Not wrong

Walter Cofield woke up with a start. Or at least that was his initial assumption. When he looked around he started to suspect that he was just dreaming of waking up. He was in his own bedroom, but somehow there was an ethereal quality to his surroundings; also there was no light but he could see everything. It was like the darkness had become visible. Near his bed he could see the comfortable chair he sometimes read in before going to bed – someone was sitting in it: an old man, bent and somewhat shrivelled but still dignified and the wisdom of age – possibly even ages – was in his eyes.

"What…?" Cofield didn't quite know what he was supposed to say, if anything.

"Did you think that after your decision you would sleep well?" The old man asked. "And without dreams?"

"My decision was not wrong," Cofield defended.

"As opposed to 'right' you mean?" was the question.

"Who are you?" Cofield demanded. "And what do you know about the hearing."

"I'm Geras," the man introduced himself. "And I know everything you know – this is your dream, after all."

"Geras?" Cofield frowned. "Old Age?"

"Indeed," Geras nodded. "I ought to be accompanied with Wisdom, but she had to do her hair." His eyes twinkled with mischief causing Cofield to frown in confusion. No way did this come from his subconscious. Geras' smile just widened.

"My decision was justified," Cofield got back to the point. "Dr Chase will walk and the teacher will be fine. Even his wife was fine with House in the end."

"But those things happened after you had already made up your mind about House and his methods," Geras observed. "The almost widow – wasn't that what House called her? – made you change your mind. I'm not saying you were wrong in your final decision, but I am wondering why you really made it."

"Are you questioning my motives," Cofield was indignant.

"House wondered why Foreman wanted his old mentor to judge his new mentor," Geras mused. "But I'm wondering why you agreed to?"

"Why would I need any other reason than that Eric Foreman asked me?" Cofield demanded.

"I'm sure you were happy to oblige a fellow doctor and a former student," Geras agreed effusively. "But I'm also quite sure you were more than eager to see the man who had supplanted you."

"I have no idea what you are talking about," Cofield huffed. "I was naturally curious to meet Dr House, he does have a reputation for both good and bad. He is an interesting person. But if you are suggesting that I'm jealous or something then you couldn't be more wrong. I'm proud of Foreman, that a former student of mine has become the dean of medicine of such a reputable hospital."

"But he is no longer known as your student," Geras pointed out. "Everyone remembers that he trained under House. And his influence has been much stronger. No student of yours would ever have been fired from New York Mercy for the reason Foreman was."

"House does seem to foster recklessness in his teams," Cofield coughed up. "But Eric saved the patient."

"But you still didn't approve of his actions," Geras ventured.

"Had he been wrong he would have killed her," Cofield replied. "There are reasons for protocols."

"But sometimes protocols kill," Geras stated. "And then, as a patient, you definitely hope that you have a doctor who can recognise when the protocol is a hindrance and not a help, and who has the guts to live up to his convictions."

"That way lays anarchy," Cofield warned. "We can't have doctors throwing away the book when they think they are so smart that they don't need it. The guidelines and protocols and proper procedures are in place for a reason. You don't use patients as guinea pigs; you don't practice medicine by following your gut; you need evidence, test results and images. You meet with the patient, get history and observe the symptoms yourself. House is unsafe! He thinks he is so smart that he can do anything he wants. Nobody is that smart and he is a bad example to the other doctors in the hospital who will think they, too, are so smart that they don't need to follow rules and safety protocols. He almost got Dr Chase killed!"

"If that is your honest opinion," Geras pondered. "Why is he not back in prison right now? Why did you rule it as nobody's fault?"

"I don't know," Cofield sighed. "I didn't want to jeopardise Eric's career. I was trying to find something, anything that could make House's method acceptable. I was up all night trying to figure out what I needed to do. House has been lucky; his success rate is phenomenal. But he creates chaos. And he teaches chaos to others, who are most likely never going to be as lucky as he is."

"So you had, with great regret, decided to destroy Foreman's career and send Dr House back in prison, when the correct diagnosis of his patient and his correct diagnosis of Dr Chase, gave you that one key fact that you could use to save your former student," Geras concluded. "You were there to judge Dr House, because you wanted to judge him. You wanted to find him flawed and you wanted to hold him up to Foreman as flawed and not worthy of his admiration. You were deliberately messing with Dr Chase's mind when you questioned him. You were trying to make him doubt House; maybe not his skills as a diagnostician – you could hardly do that, as Dr Chase could feel for himself that House had got it right again – but you wanted him to doubt House as a human being."

"House may be brilliant," Cofield accepted. "But he is a callous jerk who shouldn't be a doctor."

"Many of his former patients would disagree with that," Geras pointed out. "As would Dr Chase and Eric. You wanted to knock him down from his pedestal but you found that you couldn't. Because he wasn't on one. He was just right. His team knows him both as a doctor and as a human being, and they don't care if he doesn't care. They are there to care for the patient, he is there to figure out how to save them. You disliked him from the start because Eric values him more than he ever valued you and your conflict was not about his method; you had good reasons to find it unsafe and objectionable. You conflict was about your own emotions and motives: were you sending him back to prison because you truly believed he was a bad and dangerous doctor or were you sending him in as revenge for 'stealing' your student from you? You wanted to be Eric's 'hero' again, but you also wanted to be sure you weren't punishing House for the wrong reasons. So though you had found House's methods objectionable and unsafe and you had already decided his fate, you changed your mind at the last minute. Not because you believed your original decision was wrong, but because you weren't sure why you had decided that House was at fault."

"I believe in innocent until proven guilty," Cofield insisted.

"That was why you were asked to examine the case," Geras reminded him. "To prove innocence or guilt. You were satisfied with the proof and your conclusions until you actually had to pronounce the sentence."

"There was still some room for doubt," Cofield tried to claim.

"Dr Adams believed that it was her fault," Geras listed. "And Dr Taub stated that he was willing to put the blame on Dr Chase. Nobody blamed House. Except you."

"That was how the case presented itself to me," Cofield asserted. "He was in charge of the case; he is the first in line when things go wrong. He is the one who either makes or breaks the team. Of course he was the one who was under scrutiny."

"And yet you decided in his favour," Geras stressed. "And not because you were doing what you believed was right, but because you doubted yourself and your reasons."

"My judgement was not impaired," Colefield maintained. "My decision was not wrong."

"As opposed to right?" Geras asked again. "House called you a coward." Geras got up from the chair he had been sitting in. He looked Cofield in the eyes for a moment before he turned to leave. He went to the door and before he walked through it, he turned to look at Cofield again: "He was not wrong."