House of Cards: Part Much later

“House.” Cuddy caught him as he was coming out of the clinic, “The brunette that came in with your patient’s in a coma.”

“Which one? The boy or the girl?” House demanded.

“The guy collapsed a block away from the hospital.”

“Symptoms?”

“None, fell into a coma, just like the patient.”

“The children aren’t contagious.”

“I want them in quarantine.”

“We don’t have enough rooms.”

“Four clean rooms just came up. Get them down there and they’re staying there until you figure out what’s causing the comas.”

“They’re not contagious.”

“House.” Cuddy snapped, “Just do it.”

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“In ten minutes, I’m expected to bring you three down to the clean rooms for quarantine where you’ll be guarded at all times until I can find the cause of the comas.”

“We told you the cause of the…” Tea froze, her hand on Joey’s arm. “Comas?”

Yugi, who had already grabbed his backpack and Duel Disk and was heading for the door, had stopped, turning to look at House. “Tristan?”

“The brunette you came in with is already there, he was brought in about twenty minutes ago.”

“Ten minutes?” The Yugis had swapped and it was the more forceful one that was asking the question and he looked pissed off.

House checked his watch. “I’ll be back in eight and a half minutes.” He left the room.

That was all Yami needed. “Tea, stay in quarantine, they can’t get to you there. We’ll be back once we’ve rescued Joey and Tristan.”

“Be careful.”

Yugi left.

Eight and half minutes later House entered the room, looked around, pretended to look surprised and asked, “Where’d the kid go?”

“Kid? What kid?” Tea asked innocently.

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“Where’s the brother?” Cuddy demanded as Tea settled into her room, next to Tristan’s empty shell and Joey’s was wheeled into the room the other side of him.

“The brother?” House asked innocently. “I was unaware the patient had a brother. He certainly didn’t come in with a brother.”

“House!” Cuddy got it immediately. “You let him leave!? Do you have any idea how dangerous that could be?”

“He was nowhere to be found when I went to collect them.” House answered quickly and smoothly, “I asked Security to keep an eye out for him but…” House shrugged, irritating Cuddy further.

“You let a patient with a potentially contagious, unknown disease leave the hospital.”

“I didn’t see him leave; I haven’t seen him for the majority of the afternoon.” That was certainly true, two minutes didn’t add up to much since he hadn’t actually been in the patient’s room since yesterday, unless you counted the two minutes to warn Muto and the five minutes it had taken to get Wheeler out of the room.

Cuddy just scowled at him.

“If it’s any help, Foreman said he’s been coming back to the hospital every night.” House offered, “He’ll be back.”

“If anyone else catches this disease because your team let him walk out of this hospital…”

“No one else is going to slip into a coma. It’s not contagious.”

“You can’t know that.” Cuddy growled, “I want to be informed about every test you perform and every drug you issue. Am I clear?”

“As glass.”

Cuddy stalked off.

House of Cards: Part 3

House was eating lunch with Dr James Wilson when the brother entered the cafeteria, pushed by the tall brunette male.

“Are those the ones that came in with your latest patient?” Wilson asked, as House watched the brunette stack the kid with the insane hair’s plate with food, while chastising the little one about something.

“Uh huh.” House nodded, watching as the pair settled at a table nearby, still speaking in their home language, “Now shush, I’m trying to listen…”

Wilson rolled his eyes, well aware of his friend’s ability to speak many languages, and fell silent, allowing House to hear what they were saying.

“I don’t have time to eat Tristan.” The kid was saying, “I have to find the guy that attacked Joey and defeat him.”

“If you don’t eat, you won’t have the energy to chase down the bag guys.” Tristan replied, “And you didn’t sleep for more then three hours last night. You’re in no state to fight a Shadow Game right now.”

“I fought Marik under the same conditions.”

“You nearly died.”

“So did Joey.”

“Yugi…”

“I’ll be okay, Tristan.” Yugi tried to be reassuring, “I’ll get Joey back.”

“Your other self nearly lost that game, you nearly faded away completely.”

“I won’t let that happen again.” House suddenly gained a rather interesting look, as Yugi’s voice changed, his posture changed and the kid’s eyes narrowed and gained a reddish tint, “I won’t let them attack my partner again.”

“You can’t always stop them.”

“I’m not going to let them attack Yugi.” The not Yugi said, as House frowned slightly and wrote something on his napkin, “And we will get Joey back.”

“I’m not letting you out of the hospital until you’ve eaten something.” Tristan warned, “Then the pair of you can go hunt bad guys to your hearts content.”

