Disclaimer: I do not own House M.D.
A/N: Just a quick chapter for you all. Please review for updates!
Chapter 3
House's cane clicked furiously against the marble floor as he hobbled — faster than one would think possible — to the elevator, Cuddy close beyond. As the metal doors closed behind them, Cuddy looked at the older doctor nervously. His face was contorted into a firm grimace. Unsurprising. But more jarring was the look of genuine fear in House's icy blue eyes. Cuddy had seen House express many things — curiousity, anger, frustration, even happiness. But fear was a rarity. In fact, the last time she personally had seen House afraid was when he was detoxing from Vicodin…
"What happened," he asked gruffly, never making eye contact with the administrator. His question pulled Cuddy back into the present moment.
"I'm not sure," she stuttered. "One of the nurses came and found me in the lobby. You weren't responding to your pager, so I figured this was the quickest way. House bit his lip in anger. What kind of idiot was he for throwing his pager into his bottom desk drawer so as not to be disturbed. He was just trying to avoid clinic duty. And yet in shirking on that responsibility, he had unintentionally ignored the biggest one of all. He tapped his cane anxiously, the elevator ride seeming eternally long.
"Remy…"
"Cameron paged her. When I got to your office, she said that Remy had just left the clinic."
—Page Break — — —
Remy tore through the doors of the clinic, not even bothering to apologize when she almost ran into a nurse pushing a patient in his wheelchair. She could hardly see, eyes blurring over with fear, heart pounding in her chest.
Reaching the ER, she didn't bother checking in with the nurse who was calling her name, probably concerned by her frenetic appearance. Instead, she scoped the room until she saw Cameron's blonde hair. Rushing over to the area, which was swarmed with several nurses, Remy had in no way prepared herself for the impending sight. Lying limply on the hospital cot was her daughter. Ava's skin was pale and blueish, cyanotic from the lack of oxygen. Her eyes were half-closed as she clearly struggled to stay awake, her small chest rising and falling feebly as she gasped for air through an oxygen mask. Remy let out a sob.
Cameron turned away from Ava to look at her distressed colleague, who seemed frozen in place. Placing a gentle hand on her shoulder, she addressed her firmly, "Remy, you need to step back and let us take care of her." In a daze, the brunette shifted back slightly, her eyes never leaving her daughter. Cameron quickly turned her attention back to the patient.
"O2 stats are still dropping," called out a nurse.
"Supplemental oxygen isn't working," Cameron said. Turning to ask Remy for permission, she instead was met with House's stare, his shaking wife at his side. "We need to ventilate."
"Do it."
—Page Break — — —
"You have asthma, right Remy?" Cameron asked. Remy stared down at the still-full glass of water someone had handed her earlier. "Remy?"
"Um, yeah. But Ava's never had any trouble breathing before."
"Any other signs of recent illness?"
"She threw up on Friday. At school. But we figured it was because she had eaten too much junk food too quickly. She was fine afterwards. And all weekend. Maybe I missed something…" Tears began to pool in Remy's eyes and she felt Cameron place a comforting hand on her knee.
"That's enough history for now. You and House can fill out the rest later. As soon as she's stable, we want to get Ava down to radiology for a chest x-ray, but you should go see her right now." Remy nodded and allowed the blonde to take her cup and help her out of her seat. "Let me take you."
When they reached Ava's room in the ICU, they found House standing outside the door looking through the plexiglass at the nurse attending to his daughter. Cameron moved to speak with him, but then hesitated and decided against it, leaving Remy and House alone. Remy walked over to his side. "They sedated her once she was ventilated. She was scared." Reaching down, he grabbed Remy's hand and walked with her into the room. The attending nurse acknowledged them with a sympathetic smile before leaving the room.
Remy went immediately to Ava's side, taking one of her hands in hers. She began to cry when she felt its lifelessness, forcing herself to remember that was an effect of the sedation. House, meanwhile, had grabbed Ava's chart from the end of her bed and was reviewing it furiously. About an hour later, Cameron returned with Cuddy, and the group headed down to radiology. They looked at the results of the x-ray. "Her heart isn't enlarged… appears normal," Cameron began relieved, "But, her lungs, they are almost entirely filled with fluid. No signs of injury or structural abnormality. It has to be an infection."
"What kind of infection could result in this much damage without notable earlier symptoms?" Cuddy asked, looking more closely at the scans. House began to pace.
"We sent out blood cultures when Ava was admitted. They aren't done yet, but there are a whole slew of viruses or bacterial infections that can cause ARDS. We'll have to narrow it down…"
"I'm taking it," House interrupted, the three women's heads shooting in his direction. "I'm taking the case."
