The Wizard of PROZ
Chapter 3: Heartless
They had been walking for a while when Thirteen noticed that it had become considerably less-well-lit. They were under the cover of large, old trees. The sun filtered through them and it strongly reminded Thirteen of bad amateur porn lighting. "Is this the forest?" she said as they walked into a bright spot of light, but as soon as they stepped out of it it was almost too dark to see.
"Yeah, a bit creepy isn't it?"
"Eh, just weirdly lit," she said, shrugging nonchalantly.
Kutner glanced around the dim area and shrugged. "Not all that unusual for a forest," he said.
That may have been true, but walking through it reminded Thirteen of odd angles, fuzzy pictures, and fake, overly dramatized moaning. Then again, if House owned this forest, maybe that was what he was going for. Somehow. Thirteen didn't quite know if a person could control the lighting of a forest.
The forest darkened substantially as they came to a turn in the path, and saw a small, square cottage and sitting out in front of it was a man, seemingly stuck in place, with a newspaper obscuring his face. Not just any man, Thirteen noted, Foreman.
"Holy cr- so that's where he went!" Kutner exclaimed. He trotted over to the frozen Foreman and poked him with a stick.
"How do we fix him?" Thirteen asked. She thought that Foreman definitely fit the role of the Tinman, but didn't think there would be a conveniently placed oil can to save him.
Kutner stood quietly for a moment, deep in thought. Suddenly, his once somber expression lightened. "Oh, I know!" he exclaimed. "We have to get him a cup of coffee!"
Thirteen raised an eyebrow and looked around. "How're we supposed to make a cup of coffee?"
Kutner pointed at the cottage. "There might be a coffee maker in there." He walked quickly toward it and Thirteen followed. Sure enough, upon entering the cottage, they noticed a coffee maker, identical to the one in the diagnostics room, sitting in the kitchen. Upon further inspection, they also found a bag of coffee beans.
They quickly prepared some coffee, and Thirteen discovered a red coffee mug in a cabinet. They poured a cup and walked outside, setting it in front of Foreman. The mug just sitting there did nothing to help Foreman's situation, so Thirteen lifted the mug to his lips and let some of the coffee splash him in the face. A hand shot up and Foreman grabbed the mug and downed all of his coffee in two gulps. He stood up and stretched.
--
"I think she just said Foreman," Cuddy said suddenly as another string of incoherent mumblings escaped Thirteen's lips.
"If my deductions are correct, that makes you-" House began.
Foreman interrupted. "The Tinman, I know, haha," he said sarcastically, rolling his eyes and resuming reading his newspaper. "I was pretty sure that role would be yours, House."
"I'm obviously the Wizard," House said importantly. "Don't you know anything?"
Foreman laughed a little. "I know lots of things. The inner-workings of Thirteen is not one of those things," he said. He was very clearly joking.
"Obviously she likes the Wizard of Oz," Amber muttered.
"I wonder who you are in this twisted dream of hers." House turned towards Amber with a rather mischievous gleam in his eyes.
"Probably a Wicked Witch. Seeing as Cuddy is the one that got landed on, I must be the one with the flying monkeys and smoke screens," she deduced calmly.
Wilson just rolled his eyes at the two of them as House made some kind of cutting retort.
--
"Hi Kutner," Foreman said bluntly.
"Hey," Kutner said back. "What happened?"
Foreman rolled his eyes. "Cuddy froze me, I tried to get her thong for House." He stretched a bit more, his joints popping as he did so.
Thirteen raised an eyebrow and Kutner chuckled. "I thought you were Cuddy's little lapdog?"
"Well, I felt like a challenge," he said evasively. "I don't really care."
"Because you don't have a heart?" Thirteen suggested.
Foreman raised an eyebrow. "Something like that."
"Have you tried asking House to...I don't know, put you on a transplant list?"
Kutner and Foreman looked at each other, both slightly puzzled. But Foreman shrugged.
