Chapter Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I don't own House. I'm not making any money off this story.
Chapter 4
Dr. Cameron watched through the glass wall as Dr. Tanaka took the blood samples from Chase's arm. The blinds were pulled but not completely closed and she could just make out Chase's blank face. Other than the fatigue and the slightly pinched features he gave no other indication of discomfort.
"What are you doing?" Foreman asked when he returned to her side. He'd gone to see if there was a way to sneak in and draw blood. A single point of entry and glass walls nixed his idea.
"Filling out the form to get the tests House wants." At the quiet corner of the nurse's station she checked the boxes on the form and wrote down the specific tests to be conducted.
"That's great except we have nothing to test."
"No, but he does." She tilted her head in the direction of Tanaka. She finished filling out the form and was about to sign it but Foreman stopped her.
"We can't requisition these tests. Off the case remember."
The both stilled in thought.
"Doctor Wilson can," Foreman announced. Cameron went to fake his signature and Foreman stopped her again. Her bubble handwriting would never pass as the illegible scrawl of Wilson.
"Let me." He took the pen and after a moment to recall Wilson's signature he signed. It was illegible.
"The lab won't be able to read that." Cameron said with a slight smile. "It's perfect." They'd excuse the different types of writing on the form as a nurse or another doctor writing it down and Wilson as the one actually ordering the test. So long as no one tried to page him the plan was foolproof. "Now we just need to slip it in with Tanaka's."
Luckily for them the half-Asian man left the form and samples, collected in a clear biohazard bag, at the other end of the nurse's station as he went to attend to another patient on the floor. With their window of opportunity briefly open they acted. Cameron drew the attention of the nearby nurse giving Foreman just enough time to slip their form between the pages of the other one.
Cameron smiled her thanks at the nurse and joined Foreman to walk away from the scene of the crime.
"It's done." The same shifty smile on his face crept over hers and they bopped fists in congratulation for a job well done.
H
"What's so funny?"
Chase looked at the man who had only recently come into his life and replied. "Just…work…" His mind was too sluggish and he was too tired to properly explain why he was smiling. He'd watched through the blinds as Foreman and Cameron pulled off their little scheme. They'd gotten really good at it. He remembered Cameron and Foreman's reluctance early on to do anything that might be construed as questionable. When he'd started his fellowship he'd been surprised that the rumours about the infamous Dr. House hadn't been exaggerated. In fact there were numerous events that never made it outside the group. He'd been all too eager to do things in a way that was completely different from what his father would have done. He and House had gotten into a bit of trouble those first few months though they pulled out a win most of the time.
"We need another partner for these jobs. Cuddy is on to us," were House's exact words the day he'd given up battling Cuddy about hiring another fellow. A week later Cameron had come and Chase had been surprised. Not only was Dr. Cameron, immunologist, very pretty and very smart, she was uptight and strict. If they could turn her then no one would ever suspect her in one of their less than acceptable ploys –if they could turn her. Chase had given House a raised eyebrow but the older man had only made a comment about sharing.
Foreman's arrival had rounded out the group and in House's words 'provided them with priceless practical experience.'
René could only shrug at Chase's secretive smile. "O…kay…" he ventured, not quite following.
Chase smiled weakly and then closed his eyes. He could only sit there and imagine what had gone so wrong with his body that nobody was yet sure of the cause. He was worried. He was considering the possibility that he might be seeing his parents much sooner than he expected. He was scared… because he felt it getting worse, the fatigue, the discomfort. He felt a little better knowing that House and the rest of the team were on his case. He didn't know how far they would go to help him. He didn't want to hope that Cameron or House would risk their health to figure this out like they had for Foreman. That feeling of worthlessness, the inadequacy he felt everyone could always see just past his veneer of confidence and charm, was getting stronger. Who was he to ask so much of them when he was so paltry and selfish a person?
H
Their triumphant return to the conference room was actually a subdued affair. During the walk back Foreman and Cameron had conversed about Chase and his symptoms and the likelihood that he was abusing drugs. Despite their efforts they couldn't find a diagnosis that fit all the symptoms completely. Cameron could tell that the situation was beginning to set in for Foreman just as it had for her and House. It was also bringing back unpleasant memories of his parasitic infection and the pain it had caused both during and after.
When they arrived House's mood didn't seemed to have improved either. They paused near the entrance. House was staring intently at the symptoms on the board as though the answer was written there but he just couldn't read it.
"You got the blood?"
"In a sense." He looked up at them. Cameron clarified. "Yes."
"Good." His focussed remained on the list of symptoms so Cameron and Foreman sat at the glass topped table.
Foreman began idly tapping a pen on the table as he thought through the symptoms. "Substance abuse still seems the most likely." No matter what he felt the evidence could not be ignored.
