The office is quiet except for the distant sound of hospital life pulsing through the glass. Your desk lamp casts a soft pool of gold across the file in front of you—charts, scribbled notes, the ghost of a signature you had to make.

A DNR.

Your fingers tremble just slightly where they rest on the paper. You don’t cry. You never let yourself cry here. But your eyes are heavy, burning at the edges. Your head lowers into your palm, hair slipping loose from where it was clipped back this morning. You haven’t moved in minutes.

The choice had been yours. The attending hesitated. The family was split. But the patient—he was yours.

You did what was right. It still feels like a punch to the chest.

The door opens without warning. You don’t need to look up to know it’s him. No one else barges in like that. No one else walks like that—sharp, uneven steps that sound like a question he never asks out loud.

Gregory House leans against the doorframe, cane hanging lazily at his side, blue eyes fixed on you.

He doesn’t ask what happened. He read the file hours ago. He watched it unfold. He saw your face tighten, your hands shake, your posture stiffen through the glass walls as the conversation happened.

He walks toward your desk, slower than usual. You think he’s about to make a joke, twist the knife, distract you with something dark and clever.

Instead, he stops behind your chair. Doesn’t sit. Doesn’t touch. Just lowers his voice like it might break the moment otherwise.

“I’m proud of you,” he says.