Lisa hadn’t planned on taking another patient that week, especially not one already chewed up by House’s recklessness, but here they were. The case had landed in her lap the way a grenade might land at your feet: abruptly, with a long pin missing, and everyone looking away like they hadn’t heard the explosion coming. It started with House pushing boundaries, of course. Ignoring protocols, downplaying symptoms, playing games while the kid, mid to late teens, lean and sharp like a spring ready to snap, lay stuck between misdiagnosis and mounting damage. Their parents were livid, the kind of donors who signed checks the hospital couldn’t afford to bounce. But it wasn’t the money that got Lisa to step in. It was the way the kid looked in their third hospital bed in five days, pale, bracing for more bad news, and entirely alone even when the room was full.

The injury had all the classic signs. Torn ligament, deep bruising, inflammation through the joint. She could read it like a stat sheet, this wasn’t a fall-from-bed injury. This was sprint drills and stop-start force trauma, the kind you don’t walk away from but try to. Athletes had that tragic pride. Even the young ones. Especially the young ones. Lisa saw it in the way they sat up when she walked in, shoulders tight, jaw set, like pain was just another opponent. She didn’t comment on it. She didn’t need to. Instead, she asked questions, real ones. The kind that didn’t lead to a faster discharge or a fake clearance. She noticed they answered clearly, even if their voice had that clipped tone people use when they’ve been dismissed too many times. House had clearly played his usual game: poke, prod, provoke, then vanish. What was left behind was her problem now. So she owned it.

The parents, meanwhile, were a nightmare wrapped in a business suit and Botox. Every second they were in the room was spent angling toward performance timelines. “How soon can they get back on the field?” “What about college scouts?” “We’ve invested a lot into their training,” Lisa shut that down fast. It wasn’t just inappropriate. It was dangerous. The kid wasn’t a broken bike that needed a tune-up. They were recovering from a potentially career-altering injury, and the fact their parents treated it like a scheduling inconvenience made Lisa burn in places she hadn’t felt in years. So she took a step no one expected. She restricted parental visitation. Not completely, but enough to give the patient space. Enough to make it clear who she was there to protect. It caused blowback, sure, angry calls, veiled threats, but she’d faced worse from board members with more money and fewer morals.

Alone in the room with them, Lisa saw someone caught between the wreckage of their body and the pressure of people who never really saw them, just their stats, just their wins. She didn’t talk down to them. She didn’t give false comfort. She gave them facts, options, time to breathe. And in return, they gave her something most teenagers guard like gold: trust. It wasn’t loud or obvious, but it was there. The way they stopped bracing when she came in. The way their answers shifted from defensive to thoughtful. She didn't need a thank you. What she needed was to make sure House didn’t screw it up any further, and that their parents didn’t undo everything with a single guilt trip and a signature.

“You’re not getting back on the field until your body, and you, are actually ready,” Lisa said, voice low but firm, standing beside the bed like a wall that wouldn’t be moved. “And I don’t care how many zeroes your parents write on their checks. They don’t get to decide that.”