Five years - chapter five
Title: Five years
Author: snark-bait
Rating: Adult
Character/Paring: House/Cameron
Summary: House leaves prison after being convicted on drug offences, Cameron helps him readjust to his new life.
Spoilers: If you haven’t seen season 3 it's one big spoiler, but I'm going from 'Finding Judas' and just skipping very far ahead from there.
Chapter: 5
Beta'd by phineyj
Chapter five
Sleep was underrated, as far as James Wilson was concerned, and he hadn’t been getting nearly enough lately. He’d been feeling fretfully distracted for weeks. That in turn had enabled work to get on top of him because of his lack of focus.
The small, vibrating cell phone on his night stand was bleating and flashing for his attention. He had the urge to pick it up and toss it at the wall on the other side of the room. Tonight had been the first night in over a month he’d been able to drift straight to sleep without worrying about something, and now someone was calling him.
He picked it up and even his, “Hello,” sounded like a sigh.
“Wilson?” a tinny echo replied; the reception on his cell was awful, but he hadn’t had time to call by the store and get a new one. He almost responded with an irritable ‘Who the hell else would it be?’ but he didn’t. There were a lot of things Wilson thought, but never said.
He sat up and flicked on the lamp beside his bed. The light stung his eyes and it took a moment before he could read the numbers on the alarm clock: 12:30.
“Yeah,” he said, “what’s up?” wondering why Allison Cameron was calling him in the middle of the night. He cupped the receiver and yawned, assuming there was some sort of emergency at the hospital.
“I’m really sorry to call you at this time,” Cameron continued; it was at that point that Wilson detected the agitation in her voice. He was awake enough by then to realize it wasn’t necessarily a hospital crisis. Far more likely, it was some sort of House-related crisis.
“It’s okay; I’ve not been in bed long. What’s wrong?”
She didn’t answer straight away, as if she was taking her time to choose the right words. “I know this is a really strange question, but, is there any particular bar House used to go to when he was…upset?”
Wilson rubbed his eyes; of course it was House related. He thought about it, there were plenty of bars House used to visit. Many of which were not friendly places after midnight.
“If he’s pissed, he’ll probably just go into the first bar he finds that will keep serving him until he has the motor functions of a one year old,” Wilson informed her, his voice croaking with tiredness.
“I said he was upset, not pissed off,” Cameron corrected.
That was a strange amendment to make, Wilson thought, and wondered what the hell was going on, Cameron had changed a lot over the past few years in his opinion. She’d changed from a devoted ingenue into a focused, organized manager. She led most of the differentials in diagnostics these days, and it seemed like her colleagues respected her a great deal. But tonight she sounded more like her old self and it was starting to worry him.
“Since when is there a difference with House?” Wilson questioned, feeling more awake as the conversation progressed.
“We got stopped by the police on the way home from work,” Cameron began. “House came in to see Cuddy today about a job; he was driving us home.”
This information didn’t settle well in Wilson’s stomach. So House was coming back to the hospital? He really wasn’t sure how he felt about that but didn’t let the thought stick in his mind. He’d come back to that one later.
“What happened, did he sound off at the cop or something?”
“No,” Cameron said carefully. “But the cop was Detective Tritter.”
Wilson paused while he ordered his words. He hadn’t heard that particular name in a very long time.
‘Tritter said some terrible things to him; when we got back he wouldn’t talk to me, eventually he went out, and he wouldn’t say where he was going.”
“He went in the car?” Wilson asked.
“No, he called a cab,” Cameron replied. “I haven’t seen him like this in a while; I’m really worried about him.”
Wilson closed his eyes and tried to swallow down a familiar hate, aching inside his stomach like acid indigestion. How dare he? How dare Tritter do that? He had no right to bother House now; he’d been punished ten times over for whatever wrong he’d committed against the officer.
“I know a few places he might be, but if he’s upset like you say, he’ll just head for the first place he comes across. Between your place and Princeton, that’s a lot of bars.”
“Yeah, well you never know, he might want somewhere familiar. Could you give me the names of the ones you know? I’ll check them anyway,” Cameron said.
Wilson didn’t like that idea very much; some of the places House had once hung out at were not places he’d go in at night by choice, so he wasn’t encouraging Cameron to go into them on her own.
“Give me fifteen minutes, I’ll come get you, we’ll go together. Some of the places House used to drink at were kind of scary.”
Cameron didn’t reply, and straight away Wilson sensed why, because he had the same reservations she did.
“If we find him, we’ll bring him back, and I’ll leave. I’m not going to try and talk to him if he’s trashed, that won’t end well.”
“All right,” Cameron said reluctantly. “Thanks Wilson, I didn’t want to involve you this way, but I didn’t know who else to call.”
“No it’s okay, you did the right thing.”
“I’ll wait for you to get here,” she said, and then she hung up the phone.
Wilson climbed out of bed; his stomach felt queasy and his head ached. It had been aching all week, probably too much caffeine and too little sleep. He didn’t think he was ready to face House and he seriously doubted House would want to see him tonight. But then, he didn’t want Cameron trawling bars at this time by herself either, so he didn’t have a choice.
Which was nothing new, really, when it came to House.
~
The weather had turned awful again; it had started to drizzle when House had arrived back at Cameron’s place, now it was hammering down. House observed the sky, head tilted upwards as he leant on the cab window; thick clouds had blotted out the stars and the moon. They were heading for a bar he’d once gone in regularly when he’d first come to Princeton.
He was in desperate need of something, something to drown out the horror show that was his life.
When they pulled up at the bar it looked like some sort of classy night club. He wanted somewhere with woodchips on the floor and regulars who could drink their weight in whiskey before the effects of the alcohol hit them.
“You remember the place that used to be there?” House said to the cab driver.
“Before the refurbishment?” he asked.
“Yeah,” House replied.
The driver shrugged and observed him in the mirror. “Sure.”
“Take me somewhere that looks like that place used to.”
The driver nodded at him, then pulled away.
He wanted to knock back scotch until he was numb, until there was no sensation left from his fingertips to the very core of him. Tonight, he needed oblivion. He planned to drink until the thoughts in his head made no sense and had no relevance, and if he had to drink until he couldn’t walk to achieve that, so be it.
He was uncomfortable in his own skin and he felt like that was the only way he could shed it.
It didn’t take the cab driver long to find a bar much more suited to House’s taste. He paid him and walked into the bar. It was an absolute shit hole, broken glass on the floor that House suspected hadn’t been cleaned up from the night before, busted pool table that was in desperate need of renovation. A handful of regulars and not much else
It was perfect.
Once at the bar, he ordered a beer and a scotch chaser, telling the bartender to leave the bottle. The guy’s size, the fading bruise on his chin and his clientele told House he probably doubled as a doorman when things got rowdy.
House stared thoughtfully at the liquid in the shot glass when it was placed down in front of him; he tapped the side but didn’t take hold of it. If he did this, if he got smashed to clear his mind, he was essentially using a drug to deal with his problems. That was something he hadn’t done in years. He had to give himself a moment to decide if that was really how he wanted to handle what had happened tonight.
He left the shot where it was and glanced at the two guys sitting beside him at the bar. They were untidy drunks in their sixties and they were arguing about a football manager he’d never heard of. The bartender casually threw his opinion into their conversation every now and again and they’d both agree with him. All of them shot fleeting looks at the game on the TV while this was going on.
None of them gave him a second look; for that he was thankful.
House stared back at his drink, then took a sip of the beer, a little taste of alcohol to whet his appetite for the real stuff, and he wondered when he’d become so scared and wary of everything.
He’d never been someone to sit and think about a simple problem, he’d generally reacted, gone with his gut. Now he seemed to think everything through, because he was more aware of how his actions impacted on his life.
He took another sip of his beer and watched the TV. A football player he didn’t know the name of fumbled a perfect pass, causing the guy nearest to him to cuss loudly and shake his head; it seemed to add some weight so something he’d been saying and he started heatedly discussing the game again with his pal.
House took hold of the shot glass and rolled it between his thumb and finger, thinking of a time when he’d been able to label his only fear. Name it and own it outright.
Pain.
Vicodin had sheltered him from the storm of his life after the infarction; it had let him function, but when it had started to define him, things had spun out of his control.
Pain had been like a daily proposition to him, a challenge to try and carry on going after having his life destroyed. And it had been the simple, faceless, existential motivation for all of his actions.
It turned out there were far worse things to be scared of in life. He was fearful of a lot of things these days, but pain was no longer one of them.
