Post-Trauma 9.5
Second half of Chapter 9. I'm starting work on Chapter 10 right away.
(To the people waiting for more hot H/W/C action, please be patient! I do have one or two more chapters of Beginnings: The Threesome Prequel planned, but I'm going to keep working on this story for a while--it's hard to switch back and forth between the two.)
House keeps on doing paperwork, obliviously, as Wilson calls the police and asks to speak to Detective Whitley or Dawson. He gets Whitley, and quickly explains what he thinks happened.
“We’ll be right over,” she tells him.
Wilson reluctantly leaves House’s side to see if Chase and Cameron have found anything. They’ve dumped the sharps container out on the table and are sorting through it, looking for a syringe that doesn’t match the ones the hospital uses.
“Looks like these are all ours,” Chase reports. “But I found a broken-off needle here, and all of these syringes still have the needles attached. It’s possible he broke off the needle and took the empty syringe with him.”
“That sounds likely,” Wilson agrees. “But save them. We might need to test the residue in all of them. And start checking through the trash.”
“For what?” Chase asks.
“Anything.” Wilson ducks back into the inner office, where House is still doing exactly what he was doing before. “How much paperwork can you possibly have?”
“Did you know that I’ve never done performance evaluations for any of my staff?” he asks. “I found a whole stack of forms in my bottom drawer.”
Wilson glances at the form he’s filling out now. It’s an old version they stopped using three years ago; a glance through the stack of finished work reveals that House started with the most recently overdue set and is working his way backwards. “Yeah. I did know that. You know, Kalvach doesn’t even work here anymore,” he points out.
“He should still have a performance evaluation on file,” House says primly. “And I can mail him his copy.”
“Right. How silly of me.”
A few minutes later, Cameron knocks on the door and tells them there’s “a Detective Whitley here to see you,” in an oddly stilted voice.
“Send her in,” Wilson says.
Whitley comes in. “Hi, Doctor Wilson, House.”
Wilson gets up and offers her his chair. She sits. “Doctor House, can we talk about what happened this afternoon in the Clinic?”
“Nothing happened,” House says quickly. “I’m sorry to have wasted your time.”
“Have you seen Doctor Luerssen since your last appointment with him last month?”
“No, I haven’t.”
She asks the same questions a few more ways, and gets the same answers. Finally she asks to see House’s arm. He rolls up his sleeve obediently, but frets, “I didn’t take anything. I don’t know how I got that. I don’t know what happened.”
“Uh-huh.” She takes several pictures of the bruise and puncture. “Thank you, Doctor House. We’ll be in touch.”
Wilson walks out with her. “Is it going to be a problem that he says nothing happened?” Stupid question. Of course it’s a problem. “I mean, how much of a problem is it going to be?”
“It’s not completely unheard of for victims of, say, sexual assault, to deny that anything happened. We might be able to make a charge stick based on the physical evidence, especially if he recants later.” She pauses by the conference table, where Chase and Cameron have displayed a few mildly suspicious objects from the trash can-a gauze pad that may have been used to clean an injection site, possibly even House’s; a tongue depressor that House might have used if he’d actually given “Smith” a throat culture; a short length of rubber tubing such as would be used to give an intravenous injection-or to do a blood draw; and the broken needle. “It would have been better to let us go through the trash. If any of these things prove to be useful, the defense can point out that you folks had ample opportunity to plant them.”
“Oh…damn. I didn’t think of that,” Wilson admits, feeling stupid.
“Nothing we can do about it now,” she says, sealing the items in individual plastic baggies. He has the slight impression she is mainly humoring them, and if she thought the collection of trash would actually be useful, she’d be more upset. “But we’ll send one of our own people to get another blood sample.”
Wilson nods. “What happens next?”
“First, I’ll find out if Dawson got a positive ID on John Smith from the clinic nurse. If we did, we’ll go to the DA and see if we have enough to make a charge. We’ll also share photos of Luerssen with your security staff. I’ll keep you and Doctor House posted.”
“Okay. Thanks,” Wilson says, shaking her hand.
