Chapter 41

"End Game"

When Cuddy and I got back to the living room with the big platter laden with party goodies, we weren't surprised at all to see only Dick still seated at the table. House was up and pacing. Actually, he was doing a great job of pretending he was alone in the room. We put the food on the side table against the wall, along with plates, cutlery and napkins and took our places silently. When he saw us sit down, House returned to his place also, smiling politely.

"What took you two so long? Didn't you get to make out on your way back from the deli?"

I stared at him and fingered the two vials of morphine, safe in the pocket of my jeans. "Yeah, that was it. Had to finish what we started."

Cuddy dealt the cards and Dick glanced across the table at House. "How's the leg now?" He asked.

Greg looked away and turned deliberately in my direction. His lip curled back as he asked me: "Correct me if I'm wrong … but don't psychologists have "PhDs" after their names? Isn't the 'MD' reserved for people who've actually attended medical school?" He ignored my scowl and went on. "Cause it makes me really nervous when people who don't rate the 'MD' start asking medical-type questions."

I looked hard at him. "How's the leg, House?"

"Now see … that's different." He smiled condescendingly at Dickinson. "A real doctor, asking a doctor-type question about a physical problem. That's a whole 'nother ballgame."

"So answer the question!" I kept my voice low, but I was biding no nonsense.

"Just fine, Jimmy Boy … A-One. Peachy keen!" He said expansively. "Hey! Look at these cards! I'm in!" He slid a stack of chips to the center of the table, and then watched the rest of us as we studied our cards.

Cuddy folded early in the hand. I was watching Greg. Dick had already raised once, and I called. House had a pair of nines showing. Dick had a Jack and Queen of Diamonds. House raised and looked curiously at Dick, who'd just been dealt the eight of Hearts. Dick smiled, looked at no one, and raised again.

Suddenly I realized that it wasn't about the cards anymore. I folded and sat back in my chair, watching the two men who were closely watching each other. When the seventh card was dealt, House's "up" cards were the nines, a deuce and a Jack. Dick got an eight, Jack, Queen and a five … and he raised. So did House. Dick looked at his hole cards for a full thirty seconds, calculating, his face a careful blank. Suddenly he looked up.

"Fold."

Greg grinned and scooped up the pot. "A pair of nines! A lousy pair of nines! I psyched out the shrink! Too cool," he crowed.

"Time for a break," Cuddy said. "Let's eat, guys." She led the way to the side table and placed a few morsels of food on her plate. "Drinks are in the kitchen … help yourselves."

They busied themselves with the food and I took a few moments to clear off the table. Lifting the edges of Dick's cards surreptitiously, I stared at the hand he'd been holding. A straight!

Damn! This game has gone from poker to something else entirely.

Greg was in a good mood after his "win", so while everyone settled down with plates of food, he turned on the charm again with Dick. He told a couple of his best clinic stories and then asked Dick about his "line of work".

"Anything interesting ever happen on that couch of yours?"

"Nothing like the things you see, I'm sure. But occasionally I get the satisfaction of helping to guide a patient through a rough spot, and see them come out of it stronger and more able to help themselves."

"Sounds as exciting as full-time clinic duty." House yawned theatrically.

"I suppose the degree of excitement is relative," Dick responded calmly. "For example, I found it quite exciting when you were able to break that painful spasm so quickly."

Greg's head came up abruptly; momentarily nonplussed by the comment, but any snarky return was interrupted by Cuddy, who returned to the table with a drink in her hand.

Dick wasn't ready to let it go, and House glared at him when he continued to speak in a slow, easy tone. "It was fascinating that your concern for James could override such severe pain …"

Tight lipped, House's voice was brittle. "I thought I explained that."

"Well, you did mention a few possible theories," Dick conceded. "Let's examine them, shall we?"

"Go for it!" The challenge was unmistakable, and House's eyes hardened further with every second he stared at Dick's serene face.

"I believe the first thing you suggested was that you were acting on medical instinct. If a shop clerk fell off a little step stool without loss of consciousness, you wouldn't have given the clerk a second glance. We knew James hadn't been knocked out when he fell. We heard him groan immediately after the crash, and he spoke lucidly, and he was fully functional and able to move. So … even you discarded that theory easily."

Greg nodded slightly; still skeptical, still staring intently at Dick.

"Then you shifted the cause to adrenaline. That's a pretty sound supposition … except for one thing: had that been the cause, your pain would have returned the moment the perceived crisis passed and the adrenaline dissipated from your system. Yet, you were fine, weren't you?"

Greg didn't bother to make any attempt to answer the question. He sat very still, waiting for Dick to continue. His only movement, we all noticed, was that his left hand had begun to rub gently at the left thigh. The motion of his arm was rhythmic and light, and it looked as though he might be completely unaware he was doing it.

We waited.

"And your final rationale, the one you decided to go with … false alarm." Dick stopped speaking and watched silently for a few moments. Greg's massage of the thigh muscle had become slightly more rapid. Dick let his silence stretch out until he saw Greg's hand slow, and watched the long fingers begin to press deeper into the quadriceps. He swung around in his chair and turned to face me.

"During your call to me a couple of days ago," he said conversationally, "didn't you tell me that Dr. House had had another 'false alarm' with his left leg?"

I was looking at the lines of discomfort deepening across Greg's face as Dick spoke. I could see the rigidity of the small muscles around his mouth and eyes as they began to stretch and harden. He was clearly in distress, no longer hearing much of anything that was being said. It was becoming difficult to watch, and I didn't want to be a part of it. I started to shake my head in denial, but Dick was waiting for an answer.

Finally: "Yes. House said it was a false alarm; it could have been."

