Foreman had the tests back in his hands, trying not to frown at the results. He wondered, at times, whether House had some in with the guys down in the lab and if they worked on a system of forwarding the results to him before Foreman could get a look. The issue at hand was, of course, that House had won the bet. The kid's white count was slightly down, which ruled out infection.
Foreman sighed and opened the door, rolling his eyes slightly when he saw that Dr. Gordon was still in there, hovering about his boy.
"Are those Bobby's tests?" Dr. Gordon inquired bluntly, pointing to the papers in Foreman's hands.
Foreman forced a smile – come on, he told himself, you deal with House, you can deal with this guy – and gave a nod. "Hot off the presses." He set them down as far from Dr. Gordon as he could, picking up his stethoscope. "Bobby, can you take a deep breath for me?"
The boy nodded, his hair falling into his eyes – if the kid had a mother around, she probably would have been insisting he cut it. "Like this?" he asked in a small voice, taking a very deep breath.
"Just like that," Foreman said with a warm smile. He eased the stethoscope out of his ears. "You a swimmer? Lungs like those?"
"I want to…"
"No, he isn't," Dr. Gordon interrupted brusquely.
Foreman gave the man a stern look. "I was actually talking to your son."
"And not healing him," Dr. Gordon's reply was swift and cold. "You might want to look into that." He met Foreman's gaze over the bed and the two doctors were locked in a staring contest, just until Bobby starting coughing, chest heaving desperately. Foreman pulled his gaze away first.
He was gasping for air. "I can't…" he whimpered. "Dad!"
His throat was closing up by the choking sounds.
Dr. Gordon softened for the first time since he had been admitted with his son and he looked up to meet Foreman's gaze. "Please," he exhaled. "Help my son." And he took a step back and let Foreman go about his work to intubate Bobby one more time, working quickly and avoiding having to give him a trach scar. He had been stable just hours earlier. What the hell had happened in the time between?
Foreman left the father with his son and watched the sudden shift in his demeanor. It was like the cold man from before was completely gone.
He flipped back to the history. What was the patient doing when symptoms presented? His old professor's voice chimed into his head, an old and brittle voice. According to the history, he was on a playground and he scraped his knee. But then, the history didn't match the symptoms.
Unless the kid had an underlying condition.
Foreman flipped shut the chart and headed in the direction of the lab to test the blood for some infections. One in a million chances were their specialty and if this kid had something that caused his white cell count to dip instead of soar, he'd figure it out.
Chase walked in on something like scrapbooking. The patient was in his bed with his wife and best friend flanking him and laughing over something that looked like a half-finished wedding album. He cleared his throat at the door, holding the history in his hands. Time to get the true story. "Hey guys," he greeted. "Sounds like a real party."
Annie laughed. "Dr. Chase," she greeted warmly. "We're putting together our wedding album." She held up the thick, white-bound book. "John took the pictures at our wedding and we didn't really want to waste money on a professional to assemble them." She held up a picture of her and David eating mouthfuls of wedding cake without a fork. "What do you think?"
"It's…nice," he concluded. "Think you can spare a minute?"
"Sure," John agreed, putting aside the box of pictures. "What's up, doc?"
Chase's eyes tracked the wedding book as though that might hold all the secrets he was looking for, but he pressed on, finding the patient's gaze and only the patient. "Our tests show that your cancer is progressing exactly as it was diagnosed. I'm...sorry, but there's been no improvement, but there's no degeneration either."
The wife and the best friend seemed more affected than David. "What caused the seizures?" Annie asked after a long moment of awkward silence and when she spoke, her voice was hoarse. "Pain management treatments? I...anything to extend the prognosis?"
Chase glanced between the three, noting the almost chipped set to David. "Hey," he assured Annie, clasping her hand. "It's okay. We'll figure it out, huh?" He turned to Chase. "How long?"
What? "You've already heard your prognosis. As for the seizures, we'll get you out when we figure out what's wrong," Chase said slowly, not wanting to give false hope.
Annie appeared to be crying and John was comforting her, shooting daggers at Chase with his gaze, like he was withholding a cure from them or something. David smiled, though -- pretty brave for a guy who was twenty-two years old and dying.
"We'll know if this is a new symptom of the cancer soon enough." And if it's metastasized in your brain yet. Chase offered them a reassuring smile, scribbling down orders for more tests before leaving the room and almost walking straight into House's chest. "Jesus..."
"Just House, but I can understand your confusion," House replied magnanimously, staring inside the room. "Have you seen the healthy two leave his side? At all?"
Chase snorted. "Yeah, right. They might as well be glued together."
House nodded knowingly, as though he'd figured as much. "I want the Three Musketeers split up. Suggest divorce or something." With his cane, he pointed straight at David. "That one. Divide and conquer the puzzle."
