Sunday Brunch - Chapter 5
Author: zeppomarx
Pairing: House/Wilson friendship
Rating: PG-13 (for language)
The story up till now:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
SUMMARY: When a jazz musician collapses on stage, House has only a short time to diagnose and treat.
TEASER: As he guided the three of them through the list on the whiteboard, something else had struck her. They respected him-Cuddy immediately, and as the night progressed, Wilson, too. She could see it on their faces, in the ways they responded to him as he ran through the possible diagnoses and explained why none of them fit the facts of his case.
___________________________________________
Sunday Brunch
Chapter 5
Throughout the night, Janet Ivins sat at House’s side, watching him sleep and listening to him moan. She was not used to feeling helpless, and this sense of being powerless in the face of circumstance frustrated her. As the spasms came and went, his sleeping face contorted with pain, his breathing fast and shallow, perspiration drenching his face. Several times during the night, she rose from her chair and went into the bathroom to rinse a washcloth with cold water, patting his brow and trying to soothe him in his sleep.
Inaction didn’t suit her. She was accustomed to taking charge, making decisions, confronting the very medical establishment she now found herself at the mercy of, as the man with whom she had chosen to spend her life groaned in agony.
A part of her was in awe of the Greg she’d just witnessed-she had never seen his medical side in the four years they’d been together. Of course, she knew he had that medical degree, that he had been on staff at several hospitals, but by the time they met, he’d chosen to leave that life behind.
Right brain, left brain. She knew his right brain, the creative side, the musical side of his personality, but she had never seen the left brain before, the concentrated intellect, the focused logic trying to solve a problem. It stunned her to watch him grappling with the mystery, trying to separate his own fears and pain from the process of thinking his way through to a solution.
During the five hours that he had guided the three of them through the list on the whiteboard, something else had struck her. They respected him-Cuddy immediately, and as the night progressed, Wilson, too. She could see it on their faces, in the ways they responded to him as he ran through the possible diagnoses and explained why none of them fit the facts of his case.
Because of his talent and his wit, the musicians at the club had appointed House their unofficial musical leader, but she’d never seen anyone respect him in quite this way before. Cuddy and Wilson… they deferred to him… to his medical mind and to his unique abilities. They clearly saw him as a medical genius.
And yet, he was the same man who had walked away from this world, the man her parents saw as a slacker, as someone who would never succeed, at least not by their definition of success. But it was clear from the way Wilson and Cuddy reacted to him that Greg could have been someone who commanded respect from the entire medical profession, had he chosen that route for his life.
Janet devoted a small part of her mind to pondering Lisa Cuddy. It was obvious from the moment the dark-haired woman had entered the room that not only had she known Greg before, but she also knew him well-as in biblically well. Janet recognized that slightly embarrassed flush from her own accidental meetings with former boyfriends.
But once Greg had gotten past being startled at seeing an old flame, he had turned his face toward Janet’s, allowing their eyes to meet. Don’t worry about it, said his expression, as he squeezed her hand gently. I’m with you. If I wanted to be with her, I’d still be with her. That’s all you need to know. From that moment on, she saw nothing in his face or behavior suggesting that Cuddy was anything other than a friend from the past. And Janet was confident enough in herself and their relationship to know that a former girlfriend was no threat to her.
Once she got past her own shock at seeing him, Cuddy, to her credit, was the complete professional.
As the evening evolved and pain took over, Janet saw a side to Greg she hadn’t seen much before. His temper grew short and his tongue grew sharp. He grew increasingly impatient with them, with what he perceived as their stupidity as they stumbled to keep up with his mental leaps to methodically eliminate all of the potential diagnoses.
Even knowing that she had a legal background and not a medical one, he snapped at her, pushing her emotional buttons and digging at her vulnerabilities. More than once, she found herself on the verge of tears, and not just because she was exhausted and frightened.
No wonder he walked away from that life, if this is who it turns him into, she thought drowsily around five a.m. He didn’t want to be this person.
As dawn approached, she slipped into a troubled sleep, leaning forward to rest her head against his chest, her right hand tucked into his. Occasionally, as the pain hit him, he squeezed her hand too tightly, waking her for a few moments before he took a breath and forced himself to relax. Then the two of them drifted off for a while longer, until the pain gripped him again.
