A/N: Hello again! I first need to apologize for the fact that it has been forever since I updated. I've had a lot less time than I anticipated this semester, but now I'm on break for a month and I intend to get very close to what I have planned as the ending to this fic, as well as some possible epilogue type options. I sincerely hope all you who enjoyed this are still out there and I am sorry if this chapter doesn't match in quality to what I've previously written- I'm a tad out of practice. I promise that, at least for the next month or so, this fic will be updated on a regular basis.
Any dialogue you recognize comes from 5x12 "Painless." Read, Review, Enjoy!
-ASG
"I have a proposition for you."
Rose, hardly awake after coming in early that morning, squints at Cameron and sighs. She closes her laptop and takes a large gulp of coffee before replying.
"Go on."
"I may have heard that things aren't going well between you and House recently," she begins, hoping Rose will be receptive to conversation.
Rose exhales, rolling her eyes. "Funny that there was only one other person present last he and I argued," she replies, glancing dramatically at the balcony leading to Wilson's office.
Cameron shrugs and both women smirk a bit.
"If your proposition is some kind of impromptu girl's only venting time I'm going to need to reschedule though," Rose continues, gesturing at the files scattered around her, "I've got way too many consult requests to sort through before the team gets in. Plus budget reports are supposed to be filed next week and you know how much extraneous spending I'll have to make excuses for with House."
"Actually..." Cameron hands Rose a manilla envelope stuffed with forms.
She flips through them quickly, looking dumbfounded at the other doctor. "Where did you find the time to do this, running an ER?"
Cameron shrugs, smiling mischievously.
"So I take it I owe you one now? That's your proposition?"
Rose sighs dramatically when Cameron hands her a patient file- red from ER triage.
"Male, thirty-two, presenting with chronic pain all over."
Rose furrows her brow as she reads along. "Everywhere?"
She nods. "That's what he says. He's seen seven specialists over three years with no diagnosis and no relief."
Rose tosses it on the desk, irritatedly. "And what, you're hoping House will share some of his vicodin with the guy? He's clearly seeking, Allison."
Cameron shakes her head. "If you'd called me an idiot just now I'd have thought you and House switched bodies," she quips, opening the file to the ER intake form with her signature on it. "He came in with carbon monoxide poisoning. Tried to off himself in his car. No reason to do that with a medicine cabinet full of narcotics."
Rose reluctantly skims a bit further, nodding and hmm-ing along at all the big name doctors he'd seen in the past years and their non-existent conclusions. "This guy definitely needs help," she agrees finally, "but what good do you see coming from this? House gets to treat himself and learns that the world isn't all bad and suddenly we have nothing to fight about? Not real likely to happen. And that's if he even agrees to take the case after seeing what it's about."
"Tell him you owe me a favor and Cuddy said so."
Rose raises her eyebrows in suspicion. "Have you even talked to Cuddy? She told me she wasn't taking non-emergency calls all this week. Hell, both of us are on the triage list to call before her."
"No, but House doesn't need to know that, and it's not like she's going to take his calls."
Rose sighs. "You've got a point. I'll find a way to talk House into it. But know I'm not doing it because I think it's going to fix anything. This poor bastard actually needs a diagnosis."
"Whatever you tell yourself to sleep at night," Cameron replies, jokingly blowing a kiss and flouncing down the hall toward the elevators.
HWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWH
"Male, Thirty-two, chronic pain" Rose writes her words on the whiteboard, having decided at 11:30 to not wait any longer for House to turn up and summoning the team. "Came into the ER last night for acute carbon monoxide poisoning and was placed on a forty-eight hour psych hold."
"Chronic pain where?" Taub asks, scowling with skepticism already.
"Apparently everywhere," she answers, sitting back down. "He's seen seven specialists in three years with no diagnosis. And he's not seeking, given the cabinet full of narcotics he's been prescribed already."
"Sounds like fibromyalgia," Foreman offers, looking bored.
"I don't think seven other doctors would have failed to guess that," Thirteen quips back, "not to mention it's hardly a real diagnosis."
"Ten points to… Thirteen," House calls as he enters the office finally, his limp noticeably more pronounced. "Minus ten points for Rose for starting without me."
"Hey just because some of us don't like to start work until lunchtime…" She replies, glad at least that he doesn't seem to be in a bad mood.
House sits down heavily in a chair, picking up a file and skimming it. "I see we're treating me today. How convenient. Where'd you dig this out of?"
Rose, deciding against getting into an argument at that particular moment, shrugs. "It was the most interesting case that came up. I made the executive decision when you weren't here by ten."
