Edge of Chaos (2/15)
Title: Edge of Chaos, Chapter Two
Author: Duckie Nicks
Rating: PG-13
Characters: House, Cuddy, Wilson -- friendship between the three, maybe some Huddy if you squint...
Author's Note: Spoilers for "Wilson's Heart." Please note that chapter one is a flash forward, so there will be some elements that you'll need to read on in further chapters to understand. The rest of the fic, however, will be told in chronological order (starting right after the deep brain stimulation) and look at how House deals with the fall out of the deep brain stimulation and Wilson leaving. Since the fic is about searching for meaning under the worst circumstances, each chapter is built off of a scientific theory/idea/principle.
Summary: Somewhere between order and chaos, House searches for meaning and healing in his life. Can he recover what he's lost? Can Wilson learn to forgive and ask for forgiveness? Can Cuddy bridge the gap between them both? Or are their friendships just another casualty of the bus accident?
Previous Chapters: Chapter One
Disclaimer: I don't own the show!
“In quantum physics, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle is… often explained as the statement that the measure of position necessarily disturbs a particle’s momentum, and vice versa - i.e. that the uncertainty principle is a manifestation of the observer effect. This explanation is sometimes misleading in a modern contest, because it makes it seem that the disturbances are somehow conceptually avoidable.” -- Wikipedia’s “Uncertainty Principle” Entry
Two Months Earlier…
Silence had descended on the room not unlike the way snow fell onto her lawn in the middle of November. Creeping in at odd moments, like the first few flurries from the sky, the quiet had almost been easy to ignore. But quickly enough, the pauses had lengthened, stretched out until the room was blanketed in a forced hush, just as, within hours, it became impossible to see the grass in her yard.
And it seemed like a lifetime ago when the area of the ICU had been filled with noise. The squeaking wheels of a hospital bed, the soft sound of a nurse twisting and moving House’s IV, and the accented tones of Chase explaining to her what had happened had practically engulfed her.
“We did the deep brain stimulation,” he had told her simply, without the guilt she’d believed the surgeon should be feeling.
“Yeah. Figured that out,” Cuddy had responded, her anger lacing every syllable. Though she could see now that she’d been unfair to Chase, at the time, she hadn’t cared; House had been hurt, and Amber had been dying, and those two things had been much more important to her than her Head of Surgery’s feelings.
Of course, Chase hadn’t been alone in being the target of her ire. Her attention focusing back towards House, Cuddy had barked at the nurse tending to him, “I’ll do that.”
The other woman had just started working at the hospital, so the look of surprise, shock, and maybe terror on her face hadn’t been all that unexpected, Cuddy had thought. The unfamiliar face had yet to learn it, but she would learn soon enough that her boss had never handled these situations diplomatically. Because the hospital was Cuddy’s baby, her job her life, and whenever there’d been a crisis, her first instinct had been to protect her baby and fix it before her head exploded.
As Cuddy had taken over replacing one of the IV bags hanging near House, Chase had calmly continued to explain, “The preset maximums weren’t enough to give us any new information.”
“Then you should have stopped,” she had told him, her voice faltering when she’d looked down at House. His body pale and still, there hadn’t been any change since they’d brought him into the ICU moments ago.
“Vitals were good. Wilson wanted to keep going -”
“Wilson was worried about Amber.”
“And if we hadn’t continued with the procedure, House wouldn’t have remembered her taking the Amantadine, and they’d be no closer to a diagnosis,” Chase had said, folding his arms across his chest.
As his words had begun to sink in, Cuddy had realized the prognosis for Wilson’s girlfriend. Quietly, she’d said, “She’s going to die.” There’d been no question in the sentence, no real hope in it either. Because the chances of restarting Amber’s heart now had been slim, and Cuddy had understood they’d never be able to list her for a transplant. And glancing down at House once more, she’d worried that the same might be true for him. “You should have stopped the procedure,” she’d said admonishingly. “You should have told House no.”
“Right. Because we always tell House no when he wants to do something dangerous and stupid,” Chase had retorted immediately.
And Cuddy hadn’t been able to deny the truth in his words, her body flinching at the honesty. So she’d changed the subject instead. “Try and restart her heart. Let me know what happens.”
With a nod from Chase, the conversation had ended there. Amidst the slowly descending silence, the sound of his footsteps had drawn her attention away from House long enough to watch the younger man leave. Her blue eyes focusing on him, she’d been unable to stop herself from noticing the arrogant set of his shoulders. The lines strong and angular even underneath his lab coat, he’d been leaving, she’d realized, with the same amount of confidence he’d always had.
Nothing had changed in him, because… Chase hadn’t felt guilty at all. And that hadn’t made any sense to her, because how could he not feel responsible? After all, Cuddy herself hadn’t even been around for the procedure, and she’d still felt guilt gnaw at her.
Which was why, she supposed, she still stood guard hours after the conversation, staying with him lest she leave and he die as punishment for doing so.
Writing down his latest stats on his chart, Cuddy stood tiredly at the end of his bed. A mere six feet or so away from his face was the farthest her invisible tether would allow her to go. Shackled by her own culpability (why hadn’t she taken House off the case?), she could go no further.
Not since Amber had died anyway.
Though only a few hours had passed since Wilson’s heart had been broken, something in Cuddy had changed dramatically since then. Which was odd, she thought, given she’d known the likelihood of Amber dying, not to mention Cuddy had never really cared for the other woman.
