Chapter 14
Things could go back to normal. House knew he simply needed to talk to Lisa, admitting that he had been wrong or just saying that he was sorry. That would be relatively easy, safe and predictable. In other words, relatively hypocritical, cowardly and masochistic - a mix he vehemently detested in all of the so-called healthy relationships.
"That's what all grown-up people do," – Wilson had said. His friend sure would know, hell, with his marital record he must have mastered these pathetic excuses to perfection, an acquired reflex and all. Maybe he had even devised a codename for it, just like with these disastrous dreams-hopes-and-aspirations. House contemplated borrowing some tricks from Wilson's apology-talk. The thought was quickly dismissed, though, since the last time he tried employing his friend's techniques hadn't ended up well.
On the other hand, nothing good could have come out of that blackmailed date in the first place. Wilson or no Wilson, Cameron's untimely persistence or not, he had been bound to sabotage it. At least that was what he had told himself years ago, looking at Cameron's fallen face as he had been methodically and intentionally hitting the sore spots. Out of mercy rather than cruelty – crushing her delusions was better than crushing her anyway.
House threw the oversized tennis ball into the wall of his office. Just as all his words on that evening, it hit home. He caught the ball and twirled it in his hands. A fleeting vision came and went away.
Still, maybe Wilson's advice would work this time. Then the ball hit the wall again, this time with much more force. The real question was whether he wanted it to work. He suddenly pictured too clearly what would happen, should he go round the same circle all over again.
Treating the symptoms instead of the disease was just plain stupid – he wondered for how long they would keep ignoring this simple fact.
A few days later, House was sitting in his office while his team was running extensive tests on their latest patient. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. Spending hours in front of the computer screen reading and typing without occasionally watching General Hospital for a distraction could be tiring. He should find a way to make Cameron pay for this; after all, she had talked him into taking the case of Gardner's trial. At the moment he preferred to ignore the fact that actually it was he who offered to help.
At least he didn't have to deal with constant interruptions from Foreman, Taub or the sexy couple. Seeing his interest and frantic surfing of medical databases, yet misinterpreting its cause, his team decided that their current case was more difficult than it seemed. Out of the desire to reassert themselves or plain stubbornness, they were determined to crack this one on their own. Ironically House didn't even mean to mess with them this time, but apparently, they expected him to. Hence, they kept refusing a simple solution: long QT syndrome. He didn't mind, after all their current patient wasn't in critical condition. Yet.
Speaking of expectations and mindset - House smirked in triumph, took out his cell, scrolled down the contact list till he found the listing he needed. Yet another person with a twisted way of thinking. Trapped somewhere in the middle, Cameron still obstinately hoped for the best, but couldn't help expecting the worst. A perfect dichotomy of optimism and fear, one of which he was partly responsible for. Not entirely, for Chase, the dead husband and God knows who else did the bulk of the work.
He waited until she picked up and then said instead of greeting:
"Who's the fairest of them all?"
"What?"
She sounded confused, trying to guess what he was up to this time.
"Wrong, you must answer: 'Oh, great House, you're the fairest, the smartest and the most ingenious of them all'. I thought chicks dig teary fairytales."
"Haven't pictured you as the evil stepmother, that's all."
"Am I a frog in your book, with a prince somewhere underneath?"
She was silent for a moment, as if contemplating his words, and then blurted out:
"Lucy." She burst out into peals of giggles, apparently content with her conclusion.
Someone should tell her that metaphors which no one could understand were even worse than sports ones. Maybe even he would, but not today. Not now, because it sounded strange: careless and a tiny bit nostalgic - he hadn't heard Cameron laughing for a long time, not since… House frowned: he had forgotten the last time, and for the observant person he was, this simple fact was surprising. Maybe at some point in the past she had stopped laughing around him: since his return from Mayfield, or even before. True, she had been giggling at something he said during her last night in Princeton, but that one was too nervous and too broken to be an actual laugh. Not that he cared.
The moment was over all too soon, as Cameron continued, this time wearily, and he wasn't sure whether she was talking to him, or to herself:
"I'm no longer a Charlie Brown, though."
'Peanuts', damn it. He should have guessed.
He smiled at a ridiculous picture forming in his mind: Lucy taunting Charlie Brown by holding a football and promising to let him kick it. An ages-old prank, but Charlie would believe it every time, only to find Lucy snatching the ball out of his path at the last possible second, causing him to be flung up into the air and land hard on his ass.
