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sick_wilson2007-07-07 05:18 pm
nightdog-barks.livejournal.com) wrote in sick_wilson2007-07-07 05:18 pm
Welcome to Wherever You Are (10/11)
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house_wilson.
TITLE: Welcome to Wherever You Are
AUTHOR:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nightdog_writes
PAIRING: House-Wilson, strong friendship, other OCs
RATING: A strong "R".
WARNINGS: No.
SPOILERS: Yes, for the S3 Tritter Arc and how it ended.
SUMMARY: Old enemies can turn up in the most unexpected places, and when those enemies are in positions of power ... all bets are off.
DISCLAIMER: Don't own 'em. Never will.
AUTHOR NOTES: Part of Wilson's dream in this chapter was written byasynca, who did a much better job than I.
BETA: My awesome First Readers, with especial thanks tobironic, cryptictac, and blackmare_9.
Chapter Ten
Wilson is dreaming.
Majestic ice floes, polar oceans, bears and Arctic foxes. Siberian tundra and birch forests. Trout streams in northern woods, grizzlies and caribou, reindeer and sleighs, Citizen Kane and Rosebud. Snow falling out of a silent grey sky, covering everything under white down quilts in a quiet, quiet dream.
He doesn’t think he’s had breakfast; but he’s not hungry, so he must have. He can’t remember a drop of water passing his lips, but he feels comfortable, cool – he probably scooped up a handful of the snow surrounding him and buried his chilled lips in it.
Someone was walking with him, earlier; they were talking, reminiscing. He must have taken a different track than Wilson, because when Wilson spins around, eyes scanning the tundra for him, he’s gone.
He doesn't know what day of the week it is, or what month. Everything is the same here, wherever here is.
His systems are starting to shut down.
He's stopped sweating.
"No, I'm not looking for Area 51," House told the gas station attendant. "The aliens are already here among us, looking for brains to take up to the Mothership, which obviously means they're not going to take you! Now can you tell me what side road this is on this map? Because it's not labeled -- the cartographer must've lost his colored pencils that day!"
Instead of answering, the attendant -- a young kid with jet black hair, spiked into a Mohawk -- backed away.
"Moron," House growled, and drove off.
He'd visited the third Tritter labor camp early that morning, hoping to catch at least a few inhabitants unawares, but it had been just like all the others -- happy officials, happy guards, and happy, brainwashed inmates.
At least, House assumed they were brainwashed. How else could they be so happy? No one could be that happy, cooped up in prison, no control over their lives, an endless, suffocating boredom, all the tomorrows creeping in their petty pace from day to day ...
House blinked as he realized he was quoting Shakespeare.
Still. He would've killed himself.
There must have been a certain eternal insane optimism, House thought, that had prompted someone to put a park bench in front of a rest stop, at which the only attraction appeared to be an ever-growing collection of sagebrush, tumbleweeds, fornicating prairie dogs and jackrabbits.
Optimism that anyone would ever stop here, and insane optimism that anyone would find rest here.
House laid Broom's map beside him on the bench and bent over, resting his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.
He was never going to find Wilson. The trail of breadcrumbs had long since been devoured, the Minotaur was at the gate, and Elvis had left the building.
For the first time since the infarction, House thought the world just might win this round.
A shadow fell over the bench, throwing the folded map into darkness.
"Wow, dude," someone said. "Are you okay? You look like you just lost your best friend."
House looked up. The man standing beside him loomed as a solid black mass, silhouetted against the sun. He held something out, and House caught a familiar, distinctive odor.
"Want some fries?" the guy said.
"I'm Jack," said Jack. He'd taken a seat, uninvited, beside House and was now carefully unwrapping a McDonald's Quarter Pounder with Cheese, licking his fingers as shreds of melted yellow cheddar stuck to them.
He was of medium height, casually dressed in jeans and a plain, dark blue t-shirt. His straight black hair, shot through with strands of grey, was tied back in a ponytail with a thin leather thong, and he had a broad, tanned face and slightly flattened nose. His eyes were dark brown, almost black, and he whistled softly as he folded back the greasy paper.
"Jack," House said skeptically. "You got a last name?"
"Quetzalcoatl," Jack said. "Tiresias. Black Elk. Obadiah. Wovoka. We are all known by many names in our passage through this sphere." He took a big bite of his hamburger.
House snorted. "Great," he said. "Got any more New Age bullshit you want to spout? Any mantras you want to share? Although Wovoka's a good choice around here -- the guy who invented the Ghost Dance and convinced his followers their button-downs could stop bullets."
Jack stopped chewing for a moment and looked at him. "Very good," he said. "Not many whites around who could've made that connection. Does it really matter what my last name is?"
"No," House admitted grudgingly. He rubbed tiredly at his eyes.
"So what's the deal?" Jack asked. "Who died? Who didn't die? Who should die? Coyote playing tricks on you? Raven? Egyptians on your trail? Seen a white buffalo calf in your dreams? Cortez just land on your shore? Need Stonemother to rock you to sleep? Wanna buy some peyote buttons?"