"Doesn't account for the trouble breathing," negated Cameron. "Sepsis?"
Foreman thought it was a reach. "Overwhelming infection of the blood from what?"
She shrugged and shook her head. "He hasn't been exposed to anything," she agreed.
"He went to Cotran's house," House said suddenly. "He was exposed to the same fungus."
Foreman thought it was possible but the evidence on the whiteboard was not in agreement. "He doesn't have the same symptoms."
"Same bug, different site. This time, the meningese."
"Fungal meningitis can be caused by B. dermatitis," Cameron said more to herself than the other two as she tried to deduce whether it was possible. "And it doesn't present with a fever."
"What about the gastric symptoms?" Foreman asked.
"He ate some bad clams," House said as he limped to the coffee maker. It was approaching three in the morning and he needed a hit of caffeine. "We need to do a lumbar puncture. And by we, I mean you."
"We're not even supposed to be on his case. We can't do it," said Cameron.
"You haven't even tried," House countered as he placed a filter in the coffee maker and ripped open a bag of dark roast, fine grind beans.
"We should tell Tanaka," Foreman agreed. "He'll tell Martin."
"And as soon as Marty hears the reference to one of my cases he'll know it was my suggestion."
"He's a doctor. He won't care!"
"He's a human being, of course he'll care," House scoffed at the neurologist. He set the small appliance to work and then headed for the door calling for the other doctors to follow. "We're going to need another player on our team. Actually he hits for the other team but I don't think he'll mind a temporary trade."
Allison frowned. Another sports metaphor.
H
Rob watched as the nurse changed his oxygen to the small tank and secured it to the wheelchair. Off to the side Zinedine stood, also watching the nurse work but with unqualified trepidation. Robert didn't see what there was to be nervous about. Zid had gone to get a coffee and when he'd returned he'd asked the nurse if it would be alright to take him for a walk, figuratively of course. He was too drained to walk anywhere but getting out of this room would be nice. When he was a doctor, hospitals where fine. But when he played the patient he'd rather be anywhere else.
"And he'll be okay? This is safe?" Zinedine asked nervously.
The nurse smiled reassuringly at him. "It's perfectly safe. Just stay on this floor."
"Okay."
Chase was helped to the chair by both of them. He sank gratefully down into it, the minimal exertion of just standing and walking those few steps taking its toll. While his heart and O2 sat monitor was switched to the mobile unit to be wheeled around with them he tried to regain his bearings. He was peripherally aware of the onset of motion, the chairs wheels moving soundless on the polished floor. His thought process cleared of fatigue just as they rounded a corner. He tilted his head up to the nervous man pushing him around at a rather quick pace.
"What's going on?" he asked.
Rob watched Zid glance over his shoulder several times. He was definitely worried about something and anxiety began to gather in the sickly man as well. His fuddled mind conjured wild, nonsensical stories that had him in a mild panic. He didn't notice when they stopped in another room.
"Chase, you have to control your breathing!" a voice said sternly. "Shut that thing up." The rapid beeping of the monitor was silenced. "Chase, look at me!" Finally the dull eyes opened revealing the sight of House knelt before him. "We need to do a lumbar puncture. You might have meningitis."
"I can't have meningitis."
"Why not?"
"Because….because I don't have meningitis."
House and René looked at each other.
"That sounds more like dementia than depression," said Cameron as she and Foreman walked in with what they needed for the procedure.
"Get him on the bed," House ordered as he tried to stand. After a bit of resistance he accepted René's silent offer of help.
Foreman and Cameron placed the tools they'd need on the trolley in the room and began to help their colleague out of the chair. They couldn't do more than set the brakes for the wheel-chair before Chase was trying to fight them off.
"No! Leave me alone!" He slapped away the hands that tried to touch him.
"Chase, we need to do the LP. Just relax," Foreman placated half-heartedly as he and Cameron attempted to manhandle him out of the chair by force.
"I don't want an LP!" He shoved Foreman away and twisted out of Cameron's grip. Pain in his mid-section flared in protest to the commotion. He hunched over, cradling his stomach while keeping his wary eyes on the immunologist and neurologist he'd worked with for nearly two years.
"Chase."
The wild eyes shifted to the unshaven man.
"You have to let us do this," House told him evenly.
A shallow exhale was coloured with a short whimper of pain as the pain in his head began to pound. He couldn't think. This wasn't making any sense. He knew he didn't need whatever they wanted to do to him. This wasn't right.
"Rob." The familiar voice and light touch to his shoulder turned him to Zinedine. "Please, let them help."
Robert stared at him for several seconds barely comprehending the words spoken. He turned his gaze to House.
