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Admission
by Dana
NOTES: Takes place sometime after Euphoria, though not a post-ep.
Admission
The first things Foreman sees when he wakes up are two bright blue dots fixed in a blurry shape, which slowly focus into the pleasantly smiling face of his boss. He recognizes the pale painted walls of the ICU, and notes the steady beeping of machines in the background. His throat feels as if it has been sucked dry by a vacuum cleaner.
He experiments moving his tongue. "Urgh?"
"Four AM on the dot," House says with satisfaction, glancing at his watch. "I'm a modern prophet, and Wilson owes me ten bucks."
Foreman has no idea how he got from Chase's car to here, but from the splitting headache he's experiencing now, he only knows it involved a lot of pain. "Grg?" he tries again.
"Pookie," House retorts, scrunching his face, "as long as we're getting personal. I don't suppose you've withstood enough brain damage to remember the accident? Or waking up at any time after the accident?"
Foreman makes an attempt to shake his head without actually moving it.
"You have a broken leg, a very mild concussion," House rattles off, "spinal cord injury, and two black eyes - convenient, as no one will notice those anyway," he smirks.
As Foreman processes the words `spinal cord injury' he discovers with a certain detachment that a block of ice has suddenly replaced his gut, and his heart jumps to his parched throat, beating wildly. The beeping machines give a little leap, which seems to amuse House, as he picks up Foreman's chart and starts flipping through it. "Whoops, I was wrong. No SCI." His eyes meet Foreman's with sadistic glee. "Makes you feel better about the leg, though, doesn't it?"
"Fuck, House..." he groans, unable to decide whether he's more relieved or annoyed. Annoyance wins over easily.
"Now, now, language, Pookie," House scolds, and, apparently having had enough of the conversation, leans on his cane to rise from the plastic chair. He puts down the chart on Foreman's chest. "Here's some reading material for you. I added your CT scan as a bonus, since I know those things turn you on. Cuddy can't accuse me of not pampering you."
Foreman's eyes follow House as he limps to the door. He can feel himself starting to slip into sleep. "Cameron and Chase?" he questions, before House can disappear.
"Still need their beauty sleep. You can try too, though I doubt it will help."
The pain in his head beats to the pace of the cane tapping on the floor as House leaves.
*
When Cameron wakes up, she feels like she's been in deep slumber for a week, with a deep suspicion that someone's been using both her arms as pincushions. She opens her eyes groggily to the disorienting sight of House writing on a portable whiteboard by her bed, appearing to be too busy to acknowledge her with anything other than a grunt.
"Took you long enough. Tell me what you think of these symptoms," he orders, pointing at the board, and as her eyes scan his barely legible writing she can already feel a familiar spark of curiosity. "They belong to a nineteen-year-old female. I've been waiting for her DNA analysis for hours now, but apparently the lab techs like your breasts better than mine."
Ever since they lost a patient last month House has been working them to exhaustion, punishing complaints and errors equally with more work, and she reacts to the authority of his voice on autopilot.
Blinking once, Cameron gets to work.
*
Chase is still unconscious the next day, when Cameron and Foreman are lying in neighboring beds, a stack of medical encyclopedias on the bedside table between them as they run a differential diagnosis on yet another new patient.
"Picks disease?" Foreman hazards.
"Can't be. Creutzfeldt-Jakob?"
"House already rules it out, said she was too clearheaded. Lup--"
"Don't," Cameron warns, and Foreman's expression turns amused. She sighs. "Are you even a little amazed House is doing this to us?"
"No," he shrugs.
House arrives, as if on cue. "I come bearing gifts!" he declares magnanimously, and drops two files on top of the book stack. "Forget brain-girl. Diagnose these, and run the treatment by me by noon."
A brief glance at one of the charts tells his fellows that House has either uncharacteristically lowered his standards for taking on a case, or he's intentionally taking on boring ones to have an excuse to boss them around on their sickbeds.
"How's Chase?" Cameron asks.