* * * *
House slept a drugged sleep until late the next morning. It was now two days since the pain had started.
Once awake, he did two things. He sent Janet home to get some sleep, and he asked for Cuddy and Wilson to come to his room.
As Wilson passed Janet in the hall, he laid a hand on her arm.
“He’ll be okay,” he said in his best comforting-the-family voice.
“How do you know?” she asked bluntly as she headed toward the elevator. But she looked relieved, if not entirely convinced.
When Wilson entered the room, Cuddy was already at the whiteboard, ready to write.
“Infection? DVT? Tumor?” House asked, with no preliminaries.
Cuddy responded practically, clearly trusting House’s medical judgment that these were the most logical options left to consider.
Ticking off the possibilities, she said, “Antibiotics, just in case. No swelling or fatigue in the leg. Oncologist.” She pointed to Wilson.
Wilson was startled. No hello. Nothing about how he was feeling this morning. Just right back to the differential diagnosis.
I guess if it was my leg and I was in that kind of pain, I might want to get it solved before engaging in pleasantries, too, he decided.
“We’ll do an x-ray and a CT to check for bone cancer,” he said, and then started to explain why he thought bone cancer was the best diagnosis for the symptoms.
House interrupted him.
“Fine,” he said. “Makes sense. Do it.”
As Wilson left House’s room to make the arrangements, he saw the crowd in the waiting room out of the corner of his eye. Heading that way, he decided it was more than time to give them an update… and there was no one else around to do it. Cuddy had headed off in the other direction.
He felt a little like a Christian (Ha! That’s a laugh!) headed into the Roman Coliseum to face the lions.
A dozen faces leaned toward him as he approached.
“Is he okay?”
“What’s going on?”
“How’s Skins?”
“Tell me what’s happening.”
“Are you his doctor?”
“What caused it?”
“Can we see him?”
Wilson put up his hands to signal them to move away. They backed off slightly, giving him room to move forward. Good God, this guy had a lot of friends.
“He’s resting comfortably right now. We’re still trying to find the underlying cause, but I’ll keep you posted.”
“But can we see him?” came a voice from the crowd.
All of them? At once? Not a good idea.
“I can’t let all of you to go in at once, but we might be able to arrange for a few of you to go in at a time.”
That seemed to suit them, and they settled down.
* * * *
Wilson wandered back to House’s room to find his patient struggling to sit up.
“You’re set for two o’clock. There are a lot of people in the waiting room.”
“Not soon enough. And that matters to me because…?”
It took him a moment, but Wilson realized that House’s first sentence referred to his two o’clock x-ray and CT appointment, and the second to the crowd. This guy was keeping him on his toes. Strangely, Wilson found that he liked it. He felt slightly more alive, somehow, having to keep his wits about him all the time.
“Because they want to see you.”
“Ah. Should have said so. Send `em in.”
“But your leg…”
“…will still be here whether they’re in my room or out in the hall. Send `em in.”
“All of them?”
House looked at him sharply.
“How many?”
“Maybe twenty.”
“What the hell. Send `em in.”
Wilson shrugged. The guy was a doctor, and if he thought he was up to seeing twenty people, then far be it from him to argue.
Within minutes, the room was stuffed with people. Before Wilson knew it, an impromptu jam session had broken out, as guitars and ukuleles came out of cases. A quiet blues wafted out of the room.
“Are you insane?” asked nurse Brenda Previn as he came out of the room. “What are you thinking?”
Wilson shrugged, secretly delighted that this one man had managed to demolish hospital decorum.
“Get them out of there!”
Now Wilson was really amused.
He headed, not into House’s room, but into the room next to it.
“Does the music bother you?” he asked.
A middle-aged woman with weary eyes looked up at him from her bed.
“Why, not at all,” she replied. “I kind of like it.”
After polling the rest of the floor, he reported back to nurse Brenda that it was unanimous. The other patients liked the live music.
“I give up!” said Previn with an aggravated exhale.
Good, thought Wilson. He liked the music, too. After all, his visit to the Satchmo Club had been cut short.
