SUMMARY: Pain is a strange bedfellow, and it had been his bedfellow and mistress for nearly eight years.
A/N This was originally written as a one-off, but turned into a series of linked short stories set post No Reason.
Part VI Hell Hath No Fury
Okay, maybe he had overdone it. Eight miles had really been pushing it--it would have been pushing it in the pre-infarction days--and then followed by a night of dancing. The throbbing in his leg that kept him up that night was nothing more than strained muscles. He debated taking an extra Neurontin, but knew that he would feel foggy all the next day if he did, so he settled for some Ibuprofen --well, actually quite a lot of Ibuprofen--and that seemed to help.
Nonetheless he called Wilson the next morning at 6:30 to tell him he wouldn't be meeting him in the park for their run.
"What's up?" said Wilson, and House could tell he was doing his best to sound nonchalant. But Wilson, who could lie about a lot of things, could never manage to lie in this one way, and House moved to nip this one in the bud.
"Not a damn thing. Had a night of wild, crazy sex with Cuddy and need to sleep in. See you at work." He hung up before Wilson could respond, swallowed some more Ibuprofen and tried to actually go back to sleep. Three hours later he gave up the battle and forced himself to get up and dressed.
Wilson was waiting for him at work when he finally straggled in. He'd left the door to his office open, and the moment House stepped off the elevator on the fourth floor, he turned up at his side.
"Wow. Do you have some sort of surveillance camera set up in there?" House asked acidly.
"Excuse me for caring. I can't help noticing that you're limping this morning. What's going on?"
"I'm not limping. It's just that Cuddy, she's into these really weird positions, and you know she's like the Energizer Bunny, she just keeps--"
"House."
"I'm fine. I just overdid it yesterday. Anybody's leg would hurt after running eight miles."
"It's not the pain returning?"
"Not a chance. Garden variety muscle strain. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to check in with my posse. There's this thing called work that I do. You might want to look into doing some of it yourself."
He pushed his way into the conference room, where the team was already deep into a differential diagnosis for a new patient. They barely glanced at him as House grabbed a coffee, downed another Ibuprofen, and tried to concentrate on the recap Chase was providing.
"...or anything else that might cause her white blood cell count to drop? House?" With a start he realized they were all staring at him, waiting for some sort of answer, and he got slowly to his feet.
"You all carry on without me," he said and started for his office, aware of three sets of eyes glued to his back. He tried hard not to limp, but with little success.
"House?" It was Chase. House paused but didn't turn around. "Everything okay?"
"Peachy. Just got to make a phone call." Once in his office, he sank into the Eames chair in the corner, glad that he had left the blinds closed, and gripped his thigh with both hands. From deep inside his leg, from what felt like the very marrow of his bone, came a hard, insistent throbbing, a throbbing that was becoming jagged around the edges. This was no muscle strain. He knew this pain, and knew it intimately. She was back, his coy mistress, his bedfellow of so many years, his shunned lover. And she was back with a vengeance. Hell, it seemed, had no fury like a woman scorned.
All right, it would be okay. He would head her off at the pass, do whatever it would take to get her to shut up and leave him alone again. It was a temporary setback and he knew how to deal with it. He rose slowly and hobbled over to his desk. Somewhere he had some emergency Vicodin stashed, he just couldn't remember where. He needed to get his brain to slow down from the panicky spin it was in and let him think. He found the Vicodin at last--two pills--and tried to remember how many Ibuprofen he'd taken so far today, and what would happen if he stacked Vicodin on top of Neurontin. What the hell--he threw his head back and tossed the Vicodin into the back of his mouth. Nearly gagged on them going down. He'd practically forgotten how to do this.
The Vicodin was just kicking in--and wow, he'd forgotten to calculate that he'd been off Vicodin for two months and he'd lost his resistance to the drug--when the door to his office opened and the fellows trooped in. Chase started telling him that they'd decided to MRI the patient's head or chest, and Cameron chimed in something about blood tests. It took all his concentration to tell them to run along and do whatever they'd decided to do. And it took all his strength not to tear the arm rest off the desk chair, he was squeezing it so hard. But at long last they started to leave.
"Oh, one other thing. I'll be going home," he added, stopping them in their tracks. "Family emergency. Call me if you need me." They looked uncertain, Chase in particular, but House shooed them out before they could object or ask questions.
He was certain he could handle this at home. Rest, a hot bath, something to distract him. He'd be fine. He just needed to find a way to get home. Riding the bike was impossible-he'd had a very near thing, riding in this morning, trying to hold the bike upright at a stop light. Asking Wilson to drive was out of the question. At last he picked up the phone and called a taxi, told it to be in front of PPTH in fifteen minutes. Grabbing a file off his desk at random, he headed for the door.
He limped toward the elevator, and now it was so bad he needed to brace himself against the wall with each step. Whenever someone walked down the corridor, he leaned his back against the wall and pretended to be reading the file in his hand. Wilson's door was closed, thank god for small mercies. At last he was across from the elevator. He pushed off from the wall and tried to walk the few steps to the doors. Halfway there, the leg buckled on him, releasing an electric shock of pain that encompassed his whole body, and he nearly fell. Stumbling to the far wall, he righted himself, pushed the elevator button and prayed for an empty car. Moments later the doors opened and his prayer was answered. It was empty. What with that and Wilson's door being closed, he might have to start believing in God. He made it into the elevator and hit the button for the lobby.
