Emergency Room

Cuddy hired me to be an attending in the ER. I loved it. Like really loved it. Fast diagnosis and ability to help people my way, it was a freedom that I couldn't believe. And I stayed. My apartment in Boston completed locked away but not forgotten.

I had a new interest. Chase kept it interesting for me. It was easy. He went back to working in general surgery, but our relationship was really good. But sometimes, there were these puzzles that would come up.

There were several weeks that I worked in the ER, and House didn't even know I was there. Chase had convinced me to stop dying my hair and let my fairy hair be. So I was Blonde. House didn't even recongize me. I had seen him, but I just did my job and went home and enjoyed my freedom.

Until one day, I saw him just outside the ER. He was staring at me like he couldn't comprehend I was there. So I walked over to him. I held up three fingers to answer his unasked questions. "Three weeks. For someone who never misses something small, you missed something big."

"You're an idiot." Ironic… I hear that a lot when nothing could be further from the truth. But I tend to believe things from people I respect.

"The hair, where I'm working, or both?" I asked, tilting my head.

"The hair makes you look like a hooker." He responded, looking me over. "I like it. Pulling pieces of windshield out of car accident victims and reattaching fingertips sliced off cutting bagels. At least Chase's move is only one step down."

I looked around and shrugged. Perhaps it was my Savior complex but I liked immediate results. "I can do good here. Get it out of my system." I turned the question back to him, his new candidates for the fellowship had brought me their latest puzzle earlier in the day to get my opinion. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by Hadley. Remi did not remember me, but then again, that was one time in a janitor's closet, and I was with chase. I was puzzled by one of his decisions so I asked. "Why'd you rat your patient out to NASA?"

"I don't know who's been gossiping about ethics instead of sex, but I hope they've already been number was it?" He asked.

I wasn't going to tell him what he wanted to know. Besides, it hadn't been one of his people; it had been the patient themselves. "Greta."

"Number!"

"No number. The patient. How do you think she got your pager number?" I answered. "She came into the E.R. didn't want to talk…"

"I didn't rat her out." Yep it figured it didn't sound like him.

"You-lied?"

"Suppose I should tell her that before she keys my car." I chuckled and shook my head.

" Why lie?"

"Had to stop some leaky faucets." he said.

"What did it matter?" I asked at this point my fascination with the man had been a study in human nature. That is to say he was actually human.

"It was no one's business."

"Right." I said rolling my eyes.

"She's going to be the safest astronaut up there." He said with a shrug. "Certainly more vigilant than the guy next to her who's got no clue about the aneurysm in his head ready to pop."

I nodded. "Right." I smiled and walked away knowing that that was not the only reason why.

"You got a better reason?"

"You couldn't kill her dream." I shouted over my shoulder and went back to work.

Forman and I were always super close. He began to change when I left to the ER, but we stayed. He always made me feel like what I thought mattered. Like one day, I had kind of overstepped my boundaries with him. I searched him out after work one day. I walked into the doctor's lounge and forman was sitting there. I had been mis handled by him all day and I almost left. But he looked so … hurt. So I took a deep breath and walked closer to him instead. "Hey."

"Hey" He said. He seemed down, I guess finding out that you are turning into the bane of your existence does that to a person.

I set my ba down and sat in front of him. He raised his eyebrows at me, waiting for me to speak. I swallowed and began. "When... when you were dying, you tried to infect me. Because you knew I'd fight for you if I thought I was dying too."

"You bringing this up now so I'll forgive you for messing with my patient?"

I chuckled and shook my head. "I'm happy I changed jobs. But I know I'll never have that sort of... excitement."

He quirked a brow. "You miss people trying to kill you?"

"No, I miss... people doing whatever it takes to get the job done." And maybe that was preparation for the rest of my lie…"I guess that's why I'm having trouble giving it up. I shouldn't have helped them mess with your patient."

He sighed, "They had to screw with me. I've gotten everything wrong."

" I don't believe it." I said and sighed. "You're not gonna get everything right. But you're never gonna get everything wrong" and left him with that thought.

I didn't know what made me think, however, that working in the Emergency room would keep me out of the House Drama. Robert and my life were entwined with that man. And with Thirteen joining the race for the fellowship, my sexual life was under inspection. I had told Robert about my closet romp with Hadley and he had been looking at her weirdly every time we were in the same place together.

When House got diagnosed with Syphilis, a group of us stared at his test the doctor's lounge. "So this is why he is who he is?" I said staring at the results.

"We don't know" Taub, a short balding man said.

" We know." Foreman said. "It's not just a coincidence."

"Wilson says he's always been a jerk." Remy said.

:But he got worse." That was Taub.

"After his leg." I said.

Foreman turned and asserted. "The leg was a coincidence."

Then Chase turned to me. "Did you sleep with him?"

Excuse the fuck out of me. I glared at chase and turned away from him.

Sensing the tension Remmy interjected. "So what's going to happen? What's going to change?"

Another one of House's fellow candidates. He was a sweet guy of south Asian descent. Kutner was his name. He finally spoke up. "Maybe he'll be less of a jerk."

I shrugged. "Or less of a doctor."

"You got to be a jerk to be a good doctor?" He asked me.

I shrugged again, Man I seriously do have a shrugging problem. "I don't know, maybe House does."

Chase was still staring me down and I was trying to avoid his gaze, finally he spoke up. "Why aren't you answering me?"

Finally I turned to him. "Because it's none of their business." I said signaling the rest of the people around us, "It's none of your business."

He squared off with me. "I think the STD makes it my business."

"Humans are complicated." I said and turned away from him.

"Humans are simple." Foreman interjected.

I sighed. "A million different things make us who we are, you change one, you change everything." I looked at Chase and then went back to my work. Chase was burning a hole to the side of my face. I wasn't going to answer his question, because it's still none of his business. "If Mozart was better adjusted, decides to play catch one day, maybe there's no magic flute."

