The Gauntlet
Chapter 7
House was an idiot. With a death wish. He had to be, because Remy had never seen a man risk his life so many times just to find out answers. So what did that make her? His accomplice? His Angel of Death? It'd be kind of appropriate all things considering…
Remy hung the bag of blood from the rack in preparation for his transfusion and subsequent biopsies. They were testing Kutner's theory of contaminated blood that might have been causing all of Creepy Magician Guy's symptoms. They couldn't biopsy the patient because he would bleed to death so in House's fucked up mind, he was the logical choice. Of course, because he also just so happened to be AB type blood. Figures.
He watched her quietly from the reclining chair in the transfusion lab, his eyes following her with every move she made. He sat there contently eating cookies like a four year old camped out in front of the TV watching his favorite cartoon. It was a little disconcerting now that he suspected she had a terminal disease. Last week she might have been a little excited by it. Now it just felt, well…it felt too intimate.
"I have a new theory," he announced chewing a bite from his cookie. "You're not stubborn." He waited for her response but when he didn't get any, he continued. "You're not getting it checked because you already know the answer."
Hanging another bag, she looked at him pointedly. Didn't he get that she didn't want to talk about it?
"I found an old picture in your wallet," he told her.
Oh God! He didn't. She closed her eyes. She should have known he'd snoop around her things. Damnit, she didn't see that one coming. "Of course you did."
"I wasn't snooping," he defended himself and rolled his head lazily to the side. "I needed lunch money."
Damnit, now she had to take his blood pressure, which meant she had to face him, which meant she had to look at him while she was touching his arm. Asshole.
"Figured it's your mom," he persisted. "Except she looks about 32 years old."
She pumped up the cuff tightly as he continued to chew another cookie. She kept pumping and pumping. One…two…three more pumps. Feeling the blood no longer travel to his fingers because his arm was in a vice, he gave her a curious look and wiggled his hand to relieve some of the pressure. "The only reason not to update a photo in twenty-odd years is she's not talking to you, which would be interesting, or she's dead." He waited a beat before adding, "which would also be interesting."
Remy set her jaw firm. She hated him right now. Really, truly hated him.
Surprisingly, his eyes softened. "She's dead," he surmised.
Not one to admit to anything, or give him the satisfaction that he got to her, she rose and quipped, "So's Grover Cleveland."
Remy crossed to the other side of the room and busied herself with cleaning up some of the paraphernalia so she wouldn't have to face him. Really big asshole.
She could still see him out of the corner of her eye. His head was still lolling casually to the side as if they were talking about what her favorite kind of pizza was. "Pretty young to have a dead mom," he droned on. "You were even younger twenty years ago." And then he dropped his bomb. "I Googled her obituary."
Remy's eyes flashed with anger. Of course he did. It wasn't enough to find a picture in her wallet. It only added fuel to the fire. Now he had another question, another clue to be solved.
He brought his eyes to hers. There was a seriousness there she almost didn't recognize. "Said she died at Newhaven Presbyterian after a long illness. Parkinson's?" he guessed.
Remy felt weak. Suddenly the wind left her lungs and she felt a wave of sadness come over her that she hadn't felt in twenty years. All of her carefully constructed walls crumbled to rubble at her feet. She knew that she had to tell him the truth. She couldn't hide it from him. He would only find out eventually. He'd push and push, dig and dig until he had his answer. Damn him.
Before her legs gave out on her, she found the seat with her hand and sat down with her back to him. Her shoulders were heavy and they slumped with the tremendous burden she had been carrying for so long. "Huntington's Chorea." It came out on a whisper of a breath like she hadn't even spoken the words.
"I'm sorry." She looked at him then. His voice was quiet and full of legitimate compassion. His face was soft and his eyes were heavy with regret. She felt the tears well up in her eyes and she fought to push them back down deep where she had hid them. She couldn't cry in front of him, because she just hadn't cried in twenty years.
"I'm leaving when this case is over," she told him.
"No you're not." It was an order, spoken softly with compassion, but a refusal to let her go nonetheless.
"You don't want a doctor on your team who's slowly losing control of her body and mind," she went on disregarding his objection. He knew what this disease could do…
"Huntington's isn't the only thing that causes tremors," he said resuming the pursuit of his cookie.
"You think it's just a coincidence?" she demanded at a loss.
He rolled his head to the side sheepishly. "I think you're the only one on the team who drinks decaf."
What? What was he talking about? Coffee?
