NOTESSincerest apologies for the lack of length in this chapter. I wanted to get it posted before leaving for a week at the beach tonight. I'm not sure what kind of internet access I'll have on the trip, so I may or may not be posting again until August 9th. We'll see. Also, I have a oneshot and another long-ish fic in the works, and I'm not sure when I'll be starting to post those. Keep an eye out.
WARNING: Smut. Don't like, skip the second half of the chapter.
Chapter Seven: Penetration
There isn't a whiteboard in Cuddy's office, and for some reason Cameron can't shake the feeling that things are dreadfully off-kilter. There's a sense of something in the air, like residual adrenaline has left the patients and permeated the very atoms of the hospital along with the noxious smells of disinfectants and antivirals. A knot of dread sits heavily in the pit of her stomach, or maybe it's actually guilt. The distinct sense that she's done something wrong, though she can't quite put her finger on what. The rational, professional part of her knows that this is ridiculous, that it's giving in to distractions like these that makes doctors sloppy and dangerous. And yet every time she looks at the poster board Chase has tacked to a wall, the feeling worsens, because it isn't a whiteboard, and House isn't here to tell them not to touch the markers.
"So," says Foreman. "Differential diagnosis for a virus we've already identified."
"Not necessarily," Cameron counters. "They haven't been here long enough to be showing symptoms if they did catch it from that man." She makes her way over to the coffeepot that's been set on Cuddy's desk and plugs it in. At the very least, if they all have to be awake, they're going to need caffeine to think.
"And you heard House." Chase takes a marker from Cuddy's pencil mug and uncaps it with his teeth. "If we assume we know what we're dealing with, we could overlook something important."
"So pretty much we don't need to do anything, or we're all gonna die," says Foreman. Chase glares, and Cameron feels the familiar heaviness of a headache starting. Everyone is understandably short-tempered, but the fact that she understands it doesn't make it any easier to deal with. Days like this, she's tempted to flat-out tell them both that they're acting like children.
"Or," Chase pauses and writes 'fever' at the top of the poster board, "we've got a few patients who are actually sick, and a good number who aren't. Maybe we can actually do something here."
"We should view this as one patient," Cameron suggests, pouring water into the pot as Chase finishes writing the symptoms on the poster board. Fever is followed by sore throat, cough, nausea, headache, and inflamed corneas.
"Why?" asks Foreman, still apparently agitated. Cameron reminds herself that he's never gotten to sleep at all. "Because a kid, a college student, and a pregnant woman have so much in common?"
"It's a wide age range," says Cameron reasonably. "If we assume that they're all suffering from the same condition, then different symptoms could present at different times. We should combine them all. Whatever they have is probably what's causing the epidemic to begin with."
Chase nods and turns back to the poster board, tapping the marker cap against his lip thoughtfully.
"Fine," says Foreman.
The coffeepot gurgles, now happily full. Cameron searches a moment for cups before coming up with terribly inadequate plastic ones. She fills three of them half full, hoping the coffee isn't actually hot enough to melt them.
"If we're disregarding the man who died yesterday, I'd say this looks like a garden variety cold or flu." Chase steps back from the wall with the poster and takes a cup from Cameron's outstretched hand.
"But we don't know how this strain of…" Cameron breaks off, refusing to actually say Ebola. "We don't know how it would start."
"And we're back to this again," says Foreman. "Either it's something we can diagnose and treat, or it's the End of Days for this hospital."
"Then let's focus on what we can treat," Cameron insists, feeling suddenly guilty for bringing up Ebola again.
"Strep," says Foreman. "Any upper respiratory infection. We should start broad-spectrum antibiotics."
"No," says Chase, still facing the wall with the poster. "If we're dealing with some kind of super bug here, broad spectrum could only make it worse."
"So, what, we go around and around in circles until all our patients are dead?" Foreman looks like he wants to say something else, but there's a scream from outside the glass doors, and a flurry of movement from the waiting area.
Cameron turns her attention entirely to the door, trying to see what's going on outside, the knot in her stomach turning to an iron fist of panic. People are standing up in clumps, their fitful sleep disturbed. A young blonde nurse in scrubs pushes her way violently through, wielding something unseen in her right hand. A man jumps back so quickly that he takes two other people down with him, and a fist fight breaks out. As the nurse draws closer to the door, Cameron realizes that Cuddy is behind her, looking more upset than ever before. The object in the blonde woman's hand is an uncapped syringe.
"Shit," says Foreman, "meet fan."
The glass door bangs against the wall as the two women storm through it; it swings backward impossibly hard on its hinges, and with a deafening crack, a huge shard breaks away from the bottom.
"What—" Cameron manages, but the nurse is on a rampage and she isn't slowing down.
"You!" Screams the nurse, and throws herself at Chase. He ducks backwards, coffee sloshing over the side of his cup, stumbling against the wall, usually quick reflexes obliterated by shock. But the nurse is equally clumsy, and her attack misses.
"Stop!" commands Cuddy, but no one's listening.
Foreman launches himself at the nurse and catches her around the waist before she can regain her balance enough for another attack. Chase is still standing against the wall, his eyes glazed-looking. Cameron turns to Cuddy, who seems equally lost, and a fresh wave of panic washes over her.
