Honourable musings
"So how many times are you going to cry 'wolf'?" Nyx asked House.
"They are doctors," House shrugged. "With 'wolf' they are pretty much like nurses: no matter how many times you make them run, they will still come running just in case."
"That is a possibility," Nyx accepted. "You do like to make them run. But another possibility is that you are trying to give them enough false alarms that when you do get sick, they will leave you alone. Wilson did once say that you try to push away all those who care."
"Except that he wasn't budging no matter how much I pushed," House informed her.
"He seems to budge now," Nyx observed. "Either he is giving up or he has finally figured out that his previous attempts to control you by breathing down your neck and manipulating you behind your back never really worked and he has finally decided to do something different."
"Doesn't sound like him," House doubted. "Unless it is something his shrink has come up with."
"Could be," Nyx agreed. "Also if he has figured out that it will throw you off and drive you crazy, he will be more likely to stick with it."
"But can he keep it up?" House asked. "People don't change after all."
"True," Nyx nodded. "But they can learn. And with Mayfield he learned than when you truly need help you will come to him. With Cuddy's house he learned that if he pushes too hard, he will push you over the edge. Not that he pushed you alone nor that you weren't responsible for your own actions, but he still knows he pushed when he should have just left you alone."
"You think that when I was in prison he had time to think?" House pondered. "That he wasn't just curling up on himself trying to protect his emotions from yet another permanent loss? That right now he isn't trying to keep some distance to me just so that it won't hurt as much next time when I do something that makes me disappear from his life for unknown length of time that may turn out to be permanent?"
"That is a possibility," Nyx admitted. "Is that why you faked this illness? To see if he would come running? He did, until you pushed him away."
"So he did," House mused. "I wonder if Chase told him that he was going to Foreman? No, Wilson would have looked guiltier had he known who the rat was."
"Rat?" Nyx queried. "Didn't you tell your team that whistle blowing is honourable because it isn't following the rules."
"But tattling to Foreman that one of his doctors may be too sick to work is exactly what the hospital rules expect from staff," House pointed out.
"So Chase was a rat because he followed the rules and kept Foreman informed," Nyx stated. "But your patient was honourable because he broke the rules and gave information to civilians."
"Foreman doesn't need to know everything," House said. "That has always been the most important rule for my team: don't tell 'the man' – or 'woman' as the case originally was. People, on the other hand, need to know. You can't have even close to an honest government if nobody is ever willing to blow the whistle."
"So you think what the boy did was right?" Nyx asked.
"I don't know," House admitted. "I know he had to do it or else he would have gone insane – typhus or no typhus. He didn't have a choice about publishing the tape. I don't know if it was honourable or not, but he followed his own code. Stupidly, though, he wanted also to pay the full price even when he was given an option. Maybe he felt he had betrayed his principles when he joined. And because of that his honour didn't let him choose the easier way. I don't know. Honour is like love: both make you do stupid, stupid things."
"But was he right?" Nyx repeated. "Was it the right thing to do?"
"There are so very few things in life that are absolutely right," House sighed. "It is easier to say something is wrong."
"So you think he was wrong?" Nyx demanded.
"What he did was clearly wrong because he broke the rules," House said. "On the other hand, he was right to do it because that was his only choice if he was going to live with himself. Will history free him or condemn him? I'm fairly sure history won't give a damn."
"You don't think his actions matter?" Nyx questioned.
"Not really," House stated. "The military claims that publishing the tape is what makes the mistake public. I don't believe for a minute that the locals didn't know what had happened pretty much as soon as it had happened, if not sooner. Mistakes make things more difficult for them in Afghanistan, not talking about them because the locals know anyway. They always do. Yes, Taliban has now new visual aids with their recruiting, but they have used bits of movies and any filmed bit of any battle they can find on line. The recruiters may have graduated from Harvard or Sorbonne, but the kids they are recruiting barely know how to read. If they are told that a clip from Full Metal Jacket shows US soldiers slaughtering innocent Muslims they will believe it. The tape my patient made public, won't make any difference one way or another."
"Then his incarceration will be meaningless too," Nyx frowned.
"Show of strength," House shrugged. "The military cannot let any rules be broken without consequences. The whole system would break down if just anyone could use their own judgement. Or make that anyone at all. They have painted the tape with Grand Treason, they can't back off now. The only chance they had, and my patient had was, that he pleaded temporary insanity. The typhus diagnosis gave him the chance, but he chose not to take it. He would have been dishonourably discharged but he would have been free. I think he bought into the claim that the tape would kill his fellow soldiers and he felt the need to atone for that with his freedom. Even though he did think that publishing the tape will bring the soldiers home sooner."
"Do you think so?" Nyx asked.
"The soldiers will come home when the politicians are ready," House sighed. "Or when they realize that keeping the soldiers there is pointless – ready or not."
"You don't trust the military much," Nyx concluded. "Nor your government."
"I don't trust anyone or anything much, Nyx," House said. "Not even my dreams."