"GUESSWORK"

- Chapter Twenty-One -

"Spikes and Stringers"

"Dr. Wilson?"

James Wilson was sitting on an uncomfortable settee in Paramar's outer office with his soiled windbreaker in his lap when Kip Bernoski walked into the room. Wilson clambered to his feet quickly, startled at the sudden appearance, and whirled to face the other doctor. His cell phone fell out of one jacket pocket, and House's cell phone and an amber vial of pills fell out of the other. He stooped to pick them all up and returned his attention to Bernoski. His face was haggard with fatigue, his mind obviously elsewhere.

"How is he?" Were the first words out of Wilson's mouth.

Bernoski walked over to the settee and lowered himself onto it, which forced James Wilson to do the same. "He's fine," Kip said. "Well, maybe not 'fine' … but he's a lot better than he was three hours ago. Before I let you go back so see him, Dr. Wilson, we need to talk …"

Wilson's brow furrowed, eyes darkening. "What does that mean, exactly?" He asked in a voice laced with caution.

Kip smiled. "Now don't get all worried. It's not that drastic. It's just that our methods here are a bit different from the ones you're used to back where you come from, and you're going to have some questions." Kip paused before continuing, letting his initial words sink in with this man.

Wilson was all ears, his tired face a question mark. But he was skeptical of anything that might endanger his friend, and he wasn't sure if Bernoski really understood his concerns. "I already have questions I'm not sure you have answers to …"

Kip continued in a gentler tone. "Y'know, Doctor, you look almost as bad as he does. Unless I miss my guess, neither one of you has had any decent sleep in days."

Wilson's eyes narrowed. Was this person trying to distract him?

"Well … yeah," he admitted. "I think I got about three hours out of the last forty-eight. But that's not what's important. The second part of your answer to my question, if you recall, is still a little vague. The only thing that matters to me at this moment is the current condition of Gregory House I need to know anything you can tell me about what's going on with him … and whether or not your … 'methods' … can do anything to help him."

Bernoski nodded. "I know you're worried. He's very tired, but he's not in any serious pain. You may even have to wake him up when you go back there. He's lacerated his hand somehow. There's a nasty gash at the base of his left palm. He ignored it, and we had to put him on intravenous meds so it wouldn't develop into something more drastic. He's on an antibiotic wash that one of my clinicians came up with about a year ago, and it seems to be doing the job."

"What about his leg?" Wilson insisted. "His breakthrough pain has increased recently, and I … in my infinite wisdom … didn't listen to him as I should have when he tried to tell me how bad it was …"

Bernoski held up a hand. "Please … Dr. Wilson … do us all a favor and give yourself a break. None of us can be the wise and generous counselor all the time! Dr. House has been placed on a temporary pain-reduction regimen that my staff calls 'Spikes and Stringers', and he is …"

"What?" Wilson's frown had an edge of suspicion.

"I said 'temporary", Doctor."

"Yeah, I heard you … but I have no idea what you're talking about …"

"I know you don't. I'm trying to tell you, if you'll just listen for a moment. Let me ask you … what does this man's well-being really mean to you, Dr.Wilson?"

James did not hesitate. "He's my best friend! I want what's going to work for him, and I want to see him free of this God-awful leg pain that's been driving him out of his mind forever …"

Kip smiled. "Exactly!"

Both men stopped talking.

Two experienced medical professionals sat very still for a moment, each in stiff-necked appraisal of the other, both analyzing the very short conversation that had just taken place between them. It was a given that their areas of expertise were worlds apart, their ideas as different as it was possible to get and still remain on the same wavelength.

James Wilson: the classic, by-the-book Oncologist, who would not dream of stepping over an ethical line … except maybe where Gregory House was concerned. His polar opposite: Kevin Bernoski, who was a raging envelope-pusher extraordinaire, who could not bring himself to stay behind those same lines. Both men searching desperately to find common ground.

