There was something about the ER that Cameron loved. Most Doctors hated the ER because it was either eerily empty or a frenzied mess of terror and panic. Come to think of it, it was almost the same as working in diagnostics; weeks of doing nothing then three days of sheer terror trying to diagnose a patient who's already slipped through dozens of Doctor's fingers. Cameron could see herself working in the ER after her fellowship with House. Cuddy was always looking for ER staff. Despite the raise in salary that came with an ER position, most people couldn't handle the stress. One (of a few) good thing about working for House was that you had to learn to deal with stress. If you were feeling good about your life, he would find a way to throw you off-kilter.
Today the ER was silent, but so was the third floor diagnostic office and Cameron was avoiding the packed clinic on principal. She was sick of doing House's hours for him. She figured she could be helpful down here, but the four other Doctors in the ER were all tending to a single leg gash, the nurses were gossiping behind the desk, a few interns were changing bedding on bed nine, and House was lying in bed five playing on his Gameboy. Cameron wondered if she should go back upstairs and help Foreman and Chase with House's paperwork, but she figured she should also avoid that on principal. She was sick of being House's secretary.
Cameron glanced at the door. The clock above said that it was nearing three thirty. Maybe she should just take off early. She was supposed to be off at five today, and had stayed an extra shift earlier in the week. She took a look at House wondering if she should ask him or just sort of wander out. She was kind of annoyed she had changed into Scrubs for nothing. She hated the starchy fabric and the fact that whatever bodily fluids they were supposed to protect her from either seeped through the material and made her skin sticky or ruined the shirt she wore under them.
"Doctor Cameron. Doctor House." Cameron turned to the nurse who had called her name.
"Yeah?" Cameron responded.
"Car crash, two victims, three minutes out. One possible DOA," The nurse repeated, phone still to her ear.
"Why can't one of them deal with it?" House asked, putting his Gameboy down.
"Doctor Cuddy asked me to assign everything that came in to you if you showed up." The nurse smirked. She hung up the phone and walked over to take his Gameboy. "She also wanted someone to bring this to her."
"Well, that's just an abuse of her power. Asking employees to steal. I should go have a chat with her and legal." House took his cane from the bed railing and shifted his bad leg off the bed first.
"I offered." The nurse replied smugly. Cameron smiled. House had called one of the nurses a maid last week and none of them had let him forget it since.
"Let's go House," Cameron said, tossing him a gown from the supply closet. He stopped to put it on and Cameron walked outside to the ambulance bay. She could hear the faint cry of sirens in the distance. She scanned the flat landscape in front of her trying to spot which direction the ambulance was coming from. She saw a flash of lights about half a mile away to the East and kept her eyes on the vehicle. She mentally prepared herself to jump into action as the ambulance pulled up.
She spotted one of the men before the car even stopped. She always hated how ambulance windows weren't tinted. No one wanted to see a human crime scene when driving behind an ambulance. It also seemed a bit like an invasion of privacy for the patient.
The driving Paramedic jumped out of the car and she helped him open the doors of the vehicle. The other Paramedic was on top of the man she saw through the window. He was pumping the man's chest with his arms. The driver helped pull the stretcher out of the car.
"Male, early fifties. No heartbeat. CPR's been given for nine minutes. No response," the Paramedic called without stopping his rhythms from on top of the man. Cameron looked him over. He was thin with a strong bone structure. Eyes that looked glazed over and lifeless, yet shockingly blue stared up into the air. His blue button down shirt had been torn open and his abdomen was more purple than tan. Lacerations across his left arms, face, and left leg left splotches of dried blood smeared across his clothes and skin. His nails were a deep shade of purple. He was dead.
"You can't stop. He's strong. He'll come back from this. He will," cried a male voice from inside the ambulance. The first paramedic rolled his stretcher out of the vehicle. The boy was strapped to the stretcher, but didn't appear to have any life threatening injuries. He looked exactly like his father. He too had cropped black hair, a sloped nose, and brilliant eyes. They boy was wearing a soccer uniform and the left side of his shirt was spattered with blood, most likely his father's. Cameron looked around wondering where House was.
