SERIES TITLE: The Hunting of the Snark: An Agony in Five Fits and A Twitch
TITLE: Fit the First: THE LANDING
AUTHOR:
researchgrrrlPAIRING: House/Xena. God help us all.
RATING: R for rude words and occasional gory bits
WARNINGS: WIP. First of five parts.
SUMMARY: "But his courage is perfect! And that, after all, / Is the thing that one needs with a Snark." --Lewis Carroll
DISCLAIMER: I'm pretty sure my parents didn't mean for me to turn out like this. Also, no copyright infringements intended nor profit being made.
NOTES: Not all crackfic has to be badfic. My thanks to ebs and Dori for the beta work, with special mad props to ebs for suggesting the title. And please do feel free to send/post feedback.
"Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice:
That alone should encourage the crew.
Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice:
What I tell you three times is true."
--Lewis Carroll
Fit the First: THE LANDING
The morning sky was overcast but bright, a light spring breeze riffled the slender, evenly spaced trees planted in front of the Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, and traffic hadn't been bad at all. Bickering amiably, Greg House and James Wilson had only just reached the steps leading to the lobby when the first security guard came flying through the plate glass.
House ducked reflexively, his free arm protecting his face as he tightened his grip on his cane. With the booming explosion of glass came a swell of screams and alarms from inside the hospital. House lowered his arm, let his backpack slide to the ground, and glanced at the man, who had stopped rolling and had started moaning groggily. House was mildly impressed the man was even alive, considering he must have traveled with the force of a cannon ball to break that allegedly shatterproof window.
"Jesus," breathed Wilson. He was already dropping into the glittering chunks of glass next to the semi-conscious security guard and checking vitals.
"The fuck?" He looked up at House, still working and apparently oblivious to the damage he was doing to his knees and slacks. "The fuck is going on?"
Suspecting that the best part of the day had just passed, House popped three Vicodin and squinted through the cartoonishly gaping hole.
"At a guess, a double espresso doesn't cut it for some people. They're just worthless until they've had their morning PCP and ransacked a clinic." House gave a happy little gasp and added, "But, ooh, can't do clinic hours if there's no clinic."
A high ululation cut through the ruckus and the cool, stale air rushing out of the hospital lobby.
Not an alarm, House realized. Moving cautiously through the glass and around the guard's twitching legs, House peered into the chaos. He took in papers flying, nurses and patients scrambling, Cuddy white-faced and talking into a cell phone, and three guards training their weapons on an Amazonian brunette in a leather mini-dress and knee-high boots as she somersaulted onto the nurses' station. A battle cry.
The brunette made her battle cry again, then flung something that glinted and sparked as it ricocheted around the lobby, neatly and efficiently disarming all three guards, before it flew back into her waiting hand. She caught it absently, busy hauling up one of the guards by his neck with her other hand; a feat made all the more impressive from her position on the desk. The round weapon went back to her hip so she could grab the guard's crotch.
House winced sympathetically, even as he took in the swell of the brunette's well-defined biceps beneath her leather armbands. She made eye contact with him and bared her teeth in a sly and lucid smile just before she tossed the flailing man his way.
All right. So, not your father's junkie, House decided as he half-stepped, half-stumbled back. He was fairly certain there had been a crossbow bolt sticking out just below the wing of her right clavicle, although it was hard to say for sure, what with having to shove Wilson out of the way as the second guard sailed toward them.
Doing some quick math, House estimated the guard had to have traveled a good ten feet across the lobby to clear the empty window frame in order to land with a thud and a gurgle on top of the first guard. House and Wilson looked at the sprawled guards, then at each other. House shook out two more Vicodin, treated himself to a rare pre-10am fourth, and offered the other to Wilson.
Wilson accepted the pill distractedly, dropping it into his breast pocket before he scrabbled back to the second guard, a small, dark-haired man whose breath whistled while he weakly clutched at himself. Easing the wheezing man off the first guard with as much care as possible, and trying to find a relatively glass-free patch of sidewalk to lay him on, Wilson asked, "How big is this guy? And do they plan on taking him down any time today?"
House considered while he cleared away what he could of the glass in front of him with his foot. He pulled off his leather jacket, folded it, and dropped it to make a kneeling pad. He lowered himself to his left knee, braced heavily on his cane.
"Remember the chick who played Cordelia? About that size, only in the leather get-up we always prayed to Joss for." Propping the cane against his shoulder, House used both hands to ease his right leg down before he leaned over the first guard. He found what he wanted and palmed it with a glance toward the lobby, then resettled his grip on his cane. "And I'd say that's one lady who only goes down for just the right guy."
"Lady?" Wilson repeated. He paused in his inspection of the second guard's pupils and stared at House. "Leather?" He looked at the two guards, at the broken plate glass, at the front of the hospital, and back at House. "You're shitting."
