(no subject)
House had been sitting and talking to Kelly for almost an hour. He told her about his issues with Cuddy and the Clinic and how she was getting him out of Clinic Duty. He also told her about some of the strange cases he had seen over the years, and he found that when you didn’t know if the person was listening or not, it was a lot easier to talk. When he paused for a minute he saw that Kelly was awake. And looking at him.
“I see you’re awake.” He said softly trying to keep her attention on him. He was really worried about her. So far their treatment hadn’t worked. Her fever was still lingering around 103 and they had been unable to get her to eat anything. House watched as wandering fingers found his cane that was again propped against the edge of the bed. When they softly closed around it he saw a smile ghost across her face and he had to smile a little himself.
”You like my cane, huh?” For some reason talking to her didn’t seem like a waste of time. A look of deep concentration on her face made him look more closely at her. When she brought up one frail arm and folded her fingers into a fist he almost jumped out of his chair. She was trying to communicate, or at least she was trying to do something. When she brought the fist down in a “nod” he thought quickly to the web pages he had been researching for the past few days. A fist that was used to “nod” was the sign for yes.
“Wait, that’s a sign! Um, it’s yes, right?” he asked quickly when he was granted another “nod” from her fist. He almost cheered when he received the sign a third time. He was about to ask her another question when he saw a wave of pain flow across her face. Her eyes glazed over and the tension in her body could almost be felt.
“Kelly? Kelly! What’s wrong?” He turned to the monitors over her bed and his heart hell. Her blood pressure was dropping and when he reached a hand over to feel her forehead, the heat that he felt told him that her fever was spiking. “Shit!”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
House sat, somewhat slumped in his chair. He looked up briefly as Wilson entered the room.
”I heard.” Was all he offered. House nodded and looked back up.
”It’s not Lymphocytic Choriomeningitis, it can’t be. She’s still getting worse. It fit. It was perfect.” House sighed and thought to all the times he had had this conversation with the man standing before him.
”I know.”
”It looked viral. Everything fit. I have Cameron and Foreman testing for bacterial infection, and Chase looking for anything else. They’ll be back soon. You want to hang around? At this point I don’t want to rule anything out.” He sighed again and turned to the computer. Wilson took this as his sign to leave. He walked over to the conference room and poured himself a cup of coffee. This case was really getting to House. He knew why, but it still made him feel bad. House had a soft spot for kids, even if he didn’t want to admit it to himself. The fact that this girl had not only been severely abused, but misdiagnosed as well was a perfect combination for House’s intense desire to see her cured.
A few minutes passed in relative silence, and then the three younger doctors came back. House entered the room only moments after they had seated themselves with mugs of coffee.
”What do you have?” He asked.
”Well, it’s not a common bacteria if it is a bacteria,” Cameron offered.
”I couldn’t find any other physical cause, and I looked over the MRI again, there’s nothing there to indicate a physical problem.” Chase said.
”Ok, so it’s not viral, and it’s not another systemic cause, so what kinds of bacteria can cause this?” House asked.
”It could be Typhoid Fever.” Chase offered.
“No cough, and no other signs, and her blood tested negative.” Cameron replied.
“Tests can be wrong,” House offered “But I don’t think it’s Typhoid.”
“What about that weird infection, the one caused by drinking un-pasteurized cow’s milk?” Foreman asked.
“Gibraltar fever?” Chase asked.
”Right, Brucellosis.” House said. “That’s got to be it. Cameron you said that she used to live on a farm right?”
“Yeah, she was locked in the basement.”
