My Foe Chapter 3 Part III, a house, m.d. fanfic

My Foe

A/N: Here is the third part to My Foe. Since I'm long-winded, there will be a part IV but that's it! Thanks to all of you who have been faithfully reviewing!

Warning: This story involves adult issues that involve illness, adult issues and strong language. Reader Discretion is advised.

Part III

I still wasn't fully aware enough to remember much of what Wilson and Chase's plan involved to frame Lucas for pranking in order to bring him down for the very real pranks, including poisoning me, that he had inflicted on Wilson and me. This is the full account as it was told to me after.

The ambulance bay doors crash open as paramedics rush the stretcher with their charge on it into the Emergency Room of Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. They are met by the swing shift team of doctors and nurses manning the department who take custody of the patient as the lead paramedic tells them important info that they'll need to know immediately to treat the critically ill man.

"Male Caucasian, forty to forty-five years of age involved in single vehicle collision," the Paramedic says quickly and efficiently, "According to a witness on the scene the victim appeared to pass out behind the wheel of his car, veered off the road and down a twelve foot embankment into a ditch filled with water. Patient was unconscious and unresponsive with possible head trauma, no apparent lacerations or contusions. B.P. ninety-five over fifty-eight, heartbeat one-fifty-one, shallow respiration. Given one unit saline full-bore enroute. I.D. in wallet says his name is Dr. James Wilson."

The patient is lifted off of the ambulance stretcher onto a treatment bed and the paramedics reclaim their transport and return to their bus to fill out the paperwork. Meanwhile the ER attending orders head and neck x-rays, CBC and whole blood count, common tox screen and drug screen as his team hooks wires to the man's leads, clips a pulse oximeter onto one of his index fingers, and wraps a cuff around his arm. Monitors come to life, displaying his ECG, pulse rate, blood pressure and O₂ saturation level and respiration. After protecting his airway an oxygen mask is placed over his mouth and nose. His clothes are cut off of him by a nurse very proficient with a pair of utility scissors and a visual inspection of his body is made to make certain there are no injuries left unidentified.

The ER charge nurse takes possession of the patient's wallet, watch and other personal items that were on him to document and stick them into a large manila envelope to be store safely in the Hospital's safe for the patient. As soon as she notices the name of the patient she immediately contacts the office of the Dean of Medicine. Dr. Lisa Cuddy is still at the hospital working late when she receives word that her Head of Oncology has been brought into the ER unconscious and in critical condition.

Cuddy drops her pen onto the half-finished form she is completing and hurries out of her office, through the Clinic and down the passageway to the ER. There is a look of worry on her brow but otherwise she maintains the stoic image of a perfect hospital administrator. On the inside, however, her stomach is doing flip-flops; first Dr. Gregory House, PPTH's Head of Diagnostic Medicine falls ill from an unknown ailment which turns out to be Ciguatera poisoning, of all things and now Wilson is brought in by ambulance from a car accident caused by him passing out while at the wheel. The thought occurs to her that the oncologist could possibly be suffering from the same kind of poisoning as his best friend; they live together in the Loft and often eat together.

House's bout nearly cost him his life and she is concerned Wilson could be facing the same battle. That is only part of her concern; Wilson was also in an accident and could have any range of injuries depending on how bad it ended up being.

Once she reaches the ER she finds out from the charge nurse what room Wilson has been taken to: Trauma room one. The ER team is busy tending to him when she arrives; knowing better than to interfere with the highly trained team while they are at work she stands off to the side where she can still see what is happening but is out of the way. It worries the Dean of Medicine that Wilson is unconscious and his vital signs are not good at all. His heart rhythm is good, but it is beating way too fast for comfort; at the same time he is hypotensive and he is on oxygen to keep his o₂ sats up.

A portable X-ray machine is brought into the crowded room and all unnecessary staff for that moment vacate the room. Cuddy watches as they take films of his head and neck; she looks to see if she can spot any head or neck trauma to warrant the shots but can't see well enough past the X-ray techs to get a good enough look. She is encouraged by the fact that while his vitals aren't good, they have stabilized, at least for the time being.

