#i got a call from my clinic and they had to move my surgery date but we don’t even know if it’ll be on that new date and we have to wait

[weirdness-ensued]

it’s so fucking hard waiting to get gender-affirming surgeries or hormones cuz like there’s this thing in life that u NEED but u can’t have it until later so u just have to keep living your life as is even tho u want to die but u have to stay alive cuz u need to be alive to get it and once u get it u know ur life will be significantly better but in the meantime it feels like eternal hell not having it:((((((

[transhuman-priestess]

Sometimes the struggles we go through to be ourselves can be as rewarding as the end result.

A pretty breezy one here. Only content notes are surgery mention and needle mention. No gore to be found, no sex neither. Just good ol' fashioned yearning.

This is definitely a bit of a right angle to my usual stuff. There's no horror, it's light on dialogue, but its in a very similar space to a lot of the other stuff, just a different way of going at it.

Daughter of Elysium

I scheduled the surgery without telling my parents. They wouldn’t understand.

When I came out as trans they were supportive, in perhaps the slightly awkward way that cis people tend to be when they want to be accepting of things they don’t understand. This was different though.

I sat in the waiting room of the clinic in Montevideo, lined with faux wood paneling and sleek glass. Peak 2010s architecture. An older building, but the clinic’s reputation spoke for itself. There was no way I was going to get this procedure done in North America. Too expensive, too niche.

Too many hoops to jump through, too. Go see this doctor, talk to this therapist. Walk with these crutches. Practice with this fake charger for a year. Bullshit, all of it. I just wanted to be me.

So I saved money where I could. I slept in the heat of the Californian summers, kept the lights off early in the winter, rode the train to work, ate cheap meals, canceled all my subscriptions, lived in a 300 sq foot apartment in Watsonville.

3 years and $100,000 Californian Dollars later, I got on a train in Santa Cruz for a 3-day journey to Uruguay.

It was late June, a few days before the solstice. This far south of the equator that meant the sun rose late and set early. It was early morning, a quarter to 7, and 5 hours ahead of California time. I was used to being awake at night, but that only made the early sunrise more disorienting.

“Lewis, Kara,” a thrill of adrenaline rushed through me as the receptionist called my name. After reciting my birthday to confirm my identity, I was taken back to preop. I changed into a surgical gown and then lay down on a gurney while a nurse ran an IV to my arm and started saline. I thought about asking what happened once the arm was removed, but I figured it wasn’t worth the explanation.

For the next 10 minutes I stared at the clock. I hadn’t brought anyone with me. This was something to do for me, by myself. No partner, no friends. I had brought a bag with one change of clothes, my passport, and my phone. I thought about calling my friend Cory, but decided against it. No sense in getting anyone worried. As far as the outside world was concerned, I was on vacation.

I guess that wasn’t too far from the truth.

At 7 sharp, a couple of orderlies came in, checked my name and date of birth, and released the brakes on the gurney. They wheeled me out into the chilled hallway, and through the double doors into the operating room.

Inside the surgeon, the anesthesiologist, and several techs were waiting. A nurse placed a mask on my face and told me to count backwards from ten. A sweet, chemical smell filled my nostrils, and the world faded out.

* * *

It wasn’t the first time I’d had surgery, so the novelty of coming up from the anesthesia surprised me. Rather than the slow, heavy feeling I’d expected, it was like waking up from a nap. Disorienting, but in a cozy way. Nothing hurt. I hadn’t expected that. Probably the painkillers were still feeding in.

I tried to open my eyes, but my lids only twitched slightly. I heard one of the nurses say “You’re awake! The doctor will be in to see you soon. Everything went well, congratulations.”

I tried to reply, but my jaw moved jerkily and I had trouble forming words. The result was a disjointed grunt emerging from my mouth. But I could tell that I had a mouth, which was good.

The nurse left. I could hear his shoes squeaking off into the distance. As they faded, the thrum of the HVAC replaced it, and an occasional mechanical whirring near me. My eyes were still closed, and for the first time I noticed the green letters in the corner of my vision. Instinctively, I tried to look at them, but they moved with my eyes. After a time I was able to make them stay put long enough to look at them.

ARLINGTON ROBOTICS SYSTEMS

BANGOR, WASHINGTON, CASCADE REPUBLIC

I managed to open my eyes after a few minutes. At first it was all much too bright, everything blown to white, but after a few seconds my vision dimmed to a comfortable level. I focused on a tiny hole in the floating ceiling above. After a moment, I managed to zoom my vision in.

I marveled for a time at the detail in the ceiling. This mass-produced object, fiberglass and paper, contained so much beauty. How many times had I stared a ceiling like this without noticing?

The doctor came in and reaffirmed that everything had gone well. She told me that rehab would start in a few days, once my new body’s systems stabilized and adjusted to neural commands. I tried to smile but couldn’t manage to get my face to move right.

The doctor chuckled and plugged a display into a port on the back of my new neck. She held it up to me, and I watched as the words “What is this for?” appeared on it. She explained that until my vocal rehab started to kick in, this display would help me communicate.

She told me to raise my arms out to my sides. I struggled with this task for a moment before finally managing to do so. For the first time I got a look at the body I’d picked out from the inside.

Gray plating, seams that slid over each other, an unapologetically mechanical body. I’d wanted that. They’re getting good at synthetic skin these days, but I wanted to distance myself from humanity. There was nothing wrong with humanity, but it never spoke to me. I’d always been somewhat apart.

* * *

I slept most of that first day. The next day they let me eat. The bioprocessor seemed to be working, the staff said, but I should keep it light, and stick to carbs rather than fat and protein until the new tract could build up a sufficient biome to support those.

Odd as it sounds, it was 36 hours post-op before I realized I hadn’t peed. The charging station that I hooked into took care of filtration and detox of what little biomass I had left. I felt suddenly elated. I actually tried to get up out of bed, and promptly tripped over my own foot, smashing my face against a wall.

The nurses rushed in, worry on their faces, but I couldn’t stop laughing, and that’s when I heard my voice.

It wasn’t like my old voice. It wasn’t cold and computerized, but warm, and rich, like an old Roland Jupiter, full of dense harmonics, singing highs, and comforting, enveloping lows.

Soon I was sitting on the floor, sobbing. My eyes didn’t water anymore, but I still went through the motions. I held my gray plastic hands to my face, and touched them to my cheeks. I felt the subtle vibrations as motors moved my eyes around. I had never felt so happy, so myself. So real.

* * *

After a week I was able to clumsily walk around the hospital room, and they moved me to the recovery house. I met a few other converts there. There was a girl named Morgan from Seattle, a guy named Case from Kansas City, a few others. I mostly kept to myself.

I started speech therapy shortly after the move. Lots of reading convoluted sentences, but also singing, reading poetry, even some play-acting. I grew to love my voice. It was obviously synthetic, but that only made it feel more like a part of me.

Motor therapy was interesting. They asked me if I played any instruments. I told them I played bass. The therapist walked to a closet and returned with a bass made entirely out of carbon fiber. I asked why they made it from that, the therapist told me I’d see shortly, and handed me the Bass.

I immediately gripped the neck with far more force than I’d intended, denting the frets and the strings. I said I understood now.

Time flew. The solstice came and went, and by August I could speak clearly, play “Highway Star,” and wash my own chassis without damaging it. I could dress myself. I could walk without tripping over my feet.

On an evening in early August, I bade farewell to my fellow converts at the recovery house, and made my way to the train station. I could have taken a cab, or the bus, but I opted to walk. It was 8 miles and took all night, but I enjoyed every moment of it. Never tiring, stopping for food to recharge myself here and there at convenience stores and night markets.

I settled into my roomette for the trip back to Santa Cruz, looking out at Montevideo Bay. I saw my reflection in the window of my train, and for the first time, really took it in, with eyes that were my own.

[thebroccolination]

I'm curious about something! In your opinion, which Between Us Specials are BounPrem and which are WinTeam? You mentioned on your last post staff and SWS were very mich aware of the mix, so 🤔🤔 Curious Stephh 🤭

Oooooohohoho, this is a fun ask!

THE BETWEEN US SPECIALS BOUNPREM vs. WINTEAM

Week 1

90% WinTeam

I'd call this one pretty solidly in character. Team moves around in his sleep a lot, Win grumbles a bit, gives Team a kiss on the cheek before he gets out of bed, and Team has an emotional meltdown because he was awake. I think Prem's just a tiiiny bit giddier than Team would be.

70% WinTeam

I think they both borrowed a little too much from their own personalities for this one, Boun more than Prem. Like, Boun's smile and laugh when he realizes Team wants a kiss goodbye are very much his own.

100% WinTeam

And thus, my overall favorite! Win pretends to be exasperated for three seconds, Team is a coddled baby, and Win is smitten. I'm pretty sure these are supposed to be set in the future, like Win's fourth year and Team's second, so this matches up perfectly with how they'd be down the road.

Week 2

30% WinTeam

This is very, very BounPrem to me. Boun just seems to be having fun with the goofy setup, and Prem's reaction at the end is a little too cartoonish. (Also, If I'm remembering right, the original skit Sheep wrote had them eating actual ice cream, so it melted faster and the tone was a little more ~erotic~. The popsicle they got for this scene wasn't really melting, though, so I think it made the scene a lot goofier than it was supposed to be.)

20% WinTeam

This one really drives home a comment Boun made about these special episodes: he found laughing as Win especially challenging because Win didn't really laugh in UWMA. He was fairly collected and calm for most of his scenes, so these lighthearted episodes where he laughs quite a bit are when Boun shines through most obviously. Like, this is just Boun being silly with Prem.

20% WinTeam

Again, this is mostly BounPrem goofing off and being cute. I remember Thai fans were very, "lol so this is a BounPrem week," when these three aired. It was cute, it just wasn't WinTeam Cute.

Week 3

0% WinTeam, 0% BounPrem

This was based on a short social media skit Sheep wrote in 2020. If I'm remembering correctly, Team pokes at his stomach and whines because the pool is closed during lockdown, so Win basically suggests sex as exercise instead. So it's another skit that was originally hinting at an erotic ending aaand turned goofy in the special episode. I honestly pretend this one doesn't exist. I didn't like the weight-shaming in UWMA and I liked it even less in the special episodes. But to give credit where it's due, when fans reached out to Paaty and Dao (BP's managers) about, they said they'd talked to New about it and he said they'd discuss the issue in more detail. So far, there hasn't been anything like it in BU, so it seems like they took the criticism seriously. (And considering one of their favorite sponsors is a plastic surgery clinic that specializes in weight loss, I'm impressed. Fingers crossed it lasts for the rest of BU.) Anyway, Win wouldn't weight-shame his boyfriend. NOT MY WINTEAM.

Note: Weight's a common topic in Asia, I know. When I lived in Japan, it was fairly common to get a cheerful, "You're skinnier/you got fat!" as a greeting from people I hadn't seen in a while. Still, it's one of those cultural things I don't think should be excused just because it's cultural. It just think it's universally unnecessary to comment on other people's bodies, y'know? You don't know what they're going through, it's not yours to comment on, etc. Plus I really don't like the position it puts Prem in.

5% WinTeam

Pffft. I'm remembering how much I disliked Week 3. This week was the one that really worried me about Between Us and how they'd portray Team. Like, why would he be this averse to sex in the special episodes, which are meant to be set when they've been dating for a while…? It just gave me those old-school BL vibes where the ~bottom~ is all "nooOoOOOoOoo I'm pure and I don't like sex" and I want to stab myself in the eye.

30% WinTeam

I think Boun channels the exasperation Win would feel, but Prem plays Team slightly too much like a caricature of Team for me. And then the whole second half is just playful Boun being playful Boun. And again, the "NOOOO NOT SEEEEX" thing.

Note: The locker room scene in BU damn near made me cry. I had almost no hope of them showing Team that enthusiastic about sex after the special episodes.

Week 4

90% WinTeam

Team's asleep throughout the scene, so this was all up to Boun, and he did well, I think! He's a little softer on the ABC gang than I think Win would be, but otherwise I think it's solid. Also, Team reaching for Win in his sleep is my second-favorite moment in these.

Note: N'aw, first introduction of the alphabet! (Minus Art, who was cast later as A.)

90% WinTeam

I was enormously relieved when this one aired because it actually had Team initiating sex. Yay! And the music is ridiculous, but I also really liked Prem's initial frustration/anxiety. He plays it a little too over the top, but in general this is probably my third-favorite scene.

Week 5

0% WinTeam

This is 100% BounPrem. The feet-kicking from Boun, the teasing from Prem, etc. This is WinTeam cosplaying BounPrem.

50% WinTeam

This is very cute, absolutely, but I don't see Win being this taken aback by a cheek kiss after they've been dating for months or possibly a year. Prem did fine though! This feels very much like Team.

60% WinTeam

Especially when you compare this to the horror movie scene in the main series, it's very, very clear that Boun's reaction here is zero percent Win and all himself. BUT there he tells Team he'll stay until it ends felt like Win. I can't decide where I fall on Team telling Win he's cute: it feels like Prem, but it's got Team's sass, so I'll lean in Team's favor for this one.

Week 6

50% WinTeam

This is EXTREMELY FUNNY but it's also EXTREMELY BOUNPREM. In fairness, I think Prem managed to stay mostly in character, but just look at that expression up there. That's 100% my gentle chaotic son Boun. <3

60% WinTeam

It's a little more in-character than the last one but it's still a little caricature-y.

BASICALLY, there's a reason why they put a "we're just fucking around, don't take this seriously" disclaimer at the start of every episode. I saw someone on here call the special episodes extended character workshops, which is genius and probably true.

Regardless of whether they'e more WinTeam or BounPrem, they're very cute and they kept us fed while we waited. <3

And it shows how much they've grown!

[asexual-means-no-attraction]

What to expect when you go in for top surgery.

Note that this is how it went for me specifically. I did my surgery through the Cleveland Clinic (main campus). If you want info on the Dr, PM me and I'll give you his info (highly recommend him). If you want info on how to get scheduled for top surgery/the recovery after the hospital/how I prepared for it just send an ask or PM me.

Without further ado, this is how it all went down for me the day of the surgery:

-arrive at hospital at 5am. Make sure you look up which building to go to before hand. Most places are big and kinda like a maze. Maps are your friends.

-wait in a long line to get all checked in then sit in the waiting area till you're called. I went with my mom. She held all my things for me. I wasn't allowed to take anything in with me.

-I went to a large room that had lots of beds all seperated by curtains. I was given a robe and a bag. I put all my clothes into the bag and put on the robe. Felt really weird cuz it opened in the back.

-had to pee in a cup too.

-once I was changed I sat on the bed and just relaxed. From there it was just a lot of waiting. They're gonna ask you you're name and date of birth more times then you can count. Every time they talk to you I swear.

-one nurse came in and gave me an IV in my hand. -10/10 review. I hated that IV. I didn't have any pain after my surgery except for the stupid IV. That thing felt like it was constantly pinching me and I couldn't do anything about it.

-no idea how long I sat there but it was really boring since I didn't have my phone. I wanna say it was between 30-60 minutes? They let my mom come in and talk to me a bit before it was time to wheel me away. They put me on a different bed and I got pushed through hallway after hallway after hallway. I wasn't kidding when I said this place was like a maze.

-sat outside the surgery room for a good long while too. Just laying in the bed. I was positioned at a wall and I just watched a janitor sweep for a while before they were finally ready for me.

-the operating room was bigger than I expected. Lots of stuff along the walls and a very skinny table in the center of the room. There were about 4 people in the room. The main Dr who I had all my prior appointments with introduced himself again and the everyone else in the room. One guy was the anesthesiologist who was in charge of making sure I was safe while they put me under. There was a student there who was there to watch and learn. She was very nice. And then an assistant I believe? I don't remember exactly.

-the Dr walked me through the surgery again, confirming everything we had discussed in my appointments. He also made some marks on my chest while I was sitting up to help him later when he needed to align stuff to make it look good. Asked if I had any questions.

-he asked if I was ready. I said yes. They put me under. I didn't feel the anesthetics. I kinda just... Blinked. And after that blink everyone was in a different spot and my chest felt tight. If you've ever worn a lifejacket that's nice and snug it was like that. I could breath fine, it was just tight.

-I couldn't really move right away with the exception of my head. I mostly just felt confused. Otherwise I was fine. The assistant asked how I felt and I said good. Then the Dr walked over and told me how everything went well. There was no issues. They asked if I had any questions again.

-the next part was kinda hard. I had to get back into the wheely bed so I could be moved. But you can't put up with your arms. So it was a weird sorta scoot over to from the table to the bed. Then I was wheeled away again.

-i went back to the large room with the curtains again where I was given shaved ice to eat. The said I'd have to wait there till they get an actual room open for me. I wasn't allowed to get out of the bed and the IV had to stay in till the next morning.

-at this point it was about 10am according to the clock in the room. I just sat there listening to all the monitors going. There were a lotta beds with a lotta noises. They had a blood pressure machine on my arm that would randomly squeeze to check my blood pressure throughout the day. I kinda just went in and outta sleep from there on.

-I wasn't in any pain. I was just very very very very tired. I talked to the nurses. After a while they gave me some crackers because it was taking a really long time to find me a room. I guess there was some sorta issue going on. It was only supposed to take a few hours but I ended up waiting till almost 5pm. Which really wasn't that bad since I was mostly just sleeping. It just sucked that I didn't have my phone.