“I don’t care about that part. I think that they were just feeding her the milk straight from the cows, it’s cheep, easy, and lets them spend the money that the state gives for her food for something more important to them. Start her on Doxycycline 100mg po bid, and Streptomycin 1 g IM.” House looked around the table once more and then limped back into his office.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
::Pain??::
::Hot??::
Kelly’s mind tried to work around the loss of the two things that had been constants for so long. With a tentative touch on consciousness she wiled the gray away. Allowing herself to drift up from the foggy safe world that she inhabited more often then not. She kept her eyes closed and just listened to the colors in the room. There was a deep gold and a brilliant cerulean blue that filled the room. They were shortly joined by a powerful plum that mixed happily with the other two colors. Kelly could tell that these three colors worked well together and sighed happily at the interplay of light and color that flashed before a screen of black. She liked these colors, but missed the calm smoothness of the teal that she had come to like. Cautiously inching her hand over to the edge of the bed she felt for the smooth object that seemed to be a part of the teal. When her fingers met air she had to keep herself from making a noise of disappointment. She had learned early on that making noises was not a good thing. All they brought was more pain.
::Pain??::
She carefully took stock of her body. Her knee was still painful, but only in an annoying way. To her pain was life, and without it she would be lost. Her head no longer pounded, but her whole body ached. The heat that she had noticed was missing wasn’t really missing, but it was much reduced. She continued her internal investigation until she found the wounds on her back. They felt different somehow, scratchy and not as hot as they had been before. She shifted slightly to test this new feeling, and decided that it wasn’t at all bad. She pushed her mind closer to awareness and tried to listen to the three people she knew were in the room, but they were either speaking a language she didn’t understand, or speaking in rhymes.
::Riddles::
She liked riddles. One of the places she remembered had riddles, a little book full of words that when put together made wonderful puzzles that diverted her mind for hours. She would figure them out quickly, and then analyze every aspect of the puzzle. She liked puzzles. The Bad Place didn’t have books, and she found that she missed the small marks on a page that she had learned to decipher by watching the other foster children struggle through homework, and essays. To her words were almost sacred. A secret to never let on that she knew. There must be a reason they never taught her to read. It must be bad for her to do it. She tried very hard to not be bad; being bad only brought pain. That was an easy lesson to learn. The harder one was why not being bad also brought pain. The Bad Place had taught her that. She pulled herself out of her mental ramblings and listened to the three voices in the room. They still were muffled and funny sounding. She sighed and slipped back into the gray place, but kept her ears open for any signs of teal.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Foreman and Chase had been checking on Kelly when Cameron had entered the room.
“Hey guys, how is she?” she asked as Foreman and Chase looked up.
“Getting better. Her temp’s down to 101 and her heart rate and B.P. seem to indicate that she’s much calmer. I’m hoping that means that she’s not in as much pain.” Chase replied. Cameron cut him short as he made to tell her more.
“That’s good, but look I just came from a meeting with a woman from DCFS, Cuddy and House. The DCFS lady wanted to know if the surgery for Kelly’s knee is really necessary. House is throwing a fit. I can see where he is coming from, but DCFS doesn’t want to pay for it, and Cuddy can’t promise that the hospital will pay for it. It seems like they think she’s just a waste of time.”
“What?! If she doesn’t have the surgery then she’ll be in pain, terrible pain, whenever she has to walk!” Foreman blurted incredulously.
“I know that, House knows that, but their plan is to lock her up in some institution where she’ll be kept ‘calm,’ which I take to mean drugged and tied up.” Cameron replied sadly.
“Are you joking? We can’t let this happen! She’s autistic, not retarded. She’ll be aware of all that is happening to her!” Chase was becoming more and more annoyed the more he heard.
“We all know that, but with her being completely unresponsive it’s really hard to prove. There’s not definitive test for autism, and I get the feeling that unless she’s a savant, the people at DCFS aren’t going to find any reason to change their minds.” Cameron spat. Like Chase this whole issue was bothering her greatly. Just because Kelly didn’t respond to people didn’t mean that she deserved to be dumped into an institution and kept drugged.
“She was severely abused! Even in non-autistic children that can cause psychological withdraw. She was traumatized and extremely sick!” Foreman had to admit that there was something about the girl in the bed in front of them that made everyone who knew her, even a little bit, to want to protect her. He knew that somehow, this silent frail girl had managed to get to House. That impressed him.
