Chapter 1
Establishing lostness
"House!"
A very dismayed James E. Wilson had unlocked the front door to his best friend's home, and was yelling for him at the top of his lungs.
"House. It's 2 PM, you should have been at work hours ago!"
He stormed down the hallway, and angrily wrung open the bedroom door.
"House!" he growled. "Get up!"
The duvet was on the floor within seconds, revealing an empty bed.
"House?" He leapt into the bathroom, a moment terrified what he was going to find, another overdose, accidental or not, a slip on the shower floor, a House snickering about the anger and fright in his friends voice. But there was no sign of House, not in the bathroom, nor in the living room or the office.
"Cuddy", he said the second she answered the phone, and before she had time to respond he followed up with; "we got a situation!"
"What the hell has he done this time?" she answered swiftly, no need be told who the truoblee in the situation was.
"He's gone, Cuddy, I cant find him. He's nowhere"
She was about to answer with a comforting; he is probably out drinking or biking, or both, but the worry and fear in her employees voice told her that those options was already out of the question. "I'll be right there!"
--
He knew something was wrong long before he felt it. He had time to surmise he was not at home, or at the Hospital or at Wilson's, and time to realize it was quite dark, so dark he could see the slight light in an unfathomable small crack in the roof. And then he felt it, pain! Unlike any pain he had ever felt before, pain so great he broke an age-old resolute promise and yelped and cried out, tears running and burning the dry skin on his cheeks. Involuntarily he curled into fetus position, grabbing his legs and rolling on over to his side.
His face touched something warm and sticky and he reached out a hand to let it glide over the strange substance, yanking his hand back as he realized just what the lumpy structure was, a human face, mashed and crushed out of recognition for anyone without a medical degree.
As he shook from his own sudden movement, he heard something that for a moment made him forget the unshaped lump in front of him, the rattling sound of pills in a bottle. He reached down and took three at the same moment as a sudden bout of nausea and dizziness made him fade into nothingness.
--
Robert Chase was bored, tapping his long, pretty fingers at the conference table, infuriating Eric Foreman who were trying, and failing, to read "a very important" medical journal.
A scathing look was sent over the table, catched not by the annoying Aussie, but by the woman hurryingly entering the room. "Chase, stop that before Foreman kills you", Foreman's look changed from annoyed to appreciative when he turned it to Allison Cameron and he then proceeded to read.
"Where is House? He's not here yet?" Cameron asked.
"No, he's probably to hung-over to even realize it's Monday" Foreman said with a tone completely lacking of respect for his employer.
"What if he's sick, or had a accident on his bike, or"
"Cameron, relax", Chase yawned, "he's probably coming any sec now"
But when seconds, minutes and an hour passed, and no House limped in, Foreman got up with an "I'm going home, if House doesn't bother coming in on time, im not bothering staying."
He paused for a moment when he heard hurried steps outside, continuing when he did not recognize House's limping gait. The black doctor didn't even reach the door before a frazzled Cuddy stormed inside. "Is he here? Please say he's here"
They didn't need to ask for whom she was referring, and she did not need an answer to her query. Leaning into the door, she took a shaking breath, whispering a self-comforting; "he is all right, he has to be."
Cameron, always the caring one, took her concerned boss's arm, and led her to a chair. "What's the matter? Where's House?"
"Not at work where he is supposed to be", Foreman huffed.
"And not at home, or at Wilson's, or the Oak tree, or La Viola. His bike is in the garage, his car outside in the street, he never takes the buss, and.." she came no further, stopped by her own hyperventilating. For a moment, the three ducklings thought she was going into a full panic attack, but then she took a deep breath and entered boss mode. "I have to go to Wilson, you three stays in case he comes here."
Than she left, leaving three very confused, and two very worried, doctors.