Chapter Two: Gregory House (Part One)
(Author's Note: In Season #, Episode 21, "Family" you can see Hector chew up a book belonging to House on the rug. It is "Kim" by Rudyard Kipling.)
"How...what makes you say House is autistic?" Asked Dr. Cuddy. She knew where this was going, she's been at the same place. The same, EXACT place as Cameron was, right now.
"Because he has autistic-savant abilities. The emotional detachment, and the mildness of his psychological impairments indicate Asperger's. It fits." It was a relief for Allison Cameron to talk to someone about her pet obsession. He was a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. Most of her life, men would approach her, and spend hours talking to her about themselves at the drop of a hat, trying to stumble over in their inane non-stop monologue the magic phrases that would intrigue her enough to let them inside her pants. God, they were SO boring! With House, every single word about himself had to be pried loose from between his clenched teeth, every scrap of information had to be fought for. You know some of it is a game, part of his image, but so much of it is not. Even if she did somehow manage to fully understand him, Cameron knew that he would always continue to dangerously intrigue her. So she had studied him, like a specimen under a microscope. To detach her emotions during the course of her investigations. He had taught her to do that.
"So you've noticed? He seems to have not just one, or several splinter skills. House has all of them." It was a relief for Lisa Cuddy to finally find someone to talk about her pet obsession. He was a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. Lisa Cuddy knew House better than anyone else, probably even including his parents and James Wilson. She had known him for over two decades, she was and still is his oldest friend. Even when he didn't want her friendship. Especially then. He was the most infuriating, fascinating and intriguing man she'd ever known. He made every other man she'd met pale in comparison. They were two dimensional, monochromatic and lackluster next to him. She knew more about House's troubled past than anyone, because she had been right there. She knew much of his hidden history, yet they failed to explain so much of the inner man, of House. But she would never give up trying to understand him. He had taught her to do that.
"His memory is...prodigious. He seems to have read and know every single medical journal printed since he became a doctor. And while his depth of knowledge for Immunology, Neurology and Intensive Care medicine isn't as complete as ours, since those are not his specialties, his breadth of knowledge about esoteric diseases, and exotic presentations in those three fields is...literally breathtaking. He seems to have remembered everything he's ever studied or read..." Cameron began.
"Yeah, totally..." Cuddy stopped as Cameron gave an involuntary snort.
"Sorry, Dr. Cuddy, a few weeks ago, I was channel surfing, when I had a headache, and I caught "Clueless", and I was just thinking what our colleagues would say if we talked, you know, oh my gawd, like totally brainless ditzes from San Fernando Valley."
"They'd call the fourth floor, and sit on us until the psych orderlies arrive." Cuddy grinned at the image, especially imagining House's expression. "Anyway, not only does he have that almost eidetic memory usually attributed to savant-ism, but he has the mental calculator ability as well..." began Cuddy.
"Yes! Remember when Sebastian Charles was here? He did some mental subtraction and multiplication with the number of minutes in a day and year without pausing or even thinking about it. I was very impressed."
"Um...Cameron, you always had to use a calculator, right? And you didn't score so well in math?"
"Actually, you're right. I only passed Calculus because of tutoring help after classes."
"House doing simple stuff like that is...childs play for him. I've seen him multiply, divide, and prime factorize very large numbers, and derive the square root of numbers with over six digits in his head." Now Cameron was really impressed. Math had always been difficult for her, along with the hard sciences. Her determination and constant study had overcame these obstacles in her path to become a doctor, but she had always had a hidden spot of envy for those for whom it came naturally. Allison Cameron took a moment to appreciate where she was. Chatting with her former boss, as if they'd been friends for years. She had always been...jealous of Dr. Lisa Cuddy, jealous of her strength of will in dealing with running a major metropolitan hospital, and dealing (though not always successfully) with a major pain in the butt, one Gregory House, MD. She had been jealous of her spectacular figure, and her attractive yet strong face. And, she admitted to her inner self, House paid attention to her. Granted, it was the kind of attention that would get anyone else fired for sexual harassment, but attention none the less. There was none of that maddening ambiguity that she had with House, that sense of unresolved feelings and emotions that fueled her own speculation and frustrations. But it didn't matter anymore, she was with Chase now, and she was leaving. She was so tired...she was so tired that despite their relationship, she still thought of Robert by his last name. Stop that! Robert, Robert, Robert!
"You know, Dr. Cuddy, I read somewhere that autism, is like the universe is screaming at you. That in some forms of autism, the person is so overwhelmed with the flood of information he or she is unable to filter out the important from the unimportant. The brain becomes overloaded, and in a reverse form of sensory deprivation, they're unable to function, because they can't ignore unimportant data. But what if the person is a genius? If House is autistic, with that intellect of his, what if he's USING everything he sees, hears, smells and tastes? This explains his incredible perception, his ability to simply glance at a patient, and see all the clues that reveal the hidden details that you or I would miss. This is why I believe House is an autistic savant genius." Funny to think that the trait she shared with Dr. Cuddy was their mutual fascination with the most perplexing man alive. He was the most infuriating, fascinating and intriguing man she'd ever known. He made every other man she'd met pale in comparison. They were two dimensional, monochromatic and lackluster next to him.
