Thank you so much for all the reviews, I love you guys! I promise after this chapter there's a lot less drama and more character interactions. Also, the middle paragraph is intended to be what House is experiencing during the coma, and I know the whole seeing, Kutner thing has been done a million times, but I wanted to throw Kutner in there, I miss him. Won't happen again, I promise. Also I don't own House. Obviously. Thanks for reading!
"Heart rate is back to normal!" Chase called with relief, as he placed the paddles back on the rack. "But he's still losing way to much blood", he said, quickly bending in to view the cuts on House's chest.
"Lets get him to surgery." Foreman cried, quickly grabbed the gurney and pushing it out of the room, escorted by Wilson, while Chase phoned in to get an OR ready. Taub, Chase and Thirteen ran out to catch up with the others as soon as he hung up.
Cuddy sank into a plastic chair in the now empty room. House looked horrible. So pale and bloody. In truth he looked much more dead than alive. Cuddy shrank down into her seat, too shocked to do anything else. After a moment though, she slowly stood up, and walked out the door. She kept moving through the hallways, wandering because she just didn't know what else to do. She just couldn't go see him not like that.
To her surprise, she looked up and found she had viciously speed walked around the entire hospital and was all the way back to the room House had been in. She started realizing the team and Wilson were sitting in there.
"Why aren't you guys with House?" she shrieked throwing the door open.
Forman didn't look up but spoke. "They were stitching up the lacerations on his chest from the knife, and they noticed one of his pupils was much larger than the other. He has an intracranial bleed. He must have smashed his head on the pavement when he fell. They're doing the craniotomy now. Dr. Lewis told us to leave, we had a conflict of interest and were just getting in the way." He gulped. "They said they'd bring us info as soon as they were done."
Cuddy felt sick. She sat down in the last open chair. No one said a word.
Suddenly Chase stood and walked out of the room. He couldn't just sit there, unable to do a thing.
He pulled out his phone in the hallway, and dialed two on his speed dial, a now natural reaction in any emergency
"Chase?" said an annoyed voice. "You better be sober this time, or I'm hanging up this second."
"Cam," he said shakily.
She immediately picked up on his odd tone of voice, and forgot all of their arguments temporarily. "Are you ok? What's wrong?"
Chase took a deep breath. "Its House, he was attacked outside the hospital. He's in the OR." He said quickly in one gulp of air.
Cameron felt her stomach twist. She knew she was going to get a call like this one-day, the way House always seemed to find himself in the middle of bad situations. She had just hoped it wouldn't be so very soon. "Is he going to be ok?" She replied quickly.
"The knife wounds weren't bad. They stitched him up. He cracked two ribs or so. Haven't had time for an x-ray, and looks like he broke his right wrist." There was a pause here, and Cameron prayed to a god she didn't believe in that that was all. "And a head injury, he hit it on the pavement when he fell on. There was a bleed. They're draining it now."
Damn it, Cameron thought to herself. She wondered how the hell House had managed to get knifed, but knew now was not that time to ask. "I'll be right there." She said.
"You're in P-prineton?" Chase stuttered, surprised.
"Uhh, yeah," she said quietly. "To deliver the divorce papers, it didn't seem right to send them in the mail." Upon hearing no response from Chase she added, "Look I gotta go, I'll be there in ten." Hanging up the phone, she left her hotel room, and headed for the elevator.
House found himself settled in a chair by the whiteboard in his diagnostics room. Foreman, Chase, Thirteen, and Taub were sitting around him staring at a variety of symptoms scrawled on the board. Suddenly, Wilson and Cuddy barged in. House noticed both seemed to glance sadly into his office before back to the team.
"Have you made any progress on the case?" Cuddy questioned tiredly.
"We're thinking MS." Foreman stated.
Idiot, House thought to himself. Suddenly, he grinned to himself, realizing the correct diagnosis. Now, to make fun of the duckling's stupidity, he thought evilly . He stood to make his declaration.
Suddenly he found himself on the outside of his office staring in. To his shock he found himself standing next to Kutner.
"Not as much fun when you can't rub the answer in everyone's face is it?" Kutner smirked, though he noted the gloomy edge to his comment. House glanced toward the door to his office ready to head back in when he noticed what stood propped in front of it. His cane. He looked down to find that he could stand fine, no pain. A smile, twitched at the edges of his mouth, the first real smile in a while. He looked like he was about to run, and try out his legs, when Kutner nudged him. House glanced back up at the scene in his office. He couldn't hear what was going on, but could tell they still didn't have a diagnosis, and by the frantic look on their faces, the patient must be running out of time.
"You should go," he said, with sincerity.
"Or," he added cheerily "you could stay here and play Pokemon with me for a while."
House sighed and glanced towards the door to his office, before taking a step forward.
"I'll be waiting," Kutner called, his usual same happy grin spread goofily across his features.
Fifteen minutes had passed since Chase had returned to the room. The door slid open and everyone's heads swung around hopefully. However, it was not House, but Cameron. Everyone but Chase's face held a puzzled expression, but Cameron knew now was not the time to explain. Foreman stood from his chair and offered it to her. She slumped down in it without a word.
Taub watched silently, but couldn't help but realize the oddness of the situation. If House hadn't been injured, Foreman and Thirteen would undoubtedly be sending eachother dagger looks across the room, and Chase and Cameron would definitely be arguing, or standing awkwardly on opposite ends of the room. Wilson and Cuddy would probably be shouting too, because sometime in the last month or two they had suddenly begun to bark at eachother every time they saw one another. And undeniably, all would have been happy to throw in a word about what an ass House was. Taub almost smiled, at how ironic it was, that in times of tragedy all of their arguments could be forgotten so quickly.
Suddenly the doors slid open again, and this time a gurney was pushed in.