"You just have to trust me for a few minutes," House said. He knew there was no way to logically convince Chase he needed the procedure. He wasn't thinking clearly. Cameron was right it wasn't depression. They still needed to do the procedure and the only way Chase would agree was if he trusted them. Trusted him.
"Rob, please," Zinedine begged, stroking his thumb across the smooth skin just at the junction of Chase's neck and shoulder.
For several seconds the only motion to his body was the occasional blink and the shaky breaths. Finally he responded. "Okay."
Cameron and Foreman immediately went into action, moving the unresisting Chase to the bed and preparing for the LP. House continued stared at the wheelchair where his youngest fellow had been, feeling awed and ashamed at the same time. René noticed him and gave a low huff of disdain catching House's attention.
All he said was, "Yeah, he trusts you. Even if you don't deserve it." He went to Rob leaving House isolated off to the side.
"All right, Chase you know how this works," said Cameron reassuringly. She was seated on a stool facing Chase's pale back. On the other side was René holding one of Chase's hands and the other resting comfortingly on his shoulder. She met the worried man's eyes over the body of her friend and once lover. Conveying with a brief smile that everything would be fine she began with Foreman assisting.
Iodine was used to clean the skin before she numbed the area with lidocaine. "You're going to feel some pressure." She reminded. She pressed the needle into his back between a pair of lumbar vertebrae.
Chase's face pinched as the uncomfortable force of the needle pressed into him. He clenched his teeth trying to remain silent and still. A small voice in his mind told him to get away, that they were trying to paralyse him. A louder more rational voice reminded him of his medical training and the purpose of a lumbar puncture and he stayed still.
"Almost done," Cameron soothed.
Chase breathed shallow and waited for the discomfort to end.
The clear tawny liquid dripped from the needle into the waiting plastic vial. When she had enough Cameron capped it and handed it off to Foreman. She started to slowly remove the needle from Chase's back, her face contorting with displeasure as she felt a shudder pass through the body beneath her hand. She breathed a haggard sigh of relief when the needle was out. The small spot of blood stood out in sharp contrast with rest of the expanse of pale skin. She dabbed it up with a cotton ball and then pressed a bandage to the puncture wound.
"You have to stay flat for half an hour," Cameron said as she helped René turn Chase onto his back. When she saw his face she froze, struck but the slight discolouration of his features. A tinge of yellow tinted his pale white skin and the white of his eyes.
House stared too. Jaundice didn't fit the diagnosis. Jaundice meant a build up of bilirubin. The problem was associated with Chase's liver and in his experience most liver problems people do to themselves. The lumbar puncture was going to be negative for the fungus, he was certain. It might tell them something else but for now he'd subjected a weak patient to an unnecessary procedure.
"What is it?" René asked still seated next to the bed. The look on the three doctor's faces wasn't at all reassuring. When Dr. House had explained to him (with patience that had surprised Cameron and Foreman) that they needed his help to do an important procedure he'd been uneasy. The idea of going behind Dr. Martin's back had not settled well with him but Rob's life might have been on the line. He'd had no choice. Now he was wondering whether the other choice, the one he'd thought he didn't have, would have been the right one.
"Seven," Chase mumbled. "That's why it didn't work." His eyes were half closed and unfocussed.
"Rob?"
"Can't have odd," he continued faintly. "There are only two..."
"He's not making any sense."
Cameron, closest to him, shone a light in Chase's eyes and watched the pupil response. "Whatever he has, it's getting worse."
"Do the tests," House addressed Foreman, "and any others you can think of."
He left with a nodd.
"Do you have any idea what's wrong with him?" René asked anxiously.
House stepped forward, displacing René from the bedside. "Chase. What aren't you telling us?"
The blonde man mumbled incoherently.
House pulled the oxygen mask from his face. "Chase! What haven't you told us?"
"House, he needs that!" Cameron protested, reaching over Chase to grab the mask. House held it out of her reach.
The man on the bed began to gasp. On the monitor the oxygen saturation numbers began to drop and the heart rate climbed.
"Is there anything you haven't told us?" House demanded watching careful for a reaction that might be drowned out but his respiratory distress.
"Volumes," Chase croaked, taking the question literally.
"Anything medically relevant!"
Chase shook his head, still gasping.
"House!" Cameron lunged for and retrieved the mask. She slipped it back over Chase's face. Once his breathing returned to a more normal rhythm she turned to the diagnostician. She'd seen him treat patients like this before, but this was Chase. He was frustrated, they all were, but she didn't expect him to treat a patient he knew like this.
The shock and disappointment in her brown eyes had House looking away. He strode quickly from the room. His diagnosis was wrong. They'd all been wrong, and not just wrong but way off. Maybe he wasn't making sense anymore. After his success with Cotran he'd thought he was fine, ready more than ever to return to his job, the only thing that made him worthwhile. It was beginning to look like he'd lost that too. Lost, the word lingered in his mind. And Chase was still getting worse.
