Rocket Science, Part 2
Thanks so much to everyone who commented the first chapter! This second part is my favorite one. I always have fun writing about Cuddy. But the real reason I like this one so much is because I write mostly oneshots, I don't get to end things with a bang much, but I did here. It was quite liberating, I suggest everyone gives it a shot, so to speak. ;)
Parasites feast comfortably inside distended bellies. Their hosts are tender, fatigued, achy, but they tuck eagerly into their $10.99 chicken-and-potato dinner: So happy to share their food, their bodies. The nests. The sacrifices.
She is observing the Prepared Childbirth Class, and tries to convince herself not to be there. But: a painful tug in her abdomen where that useless organ exists. Vestigial. And how can she leave when her traitorous body urges her to stay?
Cuddy forces herself to avert her eyes and thinks of astronauts bouncing on a full, swollen moon, the realities of Earth exquisitely far away. Like fantasies.
It pulls again. This need.
Suddenly, there is a flash of light, and now circles of baby-bright colors that obscure her vision. Another reporter, she thinks. The talking head of Celeste O’Hara suddenly appears in her mind’s eye, her lipstick too pale against her skin. Dean of Medicine crumbles under pressure of diagnosing famous astronaut. If only.
Cuddy sighs, and astronauts dissolve in her mind. The defeat.
She goes to be a doctor, and the moon is a flat crescent pressed against the night.
*
They accumulate around the sterile bed, clustering. Hungry for information. How are you feeling? What hurts you? Where? Can you remember anything, Lucy? No. Too tired. Leave me alone. She wants to growl. They are assembling so quickly, and its throwing her mind off - not one of them makes sense without another. Little Legos. Tiny pieces that fit together, their united status builds something so momentous and towering, it is impossible to know where to look for the cracks. But: Choking Hazard.
The dark doctor rubs something onto her arm as the blonde one observes patiently behind him. The woman is smiling and leaning against the doorframe.
They must exist. The cracks. The parent’s worry. Nothing is perfect.
Lucy? You still awake? This might prick a little.
Doe-eyes smiles at her and Anne Akbar holds her hand and blood drips away from her: The choking hazard diminishes as the building grows.
*
In the lab again.
Coming back wasn’t so bad, Foreman thinks, and listens to Chase and Cameron’s idle chatter as they wait for the blood panel. The canceled dinner plans. The sick astronaut. Do you want to just stay in tomorrow night? Might as well, this could turn into a long one… He tries to convince himself to be surprised at their relationship - at the fact that they turn out to be the functional ones. The couple. He almost wants to stay friends with them to see what their genetic-lottery kids will look like.
A low, keening beep signals that the results are in, and Chase and Cameron quiet down and huddle around him. Foreman smiles. Triumphant. “She’s got an elevated WBC. It’s meningitis. We’ll do the LP to confirm and--”
But the dissent: Chase looks uneasy. “The high WBC could indicate any number of diseases. We should put her on empiric antibiotics for a few hours before to see if any new symptoms develop. The meningitis diagnosis could be compromised - like that!” He snaps his fingers to stress his point.
Cameron is nodding, and here is the problem with relationships. Loyalty. Anchoring you down.
“But if it is meningitis,” Foreman insists before Cameron gets the chance to speak. “And if it’s bacterial, we don’t have a few hours.”
“I agree with Chase,” Cameron says. Big surprise. “Dwyer was drowsy and irritable when we took the blood sample and those are symptoms of meningitis too, but - I don’t think you should be so rash here. There are a million other things those could indicate.” Foreman glares at her, and she gives a little. “We should give her the empiric antibiotics for just a couple hours. Don’t look at me like that, Foreman, just two! If her symptoms persist, we’ll do the LP. But it’s a painful procedure, and we shouldn’t do it if we can avoid it.”
“Don’t think so,” a deep voice says - House again. When did he show up? The door swings shut. “The antibiotics could mask a new symptom. We should wait an hour, do nothing, then perform the LP.”
“Right,” Foreman answers. Mutinous. Flat. The jerk. But who is he talking about again? He’s forgotten, and the distinctions between him and House begin to blur. “You know what? Let’s just send her back to the moon and see what happens. We’ll have just a good a shot of saving her there as we do if we sit on our asses and wait around.”
House smirks and grinds his knuckles against the curved top of his cane. Dust to dust. “Well,” he says. “You do have the power of an attending now - it’s your call.”
“Then I’ll do it,” Foreman says, and he walks blindly into the trap House has set.
