Blessings, Finale
Title: Blessings
Paring: House/Cuddy established
Characters: House, Cuddy, Rachel, Wilson; appearances by Stacy, Foreman, Chase, Taub, some OCs.
Warnings, Summary: Fluff. Angst. Stupidity. Endurance. Life, being its usual random, crappy, glorious self. This story is set about six years after the end of “Help Me,” in an AU that deviates slightly from canon beginning with “Now What”, then veers off of course from canon at about “Carrot or Stick,” and positively spits on canon “Recession Proof” and beyond.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction. As will quickly become very obvious, I do not now nor will I ever profit from its writing.
Thank you for reading. Comments are welcome.
“But after Taub I’m the senior team member,” Townsend complained. “When Chase was the second-most senior team member, nobody ever made him commit any crimes or crawl into any sewers. Nobody ever said ‘Chase, get a sample from the mummy. Chase, hack into radiology.’ Did he ever even have to mess up his hair? No. But here I am, five years later, and after all my outlasting and outplaying and outsmarting, it’s still, ‘Miss July, go commit the felony. Miss July, go exhume the dead guy. Miss July, go scrape the lesions.’”
“April, you are the size of a loaf of bread,” Shaeffer explained, taking off his hat. “If somebody has to crawl into attic spaces and under porches looking for mold and other untoward critters, it best not be a somebody who can get stuck there. That’s just common sense.”
“But the lab guys are little and smart too, why can’t they do the nasty work, just once?” she demanded, whirling around and sniffing. “Is there something in my hair?”
“The lab guys are not doctors. We only bring them along out of pity. They don’t get out much, otherwise,” Taub pointed out. “Did you bring back any samples?”
“Are you kidding? Look at me. I’m wearing samples. I got so many samples from that dump, we’re going to be stuck in the lab testing grossocities for the next two days.”
Wilson popped his head into the diagnostics conference room. “Is House in yet?”
“Well if isn’t the daddy-to-be.” Shaeffer shook his head. “Don’t worry, he’ll be here in time for the blessed event.”
“Didn’t you take the day off?” Taub asked.
“I need to work this morning, take my mind off the surgery, or I’ll throw up. I was hoping House would come in early to taunt me,” Wilson sighed. “Or hopefully, sedate me. The question is, why are you here?”
“I’ve been here all night and House sent them on a field trip, bright and early this morning. Don’t ask me why.“
“He doesn’t have enough people to torture, that’s why,” Townsend grumbled, hefting a stack of file folders from House’s desk. “Forty-nine resumes right here, and it’s still “Miss July, do this,’ ‘Miss July, do that.’”
“I think he wanted to keep us all out of his hair -- manner of speaking -- for a while.” Shaeffer winced apologetically at April. “And maybe he was trying to do you and Fizzou a favor, give you some time apart. Y’all have been a little, uh, tense, lately.”
“That’s not my fault. I love him, but Fizzou is difficult. I mean, it has to be the exact same thing, the exact same way, the exact same time, in the exact same order, and the exact same place on the table, every single morning, and God forbid you forget the fucking syrup.”
“Please, tell me you’re talking about his breakfast.” Wilson wrinkled his nose. “What’s that smell?”
“From the looks of it,” Shaeffer said, eyeing Townsend’s back, “a cat. Who doesn’t want for fiber in its diet.”
“I’m done with this. I’m hiring a bunch of doctors for him and that’s that,” April said conversationally. “But first I’m going to go take a shower.”
House griped that they’d paid more for this lousy two hundred and twenty square feet than for the rest of the condo combined; he was probably right, but the panorama from the corner terrace was so amazing that Cuddy couldn’t bring herself to regret the cost.
The view on the terrace wasn’t bad, either: Slumped into a patio chair, House was contemplating the harbor skyline, his right hand resting on his lower abdomen. His t-shirt was taut across his shoulders and in profile his face was tight with concentration.
