There Will Be No Divorce Chapter 5
'cause you just can't do
things your body wasn't meant to.
hike up your fishnets.
I know you.
The Mountain Goats "Dilaudid"
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An hour. One fucking hour and he'd be free of this stupid place with its pastel colors and overly soft furnishings. If Cuddy had spent millions on making the hospital look like one giant hotel lobby, the Physiotherapy department had blown their allowance on a marshmallow factory. Everything he attempted to sit on swallowed him up like a vat of quicksand, but he was forced to suffer it in order to take the weight off his protesting leg. Although at least being swallowed by a cushion would get him out of his pointless progress meeting.
He was being made to wait, a punishment for his tardiness. The little chemical detour had cost him valuable minutes, and now he couldn't even risk taking one of his ill-gotten gains because Ramirez would bust him for being high before she had scheduled it. This whole mess was getting pretty tedious, and House couldn't quite remember why he was sitting there like a naughty schoolboy when he could have been in his office popping pills washed down with some perfectly generic Scotch.
The clicking of heels against hard floor brought his internal ranting to an abrupt halt, but he was disappointed to discover that not every pair of sexy but impractical shoes came with Cuddy attached. It did serve as yet another slap in the face about why he was doing this. He really didn't want to lose Cuddy because the drugs were more important, but he didn't want to have to choose either. She'd argue that she'd never asked him to stop, that she'd accepted him as he was, but the implication was always there.
How could he be a father if he couldn't get out of bed without a serious dose of opiates? For that matter, how could he be a father when he couldn't run or play catch? What if it was a girl and he had to go around kicking the asses of any teenage boys who eventually hit on her?
But wasn't that the crux of the whole damn thing – to find a way of doing that shit, he had to still be alive. Which pretty much ruled out downing little white saviors until his liver went on vacation without him.
On that note, the portal to hell finally swung open and five feet of barely contained fury was glaring directly at him. It seemed that Ramirez was more than ready for him, and House just didn't feel he had the fight in him today.
With as much dignity as he could muster, he leveraged himself out of the ridiculous fabric pile and made his way grudgingly to her office. When the door closed behind him, he was overcome with a strong desire to run, agonizing pain and weak muscles be damned.
He sank gratefully into a rather more sensible chair, watching warily as Ramirez took her place on her side of the desk. House rued not insisting these meetings be held in his office, nothing like a home court advantage. It could have been one of the few times that being a Department Head with all the trappings might have come in useful. Instead here he was in a room that was essentially a glorified cubicle, yet still feeling like a naughty schoolboy summoned to the principal's office.
Her opening shot was gentle, entirely at odds with the wiry tension radiating off her.
"Greg, you're slipping. Your progress should be picking up by now and you're slacking off."
"Don't Greg me, that over-familiar crap has less effect than you think. Much like your stupid program."
Ana didn't flinch at his petulance, simply squared her shoulders and continued her lecture.
"If you don't do the right amount of exercise at the right times, the muscles won't develop in the way they're meant to. Obsessing over your next dose isn't going to make the time between pills go any faster either. I think we should discuss replacing the Vicodin altogether, not just reducing it. There are other pain medications…"
He snorted with every ounce of derision he could summon.
"There are other legs. There are other pain levels. There are other patients."
She pretended to consider his argument.
"So you think you're entitled to special treatment? That you're somehow the exception to one of the most successful protocols ever developed in this field? I think we've had this argument before. In fact, we've had it every time I reduced your dose in the past few months. Coincidence?"
God, he hated people who paid attention to every little detail. It was almost like arguing with himself.
"Oh, I don't know what you've heard about me, Doctor, but I'm a big believer in coincidences. Happen all the time: explain everything. Love 'em."
Ramirez crossed her arms slowly and deliberately, leaning forward over her immaculate desk. House was momentarily distracted by the possibility of cleavage, but apparently some staff in this hospital wore their necklines above the navel. He hadn't been able to rattle this one with his innuendo yet, but he was sure the day would come. It was hardly a stretch to come up with material, she was slim and fit, with the kind of long glossy hair he rarely saw outside of Sports Illustrated shoots. Her lips had been a distraction in their own right for a while, but most irritating of all was that all these facts seemed academic, because every time his mind veered in the direction of sex, it went straight back to Cuddy.
Which was absolutely fine so long as nobody ever found out. It was one thing to be getting it on with arguably the finest woman in the hospital, but quite another to have people thinking he was taking it seriously. This baby thing was going to upset the appearance of nonchalance too, and the panic about it all left him grasping desperately at the little orange bottle stashed in his jacket pocket. It was pathetic, but his clammy hand gripping the extra Vicodin instantly calmed him.
The only problem was that he'd zoned out of his reprimand, and now he had no idea what response Ramirez expected from him. He attempted to bluff, but it fell flat.
"Now you don't even listen, what a fantastic development! As I was saying, Dr Wilson came to me with some concerns about your pain levels. I've considered his point, but I honestly don't think an increase at this stage is going to help. Unless you want to try another method."
"I don't. Some Vicodin is better than none. Are we done here? I promise to be such a good boy from now on, you won't even recognize me."
His puppy-dog eyes had pretty much zero effect, much to his annoyance. At least Wilson's interference explained the simmering rage in his doctor, she didn't take kindly to outside advice.
"I'll believe it when I see it. You know what's required of you, and if you can't keep up, I will throw you out on your ass. No more free massages from hot therapists for you, Dr House."
He winced at the cruelty of her threat, but nodded in agreement of her terms. All he wanted was to get out of there, far away from the snooping eyes of her staff. It was all he could do not to scream with relief when she finally dismissed him, and he could barely keep the urgency from his movements as he sought out the sanctuary of his fourth floor office.
Not that he could wait that long. Seeing no familiar faces in the elevator, he popped the seal on the bottle and dry-swallowed three pills with something approaching desperation. Leaning against the wall, having elbowed an elderly lady out of his way, he closed his eyes and waited for their glorious narcotic effect to kick in.
He remained in the elevator as it made two complete trips up and down, feeling just a little bit high for the first time in too long. Eventually he came to his senses and got off on the appropriate floor, almost with a spring in his limp. It soon faded when he saw Wilson waiting in his office, and House was almost frantic at the thought that he would be found out so quickly.
"You look like hell."
A simple statement of fact from Wilson, their friendship had never stood on ceremony.
"Session with the dragon lady. The physiotherapist one, not the Dean of Medicine one."
Wilson nodded sympathetically and launched into an explanation of how he had gone to Ramirez in order to help House out.
"Well, a fat lot of good it did me. Not only did she refuse to up my dose, but now she's punishing me because she doesn't like well-meaning oncologists screwing with her reign of terror."
Hands raised in a 'who me?' gesture, Wilson blustered his way to a defense. House had little patience for it, even with the edge well and truly taken off. He grabbed his car keys and backpack, making haste towards his office door.
"Tell Cuddy I went home."
"Should I bring over some beers? The Giants are playing tonight."
"Uh, I meant her home. Maybe another time, Jimmy boy."
With that, House skulked out of the room and back to the elevator he had so recently vacated. Wilson stood in the darkened office and quietly marveled at House's slip of the tongue. Home meaning Cuddy's was a development he hadn't seen coming, not after fifteen years of the same book-lined apartment being House's sacred retreat. It almost made him feel bad for stirring the pot with Cuddy that morning.