Hero of the Story
House paused in front of Cuddy's door before knocking. He sighed deeply, disguising his eagerness to get the new assignment. After the knocking part, he heard Cuddy call from inside. "Come in." He entered, and looked around. Cuddy was standing next to her desk, which was in unusual disarray. There was paperwork thrown all over it, and Cuddy herself looked disheveled. She seemed to be searching for something.
"So, what's the case of the week? Probably the same, old, boring stuff of legend?" House asked Cuddy dully as he pushed the door shut behind him. She gave him a look and then sat down at her desk, going through her papers. "Well?" He was slightly confused by the strained look on her face, and the fact that she was biting her lip hard. She didn't even look up at him. "I know you have a case for us. So, out with it already."
"It's Triszika." House was taken aback. He was not expecting this at all. "Nasili Triszika. The assassin."
"I know who Nasili Triszika is." House looked at Cuddy, and she raised her eyebrows at him.
"No witty remark? I'm floored." Cuddy stood up to face House. "All I have to say is that her lawyers are saying that this has to be an unbiased diagnosis. They don't want you or anyone on your team saying that there's nothing amazingly wrong with her when there is. And they don't want any discussion on whether or not she's innocent - to her, to each other, or to the media. This is a very high profile trial, and so this case is high profile. You slip up, they'll be on your throats like..."
"Assassins?" House blurted, cutting Cuddy off.
"Basically, yes." She shoved a small file at him, and he took it. She raised and eyebrow, and went back to trying to clean up her desk a bit. "This is a very important case, Greg." House nodded and walked out ofCuddy's officeto his conference room, where every member of his team was waiting for him. He pushed the door open steadily, and they all looked at him expectantly. He ignored them and went over to the white board. Cameron was sitting in the chair closest to the door, and was putting a newspaper down. Chase was next to her, probably reading over her shoulder. Foreman was somewhat isolated from the other two, drinking a cup of coffee. And as soon as House put his foot over the threshold of the room, they had stopped what they were doing and put all their attention on him.
"So... what've we got?" Foreman asked, breaking the silence.
"Nasili Triszika," House said plainly. "She's had an attack of some kind in the middle of a hearing. It's our job to figure out what happened and get rid of whatever it is before the final testimony, and do this without attracting media attention of any kind." The three team members looked at each other, eyebrows raised, clearly shocked. "I'm serious, too."
"You can't be serious. We have to treat her?" Foreman said unbelievably.
"God, sound more like a biased bigot, will you?" Cameron said exhasperatedly to Foreman. Chase was caught in between the two, just looking at House. "We have to treat her like every patient we've ever had, it would be unfair to her and this hospital to do or say anything that has to do with your stance on the trial."
"How about we just figure out what's wrong with her before we keep debating this?" Chase said, inclining his head toward House, who waslooking at the whiteboard.
"Oh, don't stop on my account," House said, turning to his associates. "I'm just trying to figure out how these symptoms connect."
"For once its something he hasn't seen," Foreman said sarcastically. House gave him a look, and then went back to the board, scribbling away. "Probably just a vein rupture in her head. How is that interesting in any way?" Foreman asked, just after seeing House write "Internal bleeding in head."
"The thing being, Foreman, that it isn't that simple."
"Wasn't she bleeding out of essentially every opening in her head?" Chase asked, trying to avoid arguments, which was generally impossible. Everybody paused and looked at him, and he sunk back into his seat. "She... intrigues me. I've been doing as much research as possible." He tried not to blush.
"Well, aside from Chase having a crsuh on our little assassin, you all have to find Waldo," House said. Everybody leaned forward in their chairs to read everything on the board.
Internal bleeding in head, convulsions, loss of consciousness, delusions, temperature drop, paralysis.
"Temperature drop?" Cameron asked, curious.
"Ding ding ding. We have a winner!" House gave Cameron a mock applause."Her temperature has been dropping rapidly the past two hours. Every now and then it spikes up to feverish levels, then drops back down further than before."
"That doesn't make any sense," Chase said.
"Not only is he in love, but he's observant, too," House said, limping over to the coffee counter. "Here's an extra bit of information, which, of course, Chase should already know. Triszika was shot in the head ten years ago. Grazed, more like. However, she's saying that this has nothing to do with anything. I say, X-Ray her head, CT scan, MRI. It's all good. Now, off to work with you. Go set these things up." House leaned up against the counter as all his workers went off to work on the patient. Chase, the last one out of the room, paused quickly before stepping out the door. "Oh, Chase. I have a special job for you," House said, tauntingly. Chase turned to him, defeated. "I need you to do something for me..."
