A little ficlet that just wouldn't leave me. Spoilers all the way through to 3x03. Implied spoilers for the Tritter arc.
Incongruity
Every moment, every person, everywhere, they define you by the leg. You try, futilely to snap at them, get them to look beyond your disability, to your brilliance, but then you just become the bastard with the bum leg.
CHASE: Hey!
CAMERON: You look...
FOREMAN: ... healthy!
HOUSE: Quad with no broken neck, struck me as odd.
CAMERON: Uhhh, you can take a whole two minutes to ease into being back.
HOUSE: Take the whole month to ease back. But eight weeks is the maximum rehab
time for a gunshot wound to the stomach and neck, so... Go!
You hate the way they looked at you when you came back after the ketamine treatment. You hate the way they still stare at you now that the cane is back. Are you really nothing more to them than the leg?
FOREMAN: So, the pain's returned?
HOUSE: There was no pain. He was unconscious, I'm guessing, because he wasn't able to breathe.
CAMERON: We're talking about you.
HOUSE: Obviously. I'm obviously not. What is it with you people? I don't use the cane, you're shocked. I use the cane...
CAMERON: We're just concerned...
HOUSE: About the wrong person.
Your minions have still never gotten used to it. You push them so hard, willing for them to push back, but you know they won't. They could never hurt their boss.
Bullshit. This has nothing to do with you being their boss. They would never be caught dead being the one who finally snapped on the cripple.
HOUSE: Why are we having this discussion? Want to hear me thank you again? Thank you, Dr. Cuddy. Not just for removing the bullet, but thank you for putting me in a ketamine-induced coma and changing my life.
Even Cuddy has her moments when she can only look at you with guilt on her face. You see it every time she finally caves and says yes, every time guilt outweighs logic. She can't forget, because if she did, then she would not be doing her job. She keeps you around as a reminder of her greatest folly. She will never forget…
HOUSE: Checked it through.
STACY: Oh, that's right. I forgot it was hard for you to carry and walk. I booked a room at the airport hotel when I saw about the weather; it was the last one available. Your leg can't handle a night on a cot.
Just like Stacy. And that was how you knew things with Stacy wouldn't work. Because she was never going to get used to you. Not to the way you are now. You wanted so desperately to forgive her, but you couldn't do that until she finally forgave herself...
HOUSE: Infection throwing clots. You're an idiot! …Except you're not an idiot. And she's holding a file for a 26-year old female. What do you really have for me?
But Wilson, he never seems to care. He doesn't fixate, he just deals. The way you are has nothing to do with the leg. It never has. You were always just House.
WILSON: The Vicodin dulled it. In the sober light of day, I'm a buzzkill.
He's never slowed his pace when you walk the halls; he's never tried to help you when you didn't need it. He's never acted like anything at all has changed.
WILSON: And everything's the leg? Nothing's the pills? They haven't done a thing to you?
HOUSE: They let me do my job, and they take away my pain.
No, he doesn't care about the leg. But he does care about the addiction...and that's why everything has begun to fall apart. The rest of them won't turn you in, because they justify the pills for the pain. But he doesn't care about the leg...
Ironic that the very reason that makes you love him is the very same reason that makes you hate him…