DISCLAIMER: I don't own House. But I do watch it religiously.
AN: I want to give a personal thank you to Rubix-Complex for urging me to update; without you, chapter eight probably wouldn't be out until May! Lol, not really. But thanks a lot anyway! I'm really pleased that you enjoy my story so much, and that kind of support is really motivating for a writer; many thanks to all my other reviewers as well. Ok, I'm gonna leave the rest of my AN for after the chapter (yeah, there's more!)…
Q is for Quarantine
Chapter Eight: Infiltration
"What was that?" asked Stacey, in her cell.
"Something to help you relax," answered a young woman as she stuck yet another needle into Stacey's shoulder. "Boss's orders."
"Oh," said Stacey. She frowned as she felt something tickle the inside of her chest, like a live insect was fluttering around in her lungs. She coughed for a few moments, then straightened up. "I'm fine, I'm fine," she assured the doctors around her. They all nodded, as one great body, then started to pack up their equipment.
"What is going on?" demanded Foreman, in his cell. The doctors continued their collection of all the test-tubes and needles, not paying attention to him, or his questions. He coughed again, rubbing his chest as a bright flare of itching pain bloomed in his lungs; a few doctors glanced at him at this, but made no move to go near him or ask him if he was alright. Kind of figures, thought Foreman moodily, my bedside manner sucked, so now karma's come to back to bite me on my ass.
"A doctor will be in contact, shortly," a severe looking brunette informed Stacey. "Until then, you will remain here."
"As if I could go anywhere else," muttered the lawyer in a hushed and impatient tone.
"Great," said Foreman, a big fake smile plastered across his face. "That's just great." The doctor that had told him that he was basically a prisoner in this cell for another few hours gave him an equally cheesy smile and backed out of the door, locking it with a pronounced clicking sound. Foreman gave him the finger through the glass, then lay down on his bed, clutching his head with both his hands. A cough racked his body again, and he sat up, spewing thick yellow sputum onto the floor.
Stacey cursed after her latest coughing fit, placing both hands on her chest and willing her breathing to even out. Water leaked from the corner of her eyes and tufts of her hair had come free of the ponytail at the back of her head. Thank God there are no doctors around to see me like this, she thought, desperately trying to neaten herself up, which was quite difficult considering she didn't have a mirror. Thank God House isn't here to see me like this… He's probably arguing with that CDC Director, or debating diagnoses with Cameron, Chase and Foreman…
Where the heck is House? Foreman wondered angrily, disappointed that the crippled doctor hadn't come to his rescue sooner. He's probably arguing with Walker or something… Or flirting with Stacey… yeah, that's more likely…
The lawyer and neurologist coughed again. The build up of pain was becoming less bearable with each passing fit, and they began to worry, what with no doctors within the vicinity and a locked door serving as an unwelcome barrier between themselves and aid (if they needed it).
Foreman sighed, stripping off his lab coat. Woah, is it me, or is it getting hot in here? He grimaced. Great, so now I'm asking myself questions? Must be the heat – delirium…
Stacey had already taken off her jacket. Her mood was rapidly declining, and the heat was doing nothing to improve it. She scratched her arms, especially in all the places where she had needles poked into her, and her skin quickly became red. Stop scratching, she ordered herself, Stop scratching…
Now I'm developing a rash, thought Foreman irritably, noting the rawness of his skin. He hadn't even scratched it that much. He touched the sore area, then, noticing more flare ups of rash along his arm, jumped up in alarm.
What is this…? Stacey felt the strange lumpiness that had erupted on her neck, all along her arms and parts of her face, and leapt off her bed.
"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!"
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Cameron and Chase stood up expectantly as House limped back into the room. The guard posted at their door gave the diagnostician a baleful look before unlocking the door and waving him in. The ducklings' hopeful expressions immediately melted into frowns when they caught sight of their boss's grumpy face and seething eyes. A silent exchange went on between them: Warning, Mt. House may erupt at any given moment. Steer clear until further notice.
House, giving no indication that he had understood their soundless communication, whipped out one of his infamous board pens, strode up to a wall and started scrawling things up on it. Chase and Cameron stared at his back in confusion.
"When you don't have your whiteboard, you improvise," said House, feeling their gazes directed at him.
"You mean you graffiti," said Chase, squinting at what his boss was scribbling across the wall. "Cuddy will be pleased."
"A touch of colour here and there never hurt anybody," sniffed House.
"You're not writing swear words or anything, are you?" Cameron questioned sternly.
