--------------------------
House had rummaged through the entire exam room in search of a whiteboard of sorts. He failed to find paper, much less paper big enough to constitute for a symptom brainstorm. Cameron was suggesting that maybe they could page someone to bring the whiteboard down to the Clinic when House unearthed a permanent black marker from a drawer and solved the problem himself: He began writing on the exam room cabinets.
"All right, differential time…"
"Uh, House, is that going to come off…?" Cameron asked tentatively.
"Janitors are paid, aren't they? Might as well give them a job to do."
Foreman wrinkled his nose in distaste. "That's some ugly graffiti, son. Gimme the marker. Let a brotha show you—"
House yanked back his hand from Foreman's reach. "Haven't we been over this before? Whiteboard." He rolled his eyes upward. "Figures. Even the ghetto Foreman wants to do my job. Now sit down."
Annoyed, Foreman sulked back to the other side of the room, stepping between Chase and leaning up against the opposite counter beside Cameron.
He gave a dramatic chin-raise nod at her, crossing his arms. "Waz up, young breezy?"
Cameron hid her face halfway with the side of her hand. "Dr. House, this is really getting weird…"
House turned around, still writing in the middle of a word. "I'll say. He hasn't said two words to Chase about anything other than his hat. Come on Foreman, our Croc Hunter feels left out."
Foreman's eyes widened in half-hearted surprise. "Bro, straight up. I'm down wit shorty here, but that…?" He glanced over at Chase, who at the moment was trying to make a net out of empty IV bags and some unused (hopefully) patient paper gowns. Foreman tried again, "Is this crazy son my nizzel?"
"For shizzle." House turned back to his whiteboard—uh, white-cabinet. He stepped back so they could read the list:
Delusions
Hallucinations
Insanity
Ghosts
Crocodiles
Gangsters
"Any ideas?" House prompted. Unfortunately, Foreman already had an idea—to start rapping. Again.
He had the arm-sway down, bobbing back and forth from foot to foot, and looking as if he were particularly angry about something. "Get back, get back, you don't know me like that."
Cameron had actually run to Chase's side of the room, assuming his insanity was at least a bit safer. Chase had taken the opportunity to hide beneath one of the patient's gowns. It wasn't working too well.
House sighed patronizingly, tapping his cane against the side of the cabinet. "I hate to break it to you, Foreman, but you spent one night in jail until Mommy bust you out with bail. You stole a car. Big deal. Commit a real crime before you start going all gangster on us."
Foreman actually took the time to stop. He glared at House, jutting an accusatory finger at their substitute whiteboard. "It's gangsta."
"Fine. Have a speech impediment for all I care."
"Well…it can't be airborne," Cameron managed. She'd crawled to the top of one of the counters, leaving Chase to army-crawl across the floor with the gown draped over him, and Foreman to vent and come up with new raps.
"Why not?" House challenged.
"Because I'm not sick; you're not sick, no one else is but these two."
"And Wilson," House reminded her. He paused, his lips pulling into a smirk like they always did when he had a piece of information that could double as bargaining chip. "Actually, Wilson had his own ideas of what could have caused the onset of these symptoms."
Cameron blinked innocently. "Oh? Like what?"
"Like your Happy Pills. You did create Happy Pills, didn't you? I'm assuming this was another naïve attempt to make the world…oh, I don't know…happy?"
"Observant," Cameron muttered, before making eye contact again. "Yes. Yes, so I made these pills. What does that have to do with anything?"
"You gave Wilson some."
She hesitated. "Yes, but…"
"He says these pills cause delusions. Do they?"
On any other day, Cameron would have admitted that they did. But at the present time, her groundbreaking medication hung in the balance, as did her chance to outdo Foreman. Besides, there was no one-hundred percent evidence that the pills caused delusions. She had given them to Dr. Wilson, Chase, Foreman, and House after all—only three-quarters of those people had been affected. House was his typical snarky self.
She had no idea why.
"Cameron?"
"No." She shook her head. "They don't cause delusions."
"Fine, then scrap that idea. It's not like anyone else besides Wilson took the medication anyway." House lowered his chin to his chest, thinking, while Cameron tried not to look suspicious. "Not pills, not airborne… What did they have to eat today?"
"Uh… Chase had—"
"Fire-cooked ostrich in the skillet!" Chase called from beneath his patient gown tarp.