René returned with Chase to his hospital room not too long later. Although Tanaka had been a little worried by their absence he didn't suspect anything. The results of the blood test came back a while later and then he had to interrogate the patient.
H
"Fulminant hepatic failure!" Cameron's angry voice announced as a set of lab results was thrust in House's face. Already irritated he snatched them from her and read. Elevated LDH and bilirubin pointed to haemolysis and hepatic failure. The high biblirubin accounted for the jaundice and the haemolytic anaemia accounted for the shortness of breath and rapid heart beat. "They're going to give him a transfusion and he may need to go on dialysis if there's been damage to his kidneys." House turned the page as saw the elevated creatinine because of diminishing kidney function.
"So what's the aetiology?"
"I don't know. Acetaminophen is the obvious culprit but he's only taken a few Tylenol and the blood work agrees with him." She spun around and headed for the door. "But I'm going to find out," which House took as meaning that she was going to break into Chase's apartment.
"Wait," House called as he rushed to catch up.
Cameron drove to Chase's apartment after taking his keys from his jacket when he and René weren't looking. In the passenger seat House sat silently. She shifted her eyes to the right so that she could see him but didn't look directly. She was still a little angry with him for how he'd treated Chase but now she was thinking that he was right. Drugs or alcohol could cause liver failure so she was going to search his place to find out if that was so. Chase had denied it to her and everybody but as House always says, everybody lies.
House gazed out the window taking in none of the passing scenery on the short drive to Chase's place. He knew where his intensivist lived though he'd never been there. He wasn't expecting to find anything, drugs or otherwise, in the apartment. The symptoms fit with liver failure but what he was still having problems with was the timeline. All the symptoms manifested within 36 hours. There were two likely possibilities. It could be that Chase had been taking a lot of drugs recently, but since none were found in his system that couldn't be true. The second theory was that he'd been taking drugs for a while now and the damage had finally caught up with him, but that couldn't be true either because then the symptoms would have shown up more gradually. The evidence excluded the two theories.
So why go to Chase's apartment? It was something to do. It was past 4am, he was tired, cranky and frustrated. And he'd forgotten his coffee. Perhaps there was a clue to Chase's affliction in his apartment and if there wasn't, then it was still a good opportunity to look into the life of his fellow, a life that Chase tried unsuccessfully to keep as far away from work as possible.
They pulled into the small apartment complex. It wasn't very classy and it was a little on the old-in-a-bad-way side, not at all what one would have expected for a guy as rich as they all thought Chase was. They got into the building easily enough by convincing one of the sleepy residents that they were visiting an enfeebled friend who couldn't make it to the door. The early hour made anybody amenable to anything. They could have introduced themselves as aliens looking for hash and still made it in.
The elevator dropped them off at the third floor and 309 was their final destination. The key unlocked the door with a soft click opening a domain secret to both of them. Chase's sanctuary was a bachelor apartment, brick walls connecting hardwood floors to the high ceiling. The entrance opened to a small carpet between the living and kitchen area with the sleeping area separated from the kitchen/living room by a small partition. It was smaller than they'd expected and far neater. Chase when he dressed almost always looked like he'd just grabbed something from his closet with his eyes closed; sometimes it matched, sometimes it didn't. The apartment however, was impeccably, neurotically neat.
The two split up, Cameron stepping softly through the loft to the sleeping area as though somebody might hear. With no added care House walked to the living room. He glanced at the black couch and matching black arm-chair, the low coffee table and the television set as he passed them. He skipped his view across the shelves on one of the walls where books and a few personal artefacts were neatly arranged.
"A place for everything and everything with its place," House said to himself. To him an apartment this neat, meant a mind that was a complete mess. He supposed that it was Mrs. Chase's influence, the drunk. Imagining a younger Robert Chase trying to take care of himself and his stumbling mother had him looking down at the floor and resting heavily on the shelving unit for a short moment. He could see in his minds-eye the child trying to exercise his will on a chaotic world, trying to fix what was broken only to find himself broken as well.
"His place is clean." The voice ripped him away from thought and back to the present. He must have been standing there for a while, because with his returned awareness came a slight pain in his leg and he wasn't in the mood to tough it out. He popped a pill, ignoring the look Cameron tried to give him.
"No alcohol? Drugs?"
"No drugs but a nearly full bottle of painkillers. There were two beers in the fridge but no hard liquor."
House reached up to right a picture frame that had been placed face down. It was one of the few personal objects he'd observed in the apartment. Judging from the dust gathered on the back, it had been lying that way for sometime. When he saw the image in the frame House understood why. The frame held a picture of the late Rowan Chase and a pretty blonde woman, presumably the former Mrs. Chase. They looked young and happy.
