Thanks for the reviews. The start has been a bit slow, but I think I'm starting to hit my stride now. But updates take place during week-ends again.
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"I don't know," House repeated with a frown. "I just don't know if my life matters to me. And I don't even know how to find the answer either. Could be Wilson is right and I really am depressed."
"No, you're not depressed," Death shook her head wiping her tears away. "At least not in the clinical sense your friend means."
"You sound sure!" House was surprised.
"Sure I'm sure," Death shrugged. "Had Depression been anywhere near you he would have told me. Besides, as you can see he isn't paying any attention to you now either." Death nodded towards a group of – presumably – men in monkish robes (with hoods up) that House hadn't noticed before. They were working in the garden, tending to the flowers, mowing the grass in places where it needed mowing and doing other things that need to be done in a garden. Taking a better look House saw that the hands coming out of the wide sleeves were skeletal.
"Ok, so Depression is one of them," House felt a little overwhelmed. "Who are the rest of them?"
"Plague, Pestilence, War, Famine, Natural Catastrophe, Murder and Mayhem, you know, the usual suspects" Death listed.
"Sounds like a real cheerful crowd," House observed dryly.
"Dead funny," Death deadpanned eliciting an acknowledging smile from House.
"I have to admit that I would never have thought they would be the type to like gardening," House mused.
"They find it soothing," Death enlightened House gently. "Death, especially the way they bring it about, is never dignified. We see too much and we see it too clearly."
"I suppose that makes sense," House accepted.
"Mind you, just because Depression hasn't been around you don't mean you aren't depressed in another sense of the word," Death pointed out. "You're not suicidal, but you have lost your active will to live. I think we need to find out when and why before we can figure out a way to determine if you want to be or not to be."
"We?" House queried. "You're taking this rather personally, aren't you?"
"Yeah," Death almost blushed – House was sure that she would have had she had any blood in her veins (if she had veins). "I got involved. Shouldn't; I'm supposed to stay objective. That, I think, is why I don't know what happens after death. If I knew what, if anything, is waiting for the people I take it could affect my decisions those few times when I can choose to end or not to end a life. I'm sure you understand. When you're personally invested in the patient, it's difficult to make objective decisions about his care. And I'm personally invested in you. I've shadowed you too long; your life matters to me when all I should be interested in is your death – in due course, of course."
"And is now due course?" House wanted to know.
"Could be," Death acknowledged. "Doesn't have to be, depends on how things go and how willing you are to live."
"So if I say that I want to live you will let me?" House asked.
"If you say it with conviction," Death answered with a knowing, sad smile.
"And there lies the rub," House nodded. "I know I enjoyed life during those two months that I was pain-free after the Ketamine treatment. And I know that after Cuddy had perjured herself for me I didn't feel really happy about it. I was sorry she had had to do that, but the end result – though it was my get out of jail free -card – didn't really matter. I wasn't happy; I wasn't really looking forward to getting back to my life. I have had interesting cases that have alleviated the boredom from time to time; this process of finding my new fellows is keeping me relatively amused, but I don't know if that – and what other things I have going on in my life – are enough for me to really want to live."
"I did not see you after the treatment until it had started to wear off," Death ruminated. "One of the few periods in a long time when I wasn't shadowing you. But I saw a difference in you right away. It was very subtle but it was there. For some reason I assumed something else had happened than just the treatment wearing off. To me you seemed resigned to the return of the pain; not calmly resigned, you were definitely angry, but there was something else going on. You seemed reserved with your friend Wilson, in a way I hadn't seen before."
"He..." House hesitated, but decided that whatever he told Death would be totally confidential. "He refused to believe that the pain was returning when I told him so. He wouldn't prescribe me any Vicodin."
"You told him that the pain was returning?" Death wanted to be sure.
"Yes," House nodded. "He decided that I was trying to score Vicodin to get high."
"Hadn't you been without any for the whole time of your rehab?" Death asked.
"Yes," House was staring at the ground.
"And he still thought of you as an addict," Death couldn't keep her disappointment at Dr Wilson out of her voice. "I think that could be called irony."
"How so?" House was puzzled.
"I can't even remember how many times I have heard him tell you that you push and push at him," Death explained. "That you test him and try to get him to leave you so that you can say that sure, that's what everybody does. And then the one time you don't push, when you really turn to him needing a friend, he is the one that breaks it."
"He is still my friend," House pointed out.
"Yes, I know," Death agrees. "But you only trust him up to a point. And it's not the point it used to be before. Especially after his stunt with Tritter."
"There is only so much you can expect of friends," House tried to shrug. "Tritter was destroying his life, his practice. His patients were suffering."
