Sessions 37: Conversation Piece $800

Author's note: found this autopsy info at .

House scrubbed his hands with the sterile soap and brush over the basin in the morgue. Letting them drip dry, he held his hands up and moved over to the box that held the surgical gloves. He snapped on a pair and made his was over to the table where his patient's body lay. The music the coroner had playing in the background kind of set the tone for the autopsy of this woman whose name he honestly couldn't even remember. He knew she was twenty eight. Young, pretty, perfectly healthy until Sunday night when she was admitted to the ER with shortness of breath and a spiking fever. And now she was dead because they couldn't find out what was killing her in time. They had run all tox panels, Ct scans, MRI, lumbar punctures, tested for all infections. They had come up with nothing. Five of them and they couldn't find what was wrong. He always used to tell Chase, Cameron and Foreman that if they didn't find it before the person died, they'd find it autopsy. Well, here he was. The only one who really needed to know. The family didn't care anymore, they had signed over permission for the autopsy but all they knew or cared about now was that she was dead. The team seemed too affected by the fact that this was their first failure in six months. Their first real failure since Amber. He didn't tell Wilson that. He didn't think he ever would.

The coroner hovered around him having prepared the body for him earlier with the necessary protocol that he wasn't interested in. They had done this dance before and he had gotten used to House's methods a long time ago. He left him to take out the organs that he wanted to inspect and them he'd finish up with the necessary procedures of preparing the paperwork and body for delivery to the funeral home. House pulled back the drape over the body and picked up the scalpel. Placing his hand at the shoulder he began the large Y incision on the chest. Since his first days in med school, he had always thought it was fascinating to look inside the human body. He thought it was cool how everything had its own protective security system and how things systematically were organized to make sense in the natural rhythm of life.

Retracting the skin to expose the ribcage, he cracked open the chest exposing the heart and lungs which were his primary concern. Before disturbing the organs, he carefully cut open the pericardial sac to expose the heart and then the pulmonary artery where it exited the heart. He stuck his finger into the hole in the pulmonary artery and felt around for any thromboembolus to see if a blood clot dislodged from a vein somewhere else in the body and might have traveled through the heart to the pulmonary artery, lodged there, and caused sudden death. He found nothing so he removed the heart and weighed it. He followed suit with the lungs, one by one. He could already see the swelling from the pulmonary edema. He could feel the fluid in the lungs. He moved to the side dissecting table and removed the heart from the tray where he cleaned it off, to inspect the outside for any structural abnormalities they missed on the virtual scan. He found nothing of significance. It was inside that he found his answer. Mitral valve stenosis, the valve was damaged at the back rendering it difficult to see in any of the virtual scans. There was distinct evidence of rheumatic fever scaring. Her history had said that she had caught a cold while she was on vacation in Jamaica months ago and believed it was nothing as most people would. The strep bacteria settled into her weakened heart valve and proceeded to destroy it slowly until it couldn't sufficiently move her blood anymore causing it to back up into her lungs essentially drowning her.

He placed the organs back into the tray for the coroner to finish. It was so simple, yet there was nothing they could have done about it. Frustrated, he stripped of his gloves and threw them into the medical waste bin before picking up his cane that he had stored across the room from the exam table. He pulled off his skull cap and tossed it into the bin outside the door. Well, he had his answer. There was nothing that could have been done. They had done everything right. Why was it that all the answers to all his recent questions were leaving him unsatisfied?

Having changed back into his jeans, brown Dave Matthews t-shirt and black jacket, he put on his sneakers and headed up to Wilson's office. He was finishing with a patient as he approached his door. House gave the woman a thin frown as she smiled at him on her way past. Her skin was pale and had that tell-tale texture of chemo treatments. She probably had six months to a year and was no doubt thanking Jimmy for his ever so kind treatment of her. Wilson's patient's died all of the time and yet they thanked him for his unerring ability to make it an easy transition for them.

"Did you find out what it was?"

"Rheumatic fever, " he said coming into the office.

"Mitral valve stenosis?"

He sat heavily into the chair in front of the desk. He could feel the warmth from Wilson's patient and immediately got up to lie down on the sofa with is feet up. "Yup, boring huh?"

Wilson tipped his head back and forth. "Boring but deadly, if not caught early."

"You know, Hal plays this really depressing music down there when he does autopsies, " he said absently as he spun his hand over his head.

"Really?" Wilson regarded him from his file on his desk. "What was he playing?"

