The Interview

[jessifan]

Years from now, he thought, years from now, I will still recall the events of this day.....it was one of the oddest experiences he'd ever had. He being one Robert Chase, a young doctor from the U.K.

Today was the day he had been interviewed by a brilliant and misanthropic doctor. Said doctor (Dr. Gregory House) seemed to like to toy with others for his own amusement. 'I've met rude and sardonic people in my life, but never like this guy', was Chase's first line on his LiveJournal (most of which consisted of his random musings on the medical errors on those medical t.v. shows-where DO these people get their writers? he often mused).

Now if one read HOUSE'S LJ it would tell a different tale entirely, of the young know-it-all being brought down a peg by the brilliant yet misanthropic doctor-

Turk: J.D., how many times are you going to write 'brilliant yet misanthropic doctor?'
J.D.: 'Calm down, brown bear! It's called a 'riff'
Turk: 'And why are you writing about another show?'
J.D.: 'Turk, it's obvious!' The potential for crossovers is enormous!
Dr. Cox (snatches paper away from J.D., reads, wads it up in disgust): 'Newbie you have no discernible writing talent! No-ho-ho-ho-ho way would anyone pay you to write for a living, so stick to prescriptions!'

Chapter One-Brent peered over Wanda's shoulder as she attempted to finish her latest LJ posting. For brevity, I have reduced it to one sentence:

WANDA's BLOG-'My Life in Dog River'
Posted 11-16-08 04:29 a.m. (UTC)
'I hate living in Dog River'

BRENT: Hmm, that's a rude thought.
WANDA (peering up at him through her haze of disgust and apathy): No, me living here is a rude thought. The ultimate joke of the almighty!
BRENT: Who peed in your cornflakes?
HANK: Who's been peeing in cornflakes?
WANDA (sighs): Hank, you are stupid. I am trying to write something called FanFiction. Specifically about a show called 'House'.
HANK: I know that show! That's the one where they take an old place and re-do it!
BRENT (after a slight pause): That's actually 'This Old House'......
WANDA: Or 'Extreme Makeover: Home Edition' (imitates Ty Pennington) MOVE THAT BUS!
(HANK looks out the window)
BRENT: So what is the plotline of the fanfic?
WANDA: To work as many shows as possible into my brilliant work of art.
BRENT: Sounds good, how many are you up to now?
WANDA: Two.
HANK: I thought it was three.
WANDA: Why?
HANK: Well, there's that show about the gas station here....
WANDA: Yep, I've heard of it. GasPoint, in which a SRU team member also works at a gas station...anyway, when I finish this story I intend to post it online.
BRENT: Well, you know what they say about the Internet.
WANDA: What is that?
BRENT: uh, I can't remember, but I got it in a chain email awhile back.....
WANDA: I would express my frustration, but in cyberspace, no one can hear you scream...
BRENT: How alienating...

OK, for those of you who are still reading this, sorry I am rambling, but that happens when you eat too much candy and drink too much Diet Coke in one sitting....anyhoo, where was I? oh yeah, Chase was writing his LJ about the interview with House. I will skip that part and go directly to the story I intended to write....

'The Interview'

On the campus of Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, there is an office on the first floor. It is occupied by a doctor named Lisa Cuddy. Cuddy is one of a rare breed of administrators, one who can put up with any eccentricities of her staff as long as they get the job done. One of her doctors in particular is quite challenging, and very nearly a legend. Often at medical conferences, she is asked about him, and she can see the looks in their eyes...'you deal with HIM?' they seem to be saying with their eyes. Cuddy defends his method and his madness, but sometimes they are one and the same. Today he is interviewing a possible staff member for his team. To even be asked to join, nay even considered, is a great honor, but to be accepted is well-nigh impossible.

To have Dr. Gregory House's name on one's resume is a badge of courage, and indeed is the medical equivalent of having been through a war and emerging on the victor's side. He does not suffer fools gladly, and has no people skills of any kind. Yet, doctors clamor to work for this man, knowing his name is the mark of excellence on their curriculum vitae.

What these poor souls do not realize is that just sitting down for an interview with the good doctor is akin to a confessional in which they spill their secrets and yet the father reveals nothing. He knows their secrets, he knows their thoughts, and yet no one has ever gotten close enough to him to know him truly.....not even Cuddy, not his one true friend Dr. James Wilson, nor even his ex-wife....the sting of her betrayal hurt worse than anything. I used to be able to walk until these morons got ahold of me, he thought in the wee small hours of the morning. I will never trust again. I will never trust again. I will never trust again plays like a tape loop in his mind when falling asleep, remembering all the times he'd been hurt by others, his ex-wife, his emotionally absent father, his colleagues who shunned him whilst he said I don't need you with his words and actions, all the while wondering what would it be like to feel really alive? Instead of assuming that everyone he met was in it for themselves, assuming 'everybody lies'....he felt like every day he lived was like the day that a child finds out there is no Santa Claus and then has to reconcile that with the notion of Christmas still being there. Ho-ho-ho, but everybody lies....there is no Santa, there is no trust in the man's heart, there is no there there, as Gertrude Stein once wrote of San Francisco.

And in this corner stands Dr. Robert Chase. I love my mum he would easily say as a child, but the words would turn to ash when she was sucking down the booze when he was in year 12, after his father left and mom's best friend became a G and T double. I am happy. I am happy. I am happy. I am gritting my teeth and smiling and I am freaking happy. Keep it up, he would tell himself, you've got everyone fooled. No one can see you inside there. Be what you want to be, a doctor. Heal people, even though you can't heal yourself. So, off to med school! Run, run, run like a madman, working two jobs to put yourself through...falling asleep at midnight on those schoolbooks, waking at 6 a.m. to start another day. It will be worth it someday.

But when? he would think.....

And in the spring of 2003, Dr. Robert Chase, newly-minted medical doctor, found himself sitting in the office of Dr. Gregory House. Perhaps he's a gladhander, Chase thought, a backslapper, like Dr. Bob Kelso....I wish I'd gotten that job, I love SoCal, he thought sourly. Sacred Heart Hospital seemed like a nice place to practice, if a bit underfunded. Maybe if I had smiled more, or seemed more engaged-

'Dr. Chase?'

'Dr. House!' said Chase, rising from his seat to shake House's hand. House turned away back into the office, and Chase entered through the open door and sat down....

So the brilliant diagnostician, a healer who despised the healees, set up an interview with this young doctor. And the battle of wills changed both of them.


Any feedback on this story would be appreciated. And 95 percent of it is a rough draft, so if it rambles a bit, sorry for that.

[geminigirl21]

I liked it, actually. I liked the insight into House and Chase. And the crossovers were cute.

One question though. I don't get the San Francisco reference. Also, was that the end or is there more?

[jessifan]

I'll be writing more when I get the chance to :) And the San Fran reference was to the actual remark made by the author Gertrude Stein. She once did mockingly say of that city, 'there is no THERE there', implying I guess that it was not a cosmopolitan town in the 1920's. It is now shorthand for saying something has no depth, and is all surface glitz.