-I also wasn't allowed to get up to use the restroom yet. I wasn't allowed up till I moved to an actual room. And I had to go really bad around 2pm. Ended up having to use on of those bed toilets. I had to pick my self up enough for them to slid it under me, and then move it afterwards. Not a fun experience, but not as terrible as you think.

-they finally secured the room and wheeled me away. Once in the room I had to do that weird scoot again to get onto the new bed. This bed had a remote that let me rise and lower it, along with a TV with cable. I had a little table that came over the bed so I could eat. It was very nice.

-my mom was finally allowed in and her, the nurse, and I all talked about what was next. I got a water bottle with straw to drink. And after that I was given applesauce. Since I successfully got all that down they let my mom go buy me some real food and I got to eat dinner.

-I had to spend the night at the hospital with my mom picking me up in the morning. If I needed to use the bathroom I had to call for a nurse. They'd help me get to the bathroom. I had to go in what was called a "hat." Which is basically just a plastic bowl they put in the toilet bowl to catch everything. They have to check your urine for stuff. It's just like using the bathroom normally you just don't flush.

-after a while my mom left to go home. I played on my phone and watched TV. The IV was the only thing that was frustrating. It hurt my hand and makes you have to pee a LOT. Expect to make lots of trips.

-in the morning the assistant and student came in to see how I was doing. They undid the bandages to make sure it was all good. Then redid it.

-I finally got the IV out of my hand!!!!

-my mom showed up and we got some paperwork.

-they put me in a wheelchair and I rode that to the car.

-went home for the rest of my recovery.

[laufs-very-serious-medical-blog]

Hi i'm curious mostly about the pre-surgery side of things: how did you fare with getting the process started? did you encounter any resistance/stalling from healthcare staff? did you feel like you were given adequate control over the process (f.ex. what kind of surgery would be performed and by whom), or just generally did you feel listened to and respected during the whole thing? how much did it end up costing you (i'm presuming public healthcare didn't cover the entire thing &/or you had to go at least partially private?), and what kind of payment plans were available (i.e. did you have to pre-pay or will you be billed later, are the installments reasonable, &c.)?

This is a lot of questions lol sorry, feel free to answer only partially or just whatever bits you feel cool about sharing! And thanks in advance. I can't access trans medical care in my country without going private (which is unreasonably expensive here) so I'm curious if things are any better in iceland (& if I should add 'better healthcare' to the list of reasons to move there since i already have a citizenship)

I would say the process of getting started went very smoothly for me. The first step was to contact Transteymið (the trans team) and ask to be put on a waiting list to get a gender dysphoria diagnosis. You no longer need a referral in order to contact them and can simply email them yourself. About a month after I applied I went in for my first appointment with a therapist. You have to do four appointments over the course of six months, two with a therapist and two with a psychiatrist. Due to the waiting list for hrt being so long at the moment and the fact that I was completely sure in my decision I got lucky though and they graduated me from that program after only four months.

After that they put me on the waiting list for hrt and since I said I wanted top surgery they asked if I was planning on going private or public. There are two surgeons in Iceland that do top surgery, and I knew the public one had a rather long waiting list and I could afford to go private so I opted for that instead. After that I called the private clinic to book a consultation and I got incredibly lucky because I called on a monday and they asked if I could come in to see them that thursday. I had heard from a friend that it generally took about a month or two to get a consultation so I honestly cried with joy over how quickly I was offered an appointment.

At my consultation I was examined and we immediately dicussed surgery options then. My surgeon told me I was eligible for a few different types of surgeries, and we agreed that double incision surgery would be best for me as it had the lowest complication rate and would give me more natural looking results. After checking that my referral was in I was able to book the surgery date that very same day and had no further consultations until the surgery itself, where we decided to not only do a double incision but a keyhole incision as well because I was scared of developing necrosis in case my nipple grafts didn't take. Overall my surgeon was very accommodating and professional, in the period between my consultation and the surgery itself I emailed him multiple times with various questions and he was always quick to answer. Throughout my entire process from contacting the trans team up until the surgery itself I generally did feel respected by the medical professionals treating me.

The surgery ended up costing me 195,000 ISK (~ €1,308 / $1,429 / £1,129), whereas without my referral it would have been something like 600,000 ISK (~ €4,024 / $4,395 / £3,472). I transferred the entire payment over because I could afford to do so, and as far as I'm aware of they don't offer the option to pay in installments (it must be paid in its entirety no later than 20 days before the surgery) but then again I didn't ask.

[my-head-is-an-animal]

Problems With The Heart

Greg House x Dr Anna Harding (OFC)

Story Masterlist

Chapter 5 - Ketamine Recovery

There was nothing else for her to do. Anna cleaned herself up and got back to work. Wilson was more worried about House, but while there was nothing he could do, he figured he would see if Anna needed any help.

She was in her office according to the nurses, but they told him she may have needed a minute.

‘Anna?’ He said, opening the door, ignoring the warning. ‘You okay?’

‘Yeah, fine.’ She croaked, he could tell she’d been crying. ‘What do you need?’ She asked and for a moment Wilson admired her more than ever.

‘The surgery is going well,’ he shut the door behind him and finally saw her puffy red eyes, not that she tried to hide it from him. ‘The ketamine he asked for might actually work. He might be able to walk again.’ She nodded, but didn’t say anything. ‘I just wanted to make sure you were okay.’

Anna paused for a moment. ‘I’m fine.’ She said, but Wilson wasn’t buying it. He sat down opposite her.

‘I heard about what he said before he slipped into unconsciousness,’ Wilson tried to be delicate. ‘Anna, he loves you. You can’t feel nothing about that.’

‘I don’t feel nothing, I feel…’ she couldn’t finish the sentence.

‘You love him.’ Wilson said, softly. ‘You heard a gunshot, two gunshots, you have PTSD, you should take the day off or at least take a break from treating patients. Anna, you should take the time to feel this.’

Much to his surprise, Anna began crying heavily. Wilson took a breath and stood up to place his hand on her shoulder. He stayed with her for a while and took some time to help communicate with her team on some of the patients.

House eventually woke up, the surgery was a success and he got eight weeks off to recover. His leg seemed to be better as well. Anna on the other hand didn’t mention anything about his recovery. She was exactly the same as she was before. Calculated, but humorous.

Cameron was worried and had gone to Wilson about it.

‘Anna is responsible,’ Wilson stopped her. ‘If there was a real problem she would have taken herself off cases by now, but she hasn’t. She is still capable of doing her job and she’s an incredibly private person, it’s probably the Britishness.’

‘We don’t go to lunch anymore.’ Cameron reasoned. ‘We used to meet at least once a week, but now I don’t see her unless she’s in the clinic or bringing something to House. I’m worried that my actions-‘

‘Cameron, you need to understand that Anna could not give less of a crap about your date with House, she has moved so far past it, she’s probably forgotten.’ Wilson continued working. ‘Just do your job.’

Cameron eventually left, but Wilson didn’t want to admit he was worried as well.

House kept up with his physio, he felt no pain in his leg and for the first time in a long time, he felt good. Anna came around after every shift, she told him about some of the patients, went walking with him when he needed to get out, she made him laugh a little and was on hand to check his injuries. House was happy and decided the Friday night she came over was a good time to ask her to stay for the weekend.

Anna let herself in, he’d heard her from the kitchen, he also heard her sigh and throw her jacket down on the back of the sofa.

‘You okay?’ He called.

‘Tough day,’ she said walking to towards him. ‘I lost two patients, they were getting better and then they both had heart attacks.’ He slowly made his way to the coffee machine, turning it on. ‘It’s fine. How’s your day been?’

‘What meds were they on?’ He asked, curiously.

‘I really don’t want to talk about it.’ She said, leaning on the island.

House conceded and smiled.

‘What?’

‘Sit down. We don’t have to go for a walk tonight.’ He said, finishing making her a coffee. Anna was looking at him suspiciously.

‘You should get out, get your leg moving, why are you being so nice?’ Anna frowned as House rounded the island to handed her the mug she always drank from.

‘I can’t be nice?’ He shrugged watching her blue eyes scan him.

Anna scowled playfully, sipping her coffee. ‘Okay, you want to tell me what the deal is while I check you?’

He nodded and went the sofa to lay back. Anna was still suspicious, but did her usual checks of his stitches.

‘I like you.’ He said, feeling her warm fingers against his skin, soothing him.

‘I get that impression, yes.’ She replied, sarcastically.

‘Why don’t you stay here for the weekend?’ House decided if he didn’t blurt it out, or catch himself off guard, he’d never say it. ‘Someone’s gotta make sure I’m sticking to my physio.’

‘I can do that by visiting. Sit up, let me check your neck.’

House did as she asked. ‘You could do it more easily if you were here. Doesn’t make sense to go home and come back all the time.’

‘Why do you want me to stay?’

House paused, not anticipating her reaction.

‘Look, you got shot, it’s a reasonable assumption to think you might be on a temporary high from almost dying.’

‘I asked you before I got shot.’

‘You also said you wanted more.’

‘Exactly.’

She stopped checking his neck and sighed. ‘Look, if you can give me one good reason why you want me to stay, that doesn’t involve anything to do with you being shot, then I’ll consider it.’

House took a moment to think. ‘I want you here because I want to be with you… I want this to be more than just some fun once in a while, maybe that could be fun.’

Anna watched him, her eyes started watering. ‘You know if I kiss you, I won’t be able to stop and you’ll rip your stitches.’ She made him laugh a little.

‘Yeah, I was planning on having you against a wall, I can do that now my leg doesn’t hurt.’ He made her laugh which felt more important. ‘I can do a lot of things now my leg doesn’t hurt. I can go running with you, or rock climbing, you said you liked doing that as a kid, maybe we could go again. It’d be a better quality of life for both of us.’

Anna smiled and wiped away the tears that were falling. ‘Well, that does sound good.’

House could tell it still wasn’t a yes. ‘Just stay for the weekend. Just one weekend.’

She looked up at him and smiled. ‘I wish I could say yes,’ he felt his heart dropping. ‘But you don’t want me here making things difficult for you.’

‘You won’t-‘

‘It was me you were talking to when you thought you were dying.’ She interrupted him. ‘You thought it was Wilson, you said I should go to a sleep clinic. I know why you said those things, it’s because I sleep better when I’m in bed with you. But it’s only ever a night.’ House didn’t understand. ‘You know why I only spend one night at a time here, because the next night is always worse. One good nights sleep, one very bad nights insomnia. Maybe the sleep clinic isn’t such a bad idea.’ Anna stood up and grabbed her jacket. ‘Don’t forget to keep moving, your leg needs to work itself better.’

Anna left his home and House wanted to redo the whole thing, he wanted to keep his mouth shut and to have not said a word about staying. But it was too late.

House thought he wouldn’t see her at all over the whole weekend, but she turned up to take him for a walk in the evening. It wasn’t as fun as it had been before, but at least she was talking to him. She walked him back to his home, but didn’t come in.

‘Anna, come on, just come in for a while.’ House said as she was about to walk away. ‘I’ve got beer… you want something stronger?’

She half laughed and eventually followed him inside. The second she was through the door, House looked down at her and gave her the smile he would give when he wanted to kiss her.

‘Greg.’ She laughed and put her hand on his chest, stopping him. ‘I should go.’

‘Stay, just for a little longer.’ He placed his hand on top of hers and leaned down slowly. She called him Greg, she wasn’t going to resist and he liked kissing her. Her lips were soft, cool, but soft and he didn’t want to stop. ‘Stay.’ He said between kisses. ‘Tonight.’ He whispered, his other hand wrapping around her waist. ‘Just stay.’

Anna didn’t reply, she just kissed him back and hummed to let him know she was enjoying what he was doing. Her skin was warm under her shirt, she gasped when his cooler hand touched her waist, it made him smile as he pinned her gently against the door. Her laugh against his mouth was all he wanted to hear.

House moved down her jaw, her neck was one of his favourite places to kiss, she always made small whimpers right next to his ear.

‘Greg, stop.’ She said, but not quite meaning it. House still slowed down, if she had something to say then he wanted to hear it. He placed softer kisses against her jaw. ‘You’ll rip your stitches and I might not care.’

He chuckled, eventually pulling back, placing one last kiss to her soft mouth. He was glad to hear her breath was shallow, her heart rate was up and her blue eyes were darker than he’d ever seen them.

‘Maybe I don’t care either.’ He whispered.

‘No but I’m not picking up the dry cleaning when you bleed all over the bed.’

‘Could do it right her?’ He suggested, letting his hand drifting down to her hips, her legs. ‘Then it’s only the floor that needs to be cleaned.’

‘As tempting as it is,’ she said, placing her hands over his, stopping him gently. ‘You’ll still rip your stitches and I don’t have the patience to rush you to hospital.’

House conceded and smiled, pulling back a little. ‘Fine.’ He said, placing one last kiss to her lips. ‘You want a beer instead?’

Anna sighed, her hands running up his chest. ‘Sure.’

He was glad that it was like old times, they laughed and played the piano, she suggested they go back to the track at some point and House was happy.

He left it a couple of weeks before he tried to suggest her staying over again, it was a Friday night and he genuinely just wanted her to stay the night with him.

‘No strings, I just want you to stay with me, that’s it.’ He said after they’d had a few glasses of whiskey and she had a weekend to herself. Anna leaned on the back of the sofa and sighed at him.

‘Okay, fine, I’ll stay.’ She finally gave in and House just smiled liking the fact that he finally won. ‘But I’m not having sex with you.’

‘Oh, you always have to ruin the fun.’ He teased, making her laugh.

They stayed up for a little longer before finally heading to bed, he gave her one of the T-shirt’s she liked wearing when she stayed over and Anna was out like a light. House wrapped his arms around her and was glad for when the morning came and she was still sleeping. He went out for a run before coming back to find her still sleeping. He wanted to prove that this was a good thing and made her breakfast for when she got up.

House managed to keep her around until the later afternoon when she insisted on heading home.

‘Right, I won’t be here tomorrow or for the next few days, a couple of nurses are off so I’m covering some shifts.’ She said, putting her jacket on. ‘Can I trust you to call if you need anything?’

‘Course.’ He nodded. ‘I’ll see you around.’

Anna didn’t say anything, she just nodded and left.

If you liked this, please consider supporting me ☕ thanks for reading!  

[cakesexuality]

AAAAA health update at 11 months Lupron, 4 months add-back

My uterus keeps hurting randomly in the last few days 🙃

But yeah anyway some stuff happened!!!

Went to see a new ophthalmologist bc the old one canceled indefinitely and told me to find a new one

New ophthalmologist didn't find anything but is copying my gynecologist on it

Went to see a new allergist bc the last one was an ASSHOLE

New allergist didn't find anything but at least had more patience than the last one 🙃🙃🙃 and was willing to actually talk to me about stuff

I stopped taking Latuda after those first 4 days and haven't gone back to it since stopping, even though an after-hours doctor at my GP's office encouraged me to continue taking it

I decided to see what would happen if I went to a walk-in clinic about my mental health and?? Got a prescription for Abilify after talking to the guy for like 5 minutes??? I'm just surprised bc my expectation was for him to hear about my symptoms and be like "That sounds like it sucks, talk to your GP or your psych about it" and here he is, giving me the medication I've spent months asking my GP about

I dropped off the prescription at my pharmacy on Friday and they're gonna bring it to me on Monday

Idk how my GP is gonna feel about me getting Abilify from a walk-in but we'll find out how she feels when I see her in a couple weeks

My gynecologist's office called me twice this week, both while I was in appointments lol, offering surgery dates and the 2nd one was one that finally worked for me!! It's a little bit later than I'd hoped, bc I wanted it to still be warm outside so I can just wear a dress when I leave the hospital and not worry about waistbands, since I'm imagining it might feel like when I had whatever that was back in February/March, but it's currently booked for early October, so not too far ahead and I should be back to normal in time for Halloween!! I told them that I'm open to getting it moved to September if they have cancelations, but we're going with this date for now!!

[alienpupy]

About your top surgery:

Firstly, though, hoi! I'd like to say that I am happy for you, but I don't really feel happiness. Just nothing. But I am proud of you that you got the top surgery and seem very happy about it.

And going through your posts about it, I realize that I want top surgery, too. But I'm also genuinely afraid of the post-surgery time. And this makes me wonder, were you nervous or anxious before the surgery? (Also, apologies for the rambles and for not feeling the happiness for you)

no worries im happy to talk abt it :] i was anxious in the weeks and days coming up to the surgery, yea, but it was more anxiety abt stuff around the surgery than the procedure itself (like, ik several people who got top surgery at the same clinic and everything n they're super reputable so i wasnt worried about the medical aspect, just the preparations + i had to move appartments 10 days before the surgery + had to pack up AGAIN bc im actually staying with my parents for a month or two bc you absolutely need ppl to assist you with stuff during early recovery)

the closest thing to anxiety abt the actual surgery i had was one time a few weeks before it i was like "wait. what if i don't actually want this what if this is a mistake" and then to test it i put a bra and tshirt on and realized yeah no absolutely not thats just pointless self-doubt and i still hate these

it was rlly surreal tho if im being honest? idk if its even fully hit me that this was real and actually happened. I've wanted top surgery since i was like 13 but obv for most of that it felt like it was really distant in the future, and yet now that im flat it just feels. normal? like im still super early recovery so i havent actually seen my chest w/o the bandages yet but still just looking in the mirror with the bandages flat on my chest it just looks natural to me. its been less than a week and im already forgetting what it was like to have tits lmao (altho to be fair i've been binding for years so its not like they were ever a huge part of my life, just a major inconvenience)

and post-surgery really isnt that bad. i've complained about the weird nerve stuff, yea, but that does clear up eventually (altho ik it usually take years for the nerves to fully 100% heal, they're the slowest thing to regenerate). I've had basically zero pain, but i was still prescribed pain meds to take if i need them and given a lot of advice for healing as best as possible. the most important thing is definitely to have someone (or multiple people) be able to take time off to help you with everything (like, from food to drains to making sure you're comfortable and checking on you, you're not supposed to move your arms a lot or lift anything heavy for the first 6-ish weeks).

