House got up at his usual time of 9:19. He wasn't well rested and his leg hurt. Not as bad as some mornings, but quite bad enough. Part of it was stress, he knew. Sure he played the detached doctor to the hilt, and most of the time it was also true, but now it was just an act. And on two fronts, too. As if Andie's situation wasn't enough now there was also the Ghost of Christmas past to deal with.
He didn't have much of a problem with Andie. He had known that she was going to die from the beginning. He had had no unrealistic hopes of sudden advances in cancer research that might give her more time and possibly even eventually a cure. Wilson was the optimist – which was a very strange quality in an oncologist. But though he was prepared for the end, House was surprised how much it still affected him. He had expected to feel sadness or melancholy when Andie was put in to the final coma, but he actually felt grief. He felt he had lost a friend. And yet it wasn't a sad thing in a sense, because Andie had had time to prepare for the end and the alternative would have been just more pain and suffering, both of which she had had enough already. Wilson had told him that the cancer had advanced to the extent that he didn't expect Andie to last another day. She would, in all likelihood, be dead by the end of the day. No help for it, but he would miss the little, bald circus freak.
It wasn't Andie though who had kept House awake, but Mr. Park. He had told Cuddy that his objectivity was intact, but he knew it wasn't. Watching someone else go through what he had been through, reliving each and every step of the way again was not only playing havoc with his objectivity it was also playing havoc with his leg. He didn't think that he was letting all that actually affect his job as Mr. Park's doctor – in fact he was making damn sure it wasn't. He had strongly advocated for an amputation – it was just a damn leg, after all. He had even made sure that Cuddy went to see the patient and repeated it all. He had decided not to put Mr. Park in coma right away just to have one last chance to make sure he was willing to risk his life and mind for a small chance of getting his leg back as a whole.
The night before, when he had given the drugs to Mr. Park, he had asked for the last time, if this was it.
"What did you do in my place?" Mr. Park had asked.
"I wasn't in your place; I didn't have family like you do. So just because I'm a stubborn jackass does not mean you have to be one," House had said.
"True. I don't see myself as a jackass. My wife tells me I'm more of a brick wall, just won't listen to her or anyone once I've made up my mind. But the stubborn part, that is the same. I know it's just a damn leg, but it's my damn leg and I cannot just let you lop it off. So, yes, I'm sure this is it."
So there had been no rest for the wicked. House had been going through it all in his mind, what had happened to him, what had he learned from it to help with this case, what things needed to be done for Mr. Park, were the instructions he had given to the nurses and his ducklings right, did they cover everything, was there something he had forgotten. And also he was questioning himself. Did he want this treatment to work? Would being proven right be enough, or would he resent the fact that he had been right and Stacy and Cuddy had robbed him of a life free of pain. Or did he want the treatment to fail, because then he could forgive – maybe – or because he resented the idea of someone else getting better, when he hadn't. No, he didn't think it was the latter. Nobody deserved to live with this kind of pain. But there was the idea of being able to – maybe – forgive. Though forgiveness, as Sister Augustine sometimes reminded him, ought not to be conditional. Stacy and Cuddy had done what they thought was for the best, they probably even had the best of intentions. And he had actually forgiven them, sort of. Only once in a while, when the pain was bad and he really wished he were dead, did the resentment come back. But time had dulled even that. In fact it was possible that he actually had forgiven them. But this case just brought all the old feelings, fears and hopes to the fore like never before.
Never mind, he had to stop brooding and get to work. There might even be a new case waiting for him – though that he doubted. At least he had his ducklings to torment, as well as Soo and he had a quota of five patients to insult bad enough to send them to torment Cuddy in turn. It might not be such a bad day in store for him. His parents, too, were leaving the hospital, so he didn't need to worry about running into his Dad in every corner. Yeah, it might not end up being such a very bad day.
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House had considered leaving his bike home and taking the bus, but after his morning Vicodin he felt well enough to ride. It was quicker anyway. He parked his bike in its usual handicap space and started limping towards the front door. He hadn't got very far when he heard his Father's voice from behind him. John House had obviously been out walking.
"You are still parking in handicap spaces, then," John said disapprovingly.
"Yeah," House admitted. "The funny thing about them is that they are meant for people with a handicap! Imagine that."
"You have two legs," John insisted. "It's not like you're in a wheelchair or something. Those spaces are meant for people who really need them."
"No kidding," House growled trying to walk faster, only the pain in his leg wouldn't let him. He looked ahead trying to asses how far the door still was when he saw a group of medical students approach it, too. Soo was one of them. House put two fingers into his mouth and whistled. Soo's head snapped up and she saw him. He jerked his head again to indicate that he wanted her and saw her say something short to her friends and then hurry over.
"Who is that?" John asked puzzled.
"My current slave," House said shortly. As Soo got to him he gave her his bag: "Right... "House paused and looked at Soo expectantly, she told him her name – again. "Soo, that was it. Soo, take my stuff to the diagnostics department and then come over to your father's room. Just wait for me there if I haven't made it yet."
"Very well, Dr. House," Soo said and left with his bag.
"You are making that slip of a girl carry your bag?" John seemed ready to do battle over that at least since nothing else had got much of a reaction out of his son.