"—a turkey sandwich earlier, and Foreman—"
"F-to-the-Oreman!"
"You haven't reached rapper status to break up your name," House retorted. Foreman, who had been muttering incoherent rhymes over the past few minutes, stopped just long enough to glare at House.
"Son, you don't know me, yo, you don't know me."
"Ah-huh. You've only worked here for the past two years."
"You don't know me, yo."
"Right now, I wish I didn't."
"He had an egg sandwich," Cameron finally squeezed in.
"Ah, yes, the food of the ghetto." House returned to the differential. "And I had a Reuben. Those all come from different tables at the caf, though."
"So maybe it wasn't food," Cameron quickly put in, anxious to get off the subject of potential poisoning. Not that that's what her pills had done, she assured herself. They weren't a cause of these symptoms—they couldn't be.
"Jess a minute, Seppos!" declared Chase, crawling out from beneath his tarp. He approached House, hands on his hips, hat askew and cocked to the side. "Now, I was promised some information on where my croc is. Have I made a blue in trusting you?"
House closed his eyes momentarily. "Dr. Cuddy has called animal control," he lied impeccably. "Professionals should be arriving any min—"
"Professionals!" Chase yelped. He gripped his hat as if his appalled reaction might make it fly off. "You send the bloody dog catchers after a limb-chomping, teeth-filing killer?"
"Teeth-filing…?"
"S'no tellin' what will happen if these rookies get in 'ere and try to trap her! Bloody oath! It'll be chaos like you cobbers wouldn't believe—!"
"I can assure you, they have all the qualification necessary," House said, completely unruffled. "You have to focus on this differential."
"No way, mate!" Chase suddenly dove forward and snatched the black marker out of House's hand. He was leaping onto the counter before House could stop him.
"You're the Croc Hunter, not George of the Jungle," House muttered, limping speedily after him as the Australian dashed from counter, to chair, to exam table, nearly knocking over Cameron, test tubes, and a rather disgruntled Foreman in the process.
Chase finally got his foot stuck in the sink, which ended the pursuit rather abruptly—and with a loud clunk.
"All right now, Chase? Give me back the marker," House said.
The blond stared, gasping, at the open palm. "No!"
"Chase, what do you want with the marker?" asked Cameron as rationally as she could.
"You don't know what you're dealin' with, mates!" Chase cried. He managed to stumble back to his feet, still standing on the counter. House went to interrupt but the Australian was already absorbed with drawing on an open cabinet space.
"But now he gets to do graffiti? Y'all just excludin' a brotha. That ain't right."
"Okay, we get the idea. You're upset." House bothered to take one look at Foreman before returning his attention back to Chase's scribbles. "Either suck it up or go back to your crib and cry."
"Nah, son, I ain't no poseur. I got the illest raps, the med degree, droppin' it real from the East Side, know what I'm say'n?"
"Not really." House squinted at Chase's drawing, which was looking like a great Cubist interpretation of Jackson Pollack's work, if that's what he was aiming for. "Chase, what is that?"
"You mean to say you can't tell, mate?"
"Ooh, it'll be like Pictionary!" Cameron said hopefully. "Um… It's a flowerpot!"
"Are you blind!" House interrupted, gesturing to the drawing with his cane. "It has legs! A caterpillar!"
"That's just messed up, son. That's just messed up."
Relenting, House agreed. "Well, art is open for interpretation. When I look at that I see…crap. But I really feel it! It's like—like the crappiness of your soul—"
"Fine," Chase snapped, putting the cap back on the marker, "be a knocker! You bludgers wouldn't bother to take a Captain Cook anyhow!"
Everyone stared, confused.
House raised an eyebrow. "Quick. Someone Google what he just said. Some website should be able to translate. And if not… Does Chase ever say anything that's really important? No? Great! We'll all be fine, then."
"It's the croc," Chase sighed in exasperation. He drummed the marker up against what was apparently supposed to be the animal's forehead. "Now, look at this stunning creature and tell me your dog catchers will be able to handle her."
"What is that thing growing out of her head?" Cameron asked.
"Those are her eyes, for cryin' aloud, Shelia!"
Chase was too busy defending his drawing, and Cameron was too preoccupied being confused, and Foreman was too involved in his latest rap, to notice that House had left.
--------------------------
"Are we still at war with Nam?"
