Chapter 80 — Something Human

A/N: Thank you to Potato, HeatherSS1, Lordban, DawnneAndSkipper, saashi samy, MiaEther, aevenir, Robin, Midori Yuki, GahMarques, MamaHooterz, and TheReaderOfWorlds for their reviews on the last chapter!

"Paula?"

Paula looked up from the issue of Better Homes & Gardens she had been absorbed in before I entered the nurse's station. "Yes?"

I'd just clocked in. I was a raw and flayed bunch of nerves, but a raw and flayed bunch of nerves with newfound resolve, at least. "If any IVs need to be done today...can I do them?"

She folded her magazine shut. "Is this you getting over it?"

"Hope to God it is."

"It's fine to be nervous. But you've got to get that shaking under control," she told me firmly. "If you're trembling like that, I'm not letting you near a patient."

"Understood."

She side-eyed me before going back to her magazine. "Good."

So I went to work, with the idea of facing another IV dangling over my head all the while. I thought I might've gotten off easy—a problem to face another day—but two hours before I was set to leave, in the wee hours of the morning, we had a fresh admission who needed IV antibiotics for a meth-sore turned abscess on their face.

The patient was barely lucid, coming down off of a meth binge. Grumbling, but not moving a great deal. The perfect opportunity to practice. I doubted she was even going to feel the prick of the needle, whether it went where it needed to or not.

But I was shaking again.

Breathe in. Breathe out. The only way out is through. The only way out is through. The only way out is through.

I went through the motions, prepared her arm. Got the needle.

Just do it. No matter how bad you screw it up, it'll be better than not even being able to do it at all.

Grasping the fleeting moment of courage, I plunged the needle into the patient's arm.

"Well. You at least got it in this time," said Paula.

The patient's arm immediately began bruising.

"Busted a vein right open, but, yeah. Got it in at least."

I sagged in total defeat, feeling the hot flush of frustration and embarrassment in my cheeks. I pulled the needle back out and pressed gauze to the now bleeding needle-stick. I didn't need to ask to know that Paula was already getting ready to set the IV in her other arm.

"That kinda hurt," the patient slurred at me.

"Sorry," I apologized, and I'd never felt so dejected. I'd known where the vein was. Aim and fire. But my fucking hands were shaking so bad it didn't allow for any accuracy. I glanced down at the aforementioned offending appendages. Still trembling.

"You can go, Anya."

I practically fled the room. I felt at a loss once I did, standing there with bloody gloves I should've ditched in the biohazard bin in the room. I stared down at my hands, of course still shaking badly, the fucking traitors. I couldn't even put words to my frustration. I could've done it, but my body was out of control. Out of my control. I couldn't stand it.

Paula joined me outside detox after a few minutes. I still had my gloves on. I hadn't moved.

"One, take those off. Two, I need you to listen to me."

I stripped the gloves off, finally, and dipped back into the room long enough to toss them in the bio bin. I returned to Paula's side, face still stinging with shame.

"I'm sorry," I muttered. "I thought I had it this time."

"Look," Paula began, frowning. "You need to set twenty IVs, successfully, to get your LPN. So I'm going to give you some advice I usually save for the nurses who already are down the rabbit-hole, and already have their licenses: stop looking at them like they're real people."

"Them?" I repeated, dumbfounded. "Like...our patients?"

"Yes," she said emphatically. "That girl? I don't know her name. I know her diagnosis, her meds, and what bed she's in. And that's all that matters. We get hundreds of people passing through here every week. The faster you let them dissolve to just their face-sheets, the easier this will be for you."

I stared at her. "Is...is that what you do?"

"For thirty years," Paula answered, and I couldn't believe it. She was being serious. She meant every word she was saying.

"You're telling me not to care?"

"Care enough to do your job well. But that's as much as you need to care. If you go beyond that, it follows you home. If you go beyond that, you can't set an IV, because you're too afraid of hurting someone to get it right." Something dark passed over her face. "You need to check your humanity at the door, or this job will drive you insane. Trust me. I've seen it a million times."

"But...but..." Check my humanity at the door? Like it was something I could just turn on and off? "I don't think I can do that."

Paula gave me a long, contemplative look. "Then all I can say is good luck."

She walked away, leaving me standing alone. I was still trembling. But that time, it might've been anger, instead of panic.

"You're moping."

