Disclaimer, etc., in chapter 1

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This chapter was incredibly fun to write. I hope you have fun reading it. :)


Dr. Cuddy's Couch

I meander back to Cuddy's office. It's been a little over half an hour. They won't have called Wilson trying to reach me yet. Nothing gets done in half an hour here. Not even death.

I burst in, as is my custom, and angle toward the couch.

"Your room isn't ready yet," she says without looking up from whatever unimportant piece of paper she's writing on.

She nods at the left corner of her desk before I reach the couch.

"You got away before anyone tagged you."

There's my file and a freshly-printed bracelet. I put it on—wouldn't want to confuse the surgeons—and skim for anything new she's added. I see I've got a tee time with the scalpel-wielders at last, about three hours from now. I read her floor orders. Standard. A little messy. Boring. One important omission.

"You're not giving me anything for pain?" I ask.

"Post-op instructions," she says, still busy with that unimportant piece of paper.

"I'm talking pre-op."

She stops writing to look at me. "I imagined you'd try snorting your Vicodin before you tried anything else."

"Makes my nose itch."

We wage a two second glare war before she turns to her computer. I go back to the notes.

"I want a local."

"Talk to the anesthesiologist."

"Who won't listen unless there's a note."

She sighs. "I think the surgeon would prefer general anesthesia."

"He'll be cutting near my precious parts," I say. "What if he doesn't like me and the knife slips?"

She sighs again. "It's laparoscopic, House, you know that."

"Less risk with a local," I remind her.

"Fine," she sighs, then fixes me with a glare. "But if you mouth off and something goes wrong, it's your fault."

"Technically, no."

She narrows her eyes until they're tiny slits. "Anything else?"

I take my time reading the file, looking for the smallest thing. Because after this, I'll be bored again.

I toss the file back on her desk and turn to the couch. This thing's really starting to hurt and I don't like the way it hangs when I stand. I'm happy to lie down and start my game.

It's as though she waits until I'm well into the level before she speaks. She's evil.

"Why aren't you with Wilson?"

I detect from her tone that she's stopped writing and she's giving me her full attention. Lucky me.

"Wilson's busy," I tell her. "Got a patient. One who isn't me."

I sense that she knows. She doesn't draw out my curiosity.

"Why haven't you told him?"

"Who says I haven't?" I return.

She has no idea how hard it is to keep a bike on a dirt track and talk at the same time.

"I do," she answers. "If he knew, he would have requested the file already and he'd be busy corralling you and pestering me with questions. I haven't heard from him which means you haven't told him."

"Why should I?" I ask. "He worries. If I care about him, I don't make him worry."

"That's a great plan," she says.

She's laughing at me. How did she know I just wrecked the bike?

"He'll be so thankful that you didn't tell him when he finds out."

I start the level again. I'm concentrating on the game—this conversation bores me.

"House, he's going to kill you for keeping this from him. And then he'll come after me. I'm not going to make the mistake of getting between you and your partner again. Not when you're my patient. Not when it's him. He's not as easy to replace."

I spin out and crash. I sigh.

"I'll call him when I'm in the room. Then he can bring me flowers and hold my hand like a good boyfriend."

That sentence makes me want to vomit. The antiemetic's holding strong, though. Cuddy's carpet will be spared.

I don't restart the level. She'll just make me crash again. Because I know what she's thinking and what she'll ask next. But I don't know the answer.

"House." She's compassionate, caring. Gross. "Why haven't you told him?"

That's my cue to break down, confess the dark secrets of our relationship. Chicks live for this, right?

"Are you ready to be pestered?" I ask her.

This time I look over to see her face when she answers.

Stony silence. But I can see that she isn't ready to have Wilson bothering her.

"Well, I don't want to be corralled yet either."

I start the level. We've come to an end point in the conversation. She'll shut up now and—

"Nothing else is going on?"

Now I'm getting annoyed.

"Just enjoying the silence while I can," I tell her. "Or trying to."

"He's going to see the time stamp on the file and he'll ask me about it later," she says. "I'm telling you you should call him right now."

"For the record?"

"He's dangerous when he's angry."

"Duly noted."

I return to my game. Maybe now she'll shut up.

I wait.

The scratching of pen on paper.

Excellent.

I play through the level. I'm only half there with the game. Less than half. Everything that isn't my motor cortex is processing the symptoms, the progression, the history… Sometimes it has to simmer, I know, though I hate waiting for it to come to me.

Eventually I put the game down.

To my eye, that kid's heart looked normal. Right size, right color, everything I touched was the right density and elasticity. That heart didn't arrest for no reason. That heart looked healthy.

Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome is a bad diagnosis. It's too vague. No definitive etiology. And the kid could have been having panic attacks, too. Why not? Abused kid, it's common.

Nothing about that heart seemed abnormal.

I'm cogitating when someone knocks on Cuddy's door and—crap. It's him.

He sticks his head in the door, speaking already.

"Hi. I got a call about—House."

Yes, he's spotted me. Cleverly camouflaged in a trench coat on a paisley couch (shame, Cuddy).

"What happened?"

He's aghast. Mouth hanging open.

I look at Cuddy for help. She's ignoring us both, trying not to be here with her head ducked almost to the desk top.

"Uh, nothing," I answer stupidly. "I'm getting the hernia repaired. Waiting on a room."

I realize I'm in trouble. Crap.

I watch, wincing, as he turns red. His mouth is moving. He's trying to say too many things at once, nothing comes out.

I try to sink into the couch. I'm in so much trouble. I want to crawl under Cuddy's desk and stay there for about a week.

I wait for him to explode. To yell. He looks like he has a lot of yelling gathered up.

But he doesn't. His shoulders slump forward, the red turns to pink. He looks confused.

"You're all right?" he asks.

"More or less," I shrug.

He stands in the middle of the room looking like a deflated balloon.

"You didn't—" He stops and begins again. "You drove yourself here? Why didn't you call me?"

"Didn't want to interrupt," I say.

Now I'm wishing Cuddy really wasn't here. I don't want to have a tender moment in front of her.

He starts toward me. "House, it's not an interruption."

He reaches out to put a hand on my shoulder and—

It's Cuddy.

Looking down at me.

I blink up at her.

"Your room's ready," she says and gives me the number.

She goes back to her desk. I sit up and blink. A creeping sense of deja-vu crawls over my skin. Just like the hallucinations before the Ketamine.

I stare at my hands. I think this is real.

I fell asleep. I had a vivid dream. Now I'm awake.

I'm awake. This is real.

I'm awake and shaking. I need hydration and whatever pain meds Cuddy ordered.

I take a deep breath and gather myself before she notices and we have another conversation.

I don the coat, balancing poorly with the cane. If she sees, she doesn't say anything. Good. Anyone who offers me a wheelchair right now gets a crack in the head.

I leave without incident and totter toward the elevator.

She isn't right, but… Okay, dammit, she is right.

I'll call him when I get to the room.