Seeing is Believing (Part 3)

House, M.D.

by Cheers

Saturday, July 7th, 12:01 pm

The shouting erupted just as House closed the door to Exam Room 3. He took one step and pulled up short. Standing at the counter in front of the clinic pharmacy were two young men with fake beards, thick polar coats, and two very lethal looking handguns. They were demanding that everyone stay where they were and that the pharmacist hand over all the narcotics and amphetamines he had in stock.

By the redness of their eyes, the sunken eye sockets, the nervous shuffling from foot to foot both of the robbers were doing, House knew they were both coming down from something, probably amphetamines, and coming down hard. He sympathized. He also knew how dangerous that made the situation. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Melinda, the nurse at the nurse's desk, slowly reach for the phone.

"Don't!" House said firmly, looking at Melinda and trying to keep the volume throttled back. In the waiting room, one of the patients waiting to be seen flipped open their cellular phone and quietly hit the phone's camera record button.

The robber who was keeping his back to the pharmacy counter to cover the clinic crowd swung his gun around toward House instantly. "What's going on?" he said quickly.

The nurse halted and House raised his hands to shoulder height brandishing the chart he held in one hand and his dangling cane in the other. "Stay calm," House told the man. "I just didn't want anyone to do anything stupid."

As if on schedule, Cuddy stormed out of her office demanding, "What is going on out here?"

"Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!" House shouted. He was drowned out by the shouts from the man who was holding the gun on him just before swinging the muzzle of that gun toward Cuddy.

"Shut up and stay there!" he shouted at Lisa. "I'll kill you if you move."

"They're just about to leave," House told Cuddy, trying desperately to convey the need for her to do as she was told and silently stay put where she was.

Lisa looked directly into House's face and read the open fear there. If he was scared, the situation was as frightening as it looked.

Rocking forward and backward and wiping the sweat off his face on his coat sleeve, this robber gave a brief look behind him to his partner. "Hurry up, man!"

The other guy was shouting at the pharmacist to finish giving him the drugs.

To assert the authority that no one was disputing, the robber who was still pointing his gun at Cuddy shouted again, "I said no body move!"

Just a few seconds more, House thought. They'll have what they want and they'll run like jackrabbits from headlights on a dark night. That thought heralded the opening of the exam room door behind him. Of course, neither of the occupants inside could have any idea what was happening in the clinic at large, they couldn't hear the shouting.

There was only a single second, one heartbeat, to think about what to do. Time seemed to slow and House knew that this new turn of events was going to push a man already too edgy too far. The robber's eyes widened with fear as much as with anger and swung his gun back toward House. Spinning on his right foot and generating a shot of pure agony down his right leg, House shoved the woman and boy immerging from the exam room backward and pulled the door shut with a very loud slamming sound. His cane and the chart he was holding skidded across the floor as he fell forward into the now firmly closed door. He reached for his right thigh as he slid down the door to the floor onto his left shoulder.

I must have had too much momentum, House thought. No reason to fall into the closed door that way. He winced at the agony in his leg.

"Let's go!" and "Let's get out of here man!" was shouted simultaneously by the young men with the fake beards just after the gun went off. The robbers ran with drugs in hand. The security guard who had remained motionless the entire time, a tactic designed to keep the situation calm and keep himself alive to pull another shift, followed with his cell phone to his ear. As he moved to watch which way the two perpetrators ran he was heard to say, "Shots fired…."

Cuddy was ordering the nurses to keep everyone calm and pointing at the pharmacist ordered him to call 9-1-1. Then, she was at House's side trying to make sure he hadn't been shot in the leg he was holding in a death grip. The crowd from the clinic waiting room moved in behind her.

There was nothing like a cripple in agony to put on a really good show after a robbery, House thought dryly. A new wave of pain forced all other cynical rumination from his mind.

"House! Are you hurt?" Lisa was trying to see beyond his hands at the upper portion of his right leg.

House shook his head. It hurt too badly to say much. Funny, he thought, it's never hurt this bad just from twisting before. He must be holding his breath because his lungs began to feel like they were on fire. He forced himself to attempt a slow deep breath and relax. He wasn't successful.

"Let me have a look," Lisa said firmly, trying to move his hands away, straining to find out if there were any torn material or blood there. His grasp on the leg was too strong for her to move even a finger. She was about to order him to let go more firmly when the door behind House's back opened again and he fell backward into the exam room. A small boy and a woman stood at the opened door staring down at him. Lisa was startled by the look of horror on their faces until she realized they were both staring at House. Looking back down at him Lisa saw the red frothy sputum around his mouth and the small pool of blood that was slowly spreading out from behind House's right shoulder.

"Oh God," Cuddy whispered.

The color was being leeched from every object in his visual field. He was hypoxic because he had been holding his breath too long. House let go of his leg and found that the only way he could get any air into his lungs at all was to pant.

"He's been shot," someone behind Cuddy murmured. House wondered if that could be true. He hadn't felt anything but the pain in his leg. Had he been shot? It wouldn't be the first time and it wasn't like he couldn't remember what it felt like. There was the nagging feeling of slow suffocation, though. Dully, he began to think that maybe he had caught another bullet. Damn.

Lisa looked behind her toward the nurse's desk and shouted over the spectators, "Call a code!"

Turning back to House she found that he was looking at the little boy.

"House …. Greg, look at me," Lisa ordered.

House turned his gaze toward Cuddy. He tried to talk but his words would only come in staccato pieces between pants for breath. "If … I had … known … the cane …"

"Where's that cart?!" Lisa shouted, really scared now.

"… would be … su … such … a bullet … magnet …"

"House, shut up," Lisa said gently as she pulled at the buttons of his shirt to try and get a better look at his chest. Was he shot in the front or the back of the thorax?

"… I … I would have … let … you … take … my …"

"Be quiet, we're getting you to the ER. You're going to be just …" she didn't get a chance to finish before he did.

"… leg."

Lisa paused in shock as she met his eyes. She saw sincerity and acceptance there. She wasn't sure which frightened her the most.

"… fine," she finished slowly. As she did she watched as Greg House slipped into unconsciousness.