A/N: One of two to come in the next couple of days. Sorry for the wait! I tried to make this a long one, and will upload the next chapter on Friday to make up for it! :) More to come very soon! Reviews would be lovely!
"What's that?"
Foreman asks as he enters the DDX room with Cameron at his heels; the blonde's hair still wet from her morning shower and tumbling over the thick folds of her scarf.
"A huge disappointment."
Taub replies irritably, glowering down at the rucksack and its contents that lie spread out over the desk.
"How's that?"
Cameron asks, offering Kutner a small nod as he makes the gesture of pouring coffee.
Sensing that Taub isn't in the mood for sharing- the little man already pulling on his coat with the arrival of his relief- Thirteen speaks up with a yawn she tries her best to hide behind her hand.
"It belonged to our girl. It was stored away without the correct paperwork-"
"-without any paperwork."
Kutner interrupts as he carries two mugs- one green, one blue- over to the table before packing up his stuff.
"Right," Hadley agrees, "without any paperwork. One of the interns down from front desk managed to find just enough guts to tell House about it last night. Or this morning... Honestly, I don't even know what day it is anymore. Anyway, we've been pouring over the contents of that bag for the last hour, but it doesn't look like there's much in there of any use. There's no ID in her wallet, which would have been the jackpot, nor anything that would give any clues where she'd been held before being dumped."
"Nothing?!"
Foreman sighs, rubbing at his temples as he falls into his chair and pulls over one of the mugs. He does so without removing his coat and gloves; the former glistening with rain that will likely turn to snow before lunchtime.
"No."
Kutner shakes his head, before glancing over at the others apologetically and mumbling
"That's not the worst of it, I'm afraid."
"What's the worst of it?"
Cameron asks uneasily, but as she takes in the collective drawn expressions of House's new team, she knows the answer before Taub grunts
"The patient died. 6.21 AM. You guys must be lucky or something."
"Hey..."
Thirteen scolds, before Foreman cuts in and reprimands angrily
"You better watch your little habit of making comments like that. House lets you get away with it, but that's only because he wants to see how the rest of us will react. I'm not going to stand for it."
"He's tired."
Cameron placates quietly in an attempt to keep the peace, although when Taub shoots her a look that is anything but grateful, she wishes she'd kept her mouth shut.
"We're all tired," Foreman shrugs, and he lowers his attention to his mug and the cream Kutner passes him to stir into it as he continues, "Dr Taub doesn't quite believe that I'm in charge, and maybe he's right; I've worked with House long enough to know how this all goes. What he might like to consider though, is that my standing within the group does nothing to stop me from reporting brash and inappropriate comments to Dr Cuddy, and that she might take them a little more seriously from myself than she would from House."
"It was just a comment. It was in poor taste, alright. I'm tired, she's right."
Taub mutters with a jerk of his thumb in the blonde's direction, and Cameron narrows her eyes but says nothing. Foreman also opts for silence rather than to draw the matter out, and the atmosphere is tense as the others pull on their coats and leave with quiet grunts of farewell.
"What an asshole."
Foreman laments when they have the room to themselves, reaching across the table for the clipboard containing their deceased patient's notes.
"Eric..." Cameron warns, and when dark eyes meet her own beneath an irritable frown, she raises her coffee up to her lips and remarks silkily, "I could report you to Cuddy for that."
The tug of her lips matches the teasing note to her voice, and Foreman sighs as he sits back and crosses his arms over his chest.
"Oh, hush, you're just tired."
He scoffs at her mockingly, and she grins, before adopting a rather more morose expression as her attention falls to the small assortment of junk laid out on the table.
"I can't believe we lost another one."
She sighs, and Foreman nods as he leafs through the pages on the clipboard to study a couple of entries made before the time of death.
"Technically, this is only your first."
"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"
"It should, but I know that it doesn't... To be honest, I'm surprised she made it as long as she did. I think pulling her into the cleanroom must have been a good call. You should at least acknowledge your decision in that."
