Chapter one – Getting in touch

„House!“ he shouts from the other side of the hall and approaches with fast steps, his white cloak fluttering, because of the wind that it causes.

She stands by the reception desk, dressed in her surgery clothes, a little bit stressed and tries not to roll her eyes when she turns her head, because she knows the tone in his voice.

“Yes?” she asks and tries not to show him that she is stressed. It’s never a good thing to show your boss that you feel weak, she thinks.

“I want you to do the coming surgery,” he says and she waits for him to say something more. “You assisted my surgeries long enough, I want you to act now,” he says and she knows that a discussion is out of question. She always dreamed of doing this, she really wanted this but now when she gets her chance, she feels quite nervous and not being able to do this. She just started to work here and after a couple of months, he’ll let her do things like this, this is unbelievable, because you actually have to work a couple of years to perform a surgery like this!

“Got a problem with it?” he asks a little bit harsh and she frightens, because of his tone.

“No… no I don’t,” she answers and tries to clear her mind.

“Good, than get your ass into the surgery I won’t wait for good,” he says and walks off. She stays where she is and thinks about it for another minute and when she realizes what he just told her, she starts to run after him to be there right on time.

Almost two hours later, she washes her hands silently, thinking about the surgery she had just performed and she isn’t happy.

She was afraid from the beginning and she doesn’t know why. Maybe because of her boss Dr. Jackson.

She really respects him and she knows that he can be unfriendly and harsh and sometimes he also can be very hard, but she respects him and she knows that this makes him a great doctor and what she honours the most is that he can be humanly too. Sometimes, he can be and he is nice with his patients.

She’s not happy, with what she did although her surgery was great, she did everything perfectly and despite that, she can’t be happy.

She tries to figure out what she could change while she watches the water pouring down on her hands and behind her, she hears a door being opened and someone walks in, but she doesn’t turn around.

“What’s going on with you?” he asks and she knows that it’s Jackson.

“Nothing,” she says and tries not to show the slightest trace of an emotion right now and she knows her boss long enough to know that he won’t believe her and he knows her too good to know that she’s lying.

“You don’t look like there’s nothing.”

“I’m okay, really. Thanks for asking.”

“You did it great, I didn’t think you would, to be honest, but you did.”

“I appreciate this,” she answers.

“Don’t be too hard with yourself” he says, and leaves the room.

She sighs when he leaves the room and she absolutely doesn’t know what the hell is going on here.

Why couldn’t she just be happy with what she did, because she knows it was good and maybe it wasn’t good enough to her mind, but she also learned that she can’t be the best all the time, there are still a lot of things to learn.

She walks back into the clinic, because she’s to do clinic hours today and the shift just started so there will be a lot of things to do.

The sun begins to set out of the hospital and she can’t be happy with that either, because that means that it’s not that late right now and there are still a lot of hours left until she’ll be able to finish her shift and she is in a pretty bad mood today, because of reasons she doesn’t even know. Maybe she just slept less the past weeks.

The only thing she’s glad about is that one of her best friends has to work tonight with her.

“Hey John,” she says when she enters the on-call room. She drops herself on one of the free armchairs, because there are a few free minutes for her to breathe and calm down a little.

“I heard our doc performed some great surgery today,” he says and looks at her with a smile.

“Don’t know if that was so great,” she answers, staring into the air in front of her.

“You’re crazy, it was great.”

“How do you know that?”

“I heard our boss talking about it to some other doctor.”

“I don’t feel like I should be happy,” she says and sounds a bit angry about herself.

“That’s ridiculous,” he says.

“Don’t you have to work?” she asks and can’t oppress a smile.

“Nah, I’m hiding.”

“Still that old Lady?”
“She’s getting on my nerves,” he says and laughs.

“I’ll kill you if you plan to stay in here all night! There’s a lot to do out there!”

“Yeah honey, I won’t let you alone there, promise,” he says and lays down on one of the beds. “Just a few more minutes,” he says and she stands up.

“Nope. Get your ass out of here,” she says and throws a pillow at him before she leaves the room.

The night turns out to be more stressful than she thought it would. She had a couple of emergencies, some easy diseases, compared to the surgeries, like colds and flu’s. Around three in the morning, she feels very exhausted and is very thankful that it’s calm at this time in the morning. For a few moments, there are no patients waiting, no emergencies to treat and no surgeries to perform. She knows that this could change every second, but she uses this time to rest a little bit.

Again, she sits in their on-call room on one of the beds, leaning against the wall.
Her eyes are closed and her head leans back on the wall too.

She hears her boss’ voice and she knows that he will come in here and it took him only a couple of minutes to open the door and come in without a word.

“What is going on with you? Don’t tell me it’s nothing.”

“I don’t know what’s going on.”

“I told you it was a great surgery you did,” he starts and sits in front of her. “A lot of others here would be happy to have your job. Do you know what they would do to get a surgery like this? Usually they have to wait years to do that alone,” he pauses a moment and she just listens. “You’re a very skilled doctor and you’re obviously better than I thought you would be and I think you’ll be a great doctor one day.”

“Thank you,” she says silent. “It’s just that I sometimes think that I made a mistake. Nothing during surgery, sometimes I think it might’ve been a mistake to choose the neurosurgery,” she tells him.

