SPN/House: Miracles Don't Exist
“Differential diagnosis. Go.” House underlined the words on the whiteboard with a flourish and turned to look at the ducklings. They gaped at him. He tapped his fingers impatiently. “Chop chop,” he said. “Exercise those tiny, tiny brains I know are in there. What could cause this?”
The ducklings blinked. Finally, Foreman spoke. “Is this some kind of joke?”
House grinned delightedly. Today was what he’d been waiting for his whole life. In terms of great things to witness, this followed only two things: The time the wind had swirled Cuddy’s dress up while House was walking behind her, and the time Wilson had been arrested for disturbing the peace.
On the board, in block capitals, the condition sat there and mocked them.
Chase opened his mouth.
“It’s not a miracle,” House cut him off before he could say it.
“Could it be a heart issue?” Cameron suggested.
Well, there certainly had been a heart issue, if you counted it being mostly blown out of his chest with a shotgun.
“We’ve got four real cases we could be working on instead of some hypothetical for your zombie novel,” Foreman said impatiently. “I’ve been talking to Dr Shepard in Seattle. He’s got a patient experiencing sudden unexplained blindness and absence seizures after being impaled on the stick his wife was attacking his girlfriend with. They want you to consult.”
Under normal circumstances, House would have probably taken the case. Unexplained blindness was always interesting. Adultery was even more interesting. And Shepard had been way too pleased with himself at that conference Cuddy had forced House to go to. However, under normal circumstances, the words SPONTANEOUS RESURRECTION were not on the whiteboard.
“This is a real case. He came in this morning,” House informed them. Frankly, he couldn’t believe they hadn’t heard about it between the hospital entrance and House’s office. He supposed Chase and Cameron’s lack of knowledge could be explained by them being too busy ducking into every closet they saw to talk to anyone, but there was no excuse for Foreman. “John Doe was found last night in a cheap motel on the outskirts of town, in the classic first scene of a murder mystery. No ID, surrounded by empty beer cans, looking just like he was asleep except for the fact half his chest had been blown away with a shotgun. He was pronounced dead on the scene by the ME.”
“So the ME made a mistake?” Cameron suggested.
House ignored her and continued his story. “He was sealed in a body bag and put into the ME’s van to be taken to the morgue for further examination. Halfway there, he suddenly recovered and made the genius move of leaping out the back of the moving van, whereupon he was hit by a bus and died again.”
“So he is dead?” Chase’s face was furrowed with confusion.
“No,” House said. He limped out of his office, not waiting to see if his team would follow him. They would. They might pretend to object to the way he picked his cases, but he knew every one of them would be just as intrigued as he was. He barged into the private room the recently dead man had been put in.
A handsome, relatively healthy looking man in his late twenties or early thirties lay in the bed, manfully pretending to be asleep as a pair of police detectives asked him questions. Fading green bruising down one side of his face and a healing cut on his forehead were the only signs he was injured in any way. His hospital gown had ridden down over his left shoulder, revealing the top of a vivid scar, a few years old but not faded.
One of the cops sighed and flipped his notebook shut. “Coffee time, I guess. Let us know when he wakes up. We’ve got some questions for him.” He nodded at House’s team and made his way out, followed by his partner.
House whacked his cane across the guy’s legs.
“Ow!” The guy reflexively clutched at his shins, glaring at House. “Who the hell are you? Pretty sure you’re not meant to hit the patients.”
Now that House was seeing the guy for himself, he looked familiar. Not familiar like a family member, or someone who served you in the cafeteria every day. No, more like an actor who had a bit part in a show you watched. Yes, that was it. House had definitely seen the guy on TV. Now, if only he could figure out where.
“You,” House said ruminatively, “are in remarkably good health, considering the day you’ve had.”
