DISCLAIMER: I don't own House. But I watch it religiously.
Q is for QUARANTINE
Chapter one: Board pens and Liver Disease
The slightly erratic squeaks of the board pen, whizzing across the smudged surface of House's whiteboard was the only sound in the room. The three ducklings watched intently as a range of possible diagnoses were drawn up, waiting for House to speak. Foreman was fiddling with the sheets on his clipboard, Chase was twirling a pen between his fingers and Cameron was motionless, eyes slightly glazed. Maybe not as intent as they should have been…
Bang! House turned and slammed his stick on top of Foreman's papers, causing everyone to jump. Foreman's eyes practically fell out of their sockets and Chase couldn't help but let out a small snigger. So House threw the board pen at him, smacking his forehead. Chase became silent once more, and glared at his boss.
"Now that I have your attention," said House, in an exaggeratedly satisfied voice. He returned to the side of his belovèd whiteboard and tapped it expectantly. "Come on then; what were the results for the patient's tests?"
Cameron straightened and began reeling off a list of results. "Checked for hepatitis, cirrhosis and haemochromatosis; negative for all. Tested further for-"
"Wait, wait," House interrupted her rudely. He looked over at Chase. "Chase! Where is my board pen?"
The other doctor suppressed a sigh, then ducked his head under the table. His hands closed around the small cylindrical object, and he heaved himself up again, handing it back to his boss. House took it from him with a smile that indicated smugness.
"I'm sorry, Cameron; since your incompetent colleague has just realised that I actually need a pen to write on the board with, you may now continue droning on about this boring patient." House turned to face the whiteboard, and this time, Foreman sniggered.
Why doesn't he get hit on the head with something? thought Chase irritably, though really, he didn't care; it all came from working with House, getting used to all the special treatments, and all.
Cameron, meanwhile, was listing all the things the patient had, or didn't have. She hadn't noticed that House was not writing anything up and was instead playing catch with his board pen, leaning absent-mindedly against his desk.
"Have you finished yet?" he asked finally, throwing the pen up and catching it. Cameron, face expressionless, nodded and straightened her papers. "Thank God," remarked House, looking up to the ceiling and clutching his chest. "I'm not sure whether I slept through your whole speech and woke up just now." The team rolled their eyes collectively.
"Ok, so we can rule out a tumour," said Foreman, "and carcinoma of the liv-"
"Oh, not you too," groaned House, sounding bored. "You're just gonna repeat everything she-" he pointed at Cameron, "- said. I think I need to refer you both to the anaesthetic department; you guys'd be great at sending people to sleep. No need for drugs – much cheaper method."
"Well," Foreman tried again, "it's obviously gotta be-"
"Nothing," House finished for him, picking up his stick and levering himself off his desk with it. "It's absolutely nothing."
Chase broke his silence. "The patient's abdomen has swelled to about this big and she's gone, well, yellow," he said incredulously, gesturing with his hands. "A woman with perfectly good health and clean medical history. How can there be 'nothing' wrong-?"
House cut in, "I never said that there was 'nothing wrong' with her. I just said it was 'nothing', meaning that all that stuff that we just mentioned-" he popped the cap off the board pen and crossed out 'cancer' and 'tumour' on his whiteboard, "-signifies nothing. They're all red herrings, leading us away from the truth."
Cameron frowned. "But you said that everyone lies – ergo, no truth."
House smirked at her. "My, aren't we getting all grown up and philosophical. Bless."
"So you're saying she's lying? About what?" asked Chase.
"Of course she's lying," answered House exasperatedly. "Haven't you heard; everyone lies."
"This doesn't make any sense," said Foreman. "All her symptoms clearly point towards hepatocellular carcinoma; development of jaundice, abdominal pains and growth of the abdomen. Surely this means that she's got cancer." He indicated to the whiteboard. "And you've gone and crossed that off."
"Plus, how can you lie about your intake of aflatoxins? Does the patient even know what those are?" added Chase.
"Lend her your dictionary," responded House. "And for the record, she's not lying about aflatoxins; she's lying about her medical history, as you so nicely put it earlier. Though, there might have been evidence of some of those toxins contaminating her food." House paused, musing. "Did you ask her if she went on vacation recently? To, say, Indonesia?"
Cameron looked baffled, and chose to ignore House's last comment on vacations (she hadn't had one in… as long as she remembered). "Her medical history? What did she lie about in that?"
"Genetic Haemochromatosis is a hereditary disease," clarified House, writing it on the whiteboard and circling it. "Child gets the defective gene from both mommy and daddy, and poof, she's got GH. Why she failed to mention the state of her parents' genes is not a mystery because I couldn't give a rat's ass about my mom and pop's DNA either. So I guess she wasn't lying after all."
"Why haemochromatosis?" questioned Cameron after sifting through her copious notes.
"Coincidentally, GH has a widespread amount of symptoms that are shared with many other diseases, including carcinoma of the liver and cirrhosis, so I suggest that you run a few more tests before I confirm the diagnosis. But I'm pretty sure I'm right," said House.
"Ok, so we get a liver biopsy and-" started Chase.
"Put the patient on a course of venesection therapy. At least, if she doesn't turn back to her normal colour by the end of the treatment, we'll know that it's not a case of GH," finished House, setting down his board pen at last. "And that, my little ones, concludes this session. Off you go now, to do your liver biopsies. I've got an appointment with my favourite oncologist, so, goodbye." House hobbled over to the door and pushed it open with his stick, walking out into the hallway.
The ducklings collected all their things together and followed him out of the room, making a beeline for whatever ward their patient was in.
"Wouldn't it be funny if House was wrong for once?" said Foreman, when he was sure they were out of earshot of their boss.
Cameron sent him a look. "The patient could end up dead. Is that what you'd define as 'funny'?"
"If it was our fault, then no; but if it was House's – hell yeah!" smirked Foreman.
The three doctors ploughed through double doors.
"Aw, Cameron, lighten up! I was only joking," said Foreman, after enduring several icy glares from his colleague. They pushed through another set of doors and turned right, down another corridor. Foreman exchanged looks of someone's-PMSing-majorly-today with Chase, who had wisely chosen to stay out of the conversation. Secretly, he agreed with Foreman, even though, deep down inside, he really admired House. But Chase was never going to admit that.
"I'm sorry, what was that?" Cameron's piercing voice broke through his thoughts.
"Huh?" he asked, befuddled.
"What was that about Doctor House?" she demanded. Foreman was grinning in the background.
Did I say something out loud? Chase panicked. "Uh, nothing. I didn't say anything… Is this her?" He stopped at a bed and pointed. Cameron nodded, still looking suspiciously at the other doctor, but chose to not push the point. Chase inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. Admitting his respect for House was not going to be very dignifying ever since the Vogler incident.
And so, the ducklings began the tedious job of retrieving a sample of liver from their latest patient. Endless cases floated above their heads so that by the end of the day, they were all thoroughly tired and anticipating the time when they could retire home, eat a decent meal and watch TV. Unfortunately for them, a new case had just rolled into the hospital, and was about to change their night dramatically. And (not to sound too cliché) probably the rest of their lives.
As three pagers went off simultaneously in three different wards, three doctors made their ways back to House's office. And they thought that this was the end of a long day…