Title: Regardless
Author: DancingStar
Crossover: PSI Factor/ House, MD
Rating: ? (In some parts, the story is a little bit disgusting)
Spoiler: None
Summary: A patient had surprisingly lost her teeth in the night. When Dr. House and the team had to find out why, their patients´ teenage daughter shows the same symptoms.
Notes: What happens if you throw your favorite TV- doctor in a pot with the characters from your favorite show, stir everything well and cook for about 40 minutes? :-)
Here some details don´t agree, too: Dr. House, for example, is an only child but in this story he has a sister. I apologize for this difficulty!
Dedicated to my best friends: Janine, Steffi, Ellen, Susi
Thank you for helping me and for your support.
Regardless
Nina Lawrence washed her hands at a Wednesday morning when someone knocked impatiently at the bathroom door. "Nina!", it was her mother, "Let me in! I have to go to the bathroom!"
The sixteen-year-old girl hated when her mother disturbed her every morning because she had to go to the bathroom. "Could you please leave?"
"Why?"
"I can´t pee when you look at me," Eleanor Lawrence explained rudely. Nina lived with her mother and her mother´s boyfriend in a house on the outskirts of the city.
"And I have to work!", Nina said annoyed. During the summer holidays, she earned a little pocket money in a coffee shop. The coffee shop opened every morning at 7 a.m. and Nina's service took until 12 p.m. Her mother didn´t care about Nina had to work. So she pulled up her nightgown and sat on the toilet. She suffered from diarrhea for days and because she felt tired she wasn´t working, too. When Nina wrinkled her nose in disgust, Eleanor operated a scent dispenser. When Eleanor was done, she reached for the doorknob.
"Wash your hands!", Nina yelled.
"I don´t have to wash hands, I go back to bed."
That was the most stupid excuse Nina had ever heard and she regretted she knew it too well. Usually she had to remind her mother to wash her hands and even then Eleanor did it with a large protest. Once, Nina was considered if her mother might have fear of water.
"This is disgusting."
"So what?", Eleanor took no care. Suddenly she noticed a small, elongated object that was in her mouth between the tongue and jaw bones. She fished the object out and found a front tooth. Then she fished five more teeth out of her mouth. With a furious pulse she pushed her daughter rudely away from the bathroom mirror and looked at herself. Her mouth was encrusted with blood and she screamed in panic to Nina why she hadn´t told her. Eleanor had lost six teeth in the last night.
Three hours later, the daily meeting led by Dr. House was about to begin in the Princeton Plainsboro Hospital. His medical skills and knowledge were impressive, his bad manners, his black humor and his unusual behavior often annoyed the people and it was feared and admired.
His team was already waiting in the meeting room. As usual, House came last. He was grateful for every minute he hadn´t to spend in the hospital and he used to be late notoriously. "We're all here?", House asked annoyed. He hadn´t even wished them a good morning.
"Claire isn´t here," replied Lindsay, when she took place at the table, "The pathology has much to do at the moment. I´ll tell her about the meeting later."
House wondered why he needed a pathologist in his team. Finally, they should find the causes of disease of their patients as long as they were still alive and not if they already were pushing up the daisies.
"Then we start without her... So what do we have?... How's the patient who cut off a finger with a buzz saw."
"He feels better today," Anton Hendricks said, "The condition of the three teenagers which crashed with their car into a tree, is unchanged: two are still in a coma, one is awake and can´t remember anything... Then we have a patient who was taken to us yesterday evening with sunstroke..."
While Anton was talking, House remembered, why he hated the ambulance service: in the ambulance, there were only uninteresting medical cases to solve. So nothing that really challenged House. And it looked like everything was boring again: All patients felt the same as yesterday.
"Wonderful. Then I can return home", House said and hobbled to the door.
"I don´t think so," it came from Connor Doyle, "What about Eleanor Lawrence?"
