The Gauntlet

Chapter 36

Sunglasses on, cane gripped tightly in his hand, House bee-lined it to the elevator and snuck in, as luck would have it, under Cuddy's radar. Wilson had concocted some story of a stomach bug and that was good enough to quell her inquisition of his whereabouts for the last three days, though really it was only the last hour of the party and one day of actual work he'd missed.

He pushed the button to the fourth floor, his body wrought with tension and dread of the unexpected awaiting him when he walked through that door. His hand shook a little and his stomach wrung itself into knots but it really had nothing to do with the behemoth of a hangover he had this morning. He was nervous. Like he was fifteen again and he was going to tell Suzanne Kelley that he was sorry for kissing her sister Beth at the base Fourth of July party instead of her. He'd wound up with a black eye and a kick to the balls, but he deserved it. He was an asshole. Right now, he'd welcome a shot to the gonads from Thirteen if it meant that maybe she could find it in herself to forgive him for being a coward. She had, after all, forgiven him for illegally testing her for a genetic disease she may or may not have. Stomping on her heart and turning tale and running scared had to kind of fall slightly below that, right?

The elevator dinged and the doors slid open with an ominous clunk. He didn't want to go in there. His stomach somersaulted and fell off the balance beam with a thud. Fuck. He didn't want to see her. This was so not good. He was anxious about her response to him in the aftermath of his stupidity. Would she be angry, spiteful, bitter? Would she not speak to him? Or would she be fine, like she didn't care? Maybe she didn't have any feeling about it at all. Like she had said, the last kind of heart condition she wanted was an emotional one. Maybe she had been the smart one all along.

Summoning strength from the very last corner of his pinky toe, House stepped off the elevator and limped to his office instead of the diagnostics room. He could see them. They were all there, including her. She was at the table with a coffee mug in her hand. He couldn't make eye contact with her because of his shades so he glanced unabashedly at her to check her reaction as she could see his approach. She wasn't looking at him, or anywhere remotely close to his direction. Instead her eyes were intently reading the dark blue folder in front of her. Oh, thank God, somebody was dying! At least he had that to brighten his already stressful day.

Sliding his coat off he traded it for his sport jacket inside his knapsack and removed his sunglasses. Squinting against the light, he groaned and ran his hand over his face. This was a hell of a lot harder than he'd expected. Tilting his head to the side, he cracked his neck and took a deep breath. It was now or never.

With a yank on his door, he swung it open and stepped into the lions' den. "Good morning my little cherubs, Daddy's home."

Three sets of expectant eyes were on him. One set was not. He scanned the faces at the table and they all kind of nodded their acknowledgment of his presence except for her. She refused to look at him. It wasn't like she was focusing at anything in particular or important. She just wouldn't look him at all. His head began to pound.

He needed coffee. That would help.

"Where have you been?" Taub asked curiously with a slight smirk.

Hobbling over to the coffee maker, House poured himself a cup and slid the little man a glance before resorting to his usual bravado. Placing his hand on his stomach he gave him his trademark eye roll with a girlish sigh. "Bad crab salad. Whew, had the shits for days!"

Foreman raised an eyebrow at him and Taub merely shook his head. Kutner swiveled in his chair to look at him oddly. "I had the crab salad. I didn't have diarrhea."

Fucking figures. House rolled his eyes at him. "Are you allergic to fake crab smothered in cheap mayonnaise?" Kutner shrugged a frown in response. "I didn't think so…" House sniped and ran his thumb over his eyebrow taking a breath. She still wouldn't look anywhere near him. Damn, his fucking head was going to split open. "Please tell me that we have a patient…"

Foreman tossed his copy of the file to him so he could grab it off the table. "20 year old male. University Ice Hockey player took a skate to the groin. Blood and pain on urination."

House winced at the implied excruciating pain that must have been but then grimaced for real as his head rebelled against the contraction of his face muscles. "Well, that's self explanatory," he groused putting his hand to his forehead as he leaned his elbow on the whiteboard. "He almost had his Jimmies guillotined."

The other men in the room shifted uncomfortably in their seats, each of them glad to have their own testes intact, while Foreman continued. "Happened a two weeks ago, he's still peeing blood and has a low grade temp. 99.2."

"Shot to the groin doesn't cause a fever," Taub said.

"But a kidney stone can," Kutner replied. "Cause the back pain too."

"And the persistent bloody urine if he's passing stones," Foreman added, somewhat optimistically.

"What kind of bloody urine?" House asked.

The group looked at him for a second so he elaborated. "Pink, orange, 'Oh my God! I'm bleeding from my penis' red, brown, what?"

"The 'Oh my god' red was in the beginning but now kind of it's pinkish," Kutner added.

"Kind of?" House stared at him. "Is that your description or his?"

"His," Thirteen spoke for the first time. "No back, stomach or trunk pain, and no real fever."

