"GUESSWORK"

- Chapter Fifty -

"Simple Gifts"

Oh crap! I didn't realize how late it was.

The office is dark except for the damn streetlights that I can't turn off. I have the blinds closed, but the glow that still comes through looks like a UFO is hovering outside the window. I hate this time of night.

Feeling sorry for myself again. Can't seem to shake it. Wilson says I remind him of a six-year-old.

Well screw him!

My foot and leg are still unstable. Hurts like hell if I step the wrong way. All the surgical sites are healed over now, but I can't wear a shoe, so I'm on crutches or in the damn wheelchair. My leg burns and buzzes just like it did before. No surprises there. The spasms have tamed down since the nanocite fiasco though. Small favors, I guess. You win a few; you lose a few. Wilson insisted that I take over my own meds. Says my time in rehab will leave me with a residual guilt that'll keep me from doing something unutterably stupid again. How the hell does he know this shit??

It's nearly midnight and I'm sucking on another Vicodin, staring at the glare through the window. Sometimes I wonder whether I have lost whatever's left of my old self in the aftermath of overblown expectations and consequent disappointment. Illogical, I guess, but I get the cold sweats if I think about having another surgery. So I try not to think about it.

I had a patient die on my watch today. I was too late with the final diagnosis, and the team was unable to bring him back from the brink in time to save his life. I may have taken on the case too soon, because I'm still not healed enough in mind or body to be totally effective. Helluva time to figure that out! I'm having all kinds of damn doubts, and I hate myself for it. But it's no excuse. I failed, and that failure was my responsibility. It put a man in the ground.

Was I in some way responsible for putting Earl Keirkgaard in the ground too?

Wilson was here earlier, worried as usual, and about half pissed off that I didn't want to talk about any of that stuff. Wanted to know if I was ready for him to take me home. They delivered the bike last week, but it still sits in the garage out back with the car. Right now I can't handle either one, and he's been dragging my sorry ass back and forth to work. I'll probably call a taxi when I decide to go home. If I decide to go home.

In my usual courteous manner, I told Wilson to get his ass the hell out of here and leave me alone …among other things not nearly so polite. I still have a case file to go over and final notes to make. He touched me on my shoulder and I went off on him. I feel crappy about it now, but I can't turn back the clock, so screw it! By the time I finished my tirade, he'd turned on his heel and left. I didn't see him after that. And I still haven't done the workup on the file … and I have this nagging need to apologize … what the fuck is wrong with me?

I hate myself for treating Wilson this way. I know what he did for me in Raleigh … the sacrifices he still makes all the time on my behalf, and the generosity he offers to this crippled old fool who doesn't deserve it, or even acknowledge it. He cleans up my place, buys my groceries and cooks my meals. He asks nothing in return, other than maybe an evening here and there with pizza and beer and a little blues piano and a little friendship.

And I treat him like shit, then crawl back into my black hole.

I'm only now beginning to realize the miracle of the closeness we shared at Paramar Clinic. I'd like to find a way to get that back … but I don't know how.

I have a tendency to hide from life more than usual these past few weeks. It may have something to do with the sense of failure that settled in after Raleigh. Or it may be the fact that the passage of time is gaining on me, and fate has begun to scream the truth of my own mortality in my ear.

For years I had this image of myself as "damaged hero", a modern Lord Byron: in pain but aloof. Tragic but unbowed. I even have the clubfoot to show for it! I'm amused at such foolishness now. If I'm anything … it certainly aint "aloof" and certainly not "unbowed".

The kids in my department were all sympathy and solicitude for a few days after Wilson and I came back to work. Especially Cameron … all big-eyed and dewy and sorrowful. I couldn't make a damn move without her pulling out my chair, pouring my coffee, bringing me bottles of water; waiting on me hand and foot. I think she would even have offered to hold my pecker for me while I went to the head … if I'd have asked her to. God, how that condescension makes me cringe! Always did.

Even Foreman and Chase wore kid gloves for the first couple of days. All quiet and polite and accommodating. Watching me like hawks watching a mouse; looking as though they thought I might suddenly fall on my ass in front of them. Jesus! You'd think they never saw a man on crutches or in a wheelchair before!

Damn good thing they weren't around me the first year or so after the infarction …

I figured most of the goody-goody crap was because Cuddy and Wilson filled them in on the nanocite failure that wasn't really a failure. They probably found out I turned down the surgery to have them reinserted, and they think I'm nutzo. Maybe I am, because now I'm even more of a cripple than I was before. I decided they meant both physically and emotionally nutzo!

Bullshit!

When I finally blew my stack, they all backed off. But I had to get really crappy about it.

I was surprised by the regrets I had later for going off on them like that. I'm beginning to rethink things since the trip to Raleigh … like maybe "crappy" isn't all there is.

But I don't know how to change it …

00000000

Ahh … House … whatever am I gonna do with you?

We endured the trip north out of Baltimore, mostly in a prickly silence that was excruciating for both him and me. I was certain House was busy considering all the details of having to talk about the failure of his nanocite surgeries, and then be compelled to confess to our boss that he harbored a morbid fear of having them put back in place again.