They allowed the interval of lengthening silence to stretch before them interminably, neither willing to give concessions or become the first to commit himself. They simply scrutinized each other, searching for nuances of expression or body language that might indicate truth or falsehood, integrity or deception.

Bernoski was the first to break the silence. "You aren't being exactly truthful with me, are you, Dr. Wilson?"

James frowned, bristling at being called out. "What do you mean?"

Kip smiled and his face relaxed. "You're so afraid I'm going to injure him beyond all redemption …"

Wilson's mouth dropped open, ready to voice denial.

Kip held up a hand and grinned. "No!" He said. "Don't! I get it! I have a best friend too … so I know where you're coming from. You love the hell out of the guy, and your emotional investment in him is so huge that sometimes it overwhelms you.

"Just let me assure you of this: there is nothing … nothing … that I …or anyone here … would ever do intentionally that would hurt this man. Not for all the tea in China or all the salt in the ocean.

"I recognize his pain for what it is. I understand it, I feel it within him, and I know exactly what he's going through. If there's any way possible for those of us at this hospital to stop it … we will. All of us. We will!"

Wilson dropped his eyes for a moment. Any lingering apprehension he might have had, slowly evaporated as he sat there. "I'm not sure I understand how you can …"

"Jim …" Kip's voice was exceedingly gentle, cutting through Wilson's gravest concerns immediately. "I need to show you something. Take a look at this, will you?" He leaned forward across his thighs and began rolling up his left pant leg.

What was revealed beneath the fabric that peeled away above the white sneaker and soft gray sock was a strong stainless steel rod that extended from an artificial foot, nearly to Kip's knee. It ended in a large leather cuff, into which fit a very soft pouch of white material that covered the stump of what still remained of Bernoski's left leg.

"You're … an amputee …" Wilson breathed. "I had no idea."

"Of course you didn't," Kip assured him, rolling his pant leg back down where it belonged. "It's not something I normally show off to people. I don't want anyone to think I'm vying for sympathy … or begging for funding … any of that crybaby shit …

"But you two guys are a special case. A 'cause celebre', if you will. We all understood that right away … just as soon as you showed up out front right after Gregg did.

"Y'see, it was one thing for Gregg to volunteer for the nanocites pain program … I could relate to that … and I felt for him right away. But for you … to actually care enough about him to follow behind like a bloodhound all the way from New Jersey … and keep yourself from interfering with his need to be here … just trying to keep him safe … Well! That's extraordinary!

"I just thought you had a right to see what the little devils can do." Bernoski turned in the seat to look at Wilson in a different light; gauge his reactions to what he'd just seen. What Kip actually saw, however, was not what he'd expected.

Wilson's eyes were swimming, his face averted. "You understand how House feels," he admitted sadly, "because you've been there. You know how badly he hurts …"

"Yeah," Kip admitted. "I do. I was in an accident. Long time ago, right after I opened this clinic. Drunk driver. T-boned us at a red light. Forced our car off the road, down an embankment and into a tree. I was pinned inside after the car caught fire. My wife was driving. She didn't make it. The EMTs couldn't save her. The bastard that hit us walked away with scratches, and I wanted to kill him.

"They couldn't save my leg, and for a long time I prayed to God to just let me die. The muscles were smashed, nerves mangled. Like Dr. House, I had nothing but pain. For years. I was on crutches, in a wheelchair. Couldn't work … couldn't anything!

"Then Lillian showed up. Got me away from feeling sorry for myself. Together, we came up with the procedure that saved my sanity … and now I'm virtually free of pain. Very little anymore. When Earl arrived, he and Lillian teamed up.

"After that, we worked on it further and developed it from what we already knew, and the difficulty of the work gave me a reason to want to live again. I was the first to have the breakthrough surgery … and it worked. Then Earl had it. It worked for him as well. Lillian, unfortunately, still isn't a candidate … but we're working on that too. Kind of an extension of the 'Christopher Reeve' thing. He's our inspiration.