At that moment House entered the room. He looked at the three younger doctors, and quickly assessed the situation. He saw Cameron and Chase’s postures, and took in the surly pissed off look on Foreman’s face. He nodded to them, and then made his way to the chair at the side of the bed.
“So, Cameron filled you both in.” It was not a question. House propped his cane against the side of the bed with the handle facing inwards.
“We have to do something! This is no better then the abuse she suffered under that bastard who kept her locked up!” Chase snapped.
“I know.” His voice was resigned. He’d just gotten finished having this discussion with Cuddy and some bitch named Wyett from DCFS. He remembered her vaguely from the case with the schizophrenic mother and the kid. “Cuddy is willing to cover the costs, but DCFS won’t sign unless we can prove that she really needs it. According to them she didn’t act as if she was in pain when she walked. Those morons don’t understand the first thing about autism. So. How are we going to get her to come out of her shell long enough to tell us where it hurts?”
Foreman looked around, and when no one else offered any solutions he spoke up. “There are some experimental treatments, supplements that can help. A few drugs that have shown promising results, but I’m not totally convinced that this is all because of her autism. She lost her mother at a very young age. She was shipped from foster home to foster home, and I’m sure this last one wasn’t the only bad one she got put in. Everyone thought she was a deaf retard and then she was abused. A normal child would be severely traumatized from something like that, add autism and you’ve got what we see here.”
“So you’re saying we should just give up?!” Cameron asked, more then a hint of annoyance in her voice.
“No, not at all. This is just going to be a lot harder then you think. What we really need is a person she likes…” Foreman trailed off as he looked over at the bed. Kelly was awake and looking right at House. Her left hand had wrapped itself around the head of his cane, and her thumb was tracing patterns on the smooth wood. “House.”
House looked over and saw what Foreman did. He gave her a flash of a smile, and covered Kelly’s hand with his own. She looked down at the touch and then glanced around the room before closing her eyes again.
“Looks, like I was wrong.” Foreman smirked. “Seems as if she likes at least one of us.”
House shot him a glare that should have dropped him dead on the spot.
“Get out of here and page Wilson. I need to talk to him.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kelly’s eyes opened the second the others left. As the colors faded, only teal was left. A small smile drifted onto her lips. House saw it and sighed.
“Why’d you pick me?” He asked her softly, “I’m just a cranky, old, crippled, bastard.” He watched as a look of concentration covered her face. She then gave a gentle tug and pulled her hand out from under his. She placed her left palm up and ran her right hand over it twice. When House didn’t reply, she tried again.
“I know, I know. Give me a minute. I’m new at this signing thing.” House growled at her, but it wasn’t his usual condescending tone. It instead held a note of playfulness. She looked up at him and repeated the sign a third time.
“Good?” He asked and got a small shake of the head in reply. “Yes it is, that’s the sign for good.”
“Actually, no, it’s not.” House jumped a little as Wilson made his presence known.
“Ok then Mr. Smarty-Pants, what does it mean?” House snarked at his friend.
“It’s ‘nice.’”
“Riiight.” He looked over at Kelly. “You think I’m ‘nice?’”
*yes* *nice*
“So, she does talk.” Wilson said.
“Yeah, too bad I don’t speak her language.” House watched her for another moment and then turned to Wilson. “How the heck did you know what she was signing?”
“I watch TV.” Wilson offered.
“I’m the smart-ass here Wilson.”
“No really, there’s this show that Julie made me watch called Sue Thomas F.B.Eye. It’s about a deaf FBI agent. I learned a few signs from it.”
“It sounds like Julie isn’t the only one who likes the show.” House said with a smirk.
“What can I say? The lead actress is a hot blonde.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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 glance 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 T 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 the 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 reader, 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 year 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 Greg 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 letters made sense, like “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 then shifted 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 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 like 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 teach you privately. Don’t think is is all for you either. I can see that it would not be a good idea to let you get bored.” She smirked at him, she loved messing with adults, and he was making it way too easy.