I looked up at Chase. I'd been very busy staring into space and brooding (not moping!) about my IV problem. Apparently a task which I was doing so intently I'd failed to notice Chase enter House's office.

I crossed my arms. "Am not."

Chase narrowed his eyes at me. "Mm, no, definitely moping." He seated himself in the chair in front of House's desk. "Come on. What's wrong?"

I dithered. I really didn't want to tell Chase. He wouldn't get it. Chase was good at divorcing himself from humanity, or whatever it was Paula was saying. He'd probably tell me the same thing. "It's stupid. Don't worry about it."

"I'm not worrying about it, but you clearly are." Chase gestured to me, signaling for me to continue.

Fuck it. Who cares at this point? "I...can't set an IV."

Chase blinked. "Define can't."

"I've freaked out the past two times I've tried. Couldn't even get the needle in the first time, and I blew the patient's vein because I was shaking so badly the second time. And now the rehab charge is telling me I need to 'leave my humanity at the door' and I'm just. I'm." I put my head in my hands, letting out a brief, strangled scream of frustration. "I wanna die."

"It's not necessarily bad advice."

I sighed, disappointed but not surprised. "Yeah. I figured you'd say that."

"Hey, I didn't say it was good advice either."

I chanced a glance at Chase through my fingers. His face wasn't totally pitiless, at least.

"It could be good advice," Chase continued. "But, it isn't for you. You're never gonna be able to just...turn off your empathy. You're never gonna be able to look at patients as just account numbers. That's not you. It's not Cameron either, and she's doing fairly well for herself."

True. Cameron's heart bled even worse than my own, and she was pretty much living my dream. But Cameron also seemed to be capable of an inner calm I hadn't yet found— or never would find.

"But what's better advice is: just practice."

"I practiced! Endlessly! I never had any trouble with the mannequin!"

Chase held up a finger. "Back in a tick."

"O...kay?"

Chase vanished, and I checked the clock. My break was up in fifteen minutes. Hopefully he wouldn't be gone long. I barely had time to worry before Chase was back, IV pole rolling behind him, and all the supplies to set an IV tucked under his arm.

"Since we're not all going to be fired for costing the hospital too much money, I figure we can spare a few fluid bags."

Chase sat back down in the chair across from me, stripping off his lab coat.

"Wh— Chase, no! I just told you I blew a patient's vein the last time I tried!"

"Patients complain. Patients sue. I won't. I'm in my twenties and in perfect health. I'll survive a blown vein. It's just like the mannequin, no consequences. Except I'm a living breathing human, so…" He rolled up his sleeves, then made a 'come here' motion. "Stick me."

I stayed where I was, eyes wide. "Are you sure?"

"What's the worst that can happen? Only risk I'm taking is House might come in and yell at me for not...doing whatever it is I'm supposed to be doing right now."

"What are you supposed to be doing right now?"

"Not sure. House is busy rooting through our patient's wife's purse because he's convinced she's poisoning him. Now, come on, you're on break, aren't you? Better be quick about it. Don't want me to die of dehydration."

Hesitantly, I got out of my chair. I rifled through the supplies on the desk, grabbing everything I needed. I went to Chase, and after one more meeting of the eyes to confirm this was still okay, I knelt down next to him, praying very fervently that I wasn't broadcasting loud and clear how awkward I felt. How the hell could I not to be used to him by now? I'd seen him on almost a daily basis for a year and a half, and yet still, a trace of that same anxiety that made it difficult to even talk to him at first remained.

A good vein was pitifully easy to find; Chase was a phlebotomist's wet dream. Swallowing with some difficulty, noting how dry my mouth had become, I wrapped the tourniquet around his arm. I started when he put a hand over mine.

"You're shaking," he said. "Is that the problem?"

I nodded, mouth a thin line as I swabbed his arm with the alcohol wipe.

"Remember, no consequences," he said.

At the moment I was more distracted by his hand on mine than anything else. I hate myself. Chase removed his hand, mercifully, and I aimed the needle. No consequences. Alright. With one more prayer—far more desperate than the last—I plunged it into the crook of Chase's arm.

No bruising.

"Did...did I get it?"

"I think you did. Now finish it off."

I did, feeling somewhat emboldened. Soon enough Chase was properly hooked up to the fluid bag, and it was dripping saline solution into his veins without issue. Chase inspected the IV site intently. At length, he declared, "Perfect. You did it. On a live, human person." He grinned at me. "See? You're capable. You just need to figure out what works for you, in your head, to not panic. What did you just do?"