House grunts, apparently satisfied at the moment.
Foreman, not entertaining the banter, turns to Thirteen "The American College of Rheumatology would disagree. There are specific diagnostic criteria for Fibromyalgia."
Rose interjects. "Which this guy doesn't meet. Putting pressure on his pain helps, doesn't make it worse. He's got abdominal pain, severe headaches, muscle cramps that come and go."
"And he tried to off himself. He's obviously mentally ill. Pain's probably psychological," Taub adds, already bored with the case.
Rose grits her teeth, and decidedly avoiding looking at House. "It is not a sign of mental illness to want to be pain-free," she breathes, struggling to keep an even tone.
Out of the corner of her eye, Rose can see House slip the orange vial out of his pocket and twist it between his fingers. He looks sideways at her but thankfully says nothing.
Not taking any queues, Taub continues, "it is if your solution is sucking on a tailpipe. Sane people don't attempt suicide."
"Not ever? So if you were being burnt at the stake… And someone handed you a gun…" Kutner challenges.
"I'd shoot the guys with the torches. Not one doctor this guy has seen in the past three years has been able to find a single thing wrong with him. What does that tell you?"
"It means they're idiots. It means we got to start from the beginning," House answers, speaking exclusively to the pill bottle and gripping his thigh. "Taub, do a pain profile to rule out psychosomatic pain. Thirteen, search the home. Kutner, get me a refill, and a donut."
"I'll help with the home," Foreman mutters, leaving with the rest of the dismissed team.
Rose remains seated for a moment staring at the same paragraph of the patient file she'd skimmed three times before. "House are you-"
"Fine," he snaps, cutting off her concern before she can ask.
Without another word, she gets up and leaves the office.
HWHWHWHWHWHWH
When Rose returns after grabbing lunch with Wilson, strangely without the addition of House to steal their food, the office is empty. Sighing, she digs into her bag and produces a sandwich from the cafeteria and a new bottle of vicodin and places them on House's desk, then heads into the conference room and grabs a cup of coffee for herself, reviewing the results of the pain study before the team returns.
Taub and Kutner stride in, chatting and finishing the remnants of their own lunch.
Rose can see House enter the inner office and note the items she left on his desk. He comes into the room with the prescription, leaving the sandwich.
Foreman and Thirteen rush in a few minutes later, looking triumphant.
"We found a freezer full of wild quail in the garage. It can be toxic and cause rhabdo."
Rose and Taub glance at each other. "You think that he's had food poisoning everyday for the last three years?" she protests, squinting at their determination.
"The carbon monoxide he sucked out of his car would be toxic too. It's not a toxic reaction. It's a psychosomatic reaction. The pain profile showed an excessive concern about his physical health, difficulty sleeping, getting out of bed," Taub adds, confident that he'd been right all along.
House grimaces slightly at the head of the table, not looking up from massaging his thigh as he contends, "He's not in pain because he's depressed. He's depressed because he's in pain."
Taub immediately retorts. "Not according to the pain profile you ordered. It's not a diet issue. We should start him on antidepressants for his sake, as well as his family's."
"We're not diagnosing his family," House asserts
"We're not diagnosing you either."
"It's rhabdo. Push IV fluids, check his urine, do a muscle biopsy," House orders, childishly ignoring the argument and refusing to offer up another viable solution before leaving the room without another word.
"Biopsy what muscle? He says it hurts all over?" Kuter calls after House, sounding exasperated.
Rose can see him packing up her computer and files in the outer office, silently insisting they leave despite it only being four o'clock. She closes her eyes and grimaces sympathetically, realizing how much pain House must be in to be so hasty in getting home.
"Take several biopsy samples from concentrated areas of pain, especially the abdomen. He says it all started there." she responds, rising and gathering her things off the table. "Tell the family Dr. House has some theories and find out about other possibly dietary issues that could confirm the quail poisoning. If you need anything call me first."
"Where are you going?" Foreman demands, authority lacing his voice.
Rose ignores the question as she exits the ddx, closing the door behind her. Deciding against needlessly asking why they're leaving so early when she notices the trembling of House's hand on his cane, she simply shoulders his backpack as well as her tote and leads the way slowly toward the elevators.
HWHWHWHWHWHWH
"House what the actual fuck?!" Rose shouts from the bedroom, where she stands barefooted in soggy carpet, peering up at the gaping hole in the ceiling just adjacent to their bed.
