Greg woke up slowly, the pain that radiated across his back pulling him up from a sound sleep. He felt the soft bed beneath him, the sheet over him, the warmth of this bedroom. So different from how he would normally be treated after a whipping. Normally he was shackled. spreadeagled, to a bed in the slave ward, face down, naked. No pain relief for two days. By the end of the two days the agony of his leg was usually drowning out the pain from the whip marks. Now a dose of, he presumes, morphine, is taking the edge off both sources of pain.
He laid still as he gathered his strength and thought about the confusing events of the day. He didn't even remember coming here to this apartment. One moment he was lying in the slave ward, in agony, the next he was here with Wilson. He must have been drugged for the journey.
He didn't know what sort of game Cuddy and Wilson were playing. Wilson he could understand, maybe the guy got his kicks from pretending that he wasn't a slave for a while, whatever, but Cuddy...she was normally all business around him. Since his early days at PPTH she'd always discouraged any personal contact, anything that wasn't purely business. Greg was well aware of the rumours around that she had bought him as a 'personal slave' - those had mostly faded now, if it were true she'd have long since tagged him, but Cuddy was still careful of her reputation. Cuddy wouldn't willingly get involved in kinky sex games with Wilson and her hospital's valuable slave.
He looked cautiously around the room but he seemed to be alone, although he could hear faint noises coming from the rest of the house. Carefully he eased himself up to a sitting position on the edge of the bed. The pain slammed into him again but he ignored it. He might not have long and he wanted to see if there was anything he could use in this room. A slave should never miss an opportunity to pick up whatever they could find. He knew the slaves in the hospital basement had a network that pilfered small objects from anywhere in the hospital they had access to, but he stayed out of that as much as he could. He mostly took things he could use himself.
It was a man's bedroom, that much he could tell, there was no sign of a feminine presence at all. Clothes and books were strewn untidily around the room, the sign of someone who had plentiful possessions. Greg had only a handful, a few trinkets carefully hidden away over the years. Everything else of his had been taken when he was enslaved.
He reached over and examined the bedside table, quietly easing the drawer of the table open.
There were two vials of Vicodin inside, both open. He took one and hid it underneath the pillow on the bed, if Wilson let him have clothes at some stage he'd try and pick the bottle up and hide it, Wilson had never had him searched when he was returned to the hospital. He rooted through the rest of the drawer and found nothing of interest until he turned over a creased photo.
It was a photo of him, as a child, with his Mom. His Dad had been in the photo he remembered, but he'd carefully cut the photo in half to erase his presence when he'd left home. He'd had this photo once, but he hadn't seen it in years, not since it was no doubt seized alone with the rest of his possessions when he was enslaved. How had Wilson gotten hold of it and planted it here? And why?
He looked through the drawer again and found another photo, this one also crumpled.
Stacy and himself, smiling at the camera.
He wasn't wearing a collar.
Cuddy had returned to the hospital with the sample of Greg's blood and Wilson had spent the last hour cleaning the apartment. The state of the place was a clear sign of House's deterioration since he'd sent Stacy away a few weeks ago. The apartment wasn't usually spotless but neither did it usually have the signs of neglect it had now. Wilson used the cleaning to distract himself from the problem of the man in House's bedroom. He didn't want to go in there, didn't want to see this stranger with his friend's face, see that collar around his neck, the tag hanging from it like a dog tag. His name on the tag.
Cuddy's theory was outrageous, this was real life not some stupid science fiction show on television. Sure, Wilson had seen that Star Trek episode where they ended up in a parallel dimension where everyone was evil - everybody had. But 'Greg' wasn't from a different reality where there were still slaves, there had to be another explanation.
He froze as he heard a noise from the bedroom, just a small scuffle of feet on the floor. He started to go towards the bedroom and then froze. He didn't know this man, this strange man he was in this apartment with, alone. Granted the man was naked and in pain but this whole situation was weird and Wilson felt his heart hammering.
His indecision was rendered moot by Greg coming out of the bedroom, still naked except for that damned collar around his neck. He had a photo clutched in one hand.
"Greg, go back to the bedroom." Wilson ordered, trying to sound authoritative. If Greg was a slave then surely he would obey?
"I want to know what's going on. This photo of Stacy, I'm not wearing my collar. And the photo of my mom and dad..."
"Go back to the bedroom and I'll explain."
"No."
Wilson was surprised. If Greg was indeed a slave, and Wilson was beginning to accept that he was, shouldn't he be obedient? He rubbed the back of his neck, stalling for time and then looked closer at Greg. Although he was trying to present an air of bravado Wilson could see that he was shaking with a fine tremor and when Wilson stepped towards him he flinched. He was afraid.
