Chapter 6

"Waiting … Waiting … Waiting"

When the elevator stopped on the ground floor, Gregory House exploded out of it faster than was safe for him. Shouldering his way through the double doors across the corridor, he narrowly avoided mowing down an older couple on their way out of one of the waiting rooms. He grunted an apology and struggled on, ignoring everything and everyone in his path.

By the time he made it to the correct emergency cubicle and crashed literally into the edge of the observation window, his leg had begun to shake, and the agony clawed upward to his hip and all the way down to his foot. Around him in the busy hallway, shift personnel stared at his wild look with varying degrees of curiosity, pity and hostility. No one, however, bothered to approach him to inquire whether he was all right. His very body language kept them all at bay. He clenched his fists and bit down on his lip and turned a blind eye. By the time Cuddy caught up with him, he had rearranged his face into its normal scowl.

"That was a foolish thing to do, Dr. House."

He did not look at her. "Don't start with me!" He snarled without taking his eyes off the severely injured, naked and inert body on the gurney beyond the window. Wilson's legs had been straightened somewhat, but they were purple with bruising, red-tinged with open wounds, and dye-spotted from antiseptic solution. His left calf and thigh were crimson-spotted with second and third degree burns from being lodged against the hot engine block.

His left foot, no longer a foot at all, but something entirely different. Both legs were lumped with bone fractures pressing against whatever skin remained that was still unbroken. The swelling was off-putting, and even the physician part of Gregory House had to clench both eyes closed against the images. This was personal. This was his friend.

Cuddy did not challenge her colleague. They were both experiencing the nightmare and shock of initial denial, looking upon sweet-tempered James Wilson, horribly broken and perhaps about to lose his battle for life. House's preoccupation from now on would not be compromised. She backed off after one last admonition. "Do not, under any circumstances, go in there, Dr. House!" She warned. "You are too close to the situation."

"Don't preach to me, Dr. Cuddy!" He could have sliced through bone with the edge of steel in his voice. "Because when he regains consciousness … if he ever does … you will see how closely I follow your orders."

He planted his weight evenly on both legs, placed his cane upon the ledge and propped himself on his hands in front of the observation port, prepared to wait out the emergency preparations.

Behind him, Cuddy could not begin to imagine how much that move had cost him. He would wait until they transferred Wilson to surgery, and he would stubbornly insist on following along. She could not stop him, nor would she try. There were some things into which one did not dare interfere, and this was one of them.

"Keep me posted, House … please." Slowly she turned away to go back to her office and complete the unpleasant task still undone. She must get in touch with Wilson's family. The call would be difficult indeed to make, but House's attention was no longer focused enough to process her request. He would never know she was gone. Or care.

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An hour later, an exhausted and ailing Gregg House was fast nearing the limits of his endurance. His body was threatening to fold beneath him. He was light-headed to the point of seeing spots before his eyes, and the pain in his leg had escalated. In his mad rush to the emergency room, he had neglected to grab his pain medication or the box of Kleenex from his desk. Yet he stood. Planted. It was all becoming mental: mind over matter. The physical world was fading quickly in the face of his determination.

Inside the cubicle, James Wilson was being prepped for surgery. Only a matter of time now before the gurney would come through the double door beside the observation window and head for the elevators, then upstairs to one of the operating theatres.

Wilson's battered body still lay nude, except for the sterile sheet draped across it from hip to hip. That area looked as though it had been the only one that had been spared. In spite of himself, House indulged in a momentary smirk of irony. Julie would be so happy!

Wilson's bruised features were nearly obscured beneath the oxygen mask held firmly in place by a solidly built black man whose precise corn rows were a dead giveaway above the surgical mask covering the lower part of his face. Billy Travis! Thank God he was there!

At the head of the gurney, three separate IVs and a unit of whole blood were doing their work by keeping James unconscious, holding his pain at bay, and replacing the life fluids he had lost in the accident. A team of physicians worked over him, concentrating on an area in the upper left portion of his abdomen. Spleen?

Another team swabbed the extensive wounds on his legs and feet, and applied sterile bandages around them. House could see two doctors with surgical needles closing and cauterizing wounds deep enough to still be seeping blood. Two crash carts stood at the ready near James' head, and two other carts full of bandages and other trauma supplies were pulled close to the areas where both medical teams worked.

They were getting ready to move him out to X-ray and MRI, probably also to Ultra-Sound. After that, surgery would be performed and something temporary would be implemented to stabilize his legs until the swelling abated. Because of the swelling it could be a week, perhaps longer, before Wilson's limbs could be entrusted to casts. Until then, James would be helpless. If he survived …

House could not afford to think about that, and so he turned his thoughts to simpler things.

