Disclaimer: Still don't own anything
A/N: It was not supposed to take four months to finish this story. I feel like my excuses (school, sports, Driver's Ed, dance, parents divorcing) don't even count as being valid. Thus, I'm sorry for my over extended break from Scars. Also, before I continue, I want to address a review I received before any suspicions arise. "Guest," I did center this story around abuse, but not because I have any first-hand experience with it. I chose it as my topic because I've always liked 'darker' subjects and "One Day, One Room" pulled me into this subject specifically two years ago when I was at the young and impressionable age of twelve. Also, as sadistic and awful and weird as it may sound, I like the Fanfictions centered around abuse. I felt as if I'd read them all and wanted to add my own. If anybody knows of any good ones with this topic (especially with House or Chase as the main characters,) let me know.
Without further ado... the conclusion to "Scars."
"House, somebody would like to see you," Lisa Cuddy's stern voice and a squeaky, empty wheelchair slid into his room, awakening him from his induced sleep. After he had had a panic attack watching Wilson lecture him in his room, his best friend had given him a sedative to calm him down and prevent him from injuring himself.
"Prostitute?" House responded hopefully. Cuddy's irritated face told him that the answer to that question was no, but House laughed anyway. It was a good guess. "Where's Wilson?" he asked, hoping he hadn't run away. House vaguely remembered imagining Wilson as his father and watching the typically mild-mannered man beat the crap out of his thirty-five-years-younger self. He cringed at the thought and pulled his cheap hospital blanket tighter around himself.
"Ran screaming from you. Then again, who wouldn't?" Cuddy attempted to joke lightly with her best doctor, but nothing came from him but a cold glare.
"Very funny, Cuddles. Glad that I can't forget, years and years after I was originally told, that no one will ever love me and I will always be alone," the injured diagnostician directly quoted his father.
Cuddy was surprised that House willingly brought up anything, however small, about his father. She did feel bad that she'd hit a sore spot of House's, but maybe it was just the thing to do. Sympathy and reassurance didn't work on the hard man that she knew as House.
"You're not alone. If you keep being a difficult asshole in general, though, you will be soon. Wouldn't you hate it if your father ended up being right?" the Dean of Medicine prodded at her subordinate, hoping for a bigger explosion of a reaction.
Sitting up quickly in his bed and drawing his left leg up to his chest, House contemplated the thought of his father proving him right. The man was dead and still torturing his fake son. Nothing even a famous, world-renowned doctor could do would stop his father from haunting him without even being a ghost. House knew this, he knew the memories would always plague him and would always stop him from forming normal human relationships. But, one thing he couldn't stand, and Cuddy knew he couldn't stand, was his father being right. He'd fought against what he'd been told in between slaps and spits to the face and he had done something for other people, he had amounted to something, and he had become a man.
None of that meant anything, though, if he ended up alone. It meant nothing if Wilson had left and Cuddy didn't care in the slightest bit anymore and even if his team ditched him because they couldn't stand him anymore.
Cuddy sensed he was in deep thought, as he usually was. If only he would voice those thoughts from his brilliant and twisted mind, someone could understand what he dealt with. She didn't, and she was around him far more than she should be for her own well-being.
Deciding to break House from his thoughts as his breathing rate increased, Cuddy said, more softly, "Wilson's just in his office. He had an appointment with a patient and couldn't stay to be here when you woke up. He gave you a sedative after your panic attack, said you started yelling incomprehensible things about a space portal and something red and a tree. He was afraid you'd hurt him or yourself so he thought it best to stop what he was doing and take care of you."
The diagnostician nodded and accepted the explanation. Cuddy sighed and reminded her patient, "House, somebody would like to see you," then gestured to the wheelchair waiting for him by rolling it back and forth to accentuate its obnoxious squealing noise.
"I can walk," he insisted, preparing to roll out of the hospital bed over his left leg to hopefully land softly.
"House, I'm helping you get your ass into this wheelchair. Argue with me, I dare you," she said sternly.
