BIG update..Gena better be happy!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
House sat with Kelly for another 45 minutes until she finally dropped off into sleep. Getting up out of the chair proved difficult, and House grimaced as his leg told him what it though about sitting for so long in the horrible plastic chair. During the 45 minutes House had been able to get Kelly to sign three words to him. “Yes,” “Nice,” and “No.” It was a start, but she had been unwilling to talk about herself at all. She would answer any number of questions about him, or the nurses who visited frequently, but if he even approached a question about her, she clammed up. She also seemed unwilling to talk to anyone but him. When Wilson had asked her a few questions, it was as if he wasn’t even in the room. As frustrating as it was, House had to admit it was mildly funny that out of all the people who had visited her, Kelly had chosen him.
When he arrived back in his office, Cuddy and the annoying woman from DCFS were there waiting for him.
”Ah, Doctor Cuddy, come to tell me you won’t let me treat my patients again?” He asked acidly.
”Actually Dr. House, Mrs. Wyett has signed the consent for Kelly to have the surgery.” Cuddy replied with a smirk.
“But…?” House asked
“But, you have to agree to continue working with her after the surgery. So far you’re the only person who can get through to her, and Mrs. Wyett would like to see if Kelly can testify against her foster parents.” Cuddy seemed positively gleeful at the idea of him having to work with a patient.
“Ummm…no. I’m not a shrink or a babysitter. I don’t even know Sign Language.” He replied.
“The DCFS would be willing to have you go to classes in order to learn Sign, and as far as not being a psychiatrist, Kelly has been to 3 of them, and she didn’t respond at all.” The annoying Mrs. Wyett found it important to speak up. House gave her a glare before turning back to Cuddy.
“If you do this, I’ll let you off clinic hours while you’re helping.” She said after a moment of thought.
House signed and limped over to his desk. Lowering himself into the chair, he looked up at the two women before him. Would it really be so bad to try and help this girl? He knew that learning ASL wouldn’t be too much of a problem. How hard could waving your hands around be? He drummed his fingers against the edge of the desk and finally looked back up at Cuddy.
“Fine.” He said, “Now, let me get back to work.”
“I’ll set up some lessons with an ASL interpreter,” Mrs. Wyett added as she walked out the door. Cuddy remained behind for a moment and gave him a glare.
“You aren’t just doing this to get out of clinic duty are you?” She asked after a moment.
“Of course I am,” he waved his hand dismissively at her and she sighed and took off after the DCFS lady. He waited a few moments and then turned to his computer. He opened a page on the Internet and picked a site from his bookmarks. The heading of the page read “Cure Autism Now” House shifted slightly and began reading.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2 days later and House found himself standing in front of a high school. “Never thought I’d ever go in one of these again,” he thought ruefully. He saw 3 other people entering through a side door and decided to follow. After entering the building he found himself in a large lobby. He took a quick glace around and spotted a sign that read, “SEE Classes” and had an arrow pointing down a long hallway. House followed the signs, past a computer lab and the library. Then he ran into a problem. Steps. Only 8, but that was just enough to make him balk at the idea of climbing them. As he stood there contemplating the options a very young looking girl came up next to him. She gave him a small smile and pointed back the way he had come.
“There’s a ramp over there. Just make a left when you hit the dead end.” With that, she hopped down the steps and headed into a classroom near the end of the hall. House sighed and went to look for the ramp. Reaching the F junction at the bottom, he made a left and found himself standing at a classroom that had a big red sign on the door that read “DHH Classroom.” Next to that was a smaller sign that read “SEE Class in Here.” Pulling the door open, House saw that there were only four other people in the room. He carefully lowered himself into a desk and was mildly surprised to see that young girl was in fact the instructor of the class. A few moments passed in awkward silence as House and the three other students eyed each other up.
“OK, looks like everyone is here, so introductions. I’m Erin Cale. I’m a student here, and I have a slight hearing impairment. I’ve been signing since I was 6, and I’m fluent in both SEE and ASL. Because of my hearing issues I just ask that you look at me whenever you talk. I’m a decent lip reading, so even if I can’t hear you, I’ll usually get what you’re saying. So how about you? Tell us your name and why you’re here.” She looked over to the youngest member of the class, a boy that looked no older than 12.
“I’m John, and my sister is deaf, so I thought I’d learn.” Erin then pointed to the only other woman in the class.
“I’m Natalie, and I teach special education, and this ear I have two deaf students.” Next was the older man on House’s left.
