The Doctor(s) are/is in.
Who: Dr. House
Where: Medical facility, OR/Lab
When: Day 23, afternoon, after The unpleasant announcement through early evening.
Invited: The Doctor, Blaise, McKay, Damon, Scott, open.
Status: Complete ( Read more... )
Where: Medical facility, OR/Lab
When: Day 23, afternoon, after The unpleasant announcement through early evening.
Invited: The Doctor, Blaise, McKay, Damon, Scott, open.
Status: Complete ( Read more... )
Rodney stayed back, evidently not wanting to step in on anything actually medical. Damon was closing his eyes, feeling for the nanogenes inside Rose while Scott kept her stable and monitored. House set up the pheresis machine and attached the leads, so Rose’s dark, red blood started to flow through the tubes.
The Doctor cut off Rose’s tee and was relieved to see she was wearing a sports bra. Underwires would have to go. He also took the Tardis Key she wore about her neck and pocketed it. Once he lubricated the paddles he applied them as if he were giving a regular defibrillation.
“Right, starting… now.” Unlike a regular defibrillation, what flowed from the pads was not a short jolt of electricity, but a steady stream of it. He was thankful Rose was out, because it would doubtless be an unpleasant feeling, possibly even painful. He applied the charge for ten seconds.
He removed the paddles and Damon was grinning. “Feels like they just popped, they got zapped alright.” He seemed to concentrate further. “I don’t feel anything mechanical still active in her system.”
Rose’s blood was now being fed back in as quickly as it was being drawn out, after the machine did its work.
“Fantastic!” The Doctor was grinning madly and looked to Scott.
The young man was still focused on Rose. Neither her heart, nor her brain had been compromised, but her brain was furiously active. What was more, there was singing, a strange music in her mind, along her nerve endings, and a sense of green-gold light.
Scott could also sense the changes made to Rose’s body. Added longevity, a partial third DNA strand that seemed poised to shift somehow, new neural pathways in her mind, accessing parts of her brain usually kept dormant, and something had shifted in her reproductive system as well.
Whatever changes had been made had been working with the nanogenes to help fight the infection. Now her immune system, running much better than average, now worked even better under Scott’s command.
Reply
No.
Strike that.
Everything he did was to solve a puzzle. The result after the cure bored him, once the patient's health returned. He hadn't yet found someone who'd kept his interest after all was said and done. Not for long, anyway.
Leaning on his cane, more a force of habit than necessity at the moment, once Rose was tended by the 'team', he was able to attend to himself. Limping off to a side, he sat down heavily in a seat, and began to manipulate his leg, testing it, looking to see if there was... well... anything. Nothing, and the confusion returned before he rose to his feet once more, his voice sounding in the room above the ordered chaos, above the softly sounding pheresis machine.
"Scott! What in the hell is going on?" He keyed on the younger man, whether his deductions were correct or not. He rose to his feet again, the anger, the annoyance plainly evident. "Who gave you the right?"
Reply
Scott covered the short distance to the doctor in a few steps. "You did," he said quietly, his voice taut with annoyance.
"What?" House spat. At least he had the decency to keep his voice down this time.
" You asked me to fix your leg, remember?" Scott prodded.
House snorted. "And a fine job you--"
Scott blew out an exasperated breath. "Look. For the last time, except for the surgically removed muscle, there's nothing. Wrong. With. Your. Leg. The pain is in your head. If we weren't stuck on this godforsaken island with limited supplies, I'd let you gulp down all the narcotics you could find. But other people here may need them. People *who really are in pain.* So get over it!"
Reply
House shook his head. He could hear his team, his friends in the back of his head. 'This is what you've wanted, House. Pain free after years of suffering. Deal with it, suck it up, and actually say 'Thank you' for once.' "I asked you weeks ago. You didn't. You said you did, sure, but from this end? Huh-uh. No dice. And, for your information, the sciatic was fine, sure... but all the little nerve endings in the muscle tissue around the excised dead muscle? No. Even the neurosurgeon, there's a special place in Hell for neurosurgeons, said there'd be pain. Constant, even."
He limped halfway across the room, light blue eyes baring down on the younger man. No pain. Just weakness. "What's different? Go with the head instead of the leg this time? Try and try again, right?"
Reply
Scott glared back at the ingrate. He opened his mouth to give the man a piece of his mind when a wave of calm washed over him. Even that annoyed him. /Ami,/ he warned.
/Scott, he's sick,/ Ami 'said' calmly. /Not physically, but mentally./
/I don't care if he's a certified lunatic! After everything we've been through--/
"No answer, huh?" House drawled. Scott focused his eyes on the man to find a condescending smirk. That at least reminded him to close his mouth. Holding two arguments simultaneously was distracting.
"Greg." The Doctor's voice was uncharacteristically quiet tone earned both House and Scott's attention. Nodding at the pheresis machine, the Time Lord added, "Take a look at this, would you?" After giving Scott one last scathing look, he limped to the Doctor's side. The Gallifreyan caught Scott's eye momentarily, then resumed distracting the infuriating doctor.
With a quiet sigh Scott sank into the chair House had previously occupied. He could feel Ami patiently waiting in the back of his mind. /I'm at my wit's end, Ami. House won't let me help him. At this point I don't care if he suffers--/
/You do,/ she gently interjected.
