An ambulance was barreling toward the emergency room, siren screaming into the night. Only there was no ambulance and it wasn't a siren. It was a scream.
Evan Schuster woke with a start, sleepily trying to get his bearings as the scream pierced the air. Blinking, he realized he was in Rainie's room. He'd fallen asleep in the chair next to her bed after volunteering to take the night shift when Linda had a family emergency.
Rainie's eyes were wide open and she was sitting up in the bed. It was the first time he'd seen her like this, although—being the good journalist he was—he knew she was having a flashback. He'd done enough research into post-traumatic stress disorder to recognize one when he saw it. His brain got busy collating what he'd read with what was before him.
Jumping up, he stood next to the bed and stared at her, trying to figure out what to do.
"Rainie, honey, wake up. It's all right. No one's gonna hurt you now."
But his best friend continued to scream. She was trembling and gasping for air.
He had no idea how to handle it. Afraid to touch her for fear of making it worse, he froze.
"Oh, please, punkin. It's Evan. I'm here. You're safe." Seriously out of his league, he was beginning to feel desperate.
As the shrieks began to die down, Wilson came running into the room carrying his keys.
"What do I do?!" whispered Evan frantically, hating to admit to himself that he was relieved he hadn't been left alone to deal with the situation.
"Nothing. Just ride it out," said the voice of experience. "And be ready when she wakes up."
"Ready for what?"
"You'll find out."
From next door, Evan heard House's raspy voice, but couldn't quite make out what he was saying. Apparently, though, Wilson could, having learned over time how to decipher his friend's muted speech, even through walls.
"No, no," called out Wilson. "Stay there. We've got it under control."
Another indecipherable rasp.
"I said, stay put. Go back to sleep."
But House wasn't going back to sleep and he wasn't staying put. As Rainie's cries got quieter, a wheelchair came through the door, making the bedroom seem crowded until House rolled himself past Evan and Wilson to the far side of the bed.
In the meantime, Rainie slowly became conscious again, sobs replacing her screams. Suddenly she realized her room was full of people. She started violently, and began to cry out, terrified.
Touching Evan on the arm and nodding toward the door, Wilson eased himself back out the room. Evan followed. They stood in the doorway and waited.
"Don't worry. House will handle it," whispered Wilson reassuringly. "He's been through this with her before."
He had? How often did this happen? With a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, Evan suddenly realized he hadn't given much thought to what Rainie was going through when he wasn't actually present. You self-centered ass, he reproached himself. It wasn't bad enough that she'd had to live through something so atrocious, but to relive it again and again, with her best friend not even caring enough to find out what was going on… or trying be there for her—it was too much. He felt his face flush with shame.
As he pulled himself together, Evan closely examined the man standing next to him. The two had met a few times in room 304, but had never talked much. Now he found himself wondering about this man who had become so accustomed to House's terrors that he stayed calm in the face of Rainie's.
James Wilson was moderately tall with a slender build, and Evan couldn't put a finger on his age—he suspected Wilson was younger than he seemed, that the experiences of the past few years had aged him, lining his face and graying his hair.
Just what had Wilson been through over the past six years? First, losing his friend to prison, and now this endless recuperation, dealing with God knows what on a daily basis. Evan slowly become conscious of the fact that in many ways he probably had more in common with James Wilson than with anyone else he knew. No one but Wilson could understand how he had felt when Rainie pushed him away and then went to prison for murder. And now this. Yet he'd never thought to ask Wilson what it was like, to try to prepare himself for how to become a friend all over again to the person Rainie had now become.
What kind of life did Wilson lead? Always ready, in case House needed something. Never really sleeping. Always there. It had to be exhausting. And draining. Could he do the same for Rainie? He'd like to believe he could, but he doubted it somehow.
From inside the room he could still hear Rainie's cries, just starting to settle down.
"Hey," said House gently, reaching out his right hand and placing it on hers. "Better?"
After a pause, Evan saw her shake her head no.
"Bad one?" said House sympathetically.
She nodded and began to cry again.
He handed her a tissue and watched her blow her nose, and then Evan saw a look of concern on his face as her cries grew louder, not softer, her body shaking as she bent forward and sobbed.
With a pained grunt, House clambered up on the bed and circled her thin shoulders with his left arm.
"Brace yourself," whispered Wilson in Evan's right ear.
"For what…?" asked Evan, anxiety slowly bubbling up in him like a hot water spring.
Wilson didn't reply.
"How often…?" Evan asked Wilson quietly after a moment.