Post-op depression can be a thing for a lot of people too, but it hasnt hit me (at least not yet) and it can be avoided/mitigated by making sure you're not alone. having friends over, or calling people, making sure you still have games or movies or art to keep u occupied helps a ton.

also i dont think i've said it here before but i got top surgery at GRC montreal, and gender-affirming surgeries are covered by the government here in canada. I sent my paperwork/referral stuff there in may of last year, and it took them a couple months for each stage of processing but they gave me my surgery date (june 7th) a couple of months before, so (not counting the time to get a gender dysphoria diagnosis + letters from doctors and therapists and junk) i only had to wait about a year.

[arb0k]

As someone who is traveling states next week to meet doctors for the possibility of top surgery, may I ask what the process has been like for you? If this is too personal of an ask please feel free to ignore, of course.

not too personal at all, I enjoy talking about it! Interesting information to have archived too.

!Overall time between getting a referral to the clinic from my GP and the actual surgery date was one year. Waited about 7.5 months between making an appointment and the day of the consultation, and 4.5 months from the consultation to the day of the surgery. (They actually offered to move my surgery up by a significant amount because they hada cancellation, I turnedthem down because I didn't want to have to deal with recovery and grad school at the same time.)

The consultation is mostly about picking what exact procedure you're going for, keyhole double incision etc. Mine was super uneventful because I had DDs lmao, I walked in and said "I promise I am too big for anything other than double incision" and he took one look at me and was like "yeah". It was over pretty quick. I'd say if you have any questions you want to ask them you should write them all down in advance, I tend to come up blank when put on the spot. Mine provided before/after photos when asked but didn't offer unprompted, so if you want those be sure to put that on the list.

also it does involve being naked from the waist up and poked and squeezed. The surgeon really does need to know, but I was anxious and in a hell of a mood the rest of the day afterwards so maybe don't plan on anything too mentally draining. (Nature of the curse, pre-op for dysphoria surgeries is just kinda hell for people with dysphoria specifically).

You will need a therapist letter if you don't already have one, any surgeon worth a shit follows the WPATH guidelines which you can look up in advance (they're all publically available on the WPATH site). Even if they don't, it's mandatory for all the major American insurance companies. It isn't urgent until closer to your surgery date tho, so don't stress too much if you don't have one this second or they reject it the first time for wording issues. The requirements for top surgery are a lot more lax than the bottom surgery ones, at least!

Also make sure you ask them if they've worked with your insurance company before. I lucked out in that my surgeon is contracted with my insurance company specifically, so they already knew all the requirements and got all my pre-auths to go through first try. They were a much better resource than the insurance website itself (depends on what you've got obviously but mine in particular has zero gender dysphoria requirements in writing and makes you call them on a case by case basis every time, which I didn't have to do because the clinic already knew what they wanted from working with them in the past).

They'll give you most of the instruction information then, feel free to glance through it. They also called me two separate times over the following months to read the instructions to me out loud and confirm I understood them. It's mostly all the stuff you need to avoid in the last weeks before anaesthesia, which are NSAIDs like Ibuprofen/Advil, any hormone injections, smoking and alcohol (weed edibles specifically are fine tho! fun fact)

Surgery week itself was three appointments: a pre-op a day before so he could draw the incision lines on me with a permanent marker, the actual surgery the next day, and then a follow-up to get the drains removed six days after that. The pre-op is more shirtless grabbing, but he also used just a normal hardware store level to get the incisions to line up and made me hold it between my tits, which was so funny that it mostly made up for it.

You have to shower with a special anti-bacterial soap the morning before you go to surgery, so you'll have to start getting around way before your actual surgery time. My surgery of 7:30 had a check in time at 5:30 and I had to be on the move before that so like, be aware, make sure you have the ride situation sorted out. I think they let some smaller chested people go home same day if they want but honestly shell out for the night in the hospital if at all possible, the good pain meds are worth it.

I just got dropped off at the hospital and didn't plan on anyone staying with me or visiting and it's honestly been fine, once I recovered from the initial anesthesia I've been coherent enough to text people and chat (and the hospital bed has a USB port in it so you can plug in a phone charger!). They asked me for the phone number and cell carrier of the person picking me up so they could get live text updates , which you should absolutely sign up for. I promised a bunch of people I'd personally text them when I was awake and then wasn't actually coordinated enough to for several hours, oops c':

I'm lucky enough to be local to a good clinic (20-40 minute drive) so I don't really have input on the out of state thing unfortunately. Make sure you have someone with you, I'm independent enough to feed myself and go to the bathroom myself but the pain is def proportional to how much you move and you won't want to be up and down constantly. also I'm not squeamish about emptying my own drains but if you are you'll need someone else to do it

The main restriction mobility-wise is that you can't raise your arms above shoulder level (tho they told me that it isn't a hard rule, just try stuff and stop if it hurts, you won't fuck anything up by letting your body let you know. I was kinda horrified to move at all at first but it really won't hurt anything haha). Main repercussion of this is you won't be able to put shirts on over your head, so get out every button-up you own. Shelves and microwaves and such are all also out of reach for me but that's an easy thing to ask for help for, I just really didn't want someone else to have to dress me lmao.

uhhh that mostly covers things so far? I'm in less pain and more coherent than I expected (when I'm awake anyway) so like make sure you have your phone charger and maybe a book or something!

[thelifeofkatie2]

Hello Cancer:

I was enjoying life on my own at SEMO taking 18 hrs of classes, field teaching, working part-time and sorority life when pain in my left leg began getting worse. In October 2021 I saw Pain Management and Orthopedic doctors, had several MRIs of my leg and back and still had no definite answers. I finally was referred to the Spine Center at Barnes Jewish Hospital as orthopedics could do nothing more for me. I was given an appointment date for December 21, 2021.

My pain continued getting worse and I began using crutches as I continued going to class. Other activities began to suffer as it got harder and harder for me to get around. Finally, after much pleading, the neurosurgeon/spine doctor moved my appointment to Tuesday, November 16, 2021. At this appointment, I was told that I had a 2 1/2 " tumor on my spine which was causing the pain in my leg and would require surgery to remove.

On Friday, November 19, 2021, I had a PET Scan to verify if the tumor was benign before surgery. On the way home, we were called and told to get me to the ER ASAP as my bladder was distended. I ended up being admitted and on Monday, November 22, 2021, I underwent an eight-hour surgery as the doctor was worried I was losing bladder function and feeling to my legs. The surgery was a huge success with the tumor and part of the nerve being removed and a rod and screws inserted. When I woke up in the ICU, I had instant pain relief in my leg. We were also told that the tumor was benign...yay!

Two weeks later, sadly we were told the removed tumor was malignant. I then began endless appointments with radiation, oncology, and orthopedic doctors. I was also told I have another tumor in my left thigh that looked suspicious. After a biopsy, it cannot be confirmed if the tumor is benign or malignant, so that also will need to be removed.

I began radiation on my spine Monday, January 3, 2022, every day for five days. I then will have surgery to remove the tumor from my left leg on Thursday, January 13, 2022. We have been told the surgery will be involved as the tumor is on and around the sciatic nerve, which will also need to be removed. This most likely will cause me to lose feeling from my knee down. After I am completely healed from surgery, I will then begin six rounds of chemo (one week of chemo, two weeks off).

Fast Forward to August 2022I was able to go back to school for my semester before student teaching. I was able to get through 15 credits and have all A’s and a B making the Deans list. In January right before student teaching I took a fall after teaching for a couple weeks it was decided for me to stop and take a break for my health. I took a total of six falls over two and a half months. Ive started physical therapy and have recently had my scans I had them re-do because of all my pain that has been back. We got results and had a immediate PET scan done, recently we got noticed that the tumor is back and was lighting up a lot. This meaning it is cancerous. I was told it is fast growing and in a bad place to get rid of meaning no chemo or radiation bc radiation would damage my spinal cord. So we are waiting for results as to what to do.

UPDATE: I had my surgery to remove the tumor on May 16th. The next step is clinical trials. This is supposed to stop the spreading of the tumor up my spine and possibly shrink the tumor.

[i-spaced-sorry]

Loved finding your blog. I had an idea for a request if you feel up to it: When Connor comes back to Chicago and takes the job at Med, he finds his high school sweetheart that he had last behind only leaving her a small note with this sister; she a member of the 21st & dating Kelly Severide, even though it’s obvious she & Connor still love each other 15 years later.

I don't know if this is exactly what you wanted, but this is what I came up with. Thanks for sending a request in and I'm sorry it took me so long to write it!

Discoveries and Apologies Connor Rhodes x Reader x Kelly Severide

Since the day he hopped on a plane and fled Chicago, all Connor wanted to do was come back. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Minnesota, he really did. He did great work at the Mayo Clinic, but it just wasn’t the ED at Chicago Med. 

So the day he stepped foot back in ED as the “new” Emergency Cardiologist surgeon he was as happy as could be. 

“Incoming GSW patients with police escort, meaning it’s one of their own. Connor you’ll be with the first ambulance and Will you’ll be with the second ambulance” called out Maggie

When Connor saw the patient being wheeled in his heart stopped for a second. Laying before him on the gurney was none other than Y/N, aka his high school sweetheart. 

“On my count, 1…2…3…move!” Refocused Connor professionally. 

Once she was assessed and had surgery he sat in her room waiting for her to wake up. He knew he should attend to patients, but he just couldn’t leave her to wake up alone. 

When Y/N’s eyes fluttered open, she looked around and noticed he ex high school sweetheart sitting in the chair beside her. 

“Connor?” She asked tentatively. 

Connor shot up and began taking her vitals and spoke, “Y/N! Your vitals are good. How are you feeling?”

She stared at him like he was crazy and responded, “I’m fine. Since when did you work here? Last I heard from you was through a letter. Via my sister”

Replying softly, Connor sighed, “I’m sorry about that. I was an ass back then, I loved you and was scared, so I ran.” Trying to change the subject, he added, “So, I see you work for the 21st now” 

“You hurt me Connor! And I’ve worked at the 21st, for a year now, I really enjoy it!” explained Y/N .

They fell into awkward silence, when Y/N spoke through gritted teeth, “aren’t you suppose to update the members of the 21st who are in the lobby or something? Why are you just staring at me.”

Shaking himself out of his staring, Connor spoke, “of course, I’ll be right back.”

And with that, he walked out the door and bumped right into Kelly Severide. 

“Omygod! Is she ok? I got a call that she was shot and I’ve been waiting for an update! Is she awake? Can I see her?” Spilled a scared Kelly. 

Looking quite confused, Connor put his hands on Kelly’s shoulders and spoke, “She is fine. It was a through and through. She needed stitches. But she is okay. She is awake and you can see her”

And with that, he turned right back around and opened the door to your room. 

“Y/N, you have a visitor”

And he stepped aside for Kelly to walk inside. 

“Baby! I was so worried!” Cried Kelly while running to your side. 

“Baby? Are you guys together?” Asked Connor, who was confused to say the least. 

“I’m fine baby! And yes Connor, I’m dating Severide. I don’t see why it concerns you when you literally dumped me via letter. Who the fuck even does that!” Replied an aggravated Y/N.

Backing out of the room, Connor shook his head and stated, “sorry, I’m happy for you guys really. I’ll be back later”

And with that he turned on his heels and sped out of the room. 

He couldn’t believe that he was such an idiot and now he had lost his chance with you. He still had huge feelings for you but you were with Severide and were still obviously pissed at him. 

“Connor, I need a consult in bay 3” called Choi while walking up to him.

Connor took one last look at your room, sighed, turned to Choi and followed him to bay 3 and thus leaving all feelings for you behind. 

[daloy-politsey]

On my first date with Yehoram, I offered him a sip of my prosecco at the hip Tel Aviv bar I had brought him to. He tensed, paused and quietly replied, “I’m not sure if I can. I don’t know if it’s kosher.” I immediately recognized his confession for what it was: a coming-out. I told him that it’s fine, that we can ask the waitress if the wine has a certification, that I grew up in an observant family too. He finally breathed.

I already knew that Yehoram is female-to-male transgender. In fact, it was the only thing written on his dating profile. Over the course of our year-long relationship, and then our seamless transition into friendship late last year, he explained to me that the queer community will often accept that he is trans but not that he is religious. But the same is not always necessarily true of the religious community – and particularly of his family.

There are many preconceptions about his family. The matriarch Mazal, 74, and patriarch Yehiel, 78, were both born in Sana’a, Yemen, and immigrated to the newly-declared State of Israel in early childhood. (Haaretz is honoring their request not to publish the family name.) They are visibly Haredi: Mazal wears long skirts and tucks her hair into modest black caps; Yehiel trims his salt-and-pepper beard, and wears a uniform of crisp dress shirts, black pants and a black velvet kippa.

They speak with heavy Yemenite accents – which have been at least partially adopted by their seven children – and their speech is seasoned with religious aphorisms and allusions. People are surprised to learn that Yehoram, 32, is accepted and supported by his parents, to a degree that is rare even in the secular homes of Tel Aviv.

At their kitchen table in a town near Rehovot, central Israel, Mazal has set out water, juice and a homemade cake. Yehiel has set down a voice recorder of his own, to make sure he isn’t misrepresented. They have a story to tell about being the parents of a trans son, and they have decided that I am allowed to tell it.

Before we begin the interview, both are apprehensive. After much deliberation, they decide that I can publish their names but not their images. Yehiel is a respected figure in religious circles: he serves as his synagogue’s main cantor on the High Holy Days, is a mezuzah scribe and kashrut supervisor for the Chief Rabbinate. He spends his free time poring over religious texts, with Yehoram often alongside him. His son no longer attends the local synagogue in which his father plays so large a role; the congregation knew him before his transition, and it could hurt his family’s reputation.

If someone goes to the rabbi with this article in hand and tells Yehiel that he’s out of the fold, “at our age, there’s no fight left. There’s nothing you can do,” he says. “It would destroy me.” When he thinks I cannot hear him, he says that he suspects that one of his contracts as a kashrut supervisor was not renewed for this exact reason – because of his unconventional family.

But if getting his story out shows religious parents that they can embrace their own LGBTQ children, he wants it published. “I want to help,” he says.

Mazal chimes in. “Both of us do. You hear these stories about parents throwing their children out ... I don’t understand it. I don’t understand how you throw out your child.”

She recounts going to the shivah of a friend of Yehoram’s – the transgender queer activist DanVeg, who took her own life in 2016.  “I saw them all in the living room, with their heads on each other’s shoulders. I started to cry. I wanted to hug them all, to go one by one. And they came to me; they saw the look in my eye. There was a man who had become a woman, who came to hug me. And a young girl, and more. I couldn’t take it,” she says, wiping away tears that are coming faster and faster. “More and more of them told us that they’re alone, abandoned by their parents. How can you throw out your child? The child of a human being!”

I get up to hug her, and she cries into my back: “Why? Why would you throw your child out of your house? Why?”

They say they never suspected that Yehoram was different before he came out to them, if not unconventionally, as queer at the age of 18, some 14 years ago.

He did not employ the usual lexicon: “I told them, this is how I am – I’m wearing pants from now on and I’m not interested in men,” he recounts. In Yehoram’s absence, Yehiel recalls it as well. Yehoram sat his parents down in the living room and said his piece, and then asked his parents for a response.

“We got up immediately, as if it were coordinated,” Yehiel says. “We hugged [him] from both directions … and we told [him], ‘You have nothing to be afraid of, no need to worry. You’re our daughter, it doesn’t matter what you do.’” Yehoram then opened his backpack to show a couple days’ clothes inside. “If you didn’t accept me, I would have killed myself,” he told his parents.

From there, they worked to make sure that their son wouldn’t, for one moment, forget that he is loved and cared for. They also made sure that he could live a normal life. “It was important that he be self-sufficient, have a respectable career, be able to build a life without us,” Yehiel explains. “Every day, I’m afraid that he won’t be here. I think about how he can build his life so he’s not dependent on anyone else.”

Mazal and Yehiel tend to refer to Yehoram with female pronouns when he isn’t in the room, and occasionally slip into them when he is. To her, Mazal says, he will always be their daughter. “It’s hard for me,” Yehiel concurs. “[He] should be patient.”

Mazal calls him by his chosen name – an anagram of his birth name – to make him happy. “And to connect with [him] – what can you do? We love [him] either way. [He’s] our daughter.”

There have been difficulties in accepting him along the way, she concedes. But like many parents of LGBTQ children, they are mainly rooted in concerns that he will be able to live a safe, fulfilling life.