/Maybe a little,/ Scott conceded. /But he's wasting our medical stores. I didn't remove his pain. He didn't have any -- not that he'll listen./
/Then stop trying to convince him./
Scott sniffed. /So House can gulp down all of the Vicodin?/
Ami's bemusement carried over their link. /You're so pigheaded sometimes, love./
/What?/
/Have you considered asking someone else to help?/
Scott frowned, baffled. /With something like this? No. House won't listen to you or Damon any more than he does me./
For some reason Ami's amusement multiplied. /What about Daniel?/ Scott tensed on reflex, prompting another pulse of comfort from Ami. /He's not the enemy, Scott./
(Not yet,) Scott thought sullenly, not caring if Ami overheard. /No,/ he replied, then, /Maybe./ He scrubbed his hands over his face, then glanced at the two doctors, who were squabbling over something. /Let me think about it. I need to get back to Rose./ He sent love and gratitude along with the thought.
/Right,/ Ami agreed. /She's doing well?/
Since House and the Doctor were only bickering, that had to be the case. /Yes. Once all of the egos stopped clashing, they came up with a good plan./
Ami projected her disarming smile. /I'll leave you to it, then./
/Thanks, love./
Scott stood and joined the others at Rose's bedside. "Everything all right?"
Reply
He straightened again and looked around the room briefly, making sure he knew where he'd put his cane. It was strange that it wasn't immediately nearby.
"This'll take some time to get through the machine. Three, four hours. As far as the infection goes, the first round of antibiotics has her temperature down, and she's responding well. EEG looks... wierd, but I'm assuming you already knew that. It looks less weird than before, of course, so I think I'll just move the bar, just like
A skip-hop was taken, shifting around the patient to ready a blood thinner just in case. As far as the Doctor asking for his attention, well... He wasn't stupid. He knew it was a game of keep the big, bad doctor off the good samaritan, and he allowed for it. Redirection was something he used all the time, and his team rarely if ever fell for it either. They either followed or not, but it was always a conscious decision on their part, just as it was on his.
"Juuuuust fine," House replied easily to Scott. "'Course, if something was wrong with her, I suppose you're asking the wrong person. How would I know? I'm thinking now that I have to return my entire salary because I'm obviously unfit to be a diagnostician." The sarcasm came easily. "Thank you for that soul searching moment. I-I-I think I'm a better man for it."
He turned back to Rose and the Doctor, watching the alien work. His part was done, and for all intents and purposes, he really wasn't needed anymore. "I'd say 'page me' if anything happens, but I won't be far. Just... nipping out for a snack."
Reply
Scott didn't take the bait this time. Instead he turned to the Doctor. "Do you know what's causing the EEG irregularities?"
Reply
He took the distance between the bed and where he'd left his cane slowly, experimenting, a look of concentration on his face. Picking it up once he'd arrived, he lifted it to look at it for a long moment, studied it, twirled it, his expression thoughtful as he brought it down again. With a twitch of his head, he looked as if he'd come to a decision, at least for the moment, 'He'll do.' turned around, and headed towards the corridor for something to eat that might actually be warm.
EXEUNT HOUSE for the moment.
Reply
The Doctor opened his mental shields a crack. "The Tardis. She's helping Rose. The changes made to Rose's mental pathways would allow for the ability to use more of her brain capacity. Earlier she was processing mathematical probability equations on an instinctual level. And maths was never one of her favorite things.”
There was a temptation to look deeper, half convincing himself it would be to judge what changes had been made to her thought processes. But he recognized the selfishness in the idea the second it bloomed. No. He couldn’t really consider taking a deeper look under medical emergency. Not when the passive glance told him what he needed to know.
“Now we just have to wait, for the infection to clear, and for the dead nanogenes to filter out. I’m willing to wager the only reason she’s still unconscious is whatever House injected her with.” The Doctor dragged a stool over and took a seat, holding Rose’s hand between both of his own.
Reply
Following the Doctor's lead, Scott telekinetically dragged the chair against the wall over to him. He sat, resting one hand on Rose's arm. Rather than tap himself out completely, Scott simply monitored Rose's progress in fighting off the rest of the strep infection. If her now-improved immune system kept up its current pace she'd be out of the woods in a few hours.
Reply
He took a deep breath, brought a hand up to pull at his face, and opened his eyes, ready to continue on to the kitchen. He'd put Rose out deliberately. No sense of risking her waking up and experiencing everything he'd seen on those monitors. When he got back, and when he deemed it the right time, he'd pull her out, and hopefully be able to send her on her way tomorrow. He'd need the lab after she was gone, and when everyone else got back to their lives, such as they were here.
He settled in to the cafeteria after making a couple of sandwiches. The cane was hung on the edge of the table, and while he ate, he stared at it, lost in his own thoughts. It wasn't long before he was done and rising once more, began to gather things to bring back. The refrigerators were stocked... and what he needed most was juice, water, and... there. Crackers. If Sleeping Beauty needed anything else, it'd be later, when her stomach could handle it.
House limped back to the OR/Lab, in one hand, a bit of snatched random bits of food, but he put the juice and crackers off to the side, in the other, his cane. "I come bearing food." He looked at Scott and dismissed him quickly and easily, even before he had a chance to utter a word. "Not for you, for her. She's going to be really hungry when she wakes up." He'll disconnect the pheresis machine after she's awake, and it's fully completed its cycle. Within a half hour, tops.
He was a quick limper when not in pain, and using the cane only as a support for the weakness, he crossed the room to dig into a drawer, pulling out a small vial of something. "Time to wake her up. Worst is over." The doctor dug into another drawer and pulled out a hypodermic, and piercing the rubber top, filled it partially before he put the small container back and began to make his way back to the patient bed.
With very little ceremony, House picked up the tubing attached to Rose, and inserted the needle into the shunt, pushing the plunger 'home'. "Give her a few minutes, and she should be fine. I got juice and crackers for her. Chances are, she won't tolerate more. She'll be ready to get out of here tomorrow morning." And then, the lights go off, because he'll be in the throes of his detox. He went through withdrawal once before, and he can set the timeline down to the minute, even if it wasn't completed last time. And they have no Methadone to help.
Reply
Leave a comment