounted them as being due to the release of endorphins and serotonin while the brain was shutting down. The second time was when he was shot, and he attributed that experience to oxygen deprivation and release of endorphins and serotonin by his brain while it was shutting down due to hypoxia. He did not think it was possible, in fact he thought it was impossible, for there to be any possibility of a true afterlife. He reasoned that there was no scientific proof of an afterlife, so why waste time trying to prove something that was unprovable?

His clinic patient instilled a spark in him though, a spark of doubt. Perhaps there was something to what the man claimed. The man was insistent that those 97 seconds were the best of his life, better than any high he had ever experienced. The man never claimed that he saw God or any other kind of omniscient being, but simply claimed that it was the best 97 seconds of his life. House was intrigued.

Meanwhile, Amber, Thirteen and Jody the former veterinarian were performing the thoracic tap on their patient Thomas Stark. While the pills that would have saved him were unknowingly being eaten by his assistance dog, Stark was literally gasping his life away, wondering what he would see on the other side when his Earthly life was over. He wanted to believe that there would be something better than this. Stark wasn't one hundred percent sure there was an afterlife, but he wanted to believe that there was a God who would spare him the pain and suffering he had experienced throughout most of his life here on Earth. House thought Stark was foolish for putting faith in an afterlife that didn't exist, Wilson thought House should have at least supported Stark in his belief even if House didn't share it, and the clinic patient was stone cold convinced it was real.

House thought that he could not leave the puzzle unsolved. He had to find out for sure.

For as long as his team had known him, House had always seemed a bit unstable. In fact, if one were to really think about it, as his team often did, unstable would be the understatement of the decade. To deliberately inject oneself with medication to induce a migraine, and to deliberately inject oneself with medication purported to prevent migraines, all in an attempt to discredit a hated colleague, went way beyond unstable.

Likewise, for a disabled man to taunt an able bodied and deranged stranger who had angrily barged into his office went way beyond unstable.

And here he was again, contemplating an action that would once again, undoubtedly, label him crazy or suicidal. House thought perhaps they were right. As he sat there contemplating the knife and the electric outlet, he thought, was he really just that curious about the existence of an afterlife, or was there some other motive behind his obsession to do something this insane? Assuming that he could be resuscitated, which was a big IF considering his past medical history, what would the consequences be? Whether or not there was a permanent afterlife, there most certainly would be a temporary afterlife in some sort of psychiatric institution with a diagnosis of depression and attempted suicide IF anyone was able to resuscitate him in the first place.

House made several assumptions. The first was that sticking the knife in the outlet would cause electrocution. The second was that when he sent the text message before sticking the knife in the outlet, someone would actually get it and respond in time to save him. The third was that he could be saved. The last was that, should he be saved, he would suffer no consequences from electrocuting himself.

What he failed to remember was his own advice, "when you assume, you make an ass out of you and me".

House flicked the knife open and closed, open and closed, open and closed. He was eyeing the electric outlet the entire time.

3:00 PM

One……Two………..Three…………Three and a half…………………ZZAAPPP

The first assumption proved to be true. He was seated in his Eames chair. His right hand was on the knife, and his left hand was idly gripping the IPod in his pocket. What happened next was textbook Physics 101. When he stabbed the knife into the outlet, the current shot through his right arm, through his chest, down his left arm, through the IPod, and down through his left leg to the ground.

