The Nature of the Beast
An Earth 2/House crossover
By Joan Powers
A/N: As I was watching "House" the other night, I thought it would be fun to have Dr. House help diagnose Devon's illness. I am not a medical person so forgive lapses with terminology. Special thanks to Nancy for taking a look at this.
Rating: PG-13/K+
Genre: drama/sci-fi
Timeline: Post series ending Earth 2; current season 6 House
Summary: When Julia reaches out to the Terrains for help diagnosing Devon's illness, assistance comes from a highly unlikely source.
After opening his eyes, he squeezed them shut rapidly in disbelief. He'd had a lot to drink last night. He wouldn't deny that. He didn't think it had been that much. Once again, he cautiously peeked at his surroundings, closing his lids almost immediately.
Where the hell was he?
I'm dreaming – that's it. Or hallucinating.
Hitting his cheek roughly with his palm, he opened his eyes again.
I must still be drunk. That's gotta be it.
A young blonde woman, clad in a worn shirt and grey pants with patches on the knees was staring at him. Her hand was resting against….something inhuman. A tall earth colored creature that towered over her. It practically resembled a skeleton.
The woman was cute in a scruffy manner, although the dark smudges beneath her eyes and her unflattering ponytail with spikes of hair randomly sticking out didn't add to her charm. She was also a little thin; her color suggested she was possibly malnourished or recovering from a recent illness. Still, her muscles were toned, she was in good shape. Nice bone structure – especially those cheeks.
She wasn't really his type. He preferred women with a little more meat on them. Fuller breasts and a round ass to grab. Makeup would've improved this woman's appearance immensely. Surely if his imagination had whipped this up, he would've fleshed out the details to better suit his tastes?
The woman was grinning almost hysterically. She'd stepped towards him and started rambling about something. He hadn't been paying attention, still trying to assess his situation.
Has Wilson been sneaking anti-depressants in my coffee again?
But that wouldn't begin to account for this.
Her words started permeating his fog.
"Don't you see? The Terrians! I asked them for help and they did something! They've brought you here. That must mean that you can help."
The wideness of the woman's smile and brightness of her eyes had him wondering about her sanity. What was she going on about?
The odd looking creature remained stationary, standing at attention, which suited House fine. As much as he tried, he couldn't fully convince himself that it was a man wearing a costume. It was better not to dwell upon it.
Inspection of his surroundings revealed he was standing inside a white tent. Several glowing lamps indicated it was night time. Boxes of equipment filled most of the space. A monitor, along with other instruments, sat upon a folding table. A cot covered with a blanket resided by the…thing. Sand with occasional tufts of grass served as the floor.
This certainly didn't seem like his type of sex fantasy. He'd never been a nature lover or into close encounters with the alien kind.
Maybe someone had slipped something into his drink last night? Some LSD derivative could bring on such an elaborate hallucination. He must've done something to annoy someone in the bar. That wasn't too difficult a scenario to imagine. Maybe the burly guy blocking the narrow aisle whose foot he'd inadvertently stabbed with his cane? Or the young stud that caught his girl making eye contact with him? Laughing at the fool hadn't helped that situation. But with that stunned expression, he hadn't been able to resist.
The woman stepped closer to him, staring. He decided to confront his delusion. "What are you talking about?"
"You're here to help me cure Devon."
He looked at her blankly.
While gesturing to the creature, she insisted. "The Terrains brought you here. I have no idea how. You must be a medical doctor."
House nodded cautiously, not understanding the relevance.
"You can help."
She grasped his elbow to propel him closer to the monitors resting on the top of the folding table. As an afterthought she added, "I'm Julia. Dr. Julia Heller."
He didn't feel the need to introduce himself to his hallucination. Testing the limits of this concocted world, he grabbed her ass. She promptly slugged him in the arm – hard.
"Ow!"
"What is wrong with you? A woman's life is at stake!"
House winched as he rubbed his arm. Thank goodness she hadn't aimed higher or she could've knocked a tooth loose. God only knows what she could've done to his bad leg. This was one helluva illusion. Obviously this woman had no interest in being his sexual playmate.
Why was he here?
He decided to humor her. "Okay, what do you want to show me?"