Going back into House’s office, he glances at his watch. “It’s about time for your therapy appointment,” he says. “You want me to--”
He stops, because House has gone absolutely still. Wilson doesn’t even think he’s breathing.
Right. Therapy. “With Temas,” Wilson reminds him. “Do you want me to go with you?”
“I don’t think Doctor Temas is helping me,” House says.
“Well, he’s expecting to see you today,” Wilson says. “So you should go anyway.”
“You’re right,” House agrees.
“Great. And I’ll go with you, okay?”
“Okay,” House agrees.
Temas knows something’s up the moment Greg House-trailed by his friend Wilson-comes into his office. House’s eyes are slightly vacant, and his gait is stiff. He sits in the chair in front of where Luerssen’s desk used to be, and clasps his hands on top of his cane, fixing his eyes on a patch of carpet with no distinguishing features other than that it happens to be in front of him.
Temas drags another chair over. “Hey, House. What’s new?”
“Nothing. Nothing happened.”
Interesting. “I see. Well, it’s been two weeks since we met last. How have you been?”
“Fine. Better. Normal.”
Oh, Jesus. Temas glances over at Wilson-he clearly knows something about what’s going on, and Temas is strongly tempted to just ask. But listening to what Greg-House-has to say is more important than finding out what actually happened. “I see. Well, what do you want to work on today?”
House shifts in his chair. “I don’t know.”
“Did anything happen this week that you’d like to talk about?”
“I lied,” House blurts out.
“Oh? ‘Bout what?”
“Not this week. Before. About what happened at rehab, and what Luerssen did. What I said Luerssen did. None of it ever happened.”
“I see,” Temas says.
“I made it up because….I’m not sure why I made it up,” House goes on. “Addicts lie a lot.”
Temas wonders whether he should confront House with the evidence that he’s lying now-the blood tests, the fact that other patients have recounted similar experiences. Again, he decides it’s better to let House keep talking. He just nods and makes an encouraging noise.
“Doctor Luerssen helped me a lot. So did New Horizons. I would still be using if it weren’t for them.”
Temas nods again. “So you feel that his treatment was helpful.”
“Yes.”
“How does your leg feel?”
“Fine. Normal. It doesn’t hurt at all.”
“That’s good.” Temas notices that he hasn’t rubbed his thigh yet-something he did almost incessantly at the beginning of their therapeutic relationship. Puzzling.
“I was lying when I said it hurt, too. I was making it up so that I would have an excuse to use drugs.”
“But you haven’t used drugs since returning from New Horizons,” Temas points out.
“I haven’t,” House agrees. “Except Wilson gave me these.” He fishes a pharmacy pill bottle out of his pocket and hands it to Temas.
It’s gabapentin, the anticonvulsant. House had told him earlier that he was taking it. “And you’ve been getting acupuncture,” Temas reminds him.
“Yes. I…did that to make it look like my leg still hurt. So I could get drugs later.”
“So you’ve been planning to backslide all along,” Temas says neutrally.
“Yes. I think maybe I should have another course of inpatient treatment.”
There’s an anguished yelp from the out-of-the-way corner where Wilson is sitting. Temas agrees with the sentiment, but says instead, “You seem to be doing fairly well. Why do you think you need to go back into treatment?”
House looks puzzled for a moment. “I don’t know. Because I’ve been thinking about how to get drugs. And making up lies about doctor Luersssen and New Horizons.”
“I see. Well, if you haven’t actually been using, I don’t see the need for you to go back to rehab. It’s not supposed to be a punishment, you know,” Temas says with a smile.
A brief look of confusion passes across House’s face, before it returns to blank passivity.
Wilson’s cell phone rings. Temas is about to tell him to take it outside, but Wilson’s ahead of him, already slipping unobtrusively out the door.
House doesn’t seem to have noticed, so Temas continues their conversation, asking him what kinds of things led him to think about using drugs again.
He seems a little baffled by that question, too, which is another piece of evidence-as if he needed more-that whatever House has been through, it wasn’t addiction counseling. “Stress?” House hazards. “At work?”
