Chapter 31

"Fool Me Once, Shame On You … Fool Me Twice, Shame On Me!"

How much did you hear?

All of it!

There was no backing up; no unhearing of words planted inadvertently, albeit firmly, inside a person's brain. I would have given anything … anything … to have gone backward one hour in time and undone every second of that voice file and every implication that had to have registered in Greg's mind with the impact of an anvil dropped from a second story window.

Suddenly coming face-to-face with his unexpected presence there in the living room, that pitifully thin figure hunched on the couch and looking at me with an unreadable expression on his face, forced my thoughts into "freeze-frame". He looked defeated. Unfocused. Flummoxed. As though he were still trying to assimilate what he'd overheard and fit it around everything he had conveniently assumed before then.

I stood there with all the incriminating evidence in my hands: the laptop, the final diagnosis hard copy, and the pages of my own notes on the outcome, dangling from my grasp. Frozen in place with no idea what to do or say next, I felt my teeth come together hard on the soft flesh inside my mouth until I felt the salty taste of my own blood. God! This was unreal!

"House …"

At first, his name was the only thing I could manage to choke out. Then: "I guess we need to talk …"

His glazed eyes gradually regained focus as he raised them to meet my own. "Naw … we don't," he said flatly. "Your shrink is right … you have nothing to feel guilty about!"

If I had nothing to feel guilty about, then why was I standing there like a moron, feeling so damned guilty? "I … don't?"

Inarticulate too.

"He's right because you're wrong," was the comeback, and the words didn't make sense when compared with the actuality of the situation. What the hell was he talking about?

"You can't feel guilty about an incorrect diagnosis," he continued, and my puzzlement deepened. "We won't have the real diagnosis until after the muscle biopsy … so until then the DDX is over and we won't be discussing it again until we have the results!"

I watched closely, incredulously, as his focus moved away from my face, and he leaned back and took a deep breath. I saw him compose his face and then look at me again with the coldness combed from his expression and the strange matte glaze gone from his eyes.

It hit me: he was deep into denial.

Oh God! He thinks he might have cancer! How can I convince him he's wrong?

"So what's for breakfast?" He had changed the subject as quickly as a camera lens moves from close-up to infinity.

"Unhhhh …" I couldn't scrape up enough coherent thoughts to form an answer.

"You were running the damned water out there for so long I was beginning to think you were flooding the kitchen. Were you working on a new, complicated pancake recipe? I'm starved."

"Unhh …"

My inarticulacy deepened with the feeling of being so completely blindsided that I was struck dumb. "I'll … go see what I can find. I'm glad you're feeling better. Let me go get your meds, and then we'll see about breakfast. We can talk after we eat …"

I whirled away from him and hurried back to the kitchen with the laptop and the other damaging evidence he definitely wasn't prepared to deal with yet. I stashed them in one of the cupboards and then moved to gather his meds like some android programmed to do his bidding. I took his meds back to the living room with me and walked across to the couch.

He was still haranguing away on his "what's-for-breakfast-what's-for-lunch" mantra when I sat down beside him. "Maybe we can have a discussion of the lunch menu. I thought maybe that weird salad you make … you know … the one without lettuce?"

I saw him smile a large foolish smile and shake his head, and I didn't know what to do. I'd been prepared for anger … disbelief … not this calm and complete denial that made him sound a little like he was coming unglued. I took a moment to shake myself mentally in order to cope with the unexpected turn of events, and decided that I would just play it his way awhile; see what happened before trying to bring up the true diagnosis again. "Okay. The lettuce-less salad sounds fine … but let me scrounge you some pancakes first."

"Sounds fair," he said, and spent the next minute hefting his uncooperative legs carefully onto the couch. I drew the blanket to his waist and turned to head back to the kitchen.

We both heard the knock on the door and turned toward it, even as House lost interest quickly and began to channel surf.

I went over to let Cuddy in, whispering in her ear, "He knows! He overheard the voice file this morning. Refuses to talk about it."

Cuddy shook her head in a moment of disbelief, almost as pole-axed as I had been. She opened her mouth to ask a question, but I shushed her quickly and whispered, "… later!" She nodded and walked over to the couch. She sat down at Greg's feet to say good morning to him and lay her hand atop his ankles gently. He looked at her and smiled a little, but went quickly back to the TV, prolonging conversation as long as possible!

I took the cue and moved rapidly in the direction of the kitchen. Busy the hands … busy the mind. Join the denial party and bake a cake for the celebration. I had a sinister feeling that sooner or later the you-know-what would hit the fan. Bigtime!

Gathering the ingredients for pancakes (sans macadamia nuts), I eavesdropped on the ensuing conversation from the other room. I heard House's stage whisper quite clearly, and knew he was onto what I was doing. Damn him! But I kept listening anyway.

He was saying: "Cuddy, you can't leave me alone with him anymore! He thinks I'm crazy!"

I sneaked over and peered around the corner of the doorjamb and saw him circling his ear with an index finger, pointing in my direction with the universal language of "Cuckoo". I wasn't too surprised to see his gaze lift and settle on my own as I stood lingering in the doorway. I rolled my eyes at him and withdrew again to my breakfast preparations.

It set me to thinking rationally again. Had he been indicating to me that this was his way of telling me he hadn't completely rejected the new diagnosis? Was he inferring that the painful truth was somewhere inside that amazing brain, just niggling around and ricocheting off any number of possibilities and theories that I might not be "Cuckoo" after all?

I could feel another one of my long line of exasperated sighs building up inside me … and I allowed its expression. Oxygen to the brain! Clear out the cobwebs! Greg was the one who'd closed the subject of the diagnosis. Shut me down like dropping a manhole cover into place!