"Growing a stubble, it's very flattering." House picks up a black marker from the box by the whiteboard and waddles over to Foreman's bed. "So. The next time you morons decide to play hooky from work," he says, absently scribbling HOUSE PWNS ME on Foreman's cast in huge block letters, "you can pretend to be sick like the rest of humankind. That way your boss won't have to deduct expensive medical treatment from your salary."
Foreman rolls his eyes. "You can't to that."
"Ohoho, can't I?" House cackles.
Cuddy, just walking past, stops by briefly and leans against the door. "Of course you can't. Your megalomaniac delusions haven't managed to influence my budget yet."
"You only say that because you don't know I only need two fellows and am keeping the third on for their looks. And I'm not saying which," House adds, leering at Foreman.
Cuddy looks - well, like she always does when dealing with House. "House. Clinic. Now."
House draws a small stick figure with a cane on Foreman's cast and surrounds the sketch with a big heart before getting up to leave. "Remember, diagnoses in an hour. Catch you later, pumpkins."
*
Cuddy corners House in his office with the determined intent of telling him to stop fucking around with his (and by proxy her) bedridden staff so that they recover faster, despite the knowledge that it's futile arguing medicine with him even on the best of days - which aren't often. She is stopped in her tracks at the sight of him sprawled in his chair, picking through two huge gift baskets that sit on his desk.
"Don't those belong to Cameron and Foreman?" she asks blankly.
House pulls out an Oreo packet and tosses it inside a desk drawer. "By chain of command, they belong to me."
Cuddy doesn't let her aggravation show, but mentally recites the number of patients the department of Diagnostics has saved this year, wondering briefly if the other fellows could function well enough when she finally fired House. Maybe, after they fully recover...
House apparently takes her silence as an invitation to expand on his thoughts. "I'm only making the baskets are light enough so I can carry them down to their room. So much sugar isn't good for the kids anyway, and plus, they owe me."
She knows she will regret asking this. "Why do they owe you?"
"Well, for one, Foreman puked all over my favorite Doors t-shirt when he arrived at the ER. Cameron just owes me a pint of highly sought-after top quality House blood."
For a horrifying moment Cuddy contemplates the idea of House's blood running through another one of her doctors' veins, until her brain makes a connection. "You can't donate blood," she snaps.
House mimics her glare. "Oh, fine. Foreman still puked on me, though. I'm not giving his stomach any more ammo."
Cuddy rubs her forehead tiredly. Two fellows hospitalized and the third still in a coma, and House was acting as if they had gotten Chase's car slammed into sideways just to spite him. "Just... promise me you won't page them during the sick days they'll get when they're released."
He snorts, and throws her a candy bar, which she catches reflexively. "You like Mars bars, don't you?"
She does, actually.
"I'll consider it," he states, and she realizes he's replying to her previous question. "When they stop lying to me."
*
Cameron's sister has spent the afternoon keeping her company at the hospital. Foreman's cousin from Philadelphia has already left back home, and Chase has had no visitors that they heard of, other than the occasional female hospital employee.
Three days have passed since the evening of the crash, and House has been alternately ignoring them, giving them work, or dropping by their room with the sole purpose of irritating them into recovery, a mission which is, admittedly, slowly working. He challenges Foreman (who can barely walk) to absurd crutch races, he mocks Cameron's scarring arms ("Oh, come on. So you got some glass shards under your skin. They only make you shine more than your regular sparkly self!"), he pretends that their status as patients in Princeton-Plainsboro grants him the right to break into their apartments.
"Hey, kids," he says seriously after bringing them a bag of gumballs and M&Ms, swearing that that's all the OR nurses put into the gift baskets they'd sent. "I need your advice on something."
Cameron and Foreman look up expectantly from the charts they're studying. "What?" Foreman asks shortly.
House twiddles with his cane speculatively. "Do you think Chase will believe me if I tell him we did an extensive myectomy to his right thigh?"
At this point Foreman is amazed that Cameron can still look shocked at anything House suggests, and yet she does. "You wouldn't!" she sputters.
Foreman just deepens his scowl, and House mutters, "Never mind, irony is wasted on you both. Now. A more important issue. Why have you been lying to me?"