The new Yugi glowered at the teen, ate a spoonful of the curry that Tristan had paid for and stalked off.

“Yugi!”

“I’ll be back soon.” The teen said, and walked out the room. The brunette sighed, finished his meal and binned the virtually uneaten curry.

“You thought of something that might help your patient?” Wilsonasked, pointing to the napkin.

“No, but the adopted brother has issues.” House replied, finishing his meal and examining his notes. “Dissociative identity disorder.”

“The kid?”

“The brunette mentioned an ‘other you’ and the kid showed all the signs of having at least two personalities.” House shrugged. “Probably would have been more careful if they’d known someone here speaks Japanese.”

“And you can tell this from a two minute conversation?”

“And he has an eating disorder.” House pointed out.

“There could be any number of reasons that the kid didn’t eat his dinner. His brother’s in a coma!”

“Adopted brother.” House pointed out, “Which suggests something happened with his previous parents that triggered it.”

“House, you can’t be serious.”

“It’s the most common cause of the disorder.”

“You can’t accuse everyone’s parents of abuse!” Wilson sounded exasperated.

“Why not?” House asked, sounding far too amused, “It’s true in the greater majority of cases.”

“Because…” Wilson sighed, trying to calm down, “The brother isn’t your patient, focus on the kid that is.”

“He’s stable. Completely. Nothing’s changing. At all.”

“From no symptoms to a completely stable coma?” Wilsonstared at him, “Is that even possible?”

“Apparently.” House answered, “We haven’t needed to administer any drugs since he got in.”

“No wonder you took the case.” Wilsonsnorted. “They say anything useful to the case?”

“Maybe.”

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Tea was hovering worriedly in the doorway as Dr Cameron finished up for the night and headed out the door.

“You ok?” She asked the girl who was nervously pacing the lobby and had been doing so for the last three hours.

“Hai.” The girl sighed, “Just waiting for someone.”

“Your boyfriend?”

“No…” Cameron couldn’t really tell what the girl was thinking.

“Joey’s going to be alright, we’ll work out why he’s in a coma and then we’ll be able to bring him out of it.”

“You won’t.” Tea replied, “The Doctors never do. Yugi…” Cameron waited, figuring she’d say more, “It’s never something the Doctors can fix.” The teenager turned to look at Cameron, “Can’t you get all the tests from Kaiba Corp’s doctors?”

“Each case needs new tests.” Cameron replied. “Kaiba Corp didn’t give us anything on this. Apparently their Doctors haven’t had access to the sort of faculties that we have here when people were suddenly falling into comas.”

Tea’s shoulders sank and she just stopped talking.

“Has Joey been in a coma before?” Cameron pressed.

“He…” Tea broke off as Yugi walked in, amethyst eyes half closed, shoulders slumped, exhaustion obvious. “Yugi!” She darted forwards, reaching her friend’s side as he staggered. “Daijoubu?”

Yugi watched the floor miserably, “Suihou.”

“It’s okay, Yugi.” Tea went into motherly mode swapping to English because Cameron was watching them closely, “Have you eaten all day?”

“Iie.” Yugi shook his head.

“Yugi!” The teenage female growled at him, “Canteen, now.”

“I’m not hungry.” Yugi answered slowly, “I just want to sleep.”

Cameron watched as Tea led Yugi towards the canteen.

She turned around and headed back up to the office. 

House of Cards: Part 2

There were three teenagers and a pre-teen in the room, all Asian and all very different.

The patient was a well built blonde, heavily muscled, though, from the chart, possibly a little underweight, tall certainly and completely unresponsive.

The young woman leant against the window sill was slight in comparison, a dancer’s build, with shoulder length brown hair and concerned blue eyes.

Leaning on the back of the chair was another teenage boy, around the same build as the patient but with brown eyes and brown hair that came to what, if Foreman hadn’t seen the child’s hair, would had been the most ridiculous spike he had ever seen on a guy’s head.

The child, who was fast asleep in the chair, didn’t look more then twelve, thirteen at most. He was tiny, his clothes fitting well but revealing just how thin he was and had the most insane hair Foreman had ever seen. It was black, at least the greater majority of it was. It was spiked up into a star like shape, the edges of which were red and he had a blonde fringe which had settled into bangs and was currently covering his left eye.

“Yugi?” Foreman asked the brown haired male, assuming he was the adopted brother, considering that he was the only other teen in the room.

