At last my plan is complete! Or Chapter 7 of it, anyway. Read it and hopefully don't weep.
Chapter 7
Cuddy sat outside House's room. He'd fallen asleep when Wilson left, and since then she'd barely dared to look at him through the glass. She shifted in her chair and tried to focus on relaxing herself. After a moment, she reached down and took out her compact. She flipped open the little mirror and inspected her appearance, turning her cheeks sideways and paying special attention to the spots under her eyes. She looked all right.
She snapped the case shut, then heaved a sigh and looked back in at House. He looked a little paler than before. Was she imagining things? She stood and hesitated a moment, then smoothed back her hair and stepped inside. It was quiet in the little room, save for the beeping of the machines and House's shallow breathing. Too shallow… and uneven. His BP hadn't risen the way it should have. The blood he was receiving now seemed to barely be keeping the BP stable, and his pulse wasn't strengthening. Cuddy pushed aside the sheets and blanket and, after a moment's hesitation, moved House's hospital gown off of his stomach and chest. A dim purple stain floated beneath the surface of his skin. The stitches must be leaking – damn it! She touched the place lightly and flinched as House gave out a soft moan.
"House?"
He muttered something and began to slip back into unconsciousness.
"House!" She shoved the gown back into place and struck the side of his face gently. If she could wake him up and get him responsive, then maybe he wasn't too badly anemic.
"House, wake up."
His eyelids flickered.
"What the hell do you want?"
"Come on, House. Your stitches are leaking – I need you to wake up for me."
Cuddy reached over and pushed the nurse call button.
"House, stay with me."
His lips moved, but this time no sound came out. Cuddy snapped her fingers in front of his eyes. He flinched, and then his eyes opened for a moment, out of focus. How long had he been bleeding? A nurse appeared at the door. Cuddy turned.
"Get a gurney!" she shouted. "His stitches are leaking, who knows for how long. We need to get him back into surgery!"
Cuddy turned back to House and saw that his eyes were closed again.
"House?"
She shook him. He didn't respond. His color was beginning to worsen – apparently the blood that he was receiving wasn't enough to balance the leak anymore. Cuddy grabbed the IV line to try to pump the blood in faster. Where the hell was the gurney?
If driving himself hadn't been the only way to get his car back to the hospital, Wilson might not have trusted himself at the steering wheel and called a taxi instead. As it was, he drove back in a strange daze, doing his best to avoid any collisions. A few weeks, Wilson thought as he swerved to avoid a yellow Porsche. That would have been the wrong car to hit. Wilson had spent a lot of money on House – mostly on food – but paying for a wrecked Porsche would have been bad.
A few weeks… House wasn't in any immediate danger, Wilson thought in a attempt to calm himself down. Crandzkey wasn't stupid enough to go into the hospital with security and the police on the alert. No, Wilson thought bitterly. No, he wasn't stupid enough to go into the hospital, where House was surrounded by people. He wait, wait until House was healed, back to normal – just like last time. Until the police wouldn't follow House around anymore, if need be. Until House was unprotected. Wilson gritted his teeth in frustration. At least House was safe now…
He was too pale, Cuddy thought as the gurney rushed down the hall. She bent her head and listened to his breathing, made shallow and irregular by the blood flooding the area around his lungs. The draining tube they'd inserted was filled with the dark red liquid, but most of it still remained seeping through House's tissues. And the fresh IV of blood being shoved into his system as fast a possible wasn't enough to keep his color from draining. Damn it!
Cameron and Foreman were standing in front of the whiteboard, arguing about the symptoms of their patient. Chase was sitting at the table, staring off into space and looking thoughtful.
"If the tests came back negative –" Foreman was saying.
"Then we need to do more extensive tests," Cameron cut in.
"Not on what we know it isn't. We should do a biopsy to confirm –"
"A biopsy is potentially dangerous and unnecessary if the blood tests show us what it is first."
"Specific testing will take longer. A biopsy will let us know what we might be dealing with faster –"
"Maybe we could do something about it," Chase said suddenly, breaking out of his reverie and effectively interrupting Foreman for the third time in the last five minutes.
"We're trying to do something about it," Foreman said. "Maybe if you were paying attention, you could, too."
"What? No, I mean maybe we could do something about this thing with House."
"Like what?"
"I don't know. But maybe we could do something. I mean, we can't just let our boss get beaten up by some crazy guy."
"First of all, we're not cops. Second of all, we have a patient to deal with."
"Patient's more important than House?"
"Since our patient is sick, and since House is okay right now, I'd say that the patient is at least more imperative."
"Since House is here," Cameron said, "Why don't we ask him what he thinks about the patient?"
"I said House was doing okay, not that we should go bug him," Foreman told her. "He's probably trying to get some rest."
"The patient's more imperative."
Foreman rolled his eyes and stood up. "Fine."
They stepped out of the conference room. Chase broke out of his second thoughtful trance and caught up with them in the hall.
"Seriously guys, any suggestions?"
"No!"
The team reached House's room and peered in through the glass.
"That's weird," Foreman said. "Where the hell is he?"
"I don't know," Chase answered in an obvious tone. "Maybe we should do something about it."
Foreman glared at his co-worker.
"Guys, this could be serious," Cameron said in a tone that meant shut-up-and-stop-arguing.
At that point, Wilson came down the hall, carrying House's cane and looking quite upset. He froze when he saw that House's room was empty. He swallowed and searched the team's faces with worried eyes.
"Where is he?"
"We don't know," Cameron answered. "We just got here – we were going to ask his advice about our patient."
Wilson ran his fingers through his hair and yanked out his pager with more force than was necessary.
"When I left, Cuddy was out here. Maybe she knows where he is."
Wilson typed in a message and pushed the button to send it to Cuddy, also with more force than was necessary. When it beeped back at him, he frowned.
"Oh, god."
Cuddy paused in her frantic pacing as Wilson the team came down the hall.
"What the hell happened?" Wilson demanded. "He seemed okay when I left, a little tired maybe, but –" He paused as a terrifying thought occurred to him. "He didn't… it wasn't…"
"No," Cuddy answered, guessing at what Wilson was trying to say. "I sat outside his room for an hour, nobody came in." She sighed and fiddled with a fold in her shirt. "He just… started bleeding. I don't know, I noticed that he looked pale and when I went into the room his BP hadn't risen. I guess his stitches started leaking."
"How bad is it?" Cameron asked.
"Oh, I don't know!" Cuddy replied, reaching a hand up to rub the back of her head and then bringing it down again in an exasperated gesture. "He was pretty badly anemic, it's not good, what else do you want to know?"
Silence pervaded the small group for a moment. Then Wilson spoke.
"I've… got some more bad news."
After Wilson's resigned narration of his phone conversation with Crandzkye, the mood in the hall had not improved. They stood again in slightly stunned silence, each of them comprehending the new information. Chase was the first break the silence.
"We need to do something about this."
Cameron and Foreman turned to stare at him. Chase gave them a return look, shrugging his shoulders.
"What?"
Right, I hope you liked that. Leave your comments, yeah, you know the drill. But it's a little different this time. See, I imagine you guys are all sitting there wondering, "What's going to happen next?" Well guess what? I'm sitting here wondering what's going to happen next! I've had a vague thought about something that won't advance the story very far and that I'm not sure what to do with anyway (if that made sense), but I really don't know what to write next. So please give me any suggestions you may have because I need help here! Think about it - review two days later with your suggestions if you have to. Send me a PM if that makes it easier. Just try to give me ideas if you have any and if you want me to keep writing because I'm stuck. Thank you!
