The experiment chapter six The broken.
"One thing you can't hide - is when you're crippled inside." - John Lennon.
(Ding, goes the bell in the dining hall.)
It was lunch time, and yet it was another meal that House would be skipping.
It had now been over two weeks since he started the treatment, and
between the hallucinations and the loss of appetite, there was a cause for concern from his medical team.
That being said there was also new muscle forming in his leg.
After the muscle density test confirmed it, that was all House needed to green light the rest of the experiment.
But his medical team completely disagreed, sighting it was too risky now to continue.
However just like in Vegas, the House always wins.
Later that evening.
(Ring, goes House's phone.)
"I knew you would call me before I would call you again."
"Nice to hear your voice too House." Wilson said.
"So how's the treatment going?"
"Well I'm finally out of the wheelchair." He replied.
"Wait you were in a wheelchair?" Willson asked.
"Yeah they thought it would make a great fashion statement, you know, bring out my eyes, but I think it just makes me look fat." He remarked.
"So how are the side effects?"
Wilson inquired.
"Well I'm not tripping balls right now, so great." House returned.
(The dinner bell sounds at the dining hall.)
"It's dinner time, mom is calling got to go." House replied.
"Take care of yourself House,
I mean it."
Wilson said as the line goes
click and
House walks to the dining hall.
He wasn't really hungry he just didn't want to talk anymore, opting instead to look out the window at the garden.
By this time he knew everyone's name.
"Hey House, not eating again?"
A voice called to him.
"No I'm good Liz trying this new diet, I'm going for the rockstar look." He remarked.
"You're always a rockstar to me House!."
Liz said while carrying trays of food.
The diagnostician grabbed a book from a nearby shelf and proceeded to read for awhile.
Later Liz called to him.
"House can you grab me a broom from the storage closet?"
She asked.
With the book becoming
boring he gets up.
"I got it Liz."
He walks into the storage closet to find Doctor Keorri downing shot bottles of vodka in a corner.
"Nevermind, I found one" Liz shouted back.
House closes the door.
"That's why you were shaking, the DTs were setting in."
House remarked.
Keorri fires back a look of frustration at the man.
"If you're not going to report me, then leave."
She said with a tone about her that the rugged man couldn't pick up.
"Hell, I might join you at this point." He joked.
But Keorri was having none of it.
"Always the jokester House.
You've ate nothing all day, and I know you're still hallucinating, despite our best efforts to stop it. What's worse is this may kill you, and you don't
even care.
After a pause she asked.
"Do you want to die?"
"You know I was in love once, or at least I thought I was.
She torn me down, she broke the humanity I had left, leaving nothing but a broken shell of a man.
And because I let her have the best of me, she took everything while claiming it was best for me.
With a broken body of course I turned to pills, who wouldn't?
I was and am still in pain.
The only damn reason I am here is for some small chance to walk again without pain and without the use of a cane like some old man."
House paused looking just as frustrated as she did.
"So to answer you're question; no I don't want to die, but everybody dies."
House sits down in the corner with Keorri knocking back shots.
"I understand." Keorri said.
"No, I don't think you do.
If I get lonely I can deal with it,
I can survive without friends, without family.
I can eat the same thing every day for weeks.
I can go without many things.
The only damn thing I can't keep living with is this pain and the thought of being a crippled for the rest of my life." House replied.
"So you want to live a lonely life?
Is that it!?"
She asked.
"Assuming you live through this at all."
"At least I would be pain free."
He added.
Keorri glared at the rugged man.
"You of all people should understand how you want to live or choose to live as you see fit." He continued.
"Even if it kills you?" She questioned him.
"And what if I told you that the next drink you take would kill you, would you stop?"
She thought about it.
"No, I probably wouldn't, but you're not my doctor."
"And what about you?
all that vicodin use, all these years.
You act as if you're the only one in pain,
well your not.
House
you're not the only person who is broken."
Keorri continued not letting him get another word in.
"I know I have a problem,
but you know what House!?
If I died tomorrow there would be noone to mourn my passing,
no flowers on my grave."
Keorri said as tears filled her eyes but she pushed her emotions back as hard as she could.
"I don't have family or friends, only colleagues.
I am not a parent,
I owned nothing,
and
I have nothing."
House paused, then grabs her and kisses her,
she pushes him away.
"I am still your doctor."
"Yes and I am a doctor too, maybe we can help each other feel a little better."
That night they became intimately involved in that small closet,
It didn't change the fact that House was still going through with the treatment despite the risks.
That night did however create an unfamiliar bond between the two, the silent acknowledgment of the broken.
Afterwards he leaves the storage closet with Keorri asleep on the floor, her lab coat laid over her as he whispers, "You're not the only one with nothing."