Chapter 2 - Driving Around
"You're mad," Dr. Eric Foreman, Dean of Medicine at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, said to what at first look seemed like an empty back seat. It wasn't though. There, lying flat on his back, with a baseball cap covering his eyes and half a face stood the man formerly known as Dr. Gregory House.
"And what does that say about you," asked House as he lifted his cap and let Foreman see his bright blue eyes and unusual long beard. He looked nothing like the man that used to be Eric's employer, or even his employee until approximately five months ago.
No, this man is nothing like House, Eric decided as he took in his appearance through the rearview mirror,
but it's House alright! The House nowadays had long, grey hair - kind of like when Eric had had first seen him after a year in prison - and an almost white beard that hid everything of his features that the black and blue cap didn't. He had yellowish teeth - the kind you get for smoking like crazy for a while and only the heaviest of stuff - and what looked like a knife cut just below his left eye - it was still healing and healing badly at it.
And then there were the clothes -
That's House alright, Eric repeated almost fondly as he noticed how that aspect of House changed: not at all. He was still wearing the same faded-out dark-blue jeans and even the same crumpled baby-blue shirt over a raggedy old t-short.
The man even has the same motorbike jacket, for crying out loud! "That I some aspects I'm just as fucked up as you," said Eric fighting a smile and a sigh. He hated being like House - the same as Chase hated it, as Cuddy hated it or Cameron hated it - but they - he - had to admit he was like House. They all were and that alone - okay, that, hard work and brains - had gotten them where they were now and that wasn't really a bad place to be. "I know that, House."
"House,"shriked House as if the name itself offended him. It was good acting - House always did good acting - but kind of exaggerated - House did good exaggerations too. "House's dead. I'm… eh… Frosty the Snowman." He smiled as Eric made a disgusted face in the rearview mirror and turned his eyes to the road. "Speaking of which - how's my… eh… House's department these days?"
"You mean Chase's department?" Erik asked, shifting his eyes from the road back to the mirror and lifting an eyebrow at his -
Dare I name him friend? Mentor… yeah, mentor - mentor in a mocking stare.
"If that's the Diagnostics Department on level seven next to the Oncology Department," smirked House, returning the raised eyebrow as no one ever could, "and has all those glass windows then that's the one. How's it going?"
Eric shifted his eyes again, sighed, but refused to answer. It wasn't like he was proud of it, but …
It's the only thing you could have done, Foreman, and you know it! "That bad, eh," grinned House some more - Eric didn't need to see the grin, it was loud and clear in his voice. What he did see was House swallowing two Vicodins as if they were Tic Tacs only a second after he heard the popping sound of the pill bottle's cap and gazed at through the rearview mirror.
"Still a junkie I see," said Eric with the usual disgust and indifference in his voice. Yeah he hated that House was doing drugs - it was bad for House, bad for the patients and bad for the hospital - but at the same time he appreciated every single pill of Vicodin when the man solved a case while on them, and he had to admit that House saved more people when he was drugged than any other doctor at PPTH did sober.
"Still not good at sidetracking a conversation I see."
Eric grinned and then sighed again. "It could be better." It always could be better - now, it needed to.
"It was better," House said as he stuffed the cap back on his eye hiding the upper half of his face from view; the beard did the rest, "We were better..."
"Chase's doing alright," retorted Foreman, but the fire wasn't there, not now.
"Who's on the team?"
"There's no …"
"And you expect DD it to function? I knew you were a lousy Dean of Medicine, but I never thought you'd top Cuddy."
"Fuck off, House. I'm doing the best I can, with the funding I have. Park and Adams stayed for a while… Taub resigned the day after your funeral. What was I to do?"
"The rats scatter first."
"Yeah, well, Park went back to Neurology about two months ago and Adams started in ER about two weeks ago."
"What a regular Cameron! She's dating Chase too, right?"
Eric chocked back laughter. "No… she's…"
"Yeah, she is! Anyway, why not hire…"
"No funding," Eric sighed.
"Maybe I've dreamt it or something, but didn't I left you with seven-fifty when I restarted the Department?"
"Yeah, seven-fifty and a nifty back clause of not being able to touch your money for a year after your demise!" retorted Eric angrily.
"And when did little ol' me did that you suppose?"
"I don't know," answered Eric sarcastically, "the night you 'died'? You had it all planned out, didn't you?"
"Mois?"
"Five months with Wilson and then what? Life in prison?"
"Maybe…"
Eric sighed, took another turn on the road - they were pretty close to the cemetery by now - and asked: "Why are you doing this, House?"
"What, conning you and the hospital out of my money?"
"Coming here…" replied Eric with another sigh, but he got no answer. House simply shifted a little on his seat, turned his back on his companion and stayed silent for the part of the car ride. He was done talking.
It was close to a half an hour before House spoke again and his tone was nothing like the light one he used before.
"Let me out at the curb. I'll get myself in from there."
Eric sighed again -
I shouldn't have asked, he mussed as the idea of saying something to his mentor came to him. He didn't though. He changed his mind even before he opened his mouth and simply followed House's instructions. He stopped at the curb, House got out and Eric spent the next five minutes watching the retreating back of his mentor, friend, employer and employee limping his way into the cemetery through a side gate.
Will I ever see him again, he wondered and suddenly realized that the chances he would where so slim they didn't even exist when compared to the chances he wouldn't.