"You did, didn't you?" Chase concluded, I groaned and rolled my eyes.

Kutner interjected. "We gave Van Gogh chelation therapy. Turned him into a house painter."

Taub shook his head. "Maybe not, maybe we just put Hitler on Ritalin."

I snorted. "Are you comparing House to Hitler?"

Chase rolled his eyes. "Oh god."

"Just because I don't think he's Hitler doesn't mean I slept with him." I snapped at Robert. He was truly irritating me. "I don't sleep with everyone who's better than Hitler".

"Maybe Taub is right," Foreman said " maybe this is good."

Remmy shook her head. "This is not good."

"Well, he respected our opinions, he mocked himself, he was civil, he shared." Foreman changes in the man's personality as if he were incapable of that before. I personally thought he was performing a social experiment. His entire life was a social experiment.

"He didn't care." Remmy said.

"He never cares." Foreman agreed

Remmy rolled her eyes and stood. "He didn't vote. He always cared about one thing, solving the puzzle but he was irrelevant to that diagnosis." She looked at Foreman then. "He had no opinion of his own. He now cares about nothing."

"You had no choice, you had to treat him." Chase said then glanced at me as he walked toward the door. "What's done is done."

That night, Robert decided that I was cut off sexually. At least until I answered the question. "Oh please," I said in response. "You need this more than I ido."

"Right…" He said

"I see you on Tuesday." I stated and walked away.

"You will see me tomorrow." He stated.

"Nah, I'm going to Boston. I am receiving the keys to my condo."

"Condo?" He asked.

I nodded. "Yeah, I bought it back before I quit the fellowship."

"Before we were together?" He asked. I nodded. "When were you going to tell me about it?"

"When it was your business to know." I answered.

"Who are you?" he asked.

I sighed and came closer to him. "I didn't sleep with him. I was going to move to Boston because I have some unfinished business there that I really don't want to talk about."

"Are you keeping this condo?" He asked.

I nodded.. "I think I am. It's the first place I have ever purchased. I still have some things I need to do in Boston, and it will be a good place for me to go."

"How often do you go?"

I shrugged. "Once a month or so."

"Would you want me to come with you?"

"You're working."

"So that's a no."

"Its a safe space. Plus there's no furniture. Maybe in the future.."

"I can be your safe space." He said wrapping his arms around me.

"Can you?" I answered putting my arms around him. "You don't even trust me."

"Okay, we both have some work to do." he said and I nodded. "I get that you need to keep that separate. I can deal with that."

"Good, because I am not changing my mind." I let go of him and turned back toward my car. "See you on Tuesday."

"You mean you're not coming over?" He yelled after me.

"You tried to use sex to manipulate me… so… NO." And I walked away.

I saw her again. When I went to Boston. I was shopping for my furniture, and she was there. She said her son needed a bigger bed. She was furniture shopping at the luxury Furniture store for a bed he can grow into.

I cheated on Chase, but did she really count.

I couldn't say no to her. Like I know that every time I saw her it was by chance. And this time we weren't even seeking out each other. It was fate.

I came back on Tuesday after sexed and thoroughly guilt ridden. I went on my rounds in the ER and I ran across a puzzle and I cringed because now I had to go up to the diagnostics department. At least Chase didn't work there anymore. I sighed and he4aded there.

I handed House the file for him to sign as they discussed differentials for another puzzle they were working on.:"He used to smoke. Could be paraneoplastic syndrome caused by small cell lung cancer." Kutner said as I waited.

I looked up at the board and listened as Foreman spoke up next. "He quit twenty years ago and his calcium levels are normal."

I looked back down at my chart and started to write in it. But my mouth betrayed me. I tried to stay silent, but I had a thought. "Could be Graves Disease. Extreme hyperthyroid disease leads to systemic problems including numbness, vision loss and cardiac arrest."

House looked at me. "You want to be here."

I sighed,: "I have to be here."

"Just say the word. I'll fire Thirteen." He said.

"Just sign the forms." I said and Remmy looked at us. I certainly wasn't about to take her job.

House smirked, "mart move. I was bluffing." Then she turned to the rest of them. "She's right. We should fry the thyroid before it fries him."

Taub protested, "Uh… I know it's more exciting this way, but shouldn't we confirm you're right before destroying one of the most important glands in his body?"

"If that gland has drawn a bulls eye on his heart, then no." House answered.

I pulled the File and placed it under my arm. "Nuking his thyroid puts him at risk for vascular lesions and all kinds of cancer." I objected. "Protocol says we should do an iodine uptake test."

"We?" he whispered to himself then turns to his actual employees and said. "Anyone else want to run a useless test while Brock's thyroid plots its next lethal move?" Remmy raised her arm, the other two followed. House sighed. "It was rhetorical."

Remmy intoned. "You were sure about B6 toxicity, too."

Then Foreman, who had been studying Brock's numbers spoke up. "House is right."

We all stopped to look at the man, including House who had finally started to sign my chart. "Seriously? I mean, I am, but you think so?"

" If he goes into full-on thyroid storm, he'll die. We gotta nuke his thyroid." the Neurologist answered. So the entire team followed him out of the door leaving House and I in the differentials room.

I raised my brows. And turned to the Doctor. "You want to be here…"

"I'm glad to be rid of you."

"What's with the hickey?" He asked, and I paled. My hand reaching to the space I remembered Regina's mouth had attached to.

"I have sex… It happens." I stated and rubbed on it hoping to god it would disappear before Chase saw me naked again. When I moved my hand House 's brows furrowed. "What?"

"You should really check your clotting factors." He said.

I left the lab confused as ever. Though when I went to the bathroom I saw the faded mark.