12.
The ride to the hospital passed in silence. With all the thoughts spinning through her brain, Cuddy could think of nothing to say.
Her own culpability in the events leading up to House's current fight for life arrested her voice just as assuredly as it did her heart.
And she was so angry at Wilson for letting House attempt to ride his motorcycle after being beaten by Lucas that she refrained from opening her mouth for fear of the venom that would come spewing out.
Guilt over the same line of thinking guaranteed Wilson's silence as well.
They arrived at the ER in record time and immediately sought out the head of the department so they could be updated on House's present condition.
Tests confirmed that House was bleeding internally. His fractured ribs had punctured his right lung and his right leg had been crushed to such an extent that the surgeon's recommendation was for immediate amputation.
Just as Cuddy and Wilson were vainly attempting to wrap their heads around this news, a scream, long and shattering, echoed down the hallway, clutching at their insides as it split their eardrums.
They turned to look at each other as they simultaneously recognized the voice that had initiated that scream. The hair on the back of their necks raised in sympathetic reaction to both the primitive nature and hopelessness inherent within that anguished cry. As one, the two friends ran down the hall in the direction of the sound.
House had been drifting in and out of consciousness. He tacitly knew that he hadn't made it home and that his body was now experiencing a level of pain that he'd never felt before.
The sheer rawness of his pain was the singular feature that let him know he was still tethered, however thinly, to this life.
Through the curtains of physical torture, House's medical mind began assessing the damages to his body. He guessed his broken ribs, courtesy of Lucas, had produced a pneumothorax when he collided with the pavement. He evaluated the level of injury to his limbs by moving first one arm and then the other. Though tender, they seemed relatively free from harm.
House lifted his left leg and wiggled his toes. The left was battered and bruised but all right. But when he tried to raise his right leg, he blacked out once more from sensory overload.
When he regained consciousness, he realized that what he was feeling now was not just the regular, day-to-day pain he'd grown accustomed to from his right leg. This pain was wholly different.
It had a sharper edge to it, a grinding, fierce sort of festering ache that left him feeling feverish and panting for air with every breath or minute movement of his body.
Further inquiry was cut short by an efficient medical staff that conveyed him down a long hallway to the operating theatre. House lay on the gurney, watching helplessly as the fluorescent lights suspended from the ceiling passed before his eyes like box cars on a speeding freight train. Each jolt of the gurney compounded his physical agony.
Once he had been wheeled into the surgical waiting area, he was left completely alone again as the doctors went to scrub in and the nurses made their necessary preparations.
House felt his isolation weigh heavy upon his chest. He felt it join the suffering of his physical self to further add to the cruelty of his ceaseless torment.
He wished he'd let Wilson drive him home. He wished he'd never gotten up that morning. He wished he'd never met or fell in love with Lisa Cuddy.
House fought valiantly against the hot tears that rose unbidden to his eyes at this last thought. The pain in his leg and his body could not hold a candle to the intense ache burning within his chest.
His heartbreak was so intimate, so devastating that it had taken on a life all its own. He was ravaged by it at the same moment he was defined through it. It was as if his hurt and loneliness were something tangible like a fist eternally clenching his still beating heart, choking the life from his body just as surely as it strangled the love from his heart.
He just could not comprehend how his heart could go on beating after it had been shattered into a million pieces. How did he continue to live when his wretched grief robbed the very breath from his lungs and stole the will to live from his mind and body?
The tears were flowing steadily from the corners of his eyes now. He thought about Cuddy, how he had turned to look at her one last time before he walked away forever. He remembered how she was a vision of loveliness all in white. And he innately knew that her image, along with the feeling of pressing his lips to hers, her body close to his own, would go with him, would perhaps be the last thing he saw and felt when he finally succumbed to the death that had already taken hold of his heart.
How many times would he have to die? When could he finally find release from all his pain?
The doctor's masked face swam into view. The voice behind the mask said, "Are you in pain?"
House's reply was simple and honest. "Always."
"We're almost ready for you. We'll be giving you anesthesia during the surgery so we'll forego the pain meds right now. Okay?"
House just blinked. But his mind responded, "Sadist."