Or maybe that was unfair. The two women hadn’t ever spent much time with one another. The occasional phone call about what House had done hardly made them friends, no more so than the other dozens of people who called weekly to complain about him anyway.
Really, from an objective standpoint, Cuddy thought that absolutely nothing should have changed for her once Amber had died. Sure, she could be sad for Wilson, but there was no reason for her to feel so… tied to House.
But whatever the reason, things had changed from before they’d called time of death. Before, Cuddy had been able to leave House’s side long enough to talk to Wilson and grab a cup of coffee out of the vending machines.
With Amber gone, however, Cuddy’s priorities had changed dramatically, because now she was too afraid of what might happen if she left the ICU. Placing the metal chart back onto the end of the bed where it belonged, she sat back down next to House.
For the past couple hours, this had been her routine. Caught somewhere between doctor and family, she’d nearly worn through the points of her heels walking about. Never staying seated for long, she would, every few minutes, get up and check his vitals by hand, needing a reason to feel his warm skin and reassure herself with the beating of his heart underneath her fingertips. And once Cuddy was satisfied that he was still alive, she would rub his arm and straighten the already neatly folded linens covering him before doing the same with his IV line. Afterwards, once she was convinced everything was in its proper place, Cuddy would mark down any changes in his chart.
Her body in almost constant motion, she’d gone through her routine enough times that House’s chart was probably the best kept record of anything in the entire hospital. Everything about him was in the chart - BP from five minutes ago, temperature from eight. Each and every last little detail logged in her own scrawl, nothing, she’d decided,was too small to exclude. And she didn’t know if that made her feel more like an inexperienced med student or a paranoid doctor who had spent too many years watching House play with his puzzles.
Placing a hand tentatively on his, Cuddy knew he would no doubt choose the former option. He would once again say that she hadn’t been a doctor in years, and were he to take a glance at the chart she was keeping for him… he’d probably have it framed and hung in his office as a monument to her incompetence.
Then again, she thought, as she laced her fingers through his, that would only happen if he looked at the chart. And for a second, Cuddy contemplated on hiding it from him. But then, as if the Dean of Medicine part of her suddenly reasserted itself, she looked at what she was doing.
She was holding his hand, sitting by his side - being a doctor with no sense of propriety. And though House would hardly care about what was proper, he would accuse her of being too emotional and attached. Really it was hard not to picture it now; he would wake up and begin to make sarcastic remarks, and he would never need to see his chart. Because he’d already have enough ammunition to make her wish she’d never set foot in the ICU.
Standing up once more, Cuddy couldn’t decide if it was that inevitability or the caffeine flowing through her veins that made it impossible to sit still. Her heels clicking on the linoleum floor, she moved closer towards House’s unmoving body. And it was then that she realized what was truly bothering her, what was really tying her to this room and to him.
The usually ceaseless, restless man was no longer moving about in the frenetic way he so often did. Here he was, not playing with his ball or Gameboy. Instead, the only outward sign that he was still alive was the slow rise and fall of his chest. As her fingers moved towards the side of his neck, she could feel the gentle puffs of air being exhaled from his nose. But even that was a small reassurance, because this silent breathing was completely unlike how he usually sounded when he slept.
Which sounded creepy, Cuddy realized, as the tips of her fingers slid into the spot where his jaw and neck met. The rough stubble that hadn’t been shaved in a long time underneath the soft pads of her fingertips, she began to count each beat of his heart.
Keeping her tally going as she returned to her thoughts, Cuddy understood that it was odd to know the sounds House usually made while he slept. Or rather, she could understand why someone else would think it was odd. She herself could not see it as bizarre or anything less than normal, having interrupted many an afternoon nap in the clinic to know the precise way he would usually snore ever so slightly.
His heart rate normal and unchanged, Cuddy moved onto the next part of her task and began to pull at the thin sheets. The almost rough linens hadn’t shifted since she’d last touched them, she knew. Still pressed neatly around House’s body, they’d stayed in the exact same place she had left them.
But that was no comfort at all.
All that meant was… he hadn’t moved.
And that, combined with Amber’s death being in the forefront of her memory, scared her more than she wanted it to.
Tucking the sheets back down around him, Cuddy couldn’t stop herself from wondering if this was it, if this was the time when House pushed himself so far that there was no going back. Instinctively, she wanted to tell herself no, wanted to believe that his own stubbornness would make death or coma impossible. But then…
Unbidden, the image of Amber dying asserted itself, forced her to see that…
Sheer will didn’t mean anything.
And true, House had escaped death several times, but at some point, he wouldn’t be so lucky. There would, no matter what she did, come a time when no amount of trying to save him would work. Though in so many ways it seemed impossible, he would die. If not now, sometime in the future, and the way he lived his life, that would probably be sooner than later.
The thought made her feel sick to her stomach, the force hitting her so hard that she had no choice but to sit down. The thin mattress dipped as she nearly collapsed on the bed next to House, her bottom brushing up against his covered thigh. Her back turned to him, she thought, if… this really was it for him, then nothing she did or could do would make a difference either.
She could sit by him and fuss every few minutes over him and keep his chart up to date using the neatest handwriting she could all she wanted. But those things wouldn’t fix him. Couldn’t fix him, simply because she believed she had that power.
And yet… a small part of her, the same sliver of Cuddy left that still wished on shooting stars, searched for four-leaf clovers when she mowed her lawn, and still believed she might get married and have children - that part whispered to her in that moment.
