Fic : Thirty Days of Solitary 30/30
Jul. 25th, 2012 09:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
menolly_auTitle: Thirty Days of Solitary 30/30
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'.
A/N - Just a quick note of thanks to everyone who has read and commented so far, it's been great to share this with you. Your support has been very much appreciated :) I hope you've enjoyed (or found painful, but in a good way!) the story.
Click for previous part
Day 30 Saturday 5th November 2011
His first thought on waking up is that it's day thirty today. Thirty days of solitary. Adams’ prediction rings in his head. Of course there is nothing to suggest that Adams knew what the hell she was talking about, it could be sixty days of solitary, or ninety, or even to the end of his sentence (and his mind refuses to let him consider that.)
Still, it is day thirty today. He might be let out today. Not out of prison, of course, but just back to gen pop – and he never would have thought that he would be looking forward to that.
When his breakfast arrives he takes his time eating it, he's alert and on edge. He’s waiting for something to happen. It's not like going back to gen pop is going to be a bowl of roses, he's still uncertain about the reception he will face, and whether he will have to struggle to keep his Vicodin for himself again. He’s worried about whether he's going to be shanked in the showers the first time someone has an opportunity. But he is thoroughly sick of this tiny coffin of a cell, and being locked in here twenty three hours a day. He's sick of there being no people around, even if they're stupid moronic people. He wants out, and he wants out now.
Breakfast over, he places the tray carefully through the slot, making sure that the plastic utensil is on it. The last thing he needs is any hassle today. He lingers by the door as he hears their booted footsteps making their way along the tier, picking up the trays. He's not summoned though so eventually he goes and lies back down on his bunk. He gets up only a minute or two later and strips off, heading over to the small sink. It's not a shower day but he wants to wash up as best he can.
Once he's as clean as cold water and a sickly bar of soap can make him he picks up a clean tee and pair of shorts. These are essentially undergarments, meant to be worn under the orange coveralls he was issued with, but they're all most of the prisoners wear in here, even when they go for exercise. Solitary consists of dozens of men locked up in little cages, wearing their underwear.
There's still no sign of being called for anything so he takes up his book and tries to read, and then spends the next few hours going from one 'exciting' activity to another, unable to focus or concentrate. At one stage he thinks he must be mistaken about this being day thirty so he sifts through his memories and tries to recall the events of each day, checking them off to see if they add to thirty. He quickly realises that there's so little to distinguish one day from another that there's no way to be sure that way. He's kept track of the days in his head and on a makeshift calendar, drawn on his cell wall; it's not that difficult, he's sure that he's right.
He paces for a while, the same steps that he's taken thousands of times by now, wearing a track in the floor. There's barely room for it, and his leg as usual starts complaining after a few minutes. He hopes that when he gets out of here they'll let him have a cane again. If they don't he's going to make a fuss about it, he's entitled to that cane.
He's lying on his bunk staring at the ceiling and watching a spider crawl across its surface when he hears the footsteps. He looks up, hopeful. They stop outside his cell.
“House! Cuff up!” A baton is bashed against the door in case he misses the call and he hurriedly complies, backing up the cuff port. It's too early for exercise, he thinks; please let it be too early for exercise.
The cuffs are snapped around his wrists as usual and he moves away, facing the far wall of the cell and waiting for them to enter. He hears the cell door open and he's told to turn around. There are two officers and they pat him down quickly. Then they move him out of the cell, the door slamming shut behind them.
They don’t put the leg chain on for once, for which he is grateful, although he is apprehensive about the reason for the change. They move off along the tier, the officers haven't said a word but at the end of the tier they turn left instead of right, this isn't the way to exercise. House looks up at them.
“Where are we going?”
“You're being released back to gen pop. Now shut up,” the officer growls at him and for once in his life House shuts up.
Foreman is working in his office, his only concession to it being Saturday is his more casual dress. He's working on budgets, and he's immersed in several tabs worth of spreadsheets when a shadow falls across his screen. He looks up to see Wilson standing there.
“You saw him didn’t you?” Wilson says, without further explanation.
Foreman nods. “Yes, I went to the hearing for the further charges. He didn’t see me.”
Wilson looks away and then back, rubbing the back of his neck.
“How did he look?” he asks, almost hesitantly. Foreman can tell he’s trying to stay casual, disinterested.
“Not good. They had him handcuffs and I think there were leg chains as well. He looked tired, and in pain.” Foreman lays it on a bit thick, Wilson’s support will be vital if he gets House back – a House without a Wilson is something that Foreman doesn’t want loose in the hospital. Wilson gives him a hard look, reminding Foreman that Wilson is no fool, and knows when he’s being played.