"Alanis Morissette Jagged Little Pill… Acoustic…" House said shaking his head.

"Isn't it ironic, " he said

"A little too ironic…" House finished.

"Is that what's got you in such a funk?"

House shook his head. "So she wants me to meet her dad."

"Uh oh, that sounds ominous…" Wilson cleared his throat, "I mean serious."

"Yeah, " House said. "He's a retired Philadelphia Police detective."

Wilson snorted a laugh. "Oh great. He's probably run a back ground check on you already."

"Yeah, too bad he couldn't warn us about your warrant, " House said with a laugh.

Wilson glared at him. "Hey, I'd like to forget about that whole…experience if you don't mind."

House hoisted his leg off the edge of the arm and sat up. "I guess it's inevitable. She's very close with him."

"That's a good thing, " Wilson told him.

House scratched at the back of his head. "Yeah, he's not short on the protective gene."

"You did save his daughter's life, " Wilson reminded him.

"True, there is that, " he said.

"When does she want you to meet him?"

He shrugged. "She told me to think about it today. She did mention Thanksgiving in the conversation."

"She wants you to get together for Thanksgiving, " he said.

House shook his head. "She said that the two don't necessarily have to go together."

Wilson chuckled. "That's what she said, what it means is you have to meet him either before or on actual Thanksgiving. Because if they're close, she won't not spend the holiday with him. And that means you're probably going to."

House frowned. "Kind of figured that." He tapped his cane on the floor. "I hate this kind of stuff."

Wilson shrugged. "It's a necessary evil. It's part of being in a relationship."

House grimaced. "I'd rather just sit around in my underwear all day like I do every year."

"But what are you going to do now that you're mom is alone this year?"

"Nothing. She'll probably go to my aunt's like she does every year. What are you going to do this year, " he asked leaving it open-ended for him to fill in whatever he felt comfortable with.

"Probably sit in my underwear all day, " he said with a laugh.

House nodded. "If I have to do Thanksgiving, I'm going to need back-up, you know."

Wilson shrugged. "We'll see."

"What time is it, " House asked looking around the room for a clock that wasn't there.

"Almost two, " Wilson said looking at his watch. "Why?"

"I've gotta go, " he said standing. "It's tea time."

Wilson shook his head. "They're not going to let you in, you know."

He shrugged gave him a waggle of the eyebrow. "We'll see about that."

"Hello, my biz-nitches, " House said cheerfully turning a chair around and straddling it between his thighs as he sat down at the table in between Cate and Cuddy, who disgustedly moved her chair away from him. He received an irritated sigh from Cameron and a sly smirk from Thirteen. Cate wore an amused smile but did nothing to either welcome him or show her irritation if she felt any. Instead she looked at his tea cup he'd placed on the table and flipped the tag from the teabag at him questioningly. She raised an eyebrow that clearly said 'you've got to be kidding me'. She knew he never drank tea. She saw through his little charade. Ignoring her speculative glance, he smiled brightly back at her in response and brought his attention to the rest of the ladies.

"House, why are you here?" Cuddy demanded. "Aren't you supposed to be in the clinic?"

"Yep, I needed a break, " he lied, as if he was actually in the clinic today. She eyed him like she wasn't sure whether to believe him or not. "So, girls, what are we talking about?"

Cate leaned forward. "My shoes, " she said excitedly. She stuck her well-formed leg out at him to show him the aforementioned footwear.

"Oh, you mean your stripper pumps, " he said admiring the shapeliness of her calf as it sloped to her trim ankle delicately into the spiked black high heels that left a little peek-a-boo hole for her toenails to show. He had to admit he liked them very much.

"No, if they were stripper pumps they'd be clear, " Thirteen said.

He nodded, not taking his eyes off of Cate's leg. "Good point."

"They're more like 1940's pin-up girl, " Thirteen added painting a very delectable picture in his mind. Long gams, high heels, and busty chest. Nice…

Cate tucked her foot back under her chair and rested her chin in her hand as she leaned on the table. "Pin-up girl, huh? I could live with that."

He waggled his eyebrows at her. "Me too." She blushed immediately and that made him smile.

Cuddy scoffed from her chair beside him. "Those are not just any shoe, they're Christian Loubutains."

House drew his eye brows together. As if that meant anything to him. "Christian Who-Blew-Tom?"

"Loo – Boo –Tann, jackass, " she annunciated for him as if her were retarded.