"Oh yeah, Foreman, this is Thirteen. She got the thong and we're delivering it to House," Kutner said. "So we can all share a bit of the glory."
Thirteen thought briefly about arguing that, saying that she should be getting all the 'glory', as she was the one who knocked Cuddy unconscious, but she decided it didn't really matter. It was a dream, anyway.
"What are we waiting for, then?" Foreman said. "Let's get going."
--
"Can we leave yet?" House was tapping his cane on the floor, on the side of his chair, on Wilson, and on Amber. He'd probably asked the question about five times in the past two seconds, but Cuddy's answer wasn't changing.
"You can leave when we're sure Dr Hadley is alright."
House mumbled something that nobody cared to catch, and continued on with his cane tapping rotation. Amber began tapping him back, and he gave up the rotation in favor of seeing who would back down from their 'tapping war' first.
Wilson sighed. "You two are ridiculous."
"Looks like it." The door once again opened, and in came Chase and Cameron, both carrying a few brown bags.
"Where's the party?" Chase asked, looking around. "We heard from a nurse you were all cooped up in here, what's going on?" he added, pointing to Thirteen.
House explained the situation in graphic detail (glorifying himself as the innocent victim of Cuddy's blame and making Kutner look intentionally horrible in the process) with much gesticulating, only pausing a few times to tap Amber, and Chase and Cameron nodded and 'uh-huh'd through the entire thing. They seemed to have translated the story into its unbiased form by the time he was done.
"So how long have you all been here?"
"Three weeks," House said sarcastically, jabbing Amber particularly hard.
"Me and Taub have been here about forty-five minutes," Foreman said helpfully. "House and Kutner have been in here all morning," he added.
"And she hasn't woken up?" Cameron inquired.
"She's done nothing but mumble in her sleep."
House gestured questioningly to the bags Chase and Cameron were holding, and they set them down on a bedside table. "We brought food, didn't know if you guys had lunch yet."
"I think I love you," House said when Chase handed him a sandwich. "Like, seriously. No offense, Wilson."
"None taken." Wilson was biting into his own sandwich. "I think Amber is going to be crushed, though, if you ruin the nice little threesome we've got going."
Amber nodded, a somber expression set on her face. "Devastated, actually. Please, don't do this to us."
"Wouldn't dream of it, darlin'."
"You three are hilarious," Chase deadpanned. He finished passing out the sandwiches to everyone, and then went to grab chairs for Cameron and himself. Kutner let out a barely audible groan when, once again, he was left the only one without a chair. "So... you're just watching her?"
"Among other things." House said, mouth full of sandwich. "Hey, this one has pickles." He grimaced and removed the top piece of bread from the sandwich. Once the pickles were removed, he reached over and placed them on top of Amber's sandwich. She just raised an eyebrow and continued eating.
"I can see what those nurses meant about a party," Cameron said.
"There's one going on, you just can't see it. Not in the Secret Friendship Club." House finished his food and handed Cameron his trash. She rolled her eyes and threw it away.
--
The three set back to walking down the White Linoleum Hallway, this time with no hand holding (Kutner tried, but Foreman was having none of it.) It was a lot more silent than when it had just been Thirteen and Kutner, as Foreman seemed intent on reading his newspaper, and kept telling the other two to stop distracting him.
"This is lame," Kutner said. "You shouldn't walk and read, Foreman, you'll run into-" There was a dull thunk. "A tree."
Foreman rubbed his face. "Point taken." He folded up the newspaper and tucked it under his arm. "You guys haven't met Amber or Cuddy recently have you? They've been quiet for a while...it's suspicious."
"No, we haven't, actually," Thirteen said.
"Oh, haven't you?" Another voice cut into their conversation, causing all three of them to look around. "Clearly, you spoke to soon." Thirteen knew it was Amber, that was one voice that was all too familiar, but she could not seem to locate the other woman. Kutner and Foreman seemed to be having just as much luck as she was in that area.
