** Hello, readers!! Sorry for the tardy update, this upcoming week is performance week for me at school... 2 programs in 2 buildings. Oy. Anywho, I'm breaking my own rule... or maybe just bending it rather, to bring you the next chapter. What I have in the bag could TECHNICALLY be split into two chapters right now, though it may not be in the end. So, since it's been over a week at this point, that's good enough for me. For those of you on the Fox Forum, who's sad about the move?? I really hope we don't lose a bunch of posters. Make sure you check out the alternate site that some of the posters have put together... it works pretty similarly, and a lot of members are already doing some chatting over there. As always, thanks for reading, and I'd love my weekly dose of crack via reviews, s'il vous plait!! :-D
** Flashback Continued*
The next few hours passed by in what seemed like an excruciating blur to Cuddy. She stood nervously in the makeshift S.W.A.T. team command center that had been established in the lobby, anxiously awaiting any details that would be relayed to her via Lieutenant Beauman. After captor and negotiator had gone back and forth a few more times on the phone, they reached an agreement for Jason to release a few more hostages in return for escorting the remaining ones with him up to radiology for a CT. House had become convinced that the man had some type of tumor, which would only be visible to them on a scan.
Tied in a circle and forced to walk in a huddled mass to the elevator, the gunman, House, Thirteen, Regina, and the few remaining patient hostages slowly made their way up to the Radiology department on the third floor of the hospital. While House knew that his smart-ass mouth could get them all into a heap of trouble at any given moment, he still couldn't help interjecting a few choice remarks to Jason in the elevator, anyway. House was still House after all; he felt out of his comfort zone being pushing into this unwitting role of Byronic hero for the group.
Adding to his stress was Thirteen's declining physical state, for which they could all thank Jason the Madman. He had repeatedly insisted that all treatments administered to him be given to the ailing doctor first, and each new medication seemed to aggravate her Huntington's worst than the last. While House was doing his best to live up to the Byronic image projected upon him on the outside, all the ramifications of the situation caused House himself to feel like an overwrought elevator in which some idiot had tried to push all of the buttons at the same time, just to see what would happen.
After the captor and captives had settled themselves in the CT room on the 3rd floor, the S.W.A.T. team quickly moved their primary command to the main desk in the radiology department just down the hall. While Beauman patronizingly tried to convince Cuddy to wait it out in the lobby, she would hear none of it. If the S.W.A.T. team was moving upstairs, so was she.
Within half an hour, the whole situation came to a head. House had convinced Jason to give up the gun after his first CT scan was distorted by the starburst created by the metal. When the man's CT came out negative for a tumor, though, House's distorted sense of morality convinced him that giving the gun back was the truly just thing to do. At that point, House knew that in some strange way he was presenting with his own twisted case of Stockholm Syndrome. In the brief time that he had been in Jason's charge, House had become invested in solving his case; not necessarily because he "identified" with his captor, per se, but because of the excitement and rush that come from his puzzle-solving adeptness being the key to safety for so many. Maybe he enjoyed being the Byronic hero on some level, after all.
With the gun back in Jason's hands, the only hostages remaining after House's brief possession of the gun were Thirteen and the overly curious teenage boy who had the misfortune to assume that all was well and safe with the gun out of Jason's hands. While bouncing various diagnoses off of his sick coworker, the puzzle pieces in House's mind began to form a distinctive picture. Melioidosis; it was the only answer that fit.
Jason forced House to leave at that point, leaving only himself and his guinea pig, Thirteen, in the room. Up until that point, Thirteen had taken the medical abuse from her captor willingly because she had come to the decision that living a longer life only to succumb to her disease was pointless. Having been at death's door more than once that day, however, she had begun to reconsider her outlook. As Jason prepared to inject her with the medication for melioidosis, which would almost certainly be fatal to her immediately, Thirteen began pleading for her life. Neither knew that at that moment, the S.W.A.T. team was preparing to blast the door to end the standoff, and just as they did, Jason experienced a moment of trust and injected only himself with the medication.
The blast sent people on both sides of the CT room door flying in different directions, both civilians and S.W.A.T. team members alike. After House managed to regain his footing, he quickly made his way into the CT room to check on Thirteen. Cuddy watched him go back into the room, grateful that he was safe, but silently wishing that he had come to her right after he had been released instead of staying by the room that he had finally been allowed to leave. Quickly realizing that as much as she would have liked it to be different, House could not be her first priority just then. Cuddy walked alone to the elevator after a brief nod of solidarity with Lieutenant Beauman, taking an appropriate administrative post at the main reception desk once she was back amid the chaos of the lobby.
While manning her post, though, Cuddy kept a watchful eye on the elevator for House's eventual descent. She didn't have long to wait; within five minutes, he was limping off the elevator, more slowly than usual, Cuddy noticed, as his cane had been left behind in her office at the insistence of the gunman. She surmised that his leg had probably been aggravated by falling during the blast, as well. Their eyes met as House walked in her direction, and for the first time since very early that morning Cuddy felt like she could take a deep breath.
