namaste | Drive By Beta Fic

Drive By Beta Fic

Drive-by beta/first readers time.

This is the first Cuddy-focused story (outside of ficlets) I've done for a year or so, and I'd love some feedback at this point as to whether it works, and if the basic idea -- Cuddy remembers her first days seeing patients as a med student and compares her days on rounds then to how she monitors the health of the hospital now -- works.

I'm also not quite certain if it it would be proper to refer to her seeing patients as a med student, or if it would be more appropriate to place her in a setting in her memories as an intern, so if you've got any insight or advice on that, I'd appreciate it.

I'm also not certain whether to give it a fifth season time frame in terms of Wilson -- and play into the "couples counseling" aspect -- or leave it as is without referring to the post-Amber situation.

A word of warning, this is not finished (I'm actually hoping some of you can give me some insight to help shape my rough plans to wrap it up) and it's a first write-thru, so it's kind of rough, but if anyone has ideas or comments, feel free to chime in.

Thanks.

She was 23 the first time she went on rounds.

Twenty-three.

Cuddy glances at herself in the rear view mirror, sees the faint wrinkles around her eyes, and realizes it's nearly been twenty years since that day. It's already been twenty years since the day House forced himself into her life, taking a seat at the table next to her at the Student Union and helping himself to her potato chips.

She eases the car down the driveway and onto the road and tries to remember the way she looked back then: long dark hair forced into submission in front of the mirror every morning with the blow dryer and flat iron, the short white lab coat that denoted her status as a med student, the notebook that she carried everywhere filled with scribbled bits of information about patients, about medications, about how to interpret the clues and hints the body sends out.

House had been gone for more than two years by the time Cuddy took her first steps on rounds, but memories of him had refused to fade. She walked the same halls he once walked, she'd done the same lab tests he'd once done, and could hear the dismissive sigh he'd make as he'd wave them all off as boring and not worth the effort.

That first day she and the other students were separated into groups, and posted to their first clinical assignments. Even then House intruded as one of the residents listed off the rules every med student should know. "And number one," he'd said, "lab supplies should not be used for recreational purposes."

And Cuddy had remembered seeing the grin on House's face the day the cafeteria had been forced to close.

Now that she's the administrator, the one making the rules, the one who has to keep both students and doctors in line, Cuddy reminds herself that she should know how much damage House did back then, but even now, she can't quite hold back her own smile.

She turns left, out of her neighborhood and into town. It's still dark out, the number of cars just beginning to pick up to a steady stream of drivers headed to work early.

Cuddy had been early that first day, had been at the hospital more than thirty minutes before her scheduled start time. She'd been both sure of herself, yet wary of what she didn't know. She'd been near the top of her class for the first two years -- flew through every exam and moment of lab work. But this wasn't the classroom. These were real patients, with real problems. She couldn't make a mistake.

But she'd been lucky. Those first months, Cuddy had been assigned to Dr. Rourke, senior attending in endocrinology. He was short, balding and slightly overweight, his hands ending in thick fingers, his fingernails cut blunt and straight.

But she also remembers how gently those same fingers could be as he'd palpate the thyroid gland, or take someone's hand to ease their fears. She never questioned the decision she'd made within weeks of meeting him to specialize in endocrinology.

Days in the hospital quickly settled into a routine. They'd begin with rounds, Rourke leading the students from room to room and bed to bed. After the briefest of pauses one of the students would step forward, fumble for notes and begin to recite the facts: age, symptoms, diagnosis, treatment.

Then the silence, everyone glancing between the student and Rourke, waiting for the first words to come out of the senior doctor's mouth.

If you were lucky, he'd nod, thank the patient for their time and tell the students to move on. If you weren't, you know as soon as he asked his first question.

"What was his blood pressure upon admission?" Rourke might ask, using just a few words to shine bright light on the one fact the student forgot to mention.

Or he'd ask about the results of a blood test, knowing that the test hadn't been ordered, and making it clear that the test could point to some flaw that the student missed in his diagnosis.

Worst of all was the point when he'd turn to the other students, ask them what they would have done differently. It was the moment it was clear that you had screwed up. Big time. Rourke would never have to say those words, just let the question speak for itself, wait for the other interns to see what he'd seen, to learn for themselves what had been missed.

Cuddy thinks now that she learned more in those six months with Rourke than she had in the rest of med school combined about how to treat and diagnose diseases, and learned more from him about from his steady stream of questions about being an administrator than he'd ever realize.

She pulls into an empty parking space at the coffee shop five blocks from the hospital. She reaches for her purse and opens the door, thinking that she should drop Rourke a note, let him know how much he meant to her.

The coffee shop seems bright after the darkness of the late autumn morning. One of the baristas sees her coming. "The usual?" she asks, and Cuddy nods.

She pays for the soy latte and realizes how much she's come to develop her own routine, years after leaving the routine of med school behind, with the latte replacing the instant coffee in the student apartment she shared with three other girls, lunches with fundraisers rather than cramming at the library, tennis matches at night rather than the bar.