No one should mistake their acceptance for liberalism – they repeatedly note that the Pride Parades, with their scanty clothes and glitter, are unsightly. “The left brings it in,” Mazal says. “Non-Jews from abroad, with all their tattoos and whatnot.” However, their embrace of their transgender son and the many queer people who have passed through their doors does not come in spite of their firm religious beliefs, but is the direct result of them.

Yehiel, a lifelong religious scholar, has poured over sources biblical, talmudic, rabbinic and kabbalistic. The kabbalistic concept of the soul provides a simple explanation for the transgender phenomenon, he believes.

“We have the knowledge that Jewish souls can be reincarnated into anything – into non-Jewish families, into animals, even into food,” Yehiel explains. “We were taught that the soul of a man can be reincarnated into a woman, in order to remedy something he had done in a past life.”

When Mazal was pregnant with Yehoram, she had already given birth to five daughters and was hoping for a son. The couple went to a respected rabbi, who told them to buy a bottle of wine for the circumcision ceremony and to come see him 40 days into the pregnancy. Yehiel says that when the time came, it was hard to get hold of the rabbi to schedule an appointment, and they were only able to see him eight months in. The rabbi gave them the blessing regardless.

“The body was already formed female,” Yehiel says, but the prayers had worked: “The soul was male.”

And there is scripture to back up the existence of LGBTQ people within Judaism. “You’re not different, you’re not strange,” Yehiel says. “This [phenomenon] has always existed. It’s in the Torah, and it’s in the mystical sources.” Mazal adds: “It’s a shame that we don’t lay this out these days, to have everything written up and organized to say that it’s all there in scripture.”

At 26, Yehoram told his parents he was transitioning. He underwent top surgery – a double mastectomy – without informing them. “On the one hand, it hurt us,” Yehiel admits. “For us, it meant that’s it – it’s sealed. If he’d told us in advance, we would have told him to wait. Maybe the situation would change.”

But what’s done is done, Mazal says. “What hurt me is that [he] underwent the surgery and I wasn’t there. That ate at me.”

Both loudly agree that the important thing is that he is happy and healthy. “We hope just for success – and thank God there are many successes, so everything is alright,” she says. “I’m just waiting for children,” she laughs.

Yehoram, who has taken a seat next to her, smirks. Mazal jokes about him coming home pregnant one day. He’s slightly irked, but jokes along. A couple of years ago, he froze his eggs through Ichilov Hospital’s fertility clinic for transgender men, and hopes to one day become a father, no matter how he has to do it. His parents strongly supported the move. They have 31 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Yehoram asks a question of his own: Whether his parents want to talk about the time they took him to an esteemed rabbi in Tel Aviv, after he came out at 18.

“After he told us everything, we consulted with a rabbi,” Yehiel relays. “I remember that he got angry and yelled at him. I didn’t like that. He hurt him, and I couldn’t stay any longer, so we left.”

“The rabbi told me that I had lapsed, deteriorated in my spirituality,” Yehoram explains. It’s clear that he remembers it vividly. “That I had fallen.”

After that, the rabbi told him to leave the room, and for his parents to stay. “I heard shouting, and then you left the room,” he says to his parents. “You didn’t say anything, I didn’t say anything. We were quiet all the way home.”

No one discussed the incident for days after, and they barely spoke at all. After three days, Yehoram says, he asked his mother what had happened after the rabbi told him to leave the room.

“I didn’t know what happened, I assumed the worst. You told me that [Dad] got very angry and told [the rabbi], ‘How dare you hurt and belittle a Jewish soul?’ You said you had to give him however much money, and that you just threw a small bill onto the table and left the room,” Yehoram tells his mother. “It really surprised me. I thought you were on his side, and then I suddenly heard that you were on mine.”

When he is with us in the room, Yehoram sometimes seems agitated by his parents’ insistence that their acceptance has always been complete. He tries to direct them toward other instances, other rabbis they don’t or won’t recall. It is often difficult for parents to acknowledge the pain or discomfort that their actions caused their children, even if they were accidental. Mazal brings out a picture from Yehoram’s bat mitzvah, of them embracing the young girl he was. They look almost exactly the same, 20 years later, beaming. Young Yehoram, in a long-sleeved, high-necked dress, is smiling, but the smile does not reach his eyes.

Elisha Alexander, co-CEO and founder of the transgender advocacy and information organization Ma’avarim, says that even though Yehiel and Mazal’s acceptance of their son may seem unique, he would like to think it’s more common than we assume.

“There are religious and even ultra-Orthodox people who accept their trans family members, but it’s usually in secret. The main problem in these communities is the leadership,” he says.

But if more of them realized that embracing their children was a matter of pikuach nefesh – the Jewish concept that saving a life supersedes most religious commandments and norms – they would be more inclined to find a halakhic solution to integrating transgender people into these communities.

There is also a misconception that acceptance is a binary choice: That any parent who does not kick their transgender child out of the house or disown them has, by default, accepted them. “This could not be further from the truth,” Alexander says. “Accepting your child means accepting every aspect inherent to them, including their gender identity, pronouns and so on.”

When parents refuse to do so, their child may seek acceptance elsewhere. He adds that studies show that acceptance within the family drastically reduces the suicide rate among transgender people.

Knowing this, Yehiel says that any parent in his position must continue loving and supporting their child. “This child can fall,” he says. He does not mention it, but he is aware of the stories and statistics: trans youth who find themselves on the street face high rates of abuse and exploitation. Thirty to 50 percent of transgender teens report suicidal thoughts and behaviors – a rate three times higher than for teens overall. But that figure falls to 4 percent when families accept and embrace them, says Sarit Ben Shimol, manager of the Lioness Alliance for families and transgender children and teenagers.

Yehiel adds that it is the duty of parents to give children the support they need to thrive. “As a parent, it is your responsibility to tell your child: You are my child and you are my life. My life depends on you. Watch over me so that I can watch over you,” he says.

As we get up from our seats, Yehiel looks at me for a moment and asks, “If it’s not too personal – since we already opened up the topic – what is your relationship like with your parents?”

I tell them that I talk to my parents, and especially my mother, almost every day. That it was difficult for them to come to terms with my sexual orientation as well, and that sometimes I have an inkling that it still is, even if they won’t say it outright. But I try to be patient.

“Good,” Mazal says. “It’s important to be patient – they’re learning too.” She embraces me again, and Yehiel rests a hand on my shoulder. They invite me to come again, whenever I like. “After all, you’re like our daughter, too.”

[bigfatjeebusblog]

A Small Regret

CW: Dark, Gainer Fantasy, Heart Attack, Death

Dresden applied soap to a washcloth he was using to wash his face, rinsing the cloth then under the warm water.  Feeling the warmth in his hands, he brought the cloth up to his face and gently rubbed his cheeks and his massive chin.  Drying his face on the hand towel beside him, Dresden looked at his body and was not happy.  Huge breasts, a massive gut that flopped in the sink, and giant jowls showed years of massive food blowouts due to his food addiction.  Dresden pulled his belly out of the sink, which was slightly wet, and dried his belly off on his shorts.  Moving over to his bathroom scale, Dresden waited for the sound of the scale to prompt him to step up on it.  He did, and waited a few minutes…564 lbs.  Dresden smiled, he lost 10 lbs since seeing Dr. Then at the weight loss clinic.  He was going in for the “surgery” in 2 days.  He waddled out of the bathroom and over to his bed, where he sat down, hearing creaking noises.  

“God, I want McDonald’s so bad….”, Dresden wondered as he flipped through the food delivery apps on his phone.  Taking heavy breaths, Dresden thought of how he had to lose weight for his job and for his family.  Truth be told, Dresden was rather okay as a larger person, it was society that he disliked.  He often raged at society, as he loved himself, however society wanted him to be something else entirely.

He flipped through the straight dating apps on his phone, however he would often, in secret, look at clothes shopping magazines at the models.  As his clothes were often in the 8-9 XL bracket, usually he admired big men, their strength and of course, their drive to eat.

Eating was all Dresden could think about.  From morning until night, thinking about recipes, new restaurants, different experiences, Dresden loved the feeling of anything in his mouth.

He even loved, secretly, to pleasure guys also, going down to the local truckstop on occasion.  There was one experience that he liked, however had to always dismiss it due to the need to keep his job.

One night, 2 months ago, Dresden met up with a man known as “Zed”, who was looking to provide any big guy with a good time, providing that they put on a blindfold and would not allow anyone to see him.  Zed-of course-was an alias.  Zed met with Dresden in the dark, at 3AM in the morning, at a local truckstop.   Upon meeting, Dresden hobbled out of his small car, struggling to get out.  Zed watched him and smiled from a distance.  He was going to have fun with this fatty.

Zed, wearing a ski mask, pulled Dresden aside, and told him not to look at him and to wear a blindfold.  Dresden, wanting the ability to receive any release as a big guy (it was 3 years since he last had sex with anyone), obliged.  

All Dresden remembers at that point is Zed pulled him into a van and kept feeding him fried chicken, and sucked him off. 

It was the best experience Dresden ever had sexually, and he could not stop thinking about it.

Which is why this surgery sucked.  Dresden looked for months, trying to find Zed again, however could not find him.  

And so to keep his job and to possibly find a partner, Dresden begrudgingly was forced into gastric sleeve surgery.

Looking at his phone, Dresden realized he wanted to have his obesity go out with one “big bang” to end all binges.  He would still be within the threshold of Dr. Then’s requirements and be ready for the surgery in 2 days. 

Waddling over to the bedroom mirror, Dresden took a picture of himself with just his briefs on.  He then called an erotic bakery and requested a special order - an entire sheet cake with his naked picture on it, made of buttercream and chocolate.  They let him know, while it was a weird request, they would honor it and it would be ready tomorrow.

Dresden hung up the phone, put on his CPAP mask, and fell asleep, smiling and drifting off, thinking about his cake tomorrow.

Waking up, Dresden started his day, first by eating a small breakfast (god he hated this diet), then showering.  Showering was really hard for Dresden since there was so much of him...he needed a special wand to get to all of his areas, especially those between his thighs and belly.  His ass was huge, and he thankfully could get there with the wand.  As he washed his body, his huge belly and moobs jiggled as he tried to move in the shower.  He just wanted to sit down so bad, as all of the fat made him so tired.  He got out of the shower, dried off, and got dressed.  

He decided to put on a tight t-shirt to be proud that he was engaging in his last day of “obesity”.  He was so happy he could eat this cake...it was all he could think of.

Getting in his small car, squeezing into it, Dresden drove to the bakery.  Arriving at the bakery, he saw a familiar figure in the car behind him, however he couldn’t pinpoint where he saw this person.  

Dresden parked his car and squeezed out.  The other person in the car who was trailing him parked across the street, and he saw him get out. 

He could swear this guy was watching him.  Dresden walked into the bakery and picked up the cake.

“Are you the guy who ordered the fatty cake?”, the baker asked.

“Yup!”, Dresden happily exclaimed.

“God, damn, making that made me want to diet.  This person is really fat, what a lardass.”, the baker joked.

Quickly realizing that the cake’s image was Dresden, the baker’s face went white.  “I am so sorry sir.  Here you go…”, the baker stammered, as he pushed the cake over to Dresden, taking the cash from the sweaty fat man’s hand.

Dresden pulled the Costco sized sheet cake up off of the counter, and going back outside, he waddled over to his car.  He then took a deep breath and felt a presence behind him.

Everything went black.

Dresden woke up 3 hours later in a bed in a weird room.  There were steel pipes around him and the cake was beside him.  He wasn’t shackled and could use his hands and legs.  He was laying on his left side.

“I know what you really, really want.”, uttered a familiar voice.

Rolling over in bed, Dresden saw the man who was waiting across the street.  

“Are you….Zed??”, Dresden guessed.

The man smiled.  “Yes.  And you will eat this cake and so much more.”, he smirked.  “Oh yeah, and I took the liberty of cancelling your appointment and your surgery with Dr. Then.  You won’t be needing it anyway.  Hogs don’t need their capacities restricted.”

Dresden was scared, but relieved.  He could finally be free to eat!

Dresden moved to the table with the cake and started hamfisting it into his face.  “Thats right, experience that re-gain.  Get bigger and fatter.  Eat more and more.”, Zed stated as he started bringing up the food delivery apps, placing order after order of Dresden’s favorite food.

As the orders started coming, Dresden put aside one piece of cake for later, and started eating all of the newly ordered burgers, fries, pizza, and Dresden’s favorite, fried chicken.  Dresden was in heaven as he ate, he could see his lost weight starting to come back, his ass and belly ballooning.  It was getting harder and harder to shift his weight around as he ate.

After his 8 family meal bingefest, Zed brought Dresden into a shower room.  He used the proper equipment to clean Dresden.  

“I want to live here”, Dresden stammered, between heaving breaths.

“Oh this is your new home.  I have sold off your belongings already and this is your life now.  You exist but to eat and be my pig.  You will be my immobile hog.”, Zed calmly stated.  

Dresden was so happy.  His life could revolve around food.  Zed helped the growing Dresden back to his bed, and brought him his 3rd and 4th meals for the day, all family size.  

6 months later….

Dresden was trying to get out of bed to eat but couldn’t move.  Zed helped him move over to a new bed, one with a scale, and as Dresden was wobbling around, Dresden injured his foot.  Trying to put any pressure on it, Dresden was met with extreme pain.  Zed put his leg up onto a pillow. 

“It's hog.  You're never walking again.”, Zed stated.

Moving the bariatric bed up so Dresden could eat, he heard Zed preparing the bed’s scale.  A sound came out of it - 952 lbs.

Dresden was in shock.  He realized that his life, any hope of living a normal life, was over.  Zed laughed, “My hog, look at you.” 

Massive stretch marks inflamed Dresden’s belly, his thighs covering any semblance of manhood he had.  A huge fat pad covered his deeply buried cock, begging for any release.  His moobs, so fat, had nipples stretched so far out that they touched his elbow.  The last thing Zed noticed was Dresden’s side fat and his ass.  It was covering the entire bed now.  It was only 6 months, and Zed knew he was going to need to upgrade.

Dresden wanted Zed to suck him off so bad.  His deeply buried cock needed it.  “Please, can you, get me off?”, Dresden pleaded.  He couldn’t reach his cock since about 3 weeks prior.

“Only if you eat.”, Zed stated.

Dresden ate and felt good as Zed helped locate his lost cock in all of his fat.  Using the fat to lube up his dick, Dresden started to get off.  As he was getting off, the world started to go blurry.

“Zed, maybe you should stop.”, Dresden stammered.

Zed began to push harder and harder knowing this was the end for Dresden.  He pushed more and more.

Dresden felt his chest seizing up as he was getting off.  Jiggling his belly one last time, and shoving in food one last time, his last thought as he gave one last orgasm was a regret.  A small regret.

The regret was that he didn’t have that last piece of cake.  

Dresden saw white as he took his final breath.

[olivetreehugger]

SnK Warriors as Health Care Workers

I’m an ICU nurse, and I’ve come across a tonnnn of different types of healthcare workers in my line of work. These are just my hc’s for what kind of HCWs the Warrior unit would be. These are totally my opinion! Also, real healthcare is NOT the same as TV healthcare, not every doctor is a surgeon (and they’re not the best, either). Anyway, here we go :)

Warnings: mentions of blood, medical procedures, opioids, death

-Zeke: he’d be a fourth year neurosurgery resident. Neurosurgery residents are either cold, arrogant assholes or fun bros. No in-between. They’re always on the move or in surgery honing their skills. They don’t sleep and they’re on call 24/7. 

Zeke is always carrying a strong, black Starbucks coffee and reeks of cigarette smoke. He’s always exhausted because he's covering all the neuro patients in the hospital overnight and then rounds with the attending (Magath? idk) in the morning til like 2pm. It’s a miracle he doesn’t kill anyone. He’s wicked smart and super talented in the OR, but kind of a dick with the nurses. He shows up at the bedside to do a quick procedure, doesn’t tell the nurses ahead of time. He grabs all the supplies on his own because “the nurses don’t know what I like” and then when he’s done he’ll leave the leftover dirty gloves, removed drain, stray bloody gauze, and empty boxes all over the room. He has a somewhat asinine attitude towards patients, poor bedside manner. He doesn’t order pain  medication for the intubated patient before removing a drain bc “they’re sedated, right?” No, Dr. Jaeger, neuro patients don’t get heavy sedation. Please order a small dose of pain meds. You’re hurting them. “Oh, right. I’ll order that.” No, he won’t. Zeke always promises to throw in orders, always forgets. 

You’ll spend your shift paging him for orders, cleaning up after him and getting rude comments over the phone. He’s gonna make a fantastic neurosurgeon, though. He’ll save your life.

-Porco: An ER resident for SURE. He loves the chaos of the emergency department. A typical male in healthcare-he loves the trauma, the blood and guts, the crazy. He tries to avoid pregnant women and kids, they freak him out. BUT, that didn’t stop him from holding a woman’s hand when she gave birth right there in the ER lobby.  Great bedside manner. So smart. And he’s super sweet, actually??? He also creates secret handshakes with the kids and sweet talks the old ladies to make them more comfortable. He tells them to call him Pock or Porco, not Dr. Galliard.

Unfortunately, When he first started, he got a little too cocky and claimed he didn’t need to scan a patient after getting hit in the chest with a hockey stick. Patient suffered a ruptured vessel and almost died right there. After a very rigid monitoring program, he was able to practice again. He’s also a giant flirt. He dated most nurses in the hospital and they ALL talk about his dick game.