Deciding it was easier and he was too tired to fight it, House leaned forward and dropped slowly, slowly over the edge of the bed as Cuddy pulled the damned wheelchair up behind him. Once there, the dark-brunette woman used House's shoulders to pivot him around and into the wheelchair quickly. House dropped into it with a groan and clutched his leg with his right arm and his head with his left. After a moment of adjustment, he released the breath he had been holding and leaned back. "Who am I seeing?" he asked, finally, then added, "is the kid okay?"
"You'll find out," Cuddy responded, then proceeded to wheel him out of his room and down the hall.
[Line Break]
"Is the doctor with the cane coming?" Cameron inquired of his Indian doctor. The girl doctor and the Indian doctor had been really nice to him that day, especially compared to the big nose doctor and the black doctor, but they weren't telling him what he wanted to know and little Cameron didn't know if they were capable of it. The five-year-old hoped that he hadn't sounded rude in his question, and flinched away when Kutner turned to look at him suddenly.
Kutner and Thirteen both saw. Kutner took a step back immediately, putting his hands up so he didn't scare his patient. Giving each other concerned looks, Kutner and Thirteen realized House may have been right about abuse if he responded in such a way to a simple look.
"Yeah, see, that doctor sometimes takes awhile to do things. He might be hard to make do something or he gets-" Kutner trailed off, looking for the right word to say. Thirteen understood and picked up for him "-hurt a lot and sometimes it hurts him just to move to get somewhere. He'll come, though, okay?"
Not quite understanding what they were saying, Cameron nodded slowly to appease them and bit his lip, grinding the soft flesh between his baby teeth and twisted his fingers painfully. It felt good for once. He mentally kicked himself for flinching at the nice doctor's movement, then decided to do it in real life once for good measure. The skinny child picked up his small right foot and crashed the heel into his left shin, then did it again, just how his Father did it to him when he was angry. He found quickly that if he did it over and over again in the same spot, it hurt more, and continued on kicking while his female doctor left without looking at him and the male was looking at something else.
After several minutes of the same activity, a wheelchair being pushed by a beautiful woman rolled into his room. This caught the attention of the other doctor who had been present and quickly left.
Cameron was having a hard time remembering who the lady pushing the wheelchair might have been. She looked like an older version of his kindergarten teacher and he wondered if his teacher had missed him while he was in the hospital. He missed her.
Turning his attention to the inhabitant of the wheelchair, Cameron tried to place where he'd have seen another patient who had to visit him in the hospital.
The diagnostician could sense the child's confusion and held up the cane that had been lying across his lap. When his young patient nodded and seemed to understand, House rolled himself forward and motioned for Cuddy to leave, who complied reluctantly. Neither child abuse victim knew how to start whatever conversation they were supposed to be having, so House decided to be mature enough to talk to a five-year-old. "You summoned me?" he looked curiously at the curly-haired kid in his oversized gown.
"Uh, yeah, I just wanted to know if you could tell me something. No one else is telling me," Cameron answered nervously, hoping the man would stick around for a couple of minutes.
"Shoot."
"Am I dying?"
"Did anybody tell you what you have? Or what it means? If they did, kiddo, I'm disappointed you didn't figure it out. You're a smart kid."
"Nobody would say anything with me or my dad there, just got quiet," Cameron whispered. The doctor, probably the smartest man he'd ever met, thought he was stupid. Great.
"Well, Cam, do you want me to make you feel better with a lie or give you a scar that's going to hurt forever with the truth? House asked, giving the kid two clear-cut options that made it easy for him to pick.
"Truth," the child answered without hesitation.
The cold diagnostician sighed and let himself take a moment to formulate the proper response.