There was a rustling in the trees, and a steady stream of orange-ish smoke came into the clearing. Thirteen thought it a bit much, honestly. When the smoke cleared, Amber stood in its place, clad in a black mini-skirt, a red blouse, and a ridiculous, stereotypical witch hat.
--
All of the food had been eaten within half an hour, and Kutner had reduced himself to lying down on the floor at the foot of Thirteen's bed, because sitting was becoming too much trouble. He was starting to doze off finally when the end of House's cane jabbed him in the shoulder.
"Why'd you do that?" he groaned.
"No sleeping on the job," Cuddy said, raising an eyebrow.
Kutner sighed. This day was just getting longer and longer. "Why not? It's not as there's anything else productive to do."
"Well, it's your responsibility to be awake when she wakes up," Cuddy told him.
"I'm sure she'll be thrilled to see me, if she, you know, knows who I am at all," he said sarcastically, pushing himself back into a sitting position.
Cameron stood rather suddenly. "Well, hate to leave the party, but we have to get back to work. Have a good day everybody," she said, grabbing Chase's hand and pulling him from the room with her.
Amber looked at her watch and sighed. "I should be going in a little while myself, Wilson," she said looking at Wilson and House.
"Well our little group is just thinning out rather quickly," House said, trying to look disappointed. "There will be more room," he added as an afterthought.
"And a free chair!" Kutner said happily, crossing the room and sitting in Chase's now empty chair. "Finally."
--
"So I heard that you." She pointed to Thirteen. "Finally got Cuddy's thong. That's all well and good, of course, but I think you should give it back. You can't possibly know how to use it's power anyway." Amber laughed coldly.
"That doesn't mean I have to give it back to you," Thirteen said defiantly.
"You aren't from around here are you? We run the show. You do as we say."
Thirteen laughed. "Sorry, Amber, not today."
Amber laughed again, a deep laugh, one that reverberated through the cold air of the forest. Thirteen really wished she could glare at her subconscious for being so ridiculous and over-dramatic. "Oh, I think that is where you are wrong. I am going to get that thong back. You know how I know? Because I always get what I want." She paused for a minute. "Also, I kind of need an excuse to go bug House." She shrugged, then returned to her previous demeanor. "Hand it over, and I won't hurt you."
Thirteen muttered something about children's movies and violence, but nobody else seemed to catch it.
"Maybe you should hand it over," Kutner said thoughtfully. "It would be safer."
"No, Kutner. I told Cameron I'd get the thong to House. I'm not going to give up." Plus, she really, really really wanted to wake up from this dream, and she felt like her dream didn't want Amber or Cuddy to have the thong. She was going to play along as best she could, and she wouldn't give into Amber when she was awake, and there was no way in hell she'd give into her in her dream. She stood her ground, and made sure the thong stayed in her pocket.
Amber rolled her eyes. "House isn't going to actually reward you for giving him that, you know. He just wants to see if anybody can actually get it." Amber was probably right, that did seem like a very House thing to do, but Thirteen still did not want to give over the thong. She was going to get out of this godforsaken dream if it was the last thing she did.
The forest suddenly seemed to be getting a lot darker. Amber was nonchalantly applying new lipstick as it did so, and Thirteen rolled her eyes.
"I guess we'll just have to do this the hard way, then."
--
Amber pulled a compact out of her purse, and began touching up her make up. She patted down her hair and clothing, and grinned once she was satisfied.
"New lipstick?" House asked.
"Yes... that is a bit odd you noticed."
House grinned widely. "I notice everything."
"I'm sure you do." Amber stood up and kissed Wilson on the cheek. "I'll see you later."
Wilson kissed her back and said goodbye. House gave her a last poke of his cane, which was met with a thump on the back of the head.
"Bye, CB!" he yelled cheerfully as she exited the room. He lifted up his cane and make to poke Wilson with it. "Hey, Wilson-"
"No."
"You sure?"
"Yes. That's yours and Amber's game."
"Well, fine then." He poked him anyway, and Wilson just sighed.