I know there haven't been any reviews yet, but I'm anxious to get the next chapter up because I have to go to school tomorrow and once it gets into the school week I'm not going to have any time at all until the weekend starts up again. Plus, my brain's been itching to get something written. Something exciting! :D

The Common Cold

Chapter Two

House gave Cuddy a completely dumbfounded look. So did the rest of House's team.

"What do you say to that, House?" Cuddy asked.

"What do I say?" House chose his words semi-carefully "I say this case just got interesting." He looked around at Cuddy and his team.

"Come on. You're not going to let him die, are you? That would just be mean, right? And besides, if he dies then I don't get to figure out what's wrong with him." They left the differential diagnosis room and hurried to the room of their patient.

XxXxXxXxXxXx

Since it had been determined that the patient had in infection, it had also been determined that it was most likely contagious, so he was moved to a clean room. When Cuddy, Cameron, Foreman, Chase, and House reached the room they all put on their scrubs and entered in panic. Cameron, Chase, and Foreman had the surgical breathing tube, scalpel, and other necessary medical instruments to get the patient breathing again. Cameron made an incision in his neck, while Chase forced tubes and such down through the hole. The monitors were going off alerting everyone to the fact that something was wrong. After everyone got the surgical breathing tube in place and working, it only took a few minutes for the patient to start breathing on his own once more.

Cameron removed the equipment from the patient's throat after she was sure he was breathing on his own. He remained unconscious for a while longer, while everyone else relaxed and breathed a sigh of relief.

"This is interesting." House mumbled under his breath "The common cold does not cause respiratory arrest."

"Of course it doesn't!" Cuddy gasped, still high on adrenaline from the episode from about two minutes ago "Does this mean that you'll find out what's wrong with him?"

"Of course." House answered as if it were the most obvious answer he could have given "It's peaked my interest. I need to find out what's wrong with him. Let's go back to my office, shall we?"

XxXxXxXxXxXx

A few minutes later they were all in House's differential diagnosis room connected to his office. Cuddy had gone back to her own office, now that the medical crisis at hand had ended. Cameron, Chase, and Foreman were now sitting around the table as House was standing in front of the white board, his cane hooked on the edge. In black erasable marker House had written 'sore throat', 'fever', 'swollen glands', and 'respiratory arrest'.

"Okay, people, what causes sore throat, fever, swollen glands, and respiratory arrest?"

"Mononucleosis?" Chase asked "It explains the sore throat, fever..."

"Wrong. Mononucleosis wouldn't send him into respiratory arrest. Try again."

"What about Epiglottitis?" Foreman suggested. House looked at him, the expression of finding a possible diagnosis on his face.

"Continue."

"Epiglottitis is caused when the cartilage covering the windpipe swells. It causes the sore throat, the fever, and it blocks the windpipe from getting any air, causing respiratory arrest."

"Test for Epiglottitis. Perform a laryngoscopy. See what's going on in his windpipe."

XxXxXxXxXxXx

Cameron and Chase were in the operating room with the patient. The twenty-six-year-old, named Jared, was lying on his back on an operating table.

"Now, Jared, this won't take too long, only about a half an hour. We're doing a laryngoscopy. That means we're going to put a laryngoscope down you're throat to see what's in there that caused you to stop breathing. We're going to spray your throat with anesthetic so you don't feel the instrument, okay? You ready?"

Jared nodded and Cameron handed Chase the anesthetic spray so he could numb Jared's mouth. She held his mouth open while he sprayed around inside.

"Cameron, can you hand me the laryngoscope?"

Cameron nodded and picked up the instrument. It was a long, thin tube with a little light on the end. Cameron held Jared's mouth open while Chase fed the laryngoscope down his throat. It didn't take long for him to find a problem. Chase started having difficulty sliding it further into Jared's throat. He made a face as he tried forcing it. Cameron picked up on it.

"What's wrong?"

"It won't go in."

"Well, of course it won't go in. If his windpipe is blocked due to swelling, it's not going to go in."

"But it still goes down a little. Not like there's something blocking it, but like there's something stuck around the edges slowing it down."

"Well then, here. Pull it out." Cameron told him as she reached over to help Chase with the instrument.

"Oh, yeah" she commented "It's not willing to come out either. It's like trying to pull a rope through tar."

