Chapter Twenty - When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
The soft glow from the machine's display illuminated Arin's face in coloured light as she stood there watching them, the gentle hum of the refrigeration units within seemed almost melodic. Without any coins to use she opted instead to backpedal to the leather sofa and sit down. Looking around at the empty corridor the teenager contemplated that first meeting with House. She leaned back and closed her eyes.
"you know" House's voice said again in her mind "…they stopped making that stuff in the mid nineties after they realised what the long term effects of radiation was on the Chernobyl babies."
Arin could see him sitting there speaking to her she looked at the imaginary can again in her head. Heard herself ask "Sunkist?"
"Yeah, That thing almost contains enough waste for it to eat through the can. Be warned not all mutations grant super powers. Take my advice, toss that one in the trash."
She opened her eyes, almost shocked not to find him sitting there. The memory had been so vivid. Looking around she tried to think of the best way to approach a search for something that she didn't know she was looking for. Maybe if she could pinpoint the differences between then and now that would help.
Ok. She thought what was the same now as had been then and what wasn't. She was dry for a start, difference. She left as lost and anxious then as she did now, similarly. She had soda then, difference. She looked down at the hospital gown. And at her sock clad feet. Clothing difference. The socks distracted her a moment, maybe should have put her converse back on.
Some ten minutes later and Arin still was no further forward. She lay on the sofa on her back now her hands clasped across her stomach and the IV tubes carefully arranged over the arm to where the stand was parked staring at a different set of ceiling tiles. Oh how she was beginning to loath the things.
"One of these things is not like the others…" she muttered almost mockingly out loud in a singsong voice. "…one of these things just doesn't belong. Can you tell which thing is not like the others…" she tilted her head back to look at the vending machines and felt her forehead furrow. Carefully she sat back up as the final line of the song died on her lips. The plant pots. The plant pots on either side of the vending machines had housed large orange blossoms when she had been here with House, she was sure of it. Now however they contained a green tree like thing.
Again she replayed the memory of sitting here with House through in her head. Straining for the exact details of the conversation. He had mentioned the plants she was sure he had…
"you know, they stopped making that stuff in the mid nineties after they realised what the long term effects of radiation was on the Chernobyl babies."
"Sorry" Arin said out loud as if she were speaking her line in a play of sorts. House in her head continued
"It's like those pots of botanical nightmares over there both relics of the USSR's nuclear programme."
Getting to her feet Arin padded across one of the pots and bent down to inspect it. The floor and wall itself was clean but a dull orange smudge on the paint told her she was right. She ran a hand around the inside rim of the pot brushing aside the top layer of soil. A small amount of orange came away from the underside of the pot rim. She rubbed it across the four fingers of her hand with her thumb. Pollen.
The flowers had been replaced here, wilted maybe, but she was sure the same flowers were present in the ER corridors where her argument with Zen had happened. The argument that had escalated into the first breathing episode. She wasn't asthmatic, House's lung function test had proven that so she had reasoned that what the ER doctor had said was correct, given the stress and the situation it was a panic attack. She had a fever too, so that made sense…But what if it didn't, what if it HAD been an asthma attack.
Her heart rate sped up slightly as she considered, absently rubbing the dust off her hand.
That explained the first attack…not the fever so table that for now. What had been the second issue? The respiratory distress with House, in her room. Immediately she felt herself deflate. There were no orange flowers in her room. Theory burst.
Sighing heavily She straightened and brushed her hand down the side of her gown to dust off the last of the orange from her skin when a memory of dusting orange pollen from Zen's shirt came flooding back.
Slowly she repeated the gesture. She was wrong. The respiratory distress wasn't second, the rash was…after they had been walking through the fourth floor corridor and she had noticed some of the pollen on the shirt.
Grabbing the IV stand she quickly walked back to the elevator and into a carriage that appeared almost immediately. Less than five minutes later she was standing in front of another vending machine, solitary this time, looking at the pot of orange blossoms. They had wilted slightly. A fine powder stained the floor around them. The same powder that had ended up on the shirt Zen had given her, which caused the rash and led to House's examination.
Arin watched quietly as a man in overalls and wearing headphones pulled the orange plant out of the pot, disposed of it in a bag in his trolley and then began cleaning the wall. He then replaced the plant with a green one like the one she had already seen, mopped up the orange powder and soil mess on the floor and continued on his merry way. He gave her a slight nod of acknowledgment as he passed but seemed otherwise lost in his music and task. She watched him go and after a few moments walked contemplatively back to her room.
As the elevator binged open and admitted her back to the floor her room was on the nurse, David, stood at her door his arms crossed. Clearly he had just been in looking for her and finding her gone had been about to investigate further when she had appeared.
"And where have you been?" He asked sternly as she reached him.
"I couldn't sleep so I decided to go for a walk." She said. Not exactly a lie.
He tssked and ushered her back into bed, fussing with the IV stand and checking the line in her hand. Satisfied with it he reattached the monitors. "You really shouldn't go wandering off like that, especially by yourself and certainly not at night."
"Sorry." Arin said absently. Half her mind still on her puzzle and only partly paying attention to him. He was checking her vitals now and tssked again.
"Your heart rate and temperature are up again. Doctor House won't be happy with either of us if he finds out." He gave her a rueful smile. "It's late, try and get some sleep. Do you want me to bring you something to help?"
Arin shook her head and leaned back into the pillow. "No thank you." She said.
David watched her a moment longer and then gave a slight sigh. "Try and sleep." He said again and reaching over turned the lamp off and retreated from the room.