If there was any chance at all that her actions did matter…
She had to stay.
Her own will finding renewed strength, Cuddy stood once more and turned to face House. She would not leave him, would not stop her careful watch, even if it seemedhopeless.
And at that moment, as she gazed down at him, House’s eyes opened.
Not a sigh of relief, nor words of comfort, escaped her at first, because it had been so long since he’d been awake. And her first reaction was to blink, somewhere between afraid and convinced that this couldn’t be real. In the maroon-stained darkness beneath her closed lids, she prayed desperately for it to be something more than a mirage.
Slowly, she took a peek once more, her breathy exhale, muddled by a desire to cry and laugh, immediate.
He was here.
His irises a dull rainwater gray, House was no longer exuding his own brand of vibrant misery. And as the once bright, brilliant eyes moved around unfocused - lost - Cuddy felt the need to be closer.
This time, her heels seemed to make no sound at all, as she neither heard it and House didn’t shift to look at her. Practically scrambling to his side, she planted the palms of her hands on his mattress and pillow. “Hey” was the first word to escape her mouth; the utterance unplanned and hardly comforting, Cuddy felt the need to keep talking, to fill the silence. Her voice still breathy, she told him, “I’m here.”
Wiping away a curl dangling in front of her face, she could tell, as soon as the words had been said, that they’d been murmured too fast to be of any use. And it was almost ironic (and absolutely pathetic) how she’d waited here for him to wake up and hadn’t given any thought to what she would say to him when he did. No prepared and practiced prose, no earthly idea what she should tell him, Cuddy couldn’t help but think how… inept she was at nurturing.
And almost immediately, completely unwanted, the words House had said to her so long ago - “It’s a good thing you failed to become a mom, ‘cause you suck at it!” - popped into her head.
That particular wound had scarred over long ago, but thinking about it for any period of time still made her stomach clench painfully. And indeed, all of the organs in her stomach seemed to tighten at the memory, as well as the possibility of him saying something similar now.
But instead, House said nothing.
His eyes continued to glance unfocused around him.
Like he hadn’t even noticed she was in the room.
Her mouth closing ever so slightly, she used her own blue eyes to search his face for some sign of recognition. Desperately the irises roved over him for something, anything.
But there was nothing.
Cautiously, fearfully, in monotone, she told him, “Blink if you can hear me.”
There was a beat, a tiny fraction of a second of nothingness passing that felt like a slap to the face. An uneasy silence stretched out over them once more, surrounding and suffocating her. Time seemed to pass slowly, but each millisecond of quiet worked quickly to distinguish her hope.
Questions beginning to play in her mind, Cuddy was just starting wonder what they would do when House sighed.
The lines on his face changed ever so slightly in what she thought might be irritation. And when he blinked unevenly, she couldn’t stop herself from realizing: this was the first time she’d ever been this… ecstatic to annoy him. Joy welled up inside of her, radiating from her heart out to every corner of her body.
The sadness of Amber’s death forgotten, she felt the tension leave her body. Relief forcing a dopey smile on her face, she let go of the breath she’d been unintentionally holding.
House was okay.
Words percolated in the back of her throat as she shifted on her feet. There were so many things she wanted to tell him, so many ways she wanted to comfort and kill him for doing the DBS.
All of it warring within her, Cuddy had to reach out and touch House’s warm rough hand. The soft hairs dotting his wrist tickled the pads of her fingers, and she felt the frantic energy die inside of her.
It could wait.
She didn’t need to do this now, because…
They had time.
That knowledge was still playing on her mind when House began to move his lips. His mouth barely shifting at all, the sounds he made were little more than breathy murmurs. None of it made sense, but it didn’t matter, not right now anyway. If it were important, he could tell her tomorrow.
And if that part of his brain had been damaged, then… they would cross that road when they came to it.
For right now, however, she just wanted to be glad that he was alive.
Shaking her head, Cuddy told him, “No, shhh.” That he wanted to speak was a good thing, a good sign. And though she could understand the desire to do so, he needed to sleep. “Don’t try to talk,” she ordered, smiling. “Just rest.”
Watching him, Cuddy could see the words sink in slowly. His eyes glanced upwards for a second, and she thought that he might fight her on it. But what defiance he might have had died quickly, his eyelids fluttering shut again.
The slumber that followed was not a natural one, but the kind borne from trauma and a cocktail of anti-convulsants and analgesics. It was the kind that, thankfully, allowed him to sleep through the commotion of moving a chair with the assistance of a loud ICU nurse.
Her own repose was quite different. Though she’d barely slept at all on House’s chaise, Cuddy still found it hard to fall asleep in the small, mauve chair. The recliner was comfortable enough, she supposed, and her lithe body made it easy to huddle into the soft cushions. But the stress of the day - Amber dying, House nearly dying twice, and the rest of it - made it hard to settle down. And several times, she found herself jerking awake, convinced that something bad was happening.
So when she heard the doors to the ICU slide shut, Cuddy’s first instinct, aside from shooting up straight in the chair, was to snap her head towards House. Practically shaking, she was relieved to see that, yes, he was lying in his bed, still here.
And yet, that feeling didn’t last long, because he looked, even from this short distance, even more lost and confused than before.