"Let's go," she said grabbing the boy's stretcher and pulling him inside right behind the Paramedic and the older man.
"Cameron pushed the boy over to where House was standing, and ran back towards the man. She grabbed a vial from the table next to where the paramedic had put the guy and pushed back between the other Doctors who had flocked to him.
"I'm pushing epi," Cameron said, praying her initial assumption was wrong. She shoved the needle into the man's heart.
"Just call it Doctor," the paramedic sighed. He had stopped the CPR and climbed off of the man. Cameron's mind flashed to the man's son. She hated calling time of death but the man had been dead on arrival, and her epinephrine had done nothing but cause warm blood to spot his chest on the puncture site.
"Time of death three forty one in the afternoon," Doctor Greenfield called for her. The paramedic jotted down the time and walked away. Doctor Greenfield pulled a sheet over the man's face, and blood quickly soaked through in a few spots. Cameron glanced down at her own arms suddenly realizing the uncomfortable sticky feeling of blood on her arms. She sighed and pulled the curtain around the bed. She headed over towards the boy. House was sitting down talking to him as one of the interns performed an exam. The intern was pushing in different spots on the boy's abdomen.
"Nothing hurts. I'm fine," the boy insisted. Cameron looked expectantly at the intern.
"Daniel Hadley. Fifteen. No signs of internal bleeding. Superficial wounds on right leg. Possible fracture to the right foot. Possible head injury," the intern reported to her.
"I'm fine. How's my dad? He's okay right?" The boy asked. The realization that his dad's doctor was standing next to him quickly changed his facial expression. "Why aren't you over there?"
"Your Dad died on impact, Daniel." Cameron said slowly. She was good with kids and good at delivering bad news. However, she hadn't quite mastered combining the two. She had learned from House that straightforward tended to be the best when the kid was a teenager. "Do you have another family member we can call? Your mom?"
"You can't call her," Daniel said angrily. He sat up dismissing the intern who was still trying to examine his abdomen. "Someone needs to pick my sister up from soccer practice. You can't let a social worker tell her." The boy began to panic. The machine by his bed beeped rapidly. "She's just a kid."
"You need to calm down, kid." House stood up, looking at the heart rate monitor. He began to prepare a syringe of a sedative.
"No, no. I'm fine. You have to let me leave! I'm supposed to get her!" Daniel yelled, ripping the sensor from his finger. "I'll come back, okay? I promise."
"His pupils, Doctor." The intern looked at House wide eyed.
"Lay back down, you have a traumatic brain injury." House ordered. The boy shook his head, his eyes rolled up momentarily.
"He's sweating," the intern said. House waved a hand at him telling the intern to get lost.
"We need to call your mom and get consent for surgery. You're bleeding into your brain." House said calmly though loudly. He shoved the boy back so that he was lying down.
"You wont be able to reach her. She can't help." He spat. His speech was growing fuzzy. House glanced at Cameron. She shrugged. House shrugged back not caring how much liability the hospital had if he didn't get the mother's consent. Surgery was necessary though; consent or no consent, and they both knew it.
"Nurse, call OR two. Page neuro. We've got a brain bleed." House yelled across the ER. The nurse nodded and jumped at the phone. Two other doctors rushed over to help.
"My sister, Remy. She's at Plainsboro elementary. Fifth grade. Someone has to bring her here. I'm not having surgery until I see her," the boy yelled. He pushed off the monitor House had just put back on his finger. The machine by his bed was going crazy.
"Cameron, you heard the man," House said. Cameron stood frozen for a moment. "She'll be here when you wake up. In about two hours if you let us operate now. Or you can watch her from heaven as the bleed fills the space in your skull meant for your brain and it dies slowly, though – good news - not especially painfully," House said to the boy. Daniel looked over at Cameron expectantly.
"Yeah, okay. I can do that. I'll get her," Cameron agreed as the doctors began to wheel the boy out of the ER. He looked satisfied, scared out of his mind, but slightly more reassured by the prospect that his sister wouldn't be waiting on the curb outside of her school for the next few hours.
"Way to run those errands," House snickered at her, "and get the mom's number from the brat." Cameron rubbed her temples. This was way out of her job description…and possibly illegal.