"No idea. Who's that?", House acted the fool, but when Connor was on the way to the meeting room, he heard how Cuddy was talking to House in the corridor about he should take care of her. As always, House refused to examine the woman and Cuddy told him she would exempt him a couple of hours in the ambulance, if he took care of Eleanor Lawrence.
Connor saw how House returned to the table. "All right... Our overweight patient Eleanor Lawrence suffers from diarrhea, fatigue, loss of teeth, bleeding gums and terrorizes her daughter," House scrawled on his white board.
The first diagnosis came, as always, from Lindsay: "Scurvy?"
"No, unless she´s an old sailor in 1535..."
"Maybe it's an epidemic: It´s currently very warm, some rivers in the south are flooding because of the hurricane season and..."
House shook his head. "Give me just one epidemic in which you lose teeth," he asked and looked at her. Lindsay didn´t know what to say, she crossed her arms defiantly in front of her chest. Lindsay Donner was his niece- she was the daughter of his older sister. Meanwhile, she had become accustomed, to how House harassed his team, how cynical, irreverent and mischievous he was and how grumpy he treated sick persons. Before she started here, he had told her she couldn´t take it personally, but if she isn´t treated like the other doctors, they would quickly run into problems and besides, he only wanted she would become a good cardiologist.
"Maybe it´s Lupus."
"It is never Lupus. I'm pretty sure it's something else," House suggested and looked around. He was surprised no one else said something. He was used that Anton, the oldest member of his team and a former family physician, at least got one diagnosis. Connor wasn´t in the mood for say something, too. House now extended Peter Axon the current and the old X-ray pics. House was sure that Peter as oral and maxillofacial surgeon, who also sought for a doctor's approval, had an idea for what the patient was suffering. But Peter said something House had not expected: "I've never seen something like this before... The jaw bone has been reduced within one year from 35 millimeters to 5 millimeters. No parodontitis is able to do this. A miracle she hasn´t noticed..." Peter wondered how that was possible: The patient should have noticed the condition of her teeth. What Peter distressed was a dark misshapen bubble that seemed to rest directly on the lower jaw.
"Maybe she realized it, she suffers on dental phobia and therefore she doesn´t visit the dentist," Lindsay said to him and smiled amused, "Maybe loosing teeth is the result of a osteomyelitis."
"The patient was very healthy one year ago and she is not afraid of the dentist," Peter compared the printed picture of X-rays, which were sent by the dentist to insight, "The upper jaw has a similar bone loss as the lower jaw... Was a smear of the mucosa already tested in our lab?"
"The result arrived five minutes ago. The lab needs at least until tonight, till the sample of a little bone part is tested... I haven´t had a chance to read the results," House said and rolled his eyes. Somehow, Peter had the suspicion he didn´t want to see the lab report when he took the yellow folder and opened it. He read the diagnostic findings with interest, but suddenly he said incredulously: "The lab found Streptococcus bovis in her mouth!"
"This bacteria cause bowel cancer," Lindsay called and Peter muttered that it was now no longer his but Connor's case. Connor was the oncologist in the team.
"This isn´t proven yet," said House, "It´s discussed by some doctors, but bla bla bla... Prepare her for a colonoscopy", he demanded sullenly and limped away with his cane," Looks as if Mom suffers for colon cancer."
"Do I really have to take this pill?", Eleanor Lawrence wanted to know, after Lindsay and Connor informed her about the scheduled colonoscopy. Lindsay was surprised, but she nodded. "We should do that to confirm the suspicion of Dr. House, or exclude it. The tablet is used to calm you a little."
"If this Dr. House is so talented where is he?"
"He takes part in an important meeting," Connor lied, he didn´t even know what House was doing now, "He will join the colonoscopy later, I´m the surgeon."
"What´s a colonoscopy?, "Eleanor asked suddenly and House, who entered the room at that moment answered: "This means someone pushes a camera in your butt to check if there´s a tumor at the inside of your gastrointestinal tract."
