The pulse of her pager was a shock against her warm skin; the jolt cause Cameron to fumble for a moment while she struggled with the intricate buttons on her blouse.
"You should try zippers," said House, slowly snaking himself back into his jeans. A wince broke out across his stubble face; desk sex clearly wasn't conducive to the management of chronic pain. A matching grimace spread across Cameron's mouth.
"It's Chase. Room 121," she said, more for her benefit than House's. "I better run."
"It's alright for some!" House yelled after her, addressing the back of her flapping white coat. He was fairly sure that Dying Patient would still be dying even if she strolled and arrived a whole 12 seconds later.
As Cameron pushed her way into the side room, she was struck by the occupant's pallor, the sickening beads of sweat pricking to the surface on his white forehead. Upon further observation, Cameron noted that the patient wasn't looking too chipper either.
A slow gasp hissed from between Chase's lips. He'd seen a lot of things in his career. He could still recall the agony etched onto the faces of the bereaved, the shattering pain of the terminal sick, the devastating sense of injustice when death claimed the young; but nothing could have possibly prepared him for this. It was like everything he had ever known had been twisted, warped and tossed aside. Mutely, he held out the paper in his hand to Cameron.
Her throat contracted as she took in the data. Forcing herself to breath, she looked up from the lab report and stared into the dazed eyes of her colleague.
"It's...it's," she started, a new set of emotions she had scarcely ever felt shaking her to her core, and a tremor dancing across her upheld arm.
"It's what?" barked a slightly breathless House, busting through the door with all the gusto a man would hobbled the length of the wing with a stick could muster.
Cameron and Chase exchanged glances. Something sparked between them, a slow-burning glee tempered with shocked sense of disbelief.
Turning to face House, Cameron sucked in a lungful of air like it was her last.
"It's lupus," she exclaimed.
A tidal wave of emotions coursed across her mentor's face, a curious blend of devastating astonishment and blissful amazement. In a single, stark action, House jabbed his cane across the room, stabbing the rubbery point into a bright red buzzer on the wall. A button marked, 'L'. It was like he'd been waiting for this moment all of his life. Cameron's shock was almost compounded by the slow, uncoiling realisation that maybe House did have some true passion in his life.
Her dazed stupor was broken as a balloon lightly coshed her stupefied face and confetti dance down in front of her face. A scream tore across the ward:
"It's lupus! It's actually, definitely lupus!" Cameron wailed in a pitch of ecstasy even House hadn't heard. With a yelp, she sprung into House's arms, her legs around his waist. House, taken off balance, stumbled backwards, and was only saved from a painful collision with the floor by the intervention of Foreman.
Foreman blinked, pushing his boss back onto his feet. Falling confetti and balloons was not the sight that normally greeted him on his ward rounds. The man in the bed stirred, the commotion shaking its way through his feverous sleep.
"What – the – hell is doing on?" he asked, unnerved by the maniacal grins spreading across the faces of his colleges, batting a cobweb-encrusted streamer away.
Chase bounced onto the patient's bed, definitely rousing the patient from his delirious haze. A party hat had mysteriously perched itself on his blond head. He roared, in a voice crazed with amazement:
"It's luuuu-pus! Oh God, it's actually lupus!"
Foreman backed away towards the door, a sick panic breaking through him. Yes, so it was lupus, the evidence spoke for itself; and yes, he knew, knew deep down in the fibre of his being, that it was never the L-word. And yet, here they were, face to face with a glaring contradiction with everything they had every placed their faith in. Still, perhaps the party-poppers were a little excessive.
"I'm, I'm going to Cuddy," he said, marching out before the hysteria could sink its claws into him.
Cuddy was bent over her desk, as usual, her professionalism once again sacrificed to the brilliance of her rack.
"What's he done now?" she sighed as Foreman walked into her office without knocking. You would have thought that being Dean of Medicine would have brought her a little respect, but with a livewire like House around she was always on edge, tingling, even in her private spaces.
Foreman started, "They're having some sort of party – because it is actually lupus."
A cold gleam came over Cuddy's eyes. She straightened, and marched off down the corridor with a steely determination. Foreman watched her go, as she nearly sent a gaggle of med students scattering like bowling pins, a jogged along in her wake.
House and Cameron barely broke apart to acknowledge Cuddy's entrance; and Chase wasn't so eager to dismount the bed.
A flash stole across her face like thunder as she bellowed, "House! Is what I hear it true?"
"Only that bit about the beautiful Russian whore. The rest is pure fabrication," House said. "Oh, you mean the lupus. Yes, yes it is."
Her cool brown eyes didn't break House's as she slipped her fingers down the waistband of her fishtail skirt and wiggled her hips free from it. She span on her heels to reveal the legend embroidered onto the seat of her knickers.
"It's finally lupus," it read, the fine arch of lettering echoing the curve of her behind.
A grin danced across her lips as she shimmed around the room. "Oh, you don't know how long I've worn these pants!" she sighed.
"It's looooh-pus, oh, it's loooooh –pus!" she sang, a joy bubbling through her veins. Finally, finally, the Lupus Party could be held. Somewhere on the horizon, a firework display rocketed through the night sky, illuminating dancing Cuddy, bopping with glee, an interwoven House and Cameron, a bounding Chase, his fringe flopping freely and his tie undone, and aghast Foreman.
In his bed, the patient craned his neck to regard the chaos sprawling out in front of him, and gurgled quietly. Maybe dying wasn't such a bad idea after all.