Paper Faces on Parade (9/14)
Title: Paper Faces on Parade
Author: vampmissedith
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: some canon House/Cuddy and canon Wilson/Sam, but eventual House/Wilson slash.
Disclaimer: I do not own House.
Summary: As House and Wilson try to balance their strained friendship and life with their girlfriends, House treats a neo-Nazi he can't trust.
Thanks to dissonata for all of his help!
Previous Chapter
Chapter Nine
Chase and Thirteen had gone in first to do the CBC and ESR and to also excuse Nathaniel so he wouldn’t be present when Taub and Foreman entered. With Sarah Mueller at work they only had to deal with the son, and since he willingly left whenever any of them walked in Taub assumed it hadn’t taken much for them to get him to leave. Either way, it didn’t matter because Taub was only there to do a lumbar puncture.
Joking about poking Thomas aside, the fact he thought he was wasting his time with an LP was enough to dampen his mood, but it was life when working with House. It wasn’t the first time House had wasted his time and it probably wouldn’t be the last; at least he wasn’t mopping the floor. To be honest, he didn’t blame House for not wanting the patient to have brain cancer, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t true. Nobody, not even House, could make a diagnosis disappear with just wanting it enough.
“I’m going to need you to lie on your side with your knees to your chest,” he told him.
Thomas didn’t immediately do as he was told. “You think I have lupus?” he asked cautiously.
“We think you might have autoimmune,” he said after a slight hesitation and a brief smile he was sure didn’t reach his eyes. “House thinks it’s most likely multiple sclerosis, but we need to rule out lupus and sarcoidosis first.”
Thomas stared at his face for a second then narrowed his eyes as if he didn’t believe what Taub said.
Taub kept his face impassive. “Are you allergic to lidocaine? We have cause to believe you might be.”
Thomas shook his head. “I’m not allergic to anything.”
“We’ll be using local anaesthetic on your skin; there will still be some discomfort, and some people experience headaches afterwards. I’ll need you lie on your side and put your knees to your chest, please,” he repeated.
Thomas shifted awkwardly and then did as he was told, lying with his back facing Taub. He rested his head on the pillow as Taub pressed his fingers to his spine, trying to find the precise location he wanted. “You don’t believe me, do you?” Thomas muttered.
Taub pushed against the lumbar and nodded, then marked it with his fingernail. “Why would you think that?”
“House didn’t believe me about the ginkgo biloba. Why would any of you believe me about anything?”
Taub grabbed his latex gloves and slid them on, snapping them against his wrists. “House . . . doesn’t believe anybody; he relies on evidence, not word. This woman you loved in dental school--”
“Medical school,” Thomas corrected.
Taub almost rolled his eyes. “Right. This woman you loved affected how you behave; it’s the only constant you have. The only thing about you that he actually believes. You’ll feel a little sting,” he warned, then pushed the needle into his skin to numb it.
“He believes me but you don’t?”
Taub sighed. “I don’t doubt that you had feelings for her; maybe even loved her. I just don’t think you loved her enough. Not enough to garner any sympathies.”
“I loved her,” he insisted.
“Of course you did. You just loved your image a little more.”
Thomas scoffed. “I hate everything about me. My image, my life . . .”
“So you hate your life and image, but you put it before her.” He grabbed the LP needle and put it into his skin. Thomas hissed in a breath and Taub stopped when he felt the pop he’d been pushing to find.
“I was scared,” Thomas admitted. “You have no idea what it’s like.”
“I have no idea what it’s like to put my own wants before the one I love’s needs?” he said sarcastically and with perhaps a tinge of shame. “I understand more about that than you think. I’m not saying you didn’t love her; I’m just saying that . . . I’m not going to pat you on the back for your troubles. I have no idea what growing up in a white supremacist household is like and I won’t claim to understand. But I’m not going to concern myself with your problems when they’re self-inflicted. I don’t expect anybody to justify my actions for me because I was too afraid to let go of my youth and you can’t expect anybody here to feel sorry for you when you chose this.”
Taub began collecting the fluid and Thomas hissed again. “I’m not expecting anything. I just . . . Have you ever looked back on your life and regretted everything you ever did? Because I honestly can’t think of a single thing I’m proud of, expect . . . Well. Except for her.”
“Have I gone through a midlife crisis, you mean?” Taub invalidated with a patronizing tone.
Thomas remained silent as Taub finished collecting the spinal fluid. He figured he was off thinking about long-lost lovers and imagining life with an imaginary wife, celebrating Hanukkah and renouncing his previous beliefs, but Taub really didn’t care. He had his own marital problems and past regrets to deal with; he didn’t need some Nazi he’d never see after they managed to diagnose him trying to pull on his heart strings.
* * *
House was in clinic duty, dutifully avoiding the duty part of that phrase, lying down on the examination table with his ankles crossed and his PSP blocking the light as he held it. Contrary to popular belief, always held by those of non-medical professions, receiving an answer from a test was not instantaneous. Which, actually, House had banked on when he demanded his team go out and do them.
Word made it back to Cuddy that he was busy testing and she’d taken it upon herself to remind him of his clinic hours, and so with very little resistance he’d done two allergies, a laryngitis case, a woman wanting birth control, and an STD, then set up shop in exam room two and began to play his video game. It was two o’ clock and his stomach rumbled unsurprisingly; it was well past his lunchtime. However, he’d forgotten his wallet in his other pants (seriously, he’d left them in his jeans) and Wilson hadn’t been in his office when he’d knocked. Apparently he’d been in clinic duty but by the time he’d finished with his first clinic patient Wilson had mysteriously signed out of clinic to apparently do his rounds.
House figured he was just avoiding him because of his little slip with finally admitting he didn’t want House dating Cuddy. Being an enabler most of the time, he probably felt guilty for not wanting House to be romantically involved; possibly ashamed for the guilt, as well, but honestly House wasn’t surprised. It was normal for a best friend to become jealous when he no longer had his friend entirely to himself, and since Wilson had probably become accustomed to House just always being only with him ever since Stacy left, it was a bit of a change. House understood jealousy personally just as he understood thinking his best friend was in a relationship doomed to make him miserable and eventually fail. He was not annoyed or angry with Wilson’s opinion at all, but he could see how Wilson might think he was and how he would agonize over not being the perfect enabling little cheerleader he’d probably envisioned himself to be before House and Cuddy finally did start dating.
Maybe he should’ve been upset. House frowned at the notion. Wilson always got defensive and at least annoyed at the suggestion his girlfriend sucked which was entirely understandable. What wasn’t understandable was House’s complete acceptance of Wilson’s dislike and his indifference to the notion that he and Cuddy might not actually be good for each other.
The door opened and it could only be one of two people who would dare interrupt his diagnosing of--he glanced down at the folder he kept beside him--Kendra Wrathal, and he tapped the X button as many times as he could.
“House,” Cuddy began, a weary tinge to her tone, “what are you doing?”
“Treating Kendra Wrathal,” he answered, holding down the X button as he lifted the folder with his free hand.
Cuddy jerked it out of his hand and flipped it open with a sigh. He didn’t remove his eyes from the screen as his fingers blurred over the buttons in a flurry of ass-kicking combos. “Kendra Wrathal is a patient you treated in 2003.” House ignored her and she sighed. “You didn’t get the donation,” she managed, then sat on the examination table beside his hip.
“Hmm, I’m unsurprised,” he admitted, then scooted over the tiniest bit to make more room for her.
“He said you were too arrogant. That nobody is as good as you think you are.” He hummed again, then performed a fatality of such awesome proportions he had to chuckle darkly. Cuddy grabbed his wrist and pulled it down so that instead of staring at his PSP he was staring at her. “We need to talk,” she insisted.
