Once again: this is a dark story, slavery, dubcon, noncon. There are slaves, Greg House is one of them, if you want to know how it got this way read "Seven Stages", the ongoing story is Collar Redux now in 2nd season. Enjoy, if that's the word, the ongoing story of Doctor House's first sixteen days at PPTH. Tailkinker's written Greg's Story, we're posting alternate days.
Day Six (Wednesday)
1. Overseer
Johnson had mentioned to Doris Foster in passing that Greg looked as if someone had been slapping him around: first thing Wednesday morning, when Doris ordered Greg to her office, the bruises were even more evident.
"Who hit you?"
Greg looked at her squarely. "No one," he said. He sounded quite sure of himself. "Ma'am, I have work to do for Doctor Cuddy, I need to go back to my office."
"You're bruised and you have a split lip," Doris said. Greg was on his knees, hands behind his back, in proper form, but he sounded much less docile than he had on Monday. Doris frowned, she didn't like sudden changes in behavior by slaves. (The tox screen run on Greg had been clean.) "Did you hit yourself?"
"No one hit me," Greg said again.
"Ten lashes for self-harm," Doris said. She stood up. "I don't tolerate slaves lying to me, Greg. If you hit yourself, I need to hand you over to the security staff: they'll inform your supervisor and administer a judicial whipping. If you're lying to me about hitting yourself, two strokes of the cane."
Greg knelt still, frozen. She walked round him to open the door to her office.
"I didn't hit myself," he said, his voice shaking.
"Good. Get up and bend over."
The two fresh marks now added to his backside, Doris put the cane back and told him to kneel. He hadn't been told to cover himself, and he didn't: he just dropped to his knees, looking much more shaken.
"Who hit you?"
"Someone came into the office..." he swallowed. "A maintenance worker. She was looking for something. I... I talked back to her... I'm sorry..."
"And she hit you," Doris said. She shouldn't have done that, of course: insolence should be reported, and hospital staff shouldn't hit slaves in the face, there was too much risk of hitting too hard. A slap on the back of the head, or on the slave's backside, that was all right, Doris allowed. "Do any of your teeth hurt? Did she hit you anywhere else?"
Greg shook his head, muttering a "no" to both questions.
"Then get back to work," Doris said.
He got up, pulled his pants up, and thanked her for caning him, head ducked. She'd have to write a memo to Doctor Cuddy about this. He might have talked back to the maintenance worker, but she might just have hit him rather than tell him to move out of her way: he was working all by himself in full view of the hall, she'd seen that for herself, and his supervisor was two floors away.
*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*
2. Nurse
The free clinic was a great idea, Brenda Previn was prepared to defend it: she'd liked the idea of it when Doctor Cuddy first proposed it, and while it was often irritating how many of the patients were people who had trivial or embarrassing ailments (and probably insurance, they just didn't want to disclose what they had to their regular doctor), they were certainly taking a load off the ER.
What didn't work was trying to run it, even for a half a day Monday to Saturday, with a system of volunteers, mostly junior doctors on fellowships who thought they were doing their career some good by showing up for two hours each week when they didn't have something else they'd rather do.
Wednesday morning, Lisa Cuddy rang her and asked her to come over to her office for a lunch meeting: Brenda agreed with enthusiasm and suggested that new coffee place with the cupcakes, five minutes away.
"Sorry - it'll have to be in my office," Lisa said. "I'll order in sandwiches."
Lisa wasn't alone in her office when Brenda got there: she was meeting with a doctor, one Brenda hadn't seen before. He was tall, perched uncomfortably on the edge of his seat, wearing a roll-top under his white labcoat. He had a set of nasty bruises round his mouth. He remained seated, glancing at Lisa.
"Brenda, I'd like you to meet the doctor who'll be working in the free clinic with you," Lisa said. "Doctor Greg House."
Brenda nodded, walking into the room and holding out her hand. "Pleased to meet you, Doctor House," she said.
The doctor glanced at Lisa again, got a nod, held out his hand, and shook hers: he looked awkward and - oddly frightened? - He hadn't said a word.