"Depends. The trials, the surgery, the move—probably stirred things up."
Evan looked again at the pair on the bed, House holding tight to Rainie as she wept.
Experience, in the form of Wilson, whispered in his ear: "This is going to be a bad one."
Wondering how Wilson could tell, Evan glanced back into the room and saw Rainie gripping onto House as her sobs tore through her.
None of them said anything for a few moments.
Then Rainie spoke softly.
"This time, it wasn't about… well, you know. It was about…"
Evan could tell she was having difficulty getting words out. Her voice got extremely quiet, as if she didn't want anyone to hear her. He could just make out what she said.
"…when they raped me."
Her eyes reflecting her troubled soul, she glanced up at House and then hastily looked away.
"D-did my medical records tell you?"
"Tell me what, Rainie?" House's voice was low and gentle.
"About… about the abortions?"
Involuntarily, Evan gasped. House's angry eyes snapped onto his for a moment and then softened as they returned to Rainie's face.
Wilson put his fingers to his lips.
"What about them?" asked House, who in his prior life had always been an advocate of abortion, especially in the case of rape. He forced himself to sound calm.
"Did you know?"
House paused before answering. Then he nodded slowly, his eyes drifting downward, away from hers for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice was quieter, almost as quiet as hers.
"I knew. Three, maybe four of them?"
As his eyes returned to hers, she averted her gaze.
"Did they tell you h-how…?" She bit her lip hard, and her face distorted in a vain attempt to hold her emotions back.
House shook his head.
She shuddered and clutched him tighter.
"The r-rapes… all the time… pregnant."
House adjusted his hold on her as Evan, sick at heart, stared from the doorway.
"…H-how could they?" she whispered.
Evan somehow guessed that she wasn't asking how they could have raped her. It was something more, something worse. As Wilson had suggested, he braced himself. Evan saw House wince for a moment as his own nightmare flooded back in, and then as he shook it off as much as he could.
"How could they what, Rainie?"
She began to shake even more. Lost in her own mind, she began to cry again, burying her face in his chest. After a few moments, she took a very deep breath, and forced herself to speak again. As she did, her voice quavered.
"…You don't know…"
"Know what?"
"…T-two of the times, they… oh dear God! Evie!… they made me c-carry the child…"
As Evan and Wilson exchanged a horrified glance, Evan heard a sharp intake of breath from House. Then the room grew very still.
"…c-carry it for months… till I could feel it moving inside me… not my baby, not my Evie… but something… f-forced on me out of that kind of hatred…"
Evan's heart simply stopped beating as he listened in shock. The reality of what Rainie had been through finally began to seep in, and there were no words strong enough to describe how it appalled him, horrified him, revolted him.
He'd never allowed himself to really think about what might actually have happened to her. Now, forced to confront it like this, the mindless, vicious—premeditated—violence that had been inflicted on her, he felt violently sick. He turned his head, swallowed and took a few slow, deep breaths to try to keep himself from throwing up. After a moment, he felt Wilson's sympathetic hand on his back.
A long silence settled. Eventually, she spoke again, in a halting, low voice.
"…Then they aborted it, after I'd felt it inside me…"
Finally, House spoke, his voice shaky.
"When?" was all he said.
Her anguished face turned up toward him.
"N-not sure… five, six, seven months," she said softly, as her cries started again.
Another long pause.
"Then… afterward… they forced me see it… made me look at it…"
She buried her face in his chest once more as she lost control, her entire body trembling wildly, her cries loud and desolate.
"…They… made me touch it… m-made me… …hold it…"
Her wracking sobs were so strong the bed shook.
"Dear God," said House the atheist in a very low voice, as he closed his eyes and clenched his teeth. This was something not even he had experienced, or could even have imagined, and it shook him deeply and desperately. He clung onto Rainie, his head bowed over hers, his long arms encircling her body. Angry tears ran over his cheeks and onto his chin, creating streams through his stubble before dripping down onto her hair.
Evan began to sob, and slid slowly to the floor. Wilson sat down next to him and put his arm around Evan's shoulders, as House was doing for Rainie. When Evan opened his eyes, he saw that Wilson was crying, too.
Over the next hour, all four continued to cry until finally, exhausted, one by one they fell asleep where they were.
The next morning, Evan awoke to find himself unexpectedly on the sofa in the living room. He had no idea how he'd gotten there, but he had his suspicions… If Wilson could deal with everything House had been through, and now Rainie, maneuvering a sleeping Evan to a more comfortable place to rest was child's play.
