Chapter 38

"From Behind These Walls of Stone …"

We were sitting on the couch, he and I, not paying too much attention to each other. Something uninteresting was on TV, neither of us watching. We were shooting the breeze off and on, and making some heavy noise about how great it would be when he was well enough for us to sit there together with our feet propped on the coffee table watching a game or a movie, and guzzling beer and chomping on Chinese … or a deep-dish pizza with "everything."

I don't know what it was I said, but he looked over at me with a contemplative look on his face, suddenly quiet, and then mumbled something about going back to the bedroom to read an article he'd been meaning to check out in a back issue of JAMA.

Had I said something to upset him?

I nodded acquiescence and watched him in silence as he rose a little stiffly and gimped his way down the hallway to his bedroom. I heard the door click shut a little after that, and then nothing. I guessed that the leg wasn't going into spasm, and he wasn't really running away from anything, so I let him alone and didn't question his motives. But I didn't buy for a second that he was going back there to read some obscure article in a medical journal!

Maybe he needed time to think; time to gather his resources; time to take a personal inventory and figure out some things on his own. Maybe he had the right idea, and I should do something like that myself.

Maybe.

After an hour or so, I went back to check him and give him his meds. He was sprawled there, languishing against the pillows with his legs crossed at the ankles, still with that contemplative look. His hands were laced behind his head, and he turned slowly to observe my presence in his room with complete indifference. His sudden departure from the living room earlier ragged at me. I wondered what was going on, but refrained from asking the question he must have expected.

"You okay?" I asked him.

"I'm fine," he said, and I left it at that. I pulled his door shut until it latched, and then went back to my perch on the couch.

I sat there awhile, looking blankly at the TV that was still on, but muted. There was an old "Law and Order" playing by then, and I had to smile to myself. It was one of those episodes that starred Jerry Orbach, and I thought fondly of Dick Dickinson before I flicked it off.

I wasn't tired. Only restless. After awhile I got up again and went into the kitchen. There was a jug of milk in the fridge, and after looking around for something to munch on and finding nothing that seemed tempting, poured myself a tall glass of cold milk and sat down at the table with it … and House's chart.

After awhile I got lost inside myself a little, and my surroundings faded gradually as I became absorbed in what I was reading. The strange fugue state was tempered with flashbacks of the odd relationship I shared with this man, and my ongoing uncertainty of my constantly changing role in it.

As time passed, I reread the voice file of that first session with Dick Dickinson, once, twice, three times consecutively, trying to put it into Greg's perspective, as though reading it with his eyes. Not easy. But if I were Gregory House, and I was reading an account of two people having a conversation about my physical and mental health, or lack thereof, and I was not even present to offer input or clarification … how would I feel about it? There were some things in there that had to have hurt him, angered him, made him wonder if we did indeed have his best interests at heart.

When we had talked about the file later, Greg had been quick to forgive. Even though his best … and only … friend had spilled his guts about some very personal things to a virtual stranger, he had not called me on it. Would he think that Dick and I had discussed the possibility that his pain was not real … just a big game he was playing on us all? Would he believe that I'd allowed him to suffer for months … needlessly … deliberately … while I walked around smug and complacent, believing I was helping him?

My thoughts wandered back for the hundredth time to that night in House's office … that painful scene I knew I could never purge from my soul. Again I pictured the scenario that kept haunting me like the waking dream of a combat veteran who replays over and over in his mind, the comrade-in-arms whose body is blown into a thousand pieces by a landmine, and the resulting rain of blood that, for the rest of his life, never quite washes off his skin:

I'd been working late, finishing up some overdue paperwork. Julie had been expecting me home hours before, and I knew I was probably in trouble. I turned out the lights and locked up my office. I had my topcoat over my arm, and my briefcase hanging off my shoulder, and as I turned toward the elevator, I had to pass Greg's office. The vertical blinds across his front wall were pulled together, but one of them had caught on the edge of another, and the resulting gap sent a dim shaft of light across the corridor in front of me.

My eye followed the natural path of the light, and what I saw inside that office turned my blood to ice in my veins.