"Not yet, but the morning is clearly young and full of surprises," said House. Approaching police sirens wailed toward the hospital, now drowning out the screams and clatter from the lobby. Thoughtfully, House remarked, "Notice how no one's trying to escape through the front? Well, except as projectiles. Now, how wacky is that?"
The pandemonium from inside shifted, presumably as everyone ran for the clinic or the stairs. House had hoped to be back on his feet before the woman exited the lobby. Instead, he was still kneeling when she emerged through the empty window frame in yet another somersault. She landed in front of him in a neat crouch, her heavy boots barely making a sound in the broken glass. Her weight was balanced on the balls of her feet and the fingertips of her left hand. Her other hand rested on the round weapon hanging from her belt.
House could smell horse and sour sweat, fresh blood and leather, and noticed that her breathing was still fairly unlabored and her skin unflushed. Her pupils were only slightly dilated, and, yes, that was definitely a crossbow bolt jutting from her shoulder.
It was surrounded by at least a dozen old, puckered scars. House realized that bolt wasn't the first, and she certainly carried herself as if she knew it wasn't going to be the last.
Noticing House's interest, the woman cast a quick look at the bolt, arched an eloquent brow at him, then ripped the thing out with no preamble. House didn't flinch at the wet, meaty sound, but he thought that the Vicodin kicking in probably helped augment his medical training and innate cool just a little.
She held his eyes, her own sharp and steady and shockingly blue under the frame of the long dark hair loose around her face. Moving slowly, she lifted the bolt and touched one of the many bloodied barbs on its tip to her tongue. A faintly annoyed look crossed her face. The woman spat and tossed the bolt aside. She glanced at Wilson, who sat motionless and probably with the same thought as House had about how tasting that bolt shouldn't have been kind of hot given the circumstances.
The corner of her mouth twitched and she unsheathed the sword slung over her back as she unfurled from her crouch. Her other hand again strayed to the weapon at her hip as she turned toward the sound of the sirens.
As soon as she looked away, House fired the Taser he'd taken from the guard into the lovely, tanned expanse of thigh before him. She jerked violently and turned with a hiss, sword slicing through the air toward his neck. Its edge managed to just touch his skin before her eyes rolled back in her head. She collapsed backward, her fall broken by the bodies of the two groaning guards, thrashing wildly until House killed the Taser. Fortunately, her sword did not impale anyone, notably him, as it dropped from her hand. He reached for the hilt, pulling the sword with an unavoidably loud noise over the glass and concrete to his side.
House left the sword on the ground and dropped his backpack on it, then rested his cane in the crook of his arm and groped in his backpack. His vintage Nine Inch Nails t-shirt would have to do. Casting a sideways look toward the first of the half-dozen or so police cruisers arriving, he casually wrapped the shirt around the bolt and slipped them both into his backpack.
A few tentative faces peered out from the lobby, two of his employees, Allison Cameron and Robert Chase, among them.
Naturally, Foreman is the only one doing his job, thought House as he gestured sharply for Cameron and Chase to wait inside when they started to move toward the door. Reliably docile, they subsided instantly.
The first of the ambulances arrived and Lisa Cuddy ran out of the lobby. Cuddy's long, curling hair had partly fallen out of her usually neat chignon. The silk scarf around her neck had come undone and was caught in the collar of her lab coat, and she looked as close to tears as House had ever seen her. House frowned faintly. Frankly, he was a little surprised to see his boss in such a state since the blood spattered across her lab coat and cleavage didn't appear to be hers.
Cuddy motioned to the newly arrived EMTs but didn't look at them. Instead, her eyes moved from House to Wilson to the guards and back to House.
"Are you...oh, God, please tell me you're all right," said Cuddy to House.
"Yeah. Sure. Why not?" Wilson said vaguely. Just as vaguely, he nodded and fished the Vicodin out of his pocket. He grimaced while he chewed, clearly unaccustomed to the taste. Squinting at him, House briefly wondered if Wilson had been talking to Cuddy or the Vicodin.
"Greg?" said Cuddy. House pulled his elbow away from the hand up Cuddy tried to offer and leveraged himself to his feet. Rising easily, Cuddy clasped her hands in front of herself in a white-knuckled grip, possibly in prayer, possibly just to keep from reaching out again, only this time to strangle him.
"What the hell were you thinking," Cuddy demanded, a little color coming back into her cheeks. "She could have killed you."
"Jealous?" House asked, then added, "Dibs on her file" in a voice so casual, he impressed himself. He remembered to drop the Taser before he lifted his free hand as the police drew their weapons and shouted assorted instructions.