The teen surprised him with a small, tense smile and a shake of the head, reaching over the chair and shaking the child in it gently. “Yugi-kun, okiro.” The teen said, as the child blinked at him. “Ishi touchaku.”

“Sumimasen.” The child apologised, amethyst eyes blinking sleepily, speaking the first words of their language that Foreman recognised, noting that they were speaking Japanese, as they had a brief conversation and then the child turned to him. “I’m Mu…” The child paused, “Yugi Muto.”

“You? But you’re…”

“Sixteen.” Yugi sighed, having been through this already, “Are you Joey’s doctor?”

“One of them, yes.” Foreman nodded, “I’m Dr Foreman. I work with Dr Cameron and Dr Chase under Dr House. He’s one of the world’s top diagnosticians. We’ll work out what’s wrong with your brother.”

The girl said something, not that Foreman could understand a word of it, which caused Yugi to turn around and reply in the same language.

“If you know something that could help.” Foreman said, causing Yugi to jump and wheel back around to face him.

“I wasn’t there when Joey lost, but trust me when I say there’s no medical reason for him to be like this.” Yugi sighed.

“What do you mean?” Foreman frowned as the brown haired teen left the room for some reason, “There has to be a reason.”

Yugi muttered something in Japanese and sighed, “I can’t explain but…”

“If you can’t explain, then we have to run tests.” Foreman warned.

The teen, who was obviously fighting with himself over something, looked towards the bed where his brother lay, “Nothing invasive.”

“Yugi-kun!” The girl protested.

Yugi replied quickly, the girl snapping back a reply just as quickly

“Guys?” Foreman asked, “Joey could be dying.”

Yugi glanced at the girl and then turned backed to Foreman, who was feeling out of the loop, even though he didn’t know what the loop was.

“Nothing invasive.” Yugi repeated, “Joey’s not sick. He’ll get better soon.”

“We want to do tests, just in case.” Foreman wondered how Yugi could be so calm, “Dr Cameron needs to do an MRI and Dr Chase needs to do a Toxscreen.”

“Toxscreen?” Yugi stumbled over the new word.

“It checks the blood for drugs or toxins.” Foreman explained, “If your brother’s been taking something he shouldn’t have, or someone slipped something into his drink, we should be able to find it.”

“Joey doesn’t take drugs.”

“Something might have been slipped into his drink that caused the coma. We have to check it.”

“MRI?” The girl asked.

“Magnetic Resonance Imaging which allows us to see how the body is working and if there’s anything inside the body that shouldn’t be.” Foreman explained, trying to use words they would understand from class and failing.

“Do what you need to but…”

“We’ll be as careful as we can, but we might have more luck if you could tell us what you know about his condition.”

“I can’t… I’m sorry.”

“If you feel that you can trust us, here’s the extension number.” Foreman wrote it down and passed it to Yugi, “In the mean time, we’ll be running the tests.”

“Okay.” Yugi nodded.

Foreman left as Yugi moved from the chair to the end of his brother’s bed, “Joey, Gomen nasai.”

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Yugi waited until Foreman had left before turning to Tea. “I’m going.” He said in Japanese.

“Yugi, he wants to kill you.”

“He’s got Joey’s soul. If I don’t defeat him, Joey’ll never get it back!”

“But Yugi…”

“I’m going Tea.” Yugi sounded firm on the matter, “I don’t care how dangerous it is.”

“You have to stay; these aren’t Kaiba Corp Doctors who know better then to poke and prod and you’re the only one they recognise as a relative.”

“Until they find out I lied about the papers being in the post and I’m not really Joey’s adopted brother. You heard the Doctor when we came in, she’s trying to call Joey’s mum or dad. Neither of them are going to want to come out here and if I’m found out, everything about Joey’s care will have to go through Kaiba Corp and Kaiba won’t care what they do to Joey. They will do whatever tests they think they need to if I’m here or not; I’m not old enough to stop them!” Yami took over and gave her a piercing look, “You let us walk away last time, Tea.”

“That was different Pharaoh!” Tea growled, noticing the change in tone and posture.

“How?” Yami asked, looking at her, “Last time it was Marik who wanted us dead.”

“Last time you knew who the attacker was! You knew who to watch out for!”

“We have to do this, Tea!” Yami’s hands balled into fists. “We can’t…”

Tea didn’t push it, aware that if Yami was snapping like this, then Yugi had probably already worked himself up into a fine state.

Yami stood up and stalked out of the room, leaving Tea all alone with Joey’s empty shell and a machine that did nothing but go beep, beep, beep, beep…