House and I had never had what you might call a "good old boy" relationship. We were never touchy-feely, as the expression goes, and usually took great pains to avoid any invasion of one another's personal space. His normal aversion to anything faintly resembling compassion, pity, sympathy, or even what he called "hovering" and my "mother-henning", kept me pretty much at arms' length where that stuff was concerned. He made no bones about me keeping my hands to myself, especially when he was having a bad day in the pain department. I'd always respected that. He was a hard-ass, especially since his infarction, and I respected that too.

Taking those things into consideration, I still believe that that was the reason I held my ground that night, instead of going immediately to his side …

I hadn't known House was still in his office. I believe now that he was there only because he had not the strength, and was in too much pain to have done otherwise. Ordinarily, he was out of there and on his way home on the dot of 4:30 p.m., and before that, if he could get away with it.

But this time was different in the fact that he was not only in his office at nine o'clock at night, but instead of sitting in his chair, lost in computer readouts or scribbling notes on his desk pad, he was on the floor. His back was against the desk chair and his left elbow rested at the edge of the seat, his hand clenched into a fist. His left leg was drawn up nearly to his chest, and the hurt one laid stretched out in front of him like a fallen log. He was rocking the whole chair back and forth, bent low, clutching his damaged thigh in the steel grip of his right hand, the corners of his mouth pulled back in a strained grimace.

His suit jacket and backpack were thrown aside on the floor near him, as though dropped suddenly and forgotten. His cane was on the floor also, more than an arm's length away. He must have lost it when he went down. His jeans were bunched around his lower legs. He'd probably scraped himself around from where he'd fallen in order to pull himself into a sitting position with the aid of the chair.

His body moved in this slow, hypnotic rhythm, and his face moved into and out of the shaft of light that glowed dimly from the lamp on his desk.

I could see the agony etched there in the stark glint of the deep-set blue eyes that were much too bright to pass for anything near normal for him. Immediately after that, I saw the sheen on his cheeks, and the wetness building while he sat there, and the tears running down …

And I stood there and watched with grim fascination. Frozen in time. The image that etched itself into my brain was like a photograph of a disaster that had happened right in front of me while I was powerless to do anything except stare like someone drawn to the scene of a fire or a fatal accident. Happy that the blood being shed wasn't my own, but powerless to turn away …

And after a time, I did walk away from him. Tight-fisted. Tight-lipped. Giving him his privacy. Letting him alone in an awkward moment. Saving myself from his bitter words about not minding my own business. Saving him the embarrassment of knowing there had been a witness to his pain …

…a witness who would live with his failure as a friend for, probably, the rest of his life …

I could feel my flimsy barn-board walls going back up, blocking off my returning guilt with self-righteousness and analytic mumbo jumbo. Justification. Rationalization. Remorse. Resentment. Dissect everything until it paralyzes you!

Analysis paralysis!

Was this what was happening with Greg also? Was he back in his bedroom feeling the same way I was feeling … self-righteous and justified? Was he back there steeped in his own dark thoughts as I was steeped in mine? Rebuilding walls also? Was he rearming his battlements and fortifying his defenses against further hurt?

Guilt, guilt, guilt.

I guessed it was just built into some of us. Nagging, haggling, scratching just below the surface of our defenses. Nothing we did was ever good enough. No good deed ever went unpunished. Must have been my Jewish heritage. But that was crap, and I knew it.

I glanced at my watch.

Good Lord! 4:30 p.m.

I'd lost track of time, lost track of the words on the chart in front of me, and in the word file. Even the glass of milk still at my elbow, was too tepid to drink. I needed to put it back in the fridge before it turned into something smelly. And I needed to go back to Greg's room to check on him.

I heard his grunt of pain even before I got to the closed bedroom door. I didn't pause to knock, but barged in quickly.

Both hands were gripping his leg when I entered. He glanced up defiantly, and I think by sheer force of will, he dropped his hands onto the surface of the mattress. He composed his face to blandness and looked up at me with a glint of threatened homicide in his eyes.

I wasn't fooled. We'd known each other far too well, for far too long.

"Why didn't you call me?"