After acknowledging all the guesswork and sleight-of-hand involved the first time, his halting explanation would tell Cuddy that the bugs were pretty harmless, if not actually miraculous … but that he would rather die than have to go through it again.

I figured Gregg would try to make some kind of morbid joke about it and then drop the subject like a hot potato. Which … by the way … is exactly what happened.

I did finally call Cuddy … after the flurry of frenzied activity when Earl died and House went back under the knife to have the nanocites removed. I was beside myself with worry for him, and my confused attempts to tell our boss what happened, left her confused also, and saddened by my news. It also left me in a daze of having offered some half-assed spiel that didn't made much sense to her … only that Gregg's pain was back, his foot was too badly hurt for him to even try to walk without crutches … and we would soon be on our way home.

I told her I feared that this failure would affect him even worse than the Ketamine failure last year, and God only knew what its long-range consequences would be.

My attempts to explain Earl's death and its complications to the case only confused her further, because she had no idea who he was. And so I'd left it hanging. And then we were on the road, and it didn't matter to Cuddy anymore anyway.

House rode the rest of the way to Jersey bundled in the thick Ravens sweatshirt. He refused to put the brace back on his leg, and so he sat with it propped straight out in front of him on a pile of pillows, overlaid by the two old blankets I pulled from the back of the SUV. He reminded me of a hibernating Polar Bear … sickly white and starving …

I couldn't, in good conscience, let his wounded foot remain bare. I stopped at a K-Mart close to the Marriott, bought a pair of hunting socks and slid one of them on over the bandage while he sighed like a scruffy "Camille" and glared a crater into the top of my head.

Twenty miles further up the interstate he finally said "thanks" … and something to the effect that his foot had finally stopped hurting and was beginning to warm up a little.

Simple gifts …

After we got home, he spent two days in the hospital for observation while we ran further tests … which all came up clean … and another week at home, mostly in bed or on the couch. I stayed with him. Beside him. I cooked, I did cleanup, and I forced him to begin leg exercises. I took care of his surgical sites and gently removed the bandage residue after a few days. All the while he complained constantly. I finally adjusted a mental switch and turned him off.

I checked around the basement looking for Steve McQueen, but the rat had evidently flown the coop. All that was left down there was the almost-empty bag that used to be filled with pellets. House couldn't have cared less. He languished with the remote in his hand or Tyree's iPod hanging around his neck. I went about my business and kept quiet. He wouldn't have listened to me anyway.

And I called Cuddy again. She stopped by his place that first night with one of PPTH's collapsible wheelchairs, and also to let him know there would be another one delivered to his office for the day when he decided to return to work.

Cuddy tried to tell him she was sorry that the nanocites procedure had failed for him. He ignored her completely and sat on the couch like a stubborn mule. His eyes were the only things that moved, staring angrily at the wheelchair. He didn't like it at all, but what the hell was he going to do? He couldn't walk …

After she went home, he mumbled that he thought he might be losing what was left of his mind. Then he turned his face to the back of the couch and shut off completely for the rest of the night. Once in awhile I would hear snatches of Tyree's iPod playing … and the TV set on mute, flickering in the gathering darkness.

It was going to be a loong recovery. For both of us!

This evening I walked over to his office to see if he was ready to leave. I knew he'd lost a patient earlier today, and Cameron told me he was holed up in his office and stubbornly uncommunicative. When I opened the door, his back was turned, his leg propped awkwardly on a crutch that lay extended from the seat of his chair to the bookcase by the window. His shoe was off. Dropped on the floor near the desk.

His shoulders were hunched forward as though from the cold, his right hand clenching his thigh, and a case file in a purple folder laid open across his lap. Already I knew where the conversation, if any, would go.

"House?"

He flinched. He hadn't heard me enter. His mind was completely preoccupied. I moved closer to his chair, and leaned down, touching his shoulder lightly.

He tensed. "Don't do that!"

His voice was like an icy blast and I withdrew immediately. "What's wrong? Shoulder bothering you again?" Pretending I wasn't attempting to use Bart's gift. Already the conversation wasn't going exactly in the direction I'd predicted …

"No! I just don't want you practicing that damn hocus pocus stuff on me anymore. It doesn't work. So knock it off. And while you're at it, go away. I have work to do."

"House … nothing works if you don't give it a chance. I thought you had dozed off. So how will you get home if I leave without you?"

"I'll limp!

"I'll call a taxi … or commandeer a golf cart … or hail a magic carpet. What difference does it make? I'll manage to get home. Get the hell out of here! Go somewhere that's noisy and serves good booze and good food! Go somewhere and mingle with the great unwashed! Go get laid! Go enjoy yourself, Wilson. Go have fun … just let me the hell alone! Go!"

So I went. I turned on my heel and walked out of there. I let him sit in a puddle of his own misery and went back to my hotel room. Fuck him!

No booze. No noise. No hooker. No food. Just a bottle of cold water, a pack of cheese crackers and a rerun of NYPD Blue on the TV until I fell asleep with my clothes on.

