By the time they returned from lunch, Cuddy was thoroughly puzzled. House was practically glued to her, as near as he could be, and every time she met his eyes, they were at laser intensity with not his usual diagnosis but near panic in them. What was with him lately? He wasn't acting like himself at all. "I'm okay," she assured him for the umpteenth time as they walked slowly back from the cafeteria.
"How's your stomach?"
"I felt much better after taking the antacids, just like I told you the last ten times you asked. Honestly, Greg, given how much has been going on the last few days, I'm not surprised I'd have a little indigestion. I'm sure you would yourself if you weren't on omeprazole already." She stopped as they approached a bench. She carefully helped him sit down, then sat beside him, and her own eyes were worried as they met his. "You're the one I'm concerned about. Maybe it's just stress from your mother along with the ankle, but I really would like you to get that physical once we're back in Princeton. You don't seem like yourself the last week."
"Wilson did . . . "
"Yes, he told me," she said, cutting him off, and then realized she'd given herself away. "I, um, called him earlier, just to make sure he did a thorough job on that MRI. You invited me to ask him, you know."
"What did he tell you?" House asked with an odd note in his voice.
"He was with a patient, so he only had a minute, but he said he spent a lot of time on it, and there was nothing new wrong other than the ankle."
House relaxed a fraction. Wilson had backed him up on the MRI and obviously hadn't revealed the pregnancy. Of course, Wilson was still missing large chunks of data that House and Jensen both had. That must have been the call on the other line earlier. House felt a twinge of sympathy for the oncologist, who probably had needed antacid himself after juggling both of them simultaneously. "Good," he said and realized too late he'd said it aloud.
"Good?" Cuddy immediately looked suspicious. "What did you expect him to tell me? It's the truth, isn't it?"
"Yes, it's the truth. Like I said, you can look up the scan yourself back in Princeton. Bad sprain, one ligament torn. No fractures. No clots or lesions in the leg. Everything was a bit inflamed, but that's all. I'm fine; you don't have to worry. Are you sure you're feeling okay?"
Cuddy was starting to get dizzy trying to follow the jumps of this conversation. "Greg, I am FINE. Why do you keep asking?"
He scrambled desperately for a cover story. "I just . . . there's so much going on right now. Mom being hurt and everything. I . . . I couldn't stand it if anything happened to you." That last part was so intensely sincere that she believed him. She reached out to rest a hand on his arm.
"Greg, I'm fine. The antacid helped immediately. Really."
He studied her, weighing the answer. "Please tell me if you start to feel off. Okay?"
"I'm fine. It's okay." She squeezed his arm. "I know you've had a bad history, to put it mildly, but you aren't going to automatically have bad things happen to people just because you care about them. But please tell me, honestly, are you feeling okay yourself?"
He studied her with one of those silent differentials. "I'm worried with everything going on, and my leg is hurting. That's everything." Perfectly true, although open to multiple interpretations.
She stood and reached out to help him up. "Come on, let's go see your mother."
His worried eyes were still on her as he stood, and he overbalanced on the crutches and came very close to falling over, only saving himself by Cuddy's support and because he had been right against a bench anyway. "Greg!" She sat down again, both hands reaching for his leg as he landed back on the bench. He had shut his eyes against the pain flare for a second, but he heard the rising note of concern in her voice, and he opened his eyes again quickly and tried to give her a reassuring smile.
"I'm okay," he said automatically. "I stood a little bit too fast." She studied him with open skepticism. "I did get checked out, remember? There's just so much going on right now, and I wasn't thinking about placing my balance before I stood. My mind was elsewhere. I'll be more careful." She pursed her lips in concern. "Call Wilson again," he suggested. "Ask him to fax you the scan, or email it to your phone. You can go over it all you want, send it to an orthopedist, do whatever with it. There is NOTHING new medically wrong with the leg besides the ankle."
At that moment, his cell phone rang, and he answered, then said, "We'll be right there." He snapped the phone shut and set himself carefully on the crutches, then stood almost in slow motion. "Mom's starting to respond to pain a little bit. They're increasing sedation for the moment while she's on the ventilator." As he started walking again, he gave her one more worried glance and found her eyes on him with equal anxiety. They limped toward the ICU in silence.
(H/C)
When Jensen answered the phone late that afternoon, House took off on the conversation nearly before the psychiatrist had finished saying hello. "She was having stomach pain earlier."
