-1Disclaimer- Well. This is interesting. For those of you who have been reading this story since I first published it and watching the show, isn't it weird? I started this story in the middle of the series. And the season finale of House is that House gets shot. Well, I don't own House, but I'm pretty sure I own Kevin Zalinski. Although their use of Sherlock Holmes's nemesis, Jack (James) Moriarty…

-Chapter Seven-

Untold

House lay in his bed, not sleeping, as would be expected, but staring at the ceiling. The cast on his right leg didn't sit right in his bed, and it was twisting his leg to the right, putting stress on the damaged tissue. He seriously considered opening his bottle of Vicodin, but so soon after drinking alcohol, there might be… unwanted effects.

He raised an arm above his head, almost as if conducting an unheard orchestra, then let it fall. He didn't want to go to work tomorrow. No…that wasn't it… He didn't want to see Kevin Zalinski again. Not after today.

He closed his eyes. Even at this moment, he remembered the events leading up to when the boy tried to shoot him, as clear as if it was still happening. The orderlies joking around at the other end of the hall, laughing about some patient's private life. The man who had almost tripped him on the way over to room D237 and didn't apologize…

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House limped down the near-deserted hallway, a look of grim determination on his face. The treatment ought to be working. In fact, it probably was. But the diagnosis… If the diagnosis was correct (it was the best one so far), it meant that the boy had a highly infectious disease. He would have exposed hundreds of people to it.

The problem was, that Kevin Zalinski said he hadn't.

House grabbed the handle of the door, expecting it to slide smoothly open. It didn't. He tried again, rattling the door. A small metallic clink sounded from somewhere at his feet. He knelt carefully down on the cold hallway floor, making his way over to the edge of the door. There. A coin had been wedged crudely into the sliding door track, jamming it shut from the inside. House mused for a moment, then reached into his pocket, pulling out a paperclip. He bent it into a hook, and slid it under the door, knocking the coin from its groove. He then rose to his feet, and tried the door again. It opened.

Sliding it shut behind him, he replaced the coin back where it had lay, effectively locking the door behind him. It would be better if he were… undisturbed.

He looked around the room. The boy was huddled under the covers in the hospital bed, only a few strands of light brown hair peeking out from under the blanket

"Kevin," he called out. The boy flinched, the motion muffled by the thick layers of blankets. "I'm Dr. House. You have diphtherial pharyngitis. You were supposed to have had a vaccine, but, well, it's too late for that now. But still, it's going to give you and me a lot of trouble. Diphtheria is highly infectious to those who haven't gotten the vaccine. You're a walking carrier to this disease, and probably infected quite a few people."

The boy shifted under the covers, but said nothing.

"I've asked your aunt if you went anyplace where you would have made contact with possible hosts, but she said you had only gone out on a hike twice in the entire week.. But you didn't go out on a hike, did you? You went to the mall. When you were admitted to this hospital, you were wearing new jeans. With a tag still on them. I need hear it directly from you: did you leave the house to go somewhere public?"

Kevin was trembling, now, and House moved closer, leaning over the bed. "Answer me. Did you leave?"

From beneath the covers, the boy mumbled something that sounded vaguely like "can't tell you."

"Of course you have to tell me," House snapped. "This is reportable. It's a public health issue. If someone find out and reports it before I do, you're not going to be the only person in trouble. Come on, come on."

The boy said nothing. House felt his frustration building up. Why wouldn't the damn kid tell him? If Cuddy learned about this…

House brought his cane down sharply on the foot of the bed. "The door's locked. I'm not leaving until you tell me where you were. Understand? I don't care who you say you were with. I don't care what I have to do to make you tell me. I'll stay here as long as I need to." He walked over to the other side of the hospital bed and hooked the end of his cane underneath the blanket, whipping it off of the boy.

Kevin was curled up, cradling something close to himself, a look of fear on his face. A look of being cornered. The object was metallic, black.

"What is tha-" House stepped back, as the realization of what the object was hit him. It was a gun.

The boy realizing that House was staring, followed his glance to the gun. He attempted to turn away, and entangled himself in the IV and various other wires. He raised the gun.

It went off with a deafening bang. The tall glass window behind House shattered. He stumbled backwards, then raised his cane, bringing it down on the boy's wrist. He thought it would make Kevin let go, but instead, he drew away, falling backwards, out of the hospital bed.

Kevin rose to his feet, gun still in hand. He glanced over at House, then raised the gun again, more focused on the gun than on the man standing before him.

House looked over at the gun, then to the window. The boy was still holding the gun. House turned to the window, gauging the distance mentally from where he stood to the awning over the window on the story below him. He spoke to the boy, trying to distract him long enough to think of a way out that didn't involve falling. "How did you get that into the hospita-"

BANG.

The gun went off, and without thinking, House jumped.

It was only as he fell that he realized that in his hurry, he had jumped too far. His trajectory was wrong.

The ground rushed up to meet him.

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House winced, the memory of the pain still fresh in his mind. What the hell had he done to make a seventeen year-old kid pull a gun on him? He closed his eyes, but his mind still kept replaying the day's events. The more he tried to relax, the more stressed he became.

House growled in exasperation, and leaned over, lifting the bottle of Vicodin off of the bedside table. He popped the lid off, sliding a solitary pill into the palm of his right hand before putting the container back. He closed his hand around the pill, feeling it dig into the meat of his hand, then raised it to his mouth. Forget side effects. He needed it.

He let it fall from his fingers and into his mouth, and swallowed, the familiar bitter, chalky taste left in his mouth.

He closed his eyes again, and this time, only sleep came.

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Heheh. I updated a longer chapter, as promised. Still not up to my usual three pages, but as I might have mentioned before, most of my energy is going into writing Will Be. Thanks to all who reviewed. Expect a new chapter of Will Be soon, too.

Bye!

P'Bantonox