*
“It’s funny,” Dwyer murmurs coolly, “about the way everything reverts back to the way it once was.”
Cameron is helping Dwyer roll onto her side and she pushes her patient’s knees up to her chest. A quick glance over her patient’s body: Foreman still has that same frown. Nostalgia, she thinks, and she almost wants to hug him, to reassure him that there is a way to change the path you’re on. (Yet you, yourself, cannot break the ways of this old pattern, and you will hurt again, that familiar ache inside of you…) But instead, Cameron locates all the familiar landmarks and begins to rub the lidocaine onto Dwyer’s back. Across the table, Foreman is assembling the needle and manometer.
“Why do you say that?” she asks amiably, and she and Foreman switch places: It is he, the neurologist, who will perform the lumbar puncture.
“That’s the thing about the Big Bang theory.” Dwyer is drifting, and Foreman raises an eyebrow at Cameron: Confusion is another sign of meningitis. “It suggests that if the universe has the capacity to explode and if--”
A pause as Foreman inserts the needle into her lower back but partially withdraws it: He struck bone.
Cameron smiles encouragingly at her patient as Foreman looks for the landmarks. “Go on.”
“And if the universe has the capacity to explode,” she continues, “then it has the capacity to implode.”
Slowly, Foreman begins to pull out the needle again.
“…And if I die tonight - well, look at me.” Dwyer is curled up in the fetal position, which is standard for an LP. She tugs bitterly on the IV cord that is snaked into her arm: Chase did prescribe the empiric antibiotics. The three of them now have the power of attendings. The final perk. Cuddy had promised.
Cameron tries to think about this, forcing herself not to let instinct take over. Her mouth closes around the words she’s tried so hard to establish distance from. Don’t be silly. You’ll be all right. She gulps down her reassurances, but it is like swallowing broken glass.
“Actually, you can relax now,” Foreman says instead, and he and Cameron help Dwyer lay back on her bed. “Everything went fine.”
He doesn’t know it yet, but it is a lie.
*
Minutes after Foreman and Cameron exit the room, Cuddy enters it. She doesn’t think Dwyer notices the distinction or the absence of her crew members, and this comforts her: Dwyer could think that Cuddy is anybody, and Cuddy finds herself wanting to slip comfortably into this alias. “So,” she says, all smiles, “how are you feeling?”
Dwyer grunts something inconsequential, and Cuddy continues her one-sided conversation, listening only to Dwyer’s quick breathing. “You know, the day you walked on the moon was the day I became Dean of Medicine here.” It’s true: She still remembers sitting alone on her couch, mesmerized, as O’Hara was visibly crying on the news. Cuddy had thought them both such successes, but now - they are here, with only each other as company. Their colleagues are not substitutes for what is missing, and their successes both seem so superficial now.
Dwyer doesn’t respond, and suddenly, something doesn’t feel right. The case report had said she was drowsy, but this seems excessive. Dwyer’s breathing slows down again, and Cuddy pulls out her thin flashlight from her pocket, practically opens Dwyer’s eyes for her, and flashes it on. Her pupils barely react at all. Sluggish. Cuddy frowns, and pages House and his team quickly.
It takes all of thirty seconds for Chase to get there, and by the time he does, the Dwyer has completely lost consciousness. “Brain stem herniation,” Cuddy says hurriedly to him, and he begins to intubate immediately. Speed is key. The right one came. Chase uses a laryngoscope to see what he’s doing, and slides the tube down Dwyer’s throat. An expert.
“What’s going on?” It is Cameron, rushing into the room.
“Brain stem herniation. I need .6 gm/kg’s of Mannitol,” Chase responds calmly, still intubating, and Cameron immediately administers it.
“This is because of the LP. We did that fifteen minutes ago.” She makes eye-contact with Chase, who is now beginning to hyperventilate Dwyer. “We have to put her in a barbituate coma. She’ll become paralyzed or stroke otherwise.”
They both look expectantly at Cuddy, and suddenly she is thinking of an angry, blue-eyed patient with a blind stubbornness to use both legs. This is why she became an administrator - he is why she became an administrator. You don’t hug patients - you treat them. She knows this now and she knew it then - but she ran away from patient rooms and into offices, and it was so easy to forget over time. But now - this past year - these patients. The mothers. The lonely ones. Helpless.
This usual distortion.
Cuddy watches Chase’s long fingers opening and compressing around the ventilation bag. “Do it,” she says from some place far away, and Cameron inserts that long, thin needle into Dwyer’s arm as House and Foreman come spilling into the room.