He insisted on perpetuating the lie. "Nothing I can't handle. Almost over anyway."

I walked over and reached for his pulse. He was ready to pull away, but at the last moment, didn't. I don't know what made him stay his hand. "No," I said, "it isn't! Not unless you just had a cardiac transplant … and they used a hummingbird's heart!"

"I said … I'll handle it!"

I could see him starting to sweat, and I interpreted his actions as a refusal to appear needy as he pushed my hands away from the edge of the blanket.

"What's going on, House? What are we doing, still playing games? I want to check you. Is that suddenly a problem?"

"If I need a doctor, I'll let you know!" His voice was taking on a sharp edge of desperation.

I decided if he wanted to continue playing games, I could easily accommodate. "Okay … fine! I need you in the living room. I need to change the dressing on the PICC line. The light's better out there, and I want to get a good look at the site."

I could see him quickly considering going on with the fakery, but I had called his bluff and the jig was up. I had won without a struggle. He tipped his head back and closed his eyes. He was hurting. Walking, even that short distance, would be impossible. "All right! So yeah … it's building up. Fast! It started about five minutes ago."

We both knew that any chance of aborting the spasm had long passed. It had gotten a firm footing, and we'd have to let the thing play out all the way.

"No meds!" He gasped. His hands returned quickly to the rock-hard muscle.

"No meds!" I repeated after him, and pulled the blanket away from his leg. I sat down on the bed at his side and moved in close, pushing his hands out of my way and began to massage the tightness that he'd tried to deny was even there. I wondered if there was anything I could say to him that would take his mind off the intense pain I knew was continuing to build.

"There's something you need to know about the night I saw you in your office." I didn't look anywhere but at the expanse of the long, heavily muscled leg I was trying to palpitate into obedience. "I admire what you tried to do … what you did. You kept trying, and you wouldn't let it beat you down. You were in agony, but you kept going. I don't think I've ever known anyone with the strength you have, and I don't think I ever will again." I looked up and met his eyes, still uncertain what I was seeing there. He was gasping with pain, but he could not look away. His total shock at my words was palpable.

I continued, now that I had his attention. "That's why I know without a doubt that whatever turns out to be wrong here, you're not going to let it get you. I have to thank you, House … it's been a privilege to actually be allowed to be part of that kind of courage."

It was quiet for a few more minutes, as I focused completely on the knotted thigh beneath my hands. By that time, even my arms were aching, cramping and knotting almost as badly as his leg, from the hard work of taming the tempest in his muscles. I concentrated fiercely, not letting him see, although I could feel his eyes boring holes in the side of my head.

He must have seen me wince with the buildup of the pain in my hands, along with the decline of his own in the leg. He must have understood that I really was there in his own best interests, no matter how strong the case he was rebuilding against me. He must have decided in that moment that the walls inside his mind weren't worth the hassle, and that another war between us had the potential to take down the bond of our friendship. And nothing in the world would be worth that!

He snorted briefly, and I detected a small grunt of laughter.

Thank God!

"Yeah … well … as long as we're playing 'True Confessions' here … I've got one of my own. I'm grateful you left me there that night. It doesn't matter why you left. You left me with my privacy. It's something about you I can always count on: a man's dignity. No small thing, that. Whatever you thought your reasons were, it doesn't matter. We both know why you really left … and I'll deny I ever said this … but I don't know what I'd do without you … always looking out for me even when you think you're not."

Damn you, House! Now you've even made my guilt seem altruistic! But … you really do get it, don't you?

Gradually I felt his thigh muscles relax completely beneath my fingers, and I could relax also, and allow the tendons and ligaments in my arms and wrists return to normal. I heard him sigh with relief and I leaned back to withdraw my touch from the skin of his leg. I was surprised when they were pressed together by the warmth of Greg's own hands, large and comforting, over my own. I looked up, questioning.

"The heat," he said gently, "it feels good." He didn't move his clasp from around mine for long minutes, letting some of his body heat seep refreshingly into my own tired, cramped fingers.

"Yes," I told him. "It does."

After that, my recollection is vague, and I shall not speak of it here …

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