“Funny, I’m never particularly interested in anything anyone says after stating ‘we need to talk,’” he muttered, then slid off of the examination table, turning off his PSP and stuffing it in his backpack.
“You need to start watching what you say,” he said with a healthy dose of weariness and her eyebrows tilted upward. “I know Wilson wasn’t offended by your comment this morning. And--well, I’ve known you long enough to know you aren’t . . . prejudiced,” she settled carefully as she walked in front of him, preventing him from making a run for it, but the fact she’d been slightly hesitant in her wording meant that although she knew he wasn’t prejudiced, she was still offended.
“But I hurt the feelings of poor, defenceless Timmy. God forbid I make a Nazi cry.”
“His name is Thomas. And why do you keep calling him a Nazi? That’s just uncalled for.”
“I keep calling him that because he is one. Has a Swastika on his chest and everything.”
Cuddy blinked at him in surprise and her mouth worked as if at a loss for words, and then she let out a sigh. “Still, were someone else to hear that . . . The donor won’t donate because of the way you spoke to him; you need to be more professional. You lost the money, you . . . you offended your patient with anti-Semitism. That’s harassment, House.”
“Has he filed a complaint?” he asked.
“Well, no, he hasn’t, but--”
“Then it’s not harassment,” he interrupted, then moved to walk past her.
“House--” she began, grabbing onto his arm.
“What?” he demanded, facing her. “You want me to watch my words? Say please and thank you? It’s funny--you didn’t seem all that upset this morning when I told you I pissed off the nanny; you didn’t have a problem with my harassment then. It’s only okay when it serves your purpose, right? Never seemed to bother you before; what, now that you’re on your knees sucking me off at the end of the day I have to watch my mouth?”
“House!” she snapped, getting into his face. “That was uncalled for!”
“What’s uncalled for is you suddenly having issues with the way I do my job. Calling my team, telling me to watch my mouth--I didn’t listen to you before, what makes you think I’m going to be a ray of sunshine now? I’m not going to play nice with everyone now just because you and I are dating--if you seriously thought that would happen, you were wrong.”
“I don’t expect you to change, House. You’ll always be honest and . . . acerbic, but you cannot be that way at work. It’s unprofessional, it hurts the hospital’s reputation, and--”
“None of that is new. The only thing new about any of this is our relationship. You don’t care about the hospital any more than you did before--you just care about how this reflects on your choice of partner.” Uninterested in whatever her rebuttal would be, he left the clinic room.
* * *
Foreman was not pleased. This wasn’t the first time House had completely wasted his time and he wasn’t naïve enough to think it would be the last, but that didn’t mean he thought it was okay. House didn’t even have any real reason to believe it was more likely MS over a meningioma. The headaches, depression, personality change--it all fit; moreso than the possibility of recurring symptoms that had not been proven. Meningiomas were benign most of the time anyway, and even if it was some sort of brain cancer wasting his time with a physical exam, bloods tests, an MRI, and an EEG wouldn’t make the cancer disappear; either the patient would be terminal, or he wouldn’t. In either case, he would be put on Wilson’s caseload, or his family could take him to some other oncologist if they had problems with the fact he was Jewish, and anyway, Wilson had a Christian name and wasn’t all that religious. Or if he was religious, Foreman had never really noticed--he only knew Wilson was Jewish because House had made enough jokes and told them all when Cameron had had the audacity to gasp in shock.
Thomas had attempted a conversation with him, but Foreman had quickly ended any attempts and kept everything medically related. He was there as his doctor, not as his confidante--even if he didn’t believe in Nazism, he still lived that life and Foreman had nothing to say to a man who, by day, went to rallies and talked about how the Black Man and the Jew brought the White Man down, whether or not he believed it.
Foreman had dealt with enough prejudice in his life. People thought racism was dead, but he knew better. He’d had to work twice as hard to get half the acknowledgement his peers did when he was in school; all anybody ever saw him as was some poor black kid from the projects trying to make something of himself. He was a living stereotype they all thought would fail, just like in all the “gangsta movies” they watched at home and somehow imbued them with the false belief that they actually knew something about his life and where he was going. He’d seen the way others treated his father at work, and how all the white, suburban housewives had looked at his mother when she’d been alive. He knew why his professor had thought he’d cheated on one of his tests during a rotation one year, and it wasn’t because Foreman had correctly answered a question the teacher hadn’t covered, either.
He might not have had to deal with it as blatantly as his parents had, but he’d dealt with it. He’d been called a racial slur or two in his day, and he’d had to collect his emotions and let it slide because had he reacted then he would’ve been just another “primal black man” living up to the angry stereotype that they’d thought, and he was not going to stoop down to their level.
So it didn’t matter what Thomas Mueller really believed because as far as anybody was concerned, the lie he perpetuated about himself was what he’d rather people think about him, and Foreman found that just as despicable as if he’d actually thought the crap he proclaimed at lunch, or dinner, or at any of the racist rallies he went to.
He’d been sent off to do the tests before lunch, and it was almost four o’ clock now. He was sure Chase, Thirteen, and Taub had all returned with their results already, but House would inevitably wait until the last moment. Foreman would’ve found his reluctance to hand Thomas over to Wilson touching except that Foreman didn’t actually care one way or another about House’s friendship, except that when Wilson was around House was a bit easier to deal with, and since his attachment to Wilson was what prompted House to waste his time, at the moment he didn’t even care about that.
He walked into House’s office to see his boss sitting in his chair, staring out of his balcony door with his oversized tennis ball to his lips, brows furrowed his thought. There was a Tupperware container on his desk with Post-It notes littering the area beside it, Wilson’s spiky, all-capitals scrawl familiar against the yellow paper. His shirt was still untucked and his slowly-growing hair was mussed, as if he’d been running his hands through it. His tie, although nice, was a little crooked and rumpled--apparently he’d been absently playing with it. House was a very tactile thinker--couldn’t keep his hands still.
Without preamble, he walked over to the switchboard and turned on the light, sticking the MRI photographs in it, the name Mueller, Thomas Jeremiah visible so House couldn’t try and suggest he’d mixed scans--not that he worried about that, but with House, one could never know. “I did the blood tests and the physical exam. He does not have MS, which I’m sure you realized when Taub came back with the results from the LP. The MRI doesn’t show any signs of MS, but I did find some shadows that could be menigioma.” He stepped away from the scans so that House could see them.
He glanced over at House who placed his ball on the desk and grabbed his cane, pushing out of his chair. “It’s on the left side of his head, moron. It’s his scar tissue.”
“Maybe. Or it could be scar tissue hiding a tumour, or it could even be the tumour itself. We don’t know how bad the injury was--it could’ve just broken the skin. He never sought professional help, and I’ve checked his medical history. He’s never had any MRIs done on his head--we’d never know. We should biopsy his brain and put him on Wilson’s--”
“It could be epilepsy. The other symptoms could be the result of too much drinking.”
“I thought you might say that when autoimmune came back negative, so I ran an EEG and did some blood work; he does not have epilepsy. House, face it--he has cancer. Either his family is going to have to deal with his oncologist being Jewish--if they even know he is--or take him somewhere else.”
Foreman stared expectantly at House, who was tapping the curve of his cane against his mouth. “It could be scar tissue,” House murmured again, jerking his chin at the MRI scan.
“Right, and the symptoms only started presenting themselves now, decades after the head injury. His son would’ve mentioned it if he’d been dealing with all these his entire life.” House still didn’t say anything--he kept tapping his cane against his mouth and searching the scans for some clue that didn’t exist.
