Title: Fellow Travellers

Author: Morgan72uk

Summary: House picks a very bad to walk out on clinic duty

Pairing: Not so much - but a House / Wilson / Cuddy piece

Rating: T (for injuries and some swearing)

Disclaimer: The characters aren't mine, please don't sue

A/N - Gosh - I haven't done this for the longest time. So, anyway - I like the ducklings but there is just something about House / Wilson / Cuddy that calls to me. My, but you could make a lot of mess between the 3 of them.

Also, this is my first posting on this site - I've read the guidelines very carefully - but still... Keep your fingers crossed that I understand this. There is another part - which I have written and hope to work out how to post. I was going for a dramatic pause.

Fellow travellers

You throw the ball, you catch the ball. You throw the ball, you catch the ball. Over and over, in an endlessly repeating cycle. Normally the rhythm helps you to think, frees your mind to roam through exotic and esoteric possibilities – to make connections. Exactly the type of thought processes you are currently trying to escape. Trying and failing to escape, you remind yourself bitterly.

Guilt. Not an emotion you are overly familiar with. You care little about the effect you have on others and so, are seldom troubled by remorse. By isolating yourself from human contact and relationships you believe you can avoid being hurt and that much at least is still true. But what you can no longer pretend is that you have done no harm.

This isn't one of those times when your treatment has caused someone to get worse, not one of the many occasions when you've had to rule something out on the way to making someone better. This time you haven't recommended a dangerous treatment on the outside chance that it might save a life. Your brilliant diagnostic skills aren't needed right now, the diagnosis is all too clear – punctured lung, multiple lacerations and severe blood loss. Only the prognosis remains in doubt.

You did nothing – except cause the problem in the first place. Other Doctors stabilised the patient, performed emergency surgery – you weren't there. You didn't even know until it was far too late. And isn't it easier to think in abstract terms, to think about 'the patient' rather than someone you actually know?

It is just so senseless, a classic case of someone in the wrong place at the wrong time; something that should never have happened. It would never have happened, the mocking voice in your head reminds you, if you'd been paying attention, if you hadn't been so intent on avoiding your obligations, of getting out of clinic duty.

You saw the guy in the waiting room as you arrived, automatically noted the sweats, the fidgeting, put two and two together – and then promptly forgot all about it. The clinic was unusually irritating this morning and the wet weather always aggravates the pain in your leg. You didn't want to be there and after four, pointless consultations, you decided you weren't staying.

Predictably Cuddy caught you on the way out of the door, tried to force you to go back. You ran right over her arguments with all of your usual ferocity, calling into question her professionalism and, just for fun, throwing in a quip about her weight. You noticed the guy again, noted that he seemed more edgy than ever; concluded he was definitely an addict looking to get drugs. But it wasn't your problem, you just wanted out of there and you couldn't care less about what Cuddy did to cover your absence. Except of course, what the incredibly busy Dean of Medicine did, was cover the remainder of your shift herself.

When they found her she was lying in a pool of blood, the exam room was wrecked, the drug cabinet broken open and there was no sign of her patient. She'd fallen inches away from the emergency alarm. Hours later Lisa Cuddy remains a hair's breadth away from dying in her own hospital – and despite an over-powering desire to find someone else to blame, you are forced to admit that it is all your fault.

You should have said something, should have warned her, even if you had to blow off clinic duty, your parting shot should have been to tell her that you thought the guy was on the edge. But you didn't. You catch the ball and slam your hand down hard on the desk. 'Damn it!'

She treated you, did her job – and you cursed her for it; because it cost you the use of the leg, because Stacy betrayed you, because she was the one still in range. Every day you punish her for the pain, for being the one to find you a way back, for offering you one of the few things you give a damn about.

You think that if God exists and happens to have a particularly sick sense of humour then she would have fallen ill with all kinds of bizarre symptoms. Symptoms only you can find the answer to. So, you would come to hold in your hands the life of the woman you enjoy viewing as the cause your many daily irritations. And then you'd save her, obviously – and neither of you would ever forget it. But, there is no God, you haven't saved her and only one of you might live to remember that.

Wilson walks into the office and drops wearily into the nearest chair. He looks as though he's aged 5 years in the last few hours, but if he's here it means he has news. He is the only person you can face hearing this from – something you are fairly sure that he knows.

'She's stable, the lung is OK, vitals look good and she should regain consciousness in a couple of hours.'

'The eye?'

'They saved it. But the lacerations are pretty bad. There will be scars, she'll need surgery – but obviously not for a while.'

'A permanent reminder.'

'Give her a couple of weeks and she'll be back on her feet, yelling at you for skipping clinic duty.' You recognise what he is trying to do and you are grateful to him for trying, or perhaps he needs to believe that too.

'She was attacked in her own hospital – you know how attached she is to this place, you think she's ever going to feel safe here again?' It is no surprise that Wilson doesn't have an answer to this, the thought that Cuddy might not feel the same way about 'her' hospital when she wakes up isn't something either of you want to dwell upon.

'This isn't your fault.'

'Of course not. She was covering my shift when she was stabbed, several times, by a man I had already worked out was a junkie looking to score. How could that possibly have anything to do with me?'

'Did you know he was violent? That he was going to attack someone?'

'I should have known.' You pick up the ball and start to throw it again.

'You think she wouldn't have made the same diagnosis as you did? She's a good Doctor – she's not a fool. If you'd have stayed you would have taken him into the exam room – and he'd have attacked you instead – and knowing what he wanted wouldn't have made any difference to that.'

This isn't something you want to hear – even though he may be right. The point is the only reason Cuddy was in that room was because you weren't. 'How many times do you think she's defended me, taken heat for me, kept me out of trouble?'

'What time period are we talking about?' The quip falls flat and Wilson tries again, 'look, it's you and Cuddy, you fight with her, about most things, she fights for you. No one really understands why, but we assume it's a twisted, competitive sort of thing – and it works.' Responding to that is just too complicated and you sit in gloomy silence until finally Wilson rouses himself to say,

'She asked for you.'

'What?'

'Before she went into surgery, she was conscious for a couple of minutes, but it was definitely you she wanted to see.'

'No.' You speak the word, hear and feel its resonance, assume your meaning is clear – but Wilson knows you too well to be easily daunted.

'She's lying in a hospital bed, she doesn't deserve a visit?'

'And what do you suggest I say to her? "Hey Cuddy, hope you're feeling better, sorry about the scars – but I guess we're even now?"' There is no reply, Wilson simply gets up and walks out of the room – and who can blame him?