Before and After (2/6)

[tobiahawk.livejournal.com]

Title: Before and After
Chapter title: Best Place
Rating: PG/PG-13 (swearing)
Disclaimer: Don't own House. Also, please read the Author's Note.
Chapter 1 can be found here: community.livejournal.com/house_wilson/3543638.html#cutid1
Summary: After Mayfield, a sometimes-psychotic House moves in with Wilson.

Best Place

 

Author’s note: Thanks for the reviews/comments! Just in case there’s any confusion, positive schizophrenia symptoms are hallucinations and delusions. Negative symptoms are things like disorganized speech, loss of speech (alogia) and loss of motivation (avolation). Oh, and best place remembering is something I more or less made up, though many similar techniques are employed in health psychology.

 

…

 

The worst thing about this consult is not that it’s going to cost Wilson fifty bucks. No, the worst thing is that Wilson knows he isn’t going to be told what he wants to hear.

 

He sits down in the chair across from the psychiatrist and is eerily reminded of all the failed marriage counseling sessions he has gone to with wife after wife after wife, all of them trying to “save” something that, in reality, was obviously not meant to be.

 

“Can you up his dosage?” Wilson asks bluntly, finally using his medical proxy power for something other than springing House from Mayfield.

 

“Why? Is he showing more breaks? An increase in negative or positive symptoms? I didn’t make note of any of that when I saw him…”

 

Because these med checks are fifteen fucking minutes long! Wilson thinks, but restrains himself, feeling his grip model more tightly around the armrest of the chair.

 

“No, but he’s starting a new job soon—lecturing two days a week—and I’m worried the stress might…”

 

“We can’t increase dosages for “what ifs,” Dr Wilson. If Dr. House’s symptoms increase, then maybe we’ll consider making a change to the regimen, but for now…”

 

“But House is still psychotic! He still hallucinates! Isn’t that enough indication to up the fucking dosage?” Wilson yells, shocked by his own anger.

 

“Dr. Wilson,” the psychiatrist says blandly, “during Dr. House’s time as an in-patient, his treatment team tried higher dosages of several antipsychotics. All produced significant side effects. Potentially life-threatening side effects. Dr. House’s current level of functioning, while not optimal, is acceptable. There is no cure for schizophrenia, Dr. Wilson. Most of my patients go through cycles of relapse and remission. Some remain continuously floridly psychotic. Others commit suicide. Even the relatively small number who achieve full remission with medication occasionally have small psychotic breaks. In terms of schizophrenia, Dr. House’s symptoms are relatively mild—he has very few negative symptoms and those that he does display occur only during acute breaks. He has insight into his non-episodic hallucinations, which is very good and very rare. He does not display constant psychosis. Given continued treatment compliance and continued relative effectiveness of the Zyprexa, his prognosis is relatively positive.”

 

Wilson recognizes those words. He’s said their oncological variants enough—it may be bad but it could be worse, the chemo won’t cure the cancer but it may shrink the tumor, it’s Stage III but we were lucky to catch it before there were distant metastases, and so on and so forth. They are the words of half-hope, things doctors say when they know any hope that could give would be utterly, transparently false. Wilson swears he can feel his heart plummet. He is thankful House isn’t dying, but is insanity that much better for him? Or is this just double death? For House? Or for him?

 

“Thank you,” he says, his voice, vacuous and without heart.

 

The psychiatrist stands up and shakes his hand.

 

“We should get the results from today’s blood tests back from the lab in a few days. I’ll have the nurse call you with the results.”

 

“Thank you,” Wilson says again, in that same breathless, soulless tone.

 

…

 

House is in the waiting room, playing his PSP. Wilson can see House’s arm straining relentlessly against the gaze bandage wrapped tightly around it. House looks up at him smiling.

 

“You guys hook up or something? Or is Freud-the-Obvious not needy enough for you?”

 

Wilson shrugs off the joke and tells House what he knows House is really asking, what House will move heaven and earth to find out if Wilson does not tell him.

