WARNINGS: Very vague spoilers for Season 7.

Chapter Eleven

9:01 A.M.

November 25, 2012

Oceanview High School

Oceanview, OR

By the time the sun is fully overhead, Chase feels as though he has never been more exhausted. In the past, he has been accustomed to bursts of intensity in his work, any given case liable to keep them at the hospital round the clock for a few days. But the grueling marathon of this investigation is different; he cannot recall the last time he felt able to think properly, unhindered by sleep deprivation and the sheer pressure of crisis.

He and Barnes have been here since the early morning, stopping back at the hotel only long enough to shower in an attempt to decontaminate after setting foot in the church. Hours ago, they both began this round of tests with bated breath, painfully aware of the potential for disaster if it should turn out that this strain of the virus is capable of surviving on non-living surfaces. That would constitute an outbreak which would be practically uncontainable, one which could sweep unhindered across the world in a devastating pandemic.

But so far the tests have all been negative, a half-dozen culture plates lined with miniscule wells and laden with purified material from the samples. It has taken the sequencing machine several hours to run the plates, but as its monitor displays the last of the results, Chase sees nothing suspicious.

Barnes has fallen asleep waiting, head resting on his arms on the surface of the high school's lab table. Chase does not bother to wake him, watching the lines of the results graph appear on the screen and thinking about the things he has learned during the night. His focus is so complete that he does not hear the door to the lab open, is entirely unaware of Cameron's footsteps until she is standing behind him.

"Working hard?" she asks, in a tone which tells Chase she already knows enough to be upset.

"Just—running some tests," he answers lamely, feeling tongue-tied, his throat tight with the grit of exhaustion.

"On what?" asks Cameron, crossing her arms. She is wearing her crisp white labcoat again, her hair and makeup meticulously in place. A perfect façade of unmarred professionalism, even in the midst of a national crisis. "New samples that magically appeared? Did they grow in the petri dishes overnight? Because that would definitely be a novel organism if it can manifest out of thin air."

"They're from the church," Chase answers simply. There is absolutely no point in lying; she will have to be told eventually, and it will only do more damage if he is not straight with her from the beginning. At the other counter, Barnes has awoken and is blinking at them groggily, as though he is not sure how to react. Cameron appears completely unaware of his presence.

"That's funny," she shoots back, continuing her ploy of icy questioning, though she has clearly already surmised what has really happened here. "Because I don't remember the police department calling to say we were cleared to go in there. Did they come and get you after I went to bed? That's impressive service, working twenty-four hours just to notify us. I hadn't even gotten around to asking them."

"Cut the crap, Allison. We went there last night. I know you know that." Chase sighs, anticipating what is about to come, and feeling entirely too tired to keep up his end of the impending fight. He is in no mood for this sort of posturing, everything strangely surreal. It feels as though he is seeing her in a new light, an odd sort of throwback to the days when he was first being trained in medicine, learning to recognize features of the everyday as pathology. He finds himself more concerned with her health than her anger, observing every detail of her behavior as though she were his patient. He wonders now whether the fine lines around her eyes are from tiredness or pain, whether her hair is cut short now because months ago it had begun to fall out.

"We?" Cameron turns her attention to Barnes at last, raising her eyebrows. "Both of you?

"Dr. House was right," Barnes answers bravely. "We needed these samples. We need to know whether the virus can contaminate inorganic surfaces."

"So you were just following House's instructions. Right." The suspicion is obvious in Cameron's tone as she looks back to Chase, apparently having dismissed Barnes's involvement as less worthy of her anger. "I have a hard time believing that one of my colleagues would just decide to follow your boss's orders in violation of a warning from his own superiors. What did you do?"

"Right, I'm responsible for everything bad by default," Chase answers sourly. "What would you like to hear? That I blackmailed him? Tied him up and threw him over my shoulder? Threatened him with my magic doctor's wand? Take your pick." He ought to be hurt by this as by their last argument, ought to be outraged at her baseless accusations. And yet, knowing how much of a silent struggle the last few years must have been, he finds himself unable to feel anything other than deepest regret and a fierce protectiveness for her wellbeing.

"I want to know why my team suddenly decided it was okay to ignore my instructions and go walking into a biohazardous area without the proper protection." Cameron bites her lip, something in her demeanor changing; she is not truly angry over this breach of her authority, Chase realizes, but rather hurt by the perceived betrayal. "I know you heard what House said. I'm on probation with headquarters as it is. After this—I might as well head back to the hotel and start packing."

"No, you shouldn't," says Chase firmly. "Especially not now."

"We do know you're on probation." Barnes gets to his feet, stripping off his gloves and dumping them into the nearest orange biohazard container. "That's why I told Dr. Chase we had to go to the church. So you wouldn't be put in that position. And now we've got your answers for you."

"You?" Cameron glances back and forth between the two of them, looking entirely taken aback. "This was your idea?"

"Well—yeah," Barnes admits, sounding slightly less confident than a moment before. "We all like you, Boss Lady. None of us wants you in trouble."

Cameron is silent for a moment, visibly deciding whether or not to trust what she is being told. In the end, she has no choice, and they are all painfully aware of this fact.