House stared. "You ask a lot of questions," he said at last.
"And you don't seem to have any answers." Jack took another bite of his burger and looked seriously at House. "Funny how that is."
Warden Tritter leaned back in his chair and smiled. The latest report from the hotbox was excellent.
According to the guard who'd lifted the hatch and peeked in, the prisoner was mostly comatose, lying in his own filth and waking only to mumble nonsense syllables to hallucinations and ghosts. He'd been racked by increasingly powerful cramps, and often appeared to be gasping for breath.
The recorded temperature inside the cell was 118 degrees.
The Warden's smile widened.
Quite the ugly end for such a respected doctor, he thought. I was right -- my little "news bulletin" broke the man; the beating and starvation were just the icing on the cake. The Warden grinned at his own metaphor. Mike had told him the whole story -- the hoarded pills, the forged prescriptions, the liars who'd kept the arrogant son of a bitch from going to jail. The man made a mockery of the judicial system, he thought. Well, Dr. Wilson would die alone and in agony -- and that cocksure junkie with the six hundred pills would never know what had happened.
The Warden laughed softly as he reached for the tall glass of iced tea that had come with his lunch. No, definitely not enough pills in the world to ease that bastard's chronic pain now.
Oh, today was going to be a very good day indeed.
Lisa Cuddy had reached a decision. She tossed her napkin on the table and called for the check.
She'd heard no news. No news of Wilson, no news from House, no new leads, thank you very much we're doing all we can.
Well, that was it. She'd reached the end of her patience. House could stay out here and indulge in all the crazy conspiracy theories he wanted -- she needed to get back to the hospital.
She'd decide what to do from there.
Cuddy pulled her cell phone from her purse and prepared to book a seat on the last flight out of Vegas that night. She would stay as long as she could today, but her hospital was her first responsibility, and she knew that.
Why, then, did she feel so terrible?
" -- and that's what I think happened," House finished, and sat silently. He'd told the man on the park bench beside him everything, starting all the way back with the return of his leg pain after the failure of the ketamine treatment.
It had seemed of the utmost importance not to leave anything out, even though he had barely been able to speak above a whisper at times, in certain parts of the story.
He'd finished it with the events of the past week, and how he'd been looking, but there were just no clues, nothing to go on, and he felt so helpless. And that wasn't how Gregory House was supposed to feel.
The hamburger had long since been eaten, the paper wrapper wadded up and placed in a trash bin, and still Jack sat silently.
"Well?" House asked roughly. His throat felt constricted. He didn't know why he'd told this stranger all these things.
"Dude, that's one hell of a story," Jack said at last. "You sure you're not really a writer or something?"
"Ah, crap," House groaned, and started to get up.
"No, no -- wait!" Jack put a large hand on his shoulder and gently pulled him back down. "I believe you, I really do. The Tritters run this county like their personal fiefdom, and there've been plenty of rumors about folks disappearing before your friend. Come on now. So you've talked to the police, and you've talked to some of the cops here, and you've been to the camps --"
"Three of them," House said. "Visiting the last one this afternoon, but I already know I won't learn anything new. That's the ... what?"
Jack was looking at him with narrowed eyes. "Four camps? They told you there were four camps?"
House nodded, puzzled. "Yeah. The detective in Vegas -- Broom -- he pointed them out on the map."
His companion was shaking his head. "Oh, dude," he said. "Everybody in Hellebore County knows there's five camps."
"Are you sure that's it?" House asked accusingly. He peered back over the ridge. "It's hardly bigger than a football field!"
"Easier to keep an eye on the people you want to keep there," Jack replied dryly. "That's it, doc, and if your friend isn't a tso'ape yet, that's where he is."
House frowned. "What language is that? Shouldn't you be speaking Paiute?"
"Shoshoni." He caught House's curious stare. "I ... uh ... travel around a lot."
House was sweating; Jack appeared to be perfectly comfortable as the Nevada sun crept past its zenith. They'd left House's rental car by the side of the dirt road -- Jack had ridden shotgun, leading them on a circuitous route along back roads and gravel paths as they'd gotten further and further off the beaten track.
The really tricky part, though, had been climbing this ridge -- the loose scree and gravel underfoot had been extremely treacherous, and House had almost fallen twice before he'd finally taken the hand Jack had stretched out in assistance.
They'd finally gotten to the top, and lay on their stomachs as they poked their heads cautiously over the edge.
"Well, it's still pretty damn small," House growled. "Come on, let's go take a closer look."
"Whoa! No, no, no!" Jack grabbed his bicep even as House started to lever himself up. He pulled House back down and kept a tight grip on his arm.
"First off, you are not the Lone Ranger, and I am sure as hell not your Tonto. We are not going to go marching down there -- that place has a bad reputation for a reason. You are going to wait until at least sundown, when the light gets long and the shadows play tricks on the guards' eyes. Okay?"
