[CLOSED TO HOUSE] Gut feelings

[chasemd]

Chase remained standing when Cameron, Foreman and Amber finally left the room, pathology bound. His eyes were still locked on the whiteboard like was trying to eyeball a hole through it. The end of his pen was a shadow of it's former self from all the teeth marks in it, but he soon threw it down in frustration and looked back to House. "I know, I

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[c18_h21_no3]

House limped a few steps to stand next to Chase, scratching his forehead with a thumb as he too fixed his eyes on the marked up whiteboard. "We'll find out what really is there in two hours." He sighed. He wasn't going scold him for not leaving and send Chase to do pathology work. He knew Cameron, Foreman, and Amber were more than capable, he just never liked admitting it. House was willing bet this was a sight to see. Both he and Chase probably looked like they've been through a few rounds with Mike Tyson at this point. House sure as hell felt like it.

"Or not," he threw out, turning away from the board to take a seat, nipping at the inside of his lip. This was... House didn't know what the hell to call it. It warranted two Vicodin, though, he thought as he reached into his pocket, that was for damn sure.

[chasemd]

"Or not," Chase just agreed. He watched House with the pills, tempted to ask for a hit himself. Not that he would, but it was nice to dream. A joint would have gone down well, too. He stared at House's writing on the board then and started drumming his fingers on the edge of the desk, which lasted all of thirty seconds because he started irritating himself with the noise. "The symptoms. It could be any of these. Like Foreman said, if you squint. It's just not as cut and dry as the med text books would say. That rash is doing my head in. It's not bloody Eczema, because the bloke was stunned to see it when it manifested..."

He exhaled heavily. "Too similar," he mumbled to himself more than to House, frowning back at the whiteboard again. His face was going to end up stuck like this.

[c18_h21_no3]

"Nothing is ever as cut and dry as the text books say," House pointed out, popping two pills into his mouth. "You know that. Could be... anything. Could be heat rash from the hospital gown with the way he was sweating."

He put his head in his hands, shutting his eyes as if keeping himself in such a position would give him any form of rest. He knew it wouldn't. Sitting here with Chase was almost surreal. House preferred to think alone. Question was, did he really have anything to think about anymore? What if he was wrong? What if all of the tests were negative? Do they risk another biopsy? Was Rob going to even last the next 64 hours? He frowned, turning his head toward Chase. "This wouldn't have happened if we didn't think it was just one disease."

[chasemd]

Chase nodded. "I know," he mumbled. "And that shits me to no end. There were hints it was something different, but not enough. We can't do anything about it, though. What else were we supposed to think? It was an epidemic. We did what we could." He pointed to the whiteboard in annoyance at himself. "Just look at the list. Look at how similar all the symptoms are. It's like they were working together to mock us, mock each other. Like damn kids in a school yard 'My symptoms are worse than yours', even though they're identical. How he is right now, it could have been Dengue if we hadn't found that clot."

[c18_h21_no3]

House turned his attention back to the whiteboard, shaking his head. "If we hadn't found that clot, he'd be dead," he said flatly. He didn't know if he was able to chalk that one up to luck or intuition, pressing his lips together as he ran his finger along the ridges of the bottle cap. "Eventually though, even identical twins can be told apart once you get to know them." He managed a slight grin, "You can usually distinguish between them in bed t-"

He cut himself off in mid sentence, letting his hands fall away from his face.

Shit.

House abruptly stood up, grabbing his cane "They're going to waste the biopsy," he grunted, heading for the door. Shit shit shit. He was wrong.

[chasemd]

"What?" Chase asked in shock. He knew that look on House's face though. It was a House Moment. He had the diagnosis. "House, what the fuck? What is it?" What had fucking identical twins got to do with anything, in bed or otherwise? He stood up too, following. No way was he going to stick around.

[c18_h21_no3]

"The only good imitations are those that poke fun at bad originals," House stated, eyes toward the elevator as Chase caught up to him. "Rob's disease doesn't hold up by itself because it doesn't have any one strong symptom to stand by itself on to begin with. Stick it next to Sporotrichosis, it looks like Sporotrichosis. Stick it next to GAE... looks like GAE. Looked like Dengue for a little while, too. Even it's symptoms had symptoms."

He picked up his cane, pressing the down button on the metal plate outside the elevator as he turned to Chase. "Nocardiosis didn't fit because there was no rash on his limbs. Makes perfect sense, if the disease was contracted subcutaneously. Inhaled Nocardiae, on the other hand, take a much nastier route, especially if the disease has had time to disseminate." House ducked inside the elevator, hitting the basement button. "One of the few diseases that has the honor of being considered 'The Great Imitator.' Explains the meningitis positive, the brain abscess, everything."

[chasemd]

Chase's mouth dropped open as the elevator swung open. All that managed to come out, though was a gasped, "Fuck." He pushed into the elevator and rubbed his hand over his mouth. "Fucking, fuck of all fucks!" he cursed, banging his hand against the wall in frustration.

He shook his head, looking at House. "You're right. It fits. Even the environmental factor. Inhaled Nocardiae. He got it before he went AWOL, if not weeks before he did. He only started getting sick when the disease set in. Then it killed him when he went back to Iraq because there's no way an infirmary over there would get this to treat it. Even if it didn't kill him, it would have incapacitated him and he might have made a wrong move of some sort."

[c18_h21_no3]

House waited as the doors slid open before stepping out into the hall on the way to Pathology, "Soldiers get sick over there all the time. He would have thrown it up as anything. There's an excuse for every one of his physical symptoms out in the desert. Abscess would have gotten bigger, caused intracranial pressure, impaired his judgement. One wrong move out there, and insurgent sniper Abdul-Rahim Fariq-Ali Mu'tasim gets that much closer to his 72 virgins," he explained.

[chasemd]

CHase looked at House seriously. "Even now, what's the prognosis?" he finally asked.

[c18_h21_no3]

"80 percent mortality rate once brain infection hits," House replied. "Not highly promising, but 20 percent doesn't automatically equal zero. He still has a chance, we just need to hit it with everything we've got." He just hoped they weren't too late to interrupt biopsy results to actually get a final diagnosis. It was this, or bust.

[chasemd]

"Bollocks," Chase mumbled, following behind House. "If they've done that last biopsy, I'll kill them." He glanced at House with a slight smirk. "Race you?" he joked.