4.
House was late to work. Not that this was a new thing. The days he was late, however, he didn't usually look as if he had slept in the ER.
After the touching scene with Wilson, he had returned to his own apartment for the first time since the previous morning, collecting clothes for Wilson to change into when he was discharged from the hospital. House took a long, hot shower, made himself a generous cup of coffee and inhaled a bowl of cereal before returning to the Princeton-Plainsboro.
He hadn't made it to his office in time for the second differential, and hadn't heard the results of the CT. Frankly, he found, he couldn't care. Even if his patient had actually been dying, it wouldn't have mattered, eclipsed by the fact that Wilson had almost had.
"Pancreas is fine," Foreman reported as he and Kutner fell into step behind House, who was determinedly limping down the hall. "Colon looked inflamed – Thirteen and Taub are doing an endoscopy to make sure there isn't something we missed in the GI tract. Where did you go last night?"
"And why do you look like you got steam-rolled?" Kutner added.
"Hookers," House stated simply as loud as he could. "Gotta get 'em while they're hot." He pushed his fingers as far into his forehead as his skull would allow. "How can the pancreas be fine if the pancreas is the only thing that could possibly be causing all of these symptoms." Not a question – a statement. "We need to cut her open and check for a tumor."
"Perform an invasive surgery totally unsupported by the CT scan? Are you crazy?"
"Are you actually asking me that question?" His hand went back to his forehead.
"House."
Again with the name-calling. Kutner, this time. Annoyed, House lifted his gaze to examine his fellow's expression. "Is everything okay?" Legitimate concern took over his features.
"Perfect!" House exclaimed. "I've got an uncooperative black man resisting authorities. Should I call the SWAT team?"
As if on cue, their beepers, ever synchronized, sang out their brilliant tune, piercing the air like the screech of a hawk. Foreman pulled his own from his waist and almost reflexively looked to House.
"Let me guess. It was her not-pancreas?"
Idly, House's hands found his tennis ball. He rotated it slowly in his palms before tossing it toward the wall, distracting himself with the absent-minded activity of one-man wallball.
Eventually, his mind began to wander. Wilson was still in the ER, presumably sleeping off the remainder of the toxins, and also presumably being closely observed by anyone with any sort of medical degree. The biggest risk of suicide attempt is directly following a suicide attempt, he vaguely recalled. It didn't seem like Wilson to give up all hope – again, his occupation itself reeked of it – and something was tugging quietly at his neurons, begging them to fire quickly enough to make the connection he knew was waiting to be made.
Another five minutes of tossing met with nothing but white noise in his head.
He had called around ten-thirty. It had taken House forty-five long, pathetic minutes to patch together the pieces. He arrived at Wilson's around eleven thirty. That meant it had taken the moron a half hour to finish killing the fifth, another five or so to pussy down the Vicodin, and another ten to hit the floor and role in bile.
When had the gun come into play? The ball was hitting the wall now, returning loyally to his palms each time. When had he even bought the gun? Did he even know how to fire a gun? House knew that for most mortal beings who weren't familiar with combat, a loaded gun was a dangerous weapon. Even if the damn thing was locked, people would avoid it like the plague in fear of accidental maiming. Wilson was no different.
The epiphany came. Such an epiphany that House forgot to catch the stupid tennis ball, which consequently nailed him on the forehead.
Wilson was no different, and that was the beautiful part about it. He'd picked up the gun and panicked. Even if he hadn't been drunk, he would've panicked. Looking down the barrel of something so permanent had forced him to realize, while destroying his liver and shutting down his heart, that he didn't actually want to die. He had turned the gun at the last moment and fired.
A small smile played upon House's lips. Not of cleverness or bragging rights, but something as genuinely simple as relief.
Like boomerangs, the team always managed to find its way back to his office.
"Hyperosmolar hyperglycemic nonketoic syndrome," Kutner spewed out, desperate for something to say. "Not comatose yet, but –"
"Diabetes but not diabetes," Thirteen commended. "Making strides, are we?"
"Considering her blood sugar isn't one thousand, I would consider that to be another far-fetched suggestion from the Indian." Reflexively, he brought a hand to the bridge of his nose. "We need to do exploratory surgery, check out her pancreas – there's something wrong there that we can't see."
"It would've showed up on the CT," Foreman countered, aggravation evident in his voice.
"She couldn't even get through an endoscopy," House argued. "Her pancreas is failing for some reason that the CT couldn't pick up. Anybody got a better idea?"
His outburst was met with silence.
"Fantastic," he breathed. "I'll be back with the green light." He turned and left the room.
Thirteen looked after him, disgust evident on her features. "What's his problem today?"
"Other than the usual intangibles?" Taub wondered. "The world may never know."
"Something must've happened," Kutner said. "He looks like he slept in his car or something. Something's up." He paused for a moment, then lit up with an idea. "Wilson's not here today."
House walked slowly and quietly into Cuddy's office. This was uncharacteristic of him, he noticed afterward, though it was too late to compensate without looking like he was trying too hard. "Good morning," he said after a moment, dropping like a stone into one of the chairs in her office. "Or should I say goodnight, considering I'm liable to fall asleep in this chair?" He closed his eyes and leant backward miserably. Cuddy looked up from her paperwork. The bags were potent beneath her eyes, too.
"How's Wilson?" she asked. She was concerned, he could tell – the paperwork she was doing wasn't due for another couple of weeks, meaning she'd been plowing through form after form in an attempt to distract herself.
