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  Ways to Kill a Man 
 by marginaliana  

 They say a coward dies a thousand deaths. House hadn't managed that, but
sometimes he thought he'd gotten close.

He'd died for real once, during the time of the infarction, but he hardly
remembered that now. What he remembered was the death of what little faith
he still had in other people. The doctors crowded around him, shoes
squeaking, white lab coats billowing like cloaks as they rushed to and
from the hospital bed, waving defibrillators and penlights like the
instruments of an arcane medical ritual. After that, Stacy had been the
one to hammer the nail home.

During his date with Cameron, he'd felt acutely the death of his patience.
House wished she could decide on their roles - half of her seemed to want
House as her prince, riding on a white horse and leading the charge of
virtue through tree-lined avenues; the other half was determined she would
be the savior of him, her attentions piercing House's defenses, slipping
inside the iron cage he'd built to keep out the slings and arrows of
outrageous fortune. But the banquet she'd prepared fell flat, and he
thought perhaps soon enough she would offer the flag of surrender.

It wasn't only special occasions that had brought deaths. House's daily
life was more than enough, considering - the miles of paperwork he waded
through, laced with the pitfalls of Cuddy's wrath, not to mention his
physical difficulties, legal fallout, more paperwork, plagues, rats, a
dozen shitty songs on the radio just when he wanted one perfect moment,
and all those rounds in the clinic for which he was forced to steel
himself. All these things contributed to the slow death of whatever
precarious contentment he'd managed to gain.

When he was shot, it was a second real death, but this time everything was
more vivid in his mind. There was an ocean of space separating him from
the shooter, but the bullet passed through it in an instant. A nation's
scientists and several factories had come together to make that gun, House
thought idly, his mind moving even faster than the bullet, and yet
ultimately it was one small finger on one small switch that did the
damage. Doubtless whatever he'd done to anger the shooter had seemed small
at the time, too, but without knowing it he'd pulled the trigger on a man
who was probably the culmination of two systems of government and ten
thousand other influences. As he fell, House wondered if they'd be able to
get the blood out of the carpet and hoped no one would need to use his
office for several years.

When he came to on the gurney with Cameron's face above him, House
wondered if he was about to experience another death. It wasn't the death
of his dignity, which was long gone, or the death of his faith in himself,
although that had certainly taken a beating in recent years. Those were
cumbersome deaths. Instead, he saw stretching out in front of him the
simple, direct, neat death of possibility. A life unchanging, a coward's
life of letting these fractional deaths eat away at him, one by one, until
only a shell remained, continuing a life without meaning - this, he
thought, would be the ultimate death.

Fighting death for the first time, he opened his mouth and spoke.  
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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.