There’s a long silence and then Wilson sighs and rubs the back of his neck again. "I won't stand in your way, if you want to bring him back," he says. “I don’t want anything to do with him anymore, but if you can get him out of there…“
Foreman almost smiles, he knows that Wilson won’t be able to resist House for long once he’s back at the hospital; he never has before. He’ll try and make sure that whatever case he finds for House will involve one of Wilson’s patients, so that he’s forced to interact with House.
"Thank you," he says simply, this time knowing better than to push his luck.
Wilson nods and looks around the office. Foreman wonders if he's remembering the times he and Cuddy had spent here, trying to work out a strategy for dealing with Gregory House.
"He won't appreciate it you know, and he won't like answering to you. You'll have a fight on your hands all the way."
Foreman knows that. Somehow it will work, he’ll make it work. He has to.
Epilogue - Some Time Later
He lost his janitorial job when he got thrown into solitary so now he sits in a craft class, with nineteen other hardened criminals and a couple of well meaning, if somewhat nervous looking social workers. It's not that he wants to do craft really, but it's something to do to pass the time. Attending classes, and participating in activities, can earn him 'good' time and maybe there'll be a few days knocked off his sentence. Maybe.
He sits as far away from the other men as he can, and still be part of the class.
He works on his project; it's a bracelet, made up of small beads. It's a stupid thing, nothing important but he concentrates on it fully, glad that he has something to do. He wishes he had his glasses, that would make things easier, but he perseveres and finally he has the thing done. He holds it in his hand, not sure what to do with it next. He's not exactly the bracelet wearing type.
"That's very nice," one of the social workers comes over and admires it, much as she probably admires her preschool kid's finger paintings. He slips the bracelet over his right wrist and stares at her, not acknowledging her comment. She looks uneasy and quickly leaves and he relaxes again. He goes to take it off again and then looks down at it.
Thirty little beads around a plain string. A reminder of what he's done and where he's been. He rubs his hand over it, turning it around on his wrist. It's stupid, a Wilson type of thing to do, keeping it, like it’s some sort of souvenir from a dying patient. He doesn't take it off.
He stands up and leaves the class, walks back through the rec room and limps up the stairs to his assigned tier, makes his way along it, ignoring the open doors to the other cells, the chatter and posturing of the inmates. He enters his cell and lies down on the bunk.
Just another day in prison.
"Simpson was wrong again. The lungs are still dying and my patient is running out of time," Wilson reports, standing in Foreman's office. "Vanessa needs those lungs, and they only have another 16 hours of life left. We're at a dead end." He takes a deep breath and looks Foreman straight in the eye. “We need him.”
Foreman nods, this is what he’s been looking for, and the situation couldn’t be more urgent – or more tailor made for House.
He picks up his phone and arranges to get a judge out of bed. When he hangs up he starts putting on his jacket. He's got some miles to travel tonight, and some fast talking to do.
"I'll go and get him," he tells Wilson. "House will be able to figure it out."
"He has to, for everyone's sake," Wilson says.
After Foreman leaves Wilson returns to his patient and waits for House to come home.
The End
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'. A/N - Just a quick note of thanks to everyone who has read and commented so far, it's been great to share this with you. Your support has been very much appreciated :) I hope you've enjoyed (or found painful, but in a good way!) the story.
Click for previous part
Day 30 Saturday 5th November 2011
His first thought on waking up is that it's day thirty today. Thirty days of solitary. Adams’ prediction rings in his head. Of course there is nothing to suggest that Adams knew what the hell she was talking about, it could be sixty days of solitary, or ninety, or even to the end of his sentence (and his mind refuses to let him consider that.)
Still, it is day thirty today. He might be let out today. Not out of prison, of course, but just back to gen pop – and he never would have thought that he would be looking forward to that.
When his breakfast arrives he takes his time eating it, he's alert and on edge. He’s waiting for something to happen. It's not like going back to gen pop is going to be a bowl of roses, he's still uncertain about the reception he will face, and whether he will have to struggle to keep his Vicodin for himself again. He’s worried about whether he's going to be shanked in the showers the first time someone has an opportunity. But he is thoroughly sick of this tiny coffin of a cell, and being locked in here twenty three hours a day. He's sick of there being no people around, even if they're stupid moronic people. He wants out, and he wants out now.
Breakfast over, he places the tray carefully through the slot, making sure that the plastic utensil is on it. The last thing he needs is any hassle today. He lingers by the door as he hears their booted footsteps making their way along the tier, picking up the trays. He's not summoned though so eventually he goes and lies back down on his bunk. He gets up only a minute or two later and strips off, heading over to the small sink. It's not a shower day but he wants to wash up as best he can.