In the darkness Arin stared at the ceiling again. After a few minutes she pushed the covers back and got out of bed to rummage in the cupboard. She found Zen's tshirt quickly enough and bringing it back to the bed turned the lamp back on to examine it. The smudge where the pollen had been was almost indistinguishable now but she was sure that's what it was. Positive of it. She had pulled it over her head when House had told her to loose the shirt so he could examine the rash. She had got stuck, breathed in the pollen on the shirt before House had freed her, unbeknownst to them both.
Now that she thought about it, the pollen was also in the ER corridor where she and Zen had argued. But also, those flowers or ones very like them had been at the mall by the fountain. Her face had an odd dreamy sort of expression as one by one each piece slotted together.
Carefully she folded out the crumpled article and read the section that had given her the idea again. Much of the medical aspects they went on to discuss were beyond her but the path it helped her paint was certain and clear.
"Firstly, the flowers at the mall, hours around them I start to react…" she whispered out loud. "…but it didn't become a problem because…" she faltered, thinking. "…because…because of the fountain! The water washed most of it off me. Oh god that's probably what triggered Robyn's asthma attack in the first place."
She ran a hand over her hair. Then what?
"Then we are here, and here I come into contact again. Adding in the stress and panic… covered in it and surrounded by it… I have the first attack and faint, but the fever isn't from this time…" she jabbed her index finger at the passage discussing fever as a symptom of built up contact. "…fever is a reaction to the first time. Then House annoys me but I don't have another reaction till the next day when I come into contact with the flowers again." That didn't make sense. Her face fell slightly as she reread the article section on treatment. "But why did it take so long?"
Glancing to the foot of her bed again Arin crawled the length of it and picked up the chart. Maybe there was something there that could explain that? Flicking it open she read through it, briefly noted with some annoyance she had been referred to as both anxious and hostile in what looked like House's writing and looked for the various drug names listed. Her finger moved down the page and stopped on amoxicillin. The antibiotic for the elevated white count that meant infection. According to the article allergies could account for that too. Acetaminophen was next, the painkiller for her head, what came after must have been the Ativan and the stuff House had given her before the CT and LP. That left prednisone which the article referred to as a steroid which could be given to refuse inflammation and immune response but also for breathing problems. That could be the reason for the delay in response maybe. The last name she didn't know, diphenhydramine.
Her frustration grew, knowing that answers were within reach but she couldn't access for lack of understanding of one drug was horrific.
You utter moron, idiot. This is what happens when you don't understand things. This is the result of being a villager, are you happy now? She fumed internally. After another few moments berating herself she did the only thing that made sense, she got back out of bed and hurriedly walked out into the corridor straight for the nurses station taking her chart with her.
The soft sound of her footsteps in her socks and the faint hum of medical equipment created a backdrop of white noise, as if the hospital itself was speaking to her. Egging her on.
"Excuse me," she said softly as she reached the nurses' station. David turned his attention to Arin, looking somewhat surprised to see her awake once again. He looked slightly disappointed as if he took her inability to sleep personally. He had no idea of the churning anxiety and frustration within her which now kept her awake. And probably a good thing too Arin thought as she watched the nurse's calm and reassuring expression. If hebdid he would likely have called someone more senior or gods forbid House himself!
"Oh, dear, are you still having trouble sleeping?" the nurse asked, his voice stern again but filled with concern.
" Yeah sort of" she said somewhat dismissively as if that wasn't really important at that moment. "but that's not why I'm here, I have a question that I'm hoping you can answer for me," Arin replied, holding her chart up as if this explained her presence.
The nurse frowned. "I'm not sure your supposed to be reading your chart." He said "What do you need help with?"
"I had a question about one of the medications" she continued, ignoring his mild chastisement of her reading the chart. She opened it to the medications section. "Here It mentions that I'm getting these medications, amoxicillin, prednisone, acetaminophen…" she trailed her finger down the list again as she showed him and stopped on the stand out. "This one, diphenhydramine. What is that for?" Arin inquired, her voice tinged with curiosity and desperation. She held her breath, hoping, needing, the nurse would provide the missing piece to the puzzle.
His face softened with understanding. "Ok I get it, you're feeling worried about the medicines. Right, you know the rest, yes?" He asked and waited for her to nod before answering, he typed into the computer he was at and then said "Ok well then diphenhydramine is an antihistamine." He glanced at the screen again and then back to her chart and flicked back a page or two before nodding to himself. " It seems to have been given to you as a mild sedative to help you sleep."
Arin frowned. "Sleep? But you said it was an antihistamine."
"Yes, it is, it's used primarily to help relieve allergy symptoms but one of its secondary uses is as a mild sedative because It tends to make you a bit drowsy, however..." He checked her chart again. "You only got one dose of that. I can ask the doctor on call if you want another to help you sleep?"
Mildly stunned looking Arin shook her head and took her chart back. "No, no that won't be necessary. Thank you for your help." She turned again back to her room, her mind reeling.
"Okay…" David said confused at the abrupt way the conversation had ended, he leaned over the desk as another nurse padded quietly to the station. "Are you sure you're ok."
"I'll be fine." Arin told him absently without looking back as she continued back into her room. Her eyes widened with realization. An antihistamine. As a mild sedative, but why?
The answer came quickly, House. Of course it was House, when he had worn her down and she had agreed to his tests, he had prescribed it to her because he had upset her. He had given her it to help her get some sleep and in doing so…
"…inadvertently treated the Allergy symptoms."
She sat on the edge of her bed. The steroids had been doing the trick since. "I'm allergic to the pollen." She whispered to the room. "I'm allergic to the pollen." She started to laugh quietly. Leaning sideways into the pillows and pulling her feet back up onto the bed. Presently The hospital room grew quiet as Arin's breathing steadied and she calmed from the euphoric feeling of finding the answer.
When David checked on her only minutes later to check she really was ok he found she had finally drifted off to sleep.