Ridiculous, but oddly fitting. He shifted in his chair, suddenly feeling uneasy as his mind started racing. House sensed that his silence lasted longer than he wanted to. Stupid comics metaphors. He forced himself to concentrate on printed-out files in front of him. After all, that's why he called.
"So," He said, slowly dragging out the words: "Hot girls on Gravedigger porn?"
"It's you who asked for such a title."
"But you had to make it more personal, didn't you?"
Cameron seemed unfazed:
"Have you looked through the documents?"
He had been studying them for a few days now, but she didn't need to know it. She might think that he paid special attention to this puzzle because she asked him to, which, certainly wasn't the case.
"A 32-year-old woman, with a 5-year history of active…"
"What does it have to do with…"
Predictable.
"Just shut up for a moment." He said, irritation evident in his voice: he needed her to follow his lead here, otherwise she'd never come around his logic. Surprisingly, Cameron obliged. House went on:
"A 32-year-old woman, with a 5-year history of active Crohn's , unresponsive to mesalamine and budesonide. She was started on infliximab, after the third infusion abdominal pain resolved, bowel movements decreased."
"But?''
Good girl. He continued:
"After 12 months of therapy, she developed gait imbalance and numbness in the hands and feet. In over several weeks, walking became difficult."
"And her Crohn's?"
"Remained quiescent."
"A cranial nerve exam?"
"Normal. But she had mild spasticity and mild ataxia of the arms and legs."
"What about erythrocyte sedimentation rate, lupus anticoagulant, copper levels?"
"The rate of 55, and you missed with the two others."
Exactly what he needed: she was running out of options, just a few more steps and that would be it. But a game would be fun. As if echoing his thoughts, Cameron asked:
"MRI?"
"An ovoid lesion in the spinal cord with mild diffuse enhancement."
"A lumbar puncture?"
"No oligoclonal bands, c'mon, you could have asked right away."
"Actually, I thought about cell pleocytosis and IgG index, but you've just made it easier."
He should have simply answered the question she asked, instead of narrowing it down to what he wanted to say. So much for his complacency and having the upper hand. But he knew he would restore the balance pretty soon:
"So, any ideas?"
"CNS demyelinating syndrome," Cameron replied confidently. "In this case it's a rare complication of TNF inhibitors. I'd stop infliximab, put her on methylprednisolone. In 3 or 4 months the symptoms should resolve."
"Seems like you aren't an idiot." And now it was time for her to connect the dots. "Then why didn't you think about TNF inhibitors in Gardner's trial?"
There was silence on the other end of the line, and then Cameron answered, as if stating the most obvious thing in the world.
"Because everyone knows that TNF blockade shouldn't be instituted in patients with MS."
"You still expect everyone to play by the rules? Seriously? " He didn't give her time to answer, as he continued: "Logically you know that something is rotten there, just as you knew that one of your fellows screwed up."
"House," Her tone was all too familiar: the old Cameron, who believed in the best in people, who would stand up to him in every possible way. "Who in his right mind would take such a risk…"
"You've just easily guessed a complication from the TNF inhibitor in Crohn's, because the drug is often used for it, side-effects are rare, so you don't have to consider a doc prescribing it to be a bastard risking a patient's life."
He leaned back in his chair, content with himself. Cameron was oddly quiet. "Still can't come the whole way, can you?"
"What are you talking about?"
"You've learned to expect the worst from people, but that's not enough."
"You don't expect, you demand the worst from them," She didn't mirror his sarcasm, her voice filled with sadness instead. "And that's too much." Cameron finished, and he was transferred back to when she had been saying that there was no way back for him. It was absurd: he was right, but she somehow managed to turn the tables again.
"A TNF inhibitor could easily fit in the formula, he expected to balance it with the other components. You know I'm right."
"I…" Cameron trailed off for a moment, but then said with quiet resignation. «I know, I just wish you weren't."
"Don't pout."
He wanted to add that her mindset also worked, that only she could start thinking about the ADEM in that MS or not MS case. An ephemeral thought entered his mind that she, indeed, used to balance him, and the whole team, for that matter. He caught himself before any of these slipped off his tongue.
There was another pause, and he wondered whether she was thinking along the same lines.
When she spoke again her voice was all business: once again the tone of the all-too-professional, reserved Cameron he saw in the lobby of the hospital in Boston.
"Ok, I guess I'll need to check frozen samples, run complimentary in vitro and TNF bioassays..."