Pushing a strand of hair back, Cuddy started to say his name, but the word died in her throat. Because she realized that it would be impossible to ask him what had happened or what was wrong; he was too weak to talk, and asking him, she thought, would only make him frustrated. Slipping her heels on once more, Cuddy figured the best way to get answers was to talk to the person who had left the room.
As she headed towards the sliding glass doors, she turned her head and offered House a reassuring smile. She was more than a little aware that the gesture was probably lost on him and definitely couldn’t be enough to make him feel relieved. And maybe unknowingly, he confirmed the thought by turning his head towards her. Slow and expectant, the movement made her feel… somehow as though she’d been dared to leave his side. Which made no sense at all - and only served to make her more resolved to stay.
Taking a few more small steps, Cuddy poked her head through the doorway. To the right, she saw nothing. To the left…
There was Wilson.
Broken looking, his hair unkempt, suit rumpled, and shoulders hunched, he was waiting for an elevator. Gone from the man was his natural, unassuming confidence, his ability to see death daily and still find some good in the world. Though she couldn’t see him, had barely spoken to him, Cuddy didn’t doubt that this was the case.
He’d lost the woman he loved… and there was no coming back from that, certainly not in a few hours anyway.
Cuddy swallowed hard, guilt strengthening its hold on her once more.
Why hadn’t House called her?
Why hadn’t she forced him to deal with his addictions and problems before now?
And, why, after everything that had happened, did she still feel as though she didn’t have the right to demand change from him?
The questions plagued her, no mental response convincing enough. Because he was House? Because he was pathetic and stubborn and childish? None of those answers seemed like good excuses anymore, and worse still… Cuddy wasn’t sure she knew how to break that pattern of thinking, didn’t know how to make things right.
Not that anything could ever make this truly right.
But she needed to try, she realized. That was what a friend should do, in the least. And as she mentally tried to think of a way to make Wilson happy and House healthy again, Cuddy felt as though she had only a short amount of time to make any change in their lives. The longer time dragged on, the more likely House would forget the sting of his wounds, the memory of Amber dying. Or… at least, he’d learn to couch it in rational terms. And Wilson would become angrier, less forgiving, less understanding, and Cuddy couldn’t bear the thought of him turning into that.
She needed a plan, the clock beginning to tick in her mind. Her light blue eyes casting their gaze into the hallway, she searched for some sort of answer, as though what she needed to do could be contained in a physical object. Which was incredibly stupid, Cuddy was aware, but she looked anyway, only stopping when she caught sight of an actual clock mounted on a wall.
Reading the black hands, she realized how late it really was.
And Wilson was just leaving.
Immediately an image invaded her senses, feeling incredibly real. Closing her eyes briefly, Cuddy could see it - Wilson staying with Amber all of this time. By now the other woman’s body would be cold, her soul long gone. But Wilson would have stayed anyway, too afraid to leave her. His gentle fingers stroking her hair, face, and skin - he’d probably laid with her, clinging to some sort of hope that it was a dream and that he would wake up with Amber.
But long after he had accepted that she was no longer here, he hadn’t left her side. Unable to let her go, unable to send her to the morgue, the man had probably clutched at her until someone had told him he’d needed to leave. And Wilson would have done it, because that was the kind of person he was.
However, he wouldn’t be able to return to his apartment - her apartment - immediately. And so he had probably come here, to see House, to try and find some comfort in the fact that his best friend was still alive; he’d try to understand why Amber died and House hadn’t.
But Cuddy knew all too well - and now Wilson did as well:
There were no real answers here. Just an unbearable shade of gray, like the color of her top and House’s eyes. There were no answers, no clear path to take… no immediate sense of understanding.
The thought made Cuddy want to cry, want to chase after Wilson and throw her arms around him as she had only hours ago. Felt the need to do it, even though it wouldn’t offer him any real comfort.
But before she could act, Wilson got on the elevator and left. Which was just as well, she thought with a sigh. As much as she wanted to go to him, Cuddy was acutely aware of the man behind her, whom she could not see, but whose eyes she felt on her nevertheless.
She couldn’t leave House.
Even if he wanted her to, even if he expected her to do it, she couldn’t find it in herself to part from him. Because, despite everything that had happened, he had earned the right to have someone sit with him. Which wasn’t to say that Wilson didn’t. But Cuddy could at least believe the oncologist had other friends and family, where as she knew House had no one.
Decisively she returned to the mauve recliner, scooting the cushioned chair closer to House. His eyes were closed, she noticed, as she slipped off her shoes and wiggled around to get comfortable. But there was no doubt in her mind that he was still awake… thinking about Wilson leaving.
Resting her head against the back of the chair, Cuddy wanted to tell House that it would be okay. Yet, she said nothing, because… he wouldn’t believe it, and she couldn’t exactly believe it either - not with Amber dead and House in the hospital and Wilson miserable.
Not knowing how to comfort the man lying next to her, she decided it was best to stay quiet; trite words wouldn’t help anyone now, so reached out for his hand instead. Her cool fingers sliding over his knuckles, her grip was loose and gentle.
Only when she was on the cusp of sleep did she feel his hand move, his fingers testing the barriers of her palm. There was nothing urgent or angry in the motion, though Cuddy doubted he could pull off either feat in his state; rather, in his tentative movements, it felt to her that he was testing to see that she was still there, with him.
When her thumb slowly glided across the back of his hand, he stilled, from reassurance or embarrassment or something else entirely; she didn’t know. But either way, House would learn soon enough:
Cuddy wasn’t going anywhere.
