verbal_kint | Dear God, I Don't Believe In You: Ch 13

Chapter 13: On Top of the World

If you think about it, the entire history of the universe has led up to this moment.

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In this particular moment, House was looking up at the hill before him with the resentment of a jealous ex-lover.

The snow continued to fall, preying on his face and the tops of his ears. He didn’t mind, only because of the few stray flakes that would land on his leg or shoulder, making him a little number, hence a little braver, too.

He reached into his pocket for his Vicodin, but came up empty. This is because his pills were now about 400 yards away, in a pocket, which was on a coat, which was on a Wilson. If the trees around him had brains or mouths they’d smile sadistically. If he had the energy he’d throw something. However, since neither thing was in existence, life carried on as it had 15 seconds before this discovery.

He began to walk.

He guessed he was about a third of the way up when he started to crawl. He watched the world around him tilt at fascinating angles as the slope got steeper. He still imagined the average golden retriever could make it up said slope in less than five bounds, but admittedly, Gregory House was no golden retriever.

He had to stop halfway up.

The funny thing about pain is that there’s really only a few levels that people can imagine, or visualize, if you will.

There’s no pain, firstly, which just about everyone but House could visualize.

Then there’s paper cut pain, synonymous with the pain of a pre-coffee headache or a post-Snickers bellyache, pains also experienced by the rest of the world. And true, while pain like this was what House would consider trivial, he felt it nonetheless.

It then goes on from there.

There’s the pain you feel as you edge your way along the higher side of your tolerance, the type that tests you in more brutal ways than your high school gym teacher.

And there’s also, of course, the kind of pain that toes the other side of your pain threshold. Ironically, you won’t be awake when you feel that kind of pain.

The pain that we feel in between however, is anyone’s guess. It’s too vague to be given a name or a metaphor, and it’s too severe to be hushed by a nap or a Tylenol. This kind of pain is the reason people feel compelled to say, “I’m fine” when they really aren’t.

House was stuck somewhere in this pain Twilight Zone when he stopped. He winced and rubbed his shoulder, noticing the looseness of the ligaments around his humerus and marveling at how Cuddy got the damn thing to stay in place.

He regretted thinking about Vicodin.

The moment did come, though, where he stretched his leg out in front of him and pawed at his thigh in some desperate attempt to make it stop shaking. That’s when he thought about the pills.

He thought he could write a love ballad to Vicodin if he had paper, patience, and a knack for imagery. But who needs imagery when you can get the real thing?

He estimated (by powers of ten) how much better he’d feel after those two pills. The number was large enough to put in scientific notation.

Trouble was, thinking about relief only made him feel worse. He’d left the Twilight Zone, and was now nearing nausea. He didn’t know exactly what pain level that was, but he knew it was pretty close to ‘fucking hard to deal with’. The last thing he wanted to see was regurgitated beef jerky.

This is when House remembered that he’d already seen regurgitated beef jerky today. This is when House remembered that there was more at stake than 10 minutes of pain and puddles of beef jerky in the snow. This is when House got up, and began to crawl some more.

He neared the top with his teeth drawing blood from his lips. He would’ve kicked himself for taking a break if he had a leg to stand on, but seemed to receive punishment enough in the climb. His yells were restrained to groans or a sharp intake of breath, as if even in the middle of nowhere he was wary of displaying his true amount of discomfort.

His hands shook as he sank down to his stomach. His vision blurred, and he slithered on, like a fly without wings—the kind that needs to be put out of his misery, but is too stubborn to get a hold of.

For the first time in his life, Gregory House’s ambition outweighed his talent.

But for House, this ambition didn’t seem to spring from fear of losing Wilson so much as from some deep-seated knowledge that without that stupid, screwed up oncologist, he’d really, really be alone.

Or maybe being out there in the freezing cold like some dying wet poodle just pissed him off.

Yeah, that was probably it.

And this anger seemed to increase exponentially with the slope of the hill. So it seemed fitting, that at the exact moment Gregory House couldn’t take it anymore, at the exact moment he touched the rock he’d use to bash his own head in, the slope became flat.

He felt asphalt.

He suddenly loved asphalt.

He’d never yearned for road rash until now.

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In this particular moment, Cuddy was looking up at the hill before her with the vexation she typically reserved for House.

But unlike House, the hill could not mock her cleavage, and so she took her time glaring up at the ridge, savoring her moment of power.

The snow began to seep through her jacket. She cringed as it rolled down the back of her neck. Her hands took the brunt of the cold. She flexed her fingers to get some blood flow to counteract the burning chill of the air, much to the chagrin of her left wrist.

She thought of that storybook about the little blue engine who made it up over a mountain on willpower and false confidence alone. She sympathized.

I think I can.

She began to walk.

She estimated she was about a third of the way up when things got tough. The slope was steeper, yet kind enough to offer a few good foot holds for the ascent, as well as some fallen trees (conveniently positioned by a Land Rover) which acted as improvisational ropes and railings.

Unfortunately, this did not detract from the hassle of having to use her arms. Her wrist didn’t hurt as much as it felt useless, like a pair of kid’s scissors, and last time she checked, the Little Engine That Could didn’t make it up the mountain with a broken wheel.

She didn’t have to stop halfway up, but she did.

She turned around to face the valley, not really sure why she was expecting to see House and Wilson emerge from the trees where she last saw them, triumphant smiles on their faces, rescue workers by their side. Maybe it was so she didn’t have to think of herself as their only hope.

She didn’t see them, didn’t see much of anything really. Chase was now merely a small, person-shaped speck, next to a less small, Land Rover-shaped speck. The valley seemed to stretch out a little farther than they all had guessed, taking little loops around bunches of trees like a rogue piece of spaghetti while it met the road in more hills every 500 feet or so.

Damn, she hoped they were okay.

She’d have a hard enough forgiving herself for getting everyone into this. If something happened to House or Wilson…she really didn’t know what she would do.

But for now, she did what was presumably the only thing she could do. She climbed some more.

As hard as it was to admit, Cuddy’s ambition had frequently outweighed her talent. And in that case, running on sheer determination, making perseverance a way of life, imitating the Little Engine That Could—it all seemed natural. Her passion was equal to the task.

Her wrist hurt now, throbbing to a beat it shared with her pulse. To her, it meant she simply wasn’t working hard enough. So Lisa Cuddy worked harder.

She scuttled her way up the last few feet, not bothering to pace herself.

I think I can.

Her hand hit asphalt.

She put her face against the side of the road, as if it were the warmest, most alive thing she’d seen all day.

And had the emotion not already been claimed by House, she would’ve professed her undying love for asphalt, too.

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Dear God, I Don't Believe In You: Ch 13

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