But apparently, I decided, there was a clause in the contract somewhere, and he was taking the liberty of making jokes about it. Well, if that's what it took to get him to latch onto the idea, then more power to him! I'd be his fall guy … gladly … and I was suddenly reminded of "Gladly, the cross-eyed bear" … and I grinned to myself …

Go for it, House! Make all the jokes you want!

I walked over and stood boldly in the doorway with my hands on my hips. "House, you're playing dirty, you know?" I made absolutely no attempt to keep the snark, the humor, or the affection out of my voice. I didn't give him a chance to respond, or even think of an equally snarky answer. I just turned on my heel and went back to the stove.

Yeah … I knew there was going to be fireworks somewhere down the line. Big ones! But I also started to think, at that moment, that when the explosions were over and the smoke cleared and the sparks died down, he would allow me to stand at his side to catch him.

And Cuddy too! Cuddy would be there gladly also. Maybe she would have to be there to catch us both … and we would all make it through!

I stood in front of the stove fooling around with breakfast. Listening to the sizzle of bacon in the pan, smelling the fresh coffee brewing on the counter. My mind was a comfortable blank for a few minutes, but inside my head a thought began to form about this day … this moment of hope … knowing I would probably need to look back on it in weeks to come as some sort of lifeline to draw on in order to pull Greg through the knothole of difficulties still to come.

Finally, I took a deep breath. Turned the burners on "low", poured three coffees and walked into the living room with the tray.

Cuddy was just finishing the blood work for morning labs, and was trying in vain to conduct a proper assessment. House was giving her the usual hard time, and they were both enjoying it.

"Hey Wilson!" House grunted, "Does heavy breathing count as deep breathing with pneumonia? 'Cause if it does, then Cuddy's blouse is more effective medically, than those stupid aerosol treatments!"

"Interesting theory," I told him as I set the tray on the coffee table. "I have to look it up, but I'm pretty sure the blouse is missing something in the bronchodilation department."

I watched him leer at Cuddy's chest like a little kid at a lollypop, and caught her response of eyes-to-the-ceiling. "The blouse isn't missing anything, Jimmy … they're both in there … in all their awesome abundance. All the heavy breathing is dilating my airways just fine!"

"Good try!" Cuddy muttered. "But I'm still going to finish this assessment and get your neb ready. So you're just going to have to leer at something else while I go get your nebulizer." She stalked off toward the bedroom.

House turned to stare after her, then turned around and grinned at me. "That's okay, Cuddy … the back view's almost as good as the front!"

"Incorrigible!" She growled as she went after the equipment. But she couldn't resist a smile and a wink over her shoulder.

House reached out to grab his coffee mug.

"Wait!" I said. "Cuddy get your temp yet?"

"No …" he groused. "But I'm pretty sure she made it go up a couple of degrees."

Cuddy had reentered the living room by then. Another eye-roll and head shake behind his back spoke of her affectionate exasperation with him. It was becoming an affliction both of us were experiencing more and more often.

I handed him the thermometer. "That should shut him up for a minute or two," I said as we watched him stuff it in his mouth.

But we both ended up laughing when he proved that thermometer-in-mouth did not necessarily mean a cessation of communication, as a parade of suggestive face-crunching and lecherous eye-rolling passed on their way across his expressive features.

When the thermometer beeped, House reached for the coffee mug again. "This is good!" He said in his best "sincere" voice.

I looked at the reading on the thermometer and frowned. "Maybe Cuddy did raise your temp. It's one-oh-one. You feeling okay?"

"Just fine … except for malnutrition. Go make pancakes! Sick people need food, so stop being a doctor and go be a chef!"

"I'm going! Pancakes coming up! Take it easy, okay? Stare at something besides Cuddy's … well, you know … look at something a little less stimulating. Like your pay-per-view cable bill. If you don't pay it, porn-on-demand is just a memory, y'know. "

I headed back to the pancake fixings as Cuddy got the antibiotic running.

A few minutes later, Lisa walked into the kitchen and across to my side. "What happened this morning? How'd he hear the file?"

I shrugged. "Not sure. He said he heard the water running in the kitchen and thought I was cooking. Actually, I was cleaning up the mess I made when I dumped a full pot of coffee all over the place. I didn't hear him over the water running … and he just sat down on the couch and waited for me. But I sat down at the table with the file and didn't hear him at all. Or see him. Thought he was still asleep. Anyway, he heard it. All of it. He said I shouldn't feel guilty since the diagnosis is wrong … and we wouldn't have a diagnosis until after the biopsy … and we'd discuss it then, and only then."

I didn't feel quite comfortable yet sharing my theory that Greg was already aware if the real diagnosis and would process it himself after some passage of time. So I kept that part to myself and didn't say anything to Cuddy. For now.

"What are you going to do?" She asked.

"For the moment, play it his way. Something will give soon, I think. He's already making jokes about it. And there's this: we already know there's nothing physically wrong with his left leg. He's going to be okay!"

Cuddy looked dubious … almost as though she might have thought I was pipe dreaming. I wondered if she was thinking that perhaps both Greg and I were deep into denial and not really dealing with the reality of the situation. But she wasn't saying any of it out loud, if that's what it actually was.

Just as I didn't say anything about the theories I believed were pinging around in Greg's devious and brilliant mind …

Everyone had their secrets, didn't they?

And everyone lied.

So many different ways to tell a lie … or avoid a truth.

I wished it were Friday … and Dick Dickinson were here …

Oooo0oooO

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