"Look, I'll try and explain, but will you go and put some clothes on at least?" Wilson said, trying for an easy and relaxed manner to put the other man at ease. "It's a bit difficult trying to talk to you while you're naked."
Greg looked down at himself and shrugged.
"You usually like it when I'm naked. So you can salivate all over my scar."
"I'm not...I'm not like that," Wilson said weakly. "I don't want to hurt you, I just want you to put some clothes on. Please? Take what you want from the wardrobe, and then why don't you come and have something to eat and drink. We can talk."
Greg looked at him again and slowly nodded. He turned and went back into the bedroom without another word. At the door he paused and then shut it behind him.
Wilson sighed, debating whether to go and open the door so he could keep an eye on Greg but decided to let it go. He went back to the kitchen to get a quick meal together.
Wilson was just finishing plating up some eggs on toast - there wasn't much to work with in House's kitchen - when Greg emerged. He was wearing a pair of House's jeans and one of his long loose shirts. He would probably have been better off without a shirt on considering the state of his back but Wilson couldn't blame him for wanting to cover up. He had on a pair of House's Nikes and had found a cane.
He gave Greg a plate and pointed him to the living room, House not having anything as sophisticated as a kitchen table to eat at. He followed behind him but nearly ran into Greg when he stopped abruptly at the entrance to the living room.
Wilson moved around him and followed Greg's gaze, he was staring straight at House's baby grand piano.
"House bought that a few years ago, when he was living with Stacy. Nobody else is allowed to touch it."
"Of course not. I was the same with mine, before...I haven't played a piano in years." Wilson had the feeling that if it wasn't for the plate in one hand and the cane in the other Greg would be straight over there. House was absolutely passionate about his music, and it seemed Greg was the same - his eyes roved over the guitars displayed on the walls, fingers twitching by his side. Then he looked around at the bookcases crammed with House's eclectic library, wandering over to examine the spines of a few.
"Recognise anything?"
"Yes. I had some of these once."
"Not any more?"
"Slaves don't own anything." Greg said flatly, his expression closed off again.
Wilson sighed, there was so much ground to cover, with this stranger who looked so much like his friend.
"Sit down and eat while it's hot," he urged and Greg took a seat on the couch, perched uneasily on the edge, not allowing his back to rest against it. He flinched slightly when Wilson sat down beside him. Wilson wished that they were settling down for an evening of watching mindless television rather than dealing with this, whatever this was.
He quickly explained Cuddy's theory of parallel universes to Greg, expecting scepticism, disbelief and protest, but instead Greg just nodded as he ate his food.
"Okay."
"That's all you have to say - okay?"
"You say that there aren't slaves here, and that I'm not a slave?"
"That's right, we don't keep slaves, that's barbaric! Greg House is not a slave."
"Then, fine. Great. It's not like I'm going to argue with you. I'm not a masochist, however much you would like to be one."
"Idon't want you to be a..." Wilson sighed, "Never mind. Do you believe me?"
"It's a theory," Greg shrugged, "doesn't matter if I believe it or not. It will do until something better comes along. So what happens now?"
Wilson rubbed the back of his neck, truthfully he had no idea what he should do. Even if Cuddy's theory was right and Greg was from a parallel universe it wasn't like he knew how to return him to where he belonged.
"Well, Cuddy is running your blood at the hospital, seeing if there are any answers there."
"Do I... do I work at the hospital? Princeton-Plainsboro?" Greg stopped eating and looking at him intensely.
"Yes, you're head of the Diagnostic Department there. Well, really youare the department, you have three fellows who work for you. House has three fellows I mean. I guess, well, I guess you're not a Department head are you? What do you do? Besides being a …" Wilson trailed off, not wanting to say the word.
"I have three fellows, but I'm not so much the Head of the department, but I belong to the Department, a bit like the photocopier."
Wilson thought Greg was deliberately trying to shock him, but he seemed serious. Wilson was appalled at the idea that other people thought of him, that he thought of himself as merely another piece of hospital equipment. He was also impressed that, despite this, despite the collar around his neck, Greg was still doing the same work as he did as a free man in this universe. How much harder must it be for him to mentor three fellows, and cure his patients with the liability of also being considered a slave, a piece of property?
"Cuddy set it up so that I have firing and hiring privileges other my fellows, and they're not allowed to screw me." Greg continued. "Mostly I don't get punished for their or my medical mistakes either."
Wilson blinked at the mention of 'punishment' even though he shouldn't have been surprised, there were the lash marks on Greg's back after all, and the scars of many previous ones. The implication that people who weren't Greg's fellows were allowed to 'screw him' sent a chill up his spine. The sight of that damned tag hanging from Greg's collar, with his name on it, did that mean...
He swallowed heavily and walled that off in his mind, going back to a somewhat safer subject.
"Cuddy hired you?"
