Morning
That morning, House slammed straight into his office, a scowl on his face that rivalled thunder clouds. All three of his team had watched the entrance through the glass walls, noting that perhaps today would not be a good day to go anywhere near their boss.
Foreman broke his staring first, looking over at Chase and Cameron, and realising that they too had been looking, and probably thinking exactly the same thing as him. 'Who's volunteering to go give him his mail?'
'He can come get it himself,' Chase replied, turning to share a look with Foreman. For once, Cameron didn't jump in to defend House. She just joined in on their slightly nervous look. In an unspoken agreement, they all turned quietly back to their work, hoping House wouldn't feel a need to seek them out to vent his anger.
The morning passed on, and Chase left to start clinic duty. Cameron finished her paperwork that had to be done in the immediate future, and began to sort through House's mail. She didn't really do it purely for his benefit - people knew about his brilliance, and wrote to him asking for consults on cases. She was bored, and finding a new case for the team was a good way to cure that.
Some more time passed, House not emerging from his office by the time Foreman and Cameron headed down to the cafeteria together for lunch. House didn't glance up from his desk as they walked past his office, concentrating on something.
It wasn't until after all three of them were back from lunch (House having worked straight through) that anything interesting happened.
Chase looked up from his crossword, briefly chewing on the end of his pen before making his announcement. 'You know… I think I'm gay,' he declared to the room.
Foreman's head shot up from the journal he was reading, staring blankly into the air for a moment, before turning to stare at Chase, watching him carefully in an attempt to determine the motivation behind this statement.
'Oookay,' said Cameron slowly, staring at him with a similar expression to Foreman, with perhaps a hint more readiness to give comfort if needed.
'Is that a proposition?' Came the gravelly voice as House pushed into the room, a stack of files balanced in one hand. Foreman's eyebrows hit his hairline.
'No,' replied Chase, unfazed.
'Then we don't need to hear about it. Get these done.' House dumped the files on the table and stalked back into his office, moving to his desk where he was out of sight. All was silence in the room for several seconds.
'Really?' Asked Cameron.
'No. I just knew that would get him to come out of his office,' replied Chase with a grinning shrug. Foreman eyed him warily, not appreciating the trick, but moving to pick up the first file.
'What are they?' Asked Cameron, picking up one for herself. She vaguely recognised it as one of the many people that had propositioned House for a diagnosis. Attached to the front page in the folder was a yellow post-it note, scrawled with writing only comprehensible to other doctors, and pharmacists. 'Glandular fever.'
'Mild mercury and cadmium poisoning,' read out Foreman. Frowning, Cameron worked through the stack, checking them all. They were all from the past few days, various cases that House could have taken, but didn't. They'd all had diagnoses stuck on them.
Chase and Foreman stood at the table with her, also scanning through the files. There were quite a lot of them. 'Bloody oath,' commented Chase, impressed.
'Ya huh,' agreed Foreman, having started to sort the files by seriousness, and how easy it would be to solve each problem.
'These ones are just quick phone calls,' said Cameron, picking up a pile she'd helped Foreman sort, and heading to the phone in the room, to start work.
They were very busy for most of that afternoon, contacting referring doctors to tell them House's opinion and sorting out treatments for patients all across the country. At some point, to keep them going, Foreman drew up a table on the whiteboard; one list entitled 'right,' the other 'wrong.' There were 51 files, and some they wouldn't get responses for the validity of the diagnoses, but it was still interesting to see how correct House's sudden spree of diagnoses would be.
Some responses were almost immediate, as some doctors had already worked it out for themselves, or had test results on them that could confirm the diagnosis. By three o'clock, there were nine ticks under the 'right' category, none under the 'wrong' category, and a new, 'not exactly,' category had been drawn with two ticks in it. They were so busy, they didn't notice House leave his office, caning off down the hall, brushing past the people around him without acknowledgement.