"So what's the verdict, then?" she asks at last. "Is the church contaminated?"

"No," says Chase, glancing at the computer screen again to be sure. "No significant levels of live virus in any of the samples. And we took them from all over. Given the amount of time those people spent in the church—I'd say we should have seen contamination there, if we were going to see it anywhere."

Cameron nods once, looking visibly relieved though she does not acknowledge it. "We have to go back to Portland. Our alleged faith healer has regained consciousness. Woodson wants us to interview him. Barnes—double-check all of the samples, then make your call to Atlanta."

—

11:21 A.M.

November 25, 2012

Tillamook General Hospital

Portland, OR

Woodson meets them in the small lobby, looking as though he might have somehow aged a decade in the course of the past day. This case is beginning to feel like an endless circle, like they are chasing their tails back and forth from Oceanview to Portland without unraveling any real part of this mystery.

"We got your message," says Cameron, falling into step beside Woodson as they head toward the quarantine area of the infectious disease ward without pause. "Our faith healer is awake?"

Woodson nods. "He identifies himself as Jereboam Smith. However, there's no legal record of any man by that name. I've got the police working on his real identity. Seems pretty unbalanced, if you ask me, and I don't think it's just the neurological effects of the virus. I wanted to get your take on it. This whole investigative thing—Not really my area of expertise. I'm used to judging microbes, not fanatical madmen."

"Well, Dr. Chase should feel right at home, seeing as how he works for one." Cameron glances sideways at him with an expression he can't quite read, but Chase has the distinct impression that this is a dig at House which does not extend to him personally.

"As long as you don't need me to interview any nuns," Chase answers.

They come to a stop in front of the glass containment area, which has grown even more impossibly crowded now. Chase immediately recognizes the man they are here to interview: he is one of the few patients sitting up in bed with his eyes open, and he is staring straight at them. There is something magnetic in his gaze, and Chase finds that he cannot look away until the sound of Woodson's voice breaks his concentration.

"You two ready to get suited up?"

"You're not coming in with us?" asks Cameron, sounding surprised.

Woodson shakes his head. "As you can see, we're way beyond capacity here. I need to make some calls. See if I can find other places for these people to go."

Cameron nods once, and begins pulling on the components of a HazMat suit. Chase follows, feeling as though his motions are especially clumsy this morning. She is clearly accustomed to doing this, a practiced ease about her which seems to transcend the situation. He feels as though he is moving through molasses, his limbs too heavy and his eyes dry with exhaustion, up until the moment that he stumbles through the airlock behind her and enters the quarantine area.

"Mr. Smith," says Cameron, as they come to a stop beside his narrow hospital bed. Her voice is distorted through the thick protective suit, sounding very far away.

"You another doctor?" Smith's voice is gravelly, like the sound of very rough stones rubbing against one another. He is obviously terribly ill, yet there is still a strange charisma about him which has not been dulled by fever. A certain spark in his eyes, an energy which seems to hang about him like a mythical aura.

"We're with the CDC," says Cameron. "I'm Dr. Cameron. This is my partner, Dr. Chase. We'd like to ask you a few questions, see if you can help us figure out how you got sick."

"I'm glad you're here," says Smith, turning away his face momentarily to cough. It is a harsh, rasping sound, like sheets of fabric being torn apart. "Something really does need to be done."

"Done about what?" asks Chase, the echo of his voice in his own ears sending a crushing sense of claustrophobia through him.

"Well, this plague, of course," Smith answers confidently. His tone is slow, soothing despite the horrific sound of his voice from a swollen throat. "I presume you're here because you want to know what's causing it, is that correct?"

"Are you saying that you know how the virus is being spread?" asks Cameron sharply. "You do understand that you are now the subject of a criminal investigation, Mr. Smith? You've been endangering people's lives keeping them locked up in that church to die. Cooperating with us now is very important."

"No, no, there's been a terrible mistake. It's all right. I understand your confusion." Smith stops to cough again, wiping beads of sweat from his forehead. "I was trying to protect these people. To pray for them to be spared from the evil that has brought this upon Oceanview."

"Evil?" Chase finds himself struggling to keep the incredulity out of his voice. He feels an odd thrill of anxiety; he is all too familiar with the dangers of this sort of religious radicalism.

"Oceanview has allowed itself to be invaded." Smith's whole demeanor changes with these words, as though they themselves are toxic, painful on his tongue. "Contaminated. Its virtues muddied by the continued allowance of a heretical sect in our midst."

"Mr. Smith, it's the twenty-first century," says Cameron. "Religious tolerance is not only the prevailing moral standard, it is protected by law."

"The sinners' law!" Smith shouts, lurching forward in the bed only to fall back against the pillows when his muscles give out. "Not God's law. He is punishing the town of Oceanview for their failure to drive out the dark ones! Now no one will be spared, mark my words! It's too late for the town to be saved!"

Note: Viral surface contamination is assessed using real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). If anyone's curious, there is a link on my profile to a discussion of how this protocol works. Results of investigations of Nipah outbreaks in South Asia have yielded contradictory results; some strains are capable of surface contamination, while others are not.

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