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You Could Meet Him On the Bus: How To Save a Life
by Taima Hiroshima
Author's Note: This is the last in my You Could Meet Him On the Bus Series. I hope you've all enjoyed reading them as much as I've enjoyed writing on them. This was inspired by the song How To Save a Life by The Fray.
"We've got one!" the ambulance driver called. House looked up. They were so short staffed that he was doing ER duty. He limped over as fast as he could. He saw the girl laying broken on the gurney. Her face was bleeding in several places, and her whole body had a collapsed sort of look to it.
He stopped when he recognized that jacket she was wearing, and those shoes. The hair had once been brown and shiny, though now it was snarled and dirty. Her nails were bleeding, but he knew that once they had been painted black.
"Tiffany?" he whispered as the nurses began to rush around. The eyes fluttered open. She smiled briefly.
"House. I guess I did see you around, huh?"
"Shh," he laid his hand on her forehead. The ambulance driver was talking. She had been crossing the street, a drunk driver ran a red light. They were putting in I.Vs, hooking up monitors. House could tell she had internal bleeding.
"Did you--?" she begins before breaking into a coughing fit. This was all going too fast for House. Nurses were swarming her, and she was clutching his hand weakly. They were wheeling her to an OR, hoping to stop the bleeds.
"You're going to be okay, Tiffany." He touched her forehead again. She smiled sadly.
"Did you talk to him?" she persisted. It was getting harder and harder for her to talk. House froze for a millisecond before looking away.
"To say what? I'm madly in love with you? Like that's ever going to happen."
"It did to me," she opened her other hand. There was a golden locket. She lifted it a few inches. Quickly, House bent over her body and snatched it.
"Keep it,"
"Just until this is all over."
"It is over, House. Don't you see that? It's over." He looked at her as they whooshed into the OR, sterile and green. This was not the place someone like her should be dying. She should be dying at home, in a nice warm bed, surrounded by pictures of her great grandkids, holding the hand of a loved one, not some weirdo she met on the bus. This was not where she belonged.
"Don't worry, I'm not afraid."
"Tiffany, don't talk like that. You won't die. Will you ever stop being such a drama queen?"
"No," she smiled genuinely then. Her eyes closed and the monitors started screaming. The horde went into a frenzy. A young doctor had the paddles. Without a word, House snatched them.
"Clear," he called, pressing them to her bare chest. Her body jolted up off the bed. The heart line beeped and fell silent. House repeated the action, unaware of the people watching him. All he could think of was her face as she handed him that first doughnut, that first day. He could think only of her smile, only of the rolling of her eyes, could think only of the way she looked when reading a book.
The line fluttered and went quiet again. Once more, he pressed the paddles to her. Don't you give up on me, he thought. Don't you dare try and leave me like this. I promise I'll talk to Wilson, if you just open your eyes.
"Call it, House," a nurse whispered. "She's gone."
"No she isn't!" he shouted. "Don't you say that. She's not gone."
**
He stood there, looking down at the freshly dug grave. He touched the cold gold in his pocket. Her necklace. He'd read the engraving. "For Tiffany, love Alexander." Inside there was a picture of someone, most likely the Alex she was so crazy about.
"Doctor House?" he turned. "I'm ready to go."
"I'll never understand why you insist on coming to this grave, Tiffany. The man ruined your life, didn't he?" he turned and limped to the girl, putting the necklace around her neck and clasping it for her.
"Not really," her cheeks were pink, and her hair was pinned back from her face. She wore a scarf around her neck and mittens on her fingers. She wheeled her chair back as they began the slow trek to House's car.
"You see, I'm in a wheelchair only until my bones mend. He's in that grave forever. He's faced his Judgement, and he has to deal with what he did forever. My life isn't ruined. He's the one that ruined his own life."
"I will never understand you." House shook his head. Tiffany smiled.
"Well, now at least we both have a reason to sit in the handicapped seats on the bus." She joked as House helped her sit in the front seat of the car. With expertise you only see from someone who works in a hospital, he collapsed her chair and dragged it to the trunk. He managed to heft it up.
"I told you to bring Wilson. He said he'd help you." Tiffany scolded as House sat down behind the wheel, slightly out of breath.
"And give him another excuse to think that I can't manage myself?" House scowled.
"He loves you, House, that's the only reason he treats you like he does." She touched her locket. "Like Alex pushes my chair at school."
"Humph," House grumbled. Her heart had started beating again. He was ushered out of the OR as surgery started. For three hours he sat in the waiting room, hoping against hope that she would be okay. Finally, they told him he could go into the recovery room.
She was still unconscious then. He touched her face, now marred with the startling black of stitches. He touched her hair, now tied back in a messy ponytail. She was going to be okay. He would make sure of it.
"I'll keep your necklace." He murmured, before limping straight to Wilson's office. The oncologist looked up expectantly when his friend walked in. House stood in front of his desk for a moment before limping to the other side. He put one hand on each of Wilson's shoulders and bent his head, jamming his mouth against that of the younger man for a kiss.
When they pulled away for breath, Wilson looked shocked. Then he smiled, and in a rare moment of gentleness, House locked his arms around his neck. They stood like that for a few minutes. The relationship seemed cemented from there.
"Yeah, I know." House pulled out of the cemetery. He looked at the girl. "Thank you, Tiffany."
"You're welcome," she said sweetly before bending over and turning on the radio.
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Legal Disclaimer: The authors published here make no claims on the ownership of Dr. Gregory House and the other fictional residents of Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. Like the television show House (and quite possibly Dr. Wilson's pocket protector), they are the property of NBC/Universal, David Shore and undoubtedly other individuals of whom I am only peripherally aware. The fan fiction authors published here receive no monetary benefit from their work and intend no copyright infringement nor slight to the actual owners. We love the characters and we love the show, otherwise we wouldn't be here.
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