It was a calm Wednesday morning.
Just not for long.
House came by Wilson in the hall and stopped ten feet away, like a Mexican standoff, House leaning on his cane like any moment he might draw. And then, with as much speed as he could muster, House began walking right past Wilson in an effort to avoid whatever was on the table for today. Wilson held out three separate folders, already protesting, even though House had yet to pass him. "House," Wilson said sternly, joining him at his side. "You can't avoid it this month. On the orders of Cuddy herself."
"I've avoided it for six months," House retorted. "Watch me avoid it again."
"That's exactly why you can't run from it this time, I mean, come on…" Wilson held out the folders again. "Not only have you neglected this, but you never even gave Foreman his primary consult when he was hired! You know it's hospital policy."
"Hospital policy sucks," House retorted, finally stopping long enough to pop two pills into his mouth and taking the folders. "Do I really have to send them? I've got four patients and there's a chance they won't be available to take my clinic duty and I really doubt you'd do the duty for me."
"You're right about that," Wilson said evenly.
House narrowed his eyes. "Not even for a kiss?"
"You ate garlic for lunch," Wilson wrinkled his nose. "Take the damn charts, send them to the psychiatrists, psychologists, whatever we're calling them today, and get them back to work. It's an hour-long session, what can go wrong in an hour?"
House glared, snatching up the folders. "Great, now you jinxed it." He walked away from Wilson without waiting for a retort, but he could feel Wilson biting at his heels and when he glanced over his shoulders, sure enough, there he was. He glowered and pushed open the door to the diagnostics office to find all three of his fellows eager in their chairs, presumably to introduce the new patients to House.
"So?" Foreman demanded. "What first? Blood tests…protein markers…?"
"Psychiatric consults," House announced, tossing the folders down onto the glass table. Cameron leaned forward, adjusting her glasses as she took all three folders into her hands. "One for each of you."
"And the fourth patient?" Cameron asked with concern.
"What? Give the patients a psychiatric consult?" House scoffed, popping a Vicodin as he hung his cane on the whiteboard and plucked up a marker, scribbling down the time. "I expect you to only take an hour a piece. By the end of the day, you will have fulfilled the requirement that you each attend a session with a quack." They were leaning forward, all three of them, and staring at him like he'd gone insane. "And we might even learn some interesting secrets. Chase, ever thought about a straightjacket? It'd match better than those clothes."
He just received a glare in return.
"Hour-long sessions. Go," House said, brooking no argument with the tone of voice he was using.
Chase took his folder and was the first to leave the room, brushing past Wilson and glaring at him, as though for good measure. Foreman just laughed, like he found something funny about the whole thing and took his folder as well, following in Chase's footsteps.
It was Cameron who lingered, clasping her folder with a too-tight grasp – ah, that good old anal-retentive need to have control over everything. "What about you? Don't you have an appointment?" she asked, tipping her head to one side. Her voice had that sweet and subtle defensive quality to it that told House he was driving down the right street, heading towards the good kingdom of 'Annoyed-Cameron-Land'.
"Why?" House immediately bit back. "Think I'm crazy or something?"
She just rolled her eyes and left the room, joining the others.
House rolled back his shoulders, listening to the good crack of bones that produced, before he sat down in what had been Foreman's seat. Excellent. It was pre-warmed. Wilson just arched an eyebrow at him. "So many patients," House sighed with put-upon melodrama in his voice.
"Yeah." Wilson sounded far too amused than was necessarily good for him. "Too bad they're all in your hands now."
"What do you think they invented pagers for, Jimmy? Now, are you fetching me a bag of chips or am I going to have to yank that leash of yours?" House inquired with a smirk, picking up the newspaper and opening it to the sports pages.
"So," the psychiatrist spoke with a gentle tone, as though afraid of offending any of his patients. He smiled softly, everything muted down by Freudian ideals and Jungian beliefs and diplomas aligning the walls as though they lent a degree of respect to the whole process of 'and what's been scarring you for your whole life?' "Dr. Eric Foreman, was it?"