"I've been switching it out with regular ever since you dropped that file. You're trembling because you're hopped up on caffeine. The first file wasn't my fault. Medical explanation for that is... People drop things."
She turned to face him full on. Caffeine? He dosed her with caffeine? That son of a bitch. Incensed, she almost reeled back and hit him. "I've been walking around thinking I'm dying."
"You are," he insisted arrogantly.
"You don't know that," she shot back.
He shrugged. Now it wasn't personal anymore. It was diagnostic. All traces of his humanity were gone. "With Huntington's, it's inevitable."
"No, you don't know, because I don't know!"
He looked at her like she had actually hit him. "How could you not get tested?" He blinked a few times utterly baffled. "If your mom had it, it's a fifty percent chance, you're a bomb waiting to explode."
She shook her head closing her eyes. Of course he wouldn't understand. Him and his damned knowing. "Not knowing makes me do things I think I'm scared to do, take flying lessons, climb Kilimanjaro… work for you…" She looked at him then, her eyes locked on his deep blue ones.
He stared back at her for a long moment just watching her. He drew his eyebrows together contemplating something that both confused and angered him a little.
"Yeah because if you knew, you couldn't do any of those things," he said to her with faint sarcasm. Even he couldn't muster sincerity in that statement.
Remy frowned and gazed at him thinking that he was probably the best, most terrifying job she ever had. It would suck to have to go because there was ironically still so much more to know. About the patients, about the medicine…about him.
Oh God. Something was wrong.
He frowned at her. "What?"
"You're sweating." She lifted her knuckles to his forehead. His skin was on fire. "You're burning up. House... You're sick."
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Okay so maybe she shouldn't have drugged him. But he deserved it. That asshole essentially drugged her with a foreign substance without her consent to make her believe she was presenting with symptoms. Never mind that it was something as benign as caffeine. It still had an effect as strong as a real drug.
So fuck him. Let him be pissed once he woke up. He wasn't the only one who could play underhanded games.
He groaned again and blinked his eyes slowly as he woke from his narcotic-induced slumber. Remy held in a satisfied little chuckle as she watched him struggle to come to. He looked like a lion that had been tranquilized in the wild and unsuspectingly woke up in the zoo.
Taking a sip from her water bottle, she smiled at him and bat her eyelashes coquettishly.
"Patient dead yet?" he inquired with much effort.
"No."
Being the impatient ass that he was, he tried to move off the table only to find he had been tied down in restraints. He looked at his hands and raised an eyebrow at her. "That's a little much for a first date."
Leaning in close, she smiled. "Shoulda brought some M&M's tough guy, because obviously you've never dated me."
He went to make a witty retort but was hindered by a sharp pain in his side. Wincing he settled back against the table. "Feels like you already got the... lung and kidney samples."
"Now I just need a piece of your liver," she informed him grabbing the long biopsy needle.
She swabbed the area with a cotton ball, a slow devious, smirk on her lips.
His eyes widened nervously. "Hey, you might want to use a little bit of lidocaine..."
"Oh yeah, I forgot." She jabbed the needle into him with a little too much pleasure and he groaned out in mind numbing pain. "Slight pinch."
She smirked at him watching his eyes roll back in his head feeling satisfied that she'd exacted her revenge. If she didn't know better she would have described his expression somewhat akin to orgasmic ecstasy. Interesting…
His endorphins kicking in to quell the raging pain in his gut, he breathed a few times and regarded her for a moment. A slight smile graced his lips. "You drugged me." Was that respect she heard in his voice? Or maybe it was desire?
"You drugged me," she countered slyly. With deliberate movements that were slow and calculated, she leaned over his lap and unbuckled the restraint from his left wrist. She flicked her eyes to look at his. As she did so, she was rewarded with expression of clear and unchecked craving. He wanted her. She arched an eyebrow and moved slowly over him skimming his hips lightly with her chest causing him to inhale a swift breath as she went to untie his other hand.
With his hands now free, he tried to rise to sitting but she pushed him gently back down and leaned in close to his ear. "Just rest. I wouldn't want you to over tax yourself."
He turned his nose to her cheek and inhaled the scent of her skin. "Next time I won't forget the M&M's."
She smiled slowly at him and rose, quickly turning on her heal to leave him alone in the chair.
She pushed through the glass door and into the corridor. Involuntarily, her hand rose to her cheek where his lips had skimmed her skin as he spoke. Now she didn't have to wonder if his stubble was rough. It was remarkably soft to the touch and tickled, leaving tiny currents of electricity in its wake. Definitely interesting.