"I've got to be honest with you," the doctor continued. "The damage to your right leg is quite extensive. Do you remember what happened?"
"I was kinda busy being unconscious." House looked up into the masked face. He frowned. "How bad?"
"Your right femur and the surrounding tissue sustained an acute crush injury. That, along with the existing damage to your thigh indicates the best course of action . . ."
"You're not taking my leg."
"Doctor House, there's too much damage. Even if we could save the leg, it's doubtful you'd be able to walk again. And even if you could, your ability to walk would be severely impaired. There's no reason . . ."
"You're not taking my leg," House said more loudly.
With a simple gesture, the doctor summoned several nurses who immediately appeared near the gurney and began to engage themselves in what House considered assorted, nefarious activities.
"You need to trust me doctor House. We'll do what's best . . ."
"For you!" House finished for him. At his outburst, one of the nurses grabbed his arm and started to place holding restraints around his wrist.
"No! Don't touch me!" House was frantic. "I don't want you butchers laying a finger on me!"
"Calm down doctor House. You're not doing yourself any good upsetting yourself this way."
"You're not taking my leg! Leave me alone!"
The surgeon nodded to one of the nurses who immediately retrieved a syringe from a nearby table.
House screamed. It was a scream of fury, of hopelessness, of helplessness and pain.
The nurse succeeded in puncturing his arm as House screamed again.
"No!"
He struggled vainly as his vision thickened and his arms and body started to feel exceedingly heavy.
As his eyes began to blink slower and slower, House saw the door to the outside hallway swing wide. Like the sun dawning over the edge of the horizon, something bright and shining floated toward him. He knew who it was even before the ethereal silhouette took physical shape.
When he saw her standing there, dressed in the same white gown as he'd seen her in an hour or more ago, that was when he knew, knew for certain. House realized he was dying.
And she had come to him now only so that he could say goodbye.
"House?"
Her voice sounded so steady, so sure, so filled with concern.
She was life. Her voice, filled with the warmth of the sun, called to him, called him back.
But a stronger voice beckoned to him as well. Darker, quieter, an unrelenting call that House knew came from inside himself, was himself.
He was death.
Still, he fought on.
"Please," he croaked wearily, "Please don't let them take my leg. Please . . . it's all I have left."
Cuddy swooped low edging closer to him as if she were listening to his words, as if she were really there and not just in his imagination.
"I won't let them amputate your leg House. I promise you." Her voice washed over him like a warm spring rain.
House let loose one short, bitter laugh.
"Why should I believe you? All you've ever done is lie to me."
Cuddy leaned back, the hurt registering on her face.
"No," she breathed.
"You never loved me. You lied every time you said you did." House's pain echoed in every word, was etched in every line in his face.
But then his features took on an entirely separate appearance. He looked placidly up, his cobalt gaze meeting her tear-filled eyes. His mood shifted dramatically. He no longer wanted to accuse or retaliate for his misery.
He no longer wished to fight, not with her, not with death.
House's face took on the look of acceptance.
He beseeched her with his eyes as he said, "Have mercy."
"What?" Cuddy forgot her tears as her shock registered in every cell of her body. She bent low once more to hear his whispered words.
"Mercy. Have mercy, I beg you. Let me . . . die."
"House, no!"
House felt his battle with unconsciousness begin to wane. The darker abyss yawned before him.
"Everything is pain, my life is pain. Only you. I loved you. You gave me solace. Now that's gone. Please have mercy. Let me die. Please."
Cuddy exhaled a sob as the tears ran streaming down her face. Just as House slowly closed his eyes, one of Cuddy's tears slid down her cheek and dropped from her chin. As she leaned forward to kiss his forehead, this single tear dripped down and landed on House's nose.
House opened his eyes again in wonder when he felt the tiny splash.
"You're really here? Is it really you?" he said, beginning to slur his words.
Cuddy smiled. "I'm here House. I'm here. I'll take care of you. I promise."
House couldn't keep his eyes open any longer. "Don't leave me. Don't leave me alone again in the dark. Cuddy . . ."
A slight smile tilted the corners of his mouth as he realized that her name would be the last word to ever pass his lips on this earth.