She even still does morning rounds, in her own way. Once at the office, she sits at her desk, turns on her computer and reads through the reports and e-mails filed each night. Rather than interns reporting on individual patients, she hears from department heads, each one focusing on the health of their staff.

Just as Rourke once listened to the rundown on patients from students and listened for what wasn't being said, she now reads between the lines of each typed report.

There's the notice from orthopedics that Simpson would like to rearrange OR assignments. Again. She quickly realizes that this means that someone pissed off Simpson again, and he's decided he wants a new surgical team. Simpson is a pain in the ass to work for, but he's a skilled surgeon, and the ortho chief and Cuddy have both agreed that it's worth making a few adjustments to keep everyone happy.

She sees that yesterday's files from the ER have already been added to the system, and she scans the rundown on the number of patients seen, the hours logged by nurses and the list of needed supplies ordered from the inventory. Cuddy smiles, sips her latte. Her bet to place Cameron at the head of the department is paying off. It hadn't been the safe bet. Cameron had spent only a few months in the ER before her promotion. Edwards had the seniority, and had expected the title.

"This is because she's one of House's pets," he'd said when Cuddy took him out to lunch, and told him her plan. "She's barely figured out where we keep the meds down there."

"House has nothing to do with it." Cuddy had ignored the way Edwards had rolled his eyes. "But you know she's a good doctor, and she learns quickly."

Edwards hadn't argued, just stabbed at a piece of his chicken piccatta.

"But," Cuddy had continued, "she's not as good as you down there."

He'd stopped, looked up at her. "So why ..."

"Because we need you working with patients, not doing paperwork." Cuddy had seen the frustration seep out of his face as he sat back and listened. "You know as well as I do that half of the work running a department is paperwork. Doctor Cameron is fine doctor, but she doesn't mind doing paperwork. And you're a fine doctor who's happier when he's seeing patients."

He'd nodded as she'd explained the plan to him, to split duties from the hospital's traditional hierarchy to make him the senior attending, overseeing cases on the floor. Cameron would handle scheduling, the budget and managerial duties, which would cut into her time with patients, but keep the bureaucratic machine moving.

Cuddy knows she'd been right back then, knows it as she clicks away from Cameron's ER report and remembers Edwards' friendly wave to her in the parking lot yesterday.

She goes to the next item in her e-mail.

Brenda Previn has repeated her request to add evening hours at least one night a week for the clinic. They both know that the clinic has been getting swamped for the past few months, ever since the auto plant in Linden shut down. The university setting, and the distance, has helped insulate Princeton from some of the worst economic hits, but the area is still hurting.

From her post in the clinic, Brenda has seen just how bad it's getting, and has warned that it'll only get worse. Cuddy's been trying to find funds that would let them extend the hours, and Brenda keeps sending her reminders that won't let her slack off. Cuddy's been thinking of asking the departments to chip in an extra hour per week to their clinic duty, but she's waiting for the right time to spring the request.

Wilson has left a status report on the list of candidates for a new attending position in oncology. It's just a few lines. He always says he doesn't want to bother her unless there's something he can't take care of himself. Cuddy always trusts his judgment, though she sometimes regrets that. Usually he's right, and things are under control, but when he's wrong --

She shakes her head, tries not to dwell on those times, the times when he makes a mistake and a smoldering ember takes on oxygen, and grows overnight into an inferno. And most of the time, House is standing at the heart of the flames.

And House...

She lets the thought trail off, picks up her latte and turns away from the computer. If this really is her way of making rounds these days, then House is her own patient -- in more ways than one. He is her responsibility.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Typo: "how gentle those fingers could be" instead of "gently".

As for going on rounds, my friend who's an MS3 goes on rounds and she's not an intern yet. She's been seeing patients since last year, under supervision. I think that's appropriate and useful for Cuddy.

I'll fix that gentle/gently thing. And I think I can safely go with the med student phase of her life now. I keep picking anecdotal evidence (like yours) that points to that conclusion, though.

Enough anecdotes about med students who go on rounds and I think we can take it as generally true. They don't go unsupervised, but they do go!

I did not see any typos (but I'm the world's worst at catching them on the first run-through) or anything that bumps. I really like this look at the patterns of her life and how she now makes rounds. House having once shut down the cafeteria is very amusing. Humor is pretty much essential, I think, to the House-Cuddy relationship or else she would have killed him by now. :)

What plans do you have for wrapping this up? I'm assuming this broad view is going to come to a focus point on something specific with House, and then there's that intriguing look at Wilson.

What plans do you have for wrapping this up?

That's kind of the thing I'm struggling with at this point. I'd like to hone in more on the relationship she has with House, obviously. I'm leaning towards playing up the multiple roles that House plays in her life. He's been her literal and metaphorical patient, so I think there's that aspect, but also he butts into her life in ways no patient ever did, and the way that trying to keep tabs on his department spills into other departments. Maybe the tack I want to take is that as much as Cuddy finds comfort in her routines, House defies any routine -- and she comes to accept that, and accept that his very chaotic existence is something she's come to ... well, if not enjoy, sort of appreciate. He keeps her from falling into an easy and comfortable rut, if you will.

