I thank Taruia for so kindly offering to edit my work. You will see how much a good editor gives to a writer's work without imposing their own words or attitudes on the text. Taruia is a fine editor and she is also the person who provides us with those invaluable transcripts of HOUSE MD.
This story is a continuation of my previous fic "Breakfast with an Orang Utan" therefore the characters behave in character with their shared experiences in that fiction as well as their shared experiences at PPTH as seen on HOUSE MD. All characters from the series HOUSE MD are the property of the producers.
LEGACIES AND LOLLIPOPS - Part Ten
Written by Magdala
Editor/Beta Taruia
PART TEN
I was too tired to talk, so as Lisa Cuddy drove towards her home I relaxed into the passenger seat and closed my eyes.
I dreamt of a full-length concert grand. The soloist, resplendent in white tie and tails, threaded his way through the string section and flicking up his tails took his position on the piano stool; unnecessarily adjusting it away from and back to it's original position. I turned to Greg to comment, but found the seat beside me was empty, and became immediately fearful. When I looked back at the stage, however, I realized that Greg was seated at the piano. He was the soloist.
No man ever looked ugly in full evening dress but none ever looked more handsome than Greg. The lighting of the concert hall that made the brass and the horns glimmer and the wood of the violins, viola, cello and base gleam, picked up the golden lights in Greg's hair. His tan made the winged collar of his shirt and his hand tied bowtie even whiter than those worn by members of the orchestra.
I thrilled at the sight of him. I knew I was dreaming but I loved the beauty of it and was content to just be there.
The conductor's baton rose and fell as I watched Greg's elegant hands cover the keys and heard the orchestra swell with the first movement of Brahms 2nd Piano Concerto. I had always loved Brahms and had always felt Greg could play that concerto well enough for the concert stage. He made the piano sing. The keys became liquid under the touch of his long sensitive fingers. I loved to look at those strong certain hands that knew every part of me.
I pulled the opera glasses out of my purse. Greg had given them to me when we first went to the Met together. I focused them on his glorious sinewy hands as they danced, caressing the essence of Brahms' dream from the piano. Then his hands began to shake he lifted them from the keys.
Something was wrong. Moving the opera glasses aside I saw him wrap his arms about his trunk and grimace. He swiveled on the piano stool trying to protect the audience and the piano from the sickness of his body as he contorted and wretched. The piano seemed to react with a sad discordant sigh. Again, I looked through the glasses. There was blood on the keyboard.
It looked like coffee grounds, but I knew it was blood. Just as I knew, without looking, that when the conductor's baton fell to stage, it had fallen from the hand of James Wilson.
The dream had turned to a nightmare and I faught my way out of it jolting myself awake. Lisa had pulled over, stopped the car and was talking into her cell phone.
"We'll come straight back. Endoscopy? You found free air on the X-ray. Yes ... Yes I'm turning now. You sure you want me to keep the line open? I'll have to switch to hands free. You know Stacy is with me?" While carefully maintaining her professional control it was obvious she was alarmed. Obviously she felt she should remind them of my presence so no said something untoward.
She switched over to hands free and started turning the car around, so we could go back to the hospital.
I heard Wilson over the phone's speaker.
"Stacy can you hear me?" His voice was trembling.
"Yes" I said, "What's happened?"
"Greg's condition deteriorated sharply about twenty minutes ago." The information came from Dr. James Wilson Oncologist the emotion came from Greg's closest friend. Unable to maintain his professional detachment Jim was suffering too.
"Did he hemorrhage?" I asked. I was aware that Lisa's head snapped around in surprise.
"Yes ... we've got him on whole blood and if that doesn't do it he will go straight into surgery. He wants to talk to you. Hold on." Then I heard his muffled voice speaking to Greg, "She's on the line now. Don't talk too much. No I'll hold the phone... go ahead, Stacy."
"Greg darling. Don't try to talk we'll be there soon and I'll see you then." I was holding back tears.
"I think we've found the cause of the breakthrough pain." There was a hitch in Greg's voice and I knew he too was holding back tears.
"I think I'll be in the OR before you get here." I couldn't tell whether he gave a grunt of pain or a sob. "I love you," he said, in exactly the same way he had said it before going into the induced coma. It was his way of saying goodbye.
