Chapter 3 – Battered and Bruised
I don't know if anyone is reading this story, but if you are, I hope you have enjoyed it so far. The next instalment is a change in pace, but I hope you all like it.
Please R&R to let me know if you like what I'm doing.
The three doctors swarmed Cuddy just as House's old team swarmed him, gentle hands were laid on both, giving them comfort, probing wounds, watchful eyes scrutinising their condition. While House had no choice in what was done to him, Cuddy pushed away at the people standing uncomfortably close, suffocating her. She peered through Thirteen and Taub's legs to the man lying limp and unmoving on the floor. Watched uneasily as his colleagues stabilised his neck, then rolled him gently onto his side, a gurney was then rushed to his side, and he was lifted smoothly onto it. He didn't stir through the whole process.
The doctors surrounding her fired concerned questions at her which she couldn't understand through the storm of her roiling emotions. House was hurt. She was going to be abducted. People she didn't know were going to do who knew what to her. House stopped them. What did it all mean?
Cuddy continued to watch fearfully as House was wheeled rapidly away from her, through double doors, which swung shut with a definitive crack. She yearned to get up and follow them, to confirm for herself that he was breathing, to heal him with her own hands. But Wilson still held her in a protective, comforting embrace. Desperate to follow, she shook herself free and began to rise, only to find her shaking limbs fail under her sudden weight. As she slid once again to the floor, she felt herself gasp as panic suddenly surged in her chest when her eyes fell onto the pool of blood and the streak of crimson which tracked the path the recently departed gurney had taken. "Hey," Wilson whispered, finally getting through her panic, worry palpable on his caring face, "Are you ok?" Concern and something that looked a lot like anger abruptly shone in his eyes when they fell on the spot Billy had struck her. He reached out and touched her face, fingers gently probing the wound. She winced as a spark of pain shot through her tender face. His fingers came away bloodied. She nodded shakily, but the tears suddenly forming in her eyes again told a different story.
"Oh God. What he did… They were going to kill him. I, I, I need to go see him." She pulled at the man holding her, attempting to drag herself to her feet, but again found she couldn't keep herself steady.
Wilson caught her as her legs gave out again and lowered her again to the ground. "No, you're in shock. You've just been through a terrible ordeal. You shouldn't try to stand up yet." She tried to protest but he continued. "I want to see him too, but we need to concentrate on making sure you're ok before we go."
"But I need to know he's ok." She breathed, "He wasn't moving."
Thirteen jumped in, "I… don't think he was conscious." She uttered, her voice shaking, unshed tears shining in her eyes. She slowly began shaking her head as if trying to shake off the horrific images which refused to leave her.
Taub let out a shaky exhale, looking a little lost. "They really wailed on him."
Rather than feeling reassured by her colleagues, a surge of desperate alarm washed through Cuddy threatening to carry her away. She began to pull against Wilson's placating hands, once again trying to drag herself to her feet, however, he held her firm. "He's in good hands. Foreman, Cameron and Chase are taking care of him." Wilson assured her, trying to convince himself at the same time. "He's going to be ok. They'll look after him." He consoled soothingly.
"But we don't know that… You… You should go… I'm ok. He needs you." She stammered, the tears she held at bay finally spilling over her lashes and down her pale cheeks.
Wilson looked to the door, feeling a pull towards his injured friend, towards his need to find out the extent of his injuries. Then he looked back to Cuddy, still huddled next to him on the cold, hard floor, now shaking almost convulsively. Her cheek still bore the imprint of her assailant's hand, the small cut stood out lividly against her pale skin. Angry bruises were beginning to form on her upper arms, accentuating the trauma she had been through. "No! He's got people looking after him. I'm staying." He took a steadying breath, supressing his own fears.
Looking around him at the devastation left in the wake of the robbery, Wilson avoided the smeared bloodstains and was instead drawn to the lost, milling crowd surrounding them, the eyes of the other captives following their conversation. "We should get you to your office." He decided. Cuddy needed somewhere private to process what had just happened, and what could have happened, he thought grimly. He stood and offered a hand to pull her to her feet, then slid it to her elbow once she was up, supporting her as she swayed.
Once on her feet, Cuddy followed Wilson's gaze and seemed to take in the throng of disoriented people pressing in on them for the first time. She took in their lost, scared looks; none of them knew what to do next. "Wait, I can't… All of these people… Some are hurt." She said, her eyes falling on the man in the business suit, holding a sodden handkerchief to his bleeding nose. "Some are sick. We need to make sure they're ok. We need to report this to the police." She cried.