"Greg, why don't you tell Brenda your qualifications?"
"I have a double speciality, Board-certified, in nephrology and infectious diseases," Doctor House said. "Doctor Cuddy bought me to run the Diagnostics department." He glanced at Lisa again, and looked really scared - and suddenly Brenda caught the odd phrasing in what he'd said.
"Lisa, you bought him?" This was the "personal slave" that there'd been rumors about?
"Take off your labcoat and roll-top, Greg," Lisa said.
He did so, quickly, folding both, head ducked. He was wearing a clean white t-shirt and black jeans, and a heavy dark metal collar round his neck.
"Put those down and fetch the other chair," Lisa told him. "Go get the bag lunch from my secretary."
"What is this?" Brenda asked. Lisa Cuddy wasn't a practical joker, but Brenda truly didn't appreciate being fooled like that, even for a good reason.
"Not quite three months ago, Doctor Gregory House was enslaved for debt," Lisa told her. "He really does have two Board-certified specialities, and more than that - I remember him from medical school in Michigan: he had a knack for seeing what was wrong with a patient. PPTH has bought him, and we're in process to re-activate his medical license. From Monday after next, he'll be working four hours a day in the free clinic, under your supervision. He's also in the process of setting up a Diagnostics department, which will take on the patients that other doctors can't figure out."
"This isn't going to work," Brenda said.
"Why shouldn't it?"
"He's a slave!"
"When you first saw him, did you think he was a slave?"
"No, I assumed he was a new doctor. You had him dressed up like one."
"He'll be wearing rolltops to hide his collar. He'll be wearing a labcoat. The patients will react to him like a doctor, which he is, and I need the staff in the clinic to treat him like a doctor in front of the patients. Will you help?"
The door opened and Greg came back into the room, carrying a brown bag. Lisa pointed to the third chair. "Sit down there, Greg." She looked at Brenda.
Brenda stared at the slave. She didn't have much to do with slaves in the ordinary way - she knew they did the cleaning at PPTH, sometimes you'd see one scuttling out of the way or ducked down on their knees. There were a handful working in clerical jobs and doing messenger work and she'd seen two or three in the labs. They didn't talk unless they were spoken to, ever. Sometimes you saw them tethered to one of the walls. Occasionally a patient would come in who had a personal slave, but now Brenda didn't work on the wards she didn't have to deal with them.
"Put your roll-top back on, Greg," she told him. It might be easier if she couldn't see his collar.
He obeyed her, after a glance at Lisa, and sat down in the chair. He looked very awkward and unsure of himself. Lisa unpacked lunch - sandwiches, soft drinks, two cupcakes - and picked up one of the sandwiches, salad on wholewheat bread. "Greg."
He stood up: she handed him the sandwich. "We're going to have lunch. You can eat too. Sit down."
He sat, holding the sandwich. He looked so frankly uncomfortable that Brenda said, meaning to be sympathetic, "Shouldn't he be kneeling?"
"He's a slave," Lisa said. "He should be doing exactly what I tell him to do. We can't have him dropping to his knees in an exam room, or referring to himself as 'this slave' when he asks a patient his symptoms. He even let some maintenance worker slap him around yesterday, in the Diagnostics office. Brenda, supposing Doctor House had come in for a job interview, to be the free clinic's main doctor, what sort of questions would you ask him?"
Brenda thought about it. She took a couple of bites of her sandwich, watching the slave. Collar hidden, sitting on a chair, hardly venturing to eat the sandwich he held, he could have been a very shy and awkward man who'd recently got himself into a fight. But he really was chattel. He was the property of the hospital, the same as any other slave, and he shouldn't be doing this. "I'd ask why he wanted to work a free clinic when he's so highly qualified, but I suppose he'd say because that's what his owner wants him to do."
"Pretend he's not a slave. What would you ask him?"
"I'd ask him about his background, his experience... but Lisa, he is a slave. That's his background. That's the only experience that counts. I suppose we can use him to treat slaves, he can probably treat them just fine. But patients have to have confidence in their doctor, they have to believe their doctor knows what he's talking about. How can anyone have any confidence in someone who lost control of their life completely and got collared?"
