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readingratA/N: Thanks to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
flywoman for comments and suggestions and to brighidsfire for unremitting encouragement.
XIII: Knight Falls
Wilson develops a sudden interest for herbal remedies and Foreman sets an ultimatum.
"Dr Cuddy? I need a word with you." Foreman walked into Cuddy's office without awaiting further permission.
Cuddy looked up from her papers, her smile fading as she registered his serious expression. "Sit down. What can I do for you?"
"It's House."
"Of course." She smiled tightly.
"I refuse to be responsible any longer for what he's doing."
"Dr Foreman, either you second his procedures and treatments, or you don't, in which case he has to run them past me. Either way the one who signs off the procedure is ultimately responsible," Cuddy said with an air of finality. Then a thought struck her. "You aren't letting him sign off procedures, are you?"
"The problem isn't his pen, it's his sword. That isn't a metaphor," Foreman said.
Cuddy shrugged that off. "He's taken patients' weapons before - I remember him sticking a knife into a socket. He's a danger to himself, not to others. Let me know if he shows signs of committing hara-kiri."
"He isn't sticking the sword into sockets or into his own belly; he's impaling us."
"Has anyone been injured yet?" Cuddy enquired.
"No, but ..."
"House's motoric skills and reactions are far above average. A sword at your throat may seem threatening, but trust me, you're a lot safer at the tip of House's sword than on the freeway among incompetents and drunks." Cuddy turned slightly to her screen to indicate that from her point of view the discussion was over.
"You can't know you’re safe with a man who's hallucinating."
"He hasn't been hallucinating lately."
Foreman, however, was not put off so easily. "That's a fallacious argument on more than one count. A) He may well have been hallucinating without our noticing it, and B) he's definitely hallucinating now."
Cuddy's eyebrows rose.
“Wilson would know, and he's worried; he should be,” Foreman said cryptically.
“Why should Wilson be worried?”
“He's dating his ex.”
“House is seeing Stacy?” Cuddy's voice did a backflip.
“No. Wilson is seeing his first wife. If I were Wilson, I'd also worry about House's sword tickling her throat.”
“Okay, but that's no proof that House is hallucinating.”
"He has accepted Wilson's story that the sword belongs to our patient," Foreman elucidated.
"Are we talking about the same sword, the one the patient from the Renaissance Fair brought with him?"
"We're talking about the same sword, but it wasn't lugged here by the patient. It belongs to House, who came in with it the first time a few days before the patient came to the ER."
"Then why did Wilson tell House it belonged to the patient?"
"So that the sword leaves again with the patient when he's discharged."
"That takes care of your sword problem, doesn't it." Cuddy's tone screamed 'end-of-conversation'. "It's lucky we have a patient from the fair."
"It takes care of the sword, but not of the other weapons in House's arsenal. And no, we're not lucky. Or, as House would say, there is no such thing as coincidence. Wilson supplied a patient to go with the sword."
"The patient was sent up by the ER. I know that because I happen to assign patients to Diagnostics."
"When House first brought the sword to the hospital, Wilson suddenly developed an interest in mediaeval medicinal remedies - I saw a book in his office. When we searched the patient's apartment we found a bank statement with an incoming payment by someone named James Wilson, dated two days before he collapsed and was brought to our ER." Foreman leaned back, face deadpan as usual.
"You're saying that Wilson paid this guy to almost kill himself and then act as a human guinea pig for our diagnostic department?"
"I'm not sayin' anything," Foreman drawled. "I'm just repeating my observations."
"Why would he do that? It's dangerously insane!"
"Our Sir William has an expensive hobby. He's been camping out there for over a month, which means he hasn't been earning any money on a regular job. Then there are the authentic garments made of natural home-spun fibres, the suit of armour, the sword, shield and lance, not to mention ..."
"I see you've done your background research," Cuddy cut him short.
""This jousting business is dangerous in and of itself. Those folks out there are all batshit crazy. Which brings us back to House. We refuse to participate in this madness any longer."
"Who is 'we'?"
"The Department of Diagnostic Medicine."
"I'd have to ban him from the hospital premises to make him stay away," Cuddy objected.
"Then do that."
"Let's get this straight." Cuddy leaned forward, exposing enough cleavage to have snapped House, but Foreman was made of stronger metal. "Even if I refuse him access to the premises, he's a free man otherwise. He can go where he likes in this country, carrying whatever weapons he likes, as long as they're legally his. You say he's a hazard. If that were really the case, isn't everyone safer if he's in a hospital with security staff and surveillance cameras everywhere and the facilities to treat anyone who may get hurt?"
"Dr Cuddy, I know he's a hazard to my department. If you believe he'd be even more of a danger to the outside world then it's your duty, as his friend, to have him committed."
Cuddy's gaze dropped. "I ...no ....that's not my responsibility."
"It isn't mine either, but if you don't do something about him, I will. If need be I'll file a petition for incapacity."
"Look, this sort of thing doesn't get done overnight," Cuddy prevaricated. "There are certain legal requirements ..."
"Thirty days, then I'll contact an attorney." Foreman rose. "Oh, and Dr Cuddy? I think it's time Wilson dropped a hint to someone about herbal poisons before we kill the patient."
Cuddy sat there, frozen, for a long time after he left.
XIV: Open and Shut, The Choice
In which Wilson's problem isn't that he's dating his ex, but that he used to date someone else's.
A light still burned in Wilson's office, so Cuddy marched in. "Wilson, I appreciate that you have a right to a private life over and above taking care of House, but paying his team to keep him busy while you get laid is ..."
"… a completely unfounded accusation." Wilson looked up from his paperwork, his sleeves rolled up. The desk lamp illuminated his face, but left the rest of the room in darkness. "For one thing I didn't pay them."
"House said you admitted to it." Cuddy walked over to his desk and stemmed both hands on it.
"I told him I paid them when he asked, because if I'd denied it, he'd have hacked into my online banking account to check on me and found the payment I made to that knight, Sir William. Last Tuesday, when I asked Taub to keep an eye on him, we had a late board meeting, that Friday, when Thirteen took him to a lesbian bar, I was right here on call, and yesterday I had a support group meeting ..."
"Support group?"
"For family of patients with psychiatric issues. Foreman and Chase took him to a karaoke bar. He had fun, you know." Wilson pinched the bridge of his nose.
"So much fun that he shot me down today when I suggested grabbing a bite to eat. Normally he'd be jumping at the chance to get one up on Lucas. You've hurt his feelings!" Cuddy accused.
Wilson slammed his pen down and rose in turn. "Cuddy, I'm at the end of my rope! I can't leave him by himself, his fellows have had enough - I don't know what to do any more." He tugged his fingers through his hair, half turning away from Cuddy.
"Has it occurred to you that you dating Sam exacerbates his fear of abandonment?"
"Me dating Sam," Wilson echoed hollowly.
"Strong, self-confident, blonde. Does that ring a bell somewhere? His condition is deteriorating because he's afraid you'll toss him aside now that you've got someone else."
Instead of answering Wilson bent down to his computer, clicking a few times with the mouse. Then he turned the screen so that Cuddy could see it. He'd opened Facebook in his browser and his cursor pointed to a user picture. "Here, do you see this? This is Sam. She always was and still is a brunette. As for character, she isn't anything like Amber, if that's what you were getting at. She's a mouse."
Cuddy backpedalled rapidly. "Okay, so he's got that wrong, but ..."
Wilson's voice rose. "No buts. He's got everything wrong because I'm not seeing Sam.” He stood for a moment massaging his neck before he continued, “Yes, she friended me on Facebook, and yes, I suggested we have dinner together, but Sam declined. She said she'd like to think of me as a friend but she wasn't over that part of her life as yet, so she felt it would be wiser for us not to meet."
"Oh. Then who are you dating?"
"No one!" Wilson shouted. "Do I have to spell it out? I have no personal life, and certainly no love life, because I'm busy trying to keep a guy in line who was already considered insane by most people before he started hallucinating." He paced to and fro as far as the space behind his desk would allow, his hands jerking in emphasis as he spoke. "He's started a guerrilla campaign against 'Sam'. I ask him to meet me for dinner at that Italian place down the road from the condo; he turns up with a transvestite to shock 'Sam'. He's rearranging the condo, stacking the dishes in the dishwasher so they don't get cleaned, putting perishable foods in the warmer spots in the fridge, mucking up the coffee table, throwing banana peels into my bedroom trash - my bedroom smells like a monkey cage! - in the hope that I'll blame 'Sam'!" Wilson shook his head despairingly at the memory.