“Just what have you done?” House is asking all of them, but he is looking only at her.
Parasites feast comfortably inside distended bellies. Their hosts are tender, fatigued, achy, but they tuck eagerly into their $10.99 chicken-and-potato dinner: So happy to share their food, their bodies. The nests. The sacrifices.
She is observing the Prepared Childbirth Class, and tries to convince herself not to be there. But: a painful tug in her abdomen where that useless organ exists. Vestigial. And how can she leave when her traitorous body urges her to stay?
Cuddy forces herself to avert her eyes and thinks of astronauts bouncing on a full, swollen moon, the realities of Earth exquisitely far away. Like fantasies.
It pulls again. This need.
Suddenly, there is a flash of light, and now circles of baby-bright colors that obscure her vision. Another reporter, she thinks. The talking head of Celeste O’Hara suddenly appears in her mind’s eye, her lipstick too pale against her skin. Dean of Medicine crumbles under pressure of diagnosing famous astronaut. If only.
Cuddy sighs, and astronauts dissolve in her mind. The defeat.
She goes to be a doctor, and the moon is a flat crescent pressed against the night.
*
They accumulate around the sterile bed, clustering. Hungry for information. How are you feeling? What hurts you? Where? Can you remember anything, Lucy? No. Too tired. Leave me alone. She wants to growl. They are assembling so quickly, and its throwing her mind off - not one of them makes sense without another. Little Legos. Tiny pieces that fit together, their united status builds something so momentous and towering, it is impossible to know where to look for the cracks. But: Choking Hazard.
The dark doctor rubs something onto her arm as the blonde one observes patiently behind him. The woman is smiling and leaning against the doorframe.
They must exist. The cracks. The parent’s worry. Nothing is perfect.
Lucy? You still awake? This might prick a little.
Doe-eyes smiles at her and Anne Akbar holds her hand and blood drips away from her: The choking hazard diminishes as the building grows.
*
In the lab again.
Coming back wasn’t so bad, Foreman thinks, and listens to Chase and Cameron’s idle chatter as they wait for the blood panel. The canceled dinner plans. The sick astronaut. Do you want to just stay in tomorrow night? Might as well, this could turn into a long one… He tries to convince himself to be surprised at their relationship - at the fact that they turn out to be the functional ones. The couple. He almost wants to stay friends with them to see what their genetic-lottery kids will look like.
A low, keening beep signals that the results are in, and Chase and Cameron quiet down and huddle around him. Foreman smiles. Triumphant. “She’s got an elevated WBC. It’s meningitis. We’ll do the LP to confirm and--”
But the dissent: Chase looks uneasy. “The high WBC could indicate any number of diseases. We should put her on empiric antibiotics for a few hours before to see if any new symptoms develop. The meningitis diagnosis could be compromised - like that!” He snaps his fingers to stress his point.
Cameron is nodding, and here is the problem with relationships. Loyalty. Anchoring you down.
“But if it is meningitis,” Foreman insists before Cameron gets the chance to speak. “And if it’s bacterial, we don’t have a few hours.”
“I agree with Chase,” Cameron says. Big surprise. “Dwyer was drowsy and irritable when we took the blood sample and those are symptoms of meningitis too, but - I don’t think you should be so rash here. There are a million other things those could indicate.” Foreman glares at her, and she gives a little. “We should give her the empiric antibiotics for just a couple hours. Don’t look at me like that, Foreman, just two! If her symptoms persist, we’ll do the LP. But it’s a painful procedure, and we shouldn’t do it if we can avoid it.”
“Don’t think so,” a deep voice says - House again. When did he show up? The door swings shut. “The antibiotics could mask a new symptom. We should wait an hour, do nothing, then perform the LP.”
“Right,” Foreman answers. Mutinous. Flat. The jerk. But who is he talking about again? He’s forgotten, and the distinctions between him and House begin to blur. “You know what? Let’s just send her back to the moon and see what happens. We’ll have just a good a shot of saving her there as we do if we sit on our asses and wait around.”
House smirks and grinds his knuckles against the curved top of his cane. Dust to dust. “Well,” he says. “You do have the power of an attending now - it’s your call.”
“Then I’ll do it,” Foreman says, and he walks blindly into the trap House has set.
*
“It’s funny,” Dwyer murmurs coolly, “about the way everything reverts back to the way it once was.”