Lisa looked, for a moment, so completely thrown Brenda almost wished she hadn't said it. Brenda glanced at the slave again, the sandwich still in his hand, watching both of them. Listening to both of them.
Plain speaking between themselves was how she and Lisa had stayed friends, even when Lisa got a job at PPTH as a beancounter instead of a doctor, but slaves had ears; it was time to get that one out of this office.
Lisa was rustling in her desk for some papers. Probably her plans for this Diagnostics department. The slave should definitely go. Brenda jerked her hand at the door. "You. Get out."
Greg got up. He put the sandwich down on the chair he had been sitting on and clasped his hands behind his back, he looked as if he was about to drop to his knees, but he said something in a stammer that was nearly incoherent, of which Brenda caught only "Diabetes".
"What?"
"Mr Smith has type two diabetes," Greg said, much more clearly. "You have toothache."
Brenda had been conscious of a slight ache in her lower left jaw for some time, and had been making up her mind to go see a dentist. She stared at the slave in disbelief. "Who told you?" she said, just as Lisa said "Who the hell is Mr Smith?"
"The supervisor," Greg said. He swallowed, a big nervous gulp. "When I clean bathrooms. He's the supervisor. He has type two diabetes. One of your teeth hurts on the left side of your mouth, you were favoring the right side when you chew. I can do what Doctor Cuddy wants."
Lisa and Brenda stared at each other. Brenda pointed at the door. "You," she said to Greg, again. "Get out."
"Go back to the Diagnostics office and get back to work," Lisa said. "Don't leave the office, not for any reason. Don't speak to anyone."
Once the door closed behind Greg, Brenda said "I do have toothache. On the left side. I mentioned to you last week I needed to go see a dentist, did you tell him?"
"No, of course not," Lisa said. "I barely remember - " She shook her head. "This is what I meant to show you." It was a typescript: "Form and Function of the PPTH Diagnostics Department".
"Who wrote it?"
"He did," Lisa said. She looked across the desk at Brenda. "He can function as a doctor," she said, sounding too sure of herself to be quite convincing to Brenda. "He's damned good, he always was. Will you help?"
"I'll think about it," Brenda said.
She did think about it. And she went looking for "Mr Smith", and found him at his desk, a big man in his early fifties. She introduced herself to him as Brenda Previn, from the free clinic, and asked if they could have a quiet word.
He didn't have diabetes. None of his parents or grandparents had diabetes, as far as he knew.
"Would you agree to get tested?" Brenda asked him.
"Do you think I might have?" he asked, predictably nervous.
"I don't know," Brenda said honestly. "But if you come to the clinic, it won't cost you anything to get tested. Do your cuts tend to take a long time healing?"
"Yeah...?"
"Are you thirsty a lot?"
"Yeah. I thought it was the air conditioning."
"It probably is. But it couldn't hurt to get tested. You could come down to the clinic this afternoon, get the results tomorrow." Brenda could take a blood draw.
And when it turned out he did have diabetes, somehow, she wasn't surprised. "Do you remember a new slave, cleaning bathrooms, quite tall?"
"Sure. Not a bad worker." Smith said. He was still looking at the result, and shaking his head. "Diabetes. Jesus. What do I do now?"
"I've got a couple of leaflets here for you," Brenda said. She talked with him for a little while about type two diabetes, and gave him a letter for his doctor. When he seemed a bit more secure about his situation, she asked again about the slave "Did you talk to him? Did he ask you any questions?"
Smith shook his head. "I only had him two mornings, Mrs Foster usually sticks the new guys into Sanitation before they get assigned to their permanent jobs. Why do you want to know?"
"He's a doctor," Brenda said. "He diagnosed you."
*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*
3. Supervisor
Greg had shown up at Doctor Cuddy's office promptly at eight. He presented her with his notebook, and she leafed through it, eyeing him. He was bruised all around his mouth. And he looked unshaven.
"Do you have an appointment with the groomer today?"