She couldn’t.
Go to the next part
Author: Duckie Nicks
Rating: PG-13
Characters: House, Cuddy, Wilson -- friendship between the three, maybe some Huddy if you squint...
Author's Note: Spoilers for "Wilson's Heart." Please note that chapter one is a flash forward, so there will be some elements that you'll need to read on in further chapters to understand. The rest of the fic, however, will be told in chronological order (starting right after the deep brain stimulation) and look at how House deals with the fall out of the deep brain stimulation and Wilson leaving. Since the fic is about searching for meaning under the worst circumstances, each chapter is built off of a scientific theory/idea/principle.
Summary: Somewhere between order and chaos, House searches for meaning and healing in his life. Can he recover what he's lost? Can Wilson learn to forgive and ask for forgiveness? Can Cuddy bridge the gap between them both? Or are their friendships just another casualty of the bus accident?
Previous Chapters: Chapter One
Disclaimer: I don't own the show!
“In quantum physics, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle is… often explained as the statement that the measure of position necessarily disturbs a particle’s momentum, and vice versa - i.e. that the uncertainty principle is a manifestation of the observer effect. This explanation is sometimes misleading in a modern contest, because it makes it seem that the disturbances are somehow conceptually avoidable.” -- Wikipedia’s “Uncertainty Principle” Entry
Two Months Earlier…
Silence had descended on the room not unlike the way snow fell onto her lawn in the middle of November. Creeping in at odd moments, like the first few flurries from the sky, the quiet had almost been easy to ignore. But quickly enough, the pauses had lengthened, stretched out until the room was blanketed in a forced hush, just as, within hours, it became impossible to see the grass in her yard.
And it seemed like a lifetime ago when the area of the ICU had been filled with noise. The squeaking wheels of a hospital bed, the soft sound of a nurse twisting and moving House’s IV, and the accented tones of Chase explaining to her what had happened had practically engulfed her.
“We did the deep brain stimulation,” he had told her simply, without the guilt she’d believed the surgeon should be feeling.
“Yeah. Figured that out,” Cuddy had responded, her anger lacing every syllable. Though she could see now that she’d been unfair to Chase, at the time, she hadn’t cared; House had been hurt, and Amber had been dying, and those two things had been much more important to her than her Head of Surgery’s feelings.
Of course, Chase hadn’t been alone in being the target of her ire. Her attention focusing back towards House, Cuddy had barked at the nurse tending to him, “I’ll do that.”
The other woman had just started working at the hospital, so the look of surprise, shock, and maybe terror on her face hadn’t been all that unexpected, Cuddy had thought. The unfamiliar face had yet to learn it, but she would learn soon enough that her boss had never handled these situations diplomatically. Because the hospital was Cuddy’s baby, her job her life, and whenever there’d been a crisis, her first instinct had been to protect her baby and fix it before her head exploded.
As Cuddy had taken over replacing one of the IV bags hanging near House, Chase had calmly continued to explain, “The preset maximums weren’t enough to give us any new information.”
“Then you should have stopped,” she had told him, her voice faltering when she’d looked down at House. His body pale and still, there hadn’t been any change since they’d brought him into the ICU moments ago.
“Vitals were good. Wilson wanted to keep going -”
“Wilson was worried about Amber.”
“And if we hadn’t continued with the procedure, House wouldn’t have remembered her taking the Amantadine, and they’d be no closer to a diagnosis,” Chase had said, folding his arms across his chest.
As his words had begun to sink in, Cuddy had realized the prognosis for Wilson’s girlfriend. Quietly, she’d said, “She’s going to die.” There’d been no question in the sentence, no real hope in it either. Because the chances of restarting Amber’s heart now had been slim, and Cuddy had understood they’d never be able to list her for a transplant. And glancing down at House once more, she’d worried that the same might be true for him. “You should have stopped the procedure,” she’d said admonishingly. “You should have told House no.”
“Right. Because we always tell House no when he wants to do something dangerous and stupid,” Chase had retorted immediately.
And Cuddy hadn’t been able to deny the truth in his words, her body flinching at the honesty. So she’d changed the subject instead. “Try and restart her heart. Let me know what happens.”
With a nod from Chase, the conversation had ended there. Amidst the slowly descending silence, the sound of his footsteps had drawn her attention away from House long enough to watch the younger man leave. Her blue eyes focusing on him, she’d been unable to stop herself from noticing the arrogant set of his shoulders. The lines strong and angular even underneath his lab coat, he’d been leaving, she’d realized, with the same amount of confidence he’d always had.
Nothing had changed in him, because… Chase hadn’t felt guilty at all. And that hadn’t made any sense to her, because how could he not feel responsible? After all, Cuddy herself hadn’t even been around for the procedure, and she’d still felt guilt gnaw at her.
Which was why, she supposed, she still stood guard hours after the conversation, staying with him lest she leave and he die as punishment for doing so.
Writing down his latest stats on his chart, Cuddy stood tiredly at the end of his bed. A mere six feet or so away from his face was the farthest her invisible tether would allow her to go. Shackled by her own culpability (why hadn’t she taken House off the case?), she could go no further.
Not since Amber had died anyway.
Though only a few hours had passed since Wilson’s heart had been broken, something in Cuddy had changed dramatically since then. Which was odd, she thought, given she’d known the likelihood of Amber dying, not to mention Cuddy had never really cared for the other woman.
