Pencils are Dangerous: 16/?
In this chapter, Wilson finds out about House's Top Secret Plan. Safe for small green parrots and other living things.
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A few days later, House was listening to the General Hospital weekly recap show in the living room. It was Friday, a day that Wilson didn’t work. House couldn’t work that day either, not until he was ready for Wilson to know what he was up to.
Fortunately, Wilson didn’t ask why he hadn’t been watching GH all week--or maybe he assumed House had been, but was too addle-pated to follow the complicated plot twists.
“Do you want to take a walk when this is over?” Wilson asked during one of the commercials.
“We’ll see,” House answered. He wasn’t particularly tired or anxious right then, but that could change quickly.
And it did, in fact, a moment later, when the mail carrier (presumably) pushed a stack of letters through the slot in the door. The slot in the door to his cell in Solitary had made a similar sound--a sort of creak followed by a metallic clank as the flap fell closed.
What they pushed through his slot was usually an empty meal tray, but sometimes it was worse.
House knew that if he mentioned that he didn’t like the mail slot, Wilson would replace it with something else, whether the apartment complex liked it or not. But he was usually in his room, asleep or listening to tapes, when the mail came, so he hadn’t gotten around to it yet. Wilson patted his shoulder. “You okay? It’s just the mail.”
“I’m okay,” he said, after taking a few breaths. He was surprised to find that it was true.
Wilson patted him again and got up from the couch to fetch the mail. House heard him walk back, sorting through the pile of envelopes. Must be a lot of mail today.
“Here’s one for you,” Wilson said. “From the University of Michigan. I wonder what they want?”
House knew what it was. “Leave it. Clarence will--”
But he was too late; Wilson was already ripping the envelope open. “Your med school transcripts?” he said, his voice puzzled.
“You know, it’s a federal offense to open somebody else’s mail.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Wilson sat on the couch next to him. “Why did they send you these?”
“I guess ‘cause I asked them to,” House answered. His show was starting again, but clearly they were going to do this now.
“What for?” Wilson asked, his tone very carefully casual.
There was no point in actually lying. Wilson was going to find out sooner or later--and if they were going to go to the JH conference in August, it would have to be fairly soon, anyway. “I needed them to get my medical license reinstated.”
There was a long silence before Wilson said, “Was it supposed to be a surprise or something?”
“Kinda.” Was Wilson hurt that House hadn’t let him in one the plan sooner? Maybe. Probably. He hadn’t thought of that.
“I guess that’s…good. It’ll be--yeah. You can get an inactive license without doing any continuing ed.”
House could go on letting him think that for a while, but it wouldn’t take long for Wilson to realize that House wouldn’t go to the trouble of getting himself an inactive license. He didn’t care about being able to legitimately call himself “Doctor.” If House didn’t ‘fess up now, he’d spend the next few days waiting for the other shoe to drop. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Well, yeah. But with an inactive license, I wouldn’t be able to practice.”
There’s another very long silence, and Wilson says, “Oh, House,” followed by something that sounds suspiciously like weeping.
House wasn’t sure what to do. In the new world order, having emotional meltdowns was his job. He settled on saying, “Well, I wouldn’t. Unless the meaning of the word ‘inactive’ changed while I was away.”
There’s a little bit of rustling, and House thinks that Wilson is probably wiping his eyes with his sleeve. “It’s good that you’re…I mean, hope is….I just don’t think it’s very realistic. I mean--what did you have in mind?”
“I heard there’s going to be an opening for a Head of Diagnostics in a few months,” House said lightly. Now the shit was really going to hit the fan.
More crying, and Wilson said miserably, “I wish you could, House, I really do, but--”
This was even worse than he’d imagined. “Then you’re in luck, ‘cause your wish is going to come true.”
“You’re not--” sniffle “--you’re just not well enough, buddy. I don’t know if you ever will be. You can’t even dress yourself, much less….” More sniffling.
“Fortunately, being able to dress myself isn’t a requirement. I checked. Now, if I was planning to resume my modeling career, it would be different. But for doctoring, not an issue.”
Wilson sighed. “You won’t be able to do any procedures,” he clarified.
Good--if Wilson was raising objections, House could knock them down. That was much easier to deal with than the crying. “How often did I do procedures before?” Pretty much only when there was something his team had refused to do. He’d have to find other ways to overcome their silly little ethical objections, now--psychological manipulation and guilt, maybe.