"And I love you too," I said. There was a change in the ambient sound, and then Wilson was on the phone.
"It's me again. Greg can't hear us now."
"Jim is it cancer?" I asked. All I wanted was the truth.
"I hope not." He said. He sounded desolate.
"Jim, go back to Greg. He needs you with him."
"I'll look after him as best I can. Stacy."
"I know you will ... do you need to speak to Lisa?" But he had already severed the connection.
"Apparently Greg thinks it is a peptic ulcer." Lisa said.
"Then that's not too serious is it?" I asked with a sigh of relief.
"It might have perforated. That could be the cause of the hemorrhage. That's why they have to go right in and can't do an endoscopy first. This is might require aggressive surgical intervention." she explained.
"Greg thought it was cancer," I said, trying to hold onto the hope that this was so much less than cancer.
"Yes. Gastric adenocarcinoma cannot be ruled out," explained Lisa, dashing that hope. "Also there's a very real possibility of erosion into the pancreas, the liver, the bile ducts and either of the intestines."
"You're saying he could die." I said. Again I wanted the truth so I didn't have to face any more surprises.
Lisa nodded. Never taking her eyes off the road in front of her.
A police siren made me aware that Lisa was well over the speed limit.
"Shit," said Lisa "All I need is to be held up by the cops."
"Pull over," I ordered. I didn't know if Lisa might for a moment think that she could outrun the police.
The policeman took his time getting out of his car and walking up to ours. Lisa showed him her license and her ID and said we were attending a patient who was critically ill. This didn't have much effect on the officer even though he credited a doctor at PPTH with saving his wife's life. He mentioned that no one else there could figure out what was wrong with her.
"The doctor who saved your wife's life. Was he kinda mean? Did he walk with a cane? Was his name Gregory House?" I asked. It was worth gambling, the policeman was about to fill in the citation for speeding.
"Yes. He's the only person from your hospital I'd help out. They were ready to send her home." He was ready to give a rundown on the failings of the others, but I interrupted him.
"He's the patient. Dr. House could be dying."
The cop snapped his book shut. His reaction was immediate.
"Don't worry, I'll get you there," the big uniformed man promised.
We were on our way in seconds; Lisa had to fight to stay up to speed with our police escort. The cop whose wife Greg had saved drove in front, siren blaring, clearing the road ahead of us. While another police car came alongside, waved us on and dropped behind every time the road narrowed. They lead us up to the ambulance bay.
The policeman who had stopped us on the road spoke to Lisa and she handed him her car keys. He opened her door. Lisa got out and he got into the driver's seat adjusting it for his height.
"Anything you need from the car?" he asked me. I grabbed the envelope from England as I was about to get out he looked at me, "You tell Dr House we'll be praying for him."
"I will," I answered.
Lisa and I rushed to the elevator. She hit the button. "That cop threatened to put out House's lights more than once when his wife was here."
"Why am I not surprised?" I answered.
"How did you know he'd hemorrhaged, I didn't say anything about it, even when I thought you were asleep?" She asked. This moment's calm between floors had been her first opportunity to ask me about this since my conversation with Wilson in the car.
"I often dream of Greg. That is one of my nightmares."
When the elevator doors opened they were just bringing House down the corridor towards us to take him to the Operating Room. His face was drained of all color; he was shaking with fever and sweating profusely. I knew the medical terminology he was acutely and severely ill. Yes 'acutely and severely' both words mean the same thing but when doctors want to say things are really bad they are happy to repeat themselves and even lapse into redundancy.
Wilson, who was walking alongside his friend, leant over and spoke to him. Greg's eyes fluttered open.
"Stacy," he said. There was absolutely no strength in his voice but still he was able to lift my name out of the ordinary. I thought of Stephen Sondheim's lyric for the song 'Maria' in West Side Story "Say it loud and there's music playing, Say it soft and it's almost like praying." The way Greg said my name was almost like praying.
I thought of the big tough cop who would be praying for Greg in the parking lot. Then I looked down at the frail and suffering man I loved so completely. He was too weak for further speech. I had never seen him look so helpless or felt he was so close to death. For the first time in my adult life, I found myself praying.