Chapter 5

A few minutes later the four of them found themselves in House's conference room. "Alright, so now it looks as though we have two patients." Foreman stated as they entered the room.

"But why House?" Cameron demanded. "He was perfectly fine just a few moments before he collapsed. There can't be any connection between him and Cassie, can there?"

"No, her symptoms were slower progressing at the start. It took her days to have her first seizure. She hasn't been here long enough," Foreman said.

"Alright; so we don't have an epidemic on our hands," Chase stated.

Wilson stepped forward and picked up the dry erase marker from the white board. "No, we have two separate cases here," he said as he drew a line down the center of the board, sectioning off Cassie's symptoms. He drew a second line across the top and scrawled out Cassie's name above her symptoms and then wrote HOUSE above the other side. "So, what do we know so far?" he asked.

"Fever, disorientation, seizure," Chase began to list as Wilson wrote in almost unintelligible scratch.

As he wrote what Chase listed, Wilson said, "He had palpitations just before he seized."

"Repertory distress," Cameron said.

"And all of this was in rapid onset," Wilson said as he finished writing the last one out.

"That says to me either anaphylactic or toxin," Cameron said.

"Ok, Cameron, you run a full blood scan on House. You two… we need to keep working on Cassie's case. She's not going to stop getting worse just because our friend has gotten sick."

Chase and Foreman nodded. "What about you?" Chase asked.

"If he's having a reaction to something then chances are that something is still around. I get the fun job of poking around through all of House's stuff and everything that he has come in contact with in the last few hours," Wilson answered.

"Wait," Foreman said, staring at the white board. "Other than the rapid onset of this and lack of muscle pains, the symptoms are the same. And actually, Cassie's did hit her pretty fast except for she had the muscle pains for days"

"Not to mention that a fever isn't necessarily consistent with a toxin… especially a rapid acting one," Chase brought up.

"Maybe we do have an epidemic," Cameron said as she realized that this was true.

"I doubt it," Wilson was saying. "But maybe we should get the two of them into an isolation room just in case."

They all agreed. It just seemed like too much of a coincidence to not err on the safe side.

"Foreman, you should run a full blood work on Cassie as well. It may be something that they both have come in contact with. Chase, search her room and her cloths that she was brought in with," Wilson said.

Everybody nodded and quickly left to go do their jobs. Wilson stayed behind and watched as the other three left. He was still reeling from the shock of it all. Taking a deep breath, he turned and entered into House's personal office to begin his search. He really was the best one for this task.

House may not confide everything in Wilson or trust him one hundred percent, but he was his best friend. If anyone had to be the one to go through his stuff, Wilson was sure that House would choose him.

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"What's going on?" Cassie asked as Chase and Foreman entered her room again.

The two exchanged as look, not sure if they really should tell her. "You all rushed out of here so fast and I thought I heard Dr. House's name being called," She said.

Chase nodded as Foreman began to explain while he drew some blood. "Dr. House collapsed outside. He was showing similar symptoms to yours when you were brought in, but it all hit so fast we're pretty sure that it's not connected."

"But we're going to move you and him to an isolation room, just incase whatever it is contagious," Foreman said.

"Oh my God," she exclaimed. "Is he alright?"

"He's stable for right now, but he hasn't waken up yet," Chase answered.

"I hope this isn't my fault," she said.

"I don't see how it could be. Even if the diseases are related, I'm sure that it's nothing that you did on purpose so it can't be your fault," Chase said

"But if he caught something from me then it is," She said.

"That's incredibly unlikely, he had hardly met with you for a few minutes and Chase, Cameron and I have spent much more time with you and are not showing any symptoms." Foreman explained while prepping her to be moved.

Cassie nodded, "I guess you're right."

Foreman nodded while Chase left to grab a wheel chair for her.

"What was the blood for?" Cassie asked.

"We're going to check your blood for any type of toxins that you might have gotten," Foreman answered her. He slipped the vial of her blood in his lab coat pocket and nodded to Chase as he returned with the wheel chair.

