Physician, Heal Thyself
Ch. 7
"Hey," Cuddy said.
"Hey," House replied, looking up to see her standing in the doorway of his office. He set aside the medical journal he was reading. "What brings the Dean of Medicine to visit? Another booty call?"
She walked over and dropped a brochure on his desk, and bit her lip anxiously as he picked it up to read it.
"Physiotherapy," he said, and put it down. "Cuddy, I told you, I don't need—"
"House, listen to me," Cuddy interrupted. "I am very happy that you're rehabilitating your leg muscle. But you know what's going to happen if you do this on your own. You're going to be in an immense amount of pain, and you're going to want to quit. You need a structured regimen if you want to succeed."
House gave her a nod. "Thanks for the speech," he said, "but I want to do this on my own."
"You're afraid of failure," Cuddy realized. "Or rather, you're afraid of people's knowledge of your failure. You don't want to be in a program because if you fail, then people will know about it. You didn't even want to tell me because if only you knew about it, at least it'll spare you the humiliation."
House said nothing.
"Well you know what?" Cuddy said, pushing the brochure in front of him. "People knowing about it is a good thing, because it'll give you the pressure to succeed. I knew you were going to be like this, so I already signed you up," she said with a smug smile.
House stared at her. "You evil, controlling woman," he exclaimed.
She smiled. "I thought you liked that about me."
"Only in bed," House said.
As Cuddy turned to leave, House said quietly, "You know I don't…always live up to expectations."
She turned to face him. He was looking up at her, almost pleadingly. She walked over around the desk to stand in front of him. "I don't have expectations, Greg," she said softly. "I don't want to change you. I just want us to—work together—so you can have what you've always wanted. But I will always accept you the way you are," she said, kissing him on the cheek.
When she pulled away, House grabbed her wrist. Cuddy supposed she should've been warned by the way his eyes glinted mischievously. With a yank of her wrist, he landed her solidly in his lap. Cuddy squealed as she found herself inches from House's face, a squeal that was swallowed as he leaned in.
"You better hope nobody walks in," he whispered as he captured her lips with his.
--
Wilson glanced up as House walked in, and pretended to blink in astonishment. "Wow. House in my office? Now that's a sight I haven't seen in more than a month."
"I knew you missed me, Jimmy," House grinned, sitting down in the chair in front of Wilson's desk.
A heavy silence suddenly descended as they met each others' eyes, and both remembered the last time House was in this office. The dark shadow of Mayfield, it seemed, would always loom over them.
"I moved in with Cuddy," House said, breaking the silence.
"Wow," Wilson spluttered. "That…was fast."
"Too fast?" House asked reflectively.
Wilson thought for a while. "No, I don't think so. You guys have been arguing for twenty years. That is a solid basis for a relationship right there. "
"One you wished you had with all your ex-wives, I'm sure," House said.
Wilson smiled. "Yeah…"
"Are you still seeing that nurse from the psychiatric hospital?" House asked suddenly.
"No, I'm not," Wilson said. "And I'm surprised you didn't ask me about it when you were there. I was half-expecting you to."
"I had other things on my plate then," House said pointedly.
"Right."
"But now…" House said cheerfully, "I had nothing better to do than phone her up and have a little chat."
"What?" Wilson cried. He supposed he should be used to House's invasion of privacy by now, but this…was ridiculous. "House, I broke up with her! Why on earth would you want to talk to her?"
"Your brother," House said bluntly.
That shut Wilson up. He looked at House with widened eyes.
"He doesn't have schizophrenia," House said.
"What are you talking about?" Wilson said. "Of course he does…"
"He has symptoms of schizophrenia," House said, deadly serious now. "Which medication, as you told me, did little to help. I was reading a medical journal, and it talked about a case in Japan where a man diagnosed with schizophrenia actually had congenital lesions on his brain."
"Oh my god…" Wilson whispered.
"And of course, your brother was diagnosed in the early eighties, when MRI was available but still not widely used, especially for psychological disorders. So of course, nobody thought to look at his brain…and afterwards people just assumed he had the usual fluid-filled cavities of a normal schizophrenic."
Wilson couldn't speak. He hardly believed what he was hearing.
"I phoned up your ex-girlfriend…said you wanted a full workup of your brother's brain. Apparently the rumors are true, girls still love you even when you break up with them," he smirked at Wilson.
"What did you find?" Wilson asked, knowing the answer.
"Your brother," House said, whipping out MRI images and laying them on the desk, "has bilateral temporal arachnoid cysts, and a left temporal arachnoid cyst among others. He was born with them."
Wilson moved his fingers over the spots on the MRI of his brother's brain, speechless. After a long while, he looked up at House with hopeful eyes. "So if we operate…"
"It'll be a risky procedure," House said, standing up. "But yes. He could be a normal, functioning human being again."
Wilson sat, overwhelmed with the thought that he'd finally have his brother back. "Thank you," he said to House with all the feeling he could muster.
"Oh no problem, Jimmy," House held a hand to his heart. "I've seen the light, remember?" He said, in an imitation of a religious convert. "I've regained my life, it is my duty to help others regain theirs and...crap like that."
Wilson smiled. "Right. You just wanted to prove others wrong, as usual."
House turned at the door and shrugged. "Yeah, pretty much. Good luck, Wilson," he said and left.
Wilson sat there with the MRI images, astonished at House's act of kindness, and reflected that putting up with his crap for this many years was worth this moment.