“I’m Mike, and I’ve always wanted to learn how to sign.” Then it was his turn. Unlike the other three, House didn’t stand.
“My name is Gregg House and I have an autistic patient who is non verbal.”
“Great. So, the basics. SEE is just like what it says, “Signed Exact English.” It’s not American Sign Language, which is a language all to itself. SEE is a lot easier for people who are not deaf to learn, because it all comes from spoken English.” Erin paused for a moment and then began searching through her backpack. Removing a few papers, she passed them out.
“What I just gave you is the manual alphabet. You need to learn this first, simply because any sign you don’t know you will have to spell out. Also, the manual alphabet is used for creating name signs. All a name-sign is is a quick sign that can replace spelling out your whole name. Mine is…” She raised her right hand and brought her thumb to her palm and pulled her fingers into a bent position. Using her hand that was bent, she brought it up to her right shoulder and tapped it twice. “That’s my name sign. It’s the letter ‘e’ tapped twice. So now whenever you want to address me, you can use that sign.” She paused again.
House looked down at the paper. Some of the letter made sense, life “a”, “c”, and “d.” Others, however, were very strange, like “q” and “g.”
“Why don’t you all go through the alphabet and then work on your name-sign. Remember it should be a quick, easy to remember sign.”
House looked at the paper and tried to get his fingers to form into the foreign shapes. When he reached the letter “K”, he paused. The picture wasn’t very helpful. Erin bounced over and gave him a smile. He scowled back.
“Here, this is ‘K’.” She brought her hand up and left only her index and middle fingers straight. She them shirted the middle finger to be slightly in fount of her index finger and placed her thumb in the space between them.
“’K’ is actually one of the hardest letters,” she said with a smile. “Have you thought up a name-sign yet?”
“No,” he stated. She was far too cheerful for his liking.
“You’re a doctor, right?”
“Yes.”
“Great! Then I have the perfect sign.” She took her right hand and made the letter “g.” It looked a lot like pointing to the left. She then brought her right hand into her left wrist.
“That’s the sign for doctor, except signed with a ‘g’ instead of a ‘d’!” She bounced away and House tried the sign. “It’s a lot like taking a pulse,” he thought, “maybe that’s where the sign came from.”
The rest of the class was spent practicing the alphabet. While it was slightly harder than he had expected, House had the letters memorized much more quickly than the other 3 in the class. As the class came to an end, Erin spoke up in her far too happy voice.
“OK! Good work! Practice the alphabet for next week and then we’ll work on simple signs.” The three other students stood quickly and left. House gathered himself more slowly. Sitting for an hour did not make his leg happy. Hauling himself to his feet and pulled. He reached into his pocket and dry-swallowed a pill. He looked up to see Erin watching him.
“Why are you taking this class?” She asked after a moment, “And don’t tell me it’s because you’re a nice guy, I can tell you aren’t.” House did a slight double take. Was he that t obvious?
“Maybe it’s because I care about my patients,” he snapped.
“Maybe you do, but why go to all the trouble of learning sign?” she asked, “I’m not asking this to pry. I’m asking because I’m interested. Not many people life you take SEE classes from a high school student.”
“My boss is letting me out of a duty that I really hate to come here.” He admitted after a moment, “But that’s not the only reason.”
“Right, well, you seem to be picking things up faster than the other 3, so if you’re interested, I can get a friend of mine ot teach you privately.”
“Could they come to PPTH? If it’s at all possible, I’d like someone to work with my patient as well.”
“Ah, so you do care.” She said with an ear-to-ear grin.
“Yeah, well don’t tell anyone. I have to keep up the cranky bastard role.”
“Right, well your secret’s safe with me.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kelly woke slowly. It was harder then normal to brush back the gray. As awareness came again, all the colors in her view were muted and a gray haze lingered at the edges of her vision. She tried to call up the events that had occurred after the teal had left, but all that she could find was a dark hole in her memory. A slight panic overtook her. Never before had she lost time like this. Yes, hours were spent in the gray world, but those hours could be counted and if she tried she could find the events that had occurred around her during her time in the safe place. Seeing a spot of color approaching, she closed her eyes and slowed her breathing. The spot came, made some noise, touched her gently in a few places, and receded. When all traces of the color had faded from the room Kelly re-opened her eyes and took in her surroundings. This was a different room then the last one. The windows were at a different place, and she was pretty sure that she was now further up in the building. There were more monitors now, and her left leg was suspended in a sling. She was enthralled by the contraption that held her leg in place, and for a moment she just stared at it. She tried to piece together what should have caused this strange thing to be put there. Then surprise hit her. She didn’t have any pain! Where was it? Why had it left her? Again she was gripped by a panic and this time one of the monitors picked up on it. Another person flitted into the room and Kelly couldn’t hide the fact that she was awake.
