Author's Note: Okay, so to start off this has no relation to "Awkward Interruption" - so Jonathan and House haven't met yet. This actually takes place during The Dark Knight, just after *SPOILER!* the Joker blows up Gotham General. Made wherever Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital is as neighboring Gotham - don't you just love convenience? The illness is a product of my own fabrication, and as a note to something House says: I do NOT do and/or support the consumption of illegal drugs.
They sat facing each other across the small table inside the one-way mirrored interrogation room located in the G.C.P.D. M.C.U., one attempting to use the room's intended purpose on the other, who was in handcuffs, his ankles first shackled together and then chained to the legs of his chair. This one was clearly ill: his airways rasped like fingernails on sandpaper, and his breath made a whooping noise in his throat each time he coughed. His face was much more pale than his odd and normally pallid skin tone; the whites of his eyes were tinted a ghastly yellow, the crimson veins within them appearing to be more than slightly inflamed.
"Where is the Joker, Crane?" officer Jim Gordon inquired slowly, as if he were speaking to a particularly troublesome two-year-old. Gordon was tired and somewhat irritated - and rightly so, for they had been sitting rigidly immobile in their little stalemate for over two hours now.
Dr. Jonathan Crane smirked. Cough. "It is most fascinating how the mental infliction known as paranoia drives man to drag innocent people into station houses and ask them desperate questions while making entirely irrational assumptions in a fruitless attempt to quell his innermost suspicions and fears." Cough. His voice was strained, weak. Cough. "Would you like me to educate you further on the symptoms?" Cough.
"Where is he?" Gordon pressed.
Crane ignored him and continued. Cough. "The homicidal madman known as `the Joker` is a model illustration for just one of many stimulants causing -" Jonathan began to choke, his throat convulsing with each passage - or lack of passage - of air. Forgetting the restraints, he tried to stand - and promptly fell over off of his chair - its legs became entangled with his - where he lay writhing and twitching on the floor. Strange lavender blotches appeared on his high, prominent cheekbones as he continued to hack and cough. His eyes were wide with panic.
"Crane?" Gordon hurriedly knelt at the prisoner's side; the physician tried to retch in a feeble attempt to clear his throat, with no results. "Crane!"
Blood trickled from the corner of Jonathan's mouth.
- - -
Cue the House M.D. theme. Guest starring Gary Oldman and Cillian Murphy.
- - -
"Cuddy's not looking for you, for once." Dr. James Wilson stood in the doorway, addressing the seemingly empty office with a tired sigh; the infectious disease specialist, Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital's very own Dr. Gregory House, loved to literally hide from situations with which he did not like to be involved - especially if they involved his boss. Dr. Lisa Cuddy, Dean of Medicine and administrator of P.-P.T.H., thoroughly enjoyed getting on House's ass about his medical malpractices, making her reprimands toward the morally errant doctor look like a kind of twisted sport.
"Come on, House - I know you're in here." Wilson strode around to the other side of House's desk on a whim - and sure enough, there he sat, curled up between the twin rows of filing cabinets that were arranged four-deep, the crossword puzzle in today's newspaper folded over on his drawn-up knees. Tapping the clicker end of his pen against his teeth, House barely spared Wilson a glance before returning his gaze to the enigma he was currently trying to solve.
"I need a seven-letter word for a prescription pain medication."
"A new patient came in whose case might interest you," Wilson said, shifting his weight from his right foot to his left as he folded his arms tiredly across his chest.
" `Tylenol`? No - that's over-the-counter."
"He can hardly breathe, his cheeks are purple and he was coughing up blood, though he was able to stop sometime after we put him on oxygen - we're still draining blood from his lungs," Wilson continued.
"`Cocaine`? No - there'd be an uproar if someone put `cocaine` in the paper because that's illegal." House sneered these last two words, and snorted. "If it was up to me everyone would get it for pain medication - the stuff's great."
"They had to send him here because of all the chaos going on over in Gotham City - some `Joker` guy blew up Gotham General and now all the city's other hospitals have been shut down and evacuated because they're presumably all under threat."
"`Vicodin`!" House cried triumphantly. He scribbled in the answer and tossed his pen away absentmindedly. "Speaking of which, do you have any?"
