The Name Does Matter

It only took a moment before House snapped back into action. He moved as fast as he could back to his apartment. Throwing on some jeans and a dress jacket over the rolling stones shirt he had slept in, House grabbed his motorcycle keys and picked up his pill bottle from the coffee table, throwing it his into his pocket. He swiped his cell from the counter and was punching the speed dial as he walked out the door, still jamming his feet into his sneakers as he walked.

"House?" Cuddy's voice sounded from the other side. "What are you calling me this early for? You have no cases and I wasn't expecting you in for clinic for hours, if you ever did show up."

"Wilson's just been taken to the ER. He went into cardiac arrest and was just taken away in the ambulance. He should be there any minute." he said in a hurry and he reached his bike and threw his leg over it. He was attaching his cane along side and turning the key as Cuddy finally found her voice again.

"House, this isn't funny," she said.

"It's not a joke. I'm on my way right now. Make sure he's still alive when I get there!" And with that Cuddy just heard the bike roar to life before the line went dead.

She sat in her office, frozen for a moment with the phone still up to her ear. And then everything hit her. She hung up the phone and was out of her office in a flash, heading directly to the ER to see if her Oncology head was actually about to be brought in as a patient.

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House may have been a rule breaker when it came to hospital policies, but he was never one to break the traffic rules. He knew what happened to people who did. They either wound up splattered or splattering someone else if not both. But today he didn't care.

He sped in and out of traffic, rushing to work as fast as he could. He only had to run one red light thankfully and there had been no one there we he did. It wasn't until he had reached the hospital that he realized that he hadn't even put on his helmet before taking off after the ambulance.

He kicked out the stand and grabbed his cane in one motion once again and hobbled his way frantically into the ER entrance.

"House!" he heard Cuddy calling as he walked through the door. He glanced at her and continued to walk as he demanded, "Where is he?"

"ER room 1. He crashed again on his way over and they're trying to bring him back now!"

House never once paused as she talked, he just pressed right on towards room one. "House, you can't go in there! Let them do there job!" Cuddy was calling after him, trying to keep up. For being a cripple, he was certainly able to move fast when he wanted.

"Oh yeah, they seem to be doing real well so far," he said as he reached the room. The scream of the heart monitor was the first thing that hit him. The second was that it was Chase who was currently the one directing the flurry in the room.

"Charge 350! Clear!" a jolt of energy racked Wilson's body. "20 cc's Atropine! 350 again! Clear!"

This time the as the body was jarred with electricity, the sound of the screaming alarm changed. The machine began to beep rhythmically as a line on the screen went from being straight to jumping to a peak and a back down… up and then back down. Everyone paused for a moment before they rushed back into action.

"Alright, we've got rhythm, let stabilize him!" Chase called as they began to continue about their job.

The whole time House had stood frozen in the door way, watching on in at first horror and then relief as Wilson's heart once again resumed.

He stood there for a moment before turning and walking away, heading up to his own office. Cuddy was saying something, but he didn't care what it was. He now had a case that he needed to get to work on. This was the most important case that he has had in his life.

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He stormed into the conference room, starling Cameron and Foreman who had just arrived themselves and were preparing their morning coffee.

Without a word, House walked up to his white board and picked up a marker and began to write.

Fever

Cardiac arrest

Repertory distress

Hallucinations

He turned around and looked at his partial team and finally addressed them. "We have a new case. Differential Diagnoses people."

"Good morning to you too," Foreman said as he sat down at the table.

"What is this?" Cameron asked, bewildered by the suddenness of the whole thing.

"What does it look like? It's not like this is something we haven't done before. I come in, I write the symptoms, you tell me what it is and I tell you why you're wrong until we figure out what it is."

"House, it's seven in the morning, we just got here and you're never here before ten, and last I checked we didn't have a case. Not to mention, Chase isn't even here yet." Foreman answered.

"I'm here now, we have a case, and Chase is with the patient so let's get down to business."

"House, that could be any number of things. Do you at least have a patient history for us? An age? A name?" Cameron was saying.

"A case file could help," Foreman said.

"Patient just arrived, there is no file yet. History…Both parents still alive and kicking, no history of heart disease in his family. Only disease that I'm aware of was an uncle who died from cancer. Age… 37. Happy?"

Cameron and Foreman exchanged a look before they turned back to House and Cameron asked, "And the name?" She was suddenly worried. House had specifically left that off. She could tell that he had purposely avoided saying the name. Between that and his sudden frenzied demeanor and the age as well as being able to spout off the family history, she thought she might know what was happening.

House glared at her for a moment before he suddenly seemed to collapse into himself. He crumpled into a chair and slumped over, placing his forehead on his cane handle. It had finally hit him, everything that had just happened, and he wasn't sure what to do anymore.

His first reaction was to make it all better. He had to figure out what was wrong and cure it. It was just another puzzle, another riddle to solve. But Cameron was standing there, demanding to know who it was that they were supposed to diagnose and for the first time, he realized that the name really did matter. This wasn't just another random person in off the streets that he had never met before and would never meet again. This was his friend… his only friend.

"House… who is it?" he heard Cameron asking again, this time with the worry and concern leaking through in her voice.

"Dr. James Wilson," he sighed.