Chapter 4: I'm On the Pavement

House looked down. He was standing on the edge of a towering precipice. There was nothing but sky and clouds surrounding him; nothing but darkness . . . a swirling murky darkness below.

He gazed down into the abyss. It beckoned to him, familiar yet strange, warm yet forbidding. He moved his right leg to step forward into the inky blackness.

"House? House?"

Someone was calling him. Someone familiar. That someone was calling him back, back from the edge of nothingness.

House didn't want to go. He wanted to stay here, where there was no worry, no pain, no despair. There was only the comforting stillness of sable air cloaking him like a shroud.

"House? Can you hear me? Open your eyes if you can hear me."

With a great effort and monumental force of will, House opened his eyes. It took a few moments for him to focus before the familiar face of his best friend swam into view. Wilson's forehead was furrowed with apprehension, his large brown eyes overflowing with obvious concern.

House's eyes fluttered closed again.

"House? Do you know where you are?"

House nodded slightly making his head feel like it would roll off his shoulders. White hot pain flowed through every cell of his body.

He groaned.

"I know it hurts," Wilson said. "Do you remember what happened?"

House's mind flashed back. The final events prior to his entering the shadows stood out in his memory in sharp relief.

He had delivered his message to Cuddy. He had seen her, apologized to her in his own inimitable way. He'd told her he loved her, that he would always love her. He tried to make her understand that only his love for her could make him let her go.

Because he was poison, because he couldn't help but hurt her with his love. He was too far gone, too irredeemable, too damaged. If Cuddy could ever be happy, it would only be without him. So he'd let her go.

He'd just been turning to leave when . . .

House opened his eyes wide in fear. This time, he saw not only Wilson sitting closest to him, but also Foreman and his entire current team standing in the room too.

No.

"Rachel! Rachel!" House croaked, closing his eyes again as he raised his head away from the pillow, his arm lifted off the bed, his hand reaching, trying to grasp something. He was panting with the effort.

"It's okay," Wilson told him as he placed a comforting hand on House's shoulder. "Calm down House."

Behind his closed eyelids, House saw it all happening again with startling clarity. The little girl shouting his name from the yard. Running toward him, past the flailing arms of both her grandmother and aunt.

"She was so fast," House said quietly. "So fast. No one could grab her. She was running to me. Ran right out into the street. Never even saw the car coming. Stupid, stupid kid."

"It's okay House," Wilson repeated.

"It took forever, like slow motion," House continued. "Rachel running into the street, the sound of the car hitting its brakes, the screech of the tires as it skidded, Cuddy's scream." He paused. Then with a lower voice he said, "My God . . . the way she screamed."

"Please House. You're going to have to calm down," Wilson said as House began breathing more heavily and his monitors started to beep rapidly, setting off alarms and buzzers. "I don't want to have to sedate you."

"Like a moron I threw my cane at the car. It hit the windshield. Like that was gonna help."

"House."

"That's when she saw it. At that last second, she saw the car. When she saw it, she turned and looked at me. Her eyes, her eyes . . . she was so afraid."

House opened his eyes again to look at Wilson. The look he gave his best friend stilled any words that came to Wilson's lips. House's startling blue eyes were filled with that same fear he'd just described in Rachel.

"She was looking at me, begging me with her eyes to help. She was so little Wilson. So tiny. And the car, it was so big. I lunged into the street, between her and the car. I tried to grab her, push her out of the way." Tears started in House's eyes. "I don't know . . . Did I make it? I felt her little body with my fingertips just as it all went black."

"You did it House. You pushed her out of the way in time."

House closed his eyes and relaxed back onto the pillow. "You're sure?"

"Yes."

It was silent in the room for some moments as House's breathing slowed once more while he processed this information.

"How is she?"

This time it was Foreman who spoke up. "The two of you were brought in at the same time. Rachel had only a mild concussion and a few minor abrasions from hitting the pavement."

After a long pause, House said slowly, "Then why is everyone here? The only reason you'd all be here is if something happened to Rachel. Or because . . ." House opened his eyes again, searching each and every face in the room for an answer.

