Caring is Creepy – Chapter VI

"So what the hell are we going to do now?"

Foreman crashed on the gurney in the dark quarantine room as House paced up and down along the long glass wall and Chase sat on his gurney in shock. The nurse who helped with the LP sat silently on her gurney, twiddling her thumbs as the Doctor remained silent as he lay down on his gurney, his brow frowned as he stared up at the ceiling.

"I don't know." House mumbled darkly as he continued to waddle up and down the room.

"What do you mean you don't know!" House looked over at Chase as he shouted at him from his gurney. "It's Cameron! She's…we can't just sit here and do nothing!"

"It's not my problem that you're sleeping with her and it's definitely not my problem that Cuddy put us in here." House glared at Chase. "If you want to do us a favour, stop whining. This is going to be a hell of a lot worse if we have to deal with your moping around."

"House."

Everyone quickly looked up to see Cuddy standing outside in the hallway, looking in on them sadly.

"Cuddy!" House waddled over to the glass wall. "So good to have you drop by! Just double checking on your prisoners are we?"

"House, you know I had no other choice." Cuddy glared at him.

"Oh no, of course not. Blame it on the bureaucracy."

"This is an epidemic House! I can't just hide you from the CDC, you're her doctors for crying out loud!"

"But you see, what I don't understand is how we're going to diagnose this thing while we're stuck in this room."

"House, you're off the case." Cuddy said sternly.

"What?" House snapped angrily.

"You're off the case. This has affected Cameron, it's affected all of you. You've totally lost all objectivity and I'm not going to let you choose random diseases in your frantic attempt of curing her."

"But we're not infected! Look at us! Look at the nurse! We're fine!"

"You had contact with Cameron, they had contact with the patient. No one knows what this thing is so you're in here. You're off the case House, the CDC has taken over."

"Do you find pleasure in being a figure-head?"

"Yes, House. I just love the fact that I can't do anything in my own hospital. Sit down, rest your leg. This is going to take a while. And check your temp. every hour."

House glared at Cuddy as she walked down the empty hallway and left them. House quickly swerved round and looked around the room.

"We can't just sit here and do nothing!" Chase burst. "This is ridiculous."

"Who was affected?" House ignored Chase as he looked walked around the room and began to look through the draws.

"What?" Foreman looked up at House curiously.

"The disease, who's affected?" House looked up at Chase who remained silent.

"Ah, all the family." The nurse piped up from the back of the room as Chase didn't answer. "And Dr Cameron."

House opened a draw and smiled. Picking up a permanent marker House closed the drawer and waddled over to the glass wall. The Doctor sat up in his gurney and watched House curiously.

"What are their symptoms?" House wrote 'CDC are SOB' on the glass with his marker.

"They were unconscious." Chase replied dully. "Like a coma, but not. Their pupils were responsive but they didn't react to painful stimuli. And they all have these marks, like rashes on both their feet and on the palm of their right hand."

"Like lightning entry and exit marks." The Doctor mumbled to himself.

"Yeah." Chase nodded in realisation.

"Did they get them all a CT?" The Doctor asked Chase.

"Too busy taking them into quarantine I guess."

House looked at the symptoms on the glass and stepped back a bit as he looked at them in deep thought. "These aren't the symptoms that the first patient presented with. Why do they think they got it from her? What if it were environmental?"

"Because everyone that had contact with her was affected." Foreman crossed his arms.

"Not us." The Doctor looked over to Foreman. "We all had close contact with her and we're fine."

"And yet here we are…" House mumbled as he continued to stare at the symptoms on the glass wall.

"Hold on, those markings;" The Doctor looked back at Chase. "Did Williams have them when she came in?"

"No." Chase answered in surprise and looked over to Foreman. "She didn't have any markings."

"What do you mean?" Foreman looked confused. "She was struck by lighting, she has to have marks of entry and exist on her feet and on the hand she held the umbrella with."

"And yet she doesn't." House continued to stare at the symptoms. "Except the others do….What links Cameron with the patient's family."

"They were all in close contact with her." Foreman answered.

"So did you all."

"Cameron mentioned that she had a cough when she did the LP." Chase piped up.

"But the nurse was there too." House turned around and looked at them all. "She had the same contact but she's fighting fit."

"Maybe she has a stronger immune system." Foreman suggested.

"No," House looked back at the symptoms. "It's something else. Some other weird connection….But what?"

"They all care about her too much?" Foreman flung up in vain.

"What?" The Doctor quickly snapped over to Foreman.

"Nothing." Foreman looked at the Doctor curiously. "Just the family acted like they could hug the air out of this poor girl. Cameron's exactly like them. Probably sick for the sake of empathy."

The Doctor quickly leaped off the bed and ran to the door, taking out his sonic screwdriver and opening the lock to the door, sliding it open then running to the second door and opening it. The others just sat in shock as they watched the Doctor leave the quarantine.

Watching him run into the hall House quickly threw the marker over to Chase and followed the Doctor as quickly as possible.

"Hey! Where do you think you're going?"

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NB: Yes indeed! Where is he going? Well, I know. And you can probably guess with your cleverly deducing minds but oh well, it's a cliff hanger of sorts. Anywho, please review! I can't think of a cleaver anecdote to make you do so, so I'm just going to say that I'm going to Stockholm for a day! How seriously crazy is that! Oh yeah, just going over to Stockholm for the weekend. WTF??? And no I'm not British, nor am I American. I'm a full blooded Aussie, which gets me in the middle of the road, which I guess is what you need to be when writing a fic with English and American characters. (and by English I mean Time Lord with English accent.) And where do I get both shows? Why, the internet of course! Cause I'm currently in Finland!

Well, that's my life story, sorry for boring the hell out of you. Review to complain.