Chapter 8

It was a while later that House and Cassie were once again left alone together, waiting for test results. House was lying back on his bed, tossing his ball up and catching it again rhythmically.

"Can't you find something less annoying to do?" Cassie asked.

"I could, but that wouldn't be any fun."

Cassie listened to the ball leave his hands and thump solidly back several more times. She was trying to sleep again, but the pain was back and that ball was driving her crazy. "If you won't knock it out, you could at least give me one of those pills again.

She listened as the ball left his hands again but the solid thump of it returning to his hands never came. It sounded as if the ball missed him completely and hit the soft bed and rolled onto the floor, bouncing a few times.

"Dr. House?" she asked as she opened her eyes and looked over to where he was lying.

It looked as if he was trying to signal to her. She then realized that it sounded as if he was choking. There were soft gasping noises that signaled that he wasn't receiving enough air.

He was trying to roll off the bed, presumably to get something to help himself, but he didn't seem to be able to find enough strength to do so.

Cassie Quickly threw off her covers and jumped out of her bed. A rush of disorientation and dizziness rushed over her as she found herself standing. She took a few deep breaths through the nose mask that she still wore to aid her own breathing and then she threw it off as well as all the wires and monitors that she was still connected to.

She walked as fast as her ailing body would allow across the room to where her doctor was quickly turning blue. He looked at her in a way where she felt for sure that he was trying to tell her what she needed to do, but she just didn't know. All that she knew was that he wasn't getting air. She could sympathize with him as she was finding it difficult once again to breath now that she was no longer having the oxygen rich air pumped though her nose.

Not knowing what else to do, but she that he didn't have much longer, she took as big a breath as she was able to and bent over, placing her mouth on his and breathing out. She could feel her air transfer into him and his chest rose, receiving the air. She released and coughed from the exertion but as soon as she was able to, she took another breath, this one not nearly as full as the last and breathed it into the doctor once again.

It was then that Doctors Cameron and Chase rushed into view just outside of the sealed room. They were quickly followed by several nurses.

"What's going on?" Chase demanded as he saw Cassie standing over House, trying to take another breath.

"He… Can't breath," she panted as she got another small breath and transferred it once again to him.

Chase was in the entrance, rushing to put on his isolation suite but Cameron didn't even pause to grab hers before she rushed into the room.

"What are you doing?" Chase called after her.

She didn't answer as she reached out and caught a fainting Cassie. "Chase get in here now!" She called as she lowered Cassie to the floor and looked up to House. He was still trying to draw breath but didn't seem able to.

Chase gave up on the suite and followed quickly in as well, grabbing Cassie and helping her back to her bed, shoving the nose mask back on. "Are you alright now?" he asked hurriedly. She nodded weakly and waved him to go back to his boss.

Chase turned and looked back to where Cameron was quickly working on House along with the two nurses. It looked as thought they were getting everything under control. Cameron had pulled out a face pump mask like she had used on him before and used it to breathe for the doctor while the nurses grabbed the intubating kit and prepared to use it. Obviously he was able to receive air since they had all witnessed Cassie giving him mouth to mouth but for some reason he wasn't able to draw it in himself.

Chase quickly crossed the room and took the kit from the nurse and nudged Cameron aside. Quickly, he used the tool to force the tube down House's throat. In a matter of moments, he was once again hooked up to the respirator.

Cameron watched until she was sure that House was getting the air that he needed before she turned back to Cassie. She was still stilling on the edge of her bed, looking pale and out of breath. "Cassie, are you alright?" she asked as she walked back over to the girl.

Cassie nodded as she concentrated on breathing through the oxygen rich mask. Cameron reached her and helped her the rest of the way back into her bed and then reached up to adjust the oxygen level that her mask was giving her. Cassie took a few more breaths of the slightly richer air and then nodded that she was doing much better.

Cameron watched her closely, not sure what to say or do. She was breathing now it appeared, but she had obviously found it difficult breathing away from the air. Finally she decided that Cassie was going to be alright now and said, "That was a very good thing you did."

Taking another breath Cassie answered. "I couldn't very well let the man who's trying to save me die."