Keeping her distance, she gestured to an instrument on the table. It appeared to be a microscope, though not like any he'd ever seen, its design being far more streamlined. Peering at the slide beneath the scope, he was impressed by the resolution. Such hi-tech equipment wasn't consistent with such a primitive setting.
What kind of drugs had he been slipped?
"What do you see?" she hovered by his shoulder.
"It would help if you told me what I was looking at."
"That's a slide of Devon's liver tissue."
He studied it. "Looks like some serious degradation."
"What is it? What's wrong with her?"
He looked up. "You're kidding, right? You think I can diagnose a patient just by looking at a slide?"
Her more professional demeanor slid back into place. "Don't be ridiculous. I have more." She reached forward to the table to reveal several different slices immobilized on slides. "Pancreas, hippocampus, heart.."
"I presume your patient is dead after all this slicing and dicing." This woman was an idiot.
"Of course not!" the offended young women gasped. "You claim to be a doctor? You should know that using a diaglove is relatively non-invasive and can produce clean samples."
"Diaglove?" He was relieved Dr. Heller hadn't noticed the tremor in his voice.
Where was he?
I'm definitely not in Kansas anymore.
She strapped a white plastic glove-like instrument onto her left forearm. Special attachments fit over each of her fingers. There was a small monitor attached by her wrist. An electronic display panel revealed the controls. She impatiently activated the glove and held it over his arm.
He heard a tone then peered at the monitor. He could see his bones. He could see blood coursing through his arteries. The resolution of that seemingly simple instrument was amazing. Think what he could do with a toy like this.
"What do you need me for?"
Julia lacked patience. "I told you. To cure Devon."
Deciphering puzzles. That sounded like something his brain might have come up with.
"Tell me about her symptoms while I look at the rest of these slides." He placed a new one on the stage of the microscope then bent to exam it.
"She collapsed. Her systems were starting to fail."
House stared at her. "What am I missing here? If she's failing this fast, how can she still be alive?"
"I'll show you."
xxxxxx
"Are you insane?" House objected. "No one can survive under those conditions."
Dr. Heller had led him through darkness with a meager flashlight through a small campsite dotted with several tents and a few vehicles of the likes he'd never seen. They'd strolled right past the man on guard duty that was fast asleep. Vast open space surrounded them, confirming that he was far from Jersey. When he glanced up at the sky, he was startled to discover not one but two moons.
Then they approached a space ship. It wasn't the typical B movie flying saucer. Nonetheless, it was a space ship.
It was official. He was losing it. That had to be it. Two moons? Space ships? What next – little green men? Then again, he'd already seen the bizarre brown beast that supposedly transported him here.
After entering the ship, Dr. Heller had activated the lights and led him down into a chamber. Her patient, clad in a white robe, was standing upright in a cryogenic compartment.
Cryogenics was the ultimate pipe dream. It would never work.
"Are you out of your mind?"
"You're wrong. It's buying us time," Julia insisted.
House was amused that his subconscious felt the need to provide the ultimate conundrum. This supposed acceleration in technology to make him feel utterly useless. The total isolation from civilization. The other worldly setting. The seemingly impossible problem. He lived for those things. And only his brain would be able to come up with a proper challenge.
That was it.
He was hooked.
Eying the woman in the chamber, House ventured. "Let me guess, she's pregnant."
"How dare you!"
"Look how distended her abdomen is. Who's she been playing hide the salami with?"
Julia's eyes flashed with anger.
He stepped back from her, anticipating another blow.
"Cut me a break with the 'she's not that type of person' crap. I'm sure she's just as human as the rest of us. We're all weak. We all lie."
The young doctor was indignant. "We have been practically starving for months, existing only on what we could find. Fighting for our day to day survival."
With his usual sardonic wit, he replied, "And people don't have sex under those circumstances?"
Julia blushed.
That was an unexpected bonus. "Ah, I see. Some people do. I'll bet this woman did too."
"It would've shown up on my diaglove scans and in her blood tests," she argued.
"What if it was an Rh factor issue? The pregnancy terminated on its own but toxicity factors rose in the blood stream?"
"Don't you think I would've checked for that? She's NOT pregnant. Her blood work doesn't support your half-assed idea."
He shrugged. "Gotta start somewhere." He looked about the chamber. "We need a white board."
