Chapter 14

House was hiding out in his office, listening to his Ipod. It was not the most original hiding place certainly, but as good as any. He knew Cuddy would hunt him down anywhere, even the men's room and sometimes the best place to hide something was right under a person's nose. Besides, Cameron was covering his clinic hours, so he was free and clear, unless a new case came in.

Cuddy barged into his office mere moments later, and ripped the earphones off him. She yanked so hard, the Ipod slipped out his pocket and into her waiting hands.

"Clinic, now!" She barked.

"Damn Cuddy, give it back. Cameron's covering the clinic today." He reached his hand out for his Ipod.

"No, Dr. Cameron isn't in the clinic. And you can have this back after you've finished all six of your hours." She turned and walked out of the office.

"Six!" House shouted, following after her. "I only owe you four hours."

"You get an extra two for trying to dodge clinic duty on your second day back to work." Cuddy gave him a falsely sweet smile and slipped away.

House grimaced, treated himself to a Vicodin and went back down to the clinic.

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Six mind-numbing hours later, he returned to his office to find Cameron sitting at his desk checking his mail.

"You were supposed to cover my clinic duty today," he griped at her.

"Forgive me, it must have slipped my mind," she replied. She purposely kept her voice low and calm.

House opened his mouth, a really nasty comment had come to mind, but he stopped short. Maybe Wilson was right, he was being a little hard on her. It must have been a tough few days; he supposed it wouldn't kill him to cut her a break.

"Don't let it happen again," was all he said.

Just then Cuddy came into the office and laid a file on his desk.

"You have a new case. Shockingly, this patient requested you." Cuddy smirked; she knew that wouldn't be enough for House, but this case was a little different. Cuddy hoped this would be the distraction he'd been looking for. "I've had her transferred upstairs for you."

"There's nothing wrong with this woman," House said. "Her medical records are so clear its actually boring."

"Those are her previous medical records," Cuddy replied. "She brought them with her when she came into the ER."

"She carries her medical records around with her?" Cameron asked. That didn't make any sense. Why would an obviously healthy person carry around their medical records?

"New case?" Foreman asked as he and Chase entered House's office.

"The patient walked into the ER about two hours ago. She was perfectly fine; in fact she drove herself here. She told the nurse in admitting that she was about to become very ill."

"About to?" House asked.

"Yes. She told the nurse she was going to have a mysterious and life threatening illness. Naturally, the nurse assumed she needed a psych evaluation. The nurse put her in a room, and while waiting for her consult, the patient collapsed. You've seen her records, she clean as a whistle." Cuddy hadn't told them everything, yet. She was holding something back, House could tell. Not even this story was enough to make him take the case.

"Why did she request me?" House asked.

"Well, she had a vision that she was going to become ill. She came here because she saw the hospital logo." Cuddy paused. "She's a psychic. The ER had to administer a mild sedative; she's confused and keeps trying to pull out her IV to go home. While the nurses were trying to ask her some questions she wrote this."

Cuddy held out one last piece of paper; the shaky letters read: house can save me.

House and the ducklings entered the conference room, and House began writing symptoms on the whiteboard.

30-Year-Old Female

Psychic Visions

Fever

Loss of Consciousness

Sensitivity to Light

Neck Pain

"You're including her vision as a symptom?" Chase asked.

"It could be indicative of a neurological disorder," Foreman suggested. "Auditory or visual hallucinations could be misinterpreted as a vision by an otherwise healthy person."

"Healthy people don't see things that aren't really there, last time I checked," House replied. "Cameron, do a little digging into this patient's history. Check with other local hospitals. Anybody who carries around a set of perfect medical records like this is probably hiding something. Chase, get an LP, the whiteboard is practically screaming meningitis at me. Foreman, do a neurological exam to see if our patient is really seeing things, or just plain nuts."

Cameron went to her computer and began crosschecking the patient with other hospitals. House walked back into his office and took out his Gameboy. Cameron came in after him a short while later.

"She's had no admissions or treatments from any hospital in New Jersey or New York in at least five years. The only thing recent thing I could find is a visit to her primary care doctor for a cut to her finger, no stitches." Cameron reported. "You don't believe she really had a vision."

"Of course, not. All that psychic nonsense is just a bunch of crap. You don't believe in that sort of stuff, do you?" He asked because he wasn't really sure of her answer. She was a good enough doctor, but he thought she was still a little naïve, maybe naïve enough to believe in something so ridiculous.

"I don't believe it or disbelieve it," she answered. "The average human only uses about 10 of their brain, its possible that some people have abilities beyond what we consider normal because we don't really know what the rest of the brain can do."

"I bet you still believe in Santa and the Easter Bunny, too," House snarked.

"No," she replied. "I just don't start off immediately by assuming every patient is either lying, crazy or stupid."

"You should, most of them are one or another. Some of them are all three, why do you think I try to avoid the clinic so much?" House didn't look back up from his game; until they got some test results back there was really nothing else to do but wait.

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"The LP is positive for meningitis," Chase announced as he flung the test results on House's desk. "Why are we even on this case, a med student could have diagnosed the meningitis."

"Yes, but could a med student explain how she got meningitis? Or why her meningitis is presenting with hallucinations?" House shot back. This was exactly the type of case he'd been hoping for when he came back.

"House, what difference does it make how she got it?" Foreman asked. He didn't really see the point in all this. "It's easily treatable, especially for an otherwise healthy person, which this patient is."

"Otherwise healthy, except for the hallucinations. Am I the only one who heard that part of the differential?" House snarked. "The patient came in to the hospital expecting to get sick," House continued. "Doesn't that sound odd to you? Maybe she infected herself intentionally. I ordered a psychiatric consult, and Foreman I want an MRI, maybe there's a tumor that's causing these hallucinations of hers."

"Now you think she has Munchausen Syndrome? Or a tumor? House, maybe she just felt sick and came to the hospital. I hear people do that sometimes." Cameron was feeling a little snippy. It had been a long day; she was tired and wanted to go home. The patient had meningitis, they could cure her easily; why was House torturing them with this?

House glanced at Cameron. She must be tired, he thought, that sounded like something I would say.

"Maybe you're just so cynical and closed-minded, that you can't even accept the possibility that the patient might have had a vision." Cameron said. "Have you even spoken to her?"

"What?" House asked, incredulously. "Me, speak to a patient?"

Finally Cameron had enough. She stood up and straightened her back. She wasn't going to stay here all night just because House felt like complicating an incredibly easy case.

"I'm going home," she said. "I'm not staying here all night and performing unnecessary tests on a patient just so you can try to prove that she's not psychic. Believe it or don't believe it, I don't care. But I don't have to stay here for this." She turned and walked out. She hoped Foreman would back her up. She knew they hadn't been getting along that well lately, but usually he was the one pushing House. Maybe he would be pleased to see someone else show him a little backbone.

House stared after her in disbelief. Chase looked stunned, he couldn't believe Cameron would talk to House like that; he knew he never could. Foreman shook his head, but went to do the MRI anyway. Chase left to observe the patient during her psych consult.

House was left sitting alone in his office to ponder over Cameron's reaction. Had he really made her that angry this morning? Or was it something else? Maybe she was finally developing the confidence in herself to stand up to him when she thought his diagnosis was wrong. It was one of the last things she needed to learn to become a really great doctor. If she could only get control of her emotions, and her need to connect with all her patients, she'd be ready to move on at the end of her fellowship. House swallowed. Secretly, even secretly from himself, he hoped that wasn't the case. He wasn't ready for her to go yet.