"His parent?" Cameron asked.
"Mmm," was his wordless reply. "Got his mother's looks." He handed the frame to Cameron and walked to the corner of the room. A large black trunk supported a small stand with sheet music scattered on top and a guitar leaned against the wall. He looked at the pages of music and recalled Chase saying during his interview that he played the guitar. House hadn't been impressed and Chase hadn't said it to impress him. Wilson had been the one who asked about any hobbies he had.
At the back of the stack of loose papers he found an anomaly. Chase hadn't said anything about playing the violin. The Devil's Trill wasn't the type of music somebody accidentally buys thinking it was a guitar piece. Most people would have tried to show off their musical inclinations in their interview, only to have House ridicule them because as an accomplished pianist and general smart-guy he probably knew just as much if not more than they did. He replaced the papers.
Cameron glanced around the apartment with some unease. This situation shouldn't feel different than the others had. She'd been sent to enough patients' homes to know where to look and how to do it quickly and she could only recall feeling this guilty during the earlier B&E's. The added rush to leave came from the heightened sense of intrusion in this case. This wasn't the home of a stranger who was withholding vital information. "There's nothing here. We should get back," Cameron suggested. She was already on her way to the door.
House followed Cameron out but he didn't agree with her. It was all here, in this hauntingly tranquil apartment, he just needed time to find and make sense of it.
H
"CSF was normal. They've given him methelyene-blue for the slightly elevated methemoglobin, glucose for the hypoglycaemia, enhanced diuresis to protect his kidney function…but he's started to have seizures," Foreman reported a soon as House and Cameron walked in the front doors.
"Hepatic encephalopathy is progressing. He's going to have permanent brain damage or need a transplant if this keeps up," said Cameron solemnly.
"Maybe not. I ran some more tests on his blood." He decided to skip his cunning plan and execution of said plan and go right to the results. "His lever enzymes are elevated." He handed House a piece of paper with the results listed. "Serum GOT is three-ten and serum GPT is two-seventy. It could be Reye's syndrome."
"Reye's strikes children, usually after viral infections," said House with his brows furrowed in thought. Though it didn't often hit adults it was possible, the symptoms fit. Great, they had a disease with no proven underlying cause. Then again they had a sick colleague with no proven underlying cause. It was perfect. It was also incurable. If Chase had this and they caught it early enough they could treat the symptoms and protect his vital organs. Otherwise, untimely death was a possible outcome.
"Chase has been scheduled for a liver biopsy and a CT. Martin was beginning to think adrenal crisis but…" Foreman left the statement open.
"When did Martin start thinking?" House mumbled still flipping through the pages. "A couple of hours ago he was ready to send Chase home with a diagnosis of food poisoning."
"Well a couple of hours ago it probably looked like food poisoning."
They made their way to Chase's room on the fourth floor. When they stepped out of the lift, Foreman turned right while the other two turned left. "His rooms this way," Cameron informed.
"Not anymore. Chase has been moved to the ICU."
"Because of the seizures?"
"They're…bad." He didn't know how else to put it. He'd been giving Chase a test to measure any alterations in his mental state when Martin came in and caught him. During the ensuing argument, which included Foreman, Martin, Tanaka and René, Chase had begun to seize. The spasms had been violent and the shock in the wide eyes of the victim had been more disturbing than any of the witnesses wanted to admit. Some diazepam had stopped the seizure but there were tiny tremors, like aftershocks for several minutes post. Through it all Chase was conscious and the discomfort plaguing his body was now portrayed vividly across his strained features. The move to the ICU had been after the second seizure and after seeing the effects it had on his heart.
"With his liver function falling and his kidneys going too they moved him to the ICU to make sure he didn't go into arrest. If he does…that might be it."
Cameron's eyebrows shifted minutely closer together, crinkling the skin at the top of her nose. She looked at Foreman in moderate confusion. They had numerous pieces of equipment designed to resuscitate somebody in arrest. This seemed overly cautious.
Foreman shook his head at her questioning look. "Chase has a DNR."
House for all his disability still moved pretty quickly when the situation called for it. A few seconds after hear the acronym he was through the double doors and down the corridor leaving his remaining two fellows to catch up. Dr. Martin saw him coming and tried to intervene. House bulldozed right past him and burst into the ICU ward where Chase was sleeping.
The dark shadows around the closed eyes, the yellow tinge to his skin and the stiff posture in which he lay even while dozing only incensed House further. Chase was not going to die of some mystery illness, some ailment that House couldn't figure out and then cure. And most of all he was not going to just give up, Greg wouldn't let him.