“Could you 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. I’ll see if I can work something out. Can you come back tomorrow, I have a free period where we can work out a schedule.”
House agreed, and left a smiling Erin standing in the doorway. As he headed back to his car he had to wonder what he had just gotten himself into.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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 farther 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 the...House was there. It was going to be hard to think of him by that name. It was such a funny name. That thought filled her mind until she heard him enter 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.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The next day found House once again staring at the front of a high school. Somehow Wilson had found out where he was going, and had given him a hard time about it earlier that morning. House had to grin a little as he remembered the conversation. Wilson certainly could hold his own when it came to smart ass remarks. Today it had been “What, back in High School and still not getting any?” After receiving a glare that could melt steel, Wilson had retreated, leaving House to come up with some excuse to give to Cameron, Foreman, and Chase. He didn’t think they bought it, but he also didn’t really care.
Looking at the school he had to note what a difference a few days could make. When he had entered the building on Saturday it has seemed almost spooky with the loneliness it exuded. Now it was anything but spooky. It was bustling with students hurrying to get to homeroom on time, and House felt even more out of place among all the active bodies. He found the office easily enough, and approached the desk slowly, wanting to prolong the inevitable. He knew that he would have to enter the mass of students filling the halls sooner or later, but if it was all the same he preferred later. A tall read head was standing behind the desk and gave him a small smile as he approached.
“Can I help you?” She asked.
“Um, yeah, I’m Dr. House. I’m here to see…” he had to think a second before “perky’s” name came to mind, “Erin Cale.”
“Oh, sure, just fill out this sheet, and grab a visitor’s sticker. Do you know where to go?” The red head asked.
“Is it the same place that the SEE lessons are held?”
“Yep. Do you want someone to escort you?” she asked looking around, presumably for a student aid.
“No, I think I can manage thinks.” With that he took one of the annoyingly red stickers, and placed it on his bag. As he entered the large open area in front of the office he could see that this part of the building was much newer then the part where he had been the other day. He saw one of the SEE signs hanging halfway off the wall, and quickly oriented himself. As he limped down the hall he saw all the strange looks that kids were giving him, but surprisingly they weren’t of pity, and most kids weren’t looking at his limp or cane, but the fact that he was a strange adult entering their domain. He pondered this until he almost ran into a dark haired girl in a power wheelchair.
”Oh, I’m sorry.” He stuttered, and moved aside.
”It’s ok.” She replied. Her speech was slow, and a little hard to understand, and as House made a cursory glance at her hands and her jerky motions he assumed that she suffered from cerebral palsy. She smiled at him and continued on her way.
In the short time that it took him to find the hallway that led by the library he saw two other students in wheelchairs, and another group wildly signing to each other. ‘What is this place? A special education school?’ He thought, but while there were a lot of special students, they were still a minority. He stopped at the large doors leading to the library. He was 30 minutes early, and he hadn’t been in a high school library in many years. ‘It could be interesting.’ He thought. He went to enter the library but was met with a fairly large set of steps. Counting them quickly and coming up with 14, he decided that it wasn’t worth it. He was about to turn away when a short lady with blond hair waved at him.
“There is another door down further, if you don’t want to deal with the stairs,” she said. He was about to politely decline when she hurried up the stairs. “Here, I’ll show you.”
She led the way to a door about halfway down the ramp that he had used the time he was here before. There was a classroom that led to another door, which in turn led into the library. He had to admit, it was a fairly large library, and a huge collection of computers filled the middle area.
“Thanks.” He said after a moment.
“Sure thing, and if you need anything else feel free to ask.” She said with a smile, and House couldn’t help but get the feeling that she was flirting just a little. He turned to the non-fiction section and browsed the science section, pleased to find a large number of advanced texts. ‘At least schools are teaching something good now.’ He thought. He then took a tour of the fiction section, seeing if there was anything good there. ‘Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, The Stranger…’ They were mostly books in the curriculum. Getting a little bored, he took another glance at his watch and decided that 15 minutes wasn’t too early. Finding the door to the hallway he made his way to the classroom. ‘God, I hated high school the first time,’ He thought again as he knocked once before opening the door.
