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WIP: stabbed!Wilson, Part 12
When House stepped outside the hospital into a crisp late September afternoon, the sudden onslaught of fresh air made him realize just how long it had been since he'd arrived for work the previous morning. As he crossed the parking lot, the thought of the last time he'd stayed the night at the hospital came to his mind. The girl with the staph infection had been dying, and Wilson had been there as well. Not his patient, not his case, but he'd been there, providing coffee and a distraction until falling asleep in House's chair and drooling all over his shirt and labcoat.
House felt a smirk tug at the corner of his mouth at the mental image, but the expression somehow changed along the way and turned into something more bitter. He pushed the memory aside and, after donning his helmet and stowing away his cane, got on his bike. When he started it, the motor sounded unnaturally loud in the quiet of the afternoon. He revved the engine a couple of times just out of spite and then drove off, heading down the broad avenue towards Baker Street.
Except that the last thing he wanted right now was to go home. Going home felt too much like admitting defeat. But sitting next to Wilson's hospital bed, waiting for him to wake up while every passing hour reduced any hopes for a positive outcome to a desperate clinging to straws, that wasn't any better.
House was growing desperate to do something. Patiently waiting for things to happen had never been his strong suit. He had racked his brains how to speed things up a bit, some sort of procedure that would tell him for sure whether Wilson was only taking his time or whether he was really gone. He'd come up blank. With every discarded idea, however, he'd grown more restless and impatient. Maybe going home wasn't such a bad idea. If he'd stayed he might have done something stupid.
He stopped at a red traffic light, intending to turn left towards Baker Street, when a familiar building a few hundred meters down the street caught his attention. He contemplated briefly, and then, as the traffic light switched to green, he pulled over away from the filter lane, ignoring the driver of the car whose way he'd cut across angrily blaring his horn, and continued on down the street. A minute later he pulled into the parking lot in front of Princeton's police station and killed the engine.
Maybe there was something he could do, after all.
Princeton Police Station was not exactly a place of happy memories for House, and the thought that crossed his mind as he pushed the door open - what if Tritter still works here? - almost made him stop in his tracks. But then he shoved the thought aside and pushed on regardless. If he really ran across Tritter in here, maybe the cop would finally give House a reason to punch him out. At the moment, House couldn't have been less concerned about the consequences.
He crossed the room and laid his cane across the reception desk, successfully drawing the attention of the young desk clerk who had been staring at his computer screen with the sort of breathless attention only porn or minesweeper could attract. Huge eyes met House's, and House decided it had been porn.
"Uh, can I help you?"
"Yes, you can," said House. "I want to talk to the officer who's in charge of the investigation of the stabbing at PPTH."
"Stabbing? I dont- oh, yes, stabbing." The clerk turned to his computer again. "Uh, may I ask what exactly is this about?"
"I'm a witness. I need to talk to the guy in charge."
"Uh..." The clerk shifted in his chair and clicked his mouse a couple of times. "You're Dr. Gregory House?"
"Indeed I am," House said. His patience was wearing thin. "If you want to see my license, I don't have it with me. You can check the PPTH homepage, though, there's a picture of me under Diagnostics. In the meantime, call the guy in charge of the case, will you?"
"Uh, I'm not sure-"
House planted his palms on the counter and leaned in closer, making the clerk withdraw a bit. "Call - him - already," he said.
"Uh, er, okay, just a- just a moment."
Satisfied, House straightened up and watched the clerk reach for the phone and dial a short internal number. He didn't stop glaring at him when the clerk risked another glance at him, and between a lot of uh's and ah's and erm, well's, the kid managed to relay the message of House waiting in the lobby with new info on the stabbing. Then he hung up.
"Uh, Detective Lesley will be here in a moment. You can, ah, take a seat, if you want." He indicated an arrangement of old threadbare armchairs and a low side table with magazines, and with a last glare at the kid, House limped over there and dropped into one of the seats, glad to get off his feet. His leg hurt, and he would have taken a pill, but he didn't have any on him. He'd taken the last one earlier today.
He'd only sat there for a moment, trying to decide whether the People magazine that lay on the table actually was worth moving for, when a tall, lanky guy with floppy dark hair entered his field of vision. House looked up and the guy fixed him with eyes that in this light could have either been green or grey.
"Dr. House?" he asked.
House nodded. "Hello, Detective Lesley," he said. He didn't get up to shake Lesley's hand, but the cop didn't seem to mind. He lowered himself into one of the chairs across from House.
"Call me Ian," he said, and House smirked dryly but didn't say anything. Ian raised an eyebrow. "So, you're the sole witness of the stabbing, yes?"