Foreman sighed and rolled his eyes in annoyance. “When are you going to accept the fact it might be cancer? When he’s dead and the autopsy reveals it? Either deal with the facts presented or I’ll go to Cuddy to make sure our patient gets the treatment he’s paying for.”
House whipped the scans off the switchboard with an angry look at Foreman and limped out of his office.
* * *
House wasn’t a moron, and he knew there was nothing else he could do, short of praying to a nonexistent God that his patient didn’t have cancer. Praying had done squat for Hannah in the leg and life department, so he wasn’t going to waste his time with it. Taub had come to him with the negative LP results; Chase and Thirteen held all the blood tests in their hands. Normal sodium levels, normal inflammation levels--obviously not autoimmune. What had he done? Waited for Foreman. He knew it wasn’t autoimmune, and he’d still held out anyway.
He walked into Wilson’s office, and Wilson watched him curiously as he stalked over to his board, stuffed the scan there, and switched on the light, stepping back to eye it carefully. “Is it cancer?”
He listened to the ruffle of Wilson setting aside his paperwork and standing. He waited until Wilson was standing right by him to look at his expression; his eyes were narrowed and his brows furrowed slightly and he brought in his bottom lip. He reached forward and gestured at the pretty obvious shadows on the left side of his brain. “I assume this is your patient’s MRI?”
“Tested him for autoimmune first. I thought it might‘ve been MS.”
Wilson scoffed. “No you didn’t. You just didn’t want it to be cancer and exhausted every other possible choice.”
House snorted. “MS was just as likely. This could be scar tissue, anyway. It’s on the same side of his head injury.”
“I’d have to do a PET scan to be sure, but it’s . . .” He let out a small sigh and turned his head to glance at House, and the expression on his face now was familiar--the same face he gave a patient before telling him he was going to die. “Most meningiomas are benign, House. A surgery to remove it, some radiotherapy . . .” He shrugged.
“If it’s not benign--if it’s meninges cancer, or some other type of brain cancer and you have to tell him he’s dying . . .”
“I’ll collect the ten dollars you owe me and put him on my caseload.” House scoffed and almost said that he was getting ahead of himself with the ten dollars, but instead he just looked into his face, and he must’ve looked worried because Wilson reached forward and squeezed his shoulder. “He’s not going to hurt me, House. It’s fine.”
“It’s not him I worry about,” he grumbled awkwardly, looking anywhere but at Wilson’s face so he wouldn’t be able to see just how much he really was worried about it.
Wilson’s thumb rubbed a gentle circle through House’s button-up shirt; he was still holding onto his shoulder. House looked away from the spot on the wall he’d found irrationally fascinating for the moment and met Wilson’s eyes for the millionth time, and felt it in his chest.
He thought about kissing him, not for the first time. He would be lying if he said he hadn’t ever thought about it because he had; enough times for it to be more than just some passing, idle thought brought on by alcohol and too much alone time with Wilson and no one else, like he’d blamed it on for the first dozen times he’s caught himself not just thinking but obsessing over thoughts of his friend’s mouth on his. But he’d given hints, and clues, and waited for Wilson to come to his senses and he never had, so he’d tossed that fantasy out of the window for something he could actually obtain with Cuddy.
Except, well, the life he’d thought of that morning while he scribbled that horribly domestic note on the Post-It with her lipstick--that wasn’t him. Barbecues and aprons and maturely discussing issues while Rachel played around in the back lawn and he slowly changed into some genial old man with a limp and a kid who wasn’t his . . . That wasn’t him. Him and Cuddy could work, sure; under the pretence that he stopped dressing unprofessionally at work and stopped being rude around patients; started being a little more politically correct and going golfing with nephews of donors . . .
He shook that thought out of his head; it was in his nature to automatically assume the worst case scenario. He wondered if his worst case scenario was her best case scenario, and swallowed the lump in his throat that formed when he realized Wilson was just a tad closer than he had been and still rubbing House’s shoulder soothingly.
His hand slid down his arm and House could have convinced himself he imagined Wilson squeezing his hand briefly before he turned towards the switchboard and turned off the light, grabbing the scans. “I should probably go tell him he might have cancer,” he aired to no one in particular, because it wasn’t as if this was news to House.
If House thought about it, maybe Wilson had been flirting with him this morning with the tie or who knew how many other times throughout their friendship. It was with that thought in mind that when Wilson turned to walk out of his office, House grabbed his shoulder and forced him to face him. “Wilson--” he began, then cut himself off when he saw Wilson’s enlarged pupils and heard the quick intake of breath. He was either afraid, or . . .
Wilson visibly and almost audibly swallowed. “What?” he breathed, and the fact he hadn’t knocked House’s hand away had to have meant something.
Don’t go? Kiss me? Let me shove you against your desk and ravish you while I am still currently dating my girlfriend who just happens to our boss?
Commitment jitters. Fear of losing Wilson. That was all it had to be--that was all Nolan would say, most likely.
He was dating Cuddy and he was happy. It almost sounded like a mantra.
He removed his hand and cleared his throat. “I’m coming with you,” he stated and limped past his friend before he could change his mind.
* * *
When it came to being sensitive and empathetic, House knew he lacked talent in those departments and sat back and watched the master at work. Wilson had told him he didn’t need to come and that he was sure the patient wouldn’t attack him, but House insisted.
They walked in and surveyed the scene quickly. The son--Matthew? Nathan?--sat on the side of the bed next to his father and Thomas held the purse in his lap, and House wondered if he was keeping it safe from his son so he wouldn’t sift through it and steal anything. Did Thomas know his son went through his stuff?
“. . . so I was all, ‘douche, you better not be sayin’ what I think you just said’ and he got up in my face so I cracked him one. Was cool--wish you could’ve seen it,” he regaled, flinging his arms about in wild gesticulation while he spoke.
They both looked at House and then at Wilson. Thomas handed the purse to his son, who just casually put it on the bedside table--apparently, Thomas was not worried about the boy stealing anything. He hopped off the bed and stretched his arms above his head. “Well, I’m going to scout out some hot chicks. See ya,” he said with a shrug and the left, but he didn’t share any looks with either House or Wilson.
Thomas eyed them both and then shifted awkwardly. “So, do . . . I have MS?”
Wilson shook his head and approached the bed while House stayed against the wall, watching Thomas darkly. “We have reason to believe you might have a meningeal tumour,” he opened cautiously, and Thomas’ face faded quickly into white with a grey tinge. “It’s . . . very rarely a malignant tumour, but we’re . . . concerned because the location is near your scar. It could very easily be some scar tissue, so we‘ll have to do a PET scan to be sure.”
Thomas nodded as if he were completely and totally accepting of that fact, but his skin was pale and his hand was shaking. His eyes were slightly wet too.
“Meningiomas are very common between the ages of forty and sixty, and are usually benign. At this point, I’d worry more about the PET scan we’ll be scheduling for tomorrow,” Wilson brushed off with a quick smile that reached his eyes.
Thomas chuckled airily and smiled a tiny bit, but it was humourlessly. “Right.” Thomas didn’t sound very enthused or like he believed a word Wilson was saying.
“We’ll have to ask you not to eat for twelve hours before the exam and we’ll be injecting radioactive dye; it sometimes causes some nausea and headaches, but it should be easily managed. In case it is a tumour, we’ll discuss surgery then. For now we’ll just need your consent to the PET scan.” He handed over a clipboard with the consent forms.
Thomas stared at Wilson for a long second while he took the pen. He remained that way for a second or so, then faced the consent forms. He quickly signed it and then handed it back to Wilson without looking at him; instead, he stared at his lap. Wilson reached forward and squeezed his shoulder and Thomas lifted his hand as if to hold Wilson’s, but instead he plopped it back into his lap and nodded briefly.