"Truthfully, Jim, the nanocites fail about half the time. I have to be honest with you about that. But the successes are mounting, and they're so much more than the failures. The procedure is still very limited in scope, and we have to do an enormous amount of screening to find the right people for the program. It's difficult. And I promise you … I will move heaven and earth to have it work for Gregg. He's suffered long enough. He volunteered for us, and he's a prime candidate.

"Of course, there is nothing we can do for the missing muscle in his thigh. That may or may not strengthen after the pain is gone … probably not … but we can hope. He'll still need his cane … probably even crutches for awhile afterward … but it'll be better than the constant agony he's been living with all these years. Are you going to be okay with that, Jim?"

Wilson sighed. "I hope so. It's a lot to swallow at one sitting, and I know I'll think of more questions. Thanks for trusting me with all of that disturbing personal information. I'm very sorry about your wife. You have no idea how much I appreciate everything you told me. If it works for House, he can actually have a life again. Oh God!"

Kip grinned and stood up. "Are you ready to go back to see him now?'

"Yeah … I certainly am …"

00000000

Sunday evening was winding down, and so was James Wilson. He could feel the ache spreading through his back and legs, and his feet were almost dragging as they made their way down the corridor in the hospital wing. His shoulders felt as though he were carrying a hundred-pound weight, and his eyes burned mightily. He rubbed at them as he and Kip walked shoulder to shoulder toward the room where Gregory House lay shackled to yet another hospital bed.

"Your ass is kinda draggin' your tracks shut, isn't it?" Kip inquired lightly.

Wilson saw no reason to deny it. The evidence was written in capital letters all over his body. "Yeah," he admitted. "It sure is. After I see House, I've got to get going and see about checking into a hotel or motel or something …"

"Oh no! No you don't!" Kip said. "You're not going anywhere, man."

"Huh?" Wilson was unclear what Bernoski meant.

"We have accommodations for family members right here. You don't have to go out and try to find a place to sleep in this town on a Sunday night. Huh-uh. Aint happening! All your gear from your car … and all of House's belongings we took off his bike … are in a private room with your name on the door … across the wing a ways from where Gregg is housed right now. And there are laundry facilities if you need 'em."

Wilson's eyes widened. "But I'm not … I don't understand …"

Kip laughed, deep and resonant. "Not family, huh? Think again, pal! As far as we're concerned, you are. Anyway, it's a moot subject. My office assistant … whom you're about to meet … 'cause right now she's smothering Gregg with 'Neeka-Love' … will have something to say about that … and when it comes to accommodations, she's the boss."

Kip's pace slowed. They were approaching a very large treatment room whose door stood open upon an area with a vast array of strange medical equipment, unfamiliar- looking laboratory apparatus and intimidating diagnostic machinery with built-in gauges and other additions that Wilson had never seen before

In the middle of the room stood a large hospital bed with IV stanchions, body hoisting equipment, BP and oxygen monitors. There were two other electronic monitors he did not recognize, plus a Foley rig. House's body, stripped to tee shirt and underwear, lay covered, except for the bad leg, with a thermal blanket.

Beside him, a flamboyant black woman with a gaudy hairdo and a gaudy red dress, sat humming "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" in a pleasant contralto. Her arms rested on the edge of the mattress, both hands gently cupping House's injured, heavily bandaged left hand in both of her own.

Wilson's eyes went immediately to House's other hand where an IV port was hooked in and carefully taped down on the back of it. His crippled leg was encased in a long sling apparatus and hoisted six inches or so off the bed.

Wilson could see taped wounds and traces of blood at the temporary entry ports of tiny needles inserted beneath Gregg's skin. There were four separate insertions just outside the perimeter of the huge surgical scar. A neat maze of tiny electrical wires was attached to the points emerging from the area around the missing muscle. Wilson's discerning eyes traced the leads to their contact junctions at the two unfamiliar monitors behind the bed. Intimidating stuff! He blanched.

House's right foot was bandaged also, from an area just below his anklebone, down to the point where his toes joined his foot.