House ground his teeth in frustration. As much as he hated to admit it, Jack was right. It wouldn't do Wilson any good if House got himself killed now, when he was so close. He dropped his head back against the dirt and sighed.
"Okay," he agreed. "But as long we're here you can make yourself useful. Teach me some Shoshoni. Teach me how to count to ten."
" -- and Woman missed her children so much that her tears formed a great lake, and she sat there for so long that she turned to stone. And that is the story that the Pyramid Lake people, the Kuyuidokado, tell about Stonemother."
"I thought you said you were Shoshoni," House mumbled, nearly asleep. The warmth of the sun on his face and the heated soil under his back had relaxed him, and he felt curiously boneless.
"Nah, I didn't say that," Jack replied. "I'm not originally from around here."
"Where are you from? You Navajo? Lakota? You from the East Coast? Mohawk?"
Jack laughed. "No," he said. "I'm -- "
He sat up suddenly, his eyes narrowing. "What the hell's that?"
House sat up too. "What's what?"
Jack pointed. "That," he said.
A black line, V-shaped like a skein of migrating geese, was rapidly approaching out of the west. Out of the setting sun.
House squinted. What the hell?
A clattering roar grew in the air as the black line swept closer. The ground began to shake.
"Holy SHIT!" Jack screamed, and threw himself on his stomach, hugging the earth.
House lay flat, his heart pounding, exhilaration and adrenaline flooding his system as the attacking Apache and Black Hawk helicopters streaked overhead, their bellies seemingly close enough to touch. They disappeared over the ridge.
The wash from the choppers' rotors stirred up a whirlwind of sand and vegetation, and for a moment it was impossible to see. House gradually became aware of Jack sitting up next to him, scrubbing at his eyes and spitting out grit. The roar of the helicopters had barely lessened -- it was obvious they were hovering somewhere very close by. The deafening rapid-fire explosions of 30 mm cannons firing made both men duck again and cover their heads.
"Damn, dude!" Jack yelled. "You didn't tell me they were filming a Die Hard movie out here!"
House rolled over and peered over the ridge.
The helicopters were in station over the camp, firing at the wooden legs of the guard towers and into the dirt. Bullets spanged off the rolls of barbed and razor wire, and the guards, unused to shooting at anything that shot back, had thrown down their rifles and were running for their lives. House stood up.
"Yes!" he whooped. "YES!"
"Dude, what are you doing?" Jack shouted. "Get down! You don't know who these guys are!"
"Isn't it obvious? They're the cavalry!"
Jack rolled his eyes. "Yeah, well," he muttered. "Like that's always been such good news for my people."
Cuddy sat on the barstool in the airport lounge, sipping a Bloody Mary and listening for her boarding call. She'd waited as long as she could, but with no communications forthcoming, she'd finally taken a cab back out to McCarran International.
"Well, willya look at that!" someone said.
She looked up; over the bar, the Jazz/Pistons game had suddenly been replaced by what looked like a movie trailer for explosions and testosterone but was labeled BREAKING NEWS.
Conversation in the bar stopped.
"Turn it up!" a guy said, and others echoed the request. The bartender touched a control, and the excited voice of a reporter came bursting through the set.
" -- and in this daring raid on the secret prison camp, it appears that the influence of the powerful Tritter family in this part of Nevada has been broken, or at the very least, dealt a serious blow!"
The reporter, a small woman clad in what looked like a bulletproof Kevlar vest two sizes too large for her and a black baseball cap with "PRESS" lettered across the front, whirled around, looking for someone to talk to.
"Is that Christiane Amanpour?" one of the bar patrons asked.
The guy next to him squinted at the screen. "Nah," he said. "Not horsey enough."
In the background, Cuddy could hear faint cries, see armed men in black flak jackets with "FBI" and "ATF" and "U S MARSHAL" stenciled across the back. They were pushing lines of prisoners, other men in uniform, their hands clasped behind their heads.
"Lieutenant! Lieutenant!" the reporter called, apparently having found an unwary victim. The Lieutenant, in full battle gear, looked intensely irritated.
"Lieutenant! Have you secured the camp? What did you find? Have you arrested the Warden yet? What can you tell us?"
Cuddy squinted suddenly. There was someone else in the background, getting closer to the TV camera ... someone who looked all too familiar.
"Hey! Are you the guy in charge here?"
The officer's head jerked around. "Who the hell are you?" he demanded.
"Oh, God," Cuddy breathed. "House."
"Who the hell are you?"
"Dr. Gregory House," House yelled. It was still extremely loud inside the camp, and what sounded like flash-bangs were going off not too far away. "I have reason to believe a friend of mine is being held here!"
"Lieutenant!" Another officer was suddenly next to House, panting. "We found the guy you wanted us to look for!"
"What? Who's this?" House asked.
"Is he alive?"
"I don't know, sir. He looks like he's in pretty bad shape."
