I promise I'm still working on this! Thanks to some very helpful suggestions from my beta, IolantheAlias, I finally got this part and the next part written and readable.
Here's the
TOC .
from part 3:
Adam looked at Dr. House, waiting expectantly for an introduction. Flouting any and all social convention, House addressed Adam from his seat across the room. “So, you're sick. Any idea what's gotten into you?”
Adam just stared at House in disbelief.
Lois gave voice to Adam's disbelief. “I thought that was *your* job.”
“Oh, it is,” House assured her. “Or,” he amended, “it's the job of my minions. But I always hang around to make sure they don't kill anybody,” he added as an aside. “Of course,” he went on, “I can't do my job until I know the whole story.” He paused, carefully watching for the reaction to his next question. “So what is it? What's the story with you, Adam?”
*****House Is Where the Hurt Is
part 4
Lois clamped her mouth shut, and the stare she trained on Clark clearly voiced her opinion that he should do the same. Adam was momentarily just a little bit grateful for his inability to communicate. Confident that she was in control of the situation for the time being, Lois turned to face Dr. House and crossed her arms. She cocked one hip against the bed, her entire posture and uncharacteristic muteness an unmistakable challenge of wills to him.
House raised an eyebrow at the display. Recognizing that he was getting nothing more out of any of them, he rose from his seat. Sarcastic as always, he threw the proverbial gauntlet right back. “Congratulations, Miss Lane. You've bested me. You just better hope your victory doesn't result in Adam's death.” Emphasizing the final word, House slid open the glass door to the room and exited.
Through the glass walls of the room, Lois tracked House's progress down the hall, until he turned a corner. Only then did she release her arms from their crossed position and turn back to face Adam and Clark. “Okay, here's the plan,” she began. Clark and Adam exchanged an amused glance, then returned their attention to her. Lois was so absorbed formulating her plan that she did not even notice.
“Adam, I take it you have no powers?” Lois asked, barely voicing the last word.
Adam shook his head.
“Did anything happen to you that would have caused this illness?”
Adam hesitated.
“Something happened to you, then? And you think it's related?” Lois's intense focus could have been mistaken for interrogation tactics. Adam, in fact, looked moderately uncomfortable at the intensity.
Clark interjected, “Lois, honey, take it easy on him. He's not the bad guy, here.”
“Of course not, Clark, I know that. But all of us have a stake in figuring this out. And it's not exactly like we're in friendly territory around here. We'll have time for pleasantries later, after Adam gets better and we can get him out of here.” Having sufficiently explained her motivation, Lois returned to the matter at hand. “So Adam, you've been sick like this before?”
Adam nodded, but he was obviously frustrated at his inability to communicate further.
“It's okay,” Clark assured him. “We'll work it out. We'll stick to yes or no questions, and we'll figure out what we're going to do.”
*****
Seated around a small conference table in another room with glass walls, three doctors watched as Dr. House scribbled symptoms in large letters on a dry erase board. When he finished, he capped the marker and turned to his staff.
“So our patient is a buddy of Superman.”
*****
“If you haven't had any powers, it's possible you've been exposed to something,” Clark mused quietly.
Adam agreed.
“It's also possible this has something to do with the cloning process,” Lois winced slightly as she spoke, glancing apologetically at Adam.
*****
“Just because Superman brought him in doesn't mean anything,” Dr. Eric Foreman spoke as if he was humoring a small child. Well-built, but shorter than Dr. House, Dr. Foreman's clear, assessing gaze was focused on the papers lying on the table between his forearms. He moved only his shaved head to look up and address House.
“Maybe not,” House agreed easily, “but then again maybe it does. What do you think, Cameron? Or were you too busy ogling Big Blue to engage higher brain function?”
“Please. As if you wouldn't have been trying to check out his butt if you'd been there.” Dr. Allison Cameron retorted.
House opened his mouth to object, but then he had to nod his head in agreement. “But I'm a doctor. I'm supposed to be interested in the human body,” he explained, rationally.
“Right,” Cameron muttered. Her brown hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail, evidence of a late night at the office. Her kind features and intelligent, light blue eyes gave the impression of a compassionate, soft-spoken female but also carried an air of quiet strength and will.
*****
“Were you still staying with the people I left you with?” Clark queried.
Adam nodded.
“Have you been working with them?”
Another affirmative.
“Have you been sick ever since I left you in India?” Clark asked.
Adam lifted the arm free of the IV and tipped his hand side to side in a “so-so” gesture.
Sensing a line of questioning that could go somewhere, Lois jumped in. “Okay, earlier you told us, in a manner of speaking, that you've been sick before. But it hasn't been like this?”
Tapping his finger on his nose, Adam nodded.
*****
“Nothing abnormal on the MRI,” House said pensively, “no neurological symptoms except the expressive aphasia.”
Dr. Cameron picked up the list. “No known diseases, nothing to explain the heart attack that cured itself.”
At that remark, House looked sharply at Cameron.
“What?” she asked, suspiciously.
“What about drug use?” Dr. Robert Chase asked abruptly. “Amphetamine use would explain those symptoms,” he noted, pointing to the dry erase board. With his light brown longish hair, blue eyes, stubbly chin, and accent, Dr. Chase would have looked at home among Australian surfers as well as at the conference table in House's office.
“There's no evidence of drug use,” Dr. Foreman countered.
“How do you know?” House jumped in. Without waiting for a response from Foreman, he went on. “In fact, how do we know anything about our patient?” He paused, looking at each of them in turn. “Oh, that's right,” he answered himself, “we don't. We don't know anything because we don't have any history on him.”
Anticipating this particular line of badgering, Dr. Foreman replied, “He can't talk!”
*****
“So which symptoms have you had before? Clark, what was in the information you brought with you when you checked Adam in?” Lois was moving steadily into reporter mode.
Clark thought back. “Fainting?”
Adam shook his head.
“Muscle convulsions?”
No from Adam.
“Aphasia?”
Another negative.
“The only other thing I can think of is the heart attack that happened when we first got here,” Clark stated.
Adam nodded.
Incredulous, Lois's voice reached a near screech. “You mean you've had a heart attack before?!”
*****
“Yeah, but people are mostly just annoying when they talk anyway,” House replied dismissively. “When they're not lying, of course,” he added.
Dr. Foreman reiterated, “He can't write either. He lives in India, so we can't employ our usual methods of breaking and entering. The information Superman brought with him contained no history, and no one has been here to visit him.”
“Well, I just had an interesting conversation with the two people who drove from Metropolis to visit him. So you might start with them.” House turned and started to make his way to his desk. “Oh, and check for drug use while you're at it,” he threw over his shoulder.
Foreman, Cameron, and Chase pushed back from the table. Dr. Foreman shook his head slightly as he gathered his notes. Dr. Cameron rolled her eyes in the general direction of House.
*****
to be continued...