"Check levels of IFNγ and mRNA for placebo and the drug." He finished. "I'm sending you a couple of ideas."
"You actually typed?" She asked skeptically.
"Needed to hide from clinic duty, don't you dare to start the crap about me caring or helping, got it?"
"You aren't." She stated rather calmly, blowing his expectations of yet another lecture on ethics and his insensitive attitude toward patients. "I think you just want to humiliate Gardner, that's all. Luckily for me, it goes along with helping people."
"Fair enough."
Plus, he would always be able to get something out of this:
"And you owe me big."
"Again?"
"Well, you didn't expect me to be that unselfish while sharing my wisdom and brilliance, did you?"
"What do you need, House?"
"I'll think about it and then tell you."
He smirked smugly and ended the call. This time he got the upper hand, plus he would always have something to manipulate Cameron with. Though so far he had no idea how to use his new ace.
It took House and Cuddy one more month to come to the five stages of dying.
House opened the front door with his key and put it on the nearby table. Lisa was not in the sitting room, so he took a few steps toward her bedroom. She wasn't there either. He turned around and limped to Rachel's room, he expected Lisa to be there – sitting with her daughter always helped her to calm down when she needed it. He carefully opened the door, so as not to wake up Rachel. He was right, Lisa drifted off in the chair near Rachel's bed with a book on her lap and a bedside lamp still on. But she stirred the moment he opened the door wider.
"Hi." She whispered. She stood and left the room, carefully closing the door behind her.
She didn't say anything further and went to the kitchen to pour herself a glass of water. The tension settled in, with no one willing to break the silence first. It had been easier during the day, when each of them had a handy arsenal of distractions: Cuddy had an entire hospital to run, and he had annoying patients and a team to mess up with. Whereas now they had no escape route from their personal life.
He felt sorry, only not in a way Lisa wanted him to. It had nothing to do with their latest argument, or him not being attentive enough, or whatever. He was sorry for driving them both into this deadlock of a relationship in the first place.
When he returned to the sitting room, she was on the sofa, leafing through a magazine without actually reading it. She didn't look up at him, but he could see the muscles in her back and shoulders tense up.
"People say it helps when you don't turn it upside-down, though this way you…"
"What?" Lisa absent-mindedly looked at the magazine, which, indeed was turned upside down. She frowned and threw it at the nearby table.
He cleared his throat: time to clean up the mess.
"How about a break?"
"Don't you take one whenever you want instead of working?" She tiredly massaged her temples.
Denial
"Do you think you need a break?" House gripped the handle of his cane tighter, frustrated at himself. He was acting like a coward, even unable to pronounce these words aloud. He hoped that Lisa would understand, once they used to be able to listen and hear each other.
"I can't leave the hospital and…"
"Lisa, that's not what I mean."
And she did understand, maybe even had the first time he mentioned it.
"What on the Earth… You can run away every time things turn difficult!"
Anger
"I can't even if I wanted to, cripple here." He cursed inwardly after saying it. He didn't want this conversation to turn into yet another deflecting-game. "I hate to sound cheesy, but it's more like giving some space."
"To yourself, apparently."
"To us both, to think it over."
Bargaining
She didn't answer, just rose from the sofa and marched past him to her bedroom. A few more seconds and door-banging would ensue. Before Lisa reached hr destination, he gently but firmly caught her hand, making her stay still.
"Is this how you pictured us?"
She didn't meet his gaze, looking at the floor instead. Her answer, when it came, was quiet.
"No."
Depression
"It used to be easier, didn't it?"
"It did."
He let go of her hand, wondering what would happen next.
She finally looked him in the eye:
"Let's do it."
Acceptance
At this very moment it seemed like a huge weight was lifted from his shoulders. The funny thing was that Lisa also seemed to feel a sudden relief. She relaxed, previous strain and tension vanishing. House nodded, and limped to the front door. Turning around for one last time, he added:
"Does it mean that I get a week off the clinic duty to recuperate from emotional damage?"
"In your dreams."
They both smirked.
He never took his key from the table.
Author's note: Greetings to those who used to read Peanuts, and those who (like me) couldn't help laughing at the use of the Charlie Brown metaphor on the West Wing.
BARTLET: You know what you are? You are the Charlie Brown of missile defense. The Pentagon is Lucy.
…
LEO : There're a couple of three star generals in there. Call any of 'em Lucy and you're on your own.