Porco rides his motorcycle to work and sometimes skips his helmet. All the nurses shame him for it, reminding him of the horrible head injuries that come in through the trauma bay because of motorcycle crashes. He comes in double fisting Monster energy drinks and jamming to whatever his air pods are playing probably Hamilton. ER residents are chaotic and funny and Porco is no different. During a code blue (a patient’s heart stopped) he kept calm and hummed “stayin’ alive” while they performed CPR. He runs a code like a goddamn CHAMP. He has ACLS memorized to a T and intubates better than most attendings. The nurses will tell him the patient’s labs look better after the medication he ordered and he’ll be like “Hell yeah, let’s keep it goin’” or “A’ight let’s get crazy” before an emergency procedure. If the nurses can’t place an IV, you bet your sweet ass he’s grabbing the ultrasound and throwing a few in for them <3

Pieck: She’s an infectious disease PA. She’s very soft-spoken, patient and intelligent. Orders and notes are always flawless. Apologizes whenever she orders blood cultures and even offers to draw them for the nurses if they’re busy. She buys everyone pizza when she’s on the unit. All the nurses love her. She’s perfect. 

Annie: A nightshift CVICU nurse. There’s a joke online that cardiovascular/cardiothoracic ICU nurses are the biggest bitches ever.  And it’s true, most are. BUT. Annie is probably the best nurse to have if you’ve just come out of open-heart surgery or had a lung transplant. She knows exactly what to do when a patient is crashing and is a BEAST when it comes to chest compressions. She is a pro at putting in IVs and troubleshooting pumps/machines when they don’t work. She has every single lab value, test and medication stored in that brain of hers and can pull it out before you can finish asking a question. 

She gives a quick, concise report on all her patients and expects the same. If you don’t, she rolls her eyes at you and rushes you. “I don’t need useless information. What drips are you running?” She gets in trouble sometimes because she makes her student nurses cry, but “why don’t they know how to zero an arterial line? it’s not my fault they don’t know their stuff.” No, Annie. You’re supposed to teach them. “Oh.” 

She wears the newest, cutest scrubs and has an ivory and rose-gold stethoscope. Don’t tell her it’s basic, though, she’ll put you on her shit list lol. She also hates being floated to the medical ICU because “they don’t know what they’re doing”. 

Reiner: Our king is a medical ICU nurse who started in the ER. He loved the wild west that was the ER but started to feel burnt out after seeing so many child deaths and cases of abuse. When he finally realized what it was doing to him he applied for a medical ICU position on night shift and transferred right away.

Baby, he thrived there. This guy is so compassionate with his patients and knows how to advocate for them well. He has a great rapport with all the physicians (except Porco, when Reiner was working ER they would butt heads frequently) He’s great to give report to, never gives the previous nurse a rough time. When he reports off to the next shift, his rooms are a little messy sometimes but he ALWAYS has extra supplies for you and the patient is clean. He learned so much from the patients and his peers that he was eventually promoted to charge RN. He’s the best charge nurse. Knows all the protocols and will call any doctor for you. Anytime you need help doing a procedure, he’s your man: IVs? “How many you want?” Blood draw? “I’ll grab the tubes”. Patient’s about to code? “I got compressions”. Call security for the violent patient down the hall? “I AM security”. 

His scrubs are a little snug around his shoulders and chest and he knows this. Baby likes to show off. He likes to flex his muscles for anyone watching, but he’s not a douche. Reiner is an absolute gentleman with his female coworkers, never complains when they ask him for lifting help. In fact, he loves being of use. It’s why he’s a nurse in the first place: he loves helping people <33

Bertholdt: He started with Reiner in the ER but wanted something more stable so he transferred to the burn unit (get it?). Reiner still hasn’t forgiven him. 

Colt: He’s in nursing school but loved the idea of being a trauma nurse. Then he did a clinical rotation in the trauma ICU and fainted when a confused patient ripped a screw out of his fractured arm. After that he decided to do pediatrics lol.

[scapegrace74-blog]

Ginger Snap, Chapter 6

A/N  Well, here it is.  The last chapter of Ginger Snap.   As an unplanned fic inspired by a vanity license plate, I’m happy with how it turned out.   There will be a short epilogue posted in the next week or so.  In the meantime,  thank you so much for coming on this unexpected ride with me!   This chapter’s themed title is Fire in the Belly.

Previous chapters are best enjoyed on my AO3 page, because I have a bad habit of going back and editing them after they’ve been posted.

The next five months were some of the most difficult of my life.  

After our talk, Frank and I agreed that it would be best that we parted ways.  The Southside flat was close to the university, plus I’d never truly felt at home there, so it made sense for him to keep it.  Fortunately, we’d never combined our savings and I still had money tucked away from my time as a medical resident in Boston.

Geillis wanted me to move into her sprawling Murrayfield home, at least temporarily, but I knew that I needed a place of my own.  To stand on my own two feet, as it were.   Which was how I found myself moving my few belongings into a modest Morningside walk-up as the rest of Edinburgh celebrated Hogmanay with fireworks and drunken revelry.

I scheduled the written component of my medical licensing exam for February.  This was likely foolhardy, but I’d already wasted enough time.  As a result, almost every waking hour was dedicated to studying.  The flat remained an empty box whose naked beige walls bore witness to my rudimentary existence.

Geillis called regularly, reminding me to eat and to occasionally step outside for a breath of fresh air.  Returning up the high street from one of our weekly coffee dates, a bright flash in a shop window caught my eye.

I stopped and stared as the afternoon sun lit the vase like a shard of stained glass.  It was a profound shade of blue: the colour of a field of indigo, of the night sky in a Byzantine icon, of Jamie’s eyes when he laughed.  It sat on my windowsill, filled with the season’s first daffodils, as I pored over practice exams.

***

“Geillis, I passed!  I fucking passed!”  An elderly woman seated across from me on the bus muttered under her breath about vulgar Sassenachs, but I was too elated to care.

“Of course ye did, ye brilliant disaster.  Now I can brag tae the neighbours I have my own personal physician.”

“Not so fast, Duncan.  I still need to pass the clinical exam, and that’s no small thing.”  My gut twisted just thinking about it, but unlike the written exam, there was little I could do to prepare.  Either I knew how to perform as a doctor or I did not.  The long months since I’d last treated a patient loomed like a large shadow over that question.

“Och, yer bum’s oot the window Claire,” my friend dismissed blithely.  “Ye’re gonna do great.  When do ye head down tae yer homeland, then?”

“May first.”  The practical examination took place in Manchester and needed to be scheduled three months in advance.

“Sounds like ye’ve got some time on yer hands.  Whate’er are ye going tae do with yerself?” Geillis asked in a singsong voice.

Fortunately for me, spring was Edinburgh’s most pleasant season.  Its many gardens and laneways erupted in carpets of buds and blooms.  The air smelled fresh and green, like biting into a tart apple.  I took long walks and fell in love with the city I now called home.  There were secondhand bookstores to explore and a weekly craft market where I gradually amassed an assortment of items that made my flat feel like a home.  With each passing day, my existence felt more and more like a life; one I defined for myself.

I also started to explore my options for employment, hoping for a job offer from one of the city’s hospitals that was conditional upon my successful completion of the licensing process.  It was to that end that I found myself walking down the corridor of The Royal Edinburgh hospital after what I hoped had been a rather successful interview with the deputy director of surgery.

“Claire?”

I recognized her voice immediately.  Before turning around I closed my eyes and sent out a fervent appeal to the universe.

“Jenny, hi.  How are you?”

She looked just the same, her straight black hair such a contrast to her brother.  Next to her stood a man, but not the man I had conjured the moment I heard her voice.  I was unclear whether that meant my prayer had been answered or not.  Seeing my gaze stray, Jenny jumped to introductions.

“This is my husband, Ian.  We’re here fer treatment on his leg.”

“Nothing serious, I hope.”  

“Jes a fitting fer a new prosthetic.  Jenny keeps beatin’ me o’er the head with the old one, ye see.”  I laughed, instantly liking his easy-going manner, so in contrast with Jenny’s intensity.

“Ye must be the Claire I hear sae much about,” he went on, and I wondered what had been said about me in the Fraser household.

“Nothing bad, I hope.”

Ian smiled warmly.  “Only good things, I promise ye.”

“What brings ye tae the hospital, Claire?” Jenny interjected.

I explained how I was in the process of qualifying to practice medicine in Scotland, provided I could pass my exams.  Jenny and Ian were both delighted, congratulating me as though I’d already accomplished my goal.  As we spoke about Wee Jamie’s latest exploits and the ongoing growth of Ginger Snap, I couldn’t help notice that Jenny was staring at my hands.  At my left hand in particular.  Finally, I couldn’t resist temptation any longer.

“And, how is Jamie doing?”  I tried to sound casual, but I was certain my faltering voice betrayed me.

“Very well,” Jenny replied.  “Busy, as ye can imagine, but he thrives on chaos.”

I nodded, trying to be satisfied with the news that he was well.  It was the most I could hope for, really.  Jenny eyed me shrewdly before continuing.

“He’s a good man, my brother.  Any lass would be verra lucky tae have him.  I’d like tae see him settled, but he refuses tae be rushed.  Says the right woman is worth the wait.”  She paused before adding,  “I reckon ye ken wha’ he means.”

“Yes,” I breathed.  “I know exactly what he means.”

***

I took the overnight train from Edinburgh to Manchester.  It meant I was likely to arrive at the testing centre deprived of sleep, but I rationalized that most of my residency could be characterized as one long evaluation under similar conditions, and I hadn’t killed anyone yet.  Still, as the velvety darkness slipped by outside my window, studded by the lights of passing farms, my doubts got the better of me.

I texted Geillis, looking for moral support.  For once she didn’t reply immediately.  There was one other name on my laughably short list of contacts.  I deliberated for all of a minute, but the late hour and creeping panic made me impulsive.

Hello.

Best to start with something innocuous, rather than the slightly more revealing “I miss you.  I think about you every day.”  A reply bubble appeared immediately after I hit send.  At least I hadn’t woken him up.  A small tempest stirred in my gut.

Arsonist.  Hello.  How are you?

I tried to picture him.  Was he at home?  Working late?  Or, in a scenario that played out far too often in my mind, on a date?

I’m alright.  Well, to be honest, I feel like I’m going to puke and cry.  Not necessarily in that order.

Och, lass.  Do you need me to come over?

Damn it, this man.  I had done nothing to deserve his unswerving loyalty but mislead him and then disappear for months on end.  And yet here he was, willing to come to my aid on the flimsy pretext of a late night text.  Guilt and tenderness warred for possession of my heart.

That may prove a bit difficult, Jamie.  I’m on a train to England.

There was a long pause, and then a two letter reply.

Oh.

I realized at once that he’d leapt to the wrong conclusion: that I had left Edinburgh for good.  I rushed to correct the error.

I’m taking the second stage of my examination to practice as a NHS doctor tomorrow.   It’s all hands-on situations, and the licensing facility is in Manchester.

Arsonist, that’s wonderful news!  I’m so proud of you.

I blushed, then leaned my heated cheek against the chilled pane of glass.  It had been a rash impulse, but this conversation was exactly what I needed.  I wasn’t alone in this.  Geillis and Jamie were in my corner.

What has your stomach in a twist, then?

What if I’ve forgotten what to do?!  It’s been almost a year since I’ve so much as used a stethoscope, Jamie.  The exam is eighteen real-life situations and you’re given eight minutes to respond to each one.  Not a second longer.  I’m just...  what if I fail?

And there it was.  The kernel of fear that lived at the heart of everything I did.  What if I failed?   What if my best wasn’t good enough?

Claire, listen to me.  You’re a doctor, just as I am a chef.  It wouldn’t matter if I had not set foot in a kitchen in ten years, I would still remember how to cook, and I know that it’s the same for you.  I believe it with everything in me.

On some level, I knew that he was right.  But it still comforted me tremendously to hear it from someone I trusted.

Alright.  That helps.  I should let you get to bed.  Thank you for talking me off my ledge, Jamie.

Anytime, Arsonist.

As I got ready sign off, another text bubble appeared.

Oh, and Claire?  Don’t burn down their wee laboratory, okay? ;-)

I laughed out loud, muting my phone and reclining my seat.  Outside, the stars shone brightly, tiny fires in the firmament to guide me on my way.

***

It was a lovely late spring day, and the retractable doors to the fire station were open to the warm breeze.  I could hear Angus’ voice as he led a cooking demonstration for a group of young women; a bridal shower by the look of their ridiculous costumes.

“Mind the coriander, lass.  Tis a verra powerful aphrodisiac, ken?  I willna be held responsible if ye canna resist my considerable charms after ye eat yon soup.”

There was an outburst of giggles as I rounded the corner and entered the reception area.  Jenny was on the phone.  She halted mid-sentence when she saw me walk in.  I rubbed my hands down the front of my jeans, trying to stay calm.

“He’s in the storeroom, in the back,” Jenny prompted before I could even offer a greeting.  I smiled gratefully, relieved I didn’t have to make small talk.  I had only so much courage stored in reserve, and I didn’t want to use it all up before reaching my destination.

The storeroom was long and narrow, lit by a single naked bulb and girded with shelves.  Jamie stood with his broad back to the door, his curls absorbing the light like amber.  He had a clipboard in one hand, performing some kind of inventory.

“Jes how many lentils dae ye reckon we need, Janet?  There’s nine cans of them here already, and ye have us ordering ten more.”

I’d almost forgotten how much I loved his voice, the undulating grit and silk of it.  I had to remaster the art of speech before I could reply.

“It’s not Jenny.  It’s me.  Claire.”

He froze, and if it weren’t for the sudden rapid flow of his breath I would have assumed he hadn’t heard me.  My nerves got the better of me and I blurted out, “I like lentils.  You should listen to your sister.”

“Claire.”  More sigh than word.  He slowly turned.  It was when our eyes met that I knew nothing had changed for him.  It was still there, after all these months.  That look that told me I was the map to his journey, the focus to his vision, the reason to his why.  

Hopefully he could read that same certainty on my face.

“I passed my exams,” I began.  “I’m a doctor again.”

“Ye never stopped bein’ a doctor.  This jus’ makes it official.”

“I’m still a disaster in the kitchen,” I continued.  “Last week I ruined two saucepans.”

“Tha’s only a tragedy if ye dinna have someone willin’ tae cook fer ye,” he replied with a strange squinting motion I understood was meant to be a wink.

“I’m still learning who I am.  How to be true to the person on the inside,” I confessed.  This is what had kept me away for so long, worried that I would escape from Frank’s orbit just to be caught up in another.  Jamie never once expected my submission, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t offer it out of habit.

“I’ll let ye in on a secret.  Sae is everyone else,” he replied.

Without realizing it, we’d both been moving until we were crowded together amongst the dried herbs and canned goods.  My hand rested against the solid metronome of his heart.  Just one more confession to go.

“I burn for you in a way I’ve never burned for anything before.”

There.  It was said.  A thousand wings of rapture beat against the cage of my ribs, clamoring to break free.  Jamie carefully pushed a loose curl behind my ear before cupping my jaw.

“Wee arsonist.  Come, set my life on fire.”

[darkdevasofdestruction]

Primum Non Nocere ~ Gregory House x Katrina Black

This may or may not be a personal fic I make for myself, that everyone is welcome to read in case they miss House or sth, so yeah, enjoy the clown fiesta.

There are many words that can describe Doctor Gregory House, all of them ranging from “Brilliant Doctor” to “The Biggest Asshole”...However, there is one person who ever called him “Sweet”, and each time, she got called insane.

Even Stacy, who dated him for so long, looked at her as if she suddenly became a chimera or something, which speaks volumes for his character as a whole.

It’s been 15 years since Katrina moved to America, and 15 years since she begged Lisa Cuddy to allow her to practice Medicine and learn directly from the hospital itself, even though she barely finished highschool and was beginning Medicine University.

Lisa had no reason to accept her, but she was much too sweet and convincing, doing everything asked, from cleaning, to nursing, helping her with management stuff, and then, as years passed, she started clinic duty and steadily, but fast-paced, she achieved her dream of becoming a successful cardiologist, going as far as becoming the new head of the department, since the old one retired.

Just as expected, she became friends with Lisa, James and Greg very easily, and each of them treated her in their own way - As her mother, as her confidant...And as her Mentor, of sorts - As Gregory House was the harshest and biggest jerk in the world, but not even the coldest man alive could resist her weirdly innocent charm.

She was the one to remember the gruff man’s every birthday and give him gifts she made herself - Nothing big, but always meaningful, like a winter scarf, or cute little decorations, engraved medical things and so one - And of course, on every Christmas, apart from gifts, she would bring him marshmallow hot chocolate and other festive decorations for his office, so he won’t feel lonely or bad.

Sometimes he didn’t even realise it, but every time he needed a proper diagnostic opinion, or his interns screwed up, he’d page her, not exactly caring if she was busy with clinic work or with an important surgery, and he’d make fun of her for rushing for “No reason”.

Life is definitely difficult for a shy, young foreigner, all alone in the world, but somehow, with the help of this few people, she managed to find something that she lacked her whole childhood - A true “Family” and a place to call “Home”.

But for Gregory House, this woman, Katrina Black, has always been an enigma he couldn’t deduct - The greatest mystery that crossed his path - He wanted to know her, to understand her, to learn about her and her pain and maybe, for once, he won’t feel as miserable.

