2a
Gravity. It's the only explanation. The undeniable force field of House's giant, bloated head sucking her in like a reluctant satellite. Push. Pull. Drifting in permanent orbit.
(She tried to escape once; thought she'd succeeded. And then he came knocking around, with that nervous gait and those pleading eyes. He'd muttered, joked, stared. He floundered and she crumbled.)
Watch Allison spin.
(Moving objects rotating, revolving, heavenly bodies colliding somewhere, up there.)
Fingers edge up the incline knob on her treadmill, and she steps up her pace, tries to push uninvited thoughts out of her head.
She can't remember the last time she collided with another body. Her stint at the Mayo, perhaps. A fifth-year resident with the sweetest smile. He dropped her home after a thirty-six hour rotation, and they made out like teenagers to Desperado on the radio before she pulled him into her bedroom.
It was nice. He was nice. She used to like nice guys. How she developed a taste for brilliant, fucked-up men, she'll never figure out, but for now she'll blame it on space dementia.
It explains why she mentally stumbles when he stands too close; how something about his eyes makes her babble nonsense; how he can disassemble her with a look (the way he looks at her, the other woman, a look he'll never give her).
...why she is, apparently, a complete idiot.
She keeps running, hoping to wear herself out, wear herself down, so she can stop thinking, thinking about him, thinking and running, her feet pounding on a track to nowhere.
Story of her life, really.
(Mediocre, she thinks. What she's always been. Allison Cameron, never the best at anything. Not the older, successful sister, nor the beautiful, youngest one. Always the mediator, the one who compromised. The middle child.)
Here, because her boss has a predilection for playing with broken toys.
Five, seven, ten miles pass before she realizes the shrill chatter's not coming from her head, but the phone across the room. Lurching off the trainer, she totters forward a single step before protesting muscles give and she collapses to the ground. Gasping, lungs burning, she rolls onto her back, slapping a forearm over her eyes.
The answering machine finally picks up.
"Um." It's Chase. There's a pause. A stutter. He clears his throat.
(Breaths come short and fast. She concentrates on that and bringing her heart rate back down from her MHR redline.)
Another pause. "Right." And the message ends.
Seconds later, her pager chirps.
When she opens her eyes again, she's still staring at the same ceiling.
Dead air. Chase despises, has a well-developed phobia of it. Too many memories of prayers, heads bowed in silence at the seminary. Whispered last rites. The sacrament of extreme unction.
(by His most tender mercy, may the Lord pardon you what sins you have committed by sight)
He grips the spoon tighter, absently stirring it in a half-filled cup of cold coffee, sneaks a glance at Foreman (sullen and cryptic, behind steepled fingers). Then at the clock (eleven thirty-nine). Back at Foreman. A minute later, he drops the spoon in the cup and, with a resigned snort, slouches back against his chair.
"Forty-six year old male comes into ER with acute respiratory distress," he mutters, hunting for something, anything to focus increasingly fidgety thoughts on. Talking helps. "Tox screens show an abnormally high level of hydrocodone and an alcohol level at one-point-one. Physical inspection reveals contusions to head and torso, possible fractures to the right six and seventh rib. Differential diagnosis?"
"Sounds like a severe case of chronic dumbassedness," Foreman, still partially walled off behind his hands, supplies. "Lower endoscopy to locate the source of problem."
"Can't." Almost a smirk there. "His head's in the way."
"Well, it's obvious, then. Cranium's causing the rectal blockage. Recommend immediate amputation to remove said obstacle."
"Guys." Wilson, in the doorway, a little sharper than intended. Slouching against the frame, he tries not to look exhausted and worried, and fails miserably on both counts. "What are you doing here?"
It's Chase who finally relents. "We heard what happened."
"Besides," comes grudging admission from the neurologist, "House dies and we're unemployed."
Two fingers dig into the collar, loosening the knot at Wilson's neck, as four from the other hand leave fingerprints on the glass door. "CXR showed a large right-sided hemopneumothorax. They're performing a percutaneous tube thoracostomy for costal resection and lung parenchyma suture."
"So what happened?" Elbows forward on the table, Foreman uncovers and leans in. "He get hit by a truck?"
"A trucker, actually."
"What do we do now?" Chase asks, and he smacks himself internally for sounding so pathetic. Oh, what a rebel without religion he is, they'd say. Cock of the walk, with a healthy disdain for authority; watch him refuse to follow in his fathers rheumatic footsteps (even though he surreptitiously wears the same sneakers).
He's discovering, sickeningly, that he likes being directionless even less, and the vertigo is hitting now. House will figure it out. He always figures it out. He'll come up with the last-minute solution, and he'll do it in the most insulting manner possible. It's what he comes to expect, House and his smug little brain always coming through.
House is two floors down, being cut, drained and cobbled back together.
Per istam sanctam Unctionem, (he can't speak; his mouth is too clumsy to wrap around the Latin. He used to stutter; he still does, sometimes) et suam piissimam misericordiam
"We wait." Foreman. A sigh. Twitching, tapping fingers. In a sudden burst of anger, he stands and kicks over a chair. "That's what we always do."
Indulgent tibi Dominus quidquid deliquisti, amen.