"Have you thought of 'breaking up' with Sam?" Cuddy suggested.
"I have. I did. I opted for a fight over shirts that had shrunk in the dryer. Unfortunately, it seems that Sam and I are more mature than we were twenty years ago. We've made up again." Wilson sank back into his chair.
"He's left me alone ever since he decided that he can't split Lucas and me up."
"Yes. You even got a coffee machine out of the deal. All I get is dirty dishes and shirts that are two sizes too small for me now! Staying put and hoping the problem will solve itself isn't going to work. He's got it into his head that Sam wants to move in with me."
Cuddy sat down opposite him.
"And that I want him to move out." Wilson gauged Cuddy's reaction before he added, "Which might not be a bad idea in itself. Unfortunately, he's thinking of returning to his apartment."
"Oh, no. He can't!"
"I agree. You have to take him." Wilson turned the full wattage of soulful brown eyes on Cuddy, eyes with dark rings under them and lids that twitched as he spoke.
Cuddy looked hunted. "Wilson, I can't. You know I can't. I've got a child. I can't take in someone who may go ballistic on a non-existing rival, and risk having Rachel caught in the crossfire."
"Then what do I do?" Wilson's voice rose half an octave.
"He's been committed before," Cuddy noted.
"He went voluntarily. He won't now."
"File a petition for incapacity."
Now Wilson looked hunted. "I ... I can't. He'll never forgive me."
"Blame me," Cuddy said flatly.
"It won't work. This isn't a one-off; there'll be court hearings, his attorney will be all over my back - he'll figure it out. I’m not sure he ever forgave me the debridement and that was just a bit of muscle – this is his freedom, his right to self-determination!" Wilson was so busy rubbing every inch of skin on his face with the balls of hands that he didn't notice Cuddy's puzzled look.
"The debridement?"
"Yeah, authorising the procedure while he was in a coma.”
"But Stacy authorised it,” Cuddy objected. "She was his medical proxy."
"No, she wasn't, I was," Wilson corrected her, resurfacing from behind his hands. "You should know - you were the attending who suggested the procedure."
"I didn't check the paperwork - legal did. You weren't even here!".
"I was here - I just ... lay low. Stacy brought me the paperwork."
"You were his proxy, not Stacy?" Cuddy repeated.
"He has little respect for other doctors and none whatsoever for lay people; do you really think he'd let someone with no medical training whatsoever take medical decisions for him?"
“Then why the hell did he believe that Stacy authorised the debridement?”
Wilson shook his head as though clearing away cobwebs. “He was bitter about Stacy. I think it was his way of dealing with her betrayal.”
“What betrayal? If Stacy wasn’t his proxy she didn’t betray him,” Cuddy pointed out. She eyed him suspiciously, and then she leaned forward. “James Evan Wilson, I have no idea how you did it, but you let House believe that we, meaning my hospital, allowed his girlfriend to act as his medical proxy despite the fact that she was nothing of the sort. You saved your friendship at the cost of his relationship with Stacy," Cuddy said coldly.
"No ... no, you've got that wrong. Their relationship was on the rocks already. That’s what I meant with ‘betrayal’."
Cuddy's expression indicated how little she was inclined to believe Wilson. He rearranged his pens before he looked Cuddy in the face and said, "Stacy left him the week before the infarction. That's why I didn't take him seriously at first when he phoned me to tell me that his leg was killing him. I thought that ... he was faking it to make Stacy return or that it was his body's response to his suppressed emotions, but not that he was in real pain. So I ignored it and told him to go to the nearest clinic. By the time I figured that the pain was for real and brought him here, ..." His voice petered out.
"And Stacy? Why was she here and not you?"
"When it became obvious that he'd kill himself to prove his point, I asked her to come and make him see sense. He behaved as though she hadn't left him and it really wasn't the time to argue the matter. He was mad at me for ignoring his symptoms, so ... I let Stacy deal with him." Wilson avoided Cuddy's eyes. "But she was determined not to stay once he was through the worst - she made that clear to me from the start - so when House came out of the coma and blamed her for what had happened, we decided that she might as well bear the brunt of it for the short time she intended to stay."
"How noble of her," Cuddy said without sarcasm. After a pause she added, "And absolutely unlike Stacy."
"Sorry?"
"It would make sense if she had been screening her best friend from House's wrath, but protecting House's buddy from House - why would she do that?"
"I told you she ..."
"Furthermore, Stacy likes to keep her options open. She'd never have left House before the infarction if she hadn't had something more promising lined up." Cuddy eyed Wilson speculatively. "She left him for you."
Wilson was silent.
Cuddy leaned forward and stabbed a finger at Wilson. "She left him for you, and when House turned to you because of his leg pain, you didn't go to him because you were afraid he'd found out about the two of you and was carrying out some diabolical revenge in the guise of a medical emergency. Similarly, you didn't dare be around at the hospital once you'd called Stacy to his side because you were afraid he'd guess once he saw you together."
"She was lonely," Wilson defended himself. "House was always more absorbed in his cases than in her - you know how he gets when he has a case, and in those days he took more cases. Stacy isn't like that. She loves her work, but she isn't obsessed by it. She wanted companionship, not the occasional scrap of attention he threw her way."
"She was needy," Cuddy summarised. She smiled bitterly. "And then she dumped you for Mark."
"Er, no. I ended the relationship." Wilson had the grace to look guilty. Cuddy's eyebrows rose to her hairline. "House was a lot worse after the infarction than - I mean, Stacy and I hadn't reckoned with an infarction in the first place. I had to work, look after House, then look after House some more ... I simply had no time for her."
"She ditches her boyfriend in favour of his best friend, only to have the best friend leave her for her ex. How ironic!"
"Whatever." Wilson closed his eyes.
“It doesn’t explain why House still blames her for what happened.”
“He doesn’t.” Wilson paused. Then he said uncertainly, “Does he?”
“Well, he reminds me at least once a year, usually when I’m trying to get him to do a lecture or attend a fundraiser, that I and ‘that other harpy’ crippled him, which is why he is now too fragile for such exhausting activities.” Cuddy rolled her eyes.
Wilson considered this. “He might mean me when referring to harpies.”
“I don’t think so. What does he say when you talk about it?”
“Talk about what? The infarction? We … we don’t talk about it.”
“You haven’t talked about it in ten years?” Cuddy shook her head and leaned her forehead on her hand in despair.
“What’s there to say? ‘House, my choice was wrong and it was cowardly. I chose the middle ground that saved your life, but crippled you and left you in permanent pain. I should have been prepared to take the risk of losing you. I should either have let you die or had the courage to take your leg entirely and risk losing you to your anger. My choice left you with more pain and less mobility than an amputation would have done.’ Cuddy, he knows all that! Where’s the sense in talking about it? He certainly doesn’t want to, and after what I did, I have no right to take up the topic against his wishes.”
Cuddy stared into space, fidgeting with her pearls. Wilson watched her in silent irritation. Finally he said, “Cuddy, just … let it go, please. Don’t start blaming me – heaven knows I blame myself enough as it is.”
Cuddy’s attention snapped back to Wilson. “Wilson, this isn’t about blaming you. Don’t you see? House should know that Stacy never was his proxy. That he doesn’t, means that he is delusional about it.”
“Ten years? You think he’s been delusional for the past ten years?”
“It’s the only explanation that makes sense, because whenever he mentions Stacy or the break-up to me, which admittedly isn’t very often, it always features Stacy leaving him after the infarction, guilt-ridden and driven away by his animosity towards her.”
“If he has been delusional for that long,” Wilson said heavily, “then perhaps we really should get him committed.” Cuddy looked at him in surprise. “It can’t have been the vicodin or the brain injury from the bus crash.”
“No,” Cuddy concurred, “but he flatlined for a whole minute during the infarction. I barely managed to bring him back.”
“Damn the bloody infarction!”
“This does have a bright side,” Cuddy said on a more cheerful note. Wilson looked at her in disbelief. She shrugged. “House was delusional for over eight years before anyone noticed it. It seems to be triggered by stressful incidents, usually major physical trauma. That means he can live a normal life with it, if he isn’t overdosing on vicodin or stressed out of his mind. Maybe letting him return to his apartment isn’t such a bad idea. The problem is that there are bound to be vicodin stashes everywhere in it."
"I searched it and removed his secret stashes when he went to Mayfield. Look, I'm pretty sure I found everything."
Cuddy laughed. "You think you're better at hide-and-seek than House? I doubt anyone is. .... although ...." She got the kind of epiphany look that was normally House's speciality.
