On Being Insane in Sane Places Chapter Two

extrabitter: I swear, I nearly cried with gratitude upon reading your review. Thankyou so much for taking the time to actually critically read and review this. That doesn't mean I have to agree with all your corrections though... With the double versus single quotation marks- I believe what you use is actually more a matter of personal preference- that's not just me not wanting to change either. Pick a book at random, and you're equally likely to find single as double. I've even read one author that indicated speech by italics. As for the commas versus periods at the end of speech- yeah, thanks for that. I never really learnt what the correct method was for attributions. I've fixed it up as best I can in this chapter, and I'll be careful with it in future work. Loose/lose was a pure accident. I do know the difference. I'll go back and fix it if I can be bothered mangling with fan fiction's impossibly unweildy system. BUT THANKYOU!

Roo: Yeah, I know what you mean about House being more fun when he's awake. Let's see what we can do about that shall we?

Sawyer: Hmm, I didn't even think about rabies- probably cos we haven't got it where I live. Oh well. Hope you like my solution.

And to everyone else, who also made me giggle with glee and scare the cat, my eternal gratitude is with you.

'How we gonna do this?' Muttered Foreman, sitting at the table and looking at the other two as he thought. Chase shrugged at him, Cameron just frowned into her coffee.

'We need him both awake and still for the PET scan, and according to Wilson, those things don't happen simultaneously at the moment.'

'What about muscle relaxants? He'd be awake, just not able to move.'

'If he remembers any of this, he's going to kill us. Do it.'

House was lying on the gurney, still in his rumpled shirt. He was perfectly limp, all except for his eyes, which were rolling slowly, like he was dreaming in slow motion with his eyes open. It looked extremely odd. Between coming out of his second dose of sedatives and being given the muscle relaxants, he'd proven he was still raving. Wilson had made sure his team were nowhere near him to see that transition.

Cameron, Chase and Foreman were watching the screen as the results came up, between glancing at the still form on the table.

'Jesus Christ!' Exclaimed Forman.

'Watch it,' commented Chase offhandedly.

'You're a lapsed Catholic anyway,' shot back Foreman, not tearing his eyes off the screen. 'Would you look at that;' he indicated House's amygdala on the screen with one forefinger. 'He's angry. Really angry.'

'You never know; that could just be normal for him,' joked Cameron, although she was frowning at the picture, which was lit up like a Christmas tree, indicating high activity in that part of the brain which produced angry and violent behaviour.

'No way. Something's stimulating that.'

'What though?' Pointed out Chase. That was the obvious question, and the only one worth answering.

'Whoa, he's twitching. We better get him off there before he wakes up and smashes something.' Cameron noticed the slight twitch of his foot with not indecent worry. The other two nodded and shut the machine down, mobilising to get him back to his room where they could tie him down and sedate him, even if it felt more than slightly strange to be doing so to their boss.

oo00OO00oo

'We got another one,' Cuddy informed them curtly upon entering the conference room. She was greeted with a beat of silence as they processed this.

'Like, another person who suddenly went insane and launched himself at the nearest object wielding his cane? Except without the cane.'

'Yes. With the cane actually. He's just had knee surgery, so crutches really. Room 307.' She strode out, leaving a file behind. They all stared at it for a moment.

'An epidemic? That would probably make it viral.' Chase licked his lips nervously.

'We should check his white blood cell count.'

'I've already got it running in the labs,' replied Cameron.

'Let's go see the newest victim then,' suggested Foreman, leading the way.

The newest victim was a handsome blond man in his late twenties, with a buxom and worried looking blonde girlfriend hovering in the room, despite the black eye that was rapidly forming. Her story was pretty much identical to the ones told by anyone who'd witnessed House's little episode. Man go crazy, attack anything in sight, not respond to anything but a hefty dose of sedatives.

It was somewhat baffling, especially when the blood tests for the both of them came up clean. Foreman scanned through the text-books for any of the more obscure diseases, having checked all the obvious ones. Chase and Cameron spent some time in the clinic, doing House's hours for him and worrying. Wilson sat by his bed.

The oncologist was sitting staring into air, knowing it was serving no purpose for him to be there, but not really wanting to leave. He knew how House hated to be vulnerable, and even if he was unaware of it, stopping a stream of gawking visitors was the least Wilson could do for him. Not that many people were that bent on visiting anyway.

The form on the bed was showing distinct signs of withdrawal, as Wilson and Cuddy had wordlessly agreed that taking him off the Vicodin whilst he was unconscious would do him no harm. Wilson stood and fetched House another blanket, tucking it around him before sitting again.

