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Thicker Than Water, Chapter Two
by ParisWriter
Author's Note: Once again, I'd like to thank my betas. Especially Simone for her nit-picking and Jess for her continued support. I'd also like to stress once more that House doesn't belong to me depressed sigh and nor do any of the other characters from the show.
Chapter Two
Wilson watched the numbers above the elevator doors slowly count down as he impatiently tapped his foot, quietly urging the lift to go faster. His pager went off again. Looking down, he saw the same number as the past half-dozen times he was paged. The first time it had gone off, he'd called to find out what was going on and the unmistakably Australian accent of one Doctor Robert Chase had told him that House needed him in the clinic as soon as possible
Wilson had been in the middle of a consultation with a new patient - a woman with two children who had just discovered she had thyroid cancer. He was going through the process of describing the operation they were going to have to perform in order to remove her infected thyroid, amazed at how well she was taking it. He could still see the fear, however. She had a family history of cancer and whether she wanted to admit it or not, she was scared... for her children if not for herself.
Things had taken a bit longer than he had anticipated, and Chase had paged him three more times during the course of his appointment. The woman had insisted he go to tend to the matter, thinking it was urgent. Wilson, however, knew better. House was probably just sitting in a room watching General Hospital and needed Wilson to make up a cover story for him to produce to Cuddy so he could get out of doing clinic duty.
Swearing under his breath, he turned off his pager and put it in the pocket of his lab coat just as the elevator doors opened on the ground floor. He stepped out into the busy clinic, his eyes scanning the crowd for any sign of House, and noticed the other members of the diagnostic team huddled together by one of the rooms, whispering to each other. He easily made his way to them, picking his way through the other staff and patients and quickly apologizing to one of the nurses when he bumped into her, nearly causing her to drop a pile of forms she was carrying.
"What's going on?" Wilson asked as he approached the small group, annoyance seeping through his words.
"He's been in there for almost an hour," Cameron explained, gesturing to the room they were standing by. The door was closed and the blinds were drawn. It was usually a sign that something had gone badly.
"The patient died?" he asked. House had lost his share of patients in the past, but Wilson had never known the man to mourn it. He usually used the death as an excuse to run more post-mortem tests and determine exactly what had killed them.
"The patient is his daughter," Chase informed him, making sure to keep his voice low so passers-by wouldn't overhear the conversation.
"House doesn't have any kids," Wilson stated, his own voice considerably lower in volume. Chase simply shrugged and gestured toward the exam room door. He turned to the others, but they simply looked away from him.
With a heavy sigh, Wilson stepped through the group and opened the door. The exam room was in total darkness, the blinds of the windows having also been drawn. The only sounds were the steady beeping of a heart monitor and an IV machine clicking every few seconds as it dispensed fluids. At first he didn't see any sign of House, then he noticed a figure standing next to him by the door.
"Did the kiddies send for you?" he asked, his eyes never leaving the girl in the bed. Wilson stepped fully into the room and closed the door behind him.
"They're concerned that the doctor they work under may actually be developing a heart. After that, maybe he'll get a conscience and then... who knows."
"It's the end of the world as we know it," House mused in a sing-song voice.
"And I feel fine," Wilson said with a bit of a smile. "But what about you? Why have you locked yourself in a clinic exam room with a patient?"
"I needed some time to think, alone."
Wilson nodded, turning back to the door. He knew when House was in one of his sulk moods and knew better to leave him alone. He was about to leave and head back to his own patients when the other doctor began speaking again.
"I haven't seen her in twenty years."
Wilson turned back to his friend once more, then at the girl in the bed again. She couldn't have been any older than her mid-twenties.
"She must have been pretty young."
House nodded solemnly. "She was two when her mother and I divorced. The last time I saw her, she was five."
"Wow, you actually made an effort for three whole years."
"Not of my own volition," House admitted. "My ex wanted me to be a part of her life. I tried, I failed. What can I say? I've always really sucked at the whole inter-personal skills thing."
"But you were married."
House nodded, tilting his head slightly. "Yes, well... I never denied being stupid and sex-crazed in my youth. I figured what better way to get laid on a consistent basis than to get hitched." He pushed off of the counter he was leaning on and made his way over to the bed, picking up the chart sitting of the bedside table. "So I got married when I was nineteen. Had all the sex I wanted for free."
Wilson watched silently, arms folded across his chest. House checked the notes on the chart for the hundredth time in the past forty minutes before tossing it onto the foot of the bed with a sigh.