Cameron is helping Dwyer roll onto her side and she pushes her patient’s knees up to her chest. A quick glance over her patient’s body: Foreman still has that same frown. Nostalgia, she thinks, and she almost wants to hug him, to reassure him that there is a way to change the path you’re on. (Yet you, yourself, cannot break the ways of this old pattern, and you will hurt again, that familiar ache inside of you…) But instead, Cameron locates all the familiar landmarks and begins to rub the lidocaine onto Dwyer’s back. Across the table, Foreman is assembling the needle and manometer.
“Why do you say that?” she asks amiably, and she and Foreman switch places: It is he, the neurologist, who will perform the lumbar puncture.
“That’s the thing about the Big Bang theory.” Dwyer is drifting, and Foreman raises an eyebrow at Cameron: Confusion is another sign of meningitis. “It suggests that if the universe has the capacity to explode and if--”
A pause as Foreman inserts the needle into her lower back but partially withdraws it: He struck bone.
Cameron smiles encouragingly at her patient as Foreman looks for the landmarks. “Go on.”
“And if the universe has the capacity to explode,” she continues, “then it has the capacity to implode.”
Slowly, Foreman begins to pull out the needle again.
“…And if I die tonight - well, look at me.” Dwyer is curled up in the fetal position, which is standard for an LP. She tugs bitterly on the IV cord that is snaked into her arm: Chase did prescribe the empiric antibiotics. The three of them now have the power of attendings. The final perk. Cuddy had promised.
Cameron tries to think about this, forcing herself not to let instinct take over. Her mouth closes around the words she’s tried so hard to establish distance from. Don’t be silly. You’ll be all right. She gulps down her reassurances, but it is like swallowing broken glass.
“Actually, you can relax now,” Foreman says instead, and he and Cameron help Dwyer lay back on her bed. “Everything went fine.”
He doesn’t know it yet, but it is a lie.
*
Minutes after Foreman and Cameron exit the room, Cuddy enters it. She doesn’t think Dwyer notices the distinction or the absence of her crew members, and this comforts her: Dwyer could think that Cuddy is anybody, and Cuddy finds herself wanting to slip comfortably into this alias. “So,” she says, all smiles, “how are you feeling?”
Dwyer grunts something inconsequential, and Cuddy continues her one-sided conversation, listening only to Dwyer’s quick breathing. “You know, the day you walked on the moon was the day I became Dean of Medicine here.” It’s true: She still remembers sitting alone on her couch, mesmerized, as O’Hara was visibly crying on the news. Cuddy had thought them both such successes, but now - they are here, with only each other as company. Their colleagues are not substitutes for what is missing, and their successes both seem so superficial now.
Dwyer doesn’t respond, and suddenly, something doesn’t feel right. The case report had said she was drowsy, but this seems excessive. Dwyer’s breathing slows down again, and Cuddy pulls out her thin flashlight from her pocket, practically opens Dwyer’s eyes for her, and flashes it on. Her pupils barely react at all. Sluggish. Cuddy frowns, and pages House and his team quickly.
It takes all of thirty seconds for Chase to get there, and by the time he does, the Dwyer has completely lost consciousness. “Brain stem herniation,” Cuddy says hurriedly to him, and he begins to intubate immediately. Speed is key. The right one came. Chase uses a laryngoscope to see what he’s doing, and slides the tube down Dwyer’s throat. An expert.
“What’s going on?” It is Cameron, rushing into the room.
“Brain stem herniation. I need .6 gm/kg’s of Mannitol,” Chase responds calmly, still intubating, and Cameron immediately administers it.
“This is because of the LP. We did that fifteen minutes ago.” She makes eye-contact with Chase, who is now beginning to hyperventilate Dwyer. “We have to put her in a barbituate coma. She’ll become paralyzed or stroke otherwise.”
They both look expectantly at Cuddy, and suddenly she is thinking of an angry, blue-eyed patient with a blind stubbornness to use both legs. This is why she became an administrator - he is why she became an administrator. You don’t hug patients - you treat them. She knows this now and she knew it then - but she ran away from patient rooms and into offices, and it was so easy to forget over time. But now - this past year - these patients. The mothers. The lonely ones. Helpless.
This usual distortion.
Cuddy watches Chase’s long fingers opening and compressing around the ventilation bag. “Do it,” she says from some place far away, and Cameron inserts that long, thin needle into Dwyer’s arm as House and Foreman come spilling into the room.
“Just what have you done?” House is asking all of them, but he is looking only at her.