The Uncertain Hour of the Burning Heart

Bardvahalla 2005

When House first walked into the clinic examination room, he observed that her eyes were unnaturally hard and cold. During the entire confrontation, she showed almost no emotion, and that bothered House even more than the assault. That and the no heartbeat thing.

She complained of an irregular heartbeat. He pulled out the stethoscope, placed it on her chest, and leaned over to listen. After several seconds his brow furrowed. He checked the other side. What both puzzled and intrigued him was this woman appeared to have no heartbeat. He listened intently for several seconds, then stood up and scribbled the word 'WTF?" in the file. He took note of her name. Alba Ross.

"Were you dead when you woke up this morning?" he asked, "or have you been dead for some time?"

The woman lurched up suddenly and kicked his good leg out from under him. House fell heavily to the floor, and in a non-existent heartbeat, she deprived him of his pills, his cane and his dignity.

As she stood over him, she held his cane casually in her hand. The hook rested on her shoulder. Her arm was tensed and ready to strike him if he resisted. "Sit down - " The woman motioned calmly to a chair. "and I'll tell you a sad story, Dr. House."

She allowed him to crawl up into the chair. Once he was situated more comfortably, she told him he had killed her son. She had his cane, his painkillers and his full attention.

"Your heart…" he started to ask.

"Thanks to you, Dr House, it's broken. It's broken because I no longer have my son - again, thanks to you. He came to the clinic a couple of months ago. Just a minor problem really."

She handed a photo to him. Handsome boy. A bit pudgy and tall for his age. House, of course, could not remember his name. He only vaguely recalled the case at all. If he was certain of anything, it was only that this could only have happened in the first few days Cuddy had forced clinic duty on him. He was tempted to lie and say he remembered, but instinct told him it would be a terrible mistake.

The woman's bitter blue ice eyes rarely blinked. "You don't remember him, do you?"

"No, I don't recall him," he admitted. He adjusted his leg and winced in pain. He wanted the Vicodin, but didn't dare ask for it back.

"In pain, Dr. House?" That smile of hers disturbed House greatly. It was a harsh, shark-like smile. She rattled the pills in the bottle and said, "I'm glad you're in pain, Dr. House. It will keep you alert while I tell how he died."

"Oh, just get to the point," House barked impatiently. "What do you want? Money? An apology? Or are you going to beat me to death with my own cane? That'll bring your son back, won't it?"

Her sharp smile melted away. "I do want my son back, Dr. House, alive and well. But since that is unlikely, I'll have to choose another option."

House squirmed and faked being in more pain than he actually was. Better to let her believe she had the upper hand. He felt the cell phone in his pocket. If he was careful, he could type through the fabric without her realizing what he was doing. He decided not to text-message Cuddy. The odds of her responding were next to nil. He'd cried wolf far too many times. Hand in pocket he slowly and carefully typed H-E-L-P and then pressed Wilson's number. He squirmed a lot as he typed. He cringed in pain to divert her attention.

He couched as he pressed 'send'. He twitched and pulled his hand away from his pocket, pleased with himself. Wilson would come soon. He just had to humor the crazy woman for a while. "Since I can't bring him back to life, what are you going to do? Sue me?"

"That was one of my original thoughts." She alternatively played with his cane, just out of his reach, then tossed the Vicodin up in the air and caught it again. "Money doesn't interest me, Dr. House, and since malpractice insurance would cover any lawsuit, I felt it wouldn't truly get my point across."

"And your point is?" House squirmed and twitched and hoped Wilson would hurry the fuck up and save him from this insane bitch.

"I want you to suffer, Dr. House." Again, she raised his cane menacingly. That awful smile was back and he knew she wanted to strike him, just for sheer pleasure. "You don't even know what you did - or in this case, didn't do, that resulted in his death, so I want you to pay for killing my son."

"What did you have in mind?" House softened his voice to a leering whisper. "I like being spanked so maybe we can work something out." House slipped his hand back over his pocket and began to type the word H-E-L-P again. He would try Chase this time. Where the HELL was Wilson, anyway? Probably bonking some Nurse on his lunch hour, House thought sourly.

She ignored the spanking comment and tapped his cane against the floor. "At first, I was going to go to the press with my story. I hired an agency to find more out about you first. I figured anyone so inept would have a long history of malpractice. I planned to ruin you, to make you a laughing stock and make certain that you never practiced medicine again."

The cane stopped tapping. Her icy blue eyes focused on him with obvious resentment. "Imagine my surprise when I found out about your exemplary reputation. The arrogant but brilliant, Doctor House. Oh dear. That did cause me a moment's grief. All that skill, all that talent, and yet, inexplicably, my son is dead."

"What was your son's name?" he asked. She obviously wanted him to acknowledge him. He decided to throw her a bone.

Her mouth twitched angrily. "Liam."

House adjusted his leg again and winced dramatically. "Refresh my memory and tell me what happened."

