The good news is that chapter 5 is already underway and should be posted within a couple of days.
So thanks for your patience and thanks again to those who've reviewed. Feedback and constructive criticism is, as always, very welcome…
In Self Defence - Chapter 4
Thinking back on it, Cuddy thought it was possibly the only time she'd seen James Wilson run. The young oncologist was usually so calm, so unflappable, a reassuring presence to his patients and colleagues alike – and god only knows you had to have the patience of a saint to spend any amount of time with Greg House. She'd never seen Wilson lose his temper, never seen him panic or get upset. He seemed to take life in his stride, dealing with whatever it threw at him with good grace and gentle good humour.
She was talking to one of the two detectives who had arrived from the Princeton police department when he burst through the doors to the radiology department, flushed and breathless from his sprint from the elevator. For a brief moment she was transported back in time to the days of House's infarction; she saw the same fear and worry in Wilson's eyes as she had back then when he'd spent every spare minute at his friend's bedside, hoping against hope that things would work out okay. With a hasty apology to the detective she moved quickly to meet him, hands reaching instinctively to calm him as he looked to her for answers she didn't have.
James' voice was hoarse with fear, "What in hell happened? Is he ok?"
She did her best to reassure him. "He's stable for now. He's pretty beaten up but I don't think it's anything too serious. We're doing an ultrasound to check for any bleeding.. It's just a precautionary measure James, just to be safe".
Lisa could swear Wilson had turned two shades paler at her words. She could only imagine what he was going through right now; she remembered the shock, the sick fear and panic that had clawed at her as she had knelt on the clinic floor to treat her injured colleague. Wilson was his best friend, the one person Greg House seemed to have any kind of real connection with. James seemed to visibly crumple when she mentioned the possibility of internal injuries. The panic-driven adrenalin that had fuelled his frantic dash through the hospital corridors seemed to desert him and she could see him struggling for composure, for medical detachment, even has she had in the clinic just scant minutes before.
"What the hell happened Lisa?" he demanded shakily. "The nurse said something about an attack in the clinic!"
She nodded wearily.
"We don't know much yet," she told him. "We think it was one of the clinic patients. House was missing for over an hour, didn't answer his pager…" She looked up at him wryly, "You know how he is… the nurse thought he was hiding out somewhere, avoiding clinic duty as usual."
Wilson nodded helplessly, his hand moving unconsciously to the back of his neck, rubbing at the tense muscles in a familiar gesture that spoke volumes to Cuddy about his concern for his friend.
She continued to list the awful details of the attack. "Best we can figure, he's been unconscious for at least an hour and right now he's unresponsive to pain. He's got blunt force trauma to the head and chest and chest films show three broken ribs. The ultrasound is just a precaution to make sure there's nothing more serious going on."
Her face was grim as she spoke. "Foreman is monitoring the head injury. When we're done with the ultrasound we'll move him to the ICU and keep a close eye on his vitals."
She shrugged helplessly, her frustration evident. "All we can do then is wait for him to wake up."
Wilson closed his eyes for a second and dragged a hand across his face, tension evident in every movement of his body, before giving a resigned nod.
"Okay." He said quietly. He drew in a breath, visibly getting his emotions under control, and when his expressive brown eyes met hers Cuddy saw calm determination overlying the fear and concern. She nodded wordlessly. House was lucky to have such a good friend.
A discreet cough behind her drew her attention back to the patiently waiting detectives and reminded her of her other responsibilities – this was her hospital and it was reeling under the repercussions of the events in the clinic. She was needed.
She saw understanding in Wilson's eyes and felt a moment of relief that he was here, that she could hand over the care and the worry about House to the one person who cared about him most. He would look after House.. and let her look after the hospital.
"Go," he told her. "Go deal with things – I'll stay with him."
No thanks were needed; they understood each other perfectly without the need for words. Once again their shared concern for House bound them together, made them more than just colleagues and friends. Lisa smiled a tremulous smile, "Keep me informed James."
Dr James Wilson felt as though time had stopped. It seemed as though the world had spun backwards and the intervening years had disappeared.. and here he was, once again, sitting helplessly by his friend's hospital bed.