"Who? His team? No way!"
"No. Lucas. Lucas Douglas. If anyone can find House's hiding places, it's him. Give me a few days, and then tell House he can move out."
XV: Baggage
Wherein Wilson needs to be needed, Lucas indulges in home improvement and Cuddy sacrifices a family heirloom.
"Lucas just phoned. House turned up in the apartment!" Cuddy, standing at the door of Wilson's office, was spewing flames.
"The last I heard, it was still House's apartment, not Lucas's," Wilson said pointedly.
"Look, I don't know what kind of pissing contest this is ..."
"It's no pissing contest. You wanted to take responsibility for House - you're getting it."
Cuddy marched forward to lean on Wilson's desk. "Wilson, Lucas isn't done yet! Couldn't you have warned us?"
Wilson was not intimidated. "When I gave him my key, he said he needed four days to turn everything upside down He's had five days - I only let House move out today."
"He needed four days to search for House's secret stash. Now he needs a few days to put the place together again," Cuddy said. Wilson frowned. "House lived there for over ten years and he's had one police search already. You think he's going to have easy hiding places? Lucas has had to pull up floor boards, remove panelling, pull cupboards off walls, etcetera, etcetera. He's got to do the place up again - it's a shambles."
Wilson got up with a weary sigh and went over to the coat rack.
"Where are you going?" Cuddy asked.
"Lucas won't be able to put everything back the way it belongs. I'll see what I can do," Wilson said with a martyr's mien.
"Too late. House has seen the mess already."
Wilson stopped short. "What did he say?"
"He told Lucas that he had till this evening to get everything back the way it was."
"That's all? No comment on what your boyfriend was doing at his place and what business of Lucas's his secret drug stashes might be?"
Cuddy folded her arms over her chest defensively. "He mistook Lucas for Alvie. You know, his bipolar friend from Mayfield."
"Alvie doesn't exist," Wilson said unhappily.
"That's a good thing actually," Cuddy opined.
"I don't see how House believing that one of his delusions has turned up in Princeton can be a Good Thing."
"He believes a lot of crap anyway; since he's chosen to mistake Lucas for someone else, it's better if that someone else doesn't exist, just in case House decides on some sort of vendetta against that person involving violations of privacy as in Sam's case."
"Sam?" Wilson's voice rose in alarm.
"Oh, you didn't know? It didn't come up sometime? He paid Lucas to dig in her past. That included her therapy case file."
Wilson started his 'massaging-obscure-areas-of-his-upper-extremities' routine, beginning with the bridge of his nose. "Oh my God! If Sam finds out about this ...,"
"Exactly."
"Why the hell didn't you stop Lucas?"
"He didn't tell me about it then, he told me now. It was a private deal between him and House, who is not officially incapacitated and hence legally able to hire a PI for his own purposes, and since Lucas didn't know that you're not dating Sam, he had no reason not to take on the case."
"So what happens now? Lucas fixes the place up again and then pretends to go back to Mayfield? What's Alvie supposed to be doing at House's place, anyway?"
"Hiding from immigration officials and indulging in a bit of home improvement while he's at it."
"Yeah, I can figure why that would appeal to House's subconscious more than the idea of your boyfriend searching his digs for drugs."
"Lucas is not my ...," Cuddy objected automatically.
"I know ... I just ... it's easier than ..." Wilson closed his eyes and grasped an imaginary basketball with his hands. "Talking like House keeps me from shooting off my mouth in front of him." His eyes snapped open again. "Well, if House wants the place back in its original pristine state by this evening we haven't got much time." He moved towards the coat rack once more.
"Relax. He's accepted that Alvie has changed things around a bit in his absence."
"You've got to be kidding! 'Change' is a four-letter word in the Dictionary of House. He'll go ballistic if he can't find his stuff."
"Lucas has got everything under control. Seems he tossed House's coffee table out...."
"It was a perfectly good coffee table - why the hell did he have to throw it out?"
"Re-Lax!" Cuddy repeated. "They're going to the dump to find it! House hollowed out all four legs to make room for vicodin bottles, so Lucas thought it was too rickety to keep, but I've told him to fix it up somehow when they find it."
"If they find it," Wilson said glumly.
"Lucas is a professional. This is his job!"
"That's all - just the coffee table?"
"And five books that House had also used to conceal pill bottles. He cut apertures into the pages to hold them. Lucas said House steered unerringly towards the places where the books should have been - how the hell does he remember after all this time where he kept his stash?" Cuddy's voice held undisguised admiration. "Does he have a photographic memory?"
"Probably some weird mnemonic. What books were they?"
Cuddy took out her phone and checked through her text messages. "Lucas sent me the list. Adams and Victor, Principles of Neurology; Sabiston's Textbook of Surgery, Janeway's Immunobiology ... oh, I see where this is going! Anyway, it shouldn't be too difficult to get hold of those somewhere. I've told Lucas to head for the university bookstore."
"What about the other two?"
"One's oncology, obviously."
"And the other is endocrinology?" Wilson surmised.
Cuddy frowned as she read. "No, it's ... Approach to the ... holy shit!"
"Sounds like the Monty Python version of a gastroenterology textbook."
"You're not so far off. The book is obscure and out of print - there's no way Lucas can get it in a book store." Cuddy punched a number into her cell phone. "Lucas? Listen, there's no way you can get that book about the acute abdomen in the book store. It's out of print. ... No. But I have a copy. ... Yes. ... Okay. In the living room on the book shelf above the television. It's got a brown leather binding. ... Okay. ... Thanks. Bye."
"Lucas is going to your place to get your copy," Wilson stated, disapproval splattered over his face.
"Yes. It's the simplest method."
"And he's going to tell House that Alvie took the book from his shelf to donate it to you, because?"
"Because my place is really the humble abode of a collector who recognised this ancient tome for what it really was when he saw it in the pawn shop where Alvie toggled House's stuff." Cuddy gave Wilson one of her tight don't-mess-with-me smiles.
"And Lucas just happens to have a key to your place!"
"Lucas does not have a key to my place. But he and House have enough combined criminal energy to b&e within less than a minute, I'll bet. And if not, they can ring the bell and my babysitter will open the door for them." Cuddy gave Wilson a challenging stare. "Look, I don't know what your issue is here, but you've been insinuating endless stuff ever since I got here. What exactly is your problem? You didn't want House any more. Fine, I'm taking him on now. If it doesn't suit you, then say so!"
"I ... don't see how this helps. House is getting worse, not better! You proposed this move to avoid having him committed. How does it improve the situation if he's alone in an apartment where he's hallucinating even weirder scenarios than before and where he needs round-the-clock surveillance by ..." Wilson stopped, struck by another thought. "Why is Lucas doing this for you?"
"Because I'm paying through my nose for it!"
"How long do you mean to do that? ... Do you get what I mean? This can't continue indefinitely, and as far as I can see, we're worse off than before!"
Cuddy bit her lower lip before she admitted, "It wasn't my idea to have him committed; it was Foreman's. He's given me a deadline after which he'll file a petition. Either I can prove to him till then that House is no danger or ..."
"And this was your great idea - to have House live by himself when he can't even cope while living with me!"
"If we don't trust him to cope outside the hospital, then Foreman is right in objecting to his presence in the hospital."
Wilson pointed an accusing finger at Cuddy. "You're doing this to prove to me that I have to get him committed! I - I can't believe this! You're encouraging him to endanger himself to force my hand!"
"I believe that living alone might improve his condition," Cuddy stated baldly.
"And you're founding this crazy hypothesis on what?" Wilson's voice rose hysterically. "Hallucinating Alvie when he's been Alvie-free since Mayfield does not strike me as an improvement!"
"Being with you could be exacerbating his condition.” She counted off on her fingers as she spoke, “You treat an old friend - House thinks you're endangering your life by donating a lobe of your liver; you don't furnish the condo - he interprets it as a sign that you don't consider your living arrangement a permanent fixture; you resume contact with Sam - he sees you remarried and himself sleeping under a bridge. If he can be made to see that he can cope without you, he may stop overreacting to everything you do."
"So it's entirely my fault."
"That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that we need a different strategy."
"Well, this one sounds like a mixture of wishful thinking and misguided optimism to me."
Cuddy rose to go. "Let me know if you have a better idea," she snapped.
XVI: Help Me
Which explains why deans and cripples hang out at disaster sites and confirms our lurking suspicions that Wilson is the mastermind behind the touching season finale.
