Disclaimer: I don't own House and I don't own Scars. As if you thought anything different.
Wilson rubbed his face, then the back of his neck, and tried to re-focus on his paperwork. The problem was, he just couldn't do it. He felt guilty, if only a little, for telling Cuddy about House's father. However, he knew House would never voluntarily tell anyone and the oncologist just didn't know how to help his friend. Cuddy was the type to understand this stuff, right? But really, if Wilson could just get House to tell him about it... it would be okay, wouldn't it?
Nearly a half an hour later, Wilson was still sitting in the same position, except now he wasn't even trying to concentrate on his most recent budget report - which Cuddy was on his ass for - but he didn't even care. It was hard to give a damn about budget reports when he had just shared his best friend's probably deepest, darkest secret with their boss, but still he had done it. Silently, Wilson shoved his papers back into his briefcase and put his face in his hands, waiting for the assault he was sure House would inflict upon him when he stormed into his office any minute now. But really, what else could he have done?
An hour later, Wilson was fidgeting in his seat, repositioning himself every few seconds, and playing with the knickknacks on his desk. Really, he looked like a child who knew he'd misbehaved and was waiting to be reprimanded by his teacher. Why wasn't House in his office, screaming at him? Why wasn't he punching Wilson out, like he knew he probably deserved? Why wasn't he constructing a master plan to get the worst type of revenge? Wilson kicked himself and realized that none of that sounded like House. No, it sounded like how House wanted people to react to hurting him, but it wasn't really House. Not really. God damn it. Why wasn't he getting yelled at yet?
Meanwhile, the diagnostician in question had been in the clinic for two hours. Two hours. Not sleeping, not hiding out, actually treating patients in the clinic. For two hours. His leg ached and his head pounded with all the force of an orchestra playing away in his head, but still he moved on to patient after patient, treating unnecessary visits for the flu and prescribing STD meds for yet another case of chlamydia. He hated it, hated every second, but it was his only escape from his own thoughts. Treating idiotic clinic patients was mindless, requiring no thought process whatsoever. Thinking over why Wilson told Cuddy and how Cuddy would try to butt into his life, thinking about word spreading and Cameron trying to fix him and Kutner give his sympathetic looks, thinking about losing all respect from anyone in the hospital... not so mindless. His throat caught and he swallowed hard just thinking about what his father would do if everyone had found out when he was young. Shaking his head, House moved onto the next patient when his pager went off.
"Kid's kidneys are gone. House, where the hell are you? Get your ass back here, before I have Cuddy send out a search party." - Foreman.
"House, come on, Cameron is scared and is already going to need a kidney transplant, as long as he doesn't die before we can get him on a transplant list, not to mention that he's still biting at himself. Where are you?" - Thirteen.
"I don't care what problems you're having or why you ran away. Get back here before we're responsible for a dead five-year-old." - Taub.
"You've gotta get back here - we don't know what's wrong with Cameron. He's scared, his Dad is pissed, and he's continuing to decline." - Kutner.
House smiled softly, fleetingly to himself at just how in character his ducklings were, even in just a few lines of text. Heaving silently, the blue-eyed diagnostician left his most obnoxious clinic patient with a stubbed toe - yes, a stubbed toe - to fend for himself and headed back towards his office.
"Yes, kiddies?" House popped off as soon as he limped back into the DDx room. The oldest doctor listened for a while as his fellows explained the urgency and extent of the child's condition.
"House, it's obviously not the kid's father if he's clearly doing the damage to himself," Foreman insisted.
[Line Break]
"You did this to yourself, got it? You tripped and fell into that bookcase -" Young Gregory House's father turned and pointed to a shelf with a particularly sharp edge - "and hit your eye. Understood, boy?" Six-year-old Gregory nodded immediately and touched his eye. It was swelling and throbbing and would probably be black soon. When his father looked away, he poked and prodded all his sore areas - ribs would be bruised but not broken, some blood coming from a cut on the back of his head, and his right shoulder hurt like hell - maybe dislocated? He'd pop it back in later - and concluded he was okay enough. He'd hide the cut on his head with his hoodie that featured an oversized hood that stuck up, he'd say he threw his arm out playing baseball, and he'd lie his way through his black eye. It'd be okay. He sniffled and went back outside for the night like a good boy.
The next day, the same, broken little boy walked into his first-grade classroom with his hood high and his head low, hoping not to be noticed. Unfortunately, Ms. Sanders had taken quite a liking to the little boy prior to this incident and noticed his demeanor and injury right away. "Oh, Greg, what's wrong with your eye?" she asked in her sweet, just-out-of-college-teacher voice as she looked down on the unnaturally small child.
"I tripped into a bookcase when I was playing tag with my Daddy, ma'am," Gregory added to his story, hoping it would make it more believable to his young teacher.
"Oh, that's not good!" Ms. Sanders sing-songed to the boy, then knelt down to his level and touched his eye. He flinched away from her and she looked concerned. "Greg, are you sure that's what happened?"
Gregory could have just died right then and there. His only-been-developing-for-six-years instincts just weren't sharp enough yet to quickly respond without giving himself away. He hesitated for a minute and the tears were about to pour when Ms. Sanders realized how scared he seemed. "It's okay kiddo, I'm sure you just did it to yourself on accident. No big deal, it'll be all better in a few days!" she tried to reassure him. He looked at her gratefully then stiffly made his way to the plastic chair at his seat at the table.
[Line Break]
"House? House!" Foreman's deep voice brought him back to reality and he shook his head to clear his thoughts. Quickly, House limped off and out the door, determined to save this child from the same childhood he endured. Once he made it to the hospital room, he kicked the father out with the excuse that they had to perform another test on the boy and didn't want having another person in the room to stress him out. "Whatever," the father had started, "I have a meeting. Don't bother the doctors, kid." The boy just nodded and bit his lip.