"Indeed I am," House said. "And yet, the only cop who ever wanted to know anything from me was a twenty-year-old newbie fresh out of the police academy. I'm here because I was wondering if you really had gotten all the information from me that you could have gotten."
If House's rudeness bothered Lesley, he did a good job of hiding it. "I would have called you and talked to you at some point in the investigation, if there had been any investigation," Lesley said. "The way things developed, however, there was no need."
House frowned. "What do you mean, the way things developed?"
Lesley looked a bit confused. "Haven't you seen the paper?"
"No, I haven't," House said. "I had other things demanding my attention."
"Right." Lesley seemed to be a bit uncomfortable, shifting in his chair and avoiding to directly look at House. "How is Dr. ... Wilson? That was his name, wasn't it?"
"Yes, that is his name," House said, trying to ignore a surge of irrational anger directed at the cop. He should probably give him credit for remembering the name at all. "And he's not doing very well. Now, what did you mean with the way things developed?"
"Well," Lesley said, seeming even more uncomfortable, "we checked out the address that Mr. Bates gave your triage nurse. We didn't think it would turn out to be valid, but surprisingly, it did. As did the name. The man was actually called Bates."
"How ironic," said House, but he didn't feel very amused. Lesley gave a nervous little smile and continued.
"When my people arrived there, they stumbled into a bit of a drama. Bates had apparently gone up to the roof of the apartment building and was threatening to jump." Lesley licked his lips. "None of the people living in the building knew what had happened, obviously. They thought someone had called the cops. My men went up there and tried to talk him down, but -"
"They didn't succeed," House finished Lesley's sentence, already knowing that this was the truth. Lesley nodded, and House tried to swallow. His throat was very dry all of a sudden.
"Bates was apparently in outpatient care at a mental facility," Lesley continued. "He had a history of schizophrenic episodes and psychoses, but he had never harmed anyone else or himself. His doctors - at least the ones I talked to - considered him a more or less harmless headcase."
House pursed his lips and nodded. "Which only proves that doctors are idiots, doesn't it."
Lesley obviously didn't quite know what to do with that statement. "Well," he said finally, "I don't think anyone could have foreseen-"
House decided he wasn't really interested in hearing this. He got to his feet and interrupted Lesley in mid-sentence. "No, I guess they couldn't have," he said. "Thanks for your time, Detective."
He headed past Lesley towards the door. From the corner of his eye he could see the cop getting up.
"I'm sorry about what happened to Dr. Wilson," he said.
House almost stopped to turn around and face him, but then he didn't and kept on walking, only raising a hand instead.
As he stepped outside, the day hadn't gotten any warmer, but it had gotten a bit darker. The days were growing short again as the year grew older. House made his way across the parking lot and mounted his bike, heading back up the street and towards home, where he was planning to make himself forget about this whole fucking mess best as he could.
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And I have to admit, for one teeny tiny second I was waiting for House to run into Tritter there, but I'm glad he didn't. :-)
Huge eyes met House's, and House decided it had been porn.
LOL!!
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Thanks for the comment! Glad you enjoyed :).
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In any event, I love this story. Great medicine, great characterization, good tempo. Nice variation b/t chapters like this and the heavy medical stuff. Lotsa angst!!!
Thanks for sharing.
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Well, I'm happy you're enjoying it! If you ever find anything to critisize, don't hold back!
Got your email :). I'm on it! Will get around to doing it Tuesday at the latest :).
Thanks for the comment :).
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lol, Tritter. (I have to say, I'm glad you didn't bring him in, because he generally makes things a bit implausible--but that's just my opinion.)
The desk clerk was definitely looking at porn, hee. Not that I speak from experience or anything.
And I really like the last paragraph, too--it has the feel of a novel to me.
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Lol, word. Nah, I don't want him in this fic. I just thought it would be improbable for House to walk into Princeton Police Station without thinking of him :).
Thanks for the comment! Happy you're enjoying it :).
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Yeah and this story is wonderful. You really have done a great job and actually I want to know how it goes on. Oh and I´m also really glad that there will be no Tritter in your story. Oh boy, I want to read more.
Tommorrow I have to work again and I really hope they let me see the lj-sites at work again. That´s not funny there without lj (I hate the new firewall or whatever makes sure that you leave the lj-sites whenever you push the enterbutton *grrrr*).
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I'm going to have to start playing minesweeper more often. ;-)
Seriously though, I'm really enjoying this fic. I especially liked how House corrected the detective when he used the past tense when referring to Wilson. You tell 'em, House!
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