016. Purple

Fall

The purple-blue-black of the bruise showed up prominently on House's right cheek and eye as he limped heavily through the Diagnostic Medicine conference room towards his office. Cameron was the first to catch sight of it and she half-stood, her eyes wide, a startled "Dr House?" on her lips but House steadfastly ignored her, his face blank and expressionless. Cameron's actions had drawn the attention of Foreman and Chase and they too saw the livid bruise as House headed for his office. Before any of them could react further, their boss had made the sanctity of his office and he firmly and almost ostentatiously locked both doors and drew the blinds. The three young doctors stared after the older man then at each other, their shock and surprise obvious.

"How did he get that?" Cameron asked into the deathly silent room.

Before either man could answer her question, they heard the sound of music from House's office, loud and obnoxious. Loud enough to drown out the ringing of a phone or pager and definitely loud enough to drown out the sound of someone knocking on either door.

"Now what do we do?" Chase asked, looking worried and concerned.

A short silence greeted his question then Foreman shrugged reluctantly.

"We look after the patient and hope Cuddy doesn't notice," he said with resignation.

The other two also looked resigned and they hesitantly left the conference room to try and keep things looking like normal, both Chase and Cameron shooting worried looks at the closed off office.

Two hours later they were back in the conference room. They'd had a certain amount of luck. Their patient was stable and looked like he was responding to the treatment that had been started the previous day. And Cuddy was caught up in a meeting that from all reports looked likely to go well into the afternoon. Cameron was the last of the three to arrive and she looked somewhat grim.

"His bike's not here," she announced when she walked into the room. The music was still blaring in the office and the blinds were still firmly closed.

Foreman and Chase looked towards the windows and the fine sunny day outside then looked at each other.

"Maybe he just decided to use the car today," Chase suggested unconvincingly. "Maybe his leg's just bad and he decided to drive rather than ride."

"His car's not here either," Cameron said. "And one of the nurses who was on duty this morning said he arrived in a taxi."

"So he fell off the bike," Foreman said with a shrug, looking like he was relieved to have an answer. "Happens to even the best rider. Guess he's just pissed about it."

Chase was shaking his head during this.

"If he was pissed about falling off the bike and getting hurt he'd be taking it out on us," he said. "He wouldn't be shutting himself up in his office and locking the doors."

"He's got a point there," Cameron added. "Besides it's a bruise. If he'd fallen off the bike, wouldn't there be abrasions and scrapes as well as bruising?"

"Well, yeah okay, probably," Foreman admitted. "But what are we supposed to do about it? If he wants to sulk behind locked doors there's nothing we can do. We don't have keys to his office."

"Dr Wilson does," Chase said.

"Dr Wilson isn't in," Cameron said, having saved her most explosive news for last. "He called in sick this morning."

Chase and Foreman gave her long looks then transferred those looks to the office.

"Isn't Dr Wilson staying with House at the moment?" Chase ventured tentatively.

"Yeah, he's letting his wife stay in their house until the divorce is finalised," Foreman replied speculatively.

"Okay," Chase said slowly. "So…Dr Wilson's sick and House is pissed, sulking and has that massive bruise. Did they…get into a fight last night?"

"A fight with someone else or a fight with each other?" Foreman said cynically.

"Do you want to be the one to ask?" Chase said with a shake of his head. "I know House has clinic hours today. I'm going down to do them. Otherwise Cuddy's going to come up here and find out what's going on and I don't want to be anywhere near here if that happens."

"Chicken," Foreman said derisively.

"No, good survival instincts," Chase replied firmly. "You can stay here if you like. Might be interesting to see what you look like with your skin flayed off. He's gotta come out to eat or drink or pee at some point. You really want to be sitting here when does that if he's sulking and pissed off?"

Foreman's eyes widened slightly and he quickly got to his feet.

"Good point," he said. "I might wander over to Neurology, see what's going on over there."

"I'm going to keep an eye on our patient," Cameron said.

The three doctors shot one last look at their boss' office then high-tailed it out of the conference room with as much dignity as they could manage.

Inside the office House was lying on the floor behind his desk, letting the music wash over him. His face was throbbing in a counterpoint to his leg and he felt like crap. He had no doubts that all sorts of speculation was going on out in the other room but he was in no mood to find out what that speculation was and he just hoped that his team would have the sense to stay away. Because he was also in no mood to deal with them and that was the main reason he'd locked the door. He wasn't sure how long he'd have his haven to himself. Eventually Cuddy was going to find out he'd locked himself up in here and she had access to a set of keys.

He shifted into a slightly more comfortable position and wished he'd just called in sick this morning. He'd almost done that but eventually had decided to come in because he wasn't entirely sure how his patient was going to respond to the treatment he'd ordered and he wanted to be here if things started going wrong.

