Oh dear, they did it again: went and invited new playmates! I will never get to the end of this story... and I'm supposed to have a life too, not just write fanfiction.
Thank you for the reviews and questions, they have helped :)
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"He is useless!" Chase cried and threw the heavy volume away from him – nearly hitting House who had just entered the room, with Soo at his heels.
"Temper! Temper," House admonished Chase. "Soo, would you pick Chase senior from the floor and return him to the bookshelf. We may need him later."
"How did you know it was my father's book?" Chase asked.
"Well if you have a patient with Fibromyalgia you would naturally want to consult a Rheumatologist," House pointed out reasonably. "And since Rowan Chase had nothing to say about Fibromyalgia, you would find him useless."
"How can a Rheumatologist NOT have something to say about Fibromyalgia!" Chase was shaking his head.
"Not all doctors – even Rheumatologists – believe that the syndrome even exists, so why would they have anything to say about it," House said.
"It is estimated that Fibromyalgia can affect as much 5 percent of total population! That is five in every 100. How could anyone say it doesn't exist," Chase was getting agitated.
"There is no definitive test for it;" House found Chase's reactions interesting. "People who have it don't all have same or even similar symptoms when compared to each other; the severity of it varies greatly for no apparent reason; it affects mostly women and often gets labelled as hysteria or attention seeking. Let's face it there are still a number of illnesses that don't get the attention they deserve because majority of sufferers are women."
"But that is no reason to deny that it exists!" Chase sighed.
"From what little I know about Rowan Chase, denial was one of his strong suits," House observed dryly.
"He was an idiot," Chase huffed.
"He had a brilliant mind," House said. "But he also had obsessions that blinded him to the truth."
"And you don't have obsessions?" Chase turned to face House. Soo was beginning to feel she was at a tennis match – only nobody had told her the rules of this game.
"Truth is my obsession," House pointed out. "It may blind me to some other things, but they are not important."
"In my Father's estimation," Chase pronounced carefully. "He wasn't blinded to anything important either."
"Well, he was an idiot," House dismissed with a shrug – shocking Chase into speechlessness. "Anyway, how was Mrs. Simon?"
"Didn't Soo fill you in?" Chase tried to gather his wits.
"No," House limped over to pour himself some coffee. "She was busy with other things."
Chase looked questioningly at Soo who sighed deeply and told him, with a lowered voice: "He decided to speed diagnose. Fifteen patients in an hour, he would have done more but Brenda refused to send any more in. I did the charting."
"So we can probably expect a visit from Cuddy some time soon," Chase smiled. "She will want to know what is riding House this time."
"Hello, I'm still waiting for a report," House called from the sink where he was looking for sugar. "Or do you need to compare notes as to make sure your stories match?"
"No need to compare," Chase said. "Once Mrs. Simon was allowed to tell her whole story and describe all symptoms she had had and was having, it was fairly certain that she has Fibromyalgia. We tested the tender points – or twelve of them, but since all of them produced pain there was no need to do all eighteen. Of course we still have to do the exclusion tests, since she has had no tests done so far at all, but I shall be very surprised if we find some other reason for her condition."
"You are sure she wasn't faking it?" House wanted to know.
"Yes, I'm sure," Chase stated. "Since I had Soo with me, I asked Mrs. Simon if she would let Soo do the examination as she needed to learn. That way it didn't seem odd that we wanted her to tell us everything from the beginning again. Also when we looked for the tender points I didn't say we were expecting pain but that we were looking for pressure points – given Soo's ethnicity Mrs. Simon assumed we were looking some kind of acupuncture sites and she even tried to hide her pain because she was afraid Soo might get into trouble for having done something wrong."
"She is a very nice lady," Soo inserted. "Though she did seem depressed, I mean apart from the natural depression of being in constant pain."
"Depression is a normal symptom of Fibromyalgia," House said. "Often it is also accompanied with unusual irritability – though I have never understood what that means in a woman – but obviously Mrs. Simon has somehow avoided that."
"Why did you notice her, specially, at the clinic," Soo decided to ask. "What was so different about her? I'd really like to know."
"She moved with pain," House agreed to answer. "Yet she was complaining about being unable to sleep. Normally when people have pain they assume that that is the reason why they cannot sleep, yet she didn't mention pain at all. Either she had already been diagnosed with something that explained the pain but not the lack of sleep, or she had given up on mentioning the pain because nobody was listening. I just wanted to know which."
"In other words he played a hunch," Chase told Soo. "Regrettably he was right, as usual."
"Why regrettably?" Soo was puzzled.
"It throws his own inadequacies into sharper relief," House threw over his shoulder – he had finally found the sugar. "So what did you do with Mrs. Simon?"
"Admitted her," Chase said. "As I said we still need to rule out other possible causes, as well as to make sure she doesn't have any of the other problems that can occur with this, like Lupus. Also she is in pain, so we will need to put her on pain medication, and given the syndrome it may take time before we find the right one. And since stress aggravates the condition the last thing she needs right now is to be at home trying to make Christmas for her family."
"Or spend the Christmas with them at all," House flipped at Chase. "Nothing produces stress like spending time with your family. Especially if your family has been watching you suffer pain for two years and haven't cared a damn."
"What makes you think they haven't cared?" Soo wondered.
"Oh come on!" House looked at her like she was one cup short of a full cupboard. "Your Father was in pain for three days and you threatened to assault me with my own cane if I didn't agree to take care of him! This woman has been visiting a free clinic for ... what? ... two years? alone! And she is not from a poor family. Any caring husband would have been here after one month with a big fat check to Cuddy on the condition that his wife is thoroughly examined."
