Chapter 6

"Visitation Rights"

He floated to the surface of consciousness gently. Sunlight streamed in the windows to his left and the sterile hospital room glared with brightness. He squinted his eyes, trying to accustom his vision to the shock. It made his face hurt a little.

He was not in pain. Exactly. But the surface of his skin felt tight, squeezing in on him. Or maybe it was his system's reaction to the pain meds that messed with his senses and just made it feel that way. He did not try to move. Comfort was, after all, comfort. Why try to fix what wasn't broke, right? Or in his case, even try to fix what was broke!

Without moving his head, he let his range of vision travel to its limits across his own body. His bad leg was elevated on a pillow, and there were bandages adhesive-taped in place beginning at his knee and reaching nearly to his hip. The rest of his leg from knee to foot was bare and discolored from bruising, and he could detect slight swelling along it, because his shin bone had gone into hiding beneath the flesh. Vaguely, he remembered looking at it some time before this, when he'd come to consciousness earlier; when the bandages had reached all the way to his ankle. He wondered what kind of new damage had been done to his weakened thigh … and what … if anything … it would do to his ability to walk. And when the pain came back after the IVs were removed … how bad would it be this time?

Involuntarily, his forehead knit between his brows and then he felt the returning twinges of pain. Part of his right eye socket cast a purple shadow that intruded where it should not be, and it made him realize that the eye was swollen, and from the shade of it that he could make out, there was probably a shiner as well. Oh joy!

His right hand was heavy. Not painful … not yet … but working on it. Ponderously heavy. Each finger weighed a ton. The "skin-stretching" thing was especially annoying over the back of it, in the area of the metacarpals.

A flash of sudden memory painted a mind picture of a filthy runoff culvert beneath a road somewhere. And a dirty brown dog. He'd been flat on his back, drowning in agony. He'd lifted his right hand and tried to see why it was radiating with such all-consuming pain. He'd spotted the broken bones right away; displaced beneath the skin, raising a deforming knot close to his knuckles. The blood that glued his fingers together had scared him a little. The injury was very serious.

He raised his arm and stared in horror at his splinted, bandaged hand. His right splinted, bandaged hand! A cold wave of premonition washed over him as the implications sank in.

He would not be using his cane. Not for a long time. He would not be using crutches either. He would not be walking for a long … long … time. That left only a single alternative: a dreaded wheelchair. And someone to push it.

In spite of all his efforts to control it, a cry of utter desolation escaped from between his lips, and he moaned his despair out loud.

Gregory House heard a sound somewhere off to his right; a deep sigh of indrawn breath. Someone nearby was waking from sleep. He was incapable, however, of moving his body into a position where he could see anything. His tethers held him quite immobile where he was. Instantly, he regretted even the small outburst he'd permitted himself in the moment of discovering his own helplessness. He steeled his nerves, closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Held it.

An expanse of white jacket caught the corner of his eye; a professional-laundry press job. A field of professional-length starched fabric hove into view above dark brown gabardine trousers. Physician's lab coat. House cracked an eye open to steal a glance and again felt a tug of pain at the side of his face. He winced. Ow! Fuck!

He heard a soft chuckle emanate from the area close to his right side, and immediately blew out the strangulated breath he'd been holding. Wilson! He detested his own vulnerability, but Wilson was the one person who'd seen it all before and could be trusted to keep his own counsel.

"You remember the song, 'Canadian Sunset'?" Wilson was asking softly, hovering over the side of the bed and looking down smugly. "Well, it's right there … the whole colorful spectrum in all its glory … all over the side of your face."

House glared impotently upward, but said nothing. His thoughts were all right there though … naked and raw … in his eyes.

Wilson smiled quietly and began checking vitals. He'd seen the wounded look flash for a moment and then quickly covered up again. He did not, however, allow any sympathy to show on his face or echo in his own eyes. House was hurt enough, and beneath the deep façade of inscrutability, very fragile emotionally. Wilson would allow his friend to labor awhile longer under an illusion. Let him believe that everyone thought this incident was just one more in a long line of narrow escapes that had marked House's life in recent years.