“There’s coffee,” he said, when he noticed her. He still greeted her every morning with a veiled surprise and delight that half broke her heart.
She held up her mug, and leaned against the sliding glass door, gratefully inhaling the warm summer air as he returned to his brooding. After a brief internal debate, she approached him gingerly, trying to balance his need for space with her own need for a moment or two of quiet intimacy. She needed a cup of coffee’s worth of time to connect with him, gather her strength for the day to come.
A startled yelp interrupted the moment. Cuddy jerked back up, sloshing coffee, and cursed softly. The dog tumbled off the lounge chair she’d been about to sit on and padded over to House.
“Oh, noes!” House was bemused. “It’s The Attack of the Giant Ass!”
Feeling every sleepless moment of the last few weeks, and resigned to getting dog hair all over her robe, Cuddy eased into the seat.
“That beast,” she muttered.
“Why does the mean lady want to squash you? It’s because she’s jealous, isn’t it?” House asked Georgie in a strained falsetto. “Because you’re prettier than she is, and smarter. Because you’re nicer to me. Because I love you more. That’s right, isn’t it?”
Cuddy chuckled. “Gregory House is talking baby talk to his dog. Who’d have ever thought?”
“He’s verbally abusing his wife,” House corrected. “Who wouldn’t have thought that?” He absently massaged his side with the palm of his left hand, then scowled at her neckline.
“That’s a new nightie and robe,” he accused.
Cuddy blinked innocently back at him. The silk set had cost the earth, but she’d splurged, taking the money out of her old work wardrobe budget and calling it an investment. Seeing him shell-shocked like this made it worth every penny. In your face, Stacy Warner.
“Like it?”
“Don’t know yet,” he growled, his eyes drinking it in. “Not sure whether to tear it off you, or buy you some emeralds to match it.”
“Let me know what you decide.”
She indicated his leg. “How long?” she asked, carefully keeping her voice neutral. It was a tightrope walk with House; given the choice between overprotection and neglect, it was safer to detach herself.
“Woke up about five, didn’t go back to bed.”
“You almost slept through the night? So the sleeve is working?” Her heart did a hopeful little jig in her chest.
“Could be. Could also be coincidental, or placebo,” he warned.
“Not today, it couldn’t,” she scoffed. “Last year when you and Wilson were trying to carry out one of your insane wagers, I overheard Shaeffer saying he wanted to put a bullet through you both. Miss July advised him to aim for whichever of you was closest, because you’re so codependent that if he hit one of you the other one would bleed to death too.
"You wouldn’t sleep soundly on the night before Wilson was going to become a father, without damned effective pain relief, House. Definitely not because of a placebo effect. Wishful thinking is not exactly your strength.”
He raised his hand as if to move it to his side again, caught himself, and shifted his feet. “My subconscious may put me into a coma, to spare me from those damned resident evaluations. I’m a better teacher than this, I swear I am, Cuddy. It’s just that … well, they’re dumb.”
“I take it your clever plan to get yourself banned from attending duty by attempting to steal staff from every other department head, backfired on you?”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “How did you know that was my clever plan?”
She sat the coffee cup down on the table between them. “Obviously, it wasn’t as clever as you thought.”
He nodded bleakly. “Chan has me attending in ID in July. Something about how I’m clearly more productive when working independently, and that being the only time I won’t have to ‘share my process’.”
“In other words, you’re not a team player and no one else wants to deal with the new residents in their first month. I have to hand it to Walt: put the two most infamous irritants in the hospital together and let them drive each other crazy, instead of anyone else. After a month with you, the residents will be well broken in and grateful for any other attending who takes them on.”
“I don’t know how the guy does it," House marveled. "He can tell me I’m completely full of crap and I’ll agree with him and afterward I’ll still feel okay about myself. It’s sick.”
“It would probably be much easier for you if you’d just behave yourself and hire a team,” she suggested.