The man in the bed propped himself up on one elbow, fumbling on the stand by the bed for the TV remote. The effort made the colour drain from his face. When he finally grasped the remote in his shaking hand, he flopped back on the bed, aiming it in the general direction of the TV. Frustration was clear on his face as he flicked through the channels. Cooking show. Commercials. Commercials. General Hospital. Commercials. Oprah. Commercials. Spanish soap opera. News. Static.
House watched as he turned the volume way up on the static and struggled to sit up. He looked directly at the TV and began to speak.
“Cas! Cas! Are you there? Say something?”
The static buzzed steadily in reply.
House pulled his marker out of his pocket and wrote on the wall. SPONTANEOUS RESURRECTION. Beneath it, he wrote: Delusions.
“Cas! Come in, Feathers. It’s Dean.”
The static buzzed very loudly for a second, the white snow on the screen swirling faster, almost as though it was forming an image, and then evened out again.
“Can you hear me?”
The television buzzed. Dean looked at House. Obligingly, House whacked the TV with his cane. The nearly-picture jumped back into view. For an instant, House could have sworn he saw a face on the screen, but it was gone before he could focus on it.
“Dammit!” Dean growled, “Cas, I hope you can hear me. I’m at Princeton-Plainsboro Hospital, New Jersey, room 408. Gonna need you to get me out of here.” He looked hopefully at the empty space beside the bed. Nothing happened. Crestfallen, he flopped back on his pillow and shut his eyes.
“Sir,” said Cameron, “Dean, is it? We’re going to have to run a few tests.”
Dean groaned and flopped his arm across his face. “Goddammit, this is worse than digging my way out of my own grave. Want some advice? Never come back from the dead in public.”
“And call psych,” Cameron added.
“Do this often?” House asked the patient.
The patient peeked out from under his arm and looked contemplatively at House. He seemed to decide something and struggled into a sitting position. “I’ll tell you if you let me use your phone and don’t tell the cops.”
House pulled out his phone and tossed it teasingly in his hand. “Answer all my questions truthfully and I’ll let you use it.”
“You’re not seriously considering this, House,” Foreman moralised halfheartedly. He was just as curious as everyone else in the room, and they all knew it. “We’ll all be accessories to a dangerous criminal evading the police, and whatever other crimes he commits when his accomplices get him out of here.”
“We don’t know he’s a criminal,” Chase, ever the kiss-ass, countered, “All we know is he’s miraculously returned from the dead.”
Foreman snorted. “He was found shot to death in the shadiest motel in the city and a bunch of weapons were found in the room. Of course he’s a criminal. Probably shot by the other guy staying with him.” Apparently the cops had been filling him in while crazy guy was talking to the TV.
Speaking of the TV - the static was still buzzing frantically. House grabbed the remote and hit the power button. The screen went black for a second and then somehow turned itself back on. A face emerged amongst the swirling snow on the screen.
The ex-dead man in the bed seemed to have a burst of adrenalin. Throwing himself out of bed, he clutched at the television and spoke directly into the speaker. “Cas! Can you hear me? Are you with Sam?”
But the static just buzzed, and the face dissolved into floating lines of grey and white. “Damn!” said Dean.
“Sir, you need to get back into bed,” Cameron insisted, “You’ve been very badly injured.”
Dean glanced down at his chest, then looked around at the doctors. “It wasn’t as bad as it looked?” He tried.
House prodded him gently in the chest with his cane. “How’s that chest wound doing?”
Dean staggered a little, clearly not quite fully recovered from his death earlier that day. He attempted a charming grin. “Oh that? That was just special effects. I’m an extra in a movie.”
“Nice try,” House said. He could have almost believed it had been make-up and Wilson was playing an elaborate practical joke on him if he hadn’t gone down to look at the guy who had come back to life in the ME’s van and then promptly been hit by a bus. He’d seen the breathing start back up himself, fifteen minutes after starting his examination of the body. “Phone’s off the table. Tell us how you did it, or we let the reporters at you.”
Dean stared him down, then looked around the room and out the door at the cops, clearly weighing his escape chances. He staggered back to his bed, bumping into Cameron on the way, and sat down, refusing to say another word.