"House!", Connor said horrified. He would have explained that in a sensitive manner to the patient.
"It's not as bad as he says!", Connor tried to calm the patient.
"I won´t do that", Eleanor suddenly said, "I'm scared... I..." When she said this Connor could not believe what he heard: After all, he canceled another colonoscopy because of her and because House thought he wasn´t done soon enough.
All of a sudden she got up and ran frantically to the door. The sedative made an impact slowly and Eleanor felt how dizzy she was. However, before Eleanor reached the door, her legs gave in and she sank exhausted to the ground. House grabbed her roughly by the arm and with Connors help he dragged her back to her bed. He proposed to take advantage of the weakness of the patient.
Although Connor thought it was immoral to take advantage of the helplessness of the patient to do the colonoscopy against her will, he did it. House would get trouble with the hospital board, because he hadn´t the consent of the patient, but he didn´t seem to care about this.
While Connor was operating, a nurse explained how hot it was today. Her shift began later today and she also told she had spent the morning with their children in the pool. Connor thought it was unfair and even meaner, that air conditioners weren´t allowed in the operating rooms because of hygienic reasons. His anger about the lack of air conditioning disappeared when he discovered a dark spot on the screen. He had found what he was looking for: The patient actually had cancer.
With a special instrument Connor took a smear of the ulcer. "Please send this sample to the lab," Connor said to the nurse. He tried to bring the operation to end quickly, because there was another colonoscopy to be done.
Connor sat down hungry at the table in the meeting room in the evening and started eating a sandwich. Peter and Anton sat already next to him, because they were waiting for House, too.
"You're just out of surgery!", Peter noticed a little shocked, "I don´t understand how you manage to eat a sandwich after a colonoscopy!"
Connor didn´t understand the hype about a sandwich and he looked at Lindsay confused: After all, he had changed clothes and disinfected hands after the surgery. "Why? I do such surgeries every day. I'm used to it... I have also seen that Dr. Jansen and Dr. Simpson were playing poker in the pathology and they used the body of a deceased patient as a table."
House entered the room, put a portfolio on the table and then he asked if he could interrupt their conversation about pathologist which were playing poker for a moment. And he wanted to know if anyone had an idea how Streptococcus bovis came into the oral cavity of the patient.
Connor replied he didn´t know but in the colonoscopy he found cancer.
"Unfortunately this is not the only problem she has," House told, "The diagnostic findings about the sample from Mom's intestine arrived: The lab also says the bacteria in the mouth of the patient is related to those in her intestine. Presumably, the bacteria in Mom's mouth mutated to osteosarcoma and started to eat away her jaw bone... Although she´s a bit too old for an osteosarcoma… Axon, remove the infiltrated jaw bone as quickly as possible. The patient is still sober, so take advantage of this... Doyle, please arrange an appointment to remove the cancerous tumor."
The team nodded and House was about to leave when he heard now they discussed who would tell the patient that they had to remove a portion of the mandible. Claire felt Peter should tell her because he was an oral and maxillofacial surgeon. Peter believed Lindsay should tell her because she had a better rapport with patients. When they couldn´t agree House decided they all should go to Eleanor Lawrence to talk to her. So they set off together.
"How are you, Eleanor?", Lindsay asked when she entered the room of her patient.
"I'm hungry," she admitted and the sixteen year old teenage girl, who was sitting on a chair beside the bed, rolled her eyes annoyed. House also thought the patient was already thick enough and one day without food wouldn´t kill her.
"This is my boyfriend Miguel and by the way this is my daughter Nina," the woman said. She was a little puzzled why Dr. Donner was accompanied by Dr. Doyle and three other doctors which entered her room. Three of the doctors wore a white coat. As usual, Dr. House refused to wear a coat.
"My cancer is in the final stage, right?", Eleanor asked and her daughter looked at her in horror. She hadn´t known her mother was suffering from cancer.