He waggled a finger at her. “I have a clever plan for that, too.”
“No doubt.” She licked her lower lip. “Would you like to?”
“Like to what? Decapitate the entire job lot of idiots and leave their skulls out on pikes as warning for the next batch? Have my minions build a ziggurat in the courtyard so I can see the empty little severed head of the next moron who couldn’t tell ganglia from a bowl of sesame noodles go thump,thump, thump down three hundred stone steps? Yeah, I think I’d like that. It’d be fun.”
“Er, no.” She touched his fingertips lightly. “Would you like to go back to bed?”
He glared curiously at her, and in the space of a heartbeat she was drowning in impossibly blue eyes, broadcasting an invitation. He straightened his bad leg, curled his other leg around her calves, and shot out an arm to snag her around the waist. She put up a token resistance, and he grinned and pulled her onto the cushion beside him and twisted toward her, blocking her escape. His breath was warm against her mouth, and his hand roving up over and between her thighs was insistent and gentle.
He broke the kiss and pulled back with a slightly surprised little purring noise. “Hullo,” he said, and quirked an eyebrow. “What’s this, already?”
Cuddy squirmed and suppressed a whimper. “I had … dreams,” she told him defensively, and adjusted her robe.
“Dreams, huh.” He anchored her in place with one arm as his fingers continued a tantalizing exploration. “Brazen hussy. Who starred in these dreams? Harrison Ford? George Clooney? Denzel? Marky Mark?”
“I’m. Oh.” Her breath backed up in her throat. His thumb was making her incoherent. “I’d rather not say.”
House sighed blissfully, shoved the robe open and buried his face in her neck. “God, I love post-menopause marriage,” he said serenely. “All the sexual appetite, and none of the hormonal ravings. Unlimited exclusive access with no bewildering, expensive courtship rituals.”
He seemed so content, his enjoyment of her so unguarded, so infectious; almost free. She let go of every reservation and concern, every worry about what was going on with his leg and the lower left quadrant pain that he was trying to hide and his best friend and his career, and allowed herself to yield to whatever forces there were that could sweep everything dangerous or frightening away, at least for the time being.
“Let’s just let that be our little secret,” she said, melting into him.
“Why didn’t anyone ever tell me about this? If only I’d known. Honestly, Cuddy, it’s like Disneyland, for guys.”
“So romantic,” she smirked, pulling him close. “But do try to remember, Stud, you’re in Tomorrowland, not Fantasyland.”
Sunil Dsuraib, MD, PhD, was not in the practice of doing off-site consults, but this patient was insistent: he wanted no gossip, he would not be reassured by repetitions of ethics codes and he placed no stock in Dsuraib’s reputation for confidentiality. This patient was also world-renowned and one of his chief of medicine’s particular projects; he could make Sunil’s career.
At present, however, the patient was, although masking it well, abjectly terrified, and therefore quite stupid.
“The sleeve works on my leg pain,” the patient snarled at him, so harshly that the dog beside him lumbered to its feet. “That’s no guarantee it would work on my not-leg pain.”
“Agreed. You would be among the first to test its effects on phantom pain. If you have phantom pain.” Sunil placed great trust in this man’s respect for facts, so he did not elaborate.
“When.” Piercing blue eyes focused on him for a long moment.
“It will be,” Sunil blew on his tea to cool it, “a substantial risk.”
Sunil got the distinct impression that this was a selling point, and not a negative. House was comfortable with risk, then, as one would expect the author of a book entitled The Art and Science of Diagnostic Medicine to be.
“You’re being a fool, House,” he said bluntly. “The vascular occlusion is radiating to your liver, which has been severely compromised. While you can live without a leg you cannot survive without a liver and you are not a candidate for transplant. “
House drummed his fingers on the table.
“I thought I’d have time,” he mumbled.
“You did. It’s run out. A life without a limb, like a life in pain, is not a good life; it is not an easy life. It is a life.”