As House entered the room it was as if he had stepped into another world. A world where sound no longer had a place and hands were dancing through the air. He felt horribly out of place. He glanced around quickly and didn’t see Erin, and he almost jumped as a voice broke the spell of the room.
"Are you Greg House?" The woman who belonged to the voice asked.
"Yes, I'm here to see, um, Erin," he had to keep himself from stuttering. He hadn't felt this strange since the first day he had walked back into work with his new limp and cane.
"Well Erin is finishing up with an essay, so you can just find a seat and she will be with you in a minute." With that said the woman turned back to the student she had been talking with and once more the room was silent. House made his way over to one of the uncomfortable desks and carefully lowered himself into the seat.
A more careful observation of the room revealed three sections. One was obviously a reading area. Tall book shelves lines three sides and a huge table was lined with soft looking chairs. Six elementary students and a tall, thin, older girl currently occupied this area. The older girl was reading to the young kids, and even though House didn’t understand the signs he found himself watching with rapt attention. The way that the girl signed, it was almost possible to understand what was going on. After another moment she seemed to change. No longer was she the storyteller. She was just another teen chatting with a group of kids. The younger students stood with a loud scraping of chairs. Fingers and hands once again started flying through the air as they lined up to leave. Putting the fist section aside for a moment, House surveyed the second part, and spotted Erin. She was hunched over a keyboard, quickly flicking through a book and typing at breakneck speed. She sat at one of the many computers that lined the wall. House was sitting in the third part of the room, and the only part that looked like a classroom. Erin interrupted his observation of the room.
“Dr. House! Glad you made it,” once again her far too happy demeanor began to grate on his nerves. He gave her a small nod, and gave the room a final glance.
“Yeah. So, you said something about a schedule? I do have to get back to work.” He replied shortly. He wasn’t going to give anything to this kid. He noticed that today Erin was wearing hearing aids, and she smiled at him as he noticed.
“With school, it’s just easier,” she said as an explanation. “There are too many people talking all the time.”
House was about to say something scathing when a loud bell interrupted him. The teacher he had spoken to went over to the door, and flicked the lights. Heads went up all around the room, and after glances at the clock, more then half of the students headed for the door. All the elementary kids lined up inside the room, and within moments they were collected and led off to…wherever.
“Don’t worry, I’m here for the next period,” Erin said with another smile. “I also talked to my teachers and they said I can leave for 7th period, that’s the last period, as long as I can get a note from you. So, whenever works for you works for me.”
House thought for a moment about the best way to miss the least amount of interesting TV, and agreed that “7th period” would be a good time for Erin to come and help Kelly. With that figured out, House wanted to get a quick lesson before heading back to the hospital.
“Oh, before I go, can you teach me how to sign colors?” he asked it in a way that made it seem almost unimportant, but Erin was too smart for her own good.
“Colors?” That’s not something that is usually taught first.” She gave him a look that clearly said that she wanted to know more.
“Kelly, she sees people in colors, it’s called synesthesia, I figured it would be a good thing to know.”
“Sure, it’s not a problem, colors are fairly simple if you know your alphabet,” she proceeded to show him the various colors.
The signs for blue, green, purple, and yellow made sense. Red was less obvious, a pointer finger on the chin, and gray was even more complicated, hands with fingers splayed were passes over in front of each other.
“Is there a sign for teal?” he asked after he was fairly confidant with the others.
“No, not really, more specific colors are just spelled out,” Erin explained.
“Fine, I can do that.” He glanced up at the clock, and saw that more time had passed then he realized. “I have to be going. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Sure thing! I’ll be there at 2:20 at the latest.” She smiled and waved as he stalked out of the room. She sighed only after she was sure he was gone. ‘What have I gotten myself into?’ she wondered as she found her way to her next class.