Picard to House

Six

*Chase*
9:38 PM, January 7, 2005

"He's negative for heavy metals," I explained. "No lead, no arsenic, no gold, no nothing."
House stroked his chin; he obviously wasn't happy with the news. "Fine then. Throw your suggestions out; if they're bad I'll whack them with my cane."
None of us spoke. Foreman leaned back in his chair while Cameron fiddled with her hair.
"You're not intubated; you can talk," House snarked.
"We don't know," I stood up angrily. "We don't know and I don't know. He hasn't got cancer, it's not autoimmune, it's not an infection, it's not hepatitis-"
"We need a more detailed history," House scribbled my proclamation on the whiteboard.
"What we have is all we have," Cameron picked up a blue file and flipped through it. "Patrick Doug, aged forty one, just moved here from Malaysia, no surviving family."
"What about that awful thing that's called his forehead?"
"His girlfriend said he had plastic surgery after a car accident and it didn't work." I said.
House leant on his cane. "I don't know any plastic surgeons who are that incompetent that they screwed up this guy's face. He's hiding something."
"But we can't prove anything unless we know what we're looking for!"
"Do an MRI, a CT; any test you can think of, go run it," House growled. "I want this thing and his girlfriend out of this hospital."
"Can't this wait till tomorrow?" Cameron sighed. "Some of us would like to get some sleep."
"That'd be like putting off Christmas shopping till Christmas Eve. Go run the damn tests."
I stared in frustration as my boss limped away.
"There are days where I want to lock him in and make him stay all night," Cameron lay her head on the table. "See how he likes it."
"Tell you what," I said. "You two go home and I'll do the tests. Shouldn't take that long."
My co-workers initially rejected my proposal, but agreed when I told them I was a night owl and would appreciate some House-free hours at the hospital.
"Thanks Chase," Cameron patted me on the shoulder.
I smiled back as they packed up their gear and wearily trudged to the elevator. I fought away the calling of sleep and headed to the patient's room. Princeton was always busy, but at night it didn't feel like it. The halls were barren, the only sounds from some floors being heart monitors, ventilators and nurses gossiping. Quite spooky sometimes.
If only I could've heard the footsteps behind me before I was grabbed by the throat and pulled into a cupboard.
Everything moved so quickly; I couldn't process it in time to stop my attacker. Whoever they were, they were ridiculously strong. My breaths were restricted to high-pitched squeaks as the door closed and I was enveloped in darkness.
Maybe I should've taken that karate class in Melbourne...
"Careful! We're not meant to kill him!" A woman whispered. Her accent was unfamiliar to me.
The arm around my throat disappeared, at the same time throwing me into someone else's. A sharp pinch on the side of my neck startled me. Most likely a sedative. My hands were forced behind my back as I heard the sound of tape being ripped.
"Why isn't he out yet?" A man hissed. Everything was starting to blur; the drugs were working too fast.
He got his response as I finally succumbed to the injection and allowed it to take me under.