"You idiot! What the hell are you thinking?" House yelled disturbing another patient in the room. Chase stirred as well and the fading blue-green eyes slipped open. "If you want to kill yourself you can do it after I fix you!"
"Leave him alone!" House was suddenly shoved away by the patient's boyfriend. "It was his decision and you've got no right to oppose it!"
"I'm not going to debate life and death with someone who's tried to off himself before." House glared down at René's forearms. Wide-eyed the other man pulled down the long sleeves of his shirt that he'd rolled up earlier, covering the faded scars on his wrists.
"You can't just force people to do what you want them to!"
"I won't just watch as he does something stupid!"
"Dr. House," another voice interrupted the argument. "He didn't sign the DNR today." House eventually turned to Tanaka. "It's been in his file for nearly two years."
There was a pause to digest the information. House turned his head back to Chase, meeting the drowsy gaze and wondering what else he didn't know. House didn't meet anyone else's eyes as he breezed out almost as quickly as he had in. He heard two sets of footsteps fall in behind him and didn't glance back to confirm his suspicion that it was Cameron and Foreman.
"Suggest Reye's to Tanaka and Martin. CSF was clear for everything?" he stated more than asked. Foreman nodded in accord, though House didn't see. "Tell them that too." Foreman broke step and retraced the path back to the ICU
"Where are you going?" asked Cameron, still walking with him.
"Men's room. No chicks allowed." The House-ish comment was delivered with a distinct lack of House-flare. He ducked in the men's washroom before she could call him on it or on his strange behaviour in general. She glanced around the mostly deserted corridor and then leaned against the wall near the door marked "Men" below the crude stick figure. If she was a bolder person, she would have followed him inside but with House it was equally likely that he'd actually have to relieve himself or that he'd call Cuddy at six in the morning and yell at her after she'd spent a very late night working. She was betting on the later and when House's raised voice carried through the heavy washroom door a moment later she knew she was right.
"You didn't think you should tell me?"
"It was none of your business," Cuddy's voice, soft with sleep, told him. "It still isn't"
"It's my business to know if my employee is suicidal!"
"He's not suicidal! He's had the same advanced directive in all the hospitals he's worked for." Chase had only worked for a few hospitals; some during his clerkship, another during his residency and then PPTH, but all of a few was still all. She paused considering the situation and the conversation then asked, "What are you still doing at the hospital? I told you it wasn't your case."
Greg's face pinched in minor annoyance. "Let's stay on topic. We're talking about what you and Chase did."
"We didn't do anything wrong! I know withholding irrelevant information is a capital offence on your planet but the hospital is mine."
"You could have given me a heads up," He mumbled with a little less anger, his misdirected rage fading.
"I know you're worried but House, go home. Get some rest and let Martin take care of Chase."
House did a one-eighty in the empty washroom as he replied. "I've been letting Martin take care of him and he's just gotten worse. If I continue to do the same thing and expect a different outcome, such as Chase getting better…I think that's the definition of insanity."
"House!" a brief warning call came from Cameron outside the washroom. He faced the door just in time to see Dr. Martin stride in. Greg hoped that other doctor was just coming to use the facilities but he was never that lucky.
"You kidnapped my patient and gave him an unnecessary lumbar puncture? You could have made his condition worse! Stop interfering!"
House dropped the phone from his ear. "I've been consulting."
"I didn't ask for your help!"
"House is that Martin?" a small voice from the cell phone's earpiece asked.
"You should have!"
Martin just shook his head. Nobody could get through to House except Wilson and maybe Cuddy. "Dr. Cuddy will hear about this," was his parting threat before walking out.
"Should have holed up in the women's room. He couldn't have followed me there."
"House!"
He brought he phone back to his ear. "What?"
"Sounds like you've earned yourself double clinic hours." His shoulders slumped briefly in defeat but perked up when he considered that if he already had the punishment he might as well go all out. That's when Cuddy spoke again. "If you don't want triple I suggest you send Cameron and Foreman home, go home yourself and get some sleep." Like I'm trying to do, her mind whined.
"Fine." He snapped the phone closed and there might have been another snap mixed in with the one the phone closing usually made. Greg didn't even shrug. If it were broken Jimmy would eventually get so annoyed with him that he'd get him a new one.
Cameron was still out there when he exited.
"Go home." He walked quickly past her.
She didn't follow him but when she turned to take another path, it wasn't to the exit.
After convincing the nurses that she just wanted to sit with her friend Cameron was allowed in. She sat unobtrusively in the room. Close enough to see the monitors and have a clear view of René and Chase, whose mouth and nose was still covered by a clear plastic mask, but far enough that she didn't have to be brought into their conversation. Chase was thinking clearly for the moment but the spells of delirium came and went without warning and were lasting longer. For now he was all right and they spoke softly but there words were clear. From her vantage she observed them and couldn't help the slight smile
Chase weakly shook his head. "You're not touching my car."