He'd already made the decision that if his patient was still stable after lunch he was going home. He'd had hardly any sleep last night and between that, his leg and his face he just wanted to curl up in his bed and stay there for a while.

He was also worried about Wilson. The younger doctor had complained of feeling unwell when they'd gotten home the previous day and had gone to have a shower. When the shower had still been running half an hour later, House had been worried enough to go and find out what was going on. He limped into the bathroom to find Wilson huddled on the floor of the shower. He'd pulled the door of the shower stall open and laid a hand on Wilson's shoulder to determine what was wrong and in the process he'd badly startled the sick man. Wilson's eyes had been unfocused and he'd lashed out in his surprise. House had instinctively reared backwards and had slipped on the wet floor, his head smacking into the wall, badly enough to bruise but thankfully not hard enough to worry about concussion.

Wilson had come back to himself almost immediately and had been horrified at what had happened. But by the time they had sorted themselves out and gotten the shower turned off, both of them dried off and changed into dry clothing, a spectacular bruise had bloomed on House's face and Wilson was all but passed out on House's bed. House had gotten Wilson settled more comfortably then gone out to get what he'd need to treat the cold Wilson had decided to bring home. It was the pharmacist who'd pointed out how impressive the bruise was and it was also while he was at the pharmacy that House had realised that he'd jarred his leg as well as hitting his head. By the time he'd gotten back to his apartment, he was hurting quite badly. He'd gotten the medications into Wilson then swallowed two Vicodin before collapsing in his armchair. He knew he wouldn't be able to sleep in the same bed as someone else with his leg in this state and in fact he'd be lucky to get any sleep at all, no matter where he was.

He'd gotten about an hour's fitful sleep and when he'd finally given up at about five o'clock in the morning he gone into the bathroom to find the bruise had matured into something truly astounding. Wilson had been apologetic and horrified when he'd woken the younger man up to take his medication, drink some water and call in sick. House had waved that off and promised to extract revenge at some later point. Wilson had been sick enough to just grunt at that threat before falling asleep again. House had given his friend a sour look before going to have a shower and get dressed. By the time he was ready to head into the hospital, he felt too tired, sore and after taking two Vicodin, far too drugged to drive and had called a taxi. He been distinctly displeased to find his team had already been in and had moved fast to get into his office before they could react. He just wanted to hide from everything at the moment. He had his pager with him; if they really needed him there were ways of getting his attention.

As he lay there and thought that, his pager went off where it was sitting on his stomach. He picked it up and eyed it with a displeasure that softened into wry amusement when he saw the number. He slowly sat up then hauled himself to his feet, collapsing into his chair with a grunt. He stabbed at the stereo and turned it off before picking up the phone and calling his home.

"It's me," he said shortly when Wilson picked up. "Yeah, I'm fine…I'm fine…" He sighed irritably. "It hurts alright…Yeah, that hurts too…Dunno, haven't spoke to them…Stayed in my office…Locked the door…Cuddy? Who knows? Who cares?…Soon. I want to check on my patient then I'll come home…Did you take your medicine?…Be thankful I got you anything. You made me hit my head…I can think of ways you can apologise to me…Yeah, actually I would take advantage of a sick man…Go back to bed. I'll be home soon."

With that House hung up the phone and checked his watch. It was just after noon and he decided it was definitely time for him to get the hell out of there. He used his cane to lever himself to his feet, wincing as his face and leg decided to abandon the counterpoint and start throbbing in unison. He looked at his watch again and grimaced. It was far too early for even him to be comfortable with taking more Vicodin. He grabbed his bag and his keys and headed for the door, unlocking it and pushing it open. That action startled his team; the three doctors were sitting around the table eating their lunch and they looked at him with a trepidation that made him smirk.

"Is our patient dying?" he snapped, enjoying how that made them jump again.

"Uh, no, he's doing well," Foreman said warily.

"Not likely to die in the near future? This afternoon, tonight, three o'clock tomorrow morning?" House snapped again.

"No, he's…looking good," Foreman said again.

"Good. I'm going home," House announced as he headed for the door.

"Dr House? Are you alright?" Cameron asked hesitantly.

"Just peachy," he called over his shoulder. "If Cuddy asks where I am, tell her I'm at home having wild sex with Wilson."

Three jaws dropped at that statement and the stunned silence it produced was enough to enable House to get out of the room and a decent distance down the corridor. He stabbed at the elevator button with his cane and breathed a sigh of relief when the lift came immediately. He hobbled in and punched the button for the ground floor, watching the doors close before leaning against the wall. He smirked at the expressions his last statement had produced from his team and made a mental bet that when he next came in there'd be rumours about he and Wilson and probably something to do with some kind of weird bondage-style sex doing the rounds of the hospital rumour mill. He snickered as he pictured the expression on Wilson's face; something that more than made up for the farce last night had turned into.

Well, he'd told Wilson he'd get his revenge…