Enter House. A little bit of bad language in this one, sorry guys. You've been warned.
Disclaimer: I don't own it. Lyrics courtesy of Tegan & Sara …
oooooooooooooooooo
"I was walking with a ghost
I said please, please don't insist"
Derek and Cameron headed for the door at the same moment, nearly colliding. "Derek?" Cameron asked, confused. "I didn't know you were here. My pager just went off. It's Amelia. This is the third time she's been to the ER in the past month."
Derek nodded. "I got the page, too."
"I don't think it's surgical, Derek."
"I know. It's just, she responded to me, you know? When she was in the hospital before." He sighed. "I asked the nurses to page me if she was readmitted."
"You had a feeling she'd be back," Cameron said.
Derek sighed again. "I had a feeling."
Cameron had to acknowledge that Amelia perked up when Derek was around. " I just can't figure out what's going on with her," she said, frustrated. "I just, I feel like it's on the tip of my tongue and I just can't …" I feel like I'm not good enough to fix her. Her unspoken thought hung heavy in the air.
"Cameron, don't beat yourself up. You were dead on with the cerebral phaeohyphomycosis. There's just something else we haven't found yet. We're going to get this. We'll figure it out."
The two quickened their pace as they entered the ER, heading towards the hum of activity around curtain 2.
"Dr. Shephard, she's coding!" Olivia shouted, spotting their approach.
Derek swore under his breath. Pushing the trauma intern on-call out of the way, he took over contractions as Cameron grabbed the paddles.
"Damn it Amelia, breathe!" he shouted in frustration.
"Charge to 150." Derek moved off the gurney as Cameron shocked the little girl, trying not to wince at how her small body went stiff and then limp at the charge. There was no change.
"200," she ordered shortly. Derek stood, panting, to the side, allowing her to run the code.
"Dammit. OK people, charge to 300. Clear!" Cameron administered the charge, then held her breath.
Slowly but surely, the heart monitor began to beep. The little girl stirred, coughing weakly.
"Oh thank god," Cameron collapsed into the nearest chair.
ooooooooooooooo
It was early dawn by the time they got Amelia situated in her private room. Derek had won approval from Chief Webber to keep her on the surgical floor despite the fact that there was no apparent need for surgery. The Chief had insisted on the private room, "in case she's infectious," although Cameron suspected he also had a soft spot for the girl.
Cameron paced back and forth, pausing occasionally to dash to Amelia's chart and mentally check off another possibility. Derek slumped in a chair by the window, watching her.
"We'll need to get an echo, definitely. We need to determine how much damage has been done to her heart. I'll rerun the bloodwork to see if I missed anything, and we can do another CT, but we may need to do some more invasive diagnostics if it all comes up clean. I just hate the thought of putting that little girl through any more pain. Do you think we could have missed something bacterial?" she broke off to ask Derek hopefully.
"Cameron, stop. Her bloodwork was clean when we released her after the first procedure," Derek reminded her. "Also, I am a neurosurgeon. The first and only time I've heard of half of the exotic bacteria you've rattled off in the past half-hour was in one elective seminar on tropical diseases in my third year of medical school."
Cameron turned to look at Derek sheepishly. It wasn't his fault – he had his specialty, and he was a world-renowned neurosurgeon. If Amelia had an aneurism, Derek would be her best shot. But this was Cameron's specialty, and she was beginning to feel like she was letting everyone down.
"I need my team," she admitted softly.
Derek tossed her his cell phone. "Call McArthur," he said. Cameron shook her head no. "I know it's early, but look, I know Clarine McArthur well. She won't mind being woken up, not if it's for a patient."
"It's not that," Cameron told him. "The team – well, we've been swamped, lately. Six active cases, and Dr. Pearson's been out with the flu. And with Amelia, we've just run out of options. Medically, there's nothing wrong with this child that we can find, and McArthur can't just order a whole series of tests for diseases that this girl has a 1 in a million chance of having."
"She's giving up?" Derek asked, resignedly.
"Not giving up, Derek. We all took the Hippocratic oath here. But she needs to concentrate her resources on patients we can save. The instructions were if Amelia came in again, make her comfortable and wait for new symptoms to develop." Cameron's excuses rang hollow. She knew if it had been House, there would be no way the team would be sitting around waiting. House would have bankrupt the hospital with expensive unnecessary tests. House lived for a challenge.
"Does cardiac arrest not count as a symptom anymore?" Derek retorted.
"I need my team," Cameron repeated again, more firmly.
"The infamous Princeton team?" Derek said. "Allison, you know better than anyone in this hospital that Dr. House doesn't do consults for other institutions."
Cameron snorted. "Please. He turns away half the patients that come through Princeton's clinic, also. I'm not talking about calling House, Derek. It was just -" Just what, Cameron? A thought? A moment of weakness?
Derek said nothing, watching the internal struggle playing out on Cameron's face. He made the decision to test her, push her, and so he pointed to his phone, still in Cameron's hands. "You said you need your team. So, call."
Cameron's eyes welled with tears. She looked at the little girl lying peacefully in the bed before her, oblivious to all those tubes and monitors in her sleep. "I can't," she admitted hoarsely. "You don't know – the way I left Princeton -"
"People don't just pick up their lives and move cross-country unless they're trying to put some space between themselves and what they're running from," he reminded her gently. He thought briefly of that night in the rain with Addison, almost a year in the past. "I know."
"It wasn't like you and Meredith," Cameron admitted slowly, clutching his phone like a lifeline. "It wasn't love at first sight, there was no one-night stand. He took me to a monster truck rally, once, but I'm pretty sure that was only because Wilson couldn't go. I never slept with him, we didn't even have a real relationship, and there I was, mooning over a sarcastic, middle-aged cripple. I didn't like who I was becoming. I kissed him – I provoked the situation. And then – we had a fight. He said some things, I said some horrible things. And then I ran away. And now this girl is going to die, and I am worrying about what I'll say to him. How ridiculous is that?"
