Adagio e Dolce- Part 4
House sits back in his Eames chair, running his fingers over his cell phone. He can call Wilson again, but he knows his friend won't answer. It had been six days now and he hadn't answered yet.
On the other hand, Wilson is listening to his messages. Or at least deleting them. House has left enough messages to fill up a half a dozen inboxes, yet every time he dials there is room for more.
Or, as House's brain unwelcomingly ponders, has he really been leaving messages at all? Perhaps he has been dialing into thin air, his brain imagining this too? It is the only explanation that makes any sense at all.
House drops the phone into his lap and leans back, closing his eyes. Maybe it is better he just lets Wilson go. Maybe the fight in the apartment and his refusal to acknowledge Wilson as real, is his mind's way of playing this all out. Of acknowledging his real friend's death and finally moving on.
But for what purpose? How is he better off without Wilson than with? Hallucination or not, he needs Wilson in his life to make it worth living. Wilson was more than just a friend; he was his connection to humanity, something to hold onto in a universe that had continuously flung House about with the wild abandon of a wind storm. He was, to use a phrase that House normally detested, his soulmate.
And how exactly was he better off with half a soul?
House opens his eyes, picks up the phone, and hits redial. Five interminable rings later a recording of Wilson's voice – the real Wilson from months ago – picks up.
"Hello. You have reached the private voice mail of Dr. James Wilson. I am not available to take your call at the moment, but if you leave your name and number, I will return your call as soon as possible. If this is a medical emergency, please hang up and dial 911. Thank you."
Beep.
House leaves his 63rd message. "Stop being such a drama queen and get your ass back here. " He drops the phone back into his lap frustrated.
He is frustrated with Wilson to be sure, but also with himself. He wants Wilson back; he knows that for certain now. But he cannot make his mouth say the one thing he knows would bring Wilson running back into his proverbial arms – he cannot tell Wilson that he believes now that Wilson is real.
House cannot say it because he does not believe it. Saying it would be lying. He is not usually averse to lying of course; in fact he has always fancied himself an expert at it. But if Wilson is a hallucination of his own making and he lies to Wilson, then he is lying to himself. And he doesn't want to do that.
And if he actually ever did believe it, that would make the hallucination a delusion. And House knows that a delusional person would not be asking these questions of himself.
He realizes he is doing a bit of a semantics dance, but lines needed to be drawn somewhere, and apparently some part of his brain has drawn this one in indelible ink. If Wilson returns to him, it has to be because his brain will accept it as a hallucination, not as a delusion.
What he doesn't understand is why he cannot yet convince his brain to return Wilson to him on these terms.
Perhaps he could get Chase to help him trigger the hallucination using hypnosis? The Aussie was usually pretty compliant, and if he understands that House is aware of what is going on, there shouldn't be any ethical concerns.
And as for privacy concerns, House could probably convince Chase to keep his mouth shut with a promise to write an introduction for that journal article he is trying to get published.
That is the one good thing about Chase - though everyone has their price, Chase's is usually affordable. Sometimes he even accepts installment plans.
Later that afternoon Chase has House sitting on the couch in Wilson's office. At Chases' instruction, House is holding several of Wilson's knickknacks in his hands while focusing on the penlight Chase is waving back and forth across his field of vision.
After a few moments he hears Chase saying something to him but he is no longer concentrating on his voice, but rather on the visual that is forming before him. He feels the room slip away, and suddenly he is in the clinic with Wilson standing across the exam table from him.
House recognizes the scenario and knows it is a memory, not a hallucination.
There are two small Nerf guns on the table between them, bright yellow revolvers with chambers that hold a dozen orange neon foam bullets. House is explaining that whoever gets the most 'hits' on the other in the next hour wins.
Wilson nods sagely and picks up one of the guns as if to look more closely at it. Ten seconds later House has been struck twelve times in the face and he hasn't even picked up his own weapon yet. Wilson is grinning at him like a Cheshire cat.