When the laryngoscope finally came out it really had looked like it had been pulled through tar. There was a thick, black substance covering most of it, like someone had dragged it through a tar pit. Cameron and Chase looked dumbfounded.

"That's not Epiglottitis..." Chase whispered, still staring semi-horrified at the instrument. The tar-like substance started dripping thickly into the table, contaminating the various medical instruments sitting on it.

XxXxXxXxXxXx

"Okay, so his windpipe's not swollen, meaning it's not Epiglottitis. And now his throat's filling up with tar." House said. He limped over to the white board and wrote 'black residue in the throat' under the other symptoms in erasable marker.

"Any other bright ideas?"

"It could always be Lung Cancer." Cameron offered. Chase shot it down immediately.

"There's no history of Cancer in his family. And he doesn't smoke or do drugs."

"There are plenty of other causes for Cancer rather than just genetics and cigarette smoke. What about his environment? Where does he work?" Cameron asked. It was Foreman's turn to speak up.

"He is a coal miner. That's a huge risk for Lung Cancer."

"Could be. Anything else?" House asked, secretly hoping it wasn't Cancer. Not for the patient's sake, but for his. It meant the case was solved and it really hadn't been all that interesting. It was for that reason, and the other little reason tugging at the back of his mind. House willed it to go away, but it ignored orders. He wondered what Cuddy was doing right now...

"Um...Coal Worker's Pneumoconiosis. It explains the tar in his throat and the breathing problems." Cameron hardly got the words to leave her lips before House cut her off.

"Doesn't explain the fever. Go test for Lung Cancer. X-Ray his chest. I need to check up on something." And he limped through the door before anyone could even ask where he was going.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXx

"What do you want, House?" Wilson asked as soon as he heard the door knob click.

"What's wrong with Cuddy?"

"What? How should I know?"

"Because you're annoying, overprotective, and you obsess yourself with the needs of everyone around you." House had meant it as an insult. He limped over to the couch, tossed his cane against the arm, laid down, and closed his eyes as if he were going to fall asleep.

"She's worried over some guy's health, I don't really know who, she wouldn't say..."

"Okay." Wilson paused at this.

"Wait...You're satisfied with that answer? Really?"

"Sure. If she's too distraught to tell you, then obviously you're not going to find out anymore. And besides, we need to respect the grieving woman's privacy, right?" If a normal person had heard him, he or she would have thought House was being sincere, because he had intended to sound that way. Only someone who's known House as long as Wilson had could tell that the famous diagnostician was being sarcastic.

"You don't care about other people's privacy...or happiness for that matter. And when something like this comes to your attention you never rest until you find out what it is. So either you don't know and are planning on going to Cuddy, which you know won't work so you're coming to me first to spare yourself the confrontation. Or you do know and are coming to me to...what? Test me? Why?"

"Because I've turned my life around and have taken a sudden interest in the love lives of those around me. I find it very inspirational for writing poetry. So how often do you two have sex?"

"House, I'm not sleeping with Cuddy!"

"Okay."

"House-" But before the conversation could continue he was gone.

XxXxXxXxXxXx

"What, House?" This time it was Cuddy who asked. She was sitting behind the desk in her office, instinctively looking up when House entered.

"Jared might have Lung Cancer. There was a black residue in his throat. If it's in the throat it's probably in the lungs. It also probably caused the respiratory arrest."

"Out. Now." Her voice suddenly went serious. She was suddenly defensive. House took it as an invitation to harass her.

"Out? But I thought you cared about-"

"House, go away."

"My...aren't we moody." And House left the room. However, just before he left he paused at the door. And he coughed. It was accompanied by the feeling that there was something crawling down his throat, like mucus.

"Have a cold, House?" Cuddy asked him. He opened his mouth like he was going to answer right away but then thought better of it and changed his words.

"Yeah...A cold."

"House, you sound strange, is your throat-" And he was gone.

Ta-da! I really hope this one's a little more exciting. I'm trying to make it like a real House episode. I want it to be exciting, but I don't want the whole thing to be about how everyone is on everyone else's nerves, mood swings...I want it to focus on the medicine as well, not just on who's on who's nerves and which doctor caught which patient's disease. Although I do want that in there, too. Which means I'm doing as much medical research as I am actual story writing XD