“Oh, so you are awake. Good thing, we were beginning to worry. I think Dr. House just got back. I’ll go call him.” The person fluttered back out, and Kelly was left to make sense of her words.
‘House.’ She though. The color teal flashed through her mind. House was the name of the teal. A small smile slipped onto her lips and she sighed, content. If he was coming everything would be alright.
After a wait that seemed to take forever, Kelly saw a hint of teal, and heard the uneven steps that told her that te…House was there. It was going to be hard to think of him by that name. When he entered the room, he was alone. That was good. Kelly was still a little confused and the gray had not gone away yet, she didn’t want to sort through the different colors and voices that came along with a group of people.
She heard a chair being pulled across the floor and then a soft sigh as House sat.
*You House* she signed spelling out the letters to his name. Her hands felt slow and clumsy as she tried to mold them into the letters. It had been a long time since she had felt safe enough to talk to someone. She still couldn’t totally understand why she felt safe with House. Yes, he had a good color, and he had a nice smooth…something…but why was that enough?
“Can you say that again?” House asked her. While she has been pondering her slow fingers and him, House had been trying to translate what she had signed to him. She gave him another tentative smile and House couldn’t help but feel as if it was like the same smile that he gave to people who just didn’t get it.
*You*
“Me?”
She nodded. *H…o…u…s…e*
“H…o…u…s…e, I’m House?”
*Yes*
“Where did you hear that? He asked with a hint of surprise in his voice.
*O…r…a…n…g…e*
“O…r…s…n…g…e that isn’t a word.”
*O…r…A…n…g…e*
“OrAnge. Orange, what’s orange?”
*Talk me House*
“Orange told you my name was House?”
*Yes*
“You talk to fruit?”
*No…c…o…l…o…r*
“C…o…l…o…r, the color orange told you?”
*Yes*
“I don’t understand.”
*House…t…e…a…l. Talk me House Orange*
“Wait. You associate people with colors?”
*Yes, you no? *
“No, most people don’t, but that’s ok, if anything it makes life more interesting. You said I’m teal?” He tried to reassure her. He had been told by the annoying DCFS lady that if Kelly suspected that she was doing anything wrong she would tend to withdraw back into her private world, and House didn’t want that to happen.
*Yes, nice*
“Huh. I would have thought I’d be a nice black, or maybe gray.” He said with a small twitch of his lips that could have been a smile.
*g…r…a…y bad*
“Gray…yuck?”
* No, gray no good…gray BAD* Kelly had to smile a little. It was fun trying to talk with House. For the first time in a long time, she was fully aware of what was going on around her, and there was no pain to dull the nice feeling of being fully awake.
“Oh, gray’s bad. Ok.” House looked at Kelly’s elevated leg. “Does your leg hurt at all?”
*No*
“Are you sure?”
*Yes…hurt…g…o…n…e*
“So hurt…gone? It hurt before?”
*Yes*
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
*More hurt*
“Ok, something hurt. I didn’t understand that first word.” House was annoyed. He needed to be able to talk to her, and here he was stumbling over any word that wasn’t yes or no. He realized then what a good idea the private lessons would be.
*M…o…r…e*
“More? More hurt if you said it hurt?”
*More hurt a…l…w…a…y…s*
“Always” he whispered the word, anger threatening again. “Who Kelly? Who hurt you?”
*R…e…d*
“Red. Ok. You don’t know their name?”
*Red…bad…no red? *
“No, you don’t have to worry. He can’t hurt you anymore.” Kelly have him a wan smile that suddenly turned to a grimace. “Kelly? You ok?”
*Hurt*
“Where?”
*L…e…g*
“Ok, hold on.” House pushed himself up and checked over the IV. It was then that he noticed the problem. Kelly hadn’t used the pump for morphine. ‘Of course! She wouldn’t understand.’ House mentally kicked himself and pressed the button that released the drug into Kelly’s bloodstream.
“It’s ok now, I’m sorry Kelly.” He sat down at her side again and placed his cane’s handle where so she could grip it. Within moments her fingers had wrapped around it and her eyes closed as she drifted off with the drug.
