"12 and a Half Hours" (House) [part 1]
Title: 12 and a Half Hours
Fandom: House
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Angst/Drama
Words: 1,451 in part 1 (6,685 total)
Pairing: House & Wilson
Disclaimer: Definitely don't own House.
Summary: "97 Seconds" from Wilson's perspective. Wilson waits a dozen hours for House to wake up, and he still can't say what he needs to say.
Notes: Beta-read by callmejude, and inspired by her fic The Hardest Part of This. Credit and thanks go to her.
This is part one.
9:17 PM
You run all the way through the corridors and up the stairs to his room, even though in the back of your mind you’re aware that running won’t make a difference; that it’s too late to undo what’s been done. But rational analysis lost the battle to panic the minute you answered your phone and heard the news from Cuddy, and you can no longer think clearly over the pounding of your heart. So you’re charging up the staircase, sprinting down the hallway-you nearly pass his room, then realize your mistake-you skid to a halt, spin around, stumble into the room to see him lying, motionless, on the bed.
And it’s then, only then, when you see him lying there, that you realize how stupid you’ve been.
Because oh God, it hurts for you to see him there, to see him ashen and scarred and still, and to think that it’s only now that you’re running to his side, now that you’re sinking into the chair beside him, now that you’re wondering if you could have stopped him from doing this to himself.
You’re an idiot.
Now is far too late.
9:21 PM
You can’t tear your eyes away from his face until you hear the door open, and you turn around to see Cuddy there. She starts to enter the room, checking herself before coming any farther. Standing near the doorway, she gives you one of her trademark long, sympathetic gazes. Unexpectedly, you find yourself thinking that she looks very much like somebody’s mother.
“I called you as soon as I heard,” she says. “I thought you might know already.”
You shake your head.
Her look of sympathy turns into a look of pity. You feel a sudden, aimless hatred flare up inside you, then sputter out with equal abruptness as you turn your eyes away from her.
“You said he did it-” you start to ask, then realize your voice is a croak. You clear your throat, embarrassed, and try to sound more like a doctor. “You said he did it in his office?”
“That’s where they found him,” Cuddy says, and instantly your mind races to call up a dozen images of all the times you go to his office, or he barges into yours, on the average workday. Why weren’t you there this time? Why couldn’t you have thought to stop by the one time he needed you?
You realize Cuddy is talking and force yourself to listen. “His heart was stopped for almost a minute before the doctor he paged got it started again with CPR. If she hadn’t been so quick, he-”
“Who did he page?” The words are out of your mouth before you realize you’re asking them. Cuddy looks taken aback the suddenness of your reaction, but it’s impossible for you to care what she thinks of you right now. “He called someone before he- did it?”
At last, she walks the rest of the way into the room to face you, resting a hand on the back of your chair, near your shoulder. “He paged one of the doctors he’s got competing for his fellowship. Amber Volakis, I think. You didn’t know?”
Your answer comes out in a yell: “Of course I didn’t know!”
You wonder if you’ll hurt Cuddy by shouting at her-you don’t care if you do; the idea is almost appealing-but she looks unfazed, as if this is no less than what she expected from you. “You want to know why he called her and not you,” she says after a moment. “You want to know why he didn’t think of you first, when he wanted someone who would care enough to come save him.”
You stare mutely, pleadingly, up into her face.
Cuddy sighs as she pulls up the room’s second chair and sits down beside you. “I don’t know why,” she says, and both of you are silent.
9:32 PM
You couldn’t bring yourself to look directly at his hand before, but now the burn seems to demand your gaze: an angry, dark red welt, shiny and raw. It’s his left hand that’s burned, you think to yourself dully, he used his left hand to-
Wait. Which hand does he need to use his cane? For a wild, panicked moment, you can’t remember which leg has the limp; you can’t think of what he looks like when he walks. Then it comes back: it’s the right leg that had the infarction. He uses his right hand for his cane. The burn will hurt, but at least the pain won’t keep him from walking.
He probably thought of that before he stuck the knife in, anyway. Far ahead of you, outsmarting you yet again. He’s a brilliant man.
Except when he’s a complete fool.
9:35 PM
You’ve both been sitting there, gazing at him without speaking; now Cuddy breaks the silence. “You aren’t planning on sitting here all night, are you?”
You look up, startled by the question. “Haven’t thought about it. I just got here.”
The look she gives you is skeptical, as if she wants to say something else, but you have other things on your mind. “Look, Cuddy, why do you…think he did this? I mean, what did he want to do?”
She smiles a little, for the first time. “It’s House. Who knows what he wanted to do? He must’ve had some reason that made sense to him, but-”
“Of course he did. He had something to prove.” Your voice echoes hollowly in your ears. “That’s not what I meant.”
“What did you mean, then?”