"You people are fucking crazy expecting us to work with no sleep!" says the nurse, breaking down in tears. She stabs the syringe into the air, and Foreman lets go with one hand to catch her wrist. He twists her hand around in a way that makes Cameron's stomach turn, taking the needle.
"What happened?" demands Foreman, dropping the syringe onto the desk behind him. Cuddy moves in quickly, picking it up between two fingers like it's a dead animal. She looks around for a moment before producing a Tupperware container and dropping the syringe inside and securing the lid. The nurse lets out a noise like a wounded animal, clearly not about to speak any more coherent words.
"It seems," says Cuddy very slowly, "that there was an accident involving blood drawn from a patient. She punctured her skin with a contaminated needle."
This sends ice through Cameron's veins, and she looks up to see Chase leaning heavily against the wall, like he might not be able to stand without its support.
The words stop making sense sometime after the nurse starts sobbing, and Chase looks down to see coffee still dripping onto the floor from his cup. He stares at it, transfixed. He ought to be doing something to comfort her, but all he can think is that if she's going to die, her blood will now be on his hands. He's hardly done anything to focus the other staff members, to prepare them for the kind of situation they're dealing with. He hasn't even taken into account the fact that they've gotten less sleep than he has. The screaming continues as he stares at the broken glass from the door, like absurdly mismatched background music in his mind. And then Cuddy is talking, and Cameron is talking, and he knows he should be listening, but they might as well be speaking a different language.
"Excuse us," he hears Cameron say, though he isn't entirely sure to whom.
"I'll deal with this." Cuddy's voice, apologetic.
And then Cameron's hands are on his back and he's being propelled toward the door. He stumbles on his way out, nearly hits his head on the door as Cameron opens it in front of him. For a moment Chase thinks that House will hear about this, and a fresh wave of shame goes through him.
"Where are we going?" he asks Cameron, though he has a pretty good idea as she leads him down the corridor. They've been here before.
"You need to calm down," she says, ignoring the stares they're getting as they round the bend from the waiting room. Everyone has heard the screams, seen the young nurse go running. Rumors have already begun to spread.
"Who's gonna—"
"Not you," Cameron interrupts, and Chase realizes he isn't sure where that thought was headed anyway. "You try to do anything in this condition and more people are going to get hurt." Her voice is unnaturally calm, but her eyes are wide and bright with panic. He knows this look, knows deep down that it means she's using him to deal with her own fear. He can't find the strength to care right now.
The storage room is at the end of the hallway, and a few patients are still staring. Cameron gives them her worst look, and slams the door. There's a moment of total darkness before his eyes adjust to the light coming in under and around the door, and Chase finds himself pressed against the wall. He can just barely see her face in the dark, and she looks like a wild animal.
"We shouldn't," he chokes, but she already has her hand down the front of his scrubs, and he knows he won't be protesting anymore. The back of his head hits the wall as she moves in to kiss him, her motions somewhere between frantic and predatory. She wraps her hand around his cock, and suddenly he's so hard he forgets why there's something incredibly wrong with this whole scenario. He rocks forward into her grasp, and she snakes her other hand under his shirt, making him gasp as her nails brush over the ticklish spot at his hip. She keeps him there for what feels like an eternity, lost to everything but the sensation of her hand.
His legs are weak when she pulls away, and the room is spinning. He raises a hand to swipe at his eyes and realizes that he's crying. He wonders if the others have seen. And then somehow he's on the floor with Cameron's knees pressed against his hips, the momentary brush of her tongue shocking against his cheek. Chase stops her with a hand on her waist, wanting suddenly to touch her, to slow this down so they don't have to go back to the real world of the hospital outside.
She pulls away almost brusquely, like his hand has stung her, and Chase freezes. For a second, he's seen that flash of something in her eyes, the inexplicable desperation that's gotten him addicted to her. Cameron rocks back on her heels and takes hold of his waistband again; he lifts his hips and lets her pull the thin fabric away from his skin. She shoves her own scrubs down to her knees. She sucks in her bottom lip as she slides down onto him, and Chase hears himself grown. He can't tear his eyes away from her mouth.
When she starts to move it's hard and fast, Chase's body matching hers almost involuntarily. He gets the odd sensation that she's grinding him into the floor, that if she just tries hard enough the earth might just swallow him up. The tile is cold against his shoulder blades, stark contrast to the friction of skin on skin, and he realizes there's sweat pouring down his back. The sensation of hypersensitivity is back, everything suddenly more than overwhelming, and he grabs onto her shoulders as he comes, unaware of anything else in the world.
A moment later Cameron is kneeling beside him, frantically working her twisted clothes back into place. She sinks back onto her heels and runs a hand through her tangled hair as Chase forces himself to sit up. He's suddenly sore like he's taken a beating, cold now in the air-conditioned storage room. He locks eyes with Cameron in the dim light from under the door, and a fresh wave of dread washes over him.
"Oh, god," murmurs Cameron.
What have we done? Chase echoes, but he doesn't say anything.