Chase began to help Foreman to get her ready. "I need to check the stuff you were brought in with for anything that might have caused an allergic reaction or delivered some type of toxin to your system."

Cassie nodded, she was clearly becoming weaker again as she leaned back into her pillow and closed her eyes.

"Hey, you alright?" Chase asked.

"Well I am a patient in a hospital so that's a rather stupid question," she replied weakly, keeping her eyes closed.

Chase checked her monitor and saw that she was still about the same that she was before and shook his head smiling. "You and House certainly do have a lot in common," he said.

Cassie took a deep breath and let it out before saying. "I might be sarcastic, but I hope I'm not quite as much of an ass."

"That wouldn't be possible," Foreman said as he signaled her to set up and swing her legs over the bed. He was about to help her off and into the wheel chair when suddenly they could hear some yelling from a near by room.

"House, don't!" Cameron's voice could be heard. "Stop, just let it be!"

Chase and Foreman quickly exchanged a glance before Chase dashed out of her room and ran the short distance to where House was.

He entered to find Cameron struggling with House to keep his breathing tube in. House obviously decided that he didn't need it any more and was trying to pull it out himself.

"Damn it House! At least let me take it out!" Cameron was yelling.

But at that moment House was able to shove her away long enough for him to grab a hold of the tube and yank it out. He immediately began gagging and coughing, but he was obviously breathing on his own now.

Chase raced over to see if there was anything he was able to help with. "For being so smart, you really are stupid sometimes," he said, reaching House's bedside.

House was still coughing but he was able to spare a glare directed at both Cameron and Chase as he slowly regained control over his breath.

"If Cameron was doing her job, she would have realized that I didn't need that damn machine anymore. And besides, I usually find it difficult to talk when I have a tube shoved down my trachea," he rasped as Cameron started to pull the ventilator with all of the tubing out of the way.

Chase pulled out his pen light and attempted check House's pupil dilation. House let him, though with an air of why-the-hell-are-you-hovering-over-me attitude.

"Symptoms?" he suddenly asked as Chase back away.

"What? Yours?"

"No, Barney the purple dinosaur… Of course mine!"

"Fever, disorientation, elevated heart rate, repertory distress…," Cameron supplied quickly.

"Seizure and cardiac arrest," Chase finished.

"Seizure and Cardiac arrest?" House asked.

"Oh, so now you're going to play the let's repeat everything I say in question form?" Chase responded

"Hey, leave the sarcasm to the master," House retorted. He thought for a moment. "I remember falling and then Wilson saying something asinine about getting me better and then I blacked out."

"That was when you seized," Cameron said.

House sat back, deep in thought for a moment. "Memory loss, just like the girl…" he was saying almost to himself.

"Yeah, your symptoms and hers are a lot alike, but I don't see how you can be related. You barely had any contact with her and you were hit much too fast," Chase said.

"Yeah, two people, who had never met before and had been healthy before, meet for the first time and are now exhibiting similar symptoms. There's no way that they could be related," he said, rolling his eyes.

"House, hers took a while to develop and you have only been to see her once," Cameron said.

"A toxin could remain dormant in the body for a while and then work rapidly," House muttered

"Yeah, that's what we thought too. That's why I'm here," Cameron said as she waved the needle she pulled from her pocket.

"Oh, you mean you weren't just here because you care?"

"I'm here to figure out what's wrong with you," she said.

House rolled his eyes and held out his arm, palm up, to Cameron.

"I hope that you're doing the same for the girl as well," House said to Chase as Cameron began to draw his blood.

"Foreman already drew some and will take it to the lab as soon as he has her set up in the isolation room," He answered

"Which is where you'll be going as soon as I get your blood," Cameron said as she pulled the now full vial of blood from his arm.

House rolled his eyes. Great, he was going to be stuck in a bubble until he was able to solve whatever was getting them.

"I thought you guys said that you didn't think our cases were related," he said.

"House you know perfectly well that we have to isolate you two until we are able to completely rule out the possibility of this spreading," Cameron said.