NEXT: Chapter 6
Pairing: House/Wilson friendship
Rating: PG-13 (for language)
The story up till now:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
SUMMARY: When a jazz musician collapses on stage, House has only a short time to diagnose and treat.
TEASER: As he guided the three of them through the list on the whiteboard, something else had struck her. They respected him-Cuddy immediately, and as the night progressed, Wilson, too. She could see it on their faces, in the ways they responded to him as he ran through the possible diagnoses and explained why none of them fit the facts of his case.
___________________________________________
Sunday Brunch
Chapter 5
Throughout the night, Janet Ivins sat at House’s side, watching him sleep and listening to him moan. She was not used to feeling helpless, and this sense of being powerless in the face of circumstance frustrated her. As the spasms came and went, his sleeping face contorted with pain, his breathing fast and shallow, perspiration drenching his face. Several times during the night, she rose from her chair and went into the bathroom to rinse a washcloth with cold water, patting his brow and trying to soothe him in his sleep.
Inaction didn’t suit her. She was accustomed to taking charge, making decisions, confronting the very medical establishment she now found herself at the mercy of, as the man with whom she had chosen to spend her life groaned in agony.
A part of her was in awe of the Greg she’d just witnessed-she had never seen his medical side in the four years they’d been together. Of course, she knew he had that medical degree, that he had been on staff at several hospitals, but by the time they met, he’d chosen to leave that life behind.
Right brain, left brain. She knew his right brain, the creative side, the musical side of his personality, but she had never seen the left brain before, the concentrated intellect, the focused logic trying to solve a problem. It stunned her to watch him grappling with the mystery, trying to separate his own fears and pain from the process of thinking his way through to a solution.
During the five hours that he had guided the three of them through the list on the whiteboard, something else had struck her. They respected him-Cuddy immediately, and as the night progressed, Wilson, too. She could see it on their faces, in the ways they responded to him as he ran through the possible diagnoses and explained why none of them fit the facts of his case.
Because of his talent and his wit, the musicians at the club had appointed House their unofficial musical leader, but she’d never seen anyone respect him in quite this way before. Cuddy and Wilson… they deferred to him… to his medical mind and to his unique abilities. They clearly saw him as a medical genius.
And yet, he was the same man who had walked away from this world, the man her parents saw as a slacker, as someone who would never succeed, at least not by their definition of success. But it was clear from the way Wilson and Cuddy reacted to him that Greg could have been someone who commanded respect from the entire medical profession, had he chosen that route for his life.
Janet devoted a small part of her mind to pondering Lisa Cuddy. It was obvious from the moment the dark-haired woman had entered the room that not only had she known Greg before, but she also knew him well-as in biblically well. Janet recognized that slightly embarrassed flush from her own accidental meetings with former boyfriends.
But once Greg had gotten past being startled at seeing an old flame, he had turned his face toward Janet’s, allowing their eyes to meet. Don’t worry about it, said his expression, as he squeezed her hand gently. I’m with you. If I wanted to be with her, I’d still be with her. That’s all you need to know. From that moment on, she saw nothing in his face or behavior suggesting that Cuddy was anything other than a friend from the past. And Janet was confident enough in herself and their relationship to know that a former girlfriend was no threat to her.
Once she got past her own shock at seeing him, Cuddy, to her credit, was the complete professional.
As the evening evolved and pain took over, Janet saw a side to Greg she hadn’t seen much before. His temper grew short and his tongue grew sharp. He grew increasingly impatient with them, with what he perceived as their stupidity as they stumbled to keep up with his mental leaps to methodically eliminate all of the potential diagnoses.
Even knowing that she had a legal background and not a medical one, he snapped at her, pushing her emotional buttons and digging at her vulnerabilities. More than once, she found herself on the verge of tears, and not just because she was exhausted and frightened.
No wonder he walked away from that life, if this is who it turns him into, she thought drowsily around five a.m. He didn’t want to be this person.
As dawn approached, she slipped into a troubled sleep, leaning forward to rest her head against his chest, her right hand tucked into his. Occasionally, as the pain hit him, he squeezed her hand too tightly, waking her for a few moments before he took a breath and forced himself to relax. Then the two of them drifted off for a while longer, until the pain gripped him again.
