by Maya Tawi
It took a great deal of argument, raised voices, and cane-brandishing to convince the ambulance driver to take Knowles to PPTH instead of the local hospital, but in the end House prevailed, as he knew he would. The fifty-mile journey back to Princeton took considerably less time than his earlier struggles with public transportation, but it was still fully dark by the time they pulled up in front of the ER.
House followed the paramedics and the stretcher through the doors, barking out orders as he went. "Get this woman stabilized, and then I want a full series of tests. Blood work, CT scans, full tox screen-- find out what the hell's wrong with her, and find it fast."
He ignored the grumbles and the eye-rolls. He was used to them by now.
His team, of course, was gone for the day; he'd half-expected to find them in the conference room as usual, but only out of habit. House threw his jacket on his desk, picked up the phone, and paged the three of them in quick succession-- speed-dials 2, 3, and 4. Then he sat down and watched TV until the phone rang.
House grabbed it and said, "Yeah."
"She's stable. She's in the ICU."
"Good." He hung up and stood.
The door to his office burst open, and Chase stood there, looking ridiculously rumpled and out of breath. "What's up?"
House eyed him critically. Then he smiled.
"Come in," he said, sitting down again, "and close the door."
Chase, bless the boy, looked equal parts suspicious and pleased. He eased the door shut and asked again, "What's going on? I got your page--"
"Which I deduced from the fact that you are, currently, standing here. Now shut up and listen, we don't have much time before the others arrive."
Suspicion was quickly winning out. "This isn't going to be an illegal thing, is it?"
"Of course not!" House exclaimed, sounding offended. "Certainly no more illegal than impersonating the CDC to a poor, distraught mother who only wants what's best for her son. Definitely no more criminal than your shoddy attempt at a Southern accent--"
"I could just go home," Chase said, jerking a thumb towards the door.
"Yeah," House said, "but you won't."
"I was in the middle of a date, you know."
"You! A date?" House stared at him, wide-eyed. "With a girl?"
Chase sighed. "What do you want?"
House leaned back in his chair, folding his arms behind his head. "There's a woman in the ER named Shirley Knowles. You guys are going to take a personal interest in her case. You, specifically, are going to make a copy of every single scan and test result that comes back from the lab, and keep the copies somewhere safe."
"Safe like where?"
"How the hell should I know? Keep 'em in your damn hope chest, for all I care. Just don't advertise it. Keep them safe."
Now Chase looked amused. "To be opened in the event of your death, I presume?"
"Not my death," House said. "Are you gonna do it, or should I ask one of your coworkers? Foreman's got balls. He seems the type to flout danger." He waggled his eyebrows.
"Not for you, he wouldn't." Chase was grinning, damn him.
But Chase would do it. Chase was still too much of a Good Boy not to, despite House's best efforts to the contrary. So House sent him down to the ER, where he could at least make himself useful, and when Cameron and Foreman arrived, he instructed them to follow Chase's lead and sent them down as well.
Then, finally, blissfully alone again, he rubbed a hand over his face and sighed.
Today was almost tomorrow now. He couldn't do anything more until the test results came back. The adrenaline high from earlier was long gone, and he felt like someone had taken a chainsaw to his leg.
House dry-swallowed a pill and reached for the phone.
The bus was still running. For that matter, he could've taken another taxi. It was either sadism or masochism that led him to dial Wilson's cell number-- speed dial, 1-- and in the end, it didn't really matter which.
The tox screen came back negative; the scans and the blood work would take longer. When Wilson arrived, House was poring over his medical texts, scribbling notes in the margins. Without looking up, he said, "It's probably bacterial, don't you think? Doesn't really narrow it down, but it's someplace to start."
"House--"
"I should start her on antibiotics. The Cipro might have helped. Of course, I couldn't exactly ask--"
"House," Wilson said, "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"That's okay," House said. "I wasn't planning on listening to you anyway."
