all was right with the world
Foreman came back sporting a file that, upon having its highlights read to House against his will, turned out to be interesting. The patient came in for the dry skin and stayed because of the swollen neck lymph nodes and jaundice that did not, in fact, add up to Lymphoma. It was good. House had been spending so much time working out and going for pointless flings that he forgot just how much better it was to let the thoughts in his mind run around as fast as they could, finding facts in unexpected clues.
All was right with the world.
His underlings were still, admittedly, holding a grudge against him for his less than heart-felt return, but then, when were they not angry at him? It was how these things went.
House tried to focus on the patient's concrete, undeniable physical symptoms, like the nymph nodes. He made his team run a Rubella virus antibody blood test. Cameron, though, went behind his back and chatted up the patient. Turned out he'd had all sorts of other problems over the past few months, like continuous weight gain despite fortunes on nutritionists.
"And he's been depressed." Cameron said, as though this would be key.
House rolled his eyes. "Along with sixteen percent of the human race. Give him a hug and wait for the test results."
"You're just going to ignore it?" Cameron asked.
"Weight gain and depression? The first explains the latter, or the last explains the first, either way, they don't mean a thing. Go ask anyone on this floor and they'll tell us that they've been blue in the past week and gained weight in the past month."
"It could be important," Foreman said.
"Yes, along with the fact that he hasn't had sex in the past two months. Either find me relevant information or shut up."
Crossing his arms, Foreman asked, "Wanna make a bet?"
Bets in the workplace always perked House up. "You in the mood to lose money?"
"If the depression and weight gain end up being relevant, you'll do me any one favor I ask."
"Woah, kinky, Foreman! I like it. And if—I by 'if' mean 'when'-- I'm win, you get three of my weeks in the clinic."
"One week."
"Two."
Foreman nodded. "Deal."
House added the symptoms to the board, but in smaller letters, because that's the kind of attention they deserved.
The Rubella tests turned out negative, which meant that they were back to square one and House was racking up all the possibilities that would conveniently leave out depression. He was on the verge of rattling off another set of possible diseases when Chase said, almost innocently but the devil must have suggesting it to him, "shouldn't we run a blood TSH?"
A test for the thyroid hormone levels. Of course.
House, at that moment, wished that he could have found an excuse, any excuse, to shoot down Chase's idea and come up with new adjectives for his insurmountable idiocy. Instead, he had to tell him to go get the TSH test, and, of course, from there, it was only a matter of narrowing down the possibilities to Hashimoto's Thyroidotis.
"What was that about the depression being irrelevant?" Foreman gloated.
House glowered.
turn my back for one second
It's not that he'd been wrong. And he hadn't been wrong. He'd guessed Hashimoto's Thyroidotis before anyone else thought of it, so he'd still been right.
It was that Cameron had been the one to get the necessary information; it was that Chase had said the right thing at the right time; and it was that Foreman had won the bet.
It was, in other words, the fact that altogether they'd ganged up against him and beat him into a bloodless pulp. It was what he'd trained them to do. But now he sulked at how much they'd grown—when he wasn't even around.
Foreman did not immediately ask for the favor. At first not having to admit to losing the bet was a relief, but House found himself growing apprehensive and then angry. When he started to write lists speculating on what the favor was, House had had enough. "If you think," he growled to Foreman, "that I'll ever be in the 'right' mood, you're mistaken."
"But you'll still do it, won't you."
"I'm not a man of my word," House threatened. "I am renowned for my vileness and untrustworthiness. So, no, I'll probably laugh in your face. I won't paint your house and I won't have dinner with you and I won't give you a week off from work."
"Dinner? Seriously?" Foreman scoffed. "It is work-related, though. You can look at is as a challenge; you like those."
"Is some relative of yours dying of an unknown disease? I can do that. You didn't even need to blackmail me for that."
"Not quite," Foreman said, slowly. "I need you to write me a reference letter."
"More grants? You've become quite the money-grabbing hoarder in my absence."
"No, for a job. I'm leaving when my fellowship expires."
