17I Should Have Known Better
(Scene One: "Mondays")
A/N: REVISED! That's right. The script style was no good. So here's a big thanks to Alipeeps for pointing out that it really wasn't the right type of format. I feel better about this but now, even though I'm still trying to get a feel for how to write House properly.
Disclaimer: You know the drill: I own nothing, so please don't sue.
Dr. Gregory House was making his way down the halls of Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital particularly slow that Monday afternoon, leaning heavily on his cane. House hated Mondays. He could never really get the hang of them; and while it was a leap of faith on his part, he did have a keen idea of what made Mondays so unfavorable. And House's keen ideas generally turned out to be fairly accurate.
His distaste for Mondays was probably due to the fact that Mondays usually seemed to involve…
"Clinic duty!" Dr. James Wilson said, smiling ear to ear. He reminded House of that damned Cheshire cat… For being the one person whom House could call a friend without cringing, Wilson could be damned annoying most of the time.
"Boy, the very idea makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside," House replied, speeding up his stride slightly; not so much as to get to the clinic on time, but so as to get away from Wilson. He was one of the moods House hated the most. The I-know-House-will-still-call-me-his-friend-even-if-I-am-as-annoying-as-I-can-possibly-be sort of mood.
"Come on, House," Wilson said in a jovial sort of way, emphasizing this utterly maddening mood he was in.
It made House want to thwack him over the head with his cane.
"You can't hate all of the patents all of the time!" Wilson chuckled.
"Watch me," House raised both of his eyebrows, a gesture he often emulated when making snide comments.
House made his way through the immaculate glass doors that connected the clinic to the rest of the hospital. Once through the doors he ignored the nurse behind the counter, picked up a chart lying there, and opened the door into examination room one.
"It says here that you are experiencing congestion, sore throat, coughing, and some chest discomfort," House read off the chart, not bothering to look up or to give the person sitting on the exam table, nor the young woman standing beside him, time to register his presence.
"Yeah, that's right," replied the young man sitting on the exam table.
To House he didn't look to be all that old… maybe nineteen or twenty, ah, nineteen according to the chart, handy little thing that chart. He also looked like generally every other young person to walk through the clinic: stylish hair, hip clothing, and the whole being sick thing.
"Call me crazy, but that sounds like a cold doesn't it?" House snapped the chart he was holding shut.
"No, doc, this doesn't feel like any other cold I've had before," the young man said, shaking his head ever so slightly. This too, like Wilson's antics earlier, annoyed House to no end.
"Ah, well, there are these newfangled things called antibodies floating all around in your blood," House said in the patronizing tone that he generally reserved for patents, Foreman, Chase, Cameron, Cuddy, Wilson, and…well, primarily everyone to whom he'd ever spoken. "So, chances are this is not a cold you've had before."
"But he's burning up, just feel him!" the young woman, to whom House had paid no mind, spoke for the first time.
"If it's all the same, I'd rather not," House said, popping a few Vicodin.
"It's okay sweetheart… he probably knows what he's talking about…" the sickly young man said.
"Yeah, and he's probably right," House indicated his head in the direction of the exam table before exiting the room, leaving both teens feeling as though they had really not had much help at all.
A mere two hours later, and House was on his way back down the halls of the hospital, fighting the urge to trip orderlies and nurses with his cane. Turning a corner, he saw a young intern, prone on his back with papers strewn on the floor, while someone who had just helped him to collide into a recently opened door was apologizing profusely. House's sprits were beginning to take an upturn until…
"House!" Wilson jogged around the corner and to House's side.
"If you're coming to tell me I have more clinic duty I might just shove this cane up your a-"
"I've got a case for you," there was that damned Cheshire cat smile again.
"Why me?"
"Take a look, I think you'll be very interested," shoving the folder he had been holding into House's free hand, Wilson departed.
House stopped and looked at the contents of the folder with only mild interest before flipping the page. Upon reading what was written on the second part of the report, House continued his trek to Diagnostics, where he knew Foreman, Chase, and Cameron would be. They had a case.
MEANWHILE, IN DIAGNOSTICS
"What's a six letter word for arrogance?" Chase asked, scowling at the crossword puzzle that seemed destined to be his undoing.
"Hubris," Foreman replied, his feet crossed on the table upon which Chase was so diligently working, his head tipped back to look at the ceiling.
"What day is it?" Cameron asked, from behind the computer scene, where she was answering House's mail.
"Monday," Foreman said.
"I know that," Cameron said, sounding only slightly annoyed. "What's the date?"
"Oh… it's Monday," Chase groaned, dropping his pencil onto the top of his crossword.
"I know that but - "
"House has clinic duty…" Chase said, as though this news should be apparent to all, as well as a feeling of imminent doom.
"It's going to be a long day," Foreman heaved a sigh and dropped his feet to the ground as a folder dropped onto the center of the table.
"How so very wise you are, Dr. Foreman," House said, making his way to the whiteboard on the far side of the room.
Cameron moved to stand by Chase and Foreman as House wrote out symptoms on the board.
"This looks like a cold," Foreman said, matter-of-factly.
"So it would seem," said House, capping the dry erase pen and looking mildly amused.
"So why are we even sitting around here discussing it, then?" Foreman asked, obviously annoyed at the fact that House seemed to know something that he didn't.
House scrunched up his forehead and tipped his head to the side, as in thought. "We're doctors, we like this sorta stuff."
"But there's nothing we can do, if it's only a cold," Chase said, seemingly just as annoyed at House's antics as Foreman.
"It's not only a cold," Cameron said, eyes wide and darting from one symptom to another. "Sudden onset of high fever, dry cough, chills and shivering, muscle aches, and breathing difficulties…"
"Those could all be signs of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome," Chase said slowly, scanning over the symptoms himself.
"Or, to put it simply, SARS," House said.
A/N: More to come! I update promptly, I assure you. Any sort of comments are welcome. Especially criticism, God knows I could use some.