You are mine, and I am yours (Gregory House)

Chapter 19

2005
House walked into the conference room and tossed several copies of a patient's file on the conference table. Cameron took them and passed them around to the others. She opened hers and looked up at House in surprise.

"A death row inmate?" she asked.

House walked over to the whiteboard and wrote Death Row Guy on it.
"He was getting his hour of exercise," he told them. "Then his heart started to pump out air instead of blood. How cool is that?"

"He's on death row," Chase reminded him. "He's going to be executed. Why are we bothering with him?"

"His heart started to pump out air instead of blood," House said slowly as if talking to a particularly dim child.

"So, he's a puzzle?" Reilly asked.
House shrugged.
"You'll never be able to get him out of prison," she told him closing the patient file.

He smiled at her. "He's already here. Stacy got a court order, Cuddy did some shrieking, and we got our patient. Chase, Cameron, go get him intubated and draw blood for labs. Besides the whole heart pumping air thing, he's hypoxic. Most likely has pulmonary edema. We gotta figure out what's killing him so we can send him back to prison so the State can kill him. Am I the only one who thinks that's weird?"

Once they left, Reilly leaned back in her chair and watched House write the symptoms out on the board.
"How did you convince Doctor Cuddy to let you have this case? It should have gone to Doctor Nolo since he's the head of cardiology," she commented.

He shrugged and put the cap back on the marker before dropping it in the tray at the bottom of the whiteboard. "Two extra clinic hours."

"And who are you going to pawn those off on?"

He rolled his eyes and moved to sit in the chair across from her. "Well, I was going to make Chase do them but now I guess I will."

"You never cease to amaze me."
He smiled.
"I'm continually astounded by the lengths you'll go to just to get a medical puzzle to solve. Are you that bored? Or was this about getting Stacy in trouble with Doctor Cuddy since she had to get permission from a judge to get Clarence transferred here? I know that's not something you'd clear with Doctor Cuddy first."

"God, I hate that you know me so well," he sighed. He looked away and rubbed his hand over his face. "It's a little of both, I guess. Cuddy reamed Stacy and not in the good way which was still satisfying."

Reilly leaned forward on the table and snapped her fingers. "Look at me," she commanded. He groaned and looked at her. She could see the pain in his eyes and it was like a knife to her heart. "Are you happy with Allison?" she asked.

He looked at her for several moments. "I don't know," he said softly. "I think I could be."

"Then why not let yourself be happy with her? She loves you, right?"

He nodded. "She says she does."

Reilly reached out and House took her hand. "She's not the type to lie," she told him.

"I just don't understand what she sees in me," he told her. "I'm twice her age, I'm not nice, I'm not that great looking, and yet she's with me. Sometimes I think it's because she doesn't actually love me; she just needs me because I'm damaged."

"You're so full of shit," Reilly told him. "You aren't twice her age. You are older than her but not by that much. You're nice to her. You're nice to me. And you are good looking. Why would so many women be giving you the glad eye when you walk around here?"

"Are you sure that isn't because Wilson's walking beside me?"

"I don't usually walk around with you and James. But when I'm walking around with you, they look at you like you're a particularly tasty morsel."