House brought the shot glass up to his lips and slammed it back in one, closing his eyes when the burn hit the back of his throat. It trickled down and warmed his stomach like someone flicking on a heating switch inside of him. There was something comforting about it; it felt consolatory, reassuring him that soon enough, nothing was going to bother him, not a thing.
Tritter turning up out of the blue like that had made a long ago nightmare seem like it’d happened yesterday. His tone and delivery had made House re-live it all, and it disturbed him greatly because he’d gotten pretty good at blocking it out.
He picked up the bottle of scotch and poured himself another; he wasn’t here to work through anything, he was here to lose himself. He didn’t want to think any more, it was all he’d been doing lately; this was the only way of shutting down his brain. There was no other chemical he could take, as much as he craved something else, something opiate based.
It shamed him now to think about it, but he’d moved onto heroin when he’d first entered prison. It had been easier to come by and had given a bigger kick, offered a large expansive nowhere he’d been able to climb inside and become nothing. There were places in Jersey he could go to right now and get it, and that had been the first thought he’d had when he’d arrived back at Cameron’s house.
The craving was there every day but Tritter had kicked things up to maximum, along with a sure feeling that he couldn’t do this, couldn’t handle what was happening without something, something to take away the pain.
Tritter had reminded him of how he’d been injured in the most violent, degrading way a person could be, reminding him how hollow he’d felt afterwards, like he’d been stripped of his manhood.
He refilled the shot glass, locked, loaded and pulled the trigger, slamming back another, hoping it would help him forget about everything Tritter’s appearance had reminded him of. The hate, the depression, the nightmares and the self loathing; he needed to stop worrying if he’d put up a good enough fight, but he knew nothing would quell the intense shame, that remained still.
Right now he wanted to sink to the bottom of a bottle before he started wondering where those dark places in Jersey were, the places he could get the one thing he craved the most to take all of his troubles away.
~
Wilson and Cameron combed all of House’s old haunts in Princeton. Two of his favorite places weren’t even bars anymore, so they’d been easy to check out. The ones that were, Wilson had gone into and asked after him, but no one had seen him
If he was at a bar in Princeton it was someplace new. It was nearly two in the morning when they decided to go back to Cameron’s home.
“I’m sorry I dragged you out of bed,” Cameron apologized as they turned into her road.
“Don’t worry about it,” Wilson said.
They pulled up to her house and noticed him at the same time; House was sitting on the step outside her home, head against the doorway - completely out for the count.
“Still got a great homing instinct. I thought you gave him a key?” Wilson pondered.
“I did,” Cameron replied.
~
Between them, (but mainly Wilson) they got House up from the step; Wilson had to get over his unease of seeing House for the first time in five years, quickly, because he had to hold him upright against the wall while Cameron opened her front door. House had managed to get the key in the lock, and had then seemingly given up with the effort it took to turn it.
Somehow, they got him into the living room and onto the sofa. He was completely drenched from the downpour outside.
“I don’t know how he could fall asleep in the rain,” Cameron said, bemused.
Wilson sniffed the air, “It probably has something to do with the gallon or so of scotch he drank, he’d probably be able to sleep in a puddle right now.”
Cameron agreed and then went into the kitchen so she could turn the heating up. She didn’t think they’d be able to get House up the stairs in his current state, so she’d have to leave him on the sofa.
When she returned to the living room, Wilson was sitting on the chair opposite House, staring at him with a contemplative look on his face. He didn’t even notice her walk back in the room; he was miles away in his thoughts.
“You all right?” Cameron asked.
Wilson came back from wherever he’d drifted off to, and nodded. “Nothing’s changed,” he said quietly. He looked deflated.
Cameron wasn’t entirely sure what he meant by that. “What?”
“Nothing’s changed; he hasn’t changed.” Wilson motioned toward House who was passed out and slumped on the sofa, snoring lightly.
“No, he has,” she argued, and then went over to House as she noticed a graze and a bump over his left eye. She wondered, tiredly, if he’d given himself a concussion. “He just had a bad night,” she finished, looking at Wilson.
“A bad night, so he got wasted. Like he always does when faced with a problem he can’t deal with.”
Cameron was so weary, she really didn’t have the energy for where this conversation was heading. “It’s not like that, Wilson,” she disagreed.
“No, it’s exactly like that,” Wilson replied sadly.
“You think he’s following the same pattern of behavior he used to, but that isn’t what happened tonight.” She didn’t know how else to put it across to make him see without telling the truth. And as it wasn’t her truth to tell, she couldn’t do that.
She doubted she’d have found out if Tritter hadn’t pulled them over.
“What did Tritter say to him?” Wilson asked.
Cameron looked back at House; the things Tritter had said were going to haunt her for a long time, and she wondered how much hate the man still had to taunt House that way. She closed her eyes and shook her head.
“He accused him of taking drugs and criticized him, but House didn’t react so he said some nasty things, it was uncalled for. Trust me, under the circumstances, you’d probably have gone out and got trashed too.”
The emotion of the situation was getting to her. She was disappointed that House had gone out and got drunk to deal with everything, but then, who the hell dealt with that sort of thing any other way? She didn’t blame him for it, and reasoned maybe she’d have done the same thing in his position.
Wilson rubbed his face and observed her. “There’s something you aren’t telling me, isn’t there?”
“I can’t,” she began, “It’s not my place to. But House hasn’t taken anything for over two years now; I think he did this because he wasn’t ready to face Tritter again, after everything he’s been through because of him.”
“How do you know he hasn’t taken anything?” Wilson asked.
“Because he told me he hadn’t,” she replied.
“And you believe him?”
“Yeah, I do,” Cameron offered solemnly, and she really did.
Wilson thought about it for a few moments, “I’m sorry; I’m exhausted, you’re right.” He nodded at House, “One of us should probably stay awake and check him every few hours, that’s a nasty bump.”
“I’ll do it, you’ve already done enough, you should go home and sleep,” Cameron offered.
“How about I take the first shift, and you take the second?” Wilson suggested.
“Are you going to be all right if he wakes up?”
“If he comes around, I’ll leave,” Wilson said softly.
~
The dulcet tones of House puking up into her toilet brought Cameron round a few hours later. She waited for the heaving to cease and then decided to inspect whatever carnage was waiting for her in the bathroom.
House was just coming out as she opened her bedroom door, his eyes were cloudy and grey and he was leaning against the door frame to keep himself upright.
Holding his arms out to steady himself, he staggered out of the bathroom and observed her; he looked totally out of it.
“How much did you drink?”
“I had a few shots,” he said, it came out fairly garbled, but she got the gist. “Did I wake you?” he asked, innocently.
“No, I often come to the bathroom to hang out at four in the morning.”
Her sarcasm was entirely wasted on him; House was completely concentrated on holding onto the wall to keep him upright.
“Hey, Wilson missed me so much he broke into your house so he could watch me sleep,” House slurred, “Which is kind of creepy.”
Cameron smiled, guessing Wilson had either left now, or had fallen asleep during his shift.
House moved around her, carefully holding onto the wall and went into the spare bedroom. She followed him in.
“You’re disgusted with me,” he said suddenly, as he sat on the bed.
“What? No I’m not, of course I’m not,” Cameron replied.
“You should be,” he said, his eyes were closed and he’d puffed his cheeks out.
“House, I don’t…” she began, but he cut in on her.
“What the hell is Wilson doing here anyway?”
“We were worried,” Cameron explained. “I thought he’d be able to help me find you.”
“Worried,” House snorted. “He made a deal about my life that he had no right to make,” he mumbled quietly, and then he flopped down completely onto the bed. “He no longer has the right to worry,” he finished.
“Are you all right?” she asked tiredly. She didn’t mean for the question to have a double meaning. She was just wondering about the graze on his head.
“No, I’m not,” he said quietly. The sad quality to his tone made her consider the possibility that it was the most sincere thing he’d ever said to her.
Cameron went into the bathroom to get a blanket for him; when she returned he’d pulled his T-shirt off, thrown it on the floor and passed out again.
She went to cover him with the blanket but stopped when she noticed the smooth round scar at the bottom of his tummy. She’d been in the same room when he’d sustained the injury, when he’d been shot. She got a sudden flash of the memory of trying to hold the blood in his body as an artery fought to pump his life away.
Then, in the half light creeping in from the doorway, she noticed his chest and shoulders were covered with scars too, and she was pretty sure they hadn’t been there when he’d been shot. Pale indented patterns on his skin, telling her stories of his time in prison. It was sadly poignant that someone else was responsible for every physical mark on his body.