The woman leaned on the cane and stared at him without blinking. She really gave House the creeps. She hardly blinked. No heartbeat. Her name danced on the edge of his mind. It was a false name, obviously. Alba Ross. It would have some sort of deeper meaning.

"He came to the clinic," she said. "He had an ingrown toenail. Imagine that! In this day and age dying from such a little thing. Any yet… my son is dead because you couldn't be bothered about properly treating such a minor problem."

A memory twigged. the boy, despite looking much older, had only been about 15 or so. He distantly remembered looking at the kid's foot and thinking this sort of work was beneath him, and what the hell was Cuddy doing forcing him to deal with crap like this? He recalled stomping out after making some sort of caustic remark.

She set his cane well out of reach and opened the bottle of Vicodin. "I know you don't like working in the clinic here, Dr. House. The report from the agency I hired detailed several patients complaints about you. You even convinced one man to repeatedly slap himself, did you not?"

House hit the wrong button on the cell and it made a loud beep. He winced. He realized he was sinking into very dangerous and murky waters. With an effort he modified his tone. "Ms. Ross, I regret what happened to your son but - "

"Liar!" The cruel smile was back as she hissed. "Such ego. Such hubris. Really, Dr. House, you exceed every vile expectation I had of you. You regret nothing. You behaved badly to avoid what you felt was not considered worthy of your great mind." She dropped a Vicodin on the floor. When it rolled to a stop, she crushed it beneath her shoe.

House's hands clenched. He tried not to look at the pills. "So what exactly happened to Linus?"

Her eyes narrowed. "Liam." She dumped a dozen pills on the floor and crushed them one by one. She took a breath. House took solace in that simple act. If she needed to breathe then she was human. The lack of a heartbeat could be explained, surely. It was well documented that monks in the far East could nearly stop their hearts while in deep meditation. That would, however, be a bit of a trick for the average American female who was in the process of holding him hostage.

"We waited so long to see a doctor that Liam got hungry. I left to buy him something to eat. I was only gone a few minutes. But when I returned you'd given him a staggering thirty seconds of your precious time before you left in a huff."

"Nothing should have gone wrong if he followed my instructions." House said acerbically. House had no idea what instructions he'd given, if any. He recalled saying something vague and pithy.

Her eyes glittered dangerously. "Do you recall your exact words, Dr. House?"

He didn't.

The pain in his leg was getting worse. He twitched. Why wasn't anyone answering his call, dammit? His fingers ventured towards the phone hidden in his pocket again. He'd try Cameron. Cameron would come...

"Do keep trying to call your friends, Dr. House, but I highly doubt anyone will rescue you."

House's hand froze. That awful smile teased at her mouth.

She twirled the cane playfully. "A memo was posted this morning. Anyone enabling your childish tricks at getting out of clinic would risk being immediately dismissed."

House felt sharp fist clench at his stomach. "You-"

"I didn't want anyone to disturb our little talk, Dr. House." She dropped several more Vicodin and, once more, crushed them beneath her shoe. "Oh dear. Not many pills left."

House twitched and squirmed, but now his discomfort was very real.

"Do you remember what you told my son, Dr. House?"

"No." His voice was tinged with fear and pain now.

"No? Do you remember removing nail that was causing an infection, Dr. House?" Not so gently, she tapped at his bad leg with the curve of the cane. He hissed and gritted his teeth.

"No."

"You see, Dr. House, my son had Asperger's syndrome. He was very bright, but he never could grasp little things like body language. Sarcasm was completely lost on him. Whatever you told him he took literally. So when I came back, he insisted you said he was fine."

The fist that had taken hold of House's gut twisted sharply to the right. His leg throbbed in growing waves of building agony. He looked at the Vicodin dust on the floor desperately.

"You gave him no advice, nor did you treat the problem, Dr. House." She wagged a sharp nail at him. "You didn't even prescribe an antibiotic for, what was then, a slight infection. You didn't do anything. You just blew him off and because you didn't take the problem seriously, neither did he."

House recalled the case a little now. He called Cuddy in to consult or something. He'd left the kid's foot for someone else to deal with. It was only a minor foot infection, after all. He figured they would wait, or complain, or find someone else to deal with it.

She rattled the few remaining pills in the bottle. "You must also understand, Dr. House, that Liam has - had - a fairly high pain threshold." A flash of guilt flared in her in her eyes, then once more they became icy cold.

"He never once complained. A couple of days later Liam went on a week-long school ski trip. My son's foot became septic in his winter boots. By the time he realized something was seriously wrong, his foot was gangrenous. Swollen. Septic. He said nothing. He didn't want to ruin the trip for everyone. He passed out on the slopes. He died two hours before I could get to him."

House was looking at the floor. Drops of sweat were starting to seep down his face, into his thin beard and down his neck. His lab coat was soaked through. It itched. He wanted the pills. He wanted the heartless woman to go away. He wanted all this to be a terrible lie.

"Dying from an ingrown nail is a rather stupid way to die, don't you agree, Dr. House." She shook the pills in the bottle at him like a baby's rattle.