No one could meet his gaze, at least not for very long. Park dropped her eyes almost immediately and let loose a very audible sniff. Adams coughed and turned to Chase for support. Chase was only too happy to have her to focus on rather than House's laser-like accusatory stare. He turned to Adams and took her in his arms. Both Taub and Foreman shifted uncomfortably and looked away.

Only Wilson was left. He too looked down to the floor, unable to hold the scrutiny of his best friend's eyes.

"How bad?" House asked.

Wilson cleared his throat. He suddenly felt like he couldn't swallow or couldn't get enough air into his lungs. "House, just stay calm."

House's eyes flashed dangerously. "Just drop the damn cancer doctor voice and answer my question."

"House, you sustained some serious injuries."

"No kidding! I was hit by a damn SUV!"

"How do you feel?"

"How do you think I feel you moron?" House was yelling now.

Foreman moved to the open door and beckoned to a couple of nurses at the nearby desk.

"No House, I mean where's the worst of your pain?"

"Why can't you just give me a straight answer?"

Wilson seemed to be trying to gather his strength as the nurses, armed with hypodermics, came into the room.

"Okay, okay," House said, lowering his voice as he glanced warily over at the nurses. "My head feels like one of Gallagher's watermelons so my guess is I sustained a concussion. My chest hurts like hell so that's a few broken ribs possibly causing a pneumothorax. And I wouldn't be surprised if I've got a hip fracture."

"Yes to the concussion, the broken ribs and the pneumothorax. No to the hip fracture. Just some really bad bone bruising," Wilson said meeting his friend's gaze once more. He seemed to be waiting for something else, for some sign from House.

"And as usual not to be outdone, my leg is screaming the loudest. Probably because it's so used to being the focus of all the attention in the pain center of my brain. It's obviously jealous of all these new pains."

Wilson heaved a gusty sigh and looked down again. Likewise, everyone else in the room continued to avoid looking House in the eye.

"Wilson? What?"

Wilson looked up again, obviously steeling himself for his next words.

"Tell me," House said, his voice growing louder once more.

"House," Wilson said after another heavy sigh. "Your leg . . . the pain you're experiencing . . . it's . . ."

House's eyes filled with understanding as he reached his now violently trembling hand down to touch his right leg.

"Phantom pain," Wilson finished just as House touched the bed in the exact spot where his leg should have been.

"No," House said, his voice barely more than a whisper. On the other side of the room, Adams let loose a sob and clung more tightly to Chase.

"House, the injuries to your leg were too severe. It was crushed under the wheels of the car. That, added to the nerve damage caused years ago by the infarction . . ." Wilson's voice trailed off when he looked into House's eyes again.

Foreman continued, "Your leg couldn't be saved. They had to immediately amputate in order to save your life."

House looked at Foreman and then back to Wilson. A single tear trickled down Wilson's cheek.

"Why?" House said so quietly that only Wilson who still sat closest to him could hear.

"Foreman told you. They had to amputate so that . . ."

"Why didn't you just let me die?"

Wilson looked at House. But he saw no tears in his friend's eyes. In fact he saw nothing, nothing at all. No fear, or hope or life. House's eyes were filled with death, the death of his very soul.

"House, I . . ."

"Get out," House said.

"You need time to process this. You need time to heal."

"ARE YOU DEAF? I SAID GET OUT! ALL OF YOU! GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!"

And then everything seemed to be happening all at once. Wilson stood up from his chair and took a step back just as Foreman motioned the two nurses with syringes forward. They grabbed House's arms and began putting restraints on him as everyone else in the room tried to keep from looking at one another.

But especially, they all tried to avoid the startling vision of the now ferociously fighting, screaming House who had at this point been restrained and sedated.

"No. No. No," he continued to repeat over and over. And then, as the sedative took effect, just as his eyes closed, Wilson felt a stab of pain in his heart as he heard House say one word and then become deathly still and quiet.

"Cuddy."