The persistent ringing of telephone in House’s office brought Kutner back to reality. He pulled himself up out of his chair and answered the phone.
“Hello,” he sighed.
This was met by a deep voice that echoed down the line.
“Oh, hullo there. I was looking for Dr. Remy Hadley.”
“Remy Had… Oh! You mean 13. Erm… hang on I’ll page her…”
Kutner does this and returns to his seat. A few minutes passed before 13 pushed open the door and gave him a questioning look.
“You paged?”
“Someone on the phone is asking for you…”
Without looking up from what he was reading he jabbed his thumb in the direction of the phone lying on House’s desk on the other side of the glass. He heard the door open and close, yawned loudly and continued to read ‘the pocket handbook on safely using defibrillators’. A few minutes later he finished the chapter and chose that moment to look up. The scene he saw surprised him. 13 was slumped in her chair and was using the wall to support her. The phone was abandoned on the table and as he watched he saw tears start to stream down her face. Kutner had seen people break down before, but they were usually the family of a patient he would never have to see again, not someone he knew. He quietly pushed open the door and pulled a chair up next to hers.
“You ok??” he asked this so quietly that it was almost inaudible. He watched as she opened her clammy, red, tear filled eyes to stare at him. She tried to speak but the words wouldn’t form. All she could muster was a shake of her head and blink more tears from her swollen eyes. Kutner was completely flabbergasted as to what he should do. He settled on shuffling his chair a little closer to hers and putting an arm around her shoulders. 13 was a little taken aback by this act of compassion from Kutner, but was too preoccupied to notice. She nuzzled her face into his shoulder and wept.
He held her there for what felt like hours before she raised her head a little and broke the silence.
“My…” she tried to speak, to explain, but the words got stuck in her throat. Kutner glances down at her and hugged her a little tighter. Slowly she calmed down enough to share with him the reason she had been crying on him for the last half hour. She sniffed loudly and uttered through suppressed tears:
“That… was my father…. My…” she swallows loudly but keeps talking. “My little sister… she committed suicide...” Upon saying this she broke down into fresh waves of sobs.
Kutner was completely stunned by this confession. How do you comfort someone who has just opened up to you like that? He rested his head on hers and before he knew what he was doing he gently kissed her on the top of it. He realized he had no idea why he had done this but knew that it didn’t feel wrong… And it seemed like 13 didn’t think so either for as he glanced down at her he saw her staring back at him. Their eyes met and suddenly, somehow, they were kissing. She had her hands on his cheeks and was kissing him so passionately and deeply that everything else was gone from her mind, nothing else mattered anymore… it was just her and Kutner…
Tears were still running down her face when Kutner broke apart from her. She leaned in to kiss him again but he stopped her. He gazed sadly into her face and set softly, yet surely,
“13, this isn’t what you want… You’re upset and need a distraction, and I understand that, but this isn’t the right way to go about it…”
He watched her sadly as she nodded weakly and rested her head on his shoulder once again and as he put his arms around her she began to cry again…