"GUESSWORK"

- Chapter Twenty-Seven -

"Turn Me Loose"

Bobby, the white German Shepherd, stood halfway in and halfway out of the doorway. His graceful body trembled with excitement, his long pink tongue lolled from the corner of his mouth, and his dark eyes were bright with anticipation.

He was about to bark.

Earl eyed the dog with an odd expression of forbearance and hefted himself across expertly from his bed into the seat of the powerful wheelchair. "If you open your big mouth and disturb people, I'm gonna throw a brick at you!"

Bobby sneezed almost in disdain and plopped himself down on the floor, eyes following his master's every move. He did not understand the words, but the implications in Earl's tone of voice were obvious.

Arms like hickory fence posts and a powerful chest that might have put a young Arnold Schwartzenegger to shame, Earl Keirkgaard indeed looked like the body builder he was, from the waist up.

From the waist down it was another story. His dead legs, however, had long ceased to be more than a mild inconvenience. He earned his living with his brain, not as a tap dancer.

Earl was fiercely independent and absolutely refused to get dressed up. When in public making speeches about Paramar's research, which happened frequently, he figured they could take him in a sport shirt and jeans or not at all. None of the fancy charity organizations with research dollars to spend had ever complained.

Earl fiddled around and took his time making his bed, going to the bathroom, a comic routine in and of itself, and completing his morning ablutions. He knew the big dog's critical gaze followed him every second. Finally, he decided he was ready to undertake whatever the morning would bring. Tee shirt and scrub pants comprised the uniform of the day.

He and Kip were scheduled to remove Gregory House from the "spikes and stringers" temporary probes and place him on a critical-stage monitor. This would indicate and deduce the correct intensity of the permanent procedure on his crippled leg. They had to program the severity cycle of his responses over a timed interval when his pain began to return. If it did. In cases such as Gregg's, they'd had little experience with live subjects. Bobby didn't count in the human equation, and House's reactions and rise in pain levels were critical to his care. If his chronic pain did not return within this interval, the amount of permanent probes would be greatly reduced. Bobby's had returned immediately, and the odds favored the fact that Gregg's probably would also.

House himself was a study in contradictions as far as Earl Keirkgaard was concerned. He'd read the letter House had written to Kip. Anyone desperate enough to ride a goddamn crotch rocket 600 miles in icy weather in hopes of ridding himself of chronic pain, certainly meant what he'd said. Offering to serve as a guinea pig as well, assured Earl that the man's sincerity was unflagging in its intensity.

Earl could certainly relate to the pain issues. House had confided that he had been in drug rehab because of his mounting dependence on painkillers, and Earl decided early on that the man deserved every chance to achieve the break he needed. The fact that Gregg was a doctor … a diagnostician, no less … made the case even more interesting. House's input from a personal level would be invaluable for future research.

Another intriguing aspect was the presence of James Wilson, the oncologist, who had followed his friend relentlessly, sniffing out House's southbound meandering trail like a hound after a fox. That in itself told Earl that the two men knew each other so well that Wilson hadn't even needed to keep House and his powerful motorcycle in sight. Wilson had known by instinct which roads his friend would take, and which paths he would follow throughout his journey.

All Wilson had to do was hang back and hope he didn't come upon a crumpled heap lying bloody on some lonely back road. Earl shuddered at the thought.

Jesus Christ! That's devotion! Either that, or insanity!

Earl pulled out the power cord that had tethered his chair to the wall for the night, and stowed it in the utility box behind the seat. Bobby saw the move from the doorway and scrambled to his feet with a whimper of doggy delight. It meant he was about to be let go out back for his early morning run.

"Don't you bark, you sleazy mongrel!" Earl warned as he approached the dog's side. He reached across, grabbed a handful of coarse white hair and shook it playfully.

Bobby responded by larruping Earl's fingers with a wide expanse of long, pink tongue.

Earl laughed. "Git on out there with ya!" He said, indicating the exit door at the end of the long hallway. He closed his apartment door behind him and then poured on the juice. Bobby was already down by the door, panting with excitement, his once-clumsy tri-cornered stance now as much a part of him as his black eyes and snow-white coat. Even on three legs, he looked almost graceful.