"Shit!" Angrily, the Lieutenant pulled off his helmet, revealing a shock of bright red hair. "Come on -- you too, Doctor. We gotta get him out of there."
The first thought that came to House's mind when they hauled the man out of the hot, stinking pit in which he'd been imprisoned was of Michelangelo's Pieta. He was gaunt and filthy, his ribs showing clearly beneath the bruised and battered skin. He was naked, with ugly lacerations below his waist that obviously continued underneath his stiff, matted pubic hair. He bore the characteristically vicious blisters of electrical burns, and the insides of his thighs showed raised, angry marks that looked like insect bites and stings. His left ankle was swollen and bloody.
He caught a glimpse of the man's back and shoulders as the officers pulled him up, and saw the fresh and half-healed stripes of multiple lashings. The agents laid the man gently on the ground, and among all the other cuts and wounds, House saw the contusions and rope burns from the man's desperate struggles. His gaze drifted upwards, to the man's neck, the terrible bruises and torn skin ...
House's heart was in his mouth. This prisoner had all the marks, all the distinguishing signs of being brutally tortured over a number of days. And that meant this couldn't be Wilson. Because if it was Wilson ...
"Oh, God," House whispered, and then, with an almost audible snap!, time was moving again and people were shouting, and medics were crowding around Wilson.
"Pupils are fixed and dilated. Tachycardia, probable internal bleeding, jaundice, hypovolemic shock."
"What's his core temp?" House snapped.
"Digital reads 106.7 -- bad enough but the real reading's probably higher," one of the medics replied. "Gotta get a rectal up him to tell for sure." He cursed as Wilson began to hyperventilate. "Fuck. Come on, bag this guy," he yelled. "And we need water over here!"
"Get those cuffs off," the Lieutenant growled. "Get those fuckin' cuffs off!"
Someone produced a universal key, and the handcuffs were quickly unlocked. House grimaced as Wilson's freed arms fell limply to his sides.
"Ambulance?" the Lieutenant asked.
"No time. We don't get him on the Pave Hawk, we're gonna lose him. Shit, all his veins are collapsed -- I can't get an IV in."
"Saphenous," House ordered.
"On it," the medic answered, moving towards Wilson's ankles.
"Water comin' through," someone yelled, and everyone leaned aside as a bucket of the cooling liquid was splashed over Wilson. As the water roiled away, the voices of the medics rose again in well-practiced chorus. Their voices blended, House's among them, until he couldn't distinguish one from the other.
The only person who was silent was Wilson.
"Where's the ice bags? I want the ice bags here, now!"
The gel-filled bags appeared, and the medics quickly thrust them under Wilson's armpits and into his groin.
"Are you pushing the Ringer solution? Because I don't like -- oh, crap, buddy!"
Wilson had started to seize, his hands quivering and his heels drumming on the ground.
"Midalozam -- zero point zero five now, push it again every fifteen minutes."
"We're not gonna be here for fifteen minutes!"
"You're right -- tell the guys on the Pave Hawk. And where the hell is that bird?"
As if on cue, there was a thunder of chopper blades overhead.
"Good job. Get this guy on the stretcher and get ready to winch him up. Hey, doc!"
House looked up, startled.
"Wanna take a ride on the big black bird? Tell your grandkids about it?"
"Go ahead," the Lieutenant said, looking at House. "I know who you are now. Wilson talked about you a lot."
"I don't understand," House said.
"I was here too. Undercover." The Lieutenant smiled wryly. "This was a huge operation, lots of personnel, and your friend came within a hairs-breadth of blowing the whistle two days early."
The big rescue helicopter was hovering overhead, and House watched as Wilson's stretcher was slowly winched up and gathered into its side.
"Tell Wilson," the Lieutenant shouted in House's ear, "that Tooey said he's sorry!"
"Sorry for what?" House yelled.
Tooey shook his head. "He'll know."
Then the harness was strapped around House's legs and torso, and he braced himself as the crank turned far above and he was lifted into the air.
A cool breeze ruffled his hair as he ascended. It was like riding some exotic carousel, a merry-go-round horse that ran as swiftly as the wind. It was like being on the back of the fastest motorcycle ever built. It was like flying.
He felt like Icarus, but he was determined not to let these wings melt.
~ Chapter Eleven
NOTES:
Some fascinating information about the Native American leader Wovoka may be found here.
A Shoshoni-English dictionary, part of a larger project sponsored by Idaho State University, is here.
The Native American story of Stonemother may be found here.
Articles on heat exhaustion, dehydration, and heatstroke are here, here, here, and here.
An interesting write-up on the Pave Hawk helicopter may be found here.
house_wilson.TITLE: Welcome to Wherever You Are
AUTHOR:
nightdog_writesPAIRING: House-Wilson, strong friendship, other OCs
RATING: A strong "R".
WARNINGS: No.
SPOILERS: Yes, for the S3 Tritter Arc and how it ended.
SUMMARY: Old enemies can turn up in the most unexpected places, and when those enemies are in positions of power ... all bets are off.