"I don't find much consolation in preventative suggestions made much too late. My job is to know what was wrong with her in the first place, not apply a bandaid to a mortal wound."
"Not just your job, Cameron."
"No, but I'm only responsible for myself."
"True. I've always liked that about you."
"... It applies to everybody."
"It does, but that doesn't mean everyone sees it that way. I've heard the others say more than once that their failures were down to someone else. Usually House. Bad things always happen because someone else neglected to tell them to do something... I've only heard that from you once, and you were right."
"I was?"
"The interferon. You-"
"-Oh. Right. That was a long time ago, I don't really know about all that anymore."
"I'm just saying, I-"
"-Don't really want to talk about it."
Cameron interrupts with her eyes lowered to her coffee, and Foreman attempts to inject some of their previous jesting into the silence that follows as he accuses cheekily
"Does that have anything to do with your resorting to romantic blackmail to solve the problem?"
The dark look she offers him warns that he's playing with fire, and he lets the matter lie immediately and adopts a more serious tone.
"There's a note from Kutner saying the bag and its contents have been sterilised and are safe to handle."
"I'd hope so, what with the others rooting around in there."
"I just meant you shouldn't need gloves to go through it."
"The others-"
"-The others looked over it, I know, but they're not you. I've been to your house, Cam, I know how particular you can be."
"I'm not that bad!"
"No, you keep your weirdness suitably disguised most of the time... But you can be incredibly anally retentive-"
"-thanks-"
"-and I'd feel better if I knew you'd gone through the patient's things just to be sure. After that, I'll hand it over to the police, but as they haven't asked after it yet, I want it gone over by someone I trust to be thorough."
"Fine... I'm going to wear gloves, though."
"... I'm saying nothing."
"Mm."
Cameron smirks as she gets up to fetch a couple of latex gloves from the dispenser on the counter, before glancing up at the clock belatedly and asking
"Where's House?"
"Home."
Comes her response as the door to the DDX room is pushed open, and Wilson smiles as he acknowledges House's long ago mentees and lets himself in so that he can explain.
"Not by choice, but by my strict order. I noticed he wasn't home again last night, and heard about your patient. My condolences. I know as well as he does- better, I'd say!- that he needs some rest... It might make things a little easier on the two of you, also."
He raises a brow as he catches a sheepish glance exchanged between the others, and grins before taking his leave. He's in much earlier than he needs to be, but with House suffering the loss of yet another patient, the choice between staying home and prepping for his first appointment of the day in the comfort of his office had been a fairly easy one.
"Those two are like an old married couple."
Foreman remarks after checking the door has closed fully behind the oncologist, and Cameron frowns as she gets up to move her chair in front of the table laden with their patient's belongings.
"They just live together."
"Oh, I know, I only meant with the way they bicker about what's best for each other. Don't worry, romantically I'm sure you're still further along in the running."
A smirk from Foreman as he imparts this little comment, and a weighted glower from the blonde.
"Could you stop that?"
"I just-... Fine. House and Wilson it is."
"...Poor Wilson."
"Yeah."
Foreman chuckles, before looking up as he spies Cuddy and a couple of policemen out in the corridor.
"Hey, can you get started going through that stuff? I'll go deal with the formalities."
"Good luck."
"Thanks... Girls keep coming in here and dying, they might start thinking it's an inside job."
"At least we'd have our answers."
"I just think it might have been nice to have been offered a break given recent events, rather than the order to see to clinic duty."
Foreman grumbles over his shoulder at Wilson who follows him down the hall with an equally grim expression; his last appointment a discussion over the unwelcome decision that his patient will need a double mastectomy.
"They're short-staffed down there, Eric, don't take it personally."
"I know, I just feel there are better things I could be doing given we still don't have any answers about our case... Actually, could you come and take a look at something for me. Our last patient had some swelling of her lymph nodes. I have the relevant test readings which came out negative, but if there's anything you could add to the case, it might be helpful for the n-... It might help."