When the door opened again, he pushed himself out into the lobby and stopped. He was covered in a film of sweat, his leg was trembling, and he had a vast expanse of open lobby to cross. His head was swimming from all the Vicodin he'd taken, but Christ it was doing nothing for the pain, and he was starting to feel nauseous as well. There was no way he could do this, no way to get to the exit. He moved to the wall beside the bank of elevators and pretended to study the file in his hands.
The Clinic, he decided at last. He could make it as far as the Clinic.
Wilson pushed open the door of the Clinic and approached the desk.
"Which room is Dr. House in?" he asked, half-reading the file in his hand.
"Dr. House?" asked Nurse Brenda. "He doesn't have clinic duty today."
"He paged me for a consult," said Wilson.
"Well, maybe he's hiding from Dr. Cuddy somewhere, but I know he's not with a patient."
"Are any of the exam rooms empty?" asked Wilson.
Brenda consulted her clipboard. "There's no one in Two right now," she said. "Though come to think of it, I heard some noise coming from there a moment ago."
Wilson felt thoroughly pissed. He didn't have time for House's hijinks right now. He'd been with a patient when the page came, and for a moment he considered just heading back up to his office. But the page had said "Clinic consult urgent," so with an angry sigh he pushed open the door to Exam Room Two.
What he saw froze him in his tracks. The room was a mess-the floor covered in medical paraphernalia and shattered glass--and House was on one knee picking, or trying to pick, stuff up off the floor. The face he turned to Wilson was pale and sweaty and distorted by a mixture of anguish and embarrassment. It chilled Wilson's soul. He wanted to look away but couldn't.
"Uh, hi," said House, pulling himself slowly to his feet using cupboard handles and swaying as he tried to replace a box of latex gloves onto the counter. "Listen, you just missed him. The patient consult. Cancer Guy. Got a little violent and stormed out. Guess he didn't like the diagnosis."
Wilson bent over wordlessly and began helping to sweep up the glass and collect the boxes of tissues, the supplies, and medical equipment from the floor. "You're bleeding," he said quietly, looking at House's arm, where a trickle of blood was flowing from a gash on his forearm
"I'm wondering," said House, holding himself upright with one hand and stuffing some tongue depressors into a random container and not looking at Wilson, "since you're here, I'm wondering if you could, uh, go to the pharmacy and find me a...find me a cane. Because I can't fucking walk. Okay? Can you do that? Wilson?" He wouldn't meet Wilson's eye but stood, hands braced on the counter, his back to Wilson, his head hanging. Wilson could see both arms shaking.
"Sure," said Wilson quietly.
When Wilson returned, House was sitting on the exam room table, staring at the floor. Wilson said nothing but proffered the cane until it was in his sightline. When House made no move to reach for it, he propped it against the table.
"Let me look at that cut," he said finally.
"It's nothing, just some glass." He didn't move, but Wilson grabbed a piece of gauze, picked up House's arm and wiped the blood away until he could see the gash clearly. "Hold the gauze there," he commanded, and House did as he was told while Wilson searched the debris for a bandaid.
"The good news is you don't need stitches," he said, holding up two bandaids. "Fred Flintstone or Scooby Do?"
No response, so Wilson applied both bandaids. Then he went and stood directly in front of House. He should know what to say, he told himself. He should know how to do this, he'd done this kind of thing so many times before. He put a hand on his friend's shoulder.
"House--" he began, his voice unexpectedly husky.
"You had to get the ugliest cane they had, didn't you?" House interrupted, and his attempt at a smile just succeeded in tightening the knot in Wilson's throat. House reached for the cane. It was a metal one, and Wilson had already adjusted it to its longest length. House held it lightly, as if it might poison him.
"I aim to please," said Wilson.
Then he held out the other thing he'd brought with him. A bottle of Vicodin. House turned his head away. "Take it. There are only six. Just in case. Maybe you won't need any. Better to have some on hand." When House didn't respond, Wilson tucked the bottle into the pocket of the jacket that was lying on the exam table. Then he scooped up the jacket so House wouldn't have to carry it. "Come on. I'm through for the day. I'll drive you home. We can stop at Cripples R Us and get you a better cane. Something sexy."
The expression on House's face caused Wilson to mentally kick himself. He'd said exactly the wrong thing. He'd violated the unspoken agreement to pretend that the cane was just temporary. Idiot.
"Or we can stop at a bar and get a head start--"
"Your cancer patients," said House, staring at the cane in his hands. "Are they usually happy they had a remission? Do they think it was worth it? Or is it too hard when the cancer comes back?"
"Most of them are happy for the extra time they had."
"I knew it would come back," said House. "So it's not like I wasn't prepared for it." Remission of pain. Forgiveness of sins. He finally raised his head and looked at Wilson.
"I know," said Wilson gently.
House slid off the table, put the cane in his right hand, and took a step. He swayed a bit, and Wilson steadied him with a hand on his upper arm. "Are you ready for this?" he asked.
House hesitated. "Is it crowded out there?"
"No. It's July. It's Friday. Most people have taken off for the weekend and the rest are at lunch. I know for a fact that Aylesman is out playing golf."
House nodded, took a deep breath, reached for the door with his left hand, and opened it.
When he came back to work the following Monday, the first thing Cuddy noticed was the cane, the hunch of House's shoulders, the defiant set of his jaw. The second thing she noticed was the gauze bandage on the palm of his right hand.
It takes a long time for a callous to disappear. And it takes a long time to form a new one.
The End (Well, except for the Epilogue)