The scene suddenly shifts and they are in Cuddy's office. She is scolding them for their poor behavior at the charity fund raiser the night before. Mostly she is scolding House, but Wilson had gone along with him so he is getting a dose of it too.
Wilson is standing there quietly, trying to look contrite, but any time Cuddy turns her back on them he launches quickly into a silent imitation of the Dean of Medicine. He scrunches up his face and waggles his finger along with rolling his hips.
House holds his breath because he knows what is coming. Cuddy stills as she catches Wilson's antics in the window's reflection. A second later Wilson realizes it too and freezes, horrified, his finger in midair. House can barely contain his laughter as Cuddy shoos him out of the office so she can speak to Wilson "alone for a moment".
Wilson's wild eyed look of terror recedes again as they materialize this time in his office. Wilson is coming to collect House to come along on his weekly visit to Danny at his New York City psychiatric residence. House has promised to go with Wilson this week and then maybe to catch some dinner afterward in Chinatown.
House shakes his head though and tells Wilson that he is too busy to go with him today. Wilson is suspicious because he knows House doesn't have a case, but House gleefully points out that Glenda Carmichael of Prescription Passion fame is in the hospital – apparently a botched boob job - and she might need a consult. Whether her doctor wants one or not.
Wilson laughs, wishes him luck with the 'consult', and heads out the office door. Watching him go in this memory, House feels even guiltier than he had the first time. But he doesn't stop Wilson, he can't, it's only a memory. Besides, if this memory continues Wilson will be back in the hospital in less than an hour anyway. This time riding in on an ambulance gurney.
"House!" the voice cuts through the memory and Chase is staring at him concerned.
House refocuses on Chase's face. "Why did you interrupt? It was going well."
"You were crying."
House wipes at his face and finds that it is indeed wet. "You tell anybody about this, and the introduction I write for your paper will include a paragraph on what Cameron told me you like to do with bananas."
He limps quickly out of the room leaving a speechless Chase behind.
It's now been eight days since House has seen Wilson and he is getting desperate. Whatever calm Wilson's presence had brought into his life with his ghostly appearances has gone now. House is back to not showering, not eating well, not sleeping through the night, and just generally not caring about anything. Except of course, Wilson.
It's like going through Wilson's death all over again.
His team must have been talking to Cuddy earlier in the week, because although he has not seen her in several days and she did not come by the hospital this morning before attending a Board of Governors meeting, she has had a file sent over to him from St. Sebastian's. The case is one that she is arranging to have transferred over to PPTH – a chronic eczema sufferer whose skin suddenly is coming off in sheets.
The case itself is not all that interesting. House figures there is probably an underlying disease or disorder that enough testing will eventually turn up - if they can keep the guy alive long enough; but the patient himself captures House's attention. He is a hockey player on the Philadelphia Flyers, House's favorite ice hockey team. Cuddy probably hoped it would sway House to accept the case, and it does. What she probably doesn't realize is that this player is Wilson's favorite.
House decides to take that as some sort of sign (yes, a sign. This, thinks House, is how badly addled his brain has become) and summons his team.
Three hours later the whiteboard is covered and House has taken to writing on the glass partition between his office and the conference room. The patient hasn't even arrived yet, so there have been no further tests run. Instead his team has gotten into a medical debate over the nature of disease versus disorder.
Normally he would shut them down and get their focus back onto the case at hand, but the level of argument is intriguing him (when did they get this not stupid?) and without a patient to actually do anything to, he can see no point to derailing this particular discussion.
So instead he acts as a referee, keeping the game moving along, noting the score in dry erase scribbles, and penalizing any moronic comments with a sarcastic retort and a loss of points off the running tallies. 'Disorder' is in the lead, but 'disease' is running close behind. He thinks Chase is dragging Thirteen's arguments down. If she could get him over to Foreman and Taub's side she might win it all on her own. He hadn't quite realized how bright she was. He was probably blinded by her looks and the ever present prospect that she might randomly start acting out a lesbian fantasy of his.