Wilson replied with the one statement about the new patient that he knew would definitely grab House's attention. "He's a wanted criminal, House."
House looked up at Wilson; there was no mistaking the curiosity lining his features. He snatched his cane up from the floor beside him and roughly got to his feet; the now-forgotten paper tumbled from his lap and lay abandoned on the ground - looking, Wilson decided, like a small lost puppy.
House began to pace, leaning heavily on his cane as he limped from one side of the room to the other. "Asphyxiation, purple cheeks and vomiting blood - hmm," he mused, feeling in his pockets for any of his precious pills that he may have accidentally forgotten were there.
Even though he really knew he shouldn't, Wilson dug through the desk drawers in an attempt to help his friend temporarily relieve the symptoms of his addiction to the medication he took for his injured leg. Unfortunately for his friend, Wilson did not find anything there that would take away the man's pain.
"Acute anhelovestigiaerpulmolitis," House said suddenly.
Wilson did not look up from the cupboard adjacent to the desk. "Gesundheit."
"It's a viral infection, also known as AVP."
Wilson's brow furrowed as he unfolded his arms and leaned back against the desk, almost - but not quite - sitting on it. "I've never heard of AVP."
"That's because it's rare." House said this as if this were the most obvious thing in the world. "He'll die in about three hours if it's left untreated - unless his eyes haven't turned yellow yet. Then we could put him on antibiotics for a few weeks and hope they work."
Wilson winced. "Unfortunately, they have."
"Yep - he's gonna die!" House said brightly. "Notify the police - I'm sure they'll be happy to find out they've got one less delinquent to track down."
"Well, while I do that maybe you can ask him why he intravenously injected himself with the disease."
House paused and turned to Wilson. His eyes had lit up with a keen, almost demonic interest; one dark brow was raised. "He infected himself?"
- - -
Jonathan Crane lay in a hospital gown on a gurney, the sole occupant of the bland, windowless white room in which it was stationed. Respiration and drainage tubes snaked from the surrounding machines and into his body. His blue eyes stared listlessly up at the ceiling - but a sudden presence at his bedside caused them to focus, widening slightly in surprise and alarm.
"Now, this's gonna hurt - but we need to talk."
Jonathan screamed in agony as House grabbed the tubes helping him breathe and draining the blood from his lungs with one hand - and yanked them out through his mouth.
House tossed the bloodied tubes aside absentmindedly, punched a button on the wall beside Crane's head and snatched up a respiration mask, which he held over Jonathan's mouth and nose as he began his interrogation.
"Ho-kay - how about you start by telling me why you started virus doping exactly seven hours and thirty-eight minutes ago?" House removed the device for a moment so Crane could speak.
"I was. . .bored," Jonathan admitted, "and I wished to see if my toxin possessed any. . .immunization-enhancing side-effects." He gulped weakly, gasping like a fish out of water - he had been put on oxygen for a reason.
One eyebrow rose at the reply; then House shrugged it off and went with the subject within the answer as he replaced the breathing aid.
"Dr. Wilson already told me all about how you use the inmates of your little asylum as lab rats - which you really shouldn't do," House added with mock severity as he withdrew the respirator again. "It's unethical."
Jonathan chuckled quietly.
"Ethics?" he wheezed. "Ethics have no impact. Hypocrisy, however - one could also describe the `treatment` you yourself administer to your patients as morally side-stepped."
"Well, at least I'm trying to help them," House retorted.
Crane smirked. "Are you really?"
House was about to reply - but then Jonathan began to choke, blood spilling down his chin.
House reached for a few special metal instruments used to clear patients throats - but then a high, continuous beeping whine caused him to turn back to the patient on the bed.
Crane lay still, eyes clouded over.
Jonathan's heart monitor had flatlined.
END
I know, I know - I killed Jonathan! But don't worry, he'll DEFINATELY come back - comic book characters always do. Besides, to my regular readers, you know me: I could never let him stay dead - what would the Joker think? Uh-oh - I'm toast! (hahaha) Sorry if this seems slightly-out-of-character. Admittedly, it seems to me like the Joker would be more of the type to "virus dope" (like that term?) out of boredom - but I suppose all their time together has made Jonathan just as crazy as he is hahaha.