Can you See?

[Vanessa Sanders]

"2, 4, 6, 9.... The pattern changes...."

Vanessa was having one of her better days that day. There were some unfortunate times when she had to be drugged more than usual, and strapped to a bed. She wouldn't stop screaming, and if any of her limbs got free, they would attack whoever was too close. This day, however, wasn't like that. She was keeping to herself, for the most part. Her thoughts were calmer than normal, and it was hard to say if that was because of the medication, or her own control.

Nessa was sitting on the floor of her room in the Psych Ward, with a crayon on one hand, and a few scattered books around her. She wasn't allowed to have pens or pencils, because they were too sharp. So she only had crayons to use for drawing or writing, and at the moment she was using them to write on the white walls that surrounded her.

Whatever she was trying to figure out and solve was unclear to anyone else around her. She had been going from one book to another, books she'd already read, as if looking for something. There were patterns in the words and the letters that she could see. It changed, though, like a secret that you couldn't know unless you looked carefully enough. But she could see it, if she tried.

Her lunch had been brought in for her an hour before, but she'd ignored it. She was too busy, with much more important things to do then worry about food. She wasn't very hungry anyway. It was one of the problems she had, and one of the reasons she was so skinny, in the first place. She dropped the green crayon, and picked up a purple, like the color was a part of the code.

[Dr. Gregory House]

Tap, tap, tap.

The noise had its own unique rhythm to it. The soft noise, if you listened hard enough that was, stood apart from the repetitive echo of opposing footfall. The cane created its own, subtly distinctive sound as it fell along with his right foot. A painful weight shift, and then another step. The look of the awkward gait was just as unique as the tiny noise. No one payed any mind to it though. Most people here weren't nearly observant, or just plain bored enough, to notice the most insignificant differences. Even the source of my current subject, Doctor Gregory House, didn't really give a damn.

Gregory himself was having one of his worse days. The Vicodin wasn't doing much to take the edge off of his leg pain, and he had already taken more than enough. Even an addict like him knew when it'd just be stupid to pop another. It was hard to decide though whether or not being hospitalized for an over dose would be a good or bad spin on the day. Surely, it'd make things far more interesting and it would definitely keep clinic duty at bay. You see, with greater pain comes greater crankiness, with which comes little to no tolerance for the paranoid mother thinking that her baby's cold is fatal. Unfortunately, he seemed to be the only one aware of this trend. So here he was, pacing the psychiatric ward to avoid Cuddy's full intentions to put him through clinic duty-hell. A.) Because Wilson was off somewhere on some conference, and B.) Because the psyche ward seemed all too fitting for him to be in, or at least his boss would think.

Now, there was a reason House usually didn't dabble with the crazy people. Why? Simple. They were crazy. There wasn't anything else to figure out other than that. The mindset had managed to leak about the lounge in the form of a sarcastic remark to the Head of the Department, earning him a few curious glances from some of the younger attending doctors and nurses who didn't know better yet than to not bother trying to figure out the enigma of Dr. House.

A few drug-hazed thoughts passed before his mind was flushed out by the real world. A brief glance through a window made of the most powerful material that the hospital could afford brought his attention to an abnormality on the usual stereotype of "The Loony Bin". The ward had a reputation for blindingly white paint coating the cold walls, and yet an out of place splash of color was marked across his field of vision. House's limping came to an abrupt halt. (Earning an obscenity from the fast-paced nurse who was walking behind him and was forced to stop short to avoid slamming into him.) A brow raised in slight curiosity, and the tip of his cane was raised as well to stop the nurse from skirting around him. His question, however, isn't worth typing, since it doesn't effect anything. It fell on deaf ears as the short woman was too busy going even further around him and the flamed tip to listen at all. Where do they hire these people from? Gregory rolled his eyes, but decided to pry in the old fashioned way.

Gregory House considered himself quite in-the-know when it came to human beings, but that was only the sane. The insane were totally different, making this a good way to waste otherwise productive time. His pace was nonchalant despite his intentions as he limped his way to the doorway and allowed himself in to the patient's room. It'd probably be only a matter of time before one of her regulars came barging in to find him messing with the already messed with.