He didn't. Well, the stubble might hide the bruising a little. Cuddy had already delayed the planned meeting with Nurse Previn two more days to allow Greg's hair to grow to a length that looked almost normal, and she couldn't afford any more delays.
"Have you been getting into a fight?" Cuddy asked.
Greg shook his head.
The work in the notebook this morning was excellent. Cuddy grinned briefly, reading a section that sounded classic Greg House, headed "Everybody lies". She didn't have time to look through it in detail, but there was a clear, substantive difference between this and his failure of yesterday. "Keep up your work to this standard from now on," she told him. "I want you here for a lunchtime meeting with the nurse who runs the free clinic. Be here at quarter to one. Get back to the Diagnostics office and keep working on this, but I want you to deliver this notebook to my secretary to have it typed up at the end of the morning, then get downstairs and change into a rolltop to cover your collar, and one of your labcoats. If anyone queries you about this, tell them to call my office. Don't be late. And don't get into any more fights."
The memo that arrived at her desk from Doris Foster, with the inter-departmental mail at half past ten, explained Greg's bruises and annoyed Cuddy. Apparently a maintenance worker had entered the Diagnostics office and Greg had "talked back" to her, so she'd hit him. Remembering the blistering sarcasms Greg House could deliver when he was interrupted at work, and from the evidence of the notebook he'd clearly been hard at work yesterday, Cuddy was caught between annoyance at Greg and at the maintenance worker - she could presumably have searched the office without interrupting Greg's work, but Greg should have known better than to use his sarcasm on a free woman.
What really annoyed her was that Foster evidently found Cuddy's arrangements to blame. It was hardly her fault that Greg had a smart mouth or that some maintenance worker had clumsily interrupted him.
Greg turned up again reasonably promptly at ten to one - Cuddy had arranged to have Brenda Previn meet her for lunch at one, and had allowed extra time to make sure Greg looked clean and tidy. Apart from the unshaven chin and the bruising, he looked fine dressed in the rolltop that Mrs Foster had bought for him, a standard labcoat, and the black jeans and black shoes Cuddy had bought: if you didn't know, Cuddy was pretty sure that no one could tell he was a slave. Cuddy had him sit down on the visitor's chair in her office, despite his evident discomfort, and told him that he was to introduce himself to Nurse Previn as "Doctor Greg House", and respond to her questions without identifying himself as a slave. "
"You'll need to act like a doctor when you're treating patients in the clinic," she told him firmly. "Politely," she added, "but not like a slave. Just act like a reasonable human being."
The meeting with Brenda did not go well. After Brenda had ordered Greg out of the room - Cuddy hoped he'd remember to pick up his notebook from her secretary on the way down to the office - Brenda sat down in the visitor's chair and looked at her with dismay and sympathy.
"How much did you pay for him?"
"The hospital bought him. He cost... Well, a lot. Depreciated over twenty years, though, he's a bargain - he really is a brilliant doctor."
"Lisa, he's a slave," Brenda said. "Have you ever heard a slave question a free person? How's he even going to ask patients what their symptoms are, if he can't speak to them without stammering and looking like he wants to fall to his knees?"
"He can when he's working," Cuddy said. "I got him to write a paper on Diagnostics as a speciality - he'll have it done by Friday as a first draft - and when a maintenance worker came into his office yesterday, he told her off for interrupting him." She half-laughed.
"Did he tell you that?" Brenda sounded disturbed.
"No. Doris Foster sent me a memo about it. She's the overseer - " Cuddy found the memo and handed it to Brenda.
"I don't believe it," Brenda said. She shook her head. "That slave couldn't talk back to anyone. Somebody's lying."
Cuddy had other work to do, but she found it hard to keep her mind on it. Her secretary delivered the first pages of the Diagnostics paper by half past three, and Cuddy only then remembered she'd meant to speak to Greg about the insta-diagnosis he'd interrupted their lunch meeting with. That kind of talk - even if he happened to be right about Brenda's toothache - wouldn't go down well with the Board, and Greg had to be warned off it.
