Impasse
Chapter 1: Scotties, and Tigers, and Max. Oh My!
The doors of the ER slammed open as EMTs rushed in a teenage girl with short, blonde hair. Five others and a dog followed them in nervously. The already busy ER was rushing about as the dean of medicine opened her door. She skipped back as a nurse ran by holding a syringe. Shaking her head, she was about to exit to the lobby when a young, blonde haired woman handed her a file.
"Dr. Cuddy, House has a case. Girl without a blood type and has plenty of sarcasm. He'll like her. No other doctor will want her, anyway." Dr. Cuddy nodded.
"Thanks Dr. Cameron, House needs something to keep him busy," she said, dodging another nurse. She left and went into the elevator. She waited impatiently next to a man with a nasty cough.
A case-file slammed onto a cluttered desk.
"Fifteen-year-old, presented with massive amounts of bleeding and a concussion." An unshaven doctor looked at her unimpressed.
"The only thing more impressive than the case is your ass today." House said sarcastically, bouncing a giant tennis ball against the wall. "Was the girl wearing a heavy jacket?"
"Yeah, I think, why?"Cuddy said, grabbing the ball from his reach. House sighed emphatically and looked at her like she was an idiot.
"She got in a fight, an idiot could diagnose this. What does that make you again?" She glared and left the folder on the desk. Right before she was out the door and House had the file hovering over the trash.
"Oh, and she doesn't have a blood type." She said, and left leaving him to stare after her butt. He opened the file and limped over to his team's office, using his cane on the wrong side.
"What kid doesn't have a blood type?" He wondered out loud, grabbing a ceramic cup and pouring some coffee. Foreman looked up from a new book on diagnostics. 13 stopped reading over his shoulder and Taub rolled his eyes.
"A kid who doesn't go to hospitals," he sighed, and picked up his phone, about to text his wife about the new car. House moved over to Foreman and sniffed him. He raised his eyebrows, and 13 inched away. "Let me guess, Foreman smells like a new detergent, so he's obviously been convicted for some heinous crime." Taub added.
"No, Foreman smells like 13's soap. Interesting," he noted, and looked at Taub. "No parents, just five siblings of different ethnicities and a dog, and a personality to boot." He said, dropping the file on the glass table. 13 grabbed it and looked it through.
"There's no home listed or anything, wait a second…. Her EMT's said that she refuses to be seen." House smiled and took a plastic, orange bottle out from under his jacket. He popped two pills into his mouth.
"Fun." He took off at a fast limping speed, and his team followed him down the long hallway.
"Wait you're actually meeting a patient?" 13 asked incredulously and pretended to pinch herself. "I must still be dreaming." House smiled and closed the elevator, leaving the team to walk down the stairs, but before it completely closed, Foreman stopped it.
"What's her name?" He asked as House opened the case-file. He raised his eyebrows sarcastically and pretended to do a double take.
"There must have been a typo… It says here that her name is Maximum Ride. Interesting."
"So," House started to say, taking one look at his disheveled patient. "Maximum. Is that a family name? It seems like you'd be speaking English as a second language, with a name like that." The patient raised her eyebrows and the team ushered the kids a small Scottie dog out of the room.
"Lame insult. Can I go yet? I just tripped on the sidewalk, there's no need for all this. Did you ever go to culinary school? Because I thought that you were a girl when I saw the last name. It just seemed like you'd be working at a stove and oven all day." House pulled a chair up and set his cane down. He grabbed her palms and looked at them.
"Either you tripped backward, or you're lying." He looked at the cuts on her arm.
"They're from my cat."
"You own a tiger?" He asked, and then looked out of the windows. He noticed a teenage boy watch. He seemed both interested and concerned, in a protective fashion. "Is that your boyfriend?" Maximum shook her head.
"No, Fang's my brother." She said, and the ten year old girl outside looked like she was laughing. House opened his mouth and mouthed something. Maximum glared and shook her head. "I want to go. I'm all better now. My mom's a veterinarian, I'll be fine."
"Yeah, I'll go ahead and declaw your tiger for you, too. Don't worry, I probably won't kill it."
"My mom knows what she's doing and don't compare me to a cat." House picked his cane up and walked to a drawer on the other side of the room. "What are you doing?" She peered over and couldn't see anything.