He held his hands up. "Excuse me. So what's so special about them, they're just shoes."

They all gasped as if he had cursed. Cameron rolled her eyes and looked at Cate. "Tell him how much they cost."

Cate closed her eyes and shook her head vehemently.

He looked at her. "What? How bad could they be?"

Cameron smirked. "They're $800."

He choked on his tea. "What?" Cate's eyes went wide at Cameron. "That's insane."

Cameron clucked her tongue at him and Cate smiled sheepishly. "They're Christian Loubutain's. He's the hottest shoe designer since Manolo Blahnik and Jimmy Choo."

Thirteen chuckled. "Don't tell me you didn't notice how fabulous they look."

"So?" he said non-impressed. No shoe was worth $800. Thirteen merely chuckled at him from behind her teacup.

"Oprah gave away a pair of Loubutains to every person in her audience, " Cameron announced as if that made all the difference in the world.

Cuddy scoffed. "What Sex and the City did for Manolo's and Jimmy Choo's, Oprah did for Loubutain's, " she explained this with such a gravity that if anyone was listening they'd think she was talking about global warming.

Suddenly he was tickled funny about the entire conversation. It was utterly ludicrous. Rational intelligent women paying almost a thousand dollars for a pair of shoes that looked as painful as putting your toes in a vice. He laughed out loud. "Man-hole-o, Jimmy Chew, Who-blew-Tom… Is it me or do these homo's names sound like fellatio?"

Cate and Thirteen bust out laughing and Cuddy and Cameron crossed their arms and plastered their pissy faces on.

"Don't laugh at him, " Cameron reprimanded. "It only encourages him."

"And makes him believe that he's actually funny, " Cuddy added.

Thirteen laughed. "He is funny."

House raised his hand to her. "Thank you. See the lesbian likes me."

"Fuck you, House." Thirteen shot back.

Cuddy turned to him pointedly. "Why are you here?"

He shrugged holding his hands up innocently. "I'm just sitting with all my girls, talking."

Cameron eyed him suspiciously. "And what do you want?"

"Nothing, " he replied innocently.

"Riiighhht, " Cuddy disagreed.

Cate sat in her chair observing the whole situation. She still said nothing, just sat with her arms crossed casually over her chest. He was getting no back up from her. He couldn't tell if she was irritated or if she was enjoying his little show. After their little conversation this morning, he was sure if she was upset that he was broaching her territory. Not that he really cared, this was an experiment that he was more curious about, than anything else.

"Why do you automatically assume I have an agenda?" he said.

Cameron nearly choked on her coffee. "Because you always have an agenda."

Cuddy nailed him with a glare. "And you don't sit and talk unless it's to expound about your own delusions of grandeur."

"And you don't drink tea, " Cate said with a smirk.

"So what gives, " Thirteen asked.

House looked at all of them with a curious expression. "I'm not allowed to want to sit and girl-talk?"

All four responded, including Cate, "No."

"You either have to be 1) A girl or…" Cameron said.

"2) Gay, " Cuddy finished.

"So because I'm a guy and not gay, you gals don't want to talk to me?"

"Yeah, that's pretty much it, " Cameron said.

He frowned. So they didn't want him in their little girl-club? That actually bothered him.

Cate smiled sympathetically and touched her hand to his cheek. "Aww, sweetie, the rest of the girls don't want to play with you."

He pursed his lips. And hung his head defeated. "Fine. Do your girl thing. I'll just take my bat and balls and go." He stood and grabbed his tea cup in his left hand resting on his cane. He shook his head. "This is sex discrimination, I'll have you know."

"I'm sure your ego will survive, " Cuddy said.

"And you, " he turned to Cate, "I'm so disappointed, where is your loyalty?" he asked with mock-wounded eyes.

Cate shrugged. "I have dual-loyalties, call me Switzerland."

"Fine. Be that way." House said in a bitchy tone. "I'll take my sorry, but sexy, ass out of here so you can continue your conversation about blowing tom and man holes. Keep me posted if anything more interesting comes up, sweetie" he said, pointing at Cate.

They all shook their heads at him as he limped his way out of the cafeteria. He could go back to his office and watch General Hospital uninterrupted in peace and quiet for once. Half way out, he looked at the paper tea cup in his hand. Ugh, why did he get mint tea? Spying a trash can, he pitched it in. He hated mint tea. Well, that was about as productive as pissing in a windstorm.