The Dean of Medicine takes the opportunity during the X-rays to stop the attending ER doctor for an update.

"He doesn't appear to have any serious injuries from the car accident," the attending tells her, "But we're taking the films to be on the safe side—otherwise he has a minor laceration on his forehead and a few minor contusions mostly where his seatbelt made contact with his body upon impact. As you can see he's shocky; his BP dropped after arriving here but has stabilized; he's still hypotensive and tachycardic. I suspect that he may be suffering from some kind of toxicity; we're running standard labs. He'll probably be taken to ICU pending the outcome of the labs."

Cuddy tells him about House and his diagnosis of Ciguatera poisoning, being certain to mention that they are roommates and there may be a link. She then tells him that the Diagnostics department will be adopting Wilson's case once the ER department has signed off on it. The X-ray techs finish up and leave with their equipment to go process the films. Taking over again, ER staffers finish up what they can and prep Wilson for transfer to intensive care. Before he is taken away, Cuddy approaches his bedside. He looks pale; two slightly bushy dark brown eyebrows seem to jump out against the blanched color of his skin. A dressing covers the cut on his forehead. The fact that he still hasn't come to yet causes her anxiety, but she suppresses any possible display of that on her features; she is the hospital's chief administrator and she has a responsibility to her staff to behave in a professional way at all times, even when the patient just happens to be one of her best friends.

She regrets at that moment that there has been an estrangement between her and her 'Boys', but she's not prepared to accept the blame for that; she made mistakes in the way she allowed House to find out about her relationship with Lucas but she has been nothing but upfront about the fact that there will never be anything between House and her. The kiss she had reciprocated when she met the diagnostician in the downtown park to talk was an aberration. She hadn't meant to respond and thereby given him any false hope; it had been nothing more than an automatic physical response. She had never denied that there was chemistry the existed between House and her…but that's all it is. That's all it can be allowed to be, and she refuses to entertain the idea of anything more.

She has the life she wants. Sure, there isn't the spark between Lucas and her as there is between House and her; House is an accelerant-fueled blaze that burns hot and fast and is all-consuming for as long as it lasts, but as quickly as the fire is set alight it fizzles to next to nothing as the reality of their incompatibility douses the heat. Lucas however, is a slow burning flame with hot, glowing embers that warms and sustains and gives comfort and security. It's a warmth that will stick around and continue to warm up not only her but her daughter for the long-run without her getting burned and then left alone in the cold.

As much as she wants to be close to her two friends and employees, House and Wilson will have to be the ones to accept the situation—and Lucas—if she and they are going to maintain even a little bit of the same trust and camaraderie as they had before…before the bus accident, before House woke up to find her sitting vigil and got the idea that there could ever be anything more than friendship between the two of them. So why is it she feels like she is constantly trying to convince herself of this fact? Why does it seem that no matter what the situation, so long as it involves the diagnostician her mind keeps returning to that place where the blazing fire seems so damned appealing after what feels like an eternity of 'basking' at room temperature?

She is distracted from her thoughts when the orderlies arrive to assist a nurse in transferring Wilson to his assigned room in ICU, right next door to his best friend's. She mumbles an apology for standing in their way and backs up to allow them to push the stretcher past her. A large part of her wants to check on House, just to see how he is coming along in his recovery as any administrator would check on a member of her senior staff; deciding that it was probably not in the diagnostician's nor her best interest, she decides instead to check with Foreman when she presents Wilson's file to the team.

* * *

Dr. Robert Chase and two nurses are waiting to greet the stretcher when it arrives at the ICU bearing the unconscious James Wilson. The oncologist is transferred over to the unit bed and hooked up quickly to the monitors, oxygen source and IV pump before the orderlies and nurse leave with the stretcher. The Fellow waits until the nurses leave the room before setting to work, carefully following the directions his IT specialist friend gave him. He grabs the laptop computer he has stashed away behind the small nurse's desk that was neatly tucked to one corner of the room. With it is a small panel that resembles an audio sound board that is approximately eight by tens inches in size. He is uncertain exactly how the process works or exactly what the panel does despite the fact that his friend had tried to explain it to him the night before. The Australian-born and bred doctor hadn't paid a lot of attention; so long as he knows how to set it up and get it functioning, that's all he needs to know.

