Chill
When Chase entered House's office, the place looked like a tornado had hit. There were medical books of all shapes, sizes, and colors scattered about the room. It seemed as if every book that the place held had been pulled from the shelves, hastily rifled through, and then discarded.
House was currently sitting at his computer, furiously scrolling through some article or other. The man who notices everything, didn't seem to even realize that there was another person in the room with him.
Chase watched him for a moment, suddenly realizing that this man really did have a heart. House may not be at Wilson's side right now, but he was frantic to help him none the less. This was the one thing that House was really good at, and right now he had to use that skill to save his best friend. Chase realized that Cameron was right, if anyone were going to solve this, it would be House.
Chase decided that he had stared long enough and cleared his throat to signal his presence.
"It's about damn time," House grumbled, never taking his eyes from the screen.
"He's beginning to show signs of slipping into a coma," Chase announced, somewhat worried about what the reaction might be.
It seemed as if House didn't hear him as he continued to surf through the articles. Chase stood there, uncomfortably watching some more.
The tension of the room mounted as the silence continued to grow. And then, without warning, the older doctor snapped. In a whip like motion that Chase hadn't even seen, House's cane came up and swiped the books that lay open across his desk violently to the floor. He stood up and turned his furious gaze on Chase.
"So why are you just standing there?!" he demanded. "What is it? Come on, you've been working for me for a while now. Haven't you picked up any brilliant ideas yet? Can't you think of something to try? Can't you bloody do anything?" he railed at his subordinate.
Chase was frozen in place as he watched his boss advance on him, demanding answers to questions that he himself didn't have.
And then, just as suddenly as House had leapt at Chase, he was on the ground, clutching is right thigh. Chase stared for just a moment, not realizing what had just happened before he quickly covered the last few paces to his boss's side.
"House?" he was asking as he began to kneel beside him.
"Get out," House gasped through a pain laced voice.
"You need help. Let me help you," Chase was saying as he reached down to him.
House slapped the Australian's hands away as he repeated, "get out now."
Chase was stunned. Everything had been happening so fast he was just not able to process it all.
"Get Out!" House screamed at him as he locked eyes with the stunned man. Chase, not seeing any other option, turned and left.
House lay there, sprawled on the floor griping his throbbing thigh in complete agony. He gasped as waves of pain rushed over him, driving out any thoughts that he might have been able to have. He cursed his handicap. It very well might be what was keeping him from saving Wilson. Now, not only was his leg ruining his life, but that of his friend's as well.
He just laid there, unable to move, as, for the first time in years, tears began to stream down his face. He hadn't given into his emotions like this since just after the infarction. He hadn't felt such helplessness since that time.
Maybe Cuddy was right, he thought. Maybe he should be down there right now.
But as soon as the thought came, it was gone. No, I have to keep working. I have to find out what's wrong. Then I can go to him when I have an answer… When I can save him. Nothing else matters.
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"What did he say?" Cameron asked Chase as he entered the lab.
Chase had a look of confusion on is face as Cameron looked up at him. "First he ignored me, then he was screaming at me for the answers, and then he collapsed in pain and yelled at me to leave," Chase replied.
"He what?" Cameron demanded as she stood up and started to leave.
"He won't let you help him," Chase was saying as she stalked past him and began to make her way back to House's office.
"I can't believe that you just left him there," she said over her shoulder.
"Cameron, leave him alone. Offering your help is only going to make matters worse," Chase was saying as he followed after her.
"The only thing that could make matters worse is if he winds up hurting himself more without any help. That's not going to help him, or Wilson."
"Cameron stop," Chase said as he grabbed her arm and spun her around to face him. "Leave him alone," Chase said with emphasis. "He doesn't want help and if you burst in there when he's like this, it's only going to make him angrier and less able to think. Right now the best thing that we can do is respect his privacy and do whatever it is that he wants."
Cameron stared at Chase for a moment, knowing that he was right, but still hating the thought of just leaving House to wallow in his pain.
"You should get back to that testing and I'm going to go help Foreman with the MRI. I'll send Cuddy up that way in a while to make sure that he's alright, but I think the best idea is to just leave him right now."
Cameron hesitated for another minute before she lowered her eyes and nodded. Chase was right, but it still didn't feel right. She pulled her arm from his now loose grip and walked back to the lab to continue her testing.
