Chapter Text
Chase stepped into the pediatric department with a coffee he just bought from the cafeteria. They didn't have a case at the moment; the last time House had an epiphany and saved their patient's ass from endless skin ulceration was two days ago, and peds was short-staffed.
He sat down in an exam room and picked up the patient file. An 8-year-old with a runny nose. Boring to diagnose, exhausting to deal with frantic parents. He had worked in the NICU for several days, and he did miss it: those non-speaking runts behaved way better than their grown-up versions. He took another sip of coffee; the cup was nearly full, and it was at just the right temperature to drink. He could make it through the morning with this.
Half an hour later, he walked out of the room, clearly more miserable, and fumbled to change a mask, trying his best not to touch the fabric. The kid had sneezed on him three or four times, and he could almost see the spit flying towards him when the father spoke.
The charge nurse, Gabby, called out to him as he passed: "Doctor Chase, would you mind taking a look at this one?" She handed him a file, "Such a poor girl. The previous doctors couldn't figure out what's happening to her."
Chase read the case carefully, and soon realized this was exactly what he needed to escape this living hell—solving just one case with his team would send him back to the comfort zone.
"I'll get House to take this case."
---
"Oh, come on! Just let me finish this round." House sank further into his chair, with visible effort to dodge the folder Cuddy held in front of his Game Boy. "Don't you have little ones to cure?" he shot a glare to Chase. Chase just raised his coffee in response, unfazed.
"This is what you're going to do with your guys. Now take it." Cuddy didn't move her outstretched arm.
"9-year-old girl with bradycardia, hypothermia and hypotension. Transferred from community hospital. And she has been in a coma throughout." Chase added.
House grunted as the avatar died under the attack of a monster that came out of nowhere, and set the Game Boy down. "Tell the guys at the community hospital they're idiots. They can't tell when a kid sneaks sleeping pills. Boring. Can I go back to my game, Mom?" He put on a pleading look.
"Unless you go finish your clinic hours first. You think I don't know where Cameron and Foreman are? By the way, those hours don't count. Do it yourself."
House suddenly found the case interesting and grabbed the file. Chase mentally hoisted a flag of victory. That had been easier than expected.
---
Chase believed it was the weirdest start of a case. The patient's mother, Naoki, insisted that her daughter Kat had been attacked by an entity, and now two supposed FBI agents in suits were questioning her with some wild questions. They took the conversation outside the ward, but Chase quietly left the door slightly ajar. This hospital hides no secrets.
"It's our new house. Kat woke up screaming. I thought she was just having a nightmare, but she said she heard footsteps, and she felt something...bad in the house."
"Did you also hear the footsteps?" the taller guy with long hair asked.
"No, just my daughter."
"Did you also notice something else? Cold spots or flickering lights?" Now it was the shorter one asking. He was well-built, and still a little taller than Chase.
"Do you think we should page House?" Cameron eyed the agents, asking incredulously. “He'd probably kill us for interrupting his very important monster-hunting mission.” Chase muttered, still watching the two men outside.
"Actually, yeah." Naoki recalled, "The lights were out in her room, and it was cold in there... Nobody believes there was an attack."
"Well, we do. We are here to help whatever we can." They reassured the mom, who looked at them gratefully.
Chase snorted. That didn’t sound like standard FBI procedure.
"Thank you very much, agents." Chase barged in, managing a smile, "Now if you don't mind, we need to borrow Ms. Himura to ask some real medical questions." He ushered the mom inside, quickly closing the door on the two men.
As a doctor, he needed to kick these guys out before they worsened the mother's psychological state, which he speculated they already had. Now Naoki wouldn't let go of the ghost theory, and it took Chase and Cameron another ten minutes to come up with several other explanations.
Chase figured the two agents were good at this—whatever this was. Steering the conversation, asking just enough to make the mother fill in the rest. Although he didn’t know what they wanted, it worked. Still, the questions about the supernatural details made something in him uneasy. They needed to figure out what was wrong with the girl, an actual diagnosis.
---
"Differential for—our hibernating kid!" House announced, writing the symptoms on the whiteboard.
BRADYCARDIA
HYPOTHERMIA
HYPOTENSION
COMA
RED PATCH
"Septic shock."
"Patch is cold, not warm. It's not an infection."
“Drug abuse. Beta-blockers, opioids, benzodiazepines."
"Tox screen's clean. Doesn't explain the rash."
“It's not a rash, it's a handprint.” Cameron argued, crossing her arms, "Physical abuse explains coma. And she could've been kept somewhere cold—"
"Except her core temperature is still dropping in hospital." House shot back. "Unless the mom is sneaking ice packs under her sheets. Try again."
Silence.
House sighed. "Run everything again. I don't trust the community hospital. Full tox screen, blood cultures, head MRI. If she doesn't wake up, do an EEG, and an exorcism to rule out demonic possession."
The three ducklings moved to leave.
“Cameron,” House added before they stepped out, “reporting to CPS won’t help. We don’t need another idiot with a badge.”