She could see that Brenda wanted to suggest she admit she'd made a mistake, and sell Greg on: though the Center would take a slave back, Cuddy supposed, if the buyer discovered within a reasonable period of time that the slave simply wasn't suitable for what he'd been bought for. Probably an arrangement could be made with the New Jersey Center instead of the Pennsylvania Center. Cuddy read through the paper. Still. This was good.
Greg was kneeling in front of a chair in the Diagnostics office, working at his notebook, using it as a desk. The door was open. Cuddy stood watching him from the hall for a minute or two: he looked focussed, intent, despite his odd position.
She walked into the room and closed the door, and Greg flinched - actually, more than flinched. He cringed back against the wall, putting the notebook behind him, before he seemed to realise who it was.
"Doctor Cuddy," he said, stammering. He got to his feet, standing with his shoulders hunched and his hands behind his back.
"Sit down, Greg."
Greg sat down, on the floor. Cuddy shook her head. "Sit down on the chair."
Greg got to his feet quickly, but when he sat down, he did it very gingerly. Cuddy frowned at him.
"What exactly happened to your face?"
"I answered back, ma'am," Greg said. He swallowed. "I'm sorry, ma'am."
"Tell me what you said," Cuddy said, making her voice stern. "Exactly what you said. Lies may work on Mrs Foster, but they won't work on me."
"I told her I was supposed to be working..." Greg said. He swallowed again, as if he wanted to be sick. "I told her she needed to leave because I was working here. I told her you said she needed to leave..."
"Because a maintenance worker was looking for something?" Cuddy was annoyed. "And that was when she hit you."
"Yes, ma'am." Greg swallowed again. "Ma'am... she wasn't looking for anything."
"Then what was she doing in here?" Cuddy looked around the room again, there was nothing visibly broken. It had been pouring with rain yesterday. She remembered the faint whiff of cigarette smoke. "She came in here to use this as a smoking room," Cuddy said.
Greg shifted in his chair: it looked absurdly as if a cringe had turned into a wince of pain. Cuddy frowned at him again.
"Get up," she said on a trace of suspicion. "Drop your jeans and turn round."
Eight cane marks had heavily bruised Greg's backside. Cuddy was relieved Greg couldn't see her face. Obviously slaves had to be disciplined... but this was as bizarre a shock in its way as seeing Greg House shaved bald and begging permission for a bathroom break. She made herself impassive before she said, sternly, "Pull up your jeans. You can kneel. What were you punished for?"
The catalogue seemed banal in its triviality: Greg had missed exercise, missed Sunday morning cleaning, locked himself in this office, had at first told Mrs Foster that "no one" had hit him. Well, Cuddy could understand the motivation of the last - almost. Still: a brilliant doctor was being caned by his overseer, for absurdly trivial offenses.
Cuddy meant to deal with this, but she glanced at the alarm clock and saw it was now after four. "Tell the exercise supervisor you were working late on my authority," she said briskly. "He should call me if there's an issue with this. Tell him I'm sorry you're late, and ask him to let you do your outdoor exercise till five. Run along. I'll see you tomorrow sharp at eight."
"Ma'am, permission..."
"No, you may not miss your exercise," Cuddy interrupted.
Greg shook his head. "Please - I'd like to keep working at this."
"You've got your schedule for now," Cuddy said. "You'll just have to follow it." She wasn't pleased by his sulky look, but it was good to know Greg wasn't slacking off any more.
Brenda called her office just before five. "Lisa? I tracked down 'Mr Smith'."
"Oh, damn," Cuddy said. "I meant to tell him not to come out with that kind of insta-diagnosis. It's not going to impress anyone."
"Lisa, I think he does have type two diabetes."
"What?"
"I talked to him, asked him about the usual symptoms, did a blood draw. I'll get the results back tomorrow. But I won't be surprised if he is diabetic. And if he is, I'm with you - that slave is too good to waste cleaning bathrooms." Brenda paused. "Also, I've made that dentist appointment."
tbc
If you liked this, read Tailkinker's "Greg's Story" Wednesday tomorrow. (Also, if you like, leave a review, because Reviews Are Love. And cupcakes!)