"Or he's not autistic at all." replied Dr. Cuddy. Cameron's theory was rather good, actually. It paralleled her own reasoning, years ago. Cameron had always seemed to be a bit slow to her eyes, someone not as smart as Foreman. But then again, she had thought that Chase was an idiot...
"Huh?" replied Cameron intelligently.
"I've been in the same place as you, Cameron. I thought for years that House is autistic, it was such a convenient way to simply label him, and dismiss his...anti-social traits as autism, something he can't help. But really, Cameron, that is such a cop out. He's been cruel to you for three years! What does House have to do to you make you hate him? Yeah, sure, 'House is autistic, and he has Asperger's, he can't help being cruel and mean.' That allows you to forgive the times he's treated you with contempt, with condescension and deliberately went out of his way to hurt you. You're demeaning yourself, Cameron. You deserve his respect, you deserve his confidence, and even if he doesn't care for you as a person, you deserve civility as a colleague." Cuddy stopped, and took a deep breath. She had once told Wilson that House wasn't autistic, he was a jerk. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. She had been there, she had seen the fun loving "Greggy" die and become the aching void of "House." She had been there when the light in his eyes had died, with his sister's death.
"Cameron, stop making excuses for him. Sometimes Occam's Razor is right. House is a jerk. He is brilliant, and yes, I completely agree he's a genius. Geniuses have incredible memory for facts, and some of them are mental calculators. But House is the way he is because...he wants to be." Cuddy said the last part sadly.
"But Dr. Cuddy, what about all the things he can do? Those things aren't...skills anyone can acquire, even geniuses!" Cameron didn't want to let go of her pet theory. That would mean that House had been cruel to her deliberately all these years, and she couldn't even admit to herself how devastated that would leave her. Cuddy had said almost the exact same thing House had said after Foreman had stuck her with a tainted needle. God, she was pathetic. House was right to reject her. Why else would House push her away?
"I saw House pick up tournament level speed chess in three weeks. Back in Michigan, when he was still an intern, he was known as a big track and fields man. So some of the chess club members made snide comments, about the jock med student. You know, nerd competitiveness. So House taught himself speed chess, and proceeded to soundly thrash all of them over the space of an afternoon." Cameron couldn't help smiling at Cuddy's use of the phrase "nerd competitiveness." She had always been athletic in high school, even cheerleading, doing all the popular in-crowd things. But in college, in the pre-med track, she had her first taste in "nerd competitiveness" where your brain power counted, rather than how fast you could run the hundred. Intellect was the game, and being someone who had to work hard to make good grades, she was rather low on the totem pole. Even if all the guys wanted to date her. She had wondered about House, based on his sports background AND his intellect. He probably rubbed his ability in both fields in everyone's faces just to tick them off.
"And as for the perception...do you know what his favorite fiction book is? 'Kim' by Rudyard Kipling. Have you read it?" Cameron shook her head.
"Kim is a story of the orphaned son of a soldier in the Irish regiment in India. It is really a story about a boy who lived in both the east and west growing up in India under the Raj, and the young Kim's greatest wish was...to become a spy. His life ambition was to work in Intelligence for the British Empire. For the fun and the glory of becoming a secret agent." Cameron shook her head, thinking about why House would like the story of a boy who wanted to become a spy, for...the sheer romance of it? It sounded like him.
Cuddy was thinking that exact same thing. "Anyway, one of Kim's mentors, a man called Lurgen Sahib taught him a game called 'The Play of the Jewels.' In it, Lurgen would hold up a closed tray full of random gems, and open the tray for a few seconds, then Kim would be required to list in detail everything he had seen, type of gem, carat weight, flaws, colors and anything else of interest. After House and I had started hanging out, back when I was still a junior med student and he was a senior intern, the first time I invited him over to my dorm room, he showed me that someone can pick this talent up. He bet me a hundred that I could open my door for five seconds, and he could describe my room in complete detail. Naturally I took him up in that bet. He got it perfect, down to Mr. Snuffleupagus, my stuffed animal with the bandaged paw. He explained later that after his Oma, dutch grandmother had read 'Kim' to him the first time when he was eight, he made her help him learn and master this game. She would gather knickknacks and curios all over her house, and they used an old chest with a lid. Apparently by the time he was ten or so, he had mastered it." A suspicious twitch appeared at the corner of Dr. Cuddy's lips, as if she was trying to suppress a grin at the memory. Apparently, the House she had known back in Michigan was...kinder? Or simply more human? Then, Cameron had a sudden idea...
"Or House broke into your room while you were at class, and set you up." said Cameron with a grin of her own.
"Damn! That never occurred to me before!" exclaimed Cuddy.
"Well, really, either possibility could be true, considering that this is House. Um...Dr. Cuddy, how did you meet him?" asked Cameron, greatly daring. There had long been rumors that House and Cuddy had been dating back when they were younger.
"Much more subtle this time, Dr. Cameron. Well, I met him first when he played a trick on me. As the senior intern for the legendary Dr. Mira Saicoctu, I was in a group of med students he was showing around..."
TBC...
