Chapter Two
It was three hours later when House finally arrived at the hospital. He checked the clock on the wall and rolled his eyes. Even he hated arriving past noon, and it was going on two in the afternoon. Stupid exterminators…
He pushed open the door to his office and was met with not three, but five accusatory stares. Cameron sat in the chair behind his desk, Chase stood next to the desk with his arms crossed. Wilson was sitting on the couch with Cuddy, and Foreman was pacing near the door to their diagnostic room. This couldn't be good.
Instantly, he put his hands up in surrender. "Not that you'll believe me, but it wasn't my fault." He went to his desk and nodded for Cameron to get out of his chair. WHY did she always sit there! Maybe she actually want to be him… Enough! Back to the point. "I had to call the exterminator. Roaches." He looked over to Wilson. "I need a place to stay for a few days."
"You're looking at me?" Wilson asked incredulously. "I'm not even moved into my new place yet for you to come over and wreck it."
"I don't wreck things when I stay somewhere," House responded, mockingly wounded.
Cuddy stood, bristled, and frowned. "You two can have your little lover's quarrel somewhere else. Where the hell have you been?"
House's gaze slid over to Wilson. "Can I get her for sexual harassment on that? She claimed I was gay."
Wilson, however, rolled his eyes and told House to answer the question.
With a frown of his own, House re-focused on Cuddy. "I told you. I found a colony of roaches in my kitchen sink. I called the exterminators and waited for them to show, only to have them evacuate me from my apartment and tell me to come back in five days."
"And it didn't cross your mind to call here to explain this? You have a patient!" Cuddy exclaimed, disregarding the fact that all three of House's ducklings were in the room to watch him get reamed. Hell, he deserved to be chewed out in front of his employees.
"Well, when no one called to say the patient was dying or anything, I figured it wasn't urgent," he replied, making a face and turning to his computer to open up his e-mail and check it, though he was pretty sure that Cameron already had. But he needed to keep himself occupied.
He hadn't thought to call because he really had figured that if the patient took a turn for the worse, someone would call him. Heaven forbid he come to the conclusion that his team could actually handle something without him there. He'd hired them for a reason; that reason, in fact. They ought to be able to handle things without him.
"House, you can't just waltz in here whenever you want to. You keep this up and I'll have to fire you!"
"Cuddy. Please. You wouldn't fire me if the entire board told you to." House stood, twirling his cane in his fingers. "Look, will it make you feel better if I apologize? Fine. Sorry I had to come in later than expected," he said, not bothering to wait for an answer.
"And for not calling," Wilson piped in.
"And for not calling," House aped. He then looked at Wilson suspiciously. "That sounds awfully rehearsed… Use that one a few times at home?"
"Yeah… You're not staying with me," Wilson said with a frown, pushing himself up from the couch and leaving.
House tapped his cane on the floor anxiously and gave Cuddy a look of frustration. "Look, I'll never do it again, all right? Now go yell at a thoracic surgeon for removing the wrong mass. I'm sure one of them has done it."
"House, you—"
"Please?" he whined. "I'll make sure to have Cameron call me every morning to wake me up for at least a week."
Cuddy let out a snort of laughter and rolled her eyes. "I don't think Cameron would do that."
"I know Cameron wouldn't do that," Cameron herself said, crossing her arms over her chest. "Find someone else to do your lackey work, House." She turned to Foreman and Chase. "I'm going to go write the symptoms on the board."
"I write on the board!" House exclaimed with a glare, pushing past Chase and going through the door before Cameron could. "Cuddy. I promise I'll come to your office later for my spanking. Be gone now, before someone drops a house on you!" He stopped and smirked. "Heh… House… Get it?"
Cuddy took in a deep breath, gave House a glare, and stalked out of the room, leaving a grinning Chase, an eye-rolling Cameron, and a smirking Foreman behind her.
"Onward!" House said, holding the door for his ducklings. He made his way to the dry-erase board and picking up a marker. "Hit me with some symptoms, kids."
The three of them took their seats around the table and opened up the files. Chase was the first to speak up. "Twenty-three year old female, Caucasian. Came into the clinic a few weeks ago saying that she'd missed her period for the past two months. The pregnancy test came back negative."
House nodded and wrote missed cycle on the board, then looked to Foreman.
Foreman shifted and tapped the folder with his index finger as he recalled the symptoms. "Anemia, diagnosed at age fifteen. Patient was married at age nineteen and has been with her husband since. She's had four miscarriages."
Turning back to the board, House wrote four miscarriages before turning to Cameron. "I'm sure you got the most detailed patient history possible," he told her a bit scathingly.
She frowned and looked at the folder in front of her. "Patient has been diagnosed with type one diabetes as well as anemia. The family history is practically spotless, except for the mother, who currently has osteoporosis."
House frowned as he wrote the remaining information on the board. "So we have a woman with four miscarriages, two skipped periods, type one diabetes, and anemia?" he asked with a quirked eyebrow. "And all before twenty-five. That's just sad. But here's my question: why was she admitted? And why was she given to me?"
Cameron cleared her throat and rustled the papers, drawing House's attention almost immediately. "What aren't you telling me?" he demanded.
"She was admitted when she had a seizure. She's never had one before."
House had been ready to throw the marker back down on the dry-erase board's holder when Cameron made her confession. Instead of throwing down the marker, he quirked his head to the side. "Now THAT… That's interesting."