Every Second

A House Fan-Fic

by - entercreativename

Disclaimer: I am not the creator or owner of the characters mentioned in this story. I am instead a poor college student with no money and no hope of ever earning money. I wrote this story as a means of exploring the characters in the show; not for profit, notoriety, or other self-assuring means.

This histories in this story were written before episode 204 (TB or Not TB) and therefore will differ from episodes aired in November 2005 and later.

Keep those reviews coming in too! I'm working on ideas for another fic, and I need your help on grammer and development.

Chapter 13 - Understanding

Wilson proceeded upstairs to his office where he found House sitting in his chair reading a patient file. Wilson looked at him and asked, "We need to talk. And, since when are you interested in patients, especially my patients?"

House looked at the file, "Give her benadryl and she'll feel worlds better."

"If that is the Kline woman, she's already tried that." Wilson walked over to his couch and sat down. "We need to talk, and this is serious."

House looked up at the ceiling. "If this is about Chase, I already know." He reached into his pocked and pulled out a small electronic device. "You took my pager by accident as you left this morning. I got up as you were pulling out. I already know about Chase crashing twice tonight. I already called Cuddy and talked to her. Nothing we can do but wait."

"Shut up House, this isn't you speaking."

"No, it actually is."

"If this was the real you, you'd be in his room with the entire pharmacy ready to be injected into him, and then the entire lab staff ready to draw blood. You'd be ready for every nurse to clean up something and to insult every doctor for not getting the diagnosis quick enough."

House smiled, "Oh, stop flattering me!"

"You shouldn't be on his case anymore."

"Have you seen Chase? Do you know what's happening to him? I'm his only hope. Had it been any other doctor in this hospital, he'd be dead by now."

"Have you even been near his room since he was admitted? Have you even seen him with your own eyes?"

House stopped. He knew Wilson was right. "You don't need to see the patient to treat the patient."

"No, you just send the other doctors in the hospital to do so. Do you have any idea how many more patients you could help if you just visited them right away?"

"It's not about the patients…"

"Then what is it about?" Wilson cut off House abruptly. "You did take the same Hippocratic oath as I did, right? You did go to medical school, as I did too?"

House sat silently staring at the ceiling. He didn't want this. Ever since Chase had been admitted, Wilson had been acting differently, acting as if House should suddenly treat this patient differently from the other patients. He reached for his Vicodin.

"No drugs. Not until we finish this conversation." Wilson glared at House as he continued to take the bottle out of his pocket.

Wilson jumped off the couch and tore the medicine out of House's hand. "I need you to be sober for this conversation. I'm not the only one noticing this change in you."

"Change? You want to talk change?" House yelled. "How long have you known me? How long have you known how I perform with patients. It's better to be in a different room so that you can think, the patients won't lie to you that way."

"Chase can't lie to you. Chase can't lie to anyone for that matter. Just go and look at him, see what you can see."

House glared at Wilson and made a grab for the Vicodin bottle.

"Greg, I don't want to turn this into bargaining for your meds, but you're not getting these until you agree to visit Chase and examine him."

"Foreman will supply me."

"No he won't, I won't let him."

"You know I'm in pain. Cameron will write for me."

"No she won't. Go see Chase."

House didn't want to admit defeat, but he also knew he needed what Wilson had taken from him. The only way out of this was to turn the tables back to Wilson. Why had he let Wilson get to him like this?

House stopped for a second and thought before saying, "Have you been in to see Chase?"

"He's not my patient." Wilson paused, "but I saw him yesterday afternoon. I was about to go in when I saw Sanford talking to him saying something about how she wished she could date him. It's early, you won't run into anyone there in his room right now, and Sanford and Cuddy have both probably gone home for awhile."

"Why are you so concerned?"

"Other than the fact that he's a student of my best friend? I've always thought that being with the patient helped me to focus on finding what's wrong. Of course, when a patient is terminal and we both know it, it's comforting for the patient to have their doctor there for them. In the end, it all comes down to compassion."

"I have compassion."

"You just won't show it, at least not the way everyone else does. That's why you never see the patient until the end. You refuse to show frustration with the compassion. You only talk to the patient when you know that you can finally cure them. You have a super-hero complex."

"Now you're putting me on the pedestal."

"What if you can't be the hero in this case?"

House had to think. What if he couldn't save Chase? What then? How would he react? He got up from Wilson's desk, walked over to Wilson, and took the Vicodin out of his hand. When he got to the door he purposely turned around, looked at Wilson, and opened his pill bottle saying, "I'm not a hero." He placed a Vicodin in his mouth, chewed it a little, and left for his office.

His leg was killing him by this point, and all he wanted to do was curl into a ball and cry from the pain. However, he had other pressing needs at the moment. He knew that everyone showed compassion in different ways. Some people went and silently helped someone without their act of good will ever being known. Others gave money anonymously and then boasting about it to everyone they could. He however, wanted to be known for something good. He had never really felt good about himself ever in his life. He knew that if he tried a little harder he could cure a patient on the first try, however, he looked better and smarter to the patient when he tried unorthodox methods and misdiagnosed the patients the first few tries. After awhile, he almost felt as if he was a god, saving the victims below from a harsh existence, the same harsh existence he was suffering from. God. That was an interesting analogy for himself; the Vicodin must be kicking in.

House walked over to his desk and started his iPod on some jazz ballads he had downloaded. He wanted to sleep, hang a sign on the door saying, "Do not disturb" and just let existence slip away for a while. He didn't necessarily want to die, but he was curious what it would feel like. However, he wasn't about to try: he wasn't depressed, just curious, and who isn't.

He sat down at his desk and took another Vicodin. He could always think better about the cases by taking the drug, he could more easily drown out his twisted version of compassion by doing so. He looked at Chase's chart and patterns began to make more sense. He closed his eyes, how much Vicodin had he really taken? He took out the bottle and saw that it wasn't his Vicodin, instead, Wilson had switched the pills out for Benadryl. No wonder his leg killed him. House cursed under his breath as he succumbed to the antihistamine flowing through his veins.