“I meant-” What you meant was: what made him think it didn’t matter if he lived or died? What made him decide that some stupid experiment, some stupid puzzle, was worth risking his life? Why doesn’t he care about himself?
Why doesn’t he understand that you do?
“I don’t know what I meant,” you say to Cuddy.
Another silence, then she glances at you. “What were you doing when I called you and told you what happened?”
“Getting ready to go home.”
“You’re all done for the night?”
What is she getting at? “Yes.”
Cuddy stands up, and suddenly she’s your boss again. “Then go home, Dr. Wilson.”
“What?”
“You were about to leave when I told you about House. I knew you’d want to see him; now you have.” The look she’s giving you is almost the pitying one again, but there’s something else in it too: something very much like impatience. “So why don’t you go home, rest, and come back and see how he’s doing in the morning.”
You turn this over in your mind as you look up at her. “Are you saying…do you want to be alone with House, and that’s why you’re asking me to leave?”
“No,” she replies, and the exasperation in her voice sounds genuine. “Can’t you figure out that you’re the one I’m trying to look out for?” She softens her tone. “Wilson. House is unconscious. He doesn’t know you’re here. He doesn’t need you to sit with him all night.”
Something in your mind isn’t working right. You can understand Cuddy’s words individually, but you can’t put them together to understand what she’s actually saying. “B-but,” you stammer. “I’m…his friend.”
“I know,” says Cuddy, with surprising gentleness. “You are. Maybe his only friend. But that doesn’t mean you have to sit at his bedside for twelve hours while everyone else goes home. He doesn’t need that from you.”
You stare at her.
“You want him to need you,” Cuddy says, more bluntly. “And you give him whatever he needs. All the time.” She walks to the door, then turns and fixes you with a look. “What has he done for you lately?”
“I…he…” you falter, like a child caught in a lie, but Cuddy cuts you off.
“How much did he think about you when he decided to do this to himself? Did he wonder how you would feel?” She waits half a second for an answer that isn’t going to come. “Maybe you weren’t that high on his list of priorities after all.”
She realizes that you can’t say anything, that you’re floundering, and once again she seems to soften. “Wilson…I know House is your best friend, and that means a lot to you. But it’s not always clear how much it means to him.” She pauses, and when you don’t answer, she says, “I’m just suggesting that this one time, you try and see if he can manage without you.”
As she turns and walks out, you think you hear her add something else. You can’t be sure, but it sounds like, “And vice versa.”
Fandom: House
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Angst/Drama
Words: 1,451 in part 1 (6,685 total)
Pairing: House & Wilson
Disclaimer: Definitely don't own House.
Summary: "97 Seconds" from Wilson's perspective. Wilson waits a dozen hours for House to wake up, and he still can't say what he needs to say.
Notes: Beta-read by callmejude, and inspired by her fic The Hardest Part of This. Credit and thanks go to her.
This is part one.
9:17 PM
You run all the way through the corridors and up the stairs to his room, even though in the back of your mind you’re aware that running won’t make a difference; that it’s too late to undo what’s been done. But rational analysis lost the battle to panic the minute you answered your phone and heard the news from Cuddy, and you can no longer think clearly over the pounding of your heart. So you’re charging up the staircase, sprinting down the hallway-you nearly pass his room, then realize your mistake-you skid to a halt, spin around, stumble into the room to see him lying, motionless, on the bed.
And it’s then, only then, when you see him lying there, that you realize how stupid you’ve been.
Because oh God, it hurts for you to see him there, to see him ashen and scarred and still, and to think that it’s only now that you’re running to his side, now that you’re sinking into the chair beside him, now that you’re wondering if you could have stopped him from doing this to himself.
You’re an idiot.
Now is far too late.
9:21 PM
You can’t tear your eyes away from his face until you hear the door open, and you turn around to see Cuddy there. She starts to enter the room, checking herself before coming any farther. Standing near the doorway, she gives you one of her trademark long, sympathetic gazes. Unexpectedly, you find yourself thinking that she looks very much like somebody’s mother.
“I called you as soon as I heard,” she says. “I thought you might know already.”
You shake your head.
Her look of sympathy turns into a look of pity. You feel a sudden, aimless hatred flare up inside you, then sputter out with equal abruptness as you turn your eyes away from her.
“You said he did it-” you start to ask, then realize your voice is a croak. You clear your throat, embarrassed, and try to sound more like a doctor. “You said he did it in his office?”
“That’s where they found him,” Cuddy says, and instantly your mind races to call up a dozen images of all the times you go to his office, or he barges into yours, on the average workday. Why weren’t you there this time? Why couldn’t you have thought to stop by the one time he needed you?