“It’s pretty normal, if using drugs has been your usual method of coping with stress, to think about using again when things get difficult. Let’s brainstorm some healthier ways you can cope with stress.”
If House had really had addiction treatment, he should have done this exercise many times before, in both individual and group sessions. Again, it seems to be completely new to him. “I don’t know,” he confesses.
“Well, let’s start by thinking about a time this past week when you were under stress….”
House is narrating an incident that happened in the hospital’s walk-in clinic when Wilson comes back in. “Sorry,” the other man says. “I don’t want to interrupt, but….”
But he does want to interrupt. “What’s up?” Temas asks.
Wilson drags a chair over to them. “House, I just talked to Detective Whitley again. Brenda positively identified ‘John Smith’ as Luerssen.”
“Who’s John Smith?” House takes the words right out of Temas’s mouth.
“A man you saw in the clinic this afternoon. Came in complaining of a sore throat, you did a culture. Do you remember that?”
“We had a lot of sore throats in the clinic today. There’s something going around.”
“You were with this one for over a half hour.”
“It’s important to be thorough. A sore throat can be a sign of a serious infection,” House says earnestly.
“Yeah. I know.” Wilson touches his friend’s knee. “It was Luerssen-and he injected you with something. The police are going to pick him up; hopefully they’ll be able to keep him in jail until his trial for assaulting you and murdering Isabelle D. Detective Whitley is sure that if they do have to let him out on bail, they’ll at least be able to get a no-contact order. They’ve passed his picture around to Security at work, so they can stop him if he tries to come after you there. He’s not going to get at you again.”
House turns away, folding his arms across his stomach, his cane still dangling from one hand. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says. “I haven’t seen Luerssen since the last time I saw him here. Nobody assaulted me.”
“Yeah, you did. Brenda identified him, they got a few images of him on the security cameras, and they’re going to find his DNA on the throat swab you too. He was there. And he injected you with an experimental drug without your consent. That’s assault. And witness tampering, apparently. He’s not getting at you again. You don’t have to do this.”
House blinks slowly. “Do what?”
“Luerssen injected him again?” Temas asks. “With the same stuff?”
“The tests haven’t come back yet,” Wilson says. “But probably.”
That explains a lot. If House is under the influence of Luerssen’s brainwashing serum, they’re not going to be able to talk him out of this regression. If they’re lucky, once the drugs work through his system, he’ll come back.
If they’re lucky.
After therapy, Wilson takes House to his acupuncture appointment, which he insists he doesn’t need. When Foreman calls in with House’s tox screen results, Wilson realizes he probably really doesn’t-this time, the cocktail of mind-altering drugs was laced with morphine. As insurance, Wilson figures--with the morphine in the mix, Luerssen can claim that House took the drugs by himself, and stand at least a chance of being believed.
After the acupuncture session, House is drowsy and out of it. Wilson shepherds him home, thinking about whether to tell him about the morphine or not. The news is almost guaranteed to upset him-he’ll hear it as Wilson accusing him of using again, no matter how carefully it’s phrased.
But the break in his condition before happened when he admitted that his leg really did hurt. It doesn’t hurt now, but the pain will come back, and Wilson doesn’t want him thinking it’s all in his head.
Back at House’s place, Wilson settles him on the sofa. House picks up the remote control and looks blankly at the dark TV screen, making no move to turn on the set.
“House.” Wilson sits next to him and takes the remote out of his hand. Passively, House lets him. “How does your leg feel now?”
“There’s nothing wrong with my leg. It feels fine.”
Wilson nods. “It feels fine because Luerssen injected you with morphine-along with thorazine, haloperidol, methylphenidate, and some other things. It’s going to hurt again when the morphine wears off.”
House’s eyes flick toward the bookcase. He hugs himself and hunches his shoulders, rocking slightly. “I didn’t take any morphine. I got rid of it all when I came back from rehab.”
Got rid of-- Wilson decides not to follow that up. “I know you didn’t take it. Luerssen gave it to you, when he was in the Clinic this morning.”
“Luerssen wasn’t in the Clinic,” House objects.
Too weary to start that argument again, Wilson just sighs. “When your leg starts hurting again, that’s why. The pain’s real.”