He turned up for his clinic duty on time, ignoring Cuddy watching him from the nurse station as he picked up the first file and collected the first patient. He knew she was debating keeping him out of the clinic, but he also knew that she'd heard of his bout of productivity. He was allowed to do clinic duty without comment from her. With a scowl on his face, he had cleared the waiting room within an hour, and sat in one of the exam rooms, toying with his cane as he scanned the empty waiting room through the open door.
His shift lasted until five o'clock, any new people in through the clinic doors quickly and efficiently admitted, or treated and sent on their way. Sick of dealing with boring patients, he headed up to the roof, a place where people would rarely think to look for a cripple that couldn't climb stairs. In actual fact, it was simply very difficult to climb stairs, and he pretended it was a lot worse than it was, to keep his rooftop sanctuary undiscovered. That, and his method of getting up stairs wasn't exactly dignified. It required using the cane in his left hand, and the stair rail in his right and hopping upwards like an amputee on crutches, bad leg dragging.
Standing at the low wall that hemmed the roof, he stared down at the oval below, fishing in his pocket for a packet of cigarettes and a lighter he had secreted there earlier. He only smoked when he was in a really foul mood, mostly because he liked the burning in his lungs, not so much for the nicotine buzz.
'Dr. House,' came the mildly shocked voice from behind him, when he was about half-way through the fag and his thoughts had began to calm slightly. Letting his head drop briefly in irritation, he turned to face Cameron, leaning back on the short wall with his cane resting beside him. He pinned her with an icy blue stare, his flat expression far from welcoming.
'I- I didn't know you smoked,' she offered, still looking a bit stunned but trying to hide it, as it was combined with some worry. House took another deep drag with a grimace, then blew a smoke ring, which widened and blurred as it floated towards her. 'Lot of things you don't know, Alice,' he told her bluntly. Cameron was unsure of herself, sensing his bad mood, but not knowing the reason behind it, or how to tread.
'Uh, we fixed up most of those cases, although there was a couple we won't be able to reach until tomorrow.' She felt the need to talk in the face of that unwavering blue stare, which flatly told her she wasn't welcome. He gave no response, other than taking another drag from the cigarette before dropping it and briefly picking up his cane to stub it out. Cameron wanted to leave, but she didn't see how she could.
'Why are you up here?' She asked, injecting a bit more certainty, along with gentle kindness, into her voice.
'Admiring the view,' House growled, looking her up and down derisively. Cameron blushed. It could even be taken as a compliment, with that sneer on his face.
'I meant… you've been in a bad mood all day,' she started, feeling awkward but trying not to show it. Her hands in her lab coat pockets were curled into nervous fists, fingernails digging into the palm.
'Brilliant observation. No wonder you're a doctor. Here's me thinking you would have been better suited as a hooker.'
'Dr. House!'
'Or is that your second night job?' Another derisive glance up and down her body. His expression was cold, his words intended to wound, but she had a thicker shell than mere insults could break.
'I'll take the shocked silence as an agreement. Did your husband know about it… or was he the one that encouraged you into the profession? All those medical bills would have been expensive.'
Cameron could only stare at him for several seconds, ears suddenly ringing as dark spots floated across her vision. He may have well of just struck her. Somehow, she turned and walked calmly away, down the stairwell and out of his line of sight. She walked calmly all the way to the ladies locker room, where she locked herself in a shower cubicle and slowly slid down one of the walls till she hit the floor, tears already rolling down her face.
Memories of her dead husband brought so suddenly to the surface would never fail to do this to her, and House was perhaps the only person who knew that. She didn't give a damn about him calling her a whore, but the memories of her lover's face, light slowly fading from his eyes as the breath drained out of him… A fresh wave of sobs silently wracked her body.
House watched his young employee leave with an unreadable expression, then turned back to the view and dug out another cigarette.
To be continued…(OK, hands up who got the reference? Cookies for anyone who guesses.)