She can hear his gait crossing the living room and slowing as he approaches the bedroom. He peers around the door jamb like a child about to be scolded.
"That's why I was so damn late," he replies, as though that explains everything.
"Because you ripped a hole in the ceiling and flooded the floor?"
"No, because that ceiling flooded and collapsed and I was trying to have someone fix it before you got home."
"And that didn't succeed because?" Rose scoffs, gesturing emphatically around the room but not missing the silent implications of his intentions.
"The contractor who came said it wasn't going to be covered by the insurance," he tells her calmly, his demeanor comedically level-headed.
Rose sighs dramatically, sitting down on the bed and closing her eyes to the insanity of the situation. "Why isn't it covered by the insurance, House?"
"He claimed there's no damage to the pipe and that it was pulled apart, not that it broke, so we're liable, not the insurance." He pauses, feigning shock. "I didn't break the pipe."
"Okay? So, instead of just paying the guy to fix the pipe, we can't even take damn shower, for the sake of preserving your ego."
He shrugs. "I took a bath this morning when I got up. I'm good until the plumber you're about to call and pay a couple grand fixes it tomorrow afternoon."
Rose falls backwards onto the bed, sprawling out and groaning for a moment before picking up the phone and doing exactly as House had predicted.
HWHWHWHWHWHW
"Aw goddamn!" Rose hollers, exasperated, as the damp carpet squelches under her feet again when she walks toward the bed, having temporarily forgotten about their predicament during dinner.
House can't help but laugh at the absurd disgusted look on her face as she hops over the rest of the wet spot and bounces on the mattress. She flares her nostrils at him before breaking into a smile and settling down in the bed- for once with no paperwork to finish, thanks to Cameron.
She feels bad for dozing off as quickly as she does, especially once she can feel House's eyes on her, sleep evading him in lieu of pain. Usually she's up in the living room later than him doing paperwork and often waits to slip into bed until he's finally managed to fall asleep for the sake of her guilt and his envy being assuaged.
His body's tension is palpable even as she begins to sink into the darkness of sleep, and she slides her hand toward him against the sheet, finding his fingers after a few seconds and slipping hers between them.
She hears a slight gasp and straining fingers clutch her hand just before she slips into the depths of unconsciousness..
HWHWHWHWHWHWHWH
RRRRRRRRiiiiiiinnngggg RrrrrrIIIIIIInnngggggg
Rose stirs from sleep after a few seconds of the incessant noise, and she palms the nightstand blindly, searching for her cellphone. It takes a minute before she realizes House's footsteps are crookedly rushing down the hall towards the phone in the livingroom. She groans, going to the livingroom to hear whatever news the team was calling so late for.
House picks up the phone just as Rose enters the room. "Got to let the phone ring more than four times when you're calling a cripple. Chronic pain and pulmonary embolism, go."
"How'd you know he had —" Kutner begins, cut off by House's irritated tone. Rose stands next to him with her arms wrapped around her, still half asleep.
"You called after midnight. It's got to a heart problem. Heart only would be consistent with rhabdo, which means Thirteen and Foreman would be singing in the rain, which means it has to be lungs as well."
"Hypercoagulable state could cause pain and a PE," Thirteen suggests.
"You think the blood clot was caused by a clotting problem. That's helpful. Also didn't I specifically tell you to call me?" Rose asks, displeased and too tired to be nice about it.
The line is silent for a minute, and she can practically see the team all glancing at each other guiltily. "What if it's a cancer syndrome, like Trousseau's? Explains blood clots, multifocal pain, lack of obvious physical signs," Kutner asks, making the first logical suggestion all day.
House glances to Rose before answering. She nods, yawning. "And why he's gone three years without anyone seeing it. Check his chest, abdomen, and pelvis for tumors," he orders, clicking off the call and tossing the phone onto the couch.
The two doctors stare at eachother for a moment, both knowing they probably should go into work. Instead, House eases himself onto the couch and props up his leg. He digs in his pocket for his pills and comes up empty.
Rose heads back to the bedroom and, looking longingly at the bed, grabs a heating pad from the dresser and the orange vial off the nightstand, as well as a blanket.
Returning to the living room, she tosses the first two items at House who shoots her a grateful look as she curls up in the armchair, pulling the blanket around her shoulders and burrowing down into the lumpy cushion.
HWHWHWHWHWHWHWH
"There's no trace of cancer in the patient," Taub states, entering the ddx the next morning, looking exhausted.
"But we did find edema in his intestines, air in the intestinal blood vessels," Kutner adds, sitting down across the table from Rose.
