Okey-dokey! Here's the next chapter. I had to make some adjustments because, well, you know when something seems like it would work out, and then it doesn't, and you have to cover for it by switching things around? That's what happened to me. Hopefully, in the end, it'll all make sense. Fan fiction is so confusing sometimes!
By the time House had gotten off the phone with (a rather aggravated) Dr. Cuddy, Cameron, Foreman and Chase were back with bad news.
"It's still jam-packed down there," Chase said. "There's not a room open for miles- if you're going to examine him, you'll have to do it in here."
"Fantastic," the Doctor said.
"You're telling me," House said. He turned to Rose and Jack. "Listen, you're going to have to vamoose if I'm going to take a look at your friend here. Doctor/ Patient confidentiality and all." He paused, looking bemused. "Although, I guess, in this case, it would be Doctor/Doctor confidentiality." He chuckled. "Funny how that works."
Jack looked at Rose, who took half a step, then hesitated.
"Go on," House said, flicking his wrists at them. "Skeedadle. Shoo, go away."
Rose bit her lip. "You're not going to…do anything to him, are you? Run tests? Body scans? DNA," she paused, looking for the words, "Scrapes or something?"
House scratched his chin. "Hmm…the young blonde worries over the welfare of her older companion. Am I detecting-"
The Doctor snarled at him from the table. "Shut it, you." He turned his attention to Rose. "Thanks, really, but I think I can manage."
"Right," Jack said, in an unconvinced tone. He looked at House square in the eye. "I'm watching you, buddy."
Foreman opened the door for them. "Well, right now you wont be. If you'll leave Dr. House to his work..."
House rolled his eyes, ignoring Foreman. "No, alright? I won't run any tests until I tell Madame here, okay?"
Jack shot him a look as his hand moved to his pocket.
"Easy," Rose said. She drew in a breath, looked at the Doctor, pursed her lips and then left the room, closely followed by Jack. Chase shut the door behind him.
----------------------- ------------------------- ------------------------
"Now then," House said. "I've got a few questions before we begin."
The Doctor closed his eyes. "Aw, come on…can't you just tell me what's wrong so I can leave?"
"Uh…From what I saw, you can't even walk." He moved so that he was standing directly over the Doctor. "I'm not going to make any promises, but it looks like you might be spending the night here."
The Doctor tried to rise, but House put a hand below his neck. "Down, boy."
"Over night? I don't have time! I've got things to do!"
"Such as…" House prompted, genuinely interested.
"Such as saving the universe, if you must know."
House looked impressed. "Really, now? Or are you just saying that?"
"No, I'm not 'just saying that,'" the Doctor argued. He was getting angry. "You know what? Never mind. Just…never mind. Continue with your inspection."
House looked at the wall thoughtfully for a second. "Do you like that Rose girl?" He asked, not even looking at the Doctor.
"Dr. House, I guess you don't understand…"
"No," House cut him off. "I guess you don't understand. I'm calling the shots. Now, I swear, I'll check out your boo-boos, but answer my question. Do you that blonde…?"
"The 'blonde' has a name. It's Rose Tyler."
"So you do like her! Thank you."
"Wha-"
"Take off your jacket and your shirt," House instructed, turning his head. "If it's your upper body that hurts, then that's what I need to look at. So take off your shirt…I'm not coming on to you or anything."
The Doctor, rolling his eyes, obliged. It took longer than usual, because he had to sit up, but finally it was done. "Alright."
House turned around and, at first, didn't believe what he saw.
"Jesus Christ!"
"It's just as bad on the back, actually," the Doctor informed him.
House was so taken aback by the extent of the damage, he was afraid to even touch the Doctor, whose torso was colorful with bruises. The colors in question were black, blue, purple, green and a really ugly color of yellow. The discoloration stopped, for the most part, at his chest. His collar, however, was red and bruised on the left side.
"What were you doing when this happened?" House cried.
"Why does it matter how it happened?" The Doctor asked. "It did happen, that's what matters."
"Remember what I said about calling the shots?"
The Doctor sighed, annoyed. "Look, here's what happened…"
----------------------- ------------------------- ------------------------
Jack knew Rose was extremely worried about the Doctor; she was pacing again. In fact, Jack was beginning to think she had actually picked up pacing from the Doctor, because they did it identically. It was sort of cute, when he thought about it.
"You know, I haven't even seen him myself," Rose said, partly to herself and partly to whoever happened to be listening. "I don't even know the extent of the damage."
"Neither have I," Jack said, in an attempt to comfort her.
"How did we let him get like this?" She asked, wringing her hands. "It happened two nights ago…and now he can barely walk!"
Jack stood up and put his hands on her shoulders to stop the incessant pacing. "Rose? Listen. It's okay. If the Doctor had been in any more pain then he is in now, he would have told us."
Rose blinked away a tear. "Jack, you know he wouldn't have. You know that he would have just kept going." She sniffed. "He's probably got broken bones, and a fever, and some kind of alien flu from Satellite 5 or something, and all that time we just stood around, doing nothing. He could be near death and he wouldn't have said a word. That's the way he is, Jack! That's the way he is!" And with that she heaved Jack towards her and began crying into his shoulder
Jack, without blinking an eye, pulled her into a hug and kissed the top of her head. "Its okay, Rose. Shhh. It's all right."
Cameron, who had watched all of this, felt as though her heart was ripping in two. She caught Chase's eye and told him to say something- anything. Chase took a second before standing up.
"Miss Tyler?"
Rose sniffled and looked at Chase, disgruntled. "Mmm, what do you want?"
Chase sighed. "I know I haven't been the most…er…supportive of your…visit, but I do have to say that, honestly, if the…em…Doctor," He said it like it was a different language, "Is with House, then he's in the best care he could be in, probably, in the state."
"I'll hope so," Jack said. "We had a choice of every doctor, on any planet, in any century."
Chase opened his mouth without any intention of saying anything.
Rose smiled, weakly. "Of all the bloody millenniums to stop in, I picked this one," she said. Chase hoped she was joking.
Cameron stood up. "Miss Tyler, I know that you're very upset about this, but I can reassure you that the Doctor is in the greatest of care."
Rose was silent for a moment, but then spoke in a voice barely above a whisper. "I just…I don't want him to be…One time, we landed the TARDIS in Utah, but it was in the future…and the man there did things to him. Tortured him," she said, her voice becoming wobbly. "It was horrible. And now that we're here, I just…"
"I understand," Cameron said.
"Thanks," Rose said.
"She's a bit of a control freak," Jack said, trying to lighten the moment.
Rose punched him lightly in the arm. "Yeah, I guess I am."
Cameron nodded. "Of course. I'm so sorry to learn that something terrible like that happened in this country, even if it was in the future." She swallowed. "Dr. House does seem a little rough around the edges, doesn't he?"
Cameron wanted to hear more about Rose Tyler's exploits, but she thought that, at the present time, it would be inappropriate. She picked up the clipboard.
"I know you probably don't want to talk about it right now- and that's fine- but we do need to know exactly how this happened, for the record sheet. Care to tell us?"
Rose froze where she was for a millisecond. Then, she nodded her head. "Okay. I think I can."
----------------------- ------------------------- ------------------------
By the time the Doctor had finished telling House what had happened, he had flipped over so that he was lying on his stomach.
"…And that's how I got this way." He paused. "I think."
House looked skeptical. "Lemme get this straight, alright? You had parked- no landed- the TARDIS thingy somewhere on a planet I've never heard of, and you step out and fall down a hill."
The Doctor nodded. "Yes."
"That's it?"
"…Yes…"
"Are you sure?"
The Doctor seemed puzzled. "Yes! What kind of question is that?"
Dr. House a tisked. "Everybody lies, dude. The only variables are…well, I told you already." At last, he stopped poking at the Doctor. "So, if I ask say…Jack Harkness, he would say the same thing?"
"No, wasn't there, he wouldn't know."
House stopped examining. "Wait, what?"
"We had already…erm… let Jack off in the capital of that planet- it's called Rochester, by the way- the planet, not the capital- because he had business to do…we didn't see him until the next day."
House chose to ignore the fact that the Doctor seemed to be making up the story. "How long ago did all this happen?" He asked, motioning to the Doctor's damaged backside.
"Two nights ago, I suppose."
"Good lord! You should've seen someone earlier."
The Doctor frowned.
House continued. "Alright, well, it look to me as though you've done a lot more than take a trip down a hill, but since there's a lot I don't know about you, so I'll let that slide. You have, however, broken just about every rib you've got to break- great job- but that still leaves some of the pain and bruising unanswered. . So, I'm going to take an X-ray of your ribs and we'll go from there."
"X-Ray?" The Doctor had a hint of nervousness in his voice.
"Yes…is there a problem?"
He thought for a moment. "No, I guess not. There's no problem. Sorry, just kidding."
"Well, I'm calling down there to see if it's in use right now. But don't worry; it'll be fun!" He said, before stalking off towards the phone. "You can put your shirt on now. I mean, really, how indecent."
----------------------- ------------------------- ------------------------
"Alright," Rose said. She watched Cameron put the pen to the paper, ready to write down whatever she said. "Two nights ago, like I said, we were on this planet called Rochester, and there were…"
Jack butted in, "To make a long story short, we saved the planet."
"Fair enough," Rose said. "Anyhow, in 'celebration', the brilliant Captain Jack here went out and bought us two bottles of some kind of alcoholic drink. Now, mind you, it's from a different planet, so I'm still not sure as to what exactly was in it. Never really thought to read the ingredients," she said, laughing.
"Right," Cameron replied. "Foreign liquor, celebration, saved the planet. Gotcha."
"That's not all, though," said Rose. "We started drinking…in honor, of course, and after an hour or two, you," she said, referring to Jack, "left, and it was just us. Of course, we didn't notice that until long after you were gone,"
"…Being as completely inebriated as you were," Foreman said. Rose and Jack both glared at him.
"But yes, he's right; we were," said Rose. "And when we realized he was gone, the Doctor started off to find him. He took one step out of the TARDIS and Bam! Lost his footing and rolled down the hill." She started to laugh, embarrassed. "At the time, it was hilarious, actually."
"Ah, I see," Cameron said, writing the last bit down, about how it was hilarious. "Well, thank you for telling us. It really makes a difference as to how we approach the diagnosis."
At that moment, Dr. House opened the conference room door.
"Alright, here's the deal," he said. "An X-ray room is open on the 5th floor. However, that means we have to go up, and the man on the table in there? He's not going anywhere. Not without a wheelchair, anyway, and you can't take wheelchairs up stairs. I'm not even going to try. We're going to have to wait until the elevators start working again, which, according to Dr. Cuddy will be in a few minutes. Which translates into…"
"Thirty minutes," Chase said, deflated.
"Amazingly, that's correct, Chase," House said. "Cuddy's on doctor- time the whole day."
He motioned them all back into the conference room and told them to sit down and make themselves comfy.
"All we can do is wait," House said. "It won't be too long."
And that's what they did. Painstakingly, for nearly 25 minutes, all seven of them waited in awkward silence.
That is, until Dr. Wilson showed up…
A/N: Okay, I know Rose's and the Doctor's stories don't match up…it's supposed to be like that. If the two stories were both the same, well, that wouldn't be an interesting story, would it be? I think not.
Anyway, folks, that's all for now. Wilson always brings something new to the story. And he will next chapter, I can tell you that.
Leave a comment if you love me! (Or, for that matter, if you have a question or complaint or compliment, etcetera, etcetera…)