Well, here is your next chapter. After a few requests I have actually written the missing scene from Chapter 5. If you want to read it you can either drop me a review or email and I can send it to you or you can find it at my writing LJ - under the name SwordKat - along with almost everything else I've written. (I've just started it and haven't got everything on there yet - should be done soon.)
Wilson sat in the passenger seat of House's Corvette with an air of resignation around him. As it turned out, beard burn had been the least of his problems this morning. House had left more than one mark on his neck and not all of them could be hidden by the collar of his shirt. And unlike House, he didn't think he could get away with wearing a turtleneck today, not that House actually was wearing a turtleneck today. House had been more amused than apologetic and had made many suggestions, none of which were overly helpful. Wilson had endured this with slightly exasperated patience until House made a particularly lurid remark. This had prompted him to push the older man carefully up against the wall of the bedroom and make his own mark.
He snuck a glance over at House and swallowed a smirk at the livid mark that now resided just where the stubble ended on the other man's neck. He was sure they were both going to regret their…enthusiasm when they got to work but at least it had been rather fun putting the marks there in the first place.
"I think I'm going to hide in my office today," Wilson said conversationally.
House shot him a scornful look. "Chicken."
"Greg, we have matching visible lovebites," Wilson replied patiently. "What precisely do you think is going to run through people's minds when they see them?"
"That Julie's an animal and I got surprisingly lucky last night," House replied with a smirk. "It has the benefit of being at least half true."
"That might work if I wasn't sure that the news of my impending divorce hadn't already hit the hospital gossip rounds," Wilson replied. "Not to mention the fact that Julie has never left marks on me."
"Well, that doesn't mean they won't still think that I got surprisingly lucky last night," House said.
"We both did actually," Wilson said with a flash of a grin then he gave House a curious look. "You're not at all…well, worried about what people's reactions might be?"
House snorted. "James, people have been making assumptions about us for years. Most of them will be of the opinion that it wasn't true then and isn't true now. People will believe what they want to believe, evidence to the contrary."
"The Arnello brothers," Wilson muttered. "I suppose you have a point."
"Besides think of the amusement value of Cuddy and Cameron's reactions when they see the marks," House pointed out, the expression on his face only a step or two below evil.
Wilson covered his face with one hand and sighed. "You used to poke ant hills when you were a child, didn't you?"
"Not to mention Foreman and Chase," House continued blithely, ignoring Wilson's comment. "Though I'll bet you twenty bucks Foreman reacts the least."
"Not taking that bet," Wilson replied as they pulled into the car park. "Foreman doesn't like you that much. Respects you, yes, likes you, no. He wouldn't care if you were sleeping with goats as long as it doesn't affect his work."
House snorted as he parked the car. "What work?" he said snidely.
Wilson rolled his eyes as they got out of the car and headed inside.
"Did Chase give any details about this new one?" House asked as they walked in the doors.
"No, just that she'd been admitted and was showing the same symptoms," Wilson replied. "When are the CDC supposed to be getting here?"
"Sometime this morning," House replied absently. "Probably earlier rather than later."
They had reached the lifts by now and House prodded the button with his cane. The doors slid open and the two men got in. The ride up was quiet and when the doors opened again, House limped out and headed straight for his office. Wilson walked beside him then laughed softly when they came into view of the conference room.
"You should send them home tonight. They look exhausted," he remarked. "Let the CDC do the overnight scut work."
"Does 'em good," House replied as he pushed the door open. "Wouldn't want them to get ideas above their stations."
House's team were sitting around the table with varying degrees of alertness and all three had cups of coffee in front of them. They briefly glanced up when House and Wilson walked in and began to visibly pull themselves together.
"What've we got?" House demanded as he headed for his office and dumped his bag inside the door.
Wilson let his bag drop just inside the conference room and headed over to the coffee machine. He poured two cups and presented one to House when he came back into the conference room. He received a quirk of the lips in return then House was looking expectantly at his team who in turn were all staring down at various files and other bits of paper.
"Maria Lopez," Chase said as he opened the file in front of him. "Twenty-three year old bank teller. Brought in about an hour ago after she attacked a cab driver and then tried to chew her own fingers off. We've sent off urine and blood for the tests to confirm this is the same thing as the others and we've started her on Allopurinal. We're also monitoring her kidney function."
Chase looked up at House rather tiredly at this point then his eyes widened and he became a touch more alert as the mark on his boss' neck caught his attention. He suddenly remembered the phone call from Dr Wilson rather than Dr House this morning. His gaze flickered up to House's face then over to Wilson whereupon his eyes widened again at the sight of the marks on that man's neck. His lips twitched and mirth filled his eyes for a brief moment before he flicked a glance at the oblivious Cameron. He resolutely turned his attention back to the file in front of him.
House, having followed that sequence of events, shot Wilson a look full of sardonic amusement which garnered a resigned sigh in return. "How are the other two?"