Bobby ran the length of the back lot, sniffing, whuffing, snorting at everything that moved, and squatting like a girl beside every bush, tree or shrub taller than he was.

Earl smiled, watching him, remembering the first few times the big dog had been let outside after the surgery that had removed his foreleg, and the brand new nanoprobe injection, which had relieved the constant pain that kept him howling through the night.

At first, Bobby had tried valiantly to lift a hind leg to spritz a bush like a boy-dog … and had toppled unceremoniously onto his ass with a "whop" that had sent small insects and dandelion fuzzies into the air like a mushroom cloud after an atomic bomb.

Earl and Kip had stood and laughed until their sides hurt at the look of humiliation on the dog's face. Time and time again, Bobby had tried to piss like a "guy", but his efforts always achieved the same result: a "thud" and an "ow!" Finally, he'd gotten the idea, but even now, Earl knew, he certainly didn't much like it.

Earl sat in his wheelchair on the cement pad and let his gaze lift into the distance where the maze of Raleigh's tall buildings rose from the mists of early morning. Every day it seemed that the city was coming closer, infringing on everything around it in its need to grow and expand. Earl shuddered to think of the maze of the downtown, eventually encroaching even out here upon the isolation and quiet of this little industrial park with its small businesses and scattered research laboratories. But man was insatiable. Unable to summon the self-discipline to keep his zippers zipped so he would not overpopulate the world, his need for more and more space would one day become a curse upon the land. In some countries, it already had.

Hell!

"I'm becoming a misanthrope!" Earl muttered to himself. He was not in the least apologetic for his errant thoughts, but realized they were useless. Live his life and mind his own business and not contribute to the problem. He smiled to himself, then lowered his eyes to check on Bobby's whereabouts.

The big dog was not in sight. Somewhere out there, lost in the tall weeds, Bobby was very likely in a world of his own, and probably indulging in his stupid habit of munching on grass. Earl curled his lips back tightly against his teeth and whistled shrilly.

At first there was no response. He whistled again, and this time he heard the dog's voice, high and shrill at first, almost like a yipe of distress. He'd gotten himself into a place where three legs were not enough. Then the deeper voice resumed in barks of full-throated reply. Bobby came bounding out of the weeds, zigzagging, covered with dead weed stems and loose field debris.

"You've been rolling in the damned dirt!" Earl groused. "Now you can't come into the labs until Tyree gets off school and comes in to give you a bath. Dumb dog!"

Bobby shook himself vigorously, sending remnants of his misdemeanor flying into the air. Splatters of doggy slobber followed the shedding, and Earl smelled the faint odor of sour doggy breath. "You've been eating grass again too!" He grumbled. "You smell like upchuck. Come on … let's get your sleazy ass back inside. I've got work to do." He turned the wheelchair around and rolled back to the exterior hallway door. He opened it with powerful arms and gunned the chair over the threshold and inside. The door closed automatically behind him and locked itself.

Already halfway down the hall, Bobby turned around expectantly, panting like a racehorse and wondering where in hell his breakfast was …

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Bill Bernard had jacked up the head of House's bed so the man could eat his breakfast by himself without being waited upon like an invalid by someone else. His leg was free of the sling and propped on pillows, his foot once again bare and unbandaged. Gregg seemed to be in good spirits, despite another injection of Lidocaine and another flushing out of the ulcer.

They all knew he was experiencing discomfort, not so much from pain as the pressure from the wound and the inability to move his leg in order to take a look at it for himself. However, he did not complain, which Wilson thought was a minor miracle, and he was eating his breakfast with relish.

The four of them sat grouped together with Gregg in the bed and the other three drawn up close beside it. They all had cholesterol feasts of scrambled eggs smothered in potent horseradish sauce and ketchup, long strips of lean Carolina bacon, and thick slices of rich homemade bread from a local bakery, toasted to perfection and heaped with creamery butter and strawberry jam. Tall cups of steaming coffee waited on the serving cart placed close by where House could reach it easily. He was beginning to use his damaged left hand now, although sparingly, and seemed rather smug about it. He had requested that the bandage not be replaced, and his wish was their command. The skin around the stitches was dark from the lavish application of antiseptics.

Bart seemed to be the only one who was missing out on the bedside nuances; even though the two newcomers were fast beginning to realize that mere blindness seemed to mean very little by way of a handicap to him. His serenity was amazing, his intuition astounding.