He finished checking the IVs and the monitors and stood back within House's line of vision with hands on hips. "If I didn't know better," he said conversationally, "I might begin to think you had a death wish …"

House looked up at him, purposely schooling his face into that "innocent-little-boy" look he affected so well. "Me?" His voice sounded dry; unused.

Wilson dumped a few ice chips from a thermos near the bed into a small plastic cup and held it to House's lips. "Yeah … you! Here. You sound like shit. You're lucky to be alive. Are you in pain?"

House sucked on the ice, rolling it around in his mouth; tried crunching it with his teeth. But the cuts on the side of his face made him quit that in a hurry. "No. I just feel … tight. But that's from the inflammation. I know that. How bad is … whatever happened to my leg? And how bad are the breaks in my hand? I won't be able to walk, will I?"

Wilson pursed his lips and looked down at the floor. Business as usual. House wanted truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

"Your leg is lacerated deeply along the entire length from knee to hip. You can't bear weight. Fortunately for you, it didn't extend into the region of your surgical scar … or your leg would probably be done for!

"Two metacarpals are broken, and a third dislocated. Your hand is going to be disabled for a few months, and you're going to have to do some tough rehab if you expect to use your cane again. The cuts on your face and the side of your head are superficial, and you should be shed of the 'Hallowe'en Mask' look in a week or two. Again, you were fortunate. You don't have a concussion. Your Corvette is history.

"And … no … you won't be able to walk for quite some time … sorry …"

There was no answer. Wilson chanced a look back to the man in the bed. The blue eyes held that far-away look that House sometimes affected when his brain was processing information and deciding where to go with it next. Wilson waited patiently, feeling nearly as helpless as House looked.

A full minute of sustained silence followed, neither man intruding on the other's thought processes; both considering the implications of the passing on of that information, and the steps that would have to be taken in order to reconcile it.

Then Wilson saw the blue eyes close and the thin lips purse with bleak understanding and no alternatives. House had quickly come to the same conclusion that Wilson and Cuddy had come to the day before, and for which Wilson already had drawn up a few ideas of his own.

"This is unacceptable." That first admission was uttered quietly. Deeply frustrated with his body's added limitations … and no one to blame but himself. Then Wilson saw the left hand clench into a fist, the wounded body stiffen, enraged.

The second declaration, a shout of defiance:

"This. Is. Fucking! Unacceptable!"

"House!"

Wilson watched his friend fold backward into the pillow beneath his head, the tension of his all-consuming anger slowly abating. Utterly defeated! The blue eyes rimmed with wetness, and only his fierce force of will keeping angry tears from spilling over.

"House …" softly. If you want his attention … whisper!

The disheartened stare lifted to his, and Wilson felt as though he were being pinned in place for a moment. Then House's eyes darted away again in something reminiscent of shame; an open wound of the soul. Wilson found it difficult to witness. "It'll be okay, House. You'll handle it. We'll handle it! I'll be here. I'll always be here … dammit!"

Still, no answer. House turned his head away.

Silence weighed heavy. Then, Wilson, inspired, murmured: "We got the mutt!"

The beat-up head turned back quickly, eyes questioning. "What?"

"I said … we got the mutt. You told us to bring the mutt …"

The frown appeared, House flinched, and it went away again. "What mutt?"

"You don't remember a big brown dog?"

A light turned on suddenly behind the blue eyes. "I dreamed about a dog …"

"It was real."

"Was?"

"Yep … crummy, scurvy, ugly mutt … but you should see him now! He's a nice dog. I think he had a hand in saving your miserable life."

"Yeah?" Interest building.

"Um hum."

"What the fuck am I supposed to do with a dog?"

"Be buddies with him! Oh yeah … by the way … your parents are on their way here …"

"Oh, double fuck!"

oooooooooooooooooooo

Lisa Cuddy, watching from the window of her office, saw the silver pickup pull into the visitors section of the parking lot. Blue and white New York plates stood out glaringly among all the yellow Jersey ones. John and Blythe House walked together, shoulder to shoulder across the lot and came in through the wide main entrance. They stood looking around, re-acclimating themselves to the layout. It had been nearly seven years since they'd visited this part of PPTH in daylight, and many aspects had been remodeled and updated in the intervening passage of time.