"No, but... You know about your cancer?", Lindsay, Peter, Anton and Claire were amazed. Connor had anticipated something similar, after Eleanor had refused to do the colonoscopy.
Lindsay continued with her statement: "Osteosarcomas are usually located in the arms and legs..."
"What does that mean?"
"That means, this is a problem," House began, "Not just your type of cancer is unusual: the mutated cancer in your mouth is related with the cancer in your bowel."
"The bad news is: The tumor in your lower jaw is malignant. The good news is, it hasn´t spread yet, that means we can remove a portion of the mandible, which we then replace with a bone donation. "
"Does that mean I receive a piece of bone from a deceased person?"
The oral surgeon in Peter wanted to explain then a long-time dental treatment and maybe a speech therapy would follow and in that moment, House reminded why he hated sick persons like her: He hated them for the useless half-knowledge that they read on the Internet and in some magazines.
"Either that, or you will die if we don´t remove the infiltrated bone. The donor signed an organ donation card long before death. So it´s not like you kill him or her and steal the bone", he got up and hobbled to the door, "Think about it." He left his team, the patient and her family alone.
The team was happy Eleanor had decided to receive the bone donation. The surgery should take place as soon as possible and therefore House found an appointment today and an operating room. Lindsay and Claire were now on the way to the observation room above the operating room. From there they were watching the transplantation. When Peter was on the schedule, then the nurses would prepare Eleanor now. One hour ago both had been looking for the patient and found something was wrong: Eleanor didn´t speak a word with them, just looking at her hand. Claire thought she was afraid because of the surgery.
On the way to the Operation room they met the boyfriend of their patient. He looked stressed. Then he shook his head. Nina was okay: She drove home to rest a little.
"Is everything all right?", Claire wanted to know worried and Miguel nodded.
"I´m going home now," he said.
Lindsay didn´t understand. The bone transplantation would take only four hours: The bone piece was already separated from the deceased donor. Peters surgical team had to remove the patient´s infiltrated bone under general anesthesia, attach the toothless donor bone with screws and splints to the lower jaw and then the patient should receive implants at a later time to ensure supply of artificial teeth. House was convinced Peter could manage the surgery with his surgical team alone.
"I´m going home and pack my things... I'm going back to Mexico," Miguel repeated.
"You want what?", Lindsay asked incredulously, "Your girlfriend suffers on cancer and you leave her?"
"You don´t understand. You have no idea how hard it is when your girlfriend suddenly loses all teeth... and it´s not your business." Miguel was walking down the empty hospital hallway and didn´t turned around to them.
"Now we know why Eleanor was so strange at our visit," Claire murmured and Lindsay nodded. They suspected she had already known that Miguel wanted to leave her. He was only a superficial, heartless person.
They reached the observation area above the operating room and they were surprised that Peter still sat there and watched how the anesthesiologist prepared the anesthesia and the nurses got the instruments ready. "Are you excited?", Claire asked as she sat on a chair right next to Peter. Lindsay sat down next to him on the left. Peter shook his head and that was typical for him: He would never admit he was scared or excited.
"I know you don´t want to hear it, but you're very much like House," Claire teased, "Sometimes you're just as arrogant as he is."
Peter did not respond to her so he ignored her comment and for one moment it was quiet in the observation room. "I wonder how it is possible she has intestinal bacteria in her mouth...", Lindsay wanted to know suddenly.
"You sound like your uncle," Peter said now.
"And Claire is right: You're like my uncle, because you´re not interested in your patients."
Peter looked at her in horror. He hated it when she said that. "You're only here because House is your uncle," Peter picked on it. But Lindsay had not chosen: her mother was 17 years old when Lindsay was born and she had told her she had to marry her boyfriend before giving birth. Even if she and House hadn´t the same last name, everyone at the Princeton Plainsboro hospital knew, she and House were related.
"And you're only here because of the quota. The hospital must have a certain number of foreign employees and you´re Australian."