DISCLAIMER: Don't own 'em. Never will.
AUTHOR NOTES: Part of Wilson's dream in this chapter was written by
asynca, who did a much better job than I.BETA: My awesome First Readers, with especial thanks to
bironic, cryptictac, and blackmare_9. Chapter Ten
Wilson is dreaming.
Majestic ice floes, polar oceans, bears and Arctic foxes. Siberian tundra and birch forests. Trout streams in northern woods, grizzlies and caribou, reindeer and sleighs, Citizen Kane and Rosebud. Snow falling out of a silent grey sky, covering everything under white down quilts in a quiet, quiet dream.
He doesn’t think he’s had breakfast; but he’s not hungry, so he must have. He can’t remember a drop of water passing his lips, but he feels comfortable, cool – he probably scooped up a handful of the snow surrounding him and buried his chilled lips in it.
Someone was walking with him, earlier; they were talking, reminiscing. He must have taken a different track than Wilson, because when Wilson spins around, eyes scanning the tundra for him, he’s gone.
He doesn't know what day of the week it is, or what month. Everything is the same here, wherever here is.
His systems are starting to shut down.
He's stopped sweating.
"No, I'm not looking for Area 51," House told the gas station attendant. "The aliens are already here among us, looking for brains to take up to the Mothership, which obviously means they're not going to take you! Now can you tell me what side road this is on this map? Because it's not labeled -- the cartographer must've lost his colored pencils that day!"
Instead of answering, the attendant -- a young kid with jet black hair, spiked into a Mohawk -- backed away.
"Moron," House growled, and drove off.
He'd visited the third Tritter labor camp early that morning, hoping to catch at least a few inhabitants unawares, but it had been just like all the others -- happy officials, happy guards, and happy, brainwashed inmates.
At least, House assumed they were brainwashed. How else could they be so happy? No one could be that happy, cooped up in prison, no control over their lives, an endless, suffocating boredom, all the tomorrows creeping in their petty pace from day to day ...
House blinked as he realized he was quoting Shakespeare.
Still. He would've killed himself.
There must have been a certain eternal insane optimism, House thought, that had prompted someone to put a park bench in front of a rest stop, at which the only attraction appeared to be an ever-growing collection of sagebrush, tumbleweeds, fornicating prairie dogs and jackrabbits.
Optimism that anyone would ever stop here, and insane optimism that anyone would find rest here.
House laid Broom's map beside him on the bench and bent over, resting his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.
He was never going to find Wilson. The trail of breadcrumbs had long since been devoured, the Minotaur was at the gate, and Elvis had left the building.
For the first time since the infarction, House thought the world just might win this round.
A shadow fell over the bench, throwing the folded map into darkness.
"Wow, dude," someone said. "Are you okay? You look like you just lost your best friend."
House looked up. The man standing beside him loomed as a solid black mass, silhouetted against the sun. He held something out, and House caught a familiar, distinctive odor.
"Want some fries?" the guy said.
"I'm Jack," said Jack. He'd taken a seat, uninvited, beside House and was now carefully unwrapping a McDonald's Quarter Pounder with Cheese, licking his fingers as shreds of melted yellow cheddar stuck to them.
He was of medium height, casually dressed in jeans and a plain, dark blue t-shirt. His straight black hair, shot through with strands of grey, was tied back in a ponytail with a thin leather thong, and he had a broad, tanned face and slightly flattened nose. His eyes were dark brown, almost black, and he whistled softly as he folded back the greasy paper.
"Jack," House said skeptically. "You got a last name?"
"Quetzalcoatl," Jack said. "Tiresias. Black Elk. Obadiah. Wovoka. We are all known by many names in our passage through this sphere." He took a big bite of his hamburger.
House snorted. "Great," he said. "Got any more New Age bullshit you want to spout? Any mantras you want to share? Although Wovoka's a good choice around here -- the guy who invented the Ghost Dance and convinced his followers their button-downs could stop bullets."
Jack stopped chewing for a moment and looked at him. "Very good," he said. "Not many whites around who could've made that connection. Does it really matter what my last name is?"
"No," House admitted grudgingly. He rubbed tiredly at his eyes.
"So what's the deal?" Jack asked. "Who died? Who didn't die? Who should die? Coyote playing tricks on you? Raven? Egyptians on your trail? Seen a white buffalo calf in your dreams? Cortez just land on your shore? Need Stonemother to rock you to sleep? Wanna buy some peyote buttons?"
House stared. "You ask a lot of questions," he said at last.
"And you don't seem to have any answers." Jack took another bite of his burger and looked seriously at House. "Funny how that is."
Warden Tritter leaned back in his chair and smiled. The latest report from the hotbox was excellent.
According to the guard who'd lifted the hatch and peeked in, the prisoner was mostly comatose, lying in his own filth and waking only to mumble nonsense syllables to hallucinations and ghosts. He'd been racked by increasingly powerful cramps, and often appeared to be gasping for breath.