"Cuddy boughtme," Greg corrected him, "on behalf of the hospital. Doing that and setting up diagnostics was her big career move, she went from being a junior administrator to Dean of Medicine in a couple of years."
"And you've been there ever since?"
"Yes," was all that Greg said but Wilson saw the look in his eyes, those years since hadn't been easy for Greg, not in any way.
They were interrupted by a quick knock on the door and Wilson got up to let Cuddy in. She sat down in a chair, looking over at Greg.
"How are you doing, Greg?"
Greg shrugged. "Okay."
"Has Wilson explained our theory?"
"Yep."
Cuddy looked at Wilson with puzzlement and he shrugged.
"Greg's fine with whatever we come up with, as long as it means he isn't a slave here, I think."
"Well, his DNA checks out - he's Greg House, also the tox screen shows no painkillers of any sort, no Vicodin, no alcohol, no LSD."
That news, more than anything else that had occurred, convinced Wilson. House had spent all day with a severe migraine - his blood would be saturated with drugs of all kinds - and there wasn't a moment of any day when he didn't have plenty of Vicodin in his bloodstream.
"So, if we're going with the alternative universe theory, we need to figure out a way to return Greg to where he belongs and get our House back," Wilson mused aloud. There was a clatter as Greg dropped his plate and stood up, grabbing his cane. "Greg, what...where do you think you're going?"
"Wilson, think about what you just said. Greg doesn't want to go back - do you, Greg? Can you blame him? You've seen the marks on him, the damage they've done to him."
"But we need to get House back!" Wilson protested."Look, Greg, sit down. I don't know how to reverse whatever this is, and nobody is going to make you do what you don't want to do."
"If I go back I'm due another fifty lashes." Greg said flatly, still holding his cane in front of him.
Wilson felt sick as he thought about it, another fifty lashes on top of the raw bleeding cuts he'd seen tonight. What sort of people were their counterparts that they would do this? What had Greg done to deserve that sort of sentence?
"That's not going to happen," he told Greg. "Even if we did know how to send you back we wouldn't, not to face that, not to be a slave. Now please, sit down."
"While I was at the hospital I picked up a portable cutter, I can get that collar off you." Cuddy offered, her focus darting between Wilson and Greg. She held up the small gadget and House's eyes widened.
"If we take that off, and he goes back..." Wilson protested, "he could get into more trouble. Greg, maybe you should wait..."
Greg looked at him and then back at the cutter. He sank to his knees in the space next to the coffee table. "Take it off," he asked, "please."
"What will happen if you, I don't know, if you wake up back in your universe and you don't have your collar on?"
Greg wasn't looking at either of them, just kneeling, hands behind his back, head bowed, knees slightly apart. Something in Wilson twitched at the sight of someone who looked so like his larger-than-life friend kneeling submissively in front of him.
"Sixteen years." Greg said quietly, still looking at the floor.
"What? Sixteen years what?"
"I've been wearing this collar for sixteen years. Please...please..if you can...please t..t..take it off."
"You heard the man Wilson, it's coming off. Or don't you want me to? Do you want him to have your collar on him?"
"No! I just don't want him to get hurt, when he goes back."
"I don't care, just take it off," Greg said again, glancing up at them, "please."
Cuddy knelt down besides Greg, threading a protective cloth between his skin and the collar, there wasn't much room but she didn't want to burn his flesh accidentally.
"You need to hold very still Greg, while I'm doing this."
Cuddy turned on the cutter and slowly began to cut through the steel collar. She worked very carefully, almost holding her breath, Wilson watched her intently while Greg held almost inhumanly still - something that Wilson thought that House would be incapable of doing.
Finally Cuddy had cut through the collar and she gently removed the pieces - handing them off to Wilson.
"Okay, it's off Greg," she said softly. "It's gone."
He put his head up, slowly moving it from side to side.
"Can I...do you have a mirror?" he asked. Cuddy fished in her bag and produced one and he stared at himself. His fingers moved up to feel the naked flesh of his throat. There were callouses all around the area, red patches, and where it wasn't red the skin was very pale. Greg turned to her and she could see a fine sheen of moisture in his eyes.
"Thank you."
Cuddy swallowed the lump in her own throat.
"You're welcome Greg, and I'm sorry you ever had to wear that," she pointed at the remnants of the collar in Wilson's hands.
Wilson turned the collar over, feeling the four rings set in its cold surface. From one of them the shiny tag still dangled. The tag with his name on it. No, he reminded himself, not my name, someone who looks like me but isn't. Someone who thinks it's okay to keep slaves, and put tags on them like they are household pets. Nauseated, he dropped the collar to the floor.
Greg stood up, seeming to stand taller with the collar off. He reached for his cane.
"Okay, have a nice life - I'm off."
tbc