"What?"
"You need to figure out everything you can about everything that girl has done for the past ten years."
"Since she got shot?" House nodded and slapped Chase on the back with sarcastic enthusiasm.
"How smart you are. You should be a doctor or something." He stepped out of the door in front of Chase, who stood in the room, taking a deep breath before going to the patient's room. He knocked on the door before entering, and when he opened it, Nasili looked up at him with her dark eyes. They were rimmed in red. A young man, who was sitting by her bedside, stood up to go over to Chase.
"Doctor Gregory House?" he asked, with a slight Czech accent. Chase shook his head.
"I'm Doctor Chase, House is my boss. I'm just here to get some information out of Miss Triszika." Then he noticed the man for the first time, despite the fact that he was talking directly to him. He had been staring at Triszika. She looked the same as usual - calm, composed, deadly gorgeous. There was an air of panic about her, but it seemed to not affect her appearance at all.
"I'm her brother, Markus. I live in New York. When I heard about what happened... I had to come." Chase nodded, understanding he brother's panic. Markus looked lovingly at his sister, and she murmured something to him in Czech. Chase averted his eyes from hers. Even when she was addressing her brother, she was looking tantalizingly into his eyes, as if she was trying to say something.
"My sister wants me to leave, so that you may talk with her. I am afraid she knows about as much English as any Czech girl who took it in school does, but if you need anything... a translator, just... anything, please call me out." He said something to Nasili in Czech and went to her side, squeezing her hand and kissing her on the forehead. Then he took his time getting out of the room. As the door closed, Chase went over to the chair Markus had been sitting in.
"Your brother is very sweet," he said, not sure whether or not she could understand. She scoffed.
"Hardly. He thinks I'm some tiny little child, that I could break at any moment. He doesn't even know that I can speak English better than most Englishmen."
"Well, unfortunately, you're in America. Completely different language," Chase said, simpering kindly before taking a seat in the plastic chair. She smiled back.
"You're not from here," she said plainly.
"Australia," he said quietly while looking over a clipboard that was on her bedside table. "I imagine it must be pretty hard to be in the spotlight 24/7 when you're a couple thousand miles away from home," he said to her, trying to get to the task at hand.
"I don't mind. Well, I do mind the kind of attention, but I don't mind that its there, really."
"Well, I've been sent to try and figure some things out. Could you tell me about your family medical history?"
"My mother died in a train accident when I was four. I never met my father until I was 18 and working for the government. Even then, he didn't know I was his. He left my mother when I was three months old. My brother remembers him much better than I. I haven't talked to him in two years. I don't believe he has any medical problems."
"What about Markus?"
"Markus was diagnosed with lung cancer last year. He smoked maybe three packs a day when he first moved to New York. Since then he's been trying to cut down, but it finally caught up with him." She seemed to go very quiet, and deep within her thoughts. It was so strange for Chase to hear her speak. She had this angellically eerie voice, with a thick accent that made her words flow off her tongue like butter. Her eyes were compelling and deep, like a thousand vast oceans pile on top of each other, and the colour of the night sky.
"When you were sixteen, you were shot, is that right?" This made her perk up.
"Yes. I was. In the head. Grazed. Painful, but not that much damage. I have a huge scar, though. And some bone damage. Other than that, nothing important about it. It bled a lot. The doctors said more than it was supposed to." Chase continued to flip through the clipboard that held her file. He saw something and then paused, eyes wide. She sighed, as if she knew exactly what was going through his head at this moment. "And a sanguarian since birth. Try telling a traditional Czech mother that her newborn daughter is practically a vampire and she'll die, I swear to god."
"Wouldn't that have affected the..."
"It did. Thus the bleeding."
"Ah." Chase didn't really know what else to ask about, as he was kind of in shock. He was surprised House hadn't mentioned it. However, he knew that Cameron and Foreman would need a bit of help with all the tests, and there would probably be nurses soon to take Nasili to the tests. "Well, that's all I need for now. Remember, I'm Doctor Chase, and if you ever need anything, you can ask for me."
"Or I could just say I need the handsom blonde Australian doctor, and I'd get you."
"But Doctor Chase is so much easier to say," he said before getting up and leaving.
Just a reminder, I know next to nothing about medical stuff. So please don't review me from this point on about how "THIS DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE!" or "THAT ISN'T REAL!" or any of that.