Chase gave House a wary glance. "You think someone's lying."
House gasped, as though affronted. "Lying's such an ugly word, apt as it is. Obfuscating the truth sounds neater." He handed the cane to Chase while he popped a Vicodin. "Get the patient alone. Figure out what he's taking."
"Tox screen was clear," Chase reminded House.
House's eyes were still on the room, though he afforded a brief glance back to Chase. "Sweet, sweet overbearing love isn't a drug? Talk to him," House ordered. "Alone."
Cameron was having a difficult time getting answers to any of her questions. The shouts of pain were almost inhuman as her patient shouted and screamed, writhing. "Make it stop!" he barked, nails clawing at his stitches while the nurses fought to restrain him. "My stomach. God!"
It didn't look like a stomach problem. It was lower, likely intestinal, something much worse. And even worse than that, he had gotten at the stitches. He was bleeding again. Cameron lunged for the restraints, tightening them around his wrists. "Kevin," she said firmly, eyes skirting to his friend in the corner. "Kevin, I need you to take a deep breath. You have to relax."
He seemed to calm, but it was just long enough for yet another problem to introduce itself.
"He's shaking," his friend shouted. "What the hell, why's he...?"
"He's seizing," Cameron told him without turning. "Push fifteen milligrams of Ativan. Stat!" She yanked the pillow out from under his head while ripping off the restraints, all the while lowering the hospital bed and slipping a plastic disc into his mouth, getting him on his side and nearly leaning half of her body over to try and steady Kevin. Finally, he stilled and Cameron sighed wearily, hair mussed from her neat ponytail.
She caught sight of House lurking at the nurse's station and tucked her stethoscope around her neck, trying to gain some composure. "We'll monitor him," she promised Matt, slipping out of the room and glaring at House as she approached him.
"So," he drew out the word. "Just a flesh wound, huh?"
"Maybe," she admitted begrudgingly, "there's something else. Maybe."
"Is that 'I'm sorry' in Woman?" House clarified, a hand cupping his ear. "So, what's the issue now?"
"Allergic reaction to the knife, maybe. Infection," she suggested helplessly. "I cleaned the wound. There was nothing there that could have gotten infected."
"Double check. Check his white count, run a tox-screen, and then see if the friend is poisoning him," House listed casually, limping off before Cameron could snap at him that not all patients were being murdered by their friends and loved ones.
Idly, she wondered just what kind of childhood home House had grown up in, if that was the norm.
Foreman watched Bobby carefully, noting that rather than improving with the prednisone they'd given him, he was looking worse. His father kept hold of his hand as Foreman inspected his throat and noted the pale pallor of his skin. "Bobby," Foreman began gently. "Can you tell me how many fingers I'm holding up?" he asked, index finger and thumb raised.
"One and a thumb," Bobby answered very seriously, but his voice had the echo of fear in it.
Foreman laughed at that. "Very clever," he praised and went through about fifteen minutes of tests to evaluate Bobby's cognitive functions and neurological state. He wrote down a few neat notes in the chart. "There's no sign of neurological damage," he said optimistically. "But we're still not sure what it is."
"Still," Dr. Gordon scoffed in disbelief.
"Sir," Foreman swallowed his pride and turned his attention to the older man. "Are you sure this is from the incident on the playground? His white count is a little below normal, not up. I realize you had suggestions, but they make no sense. He cut up his knee. Infection comes from that, not scleroderma."
Bobby was staring up at the two of them with widened eyes.
"Dr. Foreman, may we speak privately?" That definitely wasn't a happy request. Foreman led the way, noting House lurking in the hallway, which could only make a bad situation much, much worse. "What," the man hissed, "are you accusing us of?"
Foreman held up his hands to gently protest. "I'm only saying that I don't think your son is sick because of a schoolyard accident."
"What about lupus, what about..."
"I ran a test for ANA levels, just in case. It's not lupus." Foreman leveled the older doctor with a harsh glare. "If you want your son to live, you've got to be on the level with me."
Dr. Gordon glanced fearfully into the room. "Bobby came by the hospital while I was finishing my shift. There was a nurse watching him, but she took a phone call. He...could have wandered."
"Could have?" House piped up. "He's six. He probably drew all over the walls, ate all the fun candy, and then got himself in a tricky pickle of a situation." Dr. Gordon glared at House. "I'm Dr. House. Big fan."
"Just heal my son," Dr. Gordon muttered with disgust, storming back into the room and ignoring both House and Foreman.
"Nice work fostering trust," House leaned close to confide in Foreman, giving him an 'OK' with his fingers. Foreman rolled his eyes, heading off to run a tox-screen for some legal drugs.
tbc