"Hmm, if 'bleeding' and 'fever' are swear words, then a rewrite of a lot of medical textbooks across the world is needed," said House, still writing notes on the wide stretch of blank wall before him.
"Why are you writing up all the diagnoses we thought of?" asked Chase after a couple of beats of silence. "I thought you didn't want Walker to know."
"I don't," said House, scribbling the word 'Ebola' and crossing it out twice, then a third time for good measure. "But circumstances change and when they do, you need a back up plan. Then again, is what we know, really what is true? You see, you've got to bear in mind that everyone lies; I think someone's lying here. We need to get the full picture, all the facts, before we can establish what we really know, get a plan, and then make up a back up plan."
Chase and Cameron blinked several times to help absorb House's latest spew of reasoning. House was tapping his board pen against his palm, waiting for them to do something. They just looked back at him with plain confusion written all over their faces.
"Are you saying," Cameron began slowly, "that we still don't know what the mystery disease is?"
"Have you been listening to a word I've said?" House bellowed, obviously impatient and quite desperate, which was very out of character for him. "Of course we still don't know what the disease is! Coccidioidomycosis is not an airborne disease, nor is it transmittable by blood!"
"Well, Foreman did mention something like that," Cameron said, looking alarmed at House's loss of cool behaviour. "We just assumed you knew, and we would have told you, but then Walker carted us away for testing."
House didn't have the grace to look embarrassed that he had forgotten a major factor in the diagnosis. Or maybe he just wasn't. "Of course I know coccidioidomycosis is not an airborne disease. But if you study the files of the rest of the patients in the ITU ward that caught the disease, all of them came or went to Nevada, meaning that they all had exposure to the fungi particles that develop into coccidioidomycosis."
"You actually studied the patient's files yourself?" Chase found this hard to believe. Apart from when he had to do clinic duty, House always left the reading of patients' files to the ducklings, and rarely ever did it himself. This was obviously a very special case.
Cameron was mulling over more relevant subjects. "What are the odds of six patients in the same ward contracting the same disease, exhibiting the same symptoms and developing the symptoms at the same time, because they all went to the same place on vacation? That's a bit too much of a coincidence."
"That's a bit too much of the word 'same' in one sentence; get yourself a thesaurus" said House. "And there's not such thing as coincidence; where there's coincidence, there's conspiracy."
"So what's the conspiracy?" asked Chase absent-mindedly, yawning as he did so.
"That's what we're here for," said House, patting the scrawled-over wall behind him. "Gimme all your ideas; we're one person short right now and we need all the theories we can get."
Cameron also yawned then, placing a small hand over her mouth to be more polite; is it only us, Chase wondered fuzzily as his brain tried to think and come up with more ideas at the same time, or does House just not feel fatigue at all? His boss had yet to prove that going two days without sleep made thinking very difficult… it took all of Chase's mental power to keep his eyelids open, let alone brainstorm theories on a complex disease which seemed to have no known precedents.
"Why are we doing this?" Chase found his mouth saying. "Why don't we just let the CDC do their job and cure the patients themselves? This is out of our hands, House. Let the CDC deal with-"
"Didn't I say that circumstances change? Well, just to let you know, they have, and we'd better start brainstorming because there's not a lot of time left," House berated Chase severely, still acting way out of character – a bit helpless and un-House-like in general. Chase and Cameron were feeling more and more disturbed by the second.
"Look," said Cameron, aiming for a placating tone, "we don't have a lot of information to make an accurate diagnosis here; all we have are a few symptoms and names that we're not really sure of. We need all the files and information that we can get our hands on so that we can truly find out what's going on."
"And where are we gonna get this stuff?" said Chase sceptically.
"Remember Stacey gave us a stack of files and papers with everything about the patients on them? We left them in the office when the CDC ordered us down here, so they'd probably still be there… hopefully," Cameron added, unsure of what may have happened to the now 'classified' information.
"While that's all very well," said Chase exasperatedly, "the office is upstairs and we are several floors away from there. How are we gonna get past all those CDC doctors and make it back here to House with the information? Without being caught?"
"We'll just have to be extra careful," answered Cameron simply, before turning to look at House, seeking his approval. Chase had to marvel at how willing she was to sneak around and disobey direct orders from the authorities. Heck, he was even marvelling at how willing he was to accompany her.
House grinned, gaining back some of his cockiness. "What are you waiting for?"