He finishes uncertainly, having been about to say that it might help them out the next time, as the hell of failing the young women recently under their care has begun to seem a little like a recurring nightmare.
"Sure."
Wilson agrees, accompanying Foreman into the DDX room where they find Cameron perched on the table with her nose in a book.
"Cam, I know this is like telling a dog not to lick itself, but could you quit reading and let me know if you've found anything."
Foreman grunts, although a glance at the cover of the book in the blonde's hands leaves him puzzled; recognising the title as part of a teenage romance series, and not something he would think Cameron might study with the intensity she currently exhibits.
"Allie-"
"-Shush! I've found something!"
The blonde snaps, and she tosses the book over at Foreman who catches it awkwardly and glares at her as he is now the proud recipient of several paper cuts.
"What? You've figured out what Lacey, Macey and Stacey are going to do about the fact they're all crushing on the same guy?"
He mocks, and she rolls her eyes at him as she shakes out her hair, getting up to take the book back from him so that she can hold it open pointedly to show him what she's found.
"Look!"
She demands, and Foreman does so with Wilson peering over his shoulder, before both let out low breaths of understanding.
"You think that's our patient?"
Foreman asks as he reads the neat block print that had been hidden behind the book's dust jacket.
LORDES FLORES MARTINEZ.
"I was just getting to that... And just so you know, it's actually Emily and Rosie, and they decide to put aside their differences and date the quarterbacks of rival schools that just happen to be twins."
The blonde mutters as she pulls out her phone.
"...Seriously?"
Wilson asks midway through pouring himself a cup of coffee, and green eyes flicker up to meet brown as Cameron scoffs
"No idea, I didn't actually read it."
"Oh... Well, if you ever decide medicine isn't for you, maybe you could go into writing horrendously terrible teen literature."
"No, but thank you."
She sniffs primly, and Wilson grins before accepting the deceased patient's notes from Foreman to look through.
He is interrupted by a victorious yip, as Cameron holds up her phone with a smug smile.
"Got her."
"Huh?"
"On Facebook. This looks like our girl, right?... It is, it must be; look at all these posts people have made asking where she is!"
"... That's definitely her."
Foreman agrees after bending down to scrutinise the blonde's phone as she scrolls through a litany of frantic requests for information from friends and family.
"Can you see when she last posted?"
Wilson asks, and Cameron nods distractedly as she's already on a mission to do so.
"Yeah. Last post by Lordes was nine days ago. She's posted a picture of her drink and it's got a location tag. Ernie's... Anyone know it?"
She looks up, but both men shake their heads.
"Damn. A couple of posts by Martin- looks like her dad, maybe- say she was last seen there. Here, it says she was last seen at Ernie's with Lola Ramirez- guessing that's a friend- and that she left on her own to walk home around 5 PM."
"Nice find, Sherlock. Does it let you link through on that Ernie's place so we can see where it is?"
Foreman asks, and he smiles as he catches the small smirk that touches the blonde's lips in response to his name-calling, and guesses she might prefer it to Florence.
"You can! Here. It's on seventh. That's right by that little dog park where they had that fire last year, isn't it?"
"That's the one. Not the nicest area; half of it's boarded up."
"That's probably where she was picked up."
Cameron reasons, and Foreman nods in agreement as he reaches for his pager.
"I'll get Cuddy's aide to come up and put all of this into a statement. If she's been gone nine days, she'll have been reported missing, and they might have matched her to her picture when we gave them notification of death, but if not, the family needs to know... I guess the one good thing about this case is that it won't fall to us to get involved in that part of things. Something like this, Cuddy will want a spokesperson who can neatly tie up what we've found, along with a decent reason for why it took us so long to locate her belongings."
"Well, if anything, that's the police's job, not ours."
The blonde points out, and Foreman nods as he receives a response on his pager and pockets the device.
"True. Maybe that can be your fall-back job."