Dr. Heller looked confused.
"C'mon, we need to write down symptoms and ideas. Brainstorm. How can you diagnose without a white board?"
The woman reluctantly handed him a palm sized scanner and showed him how to use the stylus to record notes.
"Tell me about her symptoms."
Julia sank into a chair. "Devon was never one to complain. We were all sick – practically dying. Those biostat implants were killing us."
"Ok. Care to elaborate?"
"Biostat implants. The Council secretly implanted them in our heads to monitor our life signs. Eve, a super computer that orbits this planet, jacked up the signal trying to find us and in the process nearly killed us."
"Yeah?" House wasn't impressed.
"It was a big deal! Ebon died."
He surmised this person must have been a member of their merry band. "Why didn't the rest of you die?"
"We were able to fix Eve."
"And the rest of you recovered?"
She nodded. "Next I knew, Devon was collapsing. It all happened so fast."
Even though he had no idea what she was talking about, since the rest of the group had been cured, this factor could be eliminated. "Most likely this bio…implant thing isn't an issue for this woman. Next?"
"The Council has been after us constantly, delaying our launch date, planting a bomb on the ship, sabotaging the cargo release value-"
"Stick to the medical facts." He gestured to their patient. "Do you have any reason to believe she was poisoned by these people?"
"While I could see the Council doing it, we haven't been in direct contact with them for over twenty four years. I'm also not detecting any such signs in her blood work."
"That's not necessarily indicative. Some don't show up in standard lab tests," he bluffed. It was true in his time. Why not now?
"True. But no one here would want to poison Devon," she replied.
"You sure?"
Julia looked away.
"Was this woman a saint or did she have enemies?" God help this doctor if she ever played poker, she was so easy to read. "Ah, I see. She liked to stir up the pot. Any enemies? Would someone in your group want her out of the picture?"
"No!" The doctor's response was a little too abrupt.
"So this is a happy little group then? No squabbles? Everybody gets along hunky dory?"
Julia frowned.
Her expression led him to probe. "What aren't you telling me?"
Obviously conflicted, the woman admitted, more to herself "After all we've been through…I just…it can't…." She took a breath, "I can't conclusively rule out the possibility."
"Can we design an assay to test for less common poisons?" With her fancy gadgets, he'd assumed she'd already checked for more common venues.
"Why?"
"I had a patient once who was being poisoned with gold. Standard lab tests didn't catch it."
"I see. It's possible."
"Good. Let's look into that. Did you notice any odd markings on her body? Splotches or rings? Odd coloring of the finger nails?"
Exasperated, Julia reminded him, "After she collapsed, I had less than twenty minutes to stabilize her and make the decision to put her into cold sleep. I did what I could with the time that I had."
"Fair enough. What else?"
With some reluctance, Julia stated, "Elizabeth, a Council scientist – told us that we couldn't settle here. That the planet would reject us."
From her dire expression, clearly this woman believed this mumbo jumbo. He played along. "How?"
"She didn't give us any details. But she was a physician, part of an elite Council team. She would know."
"She should also be intelligent enough to tell you specifics. After all, being a doctor, she could pronounce the big words."
That tiny twitch in the corner of her mouth. He was enjoying baiting the young doctor.
He continued, "If she's right, who's next? If this planet is rejecting you and this woman represents the first, who's next?"
She sheepishly admitted, "No one else has shown any symptoms."
"And how much time has passed?"
"Two months."
"That's a pretty significant incubation period – don't you think? Has anyone been able to survive on this planet for more than a few months?"
"Yes. We've run into penal colonists who were jettisoned here years ago."
"Years ago?" He laughed. "Your friend's theory is bunk. Or she's describing a highly localized phenomenon which is clearly not the case here. Next."
She wasn't ready to let it go. "But-"
"Next." His leg was starting to ache. He needed to solve this problem so he could go home. "What new things has she been exposed to?
"We're colonists from the Stations. We've been on an alien planet for several months. Everything is new. It could be anything." Julia looked disgusted.
"Yet she's the only one manifesting these symptoms. Do you have her medical history? Is there any genetic predisposition for degenerative diseases?"
Dr. Heller sighed impatiently. "We've been able to repair genetic defects for over fifty years now."