House's white knuckled fingers imbedded his nails in the palms of his hand. The pain in his leg was building and building. He felt cold and afraid. No one would come. No one was going to help him.

"Yes. Very stupid," he conceded in a whisper.

"What is my son's name, Dr. House?" she asked.

"Liam," House whimpered.

"Very good." She exposed her dreadful sharky grin at him. "You remembered! So… feel free to avail yourself of your medicine, Dr. House. I won't stop you." She backed away from the crushed piles of Vicodin on the floor and waited.

House swallowed dryly. He looked at the crushed Vicodin scattered on the floor. House was past the point of caring. He cringed in agony as he slipped out of the chair and onto his knees. His hand shook as he dragged the edge of his hand across the floor and made a little pile of the drug. He pinched at it with his fingertips and brought it to his mouth. Mixed in with the Vicodin there was grit, dust and worse. He choked in revulsion as he pulled a short dark hair off his tongue.

She held out a small paper cup of water. He took a mouthful and swallowed the crushed pills. He sat on the white tile and stared at the streak marks his shaking hands had left on the floor.

Finally, the painful edge started to become duller. "Happy now?" he asked.

The woman with no heartbeat pulled out a small box wrapped in shiney, silver paper. She knelt down and opened it for him. "I have a little present for you, Dr. House." Inside was a platinum locket attached to long chain. A seabird was engraved on the front of the locket. Words were engraved on the back.

She spoke them aloud.

"The man hath penance done,

and penance more will do."

She opened the locket. On one side was a portrait of a boy, Liam presumably. On the other, secured under glass, was a long ragged, bloody nail entwined with blonde hair.

"Your arrogance killed my son, Dr. House," she said. "So, you will wear this locket every day for the rest of your life. You will wear it to remind you that your arrogance can kill people as well as save them. If you do not do this for my son, I will sue you for every cent you have. I make certain that the press eats you for breakfast. I swear on my son's life you will be never practice medicine again."

House gazed at the macabre contents of the locket. Her words hissed and stung his ears. His breathing became heavy and labored. It was just the sort of story that Vogler would take delight in using to discredit him.

Are you listening, Dr. House?" she whispered. "Do you understand?"

House looked from the locket to the floor and back again. His Vicodin tainted fingers took the locket from her. His reply was a coarse whisper.

"Deal."

"Put it on," she told him. "This is the albatross around your neck. This is your penance. A reminder that you may be brilliant but you are still fallible." Tears seeped from her now blinking eyes. "You will properly treat every one who needs you, no matter how much it bores you, is that understood?"

House pulled the chain over his neck. It was heavy, this locket. Heavy with truth and regret.

Her blue eyes warmed, and took his hand. When she held it to her breast, House could feel that the heart was now beating within. After a moment he gave a nod.

Liam's mother stood and looked down at him. "I will, of course, make a point of checking on you to make certain you are wearing the locket, Dr. House."

"Of course, you will." House rubbed at his leg. The floor was cold, and he was still sweating. It hurt to breath. He made himself meet her eyes. "So the spanking thing is a no go, then?"

She put the bottle of Vicodin up on the counter out of reach, next to his cane. She retrieved her son's picture, then opened the door. She paused to gaze back at the locket around House's neck.

"Looks good on you, Dr. House." She gave him a curt nod before she left.

Still panting, still in great pain, House crawled to the chair and pulled himself up. He was shaking in rage and humiliation. He lurched to his feet. He lumbered over to the sink and retched his disgrace into it.

He splashed water on his pale face, then he sobbed in relief. House grasped the Vicodin bottle and shook the remaining pills into his hand. He swallowed the remaining painkillers. It took several minutes for House to clean himself up and pull himself together. In the mirror he saw the locket swing from his neck. It put him in mind of a convicted man condemned to hang.

Once he felt strong enough, House wretched open the door. He stalked to the pharmacy, had the prescription refilled and then left the hospital without speaking to anyone.

Epilogue:

By the end of the night, the locket with the etching of the albatross felt familiar around his neck. He did not take it off, even when he crawled into his bed that night. The heavy chain felt like long finger around his throat, but despite his burning desire to rip it from his neck, House did not remove it.

His fingertip slid back and forth across the locket, across the etched bit of poetry.

House could not rest until he finally found the poem by Coleridge in a worn volume of popular verse. His tired eyes, at length, found the line that he needed. It was the last line.

He rose the morrow morn"

House closed the book, tucked the locket under his shirt and went back to bed. When he finally slept, House dreamed of painted ships on painted oceans.

FIN

Notes on 'The Uncertain Hour of the Burning Heart'.

The title and the literary parallel here is based on the poem by

Samuel Taylor Coleridge poem, 'The Ryme of the Ancient Mariner'.

This story is also based on a real medical incident, except the boy did not die.

It struck me that an extreme version of this would make a neat House story. Imagine if Dr. House's arrogance caused such a stupid death. How would he react? Lawsuits are common, but what if the parent of such a child realized House's unusual nature was better served by letting him continue practice. How then do you find poetic justice?