Solving Solo

"House! House!" Chase yelled.

"Cameron just died! I walked into the room and she was collapsed. I went over to lift her head and blood was all over her. I couldn't see any at first because she was lying on the bloody side. We don't know what happened. It wasn't suicide or a murder because she was dehydrated so it couldn't have been liquid poisoning and there was also no food in her stomach which eliminates solid poison. There were no wounds so she wasn't shot or stabbed. We thought it was probably a stroke."

"Okay, then check to see if she had a clot. Dummy." House responded not seeming to care that one of his clients had just died.

"We already did." Chase responded. "It wasn't anything like that. It had to have been in her system for at least two days, but there were no problems with the blood or anything. Whatever it is, is either hiding or just hasn't developed yet. But that can't be because she's dead." He started walking around and leaned up against the wall. He banged it hard with his bloody hand and it left a small mark. Both men were too disgusted at this sudden death to notice though.

"Then why hadn't she shown any symptoms?" House said suddenly interested.

"Beep, beep, beep." Suddenly Chase's bleeper went off.

The two doctors ran towards the room that they were now keeping Cameron.

"She's not dead." A doctor from the ER said. "She's in a coma. I spotted her arm twitch and realized that she might not be dead. That's the good news. The bad news is that she's in too bad of health to do any tests on her. We'll have to figure it out another way."

"I think we have that way." House said with a look like he had just discovered something. "Chase look down."

Chase looked down and saw his leg shaking and twitching like crazy.

"Whatever she has," House started, "you have as well.

"But she didn't have any twitches. Besides, why wouldn't you guys have gotten it too?" Chase said in denial.

"Those are things to think about. Whatever it is, gives men twitches but not women, right? Wrong. I saw her twitching yesterday and asked her about it. She said she had nerves for a speech she was giving today and she always twitched when she was nervous. And I'm guessing she just breathed on you more. Most likely, we'll all get it now." House stated.

Suddenly Foreman doubled over in what seemed to be pain. But House realized that he was hiding something. He looked down and saw that Foreman's arm was twitching. All of his colleagues had one disease. And worst of all, he was probably next.

The next day Cuddy and Dr. Wilson were working with House on this case. After about an hour of discussing what it could be House sent Wilson into the room with the three doctors who were suffering to examine them. He was in a suit that made it completely safe to be near them. However, after an hour passed and they were discussing it again, Wilson twitched. Now only Cuddy and House remained of the six. They figured that Wilson's suit probably just had a small hole or tear. So from then on they would check their suits.

Two hours later Chase's machine started beeping. Within 30 seconds, he was in a coma. Within minutes of this, Foreman went through the exact same process. Now three were in comas. As House and Cuddy moved away from the glass, she twitched. House was the only one still free of the disease. He decided that figuring out how she got it wasn't as important as figuring out what it was. So he dropped the subject of how and started thinking about what.

By night-fall all five sick people were in comas. House knew it was only a matter of time before he went into the process and also would be in a coma. He didn't want that because it would mean putting his life in regular doctors hands. That wasn't good. House was always assigned tough cases like this one because they couldn't handle it. He knew that if he couldn't figure this out before he got sick, all six lives would probably be lost.

He stared to think. Obviously, he had the disease already but something in his body was fighting better than the other bodies.

There must be a reason for this. Could it be the pills for his legs? No, most likely the antibiotics for the Lyme disease that he could have. He probably didn't have lyme so the antibiotics would affect this infection more. Yes that was it, an infection. Now the only question was which one. There were too many for almost any doctor in the world to figure it out in time. But House wasn't any old doctor. He had a chance. But he would have to hurry.

It could be an infection in the brain. It would have to be. That was the only possible way the comas would come to the patients so soon. Suddenly he twitched. He had about two hours before he, too, would be in a coma. He had to find out what the infection was and what part of the brain was it infecting. He went into the room, not needing the suit for he already had the disease. Now, he was just racing time. He called for surgeons to do a brain biopsy. He chose to do it on Chase because Chase's disease would be the most developed other than Cameron's but he wouldn't biopsy a woman.

After 30 minutes it was done. It was a tumor. He had 90 minutes to solve it and tell the other doctors the treatment. The only problem was why did they have tumors in the brain? They were already searched for cancer throughout the entire body. An hour passed and he still had no answer. He had gone through everything. Another fifteen minutes passed, another five, another two. He had eight minutes. Sweat was pouring down his face. Then an idea struck him. What if it hadn't developed at that time? They only tested Wilson but that was about an hour before he slipped off into a coma. House now felt himself losing function. It was almost time for him to slip into a coma along with the others. This was his last chance of life. He ran into the room of all the doctors.

"Anything?" one doctor asked.

"Yes." He replied, "It has to be brain cancer. I don't know how the heck we all got it, but it's our last chance. We will figure that out later…if we make it that far." He said and suddenly collapsed on the floor and into a coma.

The doctors started treatment right away. The cancers were all well developed now, except for House's. He was the first to awake. He was right. It had been brain cancer. Slowly, the others awoke, first Cuddy, then Wilson, and backwards down the line from when they became sick. The next morning they were all up.

"How did we get it?" Foreman asked. "Brain cancer isn't contagious."

"No, but the infection that we got from the cancer was which then sprung the cancer into all of our bodies except for Cameron, who had the cancer first. The blood stain Chase left on the wall was filled with cancer germs which then spread throughout the room. And anything that Chase touched that we touched and so on, and so on, also had cancer germs. We probably got it a hundred times." House replied.

"Well," Cuddy began, "let's take the day off to rest and resume tomorrow at as close to full strength as we'll be in for a long time."

The all left and went to their homes. All thinking the same thing, "I can't believe my life was just saved by a practically psycho man." Even House was thinking this same idea. He laughed and shrugged it off, then continued home, thinking about what work would be like from now on, now that they had the experience of dying and being the patient. He wondered if it would be hard for him to not care about the patient.

"Probably not." He thought and chuckled to himself.

He continued home full of pride. After all, he had just saved the lives of six brilliant doctors. He wondered how many doctors have been able to do that.

Then again, how many doctors could say they are anything like the brilliant doctor House? The doctor, that solved solo.