But then I quit feeling sorry for myself and put in a call to the snack bar downstairs …

00000000

House … what the hell has got into you?? Why do you let Wilson get to you like this? He never did before …

I called a taxi about an hour after he left. I had no right to yell at him like that, but I couldn't stop myself. Regrets really suck when you don't do anything to make amends for acting like an asshole.

Step Eight: "Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all." That step again!

Those freaking Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions still nest in my brain like buzzards waiting for something to die. Wilson was right again. Damn him! That crap sticks with you like shit to a blanket! AA brainwashing!

If I made that list of people I'd harmed, and put all the names in alphabetical order, I wouldn't get to Wilson for about twenty-three years. So I shortened the list to a single name … and picked up the phone.

I put my shoe back on, gathered up my crutches, and limped out of there. Rode down to the lobby and managed to make it out the front door. It didn't take long at this time of night for a cab to pull up.

The taxi driver was female. A big broad with a butchy haircut, a deep voice and cowboy boots. Her getup spelled 'DYKE' in capital letters, but none of my business, right? The thing is; she was a kind woman with a great sense of humor, the "road macho" of Dale Earnhardt, and the strength of a lumberjack. She called herself "Gilda", and I saw her huge hazel eyes melt the second she spotted the crutches.

Oh shit!

My first thought was to play her like a violin, but thought better of it as we drove along, and I realized she was a smart cookie.

So I played it straight instead. (Pun intended!)

She screeched to a stop in front of me when she saw me standing in front of the hospital looking like an overgrown camera tripod. Before I could make a move, she was out from behind the wheel and hurrying around to open the back door before I could even get to it. Her big arm came up between her chest and mine like a crowbar.

"Hand me your crutches and grab my arm," she said. I hesitated, but she was looking me in the eyes. Not quite a demand, but close. I decided to trust her and did as she asked. In one smooth motion, she took the crutches, eased me down on the back seat and hefted my butt across it, steadying my leg so it wouldn't get bumped in the process.

Gasping, I looked at her with new respect. "Thanks."

She grinned and winked. "All in a night's work, buddy. Where ya headed?"

I hesitated a second, but then gave her an address. Not my own. She placed the crutches on the back floor beside me, closed the door and got back behind the wheel. While she drove, I dug in my jeans pocket for anything that looked like money.

His hotel was one of the smaller ones on the main drag. The front marquis was an old-fashioned parade of bright incandescent lights that announced the name like movie theaters used to do in the '40s:

"The Drake".

Here I was. Now what?

It had taken Gilda six minutes to get us there. She parked so close to the front … in a "No Parking Zone" … that the passenger-side tires were both on the curb. I saw her smack the flag down on the meter, yank the four-way flashers on and get out of the cab again.

I had no time to pick up the crutches, because she was there, opening the door and holding out that hickory-log arm. She guided my bum leg with the other hand and pulled me forward with the hickory one until I was perched on the edge of the seat. She scooped up the crutches and handed them to me. Eased me to a standing position and waited patiently while I hopped around like a one-legged crow; helping me with balance, until I got them positioned beneath my arms.

"You okay, Buddy? Your bum foot all right?"

I squelched the caustic comment that rose in my throat and smiled instead. Like a gentleman. She had earned my respect twice over.

"Yeah, Gilda. You're good!"

She grinned. "Thanks." She walked beside me all the way to the lobby, and I hoped to hell Wilson had come straight back here instead of listening to my stupid, freaking advice.

I held out my hand after we got inside, and nudged her on the upper arm. It was like nudging Gorilla Monsoon!

She looked down and I held my hand, clenched and obviously containing money, overtop of hers. She opened her palm, and I let go of the crunched-up bill. She took it without looking, and turned, walked toward the door.

Beside the elevator, I turned and watched. On the sidewalk, she opened her hand. Stared. Whirled around to squint into the lobby.

I heard her scream: "Jesus Christ! Thanks, man!"

She saw me nod, and the elevator door opened. I hobbled inside and hit the button for Wilson's floor. Smirked to myself. That hundred was the only damn bill I had!

Wilson stood back as he opened the door to his room. I had banged on it with the tip of a crutch.

He was wearing pajamas and a bathrobe, and of course he hadn't taken my advice. He didn't seem at all surprised to see me. "C'mon in, House. I'm betting that you took a taxi … and not a golf cart or a flying carpet …"

I nodded. "Uh huh. I'm sorry. I'm hungry, I'm a fucking asshole, and my leg hurts like a son of a bitch."

He smiled and led me straight to the big chair in the corner … the old one with the large, soft ottoman. His medical bag sat open on the table beside the bed. There on the bed lay one of my old tee shirts and an old pair of sweat pants. The big heating pad was warming up and waiting …

"There's beer in the fridge," he said softly, "I went downstairs and brought us each a sausage sandwich and nachos with cheese. We just have to heat 'em up in the microwave. So lift your leg up here and let me check you …"

I sighed, propped the crutches in the corner, plopped down and leaned back. Did exactly as he asked. "If you wanna pull a 'Bart' on me, it's okay. Seriously …" And I saw his eyes soften into a twinkle.

House … you are a lucky son of a bitch!

For the first time in almost a year … before all this crap got started with Tritter … and the trial … and the jail … and the rehab …

I felt like I'd finally come home.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

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