Wilson pressed the balls of his hands hard against his eyes in an effort to push the fatigue to the back of his head.
"Dr Wilson, can we have you over here please?" a nurse behind him asked, touching his elbow. Wilson sighed, pasted a smile onto his face and turned to the next bed. The ER was chock-a-block full, although it was five a.m. and the disaster had taken place over ten hours ago.
Cuddy suddenly materialised at his side. "Where's House?" She was still dressed in the blue overall that marked her as a member of the PPTH emergency team and she looked as frazzled as he felt. She tugged at his arm when he didn't respond straightaway.
"Excuse me," Wilson said to the patient He moved slightly away from the patient bay. "I thought he was with you."
"I sent him back in an ambulance and followed in my car."
"Well, I'm sorry I didn't anticipate your intentions and drop everything here in the ER to go to the ambulance bay to receive him."
"So you haven't seen him."
"No. Can I go back now?" Wilson waved a tired arm at his patient.
"Damn! Where could he be?" Raising herself on her toes, Cuddy peered around the ER. Then she held out her hand. "Give me your key to his apartment." Wilson dug in his pocket for his keys. When he found them, he removed one from the ring and proffered it to Cuddy. She took it and turned to go.
"Wait!" Wilson said. "Why are you so worried about House? He's been at his apartment for a week now and so far he's been fine."
"We had a major altercation," Cuddy said after a moment's hesitation. She drew Wilson further aside. "He ... okay, first he thought Lucas and I had bought a house and were moving in together so he gave me a house-warming present."
"Yeah, he told me - your great-grandfather's book, the one that he and Lucas must've stolen from your place. You should be happy to have it back."
"I should be so lucky!" Cuddy snorted. "No, I figure it's his high school biology textbook. Maybe someday I'll be able to sell it on ebay - as a special edition illustrated by the illustrious Dr Gregory House before he came to fame. Do all sophomores carry out such detailed pencil studies of the female anatomy?"
"Uh, yes."
"I tried not to react to that - I had no idea how to react to that. Somehow that gave him the idea that I was hiding something ...," Cuddy drew a hand through her hair.
"You are."
"Not about Lucas and me," Cuddy claimed. "We're certainly not getting married, which was House's next idea. So he went crawling into a pile of rubble which promptly collapsed on him. Luckily the EMTs could get him out. I patched him up and, yes, I was upset. Next thing I knew we were yelling at each other about Lucas and heaven knows what, and it was all totally stupid, because none of what he was accusing me of is real, so finally I walked away." She suited her actions to her words by heading out of the ER to her office.
Wilson followed her, trying to catch all the words of the tale that she threw at him over her shoulder. "When I didn't see anything of him for the next hour or so I assumed that he'd left in a huff, but it seems he went crawling back into another pile of rubble where, unfortunately, there was a dead woman. He stayed next to her, thinking she was still alive and that he could help her, and that was where one of the EM techs found him later when we patrolled the site to make sure everyone was gone. I packed him into the last ambulance and phoned Foreman to pick him up at this end, but Foreman phoned me while I was on my way back to say that House totally lost it here, saying he killed the woman. So I've got to go check on House and then get home to Rachel." Cuddy unlocked her office door and entered, casting a quick glance at her watch.
"Wow. You really screwed that up, didn't you?" Wilson leaned against the doorframe, watching her unzip her overall.
Cuddy swung around. "Screw you, Wilson!"
"Why the hell did you take him with you to Trenton, anyway? It's not as though he's of much use at a disaster site."
"You'd be surprised. He can't perform any medical procedures, but he has the best eye around for triage."
"It's still completely insane! What if he had performed a medical procedure there without you noticing it?"
"There was considerably less likelihood of that happening at the site than here. In Trenton there was just triage and the kind of dirty work that's definitely beneath House. And even if he'd chipped in and done something, who'd remember him afterwards in the chaos and darkness? There were limping guys everywhere. Over here there was a possibility that he'd decide to help out ..."
"Oh, come on, not really!" Wilson scoffed.
"Serious cases only, the ER understaffed, something catches his eye and hey, presto! Afterwards someone remembers the gimpy-legged rude jerk without lab coat or ID, wonders if he was really a doctor and whether they couldn’t make a mint suing the hospital." Cuddy stepped out of the overall, balled it and threw it into a corner.
"Fine. And why did you go to Trenton and leave me to deal with the mess here?"
"Because, as House never hesitates to point out, he's not the only one at this hospital who shouldn't be carrying out medical procedures." Cuddy threw Wilson an appealing look. "Wilson, in the clinic I get to swab crotches, draw a bit of blood every now and then, and take temperatures. Anything more than that, and the patient gets admitted. I'd have been virtually useless here. Besides, I knew the ER would be an all-night affair - you're nowhere near done here - and Marina is off the clock in - crap, in an hour. I've got to run." Cuddy, still in her scrubs, grabbed the pile of clothes that lay on the couch.
"Doesn't she normally stay the night when you have an emergency here?"
"It's practically morning and she has a few days off to attend her sister's wedding. She needs to catch a flight, so I have to get home, especially if I want to swing by House's place first." She picked her purse up from her desk and headed for the door. "No, I'd better pick Rachel up and take her to House's place."
Wilson stepped out and watched her lock her office. "Great,” he said tiredly. “Phone me when you find him."
His phone rang fifty minutes later. "Wilson?"
"Yes?"
Cuddy's voice was muted. "I'm at House's apartment ..." The rest was lost because the patient in the bed next to the woman Wilson was attending to was moaning incessantly.
Wilson held a hand over his free ear and turned away from the beds. "Could you speak a bit louder? I can't ..."
"No!" Cuddy's voice hissed. "Go somewhere where it's quiet."
Wilson moved to a corner of the ER where there were no patients any more. "Okay. What's up?"
"I'm in the apartment. He's ... he's sitting on the floor of his bathroom." Cuddy sounded slightly panicky.
"What's he doing there?" Wilson asked patiently.
"Nothing. Just sitting. Staring at his hands."
Wilson pictured the scene in his mind. He asked the question he'd been hoping to avoid, "Has he ... taken something?"
"I have no idea." There was a short silence, then Cuddy's voice returned, even quieter and tense. "There's a hole in the wall where the mirror should be and a pill bottle, no, two pill bottles next to him. I think he's got pills in his hands."
"Stop him!"
"How?" Cuddy's voice slid up a few notes. "He's stronger than me. If he wants to take them he can. Can’t you get out here?”
“Cuddy, it would take at least twenty minutes till I’m at House’s place. You need to fix this.”
“How?”
"Use your words." Wilson massaged the bridge of his nose, dredging up the last vestiges of concentration. "House is giving in to his abandonment issues here. He thinks I kicked him out and now he’s convinced you’re going to ride off into the sunset with Lucas. Persuade him that you’re doing nothing of the sort. Tell him that you and Lucas have split up."
“When is that supposed to have happened? I’ve been at the site all night.”
“Who cares? A year ago House chose to believe that you agreed to help him detox in his own four walls – tell me, how likely was that? He’ll believe you because that’s what he wants to believe.”
“He won’t. He thinks Lucas is right for me.”
“He doesn’t!” Wilson said indignantly.
“Yes, he does. He considers Lucas a loser, but in his opinion that’s what I want: someone who is safe, who’ll be a good dad for Rachel and whom I can boss around. He’ll never believe I dumped him.”
“You dumped Lucas because you realised that you love House, not Lucas,” Wilson improvised.
"Wilson, that's ...," Cuddy sounded shocked.
Wilson put every ounce of conviction he could muster into his voice. "It's a lot truer than what he believes at the moment. Are you dating Lucas? No. Do you love House? Yes."
"I'm very fond of him, but ..." Cuddy evaded.
“Cuddy, you’ve spent years protecting House, endangering your job and career in the process. You worry and cluck over him like a mother hen. And heaven knows you’ve lied for him to save his skin: to the court, to the board and to every bloody committee we have at the hospital. I don’t think ‘fondness’ is the right word to describe whatever motivates you there. You’ve also lied to him before; this is not the time to claim a high moral ground.” Wilson gave the phone at his ear a shake, as though the gesture could be transferred to Cuddy’s shoulders. “At the moment he thinks you hate him. If you think that what you feel for him - whatever you choose to call it - is closer to hate than to love, then go away and let him swallow the pills. Otherwise get in there and stop him. Now!"
Final Note: Here ends Season 6. Season 7 starts here.
flywoman for comments and suggestions and to brighidsfire for unremitting encouragement.XIII: Knight Falls
Wilson develops a sudden interest for herbal remedies and Foreman sets an ultimatum.