She placed the blanket over him, and desperately hoped the graze on his head was from a fall and not a fight. A fall was a drunken accident, a fight was anger that needed release and if he was still full of resentment, and it needed to come out that way, she didn’t hold out much hope for reconciliation between him and Wilson.
~ ~ ~
Two and a half years earlier.
Something wasn’t quite right, House decided. He hadn’t spoken to Cameron in two days and she’d assured him she’d be back at the office for 2pm the day Preedy took his kid to see her at the hospital. But when he’d called the day before she hadn’t been there and Preedy hadn’t arrived for his last shift.
One of the younger officers on Preedy’s squad had brought his lunch; when the same young officer came to take him for his phone call before exercise he was convinced something was going on
He dialed the number for his old office, and was relieved when Cameron picked up this time.
“House?” Cameron answered.
“Where the hell were you yesterday?” he said instead of hello; he didn’t have a lot of time and he was frustrated with the situation.
“I’m sorry; I didn’t make it back up in time. We had to admit Preedy’s little girl,” Cameron informed him. “She has some new symptoms.”
House shot a quick look at the officer who was standing watching him. His arms were folded and his face was blank; he had a military style hair cut and tattoos covering both forearms. House figured a lot of the men who worked in this place were probably ex military. He decided it might be just as well to keep Preedy’s name out of his end of the conversation, given his sudden absence
“Well that’s good, what are they?” House asked. More symptoms were always a good thing; so far he hadn’t had a lot to go on. He’d considered and dismissed some obvious illnesses: Cushing’s, (bruising wasn’t the right shape); meningitis (no rash, fever, pediatrician had already ruled it out); leukaemia (blood count didn’t reflect that, no other symptoms that fit.)
“I’ll tell you in a moment, but the extra symptoms aren’t the reason she was admitted.”
House stopped mentally checking back over the information from the file he’d studied and frowned. “Then why did you admit her?”
“I didn’t,” Cameron offered. “We might have a problem.”
“What do you mean?” House asked.
“Cuddy got involved,” Cameron volunteered cautiously. “She recognised Preedy when he was sitting in the clinic. When the platelet count came back normal, again, she jumped to the same conclusion I did and admitted Kate.”
What conclusion, House wondered, and how typical of Cuddy to get involved in something that had nothing to do with her.
“So she knows he came because I asked you to look at his kid?”
“Yeah, I tried to explain things so she’d leave it to me, but it just made her want to get more involved.”
House rubbed his forehead and closed his eyes. Why was nothing ever simple?
“When we examined Kate she complained of a bad headache and said she’d been feeling dizzy; Cuddy told Preedy it was probably another symptom of whatever illness she has and that we had to run some more tests.”
“Well, it probably is a symptom of her illness,” House said, not quite seeing what the problem was.
“Yeah, but then she called child services,” Cameron finished.
The background noise of the prison; bored prisoners heckling guards and metal gates clinking shut suddenly faded out and became completely insignificant. House realized that was why Preedy had missed his last shift. He felt a cold shiver trickle down his spine and wondered if there was any chance in hell Preedy wouldn’t suspect he’d told them to call child services as some sort of revenge.
And then, because life had a funny way of kicking House in the groin when he least expected it, Preedy appeared behind the glass in the guard office. He had a look centered on him that reminded House of a tiger mid hunt, still and focused before it launched for an antelope’s throat.
“Oh crap,” House said apprehensively, observing Preedy as he collected his keys, never taking his eyes from where House was standing. “Tell Cuddy she just royally screwed me over.”
“What are you going to do?” Cameron asked, but House didn’t reply.
He was preoccupied by Preedy as he came marching out of the office and headed toward him, keys jangling loudly as he strode over. He was moving more quickly than House had ever seen him shift in his life. When he reached him, he snatched the phone out of his hand and slammed it down.
“We need to talk,” Preedy said sternly; his cheeks were flushed and it sounded to House like the simple process of breathing was causing him great discomfort as the exhaled air charged out of him in angry bursts.
“Listen, I can explain,” House began, but Preedy cut him off.
“Shut up,” he said dangerously. He glanced over his shoulder at the guard who was still standing behind them, “I’ll take over here,’ he said curtly, and then gave his subordinate a look that suggested he leave as quickly as possible. The guy nodded and headed for the office.
Preedy turned around and stepped forward; he took hold of House by grabbing two large handfuls of his shirt and then marched him toward the exercise area.
It was a slow process getting anywhere most days, because of his leg, but in his anger Preedy had speeded things up by dragging him to the yard. By the time they got there House was shaking with the effort of trying to keep up because of his reduced mobility.
“Just calm down,” House said anxiously as Preedy pushed him into the yard then locked the gate behind them.
He clipped his keys to his belt then turned and pointed at House. “Then explain quickly, because I know you can’t be that stupid,” Preedy yelled.
House backed slowly away, moving toward the brick wall behind him. He was locked in a cement box with a man with a lit, very short fuse. House couldn’t help but want to put any sort of distance between them that he could.
Preedy took three big strides forward and took hold of him again. He slammed House against the wall, pinning him into position.
“I took my daughter to see your friend, like you said,” Preedy said bitterly, face inches from his own. House could feel his words, warmed by his anger, bang against his cheeks. “They called child services on me; I wonder who put that idea into their heads?” he continued accusingly, removing one balled fist from House’s chest so he could tap the side of his head.
House was about to try to explain but the reply didn’t have time to exit his mouth because Preedy pulled him forward, with very little effort, and then rammed him hard against the bricks again.
”But you’re the gentlest person in the world,” House gasped.
Not surprisingly, this did nothing to assuage Preedy’s rage; his features twisted and he scowled at him.
“My wife is beside herself with worry and you think this is funny?” Preedy screeched at him.
House shook his head; finding nothing humorous about the situation. “No, but I didn’t…” he began to try and explain again but Preedy kneed him in the stomach hard, dropping him to the floor and knocking the wind out of him.
House started to panic: it was a physical reaction that most people experienced when the air was knocked from them and they couldn’t catch a breath, dreading that the lungs would never refill with precious air again. But he knew they would; he closed his eyes and tried to breathe. Eventually he started gasping and the air returned.
When his breathing was something close to regular he sat back against the wall, eyes closed, and hugged his tummy; wondering if the consequences of her actions had crossed Cuddy’s mind even once, calling child services on a man who was currently in complete control of his life.
“I thought the bruising,” House started breathlessly, “might be thrombocytopenia,” He coughed and it hurt, his sore tummy objecting to the action. “But her platelet count isn’t elevated.”
He dared to look up at Preedy, who was standing with his hands on his hips looking down at him.
“A normal platelet count doesn’t help your situation, makes the excessive bruising look bad, but I think she has a problem with her blood, and if you don’t let me talk to the people involved, no one else will try and figure out what’s actually wrong with her.”
Preedy shook his head and glanced away from him. “Of course it’s something else; I told you I’d never lay a finger on any of my kids.”
House nodded, “And I believed you,” he replied carefully.
“Then why did they jump to abuse so quickly?” Preedy asked heatedly. House looked up as Preedy started to pace the floor in front of him.
“Cuddy recognized you; she must have checked the results and jumped to the wrong conclusion because she’s an idiot.”
House wasn’t sure if Preedy was buying any of it and he had to wonder if Cameron had said something, anything, to put the idea into Cuddy’s head.
House was thankful that Preedy’s combative energy was now being transferred to pacing up and down; it was much preferable to getting rammed into a brick wall, so he continued.
“I think she has some sort of MPD.”
Preedy stilled, he was quiet for a few moments, observing House as if torn as to whether he should carry on taking out his anger on him or calm down and listen to what was being said. He let his breath out slowly and then started pacing again.
“What’s that?” he asked quietly.
House started to relax a little, “Stands for myeloproliferative disease,” he explained. “I think her bone marrow is faulty.”
Preedy glanced at him, he was all worry again now and House wondered where the temper had gone. “Well, that doesn’t sound good.”
“The bone marrow is the body’s haematopoietic organ,” House continued, but the crumpled, blank look on Preedy’s face suggested the big word had gone over his head.
House stopped and tried to simplify things for him.
“It’s where the blood forms.” He cleared his throat and coughed, drawing another protest from his stomach.
“Bone marrow problems,” Preedy pondered loudly, brushing a nervous hand through his hair. “Isn’t that what happens when you get cancer?”