Wilson sighed. "Come on. It's late, you're tired--"
"It's not that late. I may be a crotchety old man, but I'm not exactly ready for a bunk in the nursing home yet."
"You've had a long day."
"Ain't that the truth." House slammed the book shut and stood. "Remind me," he said, grabbing his jacket and shrugging it on, "antibiotics."
"I'll write you a Post-It," Wilson said.
They rode the elevator in silence for a while, and then House asked, "How was dinner," and Wilson said, "Short," and there wasn't really much else to say after that. They stopped by Chase in the ICU long enough for House to say, "Antibiotics," and not much else.
In the car, Wilson tapped his fingers and hummed along with the radio, and House surprised himself by drifting off with his head against the window. When the Mercedes slid to a smooth stop outside his house, he jerked upright and blinked himself awake, trying not to look like he'd been asleep.
"Come on in," he said, fumbling his way out of the car. "Have a drink."
"Great idea. I was feeling too sober to drive anyway." But Wilson followed, as House knew he would.
The mess that greeted them when the door opened was like some unfortunate kind of déjà vu. House stared at the upturned furniture, strewn papers, and scattered books, and said, "Damn Tooth Fairy. I knew I should've left out the good scotch."
Wilson's breath was an explosive puff of hot air on the back of his neck. "Why does this feel familiar?"
"Oh, come on. You've seen my attempts at housekeeping." But House realized with a sinking feeling that Wilson wasn't buying it, that Wilson had him cornered, and this time he'd have to come clean.
Indeed, Wilson pushed him none-too-gently towards the sofa, sweeping debris off the cushions with an outstretched arm, and said firmly, "Sit."
"Woof," House said, and sat.
Wilson stood with his arms crossed. "Spill."
"Well," House said, "there's this really cute boy in my English class, I passed him a note at lunch but I still don't know if he likes me--"
"Damn it!" Wilson slapped the wall, and House just barely managed not to flinch. "This is not a joke, and you are not an idiot. You know exactly what's going on, and you're going to tell me."
House raised his eyebrows. "Or what, you'll spank me?"
Wilson narrowed his eyes. "Or I'll tell Cuddy you have the hots for her."
"Ouch," House said, impressed.
"I learned from the best. Start talking."
"Get me a drink first."
"You know," Wilson said, pouring a generous shot of scotch, "you shouldn't be drinking at all."
House took the shot glass and raised an eyebrow at him over the rim. "Your point?"
He drained the glass in two long swallows, and then he told Wilson everything.
Wilson just stared at him. When he got to the first break-in, Wilson sat down next to him on the couch, still staring. When he got to the encounter in the Knowles' house, Wilson poured himself a shot and started drinking. And when he finished, Wilson licked his lips and then asked, "What did the police say?"
House reached for the bottle. "You know, I think I'll just pour another--"
Wilson's voice was sharp. "Please tell me you called the police."
"Of course I didn't!" House snapped, abandoning the pretense and lowering his arm. "This is my case."
"Greg," Wilson said, "you are a doctor."
"Oh, thank God somebody told me. I was beginning to think all those years of medical school were just one long mescaline-induced nightmare--"
"Doctor, Greg. Not detective, not secret agent--"
"Have I ever given you reason to doubt my self-awareness?"
"You don't want me to answer that."
House stared at him. "Well, I do now. What the hell are you implying?"
"That's not the issue," Wilson began.
"It is now!"
Wilson stood. "Call the police. Or I will."
"And tell them what?" House demanded. "That a woman's sick? Stop the presses."
"For God's sake, House, somebody pointed a gun at you!"
"Merely the first to succumb to a popular desire, I'm sure."
Wilson gave him a hard look. "I'm sure it's occurred to you that someone could be making her sick?"
House rolled his eyes. "Oh, please. Give me some credit. She tested negative for all known poisons. Yes, I checked. Surprise."