The recorded temperature inside the cell was 118 degrees.
The Warden's smile widened.
Quite the ugly end for such a respected doctor, he thought. I was right -- my little "news bulletin" broke the man; the beating and starvation were just the icing on the cake. The Warden grinned at his own metaphor. Mike had told him the whole story -- the hoarded pills, the forged prescriptions, the liars who'd kept the arrogant son of a bitch from going to jail. The man made a mockery of the judicial system, he thought. Well, Dr. Wilson would die alone and in agony -- and that cocksure junkie with the six hundred pills would never know what had happened.
The Warden laughed softly as he reached for the tall glass of iced tea that had come with his lunch. No, definitely not enough pills in the world to ease that bastard's chronic pain now.
Oh, today was going to be a very good day indeed.
Lisa Cuddy had reached a decision. She tossed her napkin on the table and called for the check.
She'd heard no news. No news of Wilson, no news from House, no new leads, thank you very much we're doing all we can.
Well, that was it. She'd reached the end of her patience. House could stay out here and indulge in all the crazy conspiracy theories he wanted -- she needed to get back to the hospital.
She'd decide what to do from there.
Cuddy pulled her cell phone from her purse and prepared to book a seat on the last flight out of Vegas that night. She would stay as long as she could today, but her hospital was her first responsibility, and she knew that.
Why, then, did she feel so terrible?
" -- and that's what I think happened," House finished, and sat silently. He'd told the man on the park bench beside him everything, starting all the way back with the return of his leg pain after the failure of the ketamine treatment.
It had seemed of the utmost importance not to leave anything out, even though he had barely been able to speak above a whisper at times, in certain parts of the story.
He'd finished it with the events of the past week, and how he'd been looking, but there were just no clues, nothing to go on, and he felt so helpless. And that wasn't how Gregory House was supposed to feel.
The hamburger had long since been eaten, the paper wrapper wadded up and placed in a trash bin, and still Jack sat silently.
"Well?" House asked roughly. His throat felt constricted. He didn't know why he'd told this stranger all these things.
"Dude, that's one hell of a story," Jack said at last. "You sure you're not really a writer or something?"
"Ah, crap," House groaned, and started to get up.
"No, no -- wait!" Jack put a large hand on his shoulder and gently pulled him back down. "I believe you, I really do. The Tritters run this county like their personal fiefdom, and there've been plenty of rumors about folks disappearing before your friend. Come on now. So you've talked to the police, and you've talked to some of the cops here, and you've been to the camps --"
"Three of them," House said. "Visiting the last one this afternoon, but I already know I won't learn anything new. That's the ... what?"
Jack was looking at him with narrowed eyes. "Four camps? They told you there were four camps?"
House nodded, puzzled. "Yeah. The detective in Vegas -- Broom -- he pointed them out on the map."
His companion was shaking his head. "Oh, dude," he said. "Everybody in Hellebore County knows there's five camps."
"Are you sure that's it?" House asked accusingly. He peered back over the ridge. "It's hardly bigger than a football field!"
"Easier to keep an eye on the people you want to keep there," Jack replied dryly. "That's it, doc, and if your friend isn't a tso'ape yet, that's where he is."
House frowned. "What language is that? Shouldn't you be speaking Paiute?"
"Shoshoni." He caught House's curious stare. "I ... uh ... travel around a lot."
House was sweating; Jack appeared to be perfectly comfortable as the Nevada sun crept past its zenith. They'd left House's rental car by the side of the dirt road -- Jack had ridden shotgun, leading them on a circuitous route along back roads and gravel paths as they'd gotten further and further off the beaten track.
The really tricky part, though, had been climbing this ridge -- the loose scree and gravel underfoot had been extremely treacherous, and House had almost fallen twice before he'd finally taken the hand Jack had stretched out in assistance.
They'd finally gotten to the top, and lay on their stomachs as they poked their heads cautiously over the edge.
"Well, it's still pretty damn small," House growled. "Come on, let's go take a closer look."
"Whoa! No, no, no!" Jack grabbed his bicep even as House started to lever himself up. He pulled House back down and kept a tight grip on his arm.
"First off, you are not the Lone Ranger, and I am sure as hell not your Tonto. We are not going to go marching down there -- that place has a bad reputation for a reason. You are going to wait until at least sundown, when the light gets long and the shadows play tricks on the guards' eyes. Okay?"
House ground his teeth in frustration. As much as he hated to admit it, Jack was right. It wouldn't do Wilson any good if House got himself killed now, when he was so close. He dropped his head back against the dirt and sighed.
"Okay," he agreed. "But as long we're here you can make yourself useful. Teach me some Shoshoni. Teach me how to count to ten."
" -- and Woman missed her children so much that her tears formed a great lake, and she sat there for so long that she turned to stone. And that is the story that the Pyramid Lake people, the Kuyuidokado, tell about Stonemother."
