A House Fan-Fic
entercreativename
disclaimer: I am not the creator or owner of the characters mentioned in this story. I am instead a poor college student with no money or no hope of money. I wrote this story as a means of exploring the characters in the show, not for profit, notoriety, or other self-assuring means.
Chapter 5 - The Staff Meeting Redux
A rustle of papers across the room suddenly jarred House from his quiet contemplation. It had been so long since he thought of his residency in Australia that thinking about it made it seem as if he was back there again. Simpler times. No loss of love to mourn, no infarction to be frustrated over.
"House, are you okay?" Cameron asked from the door to his office. "You were staring off into space and I knocked and…"
"Just peachy! What time is it?" House hadn't really heard her knock, and she knew it too. He knew he wasn't okay. If anything happened to anyone on his team, he knew it would affect him more than anyone would know.
"It's just past 8:15."
"Conference room."
He picked up the folder in front of him and followed Cameron into the conference room where Foreman was waiting for them. Judging by the disproving look on Foreman's face, Cameron had obviously drawn the short straw to get House from his office. Time for House to swallow his pride and pretend like this was any other case. As he approached the whiteboard, he noticed that three other doctors were about to join the trio in the conference room: Wilson, Cuddy, and the new assistant department head of psychiatry whose name escaped him. Great, between the five of them, at least one will know that I'm weak, and it probably won't be the shrink.
"Glad to see we're all here today and I assume that the two of you…" he motioned at Cameron and Foreman, "…got my page." Wilson and the shrink sat down; the shrink chose the seat in which Chase usually sat while Cuddy stood up behind her. Cuddy cleared her throat and looked at House to tell him that she wanted to say something. And here goes my department.
"Everyone, I know that the next couple of days will be difficult…"
Foreman cut Cuddy off as he asked, "What exactly did you mean House by your page of 'The race has gone down? Conference room STAT?'" Cuddy gave Foreman and then House her proactive teacher's look that just said that House was in trouble.
"Well, I thought it was obvious," and it would have been had Cuddy and the shrink not been in the room. His game was to put himself and his team at ease by lightening the situation with humor. Besides, Chase had the best doctors around to help him, they'd find what it was.
"House, your office, now!" Cuddy yelled at him and practically dragged him by his coat sleeve to privacy. "House, what did you send the two of them in that page?"
"Can't a guy have fun?" House responded as fast as he could. "You know, lighten up a serious situation?"
"One of your doctors is in a coma! And I'm here, with help, to make sure that you don't screw up or that anyone's mental state does that for them."
"By sending in a shrink? You call that help? You know I've never trusted that department. You might as well sit here and babysit us. Or get back Vogler, that would work even better." House wanted her gone. He wouldn't admit it, because he knew that eventually he would be right and solve this case, but having Cuddy and the chick from psych here just made him nervous. One false move, even though it would probably happen, would make the shrink go running back to Cuddy.
"House, it's hospital protocol to have someone from…"
"Protocol my ass."
"House…"
"You treated your handyman when he first fell off your roof."
"Because I was the only doctor around, and then he was transferred to your department. House, usually Chase would be assigned to a different department, the best we could find, but the department with the best success rate in this hospital is yours."
Was that actually a compliment? House was definitely affected, but then again, everyone would be. He knew that his usual brand of humor would not help his boss in the current situation. He paused, closed his eyes for a moment and then said aloud, "At least let me tell them." She owed it to him to at least let him do that.
"No cynicism though. I know you."
They went back to the conference room where it was obvious that his underlings probably knew what was happening as Wilson and the shrink had been left in there to ramble with them. It wasn't fair; he kept seeing the boy Chase flash before his eyes years ago in Sydney. The abandonment in his eyes was enough to remind House of himself as a youth. But now was not the time to think about that.
Back in the conference room, House looked at his team and swallowed hard. "Last night, Dr. Cuddy received a phone call from Dr. Chase. He was distraught and obviously needed help. Dr. Cuddy went over to his apartment where he was suffering from a number of symptoms. She called for an ambulance and on the way over," it was too hard for him to continue. He closed his eyes and tried again. "And on the way over, he slipped into a coma."
Cuddy saw House was slipping from his usual detached state; however, he motioned to her that he wanted to continue.
"I know that it is rough…" he couldn't make eye contact with anyone. The ceiling would have to do. "I know it is rough for us to be going through this, however, as we are the most successful department, Dr. Cuddy has assigned us the case." It was too hard to continue. House looked back at Cuddy who took that as a cue to take over for him.
"Yes, as Dr. House said, Dr. Chase is in a coma, and we don't know why. Dr. Wilson has offered to help you sort through labs, and I will be available as well to help." Cuddy swallowed hard. By this point, House was seated on a stool next to the whiteboard. He could tell that this was affecting her more than anyone else. He wanted to be cynical; he had to be cynical so he could stay detached from the case. This is just another case, just another patient with another microorganism that needs to be extinguished.
House was suddenly jarred from his thoughts as the shrink stood up. "Thank you Dr. Cuddy for your introduction. My name is Dr. Linda Sanford and I am new to this hospital. Even though my specialty is psychiatry, I grew up with an interest in infectious disease. I will be available to each of you if you want to talk about what is happening. Even though my main department is psychiatry, I am also the crisis counselor for the staff members of this hospital."
Linda Sanford? House suddenly sat up and remembered his experiences in Australia. Was this the daughter of Libby Sanford? She looked the right age, but her accent was wrong. He looked at her again, and suddenly, more things started to make sense in his life. Cycles. Everything cycles.
The other people in the room made their general introductions and House suddenly realized that he was once again lost in though. He looked back up and followed the other doctors in meeting the new shrink, however, knowing the connection made him view her as a colleague. He also knew that precious time was being lost. He took Chase's chart in his hand and said, "People, precious time is being lost. We need to find what happened to Chase and fix it. We might be down by one member of our team, but with the help of Doctors Wilson, Cuddy, and Sanford, we'll get to the bottom of this."
"Symptoms people!"