Wilson sat there for a second and House watched as Thomas’ face didn’t gain any colour back; he didn’t attempt to speak. Instead he kept his lips resolutely closed while his hand shook. He wiped his mouth with his palm and heaved as if he were going to throw up, but he didn’t. Wilson gave Thomas’ shoulder one last pat before he stood and walked towards the door.
House met him there, getting into his personal space and watching Wilson’s pupils grow for the split second their eyes met. “Make sure dietary knows not to feed him and schedule the PET scan,” he ordered quietly, looking past Wilson’s shoulder and at Thomas, who still found his lap highly interesting.
Wilson followed his gaze. “House, he just found out he might have cancer. I don’t think now is the right time to . . . talk with him.”
House narrowed his eyes. “Go schedule the scan,” he repeated, then gently (but with no room for interpretation as to what he was doing) pushed him out of the room.
When the door shut Thomas finally glanced at it, saw House was still there, and sighed. “What? You going to tell me I deserve it? Or convince me that the tumours are benign? Right. That’s what they said about my father, too. And he turned out to have recurring hemangiopericytoma.”
“Wow. Try saying that five times fast.” Thomas pursed his lips; apparently, he was not amused. “Not here to hold your hand and give you hope. And as poetic as it would be for you to wither and die slowly from having radiation pumped into your weakened, balding body . . . Well, I’ve never been much for poetry.”
Thomas eyed him as House finally took the last large step to stand beside his bed. Thomas visibly swallowed. “Then what are you here for?”
“That man who just looked past his religious beliefs long enough to pat you on the shoulder and tell you it’ll be all right? He’s my best friend. You hurt him, and I will make sure you regret ever being born.”
Thomas scoffed. “I already regret that,” he moped.
“Oh, please!” snarled House. “Stop with this Pity Party bullshit. Nobody cares about your stupid crush in grade school or whenever the hell it happened. You chose this life, moron--you chose to get hitched to Miss Eva Junior and raise Little Adolf. So you sit around and mope and whine about some big tittied Jew you gave the heave-ho because you were too chicken to live your own damn life? I. Don’t. Care.”
“What do you know about me, huh?” Thomas spat, voice raised slightly. House scowled at him and Thomas reeled his head back as if shocked by his own outburst. He looked down at his lap again and cleared his throat. “I was scared,” he said, voice quieter now. “I loved her, I swear, but . . . You don’t--you don’t know what--I regret it. Every day, but I’m . . . it’s too late now.”
“Right, and you expect me to give a damn. At least Hitler had the balls to stand up for what he believed in--you, on the other hand, stand up for everything you don’t. You’re going to go back to your lie of a life with your . . . farcical family and pretend you actually care about it? You’ll never be happy living that lie and the worst part of it is that you know you won’t be, and you still . . .”
House furrowed his brows and stared at Thomas, although he wasn’t really looking at him--more like he was looking through him, at something far away. His own words rang back at him and resonated through his skull.
“I wouldn’t expect you to under--”
“Shut up,” House growled, then turned on his heel and limped away.
* * *
Unsurprisingly, Cuddy’s day had not gotten any better. Lately, she’d been stressed--well, she was always stressed. It came with the job. However, with budget committees breathing down her neck and finance issues on top of all the problems she’d been having with House that day, it was no wonder she’d gotten a little behind. One doctor had called in sick the day before and had called someone to cover her shift, and then the doctor who was supposed to work for her had decided not to show at all, which meant Cuddy had had to do some clinic duty and check on a few patients.
She knew House was angry with her but she was angry as well.
Which meant she let out a loud groan when the door opened; she didn’t even have to look to know who it was. She looked at her watch, though--he would probably be leaving soon, whereas she was stuck here for a few more hours because she was behind on her paperwork and she needed to cover some clinic hours.
“Greg,” she greeted tiredly, trying to use his first name more often than usual. It still sounded strange, especially considering she’d been using his last name for the past day. “I’m tired and I’m busy. What do you want so I can get this handled and go home?”
“That talk you mentioned?”
“We already had it and I’m sure you remember how well that went.” House shuffled closer to her desk, almost nervously--or, well, as nervously as House could, at any rate. She felt a sickening jolt in her chest and lowered her pen to her desk.
House cleared his throat. “Well, we need to talk again,” he opened with an awkward shift of weight.
“You actually want to talk?” That couldn’t be a good sign.
“This,” he gestured between them with his free hand, the other clutching his cane, “isn’t . . . working. And it won’t.”
She thought of him kissing her against the sink the night before and them discussing alternating meals. She had to have been misunderstanding his point because he wouldn’t have talked about cooking and kissed her had he been having thoughts of leaving her; there would’ve been signs. Or had there been signs all along?
“What are you saying? Is this . . . because of the donor? One misunderstanding and--”
“No,” he interrupted, but gently, pushing down on his cane and tapping it slightly against the floor. His eyes roamed around the office although he’d probably memorized every feature of it ages ago. “You’re not happy. Not really. You’re settling.”
“House, just because I’ve been having a tough time for the past--”
“Two months?” he suggested and she opened her mouth to say something, but her voice faltered. “We had some times, but . . . What I said, in the clinic. About you sucking my dick. Do you really think that’s the worst thing I’m going to say to you?”
Cuddy didn’t try to pretend she hadn’t been offended by his comment. She’d had to reapply her makeup afterwards and her chest tightened whenever she thought of it. “I realize you’ll--I can learn to . . .”
“And can you learn to turn a blind eye when I say something like that to Rachel? When I call her a moron for failing a class I know she could’ve passed? Or what about when her and I get into a fight--as we are bound to and . . .” He sighed and shook his head.
She swallowed the lump in her throat. “But . . . It’s just new, House. You’re stressed so you’re . . . saying things. You never say these things to Wilson, so eventually--”
He scoffed. “I always say these things to Wilson. I pick out his every flaw--his . . . doomed relationship with Sam, his total failure at being a husband, the fact he’s a needy-gobbling vampire who uses up women and shucks them aside . . . If you think I’m any nicer to Wilson then you’re a moron.”
She pursed her lips. “House--”
“See? You’re not happy. And . . . Neither am I. Not really.”
“But House . . . You’re just--you’re running because you’re afraid. We’ve had some misunderstandings, but what relationship doesn’t?” She threw her hands up as if shrugging, and her eyes were burning again with unshed tears and her throat was starting to close up. After all their tension, and all the work she’d put into getting into a relationship with him and backing out of the engagement . . . “I love you,” she stated.
He sighed and looked away from her, shaking his head slightly. He’d never said it to her in return, but she knew he had a hard time verbalizing his feelings. “You don’t love me. You . . . saw a side of me that not very many people see, and fell in love with that part. But . . . you can’t have half a puzzle. You can’t ignore the ugly pieces--you have to love it all.”
“No, House--I . . . that’s not what . . .”
He tilted his head back and stared up at the ceiling, and she could clearly see his Adam’s apple bobbing although her vision was blurring through her tears. “I’m a Monet. From a distance I’m . . . intriguing. Fascinating. The closer you get, the more screwed up I am, and . . . You’re still stuck, trying to see it from a distance, although you’re right up there.”
Heart aching and eyes burning, she tried to ignore the truth behind his words.
“I’ll clear my stuff out before you get to the house,” he muttered, pressing his cane against the carpet again. “Let’s just . . . end this while we can still do it civilly. Before we . . . hate each other,” he grumbled, then turned on his heel and quickly shuffled out of her office, door closing more quietly than she’d ever heard it following House.
Her breath caught in her throat and she sucked in a trembling gasp, and felt the tears start to fall.