"Dr Cuddy? I need a word with you." Foreman walked into Cuddy's office without awaiting further permission.
Cuddy looked up from her papers, her smile fading as she registered his serious expression. "Sit down. What can I do for you?"
"It's House."
"Of course." She smiled tightly.
"I refuse to be responsible any longer for what he's doing."
"Dr Foreman, either you second his procedures and treatments, or you don't, in which case he has to run them past me. Either way the one who signs off the procedure is ultimately responsible," Cuddy said with an air of finality. Then a thought struck her. "You aren't letting him sign off procedures, are you?"
"The problem isn't his pen, it's his sword. That isn't a metaphor," Foreman said.
Cuddy shrugged that off. "He's taken patients' weapons before - I remember him sticking a knife into a socket. He's a danger to himself, not to others. Let me know if he shows signs of committing hara-kiri."
"He isn't sticking the sword into sockets or into his own belly; he's impaling us."
"Has anyone been injured yet?" Cuddy enquired.
"No, but ..."
"House's motoric skills and reactions are far above average. A sword at your throat may seem threatening, but trust me, you're a lot safer at the tip of House's sword than on the freeway among incompetents and drunks." Cuddy turned slightly to her screen to indicate that from her point of view the discussion was over.
"You can't know you’re safe with a man who's hallucinating."
"He hasn't been hallucinating lately."
Foreman, however, was not put off so easily. "That's a fallacious argument on more than one count. A) He may well have been hallucinating without our noticing it, and B) he's definitely hallucinating now."
Cuddy's eyebrows rose.
“Wilson would know, and he's worried; he should be,” Foreman said cryptically.
“Why should Wilson be worried?”
“He's dating his ex.”
“House is seeing Stacy?” Cuddy's voice did a backflip.
“No. Wilson is seeing his first wife. If I were Wilson, I'd also worry about House's sword tickling her throat.”
“Okay, but that's no proof that House is hallucinating.”
"He has accepted Wilson's story that the sword belongs to our patient," Foreman elucidated.
"Are we talking about the same sword, the one the patient from the Renaissance Fair brought with him?"
"We're talking about the same sword, but it wasn't lugged here by the patient. It belongs to House, who came in with it the first time a few days before the patient came to the ER."
"Then why did Wilson tell House it belonged to the patient?"
"So that the sword leaves again with the patient when he's discharged."
"That takes care of your sword problem, doesn't it." Cuddy's tone screamed 'end-of-conversation'. "It's lucky we have a patient from the fair."
"It takes care of the sword, but not of the other weapons in House's arsenal. And no, we're not lucky. Or, as House would say, there is no such thing as coincidence. Wilson supplied a patient to go with the sword."
"The patient was sent up by the ER. I know that because I happen to assign patients to Diagnostics."
"When House first brought the sword to the hospital, Wilson suddenly developed an interest in mediaeval medicinal remedies - I saw a book in his office. When we searched the patient's apartment we found a bank statement with an incoming payment by someone named James Wilson, dated two days before he collapsed and was brought to our ER." Foreman leaned back, face deadpan as usual.
"You're saying that Wilson paid this guy to almost kill himself and then act as a human guinea pig for our diagnostic department?"
"I'm not sayin' anything," Foreman drawled. "I'm just repeating my observations."
"Why would he do that? It's dangerously insane!"
"Our Sir William has an expensive hobby. He's been camping out there for over a month, which means he hasn't been earning any money on a regular job. Then there are the authentic garments made of natural home-spun fibres, the suit of armour, the sword, shield and lance, not to mention ..."
"I see you've done your background research," Cuddy cut him short.
""This jousting business is dangerous in and of itself. Those folks out there are all batshit crazy. Which brings us back to House. We refuse to participate in this madness any longer."
"Who is 'we'?"
"The Department of Diagnostic Medicine."
"I'd have to ban him from the hospital premises to make him stay away," Cuddy objected.
"Then do that."
"Let's get this straight." Cuddy leaned forward, exposing enough cleavage to have snapped House, but Foreman was made of stronger metal. "Even if I refuse him access to the premises, he's a free man otherwise. He can go where he likes in this country, carrying whatever weapons he likes, as long as they're legally his. You say he's a hazard. If that were really the case, isn't everyone safer if he's in a hospital with security staff and surveillance cameras everywhere and the facilities to treat anyone who may get hurt?"
"Dr Cuddy, I know he's a hazard to my department. If you believe he'd be even more of a danger to the outside world then it's your duty, as his friend, to have him committed."
Cuddy's gaze dropped. "I ...no ....that's not my responsibility."
"It isn't mine either, but if you don't do something about him, I will. If need be I'll file a petition for incapacity."
"Look, this sort of thing doesn't get done overnight," Cuddy prevaricated. "There are certain legal requirements ..."
"Thirty days, then I'll contact an attorney." Foreman rose. "Oh, and Dr Cuddy? I think it's time Wilson dropped a hint to someone about herbal poisons before we kill the patient."
Cuddy sat there, frozen, for a long time after he left.
XIV: Open and Shut, The Choice
In which Wilson's problem isn't that he's dating his ex, but that he used to date someone else's.
A light still burned in Wilson's office, so Cuddy marched in. "Wilson, I appreciate that you have a right to a private life over and above taking care of House, but paying his team to keep him busy while you get laid is ..."
"… a completely unfounded accusation." Wilson looked up from his paperwork, his sleeves rolled up. The desk lamp illuminated his face, but left the rest of the room in darkness. "For one thing I didn't pay them."
"House said you admitted to it." Cuddy walked over to his desk and stemmed both hands on it.
"I told him I paid them when he asked, because if I'd denied it, he'd have hacked into my online banking account to check on me and found the payment I made to that knight, Sir William. Last Tuesday, when I asked Taub to keep an eye on him, we had a late board meeting, that Friday, when Thirteen took him to a lesbian bar, I was right here on call, and yesterday I had a support group meeting ..."
"Support group?"
"For family of patients with psychiatric issues. Foreman and Chase took him to a karaoke bar. He had fun, you know." Wilson pinched the bridge of his nose.
"So much fun that he shot me down today when I suggested grabbing a bite to eat. Normally he'd be jumping at the chance to get one up on Lucas. You've hurt his feelings!" Cuddy accused.
Wilson slammed his pen down and rose in turn. "Cuddy, I'm at the end of my rope! I can't leave him by himself, his fellows have had enough - I don't know what to do any more." He tugged his fingers through his hair, half turning away from Cuddy.
"Has it occurred to you that you dating Sam exacerbates his fear of abandonment?"
"Me dating Sam," Wilson echoed hollowly.
"Strong, self-confident, blonde. Does that ring a bell somewhere? His condition is deteriorating because he's afraid you'll toss him aside now that you've got someone else."
Instead of answering Wilson bent down to his computer, clicking a few times with the mouse. Then he turned the screen so that Cuddy could see it. He'd opened Facebook in his browser and his cursor pointed to a user picture. "Here, do you see this? This is Sam. She always was and still is a brunette. As for character, she isn't anything like Amber, if that's what you were getting at. She's a mouse."
Cuddy backpedalled rapidly. "Okay, so he's got that wrong, but ..."
Wilson's voice rose. "No buts. He's got everything wrong because I'm not seeing Sam.” He stood for a moment massaging his neck before he continued, “Yes, she friended me on Facebook, and yes, I suggested we have dinner together, but Sam declined. She said she'd like to think of me as a friend but she wasn't over that part of her life as yet, so she felt it would be wiser for us not to meet."
"Oh. Then who are you dating?"
"No one!" Wilson shouted. "Do I have to spell it out? I have no personal life, and certainly no love life, because I'm busy trying to keep a guy in line who was already considered insane by most people before he started hallucinating." He paced to and fro as far as the space behind his desk would allow, his hands jerking in emphasis as he spoke. "He's started a guerrilla campaign against 'Sam'. I ask him to meet me for dinner at that Italian place down the road from the condo; he turns up with a transvestite to shock 'Sam'. He's rearranging the condo, stacking the dishes in the dishwasher so they don't get cleaned, putting perishable foods in the warmer spots in the fridge, mucking up the coffee table, throwing banana peels into my bedroom trash - my bedroom smells like a monkey cage! - in the hope that I'll blame 'Sam'!" Wilson shook his head despairingly at the memory.
"Have you thought of 'breaking up' with Sam?" Cuddy suggested.