Unlike their previous encounters that day, House's expression appeared unreadable to her. She watched him expertly dry swallow a couple of vicodin, his eyes searching the rest of the lobby as he did so. Cuddy saw him exchange a glance with Jason, the rouge patient, who had been cuffed and taken into custody by the S.W.A.T. team. House took a deliberately deep breath, pressing on his diaphragm, indicating for Jason to do the same. He did, easily breathing in and then out. Jason smiled a sad satisfied smile, and closed his eyes to enjoy another easy breath. Now, the strangely content look upon House's face was one that Cuddy recognized. He had solved his puzzle. With everything that had happened… patients injured, one doctor almost killed, countless other lives at risk… House still had to know that questions had answers. Problems had solutions. The give and take of the universe had meaning. Noticing that the action was dying down in the lobby and also convinced that she no longer held any of House's attention, Cuddy made her way back to her office to assess the damage.
Cuddy should have known better than to assume she had lost House's attention simply because he appeared to be focused on Jason. In doing this, she had seriously underestimated his ability to multitask. In truth, he had watched her go all the way back to her office out of the corner of his eye. Moments later, he followed, his baser instincts unable to resist experiencing her reaction to the state of her office firsthand.
When House reached the office, he wasn't surprised to see the bewildered look on Cuddy's face as she surveyed the damage exerted during the hostage crisis. Cuddy's eyes went from the blood spatter on the wall behind her desk that had resulted from the businessman's bullet wound, to a knocked over plant that had spilled dirt all over the floor, to bits of broken glass that were also strewn across the floor from various broken objects. And finally, Cuddy's eyes rested on the blood-red letters that adorned one of her walls, their letters clearly indicating that said wall had served as House's deranged idea of a "white board." House could tell by the annoyed expression on Cuddy's face that he was better off making his presence known sooner rather than later, before she had a chance to become irritated any further.
"Tests confirm melioidosis," he stated matter-of-factly, causing Cuddy to turn toward him. "Easy to miss on the stain," he continued. She simply rolled her eyes and turned around to walk to her desk. "Scans and x-rays vary widely…" he began to explain,
"Is that all you care about? Solving your damn puzzle?!" Cuddy asked in disbelief. "A moron storms the clinic… bullies his way into life without parole with you enabling him at every step," she finished angrily as she attempted to put her disheveled desk back into some semblance of order.
"If he hadn't done what he did, he'd be dead," House said simply, as if Jason's actions had been the most logical conclusion in the world. "Good thing you enabled my every medical move," he added pointedly to Cuddy. They stared at each other in silence for a brief moment, sizing one another up for what was easily slipping into one of their epic dances around each other.
"You think I handled this differently because you were in here?" Cuddy said annoyed, her tone almost indistinguishable between one of inquiry or statement.
"I don't know… let's try it again without me," House replied with easy sarcasm.
Cuddy sighed heavily, shaking her head. "This is why you and I cant' be a… 'thing.' " she retaliated, gesturing as she spoke to further illustrate her point. Deep down, it pained her to say that to House, both because she almost felt it to be insensitive and because it seemed to be a sad truth in their screwed up plane of existence with one another.
"If you're suggesting that you screwed up because of a non-relationship with me, I don't know how I can help you," House deadpanned. "Cause the only change you can make from a non-relationship is…" he purposely trailed off, waiting for Cuddy to make her own assumptions as to his meaning. It was yet another of House's deflecting strategies; verbally forcing others to say what he could not.
"You… want a relationship?" Cuddy asked cautiously, hoping that her face didn't betray the extra degree of nervousness that couldn't be derived from the slight crack in her voice.
"Do you?" House threw the spoken curveball of deflection right back in Cuddy's bemused direction.
"Nice try, House," Cuddy answered quickly, throwing her walls back up just as easily as they had crumbled throughout the course of her emotionally trying day. "Just keep calling the 'Make a Wish' foundation. Someone will pick up the phone eventually," she added for good measure. "Now, I have a lot of things to check on around here… you know your way out," Cuddy finished, briskly walking past House and out of her office.
Maybe House's feelings should have been hurt just a little, but they weren't. He knew Cuddy; he could read her voice, her body language, and all of her facial expressions like a book. He knew that she had thrown the deflection triple play right back at him from his double. A comeback from Cuddy uttered as quickly as that one was always her emotional force field putting itself into place, blocking all unwanted invaders from penetration. That day had gotten to her; he had gotten to her. "Cool," he mused out-loud to himself, smirking. With a purposeful air to his swaggering gate, House left Cuddy's office. He had found a chink in her well-guarded armor, and in the space left by that chink was plenty of room for the plan forming in the diagnostician's brilliant brain to be set into motion.