Once he's as clean as cold water and a sickly bar of soap can make him he picks up a clean tee and pair of shorts. These are essentially undergarments, meant to be worn under the orange coveralls he was issued with, but they're all most of the prisoners wear in here, even when they go for exercise. Solitary consists of dozens of men locked up in little cages, wearing their underwear.
There's still no sign of being called for anything so he takes up his book and tries to read, and then spends the next few hours going from one 'exciting' activity to another, unable to focus or concentrate. At one stage he thinks he must be mistaken about this being day thirty so he sifts through his memories and tries to recall the events of each day, checking them off to see if they add to thirty. He quickly realises that there's so little to distinguish one day from another that there's no way to be sure that way. He's kept track of the days in his head and on a makeshift calendar, drawn on his cell wall; it's not that difficult, he's sure that he's right.
He paces for a while, the same steps that he's taken thousands of times by now, wearing a track in the floor. There's barely room for it, and his leg as usual starts complaining after a few minutes. He hopes that when he gets out of here they'll let him have a cane again. If they don't he's going to make a fuss about it, he's entitled to that cane.
He's lying on his bunk staring at the ceiling and watching a spider crawl across its surface when he hears the footsteps. He looks up, hopeful. They stop outside his cell.
“House! Cuff up!” A baton is bashed against the door in case he misses the call and he hurriedly complies, backing up the cuff port. It's too early for exercise, he thinks; please let it be too early for exercise.
The cuffs are snapped around his wrists as usual and he moves away, facing the far wall of the cell and waiting for them to enter. He hears the cell door open and he's told to turn around. There are two officers and they pat him down quickly. Then they move him out of the cell, the door slamming shut behind them.
They don’t put the leg chain on for once, for which he is grateful, although he is apprehensive about the reason for the change. They move off along the tier, the officers haven't said a word but at the end of the tier they turn left instead of right, this isn't the way to exercise. House looks up at them.
“Where are we going?”
“You're being released back to gen pop. Now shut up,” the officer growls at him and for once in his life House shuts up.
Foreman is working in his office, his only concession to it being Saturday is his more casual dress. He's working on budgets, and he's immersed in several tabs worth of spreadsheets when a shadow falls across his screen. He looks up to see Wilson standing there.
“You saw him didn’t you?” Wilson says, without further explanation.
Foreman nods. “Yes, I went to the hearing for the further charges. He didn’t see me.”
Wilson looks away and then back, rubbing the back of his neck.
“How did he look?” he asks, almost hesitantly. Foreman can tell he’s trying to stay casual, disinterested.
“Not good. They had him handcuffs and I think there were leg chains as well. He looked tired, and in pain.” Foreman lays it on a bit thick, Wilson’s support will be vital if he gets House back – a House without a Wilson is something that Foreman doesn’t want loose in the hospital. Wilson gives him a hard look, reminding Foreman that Wilson is no fool, and knows when he’s being played.
There’s a long silence and then Wilson sighs and rubs the back of his neck again. "I won't stand in your way, if you want to bring him back," he says. “I don’t want anything to do with him anymore, but if you can get him out of there…“
Foreman almost smiles, he knows that Wilson won’t be able to resist House for long once he’s back at the hospital; he never has before. He’ll try and make sure that whatever case he finds for House will involve one of Wilson’s patients, so that he’s forced to interact with House.
"Thank you," he says simply, this time knowing better than to push his luck.
Wilson nods and looks around the office. Foreman wonders if he's remembering the times he and Cuddy had spent here, trying to work out a strategy for dealing with Gregory House.
"He won't appreciate it you know, and he won't like answering to you. You'll have a fight on your hands all the way."
Foreman knows that. Somehow it will work, he’ll make it work. He has to.
Epilogue - Some Time Later
He lost his janitorial job when he got thrown into solitary so now he sits in a craft class, with nineteen other hardened criminals and a couple of well meaning, if somewhat nervous looking social workers. It's not that he wants to do craft really, but it's something to do to pass the time. Attending classes, and participating in activities, can earn him 'good' time and maybe there'll be a few days knocked off his sentence. Maybe.
He sits as far away from the other men as he can, and still be part of the class.
He works on his project; it's a bracelet, made up of small beads. It's a stupid thing, nothing important but he concentrates on it fully, glad that he has something to do. He wishes he had his glasses, that would make things easier, but he perseveres and finally he has the thing done. He holds it in his hand, not sure what to do with it next. He's not exactly the bracelet wearing type.
"That's very nice," one of the social workers comes over and admires it, much as she probably admires her preschool kid's finger paintings. He slips the bracelet over his right wrist and stares at her, not acknowledging her comment. She looks uneasy and quickly leaves and he relaxes again. He goes to take it off again and then looks down at it.
Thirty little beads around a plain string. A reminder of what he's done and where he's been. He rubs his hand over it, turning it around on his wrist. It's stupid, a Wilson type of thing to do, keeping it, like it’s some sort of souvenir from a dying patient. He doesn't take it off.