"This woman has been poisoned," he shouted over them. "And shot with a crossbow. And nailed with about fifty thousand volts. And it's not even nine-thirty in the morning yet. This is probably not her best day. She goes inside now. Fourth floor, diagnostics. Those guys can wait, and they go wherever," he added to the EMTs. House caught Cuddy's dumbfounded expression. "What? I can't take an interest? I can't care sometimes, too?"
The shocky look in Cuddy's eyes flickered, then sharpened and shifted through relief, exasperation, and something else that was there and gone before House could identify it. She passed a hand over her face, dragging her hand back to push through her falling hair.
"Well, apparently you can, provided the patient is in enough leather. Just enough leather." She offered House the ghost of a smile as they moved back to make room for the paramedics to transfer the woman to a gurney. "Or was it the whip and the boots? Because if that's what it takes to get you invested in your job, I'd be happy to dress like some Betty Page dominatrix every damned day."
House bit his lower lip and fixed Cuddy with a hot-eyed look, then leaned to close to say, "You are such a tease."
Cuddy smiled a real smile this time and turned toward the hospital, keeping her back to the street as the first media van arrived. She was pale and still a little shaky but completely Cuddy again. She began to fuss with her hair, fumbling with the oval clip that hung crookedly there.
"Poison," she said, cutting her eyes at him. "Not phencyclidine abuse or schizophrenia."
He slid his hand around her neck, amused when her eyes widened, and pulled the lavender scarf dangling from her collar.
"Since when can't I justify everything I say and do?" asked House as he started dabbing at her cleavage. He glanced past Cuddy's shoulder, keeping an eye on his patient as she was carried inside.
Cuddy swatted at his hand and snatched the scarf away, checked to see where the news cameras were, then looked down and muttered, "Shit." She spat on the scarf and wiped at the drying blood on her chest.
"Here, give me your coat," House said as a second and third news van arrived. Cuddy glanced up at him warily and House sighed with massive dignity. "Gonna be live in five, Dr. Cuddy. This is gruesome enough without the added visuals." He pointed at the blood splashed across her white lab coat, then made a gimme motion. "I'll bring it in with me. Now, go."
Cuddy hesitated and finally shrugged out of her lab coat.
"Don't do anything that makes me nostalgic for the rampaging crazy woman," she ground out before she started walking toward the growing throng of media and lookie-loos on the sidewalk.
House flashed a smile at the back of Cuddy's head then looked around for Wilson. Wilson had brushed aside helping hands to direct the care of the guards, doing so while he gingerly shook the glass from his ruined dark grey slacks. He might need a few stitches in his knees judging from the blood seeping through the now-frayed material, but whatever. House figured Wilson should be able to milk this for weeks with his oncology nurses and that chick in accounting.
Thankful the cops were now largely occupied with crowd control and whatever Cuddy was saying, House said, "Wilson!"
Wilson looked over from talking to a pretty, auburn-haired paramedic and the second guard, who still seemed a little dazed but had been eased into a seated position. Wilson eyebrowed that he was a little busy. House rolled his eyes and eyebrowed back just what he thought of that. Wilson pinched the bridge of his nose, touched the pretty paramedic's arm, and worked his way over to House.
Before Wilson could speak, House dropped the lab coat on top of the sword and whispered, "Get the sword. Get the sword!" He threw a furtive glance over his shoulder as he stooped to retrieve his own jacket. So far, most of the attention was still on Cuddy. Thank God that woman was so good at her job as hospital administrator and always wore those low-cut blouses; between the one and the other, no one was looking their way.
House shouldered his backpack, shook out his jacket, and started to move as quickly as his bum leg permitted.
"Come on! Before the cops wanna talk. Get the sword and get inside! You can move faster than I can."
"What?" Wilson planted his hands on his hips and stared at the pale grey sky, then released a slow breath. He carefully bent and gathered the bundled sword. "Greg, rumor has it you have astounding powers of perception. Perhaps even the ability to have noticed you were almost beheaded?" he inquired as he caught up with House, wincing a little.
"What can I say? Tall, dark, and willing to hack me up. I so have a type." House found he was buoyed by the thought that maybe the best part of the day wasn't over after all. "Can you get a move on? And stop favoring your right leg so much. There's already enough talk about our relationship without us sporting his-and-his matching limps."
"Please tell me you didn't just segue from talking about your type to our relationship," said Wilson, trotting ahead to get the lobby door. "The morning has been traumatic enough."
"Says the man now standing behind me with the firm grip on the big sword," House replied over his shoulder. He was only peripherally aware of the mess in the lobby and beyond. There would be time enough to take in the sights later. Besides, except for some overturned furniture and that swinging light fixture, the first floor was obviously as full of the same sniveling and moaning as ever. House turned to his employees.
"Chase, Cameron, shut up and come with us. I gotta find my girl. No, scratch that," he amended as he picked his way past two unconscious orderlies and the nurses huddled over them. House looked at Cameron, who was still watching the strewn orderlies when clearly they were already getting all the attention and cooing over that they needed.