He shakes his head to get his focus back on task so he doesn't miss any side's points, just as Wilson barrels through the door.
Heads turn, though by the quizzical yet un-panicked looks on their faces he knows that the team must have seen the door swing, but do not see the frantic man now in front of them.
Wilson is sweating and out of breath. He has clearly run a great distance. He is trying to calm himself enough to speak. House waits patiently, caught between a rising panic of his own and the overwhelming relief that Wilson has returned. He doesn't have any leftover cognitive space to consider the implications of his team noticing the door. When Thirteen begins to speak, he silences her with a hand and the rest of the team sit back in their seats and wait.
"It's Cuddy, House. She passed out at Prospect House, she's at the Board luncheon over there. They think she is having an allergic reaction, but they're wrong. It's a stroke. They've called the EMTs and she'll be here any minute now. She'll need Activase as soon as she arrives."
"How do you know it's a stroke?" House asks.
"What's a stroke?" Foreman and Chase ask simultaneously.
Both Wilson and House ignore them. Wilson steps forward. "Never mind that now, I'll explain that later. I just know. Please House, if they treat her only with steroids she could die. She needs a t-PA."
House looks back and forth at his team and at Wilson. "Have any of you noticed anything wrong with Cuddy lately?"
They shake their head in unison.
"House, I'm telling you it's a stroke! I've…I've been staying at her place for over a week now. She was fine until this morning. She had a headache. She took some ibuprofen, but her arm was giving off tiny tremors. I noticed it in the car ride over. At some point during the luncheon she switched to using her right hand to eat, she must have been experiencing weakness on her left side. I was thinking of trying to contact you, but before I could do anything she passed out."
"Your phone run out of charge?" House asks with undisguised bitterness.
"I left it at Cuddy's place this morning. Your calls were starting to annoy me. But can we please, please do this later? Focus, House. This is Cuddy we are talking about. She'll be arriving any second."
House's team is beginning to murmur amongst themselves. He looks around the room trying to buy himself some time to think. If he brings his entire team down to the ER screaming for Activase and no Cuddy shows up, he'll be in Mayfield by morning. On the other hand, if Wilson is right about this…
"Come on, House. Now!" Wilson pleads, grabbing at his arm and pulling.
He tries to shakes him off but Wilson has a tight grip on his wrist. He's pulling him to the door and House finds himself grabbing for his cane as he's dragged into the hallway.
"Field trip!" he calls over his shoulder. His team all get to their feet and follow.
All six of them ride the elevator down to Emergency with Wilson still gripping House's wrist. He tries several times unsuccessfully to peel Wilson's fingers off. Apparently the younger man has no intention of allowing House to have a sudden change of mind.
When they finally barrel into the ER, House finds that they are indeed preparing for Cuddy's arrival.
He gives Wilson a long last look. "Are you certain you saw tremors, the muscle weakness?" he asks in the lowest whisper he can manage.
Wilson nods. "I saw them. Combined with the headache that means likely stroke. And there was nothing on that plate Cuddy was allergic to."
House nods. He's trained Wilson well.
With a loud voice that stops the senior on-call physician's preparations, House informs him that it is not an allergic reaction as he was told after all, but rather a stroke that Dr. Cuddy has suffered.
House's own team begins to protest in confusion, but he cuts them off with a glare. Foreman is the only one without enough survival instinct to continue to question House's statement, but House ignores him and focuses instead on the attending physician.
Luckily it is a fairly young doctor and House is easily able to cow him into submission with a few bits of information that Wilson feeds him. Neither this doctor nor his team has any way of knowing that House has not seen Cuddy at home, and they soon accept what he says.
The appropriate medicine is ordered up and prepared, and in House's hands just as the ambulance bearing Cuddy arrives at the bay.
Three days later Cuddy is weak, but the t-PA has prevented any permanent damage from taking hold and she is recovering quickly.