He hoped he didn't let the fact that he was impressed as hell show. "So you can safely rule out that possibility?"
Reluctantly she admitted, "If there's been some recent environmental factor such as exposure to UV irradiation that caused DNA lesions, I can't sequence it. I can't do a full DNA analysis. If I had a fully equipped lab…"
A full DNA analysis? Who had access to that?
"Stop bitching about what you don't have. Sometimes you have to guess."
Julia looked horrified. "She could die."
"She could also live. What's with all the drama? I deal with patients having systems failure every day. It's a risk. It's the nature of the beast. I've never had the luxury of sticking my patient in cold storage while I dotted my p's and q's. You're a doctor – act like it!"
Julia's eyes darted to Devon.
"Oh, I see. Your cold storage isn't ideal, is it? That's why you're wishing for magic answers from dead things."
"I was not!"
"Don't even try to deny that one. I was there. Let me guess, cold storage doesn't work all that well here either – does it?"
"The newest generation systems work fine."
"But this isn't a newer system – is it?"
She shook her head.
"Look, I don't care about the …Terra…whatever or the council or eve. The evidence is right in front of us. That's all we need. Were there any indications of cancer?"
Julia seemed bewildered.
"Let me guess, you rarely see cancer."
She nodded.
"We'll check her blood work and tissue slides more closely. What about autoimmune?"
"There's no support for that."
"It could be some pernicious virus native to this planet – then we'd really be out of luck."
"Why do you say that? I can synthesize several anti-viral agents," Julia answered.
In the middle of nowhere? From what - rocks and dirt?
"What else have you considered?"
Julia shook her head. "I've gone over it dozens of times. Those are the only options that seem viable."
"Let's go look at your test results again with these possibilities in mind."
XXXXXXXX
"Poisoning, cancer, or virus – pick."
Rays of sunlight shone into the tent. Earlier a dark haired lothario brought by some tasteless food resembling wall paper paste which House and Julia had picked at as they scoured over the samples. House had been amused by the looks exchanged between the two. Talk about star crossed lovers. He was tempted to retch but the muscles in the young man's arms dissuaded him.
"It's not that simple! I can't narrow it down. There's no obvious best choice," Julia replied.
"Pick," House insisted.
"What do you think?"
It was hard for him to say it. His team would've starred at him in stunned silence. "I don't know. There's sufficient evidence to make a case for any of the three. And we can't treat for all of them at the same time. Even if I did have an opinion, it's your decision to make. Pick."
Julia's temper was wearing thin. "What is this, a joke to you? How dare you act like her life doesn't matter! Like this is some sort of guessing game. We can't just go in there trying anything! We've only got one chance. Make the wrong choice and her life is over. What kind of a doctor are you?"
House was also exhausted. He'd been up all night studying samples and arguing with Dr. Heller. His leg was throbbing and he was dying for some decent food. While he longed to get some sleep, his gut told him that his return to reality was somehow linked to solving this problem.
While his witty repartee with Dr. Heller had been entertaining, it was starting to get repetitive. She reminded him of Cameron. Both women froze like a deer in the headlights when it came to making hard decisions.
"One that doesn't have the option of turning my patients into giant popsicles while I make up my mind how to treat them. You have to make a decision. You can't just snivel in a corner."
Offended, Julia responded, "I am NOT sniveling. In fact, for your information, my chromosomes were tilted for the medical arts."
Tilted chromosomes? What else can these people do?
House responded, "You're so used to having all the answers provided by your fancy gizmos that you've forgotten that science doesn't always have a definitive answer. Sometimes you have to think beyond the box. I have to guess every day. I deal with life or death decisions every day. Guess that doesn't come easily for you."
Dr. Heller bristled. "I'll have you know that I've dealt with primitive conditions from the moment we landed on this planet. I had to heal broken bones without bone serum. All our accelerants were lost in the crash. I had to reinvent making casts and figure out how to do physical therapy. I had to synthesize plasma derivatives completely on my own."
House laid on the sarcasm, "Is this where I'm supposed to feel sorry for you? For doing what most doctors do every day?"
"You're an ass, you know that?"
"Thanks," House smirked. "You shouldn't be so generous with your compliments. They might go to my head. And your boyfriend might get jealous."
