The Plan
Cuddy stood in the kitchen watching the coffee, hoping to make the perfect cup, to start a, hopefully, perfect day. Okay, she knew it wasn't going to be perfect but it was starting out to be a good day. As she got the travel mugs out of the cupboard and started to pour coffee into each of them, she could feel someone coming up behind her. It had to be House. He reached around her to get to the coffee, but she stopped him. "No, it's not perfect yet! We need to start our day with perfect coffee, so just be patient." House, as he was known to do, especially early (for him) in the morning, grumbled. "I need something to help wake me up. If I can't have coffee, maybe we could go back in the bedroom and …." his voice trailed off suggestively.
She turned around to face him and placed the palm of her hand on his cheek. "As much as I would love to, we can't be late today. I am meeting with the Montgomery sisters and they are considering substantially increasing their donation to the hospital. And you! You get to do two of your favorite things today."
"Oh," said House, "I can't think of one favorite thing that I can do at the hospital, mainly because you won't let me."
"Of course you do. Since you are giving your diagnostic lecture today, you get to call the interns idiots - and you enjoy that."
House grinned slightly. He did enjoy messing with the interns. "What's the other favorite thing?"
Cuddy grinned. "You will have your team with you and you love to order them around."
House's grin got even larger. He did love to order his ducklings to do things. "Yeah, those are two of my favorite things. But, I do have a VERY favorite thing, and you haven't even mentioned that.
"All right," said Cuddy. "If you are good today, give your lecture, and not cause me any problems, you will have earned your VERY favorite reward tonight." She smiled brightly at that, it was her favorite thing, too.
House turned suddenly to grab his coffee and stumbled slightly. Cuddy immediately stopped and stared at him, assessing the situation. He smiled at her and said, "It's okay. Just a twinge. Let's get to work so I can get my reward tonight." She agreed, knowing that if anything were to happen, they had their plan ready. They were both smiling as they grabbed their coffee and headed for the door.
After parking the car in the hospital parking lot, they kissed and then headed into the building. House was gripping his cane in one hand and his coffee in the other. It really was a perfect cup of coffee, he thought, as he headed up to his office.
He stepped into his office and saw his team. "Okay, listen up. If I have to give a lecture today, so do all of you." Chase looked at Kutner and Thirteen and held out his hand, waiting for the money each of them owed. His knowledge of House was really going to pay off. He was already ten dollars ahead and the day had barely started.
The team headed down to the lecture hall. House was reluctant to go but kept moving forward, the knowledge of his reward at the forefront of his mind. As they made their way down to the front of the room, House was again sipping his perfect cup of coffee and humming to himself.
He started to walk back and forth in front of the crowd, assessing the interns, cataloging information about them. Suddenly he froze. He knew, KNEW, that the next move he made his leg was going to go into spasm. He thought quickly and moved his eyes, looking up to see who was in his line of sight. He locked eyes with Thirteen and said urgently, "Run, don't walk, run, to Cuddy's office and tell her I need her stat, stat, stat." Thirteen immediately turned and ran out of the room. Chase and Kutner were already moving towards House to help even though they weren't exactly sure what was needed. Chase held up his hand to the interns, silently telling them to stay seated while Kutner reached out his hand to take the coffee from House. House automatically moved to hand the cup to Kutner, immediately realizing his mistake as this movement was felt throughout all the muscles in his body, causing his leg muscle to seize and he began to fall.
Chase was immediately there to catch him around the shoulders and lower him to the ground. House latched on to Chase's arm, clutching it so tightly that Chase later wondered if any of the bones in his arm was fractured. Ignoring the pain, Chase placed his hand on House's chest, monitoring his respiration as he reminded the pain-filled doctor to breathe. Kutner knelt at House's head, his hand immediately going to the carotid artery, also to monitor him. Both doctors felt helpless as they monitored him and waited for Cuddy. Although they were concerned about the amount of pain House was in, they knew that Cuddy would be there within a few minutes.
Meanwhile, Thirteen had burst into Cuddy's office, her eyes darting around looking for her. When she spotted Cuddy sitting on her couch, looking startled at the interruption, she blurted out "House is in the lecture hall and needs you stat, stat, stat." Cuddy froze for a microsecond and then leaped to her feet, yanked open the drawer of her desk and took out a small pouch. She then turned and ran as fast as she could in 3-inch heels toward the lecture hall. Thirteen had the presence of mind to call to the other ladies in the room, "I'm sure she will be back in a bit." and then left to follow Cuddy.
