A Rush A Rush Of Blood To The Head – Chapter XII

Meredith walked exhausted down the empty hallway. She ran to the bathroom after House had left and splashed her face with the cool water from the bathrooms. The hospital felt eerie. She had never felt like that in the hospital, never. But for some reason it seemed completely empty; Christina, Derek, George – none of them were there to comfort her. Listening to the cold tapping of her shoes on the lino floor as they echoed down the hallway, she came back to room 401. She stopped.

The treatment was killing him. The disease is killing him. She'd had to deal with something like this before but never on this scale. If she went in that room, she will be responsible. But he's her patient. Meredith sighed and pushed open the door.

House was there. Standing alone in the dark room, his face was staring intently at the patient, leaning still on his cane. All that could be heard were the slow, queasy breaths of Michael Dunn as he slept exhausted, now connected to a respirator. Meredith moved forward into the room and let the door close behind her.

House looked up at her and then picked up his cane. Limping slightly to the side of the patient's bed he lifted his cane up in the air and let it fall on the handlebars on the bed with clang. Michael jolted awake and had a moment of terror in his eyes when he realised he had a huge tube strapped to his mouth.

"Don't speak." House said quickly as Michael tried to open his mouth. Slowly his hand came up to his face. "And don't try and take the tube out of your mouth. Otherwise your oesophageus will collapse and then that whole, thing will start al over again."

There was a silence. Michael let his hand drop to his side. Meredith moved closer to his bed and looked up at House.

"You're allergic to the treatment." House said bluntly. Michael raised his eyebrows and stared at House, his eyes overflowing with terror, unable to move. Meredith listened as the echoing breaths became shorter and shorter. House continued: "We have to take you off the treatment or you will die. But, with your advanced case of Lupus, if we take you off the treatment, your symptoms will become worse, you will develop even more symptoms, and you will die."

Michael quickly shot his eyes over to Meredith, pleading for a rebuttal. "Mr Dunn, I am so, so sorry." Michael didn't react. Slowly he started to make choking noises, the even beeping of the stat monitor became quicker.

"Wha..do I do?" Michael choked, straining against the thick plastic tube, which was intruding in his oesophagus. Meredith looked away. House stayed looking straight into his eyes, unmoved.

"You either die a slow, painful death from the lupus, or a painful death from the treatment."

"Or…" Michael spluttered.

" 'Or' has nothing to do with me. I have found out what's wrong with you. I cannot decide how you will kick it."

Meredith slowly looked up at Michael, now lying flat on his bed, staring once again at the ceiling. House tapped his cane on the floor and straightened up. "I guess this is a cue for my exit." He turned and walked to the door and opened it up. "Tell Dr Grey when you've made a decision."

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"What do we do?"

House turned around from walking down the empty corridor to see Meredith standing there alone.

"I'm sorry?"

"He's going to die."

"Really? I just he had a crush on Dr Burke! The heart scaring, the lung problems. I mean how desperate can he be!" House began to walk back down the hallway. Meredith quickly followed after him.

"He is going to die no matter what we do."

"Facts of life. Get used to it." House moved over to the stairway doors and pushed them open.

"I think he wants us to kill him."

"Oh would you stop!" House turned round to face Meredith. The stairwell was dark and empty. Meredith stopped short. "What makes you think I care about the guy? I figured out what's wrong. That's my job. Not curing people, not stitching them back up, but finding out what the hell is wrong with them in the first place! What ever happens after that is not my deal!"

"But he's dying! He's going to die a slow, horrible death unless we give him the treatment."

"Why the hell do you want to give him the steroids? He's dead anyway! What, you want to treat his Lupus for the afterlife?"

"No, it's just… If we don't give him the treatment then he'll just be terminal. We can't just do that, there has to be something we can do."

"Let me give you a hint, it stars with an 'E' "

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm a doctor, I can't kill a patient."

"Oh, would you make up your mind! Each way, you are killing a patient. The only difference that matters to you is whether your conscience remains clear. If you let him die from the Lupus, sure he went through a hell of a lot of pain, but you didn't feel any of it, and in the long run, he died naturally, which is just so much better. But if you do kill him, if you do inject the huge shot of morphine, even though you might have done what the patient wanted, you still killed a man. And you will have to live with that for the rest of your life. It's not about him, it's not about the excruciating pain he will feel. It's about you, and whether you will get a good night's sleep."

House started to move past Meredith and headed to the door when she blurted out "What would you do?"

House stopped. "I've already…"

"I know what you just said, but you chose to break the news to this guy for a reason. Burke and Foreman were his main doctors. They had an obligation to the patient to tell them what was wrong. But you did it instead. You care about this case, even when you solved the puzzle. What would you do?"

House looked up from the door. "No one should live through that much pain."

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Meredith glanced out into the hallway then closed the door again to room 401.

"No one's there." She walked over to House, now standing next to Michael's bed, syringe in hand. "Michael," Meredith walked over to the bed and clasped her hand in his. "We're going to give you a shot of morphine. It will put you asleep. Are you sure you want to go through with this?"

Michael slowly nodded his head, then winced in pain. His eyes were red with pain and tears as the anaesthesia wore off.

House remained still. "You won't feel any pain. Not any more."

Slowly House took off the plastic covering of the needle and moved closer to Michael's bed. Hesitating for a second, Michael's eyes coaxed him on.

"I'll need you to turn over." House moved his other hand to Michael's side as he turned to his side on the bed and faced Meredith, now close to him, grasping both hands. House lifted up the syringe of morphine to Michaels back and felt between the vertebrae of his spine. Finding the correct space, House slowly brought the needle to the skin. Letting out a silent sigh, he punctured the skin and quickly injected all the morphine. After it was empty, House swiftly drew the needle out and threw it on a tray. Meredith stayed holding onto Michael's hands as he remained lying on his side.

Looking into his eyes, she saw them falter, then close. Around her she could hear the monitor beeping quicker and quicker. Suddenly it stopped, the room was filled with the pericing screech of the monitor.

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NB: 'K well that was a depressing chapter! Yes. Right, sorry for all those who want more Mer/Der, House/Cam, BANG, Addick, Azzie, George/Crazy Syph Nurse or whatever, I don't know. You've been stuck with my fav characters House and Meredith for these dark and twisty chapters, but shall lighten up. Or at least will broaden for more characters. Anywho, am rambling. Only four days since I last posted. That's pretty good considering my last time. Still need comments on whether to stop at this cross-over story or to do another one after it. Like a sequel! But not in the crappy Star Wars sense of the word. Again, am rambling. What do you do to stop me from rambling? REVIEW!!!

Update: Ok, sorry bout this but Fanfiction have been a bastard cause I haven't been able to upload any new documents. Guess it's taking longer to upload than I thought. Gonna write the next chapter now.