Gentle Knock - Chapter 78 by zeppomarx (house fanfic)

Title: A Gentle Knock at the Door, Chapter 78
Author: zeppomarx
Characters: House, Wilson, Cuddy, Foreman, Chase, and others.
Warnings and So On: Pain. Vomit. Fear. Otherwise safe. H/W friendship (perhaps slash if you wear those kind of goggles).
Summary: House is a physical and emotional mess, having been wrongly imprisoned and tortured and all sorts of nasty stuff. It's about what happens next, and how House deals with it. A sequel to Priority's Exigencies, which is a sequel to DIY Sheep's The Contract, which has spawned an incredible number of offshoots.
Timeline: Set nearly a year after the beginning of Exigencies.
Earlier chapters: Chapters 1-16 here. Chapters 18-43 here. Chapters 44-61 here. Chapters 62-67 here. Chapters 68-? here.

COMMENTS: If you'll keep commenting, I'll keep responding. I promise.

Oh, Yeah, the Disclaimer: Still don't own the characters (except the ones I created). I appreciate them, though, except when they wander around in my brain and won't let me sleep.

SUMMARY: He was in terrible pain. His patient was in terrible pain. It was a dark and snowy night. Only Wilson could help. But where was Wilson?

TEASER: A Very Very Bad Idea...

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A Gentle Knock at the Door
Chapter 78

Wincing in frustration and pain, House got himself to the phone and speed-dialed Wilson next door. The phone rang four times and then the machine picked up. After waiting impatiently for the end of the message, House bellowed into the phone.

“Wilson! It’s House! Wake up. Need you over here. Now! Come on. Wake up! Goddammit, Wilson, wake up!”

He slammed the phone down, not sure if Wilson had even heard the message. Rainie’s cries were getting louder. It was so unusual for Wilson not to answer that House was at a loss. In his agitation, he realized he couldn’t remember Wilson’s pager number.

A wave of pain engulfed him, the world turned white and he retched, leaning forward over the walker. His moans, mingled with Rainie’s, filled his ears. Oh, this really is a bad one, he thought, as he could feel himself beginning to heave. He was dizzy and sweating as he vomited all over the newly varnished floor.

Great, he thought, once he’d finally stopped throwing up. Now, how am I going to get around that?

He briefly considered heading back toward Rainie and trying to help her himself, but he knew that sooner or later he had to get to Wilson. If only the front door didn’t seem so far off. His shoulders ached, his feet throbbed and his head hurt. And he still felt nauseated. Odd were good, he realized, that he’d throw up again before too long.

Taking a deep breath, he pointed himself toward the front of the apartment, working his way slowly past the unpleasant glop on the floor. An eternity plus a few dozen grunts and curses later, he got to the door. Flinging it open, he was dismayed to see wet snow all over the stoop. He could hear Rainie clearly from here. Not only was she crying, but he could tell she was having the same reaction to her pain he’d just had to his. He hoped for her sake that she’d managed to lean over the side of the bed before she’d thrown up.

With trepidation, he tested the walker on the snow. No ice underneath, thank goodness. But in his urgency to find Marina, he’d left his slippers in the bedroom. No going back for them now, he decided as he slid his bare left foot onto the snow. The bitter cold stabbed into his foot like an ice pick. Gritting his teeth, he braced himself and brought his right foot forward into the snow. He could feel the icy sting catapult up into his right thigh; he almost collapsed as the shooting pain nearly knocked him out.

Shutting his eyes and trying to gain control of himself, he felt another wave of nausea overtake him. He swallowed and tried not to be sick.

Breathe, dammit, breathe. He seemed to have forgotten how. His ears were ringing so loudly, they were making him dizzy, and he couldn’t see—everything was too bright. He forced himself onward, panting as he simultaneously sweated and froze.

Six more steps and he’d be at Wilson’s door. After four of those six steps, he felt his stomach tighten. He turned his head to the right and threw up on the sidewalk.

Just then, it started snowing in earnest.

As he felt the snow coming down heavily all over him, he inched forward until he’d made it to the other door. Leaning as much of his weight as he could on the left side of the walker, trying to shift away from his right leg as much as possible, he pushed the bell and pounded on the door.

Come on, Wilson! What did you do, take a sleeping pill? Decide to go to a bar? Call a hooker? All of the above? Answer the door already!

As he whacked the walker into the door to make a bigger noise, he heard his own front door slam shut, blown by a gust of cold wind.

“Goddammit!” he yelled, now seriously concerned he might get stuck out here all night. “Wilson! Wake up!” He pounded and rang and yelled and yelled and rang and pounded until his hands were bleeding and his throat was raw. At least that pain took his attention away from all the others and from the ongoing nausea.

Finally—finally!—the door opened, and a shocked and disheveled James Wilson stood staring at House, who by this time was freezing cold, extremely wet and nearly covered in snow.

“Good God, House! What’s going on?”

“G-get your key. I’ve locked myself out.” His voice was barely a raspy whisper after all the misuse.

“Can’t the nurse…?” Quickly, Wilson cast a longing glance over his shoulder toward the comfort of his bedroom.

“Gone. Fired. I’m stupid, okay? Just hurry.”

His teeth were chattering, and his nose had turned a bright red, although the rest of his face was an unhealthy shade of gray.

After grabbing the keys off the hook by the door, Wilson helped his friend back into his own apartment, where House leaned against the wall for a moment to gather himself.

He didn’t look good. In fact, he looked awful. His eyes were staring into space, and Wilson saw a feverish patch of pink on each cheek. But when Wilson reached out to check House’s forehead, House slapped his hand aside.

“Not me, you idiot. Rainie.”