“Walker was right about you,” House answered. Shouldering his backpack, he picked up the dog’s lead and his cane. “I do get you. And you are an asshole.”
Michael Joseph Cooke-Wilson was born at twelve-eighteen pm on a perfectly ordinary Wednesday, at thirty-four weeks and 3 days of gestation, weighing six pounds, four ounces. He had a one-minute APGAR of 6 and a five-minute APGAR of 8.
His mother counted his fingers and toes, called thirty- two people, leaving pictures on sixteen cell phones, to declare him the most adorable thing to ever draw breath, then burst into tears, cried inconsolably for a full nine minutes, and conked out into a deep medicated sleep at one-forty one.
At one forty-eight, Michael’s Uncle Greg -- who had already begun to refer to him, for some reason no one ever questioned, as 'Bubba Beau Bob' - set off the fire alarm in the stairwell outside the new Chief of Medical Oncology’s office while smoking cigars with his father and, surprisingly, his Aunt Lisa. The security guards were unmoved by offers of champagne, but when presented with a photo they concurred with Aunt Lisa that he looked like his father. Uncle Greg insisted that he looked like Rudolph Guiliani.
April said something about having to have her Miata fumigated, and Wilson was in no condition to drive, so Fizzou was pressed into chauffeur service. When he reached Federal Hill Park, House and Cuddy and Wilson were drinking the champagne straight out of the bottle in the back seat of Cuddy's SUV.
“That’ll be us, someday,” April said sweetly to Fizzou, watching the three of them crest a hill.
“Which two?” Fizzou asked.
“What are you thinking?” Cuddy asked, collapsing onto the park bench next to House.
“Why do women ask that question?” House asked. “We’re guys. We’re thinking nothing.”
He released his dog’s lead. “Go,” he urged softly. “Go, Georgie, go. Run like hell.”
“Well, I, was just thinking,” Wilson, sitting crookedly on the other side of House, said, holding up a finger. “That two cancer patients died today, in the very hospital Michael was born in.”
“In the British Museum,” House punctuated with a puff of his cigar, “there is a letter, written by Napoleon, from the Russian front, to his tailor back in Paris, complaining about the fit of his underwear.”
“That’s … interesting,” Wilson said in a bumfuzzled voice.
“Life goes on, Wilson.”
They all considered this statement together.
The dog cavorted. “I think her last cripple must have lived on the shore,” House observed.
“If she has a hobby other than sitting on furniture, it’s jumping into water,” Cuddy agreed, and nestled up against her husband. House hooked his left arm around her.
“I think I’ll get a boat,” House announced.
“I didn’t know you sailed,” Wilson said, reaching across him and taking the champagne bottle from Cuddy.
“I don’t. I want a speedboat. A sleek, elegant little overpowered racer. I might even try water skiing.”
“You’ll break every bone in your body,” Wilson predicted.
“You’d look very sexy at the helm of a speedboat,” Cuddy put in, and sighed wistfully. “Tanned, the wind ruffling your hair, the water spraying your face, those little laugh lines at the corners of your eyes crinkling up under your sunglasses. “
She patted his chest affectionately. “And, you’ll break every bone in your body.”
“Good plan, Mutt,” House said, watching the golden blur of joyful energy racing around a copse of elms. “Bark at it, and it’ll come down from the tree and let you carry it around in your mouth. “
“I have a son,” Wilson announced wondrously. “I was a fuckup, but now I’m a dad.”
“Bullshit, Wilson,” House said. “You were a fuckup, now you’re a fuckup with a kid.”
“Tell me the truth, House: do you think I can handle this?”
One hand on his cane, the other resting on Cuddy, shoulder to shoulder with his best friend, House studied the horizon.
"There is," he said, “only one way to find out.”
END
Author’s Note: This is the sharkverse “finale.” I may continue to write stories in this ‘verse, but I wiil never write a sequel to Blessings.