"Susan McIntyre's kidneys are starting to fail," Cameron reported grimly. "She's on dialysis but she can't stay like that forever. Rina Tyler's kidneys are close to failing as well."
"Hate," Wilson muttered to House, drawing the attention of all three young doctors.
"He hates them to death," House replied and both men did their best to ignore the looks they were getting from Cameron and Foreman as they saw the marks on their respective necks and put two and two together.
From what House could see Foreman was mentally dismissing the whole thing as irrelevant but Cameron looked pale and slightly shocked though that expression was quickly fading into one of minor betrayal. He sighed inwardly; she was going to be fun to deal with. Chase was watching Cameron with amusement and House did a quick mental re-evaluation of the young Australian. Clearly he'd been having a greater effect on Chase than he thought, something he heartily approved of.
"Who hates who to death?" Foreman asked with a confused frown.
"Nevermind," House said dismissively. "Get everything we have on all of the patients together. The CDC will be arriving sometime this morning. Don't want the big boys to think we're just local yokels, do we?"
With that House limped towards his office, Wilson following him in. The moment the door closed behind the two doctors, Chase grinned at his co-workers.
"I was right," he said smugly.
Foreman rolled his eyes and he got up and grabbed the files on the first two women. "Who cares?"
"You don't care that House is apparently sleeping with Dr Wilson?" Chase asked with a wicked grin.
"He can sleep with whoever or whatever he likes," Foreman said bluntly. "I couldn't give a damn."
"You don't know that they're sleeping together," Cameron said defensively.
Chase snorted derisively. "Did you see those lovebites? What do you think happened? They picked up a couple of hookers and had an all-night orgy at House's place?"
Foreman looked over at Chase, who was now blushing slightly, and scowled. "Thank you very much for putting that image in my head. I really needed it right now."
Cameron gave Chase a look that wavered between prim and disturbed. "I don't think we should be gossiping about our boss. Besides we've got work to do." With that she stormed out of the conference room.
"But we gossip about House all the time," Chase said mildly, his blush fading.
"We bitch about House all the time," Foreman corrected. "There's a difference."
Chase snorted and shuffled through the paperwork in front as he determined whether he had everything the CDC would need.
The team from the CDC arrived about an hour later, just after seven thirty. Dr Cuddy was with them and she introduced them to House's team before gesturing for them to take seats around the conference table and heading into House's office where he was still talking with Wilson.
"Dr House," she said firmly before doing a double-take that House intended to remind her of for as long as he could possibly get away with. Her eyes flickered from House's neck to Wilson and then down to Wilson's neck. She closed her eyes for a brief moment then muttered, "I do not want to know."
She then took a deep breath and turned her attention back to House. "As you can see, the team from the CDC are here. I'll leave them with you."
With that she turned on her heel and stalked out, pausing briefly to speak to the short, stocky man who was standing in front of the white board and eyeing the writing on it with interest.
Wilson pushed himself to his feet as House did the same. "Play nice with the new kids, House," he said with amusement.
"Why?" House replied archly. "I never have before."
"They might be able to help," Wilson pointed out as he walked out into the conference room. He nodded briefly to the doctors from Boston then picked up his bag and left.
The short, stocky man turned to House, his face calm and curious. He looked House up and down, raising an eyebrow at the cane then held out a hand. "I'm Dr Stephen Martinson. You seem to have a very nasty little situation here."
House limped over and shook the other doctor's hand. "Dr Gregory House. It just got a bit worse this morning. New one."
Dr Martinson's expression became grim. "What the hell is going on here? Some kind of outbreak? The information that was sent indicated this was caused by some kind of mutated HIV."
"No," House said firmly. "This is deliberate. The police are trying to track down the man the first girl…" He turned to his team.
"Sarah Hooper," Cameron said patiently.
"Sarah Hooper went out with," House continued blithely. "He's the source of all of this."
"He has it?" Martinson asked. "Wouldn't that make him our index case?"
"Except he's not here," House pointed out. "Wilson and I were discussing this yesterday. This is far too deliberate. All of my patients are women in their twenties. They all look alike. There's a pattern. The virus has been engineered. This is a deliberate attack by someone who is very angry at young women."
Martinson paused as he thought through. Several of the doctors from the CDC starting nodding.
"Then the logical assumption is that he's probably infected with HIV himself," one of them observed. "And that he got it from a woman. Interesting."
"But what he's got is not the same HIV the women have," another said. "And that makes this HIV an engineered virus."
"Which theoretically should make it easy to find this guy," a third added. "There really aren't that many scientists good enough to create something like this." This doctor looked over at House. "What's this genetic disorder that the virus is mimicking?"
"Lesch-Nyhan," House said shortly.
"What's that?" one of the CDC doctors said with a frown.
"Mutation in the HPRT gene on the X chromosome," Foreman replied. "Causes a build up of uric acid along with neurological effects. Self-harm, mostly self-cannibalisation but they will attack others, beat their heads against the wall and so on."
"Oh yeah, I've heard of that one," the doctor replied with a grimace. "Nasty. I can see why you figured out it was something engineered. X chromo disorders are rare in women."