"I have. I did. I opted for a fight over shirts that had shrunk in the dryer. Unfortunately, it seems that Sam and I are more mature than we were twenty years ago. We've made up again." Wilson sank back into his chair.
"He's left me alone ever since he decided that he can't split Lucas and me up."
"Yes. You even got a coffee machine out of the deal. All I get is dirty dishes and shirts that are two sizes too small for me now! Staying put and hoping the problem will solve itself isn't going to work. He's got it into his head that Sam wants to move in with me."
Cuddy sat down opposite him.
"And that I want him to move out." Wilson gauged Cuddy's reaction before he added, "Which might not be a bad idea in itself. Unfortunately, he's thinking of returning to his apartment."
"Oh, no. He can't!"
"I agree. You have to take him." Wilson turned the full wattage of soulful brown eyes on Cuddy, eyes with dark rings under them and lids that twitched as he spoke.
Cuddy looked hunted. "Wilson, I can't. You know I can't. I've got a child. I can't take in someone who may go ballistic on a non-existing rival, and risk having Rachel caught in the crossfire."
"Then what do I do?" Wilson's voice rose half an octave.
"He's been committed before," Cuddy noted.
"He went voluntarily. He won't now."
"File a petition for incapacity."
Now Wilson looked hunted. "I ... I can't. He'll never forgive me."
"Blame me," Cuddy said flatly.
"It won't work. This isn't a one-off; there'll be court hearings, his attorney will be all over my back - he'll figure it out. I’m not sure he ever forgave me the debridement and that was just a bit of muscle – this is his freedom, his right to self-determination!" Wilson was so busy rubbing every inch of skin on his face with the balls of hands that he didn't notice Cuddy's puzzled look.
"The debridement?"
"Yeah, authorising the procedure while he was in a coma.”
"But Stacy authorised it,” Cuddy objected. "She was his medical proxy."
"No, she wasn't, I was," Wilson corrected her, resurfacing from behind his hands. "You should know - you were the attending who suggested the procedure."
"I didn't check the paperwork - legal did. You weren't even here!".
"I was here - I just ... lay low. Stacy brought me the paperwork."
"You were his proxy, not Stacy?" Cuddy repeated.
"He has little respect for other doctors and none whatsoever for lay people; do you really think he'd let someone with no medical training whatsoever take medical decisions for him?"
“Then why the hell did he believe that Stacy authorised the debridement?”
Wilson shook his head as though clearing away cobwebs. “He was bitter about Stacy. I think it was his way of dealing with her betrayal.”
“What betrayal? If Stacy wasn’t his proxy she didn’t betray him,” Cuddy pointed out. She eyed him suspiciously, and then she leaned forward. “James Evan Wilson, I have no idea how you did it, but you let House believe that we, meaning my hospital, allowed his girlfriend to act as his medical proxy despite the fact that she was nothing of the sort. You saved your friendship at the cost of his relationship with Stacy," Cuddy said coldly.
"No ... no, you've got that wrong. Their relationship was on the rocks already. That’s what I meant with ‘betrayal’."
Cuddy's expression indicated how little she was inclined to believe Wilson. He rearranged his pens before he looked Cuddy in the face and said, "Stacy left him the week before the infarction. That's why I didn't take him seriously at first when he phoned me to tell me that his leg was killing him. I thought that ... he was faking it to make Stacy return or that it was his body's response to his suppressed emotions, but not that he was in real pain. So I ignored it and told him to go to the nearest clinic. By the time I figured that the pain was for real and brought him here, ..." His voice petered out.
"And Stacy? Why was she here and not you?"
"When it became obvious that he'd kill himself to prove his point, I asked her to come and make him see sense. He behaved as though she hadn't left him and it really wasn't the time to argue the matter. He was mad at me for ignoring his symptoms, so ... I let Stacy deal with him." Wilson avoided Cuddy's eyes. "But she was determined not to stay once he was through the worst - she made that clear to me from the start - so when House came out of the coma and blamed her for what had happened, we decided that she might as well bear the brunt of it for the short time she intended to stay."
"How noble of her," Cuddy said without sarcasm. After a pause she added, "And absolutely unlike Stacy."
"Sorry?"
"It would make sense if she had been screening her best friend from House's wrath, but protecting House's buddy from House - why would she do that?"
"I told you she ..."
"Furthermore, Stacy likes to keep her options open. She'd never have left House before the infarction if she hadn't had something more promising lined up." Cuddy eyed Wilson speculatively. "She left him for you."
Wilson was silent.
Cuddy leaned forward and stabbed a finger at Wilson. "She left him for you, and when House turned to you because of his leg pain, you didn't go to him because you were afraid he'd found out about the two of you and was carrying out some diabolical revenge in the guise of a medical emergency. Similarly, you didn't dare be around at the hospital once you'd called Stacy to his side because you were afraid he'd guess once he saw you together."
"She was lonely," Wilson defended himself. "House was always more absorbed in his cases than in her - you know how he gets when he has a case, and in those days he took more cases. Stacy isn't like that. She loves her work, but she isn't obsessed by it. She wanted companionship, not the occasional scrap of attention he threw her way."
"She was needy," Cuddy summarised. She smiled bitterly. "And then she dumped you for Mark."
"Er, no. I ended the relationship." Wilson had the grace to look guilty. Cuddy's eyebrows rose to her hairline. "House was a lot worse after the infarction than - I mean, Stacy and I hadn't reckoned with an infarction in the first place. I had to work, look after House, then look after House some more ... I simply had no time for her."
"She ditches her boyfriend in favour of his best friend, only to have the best friend leave her for her ex. How ironic!"
"Whatever." Wilson closed his eyes.
“It doesn’t explain why House still blames her for what happened.”
“He doesn’t.” Wilson paused. Then he said uncertainly, “Does he?”
“Well, he reminds me at least once a year, usually when I’m trying to get him to do a lecture or attend a fundraiser, that I and ‘that other harpy’ crippled him, which is why he is now too fragile for such exhausting activities.” Cuddy rolled her eyes.
Wilson considered this. “He might mean me when referring to harpies.”
“I don’t think so. What does he say when you talk about it?”
“Talk about what? The infarction? We … we don’t talk about it.”
“You haven’t talked about it in ten years?” Cuddy shook her head and leaned her forehead on her hand in despair.
“What’s there to say? ‘House, my choice was wrong and it was cowardly. I chose the middle ground that saved your life, but crippled you and left you in permanent pain. I should have been prepared to take the risk of losing you. I should either have let you die or had the courage to take your leg entirely and risk losing you to your anger. My choice left you with more pain and less mobility than an amputation would have done.’ Cuddy, he knows all that! Where’s the sense in talking about it? He certainly doesn’t want to, and after what I did, I have no right to take up the topic against his wishes.”
Cuddy stared into space, fidgeting with her pearls. Wilson watched her in silent irritation. Finally he said, “Cuddy, just … let it go, please. Don’t start blaming me – heaven knows I blame myself enough as it is.”
Cuddy’s attention snapped back to Wilson. “Wilson, this isn’t about blaming you. Don’t you see? House should know that Stacy never was his proxy. That he doesn’t, means that he is delusional about it.”
“Ten years? You think he’s been delusional for the past ten years?”
“It’s the only explanation that makes sense, because whenever he mentions Stacy or the break-up to me, which admittedly isn’t very often, it always features Stacy leaving him after the infarction, guilt-ridden and driven away by his animosity towards her.”
“If he has been delusional for that long,” Wilson said heavily, “then perhaps we really should get him committed.” Cuddy looked at him in surprise. “It can’t have been the vicodin or the brain injury from the bus crash.”
“No,” Cuddy concurred, “but he flatlined for a whole minute during the infarction. I barely managed to bring him back.”
“Damn the bloody infarction!”
“This does have a bright side,” Cuddy said on a more cheerful note. Wilson looked at her in disbelief. She shrugged. “House was delusional for over eight years before anyone noticed it. It seems to be triggered by stressful incidents, usually major physical trauma. That means he can live a normal life with it, if he isn’t overdosing on vicodin or stressed out of his mind. Maybe letting him return to his apartment isn’t such a bad idea. The problem is that there are bound to be vicodin stashes everywhere in it."
"I searched it and removed his secret stashes when he went to Mayfield. Look, I'm pretty sure I found everything."
Cuddy laughed. "You think you're better at hide-and-seek than House? I doubt anyone is. .... although ...." She got the kind of epiphany look that was normally House's speciality.
"Who? His team? No way!"
