Chapter 9
I close the hotel room door behind us. House limps to the closer of the two single beds and sits. "You're a moron," he says for the second time tonight as he hooks his cane on the headboard.
"Why, because instead of being at home with the girl who loves me, I'm trying to help you?" I sit down on my bed and take off my jacket and boots. "Guess I am."
I called Aya before we got here, said I wouldn't be coming home tonight. She's worried, but understands.
"Just shut the hell up!" He closes his eyes.
"Um, what?"
"Not you."
"You're hallucinating again." My mouth stays open for a moment as I stare off across the room. What the hell is wrong with me? I wasn't thinking.
"I should've known. I should never have given you morphine."
"I don't need you to do this." He looks at me. "I don't need you trying to fix my life."
"You came to me."
"Because I thought it might be fun for a while."
"No, you wanted help," I say. "Stop deflecting and admit it."
"Oh, I get it." His tone turns abrasive. "If you can fix me, then you're not broken. That's what this is all about." He stands up, steps in front of me. "You're not Wilson!"
I struggle not to laugh. "Never intended to be."
His scowl deepens at my amusement. "You're just as screwed up as I am."
"Really?"
"The fact you're here right now proves that," he says. "So, you've got someone who will put up with you for now. You keep doing crap like this, you won't have her. You'll die alone."
"Hey, I thought you were going to be there." My mouth twists into a bitter smile. "But seriously, relationship advice from the guy who drove a car through his girlfriend's dining room. Priceless." I push my hair behind my ear. "You're just scared. This is your defence mechanism."
"Oh, wanna talk about defence mechanisms, Thirteen? Never seemed to mind being called by a number. Maybe because deep down you're afraid that's all you are."
"You're pathetic." I glare up at him. "Trying your hardest to make me this about me—to make me feel like shit—all because you won't allow yourself to conceive of the idea that just maybe someone else in this world other than Wilson is capable of giving a damn about you."
"Just go home." His gaze is intense and seething. But there's something else. A glint of weakness. "Leave me the hell alone."
"No." I stay planted on the bed.
His eyes go distant. His focus drifts by the TV, then by the door to the bathroom. His hallucinations are talking.
"You're seeing Amber again, aren't you?"
He looks down at me. He doesn't say anything, but something's telling me I'm right. After a moment, he backs to his own bed and plops down.
It's going to be a long night. We won't be talking any more, but I doubt either of us will get much sleep.
Sunday
Ring. Ring. My eyes come open, hazy. It's my phone. I manage to stretch my arm over to the night-stand without lifting from the pillow. The digits on the clock come into focus. 7:32. House glances at me from his bed.
"Hello?" I say, still only half-conscious.
"Is everything okay?" Chase's voice. "Didn't hear back from you last night."
"Yeah..." I shake my head in an attempt to wake up. "Had to a get a hotel room."
"Went that badly, huh?"
"Yeah."
"Well, we've managed to get in touch with Kevin's parents." His tone is decidedly negative.
Great. What now?
"They, er, said they don't have a son. And they were quite adamant. Apparently, he's been disowned. Which is pretty ridiculous because he seems so normal. I can't imagine what he's done to deserve that." He pauses for a moment. "Since he still won't let us do the MRI, I've run his blood again to check for tumour markers that could point us in the right direction."
"Find anything?"
"Yeah, but it's weird. Elevated CA-125."
I bolt upright in bed. Suddenly, all the pieces have come together. I know what this is. Can't believe I didn't think of it sooner. "I need to talk to him. I'll be right there."
I hang up. There's a dilemma. House. Can't leave him here, can't bring him to the hospital, can't take him back to my place, probably isn't a good idea to take him to Chase's either. And I'd rather not involve anyone else at work. I've got an idea.
I grab his jacket from the bed post and toss it on top of him. "Come on, we've gotta go."
"So... who lives here?" House taps the glass with his cane as we pull to a stop at the kerb in front of an average two-storey home. It sits along a suburban street adorned with various trees whose yellowed leaves are falling and floating on the wind.
He'll find out soon enough. I don't look forward to that, or leaving them alone together, but I have no choice. We step out of the car and a drizzle touches my hand. More of them fall from the overcast sky, pelting us as we make our way to the door. I give a couple of knocks, mentally bracing myself.