"Just as Anton," Peter said, "If there wasn´t a clause the hospital has to employ some people that are over 60 years..."
"No, Anton is here because he is a good general practitioner and because Cuddy persuaded House."
"Better than being House` niece."
"Shouldn´t you be in the operating room?", Claire asked now grumpy and Peter got up. She was right: He had to go down to disinfect his hands. Then he entered the operating room, a nurse helped him to put on a sterile gown and sterile gloves. The surgery began.
"How long was Peter busy yesterday evening?", Connor asked when he, Lindsay, Claire and Anton went to the meeting room in the next morning. "We don´t know," Claire admitted honestly, "After there were no problems in the surgery we left at 9 p.m. At that time Peter was busy with the splits."
Connor nodded. The surgery had lasted longer last night and therefore Cuddy allowed Peter to take a day off. Because Peter didn´t visit his patients today, Connor, Claire and Lindsay cared for them. Nina was waiting in front of Eleanor's room. She was excited to see her mother after the surgery. Before she entered the room, told Lindsay her not be frightened: The face of her mother would have bruising and swelling after the surgery.
Today Eleanor was well under the circumstances: The lower half of her face was really swollen, her skin was blue and purple discolored and talking was very hard for her.
Nina stayed with her mother until lunch, then she said goodbye: She had to go home and feed her dog, but she would come and see her mother again.
"She looks terrible," Nina said to Lindsay when she met her in the hospital corridor. Lindsay and Anton had just visited the coma- teenagers who had a car accident. "How long it will take until she looks normal again?", Nina asked.
"In two to three weeks the swelling will be gone," Anton told, "After two or three months, your mother will be provided with artificial dental crowns."
"What about the tumor in her colon?"
"Dr. Doyle will remove it in a surgery tomorrow night... Don´t worry", Anton said. He knew what she thought now. "Although Dr. Doyle is a young doctor, but he is very competent."
Nina nodded and tried to trust Anton. She left because she didn´t know if she would see them again today, when she came to visit her mother a second time.
"At least she can enjoy the nice weather a little bit", Lindsay said, when Nina was out of earshot. She felt sorry for Connor because he had to operate tomorrow without air conditioning for several hours.
By late afternoon, Eleanor began to feel uneasy: she rang nonstop for a nurse and asked if her daughter was here again. When the nurse told her every time she hadn´t seen Nina, Eleanor began to cry. Eleanor then completely lost nerves: she screamed and howled in tears, she tore the ECG of her body that should monitor her heart rate for security reasons. Thereafter the nurse had to call Anton, who gave Eleanor some calmative. "Why did she become so nervous?", asked Anton when the patient was asleep.
"She rang the bell every time for a nurse because she wanted to know if her daughter is already here." But Tina, the nurse, also knew people who used the emergency bell because of a linty pillow and annoyed the nurses more.
Now Anton remembered that Nina just wanted to go home to check on her dog, but she was already gone for nearly five hours. How long could it take to feed a dog?
"Tina, can you please call Mrs. Lawrence's daughter and ask if everything is okay," Anton asked the nurse. Tina nodded and as she walked to the station phone. Anton saw Connor and Lindsay hastily ran down the hospital corridor. "Anton!", she cried, "Nina Lawrence was taken to the hospital. She was found unconscious by a neighbor in her house."
"Where is she now?"
"In the ambulance!" They had no idea why Nina had collapsed.
Lindsay was standing concerned at the foot of Nina's bed and watched her. The girl was sleeping at the moment.
She wondered why even the daughter of her patient had collapsed. On the examination Anton also had found a loose molar tooth in Nina's mouth and it was a miracle that she hadn´t suffocated. "So it's an epidemic caused by the food. Lindsay was right", she heard how Anton said this to House.
"Then the patients´ ex-boyfriend would show the same symptoms," Connor said and Claire nodded approvingly: "I called the ex-boyfriend," she said, "He told he is a vegetarian and ate no things that were stored in the fridge. He also had to own cook his food, because Eleanor refused to touch vegetables."