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Chase had no time to wonder how they were going to get past the guard at their door. House, noticing this as a big obstruction, staggered over to the guard, tapping him on the shoulder to get his full attention. The man turned around, coming face-to-face with the diagnostician, and House abruptly began coughing wildly into his face, bringing as much saliva and mucus into his mouth as he could. Might as well do it properly, he thought evilly, as a particularly nasty cough resulted in a big glob of phlegm landing on the guard's nose. House felt a nice bloom of wicked enjoyment rise in his, albeit ragged-by-fake-coughs chest, at the sight of the man's pure disgust with having someone spew body fluids into his face. House stopped suddenly, and wheezed as heavily as he could, to prolong the effect of pretending he was being ravaged by a deadly disease.
"Really… bad… chest pains," House rasped in the guard's ear. The man was trying as hard as he could to push House off his shoulder, but the doctor just wouldn't budge. "First... first… first sign of… Ebola… con-… contamination…"
Chase and Cameron watched the guard - who clearly wasn't a doctor or medical expert - blanch with shock, and try harder than ever to push House away from him.
"Oh, my God. Get off me! Get off me, please, please get off!"
"Soon… the virus will… will… pass through your… syst-… system… and you will… will be… overcome with… with… EBOLA!" House ended his last bout of speech with an almighty cough that sent the last of his saliva/phlegm splattering all over the terrified guard's eyes, nose and mouth, and probably into his mouth as well, since he had started to scream.
"Go!" boomed House, a manic gleam in his eyes. "Tell your boss that we have a case of Ebola in testing room five!" The whimpering guard was too frightened to realise that House had magically resumed normal speech without constant wheezes or coughs. The man was frantically trying to wipe harmless (yet disgusting) saliva from out of his eyes, whilst also trying to run as far away from the diseased doctor as possible. House signalled for Chase and Cameron to get out of the room, and Chase thought he felt something whistle past his nose and into Cameron's outstretched hand but dismissed it; they left the room and paused to watch as House then proceeded to chase after the guard as the poor man stumbled down the opposite end of the hallway, calling for help. House seemed to be greatly enjoying himself now, and Cameron shook her head at the sight of her boss acting like a deluded monkey, shaking his cane and rattling down the corridor, screaming things like, "Feast on your prey, oh deadly Ebola!" and "Oh, how my brain feels like a pickled onion!"
Chase couldn't help but smirk at the truly random things that House was yelling to further scare the guard; they sounded more like the ravings of a mentally challenged patient, rather than an Ebola-infected person. But Cameron's insistent tugging on his shirt dragged his attention away from his boss and to the task at hand; that was, getting to the office undetected, steal the papers, then get back (again, without being seen) and brainstorm with all the facts present. It seemed like a relatively simple task, and Chase was confident that he and Cameron would be back in testing room five in no time. He just hoped that no-one had carted House over to the funny farm before they had come back.
Chase's confidence dropped a few notches when he and Cameron were faced with the fact that all the elevators in PPTH were out of use, and had guards posted at each door to prevent anyone from trying to enter one. What was worse was that every moment or so, a CDC doctor would patrol the corridors and if they found any unauthorised personnel wandering around, they were immediately sent to the opposite side of the hospital and locked up for testing. Chase gulped.
"Um, Cameron," he whispered, glancing at the elevator doorways from around the corner they were hiding behind for the time being, "we have a problem."
"I didn't notice," said Cameron sarcastically, peering round as well. The hallway and the lifts were well-guarded, seeing as the guards posted at the entrance to the elevators also had a clear view of the corridor that lead up to them, so they had no chance of even crossing through that way without being seen.
"Not that problem," said Chase, referring to the guards, "that problem." He nodded towards the CDC official who was making his way towards their hiding place, which wasn't really even hidden at all. The doctor, who was wearing the orange contamination suit that James had been ordered to take off earlier, stopped to converse with the guards at the elevators, then resumed his steady tread down the corridor towards the two ducklings. Damn, thought Chase, caught before the mission even started.
But Cameron had other ideas. She pulled Chase further back and away from the corner they were peeking out from behind, then pushed something into his hand. Feeling a bit confused, he brought the object in his palm into the light and was startled to see that it was an ID card for a CDC official. Vaguely remembering that 'whooshing' feeling that had passed by his nose earlier, Chase realised that House had actually pick-pocketed the guard at their testing room and thrown the card to Cameron. Chase had to marvel at House's brilliance again, and also at how quickly Cameron had grasped the situation.