"Sounds like someone has been listening to Cuddy too much…" House said, but realized that he was probably not going to get himself out of this one. "Now, you should be checking…"

"Cassie's clothing and items as well as her room for any toxins or anything that both of you might have had a reaction to," Chase finished for him as he disconnect all of the monitors that they had hooked up to House.

"Wow, I should get sick more often," House said. Suddenly House looked around the room and asked, "Where's Wilson?"

"What, he can't be busy with something else?" Cameron asked as she removed the needle and pocketed the vial of blood.

"Not when his friend is dying."

"You're not dying now," Chase answered. In fact, the monitors all read that House was steadily improving before they pulled them all off.

"Yeah, but Cassie got better before she got worse as well."

"Hey, you actually remembered her name!" Cameron exclaimed.

"Shouldn't you be taking that blood to the lab now?" House said, glaring at her. She rolled her eyes and left but only to go get the wheel chair.

"So where is Wilson?" House persisted.

"Working," Chase answered.

"Uh, huh… Wilson is too much of a bleeding heart to be able to work while his friend is sick from some unknown cause. So if he's not at said friend's bedside, then he must be trying to solve the mystery himself."

"Wow… how'd you figure that one out?" Chase asked, rolling his eyes in sarcasm.

"He's doing that same thing for me that you're supposed to be doing for Cassie… isn't he?"

Chase didn't answer right away, not sure if House was going to call a halt to it or not.

"Your silence is all the answer that I need. You realize that it's a waist of time. It was the girl that got sick first so I doubt that it's anything that I have that would be affecting her."

Chase just looked back at his boss, not sure how he was expected to respond.

"Oh well, Wilson's not going to find anything but at least he can feel as if he's doing something," House said, as Cameron returned with the wheel chair.

"And what's that for?" he demanded eyeing the wheel chair.

"What do you think? I told you we have to get you into the isolation room."

"You're not wheeling me down there like some common invalid patient. I am perfectly capable of hobbling myself down there," He said.

"House, you know we can't let you do that," Cameron said.

"Watch me," House replied as he swung his legs over the edge of the bed and looked around to see if his cane was nearby… "As long as one of you supply me with my cane that is," he said.

"House, your cane was broken in all of the mess trying to save your life," Chase lied. Actually it was fine but they had taken it away knowing that if House was able to get a hold of it once he woke up, it would be near impossible to keep him in bed. Obviously they were right.

House rolled his eyes. He suspected that Chase was lying, but just then Wilson appeared.

"Well, it's good to see that you're awake… I think," Wilson said.

Cameron looked to Wilson and said, "He's your friend, you convince him that he can't walk himself to the isolation room."

"And now I realize that I am wrong," Wilson said. "It would be better if we had gotten you locked in your cell before you woke up."

"Sorry to make your life more difficult. Next time I'll make sure that I lapse into a coma just to make your life easier." He answered. "And you," he said to Chase. "Don't you have something you should be doing?"

Chase shook his head in frustration and left, walking back to Cassie's former room.

"I'm not kidding House; you are not walking down there. You just had a heart attack, you shouldn't be walking around," Cameron said as Chase left.

"No, let him," Wilson said.

"Thank you," House said, nearly as surprised as Cameron.

"After all, he's always looking for more things to happen to his patients in order to diagnose them. Maybe if he had another seizure or heart attack we'll be able to diagnose him faster."

"Oh, I like that. You're trying to be me," House said with a humorless laugh.

"Damn it House, just get into the chair. I promise you that your pride can't get hurt any worse than it already has today. Half the staff already saw you collapse so it would be pointless to pretend that nothing's wrong," Cameron said.

"She's really taking all the fun out of this," House said in a stage whisper to Wilson.

"Get in the chair!" she said.

"You know, you're really pissy when you get concerned," House said as he got off the bed and used it as a support to get into the wheel chair.

"And you're an asshole all of the time," Cameron said as she began to wheel him out of the room.

"Oh, such wit. Maybe you're the one after my job."

Wilson shook his head as he followed them out the door. This was going to be a very long day.