Or maybe that was unfair. The two women hadn’t ever spent much time with one another. The occasional phone call about what House had done hardly made them friends, no more so than the other dozens of people who called weekly to complain about him anyway.
Really, from an objective standpoint, Cuddy thought that absolutely nothing should have changed for her once Amber had died. Sure, she could be sad for Wilson, but there was no reason for her to feel so… tied to House.
But whatever the reason, things had changed from before they’d called time of death. Before, Cuddy had been able to leave House’s side long enough to talk to Wilson and grab a cup of coffee out of the vending machines.
With Amber gone, however, Cuddy’s priorities had changed dramatically, because now she was too afraid of what might happen if she left the ICU. Placing the metal chart back onto the end of the bed where it belonged, she sat back down next to House.
For the past couple hours, this had been her routine. Caught somewhere between doctor and family, she’d nearly worn through the points of her heels walking about. Never staying seated for long, she would, every few minutes, get up and check his vitals by hand, needing a reason to feel his warm skin and reassure herself with the beating of his heart underneath her fingertips. And once Cuddy was satisfied that he was still alive, she would rub his arm and straighten the already neatly folded linens covering him before doing the same with his IV line. Afterwards, once she was convinced everything was in its proper place, Cuddy would mark down any changes in his chart.
Her body in almost constant motion, she’d gone through her routine enough times that House’s chart was probably the best kept record of anything in the entire hospital. Everything about him was in the chart - BP from five minutes ago, temperature from eight. Each and every last little detail logged in her own scrawl, nothing, she’d decided,was too small to exclude. And she didn’t know if that made her feel more like an inexperienced med student or a paranoid doctor who had spent too many years watching House play with his puzzles.
Placing a hand tentatively on his, Cuddy knew he would no doubt choose the former option. He would once again say that she hadn’t been a doctor in years, and were he to take a glance at the chart she was keeping for him… he’d probably have it framed and hung in his office as a monument to her incompetence.
Then again, she thought, as she laced her fingers through his, that would only happen if he looked at the chart. And for a second, Cuddy contemplated on hiding it from him. But then, as if the Dean of Medicine part of her suddenly reasserted itself, she looked at what she was doing.
She was holding his hand, sitting by his side - being a doctor with no sense of propriety. And though House would hardly care about what was proper, he would accuse her of being too emotional and attached. Really it was hard not to picture it now; he would wake up and begin to make sarcastic remarks, and he would never need to see his chart. Because he’d already have enough ammunition to make her wish she’d never set foot in the ICU.
Standing up once more, Cuddy couldn’t decide if it was that inevitability or the caffeine flowing through her veins that made it impossible to sit still. Her heels clicking on the linoleum floor, she moved closer towards House’s unmoving body. And it was then that she realized what was truly bothering her, what was really tying her to this room and to him.
The usually ceaseless, restless man was no longer moving about in the frenetic way he so often did. Here he was, not playing with his ball or Gameboy. Instead, the only outward sign that he was still alive was the slow rise and fall of his chest. As her fingers moved towards the side of his neck, she could feel the gentle puffs of air being exhaled from his nose. But even that was a small reassurance, because this silent breathing was completely unlike how he usually sounded when he slept.
Which sounded creepy, Cuddy realized, as the tips of her fingers slid into the spot where his jaw and neck met. The rough stubble that hadn’t been shaved in a long time underneath the soft pads of her fingertips, she began to count each beat of his heart.
Keeping her tally going as she returned to her thoughts, Cuddy understood that it was odd to know the sounds House usually made while he slept. Or rather, she could understand why someone else would think it was odd. She herself could not see it as bizarre or anything less than normal, having interrupted many an afternoon nap in the clinic to know the precise way he would usually snore ever so slightly.
His heart rate normal and unchanged, Cuddy moved onto the next part of her task and began to pull at the thin sheets. The almost rough linens hadn’t shifted since she’d last touched them, she knew. Still pressed neatly around House’s body, they’d stayed in the exact same place she had left them.
But that was no comfort at all.
All that meant was… he hadn’t moved.
And that, combined with Amber’s death being in the forefront of her memory, scared her more than she wanted it to.
Tucking the sheets back down around him, Cuddy couldn’t stop herself from wondering if this was it, if this was the time when House pushed himself so far that there was no going back. Instinctively, she wanted to tell herself no, wanted to believe that his own stubbornness would make death or coma impossible. But then…
Unbidden, the image of Amber dying asserted itself, forced her to see that…
Sheer will didn’t mean anything.
And true, House had escaped death several times, but at some point, he wouldn’t be so lucky. There would, no matter what she did, come a time when no amount of trying to save him would work. Though in so many ways it seemed impossible, he would die. If not now, sometime in the future, and the way he lived his life, that would probably be sooner than later.
The thought made her feel sick to her stomach, the force hitting her so hard that she had no choice but to sit down. The thin mattress dipped as she nearly collapsed on the bed next to House, her bottom brushing up against his covered thigh. Her back turned to him, she thought, if… this really was it for him, then nothing she did or could do would make a difference either.
She could sit by him and fuss every few minutes over him and keep his chart up to date using the neatest handwriting she could all she wanted. But those things wouldn’t fix him. Couldn’t fix him, simply because she believed she had that power.
And yet… a small part of her, the same sliver of Cuddy left that still wished on shooting stars, searched for four-leaf clovers when she mowed her lawn, and still believed she might get married and have children - that part whispered to her in that moment.
