Well, because you've all been such good little vegemites and I've had a bit of inspiration, here is the next chapter.
Cameron pulled her car up outside the address they gotten from Maria Lopez's licence and looked at the neat house and front yard. Arnie climbed out of the car and she quickly followed him, pulling the sick woman's keys out of her pocket.
"Does this always feel just slightly wrong to you? Creeping into some else's home while they're lying in hospital," Arnie asked as they walked up to the front door.
"Yes," Cameron replied with a wry smile. "Though this is better than the way we normally do it. House usually sends us out without the front door keys. I think he likes the idea of us doing some petty breaking and entering."
Arnie laughed. "Please tell me you actually go and get them anyway."
"Mostly," Cameron replied as she unlocked the door. "Sometimes we're not exactly going there with the owner's permission."
"Dr House sounds like an interesting guy to work for," Arnie observed as they gingerly walked inside.
"That's one way of putting it," Cameron replied.
They walked down the hallway, peering into doors as they passed them. When they found the kitchen, Cameron headed straight for the phone.
"Let's see if she wrote down anything about this date of hers," she said absently as she reached for the litter of papers next to the phone.
Arnie left her to it and looked around the bright and cheerful kitchen. "So what's Dr House like anyway? Dr Martinson said before we left Boston that he's got a good reputation as a doctor."
Cameron snorted. "I'm sure he does," she said with a hint of irritation. "He's a misanthrope. He hates patients and tries not to see them if he possibly can. He's sarcastic, rude and enjoys irritating the hell out of you. He treats us like his indentured servants and has probably only one friend in Dr Wilson." She paused and looked down at the papers in her hand unseeingly. "He's also one of the best doctors I've ever seen. He's tenacious and brilliant and he never gives up until he's figured out what's wrong."
Arnie looked at her with interest as she went back to flipping through the papers. "Sounds like he'd be pretty challenging to work for. Should I ask why he uses that cane or just leave it alone and let myself die of curiosity?"
Cameron looked uncertain. "I…I'm not really sure it's my place to tell you something like that." She sighed. "Though I suppose it's not really a secret, just don't feel sorry for him. He hates that and he'll make you, me and everyone else in the room pay for it."
"You have my word," Arnie said with a grin, one hand over his heart. "I promise I won't gossip about it either."
"He had an infarction in his leg, his thigh to be precise," Cameron said with a sigh. "There were some problems and they operated to remove the dead tissue. It left him with the limp and in constant pain."
Arnie gave a low whistle. "Nasty. I guess adding stubborn to that list of Dr House's attributes wouldn't go astray."
Cameron gave an odd smile. "Stubborn suits him." She put the papers back on the bench. "Nothing there."
"That's because it's here," Arnie replied triumphantly as he plucked a piece of paper from the fridge door. "Tony, Wednesday night, 6pm, Harriet's and a cell phone number. I assume Harriet's is the name of a restaurant around here?"
Cameron nodded. "It's downtown and it's rather expensive too. We should go there and ask if they remember Maria Lopez and her date. And maybe try the number."
"Sounds good to me. We should also give the phone number to the police. They might be able to trace it a bit better than a couple of mere doctors," Arnie said easily. "Anything else we should look for while we're here?"
"I don't think so," Cameron said dubiously as she looked around the kitchen. "We know she was infected and this was probably the first date she'd gone out on with this Tony or Michael or whoever he really is."
"Yeah, probably nothing more of interest here," Arnie agreed as he headed for the front door. "You know that was pretty clever of Dr House figuring all that out. Particularly that odd genetic disorder. He better watch out. Dr Martinson will want to recruit him. He's always looking out for good doctors."
"I don't think Dr House would want to leave Princeton-Plainsboro," Cameron said confidently. "His friends are here and I don't think he'd really be that interested in uprooting himself."
Arnie shrugged. "Yeah, I suppose. I guess people who have disabilities often like to get themselves into set patterns. Makes 'em feel more in control of their lives."
"I don't think it's that exactly," Cameron replied as she opened the front door. "He has tenure here and I think he actually does like his work. And he gets to pretty much pick and choose his cases."
"Dr Martinson will still try," Arnie said as they left the house.
As the front door closed and was locked, the door to the spare room slowly swung open. A tall, slender man stepped out into the hallway and stared at the closed front door with a chilling expression. He'd not expected anyone to arrive at Maria Lopez's home quite so quickly and thus had not had time to remove any hints of his existence. Those two finding the note was unfortunate but not overly threatening. The cell phone was already gone, tossed into the drain after Maria had left. And Tony was not his name.