"Don't know, don't care. Haven't seen him since he rose again in fulfillment of the scripture," House said off-handedly. "I need to cut an eighteen-year-old girl open and play with her accessory organs. It doesn't matter what you say, but according to the rules, I need to 'get your permission.'" He made air quotes.
"You haven't seen him?" Cuddy asked, incredulous. "I was leaving him alone because I didn't want to smother him. You're leaving him alone because you're being a child."
This genuinely hurt House, though he was not about to let her see how much. He picked a piece of lint from the chair, rolling it absently between his thumb and forefinger. "Interesting that it doesn't occur to you that maybe if I were to go speak to him, I'd just make things worse," he said carefully. He flicked the lint across the room, watching as it sailed and landed on the carpet.
Cuddy sighed. "CT was clean. Why do you want to – "
"Trying to recreate the game of Operation, only in real life," House replied sarcastically. "I have a bet with Foreman that Kutner will electrocute himself before Taub does." He rolled his eyes. "Because nothing else fits, and if we sit around staring at each other, this can quickly become fatal, and I wouldn't like another life on my hands. Pancreatitis. Peptic ulcers. Anything. Something, because it's better than the nothing we have right now."
"Is she even complaining of abdominal pain? GI problems?"
"She's training for a marathon!" House was yelling now, in a way he only did when he was getting defensive. "Of course she has GI problems. Either that or the endorphins are masking it. We cut her open and find nothing, fine, you get the satisfaction. But if we don't cut her open and there is something, then her blood is on your hands."
House pushed himself to his feet, fuming with anger at someone who had appeared to be his comrade the night before. She was being a moron because she thought he was hurting. So what? Maybe he was. That didn't mean he didn't have a job to do.
He reached the door and threw it open, taking a single step before she finally spoke, as he knew she would. "Visit Wilson, and you can do your surgery," she muttered at his back.
In any other situation, House would've smiled in triumph. Instead, he simply called Foreman, stepped into the elevator, and prepared himself for confrontation.
"You didn't miss," House announced as he walked into the room. He had paced around the corner for a solid five minutes or so before finally deciding on what it is he wanted to say, but when he actually entered the room, the exact opposite spewed out of his mouth.
Wilson was changing into the jeans and tee House had brought him – the jeans too baggy and long, the shirt too wide and took dark. His expression was lost somewhere in his thoughts. "I'm not doubting your aim is bad, but you can't really miss when you're inches away from a head as big as yours."
Wilson exhaled shakily. His embarrassment hadn't faded in the slightest. If possible, it seemed worse than it had been before. "Glad you're back to your old self," he said, noisily zippering the bag and reaching for his shoes.
"You were already half in the bottle when you called me, so a half hour later the liquor must've set in fully, and that's around the time I realized you were prepared to off yourself," House explained easily, logic ever in his favor. "The Vicodin and Smirnoff did their happy dance, but not even that could've made you miss from point-blank." He stopped. Started again. "You realized you didn't actually want to die."
Wilson froze in place, his shoe half on his foot. He diverted his eyes to the floor and opened his mouth to speak. When nothing came out, he shrugged, and resumed putting his shoes on.
House was stunned into silence himself. Wilson had nothing to say. He'd been right – he had figured out the puzzle – so he should feel like gloating. Why did he feel like he'd said the wrong thing?
They sat there silently for a while. Wilson finished putting on his shoes, folded up his bed sheets for the nurse, double checked that everything was in his bag. His face was tight, as if he were trying to hold his expression together in fear of busting up again. House couldn't force himself to say anything; instead he observed his friend as he tried to keep himself busy.
Both men jumped at the sound of House's beeper, slicing through the pregnant air like a siren. For a split second, House debated saying something else, or placing a hand on Wilson's back to comfort him. Instead, as always, he turned and left the room, nothing left to say.
They were standing just outside the OR, just as confused as they'd been before. "Opened her up and the pancreas looked fine," Chase reported, still in his scrubs from the procedure. "Whole abdomen looked fine. Had a small heart attack while she was open, so we had to finish up, but I'd assume that – "
"New symptom," House announced. They began the trip to his office, loading one by one into the elevator. House jammed the button to close the doors. "Myocardial infarction. Go."
Thirteen looked at him as if he'd just started tap dancing. "Are you serious? Cardiac problems in non-cardiac surgery are extremely common. If we treat this like it's a symptom we're wasting our time. We don't even have an inkling of an idea what's wrong with her."
"I'll have more of an inkling once we figure out what the heart attack means," House answered.
"It means she just had surgery and had complications!" Thirteen countered. The doors to the elevator opened, and House shoved through them, leaving her behind him.
Kutner piped in. "Beta blockers usually prevent cardiac problems, if they weren't administered properly –"
"I gave her the beta blockers," Chase interrupted passionately, shutting down Kutner's idea. "And don't suggest that I didn't, because I know that I did."
"Ultrasound her heart," House ordered, rounding the corner near his office. "We need to figure out..." House trailed off, his train of thought interrupted by the lonely figure in his office. Wilson, looking miserable and confused. House turned to his team, any and all concern of his previous statement abandoned. "Go," he commanded quietly. He didn't need to say anything else – the doctors retreated, not one casting a look back.
House inhaled as deeply as he could without physically harming himself and walked into his office. Wilson turned to face him, his eyes sad and tired. Neither man said a word – House reached over his desk for his keys and walked out the door, Wilson following like a loyal puppy behind him.