"There are other doctors, he already referred his patient to them," Death dismissed. "His life wasn't that bad, it wasn't even as bad as yours has been from time to time when you were looking for work after having been fired from yet another hospital. Besides, it wasn't his decision not to lie anymore that was the problem there, his working with Tritter was. He didn't need to do it behind your back he could have told you that he didn't want to lie anymore. He could have gone to Dr Cuddy and tell her and let the hospital lawyers work the deal out with the DA. He didn't need to work with Tritter who was misusing his power as an officer of the law."
"They didn't think he was doing anything particularly wrong," House reminded Death. "Both Cuddy and Wilson were of the opinion that I had brought it on myself."
"In a way you had, of course," Death agreed. "The thermometer incident did make you the target, but you already spent a night in jail for it. That was definitely sufficient punishment given the offence. Or it would have been for any normal person. Anything after that was due to Tritter's obsessions. And Dr Cuddy and Wilson should have seen it. Ok, I admit that Dr Cuddy was understandably distracted at that time, but not all the time. She dropped the ball. As did Wilson, only Wilson didn't even have enough self-knowledge to know that he would regret what he did and would try to undo it."
"Wilson has never been the most self-aware person," House concurred. "Hence the three divorces."
"But his inability to see himself is not the only problem," Death pondered. "He cannot see you either. And that has caused problems between you; his need to try and change you to something he might be better able to understand."
"He thinks I need to learn humility," House shrugged.
"And you haven't told him that it has been tried before," Death responded. "And now that he has lost your trust you never will tell him, will you?"
"Not if I die now, I won't," House pointed out.
"You won't even if you don't die," Death stated.
"Highly unlikely," House agreed.
"But even with all that in mind, you see him as your friend?" Death checked.
"Yes. Could be because I don't have that many to choose from," House observed self-deprecatingly.
"You know, I think you could be surprised if you took a better look around you some time," Death told him.
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Cuddy and Wilson were standing in the OR observation gallery with Henry. Nobody was talking. They were all totally focused on Chase who was working on House. Finally Cuddy broke.
"He always looks so indestructible," Cuddy swallowed to clear her throat from the tears. "He walks the halls like he owns the hospital – hell, like he owns the World – but doesn't give a damn and you just think that he will always be there. Like even a bomb couldn't remove him. His personality is so strong that you forget that he is a human being and exactly as frail as all human beings are."
"It's hardly surprising that we forget that he isn't indestructible when he believes that he is," Wilson ground out almost bitterly. He was deathly worried about his friend.
"Really?" Henry questioned. "I haven't noticed that he thinks of himself as particularly indestructible."
"For crying out loud!" Wilson turned to Henry and nearly yelled. "In all likelihood he is under the knife now because he stuck a knife into a socket to try and nearly kill himself! Any normal human being would have considered the possibility that he could miss with that nearly and actually kill himself."
"He did call for help before he did it so I think we can assume that he considered it," Henry pointed out calmly.
"If he had really considered it he wouldn't have done it!" Wilson insisted.
"We are still talking about House?" Cuddy turned to the guys. "You know that when his curiosity is whetted nothing will deter him."
"Besides, his method of choice was not that certain anyway," Henry reminded them. "Most people who do something like that end up with just the burned hand. One could almost say he was lucky – at least as far as his experiment went – that it worked the way it did."
"Lucky or not, the fact remains that he risked his life and he didn't care!" Wilson insisted.
"Yes, that is the fact," Henry agreed. "He risked his life and he didn't care. Not that he thought himself indestructible; that he didn't care. That is the point."
"What do you mean?" Cuddy was all ears though Wilson was shaking his head with exasperation.
"This morning, when he came in, I had a chance to talk with him for a moment," Henry revealed turning to look at House again. "I told him that though I didn't think he had been trying to kill himself, I thought he didn't have any particular will to live either. He agreed."
"He told you that he didn't care if he lived or died?" Cuddy wanted to be clear.
"Not in those words, but yes, that is pretty much what he said," Henry nodded.
"Now will you believe me that he is depressed!" Wilson turned to Cuddy.
"Maybe he is, maybe he isn't," Cuddy wasn't going to agree with anything without some further information – preferably directly from House. "But once he is out of danger he is so going to see Dr Stone."
"That may take longer than we anticipated," Henry observed suddenly. "Dr Chase seems to have found something."
Cuddy and Wilson turned to look down again and saw that Chase had stopped doing – whatever it was he had been doing. He looked up.
"Dr Wilson," Chase talked to the mike. "I think I need you down here. We found something."