The man walked along the corridor towards the back door and pondered the information that he had overheard. So a doctor named House had worked out what he was doing. That was interesting. He'd thought he might have a few more weeks before anyone started putting two and two together. He slipped out of the back door, carefully closing it and relocking it, the spare key he'd found almost slipping in his gloved hands. He tucked the key back under the pot plant that stood beside the back door and slipped around the side of the house.
As the man got into his car, he considered his next action. He'd intended to return to one of his normal haunts and find his next subject but as he started the car and pulled away from the kerb he changed his mind. He felt that a visit to Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital might be in order. He wanted to get a look at this Dr House. A man smart enough to work out what he'd been doing might also be smart enough to identify him. It was entirely possible that Dr House would have to be…removed.
Chase led Dr Fitzgerald over to the lifts and pressed the button. He glanced over and was surprised to find the woman looked far less severe now that they'd left the room.
"How did the women die?" she asked briskly as they waited.
"Kidney failure," Chase replied a little warily.
Dr Fitzgerald caught that and amusement washed over her face. "I don't bite, Dr…Chase, wasn't it?"
Chase nodded and looked a bit sheepish. "Sorry. You were just a bit…well, sharp in there."
The doors to the lift opened and they walked in. Chase pressed the button that would take them down to the morgue and they watched the doors close.
"I don't always approve of Dr Martinson's methods," Dr Fitzgerald explained. "And he doesn't always approve of mine. But that's a personal matter between the two of us and you don't deserve to get caught in the backwash of our irritation with each other. Now, I presume that I will see a bit of self-mutilation?"
Chase nodded. "Sarah Hooper bit off the top joint of her left index finger and part of her bottom lip before she was restrained. Rebecca Upjohn also bit of the top joint of a finger, the right ring finger in her case. She's also got what will look like a head wound but it was self-inflicted. She was found beating her head against a wall hard enough to split the skin open."
"Rebecca Upjohn's the one who bit a chunk of flesh out of her roommate?" Dr Fitzgerald asked and Chase nodded. The pathologist sighed. "Probably just as well she never found out she infected her friend."
Chase made a non-committal sound as he led Dr Fitzgerald into the morgue. The pathologist working there looked up as they came in then nodded and returned to his work when he saw Chase.
"We asked them to hold the bodies for the CDC to autopsy," Chase explained as he walked over to the bank of freezer compartments. He checked the doors then gestured to two of them. "Here they are."
Dr Fitzgerald nodded briskly. "Right then. Let's get changed and get on with this. I presume you are staying to help me out."
"Of course," Chase replied with an eager smile before they both went to change into scrubs.
Later that morning the two groups gathered back in the Diagnostic Medicine conference room. They were missing only the two doctors from the CDC who were sequencing the virus. House was leaning against the bench, staring down to where his hands were wrapped around the head of his cane, while Dr Martinson stood in front of the white board bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet.
"Who wants to go first?" Martinson said brightly.
The collection of medical personnel around the table exchanged glances then Arnie flicked his hand upward.
"We might as well," he said with a grin at Cameron. "We found a note at Maria Lopez's house. She apparently went on a date with a man named Tony last night. They went to a restaurant called Harriet's which I must say is very nice. There was a cell phone number on the note which we've given to the police but they haven't got back to us yet."
"The maitre d' at Harriet's remembered Maria Lopez," Cameron picked up the conversational ball. "He was apparently rather appreciative of the dress she was wearing. Luckily he also remembered her date. He said Tony was a tall, thin man with light brown hair, brown eyes and was very well-dressed. The police said they'll get a better description from him."
"Did you call the cell phone?" House asked.
Cameron nodded. "No answer. It just went straight to voice mail. That wasn't any help either. He'd apparently never changed the message from the standard greeting."
"Pretty nondescript sounding guy," Carl muttered. "That won't help identifying him."
"Has anyone spoken to Terry or Mark?" Martinson asked. "How are they going with the sequencing?"
"I spoke to them before we came back up here," Carl reported. "Terry said, and I quote, 'we're working on it and pestering us every five minutes isn't going to make the machines go any faster'. So it'll be done when it's done."
"That's…unusually grouchy for Terry," Dr Fitzgerald observed.
"Well, the community of scientists capable of creating a virus like this in America isn't overly large," Carl pointed out. "Terry's got a fair chance of actually knowing the man who's doing this and I don't that's sitting well with him."