What the hell … ? Oh no! Not his foot too! Please God; tell me he hasn't screwed up his foot!

Kip Bernoski and the woman beside the bed watched the expressions and the emotions flash like summer lightning across James Wilson's tired face. They saw Wilson's eyes narrow further, momentarily. Then, surprisingly, a corner of his lip quirked upward into the beginning of a snarky smile. Gregg House's tethered body did, in fact, resemble a high-tech Frankenstein Monster.

If it weren't so frightening, so horrifyingly real, and yet so grimly "Sci-Fi", it would have been hilariously funny. If House were conscious, and could see himself from a distance, he would probably laugh his head off!

Wilson moved closer to the bed, flanked by Bernoski slightly behind him and to the left.

The woman placed House's hand very gently by his side and made to rise and get out of Wilson's way. Kip stilled her for a moment with a small motion of his hand, resting it lightly on her shoulder.

"Shaniqua …"

She froze and looked up just as Jim Wilson looked down. "This is Dr. House's friend and colleague, Dr. James Wilson.

"Jim, this is my assistant, Shaniqua Tolliver. She's been at Gregg's side ever since he was brought in this afternoon."

The two exchanged courtesies and Neeka got up to offer her chair to Wilson. "I'm sure y'awl want to visit with him," she said quietly. "I'll be out front … and it's nice to have met y'awl, Dr. Wilson."

"My pleasure," Wilson answered automatically. His focus, however, was nowhere but on the thin, narrow, naked and lined face of his best friend. "You … you … shaved him!"

"Yeah … we did," Kip said. "Why?"

Wilson grinned, sat down in the chair and turned to look up into his host's face. "This has got to be the first time I've seen his bare, ugly mug in … oh … about two years, or maybe three. He looks lousy, doesn't he? … like he's been interred in a concentration camp or something …"

The question, of course, was rhetorical, but there was more truth in it than falsehood. "Yeah, " Kip agreed. "He sort'a does. His pain has taken a lot out of him. How the hell could people not see that?"

"People see what they want to see," Wilson mused sadly. "His pain made him a bastard, and people needed to see the bastard. They didn't know how to react to someone who was in so much pain … and who never got any better. They needed an excuse to blame his pain on him! And the word, 'bastard', fits so well with the word, 'addict'. Like I said, people see what they want to see. Sad thing is … even those of us who care for him a lot were beginning to listen to what other people were saying …"

Shyly, Wilson reached his hand across the mattress to lightly finger the thick bandages on House's left hand. When he spoke again, it was mostly to himself.

"He stopped at a diner this morning. I was parked across the road. When he finished, he went to the rest room, and his leg must have buckled on him. The waitress told me later that he fell … reached out to catch himself and knocked the top off a metal waste can … sliced himself on the rim. She said he patched it with paper towels and pulled his glove over it and tightened it down. Then he left. That's how he hurt his hand …"

Kip nodded. "That's pretty much what we speculated might have happened. We pulled almost half a roll of paper towels out of the glove. Bloodsoaked. There's a jagged two-inch gash in his palm. Bet it hurt like hell … something else to keep his leg company. No wonder he couldn't get off the motorcycle when he got here. Leg wouldn't work … and neither would his hand. He couldn't win …"

Wilson nodded. "What's wrong with his foot? Decubitus ulcer, maybe? From the bike's footrest?"

"'Fraid so," Kip replied. "Compression injury. Traumatized from resting it so long in one place on the peg … and he probably didn't know it was happening. He felt it as just one more ache … hour after hour in the same position. Circulation problems on that side, obviously. He's probably had problems with the lower right leg and foot as long as his leg's been crippled. He never mentioned it?"

Wilson shook his head sadly. "No … but it doesn't surprise me. Always with the 'I'm fine' stuff. I'm not surprised he hid it this long. Not really …"

James Wilson was upset! One more thing that a best friend should have noticed. But didn't.

Beside him on the huge bed, Gregory House finally began to stir …

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