Chapter 63 — All the King's Horses
A/N: Thank you to SoleFaith, BrySt1, HopeForDuende, HeatherSS1, Rubyia, Musikrulesok, Robin, OldSFfan, animexwonder, and wsmith for their reviews on the last chapter!
"Oh, come on! You're totally cheesing it!"
"Jeremy, just because you haven't figured out how to dodge it doesn't mean it's cheesing," I responded in a focused monotone, hammering out the same three-move combo over and over again and backing Jeremy into a corner with my rapier. Zach sat next to me, eagerly cheering me on as I continued to crush his roommate at Soulcalibur II.
"I can't dodge it, it's a fucking combo lock!" Jeremy whined. As I'd seen in his one-off appearance on the show, Jeremy had a flash-in-the-pan temper, but he was entirely harmless. Which meant making him angry had the extra incentive of being hilarious, especially when Tracy wasn't around to cool him down. With her working full-time as a desk clerk at a hotel on the highway and going to college full-time, that was often.
"It's not a combo lock dude, you can dodge it," Zach pointed out.
"Gah! Raphael's such a shit character!" Jeremy burst out, tossing his controller to the ground as I perfected him for the second time in a row. "I'm not playing with you again until you pick someone else. He's way too OP."
"You're playing as fucking Maxi! He's the most overpowered character in the entire game!" Zach argued.
The two went back and forth for a bit, but then I interrupted them, "Boys, boys, let's just settle down and agree that I'm better at this game than both of you, forever."
Jeremy opened his mouth to snipe back at me, but was cut off by someone hammering on their horn outside. Repeatedly. "The hell?" he said, jumping up to the window and pulling back the Captain America blanket to peak outside.
Zach joined him. "Who? Oh." My boyfriend turned back to me. "Hey, I think House wants you."
I peered over Zach's shoulder out the window and was surprised to see House idling at the curb in his now rarely-driven Dodge Dynasty, with Foreman riding shotgun and Chase in the back. I pushed up the window and leaned out. "What do you want, House?"
"Get in loser! We're going privacy violating!" House shouted back at me, leaning over and past Foreman, who looked like he craved nothing more than the sweet release of death.
I sighed, glanced between Zach and Jeremy, and yelled, "One minute." I slammed the window shut. "I'm gonna have to bail."
"Whose privacy are you violating?" Jeremy asked, obviously lost.
"Could be anyone's," Zach said. "Her dad breaks into people's houses when he treats them."
"And he hasn't gotten arrested?" Jeremy seemed incredulous. "How?"
"He's good at what he does. And has people who are good at what they do." I threw my arms around Zach and hugged him tightly. After a brief kiss, he released me. "See you tomorrow?"
I beamed up at him. "See you tomorrow." I gave Jeremy a little two-finger salute. "Later, Jeremy. Tell Tracy I said hi, and also that you're not a real man until you beat me at Soulcalibur."
I was off a moment later, leaving Jeremy grumbling and Zach laughing. Out on the curb, I hopped into the back of the Dynasty next to Chase. "Hi guys."
"Hi," Chase and Foreman chorused as House roared back onto the road, far too much throttle for a sixteen year old car.
"House, you're not in the Corvette," I reminded him.
"Don't remind me. Only thing wrong with Lola is that she doesn't have a backseat," he said over his shoulder.
"So, where are we going, and why do all of us need to be here?" I asked. Chase was nervous and Foreman was filled with dread, I could tell that much just being in close proximity to the two of them.
"We have to go break into Cuddy's house for completely legitimate medical reasons," House explained happily, running a red light. "Oops."
Ah, so we were on Humpty Dumpty. Season two was moving along with relative speed so far. Three weeks, three cases. Season one had veered back and forth between each case being consecutive to sometimes two or three weeks in between. There was no rigid TV schedule to abide by here.
Chase buried his head in his hands. "Sounds like evidence in a future court case, but alright."
"No, Cuddy loves House too much. Us, on the other hand..." Foreman trailed off.
"Don't let Cameron hear you say that, she may cry," House said. Lucky thing about House always being a sarcastic, teasing ass—he could make jokes like that without Chase or Foreman thinking twice.
Before long, we were pulling up in front of Cuddy's not-at-all modest house in Cedar Grove. Beautifully landscaped (poor Alfredo) and immaculate on the outside, minus a ladder leaning against the roof.
"I'm thinking...red thongs," House said as the four of us approached the door. "Also, twenty bucks says I can get through this door in twenty seconds." He whipped his debit card out of his wallet.
The boys grinned like idiots. "You're on," Chase said.
"Count me in," Foreman agreed.
I just shook my head as House turned his back on us. "You two should know better," I gently chastised.
"What do you mean?" Chase asked, but I didn't have to respond. House was already bending down to snake Cuddy's extra key from under one of the potted plants by her door. House collected a twenty from both of them as they passed by him into the house.
"Why am I here again?" I questioned, looking up at House, who was holding the door open for me.
"Because this will be fun," House said.
"No," was my only response.
"No?" House repeated.