Despite House's general lack of popularity, a few minutes later the door to the ward opened, and Wilson looked up, interested in something to break the rather boring vigil.

'Have they worked anything out yet?' He asked Cuddy as she entered, scanning the monitors silently before answering.

'No, but we have yet another one.'

Wilson buried his head in his hands for a moment. 'We're going to have to go quarantine and report this,' he mumbled. He got silence in reply.

'Not just yet, but soon. There's no evidence that the three of them have had any contact.'

'Who's the third one?' Wilson lifted his head, staring blankly ahead as he questioned her.

'An elderly lady who flew at her social worker and started beating him with the cast she's got on her arm from a break due to her osteoporosis.'

Wilson raisedquestioning eyebrows at the mention of the medical treatment. Cuddy shook her head. 'It was treated at another hospital.'

'There has to be something connecting them,' frowned Wilson, looking at his hands as he thought. She shrugged with her head, leaving out the door she hadn't closed; now she'd delivered her news.

Wilson turned back to his friend with a sigh, and jumped; nearly knocking over the stool he was sitting on.

House's eyes were wide open, and it read something like a horror movie as he slowly and deliberately tightened the pressure on the restraints. When all his muscles were tensed hard, he twisted suddenly and violently, letting out a snarling cry. Wilson was already moving to inject more sedatives, pulling the cap off the syringe and trying to steady House's arm so he could fit it to the drip.

'I'll kill you, you slimy bastard, I will, I'll rip your fucking tongue out and shove it up your-'

Wilson blinked as a violent litany started, snarled through gritted teeth as House continued to thrash against the restraints. The speaking was new, and possibly even indicated improvement.

'You'll hurt your leg Greg,' he tried soothingly.

'Give me my fucking drugs you arsehole. I'll kill you. I'll strangle you with your small intestine and feed you to rabid pigs-'

The oncologist tuned out the ranting, something suddenly occurring to him like a half-brick to the head. He quickly injected the sedative, watching as House's swearing and struggling slowly subsided. He waited another few minutes in the sudden peace, then searched around the room until he found what he was looking for. Smiling, he went to find House's team.

They were sitting around the table in the conference room, sipping silently at their coffee and looking morose. Wilson entered with a jaunty step, his pockets rattling to alert them to his presence. He'd stopped in at the other two patient's rooms, just to check, and now he was pretty sure.

'What's up?' Asked Chase with a dour twist to his mouth.

In response, Wilson fished in his pocket and brought out a pill bottle, placing it down on the table, followed closely by two more from his other pocket. Chase, Cameron and Foreman looked at the small white bottles, realisation slowly dawning. 'Test these,' said Wilson needlessly. 'If I'm right, all we have to do is wait.'

oo00OO00oo

'How're you feeling?' Asked Wilson when House opened his eyes with a grimace.

'Irritated enough to tell you that that's a stupid question.'

Wilson beamed. House grit his teeth, clearly not entirely over his anger issue. Then he discovered he was tied to the bed. A harsh jerk to the restraints told him they weren't moving, and he gave Wilson a Look, demanding an explanation.

'You got a bad batch of Vicodin. It wasn't blocking your pain receptors. It was stimulating your amygdala, which is why you want to strangle me right now.'

House snapped his gaze away from Wilson's neck, trying to pretend his fingers hadn't been twitching. 'I take it that's why my leg hurts.'

'Yeah. That, and you went AWOL in the clinic and tried to vivisect a couple of people. Bound to cause a few twinges.'

House was looking somewhat smug, and Wilson shook his head in bemusement.

'What? I don't get to be proud of still being able to take out the odd patient?'

'Yeah, sure,' said Wilson, grinning, 'but then, I think your achievement is slightly eclipsed by the old lady who was on Vicodin for an osteoporosis break.'

House raised his eyebrows questioningly.

'She put her social worker in the bed next to her for a ruptured scrotum.'

'Bitch,' snapped House, briefly loosing control with a jerk to the restraints. Wilson covertly fitted another syringe of sedatives into the IV, sending House back to sleep before he'd realised it. When he woke up, he'd be back to his normal, merely very crabby, self. It had been interesting though.

In her office, Cuddy paused in her paperwork for a moment, listening as the whispers slowly fizzled out, and then all was at peace in the hospital once more. She smiled, and began to write again.

The End.

(Post scriptum author's note: The general response to this story is that I didn't milk the idea enough, and I should have written it out a bit. Thank's heaps for your criticism guys; it's really appreciated. I'm not going to change this now though- I'll keep it in mind for future stories however.)