"DDX, With Feeling" (Act Two).
Sep. 4th, 2008 05:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Act II
[Scene: WILSON’S office. WILSON is at his desk with a cup of coffee and a stack of paperwork. He’s just about to start on it when HOUSE bursts in through the balcony door.]
WILSON: And to what do I owe the pleasure of your company (consults his watch) a full two hours before you usually come in?
HOUSE (holds up the Vicodin bottle, shakes it to emphasize it is empty, and speaks with false brightness): Out of my happy pills. Need a scrip.
WILSON (dryly): Darn, and here I was hoping we were going to have another cheerful duet.
HOUSE (incredulous, then pained): That’s still going on?
WILSON: Afraid so. If you’d been half an hour earlier, you’d have caught your minions in three-part harmony.
HOUSE: And as many possibilities for humiliation as that undoubtedly had, you’re missing the point: I’m still in pain here. More, actually, since I found out we’re still on this hellish journey through Musicville. (Crosses to WILSON’S desk, picks up his prescription pad, shoves it at him.) Write.
WILSON (sighs, picks up a pen): One of these days, you’re going to destroy your liver with all the acetaminophen you keep inflicting on it—and you just said yourself that your pain was aggravated by the sing—
HOUSE (pointedly): What was that I sang about you yesterday? ‘When I least want a lecture—’
WILSON: All right, all right… (He begins to write as mellow guitar chords sound in the room, singing softly as he does so. Curiously, HOUSE doesn’t seem to hear.)
[Song: Questions (to the tune of “Standing.”)]
WILSON:
Would it kill you to in me once confide
I still find it agonizing, watching your steel-strong will,
If I could only see where lines divide:
And now I am sitting, writing—and does it hurt or heal?
[End song.]
HOUSE (breaking in): You pick up the pen, I’m unaware of two minutes passing, next thing I know, you’re handing me a scrip. What happened in the two minutes?
WILSON (sighs, puts the pen down, leans back in his chair): I sang. About my concern for you, and how I hate knowing you’re dependent on those damned pills. (Pause.) Every time I write a scrip—I may be stopping your pain, but I’m also helping you do damage.
HOUSE (narrows his eyes, gestures sharply at his right thigh, speaks deliberately): The damage is my leg, not the pills. I spent most of the night dwelling on it—in song, by the way, just to add to the suffering—and I am not discussing—
(On cue, HOUSE is interrupted by a piano-and-strings combination that makes WILSON wince. HOUSE attempts to escape the inevitable duet, but finds himself frozen in place in front of WILSON’S desk.)
[Song: Answers/Caught in His Thrall (Reprise) (to the tune of “Under Your Spell/Standing (Reprise).”)]
WILSON:
HOUSE:
WILSON/HOUSE:
BOTH:
[End song.]
(Awkward silence stretches for several seconds; neither HOUSE nor WILSON moves. Then HOUSE turns and limps out, shutting WILSON’S door behind him with a bang.)
WILSON (mutters to self): Well, that went well. (Considers the coffee cup, reaches for it, then stops, decides coffee is the last thing he needs. Pauses, assures himself:) This insanity will end, and we’ll agree that whole exchange never happened… (Adds bitterly:) Even if the issues behind it stay right there until he kills himself. (This fails to make him feel better. He sighs, mutters:) Best damn diagnostician in the country—the world, maybe—and his own health just has to be the blind spot.
(WILSON glares balefully the abandoned prescription pad, then shoves it into a drawer, which he slams shut.)
[End scene.]
(Cut to Diagnostics. HOUSE is standing in front of the whiteboard, his foul mood all but palpable; the FELLOWS—visibly tired and nursing cups of coffee—are seated at the table.)
HOUSE: Did you work out what was wrong with the patient, or do I have to go see (pauses, checks the file) him?
CAMERON: Atypical presentation of a bacterial infection. He’s on broad-spectrum antibiotics and should be fine. (Pauses, gives HOUSE an appraising look.) Are you—
HOUSE (deliberately): One caring word out of you and you’re fired.
(CAMERON closes her mouth; CHASE and FOREMAN exchange a glance, silently agreeing the best course of action at present is to keep their heads down.)
(Cut back to WILSON’S office. He’s started the paperwork, and is about a third of the way through it when the opening bars of a somber piano melody begin to play.)
[Song: Nearing the Finish (to the tune of “Walk Through the Fire.”)]
WILSON:
Another day, another song,
Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained;
(Change to lower register, abrupt cut to HOUSE, brooding in one of the clinic’s empty exam rooms—where, he knows, no one is going to look.)
HOUSE:
Is it a risk too great to take?
(Abrupt cut to CUDDY, in her office with the file, still in her capacity as Chorus.)
CUDDY:
A question posed,
(Cut back to HOUSE in the clinic. When WILSON begins to sing, the screen splits to show him in his office.)
HOUSE/WILSON:
(Cut back to Diagnostics and the FELLOWS. CHASE sings the main melody with FOREMAN in counterpoint; CAMERON contributes the descant.)
CHASE/FOREMAN:
CAMERON (re. HOUSE):
CHASE/FOREMAN/(CAMERON):
(Cut back to HOUSE in the clinic; screen splits to show WILSON, still in his office, when he takes up the counterpoint.)
HOUSE/WILSON:
(Abrupt cut to CUDDY, once more. She reads the file as she sings.)
CUDDY:
[End song.]
(Cut back to HOUSE, apparently finished brooding. Having earlier filled the prescription he got from WILSON, he dry-swallows a Vicodin.)
HOUSE: Patient saved, clinic a moot point, and that last song wasn’t a duet. (Smiles smugly, turns toward the door.) And since I’m getting out of here while I can, the next one won’t be, either. (Leaves the exam room, limps briskly out of the clinic, pocketing a cherry lollipop on the way out. Fade out.)
[End scene.]
On to the finale...
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Date: 2008-09-05 01:08 am (UTC)