The door creaked to a shut behind him. A quick look over was all he needed to understand slightly the woman's condition. The numbers and colors that streaked the wall made no sense to the otherwise genius, no matter how he twisted, turned, and looked over them. House made a slight face at himself in amusement as he made what might just be the easiest diagnosis of his life; the woman was nuts. "Gee, and I don't even have a degree in this," he mumbled mockingly under his breath to no one but himself. His attention shifted to the patient scribbling on the walls with the crayons, and was instantly reminded of a three year old with a box of Crayolas while Mommy was away.

"So, since when did the psychiatric ward become a romper room, and why didn't I get the memo," he commented dryly, his lips laying in their normal grimace. He wasn't sure what his aim was, although half of it might've been just to see how she would react to him. Whatever it was, his eyes still held fast to the seemingly aimless patterns and the random scattering of the woman's things.

[Vanessa Sanders]

It would have looked as if Vanessa hadn't even noticed someone else entering her room. She did, she heard the door and the footsteps, but she didn't pay him any attention. For the moment, there were more important things to worry about. The patterns were fitting together, but when they were about to go somewhere, they stopped, and went back. It was like there was no ending to them, but they would have to end somewhere.

The code had to have some kind of and end, and mean something. In her mind, it had to, and because she couldn't find one, she didn't care about anything else. She was aware enough to know that it wasn't time for any shots, she'd been good and didn't need any. She also knew that her food had already been brought, it was still on the stand next to her bed. So whoever had come in didn't matter.

"It's broken..."

Vanessa stopped writing, the tail of her last "a" trailing on for a few inches. She stood up and looked at her work, as if she was trying to prove a theory. Her bare fet didn't seem to make a sound as she took a step back, and she glanced from the wall to one of the books on the floor. It was the bible. Every time she ripped it up, she was given a new one, and it didn't make sense to her. She could see that parts of it were in other books, but the original was broken.

Licking her lips, Vanessa dropped her green crayon, and for the first time, looked over at the man who'd come in. It was fitting for him to be there. He was broken, too. She saw his cane, as well as the look in his eyes, and the way he held himself with his leg. It didn't all add up in the same way it would for someone else, but she knew that he wasn't right. He was different. It didn't matter why he was there, it was more like he was a clue for her.

"It's just an object. It doesn't mean what you think."

[Dr. Gregory House]

House's pale, cynical blue eyes reattached themselves to the woman's now moving for. While he usually made it a habit to scan anything resembling the female form up and down, he barely brought any thoughts on her skim the surface. After all, a mental patient hardly seemed to be fair game, even for him. Her response earned a soft groan and an amused rap of his fingers against the pommel of his cane, but his mouth remained in its hard line. He should've figured that this is what would've happened. In a way, a touch of jealousy lept forth when he heard her seemingly random reply. The lucky girl didn't have to bother putting together something interesting or respectable. She didn't have to put any thought or fear into anything because no one expected it of her. Social conduct was surely the last thing she had on her potentially broken mind.

"Right..." he commented, the word tipped with an ounce of ridicule. Again his gaze shifted to her formulas and ponderings upon the wall , a part of him still wanting to take a stab at her patterns. Again, nothing would fit with one another. The colors, the numbers, the letters, it all threw him right off. He supposed that he shouldn't have expected anything more though. The scattering of books caught his attention as well, but nothing interested him more than the reckless tearing of the Bible. Perhaps in some categories, the mad were more reasonable than the sane. A book was a book, no matter what the text. At least this patient knew enough, or not enough, to understand this.

"But it only doesn't mean what you think if your thoughts actually make sense at all," he added. Even with people like her, his acidic nature refused to subside. "And then when they do, it's just an object," he shrugged. "So basically it's a lose-lose situation, even if you write it on the wall in all the colors of the rainbow," House, of course, had no clue what he was talking about. He was merely acting off the assumption that she knew what they were talking about. If he wanted a reaction, he had to speak her language. A decent way to waste valuable time, right?