House had held back until now, but now he also said: "...Which raises another question: Why does the daughter of the patient suddenly show the same symptoms as her mother?"
Lindsay turned now around to them to see her colleagues, "It is much more important if she also suffers on cancer and if so, why and how she became infected." Cancer was not an infectious disease.
"Ask her when she wakes up," House said and he left the meeting that took place directly in the rooms of their new patient.
"And where are you going to?"
"Home... Pediatrics is not my area of expertise." House limped out the door without even looking back.
"Pediatrics!", Lindsay snorted contemptuously, "Nina is sixteen years old. She´s even allowed to drive a car!... What do we do when she asks for you?"
"Tell her a lie," House now turned around to them, "Tell her I fell down the stairs or was abducted by aliens... Just lie..."
At 09:00 p.m. Nina woke up and Lindsay had a brief conversation with her. She wanted to know if she was suffering on diarrhea like her mother and the girl denied. Lindsay then asked if Nina had an idea why she had lost a tooth and why she had fainted. Nina shrugged her shoulders with ignorance, but Lindsay felt she didn´t tell the truth. She told the teenager that she could tell her everything, but Nina didn´t want. Fortunately, Nina would not have to share the fate of her mother: Peter would be able to handle the bacteria in her mouth by a proper surgical treatment. Perhaps she would also have to wear a brace until the teeth cemented again, but the X-rays had revealed she had no tumors in the bone.
Lindsay left the small hospital room in desperation and by chance she saw that Connor signed a report for a nurse then he took a cup of coffee and a donut in a break room. "You're still here," Lindsay said as she stood in the doorway.
"I was already sentenced to night shift this morning by House", Connor said, wiping some donut crumbs from the light blue surgical coat, he wore. He had a suspicion why House punished him with night shifts, but he wouldn´t tell Lindsay about it. Connor asked himself, how House had found out that he was dating Lindsay for several weeks. They hadn´t told anyone and as far as they knew House hadn´t seen them together.
"What about you? You should be at home now?", he asked.
"I wanted to stay here, until Nina woke up, but I think she´s hiding something," she shook her head helplessly and crossed her arms in front of her stomach. Then she smiled at him: "Are there any exciting patients in the ambulance? Can I help somehow?"
"An hour ago a patient arrived, she´s suspected of having jaundice. Her boyfriend brought her after he came home from work and noticed her yellow skin color", he turned off the green coffee cup and set out with Lindsay to the ambulance. There, the patient was still waiting for the lab reports. The nurse was responsible and took a blood sample after the woman showed up in the ambulance with orange-colored skin. "Miss Aldridge?", Connor asked before he tore the curtain to side, which prevented the view to the bed of his patient, "This is Dr. Donner. She is a specialist in internal medicine and would like to chat with you for a while." Actually, that wasn´t true, Lindsay was a cardiologist. But after all, cardiology was a department of internal medicine. "Hi Miss Aldridge," Lindsay said, "Have you recently been traveling to a Hepatitis A or B area? Do you regularly drink alcohol?", When she asked this, she put on gloves and examined the eyes of the young, dark-haired woman. Miss Aldridge 'skin was dyed orange, her eyes didn´t show the typical yellow color for jaundice. But she smelled like vanilla. The smell reminded Lindsay of a skin cream she had recently bought and of course Connor noticed it, too.
"No," the woman shook her head and the young man beside her, who was apparently her boyfriend, confirmed this. In passing, a nurse handed Connor the laboratory tests and the doctor read it immediately.
"Do I have jaundice?", Miss Aldridge asked and Connor shook his head when he looked at the liver function test.
"No, you don´t suffer from jaundice. You are completely healthy", Connor told her, "I have the perfect therapy for you: Stop using tom much self-tanner... You can go home."
Miss Aldridge looked at him in horror. She found his remarks outrageous and Lindsay ran after him, when Connor went to his next patient. "You are sometimes just as cynical as House is," she said.