Paring: House/Cuddy established
Characters: House, Cuddy, Rachel, Wilson; appearances by Stacy, Foreman, Chase, Taub, some OCs.
Warnings, Summary: Fluff. Angst. Stupidity. Endurance. Life, being its usual random, crappy, glorious self. This story is set about six years after the end of “Help Me,” in an AU that deviates slightly from canon beginning with “Now What”, then veers off of course from canon at about “Carrot or Stick,” and positively spits on canon “Recession Proof” and beyond.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction. As will quickly become very obvious, I do not now nor will I ever profit from its writing.
Thank you for reading. Comments are welcome.
“But after Taub I’m the senior team member,” Townsend complained. “When Chase was the second-most senior team member, nobody ever made him commit any crimes or crawl into any sewers. Nobody ever said ‘Chase, get a sample from the mummy. Chase, hack into radiology.’ Did he ever even have to mess up his hair? No. But here I am, five years later, and after all my outlasting and outplaying and outsmarting, it’s still, ‘Miss July, go commit the felony. Miss July, go exhume the dead guy. Miss July, go scrape the lesions.’”
“April, you are the size of a loaf of bread,” Shaeffer explained, taking off his hat. “If somebody has to crawl into attic spaces and under porches looking for mold and other untoward critters, it best not be a somebody who can get stuck there. That’s just common sense.”
“But the lab guys are little and smart too, why can’t they do the nasty work, just once?” she demanded, whirling around and sniffing. “Is there something in my hair?”
“The lab guys are not doctors. We only bring them along out of pity. They don’t get out much, otherwise,” Taub pointed out. “Did you bring back any samples?”
“Are you kidding? Look at me. I’m wearing samples. I got so many samples from that dump, we’re going to be stuck in the lab testing grossocities for the next two days.”
Wilson popped his head into the diagnostics conference room. “Is House in yet?”
“Well if isn’t the daddy-to-be.” Shaeffer shook his head. “Don’t worry, he’ll be here in time for the blessed event.”
“Didn’t you take the day off?” Taub asked.
“I need to work this morning, take my mind off the surgery, or I’ll throw up. I was hoping House would come in early to taunt me,” Wilson sighed. “Or hopefully, sedate me. The question is, why are you here?”
“I’ve been here all night and House sent them on a field trip, bright and early this morning. Don’t ask me why.“
“He doesn’t have enough people to torture, that’s why,” Townsend grumbled, hefting a stack of file folders from House’s desk. “Forty-nine resumes right here, and it’s still “Miss July, do this,’ ‘Miss July, do that.’”
“I think he wanted to keep us all out of his hair -- manner of speaking -- for a while.” Shaeffer winced apologetically at April. “And maybe he was trying to do you and Fizzou a favor, give you some time apart. Y’all have been a little, uh, tense, lately.”
“That’s not my fault. I love him, but Fizzou is difficult. I mean, it has to be the exact same thing, the exact same way, the exact same time, in the exact same order, and the exact same place on the table, every single morning, and God forbid you forget the fucking syrup.”
“Please, tell me you’re talking about his breakfast.” Wilson wrinkled his nose. “What’s that smell?”
“From the looks of it,” Shaeffer said, eyeing Townsend’s back, “a cat. Who doesn’t want for fiber in its diet.”
“I’m done with this. I’m hiring a bunch of doctors for him and that’s that,” April said conversationally. “But first I’m going to go take a shower.”
House griped that they’d paid more for this lousy two hundred and twenty square feet than for the rest of the condo combined; he was probably right, but the panorama from the corner terrace was so amazing that Cuddy couldn’t bring herself to regret the cost.
The view on the terrace wasn’t bad, either: Slumped into a patio chair, House was contemplating the harbor skyline, his right hand resting on his lower abdomen. His t-shirt was taut across his shoulders and in profile his face was tight with concentration.