“That’s not unusual,” her boss says and she wonders about his softness. This is what she likes about him. He can be such a nice man when he wants to. A good friend and in his rare moments, he can be like a father. One she never had. Of course there’s a distance between them, because he’s her boss, but she knows that he cares and so does she.

“Really?”
“You can’t imagine how much doubts I had when I started, it’s okay.”
“But why? I always thought I would be the happiest woman on earth, because this is what I always wanted.”

“Maybe you will be happy one day, but don’t forget you can never know what life does with you, but you can try it. The fears and doubts will fade away once you realize what you can,” he says and shows her a light smile.

“Thank you very much boss,” she says and watches him standing up.
“And know hurry on,” he tells when he’s about to leave the room. “We’ll get another emergency in a couple of minutes,” she takes one last deep breath and stands up to follow him.
How could she think he would come without wanting something afterwards?

change

“Why the hell do my best doctors have to be ill right now?” she asks Wilson a little bit bitchy with a questioning look on her face and he just lifts his shoulders to show her that he doesn’t have the slightest idea.

“That’s a good question,” Wilson answers. “Can’t you try to get someone else?” he asks. “Might not be that complicated,” he proposes and Cuddy laughs shortly while she busies herself with some papers without looking at Wilson.

“That’s what I thought too, but obviously it’s more difficult to get a neurosurgeon,” she says and looks up finally. “Someone who is good enough to perform this surgery,” she adds.

“Didn’t expect that,” Wilson says. “I always thought they would all want a surgery like this.”

“Probably not, because they’re not experienced enough, a case like this seems pretty rare and a lot of them never see something like this,” she explains.

“I see,” he replies. “When do you need a new doc?”

“I’d say as fast as possible, because I don’t know how long we still can wait,” she says and sighs.

“I gotta go, sorry,” he says when his pager rings.

“Sure.”

“Let me know if there’s anything I can do,” he offers.

“Thanks,” she says and he leaves her office.

change

“House,” she shouts, because she realizes that he’s not in clinic, doing his duty. “Get your ass into the clinic,” she says and enters his office and he doesn’t move from his chair.

“Cuddles, come one,” he says in a teasing voice and she gives him an angry look.

She rolls her eyes: “If you won’t be in clinic within the next minutes, you’ll do clinic duty until the end of your life,” she hisses and gets even angrier when he just smiles at her.

“Empty threats,” he says and leans back in his chair.

“Don’t rely on that, I swear,” she says.

“Why are you so angry today Cuddles?” he asks and enjoys what he’s doing right now. “Your boobs look great in that shirt,” he says and she leaves his office, but not without telling him to hurry up now.

She feels tired and stressed and she’s angry and for the twentieth time this day, she asks herself why she keeps him employed.

Back in her office, she lays her head in her hands and takes a deep breath. She needs a solution for her lack of neurosurgeons right now and she needs it fast.

After thinking about her disaster, she has to think about a doctor she knows quite good from some conferences. He’s a great neurosurgeon, he works in San Francisco, but this should not be a problem nowadays and she decides to give it a try and ask him.

How could she forget about him? She hasn’t seen him in a couple of years and she hopes that he will remember her.

She asks her secretary to look for the number and it only took her a couple of minutes to get her what she needs. She really is a great person.

change

She holds the phone in her left hand and uses her left hand to play with her glasses while she waits for him to pick up the phone over in San Francisco.

After a couple of minutes, she thinks about dropping the connection, but his voice on the other side stops her.

“Arthur Jackson?” he says.

“This is Lisa Cuddy,” she says friendly.

“Dr. Cuddy,” he says friendly and by the tone of his voice she knows that he remembers her which will make it probably a lot easier.

“How’s it going over there?”

“Just the usual thinks,” she says. “You know, lot of patients, the usual search for donors, trouble with your stuff…”

“Yeah, I think I know that too good,” he says. “What can I do for you?” he asks and she starts to laugh. He probably knows her better than she thought.

“Well, yes,” she starts. “There’s something I want to ask you.”

“Go ahead.”

“I want you to come here and perform a surgery,” she starts and waits for a reaction.

“And you call me for that? No good ones in Princeton?”

“Not really at the moment so I had to think of you.”

“Thanks,” he says and laughs. “What do you got for me?”

“A Trigonocephalus.”

“Wow,” he says seriously interested.

“You ever did that surgery?”
“Once,” he answered.

“Do you think you could do that again?” she asks.

“Yes I think I can do that for you.”

“For the patient,” she tells him without being unfriendly.

“Yes, sure,” he says. “When does the patient need me?”
“I would say as fast as you can arrange it.”

“Okay.”
“I can get you some more information before you get here so you’ll have the chance to have a look at it before.”

“That would be great. I will bring one of my doctors with me, she’s very good.”

“That’s good to hear. So what do you think?”
“It might work next week, I’ll have to manage some things, is that okay with you? I’ll call the next day in the evening to give you more details.”

“Okay, thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he says and drops the connection. She feels a little bit relieved, because there’s now a chance for her to get someone who will be able to do it and now she just have to wait and hope that the paperwork won’t take them such a long time.

change

“House,” Arthur Jackson says when he walks into the emergency room. “I hope you don’t have any plans for the coming week, I want you to fly to Princeton with me for a surgery,” he says and leaves her back with a surprised look on her face before she has to think of something to say.