Lomeinie (lomeinie) wrote in houselomein, @ 2009-04-02 22:15:00 |
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It was a little after 3PM when Wilson walked into the lobby of Princeton-Plainsboro and headed straight for the elevators. He didn't need to stop to ask which room House was in; he just assumed they'd have him in the ICU. Nor did he spare a glance in the direction of Cuddy's office to check to see if she was in there. He just kept walking until he reached the elevators and was grateful when no one called out to him before the doors could close behind him.
But there were eyes watching him that Wilson had failed to notice; following him until the elevator doors had closed. A hand then reached out to pick up the front desk's phone, rapidly dialling numbers.
“This is Renee from Oncology. Tell Dr. Cuddy I just saw Dr. Wilson walk through the main lobby to the elevators, without a doubt heading straight for ICU.”
“All right thank you. I'll tell her.” Chase replaced the phone and looked at Cuddy as a frown formed on his face. “Wilson is here in the hospital and is on his way up to the ICU.” Foreman turned his head to look at Chase while continuing on with his examination and he refrained from making any comments.
Cuddy moved over to the door and turned back to ask Foreman, “Are you almost done?”
Foreman nodded, “Yeah, just give me a few more minutes to finish.” Cuddy nodded and went out into the hallway to wait for Wilson.
“What do you think Wilson wants?” Chase asked.
Foreman kept on working as though he didn't hear the question.
“Right,” Chase said and got up to leave the room, “I'll see you both later.”
When Wilson entered the ICU he immediately spotted Cuddy standing outside of a room on the far side of the hall and he knew then that he hadn't made it through the lobby unseen. Although he was glad to see her, the smile that appeared on his face felt forced since he had hoped to see House alone first off.
Cuddy was smiling as she pulled away from hugging him, and looked at him. She thought he looked tired, but she decided that was probably from the flight over. She noticed a smile had appeared on his face when he saw her, but she also noticed the smile didn't seem to reach his eyes as it would have in the past.
“It's good to see you. . .”
“And you.”
“You seem surprised to see me here,” Wilson observed.
Cuddy nodded, “I am, a little.”
Wilson watched Chase slip by them without giving either of them a glance. Turning back to Cuddy he asked, “Why? You didn't think I'd come. That's it, isn't it?”
“It's more like I didn't expect for you to come here this soon. Although I had hoped you would.”
“Well I-”
Foreman emerged from House's room and walked over towards them. “Good to see you again, Wilson.”
“Likewise.”
Foreman glanced at Cuddy who nodded for him to go ahead, “Although House seemed a little more responsive today to pain stimuli, I think his coma remains at four on the GCS.” The other two doctors released discouraged sighs at this and Foreman took a deep breath before he continued, “His temperature is also slightly elevated above normal, so I asked a nurse to collect blood samples to test for pneumonia and other infections.”
Cuddy nodded. “Hopefully you caught whatever it is in time before it could become too serious.”
“Yeah, let's hope,” Foreman agreed before adding; “now if you'll excuse me I'm on clinic duty for the next couple of hours.”
“Thank you, Dr. Foreman,” Cuddy said. She waited until he was gone before asking, “Would you like to go in now?”
Wilson nodded. “Yeah, I would.”
Cuddy led the way into House's room with Wilson following behind her. He thought he had prepared himself for the sight that would greet him in the room, but with one step inside, Wilson knew he wasn't anywhere near as prepared as he’d thought he was. House looked not only sick and pale, but also very small in the hospital bed. But the most unnerving thing was not all the monitors or the feeding tube. The thing that unnerved Wilson the most was seeing the thin blankets lay flat against the bed where House's left leg should have been. He spent several minutes staring at it while Cuddy washed her hands and put on gloves in preparation to give House her own examination.
She had approached the bed and had laid a hand on House's forehead before Wilson shook himself out of the stunned daze he had been in. “He's a little warm.”
“While we're waiting for the results on his blood work, it might not hurt to go ahead and start him on board spectrum antibiotics,” Wilson suggested.
Cuddy nodded. “I'll put a hurry on the blood work but we'll go ahead and start the antibiotics as well. Let's pray if it's pneumonia that it's bacterial instead of viral.”
Wilson agreed, sitting down in one of the room chair's to let her finish up in silence while his eyes wandered around the room. Amused puzzlement curled his lips upwards as his eyes fell on a pile of medical journals and he wondered if they were for what he thought they were for. When Cuddy sat down across from him in the room's other chair he picked up one of the books and held it up. “You do know when he wakes up and sees these he'll call you morons before proceeding to mock you all for your concern.”
Cuddy smiled. “Of course he will. I'm counting on it.”