"Don't do that," House flicked his lip and the boy looked almost betrayed. "Okay, Cooper-"
"-my name is Cameron."
"Okay. Because it matters. Does your dad hurt you? You know, ever hit you, make you bleed, anything else?" House pried into the boy, trying to think of how he would have liked to have been asked this question when he was about this age. Of course, he didn't want to be asked the question at all, but how could he do it in such a way to not make the boy - Cameron, apparently - lock up?
The boy gnawed his lip again - earning him another flick from House - and shook his head. "No, sir," he whispered. House saw him try to pinch himself with his bandaged hands and let the self-mutilation go for the time being.
"Kid, here's the deal. You have to tell me if he does hurt you. Come on, anything? Slaps, whacks upside the head at any given time, kick you, cut you?" House asked, becoming agitated more and more. Cameron shook his head rapidly and backed away, afraid of the doctor being upset with him. He knew that his father wouldn't be happy with him if he bothered an important person. His heart monitors went off and House shrunk back, irritated at himself for giving the kid a panic attack. Soon after, his fellows came rushing in as all their pagers had gone off due to the monitors.
"Kutner, you're in charge. Sorry Foreman - had to pick a different master race this time. Get some information out of the kid. You other three, out," House instructed, glaring at his ducklings the whole time. When they loitered, House sharply yelled, "Out!" They complied quickly. Kutner was working on calming the boy down, obviously understanding what had happened. Unbeknownst to the older doctor, he had also paged Wilson to check on House because he was a little too wound up as well. Within moments, Wilson was down at the child's room, grateful to have an excuse to see his friend. "House?" he asked, seeing his friend standing behind the door as he watched Kutner attempting to soothe the child, but making slow progress.
House caught Wilson out of the corner of his eye as he came close to the room and jerked his head sharply towards him. "What do you want?" he spat out.
"House, come on. You have to come talk to me. Please," the oncologist pleaded, and saw Kutner trying to reassure who he assumed was House's patient. "House?"
"Nope, I think I'm gonna stay right here, actually," the diagnostician smarted as if he were a moody teenager. Cameron, sensing the tension in the room, started becoming more agitated again.
"House, for God's sake, at least argue with me in a setting where you're not going to stress to death a sick kid. He doesn't need it and neither do you."
The blue-eyed diagnostician glared at the other three occupants of the room and staggered out. Damn, his leg hurt. Stopping just as he re-entered the main hallway of this floor, House turned to Wilson. "Here to apologize for telling Mommy about my Daddy Issues?"
Wilson's face burned in shame, but what other choice did he have? "You've got to talk to someone about this, House! You'd be happier. Neither of us are judging you for it... it's nothing to be ashamed of. Why are you?"
"Because it is something to be ashamed of! Because if I let it slip, I'm getting an ice bath and that god damned horse whip reserved for only special punishments. Because I'll be in trouble. For fuck sakes, it is something to be ashamed of." House screamed at Wilson in his head.
"I'm not, you asshole. I'm not ashamed of it, I'm over it!" House retorted.
"Oh, you clearly have no issues to work through! Let's not mind the sheen of sweat on your face and the tremble in your words as you talk about it, not mind the flashbacks you had when I had to pull your drunken ass into my car and to the hospital, and not even mind your panic attack in the clinic when I pulled up your shirt!" Wilson argued back, not caring about the scene he was sure to be making.
House sighed and rubbed his face. "I'm over it!" He reiterated, weaker this time. "I'm just trying to help the kid I know is dealing with the same bullshit!"
In that moment, both House and Wilson realized that House did have a heart, even if he didn't want to admit it. "House, let your team handle it. Hell, let Kutner handle it for now. Report the suspected abuse to social services and sit back. He's not ready to connect yet with even anyone who's open about it, much less you. Kutner's great with him. Just look-" Wilson gestured towards the glass window, where he could see the Indian doctor was getting through to Cameron- "Don't put yourself into overdrive," the brown-eyed man concluded.
"I'm not just going to sit back while a five-year-old's kidneys fail and you idiots try to 'connect' with him!" House argued back sarcastically. God damn it, he wouldn't say it, but he wanted the boy to end up alright.
"House, if you don't call social services then stop working right now, I will page Cuddy and we can all discuss your Daddy issues, she can decide you're not being objective and then take over the case herself, and you won't have solved the case," Wilson threatened, knowing his friend would have to give in.
"Whatever," the older man responded, then paged Thirteen to report suspected abuse. He turned away, popped a Vicodin, then left back towards his office to think.
A/N: I honestly did not want to stop here... I've been writing for four days and had the toughest time getting into a groove, and I didn't want to stretch this chapter too far. Anyway, I hope I didn't get too OOC with House trying to talk to the patient here... I love the idea of them forming at least a mutual understanding and respect, but we're not there yet. Meanwhile, I love Kutner around child patients, so I'm definitely using that for this story while House is trying to work through his own issues and help the boy. And God, please don't hate this story just for how I'm making Cameron's illness run - I'm trying so hard to make it realistic, but it's a lot of research and not many symptoms to present for the illness I picked out for the story. I'm trying!
Oh, and do you guys think I should include the scene with Kutner trying to ask the kid if his Dad abuses him in the next chapter, or should I bring up the findings quickly in a DDx? I know I use a lot of dialogue, that's just how I write.
Anywhooo, it's currently July 16, 10:25 PM here... just saying, my fourteenth birthday is in an hour and thirty-five minutes when July 17 commences (which is probably when this will be read)... reviews, especially long ones, make great birthday presents ;)
Thanks!