House shook his head; the irritating combination of the internet and stupid, concerned parents strikes again, he thought.
“Not necessarily. The cells that make up the marrow are called pluripotential haematopoietic precursor cells.”
Once more the terminology was clearly going over Preedy’s head. House decided to take a different approach
“Okay, have you heard of stem cells?”
Preedy nodded, “Yeah.”
“Same thing. Now your kid’s marrow is like…” House struggled to think of a decent metaphor Preedy could understand. “…Okay, like a really good NBA team. Team buys a big, unattractive seven foot moron from Yugoslavia, the only reason being because he’s seven foot tall. He can dunk if he’s standing by the net, but he can’t make a jump shot or a free throw to save his life, and he’s definitely not a team player.”
“But, because he’s tall he makes the team over smaller, but more capable, players?” Preedy said, uncertainly.
“Exactly: each PHPC cell is like a normal-sized basketball player; its job is to produce a clone of itself and a quantity of daughter cells. So the marrow is essentially a group of these cells, developing at different rates.”
Preedy nodded like everything was clicking, but House suspected he was still probably none the wiser.
“MPD is the collective name for disorders where one of these clones in the marrow has a growth advantage, and starts to overgrow at the expense of the normal ‘good’ cells.”
“But what about the platelet count, you said that was normal, wouldn’t that be affected?” Preedy said, surprising House because it was a reasonable point.
“The abnormal cells can still produce blood cells, as well as under or over producing other cells; just because the platelet count is normal doesn’t mean her blood is normal.”
“So which one of these diseases does she have?” Preedy asked worriedly.
“I don’t know. That’s why I need to talk to Dr Cameron again, because your daughter has some new symptoms that might be able to help me figure it out.”
~
Preedy handed House his cell phone and then nervously watched for people at the gate. House dialed the office number again.
“Good, you’re still at work,” House said when Cameron answered the phone.
“House, I’ve been worried sick about you, what the hell happened?”
“Nothing, gather the team somewhere and call me back,” he ordered.
“What team?”
The A team,” House suggested sarcastically. “On second thoughts, let’s go for Chase and Foreman. I think Mr T fell out with the rest of them.”
There was a temporary halt to the conversation as Cameron got her mind around his request.
“They still work there, right?” House enquired.
“Well, yeah, but…”
“Well, go get them; we need to do a differential. If you can get Foreman to do a neurological exam first, all the better.”
“House, Cuddy’s got this case now, social services are talking with Kate, and Foreman and Chase work in different departments.”
“Cuddy is doing what she does best: jumping in with both feet when she has absolutely no idea what she’s doing. In this case she can’t do much more damage than she’s already done. If Foreman agrees, page her so he can sneak in and do an examination.”
Preedy shot him a nervous look, and then glanced back down the corridor again to make sure no one caught House using his phone.
“If they’re not doing anything important, I’m sure Chase and Foreman can spare five minutes of their time.”
“I’ll try,” Cameron said reluctantly.
“Thank you. Don’t tell Cuddy a thing.”
“No, I won’t,” Cameron replied.
~
It took forty minutes for Cameron to call House back on Preedy’s phone; he was back in his cell by that time.
Preedy handed his phone over to House again and took up position outside the cell, keeping an eye on the doors that lead on and off the block.
“Did you round up the gang?” House asked Cameron.
“Yeah,” she replied.
“Okay, put me on speaker phone, we need to do this as quickly as possible,” House stressed.
“Hey kids, miss me?” he said, the click on the end of the line informing him he now had a slightly bigger audience.
“You’ve got five minutes House, I’m scheduled to do a laparoscopy in ten minutes,” he heard Chase say.
“You look at the file?” House asked.
“Yeah, could be allergic purpura,” Chase replied.
House glanced down at his copy of the file; the bruises didn’t look right, “Why? are the bruises raised now?” House asked.
“No,” Cameron answered.
“Phew,” House whistled. “I’m so relieved Chase is still an idiot, too much change is confusing.”
“Yeah, Chase is the idiot, and you’re running a differential from prison,” Foreman said smoothly.
“And Foreman is still really good at pointing out the obvious. Okay: I’ll be the smart one, Cameron you just stand there looking pretty and we’ve re-established our individual roles.”
“Could be Von Willebrand’s disease,” Chase said, ignoring the jibe.
Damn, that was a good one, actually, why hadn’t he thought of that? Probably because he was sorely out of practice.
“Going to need to do a bleeding time test to confirm that,” Cameron said.
“Do one then, Foreman, did you get the chance to do a neurological test?” House asked him.
“Yeah,” Foreman replied. “Wilson paged her, so I could sneak in.”
“Wilson’s in the room,” House said, suddenly, feeling a little freaked out by the idea that Wilson was listening in and he hadn’t been aware.
“No, he just did me a favor. He’s much better at lying to Cuddy than I am,” Cameron replied.
“Does he know what’s going on?” House asked.
“No,” Cameron replied. “Stop worrying about that; we don’t have a lot of time, remember?”
Preedy tapped his watch, House cupped the phone, “I can’t make this go any faster,” he informed him.
Preedy nodded and started to chew the side of his mouth nervously.
“I don’t think the headache is associated with any neurological defects. Her speech is fluent; she could remember objects over a five minute period, answered simple questions,” Foreman said.
“The bear was weird though?” Cameron added.
“What bear? What’s weird about the bear?” House asked.
“Her mom brought her favorite toy in, this old stuffed bear, and when she tried to give it to her, Kate wouldn’t take it.”
“I’m surprised Cuddy let the mom in the room,” House said flippantly.
“I’m not sure how growing out of your toys relates to the case,” House heard Foreman say to Cameron then.
House stared at the floor for a few moments; the last thing Preedy had said to him, suddenly came back to him. He’d asked him what exactly a bruise was.
“You head of neurology yet, Foreman?” House asked, deciding Preedy wasn’t as dumb as he looked.
“I’ve been working closely with Dr Matthews; near enough for now,” Foreman said proudly.
“I can tell; all that administrative bullshit he’s probably dumped on you has made you lose your touch,” House retorted.
“What?” Foreman said defensively. “You haven’t practiced medicine in two years; it isn’t me that’s lost my touch.”
“If a guy got hit in the head with a hammer, lost consciousness and you checked him over, odds are he could pass all of those tests you just reeled off,” House pointed out. He smiled when he heard Foreman huff, he was getting agitated.
“So?”
“So then his wife turns up, and he gets uncomfortable, says he doesn’t want her in the room. She says the relationship is fine and that just isn’t like him; what then?”
“What’s the guy’s name?” Foreman asked.
“How does that matter?” House asked, aware that Preedy was tapping his watch again.
“He’s a patient, it matters.” Foreman was getting cocky, and House didn’t have time to play games right now. “Okay, let’s call him, Michael,” House said dangerously.
“House,” Cameron warned. He had no idea if Cameron had mentioned anything to Foreman about House being on the same block as his brother. He was guessing by her tone she hadn’t.
“What? Foreman wanted a name, I gave him a name. So, Foreman?”
“Okay, changes in Michael’s insight and higher level judgment could suggest there was trauma to areas of the frontal lobe but other parts of the brain compensated, and helped him pass the basic tests.”
“Exactly, now apply that rule to the patient; she passed your basic tests, but I would say her higher level judgment has been compromised.”
“Because she doesn’t want her stuffed bear?” Foreman said exasperatedly.
“That her mother said she’d never slept a night without,” Cameron added.
“You need to CT her head. Think about it; she’s got bruises all over her body from minor bumps and scrapes. What happens if she’s got one inside her head?”
“You don’t get bruises in your head, you get clots,” Foreman said cynically.
“Right, because skulls are really good at keeping bruises inside, nice and cozy next to the brain, which causes pressure to build against the frontal lobe, giving her a headache and messing with her behavior.”
There was silence for a few moments. He hoped it was a stunned one that was going to get them to help him out.
“He’s right, we should CT her head,” Cameron said eventually.
“We?” Foreman said. “It isn’t even our case, and sorry to be the one to point this out but House doesn’t have a medical license any more.”
“I haven’t? Damn, you’d have thought they might have mentioned that to me,” House said, nodding at Preedy who was nervously mouthing ‘Hurry up’ at him.
“I’ll go do it,” Chase said. “I’ll come up with an excuse for Cuddy,” he said confidently.
“Thought you had a laparoscopy?” House enquired.
“I’ll get someone to cover, this is way more interesting,” Chase replied.