Under the table, Lisa Cuddy squeezed my hand. As I looked at her, her eyes told me I must be totally honest. This was specifically the kind of help we had asked Dick Dickinson to provide. Our own efforts had been sadly lacking, and we needed the kind of support only a seasoned professional could offer. I could see that Cuddy truly felt for me, and for Greg, and that only my complete honesty right that minute could provide the kind of help Greg really needed.

I took a deep breath. "It could have been. But I don't think it was." I looked across at Greg, and he was refusing to meet my eyes.

"How did that spasm end?" Dick asked softly.

I hung my head. Here it was. Finally turned belly up in the cold light of day. "I'd … gotten very upset. It wasn't going too well. I had to leave the room. The spasm was beginning to peak when I got out of there … but I had to. I had to get away and calm down. He followed me into the kitchen, and I guess I was in pretty bad shape at that point. He … uhmm … took care of me. And then he took care of himself.

"When I recovered and went to find him, I expected that he'd be in a lot of pain. But when I got to his room and questioned him, he told me it was a … false alarm." I stopped talking and looked down. Then I looked up at Greg and tried to send an apology with my eyes. He turned his head away from me.

We saw him become aware of what he was doing to his thigh. We watched as he tried to still his hand and shift uncomfortably in the chair. We heard him gasp involuntarily and look around in defiance. He clamped his hand back over the muscle. "Still don't get your point," he said roughly to Dick. "Spasm ended. That's a good thing. Doesn't matter why it stopped …"

"Oh, but I disagree. It matters very much." The tone of Dick's voice turned to gentle teasing, taunting. "Because now we know how to fix the problem. How to cure you, so-to-speak."

The pain in House's leg, by that time, had reached the point where he could no longer hide his discomfort. He was using both hands to try to relieve it, to soothe the clenching knot of pain. "A cure. Do tell!" He rasped. But the lingering undercurrent of sarcasm was clearly forced.

We waited.

Dick continued. The soft tone of his voice never wavered. "Sure … but it doesn't bode well for your friends, I'm afraid. Seems this problem doesn't occur until your mind has some free time. None of your attacks have happened when you were wrapped up in a video game. Nor did tonight's incidents happen when you were actually playing cards. James tells me you are all about the puzzle. But games end. Medical cases get solved. And then … where are you? It's just you and your pain again. So you focus on that. Get angry at it … keeps your brain busy so you don't have to deal with anything else, until the next puzzle comes along. And the pain recedes … for a little while."

I watched them become simpatico. House was beginning to lean in Dick's direction. He didn't even realize it. Dick was getting through. Greg was doubled over the leg. His breathing was becoming ragged, and he was pale, begging to break out in a sweat.

I removed the meds from my pocket, started to stand. Cuddy grabbed my arm and shook her head. She wouldn't let go of my arm, and her look was stern. For a second, she was my boss again. I sighed and settled back down.

"So this is what we have to do …" Dick resumed talking again. Patiently. Gently. He was seeing the agony House was experiencing, and from the look on his kind face, we all knew he had vast experience with similar pain. We could see it as it sparked out of his sad eyes. He knew exactly what Greg was going through at that moment.

He let his voice turn mocking, almost cruel, although the timbre never changed. "We just have to keep James in some sort of constant danger. Or Lisa. You care about her enough now that danger to her should be just as effective.

He turned his attention to us and resumed. "James, you're gonna need to come down with some long-term illness, preferably life-threatening. Lisa … maybe a serious traffic accident would do the trick with you.

"Then you …" He turned back to House, whose face was drained of all color and his focus barely intact. Dick's voice rose a few decibels. "You won't ever have to acknowledge that the pain is an integral part of who you are. Hell … you won't even have to admit that you care for these two people as much as … or more than … your pain and your puzzles. You can tell everybody … and tell yourself … that you're simply doing your job!"

Dick turned deliberately away from House's agony and trained his eyes on the two of us. "So you see, guys, it's really quite simple. Dr. House will never have to admit to the psychosomatic nature of his illness as long as one of you is in a constant state of peril." He smiled coldly. "And you're both so overprotective of him that I'm certain that you'll gladly make that sacrifice."

A growling sound erupted suddenly from House as he half-rose from his chair. "Leave them out of it!" He gasped. He made a half-hearted lunge toward Dick, but his legs buckled and he melted slowly downward into a heap on the floor.

Lisa and I leapt to his side immediately. I prepared to inject the morphine into the port of the PICC line, but forced myself to look up at Dick first. Dickinson nodded sadly, and I pushed the medication while Cuddy monitored Greg's pulse and respirations.

House neither spoke, nor opened his eyes.

Ten long minutes later, Cuddy rose from his side, left the room and returned momentarily

with the wheelchair. In the meantime, House had returned to normal comfort levels, and was calming down. He hadn't tried to speak yet, but his eyes were open. He looked thoughtfully at Dick, who nodded with a half-smile, then gravely did the same to Cuddy and me.

"Let's get you to bed now," I said gently.

He allowed the three of us to lift him bodily into the chair. Dick accompanied us to the bedroom, trailing silently behind while we got Greg settled as comfortably as possible against all his pillows, and then drew the blanket up over his legs.

I thanked Dick, and told him we had it from there.

House had other ideas. "No," he said quietly. His strength was waning.

Lisa and I waited.

"Wilson … Cuddy … outa here please. Even a 'fake' doctor can help me get settled into bed now." He looked at Dickinson with a different set to his features. The measured tone of his voice didn't change. "The Incredible Shrinking Dick needs to do a little more shrinking … maybe.

"Scram, Jimmy!"

His eyes were calm. Calmer than I'd seen them in weeks!

I looked from him to Dick, and back again.

Then I left the room and closed the door carefully behind me.

Oooo0oooO

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