"Greg--"
"Damn it, James, just drop it, would you? She's at the hospital now, she's safe, and I'm going to find out what's wrong with her. End of story."
Wilson stared down at him. "And that's it, is it? Your job begins and ends at the hospital, and everything else can go hang?"
"Of course not!" House burst out, and he stood too, with some difficulty. "We don't even know a crime's been committed--"
"Have you taken a good look around?"
"Okay, breaking and entering, but besides that! And--" House broke off abruptly.
"And?" Wilson demanded. "Come on, don't stop now, we all know you're never at a loss for words--"
"And it's my case," House said flatly. "Not the police, not the CDC. Mine."
Wilson just gaped at him.
"I knew you were an arrogant bastard," he said finally. "But this..."
He trailed off and shook his head.
"Look," House said, a little desperately, "at least wait until the tests come back. Give me that much time."
Wilson gave him a flat, unreadable look.
House gritted his teeth together. "Please."
Wilson walked over to the window and peered out. "Funny," he said, "I don't see any flying pigs."
"Ha fucking ha."
Wilson sighed. "You have till tomorrow morning. Then if you haven't called the police, I will."
"Excellent," House said, and pulled the original Knowles file out of his briefcase-- creased and grimy now, rather worse for the wear, and probably irrelevant by this point, but it never hurt to be too careful. "Hang onto this, would you? I'm pretty sure it's what they were looking for."
"I-- you--" Wilson snapped his mouth shut.
"Oh, come on," House said, and grinned. "I'll give it to Chase if you don't."
"You wouldn't," Wilson said.
"Watch me." No need to mention that Chase was holding onto the new file. James was stressed enough already.
"Of course you would," Wilson said with a sigh.
"You know, you really are the bestest friend--"
"Shut up," Wilson said, snatching the file out of his hand. "Please."
House smiled. "Well, when you ask so nicely."
Wilson had made halfhearted noises about House sleeping at his place, for safety's sake, but since he knew that House would rather chew his own leg off than spend the night in Julie's home, the impulse was short-lived. Then he started on about sleeping on House's sofa, and House very nearly had to whack him with his cane to make him go away.
Finally alone, he double-checked all the locks, feeling foolish as he did so. It obviously hadn't stopped them the first time. After a moment's deliberation, he dragged the piano bench in front of the door and then glared at it, as though daring it to comment.
House didn't think he'd be able to sleep; his brain was too busy, sifting through the possibilities, putting pieces together and then discarding them. But pain, drugs, and a too-long day made for a potent combination, and he hadn't lain in bed long before he was out like a light.
He thought he heard the telephone ring, once, while still in the murky depths of unconsciousness. But by the time he surfaced, the phone by the bed was silent, and the answering machine was all the way in the next room...
House shifted his leg slightly, downed another pill, and slept.
He managed to bully his car into starting the next morning, after fifteen minutes of swearing at it and kicking the tires. Things were looking up.
His good mood lasted exactly half an hour, at which time he walked into the conference room and was greeted by Foreman's and Cameron's guilty looks.
The news was not encouraging.
"What do you mean," House asked, in a low, dangerous voice, "she's gone?"
Cameron stared at the ground. Foreman met his glare squarely and retorted, "Now you're concerned? Last time you all but bit my head off for disturbing your beauty sleep."
God, sometimes House just wanted to throttle him.
"Last time," he growled instead, "was a sixteen-year-old boy with a noncommunicable brain disorder, not a dying woman vomiting blood. If you can't see the difference, I may have severely underestimated your capacity for intelligent thought."
Foreman glared back at him. "Yeah, but at least I've got street smarts, right?"
The door of the conference room opened before House could respond. He spun around and demanded of Chase, "Why didn't you call me?" From the corner of his eye, he saw Cameron glance up sharply, looking hurt. He ignored her.
Chase just looked exhausted. Even his hair was limp. He handed House a file and said simply, "I did. You didn't answer. I left a message."
Oh.
