OF MOMENTS PAST
by entercreativename
Disclaimer - Wish I owned them, but I don't.
Synopsis - Ever have a dream you can't escape? House is stuck in his mind after a brush with a Vicodin overdose and needs to save Stacy and Cameron. Please R&R. House/Stacy, House/Cameron, House/Wilson friendship.
CHAPTER 3 - LIFE SENTENCES
House slowly followed Chase and Foreman to his office suite, Wilson walking next to him. He was still soaked and covered in Stacy's blood from the roof, it was alright though, as the wet clothes against his skin reminded him of how much in denial he really was over the ordeal. Wilson had urged him to change into scrubs already when he had finally emerged from his self-imposed solitary confinement on the roof and in the stairwell. Wilson was there for him, always there.
His journey down from the roof, though it was a relatively short one, seemed to be more like a funeral march; his cane mocking the slow and careful roll-step he had developed in times like this over the years. Each step he took brought him farther away from the dream of life with his love and closer to his life confined to the prison of his body she had sentenced him to years before. He was angry because of the leg, because of Stacy forcing his all on him, and now at himself for forgiving her and falling in love with her all over again.
She was a lawyer though, what did he expect?
He slowly began to make his way down the stairs; there were eleven of them total to get to the top floor of PPTH. In his days as a smoker, and his days with Stacy, he frequently made the trips up there, and he habitually counted the stairs each time. Each flight of stairs had eleven, with two flights and a landing between each floor of the hospital. Floor floors, a basement, and a roof made ninety-nine stairs to run when he needed to burn off extra energy or when he was spending a lot of time thinking.
He often fathomed why the architects chose eleven steps and not another number. Were they drunk at the time? Were ten steps not enough? Thirteen would have been bad luck for some, and the symbolism wouldn't have helped at a hospital. At the end of each mental argument of this sort, House always just assumed that the eleven steps were made due to the ceiling height and nothing more.
Today though, eleven steps seemed like an eternity. He looked down from the top of the stairs and though he knew he only needed to go eleven steps, he knew how much his leg hurt and how hard it would be to get back down to the fourth floor. He wanted to curse Stacy for bringing him up there, and for the leg in general, but he instead took two Vicodin and waited a couple of extra minutes for them to start working. He was alone now on the roof, the lonely sound of rain and thunder his only company.
Once satisfied in what he assumed to be an increase in the blood-level of the drug in his system, he set foot at escaping his confinement.
First task, take Vicodin and wait for it to work. Done.
Second task, move the cane to the other hand. Done.
Third task, grasp the handrail in his right hand. Done.
He continued through the mental checklist of what had taken over his tortuous life as he slowly lowered his bad leg onto the step below him, followed by his good leg and the weight from the rest of his body. He had learned this task early on in physical therapy, and though he knew he no longer needed the checklist, it was somewhat of a comfort to still recite it, as he knew it helped take his mind off of the actual pain of his leg.
One step down, ten to go.
As he continued down the flight of stairs, he remembered how at one point in his life he would nonchalantly run up and down them in groups of two and three alternately occasionally adding in a single step here and there to add freedom to his step. Freedom. He really didn't have that anymore, did he? He had become a creature of habit in the last five years, finding that, despite how it locked him into routine, it comforted him to know that he would always have the same thing as long as he desired.
Three steps. Repeat.
He hated how long it took him to get this far now. Hobbling down the hallway with his cane had become second nature, but due to the difficulty involved with running, more like limping, stairs he had avoided them altogether and befriended the elevators. The other staff knew this, and knew that in the heat of an argument, it was the easiest way to escape him.
Five steps. Repeat.
At that, the sound of his beeper stunned him out of the concentration of his steps and the shock momentarily made him lose his count. He looked at the display; judging by what it said, the kids had stabilized Stacy and told Wilson, or something to that order. His friend had paged him to see if he was okay. That meant he had about five minutes before his friend would come looking for him. They knew he was on the roof, and should have known that he was on his way down. However, his friend also knew that he was dealing with House. Six steps left in five minutes, which gave him just under a minute per stair. He could just imagine Wilson on his way up to the fourth floor now, tapping his foot in the elevator and staring at the panel above the door waiting to exit on the fourth floor.
He stood next to the inward swinging door and reached his free hand, his left, out towards the door in the dimly lit stairwell. Just as his hand met the cold metal, the door swung open. Just as he had expected, Wilson stood in front of him.
"Good thing I wasn't using my right hand." House mentioned, noticing how close of a call he had just made to breaking his nose. He thought of the poetic symbolism of his blood joining Stacy's blood on his clothing and was almost comforted at the beauty in it.
The two of them walked in silence down the hallway to the elevators, House quietly annoyed and brooding over Wilson's insistence to look over him, Wilson thankful that House was still alive and didn't find the pavement on the ground level below the quick way. They continued to walk in silence, save for one statement from Wilson, "You should change into some dry clothes; you'll be more comfortable that way." House didn't want to respond to that, he didn't want to respond to anything at the moment. He wanted to enjoy the peace of the silence of shock and fear that had overcome him.
Wilson continued, "Your leg won't cramp up from the damp cold if you change."
House knew that, but still didn't want to say anything. He wanted to wallow in silence, he wanted to watch the images of the last moments on the roof continue to play out in front of his eyes. He just wanted to be still.
As they neared the offices, they had joined up with Foreman and Chase, House assuming that Cameron's absence from the pair meant she was on her way to the Pathology Lab. As the three other doctors walking in his company slipped into the Diagnostics conference room, he spied a cart of clean linens and stole a warm blanket and a set of scrubs from the rack; he'd change later after a nap.