Get so distracted by you that I wasn't even thinking of the IV. "I think...maybe I just need to put my thoughts elsewhere. I'm overthinking things. Which, yeah, that's pretty in-character for me."

"Come the end of your clinicals, IVs will be a breeze for you. Have a little faith in yourself, yeah? And you can practice on me more, if you want. And I'm sure the others will take a bag or two. Even House would, I reckon."

"Yeah, uh, I'd prefer it if House didn't know. He's got enough ammo as far as ways to ridicule me go, I really don't want to give him more."

"Fair enough. Offer still stands though." Chase took his IV out. "I don't want to be pissing myself all night, so I think we can mark the bag down as waste. Get me a band-aid?"

Chase had brought a box of bandages with him, but I knew House had a box in his desk that I'd gotten as a joke not too awful long ago. I rifled within, finding my prize: a box of My Little Pony band-aids. I went to his side and applied it, alongside a cotton-ball, to the tiny pin-prick wound in his arm.

"My Little Pony?" Chase questioned.

"Consider yourself honored, you get Spike."

"Am I blushing?" He chuckled. "Alright, I'll clean up. You need to get back upstairs."

I nodded, watching him for a moment. "Hey. Thanks. Seriously. I...I kinda thought you'd just tell me to get over it."

Maybe I'd sold Chase too short. No matter the fact that he could sometimes tend towards total apathy when it came to other people, the two of us had developed a tentative friendship. I'd had the realization with Wilson (and maybe House?) long ago, but here it was again, ready to rattle my brains once more: Chase cared about me.

It was nice. It went without question that I cared about Chase. A little reciprocation was comforting.

Chase lifted an eyebrow. "Thought we had an agreement about watching each other's backs."

Allowing myself a fleeting smile, I ducked my head. "Right."

"Now I'm gonna watch your back by telling you your break's almost up." Chase pointed at the clock. I had two minutes to get back to Pathways.

"Oh, shit." I grabbed my lunch bag and darted for the door, sparing Chase one last glance before I was out of Diagnostics.

He was smiling.

"Absolutely not."

I stood behind Cuddy, arms crossed and feeling uncomfortable, as she spun House into a "no" induced frenzy, with Cameron being of exactly zero help to the situation. Of course, I wasn't helping either, but in the respect that I was doing absolutely nothing, whereas Cameron was actively making things worse.

"She agreed to let me search everywhere else, but this, she says no to. Doesn't that tell you something?" House pushed. He was, of course, 100% convinced that Maria was poisoning her husband. Which was 100% correct— unfortunately House had not yet reached the point where he had a great deal of proof. Cuddy was almost as unimpressed as Cameron.

"Yes, that she doesn't want some lunatic doctor searching her vagina with a flashlight," Cuddy replied, exasperated.

House waved her off. "Cameron can do that."

"I am not going to—"

"The woman hasn't left the hospital since they arrived," House cut across her sharply. "Whatever she's using, she's obviously hiding somewhere." House looked to me expectantly. "A little help here?"

"You want me to back you up? Sorry, I'm not even touching this one," I said, hands raised. I very much did not want to get into the middle of this. Mainly because I had a bitch of a headache and this was sure to only make it worse, but also because anything I said in a discussion like this could muddy the series of events that were about to come, which would likely make things more of a pain in the ass for everyone in the long run.

"And you're not touching her," Cuddy added, with a note of finality.

"She's poisoning him!" House insisted, thumping his cane on the ground for emphasis.

"She's not poisoning him!" Cameron burst out.

"It's the only explanation!" House snapped right back.

My eyes (and Cuddy's as well) bounced back and forth between House and Cameron, like we were watching a tennis match.

"No, it's the only explanation your twisted mind can come up with because you're angry that you can't find the answer and you're taking it out on her!"

"And you are protecting a complete stranger based on some childishly romantic notion that people are all so happily married they don't want to kill each other!"

"You call thinking that there being a possibility that they're happy together and in love with each other is childish? Happy marriages exist! Love exists! If you weren't so goddamn cynical-"

Whoa, whoa. We were going off-script. I knew at the very least that the 'goddamn' hadn't been there the first time.

"Happy marriages don't exist because happy people don't exist! Happy people are either idiots or non-idiots who have fooled themselves into believing that they are—"

"No, House, YOU'RE not happy!" Cameron all but exploded. "And because you can't fathom putting any amount of faith or trust in another person you refuse to accept that someone else can."