House sat with Kelly for another 45 minutes until she finally dropped off into sleep. Getting up out of the chair proved difficult, and House grimaced as his leg told him what it though about sitting for so long in the horrible plastic chair. During the 45 minutes House had been able to get Kelly to sign three words to him. “Yes,” “Nice,” and “No.” It was a start, but she had been unwilling to talk about herself at all. She would answer any number of questions about him, or the nurses who visited frequently, but if he even approached a question about her, she clammed up. She also seemed unwilling to talk to anyone but him. When Wilson had asked her a few questions, it was as if he wasn’t even in the room. As frustrating as it was, House had to admit it was mildly funny that out of all the people who had visited her, Kelly had chosen him.
When he arrived back in his office, Cuddy and the annoying woman from DCFS were there waiting for him.
”Ah, Doctor Cuddy, come to tell me you won’t let me treat my patients again?” He asked acidly.
”Actually Dr. House, Mrs. Wyett has signed the consent for Kelly to have the surgery.” Cuddy replied with a smirk.
“But…?” House asked
“But, you have to agree to continue working with her after the surgery. So far you’re the only person who can get through to her, and Mrs. Wyett would like to see if Kelly can testify against her foster parents.” Cuddy seemed positively gleeful at the idea of him having to work with a patient.
“Ummm…no. I’m not a shrink or a babysitter. I don’t even know Sign Language.” He replied.
“The DCFS would be willing to have you go to classes in order to learn Sign, and as far as not being a psychiatrist, Kelly has been to 3 of them, and she didn’t respond at all.” The annoying Mrs. Wyett found it important to speak up. House gave her a glare before turning back to Cuddy.
“If you do this, I’ll let you off clinic hours while you’re helping.” She said after a moment of thought.
House signed and limped over to his desk. Lowering himself into the chair, he looked up at the two women before him. Would it really be so bad to try and help this girl? He knew that learning ASL wouldn’t be too much of a problem. How hard could waving your hands around be? He drummed his fingers against the edge of the desk and finally looked back up at Cuddy.
“Fine.” He said, “Now, let me get back to work.”
“I’ll set up some lessons with an ASL interpreter,” Mrs. Wyett added as she walked out the door. Cuddy remained behind for a moment and gave him a glare.
“You aren’t just doing this to get out of clinic duty are you?” She asked after a moment.
“Of course I am,” he waved his hand dismissively at her and she sighed and took off after the DCFS lady. He waited a few moments and then turned to his computer. He opened a page on the Internet and picked a site from his bookmarks. The heading of the page read “Cure Autism Now” House shifted slightly and began reading.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2 days later and House found himself standing in front of a high school. “Never thought I’d ever go in one of these again,” he thought ruefully. He saw 3 other people entering through a side door and decided to follow. After entering the building he found himself in a large lobby. He took a quick glace around and spotted a sign that read, “SEE Classes” and had an arrow pointing down a long hallway. House followed the signs, past a computer lab and the library. Then he ran into a problem. Steps. Only 8, but that was just enough to make him balk at the idea of climbing them. As he stood there contemplating the options a very young looking girl came up next to him. She gave him a small smile and pointed back the way he had come.
“There’s a ramp over there. Just make a left when you hit the dead end.” With that, she hopped down the steps and headed into a classroom near the end of the hall. House sighed and went to look for the ramp. Reaching the F junction at the bottom, he made a left and found himself standing at a classroom that had a big red sign on the door that read “DHH Classroom.” Next to that was a smaller sign that read “SEE Class in Here.” Pulling the door open, House saw that there were only four other people in the room. He carefully lowered himself into a desk and was mildly surprised to see that young girl was in fact the instructor of the class. A few moments passed in awkward silence as House and the three other students eyed each other up.
“OK, looks like everyone is here, so introductions. I’m Erin Cale. I’m a student here, and I have a slight hearing impairment. I’ve been signing since I was 6, and I’m fluent in both SEE and ASL. Because of my hearing issues I just ask that you look at me whenever you talk. I’m a decent lip reading, so even if I can’t hear you, I’ll usually get what you’re saying. So how about you? Tell us your name and why you’re here.” She looked over to the youngest member of the class, a boy that looked no older than 12.
“I’m John, and my sister is deaf, so I thought I’d learn.” Erin then pointed to the only other woman in the class.
“I’m Natalie, and I teach special education, and this ear I have two deaf students.” Next was the older man on House’s left.