"You attacked him?" Chase looked at Soo with awed respect.
"I did not," Soo claimed. "I just said I would. Yes, I see what you mean, Dr. House. But it is possible that she didn't complain to her family. My mother never likes to let us know when she is feeling poorly."
"But you always do know, don't you?" House asked. "You care so you pay attention. Maybe when you were little you believed your mother when she said she was ok, but I would say that by the time you were fourteen or so you were able to tell if she was in pain or not, regardless of her words."
"That is true," Soo had to concede.
"Well, whatever the family is like, she is now away from them," Chase said. "And I better go and get some blood and other bodily fluids out of her for the tests."
"Soo, go with him," House instructed. "And you can check on Mr. Park on your way. You can stay with your father if you want, Soo, but you can also stay on Mrs. Simon's case. Even Chase might be able to teach you something."
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When Chase got to Mrs. Simon – after having checked up on Mr. Park who was doing as well as expected but Soo had still wanted to stay with him for a moment – he found that she had a visitor. Apparently Mr. Simon had been concerned enough to come and see his wife the moment he had been informed that she was in a hospital.
"Are you her doctor?" He asked the moment Chase walked in.
"Yes," Chase acknowledged. "I'm Dr. Chase. I'm here to start on the tests we need to do on your wife."
"Look," Mr. Simon came to Chase and put his hand on Chase's shoulder. "I understand that you are a young doctor and not that experienced, so there is really no need to feel embarrassed just because my wife got you conned into believing that she is ill."
Chase moved out from under the man's hand and went to stand closer to Mrs. Simon's hospital bed. "I'm not quite as young nor quite as inexperienced as you seem to believe. And unlike you, I have a medical degree. I can tell when someone is sick and when they are not."
"Ok, I admit she is sick," Mr. Simon tried to recover some of the ground he realised he had lost with his patronising approach. "But there is nothing you can do about it. She is addicted to painkillers. She goes from doctor to doctor trying to get prescriptions and if she can't she will buy anything that she can over the counter. She also smokes pot. If I could get her to go to rehab, that would straighten her out, but she won't go. It's like she just doesn't want to live a normal life. Like she wants to numb her whole body rather than face what she is and has done."
"I see what you mean," Chase agreed. "But one can hardly blame her for wanting to forget what she has done, as that includes marrying you. Now could you just leave me alone with my patient and go disturb the rest of your family."
"Now you look here," Mr. Simon did not find Chase's words funny in the least. "You have no right to keep my wife here for no good reason! I'm taking her home right now and there is nothing you can do about it."
"Unless you have documents saying that you are your wife's legal guardian and she is unable to decide for herself, she is not going anywhere unless she says so," Chase informed the husband.
"Right, then, Flora," Mr. Simon turned to his wife. "Will you tell this young man that you are leaving with me?" Without waiting for an answer he turned then to Chase. "And you will hear from us, I will report you to your superiors and you will regret your insolence."
"No, Richard," Mrs. Simon said. "I will not leave with you. I'm staying right here till I find out what is wrong with me."
"What?" Mr. Simon was astounded. "Don't be silly! You cannot sit here on your ass now! What about the party? The clients? Have you no consideration for me?"
"Right now I would not be of any use anyway," Mrs. Simon said tiredly. "I'm tired, in pain and quite frankly I couldn't care less what happens to you."
"I will not pay your hospital bill," Mr. Simon huffed as he turned to go. "See how long they will keep you here once they realise you are not paying your way!" He stormed out.
"Well that could cause some problems," Mrs. Simon said.
"This is a teaching hospital," Chase pointed out. "We do not expect all our patients to pay for their stay. And it is possible that your husband cannot refuse to pay, it depends on the insurance that you two have."
"I'm not sure what kind of insurance we have," Flora admitted. "He has always taken care of the finances. My Father didn't believe that women can understand money and business, so he was happy when I married Richard who could take over from him."
"So the business Richard is now in charge of was originally your father's?" Chase was making conversation while getting ready to take blood from his patient.
"Yes, Father handpicked Richard as his assistant. He didn't really expect me to marry Richard, but he was happy when that happened," Flora shrugged. "I was only 18 and thought that he was the man of my dreams. After three children and 27 years of marriage I wish I had had better dreams."
"People change," Chase agreed. "So your Father gave his business to your husband then?"
"No, no, he just left Richard in the charge of the company," Flora explained. "I inherited it all, but since I don't really know anything about money I let my Father's old lawyers take care of it all. And of course Richard is in charge of the company."
"Are you telling me that your actually own the company your husband works in?" Chase wanted the clarification. "And yet he tells you that he will not pay for your medical bills? That doesn't sound quite right."
"Come to think of it, no it doesn't." Flora agreed. "I have never really thought about it at all. I concentrated on the kids, on trying to keep the family together – though Richard has never been the faithful type. We have just been keeping up the appearances. But I wouldn't know what to do, how to go about changing things now."
"Do you know any other lawyers than the ones your Father left in charge of your inheritance?" Chase asked.
"No," Flora thought for a moment. "But I do know a legal secretary. She used to be my best friend in College and we still keep in touch. She works for a constitutional lawyer; Stacy Warner I think was her name."
"I know her," Chase smiled wryly. "She can really take a bite out of a man! I think you should call your friend and ask for her help. Even if her boss won't take your case she sure can recommend someone."
"Perhaps you are right," Flora mused. "I have to think about it."
Chase took his samples and left Flora to think on her own.