Cuddy left her chair and walked out into the lobby to meet them. They were dressed casually, both in matching dress jeans and dark shirts, and Cuddy thought to herself: How '70's!

It had been a long time, but they recognized her right away. Neither seemed distant or prone to hold a grudge because of Gregg's misdiagnosis, in which she'd had a very large part. She smiled and greeted them with a nod, and they both returned the favor.

"Before I take you upstairs to visit your son," she began, "we should visit the cafeteria for a cold drink, and I'll prepare you a little so you won't be shocked by his injuries. He's a stubborn, proud man, and doesn't tolerate sympathy very well …"

John House shook his thick mop of gray hair and smiled wryly. "Oh God! Don't we know it! Okay, fair enough. I could stand a cold drink and a visit to the head."

Across from him, Blythe agreed. "I could stand to freshen up too," she said. "But I need to go to Gregory soon."

"We will," Cuddy told her. "I promise."

They ordered iced tea with lemon all around, and chose a corner table, out of the way of traffic.

"How's my boy?" John asked. No preliminaries; a straight, no-nonsense question. Blythe's gaze met hers also, right beside him.

"It's very serious," Cuddy told them.

They already knew that. They were looking for further developments.

She continued. "The new injury to his weak leg is going to give him no end of added problems for a long time to come. The laceration has ripped into tissue and muscle that was not already injured by the infarction, and it's added to his disability. How much, we don't know yet. Right now he's bedfast, and there is no possibility that he can attempt to bear weight without ripping the sutures. The cut is in a bad place … of course every injury of this nature is in a bad place … but especially for Dr. House."

"His hand is badly broken, and it's his dominant hand … the one in which he handles his cane. He will not be able to walk again for a long time. The entire right side of his face looks much worse than it is, and he has a black eye." Cuddy looked pointedly at John. "If you decide to tease him about it … please let me get out of the room first! I'm not sure how accurate he is at throwing things with his left hand."

They smiled. Her small joke had broken the tension of her discouraging news, and they were shored up and ready to proceed to the third floor. "The last time I saw him throw left-handed," John House muttered, "he was pretty damned accurate!"

James Wilson and Gregg House were both resigned to the arrival of House's parents when they appeared in his hospital room's doorway with Lisa Cuddy. Wilson had called down to the reception desk at noon and talked to one of the nurses. "When you see an older couple in the company of Dr. Cuddy, give me a call in Room 317, will you Brenda?"

The phone call had finally come ten minutes before.

Wilson cranked up his friend's bed to the limits of comfort, and covered his lower body with a sheet. The injured leg, cushioned on its pillow, made a large lump on the bed's surface, but at least it did not expose the thick bandages or his swollen lower leg to scrutiny. House's broken hand was mostly hidden inside a dark blue sling with a snowy white strap that fit snugly around his neck and left shoulder.

His multi-hued temple was the only obvious indication of the seriousness of his injuries, other than the "wired" look of the IVs. He leaned back against a fresh pillow with a pained and put-upon look of martyred vulnerability on his expressive face.

Had he not been so seriously hurt, Wilson might happily have slapped him silly. "House, these are your parents, you moron!" He hissed. "Behave yourself!"

House smiled bravely, combed away a momentary smirk, and went back to looking pained. He hoped his mother wouldn't jostle him, or the charade would be over very quickly. His morphine drip had been reduced earlier, and the first vestiges of pain had begun to lick at his nerve endings like hungry dragons. Life went on, and it didn't care who was visiting at his bedside.

Blythe paused in the doorway and stared at her son's painful-looking face. He looked back at her piteously, brows knit and eyes bleak, playing it for all it was worth. The glint in his Dad's eyes, however, told him that the charade was wasted effort on his part. He rolled his eyes.

Prick! You've spoiled all my fun … all my life! He concentrated instead, on his mother's soft heart. "Hi, Mom."