House flipped open the file, and Chase added, "The CT scan showed some mesenteric adenopathy. Her white counts are elevated, and the blood culture came back. It's definitely bacterial."
House raised his eyebrows in question. Chase gave him a look that said clearly, Of course, and House murmured, "Good boy."
Chase wasn't done. "A definitive culture won't be ready for at least another day. Till then, I'd suggest broad spectrum antibiotics, but--" He shrugged.
"Yeah," House said. "Too bad the patient isn't here so we can treat her. That'd be keen."
Foreman's eyes were darting back and forth between them, like a spectator's at a tennis match. Finally, he demanded, "Why are you even on this case? It's a bacterial infection. The culture will tell us which one. It's boring."
House gave him a quick, dismissive look. "You're right. Let's not bother treating patients; let's just break for recess. I call dibs on the monkey bars."
Foreman looked annoyed, but said, "Exactly. The patient's diagnosed, and now she's gone. I can understand why anyone else would be worked up about it, but why are you still interested?"
"Because," House said, snapping the file shut, "the diagnosis isn't the mystery here."
"What does that even mean," Foreman muttered, but House wasn't paying attention. Wilson had appeared in the doorway, silent and implacable. House could feel the eyes on the back of his neck.
He sighed, cutting off Foreman in mid-grumble. "Cameron," he said, suddenly very tired, "call the police."
She gave him a strange look and said, "We already did. They're looking for Shirley now, and--"
"Call them again," House interrupted, and limped past her to his office.
He didn't bother shutting the door behind him. Sure enough, Wilson did it for him.
"Go ahead," House said, slumping into his chair. "Say it."
"I wasn't going to."
"I would."
"Yes, well," Wilson said. "That's why you're the asshole and I'm the nice one."
House snorted. "How little they know."
Wilson ignored the dig. "You know you have to tell them everything."
"Yeah," House said after a moment. He wasn't sure whether Wilson meant his team or the police, but either way, it was true.
"You know they could charge you."
The police, then. "Wouldn't be the first time," House muttered.
"You could get fired--"
"Aren't you just a ray of fucking sunshine?"
Wilson was unruffled. "I want you to be prepared."
"And I want a pony," House snapped. "Doesn't mean I'm gonna tack horsehair to your ass."
"Well," Wilson said after a moment, "that was fairly random."
House sighed and dry-swallowed a Vicodin. "I'm not very good at playing defense."
"No," Wilson agreed, sitting down. "Being offensive is much more your forte."
"You'll come visit me prison?"
"I'll bake a portable TV into a cake."
"Excellent. I love it when a plan comes together."
"You were right about it being bacterial," Wilson offered, after a moment.
"Yeah," House said, and turned on the television. "Big consolation."
Then they sat in silence, and watched daytime soaps together until the police arrived.
Schaeffer and Lowell were not happy.
"So basically," Schaeffer said, "you're telling us that you covered up a possible crime for over a week, putting an innocent woman's life in danger?"
"Be fair," House said to his cane, as he slid it back and forth between his hands, studying the fine grain of the wood. "First of all, I didn't know it was a possible crime until the day before yesterday. Second, her life was already in danger. If anything, I added a few more days to what was already a seriously abbreviated life span. And third, if she were innocent, she wouldn't be dying in the first place."
Silence. House frowned and picked at a small flaw in the wood. Was that a splinter?
Finally, sounding strangled, Schaeffer inquired, "How exactly do you figure that?"
House looked up in surprise. "Well, obviously, if someone's making her sick, there's a reason for it. Someone wants her to die from what looks like natural causes, and they wouldn't go to that kind of trouble if it weren't more dangerous to keep her alive. Put it together with her fear and her attempt to hide her clinic visit, and it's kind of blisteringly obvious that she knew something she shouldn't."
Schaeffer and Lowell exchanged a look. Schaeffer looked grim. Lowell looked like he was either about to lose his shit, or... well, lose his shit in a different, less fun way.
