house md viewer

---------------------------------

Remy was going to call her father. She was. Any day now. 

She’d been back in PPTH for over a week, had cleaned the year’s worth of dust from where it had collected on every surface of her apartment, she was nearly settled back in. His number was on a list on the fridge, where it had always been. Her phone didn’t ring, and she didn’t dial the number.

She had, at least, spoken to him since Jason… passed. But only once, on the phone after the trial. The conversation was maybe five minutes long, but felt like an hour, full of heavy silences and shaky inhales. He knew what had happened, but didn’t bring it up. Didn’t ask, didn’t even say Jason’s name, just uneasily stating platitudes about loss until she wanted to throw the phone at the wall, scream at him, he’s gone, he’s gone, and I’m going too, But she didn’t. She hadn’t even told him about her own diagnosis, considering his awareness of the possibility cruel enough for a man who had already had his wife and only son waste away and die. So instead she let him talk about nothing and ask her to call him when she got out, they exchanged "I love you"s, and his voice was tinny through the correctional center landline, smaller and farther away than ever. 

The next call she’d made was on the very same phone six months later, the night before her release, but wasn’t to her father. The release officer had offered her a free one, which she used to reserve a cab from the service advertised on a poster next to the phone. Dad knew where she was. Nobody else needed to. 

Except that someone did. Because how could he not. Her impromptu road trip with House passed like a weird fever dream, like a snapshot from another life. At first an inconvenience, another of his quirks, somehow ending in her stepping into her cold, empty apartment late at night, home for the first time in a year, and finding herself nearly staggering beneath the weight of what he’d said in the car. Sinking to the floor in the kitchen and weeping, not with grief, but with relief, a warmth so deep inside her chest she thought she’d never be able to breathe past it.

She learned to. They didn’t talk about it when she went back to work on Monday, they probably never would. But they didn’t have to. It wasn’t like she was going to forget.

The first week passed, the case wrapped up. She avoided looking at the phone when she got home, but finally checked her voicemail just for the hell of it. No missed calls.

The next Monday, she came into the diagnostics office to find Chase lounging with his feet up on the table and Taub puttering around at the coffee station. Chase was wearing another heinous checkered shirt and sweater vest combo that didn’t match his shoes, so focused on the crossword in his lap he barely murmured hello, much less noticed her raising an eyebrow at his outfit when she came in. Taub nodded at her from across the room.

“Where is everybody?” She asked, draping her jacket on the coat hanger and heading over to the table.

“Foreman went to the cafeteria.” Chase muttered. “House is… somewhere.”

“Of course.” She glanced at the few case files scattered across the table. “What’s on the docket?”

“Probably nothing. He’s in a mood. And there’s nothing good today.”

She glanced over at House’s office and sure enough, the blinds were drawn, door shut. She dropped into one of the chairs opposite Chase and pulled a file towards her, flipping it open. She cleared her throat. “Fifteen year old girl with-”

“Drugs.”

“Alright, then we have… 40 year old man, history of leukemia-”

“STI. We read them all already. There’s nothing. And I told you, he’s in a mood.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Is he the only one?”

“Leave me alone.” He narrowed his eyes, pressed the top of his pen to his cheek. “What’s the shallowest of the great lakes? Four letters.”

“Erie.” Taub piped up from the counter, turning slowly with a precariously full coffee mug. “You were in a good mood on Friday, what happened this weekend? Bad date?”

Chase glowered at the page, scribbling in the answer. “Nothing happened. Leave me alone.”

“Alright, sunshine.” He glanced at Remy. “How was your weekend, Thirteen?”

“Uneventful.”

“Hmm.” He sat down and took a sip of his coffee, glanced around. “Mine was fine, too. Thanks for asking.”

“Anytime.” She pushed back her chair and rose. 

“Where are you going?”

“To get some clinic hours in.”

“Feeling industrious today?”

“Feeling bored. Page me if something interesting happens.”

“You’ll be waiting for a while.”

She made her way down to the elevators at a pace perhaps slightly brisker than necessary. Sue her, she wanted to get to work. The weekend really had been uneventful, and too long, sat at home with her thoughts and rote chores, not in the mood to go out, too restless to relax. Trying not to think about what had her feeling so unsettled in the first place. She’d tried to House it briefly, tell herself her guilt was useless, meaningless, even. But the results were as middling for her as they probably were for him.

House, who was, think of the devil, emerging from the research laboratory doors right in front of her, tucking something into the inside pocket of his jacket. He stopped when he saw her, clearly not expecting it, but narrowed his eyes and let the door shut slowly behind him in lieu of startling.

