House limped into the hospital a little earlier than usual but even so Cuddy was waiting for him. Or maybe she just happened to be in the lobby but to House it seemed like she had been waiting for him.
"I haven't seen your psych evaluation yet," Cuddy told him as soon as he got close enough. "You are not cleared to work until I do, so unless you are on your way to the third floor you can turn right back and go home."
"Mom!" House whined. "You know I wasn't trying to kill myself. I don't need a psych evaluation!"
"I say you do," Cuddy insisted. "I don't care that you didn't try to kill yourself, you still endangered your life on a senseless experiment. An experiment that endangered the life or your patient as well! I'm still trying to decide if your unavailability caused his death or not, but even if it didn't your behaviour was still insane. You are on sick leave until Dr Stone gives you the all clear."
"Stone!" House exclaimed disgusted. "I wasn't raped! Unless you consider it rape having everybody put their collective noses into my business."
"Dr Stone does not specialise only on rape victims," Cuddy informed him firmly. "And, her specialities apart, she was the only one who agreed to treat a suicidal moron!"
"Fine," House snapped. "I'll think about it. Now can I go?"
"If you are on your way to your office, no, you can't," Cuddy said. "What part of sick leave didn't you get? Go home or go see Stone."
"I need to see my team and besides, wouldn't you rather I sit quietly in my office in a hospital than alone at home where nobody can save me if I get it into my head to try another insane experiment." House snarked.
"Fine, go, stay in your office," Cuddy gave in. "But you are still on sick leave. Unpaid sick leave until you have seen Stone."
"Cuddy!" House complained.
"Non-negotiable," Cuddy stated. "You are already causing nightmares to our lawyers; this time you may get away with it, but the next patient who sues you will have way too much ammunition against you unless you have had some treatment after your incident."
"Treatment?" House stared at Cuddy. "What is this? First you say I'm on sick leave, then it's unpaid sick leave. Then you say I have to see Dr Stone and now it's treatment I need. What next?"
"I don't really expect you to agree to being treated," Cuddy sighed. "But I need paperwork that says you have had some counselling. Mind you, Stone will be the one who decides when – and if – you can come back to work, so if she insists on treatment, then treatment you will have."
"You are evil!" House accused.
"I believe I told you once before that that is how I compensate for being weak and soft," Cuddy told him as she turned to go back into her office.
---------------------------
House made his way into the room where his ten candidates were waiting for him. The room was silent and the mood was morose. As House walked in all eyes fastened on him with varying questions in them, House ignored every one.
"Dr Cuddy, I'm sure you all remember her?" House raised his eyebrows at the group and received a few affirmative murmurs. "Good. Anyway, she tells me that I'm not allowed to be a doctor again until I have been declared sane by a shrink. Since that is not going to happen any time soon, and as that gives me an excellent reason for not doing my clinic hours you are to divide yourselves into two groups. Four of you will report to the clinic and five of you will go to the ER and report to Dr Cameron. Scooter, you're with me."
"Why isn't Henry coming to the clinic or the ER with us," Amber asked immediately.
"Cause now that I have plenty of time on my hands I'm going to download all the internet porn that has been cumulating in my absence and I think Scooter is old enough to handle the pictures of naked females without getting all huffy about it," House informed her.
"I might get a heart attack with all the excitement though," Henry observed dryly.
"Have no fear," House reassured him. "I'm with you."
"The insane doctor?" Henry remarked. "I feel so much better already."
"I wouldn't get huffy either," Amber insisted.
"Well, if you prefer sitting in suicide watch over doing clinic duty or ER, then fine. You stay and Scooter will go," House invited.
"Suicide watch?" Amber was suddenly almost choking.
"Duh!" House scorned. "I'm the insane doctor! Did you think I would be allowed to be on my own right after I tried to kill myself?"
"But you weren't trying to kill yourself," Amber reminded him. "You paged me to make sure you wouldn't die."
"Yeah, but Dr Cuddy isn't feeling particularly trusting these days," House explained. "So which is it? Suicide duty or clinic?"
"Clinic," Amber said without even a pause for thought.
"Smart choice," House approved as he turned to go. Henry followed him without any further protest from the stunned group.
As they reached House's office Henry turned to House: "Has Dr Cuddy really ordered suicide watch on you?"
"No," House said. "But it sounded good and I was sure that that was the one thing nobody would want to volunteer for."
"Apparently you got that right," Henry nodded. "So, you're really not suicidal?"
"No," House stated as he sat behind his desk and gestured for Henry to seat himself. "Mind you, Dr Cuddy is of the opinion that this latest stunt of mine was insane, but she does not think I'm suicidal."
"So why did you do it?" Henry asked a little apprehensively. He wasn't at all sure that House would take kindly to prying questions.