Luckily, there was no photo on the card, which was useful because the real CDC doctor came sweeping round the corner just as Chase managed to get it clipped to the top of his lab coat pocket. The patrolling doctor made a hurried beeline straight for them.
"What are you doing here?" he said sharply, running his eyes over Cameron briefly, who had no fake CDC ID card meaning that she had no business being out of the testing rooms. He then turned his beady glare on Chase, who was frantically trying to come up with an answer to his question.
"I found Doctor Cameron outside of a testing room without authorisation," Chase invented, grasping Cameron's arm as if he was trying to lead her somewhere. "I was just about to take her to the upper floors, to, er, a secure location where she could be checked for possible contamination."
"Hmm," said the CDC doctor suspiciously. He scrutinised the tag on Chase's lab coat. "You are aware that the testing rooms are on this floor, right?"
Cameron sent a furtive glance in Chase's direction, but had to stay silent owing to the fact that she was playing the obedient patient. "All the patients on this floor have contracted the Ebola pathogen," Chase told the man, "Doctor Cameron seems like the only doctor who has not shown any outward symptoms since the outbreak amongst her co-workers and patients." Chase was sweating freely, now. How much more did he have to make up to get past this unwelcome obstacle? "She needs to be in a more secure lab to ensure that she doesn't catch the virus."
The CDC doctor was still watching them dubiously. "You are not a doctor," he said, gaining this information from the fake ID Chase was wearing. "Someone must have sent you."
"Doctor James," said Chase, saying the first name that came into his mind. "On direct orders from Director Walker."
This had the desired effect. The CDC doctor stiffened perceptibly and stepped out of Chase's way, walking the intensivist and immunologist to the elevator entrance. "Many apologies," he simpered, waving the guards aside. "Please also send my apologies to the Director for holding you up."
Chase nodded, and pressed the button for the floor where House's office was situated. The lift doors slid shut, and they were off.
Cameron let out a long sigh. "I can't believe he bought that."
"Nor can I." Chase leant back against the wall of the elevator compartment and voiced a question that had been nagging him for the past few minutes. "Remind me to thank House for getting that ID card."
The lift opened at the designated floor, and Cameron and Chase crept out cautiously. They were met with an empty hallway, covered with a lot of plastic and the strong smell of overpowering antiseptics and chemicals. Most of the lights were turned off, so the two doctors had to creep around in a dim half-light before reaching the safety of House's office and shutting the door to prevent any intruders from seeing them. Cameron flipped the light switch, and they immediately began to search for the files.
Luckily, none of the stuff had been moved or covered in protective plastic since House and his ducklings were whisked off for testing; Chase spotted the papers in the same place where they had been left, and hastily gathered them up, stuffing some into Cameron's arms. She got a better hold on the files, before sprinting for the door, Chase not far behind. He flicked off the lights as they fled the room, leaving no evidence to suggest that anyone had entered the office.
A few feet shy of where the elevator hung waiting, Chase and Cameron were hit with the heart-stopping sound of footsteps and voices echoing down from the opposite end of the hallway. Cameron suppressed a mortified squeak, turned on her heel and pushed her way into the room that was closest to them, pulling Chase into the darkness with her. They stood in the tiny closet, chests heaving, as the footsteps drew closer and passed by the door… then came back and stopped right outside of the door.
"Oh, you have got to be kidding-" the rest of Cameron's speech was lost as Chase clamped his hand over her mouth. She gently peeled his fingers away from her lips, and he felt a small blush rise in his cheeks, grateful that is was almost completely dark in the room. He didn't need any light to tell how close their bodies were; he could practically feel Cameron pushed up against him, the heat and proximity driving him crazy. In a good way, of course.
"…and put House in seclusion for testing. Split up his employees and interrogate each of them separately; find out everything they know about the virus." There was no mistaking the British accent in the strong masculine voice. Chase and Cameron knew it belonged to Walker, the very man that they trying to stay as far away from; he was obviously having a very private conversation, so, naturally, the two ducklings decided to listen in. House would be pleased, Chase thought to himself shortly, before he tuned back into what Walker was saying.