The past 5 years especially, after Stacy left him and he ultimately had to live in pain, addicted to pain killers, and while he got more and more bitter, he also began to appreciate, at least in his heart, the unconditional kindness and attention he receives from her

And so, here we are, 15 years after the moment that changed everything in their lives...

“It’s not inflammatory process. It’s not a clot, because Chase’s angio says so. And it’s not cancer, because her tush is perfect. Anybody else got an Aunt Elyssa with weird stuff?” House limped into his office, looking at the three subordinates that were sitting around aimlessly. “...Maybe it’s worth looking into-” Cameron began, but was quickly cut off by the elder one, who looked at the angio once again. “I though you said Carly’s angio was clean.” Gregory blinked, putting both angiograms on the board for a better peripheral view. “It WAS clean.” the Aussie insisted again. “You guys see the problem here?” House asked in his usual over the top way. “There’s no indication of any abnormalities, no lesions, no spurs, no mastis-” Foreman got up to get a better look at the pictures better. “Well, if you guys don’t know, how about I call for the help of our lovely foreigner? I bet she’s gonna be angry for getting her out of whatever surgery she has, but...It’s in the name of science, after all!” he gave a mocking smirk at the trio as he hit CodeRed on the pager.

As expected, it didn’t take long for the girl to arrive, despite being in full surgical outfit, blood still on her gloves and her scrub cover, panting from having to run all the way there.

“What happened?! Are you okay?!” she tried to speak, despite barely being able to catch her breath. “Nothing really. Nothing that would result in the immediate death of a patient, clearly, and as you can see, I’m perfectly fine as well. Why ever would you hurry up like that out of a surgery?” Gregory fooled around, watching the crestfallen expression on her face, as she took off her gloves and scrub covers, revealing the cute and childish green scrub that had foxes on the top. It was her signature style, really - Always wearing the cutest, most childish scrubs, with various animals or flowers, and she was the only one who did that, despite her age, and didn’t care about anyone’s opinions. In fact, others kinda found it pretty nice too, almost giving off a more light and hopeful approach to a hospital. “So...Let me get this straight...I was in the middle of an open heart surgery...And you paged me while I was stitching it back together...With a code red, nonetheless...And I put my subordinate to cover for me, thinking that something happened to you or whatever patient you have...And instead, I find you here with no problem, loitering around with the three stoogies - No offense -...Having a party. Woaw, Greg, be careful, you are overshadowing yourself with every passing day.” Katrina groaned, throwing in the bin the discardable surgery objects and  hopped on his desk, crossing her legs together nonchalantly. “Awwww, you love me, don’t you?” he retorted in a fake sweet tone, making the girl shake her head and chuckle. “Yeah, of course, who doesn’t?” she could barely keep herself from grinning at his silly self. “So what’s the real problem? What did they do?” “We are trying to see what’s wrong with Carly’s angiogram, and I figured perhaps the gorgeous eyes of an exotic, successful, intelligent woman, would be able to see the problem of another successful and intelligent woman.” he tried to speak with more honey than he ever did, just for the laughs. “The girl kissed by fire should dye her hair again. Also...It came to my understanding that most people have...A left and a right leg, right? Why does the angio have two left feet?” she asked, taking her hair out of the ponytail and messing it around. “Et voila! Without even knowing the patient’s problems properly, you saw the wrong when these guys didn’t. See, I told you the foreigner would get it faster than you.” House limped back to pat her head, looking at the three with judgement. “So...Who screwed up something so basic? I wouldn’t have expected someone that works under you to do such a stupid mistake -... No, wait, it was Chase, wasn’t it?” Kat smirked, looking at the Aussie with a playful glint in her eyes. “Wh-What?! Why did you think it was me?!” Chase looked at her with revolt. “Are you trying to tell me it WASN’T you?” she pressed on, watching him blink and get back in his chair. “How did you know?” Greg challenged her, only to see her shrug. “He seems like the only one to screw up something like this because he was trying to charm the pants off some nurse.” she spoke as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “You are absolutely correct! Oh, and, stop messing with your hair, you’re leaving strands everywhere.” he grabbed her wrists, and just for a split second, his beautiful icy blue eyes peered into her fawn-like green ones. “Well...Every fire has cinders and ambers, doesn’t it. Now that you basically dragged me out of the surgery room, you have to keep me around for the case. I’m sure you wouldn’t mind me purrrowling around, would you?” she joked around, just as Chase got up, staring at the angios he screwed up in complete disbelief. “Yeah. Sure. You do that. At least I’ll have someone competent around.” he nodded his head, a bit awkwardly. “That’s impossible! It can’t be - “ Chase tried to defend himself, despite having no excuse. “Or maybe it was Jenny. How come some resident signed this radiology report? Were you even in the room?” House reprimanded the blond doctor. “I’ll redo her angio- “ Chase tried to defend himself, but was quickly shut down by his superior. “You’ll do nothing!” an angry House was a scary House, which made the room atmosphere tense as hell. “Eric, go do the angiogram, please.” Kat muttered, simplifying the problem. “...I can’t believe I did that.” Chase turned around to look at his fuck up, making the red haired girl sigh. “That’s what happens when you think with the wrong head at the wrong time.” with that, she flapped her hand to dismiss both of them, dragging House to sit down, worrying about his leg. “I am surrounded by idiots.” he dragged a hand down his face in anger. “Yeah, I know what you mean...But they are not stupid, in the long run. Just...Distracted sometimes...At the wrong times, sure, but...They have redeeming qualities too.” she tried to defend them a bit, while also calm him down, knowing very well that nobody can think straight while angry. “Yeah, I know. But neither you, nor I, have ever been distracted by trivial things like this. Speaks volumes about someone’s priorities.” he retorted just as tauntingly as before. “Well...He’s still young...And he knows he’s attractive for most people...I don’t know. I can’t really defend him for this one.” she looked down, sighing. “Then don’t. It’s not your job to defend everyone or try to make me feel better. Look at you. You’re young, beautiful and smart, but not once did I see you being distracted by some boy. Chase has no excuse.” he cut her off, making her smile in understanding, nodding blankly. “Yeah...But you’re the only one who sees me that way. You...And James and Lisa...You’re the only ones that I trust to tell me the truth and be genuine with me...And you’re the only ones who talk to me or hang around me without wanting something out of me. Sometimes things are more complicated than you see at the surface.” her voice became softer, almost melancholic, something that was completely out of character for her, or at least, that’s what he thought.

House was about to open his mouth and interrogate her, in his own weird way, only for his office room to get opened and have Vogler and Cuddy walk right through. With an ever so quiet curse from the girl, she bit her lip and raised her head, trying not to look worried or intimidated.

“What a pleasant coincidence, finding both of you here. I see neither of you conformed to the rules yet. Are you trying to have an anarchy together? Not wearing proper clothing?” Vogler look down at the two of them, which made House blink in confusion at the girl sitting on his desk. “Well, I know I don’t wear a coat ‘cause it’s itchy and tacky...But as far as I’m aware, if my eyes haven’t gone wild from the LSD, Katrina’s wearing a medical scrub.” the man started playing with his cane, only to see the girl shoot him a warning look, mouthing for him to shut up. “Animal scrubs are unprofessional. Nobody in the hospital wears them, and there is no benefit to them.” the businessman refuted with ease. “The benefit is that I make them myself, they are comfy, and people find them nice to look at. My patients feel calmer and more reassured seeing cute things. It makes them see past their health issues, even by a few seconds. And children and teenagers especially love it.” the girl explained herself calmly, before biting her lip and speaking a bit lower. “I’d recommend you wear a cute scrub too, I’m sure they are more comfy than your business suits. Maybe you’ll lighten up and realise we are in a hospital and we work with people, not with documents and money.”  “Haha, you’re pretty funny. Now I see why the two of you are always together. You have a knack for breaking the rules. Or, better said, you completely disregard the rules as if they don’t exist at all for you.” Vogler’s voice seemed to get darker and more threatening. “It’s just a coat and a scrub. House works from his office, and he wears suits, I don’t see how that’s a problem, the same as my scrubs, there’s no rule anywhere saying I am strictly forbidden from wearing cute tops. Do you really feel your authority so undermined by two people in this huge hospital wearing different things, despite not getting in the way of their pristine perfect work? Or perhaps you feel some kind of weird...Inferiority complex that you must hide and keep in check by walking all over everyone as if we are doormats?” Katrina spoke without even looking at anyone, only staring ahead, coincidently, at the messed up angiograms, and for a few seconds, she could almost feel her own legs getting screwed up from the malicious vibe emanating from the businessman. “Katrina...” Lisa brought her out from her trance, sharing a look of worry together, knowing very well they’re screwed either way. “It’s not about what rules are out there or not. It’s about the rules that I make, and making sure you are team players. If you are not, then...I believe we won’t be able to cooperate for much longer. Especially if Dr. Cuddy isn’t able to keep you in control.” Vogler threatened, before turning away and leaving, while Lisa gave her a pitiful look, following behind him. “...Fantastic day, isn’t it?” Katrina put her hands on her face, sighing in frustration. “Do you really make your own scrubs?” Greg asked, making her turn her head to look at him, before nodding. “Yeah. Want one? I can make you a pink one with lots of flowers and smiley faces.” she joked half-heartedly, which made him realise the annoying businessman was affecting her more than him. “Don’t be ridiculous.” he shook his head, getting up, patting her head. “What else do I have left after what just happened.” she stretched, cracking her fingers and spine, as she hopped off the desk, just as her pager started ringing. “Good luck with your patient, Greg. I have to go. If anything happens, page me...But no code red during surgery this time, please.” she gave him a tender smile, leaving the room, making him look after her.

What was it about her today that made her seem off? It has to be only Vogler, right? What else could it be.  The patient, however, has many many symptoms, and no actual disease yet. Fascinating!

As time passed and he got to treat his patient, and even lied to the transplant committee so Carly would get a new heart, and nobody, except for Wilson and Black, who were there, knew about that felony he committed.

On the other hand, during this time, Katrina has been working day and night with barely any rest, other than the tons of coffee she had to down to keep herself awake. There was something very uplifting about overworking, and no, not only your heart rate.

“Hey, Kat.” Wilson raised his hand up to salute his friend, which made her stop in front of him, albeit a bit spazzic like a meerkat, but nothing too out of the ordinary. “Hey, James, how are you?” she smiled at him, walking slowly together to whatever place he was heading to. “Pretty good. Wanted to grab lunch, how about you?” he asked politely, putting his hands in his coat pockets. “It’s lunch already? How time flies...I forgot to eat again. Too bad.” she chuckled sheepishly, grinning at him. “Anyway, have a great meal, I have a surgery to prep for.”  “You should still eat something, you can’t live on coffee alone.” James muttered with concern. “Thank you for your concern, James, I appreciate it. I have to hurry now, eat for me too.” she chuckled, stopping in her tracks, waving him goodbye. “Wait, hold up, I wanted to ask you something.” he stepped closer to her, bending a bit so he could speak without anyone lese hearing. “Do you know what House lied about? At the committee? I know he lied, but I don’t know what about.” he asked, making the girl sigh and shake her head. “No, sorry, I don’t know. If you want, I can ask him when I’m done with the surgery.” she suggested, seemingly interested herself. “If he tells you, that would be great. He seemed to stop himself from telling me because I am a member of both the board and the transplant committee...Which you are as well. Good luck.” he points out, both curious and frustrated with his friend. “Well that’s interesting...Okay, you’ve got me hooked, I’ll see what I can do and I’ll tell you as soon as I find out. Laters.” Kat winked at him, rushing to do the surgery.

However, she didn’t have to do much work, for when she was almost done with the surgery, House himself made his way into the room, examining her working, before speaking.

“How would you fancy dinner tonight?” he asked, which made her look at him, raising her eyebrow in confusion. “Did you talk to James by chance?” she questioned right back, doing the finishing touches. “Yeah, how’d you know?” he asked jokingly. “Oh, you know...Just the usual thing of me forgetting to take care of myself. So, where do we go?” she asked, finishing the sewing and turning around to exit the room. “My home. We get take out, fall asleep since it’s already past midnight...I came with the motorcycle, I even brought your cat helmet, come on, I’m hungry, don’t question so much.” he put his arm around her shoulder, bringing her to the parking spot. “No room to complain much, is there? Is it really past midnight? I feel like I just talked with James a little ago...” she muttered, taking the helmet and putting it on. “Time flies fast when you’re having fun, they say.” House pointed out, starting the engine.

For the rest of the night - Or early morning rather - They finished eating and were relaxing by the piano, playing “My Way” by Frank Sinatra and other fun, classical, beautiful songs, humming the lyrics and reveling in the fact that there were no cases for a while, and no worries, at least for what Vogler is worth.

“Say, mind if I ask you something?” Kat asked, turning her head to look at him. “Yes, a hooker came by just yesterday, how did you know?” he gasped dramatically, looking right back at her. “Oh, just a lucky guess. However, my question was going to point more towards the patient you just had, who needed a heart transplant. I and James were curious about your little white lie.” she chuckled at his jokes, which made him blink at her and frown. “Sorry, doctor-patient confidentiality makes me unable to say anything. As well as ethics. Those are very important rules that everyone must follow for a better place to live in, don’t you think?” she never really understood why, but those back and forth playful banters always made her laugh. “Oh yes, of course...Ethics...How could I possible forget about Ethics? Perhaps you have a dictionary so I can look it up once in a while. And now, for the real reason...I can assume it was something psychological? Some mental illness that nobody was supposed to know about?” she smirked right back at him, only for him to look at her for a brief few seconds and nod abruptly. “Bulimia and self-harm.” Greg answered, which made the girl smile sadly. “Figured it would be something like this...Many women like her have self-issues and they get desperate and lonely to the point where they find the only relief from stress and self-hatred in overworking and terrible coping mechanisms. Buuuut she proved to you she wanted to live, and you fought for her and saved her. That’s amazing. You...You are amazing, you know that, don’t you?” she praised him, a soft smile on her face of something that may or may not resemble admiration. “Where are you getting at with that? It’s almost like you’re praising her...For something.” his voice lowered a bit, almost as if he was interrogating her. “Praise is a big word...Although she is a great woman, without a doubt. I was actually praising you, above all else...And...I was just wondering...Would you...Would you do the same for me? Should I have been in the same position as she was.” she asked, as a matter of fact, which made the other doctor raise his eyebrow at her. “Why would you be asking something like that?” it was clear that by now, the atmosphere got a little bit tense, until she started randomly playing “Carol of the Bells”, such a beautiful, uplifting Christmas song, yet House could almost smell the nostalgic undertones it had. “You are being very weird, Katrina.” “Oh, come on, lighten up, it was only to satisfy my scientific curiosities. Christmas is coming, I haven’t slept in two days, I’ve been drinking so much coffee that I think I’ve transcended into another universe altogether...And everyone is weird in their own way, you can’t tell me otherwise. Now come on, answer me, don’t be such a killjoy.” she grinned, nudging him playfully with her shoulder as she got closer to him, trying to get him to stop thinking it was some greater problem. “...No.” he answered solemnly, which made the girl blink and tilt her head to the side like a confused puppy. “No...You won’t do the same for me, or No...You won’t answer?” Kat asked softly, hoping to get a straight answer out of him, but that’s never the case with House. “Figure that out when you go to sleep tonight. Good night, Kat.” Greg said, getting up from the piano and making his way to his dormitory, leaving the girl alone.

Sighing, she continued to play “Summertime” from Gershwin to calm herself down, before getting up herself and walking all the way to her home, albeit not a long walk, yet still relaxing thanks to the cold outside that relaxed her.

The next day, Katrina walked in around the clinic with her big Triple Espresso Caramel Latte cup, going around to do her clinic duty, only to get paged by House once again, most likely to help with another diagnostic, or point out some obvious idiocy one of his subordinates has done.

On the way there, she spotted the big bad wolf, so she hid behind numerous people and quickly ran up the emergency stairs to escape her fate, until she got to the diagnostician’s office, catching her breath.