He set the scrubs and blanket down on a chair next to the door to his office, which he noticed was strangely darkened. He didn't know how or why it was dark, and he didn't want to take the energy to find out either. He sat down at the conference table after handing a marker to Foreman who was ecstatic at the chance to finally write on the board. He watched the three doctors talk and discuss Stacy's case in front of him, nodding silently to confirm answers to questions he was asked. He was grateful Wilson was still there to fend off questions that would be too harsh for House to answer at the moment in time.
They continued.
They finished.
His fellows had exited to run their tests and he was left alone in the conference room with Wilson, however, he did not notice as he continued to stare at the corner of the white board, shock blurring the letters Foreman had written earlier into one mass of black squiggles.
"They're doing everything they can."
"I know."
"I'll cover for you on this."
"She needs me."
"I know. I have patients to look after. I'll be back in about half an hour. Change into those scrubs and you'll feel better."
"Thanks."
House was left alone in the Diagnostics conference room against his and Wilson's better judgment, but then again, what could he really do? He took the scrubs to the nearest locker room, changed into them, and came back to the office suite, discarding his wet clothes onto the back of a chair to partially dry. He hated the smell of mildew, and though he did not want the suite to take on that smell, he did not want to make the effort to prevent it either.
He took the blanket from the chair next to his office door and opened it only to find Cameron sitting in his lounge chair, right foot resting on the foot rest and crutches to her right; her right knee was wrapped in a large brace.
"What are you doing here Cameron?"
She looked ahead at the edge of the desk with a blank look in her face and blinked. Though she was in her normal dress, she had changed out of her usual heels into a pair of old tennis shoes she kept in her locker for times she needed them.
"I hope you don't mind. I'm waiting for Ortho to get back to me on the MRI of my knee. Blew it out in the clinic."
"That's exactly why I avoid the place."
"I blew it out covering your shift for you House."
"Rub it in."
"I don't want to bicker. I'm sorry."
House wanted to accept the apology, but knew that if he did so, she would suspect something was wrong and she'd be all over him. Instead he stalled. "Who did you see?"
"Cuddy."
"What'd she give you?"
"Vicodin. I can see why you like it so much."
"Makes you think clearer, huh?"
Cameron continued to stare at the corner of House's desk with a glazed look in her eyes, "Yeah."
"How much did she give you?"
Cameron grunted, "A lot. Don't remember how much. Huh. Really good though."
"You're high Cameron. You might want to switch to naproxen, 500 mg twice a day; only one of us in this department really needs to be on the other stuff." He took his prescription pad and filled the top sheet out for her. "What happened?"
He hated being curious, and he probably could figure out what did happen to her, but he was enjoying watching Cameron enjoy the legally prescribed narcotic flow through her veins.
"Well, I was in the clinic covering your hours, I should have never taken Foreman's bet, and I had a particularly annoying patient. Middle-aged white male, about 375 pounds, got stabbed by wife in the knee with a letter opener and hit on the head with a frying pan as well."
House smiled and laughed a little at a mental picture of Julie Wilson running after a much larger version of her husband with a frying pan. He could see it happening too, and he could see his friend being partially bald as well in that scenario. However, he had to promise himself he would never tell his best friend of that image or he would be in trouble.
Cameron continued. "She caught him cheating on her with her best friend and her sister. I guess I insulted him or something and next thing you know, he was trying to run out of the room. Unfortunately, his knee gave out and he fell as I came to steady him and help him back to the exam table. He fell on top of me, taking out my right knee in the process. It didn't help that his concussion finally hit him and he passed out too."
"Sorry."
"Part of the job. Brenda took over and looked after the patient after she and three orderlies got him onto a gurney. He's probably been admitted. Cuddy might let you and I out of clinic duty though because of it. She said that if that had happened to you, then you probably would have lost a lot more than the use of your knee."
House laughed, as he knew Cameron and Cuddy were both right. He probably would have gotten himself admitted because of the knee and he was sure there would have been a small fistfight as well. He finally won an argument though with Cuddy as to why he shouldn't do clinic duty; physically moving and dealing with patients was hard on his leg and he needed more of his strength to balance than he was aware of.
"I suppose you want your chair. Cuddy and I were both paged about Stacy. Sorry."
"No, you can stay here. Actually, go home. We can handle this."
"No, I'll stay. I'll be fine."
Pity, she was actually giving him pity. He was both annoyed and humbled at the level of humility she was showing him at the moment. She knew she needed to be here, and he knew she was correct. He also knew that there was no way that he could think rationally in this situation and that she knew it as well.
"Um sir, you might want to take a shower."
"What?" House had a small sense of indignity and curious as to why she had said this and then felt a sticky substance in his hair: Stacy's blood. He knew it had soaked into his clothing, but he didn't know it was in his hair as well. "I will. Are you sure you are going to stay?"
"Nothing better to do at home."
With that House left Cameron in his office and headed back to the locker room. The day had shaken his core sense of confidence and he really could no longer be sarcastic though he wanted to. He tried to chase Cameron off in his office but couldn't. Probably just as well he left her in the chair; he didn't want Stacy's blood from his hair soaking into anything else.
As he headed towards the locker room, he felt bad for her knowing that she had just suffered an injury that would probably haunt her for life because of him. He suddenly saw Cameron in a new light. She had made a phenomenal diagnosis that morning on their new patient, and now she was in as much pain as he was because of covering for his arrogance. She sat there in his office, high on Vicodin and in pain, all because of him, yet she showed great grace and dignity. He admired that.
House headed for the showers, unaware of what the strange night ahead would bring.