Next Chapter
Author: vampmissedith
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: some canon House/Cuddy and canon Wilson/Sam, but eventual House/Wilson slash.
Disclaimer: I do not own House.
Summary: As House and Wilson try to balance their strained friendship and life with their girlfriends, House treats a neo-Nazi he can't trust.
Thanks to dissonata for all of his help!
Previous Chapter
Chapter Nine
Chase and Thirteen had gone in first to do the CBC and ESR and to also excuse Nathaniel so he wouldn’t be present when Taub and Foreman entered. With Sarah Mueller at work they only had to deal with the son, and since he willingly left whenever any of them walked in Taub assumed it hadn’t taken much for them to get him to leave. Either way, it didn’t matter because Taub was only there to do a lumbar puncture.
Joking about poking Thomas aside, the fact he thought he was wasting his time with an LP was enough to dampen his mood, but it was life when working with House. It wasn’t the first time House had wasted his time and it probably wouldn’t be the last; at least he wasn’t mopping the floor. To be honest, he didn’t blame House for not wanting the patient to have brain cancer, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t true. Nobody, not even House, could make a diagnosis disappear with just wanting it enough.
“I’m going to need you to lie on your side with your knees to your chest,” he told him.
Thomas didn’t immediately do as he was told. “You think I have lupus?” he asked cautiously.
“We think you might have autoimmune,” he said after a slight hesitation and a brief smile he was sure didn’t reach his eyes. “House thinks it’s most likely multiple sclerosis, but we need to rule out lupus and sarcoidosis first.”
Thomas stared at his face for a second then narrowed his eyes as if he didn’t believe what Taub said.
Taub kept his face impassive. “Are you allergic to lidocaine? We have cause to believe you might be.”
Thomas shook his head. “I’m not allergic to anything.”
“We’ll be using local anaesthetic on your skin; there will still be some discomfort, and some people experience headaches afterwards. I’ll need you lie on your side and put your knees to your chest, please,” he repeated.
Thomas shifted awkwardly and then did as he was told, lying with his back facing Taub. He rested his head on the pillow as Taub pressed his fingers to his spine, trying to find the precise location he wanted. “You don’t believe me, do you?” Thomas muttered.
Taub pushed against the lumbar and nodded, then marked it with his fingernail. “Why would you think that?”
“House didn’t believe me about the ginkgo biloba. Why would any of you believe me about anything?”
Taub grabbed his latex gloves and slid them on, snapping them against his wrists. “House . . . doesn’t believe anybody; he relies on evidence, not word. This woman you loved in dental school--”
“Medical school,” Thomas corrected.
Taub almost rolled his eyes. “Right. This woman you loved affected how you behave; it’s the only constant you have. The only thing about you that he actually believes. You’ll feel a little sting,” he warned, then pushed the needle into his skin to numb it.
“He believes me but you don’t?”
Taub sighed. “I don’t doubt that you had feelings for her; maybe even loved her. I just don’t think you loved her enough. Not enough to garner any sympathies.”
“I loved her,” he insisted.
“Of course you did. You just loved your image a little more.”
Thomas scoffed. “I hate everything about me. My image, my life . . .”
“So you hate your life and image, but you put it before her.” He grabbed the LP needle and put it into his skin. Thomas hissed in a breath and Taub stopped when he felt the pop he’d been pushing to find.
“I was scared,” Thomas admitted. “You have no idea what it’s like.”
“I have no idea what it’s like to put my own wants before the one I love’s needs?” he said sarcastically and with perhaps a tinge of shame. “I understand more about that than you think. I’m not saying you didn’t love her; I’m just saying that . . . I’m not going to pat you on the back for your troubles. I have no idea what growing up in a white supremacist household is like and I won’t claim to understand. But I’m not going to concern myself with your problems when they’re self-inflicted. I don’t expect anybody to justify my actions for me because I was too afraid to let go of my youth and you can’t expect anybody here to feel sorry for you when you chose this.”
Taub began collecting the fluid and Thomas hissed again. “I’m not expecting anything. I just . . . Have you ever looked back on your life and regretted everything you ever did? Because I honestly can’t think of a single thing I’m proud of, expect . . . Well. Except for her.”
“Have I gone through a midlife crisis, you mean?” Taub invalidated with a patronizing tone.
Thomas remained silent as Taub finished collecting the spinal fluid. He figured he was off thinking about long-lost lovers and imagining life with an imaginary wife, celebrating Hanukkah and renouncing his previous beliefs, but Taub really didn’t care. He had his own marital problems and past regrets to deal with; he didn’t need some Nazi he’d never see after they managed to diagnose him trying to pull on his heart strings.
* * *
House was in clinic duty, dutifully avoiding the duty part of that phrase, lying down on the examination table with his ankles crossed and his PSP blocking the light as he held it. Contrary to popular belief, always held by those of non-medical professions, receiving an answer from a test was not instantaneous. Which, actually, House had banked on when he demanded his team go out and do them.
Word made it back to Cuddy that he was busy testing and she’d taken it upon herself to remind him of his clinic hours, and so with very little resistance he’d done two allergies, a laryngitis case, a woman wanting birth control, and an STD, then set up shop in exam room two and began to play his video game. It was two o’ clock and his stomach rumbled unsurprisingly; it was well past his lunchtime. However, he’d forgotten his wallet in his other pants (seriously, he’d left them in his jeans) and Wilson hadn’t been in his office when he’d knocked. Apparently he’d been in clinic duty but by the time he’d finished with his first clinic patient Wilson had mysteriously signed out of clinic to apparently do his rounds.
House figured he was just avoiding him because of his little slip with finally admitting he didn’t want House dating Cuddy. Being an enabler most of the time, he probably felt guilty for not wanting House to be romantically involved; possibly ashamed for the guilt, as well, but honestly House wasn’t surprised. It was normal for a best friend to become jealous when he no longer had his friend entirely to himself, and since Wilson had probably become accustomed to House just always being only with him ever since Stacy left, it was a bit of a change. House understood jealousy personally just as he understood thinking his best friend was in a relationship doomed to make him miserable and eventually fail. He was not annoyed or angry with Wilson’s opinion at all, but he could see how Wilson might think he was and how he would agonize over not being the perfect enabling little cheerleader he’d probably envisioned himself to be before House and Cuddy finally did start dating.
Maybe he should’ve been upset. House frowned at the notion. Wilson always got defensive and at least annoyed at the suggestion his girlfriend sucked which was entirely understandable. What wasn’t understandable was House’s complete acceptance of Wilson’s dislike and his indifference to the notion that he and Cuddy might not actually be good for each other.
The door opened and it could only be one of two people who would dare interrupt his diagnosing of--he glanced down at the folder he kept beside him--Kendra Wrathal, and he tapped the X button as many times as he could.
“House,” Cuddy began, a weary tinge to her tone, “what are you doing?”
“Treating Kendra Wrathal,” he answered, holding down the X button as he lifted the folder with his free hand.
Cuddy jerked it out of his hand and flipped it open with a sigh. He didn’t remove his eyes from the screen as his fingers blurred over the buttons in a flurry of ass-kicking combos. “Kendra Wrathal is a patient you treated in 2003.” House ignored her and she sighed. “You didn’t get the donation,” she managed, then sat on the examination table beside his hip.
“Hmm, I’m unsurprised,” he admitted, then scooted over the tiniest bit to make more room for her.
“He said you were too arrogant. That nobody is as good as you think you are.” He hummed again, then performed a fatality of such awesome proportions he had to chuckle darkly. Cuddy grabbed his wrist and pulled it down so that instead of staring at his PSP he was staring at her. “We need to talk,” she insisted.