“Why did you run? There was no code red this time.” he asked, wagging his cane around. “Yeah, well, code V from Vendetta spotted me, so I had to pretend I didn’t see him. The emergency stairs are a blessing, sometimes.” she chuckled, leaning, on the glass wall, taking big sips from her coffee. “Have you thought about what I said last night?” he asked, and by then, the eyes of the onlookers seemed to go back and forth between those two. “I would have...But as you can see, I didn’t exactly sleep last night. Again.” she gave him a sarcastic, exaggerated grin. “Yeah, I can see that. You look dreadful. Do you make it your personal mission to go in the Record book for the idiot who refused to sleep the longest?” he limped in front of her, making her sigh and roll her eyes. “It wasn’t for lack of trying, okay? I go to bed, it takes hours to fall asleep, and when I do, I have nightmares and sleep paralysis, I wake up startled and restless, and there is that, I can’t fall asleep back again because of overwhelming anxiety. Are you happy with my answer?” she looked up at him with an almost annoyed look in her exhausted eyes. “...Nope.” House dragged his answer a bit, as if he was thinking over some rationalisation of her behaviour. “Are you taking pills?” he asked again, popping a Vicodin pill. “Uh...Should I?” she muttered, blinking questioningly at him. “Maybe. If you don’t already. I’m not entirely sure if you are or not, unless you tell me.” he pointed out as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Or maybe I need a long vacation in the Maldives. Or to go back home in Europe. Who knows, maybe sleeping in the Sun, on a beach chair, hearing the ocean waves would prove to be a great way to fall asleep and actually...You know...Sleep!” she shrugged and turned around to leave, but he hooked the semi-circle part of his cane around her neck, bringing her back, making her yelp in shock. “Are you sure you’re alright? You’ve been acting off recently.” he limped in front of her, blocking the exit. “Ah, yes, of course. An anomaly in an otherwise boring human who is bound by routines. How could I forget how much you love solving these anomalies? But, you see, I’m not your patient, so I have to ask you to refrain from trying to diagnose me, and return to whatever your guy has.” she tried to push him away, but he wouldn’t budge, which only made her sigh in aggravation. “I think...You are hiding something.” House pushed her with his cane just enough to look at her better.  “Yeah, you’ve got me. Something completely unexpected...Like...Vogler giving me a hard time and threatening to fire me, despite being the head of the Cardiology department...And Christmas is approaching and I’m as lonely as always...Oh, and, how could I forget, my family wants to visit. My family. Who hasn’t contacted me in like 15 years. Suddenly wants to visit me. I’m SURE they want to have a very nice, lovely chat with me. Now that you know how miserable my days have been lately, can I go back to being miserable in my own department, where I can actually do something productive with my time?” it wasn’t often when she got so worked up, but it was clear she was stressed out and needed some way to vent or relax. “Don’t you want to know the answer to your question?” he looked down for a few seconds, before looking in her eyes, noticing how her eyes were puffy and droopy, and her bottom lip was quivering lightly. “...I don’t know.” she muttered, moving past him and going back to the clinic to do her job as she’s supposed to.

Of course, Vogle continued to be a problem for everyone, Christmas passed and she was just as lonely as every other year, so she drunk herself to sleep while listening to old school songs from her native country, because no matter how silly they were, they still made her feel happy and nostalgic.

Things continued to go array for everyone in the hospital, so bad and so hard that the evil businessman called for a board meeting to fire House, which caused a shit ton of problems for everyone, especially Kat, Wilson and Cuddy...But the only ones who refused were the first two, which escalated to another meeting right then to fire them...On her own birthday, barely a week and a half after Christmas.

“Doctor Wilson, Doctor Black. I was hoping you were gonna miss this one.” Vogler said as soon as the two entered the office room and sat on their chairs next to each other. “A man is the sum of his actions. Here are a few of Dr. House’s. He violated a D.N.R. and was charged with assault. He brought a termite into the O.R. and spat on a surgeon. He accepted a Corvette from a patient who was a known member of the New Jersey Mafia.” the businessman began, only to get stopped by one of the surgeons. “Ed, look-” he tried to reason, but was harshly cut off. “Edward.” Vogler looked sharply at him. “Edward. You look at anyone’s career, you can find things that are-” the surgeon began to speak again, only to get quickly shut down. “These are the last 3 months! He’s personally had more complaints filed against him than any department in this hospital.” Vogler continued, and James tried to reason this time. “Okay. He’s screwed-up. He’s miserable. And he should probably re-read the ethics code, but it works for him. He’s saved hundreds of lives.” Wilson explained, but it was clear Vogler was on a war path. “He is a drug addict who flaunts his addiction and refuses to get treatment! He is a disgrace and an embarrassment to this hospital.” this statement made the red haired girl groan in annoyance and let herself fall back on the chair. “No, he’s not a drug addict, that’s what YOU want to see. How would you feel if your leg was in excruciating pain because of a surgery choice you had NO choice over, and yet, you still had to work, save lives, and think properly? House MAY look like he’s some kind of insane jerk, but he is known all over America for being THE best diagnostician and was able to save people that otherwise, in the hand of ordinary doctors, would have died. Oh, and, those complaints have always been revoked or solved once the patient...You know...LIVED! You just want him fired ‘cause he’s not being your obedient lap dog. If you are so brave to speak ill of a person when he’s not around, why don’t you also have the guts to speak the truth?” she leaned forward to glare at her enemy, as Wilson put his hand over hers, trying to calm her down. “Says the one who’s always by his side, helping him indulge in his nefarious medical fantasies. Let’s keep this simple. Either he goes, or I go.” Vogler spoke, making Katrina rest her chin on her hand, watching him closely. “You shouldn’t personalise this.” Lisa tried to reason, but this guy was over the limits. “And by I, I mean my hundred million dollars. How’s that for personalising?” he started at poor Lisa, who was in a huge dilemma. “Who knew adults could be so petty? You give us money for a reason, and then you threaten to take it away because one doctor, the only one who cares about his patients more than anything, does his job as he is supposed to. Very mature.” Kat sneered at him, rolling her eyes at him. “Gregory House is a symbol of everything wrong with the health care industry. Waste. Insubordination. Doctors preening like they’re kind, and the hospital is their own private fiefdom. Health care is a business, I’m gonna run it like one. I hereby move to revoke the tenure of Dr. Gregory House and terminate his employment at this hospital, effective immediately.” Vogler declared, which made the red head jump up from her seat and slam her hand on the desk. “Since when can you decide for everyone? Are you some sort of God or what? You are WRONG Ed. First of all, Gregory House is the ONLY doctor in this hospital who is capable of being perfectly objective and save ALL his patients, even from the weirdest, most unexpected diseases! Secondly, yeah, we ARE Gods, in a way! We actively get ourselves in the line to save hundreds of lives, we...We HOLD their fates in OUR hands! He is not the problem, and Health Care is NOT supposed to be a business! This is not a business corporate, this is a HOSPITAL! A place where we, DOCTORS, save lives! You wouldn’t get it, you’re not a doctor! You didn’t have to see people in agony, begging to be killed, nor did you have people crying in happiness for being saved! You know absolutely NOTHING of medicine! You have NO right to fire Gregory House, just like you have NO right to tell us, who spent over 10 years of our youth studying constantly, and more than 10 years having this healthcare as our everyday life style, that we should do this for money, and not for the people!” the room went silent from the shock of her outburst, since nobody, in 15 years, saw her so agitated, and yet, she was right...Against the wrong man. “Fascinating and touching speech, I must say. Now I know what I have to deal with. Now then, let’s resume to our votes. All in favour of firing Dr. Gregory House?” Vogler asked, cheekily raising his own hand, which was slowly followed by everyone, except for Katrina and James, who looked at each other with worry, letting their arms fall back from the table and holding hands for comfort. “Dr. Wilson? Dr. Black?” Vogler tried to nudge to give in, but it was for naught. “Opposed.” both of them answered in unison, knowing that either way, they’re screwed. “The...Motion is defeated.” the business man sighed, letting silence hang in for a few seconds, before speaking again, in a chirper voice. “Dr. Wilson, Dr. Black, would you mind leaving the room, please?” “Excuse me?” James asked, frowning in confusion at his words. “We’re going to take another vote.” Vogler explained, as if it was nothing. “We are board members. We have to be here when you vote. You can’t void our votes by making us stand in the hallway. And, as far as I’m aware, you need notice and at least one business day before you can reconsider any matter.” James continued, knowing very well that he can’t prolong the agony. “We’re voting on a different matter, which you are conflicted out of.” Vogler stood up, looking solemn over everyone. “How can we be conflicted out of? What is that even supposed to mean?” Katrina asked, looking at Lisa, who seemed to have an apologetic look on her face. “This vote is whether to dismiss Dr. James Wilson and Katrina Black.” everyone looked down hearing that...Katrina and James were a completely different matter, compared to House... “Oh, great, yes, fire everyone who is speaking the truth and doesn’t go by your stupid business idea. Newsflash, not everybody is a greedy fuckass like you are. Some of us are here because that’s why we wasted our life for! Saving! LIVES! If you guys, after so many years of working together, think that I and Wilson should leave, then fine, sure, vote yes. But if you’re doing it because of this guy...Then congratulations, welcome to communism. Trust me, I’d know, I’m Romanian.” looking with disgust at that guy, she grabbed her friend and left the office without another word, and when they got far enough, she slammed her back on a wall, pulling at her hair. “At least I know why House likes you. You were right. You have always been an admirable doctor. I hope one day he will appreciate you as he should. Its not like he has many people who actually tolerate him...” James put his hands on her shoulders, trying to calm her out of having an anxiety attack, until Vogler came by, looking as menacing and narcissistic as usual.

He threatened both of them, saying they have the option of leaving the hospital, otherwise he will destroy them...Which means that there was at least one person who voted to keep them there.

There was no point in trying to comfort each other, so instead, they went to their own offices, packing up everything they owned.  However, instead of packing, Katrina stood criss-crossed on her desk, looking at her prized possessions on the shelves, including her awards, diplomas, random little plants and flowers, cute decorations...And a fox that had a heart in its mouth, that she received as a gift from House, Wilson and Cuddy when she became the head of the Cardiology department.

She didn’t even realise how tears were falling down her face, she almost felt numb to it all, but in reality, her heart hurt like hell and she couldn’t imagine how life would continue to go on from now on.

The sound of the door softly opening was blocked away by her personal phone ringing, and with a lethargic move, she raised her phone, without looking at the caller ID, and answered.

“What do you want?” Kat sighed on the phone, not having the strength to fake cheerfulness as she usually did. “Oh, sweety, hi, how are you?” ...it was her mother...What a coincidence. “Why are you calling? You haven’t contacted me since I left the country. I’m not sure you realised the passing of time, but it’s been over 15 years.” the girl sneered over the phone, clutching her grip on it. “Don’t be like that, darling, I just wanted to see how my eldest daughter is doing! You see, we want to visit you tomorrow, and -” her mother began, but was quickly cut off by her daughter. “You’re in America?! Why in the world are you here?! You NEVER left the country!” her alarmed reaction was rightfully explained, as her mother only laughed fakely. “Well, you see, your sister is very sick and she needs organ transplants and...You are a perfect match! Your sister really, really needs your kidney, liver and heart, and -” of course the only reason she’d call is because she needed her... “You...Called...So that I would kill myself...And give my organs to your precious daughter...Because I don’t deserve to live, but she does...Sorry, you might not have been informed, I’m a stone cold bitch without a heart, and I’ve always been. If you want organs, beg to a transplant committee, otherwise, I’m not giving my life to some stupid bitch who thinks she’s better than me. Oh, and, by the way, in case you’ve forgotten, you already disowned me long ago, so there’s no reason for you to call anymore. And don’t call me to the funeral, I won’t come. Bye.” Kat aggressively slammed the phone lid close, before throwing it on the ground, putting her head on her hands and finally breaking down to cry...

But there were no tears.

There was only exhaustion.

“Hey.” the low voice of Doctor Gregory House echoed through the room which made the girl squeak in surprise and turn back to look at him with wide, frightened eyes. “Don’t you know it’s rude to sneak up on people?!” she accused him, clutching her blouse where her heart is supposed to be. “I knocked. You didn’t answer, I let myself in. I...See you’re not having the best day.” Greg pointed out, which only made the girl roll her eyes and turn back to look at her shelf. “Yeah, no kidding.” she snorted, her hands grasping her ankles as she looked down. “Why did you come here? Did Wilson tell you what happened and you came to throw some pity words and say how you saved the patient? If yes, then go ahead, I’m listening...As always.” she waved her hand around, urging him to talk and stop being so awkward, but the silence seemed to cut them with a laser. “...Thank you.” the words she never heard uttered from his mouth before shocked her so much that she turned around to look at him, holding the eye contact that she was barely able to hold with anyone. “You...You? Gregory House? Are...Thanking...Me? For what? You never thanked me for anything I did to you, so why the change of heart? Did Wilson’s golden tongue melt your heart and mellowed you?” she taunted him to get him talking, but his expression didn’t seem as harsh or condescending as it usually did, instead, he seemed to be...Almost apologetic? As if he realised that his actions of being himself hurt the people he cares about. “Do you hate me?” Greg asked, which made the girl frown and blink in confusion. “You...Think that I gave up the best thing I’ve ever had, which is my job here, because...I hated you? I loved this place because you were here...And James and Lisa...But now that it’s all over...What are the odds of someone hiring all three of us at once, and...Lisa miraculously becoming the head of another hospital and...Yeah, I’ve got nothing, it’s all ruined. Guess I can finally get a vacation. Anything else you want to say before I fuck off completely out of your life, just as you wanted to?” it was clear that she was exhausted and just wanted to go home and be herself with no more veil of lies covering her. “You...You are too good for jerks like me, Katrina. You should hate me. I repeatedly ruined your happiness time and time again.” House muttered, looking down at the floor. “Right...I’m sorry for caring about you, I guess...If that’s what you want me to say. Stupid Katrina, huh? Always caring about others and forget about herself. Always so miserable and helpless, but nobody seems to notice. Stupid, lonely Katrina, who has no friends and no relatives to care for her...Who only want her alive to donate all her organs to her sick sister and she can just die for all anyone cares. Now, thanks for telling me that I should hate the only person I actually gave a damn about and trusted whole-heartedly. You made your point, as usual, you want me out of your life, I will do just that. Have a not-so-miserable life from now on...At least you.” she wiped her face from the tears, waving her hand for him to leave her alone already, as she looked at shelves again and hugged the fox tightly to her chest, burying her face in it. “The answer is yes.” was the only thing House said as he left her office, his head hung, and for the first time in ages, he felt his own heart aching at the sight of the girl crying.

While he did as he usually does, spending all his time saving his patient, she drank herself to sleep, day and night, listening to sad songs, singing them at the top of her lungs, hoping it would be therapeutical, but at some point, she forgot what it meant to be properly rational, and she touched the forbidden stash she was never supposed to use.

And in the end, at whatever god forsaken hour of the early morning, she called someone, and dearly hoped they would answer. She had no idea why she called this person...Maybe because he was the first person in the calling list, or maybe there was some other underlying reason that she didn’t want to accept.

Apparently, being drunk out of your wits out on the terrace of her penthouse, while singing at the top of her lungs some silly or depressing Romanian songs, as outside was freezing cold and snowing heavily...But she didn’t feel the cold, despite how light she was dressed...It wasn’t enough make her feel something again.

“Katrina? Do you know what time it is?” a gruff, sleepy voice asked on the other end of the line. “N-No, not really. I wasn’t even sure who I called. Sorry.”  she sighed, as she started to cry. “Are...You crying?” a rustle from the other side resembled House getting up rapidly from the bed. “I-I think so, y-yeah. I...I didn’t realise I was crying. I-I don’t even know why I called you.” she gasped, taking another shot of vodka mixed with chocolate bailey’s. “Are you drunk?!” House spoke in a higher voice, obviously shocked, putting on his coat. “You don’t even drink!...I’m coming over.” “N-No, y-you can’t! You can’t see me like this! And...And I have to know something very important from you! It’s VERY important! Life or death important!” she raised her voice into the phone, unkown to him, as she was fidgeting back and forth on the couch, which made House stop in his tracks just as he touched the door knob. “What is it?” he asked in a way so she would try to calm down. “D-Do you...Do you hate me?!” the desperation in her voice was something so foreign for him to experience, but something so usual for her. “What?! What’s that question, why in the world would I hate you?! Katrina, what did you do?!” he slammed the door shut, rushing towards his motorbike. “I NEED to know that! Just answer this simple question! Please, Greg, just answer!” her voice became more strained and desperate. “...Of course I don’t hate you. I couldn’t. Not you.” he sighed, getting up on his motorbike. “No matter what I did?” she started sobbing by now, which really worried the man. “Yes, of course, now hang in there, I’m gonna be there in a few minutes.” Greg put his phone on speaker, in his jacket, so he could still talk to her, as thankfully, their homes were pretty close to each other. “Greg...I-I’m...I’m afraid...I...I did something bad...Something very bad...” she turned around on the couch she was lying on, watching the sky as she shivered, snow falling on her, as she took another shot. “Katrina, I’m waiting at the elevator. What did you do?” House kept tapping his foot until that dreadfully slow elevator pinged, showing it got to the bottom floor, then got in, waiting to reach the pent house. “I...Took pills...” she muttered, clutching the box of pills. “How many?” he asked urgently. “I-I don’t know! I’m drunk, I’m hurting, I’m desperate, I’m lonely and I had a bottle of pills...One, two, three, four, five...And then it’s all blurry...But the bottle seems pretty empty...And I’m scared of an OD...” she explained over the phone, and then, she heard the front door slam close, and next thing she saw was a tall figure rushing in front of her, then he crashed on the couch on the terrace, and he pulled her to his chest, putting his jacket around her shoulders, his hands on her face, trying to warm her up. “You...Absolute...Idiot!” Greg scolded her, which only made her chuckle weakly. “I really am, aren’t I?” she said as more tears fell down her face. “You really don’t hate me, do you? Now that you know?” she clutched tightly to his Tshirt, as he could only sigh and hold her tightly. “No. I don’t hate you. I can’t...Now show me the pill bottle.” he told her, and suddenly, he felt her fall limp in his arms, just as she pointed to the empty, knocked down bottle of anti-drepressants. “What did you do...” Greg muttered in horror as he dragged her to the bathroom, getting her in the bathtub, completely dismissing his aching leg, as he used the shower tap to get warm water on her, while he made her vomit all the pills she downed, hoping she wouldn’t need to go to the hospital, and obviously, that nothing would happen to her.

For the whole night and morning, he didn’t move from there, only holding the girl, checking on her at regular intervals of time, making sure her vitals were still normal... Until she heard a string of incoherent mutters, begging him not to leave her alone and that she doesn’t want to to be away from him.

