House sighed when he reached for another file. It felt as if he had spent the last 8 hours in the clinic but he has only been working there for 45 minutes. Still, that had been enough time to bore the hell out of him.
For a moment he thought about leaving and taking the afternoon off but he immediately had Cuddy's angry facial impression on his mind and skipped that idea. She was still pissed at him and he was a little bit afraid of putting her over the edge. So he had decided to be a nice boy for a little while and that unfortunately included clinic duty as well.
He entered the exam room and found a young man in his early twenties waiting for him. House put aside the file. Everything he had to know was written all over the guy's face anyway.
"So what's your complaint?", the diagnostician asked.
"I don't have one actually. My girlfriend sent me here."
House rolled his eyes. "Symptoms please!", he mumbled.
"Sorry. I'm always tired and I seem to lose weight. But I lost my appetite because my stomach keeps bugging me. I think it's just stress, I'm studying for my final exams in med school but Susan insisted on me coming here."
"Terrific. How nice of her to waste our time. So what are you taking to get through the long nights in the library? Some little helper to stay focused? Got a friend with a prescription pad?"
The patient shook his head. "No. Only coffee and cigarettes. Too much fastfood. The typical student's life. Susan is always worried because I'm a bleeder. But it wasn't a problem so far."
"And probably enough alcohol to trouble your liver given the yellow shine in your eyes", House told him.
Jason looked surprised. "What do you mean? I'm jaundiced? That wasn't there this morning. And I don't drink."
House smirked for a moment. "That's incredible. I just found the only student in the universe who doesn't drink."
Jason rolled his eyes. "Listen, I don't touch alcohol. I hate it.", he sighed. "I hate how it changes people."
House gave it a thought. Daddy obviously got a little bit violent after beer 6, 7 and 8.
"Lie down", he ordered him now and got up. With his trained hands he felt the upper part of the stomach on the right side. He didn't like what he felt there. He took a step back and looked at his patient. Jason was skinny, definitely shortweight. Still his belly seemed inflated.
House took a seat again and opened the file. It only contained two sheets so far since it was Jason's first visit in the PPTH. One was the form Jason was asked to fill in while he waited. It contained his general data, present medications and preexisting conditions. The other one was supposed to be filled in by the attending doctor.
House got a pen from his jacket and scribbled down a few notes.
"I'm going to call my buddy now. He will give you a nice sedative so he can take out a little piece of your liver. Then we will stick it under a microscope to see if you have liver cancer."
House observed the kid's reaction. He was obviously shocked.
"Cancer? Are you sure?"
"No, that's where the biopsy comes in. Listen, are you sure you don't drink? Still could be a simple case of "I drank my liver goodbye!"
Still startled Jason shook his head. "No alcohol."
House gave him a nod. "Biopsy it is!"
He reached the phone next to the door and told the nurse to page Dr. Wilson for a consult in exam room one.
"If that other doctor cuts me open you really should make it extra clear to him that I'm hemophilic. I wrote it down on the form."
"Don't worry. I'll pass it on. It's just a small incision, and they will take care of it. My buddy will be with you in a minute", House told him and left.
He approached the nurse's desk and handed her the file.
"Patient in exam room one has a date with Wilson. It's two pm, I'm out of here", he told her and left.
House never noticed the piece of paper that had dropped from the file on his way to the desk. He had never seen the janitor picking it up and stuffing it into the garbage can minutes later, angry that he always had to clean up after those doctors. No, House had better things to do. He was on his way to the cafeteria to get lunch before his soap started. Wilson would take care of that patient and by the time House yelled at the cafeteria chick for not removing the pickles from his sandwich he had already forgotten about every patient he had seen in the clinic this morning.
Two hours later Wilson approached him in his office. House's team had released their latest patient that morning and was out of business at the moment due to a lack of diagnostic mysteries.
Wilson was pale and he seemed very uncomfortable. He entered the department and just stared past House out of the window for a moment. House looked up from his magazine. Finally he turned around to find out if there was something interesting drawing Wilson's attention but he couldn't find anything.
"Wilson, your office has the same view. Anything you need?", he finally interrupted the silence.
"He's dead", the oncologist mumbled and met House's eyes.
"Who is dead?'"
"Jason. The patient you referred to me two hours ago."
House put down the magazine and got his feet of his table.
"He seemed alive when I left him. What did you do?"
Wilson's expression changed from shocked to furious.
"What I did? I did you a favor. There are ten oncologists in my department but no, you always have to call for me. So I did it. Checked the file even for allergies and pre existing conditions that might lead to complications and once again I was stupid enough to trust a file that went through your hands."
"His file is brand new. It's the first time he showed up here", House explained.
"Then it's even more important you make notes!", Wilson yelled at him. "For example that he will bleed to death as soon as I cut him open because he's missing a very important clotting factor."
House looked confused.
"He bled to death from a biopsy? You opened the entire stomach or what?", he finally asked.
"No I didn't. We had trouble controlling the bleed but got it under control. What we didn't notice was the fact that he bled into his stomach once we were done. By the time he crashed in the wake up room it was too late. We don't even need an autopsy since there was enough unclotted blood left to do a simple test. He was a bleeder!"