A clean-cut, salt-and-pepper haired man in his sixties, dressed in a burgundy cardigan and grey slacks answers the door. "Remy?"
House's eyes narrow. He scans the man up and down, then me.
I sigh. No avoiding it. I lean in and hug him. House must be puzzling over the details in his head.
"Is everything okay? How are you feeling?" He pulls back, looking at me for a moment.
"I'm fine, Dad," I say, watching House's reaction. "Everything's fine."
"I'm glad." He smiles, then moves to let us in.
We stop in the foyer. My dad glances at House.
"I'm sorry, this is Jonathan," I lie, figuring it's best to stick with the false name on the prescription bottle. "He's, um..." What the hell is he? He shifts with his cane, puffing his cheeks alternately. He's having fun. Or he's going to be. "...sort of a friend," I finish.
"Nice to meet you." Dad extends his hand to House. "I'm John, Remy's father."
House shakes it, a barely perceptible smirk at the corner of his mouth while he looks at me.
I roll my eyes.
"So, what brings you for a visit this morning?" Dad asks. "How about some peppermint tea?"
"Sorry, I'm in a hurry. I need to get to work, but um..." How to ask?
My eyes flick to the photos on the wall that paint our family happier than reality, then to award plaques belonging to me and my brother, then to the staircase, then to the ficus in the corner, then back to Dad. "Would you mind it if Jonathan stayed here for a few days? It's complicated, but, uh, he has no where to go right now."
He looks at House again, who's twirling his cane now, then leans in. "Of course, honey." He kisses my forehead. "Anything I can do for you."
It's been like this ever since I finally came clean about the diagnosis. He and my step mom moved here to be closer to me and he pretty much bends over backwards to please me now. I wish he wouldn't. It only reminds me how screwed up everything is. He's lost all of us to that damn disease. I'm all he has left.
"I think I know why you won't let us do the MRI, Kevin." His eyes follow me into the room as his fiancée bolts up from the bedside chair where she's been clutching his hand.
"I thought you were supposed to be off his case!" She glares, her hands on her hips. "Dr Foreman said he'd remove you!"
"I'm sorry, but this is important. We need to find the tumour."
Kevin looks down at the knit blanket covering him, then looks at his fiancée. A dusting of stubble covers his cheeks from being unable to shave for the past few days. "Sweetie, can you give us a moment alone?"
She makes a face that says he can't be serious. "Fine." She returns to his side, bends down and kisses his forehead. "If she does anything to bother you, just call me in, okay?"
She heads out of the room and slides the door closed behind her.
I take the seat beside the bed. There's the sound of rain splatting against the sides of the building. It's a downpour now. Drops streak down the windows across from us. "Your parents—"
"—You've talked to my parents?!" He strains to sit up straighter. "What did they tell you?!"
"Nothing." I lean forwards and steady him. "But it's okay. I know what you're afraid of."
"No, you don't." His expression is pained. "How could you know?"
"I've put the pieces the together. The testosterone prescription, the fact you won't let us do an MRI. And then there's the elevated CA-125 in your blood."
I've deliberately left out the part about his parents saying they don't have a son. He doesn't need to be reminded of their rejection.
He scrunches his brows. "What does that mean?"
"It's primarily indicative of ovarian cancer."
Anguish grips his features. His eyes tear up. He looks away, to the snaking rain on the glass. "No, no, that's impossible."
"Kevin, I understand how you must feel. It's uncomfortable, humiliating. And you're afraid of judgement, discrimination, having your identity attacked. I get that, okay? But I'll make sure you're treated with respect. I promise."
"Thanks... you're a good doctor," he says weakly after a moment. To be thanked by a patient you've nearly crippled. Confusing feeling. "But it's not just that." He clears his throat. "That's all been removed."
"Well, there is another possibility." I clasp my hands together on my lap. "It's rare, but even after removal, it's possible for cancer to grow on the peritoneum, the lining that covers the entire abdominal cavity and is actually made up of cells that are nearly identical to the surface of the ovaries."
He bites his lip, eyes on the rain again. "My mom... she had ovarian cancer. I never wanted that to happen to me. I thought I'd made sure it wouldn't."
"I can only imagine how you're feeling."
"That's actually worse than the fact I've just had a tumour removed from my brain, you know." He forces a laugh through. "What are the odds I'd have so many things wrong with me?"
