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WIP: stabbed!Wilson; Part 9
- 3 hours
"Hey."
The word was uttered in a soft, quiet tone, but it startled House all the same. He jumped slightly and looked up, blinking until the blurry haze in front of his eyes had cleared and the image came into focus.
Cuddy was standing in the doorway of the OR observation room, hands on the doorframe, looking at him with a slightly worried frown. House ran a hand over his face and cleared his throat. "Hey," he answered, his voice kind of rough.
Cuddy pushed herself off the doorframe and came over to sit beside him on the uncomfortable bench. Together, they looked down into the OR, where the surgical team was still working on Wilson.
"I think they're about to close up," House said.
Cuddy nodded. "I just talked to the guy at JFK," she said. "The flight Wilson's parents are on is getting special landing priority. They should be here within three hours. Maybe even a little less."
"Whom do we need? Mommy or Daddy Wilson?"
"They had their GP fax their medical records to the hospital. Neither of them ever had an Ab-HF antibodies test, but his father is type B."
"Mommy Wilson, then." House had met Wilson's mother twice, on Wilson's last two weddings. She was a tiny woman with Wilson's dark hair and eyes. On first impression she seemed very quiet, almost shy, but House had quickly found out that she possessed both an extremely dark sense of humor and a will whose strength almost matched his own. She had proven a both interesting and challenging partner of conversation.
Knowing her personally also gave House a basis for an estimation of the amount of blood she would be able to donate. Two units would be pushing it. Anything more would be irresponsible.
Neither House nor Cuddy were the type for rhetorical what-if questions - that was more Wilson's field of expertise - but House knew that Cuddy was calculating hours and crit values in her head, comparing them to what she remembered from her ER rotation and wondering whether it was justified to hope. He was doing it too. Re-calculating, actually. Mulling it over and over and trying to find a way to tweak the maths so they would tell him Wilson would be alright. It was bad science, but for once, House didn't care.
They were silent for a while, and House felt his eyelids growing heavier again. It was past 3 a.m., and the only thing that had kept him from falling asleep during the last hour was the persistent twinging in his leg that seemed to intensify every time his eyes threatened to slip shut.
He was just wondering whether he should maybe go and find a place to lie down for a couple of hours before Wilson's parents arrived when suddenly, Cuddy gave a small gasp beside him and sat up straight. House quickly raised his head, and when he looked down into the OR, he felt his heart jump into his throat.
The whole surgical team was in commotion, the surgeon gesticulating at the nurse to get the crash cart. The monitors were flashing, and even though he couldn't hear it, House knew their alarms were blaring. The heart monitor was showing an irregular, fluctuating line.
"Oh my God."
Almost simultaneously, House and Cuddy got to their feet. House was marginally aware of Cuddy's hand on his elbow, but he didn't pay her any attention, clutching his cane tightly and forgetting to breathe as he watched the surgeon grab the panels.
Wilson's body jerked violently as the electric jolt ran though him. The nurse watching the heart monitor shook her head, and the surgeon raised the panels again.
Come on, Jimmy, don't do this, House thought, the rapid beating of his own heart too loud in his ears. Come on!
Another jolt, another headshake, and House heard Cuddy make a small sound beside him. He didn't wait for the surgeon to raise the panels again but turned around and headed for the staircase.
Each step sent a sharp stab of pain through his leg, but House didn't pay it any attention, pressing on regardless. He could hear Cuddy's high heels on the stairs behind him. In less than twenty seconds, he was down the stairs and at the door to the OR. He pushed it open.
"Three-fifty!" he heard the surgeon's voice over the racket of the various alarms and beeping monitors. "And clear!"
House stood just inside the door, unmoving and almost unaware of Cuddy beside him, fixedly watching the heart monitor. The jagged line on the screen was interrupted for a second as the surgeon used the panels again. House held his breath, and felt his stomach drop as the line returned and the monitor's alarm changed to a grating, sinusoid blaring.
"Asystole!"
House was about to take a step forward when he remembered that he wasn't sterile and stayed where he was. Instead, he raised his voice loud enough to be heard over all the noise the monitors made. "It's not," he said. "Fine defib. Shock him again."
The surgeon turned around. "House, what are you doing here? Get out of my-"
"Shock him again," House said, fixing the surgeon with a hard stare and ignoring the way his throat was threatening to close up. "It's not asystolic."
For a short moment, House could see that the surgeon - his name was Hilton or Hinton or something like that - was fighting for a decision. Shocking a patient who he thought was clearly asystolic against giving up on PPTH's most popular head of oncology and admitting they'd lost.
After what to House seemed like an eternity but couldn't have been more than a few split-seconds, the surgeon turned back around. "Out of the way," he barked at the nurse who was doing CPR. "Panels, once more, to four hundred. And clear!"
This time the silence from the monitor seemed even longer. Nobody moved, and for a very brief moment, complete silence fell over the OR.
Then there was single bleep, and the noise returned with it. "We have a rhythm!" came the voice of the anesthesiologist.
House didn't wait for the surgeon to answer. He was feeling unreal. It was either walking away or sitting down right where he was on the floor, so he pushed the door behind him open with his back and went past Cuddy out into the corridor.
She followed him. For a moment, the two of them only stared at each other. House could see that Cuddy was both trying not to fall apart and to find something - anything - to say. He felt the brief, irrational urge to hug her, to hold on to her and make the physical contact make him feel all there again.
Of course, he didn't. He simply backed away until he felt the smooth panelled wall of the corridor behind his back and leaned against it, sliding down until he was sitting on the floor. He tried to concentrate on breathing slowly and regularly.
After a moment, Cuddy came over to sit down beside him. Still, neither of them uttered a word. House wasn't sure if his voice would have cooperated, had he tried to say something.
Wilson had been dead. For a brief while, Wilson's heart had not been beating, and the worst thing about it was that even though they had gotten him back, they still couldn't help him. Still had no blood to give to him.
Three hours, Jimmy, House thought, clutching his cane a little tighter. I need you to hold on for three more hours. Please.