"House isn't answering the phone," Foreman reports, giving Rose a small glare.
"Maybe because there's already a department head present to make decisions in differential?" She quips, continually peeved at his blatant disrespect. "His intestine must be damaged. The air's leaking into his body."
"If there's a blockage in the superior mesenteric artery, it could be choking off blood flow to his intestine."
And blockages all over his body would explain his pain," Thirteen adds, " why the cramps come and go."
Before Rose can do the same, Foreman orders, "do an angioplasty on the superior mesenteric and find the other blockages before he has another cardiac arrest."
The other three doctors rush out of the room, with Roses following behind, poignantly slamming the door on Foreman, who remains seated at the table with a cup of coffee.
HWHWHWHWHWHW
"So how are things?" Wilson asks, the question loaded from the beginning as Rose enters his office without knocking.
She kicks off her shoes and stretches out on his couch, closing her eyes and not answering.
"Well hello House- my you've gotten curvy," he jokes, peering at the uncanny resemblance of Rose's reclining position.
"Can't I just come in for a cat nap without having to go through a therapy session?" She asks, dropping her voice as deep as she can make it.
Wilson laughs. "Only if I don't have to go bowling tonight."
Rose smiles a bit before sobering. "I wouldn't count on that anyway," she tells him, accompanied by a pointed look.
He grimaces in response, knowing all too well what she's implying.
"Things are fine. Honestly," she replies finally, "much of the same- he's in pain, I'm concerned. But no arguing. And actual interaction outside of work, so-"
Wilson nods his approval and goes back to his work, allowing her to doze off for a few minutes before the next differential.
HWHWHWHWHWHWH
When House enters the office, Foreman sits alone at the table, doing paperwork. "Good thing we don't have a suicidal patient with a horrific, undiagnosed pain disorder."
He sets down his pen slowly. "We did till we diagnosed it. We found intestinal edema and air in the blood vessels. Pain was vascular."
House knits his eyebrows. "If it was vascular, we would've seen uneven pulses."
"His blood pressure was uneven," Foreman replies, sure he's right, "Thirteen and Kutner are doing an angio."
Taub enters and backs up Foreman. "There's air in the intestine. It has to have come from somewhere."
House stops just before sitting down, contemplating. "Yes it does," he says, turning to leave the room again.
HWHWHWWHWHWHWHWH
Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep
Rose awakens to her pager sounding in her tote bag, Wilson's office now empty except for her. She gathers up her things and rushes across the hall to the conference room, smoothing her hair a bit as she enters and sitting down with a knowingly amused smirk from House.
"I need you to call Cuddy," House tells her, handing her a phone in the process.
She scowls. "Why can't you do it?"
"Because she's not going to answer if I call. All calls are being forwarded to you and Cameron so, by default, you're the only two that she'll answer without question."
"The point of her referring her calls to me is so no one bothers her with information that could be dealt with otherwise. What do you need me to call her for?" Rose asks pensively, looking around and noticing the team's apparent disapproval.
"The only reason our patient had air in his blood is because he put it there," House states, waiting for a shock that doesn't cross Rose's face. After a moment of peering at her stony affect, he continues. "I want to cut off his head. Pretty sure thats a procedure I need hospital approval for."
"It's too dangerous," Thirteen warns, shaking her head with disdain.
"We inject the spine with a numbing agent. If the pain goes away," Foreman contends, addressing her, "then its peripheral. If it remains, it's in his brain."
"And what about options three, four, and five?!" She demands, exasperated. "His respiratory system freezes, he dies of infection, or he leaks CNS fluid like a fire hydrant and wishes he were dead anyway."
"You ought to scratch option five. He's already there."
HWHWHWHWHWHWHWH
"Bad pain day, huh?" the patient asks of House, listening to his uneven gait pace around the procedure room.
Rose says nothing and continues stabilizing the man's neck while Chase prepares the lidocaine.
House rattles his vicodin bottle. "About to get better. Don't worry. He's making yours a double."
"I remember when the drugs still made things tolerable. I still thought I had good days left."
Rose helps Jeff lie on his side and makes no move to even look at House.
He shrugs. "Turns out you have to live to find out."
"You don't have a family, do you?" the patient asks, "You're alone."
"EEEEEHhHhh" House hollers, mimicking a gameshow horn and dry swallowing the pills. "Check the hottie draping your neck with sterile cloth."
The patient glances at Rose who smiles slightly, embarrassed.