“Bloodwork,” House instructed his team, “MRI, X-Rays, Ultrasound, ECG, EEG, anything you can think of. And a stress test.”
“We can’t do a stress test,” Cameron protested, “He was hit by a bus today. We could kill him.”
“Now there’s an idea,” House said with an exaggerated maniacal grin. He saw the patient’s eyes widen slightly. “Don’t worry, we’ll save that one for last.” Obviously, they won’t do that. He’s not actually a sociopath, despite the number of people who have called him one.
“At least then we’d see how he did it,” Chase muttered.
“OK, Cas, I’m really gonna need you to get me out of here,” Dean said to thin air, “These people are crazy and there are a bunch of cops outside.”
House pulled up a chair and sat down to watch his patient. “Chase, go check out the motel. See if it’s drugs keeping him going.”
“That’s some drug,” Chase said skeptically, but he went.
Dean submitted to blood tests surprisingly willingly, not even pausing in his one-sided conversation with the television as Cameron stuck the needle in his arm.
House sat back and watched, thinking, as Foreman attempted to get an accurate history from the patient.
“Is this the first time you have experienced these symptoms?” Foreman asked.
Dean laughed quietly. “Castiel. Calling Castiel, Angel of the Lord. Beam me up, Scotty.”
The television buzzed louder, the blurred outline of a face appearing on it. The buzzing resolved itself into actual words. “Who is Scotty?” It asked in a deep, distorted voice that sounded like it was coming across a damaged long distance line.
Dean and House leapt towards the TV at the same moment. The needle was knocked out of Dean’s arm, a trail of blood leaking down his arm. He didn’t seem to notice. He moved faster than House’s leg would let him, but House was closer to the TV, and he stood in front of it, blocking Dean’s access to it.
Foremen and Cameron were gaping like a pair of goldfish, staring at the TV in astonishment at the face faded in and out.
“Cas!” Dean called, “Princeton Plainsboro Hospital! Come get me!”
“Trying,” The voice rasped and faded out.
“Wait, Cas! Is Sam OK?”
The image swirled and came back for a second. “Sam’s fine,” the voice managed, before it was fuzzed out once more. House might have imagine it, but he thought the voice sounded vaguely irritated, like having to rescue Dean was interrupting his day or something. Kind of like a babysitter saying “Sam never comes back from the dead in public.”
“Sir,” said Foreman, recovering his composure and apparently deciding to ignore the fact that the TV had just spoken to their patient, “You need to calm down and let us test you, or we’ll have to sedate you.” He took Dean by the arm and guided him back to bed.
“Fine,” said Dean, “It won’t tell you anything.” But he seemed content, now that he had spoken to whoever he thought was in the TV.
House mentally kicked himself. He’d nearly been taken in. The dead guy act had been very convincing - the guy had shown all the symptoms of death. But there were drugs that could do that. Chase was sure to find some in his search of the motel room. But the talking TV was just too far. This had James Wilson written all over it. And while some people might think faking an actor’s death was too far for a nice guy like Wilson, they didn’t really know Wilson, and they didn’t know about House’s recent attempt to fool Wilson into believing he’d accidentally created a zombie via an experimental medical treatment. He wasn’t going to let on to anyone he knew it was a hoax, though. He was going to run every expensive test on the “patient” that he could think of, while he thought up a way to turn this around on Wilson.
Foreman was studying his clipboard. “So you claim to have experienced this before?” he asked. “You mentioned something before about… er… climbing out of your own grave?”
“Yeah,” said Dean, leaning back on his pillows while Cameron inserted a new needle into his arm, “Don’t do that. It sucks ass.”
Foreman made a note on his clipboard. “And can you describe the pain to me? Where it hurts and what type of pain? The severity on a scale of one to ten?”
“I’m fine -“ Dean began, before glancing out the door at the police, who were still waiting for the all-clear from the medical team, “Actually, you know what, I’m feeling kind of shaky. And my ribs hurt. I think I have concussion too. Not thinking so clearly, y’know.”
