Fic : Thirty Days of Solitary 13/30
Jul. 9th, 2012 06:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
menolly_auTitle: Thirty Days of Solitary 13/30
Characters: House with small bits of various others
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: For everything up to and including Twenty Vicodins
Summary: House was sentenced to thirty days of solitary confinement for his actions in Twenty Vicodins. This is the story of his time in solitary, and what was happening back at PPTH while he was there. Story will mainly focus on House, but there are segments featuring the rest of the cast. Starts just before the end of Twenty Vicodins.
A/N : Many, many thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
damigella_314. Without her constant help and encouragement this story would be called 'Five Days of Solitary'.
Click for previous part
Day 13 Wednesday 19th October 2011
He wakes up, as he does every morning, to silence. That’s another thing about solitary. The walls are thick, and well insulated, very little sound escapes from the other cells, except for when the prisoners are deliberately being noisy. They each exist in their own little hole in the wall, one man among many but completely isolated. Usually the only sound comes from the hum of the air conditioners and other machinery that keeps this place running.
It’s still ‘night’ according to the prison system; his cell lights are dimmed in the evening, and then raised at whatever time the prison has officially designated as morning. House has no control over the light, and it never goes completely off. So he knows it is not yet morning, but has no way of telling whether it’s midnight, or two, or whether there’s only five minutes until ‘morning’.
When he was a child his life was ruled by the clock. When his father was at home he insisted on strict punctuality. Two minutes late to dinner and you didn’t eat, if you got home a minute after curfew you didn’t go out for two weeks. His father had brought him a watch when he was very young, and taught him how to tell the time; then insisted he live by it. Punctuality is courtesy, he would say. Life in the House family was a series of timed manoeuvres, as precise as the workings of any military establishment.
There's no clock in here. It's impossible to tell the time, except by the regular delivery of meal trays. House knows how the prison system works by now and he bets himself that those trays are delivered at the same time every day. So there's breakfast time, lunch time and dinner time, and lights-out time. The hours between and before are an unknown.
His watch is locked up in this prison somewhere. It had been taken from him when he was brought here, along with his clothes, his cane, his wallet and his ever present vial of Vicodin. They'll be given back when ( if , he thinks) he checks out of this fine establishment. He'll be able to put on his watch (the watch that Kutner gave him, and there's a good luck charm if he ever saw one) and he'll know the time again. He wonders if it will matter to him by then.
He doesn't know if being able to tell the time would make it pass faster or slower in this place. Without a watch he can't see how slowly the hours are passing, but without it the day becomes one endless parade of monotony, with nothing to distinguish one minute from the next. He doesn’t know if he should be going back to sleep now, or whether breakfast will soon appear. He doesn’t know what time it is.
It’s quiet, and the lights are still dim. He’s not particularly sleepy so he decides to try and measure the time. He takes a deep breath and starts counting, out loud so he can hear the numbers echo off the wall – he’s tired of the silence.
One, and two, and three, and four. He's always been able to keep seconds accurately in his head. One of his father's ‘disciplines’ had involved sitting completely still on a chair for a requisite number of minutes and he'd often counted off the seconds to pass the time. Fifteen, and sixteen, and seventeen, and eighteen.
He counts for a long time and his voice becoming hoarse; still the lights don’t come on. He begins to lose concentration in the endless parade of numbers and the time slips away from him. He doesn’t know how long it’s been now. He stops counting and the silence envelops him again. The lights are still dim. He wonders if something has happened and the cycle has been interrupted. Maybe it’s the middle of the day and the system has broken down. Maybe they don’t have enough staff for the day and they’re going to keep solitary in darkness for twenty four hours. He tells himself he’s being ridiculous but finds himself listening for sounds of protest from the other cells. Surely other prisoners will have noticed that the lights haven’t come up yet? There’s still silence.
A while later, he doesn’t know when exactly, the lights brighten.
It’s morning.
Cuddy is at work when she receives the call. House isn't getting out of prison on parole after all.