“There’s coffee,” he said, when he noticed her. He still greeted her every morning with a veiled surprise and delight that half broke her heart.
She held up her mug, and leaned against the sliding glass door, gratefully inhaling the warm summer air as he returned to his brooding. After a brief internal debate, she approached him gingerly, trying to balance his need for space with her own need for a moment or two of quiet intimacy. She needed a cup of coffee’s worth of time to connect with him, gather her strength for the day to come.
A startled yelp interrupted the moment. Cuddy jerked back up, sloshing coffee, and cursed softly. The dog tumbled off the lounge chair she’d been about to sit on and padded over to House.
“Oh, noes!” House was bemused. “It’s The Attack of the Giant Ass!”
Feeling every sleepless moment of the last few weeks, and resigned to getting dog hair all over her robe, Cuddy eased into the seat.
“That beast,” she muttered.
“Why does the mean lady want to squash you? It’s because she’s jealous, isn’t it?” House asked Georgie in a strained falsetto. “Because you’re prettier than she is, and smarter. Because you’re nicer to me. Because I love you more. That’s right, isn’t it?”
Cuddy chuckled. “Gregory House is talking baby talk to his dog. Who’d have ever thought?”
“He’s verbally abusing his wife,” House corrected. “Who wouldn’t have thought that?” He absently massaged his side with the palm of his left hand, then scowled at her neckline.
“That’s a new nightie and robe,” he accused.
Cuddy blinked innocently back at him. The silk set had cost the earth, but she’d splurged, taking the money out of her old work wardrobe budget and calling it an investment. Seeing him shell-shocked like this made it worth every penny. In your face, Stacy Warner.
“Like it?”
“Don’t know yet,” he growled, his eyes drinking it in. “Not sure whether to tear it off you, or buy you some emeralds to match it.”
“Let me know what you decide.”
She indicated his leg. “How long?” she asked, carefully keeping her voice neutral. It was a tightrope walk with House; given the choice between overprotection and neglect, it was safer to detach herself.
“Woke up about five, didn’t go back to bed.”
“You almost slept through the night? So the sleeve is working?” Her heart did a hopeful little jig in her chest.
“Could be. Could also be coincidental, or placebo,” he warned.
“Not today, it couldn’t,” she scoffed. “Last year when you and Wilson were trying to carry out one of your insane wagers, I overheard Shaeffer saying he wanted to put a bullet through you both. Miss July advised him to aim for whichever of you was closest, because you’re so codependent that if he hit one of you the other one would bleed to death too.
"You wouldn’t sleep soundly on the night before Wilson was going to become a father, without damned effective pain relief, House. Definitely not because of a placebo effect. Wishful thinking is not exactly your strength.”
He raised his hand as if to move it to his side again, caught himself, and shifted his feet. “My subconscious may put me into a coma, to spare me from those damned resident evaluations. I’m a better teacher than this, I swear I am, Cuddy. It’s just that … well, they’re dumb.”
“I take it your clever plan to get yourself banned from attending duty by attempting to steal staff from every other department head, backfired on you?”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “How did you know that was my clever plan?”
She sat the coffee cup down on the table between them. “Obviously, it wasn’t as clever as you thought.”
He nodded bleakly. “Chan has me attending in ID in July. Something about how I’m clearly more productive when working independently, and that being the only time I won’t have to ‘share my process’.”
“In other words, you’re not a team player and no one else wants to deal with the new residents in their first month. I have to hand it to Walt: put the two most infamous irritants in the hospital together and let them drive each other crazy, instead of anyone else. After a month with you, the residents will be well broken in and grateful for any other attending who takes them on.”
“I don’t know how the guy does it," House marveled. "He can tell me I’m completely full of crap and I’ll agree with him and afterward I’ll still feel okay about myself. It’s sick.”
“It would probably be much easier for you if you’d just behave yourself and hire a team,” she suggested.