“Okay, what about test results--radiographs and MRIs and everything. You can’t see them.”
“But the kids can, so as long as I can get them to accurately describe what they’re looking at, it’ll be fine.” Inspired, he added, “There are lots of blind doctors. Don’t we even have one at PPTH?” They used to, anyway. “I’m surprised you’re being so closed-minded. You’ll have to come to sensitivity training with me next time.”
“Yeah,” Wilson said slowly, ignoring the last part of his comment. “George Winklebauer, in general medicine. He was blind from birth, I think.”
“There you go.”
“But he’s not…you have a lot of other problems. You’re…you can’t go back to how you were before, no matter how much you want to.” Wilson sniffled again. Great.
“I know.” He swallowed hard. Wilson had a point--he was in for a long, tough slog. “But I’ve always been at my best sitting in a room and using my head, and I can still do that.”
Wilson took a deep breath, and when he spoke again, his voice was less teary. “Okay. Okay. So how is this going to work?”
#
When House first announced that he intended to return to work, Wilson’s only thought was that his best friend was delusional. He was simply too disabled to practice medicine. Even setting aside his psychological damage, he was more physically impaired than any practicing doctor in the country.
But as he outlined how he planned to cope with the many challenges in his way, Wilson slowly became convinced that it just might work.
Clarence had apparently already agreed to return to work with House, which took care of several problems. House’s only good mobility option for the foreseeable future was sitting in a wheelchair pushed by someone else, and if Clarence was there to take care of that, he could also help House with things like eating and using the bathroom, and get him to a private place when--not if--he became overstressed and anxious.
House had blithely--and correctly-assumed that Wilson would take care of getting him up and ready to go in the mornings, and transporting him to the hospital. “We might need a wheelchair lift van,” he added, as if that was a very minor consideration. He’d start out, he said, working the same limited schedule that Wilson did now.
He’d even come up with a couple of options for handling the day-to-day business of running even a small department. One choice was to get a personal assistant, who’d handle all the paperwork and present it for his signature. “I think if I work on it in OT I can just about manage to sign my name. If not, I can make an X. Of maybe I’ll just appoint one of the kids--probably Chase--deputy department head. Then he can do all the administrivia and I won’t have to worry about it.”
“It might make more sense to start out consulting for your--for the department,” Wilson suggested, feebly clinging to some shred of his plan for House’s future. It was a shock to realize that while he had been thinking up small ways for him to feel useful, House himself had been planning…this. “That way you could mostly work from home--the kids could call whenever they need your…input.”
“If I’m not there, I’ll miss things,” House answered.
He was right, but Wilson didn’t believe House was anywhere near ready to be away from home for a big chunk of every week. “But will you be okay? With people around…strangers…let alone staying awake for even a shortened work day…”
“We’ll set my office up so I have somewhere quiet to go. I can take a nap in there if I have to.”
“You think Cuddy’s going to agree to all this?” Wilson was doubtful. She’d always let House get away with murder--he winced. Poor choice of words. She’d let him get away with more than any other hospital employee. Hell, she’d created the Department of Diagnostics to dovetail precisely with House’s strengths and weaknesses--letting him cherry-pick cases, making it the smallest independent department in the hospital so that he’d have the smallest possible number of people in a position to tell him what to do. But was even she willing to go this far?
“Yes,” House answered. “I do.”
“Have you talked to her yet?” It would be downright embarrassing, if he was the last one in on House’s super-secret plan.
“Not yet,” House said, with an attempt at a smile. “I wanted to get you on board first.”
When Wilson focused on what House was saying--the way he had an answer for every objection--it all seemed perfectly reasonable. But when he turned his head and actually looked at him--curled up in the corner of the couch, propped up with half a dozen pillows and cuddling a plush Vicodin, the idea seemed ridiculous. This was a man who spent several hours a day sleeping in a wading pool, and woke up almost every night crying and shaking, clutching Wilson for comfort.
On the other hand, House was nothing if not stubborn. He always had been, and he wouldn’t have survived the last five years if he wasn’t. None of them would have survived. As unlikely as it seemed that he could successfully return to the practice of medicine, Wilson knew better than to bet against him.
On to chapter 17