Foreman had his legs crossed, hands clasped around one knee. He was cool as a cucumber and smiling just as pleasantly as Dr. Richards was. The psychiatrist was a balding man in his mid-40's with a bit of a beard on him, his hair still fighting that eternal battle between its natural color and going gray.
"Most people around here just call me Foreman," he said warmly. "Look, I don't want to be any trouble, but how long do you expect this to take?"
Dr. Richards just laughed, seemingly amused by the upfront nature of the question.
"Something I said funny?" Foreman inquired.
Dr. Richards sat himself down in the big leather chair behind his desk as Foreman set out his pager in front of him. "Dr. Foreman, I'm here with you to discuss some issues that Dr. Cuddy has expressed concern about and that I myself feel could present problems. Tell me, what are your thoughts on intra-team trust?"
Foreman paused, some of the easiness slowly dissipating from his body. "Trust?"
"Yes," Dr. Richards encouraged. "Would you trust your life in the hands of Drs. Cameron or Chase?"
Foreman's smile grew a little as he laughed. "Not House? He put you up to this, some stupid game of who do I like better?" He laughed without interruption, the sound warm and echoing off the walls of the tidy office.
"It's a very serious question, I assure you," Richards assured.
Foreman just arched an eyebrow. "Yeah? How about not cornering me the minute I walk in here? What's the real point of this?"
Richards' smile never left his face, as though it was permanently set there. "You're looking at your pager as though it's going to rescue you." Foreman glanced up, almost unaware that he'd even been staring at the thing to begin with. "I promise you, we're just going to talk, it'll go in your file and we'll be done."
"Yeah," Foreman said, but he sounded uneasy. "Yeah."
"Now, would you like to indulge me by answering my question?"
"Dr. Chase!" Richards said pleasantly, gesturing to the chair opposite of the desk. "It's good to see you again, though I'm sorry it had to be so soon after…"
"I'm not here to talk about my family," Chase interrupted curtly, sitting himself down and pushing the lab coat out of the way. He wore the face of mistrust as he kept a wary eye on Dr. Richards, as though he might try something at any moment. The pager was set out on the desk along with the cell phone, set in a neat little line as though it might protect him from probing questions.
Richards just sat down, pressing his palms out on the desk, as though to assure Chase that he wouldn't attack. "Of course," he said with a nod. "It's not even on the agenda today."
Chase arched an eyebrow. "And what is? Look, I know these are department mandated or whatever, but we've got four patients to diagnose and I know House doesn't want…"
"Do you always do things according to what Dr. House wants?"
Chase leaned back, crossing his arms – yet another tangible defense against the questions – and set his jaw. "Depends on the issue, but yeah, usually he knows best." He lifted his chin, as though he'd just proved a point and gained a small win for himself – always winning the small battles and never focusing on the long run; that was in Dr. Richards' notes from a separate talk about Chase Senior.
"You don't give the same degree of lenience in matters with Dr. Foreman, though," Richards remarked. "During his stint as your boss, there were some…incidents?"
"Mostly provoked by House," Chase replied simply. "Look, we've had about five appointments in the last six months. Do I really need to…"
"We're talking about your coworkers today, Chase, not you." Richards gave him a small smile, leaning forward slightly to catch his gaze. "I promise, it won't hurt."
"How much of this gets written down?" Cameron inquired curiously, tapping her fingers in a rhythmic pattern against her leg. "I mean, I know this is our third appointment, but I don't think I ever asked. Does it all go in my file?" Her voice had a very clear, very anxious tone to it, as though she had been called in for a fault of hers.
Dr. Richards just scribbled down a notation in the border of a page. "Dr. Cameron, there is strict doctor-patient confidentiality, I assure you."
"Right," she said, closing her eyes and laughing in disbelief, like she couldn't believe she had just asked a question like that. "So, what did you want to talk about?" She was leaning forward, her body language communicating complete openness on the subject of sharing things.