It took a while until it dawned on House that they were in serious trouble and finally the color of his skin matched his friend's pretty well. He gulped nervously.
House had not added that piece of information because he had seen it on the form Jason had filled in. He was sure Wilson would read it there and take care of it. Wilson always took care.
House looked at the oncologist who had taken a seat in the meantime.
"So what now?", he simply asked.
Wilson shook his head. "No idea. There's not too much we can do, I guess. Wait until Cuddy finds out and brace for impact."
House was already lost in his thoughts again, pondering about the possible consequences awaiting the two of them. This was a mistake that was not supposed to happen. Not to a first year medical student and especially not to two department heads.
Wilson was probably busted anyway. He did the biopsy he was right there and was not able to save the patient's life. He had no chance to come out of this unaffected.
"Didn't you read his file?", House finally asked.
Wilson shook his head. "There was nothing in there. Just your lame handwriting listing some symptoms and your possible diagnosis. By the time I got the file the nurse had added his blood type and the lack of any allergies."
"And you didn't ask him?"
Wilson took a deep breath. "Why would I ask him? It's not my job to get his basic data. Why didn't he fill in a form when he came into the clinic?"
The diagnostician didn't answer him. He was once more lost in his thoughts considering his own future this time.
If that sheet of paper wouldn't show up again, there was no trouble waiting for him. He could simply deny that he knew about the condition. The only witness was dead. House could lie. Everybody did it anyway.
No need in getting both of them busted. It would all come down on Wilson, but House could walk out of it unmolested.
"Did he tell you about it, House?", Wilson draw him out of his thoughts.
House chuckled for a moment. Every other doctor and this would have been easy. Damn it! Why did he always ask for Wilson when it came to a consult in oncology? Wilson was the department head for crying out loud! House could have asked one of the other ten oncologists and that guy's ass would be on the line right now. But no, he had to take every opportunity to annoy his best friend. He should have given the damn biopsy to someone else and have lunch with Wilson instead. Crap!
He had no time to think about the pros and cons of his answer. No time to rationalize or even better, come up with a lame excuse. He had no choice. Well actually he had but it was lame. He could either deny it and feel guilty while watching his friend losing his career or he could admit it and go down with him together. Right now he had a better feeling about option number two. Of course he couldn't know about the problems the two of them were about to face pretty soon.
"Yes, he did", he mumbled and let Wilson digest that piece of information.
Wilson took a deep breath. "Why didn't you write it down?", he asked next.
House shrugged and rubbed the side of his head for a moment. He was nervous.
"I was in a hurry."
Wilson shook his head. "No you were not. You have no case, no emergency waiting in your department. You had no reason to be in a hurry."
House pursed his lips. Wilson wouldn't like this.
"He was the last patient on my shift and I wanted to get out of there as soon as possible."
The oncologist rolled his eyes and sighed.
"Of course you did. Afraid of missing your soap?"
"Why didn't you ask him? These are routine questions you ask before you cut someone open", House deflected.
"Oh I'm sorry. He was a nervous wreckage after you told him about the possible diagnosis in your unique way."
"I just told him he might have cancer."
"The kid thought he might have the flu or something and out of the blue you tell him he might die. He was a medical student, did you know this? He knew what such a diagnosis meant."
"Then he also should have known to wait for a confirmed diagnosis before freaking out. And he should have mentioned the lack of clotting factors in his blood."
"He did! He mentioned it to you! He knew you were the best doctor in this place and so he was stupid enough to believe that you would pass this information on by probably writing it down in the chart", Wilson yelled at him once more.
"It was there!", House shouted now. "He had written it down on the form. I read it. There was no need for me to write it down because it was already there!"
House leaned back and kept silent for a moment.
"And by the way this is your fault as well, Wilson. You cut him open, you are responsible", he finally mumbled more to himself to take some of the pressure of his shoulders.
"Of course that's the only thing you care about!", his friend yelled.
They both were silent for a while until Wilson exhaled deeply.
"Fine", he started again. "We need a strategy."
"We should blame the dead guy. He won't mind", House suggested.
The oncologist ignored that comment.
"There was only one sheet of paper in the file telling me about your diagnosis and order for the biopsy. You sure it was there?"
House glared at him for a moment.
"What you think I fantasized it? I might have a history for imagining things but I was sober this morning."
Wilson sighed. "That's not what I meant. Maybe you dropped it or I don't know. These things usually don't get lost."
House just shrugged. Again silence built up.
"You should deny it! Tell them you didn't know it", Wilson finally decided.
House sighed. "You're serious?"
Wilson nodded. "There's no need for both of us to lose our license."
House already felt bad about this.
"I can't lie about it", he finally decided and Wilson chuckled.
"House, this is really not the right time to start caring and showing responsible behavior."
"Don't worry, this is pure selfish behavior as always. If I lie about this and you lose your job our friendship won't survive", he admitted and for the first time during the past minutes their eyes met again.
"On the other hand, one of us has to pay the rent so one of us should keep his job", Wilson stated.
House smirked. "Yeah, and out of the two of us I'm the one well known for paying our bills!"
It got silent again until House's pager went off two minutes later. He had not even read the message when Wilson's pager started, too. They were supposed to show up in Cuddy's office immediately and they both knew trouble was waiting.
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