“Funny, I’m never particularly interested in anything anyone says after stating ‘we need to talk,’” he muttered, then slid off of the examination table, turning off his PSP and stuffing it in his backpack.
“You need to start watching what you say,” he said with a healthy dose of weariness and her eyebrows tilted upward. “I know Wilson wasn’t offended by your comment this morning. And--well, I’ve known you long enough to know you aren’t . . . prejudiced,” she settled carefully as she walked in front of him, preventing him from making a run for it, but the fact she’d been slightly hesitant in her wording meant that although she knew he wasn’t prejudiced, she was still offended.
“But I hurt the feelings of poor, defenceless Timmy. God forbid I make a Nazi cry.”
“His name is Thomas. And why do you keep calling him a Nazi? That’s just uncalled for.”
“I keep calling him that because he is one. Has a Swastika on his chest and everything.”
Cuddy blinked at him in surprise and her mouth worked as if at a loss for words, and then she let out a sigh. “Still, were someone else to hear that . . . The donor won’t donate because of the way you spoke to him; you need to be more professional. You lost the money, you . . . you offended your patient with anti-Semitism. That’s harassment, House.”
“Has he filed a complaint?” he asked.
“Well, no, he hasn’t, but--”
“Then it’s not harassment,” he interrupted, then moved to walk past her.
“House--” she began, grabbing onto his arm.
“What?” he demanded, facing her. “You want me to watch my words? Say please and thank you? It’s funny--you didn’t seem all that upset this morning when I told you I pissed off the nanny; you didn’t have a problem with my harassment then. It’s only okay when it serves your purpose, right? Never seemed to bother you before; what, now that you’re on your knees sucking me off at the end of the day I have to watch my mouth?”
“House!” she snapped, getting into his face. “That was uncalled for!”
“What’s uncalled for is you suddenly having issues with the way I do my job. Calling my team, telling me to watch my mouth--I didn’t listen to you before, what makes you think I’m going to be a ray of sunshine now? I’m not going to play nice with everyone now just because you and I are dating--if you seriously thought that would happen, you were wrong.”
“I don’t expect you to change, House. You’ll always be honest and . . . acerbic, but you cannot be that way at work. It’s unprofessional, it hurts the hospital’s reputation, and--”
“None of that is new. The only thing new about any of this is our relationship. You don’t care about the hospital any more than you did before--you just care about how this reflects on your choice of partner.” Uninterested in whatever her rebuttal would be, he left the clinic room.
* * *
Foreman was not pleased. This wasn’t the first time House had completely wasted his time and he wasn’t naïve enough to think it would be the last, but that didn’t mean he thought it was okay. House didn’t even have any real reason to believe it was more likely MS over a meningioma. The headaches, depression, personality change--it all fit; moreso than the possibility of recurring symptoms that had not been proven. Meningiomas were benign most of the time anyway, and even if it was some sort of brain cancer wasting his time with a physical exam, bloods tests, an MRI, and an EEG wouldn’t make the cancer disappear; either the patient would be terminal, or he wouldn’t. In either case, he would be put on Wilson’s caseload, or his family could take him to some other oncologist if they had problems with the fact he was Jewish, and anyway, Wilson had a Christian name and wasn’t all that religious. Or if he was religious, Foreman had never really noticed--he only knew Wilson was Jewish because House had made enough jokes and told them all when Cameron had had the audacity to gasp in shock.
Thomas had attempted a conversation with him, but Foreman had quickly ended any attempts and kept everything medically related. He was there as his doctor, not as his confidante--even if he didn’t believe in Nazism, he still lived that life and Foreman had nothing to say to a man who, by day, went to rallies and talked about how the Black Man and the Jew brought the White Man down, whether or not he believed it.
Foreman had dealt with enough prejudice in his life. People thought racism was dead, but he knew better. He’d had to work twice as hard to get half the acknowledgement his peers did when he was in school; all anybody ever saw him as was some poor black kid from the projects trying to make something of himself. He was a living stereotype they all thought would fail, just like in all the “gangsta movies” they watched at home and somehow imbued them with the false belief that they actually knew something about his life and where he was going. He’d seen the way others treated his father at work, and how all the white, suburban housewives had looked at his mother when she’d been alive. He knew why his professor had thought he’d cheated on one of his tests during a rotation one year, and it wasn’t because Foreman had correctly answered a question the teacher hadn’t covered, either.
He might not have had to deal with it as blatantly as his parents had, but he’d dealt with it. He’d been called a racial slur or two in his day, and he’d had to collect his emotions and let it slide because had he reacted then he would’ve been just another “primal black man” living up to the angry stereotype that they’d thought, and he was not going to stoop down to their level.
So it didn’t matter what Thomas Mueller really believed because as far as anybody was concerned, the lie he perpetuated about himself was what he’d rather people think about him, and Foreman found that just as despicable as if he’d actually thought the crap he proclaimed at lunch, or dinner, or at any of the racist rallies he went to.
He’d been sent off to do the tests before lunch, and it was almost four o’ clock now. He was sure Chase, Thirteen, and Taub had all returned with their results already, but House would inevitably wait until the last moment. Foreman would’ve found his reluctance to hand Thomas over to Wilson touching except that Foreman didn’t actually care one way or another about House’s friendship, except that when Wilson was around House was a bit easier to deal with, and since his attachment to Wilson was what prompted House to waste his time, at the moment he didn’t even care about that.
He walked into House’s office to see his boss sitting in his chair, staring out of his balcony door with his oversized tennis ball to his lips, brows furrowed his thought. There was a Tupperware container on his desk with Post-It notes littering the area beside it, Wilson’s spiky, all-capitals scrawl familiar against the yellow paper. His shirt was still untucked and his slowly-growing hair was mussed, as if he’d been running his hands through it. His tie, although nice, was a little crooked and rumpled--apparently he’d been absently playing with it. House was a very tactile thinker--couldn’t keep his hands still.
Without preamble, he walked over to the switchboard and turned on the light, sticking the MRI photographs in it, the name Mueller, Thomas Jeremiah visible so House couldn’t try and suggest he’d mixed scans--not that he worried about that, but with House, one could never know. “I did the blood tests and the physical exam. He does not have MS, which I’m sure you realized when Taub came back with the results from the LP. The MRI doesn’t show any signs of MS, but I did find some shadows that could be menigioma.” He stepped away from the scans so that House could see them.
He glanced over at House who placed his ball on the desk and grabbed his cane, pushing out of his chair. “It’s on the left side of his head, moron. It’s his scar tissue.”
“Maybe. Or it could be scar tissue hiding a tumour, or it could even be the tumour itself. We don’t know how bad the injury was--it could’ve just broken the skin. He never sought professional help, and I’ve checked his medical history. He’s never had any MRIs done on his head--we’d never know. We should biopsy his brain and put him on Wilson’s--”
“It could be epilepsy. The other symptoms could be the result of too much drinking.”
“I thought you might say that when autoimmune came back negative, so I ran an EEG and did some blood work; he does not have epilepsy. House, face it--he has cancer. Either his family is going to have to deal with his oncologist being Jewish--if they even know he is--or take him somewhere else.”
Foreman stared expectantly at House, who was tapping the curve of his cane against his mouth. “It could be scar tissue,” House murmured again, jerking his chin at the MRI scan.
“Right, and the symptoms only started presenting themselves now, decades after the head injury. His son would’ve mentioned it if he’d been dealing with all these his entire life.” House still didn’t say anything--he kept tapping his cane against his mouth and searching the scans for some clue that didn’t exist.