Wilson had pulled up a seat to the now-no-longer-a-coma patient's bed. The elderly man had himself propped up against the headboard with a pillow and was looking around with obvious irritation.
"Uh… No, the Vietnam War has been over for three decades," Wilson replied, slightly confused. "You had to have seen it end. You were only in a coma for nine years."
"Are those idiots still set on flying to the moon, too?"
"We've—We've been to the moon. And Mars. And some other planets."
"I bet you crazy young'ins got flying cars!" he snapped.
"Not quite. Sir? Are you all right?"
"Do I look all right? I just came out of a dagnabbed coma!"
"Yes, so I understand that you're a little confused. I'm sure waking up is very exciting—"
"Exciting?" spat the coma patient. "What are you, insane?"
That seemed to be the common belief, Wilson thought, but he was too taken aback by the patient's anger to speak aloud.
"I spent nine blessed years in that coma and then you have the nerve to drag me out of it with those blasted pills!"
Wilson stared in complete shock. "You mean you didn't want to wake up?"
"Who would? Bunch of lunatics wandering around out there anyway. But if I keep on sleeping, I get a nice bed, time to myself—" He gestured to the IV, which was still dripping fluid into his arm. "I don't even have to throw in my dentures to eat!"
"You—you were a vegetable," Wilson sputtered.
"A happy vegetable. Now I have to put up with this nightmare. God, the one thing I'm afraid of happening, and it happens!"
Wilson leaned back in his chair, sighing. Oh, great. The coma patient's fear complex had been waking up. The Happy Pills had struck again, and no one looked particularly happy about it.
"Well, don't just stand there," the coma patient demanded. "Do something. You woke me up! Put me back to sleep!"
"I don't think I can…"
"What do you mean? You're a doctor! What were those pills you gave me to begin with?"
The oncologist rubbed at his temples. "I gave you some new medication. It… It's supposed to create euphoria, but first it triggers fear."
"Don't you lie to me, sonny," the patient snapped. "I did two tours in Nam, and I can tell you, I've seen every kind of medication there was for the stuff we came across, and there is no such thing as that!"
"Sir, it's 2006. Thirty years later."
"You wouldn't believe the crazy stuff the government had in secret labs—"
"I took some of these pills, too," Wilson tried. "I know the fear effects. I'm seeing ghosts."
"Ghosts?" The patient was silent for two seconds, and then he threw his head back into chest-rolling laughter. "Ghosts? No wonder I've been asleep for nine years! They gave me a crazy doctor!"
"I'm not crazy," Wilson said, but his insistence was sounding less and less convincing. "And I'm not even your doctor."
"You sure were in here enough. I have every line of General Hospital memorized thanks to you and your potato-eating-slob of a friend."
Wilson wished he could rewind that whole statement. "What? How could you know that?"
"Listen here, sonny. I've been in an unresponsive coma. That doesn't mean I couldn't hear."
Wilson was about to object that actually, yes, it did mean he couldn't hear; because his brain was technically in deep-freeze, but just then there was a familiar knock on the door again.
"Hey!" House called through the doorway, which was still blocked by Chase's lookout loft. "Who are you talking to now?"
The oncologist sat back in his chair again, realizing just how unfairly bizarre his life had become in one morning. "The coma patient."
"Is he up or is this just another hallucination?"
"Shut up, you soap-watching complainer! And learn to eat over your plate! I got nine years worth of potato chips over this bedsheet!"
Wilson picked up the coma patient's files attached on the end of his bed. He could at least attempt to distract himself with something that looked remotely professional.
Even House paused at the elderly man's outburst. "Good morning. Nice to see you up-and-at-him."
"It would be nice," barked the patient, "to see the inside of my eyelids again!"
"Uh-oh," House said in a lilting voice. "What did you do to our coma patient, Dr. Wilson?"
"He gave me some new-fangled medication! I'm a veteran! I demand my rights!"
"Sir…" Wilson perused the patient's history within the file he was reading. "Uh… It says here you have no history of military service."
"Of course not!" the patient exploded. "It was top-secret. You young whippersnappers think you know this world inside out? You don't know the half of it! The government knows what you ate for breakfast this morning!"
"I don't see how that relates," House muttered from outside.
"Of course you wouldn't!"
Wilson furrowed his brows in increasing perplexity. "Sir, according to this, you fell into a coma in November of 1997..."
"Correct."