Now even Foreman is surprised. "Why would we lie?"
"Don't repeat what I say, you don't have that much brain damage."
"We're not lying," Cameron clarifies, delicate brow furrowed into a frown. "What makes you think that-"
"You're patients," House reasons. "You're lying about something. I just haven't figured out what yet."
"What, do you think we're faking our symptoms?"
House appears to consider it for a moment, then scoffs, "No, you're not that stupid. No. No, you're hiding something about the crash."
Cameron's mouth gapes like he's just accused her of having gone on a mad pedestrian killing spree and running over her fellow fellows with Chase's car.
"What can it be?" House speculates. "Was one of you giving Chase a blowjob when he crashed the car? Was anybody on meth again? Were you having a Britney Spears sing-along that distracted him from the road?"
"Somebody crashed into us!" Cameron exclaims.
"So you claim."
"Just leave Chase alone," Foreman sighs. "We're not lying about anything." His eyes wander to meet Cameron's once, both dropping their gazes together.
House eyes this with suspicion, but before he can get a word in Cameron adds, "And --when he wakes up, please be nice."
Suddenly there's a familiar glint in House's eye, the one that means he's just come up with a brilliant idea. "Nice, eh?" he murmurs. His pager goes off and reaches for it with annoyance, immediately breaking into a wicked grin when he reads the message. "Speaking of whom-- the wombat has woken."
*
Chase puts the last of the paperwork House had demanded on House's desk, gulps down two cups of hideously strong coffee, and wakes Cameron and Foreman who are dozing in a vacant exam room, both too exhausted to drive. Chase has offered them a ride home if they stuck around one more hour until he was done, and now that he finally is, they tiredly get in his car, Foreman riding shotgun, Cameron in the rear. They don't bother with conversation, silently listening to a quiet track from a CD Chase brought from Australia, a duet of guitars slowly accompanying the night traffic when a red light flares and Chase slams his foot on the brakes, seatbelt stringing tightly across his lungs.
One, two, three shocked moments pass, harsh gasps and thundering hearts and then the immense relief of realizing he'd reacted just in time and they're all alive and unharmed, another glance at the rearview mirror and then white highlights from the left, a loud screech and Foreman's yell.
After that, Chase realizes that though his eyes are closed he is, in fact, aware of his surroundings (a hospital bed, comforting smell of disinfectant), and he wonders if the accident was a dream or actually happened, and whether if he moves or opens his eyes he will remember it at all.
Somewhere beyond the fuzzy orange fog of consciousness someone is murmuring something. A hand brushes Chase's hair from his forehead in a tender, intimate gesture that no one has ever quite directed at him before.
Out of sheer curiosity, he opens his eyes.
"Hey, there," House says gently, a warm smile softening his features. He brushes a wisp of hair from Chase's eyes again. "We missed you. I'm glad you're back."
Chase squeezes his eyes tightly, wondering what drugs they must have put him on to be suffering from severe hallucinations.
He hears soft chuckling. "Don't be scared, Robert. You know I don't bite. Not when it comes to the things that really... you know. Matter."
Chase opens one eye experimentally. House is still sitting across from him, with a sickeningly sincere smile plastered on his face. Like-- like he cares or something. "Er," Chase says.
There's a twinkle in House's eye, and Chase thinks it might be kind. This is disturbing on so many levels that it manages to distract Chase from the pain that is slowly spreading from his chest and ribs to the rest of his body, possibly through his blood. House must notice his grimace, because a small worried frown appears between his eyes. "Are you comfortable enough? Do you need me to adjust your pillows?"
Chase stares with growing horror as House starts to come closer, fussing with his bedspread.
"Please don't," he finally squeaks.
House shakes his head fondly. "Oh, Chase," he sighs. "After everything you've been through, and you're trying not to be any trouble for me." House looks moved almost to tears. "But I suppose you always were the resilient one. Let me tell you what you've been through: they brought you in with three fractured ribs. One of them punctured your lung, which collapsed. Your spleen was torn too, and your right leg was broken, and of course the concussion and multiple lacerations and, basically, a lot of blood was spilled. Considering the amount of transfusions you received, you're probably half American by now," House jokes.