"You must not be much of a doctor if you can't even fix that," she gestured towards his injured leg. She shook her hands with disgust, "This is not accomplishing anything!"
"You started it," was House's childish response.
Attempting to regain her composure, Julia turned to peer into the microscope. Then she rose and faced him again. "If it's cancer, I'm not seeing the source. It must've hit the blood stream immediately to spread that quickly. She could've been exposed to all sorts of environmental agents that could've induced DNA mutations. The altered morphology of her organs supports that conclusion. But I can't design a plasmid to fix the mutation if I can't identify it."
"Do it the old fashioned way. You must be able to synthesize agents to target rapidly dividing cells."
"Are you crazy? Think of all the healthy cells that would also be killed."
"That's how chemotherapy works where I come from. It's the only option we have."
"How barbaric." She considered it. "It's crude but possible."
"If it's heavy metal poisoning, a chelating agent could bind the excess metal ion," House suggested.
"Her nickel and chromium levels were substantially elevated in the tests we ran."
"It could also account for such a rapid decline over her entire system. Some native plant might account for it. If she used certain leaves with her tea…"
Julia glared at him, for they'd already discussed this possibility at length. She'd argued if there were anything edible the entire group would've partaken of it.
"There's also the possibility that someone in your group has been slipping low doses into her food and her collapse was triggered when a threshold was reached. You like that one better?" House eyed her, knowing how uncomfortable this idea made her.
Dr. Heller suddenly feigned renewed interest in the slide she'd examined only a moment before.
"You've narrowed it down to three logical possibilities. My god, you can even synthesize antiviral agents in the middle of nowhere. Make a choice and do it."
"What if I'm wrong?"
"Then you're wrong. That's life. Unless you think this chamber can hold her for the next hundred years with no ill effects." He was tempted to add if the ship wouldn't fall apart. But her pained expression indicated that she'd already factored that into the equation. "If that's true, by all means, take your time. Be safe. Be absolutely sure. As long as no one in this lifetime gives a damn about her, it's better to be sure."
XXXXXX
Once Dr. Heller had decided which course of treatment to pursue, they'd discussed the drugs they needed to synthesize. A tall bearded black man named Yale that had cyborg implants in his forearm joined them. House merely stared as the imposing man projected holographic molecular structures from an attachment in his arm. Apparently he had access to an extensive library of synthetic chemistry.
While House was astonished by some of the accomplishments of this brave new world, he took perverse pleasure in the fact that some things hadn't changed. Even though the tools had become fancier, the nature of medicine was still the same - full of challenges. Regardless of technological advances, it would never be reduced to a text book primer any idiot could follow.
Ironically enough, eradicating older diseases had only opened the way for newer ones to fill the void. Yale had explained that children on the Stations were dying from The Syndrome. Despite all their medical advances, the number of Syndrome children born each year was rising at an alarming percentage. This group had come here in a desperate attempt to save their children and their future. House prayed solving that dilemma wasn't part of his challenge. He'd had enough rustic charm to fill a lifetime.
Even though he wasn't sure if this were a different time or some sort of alternative universe (or completely fabricated by his brain), human beings were as flawed and fragile as ever. The good doctor alone had shown him that they still battled with insecurity, pride, jealously and strife.
House had napped briefly on the cot in the tent while Julia and Yale synthesized meds. He'd been hopeful he'd awaken in Wilson's condo. Heck, he would've settled for the alley outside of the bar he'd last frequented. But that hadn't been the case.
When would he be transported home?
Did their diagnosis have to be correct?
If the patient died, would he be stuck here forever? Or were his services required to help nurse her patient back to full heath?
Finally, it was time. Armed with her diaglove and a fancy hypospray syringe filled with the newly synthesized compounds, he and Julia marched towards the space ship. After they'd entered, Julia exhaled deeply and approached Devon's cold sleep chamber. She glanced back nervously towards House.
He chuckled for he'd never been a hand holder. It wasn't his nature. Ask anyone he worked with.
"It's your baby. Your responsibility."
He'd never be able to leave this Major Tom time/space oddity until the good doctor made a decision and faced reality.
House wondered again when he'd be transported home. As the chamber opened, his questions were answered. His surroundings started to fade.
Damn!
Don't I even get to find out if I was right?
THE END