"No. Lucas. Lucas Douglas. If anyone can find House's hiding places, it's him. Give me a few days, and then tell House he can move out."
XV: Baggage
Wherein Wilson needs to be needed, Lucas indulges in home improvement and Cuddy sacrifices a family heirloom.
"Lucas just phoned. House turned up in the apartment!" Cuddy, standing at the door of Wilson's office, was spewing flames.
"The last I heard, it was still House's apartment, not Lucas's," Wilson said pointedly.
"Look, I don't know what kind of pissing contest this is ..."
"It's no pissing contest. You wanted to take responsibility for House - you're getting it."
Cuddy marched forward to lean on Wilson's desk. "Wilson, Lucas isn't done yet! Couldn't you have warned us?"
Wilson was not intimidated. "When I gave him my key, he said he needed four days to turn everything upside down He's had five days - I only let House move out today."
"He needed four days to search for House's secret stash. Now he needs a few days to put the place together again," Cuddy said. Wilson frowned. "House lived there for over ten years and he's had one police search already. You think he's going to have easy hiding places? Lucas has had to pull up floor boards, remove panelling, pull cupboards off walls, etcetera, etcetera. He's got to do the place up again - it's a shambles."
Wilson got up with a weary sigh and went over to the coat rack.
"Where are you going?" Cuddy asked.
"Lucas won't be able to put everything back the way it belongs. I'll see what I can do," Wilson said with a martyr's mien.
"Too late. House has seen the mess already."
Wilson stopped short. "What did he say?"
"He told Lucas that he had till this evening to get everything back the way it was."
"That's all? No comment on what your boyfriend was doing at his place and what business of Lucas's his secret drug stashes might be?"
Cuddy folded her arms over her chest defensively. "He mistook Lucas for Alvie. You know, his bipolar friend from Mayfield."
"Alvie doesn't exist," Wilson said unhappily.
"That's a good thing actually," Cuddy opined.
"I don't see how House believing that one of his delusions has turned up in Princeton can be a Good Thing."
"He believes a lot of crap anyway; since he's chosen to mistake Lucas for someone else, it's better if that someone else doesn't exist, just in case House decides on some sort of vendetta against that person involving violations of privacy as in Sam's case."
"Sam?" Wilson's voice rose in alarm.
"Oh, you didn't know? It didn't come up sometime? He paid Lucas to dig in her past. That included her therapy case file."
Wilson started his 'massaging-obscure-areas-of-his-upper-extremities' routine, beginning with the bridge of his nose. "Oh my God! If Sam finds out about this ...,"
"Exactly."
"Why the hell didn't you stop Lucas?"
"He didn't tell me about it then, he told me now. It was a private deal between him and House, who is not officially incapacitated and hence legally able to hire a PI for his own purposes, and since Lucas didn't know that you're not dating Sam, he had no reason not to take on the case."
"So what happens now? Lucas fixes the place up again and then pretends to go back to Mayfield? What's Alvie supposed to be doing at House's place, anyway?"
"Hiding from immigration officials and indulging in a bit of home improvement while he's at it."
"Yeah, I can figure why that would appeal to House's subconscious more than the idea of your boyfriend searching his digs for drugs."
"Lucas is not my ...," Cuddy objected automatically.
"I know ... I just ... it's easier than ..." Wilson closed his eyes and grasped an imaginary basketball with his hands. "Talking like House keeps me from shooting off my mouth in front of him." His eyes snapped open again. "Well, if House wants the place back in its original pristine state by this evening we haven't got much time." He moved towards the coat rack once more.
"Relax. He's accepted that Alvie has changed things around a bit in his absence."
"You've got to be kidding! 'Change' is a four-letter word in the Dictionary of House. He'll go ballistic if he can't find his stuff."
"Lucas has got everything under control. Seems he tossed House's coffee table out...."
"It was a perfectly good coffee table - why the hell did he have to throw it out?"
"Re-Lax!" Cuddy repeated. "They're going to the dump to find it! House hollowed out all four legs to make room for vicodin bottles, so Lucas thought it was too rickety to keep, but I've told him to fix it up somehow when they find it."
"If they find it," Wilson said glumly.
"Lucas is a professional. This is his job!"
"That's all - just the coffee table?"
"And five books that House had also used to conceal pill bottles. He cut apertures into the pages to hold them. Lucas said House steered unerringly towards the places where the books should have been - how the hell does he remember after all this time where he kept his stash?" Cuddy's voice held undisguised admiration. "Does he have a photographic memory?"
"Probably some weird mnemonic. What books were they?"
Cuddy took out her phone and checked through her text messages. "Lucas sent me the list. Adams and Victor, Principles of Neurology; Sabiston's Textbook of Surgery, Janeway's Immunobiology ... oh, I see where this is going! Anyway, it shouldn't be too difficult to get hold of those somewhere. I've told Lucas to head for the university bookstore."
"What about the other two?"
"One's oncology, obviously."
"And the other is endocrinology?" Wilson surmised.
Cuddy frowned as she read. "No, it's ... Approach to the ... holy shit!"
"Sounds like the Monty Python version of a gastroenterology textbook."
"You're not so far off. The book is obscure and out of print - there's no way Lucas can get it in a book store." Cuddy punched a number into her cell phone. "Lucas? Listen, there's no way you can get that book about the acute abdomen in the book store. It's out of print. ... No. But I have a copy. ... Yes. ... Okay. In the living room on the book shelf above the television. It's got a brown leather binding. ... Okay. ... Thanks. Bye."
"Lucas is going to your place to get your copy," Wilson stated, disapproval splattered over his face.
"Yes. It's the simplest method."
"And he's going to tell House that Alvie took the book from his shelf to donate it to you, because?"
"Because my place is really the humble abode of a collector who recognised this ancient tome for what it really was when he saw it in the pawn shop where Alvie toggled House's stuff." Cuddy gave Wilson one of her tight don't-mess-with-me smiles.
"And Lucas just happens to have a key to your place!"
"Lucas does not have a key to my place. But he and House have enough combined criminal energy to b&e within less than a minute, I'll bet. And if not, they can ring the bell and my babysitter will open the door for them." Cuddy gave Wilson a challenging stare. "Look, I don't know what your issue is here, but you've been insinuating endless stuff ever since I got here. What exactly is your problem? You didn't want House any more. Fine, I'm taking him on now. If it doesn't suit you, then say so!"
"I ... don't see how this helps. House is getting worse, not better! You proposed this move to avoid having him committed. How does it improve the situation if he's alone in an apartment where he's hallucinating even weirder scenarios than before and where he needs round-the-clock surveillance by ..." Wilson stopped, struck by another thought. "Why is Lucas doing this for you?"
"Because I'm paying through my nose for it!"
"How long do you mean to do that? ... Do you get what I mean? This can't continue indefinitely, and as far as I can see, we're worse off than before!"
Cuddy bit her lower lip before she admitted, "It wasn't my idea to have him committed; it was Foreman's. He's given me a deadline after which he'll file a petition. Either I can prove to him till then that House is no danger or ..."
"And this was your great idea - to have House live by himself when he can't even cope while living with me!"
"If we don't trust him to cope outside the hospital, then Foreman is right in objecting to his presence in the hospital."
Wilson pointed an accusing finger at Cuddy. "You're doing this to prove to me that I have to get him committed! I - I can't believe this! You're encouraging him to endanger himself to force my hand!"
"I believe that living alone might improve his condition," Cuddy stated baldly.
"And you're founding this crazy hypothesis on what?" Wilson's voice rose hysterically. "Hallucinating Alvie when he's been Alvie-free since Mayfield does not strike me as an improvement!"
"Being with you could be exacerbating his condition.” She counted off on her fingers as she spoke, “You treat an old friend - House thinks you're endangering your life by donating a lobe of your liver; you don't furnish the condo - he interprets it as a sign that you don't consider your living arrangement a permanent fixture; you resume contact with Sam - he sees you remarried and himself sleeping under a bridge. If he can be made to see that he can cope without you, he may stop overreacting to everything you do."
"So it's entirely my fault."
"That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that we need a different strategy."
"Well, this one sounds like a mixture of wishful thinking and misguided optimism to me."
Cuddy rose to go. "Let me know if you have a better idea," she snapped.
XVI: Help Me
Which explains why deans and cripples hang out at disaster sites and confirms our lurking suspicions that Wilson is the mastermind behind the touching season finale.
Wilson pressed the balls of his hands hard against his eyes in an effort to push the fatigue to the back of his head.
