“What’s House going to think of this?”
“His process is always going to be a mystery to me. And, I really don’t care.”
Foreman went back to his reading. It looked suspiciously like a comic book.
People had been dropping like flies all week, not that that was unusual. To quote House, “There’re always more where they came from.”
He was expected back any minute. Dr. House had been on a forced vacation. Orders from Cuddy. No one knew where he was or how to get in touch with him, they only knew he wasn’t at the beach. It was February and House hated the water. “It’s wet,” he once famously explained.
“Did someone die in here? I don’t recognize any signs of life.” House stood in the door, leaning on his cane. He had three additional days of beard and a scowl on his face.
Foreman actually sat up – not a sign of respect, he was just reaching for a soda - and said facetiously, “Welcome back.” He started to fill House in on the latest run of disease.
“Just give me the good ones.”
Foreman looked over at Chase and began to relate how there had been four patients with unusual symptoms. “Heavy loss of blood, puncture marks, and enlarged lymph nodes.”
House didn’t move. “How enlarged?”
“Out of the ordinary. Two of them died.”
“From node fat? You guys are getting careless.”
Foreman took a deep breath, trying to control his temper. He was already exasperated and House had just gotten back.
Just then, Cuddy came up behind House, said “My office.” She turned and walked away. House rolled his eyes and swung around, leaving the two doctors shaking their heads.
House closed the door to her office and said, ”I missed you, Sweetie.”
Cuddy ignored this and slapped a file down onto the desk for House to inspect. He winked at her and leaned toward the file. After a second, he sat down hard, in the chair. He absently rubbed his bad leg. He reached into his pocket, took out a small plastic pill bottle and emptied it into his mouth.
“Stop that!”
“Cuddy, this is serious.”
“Dead usually is.”
House shrugged. “Maybe.”
He turned and went to his office to think.
He closed the door and pulled the curtains. He stared into the darkness. He had hoped to never see a case like this. But the file had said it all. His mind traveled back to the scene of his accident. The accident that was the cause of everything – his limp, his addiction, his attitude. Well, maybe not his attitude, he had always been bent out of shape.
He had always said it was a motorcycle accident that had injured his leg, but there, in the darkness, he relived that moment the way it had really happened. He was hiking in the Poconos, alone, the way he liked it. It was getting dark and he was on his way back to his motorcycle (that part was true), when he heard a noise just off the trail. He stopped and called out. After a moment, he began walking again, and then two shadows appeared a few yards in front of him.
One was man, he knew enough anatomy for that identification, and the other was a small dog. The man was in black and the dog was a small mutt of some kind, also black. He came closer and saw to his horror that both man and dog had eyes that were red and almost glowing and that they were breathing heavily. On closer inspection, he saw that their mouths were stained with blood.
For a second, House considered the symptoms, but before he could reach any conclusion, the dog leapt for him and sunk his long incisors into House’s right leg. Everything sped up then and all of them were screaming.
With a kick, House sent the dog flying and ran past the man toward his bike. Luckily, it was pointed in the right direction and the engine started immediately. House raced away, the blood gushing from his leg and covering the motorcycle.
He rushed to the hospital, was treated, but never told anyone the real story. He never had. He tried to forget it and had almost convinced himself that he had actually been in an accident.
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