He's confused for a moment before he figures out the truth. "She didn't know you before," he asserts, cynically, "that's why you can handle your pain. No need to put up a front, to be what anyone else wants you to be, because she doesn't know you any other way. But everyone who did is gone now. You're having more bad days lately, aren't you?"
House is quiet for a moment. "Yes."
Rose and Chase exchange a grave glance as he injects the drugs into the man's spine, holding his neck still for a moment as they watch his body relax.
"Take a look at your future. Let's hope the drugs work this time."
On the observation platform Cameron looks upon them solemnly, grimacing in sympathy with the agonized tone of the man on the table. House looks up to her after he's spoken, becoming visibly puzzled as to why she's there just as she turns around to leave.
HWHWHWHWHWHWHWH
Rose walks into the hospital, scowling in resistance to the cold and tiredness that permeate her body. After a third suicide attempt the evening before and the failed attempt at detoxing the patient to cure the hypothesized opiate induced pain, she'd been called in far too early for her liking. Well, she'd answered House's phone when the team called him far too early in order to avoid waking him from the first restful sleep he'd had in weeks.
As she approaches her office, she can see the patient's wife Lynne standing in the room, already on the offensive, anxiously awaiting her arrival.
"Its not working," she bites, glaring at the doctor.
Rose nods, blinking slowly. "I know. I already signed the order to restart him on the pain medication."
She stares at her feet for a few moments before meeting Rose's gaze again, looking desperate. "I tried so long to protect him from… himself, I guess. But it's me being selfish. This is no way for him to live."
"We're still searching for an answer," Rose answers, knowing House wouldn't appreciate her giving into the woman.
"We've been here for four days with three suicide attempts. There is no answer."
"Ma'am," Rose begins, shaking her head and sobering some, "Lynne. Every case that comes through this office seems as though it has no answer. It's what we do. That's why you're here. Allow us to continue doing our jobs."
The woman shakes her head forlornly, tearing up. "When I saw Dr. House. When I saw the cane and him on your arm, I thought, thank god finally, these doctors will understand." she stops, locking eyes with Rose and challenging her to lie. "My husband thinks it's over. So tell me you'd force him to live like that… If it were that bad."
Rose closes her eyes for a moment, opening them to see House standing in the doorway over Lynne's shoulder, his presence unannounced to the woman standing before her. Without breaking eye contact with him she sighs then shakes her head a fraction of an inch, digging her nails into her palm to keep from tearing up at the thought.
House actually enters the office now, and the wife turns to him. "Stabilize him enough for the drive home," she orders, her voice hollow. "So he can finally…" She stops as her voice breaks and continues to scowl at House.
His voice hoarse, he nods. "Okay."
Lynne leaves quickly, scrubbing the tears from her eyes and going to her husband's room to make her peace.
House rounds the desk, coming to stand beside Rose for a fleeting moment, and brushing his hand over her back as he leaves the office.
HWHWHWHWHWHWHWH
"I don't understand how we can just knowingly let the man go to his death." Thirteen laments, sounding disgusted.
"We didn't," Foreman states, dissapointed, "House did."
Kutner agrees half-heartedly. "There's always something more to try, other options to explore, but the guy has every right to refuse medical treatment."
Taub, who had remained silent until now interjects. "Maybe sometimes enough is enough. Even if we might have gotten a diagnosis, who are we to decide that someone hasn't already suffered to much? I don't like to admit it, but House has the balls to make the choices that-" he stops, squinting in Housian fashion as the words he's just said replay in his head.
The other three look at him curiously for a moment and follow his distant gaze to the first words on the whiteboard: Initially presenting with Abdominal pain.
The four dash from the room in tandem, calling House as they run down the hall.
HWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWH
The plumber having just left after repairing the pipe that House continued to adamantly claim he didn't break, Rose answers the phone to the sound of a bath running and her eyes light up as they tell her the news: a severe case of epilepsy manifesting in the region of his brain controlling the muscle supporting his testicles- one too deep to have been seen on the previous neurological studies.
"House!" she calls, making her way to the bathroom, "epilepsy." She can hear him groan, needing no more explanation and disappointed he hadn't thought of it himself.
She enters the bathroom to see him naked, lowering himself into the tub by way of clinging to the metal rod supporting the showerhead. She smirks, approaching once he settles in and giving him a look that reads 'told ya so.'
She widens her eyes dramatically as she shakes the piping he'd been supporting his weight on moments before and they both listen to it rattle in the ceiling, shifting the plumbing attached to it. Without another word, she leaves the room. House breaks into an astonished smile as he relaxes into the steaming water.