It looked as though there was a fractured wrist. His right one. His hand lay at an odd angle. House knew Wilson was a southpaw, but the use of only one hand was never enough. Gregg was an expert in that area! All of this hinged, of course, on the optimistic view that James Wilson would emerge from this deadly encounter alive and mentally alert. He would also be in excruciating and inconceivable agony.

If he did not survive, House would have only the shadow of a life to return to, and he was not certain anymore if his job would be enough to give him further incentive to fight the good fight any longer. James had always been such an integral part of that. He was going to cry before this day was over. He could feel it threatening already.

Our first tears are always for ourselves. He quoted from somewhere. Stop this! No one must see Gregory House cry!

House hung onto the ledge of the observation portal for dear life, knowing he would not be able to do so much longer. He lowered his head onto his forearms to conceal the tide of fierce emotion that threatened to overtake him. He must find a way to get beyond his own pain, his own weakness, in order to be effective as moral support and otherwise to James Wilson, whose disabilities now eclipsed his own far too many times to calculate.

Standing there wobbly and half out of control, Gregg felt the breakdown coming on like a wall of water from a broken floodgate. No longer able to stem the threatened buildup of overwhelming sorrow, he could not have stopped it with an act of congress … or an act of God!

God! Oh yeah … where are you? What a joke!

Angry tears soaked his shirtsleeves and the front of his old blue button-down. His congested nasal passages joined in the catharsis and very soon he was drowning in his own waterworks.

"This has to stop!" He realized he'd said it out loud.

A pair of nurses on morning break walked by behind him in the hallway at that moment. They heard his words, turned and cautiously approached his slumped back. They both saw the cane on the ledge at the same moment, and looked at each other in realization of who he was. "Dr. House?" One of them ventured. "Are you all right?"

Those words! God, how he hated them! It took all of his fragile control not to scream at the two women who wanted only to help. "I'm fine," he said, and paused a moment. "Do you think … you could have someone bring a chair over here for me? Standing around is not my strong suit …"

Of course, Doctor. We'll find you one and come right back." They left, relieved.

He sighed raggedly, his body still pulsing with unresolved hurt and anger. They would probably forget him as soon as they turned the corner. You couldn't rely on people anymore. He looked again into the emergency cubicle. The team was getting ready to move. Trauma carts and crash carts were being moved out of the way. IV bags were being removed from the floor stands and transferred to a chrome pole attached to the gurney. Someone was covering Wilson's entire body with a warm white blanket. Gregg tensed expectantly.

He heard the wheelchair coming before he saw it. One of the nurses was back, pushing an old clunker with a grey vinyl seat and back. It had seen better days. Many of them!

Aw fuck! When I said 'chair', I didn't mean one of those goddamn things!

It had a wobbly front wheel that chattered as it rolled closer. The nurse pushed it over to his side, turned it around and put on the brake. "May I help you get situated, Doctor House?"

He shook his head, determined to "make nice". "If you could raise the right footrest a little …" he said, "I think I can manage the rest of it."

She did as he asked, then stood there as though waiting for further instructions.

"Thank you!" He said with a finality that threatened to launch ice-tipped arrows from fierce blue eyes.

She retreated, probably somewhere to get treatment for frostbite.

He lowered himself gingerly into the old chair, grabbed his pants at the top of the shinbone and raised his leg onto the padded rest. The misery in his aching knee abated somewhat. He wished he had his pillow. And his jacket. With his Vicodin. And his Kleenex. Not necessarily in that order. He maneuvered back to the port, this time watching closely from beneath the wooden ledge. He shivered. He was becoming chilled and he was getting the shakes. His head felt like a bass drum.

There were way too many bodies leaning over Wilson to be able to see much. House sighed with fatigue, paying too much attention to his own body's frailties, and not enough to Wilson's. That would have to change. James would be here in residence for many weeks to come, and House fully intended to be the one to take over his care.

I can do this, dammit!

In the weeks following his discharge, Wilson would be at home under Julie's care, and unless she bent a little and allowed Gregg to visit, the two of them would not see each other much for awhile. When James' PT began back at the hospital in earnest, however, House intended to be there. And he would remain there as long as Wilson needed him …

… assuming that he survived.

The gurney was moving. Someone moved ahead of it, holding the hallway door open. House pivoted the wheelchair toward the door, and his gaze met the dark, sorrowful eyes of the person in the opening.