"No. You're doing this because you're pathologically obsessed with the people in your life to the point that if you don't know every detail about them—at least those that you deem interesting—you can't sleep at night. And because you're indulging a juvenile panty raid fantasy, more than likely. Your motivations are clear. Your motivations for dragging me along, not so much."
"If you didn't want to come, you could have just said so."
"I didn't say I didn't want to come, I just want to know why I've been brought." I narrowed my eyes at House. "Am I here so this looks more innocent? Oh, well, Anya was around, so it wasn't just three male employees rifling through their boss's personal effects, it was totally professional. Ignoring the fact that me being here makes this look even worse in terms of unprofessionalism. This isn't take your daughter to work day."
"Can we get on with the felony, please?" House whined at me. He disappeared into Cuddy's house, and I followed after him, closing the door behind me.
"Wait, I'm not here to make it look better to Cuddy, am I?" I asked in a tight whisper, sidling up next to House. "It's so it looks innocent when Cameron asks! So it doesn't look like you're just being a creep on someone who isn't your girlfriend!"
"She knows I'm a creep. She loves me for who I am," House quipped. "Big Radiohead fan, too."
We paced through Cuddy's living room. Large windows let in ample midday sun, reflecting off of perfectly varnished wood floors. Everything was just so; even seemingly innocuous common household items like the phone book and key-tray placed with only the utmost consideration. I saw Cuddy's desperate desire for organization and harmony in every inch of her living space, in the flourishing plants on top of her kitchen cupboards and the total lack of dust on any visible surface.
I didn't know if Cuddy actually found time to clean from day-to-day, or if she just had scoured Princeton for the single best housekeeper she could find, but either way, the place didn't have a speck of dirt anywhere to be seen, besides the dirt that House was tracking in on his sneakers. Foreman and Chase at least had the decency to shed their shoes on the welcome mat.
"How did you know about the key under the door? You been doing a little handyman work for Cuddy yourself?" Foreman called from the kitchen.
House tracked the sound of Foreman's voice, finding him rifling through the fridge. "Someone as obsessive and insecure as Cuddy probably has three extra keys hidden away within ten feet of the door," House said, stooping down in front of the kitchen sink.
"And you consider obsession a negative quality," Foreman laughed.
I slipped past him into the fridge and pulled out a cup of yogurt. Both doctors stared at me. "What?" I said, peeling the top. "If I'm here, I might as well eat."
I searched through the cupboards for a spoon while House had his fun in the pipes. "Insecticide is organic, soap is hyperallergenic." He poked his head out, all the joy of a nine year old boy with his first BB gun in his eyes. "I got the bedroom."
Eating my snack, I joined House and Chase on the other end of the House in Cuddy's bedroom. House stood over Cuddy's bed, seeming deep in thought. "This is where it all happens," he stated in a tone of bordering-on-reverence. House turned around and promptly sank down onto the bed.
Chase stooped down to check underneath. "Nothing interesting under here. Just some slippers and a few books."
"What, no safe full of sex toys? Disappointing," I said dryly, finishing off my yogurt and dropping it into the trashcan next to Cuddy's bed. She was going to find out about this almost immediately upon the boys going back to the hospital, so there was no point trying to hide it.
House bounced on the bed a few more times, then got back to his feet. His next destination was, of course, Cuddy's underwear drawer.
"There's no way you just deduced where that key was," Chase said, pointing a white-gloved, accusing finger at House.
"Does this count as red?" House asked, pulling out a pink thong. He promptly threw it at Chase's face.
Chase batted away like it was a fly, hooking it around his thumb. "You gave yourself twenty seconds and put money on it," he insisted.
"Oh my God," House said, staring, horrified, into Cuddy's delicates. "She's got pictures of you in here."
As House continued to mercilessly fuck with Chase, I drifted into Cuddy's living room. House would, of course, be interested in sniffing Cuddy's personal effects more than looking at her keepsakes and family pictures, which decorated a rarely used fireplace. One picture in particular caught my interest; one of a very young Cuddy and her father, a handsome man who clearly passed down his sharp, Hebrew-esque features and curly, dark hair to Cuddy. She took after her father in all but her blue eyes, which came from Arlene.
I didn't often think of Cuddy outside the dimensions of the Almighty Dean of Medicine, in spite of the show having dug very deep into who she was by the time of her departure. But I hadn't watched the show in over a year, and what I'd been living had been Cuddy through House's eyes, i.e., a pain in the ass bureaucrat. A very well-meaning one, sure, but a pain in the ass bureaucrat all the same.
Odd to think that living in the universe firsthand would actually manage to distance me from Cuddy. I had a better sense of who she was when she was fictional. I'd gotten so caught up in the now that I'd forgotten that she'd been a woman I had an insane amount of respect for growing up. Hell, I'd done a school project on her in...I think seventh grade? We were supposed to do poster-boards about strong women that inspired us. Everyone else did Helen Keller, Oprah, Wonder Woman, a pretty wide swath of expected feminist icons.
And I'd picked Cuddy.