He'd forgotten about the fellowships expiring. He'd half-forgotten that any of his employees would have to leave, though over the years he'd fantasized often enough about not having to see them again. But in that scenario, he was the one doing the leaving. They were the ones that stayed behind and, belatedly realizing his worth. "Think anyone would want to hire you?"
"A deal is a deal, House." Foreman patted him on the shoulder, condescendingly, and House thought fleetingly of biting that hand. "It's got to be a good reference, and it's got to be done by the end of next week."
"Okay, yeah, but I forget." House leaned over and, in a stage whisper, asked, "How many 'g's does 'nigger' have, or is it spelled with a 'j'? I always forget."
"By the end of next week, House," Foreman said breezily.
give me a moment
Wilson found House leaning over the balcony, half-empty glass in one hand and a near-empty bottle of wine on the ground. House didn't turn around; he kept on staring out at the world before them.
Carefully, as if to not trigger a bomb, Wilson joined him at the balcony. "Bad week?"
"Don't want to talk about it," House muttered.
he said, "2 for 1"
"Oh, Foreman, good that you're here," House said, looking up from the computer, "I was just writing about how much I don't like you. It's a list. 'How do I hate Foreman? Let me count the ways.'"
Cameron shot a glance of concern at Foreman, but he didn't seem to take House's words to heart. "You can mention your jealousy at my superior skills and your resentment that I'm abandoning you."
House peered at the blank word document on his screen, studying it with mock seriousness. "Let's see. 'If Foreman's arrogance doesn't set you running, then his incompetence will.'"
Foreman just rolled his eyes. "You can't put it off forever, so you might as well get it over it. You've got a deadline, after all." He went to the other half of the department.
Cameron, though, hung around, her hands shoved into her lab coat pockets. She seemed to hesitate but then finally asked, "Why are you being such a pain about this? It's not as if this wasn't going to happen."
"Of course it was going to happen," House said. "Just like the Roman Empire was going to fall and the pyramids are going to turn to dust."
"You're.. comparing Foreman to the Romans and the pyramids?"
"Only in that none of them are going to last. And so what. What a loss." House stood up and turned off the monitor screen. "I just don't want to write this stupid thing."
"Let him write the reference," Cameron suggested, "and then sign it."
"…Did you have a personality transplant while I was gone?" House eyed her carefully.. "Was it the Manipulative Wench prototype? It's popular these days. I hear that Cuddy had one put in years ago."
"Hah hah. But why not? It'll make him happy, it'll make you happy. Everyone is happy. Where's the wrong in that?"
"You know, it's occurring to me that you've been awfully supportive of Foreman lately. Almost buddy-buddy. You're not sleeping with him, are you?"
"What? No!" She exclaimed. "Of all ideas."
"No? Good, then. Because then that'd be the whole department minus me, and I'd start feeling left out. But the supporting thing is still… suspect." Cameron was going to argue against this, but House continued before she could say anything. "You're hoping I'll do the same for you, aren't you. You want to write, 'Cameron is the most beeeyoootiful girl I ever met, and her brains are even prettier!,' and you want me to put my name on it."
She was stunned. "How—who told you?"
"My fairy godmother. But even if she hadn't dropped by and passed on the news, I'd have gotten four from two and two. Foreman's isn't the only contract about to expire." He waited, if not anxiously, then impatiently for her reply.
"I was—I was thinking about it," she admitted.
"And there it is! That's two out of three. You feed 'em, you clothe 'em, you even learn 'em, but when it's all done and said, all they want is to get out of the nest at break-neck speed."
"I hadn't made my mind up yet," Cameron said, taking a step towards him. "I was still thinking—if there was a reason for me to stay—" She stepped forward again, but any further progress was blocked by the desk in between them.
He turned away. "Write whatever you want," he said gruffly, "and I'll sign it."
Part VIII
rose-tinged
House doesn't understand; he was the one that got shot. Those bullets imbedded themselves in him. He was the one who had the eye-opening hallucination and got the body-restoring treatment.
Why was everyone else doing all the changing?
"It's because they're young," House confided to Wilson before halving the contents of his glass. "Kids hate stability. Always looking to shake things up."
"Last I knew, you're a bit of a shaker, yourself," Wilson commented. "And that the 'kids' wished you'd be more stable."