Chase watched her enter the lab again before he turned and headed back towards Wilson's room to help Foreman and to inform Cuddy of what had just happened.
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House had managed to pull himself off the floor and was now sitting on the couch in his office staring out to the white board that held Wilson's symptoms in the next room. He eyed his Vicodin bottle across the room on his desk but just couldn't bring himself to try and make it to the thing right now. So he sat there, massaging his leg as he tried to concentrate through the pain.
He knew that he was distracted not only by the pain, but also by the fact that it was Wilson that he was trying to save. He needed to find the cold center that he was used to working with. He needed to detach himself from the situation, to no longer see this as saving his friend's life, but solving an interesting puzzle.
He closed his eyes and leaned back into the couch as he breathed deeply. He washed the image of the pale and unconscious Wilson from this morning from his mind. He erased the incident in the ER from his memory and the comments that Cuddy had made about him needing to be down there now. Each breath he took, he willed another piece of the horror of it all away until he was once again, cold, calculating, heartless, House.
He took one final cleansing breath and opened his eyes and looked once again out to the white board. He was ready now, all he needed was his team and they could get to work for real on this case. And that was all this was to him now, just another case to solve.
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Chase entered Wilson's room to see Foreman preparing to take the man down to have the MRI. Cuddy was still in there as Chase suspected she would be. He signaled to Cuddy to follow him into the hall. Foreman raised an eyebrow but the only answer he received from Chase was a shake of the head. Obviously it was either something the neurologist didn't need to know or wouldn't want to know.
Cuddy followed Chase out in the hallway and asked, "What is it?"
"It's House," Chase began, but wasn't sure how to continue. He had been feeling bad about the way he had handled the situation ever since he had talked to Cameron. He shouldn't have left the doctor on his own, collapsed on the floor, but it wasn't as if House had left much of a choice to him.
"What?" Cuddy asked, starting to worry what might have made Chase seem so nervous.
"He… he is having a lot more problems with his leg today," Chase said.
"I'm not surprised. He's under a lot of stress," Cuddy replied, wondering why this was such a huge thing that Chase needed to tell her about it.
"Well, it's just that, I have never seen him collapse before because of it."
"He collapsed?" Cuddy demanded.
"Yeah. One minute he was coming at me, rather pissed off, the next he was on the floor, gripping his thigh. I tried to help, but he yelled at me to get out and wouldn't let me touch him."
"You just left him there?"
"There wasn't much else I could do," Chase defended.
Cuddy took a moment to breath. She knew that House could be difficult and was even more so when he was afraid that his pride was being hurt. She understood why Chase would want to get out of there in a hurry and she couldn't really blame him. But now it was going to be up to her to confront the wounded beast and this was not something she wanted to deal with right now on top of everything else.
"Alright, I understand," she said. "Go help Foreman with the MRI, I'll go check on House," Chase seemed very relieved as he nodded and left to help Foreman.
Cuddy took another deep breath and went to go check on her Diagnostian.
When Cuddy arrived at House's office, she was somewhat pleasantly surprised to see House picking up the books that he had scattered earlier. He didn't seem to be in any more pain than usual right now so what ever had happened when Chase was there, seemed to have passed. She was tempted to just leave right then, knowing that House was not still incapacitated. But she couldn't help going in. She felt like she was entering the lion's den as she entered, but she needed to know if he had made any more progress on the situation.
"House?" she said, getting his attention.
"I'm fine," he said in an even voice as he continued to pick up his mess.
"I can see that. I was just seeing if you have any new ideas yet."
"Has my team finished their testing yet?" House asked, still not looking at her.
"No, Foreman and Chase just took him down to the MRI and with all of the tests that Cameron is currently running, there's no telling when she will be done."
"Are there any new symptoms?"
"No."
"Then I don't have any new ideas. I need to have more information to work with before I can proceed so there won't be anymore ideas until I get more information," He was getting rather short, but he still didn't favor her with a glance.
Cuddy stood for a while, waiting to see if he was ever going to bother looking at her. Finally she gave up saying, "Sorry. Just let me know what ever you need, I'll do my best to help you," and she turned and left.
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"This is going to be a tough one," Foreman said as he and Chase waited for MRI to do its thing. "Not only solving it, but getting through it with our sanity in tact. I have never seen the man so… off."
