Chapter 3: Covered in Cowardice

"What?!"

House just looked at her, how she tried to make sense of his last two words, standing in the room, so unrelated to everything they had talked about in the last few minutes, the last few hours, after all went right to hell.

"I think the common answer to a question like that is yes, and not 'What?", House mocked, his gaze never leaving her.

She just continued holding the halfeaten slice of pizza in her hands, her mouth slightly agape, her brain obviously working overtime.

"A few hours ago your refused to talk to me, you were afraid of me, we didn't even have a chance to work this out and you're asking me…?"

"To marry me", he repeated.

At least she hadn't said no. Yet.

Instead she said: "Why?"

"There will be a real New Jersey law thing", he said, picking up his bottle of beer and taking a sip while watching her look at him like he had grown a second head.

"Honestly, this is no joke. I want the right order."

"Right order", she echoed.

"Affair, marriage, knock you up", he explained. He had no clue why recently this was so important to him (I know, hehe…). But since he just felt a little confused and not upset… well, go for it.

Her eyes were still narrow, the steep furrow present on her forehead.

"You're forgetting something."

"And that would be?"

"Uhm… until a few hours ago you refused to talk to me, were afraid of me and we haven't even really talked about me being an alien with the ability to blow earth into pieces."

He put the bottle back on the table.

"You've been this alien even before. Except for the little detail that I now know about your dirty little secret nothing's changed."

Her expression had not changed until now, she just was staring at him.

"You can't be serious."

"Why can't I? I'm sitting here, have only had four Vicodin…"

"Seven", she interrupted him, putting her halfeaten slice down on the plate. House made a face.

"Okay, seven Vicodin, so I'm totally conscious. And I'm asking you to become my wife before we create the next generation. All you have to do is say yes."

Her expression had changed from confused to unbelieving to serious now.

"This is happening too fast. You can't drop a bomb like that after just having found out…!"

This time it was him who furrowed his forehead in anger.

"Why? Why can't I do that?"

This wasn't going the way he had planned it.

Okay, actually he hadn't really planned on proposing anytime soon.

The words just came out of his mouth, without the urge to take them back.

And he had expected her to yell yes, throw herself into his arms and forget about the pizza, just like she had when he had asked her to move in with him.

She just looked at him with a glare similar to his.

"Because I truly believe that you mean it. And two weeks ago I would have…"

Stopping herself she looked at her hands before she got up.

"You can't ask me something like that right now, Greg!"

Grabbing his cane he stood up, too, staring down at her.

"Why?" he asked firmly. He wanted to get everything right, wanted to show her that he loved her for everything she was and now she was dumping him like that.

"Because you can't just shove away what happened like nothing happened. Not now. I killed people and you are acting like it doesn't matter anymore. Out of sight, out of mind. You should be afraid. You should stay away from me. Run away. Yell at me. Curiously ask me all sorts of things…"

"I asked you one thing and still don't have an answer", was his calm reply.

"Greg…"

"Yes or no?! How hard can that be!?!" he snapped, his cane banging on the coffeetable.

He expected a deer – in – the – headlights – gaze, but she just turned around, leaving the room and the building without even putting her shoes back on.

"Who's running now?" he asked into the empty room, before sitting down again, staring at their food. Suddenly not hungry anymore he got up again, slightly grimacing when he put his right foot on the floor, before heading towards the bedroom.


Sleep didn't come easily to him, still secretly listening for the door to his home to open, for her to enter their home again, climb into their bed and…

Uh… well, okay, for reconceiling sex they had to make up, but for that she had to be there, and he was seeing it as a good sign that he was looking forward to the reconceiling without being nervous about it.

At least he told himself that he had nothing to be nervous about.

In fact, nothing HAD changed except for him knowing now, hadn't it?

Seeing the numbers of his alarmclock jump in rather big intervalls at least he knew he got some sleep, dozing off now and then, yet still tossing and turning while trying to get comfortable.

Finally sighing at the futile attempt to find any position that could match him on his back, snoring softly while her head was on his shoulder he pushed his feet out onto the comforting coolness of the wooden floor in his bedroom, his fingers curling around the handle of his cane before starting for the kitchen to get a little midnight snack.