Cameron glanced back to where house was now lying, intubated once again. "You very well may have just saved his life," Cameron said, almost more to herself then to Cassie. A moment later she shook of the odd feeling that had crept over her and turned back to Cassie. "You barely were able to get enough air for yourself, what made you think that you would be able to have enough for him too?"

Cassie shrugged. "I don't know, I just knew I had to try. The first time that I couldn't breathe back upstairs was the most terrifying thing that I had ever experienced and I had you in the room when it happened. All I could think then was that help couldn't come fast enough. When I saw that the same thing was happening to Dr. House, I couldn't just let him suffer like that. I knew how terrifying it is to go though that, and he didn't have another doctor as near by as I had. All there was, was me. I hope that what I did was right. I'm sure I surprised him when I put my mouth on his."

Cameron smiled slightly. "You probably did. But under the circumstances, what you did was perfect. You kept him breathing until we were able to help."

Cassie nodded and lay back once again against her pillow. "He's going to be alright?" she asked. "He should be fine as long as he doesn't try and pull the tube out again," Cameron said.

"Good. I think I'm going to go to sleep again now," she answered.

Cameron smiled again at her, "That's a good idea," she said as she pulled the covers up over Cassie and walked back to where Chase was still standing over their boss.

Chase looked up at Cameron, "How is she?" he asked.

"She'll be fine," Cameron said. She looked down at House. He looked a lot better then he had a few minutes ago when she had first reached his side. He had a tinge of blue when she first saw him, now his color was rapidly returning.

He looked back at her, unable to talk with the tube shoved down his throat. He held out his hand and snapped his fingers. He pantomimed writing with his hand and then snapped his fingers once again.

Chase reached into his pocket and pulled out a pen while Cameron sought out a note pad. They each handed him their piece.

House took it and wrote out "Not Cancer!"

Chase nodded. "Apparently not. It's pretty obvious that your two cases are connected now."

He wrote again, "Myelogram? L.P.?"

"The L.P. revealed some bacteria cultures, Foreman is testing them right now to determine what kind. The Myelogram showed some type of cyst or growth in her spine, but before now, we figured that it was cancer," Cameron explained.

House thought for a moment then wrote, "Broad spectrum antibiotics and Prednisone and get an Angiography of her arm and my leg."

"Your leg? Why?" Chase asked.

House quickly jotted down, "because it hurts your idiot. Just do it!"

Chase and Cameron rolled their eyes and huffed off.

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"It Staphylococcal," Foreman announced as the gathered once again in the conference room.

"That's the bacteria that you found in the spinal cord?" Wilson asked as he poured himself a cup of coffee.

"Yup. Good thing that we have them on antibiotics now," he answered back.

"But why the Prednisone? And why did House want us to do an Angiograph on them?"

"Might be the lack of oxygen," Chase half heartedly suggested.

"Well, that might not be a bad idea," Wilson said. "He nearly dies again and now he wants us to do something that might have saved him the use of his leg eight years ago. He may be confused as to what is really happening."

"You think that he thinks it's another Infarcture?" Cameron asked, rather surprised.

"It's possible," he said with a shrug.

"Well it doesn't really matter. The Prednisone shouldn't cause any harm if it's not and neither will the Angiograph," Chase said.

"Are you saying we should just humor him?" Foreman asked.

"Why not? That's what we would do if he was here and not the one that was sick. That's all we ever do… go about administering tests and medications that we have no idea if they're what the patient needs or not," Cameron replied.

Foreman shook his head but dropped it.

Just then Cameron's beeper went off. She looked down at it and then stood up saying, "The Angiographs are in."

Everyone else followed her out of the room and down to where they could get the scans. Cameron got them and then turned around, placing the photos up on the viewing light as the others huddled around. After a few moments of looking, Foreman suddenly pointed to something on House's scan as Cameron spotted something else on Cassie's

"What do you know," Wilson said. "The SOB was right."

"But how? What would cause two infarctures in two different people?" Cameron asked.

"And what would be the chance that it would be in the same place as his last one?" Chase asked.

They all shrugged, but knew that they needed to get both of these two into surgery before it got any worse.

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By that time the next day, both House and Cassie were out of surgery and fully awake. They found that they were still in beds side by side, but now they were moved to a regular room. They were still hooked up to IVs of Prednisone and Antibiotics for both their blood flow and the infection that was still working its way out of their systems.