"It's your call," Derek repeated, sympathetically.
Cameron thought for a moment. "What time is it?" she asked.
"4:15 in the morning," Derek groaned. "Don't remind me. Why?"
"That makes it 7:15 on the East Coast?" Cameron asked, inspiration dawning. Derek nodded, and Cameron grinned.
"Why so happy all of a sudden?" he asked, suspiciously. Damn if he would ever figure out how women worked.
"House never comes in before 8:30," she told Derek triumphantly as she began to dial. "Even when we have a case. Sometimes he barely makes it in by noon. But I bet he's got Chase opening his mail and making his coffee now that I'm not around to boss anymore."
oooooooooooooooooo
"Chase it's me. I need your help." Cameron stood by the surgical nurse's station, having left Amelia's room to avoid waking the girl up.
"Cameron?" Chase's voice immediately dropped to a whisper.
"Yeah, Chase, it's me," Cameron replied impatiently, not bothering with formalities. "Listen, I've got this case, a little girl. She looks like an angel, Chase, you should see her. Blonde hair, blue eyes, really just gets under your skin. I … need a little help with the diagnosis – Chase, are you there?" Cameron thought she heard the sounds of a scuffle on the other end of the phone.
"Yeah, sorry, I'm here, it's just -"
""Chase why are you whispering?" Cameron asked, a knot forming in the pit of her stomach even as she knew the answer to her question.
"Could it be? Is it my prodigal duckling?" House's voice boomed over the line, cheery, with a hint of cruelty.
"Dr. House." Cameron steeled herself. "You're not usually in this early."
"He's been acting differently since you've been gone," Chase noted, glumly, as House pinned him with a glare. He figured some other time he could tell Cameron that after her departure, House had taken to sleeping at his desk next to a bottle of scotch.
"What can we do for you, Dr. Cameron?" House continued his cheerful façade. "Calling to reminisce about the happy days gone by? Don't say it, you missed us."
Cameron took a deep breath and chose not to rise to his bait. "Professional courtesy, actually. I was hoping Dr. Chase could consult on a case."
"Dr. Chase, huh?" House replied. "Not Dr. Foreman and Dr. House? Hell, or even Dr. Wilson or Dr. Cuddy? Why I'm hurt, Cameron. What does Dr. Chase have that the rest of us don't? Oh, I forgot. It must have been that magical night of meth and passion -"
"House." Chase interrupted sharply.
Cameron sighed. If she had gotten some sleep last night instead of heading to Joe's, she would have realized that this was a bad idea before she picked up the phone. "You know what, never mind. Chase, thank you for your time. Dr. House -"
"Now wait just a minute," House chided. "Aren't you even going to share the symptoms? You wouldn't make a long distance call from Seattle just for kicks. And judging by the time here, you've been up all night. Let old House in on the fun."
Cameron paused for a split-second, torn. Looking back at Amelia's room, where Derek had fallen asleep in the visitor's chair, she made up her mind. He might be an ass, and he would probably take advantage of her and then kick her while she was down. But there was no better diagnostician on this earth than Gregory House, and if anyone could solve this riddle over the phone, it would be him. Taking a deep breath, she rattled off her list of symptoms.
"Oh goodie," House said when she was done. "A brainteaser!"
"A sick little girl," Cameron reminded him crossly.
"Semantics," he replied.
"A disease of the lymphatic system?' Chase suggested.
Cameron shook her head. "No abnormalities. White blood count is stable."
"Alright, give me blood pressure, hemoglobin, white blood count, and results of the urine sample," House demanded. Cameron dutifully recited the little girl's stats.
"Creutzfeldt-Jakob?" Chase guessed.
"A six-year-old with Mad Cow? Really, Dr. Chase?" House snapped. "Why don't you entertain us all by throwing out some more diagnoses with your head up your ass?"
"Well what do you suggest then?" Chase shot back.
"You can't diagnose a patient without being able to see it," House told him, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"Her," Cameron corrected automatically, before realizing what he was saying. "You don't see patients," she reminded him, dread forming in the pit of her stomach.
"No, that's what you people are for. But if you think I'm going to trust the test results taken at some nowhere hospital by god knows who -"
"I did the tests, House," Cameron retorted, affronted.
"Yeah well, I need to be near the patient. Sense the energy and all that." Cameron sighed angrily. He was so full of crap.
"You mean get out of clinic duty. And what do you suggest we do with our patient here in Princeton?" Chase asked.
"I suggest you treat him for disseminated nocardiosis," House shot back. "Like you should have been doing since he walked in here."
"You've known what he had for three days and you didn't bother to tell anyone?" Chase asked, incredulous.
"Please. And ruin the fun of watching you and Foreman chase each other's tails? The lung infection, the puncture wound, he worked on a farm? Is this ringing any bells? Are you sure you went to med school? Start him on a course of long-term antibiotics, and go tell Cuddy we're going to Seattle to rescue our prodigal duckling before she hurts herself."
Cameron stood in shock, one hand on the nurses' station to balance herself. Was this really happening? Was this really Gregory House speaking?
"Cameron? Earth to Cameron! I expect we'll see your smiling face to greet us at the airport? Wear something skimpy." With that, House hung up the phone.
In Princeton, House sank shakily back into his chair, glad Chase had scurried off and wasn't able to observe his reaction.
In Seattle, Cameron stared carefully at the floor, attempting to divine from the marble exactly how she could prepare this hospital for one House-sized tornado that was about to arrive.