She came to his side and touched his forehead with her soft hand. Leaned down and kissed his uninjured cheek tenderly. She could feel him tremble beneath her. He was putting on quite a show for his father's benefit, but she knew he was hurting. "Hello, darling ..." She was whispering again. He knew her words were for him alone, and he allowed himself to melt gratefully into her love. "You really don't feel very well, do you, dear? It seems that every time I see you, you're hurt a little more. It's not fair!"

"Mom, please. I'm fine … I mean … I'll be all right. Just got a little work to do to get things back to where they were. Please don't worry, Mom."

Blythe caressed his eyebrows with gentle fingers, blocking the others' view with her turned back. He was uncomfortable and embarrassed, but he allowed it. She was very well versed on what he could tolerate and what he could not. She ruffled his short, coarse hair the same way she had done when he was a small child, and cupped his left ear and scruffy cheek in her warm palm. He reached up with his multi-wired hand and grasped her wrist weakly.

It was his sign that he wanted her to stop with the babying, and so she did.

His Dad walked over to stand beside her. Eyebrows tilted down at the ends gave him a worried look, a family trait. House wondered if he actually was worried. "You had us scared a little, son," the old man said, and Gregg guessed that he was. There were no sarcastic remarks. No cracks about having "two legs". No mention of "chicks" or "babes" … or any crude questions on whether or not he was "getting any" …

Gregory House closed his eyes for a second, instinctively compensating for a swift twinge of pain … there and gone. It was starting.

His parents both saw their son's face lose its color and turn ashen; both turned for quick assistance from Gregg's colleagues. But they were both gone. Cuddy. Wilson. Offering privacy for family time.

Gregg looked up. "It's okay. They've reduced the morphine and I'm beginning to come down. Nothing to worry about. I need to go with it 'til I go back on my meds …"

"Son?" It was his father, and the old man was scared. John turned on his heel … that damned military "about face" … and strode into the hallway. Gregg looked after him, puzzled.

Another wave of sudden pain made him hunch. His broken hand twitched inside the sling, as though he was trying to move it far enough to press it onto his thigh. But it wouldn't move.

Wilson hurried back into the room just ahead of John House and Lisa Cuddy; went to Gregg's bed and upped the morphine drip. After a minute, Gregg House began to relax. His head pressed back against the pillow and his eyes fell closed. Wilson dumped ice chips into another plastic cup and held it to House's lips. House crunched a few of them, nodded his head, and Wilson withdrew. Stood back and watched with concern.

John and Blythe House watched James Wilson. Their son's friend was right there! Wilson was always right there … never more than an arm's length away. They saw Gregg's eyes open and follow Wilson's movements as he walked back again and stood at the foot of the bed. Lisa Cuddy stood watching from the doorway, hovering, but did not step into the room.

Cuddy saw Wilson's hand place a feather touch on the instep of Gregg's swollen foot and hold it there for a moment, squeeze gently, then pull back and away and disappear deep into the pocket of his white lab coat. From the doorway, Dr. Cuddy smiled and withdrew. House already had everything he wanted and needed, standing sentinel right there at his side.

Blythe and John did not miss the significance of the touch either. Somehow they were not surprised. They were both gratified by the calming effect the touch had had upon their son.

They stayed with him, mostly in silence, for another half hour.

When they turned to leave, he opened his eyes and spoke to them. "Don't go to a hotel."

"What?" Blythe was not certain she'd heard him right. "What did you say, Gregg?"

"Please … don't go to a hotel. Stay at my place. Not … like I'm going to need it for awhile. It's fairly clean. You'll have to change the sheets. Water the plants … feed the dog and the rat and the canary …"

"Gregg? Since when do you have plants? A dog? A canary?" John House shifted his gaze to Wilson, frowning. "James, is he delirious?"

Wilson smiled enigmatically. "No … actually, he's bullshitting … riding on cloud nine. The morphine's taken his pain away again, and he's a little light headed. He has a rat. Really! But no plants. No canary. No dog … at least, not at the moment!"

Their eyebrows knitted in puzzlement, and it amused Wilson a little. When they glanced back at Gregg again, the pain had cleared from his face. The color had come back, and he was asleep.

oooooooooooooooooooo

ouse's line of vision withHous

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