"I know... it sucks." I glance out the window—the drops keep falling—then back to him. "But you can beat this," I say. His gaze meets mine. "And you know what? If it makes you feel any better, peritoneal cancer is very rare in typical men, but it's not impossible. Given your genes, there's a chance you might've gotten this regardless."
"So, let me get this straight." Taub sets his coffee mug on the table, where he and the others are sitting. "The patient's a woman? How is that possible? He has a man's voice and everything."
Dammit. I knew this would happen. I'd planned to only disclose what was strictly necessary, but they kept probing and, more or less, figured it out themselves.
"No, he's not a woman," I say exasperated, stood with my hands on the back of a chair, facing Taub and Adams. "And are you even a doctor? Testosterone means deep voice, facial hair, and so on. That receding hairline must be an anomaly because clearly you haven't been through puberty."
The door that joins the two rooms is open and Chase snickers at his desk, rolling the over-sized tennis ball in his hand.
"I'm not an idiot." Taub rubs a hand over his crown, as if more self-conscious of the thinning now that I've mentioned it. "But come on, this person looks completely like a guy."
"Don't say 'person' like that." I clench the back of the chair tighter. "He looks like a guy because he is a guy."
"No," Adams says, straightening up beside Taub. "Testosterone creates a deep voice, facial hair, and a male fat distribution pattern, making the patient look like a man, as you, yourself pointed out, but their DNA is still female."
"His DNA isn't female. So, he's XX instead of XY. That doesn't mean much, really. Quite a few DSDs result in mismatched or unusual sex chromosomes."
"But the patient doesn't have an intersex condition."
"Not in the widely understood sense, no, but actually..." I glare at Adams. "...according to research on the subject, it may, in many cases, be a disorder of sex development that affects only key genes and regions of the brain."
"Arguing over this is stupid," Park says beside me. "But I was right." She looks at me with a satisfied expression. "The testosterone prescription was relevant."
"Not directly." I tap my fingers against the chair back.
She grabs a honey-glazed doughnut out of the box sat between us on the table and takes a bite. "But, yeah, I don't get why anyone would want to change their gender."
"He didn't change his gender." I let out a deep breath. "He changed his body to match his gender."
Chase stretches with a smile. "Hadley, try not to get too worked up, okay?"
"I'm not." I take my hands off the back of the chair. "I just want him to get the respect he deserves. People like him already avoid doctors like the plague as it is." I glance to the others at the table. "And with good reason."
Chase gets up from his desk and comes to join us. "Yeah, I see what you mean... but the most important thing is finding the tumour," he says. "Get a pelvic ultrasound."
"I'll do it." I go for the door.
"So, you're okay with freaks, then?" Kevin asks as I squeeze the ultrasound gel onto his pelvic region. His gown is rolled up, but his blanket covers everything below the space I need.
"You're not a freak." I look him in the eyes, reaching for the device.
"But a normal person like you must think I'm a mental case."
"I'm not so normal." I press the ultrasound device to his skin and it makes that distinctive pulsing noise. "And who really gets to decide what's normal, anyway?"
"W—What do you mean?" He laughs in disbelief, clearly in reaction to the first statement.
"I'm bi."
"Oh." He doesn't seem to know what to say.
I turn to the screen, studying the static for any signs of a mass. "Besides, I dated a guy like you once."
"But you left him in the end?"
"No." I glance over. "He broke up with me."
"I haven't told Sara," he says, a resigned expression on his face.
"Sort of figured you hadn't." My eyes flick back to the screen. "I understand why you didn't want to... and seeing as how she already knows you can't have kids, there's no reason you're obligated to, but it must be painful hiding that aspect of your past from her."
"Yeah... I'm just scared because she'll probably freak out and leave me. I don't want to lose her."
"She loves you." I smile at him. "I don't think she'll be happy you've kept this from her for so long, but the fact you've managed to do so also means there's no physical reason for her to care."
Found it. A mass to the left of his bladder. Chase should be able to get it out.
"There." I point and show him. "I don't know if you can see it, but we need to remove that. Then you'll go on chemo, which will suck, but you should be fine afterwards."
AN : I just wanted to thank anyone who takes the time to review. I appreciate it greatly. This is my first time sharing a story and I need all the feedback I can get. It's not possible to reply to guest reviews directly, so I'm thanking you here. :)