Of course it is, House thought to himself.
Author: snark-bait
Rating: Adult
Character/Paring: House/Cameron
Summary: House leaves prison after being convicted on drug offences, Cameron helps him readjust to his new life.
Spoilers: If you haven’t seen season 3 it's one big spoiler, but I'm going from 'Finding Judas' and just skipping very far ahead from there.
Chapter: 5
Beta'd by phineyj
Chapter five
Sleep was underrated, as far as James Wilson was concerned, and he hadn’t been getting nearly enough lately. He’d been feeling fretfully distracted for weeks. That in turn had enabled work to get on top of him because of his lack of focus.
The small, vibrating cell phone on his night stand was bleating and flashing for his attention. He had the urge to pick it up and toss it at the wall on the other side of the room. Tonight had been the first night in over a month he’d been able to drift straight to sleep without worrying about something, and now someone was calling him.
He picked it up and even his, “Hello,” sounded like a sigh.
“Wilson?” a tinny echo replied; the reception on his cell was awful, but he hadn’t had time to call by the store and get a new one. He almost responded with an irritable ‘Who the hell else would it be?’ but he didn’t. There were a lot of things Wilson thought, but never said.
He sat up and flicked on the lamp beside his bed. The light stung his eyes and it took a moment before he could read the numbers on the alarm clock: 12:30.
“Yeah,” he said, “what’s up?” wondering why Allison Cameron was calling him in the middle of the night. He cupped the receiver and yawned, assuming there was some sort of emergency at the hospital.
“I’m really sorry to call you at this time,” Cameron continued; it was at that point that Wilson detected the agitation in her voice. He was awake enough by then to realize it wasn’t necessarily a hospital crisis. Far more likely, it was some sort of House-related crisis.
“It’s okay; I’ve not been in bed long. What’s wrong?”
She didn’t answer straight away, as if she was taking her time to choose the right words. “I know this is a really strange question, but, is there any particular bar House used to go to when he was…upset?”
Wilson rubbed his eyes; of course it was House related. He thought about it, there were plenty of bars House used to visit. Many of which were not friendly places after midnight.
“If he’s pissed, he’ll probably just go into the first bar he finds that will keep serving him until he has the motor functions of a one year old,” Wilson informed her, his voice croaking with tiredness.
“I said he was upset, not pissed off,” Cameron corrected.
That was a strange amendment to make, Wilson thought, and wondered what the hell was going on, Cameron had changed a lot over the past few years in his opinion. She’d changed from a devoted ingenue into a focused, organized manager. She led most of the differentials in diagnostics these days, and it seemed like her colleagues respected her a great deal. But tonight she sounded more like her old self and it was starting to worry him.
“Since when is there a difference with House?” Wilson questioned, feeling more awake as the conversation progressed.
“We got stopped by the police on the way home from work,” Cameron began. “House came in to see Cuddy today about a job; he was driving us home.”
This information didn’t settle well in Wilson’s stomach. So House was coming back to the hospital? He really wasn’t sure how he felt about that but didn’t let the thought stick in his mind. He’d come back to that one later.
“What happened, did he sound off at the cop or something?”
“No,” Cameron said carefully. “But the cop was Detective Tritter.”
Wilson paused while he ordered his words. He hadn’t heard that particular name in a very long time.
‘Tritter said some terrible things to him; when we got back he wouldn’t talk to me, eventually he went out, and he wouldn’t say where he was going.”
“He went in the car?” Wilson asked.
“No, he called a cab,” Cameron replied. “I haven’t seen him like this in a while; I’m really worried about him.”
Wilson closed his eyes and tried to swallow down a familiar hate, aching inside his stomach like acid indigestion. How dare he? How dare Tritter do that? He had no right to bother House now; he’d been punished ten times over for whatever wrong he’d committed against the officer.
“I know a few places he might be, but if he’s upset like you say, he’ll just head for the first place he comes across. Between your place and Princeton, that’s a lot of bars.”
“Yeah, well you never know, he might want somewhere familiar. Could you give me the names of the ones you know? I’ll check them anyway,” Cameron said.
Wilson didn’t like that idea very much; some of the places House had once hung out at were not places he’d go in at night by choice, so he wasn’t encouraging Cameron to go into them on her own.
“Give me fifteen minutes, I’ll come get you, we’ll go together. Some of the places House used to drink at were kind of scary.”
Cameron didn’t reply, and straight away Wilson sensed why, because he had the same reservations she did.
“If we find him, we’ll bring him back, and I’ll leave. I’m not going to try and talk to him if he’s trashed, that won’t end well.”
“All right,” Cameron said reluctantly. “Thanks Wilson, I didn’t want to involve you this way, but I didn’t know who else to call.”
“No it’s okay, you did the right thing.”
“I’ll wait for you to get here,” she said, and then she hung up the phone.
Wilson climbed out of bed; his stomach felt queasy and his head ached. It had been aching all week, probably too much caffeine and too little sleep. He didn’t think he was ready to face House and he seriously doubted House would want to see him tonight. But then, he didn’t want Cameron trawling bars at this time by herself either, so he didn’t have a choice.
Which was nothing new, really, when it came to House.
~
The weather had turned awful again; it had started to drizzle when House had arrived back at Cameron’s place, now it was hammering down. House observed the sky, head tilted upwards as he leant on the cab window; thick clouds had blotted out the stars and the moon. They were heading for a bar he’d once gone in regularly when he’d first come to Princeton.
He was in desperate need of something, something to drown out the horror show that was his life.
When they pulled up at the bar it looked like some sort of classy night club. He wanted somewhere with woodchips on the floor and regulars who could drink their weight in whiskey before the effects of the alcohol hit them.
“You remember the place that used to be there?” House said to the cab driver.
“Before the refurbishment?” he asked.
“Yeah,” House replied.
The driver shrugged and observed him in the mirror. “Sure.”
“Take me somewhere that looks like that place used to.”
The driver nodded at him, then pulled away.
He wanted to knock back scotch until he was numb, until there was no sensation left from his fingertips to the very core of him. Tonight, he needed oblivion. He planned to drink until the thoughts in his head made no sense and had no relevance, and if he had to drink until he couldn’t walk to achieve that, so be it.
He was uncomfortable in his own skin and he felt like that was the only way he could shed it.
It didn’t take the cab driver long to find a bar much more suited to House’s taste. He paid him and walked into the bar. It was an absolute shit hole, broken glass on the floor that House suspected hadn’t been cleaned up from the night before, busted pool table that was in desperate need of renovation. A handful of regulars and not much else
It was perfect.
Once at the bar, he ordered a beer and a scotch chaser, telling the bartender to leave the bottle. The guy’s size, the fading bruise on his chin and his clientele told House he probably doubled as a doorman when things got rowdy.
House stared thoughtfully at the liquid in the shot glass when it was placed down in front of him; he tapped the side but didn’t take hold of it. If he did this, if he got smashed to clear his mind, he was essentially using a drug to deal with his problems. That was something he hadn’t done in years. He had to give himself a moment to decide if that was really how he wanted to handle what had happened tonight.
He left the shot where it was and glanced at the two guys sitting beside him at the bar. They were untidy drunks in their sixties and they were arguing about a football manager he’d never heard of. The bartender casually threw his opinion into their conversation every now and again and they’d both agree with him. All of them shot fleeting looks at the game on the TV while this was going on.
None of them gave him a second look; for that he was thankful.
House stared back at his drink, then took a sip of the beer, a little taste of alcohol to whet his appetite for the real stuff, and he wondered when he’d become so scared and wary of everything.
He’d never been someone to sit and think about a simple problem, he’d generally reacted, gone with his gut. Now he seemed to think everything through, because he was more aware of how his actions impacted on his life.
He took another sip of his beer and watched the TV. A football player he didn’t know the name of fumbled a perfect pass, causing the guy nearest to him to cuss loudly and shake his head; it seemed to add some weight so something he’d been saying and he started heatedly discussing the game again with his pal.
House took hold of the shot glass and rolled it between his thumb and finger, thinking of a time when he’d been able to label his only fear. Name it and own it outright.
Pain.
Vicodin had sheltered him from the storm of his life after the infarction; it had let him function, but when it had started to define him, things had spun out of his control.
Pain had been like a daily proposition to him, a challenge to try and carry on going after having his life destroyed. And it had been the simple, faceless, existential motivation for all of his actions.
It turned out there were far worse things to be scared of in life. He was fearful of a lot of things these days, but pain was no longer one of them.