He almost didn't see the person sitting on on the leather couch, feet crossed, arms resting in the gap between them when he proceeded to get his growling stomach filled. It was when she turned her head at his his uneven gait that he noticed her and stopped.

"I didn't hear you come back", House said silently, watching her turning away from him.

"You were sleeping for a while. Does your leg hurt?"

His steel blue eyes tried to burn holes into the back of her head when he willed her to turn around to him again, but she just stared at the dark TV.

"Can't you tell?"

She didn't answer that, just stared on.

House ran a hand over his face.

"I can't believe we're arguing over a marriage proposal!"

At that he could see her shoulders tense.

"I'm not arguing. It's just too early… it's too much for me right now, can't you understand that?"

No, he couldn't. He'd always been impatient, wanting what he wanted when he wanted it.

"You could just say yes. It's not that much."

The woman in front of him sighed again.

"Greg. It's just not the right time now… I need to fix some things, even if you think that ignoring everything is the best solution."

He thumped his cane to the floor a few times before proceeding to head towards the kitchen

"Life's too short to wait until everything fits for us", he said over his shoulder, feeling her glance on his back while he reached for the cold remanents of their dinner in the fridge.

She was still on the spot on the couch, not having moved an inch while he had devoured the cold pizza, knowing that he was farer away from being able to sleep than before.

"Come to bed", he said, letting the issue drop for the moment.

Her black gaze caught his eyes, before she rose and followed him into the bedroom.

"I'll ask you again, you know?" he said before closing the door behind them.


It had not been like he had thought it would be.

Instead of going back to normal she had stayed at her side of the bed.

And he couldn't get himself to scoot over, no matter how often he told himself that nothing had changed.

He knew she was awake just like he was, and it would have been easy to start a conversation, to fix some things.

They were both cowards he decided, turning to his side while listening to her breath getting slower when dawn crept through the blinds of his windows and he knew that sleep was no more an option for him.

When he got out of bed he kept the tattletale rattle of his pills low, trying not to wake her. After all she deserved her sleep.

Keeping his eyes on her he even managed to dress himself silently before heading out, letting the cool air of the morning linger around him while he pulled on his leather jacket, his gloves and the helmet before starting his bike.


"House?"

Her surprised voice let the diagnostician turn around from his favourite nurse to his boss.

"Dr. Cuddy. What can I do for you so early in the morning? Male hooker kicked you out?"

The dean of PPTH rolled her eyes on her admittedly best doctor while letting her shoulders fall.

"Actually I just wanted to know what you are doing here at all… I told you to take as much time as you need to…"

"And what exactly would I do while this 'as much time as I need'? You know, 's not the first time I have to face down a gun", he growled, turning around again, to grab another file. The first cold this morning had turned out to be a guy cheating on his wife and now thinking he had the clap, while the other one was a twenty something student not knowing the guy she woke up with the day before – disguised as, guess what, a cold.

"House…"

There she was with this soft voice again, sending chills and whatever down his spine, making him clench even more.

"I'm okay… At least I think I will be", he said, disappearing into exam room one with his chart while Cuddy and nurse Darla exchanged confused looks.

"How can I help you this beautiful morning?" he asked the afro-american man inside the exam room, while never really looking at him, but staring at the chart. Please, not another…

"I told the nurse that I have a runny nose… but… I don't. I think, uh, I have… syphilis or… gonorrhea."

House just rolled his eyes, before turning to a glove dispenser.


She was actually surprised to find him gone when she woke up, and then frowned at the alarm clock, still showing numbers of the early morning, while trying to find out when exactly she had fallen asleep. Tiredly Hannah climbed out of their bed, slightly smiling at the heap of his T-shirt and pajama pants on the floor in front of their wardrobe, one door still open.

This was so normal…

This was so him.

This was more him than what she had heard the day before.

She just wasn't getting it.

Why all of a sudden would he want to marry her?

Especially now?

Especially when she had never pictured herself BEING married sometime…

Never picturing him the kind of guy who would want that.

Looking around in her empty bedroom she decided not to think in that way right now. It was hard enough to untangle the 'What if's' and 'If I only had's' from each other, so the synchronised screaming of 'Yes' and 'No' in her head were rather disturbing.

Changing into a business outfit she decided she just as well could go to work.

At least there would be some interesting, non-marriage-related stuff.