He waggled a finger at her. “I have a clever plan for that, too.”
“No doubt.” She licked her lower lip. “Would you like to?”
“Like to what? Decapitate the entire job lot of idiots and leave their skulls out on pikes as warning for the next batch? Have my minions build a ziggurat in the courtyard so I can see the empty little severed head of the next moron who couldn’t tell ganglia from a bowl of sesame noodles go thump,thump, thump down three hundred stone steps? Yeah, I think I’d like that. It’d be fun.”
“Er, no.” She touched his fingertips lightly. “Would you like to go back to bed?”
He glared curiously at her, and in the space of a heartbeat she was drowning in impossibly blue eyes, broadcasting an invitation. He straightened his bad leg, curled his other leg around her calves, and shot out an arm to snag her around the waist. She put up a token resistance, and he grinned and pulled her onto the cushion beside him and twisted toward her, blocking her escape. His breath was warm against her mouth, and his hand roving up over and between her thighs was insistent and gentle.
He broke the kiss and pulled back with a slightly surprised little purring noise. “Hullo,” he said, and quirked an eyebrow. “What’s this, already?”
Cuddy squirmed and suppressed a whimper. “I had … dreams,” she told him defensively, and adjusted her robe.
“Dreams, huh.” He anchored her in place with one arm as his fingers continued a tantalizing exploration. “Brazen hussy. Who starred in these dreams? Harrison Ford? George Clooney? Denzel? Marky Mark?”
“I’m. Oh.” Her breath backed up in her throat. His thumb was making her incoherent. “I’d rather not say.”
House sighed blissfully, shoved the robe open and buried his face in her neck. “God, I love post-menopause marriage,” he said serenely. “All the sexual appetite, and none of the hormonal ravings. Unlimited exclusive access with no bewildering, expensive courtship rituals.”
He seemed so content, his enjoyment of her so unguarded, so infectious; almost free. She let go of every reservation and concern, every worry about what was going on with his leg and the lower left quadrant pain that he was trying to hide and his best friend and his career, and allowed herself to yield to whatever forces there were that could sweep everything dangerous or frightening away, at least for the time being.
“Let’s just let that be our little secret,” she said, melting into him.
“Why didn’t anyone ever tell me about this? If only I’d known. Honestly, Cuddy, it’s like Disneyland, for guys.”
“So romantic,” she smirked, pulling him close. “But do try to remember, Stud, you’re in Tomorrowland, not Fantasyland.”
Sunil Dsuraib, MD, PhD, was not in the practice of doing off-site consults, but this patient was insistent: he wanted no gossip, he would not be reassured by repetitions of ethics codes and he placed no stock in Dsuraib’s reputation for confidentiality. This patient was also world-renowned and one of his chief of medicine’s particular projects; he could make Sunil’s career.
At present, however, the patient was, although masking it well, abjectly terrified, and therefore quite stupid.
“The sleeve works on my leg pain,” the patient snarled at him, so harshly that the dog beside him lumbered to its feet. “That’s no guarantee it would work on my not-leg pain.”
“Agreed. You would be among the first to test its effects on phantom pain. If you have phantom pain.” Sunil placed great trust in this man’s respect for facts, so he did not elaborate.
“When.” Piercing blue eyes focused on him for a long moment.
“It will be,” Sunil blew on his tea to cool it, “a substantial risk.”
Sunil got the distinct impression that this was a selling point, and not a negative. House was comfortable with risk, then, as one would expect the author of a book entitled The Art and Science of Diagnostic Medicine to be.
“You’re being a fool, House,” he said bluntly. “The vascular occlusion is radiating to your liver, which has been severely compromised. While you can live without a leg you cannot survive without a liver and you are not a candidate for transplant. “
House drummed his fingers on the table.
“I thought I’d have time,” he mumbled.
“You did. It’s run out. A life without a limb, like a life in pain, is not a good life; it is not an easy life. It is a life.”
