Twelve Days, Day 1

[readingrat]

Author's Note:
I'm indulging my passion for abstruse puzzles once again: Twelve Days follows the plot pattern of Ye Olde Barde's Twelfth Night. That means I've projected the characters and basic plot elements onto my story. Each scene that I write has to contain the characters corresponding to the ones in the play and the associated plot elements. I took the liberty of eliminating a few minor characters and inserting one OC, but that's about it. In addition, I imposed on myself the restriction that the plot has to take place within a time span of twelve days, with at least one scene per day. (No, you students of English Literature, don't bother telling me that the play was named thus because it was performed on the Twelfth Day of Christmas and not because the action takes place in twelve nights – I know!) I've inserted one quote per Shakespearean scene, so you can see where we are in the play by following the quotes. If you can't figure out who's who, ask me and I'll send you a cast list. (Little hint: House's character is female in the play.)

For those of you who don't know or care about the play: it shouldn't really matter. However, it does mean that House only turns up in person on Day 5, because in the play his character doesn't turn up till Act 1, Scene 5.

My original concept from before the season finale wasn't Huddy and assumed that House would have a relapse in time for the hiatus. That didn't happen, and since I'm a strict adherent to canon, I was in a bit of a bother. I can't say I'm particularly happy with the Huddy element in this fic – although it's my favoured pairing and I like playing with the possibility of it happening, I really don't like writing Huddy consummated. It hampers my imaginative process. I hoped that the plot problems this created would solve themselves during the writing process, but they didn't really. So while concrit is welcome as usual, don't even bother telling me that House acts oc towards the end of this fic. I know!

The action takes place parallel to the end of Season 6. The basic assumption is that the Trenton crane disaster takes place on the evening of Day 2, the scene in House's bathroom in the early morning of Day 3.

A big thank you to my beta Brighid45, whose unremitting patience and encouragement got me through this one!

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Duke Orsino:
How now! what news from her?
Valentine:
So please my lord, I might not be admitted;
But from her handmaid do return this answer:
The element itself, till seven years' heat,
Shall not behold her face at ample view;
[Twelfth Night, Act 1 Scene 1]

May 16, 2010: Day 1
(The day before the crane disaster in Trenton)

Four pm

The sight and smell assails one's senses the moment one comes outside into the open - lilacs, white and purple, the blossoms vivid against the darker green of the leaves. They are late this year, delayed by the long, harsh winter, but it is as if the longer period of latency has encouraged the plants to give their all. The sweetness is all-pervading, shouting 'spring' louder than the chorus of bird calls that augments the impressions to a cacophony of the senses.

Nolan isn't much of an outdoor person; he's always felt more at home indoors with his nose in a book than exposed to the raw elements, but even he can't deny the pull that these first warm days of spring exert on everyone in the institution. As he rounds the corner that hides the recreational area for inmates from the severe front façade of Mayfield Psychiatric Hospital, the sounds of a riotous basketball game are added to the more natural background noises of the vast parkland surrounding the institute. The more mobile inmates of Ward 6 are engaged in a match that seems to follow few defined rules, but is carried out with astonishingly little acrimony under the watchful eye of Dr Beasley. Nolan watches for a moment, letting the scent of the lilacs carry him back in memory to a similar scene. Is it already one year ago that he stood almost in the same spot watching one patient reduce an afternoon basketball session to a hopeless shambles within minutes of joining in the game? How much has changed since then, at least for Greg House!

He unlocks the door in the fence around the enclosed area, locks it carefully behind him and strolls over to the bench to choose a seat beside Dr Beasley. They sit in companionable silence, enjoying the afternoon sun and the relative peace of afternoon recreation time.

Finally Dr Beasley, eyes on her patients, breaks the silence. "Don't you normally see Greg at this time?"

Funny that they should both be thinking of him. Then again, it isn't really odd that he should be thinking of Greg, because she is right - it is the slot that is normally reserved for House's therapy session.

"I do, but he didn't show up today."

"Oh. Is he alright?" Her voice carries polite concern for a patient who has missed an appointment due to sickness or other untoward circumstances.

"I have no idea."

Dr Beasley turns to look at him. "Isn't he normally reliable in keeping his appointments?" She knows about Greg's progress in general terms because they discuss current cases in their weekly team meetings, so she is aware that he has been punctual and cooperative so far.

