Fic: Define Real

[jo_anne_storm]

Title:  Define Real

Author:  Jo-Anne Storm

Rating:  PG 13
Summary:  “They’re all just chemical reactions that take place when the brain shuts down.”  Spoilers through 1.21.

Disclaimer:  Fox owns House and they’re notorious for not sharing.

Word Count: 1,120

He hurt.  He hurt all over and it made it hard to think.  He could feel his heart racing and his skin get cold.  Something was wrong.  Something was very wrong.

 

He fought through the pain to fumble with the EKG, to print out what the damn doctors in the hospital were supposed to be looking at.  The first two were inconclusive.  His potassium was high, but not high enough to explain the feeling.

 

He printed out one last result, knowing it would tell him what he already suspected.  His potassium was too high, and he was very close to dying.

“Nurse.  Nurse?” he managed to gasp out, drawing the attention of a no doubt highly trained professional who most likely didn’t have an original thought in her head.  “I need more calcium gluconate.”

“You just had 5 mLs.”  Typical.

“QRS is getting wider.  My potassium is rising.”

“I’ll talk to your doctor.”  Idiot!

“Well, you better make it fast, ‘cause I’m about to go into cardiac arrest.  You give me the dose, or I go into wide complex tachycardia.”

“I could get in trouble –“

“Listen, it’s not a narcotic!  I’m not looking for a buzz.  You’ve got about twenty seconds.”  She started to look panicked.  Good, maybe he would make it out of this after all.  But then he felt as if he couldn’t breathe, the pain had become centered in both his leg and chest.  He vaguely heard the EKG make a frantic noise. 

“I was wrong.”

With one part of his brain, he heard nurses and the doctor rush in, shouting orders and questions.  The rest of his brain, though, was suddenly taken up with music. 

He could feel the keys of his piano under his fingers, the smooth and cool feel of them as he pounded out The Who.  He got lost in the music, shutting out everything but the feelings the notes inspired, memories of days long past, when the world was his oyster and he had no ties. 

Not better days.  He used to think they were better days, back when he would hide in his office and snap at everyone but Wilson.  Hide from Cuddy, snark at patients in the clinic, solve the difficult case, not think. 

The music doesn’t completely distract him from the pain in his thigh, but he gritted his teeth and continued on, resisting the urge to strike the keys a little harder.  It would serve no purpose to wake everyone up.

Almost as soon as he thought that, he felt the piano bench shift slightly as a small body settled down beside him.  He finished the song before moving to something gentler and looking down at her.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in bed?”

Beth looked up at him with sleepy eyes that matched his own.  Instead of answering, she curled into a ball and rested her head on his left thigh.

“OK,” he said and forced hands that wanted to pound out anthems and reach for long-abandoned little orange bottles to continue playing a soft lullaby.  “But if Mommy catches you, I’m gonna say it’s all your fault.  You’re a bad influence on me.”

“Mommy’s feedin’ Petey,” she said, earning a wince from her father. 

“We are not calling the kid ‘Petey’, no matter what your mother says.  I refuse to have my kid beat up his first day of preschool.”

“Mommy calls ‘m that to ‘noy you.”

“Annoy,” he corrected.  “And that’s the nice way of putting it.  You could also say that she has a vicious streak.”

“What does vicious mean?”

“Mean.”

“Mommy’s not mean,” Beth defended.

He smiled down at the blue eyes now glaring up at him.  His wife had always been able to inspire loyalty in everyone she met, and their precocious daughter was no more immune to the trait than he was.

“No, she’s not,” he assured her.  “Daddy is, though.”

Beth had no reply to this, probably because she was too used to hearing her father and his small circle of friends refer to him that way.  The one time she had heard someone from outside their family call him that, she had kicked the man in the shin, much to House’s delight and her mother’s horror.  His wife had threatened to make him sleep on the couch if he encouraged such behavior.  He didn’t, of course.  Fighting was not something his precious daughter would be doing, not with her fists anyway. 

 

He could feel Beth’s head getting heavier on his thigh, indicating that she had fallen asleep.  He continued playing soft melodies, finding that his desire not to disturb her was enough to dull the ache.  Not enough that he didn’t still feel the need to reach for vicodin, but that desire would never leave him, not after so many years of depending on the pills.

 

He saw his wife out of the corner of his eye and shot a small smile at her, telling her without words that he would be OK.  She worried about him too much sometimes.

 

“Get the latest parasite down?”

 

“Yeah,” she answered, obviously tired and happy.  “Ready for bed?”

 

“Yeah, soon as you get this growth off my leg.”

 

She laughed at him and came to sweep Beth into her arms.  The little girl barely moved, too deep asleep to care about being carried.

 

Once they were out of the room, he struggled to his feet, leaning on his cane a little more than usual.  Even after all these years he didn’t like for her to see him in this state and tried to avoid fumbling in front of her.  He did have some pride, after all.

 

“Bad?” she asked once they were both alone in their bedroom.

 

“I could do with a distraction,” he answered, sliding a hand under her tank top.  “Allis--”

 

“He’s back,” a voice intruded seconds before a bright light was shone in his eyes.  “House, can you hear me?  Do you know where you are?”

 

Where was he?  He’d been at the piano, playing a lullaby.  No, that wasn’t right, wasn’t real.  The pain in his leg brought him to reality, made him remember where exactly he was.  “The worst hospital in New Jersey.”

 

Dr. Cuddy wasn’t amused with his levity.  “I’ll make a deal with you, Dr. House.  I ever make Dean of Medicine, I’ll give you a job.  You can take all those interesting cases you like so much without having to see regular patients, but you have to live through this first you stubborn son of a bitch.”

 

“I’ll keep that in mind for if I’m ever desperate.  Right now I’m planning on walking out of this hell hole and never looking back.” 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AN, AKA: Where This Came From – I was watching Three Stories, again, when I had the realization that House couldn’t have seen the volley ball player and the farmer in his “dead for a minute” vision.  The cases came in eight years after his surgery.  So, what did he really see?  The muses took it and ran.