Chapter 4
Cuddy had escaped from her bed and was walking amongst the patients checking wounds and handing out blankets, when House walked back up to her. "There's a medical transport leaving in five minutes that has our names on it." He stated simply and began to gather her things.
Cuddy glared at him, but didn't look surprised by this. House had been trying to avoid work all night and now he was using her as an excuse to get out of work early. "Not so fast, we aren't going anywhere. I have to co-ordinate our Doctors and you have patients to treat." House ignored her and turned towards the bus, carrying her hospital issue jacket, clipboard and radio. Cuddy was forced to run after him if she wanted her things back. "Don't pretend you didn't hear me, House. I don't need to go to the hospital and I need you here to triage and treat patients." She grabbed his arm forcing him to turn and face her. "House, stop being such an ass and listen to me…" He made a show of listening, looking amused, so that Cuddy felt embarrassed at having nothing else prepared. "I'm fine." She finished lamely.
House smirked at her knowingly and carried on walking, they were half way to the bus before he began to speak. "You are not fine. You can barely even argue with me. You have a gash on your head and a concussion. You need an X-ray and maybe even a CT. So for once in your life you are going to listen to me. Get your substantial ass on that bus, before I'm forced to carry you kicking and screaming onto it. Actually…" He cocked his head to the side as if considering, "please make me carry you. It would be a massive turn on. And it might put an end to all this talk about who is really in charge in our relationship." He grinned evilly, his hands clasped in front of him, as if he were begging, then dropped them, looking serious again. "Let's go, I have you booked in for an X-ray in 45 minutes."
"OK, maybe I do need to get checked out but in case you haven't noticed, I'm a big girl. I can go on my own. You," She began jabbing a finger playfully into his chest, "need to stay here and do your job."
"Actually, I'm going with you and I have six good reasons why I'm going with you: one," He held up his index finger, "my leg hurts, two," he continued bringing his middle finger up to join the first, "I'm your concerned boyfriend, you need me to hold your hand and reassure you that everything will be ok. Three," he continued raising fingers, his voice getting higher as he continued his diatribe, "I'm your treating Doctor, so I need to follow your case through. Four, I can work just as well at the hospital, and five, this place is full of injured people and it's bumming me out. Let's go." He looked smug as he reached the bus and was about to climb on when Cuddy spoke up.
"That was only five." She folded her arms looking unconvinced.
"Six, my leg HURTS." He said slowly, pretending to be frustrated. Then he dropped the act. "…I'm not going, am I?" He relented.
She smiled sweetly at him and began shaking her head slowly. "No, but you can work here safe in the knowledge that you have convinced me to go." He began to give her back her things, Cuddy took her coat, but pushed the radio and clipboard back towards him. "I do have one condition for going. I need you to co-ordinate the Doctors and keep track of the patients heading for PPTH." He looked like he was about to protest so she kept going. "If I don't have anyone I trust to run things then I won't be able to relax, and if I can't relax I can't get better, and if I can't get better and relax at the hospital I may as well stay here."
House looked away, hiding his emotions while he considered what to do. Finally he sighed heavily and nodded his head. "Fine, I'll take care of it." With that he clipped the radio to his belt, and quickly kissed her on the cheek, before he turned around and walked away.
HHHHHHHHH
House made sure that Cuddy was definitely gone before he sought out Wilson and shoved the radio and clipboard into his hands. "What's this?" Wilson asked, slow to catch on after a stressful night and almost no sleep.
"Fillet mignon. You look like you could do with a good meal." Wilson stared at him, annoyed for a moment before House continued. "Cuddy wants someone she trusts to run our Docs and patients, and guess what? You hit the jackpot. Congratulations!" With that House walked away, knowing that wouldn't seriously consider that she had really asked House.
House began picking his way through the now thinning crowds, looking for somewhere to hide out and rest his leg for a while, when Sullivan caught up with him. "Doctor House, we need you back in the factory. One of the vics is really sick and some guy called Foreman is asking for you to help him out." He looked concerned and a little pathetic to House.
"Sorry, I've filled my quota on doing moron's jobs for them today. Try me again tomorrow when the clock re-sets." Sullivan looked confused, then as he realised what House meant he looked annoyed. "Don't look at me, I don't make up the rules." House jibed.
HHHHHHHHH
For the third time that night House found himself walking through the darkened, crumbling hole that lead to the factory. He was annoyed, he was usually able to get his own way, or at least twist the situation so that he came out on top. However, it turned out that Sullivan had a quick temper and was able to make his threats seem pretty plausible. So House, was forced to back down and head into the breach once more.
This time, rather than turn off into a small side room House was lead to a large room full of outdated machinery. This must have been one of the main factory floors, judging by the size of the room and the offices looking onto the floor. House guessed then that the room he originally entered by must have been a warehouse, and the second room with the sofas could have been a break room.
House looked up, the ceiling and one wall had collapsed, leaving rubble, bricks and plaster strewn across the wooden floor. One corner housed a large beaten up sound system and speakers had been inexpertly hung at random points throughout the room. This was obviously the party room and most of the victims in the first room must have come from here. The floor was weak in places and yellow tape marked a safe path through the wreckage.
Broken bodies were being carefully uncovered and carried out. Only a few survivors were still left in this room, they were either too serious to move easily or had not been dug free from the wreckage. House spotted the unmistakeable form of Foreman through the gloom and slowly made his way over to him, through the detritus.
Foreman's patient was a young woman in her early 20's. She was struggling to breathe and was obviously in a lot of pain. Her eyes wildly darted around the room, she was obviously scared. Her face and bare arms were covered in deep scratches and slowly maturing bruises. Her clothes were dirtied and torn, especially around her torso, she was clearly unable to draw a deep breathe, instead sucked in short, sharp gasps. A catheter had been inserted into her arm and snaked its was up to a bag of fluid hung from a nail sticking from the wall. "Is that sodium bicarb?" House questioned by way of a greeting, gesturing to the bag with his chin. Foreman glanced briefly in House's direction before turning back to his patient, whose extremities looked unnaturally swollen. He was listening to her chest and frowning. I take it her crush syndrome hasn't responded well to fluid overloading."
Foreman grunted his assent, "She was fine, but she just started decompensating. I'm thinking reperfusion syndrome." He stated grimly, "Any ideas?" He had obviously been working on this girl for a while and had become attached to her.
House looked around for clues as to what had landed on her and spied a large piece of masonry on the floor a few feet from her. "How quickly was she released from that?" he asked, gesturing to the clump of stone near her prone form with is cane.
"We pulled her out as soon as we heard her shouting, she must have been out for a while, or we would have spotted her sooner." A rescue worker offered almost defensively, misunderstanding House's intentions.
House sighed and scrapped his thumb nail across his eyebrow, an unconscious tell showing how tired and frustrated he was becoming with the whole situation. "Of course you did, you idiot, that's you job!" He snapped. "What I'm asking is whether you removed the weight from her chest slowly, controlling the amount of crap flooding into her system or did you pull if off like a band aid, flooding her system and poisoning her? I take it from your slack jawed expression it was the second one." He turned away from the rescue worker, dismissing him and addressed Foreman. "Tie tourniquets around her arms and legs, release them slowly so you can control reperfusion. There might still be time to save her."
As he finished his phone began to trill in his pocket. He fished it out and left the small team without checking their treatment, there was nothing else he could do for her. Before answering he checked the display. "Good morning, sunshine." He sing songed "How's the head?"