House brought the shot glass up to his lips and slammed it back in one, closing his eyes when the burn hit the back of his throat. It trickled down and warmed his stomach like someone flicking on a heating switch inside of him. There was something comforting about it; it felt consolatory, reassuring him that soon enough, nothing was going to bother him, not a thing.
Tritter turning up out of the blue like that had made a long ago nightmare seem like it’d happened yesterday. His tone and delivery had made House re-live it all, and it disturbed him greatly because he’d gotten pretty good at blocking it out.
He picked up the bottle of scotch and poured himself another; he wasn’t here to work through anything, he was here to lose himself. He didn’t want to think any more, it was all he’d been doing lately; this was the only way of shutting down his brain. There was no other chemical he could take, as much as he craved something else, something opiate based.
It shamed him now to think about it, but he’d moved onto heroin when he’d first entered prison. It had been easier to come by and had given a bigger kick, offered a large expansive nowhere he’d been able to climb inside and become nothing. There were places in Jersey he could go to right now and get it, and that had been the first thought he’d had when he’d arrived back at Cameron’s house.
The craving was there every day but Tritter had kicked things up to maximum, along with a sure feeling that he couldn’t do this, couldn’t handle what was happening without something, something to take away the pain.
Tritter had reminded him of how he’d been injured in the most violent, degrading way a person could be, reminding him how hollow he’d felt afterwards, like he’d been stripped of his manhood.
He refilled the shot glass, locked, loaded and pulled the trigger, slamming back another, hoping it would help him forget about everything Tritter’s appearance had reminded him of. The hate, the depression, the nightmares and the self loathing; he needed to stop worrying if he’d put up a good enough fight, but he knew nothing would quell the intense shame, that remained still.
Right now he wanted to sink to the bottom of a bottle before he started wondering where those dark places in Jersey were, the places he could get the one thing he craved the most to take all of his troubles away.
~
Wilson and Cameron combed all of House’s old haunts in Princeton. Two of his favorite places weren’t even bars anymore, so they’d been easy to check out. The ones that were, Wilson had gone into and asked after him, but no one had seen him
If he was at a bar in Princeton it was someplace new. It was nearly two in the morning when they decided to go back to Cameron’s home.
“I’m sorry I dragged you out of bed,” Cameron apologized as they turned into her road.
“Don’t worry about it,” Wilson said.
They pulled up to her house and noticed him at the same time; House was sitting on the step outside her home, head against the doorway - completely out for the count.
“Still got a great homing instinct. I thought you gave him a key?” Wilson pondered.
“I did,” Cameron replied.
~
Between them, (but mainly Wilson) they got House up from the step; Wilson had to get over his unease of seeing House for the first time in five years, quickly, because he had to hold him upright against the wall while Cameron opened her front door. House had managed to get the key in the lock, and had then seemingly given up with the effort it took to turn it.
Somehow, they got him into the living room and onto the sofa. He was completely drenched from the downpour outside.
“I don’t know how he could fall asleep in the rain,” Cameron said, bemused.
Wilson sniffed the air, “It probably has something to do with the gallon or so of scotch he drank, he’d probably be able to sleep in a puddle right now.”
Cameron agreed and then went into the kitchen so she could turn the heating up. She didn’t think they’d be able to get House up the stairs in his current state, so she’d have to leave him on the sofa.
When she returned to the living room, Wilson was sitting on the chair opposite House, staring at him with a contemplative look on his face. He didn’t even notice her walk back in the room; he was miles away in his thoughts.
“You all right?” Cameron asked.
Wilson came back from wherever he’d drifted off to, and nodded. “Nothing’s changed,” he said quietly. He looked deflated.
Cameron wasn’t entirely sure what he meant by that. “What?”
“Nothing’s changed; he hasn’t changed.” Wilson motioned toward House who was passed out and slumped on the sofa, snoring lightly.
“No, he has,” she argued, and then went over to House as she noticed a graze and a bump over his left eye. She wondered, tiredly, if he’d given himself a concussion. “He just had a bad night,” she finished, looking at Wilson.
“A bad night, so he got wasted. Like he always does when faced with a problem he can’t deal with.”
Cameron was so weary, she really didn’t have the energy for where this conversation was heading. “It’s not like that, Wilson,” she disagreed.
“No, it’s exactly like that,” Wilson replied sadly.
“You think he’s following the same pattern of behavior he used to, but that isn’t what happened tonight.” She didn’t know how else to put it across to make him see without telling the truth. And as it wasn’t her truth to tell, she couldn’t do that.
She doubted she’d have found out if Tritter hadn’t pulled them over.
“What did Tritter say to him?” Wilson asked.
Cameron looked back at House; the things Tritter had said were going to haunt her for a long time, and she wondered how much hate the man still had to taunt House that way. She closed her eyes and shook her head.
“He accused him of taking drugs and criticized him, but House didn’t react so he said some nasty things, it was uncalled for. Trust me, under the circumstances, you’d probably have gone out and got trashed too.”
The emotion of the situation was getting to her. She was disappointed that House had gone out and got drunk to deal with everything, but then, who the hell dealt with that sort of thing any other way? She didn’t blame him for it, and reasoned maybe she’d have done the same thing in his position.
Wilson rubbed his face and observed her. “There’s something you aren’t telling me, isn’t there?”
“I can’t,” she began, “It’s not my place to. But House hasn’t taken anything for over two years now; I think he did this because he wasn’t ready to face Tritter again, after everything he’s been through because of him.”
“How do you know he hasn’t taken anything?” Wilson asked.
“Because he told me he hadn’t,” she replied.
“And you believe him?”
“Yeah, I do,” Cameron offered solemnly, and she really did.
Wilson thought about it for a few moments, “I’m sorry; I’m exhausted, you’re right.” He nodded at House, “One of us should probably stay awake and check him every few hours, that’s a nasty bump.”
“I’ll do it, you’ve already done enough, you should go home and sleep,” Cameron offered.
“How about I take the first shift, and you take the second?” Wilson suggested.
“Are you going to be all right if he wakes up?”
“If he comes around, I’ll leave,” Wilson said softly.
~
The dulcet tones of House puking up into her toilet brought Cameron round a few hours later. She waited for the heaving to cease and then decided to inspect whatever carnage was waiting for her in the bathroom.
House was just coming out as she opened her bedroom door, his eyes were cloudy and grey and he was leaning against the door frame to keep himself upright.
Holding his arms out to steady himself, he staggered out of the bathroom and observed her; he looked totally out of it.
“How much did you drink?”
“I had a few shots,” he said, it came out fairly garbled, but she got the gist. “Did I wake you?” he asked, innocently.
“No, I often come to the bathroom to hang out at four in the morning.”
Her sarcasm was entirely wasted on him; House was completely concentrated on holding onto the wall to keep him upright.
“Hey, Wilson missed me so much he broke into your house so he could watch me sleep,” House slurred, “Which is kind of creepy.”
Cameron smiled, guessing Wilson had either left now, or had fallen asleep during his shift.
House moved around her, carefully holding onto the wall and went into the spare bedroom. She followed him in.
“You’re disgusted with me,” he said suddenly, as he sat on the bed.
“What? No I’m not, of course I’m not,” Cameron replied.
“You should be,” he said, his eyes were closed and he’d puffed his cheeks out.
“House, I don’t…” she began, but he cut in on her.
“What the hell is Wilson doing here anyway?”
“We were worried,” Cameron explained. “I thought he’d be able to help me find you.”
“Worried,” House snorted. “He made a deal about my life that he had no right to make,” he mumbled quietly, and then he flopped down completely onto the bed. “He no longer has the right to worry,” he finished.
“Are you all right?” she asked tiredly. She didn’t mean for the question to have a double meaning. She was just wondering about the graze on his head.
“No, I’m not,” he said quietly. The sad quality to his tone made her consider the possibility that it was the most sincere thing he’d ever said to her.
Cameron went into the bathroom to get a blanket for him; when she returned he’d pulled his T-shirt off, thrown it on the floor and passed out again.
She went to cover him with the blanket but stopped when she noticed the smooth round scar at the bottom of his tummy. She’d been in the same room when he’d sustained the injury, when he’d been shot. She got a sudden flash of the memory of trying to hold the blood in his body as an artery fought to pump his life away.
Then, in the half light creeping in from the doorway, she noticed his chest and shoulders were covered with scars too, and she was pretty sure they hadn’t been there when he’d been shot. Pale indented patterns on his skin, telling her stories of his time in prison. It was sadly poignant that someone else was responsible for every physical mark on his body.