"Come on when am I going to get another chance like this?"
Robert took a deep breath before responding. "I know what you did to Mike's car."
"I fixed it," he said indignantly. "Besides that was ages ago. I have my own garage now."
"It's not yours."
"It will be soon."
Robert inhaled before attempting to speak. "Not good enough."
"You barely drive it! It's a nineteen-seventies Chevy Monte Carlo and most of the time it sits in your parking space. Just let me have it for a few days and I'll make it purr. I'll even give it a new paint job."
"There's nothing wrong with…my car."
"Have I taught you nothing?" Robert just smiled sleepily. Zid smiled back. "Get some sleep. I'll be here when you wake up."
"You have to go to work," he countered through a yawn. His eyes drifted closed during René's response and soon he was asleep.
In the corridor the rubber-soled sneakers of the nurses squeaked along. Natural light tinted an early-morning orange gave the corridor a lovely amber glow. It didn't reach to the entrance to this particular ward of the ICU, as though the gloom of the room and the dire situation of the patients within held it at bay and coveted the night's dark. Allison had fallen asleep in her chair as had Zinedine who dropped off a few minutes after Rob. The turmoil and tension of the past several hours were calling their debts and sleep took them. Foreman, who'd claimed twenty minutes ago to be wide-awake, was also asleep, sprawled in the comfortable armchair in House's office. Feet resting on the well-padded ottoman and a medical pathology book opened across his lap, his head tilted to the side at an angle that would likely leave him with an ache when he woke up.
At House's desk was House. He'd tilted his rolling-chair as far back as the mechanism would allow to stare up at the ceiling. It was an unspectacular white colour but his mind wasn't on the paint, it was on his patient, his fellow, his responsibility. He sat there for a long time, just thinking. The light outside became brighter and the noise in the corridor increased gradually until the usual bustle of nurses, doctors and patients returned. The rest of the time-zone was awake, the diagnostics team was asleep, and House was still staring at the ceiling.
"Heard you had a rough night," said a well-known voice.
Greg titled the chair to the upright position. "Morning," he greeted, too tired for his usual insulting inquiry about James' choice of clothing or to ask why he was in so early.
"How is he?" James walked in, darting a glance at the exhausted neurologist but not referring to him in his question. He placed a paper bag on House's desk. "Breakfast," he indicated.
The older doctor nodded his thanks but didn't move to get the food. "He's still deteriorating. He'll have permanent brain damage if I don't figure this out soon." Greg shifted his gaze at the Magic Eight ball resting on the corner of his desk. He gave into the temptation and grabbed it. He shook it, asked a silent question and then inverted it to read the ball's response.
"I'm surprised Cuddy let you have this case."
Greg responded without looking up. "She didn't. Technically Martin is the attending."
"So I should be preparing to have Martin glaring at me for the next several months?" It always turned out that if House pissed someone off he was complained to about it, or bore part of the brunt of odium that Greg had earned all by himself. He wasn't quite sure how that happened but it had become the norm and not worth looking very far into.
"Probably."
James sat down in a chair opposite and stared unwaveringly at his friend until finally the blue eyes flicked over to him. "This isn't your fault." Clear and complete recollection of the wrath House had thrown at him when Foreman was in quarantine had Wilson silently thanking Cuddy for trying to distance House from Chase's case. That time a patient had transferred his affliction to one of House's fellows but it was a hazard of the job, a hazard Greg had felt responsible for. Chase, as far as James knew, hadn't caught his current illness from a patient. "Sometimes-"
"If you're going to give me the 'ashes to ashes' speech you can stop right there," Greg interrupted looking blankly at his toy. "I've heard it before. It was bullshit then," he spun the novelty eight ball between his palms, "and it's still bullshit now."
The tone, the determination and the words all came together and James came to a sudden and startling conclusion. House cared. For most people this revelation wouldn't have been so surprising however, this was Gregory House, a man who could and would cheerfully knock you on your ass with a few well chosen words and then use his twisted logic to say you deserved it. Naturally abrasive and distant by design, a glimpse of true compassion from this man was akin in rarity to a solar eclipse and more fascinating. That it should be drawn out by Chase could only mean that the young man had somehow wormed his way close to House, perhaps all his ducklings had. They'd lasted the longest with the diagnostician; Chase likely to be the first person to ever finish a full fellowship under him. James thought that deserved some kind of medal.
Maybe the prize was Greg's friendship, if not that maybe a little respect. No matter how strongly he knew House would deny it, James already knew that Chase and this situation was no longer just a puzzle, a distraction from his life. And it was supposed to be a good thing –the old Greg, the less closed-off and aloof one rearing his head –so why was James feeling a little jealous. The first inkling that he was getting better emotionally and it wasn't directed at him, Greg's closest and best friend.