"Dr Wilson, can we have you over here please?" a nurse behind him asked, touching his elbow. Wilson sighed, pasted a smile onto his face and turned to the next bed. The ER was chock-a-block full, although it was five a.m. and the disaster had taken place over ten hours ago.
Cuddy suddenly materialised at his side. "Where's House?" She was still dressed in the blue overall that marked her as a member of the PPTH emergency team and she looked as frazzled as he felt. She tugged at his arm when he didn't respond straightaway.
"Excuse me," Wilson said to the patient He moved slightly away from the patient bay. "I thought he was with you."
"I sent him back in an ambulance and followed in my car."
"Well, I'm sorry I didn't anticipate your intentions and drop everything here in the ER to go to the ambulance bay to receive him."
"So you haven't seen him."
"No. Can I go back now?" Wilson waved a tired arm at his patient.
"Damn! Where could he be?" Raising herself on her toes, Cuddy peered around the ER. Then she held out her hand. "Give me your key to his apartment." Wilson dug in his pocket for his keys. When he found them, he removed one from the ring and proffered it to Cuddy. She took it and turned to go.
"Wait!" Wilson said. "Why are you so worried about House? He's been at his apartment for a week now and so far he's been fine."
"We had a major altercation," Cuddy said after a moment's hesitation. She drew Wilson further aside. "He ... okay, first he thought Lucas and I had bought a house and were moving in together so he gave me a house-warming present."
"Yeah, he told me - your great-grandfather's book, the one that he and Lucas must've stolen from your place. You should be happy to have it back."
"I should be so lucky!" Cuddy snorted. "No, I figure it's his high school biology textbook. Maybe someday I'll be able to sell it on ebay - as a special edition illustrated by the illustrious Dr Gregory House before he came to fame. Do all sophomores carry out such detailed pencil studies of the female anatomy?"
"Uh, yes."
"I tried not to react to that - I had no idea how to react to that. Somehow that gave him the idea that I was hiding something ...," Cuddy drew a hand through her hair.
"You are."
"Not about Lucas and me," Cuddy claimed. "We're certainly not getting married, which was House's next idea. So he went crawling into a pile of rubble which promptly collapsed on him. Luckily the EMTs could get him out. I patched him up and, yes, I was upset. Next thing I knew we were yelling at each other about Lucas and heaven knows what, and it was all totally stupid, because none of what he was accusing me of is real, so finally I walked away." She suited her actions to her words by heading out of the ER to her office.
Wilson followed her, trying to catch all the words of the tale that she threw at him over her shoulder. "When I didn't see anything of him for the next hour or so I assumed that he'd left in a huff, but it seems he went crawling back into another pile of rubble where, unfortunately, there was a dead woman. He stayed next to her, thinking she was still alive and that he could help her, and that was where one of the EM techs found him later when we patrolled the site to make sure everyone was gone. I packed him into the last ambulance and phoned Foreman to pick him up at this end, but Foreman phoned me while I was on my way back to say that House totally lost it here, saying he killed the woman. So I've got to go check on House and then get home to Rachel." Cuddy unlocked her office door and entered, casting a quick glance at her watch.
"Wow. You really screwed that up, didn't you?" Wilson leaned against the doorframe, watching her unzip her overall.
Cuddy swung around. "Screw you, Wilson!"
"Why the hell did you take him with you to Trenton, anyway? It's not as though he's of much use at a disaster site."
"You'd be surprised. He can't perform any medical procedures, but he has the best eye around for triage."
"It's still completely insane! What if he had performed a medical procedure there without you noticing it?"
"There was considerably less likelihood of that happening at the site than here. In Trenton there was just triage and the kind of dirty work that's definitely beneath House. And even if he'd chipped in and done something, who'd remember him afterwards in the chaos and darkness? There were limping guys everywhere. Over here there was a possibility that he'd decide to help out ..."
"Oh, come on, not really!" Wilson scoffed.
"Serious cases only, the ER understaffed, something catches his eye and hey, presto! Afterwards someone remembers the gimpy-legged rude jerk without lab coat or ID, wonders if he was really a doctor and whether they couldn’t make a mint suing the hospital." Cuddy stepped out of the overall, balled it and threw it into a corner.
"Fine. And why did you go to Trenton and leave me to deal with the mess here?"
"Because, as House never hesitates to point out, he's not the only one at this hospital who shouldn't be carrying out medical procedures." Cuddy threw Wilson an appealing look. "Wilson, in the clinic I get to swab crotches, draw a bit of blood every now and then, and take temperatures. Anything more than that, and the patient gets admitted. I'd have been virtually useless here. Besides, I knew the ER would be an all-night affair - you're nowhere near done here - and Marina is off the clock in - crap, in an hour. I've got to run." Cuddy, still in her scrubs, grabbed the pile of clothes that lay on the couch.
"Doesn't she normally stay the night when you have an emergency here?"
"It's practically morning and she has a few days off to attend her sister's wedding. She needs to catch a flight, so I have to get home, especially if I want to swing by House's place first." She picked her purse up from her desk and headed for the door. "No, I'd better pick Rachel up and take her to House's place."
Wilson stepped out and watched her lock her office. "Great,” he said tiredly. “Phone me when you find him."
His phone rang fifty minutes later. "Wilson?"
"Yes?"
Cuddy's voice was muted. "I'm at House's apartment ..." The rest was lost because the patient in the bed next to the woman Wilson was attending to was moaning incessantly.
Wilson held a hand over his free ear and turned away from the beds. "Could you speak a bit louder? I can't ..."
"No!" Cuddy's voice hissed. "Go somewhere where it's quiet."
Wilson moved to a corner of the ER where there were no patients any more. "Okay. What's up?"
"I'm in the apartment. He's ... he's sitting on the floor of his bathroom." Cuddy sounded slightly panicky.
"What's he doing there?" Wilson asked patiently.
"Nothing. Just sitting. Staring at his hands."
Wilson pictured the scene in his mind. He asked the question he'd been hoping to avoid, "Has he ... taken something?"
"I have no idea." There was a short silence, then Cuddy's voice returned, even quieter and tense. "There's a hole in the wall where the mirror should be and a pill bottle, no, two pill bottles next to him. I think he's got pills in his hands."
"Stop him!"
"How?" Cuddy's voice slid up a few notes. "He's stronger than me. If he wants to take them he can. Can’t you get out here?”
“Cuddy, it would take at least twenty minutes till I’m at House’s place. You need to fix this.”
“How?”
"Use your words." Wilson massaged the bridge of his nose, dredging up the last vestiges of concentration. "House is giving in to his abandonment issues here. He thinks I kicked him out and now he’s convinced you’re going to ride off into the sunset with Lucas. Persuade him that you’re doing nothing of the sort. Tell him that you and Lucas have split up."
“When is that supposed to have happened? I’ve been at the site all night.”
“Who cares? A year ago House chose to believe that you agreed to help him detox in his own four walls – tell me, how likely was that? He’ll believe you because that’s what he wants to believe.”
“He won’t. He thinks Lucas is right for me.”
“He doesn’t!” Wilson said indignantly.
“Yes, he does. He considers Lucas a loser, but in his opinion that’s what I want: someone who is safe, who’ll be a good dad for Rachel and whom I can boss around. He’ll never believe I dumped him.”
“You dumped Lucas because you realised that you love House, not Lucas,” Wilson improvised.
"Wilson, that's ...," Cuddy sounded shocked.
Wilson put every ounce of conviction he could muster into his voice. "It's a lot truer than what he believes at the moment. Are you dating Lucas? No. Do you love House? Yes."
"I'm very fond of him, but ..." Cuddy evaded.
“Cuddy, you’ve spent years protecting House, endangering your job and career in the process. You worry and cluck over him like a mother hen. And heaven knows you’ve lied for him to save his skin: to the court, to the board and to every bloody committee we have at the hospital. I don’t think ‘fondness’ is the right word to describe whatever motivates you there. You’ve also lied to him before; this is not the time to claim a high moral ground.” Wilson gave the phone at his ear a shake, as though the gesture could be transferred to Cuddy’s shoulders. “At the moment he thinks you hate him. If you think that what you feel for him - whatever you choose to call it - is closer to hate than to love, then go away and let him swallow the pills. Otherwise get in there and stop him. Now!"
END SEASON 6
Final Note: Here ends Season 6. Season 7 starts here.
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Date: 2011-03-19 05:32 am (UTC)My most favorite sentence: "Uh, yes." :-)
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Date: 2011-03-19 01:46 pm (UTC)