“Walker was right about you,” House answered. Shouldering his backpack, he picked up the dog’s lead and his cane. “I do get you. And you are an asshole.”
Michael Joseph Cooke-Wilson was born at twelve-eighteen pm on a perfectly ordinary Wednesday, at thirty-four weeks and 3 days of gestation, weighing six pounds, four ounces. He had a one-minute APGAR of 6 and a five-minute APGAR of 8.
His mother counted his fingers and toes, called thirty- two people, leaving pictures on sixteen cell phones, to declare him the most adorable thing to ever draw breath, then burst into tears, cried inconsolably for a full nine minutes, and conked out into a deep medicated sleep at one-forty one.
At one forty-eight, Michael’s Uncle Greg -- who had already begun to refer to him, for some reason no one ever questioned, as 'Bubba Beau Bob' - set off the fire alarm in the stairwell outside the new Chief of Medical Oncology’s office while smoking cigars with his father and, surprisingly, his Aunt Lisa. The security guards were unmoved by offers of champagne, but when presented with a photo they concurred with Aunt Lisa that he looked like his father. Uncle Greg insisted that he looked like Rudolph Guiliani.
April said something about having to have her Miata fumigated, and Wilson was in no condition to drive, so Fizzou was pressed into chauffeur service. When he reached Federal Hill Park, House and Cuddy and Wilson were drinking the champagne straight out of the bottle in the back seat of Cuddy's SUV.
“That’ll be us, someday,” April said sweetly to Fizzou, watching the three of them crest a hill.
“Which two?” Fizzou asked.
“What are you thinking?” Cuddy asked, collapsing onto the park bench next to House.
“Why do women ask that question?” House asked. “We’re guys. We’re thinking nothing.”
He released his dog’s lead. “Go,” he urged softly. “Go, Georgie, go. Run like hell.”
“Well, I, was just thinking,” Wilson, sitting crookedly on the other side of House, said, holding up a finger. “That two cancer patients died today, in the very hospital Michael was born in.”
“In the British Museum,” House punctuated with a puff of his cigar, “there is a letter, written by Napoleon, from the Russian front, to his tailor back in Paris, complaining about the fit of his underwear.”
“That’s … interesting,” Wilson said in a bumfuzzled voice.
“Life goes on, Wilson.”
They all considered this statement together.
The dog cavorted. “I think her last cripple must have lived on the shore,” House observed.
“If she has a hobby other than sitting on furniture, it’s jumping into water,” Cuddy agreed, and nestled up against her husband. House hooked his left arm around her.
“I think I’ll get a boat,” House announced.
“I didn’t know you sailed,” Wilson said, reaching across him and taking the champagne bottle from Cuddy.
“I don’t. I want a speedboat. A sleek, elegant little overpowered racer. I might even try water skiing.”
“You’ll break every bone in your body,” Wilson predicted.
“You’d look very sexy at the helm of a speedboat,” Cuddy put in, and sighed wistfully. “Tanned, the wind ruffling your hair, the water spraying your face, those little laugh lines at the corners of your eyes crinkling up under your sunglasses. “
She patted his chest affectionately. “And, you’ll break every bone in your body.”
“Good plan, Mutt,” House said, watching the golden blur of joyful energy racing around a copse of elms. “Bark at it, and it’ll come down from the tree and let you carry it around in your mouth. “
“I have a son,” Wilson announced wondrously. “I was a fuckup, but now I’m a dad.”
“Bullshit, Wilson,” House said. “You were a fuckup, now you’re a fuckup with a kid.”
“Tell me the truth, House: do you think I can handle this?”
One hand on his cane, the other resting on Cuddy, shoulder to shoulder with his best friend, House studied the horizon.
"There is," he said, “only one way to find out.”
END
Author’s Note: This is the sharkverse “finale.” I may continue to write stories in this ‘verse, but I wiil never write a sequel to Blessings.