"Well, I'm slightly less offended, but I still think I'll stick to figuring out what's wrong with people's bodies rather than trying to understand their brains. People can do some pretty wonderful stuff, but they can also commit inconceivable evil. I've seen enough of that with this patient to quash any further interest in the criminally depraved."
Cameron sighs, placing her phone on the table and sitting forward with her head in her heads; her exhaustion drowning out her adrenalin all too swiftly. Foreman nods his agreement as he accepts the chart back from Wilson, who says he can't see anything that hasn't been noted already in the deceased's files, before offering with a frown
"You know, a lot of the factories on seventh that have been boarded up used to work with chemicals. Nasty stuff; a lot of pesticides. If the girls are being kept somewhere, that might be worth looking into. Chances are there's a whole bunch of toxins still lingering in those buildings, a lot of which you wouldn't know to test for without more information."
"That's a good point."
Foreman agrees, excusing himself as he spies one of Cuddy's PAs walking towards the room, and disappearing outside to relay their thoughts and findings to the young man.
"We could do with knowing what kind of things were being made in those factories specifically. Just for elimination purposes, if nothing else."
Cameron muses as she glances over at Wilson, and the oncologist nods, but reasons
"The police will do that."
"Yeah, and then come back to us who knows how long later to ask what x,y and z might do to a person if inhaled or ingested."
"It's a tiresome system."
Wilson agrees, watching as Foreman walks back into the room to begin stacking the debris on the desk into a pile.
"... You do know that as soon as we tell House what we've found, he'll ask why we're still here and not checking it out..."
Cameron broaches uncomfortably; not especially fond of the idea of taking her sleuthing out into the real world, but feeling similarly ill at ease at the thought of being on the receiving end of yet more of House's irritation.
"We haven't found out anything concrete."
Foreman argues, although his tone suggests that he knows the blonde's right, and that in House's eyes, that means very little.
"We know where she was last seen, and that there are factories there..."
Cameron points out; voicing hesitantly what they both know House would say on the matter.
"Cam, the place is a hole. I didn't sign up for the side-job of being House's errand boy in the Hood. You know how much that stuff gets on my nerves."
Foreman growls, and the blonde nods as she can fully appreciate his frustration, but she feels unable to let the matter lie as her mind plays her some of the caustic things House is likely to say to them should they choose to simply sit on their new-found information.
"I know... I mean, if it's just having a look at what factories are around the area and what they might once have been using or making... I'll go."
"No, you won't."
Wilson interrupts, and when the blonde frowns up at him, he splays his palms and reasons impatiently
"Look at the patient profile for your last three cases, Allison. Add to that some common sense, and I shouldn't need to spell out why you shouldn't go."
"Because I'm a woman?"
Cameron scoffs with a lot more bravado than she truly feels, and when the others simply nod at her as though she's lost her mind, she rolls her eyes and appeases
"I'll bring Chase. He's off at eleven. He's not gonna be thrilled at the idea of sacrificing his time off to go digging around some dump, but he is a guy. I've done my research."
Foreman shrugs as he finds this a much more palatable suggestion, and Wilson sighs as he heads for the door and teases the others mildly
"I can't help but think you guys just really don't want to do Clinic duty..."
"Clinic duty?"
Cameron turns to Foreman as the door closes; her face a picture of despair.
"Apparently so."
He growls commiseratively.
"... I'm not sure which is worse."
The blonde sighs, and Foreman grins as he points out hastily
"Too late. You've made your bed. I'm going to go deal with snot, blood and bits that are leaking but shouldn't be. It still provides me with greater dignity than allowing House the mistaken belief that I volunteered to go wandering around seventh. You know how much aggravation I'll get. I'm done playing hood-rat in his insane misguided skits."
"Oh, because he's not going to have anything to say about me going?!"
Cameron challenges, and she grumbles irritably when Foreman flashes his teeth and tells her he looks forward to seeing how she shines in his usual type-cast role with a great amount of anticipation.
"He'll have plenty to say."
"Mm. I'll message Chase... I hope you get thrown up on."