Foreman sighed and rolled his eyes in annoyance. “When are you going to accept the fact it might be cancer? When he’s dead and the autopsy reveals it? Either deal with the facts presented or I’ll go to Cuddy to make sure our patient gets the treatment he’s paying for.”
House whipped the scans off the switchboard with an angry look at Foreman and limped out of his office.
* * *
House wasn’t a moron, and he knew there was nothing else he could do, short of praying to a nonexistent God that his patient didn’t have cancer. Praying had done squat for Hannah in the leg and life department, so he wasn’t going to waste his time with it. Taub had come to him with the negative LP results; Chase and Thirteen held all the blood tests in their hands. Normal sodium levels, normal inflammation levels--obviously not autoimmune. What had he done? Waited for Foreman. He knew it wasn’t autoimmune, and he’d still held out anyway.
He walked into Wilson’s office, and Wilson watched him curiously as he stalked over to his board, stuffed the scan there, and switched on the light, stepping back to eye it carefully. “Is it cancer?”
He listened to the ruffle of Wilson setting aside his paperwork and standing. He waited until Wilson was standing right by him to look at his expression; his eyes were narrowed and his brows furrowed slightly and he brought in his bottom lip. He reached forward and gestured at the pretty obvious shadows on the left side of his brain. “I assume this is your patient’s MRI?”
“Tested him for autoimmune first. I thought it might‘ve been MS.”
Wilson scoffed. “No you didn’t. You just didn’t want it to be cancer and exhausted every other possible choice.”
House snorted. “MS was just as likely. This could be scar tissue, anyway. It’s on the same side of his head injury.”
“I’d have to do a PET scan to be sure, but it’s . . .” He let out a small sigh and turned his head to glance at House, and the expression on his face now was familiar--the same face he gave a patient before telling him he was going to die. “Most meningiomas are benign, House. A surgery to remove it, some radiotherapy . . .” He shrugged.
“If it’s not benign--if it’s meninges cancer, or some other type of brain cancer and you have to tell him he’s dying . . .”
“I’ll collect the ten dollars you owe me and put him on my caseload.” House scoffed and almost said that he was getting ahead of himself with the ten dollars, but instead he just looked into his face, and he must’ve looked worried because Wilson reached forward and squeezed his shoulder. “He’s not going to hurt me, House. It’s fine.”
“It’s not him I worry about,” he grumbled awkwardly, looking anywhere but at Wilson’s face so he wouldn’t be able to see just how much he really was worried about it.
Wilson’s thumb rubbed a gentle circle through House’s button-up shirt; he was still holding onto his shoulder. House looked away from the spot on the wall he’d found irrationally fascinating for the moment and met Wilson’s eyes for the millionth time, and felt it in his chest.
He thought about kissing him, not for the first time. He would be lying if he said he hadn’t ever thought about it because he had; enough times for it to be more than just some passing, idle thought brought on by alcohol and too much alone time with Wilson and no one else, like he’d blamed it on for the first dozen times he’s caught himself not just thinking but obsessing over thoughts of his friend’s mouth on his. But he’d given hints, and clues, and waited for Wilson to come to his senses and he never had, so he’d tossed that fantasy out of the window for something he could actually obtain with Cuddy.
Except, well, the life he’d thought of that morning while he scribbled that horribly domestic note on the Post-It with her lipstick--that wasn’t him. Barbecues and aprons and maturely discussing issues while Rachel played around in the back lawn and he slowly changed into some genial old man with a limp and a kid who wasn’t his . . . That wasn’t him. Him and Cuddy could work, sure; under the pretence that he stopped dressing unprofessionally at work and stopped being rude around patients; started being a little more politically correct and going golfing with nephews of donors . . .
He shook that thought out of his head; it was in his nature to automatically assume the worst case scenario. He wondered if his worst case scenario was her best case scenario, and swallowed the lump in his throat that formed when he realized Wilson was just a tad closer than he had been and still rubbing House’s shoulder soothingly.
His hand slid down his arm and House could have convinced himself he imagined Wilson squeezing his hand briefly before he turned towards the switchboard and turned off the light, grabbing the scans. “I should probably go tell him he might have cancer,” he aired to no one in particular, because it wasn’t as if this was news to House.
If House thought about it, maybe Wilson had been flirting with him this morning with the tie or who knew how many other times throughout their friendship. It was with that thought in mind that when Wilson turned to walk out of his office, House grabbed his shoulder and forced him to face him. “Wilson--” he began, then cut himself off when he saw Wilson’s enlarged pupils and heard the quick intake of breath. He was either afraid, or . . .
Wilson visibly and almost audibly swallowed. “What?” he breathed, and the fact he hadn’t knocked House’s hand away had to have meant something.
Don’t go? Kiss me? Let me shove you against your desk and ravish you while I am still currently dating my girlfriend who just happens to our boss?
Commitment jitters. Fear of losing Wilson. That was all it had to be--that was all Nolan would say, most likely.
He was dating Cuddy and he was happy. It almost sounded like a mantra.
He removed his hand and cleared his throat. “I’m coming with you,” he stated and limped past his friend before he could change his mind.
* * *
When it came to being sensitive and empathetic, House knew he lacked talent in those departments and sat back and watched the master at work. Wilson had told him he didn’t need to come and that he was sure the patient wouldn’t attack him, but House insisted.
They walked in and surveyed the scene quickly. The son--Matthew? Nathan?--sat on the side of the bed next to his father and Thomas held the purse in his lap, and House wondered if he was keeping it safe from his son so he wouldn’t sift through it and steal anything. Did Thomas know his son went through his stuff?
“. . . so I was all, ‘douche, you better not be sayin’ what I think you just said’ and he got up in my face so I cracked him one. Was cool--wish you could’ve seen it,” he regaled, flinging his arms about in wild gesticulation while he spoke.
They both looked at House and then at Wilson. Thomas handed the purse to his son, who just casually put it on the bedside table--apparently, Thomas was not worried about the boy stealing anything. He hopped off the bed and stretched his arms above his head. “Well, I’m going to scout out some hot chicks. See ya,” he said with a shrug and the left, but he didn’t share any looks with either House or Wilson.
Thomas eyed them both and then shifted awkwardly. “So, do . . . I have MS?”
Wilson shook his head and approached the bed while House stayed against the wall, watching Thomas darkly. “We have reason to believe you might have a meningeal tumour,” he opened cautiously, and Thomas’ face faded quickly into white with a grey tinge. “It’s . . . very rarely a malignant tumour, but we’re . . . concerned because the location is near your scar. It could very easily be some scar tissue, so we‘ll have to do a PET scan to be sure.”
Thomas nodded as if he were completely and totally accepting of that fact, but his skin was pale and his hand was shaking. His eyes were slightly wet too.
“Meningiomas are very common between the ages of forty and sixty, and are usually benign. At this point, I’d worry more about the PET scan we’ll be scheduling for tomorrow,” Wilson brushed off with a quick smile that reached his eyes.
Thomas chuckled airily and smiled a tiny bit, but it was humourlessly. “Right.” Thomas didn’t sound very enthused or like he believed a word Wilson was saying.
“We’ll have to ask you not to eat for twelve hours before the exam and we’ll be injecting radioactive dye; it sometimes causes some nausea and headaches, but it should be easily managed. In case it is a tumour, we’ll discuss surgery then. For now we’ll just need your consent to the PET scan.” He handed over a clipboard with the consent forms.
Thomas stared at Wilson for a long second while he took the pen. He remained that way for a second or so, then faced the consent forms. He quickly signed it and then handed it back to Wilson without looking at him; instead, he stared at his lap. Wilson reached forward and squeezed his shoulder and Thomas lifted his hand as if to hold Wilson’s, but instead he plopped it back into his lap and nodded briefly.