"We are all dying. It's a fact," House started. Cameron nodded and kicked himself again. His doctor noticed and let it go until it escalated. "Everyone, even if they never go to the hospital or get sick or hurt once, will die. We may go in different ways. Some people go before they're born, some people die as babies because their mothers couldn't take proper care of them, some people die because they get terrible diseases, some people die because they're killed by another person who will also die eventually, some people die because they're just too old. Everybody dies, so to ask me if you're dying is a dumb question. You are not dumb, your question was. However, I understand what you mean. The disease you have is a very scary one. It will ultimately be the cause of your death if something else doesn't take you first. What it does is makes your kidneys stop working and makes you hurt yourself. It's part of the reason why you always bite and kick and hit yourself. Your father should have noticed something was wrong when he changed your diapers as a baby, but the asshole never paid enough to attention to notice the crystals in your diaper. Anyway, we cannot get rid of the disease. There are no treatments, no cures. We can make it so you hurt yourself less and your kidneys hold on longer, but not so you are free of the disease. Understand so far?" A nod in return. Surprisingly, the little boy was not crying.
"You are five years old right now. If you are very, very lucky, Cameron, you will die at about age twenty. It's not a long life, which is why you have to make it suck as least as possible. Even if you hold out from the disease and it doesn't take you for another fifteen years, there are no promises something else won't kill you first. Examples include you running out in front of a bus, or, say, your father takes a beating a little too far once and you're dead before you live?"
Cameron inhaled a big breath and shook his head. He'd die and this doctor was going to make him say that it might be his father's fault. He shook his head again and his curls whipped back and forth in front of his eyes. "No, it's not that bad, it's just a little tiny slap or a kick or having to sit in my closet for a little while. It's okay," he tried to reassure his doctor without lying anymore.
"Kiddo, that's called abuse. You wanna spend the last fifteen years of your life getting knocked around by your dad? Because you're worth more than that," House could sense some awful feeling rising up inside of him. Jesus Christ, this kid was going to suffer through everything House had and he had the chance to stop this. He had the chance to leave his father and go somewhere that people could take care of him and he was passing it up. Every time the young Gregory had to go to the doctor, he prayed that someone would realize that the fingerprint bruises littering his biceps and his scars covering his chest were suspicious and nobody ever did. Nobody helped him, and look where he ended up. Miserable. This kid, this damn kid, had the chance to escape and he was sitting there and refusing the opportunity. "You know," House raised his voice, not caring if he would scare his patient, "there are a lot of kids that draw the short straw that is getting hit by their parents. There are a lot of kids that never have anyone notice or care about their situation and they die or become miserable in adulthood because of it. Right here, right now, may be your only opportunity to end this, and you're not taking it. You will rely on a father that beats you until you die the crippling death that comes with this disease. Is that what you want?"
"No, but it's what I got," Cameron wanted to say more, but he couldn't.
Understanding what the kid sitting in front of him had meant, the intelligent man leaned back and rubbed his face. He looked at the small boy sitting in his hospital bed. The boy's eyes had taken on a wild, panicked look when House got louder, yet he stayed perfectly still, as if he knew movement resulted in being lashed out at. As much as he didn't want to admit it, it broke the cold doctor's heart to see a five-year-old take on the same characteristics that he once acquired and still possessed.
"Cameron, you have to take this chance while you have it. If you think that in the future you will be able to tell someone you are being abused, you won't. You don't have a mother there to notice, not that they ever do, abusive fathers are great at hiding things from their spouses. Anyways, you will be terrified of the punishment that your father will threaten to inflict on you if you say something, that is, if you're coherent enough to think to get away. At whatever point you decide enough is enough, your disease will probably prevent you from getting help. Take my advice. Not all doctors are smart, but I am," and House wheeled himself out of the room, leaving Cameron behind to think.
[Line Break]
House woke up in the chair in his office. The night before, he had refused to go back to his hospital bed after his discussion with his young patient and crashed there, deciding to deal with the consequences of pain in the morning. Sure enough, his leg hurt like a bitch and the doctor pulled up his hospital gown to admire the crevice in his leg. It was amazing how a dent could bring him so much pain. The thing was ugly and he hated looking at it for long, but today, House rubbed his hand over top of it slowly and stared for some time before deciding this was his ugliest scar. No matter how awful it was to look at, he was glad that he at least earned the scar if he had to have the pain. His scars reminded him that the past was real.
