Friday
7.
Four hours. Four hours to go one measly mile. And he very nearly didn't make it at all. By the time he arrived, he was hardly able to draw breath between coughs, and his head was swimming so that he had a difficult time focusing his eyes.
It was lunch time when he entered the lobby of Princeton Plainsboro, the strangely empty lobby, and limped slowly over to the reception. A young woman at the desk looked up, took in his flushed cheeks, his haggard appearance, and pointed to the left. "The free clinic is that way," she said. House stifled a cough that began deep in his chest.
"I'm looking for," he paused to catch his breath a bit, "the Dean of Medicine."
The girl looked dubious. "Do you have an appointment to see Dr. um…?"
"Cuddy," supplied another woman, sitting at a computer with her back to the two of them.
"Sorry, I'm just filling in this morning," said the girl. "Yes, Dr. Cuddy's very busy. In fact he's not in his office. He—"
"She—" interrupted the other woman. Jack was glad to hear this. He was pretty sure Dr. Cuddy ought to be a woman.
"Sorry, she's got a meeting in the…" She checked a date book. "Where is that meeting?" she asked the other woman.
"They had to move it to the auditorium," grunted Mrs. Back-to-Them, her contempt for temp agencies and their spawn radiating from her body like heat waves.
"The auditorium?" the girl asked. "I thought it was supposed…because the schedule says…" and then the two launched into a conversation Jack could only partly hear.
He cleared his throat. Hello, he thought. Still here. Then he shrugged. He could find the auditorium. It seemed clear for some reason that the auditorium should be on the basement level. Without another word he turned his back and headed off toward the elevators. Although he was feeling distinctly light-headed and moving at all required an enormous effort, he couldn't help noticing the security guard at the door keeping a close eye on him. He couldn't really blame him. If he were a security guard, he'd keep a close eye on him, too. And security was really important at hospitals. People could get shot in hospitals. Not surprising, when they kept the place so hot. People could really get hot headed in a place this hot, fly off the handle and…
Jack realized his thoughts were floating in an alarming way and tried to reel them in. He pushed the elevator call button and leaned sideways until his cheek was pressed against the cool burnished metal of the wall. That felt better, and he stayed there until he heard the ding announcing the car had arrived. More cool metal as he backed up against the elevator's corner walls, noticing how they fogged up wherever he touched them. He was tempted, very tempted to slide slowly to the floor, where he could have cool metal on three sides. The elevator was empty and it would be so easy. But just as he was about to try it, the doors opened, and he remembered that he had places to go. He shoved himself forward, turned without thinking about it to the left and soon came to the swinging doors that let into the auditorium. He didn't think about how he knew where the auditorium was, or why the name "Cuddy" had suddenly conjured up an image of dark curly tresses; he just let it flow over him.
Outside the auditorium doors, though, he paused. What was he planning to say to this Cuddy, if she was indeed in there? And what would she make of him? Would she believe him any more than anyone else had, these last days? His face was dripping with sweat, which wasn't helping matters. Untucking his T-shirt, he mopped his face with the hem. That looked better, he hoped, although the shirt was so muddy it might have made things worse, and he was too tired to tuck the shirt back into his pants. With the shirt untucked, he noticed that his pants were sliding down his hips, and he considered whether it was worth the effort to try to tighten his belt a notch. Nah. The way his hands were shaking, he'd never manage it.
He stood there for what seemed an age, unable to go inside. In a moment of lucidity, it came to him just how absurd he was being. He'd based this whole trip, jumped to this insane conclusion, on the basis of one aborted phone call, on the over-reaction of one HR person to his innocent question, on the faintest of memories. He must have been completely off his head. Here he was, about to interrupt the Dean of Medicine's important conference. She would gaze at him slack jawed, she would laugh and call the too-eager security guard and have him carted off to jail or a homeless shelter. He turned to go, but at that instant, four people in white lab coats thrust past him, hurrying impatiently into the auditorium. As one of them held the door open for the others, he saw an amazing sight.
The auditorium was filled with people, nearly every seat taken, and the person who must be the Dean—long, curly dark hair—was running the meeting from a podium. But that was not the astonishing thing. The astonishing thing was the picture projected onto the screen behind her, partially obscured by a huge bouquet of flowers sitting on the stage.
It was a picture of him. Or at least he thought it was a picture of him, of him looking with a worried frown at something that had been cropped from the photo. He tried hard to remember what he looked like, to call up the face last seen in a coffee shop bathroom mirror a lifetime ago. All he could remember were blue eyes and a brow furrowed with pain lines. He rubbed a hand across his face, testing. Yes, that must be him up there.
Under the photo was the caption "Dr. Gregory House, 1959-2006."
He had stumbled into his own memorial service.