She placed the blanket over him, and desperately hoped the graze on his head was from a fall and not a fight. A fall was a drunken accident, a fight was anger that needed release and if he was still full of resentment, and it needed to come out that way, she didn’t hold out much hope for reconciliation between him and Wilson.
~ ~ ~
Two and a half years earlier.
Something wasn’t quite right, House decided. He hadn’t spoken to Cameron in two days and she’d assured him she’d be back at the office for 2pm the day Preedy took his kid to see her at the hospital. But when he’d called the day before she hadn’t been there and Preedy hadn’t arrived for his last shift.
One of the younger officers on Preedy’s squad had brought his lunch; when the same young officer came to take him for his phone call before exercise he was convinced something was going on
He dialed the number for his old office, and was relieved when Cameron picked up this time.
“House?” Cameron answered.
“Where the hell were you yesterday?” he said instead of hello; he didn’t have a lot of time and he was frustrated with the situation.
“I’m sorry; I didn’t make it back up in time. We had to admit Preedy’s little girl,” Cameron informed him. “She has some new symptoms.”
House shot a quick look at the officer who was standing watching him. His arms were folded and his face was blank; he had a military style hair cut and tattoos covering both forearms. House figured a lot of the men who worked in this place were probably ex military. He decided it might be just as well to keep Preedy’s name out of his end of the conversation, given his sudden absence
“Well that’s good, what are they?” House asked. More symptoms were always a good thing; so far he hadn’t had a lot to go on. He’d considered and dismissed some obvious illnesses: Cushing’s, (bruising wasn’t the right shape); meningitis (no rash, fever, pediatrician had already ruled it out); leukaemia (blood count didn’t reflect that, no other symptoms that fit.)
“I’ll tell you in a moment, but the extra symptoms aren’t the reason she was admitted.”
House stopped mentally checking back over the information from the file he’d studied and frowned. “Then why did you admit her?”
“I didn’t,” Cameron offered. “We might have a problem.”
“What do you mean?” House asked.
“Cuddy got involved,” Cameron volunteered cautiously. “She recognised Preedy when he was sitting in the clinic. When the platelet count came back normal, again, she jumped to the same conclusion I did and admitted Kate.”
What conclusion, House wondered, and how typical of Cuddy to get involved in something that had nothing to do with her.
“So she knows he came because I asked you to look at his kid?”
“Yeah, I tried to explain things so she’d leave it to me, but it just made her want to get more involved.”
House rubbed his forehead and closed his eyes. Why was nothing ever simple?
“When we examined Kate she complained of a bad headache and said she’d been feeling dizzy; Cuddy told Preedy it was probably another symptom of whatever illness she has and that we had to run some more tests.”
“Well, it probably is a symptom of her illness,” House said, not quite seeing what the problem was.
“Yeah, but then she called child services,” Cameron finished.
The background noise of the prison; bored prisoners heckling guards and metal gates clinking shut suddenly faded out and became completely insignificant. House realized that was why Preedy had missed his last shift. He felt a cold shiver trickle down his spine and wondered if there was any chance in hell Preedy wouldn’t suspect he’d told them to call child services as some sort of revenge.
And then, because life had a funny way of kicking House in the groin when he least expected it, Preedy appeared behind the glass in the guard office. He had a look centered on him that reminded House of a tiger mid hunt, still and focused before it launched for an antelope’s throat.
“Oh crap,” House said apprehensively, observing Preedy as he collected his keys, never taking his eyes from where House was standing. “Tell Cuddy she just royally screwed me over.”
“What are you going to do?” Cameron asked, but House didn’t reply.
He was preoccupied by Preedy as he came marching out of the office and headed toward him, keys jangling loudly as he strode over. He was moving more quickly than House had ever seen him shift in his life. When he reached him, he snatched the phone out of his hand and slammed it down.
“We need to talk,” Preedy said sternly; his cheeks were flushed and it sounded to House like the simple process of breathing was causing him great discomfort as the exhaled air charged out of him in angry bursts.
“Listen, I can explain,” House began, but Preedy cut him off.
“Shut up,” he said dangerously. He glanced over his shoulder at the guard who was still standing behind them, “I’ll take over here,’ he said curtly, and then gave his subordinate a look that suggested he leave as quickly as possible. The guy nodded and headed for the office.
Preedy turned around and stepped forward; he took hold of House by grabbing two large handfuls of his shirt and then marched him toward the exercise area.
It was a slow process getting anywhere most days, because of his leg, but in his anger Preedy had speeded things up by dragging him to the yard. By the time they got there House was shaking with the effort of trying to keep up because of his reduced mobility.
“Just calm down,” House said anxiously as Preedy pushed him into the yard then locked the gate behind them.
He clipped his keys to his belt then turned and pointed at House. “Then explain quickly, because I know you can’t be that stupid,” Preedy yelled.
House backed slowly away, moving toward the brick wall behind him. He was locked in a cement box with a man with a lit, very short fuse. House couldn’t help but want to put any sort of distance between them that he could.
Preedy took three big strides forward and took hold of him again. He slammed House against the wall, pinning him into position.
“I took my daughter to see your friend, like you said,” Preedy said bitterly, face inches from his own. House could feel his words, warmed by his anger, bang against his cheeks. “They called child services on me; I wonder who put that idea into their heads?” he continued accusingly, removing one balled fist from House’s chest so he could tap the side of his head.
House was about to try to explain but the reply didn’t have time to exit his mouth because Preedy pulled him forward, with very little effort, and then rammed him hard against the bricks again.
”But you’re the gentlest person in the world,” House gasped.
Not surprisingly, this did nothing to assuage Preedy’s rage; his features twisted and he scowled at him.
“My wife is beside herself with worry and you think this is funny?” Preedy screeched at him.
House shook his head; finding nothing humorous about the situation. “No, but I didn’t…” he began to try and explain again but Preedy kneed him in the stomach hard, dropping him to the floor and knocking the wind out of him.
House started to panic: it was a physical reaction that most people experienced when the air was knocked from them and they couldn’t catch a breath, dreading that the lungs would never refill with precious air again. But he knew they would; he closed his eyes and tried to breathe. Eventually he started gasping and the air returned.
When his breathing was something close to regular he sat back against the wall, eyes closed, and hugged his tummy; wondering if the consequences of her actions had crossed Cuddy’s mind even once, calling child services on a man who was currently in complete control of his life.
“I thought the bruising,” House started breathlessly, “might be thrombocytopenia,” He coughed and it hurt, his sore tummy objecting to the action. “But her platelet count isn’t elevated.”
He dared to look up at Preedy, who was standing with his hands on his hips looking down at him.
“A normal platelet count doesn’t help your situation, makes the excessive bruising look bad, but I think she has a problem with her blood, and if you don’t let me talk to the people involved, no one else will try and figure out what’s actually wrong with her.”
Preedy shook his head and glanced away from him. “Of course it’s something else; I told you I’d never lay a finger on any of my kids.”
House nodded, “And I believed you,” he replied carefully.
“Then why did they jump to abuse so quickly?” Preedy asked heatedly. House looked up as Preedy started to pace the floor in front of him.
“Cuddy recognized you; she must have checked the results and jumped to the wrong conclusion because she’s an idiot.”
House wasn’t sure if Preedy was buying any of it and he had to wonder if Cameron had said something, anything, to put the idea into Cuddy’s head.
House was thankful that Preedy’s combative energy was now being transferred to pacing up and down; it was much preferable to getting rammed into a brick wall, so he continued.
“I think she has some sort of MPD.”
Preedy stilled, he was quiet for a few moments, observing House as if torn as to whether he should carry on taking out his anger on him or calm down and listen to what was being said. He let his breath out slowly and then started pacing again.
“What’s that?” he asked quietly.
House started to relax a little, “Stands for myeloproliferative disease,” he explained. “I think her bone marrow is faulty.”
Preedy glanced at him, he was all worry again now and House wondered where the temper had gone. “Well, that doesn’t sound good.”
“The bone marrow is the body’s haematopoietic organ,” House continued, but the crumpled, blank look on Preedy’s face suggested the big word had gone over his head.
House stopped and tried to simplify things for him.
“It’s where the blood forms.” He cleared his throat and coughed, drawing another protest from his stomach.
“Bone marrow problems,” Preedy pondered loudly, brushing a nervous hand through his hair. “Isn’t that what happens when you get cancer?”