(To the people waiting for more hot H/W/C action, please be patient! I do have one or two more chapters of Beginnings: The Threesome Prequel planned, but I'm going to keep working on this story for a while--it's hard to switch back and forth between the two.)
House keeps on doing paperwork, obliviously, as Wilson calls the police and asks to speak to Detective Whitley or Dawson. He gets Whitley, and quickly explains what he thinks happened.
“We’ll be right over,” she tells him.
Wilson reluctantly leaves House’s side to see if Chase and Cameron have found anything. They’ve dumped the sharps container out on the table and are sorting through it, looking for a syringe that doesn’t match the ones the hospital uses.
“Looks like these are all ours,” Chase reports. “But I found a broken-off needle here, and all of these syringes still have the needles attached. It’s possible he broke off the needle and took the empty syringe with him.”
“That sounds likely,” Wilson agrees. “But save them. We might need to test the residue in all of them. And start checking through the trash.”
“For what?” Chase asks.
“Anything.” Wilson ducks back into the inner office, where House is still doing exactly what he was doing before. “How much paperwork can you possibly have?”
“Did you know that I’ve never done performance evaluations for any of my staff?” he asks. “I found a whole stack of forms in my bottom drawer.”
Wilson glances at the form he’s filling out now. It’s an old version they stopped using three years ago; a glance through the stack of finished work reveals that House started with the most recently overdue set and is working his way backwards. “Yeah. I did know that. You know, Kalvach doesn’t even work here anymore,” he points out.
“He should still have a performance evaluation on file,” House says primly. “And I can mail him his copy.”
“Right. How silly of me.”
A few minutes later, Cameron knocks on the door and tells them there’s “a Detective Whitley here to see you,” in an oddly stilted voice.
“Send her in,” Wilson says.
Whitley comes in. “Hi, Doctor Wilson, House.”
Wilson gets up and offers her his chair. She sits. “Doctor House, can we talk about what happened this afternoon in the Clinic?”
“Nothing happened,” House says quickly. “I’m sorry to have wasted your time.”
“Have you seen Doctor Luerssen since your last appointment with him last month?”
“No, I haven’t.”
She asks the same questions a few more ways, and gets the same answers. Finally she asks to see House’s arm. He rolls up his sleeve obediently, but frets, “I didn’t take anything. I don’t know how I got that. I don’t know what happened.”
“Uh-huh.” She takes several pictures of the bruise and puncture. “Thank you, Doctor House. We’ll be in touch.”
Wilson walks out with her. “Is it going to be a problem that he says nothing happened?” Stupid question. Of course it’s a problem. “I mean, how much of a problem is it going to be?”
“It’s not completely unheard of for victims of, say, sexual assault, to deny that anything happened. We might be able to make a charge stick based on the physical evidence, especially if he recants later.” She pauses by the conference table, where Chase and Cameron have displayed a few mildly suspicious objects from the trash can-a gauze pad that may have been used to clean an injection site, possibly even House’s; a tongue depressor that House might have used if he’d actually given “Smith” a throat culture; a short length of rubber tubing such as would be used to give an intravenous injection-or to do a blood draw; and the broken needle. “It would have been better to let us go through the trash. If any of these things prove to be useful, the defense can point out that you folks had ample opportunity to plant them.”
“Oh…damn. I didn’t think of that,” Wilson admits, feeling stupid.
“Nothing we can do about it now,” she says, sealing the items in individual plastic baggies. He has the slight impression she is mainly humoring them, and if she thought the collection of trash would actually be useful, she’d be more upset. “But we’ll send one of our own people to get another blood sample.”
Wilson nods. “What happens next?”
“First, I’ll find out if Dawson got a positive ID on John Smith from the clinic nurse. If we did, we’ll go to the DA and see if we have enough to make a charge. We’ll also share photos of Luerssen with your security staff. I’ll keep you and Doctor House posted.”
“Okay. Thanks,” Wilson says, shaking her hand.
