Finally, chapter three of my story about House, Wilson, Cuddy and the old team. I am hoping you like it. The progress will go faster now: chapter four and five are soon to come. Enjoy and, of course, review whenever you like!
Chapter Three: Happiness is a sad word
Not much later…
"House?" Cameron was the first who tried to approach her boss. Foreman, Chase, Cameron and Cuddy were looking from the far end of the table to House, who was sitting at the other end, completely introverted. His eyes were fixed on the red coffee mug in front of him. His right hand was unconsciously rubbing his thigh while his left hand played with his bottom lip. For ten minutes he was lost in his own thoughts, not caring or noticing his surroundings. Foreman dropped the file in his hand hard on the table, on the one hand trying to get a reaction from House and on the other hand because he was getting tired of the behavior of the man. When House didn't move, he stood up and walked past House on his way to the exit.
"Got more important things to do?" Foreman got one leg out of the office when House started to speak again. He turned around and directly looked into House's demanding, almost angry eyes.
"Well?" The famous doctor spoke again when he didn't get an answer straight away. However, Foreman wasn't going to give up easily.
"Nobody's saying anything, it is useless to be here. I'm going to check on the patient." He didn't immediately turn away because everybody knew House would give one hell of an answer back, but none of them were expecting his real reaction.
"You sit down and give me a diagnosis." Only Foreman could see the gravity in the way he said it. His eyes were bluer than usual with an ice-cold glare in them, the wrinkles on his forehead more pronounced. His right hand was still moving back and forth on his leg, the coffee in front of him already cold and tasteless. When Foreman still didn't make a move, House got even more cranky.
"You think I'm paying you to check on an intubated patient who is playing dead and dumb in bed and who has three nurses running around changing his diapers because he can't control his rectum sphincter? Sit down and do what you're paid to do. Now." Foreman saw he was not going to win this discussion and also knew deep down House was right so he walked back to his chair. House followed him and kept his glare on the four people in front of him. He finally moved forward and placed his arms on the table while his stare fixed itself on Chase.
"What did you find in his apartment?"
"Literally nothing. No food, plants, pets, woolen carpets, dirty dishes or what so ever, only a couple bottles of water. It looked very clean. Also nothing weird in the neighborhood. If it is something environmental, it's definitely not from that place." The office became quiet again when House didn't answer back. Cuddy proved she didn't come for nothing and continued.
"What was the result of the biopsy, dr. Cameron?" The worried eyes of the mentioned whom were locked on her boss in front of her, turned away and were now searching for Cuddy's eyes.
"c-ANCA and anti-PR3 antibodies were negative. No Wegener's." Almost in unison, all let out a sigh including House. The last mentioned dropped his head in his hands and closed his eyes.
"And no viral pneumonia either." This comment of Foreman didn't exactly increase the positive sphere in the room.
"Who was with him when he coded?" Cuddy tried to fill in the silence and to get through what they were missing.
Cameron raised her hand. "I had brought him back to his room after the biopsy, he was fine the whole time, we talked a bit and I said goodbye. When I was filling in a chart at the nurses' station, I heard him coding. When I tried to intubate him, his throat was severely swollen. I almost didn't get the tube in.
"If you're traumatized, you can get down a floor and make an appointment with one of the too many useless shrinks here." It's was now Cameron's turn to take the beat from House. Cameron looked affronted towards House but he didn't return her gaze. Instead, he raised out of his chair slowly and with difficulty and shambled towards the white board without lifting his right leg up too much. He was not the kind of guy to let the pain show to others so obviously, but it was too much of an effort at the moment to fake a healthy leg. The blow from Wilson and the accident in front of Cuddy increased the pain from horrible to unbearable. Every second, his right leg acknowledged him of the fact he missed a great deal of his muscle and treated with taking measures when he would get in his head to walk. The massage he was giving it wasn't helping, not that it ever helped anyway. The long for a couple of pills was irresistible but the thought of lying dead on the floor with the froth ran down his mouth made the effort worth the while, at least for now. He had impressed himself on the fact it wouldn't take long before these withdrawals symptoms would lessen. When he was in search for Wilson not long ago he had made a stop at the pharmacy and ordered Vicodin so he could continue with his lonely lie a little longer; for the people around him he had just forgotten the pills today. He had thought about it to involve them, but it was for the best of himself and them that he did the rehab by himself. The nausea, vomiting, sweating, insomnia, tremors, the pain… he was not going to embarrass himself in front of them. So he got the pills and 'concealed' them in his trashcan. He only hoped the worst symptoms were gone when he would begin feeling alone.
His whole cascade of thoughts made him unaware of his position in front of the white board with a marker in his hand but without writing. "House!" With shock he turned around and saw Cuddy standing dangerously close to him.
"What are you thinking?! You were totally lost! Do I have to put someone else on the case?" House shook his thoughts away and concentrated on the board again.
"Differential, please." His ducklings and the ignored Cuddy looked at the board and saw he had written down 'edema' on the board underneath haemoptysis. All of them started to think.
"Could be kidney failure. Excreting fluid is disturbed, which cause a accumulation of fluid in his body. Maybe it has already reached his lungs and larynx without anyone noticing it." House nodded approvingly after Foreman's comment.
"Atypical course, but could be. It's all we got now. Check his blood and urine for creatinine and proteins and make a MRI to see if we're missing a three-feet kidney. Anyone else?"
"Medication." Chase liked plain and simple and his answers hinted this attitude most of the time. House thought about his suggestion. Of course, it was stupid and non-thinking crap, but he could have a point this time.
