026. Reverse
The Great Unknown
The ketamine worked. That was the first conclusion that House came to once the initial pain from the gunshot wounds began to fade. Prior to that the pain had been too generalised for him to determine how much, if any, was coming from his leg. But once it faded he was able to tell that for the first time since that day on the golf course, there was no pain.
It was just as well he was alone in his hospital room at that point. He probably would have freaked a few people out with the way he was grinning. Oh, he knew that he wouldn't be able to go running again tomorrow or really any time soon. The pain might be gone but missing muscle tissue doesn't regrow. He'll still limp, probably still need the cane, but there'll be no pain to govern his entire world. He can throw away the Vicodin…and thank anyone you care to thank that he'd spent two weeks in the ketamine-induced coma. Long enough to almost entirely detox without having to feel a damn thing.
It was going to change things; he knew that and wasn't entirely sure if he was looking forward to it or not. Cameron's reaction was going to be interesting. She was so convinced that if he could be fixed he would be happy. Well, he was now as fixed as he was ever going to get and she was going to get a very rude surprise. He'd always been a sarcastic bastard as she was soon going to find out. The infarction had created his personality. Refined it maybe, but not created it. Come to think of it, Foreman and Chase were probably going to get as rude a shock as Cameron. He suspected that they half-believed Cameron's theory. That somehow the infarction and the pain were to blame for the way he acted.
Wilson and Cuddy would be the only ones not to be surprised when he barely changed once he was back on his feet. They knew what he was like before the pain and the cane. Cuddy, he suspected, would be relieved more than anything else. He knew she carried an enormous amount of guilt about what had happened. More than she really ought to. He was the one that was stubborn; he was the one that refused amputation. He knew it was the sensible option but he just couldn't do it. It was hard enough looking down each day and seeing the scarring left from the surgery that had saved his life; he knew himself well enough that he couldn't have lived with looking down and not seeing a leg at all. But she had carried out the surgery without his consent or knowledge and her guilt stemmed from that because she knew he wouldn't have wanted it.
Of all of them Wilson was the unknown quantity. He knew his friend would be pleased, both about the lack of pain and the end of his addiction, but beyond that House had no idea how he was going to react. So much of the bulk of their friendship had been built on the foundation of his leg and his…unique way of dealing with it. With the leg largely out of the equation, their relationship would change. House had ideas of the direction he wanted to take it but whether Wilson would agree was part of the great unknown. It had held him back from suggesting the ketamine treatment and it consumed him now as he lay in his hospital bed, waiting for Wilson to get back from wherever it was he'd gone. He wasn't very good with unknowns; he liked answers and solutions. He just wondered if he'd like this one.