"Give the guy a break, his best friend is dying form some unknown cause and he feels like he's the only one who can save him," Chase said.
"Yeah, well, we better solve this one, or this could just push him right over the edge. I always knew the man was unstable, but this is ridiculous."
"Foreman, that's not another patient in there. That's Wilson. One of our own, someone we know and work with. I can't believe you are taking this so cool."
"Let's just say that I have learned more from House then how to be cynical and avoid work. House's main thing is to always remain objective. Getting too close to the patient or the situation only distracts from what needs to be done in order to figure out what's wrong. And House is proving his own point right now. He's sent all of us out to run tests without any idea of what we're looking for. When was the last time that he didn't at least have an idea, even if he didn't let us in on it?"
Chase just sat and stared at the screen, realizing that Foreman was right but not sure if he really wanted to give into the coldness of it all.
"Honestly, the best way to help Wilson right now is to forget that it's even him that we're trying to save. I know that's how House was able to help me with that Naegleria."
"He was an ass then and if he stayed like that for this, he'd be an ass now. People are not supposed to be able to just turn off their emotions like that. It's not human."
Foreman shook his head. Chase was just as good as ignoring his own emotions when it suited him. It didn't really make sense for the man to be arguing the way he was. But nothing about today was making much sense.
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The boys finished up their scans and met up with House and Cameron in the conference room shortly after.
"Alright, what have we got?" House asked. He seemed to be back to his normal cold self once again. He didn't have that haunted worried air to him anymore; it was just him solving another puzzle. They weren't sure if this was a good thing or not. It was obviously not healthy for him, but was it what would save Dr. Wilson?
"MRI was clean," Foreman answered.
"I haven't found anything yet in the blood tests, but it would help if we could narrow down what it may be," Cameron said.
"Alright, let's go back to that differential people. What could this be?"
"Lot's of things," Chase said.
"What are the most likely. Come on, you know how this works."
"Mitral Valve Prolapse," Foreman stated.
"Alright, now we're getting somewhere. Doubtful, but possible," House said as he wrote the suggestion on the board. "That means that this probably started as a virus, what are some of the more likely virus that can lead to MVP?"
"CMV?" Chase suggested. House wrote it as a bullet under MVP
"Encephalitis?" Cameron said. It went up too.
There was silence for a few moments.
"Anything else?" House asked.
"MVP could be resulted from bacterial meningitis," Foreman said.
"Not likely. He was fine prior to his episode. I think that we might have noticed signs of meningitis for the last few weeks."
"MVP can also be caused by stress. If that's the case, then all we have to do is the surgery to correct the Mitral value and not have to worry about virus treatment," Cameron suggested.
"Well let's run the Epison-Barr for these two and see which it is. Foreman, you and Chase get an ultra sound while Cameron runs the tests."
They all nodded and left the room to attend to their new tasks.
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He knew that he probably shouldn't since he had finally regained his cool, but House found himself heading to the room where Wilson lay. He paused in the doorway as he watched Foreman and Chase set up the ultra sound and begin the scan.
As he watched his friend lying there, helpless and unconscious, he began to wonder what it might have been like for Wilson to see him like that when he went through the Infarct. For the first time, he was realizing that his experience was painful and difficult for those around him as well as himself. They may not have been able to feel the physical pain that he did, but he now knew that there was a deep emotional pain watching someone you care about teeter on the edge of death like this.
But as he watched the procedure in the room, he was only distantly aware of his thoughts. It was as if some other part of himself was thinking about all of the emotions but none of it was really impacting him. He knew that it would catch up with him eventually, but right now it was just too important for him to remain objective, to remain as distant as possible.
He had been so engulf in his musings that it took him a minute to hear what Chase was saying. "There's nothing there. It looks clean," He was saying.
"Let's check the flow," Foreman said as he fliped a switch on the machine, changing the contrasts on the display. They stared for a moment before Chase shook his head. "Still nothing. This is not MVP," he pronounced.
Neither of them had been aware that House had been watching him and so were both a little startled when all of the sudden he was right there, studying the screen as well. He looked on for a while before he shook his head. He couldn't see anything either.
He just turned and walked out, muttering under his breath, "Should have known… didn't explain the hallucinations."
Chase and Foreman exchanged a glance. House was right; MVP didn't explain hallucinations so why had none of them caught that?