Knowing she would put her responsibilities before herself even now, Wilson had to put someone else in charge before she fell apart. "Um… Thirteen, Taub could you..?" They looked at him dully, their own shock clouding their thoughts. At this moment they needed orders, not requests. They needed someone to step up and tell them what to do, exactly the way House would. "I need you to see if you can get the clinic back up and running and notify the ER to be on standby to expect a lot of extra patients. Triage everyone and see who needs treatment and who can go home." Slowly Taub nodded. Knowing that Taub would take charge of the clinic patients, he turned then to Thirteen. "Call the police. Let them know what happened. I also need you to get the names and contact info from everyone here. Don't let them leave until a doctor has checked them over. Make sure the Pharmacist and that guy in the suit are ok." He added, gesturing to the man in the lab coat sat huddled against the wall to his domain, as if guarding it. With everything taken care of, he drew Cuddy closer to him and began to escort her to the privacy of her office. One last thought occurred to him before he ushered her through the door. "Get someone to page me when House is stabilised."
HHHHHHHHH
"Is his head supported? Ok, we'll move him on three. One, two, three." Five pairs of hands supported House as he was slid from the gurney onto a bed in an ER cubicle, the nurses then rearranged his lifeless limbs to keep him propped on his side. "We need to get him stabilised. Someone get me a neck brace. Let's get an EKG attached and start a line. I want fluids and acetaminophen on board as soon as possible. We need to run triage. Jen, start a chart." Cameron continued to call orders as Foreman and Chase started the process of checking over the motionless man on the bed.
Foreman retrieved his pen light from his lab coat, testing it on his palm as Cameron stabilised the neck with a collar. "I wanna check his airways before we do a neuro exam." Gently, he opened House's mouth using his pen light to get a better look. "Damn, there's still a lot of blood in here. We need suction." A nurse grabbed the suction probe from the wall and inserted it into House's maimed mouth, drawing away his lifes-blood which now threatened to block his windpipe. Another nurse began to cut open House's bloodied shirt front and t-shirt before Cameron stuck a pulse ox monitor on his finger to monitor his oxygen levels, everyone present frowned at the depressed levels. Cameron grabbed an oxygen mask and clamped it onto his face, then began attaching the EKG leads to his chest to monitor his heart.
"Checking pupillary response. They're a little sluggish…" Forman continued, catching Chase's eyes momentarily, the other man's concern matching his own. He pulled his eyes away, stowing the pen light in his lab coat breast pocket, then gently picked up his limp hand. "I'll check his response to stimuli." He hesitated a moment before he pushed his fingers into House's nail bed and was rewarded by a slight groan, the hand jerking lightly in his grasp. "House… If you can hear me open your eyes… House, open your eyes for me." There was no response. "He's definitely got a concussion. We need to order a CT and possibly an MRI to rule out any trauma."
"I'll start checking his spine for irregularities." Chase jumped in and began palpating from the base of the collar, slowly downwards. "No obvious deformities. He finally breathed, relief edging into his tone. "But we should get an x-ray to be certain." He said as he completed the exam. His eyes lingered on his ex-boss' limp form and felt himself sigh. The others looked up, "He was willing to get himself killed for Cuddy." He uttered, unable to keep his disbelief to himself any longer. "I can't believe he did that." He looked at his friends, Cameron was busy hooking House up to monitors, but Foreman caught his eye.
"Can't you?" He countered. "If there's one thing you can expect from House, it's to expect him to do the unexpected."
Chase shook his head, as if trying to rid his mind of the traumatic memories of the last hour. "But he never puts others before himself."
"Of course, he does." Cameron jumped in. "He doesn't make it obvious, but he looks out for the people he cares about." She said gently, eyeing the unconscious man sprawled before her.
Chase shook his head, still shocked by what he had witnessed. "Since when does he care about Cuddy? Cameron shrugged, uncomfortable as always with the topic of House's love life, but Foreman merely rolled his eyes at Chase's lack of observation skills. "He flirts with her, and he likes to wind her up, but since when does that equate to him risking his life for her?" The Australian paused, watching the blood still oozing from the man's nose. "His nose is definitely broken." He said, "He'll need an x-ray. I'll reduce it once the swelling's subsided."
Foreman returned to assessing House's facial injuries, gently pulling the mask aside to again peer into his mouth. "He's got some broken teeth. Lower jaw, 43, 44, and 45." He named the teeth, the nurse writing his comments down on the chart. "Abrasions on his cheek and gums, upper and lower left side. Some look pretty nasty. He's gonna struggle to eat for a while. He's gonna be so pissed when he wakes up." A rueful smile ghosted his lips.
"There's a lot of contusions on the back of his head." Cameron added softly as her fingers began to gently prob his skull. "One behind his left ear, another near his crown, a bad laceration near the base of his skull, it's going to need an X-ray and sutures."