"Yes, but you like the perfect mix of me and the bad manners of your uncle," he grinned and said goodbye to her. As far as he knew House wanted to see the residence of the Lawrence family tomorrow. Until then she should go home and rest a little.
"I haven´t know House joins us to the legendary house searches", Claire said when they met in next morning in civilian clothes in front of the house of the Lawrence family. The house was small but well maintained. Claire didn´t remember that he ever entered the home of a patient.
Lindsay fanned to cool air with a piece of paper from her purse. Even in the morning it was very hot and she didn´t want to imagine how far the thermometer could still climb. The weather report promised since days, it should rain, but the rain never came.
Again House didn´t wish them good morning: He limped by without a word to Lindsay, Connor, Peter, Claire and Anton. When Lindsay asked him why he was in such a bad mood this morning, he replied that he hadn´t found his Vicodin pills.
"Is there a spare key?", Claire said when House reached the front door and looked around searchingly. "Yes," he confirmed and took a key from his pocket. The key was attached to a pendant that looked like a pink stuffed pig.
"You have stolen Nina's key?" Peter asked incredulously.
"I couldn´t ask her for it," House objected.
"Why? In her condition she can´t fly home on her broom and hide something from us", Peter entered the house and the rest of the team followed him. They stopped in the generously appointed living room.
"What is used by all the inhabitants of this house?", House asked and looked at his niece.
"All right," Lindsay's eyebrows went up, "I´ll take a swab from the toilet seat later."
With their case for the samples they entered the kitchen together and found out that the refrigerator was wide open. Connor didn´t want to imagine how much energy a left open fridge consumed in this summer heat and what had happened with the food in it. Lindsay discovered a water-filled bucket and a rag next to the fridge. She suspected Nina had collapsed, while she wanted to clean the fridge.
"Nina obviously wanted to clean the apartment." Lindsay was surprised that a sixteen year old girl had nothing better to do than cleaning the fridge after her mother was in hospital. Then a small barking dog rushed to them. The black poodle welcomed them with a happy tail wagging.
"Who are you?", Lindsay asked delighted and knelt in front of the cute dog to pet him. House, however, was annoyed by the little yapper, "Can we please fast forward the end of Doctor Doolittle and continue with the search?"
"There are smaller teeth on the floor," Connor said suddenly while he was checking the kitchen, "Does Nina have siblings?"
"No, she's an only child," Lindsay recalled, who sat up with the little dog in her arms, "Unless..." She pushed the dog´s lips aside and noticed almost a little bit shocked: The dog was suffering from tooth loss, too.
"So our theory that mother and daughter have been infected by contact infection isn´t true", Anton said. But why was the dog suffering from tooth loss?
"Bring him to the vet. I hope he will tell you what´s wrong", House apparently had read Anton's thoughts. "First, we should feed him," Lindsay suggested. That meant if the dog was able to eat at all.
"The dog food is stored in the refrigerator," Connor said, and in thought he added how horrible it was. He couldn´t imagine his food had to share the refrigerator with dog food cans. Connor took the case from Claire in which the cups were kept for the samples. Lindsay was with him on his way to the refrigerator.
"Meat, sweets, cream cakes, at least 8 XXL red fruit jelly cups... and down here are a lot of meals..."
"At least this would explain Mom's excess weight," said House to her. Before Connor took a swab from the fridge, he put on gloves and advised Lindsay to do the same before she took the dog food to feed the little poodle.
It took an hour then they had collected samples from the refrigerator, the floor and the bathroom before they brought the dog to the vet and then left the address of Mrs. Lawrence. She would hopefully live long enough to pay the vet. They then drove back to the hospital.
In hospital they exchanged their civilian clothing against their light blue surgical gown, except for House. Again he refused to wear a coat when he and his team were looking in the afternoon for Nina when they had received the results of the samples. "My mother knows by now that I'm here," the sixteen-year-old teenager apologized, "I visited her this morning. I hope it´s okay for you."
