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I.
Lying on that prison cot, coasting on the buzz from Vicodin, House played with the idea of calling up Tritter and telling him: hahahah. No, not calling. This kind of thing had to be done in person. He had to savor the vengeance. Just to see the transformation, on his face, from one feeling to the next. Confusion, realization, anger, frustration. Or would Tritter have expected it all along and cut straight to frustration? Imagining these things passed away the hours until House’s release.
II.
Freed, put outside the cell and back into his small world of hospital, home, and pain, House did not contact Tritter. He thought better of it; better not. The judge had closed the case, but that did not mean that Tritter could not find new ways to screw him over.
III.
Everyone, post-Tritter, tried to slip back into a way of life that could no longer be - as if through sheer will alone they could return to how things once were. Chase never once mentioned the punch, though House could see, in his mind’s eye, the bruising, as if his fist left a permanent mark. Cameron talked to him as if House had never been this close to spending the rest of his life in jail, as did Foreman. Whenever Wilson ran into him—they did not voluntarily go see one another—he tried throwing out old in-jokes of theirs, aping an ease that they once shared. Only Cuddy treated him any differently. In her naivety, she thought that the rehab had worked.
House played along. If they wanted to set back the clock, it meant that he was responsibility-free. No need for guilt. This worked in his favor.
And still he kept expecting someone to demand something from him. He waited, unconsciously on edge, for someone’s anger to finally pierce through to the surface of faked nonchalance. Expressed hostility he could deal with and counteract. This simmering, hidden resentment just continued, though, unsolved and unsettling.
IV.
A week or so after the hearing, House found a balding man on his couch, his head on one armrest and his feet on the other. It had been a few months since their one and only face to face meeting, but House hadn’t forgotten him.
“A dream,” House decided out loud, “This has to be a dream. Not even the guy dumb enough to shoot me in broad daylight, in the middle of a hospital, would show up in my apartment when the entire country is after him.”
His shooter, or the dream version of him anyway, looked up at him. “I thought you didn’t underestimate other people’s stupidities.”
“I don’t.” House tapped the man’s stomach with his cane (crippled even in his dreams) and his shooter sat up, giving House space to sit next to him. “What are you doing here?”
“It’s your dream.”
“Okay, yeah, but you’re obviously symbolic, or are here to represent some repressed facet of my multi-dimensional, complex personality. Spit it out.”
“Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”
“And sometimes it’s a phallic symbol on fire. What are you?”
He shrugged and the in-dream psycho-analysis stopped there.
V.
The shooter returned repeatedly to his dreams. Sometimes House found him rooting about his apartment, pulling out Vicodin from compartments that did not exist before and discovering shameful memories in hidden corners. One time House found him playing strip poker with Wilson and Crandall and he was forced to join them; he lost every single round.
Back over in reality, his life was strained. He didn’t lunch with Wilson anymore but then again, they hadn’t eaten together since the dinner after their Atlantic City trip. Cuddy found out that House was still thoroughly addicted and here he expected to finally have a good fight. At last someone would give him hell. But she just swallowed whatever outburst she might have had stored up and all too resignedly sent him back to the clinic.
VI.
“Let’s face it,” his shooter said, in one dream where House had to lie in a pool of ice for no apparent reason, “you don’t like yourself.”
“I never denied it,” he replied without chattering his teeth. He didn’t feel cold; he did feel his thigh complaining, though, and he wished he could wake up so that he could take enough Vicodin to shut it up.
VII.
“Room two,” the receptionist said, handing him a file. House did not even glance at it as he trudged over to his next patient. But upon opening the door, he was wakened from his bored stupor into an excited rage.
“Of all the clinic rooms in all the hospitals—“ House ranted.
“—I had to walk into yours?” Tritter asked, already on his feet and warily eyeing House. “It’s nearby. And convenient.”
House closed the door behind him. He couldn’t quite explain it, but he was looking forward to this, as though he could unload his accumulated frustrations in this one, short meeting. “Why did they even let you in?”
“This might surprise you, but I did nothing illegal. Investigating probable drug addicts is part of my job. But don’t worry, I’m not going to stick around and be treated by you. Who knows what you’re on right now.”
Tritter made a move for the door, but House stepped in his way and blocked the path. “Too bad. What is it, another bogus infection on your pecker?” House was watching his expression of annoyance so closely that he let Tritter get past him. “Now, now, we haven’t even started.”
“I’m not getting treated by you,” Tritter repeated with forced calmness.
House jammed his cane beneath the doorknob, symbolically, if not effectively, locking them in together. “So who was it?” He pulled out his Vicodin container from out of his pocket and, with great production, swallowed one, no, two pills. Tritter’s expression darkened, but not by much. So he’d expected it all along, then. “Your mom? Or maybe your wife, if it scarred you enough to hunt down addicts wherever you imagine them to be.”
Now Tritter started to look angry. House went on, delighted, feeling a rush even as he knew he was going too far. “Maybe it was a wayward child. You’re old enough to have spawned a kid or two.”
“Do not,” Tritter warned him, “push me.”
“Or what? You’ll freeze my friends’ bank accounts, make them lose their practice? You’ll put me in jail? Guess what! None of it mattered! None of it made the slightest difference. I’m still guzzling Vicodin and whoever it was that screwed you is still screwing you, popping or shooting up or snorting—“
The punch knocked him down, and House stumbled until he hit the wall. He slid down, still reeling from the shock of fist against mouth. He rubbed his jaw; everything was where it was supposed to be. The worst he would get was a bruise to boast over. “Was it good for you, too?” House leered.
Tritter, disgusted, threw the cane aside and walked out.
House’s dreams were shooter-free that night.