"She's a rookie," House pointed out impatiently. "What else are they good for than to fetch and carry?" By that time they had mercifully reached the inside of the hospital and Blythe House was in the lobby waiting for her husband – not by accident. She knew her son came to work about this time and there was a chance that father and son would meet. As indeed they had.
"Hello, Greg," Blythe came over and kissed her son. "I heard Andie was put to her final coma last night."
"Yes, she was," House answered ready to chance the subject to anything. "Wilson is taking it pretty hard so if you see him, try to give him some support."
"I will," Blythe promised. "Are you ok?"
"I'm fine," House dismissed. "So, are you ready to blow this joint then?"
"Pretty much," Blythe agreed to change the topic. "I still need to see Eric one more time and check that I have the schedule for my follow up meeting with him and with my therapist and all that. We will probably be out of here in an hour."
"Ok, I try to come and see you off, but I'm not sure if I can make it," House told her. "I have a case."
"That's ok," Blythe assured him. "It's not like we are leaving town yet. Will you come over later? Tonight perhaps?"
"I think not," House declined. "Andy will probably die today and I don't know how hard that will hit Jimmy. Also my case is a bit tricky, anything can happen there. I'll know more tomorrow."
"Fine, I'll probably see you tomorrow then," Blythe said and then she took her husband away. House made his slow way to the elevators. He was going to check on Andie first – Wilson was probably there with her – and then go on to Mr. Park.
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Soo took House's bag to his office and then went to see her father. Dr. Cameron was watching over him. Soo greeted her briefly but didn't initiate a conversation. She sat by her father and took his hand in her own. He seemed to be resting peacefully.
Soo thought back to the night before. After she had watched House put her father in coma House had sent her away. He told her that nothing much was likely to happen during the first night so she ought to get her rest when she could. She had gone to her rooms with every intention to rest but her room mate was waiting for her, with a couple of her other friends. They had heard about the incident at the cafeteria and wanted the whole story. There was no way Soo was going to tell anyone that! But she had to say something.
She ended up telling them that she had asked his help for her father because she didn't think they were treating him right in Princeton General. She did not tell that it was an infarction, nor what treatment her father had chosen. What she did tell was that in sort of an exchange he had told her to fetch and carry for him for a few days.
"Well, I wouldn't mind fetching and carrying for him," one of the girls said. "I mean you get to see him work! Just imagine the sort of cases he solves."
"He doesn't currently have any cases," Soo pointed out. "That is apart from my Father, and his case I would get to follow anyway."
"But you can ask him about the ones he has solved before," another friend gushed. "That is so cool!"
"No, I cannot do that. You don't speak to House unless he wants you to speak to him," Soo revealed. "The only old cases we have been going through are the ones he has seen to at the clinic."
"What do you mean?"
"He apparently hates charting, so he has me going through all the files of his clinic patients for the last month or two and fill in the things he has failed to note in them." Soo told her friends.
"How does that work?"
"I read out the file, he tells me what he remembers of the visit and based on that I try to make intelligible notes on the files," Soo sighed. "The cases are mostly colds, cuts, bruises, occasional infection and a few hypochondriacs. Nothing to get exited over."
She had managed to downplay her whole "internship" enough to lull any obvious envy in her friends. Sure House had a reputation for being a cranky, sarcastic devil, so in that sense it was not difficult to get sympathy from her friends. But House was also a legend of titanic proportions, so it was not possible to completely avoid being envied for the chance of being close to "The Man". But she had managed to satisfy them enough to make them leave. With the obvious exception of her room mate, of course.
Once the rest of the gang had gone, she still had to endure a third degree from Nellie, who wouldn't believe that there wasn't more going on.
"Come on, Soo! You can tell me the whole story," she begged. "No way are you just fetching and carrying for Dr. House. What is the deal?"
"That is the deal, nothing else," Soo insisted. "What else could there be."
"Come on, you are not telling me that you just walked up to him and convinced him to take over your Father's care? Unless he has something truly bizarre wrong with him, I cannot see that happening," Nellie said. "So there must be something else going on."
"You are not suggesting..." Soo was disgusted. Sure Nellie tended to have sex in her mind 24/7 but this was too much. "He is old enough to be my father! Don't be disgusting."
"I don't think it would be disgusting," Nellie defended herself. "I think he is hotter than hell! So why not?"
"First of all, I'm not like you. I can live without assessing every male I see as a possible bed partner," Soo listed. "Secondly, if I made the mistake of trying to proposition Dr. House, he would throw me out of his office so fast I would not know what hit me. And I would be very lucky if he didn't throw me out through the balcony door – and over the side! Really, Nellie!"
"Come on, he is a man," Nellie tried. "They go for anything."
"Oh, thanks a lot!" Soo could not help herself; she had to laugh at her friend. Nellie was just being Nellie. And apart from her obsession with sex she was a good friend.
"I didn't mean it like that, just that to him it would not matter that you are young enough to be his daughter," Nellie defended her opinion.
"Somehow I think it would," Soo pondered. "There just is something about him that makes you think that he might flirt with anyone or any age, but if he goes further than that, he wants maturity. At least I think so; I haven't really studied him with that in mind."
"So no juicy details to give to me?" Nellie sounded truly disappointed.
"None at all. Sorry." Soo assured her.