Chase gawps, terrified. He is dead, he decides. Dead or in an alternate reality, where House is nice and his father loves him, Cameron and Foreman and Wilson and Cuddy are living in blissful polygamy, Hinduism has been proved the one true religion, and Australia is finally being charted as the center of the world on standard maps.
"You look a bit distressed," House notes with concern.
"I. Er. I. You." Chase has never felt so helpless articulating in his life.
"You'd better rest. I should go." House takes one of Chase's hands in his and - oh, god - squeezes it. He leans closer, speaking right into Chase's face. "I think you're being very brave, little duckling." His voice lowers to a confidential whisper. "I think that... you might be ready... to become a duck."
So briefly Chase might as well have imagined it, he feels a pair of lips grazing his forehead, and with that constantly surprising agility of his House is gone.
*
When House bursts into his office unannounced Wilson isn't surprised; first, because he could hear him coming down the hall with footsteps he has long ago learned to recognize, and second, because he has been expecting this visit for several days now. He understands House well enough to know that he is by nature a very complex and unpredictable man, and though some people might strive to reach a point when they know just the right thing to say to get to him, there usually isn't. The best course of action is to simply wait for House to go first.
House looks tired.
The door closes behind him with a soft click. After a moment House leans back against it, closes his eyes, takes in a deep breath and lets it out very, very slowly. "Chase woke up."
"I heard," Wilson replies, closing the file he'd been working on. Letting House know he's got his full attention.
House's head falls back against the door. "Three days. Three days of hell."
"You can sit down, if you want," Wilson offers, gesturing at a chair.
House shakes his head. "I'm fine. I should fire all their asses. I don't need to need to deal with crap like this at work."
"Sick people?" Wilson smiles faintly. "Yes, that would be unnatural."
"I think they're lying to me about the crash," House continues throwing around non-sequiturs, taking a step towards Wilson's balcony, looking out at the city. "I can't figure it out. It's very irritating."
Wilson raises his eyebrows. "They think you might feel guilty about the fact that they were in the car after nearly forty straight hours of work." He contemplates House: the momentarily tight grip of the cane, the unbroken line of his back, the intelligent blue eyes fixed somewhere beyond the glass window in an expression that means he is preoccupied.
"That's stupid," House mutters finally. "It's nobody's fault except the idiot who crashed into them. And if they ever hear I said that I will know it came from you and you can forget my promise of not making a speech at your next wedding."
Since this threat is actually valid, Wilson will probably comply. He asks a question he's been wondering after hearing second and third hand tales of House's doings these last few days. "Did you at least have any fun?"
"Playing Florence Nightingale?" he asks sarcastically, and Wilson snorts. House ducks his head and stares at his feet. "No, not really," he admits, trying to make it seem offhand. Wilson suppresses a smile. "I just want them back on their feet again, so I can shoo them away when they annoy me, instead of having to go away myself. And this whole ordeal has been bad for my health. When I heard about the crash my heart stopped for, like, a minute; don't need that happening again."
This time, Wilson does smile. House scowls embarrassedly in return. "It's okay," he reassures House. "I'm sure none of them suspect you have a heart."
"Aw, Jimmy, you mean that?" House gushes. He walks over to the visitor's chair thoughtfully and folds himself onto it, as if he had let out enough of what was troubling him that he is comfortable settling down. "Although I admit, I did fuck with Chase's mind rather spectacularly. You should have been there."
Wilson leans back in his chair. "Tell me all about it."
~*~*~
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Legal Disclaimer: The authors published here make no claims on the ownership of Dr. Gregory House and the other fictional residents of Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. Like the television show House (and quite possibly Dr. Wilson's pocket protector), they are the property of NBC/Universal, David Shore and undoubtedly other individuals of whom I am only peripherally aware. The fan fiction authors published here receive no monetary benefit from their work and intend no copyright infringement nor slight to the actual owners. We love the characters and we love the show, otherwise we wouldn't be here.
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