I think that's an excellent idea. House's view is that rote thinking is lazy thinking, and that's never good enough.

Maybe House should not only point that out, but remind her that if she'd wanted predictable and routine, she never would have hired him in the first place.

Here, roughly, is how I'd continue from the above:

She lets the thought trail off, picks up her latte and turns away from the computer. If this really is her way of making rounds these days, then House is her own patient -- in more ways than one. He is her responsibility. He is the patient in the bed whose body defies every diagnosis, every cure.

Sometimes she wishes Rourke was still here, so he could say one word, ask one question that would make it all so clear, so that she'll finally know what she should do, wishes he could give her the clue to the answer she's been seeking since that day House had forced himself back into her life.

She'd known that House was at PPTH before she even took the job -- part of the staff, but always denied tenure, the administration's way of keeping him on a leash by letting him know they could fire him at any time. She'd shaken her head when she'd heard that, realized that they had no idea who they were dealing with. House never cared about getting fired. He cared about being bored, of never finding the answer to whatever mystery he was chasing.

Cuddy had half expected him to show up everywhere in her first months there: in a patient's room, in her office up in the endrocrinology department, in one of the subcommittee meetings that she chaired. She'd spent an hour one afternoon in the cafeteria with a bag of chips on her tray and found herself disappointed he hadn't shown up. She began to wonder if he was ignoring her.

Or if maybe he'd forgotten her.

He hadn't. She'd seen the way he stared her down from his bed the first time she saw him after he was admitted -- doped up on morphine and his kidneys shutting down, he'd sized her up in a glance, waved her off when she'd started to introduce herself, explain how her committee oversaw clinic cases.

"I've got a clot, and they send an endocrinologist," he'd said, and turned to Stacy. "We should have gone to Princeton General."

Cuddy had quietly reassured him that she was overseeing his case with the vascular team, tried using the gentle, easy tones that she'd heard Rourke use again and again with nervous patients, the same tones that had worked for her for years.

House defied her expectations, and defied common sense. Cuddy knew he should have died -- believes even now that he probably would have died, if it weren't for Stacy.

....

Sorry I'm so late getting back -- hectic day.

This is just lovely, and an excellent and very clear way of dealing with events in "Three Stories." I don't think I've seen anyone else take on the idea of House being at PPTH before her, and it works perfectly.

As usual, I'm no help at all. I like this a LOT. I like the comparison between taking rounds as a student and the 'taking rounds' as she does now, and I like how she 'diagnoses' the deeper reasons between what she sees in her mail of for instance what the wave of Edwards told her. I like the short reference of House as her patient in more ways than one. If I were to offer some advice, but it seems presumptuous (that's a word, right? I misplaced my dictionary), I'd not go into the whole Wilson/Amber/'we've never been friends'-mess if I were you. In the grand scheme of things, in the end, when all is said and done, I think this whole storyline will prove pointless.

Thanks. I do think that by the time I get this wrapped up, canon on the House and Wilson falling out will be near resolution ... so maybe I could make reference to it, but not make it a plot point.

I don't comment often (OK, hardly ever), so I hope you don't mind me butting in now...

I love this. It is always good to read a fic that sheds more light on Cuddy's past and her skills as a doctor and administrator. I am especially excited that it's coming from you! Your insights into the characters and the way you so believably fill in the blanks are amazing. I also love the idea that House keeps Cuddy from falling into complacency. Can't wait to see how you wrap it up.

I did notice one thing:

learned more from him about from his steady stream of questions about being an administrator than he'd ever realize.

Maybe "learned more through his steady stream of questions" would work better?

Thank you for writing and sharing it with all of us!

Thanks. Butting in is appreciated (that's why I put this up at this point, to help me figure out the process).

I'll fine tune the phrase in the copy on my hard drive, rather than doing a lot of editing here, since I tend to then lose my edits somewhere in between.

Hey. Liked this and am looking forward to the completed fic.

Gosh! The mention of students makes me miss them, because I can not remember the last time we saw one on the show. I liked your Cuddy here; she seemed competent, very professional, yet compassionate. I also particularly liked your notion of how it came to pass that Cameron is running the ER. I love my show, but sometimes the manner in which it eschews logic makes me despair.

I do have a few nit-picks, which I suspect you may have already corrected, but here goes:

A little into Cuddy's conversation with Edwards…

Doctor Cameron is fine doctor, but she doesn't mind doing paperwork.

Needs an “a” in there.

In the Brenda Previn/clinic section. There are two “Cuddy's been” in close succession. Stylistic choice?

Thanks. I'll take a look at that "Cuddy's been." What you see here is a nearly completely re-written version of what I started with (the first one took too long to get to the present day).

Now I just have to find time to write. (Real life seems to be way too busy the last few months.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Drive By Beta Fic

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject