CHAPTER SEVEN

House hobbled into the patient's room. Carly was sleeping on the uncomfortable hospital bed, a few tubes sticking out of her arm. "Ewe," he said rather audibly as he looked at her rash covered body.

"Nice to see you too," she said, slowly blinking open her gummy eyes. She felt like she'd been sleeping for days and still didn't feel refreshed.

"It got worse." House poked at her red arm.

"That's a brilliant diagnosis doctor." Carly had come to appreciate House's lack of compassion. She had been coddled most of her life. She knew her parents meant well, or at least she preferred to assume they did, but sometimes it was nice to be treated like a human being.

"I do what I can." House took her vitals. "You didn't tell on me." He was looking into her hazel eyes. The faint green centers were rimmed with red.

"I do what I can." She gave him a weak smile. She liked House. He was like the bad father she never had.

House shoved a thermometer in her mouth.

"I hud a woma," Carly tried to say with the long implement trapped between her lips.

"Huh?" House pulled it out and looked at it, making a notation in her chart. All of this was very atypical behavior for him, but with Wilson in surgery, and Cuddy in his office and his team, well, he really didn't want to hang out with them, so this seemed the best place for him at the moment.

"I heard a rumor. It's amazing what the nurses will say when they think you're asleep. One of them said you have a thing for your boss. Do you have a thing for your boss?" She seemed excited. She'd been out of school for only three days, but the lack of gossip was killing her.

"No."

"You do!" Her face lit up, or at least he assumed it did. It was hard to tell under that blanket of rash she was sporting. "Is she hot?"

"I wouldn't like her if she wasn't."

"You do like her then." Carly grinned. She felt like she'd triumphed, but in reality, House wanted to talk to someone, someone without a vested interest in his life, someone like a patient who had no choice but to sit and listen to him.

"We totally made out." Funny thing about Gregory House; he was 48, brilliant, and bitter and yet, he often related very well to teenage girls. It was as if his inner child was Hannah Montana.

"No way! Here at the hospital?"

"No. Her house." He was thinking about the kiss. The way he'd felt as he looked down into her sad eyes. How he'd wanted her to feel wanted, loved, but really, that's how he wanted to feel in that moment.

Despite what she thought, he had taken advantage of her. Her guard was down and he kissed her. He knew she wouldn't push him away. He could see it in her eyes. She was the one who needed to feel loved, she needed to feel wanted, and he'd taken advantage of that need.

"It was a good kiss, wasn't it?" Carly saw his far away look and knew he was reliving the moment.

"I've had better." House dismissed his thoughts.

"You gonna kiss her again?" This was better than watching General Hospital, which had become all about the mob lately, and, blech, she just didn't care about a bunch of mobsters going around killing each other. She liked love stories.

"Maybe." He wanted to.

"You should."

"Just like that?" House shrugged.

"Why not?" Carly smiled. She almost wanted to take his hand, to comfort him, he looked so hurt, but she knew he wouldn't like it.

House's brain reeled off a list as long as his cane, and that was only in the first second since being asked. Give him a minute and he'd come up with more. "She obviously likes you back or she wouldn't have let you kiss her." Carly thought about it for a moment. "You didn't force her did you?" House shook his head. "Good. Then she let you kiss her. Did she kiss back? Where there tongues involved?" Carly needed to know these things.

"Yes." Oddly, House didn't mind telling her these things. Perhaps it's because his little thiamine experiment proved she could keep her mouth shut, or perhaps he was just so desperate for someone to tell him what he wanted to hear.

"Then ask her out." Carly rolled her eyes. This was worse than when she'd tried to convince Tommy Hill to ask Trish Marsters to Homecoming. She had worked her magic then, and she would work her magic now. "The worst she can do is say no."

"You don't know Cuddy." House could think of many worse things than her saying no. "She could fire me." He decided to throw one out there, to wipe that disbelieving, optimistic smirk off Carly's face.

"She wouldn't fire you for asking her out. Especially not if you cure me. You are going to cure me, right?"

"Not if you continue to annoy me."

"You're not annoyed." Carly coughed a little and some blood spattered out. Neither of them reacted to it, since it had been happening on and off since she arrived. She simply picked up a napkin and wiped her chest where the blood had fallen. "If you were, you'd have left already."

"Ever think about becoming a doctor?" He wouldn't mind her working for him someday.

"Why would I want to work that hard?" She made a face.

"Good point." House took a long, cleansing breath. "Where would I take her?"

"I don't know Dr. House. I'm in high school. Our idea of a date is a movie, dinner at the local diner and a quick grope in the backseat of the car."

"Which diner?" That didn't sound like a bad date at all. Especially the end bit.

"You're a doctor. Take her somewhere nicer than a diner."

"I like diner food."

"I don't care. You're trying to impress this woman. Forget about what you like and take her somewhere she'd like. Find out what her favorite food is…"

"She likes Italian." Truth was, she liked several different types of food, but he remembered taking her to a small Italian bistro years ago and she seemed to enjoy that.

"Good. That's a great start. My Mom loved D'Agostino's." They ate out almost every night. Not her, just her parents. Carly usually ate the leftovers from the night before. She may be coddled, but she never felt particularly loved.

"D'Agostino's? Do they have Fettuccini Alfredo?" He recalled Cuddy ordering it once. It might have been on that date years ago, but he thought it had probably been at some conference or other.

"I don't know, but if you tell them you know my father they'll give you anything you want. He helped Mr. D'Agostino out a couple years ago, some tax thing, I really wasn't paying attention. Anyway, he had been my father's biggest supporter ever since." Carly leaned as much as she could toward her doctor. "I think whatever it was, it wasn't very legal, or ethical, not that that's ever stopped my father." She shrugged and fell back into her regular position.

Her body ached, not just from whatever disease was coursing through her veins, but from being stuck in one position for days on end. She had been diagnosed with ADD when she was small, and was on medication for it, all of which her doctors knew all about. Despite the medicine, staying still was agony to her, especially being stuck on her back in bed for days on end.

"The Wenwhatever isn't the only thing wrong with me, is it Dr. House?" She looked at him hopefully. She was hoping he'd say it was, that she would be all better and could go home today, but she could see by the troubled look in his eye that she wasn't going to get the answer she wanted. Still, it didn't hurt to ask.

"We're not sure what else is going on." He didn't like to sugar coat things, even for children.

Carly sighed heavily. "Do me a favor Dr. House?" He didn't respond so she carried on. "Ask your Dr. Cuddy out on a date, and come and tell me all about it." She saw a look of horror flash over his face. "You don't have to describe the dirty bits if you don't want to. But I'm stuck in this damn bed all day with nothing to do but watch boring soaps and talk shows. I need some excitement."

"I'll rent you some videos."

"You'll ask her out, and you'll have a grand time, and maybe even get lucky, and you'll be so thankful for me pushing you into it that you'll rush over here and tell me all about it, and I'll get all better in time to be a bridesmaid at your wedding." She was a romantic at heart.

"As your doctor, I am advising you to not hold your breath."

She took a big lung full of air and held it in her cheeks. Seconds later she began to choke, letting the air pour out of her in spurts. She was hyperventilating and House sprung into action, calling in the closest nurse and checking Carly's vitals.

Her heart was racing faster than her body could handle. She was convulsing rapidly, her arms flailing at her sides and her head banging against her pillow. House held her down, his cane falling to the floor in a loud thud. He had to throw his body across hers to get her still.

Nurse Donna rushed in and following House's rapid fire orders, shoved a needle into the girls arm. Moments later Carly's body fell still.

House, panting, pushed himself to his feet. Nurse Donna handed him his cane and asked what happened.

He was halfway through explaining when Kutner rushed in, followed almost immediately by Taub, and a moment later by Hadley. They wanted to know what happened, so he told them.

"Why was she holding her breath?" Kutner asked, adding this reason information to her file.

"I was testing her lungs," House lied. It was better than trying to explain what had happened.

"Well, she failed," Hadley stated blandly.

"Yes, but we now have another symptom." House looked down at the unconscious girl. He wanted her to be alright. He wanted to be able to tell her about his date. Of course that meant he'd now have to ask Cuddy out, for real."