Going back into House’s office, he glances at his watch. “It’s about time for your therapy appointment,” he says. “You want me to--”
He stops, because House has gone absolutely still. Wilson doesn’t even think he’s breathing.
Right. Therapy. “With Temas,” Wilson reminds him. “Do you want me to go with you?”
“I don’t think Doctor Temas is helping me,” House says.
“Well, he’s expecting to see you today,” Wilson says. “So you should go anyway.”
“You’re right,” House agrees.
“Great. And I’ll go with you, okay?”
“Okay,” House agrees.
Temas knows something’s up the moment Greg House-trailed by his friend Wilson-comes into his office. House’s eyes are slightly vacant, and his gait is stiff. He sits in the chair in front of where Luerssen’s desk used to be, and clasps his hands on top of his cane, fixing his eyes on a patch of carpet with no distinguishing features other than that it happens to be in front of him.
Temas drags another chair over. “Hey, House. What’s new?”
“Nothing. Nothing happened.”
Interesting. “I see. Well, it’s been two weeks since we met last. How have you been?”
“Fine. Better. Normal.”
Oh, Jesus. Temas glances over at Wilson-he clearly knows something about what’s going on, and Temas is strongly tempted to just ask. But listening to what Greg-House-has to say is more important than finding out what actually happened. “I see. Well, what do you want to work on today?”
House shifts in his chair. “I don’t know.”
“Did anything happen this week that you’d like to talk about?”
“I lied,” House blurts out.
“Oh? ‘Bout what?”
“Not this week. Before. About what happened at rehab, and what Luerssen did. What I said Luerssen did. None of it ever happened.”
“I see,” Temas says.
“I made it up because….I’m not sure why I made it up,” House goes on. “Addicts lie a lot.”
Temas wonders whether he should confront House with the evidence that he’s lying now-the blood tests, the fact that other patients have recounted similar experiences. Again, he decides it’s better to let House keep talking. He just nods and makes an encouraging noise.
“Doctor Luerssen helped me a lot. So did New Horizons. I would still be using if it weren’t for them.”
Temas nods again. “So you feel that his treatment was helpful.”
“Yes.”
“How does your leg feel?”
“Fine. Normal. It doesn’t hurt at all.”
“That’s good.” Temas notices that he hasn’t rubbed his thigh yet-something he did almost incessantly at the beginning of their therapeutic relationship. Puzzling.
“I was lying when I said it hurt, too. I was making it up so that I would have an excuse to use drugs.”
“But you haven’t used drugs since returning from New Horizons,” Temas points out.
“I haven’t,” House agrees. “Except Wilson gave me these.” He fishes a pharmacy pill bottle out of his pocket and hands it to Temas.
It’s gabapentin, the anticonvulsant. House had told him earlier that he was taking it. “And you’ve been getting acupuncture,” Temas reminds him.
“Yes. I…did that to make it look like my leg still hurt. So I could get drugs later.”
“So you’ve been planning to backslide all along,” Temas says neutrally.
“Yes. I think maybe I should have another course of inpatient treatment.”
There’s an anguished yelp from the out-of-the-way corner where Wilson is sitting. Temas agrees with the sentiment, but says instead, “You seem to be doing fairly well. Why do you think you need to go back into treatment?”
House looks puzzled for a moment. “I don’t know. Because I’ve been thinking about how to get drugs. And making up lies about doctor Luersssen and New Horizons.”
“I see. Well, if you haven’t actually been using, I don’t see the need for you to go back to rehab. It’s not supposed to be a punishment, you know,” Temas says with a smile.
A brief look of confusion passes across House’s face, before it returns to blank passivity.
Wilson’s cell phone rings. Temas is about to tell him to take it outside, but Wilson’s ahead of him, already slipping unobtrusively out the door.
House doesn’t seem to have noticed, so Temas continues their conversation, asking him what kinds of things led him to think about using drugs again.
He seems a little baffled by that question, too, which is another piece of evidence-as if he needed more-that whatever House has been through, it wasn’t addiction counseling. “Stress?” House hazards. “At work?”
“It’s pretty normal, if using drugs has been your usual method of coping with stress, to think about using again when things get difficult. Let’s brainstorm some healthier ways you can cope with stress.”