"Face it," House said smugly. "She's as guilty of withholding evidence as I am. If you're gonna arrest me, I demand you arrest her first."
Wilson rested a warning hand between House's shoulder blades. House twisted around in his seat and glared up at him. "Don't you have work to do?" he demanded.
"No," Wilson said, and made no move to leave. He'd stuck around, God only knew why, and was standing behind House's desk chair like a sentry. House figured he was either there for moral support, which he didn't need, or to make sure he didn't annoy the cops into arresting him anyway, which... okay, he actually might need that.
"Delinquent," House muttered. He turned back to the cops, who still stood between his desk and the door, as though blocking his means of escape. Like he'd get very far before they tackled him. "Look, is there anything else? He might not have anything to do-- it's not like the head of the entire oncology department has any actual duties to attend to-- but I do."
Wilson gave a small, disbelieving snort, which he quickly turned into a cough.
Schaeffer ignored him. She was flipping through a file. "Dr. House, you were recently charged with... battery against a patient at this hospital, is that right?"
House rolled his eyes. "Yes, once upon a time I unlawfully tried to save the life of a dying man. I'm clearly a desperate criminal out for blood."
"So you have a history of disregarding the law when it suits you?"
"I plead the fifth," House said. "And also remind you that those charges were dropped."
"Right," Schaeffer murmured. Lowell scribbled something in his notebook. House stared at him, and he fumbled nervously with his pen.
"So help me out here," Schaeffer continued. "Why, exactly, didn't you report this right away?"
House sighed. "Do we really need to get into my motives here? It was a judgment call, I made it, it went badly. Can we get to the part where I promise never to do it again?"
She pinned him with an icy glare. He was impressed despite himself; she'd clearly had a lot of practice with that particular expression. "I suggest you start taking this seriously, Dr. House. You're in serious trouble here."
"And me taking you seriously is going to get me out of trouble?" House drummed his fingers impatiently on his desk, ignoring Wilson's second warning hand, this time a light squeeze of his shoulder. "Look, I did my duty, I called you guys and confessed like a good boy. So whaddya say you go do your job, and I'll sit here and do mine?"
Schaeffer elbowed Lowell, and he snapped his notebook shut.
"Don't go anywhere," she said, and gave first Wilson, and then House a long, speculative look.
House waved his hand airily. "Well, I was gonna run a marathon later today, but okay, you talked me out of it."
The door closed behind them, and House leaned back in his chair and said, "You realize she thinks you're my boyfriend."
"Well, you always said I was a masochist," Wilson said, as he, too, made for the door.
"That's because I've known your wives. This could be the start of a beautiful relationship."
"Yes, it always turns me on when you insult my taste in women."
Ooh, touchy. House quickly sidestepped the subject. "Think I could use it to my advantage? They might not be so quick to charge me if I could cry unfair discrimination due to homophobia."
Wilson opened the door to the conference room and said over his shoulder, "I think if your defense rests entirely on the suggestion that we're having sex, you're better off fleeing the country."
In the next room, Cameron, Foreman, and Chase all turned as one to stare at them.
House blew Wilson a kiss and said loudly, "See you at home, honeybuns."
Wilson rolled his eyes and turned to leave.
"Remember, the red lace is my favorite!" House yelled after him.
His only response was an upraised middle finger.
Wilson was right about one thing. Well, actually, Wilson was right about several things, as he usually was, but House figured it was for the man's own good not to tell him as much. Kept him on his toes. Kept him humble
House approved of humility in other people. It was just one of those things, like marijuana and fancy suits, that never quite worked for him.
But Wilson was right about one thing in particular: House wasn't a detective, and more was the pity. If he were, he could investigate Shirley Knowles's husband, try to find out exactly what he did and what he could have possibly gotten involved with. As it was, House didn't even know the man's first name. All he really knew was that Mr. Knowles probably didn't wear polyester suits.