She raised her eyebrows. “Morning. Busy?”

“Very.”

“Well, there is always pressing business to take care of in the lab.”

“Nosy isn’t a good look on you.”

He started off down the hallway, and she followed, which made him sigh. 

“What do you want?”

“Nothing. I’m headed to the clinic. You’re dabbling in mad science now, is that why we’re blowing off cases today?”

He gave her an incredulous look. “You’ve been back for a week already. Get with the program.”

“I’m with the program. But not even checking to see if there are any interesting ones, that’s not usually on it.”

“Are there any interesting cases?”

“...No.”

“Of course not. Nobody’s ever dying when we need them to be.” They came to the elevator at the end of the corridor, and he hit the button with the tip of his cane. “End of the road. Stop following me now.”

“I’m not.”

“Then go to the clinic and do your job. Cuddy’s going to think you’re stalling or something.” The word hit like cold water in her face, like her cellphone, suddenly burning a hole in the pocket of her white coat. The elevator gave a soft chime and slid open, and he strolled in, leaning heavily on his cane and quickly hitting the close doors button before she could get on. “I’m going up.” He said over the closing doors with a mock apologetic shrug before very obviously hitting the button for the lobby. She rolled her eyes, headed for the staircase. 

-

The clinic was routine as ever, bad flus and rashes and joint pain, prescriptions and forms, a blur of faces and names, the rote but tiring process of giving her full attention to each one. Her pager stayed quiet all morning. After lunch, she found herself clocking out for a break, wandering to the park outside the hospital, telling herself she needed the fresh air. She found a free bench and sat, watched the old couples and joggers, the mothers with their strollers, letting her mind wander. 

She wasn’t stalling. And if she was, wasn’t it justified? It wasn’t like her father was in any hurry to get in contact, either. No, that wasn’t fair. It wasn’t his fault for not calling. She knew that. He’d asked her to call him, hadn’t he? He knew she liked her space. He’d never overstepped those boundaries before. Never come close.

She knew why. It was easier for both of them, to stay away, to not have to feel the glass wall between them, in the same place it had been ever since her mother died, growing thicker by the day. A little harder, a little more soundproof. If he was angry with her, she wouldn’t know. Probably not. It didn’t matter now. If she didn’t have to face the silence between them too often, she could make a convincing case to herself that it didn’t bother her at all. That she didn’t even notice the way the distance grew a little wider every time they spoke. 

She pulled her phone out, turned it over in her hands, opened it and clicked into her contacts list. When was the last time they’d talked before she’d left to help Jason a year ago? She wasn’t even sure. No, the distance wasn’t new. It wasn’t unfamiliar at all. 

Remy didn’t think of her childhood before her mother’s passing much, but she distinctly remembered the day their mother died, which she spent waiting at home with Amy and Jason. Dad was at the hospital with her, having been called by the doctors early in the morning. She heard him having the whispered discussion with Jason in the hall, before the sun was even up. Heard them agree that Jason would stay home with his sisters, explain it to them. There was no need for them to see her like that, Dad said. She wasn’t in her right mind anyway. 

Amy was only seven then, so after breakfast she had sat at the dining table, quietly drawing pictures, just happy to be staying home from school, seemingly unaware of the pall that had fallen over the house. Jason had fussed in the kitchen for the better part of the morning, doing dishes from breakfast, cleaning out the fridge, avoiding his sisters in the other room. He’d driven back home from college without hesitation when their father called to tell him it was time a few days prior, but now that he’d arrived, he seemed eager to be anywhere else, seemed unable to look anyone in the eyes. Remy had sat on the couch, turned the television on and back off, wandered around the house, finally tried to read a book in her room, but couldn’t even keep track of which line she was on. She vaguely recalled that at some point she grew so antsy with the silence, she came into the kitchen and announced to Jason that she was going to go take a ride on her bike. He’d told her no, said they needed to wait for dad to come home. When she demanded to know why, his mouth just opened, closed, his gaze locked on the wall somewhere above her head, and he swallowed hard. 

“Just wait. Okay?” He muttered at last, voice weak in a way she had never heard it before, turning back to the sink, the soapy plates and pans. Jason, she had thought vaguely to herself, hated chores. When he still lived at home, mom used to have to nag him to do the dishes, to do anything at all. 