Martinson grunted. "So how are our three patients?"
Foreman, Carl and Annie exchanged grim looks.
"If Susan McIntyre lasts until lunchtime, I'll be surprised. And Rina Tyler won't be far behind her," Annie sighed. "Their kidneys just can't cope with the uric acid levels in the blood even with the massive doses of Allopurinal they're getting and the dialysis. We did find one oddity though. Susan McIntyre had brownish-yellow rings around her corneas. It's quite likely they're caused by monosodium urate crystals. With her uric acid levels being so high I think nearly anything's possible."
"We checked the other two girls and they both had those rings around their corneas as well," Foreman added looking slightly disgruntled at having missed that detail. "Though the ones in Maria Lopez's eyes are pretty faint."
"I found them in the two dead women as well," Dr Fitzgerald added, something made Foreman's disgruntled expression deepen.
"Anything out of the ordinary in the autopsies?" Martinson asked politely.
Dr Fitzgerald shook her head. "Massive kidney failure in both of them," she said flatly. "Lots of signs of elevated uric acid levels. They both had swelling in the joints as well as signs of calculi in the kidneys, ureters and bladder. Given the timeline, this occurred incredibly quickly and the sooner we get this man locked away the better."
There were grim nods from around the table. House had been only half-listening to all of this as he thought furiously. He stared at the people passing in the corridor as he tossed idea around in his mind and wished that Wilson was there to bicker with. His attention had just been caught by the amusing sight of a tall, slender man smiling and chatting to very tiny and slightly rotund nurse when something occurred to him and he looked over at the array of doctors currently adorning his conference room.
"We're going about this the wrong way," he announced.
"How so?" Martinson asked curiously.
"We're trying to work at it from the women's point of view," House replied. "Let's go from our mad scientist's side of things. You've said it yourself; there are only a limited number of people who could create this virus. Let's find out who they are and concentrate on those who live nearby."
There were blank expressions from the others for a moment then a large number of fairly chagrined looks appeared.
House smiled smugly. "I really do have to do all the thinking around here, don't I?"
The CDC doctors looked a little startled and mildly offended at that comment but then got a touch confused when they saw House's team just roll their eyes with resignation.
Dr Martinson gave a resigned sigh. "Carl, go down and speak to Terry. He should be able to give you a list of the scientists skilled enough to do this. Then take the others, split up and track them down." He looked over at House. "I take it we can steal your…minions I believe you call them? None of us know the area that well."
"Steal away," House said with an airy wave of his hand. "Just be sure to get them back before curfew."
Carl smothered a snicker as he shot to his feet and bounded out of the room.
"How are we going to know if we've got the right one?" Chase objected.
"You've got a basic description," House said impatiently. "If they not white and don't have brown hair and brown eyes then cross them off the list and move on. And if they're missing put them on the top of the list and tell the police."
"You think our…er, mad scientist is not working his day job," Martinson said flatly. It was not a question.
"Well, maybe it's just me but I would think it would be a tad noticeable if the average scientist in the laboratory suddenly stopped working on whatever they're meant to be doing and starting killing off little white mice with mutated HIV strains," House replied. "I mean, how much room do you actually need to create your very own virus laboratory?"
"Not much," Annie admitted slowly. "You could probably do it in an average sized bedroom. But surely he isn't doing this at home; some of the machinery needed is horrifically expensive. He couldn't afford that. A lot of laboratories can't afford those machines."
Chase nodded. "Maybe he's doing the development part at work then testing it at home. It wouldn't be that difficult if he was sneaky about it. It'd also be dangerous but somehow I doubt he really cares."
House shot a smug look at Martinson which caused that man to snort with laughter.
"Maybe I should try your tactics with my people," he said with mock-thoughtfulness. "Clearly the kind of mental gymnastics you put them through is good for the thought processes."
"Hey, that idea had occurred to us," Arnie said with a grin. "Dr Chase just got in before we could say anything."
"That's what you say now," House said archly. "But you didn't actually do anything about your idea, did you?"
Arnie shook his head in amused exasperation as House smirked at him.
"Also we might want to look at finding where he's getting his equipment from," House suggested, pushing himself to his feet and limping back and forth. "He'd need test tubes, probably Eppendorf tubes, to store the virus in. Gloves. Syringes. They don't tend to sell those sorts of things in small lots; it's usually a minimum order of 500 or so. Is he ordering this stuff himself or is he stealing it from somewhere? The lab he works at? A hospital?"