"Is she all right now?"
"She says she is. She said it was just indigestion, and when she took some antacid, it helped. I've been watching her since, and she isn't rubbing her abdomen anymore, but what if this was tied to the pregnancy?"
Jensen sighed softly, then plunged in. "It's quite possible that it was just indigestion, but either way, I think it's a safe bet it's tied to stress."
"Exactly. She shouldn't have come. The whole thing with Mom is too much."
"I'm sure her primary worry at this point is you," Jensen said.
"I called Wilson myself a while ago and asked him to send the MRI to her phone. She's got all the medical proof right there."
"And she has intuition that is going completely against all the medical proof." Jensen changed course slightly. "Why do you think that concern over you is less stressful than concern over herself or the child would be?" House was silent. Jensen pushed on. "You are worth her concern. She knows something is wrong."
"A baby is the one thing she's always wanted," House said finally. "Of course that would mean more to her. And I haven't lied to her. There is NOTHING medically wrong, besides the ankle."
Jensen shook his head slightly, amazed again at House's uneven application of his brilliance. The man truly had an entirely separate scale for himself versus others. "Dr. House, do me a favor right now, okay?"
"I'm NOT going to . . ."
"I didn't mean talking to Dr. Cuddy, not just then. Would you take your own pulse?"
House grumbled a bit but clearly obeyed, judging from the shifting sounds of the phone. "121," he said after a pause, sounding slightly surprised himself.
"Can you honestly tell yourself as a physician that that is good?" House was silent. "Psychosomatic symptoms do have medical effects. It's only the cause that is mental, not the result. And you truly are putting a dangerous amount of stress on yourself at this point. Dr. Cuddy senses that. You need to talk."
"I'm sure it's not that high all the time; you've just got me worked up thinking about her." House's tone was stubborn.
"So take it a few more times throughout this evening. Compare several readings."
"And I am talking. I've called you twice today, and Wilson a couple of times, too. I've even admitted to him that I'm worried about being a father."
"That's good, but you need to talk to Dr. Cuddy."
House was silent for a minute, thinking. "I'll . . . keep an eye on her. Maybe if I find a time when not much else is going on, and if she doesn't have any more abdominal pain. . . "
Jensen gave a mental sigh. "The one thing that would help both of you most right now is for you to talk to her." House didn't respond, and Jensen knew he'd pushed that point as far as it could go at the moment. "How's your mother?"
"She's on a ventilator now, but the coma from the head injury seems to be lighter. They've had to increase the sedation. I went over her chart this morning. There's nothing else I could do, no suggestions. It's just waiting. She might have brain damage; we'll just have to see."
"Remember, this is not your fault," Jensen reminded him. He knew it would take a while to sink in with House, but no harm in repeating it.
"Then whose is it?" House said softly.
"In this case, probably either the driver of the car or just nobody. Not everything is somebody's fault. The universe doesn't work like that." Jensen paused and then added a tail to the last sentence. "In spite of what your father always told you."
House was silent for a moment, then characteristically jumped subjects, as usual when he needed time to think about something. "By the way, you might want to go check on Wilson later. He might need to talk to somebody himself. He wound up with both of us on different lines simultaneously this morning, and I can imagine how wired he was by the end of that."
Jensen smiled. "I can, too. That's a good idea; I'll go see if he needs to talk. You are a good friend, Dr. House." House was silent, his standard reaction to a compliment. "And you are worth worrying about," Jensen continued. "Watch Dr. Cuddy and ask yourself if knowing about the baby would truly be worse than worrying about you."
"I'll . . . think about it." A rare concession from House. "I've got to go. She'll be wondering if I fell in. . . " His voice caught slightly there.
"What is it?" Jensen asked.
"I hadn't thought of that phrase in years. That's something Mom used to say sometimes when I was a kid. I'd take a book into the bathroom and get lost mentally, and she'd eventually ask through the door if I fell in." He abruptly wondered if he'd ever hear her voice again saying anything. "Course, that was only when Dad was gone. There was always a time limit with him. I've got to get back to Cuddy."
"Talk to her, Dr. House. Please just talk to her."
A click of the phone, and House was gone without saying anything further. Jensen stood still for a minute, collecting his own thoughts, and then went to the nearest nurse's station and politely asked where Dr. Wilson's office was.