Nolan's discomfort is like a tangible mass between them, but he knows that what he now has to tell her will come out sooner or later anyway, so he might as well get the unpleasant task behind him. "He left the last session after stating that he was done with therapy. It seems that he meant it."

Nolan can't help grimacing. The incident (a euphemism for what is a therapeutic catastrophe of the first order) is too fresh not to sting mightily. It his personal Waterloo, a faux pas of the same order as the one Greg committed when he let Freedom Fighter jump off the parking deck. Dr Beasley shows admirable reticence; she refrains from prying verbally, but she can't help sending a questioning glance his way. He doesn't blame her; in her position he'd have done more than just look.

He elaborates. "The session didn't go well. I got trapped into playing the little games he usually plays with me," here he exchanges a rueful smile with Dr Beasley, who knows those games only too well, "and omitted to read the subtext to what he was telling me. He was upset, rightly so, and walked out on me. He phoned administration earlier this week to cancel all future appointments."

Dr Beasley ponders this before she returns her attention to Nolan. "You're worried about him," she surmises.

"Yes. His supportive network, if one can call it such, is crumbling, his pain level is on the increase, and he himself has admitted to drinking too much. 'Go, figure,' as Greg would say."

Dr Beasley sighs. "There's nothing you can do if he refuses treatment."

"There is, unfortunately, something that I have to do if he doesn't take it up again, and that is inform his superior that he has ceased to participate in ongoing therapy. It was part and parcel of the conditions imposed by the board of his hospital when they agreed to take him back into their employment. They would only reinstate him if he agreed to a partial suspension of patient confidentiality: I am obliged to report anything that threatens his mental status. They were primarily concerned about relapses, but they also included a refusal to continue with out-patient therapy as grounds for a dismissal."

Dr Beasley's eyes widen. He doesn't have to explain to her what Greg's job means to him, nor does he need to protest how much he hates having to report to the powers that reign at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. Patient confidentiality was implemented to prevent this kind of a scenario, but the restrictions imposed by Greg's speciality are such that Nolan allowed himself to be coerced into agreeing to treatment conditions that his concern for his patient's well-being would normally have made him refuse unequivocally. Greg, however, was adamant about returning to diagnostics, a discipline that doesn't seem to exist outside the microcosm of PPTH, while the dean did her best (and probably a bit more) to persuade the board to take him back, hence agreeing to those demeaning conditions seemed the the best option at the time. Now Nolan wonders whether he shouldn't have bargained harder.

Knowing what he does about the dean of PPTH after a year of treating Greg, it seems unlikely that the conditions were her idea. Furthermore, she sounds like the type of person who is in high mettle when confronted with Herculean labours; had she been convinced that the only way to get Greg House back on her staff was to persuade her board of governors to waive those conditions, she would probably have risen to the challenge.

"He'll lose his job," Dr Beasley summarizes unnecessarily.

"If I report him," Nolan affirms.

The choice of 'if' instead of 'when' is not lost on Dr Beasley. "You don't intend to do so?"

"Not yet. I think I can afford to give him some time to change his mind."

"How long?" After a moment she adds, "He won't change his mind. We both know that."

"I could also inform the board that he has progressed to such an extent that continuing his treatment is not strictly necessary."

That draws a gasp from Dr Beasley. "You can't be serious!"

"He has progressed enormously. Perhaps he can manage by himself now. Who are we to say he can't?"
Nolan reasons, playing the devil's advocate.

"You just told me that he's in a fragile situation. How can you now say that he'll be fine?"

Although Dr Beasley knows Nolan well enough to be aware that he can't be serious about this, she feels obliged to contradict him. It's almost a game - he bounces ideas off her by making outrageous statements, she forces him to rethink his approach by pointing out the flaws in his logic - but their trigger is too serious a matter to warrant frivolity in dealing with it.

"I think it's an approach worth considering. Greg has not ceased to amaze me this past year with the amount of energy and dedication he has put not only into staying clean, but also into changing his attitude to some basic issues in his life. He's not a person who does things by halves. But be at ease - I won't suggest anything to his employer that is not founded upon firm convictions on my part. Convictions based on observation, not on wishful thinking," he adds when she looks at him with undisguised scepticism.

"How do you intend to observe him if he doesn't continue his treatment?"

"Unconventional patients, such as Greg, call for unconventional methods," Nolan says meditatively. "I'll take a page out of his book and set a PI on him." 

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