This was something he could deal with later. Right now House and Chase were having problems of there own and Wilson would be there for support, even if it wasn't appreciated or, in House's case, wanted.
"You're only human," James mumbled. Only human but less spectacular an anomaly and more anomalous a human being with each day. He stood taking his briefcase with him, wondering how it was his friendship with the diagnostician lead to these insights.
"Chase will be okay," Wilson said, passing through the doorway. He was worried for the young man, more due to of House's uncertainty that he could help him than by any of the symptoms but he kept those worries hidden.
"What makes you so sure," House asked.
"A hunch."
Hunch or not, after he went to his office and checked his messages, he'd stopped by to see Chase for himself before beginning his rounds and his workday. But he wasn't going to say good-bye. He'd say that when the look in Greg's eyes changed. When the determination turned desperation and the blaze of his genius became wilder, then he would say good-bye. He'd drag Greg kicking and screaming to do the same because he cared and it would hurt more later on if he didn't say it then.
H
Despite the best of efforts, at 10:53 am Robert N. Chase fell into a coma. Anxiety climbed in the primary physician, leaving him and his team scurrying around to try to figure out the mystery that continued to progress. Cameron who'd been loitering in the area after she and René had been kicked out of the ICU had been there when the EEG hooked up to her unconscious colleague indicated the decreased brain function. She walked calmly to the diagnostic department –the two rooms devoted to it –and on the whiteboard added the latest symptom.
Foreman's mug of coffee clicked loudly in the quiet room as his tired muscles lost the will the hold it up. He stared blankly at the last symptom, possible diagnoses drifting sluggishly through his mind but none fitting entirely. Next to him, House stared and resumed tapping his fingers on the glass tabletop.
"Ideas people," came the demand.
"Reye's Syndrome."
He didn't even turn to tell him how dumb the repetition was. "New ideas!"
"Isoniazid hepatoxicity," Foreman said vapidly.
"Perfect, if he was on isoniazid therapy." The suggestion did tickle something in the back of his mind but his inability to name that something had him lashing out, albeit almost lifelessly, at his silent fellow. "Suggestions, Cameron, otherwise go make yourself useful somewhere else. Looking pretty isn't enough here."
She didn't rise to the bait. "Everything we come up with has a high mortality. Not matter what we diagnose he's going to end up dead." She was uncharacteristically pessimistic and it drew Foreman's attention. He gave her a few words of comfort in his usual rough manner but it did the trick for both of them. Foreman had a problem he could fix and Cameron felt a little better.
While those two were trying to re-establish their emotional balance something had clicked in House's head. 'End up dead,' Cameron had said. He scanned through the pages of notes the doctors had made.
"What are you looking for?" Foreman asked after several seconds of House's searching.
"Poison."
Foreman slouched back in his chair. "It's not food poisoning and we've checked for everything else. Lead, mercury, copper, pesticides."
"Acetaminophen, barbiturates, opiates, alchohol," Cameron carried on the list.
"There's more ways than that to kill someone," House countered.
"Nobody is trying to kill Chase," said Foreman over his coffee cup. He'd raised it to his lips again but hadn't made any more of an effort to drink the dark liquid that was already cold.
"How would you know?" House didn't think that there was a hit out on Chase either but his idea said that there was. Either that or… "What has he ingested recently? And yes I know it's not food poisoning."
Foreman retrieved the relevant page from his notes. "Some coffee, nutri-grain bars, chocolate, pasta, juice…that's about it."
"Reverse order from onset of the headache," the senior doctor demanded.
Foreman gave an irritate huff but began going backwards through the list from the time of the headache. "Uh…chocolate bar the afternoon of…lunch was pasta from the caf… before that coffee…a nutrigrain bar…"
"No mushrooms?"
"I think he would have mentioned mushrooms," Foreman said.
House nodded. "Which is why we didn't consider poisonous mushrooms as a possibility. Draw some blood, look for monomethlyhydrazine."
"MMH? From…" Cameron tried to recall where that particular chemical came from. Her fatigue- and anxiety-fogged mind was a little too slow.
"Rocket fuel or the more likely source in this case, from gyromitrin," House supplied. "Water-soluble and found in mushrooms that conveniently grow on roadsides."
"He would have told us if he had wild mushrooms." Foreman again. "You think somebody sprinkled it in his lunch?"
"Did you miss the water-soluble part? It was probably in his coffee."
Cameron stood slowly, unsure whether House was serious or not. "If you're right somebody tried to kill him."
"No. If I'm right someone tried to kill me." Again.
H
End Chapter 4