"Try not to get horseradish sauce or catsup on your stitches!" he admonished House in a low voice.

House looked at him with raised eyebrows, then glanced around to the others with an expression of: How the hell did he know???

Bill shrugged and grinned. Wilson only shrugged and took another bite of toast.

Earl Keirkgaard stopped by for breakfast after returning Bobby to his quarters to await Tyree Tolliver. He fed the dog, gave him water and then left again.

Earl rounded the corner into House's room and sniffed the air with appreciation. They greeted him with grunts of welcome and returned to their breakfast. "You guys leave anything good back there?" He asked accusingly. His glance didn't miss House's bare foot. The ulcer looked angry and he was surprised Gregg wasn't complaining of pain.

"Dig around!" Bill said. "Whatever's there is yours. Coffee pot's up here by the bed. Help yourself. You see Lillian or Kip or Neeka yet?"

Earl disappeared behind the partition. "Not yet," he said. "I just came back from letting the mutt outside to poop."

"Thanks for the graphics," Bill muttered, and the others laughed softly.

Earl returned to the bedside with a full plate. He poured himself a cup of coffee and sat facing Gregg House. "I see your hand is a little better, Gregg. That's good. How do you feel … and how is the mess on your foot?"

House looked up and raised an eyebrow. "I'm fine," he said. "'Mess?'"

Earl pulled a face. Oops! He had spoken out of turn. "Uh … yeah … I just got a look at it. You're a little swollen …"

The others had paused to feel each other out, but House's gaze bored directly into his own. "They told me it's fine," he said smoothly. "You see anything different?"

Earl shook his head and sipped at his coffee, stalling for time. "Nah … not really. I just thought it might be hurting you. Those damned things take a hell of a long time to heal."

"The stringers may have something to do with his lack of pain," Wilson suggested.

Beside him, Bart shook his head, smiling disarmingly. "I don't think so," he said. "We had to deaden his foot with Lidocaine every time we flushed it out. It's painful, all right. The thing is, the more we have to flush it out, the more we irritate it. His immune system is trying to fight the intrusion … but the wound is no longer infectious. It's healing."

His explanation calmed them. The tension of Earl's observations slacked off and they resumed their conversation quickly.

Wilson watched his friend's face for signs of skepticism or disbelief, but when the large blue eyes rested briefly on his own, House's expression eased his worry. It was okay.

Kip and Lillian and Shaniqua joined them one by one about eight a.m., starting time. Earl had finished his breakfast and took his leave, accompanying Lillian down the corridor on their way to the lab. He waved a temporary goodbye. Lillian called back: "Toodle-oo …" and the two of them rolled off in tandem.

House watched them leave together and warbled off-key under his breath: "And the Caissons go Rolling Along …" At least two of his companions rolled their eyes.

Kip Bernoski, however, was all business this morning.

"I was in touch with Cyrus Markham at the Science Foundation last night," he said to House. "We have the go-ahead for your surgery and the procedure for the nanocites insertion into your leg. They will cover anything we need to do. I put in an emergency call to him from home and told him about your volunteer status being a 'go'. I explained to him about your difficult motorcycle journey to get here. Cy made a call to some of his colleagues and then called me back. They are duly impressed, and they are going to monitor the proceedings online with Lillian Chan, which, by the way, have been scheduled for tomorrow morning at 8:00 a.m. We have all our bases covered, Gregg … so if you're ready for this, we'll take you off the spikes and stringers sometime this afternoon. You have to be closely monitored until we can determine whether your pain comes back, and to what degree. Can you put up with it for just a little longer?"

All eyes turned to look at House's face.

He acknowledged them with direct eye contact, one at a time, before he answered, mostly for Bart's benefit: "I'm quite freakin' ready, thank you."

Beside him, Wilson's chin dropped to his chest.

Shaniqua Tolliver, silent until that moment, sighed loudly. "Oh, Baby Boy! … y'awl just made this Mama sooo happy."

House scowled. And grimaced … and scrunched one eye shut with a different pain …

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They flushed his foot again just after lunch, rebandaged it carefully, then left him alone after administering something that would encourage him to sleep.