“I’m Mike, and I’ve always wanted to learn how to sign.” Then it was his turn. Unlike the other three, House didn’t stand.
“My name is Gregg House and I have an autistic patient who is non verbal.”
“Great. So, the basics. SEE is just like what it says, “Signed Exact English.” It’s not American Sign Language, which is a language all to itself. SEE is a lot easier for people who are not deaf to learn, because it all comes from spoken English.” Erin paused for a moment and then began searching through her backpack. Removing a few papers, she passed them out.
“What I just gave you is the manual alphabet. You need to learn this first, simply because any sign you don’t know you will have to spell out. Also, the manual alphabet is used for creating name signs. All a name-sign is is a quick sign that can replace spelling out your whole name. Mine is…” She raised her right hand and brought her thumb to her palm and pulled her fingers into a bent position. Using her hand that was bent, she brought it up to her right shoulder and tapped it twice. “That’s my name sign. It’s the letter ‘e’ tapped twice. So now whenever you want to address me, you can use that sign.” She paused again.
House looked down at the paper. Some of the letter made sense, life “a”, “c”, and “d.” Others, however, were very strange, like “q” and “g.”
“Why don’t you all go through the alphabet and then work on your name-sign. Remember it should be a quick, easy to remember sign.”
House looked at the paper and tried to get his fingers to form into the foreign shapes. When he reached the letter “K”, he paused. The picture wasn’t very helpful. Erin bounced over and gave him a smile. He scowled back.
“Here, this is ‘K’.” She brought her hand up and left only her index and middle fingers straight. She them shirted the middle finger to be slightly in fount of her index finger and placed her thumb in the space between them.
“’K’ is actually one of the hardest letters,” she said with a smile. “Have you thought up a name-sign yet?”
“No,” he stated. She was far too cheerful for his liking.
“You’re a doctor, right?”
“Yes.”
“Great! Then I have the perfect sign.” She took her right hand and made the letter “g.” It looked a lot like pointing to the left. She then brought her right hand into her left wrist.
“That’s the sign for doctor, except signed with a ‘g’ instead of a ‘d’!” She bounced away and House tried the sign. “It’s a lot like taking a pulse,” he thought, “maybe that’s where the sign came from.”
The rest of the class was spent practicing the alphabet. While it was slightly harder than he had expected, House had the letters memorized much more quickly than the other 3 in the class. As the class came to an end, Erin spoke up in her far too happy voice.
“OK! Good work! Practice the alphabet for next week and then we’ll work on simple signs.” The three other students stood quickly and left. House gathered himself more slowly. Sitting for an hour did not make his leg happy. Hauling himself to his feet and pulled. He reached into his pocket and dry-swallowed a pill. He looked up to see Erin watching him.
“Why are you taking this class?” She asked after a moment, “And don’t tell me it’s because you’re a nice guy, I can tell you aren’t.” House did a slight double take. Was he that t obvious?
“Maybe it’s because I care about my patients,” he snapped.
“Maybe you do, but why go to all the trouble of learning sign?” she asked, “I’m not asking this to pry. I’m asking because I’m interested. Not many people life you take SEE classes from a high school student.”
“My boss is letting me out of a duty that I really hate to come here.” He admitted after a moment, “But that’s not the only reason.”
“Right, well, you seem to be picking things up faster than the other 3, so if you’re interested, I can get a friend of mine ot teach you privately.”
“Could they come to PPTH? If it’s at all possible, I’d like someone to work with my patient as well.”
“Ah, so you do care.” She said with an ear-to-ear grin.
“Yeah, well don’t tell anyone. I have to keep up the cranky bastard role.”
“Right, well your secret’s safe with me.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kelly woke slowly. It was harder then normal to brush back the gray. As awareness came again, all the colors in her view were muted and a gray haze lingered at the edges of her vision. She tried to call up the events that had occurred after the teal had left, but all that she could find was a dark hole in her memory. A slight panic overtook her. Never before had she lost time like this. Yes, hours were spent in the gray world, but those hours could be counted and if she tried she could find the events that had occurred around her during her time in the safe place. Seeing a spot of color approaching, she closed her eyes and slowed her breathing. The spot came, made some noise, touched her gently in a few places, and receded. When all traces of the color had faded from the room Kelly re-opened her eyes and took in her surroundings. This was a different room then the last one. The windows were at a different place, and she was pretty sure that she was now further up in the building. There were more monitors now, and her left leg was suspended in a sling. She was enthralled by the contraption that held her leg in place, and for a moment she just stared at it. She tried to piece together what should have caused this strange thing to be put there. Then surprise hit her. She didn’t have any pain! Where was it? Why had it left her? Again she was gripped by a panic and this time one of the monitors picked up on it. Another person flitted into the room and Kelly couldn’t hide the fact that she was awake.