The concept is quite simple; the monitors and sensors that measure the oncologist's vital signs are about to be transferred to the panel interface that is wirelessly controlled by a program on the laptop which will simulate whatever readings they want the monitoring instruments to display. So long as the laptop with the required programming software is within seventy-five feet of the panel at all times he will be able to run any scenario at the press of a button. He could keep the laptop hidden behind the desk and take it out—inconspicuously, of course—when he needs to adjust Wilson's 'condition'. According to his friend, who is an associate professor at Princeton, the software he is using is state of the art, still under trials but very soon it will be available to medical schools across the country for simulation training. So long as Chase keeps his mouth shut about where he got it and promises to enter the security code embedded in the software should he be discovered, he gets to try it out first in a most interesting situation.

Of course, this isn't fool proof; it requires the cooperation of a few key individuals hand-picked by Wilson and Chase to help carry out the charade. They require someone in the ER, someone in the lab to switch result printouts and records before they reach any probing eyes, someone on the team to run interference and help Chase should he find himself unable to get to the laptop, and a trio of nurses in ICU (two of whom had huge crushes on Wilson and are willing to do anything to capture his attention) to carry it all off. It is highly likely something will go wrong and cause the whole operation crashing down around them, crushing Wilson and him in the process. If it works, however, it will not only be a prank of epic greatness that would impress the master himself (who happens to be in the neighboring room at this very moment) but will see Lucas Douglas face the punishment he deserves for nearly killing House, as well as the other rotten pranks he has pulled in the past.

After setting everything up as he has been instructed Chase brings up the program on the laptop and adjusting the different values to where he wants them, starts the program running. There is a barely perceptible flicker in the monitors but then the readouts begin to worsen ever so slightly, just as he had imputed. He smiles broadly and then shuts the laptop as much as he can without it shutting down, plugs in the short power cord, slides it carefully behind the desk with no room to spare and then plugs it into the wall. Backing away he wanders around the small room and checks to see from several angles whether or not the laptop and panel are visible; standing on the left side of the bed looking towards the foot of it a tiny sliver of the control panel is visible but that is only because he knows where it is and is looking for it. It is highly unlikely it will be discovered.

The medical deception is the easiest part of the con. Setting up the car accident to look real without destroying Wilson's Volvo and seriously injuring the oncologist took a little work. First, Wilson and he had to find a junk car that was still operational but wasn't worth a plug nickel to crash; they purchased an old Honda from a wrecker for five hundred dollars to serve that purchase. They had hoped that no one would stop to question why a successful oncologist was driving a beat up old junkmobile. So far so good.

Next was the part that took the longest—they had to spend a whole day in the countryside surrounding Princeton working out exactly how Wilson would 'pass out' and drive the car into a ditch without actually getting hurt. It was not without its crazy moments and at one point Wilson nearly backed out of the whole thing. In the end they worked out the wrinkles to the point where the older doctor was willing to go ahead with it after all. After 'passing out', Wilson already had the car going no more than ten miles per hour when he drove it into the ditch, slamming the brakes once the front end went over the edge. By the look of the cut on his forehead and bruising on his body he hit the bottom a little harder than they had hoped, but unless the head film came back with evidence of more serious damage he came out of the stunt quite well. As soon as the car was at rest Wilson grabbed a syringe he had stowed in the glove compartment and injected himself with the strong cocktail of drugs that were supposed to simulate the symptoms they wanted and then, before passing out, threw the syringe away out the window as far as he could. The drugs acted quickly enough to put him out before the first Samaritan could come to his aid.