"Then she got pregnant and, as they say, the honeymoon was over. I tried to remain the ever-present and doting husband, but I started isolating myself more and more. Eventually, Miriam--"
"Miriam?"
"My ex, she decided that she had had enough of my `emotional detachment,' as she put it. We were divorced in just under four years from the day we'd married. Three years later, Miriam took a job in Arizona and I never saw my daughter again."
"Not that you wanted to."
"Exactly," House agreed. "But I still don't like that she never gave me a say in the matter."
"Always have to be the one in control, don't you," a tired voice said slowly from the bed.
"Hey," House smiled down at her. "How are you feeling?"
"Trashed," Rachel replied, closing her eyes again. "But at least the headache is gone. Whatever you gave me, it's good shit."
"It's a clever combination of a short of Demerol and a morphine drip," he informed her.
"My compliments to the prescribing physician," she whispered before drifting back to sleep.
Wilson crossed the room to stand at the opposite side of her bed, looking her over as he did so. She was small, with delicate features - pretty in a plain sort of way - and she looked nothing like House.
"Are you sure she's yours?" he asked, his voice full of mirth. "Thirty percent of all men don't realize they're raising another man's child."
"Definitely," House replied, letting out a short chuckle as Wilson attempted to quote something he had once said to his ducklings. "She has my eyes and a birthmark on her right thigh. You can check if you like, it's there."
"I'll take your word for it," Wilson said, raising his eyebrows.
"Either you trust me on this, or you just don't want to risk being caught sneaking a peek at her goodies. My money's on the latter."
"What are her symptoms?" Wilson decided it was best to change the subject as quickly as possible. He hadn't been divorced three months yet, and already House was using every excuse to torment him over his sex life, or lack thereof.
"She presented with headaches, passed out, we moved her in here to find her heart rate and blood pressure through the roof."
"Any ideas what's causing the symptoms?"
"Several, actually, but we'll know more once we get more of her test results back. Thankfully, we've ruled out a heart attack already. Plus,we've managed to bring down her BP while also doping her up so much she wouldn't feel it if she was hit by a Mac truck."
"Why do you sound so disapproving?" Wilson wondered aloud. "She seems to be doing much better than when she first came in here, if you ask me."
"Because I know it's only temporary," House stated bluntly. "As soon as we take her off the pain meds, the pain will come back. With the pain will come the passing out and the spike in her blood pressure again."
"Why not put her on some medication for the hypertension then?"
"I want to hold off on that until I know for sure whether it's a symptom or the disease. We`ve treated it enough to bring it down for the time being, and that`s all I`m willing to do until we know more."
The door opened and the two men turned to see Chase enter with a folder in his hand, Cameron following behind with a solemn look on her face. She looked at House, then quickly averted her eyes from him, glancing briefly as Rachel sleeping in the bed before averting her gaze to the tips of her shoes.
"Her test results are back," Chase announced.
"Really," House replied with his usual dripping sarcasm. "And here I thought you had barged in here to tell me the pharmacy was giving out free shots of Haldol." He held out his hand for the file. "Let me see."
"You're not going to like this," Chase informed him, reluctant to hand the folder over to his boss. House reached over and snatched it from his grasp, moving over to the open door in order to use the light from the corridor to read the results of the various blood tests they had run.
"She's dehydrated and anemic," House read the results to no one in particular.
"That's not the part you're not going to like," Cameron warned him, still staring at her shoes.
House continued reading the file. Wilson watched him as he squinted at part of the report and shook his head, then reread it again.
"This isn't possible," he insisted. Wilson went over and took the chart from him, skimming over the results until he came to the details of her renal panel.
"Her B.U.N. is at 82 and her Creatinine level is 7.3," he read aloud before looking at House. The older man was once again pinching the bridge of his nose.
"It's renal failure," Chase summarized.
"Thank you for that riveting observation, Captain Obvious," House snapped. He punched the door frame before wandering out into the hallway. Wilson and Chase watched him go, too taken aback by his reaction to do anything.
"Her kidneys shutting down caused her blood pressure to rise," Chase continued to explain the situation to Wilson. "The rising blood pressure is what caused the headaches, and the headaches led to the loss of consciousness."
"Sort of a domino effect," Wilson said.
"No one thought to check her kidney functions before now," Cameron sighed, finally looking up from her feet and crossing the rest of the room to Rachel's bed. She took up the spot where House had been standing, looking the girl over. She had to be around her age, maybe a few years younger. She reached out with a tentative hand and brushed some of Rachel's dark blonde hair back from her face.
"And now she's dying," she whispered, letting the words hang over them all.
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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 Fox Television, 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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