Author's note. Okay I know I haven't written for a while but that's because I have been extremely busy. Between me writing my screenplay, writing an article for blog critics, the two jobs that I have, my mother crashing my laptop that had all of my notes for this story, and the fact that my nana passed away recently, real life has been a bitch (pardon my language). Now I have my laptop up and running again and article is turned in, life is getting back to normal. Well almost normal, I injured my knee again and I can barely move around. Anyway, on with the story.
Chapter 3.
Bell marching into her office and throws down the patient files on the conference table like a gauntlet. She walks up to the white board and begins to write down the symptoms as House limps in after her.
"So the games a foot, I take it?" He asks as he sits down in the chair across the room and puts his feet up on the table. He uses his cane to grab the files and pulls them over. "Now, the since we know that the Typhoid diagnosis is off the table, what causes Typhoid-like symptoms without it being Typhoid?"
"You want to Google it and get back to me?" Bell asks him as she finishes writing 'not Typhoid' on the board. She places the cap on the marker and turns to look at House. "It may not be typhoid, but it might be worse if these patients keep piling up on us."
Cameron comes into the office with case files in her hands. "We got two more that just came in, just got them into isolation with the rest." Cameron sits down one chair away from House as she looks at Bell at the board. House looks at Cameron with an arched brow and then looks back at Bell. Bell just rolls her eyes as she grabs the files that Cameron hands to her. "Masters and Prichard are with the patients getting a history."
"What they need to do is get a history of where they've been the last few weeks. Whatever this is it might have an incubation period of that long." Just then Masters and Prichard walk into the room and drop three notebooks the each of them had onto the table.
"I figure we needed more than just a medical history, so I had them go into as much detail as they could as to where they were in the last few weeks. Restaurants, stores and such." Masters looks at Bell and then back at House and Cameron. Masters looks back at them and says. "The fact that it's this many people throw cancer and genetic conditions out the window. This has to be environmental, there's a connection between these people and we need to find out what it is."
House interjects; some things don't change "Thank You captain obvious. What were the results of the blood test of the first victim?" Bell just looks at House and shakes her head.
"Well, if you had bothered to look at the file that's directly in front of you would see the test results. The white blood cell count is elevated and so is everything else. "
"But that was a few hours ago, we need an update on the patients." Bell looked through the stacks and then back at Masters. "How far did you go back with each patient?" Masters looks at Bell, then at House, and then back at Bell.
"About three and a half weeks. I wanted to be thorough." Masters chuckles awkwardly at the group as House just smirks her and then at Bell.
"Always the over achiever. Go get an update on the patient. Redraw the blood and look and test for every infectious diseases that has these symptoms." House states while looking at the file. He then looks up and Bell stares at him. He looks back and then shakes his head. "Sorry, force of habit. The floor is yours chief." Bell looks at the board, fever, delusions, low heart rate, and respiratory problems.
"Have any new symptoms occurred since they got here or even before they arrived?" Both Masters and Prichard look at the files.
"Some of the patients were complaining a=of stomach pains dizziness." Bell writes the two symptoms on the board and then looks back at the team.
"Any vomiting?" Prichard nods his head yes and Masters looks up and does the same. "Okay, Masters. Prichard, I need the two of you to redo the blood work. We're checking environmental factors, but I have a feeling that's going to be a waste of time."
"What should they be testing for?" Cameron asks as she sits up in her seat. She had been spending the last few minutes wondering why House hasn't really said a word. Was he really letting Bell run the show or was he picking his moment and just humiliate her? It wouldn't be the first time that he's done that. But there was a chance that he wouldn't though. Cameron had spent a lot of time with Bell since the Anderson case, and she and House are so defiantly cut from the same cloth when it comes to medical case, but she was still waiting.
"Because it's a better chance that they were poisoned, but we need to narrow it down. So while you two are rerunning the blood work, the rest of us will be going through the histories. Maybe we can try to connect everyone to a certain place." The two younger doctors nod and then exit the room. Cameron then stands up and grabs a file. House stays seated and looks at Bell with both eyebrows raised.
"Now what makes you think that I would even consider doing any grunt work for you? You obviously have a handle on things. Especially Masters, my God you have any idea how long it took me to get her to lie?" Bell looks at House and just smiles.
"I do, but the faster we get through this, the faster you can get your speech over with, and the faster you can go home to your wife without actually pissing her off." House and Bell just stare at each other and Cameron is left wondering if the two of them stared at each other long enough the whole world would come down. It was that intense. Bell finally answered, "and I have no problem calling your mother either. Does she know how her grandkids were conceived?" Bell smirks at House as Cameron looks in surprise.
House eyes shot up faster than gun being fired. "You wouldn't." He knew she would. She was just as conniving as he was and that scared the hell out of him. And what made it worse was that there was nothing he could blackmail her with to stop her from doing so. "Fine, give me a pile and we'll get to work." House takes the file from his sister and begins to read though the file. Cameron then begins to move towards the door. "And where do you think you're going?" There was no way in hell he was going to be the only one stuck doing grunt work with his little sister, so Cameron better have a damn good excuse as to where she was going.
"I'm going to get a few more whiteboards. We're going to need them." As Cameron walked towards the door and as she opens it, she sees a face that she hadn't plan on seeing at all. House being here for a conference there was a possibility that she him, but this was unexpected. So unexpected that, again, she could only say one word. "Robert."
Author's note: How many saw that one coming. Okay I'm going to try my best to update this story more often. I'm working on another script and I just came up with an idea for another one. So keep your fingers crossed as I'm hoping to update by Friday. Please rate and Review.