Next comes Chase's job of planting evidence in Lucas' car without getting caught. That not only requires ascertaining where the said car will be when he needs to do it but learning how to break into a locked car without setting off an anti-theft alarm. To that end, Chase made a copy of his car key and then 'accidentally' locked it in his car. He then enlisted Dr. Eric Foreman to show him how to break into his car with as little damage (evidence) as possible. Foreman was not impressed with having to show him; when he was a kid he'd learned the trick and with his brother stole a car and went on a joyride, getting caught by the police and earning himself an arrest record for Grand Theft Auto that ended up haunting him when House discovered this little embarrassing secret and used it (still uses) to humiliate and irritate him mercilessly. If word got out that he was actually training Chase how to do it he would never live it down; the Chief of Diagnostic Medicine would make certain of that. The Australian doctor hopes he can remember what Foreman showed him when the time comes to do it on his own.

Just as Chase is about to head to the differential room he notices Wilson beginning to stir. The drug cocktail is wearing off. From out of his lab coat Chase pulls out a prefilled syringe and goes to the oncologist. Squeezing out a tiny bit of the drug to ensure he doesn't inject a lethal air bubble into him, the Fellow injects it into the PICC line. This should keep Wilson out for another three hours, at least. Satisfied, he leaves Wilson's room. After a quick check at how House is doing, he heads towards the elevators, stopping briefly to give his nurse co-conspirator a pre-assigned signal. It is so ridiculously cloak and dagger that he has difficulty not cracking up at the wink she gives him in return.

He loves every moment of this!

* * *

House's team meets with Cuddy to discuss Wilson's case and when the lab results come back they indicate that the oncologist has been poisoned with the same Ciguatoxin House has. Chase and Dr. Chris Taub are sent to the Loft to 'investigate' whether the source of the toxin is somewhere there while Thirteen begins treatment and Foreman, of course relishing his opportunity to command, even if it is temporary, supervises. The two male Fellows take samples of everything edible in the condo to bring back to the hospital to be tested.

Chase is glad that one of his co-conspirators is back at the hospital making certain than Wilson is receiving the 'treatment' that he requires.

* * *

I wake up to find Thirteen standing by my bed, adjusting the flow rate on my IV pump. At this point I am not aware of the plot cooked up by my best friend and my Aussie Fellow and I have no memory of the brief conversation I had with them two days before. The Ciguatoxin is playing havoc with my brain and nervous system and I am experiencing short-term memory loss as one of the symptoms.

She smiles down at me pleasantly when she notices that I am awake. I am not intubated again but I wear a nasal cannula to supplement my O₂ intake so that my sats doesn't drop as it did before.

"Thirteen," I croak; my mouth and throat feel like they are stuffed with cotton balls. "Thirsty."

"How is your nausea?" she asks me. I shrug imperceptibly; I feel a great deal better than I did the day I ingested the toxin and tell her so. Upon hearing that she raises the head of my bed.

"I'll go get you a glass of water," she tells me and then leaves my room to fetch it. I look around me a little, this being the first time since I passed out in the bathroom that my vision isn't doubled. The room next to mine to the left is empty. I look to my right at the neighboring room on that side and then do a double-take when I realize who the patient in that bed is. Wilson. My Wilson. Not remembering that he told me that he hadn't drank the milk and was not sick, I become deeply concerned and I feel the need to get to his bedside as quickly as I can. I pull my IV out of my arm and with great effort I manage to sit right up and slowly move my legs to hang over the edge of the bed. A wave of vertigo hits me and I shut my eyes tightly against it, waiting for it to pass. Once it does, I tear off the leads and the wires attached to them, sending the monitors above my head and placed around me screaming out in alarm. For the first time in two days I notice the pain in my right thigh and grimace as I slowly slide off of the bed, placing weight on it. My legs feel like cooked spaghetti and I can barely keep my head up.

I begin to hobble sans cane towards the door, nearly collapsing twice but out of sheer force of will I stay on my feet. Somehow I get the door to my room open and hobble the couple of feet to Wilson's door. I lean heavily against the glass and look up at his monitors. I'm not thinking all that clearly but I can tell that that my best friend's vitals are poor. His oxygen sats is 87, his heart rate is racing at 159 beats per minute and his blood pressure has pretty much tanked. Where is my team? Why aren't they keeping closer watch over Wilson? Why isn't he intubated and breathing with assistance on a respirator with an oxygen sats reading like his? A mask alone isn't enough! Were they all idiots? I tell myself that they are going to be in supreme shit when I'm better. I notice the dressing on his forehead and a purple bruise on his left cheekbone. What happened to him?