Allison Cameron showed out a mother with her kid who had the cold, gritting her teeth at the mother's question for antibiotics. Grabbing the next file, a blonde woman answered to the name she called out, following her into exam room three.

"I think I have an STD", the woman told her.


Robert Chase was helping out in NICU again. He had seen his female colleague walk in about the same time he came here, not able to sleep, after two weeks still too shaken with what had happened and knowing nothing else to do than go to work, make other people better. The baby in front of him was breathing just fine now, bandages covering a great part of the small body, the mother he didn't care where they had brought her to. Someone who was trying to kill her own baby by stuffing it in the washing machine should get as far away from him as possible right now.


Hannah McLachlan had tried to work in her lab and found out that her assistant had done everything she could even think of the current experiments, so she went down to the clinic, working off some of her hours. Just as House she not really was a friend of wiping runny noses, skipping some of the hours. Cuddy had looked at her as if it was Greg's bad influence, and didn't quite believe she was skipping them because the people… humans… sometimes annoyed her.

And right now she was really annoyed by the elderly lady in front of her, pointing downwards to her crotch.

"I think I have a…"


Lisa Cuddy had a watchful eye on her free clinic, where House already was doing way more than his two hours weekly, Allison Cameron was seeing one patient after the other and Dr. McLachlan had actually a higher rate at diagnosing and throwing them out than House.

She only had heard a small amount of what had happened in London, about all of them being held hostage in the hospital and the terrorists getting killed somehow.

Actually, she didn't know if she wanted to know more than that. All of them seemed to be quite collected, throwing themselves into work on the other hand meant that they weren't.

She still was thinking about convincing them to talk to somebody about their experiences when House burst out of his exam room, holding something at armlength away from his body with a really disgusted expression on his face.

She was on her feet when he dropped it on the nurse's counter, had almost reached him, when he actually started to adress the people that were still waiting in the waiting area. Briefly she wondered how there still could be that many at the rate her doctors were throwing them out.

"Who of you is here for a runny nose?!" the diagnostician snarled, and she had to fight the urge to roll her eyes on the fact that some people in fact raised their hands.

House leaned himself on his cane, growling at them.

"It's a cold, for heaven's sake! It'll get better! GO HOME!"

It never ceased to surprise her that people did what he said. They actually got up and headed for the exit.

House on the other hand wasn't done yet.

"Those of you who have stayed obviously don't have a cold. You will be assigned a doctor that isn't me, 'cause I am tired of wiping crotches!"

She hadn't even the chance to finish her tirade that started with "HOUSE!", when one of the patients suddenly jumped up, clutching his head in his hands and started to run circles around the nurse's station in agony, screaming "It hurts!" over and over, making the people look at him and doctor's stick their heads out of exam rooms.

Nurse Darla (a.k.a. House's favourite nurse) tried to catch him once and was forced to run another agony round behind him. Also Cuddy didn't have much luck with stopping him.

When she looked at House he just leaned against the counter, his gaze following the guy, suddenly stopping.

While Cuddy still watched the nurse chase the man, House watched Hannah, who leaned against the doorframe of examroom two. Then his glance followed her's.

Cameron stood in the door of exam room one, pale and wideeyed, still trying to catch her breath, and he didn't need to guess why she was shocked. Locking his eye's with Hannah again, she just gave him a shrug and a slightly tilted head that made him sigh.

When the guy started another lap, Cuddy stopped the nurse, before yelling over the noise the man was making.

"Call security!"

House just frowned, then headed towards the pharmacy. The pharmacist was also busy watching the circus right in front of him, but still smart enough to look at the diagnostician and think in his job lines.

"Should I get a sedative?"

"No, thanks, I'm good."

Frowning about the misplaced humor the pharmacist nevertheless turned around to get said thing, never seeing the diagnostician reach over the counter for another syringe.

By the time he was back with the sedative House had already limped back to the nurses station and tripped the still screaming man with his cane, only to toss it towards the redhead doctor who had decided to leave the doorframe she'd been leaning on with crossed arms. Jabbing his knee into the ribs of the man House pulled the cap of the syringe off, injecting the clear fluid into the man.

The screaming stopped almost immediately.

When Cuddy kneeled down to check on him though she could see his face was still contorted.

Before she could ask anything, he called out: "I need a team here!"

"What did you do, House?"