"Eh," House said, "but growth and change and mutation is what they do. Until they reach a certain age like, say, ours. Then everyone plateaus and stays the same for the rest of their lives."
"Speak for yourself," Wilson objected.
"Oh, so, what, you've got plans?" House made a wide arc with his hand, suggesting big and important things. "Big career goals? Find yourself Mrs. Wilson the Fourth? Or maybe you're going to adopt a cancerous African baby dying of tuberculosis." Wilson didn't reply, though he did stare into his glass contemplatively. "Not likely, right? You're just going to stay here in small-town, frozen, constant Princeton-Plainsboro. Chasing after me, fluffing up the pillows of doomed kids, and signing your name a thousand times per day."
Wilson nearly chugged his wine.
"Cuddy too," House went on, introspectively, "she's stuck too. Stuck being single and the mommy of a hospital. You see? You get to a certain age, and what you have is all that you can expect for the rest of your life."
"You," said Wilson, and House thought he might be starting to slur. Wilson always had been a light-weight drinker. "You sure know how to add that special rose-tinge."
"Welcome to my world," House said gloomily.
i'm sure that if I took even one sniff, that would bore me terrifically too
Loud and up-close, the music was all for him, and he let himself loose in it. He traveled through drum beats and unpredictable trumpet improvisations, cruising along the notes and tempo. He wasn't himself; he was just a listener. No identity, no worries.
A hand placed itself on his shoulder.
He jumped, a little, but he kept on listening, eyes closed.
The hand left his shoulder and for a moment he knew peace once more—until that same hand ripped the headphones from off his head and House was finally forced to return to the world at large.
Cuddy held the headphones. House tried to grab them back and return to his musical cocoon, but Cuddy wouldn't comply. She sat on the couch opposite him. She was the epitome of motherliness and concern, eyes full of 'oh, poor baby.' House couldn't stand the look.
"We need to talk," she said gently.
"You can talk all you like, but don't mind me, I'll sit here, pretend to listen, and nod occasionally." House pointed at the headphones. "Good old Louis was about to get into his solo, so if you don't mind—"
"You need to start looking at applications--"
"No, I don't. Chase can carry on the grunt work by himself and if he gets lonely, we'll get him life-sized inflatable dolls. Do they sell black inflatable dolls? It'll be just as good as the original. Maybe better."
"And when Chase leaves?" Cuddy asked. House just snorted his disdain at the thought.
"We're done here, aren't we." House managed to grab the headphones again. He put them on, settled back and closed himself off again.
the more things change
After his initial bout of sullenness, House returned to his usual attitude of hostility, treating his departing employees in much the same way that he had during their past two years of work. Yet there was something colder about him, more distant.
He drove them as hard as ever in running tests and investigations, but he no longer demanded improved input from them. He took to writing the symptoms and explanations on pieces of paper instead of running the diagnosis process on the whiteboard, doing all the thinking himself. When Cameron and Foreman objected, he told them to get their own piece of paper if they wanted to do it that badly.
On their last day in the Princeton-Plainsboro Hospital, Cameron and Foreman discovered that House hadn't come in.
There had been discussions as to whether or not Chase would be dangerously overworked on his own. And, as it turned out, he was. But House refused to hire anyone else, saying, with a streak of sarcasm that was obvious to all, that he didn't need anyone besides his star employee Chase.
So while Chase grew progressively harried and exhausted, House slowly returned to a more acceptable state of personality as he grew accustomed to the changes in his staff.
in a forest pitch dark, glowed the tiniest spark
House had only been running a routine check. It shouldn't have turned up anything memorable or even interesting.
It'd been nearing midnight and he was waiting for Chase to finish running the latest battery of tests-- which House fully intended to make him re-do them all over again. House needed something to pass the time and digging through database of recent consults made in the hospital seemed was better than Sunday night television.
He'd hoped to find juicy gossip, like a department head with a STD, so that he'd have something to giggle over with Wilson later.
He'd been thrilled to find Cuddy on the database. Even if it turned up nothing worse than a stuffed nose, he'd have what to tease her with. So he did a bit of investigative work to find out what she had, exactly.
What he found elicited a "Jesus Christ" out of him.