This was the kind of thing he'd usually tell his team to do, and be relatively confident that they'd come back with something useful. Foreman probably knew all sorts of ingenious criminal ways of getting the dirt on someone... well, okay, he probably didn't. But it was so much fun to watch him get all indignant when House suggested it.
Usually he'd tell his team to do it, so he wasn't quite sure why he didn't do so this time, except maybe some unexpected attack of embryonic conscience that kept his mouth shut every time he was tempted to open it. Taking professional risks was one thing, but he'd already had a gun pointed at him. Getting any of the kiddies involved in a potentially life-threatening situation would be inexpedient, to say the least. House liked his team. He didn't particularly look forward to replacing any one of them.
Unfortunately, said embryonic conscience left him without much else to do. The patient was gone, the blood culture was growing, and Chase was currently passed out on the table in the conference room, drooling into his hair, while Cameron mainlined coffee and Foreman, again, was nowhere to be seen.
With a sigh, House hauled a pile of reference books onto his desk and opened one to the first page to read. If he could beat the blood culture to a diagnosis, it might give him some ideas as to what was going on.
Also, it would just make him feel special.
In the end, it didn't take long at all.
It helped that he'd started with A.
"Oh, hell," was all he said at first, staring at the page; and then, "Of course.
House glanced at the conference room again, and of course it was empty now. Chase and Cameron had vanished, leaving only a half-full coffee mug and a puddle of drool. He sighed. This was why they couldn't have nice things. Hadn't their mothers ever taught them to pick up after themselves?
He reached for the phone, then reconsidered, glancing at the clock. Wilson would be just starting clinic duty now, and he felt like sharing his genius in person.
Of course, his "genius" in this particular case consisted of... well, reading a book. But that was already more than most doctors could claim. No, the real puzzle lay in figuring out what Shirley Knowles's disease actually meant. And he was starting to put the pieces together...
He ought to tell the police, he knew. But that could wait. Wilson came first.
House stood and grabbed his cane, and had just reached the glass door of his office when he finally noticed the man on the other side, frozen in the act of opening it.
He studied the man for the barest moment, taking in the expensive haircut, the well-cut suit, and the general air of dishevelment and desperation, and then opened the door and said, "Monsignor Knowles, I presume."
"You have to help her," Knowles said, pushing past him into the office.
House let the door fall shut and rested his forehead briefly against the glass. Then he turned around and said dryly, "Any suggestions as to how?"
Knowles was pacing back and forth, hands clasped behind his head in frustration. He tossed House a furious look but said nothing.
"I'm good at what I do," House said to fill the silence, as he limped back to his desk. "But even I haven't figured out a way to cure anthrax from a distance. Or were you relying on my hugely powerful brain waves to do the trick?"
Knowles stopped and stared at him. "So you know."
"It took me a while," House admitted as he sat down. "Which I'm not proud of. In my defense, there have been maybe eleven recorded cases of gastrointestinal anthrax in the world, none of those in the United States, so I can hardly be blamed for it not being the first thing to spring to mind."
"We were in--" Knowles began.
"Mexico, yes, I heard. But that's not where it happened, is it?" House smiled a little. "That's where it started, sure, but it's not where she got sick."
He dropped the smile and leaned back in his chair. "Someone had to put it in her food. And unless you've got a disgruntled cook with a germ lab in her basement, that leaves, well..." He spun his cane between his fingers, then pointed it like a teacher's pointer, or a magic wand. "You."
Silence. Knowles seemed frozen in place.
"It's not even supposed to work that way," House mused. "They've tried it, feeding the spores to lab monkeys, but the stubborn little buggers simply refused to get sick." He shrugged. "Maybe it's different for human lab rats. Or maybe your friends juiced up the formula, so to speak."
"My friends," Knowles echoed dumbly.
House raised his eyebrows. "Yeah. Your friends. You know, the ones you're financing to generate anthrax spores and sell them to the highest bidder?"