“Oh, so you are awake. Good thing, we were beginning to worry. I think Dr. House just got back. I’ll go call him.” The person fluttered back out, and Kelly was left to make sense of her words.
‘House.’ She though. The color teal flashed through her mind. House was the name of the teal. A small smile slipped onto her lips and she sighed, content. If he was coming everything would be alright.
After a wait that seemed to take forever, Kelly saw a hint of teal, and heard the uneven steps that told her that te…House was there. It was going to be hard to think of him by that name. When he entered the room, he was alone. That was good. Kelly was still a little confused and the gray had not gone away yet, she didn’t want to sort through the different colors and voices that came along with a group of people.
She heard a chair being pulled across the floor and then a soft sigh as House sat.
*You House* she signed spelling out the letters to his name. Her hands felt slow and clumsy as she tried to mold them into the letters. It had been a long time since she had felt safe enough to talk to someone. She still couldn’t totally understand why she felt safe with House. Yes, he had a good color, and he had a nice smooth…something…but why was that enough?
“Can you say that again?” House asked her. While she has been pondering her slow fingers and him, House had been trying to translate what she had signed to him. She gave him another tentative smile and House couldn’t help but feel as if it was like the same smile that he gave to people who just didn’t get it.
*You*
“Me?”
She nodded. *H…o…u…s…e*
“H…o…u…s…e, I’m House?”
*Yes*
“Where did you hear that? He asked with a hint of surprise in his voice.
*O…r…a…n…g…e*
“O…r…s…n…g…e that isn’t a word.”
*O…r…A…n…g…e*
“OrAnge. Orange, what’s orange?”
*Talk me House*
“Orange told you my name was House?”
*Yes*
“You talk to fruit?”
*No…c…o…l…o…r*
“C…o…l…o…r, the color orange told you?”
*Yes*
“I don’t understand.”
*House…t…e…a…l. Talk me House Orange*
“Wait. You associate people with colors?”
*Yes, you no? *
“No, most people don’t, but that’s ok, if anything it makes life more interesting. You said I’m teal?” He tried to reassure her. He had been told by the annoying DCFS lady that if Kelly suspected that she was doing anything wrong she would tend to withdraw back into her private world, and House didn’t want that to happen.
*Yes, nice*
“Huh. I would have thought I’d be a nice black, or maybe gray.” He said with a small twitch of his lips that could have been a smile.
*g…r…a…y bad*
“Gray…yuck?”
* No, gray no good…gray BAD* Kelly had to smile a little. It was fun trying to talk with House. For the first time in a long time, she was fully aware of what was going on around her, and there was no pain to dull the nice feeling of being fully awake.
“Oh, gray’s bad. Ok.” House looked at Kelly’s elevated leg. “Does your leg hurt at all?”
*No*
“Are you sure?”
*Yes…hurt…g…o…n…e*
“So hurt…gone? It hurt before?”
*Yes*
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
*More hurt*
“Ok, something hurt. I didn’t understand that first word.” House was annoyed. He needed to be able to talk to her, and here he was stumbling over any word that wasn’t yes or no. He realized then what a good idea the private lessons would be.
*M…o…r…e*
“More? More hurt if you said it hurt?”
*More hurt a…l…w…a…y…s*
“Always” he whispered the word, anger threatening again. “Who Kelly? Who hurt you?”
*R…e…d*
“Red. Ok. You don’t know their name?”
*Red…bad…no red? *
“No, you don’t have to worry. He can’t hurt you anymore.” Kelly have him a wan smile that suddenly turned to a grimace. “Kelly? You ok?”
*Hurt*
“Where?”
*L…e…g*
“Ok, hold on.” House pushed himself up and checked over the IV. It was then that he noticed the problem. Kelly hadn’t used the pump for morphine. ‘Of course! She wouldn’t understand.’ House mentally kicked himself and pressed the button that released the drug into Kelly’s bloodstream.
“It’s ok now, I’m sorry Kelly.” He sat down at her side again and placed his cane’s handle where so she could grip it. Within moments her fingers had wrapped around it and her eyes closed as she drifted off with the drug.