 

“I asked him to increase your dosage. He refused.”

 

Wilson can see House considering that for a moment, his blue eyes deeply thoughtful.

 

“All these years and now you’re trying to give me more drugs? It would have been a whole lot cooler if you decided to do that with Vicodin.”

 

“For you, maybe.” Wilson replies, thinking It wouldn’t be very hard to be more fun than this.

 

…

 

“You’re nervous,” Wilson comments as House walks out of bathroom.

 

“About what? The oh-so-brilliant intellect of med students?”

 

“About going back to the hospital. About seeing your team again. About screwing up. About Cuddy.”

 

“You know, Wilson, I’m pretty sure I fulfilled my lifetime quota of crappy psychoanalysis at the nuthouse. Though I have to admit, none of them had your stunning cheekbones.”

 

Wilson picks his jacket up off the couch. “Let’s go, House.”

 

House follows him out, all the while saying, “You’re really wearing that tie? It looks like something Cuddy’s little muppet threw up on…”

 

…

 

House teaches from ten until noon and then again from two until four, giving him, Wilson thinks, just enough time to get into trouble. So when House doesn’t show up at Wilson’s office at one as they—or rather, Wilson—had planned, he isn’t horribly surprised.

 

“We need to get House,” Wilson says bluntly as he walks in Cuddy’s office and closes the door.

 

“Is he.. is he…” Cuddy asks, unable to say the words that they both are thinking.

 

“He’s House any which way. But he was stable when we left this morning. I don’t think he’s having a break.”

 

Wilson can see Cuddy shoulders relax as she sighs in relief. “Let’s go,” she says.

 

When they arrive at the diagnostics department, they see House scribbling furiously on the white board.

 

Cuddy opens the door to be greeted by House yelling at Taub. “That would be an excellent idea—if it matched any of the symptoms, which it doesn’t and if a five year-old couldn’t rule it out in five minutes, which one could, especially if those morons at St. Sebastian’s already did. God, your brains really do atrophy quickly.”

 

“House, I need to see you. Please come with me,” Cuddy says, and to Wilson’s surprise, House drops the marker and leaves. Wilson can see the fellows giggling and whispering to each other as he leaves. He can’t help but think that House’s treatment of them might not be too far off the mark.

 

“House,” Cuddy says after they enter her office, “you can’t practice medicine without a license. You know that…”

 

Wilson notes that she does not say, And you can’t get a license if you’re actively psychotic.

 

House doesn’t respond; he just stares at Cuddy with wonder and shock in his eyes.

 

“Are you… are you… real?” he asks quietly in a voice Wilson has heard only a few times in his life.

 

Cuddy stares at House and at Wilson, shocked, afraid. This is the first time she’s seen House since he entered Mayfield, Wilson remembers. House had made it very clear that James Wilson was the only person who could visit him, and while Mayfield may not let their patients have CD players, PSPs, posters of Pamela Anderson, or Vicodin, they do respect wishes about who may visit. Unfortunately, while Wilson remembered that Cuddy has not seen House for nine months, he had forgotten that the opposite may not haven been true.

 

House advances slowly towards Cuddy and places his hand gently on her cheek, watching her, expecting something but what Wilson does not know.

 

Cuddy doesn’t flinch, but Wilson can tell she is afraid. She is unsure, he knows, if House will hurt her or try to kiss her or just stand there forever, trying to ascertain, in a way even he cannot, if the feeling under his fingers is of any substance at all.

 

Wilson moves alongside House. “She’s real,” he says. “This is real.”

 

His friend looks at him with doubt in his eyes. The look is foreign, misplaced, and every time Wilson sees it, he wonders if someone who you do not love can break your heart. House drops his hand from Cuddy cheek.

 

“House,” Cuddy says, her voice shaking ever so lightly. “You can teach here. You can supervise the TAs I will be assigning to you. You can eat lunch in the cafeteria. You can even play your PSP in the chapel and sleep in the empty exam rooms if you want. But you cannot be a physician. You cannot talk to patients in a medical capacity. You cannot diagnose. You cannot practice medicine. Do you understand?”