"… missing? What do you mean, Greg is missing?" Since Chase could not hear anyone else pacing around with Walker, he assumed the Director of the CDC was on the phone. "Well, find him immediately… bloody hell, they've all gone? Even that woman and that Australian guy?" Hey, we have names you know. "They couldn't have gotten far; just get them back before they stumble upon something they shouldn't." Too late, mate. "Who, Doctor Foreman? No, he's already been infected… virus should take hold in a couple of hours, at the least." Wait, did he just say 'Foreman'? Infected? A couple of hours? Holy- "And the lawyer, yes. In fact, make sure she has an extra dose; make sure House knows that we mean business." Who, Stacey? "No, leave Greg to me; he won't answer to anyone else." Huh, what makes you think he'll answer to you? "I don't care, just get the other two doctors back where they belong." We belong home, in a bed with fluffy quilts and soft pillows, and Cameron can… wait, bed plus Cameron – stop it, stop it, stop it; must get images out of head, must stop thinking dirty thoughts – grrr… "And increase the guard around Cosgrove and the others; no one is to pass through those doors unless personally cleared by me. No, not even you, James. If House finds out what's really going on here…" Well, hurry up and tell us, then… "He thinks its Marburg Fever and coccidioidomycosis? Stupid idiot, they're not even transmittable by air! He what? He wrote this on the wall?" Dammit, he found the graffiti. "But nothing about HHT? Nothing at all? Well, that's a relief." HHT? Ok, now I'm confused. "Just find the other two, ok? No, start with the floor they were meant to be on… lock them in testing room seven on the fifth floor; the whole floor's free and is only be accessible by the lift, so there will be no interruptions. Don't bother calling until you've found them."
Walker snapped his phone shut, and Chase and Cameron heard him stomp away. They waited for their stampeding heartbeats to cool down for a moment, before edging the door slightly open and sneaking out into the hallway again. Clutching the precious files to their chests, they ran to the elevator and jumped in as soon as the doors admitted them, wary for any sign of Walker or his associates.
"Where are we going?" Cameron asked as Chase paused. He was about to punch in the number of the floor where they had come from, when he realised that that floor would be teeming with CDC officials who were looking for them and were all to happy to imprison himself and Cameron again. He thought back to what Walker had said: '…room seven on the fifth floor; the whole floor's free and is only accessible by the lift…' Chase hastily pushed the button labelled 'five' and stepped back as the elevator started to ascend.
"They won't expect us there," he said by way of explanation. Cameron nodded, trusting his judgement.
A couple of seconds later, Chase and Cameron were acutely aware of a change in the way that the usually smoothly travelling lift was going up. The compartment was shuddering dangerously, and the lights kept flickering. Chase threw out an arm and Cameron grasped it to steady herself, a few of the files they were holding shaking loose and flopping to the floor. She held onto him until the elevator stopped shaking. In fact, it had stopped moving altogether. The two doctors waited for the doors to open at floor five, but were horrified to discover that they were caught between the third floor and the fourth. The lights fizzled out, and they were plunged into total darkness.
"Tell me this is not happening," Cameron moaned, still not letting go of Chase's arm.
"This is not happening," said Chase dully. Cameron whacked him lightly, then stepped closer, brushing her fingers against his sleeves and up to his shoulder to gain a better perspective of where he was standing.
"What is going on?" Cameron asked him, her breath fluttering across his cheek. She was that close.
Chase swallowed. "Can't be a power cut; the hospital's generator would have provided the electricity if there was an emergency. Someone must have disabled the lifts…"
He felt Cameron brush past him, edging her way around the small compartment, as if trying to gauge a way out of the sticky situation they were in. Finding none, she sighed.
"Chase?" she called out to him, coming closer once more. Chase smelt the mixed scents of her hair – fruity and sweet, with a touch of the good old hospital smell, typical for a doctor who had been stuck in PPTH for the past three days – enter his nostrils as her hands caught hold of his arm and touched upon his torso. He flushed.
"I think we're gonna be trapped in here for a long time."
A.N: Woah, did you know that all the words from 'disclaimer' to the last word 'time' add up to 4,444 (not including both ANs)? All those fours – in Chinese superstition – will probably spell out bad luck for this chapter of my fanfic (four means death in Chinese)? Oh dear… there are four fours as well…
I'm really sorry for not updating for the past couple of weeks or so; I got back from my vacation two days ago and was severely jetlagged. Ok, crappy excuse, but I managed to write up chapter eight in two days so I'm pretty pleased with myself. I hope you enjoyed reading this chapter; I've wanted to get some more Chase/Cam interaction into the story for a while now… but I'm not a romantic person at all, so please give me suggestions if my writing sucks! Any criticism is welcome, especially on characterisation and the plot.
Thanks again to Rubix-Complex; all my readers owe you one!
To all the new readers – REVIEW!
Daygoner