She did, however, fiddle with her pager. It appeared that no doctor was immune.
"I'd like to go through an exercise with you," Richards said. "I've gone through the exact same process with Dr. Foreman and Dr. Chase in the hours before you and I think I've found that it's been an effective tool in realizing some things about yourself and your coworkers."
"Right," Cameron nodded, sounding accepting and yet cautious.
"Think of it as a hypothetical. I'd like you to close your eyes and simply relax and remember that this is not to test you, nor is it to malign your coworkers," Richards said, his voice soothing.
Cameron closed her eyes and exhaled a long breath. "Right," she said, immediately sounding more relaxed.
"Excellent," Richards replied, pleased. "Now…"
Before his sentence could continue, Cameron's pager sounded, the noise shrill compared to the silence that had filled the room mere minutes ago. Cameron frowned, eyes flying open as she checked her pager. 'TIME'S UP', it read. Cameron sighed, pushing herself up from the chair and already on her way to the door, her labcoat flaring out behind her like a superhero's cape.
"I have a patient."
"And you're sure nothing caused this?" Chase winced. He'd had his pager go off in the middle of the appointment and was now standing beside the hospital bed with a nurse, trying to get the man in the bed to stop seizing. He was a man in his early twenties – couldn't have been more than twenty-three – and behind him, there was a woman who looked to be around the same age, biting at her nails and standing with her back pressed to the wall. "Did he eat anything he was allergic to, did he have an accident with some chemicals? Was he working on anything that might have given him a blunt knock to the head?"
"Dr. Chase, I've got him restrained," the nurse said, heading back out to her station. Chase had slipped in a protective piece of plastic so that the man wouldn't swallow his tongue.
Chase turned to the woman, keeping his hands on the seizing man in case anything went wrong before the ativan kicked in. "Mrs. Douglas, I need you to tell me more about your husband's condition," he said bluntly, exhaling slowly as the man slowly calmed himself, the tremors lightening.
"David and I…" she began softly, stepping forward to take one of David's hands, clasping on tight. "We just got married the other week," she said with a tiny smile lurking around the corner of her lips. "And his condition…well, it got worse."
The door slid open and Chase glanced over his shoulder.
"Annie?" The man – a tall, built blonde man – rushed into the room, heading to the wife and hugging her close. "Hey, Annie," he exhaled. "Are you okay? Is David all right?" The wife seemed very relieved to see the man – almost too relieved – and turned to Chase, who the other man seemed to finally see. "Sorry, Doc. I'm John. I'm David's best friend. Is he okay?"
Chase just looked between the wife and the best friend, turning his gaze to the patient – he always felt more comfortable with the patient. After all, it wasn't the patient's significant others that he was trying to cure.
"We'll see," he finally said, mustering up a Dr. Chase Smile, the kind that made little kids beam back up at him and the kind that got him women's phone numbers scribbled on cocktail napkins in lipstick.
He excused himself politely, watching outside the patient's room for a moment as both the wife and the best friend descended on the patient like nurturing mother-birds.
"Disgusting, isn't it?" House remarked, the incessant beeping of his Gameboy alerting Chase to his presence. He turned and glanced over his shoulder, smiling with faint amusement. "What I want to know is when the guy started banging his best friend."
"It's not like that. He's married," Chase pointed out, albeit weakly. "I'll bet he's faithful."
"Yeah," House said, rolling his eyes. "Just like you'd bet your Dad was faithful, huh?"
Chase set his jaw at that, clutching the chart a little tighter. "Patient presents with seizing, but according to the paramedics that brought him in, there's no history of epilepsy in the family. He's…also got cancer."
"One, don't trust paramedics," House said, not even bothering to look up from his game. "And two, go get Wilson for a consult."
Chase just flipped the chart open and shut as he walked away from the room and House without another word; always obeying his orders.
tbc