Coming to the conclusion shortly after that he needed to go see his patient because he could, not because another person told him to, House stepped up quickly onto his left leg and put his right one down swiftly and balanced his weight. He popped a Vicodin and his leg hissed, but he pulled his extra clothes out of his backpack and painfully changed, grabbed his cane from the wheelchair, and pushed himself out the door, down the hall, and into his patient's room. He was greeted with the sight of Cameron's father sporting a black eye and looking a little rough while packing up the kid's room while Taub and Thirteen disconnected Cameron's IV and helped dress him.
"Cameron's checking out," Thirteen gave a faint smile, "can't do anything for him here until he has to come back to be monitored, so he's going home. CPS evaluated the case and decided there was no reason for him to be removed from his home."
House nodded. Truth be told, he didn't want his mini-me to leave, but he couldn't help that. He had to go eventually; his hospital stay had died, as all things do. "Wrap his hands well, and someone needs to be found to redo his bandages often and to respond if he begins self-mutilating in an attack," the attending said. "Got it, asshat?" House bit at Cameron's father who had been busy with a text while throwing a stuffed animal his son had received in a bag. He glared at House but ignored him eventually.
[Line Break]
Moments later, Taub had finished wrapping Cameron's hands and the spot where his leg was most recently bruised from his kicking. Foreman and Kutner had joined the rest of the team and were saying goodbyes to Cameron. His father had rolled his eyes and left to sign discharge papers to speed up the process. Each member of House's team strode up to Cameron and gave him a hug, telling him to take care of himself and that even though it would be hard, to please stop hurting himself for them. The better he was at stopping himself from doing it, the longer he would hold out against Lesch-Nyhan. Once all the fellows had left, it was just House with Cameron.
"This is it, kiddo, last chance. Do you want help?" House asked, hoping he would accept. The diagnostician, however, did understand the child's position and he was mature and intelligent beyond his years. It was his choice.
"I like who I am. I don't think it's fair that I am who I am. It might not be fair that I don't have my mom anymore or that my dad doesn't really like me or that I'll die soon. But I like it. I like every bruise and bite mark and scar on my body because you know from them that I've had to do some things that were hard. I like that I look sad sometimes because then you know that I'm able to feel when something hurts," the five-year-old boy said.
House nodded. Cameron's awful father returned and told him it was time to go and that they had things to do. He hit himself upside the head out of stress and nodded. Having regained some of his strength after he was given medication for his nausea to be able to eat, Cameron lowered himself off of the bed and wandered over to House. He looked up at him and wrapped his skinny arms around the doctor's waist and squeezed when the man who saved his life put a hand on the small back in an awkward response. "Thank you, Dr. House, for doing everything you could," he smiled and walked over to his dad and they began to exit.
House leaned back onto what had been Cameron's hospital bed and watched them leave the room. Wilson was outside by the station and mouthed to House, "you okay?" He ignored his best friend and looked on through the glass doors while the strongest, most- resilient, most-intelligent five-year-old he'd ever met grabbed his dad's hand when they approached the elevator.
The door beeped open and the father-son duo entered and turned around to face their doctor. Cameron gave a small wave followed by a slight upturning of the corners of his lips, and House responded with a quick nod of mutual understanding between the two.
Another scar etched its way onto House's heart. Unbeknownst to House, the same thing happened to Cameron when the door slid shut. He was gone.
A/N: Well... Did anyone like it?
Let me know in a review if I should continue to write, either in a different story or maybe a multi-chapter sequel or one-shot epilogue. Feel free to PM or drop in a review any questions you may have regarding the story.
Thank you so much to anyone who has read, reviewed, favorited, or followed this story. I cannot express my appreciation to you enough.