"Funny, you think I'm making it all about me, but from where I'm standing, you're the one who—"

"Enough," Cuddy declared, her voice ringing out and finally silencing both House and Cameron. "I had three hours of sleep last night, and I am in no mood for couples counseling. Cameron, thank you for bringing this to my attention, but next time you want to have a shouting match with House, pick another venue. House: stay away from his wife. I'm not giving you permission to assault someone."

House and Cameron, equally stifled, cast one last stinging look at each another before Cameron left the office, visibly upset. House turned to Cuddy, face grave. "At least I'll get gloating rights when the autopsy comes back, right?"

Without another word, he was gone too.

I stood there, eyes very wide.

"I take it they broke up?" Cuddy asked dryly.

A choking sound wrenched its way out of my mouth before coherent words did. "I—what? No, no no. They were never together. It's just, uh, totally normal amounts of unresolved sexual tension."

"One, you're a terrible liar. Two, I wasn't born yesterday. I picked up what was going on with them months ago. And while rubbing it in House's face that he failed to keep it from me was tempting, I figured it was best to leave well enough alone and wait for it to implode."

I blinked, trying to play catch up. Cuddy had known the whole time. So much for keeping it under wraps. House would be furious. Not that she knew, just that she put the pieces together in spite of him trying to keep it hidden. "I see you're about as much of a romantic as House is."

"I believe that people can find each other, and fall in love, and stay something resembling happy. Does it happen often? No. But, call me optimistic, I think it can. With House and Cameron? They never stood a chance." Cuddy shook her head, putting up an apologetic hand. "This is wildly inappropriate. Let's move the topic of discussion to anything on the planet other than your father's sex life."

I allowed my brain to percolate for a minute on the question I'd been planning on asking before Cameron and House had decided to get even more pissy with each other than they had in canon. "Can I ask you something?"

Cuddy flicked her eyes to me. "If it's quick. I have a meeting with Vogler in ten minutes."

"Why do you always tell House no, even though he ends up being right most of the time?"

Cuddy sighed very, very deeply. "Because I know if I tell him no, he'll do the work to bring me proof to get me to say yes. He solves the puzzle, and I don't have to risk my job signing off on something insane. And...House is human. Presumably. Which means he is sometimes wrong. And God knows the one time I just give him carte blanche to go through with whatever insane scheme he's cooked up, it'll be the one time he's wrong."

"And when doctors make mistakes, people die."

"Exactly."

I'd mostly just said it to give myself the personal amusement of parroting Cuddy's own quotes back at her, but the point stood, of course. "Like showing your work for a math problem," I mused vaguely, tapping my pen on my chin. "Gotta get full credit."

Cuddy gave me a wry smile. "It's worked for us this long. It pisses House off to no end, but that's relatively low on my list of concerns." Cuddy checked the clock on the wall again. "You're free to go, Anya. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Good luck with Vogler."

Cuddy looked as enthused as a person about to get a colonoscopy. "I'm sure I'll need it. Budget meeting."

I brightened at that. "At least Diagnostics has their ducks in a row this year."

"I don't know how the hell you all did it, but yes, you do. Personally I think he's about to tell me we can't afford the extension to the outpatient lab."

"Tell him to go fuck himself."

Cuddy snorted. I'd taken to giving her responses like that from time to time. It seemed to lift her spirits somewhat. Cuddy would complain about getting another insufferable email, or a board member who was being belligerent, and I'd politely offer to kill them, or suggest she tell them they could stuff Object A into Orifice B with a great deal of force.

"That can be Plan B."

Then Cuddy was off, and so was I, heading up to Diagnostics to see if I could track down Cameron before I went to go pick up Zach. She seemed particularly upset about the face-off with House, and I wanted to make sure that she was alright.

I found Chase and Foreman instead, both pouring over lab-work at the table in the differential room.

"We can't run thirty individual tox screens for heavy metals before this guy carks it," Chase was saying as I strolled into the room.

"Then we have to narrow it down to what's most likely," Foreman replied.

"None of them are likely!" Chase insisted. "This is a waste of time."

"Arguing with House is only a bigger waste of time," I put in, dropping my backpack on the table. "I would know, because I just watched Cameron argue very loudly with him about this."

"Oh yeah, she was steamed when she came back here. Looked like she was going to cry," Chase commented.