 

House looks up at her. “Yes,” he says, his voice still eerily quiet.

 

Wilson notices the clock on the wall; it’s almost 1:30

 

“You need to get to your next class, House,” he says and gently guides his friend out of the door.

 

Wilson walks with House to the lecture hall.

 

“My team,” House asks, regaining a bit of his composure, “do they know?”

 

“No,” he answers. “They think Cuddy put you on indefinite paid administrative leave for gross violations of the employee conduct code. News of your balcony proclamation spread quite quickly.”

 

Wilson swears he can see just the tiniest bit of relief fly across House’s face.

 

When they reach House’s lecture hall, Wilson stops. “I’ll be here at four,” he says. “Have fun. Be nice. Or at least tolerable,” he adds.

 

“When am I not nice?” House asks mischievously, the slightest of grins spreading across his face.

 

…

 

House doesn’t come out of the lecture hall until nearly 4:30.

 

“Damn ass-kissing med students,” House proclaims as he stomps out.

 

“Someone talk to you after class?” Wilson asks.

 

“This one held me up for nearly half an hour, prattling on about how “brilliant” and “inspiring” I am and how she’s just sure the class will be “so enlightening.”

 

“Grade grubber?”

 

“Yeah, and she’s not even hot enough to get a blow job from. At least Chase had the man-pretty thing going for him.”

 

Wilson can’t help but smile. “Since we didn’t have lunch, we don’t we grab an early dinner?”

 

“You paying?”

 

“Would it even matter if I said no?”

 

“No.”

 

“Then yes.”

 

“Okay…but Wilson, no places with stages or singing, okay?”

 

“Okay, House.” This is one of those things Wilson just doesn’t ask about.

 

…

 

They are one of two filled tables at the Prince-Plainsboro IHOP, an unsurprisingly unpopular destination at five in the evening.

 

“So what case did you use for the second year class?” Wilson asks, as House shovels chocolate chip pancakes (“Where’s the Kaluha version?” he had asked their waitress, who couldn’t be older than fifteen.) into his mouth.

 

“Alien boy,” House answers. “The joys of rectal bleeding and in vitro fertilization.”

  

“Did they get it?”

 

“Not even close.”

 

“How about the fourth year class?”

 

“Yet more rectal bleeding.”

 

“Esther?”

 

“No, think more sci-fi.”

 

“You used the same case for both classes? Won’t the fourth years just cheat?”

 

“If they do, I’ll know which ones are boning the second years… and they must be pretty desperate, because that class does not have one hot piece of ass in it.”

 

“You know, I think the admission committee looks at more then hotness when selecting a medical school class.”

 

“Hopefully, if this was the best they could do. And much to my detriment, I might add. I don’t have your pool of naughty but insecure nurses to pick from,” House says, as he reaches over to fork a piece of sausage off Wilson’s plate.

 

Wilson laughs, and for a moment, he forgets. He forgets House shouldn’t be having sugar. He forgets about Mayfield, about the Zyprexa bottle in the medicine cabinet. He forgets that now House is a doctor in title only, that they live together, that the past nine months ever happened.

 

And then, of course, he remembers.

…

 

In oncology, they sometimes teach the patients who are going through particularly rough stages a coping technique called “best place remembering.” It involves having patients focus in on their best single memory and envelop themselves in it, using all their mental power to imagine that they are somewhere, anywhere else.

 

Wilson has, from time to time, considered what his best place memory would be—maybe something with Amber or from when he was kid or from his days at McGill. He realizes now that this moment, with his second-rate food being stolen from his plate by a misogynistic, misanthropic free-loader might rank pretty highly on the list….

 

For all the years they’ve known each other, James Wilson’s best memory of Gregory House might just be the time when, for the smallest sliver of time, he managed to forget.

.