"Okay, go call around, see if he has a file somewhere. Maybe something interesting pops up. That's it?"
The room staid quiet. House clicked the marker close and keep staring at it while he spoke up.
"Cameron, you can do an allergy test."
"What? Why?" Meanwhile House had made it till the door to his private office when he stopped before pushing it open. He turned back, apparently a little annoyed by the stupid question.
"Well I don't know, to check for allergies, maybe? It's not a rare phenomenon people get allergic of, for example, looking at your annoying and useless self-sacrificing face. House limped into his quiet space with an for the second time affronted Cameron five feet away.
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"I want to speak with Dr. House." Cuddy looked up from her file she was reading in and saw a woman around 30 years standing in front of her in her office. While lying down her pen she smiled politely and was ready for a terrible scenario concerning her most social employee.
"May I ask who you are, ma'am? And why does Dr. House have the honor to be the person you want to talk to?" Honor, my ass.
"I'm Ms. Kreager, wife of Christian Kreager. Dr. House is treating my husband. I want to know why those other doctors do all those tests on him but don't treat them. Give him medicine or something. Anything. " Cuddy saw the woman's eyes filling with tears. She stood up and walked towards her.
"I can assure you Dr. House is working hard on your husband's case, but it's not easy to find the right cause. Giving medicine at random is very dangerous and won't help." She put a hand on the woman's shoulder. "Dr. House is the best there is for your husband."
"But why is he nowhere to be found then?! How can he treat someone without visiting him and asking questions?! Where is his office? I want to talk to him." Her eyes showed angry and sadness at the same time. As fast as possible, Cuddy tried to find a way out of this discussion she was having for the millionth time with a patient of House. Every time again she became inwardly mad at him for treating his patients like crap, letting them through all kinds of unnecessary procedures. She thought of the possibility to just tell this woman the truth, that Dr. House is a worthless doctor and human being for most of the time and hates all human life and a visit of him would be the worst nightmare for those people, but she just couldn't. Her mind drifted off to the moment in her office not long ago, when they were looking at each other with so much common grounds, the same thoughts, so much years of working together and the pain he suffered and still does. In a split second she made up her mind.
"He thinks in an extraordinary way, in silence. He will visit you husband soon, I'll make sure of that." With a fake smile Cuddy succeeded in convincing Ms. Kreager. The latter slowly nodded and walked out of the office. Cuddy walked back to her desk and tried to concentrate on her work again, but her mind couldn't get House out of it. She had seen that during the differential diagnosis he had acted strange and was abnormal rude to everybody. His face had a painful and dark expression over it, more than usual. Together with the situation with this guy Kreager and the fact she wouldn't work till she figured out what was bothering him, she persuaded herself to go see him.
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"Knock, knock." Cuddy stuck her head through the small jar she made with the glass door to House's private office. The lamellas were closed and her eyes needed to get used to the dark room before she could distinguish House from the other objects around him. He was sitting in his chair, his upper body curved while his arms were resting on his legs. He hadn't made a move since she spoke and was observing him. She quietly walked into the room and closed the door behind her. She didn't hear a sound from her left side so she concluded Foreman, Chase en Cameron weren't in the room next door. When she moved closer to him, he still didn't move an inch or made a sound. She kneeled in front of him and noticed the orange bottle full of pills in his hands. She touched his arm slightly and looked up at him.
"Hey." Her whisper made his stare shift from the bottle in his hands towards her. The dark expression his eyes held a couple of hours ago had fade away and made room for a strange one, almost like he was afraid of something.
"How are you? You're having a headache?" House seemed awakened by her words en straightened his back and answered with a low voice.
"A little. Needed some rest."
"Why don't you go home? It's almost 7 pm, take a shower, some sleep will do you good as well."
"I'm okay. I stay." The voice recovered his normal sound again just like his normal look. Cuddy saw he really looked worn out. His arm, which she still held, felt clammy and his eyes were as small as dots. He was jerking with his leg, which also was a sign he definitely didn't feel fine.
"You look like shit. Go home."
"No." The answer didn't exactly surprise her, but the hard way it sounded did.
"Why can't you just listen for once? You think I'm doing this to terrorize you?"
"No."
"Go home. I'm not paying you for these hours anyway."
"Like I care." He really doesn't care. Cuddy noticed his behavior was getting more stoic with every minute. She needed to know. Needed to try.
"What's wrong with you?" He looked up at her.
"Why can't you just go worry about dying children instead of annoying me?" His voice became harsh again, the usual sound of irony in it completely gone.
"I care about you." More than you think. It was for the best of both of them to keep that thought for herself.
"I don't care about you! Why do you keep watching me with every step I make?!" Anger boiled up inside Cuddy.
"Because you can't take care of yourself, House! Look at you! You drive everyone away, you keep popping pills, you ruin so much around you. You only have yourself. That's not enough, House. One is never enough. You push everyone away, including Wilson. Why do you keep doing that? You're not perfect, House." She expected him to burst, but he remained in his seat and looked at her the same way he had looked to Foreman not so long ago.
"You're the one who's fucked up here, Cuddy. You can't have a baby so you found a replacement in babysitting me. Just get the hell out before I make you." Tears welt up in Cuddy's eyes but there was no way back now, she didn't start this to just step out in the middle.
"I'm not leaving before you tell me what the hell is going on." Suddenly she felt a hand hitting her cheek hard. She could barely keep her balance when she recovered from House's sweaty palm. When she looked up she saw the bitterness in his eyes hadn't decreased, his head wasn't sending messages of regret. With tears running down her cheeks, she stood up from up her knees and walked out of the office and out of House's sight.
Maybe for good.