He stands up and leaves the class, walks back through the rec room and limps up the stairs to his assigned tier, makes his way along it, ignoring the open doors to the other cells, the chatter and posturing of the inmates. He enters his cell and lies down on the bunk.
Just another day in prison.
"Simpson was wrong again. The lungs are still dying and my patient is running out of time," Wilson reports, standing in Foreman's office. "Vanessa needs those lungs, and they only have another 16 hours of life left. We're at a dead end." He takes a deep breath and looks Foreman straight in the eye. “We need him.”
Foreman nods, this is what he’s been looking for, and the situation couldn’t be more urgent – or more tailor made for House.
He picks up his phone and arranges to get a judge out of bed. When he hangs up he starts putting on his jacket. He's got some miles to travel tonight, and some fast talking to do.
"I'll go and get him," he tells Wilson. "House will be able to figure it out."
"He has to, for everyone's sake," Wilson says.
After Foreman leaves Wilson returns to his patient and waits for House to come home.
The End
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2012-07-25 02:28 pm (UTC)Thanks for a great story.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-26 08:54 am (UTC)Thanks for reading and your comments all the way through :)
no subject
Date: 2012-07-26 09:40 am (UTC)Ah, perhaps I need to be more specific. My problem with Wilson isn't that he's choosing to renew the friendship with House. My problem is that he's what we'd call a 'fair weather' friend: he abandons House when House needs him (because both in canon and in your story Wilson, like Blythe, doesn't even try to visit House in jail), but he buckles once he gets what he needs from the friendship again. That sort of thing isn't exactly going to resolve House's trust issues.
Now that House is out of jail, he actually has other options than returning to this screwed-up friendship with Wilson ... but House chooses Wilson once again, just as he did in New Orleans. Both times House is the one who gets active, and Wilson drifts along at the best. And by just drifting along with the House-current, he avoids responsibility and encourages House to do the same. That's what I mean by Wilson not learning as much as House. House seems to have matured; Wilson has stayed static.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-26 10:17 am (UTC)And I think it was Tagia who pointed out that House didn't apparently have any plans to contact Wilson again - he was planning at one stage to go back to Fiji and study dark matter. So he chooses Wilson because Wilson is physically there. (Like House is stuck in the hospital, Wilson is there - might as well be friends with him again) But yes, I get your point that it was House in New Orleans and here who initiated the friendship. I think I agree that Wilson does tend to just drift alone (and has a tendency to blame House for things that might go wrong in his own life).It takes a terminal diagnosis for Wilson to become more forceful about the direction of his life (death).
no subject
Date: 2012-07-27 03:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-25 03:05 pm (UTC)This has been a fascinating look at House's time in prison. I like that you ended it with Wilson thinking about House coming 'home', too. That was the perfect ending.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-26 08:56 am (UTC)Thanks for reading and all your comments :)
no subject
Date: 2012-07-26 02:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-25 04:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-26 09:00 am (UTC)Thanks for reading and all your comments :)
no subject
Date: 2012-07-25 05:10 pm (UTC)And thanks so much for fleshing out Foreman so well. Few people bother to do that.
And now it's over. Dang.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-26 09:16 am (UTC)Thanks for reading and all your comments :)
no subject
Date: 2012-07-25 07:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-26 09:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-25 11:43 pm (UTC)I agree with the other comments about your bracelet explanation. It's a good one, and I'm glad to have some logical reason for it -- because as you wrote, House is not exactly the bracelet type.
He’ll try and make sure that whatever case he finds for House will involve one of Wilson’s patients, so that he’s forced to interact with House.
Oh Foreman, you crafty guy! And he knows, as we know and Wilson knows, that W will not resist House for long. They are dysfunctional co-dependents, but they are who they are (and I like them ;) ).
no subject
Date: 2012-07-26 10:54 am (UTC)I think Foreman is well aware that WIlson is an important component in keeping House functional at the hospital - although I like how Wilson established early on in the eight season that he wasn't going to fulfil the role he had with Cuddy and that Foreman was on his own in 'controlling' House.
Thanks fo reading and all your comments - much appreciated :)
no subject
Date: 2012-07-29 03:25 am (UTC)He’ll try and make sure that whatever case he finds for House will involve one of Wilson’s patients, so that he’s forced to interact with House.
I always thought that the lung transplant patient being Wilson's patient was a little too convenient. But spun as an object of Foreman's manipulation (alongside one reason that Wilson was capitulating) made a lot of sense.
I really liked this series you created. Well done!
no subject
Date: 2012-07-29 04:59 am (UTC)Thanks for reading and your comments all the way through, glad you enjoyed it!