"I thought you said you were Shoshoni," House mumbled, nearly asleep. The warmth of the sun on his face and the heated soil under his back had relaxed him, and he felt curiously boneless.
"Nah, I didn't say that," Jack replied. "I'm not originally from around here."
"Where are you from? You Navajo? Lakota? You from the East Coast? Mohawk?"
Jack laughed. "No," he said. "I'm -- "
He sat up suddenly, his eyes narrowing. "What the hell's that?"
House sat up too. "What's what?"
Jack pointed. "That," he said.
A black line, V-shaped like a skein of migrating geese, was rapidly approaching out of the west. Out of the setting sun.
House squinted. What the hell?
A clattering roar grew in the air as the black line swept closer. The ground began to shake.
"Holy SHIT!" Jack screamed, and threw himself on his stomach, hugging the earth.
House lay flat, his heart pounding, exhilaration and adrenaline flooding his system as the attacking Apache and Black Hawk helicopters streaked overhead, their bellies seemingly close enough to touch. They disappeared over the ridge.
The wash from the choppers' rotors stirred up a whirlwind of sand and vegetation, and for a moment it was impossible to see. House gradually became aware of Jack sitting up next to him, scrubbing at his eyes and spitting out grit. The roar of the helicopters had barely lessened -- it was obvious they were hovering somewhere very close by. The deafening rapid-fire explosions of 30 mm cannons firing made both men duck again and cover their heads.
"Damn, dude!" Jack yelled. "You didn't tell me they were filming a Die Hard movie out here!"
House rolled over and peered over the ridge.
The helicopters were in station over the camp, firing at the wooden legs of the guard towers and into the dirt. Bullets spanged off the rolls of barbed and razor wire, and the guards, unused to shooting at anything that shot back, had thrown down their rifles and were running for their lives. House stood up.
"Yes!" he whooped. "YES!"
"Dude, what are you doing?" Jack shouted. "Get down! You don't know who these guys are!"
"Isn't it obvious? They're the cavalry!"
Jack rolled his eyes. "Yeah, well," he muttered. "Like that's always been such good news for my people."
Cuddy sat on the barstool in the airport lounge, sipping a Bloody Mary and listening for her boarding call. She'd waited as long as she could, but with no communications forthcoming, she'd finally taken a cab back out to McCarran International.
"Well, willya look at that!" someone said.
She looked up; over the bar, the Jazz/Pistons game had suddenly been replaced by what looked like a movie trailer for explosions and testosterone but was labeled BREAKING NEWS.
Conversation in the bar stopped.
"Turn it up!" a guy said, and others echoed the request. The bartender touched a control, and the excited voice of a reporter came bursting through the set.
" -- and in this daring raid on the secret prison camp, it appears that the influence of the powerful Tritter family in this part of Nevada has been broken, or at the very least, dealt a serious blow!"
The reporter, a small woman clad in what looked like a bulletproof Kevlar vest two sizes too large for her and a black baseball cap with "PRESS" lettered across the front, whirled around, looking for someone to talk to.
"Is that Christiane Amanpour?" one of the bar patrons asked.
The guy next to him squinted at the screen. "Nah," he said. "Not horsey enough."
In the background, Cuddy could hear faint cries, see armed men in black flak jackets with "FBI" and "ATF" and "U S MARSHAL" stenciled across the back. They were pushing lines of prisoners, other men in uniform, their hands clasped behind their heads.
"Lieutenant! Lieutenant!" the reporter called, apparently having found an unwary victim. The Lieutenant, in full battle gear, looked intensely irritated.
"Lieutenant! Have you secured the camp? What did you find? Have you arrested the Warden yet? What can you tell us?"
Cuddy squinted suddenly. There was someone else in the background, getting closer to the TV camera ... someone who looked all too familiar.
"Hey! Are you the guy in charge here?"
The officer's head jerked around. "Who the hell are you?" he demanded.
"Oh, God," Cuddy breathed. "House."
"Who the hell are you?"
"Dr. Gregory House," House yelled. It was still extremely loud inside the camp, and what sounded like flash-bangs were going off not too far away. "I have reason to believe a friend of mine is being held here!"
"Lieutenant!" Another officer was suddenly next to House, panting. "We found the guy you wanted us to look for!"
"What? Who's this?" House asked.
"Is he alive?"
"I don't know, sir. He looks like he's in pretty bad shape."
"Shit!" Angrily, the Lieutenant pulled off his helmet, revealing a shock of bright red hair. "Come on -- you too, Doctor. We gotta get him out of there."
The first thought that came to House's mind when they hauled the man out of the hot, stinking pit in which he'd been imprisoned was of Michelangelo's Pieta. He was gaunt and filthy, his ribs showing clearly beneath the bruised and battered skin. He was naked, with ugly lacerations below his waist that obviously continued underneath his stiff, matted pubic hair. He bore the characteristically vicious blisters of electrical burns, and the insides of his thighs showed raised, angry marks that looked like insect bites and stings. His left ankle was swollen and bloody.