Remy turned and left the kitchen. She parked herself on the couch, irritated, and watched Amy draw, feeling a knot form in her stomach, a lump in her throat, not from tears, but something heavier, darker. Something she wouldn’t be able to name for years.

That was how their father found them when he came home not an hour later, when Jason appeared in the doorway of the living room, Amy looked up from her notebook, and Remy could only turn her head in his direction. They knew that she was gone before he even spoke. He said it anyway. The moment was etched in Remy’s memory. The exhausted slope of his shoulders, Jason in the corner of her vision, walking over to Dad, pulling him into an embrace, the sound of Amy starting to cry at the table, and her own limbs, frozen strangely into place. The horrible release of the tension in the pit of her stomach, some kind of sickening relief, the urge to laugh, the unwanted burn of tears behind her eyes. Most of all, the way Dad had looked through her, when she finally dared to peer up and meet his gaze. Like she wasn’t even there. Like she was already dead.

-

She didn’t call her father on her lunch break. Or after the rest of the workday, which she spent busying herself in the clinic. By the time she clocked out and made it back up to the office, it was dark outside, and the others had already left.

At least she thought they had. As she was gathering her coat and purse, the door to House’s office opened on the other side of the glass. She looked up, and found he was, of all things, seemingly just arriving, wearing his coat, so he’d been out. She smiled, and he scowled, but she opened the door of the divider and came in anyway.

“Very busy day?”

He dropped a bag of chinese takeout on his desk. “Do I really have to remind you what killed the cat? What are you still doing here? You haven’t been in the clinic this long.”

“I have.”

“You just got back. Can’t be behind on your hours already.”

“Just getting ahead.”

“Code for staying busy.”

His tone held a question she didn’t want to answer, so she pulled her purse onto her shoulder. “See you tomorrow.”

He opened the takeout bag, peering inside. “Thirteen.”

“Yeah?”

“Chicken or beef? It’s Lo Mein.”

“I have plans.”

“No you don’t.”

She hesitated just long enough for her stomach to growl, which prompted him to raise an eyebrow. She sighed, dropped her purse on the desk and took the chair on the other side of it. “Chicken.”

-

There was hardly anybody in the halls by the time they were leaving, the smaller night crew and sleeping patients making the hospital quiet, the lights in the rooms all dimmed. 

“You ever gonna reveal what was eating you all day?” He asked as they approached the elevator, to which she gave him a thin smile.

“You ever gonna reveal what you were doing in the lab?”

“Touché.”

“You can guess if I can guess.”

“Go ahead.”

“I think…” She hit the call button and looked up at him. “You were stealing something.”

“Like?”

“Drugs?”

“Very creative.”

“Am I wrong?”

“I said you could guess, not that I’d confirm. My turn.” He narrowed his eyes at her, made a face. “It’s not your impending death again, is it?”

She barked out a laugh, shook her head and stepped into the elevator with him as it opened.

“Well?”

“I said you could guess, not that I’d confirm.”

“If I am right, you need new material for your ruminations. You’ll get bored.”

“Thanks for the tip, House.”

“Besides, everybody dies. Realistically, all you have to worry about is the possibility that I’ll die first.”

She scoffed a half laugh, though it rang hollow in her chest. The only ones in the elevator, they watched the floor numbers tick down in silence.

Out in the lobby, they pushed out of the front doors, and stopped for a moment. The front of the hospital was lit by harsh, bright parking lights, but just beyond the lot, in the park, the crisp autumn darkness had swallowed the rest of the world, not a star visible in the sky past the lights of the city.

“I was… going to call my dad today.” She found herself saying quietly, before she could think. She felt House’s gaze settle on her. “Just got in my head about it… procrastinated for a while.”

“Did you do it?”

“Left a voicemail.” She lied without thinking, without knowing why, and his gaze lingered as if watching her would draw something more out of her.

“You haven’t talked to him since you got back, have you?”

“Told you, I left a voicemail.” She didn’t look to see if he believed her or not. “What would happen?”

“If…?”

“If you died first.”

“Is that some kind of threat?”

“What? No, I just…” She opened her mouth, closed it, shook her head. “Never mind. Goodnight, House. Thanks for dinner.” She turned away from his narrowed gaze and started toward the lot.

“Thirteen.”

She stopped, glanced back at him. He was silent for a long moment, gazing at her shoes. She busied her hands with buttoning up her jacket. 

“I won’t.”

She let out a laugh, like it was funny. “Right. As long as you’re careful with those drugs you stole.”

He didn’t smile at her, but his eyes did. “Always am.”