Wilson waited until the deep breathing told him Gregg was out. He stood looking down at the relaxed face, smiling a little at the fact that House's famous five-o'clock shadow was once again rapidly overtaking the lower half of his countenance. He turned then, and left to go back to his own quarters.

Wilson sat on the edge of his bed and fingered the dark contours of Gregg's cane; that long, strong clothes-prop of an implement that had kept Gregory House on his feet the past God-only-knew-how-many years. It lent him mobility and an illusion of grace in his many odd patterns of movement. It sustained his ability to walk without making him appear that his entire right side might at any moment simply crumple out from beneath him.

Wilson slid his fingers back and forth slowly on the smooth wooden shaft, wondering idly whether the cane would return to play a part in Gregg's future … or whether it might stand abandoned in a dusty corner … replaced by crutches or a dreaded wheelchair.

Wilson sighed, laid the cane down close beside him on the bed. He picked up the dark leather jacket with the red and white stripes near the shoulders and the zippers at the cuffs. It had fared amazingly well through the rain and the snow and the mud, and with the touch of a damp cloth, would probably be as good as new. Well, almost.

He opened a plastic garbage bag he'd found in a dresser drawer, and lowered all House's ruined and bloody clothing to the bottom of it. He then reached for the backpack he'd abandoned this morning. Was it really only this morning?

He reached inside and removed all the soggy fast-food wrappers and smelly used napkins and the sticky candy wrappers. He dropped the crumpled aluminum Mountain Dew cans into the bag, one at a time, and listened to the clank as the metal objects bounced off one another.

When he got to the envelope with the JAMA article and the copy of Gregg's original volunteer application, he removed the papers from the envelope carefully, got up from the bed, walked to the dresser and flattened the papers side-by-side on top. Something to look back on someday … with fondness … or dread. Outcome still unknown.

When he returned to the bed, Wilson lugged the heavy saddlebags with him and let them drop onto the floor with a clunk. Methodically he finished with the backpack, fingered the soggy GameBoy and laid it on the pillow on the opposite side of the one he was using. A halo of water darkened the pillowcase beneath it. It was really drowned! The iPod still lay on the bedside stand drying out. He wondered if it would work. He also wondered why House had not asked for it. Perhaps he had more important things on his mind …

Wilson wiped out the backpack with a damp cloth and placed it on the floor upside down with all the zippers open. It would probably be fine once it had the chance to dry out inside.

The contents of the saddlebags had him shaking his head in wonder. Everything in there was dry as a bone. The heavy fiberglass chambers were air-and-watertight as a tomb. Smiling to himself, he laid out the contents on the bed beside the cane. There was an Army canteen … waterfilled. A big red penknife with a dozen fancy gizmos in it. A third of a roll of duct tape, the makeshift hiding place for an amount a little under $4,000.

Jeez!

In a huge Ziploc bag he discovered a blackened, small, one-use-only Hibachi grill … very used! Half of a burnt "something-unidentifiable" sandwich, and a full can of Mountain Dew.

Digging deeper, his fingers closed around rolled-up clothing. A hard, rubber-banded bundle containing jeans, tee shirt, socks and underwear. All clean. Gregg must have decided that changing clothes on the run just wasn't worth the trouble.

At the bottom of the container, Wilson found a large torch-type flashlight, covered with sticky crumbs of what had once been a jumbo-size bag of bar-b-q chips. Beside them, a big green yoyo with the string snarled in all directions.

House packed for a trip somewhat like a six-year-old.

The other saddlebag contained nothing but a soggy sleeping bag, stuffed down inside haphazardly without thought to folding or rolling. Gregory House all the way.

James looked with amusement at the loot spread out around him. He wanted to laugh. He wanted to cry.

Most of all, he just wanted to go back to Gregg's side and sit there with him, hold onto him if he had to. Wilson needed to be there for his friend when it was time to remove the "spikes and stringers" that invaded the flesh of his crippled leg and left him open and vulnerable, waiting for the pain to return …

Guesswork!

James got up from the bed, letting all the goodies lay where he had tossed them. He could not be useful here.

He took one last look at the cane, discarded in the middle of the bed with Gregg's possessions scattered around it.

He walked into the corridor and pulled the door closed behind him.

Down the corridor in the opposite direction, where Earl Keirkgaard's quarters were located, he could hear the dog barking …

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