House shook his head; the irritating combination of the internet and stupid, concerned parents strikes again, he thought.
“Not necessarily. The cells that make up the marrow are called pluripotential haematopoietic precursor cells.”
Once more the terminology was clearly going over Preedy’s head. House decided to take a different approach
“Okay, have you heard of stem cells?”
Preedy nodded, “Yeah.”
“Same thing. Now your kid’s marrow is like…” House struggled to think of a decent metaphor Preedy could understand. “…Okay, like a really good NBA team. Team buys a big, unattractive seven foot moron from Yugoslavia, the only reason being because he’s seven foot tall. He can dunk if he’s standing by the net, but he can’t make a jump shot or a free throw to save his life, and he’s definitely not a team player.”
“But, because he’s tall he makes the team over smaller, but more capable, players?” Preedy said, uncertainly.
“Exactly: each PHPC cell is like a normal-sized basketball player; its job is to produce a clone of itself and a quantity of daughter cells. So the marrow is essentially a group of these cells, developing at different rates.”
Preedy nodded like everything was clicking, but House suspected he was still probably none the wiser.
“MPD is the collective name for disorders where one of these clones in the marrow has a growth advantage, and starts to overgrow at the expense of the normal ‘good’ cells.”
“But what about the platelet count, you said that was normal, wouldn’t that be affected?” Preedy said, surprising House because it was a reasonable point.
“The abnormal cells can still produce blood cells, as well as under or over producing other cells; just because the platelet count is normal doesn’t mean her blood is normal.”
“So which one of these diseases does she have?” Preedy asked worriedly.
“I don’t know. That’s why I need to talk to Dr Cameron again, because your daughter has some new symptoms that might be able to help me figure it out.”
~
Preedy handed House his cell phone and then nervously watched for people at the gate. House dialed the office number again.
“Good, you’re still at work,” House said when Cameron answered the phone.
“House, I’ve been worried sick about you, what the hell happened?”
“Nothing, gather the team somewhere and call me back,” he ordered.
“What team?”
The A team,” House suggested sarcastically. “On second thoughts, let’s go for Chase and Foreman. I think Mr T fell out with the rest of them.”
There was a temporary halt to the conversation as Cameron got her mind around his request.
“They still work there, right?” House enquired.
“Well, yeah, but…”
“Well, go get them; we need to do a differential. If you can get Foreman to do a neurological exam first, all the better.”
“House, Cuddy’s got this case now, social services are talking with Kate, and Foreman and Chase work in different departments.”
“Cuddy is doing what she does best: jumping in with both feet when she has absolutely no idea what she’s doing. In this case she can’t do much more damage than she’s already done. If Foreman agrees, page her so he can sneak in and do an examination.”
Preedy shot him a nervous look, and then glanced back down the corridor again to make sure no one caught House using his phone.
“If they’re not doing anything important, I’m sure Chase and Foreman can spare five minutes of their time.”
“I’ll try,” Cameron said reluctantly.
“Thank you. Don’t tell Cuddy a thing.”
“No, I won’t,” Cameron replied.
~
It took forty minutes for Cameron to call House back on Preedy’s phone; he was back in his cell by that time.
Preedy handed his phone over to House again and took up position outside the cell, keeping an eye on the doors that lead on and off the block.
“Did you round up the gang?” House asked Cameron.
“Yeah,” she replied.
“Okay, put me on speaker phone, we need to do this as quickly as possible,” House stressed.
“Hey kids, miss me?” he said, the click on the end of the line informing him he now had a slightly bigger audience.
“You’ve got five minutes House, I’m scheduled to do a laparoscopy in ten minutes,” he heard Chase say.
“You look at the file?” House asked.
“Yeah, could be allergic purpura,” Chase replied.
House glanced down at his copy of the file; the bruises didn’t look right, “Why? are the bruises raised now?” House asked.
“No,” Cameron answered.
“Phew,” House whistled. “I’m so relieved Chase is still an idiot, too much change is confusing.”
“Yeah, Chase is the idiot, and you’re running a differential from prison,” Foreman said smoothly.
“And Foreman is still really good at pointing out the obvious. Okay: I’ll be the smart one, Cameron you just stand there looking pretty and we’ve re-established our individual roles.”
“Could be Von Willebrand’s disease,” Chase said, ignoring the jibe.
Damn, that was a good one, actually, why hadn’t he thought of that? Probably because he was sorely out of practice.
“Going to need to do a bleeding time test to confirm that,” Cameron said.
“Do one then, Foreman, did you get the chance to do a neurological test?” House asked him.
“Yeah,” Foreman replied. “Wilson paged her, so I could sneak in.”
“Wilson’s in the room,” House said, suddenly, feeling a little freaked out by the idea that Wilson was listening in and he hadn’t been aware.
“No, he just did me a favor. He’s much better at lying to Cuddy than I am,” Cameron replied.
“Does he know what’s going on?” House asked.
“No,” Cameron replied. “Stop worrying about that; we don’t have a lot of time, remember?”
Preedy tapped his watch, House cupped the phone, “I can’t make this go any faster,” he informed him.
Preedy nodded and started to chew the side of his mouth nervously.
“I don’t think the headache is associated with any neurological defects. Her speech is fluent; she could remember objects over a five minute period, answered simple questions,” Foreman said.
“The bear was weird though?” Cameron added.
“What bear? What’s weird about the bear?” House asked.
“Her mom brought her favorite toy in, this old stuffed bear, and when she tried to give it to her, Kate wouldn’t take it.”
“I’m surprised Cuddy let the mom in the room,” House said flippantly.
“I’m not sure how growing out of your toys relates to the case,” House heard Foreman say to Cameron then.
House stared at the floor for a few moments; the last thing Preedy had said to him, suddenly came back to him. He’d asked him what exactly a bruise was.
“You head of neurology yet, Foreman?” House asked, deciding Preedy wasn’t as dumb as he looked.
“I’ve been working closely with Dr Matthews; near enough for now,” Foreman said proudly.
“I can tell; all that administrative bullshit he’s probably dumped on you has made you lose your touch,” House retorted.
“What?” Foreman said defensively. “You haven’t practiced medicine in two years; it isn’t me that’s lost my touch.”
“If a guy got hit in the head with a hammer, lost consciousness and you checked him over, odds are he could pass all of those tests you just reeled off,” House pointed out. He smiled when he heard Foreman huff, he was getting agitated.
“So?”
“So then his wife turns up, and he gets uncomfortable, says he doesn’t want her in the room. She says the relationship is fine and that just isn’t like him; what then?”
“What’s the guy’s name?” Foreman asked.
“How does that matter?” House asked, aware that Preedy was tapping his watch again.
“He’s a patient, it matters.” Foreman was getting cocky, and House didn’t have time to play games right now. “Okay, let’s call him, Michael,” House said dangerously.
“House,” Cameron warned. He had no idea if Cameron had mentioned anything to Foreman about House being on the same block as his brother. He was guessing by her tone she hadn’t.
“What? Foreman wanted a name, I gave him a name. So, Foreman?”
“Okay, changes in Michael’s insight and higher level judgment could suggest there was trauma to areas of the frontal lobe but other parts of the brain compensated, and helped him pass the basic tests.”
“Exactly, now apply that rule to the patient; she passed your basic tests, but I would say her higher level judgment has been compromised.”
“Because she doesn’t want her stuffed bear?” Foreman said exasperatedly.
“That her mother said she’d never slept a night without,” Cameron added.
“You need to CT her head. Think about it; she’s got bruises all over her body from minor bumps and scrapes. What happens if she’s got one inside her head?”
“You don’t get bruises in your head, you get clots,” Foreman said cynically.
“Right, because skulls are really good at keeping bruises inside, nice and cozy next to the brain, which causes pressure to build against the frontal lobe, giving her a headache and messing with her behavior.”
There was silence for a few moments. He hoped it was a stunned one that was going to get them to help him out.
“He’s right, we should CT her head,” Cameron said eventually.
“We?” Foreman said. “It isn’t even our case, and sorry to be the one to point this out but House doesn’t have a medical license any more.”
“I haven’t? Damn, you’d have thought they might have mentioned that to me,” House said, nodding at Preedy who was nervously mouthing ‘Hurry up’ at him.
“I’ll go do it,” Chase said. “I’ll come up with an excuse for Cuddy,” he said confidently.
“Thought you had a laparoscopy?” House enquired.
“I’ll get someone to cover, this is way more interesting,” Chase replied.
Of course it is, House thought to himself.