"…but only after you were diagnosed with amnesia."
The patient stared at him, expressionless. "I don't remember that."
"No, I wouldn't think that you would," House commented.
Wilson set down the file. "Do you have any idea who you are?"
"You have the doggone file; who does it say I am?"
"There's no name," Wilson said. "And no mention of military duty, no nothing."
"I see this hospital takes great medical histories."
"We live for them," House said with fake sincerity.
Wilson scratched at an imaginary itch on his neck. The coma patient was growing more annoyed by the minute at the whole situation's inconvenience, which he viewed Wilson's solely responsible for. "Okay. Mr…?"
"Just call me what you have been calling me. Mr. Coma Guy."
"We meant that with the utmost respect," House interrupted.
"Actually," the patient said on second thought, "make that Special Private Coma Guy. That was my rank in the military."
Wilson was similarly wondering if someone could just shoot him. He had an awake coma patient who was delusional because of the medication and because of his amnesia; and he had one more ghost to be expecting.
All because of those darn Happy Pills.
Wilson sighed. Special Private Coma Guy sat up straighter, glaring disapprovingly at the doctor.
"You look pathetic, Soldier. Now, you got us into this mess, so figure something out."
"I'm going to have to keep giving you those pills," Wilson finally decided. "The side-effects wear off within a few hours. Once that happens, you'll probably lapse back into a vegetative coma."
"Thank you, I'm saved!"
House knocked again on the door. "What are you talking about? The pills don't cause delusions!"
"Of course they do, House! How else would you explain this?"
"Cameron said there are no side-effects."
"Everyone lies!"
"No! That's my line!"
"Well, you're not saying it."
"Fine! Everyone lies! But even if they do cause delusions, that doesn't make sense. Foreman and Chase are acting insane, too—"
Wilson realized House didn't know about what Cameron had done. He got to his feet and walked to the door, speaking through the crack so House could hear him more clearly. "They were slipped pills in their food."
"Cameron lied again?"
"She just wants everyone to be happy."
"She could've baked us a cake or something, not drugged them," House muttered. "Now Chase has turned into Steve Irwin and Foreman thinks he and Snoop Dogg are tight."
"And…" Wilson said hesitantly, "and you?"
"What about me?"
Wilson paused. "Cameron gave you pills, too. You're not feeling…strange? No fear symptoms?"
The oncologist could practically hear House's skepticism. "Uh…no…"
"But that doesn't make sense."
"It's an anomaly. I like anomalies."
Wilson could hear the cane clicking, the sound getting further and further away. He knocked on the door to call House back.
"Wait—what does that mean?"
"It means our differential has changed. And you have a Secret Private Coma Guy to entertain."
----------------------------
Wilson listened until House's steps and tapping of his cane had faded out. He turned back around and nearly fell over.
"What the heck is wrong with you?" grumbled Secret Private Coma Guy. "You like you've seen—"
"Don't say it," murmured Wilson. He nodded a greeting to the Ghost of Hanukah Future. "Hey, Julie."
She tilted her head at him, tapping a finger at her bottom lip. "Long day?"
"Just a bit."
Secret Private Coma Guy's eyes roamed back and forth around the empty room. He had decided his doctor was insane after all. "Just a bit what?"
"James, I have come here not to ask a favor, but to warn you."
"Warn me? Warn me of what?"
"The hospital is going to be getting a surprise visitor…"
"Dagnabbit, what the heck are you gaping at, sonny?"
Wilson's mouth dropped open when Julie told him who it was.
----------------------------
House had limped back towards the exam room. Inside, Foreman was finishing up his rap and Chase was trying to fix his crocodile drawing. Cameron looked like she was close to tears.
"You," House said to her as he threw open the door, "lied."
He would have said more, but suddenly there was a roar of something that sounded suspiciously like a motorcycle. But they were in a hospital. No one rode bikes right through Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching—
Of course, there's always a first time.
House turned to face the looming figure on top of the bike as it pulled up, the engine still revving. On any other day, he might have been surprised. But this apparently wasn't any other day.
The man on the bike pulled off his helmet with some difficultly. He'd had a heck of a time cramming it over his disproportionately large, ego-swelled head.
House leaned amiably on his cane. "Hello, Ed."
"It's Edward." Vogler stepped off his black motorcycle, small eyes glimmering as a smirk crossed his face. "And I've come back to destroy you."