The door to the lecture hall flew open and Cuddy was running down the stairs, demanding a status update as she moved closer to House. Chase and Kutner told her that he was breathing and the only thing he could manage to say was to not touch his leg. Cuddy knelt down next to House and opened the pouch, taking out the emergency medicines. As she measured out some morphine, she told House, "I'm only giving you enough to take the edge off." As she was doing this, Chase found the muscle relaxant in the pouch and prepared the proper dosage so that this could also be administered. As the medicines had a chance to take effect, everyone could see House visibly relaxing. Cuddy then leaned down next to his ear and told him, "I'm going to massage your leg. Do you understand? I'm going to touch it." House nodded his acknowledgement and Cuddy proceeded to work on the leg, commenting that it felt hard as a rock and no wonder he was in such pain.
As his muscles relaxed and House began to drift off to sleep, Cuddy asked Kutner to go find a wheelchair. She stated her intentions to move House to the couch in her office so that she could monitor his respirations until he woke up. Chase and Thirteen began to argue that they could monitor House, until Cuddy reminded them that they were now in charge of the diagnostics lecture. They both looked up at the audience, having forgotten about them, looked at each other and knew that there was no way out of this assignment.
After helping to settle House on the couch in Cuddy's office, Kutner reluctantly went back to the lecture hall to help his teammates. Cuddy, realizing that the Montgomery ladies were still there, asked them, "Would you like to reschedule? If you would like to continue, it would have to be while I keep an eye on Dr. House." The sisters, having previously met Dr. House, had no problem with him being a part of the meeting, even though he was sleeping. Cuddy perched on the couch, close enough to keep her hand on his pulse. She would occasionally caress the side of his face, moving her hand down to his chest, monitoring respiration, and then continuing on to his wrist, checking his pulse. She was able to do this even while focusing on her conversation with the two ladies.
The three ladies continued their conversation. As House was beginning to be more aware of his surroundings, he heard Cuddy talking as though she were far away. "...doctors can be so focused on medicine that they can forget there is life outside of the hospital walls. That is one thing that we here at PPTH want to encourage. Take Dr. House for example," she said as she looked down at him. "He could have done many other things other than concentrating on medicine. As you remember, he grew up all over the world, at home in many different cultures." The Montgomery sisters nodded their heads in understanding. Cuddy continued, "With his facility for languages, he could have chosen to work in a global company or for the government, doing translation work, or with his knowledge of music, he could have chosen to be a concert pianist." Again, the sisters nodded as they remembered hearing him play piano at a hospital fundraiser. "Instead, he chose to focus on medicine. I want our other doctors to take time to develop interests outside of medicine. Then they will, hopefully, decrease their chances of burnout and leave medicine altogether." The ladies continued their discussion on how they could fund a program to address these issues.
As the ladies continued to talk, House became more aware. He realized he was lying on his side with Cuddy sitting close to him running her hand up and down his face, chest and arm. He snaked his other arm around her waist, resting on her hip, as his awareness of his surroundings increased. Cuddy turned to him and greeted him in a cheery voice, "So glad you could join us. You remember the Montgomery sisters, right?" House slowly sat up as he greeted him, "Yes, of course. Nice to see you again ladies."
As he mentally caught up with the conversation, he began to wonder how long he had been asleep. As he looked at his watch, he noted it had only been about an hour. He knew the lecture was done and he had missed it. While he wasn't sad about missing the lecture, he was concerned that he would miss his "treat" tonight. He waited until Cuddy had escorted the ladies out before trying to move any more. She came back into her office and pointed to the wheelchair. "Dr. Kutner will be back as soon as the lecture is done to take you to your office. I know you don't want to use the wheelchair, but I wasn't sure how much muscle relaxant you still had in your system and I know you want to conserve what strength you have for tonight" she said with a grin. He grinned back at her and decided that pride comes in second, right behind "treats". So, he decided that he would ride in the wheelchair if needed.
As they were both waiting for Dr. Kutner, Cuddy began to analyze their plan. "You know, we had a plan, we worked the plan, and it worked. I know when we first came up with the plan, we hoped it would never be used, but I'm glad we had it. Now we just have to consider any changes to the plan to make it better, just in case it may be needed in the future." They considered what could be done to make their plan more effective as they waited for Dr. Kutner. "If nothing else, I have peace of mind knowing that you won't be in pain when we have to use the plan. And that makes me happy." And House knew that as long as Cuddy was happy, he would be happy, too.