Cuddy is being treated strictly with blood thinners and beta blockers, and had she been any patient off the street she would have been sent home by now. But she is not any patient, she is the Dean of Medicine and the recipient of House's growing legendary diagnostic skills. And so she recovers in the Diagnostics department's patient room, because that's where House wants her to be, and no doctor on staff - not even Cuddy - has the nerve to object.
Cuddy is clearly grateful to him, but not grateful enough not to have pinned him to the metaphorical wall with questions he is reluctant to answer.
All the hospital is talking about is how House knew Cuddy was on her way to PPTH in an ambulance when his team claims he had been sequestered with them for hours. How House knew Cuddy was having a stroke, not an allergic reaction, when the Dean of Medicine herself did not realize it, nor had seen him in several days. That the door of the conference room had banged open by itself, and how House had started talking to someone that clearly wasn't there.
The current hospital betting pool is laying odds on whether House is psychic or insane, and the big odds are on insane.
Cuddy asks him straight out which one it is, and then waits patiently for an answer.
"If I tell you, you risk having to lie for me when they try to take my license away."
She sits up in her bed a little straighter and frowns. "What are you planning to do that someone will want to take your license away?"
House smirks. "I haven't decided yet. But you know it'll happen again eventually."
"I've lied for you before," she tells him pointedly.
"Once a perjurer, always a perjurer?' he asks with a grin.
She shrugs. "Something like that."
At that moment he remembers why she is the only person he has ever been able to successfully work for. She cares about the hospital, and that means caring about not being sued. But ultimately she cares about saving lives more than anything else. And if that means lying through her teeth, she'll do it.
And so in that second he makes his decision. He tells her about Wilson. Not everything, but enough.
Cuddy listens quietly, making no comments until he finishes.
Then she surprises him by ignoring his confession involving ghostly visits and Wilson, and instead points to his left wrist. He looks down to see the remaining bluish bruise from where Wilson had clamped his hand and pulled him like a vise to the emergency room.
"What happened to your arm?" she asks.
He tells her the truth. She nods and leans her head back into her pillow. "You'll have to thank him for me when you see him again. Do you know where he is?"
House is taken by surprise by her response. He shrugs in answer to her question. "Probably at your place." Then after a pause he continues "Do you believe he's real?"
She closes her eyes as if she has fallen asleep. After a moment she begins to speak, quietly telling him how, when she was very young, she was certain she could see her grandmother long after she had died; though no one would believe her. Over the years she assumed that it must have been her imagination, except that one night when Rachel was not much more than a baby, she heard her talking to someone from her crib. When she asked Rachel who she was speaking to, she used her grandmothers' name.
And then she tells House that this past week some very odd things had happened; a door would move or a book would suddenly fall off a table, and no one would be nearby. She had dreams as well that someone was watching over her, and had wondered if perhaps it was her grandmother again.
But the oddest happenings of all were at the luncheon. When she fell to the floor she was certain someone had caught her and eased her down even though no one was that close to her chair. And then for a few moments before the world went black, she thought she had heard Wilson's voice saying something about House.
"I guess this means we're both becoming delusional," House mumbles when she finally falls silent.
Cuddy opens her eyes and looks at him sharply. "House, what do you call someone who won't change their mind, even when they're presented with new information?"
At his questioning look Cuddy answers herself. "An idiot. And I never took you for an idiot before."
They both sit silently for a while, Cuddy watching her staff through the glass walls of the hospital room, while House stares at the bruise on his arm, turning his wrist this way and that. He rubs the thumb of his right hand over the print marks on his left arm. They don't match. The thumb print is larger and was made by a left hand clamped onto a left wrist.
After a bit, a smile begins to form on House's face and he levers himself up off the chair. He leans over Cuddy and kisses the top of her head before heading out the door to find Wilson.
Houses' quest begins in the hallway, where he pauses to text, "You exist", before heading to his office to wait.