Knowles's hands started to shake. His voice was hoarse. "How-- how did you know?"
House gave him a pointed look and said, "For one thing, you just told me."
Knowles opened his mouth, then shut it again.
"For another," House said, "I'm extremely intelligent. Mind if I try my hand at the rest of it? Your wife said Mexico was a business trip, and it was. Just not the business she thought. Now I'm just taking a wild stab in the dark here, but I'm guessing you and your friends were meeting with a potential buyer, your wife saw something she shouldn't, and you decided to kill her. Am I getting warm?"
"You--" Knowles looked stunned.
"I watch Alias," House explained. "I know how these things work."
Knowles rubbed his hands furiously on his trousers, wrinkling the fine fabric. Desperately he said, "I didn't-- I never wanted to--"
"Right," House said. "You're in love. No wonder you're poisoning her."
"They said-- they were going to do it themselves, I thought if I gave her a chance to get help--"
"Hedging your bets," House said. "Very clever. I can see how you became such a rich, important man. Obviously not rich enough, though, or you wouldn't have gotten yourself into this mess." He narrowed his eyes. "Of course, the fact that you're here now suggests either a sudden attack of conscience, or you've just realized that the shit is precariously poised to hit the fan. Would you like to know my guess?"
"I've had quite enough of your guesses," Knowles snapped. "The police are involved now. It's over. If you come with me, if you treat her-- she doesn't have to die!"
House rolled his eyes. "Sorry. Fatal disease. You don't get takebacks."
Knowles went pale. "You can't-- you can't cure her?"
"I could try," House allowed after a moment. "At this late stage, if it hasn't gone septicemic or meningeal, she's got maybe a sixty percent chance of pulling through with antibiotics. Of course, any idiot could dose her. You don't need me for that."
"And if it has gone--" Knowles hesitated. "What you said?"
"Well," House said, "then the odds are significantly lower."
"I looked it up," Knowles said, and House rolled his eyes and muttered, "Of course you did." God bless the internet.
Knowles was still talking. "They said-- they-- an infectious disease specialist, they said. That's you, isn't it?"
"Oh, sure," House said. "Me and fifty other doctors at this hospital. So which is it, my good looks or my charming personality?"
"If something goes wrong," Knowles insisted, "you'll know what to do."
"Which is no guarantee that I will be able to do it," House retorted. "Pick a side, you moron. If you want your wife to live, bring her back to the hospital for treatment. Otherwise I'd invest in a good mourning suit."
"I can't!" Knowles yelled. His face was white, his eyes red. "I can't get her away from them! But I know where they're keeping her! I can take you there!"
"And what, I'll crawl through the air ducts to get to her, right?" House reached for the phone. "Sorry, not interested. The police, however, will be."
"No police," Knowles said.
"Yeah, I tried that. Didn't work so well." House started to punch in Schaeffer's number.
"No police," Knowles said again, and when House looked, he found himself staring down the barrel of a gun for the second time in as many days.
He willed himself not to react. Knowles was... was not not-Knowles, and there was a fun linguistic tangle if he'd ever heard one. Knowles's hands were shaking around the grip of the gun. He was sweating. He looked terrified.
None of which necessarily made House feel any safer.
"Never done that before, have you?" he asked quietly, still staring at the gun.
"Please," Knowles said. "She's my wife."
House slowly replaced the receiver.
"I assume you have a plan?" he asked after a moment of silence. "You know, some feasible way of getting me out of the building at gunpoint?" As he spoke, he fumbled in his pocket for his cell phone, the movement hidden by the desk. He couldn't punch in a phone number without looking, but he could hit redial-- the last outgoing number had been one of his team's pagers, though he'd be damned if he could remember which. It wasn't ideal, but it would have to do.
Knowles moistened his lips but said nothing. House sighed, glancing from the gun to the glass door, and Knowles caught the look, twisting around to hide the gun from view of the hallway.