"We've got the contacts to do that," Martinson said, nodding at Arnie and Annie. "You two can do that."
The two doctors nodded and headed for the boxes of information they'd brought with them from Boston.
Just then the beepers of House and his team started shrilling and all four grabbed at them. House grimaced as his ducklings jumped up and ran out of the room.
"Rebecca Upjohn, I presume?" Martinson asked grimly.
House nodded and the CDC doctor gestured to his team. They quickly hurried out after Chase, Cameron and Foreman. House returned to lean against the bench and ran a hand down his face.
"You did everything you could," Martinson said calmly. "I can't think of anything I'd have done differently."
"Doesn't help her now, does it?" House snapped.
"No, I suppose it doesn't," Martinson said with a sigh. "I'll go and keep everything under control."
House waved a hand, a sour expression on his face. He stared at the floor for a long moment, hands clenched around his cane.
"Another one?" Wilson's voice was calm and matter-of-fact, a point which saved him from a particularly scathing response.
House nodded and Wilson shoved his hands into the pockets of his lab coat.
"You knew it was likely to happen," Wilson observed.
"And that makes it better?" House snapped. "Oh, do give me the benefit of your realms of experience with dying patients."
Wilson gave House a look of mild reproach before walking over to lean on the bench next to him.
"Of course it doesn't make it better," he said calmly. "Come on, I'll buy you a coffee. I see the pot's empty here."
House grunted and pushed himself off the bench. He limped towards the door with Wilson at his side.
"Damn CDC are drinking all my coffee," he said grumpily as they walked into the corridor.
"House, you're supposed to let them drink your coffee and then make them some more," Wilson replied with a small smile as he swerved to avoid the man who was still talking to the nurse. "They are here to help, after all."
"Ah and here I thought it was to drink my coffee, flirt with my ducklings and clutter up my office."
Wilson snorted then looked over at House with curiosity. "Flirt with your ducklings? Are they really?"
"One of them is," House replied as he headed not for the lifts but Rebecca Upjohn's room. "Cameron's a lucky girl, isn't she?"
"If you're right then yes she is," Wilson replied. "Cafeteria's the other way, you know?"
House glared at him then walked up to where Dr Martinson was standing outside Rebecca's room. He glanced around as House and Wilson walked up.
"She was gone before even we got here," he reported with a frustrated sigh. "Dr Chase is organising to have her taken down to the morgue. Dr Fitzgerald is heading down there now to prepare for the autopsy, not that I think we'll learn anything new. Arnie and Dr Cameron have gone to chase down those suppliers and Annie's heading downstairs to hurry Carl and Terry up."
"Foreman?" House asked.
"He's gone to tell Rebecca's family," Martinson replied, his eyes full of sympathy. "I was about to go and join him. I thought maybe I could explain some of the science and make sure they know we're taking this very seriously and will find the man who did this."
"You do that," House replied and he turned on his heel and headed for the lifts.
"Dr James Wilson," Wilson said, holding a hand out to Martinson. "I'm a…friend of House's."
"Dr Stephen Martinson," the CDC doctor replied with an odd quirk of a smile. "You must have endless patience and I don't think he's waiting for you."
"Wilson! Coffee!" House shouted over his shoulder as he prodded the lift button sharply.
Wilson rolled his eyes. "It was nice meeting you," he said to Martinson before turning and walking up to House. "You know, the cafeteria isn't going to run away. You can wait for five seconds."
The doors to the lift rolled open and they entered. Wilson pressed the button to take them down to the cafeteria and the doors closed. As soon as the lift started to descend, House pressed the emergency stop button and pressed Wilson against the wall of the lift. He captured the younger man's lips in a fierce kiss then pushed away and started the lift moving again.
"Yes, I can wait but I really didn't want to. I'm selfish that way," House replied in a conversational tone as he stared at the number display, humour glinting in his eyes.
Wilson licked his lips and swallowed hard. "Well, yes, some things should be done immediately," he said once he felt he could talk properly again. He then let a rather wicked grin settle on his face. "Though if you're aiming for more life-affirming sex, you'll have to wait until we get home," he said in warm tones.
He was rewarded by a small intake of breath from House followed by a rather heated look. The lift chimed and the doors slid open, prompting both men to wipe their expressions clean as they walked out and headed for the cafeteria.
Neither of them noticed the tall, slender man emerge from the stairwell, look around then follow them.