Chapter 3
House was at his desk, studying the test results. Suddenly, he remembered the gesture of Cameron to the patient, as he stared at her hands caressing his hair, thinking of 'I wonder what is the feeling of her fingers through my hair...' and right after that he had stared at her lips, thinking even then about the previous question.
"I am pathetic" House muttered, shaking his head.
"I've always said it" Wilson said from the door.
House looked up and saw Wilson leaned against the doorway with an amused smile on his lips.
"What do you want?" House snorted.
"You end up in these conditions every time you think about how many pills you swallow during the day?".
"I wasn't thinking about that..." House said annoyed and then closed his eyes, remembering that scene again.
'I'm going crazy...' he thought.
Wilson sat down, looking puzzled at his friend.
"What are you thinking?" he asked.
Wilson had a sort feeling that wasn't so weird after all. House tried to avoid him, fixing some papers on his desk.
"About my patient, the son of the billionaire" House answered.
"And you are pathetic because he has more money than you, despite being a child, or the fact that you're consumed by envy because your colleague in New York was right?" Wilson teased him.
"None of that, go back to your walking dead" House said annoyed.
House stood nervously and Wilson gave up, knowing that pressing him at that time wouldn't lead to anything good. House went to the conference room, his leg was killing him slowly.
'What a beautiful day' he thought bitterly.
"Blood tests are normal, Foreman and Cameron are doing the MRI" Chase reported.
"Ok, and the mother?" he asked, rubbing his temples.
"It all started with a series of faints, he has the pressure to minimum, I don't think it's relevant".
House gritted his teeth, trying not to think about his leg, focusing on what Chase had said.
"Good".
"What do you think should we do now?" Chase asked.
'A shot of morphine into my carotid will be a good start' House thought.
House didn't answer, going out quickly as Chase followed him.
"House? Where are you going?".
House entered the MRI room where only Foreman was staring at the scans on the screen.
"Where's Cameron?" House asked.
"She's letting the child out of the MRI" Foreman answered.
"There are nurses paid for that" House said annoyed.
Foreman shook his head, smirking "He doesn't want to be touched by anyone except Cameron".
House rolled his eyes, irritated "Perfect. How are the scans?".
"Whatever he has, it's not a neurological problem" Foreman said thoughtfully.
"When she has finished playing the caring mother, meet me downstairs" House ordered and then went away.
Foreman and Chase looked at each other.
"Why downstairs?" Foreman asked, confused.
The team went down in silence, lost in their thoughts. They arrived in the lobby and saw House sitting in the waiting room wearing his leather jacket and with his backpack on his lap.
When he saw them, he took off his iPod headphones.
"Well well, we'll take the car of Foreman" House said, smirking.
House gave the keys to the neurologist and they looked at each other without realizing that House was already at the front door of the hospital.
"Where are we going?" Cameron asked.
"I'm bringing you out for lunch, happy? Now, let's go" he said annoyed.
House went out from the hospital, followed by his team.
"Can you please stop and tell us what are you doing?" Foreman said exasperated.
"I told you, we're going out for lunch. I can't focus with an empty stomach. Now, do you want to open the car or not? We're freezing here!".
Foreman opened the car resignedly and House sat on the passenger side.
The team stared at him, nobody really believed the story of the lunch but they got in resigned.
"Why we're taking my car?" Foreman asked after a while.
"Well, I made a careful valuation of which of your three cars is more comfortable, then I checked out the tank and your car is the winner. You idiot! Your car was the closest to the exit. Now, go!" House said annoyed.
Foreman was driving following the directions of House, occasionally glancing at the rearview mirror where Chase and Cameron looked more upset than him.
"Ok, stop there" House said after a while.
Cameron recognized the place as he got out from the car.
"We are at your apartment?".
"Yeah, I forgot my wallet".
House opened the door and then turned around, seeing their incredulous stares.
"You can't come in, so Chase don't move and don't pee on the wall" House smirked and entered his apartment, leaving the door open.
After 15 minutes he was still inside and Chase sat on the ground, playing with his cell; Foreman stared in front of him, bored; Cameron was with her arms crossed, visibly irritated.
"We have a child dying and we're sitting here doing nothing and giving him plenty of rope!" she whined.
Chase and Foreman looked at her without moving in any way.
"He's not dying! You're still there?" House yelled from his apartment.
"Yes!" Chase and Foreman yelled back.
They heard some strange noises coming from his apartment, things thrown everywhere probably.
"If you had to go home why you have dragged us here?" Cameron yelled to him.
"I didn't want to pay the cab!" House answered.
"You have a bike, use it!" she argued.
"I'm out of gas!".
Cameron turned to his coworkers who seemed more tired than bored "It's absurd" she said finally.
She entered the apartment with the intent to drag him out from there but when her brain sent the message 'You're in the apartment of House!' she stopped abruptly, observing his living room. She had found herself thinking of him there more than once. She studied the room around her, her attention was inevitably captured by his piano, or rather the idea of him playing in the evening, relieving the tension on those keys, a sort of antistress made by eighty-eight white keys. It was the only thing that stood strongly out within that chaos: the coffee table was full of papers, CDs, two empty bottles and many other things. The couch seemed to be abandoned, it had a cover on its back and a magazine here and there. The whole room was in darkness because of the closed curtains, only a few rays of sunlight penetrated into the room. It was dark but not gloomy as he was: untreated, not well defined, something sketched that the owner had forgotten to complete. Her eyes ended up on his bedroom, the bed was unmade, his clothes laid abandoned here and there on the ground and on the bed.
"What are you doing here?" House said suddenly, emerging from a room on the right, throwing two empty phials of Vicodin in the trash near the piano.
Cameron observed his movements and understood almost everything.
"Have you finished the Vicodin?" she asked.
"I haven't finished it, I lost it" he corrected her.
"And you think to find it messing up your apartment?" she smirked.
"Tritter did it, why I'd fail?" he asked.
Cameron shook his head, smiling as she took a step toward him. He considered that a further invasion of his territory and she stopped again, understanding.
"Try to remember the last place where you saw it" she tried to help him.
House pretended to be thoughtful "Hmm...of course! In my hand!" he looked at his hands "Oh no, it's not here!" he mocked her.
Cameron sighed deeply, looking away from him.
"Ok whatever, but I won't spend my lunch break here, therefore you have to listen to me" she almost ordered.
"Yes my captain".
"Try to think about what you did last night when you came back from work".
"Let's see, If the Alzheimer's is not here yet...oh yes! I came back, I threw the helmet there and then...Nope, I can't tell you".
Cameron looked at him confused "Why not?".
"Because you're brown and to keep thinking about what I did I'd need a blonde" he smirked.
Cameron arched an eyebrow as he grinned amused.
"I'm trying to give you a hand and you act like that? You know what? Go to hell!" she said fuming.
"Do you really think that I'll let you do the Freud of the situation with me?".
Cameron went out without turning. House looked around, trying to remember where the hell he had left that phial. Nothing, total emptiness. Fuck 'em all.
House went out and hit the wall right over the head of Chase who was yawning.
"Come on, let's go! If the child dies, the Red Cross will sue us!" he said annoyed.
House got in the car, glancing in the rearview mirror where a nervous Cameron glared at him.
TBC...