Fabulous. House would be doing much better if he could actually hide his disdain for idiots. Too bad Knowles was one of those rare people who managed to pick up on it.
"Look," House said, "you're obviously not very good at this. Why don't we just say nice try and forget this ever happened?"
"Get up," Knowles said finally, his voice low and hoarse.
"Was that a no?" House stood with some difficulty. "Great, step one accomplished. What's step two?"
At which point Chase knocked lightly on the glass door before poking his head in the office. "What's up?"
Chase. Of course. House groaned inwardly. The only non-American on his staff, and he was the last number called.
Well, Chase made much of his misspent youth. Perhaps it had included bad American thrash metal bands as well as drugs and debauchery.
"I'll be gone for a few hours," he said. "Page Drs. Schaeffer and Lowell. Tell them to keep an eye on Scott Ian for me."
Chase looked blank. "Who?"
"The patient," House said, with as great significance as he dared. Knowles wasn't looking; he waggled his eyebrows meaningfully. "Scott Ian. Look it up."
"I don't--"
But it was too late. Knowles had been glancing back and forth between them, brow furrowed; then the penny visibly dropped, and he yelled "Shut up!" and raised the gun, aiming at Chase.
Chase jumped about two feet. "Whoa, hey!" His hands shot up.
"Idiot," House muttered. He'd thrown the dice, gambled on John Knowles not knowing the lead guitarist of Anthrax. There was a reason he only gambled with patients' lives. He'd never really had much of a poker face.
Wide-eyed, Chase looked about twelve. His gaze darted between House and the gun. "Which one?"
"Both of you," House snapped. He glared at Knowles. "Look at him. He doesn't have the first clue what I'm talking about. He's British."
"Australian," Chase murmured.
"Do we need to have this conversation again?"
Knowles looked like shit. "I don't care," he said, his voice shaky. "You're both coming."
"Well, sure," House said. "You can't let him go now. Not after you've waved a gun in his face. Nice going, Slick."
"Dr. House," Chase said, in a remarkably steady voice, "what the hell is going on?"
House glanced at Knowles. "Whaddya say? Do we have time for the requisite expository scene, or are you kind of in a rush right now?"
"Come here," Knowles said to Chase, ignoring him. The gun was trained on Chase's chest, Chase's body mostly blocking it from view of the hallway. There wasn't a lot of traffic in this wing in the first place, and most people who passed by didn't bother glancing into House's office, having learned from bitter experience to avoid him at all costs. Which was usually the way he liked it.
Knowles's eyes were fixed on Chase too. As Chase started to move, House reached for his cell phone again, but Knowles barked at him, "Hands on your desk."
"Teacher," House murmured, "leave the kid alone."
"Shut up," Knowles snapped, and grabbed Chase. One hand went to the doctor's shoulder, the other shoved the gun under his white coat. Chase's hands were still in the air, and Knowles said, "For God's sake, put your hands down."
Chase lowered his hands and held them awkwardly at his side, visibly uncertain what to do with them. With the gun hidden, the two could almost pass as good friends. Extremely snuggly good friends.
"Beautiful," House said. "If I had a camera, I'd use that photo for my Christmas cards."
"Here's how it's going to work," Knowles said. "We're going to walk out of here, get whatever you need to treat my wife, and then go downstairs to the garage. If you try anything, if you talk to anyone, I shoot him."
Chase turned his head slowly and gave Knowles a faintly terrified look, obviously not trusting House to value his life enough to keep his mouth shut.
"I find your expression deeply insulting," House said, grabbing his jacket and his cane. "And also insanely amusing. So who's up for a field trip?"
Chase glanced at him, looking more terrified, not less, and House mouthed, Just go with it. He wouldn't have chosen to go along with Knowles if he didn't have to, but after all, the man just wanted them to cure his wife, not rob a bank. Or so House hoped.
Besides, with Chase along, maybe he wouldn't be the one crawling through the air ducts after all.
End Part Two
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