* * * *
House slept a drugged sleep until late the next morning. It was now two days since the pain had started.
Once awake, he did two things. He sent Janet home to get some sleep, and he asked for Cuddy and Wilson to come to his room.
As Wilson passed Janet in the hall, he laid a hand on her arm.
“He’ll be okay,” he said in his best comforting-the-family voice.
“How do you know?” she asked bluntly as she headed toward the elevator. But she looked relieved, if not entirely convinced.
When Wilson entered the room, Cuddy was already at the whiteboard, ready to write.
“Infection? DVT? Tumor?” House asked, with no preliminaries.
Cuddy responded practically, clearly trusting House’s medical judgment that these were the most logical options left to consider.
Ticking off the possibilities, she said, “Antibiotics, just in case. No swelling or fatigue in the leg. Oncologist.” She pointed to Wilson.
Wilson was startled. No hello. Nothing about how he was feeling this morning. Just right back to the differential diagnosis.
I guess if it was my leg and I was in that kind of pain, I might want to get it solved before engaging in pleasantries, too, he decided.
“We’ll do an x-ray and a CT to check for bone cancer,” he said, and then started to explain why he thought bone cancer was the best diagnosis for the symptoms.
House interrupted him.
“Fine,” he said. “Makes sense. Do it.”
As Wilson left House’s room to make the arrangements, he saw the crowd in the waiting room out of the corner of his eye. Heading that way, he decided it was more than time to give them an update… and there was no one else around to do it. Cuddy had headed off in the other direction.
He felt a little like a Christian (Ha! That’s a laugh!) headed into the Roman Coliseum to face the lions.
A dozen faces leaned toward him as he approached.
“Is he okay?”
“What’s going on?”
“How’s Skins?”
“Tell me what’s happening.”
“Are you his doctor?”
“What caused it?”
“Can we see him?”
Wilson put up his hands to signal them to move away. They backed off slightly, giving him room to move forward. Good God, this guy had a lot of friends.
“He’s resting comfortably right now. We’re still trying to find the underlying cause, but I’ll keep you posted.”
“But can we see him?” came a voice from the crowd.
All of them? At once? Not a good idea.
“I can’t let all of you to go in at once, but we might be able to arrange for a few of you to go in at a time.”
That seemed to suit them, and they settled down.
* * * *
Wilson wandered back to House’s room to find his patient struggling to sit up.
“You’re set for two o’clock. There are a lot of people in the waiting room.”
“Not soon enough. And that matters to me because…?”
It took him a moment, but Wilson realized that House’s first sentence referred to his two o’clock x-ray and CT appointment, and the second to the crowd. This guy was keeping him on his toes. Strangely, Wilson found that he liked it. He felt slightly more alive, somehow, having to keep his wits about him all the time.
“Because they want to see you.”
“Ah. Should have said so. Send `em in.”
“But your leg…”
“…will still be here whether they’re in my room or out in the hall. Send `em in.”
“All of them?”
House looked at him sharply.
“How many?”
“Maybe twenty.”
“What the hell. Send `em in.”
Wilson shrugged. The guy was a doctor, and if he thought he was up to seeing twenty people, then far be it from him to argue.
Within minutes, the room was stuffed with people. Before Wilson knew it, an impromptu jam session had broken out, as guitars and ukuleles came out of cases. A quiet blues wafted out of the room.
“Are you insane?” asked nurse Brenda Previn as he came out of the room. “What are you thinking?”
Wilson shrugged, secretly delighted that this one man had managed to demolish hospital decorum.
“Get them out of there!”
Now Wilson was really amused.
He headed, not into House’s room, but into the room next to it.
“Does the music bother you?” he asked.
A middle-aged woman with weary eyes looked up at him from her bed.
“Why, not at all,” she replied. “I kind of like it.”
After polling the rest of the floor, he reported back to nurse Brenda that it was unanimous. The other patients liked the live music.
“I give up!” said Previn with an aggravated exhale.
Good, thought Wilson. He liked the music, too. After all, his visit to the Satchmo Club had been cut short.
NEXT: Chapter 6