Their eyes collided. House felt his breath escape his lungs as they became locked in a trap of proximity and unfortunate circumstance. The mere seconds ticked by for what felt like a chilly, desolate eternity. She stared back at him with her cool gray eyes, her full lips pursed in a thin line. She was distant, aloof, closed… eerily calm. He felt his heart plummet as her frigid eyes pierced any hopes of her possibly misunderstanding his meaning the other night. No, she had gotten it loud and clear. So much for her forgiving him for being a coward.

Her icy gaze froze him in his spot and all he could do was stare back at her feebly struggling to regain some of his self-respect and control. "Is that his 'his' or patient's 'his'?" he asked lamely.

"Patient's," she stated passively. "We should do an MRI of his genitals to see if the skate damaged any of the plumbing inside. Odds are that the blood is from the accident and nothing else. You can take a pretty violent pounding to your second brain; you may want to die, but it isn't gonna kill ya."

House took in a swift breath. Her statement was clearly directed at him, laced with all sorts of sub-textual meaning he couldn't even begin to think about right now. Her eyes were so cold, he almost shivered. Unable to bear the scrutiny, he had to look away. For the first time in forever, he had lost a staring contest.

Foreman cocked his head noncommittally, Taub shifted awkwardly and Kutner grimaced. None of them were willing to jump into the frigid, perilous waters with him so he was adrift without a paddle. Between the obvious allusion to severed genitalia and the iceberg that was Thirteen, this was going to be one uncomfortable case.

House inhaled a cleansing breath and looked to the rest of the group. "Go MRI his junk, run a CBC Chem 7 to check for UTI's and STD's and any other letters I can't think of," he ordered, albeit a bit mildly. "Oh and tickle his prostate while you're down there, on the off chance it wasn't decapitated and is now complaining."

The team rose from their seats and left hurriedly to run the tests.

Foreman, however, lingered around and followed House into his office. "You're hung over."

"Get out of my office," he barked at him. How dare he? He was lucky he didn't hitch kick him to the floor and jam his cane in his eye.

House limped over to his desk and rifled through his drawers for that migraine medication he had stashed there a while ago. If he didn't do something about this headache soon, the top of his head might actually blow off. "I don't have to explain myself to you," he spat throwing things around. "Besides I have half a mind fire your ass."

"For what?" Foreman laughed. "Dating your girlfriend?"

"She not my girlfriend," House said. At least not anymore, no thanks to him. "And yes for dating a co-worker." The irony of that statement wasn't lost on him; however, he blatantly ignored it because he was really pissed at Foreman.

"You know damn well Cuddy won't let you do that," Foreman said coming further into the office to stand in front of his desk. "We're stuck together like dingle berries."

House rolled his eyes. Wasn't that the truth… "Yeah except I'm the ass and you're my piece of shit." He tossed a stack of post-its back into the desk. "I said get out of my office."

"Look, I know you're mad at me. I'm sorry," Foreman apologized. "If I had known how serious it was between you two…I wouldn't have taken it so far."

"Says the guy who dry-humped her for four hours the other night." He closed the drawer with a slam and moved onto another.

"I wouldn't have over stepped my bounds like that," Foreman continued and screwed his face up into a confused smirk. "What are you doing?"

"I'm looking for migraine pills to make the jackhammer in my head stop," he told him, sifting through the drawer on the opposite side. Fuck… he was not having any luck.

"House you can't take those pills. That migraine medication is over two years old," Foreman insisted. "Look, I don't know what happened between you two that night but you need…."

House stood up sharply, cutting him off and abandoning his search in irritation. "What?" He narrowed his eyes at him, and the mounting pain. "Are you gonna give me advice now?"

Foreman stepped forward to drive his point home. "You need to cowboy up and show her how you feel about her."

House snorted. "Is that in your 'Homies are from Mars, Shawties are from Venus' book?"

Foreman sighed. He actually looked almost apologetic. "You can be a dick to me all you want. I get that. I deserve it," he relented. "But she cares about you, though I have no idea why. And if you have even one ounce of feeling for her you should let her know."

House ran his hand forcefully over his eyes. "What I need is for you to shut up and write me a damn scrip for Imitrex before my eyeballs rocket out of my head."

"Are you going to talk to her?" the neurologist crossed his arms stubbornly.

House scowled at him. Was kidding? He couldn't possibly be serious. "You're going to blackmail me with my pain?" He scoffed. "You really are Cuddy's bitch."

Foreman rolled his eyes and dropped his hands. "Fine. But just talk to her, ok?" He took his prescription pad out of his inner jacket pocket and clicked the point on his pen.

"Yeah, I will, whatever… write faster," House said holding his hand out for the slip, wiggling his fingers impatiently for it to be done.

Foreman held out the paper, but then pulled it back before House could grab it. He had that look of wide-eyed seriousness. "Talk to her."

House rolled his eyes, acquiescing. "Fine."

"Ok then." He handed him the prescription finally and left to go check on the ducklings.

Tucking the slip into his pocket, House rested his knuckles on the desk and closed his eyes taking in a deep breath. Yeah, talk to her. Like that was going to be easy. He'd have to take a blowtorch with him just to defrost her ears so she could actually hear what he had to say. Judging from her behavior toward him this morning, she was not going to forgive him easily, if at all.