Thinking back to the last time they'd been here, Wilson couldn't help but make comparisons – and the years had not been kind to his friend. Behind the ever-present stubble, Greg's face was drawn and thin. Years of pain had etched deep lines into that face, lines which even the relaxation of unconsciousness could not erase. Following the x-ray and ultrasound, House had been dressed in a hospital gown and the dried blood had been cleaned from his face but the ugly bruise on his right temple was a stark reminder of the violent attack that had brought him to the ICU.
And now all Wilson could do was sit here amidst the familiar trappings of the hospital, the steady beep of the heart monitor, the glowing screen showing the readout from the pulse-ox monitor. Sit here and wait for House to wake up. His stomach twisted with fear for his friend – fear, and a slowly burning anger that someone could walk into a hospital, a place of healing, and wreak violence and destruction. That someone could deliberately hurt his friend.
For all that House tried his best to distance himself from people, to antagonise and alienate, to push people away, Wilson knew another side to the man. He was one of very few who saw past the carefully constructed defences House had built – one of the few who House allowed to get anywhere near to close to him. He knew the depth of House's commitment to his work, to his patients. He had seen the many occasions where House had stayed at the hospital for days, barely sleeping as he fought desperately to solve the puzzle, to find the correct diagnosis, to save another life. He had also been there the nights when House had sunk into despondency, berating himself for not finding the answer in time, for not being able to do enough, turning events over and over in his mind, seeking fruitlessly for something he could have done, something he could have tried that might have resulted in a different outcome.
The people who thought House didn't care about his patients were the people who didn't know the man, who saw only what House wanted them to see – the angry, bitter, thoughtless cripple. Which, Wilson conceded with a wry smile, was just about everyone. House was, after all, a brilliant, clever man who gave 100 percent to everything he set his hand to – and that included offending people.
Wilson wondered what the man who had done this to House had thought of him. Or if he'd even thought of him at all as he had unleashed his fury on him.
Hours seemed to have passed since James had walked into the private room in radiology where Foreman was supervising the ultrasound of House's abdomen. His watch told him it has been barely fifteen minutes yet in those fifteen minutes his world seemed to have been turned upside down. Cuddy had tried to prepare him, he realised. She'd listed the injuries, she'd told him House looked bad but none of it had really hit home until he walked into that room and was faced with the reality of what had been done to his friend.
The first thing he'd noticed was that they'd cut through House's t-shirt and his immediate thought was how pissed off House was gonna be when he woke up. That t-shirt was one of his favourites. Some rational, clinical part of his brain had noted that he was probably in shock, that dwelling on inconsequential details was a defence mechanism to protect him from absorbing what the shredded t-shirt revealed.
House lay pale and still on the gurney and that same clinical part of Wilson's mind noted absently that his friend's torso was too thin, that he hadn't been looking after himself properly – again. Then all rational thought seemed to stop as he saw the mass of bruising beginning to mottle the skin all across House's torso and abdomen. All the breath in his body seemed to leave him in one whispered exhalation, "Jesus…"
And then Foreman had been beside him, talking to him, reciting clinical details, forcing him to detach from the emotion and focus on the medicine. The ultrasound looked clean and they were ready to move House to the ICU and for a while he was able to distract himself in minutiae, keeping busy with the mechanics of the transfer. Then the orderly had reached to pick up House's cane and Wilson had heard his voice crack as he'd said, too sharply, "No."
He'd swallowed and forced a calmness he didn't feel into his voice.
"Leave that," he'd said. "I'll bring it."
And now he sat here in a sterile hospital room, listening to the steady beeps that told him his friend was still alive, the cane still clutched in his hands. He had no idea how long he'd been sitting there like that, lost in his painful thoughts, when he was snapped out of his reverie by a sound from the bed. For a moment he thought he'd imagined it but then it came again, a faint sound almost lost amidst the chiming of the heart monitor; the smallest of moans.
He was on his feet in an instant, the cane clattering forgotten to the floor as he moved quickly to the bed, hope and fear equally evident in his voice.
"House?"
TBC...