Speechless

By evening the next day the marine was dead. He had deteriorated rapidly, and, despite the all-night efforts of House and his team, they had remained in the dark up until the end. The mood in the department was sombre as four exhausted doctors lay strewn across the office. The three fellows were seated at the glass table in dejection. House himself was looking out of the window, shoulders hunched, arms folded. They had all been in this situation before, of course. Not everyone could be saved.

"It may have been some sort of virus that doesn't show up in our tests", said Foreman. "Or some illness he picked up on an old tour that we didn't account for".

"Yeah, but we had no idea what viruses to target. He gave us a complete history, and we already checked it out. It can't have anything to do with his military career", Chase answered. "What do you think, Cameron?".

"I think", she sighed, "that I have absolutely no idea. What I do know is that we tried everything".

House turned suddenly. Without so much as a word he marched from the room, leaving his subordinates in stunned silence. "Should we go after him, or...?", Chase asked.

Foreman got up and pushed his chair under the table. "You can if you want, but I'm heading home to sleep. We did all we could, and if we get another patient tomorrow we'll be better able to help them if we rest up and come in refreshed".

Chase sat back and considered the other's words. After a few moments he sighed and followed Foreman to the door. "You coming with us, Cameron?".

House jogged to the elevator and pressed the button, descending the floors in silence. In any other situation he would have found its gentle hum soothing. But not tonight. Tonight he was restless, dissatisfied, angry at his failure. He had thought everything through, had tried to contain the systematic failure in the man's organs, had worked through his list of priorities. Heart before lungs before liver before kidneys. Brain before them all. Nothing had worked. A man had died and he had absolutely no idea why.

The elevator dinged, reaching an area of the hospital he rarely entered. The morgue. Outside of regular hours, the morgue wasn't staffed, since it was assumed that dead bodies could wait until the morning; they could wait until morning, but House couldn't. He had to know. Technically, what he was about to do could get him into serious trouble and he had purposely not told the others of his plan. Doctors were expressly forbidden from carrying out autopsies.

House, however, had a different view. A doctor's responsibility was to his patient. The old marine had been his patient in life and was still in death. Cameron had said that they'd tried everything, but it wasn't quite so. This was trying everything, and if Cuddy boxed his ears or threatened triple clinic duty, so be it. If he found out what had caused this man's death maybe he could prevent it from slipping through his net in the future. And it would give him a measure of satisfaction, hollow though it may be.

He scrubbed up, located the marine's corpse, and shuttled it to a table, fixing the lights and assembling his array of tools. Satisfied that everything was in position he set to work, moving deliberately and carefully, scalpels and saws flashing in the light. Everything in this man's body needed checking. Somewhere there was a clue that they had missed or, if Foreman was right, hadn't shown up in their scans.

As House progressed, he felt a sense of calm settle. This was how the ancient medical practitioners like Galen and Herophilus had tested their theories and advanced understanding. Modern medicine had made leaps and bounds, and nowadays there were machines, tests, and scans for everything. The human body was no longer a mystery. Though this was of course a welcome development, it had the unfortunate consequence of reducing physicians to mere analysers of numbers and lines on banks of screens. Technology had inserted itself between a doctor and his patient. Every now and then, House thought, it was useful to return to the roots of the profession. Data could be manipulated but the body, laid bare before the eyes of an inquisitive professional, never lies.

House inspected the heart carefully, checking for tell-tale signs of malformation or thickening. He reached over to the tray and fumbled around for a clip, unable to locate it. Suddenly he felt a hand on his arm. He looked across in surprise and saw Cameron's eyes above the surgical mask and beneath the blue of her hair cap. She handed him his tool without a word.

He looked at her questioningly—they shouldn't be down here, but he at least had the job security afforded by tenure. Cameron had no such thing and was running a considerable risk. He couldn't ask her to jeopardise her position in aid of his insane quest for closure. But she seemed to sense his uncertainty and shook her head slightly but firmly. House went back to his task, the woman beside him a reassuring presence, a partner in his crime for seeking complete knowledge.

They worked this way for over two hours: House methodically progressing through a checklist that only he knew, occasionally handing organs to his assistant to weigh or inspect, or turning to her for this or that tool, or gesturing for her to change the angle of the light. Scarcely a word passed between them as they were consumed by the task ahead. Sometimes he would look hopefully to Cameron as she returned from the scales or the microscope, but every time she would shake her head and he would return to the cadaver on the table, the silent witness to whatever had caused its owner's death.

The pair checked every corner of their patient. Every scrap of tissue and bone lingered at one time or other under House's restless gaze. They must have missed something. There was no other explanation. The answer was here.

But as time passed and less of the body remained to be explored, House began to lose hope. At length he handed back his scalpel and didn't reach out for another. There was nothing more to examine, and he stood hunched over his handiwork, unable to fathom his defeat. Cameron remained quiet, placing a hand on his forearm. House looked up eventually, his eyes swimming in perplexity, anger, and sorrow. Patients died every day, but even those that did at least surrendered some clues as to their demise. The old marine had been stubborn in life and was even more so in death. This puzzle would remain unsolved.

Cameron witnessed the conflict of the other play out on his face. No words from her could allay his tortured restlessness, so she brought her other hand to rest over his and said nothing to break the silence. The pair remained this way for a few moments until House looked up again into the green eyes of his companion. They showed understanding and strength.

House nodded imperceptibly.

There was only one thing left to do. He held out his hands and Cameron passed over the organs they'd removed, one by one. He carefully replaced each in the cavity of the man's chest, ensuring that he left the body as he'd found it. Satisfied that this was done, she helped him stitch up the incisions made two hours earlier.

They replaced the marine carefully onto the shelf and returned him to the sanctuary of his refrigerated unit. Then, side by side, they set about clearing up the evidence of their activity. If someone wanted to prove they had been there it would take them a while. Every surface and blade was scrubbed clean and returned to a glistening finish. The two doctors stood back and observed the fruits of their labour. They glanced at each other in mutual appreciation of a job finished if not complete—no answers had been found and so, by this one measure alone, it had been a wasted evening.

House and Cameron left the morgue in silence. Only the clock, ticking mournfully on the wall, bore witness to their endeavour and their failure.