Billy! Billy Travis, an old friend. Travis was an R. N., one of the best Gregg had ever known. Whenever there was a crisis, Travis always seemed to turn up in the middle of it, magic hands soothing, quiet and efficient manner doing what had to be done quickly and competently. The big man had been in attendance the time Gregg had been brought in with the leg infarction already in progress, screaming in agony. They hadn't seen much of each other lately, but now here he was, right where he was most needed. Their eye contact lingered; Billy looked a little nonplussed. A dark hand lifted in the air in a "don't move!" gesture. House did not fully understand why he complied with the silent request, but he did.

The gurney holding James Wilson pushed past the doorway and turned left toward the elevators, guided by four people in scrubs. Then Travis was walking toward House, looking into his haggard, fevered face, kneeling at his side. Unconsciously and unthinking, Gregg's palm went to Billy's upper arm in an urgent request for assistance. He needed to go where Wilson was going. His eyes shifted from Billy to the retreating gurney. His head pounded harder, adding to his misery.

"Gregg?" Billy was saying. "Boss?" His deep voice shook with emotion. "Hey, Man … what the hell happened to you? Why are you back in a wheelchair? First I get Jimmy all beat up … and now you."

House let his head drop, looked up sideways into the kind, shining black face, listened to the wooden beads rattle as Billy's cornrows moved. "I asked some nurses for a chair … Beggars can't be choosers. How are you, Billy? How is Wilson? You know I have to go with him …"

Travis frowned further. "Gregg, you sound like hell. Are you sick? I'm doing great, but it's obvious you're not. Have you hurt your leg again? What's going on?"

The R. N. half of Billy took over and he lifted the backs of his fingers to touch House's forehead. "Christ! You're burning up! Come on, buddy … talk to me. I won't give you an update on Jimmy 'til you do."

House looked away angrily, undecided whether to pull rank or do as Travis requested. He was feeling too rotten to do the former, so he settled for the latter. "I have a cold. A really shitty one … but I'm fine. My leg's not any different than it was the last time I saw you. It hurts because I came down here without my jacket with my pain meds in it. The damn wheelchair's because that's what that woman brought me to sit in … so I'm sitting in it. Tell me about Wilson!"

"Jimmy is busted up, Boss. Real bad. Both legs are mincemeat, and his left foot may not survive … but you already knew that, right? He's still not out of the woods because there are internal injuries we won't know about for sure 'til the tests are finished. His spleen is definitely wrecked, and they don't know for sure about his liver. Both kidneys are bruised, so he's peeing a little pink. He's lost massive amounts of blood, but that's being taken care of. We won't know for another twenty-four hours whether he'll make it, or whether they can save his foot. I can't give you any more than that. Sorry."

House closed his eyes and heaved a tortured sigh. "Ah, God!"

Travis nodded. "Yeah … God! Y'know Gregg, if nothing else, you might want to try saying a prayer for him."

Gregg looked up again, met Billy's eyes in bleak reproach. "Pray? How do you pray when there's no faith to back it up? 'God' is a curse word to me … not much else."

"I dunno, Man … you just do it!" His big hands took 'hold of the wheelchair's rear handles and turned it around to head for the elevators. House glared at him, but said nothing. He fiddled with his cane across his lap, feeling suddenly impotent.

They entered the elevator car and ascended. The last time he had been pushed in a wheelchair by someone, it had been Wilson, a few months after his infarction. They'd both been a little drunk. The wheelchair had very effectively held Gregg down … and at the same time, held Wilson up. He thought of the incident now with mixed emotions. He would have loved to laugh at the recollection, but just did not possess the strength. He began to wonder whether the events transpiring right now had any concept of normal reality. Might he possibly wake up from this nightmare sometime soon?

They arrived at the observation window of one of the diagnostic units. Wilson was already inside, being prepped for the electronic scans. They waited. Forty-five minutes later they took him straight to surgery. The entire medical trauma team was anonymous in surgical caps, gowns, masks, gloves. The operating room was a sterile field and the surgery was going down very soon.

Billy locked the wheels on the wheelchair and touched Gregg's shoulder. "I got some errands to do. Will you be okay?"

"I'm fine." House never took his attention away from the observation window. When he looked up for a moment, Travis had gone.

He leaned his head back over the backrest and stared at the ceiling. His thoughts were in turmoil, his emotions again very near the surface. Billy had suggested he pray. What a crock!

If there was a "God" out there messing around with the world, then He She or It was a sadistic bastard, probably on vacation somewhere and not paying attention to his servant Wilson. Must be playing golf in Santa Barbara or Miami Beach, and not sitting on His-Her-Its Throne Up There listening to the obsequious sniveling of the Great Unwashed …

Gregg felt the tears returning.

Oh hell! Not now!

Hey You! Whoever You are … whatever You are … if You really exist … which I doubt … I offer my sorry ass to You gladly … if You will … PLEASE … not let my friend die!

Please …

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