I throw my weight behind the door and slide it open but as I try to step into the room I collapse to the floor. The room is spinning again and try as I might I can't find the strength in my arms to pick myself up. I hear voices and multiple hurried footsteps approaching and then Thirteen's reproach.

"House! What are you doing out of bed?" I feel myself being lifted off of the floor by two strong sets of hands and arms. Two large orderlies sling my arms over their shoulders and carry me back to my room. I'm too weak to put up a fight and they place me back into my bed like I'm a Raggedy Andy doll. Thirteen and a nurse begin to reattach everything to me.

"Wilson," I protest, feeling a little winded. "Poisoned…intubate him! Start treating!"

"We are treating him," Thirteen tells me, frowning a little. "He's going to be fine. You need to stay in bed! You're not going to get any better trying to reenact 'The Great Escape!'"

I smirk at her angry glare. "That's a great movie," I tell her. "Has anyone ever told you you're hot when you're angry?"

"Well at least you haven't lost your lechery," she replies, rolling her eyes and shaking her head in dismay. "Now stay put or we'll put the restraints on!"

"You're heady with power over me," I accuse her. "I don't mind submitting if you promise you'll take advantage of me." I manage to waggle an eyebrow.

"Actually Foreman is the one in charge right now," Thirteen retorts. "I'll deliver your offer to him."

"Are you trying to make me vomit again?" I ask her, making a sour face. She smiles at that remark and walks away. I close my eyes, genuinely feeling a little nauseous from watching everything spin around me. In a little while I feel a hand gently touch my shoulder; I open my eyes and see Thirteen standing next to me with a glass of water and a straw. I smile appreciatively as she puts the straw in my mouth and holds the glass as I take a sip. I pull away immediately.

"Hot water?" I ask her irritably. She frowns at that.

"House, it's cold, not hot," she insists.

I remember something in spite of my mixed up cognition. Paradoxical temperature reversal…a proposed symptom of Ciguatera poisoning. Questioned by some doctors as actually a real neurological sign, I discover that it does, in fact, occur. Too bad I can't measure it empirically and write a paper on it.

"I'm tired," I tell her, not coming close to thinking straight at this point. If I was, I wouldn't admit any weakness to her.

Giving me a compassionate smile she squeezes my shoulder encouragingly.

"Then go to sleep, House." She tells me. I nod obediently and close my eyes. I'm out almost immediately.

* * *

In the early hours of the next morning, Chase finds himself in Cuddy's garage. He never tells me how he managed to get in there without setting the security alarm off and I decide that it's a need to know issue and my curiosity, great as it is, doesn't really need to know. He carefully recalls Foreman's instruction on breaking in to Lucas' car which was parked next to Cuddy's. Sweating profusely from nervousness he wipes his brow with his sleeve. Fully expecting to screw up and set the alarm off, thus getting caught and not only arrested but fired and blacklisted for the rest of his life, the Aussie asks himself for the thousandth time in two days if he is completely insane.

"Of course I am," he whispers aloud. Taking a deep breath he sets to work.

Ten minutes later Chase is sneaking away from Cuddy's house to get to his own car and drive away. He can't believe he did it without a glitch and once he's driving back to his place he is positively giddy, giggling like a teenage girl. He never thought he would find himself committing prisonable crimes for his surly formerly drug-addicted boss like this but he has to admit that he's having more fun than he has had for…well, for years. The unfortunate part is he will never be able to boast about it to anyone after it is over and Lucas is rotting in a jail cell.

Once he's at home he dials Thirteen's place, waking her from a deep sleep.

"What?" she mutters sleepily into the phone.

"Mission accomplished," he says simply before hanging up on her. He doesn't see Thirteen scowl at the phone and mutter a disgusted, "Goody," before putting down the phone and going back to sleep.

Satisfied with himself, Chase gets ready for bed. Tomorrow the police will be contacted and if he and Wilson have calculated everything accurately Lucas will be going down!