Foreman moved to the outside of his face, palpating tender bones, his fingers probing a deep gash above his left eye, before palpating the bone around the eye, which had swollen dramatically. Next, he moved to check out a nasty graze on his cheek, frowning as the bones gave slightly. "We'll need to x-ray the cheek as well, and his eye's really puffy, better check for an orbital fracture." He sighed, then continued moving his sensitive fingers down the face. "Damn, his jaw feels loose." He announced after he had moved to the lower part of House's face. "He's going to need an x-ray there too." He added, probing the joint, feeling for an obvious break.
Suddenly House jerked under his touch, pulling away from the pain. Unfocused eyes leapt open, and a hand shot out, grabbing Forman's wrist, stilling the source of the discomfort. The three doctors started, stunned at the unexpected movement. "House. It's ok, you're in the ER. We're just checking you over." Foreman looked into his groggy eyes, trying to reassure his boss as he regained consciousness. Fingers slipped from Foreman's wrist and bleary eyes travelled up to his face, looking confused for a moment. He tried to lift his head to appraise who else was in the room before abruptly stopping. A sharp hiss followed by a low groan sounded from the bed. House squirmed for a moment, fighting the pain surging thought his upper body, panting shallowly as agony threatened to overwhelm him.
"I need 10 ccs of morphine." Cameron demanded at his response.
"No! No opiates." Foreman interrupted. "We need to wait for the CT first. We have no way of knowing how bad these head injuries are."
Cameron sighed, torn between her professionalism and her overwhelming instinct to keep House from suffering any more pain. "He obviously needs analgesia… I'll keep the dosage low and monitor him. We need to control the pain, or we could have other issues on our hands."
The monitor sounded as his oxygen levels dropped again, emphasising her point. Chase snatched the mask from where it had been pulled aside and clamped it back onto the blood-stained face. "House, you need to try to calm down… Come on, breathe. Deep breaths. That's it." Gradually Chase's words and the soothing oxygen seemed to break through the pain and House began making a conscious effort to steady his gasping breaths, forcing his body to still. His hands raised from the mattress, and he wrapped his trembling fingers around the bars of the bed to ground himself.
Foreman considered her a moment, then looked down at the man in the bed and nodded. Cameron began to move, sorting out his meds. "Ok, we'll try 3 ccs of morphine in a bolus titrated over 3 hours." Foreman nodded again, satisfied that the low dose wouldn't affect the results of further neuro checks. "Hang on House, you'll start to feel better in a moment." She reassured him in a soft voice as a new bag was hung and added to the IV line running into his vein.
Incrementally, his grip on the bedrail began to soften and he opened his eyes, looking up at the doctors surrounding him. "Wha..?" He began, but halted, gasping as searing flames shot through his jaw.
"Take it easy, House. It looks like you have a broken jaw." Foreman told him. "Try not to talk."
House levelled a slightly unfocused look at him. "Wh..?" He uttered defiantly, attempting to keep his jaw as still as possible, but stopped again gasping in pain anyway.
Foreman sighed at this small act of rebellion. "What..?" He frowned, trying to pre-empt the question. "What's happened? What's the prognosis?" House merely closed his eyes. Not knowing what else he could mean the three doctors spent the next few minutes filling House in on the events of the few minutes since he lost consciousness and on his growing list of injuries. The man in the bed sighed heavily when they were done, he opened his eyes and fixed them on the peeling paint on the wall opposite him, avoiding the looks of the other doctors in the cramped cubicle.
"No!" He ground out. "Why didn' you hel'?" His voice sounded muffled and distorted as he attempted to move his jaw as little as possible, but they all heard the accusations all too clearly.
"They had guns!" Chase spluttered, the shame he felt watching House almost getting himself killed whilst they stood by watching returned, this time coloured with anger. "I like Cuddy, but I wasn't about to risk my life for her." He shot out, not looking at House for fear of meeting his accusing eyes.
"Bu' you help'd me… I'm here." He gestured to the bed, indicating the fact that he was still alive.
"Yeah, we did." Foreman conceded. "We couldn't let him kill you."
House didn't respond to this, but they could almost hear the thoughts that were running through his mind. The three doctors standing over him exchanged looks. "I'll book those tests." Chase said and left the room.
Cameron placed a gentle hand on his arm, he ignored her. "I'll page Wilson, let him know you're awake." She said gently before following Chase out.
House shifted uncomfortably when they left, trying to roll onto his back. Forman halted him with a firm hand on his arm. "Hold on. Your nose is still bleeding pretty bad, you could aspirate. Let me pack your nose, then you can relax a little before we take you to x-ray. House frowned at him but didn't protest.
House was quiet for a few minutes, flinching occasionally as Foreman worked to stem the bleeding. When he was done, he stepped away from the bed, casting an appraising look over his patient. House's eyes were closed, but he looked far from peaceful, his mind processing everything that had happened that day. "How's Cuddy?" House eventually whispered.