Lindsay nodded. "Nina, we were checking your home," she explained and House showed her the keys with the pig- pendant, "We've taken some samples from your house, including the refrigerator."
"We found Streptococcus bovis in your refrigerator," Connor said and when Nina asked what it was, he told her it was the bacteria that caused cancer. Peter expressed the presumption the bacteria had somehow gotten into the refrigerator, then in the food and then it had infected mother and daughter and even the dog, because his food was stored in the refrigerator, too.
"If you have an idea how the bacteria got in your fridge, you must tell us," Lindsay asked, watching how Nina stared helplessly at her hands. House had an idea, as always, but at least this time he had so much propriety to keep that to himself.
Finally, Nina sighed and looked at her. "She has a problem with washing her hands," she said and she was desperate for words, "...Somehow I have to remind Mom every time to wash her hands when she´s sneezing or using the toilet. Sometimes she even sneezes in the fridge... But do you know what is really terrible?... Every time I tell her she should wash her hands before she´s preparing our food, she yells at me I should shut up. Please don´t judge my mother."
"We won´t," Lindsay promised her and watched how House left the room, "Thank you for telling us."
The rest of the team followed House. He was good this time and waited for them in the hospital hallway.
"So Mom has cancer," he began, when Connor, Peter, Anton, Lindsay and Claire had gathered around him, "She doesn´t wash hands after using the toilet and prepares the food of the family. Thus, the bacteria get into Mom's mouth, where they eventually mutate so Mom loses its teeth. When Mom sneezes in the refrigerator or is touches the food, the daughter gets infected with the bacteria by a droplet infection." House looked at his team in a loss. He didn´t know what to say about the ruthlessness of the mother, but he knew he despised nothing more than irresponsible people which behave regardless. "We should visit Mom. Maybe she feels better now."
Angrily House threw a folder on the table which Mrs. Lawrence had let up on her bed so she could eat mush easier from her plate. House didn´t care whether the folder ended up in the lunch of the patient. "Congratulations: You´re having Streptococcus bovis in your refrigerator!", he said and meant it ironically.
"What is this?", Eleanor was more interested in the folder.
"It´s a bacteria which causes bowel cancer, which is one of the most cancer types in this country! ", he was getting more angrier.
"No, I mean this folder…"
"It´s a health seminar which is paid by the hospital as soon as you´re healed. You might learn there, it´s not okay to sneeze in refrigerators or touch food with dirty hands... Even, if it´s your own", with these words House left. His team looked at him helplessly. Lindsay hadn´t seen her uncle so angry before and Claire asked if they perhaps should inform the patient, about why her daughter showed similar symptoms and Connor nodded: "Only then she can understand House´ tantrum and why her daughter is sick."
He grabbed a chair and sat down by the bedside of the patient. Lindsay, Claire, Peter and Anton stayed with him to support him. "You should know how Nina has been infected..."
Like every night House was happy he finally was allowed to go home. They all did a very good job today. Even Connor, so he didn´t punish him today with an extra ambulance shift. He would get in trouble with Cuddy anyway when she found out that his doctors had to work longer than 36 hours. House knew Connor was a good docotr and he thought that one day he would accept he was dating his niece. House didn´t think much about his family, but the part which was still intact was important to him. Lindsay's sake he would keep back his personal dislikes a little.
House put on his helmet then he set on his motorcycle when he noticed how his team now also left the hospital. It was late and because tomorrow was Saturday, they decided stop in a bar. "It's raining!", he heard Claire laughing merrily. In fact, a cold drop of water landed on his nose. At last the long awaited rain arrived, of which the weather report had been talking for days. More and more rain drops fell from the sky and House had never experienced his colleagues enjoyed the bad weather when they ran happily across the parking lot to their cars. They were always the first ones complaining about snow and rain.
But today he would not blame them.
Fin