If House had really had addiction treatment, he should have done this exercise many times before, in both individual and group sessions. Again, it seems to be completely new to him. “I don’t know,” he confesses.
“Well, let’s start by thinking about a time this past week when you were under stress….”
House is narrating an incident that happened in the hospital’s walk-in clinic when Wilson comes back in. “Sorry,” the other man says. “I don’t want to interrupt, but….”
But he does want to interrupt. “What’s up?” Temas asks.
Wilson drags a chair over to them. “House, I just talked to Detective Whitley again. Brenda positively identified ‘John Smith’ as Luerssen.”
“Who’s John Smith?” House takes the words right out of Temas’s mouth.
“A man you saw in the clinic this afternoon. Came in complaining of a sore throat, you did a culture. Do you remember that?”
“We had a lot of sore throats in the clinic today. There’s something going around.”
“You were with this one for over a half hour.”
“It’s important to be thorough. A sore throat can be a sign of a serious infection,” House says earnestly.
“Yeah. I know.” Wilson touches his friend’s knee. “It was Luerssen-and he injected you with something. The police are going to pick him up; hopefully they’ll be able to keep him in jail until his trial for assaulting you and murdering Isabelle D. Detective Whitley is sure that if they do have to let him out on bail, they’ll at least be able to get a no-contact order. They’ve passed his picture around to Security at work, so they can stop him if he tries to come after you there. He’s not going to get at you again.”
House turns away, folding his arms across his stomach, his cane still dangling from one hand. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says. “I haven’t seen Luerssen since the last time I saw him here. Nobody assaulted me.”
“Yeah, you did. Brenda identified him, they got a few images of him on the security cameras, and they’re going to find his DNA on the throat swab you too. He was there. And he injected you with an experimental drug without your consent. That’s assault. And witness tampering, apparently. He’s not getting at you again. You don’t have to do this.”
House blinks slowly. “Do what?”
“Luerssen injected him again?” Temas asks. “With the same stuff?”
“The tests haven’t come back yet,” Wilson says. “But probably.”
That explains a lot. If House is under the influence of Luerssen’s brainwashing serum, they’re not going to be able to talk him out of this regression. If they’re lucky, once the drugs work through his system, he’ll come back.
If they’re lucky.
After therapy, Wilson takes House to his acupuncture appointment, which he insists he doesn’t need. When Foreman calls in with House’s tox screen results, Wilson realizes he probably really doesn’t-this time, the cocktail of mind-altering drugs was laced with morphine. As insurance, Wilson figures--with the morphine in the mix, Luerssen can claim that House took the drugs by himself, and stand at least a chance of being believed.
After the acupuncture session, House is drowsy and out of it. Wilson shepherds him home, thinking about whether to tell him about the morphine or not. The news is almost guaranteed to upset him-he’ll hear it as Wilson accusing him of using again, no matter how carefully it’s phrased.
But the break in his condition before happened when he admitted that his leg really did hurt. It doesn’t hurt now, but the pain will come back, and Wilson doesn’t want him thinking it’s all in his head.
Back at House’s place, Wilson settles him on the sofa. House picks up the remote control and looks blankly at the dark TV screen, making no move to turn on the set.
“House.” Wilson sits next to him and takes the remote out of his hand. Passively, House lets him. “How does your leg feel now?”
“There’s nothing wrong with my leg. It feels fine.”
Wilson nods. “It feels fine because Luerssen injected you with morphine-along with thorazine, haloperidol, methylphenidate, and some other things. It’s going to hurt again when the morphine wears off.”
House’s eyes flick toward the bookcase. He hugs himself and hunches his shoulders, rocking slightly. “I didn’t take any morphine. I got rid of it all when I came back from rehab.”
Got rid of-- Wilson decides not to follow that up. “I know you didn’t take it. Luerssen gave it to you, when he was in the Clinic this morning.”
“Luerssen wasn’t in the Clinic,” House objects.
Too weary to start that argument again, Wilson just sighs. “When your leg starts hurting again, that’s why. The pain’s real.”