If there was any chance at all that her actions did matter…
She had to stay.
Her own will finding renewed strength, Cuddy stood once more and turned to face House. She would not leave him, would not stop her careful watch, even if it seemedhopeless.
And at that moment, as she gazed down at him, House’s eyes opened.
Not a sigh of relief, nor words of comfort, escaped her at first, because it had been so long since he’d been awake. And her first reaction was to blink, somewhere between afraid and convinced that this couldn’t be real. In the maroon-stained darkness beneath her closed lids, she prayed desperately for it to be something more than a mirage.
Slowly, she took a peek once more, her breathy exhale, muddled by a desire to cry and laugh, immediate.
He was here.
His irises a dull rainwater gray, House was no longer exuding his own brand of vibrant misery. And as the once bright, brilliant eyes moved around unfocused - lost - Cuddy felt the need to be closer.
This time, her heels seemed to make no sound at all, as she neither heard it and House didn’t shift to look at her. Practically scrambling to his side, she planted the palms of her hands on his mattress and pillow. “Hey” was the first word to escape her mouth; the utterance unplanned and hardly comforting, Cuddy felt the need to keep talking, to fill the silence. Her voice still breathy, she told him, “I’m here.”
Wiping away a curl dangling in front of her face, she could tell, as soon as the words had been said, that they’d been murmured too fast to be of any use. And it was almost ironic (and absolutely pathetic) how she’d waited here for him to wake up and hadn’t given any thought to what she would say to him when he did. No prepared and practiced prose, no earthly idea what she should tell him, Cuddy couldn’t help but think how… inept she was at nurturing.
And almost immediately, completely unwanted, the words House had said to her so long ago - “It’s a good thing you failed to become a mom, ‘cause you suck at it!” - popped into her head.
That particular wound had scarred over long ago, but thinking about it for any period of time still made her stomach clench painfully. And indeed, all of the organs in her stomach seemed to tighten at the memory, as well as the possibility of him saying something similar now.
But instead, House said nothing.
His eyes continued to glance unfocused around him.
Like he hadn’t even noticed she was in the room.
Her mouth closing ever so slightly, she used her own blue eyes to search his face for some sign of recognition. Desperately the irises roved over him for something, anything.
But there was nothing.
Cautiously, fearfully, in monotone, she told him, “Blink if you can hear me.”
There was a beat, a tiny fraction of a second of nothingness passing that felt like a slap to the face. An uneasy silence stretched out over them once more, surrounding and suffocating her. Time seemed to pass slowly, but each millisecond of quiet worked quickly to distinguish her hope.
Questions beginning to play in her mind, Cuddy was just starting wonder what they would do when House sighed.
The lines on his face changed ever so slightly in what she thought might be irritation. And when he blinked unevenly, she couldn’t stop herself from realizing: this was the first time she’d ever been this… ecstatic to annoy him. Joy welled up inside of her, radiating from her heart out to every corner of her body.
The sadness of Amber’s death forgotten, she felt the tension leave her body. Relief forcing a dopey smile on her face, she let go of the breath she’d been unintentionally holding.
House was okay.
Words percolated in the back of her throat as she shifted on her feet. There were so many things she wanted to tell him, so many ways she wanted to comfort and kill him for doing the DBS.
All of it warring within her, Cuddy had to reach out and touch House’s warm rough hand. The soft hairs dotting his wrist tickled the pads of her fingers, and she felt the frantic energy die inside of her.
It could wait.
She didn’t need to do this now, because…
They had time.
That knowledge was still playing on her mind when House began to move his lips. His mouth barely shifting at all, the sounds he made were little more than breathy murmurs. None of it made sense, but it didn’t matter, not right now anyway. If it were important, he could tell her tomorrow.
And if that part of his brain had been damaged, then… they would cross that road when they came to it.
For right now, however, she just wanted to be glad that he was alive.
Shaking her head, Cuddy told him, “No, shhh.” That he wanted to speak was a good thing, a good sign. And though she could understand the desire to do so, he needed to sleep. “Don’t try to talk,” she ordered, smiling. “Just rest.”
Watching him, Cuddy could see the words sink in slowly. His eyes glanced upwards for a second, and she thought that he might fight her on it. But what defiance he might have had died quickly, his eyelids fluttering shut again.
The slumber that followed was not a natural one, but the kind borne from trauma and a cocktail of anti-convulsants and analgesics. It was the kind that, thankfully, allowed him to sleep through the commotion of moving a chair with the assistance of a loud ICU nurse.
Her own repose was quite different. Though she’d barely slept at all on House’s chaise, Cuddy still found it hard to fall asleep in the small, mauve chair. The recliner was comfortable enough, she supposed, and her lithe body made it easy to huddle into the soft cushions. But the stress of the day - Amber dying, House nearly dying twice, and the rest of it - made it hard to settle down. And several times, she found herself jerking awake, convinced that something bad was happening.
So when she heard the doors to the ICU slide shut, Cuddy’s first instinct, aside from shooting up straight in the chair, was to snap her head towards House. Practically shaking, she was relieved to see that, yes, he was lying in his bed, still here.
And yet, that feeling didn’t last long, because he looked, even from this short distance, even more lost and confused than before.
Pushing a strand of hair back, Cuddy started to say his name, but the word died in her throat. Because she realized that it would be impossible to ask him what had happened or what was wrong; he was too weak to talk, and asking him, she thought, would only make him frustrated. Slipping her heels on once more, Cuddy figured the best way to get answers was to talk to the person who had left the room.
