Hey, everyone! Thank you so much for reading it and for the kind reviews.
A big special thanks to Jules Griffith, who beta the chapter and helped me out with a few ideas. =)
A/N: I've been trying to stay in character with this fic. I feel writing from the characters point of view gives me more freedom to express what I think they feel, more then what they are likely or not to say and do. And I think what we feel and don't express is the most interesting part. But I always see myself verging on getting out of character. I'd love your thoughts on the subject.
House will be the one telling the story now.
It was my third day inside Mayfield Psychiatric Hospital and I hated it. I became a doctor so that I'd never have to be a patient; I would control life. But here I was, all of it taken away from me, in the worst place I could possibly be - a psychiatric hospital.
The only thing I had left was a plain, wooden cane that barely eased the pain.
I had my drinking, playing music, solving puzzles, making Cuddy miserable, and playing pranks on Wilson.
I had my apartment, my hiding place. Most of the time it was a mess with empty glasses all over the place, no food and painkillers stashed everywhere. An image of myself.
At first, I had an extra prescription or two, just for the really bad pain days. As time passed by, the fear of being in more pain than I could bare turned precaution into obsession, turned a bottle of whiskey and one of vicodin into a full liquor cabinet and countless bottles of painkillers, even morphine, all hidden, in a vain attempt to deny what was happening. (By the way, I hated when people said that.)
I was very well aware of what was going on.
Perfectly conscious of what I was turning into.
It was never about denial.
Now, the only cane I have left is the wooden one; but as it turns out, was the one I needed the least.
Yet, I wasn't completely alone. I had a blonde bitch who never left my side. These last couple of days when reality was taken away from me (I can't even say it was the other way around), my only contact with the outside world was when it was time to take my meds. Of course, they were lowering the dosage, and it was barely enough.
No relief came from it.
The pain in my leg was almost non-existent though. I was still in a numb state of mind, not quite sure of what was real or not. The only thing I knew for sure was that this was a really strange environment. When everything feels strange to you, you start looking for familiar things. The only familiar thing I had there was my body and pain. I was almost longing for the excruciating pain in my leg. No pain, no relief. Just angst.
I thrived on relief. Pain, pills, more pain, more pills was a dynamic my body (and my mind) knew all too well. Along with the leg pain, the painkillers took away all other kinds of feelings, denied my condition, and hid my self-destructiveness for a few moments.
This is exactly why I have always been scared to detox. No pain, no relief.
The truth was I wanted to be pain free, but it had been so long that I had no recollection of what was life without pain. I wanted to enjoy life, but life for me was seeking relief. My pain, my meds, my relief, my control. I never needed anything or anyone else. Pain and pleasure reminded me that I was alive every single day of my life.
That's what was going on. I was being tormented by Amber and her suicidal ideas that I'd never leave this place alive. Sometimes I drifted off to a hiding place inside of my mind, looking for familiar things, trying not to listen to her. That's when flashes of the latest events often replayed inside my head.
As I brushed my teeth that night, I saw a lipstick stain on my cheek. Again. I tried to wash it off. Soap, shampoo, fingers, nails scratching it. Nothing helped. I punched the mirror. My hand bled, the stain disappeared.
Relief.
I felt a little better. Endorphins bought me a couple of minutes of sanity.
Until the next time. The hallucinations were getting worse by the minute.
When I came back into the bedroom, Amber was there lecturing again.
"Oh, God, you're back," I said, tired of looking at her.
"Oh, I see what you did there. You figure since you like to be called God, I'd like it too. That's very clever," she said mocking me.
"Jesus…"
"Actually, I prefer God. And you know, you'd be less tormented if you tried to mingle. Maybe you'll find a new friend. Where better to find a highly neurotic person to annoy?"
"Why would I want another crazy friend? I have you," I told her with a fake smile.
"Yeah, I'm the one who just broke a mirror and cut myself. I'm clearly the one with problems here…"
"Stop talking about yourself as if you were not me!" I yelled.
"Okay. I'm you. I acknowledge that. From now on, I'll do everything you do. Time for bed?" She said got in the bed, under my sheets.
I don't know what kind of sick game my subconscious was trying to play. All I know is, that night, I slept in the woman's arms. It felt good. I knew it wasn't real, but that didn't matter at the time. I felt like an unprotected child, and I had spent my whole life working to avoid that.
The next thing I remember was waking up really late and sexually charged to a knock on the door.
I woke up (did I?) a little scared and not knowing what was going on. I was in a hospital. And… the doors probably didn't lock. And I was wearing a shirt and pajama pants and… my hand was hurt and… Cuddy was standing at the door?
"Cuddy? What are you doing here?"
"I came to talk to you," she said in a soft tone.
"I don't want to see you. You have a hospital to run." I said pushing the covers up, really embarrassed that she was seeing me like this.