Oh, Kat, if only you knew what kind of effect you had on him...What kind of pain you were making him feel...The grief of being betrayed by Stacy, the one he thought was the love of his life, and then the painful leg...And now you, someone he cares so much for...

She deserves so much more...She is so much better than he is, House thought, and yet, the selfish part of him, the one that was quickly beginning to gain terrain against his sensible one, desperately wanted to cling onto her and have her be his lover together.

Funny how the ones who look to be the healthiest and happiest are in reality the best actors and nobody knows if there’s ever anything wrong with them.   Which only made her kindness and feelings towards him more genuine, he thought. She’s in constant pain, just like him, it was no wonder she could sympathise so well with, unlike everybody else...Or maybe she was just empathetic enough? More like Pathetic, she’d say, no doubt.

Time passed at an irrelevant pace, until she finally began to stir in her unconscious state, and finally, she fluttered her eyes open, making Gregory sigh in relief, and as soon as they made eye contact, her cheeks began to turn a hue pinker.

“Greg...? Why are you...? What happened...?” Kat muttered, clutching her head in pain. “You don’t remember anything from last night?” he asked, frowning in confusion. “...Sorry. I know I was pretty sad...And I was listening to music from my childhood at home...And I started drinking...And I remember the bottle of pills taunting me...And from then on, it’s all blank. Did I...Did I call you...?” she clinged on his shirt to get into a sitting position. “Yeah, something like that. Can you stand? You need to change into dry clothes before you catch the Rhino thing.” he joked, making the girl smile softly. “Oh no, not the Rhino thing!” she chuckled, and with a bit of help, she got up, and was able to change into proper, warm clothes. “I’m starving, wanna go eat something? I have some coupons for the Chinese restaurant just down the street.” she hooked her arm to his, leaning her head on his shoulder. “Sounds like a plan, let’s go. But before that, you must promise me never to do something like that again.” House looked at her with seriousness in his eyes. “Okay. I promise. I...I don’t know why I caved in like that. I always promised myself I’d never go that far...I fucked up once, but in a different way...And...I guess in my drunk state I didn’t realise that no matter how many pills I take, the pain won’t go away...Drunk people are really stupid, aren’t they” she chuckled awkwardly, lowering her head in guilt and shame as she used her chopsticks to get some noodles. “...People in pain do stupid things sometimes.” Greg muttered, letting silence take over them for a few minutes, before speaking again. “Happy late birthday, Katrina.” his words made her look at him with eye, confused eyes, before taking out her phone at looking at the date, realising she spent her whole birthday drinking. “I...Completely forgot...Guess now we’re even, huh?” Kat smirked, pointing her chopsticks at him in amusement.

Not much time later, House called Kat over to his office at evening, and everyone dear to her was there, celebrating that Lisa managed to get rid of Vogler once and for all...Of course, of the 100 million $ too, but that’s besides the point. They were back in business, the shock family, ready to save more lives again!

Everything went back to normal - Or well, the normality that was entrapped in their weirdness - But it was THEIR normality. A chaos of going back and forth, arguing, almost killing patients, and then, saving them miraculously.

However, nobody is safe from illness, and one day, during some diagnosis discussion, Kat was pacing back and forth, thinking and saying her ideas for the others to refute or agree to, only for her to abruptly stop in her tracks, her back facing everyone as she coughed.

“Haemoptysis.” she muttered, only for House to grimace. “Haemo-what now? Last time I checked, our patient didn’t cough nor spit blood.” but instead of answering, she coughed up a bit more, her hands covering her face. “Vertigo...” she spoke again, in a much fainter voice. “What the hell are you babbling about?” he hit his cane on the ground, only to see her taking a few steps forwards, albeit, a little wobbly. “I’m...Gonna...” and just as she uttered those words, her legs gave out, and she fell, the only reason for not hitting the ground being Greg’s Godly reflexes which ensured he caught her. “Damn it, not again...What are you three sitting around for? Get a crash cart and a nurse!” House scolded his interns, who rushed to do just that. “What did you do this time, Kat...” he shook his head in disdain as he brushed her gorgeous crimson hair out of her face.

She looked so peaceful now, unconscious, were it not for the blood on her chin and hands, but now, unlike last time, she didn’t look like some kind of undead who was ready to give up her life at any given moment out of sheer misery and self-hatred.

As soon as she was taken away from his arms, he refused to go look over her...He didn’t want to admit it, but he was afraid that, since he cared so much about her, he would become unreasonably subjective and he may completely screw up her diagnosis. Greg hoped with all his heart that it was nothing life-threatening, but blood in her lungs was no easy, nor simple thing.

Wilson visited her and held her hand, Cuddy visited her and kissed her forehead, even his subordinates went to check up on her because they wanted to...Even her cardiology colleagues went to see how she was doing...

But not him. Never him. Because if he did, he was screwed for life.

No matter how much he wanted to deny himself, however, he couldn’t help but find himself in her room, in the middle of the night, sitting on a chair besides her, holding her hand in both of his, kissing it and thinking of her diagnosis.

That is, until her hand suddenly started to shake, startling the doctor besides her, as she opened her eyes, panting for air.

“Hey, you okay?” House asked, squeezing her hand gingerly. “Urgh, yeah...Just had a nightmare...Followed by sleep paralysis. Again. Nothing new, here. Uhmm...It may sound as a bit of a deja-vu,  but what in the world happened?” she sighed, getting into a sitting position, looking at him. “You tell me. You coughed blood, got dizzy and fainted. Did you take anything? Felt bad or something?” he asked, making the girl scratch the back of her head awkwardly. “Nothing that I haven’t felt before, really. I have anxiety, I frequently experience restlessness, problems with breathing, arrhythmia, sometimes dizziness and stuff. It’s inconvenient, but you get used to it, so I didn’t took any pills, especially not after that scare a few days ago. Do you...Think it’s because of...My fuck up?” she looked worriedly at him, but he only looked down, thinking. “Not so fun being on the other end, huh?” House smirked before shaking his head. “I have no idea. We need to do some tests on you before we can confirm anything. But you’ll be fine, that much I can guarantee.” he promised, which made her smile sadly, leaning back on the pillow, squeezing his hand back. “Can you stay with me a bit longer? I, uhm...You know...Problems sleeping...When I’m with someone...I tend to sleep better...And a close to a full night. I-I don’t know why, but it’s always been like this.” she brought up the hem of the blanket to cover her face. “Then get a boyfriend and sleep with him. You’re young, smart and beautiful, there’s nothing stopping you from that.” Greg muttered in a low voice, almost self-deprecating. “Yeah, that’s easy. If men actually went out of their way to talk to me...And that hasn’t happened in 15 years, so, as you say, Mazel Tov. That, and I’m afraid of people.” she sighed, biting her lip in embarrassment. “Whaaaaaat? No boyfriend in 15 years? No action? I don’t believe you.” he took off the blanket from her face, only to see her blushing face. “You’re the only person that I never lied to. I’m great at lying and deceiving and all that...But yeah, I know, I’m pitiful, don’t have to remind me. Why do you think my life is mostly spent in the hospital. I’m not as lonely as I’d be at home.” she looked away, snatching her blanket back. “You don’t have to stay. It’s much more comfortable sleeping in a bed, especially with that leg of yours.” “Yeah, it would be. Now close your eyes and get some sleep.” and so, he didn’t budge from her side the whole night, and she didn’t wake up from nightmares or restlessness. 

Days went on, and she kept on getting tested, and House was beginning to get more and more angry at the fact that he wasn’t able to properly diagnose her faster, and he was becoming unbearable for everyone around him.

On the other hand, just as Lisa and James were visiting her, trying to keep her company, when the two people she never expected to see again burst into her room with wide grins on their faces...Which in turn, made Kat drop her phone on the ground from the shock.

“What the hell...?” the red haired girl’s bottom lip quivered in anger. “Kitty-Kat, darling, we missed you so much! You haven’t come home in 15 years!” the mum stepped forward, ready to throw her arms around the girl, but she was met with hostility as Kat dragged herself backwards in the bed, away from her, pure disgust glowing on her face. “Don’t you dare touch me! And don’t you even think about calling me that nickname! I don’t care if you’re my parents, you never gave a damn about me, so don’t pretend to do now that THE perfect daughter is terminally sick and needs a quick organ donation that would ultimately KILL the useless, unwanted, worthless daughter!” Kat sneered at them, untangling the respiratory oxygen tubes who got knotted in her sudden gesticulation. “Kat, are you alright...?” James walked next to her bed, trying to calm her down, only to get yelled at. “No, I’m not! Get them out of here before I get a restriction order!” she continued to glare at them. “Come one, Kitten, don’t be like that, we came all the way from Europe to see you, when you didn’t even give us a call! I don’t know why you hate us.” the dad gave an awkward smile, as if he was embarrassed by his problematic child. “You didn’t call once to tell me Happy Christmas, or...Or Happy Birthday...You didn’t congratulate me on finishing University or on...Literally anything. And now, you come to me only to make sure that I actually die so you could take away my organs and make sure your favourite daughter keeps on living...And you’re actually...You really...Have the guts to ask me WHY I hate you? I hate you because you never cared for me, that’s why!” she gripped the hand grasps of the bed, not realising that House also got in the room. “No need to be so selfish, darling, it’s just a few organs that you could live without! We managed to find a heart transplant, we just need a kidney and part of your liver!” the father tried to negotiate, only for her to grit her teeth. “You know what? I hope my sister dies the most painful death there is, and that you go off after her. We may be blood related, but I was never your daughter. And you know what? Just to make sure...You think you can get my organs? Here’s my response to that!” in a fit of rage, she ripped her oxygen tubes, which continued with violent coughing and some blood. “Why the hell do you even want me to treat you when all you do is get yourself in self-harming situations? First, you OD on anti-depressants while drunk, and now you’re cutting off your oxygen supply to prove your point that you have mummy and daddy issues and that you’d rather die than...Die? You’re just a selfish, immature girl with suicidal tendencies whenever things don’t go her way. You think I’m gonna lie to the transplant committee for someone like that? Because the answer is NO!” House limped in front of her, speaking with so much hatred that it made the girl cry and shake, crestfallen at the words she heard. “And you just had to go ahead and tell everyone that I’m fucked in the head. I wonder how much that is gonna up my chances of actually...Making friends and...A boyfriend...Y’know...Literally anyone who’d actually give a fuck about me. So...Yeah, thanks, you’re right, I’d rather die than being humiliated by the only person I ever actually had any genuine feelings for, because I’m sort of a sociopath with relationship traumas. So, if you could do me a favour, before I pass out, pick these two idiots and get yourself out of this place before I call security, okay? Thanks, bye.” and just like that, she started coughing up more blood, and fainted.

Seeing her being a reckless idiot drove House through the roof, and he realised that maybe, his dad wasn’t the only one to need a “Parent Of The Year” award, but even so, the fact that Katrina was so angry that she felt the need to be so overly dramatic to prove a point, and to have Cuddy kick them out of the hospital, sure was meant she was desperate, and for good reason. No wonder she never spoke about her family, or about anything about herself, unless it meant some nostalgic things about her country and other things that could come up as funny when told properly.

But why the hell does she have to make everything so much more complicated to him, especially now that he completely screwed up everything and she hates him.

How the hell did he manage to fuck up like that, just when he finally got ready to tell her how he feels...How he GENUINELY feels, without having to get full-sarcastic-jerk mode, and just telling her that he’s over Stacy completely and he’s ready to commit to her...And he just ends up basically telling her that he hates her, which is a complete lie.

Great job, Gregory House. The only thing you’re capable of doing is diagnosing and saving people, and sometimes, even that fails. Good thing she was okay, and with some anti-coagulant medicine, the clot that was causing her pulmonary embolism completely disappeared, and she was all ready to go.

Ever since that day, House didn’t visit her, her parents completely disappeared, and James and Lisa were completely pitiful, which only made the girl miserable. Thanking whatever deity existent that it was the last night being stuck in the hospital as the unfavoured party, so she went up on the roof, sitting on the little wall edge, looking up at the starts on the sky, putting the saddest song she ever knew to play on her MP3 player, which was “Daca ploaia s-ar opri” from Cargo, and as she softly sang the lyrics, the door opened and the sound of tapping cane was heard, 

“I have no idea what the words are, but he song seems pretty sad. What gives?” House limped towards her, which only made her groan and roll her eyes in annoyance. “Aaaand you had to ruin the most emotional song as well. Great, what is next on your long list of destroying? I have no dignity, no pride anymore...My health you can’t legally screw...And there’s nothing else on the table is there? I have no heart anyway. So why are you here?” she asked, not even bothering to look at him. “Would you believe me if I said I came here to apologise?” House asked, getting closer to her, then turning his head to look up at the stars as well. “After what you pulled in that room...No. I don’t believe you anymore. You’re a jerk. You’ve always been one, but not to me, and not enough to actually hurt me. Now you did. Congratulations. You lost a friend...Not that you’d care, anyway. You’ve proven me that enough. You can go now.” she sighed, hugging her knees to her chest. “Yeah, I know, I fucked up. I got scared when I saw you pull that stunt, I panicked and...That happened. And I’m sorry about that. I admit that much.” he said as he put his coat around her, hoping she wouldn’t die of cold or something. “Fantastic, the asshole knows how to apologise. Congratulations, you are amazing. Now, do you actually expect me to believe you, or what are you trying to accomplish?” Kat asked, giving him a sarcastic smile. “Before you got sick, I was...I was going to ask you out. But then you got sick, and in turn I got worried sick.” Greg began to explain, only to get cut off. “No, you’re lying or pitying me. You don’t like me. I’m not...I’m not Stacy, or...Or Lisa. I don’t challenge you with every turn you take, I’m not a jerk to you, I am...Practically nothing like the women that you have been interested with, so excuse me for not believing a word you say. I was sick, vulnerable and pitiful, you were miserable, you heard that I haven’t dated in 15 years, you thought I was desperate for love, but trust me, after what happened when I was 17...I don’t think I want anything like that again.” she tsked, looking away from him, laying her chin on her knees. “I know I’m a jerk, but does that really sound like something I would do?” his voice sounded almost hurt at the implication. “...No, it doesn’t. But I also don’t believe that you like me and you’re not saying that just because you heard my dying words...Allegedly. You’ve said your speech, now you can go, and we will continue our work as it always was, without having to see each other, so no more paging me when it’s convenient to you either. Goodbye.” she waved her hand to dismiss him, but he didn’t budge. “What will it take for you to believe me? I will give up my parking spot for you. I will play the guitar for you. I...Will convince Wilson to give me his stupid dog so you could visit him more often. I don’t know, you know I’m horrible with these things called emotions. But I want you to know that what I say its genuine...And apart from what I said today, I never lied to you. So, if you ever have it in your heart to believe me and give it a chance...I’ll be waiting. And...I’ll be here to listen to you talk about your pain as well.” he confessed, and as soon as he turned around to leave, she quickly extended her arm to grab his wrist. “You...Really...Mean it?” she muttered, not daring to look at him. “Because if you fuck up, I swear I’m going to do something completely unethical and against the Hippocratic oath. Primum non nocere, they say. First of all, don’t do harm. I’m completely fine with killing you, because, in case you don’t know, I’m a sociopathic, heartless foreigner with no morals or ethics.” she smirked at him in amusement. “There’s nothing wrong with a bit of Nocere, if you have the Vicodin for it. Fire-Kissed girls are said to kiss the best. If we test that theory and it’s true...Then I think we both know we’re gonna work pretty well. If you want to.” he looked at her, putting her hands of her face, looking at her tenderly. “I really hate that I was made broken from the making in factory to be completely unable of hating how big of a jerk you are. Why is it so...Endearing, when it comes from you, but completely repulsive when it comes from anyone else? I can’t tell, and it’s annoying, because I can read people to a T. On the other hand...There is another saying...Vixens always get what they want. Maybe I finally scored the big jackpot.” she chuckled, pulling him down in a soft kiss, the feeling of warmth and love lingering on, intoxicating them even after they parted. “Yeah. I was right. You’re like my own fix of Vicodin or Amphetamines, and I’m completely addicted to you.” he flashed her a charming, playful smile, before kissing her with even more fire and passion than before. “Careful, you don’t want to OD, do you? You’ll need a detox or rehab.” she laughed at him, putting her hands over his, kissing the inside of his wrist. “Oh, please, I’d OD on you ever day, as many times as you want, and I’d have no regrets. You know what they say...Tout le monde necessite La Petite Mort.” he retorted just as cheekily, which in turn, made her laugh merrily. “I can’t believe-! You just...You just said that-...! You’re an incredibly, annoyingly good flirter, especially because I told you those pick up lines before...But don’t forget about me.” she shook with laughter, winking at him mischievously. “Wilson’s ex-wives always praise him for being the best. I’ll prove him I’m better than him at everything. Especially this.” he chuckled, sitting next to her, putting his arm around her shoulder, pulling her into his chest, kissing the top of her head. “You better not talk about...That...To Wilson...Or Lisa...Or anyone, for the matter, or I swear, that little death you’re talking about, will be more literal than metaphorical.” she threatened him, poking his sides. “Oh, no, I’m scared of a little fox biting my nose while I’m asleep. Whatever could I do?” he mockingly called for help, which, as usual, made her laugh. “Jerk.” she grinned, hugging him tightly, cuddling closer to his side. “Yeah. I’ve been called that a lot.”