Maybe that was why at the end of the day I shipped House with Cuddy more than Cameron, more than anyone. Because Cuddy was powerful but fair, ruthless but kind, a medical intellect and political mastermind. A constant balancing act that she managed to pull off with impressive grace. She was an incredible woman, one of the most incredible I'd ever seen portrayed in media.
And I thought House was incredible too. Just in...different ways. Needless to say I was never going to fawn over House for his intuitive way with people.
"Got the goods." I turned around to see House standing in the doorway of Cuddy's bathroom, dangling a sample jar, Foreman and Chase flanking him. "Typical Cuddy; everything is perfect until you look under the bathroom sink." House gave an exaggerated waggle of his eyebrows. "If you know what I mean."
"Can we just get out of here, please?" Chase asked, grimacing. "You scare me, but Cuddy scares me more."
"You already did the crime; now all that's left is the time. Cuddy's going to find out either way," I told them.
"Coward," House scoffed. "Don't worry, Cuddy may shriek at you a little, but the focus of her rage will be on me. Hide under my coattails as usual and you'll be just fine."
He paused, head tilted in thought for a moment. Then, he darted back into Cuddy's bedroom and liberated the pink thong, stuffing it in his pocket. "Okay. Now let's get out of here."
"Jesus," Foreman rolled his eyes.
We made a hasty retreat, locking Cuddy's front door behind us, leaving her perfect house, almost, almost undisturbed.
House dropped me off at home on the way back from Cuddy's. He wasn't long at the hospital; he returned a few hours later for dinner. After getting destroyed by him at Street Fighter, I started the process of cooking up kielbasa on the stove. "So, how's Alfredo?"
"Who?" House asked distractedly, focusing on his DS.
"Your patient."
"He's got fungal pneumonia."
"Mmm, does he, though...?" I trailed off innocently.
That made House pause his game. He looked up at me, annoyed. "You're going to take away my fun again?"
"I'm trying to save your patient from some pretty dire consequences. Just rap along with me here...say, hypothetically, that you might be wrong," I said, dumping the kielbasa out onto a plate to cool for a moment. I grabbed the pan of garlic bread to put in the oven, waiting for House's response.
"There is no hypothetically with you. Which means that the mold under Cuddy's sink isn't what's killing him."
"Then what is?" I challenged.
"The rat-bite fever? That's a fun diagnosis," House said, snapping his DS shut.
"Cuddy's not right either. She was on the right track though; think environmental." I thought about how we could tackle this that House would still feel some semblance of a-ha! from his case-solving epiphany.
"Ulceroglandular tularemia?" House narrowed his eyes. "No, his lymph nodes aren't swollen. And the scratches on his hands are definitely scratches, not ulcers."
"Correct."
House, in frustration, got up from the table. He disappeared for a moment, then returned to the kitchen with a Sharpie in hand. He started writing on the wall.
"Oh, come on, House, do you know how long it took me to scrub the sharpie off the coffee table the last time you did this? I have paper!"
"I never wanted the security deposit back anyway. I've repainted this wall eight times," House replied quickly. Ah. So this wasn't the first time he'd done this. He jotted down all of Alfredo's symptoms, then pulled back, examining his work. He scrawled ENVIRONMENTAL in large letters at the bottom. "Kids worked in all sorts of shit jobs, contractor gigs, construction sites...he could've been exposed to anything and everything."
"I'd give you more symptoms, but there's none left to give. His kidneys are gonna get boxed, but that's from the Amphotericin B."
House tapped the Sharpie against his lips. "Klebsiella?"
"Did you already run a gram-stain?"
"Negative," House answered shortly.
"Then no, it's not Klebsiella. Nice thought, though."
"The array of symptoms fits mesothelioma, but the acute onset doesn't...unless the onset wasn't acute, and his asthma's been mesothelioma stacked two-high in a trench-coat this whole time."
"Asbestos usually has to spend a good ten to twenty years in your lungs before it gets to that point," I reminded him. He knew it of course, he knew everything I was telling him, but when House was in differential mode, he needed to hear it, he needed someone to guide his thought process along, to bounce ideas off of.
House nodded. He leaned heavily on the counter, staring at the wall. He jotted down underneath ENVIRONMENTAL—scratches.
"Very good."
"Infection from a cat scratch, started in his hands, spread to his lungs," House guessed, but I could tell he was reaching.
"Someone would have noticed if the scratches were infected."
"Kid's been resisting us every step of the way. Big part of the hunt for an infection is, does this burn, does it itch, is that red irritated color normal?" House shook his head almost as soon as he said it. "You wouldn't be arguing with me if I was right."
"You're getting there, House. Animals. Stick with animals."
That seemed to push House over the edge. He turned to me, eyes widening. "He's Hispanic."
"You don't say?"
"Cock-fighting," House said. "Psittacosis. He's got psittacosis. The scratches aren't from working construction, they're from the chickens," he said, and without another word, went to the phone to call the ducklings.
I stared at the symptoms scribbled out on the wall with a faint smile, feeling as if I was approaching a happy middle-ground between saving House's patients from undue pain and agony, and still letting House have his fun.