"It's Sunday."
"Then you have a daughter to take care of."
"I brought her with me."
"Then you shouldn't leave her alone. This place is full of loonies, you know?"
"She's not alone and I'm not going anywhere."
"Amber is not here, which can only mean…"
"Shut up and listen to me."
"No! Stop it! It's bad enough I have to spend twenty-four hours suffering inside this place. You… you mess with my head! You were there to take care of me and then you weren't. I can't be near you. I don't want you worrying about me; I don't want you taking care of me."
Did I really say those things? Truth was I thought she was a dream.
"I'm not here to take care of you. If I though I could do that, I'd have done it years ago. I just came to give you something."
"Don't bother. I don't even know if you're really here. And that means either two things: if you are real and you have something to tell me, I'll forget it soon enough. And if you are not, if you are just my subconscious trying to tell me another lie, then…"
"It wasn't a lie. You know it wasn't a lie!"
"See, you are doing it again. Being compassionate and maternal and… God, get out of my head!" I was screaming. Turned my face away from hers and faced the window in the bedroom.
"I'm not in your head! If I were, I wouldn't be bringing you this." And with that, she took a piece of paper from her pocket and shoved it in my face.
"What… what is…?"
"You don't know I know you know about this letter. Therefore, I can't be a hallucination."
"What kind of sick twisted logic is that?"
"Your logic, House. Your logic. The same logic that made you hallucinate about something that was already on your mind. A secret you already knew. Though I have got to say, I have no idea how…"
"How… how much do you know?" I was hiding my face from her. I felt naked before her eyes. It was okay telling her I had hallucinated about us having sex, but her knowing about her confession hours before was unbearable to me. I just didn't know what to do with it.
"That you heard me confess that I had audited your endocrinology class and that I thought you were an interesting lunatic."
"Wilson…"
"You knew he would tell me." Truth was I was too numb during the journey to Mayfield to think about what Wilson might do with that information.
"House, listen to me and remember those words. It's only interesting being a lunatic out there. In here it's not. It's just pain and pills and therapy. You need to get well. I need… we all need you back home."
I didn't say anything. We spent what felt like hours staring at each other.
"You said you came to tell me something. Was that it? You wanted to tell me you know about my fantasies and are ready to use it against me next time you need something done at the hospital?"
"God, you are crazy!"
"That's kind of why I'm here, isn't it?"
"That's not what I meant, I'm sorry, I…"
"But it's what you are thinking, right? You must be drowning in guilt to have driven all the way over here and you sure must pity..."
"This is not about pity."
"Of course it is. Or are you going to tell me it is about hope and faith? You think this place is going to put me in line, make me a better man? Maybe one suitable for the dean of medicine and…" I was being mean to her on purpose. I wanted her out of there.
That's when I felt it. Her hand… her soft hand… slapping my cheek with all the strength she had.
"That was to show you I don't pity you one bit. I came here to do something I should have done decades ago. Give you this letter. It's yours. Read it, keep it, toss it in the trash, make a paper plane, burn it, do whatever you want. But know that it belongs to you. And if I were you, I'd think twice before forgetting about the person who deserved to have read this letter all those years ago. I know you miss him somehow. I know I do. I'm not going to use anything against you. You are free and clear. But know that I'll be back in my office waiting for you to barge in and make me pretend to regret the day I hired you. I'll be waiting for you to call me at three in the morning pretending to be asking for permission to do a brain biopsy. I'll be waiting for you to come back and pretend to avoid me, pretend to hate me. I promise you'll find me pretending to be only your boss."
And she started stepping back slowly, eyes locked with mine. I couldn't tell if she was waiting for me to say or do something or if she just didn't want to leave. My mind was racing. I could still hear voices telling me to stop her, telling me to send her away. Flashes of her in bed with me, what she had said and done.
So I watched her leave, as I had done many times before, always with the feeling of not having had enough of her. That had become another addiction, watching Cuddy leave, watching her hips swaying telling me so long and never goodbye. That scene right there was the thing most close to home I had experienced inside that hospital and the tight red skirt she was wearing… I knew she put it on thinking, well, knowing it would make me feel better.
A few minutes later, I left the letter on the bed and went to the bathroom to find an image of myself reflecting on the broken mirror. A face sliced in what looked like puzzle pieces and a red stain on my cheek. That time it wasn't a lipstick one, neither it was a hallucination. It was just… relief.
For a brief moment.
A reminder of what I had to fight for in there. A reminder that this would be the most difficult puzzle I'd ever had to solve. If I couldn't do it, I wouldn't just be failing, I'd be dead.
I went back to the window just in time to see Cuddy's car leaving. I couldn't even begin to try to explain what I was feeling at the time. It had all been too much. Of course I didn't have much time to try and figure anything out, since Amber started singing…
"Ops, I did it again…"