Wilson sat there for a second and House watched as Thomas’ face didn’t gain any colour back; he didn’t attempt to speak. Instead he kept his lips resolutely closed while his hand shook. He wiped his mouth with his palm and heaved as if he were going to throw up, but he didn’t. Wilson gave Thomas’ shoulder one last pat before he stood and walked towards the door.
House met him there, getting into his personal space and watching Wilson’s pupils grow for the split second their eyes met. “Make sure dietary knows not to feed him and schedule the PET scan,” he ordered quietly, looking past Wilson’s shoulder and at Thomas, who still found his lap highly interesting.
Wilson followed his gaze. “House, he just found out he might have cancer. I don’t think now is the right time to . . . talk with him.”
House narrowed his eyes. “Go schedule the scan,” he repeated, then gently (but with no room for interpretation as to what he was doing) pushed him out of the room.
When the door shut Thomas finally glanced at it, saw House was still there, and sighed. “What? You going to tell me I deserve it? Or convince me that the tumours are benign? Right. That’s what they said about my father, too. And he turned out to have recurring hemangiopericytoma.”
“Wow. Try saying that five times fast.” Thomas pursed his lips; apparently, he was not amused. “Not here to hold your hand and give you hope. And as poetic as it would be for you to wither and die slowly from having radiation pumped into your weakened, balding body . . . Well, I’ve never been much for poetry.”
Thomas eyed him as House finally took the last large step to stand beside his bed. Thomas visibly swallowed. “Then what are you here for?”
“That man who just looked past his religious beliefs long enough to pat you on the shoulder and tell you it’ll be all right? He’s my best friend. You hurt him, and I will make sure you regret ever being born.”
Thomas scoffed. “I already regret that,” he moped.
“Oh, please!” snarled House. “Stop with this Pity Party bullshit. Nobody cares about your stupid crush in grade school or whenever the hell it happened. You chose this life, moron--you chose to get hitched to Miss Eva Junior and raise Little Adolf. So you sit around and mope and whine about some big tittied Jew you gave the heave-ho because you were too chicken to live your own damn life? I. Don’t. Care.”
“What do you know about me, huh?” Thomas spat, voice raised slightly. House scowled at him and Thomas reeled his head back as if shocked by his own outburst. He looked down at his lap again and cleared his throat. “I was scared,” he said, voice quieter now. “I loved her, I swear, but . . . You don’t--you don’t know what--I regret it. Every day, but I’m . . . it’s too late now.”
“Right, and you expect me to give a damn. At least Hitler had the balls to stand up for what he believed in--you, on the other hand, stand up for everything you don’t. You’re going to go back to your lie of a life with your . . . farcical family and pretend you actually care about it? You’ll never be happy living that lie and the worst part of it is that you know you won’t be, and you still . . .”
House furrowed his brows and stared at Thomas, although he wasn’t really looking at him--more like he was looking through him, at something far away. His own words rang back at him and resonated through his skull.
“I wouldn’t expect you to under--”
“Shut up,” House growled, then turned on his heel and limped away.
* * *
Unsurprisingly, Cuddy’s day had not gotten any better. Lately, she’d been stressed--well, she was always stressed. It came with the job. However, with budget committees breathing down her neck and finance issues on top of all the problems she’d been having with House that day, it was no wonder she’d gotten a little behind. One doctor had called in sick the day before and had called someone to cover her shift, and then the doctor who was supposed to work for her had decided not to show at all, which meant Cuddy had had to do some clinic duty and check on a few patients.
She knew House was angry with her but she was angry as well.
Which meant she let out a loud groan when the door opened; she didn’t even have to look to know who it was. She looked at her watch, though--he would probably be leaving soon, whereas she was stuck here for a few more hours because she was behind on her paperwork and she needed to cover some clinic hours.
“Greg,” she greeted tiredly, trying to use his first name more often than usual. It still sounded strange, especially considering she’d been using his last name for the past day. “I’m tired and I’m busy. What do you want so I can get this handled and go home?”
“That talk you mentioned?”
“We already had it and I’m sure you remember how well that went.” House shuffled closer to her desk, almost nervously--or, well, as nervously as House could, at any rate. She felt a sickening jolt in her chest and lowered her pen to her desk.
House cleared his throat. “Well, we need to talk again,” he opened with an awkward shift of weight.
“You actually want to talk?” That couldn’t be a good sign.
“This,” he gestured between them with his free hand, the other clutching his cane, “isn’t . . . working. And it won’t.”
She thought of him kissing her against the sink the night before and them discussing alternating meals. She had to have been misunderstanding his point because he wouldn’t have talked about cooking and kissed her had he been having thoughts of leaving her; there would’ve been signs. Or had there been signs all along?
“What are you saying? Is this . . . because of the donor? One misunderstanding and--”
“No,” he interrupted, but gently, pushing down on his cane and tapping it slightly against the floor. His eyes roamed around the office although he’d probably memorized every feature of it ages ago. “You’re not happy. Not really. You’re settling.”
“House, just because I’ve been having a tough time for the past--”
“Two months?” he suggested and she opened her mouth to say something, but her voice faltered. “We had some times, but . . . What I said, in the clinic. About you sucking my dick. Do you really think that’s the worst thing I’m going to say to you?”
Cuddy didn’t try to pretend she hadn’t been offended by his comment. She’d had to reapply her makeup afterwards and her chest tightened whenever she thought of it. “I realize you’ll--I can learn to . . .”
“And can you learn to turn a blind eye when I say something like that to Rachel? When I call her a moron for failing a class I know she could’ve passed? Or what about when her and I get into a fight--as we are bound to and . . .” He sighed and shook his head.
She swallowed the lump in her throat. “But . . . It’s just new, House. You’re stressed so you’re . . . saying things. You never say these things to Wilson, so eventually--”
He scoffed. “I always say these things to Wilson. I pick out his every flaw--his . . . doomed relationship with Sam, his total failure at being a husband, the fact he’s a needy-gobbling vampire who uses up women and shucks them aside . . . If you think I’m any nicer to Wilson then you’re a moron.”
She pursed her lips. “House--”
“See? You’re not happy. And . . . Neither am I. Not really.”
“But House . . . You’re just--you’re running because you’re afraid. We’ve had some misunderstandings, but what relationship doesn’t?” She threw her hands up as if shrugging, and her eyes were burning again with unshed tears and her throat was starting to close up. After all their tension, and all the work she’d put into getting into a relationship with him and backing out of the engagement . . . “I love you,” she stated.
He sighed and looked away from her, shaking his head slightly. He’d never said it to her in return, but she knew he had a hard time verbalizing his feelings. “You don’t love me. You . . . saw a side of me that not very many people see, and fell in love with that part. But . . . you can’t have half a puzzle. You can’t ignore the ugly pieces--you have to love it all.”
“No, House--I . . . that’s not what . . .”
He tilted his head back and stared up at the ceiling, and she could clearly see his Adam’s apple bobbing although her vision was blurring through her tears. “I’m a Monet. From a distance I’m . . . intriguing. Fascinating. The closer you get, the more screwed up I am, and . . . You’re still stuck, trying to see it from a distance, although you’re right up there.”
Heart aching and eyes burning, she tried to ignore the truth behind his words.
“I’ll clear my stuff out before you get to the house,” he muttered, pressing his cane against the carpet again. “Let’s just . . . end this while we can still do it civilly. Before we . . . hate each other,” he grumbled, then turned on his heel and quickly shuffled out of her office, door closing more quietly than she’d ever heard it following House.
Her breath caught in her throat and she sucked in a trembling gasp, and felt the tears start to fall.
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