The Gauntlet

Chapter 11

"You really want this job?" Taub had asked her.

"You think you can talk me into leaving?" she replied evasively deflecting it back onto him.

"You're a person who likes her privacy working for a man who needs to know everything. You're a person who cares about her patients working for a man that cares about games."

For the past two days, Remy had been mulling over in her mind what Taub had said to her. He was right about her. She valued her privacy more than anything else because she didn't want people to know about her past. She didn't want people's false pity or fake platitudes about a situation that they had no idea about. No one could possibly understand what it was like to grow up with a mother who was dying of Huntington's Chorea. No one could possibly know what it felt like to live with the likelihood that they were going to die the same horrible death.

All her life she tried to move beyond that notion that she was a ticking time bomb just waiting for the first tremor. She had watched her mother devolve from a beautiful vibrant woman into a angry, retched, broken shell of the person she used to be. She couldn't control her hands, legs, mind or her bowels. It was twice as debilitating and demeaning a death as any and she wouldn't wish it on her worst enemy. No one deserved to die without even a shred dignity.

Of course Remy understood that now, as a doctor and a grown up. For the longest time when she was young, she was angry that she had such a horrible childhood. She hated her mom because she couldn't be a real mother to her. She couldn't be there for the little things like, shopping for clothes, school functions, birthday parties and play dates. When she was older, all the woman did was yell and say terrible things to her and her friends because of her disease. The disease took away everything that she was supposed to be as a mom. She wasn't sweet, she wasn't kind and she had no ability to love her and sometimes, every once in a while, Remy could still feel the pain of that.

Her father was even more of a disappointment because he had just had given up living. He was an empty skeleton of a man that couldn't give anymore of himself to her because he'd thrown it all away on her mother. It had estranged them in such a way that Remy hadn't spoken to him in ten years. She knew now that it wasn't his fault, but there was no way to reconcile the damage that had already been done.

Remy had come to terms with being alone a long time ago. It was such a part of her life that it didn't hurt anymore. But with every twinge, every missed step, every accidental fumble she wondered… is it time? The older she got, the more fearful she became. And consequently, the older she got the more risks she took with her life. Not knowing whether she had Huntington's empowered her to take challenges that she would never have done if she were 'normal'. She'd done stupid things; slept around, done drugs, driven too fast, walked life on the edge. And then one day, an email came from a former mentor. There was a fellowship opening at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital with Dr. Gregory House.

It was an amazing opportunity. Everyone she'd asked said that after coming off of this fellowship she'd be able to work anywhere she wanted. Despite what an ass House was, he was a world-renowned diagnostician. Doctors all over the country knew of him and his work. He was a legend and she could learn so much from him.

"You're a person who cares about her patients working for a man that cares about games." Taub had said; but Taub was wrong about House.

At first she figured this would be an interesting experience in the sense that she could challenge herself and learn so much more than she would have just doing rounds in an ER in a major city. Remy soon found out, however, working for House was one of the biggest challenges of her life. He was demanding, critical, unconventional, arrogant, and impatient. He had probably forgotten more medical knowledge already in his twenty years of experience than she would accumulate in a lifetime. He was utterly brilliant and it amazed her how much random information he had stored in that vault of a brain he had. He knew everything and demanded that his employees did as well. She had gone home and studied more in the last eight weeks than she had in the entire last year of her residency. Despite all of House's personality quirks and difficult demands, he had to be the single best doctor she'd even met in her life. No, Taub was wrong about him. And she was glad she had taken the chance.

She didn't want it to end. But here they were, back in the lecture hall for one last tribal council. One last time would they all sit there like this waiting to have their fate decided based on their worthiness of working with the best diagnostician in the world.

The four of them waited anxiously in their seats down in the bottom row. Amber, Taub, Remy and Kutner respectively, all of them were somber and quiet because no one had an inkling as to who was going. He had wiped away the points when the patient went into respiratory distress and even paraded them in front of Cuddy to make her see that he needed to keep all four of them. But he couldn't. He may have called the shots when it came to the medicine but when it came to the bureaucracy, the Dean of Medicine had the last say and the word was he could only keep two.

Finally, the door opened and House entered, carrying a small 45" record. He looked solemn like the decision had taken a long time in coming and once again Remy didn't envy his position. He limped slowly over to the record player and opened the lid. Removing the record's cover, he blew the dust off it, almost reverently and carefully, he put it on the turntable. He placed the arm gently on top of it and a soft guitar solo began to trickle out of the tiny old speaker.

It was nice. Almost calming.

He leaned heavily on the desk and just listened for a second. "A little mood music to build the suspense."

Kutner leaned over placing his elbows on his knees. "Sounds more folky."

House rolled his eyes and glared at Kutner. "You seriously have no idea when to shut up, do you?"

Kutner snapped his trap shut and leaned back like House had rapt him on the snout with his cane. Remy gave him a little smile in sympathy.

"Amber, please stand," House directed from his position by the desk.

Nervously, Amber rose to standing. "You didn't call me 'bitch'. Is that bad?"

House turned to face her. His arms hung dolefully by his side. "You play the game better than anybody else here."

Amber nodded at him as if it were a compliment.

His eyes flicked up to her briefly. "But for the wrong reasons," he continued.

"Reasons don't matter," she recited. "Results are the only thing..."

"You were wrong." He heaved in a sigh and began to move towards her. "Twenty years ago," he pointed to the record player, "this was recorded by Jim Moskowitz, who later became known as Jimmy Quidd. Loves kids, apparently has a heart, perhaps even a soul." Stopping in front of her he looked her in the eye. "If you're going to work for me, you have to be willing to be wrong… willing to lose." His eyes cast down to the floor, avoiding the weighty emotion of the moment. "… Because you just did." Somberly, he looked back up at her and set his jaw askew. "You're fired."

In a surprising display of vulnerability, Amber nodded tearfully accepting his decision at face value without question. Remy wanted to be happy, because her rival had finally been put in her place, but she couldn't. She couldn't take pleasure in another person's failure. It was wrong. She looked away as Amber heavily sat back down and silently cried.

The room was so quiet they could hear him breath in a trembling breath. "Thirteen, please stand."

Confused, Remy rose slowly from her chair. He swallowed hard casting his eyes to the ground. He couldn't look at her; he could barely stand in front of her. His eyes blinked rapidly and his shoulders were slumped with substantial apprehension.

"You're fired."

Remy gasped, stunned.

"Y… you just said I was right about..."

"He was a drug addict," he gruffly cut her off. His eyes met hers finally and she could see the significance in them. He admired her liberal view of the world, maybe even her view of him, but he couldn't have her ignoring the obvious either. "Four applicants, two spots." He breathed in a shuddering sigh and brought his crestfallen eyes to hers. "If I had three, I'd keep you."

Remy stood there, a rueful smirk coming to her lips. His eyes held her gaze for a long moment and she could read the depth of regret and all things unspoken between them. He felt bad. He didn't want to let her go. And that broke her heart.

Heaving in another disconcerted sigh, he announced. "Game over!"

And without another look at them, he left the room; his burden shed, but by no means forgotten.

Remy sat back down and brought her hand to her mouth in disbelief. It was over. She had lost too.

She looked at Taub and Kutner who both gave her sad smiles. It was tough to be the winner when you had to face the losers. She was happy for them, though. They deserved it. They all did, but in the end he could only have two.

They rose and gave her hugs, promising to keep in touch, though Remy knew that was never going to happen, but it was sweet they said so. They made their goodbyes and she climbed the stairs one by one to go retrieve her things from the locker room.

She would miss this place. She would miss him.

It had been a fun ride.