"To satisfy my curiosity," House sighed. He didn't really want to discuss it but his dream still disturbed him and he figured Henry would serve as a sounding board for some of his thoughts. He wasn't so sure he wanted to have this conversation with Wilson. "I had a man in the clinic who had been dead for 97 seconds and he tried to get back to that state because he thought they were the best 97 seconds of his life. I have always been of the opinion that the visions you may get during that time are just hallucinations, but he didn't think so. And he was rather convincing."
"I was under the impression that you have been clinically dead before?" Henry wondered.
"Once, yes," House admitted. "The last time I was near death I didn't actually flat line. Some ten years ago or so, when I had the infarction in my thigh I did flat line for about a minute and I had hallucinations. But I had all sorts of drugs in my system then. I just needed to find out if the experience was different this way."
"I thought you were an atheist," Henry mused.
"Maybe an atheistic agnostic is a better description," House pondered. "I see no reason to believe in God, one or many, but I also know that I can be wrong. And no matter how sensible a theory may be empirical evidence will refute it. Besides, life after death and God are two separate issues. However, be that as may, I didn't get any empirical evidence to refute the theory."
"You do know that the Apostle's Creed does not say anything about souls?" Henry pointed out. "If you take it literally it means that you don't exist in any form or idea after death until the resurrection of your body."
"Are you trying to convert me?" House wanted to know.
"No," Henry denied. "I have no problem with your beliefs, whatever they may be. I was just pointing out an interesting fact about a belief system."
"Are you a believer?" House queried.
"As a matter of fact, yes I am," Henry stated calmly. "It just feels right. However, I have no problem whatsoever with those who don't believe. I have my convictions; I don't need to discuss them. You have yours, and I'm sure you have your reasons for them. You leave me alone, I'll leave you alone."
"Fair enough I suppose," House conceded. "As I said I have found no proof to change my mind."
"I understand curiosity," Henry conceded. "But I don't quite understand how your curiosity could bring you to performing such a dangerous experiment. You must know that no matter how carefully you prepared for it, there was an actual chance that you might die. I quite believe that you weren't trying to kill yourself, but even so... It seems as if don't really care if you live either."
"Interesting." House stated.
"What is?" Henry wondered.
"I had a weird dream where someone stated that very idea: that I have no life-wish," House explained.
"Really?" Henry was a little surprised. "Who was it?"
"Doña Sebastiana," House said.
"La Santísima Muerte?" Henry exclaimed.
"You know her?" House asked.
"My mother was Mexican," Henry revealed. "I grew up with stories about Doña Sebastiana. Why would you dream about her? I would have thought that the Grim Reaper would have been more likely to appear in your dreams if you were going to dream about Death."
"Beats me," House agreed. "But there she was. And a more nosy entitiy I have yet to encounter."
"Interesting," Henry said.
"That's what I said," House agreed.
"Hmm," Henry mused. "I don't suppose you think you might actually need that psych evaluation Dr Cuddy wants?"
"Well, I need it if I want to work," House pointed out. "But I think I can wait a day or two and just take it easy. As soon as I get that evaluation Cuddy is going to send me to the clinic, so I'm in no hurry."
"Ok, I suppose you know what you're doing," Henry didn't sound totally convinced, though. "But there is something else we need to talk about."
"What?" House asked.
"Me," Henry stated. "The patient died. If we get sued for malpractice it will not look good for the hospital that one of the doctors treating the patient isn't actually a doctor. I think I need to resign."
"You haven't treated anyone," House pointed out. "And as soon as I found out about your lack of credentials I changed your job description. You are hired as my assistant and one of your duties is to observe the candidates for the fellowships. As you didn't actually do anything to the patient you will not be implicated in any liabilites. Anyone can take part in a think tank. The hospital is ok as far as you're concerned."
"I'm glad to hear that," Henry accepted. "But this has rather brought it home to me that when I decided to do this I didn't really think this through."
"Are you resigning?" House asked.
"I'm considering it," Henry admitted. "You cannot hire me anyway and I don't want anyone to suffer because of my dream."
"I can hire you as my assistant," House stated. "I already have. The only question is do I want to keep you around. Of course, if you want to leave you are free to do so, but I'm not going to fire you. At least not yet."
"Thank you," Henry nodded. "That means a lot to me. But I do need to think this through more thoroughly than I originally did."
"You do what you must," House agreed. "But in the mean while you can go and sort my mail and get my dry cleaning."
"You really are something else, Dr House," Henry smiled.
"Hey, you didn't think nearly dying was going to change my personality?" House snorted.
"No, that thought never crossed my mind," Henry said. "I don't think anything would do that."
"Ok then, now leave me alone to have a nap," House instructed Henry as he got up to move to his recliner. "My sleep last night wasn't quite as restful as it could have been."