"Obviously trouble in paradise with her and House."

My ears pricked up at that. "What do you mean?"

Foreman's expression was one of pure exasperation. "Anya. We all know. We're not morons."

"Have they actually broken up, or are they just on the outs?" Chase asked curiously.

"How the hell did everyone know they were together!? They tried to be subtle!"

Foreman went back to the labs. "You do realize our entire job is to notice anything and everything, right?"

Fair point. I guess it was overly optimistic to assume no one would pick up on the House and Cameron thing. Not that it really mattered now, given it was very much over. "Okay, well. Do you two know where Cameron is? Because I actually care that she looked like she was about to cry."

"Hey," Chase protested immediately. "We're not leaving her alone because we're jerks, we're leaving her alone because she doesn't want either of us rubbing her back and telling her everything is gonna be okay. I can guarantee you that."

"Chase is right," Foreman said, still loosely participating in the conversation. "Have we tested for thallium yet?"

"No, because he hasn't been eating radishes for every meal for the past thirty years," Chase told him, before turning his attention to me. "Anya, if you want to go after Cameron, you can. But...there's this thing with female doctors..." He seemed like he was having trouble explaining it.

"Sexism," Foreman said shortly, saving Chase the trouble of coming up with a succinct explanation. "Most doctors are men, and plenty of them still think it's a man's profession, even though it's very obviously not. But, when the person directing your residency program, or working the floors with you thinks like that, you can't show an iota of emotion, or you'll never live it down, and it'll just serve to justify the opinions of all the assholes who think you should've stuck to nursing."

"That's insane!"

"We know. It's messed up, but it is how it is. Cameron's probably catching her breath somewhere, getting herself together. She'll be back soon, and she'll go back to work like nothing happened, because...because that's how she feels it's got to be." Chase shrugged.

"Why is everyone in this hospital so obsessed with shoving down everything that makes us human?" It was a rhetorical question. I didn't want an answer, I was just frustrated. First it's 'don't look at the patients as people', now it's 'female doctors have to pretend they don't have emotions'. What the fuck?

"Because it makes things easier," Chase said simply. "I'm not saying it's right, but...it's easier."

"Your dad's kind of the living example," Foreman pointed out.

"Yeah," I said, far more vicious than I meant to, "that must be how House stays so happy."

I grabbed my bag and left, suddenly desperate to not be in the hospital. For the first time in...well, probably ever, I would've preferred to be anywhere else in the world. I wanted a night where I didn't have to think about anything even tangentially related to medicine, to PPTH, to...to House.

At least for tonight, I was incredibly fucking sick of being in my favorite TV show.

"What do you think? Far enough away?"

"It's perfect."

Zach and I sat in the shadow of High Point Monument, on top of Kittatinny Ridge. An hour and a half from Princeton, and 1,800 feet above sea level. One of the best spots to look at the stars in New Jersey. The sun was a mere suggestion on the horizon, and the first of those aforementioned stars were starting to spark to life in the dusky sky above.

I rested my head on Zach's shoulder, taking a deep breath for what felt like the first time in weeks.

"Have I mentioned recently how happy I am that I have you?" I asked Zach, trying to fight off the urge to fall asleep. All I'd done in my free time recently was pass out on my bed until the next time I had an obligation. Tonight, I just wanted to be nineteen. I wanted to go fuck off somewhere with my boyfriend and not have to think about anything for a few hours.

"Few times. Never mind hearing it again, though," Zach replied, kissing the side of my head. "Whenever you need something like this, you know we can do it. You've been drowning lately. Gotta come up for air every now and then."

"I know." I sighed, relishing the contentment. Wind rushed through the branches of the trees around us, the only sound this far out, save for the occasional distant hoot of an owl. "Don't get me wrong, I love my life. I'm really lucky in a lot of ways. But..."

"Even when you love your life, it's still nice to get away sometimes."

"Yeah."

Night fell, and the stars came out in full-force. I couldn't stop grinning. It was brilliant, not a drop of light pollution, just brilliant streaks of light from one end of the sky to the other, backed by midnight blue and twinkling like crushed diamonds.

"I love you," I told Zach, because I did. A lot.

"I love you too."

I don't remember how long we sat there, but it must've been hours. Hours that I wasn't a nurse, a secretary, a fake daughter, an unfortunate victim of cross-dimensional fuckery and possibly divine plans.

I was just me. Just human.