He caught a glimpse of the man's back and shoulders as the officers pulled him up, and saw the fresh and half-healed stripes of multiple lashings. The agents laid the man gently on the ground, and among all the other cuts and wounds, House saw the contusions and rope burns from the man's desperate struggles. His gaze drifted upwards, to the man's neck, the terrible bruises and torn skin ...
House's heart was in his mouth. This prisoner had all the marks, all the distinguishing signs of being brutally tortured over a number of days. And that meant this couldn't be Wilson. Because if it was Wilson ...
"Oh, God," House whispered, and then, with an almost audible snap!, time was moving again and people were shouting, and medics were crowding around Wilson.
"Pupils are fixed and dilated. Tachycardia, probable internal bleeding, jaundice, hypovolemic shock."
"What's his core temp?" House snapped.
"Digital reads 106.7 -- bad enough but the real reading's probably higher," one of the medics replied. "Gotta get a rectal up him to tell for sure." He cursed as Wilson began to hyperventilate. "Fuck. Come on, bag this guy," he yelled. "And we need water over here!"
"Get those cuffs off," the Lieutenant growled. "Get those fuckin' cuffs off!"
Someone produced a universal key, and the handcuffs were quickly unlocked. House grimaced as Wilson's freed arms fell limply to his sides.
"Ambulance?" the Lieutenant asked.
"No time. We don't get him on the Pave Hawk, we're gonna lose him. Shit, all his veins are collapsed -- I can't get an IV in."
"Saphenous," House ordered.
"On it," the medic answered, moving towards Wilson's ankles.
"Water comin' through," someone yelled, and everyone leaned aside as a bucket of the cooling liquid was splashed over Wilson. As the water roiled away, the voices of the medics rose again in well-practiced chorus. Their voices blended, House's among them, until he couldn't distinguish one from the other.
The only person who was silent was Wilson.
"Where's the ice bags? I want the ice bags here, now!"
The gel-filled bags appeared, and the medics quickly thrust them under Wilson's armpits and into his groin.
"Are you pushing the Ringer solution? Because I don't like -- oh, crap, buddy!"
Wilson had started to seize, his hands quivering and his heels drumming on the ground.
"Midalozam -- zero point zero five now, push it again every fifteen minutes."
"We're not gonna be here for fifteen minutes!"
"You're right -- tell the guys on the Pave Hawk. And where the hell is that bird?"
As if on cue, there was a thunder of chopper blades overhead.
"Good job. Get this guy on the stretcher and get ready to winch him up. Hey, doc!"
House looked up, startled.
"Wanna take a ride on the big black bird? Tell your grandkids about it?"
"Go ahead," the Lieutenant said, looking at House. "I know who you are now. Wilson talked about you a lot."
"I don't understand," House said.
"I was here too. Undercover." The Lieutenant smiled wryly. "This was a huge operation, lots of personnel, and your friend came within a hairs-breadth of blowing the whistle two days early."
The big rescue helicopter was hovering overhead, and House watched as Wilson's stretcher was slowly winched up and gathered into its side.
"Tell Wilson," the Lieutenant shouted in House's ear, "that Tooey said he's sorry!"
"Sorry for what?" House yelled.
Tooey shook his head. "He'll know."
Then the harness was strapped around House's legs and torso, and he braced himself as the crank turned far above and he was lifted into the air.
A cool breeze ruffled his hair as he ascended. It was like riding some exotic carousel, a merry-go-round horse that ran as swiftly as the wind. It was like being on the back of the fastest motorcycle ever built. It was like flying.
He felt like Icarus, but he was determined not to let these wings melt.
~ Chapter Eleven
NOTES:
Some fascinating information about the Native American leader Wovoka may be found here.
A Shoshoni-English dictionary, part of a larger project sponsored by Idaho State University, is here.
The Native American story of Stonemother may be found here.
Articles on heat exhaustion, dehydration, and heatstroke are here, here, here, and here.
An interesting write-up on the Pave Hawk helicopter may be found here.
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Who was Jack?
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Yay!
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And I am soooo amused that Cuddy saw House on TV!
*cheers for Tooey!*
Welcome to wherever you are
(Anonymous) 2007-07-08 03:25 am (UTC)(link)Your work is always a pleasure to read as you are quite talented. Keep up the good work. I shall look forward to the final installment tomorrow.
Thank you.
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(Anonymous) 2007-07-08 06:45 am (UTC)(link)no subject
(Anonymous) 2011-10-23 06:36 am (UTC)(link)no subject
(Anonymous) 2011-10-23 06:38 am (UTC)(link)no subject
(Anonymous) 2011-10-23 06:50 am (UTC)(link)no subject
If you'd like to see more fic in which Wilson recovers from injuries, you might give the Bad Company and Aftershocks series (http://black-cigarette.livejournal.com/9070.html) a try. It's a collective undertaking by me,
Again, many thanks for reading and for taking the time to comment! It is much appreciated. :-)