By this time, her cries had shifted into low screams. House leaned on his walker, and started toward Rainie’s room, Wilson right behind him. As they got near the ugly-looking mess on the floor, House edged his walker around it. Wilson said nothing as he bypassed it.

He looks like he’s going to fall over, thought Wilson. What the hell happened with the nurse?

Nothing if not stubborn, House kept going until he got to Rainie’s room. Throwing the door wide, he lurched inside to find Rainie curled up in a ball of pain in the bed. Her eyes bore into him, pleading for surcease. He couldn’t bear it.

Swaying as he tried to keep his balance, he hissed, “Do something!”

Wilson ran over to Rainie, who barely acknowledged his presence. The floor near the head of her bed mimicked the living room floor.

“Where does it hurt?”

“Unhhhhhhh!” she screamed unhelpfully.

“God damn it, Wilson! Give her something!”

“What’s she had already? I can’t give her anything until I know what she’s had and when.”

“Nothing but Vicodin at about nine,” he said, thinking back. “But it didn’t help. Give her oxy or morphine.”

“There isn’t any,” said Wilson a little frantically, starting to pick up on House’s desperation. “We’re low on supplies over here. I was going to bring some back tomorrow.”

Fighting down the desire to panic, House took a gulp of air. No drugs? They weren’t going to make it without stronger drugs.

He considered asking Wilson to call for an ambulance and get them to the hospital. But wait. Always fearful of being without, he’d built up a little stash of unused drugs, hiding them in the kitchen. He just couldn’t remember exactly what he’d hoarded.

“Kitchen. Over the fridge. Wooden box,” he said. By now, he could barely talk, and he could feel himself starting to lose his grip on the walker. If he didn’t sit down soon, he was going to fall. Or throw up again. Maybe both.

“I’ll get it,” said Wilson.

“Damn right you are. I’m not going anywhere.”

House inched forward toward the end of Rainie’s bed, leaving large wet puddles on the hardwood floor.

When he finally got to the bed, he leaned against it in relief. How long did it take to get a box down from a cupboard?

Behind him, Rainie was crying out in desperation, her hands clutching at the quilt. His own pain was so bad, he could no longer talk without groaning, and he wasn’t willing to groan, and so he said nothing.

Forever later, Wilson returned with the wooden box.

Wilson went straight to Rainie. As he checked her vitals, he saw House, out of the corner of his eye, slide slowly down the edge of the bed onto the floor, landing with a soft thud.

Very gently, Wilson pulled Rainie’s left arm out from underneath the covers. Even such delicate and subtle movements caused her extreme pain—she exhaled small anguished cries every inch or so, her breath hitching with each intake of air. Finally, he got her arm out, and laid it gently on the bed.

Opening the box, he took out an antiseptic swab, ripping open the small package to dab at her arm, and then pulled out a new syringe and a small bottle. Filling the syringe and flicking away the air bubbles, he injected Rainie with morphine.

After watching her closely for a few moments, he heard a sigh as the opiate hit her system. Slowly, her eyes glazed over and she took a few long, deep breaths of relief as the pain subsided. Looking at him through heavy-lidded eyes, she whispered, “Thank you… thank you…”

Now for House. Wilson turned to find his friend sprawled on the floor unconscious, lying almost face down in a pool of ice-cold water, his bare feet in the middle of the muck near the head of the bed.

“Wake up, House!”

But House was gone.

Leaving him just long enough to run to the bathroom and grab as many towels as he could carry, Wilson folded one towel and put it under House’s head to get his face out of the water, and then used the others to sop off the excess and to clean Rainie’s vomit off the floor and House’s feet. Once he’d laid towels all around House, he ran out again in search of blankets and warm clothes. Returning quickly, he found House still wet and shivering… and now moaning in pain.

Pulling him up into a sitting position, Wilson started removing his pajamas.

“Come on, big guy. Wake up for just a minute. Help me get these wet things off you.”

House’s eyes opened slightly, and he struggled to stand up. Wilson put an arm around his friend’s waist, and, with an effort, pulled him up.

After drying House off as much as he could, he managed to get the taller man out of his now-drenched pajamas and into dry, warm sweats. Through it all, House shivered and groaned. Out of the corner of his eye, Wilson saw Rainie watching them, her eyes glassy from the narcotic. Her body was now limp and her face relaxed, no longer contorted with pain, but her eyes showed concern.

Once House was changed, he slumped in Wilson’s grasp, becoming a nearly dead weight. Realizing House couldn’t possibly get back to his bedroom under his own steam, Wilson also knew he didn’t have the strength to get him there. He could see only one solution, one he hoped wasn’t going to create an entirely different kind of problem.

“House, listen to me.”

House looked at him, but Wilson wasn’t sure he was even aware of his surroundings. He was definitely running a fever—a high one, by the feel of it—and the cold, pain and exertion hadn’t done him any favors.

“I can’t get you back to your room. Is it a problem if I put you in here with Rainie?”

House closed his eyes and then slowly reopened them. He needed to lie down. Right now.

“Okay,” he muttered, too tired to think of any alternatives.

With Wilson supporting him, House got around the bed to the far side. It took a good couple of minutes to get House into the bed, Rainie’s eyes on them the entire time. Finally, Wilson got him under the covers, gently laying his head down on the soft pillow.

“How’s the pain?” he asked, once he’d gotten House situated. Why did he ask when the answer was so obvious?

“It’s bad,” whispered House through his moans. “Very bad.” He closed his eyes, and Wilson saw a tear slide down his cheek. Rainie turned her head toward him, her drowsy eyes never leaving his face. She reached out and laid her hand on his arm.

Pausing for just a minute to think it through, Wilson made up his mind. He got the wooden box, swabbed House’s arm and gave him a shot of morphine. Within minutes, the moaning had ceased and both patients were asleep.

NEXT: Must Have Been a Nightmare...

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