“Scale of one to ten for the ribs?”
“Two?” Then, with another look out the door, “Actually, make that an eight.”
“Do you regularly experience hallucinations or religious visions?”
“Dude, we all know that wasn’t a hallucination. You saw Cas and heard him talking to me,” Dean shook his head in faint amusement.
“Any history of mental illness in yourself or your family?”
“Nope, all completely sane.” Dean pressed a cottonball into his arm as Cameron finished taking blood samples and packed them up to go to the lab.
“Has anyone in your family experienced a similar ailment?” Foreman asked. He was just making up questions now. The original history, taken by a nurse immediately after Dean had come to, was pure nonsense.
“What, death?” Dean looked at Foreman in disbelief. “Yeah, pretty much all of them. No, scratch that. All of them.”
“And, uh, coming back to life?” Foreman looked like he couldn’t believe he was asking these questions.
“Just me and Sam, so far. Oh, and our Dad, but that was before we were born.”
House cut in. This was a waste of time, now that he’d figured out it was Wilson. He needed time to think, to figure out how Wilson had pulled it off, and to examine the TV for tampering. “Take him for an MRI. Push in front of whoever is next in line. Our patient already died twice today, and you know what they say about the third time being the charm.”
House stared off into space, barely seeing as Foreman and Cameron moved Dean into a wheelchair and wheeled him out of the room. Sure, there were drugs that could mimic death, but how had Wilson pulled off the beginning? Was the ME in on it? The bus driver? The cops? It had to be Wilson. There was no other explanation. People didn’t just spontaneously come back to life. Not hours after death, with no assistance. Plus, Wilson wasn’t here. If it was a real case, there was no way Wilson wouldn’t be hanging around, poking his nose in anywhere he could. He unplugged the TV and set to work examining it.
His phone rang just as he’d set it on the floor and was pulling the back off to examine it.
It was Chase. “There’s nothing here,” he said, without preamble.
“What do you mean nothing? You’ve missed something.”
“No, I mean there’s nothing here. The room’s been cleaned. And not by underpaid motel maids. There’s no blood, no weapons, not a speck of DNA anywhere. Definitely no drugs or weird herbs or anything. There’s not even any soap in the bathroom. It’s spotless. Like a Mafia clean-up guy or something fixed it.”
House snorted. “Yeah, or the whole thing was a hoax.”
“The maid doesn’t think it was a hoax. She’s in severe shock and keeps saying an angel came to her and told her not to tell anyone what she saw.”
“Well, get her to tell you what she saw. What good was all that time at seminary school if you can’t use it to fake being a priest?”
“I’m not going to impersonate a priest for you, House,” Chase told him, hanging up.
House returned to his examination of the television. Chase would do it. He secretly liked doing all the stuff House sent him to do.
A sudden burst of activity outside the door caught House’s attention. The cops were leaping into action, shouting into radios and taking off down the corridor.
House called Cameron. “You lost him, didn’t you?”
They were all gathered in the office. House had just ripped Cameron and Foreman new ones for losing the patient, something that happened way more often than it should, considering the state most of their patients were in by the time their cases got to House.
“He was inside the MRI machine!” Foreman insisted.
“The power shorted out for a second and all the lights went off,” Cameron continued, “But there was another flash of light and I could have sworn I saw another guy in there.”
Foreman picked up the story, “And then the back-up generator wouldn’t work and by the time we got some light in there he was gone. There’s only one doorway, we’ve got no clue how he got out. The MRI machine’s screwed. Cuddy’s so pissed.”
House glared at them and went to look at the scene for himself. Served Wilson right if the MRI machine was irreparable, although no doubt Cuddy would blame House for it.
He looked at the doorway, the MRI machine and the monitor. Then it hit him. He dialed Wilson’s number. “I know how you did it,” he said.
And Wilson’s flu-ridden voice croaked, “Did what?”