The second assumption was just plain crazy, even for House. He texted the same message to everyone in his phone's contact list (which amounted to about fifteen people). Wilson, Cameron, Chase, Cuddy and Foreman were so used to his crazy texts that they deleted it without giving it a second thought. Amber, Thirteen and Jody the former veterinarian got the text, but Jody and Thirteen were tied up trying to save Stark and couldn't get to their phones right away. Kutner's phone was dead and Taub was apparently occupied with something else and let House's text go to his mailbox without reading it. Evidently Cole and the other soon to be ex-candidates never got the message in the first place. House's message just said "My office, stat." Amber got the text message when Thirteen and Jody did. Jody had her hands on the thoracic needle inside Stark, and couldn't pick up her phone at all. Thirteen was busy helping Jody. Amber's hands were free. Amber saw the message but thought for just a minute too long that it might be one of House's tricks, and figured House could wait. Amber waited to see if Thirteen would respond. Once Thirteen's hands were free, she saw that nobody else in the room had yet responded to House's message. Thirteen grabbed her phone with a sigh of exasperation and called House back. All three had a vested interest in satisfying their boss, but it was only self-preservation. House knew they wanted their jobs. He doubted that they'd have any other reason to care what happened to him. The question, really, was did they want to impress him badly enough to make sure he stayed around? They could work for anyone. If Foreman had House's job, they'd be just as anxious to impress Foreman as they were to impress House. He'd pissed Amber off enough already, calling her a cut throat bitch. Thirteen didn't even want anyone to call her by her real name, preferring instead to be known by a number so she wouldn't develop any kind of attachment, in case she wasn't going to stick around. Jody pretty much knew she was the next one on the train out of there. Nobody who actually got and read the text message actually LIKED him. So it was very unlike House to just guess that one of them would get his message, and care enough about him to respond in time.

For all his brilliance, House hadn't counted on the possibility that his fellows would think he was "crying Wolf" or that they would be tied up in a medical procedure, unable to respond with the required haste.

House didn't realize how screwed he really was.

The third assumption was a tenuous one. His documented medical history filled several boxes in the medical records department at PPTH. His undocumented medical history included many childhood injuries that he had tried so hard to bury. Beginning with the heart attack he had after the initial surgery to restore circulation to his leg, the gunshot wounds that caused him to bleed out, the whole "migraine prevention testing" episode, the transfusion reaction he had after he volunteered to be transfused with possibly tainted blood, the long-term chronic use of a narcotic that could possibly have a side effect of liver damage, several failed detox programs, and chronic long-term alcohol consumption, his body had already suffered too many insults. The heart damage started with his first heart attack after the initial leg surgery. Dead or damaged liver tissue doesn't metabolize medications (that would be needed to save him) as well as healthy liver tissue. Dead heart muscle stays dead.

The last assumption, that there would be no consequences for him if they were able to save him, really wouldn't matter if the first few assumptions ended badly.

The first assumption, that sticking the knife in the outlet would result in electrocution, was true.

The second assumption, that someone would get his text message and respond in time to save him, was true, sort of. Thirteen was the first one to respond to his text message. She did call him back. House was unconscious on the floor and unable to respond to her call. When House didn't call her back, Thirteen figured whatever he wanted must not be that important, so she returned to the task at hand of helping Jody with Stark. Amber, who was still in Stark's room but not otherwise occupied, stomped her feet with anger since she obviously drew the short straw, and would have to go to House's office and subject herself to whatever oddball or vicious verbiage he was going to dish out. She walked to his office, but wasn't in any hurry to get there.

Amber dragged her feet down the hallway and into his office, expecting to be cut down or criticized for something or maybe even fired.

3:30 PM

Amber found him on the floor with his hand clenched around the knife that was still in the electric outlet. The smell of burned flesh was pervasive. He wasn't breathing. She froze in her steps at the sight before her. She didn't react for a few seconds. She couldn't touch him because the electric circuit was still live; his hand was still on the knife that was in the outlet. She'd have been electrocuted as well. She found his wooden cane and took a swing worthy of Mark McGwire to knock the knife out of the outlet. She hit the knife and his hand, successfully knocking the knife across the room. The circuit was broken and she could now safely work on him. What she SHOULD have done, as anyone trained in first aid is taught, was to call for help before starting CPR. She SHOULD have called a code first. Shoulda, coulda, woulda. Well, cut throat bitch wanted to look like a hero by saving her boss. The mistake she made by not calling the code team first wasn't intentional, but it was horrendous. She started CPR.

3:35 PM

Amber looked at the clock and realized she'd forgotten to call a code. She corrected her mistake.

House would pay dearly for his own crazy behavior, and even more dearly for the time lapse before the code team arrived.