"Dr. Cameron," he said sharply. The immunologist immediately turned to him, her pretty features apprehensive. He stabbed the elevator up button then stabbed his finger at her. "I want the security videos. Beg, bribe, lap dance, whatever it takes. Tell 'em a woman's life hangs in the balance. Just get copies before the cops make off with everything." The elevator door slid open and House inwardly cheered. He loved when he could swing these perfectly timed exits. He stepped into the elevator car, Wilson and Chase exchanging looks as they followed.
"Go. Now." The door shut before Cameron could speak. House thumped his cane victoriously. God, he loved this elevator.
"'A woman's life hangs in the balance?'" Wilson repeated, bracing himself against a corner of the car. He looked a little drawn but the Vicodin was obviously doing its job. House smiled.
"Yeah, Cameron's. She'd better come through, but I didn't want to sound too melodramatic about it."
"Of course not," Wilson said. "Reasonable and understated have always been your strong suits." He glanced at the bundle he was cradling in his arms. "Wanna share your plans for this, Conan?"
"Dr. House," Chase interrupted as the elevator stopped. House ignored him as they de-elevatored.
"Leather-clad, sword-wielding Amazon marauder laying waste to the clinic. Do you know how many times I've had to wash my sheets after that particular dream?" he reflected as they headed down the corridor toward the patient rooms. "I'd just like to know why she was herding everyone out of the lobby. Where's Foreman?" This last he directed to Chase.
"That's what I was going to tell you," Chase said. His Australian accent always got a little heavier when he was pissy, which meant half the time he was damned near unintelligible. The intensivist pushed his floppy blond hair out of his face. "Dr. Foreman's in the clinic."
"Well, page him," House said, exasperated. "There is a time and a place for a neurologist to be diagnosing projectile diarrhea for John Q. Public, and neither is in this life. At least not until I need him to cover my clinic hours. I want him here, now."
"You don't understand," Chase snapped. "He's in the clinic. That woman, she knocked him out. Sort of a flying spinkick, and then she did...I don't know...these jabbing moves with her hands. I don't know. It just...it all happened so fast."
"The warrior babe kicked Foreman in the head?" House had stopped and wheeled around to look at Chase. Now, he bowed his head, smiling at the image despite the inconvenience of having Foreman incapacitated. House glanced back up and started moving again.
"Page him, anyway. Administer smelling salts, Tylenol, a kiss that makes it all better...I really don't care. Do it after we've checked on her, though. Right now, I need your mad skills. Actually, Wilson, you track down Foreman. And meet us in my office with the goods. Come on," he told Chase, ignoring Wilson's eyeroll and faintly martyred sigh.
Finding her was easy enough, what with the loose knot of curious and useless on-lookers and the flurry of activity in her room. House read the monitor she'd been hooked to and raised his brows. He shoved his way to her side and pressed his fingers to the pulse in her neck. Slow and steady, like her breathing. Not just slow and steady, he realized, looking at his watch, but barely forty bpm.
Bradycardia. He took her one of her hands and found it cool to the touch. Cool, and textured. House turned it in his appraisingly. He grabbed her other hand and let out a low whistle.
"Dr. Chase," House said. "Collect blood for a tox screen and a metabolic panel. Start her on warmed RL, then push two milligrams of atropine every half-hour until she comes around or she starts to OD on the atropine. After the first shot, get that shoulder X-rayed to make sure there's no metal fragments in the wound. Clean her up and if she's still out, get her to the MRI. I want a full scan before we lose implied consent."
"Atropine?" said one of the paramedics. "Didn't she just get Tasered?"
House pulled a face, his forehead laddering in faux amazement.
"Notice how there's not even an atrial flutter, much less supraventricular tachycardia? Notice the big bleeding hole in her shoulder? And notice how I'm the head of diagnostic medicine and you're on your way out the door right the fuck now?" he said, taking the idiot by the elbow and guiding him out of the room. While he was at it, House shooed out everyone but Chase and the one nurse who seemed the least incompetent and closed the blinds on the glass wall between the room and the hall. He told the nurse, "Be sure to buckle her into the restraints. Dr. Chase, after you're done, bring all of her effects to my office."
Sliding the door closed behind him, House moved into the hall and addressed the handful of malingerers.
"As far as I know, this is still a functioning hospital and there are any number of other sick and injured people in this hospital who are not immediately under my care. If you are presently unable to do your job because of your interest in my patient, please report to Hospital Administrator Cuddy and inform her you urgently require termination and an escort off of the premises. Otherwise, get the hell out of this hall and get to work now."
As everyone scuttled away like so many cockroaches in sudden kitchen light, House shook his head at them.
Some people just have no sense of propriety, he thought as he made for his office.
-end Fit the First-
This way to Fit the Second.