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Tags: housefic house_wilson house md house fanfiction sick_house
Published : 7 months, 2 weeks ago (Sat, 05 Apr 2008 13:10:19 PDT)
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Title: A Gentle Knock at the Door, Part 20
Author: zeppomarx
Characters: House (of course - duh), Wilson, Cuddy, Chase and Foreman, and new folks.
Warnings and So On: NC-17 for concepts. H/W friendship (perhaps slash if you wear slash goggles)
Summary: A sequel to Priority's Exigencies, which is a sequel to DIY Sheep's The Contract, which has now spawned an incredible number of offshoots. The short version: 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.
Timeline: Set nearly a year after the beginning of Exigencies.
Earlier parts here: Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 , 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19
Comments: Be gentle. Flamers begone. Thanks to AW, GM and my medical guru TD, who tells me the medicine is okay, but the procedure is all messed up. Drama trumps medicine, or so I've heard.
Oh, Yeah, the Disclaimer: I certainly don't own House or any of the characters therein, although it would be nice if I did. They belong to David Shore & company. It's just that they waltzed into my head and wouldn't leave until I told their story.
TEASER: The prognosis...
___________________________________________
A Gentle Knock at the Door
Part 20
The phone rang three times before anyone answered.
“Hello?” said a man’s voice.
Wilson hung up without saying anything. If House’s mother had answered, he would have told her what was happening. But after John House’s behavior toward his son the last time around, Wilson just didn’t feel up to talking to him.
* * * *
Wilson sat dozing by House’s side in the recovery room. The staff had thoughtfully provided him with a comfortable chair, which was a good thing, because Wilson was so exhausted, he’d probably fall off of anything else. He’d meant to ask for a complete rundown of House’s injuries, but he was so tired and so anxious, he hadn’t done it yet. Maybe he didn’t want to know.
House looked… well, terrible. Wilson had never seen him look this bad, not even when he first saw him in prison after Thompson’s death. Then, he’d been emaciated and frightened. Now he was broken, bloodied and bruised.
His left ankle was in a cast. Fortunately, Karen Langley had already mentioned that it was a clean break, and probably happened when he fell. It was his right side that was worrisome.
The right side of his face was swollen to the point that he was barely recognizable. In addition to the fractured skull, he had a serious-looking black eye—his lid was completely swollen shut—and the area around his mouth was purple, his lips puffy. From the bandages, Wilson could tell that his cheek had been fractured as well, and perhaps his nose had been broken.
And that was just his face.
He was on a ventilator. His right shoulder was heavily bandaged, perhaps from another fracture or a break, possibly from torn ligaments or tendons, and his right arm as well. From what Wilson could see, his chest was wrapped, so that might mean broken ribs. Under the wrapping, Wilson saw more bruising and a long incision.
The worst was his right thigh. Because it was such a sensitive area for him, it also seemed to invite particular abuse. The whole area was bandaged so that it was double its normal size. Wilson didn’t even want to imagine the damage that had been done.
There had to be internal injuries as well, with all that bruising and swelling.
He rested his elbows on his knees and put his head in his hands. Slowly his head sank to his lap, and he fell asleep for nearly an hour.
“Dr. Wilson?” The voice sounded very far away. “Dr. Wilson?” Now, it sounded closer. “You’ll have to wake up. We need to move Dr. House to his own room now.”
Wilson stumbled along behind the gurney as House was taken out of the recovery room and into room 123, not far from the Diagnostic Medicine Department. As he passed the conference room, Wilson noticed the blinds were open and all three of the kids were asleep at the conference table. He realized he’d completely lost track of Linda, and wondered if she was still at the hospital somewhere.
Several hours later, after sitting by House’s side and sleeping a little more, Wilson went back to ICU to find the doctors who had worked on House, one of whom was Karen Langley. He found her in the lounge, nursing a cup of coffee and staring at the floor. A tall, redheaded woman in her 40s, she looked worn out.
“Hi, James.”
“Hi.” He got himself a cup of coffee and took a seat near her. “I’m not sure I want to know, but what’s the prognosis?”
Keeping her head low, she raised her eyes to look up at him. “It’s too early to say,” she said. “But it doesn’t look good. For a healthy person to receive a beating like that would be pretty serious; for someone in House’s condition…” She let the sentence trail off and looked back at the floor.
Wilson was dazed. After everything that had happened, after everything House had been through already… Wilson couldn’t imagine the stubborn old cuss not surviving this.
“Once I’m a little more awake, I’d like to look at his chart,” he said.
Langley nodded. “Of course,” she said. “I can give you the basic rundown, although I’m sure you’ve figured most of it out already. His head is probably the worst. Fractured skull, fracture in his cheek, lots of contusions. Thank god his neck wasn’t broken. We’re taking him off the respirator shortly if there are no complications.
“Of course, head injuries are always tricky. We’re going to monitor him carefully for the next few days. He may have been lucky on this—his head wasn’t bounced around much, so the injuries are localized. We won’t know for a while. We’ll have to do mental status testing once he’s conscious.
“Further down, he’s got a fractured right shoulder, a broken arm and a couple of broken ribs, plus more contusions. We found some internal injuries, especially in the chest area. We’re watching for infection and bleeds. The right thigh is particularly ugly, but fortunately it seems to be mostly bruising. It’s just such a tender area, it’s going to be especially painful. If he survives.”
Well, that pretty much wrapped it up, thought Wilson. If he survives. Wilson drank his coffee in silence for the next couple of minutes.
“Do I want to ask about recuperation?” he asked.
Karen Langley glanced up again. “Slow. Painful.” Suddenly, she stood up and began striding quickly around the room. “Goddamn it, James. It’s just not right. I mean, I know he’s behaved like an jerk to a lot of people over the years, but it was always apparent to me that it was a protective covering, something no one should take too seriously. He’s mulish and determined, but that doesn’t do any good if the body is so damaged it can’t recover.”
Wilson stopped breathing. She doesn’t think he’s going to make it, he thought. He watched in shock as she got more agitated.
“It’s impossible. The man has just barely gotten his life back, and he’s working desperately hard to make a meaningless ordeal mean something, and this asshole destroys it all in, what, 10 minutes?”
As Karen Langley sat down again, angry tears streaming down her cheeks, Wilson felt despair wash over him. The two medical professionals sat in the doctors’ lounge and cried for a man who would be revolted if he knew about it.
Are you on the edge of your seat?...
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