As his 'victim' she'd received notice that he was to be released some twelve days ago. Only now has the bureaucracy found time to inform her that he was denied parole after all, there is not further explanation. She wonders what he did to screw up his life this time. She's not sure whether she feels relieved or sad for him. She isn’t afraid of him, and she doesn't think he's going to turn up at her new apartment one day with a gun, or a car, but she does think he isn't done with her. House is nothing if not obsessive, and once he's out of prison, or off parole, he'll come looking for her, she doesn’t think she’ll ever be completely free of him. There’s a restraining order, but legalities have never stopped House.
Then there’s a part of her that still worries about him, about what he's going through in prison. Prison and House – she'd once perjured herself to keep him out of jail, thinking that being locked up would destroy him, then she’d given the police a statement that sent him to one. He will be vulnerable there, with his big mouth, his antisocial personality, his cane and his need for drugs. She loved him for too long not to care what happens to him, even though he blatantly didn’t care what happened to her when he rammed his car into her dining room. She wanted him in prison, but she also wants him safe.
She wonders again how it all went wrong, and wishes for the thousandth time that she'd never gone to his apartment that night. It had ended in disaster, just as they had both thought it would.
She wishes she had never loved him.
Characters: House with small bits of various others
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: For everything up to and including Twenty Vicodins
Summary: House was sentenced to thirty days of solitary confinement for his actions in Twenty Vicodins. This is the story of his time in solitary, and what was happening back at PPTH while he was there. Story will mainly focus on House, but there are segments featuring the rest of the cast. Starts just before the end of Twenty Vicodins.
A/N : Many, many thanks to
damigella_314. Without her constant help and encouragement this story would be called 'Five Days of Solitary'. Click for previous part
Day 13 Wednesday 19th October 2011
He wakes up, as he does every morning, to silence. That’s another thing about solitary. The walls are thick, and well insulated, very little sound escapes from the other cells, except for when the prisoners are deliberately being noisy. They each exist in their own little hole in the wall, one man among many but completely isolated. Usually the only sound comes from the hum of the air conditioners and other machinery that keeps this place running.
It’s still ‘night’ according to the prison system; his cell lights are dimmed in the evening, and then raised at whatever time the prison has officially designated as morning. House has no control over the light, and it never goes completely off. So he knows it is not yet morning, but has no way of telling whether it’s midnight, or two, or whether there’s only five minutes until ‘morning’.
When he was a child his life was ruled by the clock. When his father was at home he insisted on strict punctuality. Two minutes late to dinner and you didn’t eat, if you got home a minute after curfew you didn’t go out for two weeks. His father had brought him a watch when he was very young, and taught him how to tell the time; then insisted he live by it. Punctuality is courtesy, he would say. Life in the House family was a series of timed manoeuvres, as precise as the workings of any military establishment.
There's no clock in here. It's impossible to tell the time, except by the regular delivery of meal trays. House knows how the prison system works by now and he bets himself that those trays are delivered at the same time every day. So there's breakfast time, lunch time and dinner time, and lights-out time. The hours between and before are an unknown.
His watch is locked up in this prison somewhere. It had been taken from him when he was brought here, along with his clothes, his cane, his wallet and his ever present vial of Vicodin. They'll be given back when ( if , he thinks) he checks out of this fine establishment. He'll be able to put on his watch (the watch that Kutner gave him, and there's a good luck charm if he ever saw one) and he'll know the time again. He wonders if it will matter to him by then.
He doesn't know if being able to tell the time would make it pass faster or slower in this place. Without a watch he can't see how slowly the hours are passing, but without it the day becomes one endless parade of monotony, with nothing to distinguish one minute from the next. He doesn’t know if he should be going back to sleep now, or whether breakfast will soon appear. He doesn’t know what time it is.
It’s quiet, and the lights are still dim. He’s not particularly sleepy so he decides to try and measure the time. He takes a deep breath and starts counting, out loud so he can hear the numbers echo off the wall – he’s tired of the silence.
One, and two, and three, and four. He's always been able to keep seconds accurately in his head. One of his father's ‘disciplines’ had involved sitting completely still on a chair for a requisite number of minutes and he'd often counted off the seconds to pass the time. Fifteen, and sixteen, and seventeen, and eighteen.