The pharmacist chose this moment to appear on their side.

"I have the sedative."

"A little late!" Cuddy growled at the man, while House just took the syringe, saying "Just in time."

"What the hell did you give him?" she now questioned him.

"Paralytic", was the monosyllabic (yeah, I know, it's 4 syllables) answer, while his eyes briefly met Hannah's dark glance.

"Why would you do that?" Cuddy asked, frowning at him.

"He is still in pain!"

"Somebody had to stop the screaming", House told her matter of factly, while watching his strangers mouth curl upwards slightly.

"He is still in pain!" Cuddy repeated, trying to find a reason for what he had done.

"Yeah. But quietly", the diagnostician answered, injecting the sedative just as the team with the stretcher arrived.

"Paralytic's stopped him breathing. He goes hypoxic, he's going to be quiet forever", he told them, before awkwardly getting up and limping out of their way.

Hannah stepped up to him, handing him his cane.

"You okay?" she silently asked, keeping her eyes on the emergency medics working on the guy.

House didn't make eye contact, too, but nodded a yes when Cuddy marched up to them, fuming.

"YOU GAVE…"

"I knocked him out before he could hurt anybody… sad thing is that in the pharmacy they only keep the paralytic within reach. Now, can I go, figure out what's wrong with him?" he interrupted her coolly, not even waiting before limping away, nodding towards Cameron to follow him, almost painfully aware of Hannah's presence next to him, heading towards the elevator.


"Okay. Pain in his right ear, psycotic behaviour and dizziness. Go ahead."

Chase and Cameron watched him for some seconds, thinking about the symptomes, while Hannah once again leaned on a doorframe, this time to his office, having her arms crossed before her chest.

"The nurse said he was holding his head, how do you know it was specifically his ear?" the australian suddenly wanted to know.

"Because he was dizzy. Means the problem was affecting his inner ear."

"He was running circles. Doesn't mean he's dizzy", Cameron threw in, still a bit pale. Who would have bet on something like that on her first day of work after…

"He wasn't running circles. He was running in oblongs. Looked like a four-year-old had drawn it", House interrupted her thoughts.

"Accoustic neuroma that started haemorrhage", Chase suggested.

"Explains the pain, vertigo, everything. Get an MRI."

When his two ducklings just looked at each other and then started to leave, he sighed.

"What else?"

"What else what? If it explains everything…? Cameron wanted to know, narrowing her eyes on her boss.

"Might not explain everything."

"What if he was psycotic first? Then self-mutilated, damaged the ear", Chase offered, getting an affirmative nod.

"Excellent. Need a complete psycatric work-up."

Once again the kids looked at each other, turning to leave when House adressed Cameron.

"Your turn."

She hestitated long enough to tell him something definitely wasn't right.

"I… uhm… wanted to say what Chase…"

"Well, then say something else."

"Uh…" Opening the file he could practically see her think and had to stop himself from grinning.

"He came to the clinic…"

"Goooood…"

Her eyes briefly met his, then she continued.

"So… there's a decent chance he's had a chronic illness first, especially given the increased heartrate."

While Chase and Hannah raised a skeptical eyebrow, House just made "Hmm."

"Lingering ear infection. Pressure builds up in his inner ear, bursts through the mastoid bone while he's waiting in the clinic."

"Oh, yes! Get a head CT, draw a blood culture, run a chem panel, and get a complete bood count!" House ordered. This time the ducklings waited if he wanted to hear something else.

"You waiting for better weather? Go on!" he scowled, stopping himself from grinning when they stormed out of his office while he turned around to finally sit down on his chair.

"You are a softie", a female voice behind him stated softly.

"Huh?"

Finally falling down on his chair he started to massage his thigh while Hannah closed up to him.

"You know you can't help Cameron face what she experienced by keeping her busy…"

"I'm not keeping her busy, she's trying to save the life…"

"Greg… every other time you would have pulled this stunt, waiting for them to be almost out of your office and then say 'Oh, and while you're at it, pour some alcohol into his ear and take out the cockroach.'"

"You know…" He stared at her briefly, then sighed.

"Of course you know. Question is: Why didn't you say something?"

Her black eyes rested on him longer than she actually wanted to.

"I've been in the clinic for three hours already", she then said, turning around and also leavning his office.