"What condition are your patients in?" Martinson asked.
"Two dead, two dying and one just in this morning," House said acidly.
Martinson frowned before turning and picking up a pile of faxed notes. He glanced at them and his frown deepened. "The first girl presented two days ago and she died yesterday? Jesus, that's quick."
"That's scary," one of the doctors at the table muttered.
Martinson glanced down at the papers in his hand then back at House. "Maybe you'd better run through all of this again. I want to make sure we're all perfectly clear before we get started."
House nodded and flicked his hand at his team. They exchanged glances before Foreman stood and ran through everything they'd seen and done with the five women in the last few days. Once he finished he sat down and there was silence in the room.
"You say that the police are looking for this Michael Larette?" Martinson finally asked.
"For what's its worth," Chase said with a tinge of disgust. "We don't think he used his real name and Sarah's not around to identify him for us."
"What about this latest girl?" Martinson said. "How did she get it?"
"There's a small puncture wound just above her clavicle like three of the other four women," Cameron replied. "I checked that after Dr House suggested it last night. Only Susan McIntyre didn't have the puncture mark. But she probably contracted it from the bite."
"So this latest woman might have gone out on a date with our mad scientist as well?" one of the CDC doctor's asked, sitting up in his seat in sudden interest.
"She's still unconscious so we don't know yet," Cameron replied.
"Arnie, go and track down where this girl lives and where she works," Martinson ordered then he flicked a glance at House. "And take one of Dr House's team with you."
"I'll go," Cameron volunteered.
The doctor who had suggested the date nodded and stood. He gave Cameron a quick grin. "Shall we?"
Cameron quickly gathered up her notes and dumped them rather forcefully on top of Chase's pile. She then took off her lab coat and grabbed her jacket from the back of the chair at one of the desks. The two doctors then headed out of the conference room.
Martinson turned his attention back to House. "I take it the bodies of the two deceased girl are still here."
"They're down in the morgue," Chase offered.
Martinson's lips quirked in a small smile. "Then perhaps you could take my pathologist, Dr Fitzgerald, down so she can get started on the autopsies?"
Chase nodded and stood along with a middle-aged and rather severe-looking woman from the Boston team.
"Am I looking for anything in particular?" she asked Martinson sourly.
"Just whatever you can find, my dear," Martinson replied urbanely. "I wouldn't profess to tell you how to do your job."
"Good thing," the woman muttered as she and Chase left the room.
Martinson chuckled then turned to the rest of his team. "Mark, Terry, go and find some lab space and start sequencing this little bugger. I want to know what it does. That'll go a long way towards figuring out what kind of scientist we're dealing with. Annie, Carl, if you could go with Dr Foreman and have a look at our three remaining patients."
The remaining doctors all got to their feet and shuffled out of the room, leaving Martinson and House. The CDC doctors eyed House with amusement.
"I see you've mastered the art of supervision," he observed.
House snorted and decided this doctor might actually be tolerable to work with. "What's the point of having minions if you don't put them to work?"
"Minions," Martinson mused. "Is that what they're calling them these days? I'll have to remember that. I wonder how my team would react if I called them minions."
"You need the reputation for being a misanthropic son of a bitch before you can get away with doing that," House replied with a hint of amusement. "You don't strike me as that sort of man."
Martinson chuckled. "True. I've cultivated the appearance of an absentminded fuddy-duddy. It's very good for disarming people and works well with my looks." He gestured towards his short, stocky frame.
House snorted as he headed for his office, Martinson following along. He sat down in his chair and leaned his cane against the desk while Martinson took Wilson's normal seat.
"How long has the McIntyre girl been on dialysis?" the CDC doctor asked quietly as he laced his fingers together across his stomach.
"Most of the night," House replied with a grimace. "Not that it's helping. Her kidneys are failing anyway."
Martinson made a frustrated noise. "You know this virus can't actually be giving them Lesch-Nyhan? Lesch-Nyhan is caused by a mutated gene, an absence of an enzyme. These girls all have a perfectly good copy of the gene that should be producing a perfectly good enzyme."
House nodded. "I know. The gene in the virus must be producing something that binds with the HPRT enzyme."
"Hmm, yes, you're probably right," Martinson said as he frowned in thought. "The almost non-existent levels of HPRT and phenomenally high levels of uric acid seem to point that way." He took a deep breath. "Well, not to worry, Dr House. My team is one of the best. We'll find an answer."
"It's not the answer I'm concerned about," House replied archly. "These girls are dying. I don't suppose any of your team have a way of curing them in their pockets."
Martinson's face went very still. "With the speed this virus acts, we're not likely to save any of them. Even if we could treat the symptoms effectively, there is no vaccine or cure for HIV."
House scrubbed his face with one hand. "I know," he said with no hint of his normal sarcasm.
"I wish I had better news," Martinson said quietly. "Let's just hope that the police can track this man down quickly, before he can harm anymore women."