He counts for a long time and his voice becoming hoarse; still the lights don’t come on. He begins to lose concentration in the endless parade of numbers and the time slips away from him. He doesn’t know how long it’s been now. He stops counting and the silence envelops him again. The lights are still dim. He wonders if something has happened and the cycle has been interrupted. Maybe it’s the middle of the day and the system has broken down. Maybe they don’t have enough staff for the day and they’re going to keep solitary in darkness for twenty four hours. He tells himself he’s being ridiculous but finds himself listening for sounds of protest from the other cells. Surely other prisoners will have noticed that the lights haven’t come up yet? There’s still silence.
A while later, he doesn’t know when exactly, the lights brighten.
It’s morning.
Cuddy is at work when she receives the call. House isn't getting out of prison on parole after all.
As his 'victim' she'd received notice that he was to be released some twelve days ago. Only now has the bureaucracy found time to inform her that he was denied parole after all, there is not further explanation. She wonders what he did to screw up his life this time. She's not sure whether she feels relieved or sad for him. She isn’t afraid of him, and she doesn't think he's going to turn up at her new apartment one day with a gun, or a car, but she does think he isn't done with her. House is nothing if not obsessive, and once he's out of prison, or off parole, he'll come looking for her, she doesn’t think she’ll ever be completely free of him. There’s a restraining order, but legalities have never stopped House.
Then there’s a part of her that still worries about him, about what he's going through in prison. Prison and House – she'd once perjured herself to keep him out of jail, thinking that being locked up would destroy him, then she’d given the police a statement that sent him to one. He will be vulnerable there, with his big mouth, his antisocial personality, his cane and his need for drugs. She loved him for too long not to care what happens to him, even though he blatantly didn’t care what happened to her when he rammed his car into her dining room. She wanted him in prison, but she also wants him safe.
She wonders again how it all went wrong, and wishes for the thousandth time that she'd never gone to his apartment that night. It had ended in disaster, just as they had both thought it would.
She wishes she had never loved him.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2012-07-09 12:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-09 03:41 am (UTC)But to your question - I'm thinking that if she was available as guest star they would have had House visit her towards the end of season 8 (or maybe if they still had the cancer plot, HOuse and Wilson would have both gone, so Wilson could say goodbye to Cuddy). House isn't the sort of person to let people go that easily (look how he was still pining for Stacy five years later). I can't imagine that running a car into Cuddy's house, fleeing to a desert island and then spending a year in jail would somehow have magically cured House of his attraction to Cudddy.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-09 05:19 am (UTC)Else, it would have been nice to see Foreman talking to her about his new job, and/or have an idea where she went. In fact, one person may very well have talked to her at any point and that's Wilson, as pointed by too many fics to recall.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-09 06:21 am (UTC)Her intuition that House would look for her is, I think, wrong. He would want to know where she is, but he wouldn't want to meet her again, not because he doesn't care for her anymore but for the opposite reason, just as he tried to keep away from Stacy.
As for the first part, I'm left wondering why exactly the prisoners aren't given a watch. It's not like they could make a weapon out of it, and if they were worried about the value it could be a cheap, prison issued watch (maybe having the convict pay for it, they could even earn from it). Poor House, led to regret his prison as a child, where at least he knew what the time was. (The similarities between "traditional" children education and the prison system are sometimes spooky).
no subject
Date: 2012-07-09 06:33 am (UTC)That's a good point about Stacy, I hadn't thought about that - he did try and keep away from her, until she was dangling in front of his nose and then he pursued her. And he does tell Foreman that he doesn't want to hear where Cuddy has gone. Still, I think Cuddy might think he would look for her. And I do wonder if House has gotten more possessive in recent years - he relentlessly pursues the fellows every time they try to
escapeleave, not to mention Wilson that time.About the watches - I don't know really if they can have a watch. Maybe they could buy one from the canteen if they're not in solitary. Some solitaries allow the prisoners to have a TV or radio in their cell so they may well allow them to have a watch or clock. For maximum angst in this fic House doesn't have access to those things :)
no subject
Date: 2012-07-09 02:55 pm (UTC)Agree with your portrayal of a conflicted Cuddy. It's possible to hold two mutually exclusive opinions on a subject at the same time. There's the deed, which hurts and angers her, and there's the person behind the deed, to whom she has been connected in one way or another for years.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-09 09:55 pm (UTC)