"Oh, don't worry about me." House said and stabbed a hypodermic needle into her arm. She gasped in pain as he drew blood from her arm. He pulled it out and handed her some gauze. "I'll be back once I find out your blood type." He left the room to find the kids glaring at him. He ignored them and headed off to the lab, team following.
"Which flu's more deadly?" Taub said, looking up from a magazine. 13 shook her head.
"Why?"She asked, and read over his shoulder. "I'm thinking Swine." Foreman shook his head.
"I don't think so. I mean I thin-"
"Avian!" House proclaimed and grabbed the blood chart off of the counter. Everyone looked at him.
"You agree with me?" Foreman asked.
"No, our Maximum is 2% avian." Everyone stared at him.
"What's the punch line?" Foreman asked and watched as House walked out quickly.
"So, Fang- does she live up to her name? I mean, you're her boyfriend. You would know." Max rolled her eyes at House.
"What do you want?" She asked and all the children there stared at the doctor, looking almost worried, but not about their sister.
"I won't declaw your tiger now-"
"That had better not be a euphemism." Fang said, darkly. House ignored him.
"Because you need a vet. Why are you part bird?" He leaned on his cane looking at the two of them. "I'm assuming that Boyfriend knows you're a bird." Fang nodded, still glaring at House.
"That information's on a need to know basis. And you don't need to know anything." House looked at the clipboard at the end of her bed. He flipped through a few pages.
"I think I do, seeing as I won't let you out of here until you tell me." The youngest girl turned her head to Maximum and then to House.
"It's a long story." She said, quietly. House leaned against his cane with mock interest.
"Do tell." He said, faking a Scottish accent.
Chapter 2: In Which House Gets Into Trouble with Cuddy
House sat by Maximum Ride's hospital bed, bouncing his tennis ball against the wall. He put his feet up on the bed and sat back in the chair.
"So, Maxy…"
"It's Maximum." House rolled his eyes.
"Of course, can't upset a patient, but I still have one question. If I give a quick call to the local police station, how much will they tell me you guys are worth? Assuming your story's true, and the government's after you…" He trailed off, noticing Fang clenching his jaw. "My Vicodin isn't cheap, you know." He rattled the almost-empty pill bottle. House stood up and motioned for Fang to leave. "I want to ask you some questions that you won't want to answer in front of Boyfriend here." Max sighed and Fang left.
"If I answer these questions, can I go?" House nodded with a fake, reassuring smile.
"So," he started pacing, when he tripped. He landed on the edge of Maximum's bed and swore. The door opened.
"House, Cuddy wants to….. My God! What are you doing House?" House brought his face off of Max's stomach to look into the bewildered face of his only friend.
"Wilson. Well, you have impeccable timing. It wasn't what it looked like. I tripped." Wilson looked at House's cane, which was lying on the floor, and then at the patient.
"Look, ma'am. I apologize for his behaviour, so please don't put a lawsuit up against him." He turned to House who was slowly picking up his cane. "You know what Cuddy would do if she found out!" He hissed. House swung the rubber-tip of his cane into his friend's face.
"What'd I tell you?" House said, motioning to the chewed, slobber-dripping rubber tip of his cane. Max was laughing.
"Way to go Total!" She said, and the small Scottie came out from under her bed. Wilson looked at everyone in the room and shook his head. It wasn't worth arguing with House about.
"I just came in to tell you that Cuddy wants this patient discharged because she doesn't have any insurance and a CEO just got in a car crash, so…" He trailed off, looking closer at Max. "Wait a second! She just got in a fight. Big deal! Cuddy thought she thrown out of a car or something! We have to discharge her now!"
"Thank you!" Max said, beginning to stand up. "Someone with some sense."
"But, maybe she did get thrown out of a car." House said, mysteriously. "Foreman's going to do a PET scan in twenty minutes to make sure her head is all right." Wilson looked at Foreman in the lobby staring at the ceiling.
"And I was born in 1901. Discharge her or Cuddy'll have your head on a platter." House grabbed his tennis ball from the chair he had been sitting in.
"Silver or gold?" He asked, walking out of the room. He waited in the doorframe for Wilson to answer.