As she headed towards the sliding glass doors, she turned her head and offered House a reassuring smile. She was more than a little aware that the gesture was probably lost on him and definitely couldn’t be enough to make him feel relieved. And maybe unknowingly, he confirmed the thought by turning his head towards her. Slow and expectant, the movement made her feel… somehow as though she’d been dared to leave his side. Which made no sense at all - and only served to make her more resolved to stay.
Taking a few more small steps, Cuddy poked her head through the doorway. To the right, she saw nothing. To the left…
There was Wilson.
Broken looking, his hair unkempt, suit rumpled, and shoulders hunched, he was waiting for an elevator. Gone from the man was his natural, unassuming confidence, his ability to see death daily and still find some good in the world. Though she couldn’t see him, had barely spoken to him, Cuddy didn’t doubt that this was the case.
He’d lost the woman he loved… and there was no coming back from that, certainly not in a few hours anyway.
Cuddy swallowed hard, guilt strengthening its hold on her once more.
Why hadn’t House called her?
Why hadn’t she forced him to deal with his addictions and problems before now?
And, why, after everything that had happened, did she still feel as though she didn’t have the right to demand change from him?
The questions plagued her, no mental response convincing enough. Because he was House? Because he was pathetic and stubborn and childish? None of those answers seemed like good excuses anymore, and worse still… Cuddy wasn’t sure she knew how to break that pattern of thinking, didn’t know how to make things right.
Not that anything could ever make this truly right.
But she needed to try, she realized. That was what a friend should do, in the least. And as she mentally tried to think of a way to make Wilson happy and House healthy again, Cuddy felt as though she had only a short amount of time to make any change in their lives. The longer time dragged on, the more likely House would forget the sting of his wounds, the memory of Amber dying. Or… at least, he’d learn to couch it in rational terms. And Wilson would become angrier, less forgiving, less understanding, and Cuddy couldn’t bear the thought of him turning into that.
She needed a plan, the clock beginning to tick in her mind. Her light blue eyes casting their gaze into the hallway, she searched for some sort of answer, as though what she needed to do could be contained in a physical object. Which was incredibly stupid, Cuddy was aware, but she looked anyway, only stopping when she caught sight of an actual clock mounted on a wall.
Reading the black hands, she realized how late it really was.
And Wilson was just leaving.
Immediately an image invaded her senses, feeling incredibly real. Closing her eyes briefly, Cuddy could see it - Wilson staying with Amber all of this time. By now the other woman’s body would be cold, her soul long gone. But Wilson would have stayed anyway, too afraid to leave her. His gentle fingers stroking her hair, face, and skin - he’d probably laid with her, clinging to some sort of hope that it was a dream and that he would wake up with Amber.
But long after he had accepted that she was no longer here, he hadn’t left her side. Unable to let her go, unable to send her to the morgue, the man had probably clutched at her until someone had told him he’d needed to leave. And Wilson would have done it, because that was the kind of person he was.
However, he wouldn’t be able to return to his apartment - her apartment - immediately. And so he had probably come here, to see House, to try and find some comfort in the fact that his best friend was still alive; he’d try to understand why Amber died and House hadn’t.
But Cuddy knew all too well - and now Wilson did as well:
There were no real answers here. Just an unbearable shade of gray, like the color of her top and House’s eyes. There were no answers, no clear path to take… no immediate sense of understanding.
The thought made Cuddy want to cry, want to chase after Wilson and throw her arms around him as she had only hours ago. Felt the need to do it, even though it wouldn’t offer him any real comfort.
But before she could act, Wilson got on the elevator and left. Which was just as well, she thought with a sigh. As much as she wanted to go to him, Cuddy was acutely aware of the man behind her, whom she could not see, but whose eyes she felt on her nevertheless.
She couldn’t leave House.
Even if he wanted her to, even if he expected her to do it, she couldn’t find it in herself to part from him. Because, despite everything that had happened, he had earned the right to have someone sit with him. Which wasn’t to say that Wilson didn’t. But Cuddy could at least believe the oncologist had other friends and family, where as she knew House had no one.
Decisively she returned to the mauve recliner, scooting the cushioned chair closer to House. His eyes were closed, she noticed, as she slipped off her shoes and wiggled around to get comfortable. But there was no doubt in her mind that he was still awake… thinking about Wilson leaving.
Resting her head against the back of the chair, Cuddy wanted to tell House that it would be okay. Yet, she said nothing, because… he wouldn’t believe it, and she couldn’t exactly believe it either - not with Amber dead and House in the hospital and Wilson miserable.
Not knowing how to comfort the man lying next to her, she decided it was best to stay quiet; trite words wouldn’t help anyone now, so reached out for his hand instead. Her cool fingers sliding over his knuckles, her grip was loose and gentle.
Only when she was on the cusp of sleep did she feel his hand move, his fingers testing the barriers of her palm. There was nothing urgent or angry in the motion, though Cuddy doubted he could pull off either feat in his state; rather, in his tentative movements, it felt to her that he was testing to see that she was still there, with him.
When her thumb slowly glided across the back of his hand, he stilled, from reassurance or embarrassment or something else entirely; she didn’t know. But either way, House would learn soon enough:
Cuddy wasn’t going anywhere.
She couldn’t.
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