All four of the other doctors came in to check on their patients. Both were breathing fine on their own once again and looking much better. House was currently watching General Hospital on the TV in the room as Cassie was trying her hardest not to get sucked into it.

"Alright House, you're going to have to explain exactly what happen here," Wilson said as he entered.

"Well, isn't rather obvious, I just saved two lives, again. Only this time, one was my own," he said without ever moving his gaze from the TV.

"But how did you figure it out? It still doesn't make sense to us," Cameron said.

House sighed as he grabbed the remote and turned the TV off, relenting the fact that they were not going to let him watch it until they had their curiosity filled.

"Polyarteritis Nodosa," he stated.

They looked at him for a moment, wondering what that had to do with anything. Finally Chase broke the silence, "That's what caused the infarctions?"

"Yup. And the Staphylococcal caused the Polyarteritis Nodosa."

"But how did you know?"

"I realized that the pain in my leg was actually more then usual. I started to wonder if maybe I had the same muscle pains that Cassie had which was the only symptom that I was missing."

"So you did have the muscle pain, but because it was where you expect pain to be, you didn't even notice," Foreman said.

"That and the Vicodin. Never underestimate the power of Vicodin," House said.

"But why would it be in the same place as it was the last time?" Cameron asked.

"Because it is the area that has the most damage to it. Of course it would settle in a place where blood flow was already restricted."

"But why were your MRI and hers different? Why did she have that swelling?" Wilson asked.

"I wasn't as advanced as her. The swelling was caused by the pressure that the bacterial cyst was creating in the spinal column. Which is the same reason that we both were experiencing intermittent repertory paralysis. The cyst was growing and changing shape, pushing against the spinal cord and cutting off certain signals that the brain was sending."

"But how did you get the bacteria and we didn't" Chase pressed.

House looked at him for a moment before admitting, "Not sure. Maybe it's just my luck. This is the second time that I have almost died from the same thing."

"How is that bacteria spread?" Cassie asked from her bed.

"Any number of ways," Cameron said. "Usually from transfer of body fluids though."

"Like when I cough onto the cut that Dr. House had on his hand?" she asked.

They all looked at her, stunned that they didn't pick up on that. House glanced down at the cut that was still on his hand and realized exactly what had happened.

"Well that's the last time that I go and see a patient," he said.

"Like you do that very often as it is," Cameron sighed.

"Sorry, but I was choking on the water you gave, remember?"

"That was probably because of that cyst. You lost control over your throat muscles, causing you to choke," Cameron said.

"Yeah, yeah. Well, just don't let it happen again," House said as he picked up the remote again and flicked on the TV.

Everyone shook their head and strolled out of the room. As soon as everyone left, House sighed and turned the TV. Off.

"What, one you already saw?" Cassie asked.

"Of course, I've seen them all. But that's not why I turned it off."

"Uh oh, is this the part where the jerk suddenly shows that he has a heart while his friends are out of the room?"

"Hey, you should watch it before you really do turn into me. You nearly wound up with the same thing that everyone agrees put the top on my jerkiness. If you're not careful that sarcasm of yours could turn into the cynicism that I have."

"Don't worry, I doubt that anyone could ever get as cynical as you," Cassie said with a smile.

House half smiled, not sure what to say next. "Truth is," he started. "I thought I should say thank you for saving my life."

Cassie looked at her Doctor for a moment before saying, "your welcome, but can I ask you a question?"

"You just did," he answered.

"Knock it off," she demanded.

"Fine, go ahead," he said with a bit of reservation. This was not a subject that he necessarily wanted to be chatting about.

"Do all of the people you save always thank you?"

A little surprised at her question he answered, "Not always, but usually."

"And do you ever want them to? I mean thank you that is?"

He thought for a moment before saying, "No."

"Then why do you feel the need to say it to me if it's something that you don't even like to hear?"

He stared at her for a long moment, trying to decided what the point to her question was and then if he should even answer her. But she saved him from answering the last question. "I don't really need to know, but I think that it would be good for you to know," she said, leaning back into her bed and closing her eyes.

They lay there in silence for a while before House once again turned on the TV. Then, just before she slipped into sleep she heard him whisper, "Because I had to."