You realize Cuddy is talking and force yourself to listen. “His heart was stopped for almost a minute before the doctor he paged got it started again with CPR. If she hadn’t been so quick, he-”
“Who did he page?” The words are out of your mouth before you realize you’re asking them. Cuddy looks taken aback the suddenness of your reaction, but it’s impossible for you to care what she thinks of you right now. “He called someone before he- did it?”
At last, she walks the rest of the way into the room to face you, resting a hand on the back of your chair, near your shoulder. “He paged one of the doctors he’s got competing for his fellowship. Amber Volakis, I think. You didn’t know?”
Your answer comes out in a yell: “Of course I didn’t know!”
You wonder if you’ll hurt Cuddy by shouting at her-you don’t care if you do; the idea is almost appealing-but she looks unfazed, as if this is no less than what she expected from you. “You want to know why he called her and not you,” she says after a moment. “You want to know why he didn’t think of you first, when he wanted someone who would care enough to come save him.”
You stare mutely, pleadingly, up into her face.
Cuddy sighs as she pulls up the room’s second chair and sits down beside you. “I don’t know why,” she says, and both of you are silent.
9:32 PM
You couldn’t bring yourself to look directly at his hand before, but now the burn seems to demand your gaze: an angry, dark red welt, shiny and raw. It’s his left hand that’s burned, you think to yourself dully, he used his left hand to-
Wait. Which hand does he need to use his cane? For a wild, panicked moment, you can’t remember which leg has the limp; you can’t think of what he looks like when he walks. Then it comes back: it’s the right leg that had the infarction. He uses his right hand for his cane. The burn will hurt, but at least the pain won’t keep him from walking.
He probably thought of that before he stuck the knife in, anyway. Far ahead of you, outsmarting you yet again. He’s a brilliant man.
Except when he’s a complete fool.
9:35 PM
You’ve both been sitting there, gazing at him without speaking; now Cuddy breaks the silence. “You aren’t planning on sitting here all night, are you?”
You look up, startled by the question. “Haven’t thought about it. I just got here.”
The look she gives you is skeptical, as if she wants to say something else, but you have other things on your mind. “Look, Cuddy, why do you…think he did this? I mean, what did he want to do?”
She smiles a little, for the first time. “It’s House. Who knows what he wanted to do? He must’ve had some reason that made sense to him, but-”
“Of course he did. He had something to prove.” Your voice echoes hollowly in your ears. “That’s not what I meant.”
“What did you mean, then?”
“I meant-” What you meant was: what made him think it didn’t matter if he lived or died? What made him decide that some stupid experiment, some stupid puzzle, was worth risking his life? Why doesn’t he care about himself?
Why doesn’t he understand that you do?
“I don’t know what I meant,” you say to Cuddy.
Another silence, then she glances at you. “What were you doing when I called you and told you what happened?”
“Getting ready to go home.”
“You’re all done for the night?”
What is she getting at? “Yes.”
Cuddy stands up, and suddenly she’s your boss again. “Then go home, Dr. Wilson.”
“What?”
“You were about to leave when I told you about House. I knew you’d want to see him; now you have.” The look she’s giving you is almost the pitying one again, but there’s something else in it too: something very much like impatience. “So why don’t you go home, rest, and come back and see how he’s doing in the morning.”
You turn this over in your mind as you look up at her. “Are you saying…do you want to be alone with House, and that’s why you’re asking me to leave?”
“No,” she replies, and the exasperation in her voice sounds genuine. “Can’t you figure out that you’re the one I’m trying to look out for?” She softens her tone. “Wilson. House is unconscious. He doesn’t know you’re here. He doesn’t need you to sit with him all night.”
Something in your mind isn’t working right. You can understand Cuddy’s words individually, but you can’t put them together to understand what she’s actually saying. “B-but,” you stammer. “I’m…his friend.”
“I know,” says Cuddy, with surprising gentleness. “You are. Maybe his only friend. But that doesn’t mean you have to sit at his bedside for twelve hours while everyone else goes home. He doesn’t need that from you.”
You stare at her.
“You want him to need you,” Cuddy says, more bluntly. “And you give him whatever he needs. All the time.” She walks to the door, then turns and fixes you with a look. “What has he done for you lately?”
“I…he…” you falter, like a child caught in a lie, but Cuddy cuts you off.
“How much did he think about you when he decided to do this to himself? Did he wonder how you would feel?” She waits half a second for an answer that isn’t going to come. “Maybe you weren’t that high on his list of priorities after all.”
She realizes that you can’t say anything, that you’re floundering, and once again she seems to soften. “Wilson…I know House is your best friend, and that means a lot to you. But it’s not always clear how much it means to him.” She pauses, and when you don’t answer, she says, “I’m just suggesting that this one time, you try and see if he can manage without you.”
As she turns and walks out, you think you hear her add something else. You can’t be sure, but it sounds like, “And vice versa.”